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WARNING: D&D TALK

Started by Cramulus, November 14, 2008, 04:09:03 PM

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Who Wins?

Demi-Lich
21 (67.7%)
Tarrasque
10 (32.3%)

Total Members Voted: 31

Cramulus

 :p you realize the post was satire, yes?

James Wyatt clarifies his points in the following pages

Cainad (dec.)

 :lulz: That was pretty funny.

I'm firmly of the belief that a game, especially a roleplaying game, is as good as the people playing it. You can discuss mechanics and ephemera until your +1 Neckbeard of Nerd Rage turns gray, but you can't point to a group of people playing a game and say, "You guys aren't actually having fun!"

That said, I told 4E to go fuck itself 'cause Wizards of the Coast already has enough of my money and I didn't want to learn a new system, at least not until I'd played 3.5 into the dirt and gotten sick of it. I wouldn't be against playing it sometime, though.

Jasper

What I find interesting is how, whenever I hear DnD players talk about playing DnD, they seem to have this unspoken assumption that once 4th ed came out, they weren't allowed (somehow) to play 3.5,

Is that normal?

Vene

Quote from: Sigmatic on May 24, 2010, 07:12:27 PM
What I find interesting is how, whenever I hear DnD players talk about playing DnD, they seem to have this unspoken assumption that once 4th ed came out, they weren't allowed (somehow) to play 3.5,

Is that normal?
Well, with a different tabletop game, Warhammer 40k, that's kind of how it is when there's a new edition or army codex released. Because, you know, newer is always better.

Jasper

Well with 40k I can see it, because it seems to be perpetually unbalanced by the latest new thing.

Cramulus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_creep

That's just the state of the art in nearly any commercial game with regular releases.

I stopped playing MageKnight because I'd spend like a hundred bucks on a sweet army

and then in a month, they'd release a new type of power which effortlessly nuked everything I'd worked hard to collect

I stopped playing Magic for the same reason too.


in 4e, the classes in the PH2 are way more powerful than the classes in the PH1. (this is a source of lots of drama at my gaming table. As a level 7 barbarian, I can drop 100 damage in 1 round, while our warlock struggles to land 30s.) Oddly enough, the Ph3 classes are actually on par with the Ph1 classes.


Quote from: Sigmatic on May 24, 2010, 07:12:27 PM
What I find interesting is how, whenever I hear DnD players talk about playing DnD, they seem to have this unspoken assumption that once 4th ed came out, they weren't allowed (somehow) to play 3.5,

Is that normal?

it's been normal for every D&D release.

I wish I could find an archive of some of the D&D mailing lists from when D&D 3.0 was released. It was basically the same arguments about why 4th edition sucks. (waaah they took out all the role playing and made it too easy to understand!!) And also the gnashing about "I own $1000 worth of 2nd edition books, now I have to throw them all in a dumpster and set it on fire."

Bebek Sincap Ratatosk

At this point I've played extensively in 3rd, 3.5 and 4th.

Our group has decided to go back to 3.5 for several reasons. First and foremost is that no matter which of us has tried running 4th ed, it feels more like a battle system with role playing included (not that is IS, just that's how it feels).  Also, it reminds me of the worst parts of Savage Worlds.

We have one friend that is just nuts for SW and 4th ed... his argument is that "Comabt is so much faster!!!" Yet, even when he DM's that simply doesn't scan... combat still takes a decent chunk of time... at best 4th ed and SW provide 1 shot kills for the grunts, but a good DM can manage that sort of thing in 3.5 without sacrificing anything.

Personally, I've found that 3.5 seems to provide a better environment for long campaigns and 4th ed is great for a weekend "We're going on a 23 hours dungeon crawl, bring Mt. Dew and Snacks".
- I don't see race. I just see cars going around in a circle.

"Back in my day, crazy meant something. Now everyone is crazy" - Charlie Manson

Telarus

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Freeky

I firmly support Paizo's Pathfinder system as the next update to WotC D&D 3.5. Even if 4th ed doesn't suck o some people, it's very nearly a totally different game now. Also I don't know anyone personally who wants to play 4th ed.

Bebek Sincap Ratatosk

Also, the pro-Savage Worlds geeks remind me of the Apple geeks... except I think Apple actually produces some awesome products.  :lulz:
- I don't see race. I just see cars going around in a circle.

"Back in my day, crazy meant something. Now everyone is crazy" - Charlie Manson

Cramulus

Quote from: Ratatosk on May 24, 2010, 07:55:12 PM
Our group has decided to go back to 3.5 for several reasons. First and foremost is that no matter which of us has tried running 4th ed, it feels more like a battle system with role playing included (not that is IS, just that's how it feels). 

see this really sounds like an issue with the DM -- I've played 2, 3, 3.5 and 4, and they're all more or less the same thing. I didn't find that the 3.5 campaigns I ran/played were any more "story" oriented than the 4.0 campaigns I've played.

I will admit that the published adventures have been somewhat"Fight, rest, fight, rest, fight, rest, boss fight, rest" Though there are some seriously cool moments in a few of them (the dragon fight in Thunderspire Labyrinth is fricking amazing - combining dragons, traps, and puzzles, and a countdown in the same action packed encounter)

QuoteWe have one friend that is just nuts for SW and 4th ed... his argument is that "Comabt is so much faster!!!" Yet, even when he DM's that simply doesn't scan... combat still takes a decent chunk of time... at best 4th ed and SW provide 1 shot kills for the grunts, but a good DM can manage that sort of thing in 3.5 without sacrificing anything.

that's weird - at my table, combat goes WAY faster in 4e than 3. There's a lot less back and forth in each round, and the rules are much better streamlined.

