Well, I've made my opinion pretty clear before(I generally use a system for infrastructure, system guidance etc, and jury-rig a system of my own for actually running games), so I'll just address a few issues with the mythos and my thoughts on it...

Alignments were simplified into essentially black, white and don't care (Lawful Good, Good, Unaligned, Evil, Chaotic Evil). They essentially stated there are no evil being who follow the laws, stating they follow the laws when it's convenient (A load of BS. There are plenty of people who followed and created laws just to have legal precedent to do things.Evil, but lawful). Also somehow alignment became a mystical encompassing force...rather than how you behaves.

I can understand how this would be an issue. Especially considering, as I have been lead to understand, the primary complaint about alignment was that it was too simplistic. Properly understood, I believe alignments are best used as a form of communication, so the player can let the DM know how his character is supposed to act, and the DM's role is to gently remind the Lawful Good Paladin that razing a city and putting innocents to the sword isn't quite in harmony with his alignment. As such, if the player continues in actions that contradict his alignment it's an alignment shift, and his alignment changes. That and it helps people understand how conflict could develop, even among a team entirely of good characters(ie. Lawful Good vs Chaotic Good).

Under that interpretation of alignment, I can't see the change as for the better. As for the "mystical encompassing force," would you care to elaborate on this? Is it like KotOR Light Side and Dark Side, or is it more the already understood basis of clerics needing an alignment that compliments their divinity, or however paladins and their various flavors were supposed to work? The former would be rather stupid, while the latter feels like the status quo.

Succubi are devils now, not demons

As I understand, that's probably tied to the combination of Lawful Evil and Chaotic Evil into Just Plain Evil? Wasn't the real distinction between devils and demons Lawful Evil vs. Chaotic Evil? And with that distinction gone, what IS the difference? On the old alignments, it is painfully obvious why Succubi would be Chaotic rather than Lawful. Someone care to explain this to me?

demons are related to elementals

Again, I'll need explanation for this. Could it be that all infernal beings have become devils, with demons joining the Elemental Rock, Paper, Scissors as the "darkness" element? Or are they going for the older definition of a demon as simply a spirit, with the possibility of Eudemons?

Angels aren't good

Now this takes a little bit of thought. The term "angel" comes from Greek for "messenger," if memory serves. If that idea is taken, and they are simply servants of the Gods, then a varying alignment would make sense. Of course, they could also be a counterpart to devils as celestial beings, in which being Good would be a bit of a requirement. Similarly, if they were the "Light" counterpart to "Darkness" demons, there'd at least be a lawful requirement, which by the new alignments seems to imply good as well...

And then these three previous ones bring up an interesting question: all of these changes have a possible explanation of attempts to make more "grey areas," so we no longer have the absolutes of angels = good, demons = evil. With a change like that, the simplification of alignment to "Good" and "Bad" seems especially perplexing...

Vampires don't die in sunlight (just lose regen).

Well, here you have a classic example of the Kryptonite problem. Does it kill Superman, or does it simply give him the sniffles? Some interpretations held that it did nothing more than rob him of his superhumanity. Sunlight and vampires is very much the same. In Bram Stoker's Dracula(the book), the archetypical vampire story, Dracula could go out in sunlight no problem. In fact, if memory serves, his limitation wasn't even exposure to sunlight, but rather that he didn't have his powers during the day, regardless of whether or not he was exposed to sunlight. And lots of classic folklore restricted vampires to only sleeping during the day. If sunlight killed them so easily, why were there the arcane rituals of wreathing the body in garlic, chopping the head off with an axe, and burning the head and body in two separate pyres. A lil' sunlight's a lot easier to procure, no?

As such, I can't really make myself care too much either way on this change.

Liches don't paralyze with a touch

Not sure what to say on this one. I'd imagine the paralysis on touch would be an effect of the massive aura of death and necromancy inherent in the lich. Don't know too much on this one, though. Enlightenment would be appreciated.

Lycanthropes don't spread lycanthropy with a bite.

I'll be honest, I think this is Lame with a capital L. Lycanthropy is a horrible debilitating disease, turning a man into a monster, forcing men to question their own humanity in their acts of self-defense, and the sheer horror of man losing control in his descent to a more bestial state. White Wolf Weres belong there. At best, this turns Lycanthropes into monstrous predators that treat people like cattle, or those who defend people against these "monsters" are really genocidal maniacs or xenophobes. At worst, it's pandering to the furry crowd.

(Pelor is the frickin god of Agriculture???? WTF!?)
Pelor was/is the Sun God. How is that not tied to agriculture ?

How is a Sun God not tied to agriculture? With all due respect, do you know anything about ancient mythologies? The Sun God is often(not always) one of the supreme gods, ruling over the earth in much the same way as, well, the Sun. By contrast, a God(dess) or agriculture is almost always tied to the earth, reflecting the fecundity of nature, and is almost always a fertility God(dess). To use Greek mythology, it would be arguing that Apollo fills essentially the same role as Demeter. I'm not buying that one.

