Pen and Paper D&D

[Ingmar]

"1st edition" is not even the original Arnesonian model for D&D, it's the quasi-Gygaxian version.  If you want TRUE original (crotchety old-gamer) D&D you'll have to sift around for some old play reports and/or DL "Dragons at Dawn."   And any Gygax influenced D&D is always going to defer to using minis, since the whole point of his system from the get-go was fantasy wargaming from the "1st person" perspective.

To that end, 4e is actually more a testament to the original Gygaxian D&D than anything else.  i.e. an even tighter, more refined AD&D.  Anything in between has been the real departure from the "norm."

As for those folks still playing 1st ed.  That's fine, but imo there are better systems out there that do what it intended much better and are more supported.  Those people play the white box out of nostalgia more than any other reason.  (shrug)  Or it really just has to do with what you're comfortable with.

1st edition != white box. In old crank gamer speak, the white box (plus supplements) is usually called OD&D. 1st edition refers to the first edition of AD&D - the players handbook/DMG/monster manual etc. To be complete, the Moldvay D&D (basic set/expert set/etc) is usually called BECMI.
 

[Bunk]

1st edition grappling rules ftw!

[Samwise]

By-the-book First Edition combat is pretty awful.  For reference: http://www.dragonsfoot.org/php4/archive.php?sectioninit=FE&fileid=263&watchfile=0

Oh man, I'd forgotten how ridiculously complicated (and awesome) psionic combat was in AD&D.   

[Morfiend]

1st edition grappling rules ftw!

Hell yes. When I was in high school myself and some friends used to sit around smoking pot and drinking beer and playing "pit fighting" where we basically rolled up throw away characters and had them pit fight using the grappling rules. Was really fun.

[proudft]

...using the grappling rules. Was really fun.

I believe, when referring to AD&D, that is the first time in history those words have appeared in that order.

[Fordel]

Secondly, as time has passed, WOTC has started lowering monster hp and increasing their damage, which helps a fair bit (and, I suppose, proves it wasn't just me).

Yea, MM3 is when that conversion started. The monster vaults all follow the same scheme to the best of my knowledge. The primary motivator was that the monsters just couldn't actually hurt PCs for the most part is my understanding.

[Ratman_tf]

I rather liked the Planescape setting and it was the only campaign I actually ran for my old gaming group.  I loved the cant they used for the residents and the different factions because it added that whole political aspect to the game rather then just plain "good guys go fight ugly monsters" which is the usual D&D flavor.

The image of a group of angels and a group of demons drinking at a bar in Sigil, glaring at each other over their drinks, amuses me to no end.

[Ratman_tf]

I don't have a hate-on for 4th, but I think it's the weakest version of D&D so far.
Too many fiddly situations to track. (Poisoned, save ends. Stunned until the end of the monster's next turn, Restrained until the end of your next turn... gah) And everything is balanced to the point of homogenization.

I do like using minis though. I never used them in Basic/1st/2nd edition, and it's kinda fun after giving it a shot.

[Sheepherder]

The abilities in 4e are meant to be written down on cards.

[Ingmar]

I like it better than counting rounds, personally. Either you have it or you don't. Conditions are perhaps a bit too ubiquitous though, it is true.

[Malakili]

And everything is balanced to the point of homogenization.

This is really my biggest problem with 4th.  I feel like there is a lot less room for character building.  Building quirky characters brings me a huge amount of enjoyment, and its just a weak point for 4th.

[Fordel]

And everything is balanced to the point of homogenization.

What the fuck does this even mean? People keep saying stuff like this and I keep not understanding what the shit they are referring to.



Things are only unique if they are underpowered or overpowered?

[JWIV]

Secondly, as time has passed, WOTC has started lowering monster hp and increasing their damage, which helps a fair bit (and, I suppose, proves it wasn't just me).

Yea, MM3 is when that conversion started. The monster vaults all follow the same scheme to the best of my knowledge. The primary motivator was that the monsters just couldn't actually hurt PCs for the most part is my understanding.

One of the best things I ever did for my campaign (pre MM3)  was to drop monster HP by about 30% and increase their damage output by about 30%.   Combat moves a hell of a lot faster and PCs are forced to be a lot smarter about their tactics.

[JWIV]

I don't have a hate-on for 4th, but I think it's the weakest version of D&D so far.
Too many fiddly situations to track. (Poisoned, save ends. Stunned until the end of the monster's next turn, Restrained until the end of your next turn... gah) And everything is balanced to the point of homogenization.

I do like using minis though. I never used them in Basic/1st/2nd edition, and it's kinda fun after giving it a shot.

