D&D 4th Ed. Character building

[Valmy]

This thread has broken several levels of nerd barriers.

As it is a requirement in all D&D threads to go where no previous level of nerdity has gone before.

[Neil]

As for Forgotten Realms, the only thing that's funny is Neil whining about whiners having their way.  I actually agree with him (and you) that they didn't do right by FR with the recent changes.

What's wrong with that?  Whining and snivelling works.

[Jacob]

I talked shit about 'Artillery'.  Although the explanation you gave is sensible, the whole thing still rubs me the wrong way.  It immediately makes me think I'm playing Warhammer.

Now Warhammer tabletop, there's a game I've given up on a while ago.

Actually, funny thing, I'm panimmune.  Still, I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't kill my wife with your slanty-eyed viruses.

They should use you as a resource to combat the swine flu.

As for the safety of your wife, I'll try my best not to catch some lethal disease to begin with.  That should keep her safe.

[Jacob]

What's wrong with that?  Whining and snivelling works.

I didn't say it was wrong, only that it amused me.  In fact if you can harness the maelstrom of nerdrage to make WotC publish decent campaign settings or unscrew FR then that'd be a good thing.

[Neil]

Fair enough, if your group isn't into it it isn't worth it.  God knows there is more than enough material out there to run games in any of the older editions for a long long time.  Every so often I get a strong hankering to run a 1 - 36 BECMI campaign... mainly to get to Test of the Warlords, my favourite module ever.

The first adventure I ever played was M1 - Into the Maelstrom.  I'll always have a soft spot for it.

[Jacob]

The first adventure I ever played was M1 - Into the Maelstrom.  I'll always have a soft spot for it.

Did you level up on DM made adventures or did you just start with level 20+ characters?

[Neil]

Now Warhammer tabletop, there's a game I've given up on a while ago.

I had a few friends who got into it in high school, but I never really did.  I thought it was a racket, and not as cool as BattleTech in any event.

They should use you as a resource to combat the swine flu.

It's not even a real pandemic.

Besides, I'm hoping I live long enough to get to a real post-apocalyptic world.  This makes me rather ill-inclined to allow myself to be used in order to save life as we know it.

As for the safety of your wife, I'll try my best not to catch some lethal disease to begin with.  That should keep her safe.

If that's what you feel is best.

[Neil]

The first adventure I ever played was M1 - Into the Maelstrom.  I'll always have a soft spot for it.

Did you level up on DM made adventures or did you just start with level 20+ characters?

We used the prerolleds in the back of the book.  It was shortly thereafter that we started playing AD&D and conquering Elba with our own characters.  After that, we moved into the Forgotten Realms, where we've stayed ever since.

[Neil]

What's wrong with that?  Whining and snivelling works.

I didn't say it was wrong, only that it amused me.  In fact if you can harness the maelstrom of nerdrage to make WotC publish decent campaign settings or unscrew FR then that'd be a good thing.

I don't think that any amount of nerdrage can do that.  The economics aren't there.  What I could do is purchase Hasbro, and then command Wizards to obey me.  All I need is four billion dollars.

[Jacob]

I had a few friends who got into it in high school, but I never really did.  I thought it was a racket, and not as cool as BattleTech in any event.

Yeah, that's been my conclusion in the end.  I do like moving miniatures around, tactics and strategy and all that but the way they manage the business feels too much like a racket to me.  Also, at my painting speed, by the time I finish enough minis for an army there's been two main rule changes and a couple of new codices, meaning most of my units are no longer fieldable.  Fuck that.  I'm off to historical minis.  No one is going to tell me that my Warring States Chinese are not table legal because the number of crew on a chariot has changed.

I think that's the main reason I'm good with 4E (other than just liking new shiny things) - there are more tactical decisions to be made by everyone.  Fighters now get to do stuff other than say "I roll to hit".  I can see why the flavour bits might put some people off (it ranges from poor to just above mediocre IMO) and how people who don't like moving minis around don't like it.  That and it's easier to get new people into.  I gave up making a 3E character with my wife... too fucking complicated.  With 4E it took me just a couple of hours to get a party full of newbs (to tabletop rpgs or just the system) ready to play.

They should use you as a resource to combat the swine flu.

It's not even a real pandemic.

Besides, I'm hoping I live long enough to get to a real post-apocalyptic world.  This makes me rather ill-inclined to allow myself to be used in order to save life as we know it.[/quote]

That makes sense.

If that's what you feel is best.

I think it might be.  Not completely sure, I'll have to analyze it some more but my instinct says it is.  I'll get back to you on that.

[Jacob]

I don't think that any amount of nerdrage can do that.  The economics aren't there.  What I could do is purchase Hasbro, and then command Wizards to obey me.  All I need is four billion dollars.

