Also i found out that EQII is going Free to play next monday!
I think I might have to go and check it out there again as I remember playing back in the day but I havent taken a look at it in forever.
Get this and buy/pirate some old 2nd edition books to adapt.
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java the thoughts aquire speed, the teeth acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
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Damnati had this to say about Reading Rainbow:
Shit sux.Get this and buy/pirate some old 2nd edition books to adapt.
I agree 4th is mostly lame but the Dark Sun world is awesome 
I would love to have a pathfinder game floating about but I dont really have time past the single game that i get to play now
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From the book of Maradon!, chapter 3, verse 16:
>X edition sucks, X edition forever.
Except that 4th Edition D&D really does suck in an objectively measurable fashion. A few of those objective reasons:
I'm quite a fond of 3.5 and 2nd edition campaign source material is essentially as good as it comes. Being as Pathfinder is a logical advancement of 3.5's design philosophy and improves on a system I like to begin with, it's only natural to support that edition.
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java the thoughts aquire speed, the teeth acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
There, I said it.
While I didn't do the Dance of Joy(tm) when he died, I didn't feel bad about it either.
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Damnati startled the peaceful upland Gorillas, blurting:
Except that 4th Edition D&D really does suck in an objectively measurable fashion. A few of those objective reasons:
- reduction of moral variance among heroes and villains (read: single axis alignment)
- decentralization of mechanics (read: dozens of class-specific powers instead of core mechanics)
- regression in development from the previous edition (read: emphasis returned to the minis like back in Chainmail instead of advancing further along the roleplay line)
- a move toward less fan-friendly business model (read: paper mill style book releases and subscription online content instead of errata and complimentary supplements).
I'm quite a fond of 3.5 and 2nd edition campaign source material is essentially as good as it comes. Being as Pathfinder is a logical advancement of 3.5's design philosophy and improves on a system I like to begin with, it's only natural to support that edition.
You do realize that not a single thing you listed is objective suckage? They're just things you don't like.
--Satan, quoted by John Milton
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And I was all like 'Oh yeah?' and Bloodsage was all like:
You do realize that not a single thing you listed is objective suckage? They're just things you don't like.
But it is 4th edition maaaaaaan!
IT IS TOO MUCH LIKE WOW NOW TO BE ANY GOOD IT SUXXXXXX
On the actual topic -- I want to play some more 4th edition. I like it. I like using minis in a basic degree (it helps with positioning and the like, which is pretty cool). Minis were always supported to this degree in the game anyways. Spells always had ranges, some spells could knock people back or pull them forward, etc. You just had to guess as to how far away you were, and people could BS it or some such.
On Single Axis Alignment: Why don't you remove the single axis alignment and use a previous system? Nothing says you have to take the current system word for word to play the game.
Decentralization of mechanics: How is this bad? Now classes actually feel DIFFERENT to some degree! Before, everyone who used a sword felt pretty much the same, and their class just affected the + they got to a roll. Now, one class operates differently than another, even if they use the same weapon. This makes things MORE fun as opposed to less fun in my book.
Regression in development/focus on minis: Addressed above -- D&D has always supported the use of minis to some degree through spell ranges and such. People just chose to ignore it and play without them. Guess what? You can still do that with a tiny bit of work. 1 square = 5 feet. BAM problem solved. Now you're back to having to guess a little bit as to where people are on a map.
Note that many 3rd edition games I played in used minis for positioning purposes and such -- it makes stuff a heck of a lot easier. Making a gaming system more obscure may add more nerd-cred to it but it doesn't make it more fun. I tried playing a 2E game with some friends and it took so long to just roll characters and re-learn all the crap like Thac0, where 3rd edition just made so much more sense. Why make a system more obtuse for the sake of being obtuse?
Less fan-friendly business model: What? People want to make money? They're a business, they've always been after money. Look at all the 3rd edition releases that were shat out. This is nothing out of the ordinary -- welcome to a business trying to make money. Instead of letting all these other companies capitalize on that money making engine, Wizards is now shitting these things outthemselves and keeping more of the money.
So, congrats. Your "objective" reasons are not objective after all.
quote:
From the book of Damnati, chapter 3, verse 16:
Shit sux.Get this and buy/pirate some old 2nd edition books to adapt.
Why would you need to pirate books if stuff was so great before and so fan-centric to where they weren't being corporate assholes and instead releasing stuff free because they loved their fans? There should be no need to pirate.
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This insanity brought to you by Damnati:
Pathfinder
Has a ton of flaws too from what I've seen, in that classes are either way overpowered or way underpowered. I talked with a guy at work about this one day -- he is playing in a Pathfinder game and was talking about the 6 "tiers". Evidently, some of the classes are just so good they assrape everything while some of the classes are absolutely worthless and can't do jack squat. How is this the pinnacle of gaming that you seem to make it out to be?
