How will 4th affect your char?
edemaitre
Explorer
D&D4e PCs
I think midlevel characters will be affected the most. Lower-level Player Characters should be relatively easy to translate from D&D3.5 to "Dungeons & Dragons" Fourth Edition, whereas higher-level ones might benefit from the customization abilities promised with D&D4e.
I think the midlevel ones have just enough history, spells, and items that role-players have invested time in for them to be annoyed at converting them. Higher-level P.C.s might require more paperwork, but their personalities, followers, and signature items are usually pretty well-established. At least, that's from my experiences as a Dungeon Master who converted from OD&D to AD&D to AD&D2 to D&D3.x.
I think midlevel characters will be affected the most. Lower-level Player Characters should be relatively easy to translate from D&D3.5 to "Dungeons & Dragons" Fourth Edition, whereas higher-level ones might benefit from the customization abilities promised with D&D4e.
I think the midlevel ones have just enough history, spells, and items that role-players have invested time in for them to be annoyed at converting them. Higher-level P.C.s might require more paperwork, but their personalities, followers, and signature items are usually pretty well-established. At least, that's from my experiences as a Dungeon Master who converted from OD&D to AD&D to AD&D2 to D&D3.x.
i think its a pain in the butt personally..i mean seriously, a fourth edition..just for the money..i believe in making things right the first time..possibly the second...i am seriously looking at a new rpg called anima that is coming out soon...Dungeons and dragons changes far too much to invest my life savings into the game..dont get me wrong,i love it..but its getting ridiculous now...i'm starting to believe the rumor that they purposefully put *bad* things in the game just so they can come out with a new edition each year
MistyThorin
First Post
edemaitre said:
I have to agree with this assessment.
Conversion to D&D3.x was the worst for me, because that was when I had several mid-level characters to convert, all in RPGA campaigns so they had to be done immediately. With no one to make any sort of suggestions as to how the new system might affect the characters. Of the four that I had at the time, only one proved even somewhat playable following the conversion. Had we been given enough time to learn the new system, the conversion still would have been a PITA to deal with, but at least many of us wouldn't have screwed ourselves for lack of understanding of the new system. I saw more people leave the various Living campaigns following 3.x conversion, because of conversion, than at any other time.
Tharivious
First Post
Stats have never really mattered, so the system just boils down to personal preference. The bigger concern for ISRP will be the havoc that 4E is bringing to two of the four settings that we have here, something which I've been painstakingly (and painfully in some cases, the headaches just never seem to end) keeping up with. Considering the scope of the changes, I'd wager the Magi won't be jumping on board. 
4E Realms is staring down a 104 year time jump, Waterdeep itself is undergoing several changes in layout and political structure, and that's not to mention the implications on time-relative to the other rooms. Don't see how that can be followed, since many FR based characters will, well, expire before the time-jump is complete.
Sigil has been touted as a feature of the 4E DMG default setting, meaning that it's going to be heavily altered to suit the new cosmology (ie, ripped from the Spire/Outlands/Great Wheel entirely), not to mention the huge loss of metaplot by changing cosmologies. Don't see how that can be followed either, really, since 4E Sigil won't be Planescape Sigil, and ISRP uses Planescape Sigil.
4E Realms is staring down a 104 year time jump, Waterdeep itself is undergoing several changes in layout and political structure, and that's not to mention the implications on time-relative to the other rooms. Don't see how that can be followed, since many FR based characters will, well, expire before the time-jump is complete.
Sigil has been touted as a feature of the 4E DMG default setting, meaning that it's going to be heavily altered to suit the new cosmology (ie, ripped from the Spire/Outlands/Great Wheel entirely), not to mention the huge loss of metaplot by changing cosmologies. Don't see how that can be followed either, really, since 4E Sigil won't be Planescape Sigil, and ISRP uses Planescape Sigil.
In all seriousness, my characters aren't going to change at all. There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, I will have nothing to do with fourth edition at all. I feel like my heavy investment in 3.5 with the specific purpose of future-proofing my DnD has failed because of their greed - and I have a very large amount in investments in books, and the inevitable discontinuation of 3.5e materials is enough for me to say goodbye to Wizards forever... not to mention their general treatment of ISRP, a thing that has always upset me some. So... no 4e for me. It doesn't exist.
Second, even if it did, I would have to argue that ISRP shouldn't follow. ISRP should ignore the changes, because we're meant to be freeform anyway, so... yeah... having said that, I don't know anything at all about the legalities of such a thing. If we do have to change, it'll be a damn painful transition and... well, we'll see what happens.
Thirdly, my characters have never been very heavily diced anyway. I have character sheets and that, but I barely refer to them or think about them when playing. Combat is an amazing rarity for me, so (keeping other lack of changes in mind) I feel that it would just be too much effort for too little to convert them. They're people to me rather than numbers, so changes in numbers mean next to nothing.
