So WotC is pulling a Sony?DoPo said:
Essentials was pretty awful. 4E was not my cup of tea, but definitely had merits.
I want to get into D&D
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Essentials was pretty awful. 4E was not my cup of tea, but definitely had merits.
I dunno - I don't keep up with Sony. But they started off saying "We want this game to be for EVERYBODY!" and basically described GURPS but instead of being able to play anything you want with it, it's just D&D, however due to modularity, you can play an Essentials character, a 3e character, a 3.5 character or an AD&D character all in the same game. Plus more permuatations. Which sounded equally genious and mad, as you may guess. Then they started backpedalling into recreating 3.5, more or less, with all the flaws inherent to it, and very little if no of the actual good things4e (or any other game) came up with. One of the latest things they said was that they acknowledged that there was a problem of balance between casters and fighters but...also didn't acknowledge it at the same time. It's weird. And at other point, they'd identify a problem that has existed for years but won't do anything about it, or would mention a brilliant new mechanic for something but then scrap it or something.Zachary Amaranth said:
Yeah, same here. I'd prefer to play 3.5 if given the choice between the two but I won't turn down a 4e game (there's not much games to choose from around here). Well, ideally, I'd prefer to play something other than D&D but still... Last game I played was a 4e game, a very gutted 4e game - we got attributes, skills (just tick the selected ones) and HP - the rest is free form, including abilities (still, they need to make sense).Zachary Amaranth said:
My experience with D&D is that it's an awesome concept, the potential is immense. But when you get a room full of nerdy eccentric guys it quickly devolves, whether in game or out. Instead of you steadfastly riding through the rain one guy's blowing up cabbages while another tries to seduce all the womenfolk in the town. Pretty much the way the Gamers movies portrayed it.
I'll throw my hat in the ring to defend Essentials; If you have never run a D&D campaign before, it's dead easy.
BooksJust get a Dungeon Master's guide for yourself, and for the players a book called Heroes of the Fallen Lands; it has several races (off the top of my head, I remember human, elf, dwarf, halfling, and eladrin) and the classic character types (fighter, mage, rouge, cleric), along with an easy-to-follow character creation bit (including player sheets) and an explanation of the major rules. Basically, with those two books and a couple hours you can create a party of adventurers and get the players to know the basic mechanics of the game. (if you have more people, or they want to make things like druids, paladins and dark elves, pick up the companion book Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms).
There is a treasure handbook of a kind in Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium, which is full of magical gear, but you don't need it right away; the DMG has some magical items in it, along with tables for calculating gold. Ditto for the Monster Manual; get a module with some prebalanced encounters (fights) to give you an idea of what to throw at a party.
Dice: Pick up a prepackaged tin, ask the guy at the hobby store for a basic set. You need seven dice types: d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20 (that is, a 4-sided dice, a 6-sided dice, etc.) This should only set you back a couple dollars, but encourage your players to get their own sets; it's a real pain to keep handing around the same few dice.
Module Like McMindflayer said, a module (prepackaged adventure, complete with monster stats, NPCs and maps) is your best bet for out-of-the-box gaming. Trust me when I say that you do not want to have to create your own world and adventure on your first run; you'll get caught up in dumb details and end up with some half-baked nonsense. Run a module or two to get an understanding of what it is to be a DM, then decide if with your group if you enjoy that setting, want to try a different one, make up your own, or even have someone else run the games while you play. Graph paper can't hurt, but if you have the funds see if you can get an dry-erase map similar to the one Windcaler recommends; your maps should cover everything in the module, but adventurers are known to go off-book.
The Druid: This is a little tricky. If you are not going to be running the game, pass this info along the person who will and go nuts. If you are, I regret to inform you that D&D can't support you as both player and DM, unless you guys want to pass around gamemaster duties; it's no fun having your omniscient buddy tagging along.
BooksJust get a Dungeon Master's guide for yourself, and for the players a book called Heroes of the Fallen Lands; it has several races (off the top of my head, I remember human, elf, dwarf, halfling, and eladrin) and the classic character types (fighter, mage, rouge, cleric), along with an easy-to-follow character creation bit (including player sheets) and an explanation of the major rules. Basically, with those two books and a couple hours you can create a party of adventurers and get the players to know the basic mechanics of the game. (if you have more people, or they want to make things like druids, paladins and dark elves, pick up the companion book Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms).
There is a treasure handbook of a kind in Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium, which is full of magical gear, but you don't need it right away; the DMG has some magical items in it, along with tables for calculating gold. Ditto for the Monster Manual; get a module with some prebalanced encounters (fights) to give you an idea of what to throw at a party.
Dice: Pick up a prepackaged tin, ask the guy at the hobby store for a basic set. You need seven dice types: d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20 (that is, a 4-sided dice, a 6-sided dice, etc.) This should only set you back a couple dollars, but encourage your players to get their own sets; it's a real pain to keep handing around the same few dice.
Module Like McMindflayer said, a module (prepackaged adventure, complete with monster stats, NPCs and maps) is your best bet for out-of-the-box gaming. Trust me when I say that you do not want to have to create your own world and adventure on your first run; you'll get caught up in dumb details and end up with some half-baked nonsense. Run a module or two to get an understanding of what it is to be a DM, then decide if with your group if you enjoy that setting, want to try a different one, make up your own, or even have someone else run the games while you play. Graph paper can't hurt, but if you have the funds see if you can get an dry-erase map similar to the one Windcaler recommends; your maps should cover everything in the module, but adventurers are known to go off-book.
