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Dungeons and Dragons

I will 100% admit I'm one of those folks who dislike 4th ED on the basis of it being new and being grumpy about having to read rule books all over again.

HOWEVER, I AM willing to give it a shot with someone who can explain it while I'm doing it. It meaning, character creation, battles, all these new powers and stuff. I won't rule it out as a system I won't use, but I'm not really happy about having to learn another system.

I will say that I don't like the changes to the tieflings and the lack of aasimars when I first started reading the books. I don't like the massive ugly horns, the weird eyes, the really long tails, and strange weapons. Everything I understood about tieflings/aasimars were that they looked human with the exception of some trait. It could be as obtuse as reddish skin, the constant smell of brimstone, the feeling of awe in their presence, strange colored eyes, and so forth, BUT they remained looking mostly like humans.

For tieflings (as I haven't read much about devas[4th ED name for aasimars because it was mentioned that it sounded much like ass-smear]), I really don't like how demon they've made them. It almost take away my affinity for them. And the dragonborn things are really not my number one choice as a player race. It really seems silly to have a demonic looking race and a draconic looking race as part of your standard start up while eliminating the gnome.

But through all of that, I haven't written the system off from my brief read through. It has, however, put a slight sour taste that they (in my eyes/opinion) ruined one of my favorite 'evil' races. I know that's being really biased, but as I said, I would be willing to try it if someone could summarize things for me to make sense of it.

I would like to add this though. Combat with spell casters in 3.x is only a PITA and overly long if you're playing with people who don't already know what their spell does and HAS to look it up each time they want to cast it. It was one of my requirements for my players to write/type out the spells they chose and KNOW how to use them if they wanted to play a class with spells. It cut out a lot of annoying noobs who wanted everything handed to them or done for them, but it allowed people who had the desire to know the class to learn it and have a great grasp on spells. Thus, our spellcasters didn't eat up a lot of time in fights. They knew I allowed 15 seconds (timed with a stop watch) for their turn in combat, so they quicky found the quickest ways to explain where/how/when they were casting so we could move on with it.

Plus having a co-DM made things a bit easier, too. She knew the casting classes much better than I, so she took on the responsibility to call players trying to pull bullshit. I love her so much. XD

And I will also agree that large groups suck. I've only have one obscenely large group and it went rather well, considering all of what was there. It was mostly meat shields, a cleric, a monk, and two rogues for a totaly of 9 players. While they seems really big, all the meat shields were guys who liked to blow shit up. There was hardly any roleplaying they wanted to be a part of. They other four were the diplomats and roleplayers. When battle came about, the other 5 would come into roleplay their fights much like scenes from action movies and then go back to playing some video games or a card game. It was nice to have them butt out when they knew they wouldn't enjoy it and I wouldn't force them to RP, but it allowed the others to enjoy roleplaying their well drafted PCs without having to be all combat oriented. How nice would it be to be able to play a monk that is of peace and zen-like in attitude and NOT have to worry about what weapons you can use and what ability has to come when and how when you've got a pair of barbarians who mow through a lot of baddies, a ranger who doesn't like animals who's an expert archer, and a pair of fighters who work off each other's class features proving to be a deadly pair to be around?

I did like that group, but it was a hassle to try and make room for 10 people at a table to throw some dice. These days, when there are people to play with, I try and keep it to 3 or less PCs. It allows me to see what they make and give them plenty of options to adpot an NPC that parties with them if they want to, both allowing me to PLAY and DM.
 
That was intelligent and interesting to read. I applaud you for the effort.
 
I just wanted you to know that there was at least one person who didn't like it who loves and adores 3.x, BUT is willing to give 4th a shot if they had someone hold their hand. XD I know that's lame, but I find it easier for someone who knows the rules to summarize stuff because (while I love reading) I don't like reading a lot of fluff text.

Thank you for the compliment. They do not go unnoticed nor unappreciated. ;)
 
I've taught a lot of people how to play 4e. Most when transitioning between the previous version have the most difficulty realizing that grappling is no longer this long complicated process.
 
