Turning D&D into WoW?

[Grog]

Oh, and it's worth noting that D&D had scaling racial abilities back in 1st edition (Drow).

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

It all boiled down to aggro control good tank rotations and maxing out DPS towards the end of the fight.

I seriously have no idea what any of this means. Would the version for the WoW-impaired be "it's really hard"?

In plain English (or D&D English, anyway):

The "tanks" - generally heavily armored, high hitpoint types: fighters, paladins, etc. - have to keep the dragon's attention focused on peeling them out of their metal shells, rather than snatching up the squishy wizards hanging out behind them. In order to keep the fighters from getting eaten, they have to switch off, letting the dragon chew on one for a bit, then chew on another for a bit, etc.

Finally, when the enemy is almost dead, you have to max out your DPS - damage per second. This is really, really important with bosses who have a tendency to heal themselves once they reach a certain critical threshold. For instance, consider a D&D dragon, blessed by some dark god or another, who can cast a Heal spell on itself for free once it falls below, say 100 HP. You know that once you hit the dragon hard enough to bring it below that point, you have got to pile on as much damage as possible as quickly as possible because, once the dragon's turn comes up again, you'll almost have to start over.

Make more sense?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I have literally been on more than a 100 Onyxia raids and the only similarities I see is that both games take place in a high fantasy world. If you want to compare it to something go for the first real dragon raid: Lord Nagafent. That is what the Onyxia fight is based off of.

Wow, that's really charitable to Nagafen to compare the two. Deadmines has more complex fights than the Nagafen fight.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yeah, i'm with Mouse. i've watched people play WoW and it bores me. Stand there and slash and heal and slash some more, etc. Of course, you can argue that D&D does the same thing, but from what i've seen, 4e is trying to make it more dynamic than that. Of course, i have seen very very little, and the game is still in the works.

WoW is more involved in that, too. It's just that watching anyone playing a videogame is dull.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

It's just that watching anyone playing a videogame is dull.

Not true!

A good chunk of my freshman year was spent watching people play Civ 1, usually providing "helpful" advice!

Okay, I'm a freak.

Brad

 

[MerricB]

Note also that Ryan is really discussing how combat is similar in both systems, and thus D&D can't compete. He doesn't think combat in D&D should change... he thinks the RPG is doomed because of WoW.

Of *course* D&D and WoW combat are similar!

Cheers!

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Not true!

A good chunk of my freshman year was spent watching people play Civ 1, usually providing "helpful" advice!

Okay, I'm a freak.

Brad

I was lucky enough to spend a goodly portion of my collegiate free time (and some time which wasn't technically free) playing StarCraft.