The wizard fellow is crap too. He looks like Warwick Davis in a red suit, then digitally enlarged to be the same size as Ms. Liefield.

Sorry pirate I was unaware. But most people I know never play gnomes. Simple as that. And I love warhammer minis. Funfunfun.

mlai
The wizard fellow is crap too. He looks like Warwick Davis in a red suit, then digitally enlarged to be the same size as Ms. Liefield.

He's not great, but he's more passable than the femme, she's a level bellow... The artist had the same skill limitations when doing both, but wasn't as ambitious with the guy so he avoided some of the more glaring and ugly errors that he had with the "Ms. Liefield" :)

Sidwarrious
And yes getting rid of gnomes is dumb but does anyone ever honestly play a gnome. In 5 years and all my campaigns there has been 1 gnome character PERIOD and he was an NPC shopkeeper.

(ahem) ...Behold, Jenabink, the 5th level gnome sorcerer. She was a fire spell specialist (or a pyromaniac, I guess you could say). She died at the hands of an evil necromancer. I shall miss her so....

piraterpg
What I see as the main problem with D&D is that Wizards are combining it with all their other supplements, such as Eberon. This frankly seems to be a cheap attempt to make quick money.

Such is the way of corporate giants. Sucks.

Ok, I get it, my bad. You guys use gnomes. It's jes everyone I know personally does not.

Poor Jenabink...She had a rack that kept on going and going and going.

It's OK, Jenabink lives on in the hallowed halls of Ironforge....



lol!

I only ever make gnome bards when I make gnomes. Because gnomes are fun bards to play. Hell! There's one in Mercs! He's the "Old Fashioned Jukebox" in one of the pages. But most of my guys like combat oriented characters, which was odd because I run political and story motivated campaigns with maybe 1 fight a session if that.

One thing you guys should understand, though is that IT DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER WHAT WIZARDS DOES. You can play D&D HOWEVER YOU WANT.

You want to play with the 4th edition rules, but still want a gnome? Homebrew. It's not that hard, especially when you're just adapting a pre-existing guy from a different set.

Thats not the point, the point is that Dungeons and Dragons will lose its charm and become substandard if Wizards continues to do this. Hell if we have any indications of what is looming ahead, look at Complete Divine, Book of Exalted Deeds, complete champion and puke at 3 different books about the same thing. If that is the future of D&D it is a sad future.

piraterpg
Thats not the point, the point is that Dungeons and Dragons will lose its charm and become substandard if Wizards continues to do this. Hell if we have any indications of what is looming ahead, look at Complete Divine, Book of Exalted Deeds, complete champion and puke at 3 different books about the same thing. If that is the future of D&D it is a sad future.

Homebrew up some charm.

Lord Shplane
One thing you guys should understand, though is that IT DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER WHAT WIZARDS DOES. You can play D&D HOWEVER YOU WANT.

You want to play with the 4th edition rules, but still want a gnome? Homebrew. It's not that hard, especially when you're just adapting a pre-existing guy from a different set.

Your term "homebrew" is also called GURPS [en.wikipedia.org]. And it would be appreciated if you would tone down the rudeness, Shplane.

piraterpg
Thats not the point, the point is that Dungeons and Dragons will lose its charm and become substandard if Wizards continues to do this.

Exactly.

I'm surprised you actually reprimanded Shplane. No one seems to mind his rudeness because at this point it's like getting mad at a dog for licking its own balls.

But I do kinda agree on both sides since my own Homerules are very different quite often from the actual set Dnd rules, but it is nice to have a base/core set of rules with more form and structure. I'm conflicted.

lastcall

Lord Shplane
One thing you guys should understand, though is that IT DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER WHAT WIZARDS DOES. You can play D&D HOWEVER YOU WANT.

You want to play with the 4th edition rules, but still want a gnome? Homebrew. It's not that hard, especially when you're just adapting a pre-existing guy from a different set.

Your term "homebrew" is also called GURPS [en.wikipedia.org]. And it would be appreciated if you would tone down the rudeness, Shplane.

