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...Ok, it's not THAT bad, but still, Wizards of the Coast has ruined Dungeons and Dragons.

Firstly, 4th edition was not even CLOSE to being needed. Wizards (I figure) wanted more money, so they told D&D's developers "Come out with a 4th edition, or we'll fire you." This was a big mistake. 3.5e was great. Pick a topic for D&D and there's a good supplement book about it.

Secondly, 4e has been dumbed down tremendously. I mean what was Wizards THINKING!? "Oh we'll compete with video games, by making it easier to play." I mean come the fuck on Wizards. D&D has traditionally been for the geekiest of the geeks. This has only lowered your sales, as your losing even the most diehard fans.

What are your guys' thoughts? Agreement? Or do you think I'm crazy?

I like how powers work, but I dont like how they removed 4 of the 9 alignments  :shrug2:

Since when has simplicity in games been a bad thing? Do more confusing rules really make the game better?

4e has accomplished something that no previous edition of D&D has managed. It has made combat fun. It's more tactical, balanced and dynamic that D&D has ever been before.

Perhaps more importantly, it's made DMing much more enjoyable. DMing is what inspired me to make games in the first place, but after a while, I just couldn't stand working with the 3e rules. Making an interesting encounter could take hours of time, and it could still end with a single failed saving throw.

4e makes DMing a breeze. Encounters are so easy to build that I can even make them on the spot if I need to. It removes the aspects of the game that were most troublesome to manage- level draining, save or die attacks, sundering, characters loaded with thousands of magic items, long repetitive static encounters, highly unbalanced characters, and dozens of inconsistent subsystems of rules.

4e is the best thing to happen to my D&D games in years. Try it with an open mind, and you'll be surprised by how much fun you're having.

I miss the monks.

Yes, I miss the monks as well. And the Sorcerers. By god they ruined the sorcerers.

And Soulliard, I agree the simplicity isn't a bad thing. But, It just doesn't feel like D&D. I mean, if Wizards had released 4e as a separate game on it's own... 4e just feels to different for my taste I guess.

Also, rituals were a good addition.

I don't understand why it wouldn't feel like D&D, though. Assuming the players and DM are the same, then the characters will still be the same, the encounters will be the same, the worlds will be the same and the roleplaying will be the same. Only the combat has changed significantly, and that has changed for the better.

Monks will come with time (I'm willing to bet money that they will be in the PHB3). Until then, you can play a ranger and reskin his swords as fists.

If worse comes to worse, you could always just mod the rules to suit your needs. I haven't tried the new ruleset, but it doesn't sound too bad.

Okay, I just looked through my 4e books (yes, I do have them all.) And I'll agree, combat Is much better. Like I said, one of my major gripes though, is how they've changed the sorcerer class. While it does seem more 'realistic' (whatever that means here) it just doesn't do the class justice.

Honestly, I found 3e needlessly complex. I actually created an entirely new role-playing system for me and my friends to use back in high school, and we found it way more fun to use than AD&D. (I haven't looked at it in years, myself, but in case anyone's curious, you can check out the rulebook here. (http://www.sinisterdesign.net/Downloads/Epic%20Rulebook.pdf))

It's funny, I played RPGs through a large period of my teenage days and I still don't get how new rules can "ruin" a system. Or even affect it. Actually, I think we never used any real rules nor dice.

I found that the more my friends and I treated it like collaborative, interactive storytelling rather than a game with rigid rules, the more fun and exciting it was. Shedding a overly complicated rules system helped this along.

How can a ruleset that you might or might not use "ruin" something really? Don't you like 4e? just use some other version.

Btw i don't play D&D but i remember how up in arms people were with 3.5 and with 3.0 before that and everyone was saying how "D&D was ruined" and the new rules suck :-P

I only played 4e once, and found it way better than 3e.

Now I don't understand people complaining about it. There' enough shit for 3e, so there's no need for more 3e books, and people who like 3e play that, people who like 4e play it. Then why does people complain? It isn't doing anyone wrong!

This thread reminds me I heven't played rpgs in months. Somehow they suddenly stopped being as fun as they where  :(

So much depends on the group and the DM. The enjoyment of playing an RPG is based much more on the other people playing than the system itself.

