I have seen some opinion pieces by Realms fans and some previews spots and interviews on Youtube... but this was the only site that i could think of off the top of my head that seemed mostly old-school gamer; so to speak... ( i mean; ToEE; KotB) The 2 things that have really stuck out so far to me are the clases (which apparently are all going to conform to the 4 "roles" in a party)... and the races ( two of the races assume extra-dimensional parentage)... I was curious what reactions were form this sector... Is this more of the Hasbro-ing that gave us the movie? :nervous:
I havn't really looked into it much, and no-one has posted any updated info on 4th edition here that I noticed. If I like the rules better then I'd switch over cos there are some bloody stupid rules in 3.5, but then as you as there are a few old school gamers here who still use previous rulesets, and there is always house rules. anyway I thought that there were five point five roles in a party, tank, theif, mage, healer, socialskills guy and someone with points in survival
well unlike melee weapons, you have to spend 2 feats on them before you're anygood with them and point blank shot being a prerequisite for far shot, now thats just silly.
I still don't see the problem... 2 feats before you're any good? What do you mean? In fact, it has some advantages; with ranged you have point blank shot, wich works like weapon focus (at 10mts) and also adds +1 to damage (an also works in missile spells and whips too). Yes, you have to buy it before having rapid shot, but that means that having focus too, you can almost deny the -2 penalization... And what's the silly thing in learn to shot at short distances and THEN at long distances? Have you ever used a bow? (being a "man-at-arms" i suppose so ) I do, and is damn hard... But, i hope that they don't add "magical abilities" to EVERY character...fighters should use scrolls just for cleaning their swords or wands to pick their noses; i'd hate to se something like "i invoke the sword of my god Wolverinum!" and that swords came raining from the sky, or having spelllike abilities...almost all the classes at the moment have some kind spell abilities(the rogue being capable of use scrolls and the like and the monk with the ki thing) but ... Something good could be combat styles (much like the tactical feats), like forms in martial arts...one of my players has a monk, not too strong (strength 15) so he can't carry much equipment (he carries loads of crap, like ladder, poles, rope etc) and also have the "vote of poverty", with which he could'nt own not even masterwork weapons..so i let him use a "house feat", which let him change the bludgeoning damage of their unarmed attacks to slashing or piercing as move action, much like if he was changing Kung-fu forms
Re: Opinions on impact of 4th edition? The Youtube links alos give access to what was more interesting to me than the official presentation; being the interviews with the design team.. this is one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KG3qJ6Ku-MY thanks to Krunch; had done a search on the forum and some how missed the old thread entirely.. too broad a search parameter i suspect. I'm not so sure about the mechanics which they think are too hard.. does that mean they are going to make the game more"accessible"? I almost never see grappling ANYWAY; unless you count wolves and such constantly trying to IMPROVE TRIP (which i suppose is a good way to represent them pulling you down; but it didnt address that most animals do something along the lines of overbear anyway... just wolves?)... But even so I never thought grapple was that difficult particularly... ...attacks of opportunity ( which i fully agree with) were always the thing that ended up with the most explainations for unfamiliar players; in my experience ( the idea that things aren't frozen when its not their 'turn' is a surprisingly difficult one i suppose?) You're not going to fight A TROLL you're going to fight.. 3 trolls? I liked the fellow Cujo's comment on roles... I personally was never comfortable in ANY game with the idea of an inflexible FORMULA of what a party 'should' be and everything should be solved THAT way... I always figured part of the fun was changing your tactics to suit your strengths and weaknesses - and that of your enemies... a quick opinion on missile weapons... it just seemed to me that the game strongly imbalanced towards 2-handed weapons - especially with power attack as the game has a known "to hit" skew (wonder if that is addressed).. missile weapons I always thought were just part of that- not particularly effective outside the early levels. :blahblah: forgot: half-knight - my understanding is that there are multiple "power sources" - arcane; divine; martail; etc - and each will allow to perfrom special abilities but the fighter ones won't be magical. With defined roles I'm not sure how multi-classing will work; and with 2 of the main races being 1/2 extra-dimensional; I suspect not many characters are going to be of the Gritty low-magic type... Just think HASBRO..... and quiver. A rumor I simply can't track was that not only the to-hit bug was being addressed; but the hit-point / massive damage from higher-level spells. Nonetheless; I don't see a ton of enthusiasm; and I'm not exactly surprised; but I was a bit curious. I suspect it will be the internet connectivity rather than the actual system that determines how well this iteration flourishes...
Well missile weapons become less effective later due to lack of stopping power (I remember Lord Spike writing a thing about it a while back, but it may have been on the Atari forums) and as Cujo said, you need to spend 2 feats (3 on your crossbow) just to begin to be effective at lower levels. Otherwise the firing-into-melee penalty, and the fact your ranged guys by definition are not in the front line and have a strong possibility of firing over the front ranks (at a flat -4 in ToEE, though DMs might do it different) mean your poor old 1st lvl character is attacking at -8 and will need a 20 to hit anything. Now, firing over someone's head into a melee without hitting your own folks SHOULD be at a ridiculous penalty, but you then have to couple it with the fact you can't do any sort of flanking with a ranged weapon: even if you get behind someone and fire point-blank into their back, you get no bonus, just the -4 penalty. This has to do with how the game handles 'the front' now - ie all directions are the front (unlike the shield-covered and non-shield-covered ideas of earlier generations) - but then flanking was there to balance that, and it ain't there for missile weapons. Don't get me started
I missed the post on stopping power (missile weapons)but sounds like what I'm getting at- after the lower levels your chance of stopping monsters before they get to the front; NOT so great - even WITH feats. Its been a long time since our ranger DIDN't have to switch to his hand to hand weapons (except for when he's shoooting down enemy mages.. iF IF IF) this whole discussion could go straight back to hit points as representing ability to defend yourself; blah blah blah; had this discussion too many times too many places... I fall back to my previous statement- alot of D&D - any edition's - abstractions are questionable; but the real goal is; playable - and for the most part successfully so. Myself; even if 4th fixes some of those issues; i believe they will take the game in the direction of MORE anime and power-ranger type fantasy (half-knight joked about the swiss-army clockwork gun knife dual-weapon?)... I was curious if anyone else perceived it similarly.
