NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 6092687" data-attributes="member: 82106">Yeah, I think Pemerton has a good handle on at least a good chunk of what I see with DDN. Beyond what he said I just see the mechanical framework that was set up in 4e as a good approach. It allows for a universal design where various elements of the game can be built around the common platform of class mechanics. While 4e has a lot of feats, items, powers, etc added to it, the CORE of the game is MUCH simpler and cleaner and accomplishes much more than the core 2e or 3.x rules in a given amount of material. When you add new stuff or tinker with existing stuff you don't end up with deep problems, because again you're building on a common platform. This GREATLY simplifies the DM's task for instance because it is trivial to say take a power from a class, adapt its flavor and stick it on a monster. This can be literally accomplished in 5 seconds at the table as needed without so much as a second thought. I can make up any item and with some trivial change to simply give it a different type it will work for anyone and integrate with the rules for their character's class without problems. Nothing even faintly resembling this exists with DDN, it is a hodge podge of different elements where classes are each built off in their own universe and you have to completely reinvent the wheel if you want some other class or a creature or item to have the same effect. Its hard to overemphasize just how much mechanically is gained with "everything is a power". So, yeah, I see no real point to DDN's mechanical design, it is nothing but regression. It offers no discernible countervailing advantage to me. I think there is a vast amount of room for movement in terms of the presentation and design of a system built along the lines of 4e's, DDN could produce a significant improvement, but instead it offers nothing, just more 1980's vintage game design. Ho hum.</blockquote>

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