The US Accord is larger than the European Accord by a good margin. It dwarfs the Astra.
And the other person is wrong anyway. We have a CR-V 4-cylinder, and conservative driving at 55 miles per hour (~92 km/h give or take) yields 27 miles per gallon. The Accord weighs almost exactly the same, but is much more aerodynamic. Conservative driving, especially on the highway, will easily give better than 30 miles per gallon in one.
We bought a CR-V in 2003 because at the time the wagon offerings in the US sucked. (Basically the only game in town was the Subaru Legacy, and we didn't like it.) So as a small SUV owner, I agree with your point: small SUVs are a poor substitute for a decent station wagon. At the time, it was the only game in town.
Our other vehicle for our family of five is a minivan. I have to agree with the parent post, so many people just have a mental hangup over minivans. Who gives a fuck what it looks like? More importantly, since minivans don't pretend to off-road they have a lower center of gravity. I test drove a number of SUVs before buying my Honda Odyssey, and the Odyssey's handling was far superior. So you not only reduce your rollover risk, you also get a more fun driving experience.
The US automakers are starting to "get it". The new Lincoln MKS previews are getting comments about the best interior Lincoln has done in 40 years. The 2008 Chevy Malibu and Cadillac CTS both received tons of praise for their interiors.
Europe and the US rate the same models with much different maximum recommended tow ratings. Family sedans in Europe might be rated to tow 4000 pounds (just under 2000 kg) and the same model with the same engine and transmission might only be rated to tow 1000 pounds (under 500 kg) in the US. Check the Saab, BMW, Volvo, or Mercedes websites for examples.
The conspiracy theorist in me says the US tow ratings are artificially low to bolster truck and SUV sales unnecessarily.
That PDF is insurance research on injury levels by make and model in the US from 2003-2005, listing 100 as average injury level per number of drivers per model sold. Lower numbers are better, higher numbers are worse. The factors the PDF does not account for are miles driven or average driver demographics per model.
The sad, undeniable truth is that people driving larger vehicles do better. Check the numbers in the PDF: the fucking monster Hummer H2, the Chevy Suburban, the Ford Expedition all have notably lower injury rates then all compact vehicles and all but 5 or 10 of the best sedans.
The problem with this is that you need to know a really good mechanic or be a really good mechanic. As a kid, in the course of a decade I watched my father go through four different used cars and end up spending far more than he paid for each one in the first two years of ownership.
Eventually he gave up and started buying new cars.
Reliability is undoubtedly better now than in the 1980s and early 1990s, but there's always a risk.
Better traction from all wheel drive or four wheel drive will tremendously help your vehicle to start moving in slippery conditions. But it does nothing to assist stopping.
There's a chance your all wheel drive will help you change the vehicle's orientation enough to get traction during a slide in slippery conditions, and that may let you use your traction advantage to get of the way of the truck you slid in front of. But if you had been driving slowly in the first place, the original slip would have never happened.
But I have to ask: does your coupe have a limited slip differential? Because in the hilly terrain around my house, I often do see rear wheel drive cars and small trucks with open differentials (i.e. power is only directed to one tire at a time) stuck in the snow even when the drivers have snow tires.
But you will note that by leg room and cabin space the 2008 model year Honda Odyssey, Toyota Sienna, Dodge Grand Caravan, Nissan Quest, Kia Sedona, and Hyundai Entourage minivans all offers better passenger space than the Chevy Tahoe, Dodge Durango, Ford Expedition (non extended length), Nissan Armada, Toyota Sequoia, and their respective corporate cousins.
All of those minivans also outdo every single midsize and large 'crossover' SUV for interior volume and passenger space, including the Acura MDX, Honda Pilot, Toyota Highlander, Saturn Outlook, Buick Enclave, Mazda CX-9, Ford Flex, Ford Taurus X, Volkswagen Touareg, Volvo XC90, Hyundai Veracruz, and their respective corporate cousins.
To do better for space, you need to get a Suburban, an extended length Expedition, or a fullsize family van like the Chevy Express, Ford Econoline, or Dodge Sprinter.
On the other hand, I believe for model year 2008 only the Toyota Sienna and Honda Odyssey are available with 8 passenger seating. All other minivan models are limited to 7.