Well, if nerdrage could be formed into some sort of coherent servicable market that could work too.  Though I suppose one of the defining characteristics of nerdrage is an inherent antipathy to just that.

[Neil]

Yeah, that's been my conclusion in the end.  I do like moving miniatures around, tactics and strategy and all that but the way they manage the business feels too much like a racket to me.  Also, at my painting speed, by the time I finish enough minis for an army there's been two main rule changes and a couple of new codices, meaning most of my units are no longer fieldable.  Fuck that.  I'm off to historical minis.  No one is going to tell me that my Warring States Chinese are not table legal because the number of crew on a chariot has changed.

They would actually do that?  Now that's just fucking cynical.

I think that's the main reason I'm good with 4E (other than just liking new shiny things) - there are more tactical decisions to be made by everyone.  Fighters now get to do stuff other than say "I roll to hit".  I can see why the flavour bits might put some people off (it ranges from poor to just above mediocre IMO) and how people who don't like moving minis around don't like it.  That and it's easier to get new people into.  I gave up making a 3E character with my wife... too fucking complicated.  With 4E it took me just a couple of hours to get a party full of newbs (to tabletop rpgs or just the system) ready to play.

That's what I liked about 3e so much.  The feats allowed some new options and some interesting customization.  But what I liked best of all was the skill system.  In my opinion, that was the best thing that had been done to D&D in years, and replaced the awful proficiency system from previous editions that nobody used.  I even thought that prestige classes weren't that bad an idea, until they became a 'selling feature' (Buy this book!  It has 5 new classes!).  I guess what I liked best about 3e was that you could customize the shit out of your character.

[Razgovory]

At any rate, I'll probably never play 4th edition.  My reasons are many, but paramount is this:  As you get older, and people get wives and kids, it's hard to get a game together.  A bunch of guys in my group got together to playtest it while I was in Europe.  The response was largely negative.

This is the sad truth.  You end up spending more energy getting people together then actually playing.

Still I DMed Forgotten Realms a long time ago (it was m first campaign) and was sad to see it turn out like this.  I do agree with Jake though that there were to many high powered NPCs hanging around.  I really wondered about the function of them.  I figured they were developers PCs in gametesting.  I particularly thought that about the Knights of Myth Dranneor.  And it is well known that Elminster was Ed Greenwood's Mary Sue just as Mordenkanin was Gary Gygax's.  It is a fantasy so some of that is inevitable.  The NPCs disapearing doesn't bother me as much as all the deities.  Or entire fucking nations!  Or whole continents!

[Jacob]

They would actually do that?  Now that's just fucking cynical.

Not when playing with friends and so on, but for tournaments and so on - absoloutely.  Their business is to sell models so you can't really blame them, but it does leave a bad taste in the mouth.

That's what I liked about 3e so much.  The feats allowed some new options and some interesting customization.  But what I liked best of all was the skill system.  In my opinion, that was the best thing that had been done to D&D in years, and replaced the awful proficiency system from previous editions that nobody used.  I even thought that prestige classes weren't that bad an idea, until they became a 'selling feature' (Buy this book!  It has 5 new classes!).  I guess what I liked best about 3e was that you could customize the shit out of your character.

Yeah, I enjoyed that too.  The thing that people complained about, and which I can see, is that there was a pretty high barrier of entry.  You had to understand a lot of rules to make a character, and there was a real risk of making a perfectly legal but very useless character if you didn't know what you were doing.  4E does allow a fair amount of customization and they're building on the prestige class thing, though that does include the continuation of the "buy this book for more classes" thing.

Have you checked out the Pathfinder stuff that Paizo is doing?  Apparently they're publishing a v 3.75 or something, intended to be an updated and streamlined version of 3.5.  There might even be a beta download available for free.  Being content in 4E land I haven't looked at it, but it might be up your alley.

[Neil]

I don't think that any amount of nerdrage can do that.  The economics aren't there.  What I could do is purchase Hasbro, and then command Wizards to obey me.  All I need is four billion dollars.

Well, if nerdrage could be formed into some sort of coherent servicable market that could work too.  Though I suppose one of the defining characteristics of nerdrage is an inherent antipathy to just that.

Precisely.  Plus, filesharing really puts a hurting on those marginal markets.  Twenty years ago, small companies could get by on limited sales.  At first, the Internet was awesome, because it allowed their customers to interact with them directly, without having to worry about distributors, local comic shops or mail order catalogues.  These days lots of people are getting their RPG books in the form of PDFs from file sharing sites.

It's shocking how, in the space of 15 years, D&D has gone from being able to support ten product lines (Mystara, Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Greyhawk, Ravenloft, Al-Qadim, Planescape, Dark Sun, Spelljammer, Birthright) to being barely able to support one and a half.