And there you have it. 4e will not affect my characters.
Second, even if it did, I would have to argue that ISRP shouldn't follow. ISRP should ignore the changes, because we're meant to be freeform anyway, so... yeah... having said that, I don't know anything at all about the legalities of such a thing. If we do have to change, it'll be a damn painful transition and... well, we'll see what happens.
Thirdly, my characters have never been very heavily diced anyway. I have character sheets and that, but I barely refer to them or think about them when playing. Combat is an amazing rarity for me, so (keeping other lack of changes in mind) I feel that it would just be too much effort for too little to convert them. They're people to me rather than numbers, so changes in numbers mean next to nothing.
And there you have it. 4e will not affect my characters.
yeah... that's kind of the general thoughts running around my head... I choose to not have 4th affect my characters either... The only, only reason why I chose D&D 3.0 was because the opening books were 20 dollars... otherwise I would be a white wolf fan, plain and simple, they did something cool trying to open the game up to new players. I've also invested too much time and money into learning the rules of 3.5 and will feel greatly cheapened with the dumbing down of rules for 4th. ... ... and if you see anything about 4th, one begins to realize just why they decided to pitch isrp... it's the same damn thing... role playing with a computer at your side...
I would encourage ISRP to stay to 3.5 rules and setting personally...
I would encourage ISRP to stay to 3.5 rules and setting personally...
Tyrian_Spellstealer
First Post
Jeajea said:
I'm as much against the concept of 4e as anyone, but I must disagree with this frame of mind. If you follow this link: http://www.enworld.org/ - you will arrive at enworlds home page. The site that ISRP is hosted on, and our major source of new players. If you'll take the time to actually visit that link you'll see in big fat letters the words: "D&D 4th Edition News".
The reality is that for ISRP, 4th edition will be a painful transition, irritating, annoying, and a downright pain, and I truly wish as much as anyone here that WotC had not announced their decision to release it. But, if ISRP is to stay behind in edition 3.5, (which, I frankly would prefer as well) I believe it would lead to its eventual demise. We lose players here all the time at ISRP - be it because of work, family, MMORPGs, whatever. We have a very slow rate of new players. Those new players, assumedly, come straight from enworlds message boards.
Imagine, in 6 months time, a new player straight from enworlds message boards, converted straight to 4th edition (or heck, might be playing dnd for the first time, having never seen any of the older editions, as I know I was when I first came to ISRP) - and he enters straight into the forgotten realms room and finds that its 104 years in the past.
Not converting ISRP to 4e will cut off our source of new players. I'm not saying other peoples characters need to convert - I'm sure there are people out there who still use 2e for their characters, and I know I'll have all my characters still at 3.5e - but not updating the settings (or at least some of the settings) will provide no desire for new 4e players. No new players means a general decline in the amount of people on ISRP. To simple 'ignore' 4th edition here would be very unwise.
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Tharivious
First Post
The reality is that, as of now, we don't have Magi confirmation whether ISRP will transition to 4E setting standards or not (and I know at least two of them are as disgusted by WotC's handling of it as I amTyrian_Spellstealer said:
). So hyping up how bad it's bound to be is quite a bit premature. We aren't bound to any rules-set, and shouldn't be bound to change settings strictly on the basis of what WotC decides to do.The Tavern is still running strong (the strongest of the three fantasy settings), and Greyhawk/Oerth isn't being touched by 4E. I wouldn't write off 4E as the majority just yet, especially when it comes to setting changes (the Realms community is in a months-long uproar over how 4E has man-handled the setting, comparing New Realms to New Coke, and Sigil, aside from those who abritrarily dislike Planescape, is one of the most beloved settings in D&D's history) or aesthetic changes (the alterations to halflings and dwarves, to be precise, let alone the complete overhaul done to tieflings).
Devil's advocate inverse: Imagine the uproar of the players we have now losing non-elven/dwarven characters, and those with dwarves and elves having to age their characters 104 years. It's the exact same chance WotC has taken - alienating return customers/patrons on the gamble of attracting new ones that have no prior investment. It's a gamble that's going to alienate people either way.
Tyrian_Spellstealer
First Post
Tharivious said:
Thats one of my biggest concerns as well. I would like to hope that we could find a happy medium between the two, maybe have some settings stay, and some change - I don't know. I can't speak for the magi, nor do I intend to. Honestly, I haven't been following 4th edition news closely at all. My point is, completely ignoring 4th edition in ISRP would be a mistake, in my honest opinion, and would alienate new players - we can't stay 3.5 forever.
You are right though, changing everything to conform to WotC would upset other players as well who prefer 3.5 (myself included). My hope is that a happy medium can be found. Extremes on both ends will get us nowhere.
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