Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shades of Green" data-source="post: 5118607" data-attributes="member: 3297">Generally speaking, I like the 4E rules as presented in the Quick Start document. They seem vey easy to learn and use and much simpler than the 3E ones.I think that now, that I've thought about it, I can easily accept Healing Surges in the context of the D&D game. I simply think of 24 and of how Jack Bauer can get back to his feet after being beaten up, shot at, stabbed or even severely tortured, and then get back to fighting terrorists as if nothing has happened. He simply "Uses a Healing Surge" to get back on his feet despite being bruised or wounded. It's heroic, and as long as I describe loss of HP as near misses, bruises and small cuts rather than real wounds, I can describe a Healing Surge as "sucking it up" and getting back on one's feet despite the pain and the fatigue. Only the blow that reduces your HP below zero is a possible serious wound, which was made possible by your fatigue and inability to defend yourself properly. And even then, it might just have been a Flesh Wound (when you spend a Healing Surge to recover to positive HP).In other words, the PCs are the Heroes, and almost everyone else on the board - villains excluded (do villains get healing surges too?) - are mooks. Especially minions. I like that.Combat realism is like a gouge. On one hand of the scale is highly realistic combat, as is the Striker supplement for Classic Traveller, where you can get killed by a single pistol shot. A little less realistic, but slightly more heroic, are Shadowrun and Mongoose Traveller, where a single pistol shot rarely kills you outright but does hurt a lot and probably requires medical attention (as in Firefly). And the least realistic, but most heroic, is D&D with its huge amount of HP and with Healing Surges, where you rarely get killed even by a greataxe blow and can get back to your feet after being hit several times. Each genre has its own assumptions, and D&D seems to fit heroic fantasy very well.---Regarding miniatures, I have no problem with them; in fact, I like collecting and buying 15mm miniatures (which are easier to store in my small apartment than 28mm ones). Most of my collection is sci-fi, but I intend to buy some fantasy stuff once I'll have funds available. My only problem, then, would be the prep time required to draw a gridded map for each encounter...---I think I'm coming to like the increased amount of HP at level 1; after all, my last D&D-type campaign, using BFRPG, started at level 3 and was a blast. And yes, increased durability meant that a single PC Magic-User and an additional NPC cleric were able to handle their own against various goblins, undead, Skum, and later on even an Aboleth! And that was in BFRPG, which is essentially a hybrid of BECMI and 3E.---The main stumbling blocks for me to get into 4E are:1) The need for 4-5 PCs per group (especially with the interactions between PC classes). As I've said, my last BFRPG game, lasting from level 3 to level 7, was a blast, and had only one PC magic-User and a companion Cleric against home-brewed encounters (I don't know if they would have fared well against a module). In 4E I'll probably need more PCs around to run the game properly...2) The limits on wizards, even though Rituals probably mitigate this a bit. I simply love DMing a party with a wizard in earlier editions (or BFRPG), especially when the players are being creative... So many possibilities for a crafty player to use!3) The limited scope of the main PHB. If I'd want Druids, for example, I'll have to buy yet another book. This makes the entry cost a bit high...4) How easy is new material (such as new races and classes) to make for 4E? I love homebrewing, so I'd like to use a system that's easy to homebrew for (that's one of the things I love in Traveller).5) The entry cost. That is 60$-100$ for the three core-books alone, about 30$ per additional PHB or DMG, and, if I follow the suggestions given above, around 70$ per year of subscription costs to DDI. And that's not including miniatures and/or a battlemat... It adds up, and is quite a point I'll have to consider, financially speaking.</blockquote>

Verification