James Wyatt wrote:
James, you are talking to the community that had to have a weight limit put on Tenser's Floating Disc beacuse we were prying the doors off of their hangings and selling them. There is no such thing as a magic item beneath our notice.
RAILROAD!!!!!!!!!!(exclamation mark)
Oh if he has an artificer monacle, everytime he hits a dc of 50 appraise check he automatically identifies the item after a minute study. Or you can just persist detect magic on him.
James, you are talking to the community that had to have a weight limit put on Tenser's Floating Disc beacuse we were prying the doors off of their hangings and selling them. There is no such thing as a magic item beneath our notice.
hell yeah, every time i see a mithral/adamantine door i get a warm, fuzzy feeling in my greedy little heart
I thought we were using Silent Portal Disks to make door ninjas.
no, some guys take the doors out of every dungeon and sell to a corporation that then makes a army of ninja-doors. They need materials, you know.
no, some guys take the doors out of every dungeon and sell to a corporation that then makes a army of ninja-doors. They need materials, you know.
And this is how the world progresses from D&D to Shadowrun.
Ofcourse, we haven't seen many magic items yet, if any, so maybe its ok. If a 10th level magic item is +1 to hit and +2 damage longsword, and it is found by a 5th level character, then maybe it isn't that bad. ... but somehow I don't think that is the case.
..Oh, never mind, it looks like they plan on letting me do just that.
What sparked this post?
Could be a post of mine, oddly enough. At least that's the inspiration for the title. Not sure why Tsuyoshi is making a thread-reply to the post that he is.
In all seriousness though, we shouldn't be slandering the guy. He's just a guy that tries to do his job, gets lazy about some things and messes up (a lot) because of it. It just makes him human. Annoying perhaps, but still human.
Saying we disagree with a ruling is one thing, but it IS rude and disrespectful to say things about the man himself without the evidence to support them.
Saying Sage is on Crack = Bad.
Saying Sage makes decisions as if he's on crack = Good.
This is honestly one of the things that I think most games running traditional table-top will be managing on their own ... but were going to tweak anyway.
James, you are talking to the community that had to have a weight limit put on Tenser's Floating Disc beacuse we were prying the doors off of their hangings and selling them. There is no such thing as a magic item beneath our notice.
I think he's saying that if you're level 10, all level 1-9 items will have mysteriously disappeared from the universe (except for whatever you have in your hot little hands). So you can't pile up a wheelbarrow full of 'em since they have ceased to exist.
It's a definite sacrifice of realism for game mechanics, and a very clear one when you consider the party dealing with reasonably large numbers of relatively low level enemies. The idea is that there just isn't going to be that much to sell; magic items are rarer, so that drow raiding party isn't all decked out in +1 Cloaks of Resistance, +1 Rapiers, and +1 Mithral Chain Shirts. Because the drow nations can't afford to do so. Instead, most of the drow are equipped with regular rapiers, and the leader has a +2 rapier; he's special and has friends in high places, perhaps. (Anyway, we all know all drow use two scimitars.)
However, I can see myself adjusting these treasure packages. If package 6 is 14,000 gp, there's no reason why I might not replace that with low level magic items that the party won't use, but will sell for 14,000 gp. Well... I need to see how this disenchant ritual works out, but otherwise, it should be safe to perform that adjustment. Noting that magical equipment sells for 1/5 market value (and is normally resold by merchants at over market value...), this should allow a few +1 rapiers in the wheelbarrow for the same impact as a fat sack of gold coins.
As regards the doors, well, I figure it'll be hard to find someone who can actually afford to buy that large a piece of the raw metal. Which is of course avoided by chopping the door into pieces.
This is all in reference to http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20080514a which is today's preview excerpt.
As regards the doors, well, I figure it'll be hard to find someone who can actually afford to buy that large a piece of the raw metal. Which is of course avoided by chopping the door into pieces.
Are these doors going to be factored in as parcels?
This parcel thing seems odd. I see the balance issue behind it, but what all does it factor in? In games I've run, at low levels, the players grab about every salvagable weapon and suit of armor off of every orc they kill. It will often sell for a quarter of the value, but it can add up. Is all this figured into this new parcel system?
Are these doors going to be factored in as parcels?
This parcel thing seems odd. I see the balance issue behind it, but what all does it factor in? In games I've run, at low levels, the players grab about every salvagable weapon and suit of armor off of every orc they kill. It will often sell for a quarter of the value, but it can add up. Is all this figured into this new parcel system?
