Pen and Paper D&D

[Ingmar]

You'd have to be pretty exacting in a paladin build to make it really functional as a primary healing type guy.

[Bunk]

Admittedly, it was our first run at 4ed. We'd gotten used to the idea that you could make up for a lack of a dedicated healer in 3.5 (UMD a cure lt wand, potions, etc).

[Fordel]

You still can, but it's more about being proactive with your own powers and surges then just hoarding a bunch of heal pots.

[Ingmar]

It is true though that a party without a leader role type has a much narrower margin of error in any given encounter than one that has one. The big contrast to 3.5 in that respect is that very little healing tended to take place *during* encounters in 3.5, where 4e's combat model more expects you to sort of initially take a beating in a fight and then battle back using your surges and stuff as an advantage over the monsters or whatever.

[Sheepherder]

To me, 4ed comes across as a system designed to have a hard fast rule for everything (as far as combat goes).

Well, yeah.  Why are you buying the game if not for that?

[Soln]

I'm enjoying this thread.  FWIW I played D&D when it was still "D&D" (and other oldies like Traveller) in the 80's.  I still have all my original books and modules.  Tomorrow, my wife and I are going to a dinner party for my first RPG game since maybe 1995/6 (which was Shadowrun) and it will be her first.  It's Pathfinder.  I'm playing a hobbit cleric with domains of healing/knowledge.  She's playing a gnome druid whose animal companion is a wolf (which can be her mount I believe).  I'm jazzed.

I don't have any strong opinon on 4e.  I played D&D up until I felt they super-saturated the market with Forgotten Realms and 3e and 3.5 handbooks.  A lot of you have pointed the following but not directly: the costs to play PnP games, particularly, D&D can be prohibitive. It just feels exploitive to people after while, particularly the young.  Cards, figurines, mats, supplement after supplement... After awhile I just resented that TSR couldn't rationalize and stabilize their rule sets long enough to not justify pushing another handbook supplement on us.  All of these things are optional, but be honest -- for gamers there's nothing really optional is there?

It's true you don't need to re-purchase the DM Guide all the time.  But I always felt since 2nd edition that the ruleset was out of control.  Now, with the 4ed it feels they're simulating MMO-play in PnP, figurines and all.  I guess that's a fine strategy to pull in the new and young players.  I just wonder by this logic and trend if the 5e will be following web games -- maybe more social rules less combat?

[Sheepherder]

If they start making their money off of card/figurine/mat/adventure sales and cut the number of rule book releases down it would be a good thing.

[Ghambit]

If they start making their money off of card/figurine/mat/adventure sales and cut the number of rule book releases down it would be a good thing.

Pfft.  If this happened I'd just buy more books from other IPs.  (shrug)  You should see my closet and bookshelves.
To me it matters not if they have a million books for a single IP.  Half the time the DM/GM is gonna house-rule or only use a specific ruleset anyways.  The other half we'll likely be playing something else.  All in all, the more tools the better and there's no way to fit it all into a single tome.

Also, you really just have to look at 4e as the new D20 and not even worry about it.  D&D itself is therein just a rough lore template to do all kinds of crazy shit in... each version of which requires books.  Beyond that you have stuff like "Gamma World" 4e that just came out and a slew of other stuff that's in the works.

And let's be real.  Right now the entry into the genre is a lot friendlier than it used to be, which is a good thing.  I can whip out a 4e encounter and most people would likely enjoy it much more than any other "boardgame" they'd play and yet they wouldnt feel like a grognard doing it.   The nerdy bits that people are uncomfortable with are entirely unnecessary in 4e, but easily bolted on... which is a lot better than the reverse, which many PnP games seem to do - roleplay/freestyle first and worry about the system-feel later.   I'd rather have a solid boardgamey/MMOish system to trick my gamerz into roleplaying with than a roleplaying system I have to trick them to game with.   

Then maybe down the road I can throw crazed Indie shit on the table and not feel bad about it.

[Samwise]

Also, how many level 1 ray spells are there in 3.5? I can't think of any, unless Pathfinder added some. I only remember the level 0 one.

Heh, you spotted the major flaw in my build, which was one reason I never tried it.

Okay, now I'm intrigued by this dex wizard concept and wish to explore it.  What about taking Weapon Finesse(touch) and using Shocking Grasp and/or Chill Touch?  Or just loading up on Ray of Enfeeblement and accepting that you'll have a support role for a couple of levels?

