Help getting old 2nd player to DM for 8 and 10 year old daughters

[AbdulAlhazred]

Hence my confusion. When I was first seeing the 4th powers and what not, I couldn't help but think of it being aimed at MMO players. I read essentials and it seems just simplified character creation/progression. I can see for some thing being good, as with all these source materials, picking Feats can be daunting. Myself personal like minmaxing and variety.
I had played some 1st when I was a wee tot but majority was 2nd edition, as well as Baldur's Gate on PC, and other 2nd ed ruleset games.

I gave a quick glance over the D&D Next and I dunno how that's going to fly.

So for 4e vs essentials, From what I can tell they redid some rules, monsters and the characters generation.
So is it correct that the rules and monsters are the more up to date and favored option where as for characters the PHB gives more variety as opposed to essentials static progression?

Well, yeah, they cleaned up the rules, slightly, the newer monsters are quite a bit nicer to use, etc. I would definitely use the more updated monsters, and the Rules Compendium and other Essentials books are great as a way to have all the rules with full errata. So I bought an RC to use at the table for reference. I think the newer classes are not bad. Remember, they can pick feats, items, and often powers, from the older books if you have those, and some of the Essentials classes have lots of options (Mage, Warpriest has a good bit too). That being said, a lot of people DO prefer the PHB classes, and there are some classes that just don't have an Essentials counterpart, like the Warlord (a very fun class to play BTW, and one you can use to create a LOT of odd concepts with).

 

[TheGlow]

My wife was initially wanting to be an Assassin, but I couldn't find much details on it.
Then I see a Dragon magazine referenced in the old character builder, and then this executioner in a heroes of shadow book.
So much info that is a bit confusing.
Are they still releasing 4e materials?
Does 3.5 have a bunch of modules? Maybe I should look into that.
Although I only had the DM and MM books. A friend lost the PHB. I think that was when they were about to go 3.5 since he couldn't find a replacement for me anywhere.

 

[Quickleaf]

My wife was initially wanting to be an Assassin, but I couldn't find much details on it.
Then I see a Dragon magazine referenced in the old character builder, and then this executioner in a heroes of shadow book.
So much info that is a bit confusing.
Are they still releasing 4e materials?
Does 3.5 have a bunch of modules? Maybe I should look into that.
Although I only had the DM and MM books. A friend lost the PHB. I think that was when they were about to go 3.5 since he couldn't find a replacement for me anywhere.

4e essentially has two versions operating in parallel: (1) the PHB, DMG, MM that were first released and (2) the "Essentials" products including the Heroes of the Fallen Lands, Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms, Monster Vault, etc. The "Essentials" character classes are generally more up to date, are designed to be simpler in play, and have more baked in story flavor. Not surprisingly this means that there are often 2 (or more!) versions of each class.

For example, the original 4e Assassin was first released in online Dragon #379, and has lots of shadow magic.

The essentials Executioner Assassin was released in online Dragon #394 (and later in Heroes of Shadow it would seem), and relies much less on shadow magic and more on martial skill and poison use.

4e is pretty much only being officially supported now thru the online Dragon and Dungeon magazines. There are a few good 4e adventure modules already released (with lots of threads on the topic), though you'll want to be careful to avoid the many bad ones.

From my little experience with 3.5's eccentricities, I think you'd be wise to use Pathfinder instead of 3.5 since Pathfinder is essentially a cleaned up revamped 3.75. And I have nothing but praise for Paizo who produces it; also, their adventure modules are generally of superb quality.

Personally, given your daughters age range and this being a family game I'd look at running a as simplified a game as possible. 1e, a retro-clone, or even the D&D Next playtest will feel like D&D without as much emphasis on tactical combat (which in turn frees up more time for story , exploration , and roleplaying).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

My wife was initially wanting to be an Assassin, but I couldn't find much details on it.
Then I see a Dragon magazine referenced in the old character builder, and then this executioner in a heroes of shadow book.
So much info that is a bit confusing.
Are they still releasing 4e materials?
Does 3.5 have a bunch of modules? Maybe I should look into that.
Although I only had the DM and MM books. A friend lost the PHB. I think that was when they were about to go 3.5 since he couldn't find a replacement for me anywhere.

The original Assassin class was a "DDI only" special that was in Dragon (I don't recall the exact issue, but you can only get it from DDI in any case). Later on they came out with HoS and it contains a sort of "Essentialized" Assassin known as the "Executioner" IIRC. The original version used 'shrouds', which you placed on your target with a minor action 1/round. Later you could expend the shrouds to do various things (mostly 1d6 damage per shroud). This was a sort of big damage pulse kind of a mechanic, you could keep dropping tons of shrouds on one guy and then expend them all for a big burst of damage, but honestly there wasn't much point in not just dropping them on your current target to get a 1d6 damage boost right away. In general the DDI Assassin was considered rather an odd and underpowered striker. I have a guy playing one now, and it isn't bad, but it just doesn't quite feel right, except for some trivial situation like dropping 10 shrouds on someone from hiding and then ganking them with an attack, but that's really not a super interesting sort of encounter...

