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[Sheepherder]

Except the rule supplements don't help when the DM has to explicitly forbid players from rolling certain classes for fear of fucking up the difficulty of the campaign.

Balance does matter in PnP RPG's, because DM's have enough shit to do without having to play balance police, while people bitch and whine because it's totally unfair that they have to reroll a new character just because they one turned a Tarrasque in the last campaign.

[dusematic]

One-turning a Tarrasque?  How the fuck is that possible without the DM handing out God-like loot?  And at that point, it's probably time to wrap up the campaign anyway because your party could slay Gods.  So good game.

[Malakili]

Except the rule supplements don't help when the DM has to explicitly forbid players from rolling certain classes for fear of fucking up the difficulty of the campaign.

Balance does matter in PnP RPG's, because DM's have enough shit to do without having to play balance police, while people bitch and whine because it's totally unfair that they have to reroll a new character just because they one turned a Tarrasque in the last campaign.

If you are totally trivializing the entire monster manual some specific mechanic is broken.  As a DM you can, and should, simply work with your players to come up with a reasonable reworking of the skill or feat or spell they are abusing and go from there.  In a group of 5-6 people you can do this with no particular issue and the fix can fit your campaign.  In an MMO you have to have a one size fits all balanced solution.

Yeah, I've seen my share of OP characters in D&D but 4th edition as an attempt to create balanced classes tipped too far in the other direction in my opinion and I just haven't felt remotely motivated to play it they way I was with previous editions.

[bhodi]

Hey, I'm just happy that as a mage I can participate more than once a day to a combat.

I actually haven't played 4e, but I have read the rulebook and it does seem to be much better than either 3.5 or advanced. Then again, I've never been a HUGE fan of miniatures combat, I preferred when stuff was all in your head and still do - that's why I was a big WoD/In Nomine/Deadlands/other game system fan.

[Yegolev]

Hey, I'm just happy that as a mage I can participate more than once a day to a combat.

Agree and disagree.  I liked being a chicken shit nerd.

[Samwise]

Hey, I'm just happy that as a mage I can participate more than once a day to a combat.

Agree and disagree.  I liked being a chicken shit nerd.

+1.  If you can only cast one spell a day it just makes it that much more exciting.   

[bhodi]

And, it did less than a sword swing or arrow!

[dusematic]

And, it did less than a sword swing or arrow!

LOL.  Playing through BG1 for the first time brought this memory back.  Hard to believe you start out with all of the spell damage potential of 1d4+1.  Really?  You could toss a throwing dagger for that much damage.  And that's only once per day/rest. 

I quickly discovered, as someone else noted, that sleep is like the only worthwhile 1st level mage spell, and is strangely powerful compared to the other spells.  Magic missile does about as much damage as a successful dagger strike but I can cast sleep and potentially incapacitate a small army?

[Tebonas]

Yes, I've always got my mages on crowd control duty in computer DnD games. Oh how overpowered Stinking Cloud was in the Gold Box games. 

[Yegolev]

If you weren't tweaking your D&D campaign, then I guess 4th is a good fit for you.

Mages were, in my mind, more for studying dungeon puzzles, reading old books/signs, remembering random facts that saves the group at critical junctions, and being distractions (or rescued).  Like a field goal kicker.  You can't really do that in a vidya game most of the time, hence making their spells more than parlor tricks at level 1.  I feel something is lost when your party starts out with a guy who is already a flame-tossing tower-brooder.  Same goes for a warrior who is already Conan the Barbarian before you even get out of the tavern.

[Ingmar]

Except the rule supplements don't help when the DM has to explicitly forbid players from rolling certain classes for fear of fucking up the difficulty of the campaign.

Balance does matter in PnP RPG's, because DM's have enough shit to do without having to play balance police, while people bitch and whine because it's totally unfair that they have to reroll a new character just because they one turned a Tarrasque in the last campaign.