I would prefer if the magic resistance was somehow innate to the characters instead of gear dependent, because it feels more heroic. But what you used certainly works.
I know lots of people have problems with predictable, reproducible magic, but I don't. I look at it like technologies. When firearms were first invented they were inaccurate and often dangerous to the user. But now, the chance of a misfire or odd flight path with a properly cleaned gun is almost zero. Although to be fair, copy machines have been around for a long time now and they are as temperamental as ever, so maybe unpredictable magic is appropriate.
I argue the opposite. GURPS players only take character weaknesses for a mechanical advantage, whereas Dungeons and Dragons players that take addictions, phobias, codes of conduct, or hobbies for their PCs are doing it strictly for roleplaying reasons.
To my mind, the latter is superior to the former from the angle of interesting storytelling.
Some of the flaws the parent post mentioned revolved about poetry, addictions, codes of behavior, and phobias. Nothing prevents you from roleplaying those in Dungeons and Dragons.
As I mentioned in other posts, the skill change was done to keep skill management simpler and give the game a more pulp and epic fantasy feel. Conan, Doc Savage, Aragorn, Gandalf, and most experienced characters in, for example, Jack Vance's Dying Earth books had a huge realm of competencies.
The two 10th level characters trained in Athletics are still differentiated by their Dexterity modifier (or whichever modifier affects the Athletics skill check).
Nothing in earlier editions prevented characters from accumulating lots of magical gear. But I agree, 3rd edition was the first one that was explicitly designed to assume that was the case. Past level 5 or so, if your PCs weren't loaded with magical gear you needed to weaken planned enemies from the defaults.
I agree with your clarification on melee classes. At high levels, they were useless.
Spells are called "powers" (goodbye psionics?) and are detailed in the class section; there is no other"magic" area in the book. Great for a person only playing a wizard, ever, but wtf for people making classes. Horrible.
There are spell rituals any class can learn that replace most of the non-combat spells from earlier editions. No confirm criticals, criticals are just max damage on a 20. Goodbye dramatic tension as you bunch over the faded die, figuring out if you got a 7 or 17 on that confirm roll. Goodbye variability. Goodbye fight-ending strike.
It can still be a fight-ending strike. And it speeds gameplay. Most rolls 1d20+1/2 character level+other. Wow, that means that high level people will be able to do everything better than 1st level players! Horrible.andNo ranks in skills. So much for making a detailed and unique character, huh? Cookie-cutter it is then.
It fits pulp fantasy - Doc Savage and his band of heroes, Tolkien's characters, Conan, and the characters of Jack Vance's Dying Earth were mostly men and women of many talents. "Realism" is subjective in a land where people toss magic fire and wield magic swords. They still didn't simplifiy combat. Good god, I thought that was the reason they made another edition.
Players can wear less magical items, the items are less powerful, buff spells and potions are almost totally gone and the buffs that remain last one round, multiple attacks are gone, saving throws become defenses against attacks (e.g. a spell that used to trigger a reflex save is now an attack against a reflex defense), there are also Minion rules for unimportant lesser adversaries, so you don't need to track hit points for the 6 Goblins in the back of the raiding party (or whatever)... So you have far fewer magical ongoing effects to track, far fewer magical items to track, less attacks, less hit points to track, and a simpler mechanic for special attacks that makes them use the same rules as a standard melee attack against an armor class. That looks a lot simpler to me. There are fewer types of action, standard, move, minor and free." Given that that's about the same as 3.5 core (full-round, standard, move and free), I wonder about this guy's mental health exclaiming its virtues.
3.5 added "swift" actions at some point in its life, which are like "free" actions but you only get 1 per round. And naturally, there's tedious and irritating rules for the distinctions between the two. Also, 4e removes the 3/3.5 mechanic for multiple attacks, so that also simplifies things. Retraining is now not only core, but really basic. So in other words, feel free not to put thought into what skills and feats you take, just get the shiniest ones and clean up later.
Blocking retraining is a major factor making 3/3.5 unattractive to newbies. "You forgot to take feat X? Why, your character is basically useless. You're fucked." Retraining lets people try things without having to waste hours studying the rules to make sure there aren't better options. Treasure parcels. It's where you get 4 magic items and some money. Before I decided treasure by what the villain would have; how foolish! Now I have learned to make sure everyone gets a magical item every encounter!