Err.. sorry if I came off as rude. It's just the way I am. I'm not trying to insult anyone or anything.

My point is, though, that Wizards's actions don't matter. The entire point of D&D and similar games is that you can do basically whatever you want. If you don't like what Wizards is selling, don't use it. Stick with 3.5, and just homebrew your own monsters when you want them. Or you can just adapt the ones that they print for 4. It's just switching around a few numbers.

Maybe, but in a sense that's like if Magic: The Gathering suddenly stopped using "Red" cards. Sure, if you wanted to, you could just draw your own cards, and Hey, maybe your friends wouldn't mind if you used them. They might even ask you to draw them a few of their own. Thing is, though, that doesn't mean the game isn't fundamentally changed, and new players are missing out on something that has no real reason to be removed.

Inkmonkey
Maybe, but in a sense that's like if Magic: The Gathering suddenly stopped using "Red" cards. Sure, if you wanted to, you could just draw your own cards, and Hey, maybe your friends wouldn't mind if you used them. They might even ask you to draw them a few of their own. Thing is, though, that doesn't mean the game isn't fundamentally changed, and new players are missing out on something that has no real reason to be removed.

I see your point, but I don't like your analogy.

MTG isn't a game based pretty much entirely on imagination. It actually REQUIRES you to buy new things in order to have them. With D&D, you can just make up whatever the hell you want.

I agree with Shplane there since after playing with AD&D rules and HATING it for a few months I just adapted them into a new system for fighting and changed most of the rules for duel wielding and made up my own campaigns for a while til 3rd came out.

But I fell so head over heels for third there's not a chance in hell 4th will be the shiny new gift from heaven meant to lead us to the promised land in my mind.

lastcall
...Oh, and I'm also hearing they are getting rid of the gnome race and adding warforged (from Eberron) as a core race. Even my husband, who is a huge Eberron fan, thinks this is a really idiotic move.

I'm also hearing they will be getting rid of the bard's arcane spells that they added in 3.5 and just making him a musical specialist like he used to be. ...Shouldn't they just get rid of the bard altogether? I mean really, does anyone ever play a bard?

huh!? huh!?

Well I'll admit that bards have never been popular PCs in groups that I've been with.
I hadn't heard that they were getting rid of bard magic but I had heard that they were revamping the hole magic system. Something about magic users having spells per day/per encounter/at will type of system.

I've also heard that the core world 4.0 is core world 3.5 in the future. Several centuries has passed or something like that and most of the famous characters are now dead or have moved on from the world. Elminster is for example a minor god now. I also guess that they'll justify putting Warforged into the core world due to the huge time lag. I mean, wasn't the Warforged created in a great war as a form of weaponry that developed sentience? They could say that the same thing happened in the core world.

Finally I've heard that version 4 is going to be very multi-class friendly and leveling up is more customizable. Now you'll be able to pick and choose your special abilities like you pick feats except that they're race or class specific. I've heard that the Star Wars saga edition was a testing ground for that system.

That's pretty much all I know.

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Finally I've heard that version 4 is going to be very multi-class friendly and leveling up is more customizable. Now you'll be able to pick and choose your special abilities like you pick feats except that they're race or class specific.

I have very mixed opinions when it comes to multiclassing and prestige classing, because it comes with drawbacks and benefits.

Benefit: You gain a new set of abilities and stats that enable you to function better in the party and as a character.

Drawback: Besides the XP drawback, multiclassing and especially prestige classing limits the players RP.

In the game groups I have been in and sometimes run I can see that the most believable and best roleplay comes from simple characters. Personally I feel that the Rogue embodies this best: You can be a greedy bastard, a clever tactician who values "underhand tactics", a slaver, a burglar etc. However if you suddenly prestige class to a Ninja, you are now limited to be some sort of archetype, evil killer or a noble "samurai" style ninja. A rogue can just pretend he is a ninja, and if he later discovers that he doesnt like the RP the prestige class is not weighing him down.