In the excerpt posted, there's no indication of it being factored in. My instinct is to make sure that whatever is saleable of the equipment on the slain should be factored in (at the sale price, not the purchase price), though with many types of monsters, you can cut that to no value if you really want to - just make sure the players understand that they're getting the right amount of treasure.
The doors comment is based on the players taking something that was never meant to be treasure and using it as such. If you design your dungeons and encounters to match wealth by level, and then the players come up with a smart idea on how to get more money (they're going to pry the adamantine door off its hinges to sell 100 lb. of adamantine, probably worth in excess of 100,000 gp)... what do you do?
A) Veto the idea and give them no reward despite the idea likely being worthy of some reward. (You can't get the door off, nobody will buy it, rocks fall, everybody dies, etc.)
B) Allow them to pull off the idea, and now they've broken the Wealth By Level table...
B.1) And you just let them be ahead of the game, as a reward for having a good idea.
B.2) And you adjust later treasure (or get them robbed) to put them back at the overall wealth they should have for game balance.
Or you find some way to prevent the ideas from coming up (never having anything of any conceivable value in the dungeon except for what you plan for them to get as treasure; destroys realism).
My instinct is to go towards B.2; let them have the glorious idea, but make them work for it; nobody is going to buy 100 lb. of adamantine, so you'll have to break it up into chunks that are within the means of your prospective buyers, find those buyers, and so on. Make them work for it, and then make sure that they find ways to spend the money, lose the money, or just not get as much elsewhere such that they end up ahead of the game, but not drastically.
The primary adjustment seems to be that either you adjust the treasure packets to remove coinage and add saleable equipment stripped from dead monsters, or you provide an explanation why the sale value of the monster equipment is virtually nil. I prefer the former; it provides greater variety in treasure. If you want to give the party 50 gp of loot for killing that small orc scouting party, it's not 50 gold coins. It's, say... 8 gold coins, 20 silver coins, 5 crude greataxes (will probably be sold for the iron rather than as axes), 8 crude throwing axes, and 5 sets of crude, dirty scale armor. Now all that equipment sells for 40 gold, because of the condition, craftsmanship, and sizes (orc-sized scale armor doesn't fit most people very well).
Or you talk to your players, and let them understand the changed paradigm, and they do find 50 gold coins, and ignore the rest of the stuff.
When the PCs run across the trip wire and the bells start to ring they coat their weapons, drink their potions and ready an ambush.
Regular NPCs need little more than Oils and Potions, as well as terrain advantage(ambushes where applicable) to keep them combat viable for several levels. Occassionally throw in something real just to keep it interesting but save the majority of the loot for unique NPCs or else the PCs are going to go over wealth by level faster than a...I can't think of a good metaphor, but very fast!
When I DM, if the players come up with something clever and are able to get more wealth than I intended to give out, I reward their creativity. If I punished them later for it, that would only discourage them from trying new and innovative things later in the game. If they want to spend time dealing with unusual and/or hard to transport treasure, they can do so, but I would make sure they realize that there's an opportunity cost to doing so, that the time spent moving it and selling it is time not spent gaining XP to gain more levels(and more treasure.
The one issue with this is that unless there's a time-sensitive component to the campaign (and generally I suspect there is), they don't lose anything but some table time, and they potentially make a huge boost in equipment value (hopefully this is notably less apparent in 4th edition).
Of course, depending on setting, they might just not have access to anywhere that they can get the higher level gear at the moment, so they just have a large cash surplus.
And to be clear, I wouldn't want to punish the players. I would, however, want to make some adjustments to bring their wealth back into line with the underlying assumptions of the system... at least unless I felt comfortable tweaking encounters to account for this advantage on their part. I'd just engineer some low-cash-yield adventures (high on XP, plot, and fun, hopefully), and find some things for them to spend money on to low mechanical benefit. Robbing the party is mean and... blatant. Opening up opportunities for them to spend their money on entertainment, the arts, and so on, not so much. With the intent of landing them back in the right ballpark of wealth... but above the expected. Ideally the bright idea would result in a small mechanical advantage and a lot of expanded story/plot for the characters. Whether or not I can pull that off... well, we'll see one day.
Originally Posted by James Wyatt
4th Edition treasure works like this:
The 5th-level NPC has a 6th-level item—not because he needs it, but because it’s one of the treasure parcels. The characters don’t find magic items that are beneath their notice—they won’t walk out of the drow enclave with a wheelbarrow full of +1 rapiers.
Dear Mr. Wyatt:
Get your stupid, mindless MMO out of my table top game please. If I wanted to play a game with no depth or mental/social interaction I would fire up any number of MMO's or FPS games and play them.