Basically, every game system has some flaws, and it boils down mostly to personal taste. Not "objective" reasons, but personal taste. Falaanla Marr fucked around with this message on 08-15-2010 at 04:52 PM.
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Falaanla Marr got all f'ed up on Angel Dust and wrote:
Has a ton of flaws too from what I've seen, in that classes are either way overpowered or way underpowered. I talked with a guy at work about this one day -- he is playing in a Pathfinder game and was talking about the 6 "tiers". Evidently, some of the classes are just so good they assrape everything while some of the classes are absolutely worthless and can't do jack squat. How is this the pinnacle of gaming that you seem to make it out to be?Basically, every game system has some flaws, and it boils down mostly to personal taste. Not "objective" reasons, but personal taste.
I've been playing in a Pathfinder game for the past eight months. The game has a much more solid balance than 3.0 and 3.5. The biggest changes are that low level characters are powerful, and power creep has been greatly toned down at the higher levels. Problem abilities have been cleaned up, wording corrected, combat mechanics improved, and combat resolves faster now without resorting to gimmicks.
For example consider Bardic Music, it can do a bunch of different things, you could use it once per day per level, and the best abilities scaled with level. Unfortunately the number of uses per day at high levels that it was never a limited resource, effectively giving the party a stupidly powerful permanent bonus that stacked with almost everything. Pathfinder fixes this with an elegant rules change, the ability still scales and stacks the same way but uses are limited to rounds/level/day rather than uses/level/day which makes using the varied powers a much more important decision and prevents the buff monkey role high level Bards were often forced to assume.
There are some balance issues, but they are almost always due to multi-class synergies. Class dipping is still an issue, and I got the feeling they didn't want to restrict multi-classing too much even though it was sorely needed. Needless to say this is nothing that cannot be corrected by a good GM, and a little setting manipulation. It doesn't require an overhaul of the rules since the base classes are pretty well balanced, not only at first level but all the way up the treadmill.
As for 4th Edition? I've tried to play it several times it is a truly horrid gaming system. Honestly if I want to play a game where my abilities go on cooldown, I'll just log into WoW. It really does play almost exactly like an MMO, you have an power/skill/spell rotation you will use almost every encounter. I'd rather play a convoluted Palladim game, like Rifts, than 4th Edition.
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Nobody really understood why Tyewa Dawnsister wrote:
As for 4th Edition? I've tried to play it several times it is a truly horrid gaming system. Honestly if I want to play a game where my abilities go on cooldown, I'll just log into WoW. It really does play almost exactly like an MMO, you have an power/skill/spell rotation you will use almost every encounter. I'd rather play a convoluted Palladim game, like Rifts, than 4th Edition.
I've heard this bitch about 4e off and on for a while and it makes no sense to me. Wizards have been nothing *but* ability cooldowns. Other classes now having the option to do something BESIDE "pointy bit into squishy bit" attacks makes playing some of the other classes a little more entertaining. Having options is, usually, a good thing.
Ability Rotation? You have to have a suck DM for that one. Yes there are abilities I use more often than others (Gee, At-Will abilities getting used over and over again? ho noez!) but I have yet to have a combat become a by-the-numbers affair of "ability x, y, z, rinse, repeat" because my DM actually pays attention to things and if the party starts chewing shit up because we've found a combination of ability synergies he will make changes to break things up.
If you don't like it, don't play it. If you'd rather play something else, play something else....
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Random Insanity Generator had this to say about pies:
I've heard this bitch about 4e off and on for a while and it makes no sense to me. Wizards have been nothing *but* ability cooldowns. Other classes now having the option to do something BESIDE "pointy bit into squishy bit" attacks makes playing some of the other classes a little more entertaining. Having options is, usually, a good thing.Ability Rotation? You have to have a suck DM for that one. Yes there are abilities I use more often than others (Gee, At-Will abilities getting used over and over again? ho noez!) but I have yet to have a combat become a by-the-numbers affair of "ability x, y, z, rinse, repeat" because my DM actually pays attention to things and if the party starts chewing shit up because we've found a combination of ability synergies he will make changes to break things up.
If you don't like it, don't play it. If you'd rather play something else, play something else....
My gripe is that ability progression is so linear. Encounter Power Level 1 does "This". Encounter Power Level 3 does "This + 1 die". Encounter Power Level 5 does "This +1 die, and moves target one square". Each progression is the same frickin ability and ALWAYS better. You will always have a best ability to use and it will be used in almost every single encounter, then your second best ability, then your third, then your at wills etc.
So far we don't have a GM willing to run this drek every week, my experience so far has been the canned RPGA stuff. In the past some of these were outstanding with 2nd edition and 3rd edition, but now while the stories are still pretty good the encounters could be played by chimps.
