D&D Insider - My main beef

[Markn]

I am houseruling the hell out of my campaign. From the DM's side, this is as easy as its always been. Anything that impacts the character sheet though makes me .

Yep, thats about right. Any changes I've implemented have always been from the DM side, not affecting the character sheets. It seems to be the best approach.

 

[Plane Sailing]

This is only true for DDI users who are "locked in" to the Character Builder. If you don't use the CB, then 4E is incredibly easy to hack, tweak, and modify. It's only a cultural expectation that leads people to think it isn't.

Speaking as an inveterate hacker, tweaker and modify-er of several decades standing (gosh!), I have to say that 4e is the hardest to house rule of any edition of D&D on anything other than the most trivial of levels in my experience.

It is one of the reasons why I gave up on it.

Cheers

 

[Dausuul]

Speaking as an inveterate hacker, tweaker and modify-er of several decades standing (gosh!), I have to say that 4e is the hardest to house rule of any edition of D&D on anything other than the most trivial of levels in my experience.

It is one of the reasons why I gave up on it.

Cheers

What sort of house-rules did you have in mind?

 

[Ktulu]

While I would love to have the stuff added in, I have found an acceptable alternative.

A long while back I found a .pdf of power cards that some guy made-blank entry for at-will/encounter/daily/magic.

When we have a house-ruled item/power/etc.. I just type it up, save it, and then have the player add the name as a house-rule in the CB. he then just adds the card to his card-slot in his character-binder.

It's a little work-heavy, but since I save all the powers in a folder, I don't ever have to re-type them, either.

Until they do create an alternative, that does work fine for me.

 

[Snoweel]

Speaking as an inveterate hacker, tweaker and modify-er of several decades standing (gosh!), I have to say that 4e is the hardest to house rule of any edition of D&D on anything other than the most trivial of levels in my experience.

It's the first edition I've ever played RAW.

 

[tyrlaan]

While I would love to have the stuff added in, I have found an acceptable alternative.

A long while back I found a .pdf of power cards that some guy made-blank entry for at-will/encounter/daily/magic.

When we have a house-ruled item/power/etc.. I just type it up, save it, and then have the player add the name as a house-rule in the CB. he then just adds the card to his card-slot in his character-binder.

It's a little work-heavy, but since I save all the powers in a folder, I don't ever have to re-type them, either.

Until they do create an alternative, that does work fine for me.

Exactly, it's just a bit of elbow grease. I'm finding that I fall into the "when did DDI become a requirement" camp. Don't get me wrong, I subscribe to DDI and therefore happily use the CB, but it's not the be all and end all of things.

I suspect the CB has become such a crutch because of the nature of the power rules. To expand on that, it's just very very convenient to have power cards. But the thing is, you could have done this in 3e for spells too. Perhaps a bit more text on them (since 3e magic covered much the territory of 4e powers + rituals), but they'd speed up play as valuable quick references. Especially for spontaneous casters who would only need a small number of them. In fact, weren't spell cards produced by someone back in 3e's heyday? I wouldn't be surprised if 4e powers came into being because someone saw 3e spell cards and said, "wow that's a good idea, lets tweak and streamline that as the basis for a new edition."

I suppose my point is that the reliance on the CB and the extended assumptions/conclusions they lead to are a direct result of the CB existing in the first place.

It makes me think of what happens when I hand a cashier extra change to round out the money to give back to me, but it's after he/she finished the sale so the computer can't do the math for him/her. Not trying to sound snarky (so apologies if it came off that way), but I have to wonder how much WotC is tying us into playing the game a certain way vs. us doing it to ourselves because we've just become too reliant on their admittedly cool digital products.

 

[pauljathome]

My main beef is something different.

For some unknown reason, WOTC keeps unsubscribing me from DDI. Twice now I've subscribed and a week or so later they've kicked me out. 1st time they refunded my money before kicking me out, second time they refunded my money only after I complained (I told them that I'd rather stay subscribed )

No idea why. Customer Service had no idea. I'm guessing its some combination
of using a Canadian Pay Pal account that is not backed by a credit card while immediately telling them that I do NOT want automatic renewal.

Ah well. Gotta love incompetence.

 

[Ktulu]

My main beef is something different.

For some unknown reason, WOTC keeps unsubscribing me from DDI. Twice now I've subscribed and a week or so later they've kicked me out. 1st time they refunded my money before kicking me out, second time they refunded my money only after I complained (I told them that I'd rather stay subscribed )

No idea why. Customer Service had no idea. I'm guessing its some combination
of using a Canadian Pay Pal account that is not backed by a credit card while immediately telling them that I do NOT want automatic renewal.

Ah well. Gotta love incompetence.

Hmm... Have you tried...not being Canadian?


Well, then. I'm out of ideas

 

[mudbunny]

My main beef is something different.

For some unknown reason, WOTC keeps unsubscribing me from DDI. Twice now I've subscribed and a week or so later they've kicked me out. 1st time they refunded my money before kicking me out, second time they refunded my money only after I complained (I told them that I'd rather stay subscribed )

No idea why. Customer Service had no idea. I'm guessing its some combination
of using a Canadian Pay Pal account that is not backed by a credit card while immediately telling them that I do NOT want automatic renewal.

Ah well. Gotta love incompetence.

The billing end of DDI is not run by WotC, but by Digital River.

 

[Markn]

The billing end of DDI is not run by WotC, but by Digital River.

Huh...Didn't know that.