I had a die set but I still just used a coin. Haven't played in years, though. Good times.

what about a TIG d&d game? is that possible? I've never played pen and paper in earnest but i've always wanted to. d&d rule-based video games are some of my favorites of all-time.

ps. 3.5e :handthumbsupR:

That's usually not very possible due to all the time zone differences and quite honestly, it's just not the same online.

We tried it some time ago. It was a disaster.

I have the 4e player's handbook and the DM guide. Planning on getting the Monster Manual etc etc post soon as i'm hoping to get a small team of five ppl or so to play at some point.

From 3.5e - yes it's been simplified. I'm not bothered honestly. If there's even a bit less number crunching and fucking about, then D&D has gotten a lot better.

great thread. quick read with a lot of thrills.

When the D&D online thing is done, It could work.
(Also I really liked D&D Tactics for PSP.)

For number crunching, I have a couple of programs that help, so 3.5 has always run really smoothly for me.

It wasn't the system so much as just organizing a specific meeting time; most of the players were on different continents. Such is the beauty of the internet.

Timezones are silly.  :outraged:




 :'(

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWERPS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWERPS)

The only rulebook you'll ever need.  :gentleman:

I abide by S.P.E.C.I.A.L.

I think 4E is alright, but it's better you approach it as more of a tactics minis game rather than an RPG.

Sure, combat is easier... but everything else is completely non-existent. Every power and ability in the game is at most one degree of separation from reducing an enemy's hit points or increasing your own.

My group still plays 4E and we love it, but we play it knowing it's more like Star Wars Minis than 3.5.

We've also got a Pathfinder campaign going, that's good too.

Aw man, I love 4th edition, and I disagree they dumbed anything down, you can make it as complex or as simple as you'd like, they are just guides (remember, you don't actually need D&D books to play the silly game, they just help is all).

I think they did a great job and I particularily like that they created some stronger rules and guides for running skill challanges and whatnot in order to not just focus on combat etc.

I would agree, they probably didn't need to put out 4th edition but hell, they are doing a fine job in my opinion and I've been snapping up any book that comes out more or less for collectors sake.

Lastly, complexity doesn't beget a better game I don't think, in the end it's just story telling, ya roll dice and track statistics and items for persistance and to create interactivity, but it's all still just a story. Sorry to hear ya don't like 4th, at least you still have the older version, so all is not lost ;)

I think this hits the core of it.  I think 4e improves the combat quite a bit, particularly with the power system.  Removing spell components removes a great deal of unnecessary micromanagement and balances the game for those of us who forgot about spell components :shrug2:.

I do agree that it seems to de-emphasize the actual role playing elements of the game, but that can be counteracted by the dungeon master putting more of a focus on role playing.  Frankly, I think having things be simpler is overall better for role playing.  The greatest parts of D&D are the things that the rules havn't prepared for, which the player comes up with and the DM finds a solution for by creating combination of simple rules.

Honestly, who actually forced players to find spell components in order to cast spells? Low level mages were borderline-useless in that game as it was.

anyone know if there are any computer games that use the 3e or 4e rules? I've never played d&d and have no desire to, but I enjoy video games based on the d&d rules (like Planescape: Torment), so it'd be interesting to see a game based on the newer rules.

Did you play Icewind Dale and Neverwinter Nights series?

Icewind Dale II, that is (3e). The first one uses ADnD 2nd edition rules.

The Temple of Elemental Evil (3.5e).

I played the first Icewind Dale actually, but don't remember much about it. I didn't play the second one. I also didn't try Neverwinter Nights series yet. I never heard of Temple of Elemental Evil; good suggestions, will try them out / look into them. I actually already own the first Neverwinter Nights game (bought it when I saw a cheap deal for it), I just never installed it or played it yet. I don't own the second though.

The original campaigns in Neverwinter Nights suck really bad (especially the first one). Stories are terrible and the gameplay is boring.
But it's worth to install it just because of the custom campaigns people made for it. Many of them are way better than the original. Story and gameplay wise.

Could you suggest any particular custom campaigns? I could skip the official one and go for a few of those.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is Star Wars, not D&D, but it's based off of 3rd edition rules.

It was a while ago, so I don't remember too many. And I'm not sure if I would like them today, but...
I recall I enjoyed the Dreamcatcher (http://adamandjamie.com/mod/nwn_campaign.aspx) campaign a lot. I remember it being story-heavy and interesting even if it featured some dungeon crawl. I loved that it doesn't award experience for killing monsters, but rather for overall progression and conversations. So you were able to play without killing everything that moves just to get enough EXP to level up.

