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Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition Launches
darkwing_bmf writes "Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition rulebooks are now available. There's a review up at EuroGamer. Unfortunately, the online tools portion, D&D Insider, isn't ready yet."
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New alignment system: Lawful Good, Good, Unaligned, Evil, Chaotic Evil.
um, no.
I would have respected the choice to get rid of alignment, but this is a boneheaded move. The problem with alignment (with bad role players anyway) is that it reinforces trite stereotypes. This just gives you fewer trite stereotypes to choose from.
"Remember, there never were pineapple-almond cookies here."
Considering that the average male's wand is +5 to +6, you should be able to see why she's not getting excited.
I bet she really gets hot when you put on your robe and wizard hat
From what I've read so far, the main good things about 4th edition that I've seen so far are:
The main complaints I have so far is that they haven't released rules in the Monster Manual for creating your own monsters from scratch and figuring out appopriate levels, and the death penalty is really almost too minor. Raise dead still takes 10 minutes to cast, and the cost does go up as your level goes up, but the penalty is only -1 to all rolls until you rest for 6 hours. I appreciate that they were trying to lessen death effects and other affects that take your character effectively out of game (Medusa gaze, Illithid mind blast, etc), but by having such a minimal penalty for death, you'd have to wonder why any fears death.
Some will certainly complain that 4th edition is too MMO like (especially like WOW), but the new character building rules do admittedly enforce character balance quite well through all levels.
Let's see:
-No more wizards/clerics/etc saying, "Crap, I just blew all my spells in that one encounter, I need to rest for 8 hours!"
-Much simplified rules for DMs creating encounters and adventures, as well as putting rewards in those encounters. (This is a complete overhaul, and hard to really give too many examples)
-No more random hit point amounts every level, in addition, a larger hit point total at level 1. (No more fighters rolling a 1 at first level, etc)
-New death/dying system, that scales as you level. (ie. no more -10 hp and you're dead crap)
Honestly, if you're curious, go to http://www.enworld.com/ and look around. They have put together a full preview PHB based on pre-release information. Should give you a good idea of what to expect. 4e is definately not an expansion. It's almost completely overhauled from 3.5.
The new rules are very much more elegant. They play quickly in all sorts of areas, from actual combat to monster customization and NPC creation. Character classes are very well balanced with each other and the "sweet spot" that you got in the mid-levels where you were tough enough to survive with good tactics but not so powerful the game became broken... well the game plays well at all levels now. Production values are also very high and I don't think when you read the books and grok the rules, you can really disagree with any of this. There are many well-thought out refinements to the system.
However, the game, imo, seriously suffers on the role-playing side. Non-combat skills are all but gone, character abilities are designed solely for their tactical interest in combat with little thought to justifying them in the game or whether they make the remotest sense and playing with table-top miniatures is all but compulsory now. There are also serious concerns being voiced about whether the classes are now too balanced for their own good. If you can be a wizard firing off endless Magic Missiles (they're at will now), or a ranger firing off endless arrows and both have similar range and damage, you ask yourself whether everything has become a little meaningless through nothing being better than anything else.
It's a difficult one that will only be resolved through trying it out. There's much good stuff in the new game, but there's a serious worry that it's lost it's sole as an actual role-playing game. We'll have to see.
Selling like Charm Person scrolls on a Saturday night, though.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
They simplified a lot of things. All combat actions are basically the same now, mage, warrior, cleric, whatever. You declare your attack, be it weapon, spell, whatever, roll your check vs their resist check, and if yours is higher you do damage.
No more memorized spells at all...you learn, "Otlukes flaming bunghole" you can cast it every round like you were swinging a sword.
Some abilities are "per encounter" meaning you can only use it once per combat. Others are "per day", so once per day.
I don't know. I haven't finished going through the rules yet, but I'm not pleased. A lot of things that I never thought "had to be said" are now filled in for you...like the "party role" for your class...Fighters now have "tanking" abilities that "force" the monster to attack them...What the hell is that about? Didn't everyone and their mother used to role play that? Instead of being a simple framework, D&D is more like a complete game.
