Cynicism of an AD&D refugee

[MichaelSomething]

I think this is a question of if you would rather order take out from home or try your luck in the kitchen.

If you got the money and time, order out.

If you can cook well, then head for the kitchen.



May I be so bold as to suggest The Advanced Player's Guide? Written by Enworld's own Mouse-vampire guy (I would spell his forum name if I could but I can't so I won't). It contains all the class/race stuff the PHB doesn't have.

 

[pawsplay]

I gathered that the question was whether or not the core three books have provided as complete a game as was provided the first three core 3.5 (or 3.0E) core books.

That is basically the heart of what I was getting at.

 

[CleverNickName]

Mourn arriving in 5...4...3...2...

...taking my name in vain?

I would never.

That is basically the heart of what I was getting at.

I think this has annoyed everyone at one time or another, even hardcore 4E fans. To add frustration, we don't have an online SRD to help us
"wing it" until we can pick up the next "official" release.

3.x spoiled us.

 

[Lanefan]

Someone way upthread hit my main annoyance: lack of backward compatibility. 0e to 1e wasn't bad, 1e to 2e was just strange...but a character from one edition could be shoehorned into another without *too* much of a headache.

3e, despite the conversion manual, pretty much did away with direct backward compatibility, though if careful one could pretty much build any old-school character archetype (my experiment was using 3e to make a 1e Illusionist; she did OK) even if such a build would make the optimizers cringe.

I haven't dug deeply enough into 4e yet but from what I've seen in the PH and adventures I think I'd have a very hard time trying to build anything not directly supported by the system as published. Make a 1e Illusionist in 4e? Now there's a challenge for ya! (hint: no spells, rituals or non-weapon abilities allowed if they cause direct physical damage. Have fun.)

You can still play original Risk using the contents of a Risk-2210 box...they even put a supplement in the rulebook explaining how. Why can't I do this with D+D?

As for the business about number of class options - someone said 4e has 47 options where 1e had 10 and 3e had 12+8; whatever - why does that matter? Once you get past the very basics - fighter, wizard, sneak, cleric - the game-mechanics of the character really shouldn't matter that much. It's a sad thing to see "characters" made of feats and skills and powers rather than personalities and alignments and role-played interactions.

Lane-"the thread title includes 'cynicism'"-fan

 

[I'm A Banana]

Yeah, think about how many more classes and races 3E could have offered if there hadn't been all these stupid spells in it!

Y'know, it may have been meant as snark, but I 100% agree with this statement, literally. There were too many spells in 3e. A lot of them could have been limited or codified or condensed or turned into class abilities or whatever.

This was probably more because of 3e's desire to preserve the "D&D Game" for what it had been in previous editions, and is understandable in that light, but I think 3e could've been much more useful to some people with more race/class options and fewer spells in the back.

Probably could've been more useful to ME, at least.

"Give Everybody Spells" probably wasn't the best solution to this problem for everyone, is all I'm sayin'.

 

[RFisher]

No matter what edition, you are being pumped for everything you're worth.

It doesn’t seem to be working. I’ve only bought two of their books since 3.5 came out, and one of those was second-hand.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

It doesn’t seem to be working. I’ve only bought two of their books since 3.5 came out, and one of those was second-hand.

Then you're not worth that much to WotC (or any other publisher that would prefer to have continued sales)? That's okay. RPGs are not the only thing the publishers or producers would like to sell more of, but can't because some people are content earlier...

 

[Thasmodious]

(hint: no spells, rituals or non-weapon abilities allowed if they cause direct physical damage. Have fun.)

That's apples and oranges though. 4e is a new system with a slightly different way of approaching combat (finally truly abstracting HP). Everything does damage, but damage isn't direct physical damage. Believing a yawning portal just opened up under your feet and that you are falling as you drop to the ground does "damage" because thats the way the system works now. 4e doesn't do non-damage attack spells, which include illusions. They have an effect on an enemies ability to wage war, that effect is measured by loss of HP.

As for the business about number of class options - someone said 4e has 47 options where 1e had 10 and 3e had 12+8; whatever - why does that matter? Once you get past the very basics - fighter, wizard, sneak, cleric - the game-mechanics of the character really shouldn't matter that much.

That was me, and I was making the same point you just ended the above statement with. Point was, it didn't matter. But people seemed to miss that point. Guess I didn't make it that well.

It's a sad thing to see "characters" made of feats and skills and powers rather than personalities and alignments and role-played interactions.

That would be truly a sad thing to see. Thankfully, that's up to the players and DM, so it's not anything I'm going to see. It's certainly not anything D&D has ever condoned.

 

[RFisher]

Then you're not worth that much to WotC (or any other publisher that would prefer to have continued sales)? That's okay. RPGs are not the only thing the publishers or producers would like to sell more of, but can't because some people are content earlier...

You seem to assume I haven’t bought many non-Wizards books in that time and that I wouldn’t have bought many Wizards products if they had done something different. If so, you are wrong on both counts.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

You seem to assume I haven’t bought many non-Wizards books in that time and that I wouldn’t have bought many Wizards products if they had done something different. If so, you are wrong on both counts.

But maybe the products you would have bought are products others wouldn't have bought? Or are products WotC just can't make because they are bad at it?