Ooh.. Here's another one.

LOL, the tiefling & gnome video was funny. I like the style of the flash animation, too.

You couldn't take on a beholder as a solo monster before? That's news to me. Course, I never really took on a beholder...except in that PC game, Eye of the Beholder [en.wikipedia.org]....aaah, memories....

I saw this comic on Penny Arcade a few days ago and had to laugh....

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/01/28

lol :D

Was D&D online any good? I never played it.

piraterpg
lol :D

Was D&D online any good? I never played it.

I didn't like it. I played it a little over a year ago so things might have changed since then, but nothing was customizable at all. You couldn't customize your armor (or even your character, for that matter), and all the weapons looked the same. You couldn't auto-follow monsters or even aim at them. ...The only thing I liked was that every time you stepped into a dungeon, sewer, etc. a narrator would describe the scene, like a DM telling you what was going on.

Here's a gameplay video. It pretty much sums up what goes on. The character can't aim worth a crap, as you can see.

The way I see it 4th editions goal is to make D&D more easily adaptable into video games and to make it more palletable to the WoW playing demographic.

They seem to be going to extream lengths to eliminate paperwork, group skills, and consolidate powers in such a way as to make the game.

I think this will have mixed effects on the game. Mechanically I don't think it is all bad, though in many aspects they seem to be dumbing down the game, however stylistically or "flavor" wise if you prefer this seems to be a disaster.

Honestly I would expect D&D to continue along this line. I think Hasbro & WotC have made it pretty clear they intend to update and revamp their games every few years. I'd expect D&D to keep edging slowly in this direction. I would expect Core Books to become more and more simplistic and content light to allow for a larger range of expansion books.

I am rather surprised they kept the level cap so low. I would personally have guessed they were going to change it to level 50 to make it more in line with MMO's.

One point that is interesting to note WotC has said they will be ceasing its open liscense agreement on D&D 3 & 3.5, however thus far they have not decided if they will make version 4 open or not. This means that other companies are free to continue supporting 3rd edition with new material which may well keep that system alive even if only for older gamers.

I'm just interested to see what the web comic world will do with 4.0 given the number of web comics set in 3.0 or 3.5 edition. I'm sure it will be pretty funny and possibly fatal for all those bard characters out there.

The way I see it 4th editions goal is to make D&D more easily adaptable into video games and to make it more palletable to the WoW playing demographic.

I doubt that's their main goal. Game developers have been successfully incorporating earlier D&D editions into games for years. Baldur's Gate and Icewind dale were based on AD&D(2nd edition), Neverwinter nights was based on 3rd edition and Temple of Elemental Evil and NWN2 on 3.5. And then of course is the DDO (D&D Online). Rumors have it that DDO contains elements of the 4th edition and that the game has been used as a testing ground for the new system.

I do agree though that the new system seems to be targeted at eliminating the paperwork. I myself have mixed feelings about it but I do admit that it could be a good idea. Managing a high level character makes me sometimes feel that I require a degree in accounting.

Sorry for the ancient necropost here but they released another vid.

Fourth edition seems like a huge mistake to me. Version 3.5 was fine, minus a few problems, but those you could easily get around. But fourth edition is so warped, it's like you're not even playing dnd anymore. :(

Littered with mistakes, fourth edition is a sad error on Wizards' part. I think a lot of players and potential players will be turned off of dnd because of it. They seem to have gone in the wrong direction in many ways and didn't fix any of the problems from 3.5, but tried to move around them and just made more mistakes by doing so.

I'll be sticking with 3.5.

I haven't had a chance to actually read the books yet now that they've actually hit stores, could you give us a few examples of where they've messed up 4th?

Evil Emperor Nick
I haven't had a chance to actually read the books yet now that they've actually hit stores, could you give us a few examples of where they've messed up 4th?

To me, it just seems sort of as if they turned the game all around.

They did some strange technique thing where certain classes gain a new technique at every level. They, unless I'm mistaken, changed the prestige class system into more of a promotion class system. Instead of giving races any detriment, they buffed everyone and some are in senseless ways. They replaced gnomes with a warforged race. They made Tieflings into one of the core races, which bugged the heck out of me (simply because I was the only who played as a Tiefling because no one knew what the heck it was) and they altered their appearance way too much. In the previous expansions, Tieflings could be mistaken for humans, having variations on how human/inhuman they looked. Now there's no way you could mistake them for a human (sort of menial, but it bothered me). They also took out some of the classes and added a type of leader class which I found completely unnecessary.

