Poll: Dungeons and Dragons 4th EDon'tion

[Lyri]

EDon'tion?

 

[AmrasCalmacil]

Thanks for telling us.

 

[Pumpkin_Eater]

Better than wasting months of your life and hundreds of dollars on WoW before realizing it's bad and you're addicted.

 

[NoSlottedToaster]

EDon'tion?

it was meant to be a play on edition but wasn't nearly as funny as I had intended

 

[Amnestic]

Better than wasting months of your life and hundreds of dollars on WoW before realizing it's bad and you're addicted.

Grow a backbone. If you're not enjoying your time on WoW, then stop.

I don't enjoy 4th Edition. Personal preference tells me 3.5 is 'better' and if anyone asks which version they should play I'll always tell them 3.5th however I don't begrudge those who prefer 4th. Why? Because people liking things I don't like is entirely natural. For some crazy reason, some people enjoy racing games. I don't get it really, but whatever People like different things. I prefer 3.5, some people prefer 4th and some people prefer ADnD 2nd.

 

[Aradiel]

I quite like 4th Edition - 3.5 was completely broken (apparently) and I prefer to spend hours killing things and having fun than spending hours just talking and not having fun.

 

[WrongSprite]

Better than wasting months of your life and hundreds of dollars on WoW before realizing it's bad and you're addicted.

Grow a backbone. If you're not enjoying your time on WoW, then stop.

That made my day.

OT: I havn't played either to be honest, but I'll want to when I go to uni, and everyone says 3.5 is the best...

 

[NoSlottedToaster]

I quite like 4th Edition - 3.5 was completely broken (apparently) and I prefer to spend hours killing things and having fun than spending hours just talking and not having fun.

my point, all the talking is what made it role playing and all the killing is what makes it a WoW on paper, granted a good game should have equal amounts of each

 

[Dr.Poisonfreak]

it might just be me but shouldn't this be under gaming discussion ?

 

[ILPPendant]

EDon'tion?

it was meant to be a play on edition but wasn't nearly as funny as I had intended

Haha, yeah, even I could tell that.

It's really all down to what you're used to. I assume the point of 4e was to gain new customers since everyone who was smart patient enough to use 3e or 3.5e would already have bought a sourcebook. By "dumbing it down" they were making it more accessible and thus potentially in the long run less "ubergeek" and more "charmingly nerdy".

This is a little like ragging on KotOR for its heavily pared-down use of DnD rules just because Neverwinter Nights folks had a lot of fun min-maxing tweaking their characters. Sure it's less control over your character but that ultimately means less to get in the way of you hitting stuff with lightsabers.

It's not like 3e is software, so even if it they stop supporting it you'll still be able to play online with your friends (or offline as God Gary Gygax intended).

EDIT: OP, consider changing your poll to be a little less hostile to those who don't share your views.

 

[CIA]

I quite liked the magic system.

Still, its not like I played anything but a stealth or melee character in 3.5 so
I'm a gonna go with that.

 

[Dancingman]

Wow, this thread wouldn't last a second in the WoTC forums. What an immature little ass the OP is, if you don't like 4th Edition, than either say so in a constructive manner or shut the hell up.

 

[JacobCO]

You forgot an option:
"While it may lack the complexity or subtly of 3.5, it's straight-forward method of play and rule system allows me to introduce strangers to the P&P RPG world and allow them to quickly and easily have a lot of fun. Something that wasn't at all easy under the bizarre and often byzantine min/max of 3.5, where a single "veteran" would make the rest of the party feel like they were a bunch of special needs children being babysat by a powerful, but often exasperated being of pure death and/or malice"

Oh wait, no you didn't, because you hate 4e and think everyone else should as well.

Also, it's way quicker to make campaigns in 4 than in 3.5, it's way easier to "Wing it". Thus, It's way easier to have fun without putting a lot of work into it. I don't know if you ever DM, but DMing 3.5 is a TON of work, serious effort has to go into things like that you know! What if I'm suck DMing (As I ALWAYS seem to be) But want to have maximum fun with minimal effort? 4e offers an alternative to Guitar Hero.

Only complaint: Not enough monsters in any given MM. Unfortunate, But really, I can only pit my players against so many level 1 kobolds/zombies/skeletons...

 

[SimuLord]

D&D hasn't been worth a damn since Advanced 2nd Edition rules. To this day I prefer to play with the TSR pre-Wizards of the Coast buyout materials.

 

[Tossth Esalad]

I'm a long time D&D player (started with Advanced D&D), and I must say that I don't like 4th edition. I don't hate it, but I dislike the emphasis on combat.

I've heard that it carries a resemblance to WoW (I don't play it, so I can't say), and it's probably an attempt by Wizards of the Coast (WotC), to appeal to a bigger audience, but in my opinion, they're selling out. The core difference between games like D&D and WoW, is the oppertunity to relate to other human beings. Chatting and speaking over Ventrillo just can't replace the tension and comlex emotions involved in roleplaying.