I'm torn here a lot.   As a GM, I love bringing cool props and bits into play.  Having a box full of status markers makes me happy.   That said, actually using said markers in combat can be a serious pain in the ass and tracking it all is a bit of :effort:

[bhodi]

And everything is balanced to the point of homogenization.

What the fuck does this even mean? People keep saying stuff like this and I keep not understanding what the shit they are referring to.



Things are only unique if they are underpowered or overpowered?

Just as an example, and I don't have the books in front of me, but a lot of mage spells have been eliminated or severely scaled back due to being theoretically "overpowered". In fact, being a mage is pretty much just straight damage or confusion in 4e. There's no more misdirection, no more illusion, no more 10 minute invisibility, stuff like that. They got rid of a lot of the more "interesting" spells. Nearly all of them revolve around combat, whereas a majority of spells in the previous versions revolved around pre-combat information gathering, planning, creating favorable conditions for combat to take place in. Basically, what makes a mage "strong" in fantasy situations - planning.

And to top it off, they made magic missile require a roll to hit. I will never, ever forgive them for that.

[MahrinSkel]

I did really cheesy things with a Wand of Magic Missile before my DM started making me roll to-hit for it.

"The evil king begins to read from the Necronomicon, summoning the powers that will destroy the world."

"I fire a magic missile at the book."

"Dave's character is now paralyzed and incapable of participating in the rest of this encounter."

--Dave

[Fordel]

Except all of that stuff is still there? It's either still an actual wizard combat power, or it's a ritual. Rituals are specifically all those spells that you used before combat situations to reward planning.


They also changed magic missile to not require a hit roll.  



-fake edit- Like http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/invisibility.htm , that is still a Wizard power, PHB1 level 6 daily power. (Page 162     )

[bhodi]

I guess all that stuff is in the supplements. I bought the 4e PHB when it came out and haven't really touched it since.

When did they change magic missile? ALL IS FORGIVEN

[Fordel]

I think it (magic missle) was with 'Essentials', but I have no idea on like a exact date. Might've been before that.


There are some rituals in PHB1 2 and 3, but yea they are really spread out across books and dragon/dungeon articles. That is certainly one of those things where their online compendium thing is "required" if you really want them all.



If anything there is even MORE weird and quirky shit in 4e, because Dungeon and Dragon are all legit options now, part of the core rules and shit. 

[Malakili]

And everything is balanced to the point of homogenization.

What the fuck does this even mean? People keep saying stuff like this and I keep not understanding what the shit they are referring to.



Things are only unique if they are underpowered or overpowered?

The classes are far less unique, and much more defined by their "role" than their class.  Bring a tank, some strikers, a healer, and have at it.  A controller if someone really really like utility spells.   It doesn't really matter if your tank is a warrior or a paladin or if you bring a rogue or a warlock or a ranger, or which healer.  I mean, there are some slight variations, but I just feel like most of what made the game interesting in terms of class selection and unique character building has been ditched in favor of making pretty much any group combination viable.  

I think of it less as generally underpowered or overpowered, and more about specifics.  I'd often build characters who were super great in some situations, but ended up needing to be really creative with game mechanics to be useful in others.   In otherwords, I'd be good for 1 or 2 "that was fucking awesome" moments a week, and other times I could be a hamstrung.  It also added the depth of trying to get into situations where your characters could excel.   

I miss my 3rd edition monk builds :(

None of my 4th edition characters are the ones I'll be talking about in 5 years, you know?  I have friends from high school that when I see them we'll still bring up "Hey, remember that crazy Samurai build so and so did in our oriental adventures campaign!"  In 4th edition its kind of..remember that Warrior build - yeah of course you do, because its EVERY warrior build.

[Fordel]

The classes are far less unique, and much more defined by their "role" than their class.  Bring a tank, some strikers, a healer, and have at it.  A controller if someone really really like utility spells.   It doesn't really matter if your tank is a warrior or a paladin or if you bring a rogue or a warlock or a ranger, or which healer.  I mean, there are some slight variations, but I just feel like most of what made the game interesting in terms of class selection and unique character building has been ditched in favor of making pretty much any group combination viable.  

I miss my 3rd edition monk builds :(

This is also, not true at all.

Unless "slight variations" means completely different play-styles and approaches to combat, group composition and tactics.


-edit-

All of that shit, still exists. All of it.

You can be a generalist, you can hyperfocus, you can be a cardboard cutout of a cliche or you can be an off the wall, out of the box, basket case.

None of that is remotely gone.

[Lantyssa]

Y'all keep saying that, but the PHB and DMG I have don't show it.  If it's true because of all the later supplements then they messed up, because it's too late as far as myself and many others are concerned.