There are literally millions of examples like this: Warmage instead of Wizard, Healer instead of cleric and so on...
The best way to develop roleplay is a campaign where the characters are limited to only the core classes, with no option of multiclassing. For example if you have a party of 3 and they all play rouges, it gives them excellent opportunity to make 3 unique rouges that reflect their personality.

Though I did enjoy the first few prestige class books (complete warrior, arcane, divine and adventurer). I found that the more options that were open to players that their RP goes down significantly and they all try cheating with different rule and feat combinations.

Actually, I disagree with Pirate. So you take a few levels of Ninja? That just means that your Rogue has Ninja abilities now. Just ignore how it would change the rp, and just say "Oh wow, that rogue can jump really high and throw shuriken. He's such a badass." Don't say "WTF, how did my rogue suddenly transform into a Ninja? That doesn't make sense." Play the character as a ROGUE with Ninja SKILLS.

You're still letting Wizards control you, which is not what D&D is about. It's about imagination and freedom. The rules are just there to give it some element of challenge instead of just being "O hei, i stabz dragun. Dragun diez."

Lord Shplane
Actually, I disagree with Pirate. So you take a few levels of Ninja? That just means that your Rogue has Ninja abilities now. Just ignore how it would change the rp, and just say "Oh wow, that rogue can jump really high and throw shuriken. He's such a badass." Don't say "WTF, how did my rogue suddenly transform into a Ninja? That doesn't make sense." Play the character as a ROGUE with Ninja SKILLS.

Hmm... That makes sense. After all, Batman has Ninja training. You can't say he's not a original character.

Oh. And the stuff about xp penalty from multiclassing. There are several ways to prevent that. All races have favorite class that won't count into multiclassing. Humans can even pick any core class and claim it to be his favorite. That means if you plan it carefully you don't even have to worry about that type of stuff unless you really want to pick the third core class. Even then you can bypass the xp penalty by keeping the unfavorite classes even (one class can never be more then one level over the lover one). The prestige classes don't even count in the hole thing.

Finally, who's to say that 4th edition's even gonna have the the xp penalty system. The Star Wars saga edition doesn't do that and as I mentioned the level up system is supposed to be some sort of 4th edition predecessor.

Lord Shplane
Actually, I disagree with Pirate. So you take a few levels of Ninja? That just means that your Rogue has Ninja abilities now. Just ignore how it would change the rp, and just say "Oh wow, that rogue can jump really high and throw shuriken. He's such a badass." Don't say "WTF, how did my rogue suddenly transform into a Ninja? That doesn't make sense." Play the character as a ROGUE with Ninja SKILLS.

Im not saying that you cant make it work, with multiclassing, all I am saying is that the trend I have observed is that when players choose too many classes their rp goes down. My observation is that players will discard their old character persona and take up the stereotype of the new class. If your observations are different well you have been more fortunate in gaming groups then. My point wasnt the xp penalty system. Standard procedure for me is that the party levels up when the DM thinks they have accomplished something big, or have just completed an important plot event.

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Finally, who's to say that 4th edition's even gonna have the the xp penalty system. The Star Wars saga edition doesn't do that and as I mentioned the level up system is supposed to be some sort of 4th edition predecessor.

My point wasnt the xp penalty system. Standard procedure for me is that the party levels up when the DM thinks they have accomplished something big, or have just ended a large plot events.

My point was: the loss of Roleplay that multiclassing usually inflicts on the people I play with. I merely assumed that it was a general trend. So I apologize for assuming that.

I've role played quite a few straight classes. I remembered this Barbarian that basically collected a piece of pretty much EVERYTHING he killed. In the end he had this huge necklace of orc and ogre teeth. A helmet made from a hollowed out worg skull, a spiked plate male made from a purple worms plates and teeth (he treated the color to make it more brown) A shield made out of the bones of 3 vampires that he killed, where he placed the 3 skulls on the top so that they faced whoever he fought.... there was more stuff but it was a long time ago. In addition to my success with playing fun core class character I want to share my experience with this extreme multiclasser I once played.


