Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Imaro" data-source="post: 6210619" data-attributes="member: 48965">One of the main arguments by those who don't like 3.x is how trivially easy it is for Wizards to stock up on scrolls... so if a DM wants a game where attrition of spells is mitigated all he has to do is give the wizard the necessary downtime to make enough scrolls.  the thing is unlike in 4e, this decision is left up to the individual DM.No that's not one of the criticisms most 3e players have with 4e it's the fact that the text and voice of 4e gave the impression to many (right, or wrong) that the correct way to use these numbers is to have the PC's only ever face appropriate challenges... that rubbed proponents of sandbox play wrong, proponents of sim play wrong, as well as others I'm probably missing out on mentioning here. So it's not that indie design brought about the idea or even the introduction of mechanics to judge appropriateness of challenges for players level, that was always there, so once again what exactly did indie design contribute to this... are you arguing the refined math happened because of indie design?  Since we've already shown a progression from HD to CR the idea that balancing challenges against player level sprang full cloth from indie design doesn't seem to fit?  Or is it that "indie" design helped contribute to that contradictory and confusing voice vs. examples vs. mechanics that 4e has.Yes, I have seen some people describe high level 3.x combat as rocket tag... but I have seen just as many or more people describe your vaunted pacing in 4e as a booring combat slog.  Now supposedly this was mitigated some after 2 (or was it 3) monster manuals by changing the math, but there are still people who like 4e yet still complain about combat in 4e... so it doesn't seem this pacing mechanism in 4e is a universal thing at all.But the idea and proto-mechanic for it were already in D&D, this idea of challenges consistent with level has been around since before 4e.  It wasn't something indie design brought to D&D.See above for why I find your arguments on 4e pacing less than satisfactory.  As too improv... Again the math of the tools has been refined but the tools themselves have been there since before 4e.You do realize the original action points which, while different from those in 4e, were still FitM mechanics started in 3.x right, with the Eberron campaign setting?  Optional of course because not every DM wants those type of mechanics or the feel they create to be hardcoded into their campaign.  In fact there were quite a few FiTM mechanics that were left as optional because doing so gave the game a wider appeal as opposed to forcing them and the campaign feel they created on people, but they were there.So we're moving goalposts... so that unless earlier editions had the exact same non-combat task resolution as 4e... well then it had to be indie design.  How about refinement and evolution in a certain direction say from ability checks->non-weapon proficiencies->skill checks->extended skill checks->skill challenges.  In other words you can change the wording to make it as specific as you like but the fact remains that D&D has almost always had a mechanical way of resolving non-combat actions it's just been refined and built upon as time passed. Uhm I agree with Wicht this makes no sense...First let me say I am skeptical of all this 4e "conflict-laden" backstory being available to both DM's and players because I don't remember all of that being in the PHB (In fact the world as I remember it from the PHB was pretty sparse...  In fact I don't remember all of that being in the 3 core books... However putting that too the side... I don't see how the Nentir Vale is any more conflict-laden than the default setting of 3.x (which was Greyhawk).  have you read over either of the Greyhawk Gazetteers that came out?  I mean sure, you can prefer one over the other but they both have vectors of conflict, and I'm sorry but exploration being prioritized as a goal of play is not dependent upon the setting... I mean look at the 4e modules they play nothing like what you are talking about here yet are set in the Nentir Vale.  What I'm getting is that you like 4e's setting better because it resonates better with you, not because of any objective quality that makes it better for indie play than any other D&D setting.The point is much if not all of the stuff you equate to being brought about in D&D through the influence of indie design was already there in one form or another... You're the only one claiming they are true... Personally I think many people have a problem with 4e because it tries to present itself as a pseudo-"indie" rpg and a traditional rpg at the same time (Ze Game is still Ze same!!), along with the fact that the presentation, the mechanics and their examples don't line up fully with indie or traditional rpg aesthetics and have all these holes, contradictions, tensions, etc. for those of us who didn't ignore swaths and replace other swaths with stuff from other indie games it just feels confused and "not right".  That's why I think it's often hard for people to vocalize what they don't like about 4e.  Of course this is just conjecture on my part like yours in the post above that I quoted. So you don't like 3.x... understandable, but some of the things you claim about it are just dead out wrong... like the fighter comment.</blockquote>

Verification