It is rules like the above that take intelligence and credibility out of the table top gaming rules set and places it squarely in the realm of 'Adventure' back in the days of the Atari 2600.
Really, we're talking perception and story versus cost. The story and suspension of disbelief is the DM's region of control.
Party kills the bad guys ... then loot drop ... and in most cases once things are below a certain threshold they really are just cash ... they are funny shaped bags of gold. They don't look like bags of gold, but that's what they are.
Kinda like a Christmas when my mom bought me a shop vac. I mean, I already had a shop vac. That makes the shop vac she sent me a really funny shaped and impractical to carry gift card to Home Depot. It's a cart full of +1 rapiers.
So, as a DM, you allocate one parcel and decide what form that Ygp takes. Maybe it is masterwork chain, some nifty rapiers, etc. If you as a DM decide that when the drow are defeated they turn into little barrels or sacks, so be it. Similarly, when you allocate the three on the dragon you don't roll random bits and hope they add up to X total cost. You have X total cost and use whatever method you want (like say, a hoard description generator) to decide there's a pair of platinum candlesticks, a bolt of ettercap silk, a suite of mithral plated steel full-plate armor, etc.
The mechanic is the roll ... the DM's job is a role.
Mor
Remember: anything not nailed down or on fire is loot. Anything I can extinguish is not on fire. Anything I can pry loose is not nailed down.
Remember: anything not nailed down or on fire is loot. Anything I can extinguish is not on fire. Anything I can pry loose is not nailed down.
ROFL! Where's that quote thread??
ROFL! Where's that quote thread??
Its a pretty common phrase, I think it was in the Quotes thread. Not sure where it originated, but the Board Quotes thread is the one that spread it around here.
what up with the 10 encounters, and your 5th level team gets their 10th level gear in the second encounter? doesn't that make ALL the encouters that much easier?
around the 8th encounter, everything is way outa whack, because my measily +1 sword has been replaced with the whoopie sword +blarg and what WAS a balanced level 5 encounter is now getting ultrasmote by bardarses who upon levelling have difficulties agaiin???
Er.... wut????
why not just let folks retrain after every encoun... no, wait,
why not just let folks retrain as a "second wind" midcombat?
just to step back for a second; this is the same arguement for EVERY edition of the game-- any game. The only way to keep the team balanced is to put a freeze on available resources per encounter. You can take as much junk as you want and do whatever you want with it... the only way it doesn't break is if you arbitrarily decide what resources are available in the moment.
Dear Mr. Wyatt:
Get your stupid, mindless MMO out of my table top game please. If I wanted to play a game with no depth or mental/social interaction I would fire up any number of MMO's or FPS games and play them.
It is rules like the above that take intelligence and credibility out of the table top gaming rules set and places it squarely in the realm of 'Adventure' back in the days of the Atari 2600.
I don't know what MMOs you've been playing, but every MMO I have played (5) is full of "I fill up every space of my bags with stuff I have no intention of using and only want to sell."
I'm not saying the parcel system is great, but its hardly an MMO-ism.
I don't know what MMOs you've been playing, but every MMO I have played (5) is full of "I fill up every space of my bags with stuff I have no intention of using and only want to sell."
I'm not saying the parcel system is great, but its hardly an MMO-ism.
Yep. Evidently those merchants can never have enough badger tails.
My instinct is to go towards B.2; let them have the glorious idea, but make them work for it; nobody is going to buy 100 lb. of adamantine, so you'll have to break it up into chunks that are within the means of your prospective buyers, find those buyers, and so on. Make them work for it, and then make sure that they find ways to spend the money, lose the money, or just not get as much elsewhere such that they end up ahead of the game, but not drastically.
Do your players a favor and just say, "You can't get the door off the hinges," and eliminate all the contrived time-wasting mechanics -- you are arriving at the same end.
Its a pretty common phrase, I think it was in the Quotes thread. Not sure where it originated, but the Board Quotes thread is the one that spread it around here.
Yeah, paraphrased a common saying.
Yeah, it just makes no logical sense. Your characters will be, literally, the weakest people in the world, because everyone they fight will be a challenge to them while the characters have magic items and the monsters don't.
"Forget the ring. The ring is bupkus. I found it in a Cracker Jack box. The Schwartz is in you, Lone Starr. It's in you."
-- Yogurt
If it's not nailed down or on fire its loot. Once we are done with that its time to break out the water and crowbars.
It follows the prime directive of dungeon crawling.