Point to you. I can see how this makes sense from a DM perspective, because DMs don't need to pick opponents for the party based on the gear they want the PCs to have. But in-game, it just doesn't make sense. If the group would benefit from a stash of healing potions, that doesn't mean it makes sense for a Griffon to have them.
The review was light on details. I definitely think you're right about that. But if you read the books themselves or even just some of the detailed previews, I think a huge number of the changes make good sense.
I think several differences between 4e and MMORPGs are crucial:
- 4e PCs are limited in the amount of magical gear they can use compared to earlier editions of Dungeons and Dragons, and (in theory, I haven't read the books yet) less dependent upon their magical gear to be effective. I don't want my high level tabletop character or fantasy MMORPG character to be completely and utterly useless without 2 magic rings, a magic belt, some special magic weapon, and 4 other magic items on his person.
- 4e Fighters and other "tank" roles in the party can deal tremendous damage on their own. In earlier editions of Dungeons and Dragons and in MMORPGs at high levels the "tank" classes were meat shields while the other classes did all of the serious damage to opponents.
- 4e Fighters do not "hold aggro". I think that's one of the most boring roles in MMORPGs, no matter how crucial. A 4e Fighter can do some extra damage to opponents that ignore him (which makes sense - if I'm swinging at a guy who tries to ignore me to fight someone else, it's easier for me to get past his guard). A Fighter cannot force opponents to engage him over other members of the party.
- 4e special abilities do not "charge up" like in MMORPGs. That MMORPG feature is actually nice in my book, but adds too much bookeeping for a tabletop RPG. 4e doesn't use it.
- 4e dramatically reduces "Buff" spells, potions, and magical items. Some MMORPGs get bogged down with PCs casting a whole host of spells in preparation for combat. 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons lent itself to that style of play, and it was tedious and a bookeeping headache.
All in all, 4e looks to adapt some good elements from MMORPGs but skips almost all of the elements I dislike.
"Simpler" stuff like: varying XP tables by class with; saving throw charts that didn't follow a simple arithmetic progression; hosts of magical spells to choose from; spell memorization and related spell slot management to contend with; totally random variance in spell ranges, areas of effect, and duration; simple character generation and hit point generation rules that boiled down to "invent your own more fair rules or else just pray you don't end up with a first level Fighter with 1 hit point"; a thieving skill progression chart that likewise didn't follow a fixed, intuitive progression; magic resistance that gave a flat chance to negate incoming spells regardless of whether the spellcaster was level 1 or 36; level drain from undead that meant you had to re-write half your character sheet if your PC got hit a few times.
And of course, you were also much more limited in character and monster options unless your DM made his own rules. Want your Fighter to learn magic? Tough. Want an Orc that's also a thief? Too bad.
I agree that newer editions are painfully complex. But I can't return to original Dungeons and Dragons either - it's simpler than the newer stuff, but even it has a ton of odd and unnecessary complexities and some limits that are very frustrating.
There are many less popular RPGs that learned from older standards like Dungeons and Dragons, GURPS, and Vampire: the Masquerade and ended up being simpler, more intuitive, and just as fun.
There's nothing to prevent your Dungeons and Dragons characters from having the weaknesses of a GURPS equivalent. The difference is mechanical - in GURPS you get bonus points for flaws, in Dungeons and Dragons you do not.
The cleric class was necessary but often boring for Dungeons and Dragons before third edition. For third edition, it was extremely powerful and just as importantly, versatile, making it very fun to play. It was no longer solely a walking hospital.
For the complete dependence upon magical items,
I'm thinking of Fighters, Barbarians, Rangers, and such. Strip their magical weapons, belts of strength, and gear to enhance movement at higher levels, and the damage they deal is cut by at least a third and sometimes more. Many opponents with DR/magic become almost totally immune to their attacks.
Not every fight has tons of spell and potion preparation, but many do. That's more items and spells for the characters to acquire, more inventory and spell slots to track, and more durations to track. Even if half or more of your combats avoid it, it's still present. 4e removes it as an option, period.
