Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 8621272" data-attributes="member: 6877472">First of all, don't go knocking my Firecube!&nbsp; It was simple and effective.&nbsp; Second, if the DM wanted a Firecube to light stuff on fire, they could, and there were guidelines for how much damage that could do, but I mean, even the classic Fireball doesn't inflict ongoing fire damage to it's targets.Third, the &quot;video game&quot; thing is kind of blown out of proportion.&nbsp; They did want to simplify powers so you could figure out what they did quickly- I don't know if you've encountered this before, but over the years, I've spent many a time poring over spell descriptions to figure out exactly how they work because a player will skim over it, declare &quot;my spell does this amazing thing!&quot; and I'm left to go &quot;hold on...&quot;.&nbsp; Now, did they have plans for handing off the 4e rules to develop video games?&nbsp; Sure!&nbsp; That's been a thing ever since AD&amp;D.&nbsp; And did they think easier to digest rules elements would help with that?&nbsp; Probably.&nbsp; They also wanted to develop a VTT which is why all the rules are designed with a grid map in mind.But at the end of the day, the usual &quot;it's like a MMO&quot; comes down to two things- codified roles for classes, and effects like &quot;marking&quot; which generate &quot;aggro&quot; (sort of) for the Defender classes.After 3e, when suddenly enemies had no particular reason to target a Fighter over a Wizard, and the &quot;rules of engagement&quot; in AD&amp;D were flipped on their head, it was nice to see that sort of thing.As for the &quot;samey powers&quot;, it's not as big of a deal as one might suppose, and WotC was very quick (sometimes too quick) to develop new powers for the classes, to the point that it was impossible to keep track of them all without the online character builder.Because if there's one thing that D&amp;D designers love to do, it's make more spells.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="James Gasik, post: 8621272, member: 6877472"] First of all, don't go knocking my [B]Firecube[/B]! It was simple and effective. Second, if the DM wanted a [B]Firecube[/B] to light stuff on fire, they could, and there were guidelines for how much damage that could do, but I mean, even the classic Fireball doesn't inflict ongoing fire damage to it's targets. Third, the "video game" thing is kind of blown out of proportion. They did want to simplify powers so you could figure out what they did quickly- I don't know if you've encountered this before, but over the years, I've spent many a time poring over spell descriptions to figure out exactly how they work because a player will skim over it, declare "my spell does this amazing thing!" and I'm left to go "hold on...". Now, did they have plans for handing off the 4e rules to develop video games? Sure! That's been a thing ever since AD&D. And did they think easier to digest rules elements would help with that? Probably. They also wanted to develop a VTT which is why all the rules are designed with a grid map in mind. But at the end of the day, the usual "it's like a MMO" comes down to two things- codified roles for classes, and effects like "marking" which generate "aggro" (sort of) for the Defender classes. After 3e, when suddenly enemies had no particular reason to target a Fighter over a Wizard, and the "rules of engagement" in AD&D were flipped on their head, it was nice to see that sort of thing. As for the "samey powers", it's not as big of a deal as one might suppose, and WotC was very quick (sometimes too quick) to develop new powers for the classes, to the point that it was impossible to keep track of them all without the online character builder. Because if there's one thing that D&D designers love to do, it's make more spells. [/QUOTE]

Verification