Step 1: Loot everything man portable
Step 2: **** the women (I just quote I don't make these up)
Step 3: Pillage, ie take everything I couldn't get in step 1
Step 4: burn what's left if you can't hold the territory, if you can wait for everything to refresh and then repeat
It's a very clear system, been around since Vikings. If you mess with the order bad things happen. Step 1 has to be first because otherwise people will run off with the portable stuff; Step 2 has to be next because otherwise they'll get away during the pillaging. Once you are done with the Step 2 you get the water and crowbars out for the pillaging, any later and you need more water, and Step 4 is last because it's hard to do any of the previous steps with everything on fire. (also I know there was no Step X: profit! joke but that is because all the steps lead to profit; further note step 2 may be ommitted because it's seriously wrong on many levels.)
Dear Mr. Wyatt:
Get your stupid, mindless MMO out of my table top game please. If I wanted to play a game with no depth or mental/social interaction I would fire up any number of MMO's or FPS games and play them.
It is rules like the above that take intelligence and credibility out of the table top gaming rules set and places it squarely in the realm of 'Adventure' back in the days of the Atari 2600.
I love how people are ready to cry "IT'S A MOREPIG!" at anything 4E does, even if the same thing existed in 3e or is the opposite of how morepigs do it.
Yeah, paraphrased a common saying.
Doesn't matter to me, this is the first I've seen it.
And all this talk of Vikings is bringing me back to the Muppet Show. Think we can find some Pillage Idiots around here?
@ Bejik: there is a lot to be said for clarity, yes. Miscommunications can be disastrous. "Wait a second...are you sure it's violate the LAND and salt the WOMEN?"
"I keep telling him, it's **** the women and set fire to the houses-"
"****?"
"He's eighty-seven, don't go spoiling an old man's dreams."
Name the source.
Is it "Interesting Times" by Terry Pratchett, by any chance? Something to do with Cohen's group, anyway, I'm sure.
Indeed it is.
if you care about that sort of thing.general: **** the fields and pillage the women!
soldier: um, sir...
general: You heard me!
Ah, like that time we raped the horses and rode off on the women. ((badly remembered, but that's the gist of it - anyone want to name the source? I'll give you a cookie!))
Three Amigos.
Three Amigos.
I think there was a Monty Python skit or something (pretty sure it was British anyways) with a bunch of barbarians running around burning a village:
general: **** the fields and pillage the women!
soldier: um, sir...
general: You heard me!
Well, it sure beats marching up and down the square....
I love how people are ready to cry "IT'S A MOREPIG!" at anything 4E does, even if the same thing existed in 3e or is the opposite of how morepigs do it.
Sorry if you don't like the correlary Logic but there it is. I have been playing table top for going on 28+ years and I have been doing MMO's since UO first went live. I have a very deep understanding of both (even if I say so myself) and I find that the loot concept described if independant of common sense and an interaction with a consistent world.
In an MMO, run by a computer, where you need to code anything that can possibly happen in the game, I am willing to let it happen, as it is limited in what it can do and sacrifices have to be made from realism just so the MMO can work. It would take a true AI to make an MMO anything close to the experience that a table top game can and should be. An MMO is simply a computer game (as limited as they are even in their size and scope) that you can play cooperatively with others.
In a table top RPG, it is intolerable. You have PEOPLE at the table and PEOPLE running the game. They don't have to have a string of computer code that makes the game happen and keeps it FAIR for everyone playing. Your have actual human brains that can make independant decisions and come up with idea's, adapting and changing on the fly. While the parcel system may be a nice concept on how to handle treasure, some of the presentation and premise is very much 'pre-programmed' in it's handling and independant of the concept of a living game world, which is definately smack dab in the MMO genre.
4E is definately moving to a more action based rather than RP based framework, where the playing of the combat and the gathering of the loot is more important than the REASONS for doing so. While some today like that style of game, and I admit that combat and loot (IMO) are an integral part of the fun of gaming, it is not ALL of RP Gaming and everything I have read on he 4E has only reinforced that perception to me.
I see far too many sacrifices in the name of playability and balance at the expense of story and common sense in the new rules. Compromises that have to be made in MMO's given their nature, but not that have to be made so wholesale in TT.
And since the writers of 4E have SAID that much of it is inspired by MMO's in video interviews, I feel safe in my statements.
I see far too many sacrifices in the name of playability and balance at the expense of story and common sense in the new rules. Compromises that have to be made in MMO's given their nature, but not that have to be made so wholesale in TT.
Right, because who cares if a game is actually fun to play as long as the story is perfect?