If you are totally trivializing the entire monster manual some specific mechanic is broken.  As a DM you can, and should, simply work with your players to come up with a reasonable reworking of the skill or feat or spell they are abusing and go from there.  In a group of 5-6 people you can do this with no particular issue and the fix can fit your campaign.  In an MMO you have to have a one size fits all balanced solution.

Yeah, I've seen my share of OP characters in D&D but 4th edition as an attempt to create balanced classes tipped too far in the other direction in my opinion and I just haven't felt remotely motivated to play it they way I was with previous editions.

If you balance the system ahead of time, though, you shut down that one raging aspie dude before he goes off. That translates over time to a lot more happy customers.  

[Lantyssa]

The GM should shut Raging Aspie Dude down quick, for their own sanity, regardless of system.

[Ingmar]

People should do a lot of things that they don't do in social situations, yes.

[bhodi]

I feel something is lost when your party starts out with a guy who is already a flame-tossing tower-brooder.  Same goes for a warrior who is already Conan the Barbarian before you even get out of the tavern.

It turns out, levels 1-4 just weren't any fun to play. You couldn't throw interesting anythings at the party and there was no way to build tension because everyone dropped in one or two hits. Going two fights into the dungeon and then having to leave because "the stupid wizard is tired already" isn't any fun. I personally like the fact a wizard has a 'default attack' which is comparable to a bow and the addition of a 'henchman' rating, where they all die in one hit, perfect for mage's low damage AoE. It makes things more epic feeling.

No one wants to play a character that can be bested by a housecat so that in 4 or 5 realtime months roles are suddenly reversed and it's the rest of the party wondering why they bothered to show up. Well, no one that has the option of being a spell slinging badass instead.


This issue is not just a D&D thing though. Remember cyberpunk or shadowrun? The whole 'decker' subsystem where you had one member of your party go off and have adventures alone? Not a good gaming mechanic at all. People should fight as a group, and each should have strengths. If there's one or more members just getting dragged along, that's bad mechanics.

[Lantyssa]

I do like that everyone has something they can do early on.  It doesn't feel like your options ever really expand, though.  Amongst my gaming group 4th just didn't feel right.  We've got a mix of power gamers and those who like odd characters.  Third edition lets us fill both those needs.

[Ingmar]

I do like that everyone has something they can do early on.  It doesn't feel like your options ever really expand, though.  Amongst my gaming group 4th just didn't feel right.  We've got a mix of power gamers and those who like odd characters.  Third edition lets us fill both those needs.

Your options only expand to a limited degree because to a large extent too many options is what cripples high level 3E play. The prep time in particular just gets awful.

[Lantyssa]

Do you mean for the GM?  Ours already has things plotted out well into epic levels, and thrives on us throwing him curve balls.  Our players love coming up with whatever they can.  All spend countless hours thinking about characters and enjoy it.  There is no problem there for us.

[Ingmar]

For the GM, yes. I don't mean plotting, I mean literally it taking 2 hours to make a single guy for your players to kill in 2 combat rounds.

[Samwise]

My experience in 3E is that fighters are approximately as terrifying as wizards at high levels.  The wizard can do some really cool shit, to be sure, but the fighter can walk up to something and hit it three times per round for terrifying amounts of damage while avoiding or absorbing most of what an enemy can dish out.  And he can do that ALL DAY until the thing dies.  Add in a flanking rogue doing +10d6 sneak attack damage per hit and eating one 10d6 lightning bolt per round that you can save against for half damage looks downright cuddly.

The only time when it's really hard to do stuff as a group is if you want the rogue to be able to use all his cool stealth abilities.  In theory he can do that on dungeon crawls by scouting ahead, but inevitably if he goes far enough ahead that he can actually sneak up on shit, he's going to walk into an encounter that's not stealthable and he's going to get eaten.

[Malakili]

If you weren't tweaking your D&D campaign, then I guess 4th is a good fit for you.

Mages were, in my mind, more for studying dungeon puzzles, reading old books/signs, remembering random facts that saves the group at critical junctions, and being distractions (or rescued).  Like a field goal kicker. 

