Has lack of an insider account kept you from playing 4E?

[odinfellhammer]

When did elitism ever enter this Hobby? I have a problem with people making conditions for anything. These "Happy Smiley People" need to get the stick out of it. We are here to have Fun, create a story and enjoy the company of people. Also, we should make friends;not require people to do anything that would drive a player away.

~ Moderator note: don't try to get round profanity filters, and try to express yourself without being rude - Plane Sailing ~

 

[Dausuul]

I don't get this either, "dangerous"? Really? In what way? If you are having fun playing it does it really matter how you arrive at that fun? The only way I could see this being even remotely dangerous to the hobby is if WoTC went to a pay to access model (which they don't have, you can download and use the software forever right now). If they went to that, something akin to Heroforge would arise and take it's place, and I think Wizards knows this.

Well, relying on the CB (as opposed to merely using it for convenience) more or less eliminates house-ruling and homebrewing, at least as far as chargen is concerned.

There are arguments on both sides as to whether this is a good thing or a bad thing for the hobby. On the one hand, standardizing the play experience makes it easier for players to move from one group to another. On the other hand, it can dampen the creative impulses of DMs and players by tying them to the assumptions implicit in the standard rules.

 

[Festivus]

Well, relying on the CB (as opposed to merely using it for convenience) more or less eliminates house-ruling and homebrewing, at least as far as chargen is concerned.

There are arguments on both sides as to whether this is a good thing or a bad thing for the hobby. On the one hand, standardizing the play experience makes it easier for players to move from one group to another. On the other hand, it can dampen the creative impulses of DMs and players by tying them to the assumptions implicit in the standard rules.

You can houserule anything in the CB, which makes it nice to use for houseruling a home campaign too as you can export the campaign settings and give it to your players so they can be aware of what options are available. Need a magic item that isn't in the system? Add it. Need a feat? Add a custom one. I think just about everything (if not everything) can have a custom rule built for it.

 

[Dausuul]

You can houserule anything in the CB, which makes it nice to use for houseruling a home campaign too as you can export the campaign settings and give it to your players so they can be aware of what options are available. Need a magic item that isn't in the system? Add it. Need a feat? Add a custom one. I think just about everything (if not everything) can have a custom rule built for it.

Feats and magic items are trivial. How about custom races, with stat modifiers and racial powers (not just a text field at the top of the page)? Custom classes, paragon paths, and epic destinies? House rules applied to the fundamentals of the game, such as eliminating the 1/2 level bonus across the board, or a house-rule to calculate initiative off of the higher of Int and Dex?

To me, however, the biggest issue is that it won't pre-calculate the numbers for custom elements the way it does with standard stuff. As far as I'm concerned, 75% of the CB's value lies in the fact that it can do your math for you--it's a godsend to players with a less than ironclad grasp of the mechanics, and damn handy for the rest of us. If players have to do their own math and scribble it in, what are they bothering with the CB for?

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

You can houserule anything in the CB, which makes it nice to use for houseruling a home campaign too as you can export the campaign settings and give it to your players so they can be aware of what options are available. Need a magic item that isn't in the system? Add it. Need a feat? Add a custom one. I think just about everything (if not everything) can have a custom rule built for it.

My house rules include: firearms, tinker gnomes, adding +1 to all stats at every 4th and 8th level, a +1 bonus to all attacks at 11th and 21st level and applying masterwork bonuses directly to PCs, among others. I don't use the CB, but I'm pretty sure none of these are covered by it, so my CB-using players have to find back door tricks to build their PCs.

 

[jbear]

Rotten kids, back in my day, we had to walk barefoot to school, uphill, both ways and we liked it.

*checks age, age > 30* I'll be going now....

Ha, that's lucky! We were so poor we lived in a rolled up newspaper inside a sceptic tank and sucked water out of a damp rag!

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo]YouTube - Monty Python - Four Yorkshiremen[/ame]

 

[jbear]

Argh. Doublepost.

 

[Ourph]

Well, relying on the CB (as opposed to merely using it for convenience) more or less eliminates house-ruling and homebrewing, at least as far as chargen is concerned.

No it doesn't. As I said upthread, I require all of my players to build their characters using the CB, but a good number of PCs in my games have special houserules to help the players build a character that fits their concept better. It's no harder to have a houseruled character built with the CB than it is to have one created by hand with rulebooks, pencil and paper.

 

[Dausuul]

No it doesn't. As I said upthread, I require all of my players to build their characters using the CB, but a good number of PCs in my games have special houserules to help the players build a character that fits their concept better. It's no harder to have a houseruled character built with the CB than it is to have one created by hand with rulebooks, pencil and paper.

So, in other words, your players don't rely on the CB, they merely use it for convenience?

 

[KidSnide]

Here's the character sheet format that I personally use. Can Insider do anything in this neighborhood?

Nice. I use a similar format for my campaign (although my sheet is closer to the pre-4e release character sheets than it is to the KotS versions). I can't stand the CB printouts and it's houserule support is poor at best. Still, having consistency within the campaign is very useful. It's much easier for a player to pilot another PC when that player is gone if everyone uses the same layout.

It's a little tough getting the less rules savy players to keep their character sheets up to date when it's just a Word doc. But I don't mind so much given that they only have to level every year or so.

-KS