Common sense has a different meaning for me. Common sense to me is that everyone at the table is contributing and having fun. That means game balance, and that means playability. Story is of course an invaluable component, but at some point people are going to stop having fun if you tart ignoring too many rules. It's like theatre: suspension of disbelief.
If the rules are too expansive, I and my play group, as humans with brains (as opposed to a limited programming computer), can decide which rules to leave out or modify so that our play style is served.
The new 4th edition rules are, bluntly, in a great too many aspects, TOO streamlined, TOO simplified, TOO action oriented. You can do prettu much everything I have seen for 4th edition in 3.5, either as it is or with the adapatation of the GOOD idea's 4th edition has (and I admit there is good in there) into the 3.5 framework. You cannnot do the reverse though.
I would rather have many more options that, in convention are mostly logical and sound when taken as rules and as functions of a campaign world, than fewer options that are non logical or consistant in that aspect but more 'streamlined'.
You can 'streamline' 3.5 and come up with more sensible rules that, if you want, you can get more detailed with.
Right, because who cares if a game is actually fun to play as long as the story is perfect?
Is this a criticism of the game system or of how some people choose to run a game?
In the end ask yourself this: What will 4E let you do that 3.5 doesn't already let you do?
PC: I will grab the guy and throw him into the wall.
3.5: Make a Bull Rush attempt.
4th: Invalid command syntax. Please try again.
- I do not work for WOTC
- This represents my opinions and observations only
I see far too many sacrifices in the name of playability and balance at the expense of story and common sense in the new rules. Compromises that have to be made in MMO's given their nature, but not that have to be made so wholesale in TT.
Here is the crux of it right here. I've said this on a dozen forums now.
The way people play D&D has changed.
Maybe not you. Maybe not your grouop. But the big picture "people", has changed. Table-top is not the same thing it used to be.
Remember 3.5 ... where the sage and rules expects each game to have a DM to adjucate? That's because the target market were groups of people that tended to play together for long periods of time with a consistent DM. Time could be spent on that, because for the sake of that one singlular game, it wasn't a huge issue.
Things ARE different. I've been playing for years and honestly things have changed. Some of that relates to increased play through the organized play programs -- the RPGA, conventions, game days, etc. Others relate to things as simple as the increaed penetration of the internet into homes, the availability of higher-speed data connections and ease of development and adoption of online tools and systems.
The point of 4E isn't to make some grand changes for that group of folks who are relatively static and play in a vacuum. Where's the business case in that? I don't have insight into their strategies, release schedules, etc. but I feel pretty confident in that observation and the ones that follow.
Is it to make money? Ultimately, yes. Don't think this is targetted at poor individual gamer who spent lots of money on 3.x and WOTC must hate him to make him buy more books. It's not. It's about the many, many more gamers WOTC thinks can be brought into D&D community (driving the sales of books and other products). It's about people like me that don't bother to play more than one setting because the cruch in one setting versus another is annoying ... and providing a simpler system that enables this (and drives the sales of books and other products). It's about encouraging organized play in game stores, at conventions, etc. so that different people can come in, sit down and play without first having to describe how the XYZ situation is resolved today ... and instead, start playing (and of course you're playing near all that other cool material so hopefully you'll buy some more product).
How "we" game is different. It really is. 4E is their vision for a product set that will make the most of these changes and enable D&D to reach an even larger set of players than before.
Here is the crux of it right here. I've said this on a dozen forums now.
The way people play D&D has changed.
Maybe not you. Maybe not your grouop. But the big picture "people", has changed. Table-top is not the same thing it used to be.
A very insightful post. It may very well be the case.
All I know is that I play MMO's as something to do to pass the time. I play Tabletop because it is a passion. The quality of experience between an MMO and a really good group of people RPing in a decent tabletop campaign are so vastly different in quality as to be comparing apples and oranges.
MMO's are the D&D I was playing in 8th grade. It is bright lights, fast combat and glittering loot.
But table top grew into it's own artform with depth and detail and co-creativity and I am seeing that concept get trimmed out in favor of 'simplicity of use and speed of play' and I guess I find that concetp insulting. That your average gamer has such a limited imagination and attention span that simple and fast is what the originator of RPG's should be providing.
That already exists in computer games. Table top is IMO the step you take to ADVANCE your hobby.
But maybe I am alone in that view these days. All I know is that if all RPgaming was, was killing the monsters for phat lewt and XP, I wouldn't want to play it any more.
Its a business.