That or just research a level 1 ray spell to fill in the gap.  Shit, if I were DMing I'd be inclined to make one up myself and make it one of your starting spells.

[Ingmar]

Also, how many level 1 ray spells are there in 3.5? I can't think of any, unless Pathfinder added some. I only remember the level 0 one.

Heh, you spotted the major flaw in my build, which was one reason I never tried it.

Okay, now I'm intrigued by this dex wizard concept and wish to explore it.  What about taking Weapon Finesse(touch) and using Shocking Grasp and/or Chill Touch?  Or just loading up on Ray of Enfeeblement and accepting that you'll have a support role for a couple of levels?

That or just research a level 1 ray spell to fill in the gap.  Shit, if I were DMing I'd be inclined to make one up myself and make it one of your starting spells.

To put on my 3.5 hat for a moment, the major issues are you're feat starved and there aren't that many real good spells to pick from in the core book. You *need* point blank shot and precise shot. You can't take Weapon Finesse until level 3 anyway (requires a +1 base attack bonus), so by then you may as well just use spectral hand to make those level 1 spells ranged touch attacks instead. Without the spell compendium, you don't get any real effective attack spells until level 3 when you can learn scorching ray. It isn't a bad build at all but it really, really wants access to the spell compendium for the orb spells in order to be vaguely useful for the first couple levels. Ray of enfeeblement doesn't get super awesome until you can do crazy stuff with empowering it etc.

It probably is at its strongest as a warmage (base class from Complete Arcane) but then you do give up all pretense of utility spellcasting. A sorcerer splits the difference on that front.

[Samwise]

Without the spell compendium, you don't get any real effective attack spells until level 3 when you can learn scorching ray. It isn't a bad build at all but it really, really wants access to the spell compendium for the orb spells in order to be vaguely useful for the first couple levels.

Fuck a spell compendium.  I'm sure 4E did away with the concept of independent spell research, but didn't your DM let you do any of that in previous editions?  Stuff that does straight up damage isn't even that hard to balance.

[Ingmar]

Without the spell compendium, you don't get any real effective attack spells until level 3 when you can learn scorching ray. It isn't a bad build at all but it really, really wants access to the spell compendium for the orb spells in order to be vaguely useful for the first couple levels.

Fuck a spell compendium.  I'm sure 4E did away with the concept of independent spell research, but didn't your DM let you do any of that in previous editions?  Stuff that does straight up damage isn't even that hard to balance.

I did a little of it in a 1e game at some point. I don't honestly remember if 3E has rules for it or not.

[Samwise]

I don't think it had hard and fast rules with elaborate point-buy mechanisms or anything like that.  More like "look at the other spells of the same level and try to not to make yours overpowered by comparison, and then whatever the DM says goes."  I tended to be a real hardass about new spells (because I didn't trust my players to not be trying to sneak in some clever game-breaking tactic), but straight up offensive spells are hard to mess up.

[Ingmar]

I am a big believer in rules systems that take away the 'have to convince the DM this is ok' factor (in part due to said 1e spell research). But yeah it shouldn't really be too difficult. Those orb spells are all d6/2 levels, cap at 5d6, close range, touch attack, do whatever elemental damage, first level spells. Pretty straightforward stuff. (There was a lot of argument about the 4th level ones possibly being overpowered, they carried secondary effects).

[CmdrSlack]

Wow, now I'm starting to wonder if I've been out of this for so long that I have missed entire editions.

When I started playing, the books were branded as Advanced D&D. One of my buddies had his dad's books from college. He was proud that he had original cover art. We had the PHB, the GM Guide, Monster Manual, Fiend Folio, Oriental Adventures, and Unearthed Arcana. So is that 2nd ed?  (EDIT -- I recall also having a boxed edition that was the basic D&D where you just picked a class and race was tied to that class. The red box version.)

At some point before that gaming group dissolved, we'd been using brown, thin, paperback books as well, but we hadn't adopted a new PHB or anything. I recall the books just providing builds and some new classes, but we had always used THAC0 for combat. I don't think those were 3e.

It's been a long time, and our group moved on to other games and ultimately dissolved in the early 90s when Shadowrun was newish.

TLDR version:

1. Books that had only changed cover art since the 70s. (Barring expansions like UA and OA)
2. No D&D games since 1990.
3. Which version is that?

