D&D 4E AICN 4e Review Part 2: DMing 4e

[MaelStorm]

XP for social encounter and traps is good news. The no magic item shop and XP for absentee is not bad either.

 

[Spatula]

Eberron has a setting-assumption that there are magic shops. But the setting was designed from the ground up as conforming to 3.5 tropes...

Eberron has a setting assumption that magic is common and pervades everyday life. That's not the same thing.

 

[Christian]

I kind of like what I am hearing about magic items in 4e, though I think some of there marketing of it is disingenuous.

Well, aren't there really just two kinds of marketing? (1) disingenous, and (2) misleading/fraudulent?

 

[jshelky]

What makes you think that isn't taken into account?

All Massawyrm said was that multiple monsters of a lower level were equal in damage output/absorption to a single monster of a higher level. Presumably that's after you account for the difference in attack values and defender ACs.



However in every example posted including Massawyrm the monsters have a flat xp value which is what is used to determine the make up of the encounter. Therefore there's no almost no way that this scaling would work. The math just doesn't work. The potential may be the same but the challege definately would not.

 

[helium3]

Ah, no problem. It's not like it's some high-grade secret. Anyone who knows me IRL, or who follows my LJ friends list, knows that I know him.

Does he really look like the guy cutting the snake's head off while smoking the stogie?

 

[Mephistopheles]

i4e may be easier to rule on the fly with but I think people are creating artificial difficulty barriers in 3e in order to try and show this.

I've noticed some of this too. 3E has its problems, but in various reviews and rundowns talking about elements of 4E that fix 3E problems I've noted that at times the 3E problems they're talking about aren't necessarily tied to 3E at all.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Does he really look like the guy cutting the snake's head off while smoking the stogie?

The face looks a bit like he does in reality (though the beard isn't sharp). The rest of the icon? Not even remotely.

 

[helium3]

The face looks a bit like he does in reality (though the beard isn't sharp). The rest of the icon? Not even remotely.

Hah. Good. I'd be a'feared for your health if he did.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I've noticed some of this too. 3E has its problems, but in various reviews and rundowns talking about elements of 4E that fix 3E problems I've noted that at times the 3E problems they're talking about aren't necessarily tied to 3E at all.

I've seen that, and I also see people complaining about things in 4E that were in 3E and didn't cause any controversy. Somehow simply being in 4E makes them wrong. It's funny how people ignore what they want to ignore and notice what they want to notice, isn't it?

 

[Fallen Seraph]

While this may just be me, but the rules of 3E made it so that doing some of these things feel awkward or hard to pull off for more novice DMs and Players. I think this is where the praise of 4e is probably coming in, with a more basic and open rule-system it may feel easier and safer for DMs and Players to do and to allow such things.