D&D 4th Edition - The positive, constructive thread, Negativism, go post elsewhere! Options Track this topic Email this topic Print this topic Download this topic Subscribe to this forum Display Modes Outline Switch to: Standard Switch to: Linear+

[Bull]

As the threads title and description states, this is a thread purely for positive and positively constructive discussion about the new 4e D&D. PLease keep the negativity, negative non-constructive criticism, and flat out WotC Bashing in another thread (There's a couple around here).

I'm serious. Behave.

Ok, that out of the way, for those picking the books (or the *cough* PDF's) up and reading through them, what's your read on it so far?

I picked up Keep on the Shadowfell last week to check out the basics. It's a nice, if straightforward adventure. Makes for a decent introductory adventure. It was a tad pricey though. And the rules overview was a bit light. I've been a gamer long enough that I figured everything out easy enough, but a newb would have a hard time tracking some of it.

But, I was interested enough to go out and pick up the core books today. While I played some 3 and 3.5, I never bought any of the books. I was an old school fan, mostly because of nostalgia, but I thought if they were gonna redo the game, they needed to start over fresh and build from the ground up. 3rd didn't do that. 4th does, which I think is a good thing.

I'm still just skimming the PHB, and haven't even cracked the GMG or MM, so I can;t comment too much yet, but I like what I see so far. Mechanically, it borrows a bit from CCG and MMO mechanics and design theory, but to me, this isn't a bad thing. There were what, a couple million copies of 3rd ed sold? Meanwhile, WoW has 10 million current, active subscribers. Even if you assume that half of those are dummy accounts (Gold farmers and "mule" accounts for the real addicts), that's still more than double the number of poeple who bought 3rd Ed. And that doesn't even count in the probably several million inactive accounts from people who've dropped the game over the years.

Likewise, there are probably more kids that have played Magic, Pokemon, YuGiOh, and other CCGs than have played D&D and other RPGs.

So to me, this says that WotC's playing it smart. You put in some familiar aspects, and it makes the game more accessible to folks who might come into the RPG from another medium. Consoles and WoW are really opening up the gaming market some, and hopefully we'll get a little trickle of new players from it.

Ok, that was a bit of a side ramble, but something that's been on my mind since I first started seeing "reviews" of the game and when I started looking the game over myself.

Anyways, I'll post more later once I've had the chance to digest some of it a bit more. But so far, I think it's a positive step forward for the game.

Bull

[Moon-Hawk]

As for the healing surges, I agree with the action movie metaphor. If you get all beat to hell (like the protagonist does at the beginning of the action movie) and then use your healing surges to get up to full hp, even if you rest for a day and get all your surges back, you still look like hell. You still have manly cuts on your face, and bandages, and you wince heroically when you take your shirt off, and maybe you limp a bit, but when the next big fight comes, do you hobble for a moment and then get whooped? Of course not, the big action hero suddenly fights fantastically, his abilities apparently unhampered by his previous injuries (*handwave* adrenaline *handwave*), and then at the end of the fight he wipes the blood from the corner of his mouth, fires off a witty one-liner, and goes on to fight the next set of baddies.

So you have to think of it as: full hp (end even full surges) does NOT necessarily mean you are not hurt. This is a big departure for some people, and I think they're having some trouble looking at it like that, or maybe just refuse to. It means that your action-hero abilities are unimpeded. You may well be hurt, and look like hell, and you should be role-playing that, but you can still roundhouse-kick-to-the-face as well as ever.

Here is it:
Hit points and healing surges are not health, or wounds, or luck, or dodging ability, they are plot points, which mechanically represent how many successful attacks you can withstand before you get a big GAME OVER, and there is no reason why their fluffy description should be consistent from attack to attack, character to character, or moment to moment.