Armor & Coins - please, No.

[Lizard]

I do recall quite a few people saying there's too many kinds of armour, or at least not enough meaningful differentiation between armour types. But adding more meaningful differentiation sets us on the road to 1E-style AC bonus vs damage type, which no sane person wants.

I am clearly insane. All of my homebrew designs use DR/damage type for armor mechanics. I think Hero, with it's PD/ED, is too simplistic.

I've been thinking about 4e. It's probably a better game for the way I *actually play* than 3x, but it's lot less fun for the "solo play" of tinkering and designing. Fortunately, T5 will be here any month now...

 

[pawsplay]

Starleather, spiritmail, godplate - I'm not really digging these. For all the weak accusations of 4e being video-gamey, these names definitely make me think of a video game.

But the prizewiiner = ASTRAL DIAMONDS! - WTF? Are you kidding me? I can see it now, perfectly cut diamonds scattered throughout the Astral Plane. How do you mine the Astral Plane, exactly?

It makes me think of... MIDNIGHT SUNSTONE BAZOOKA!

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I don't think that it's possible for me to disagree with you more.

I can't imagine a system that doesn't benefit from a double shot of Darwinism.

It depends.

The natural end result of d20 is/was True20. It doesn't get much simpler than 3 classes: Expert, Warrior, Adept, etc.

You could further standardize the game so that you only ever use a d20-- eliminate all other dice.

And etc.

But in the larger sense, I agree that some amount of design Darwinism is a good thing. There are certainly some 4e simplifications that I agree with. In fact I don't particularly have an issue with these changes to armor.

But to suggest that the game could/should be reduced to mithril chain shirt and mithril plate-- because that's all players ever seemed to wear, given 3e's investiture of power in the players' hands-- is a bit silly.

I could go on to predict that 4e will go through exactly the same stages of player-driven Darwinism.

In the context of this thread, for example, why have copper or silver pieces at all? PCs don't use them past 1st level-- if at all.

 

[Nytmare]

But to suggest that the game could/should be reduced to mithril chain shirt and mithril plate-- because that's all players ever seemed to wear, given 3e's investiture of power in the players' hands-- is a bit silly.

Did someone suggest that? I thought that the push was that if something is not used, or if instead one thing is always used, then the problems need to be singled out and rethought.

In the context of this thread, for example, why have copper or silver pieces at all?[/i][/b]

One of my favorite things about 4E is that so many of the changes I'm seeing are cleaner and shinier versions of the houserules I've been piecing together for the past decade.

Amidst the set of encumbrance rules my group now uses, coins and gems are each converted to their own decimal'd values, completely ignoring individual units beyond "coins or gems" and relegating them to clean sums in abstract little pouches.

Why have copper or silver pieces at all? I don't know. What are those new fancy units of currency all the astral plane jetsetters are using?

 

[Shroomy]

Copper, Silver, and Astral Diamonds exist solely to make the D&D economy (such that it is) "work."

 

[SCMrks]

I can see Int to AC in that a warrior learns how to fight by studying fighting techniques and martial arts styles. So when he notices his opponent using a certain set up he realizes a specific follow up strike is coming and has his block up in anticipation. And you also learn from your mistakes and experience in past fights.

I think there is a reason for having just a few choices of armor in the PHB to get started with. At the designer's presentation at D&DXP, WotC explained that they have a magic items book coming out for 4th edition soon. They do not want it to be a DM's only book so they are making it a combination Magic Items Compedium and Arms and Equipment Guide so players will have a use for it too. So if you want studded leather, breastplate, or chain shirt you may have another book to buy.

 

[wingsandsword]

One of my favorite things about 4E is that so many of the changes I'm seeing are cleaner and shinier versions of the houserules I've been piecing together for the past decade.

When 3e was announced, I was initially very wary, and for the first few months I was definitely anti-3e because I was so afraid WotC would mess everything up.

However, it became clear over time that 3e had a lot in common with the huge body of house-rules my game used. It was similar enough that if you went back today and played AD&D 2e with the body of house rules we used before the announcement of 3e then you'd think it was an attempt to retrofit AD&D with 3e rules. To us, 3e felt like the natural, logical progression of the game. 3.5 felt like the results of 3e being exposed to the crucible of mass-market use, with things like front-loaded rangers and ambiguously worded cleric domain abilities going out, with a few changes we didn't care for (Pokemounts ect.)

With 4e, it doesn't feel that way. The house-rules and variants we used (nowhere near as many as with 2e, as we are generally much happier with 3.5 than we were with 2e, but there were still some) weren't going in that direction. The big rules changes, and underlying philosophy changes are a radical shift in direction from the style of play we've been drifting towards since 2000. Adopting 4e wouldn't be to us like taking the next logical step in D&D, it would be like throwing out the gradual progression in design and play style that our group has had since long before I joined for a strange new game that is divergent in style and flavor.

 

[Ladnor_burry]

I didn't read the entire thread, but more pictures are available via folder browsing getting you here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/benimoto

Spells, monsters, etc.

 

[Stalker0]

If 3.x had problems due to many armors not being worth the cost (in money, AC, and Dex), the answer is simple. House-rule it such that the armors become worth something. Then we don't need this silliness of 4e armor.

Thing is, that's actually very hard to do.

How do you balance armor:

1) By cost? Players will always spend their money to get the best protection they can afford. Eventually they will all get their plate mail once they have the money. Or else plate will be too expensive, and no one will get it. This balance can explain why npcs wouldn't have heavy armor though, and it certainly explains how you don't get a 1000 man army all in plate mail.

2) By adding penalties? Fighter types in 3e quickly learned that AC is a lot more important in most cases than the armor check penalty on a balance check, or a bit of speed. So either you make those balance checks really important, screwing the fighter who no longer can take advantage of that heavy armor he wants, or limiting the checks....in which cases more armor is still better.

3) By requiring training. This seems to be 4e's way to do it. The reason this didn't work in 3e is that multiclassing made it very easy to put up all the armor proficiencies you needed. Further, mithral usually meant that the proficiencies were not even required. In 4e, it doesn't look like multiclassing will get you armor profs, and I think mithral is gone.

That means that plate mail is ALWAYS wanted, but only obtained by the special few that take the feats or have the profs to wear it.

 

[Stalker0]

When 3e was announced, I was initially very wary, and for the first few months I was definitely anti-3e because I was so afraid WotC would mess everything up.

However, it became clear over time that 3e had a lot in common with the huge body of house-rules my game used. It was similar enough that if you went back today and played AD&D 2e with the body of house rules we used before the announcement of 3e then you'd think it was an attempt to retrofit AD&D with 3e rules. To us, 3e felt like the natural, logical progression of the game. 3.5 felt like the results of 3e being exposed to the crucible of mass-market use, with things like front-loaded rangers and ambiguously worded cleric domain abilities going out, with a few changes we didn't care for (Pokemounts ect.)

With 4e, it doesn't feel that way. The house-rules and variants we used (nowhere near as many as with 2e, as we are generally much happier with 3.5 than we were with 2e, but there were still some) weren't going in that direction. The big rules changes, and underlying philosophy changes are a radical shift in direction from the style of play we've been drifting towards since 2000. Adopting 4e wouldn't be to us like taking the next logical step in D&D, it would be like throwing out the gradual progression in design and play style that our group has had since long before I joined for a strange new game that is divergent in style and flavor.

However, looks like we should all learn from your example. You thought 3e would be horrible, and it turned out to work well for you. Now you think 4e looks horrible....guess you should do the same thing and see if it still works for you