With respect to damage in high level combat, I'm not speaking of spellcaster self-buffs. I'm talking about Druids turning into Dire Bears and abusing the grappling rules to shred opponents far faster than the party Barbarian. I'm talking about Clerics using Summon Monster and Charm Monster to control far more battlefield muscle than any other class oriented to raw combat can muster. I'm talking about Wizards using their area effect spells and some scrolls to wipe out dozens of powerful opponents in a two or three rounds while the Fighter is still sprinting to engage his first opponent. The non-spellcasters are far less effective in combat and out of it compared to the spellcasters once you pass level 7 or so.
DR isn't a huge problem, but I didn't like it for two reasons. First, it slows down the game. Your character finally lands a hit, but thanks to DR he's just whittling down his opponent. Second, the way it was applied doesn't make sense. Dragons are enormous. If one is sitting 5 feet from you, it should be obnoxiously easy to hit and incredibly difficult to hurt - say AC 6 (ridiculously low) and DR 50 (incredibly high). Instead we get something with AC 30 and maybe DR 10 - so it can dodge my attacks with superhuman quickness without moving its fifty ton bulk more than 5 feet from me? Explain that again? Armor which intuitively absorbs damage adds to AC but not DR. Why?
I answered this above, but to summarize, these changes in 4e make it less like an MMO than Dungeons and Dragons 3 or 3.5 and even less like an MMO than Advanced Dungeons and Dragons:
Melee classes are dramatically more effective in combat at high levels, and not just meat shields for the spellcasters. Buff spells and potions are all but totally gone. Fewer magical items can be worn and PCs are not useless without their magical gear at higher levels.
Naturally, a tabletop game can't be as complex as a massive multiplayer online roleplaying game like World of Warcraft.
But further, you are incorrect in several major ways:
1. In 3/3.5 DnD, a medium to high level character is defined more by his gear than by his skills. That fits an MMO. 4e reduces the gear characters can use and reduces "buff" gear ("buff" is an item or magical event that makes a character stronger, faster, or otherwise more capable).
2. In 3/3.5 DnD, medium to high level characters preceded each combat encounter with buff spells and potion drinking. That fits an MMO. 4e has far fewer "buff" spells and almost all of them have a 1 round duration.
3. In 3/3.5 DnD, medium to high level classes with melee focus (Fighters, Barbarians, Paladins) really didn't deal anywhere near as much damage in battle as spellcasters. Their primary job was to serve as a meat shield while the spellcasters took out opponents. That fits an MMO. 4e gives all classes more options, so Fighters can actually *gasp* be good at fighting and do serious damage in their own right.
4. In 3/3.5 DnD, high AC meant an opponent was hard to hit and damage reduction (DR) meant some damage was absorbed and negated before the opponent was actually hurt. This made for tedious bookkeeping, which an MMO does for you. In 4e, damage reduction is gone, and AC stands for being both unable to hit an opponent or being unable to hit an opponent effectively.
If you're happy with AD&D 2.0, more power to you and don't change. But the reduced emphasis on magic items and pre-combat spellcasting, the change to make Fighters actually useful and interesting and interesting at high levels, and simplifying many game mechanics moves 4e much further away from MMOs than 3e or arguably even old AD&D (which I played for a few years myself).
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.
The Massive Multiplayer Online RPG games usually have the 'tank' as a damage sync whose job is to keep the monsters from attacking other characters while the other characters actually kill or subdue the attackers.
I have only seen a few Fighter abilities listed for 4th edition, but:
A. The Fighter does a very competitive amount of damage. The Rogue and Wizard do not leave him looking like a useless meat shield.
B. The Fighter doesn't have abilities analagous to the "hold aggro" crap in MMOs that keep opponents focused on him. His best way to protect other party members is to just eviscerate the most dangerous enemies - which is more true to the pulp fantasy and epic fantasy that inspired Dungeons and Dragons in the first job.
If your logic was correct, then playing music through a sound card with GPL drivers would make the music GPL, and compiling programs with a GPL compiler (like GCC) would make them GPL, and writing a book in a GPL text editor would make it GPL. That's not the case.
GIT's GPL license applies to GIT itself, not the code it distributes.
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The US Accord is larger than the European Accord by a good margin. It dwarfs the Astra.
And the other person is wrong anyway. We have a CR-V 4-cylinder, and conservative driving at 55 miles per hour (~92 km/h give or take) yields 27 miles per gallon. The Accord weighs almost exactly the same, but is much more aerodynamic. Conservative driving, especially on the highway, will easily give better than 30 miles per gallon in one.
