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[Teflon Billy]

Hello,

At the moment I'm in Paz/Matt's D&D campaign. But I will in the future I would like to DM.  

I just wanted to know what the current feeling was.  

This info would be extremely helpful when coming to perparing/buying stuff.

Comments welcome (but lets watch the flaming people!)
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Mass Effect 3 ending: WTF was that???

[metagaia]

[Kamikazegerbil]

This is the sort of thread I generally avoid on the internet but given the people who frequent these boards I think the fire service can stand down for now.

I'm a shamless 4th ed fanboy. There were a fair few things about 3.5 (and 3.0 if I'm honest) that irked me. It all seemed alot more complex than it really needed to be. 4th ed has thrown away with overly clunky rules systems and generally streamlined D&D.

Simply put you can do fun and interesting things without spending three hours working out what the hell you need to roll.

I've yet to see how it holds up at higher levels but I may in future run a couple of one shots specificaly to test out higher levels. That's only on the horizon though.

[ian jones]

ok i've clicked on 4th addition as i agree with the hairy one.
but i also think that a gm should use the rules as a guide only and not as a restraint.
new characters should not have the knowledge that players who had digested every copy of every book published under a system have.

putting it simpler: make it flow and enjoyable and use any system your comfy with.

[paz]

My feelings haven't really changed since we discussed it on this thread:

[HDimagination]

Well I've been meaning to put my thoughts down about 4th, now that we are about 6 months in and I've had a good chance to both run and play the game.  So remember, you asked for it:

The character genoration can take a while, but that includes all the standard bits of stuff like buying equipment, choosing feats all that kinda palarver.   This works better in when you've got a few players handbooks to spare for when people are choosing their powers and feats, but thats nothing new.   As the characters abilities are quite combat focused and and the  'tactical gaming' aspect of the system is given allot of attention, the game can be quite punishing of players that don't or won't optimise their characters towards a particular build, conversly, the more you look at the process of character building as being an exercise in making sure your character is effective in combat you get a better (or more optimised) end result.  

There are two key points to point out here, the first, a practical point is regarding the building of characters.   From an optimisaion point of view it's probably best to work from a strong concept for your character and then decide which powers, class abilites and feats he will take first, and then build in the ability scores to strengthen yourself in those areas, rather than the other way around.  An example of this is my Wizard in Robs game, by giving myself a Con of 14 at character gen (ensuring a half decent amount of HP) i was left with a Wis of 11 (traditionally not a major factor for wizards).   As it turns out, of the two feats I would have liked for the character, I can get neither, as both require a Wis of 14 or higher.

The second point is rather more nebulous, but I would recomend that when creating a character concept, remember that your characters background and personality does not have to be enforced by the mechanisims of your character, and conceivably, it doesn't matter what ability scores you end up with, it's best to define your character by their behaviour and interactions with others, rather than by your abilites and powers.  In that way, you won't end up compromising your character concept with your powers or vice versa.   This seems to be a trap that many people who i've heard complaining online have been stuck in, where they've felt that the limited (at present) options have been too constrictive of character concepts.   That said, there is some weight to this, you'll find it pretty impossible at present to find a cleric that is a total pacifist and focuses on healing magic, or a mage that uses Charm spells to avoid combat.

In terms of the game play it's self there are also a couple of issues that I've personally struggled with.  The main is the use of combat abilites in non-combat situations.   You may find players using their at will abilities such as eldrich blast or similar to nuke any obsticles in their path for example, rendering the skills that you thought that they would use obsolete.

Another issue is that with the removal of realative XP rewards and Random treasure drops, there is less incentive for players to take on creatures outside their level range.  this is an adventure design issue, and can be easily dealt with, but it does require an adjustment of what a DM might usually do in terms of challenging your players.

As a general rule, I would say that the better system is depended on what game you want to run.   If the game you have in mind is action/combat/dungoncrawl focused, I think you and your players would get far more utility from 4th edition than you ever would from 3.X.   Combat runs smoother, and generally has more meat to it, rather than being over in 2-3 rounds with one large opponent like 3.X tends to encourage (or multiples of the same opponent) you’re more likely to end up with 4+ rounds of combat vs a varied array of opponents, including different varieties of the same monster (such as a goblin shaman surrounded by warriors from his tribe).   That given encounter setup is actually pretty easy, and I could probably throw that together as a GM with about 5 minutes set up time.  4th also encourages you to make the areas that the encounters take place in more dynamic such as placing traps, hazards and other such items in the area where the encounters are set up.

If your game is more story, intrigue or skill based,  you might be better off going for 3.0, but as a general rule no D&D rules system is going to give you the same level of utility as say, WFRP or which ever non D20 fantasy system is your preference (not that there is a lot of choice nowerdays).  In other words, 4th ed sets it’s self up well for what it does, action adventures with an emphasis on exploration, tactics and cunning.

[metagaia]

[HDimagination]

Absolutely, well I think that the errata for DC for skill rolls has been fixed now, and so have the number of successes needed.   In the game that I ran, I set up a two possible skill challenges.  The first was a stealthy approach to the fort that they were sent to explore, which they passed with ease, through intimidating a goblin captive and finding out when the goblins were most likely to be occupied elsewhere.

The second was where the players were having to move themselves through an area covered in fungi that would release poisonous spores when disturbed.   Instead they decided that between them the mage and the sorcerer could ‘steamroll’ through burning the offending mushrooms and retreating to a safe distance when the smoke died down.

More notable was that before the players set off, they set up their own skill challenge by deciding that they were going to humiliate the leader of a rival adventuring group by stealing and hiding his ancestors magic sword (they are a very young group of adventurers, and we decided that this was probably a common prank).  So, I let them do it as a skill challenge, and it worked like a treat.

I think that skill challenges are definitely one of my favourite parts of the new system, as they allow the players to take an active part of the game in coming up with ways to use their skills.   So I think the system works best when the players instigate them, or when you set up loose ‘challenge goals’ and let the players decide how they are going to approach them.


To be honest, the skills system is very open ended and encourages alot of creativity on the part of the player and GM.   I think that again in character creation, if you've got particular desires in terms of what you want your character to be good at, it's a good idea to choose that first and then pick a class that will give you those Skills.

[metagaia]

Well thanks for the poll, it was fun to think about.  Does this mean you'll be leaning towards 4th then?
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The Master can blow me, Monkey-Suit. Bloodrayne 2

[Teflon Billy]

Oh dear, rather rude of me not to answer that.

The answer is: Yes.

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Mass Effect 3 ending: WTF was that???