In the Footsteps of Dante (http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Modules.Detail&id=3396) and Nature of a Man (http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=Modules.Detail&id=3383) are fan-made epilogues to Planescape Torment. Pretty okayish. Definitely has some interesting ideas.

 

Oh, and Dungeons & Dragons Tactics (3.5e) for the PSP. I haven't tried it and it got, ah, mixed reviews. I think it looks pretty sweet myself, but then I'm a sucker for tiles and swords and so on. Other guys have said it's kind of cool too. So I dunno. Might be worth checking out. I'm kind of meaning to do that anyway.

Temple of Elemental Evil and Tactics use less bastardized versions of the D&D rules than all those real-time with pause games, by the way. So like, as far as what beating up kobolds in 3.5e is like, those might give you a better idea. (And they're both pretty much "beating up kobolds" games; not much "role playing" in either of them.)

I enjoyed the original NWN campaign immensely, except that it was hideously unbalanced.  There were several encounters that simply could not be done with certain classes without a seriously long and painful abuse of teleports to heal and restock items and such.

NWN2 has severe technical issues that cause it to perform very poorly with some patch level/video card combinations, but I really like the Storm of Zehir expansion.  The AI is miserably stupid, though.  You basically have to turn the AI off and pause and setup your attacks constantly.  Not that it isn't in the spirit of D&D, but it makes the real-time thing seem nearly pointless sometimes.

immediately stop what you are doing, and purchase Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn (use 3.5e).

I actually recommend starting with the original, the sequel is a continuation but also far superior, so if you're short on time just start with 2.

Im actually beating Baldurs Gate 1 right now.  :wizard:

Baldur's Gate uses AD&D 2e, doesn't it?

Yes; I've played through both of those, and both use 2e.

ah you're right. i was confusing it with icewind dale II (latest one i played)

I'd like to point out that none of the D&D video games play anything like the tabletop game. Most of them aren't very good, either, with the huge exception of Planescape: Torment. KotOR and BGII are at least decent, though.

So does anyone actually play D&D as in the with the dice and friends and such? I only ask cause there's a lot of focus on the digital versions and while they are certainly fun, they just don't compare to the original tabletop game.

Yeah, I play actual D&D, and I agree.  Having a Dungeon Master to craft the story as you go along and interpret rules really makes it a much more open experience than you can have on a computer.  Pretty much anything you want to do that makes sense in the world of the game, the Dungeon Master can modify the game to allow you to do it.

Baldur's Gate is straight-up awful. There. I said it.

Fair enough.

Care to elaborate?

BG2 is FUCKING EPIC.
FUCKING EPIC .

BG1 OTOH, I couldn't even finish it.

Sure. It's been years since I played it, but here are a handful of reasons that I still remember for why I hated it:

1. Because the combat system was based on AD&D and your characters began at a really low level (and thus had terrible THAC0), you spent huge amounts of time in combat just waiting for your characters to randomly hit enemies and randomly deal damage sufficient to take them down.
2. The randomness of landing blows and damage dealt also oftentimes meant your characters would die for reasons utterly beyond your control, requiring you to go way the hell out of your way to revive them (or, more realistically, to simply reload the game over and over).
3. You spent 98% of the game either in combat suffering through the aforementioned combat system, or wandering around the wilderness waiting to (guess what) be plunged into combat.
4. A couple of the characters were kind of fun, but most (especially Imoen) were just really annoying.
5. The game was incredibly linear (at least, it remained that way for as long as I was playing it; it's possible that it opened up sometime after I gave up on it).
6. Building on the previous point: although you oftentimes had different dialog options at various points in the game, your choices never had any impact on what happened. It was (as far as I know) impossible to avoid assassins or talk your way out of fighting them.
7. On a purely technical level, the graphics were underwhelming, and yet the game ran really poorly.

So, to sum up in no particular order: it ran poorly, had an awful combat system, threw you into combat encounters where you had to rely on said system constantly, made it really difficult to revive dead companions, provided no stealth options or consequences for the choices you made in conversations, paired you up with annoying companions, and was incredibly linear.

Side note: Planescape Torment shared a few of these problems, but I could forgive them because the creators got everything else right: great characters, an imaginative setting, an intriguing storyline, and a number of scenarios where your choices had a noticeable impact on the way others reacted to you.