I remember making the craziest character ever. He was so multi classed that I'm surprised that he didn't need to go to a therapist for his identity crisis. Let's see he was... A sorcerer, a paladin, a spellsword, a dragon slayer and a Eldridge knight. His character portfolio was that he had innate magic abilities that allowed him to practice magic. He joined the following of Mistra and learned to become a paladin. After few years he left his church with a small expedition to spread the teachings of his church. While camped near this village festival the village and the camp gets attacked by large spiders and his expedition gets slaughtered. He himself is almost killed and eaten but is saved by an adventuring group that was attending the festival. That's where we start playing.

During that time I started to level him up as a spellsword and later on giving him Eldridge knight levels. The good thing about spellswords is that one of their special abilities is overcoming spell failure, thus allowing him to wear heavier armor. I got him into a twilight,mithrill, fullplate with enough overcoming spell failure to cancel it out all together. Later on I managed to kill couple of dragons and decided to give him dragon slayer levels.

Despite this I didn't make him a one dimensional character. He always held on to his paladin teachings. He had the paladin of freedom variant which is a version of paladins for chaotic good characters. They are basically the same deal except they fight against oppressing government and instead of having aura of courage they have aura of freedom. The campaign we were playing in had just that type of government in the city we were stationed in most of the time and it would have turned out eventually that they were involved in this dastardly plot that we were trying to stop. Well.. We would have eventually figured it out if my character hadn't organized the group to go topple the government anyways despite the fact that we hadn't made that connection yet. It was of course in the middle of the raid on the governors house that we figured out his involvement.

I made this character a type that hated to see all form of oppression and used a portion of his time and resources to help the people in the city, particularly the poor. The DM decided that this noble daughter would fall in love with him and through her he was able to get her fathers support when he and his group would overthrow the leadership of the city. After the Coup D'etat, the power is handed to the nobles he trust will lead the village with grace.

Anyways I hope that with this lengthy and hopefully not boring tale I managed to show you that you can work with your character allot despite having ridiculous amount of classes.

Hmmm well it was a very good example of how it can work. Once again I would like to point out that it seldom works out well with the people I play with. However Im not saying its impossible. The whole point of me bringing up this point is that I dont think that multiclassing should be easier. That is my belief, for the specified reason: that it usually (in the groups I have played in or with) that the more classes a character has the worse the rp. This of course doesnt mean that people playing single classes cant have crappy rp. Or as you said characters with many classes cant have good rp.

I myself have had a character with numerous classes: Bard/Fighter/Dread Pirate/Spell-thief/Ur-priest/Swordsage/Fleetrunner of Ehlonna/Jade Phoenix Mage who in addition to that was a vampire. His rp however remained on a high level.

lastcall
...Oh, and I'm also hearing they are getting rid of the gnome race and adding warforged (from Eberron) as a core race.

They are also adding tieflings as a core race.

And this thing here is bloody brilliant. Say hello Francis!

Product Placement

lastcall
...Oh, and I'm also hearing they are getting rid of the gnome race and adding warforged (from Eberron) as a core race.

They are also adding tieflings as a core race.

And this thing here is bloody brilliant. Say hello Francis!

It wants me to sign in to something.

I'm scared...

Product Placement
I remember making the craziest character ever. He was so multi classed that I'm surprised that he didn't need to go to a therapist for his identity crisis. Let's see he was... A sorcerer, a paladin, a spellsword, a dragon slayer and a Eldridge knight.

yeah...but...what's his shoe size? 8D

lastcall
yeah...but...what's his shoe size? 8D

10.5

And Lord Shplane: Really? You can't see the video? Hmm.... fine, try looking in youtube for: "The Gnome and the Tiefling" or "4th edition reports" Basically it's a flash video of an interview with a tiefling and a gnome. I'd post it here myself but I can't since my work computer doesn't allow streaming video. No streaming video = I can't access youtube. I'll post the video when I'm home.

Most of us probably can't see it. It requires a D&D Insider account to view it.

Damn bastards, telling me that I have to PAY them for stuff. What do they think this is, a capitalist society?

Lol: "They set me up with this minion. Say hello Francis".

Ah, the gnome may have gotten the worse deal, but he was the happiest :D

Here it is.



Don't you just love the face on Francis?