The Executioner uses poisons as its daily powers, which is more interesting, though a bit gamist. Basically you prepare your daily powers, and you can choose between different ones you have formula for (effectively it is very similar to how 4e wizards work). This class also gets a number of other class features as it levels up, which is pretty typical of Essentials style classes. Its solid, though like most of post-Essentials classes not radically powerful (the other way to put it is that by the time they finished HoS WotC had class design in 4e down cold, PHB1/2/3 classes often have some fairly serious min/maxing possibilities, the E-classes MUCH less so).

So, you can use either of these Assassins, they'll both work. The DDI one is a bit more of a mystical shadow magic user and the HoS one is more of a poison using rogueish class that is more similar to the old 1e assassin (complete with shield proficiency for free, lol). The two are so different they can share practically nothing, though technically they are both subclasses of the same class.

 

[TheGlow]

Hmm. One of the main aspects I did enjoy about 4E was the tactical, and the variety of at-wills instead of just spamming regular attack like in 2e.
But I also see some of the pitfalls as my 10 year old daughter yells out "Twin Strike!" Not once was careful strike used, or her encounter/daily. I forgot she even had one.
Just hunters quarry and start throwing d20's.
The more I'm thinking about it, Pathfinder is sounding very plausible. I never got to play 3/3.5 even though I got the books back in the day. I never wanted to DM and everyone else was scared since it was new.
All I vaguely remember was a friend making a Celestial Paladin 2hand something so his bonus dam roll was some craziness like +8 and murdering everything at lvl 1 and the DM trying it wasn't kosher with it.
Pathfinder I think was supposed to open license, so is it easier to get some modules for that? Any recommendations on where to go?
Also does 3.5/PF still utilize tactical combat, tiles, etc?
My wife got all hyped when she realized she could have a figure instead of a pop out pog on the board.
Edit: Ahh indecision. Maybe I should just stick to 4E for now. I think I need to find a DM and be a player again for a bit first.

 

[sabrinathecat]

Spending time as a player is a definite plus.
Have you tried lurking in the play-by-post threads? You can get a good feel for some classes. I can even recommend a couple games to look at.

I'm on of the people who didn't like Essentials. As I see it, the idea was to make the classes as simple as possible by removing all those tricky difficult choices. But it was unnecessary. Buyer's remorse about a power you picked? retrain at next level! See, done. And it was usually pretty easy to pick the right power based on your build, race, and the type of game you were playing. And let's face it: building characters and watching them advance is a lot of the fun when you aren't at the actual gaming table. In fact, it seems like there are people who only build characters, and never actually play. Especially the ones who build lots of hybrids (groan). Personally, I also think that PH3 was a mistake.

The good news is that you can pick up a complete set of 4e books now. (Adventurer's Vault might be a bit difficult or expensive), because they stopped printing books. Only thing they are making now is what comes out on DDI.
Need comments or reviews on modules? Have you checked the reviews section of this board?

 

[Aenghus]

Running for kids I would both lower and filter the typical violence of RPG scenarios - how much depends on the ages and preferences of the players concerned. Some kids will prefer non-violent solutions or bloodless low-key violence

I would typically run simpler plots with stronger direction than normal, and more plots with non-violent solutions. Treasure hunts, conflict resolution, shopping trips, investigations, solving mysteries, catching criminals (alive) can all work. Start small, and see which plots work out better.

Go light on mechanics initially , and introduce concepts one by one over time- establish a base setting such as a village and introduce a number of NPCs to interact with. 4e's non-combat mechanics are relatively light, but even those can be too much if dumped on players all at once - I would narrate more events than in a standard game.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Hmm. One of the main aspects I did enjoy about 4E was the tactical, and the variety of at-wills instead of just spamming regular attack like in 2e.
But I also see some of the pitfalls as my 10 year old daughter yells out "Twin Strike!" Not once was careful strike used, or her encounter/daily. I forgot she even had one.
Just hunters quarry and start throwing d20's.
The more I'm thinking about it, Pathfinder is sounding very plausible. I never got to play 3/3.5 even though I got the books back in the day. I never wanted to DM and everyone else was scared since it was new.
All I vaguely remember was a friend making a Celestial Paladin 2hand something so his bonus dam roll was some craziness like +8 and murdering everything at lvl 1 and the DM trying it wasn't kosher with it.
Pathfinder I think was supposed to open license, so is it easier to get some modules for that? Any recommendations on where to go?
Also does 3.5/PF still utilize tactical combat, tiles, etc?
My wife got all hyped when she realized she could have a figure instead of a pop out pog on the board.
Edit: Ahh indecision. Maybe I should just stick to 4E for now. I think I need to find a DM and be a player again for a bit first.

