My general point is that the writers of DnD books are making them simpler and simpler to the point of FF12... you have to think less and less about what
your doing to the point the character plays itself. Which means the only reason to play is for the character interaction. Which is going to be done the same
regardless of what is going on with the dice (minus the basic effects of the roles themselves). So if your excuse for making it flat stats for everyone is
that it with be more social them a game with more complicated rolling... you failed. Players will be pretty much the same level of RPing regardless of the
system itself. So the point of the 4e system is so everyone moves faster in their game... but less stuff is going on in the first place.
Then I here about this abomination of a monster manual... which apparently means they can write each monster in 12 seconds and call it a day. They took away a
whole lot of character development (not backstory)... everyone has more hit points (3x for fighters and 5x for spellcastters, much like the 2+x multiplier on
power point for the math impaired... as you can't use that many power point realistically in the first place minus soloing a fortress or battles that lasts
an hour game time)... but they end up pretty much cookie cutter characters. This means when a character dies they can just cut and paste the old character
sheet verbatum and rename the grunt.
My problem is the set the thing up so you have to think less and less about what your doing and more and more about speed of play.... Its a sadly lacking world
when this happens. Sure, you can write however much gold you want on backstory... but when the it comes to the real meat of the game combat and conflict (you
don't actually have to kill anything to level)... they give you a tofu burger. If I want mindless hack and slash I can play Hack Master. Roll percentage,
check the results table.
Yes, 3e had issues... Rangers sucked (3.5 mostly fixed that and those favored enemy bonus items helped)... and magic item creation would make most first hand
stores unable to produce more product in 2 or 3 years. The item creators would delevel themselves making stuff. I figure that bartering for merchants grants
them exp for 'defeating' what ever level the customer is and you get more or less exp depending on how much you overcharged the over cost. That and
spot and hide are so malbalanced in hides favor that its ridiculous.
----
As for the healing cloud of doom? What kind of idiot makes a spell like that and doesn't at least make the people in the cloud make a will save to resist
each round? Sure its a higher level that one they can choice to use or not... but unless they also killed off negative/positive energy you should be able to
just use the inflict spells and a cloudkill or fireball style template to pull this off. I know you can't just crossclass with cleric and make a prestige
class... but there should be a feat or something that lets you switch out the elemental tag for a positive/negative energ tag. Again, if negative energy
bothers to exist negative energy should easily allow for offing healing surges.
Yes, as a player I do enjoy having characters I can actually customize a character to the point the DM has to stop and think about the effects of what a player
just did. I don't enjoy hearing that what won a person over was the backstory which I sure can just be slapped onto a 3e edition shell. Which is the
problem... we are arguing over the program shell and not the backstory icing.
If I liked icing over actually content I'd have bought the Pokemon CCG after giving up on Spellfire. Not that I bought either, but Pokemon literally
bought the Spellfire system and slapped Pokemon images over it. If I liked icing over actually game content, I buy every game for every movie I ever liked
based on that it was related to the movie rather than looking at how much 90% of them suck.
If the backstory writing is gold... awesum... I may decide to pick up the novels... I'm more concerned that them lackluster game engine is going to cost me
a hundred dollars to get into. I've bought random 3e books for the entertainment of reading the books. 3.5e books grated on me when they gave
'balance' changes that either made things DBZ like or abilities became utterly useless. When magic item creation made basic skill boost items too
expensive to ever actually buy or make for 1/3-1/2 the bonus I cringed.
In short, I can put up the nicest looking, highest quality wallpaper in the world up inside a waterlogged, moldy, half dissolved cardboard box... its still a a
waterlogged, moldy, half dissolved cardboard box and the wallpaper would have been better used inside a nice apartment.
your doing to the point the character plays itself. Which means the only reason to play is for the character interaction. Which is going to be done the same
regardless of what is going on with the dice (minus the basic effects of the roles themselves). So if your excuse for making it flat stats for everyone is
that it with be more social them a game with more complicated rolling... you failed. Players will be pretty much the same level of RPing regardless of the
system itself. So the point of the 4e system is so everyone moves faster in their game... but less stuff is going on in the first place.
Then I here about this abomination of a monster manual... which apparently means they can write each monster in 12 seconds and call it a day. They took away a
whole lot of character development (not backstory)... everyone has more hit points (3x for fighters and 5x for spellcastters, much like the 2+x multiplier on
power point for the math impaired... as you can't use that many power point realistically in the first place minus soloing a fortress or battles that lasts
an hour game time)... but they end up pretty much cookie cutter characters. This means when a character dies they can just cut and paste the old character
sheet verbatum and rename the grunt.
My problem is the set the thing up so you have to think less and less about what your doing and more and more about speed of play.... Its a sadly lacking world
when this happens. Sure, you can write however much gold you want on backstory... but when the it comes to the real meat of the game combat and conflict (you
don't actually have to kill anything to level)... they give you a tofu burger. If I want mindless hack and slash I can play Hack Master. Roll percentage,
check the results table.
Yes, 3e had issues... Rangers sucked (3.5 mostly fixed that and those favored enemy bonus items helped)... and magic item creation would make most first hand
stores unable to produce more product in 2 or 3 years. The item creators would delevel themselves making stuff. I figure that bartering for merchants grants
them exp for 'defeating' what ever level the customer is and you get more or less exp depending on how much you overcharged the over cost. That and
spot and hide are so malbalanced in hides favor that its ridiculous.
----
As for the healing cloud of doom? What kind of idiot makes a spell like that and doesn't at least make the people in the cloud make a will save to resist
each round? Sure its a higher level that one they can choice to use or not... but unless they also killed off negative/positive energy you should be able to
just use the inflict spells and a cloudkill or fireball style template to pull this off. I know you can't just crossclass with cleric and make a prestige
class... but there should be a feat or something that lets you switch out the elemental tag for a positive/negative energ tag. Again, if negative energy
bothers to exist negative energy should easily allow for offing healing surges.
Yes, as a player I do enjoy having characters I can actually customize a character to the point the DM has to stop and think about the effects of what a player
just did. I don't enjoy hearing that what won a person over was the backstory which I sure can just be slapped onto a 3e edition shell. Which is the
problem... we are arguing over the program shell and not the backstory icing.
If I liked icing over actually content I'd have bought the Pokemon CCG after giving up on Spellfire. Not that I bought either, but Pokemon literally
bought the Spellfire system and slapped Pokemon images over it. If I liked icing over actually game content, I buy every game for every movie I ever liked
based on that it was related to the movie rather than looking at how much 90% of them suck.
If the backstory writing is gold... awesum... I may decide to pick up the novels... I'm more concerned that them lackluster game engine is going to cost me
a hundred dollars to get into. I've bought random 3e books for the entertainment of reading the books. 3.5e books grated on me when they gave
'balance' changes that either made things DBZ like or abilities became utterly useless. When magic item creation made basic skill boost items too
expensive to ever actually buy or make for 1/3-1/2 the bonus I cringed.
In short, I can put up the nicest looking, highest quality wallpaper in the world up inside a waterlogged, moldy, half dissolved cardboard box... its still a a
waterlogged, moldy, half dissolved cardboard box and the wallpaper would have been better used inside a nice apartment.