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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kae'Yoss" data-source="post: 1157461" data-attributes="member: 4134">Thumbs Down to this article.To state it up front: I'm not happy with all the changes, but a lot of them are good, or necessary. Now about the article. I think it doesn't hit the spot, and condemns far to many things that actually aren't bad, or have nothing to do with the game itself.- (No) Playtester Credits: Could have put it in, that's right, but it doesn't make it a worse game.- Weapon Sizing: Makes more sense than the old one: Now I won't have that stuff with a large creature wielding a huge greatsword or a medium-size short sword or anything. You won't have to give the rogues different proficiencies based on size, and small rogues won't get their equivalent to the long-sword any more (while medium-size ones didn't get it) but will be able to use a rapier now. You were right with the ranged weapon issue, though.- Damage Reduction: One of the good changes. Since the values now are much lower, it is not really necessary to carry a dozen weapons around. But now DR actually matters. The +x stuff usually meant that you either had the right weapon (which was very probably), but if you didn't have it, you were in very big trouble, since you made next to no damage. Plus, DR/silver was all but useless.- Challenge Ratings going up: Another really good change. Face it: Demons and Devils, in all stories overpoweringly mighty creatures - and you are concerned about the stories - were a bad joke. They were far too weak to be the lords of Hell. Now there are something to fear again.- Paladin Mounts disappearing: I'm not sure on this one. It is silly, but it enables Paladins to make use of the mount more often, which is nice - what use will that horse be if you can't use it half of the time, important end fights included? All in all, I'm kinda indifferent.- Subdual to Nonlethal: I don't exactly know why they did it (though I have some suspicions), but that won't ruin my game.- Greater Spell Focus: cannot be killed officially. You can't say "Feat X in book Y is deleted and cannod be used any more" in the core rules. This requires a whole new edition. Plus this is really easy to house rule.- Power Attack: isn't all that complicated, but now it serves the purpose it was intended for.- Change of Economy to silver: Couldn't care less. There are items priced in SP, after all (those with values below 1gp), or even in CP, and I prefer paying 15gp for that long sword to paying 150 sp. - Spell Changes: Many of the spells that got changed were so broken, overpowered or too-good-to-be-true that they had to be changed. Whenever something is a must for everyone, it gets suspicious.- FFR (Fantasy Flavour Removal): Fantasy Flavour is important, but so is balance. I like D&D cause it is balanced. I don't give a damn about wizards being unbeatable in the stories. It would be a very bad game where the wizard character would so totally dominate the game that the others might as well play something else. Not that the players should compete, but they should be roughly on par with each other.-- Hold Person: You said that it is only a momentary thing and wizard in stories can freeze people with a word. Would you like the spell to paralize enemies forever? IMO, the new HP is both more balanced (no more 2nd-level death spell) and actually closer to the stories, where those with a strong will could shake off the paralization earlyer than the weak willed.-- Darkness: I agree that that is a weird change, though the spell is named darkness and not pitch black. They could have let that one as it is, though.-- Bull's Strength and affiliated: They were just to good to be true. They were practically magic items in spell form. Also, you can't expect a priestly blessing upon our knight last the whole excursion (which could be days or even weeks) anyway, so the rest is details.-- Fly: Again, the new one is more balanced, and your example doesn't hold water, since witches use brooms, not spells.-- Mass cures: Healing Circle was 3.0 (and earlier editions as well IIRC), so this isn't anything new (only improved). And it is magic, not herbs, and powerful magic at that. You can expect a little of that. Imagine a prayer for the wounded and god himself touching them to heal them.-- Magic Items: Can't think of anything that makes them more general or easyer to create since 3.0. In fact, with the rule that certain effects must be on certain parts or the cost increases, the "do-it-yourself-magic-item" issue has actually been taken care of.I agree with a couple of your points, but most of them either don't change the game (like the name change of subdual to non-lethal, which is hardly a game-breaker), are meta-game (lack of playtesting credits) or aren't really true. The article is also flawed since you don't even try to list improvements (except the h-spells, maybe) so all in all it reads like a "I don't like this thing up front and nag at everything" kind of rant.</blockquote>

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