Eric Noah's Info

[Zaruthustran]

Out of the box

I hope 4E is dramatically different than 3E. And I hope WotC truly embraces and leverages the Internet.

My wishlist: make 4E a subscription. You pay $x / month, and for that you get online access to continually-updated rules, character storage accessible from everywhere, an auto-calculating/auto-updating character sheet, spell lists that auto-generate a spellbook (including user-selectable fields for the spell lists), and so on. Put my game library online. In other words: I want to be able to take the books out of the equation*.

I mean, the other day I sat down to make a new character, a 6th level warforged fighter/artificer. I had to move from my (very large) dining room table to the FLOOR, because I had literally 8 books open at any one time: PHB, Eberron CS, Races of Eberron, Complete Fighter, Complete Adventurer, Heroes of Battle, Complete Arcane, Magic of Eberron... it was ridiculous. After 4 hours of sifting around, looking up feats and spells, forgetting just which book had what piece of information, having to sift through and find it again, I just gave up.

Screw that. I want everything online, all the feats and options at the click of a mouse; a program that shows me what's available and hides what's not, and that auto-calculates everything when I'm done. And I want this to be slick and professional and continually-updated, not some shady Excel worksheet compiled by fans.

The subscription should also include a mechanism for playing D&D online. Not "D&D Online (tm)", the action game from Turbine, but literally Dungeons & Dragons online. Meaning: a program with a virtual table/battlemap, dice roller, minis, etc. The DM can drag-and-drop from a library of terrain, or draw on the map directly. The characters (which are stored online, remember?) have all their modifiers and options available to players and the DM. The system auto-calculates things like flanking, cover, concealment, spell buffs, and other fiddly modifiers. It also includes built-in voice chat.

The D&D Online program should also come with a selection of virtual minis and an unlimited amount of generic counters in various sizes. WotC can then sell individual virtual minis, each of which comes with complete stats (stored in the same database as the characters) so that the program can calculate combat.

This is what I want. What I *don't* want is a huge pile of new books just like now only with "Third Edition" crossed out and "Fourth Edition" scrawled in.

-z

* not that books should go away. There *is* something to be said for leafing through a physical book. But make the book optional, and include a free trial month of the subscription with the book. Face it: these days the books are full of errors and contradictions (the game is just too big and complex), and there are so many books that it is impractical to own, much less use, them all. I know DMs who have had to invest in big piece of rolling luggage just to carry their game libraries to games. Ridiculous.

 

[JoeGKushner]

A strawman is, to me, an argument different than the one held by the person on the other end of the debate in a way that is flawed so it can be rhetorically deconstructed. I never said that placing your highest stat in your highest score isn't optimizing or that such is a bad thing. That was the "you mean to tell me that" contained within your retort, and it feels designed to create a misconstrual of my position, or at the very least, sweep it into the extreme corner.

If you ain't with me...

I do. The characters would look different. I especially like the Green Ronin Advanced GM Guide (I don't recall there being any special stat gen rules in the player's guide), because it shoots for an optimized character, but allows for variety. If you roll and 18 charisma on 3d6 for your fighter, so be it. That's a character you'll never see in point buy.

You might be right. Is that also where they have three sets of preconstructed stats? Ugh. Imagine if 4th ed went that way! (No need to roll, just pick your stats from these six based on the class you want to play.)

But I do find it interesting that, if I'm reading right, you object to the 'cookie' cutter approach but would accept a random rolling method that encouraged even more powerful characters through randomness.

 

[BryonD]

My experience is that perfectly reasonable players are subject to behavior patterns brought on by point buy.

Sorry to hear that.

It's easy enough to set boundaries or create other conditions to maintain balanced play.

Agreed. IMO this statement applies to point buy and fixed array systems as well as rolling.

No big deal.

 

[Psion]

If you ain't with me...

Yeah, that's what I was reading...

You might be right. Is that also where they have three sets of preconstructed stats? Ugh.

That was one alternative in there, yeah. It's like standard array (well, on steroids; those particular stat set was part of the up-powering rules), but they give you three options rather than one. Since it's less fidgety than point buy, but gives you a few more options than standard array, I think it's a nice compromise.

I use/am using arrays and point buys for pregens for my GenCon game... and it only highlights these issues for me.

But I do find it interesting that, if I'm reading right, you object to the 'cookie' cutter approach but would accept a random rolling method that encouraged even more powerful characters through randomness.

IMC, I put a cap and a lower limit on your stats. That said, I guess I've always embraced the higher end of the power curve there. One reason I never particularly liked Standard Array is because it forces you to take a below average stat. (That's another reason I sort of liked those three arrays in the AGMG you refer to - they give you the option to have a substandard stat, but don't force you into one.)

 

[Psion]

IMO this statement applies to point buy and fixed array systems as well as rolling..

Incidentally, what I did last game was "random, at least as good as standard array". That was you did the normal random thing, but if any of your stats fell below the standard array (i.e., 15 in your best stat, 14 in your second, etc.) you raised it to that number.

 

[BryonD]

Incidentally, what I did last game was "random, at least as good as standard array". That was you did the normal random thing, but if any of your stats fell below the standard array (i.e., 15 in your best stat, 14 in your second, etc.) you raised it to that number.

That's cool. It certainly tends toward high power, but I don't have any issue with that.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

A strawman is, to me, an argument different than the one held by the person on the other end of the debate in a way that is flawed so it can be rhetorically deconstructed. I never said that placing your highest stat in your highest score isn't optimizing or that such is a bad thing. That was the "you mean to tell me that" contained within your retort, and it feels designed to create a misconstrual of my position, or at the very least, sweep it into the extreme corner.

Yep, that's what a straw man argument is - taking an opponent's argument, purposely misinterpreting it so it can be easily refuted, and then concentrating on it so that the real point the opponent was trying to make is overlooked.

Not saying anyone is using such a rhetorical style here, but the term often gets used incorrectly.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

But I do find it interesting that, if I'm reading right, you object to the 'cookie' cutter approach but would accept a random rolling method that encouraged even more powerful characters through randomness.

Not necessarily more powerful, just more variable.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Not necessarily more powerful, just more variable.

No, I'm pretty sure it's more powerful.

One of the arrays is something like 18, 18, 14, 14, 14, 8

The other one has something like 9d6 for your best stat and 3d6 for your worst stat. The only downsize is that it's based on class.

Nothing wrong with it, but a spade's a spade. It's designed for high level competency in your core abilities.

(And I knew people who still cried it was unfair and wanted a 2 for 1 exchange when they didn't get their pick and those poor GM's that agreed wound up having the same types of players as they dump statted wis/cha.)

Heck, that in and of itself, character generation, would make for an excellent discussion providing some in depth pros and cons for the various methods and how to handle the demands of players versus the expectations of the GM.

 

[Psion]

No, I'm pretty sure it's more powerful.

One of the arrays is something like 18, 18, 14, 14, 14, 8

The other one has something like 9d6 for your best stat and 3d6 for your worst stat. The only downsize is that it's based on class.

If you are talking about the AGMG, the highest dice combo it gives you is 7d6.

The heroic array with 2 18s has another 10 in it. (That said, that's even a bit over the top for my taste... one 18 is my normal limit.)