Castles & Crusades...not sure about it

[JoeGKushner]

we've contracted magnificent egos to do the line of minis

here

we don't have a time schedule ywet but should by the middle of next week.

davis

Sweet! They have some fantastic miniatures and should do the line proud. Hopefully we'll see some unique monsters, demon lords, or what not, as opposed to a lot of 'character' type minis (who Reaper pretty much has the market on...)

 

[JohnSnow]

As games they are also meant to be fun. Too many options can slow games down to a tedious grind. I'd rather 'get on' with the advanture than spend 40+ minutes making the necessary calculations to a particular action and spell combination involving a 14th level NPC.

But as I said in another thread, different games have different virtues. I can see the appeal of 3e for players -- but IME DM'ing a 3e game with PCs above level 7 or so is just too much of a pain to be worth it. (My ideal game would probably be somewhere inbetween C&C and 3e in terms of options and complexity.)

Anway, thanks for your kind words regarding my DM/CKing!

My pleasure!

I actually totally agree with you on this. The game that strikes me as intriguing, and for which I'm eagerly looking forward to, is Iron Lore.

Some of the comments made by its creator (on the Malhavoc Press boards) that appeal to me are below. Mearls has said:

"This has a variety of interesting changes for the system - Iron Lore combat tends to be much more tactically rich. Players have more options and class abilities that are more interactive than D&D ones.

As a consequence of the changes to the core d20 engine, you can now stat up an 18th-level NPC from any class in about 5 to 15 minutes, tops, once you're familiar with the system. I estimate that Iron Lore adventure prep takes about half, if not less, time than adventure prep for D&D. The time savings become even more pronounced at high levels. Yet, the game still supports all the cool, weird, fun action of D&D - trips to other planes, battles against dragons, demons, and other powerful monsters, and so forth."

I like the reduced adventure prep time and faster NPC statting, as I'm sure you do also. From other comments Mearls has made, he's also simplified attacks of opportunity, another of the tactical "headaches" of 3e. Finally, I think his combination of "skill groups" will strike the right balance between C&C and D&D 3e from a skill standpoint.

And the fact that it supports the lower magic games we both like is a plus too, IMO.

Any word on Dublin?

 

[Treebore]

Skill groups? Sounds like I should check out Iron Lore after all. It may make a good blend with C&C to give me the level of complexity I can be happy with, and those players who love tweaking every aspect of their characters.

 

[S'mon]

I do think the variable XP tables & deliberately unbalanced classes really suck. They're one of the things that make me reluctant to convert over from 3e - even in 3e Rogues are a bit weak, but C&C went back to Rogues/Thieves as the Grand High Poobahs of Sucky Suckitude (check out their Attack Bonus table!)

 

[Jupp]

I do think the variable XP tables & deliberately unbalanced classes really suck. They're one of the things that make me reluctant to convert over from 3e - even in 3e Rogues are a bit weak, but C&C went back to Rogues/Thieves as the Grand High Poobahs of Sucky Suckitude (check out their Attack Bonus table!)

I actually like how the thief is handled in C&C. In 3E they became nothing less than warriors with lesser HPs and Dex based abilities. Something I never liked at all. Sure, if your games is based purely on combat I can understand that the combat-heavy 3E thief would be a welcomed addition to your party. Tastes vary, but 3E thieves are certainly not my kind of thing. Perhaps that's the reason they are not called thieves anymore in 3E/D20 The C&C version is more the thief than the rogue, which is much more to my taste.

Edit: What I do not understand is your remark about the classes being unbalanced. I mean, this is a group game with several people at the table, not a solo game. if you have 4 PCs with different classes each PC has its special role in the group. If there is one class that is better at certain things than the other class, that should not be an issue at all here because you have to work together as a team anyway.

 

[JohnSnow]

Edit: What I do not understand is your remark about the classes being unbalanced. I mean, this is a group game with several people at the table, not a solo game. if you have 4 PCs with different classes each PC has its special role in the group. If there is one class that is better at certain things than the other class, that should not be an issue at all here because you have to work together as a team anyway.

I hope you're joking.

I mean, I'm as much for teamwork as the next guy, but when the classes have such radically different abilities that they need different experience point progressions to keep some of them from totally overshadowing the rest (*cough*wizards*cough*), something is seriously wrong.

