pawsplay's dealbreaker list

[pawsplay]

I'll let others dissect the other points but this is the one I would like to focus on. 3E is the only edition that has had PCs built along the same lines as the NPCS and at first, I thought "this is great..makes sense since it makes for a more believable world".

In every edition of D&D up until 4th, orcs had more than one hit point 87.5% of the time. So 4e has made orc minions less PC-like than every prior edition, including OD&D and Basic D&D. In prior editions, PCs and monsters weren't precisely the same. I'm fine with that as a design decision.

You are incorrect about NPCs, however. Prior to 3e, the definition of an NPC was "someone who uses the PC creation rules but isn't a monster." Brigands were not technically NPCs but monsters. But an NPC fighter had ability scores, 1d8 or 1d10 hit dice (depending on version), proficiencies, gear, class based saving throws, etc. Up until 3e, an NPC fighter and a PC fighter were indistinguishable, and groups of NPCs were part of many wandering monster tables.

 

[Lacyon]

You are incorrect about NPCs, however. Prior to 3e, the definition of an NPC was "someone who uses the PC creation rules but isn't a monster." Brigands were not technically NPCs but monsters. But an NPC fighter had ability scores, 1d8 or 1d10 hit dice (depending on version), proficiencies, gear, class based saving throws, etc. Up until 3e, an NPC fighter and a PC fighter were indistinguishable, and groups of NPCs were part of many wandering monster tables.

...

If that's all you want NPC to mean, 4E's still got it.

 

[pawsplay]

Didn't AD&D have a rule that fighters got 1 attack PER LEVEL when fighting zero levels?

In Basic D&D, I believe AD&D, and especially in the Gold Box computer games, you get one attack per level when attacking anything with 1 HD or lower. That excluded hobgoblins (1+1) but included kobolds, goblins, orcs, brigands, etc.

 

[Zil]

In Basic D&D, I believe AD&D, and especially in the Gold Box computer games, you get one attack per level when attacking anything with 1 HD or lower. That excluded hobgoblins (1+1) but included kobolds, goblins, orcs, brigands, etc.

Yes, those rules were definitely in AD&D (1E). I still get a chuckle out of the time one player started a fight with the large group of rebelling orc slaves in the dungeons of the Hill Giant Chief. The instigating player was counting on his 8 or 9 attacks per round to deal with the angered orcs (when he slew their negotiator). But he underestimated exactly what 400 angry orcs could do even though they were all mostly 1HD. The rest of the players were in a state of shock when all hell broke loose and they had to abandon parts of the fort as being too dangerous (due to orc snipers). Anyway, I guess the 4E minions could also achieve the same thing, bit it just wouldn't ring as true somehow.

I always thought of the 3E whirlwind attack and the cleave/great cleave feats as being the 3E analogies of this old rule.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Actually, it's LESS than 1 hd. So you don't get it against orcs, but kobolds, goblins, etc are fair game.

 

[Lacyon]

Actually, it's LESS than 1 hd. So you don't get it against orcs, but kobolds, goblins, etc are fair game.

In AD&D, it's less than 1HD.

In OD&D, it's 1 HD or less.

 

[Primal]

I'll admit to being disappointed that my favourite 3.5 classes (the Druid and Sorcerer) aren't in the first PHB, but I hardly consider it "holding them ransom". Look, if I really want to play one immediately, I'll homebrew. Meanwhile, I get to try the Warlord, the Dragonborn and I don't have to wait even longer for a game that I'm eager to try.

One of the reasons I'm quite concerned about 4E is that it seems that a lot of people are going/are required to homebrew character concepts, which implies to me that 4E is mechanically and thematically a step backwards. I don't want to homebrew/houserule stuff in my first campaign to make some concepts work -- I hated doing it in AD&D, and I certainly never had to do it in 3E.

Until Tome of Battle came out, I never wanted to play a melee class, because they bored me and felt like a waste when compared to what high level casters can pull off. Improving balance should be a good thing, and powers make all classes more interesting to play in combat.

Again, to you. My group voted against using ToB and Bo9S, because to us they felt a bit "over the top" and ridiculous. As I've said before, monk has also always been a "banned" core class in my group.

I don't see these as mutually exclusive. A 3.5 Half-Orc paladin wasn't interesting, it was gimped by horrible stat adjustments so it could barely protect itself, let alone the weak. And between feat and power selection, I find it hard to believe that 4e PCs are less customizable than their 3.5 brethern.

I think there's a very good reason why there won't be any official conversion guide from 3E to 4E, and that is because the character concepts and roles limit your options -- there won't be any "suboptimal" choices to make in 4E anymore.