There are 3 elven races in the PHB. No Gnomes, no Orc, but 3 elven races.

Ah, Elves, how do I loathe thee? A great idea, done to death in so many ways. A term used to generically refer to the Fae folk, twisted and bastardized to the point where it refers to tall(but not always tall) pretty(but not always pretty) magical(but not always magical) people who are sometimes(but not always) tied closer tot he earth. And they have pointy ears. Don't get me wrong, Tolkien did a great job, and he was true to the source material. But honestly, with the mess we have now, sometimes I wish he hadn't.

And don't even get me started on what's gone on with the rest of the Fae folk, Gnomes and Dwarves included.

As for Orcs, well, that's a fun lil' subject. Tolkien used the term interchangeably with goblins. He had a reason for calling them orcs, but I recall even he felt it was tenuous at best. That, along with an army of casual readers, has created the unintended separation of Orcs and Goblins. Generally speaking, Orcs are based off Tolkien's Uruk-Hai, except they're stupid. Goblins are loosely based on the non-Uruk-Hai Goblorcs from Tolkien. Very loosely. As in all of the unflatteringness with none of the redeeming traits.

So, it's quite possibly an attempt to return to the original idea of one species of Goblorc. Of course, there's still the dillution, so modern Goblorcs are green, stupid, and can be really strong.

Half Orcs sucked. They were the byproduct of Rape, and they were the only race to have more penalties than bonuses.

I NEVER played with a Gnome PC in 3E. They were like Halfings with shitty racial abilities and dorkier looking.


And Cent, your arguments against Gnomes and Half-Orcs here reflect precisely the sort of "roll-playing" ewok was complaining about, so I hardly think it helps your argument. And, while I admit that it is horribly over- and mis-used, Rape, however distasteful, is something that exists, and has many storytelling opportunities. And in the case of orcs, as I understand it, rape was part of the modus operandi. In a world where just about anything can crossbreed and produce viable offspring, it seems sloppy to pretend that Half-Orcs simply never happened. But that's a whole other subject entirely...


Just my thoughts on the matter. Please, feel free to enlighten me on the points where I'm a little weak.

* Half Orcs and Gnomes were hardly played. They have the living campaigns to datamine that type of information. They removed 2 hardly played races for 2 new races.

* A 4E Liche reaks of necrotic energy, and any living being within 25ft of him takes 5 damage per round.

* Alignment used to be a guideline on how to play your charecter. Then it turned into a seperate plane for each alignment. Then they had to cook up critters specific to each plane. In 4E they compressed the alignments.

For practical purposes, what seperated NG and CG from LG was they both held the greater good above the Law. CG and NG are now just plain Good.

* As I stated months ago. Alot of complaints are knee jerk reaction to changes. People don't like change. People don't like spending more money. No is maknig you do either. You could play D&D till your old and grey with the just the D&D BASIC rules. I just get flustered when people start trash talking 4E without giving it a chance and actually playing it.

It's like arguing that your going to play your Xbox forever because the Xbox 360 is an evil money sink designed to extort more money out of you. Of course it is, but it's shiny and all high tech and shit.

Having not yet played 4E (is sad), I have only one point to make, and that is: If you want your character to be evil but follow his own lawful code or good but put greater good above everything else or whatever more complicated things you want to do, then by heaven play your character that way! I mean, obviously people have more complicated reasons and rational and personal codes for their "alignment" in real life, but their lack of inclusion in the book (or even their dismissal therein) certainly won't stop me from playing my character in a more in-depth way. As a new player, I found the necessity of declaring one of the numerous alignments confusing; I think they were just trying to remove that hump. But it's called Role Playing for a reason. In this case, play your character however you darn well please.

I will now shut up for the remainder of the discussion until I have actually played. <runs and hides in a corner>

I will probably buy the PHB and MM, and try to run a game. But when you start to futz around with the universe, that just starts to reak. From a 2e to 3e perspective I think the system was changed, but it basically felt the same way world wise. So That's what I'll do. I'll chuck out the universe changes, the over-simplification of the world, and try the system that way.

I personally don't see the why to all this. Everyone complains wizards are all powerful and who'd want to play a fighter. If that's your complaint about 3e, get a new GM. A good GM can spin a tale that involves all the players equally and ensures in combat they are equalized. I played my barbarian or bard in 3e (so what do I do in 4e, Oh that's right, nobody played them in living D&D so throw them out) and was integral to the story. I was essential to the survival of the group in combat in both situations, and never felt like the red-headed step-child (no offense to those out there) of the party. The GM took the time and effort to make it feel right. And no he didn't pour over the books for hours, he just went with the flow and and made sure we had fun. It just seems that, to appease the GM's who can't control their players or come up with innovative ways to allow a fighter to shine in combat, they dumbed the whole thing down, in a bad way, not the way 2 went to 3.