As a rabid AD&D 2.0 fan, I'd go so far as to say that 3.x "ruined" D&D. (And 4e just continued the trend.)

2.0 seemed much more "fast-n-loose" compared to later versions. Because the books were so incredibly disorganized and incoherent, it felt like it was more encouraging of just doing whatever the hell made sense in the situation, and the books were more like barely coherent whispers in your ear that you might (or might not) get an idea for how to resolve something going on in the game.

The only rules I ever kept to regularly in my games were the effects of the abilities, and thieving skills.

But 3.x felt more like a flexible robot than mystical smoke. And I like mystical smoke.

Also, I agree completely that computerized D&D games suck. (Baldur's Gate, etc.) Because they're computerized, they almost never have that fast-n-loose feeling, because they're always following set rules. And I have friends that I can play D&D with if I want to.

I always think I would enjoy D&D, but when it comes down to it my dialog always ends up consisting entirely of variations on the word "uh." Even with people I have known for 11+ years. Yeah. I know. I'm a loser.

I am much better at typing in character than speaking in character.

1. I thought this was true, but with the playthrough Im trying right now I can't say its that bad. Sure, you hit more rarely than in other games, but it gets better when you level up  :D
2. Its true that often enough, a character would die from a single arrow from an enemy that gives like, 7 exp. It helps though to keep your party organized, with the fighters and guys with lots of hp going in first. (Which is a pain with the pathfinding and formations, but its possible  :shrug2:)
3. Well, you do quite a lot of combat, but you are also wandering around the wilderness, waiting to be plunged into adventure (and quest  :eyebrows:)
4. I think a game needs those "annoying" characters but I agree that some are just... very plain or not fleshed out enough.
5. Well, I cant agree with that since I can basically travel anywhere I want, I just wouldnt stand a chance in some areas.
6. I already avoided one by just not going where he waits for me and always entering and quitting the city soooomeeewheeere else.  :D
7. Don't really know about that since I didn't experience it "when it was new and (possibly) shiny.


Thanks for your opinions, man! It's really cool to hear them. I agree that the game is not as great as some people try to make it and it certainly has it's issues, but I'd say it also has it's charm.

I played BG2 when I was young and it was amazing. There were so many real 'roleplaying' elements that went beyond just dungeon crawling i.e. you could have sex, have a baby, build your own castle and so on.

When I played BG1 I was really disappointed in it, and I kind of blamed myself for not having the attention span for it (one side effect of playing indie games is that I find it harder to dedicate myself to a really long game). So I'm glad that I'm not the only one who didn't enjoy it.

The main reason I didn't like it was because the combat is so lame until you get to a higher level, whereas BG2 starts you off at something like level 19, where you already have a range of tactical options.

Don't try to play BG1 with a magic user as a main character though. They're too weak and fights take ages to finish. The game is really playable only with a tough character.

I have these on my shelf and magic is for neeeerdds anyways.  So maybe I will do this.

How is BG2 linear? As soon as you pop out of the dungeon you can pretty much go anywhere you want in the ENORMOUS city, stack your party how you want and choose any alignment you want.

Were talking about Baldurs Gate 1 here  8)

(I don't get how exactly that one is linear either, except for the main quest order [duh])

fallout > *

So true.

I've never plaed any of the mentioned games... :/

(Holy shit, 61 posts  :o)

I just got D&D 4e recently and have yet to read though it but have heard that it was significantly different from 3.5. As far as I have heard it makes combat much quicker and much more streamlined. A friend of mine said it is like the "fps of tabletops". I don't know how accurate that statement is but if the combat is really that seamless than what is the big deal? I'll read through the 4e books and see but I don't see it being a barrier. If I don't like them then as other people said I can just amalgamate the older rules with the new ones.

Fixed it for you.  :)

You know, I still haven't played Planescape.
don't hit me

Me neither.  It's in my big pile of games I ain't played.

I haven't played Planescape... nor Baldur's Gate... nor any other D&D game besides Eye of the Beholder. I've some of them, but they are too long, and I'm not much into medieval fantasy or RPGs

Planescape is nothing like any other RPG (although it's probably closest to the older Fallout games), and it's certainly not medieval fantasy.

I knew it wasn't the standard d&d setting, but not that it was too different. And I love the old Fallouts, so I'll try to check it some time soon.