Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Stonesnake" data-source="post: 4088813" data-attributes="member: 48229">I was at DDXP and played 4 delves and both LFR campaigns.Action Points were used by everyone in all the games and were fun to use. Also remember that you can only use ONE Action Point per encounter. Never more than one (however, monsters CAN use more than one AP per encounter). As to "why" you have them, the game is a lot more tactical (a lot more) and something as small as 1 extra action can really change the tide of battle ... and don't forget that some monsters get them as well! Also remember that in many adventures you can't simply "stop and rest" after every single battle and get back your Action Point. For the LFR I was in we went through 4 encounters before we could rest and get back our Action Point for the day.Second Wind is in there so that you can now heal yourself. Also, like Action Points you can only use Second Wind ONCE per encounter and you have a limited number you can cast per day. Mike Perkins said that one of the main goals of the game was that you could now play without a Cleric -- or any healing character -- if you wanted. In turn they needed to put in a mechanic so that you could heal yourself. Hence second wind was born (FYI it always heals you of 1/4 of your HP). And don't forget that Clerics work very differently now. They can only heal others a limited number of times per encounter (only twice per encounter at DDXP), and when they heal you you have to use your OWN healing surge to heal. So instead of healing always being dependent upon a single person in the party at nearly all times, you literally are responsible for your own healing. Again, in practice this was a FANTASTIC change as people loved having their fate in their hands. Plus when someone died, it was their own damn fault! Gone were the complaints that someone else didn't heal them in time.Bloodied is perhaps the best change for multiple reasons. First of all, as soon as a monster becomes bloodied you are told that they are. Hence, you now have a visual cue as to which monsters are more damaged than others. No more vague heal checks to try to figure out how damaged someone is, you now have a good idea when someone is going to drop. The other reason for bloodied is that some creatures (and PCs) now have special powers and abilities when they are bloodied (i.e. near death). This is a small, but amazingly effective, change to the system. And it just "feels right". If you know that you're halfway to death you start fighting more fiercely and do more damage. Plus, it allows very interesting tactical situations that you couldn't easily perform in past editions, and not just for the characters but for the DM as well.For example, when we were fighting the Elite Solo level 4 Black Dragon he has a condition that he can use his breath weapon as soon as he's bloodied. So during his turn he actually used his breath weapon on us and then used an Action Point to attack someone other than the Paladin (the Dragon actually had 2 Action Points and can use them both in the same encounter). Since he didn't attack the Paladin the dragon took damage from the Paladin's challenge, which in turn made the dragon bloodied, which in turn triggered his special ability in which his breath weapon instantly recharged and he got to use it again on us! So two breath weapons and an attack all within the same round! Yeah it sucked for us, but we QUICKLY learned that Dragons are to be taken DAMN seriously in 4th edition. And THAT felt a lot more "realistic" than any other past edition of D&D.The key thing to remember here is that 4th edition is NO LONGER a representation of what "true combat" would be like. Like Chris Perkins said, "how do you know what combat with magic is really like? We can make it whatever we want, who's to argue that it's 'incorrect'?! It's magic!" Rather it is a game and meant to be fun. Many many many times the various reps from WoTC mentioned this and said that if you wanted to play a game which was closer to a true "medieval realistic" feel there are lots of other systems out there which allow for that sort of experience.D&D 4th edition was made to be a fun experience with lots of options and a huge emphasis on "yes you can do that". That means more options, more abilities, and more flexibility (i.e. did you know that ANY class can now learn Raise Dead? Yep, they can.) Quite simply the D&D of old is totally gone and if you like the limited, realistic feel of those systems then you might not like 4th edition as much.However, I played 4th edition with my friends who are the hardest of the hardcore and although they weren't totally sold on the new system, they easily had more fun in combat that ever before. Even they are torn as they didn't love the "video game" feel of the game, but it was SO much fun and tactical that they had a time with their own emotions. It's hard to hate something which is so much damn fun!</blockquote>

Verification