Some people may be pleased with that, but to me its like someone pre-chewed my dinner.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
1. New books!
2. New art!
3. Online tools!
4. New prices!
There, fixed that for you. Whether you plan to buy these books or not, remember to patronize your local independent gaming store. End of Plug.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
Not really. All three for 65 buck, and considering 1st ED ADnD was 60 bucks for all three, not much of a price change.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Okay - funny joke, but it's not accurate. Have you checked the price of the new books? I don't know if it's just the US$ to UK£ exchange rate at the moment, but the new books bought together are actually cheaper than I paid for the same three core books years ago when 3.5 came out. WotC (Wizards of the Coast) are hoping to keep on selling further books each year, but right now, the cost to get into the game is really low.
The online tools are $15 a month which may or may not seem a lot depending on how much use they see, but they're Windows only so I wont be using them anyway. Shame, there. I'd have probably given it a try.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Funny, I spent about $70 on new books when 3.5 came out. After about 12-15 hours of gaming, I probably broke even compared to seeing a movie with friends, buying drinks with friends, going to dinner with friends, etc. I don't play often but name something else you can do with 4-5 other people for $70 that can last hundreds of hours. I can't see how anyone could complain about their money's worth.
RPGs have always been about splatbooks. 4e really isn't any different here.
I want to say Mod up, but honestly I can't think of what any of the local game stores has done for me or my kids.
I'm not trolling here, and I usually share your sentimate but honestly the last time I went into one My main goal was to get my son out as fast as possible. What a bunch of foul mouthed SOBs.
Gaming stores aren't for people who want to run a business, they're for people who want to show off their gaming collection.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
There still are a hand full of non-combat skills, such as diplomacy and knowledge. But I think the general feeling is the "fluff rules" for non-combat weren't really needed. Do you really need rules to say how long it takes to make a non-magical weapon or how much money you could make playing an instrument in a medium sized village for a given skill roll? Or could you just work it out with the DM and agree on something reasonable for the type of campaign and setting you're in? The later option seems quicker (no need to look it up in a rulebook), less distracting for the other players and truer to the concept of role-playing. Resolving combat is where rules provide the most bang for the buck.
My pre-play evaluation of 4e is that the rules are improved muchly in terms of game-play and ease of banging out encounters. There are a lot of nice ideas in it such as Minion rules to make High Level vs. Mooks a viable encounter again. Production values are fantastic. But the role-playing side seems to have been gutted both by a lack of non-combat rules and by character and monster abilities that make no sense at all except for the metagame reason of interesting combat tactics. The latter problem undermines immersion in the setting more than the designers realised, imo. But I wont say more here as I've already posted more detailed thoughts below.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
That must have been awkward. No, his dwarf fighter had a really high stamina and strength score, so once he rolled well enough to seduce the elven wizard, the rolls he needed to screw her were pretty low.
I'm probably going to pass. A lot of the changes make it "not D&D" for me. It's like learning a completely new game system, like moving on to GURPS or Rolemaster or what have you. Everybody can heal themselves? That's not D&D, you're *supposed* to have a cleric (or a druid, or a bard, or a paladin, or potions) for healing. That's the whole point of the D&D flavor. You can cast magic missile infinite times per day? That's not D&D, you're *supposed* to have a limited number of zots for blasting. That's the whole point of the D&D flavor. Now, I'm not saying these are *bad* changes. I'm fully open to the idea that they may make the game flow better and so on. I'm just saying it's like moving on to a completely different game system. And I haven't been convinced why I should do that when I'm enjoying my 3.5 games highly.
Yes. Those boys will continue to be virgins. Continuing in the tradition of their fathers, and their father's fathers.