[Malakili]

Y'all keep saying that, but the PHB and DMG I have don't show it.  If it's true because of all the later supplements then they messed up, because it's too late as far as myself and many others are concerned.

Agreed, I did buy PHB 2, but thats where it ended for me.   As for these quirky builds, I've just literally not seen any in the games I played.  I havent played 4th extensively, I'll freely admit, but given the ruleset, I don't see the inherent complexity of the extremely open ended feats/skills system of 3rd edition being replicated in 4th.  If there are ways to do it, I'd love to know.

[Fordel]

Which snowflake would you like me to build for you?


Give me a character concept that you seemingly can't make in 4e.

[Sjofn]

I have to go with Fordel here. Again, I will gesture to my rogue versus Ingmar's rogue (our rogues are in different parties). We're both rogues, we both roll sneak attack dice. And the similarity pretty much ends there. His rogue is an absolute bruiser that can kill the shit out of things really fast because he does a fuckton of damage. I can do some nice damage on my rogue too, but not nearly as much as him. On the other hand, my rogue will be excellent at controlling the battlefield. She's built to push people all over the damn place, to run all over the place herself, to put enemies places they don't want to be, to give her party combat advantage, etc. In any social situations, my rogue would walk all over his, too. Hell, our stat emphasis is even a little different, he's a str/dex rogue and I'm a dex/cha rogue.


You can be a special snowflake in 4E. It's a little harder to make a shitty special snowflake, because the game is balanced better, but I don't see how that is bad at all.

Also I find the "well my PHB and DMG don't show that!" understandable, but a little silly, given I am pretty damn sure my 3rd edition PHB wasn't going to blow away anyone all on its own either. I guess what I think is you should maybe trust the people who have played 4E a lot (or complete weirdos like Fordel who just like to build characters all day) that the flexibility is indeed there now. I played a looooot of 3rd edition. I was a little "meh" about 4th at first myself, because it did seem less flexible (although I was glad they stabbed the whole wizards-suck-then-are-completely-broken thing to death). Then I played it for a while and more books got published. Now I think it's more flexible, because you can do some weird shit but it will WORK and not be shitty in all situations except one Really Special One.

[Malakili]

Which snowflake would you like me to build for you?


Give me a character concept that you seemingly can't make in 4e.

Some of my favorite builds from 3rd:

1) Jump Monk: Keep jump maxed out as well as climb, boots of spring and striding when possible.  Bounce around the battlefield, lots of vertical combat with jump and climb, dropping on enemies to grapple and pin (especially fun in pathfinder).

2) Diplomo-Bard:  Very little focus on combat, high charisma and diplomacy skills, taking Leadership ASAP.  Support spells and lots skill use in combat (intimidate, for example) to aid team mates without doing much actual fighting.  Absolutely shines in non-combat based encounters and free form RP with skill checks.  Not TOO unique here, just LOTS of skill use.

3) Spiked Chain Trip warrior - this is probably fairly straight forward in 4th.   Warrior who uses his extra feats to get improved trip early and keep enemies on the ground.  Also good for groups that like to interrogate enemies because it increases your ability to capture enemies.  At higher level you end up taking a lot of the feats that give you quirky/situational in combat abilities that make you awesome at controlling the battlefield, but not a particualrly high damage dealer. 

Its late and I'm going to bed, but those are just 3 of my old characters that I loved a lot off the top of my head.  I think its probably obvious from my concepts that I like avoiding direct combat, being support, and using sometimes less used game mechanics as central to my character concepts.

[Ratman_tf]

I did really cheesy things with a Wand of Magic Missile before my DM started making me roll to-hit for it.

"The evil king begins to read from the Necronomicon, summoning the powers that will destroy the world."

"I fire a magic missile at the book."

"Dave's character is now paralyzed and incapable of participating in the rest of this encounter."

--Dave

Exactly. Previous versions of D&D felt like they encouraged crazy plans and dumb ideas. 4th is all about doing 2[w] damage and shifting 3 squares on the grid. Sly was pretty right, I think, in comparing it to Final Fantasy Tactics.
It's possible to think outside the box, but I don't feel that 4th encourages it very much.

[Slyfeind]

I think the term we're looking for, in terms of balance, is "zero sum".

But it's more than that. D&D has always been zero sum, to one degree or another. But what 4e does is make combat zero sum on its own. 1e, by contrast, brought trap detection, magic items, saving throws, and experience tables into the mix. 1e was also zero sum, but it was often hard to see that kind of balance, because of the interpretation of it all.