We bought a CR-V in 2003 because at the time the wagon offerings in the US sucked. (Basically the only game in town was the Subaru Legacy, and we didn't like it.) So as a small SUV owner, I agree with your point: small SUVs are a poor substitute for a decent station wagon. At the time, it was the only game in town.
Our other vehicle for our family of five is a minivan. I have to agree with the parent post, so many people just have a mental hangup over minivans. Who gives a fuck what it looks like? More importantly, since minivans don't pretend to off-road they have a lower center of gravity. I test drove a number of SUVs before buying my Honda Odyssey, and the Odyssey's handling was far superior. So you not only reduce your rollover risk, you also get a more fun driving experience.
The US automakers are starting to "get it". The new Lincoln MKS previews are getting comments about the best interior Lincoln has done in 40 years. The 2008 Chevy Malibu and Cadillac CTS both received tons of praise for their interiors.
Chrysler's fucked, though.
Europe and the US rate the same models with much different maximum recommended tow ratings. Family sedans in Europe might be rated to tow 4000 pounds (just under 2000 kg) and the same model with the same engine and transmission might only be rated to tow 1000 pounds (under 500 kg) in the US. Check the Saab, BMW, Volvo, or Mercedes websites for examples.
The conspiracy theorist in me says the US tow ratings are artificially low to bolster truck and SUV sales unnecessarily.
Sorry, wrong: http://www.iihs.org/research/hldi/ictl_pdf/ictl_0906.pdf
That PDF is insurance research on injury levels by make and model in the US from 2003-2005, listing 100 as average injury level per number of drivers per model sold. Lower numbers are better, higher numbers are worse. The factors the PDF does not account for are miles driven or average driver demographics per model.
The sad, undeniable truth is that people driving larger vehicles do better. Check the numbers in the PDF: the fucking monster Hummer H2, the Chevy Suburban, the Ford Expedition all have notably lower injury rates then all compact vehicles and all but 5 or 10 of the best sedans.
The problem with this is that you need to know a really good mechanic or be a really good mechanic. As a kid, in the course of a decade I watched my father go through four different used cars and end up spending far more than he paid for each one in the first two years of ownership.
Eventually he gave up and started buying new cars.
Reliability is undoubtedly better now than in the 1980s and early 1990s, but there's always a risk.
Of course, most people don't understand AWD.
Better traction from all wheel drive or four wheel drive will tremendously help your vehicle to start moving in slippery conditions. But it does nothing to assist stopping.
There's a chance your all wheel drive will help you change the vehicle's orientation enough to get traction during a slide in slippery conditions, and that may let you use your traction advantage to get of the way of the truck you slid in front of. But if you had been driving slowly in the first place, the original slip would have never happened.
But I have to ask: does your coupe have a limited slip differential? Because in the hilly terrain around my house, I often do see rear wheel drive cars and small trucks with open differentials (i.e. power is only directed to one tire at a time) stuck in the snow even when the drivers have snow tires.
But you will note that by leg room and cabin space the 2008 model year Honda Odyssey, Toyota Sienna, Dodge Grand Caravan, Nissan Quest, Kia Sedona, and Hyundai Entourage minivans all offers better passenger space than the Chevy Tahoe, Dodge Durango, Ford Expedition (non extended length), Nissan Armada, Toyota Sequoia, and their respective corporate cousins.
All of those minivans also outdo every single midsize and large 'crossover' SUV for interior volume and passenger space, including the Acura MDX, Honda Pilot, Toyota Highlander, Saturn Outlook, Buick Enclave, Mazda CX-9, Ford Flex, Ford Taurus X, Volkswagen Touareg, Volvo XC90, Hyundai Veracruz, and their respective corporate cousins.
To do better for space, you need to get a Suburban, an extended length Expedition, or a fullsize family van like the Chevy Express, Ford Econoline, or Dodge Sprinter.
On the other hand, I believe for model year 2008 only the Toyota Sienna and Honda Odyssey are available with 8 passenger seating. All other minivan models are limited to 7.
I would prefer if the magic resistance was somehow innate to the characters instead of gear dependent, because it feels more heroic. But what you used certainly works.