As amazing as it sounds, our gaming group, who has been meeting for about 20 years now, still use the AD&D 2.0 edition with the Skills & Powers expansion. Some of the same customization without the lethality and long battles of RoleMaster. Since we all have extensive libraries of these older 2nd edition books, the odds are not good that we'll migrate to YAEODD (Yet Another Edition Of Dungeons & Dragons).
I remember the WotC Slashdot questions regarding the release of the 4th edition. One of the questions was why we should bother to upgrade our libraries since D&D edition 5 is probably just around the corner? The answer was, and I'll paraphrase since I'm getting old, "Because it's just better." Great logic. I read that as "We need more money."
Of course, a lot of our group play World of Warcraft between games and from all indications, 4th edition is tabletop WoW.
Well hell, $60 in 1980 is the equivalent of about $170 now.
$60 dollars now was around $21 in 1980.
Seems like a deal to me!
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
We don't need rules for how much you can earn playing an instrument in a village of population X, there's no argument there. But not only have almost all non-combat skills been removed (incl. the generic catchalls you could use such as Profession), but most abilities aren't even defined except in the context of combat. Fey Pact warlocks can teleport after downing a foe. Can they teleport outside of combat? Under what circumstances? Do they carry round pockets full of bunnies so they can kill them if they ever need to teleport? We don't know, we're never told and there are numerous examples of the world just stopping at the edge of combat. Many players enjoy being able to say that they are a world class card player or whatever. The feeling you get from reading the books is very much that it's all about combat. The emphasis is bad.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Fighters now have "tanking" abilities that "force" the monster to attack them...What the hell is that about? Didn't everyone and their mother used to role play that? Instead of being a simple framework, D&D is more like a complete game.
Why should the monster do that? It should attack whoever it wants to attack. And the smarter it is the more intelligent its selection and tactics should be.
The whole MMO inspired 'all the monsters wail on the tank, while the rest of the group focuses on one target at a time and burns it down' is the most absurd thing going.
You, sir, might not remember the 1st edition rulesets and DM tables. There's always room for another table to roll against!
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
Yea I agree...Mind you, one of the main jobs of the warrior was always TO tank, but you were supposed to haggle out how you were going to get the monsters attention, and role play it, not just use a special ability.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
I don't look at the cleric only because it can heal, but the reality is that in most 3.0-3.5 campaigns, the Cleric likely spends 50% or more of his spells on various forms of healing (either HP or ability damage/drain) because players are loath to use their healing potions outside of combat, even if they barely ever use them in combat because it provokes AoO.
The Cleric PC in the campaign I'm running even has the Touch of Healing feat (can basically heal PCs up to half HP for free) and still probably spends half or more of his spells on healing. In almost any campaign I've been in, the decision to rest is usually made because the Cleric is out of healing magic, or the wizard is >90% empty.
True, but a first level character really no longer as to worry every kobold or dire rat killing them in one hit (especially the minion types), or at least, being able to take off 75% of your HP in one hit since you only started with 6. The extra HP are a plus without adding the complication of a system like SDC from the Palladium systems, although that is a good system as well.
The main things I noticed book keeping wise are as follows:
1) Effects are no longer a number of rounds, its either a) until end of next turn, b) until you save at the end of your turn or c) until end of encounter, up to 5 minutes, which are essentially the same thing.
2) You'll no longer waste 30 minutes as the spellcasters pick their new spells for the day. True wizards still pick their daily powers, but that should go quickly.
3) Thanks to minions, you have to track HP for less monsters at a time.
I think the effect tracking will be the most immediate increase in game speed. I just ran a 3.5 encounter last night with the following effects:
1) Players cast Haste and several invisibilities before combat started, as well as several buffing spells with durations in rounds.
2) BBEG had several defensive spells with duration in rounds.
3) Other monsters had an ability that caused slow, which would tempoarily negate haste for characters afflicted by it for a random number of rounds
4) BBEG was also a mind flayer, so there were mind blasts used at various times which caused stun for random number of rounds to each target.