[proudft]

We had the PHB, the GM Guide, Monster Manual, Fiend Folio, Oriental Adventures, and Unearthed Arcana. So is that 2nd ed?

Unearthed Arcana and Oriental Adventures means this was 1st edition.

2nd edition has the weird blue text/art everywhere in the main books.

3rd edition has brown notebook-like lines on each page.

[CmdrSlack]

I am a big believer in rules systems that take away the 'have to convince the DM this is ok' factor (in part due to said 1e spell research). But yeah it shouldn't really be too difficult. Those orb spells are all d6/2 levels, cap at 5d6, close range, touch attack, do whatever elemental damage, first level spells. Pretty straightforward stuff. (There was a lot of argument about the 4th level ones possibly being overpowered, they carried secondary effects).

This is why games like GURPS and Rolemaster became my group's core systems, I think. We had one kid who always had to be something ridiculous. Those systems seemed to encourage/enable free-form without being overly cumbersome. At one point, we were trying to build our own game, and we largely stole the mechanics from GURPS, Heroes Unlimited, and pre-2020 Cyberpunk. We never got it finished, largely because it was easier to use GURPS and just come to a consensus about the game world.

[CmdrSlack]

We had the PHB, the GM Guide, Monster Manual, Fiend Folio, Oriental Adventures, and Unearthed Arcana. So is that 2nd ed?

Unearthed Arcana and Oriental Adventures means this was 1st edition.

2nd edition has the weird blue text/art everywhere in the main books.

3rd edition has brown notebook-like lines on each page.

So did first edition have brown paperback add-on books? IIRC, the bard class was in one of them. They were no thicker than a TPB comic.

[Sjofn]

... largely because it was easier to use GURPS ...

I have never, ever seen that statement before. 

[CmdrSlack]

... largely because it was easier to use GURPS ...

I have never, ever seen that statement before. 

It makes lots of sense in the context of this group and its resident munchkin/snowflake player. He was the kind of guy who wanted to base house rules on house rules. He was the Learned Hand of rules jurists. For whatever reason, GURPS was easier.

[Ingmar]

We had the PHB, the GM Guide, Monster Manual, Fiend Folio, Oriental Adventures, and Unearthed Arcana. So is that 2nd ed?

Unearthed Arcana and Oriental Adventures means this was 1st edition.

2nd edition has the weird blue text/art everywhere in the main books.

3rd edition has brown notebook-like lines on each page.

So did first edition have brown paperback add-on books? IIRC, the bard class was in one of them. They were no thicker than a TPB comic.

That sounds to me like you were mixing in some of the old 1974 D&D stuff with your AD&D - typically called OD&D now to make it distinct what you mean.

EDIT: Although, brown cover could also mean the 2nd edition Complete Fighter type stuff with kits, etc. Are we talking thick enough to write a title on the spine? 2E came out in '88 so if you only added these in towards the end those would be 2nd edition things. Sounds like you had a mix in any case.

[Sheepherder]

It makes lots of sense in the context of this group and its resident munchkin/snowflake player. He was the kind of guy who wanted to base house rules on house rules. He was the Learned Hand of rules jurists. For whatever reason, GURPS was easier.

The trick is to keep killing his bullshit characters until he stops making them.

[Rendakor]

That's an unpleasant arms race for the rest of the party.

[Sjofn]

Yeah, repeated character murder doesn't seem like it would really deter much.

I will say, I really enjoy the concept of GURPS. I could probably make characters all day. But I don't especially like trying to actually PLAY it. If that makes sense.

[Rendakor]

That's exactly how far we got with GURPS. Bought the books, sat down one night and made characters; our GM went home that night to learn the mechanics, and immediately told us to roll new D&D characters.

[Goumindong]

Yeah thats what I meant. Invisibility is invisibility= you cant see me. Illusion is illusion= Giant Gold Dragon appears in the doorway attempting to eat the evil death knight.
Not the same.

You can totally do this. It just takes 10 minutes because spells like "earth to mud" and "mud to stone" should not be something that you can do in 6 seconds. Spells like that require timing and patience  and effort. They require setup.

