Aneoth wrote:Zen.

OK, I think I sorta know what a dragonborn is.
Bascially a half dragon-half human (or perhaps half dragon-half humanoid)?

What is a Eladrin?

I never have figured out the Tiefling either.

I assume Warlock/Wizard/ are basically subclasses of Mage (Or magic user)?

Warlord sounds like another fighter sub-class?

Sheese, speaking of old fogies.............

Dragonborn are kinda like lizard men, but with more dragon than lizard (or man for that matter). They get to breathe acid, cold, or fire once an encounter. It's really only good for wiping out minions, and letting themselves get hung out to dry hehe.

Eladrin are basically really elvish elves. It doesn't make sense until you read up on "normal" elves. The standard elf seems to be more of a woodland wild elf type, while the Eladrin are the more high-and-mighty holier-than-thou elves. They split the elf archetype into two separate beings, essentially.

Tieflings are easy, humans with a touch of devil in them. Think Constantine, the movie, sort of like that. Not necessarily evil, but, just a hint of devil.

Warlocks are the sorceror port over from 3.5, while wizards are normal wizards. They basically area control combat. Warlords are sort of combat tacticians, kind of a fighter/bard oddity. They can do things like inspire comrades to extra attacks.

Action points are actually WAY more balanced than they used to be. Now, an action point can be spent to take an extra action. That's it. You only get 1, and earn an extra for every two encounters you defeat in a row. When you rest, your pool is reset to 1. Not like 3.5 and before, where you could have like a zillion and use them on every roll, lol, yes, that type of action point did suck mightily.

Healing surges are indeed the oddity. They cannot be related to any other mechanic in any other version of D&D. My only idea is that with the way they redid "spells" they needed a new way for healing, since you can't just slap cure light wounds on somebody. *shrug* It's new!!  By the way, I despise WoW and have always used minis.

My personal FLGS where I play my games on Sunday has sold out of the books since day 1 and can't keep them in stock. He's thrilled. So, honestly, it's all about your area and who you have buying stuff. Some stuff sells better in other areas I suppose.

Frontloading HP means that my fighter gets 30 hp at level 1 and 6 per level after than. So, at 10th level he has 84 hp. In contrast, even in 1st Ed D&D, d10 per level plus con bonus would max out at what, 140hp at 10th level? They just start you out with more hp so you survive a little easier. It's just more fun in the abstract I think.

And yes, every time he "marks" an opponent in the game, he spouts off an entirely different line or two defining what he is doing. That is, in fact, role playing. No dice. Straight talking.

I wasn't trying to stir the pot here guys. Believe me, I'm all about the old school. Like I said, I'm running the old modules. I'm just saying that it's actually not too bad so far. Better than 3.0 or 3.5 I think already, and that's GOT to be a step in the right direction, regardless!!!

Zenfinite

mellmorranth wrote:hey, your opinion and you're entitled to it.

Hey, it's gracious of you to say so.

i'm curious what you think of healing surges though.

The concept is not my favorite part of the system, but I find it no more ridiculous than the 10,000 times I saw 1e characters somehow able to drink healing potions during combat.

... are those the one aspect of 4th you're grappling with or have you got a defense for those too?

You need to work on your reading comprehension skills.

I'm not defending anything; it's closer to the mark to say that I'm actually attacking the general attitude here of "it's new, so obviously it sucks," especially from users who clearly have never even cracked the spine on one of the books. That's the sort of "back in my day, we walked 10 miles to school, barefoot, and it was uphill both ways," nonsense that makes us all look like a bunch of geriatrics.

I'll summarize my thoughts for you: as I stated above, I'm surprised by how non-sucky most of 4e is and I'm glad that the system got rid of the worst of the 3e excess. The tactical aspect of combat might be a deal-breaker for some people; it's okay (for now) for me, personally. I hope that there's about one-eighth the number of splatbooks for 4e than there was for 3e, which eventually turned into a parody of itself.

+++++

Edit, because this bottom part was just stirring up the flames.

I mentioned Greyhawk in this one, so ... no ... it's still got to go.

Xaxaxe wrote:BTW, are you sticking with this ID? Or will you be going back to Radovarl? Or maybe one of the other ones?

viewtopic.php?p=106899&highlight=#106899

Oh, and how did it feel to get banned at BoardgameGeek on your very first day? That one still cracks me up.

wow, you're sort of cocky for a guy who doesn't know what he's talking about. now i know why you like 4th so much. you *must* be a WOW player. got the detective skills of one anyway. keep at it douchebag, i'm sure you can dig something up.

Xaxaxe wrote:But this is role-playing?

My God, am I really the only person who thinks that the first-level 1e magic-user was comically unplayable? Did people really have fun playing a walking Wand of Magic Missile that had exactly one charge per day?