I will admit that 3.x grappling rules sucks. I tried to avoid grapple rolls, but sometimes, you gotta grapple a bitch who starts a bar fight. ;)
 
They made it painful enough to try to utilize that they might as well not have made the rules considering how few people use them.
 
Yes, I agree. I really hated how grapples worked so much so we hardly ever used them unless there was something someone was really trying to do and no other rolls could be made to avoid it.

If they had revamped that, I think there would have been some interesting content made around grappling and such. It could have added a less intrusive way to get cinematic fist fights going.

There was a houserule that we used sometimes to make grappling easier, but it only really smoothed things out if the players knew what they were doing. Newbs were tough to train since most of them had try to memorize the core books and would argue that the DM was wrong. Worst mistake of newbs ever. ;)
 
Yeah, it's as if they read right over where the books state that they are a guide. That they are rules presented that you can follow.

When you point that out, they get all defensive and argue on further. It's as if no one can admit they might be wrong. Sheesh. lol.
 
Is it going free to play because it's on it's last leg and closing down or is this by the graces of Wizards?
 
Mm, that doesn't mean it's not on it's last leg though.

They did something similar with Tabula Rasa. Let you play free for a month then closed down entirely.
 
I'm having quite a bit of fun with DDO. It's not COMPLETELY free, as there are a few premium classes and races you have to purchase, not to mention a few VIP only quests. But all in all, it's a fun MMO experience unlike any other I've participated in.
 
-casts animate dead.-


So this was originally intended for debate and awesome D&D stories.

I have a story.

So we started playing expedition to castle Ravenloft. Which by the way we figured out that the scenario is broken. The most basic enemy is rated at a CR 2, when test played by me and a buddy with a level 2 party vs one of them...the damn CR 2 zombie killed 2 out of four members and the casters ran out of spells.

It was ridiculous.

THAT aside, we have a party of six mixed levels between 4-7. The fun part comes a bit later on, after adventuring around town for a while we stop by at the inn and go to talk to the important fellow Ismark, well earlier in the game we let a Death Lock escape (zombie caster) and our DM decided it was going to be a reoccurring minor villain for us, and named him Skeletor the annoying. well annoy he did, first then it does is climb down the chimney and while hiding casts cause fear on the noble. He spazzes and decks our fighter square in the fact and bolts like lightning, we manage to wrangle him only to hear a scream from the bathroom a moment later.

My rogue goes to check it out and finds a skeleton in the bathroom murdering a level 1 commoner. After a WTF? (serious, I had to sit there as a player and be like "How the hell did a skeleton get in the bathroom?") I killed it good and we're all in a frantic cause now we're trying to figure out how it happened. The spell was "Create Undead 1" from the spell compendium, which our wizard doesn't have access to for the purpose of not being a broken bastard. Well we all know what it is as players but our characters start spazzing like, "HOW DID A SKELETON GET IN THE BATHROOM?" and we start having this lengthy debate about what possible situations there could be, and decided.

INVISIBLE SKELETONS. It's the only thing that makes sense, so now we're all paranoid that there are invisible skeletons running around town murdering peasants.
 
Oooh, a D&D thread! Joy!

I'll refrain from any commentary on edition wars, so, stories it is...

The screen fades to black, and: the setting is a Californian bedroom. A headstrong young DM, sure in his powers, attempts, foolishly, to run a campaign for but a single player! Not two, nor yet three, and assuredly not four; and 4th edition assumes five, no less.

Still, matters proceed well- the Halfling Rogue in question and her porcine mount-companion make their way into the steampunk city, and all progresses smoothly until they're called upon to investigate a silk-grub plantation just outside of town.

The intended sequence of events involved a giant silk-grub, a darkened well-shaft, a sophisticated and swashbuckling swinging bridge puzzle, and goblin rebels with grenades.

In actuality: the grenades never got picked up, the darkened shaft was never entered, the giant grub never encountered, the puzzle never happened. Our good player bypasses the matter by moving into the worker's village to investigate by posing as....a brothel inspector. This flight of narrative fancy eventually leads to the (belated) introduction of our villains at a fashion show of evil invented from whole cloth with zero preparation, and a fight with some wayward clank-bots.

It was delicious.
 
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