D&D 5E L&L 3/11/2013 This Week in D&D

[AbdulAlhazred]

The "real" answer to that is, of course, as long as you want it to. There are ways of setting such things up locally, at least as far as the compendium goes, and by now CBLoader is quite widespread. Also, Masterplan. If 4e DDi support goes the way of the dodo, perhaps the power2ool guy ( @doublewumpus ) can be convinced to release a "home version" of his popular and useful webapp. I'd even pay for the privilege.

Yeah, I've looked at various options. As a happy non-owner of a windows license none of these options have been too useful to me (of course I have to do some jumping through hoops to do CB as well, and MB, but I don't need them often as a DM).

No doubt some portable tools can be created, there are some things like iplay4e that have done a fair job of it here and there, but we still lack a really good solid cross-platform 4e support program.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Yeah, badly calculated if you ask me. AT BEST they can only hope for a very butt hurt fan base. IMHO they're not going to win back the people that are still comfortable with 3.x and its variations, nor the OSR crowd. They'll get SOME of the 4e crowd, eventually, and the nebulous but every fracturing "always plays whatever is the current thing" crowd. If that wasn't a big enough crowd in 4e days then its only going to be smaller now. I wish them luck, but I own no Hasbro stock and wouldn't buy WotC stock if it existed.

Yeah, I don't think it's an especially good move, but it might be the only one they have left (at least as they see it), if their goal is to win back lapsed customers that hated their current product. That said, they'd be relying an awful lot on the goodwill of those existing 4e customers with this tactic, and with me at least, it's quickly wearing thin.

And to clarify my last sentence that you quoted, the implication was that it is an unprofessional, amateur move to make. *I* might do that, but they probably should be able to come up with something better.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Yeah, I've looked at various options. As a happy non-owner of a windows license none of these options have been too useful to me (of course I have to do some jumping through hoops to do CB as well, and MB, but I don't need them often as a DM).

No doubt some portable tools can be created, there are some things like iplay4e that have done a fair job of it here and there, but we still lack a really good solid cross-platform 4e support program.

I thought that the local version of the compendium just set up a local webserver on your machine? Wouldn't apache or similar be able to do this? I didn't think you'd need windows for that. And power2ool is also just a web app...

 

[Sunseeker]

I'm not buying it. It doesn't matter if it's a feat, a maneuver, or a class feature; it's still another little thing you have to remember during play.

There are very few things that absolutely infuriate me but this argument is one of them. Because it isn't an argument! By that line of reasoning why gain anything after level 1? Why even have levels? Why even play? If you don't like to have to remember things, don't play TTRPGs. But there is no need for dead levels. If you have 20 levels and 10 features, why not just have 10 levels?

There will always be something to remember, there's no difference between X and Y, so there's no logical reason to say spreading out complexity requires more memorization effort than condensing it. Dead levels serve no purpose.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I thought that the local version of the compendium just set up a local webserver on your machine? Wouldn't apache or similar be able to do this? I didn't think you'd need windows for that. And power2ool is also just a web app...

I don't know anything about local compendium TBH. I wrote a program a few years ago that can suck down the whole compendium and store it in a usable form (XML files, I stole parts of it from other people, I think it will still work though I haven't really tried it in a couple years). You are right though, if you have a local web server and some sort of script that can run on it, etc then you could do it. I have no idea how this Local Compendium thingy is implemented, if it is able to run on non-windows systems, etc. If you have a link...

I really haven't looked at power2ool either I guess. The last time I really went out and looked around for tools of this type 100% of them were written in .NET, Silverlight, or C++ on top of windows APIs. The only major APP I know that is 4e related that can run on Linux is the VTT, which works fine as it is a Java app, but it is now only quasi-free and not part of WotC. Its still good, and I use it, but I'd LOVE to have one that was really open.

Anyway, thx. I'll look at power2ool for sure. It might be pretty useful. I actually HAVE a web server I run a wiki on for my campaign already (AWS free instances FTW) though memory is pretty tight on it. I could do it locally though.

 

[GX.Sigma]

There are very few things that absolutely infuriate me but this argument is one of them. Because it isn't an argument! By that line of reasoning why gain anything after level 1? Why even have levels? Why even play? If you don't like to have to remember things, don't play TTRPGs.

I seem to remember an early TTRPG, where half the classes were entirely composed of what you call "dead levels." There were no feats or skill ranks either. As I recall, it was a pretty successful game. It came out in the 70s; you've probably never heard of it.

 

[pemerton]

Mike and company have said from the beginning that their intention is to put pieces in place that would allow players to emulate any previous editions they enjoyed. You either believe them, or you don't.

My sense is that people are not disputing the existence of this intention, but rather the feasibiity of actually realising it.

No doubt WotC is full of clever designers, but people look at the D&Dnext core, reflect on 4e and their play experiences with it, and find it very hard to see how that gap would be bridged. For an excellent statement as to why, see [MENTION=6705825]Visanideth[/MENTION] above.

Now this may not be true for all 4e players - no doubt different people have different experiences with 4e. But what Visanideth wrote certainly spoke to me.

 

[pemerton]

I seem to remember an early TTRPG, where half the classes were entirely composed of what you call "dead levels."

For wizards, none of the levels was dead. While I don't have my charts in front of me, I think the same was true of clerics.

Also, in classic D&D character level is mean to correlate in some loose fashion to dungeon level - it's a measure of PC power which is meant to actually play a concrete role for the players in evaluating their prospects of success . Once you lose that feature, which Next has (encounter budgets are on the GM side, after all, and who is going to build a 20-level dungeon?), sticking to 20 levels even though some of the dead just looks nostalgic.

 

[GX.Sigma]

For wizards, none of the levels was dead. While I don't have my charts in front of me, I think the same was true of clerics.

I counted the demi-humans as classes. Not sure if that's technically cheating. :\ (I'm working off Delving Deeper.)

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=6690511]GX.Sigma[/MENTION], you have a good point there - I wasn't thinking of the demihumans (though in OD&D I don't think they're distinct classes - isn't that a Moldvay thing?)

It seems to me that in classic D&D level is first and foremost a measure of power - with hit points, and consequence expectations about dungeon level penetration capacity, as the mechanical expressions of that. Class features were in certain ways secondary, I think.

The idea that the primary function of a character level is to dispense some mechanical feature is, I think, a more recent (perhaps 3E and onwards?) idea. But once it becomes the dominant model of levels, then dead levels become redundant.

Does that make sense? (And I'll call [MENTION=93444]shidaku[/MENTION] into this reply too.)