In 1e, a party of two fighters and two clerics was not very viable...unless they were in an adventure that was only about fighting and healing and blessing. In 4e, that would be viable in just about any circumstance, with rules as written. In 1e, a party of three thieves would be completely inept...unless they were in an adventure that was all about stealth, traps, locks, and stealing. In 4e, they'd be totally fine; again, with rules as written.

Rules as written in 1e, though, ranged from dungeon-delving to swimming in seas of lava to Alice in Wonderland to wandering around in fucking spaceships. Rules as written in 4e is a series of combats interspersed with skill challenges. You could go against that if you want, but you're not playing 4e. You're doing something different with the 4e rules.

[Sand]

I think it (magic missle) was with 'Essentials', but I have no idea on like a exact date. Might've been before that.


There are some rituals in PHB1 2 and 3, but yea they are really spread out across books and dragon/dungeon articles. That is certainly one of those things where their online compendium thing is "required" if you really want them all.



If anything there is even MORE weird and quirky shit in 4e, because Dungeon and Dragon are all legit options now, part of the core rules and shit. 

Oh so as long as you buy all 3 PHB's then its just like it used to be! Goctha. 
 

[Fordel]

Some of my favorite builds from 3rd:

1) Jump Monk: Keep jump maxed out as well as climb, boots of spring and striding when possible.  Bounce around the battlefield, lots of vertical combat with jump and climb, dropping on enemies to grapple and pin (especially fun in pathfinder).

2) Diplomo-Bard:  Very little focus on combat, high charisma and diplomacy skills, taking Leadership ASAP.  Support spells and lots skill use in combat (intimidate, for example) to aid team mates without doing much actual fighting.  Absolutely shines in non-combat based encounters and free form RP with skill checks.  Not TOO unique here, just LOTS of skill use.

3) Spiked Chain Trip warrior - this is probably fairly straight forward in 4th.   Warrior who uses his extra feats to get improved trip early and keep enemies on the ground.  Also good for groups that like to interrogate enemies because it increases your ability to capture enemies.  At higher level you end up taking a lot of the feats that give you quirky/situational in combat abilities that make you awesome at controlling the battlefield, but not a particualrly high damage dealer. 

Its late and I'm going to bed, but those are just 3 of my old characters that I loved a lot off the top of my head.  I think its probably obvious from my concepts that I like avoiding direct combat, being support, and using sometimes less used game mechanics as central to my character concepts.

1) That's a 4e Monk baseline, you don't have to do anything special at all outside of pick the powers with the jump/athletics/fly* bonuses. Most optimal would be a Stone Fist monk, they use Dex/Str as their main stats, which will inflate your Athletics (consolidated jump/swim/climb etc) and Acrobatics (balance/tumble/falldmg etc) skills and having a high str will let you use baseline grab attacks. Monks also have plenty of powers with effects like knock prone and forced shifts. There are plenty of utility powers that let you literally run up walls and stuff too.

*Monk at-will and encounter powers, are all combo powers, a standard action and move action combined. A lot of the move actions are actually mechanically flights, but with the requirement that you must land at the end of the movement or you fall. These are those enormous graceful leaps you would see in a Kung-Fu style movie like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and etc.

You could also get a similar type of character using a Dex/Cha rogue, the artful dodger will let you tumble and jump around a lot easier and some rogue powers also have nice movement bonuses attached to them. You'd have to train unarmed strike if you weren't using a weapon as your jumpy monk. The actual monk class would still be superior for your jumpy monk build though (  )



2) Every bard is a Diplomo-Bard, but I know what you want/mean here. I've made this character myself, probably my favorite so far. Cunning Bard, CHA/INT with whatever DEX you can scrounge, Bard of all Trades Feat (+3 bonus to untrained skill checks, Bards have a innate +1 bonus to untrained checks for a +4 total, ACTUAL skill training is a +5 bonus so you are virtually 'trained' in EVERY skill), Multiclass into Rogue (I recommend Twilight Adept MC for rogue) for Duelist Panache (add your cha bonus to ath/acro) feat and access to the Jack of all Trades paragon path (gives you +2 to ALL skills, gives you a bunch of skill re-rolls, gives you 3or4 bonus skills), Multiclass into Sorcerer (if you have 13 str, go Soul of Sorcery, if not go Arcane Prodigy)  for the Sorceress Vision feat (use your arcana skill for perception/insight). If you are Eberron or using Dragonmark feats, get the Mark of Scribing, it's +2 diplomacy, 4 bonus languages and extra fast ritual writing, you sadly can't swap out the ritual writing for alchemist like most of these ritual granting feats and I really like the Bard only rituals provided as the bard class feature so I don't want to swap that to alchemist either. If you can get it, grab the Ioun's Revelation divine boon 'item' for a global +2 item bonus to all skills. Also pick up the utility power Inspire Competence at level 2 (encounter power) and a Wand of Aptitude (gives a big boost to the power and gives an extra use) for more bonuses to skill checks. The Feat Bardic Knowledge gives a +2 bonus to all trained knowledge checks. Familiars also provide a +2 bonus to certain checks that stacks with all the other bonuses you have.