With the introduction of combat based "roleplaying", WotC are shunning their 20-30 year old fan base, in favor of (and I don't mean to offend anyone) the newcomers with no passion or interest in true roleplaying.

The best experiences I've had with roleplaying, was a campaign I played in, that lasted 4 (ish) years. It was based on a homegrown combination of 3rd and 3.5th edition, and i say based because it could have been any system really. This is the beauty of roleplaying: as long as the dungeonmaster is talented and the players are into it, it doesn't matter what system is being used.

It is here 4th edition falls short, or conversly, overshoots the target. When combat is so timeconsuming, there isn't room for what makes roleplaying games so special: actual roleplaying!

Now that's said, I'm actually going to play in a 4th edition campaign soon. The only reason I'm willing to play, is because I know the the DM, and he's great, so maybe I'll change my opinion, but I doubt it...



Woah... Kinda ranted all over the place there. Feel free to PM me with questions about D&D (or roleplaying in general).

 

[Lunar Shadow]

You forgot an option:
"While it may lack the complexity or subtly of 3.5, it's straight-forward method of play and rule system allows me to introduce strangers to the P&P RPG world and allow them to quickly and easily have a lot of fun. Something that wasn't at all easy under the bizarre and often byzantine min/max of 3.5, where a single "veteran" would make the rest of the party feel like they were a bunch of special needs children being babysat by a powerful, but often exasperated being of pure death and/or malice"

Oh wait, no you didn't, because you hate 4e and think everyone else should as well.

Also, it's way quicker to make campaigns in 4 than in 3.5, it's way easier to "Wing it". Thus, It's way easier to have fun without putting a lot of work into it. I don't know if you ever DM, but DMing 3.5 is a TON of work, serious effort has to go into things like that you know! What if I'm suck DMing (As I ALWAYS seem to be) But want to have maximum fun with minimal effort? 4e offers an alternative to Guitar Hero.

Only complaint: Not enough monsters in any given MM. Unfortunate, But really, I can only pit my players against so many level 1 kobolds/zombies/skeletons...

I presnt to you "Tucker's Kobolds"
[spoiler =Tucker's Kobolds]This month's editorial is about Tucker's kobolds. We get letters on occasion asking for advice on creating high-level AD&D® game adventures, and Tucker's kobolds seem to fit the bill.

Many high-level characters have little to do because they're not challenged. They yawn at tarrasques and must be forcibly kept awake when a lich appears. The DMs involved don't know what to do, so they stop dealing with the problem and the characters go into Character Limbo. Getting to high level is hard, but doing anything once you get there is worse.

One of the key problems in adventure design lies in creating opponents who can challenge powerful characters. Singular monsters like tarrasques and liches are easy to gang up on; the party can concentrate its firepower on the target until the target falls down dead and wiggles its little feet in the air. Designing monsters more powerful than a tarrasque is self-defeating; if the group kills your super-monster, what will you do next?send in its mother? That didn't work on Beowulf, and it probably won't work here.

Worse yet, singular supermonsters rarely have to think. They just use their trusty, predictable claw/claw/bite. This shouldn't be the measure of a campaign. These games fall apart because there's no challenge to them, no mental stimulation - no danger.

In all the games that I've seen, the worst, most horrible, most awful beyond-comparison opponents ever seen were often weaker than the characters who fought them. They were simply well-armed and intelligent beings who were played by the DM to be utterly ruthless and clever. Tucker's kobolds were like that.

Tucker ran an incredibly dangerous dungeon in the days I was stationed at Ft. Bragg, N.C. This dungeon had corridors that changed all of your donkeys into huge flaming demons or dropped the whole party into acid baths, but the demons were wienies compared to the kobolds on Level One. These kobolds were just regular kobolds, with 1-4 hp and all that, but they were mean. When I say they were mean, I mean they were bad, Jim. They graduated magna cum laude from the Sauron Institute for the Criminally Vicious.

When I joined the gaming group, some of the PCs had already met Tucker's kobolds, and they were not eager to repeat the experience. The party leader went over the penciled map of the dungeon and tried to find ways to avoid the little critters, but it was not possible. The group resigned itself to making a run for it through Level One to get to the elevators, where we could go down to Level Ten and fight "okay" monsters like huge flaming demons.

It didn't work. The kobolds caught us about 60' into the dungeon and locked the door behind us and barred it. Then they set the corridor on fire, while we were still in it.

"NOOOOOO!!!" screamed the party leader. "It's THEM! Run!!!"