Well, take heart, the PHB1 Ranger is probably THE single most one-dimensional class in the hardback 4e stuff, by a long shot. You literally can just use Twin Strike and HQ and nothing else all day and dish out significant damage, especially if you get a Great Bow (from AV1) Proficiency (its a d12 bow). They do have a lot of other fun powers though, the bad part being the best ones are all off-turn stuff (interrupts and reactions mostly). The nice part is though, even players that have little interest in tactics will do OK in combat with it, the idea of Ranger is a good solid RP archetype, and so it manages to be a very fun class overall even if it does have a small rough spot called Twin strike...

 

[sabrinathecat]

1 dimensional? That's a mathematical ideal, but there is no such thing in the "real" world.
2-dimensional/1 trick pony maybe.

Careful shot was not the only option for the second ranger at-will. Maybe some time there will be a really hard-to-hit target (or as part of a narrated skill challenge? Archery contest?) that will bring a reason for CS.

 

[TheGlow]

Spending time as a player is a definite plus.
Have you tried lurking in the play-by-post threads? You can get a good feel for some classes. I can even recommend a couple games to look at.

I'm on of the people who didn't like Essentials. As I see it, the idea was to make the classes as simple as possible by removing all those tricky difficult choices. But it was unnecessary. Buyer's remorse about a power you picked? retrain at next level! See, done. And it was usually pretty easy to pick the right power based on your build, race, and the type of game you were playing. And let's face it: building characters and watching them advance is a lot of the fun when you aren't at the actual gaming table. In fact, it seems like there are people who only build characters, and never actually play. Especially the ones who build lots of hybrids (groan). Personally, I also think that PH3 was a mistake.

The good news is that you can pick up a complete set of 4e books now. (Adventurer's Vault might be a bit difficult or expensive), because they stopped printing books. Only thing they are making now is what comes out on DDI.

Need comments or reviews on modules? Have you checked the reviews section of this board?

Yes, if you can suggest me a handful of places to watch. My dilemma is my friends and I loved a good hack n slash. I never really had a chance to play with many good DMs, often it was 2nd madness "how many are standing together? Fireball!" Although oddly enough the parts that do stick out in my mind were often not the combat. Except when i found a bow and disintegration arrows and rolled 4 1's in a row and killed the group.
Back in the day I liked reading up on the crazy strong combos but now, not so much. 1 , maybe 2 add on books with feats and skills was kool. but all these dragon, dungeon addons, etc. Its so overwhelming. Hence when I was doing the ranger for my daughter, i just stuck to PHB1 to keep it simple. PH3 , I always wanted to be a Psionicist from 1st ed. Trying for the 00 roll. But yea, hybrid, gestalts, all that stuff never really clicked with me. So far I have the PHB1,2,3 and some dark sun book my friend lent me. I dont think i want to go to darksun. All I know is barely Dragonlance from the books and a whole lot of Forgotten Realms.

But yes, module suggestions would be great. Especially if theres something that can somewhat seamlessly help chars get to 10 at least. I cant remember the last time I was in any campaign where people gained 5 or more levels total..
Hopefully by paragon I can get my act to gether and come up with some good stuff. I read a lot of fantasy and NONE of my friends do, so it'll all be pretty much "new" to them if I piecemeal ideas from several sources.

Running for kids I would both lower and filter the typical violence of RPG scenarios - how much depends on the ages and preferences of the players concerned. Some kids will prefer non-violent solutions or bloodless low-key violence.

Well my youngest typically likes violence where the older one doesnt. Young one opted to play Wii instead of the first session so I dont know if she will come back. But yes, the older one clearly does not like the violence. The redbox adventure had that goblin die after she used heal skill and she was actually crying. I let her roll to heal again and save em. im already thinking of making that an npc buddy for her. I know one of the books had the beastmaster subset. Maybe Ill do that and have a pet and goblin buddy arguing all the time.

Well, take heart, the PHB1 Ranger is probably THE single most one-dimensional class in the hardback 4e stuff, by a long shot. You literally can just use Twin Strike and HQ and nothing else all day and dish out significant damage, especially if you get a Great Bow (from AV1) Proficiency (its a d12 bow). They do have a lot of other fun powers though, the bad part being the best ones are all off-turn stuff (interrupts and reactions mostly). The nice part is though, even players that have little interest in tactics will do OK in combat with it, the idea of Ranger is a good solid RP archetype, and so it manages to be a very fun class overall even if it does have a small rough spot called Twin strike...

Just double checking. Group was ranger and 3 defenders, so her damage was absurdly different from the rest, and all ranged no less.

1 dimensional? That's a mathematical ideal, but there is no such thing in the "real" world.
2-dimensional/1 trick pony maybe.

Careful shot was not the only option for the second ranger at-will. Maybe some time there will be a really hard-to-hit target (or as part of a narrated skill challenge? Archery contest?) that will bring a reason for CS.

I had chosen Careful for her thinking sometimes you just want that extra chance to hit. In retrospect I think the math is better for 2 outright standard attempts vs 1 with +2.