In fact there is a spell specifically for what you want to do. It has a level 12 minimum (so early paragon tier, about level 6-8 for 3.5). Its called "Hallucinatory Creature". It lasts for 24, can be determined false by an insight check against your Arcana check. It takes 10 minutes to use and costs 500 gp(I.E. a pittance at level 12)

All the divinations are there, teleportation is there, portals and storage is there. Scrying is there etc. (just the PHB 1)

And there is no limit to the number of rituals that any player can have. That is right, any player can take the ritual casting feat(wizards get it free) and then use Rituals. Want to make a wizard that hits things and has a high str? Take a str based class, multi-wizard(for arcana as a trained skill if you didn't get it) and then ritual casting. Boom. First level as a human, second for anything else.

[Lantyssa]

So did first edition have brown paperback add-on books? IIRC, the bard class was in one of them. They were no thicker than a TPB comic.

1st edition book with a few basic sets

2nd edition stuff (note the blue outline and font change) [Mixed with a lot of 1st ed stuff, too.  Planescape and Darksun were both 2nd Ed.]

The black books in there were the OD&D.  Kind of a cross between 2nd edition and basic.  Probably the worst of all the versions.

3rd edition stuff

1st and 2nd were fairly close in systems.  Merging the two wouldn't be that hard.  3rd edition was a complete revamp.  4th was again.

[Sheepherder]

Yeah, repeated character murder doesn't seem like it would really deter much.

It doesn't.

But if the alternative is playing GURPS?  Sometimes it's the DM's duty to write up the stats for a Magma Nymph.

[Ghambit]

I am a big believer in rules systems that take away the 'have to convince the DM this is ok' factor (in part due to said 1e spell research).

Which is why they can now really push these "living campaigns," encounters, renown points, this new CCG element (fortune cards?), and D&D League play moreso now than they ever could before.

In prior editions you really couldnt do this w/o overlooking rule creep and subjective DMing.

[Tannhauser]

Steve Jackson games look lots more fun than they actually are.

[Ironwood]

There was an article once about what a Wizard could actually manage if he used True Strike to the fullest extent.

It was quite fucking scary, actually.  Throwing in the Meta-Magic feats and some multi-classing and you pretty much had something Game-Breaking.

[CmdrSlack]

We had the PHB, the GM Guide, Monster Manual, Fiend Folio, Oriental Adventures, and Unearthed Arcana. So is that 2nd ed?

Unearthed Arcana and Oriental Adventures means this was 1st edition.

2nd edition has the weird blue text/art everywhere in the main books.

3rd edition has brown notebook-like lines on each page.

So did first edition have brown paperback add-on books? IIRC, the bard class was in one of them. They were no thicker than a TPB comic.

That sounds to me like you were mixing in some of the old 1974 D&D stuff with your AD&D - typically called OD&D now to make it distinct what you mean.

EDIT: Although, brown cover could also mean the 2nd edition Complete Fighter type stuff with kits, etc. Are we talking thick enough to write a title on the spine? 2E came out in '88 so if you only added these in towards the end those would be 2nd edition things. Sounds like you had a mix in any case.

Those sound like the books. Now that I think about it, one of the guys in the group may have actually purchased the 2e PHB and DMG.

EDIT -- Based on the links Lant posted, we definitely were blending the 2e kit books into 1e until someone ponied up money for the PHB and DMG.

[Tannhauser]

Minor derail:  We drove up to GenCon one year.  We had an argument about a rule (3.5).  So we get there and there's the actual writers of 3.5.  They were meeting the public so I went up and politely asked if they could tell us the proper explanation for the rule.  They sided with me. :)  My friend STILL didn't believe it!  He just couldn't admit I was right.  One of my best gaming moments. 

[Sheepherder]

It was quite fucking scary, actually.

Cascading Catapult Slam	Fighter Attack 29
The brunt of your mighty swing sends your enemy bowling into another foe.
Daily ✦ Martial, Weapon
Standard Action	Melee weapon
Requirement: You must be wielding a two-handed weapon.
Primary Target: One creature
Primary Attack: Strength vs. Fortitude
Hit: 4[W] + Strength modifier damage, and you push the target a number of squares equal to 1 + your Constitution modifier and knock it prone. Then make a secondary attack.
Secondary Target: One creature adjacent to the primary target
Secondary Attack: Strength vs. Fortitude
Hit: 1d10 + Strength modifier damage, and you push the secondary target 2 squares and knock it prone. Then repeat the secondary attack against a creature adjacent to the secondary target.
Miss: Half damage, you push the target 1 square, and no secondary attack.

Learn2entropy Wizards of the Coast, for fucks sake.

[Ironwood]

What does that mean ?  Is that some kind of whack attack ?