Is D&D fun? I'm thinking about getting into it.

[Provost Harrison]

No, I don't live in Erith anymore

[Alinestra Covelia]

Originally posted by Dis

the fact that the creator died at an early age should be an indication not to play and go out and exercise.

Gary Gygax died at 69, which is hardly an early age.

[The Mad Monk]

Originally posted by Heraclitus
Ok, my Paladin has died.

Long live my new barbarian character? Any adivce on how to play him? (E3.5)

I only know 3rd edition though Neverwinter Nights; that said...

Cleave is your friend.

Greater Cleave is your greater friend.

It's great to have friends.

[Straybow]

Originally posted by Japher
I saw a players handbook at Borders yesterday. I picked it up, looked at the cover, sighed, put down and proceeded to check out where I bought The Blue Ocean Strategy... my priorities suck these days.

I read the 4e PHB a couple months back, and it seems they've changed D&D into a pencil-and-paper video game, casting fireballs at will and such.

[Lord Avalon]

lolScruffy

[DirtyMartini]

Originally posted by Elok


...has nobody broken it to you yet? I guess the sad duty falls to me, then, to inform you that a three-way with Kate Beckinsale and Halle Berry is (at best) only marginally more probable than your actually transforming into an Elf Paladin and decapitating a Mind Flayer with a +5 Sword of Ouchness.

Wraith: Shadowrun is a Tolkien ripoff combined with a Gibson ripoff for twice the silliness. Nothing like a spellcasting orc with cybernetic fingernails waving around a 9mm inside an office building...I assume that Vampire, like everything involving vampires, werewolves, or anything "spooky," is saturated by fat chicks with too much eyeshadow going on and on about their latest Death Note fanfic. At any rate, the ripoff factor is of secondary concern. Adult games of let's pretend are disturbing in and of themselves, especially when dice and rulebooks are involved.

Why the bitterness Elok? Wouldn't the smart older kids let you into their game when you were a kid?

Nothing wrong with D&D -- I'd probably still play if I was in touch with a decent group.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia


Gary Gygax died at 69, which is hardly an early age.

really? don't I feel stupid. I didn't think someone who created d&d would be old. I pictured some guy in his mom's basement.

[DirtyMartini]

Originally posted by Dis


really? don't I feel stupid. I didn't think someone who created d&d would be old. I pictured some guy in his mom's basement.

So apparently you didn't even know who Gygax was and you were just completely FOS.

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia


Gary Gygax died at 69, which is hardly an early age.

I see you have once again started going for hat avatars.




On topic: 69 isn't really old age either.

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk


I only know 3rd edition though Neverwinter Nights; that said...

Cleave is your friend.

Greater Cleave is your greater friend.

It's great to have friends.

My barbariang got Cleave, and yes it is a very good friend. But I think Greater cleave may be overrated, I mean how often does it happen that you are fighting enemies you have good chances of killing with one blow twice in a row, and if you are fighting such characters then aren't you and your party able to handle them anyway?

[Heraclitus]

Originally posted by Straybow

Originally posted by Japher
I saw a players handbook at Borders yesterday. I picked it up, looked at the cover, sighed, put down and proceeded to check out where I bought The Blue Ocean Strategy... my priorities suck these days.

I read the 4e PHB a couple months back, and it seems they've changed D&D into a pencil-and-paper video game, casting fireballs at will and such.

My DM agrees, that's why my party is playing with 3.5e and really its not as complex as some people make it out to be, so I don't see the need to simplify. Though I imagine I would feel different if I played with rule lawyers.

[Heraclitus]

BTW The campagin is getting interesting. My barbarian is level 5 and has gone chaotic evil. It appears the guy who hired us on behalf of a unnamed customer has stabbed his eyes out. Also small children cry when they see our party, we also apparently feel a great sense of unease and darkness (which is odd considering that we where all pretty evil by the time we killed that little girl protected by party with the cleric & paladin) so why would we have a problem with that?



In any case we've decided to resurect the girl to get some information about who has been hiring us to do some pretty nasty things in the past few weeks. After that I think she will fit nicley into the borthel we started running after killing off a local crime lord and taking his den for our own.


Also that orphanage clearly attacked us so I don't see why there should be a bounty on our heads for that.

[Dry]

Originally posted by Straybow

Originally posted by Japher
I saw a players handbook at Borders yesterday. I picked it up, looked at the cover, sighed, put down and proceeded to check out where I bought The Blue Ocean Strategy... my priorities suck these days.

I read the 4e PHB a couple months back, and it seems they've changed D&D into a pencil-and-paper video game, casting fireballs at will and such.

Yes, my impression too.
I'd say they turn it into some pencil-and-paper MMORPG.
The warrior becomes the tank class, with some taunt, or provocation skill.
The Cleric is as expected the healer (don't remember if he has buffs or not).
The thief and the MU are the damage dealers classes.
The paladin and the new warlord class become support, or buffer classes.

Everybody gets 'skills', that are available either at-will, once-per-encounter or once-per-day.
For example: as fighter, a simple attack with your weapon might be one of your at-will skills. As a MU, casting a magic missile (damage = 1d4 + 1/lvl, iirc) might be one of your at-will skills and fireball might be one of your once-per-encounter skill.

Another disturbing modification in 4th ed., is the huge amount of points you receive to increase your characteristics:
+2 in TWO race specific char. if you are not human (no -2 at all), +2 in ONE char. of your choice if you are human (or half-elf?).
+1 in two different char. (you chose) at level 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24 and 28
+1 in each and every of your 6 characteristics at lvl 10, 20 (and 30? not sure).
So, say you have 16 in your main characteristic at creation.
You pick the right race, or as human, you put your +2 in this main characteristics, so you start with 18 in your main.
At each 4, 8 ... 28 you put one of your +1s here, for a total of +7.
And at lvl 10 and 20 (and 30?), you get also +1.
So you end up with 18+9 = 27 in your main characteristic!!!!

But what bothers me most with 4th edition are those 1HP monsters.
It seems that when you encounter a group of monsters, many of them, while being the same level as their normal counterpart, have in fact 1HP. They are killable with one hit.
So, you encounter 8 gobelins. 2 of them are ordinary 3rd level fighters, with HP related to 3rd level monsters, but 6 of them, although having all characteristics of 3rd level gobelins, have only 1 HP.
WTF?!?

[Alinestra Covelia]

Our group made the switch to GURPS recently. We haven't had many games with it, but it's much better than D&D for flexibility of character creation.

There is no abstract concept of experience points. You get "character points" which you use to buy special improvements, such as skills or HP etc. There are no "levels" or "classes" as concepts - you can make your character the way you want from hundreds of different traits and advantages, and nobody gets a discount of any type.

This makes the game a little more balanced than D&D's "the classes are balanced! Seriously! Trust the designers!" philosophy, and it also means you don't have to take one level in this class and one level in that class and then four levels in this other class just to get the character powers that you want.

[Elok]

Originally posted by DirtyMartini
Why the bitterness Elok? Wouldn't the smart older kids let you into their game when you were a kid?

Nothing wrong with D&D -- I'd probably still play if I was in touch with a decent group.

The closest I've ever come to a PnP RPG is somebody trying to rope me into playing Magic in elementary school. Also my brother tried to get me into some werewolf CCG. With both I decided they were terminally lame. If you're going to live in a generic fantasy la-la land, you can at least get a computer to roll the dice and throw cards around for you. That way you get the passing semblance of being in control of yourself and playing a harmless diversion.

In conclusion, this is all morally wrong and you are going to hell. Sorry.