For example, I don't believe that I could convert my elven Cleric/Divine Templar who is specialized in Longbow and has taken all the archery-related feats. Sure, I could create a character that has *some* similarities, but he should probably be a Cleric with some

You should also take a look at the options presented to each class -- for example, I can't really see a rogue using anything else but a dagger in melee, unless he multiclasses. And how many powers are available to you at each level? 3-8, if I recall correctly. Sure, there are a lot of Feats in the game, but I don't think they allow you a lot of customization -- I rather suspect that they are there to "enhance" your powers and your "effectiveness" in your role.

Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to playing a wizard that isn't going to run in fear from a common housecat.

I have played them in 3E (in fact, I've never ran in fear from a common housecat).

I can understand why the designers (and a lot of gamers, apparently) feel that everyone should always have "cool stuff to do" in combat, but I'm not convinced that their method is the best way to accomplish that. IMO some sort of "power points" for all the classes would have been a lot better way to do it, since I'm not a hard-core fan of Vancian spellcasting (and Psionics already work that way).

Now it feels that everyone should just use their best At-Will power all the time, *or* the attack which targets your enemies' weakest Defense. And it seems that all the classes will get powers/exploits against each defense and most of them also seem to do the same amount of damage (and use the same attack modifier, to boot) -- which results in combat becoming a series of attacks that cause almost identical amounts of damage with just a different flavour.

Where you see "3.5 sucks", I see "this is how 4e is better".

Uh, shouldn't that be "where you see '4E sucks'..."?

Most of the flavour changes I've seen seem very well reasoned, hardly capricious. That implies that maybe it was broken, or at least improveable.

It's a whole new game, not just a new edition of D&D. Note that this is once again a matter of personal taste -- I see a lot of "fluff" becoming too "simplified" and thematically very restricting. Not to mention that it's easier to create a whole new setting for 4E than try to come up with reasons for all those changes, say, in Cosmology and monster "fluff" for example (e.g. fomorians who have mysteriously evolved into kings of Feywild, although my previous campaigns have featured them as mutated, brutish and primitive cave-dwelling giants). And yes, my players *care* about consistency in the setting and the "fluff", so I can't just handwave it away.

Meh. Attempts at compatability were doomed to fail, unless what you really wanted was 3.75. And I see no point in playing 3.75.

Which is what Paizo is doing with the Pathfinder RPG, and in my opinion succeeding pretty well considering their target demographics and design goals.

I personally see no point in "change for change's sake", but I understand what you are saying. And I agree to a certain point -- I think the update from 3E to 3.5 was too insignificant to justify new set of core books and I wouldn't pay for 3.51. Besides, barring Haste and some other "troublesome" spells, in my opinion 3.5 created more problems than actually solved them. However, I personally don't like how far thematically and mechanically 4E is moving from 3E, and like I said above, I don't see it fitting my group's style or taste.

 

[hong]

Oh no, elven cleric archers got nerfed.

 

[Fifth Element]

Uh, shouldn't that be "where you see '4E sucks'..."?

No, he was referring to the claim that 4E marketing has consisted largely of talking about how much 3.X sucks. Which is erroneous, of course.

 

[Nellisir]

I've not once seen (as a player) or used (as a DM) frost giants since I started playing in what, 1988? The lack of a particular monster as a dealbreaker is...interesting, I suppose.

I've never used or seen used storm giants, fire giants, dopplegangers, bulettes, werebears, wereboars, pit fiends, chuul, any beholder variant, aboleth, achaierai, aquatic elves, arrowhawks, stone giants, giant bees, or yrthak -- to name a few -- and I've been playing since '86. Personally, I've never or almost never used halfling, mind flayers, or orcs - and if it's true for me, it must be true for everyone, right?

I haven't read most of this thread, but someone made a telling comment earlier: the amount of houseruling that most many people are going to have to engage in is depressing. For better or worse, most people populate their campaign worlds out of the (first/initial) Monster Manual; it's not unreasonable to expect that book to have the "traditional" D&D monsters, particularly intelligent, society-building ones (frost giant vs carrion crawler, for instance).

And as far as gnomes...I've never had a problem finding a "niche" for them, nor have many other people. The fact that all the designers and developers at WotC supposedly couldn't think of a way to distinguish them from dwarves and halflings...well, I would've expected alot more from a group of people that make their living on their imagination. Or it's an excuse to mask a quasi-official abandonment of occasional subtle details in favor of a fantasy world painted entirely in primary colors. I like bold fantasy as much (or more) than the next person, but it seems to me like WotC has officially shifted from "this is a wood elf/this is a mountain dwarf" to "this is an Elf/this is a Dwarf". No more shading, no more subtlies - unless we houserule them back in -- or until the "shading" power source is introduced in PH3.