That's one "return to old school D&D" trope that I personally could do without, thanks.

Worth a thought: Did you ever notice that every character ever mentioned from Gygax's early campaigns is a spellcaster (Mordenkainen, Tenser, Bigby, Nystul, etc.)? That Greenwood has more spellcasters than you can shake a palantir at, or that Monte Cook's favorite character (Malhavoc) is a wizard? D&D has been shafting non-spellcasters for 3 decades, and the minute it started trying to reach SOME parity for the fighting classes, people started whining. Bear in mind that they still don't HAVE parity, but a 3e fighter doesn't suck nearly as hard as his 1e counterpart. This is sword and sorcery in the Conan/Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser tradition? In a pig's eye!

 

[Treebore]

If wizards are so powerful, especially in the older editions, why do/did they die so quickly when they try to adventure by themselves? Wizard/spellcasters may have some powerful and flashy power, but they don't survive without the fighter backing them up.

Even at high levels in old 1E and 2E games that I ran, the few times the mage was foolish enough to go out on their own, they died. If my memory serves the first time was at 16th level. The second time was at 18th level. The wizard stuck with his party members from then on, until the campaign ended at 22nd level. Even staying with the party the wizard went through 12 (or was it 16? Doug, care to refresh my memory?) Clones.

Wizards/Sorcerors are just as easy to kill as they ever were, at any level. The only exception to this is Contingency. There is a simple fix for that. Don't allow it.

Another headache is teleport/dimesnion door. Require that they be cast on the ground only. Limit Teleports range even further, or put similar requirements on it like Transport Via Plants. Also make them full round actions, same as summoning/teleporting creatures to you. IE teleport is really the opposite of summoning, but far more controlled.

I have never seen a wizard/sorceror played by the rules that was so powerful as to not need allies/party members to stay alive.

Powerful/hard to kill, but still not impossible, were Paladins and clerics. Which makes sense if you really appreciate how powerful being able to heal really is.

As for the C&C character class balance, I cannot speak to that since I have yet been able to DM it. Reading it over I do see areas that I will probably need to tweak it. But I still see the issues I need to address with C&C being much easier to deal with than the power issues of 3E. But that is me and my personal preferences and style of DMing and playing showing through.

 

[Turanil]

I think that the problem of classes being unbalanced primarily comes from the individual GM. In C&C if you ever throw undead front attack the PCs, it's clear that the cleric is overpowered compared to all other classes. Now, saying that the other classes suck because of this, would be ludicrous. The real problem for a GM is to entertain the players. As such, in every game session he should put something for each PC to shine and have his moment of glory where only him can save the day.

As a GM I would have no problem to run a rogues only campaign, but obviously would have to create my own modules directly tailored for them. So, there would be plenty of obstacles to climb, areas to hide in, locks and traps to bypass, etc. The PCs would be no match for the sentinels, but could hide and move silently to go past them unoticed. As such, it's the fighter class that would suck, being unable to do all of this.

So IMO, the problem essentially stems from modules that only feature creatures to kill to progress on, not about classes being unbalanced.

 

[Jupp]

To use Turanils post and expand it I think that in D&D the rogue is more of a second assist front line fighter than a thief. I read time and again about the "damage dealer" rogue class, which is something I do not really understand. But perhaps this shift in the class is the reason people think the C&C thief is underpowered compared to its D&D rogue counterpart. In my eyes the rogue got put back to is original strenghts, those of the thief.

 

[Henry]

...I read time and again about the "damage dealer" rogue class, which is something I do not really understand.

I don't understand it either, because the only way a rogue can do that much damage normally, just like the wizard, is in combination with other members of the party. Alone, a Rogue is just as vulnerable as a Wizard. In C&C, a Thief's big advantage (as in 1E) is the discrepancy in level tables: a Thief will be 1 to two levels higher than the rest of the party, and the extra hit dice and possibly better attack bonus and skill boosts help them stay alive a bit longer.

Because I don't have my book at the moment, can anyone remind me how the thief's Pick Pockets, Open Locks, etc. is handled as a SEIGE check? Is it a standard Prime Dex check, or does he get some kind of extra level bonus?