There are a lot of people working on it that really care about the game and want to make it better, but fundamentally it comes down to a business decision. If creating a new edition will boost sales, it will probably happen.
At some point in any edition of an RPG there is a point of diminishing returns. They've already put out the core books (which sell the best), and have put out as many supplements, specific campaign settings and adventures that they can, and are at the point where the core fan base isn't buying as much as they used to. A new edition injects enthusiasm and boosts sales, because people have to buy all new books. Sure they are going to lose a few people in the process, but the boost in sales from the rest of the market overcomes that. Many gamers by a few core books, and don't buy everything that comes out. The people on these boards probably buy a heck of a lot more books than the average player. A new edition gets those people that only buy the core books to go out and spend money again.
They will try to fix what they perceive as the flaws of the current edition so that the current gamers will want it, and they hope that the people who looked at the current edition and passed on it will give them another shot.
There is probably a group of people at WOTC(or any other gaming company) that look at the market to decide when they've reached the point where a new edition makes economic sense. Do it too soon, and you leave money on the table from the old edition, and anger your fan base. Wait too long and your sales have dropped off, and you aren't making money like you used to.
I see my time in my RL TT group being spent more crafting the story and worrying less about the rules. I think I can add plenty of detail in the story ... as much as I want. I think there will still be fluff books and adventures with read-aloud text.
It's kinda like a reverse Stormwind Fallacy ...
The rules may be sparse, limited and brief ... but you can still add as much flavor, fluff and detail as you want.
It's 14,000 gp of "stuff". You can decide what that stuff is and make it as much of your story as you want ... or you can tell the party it's 2700 gp each in an abstract container or credit account.
But table top grew into it's own artform with depth and detail and co-creativity and I am seeing that concept get trimmed out in favor of 'simplicity of use and speed of play' and I guess I find that concetp insulting. That your average gamer has such a limited imagination and attention span that simple and fast is what the originator of RPG's should be providing.
You're missing the point.
What WotC is doing, as CG very insightfully points out, is making the game accessible to a wider audience. There's a very simple decision behind this: it is easy for someone who wants the complexity to play with a simple ruleset, but it is not easy for someone who wants a simple ruleset to play a complex one. If you want to call it pandering to the lowest common denominator, that's a valid argument... except that Wizards is a business and their job is to sell a product to as many people as possible.
Barring accidents, D&D books do not need to be replaced. Each book is, generally, a one-time source of income for WotC. This isn't Magic, folks: you make an initial investment and you're done. For that kind of model to work, Wizards needs to sell to a lot of people.
So how is Wizards going to sell to a lot of people? Create a streamlined, sexy product that ANYONE can pick up and play. I took a girl that had never played D&D before to a 4E demo; after watching the game for an hour, she had a very good grasp on the base rules. This from a system where it used to take that long for an optimizer to fill out a character sheet.
Wizards are going to upset some people no matter what they do. And if, when the rules actually come out, you try them and feel discouraged, don't feel bad -- you're a sizable minority in the active D&D community. You're just not a sizable part of the POTENTIAL community at all.
In the end ask yourself this: What will 4E let you do that 3.5 doesn't already let you do?
Run a campaign without any spellcasting characters, without dramatically altering the ruleset.
Run a well-balanced campaign without volumes of house rules (and even more unspoken ones).
Play in a game that plays better--a lot of the 4E stuff was designed to influence play.
Play in a game and be able to pick any of the classes, without having no use outside of combat because of the class I picked, and without having to say "i full attack" over and over.
Run a campaign in which the characters aren't covered in magic items, without completely shattering any semblance of game balance and making the game mechanically almost unplayable. Slap a handful of inherent bonuses on and you don't even have to adjust monsters. Meanwhile, in 3.5... where does a fighter with no magic items get AC from, exactly?
Have trap mechanics that don't blow goats for pocket change.
You seem to share this weird elitist attitude a lot of D&D players have, like having learned a ridiculously convoluted ruleset somehow makes you better, and anyone playing with simpler rules that play better is inferior ("they don't have the intelligence/attention span for this!"). It's something I'm more used to seeing among 2E players, actually.
Almost all of the best games out there are simple and play fast. Spirit of the Century, Nobilis (which is enormously complicated conceptually, but has a very simple ruleset), Weapons of the Gods (the system isn't very complicated--but it's very tactical, and trying to crunch the odds can be hard), etc.
"Simplicity of use and speed of play" are not bad things. They don't interefere with the good stuff. They make the crunchy parts better.
You will still be able to roleplay all you like in 4th edition. It will be exactly as much about "phat lewt and XP" as 3.5 was (less about phat lewt, actually--less item dependency).