4th Edition is made to be simple.
They made it with the laymen in mind so that they could come in and play a quick game while still giving the more hardcore types the ability to look forward to progression and etc.
That being said.. the way that they have gone about and worked the system is utter crap. I am not talking about At-Wills.. Encounters... Daily powers or anything like that. I am talking about editing core rules and core abilities WITHIN the 4th edition settings so that they can incorporate new powers for classes who have powers that would not work under the current rule set.
What? Whats that you say? Then dont use those rules?! AWESOME!
Then the powers and classes which are new and maybe something you would like to play are no longer something you can due to whatever reason.
Oh? you say then the GM should edit the rules so that you can?
Awesome idea and many GMs do! but again you are kicking the houserule as the end all be all..
I am not saying that 4th edition isnt fun. The push/pull/slide stuff is good to use.. the mini focus is fine but the constant "magic the gathering" type fucking with the mechanics gets old really fast.. they are releasing "The Red Box" soon which is going to be basically a 400page RULE compendium of all the changes that have been made so you dont have to search errata everywhere you go.
Pros: (My Opinion)
Easy/Quick Character creation with many varied types of classes you can choose
It DOES play like an MMO (which is what they were shooting for) so the learning curve on what you can do/ what your powers can do are very straight forward.
Cons: (and of course these are all personal)
Interactions through Roleplaying/Skills/Skill "challenges" are a joke.. absolutely pointless. 4th is created (no matter what the rules say) for a hack and slash campaign with only house ruling available for the story types. Yes there is "Diplomacy" and "Bluff" etc but it doesn't have the same feel outside of combat.
The game is... for lack of a better term... unoriginal. Everything is the same in every encounter (and a lot of that is who you play with.. but i am not talking about the adventure itself) I am more talking about the straight attack forward motion charge in kinda mentality when in combat or outside of it. Most of the "powers" you can get are just a liner progression of the same recycled crap.
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The logic train ran off the tracks when Tarquinn said:
D&D sucks, regardless of the edition. Heck, the whole D20 system sucks.There, I said it.
Hallelujah! 
I can contribute to the more general discussion of preference between WotC's and Paizo's offerings.
From a mechanical perspective, 4th edition isn't bad. It's generally balanced across the classes. Combat tends to crawl a bit, but as I recall that's intentional. (One big complaint people had with previous editions was that one hit killed first-level PCs, making most low-level fights do or die in the first round.) I've seen GMs ruin the game by trying to recalibrate monsters (and failing miserably), but that's more an issue of poor GMs exceeding their own abilities, rather than a problem with the system itself. I actually like the fact that martial attacks don't always target armor class.
I'm not thrilled with some aspects of the 4th edition mechanics. Abilities such as tumbling should be usable more than once per encounter. Skills such as acrobatics should be useable in combat. I'd like to see more utility powers that are actually meant for utility, not just combat extras. In the original core rules, multiclassing was a joke. But these are minor issues.
My only real problem with 4th edition (and the reason I call it WotC4 instead of D&D) is that it lacks the feel of D&D. It is, as someone else mentioned, built for wargaming-style hack and slash. Roleplay elements have basically been phased out of the rules. Every creature (i.e. monster) is built for combat; concept & background are excluded, leaving concise battle stat blocks and tactics text, and any creature not built for fighting doesn't get published. Some of my favorite elements of fantasy were completely cut from the game; polymorph used to mean something, but now it's just a replacement word for transmutation.
Hopefully WotC will eventually put back what they've stripped away. They've made a few steps back in the right direction already; druid wild shape brings back at least one kind of cosmetic transformation, and I learned recently that they errata'd Magic Missile to always hit. The second monster manual still focuses every creature towards combat, but at least I can look at some of them without thinking, "That thar's a monster what needs killin'!" Eventually, the system might recapture the feel that made D&D fun for me. But I'm not going to hold my breath or my crotch while I wait.
Pathfinder is basically a second revision to the D&D 3rd edition rules. Balance issues between spellcasters and melee classes persist, though they're not quite as extreme as they once were. All the changes that Pathfinder made, I've liked. (For one, they fixed the balance issues with Polymorph without losing the flavor.) On the whole I'd rather play Pathfinder than WotC4. This may eventually change, but for now, that's just how it is. Pathfinder has the versatility that 4th edition lacks, and can draw on a host of 3rd edition published materials as well.
For those who complain about a lack of variety in Pathfinder's martial tactics, I can only assume they haven't delved much into the tactical options offered by feats and class abilities. Granted, the material isn't all published by Paizo, but they said from the beginning that they wanted Pathfinder to be compatible with existing material, as per the 3rd edition Open Game License (OGL).
So that's my take on it, in a nutshell.
Oh well, we have 4.5^H^H^HEssentials to keep us entertained.... 