They seem to have tried to hit a new audience and attempted to look more new and colorful, abandoning too much that made Dungeons and Dragons Dungeons and Dragons. It was almost a Tolkein-esque fantasy (many roots were based off of Tolkien's realm, unless I'm mistaken), where as now it reminds me of a Saturday morning cartoon (with the art and some of their layouts).

All-in-all, I just found 3.5 superior in literally every aspect. What I listed was just what I could think of off the top of my head, I'm sure there are more reasons why I prefer 3.5, however. As Lastcall previously stated: "if it ain't broken, don't fix it."

I can see them targetting a new audience with this, but I think they should have stayed closer to the previous rules and changed much less.

Two of my friends that game with me sometimes have bought the books and studied them and I've glimpsed at them myself. It's very redesigned to the point that it's pissing of a lot of hardcore players but then again, didn't the transition from D&D to AD&D to D&D v.3 do the same thing?

One thing that bugged a friend of mine that I myself found odd as hell was how they changed constitution. Constitution score plays a big role, hit point vise, in v3.5. When you went up a level you rolled a d4 - d12 depending on your class and got the result + your constitution modifier as new hitpoints. In v4 you get a fixed number depending on you class plus you constitution on the first level but in all the subsequent levels after that the constitution bonus doesn't add to the hit points. That makes constitution score almost redundant and removes the thrill of rolling hp, hoping for a good roll.

Let me explain better for those who don't speak D&D. A fighter in v3.5 with +4 constitution modifier goes up a level. He roles a d8 meaning he can get anywhere between 1 and 8 hp + 4 extra for his constitution. If he's unlucky he'll only get 5 hp. but if he's very lucky, 12hp.
In v4 a fighter who goes up a level will get 8 hp. Period.

One good thing is that I will say about v4 is that it's a fresh start. v3.5 is practically broken thanks to all the supplementary rule books (Can anyone say: Book of exalted cheese?) A clever munchkin player can create, using a mixture of different rules from different rulebooks, a character that's almost impossible to defeat making the game boring whenever he's around. Version 4 doesn't have all that.... yet.

I didn't know that about the constitution. That sucks, too.

Actually, one of the main things that bothered me about DnD was the hit point gain system. I've never like that with most games you gain x amount of HP every single level. It never made sense to me that you would begin with perhaps 7 hp and then just a couple of levels later have 24 hp. Such a dramatic increase always seemed unrealistic to me.

I like how they streamlined all of the abilities. Wizards are useful again, and everyone brings toys to the table. The combat portion of the game is pretty fantastic, although you have to have miniatures (or the equivalent) to actually play the game. Too many of the rules require square measurements to do otherwise. I also like how they made everyone able to identify a freaking magic item, and how many previous spells are instead turned into Rituals that you can cast all day long if you have the cash for the components.

I don't like how they scrapped everything not related to combat. This has always been a failing in D&D as opposed to some of the other game systems, but at this point they just cut it off and threw it away. All skills have a combat use (which is awesome) but noncombat use is relegated to a series of 'challenges' that accumulate successes or failures for this chart that the DM measures stuff with.

No, Warforged aren't an 'official' playable race. They're in the back of the MM as an 'optional' playable race, if your DM allows it, but it says quite clearly that they're not balanced and may be too powerful. Same as dark elves, your mom, minotaurs and gnomes.

I'll still be playing 4th Edition because it IS fun, but it's not going to be on the top of my list for a deep, meaningful roleplaying experience.

I've learned to like the new PHB. To me, it actually seems like you can customize your character more than in 3.5. I don't like how CON was made so that it's only useful for Warlocks now or the HP pittance system, but the Abilities mix it up enough that players can be more unique. There can be room in the party for 2 Paladins now because they might have totally different abilities.

Then I bought the Monster Manual...

*Sigh*

One thing I enjoyed about the 3.5 books is that the monsters had so much flavor and so much they could do outside of combat. The new book gives stats purely for Combat pretty much, so it's lost a lot of the depth it originally had. That's something I'll miss, as do I miss the ability to make my own creatures; it's a lot harder without a base to work from. What constitutes a "Brute"? What is the HP system for a "Controller"? Either I haven't found that part of the book yet or there isn't one. That, and Kobold PC's lost Darkvision.

One of the things I really did not enjoy about D&D 4 is the playable monsters in the Monster Manual. In 3.5 you could play for example a minotaur, which meant you would get a lot of cool abilities and stat increases but at the same time you had to sacrifice 5 levels or so in level adjustment. Now a large portion of the monsters have been downgraded so the players can play them without any level adjustment.

Although this does make it easier to play some creature you have always fantasised about, I feel it makes the experience much less special.