Being needlessly complicated and slow to play is not a GOOD thing. It's a bad thing. Rolling six attacks, with to-hit rolls, concealment rolls, some crit confirmation, and then damage for them, does not enhance the gaming experience. It affects how you play. It makes roleplaying harder, because everyone's chatting or making monty python references while you're rolling handfuls of dice. It slows down the game, giving you less game for your time. One of my favorite characters was a Chaotic Bastard Eberronian-drow mercenary with a rock-star attitude. He was an absolute blast to play, and he was effective in combat (the rest of the party wasn't overly optimized)... but, god, with the tripping and attacks his turn took long enough... and then when the enemies went he proceeded to slow the game to a crawl as he made more rolls than everyone else combined.
What's more, part of the simplicity is a shift from character building to tactics. ToB aside, a lot of 3.5 characters are more fun to build than they are to play. Lockdown fighters are an example of this. You do this same (albeit rather effective) thing over and over. 4E's improving on that, letting you affect the combat situation tactically from round to round in ways that were only really availible to wizards in 3.5.
It makes roleplaying harder, because everyone's chatting or making monty python references while you're rolling handfuls of dice.
NOBODY EXPECTS THE LOGIC NINJA INQUISITION!!!!!
Sorry, it had to be said.
That out of my system....cheers LN! I give you a +1 for this post.
It makes roleplaying harder, because everyone's chatting or making monty python references while you're rolling handfuls of dice.
Very true. In said 4E demo, everyone was in-game except for one instance -- when the map was being figured out.
Have trap mechanics that don't blow goats for pocket change.
Is that your favorite phrase or something? :P
Fortunately, I already have prepackaged 4e-related comments on simplicity and dumbing down in my sig. One of them links to a [post=13243450]post[/post] by ArcTan where he voices concerns similar to yours, LN - if a deal more explicitly.
I took a girl that had never played D&D before to a 4E demo
Tsuyo went out with a girl.
C'mon buddy, tell us how you did it. Was it the pirate outfit?
Is that your favorite phrase or something? :P
Fortunately, I already have prepackaged 4e-related comments on simplicity and dumbing down in my sig. One of them links to a [post=13243450]post[/post] by ArcTan where he voices concerns similar to yours, LN - if a deal more explicitly.
I read through some of the rest of the thread that was posted in. I wish I hadn't.
People, people, we're all missing an important point here...
Tsuyo went out with a girl.
C'mon buddy, tell us how you did it. Was it the pirate outfit?
This doesn't surprise me. Tsuyo struck me as the social type. Unlike myself. :P
People, people, we're all missing an important point here...
Tsuyo went out with a girl.
C'mon buddy, tell us how you did it. Was it the pirate outfit?
Actually, in that case? Yes. And that would be the second girl that hat has gotten me.
(If you watch really closely in the first PotC when Jack says to Barbossa, "I'll get you a hat, a really big one," for a split second you can see him think "Girls!")
I read through some of the rest of the thread that was posted in. I wish I hadn't.
I feel that way about the "is ToB too anime?!" thread.
Actually, in that case? Yes. And that would be the second girl that hat has gotten me.
(If you watch really closely in the first PotC when Jack says to Barbossa, "I'll get you a hat, a really big one," for a split second you can see him think "Girls!")
I was going to come up with some sort of picture reply, but it's amazing what kind of things you find when you do a google search for a big hat...
I was going to come up with some sort of picture reply, but it's amazing what kind of things you find when you do a google search for a big hat...
My day-to-daay is a fedora... of that color and style... WHY?!
DEAR SWEET LORD, WHY?!
"Back in my day, you had to ask the DM if there were even swords!"
You gain a pile of +1 Rapiers.
In addition, you gain a +1 sacred cow bonus against Video Games, Ideas that Sound Like They Might Come From a Video Game, and Ideas that Might Be Related to Gaming That You Don't Like.
up, repugnant , LN.Pile of Rapiers
"Back in my day, you had to ask the DM if there were even swords!"
You gain a pile of +1 Rapiers.
In addition, you gain a +1 sacred cow bonus against Video Games, Ideas that Sound Like They Might Come From a Video Game, and Ideas that Might Be Related to Gaming That You Don't Like.
Is that a fighter bonus feat?
That's some
It's hilaristurbing.
Gail Simone writes some fine comics.
Now I was discussing with friends, including two anti-4E (on the sacrificing too much simulation front), the stuff about the treasure, and also the magic threshold for monsters.