Thus encouraged, our party scrambled down a side passage, only to be ambushed by more kobolds firing with light crossbows through murder holes in the walls and ceilings. Kobolds with metal armor and shields flung Molotov cocktails at us from the other sides of huge piles of flaming debris, which other kobolds pushed ahead of their formation using long metal poles like broomsticks. There was no mistake about it. These kobolds were bad.

We turned to our group leader for advice.

"AAAAAAGH!!!" he cried, hands clasped over his face to shut out the tactical situation.

We abandoned most of our carried items and donkeys to speed our flight toward the elevators, but we were cut off by kobold snipers who could split-move and fire, ducking back behind stones and corners after launching steel-tipped bolts and arrows, javelins, hand axes, and more flaming oil bottles. We ran into an unexplored section of Level One, taking damage all the time. It was then we discovered that these kobolds had honeycombed the first level with small tunnels to speed their movements. Kobold commandos were everywhere. All of our hirelings died. Most of our henchmen followed. We were next.

I recall we had a 12th-level magic user with us, and we asked him to throw a spell or something. "Blast 'em!" we yelled as we ran. "Fireball 'em! Get those little @#+$%*&!!"

"What, in these narrow corridors? " he yelled back. "You want I should burn us all up instead of them?"

Our panicked flight suddenly took us to a dead-end corridor, where a giant air shaft dropped straight down into unspeakable darkness, far past Level Ten. Here we hastily pounded spikes into the floors and walls, flung ropes over the ledge, and climbed straight down into that unspeakable darkness, because anything we met down there was sure to be better than those kobolds.

We escaped, met some huge flaming demons on Level Ten, and even managed to kill one after about an hour of combat and the lives of half the group. We felt pretty good ? but the group leader could not be cheered up.

"We still have to go out the way we came in," he said as he gloomily prepared to divide up the treasure.

Tucker's kobolds were the worst things we could imagine. They ate all our donkeys and took our treasure and did everything they could to make us miserable, but they had style and brains and tenacity and courage. We respected them and loved them, sort of, because they were never boring.

If kobolds could do this to a group of PCs from 6th to 12th level, picture what a few orcs and some low level NPCs could do to a 12th-16th level group, or a gang of mid-level NPCs and monsters to groups of up to 20th level. Then give it a try. Sometimes, it's the little things?used well?that count.[/spoiler]

 

[JacobCO]

You forgot an option:
"While it may lack the complexity or subtly of 3.5, it's straight-forward method of play and rule system allows me to introduce strangers to the P&P RPG world and allow them to quickly and easily have a lot of fun. Something that wasn't at all easy under the bizarre and often byzantine min/max of 3.5, where a single "veteran" would make the rest of the party feel like they were a bunch of special needs children being babysat by a powerful, but often exasperated being of pure death and/or malice"

Oh wait, no you didn't, because you hate 4e and think everyone else should as well.

Also, it's way quicker to make campaigns in 4 than in 3.5, it's way easier to "Wing it". Thus, It's way easier to have fun without putting a lot of work into it. I don't know if you ever DM, but DMing 3.5 is a TON of work, serious effort has to go into things like that you know! What if I'm suck DMing (As I ALWAYS seem to be) But want to have maximum fun with minimal effort? 4e offers an alternative to Guitar Hero.

Only complaint: Not enough monsters in any given MM. Unfortunate, But really, I can only pit my players against so many level 1 kobolds/zombies/skeletons...

I presnt to you "Tucker's Kobolds"
[spoiler =Tucker's Kobolds]This month's editorial is about Tucker's kobolds. We get letters on occasion asking for advice on creating high-level AD&D® game adventures, and Tucker's kobolds seem to fit the bill.

Many high-level characters have little to do because they're not challenged. They yawn at tarrasques and must be forcibly kept awake when a lich appears. The DMs involved don't know what to do, so they stop dealing with the problem and the characters go into Character Limbo. Getting to high level is hard, but doing anything once you get there is worse.

One of the key problems in adventure design lies in creating opponents who can challenge powerful characters. Singular monsters like tarrasques and liches are easy to gang up on; the party can concentrate its firepower on the target until the target falls down dead and wiggles its little feet in the air. Designing monsters more powerful than a tarrasque is self-defeating; if the group kills your super-monster, what will you do next?send in its mother? That didn't work on Beowulf, and it probably won't work here.

Worse yet, singular supermonsters rarely have to think. They just use their trusty, predictable claw/claw/bite. This shouldn't be the measure of a campaign. These games fall apart because there's no challenge to them, no mental stimulation - no danger.

In all the games that I've seen, the worst, most horrible, most awful beyond-comparison opponents ever seen were often weaker than the characters who fought them. They were simply well-armed and intelligent beings who were played by the DM to be utterly ruthless and clever. Tucker's kobolds were like that.