Christ that's a wall of text.

Anyways using that build your "worst" skill checks will be auto successes on any easy DC (literally don't have to roll a die), virtually auto-successes on medium DC and you can power up for a few turns to beat any hard DCs. These are again, your WORST checks.

The Build lets you skill swap or inflate every other skill to a point of hilarity, like my Bard runs around with a Arcana Skill (for super powerful rituals AND super amazing perception and insight) so high, it auto succeeds on generic hard DCs. If start stacking my skill bonus granting powers, I hit skill check results normally reserved for PC's 10 levels above me.

Then its just about picking the powers you want for your characters theme, mine is a gnome so I went with the sneaky, invisible, hidden and teleporty powers. Very much about enabling allies instead of dishing out the pain myself.



3) There's actually a set of feats specifically for spiked chains, and at least 1 paragon path for spiked chains, that let you powerswap into a bunch of spiked chain specific powers. Then you just fill the holes with grabby/proney fighter powers.

[Fordel]

Oh so as long as you buy all 3 PHB's then its just like it used to be! Goctha. 
 

We could complain that a single book isn't living up to the multi-year history of the previous edition instead... because 3e didn't have ANY extra spells or classes in other books for that edition. 

[Sjofn]

Rules as written in 1e, though, ranged from dungeon-delving to swimming in seas of lava to Alice in Wonderland to wandering around in fucking spaceships. Rules as written in 4e is a series of combats interspersed with skill challenges. You could go against that if you want, but you're not playing 4e. You're doing something different with the 4e rules.

Did anyone ever actually play 1E as written? My own experience suggests "hahahahaha, oh fuck no, are you crazy?"

[Megrim]

I did really cheesy things with a Wand of Magic Missile before my DM started making me roll to-hit for it.

"The evil king begins to read from the Necronomicon, summoning the powers that will destroy the world."

"I fire a magic missile at the book."

"Dave's character is now paralyzed and incapable of participating in the rest of this encounter."

--Dave

You did that and the GM didn't have the book blow up in your face and tpk the party? Wow, ok.

[Ironwood]

Necronomicon, an ancient magic artifact spellbook ?

Yeah, it's reflecting that shit Back At Ya if the DM is worth a damn.

Or eating it.

[Bunk]

I shall take up Fordel's challenge!

This is a build I seriously contemplated for a replacement character in a ninth level game:

Wizard with high Str, Dex, Con, and an Int of 11 (which means he could only cast 1st level spells)
Six different meta magic feats, to use all of his 2nd through 5th level spell slots on. Essentially just bumping up the effectiveness of all his various 1st level spells.

Ok, seriously, it was a retarded idea, but I could have made the character, and I probably would have had fun with him, even though he'd be fairly useless. In 4th, you couldn't actually mechanically do this (you can't intentionally gimp yourself out of higher level powers afaik), but even if you could, having those high physical stats would do nothing for you, as none of your powers would use them.

The thing about 4th that really got to me though,was that it felt like everything had very precise, exact mechanics. You can do this exact manouver, which will have this exact effect, excatly this many times per X. Yes, some things fall under that in 3.5/PF, but not everything...

Take illusions for example. I find it highly unlikely that you would ever find anything that played the way silent/minor/major/programmed image do in 3.5/PF in 4th. Simply because, there are almost no hard rules about how they work - it has to be worked out between DM and player every time you use them. Sure, you might have rituals that duplicate similar effects, but essentially rituals in 4e are just spells that the designers decided that you wouldn't be allowed to use in combat, because there was no easy way to balance their effects with every other class.

Also, Lantyssa hit one of my issues right on the head - 4e really made a shitty impression with the opening 3 books. Essentially, they gave you six classes, with two builds each (stat A or stat B). Then they appeared to have tried to "fix" it with the standard Wizards approach: 3 new books per month.

With Pathfinder, for character design my group uses two hardcovers (Players Handbook, Advanced Player Guide) and maybe a companion guide ($10) that comes with whatever adventure path we are playing. Oh, and if you don't want to buy the companions for extra options, everything for character design is available free on the PFSRD.