The fate of one 4e PHB

[Knightfall]

If you're interested in a slew of homebrewed feats, spells and prestige classes, my Yahoo group (Cydra) has a metric buttload of them from my campaign. I'll take them down eventually, once we're in full on 4e mode, but they'll still be up for a while. Feel free to download them if you want.

Hmm, I'm definitely going to have to make sure I have all your v.3.5 stuff before you take it down.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Hmm.. you might want to consider actually looking at the real Pathfinder rules then, since what you've described isn't Pathfinder at all.

Oh really?



Channel Positive Energy
When you channel positive energy, you unleash a wave of positive energy in a 30-foot burst. All undead in this radius take 1d6 points of positive energy damage plus 1d6 points of positive energy damage for every two
cleric levels you have attained beyond 1st (1d6 at 1st level, 2d6 at 3rd, 3d6 at 5th and so on) ...

Living creatures within the area are healed a like amount by this wave of positive energy. You can choose whether or not to include yourself in this effect. Hit points gained
above a living creature’s total are lost.

 

[der_kluge]

I admit that when I looked through the 4e PHB, I felt a little sad that Bard wasn't in there. And I'm still trying to wrap my head around why WoTC chose to add in Tieflings and Dragonborn (Wasn't the game just fine without them?!) and remove gnomes - a race I personally love.

It does feel a little bit like a slap in the face.

I'm also puzzled, nay - baffled as to why WoTC would choose to make it so !@#$ difficult for me to upgrade my existing campaign, especially since my campaign has a barbarian, sorcerer, and gnome bard in it. It's almost like WoTC is saying "here's the excuse you need to switch to Pathfinder, or stick with 3.5 instead". I just don't get it. It makes absolutely no sense at all. Oh sure, this means they'll be able to sell me the Bard and Barbarian down the road, but it also means I might end up delaying my switch to 4e until those books come out, or indefinitely. That strikes me as a HUGE risk on their part.

But I'm withholding judgment until I actually play the game. I've read enough reports from folks who have played it and loved it, so I'm willing to give it a shot.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I admit that when I looked through the 4e PHB, I felt a little sad that Bard wasn't in there. And I'm still trying to wrap my head around why WoTC chose to add in Tieflings and Dragonborn (Wasn't the game just fine without them?!) and remove gnomes - a race I personally love.

It does feel a little bit like a slap in the face.

I'm also puzzled, nay - baffled as to why WoTC would choose to make it so !@#$ difficult for me to upgrade my existing campaign, especially since my campaign has a barbarian, sorcerer, and gnome bard in it. It's almost like WoTC is saying "here's the excuse you need to switch to Pathfinder, or stick with 3.5 instead". I just don't get it. It makes absolutely no sense at all. Oh sure, this means they'll be able to sell me the Bard and Barbarian down the road, but it also means I might end up delaying my switch to 4e until those books come out, or indefinitely. That strikes me as a HUGE risk on their part.

But I'm withholding judgment until I actually play the game. I've read enough reports from folks who have played it and loved it, so I'm willing to give it a shot.

They probably looked carefully:
"What are the favourite choices of a gamer like Die_Kluge. Let's take away everything he likes."

Nah, the real reason is hard to divine. Did we need the Warlock as Core? I don't know. I love Warlocks, but I could have waited for that. Do I need the Warlord as core? Hell, yes, I want him.

And the rest is a space issue. There really isn't more space. Still sucks a bit to have to go without Barbarian, Bard and Druid in the beginning. But I was always prepared to buy more supplements, especially if I know I will use most of the contents (unlike with the Complete Serioes of 3.5, for which I use far to little. ). I need to spend my money on something, after all...
And if the rest of the game is good - and that, I am sure of by now - then all the waiting and money _is_ worth it.

 

[Spatula]

The problem I have with Pathfinder is that it looks like they tried to 4e-ify 3e. If your aim is to support people who love 3e and hate 4e, I think you'd be better off supporting 3e rather than making & supporting a version of 3e that's been houseruled into an almost different game. If my group switches to 4e, it won't be anytime soon (just started a new campaign and have an old campaign to finish off), so I'd be in the market for good 3e adventures... but not if I have to strip out and convert back all the Paizo houserules.