+++++

Hey, look, I'm as surprised as anyone that I can tolerate 4e (so far, at least; I'm hoping that the whole splatbook phenomenon is much less in effect this time around). And I had fun taking a few shots at the whole idea of a fourth edition before it came out; I even fired away in this very thread.

But the game has been out for three weeks now, and it's not exactly difficult to find, so, all due respect and all that, but any opinion posted here from anyone who hasn't bothered to make an attempt to actually see what it is they're criticizing is completely invalid.

For myself ... well, I gotta say, I'm taken aback by how surprisingly "not bad" it is, a sentiment I'll bet would be shared by more than one frequent poster in this thread if they would just take a look for themselves.

It's not 1e, and, overall, it's probably not even as good as 2e. But 4e beats the living SHIT out of 3e, which has got to be worth a few points, right? And, honestly, guys: the constant, repetitious, never-ending, alleged "jokes" about feats, skills, and multiclassing just shows that you're still thinking in 3e terms.

I'm for for nostalgia and defending our turf when required, but I know I'm not the only person who feels that the general tone of The Acaeum has lately begun to slip into dangerous territory. It's even been mentioned in this very thread. Nostalgia is one thing, but this ...

[ Image ]

... is quite another.

Duke, you MUST understand, there are people out there (here and on the Dragonsfoot forum) that still feel 2E is an abomination....they are not going to be on board, no matter how good 4E is, unless it was a total re-release of 1E with the original rules, verbatim.  Basically there are a lot of people, and most of them would be on a collector's forum, who haven't cracked anything new since 1987 and the release of the Forgotten Realms.  They found the game they like, they don't want it to change, and that's that.  

Like I said, I won't shoot myself in the head instead of watch a couple guys playing 4E.  I wouldn't even guarantee that I will never grab a couple of kewl minis and throw down some whup ass on a group of kobold skirmishers to kill some time.   It's nice they got rid of a lot of the 3E overkill.  But for a lot of people, they are just not going to accept anything labled "D&D" that even deviates as little as 2E did back when it was released.

BTW, I have not seen the new rules yet. I'm limited to reading the published scenarios for 4E, and I thought they were both awful. There was nothing in either publication to interest me in the least. My opinion, but both Shadowfell and Talon Pass read like room after room of tacticals with little crunch or meat that set classics of the genre apart from drivel. To me this is worrisome, as it's most of the actual scenarios of a game that get me intrigued enough to sample it.  

As a game of mini combat, with some Roleplaying thrown in, it looks good.  But it's not old school D&D, and for that it will be vilified for all sins, real and imagined, on forums like this, whether it deserves it or not.  Honestly I'm not even that hostile to it, since it really won't affect my life in any way (I'll continue to play my "dead" game of 2E with little trouble).  And I can agree, old Schoolers are some of the deadliest "turf battlers" known to man when it comes to "their game".

But as always, preferences are preferences. Interestingly, the comments about the playability of the 1st level Mage in earlier editions cut to the heart of the difference.  The Mage was EXPECTED to toss his one spell and live by his wits and Int.  Sure it was comical in some regards, but in a lot of ways it was a rite of passage. When your mage reached 12th level and was about the baddest thing around it is always fun to look back at your origins and asy "wow".  There is an aspect of "walking to school 20 miles barefoot" in the comments.  Yeh there is that segment of old schooler that thinks having "fun" is proudly stating you've never DM'ed a character farther than 5th level (and you've been DMing 20 years) because you either kill them off or advance them so slowly they will be retirement age before they get 3 attacks every 2 rounds. Personally, I think that way of gaming is just as warped as anything 3E ever spewed forth.

But that's nice that a lot of old schoolers are finding the game much more palatable than 3E.  

Mike B.

Actually, I look at 4e (what people say about it - I still can't get myself to grab a copy, since I'd have to travel way too far to do it) and think: wow, that concept has been around for decades - game X did that, game Y did that, and, this game here does that the same way... so, I don't really see anything new, per se, other than combining a bunch of stuff and labeling it as such. For example, there are some similarities between the attack vs save system (ie, an Intelligence vs. AC spell like magic missile - again, correct me if I'm wrong as I don't know for certain...) that are very close to The Arcanum's attribute checks, and then, to C&C's SIEGE Engine, and to numerous other games, too. It is interesting from that standpoint, but, I feel the game (again, from what everyone seems to talk about it) is a boardgame - it is very tactical (not a bad thing, really) but if I wanted that, I'd just play Warhammer Quest.

Uh-oh ... lots of 4e mechanics were originally discussed here! That simply will not do ...

Thanks, Mark. Take $5 out of Petty Cash.

mellmorranth wrote:
wow, you are probably the stupidest person i've ever met. ok i give up, i'm dave...

Dave's not here man.