Now, if the combat is quick, this usually isn't a problem; but this fight went for 10-13 rounds, so various effects started wearing off at various times, and with 6 PCs and 3 monsters, and people using delay actions, its really easy to lose track of which round you're actually in and what round and when in each round a given effect ends.
Last night bought the books and played RPGA with pregen'd characters, it was fun.
If (?) you like to whine, whine about this: Druids and Barbarians are GONE. Spell scrolls are gone. Grey elves are now the whipping boys of the racial soup IMHO.
The statement about clerics being nonessential is misleading. Everyone gets 6-9 healing surges. Once per encounter everyone can get back 1/4th their max HP using a standard action. But once per encounter didn't go far in our adventure. We depended heavily on our cleric and paladin for healing in every combat, in almost every round after the first. Clerics and warlords can heal you using a minor action (think swift action), it uses one of your surges that you cannot otherwise use. Paladins have at-will powers that allow them to attack and grant you temporary hit points or defense bonuses at the same time, and they can spend surges to heal you.
There are two new classes- Warlocks and Warlords. In the new scheme Wizards (formerly known as sorcerors) get the area effects and line-of-effect attacks, Warlocks get attacks that target only one foe but readily exploit its defensive weaknesses. (My Level 1 Warlock had 3 At-will powers, one vs Fortitude, one vs Reflex, and one vs Will. So I was a threat to bricks and blasters alike.) Warlords grant other nearby party members immediate actions and help them heal. Fighters get powers that combine a weapon attack with pushing foes around, knockdown, or allow others to retreat without facing attacks of opportunity. The ability to push was incredibly powerful in our adventure, our fighter just kept pushing one foe off a bridge until he expired. Rogues are a bit more combat ready and have many push abilities, they can also dash in, attack, and dash out in the same round. Rangers lose the feeble forest magic and get better attacks and increased hit chance, their armor is now feeble and IMHO they require stealth and athletics to use the two-weapon form.
Every character gets at-will powers you may use as often as you like, so we used them nearly every turn. About the only time we used a basic attack was for attacks of opportunity. Attacks of opportunity have been drastically reigned in. We fought a chainmaster who teleported through our lines to assault our back row, but he was feeble compared to the spiked chain wielders of edition 3.5.
Our prebuilt adventure was supposed to be too tough and get us all killed in order to demonstrate how death works, but our tactically disinclined party managed to beat everything with only 1 PC knocked unconscious. Our GM had specific tactical instructions in the adventure which he followed to the letter, but the instructions made the monsters throw away their terrain advantages. We defeated a dangerous exploding skeleton by pushing it off a 30' cliff. I pushed a berserker off a narrow bridge into a fast moving river, keeping it out of combat for some time. All characters and monsters are tougher, so you'll get some time to play instead of getting killed in the surprise round.
Halflings are slightly improved in that they can call for an attack against them to be rerolled. Dwarves too, they get to use a Healing Surge as a minor action, freeing up their standard action for better things. Eladrin ((tutu-wearing) grey elves) get to teleport 5 squares once per encounter sorry everyone but they are feeble. Once per combat Elves get to reroll a poor attack roll as a free action. Dragonborn get a breath weapon, but it is only as good as their Constitution- which they do not get bonuses to- and that tends to dictate their career path. Half-elves can take any 1st level at-will power from any other class and use it as an encounter power, but this isn't that powerful, they also give a bonus to Group Diplomacy, which the GM forbade us from doing, so they are feeble. In addition to the extra skill and feat of 3.5, Humans get an extra at-will power at 1st level, which can be nice if you can't decide which powers you want.
The biggest change I saw was the u
Something about the new edition's been bothering me for a while, and I think I finally figured out what it was.
I've only looked briefly at the rules, so maybe I'm wrong in some of this.
The alignment system isn't as "broken" as it looks. The original frankly wasn't that great, and the new one isn't so very different. It looks silly at first, but only if you're used to the old one, which has been there since 1st edition. Neither one was a hard and fast stricture on how you can role-play your character, despite some people trying to make it that.