The worst phrase, for them, was actually,
The 5th-level NPC has a 6th-level item—not because he needs it, but because it’s one of the treasure parcels.
The reaction was "why does he have it? Why is he carrying around an item he doesn't use? Just so the party can have it?"
Of course, my response was "he doesn't need it, that doesn't mean it isn't something appropriate to him that he wants to use."
But then I foolishly pointed out that he doesn't need a +1 rapier to be effective in combat, because he's, say, 6th level, and thus a +1 rapier provides him no benefit; a +2 would. But what's to stop me, especially seeing the relatively low costs of items, from saying that what he has is a +1 rapier? The party's not going to use it? Great, that 6th level item (if they hadn't provided a level in the example, I would have picked one out of a hat. Sadly, my hat does not help me get girls.) counts as 360 gold in the treasure packet the party gets. Well, that's if I'm not trying to give them an item; that's how I address the wheelbarrow of +1 rapiers: I talk to the players and determine if they want to be told they got cash, or goods. If they want the abstraction, bam, they got a wheelbarrow of gold instead of a wheelbarrow of +1 rapiers. If they don't, and I expect any I run with wouldn't, +1 rapiers. That 5th level NPC with the 6th level item he doesn't need? Well it might be an item that's just totally inappropriate for the fight; he had no conceivable reason to have pulled it out and used it; they were boots of water walking, and he was in a dry cave.
But the sacrifice of reality simulation to allow not giving out "irrelevant" magic items by giving monsters a magic item threshold really got their goat. Me, I'm on the fence about that aspect. It seems to me, with those item costs, that it's probably a non-issue to reflavor the gear of 6th-level and up item-users to include appropriately-leveled magic equipment that the party will have little use for, and chop out gp rewards.
In the long run, I want to see the whole system and decide when I see it all. Trying to decide based on combining narrow-angle snapshots is just rough.
It's hilaristurbing.
Gail Simone writes some fine comics.
Which comic was that?
Which comic was that?
Based on art style and the character? I'd say Batman.
Why not enjoy an old multi flavored, well tasting, but very holed, cheese AND a new and more well packaged one?
Only bummer with this whole 4th edition thang thang is the loss of Autumn IMO.
I myself have never considered doing that. I usually loot bodies, sure, but personally I never really care that much about that aspect of the game ... almost universally in 3.x you would just sell whatever you got at 1/2 cost and buy something you needed between sessions or at the end of a session when everyone was doing housekeeping. there was rarely any roleplaying interaction with storekeepers and the like, typically in the interests of time (when I DM anymore, I like to occasionally throw in RP buying sessions; i came up with a store that used a silent image based item to have virtual displays of gear on a 'manikin'). and, by the same token, figuring out how to break down each and every part in a dungeon or castle or townhouse or whatever is so ... boring. I want story, not looting!
So, when I saw the item packages, my first thought was exactly like yours: where's the realism? but now, I think: this should make my job as a player and as a DM easier. Since it's designed to be precisely balanced, you don't have to worry about power creep or under-equipped parties. as much, anyway; we don't know how this will work in practice. And as many of you have stated, that Y gp can be turned into 10 +1 rapiers with no trouble; or art pieces, or doors in the dungeon if your players run that way.
what has always struck me about D&D in comparison to other systems is that Wizards can release many, many books on a regular basis, and all of those books/mechanics/fluff/etc are designed to make a DM and a players job easier. (ironically, with the sometimes Magic-esk issue of cardsets not being designed with each other in mind, combos appear that just shatter the game to it's core; think Pun-Pun. A sarruk was NOT designed to eventually lead to Pun-Pun). Basically they are providing you with tools to save you time. If you are a noob and haven't played much, designing your own monsters/classes/prestige classes/affiliations/spells/items/etc is daunting and might not end very well ... but when wizards puts out a 2 books a month, chances are you'll find something you can use.
The item packages are just one more step in the direction of 'making a GM's life easier'. By simply saying: hey, 10 encounters = 10 packages; and if party is X level, use X package list and everything should be balanced! they have allowed the GM to spend more time on story and character development. which is the GM's job, after all!
just my two cp ... long winded tho it was :P
I was sure it was an alice in wonderland rewrite......
It's the Mad Hatter int he Secret Six, recruited by them because they need a mentalist to oppose Dr. Psycho.
He's foaming at the mouth because he's using the Hat on himself like a big ol dose of pure brain cocaine (tasping, if you like Kzin). When they found him he was comatose with euphrenia brought on by his hat tasping himself.
==Aelryinth