I know lots of people have problems with predictable, reproducible magic, but I don't. I look at it like technologies. When firearms were first invented they were inaccurate and often dangerous to the user. But now, the chance of a misfire or odd flight path with a properly cleaned gun is almost zero. Although to be fair, copy machines have been around for a long time now and they are as temperamental as ever, so maybe unpredictable magic is appropriate.
I argue the opposite. GURPS players only take character weaknesses for a mechanical advantage, whereas Dungeons and Dragons players that take addictions, phobias, codes of conduct, or hobbies for their PCs are doing it strictly for roleplaying reasons.
To my mind, the latter is superior to the former from the angle of interesting storytelling.
Some of the flaws the parent post mentioned revolved about poetry, addictions, codes of behavior, and phobias. Nothing prevents you from roleplaying those in Dungeons and Dragons.
As I mentioned in other posts, the skill change was done to keep skill management simpler and give the game a more pulp and epic fantasy feel. Conan, Doc Savage, Aragorn, Gandalf, and most experienced characters in, for example, Jack Vance's Dying Earth books had a huge realm of competencies.
The two 10th level characters trained in Athletics are still differentiated by their Dexterity modifier (or whichever modifier affects the Athletics skill check).
Good catch. I never read that set of rules on magic resistance.
Nothing in earlier editions prevented characters from accumulating lots of magical gear. But I agree, 3rd edition was the first one that was explicitly designed to assume that was the case. Past level 5 or so, if your PCs weren't loaded with magical gear you needed to weaken planned enemies from the defaults.
I agree with your clarification on melee classes. At high levels, they were useless.
Spells are called "powers" (goodbye psionics?) and are detailed in the class section; there is no other"magic" area in the book. Great for a person only playing a wizard, ever, but wtf for people making classes. Horrible. ... So you have far fewer magical ongoing effects to track, far fewer magical items to track, less attacks, less hit points to track, and a simpler mechanic for special attacks that makes them use the same rules as a standard melee attack against an armor class. That looks a lot simpler to me.
There are spell rituals any class can learn that replace most of the non-combat spells from earlier editions.
No confirm criticals, criticals are just max damage on a 20. Goodbye dramatic tension as you bunch over the faded die, figuring out if you got a 7 or 17 on that confirm roll. Goodbye variability. Goodbye fight-ending strike.
It can still be a fight-ending strike. And it speeds gameplay.
Most rolls 1d20+1/2 character level+other. Wow, that means that high level people will be able to do everything better than 1st level players! Horrible. and No ranks in skills. So much for making a detailed and unique character, huh? Cookie-cutter it is then.
It fits pulp fantasy - Doc Savage and his band of heroes, Tolkien's characters, Conan, and the characters of Jack Vance's Dying Earth were mostly men and women of many talents. "Realism" is subjective in a land where people toss magic fire and wield magic swords.
They still didn't simplifiy combat. Good god, I thought that was the reason they made another edition.
Players can wear less magical items, the items are less powerful, buff spells and potions are almost totally gone and the buffs that remain last one round, multiple attacks are gone, saving throws become defenses against attacks (e.g. a spell that used to trigger a reflex save is now an attack against a reflex defense), there are also Minion rules for unimportant lesser adversaries, so you don't need to track hit points for the 6 Goblins in the back of the raiding party (or whatever)
There are fewer types of action, standard, move, minor and free." Given that that's about the same as 3.5 core (full-round, standard, move and free), I wonder about this guy's mental health exclaiming its virtues.
3.5 added "swift" actions at some point in its life, which are like "free" actions but you only get 1 per round. And naturally, there's tedious and irritating rules for the distinctions between the two. Also, 4e removes the 3/3.5 mechanic for multiple attacks, so that also simplifies things.
Retraining is now not only core, but really basic. So in other words, feel free not to put thought into what skills and feats you take, just get the shiniest ones and clean up later.
Blocking retraining is a major factor making 3/3.5 unattractive to newbies. "You forgot to take feat X? Why, your character is basically useless. You're fucked." Retraining lets people try things without having to waste hours studying the rules to make sure there aren't better options.
Treasure parcels. It's where you get 4 magic items and some money. Before I decided treasure by what the villain would have; how foolish! Now I have learned to make sure everyone gets a magical item every encounter!