Regarding the first impressions, the 4e books do have a sort of cold, clinical feel to them, I think. The art is generally very good, especially the chapter spreads. The layout is fine, the rules look like fun... but there's something about them that doesn't feel as inviting as the 3e books did. Maybe 3e just stumbled onto a really effective concept (at least as far as its effects on me) with the faux-tome covers and/or using lots of earthtones on the page layouts.

 

[The Little Raven]

Regarding the first impressions, the 4e books do have a sort of cold, clinical feel to them, I think.

It's funny, because I get that feeling from 3e's books. Just a bunch of textbooks.

 

[Sitara]

IMO the barbarian and monk really needed to be as well as some type of warrior mage. They really should have increased the page count of the PHB to the next tier which is 360 pages orsomething.

As for bard, sure I can understand but thing is I hope they go with a completely martial bard. Not with a part illusionist/sorceror weirdo. Its why I have never really liked dnd bards,not even the one in 2e. They are too jacks of all trade and sucky at everything. They don't NEED magic spells, only some enchanting types of melodies, some cfombat skills, rougery skills and voila!

 

[DaveMage]

The problem I have with Pathfinder is that it looks like they tried to 4e-ify 3e. If your aim is to support people who love 3e and hate 4e, I think you'd be better off supporting 3e rather than making & supporting a version of 3e that's been houseruled into an almost different game.

I'm looking forward to the Pathfinder Beta because with the Alpha, part of the idea was to put a whole bunch of new stuff in there and see what people liked and what they didn't.

Since Gen Con will be a Beta test, and for a few months after, I'd be surprised if the final version wasn't more recognizable to 3.x fans.

Also, while I have many, many issues with 4E, I do believe there are a few things in there that could be ported to a 3.5 game to make it better. The idea of rituals (although not the way 4E implemented them - I'd limit them to spellcasters) seems pretty cool to me, so if things like that were to somehow make it into Pathfinder I wouldn't be disappointed.

 

[Aeolius]

I'm also puzzled, nay - baffled as to why WoTC would choose to make it so !@#$ difficult for me to upgrade my existing campaign, especially since my campaign has a barbarian, sorcerer, and gnome bard in it. It's almost like WoTC is saying "here's the excuse you need to switch to Pathfinder, or stick with 3.5 instead". I just don't get it. It makes absolutely no sense at all. Oh sure, this means they'll be able to sell me the Bard and Barbarian down the road, but it also means I might end up delaying my switch to 4e until those books come out, or indefinitely. That strikes me as a HUGE risk on their part.

I'm glad it's not just me. My game runs just fine, in 3.5e. Skipping from 1e to 3e was easy; the game respected traditional monsters and classes. There was even a conversion manual. Then here comes 4e, telling us that it's time to end our games and begin anew. Umm....no

 

[Kaisoku]

Oh really?



Channel Positive Energy
When you channel positive energy, you unleash a wave of positive energy in a 30-foot burst. All undead in this radius take 1d6 points of positive energy damage plus 1d6 points of positive energy damage for every two
cleric levels you have attained beyond 1st (1d6 at 1st level, 2d6 at 3rd, 3d6 at 5th and so on) ...

Living creatures within the area are healed a like amount by this wave of positive energy. You can choose whether or not to include yourself in this effect. Hit points gained
above a living creature’s total are lost.

Yes, and you said "heal an entire village with one Turning". My point being that you are blowing the situation way out of proportions, and being nasty for some reason.

Regardless, I'm not going into details about mechanics, as this isn't the venue for it.
Discussing "giving something a chance", whether it's 4e or Pathfinder is, and it is my opinion that taking a mechanic and blowing it's capability way out of proportion is a ridiculous reason to dismiss a gaming system out of hand.


What I'm trying to say, there are plenty of reasons you not want to play Pathfinder or 4e. Picking an incorrect reason would be rather silly.

Now if you want to say that you dislike the change of Clerics having more healing capability overall, that's a valid opinion, and actually true to the rules. Without needing to be nasty about it.