The good thing about sitting around a table is spending 30 minutes chatting over what the party is going to do or trying to solve a puzzle while sipping some tea(or whatever) is a nice experience.  The mage ends up being the hero of that part of the game (or the bard!).  I know spells and swords are a big part of DnD and I'm not saying I don't like combat, but out of combat free form puzzle solving and skill use was always the strongest part of 2nd and 3rd to me.   4th edition doesn't seem to foster the Out of combat stuff nearly as well, so it isn't really the same experience for me.

[Sheepherder]

One-turning a Tarrasque?  How the fuck is that possible without the DM handing out God-like loot?  And at that point, it's probably time to wrap up the campaign anyway because your party could slay Gods.  So good game.

I was paraphrasing from memory, it's a little more complex than I recall, and apparently it's been errata'd.  Also takes a fucking beast of a character, but the fact that it's mathematically possible to solo shit like Orcus and Tarrasque twice is pretty cool, aside from being horribly fucking broken.

http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19629930/The_Orcuslayer,_or_how_Cascade_of_Blades_broke_4.0_even_3_days_before_it_was_released

If you are totally trivializing the entire monster manual some specific mechanic is broken.  As a DM you can, and should, simply work with your players to come up with a reasonable reworking of the skill or feat or spell they are abusing and go from there.

This is reasonable and logical, but it's not really an excuse for rule system fuckups when that's what they're selling.

[Yegolev]

I feel something is lost when your party starts out with a guy who is already a flame-tossing tower-brooder.  Same goes for a warrior who is already Conan the Barbarian before you even get out of the tavern.

It turns out, levels 1-4 just weren't any fun to play. You couldn't throw interesting anythings at the party and there was no way to build tension because everyone dropped in one or two hits. Going two fights into the dungeon and then having to leave because "the stupid wizard is tired already" isn't any fun. I personally like the fact a wizard has a 'default attack' which is comparable to a bow and the addition of a 'henchman' rating, where they all die in one hit, perfect for mage's low damage AoE. It makes things more epic feeling.

No one wants to play a character that can be bested by a housecat so that in 4 or 5 realtime months roles are suddenly reversed and it's the rest of the party wondering why they bothered to show up. Well, no one that has the option of being a spell slinging badass instead.

This issue is not just a D&D thing though. Remember cyberpunk or shadowrun? The whole 'decker' subsystem where you had one member of your party go off and have adventures alone? Not a good gaming mechanic at all. People should fight as a group, and each should have strengths. If there's one or more members just getting dragged along, that's bad mechanics.

I don't disagree with you necessarily but I think we are misaligned.  You seem to be talking about Dungeon Fight Module #8, but I am thinking about dungeons with traps other than housecat ambushes.  Like a story I got from a friend where they made his character walk ahead of the group because they did not like him, but being a kinder he wasn't heavy enough to trigger a pit trap... .

I suppose what I'm saying is that if you and your friends are pretending to be a group of young people going on an adventure, having a mage that is little more than a bookworm is great.  If your friends want to play Diablo: The Tabletop Game then, no, you aren't going to have fun like that.

The good thing about sitting around a table is spending 30 minutes chatting over what the party is going to do or trying to solve a puzzle while sipping some tea(or whatever) is a nice experience.  The mage ends up being the hero of that part of the game (or the bard!).  I know spells and swords are a big part of DnD and I'm not saying I don't like combat, but out of combat free form puzzle solving and skill use was always the strongest part of 2nd and 3rd to me.

Agree completely and you did a great job of stating my point here.  I'm not trying to excuse crap game design, but I think the design ideas behind early D&D and current versions is very divergent.  To me the early stuff was all about being terrified of dying at any minute and was more like a Scooby-Doo episode than a DBZ episode.  Gamers today are jaded fuckers, though.

[Modern Angel]

Being scared of kobolds is the fucking best thing ever. I love early level D&D. Doing a Castles & Crusades (1st edition with a smattering of 3rd unified die mechanics) sandbox campaign now. It's awesome and old school.