Point to you. I can see how this makes sense from a DM perspective, because DMs don't need to pick opponents for the party based on the gear they want the PCs to have. But in-game, it just doesn't make sense. If the group would benefit from a stash of healing potions, that doesn't mean it makes sense for a Griffon to have them.
The review was light on details. I definitely think you're right about that. But if you read the books themselves or even just some of the detailed previews, I think a huge number of the changes make good sense.
I think several differences between 4e and MMORPGs are crucial:
- 4e PCs are limited in the amount of magical gear they can use compared to earlier editions of Dungeons and Dragons, and (in theory, I haven't read the books yet) less dependent upon their magical gear to be effective. I don't want my high level tabletop character or fantasy MMORPG character to be completely and utterly useless without 2 magic rings, a magic belt, some special magic weapon, and 4 other magic items on his person.
- 4e Fighters and other "tank" roles in the party can deal tremendous damage on their own. In earlier editions of Dungeons and Dragons and in MMORPGs at high levels the "tank" classes were meat shields while the other classes did all of the serious damage to opponents.
- 4e Fighters do not "hold aggro". I think that's one of the most boring roles in MMORPGs, no matter how crucial. A 4e Fighter can do some extra damage to opponents that ignore him (which makes sense - if I'm swinging at a guy who tries to ignore me to fight someone else, it's easier for me to get past his guard). A Fighter cannot force opponents to engage him over other members of the party.
- 4e special abilities do not "charge up" like in MMORPGs. That MMORPG feature is actually nice in my book, but adds too much bookeeping for a tabletop RPG. 4e doesn't use it.
- 4e dramatically reduces "Buff" spells, potions, and magical items. Some MMORPGs get bogged down with PCs casting a whole host of spells in preparation for combat. 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons lent itself to that style of play, and it was tedious and a bookeeping headache.
All in all, 4e looks to adapt some good elements from MMORPGs but skips almost all of the elements I dislike.
"Simpler" stuff like: varying XP tables by class with; saving throw charts that didn't follow a simple arithmetic progression; hosts of magical spells to choose from; spell memorization and related spell slot management to contend with; totally random variance in spell ranges, areas of effect, and duration; simple character generation and hit point generation rules that boiled down to "invent your own more fair rules or else just pray you don't end up with a first level Fighter with 1 hit point"; a thieving skill progression chart that likewise didn't follow a fixed, intuitive progression; magic resistance that gave a flat chance to negate incoming spells regardless of whether the spellcaster was level 1 or 36; level drain from undead that meant you had to re-write half your character sheet if your PC got hit a few times.
And of course, you were also much more limited in character and monster options unless your DM made his own rules. Want your Fighter to learn magic? Tough. Want an Orc that's also a thief? Too bad.
I agree that newer editions are painfully complex. But I can't return to original Dungeons and Dragons either - it's simpler than the newer stuff, but even it has a ton of odd and unnecessary complexities and some limits that are very frustrating.
There are many less popular RPGs that learned from older standards like Dungeons and Dragons, GURPS, and Vampire: the Masquerade and ended up being simpler, more intuitive, and just as fun.
There's nothing to prevent your Dungeons and Dragons characters from having the weaknesses of a GURPS equivalent. The difference is mechanical - in GURPS you get bonus points for flaws, in Dungeons and Dragons you do not.
The cleric class was necessary but often boring for Dungeons and Dragons before third edition. For third edition, it was extremely powerful and just as importantly, versatile, making it very fun to play. It was no longer solely a walking hospital.
For the complete dependence upon magical items, I'm thinking of Fighters, Barbarians, Rangers, and such. Strip their magical weapons, belts of strength, and gear to enhance movement at higher levels, and the damage they deal is cut by at least a third and sometimes more. Many opponents with DR/magic become almost totally immune to their attacks.
Not every fight has tons of spell and potion preparation, but many do. That's more items and spells for the characters to acquire, more inventory and spell slots to track, and more durations to track. Even if half or more of your combats avoid it, it's still present. 4e removes it as an option, period.