3.XE

DM: I cast Word of Chaos. Make a will save, difficulty 28

Player: *rolls dice*, I fail

DM: What level are you?

Player: nine

DM: *thumbing through book* Okay, you are stunned* for *rolls dice* 3 rounds, deafened** for 1 round, and confused*** for *rolls dice* 6 minutes. That is a mind effecting enchantment.


*A stunned creature drops everything held, can't take actions, takes a -2 penalty to AC, and loses his Dexterity bonus to AC (if any).
**deafened = She takes a -4 penalty on initiative checks, automatically fails Listen checks, and has a 20% chance of spell failure when casting spells with verbal components.
***A confused character's actions are determined by rolling d% at the beginning of his turn: 01-10, attack caster with melee or ranged weapons (or close with caster if attacking is not possible); 11-20, act normally; 21-50, do nothing but babble incoherently; 51-70, flee away from caster at top possible speed; 71-100, attack nearest creature (for this purpose, a familiar counts as part of the subject's self). A confused character who can't carry out the indicated action does nothing but babble incoherently. Attackers are not at any special advantage when attacking a confused character. Any confused character who is attacked automatically attacks its attackers on its next turn, as long as it is still confused when its turn comes. A confused character does not make attacks of opportunity against any creature that it is not already devoted to attacking (either because of its most recent action or because it has just been attacked).



4E

DM: I cast Word of Chaos. *rolls dice* I hit will 28

Player: you got me.

DM: You take *rolls dice* 20 damage and are slowed* and dazed**. Save ends both.

* slowed = movement speed becomes 2
** dazed = you can only take one action per turn. you grant combat advantage.




QuotePersonally, I've found that 3.5 seems to provide a better environment for long campaigns and 4th ed is great for a weekend "We're going on a 23 hours dungeon crawl, bring Mt. Dew and Snacks".

I know we've talked about this on the forum somewhere before and I'm beating a dead horse, but what in 4e exactly do you think makes it difficult to run a long campaign? I'm PCing in a 4e campaign that's approaching its first birthday, so I have definitely not had that experience.

Bebek Sincap Ratatosk

I'm sure that it can be done... don't get me wrong. I've been through a campaign in Savage Worlds so I mean, ANY SYSTEM can be used for campaigning...  ;-)

To be honest, I dunno why it ends up the way it does. We've all done DM'ing in 3.5, we've now all done DMing in 4.0... We've all made the argument that 'I can tell in any system'... but at the end of the day the subjective feeling of the group is 'err'. Now, for us, 3.5 doesn't generally fall into the "OMGZ Gotta look that up again" category, cause we're nerds and have been playing for ages and know most of the crazy stuff (also, the house rule... KNOW YOUR SHIT AND WHAT PAGE TO FIND IT ON IF THERE IS A QUESTION!!! seems to help a lot).

Problems I have with 4th Ed.

1. The Pigeonhole: Our group rarely plays a class straight. We work at coming up with why THIS (ranger, fighter, sorcerer, wizard, cleric etc etc etc) is worth being in whatever epic story is taking place. So we often pick a class and figure out which skills or feats or items or spells would give that character a unique view, unique abilities etc. I once played a human monk that never killed, he just grabbed people and put them to sleep. We had a half-giant sorcerer that was entirely melee and all of his spells were about defense or physical buffing. Etc etc... 4th Ed (at least in the games I've played) seems to have mechanics that strongly encourage (not necessarily force though) the player to play the same general role for that class.

2. Skill Challenges - Again, we have often done stuff entirely opposite of the expected standards... "Here's a challenge, you can use Skill X, Y or Z" vs "Here's a challenge... what do you do?

So in short, with tweaks and ignoring some of the rules, we've been able to play the way we like... but 3.5 doesn't require nearly as much hacking to make the world we want to play in.

I think....
- I don't see race. I just see cars going around in a circle.

"Back in my day, crazy meant something. Now everyone is crazy" - Charlie Manson

Requia ☣

Quote from: Professor Freeky on May 24, 2010, 08:39:26 PM
I firmly support Paizo's Pathfinder system as the next update to WotC D&D 3.5. Even if 4th ed doesn't suck o some people, it's very nearly a totally different game now. Also I don't know anyone personally who wants to play 4th ed.

Pretty much this, beginning to end.
Inflatable dolls are not recognized flotation devices.

Requia ☣

Quote from: Sigmatic on May 24, 2010, 07:12:27 PM
What I find interesting is how, whenever I hear DnD players talk about playing DnD, they seem to have this unspoken assumption that once 4th ed came out, they weren't allowed (somehow) to play 3.5,

Is that normal?

When 3.0 came out, and again with 3.5, it very quickly became impossible to find a game run in the older style.  Everyone wanted to move to the new thing.

I haven't seen that happen with fourth though, I know more 3.5 and pathfinder games that are going on than 4th games.
Inflatable dolls are not recognized flotation devices.

Freeky

Quote from: Sigmatic on May 24, 2010, 07:12:27 PM
What I find interesting is how, whenever I hear DnD players talk about playing DnD, they seem to have this unspoken assumption that once 4th ed came out, they weren't allowed (somehow) to play 3.5,

Is that normal?

They discontinue old books, and get rid of the free downloads they have for the old system, which makes it near impossible to get new stuff to play, as Requia says.