4th didn't do it for me. At all. I completely don't begrudge people their system choice but when I sat in on a session it just didn't do what I wanted with RPGs. I don't play a tabletop RPG to play a video game. Or a wargame. I have video games and wargames for that. I like my systems fast and more or less rules light. I like things to be ill-defined and plenty of room for creative thinking which is something 3rd and 4th, by dint of their "here are your powers and here is how they work" rules splurges, removes somewhat.

I think it's telling that the head of 4th ed development uses 1st ed for his house campaign...

[Sky]

Oh how overpowered Stinking Cloud was in the Gold Box games.  

I used that one a lot, too. Always got a chuckle about the nerd hiding around the corner chucking darts and letting one rip.

Talking about AD&D prompted me to grab pdfs of Queen of the Demonweb Pits and Expedition to Barrier Peaks, since both my originals were stolen (probably by a thief character's player!). They're actually pretty reasonable on ebay, even for a first edition print, but I'm pretty broke right now, so pdf is my price point.

[Zetor]

Dragon Mountain (designed for level ~15 parties) made people scared of kobolds all over again. Though it didn't help that there were hundreds of the buggers, they used 'E' type poison (save or die; even if you save you take 20 damage) liberally, they used a multitude of "haha, entire party dies now" traps, and generally played dirty. My players absolutely *hated* it, mind... I can sorta see why.  

I personally always liked really low-level (level 1-2) ad&d campaigns; they typically weren't too combat-focused, and there was this "bunch of clueless adventurers somehow manage to not die" feeling going on. OTOH I didn't like low-level (level 3-6) campaigns -- they made me feel my character was in the "ok, in 2 levels I'll be able to use awesome_ability_x, but right now it kinda sucks" zone.

[Velorath]

GOG's holiday sale just started, and runs through Jan 3rd.  From what I can tell, it doesn't look like they're doing different deals every day like Steam's holiday sale.  They've just marked everything down by 30-50%.

[Azazel]

Looks interesting, I'll have to check it out.

[Lucas]

Awesome Activision RPGs pack discount for this weekend:

- Arcanum
- Betrayal at Krondor
- Return to Krondor
- Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption

Only $ 4.19 each

http://www.gog.com/en/promo/activision_rpgs

[Tebonas]

Word of caution, Redemption is not Bloodlines.

[Sky]

It was still a pretty good game, I played the heck out of it at the time.

[Tebonas]

As did I, I still have the orgininal box in one of my cupboards and dust it off once in a while. But somebody I know bought Redemption a while ago and was pissed it wasn't that RPG with the Source Engine. Better safe than sorry I say.

[HaemishM]

Betrayal at Krondor was fantastic for the time. Return not so much.

[Lucas]

Weekend deal ('til May 23th 11.59pm EDT): Anuman publisher discount:

http://www.gog.com/en/promo/anuman_games_2

Highlights:

- Syberia 1 & 2 at $4.99 each: VERY VERY good point & click adventure games, especially the first episode...Almost (almost) on par with The Longest Journey, IMO, albeit easier, both of them;
- Amerzone: by the same writer of Syberia, but it's more akin to the Myst series if I recall well ;
- Still Life: I heard good things about this graphic adventure (crime story) which I never had the chance to purchase when it was released. I think I'll take advantage of the offer :)

[Lucas]

Just wanted to remind you that, if you are interested, there are lots of discounted Interplay titles on sale 'til monday ($2.99 each). Among others: Fallout 1, Fallout 2, Descent 1+2, Descent 3 (plus the expansion), Sacrifice, MDK and MDK 2,  Stonekeep, Messiah:

http://www.gog.com/en/promo/interplay

[Sky]

If you're a dev, you need to play Sacrifice to see some of the best spells ever put into a game. Tornado, Volcano, probably more I've forgotten. The first time I saw the terrain deformation in the Volcano spell I got goosebumps, those spells still haven't been matched in a game imo.

Played a ton of LAN Sacrifice in the day (and I hate RTS).