Unfortunately I'm of the opinion from what I've read and seen of the rules that this system will not be for me or my players. I've tried saga edition and afterwards felt kinda icky. So that's my opinion. I will post again once I've tried it out.

To specifics:



So I have to expend a feat for it now. Gotcha. I'm sure the underdark thinks that's a wonderful idea.



Useful is relative. I don't need a tactical breakdown. I need the creature's INT/WIS, and their abilities and I can figure out tactics. I do need where they reside, and cultural habits so I can get motivation as to why they are in my game, and why they would be attacking. Otherwise they are just random monsters with no justification.



And that of course throws a wrench in half the demon-devil conflict. The abyss and the 9 Hells battling it out. Sucubbi vs Eryns (I can never spell that right). It's like D&D went through some forced Zero-Hour, and unlike comics where I have but to keep reading on, I have to morph to deal with the changed world.



point.



But they aren't a race!!! This is a disease. A curse. It's not something designed to be a race. I agree with Prof here. Now all they are are creatures who spread a horrible disease. Not a life-changing experience.



You assume I bitched about the alignment system. Or that I bitched when 3e came out. I looked over the rules and the changes were nice, simplified, but still allowed for heinously complex and unique characters.

I know this is like two enraged boars going at it, since gamers, including myself, can be stubborn at time. I will make it clear that I am disappointed with WOTC, not those who like 4e.

See to me the thing is fluff is fluff.

The D&D Fluff is always nice, but I've never had a DM, myself included, use the D&D fluff/settings exactly as written.

Demons, Devils, alignments, Ecology of a black pudding, etc.. is all fluff to me. Fluff that changes with every edition and sometimes within an edition if the writers change.

Orcs are pig faced. Then they are orangey red. Then they are orangely red goriilla looking. I don't even care what it says anymore. My Orcs are green skinned, because most of D&D players also play Warhammer, where orcs have been green skinned sentient funguss for as long as Warhammer has existed. When we play D&D I use the MM for stats, but my orcs are green skinned an look like they do in Warhammer.

The Ecology section in 2nd edition was cool for players and DMs. It was basically filler to justify why each critter took up a whole page. The new design team didn't like the format. In 3rd edition it was done away with. The 3E MM has a 3-4 brief paragraphs describing the creature and a section on how to use it in combat. It's no worse in 4E than it was in 3E.
You get a 3-4 brief paragraphs describing relevant informatio
A section on Tactics the creature would commonly use
You get a LORE chart for knowledge gleamed about the critter by players making relevant KNowledge checks.

I've got both the 3E and 4E Monster Manuals in front of me right now.

Minotaur gets MORE ecology in 4E than 3E
Nagas gets MORE ecology in 4E than 3E

Actually, counting the LORE section for each critter, most critters get more fluff in the 4E MM than their 3E counterparts
The majority of the write up in each 3E section is the COMBAT section, which just explains how all of its powers actually work.

Well it's official. My 4E books are now being used as 'something to write on' and as paperweights. The system just doesn't work for us.

Call me old-schooled in this regard, but 4E just doesn't work for our group. For one it is a rare day that we have more than 1 combat in a single game day. Usually it's several weeks between combats. Mostly because we like to role-play more than roll-play. So the entire per day/encounter/at will thing doesn't fit our play style.

I still have to double check this, but from what we all saw, the abilities granted to the players are nothing more than different ways to do damage. I want to break out a spreadsheet to determine DPS with the variety of ways to do damage. While the ways to subdue your opponents without damage seems far suppressed. The big thing was the nerf spellcasters received. they have spells...just like other classes have their special abilities. You can put lipstick on a pig...

We all agreed it felt like playing an MMORPG. It felt like 4E was right to strip off the A from AD&D, since they regressed back to the blue-book. Again this is our opinion, and our play style is our own, and probably differs heavily from others.

We are sticking to 3.5E.

Can you explain to me how D&D 3.5 helped your charecters sitting around and talking in a bar more than D&D 4.0 ?

After you do, I'll introduce you to my friend Joe, who will make a similar argument as to why Arduin is superior to D&D.

I mean really, I can see the argument about not upgrading to 4E because your style of play in more like LARP than Dungeon Crawl, but I can't possibly fathom how you can make a legitimate argument that one system is superior to another, when they are both based on the same mechanic, and your proof is that you don't bother to use the mechanics 90% of the time.

It is the fact that 4e is so screwed towards the dungeon crawl type of game that unless you play that type, you are getting short-changed. Everything seems to focus around multiple encounters per day. And even something such as talking is an encounter depending on how one looks at it. It changes the focus of the game, from the day to the encounter, which really makes a load of difference. As I see it, 4e and 3.5e are the same mechanic, just different unit of time.

Since the game mechanics expect several encounters per day, then you end up getting the same bang for your buck from 3.5e to 4e if you already played that way. Otherwise you get this feeling of being nerfed. And nerfed hard. As a mage it felt like we had a muzzle and training wheels added. If I need to muzzle my players I can that just fine w/o the game enforcing it.