The new races actually look kind of cool. And all classes having "powers" which are about the same. For instance, some have pointed out that there's now no functional difference between a ranger firing his bow every round and a wizard firing off a magic missile every round. OK, but there's still a big difference in flavor. Although I'm going to miss them each having their own separate advantages, disadvantages, and different defenses for each.
Out of combat skills have been scaled way back, which is kind of a shame. In 3.5, you could give more information, or make the NPCs a little friendlier based on knowledge or gather information or diplomacy checks, letting a character be a diplomat or master of social situations even if the player wasn't. In 4th ed, it seems like things like this rely purely on the players skill at convincing the DM. Which eliminates all those characters whose builds were focused on their ability to resolve encounters through other than violent means.
The biggest problem, though, is the online component. Maybe if I was playing regularly again I could justify it. But I'm between groups now and will probably be that way for a while. Normally, I'd be getting Dragon magazine during times like these, but they canceled that. But it's not just extra content it looks like. Significant parts of the rules - most of the classes, powers, monsters, etc. - will be online only. Having to pay an extra $15/month to make the core rulebooks complete makes me want to not buy the core rulebooks rather than make me want to pay extra for the online content.
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
Nothing is "forcing" the opponent to only attack the tank. The starter ability, for the fighter at least, makes perfect sense:
1) The fighter "marks" a target after attacking it (read: scary guy who really knows how to use a sword is actively engaged in slicing at you).
2) If that target makes an attack on someone other than the fighter, the fighter gets a free attack of opportunity (read: if someone is actively engaging you in sword play, it leaves you wide open when you turn to bash someone else).
It's dumb to ignore the obvious threat just because someone else looks like an easy target; you can feel free to attack the easy target, but that doesn't make the obvious threat any less threatening.
In editions before 3/3.5 the Cleric's biggest value was as a healer. If you had several of them in the party, they could play different roles but if you only had one, he was mister medic and that's basically it.
3/3.5 replaced that problem with a different one. The designers were so desperate to make the class attractive, it became the most powerful class in the game with good combat skills and hit points, healing magic, and the ability to cast a whole host of effective combat spells and "buffs".
And "destroyers of D&D"? Give me a break. Ever play any of the following RPGs: Warhammer RPG, HERO, GURPS, Rifts, Rolemaster, Vampire: the Masquerade, Middle Earth RPG, or the (original) Star Wars RPG? I believe they all came out well before Wizards of the Coast produced 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons. Each has plenty of flaws, but if you've played a few of them it will give you enough perspective to see that all versions of Dungeons and Dragons have some ridiculous inconsistencies and poor design choices that interfere with or downright euthanize fun gameplay.
Wizards of the Coast didn't destroy Dungeons and Dragons. They just rearranged the problems, and I bet you're mostly angry because you have nostalgia for the particular set of problems you enjoyed when you first played some previous edition.
> Do they carry round pockets full of bunnies so they can kill them if they ever need to teleport?
If a player ever asked me that question, I would immediately respond "Yes. Yes, you do. Start rounding up bunnies. And it has to be *combat* with the bunnies, not just bunny murder, so roleplay it out."
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
Your parent poster should have said, "Support your local establishment that provides friendly, efficient, and knowledgeable service."
"Locally-owned" does not always mean "good." Sometimes it does, but more often than not it doesn't, and that's why chains succeed. You might not think much of McDonald's, but there's a reason people went there instead of diners and hamburger stands: McD's has always had high standards for customer service and cleanliness.
The same is true of bookstores. I remember the last time I went into an independent new book store (as opposed to used-book stores, which are always independent). They had no inventory system to speak of, and the girl behind the counter, who couldn't have been older than 16, didn't know where anything was or whether they had anything I was looking for. The shelves weren't kept in any order I could recognize, and most of the sections were mislabeled.
No thanks, I'd rather go to Borders or BN.