Tucker ran an incredibly dangerous dungeon in the days I was stationed at Ft. Bragg, N.C. This dungeon had corridors that changed all of your donkeys into huge flaming demons or dropped the whole party into acid baths, but the demons were wienies compared to the kobolds on Level One. These kobolds were just regular kobolds, with 1-4 hp and all that, but they were mean. When I say they were mean, I mean they were bad, Jim. They graduated magna cum laude from the Sauron Institute for the Criminally Vicious.

When I joined the gaming group, some of the PCs had already met Tucker's kobolds, and they were not eager to repeat the experience. The party leader went over the penciled map of the dungeon and tried to find ways to avoid the little critters, but it was not possible. The group resigned itself to making a run for it through Level One to get to the elevators, where we could go down to Level Ten and fight "okay" monsters like huge flaming demons.

It didn't work. The kobolds caught us about 60' into the dungeon and locked the door behind us and barred it. Then they set the corridor on fire, while we were still in it.

"NOOOOOO!!!" screamed the party leader. "It's THEM! Run!!!"

Thus encouraged, our party scrambled down a side passage, only to be ambushed by more kobolds firing with light crossbows through murder holes in the walls and ceilings. Kobolds with metal armor and shields flung Molotov cocktails at us from the other sides of huge piles of flaming debris, which other kobolds pushed ahead of their formation using long metal poles like broomsticks. There was no mistake about it. These kobolds were bad.

We turned to our group leader for advice.

"AAAAAAGH!!!" he cried, hands clasped over his face to shut out the tactical situation.

We abandoned most of our carried items and donkeys to speed our flight toward the elevators, but we were cut off by kobold snipers who could split-move and fire, ducking back behind stones and corners after launching steel-tipped bolts and arrows, javelins, hand axes, and more flaming oil bottles. We ran into an unexplored section of Level One, taking damage all the time. It was then we discovered that these kobolds had honeycombed the first level with small tunnels to speed their movements. Kobold commandos were everywhere. All of our hirelings died. Most of our henchmen followed. We were next.

I recall we had a 12th-level magic user with us, and we asked him to throw a spell or something. "Blast 'em!" we yelled as we ran. "Fireball 'em! Get those little @#+$%*&!!"

"What, in these narrow corridors? " he yelled back. "You want I should burn us all up instead of them?"

Our panicked flight suddenly took us to a dead-end corridor, where a giant air shaft dropped straight down into unspeakable darkness, far past Level Ten. Here we hastily pounded spikes into the floors and walls, flung ropes over the ledge, and climbed straight down into that unspeakable darkness, because anything we met down there was sure to be better than those kobolds.

We escaped, met some huge flaming demons on Level Ten, and even managed to kill one after about an hour of combat and the lives of half the group. We felt pretty good ? but the group leader could not be cheered up.

"We still have to go out the way we came in," he said as he gloomily prepared to divide up the treasure.

Tucker's kobolds were the worst things we could imagine. They ate all our donkeys and took our treasure and did everything they could to make us miserable, but they had style and brains and tenacity and courage. We respected them and loved them, sort of, because they were never boring.

If kobolds could do this to a group of PCs from 6th to 12th level, picture what a few orcs and some low level NPCs could do to a 12th-16th level group, or a gang of mid-level NPCs and monsters to groups of up to 20th level. Then give it a try. Sometimes, it's the little things?used well?that count.[/spoiler]

I've done something similar before (Am I the only one who's "Old School" Enough to remember the original "Keep on the Boarderlands"? That was pretty much the purpose of that old module.

Got me out of DMing for almost 3 years.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

Pretty much as soon as I acquired D20 Modern, I stopped GMing DnD 3.5 and I haven't played a game of Dungeons and Dragons in several years. Since then I've played many other systems, most prominently Star Wars SAGA edition, Wizards "Trial Run" of some of the concepts that crop up in 4e. Recently, after the release of 4th Ed and a few minor one shot games of 4th ed that didn't pan out, I found myself playing in a 3.5 game once again.

After being on hiatus from DnD for awhile, I was shocked to discover just how frustrating it was to play 3.5 again. The endless restrictions on character abilities (try doing ANYTHING unconventional without the prerequisite 3 feats that JUST remove the penalties), the constant magic item juggling, the endless +1's, -2's and other confusing modifiers that serve no real purpose except to dedicated min-maxers etc.

It has made me appreciate the changes made for DnD 4th Edition all the more. Sure it is a little dumbed down and there is little consideration for the roleplaying side of things... but 4e cleans up a LOT of the MANY CRIPPLING problems with 3.5 that kept the game from being accessible.

Overall though I still find 4th Ed a little unsatisfying, like a Hamburger when you want a Steak, so I prefer to play better designed games like Star Wars SAGA, Hollow Earth Expedition or the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.

 

[LazerLuger]

ITT angry grognards deify 3rd edition.

My opinions on it pretty much mirror this guy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyScRHQcAY8&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fuser%2FAFatNerd42&feature=player_profilepage