With respect to damage in high level combat, I'm not speaking of spellcaster self-buffs. I'm talking about Druids turning into Dire Bears and abusing the grappling rules to shred opponents far faster than the party Barbarian. I'm talking about Clerics using Summon Monster and Charm Monster to control far more battlefield muscle than any other class oriented to raw combat can muster. I'm talking about Wizards using their area effect spells and some scrolls to wipe out dozens of powerful opponents in a two or three rounds while the Fighter is still sprinting to engage his first opponent. The non-spellcasters are far less effective in combat and out of it compared to the spellcasters once you pass level 7 or so.
DR isn't a huge problem, but I didn't like it for two reasons. First, it slows down the game. Your character finally lands a hit, but thanks to DR he's just whittling down his opponent. Second, the way it was applied doesn't make sense. Dragons are enormous. If one is sitting 5 feet from you, it should be obnoxiously easy to hit and incredibly difficult to hurt - say AC 6 (ridiculously low) and DR 50 (incredibly high). Instead we get something with AC 30 and maybe DR 10 - so it can dodge my attacks with superhuman quickness without moving its fifty ton bulk more than 5 feet from me? Explain that again? Armor which intuitively absorbs damage adds to AC but not DR. Why?
I answered this above, but to summarize, these changes in 4e make it less like an MMO than Dungeons and Dragons 3 or 3.5 and even less like an MMO than Advanced Dungeons and Dragons:
Melee classes are dramatically more effective in combat at high levels, and not just meat shields for the spellcasters. Buff spells and potions are all but totally gone. Fewer magical items can be worn and PCs are not useless without their magical gear at higher levels.
Naturally, a tabletop game can't be as complex as a massive multiplayer online roleplaying game like World of Warcraft.
But further, you are incorrect in several major ways:
1. In 3/3.5 DnD, a medium to high level character is defined more by his gear than by his skills. That fits an MMO. 4e reduces the gear characters can use and reduces "buff" gear ("buff" is an item or magical event that makes a character stronger, faster, or otherwise more capable).
2. In 3/3.5 DnD, medium to high level characters preceded each combat encounter with buff spells and potion drinking. That fits an MMO. 4e has far fewer "buff" spells and almost all of them have a 1 round duration.
3. In 3/3.5 DnD, medium to high level classes with melee focus (Fighters, Barbarians, Paladins) really didn't deal anywhere near as much damage in battle as spellcasters. Their primary job was to serve as a meat shield while the spellcasters took out opponents. That fits an MMO. 4e gives all classes more options, so Fighters can actually *gasp* be good at fighting and do serious damage in their own right.
4. In 3/3.5 DnD, high AC meant an opponent was hard to hit and damage reduction (DR) meant some damage was absorbed and negated before the opponent was actually hurt. This made for tedious bookkeeping, which an MMO does for you. In 4e, damage reduction is gone, and AC stands for being both unable to hit an opponent or being unable to hit an opponent effectively.
If you're happy with AD&D 2.0, more power to you and don't change. But the reduced emphasis on magic items and pre-combat spellcasting, the change to make Fighters actually useful and interesting and interesting at high levels, and simplifying many game mechanics moves 4e much further away from MMOs than 3e or arguably even old AD&D (which I played for a few years myself).
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.
The Massive Multiplayer Online RPG games usually have the 'tank' as a damage sync whose job is to keep the monsters from attacking other characters while the other characters actually kill or subdue the attackers.
I have only seen a few Fighter abilities listed for 4th edition, but:
A. The Fighter does a very competitive amount of damage. The Rogue and Wizard do not leave him looking like a useless meat shield.
B. The Fighter doesn't have abilities analagous to the "hold aggro" crap in MMOs that keep opponents focused on him. His best way to protect other party members is to just eviscerate the most dangerous enemies - which is more true to the pulp fantasy and epic fantasy that inspired Dungeons and Dragons in the first job.
It depends on the store. Some suck, some don't.
A few years ago if Popular Mechanics mentioned Linux at all, it was an off hand derisive comment about geeks in basements.
Linux for the home user has definitely come a long way in recent years.
You are either misinformed or obnoxious.
If your logic was correct, then playing music through a sound card with GPL drivers would make the music GPL, and compiling programs with a GPL compiler (like GCC) would make them GPL, and writing a book in a GPL text editor would make it GPL. That's not the case.
GIT's GPL license applies to GIT itself, not the code it distributes.