Well, i have no experience with fireguns (i don't like them, neither who use them, i'm old fashioned) but i had some practice with melee and ranged weapons (i trained in Tai chi for 2 years, Full contact for another year and Boxing another one) and swinging a sword or any kind of staff is easier than shoot an arrow... in melee, you can "cut" the movement of your enemy by swinging the melee weapon (be it accurately or not) because you don't have to follow their movement, but shoot an arrow it's much more dificult because you have to point first and shoot then... that could explain the non bonus of flanking with ranged weapons...which doesn't mean that the other character doesn't have a flanking bonus Anyway, yes, i think that the game is taking course to something more Powerrangerish...as i said before, it's imho, a way to "stay in tune" with all those manga-style on line games...some things are great, but most it's too "gummy" without having the spirit of true D&D game... And about that weapon...well, there's lots of strange real weapons (a rapier-pistol implemented in the Ravenloft setting, a one shoot pistol belt, the three-way shooting crossbow...)^_^
I found it easy but then I can use pretty much any weapon I've tryed to use (nunchucks being the exception). I agree with the to much focus on twohanded weapons. take for example, 4 characters, mr greatsword, mr dual scimitar, mr shortsword and shield and mr rapeir. to start with mr rapier is the most disadvantaged (which he should be) then mr dual scimitar with -4 to attacks, then its a toss up between mr shortsword and shield who atleast gets +X to AC or mr greatsword. basicly anyone in a medieval battle (dnds technologly is aprox 1400 - 1500AD) without a weapon or shield in each hand (that counts from 1 weapon in 2 hands) was screwed.
I've seen that tall people had easy with ranged weapons (i really stink with throwing or bow type weapons, my accuracy is patetic), but have problems with the fast or flexible weapons (like nunchakus, three section staff or flail type), i suppose that longer arms add too much "swinging"... And yes, in a real combat i agree with what you say (it was more luck and thougness than skill at arms)
Re: Opinions on impact of 4th edition? Again; cujo; diggin on your response- and 1/2knights b4 it... I liked that in 2nd edition it gave an option for different eras... the default setting of the 'current' setting technology is as much fantasy as anything else (this with me and 1/2 started on another thread about the silly weapons which i think someone said looked like they were designed by a 13 yr old?).. but of course its a fantasy game... moving I think from a gritty pulp-fantasy adult fiction genre to an anime/ final fantasy genre; and i suppose that was my point/ question. For what little its worth; I've played with a bow but am by no means competent... and in real life; have observed a friend who was an SCA fellow get slightly the better of a real life FENCING olympic-team collegiate contestant; NOT because he was as good a fencer; but because the advantage afforded by his "Swash" - sword and dagger - style over the single-sword style (i say sword as the specific - rapier/epee/sabre -whatever did and does escape me) - that advantage in fact was the point of the demonstration. For whatever its worth; if you're interested you can find this on both the Total war series forums and the Sword forum (.com)- large two-handed weapons appear historically as a solution to a problem - the availability of good armor. This is true of both the greatax and the zweihander; and as far as i know; the larger claymores people refer to as such(its actually a more general term)... the original D&d rules had a weapon type vs armor index which has appearred and re-appearred over various versions... since D&D melds damage & deflection of armor into "telling hit difficulty"armor class; such can-opener weapons really shouldn't be at such an advantage as they seem to.. again I feel this goes to issue of hit points; damage; "Stopping Power"...blah blah.. and if i may post a wiki quote on bows: - wiki the solution to big critters like ogres would be stirrup+ lances or better yet; dropping a longbow's shaft into him and calling it a day... ( until the evil overlord figures a way to make it wear good armor and we're back to the drawing board for another round; eh?) anyway; sorry... no edition of the rules are perfect - D&d in particluar was always a very abstract set of rules - and as all thsi i hope illustartes; any idea of what the rules "should" represent first requires some kind of agreement on what it is we're fantasizing about... I suppose i always felt the CORE rules should concentrate more on a workable system and less on the flashy; as 1/2knight says' MMO-friendly ' bitsthat i think are EXTRAS and should be setting -specific. I think a good bit of the unhappiness i refered to in another post - from the Forgotten Reams fans - is in fact because many of the core rules changes will fit poorly with their chosen setting. These same changes will make even less sense; i fear; for greyhawk players. To be honest; i'm not sure I can see what the tidbits I've seen will do to appeal to anyone NOT an avid fan of World of Bore-Craft or what not.:rant:
I'm not to bad with other fast and/or flexible weapons (staff, saber, flail) I guess nunchucks just aint my thing. some people seem to think the rapier and "fencing" as the most advanced form of western swords and sword combat but that isn't true. With that introduction of mass firearms in warfare being a good swordsman was no longer a big deal, and western sword combat evolved to over time into a sport and was no longer used in life or death situations (kendo is starting to get that way now ) now this is totally off topic but I got to share. One of the funniest duals I ever had was with a friend and we locked swords like they do in the movies - you know how they grit their teeth and push on each other, anyway we both went and punched eachother in the face at the same time cos why wouldn't you. one thing I saw for 3.5 was a rules varient... http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/weaponGroupFeats.htm which I think is a good idea.
