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    D&D 4E Stephen Radney-MacFarland on Conversions and Adventures in 4e

    But yet "orcs" won't exist - I'm almost sure some article revealed that we'll be getting something like 5 sorts of Orcs in the MM, Orc Minions, Orc Berserkers, Orc Shamans, Orc Archers, and... Orc Bloodsomethings? I'm still very worried about this. (On the other hand, if every monster race for...
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    What's this so-called MMO influence????

    There was a 60-page debate on this topic on RPG.net. To summarise, there is a contingent who believes that "fighter 2 / rogue 2" won't exist as such, and in 4e will be either a "fighter 4 with rogue multiclassing" or a "rogue 4 with fighter multiclassing", in the former case being a defender no...
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    What's this so-called MMO influence????

    That's exactly what I said, though, and I don't think it's an irrelevant distinction at all. Plenty of those abilities have always existed and lasted "1 scene" of duration, but having abilities keyed to be *usable* once per scene is the new thing here, not the scene durations that we still don't...
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    What's this so-called MMO influence????

    Er, no. Seriously, please point out a single "per scene" ability in any WoD game. While there might be one somewhere that fits that definition, Storyteller and Storytelling games usually have you spend resources from some sort of energy pool, with durations, rather than usages, being "per scene"...
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    What's this so-called MMO influence????

    That would be the first time I have ever heard of this - rings have always seemed generally interchangable with wondrous items to me for as long as I've played D&D and RPGs derived from it, and I haven't heard of any previous "legendary" status (in the RPG world, as opposed to in fiction - Lord...
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    What's this so-called MMO influence????

    Level limits on magic items is pretty much 100% "MMORPG Influence" because it's almost always done to prevent 'twinking' - that is, giving inappropriate high-level gear to low-level characters to make them exceptionally powerful and make the game exceptionally easy for them. (Stat-based limits...
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    If the devils are how monsters will be....I am so happy

    Greater teleport over combat distances is only an acceptable game plan if you're highly screwed unless you teleport, and the 4e move-action version is far better for that. Generally it gets used for overland travel. Greater dispel magic is, as you said, idiotic if it's something that can just...
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    D&D 4E Why I'm "Meh" About 4E

    Nope. My problem with the Tieflings is one that can't really be fixed by anything less than their complete and total eradication from 4e. It's that, well, I think their official art direction is utterly terrible for a main PC race, because I don't really like bright red skin, giant horns, and...
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    If the devils are how monsters will be....I am so happy

    Well, the devil does have the advantages of his own personal on-call army and a huge raft of hit points... Seriously, though, how do you think power structures come into place? D&D's never been Exalted, so it's not like the Pit Fiend is lacking the appropriate Bureaucracy Charms or anything -...
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    The Death of Simulation

    Perhaps you missed my reference, in which I deliberately and intentionally referenced NPCs that, as NPCs, get unique abilities to regain HP and gain attack bonuses when they pass their saves against spells, grant Spell Resistance 14 to everyone in the area at level 4, and draw out the souls of...
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    The Death of Simulation

    We'll see - judging by the Hobgoblins in MMV, these may return entirely different results. They may not. I hope you can see how the streamlined system returning results that you can't even come close to with the "full" system takes space away from simulationism, however. They're both arbitrary...
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    The Death of Simulation

    Absolutely none of those are "correct", no, but I've pretty much dropped out of this thread since it turned from a discussion of 4e's position on the scale of world emulation to GNS discussion. The Forge has always had a terminal problem with term definitions, and given the tendency of RPG...
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    The Devil's in the Details: Slavicsek reveals the Pit Fiend in all its glory

    Oh, no, I was assuming that Death Slaad Storms were the result of intense training. I just whipped up that statblock on the fly because "can cast Maw of Chaos and add Intelligence to its damage at will" was actually an honest rough approximation of what they would be if they were PC-trained...
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    The Devil's in the Details: Slavicsek reveals the Pit Fiend in all its glory

    Hm. See, I tend to have pretty much your exact viewpoint on stuff, but having played around with writing a few of these, they work really well in play for quick-play combat monsters. Basically, I took Death Slaadi, and pumped up their Hit Dice and a few stats and such to what I felt would be...
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    What's with the sexy githyanki?

    Hmm, while the W&M wallpaper's Githyanki is certainly, uh, sexier than the PsiHB one, we're more or less talking about individual specimens and art pieces here. I don't really see any differences between the PsiHB and W&M Githyanki that would lead me to believe overarching changes to the look of...
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    If the devils are how monsters will be....I am so happy

    Hmm, true. That's still not an option in the sense of what they do during their turn, which is what I said feels rather... limited, but it does make there be a choice between the first two during an opportunity attack. An abundance of moves one can make during a combat round only really creates...
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    If the devils are how monsters will be....I am so happy

    I think one of my biggest problems with the pit fiend is that it doesn't actually have options. Or rather, it has 7 actions it can possibly take, but two of them are obsoleted totally by a third, one of them is always used on the first round as (effectively) a free action and is encounter...
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    The Death of Simulation

    Oh, certainly. However... Well, for the same reason flaming quarterstaves work differently: they're different items. For me, if it's ever been mentioned in any book ever, it must be able to be put in D&D. I don't want to hear that "magic imbued into staves creates charged items. Period."...
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    The Death of Simulation

    Hmm, that's not true if you define simulationism as the pursuit of internal consistency - which is the definition I'm operating under, at least - definitionally, rules that ruin internal consistency can't be explained as advancing the pursuit of internal consistency. In the more common but less...
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    The Death of Simulation

    I'm personally pretty hard Simulationist, with Gamism coming in a very, very close second, and Narrativism not even being something I consider. Essentially, I try to run, and prefer to play in, games of heroes going around and being awesome and having fair and fun combats in a logical and...
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