The Druid: This is a little tricky. If you are not going to be running the game, pass this info along the person who will and go nuts. If you are, I regret to inform you that D&D can't support you as both player and DM, unless you guys want to pass around gamemaster duties; it's no fun having your omniscient buddy tagging along.
Edition is nowhere near as important as Rule 0
Don't game with Dickheads.
If rule 0 is followed Edition, setting, rules all that are secondary to having a good time.
A good time may still be had if Rule 0 is ignored, but it is not a certainty.
Since you've decided on a game system, I'd say you need to add a DMG to the list, for magic items and XP. Magic items can be found online but the XP advancement system cannot. A monster manual is nice but not absolutely needed with a good module that gives you the monster stats (although if you've got one that tries to save space by not doing so, it's now a need not a want). Some spare pencils and at least two sets of dice are also 'must haves' IMO.
Don't game with Dickheads.
If rule 0 is followed Edition, setting, rules all that are secondary to having a good time.
A good time may still be had if Rule 0 is ignored, but it is not a certainty.
Since you've decided on a game system, I'd say you need to add a DMG to the list, for magic items and XP. Magic items can be found online but the XP advancement system cannot. A monster manual is nice but not absolutely needed with a good module that gives you the monster stats (although if you've got one that tries to save space by not doing so, it's now a need not a want). Some spare pencils and at least two sets of dice are also 'must haves' IMO.
Me and my friends host a D&D game over skype using map tools. We are using 4th edition as of right now. But it's a lot of fun! You're welcome to join us and sit around just listening if you want, or you could play. If you're interested respond back, and i'll shoot you my skype name.zenoaugustus said:
I stopped reading everyone's replies about half way down. What everyone says is sound advice. Pathfinder is a good option, I have yet to play it, but I have looked it over in my spare time and seems to be basically 3rd with some of the ridiculous stuff removed. I do like the skill list better now that there is less. My friend started a game and he is new to dming. He restricted everyone to the core books. That made life simpler for him. It removed a lot of the random rule sets that were a little too overpowered.
If the players troll the DM, then the DM should troll them right back, and he has far more power to do so. It's so easy to do it as well: just smile, and when they ask you why, decline to answer. In more specific instances: if someone tries to blow up cabbages, have a band of angry druids come along and teach him to respect nature. If someone tries to seduce all the women, have him succeed... and then have to make a saving throw versus disease. The possibilities for screwing over the players to keep them in line are endless.RobfromtheGulag said:
The DM only rolls dice because he likes the sound they make. If he's against you, it doesn't matter what you roll; you're going down.
Go with Pathfinder (which is basically 3.5 ed with an upgrade).zenoaugustus said:
Why? Well, first it's a great system. Secondly:
http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/
The creators (Paizo, formerly the people behind Dragon magazine) put ALL the books up online, for free, on their website. That link is all the books - not just the Core book (player's guide) but all the monster books (Beastaries 1-3), the Advanced Player's Guide, Ultimate Magic, and Ultimate Combat. Everything they've published in the main ruleset (and some extras outside it) is available on their website.
You can also Google the PSRD which is an independent site with the same info and a better layout. I always link people to the official PRD first because it's actually on the publisher's website. For free.
I fucking LOVE Paizo.
Oh, and for dice, you need (at minimum) one d20, one d4, one d6 (although more is better), one d8, one d10, one d12 (for Barbarians and Axe users), and either a d% or another d10 for rolling percentiles.
A set runs about 5 to 10 bucks, depending on how fancy you want to go. You can get extra d6 at Walmart in a "board game dice replacement set" pack for cheap.
Um, not true. DMs often run an NPC side-kick or plot-device character. Or a healer, which a Druid... can do, but kinda sucks at, true.Thunderous Cacophony said:
Still, so long as the DMs character isn't drawing focus from the group, they can be a great tool to help nudge the party along in the right direction or fill in a role that none of the PCs want to play. Which, again, is often the healer.
One does have to keep DM knowledge out of character with said NPC, but that isn't all that hard.
Technically? Nothing. It's a perfectly fine system.KeyMaster45 said:
Average. Boilerplate. It gets the job done.
Mostly, it had the disadvantage of coming after 3.5, aka d20 System, which was (and remains) the most versatile, varied, and easy to customize while still having structure tabletop RPG system ever made.
People like being able to modify the rules. 4th Ed takes pains to hide monster creation and PC class creation rules under the table where you can't look at them (although you can deconstruct them with some effort and math). In 3.5, it was all out there where you could see it. Homebrew thrived under 3.5 - it doesn't nearly as much under 4th.
That said, 4th Ed had lots of good ideas. At Will and Encounter powers extended the adventuring day, rolling spell attacks gave Spellcasters actual dice to role, and Skill Challenges were just fucking awesome.
Which is why Pathfinder stole several of those concepts (and I homebrewed the rest) and added them to 3.5 when creating Pathfinder. It takes several of the best things from 4th Ed, puts them back into 3.5, while patching several of the things wrong with 3.5. Good stuff.
The reasoning is because Wizards are Int casters, so they'll be maxing out their Int, giving them fuck-tons of skills.Copper Zen said:
Assuming you roll or Point Buy a 16, and are human or a race that bumps Int, you'll have an 18 at first level. I'll go with human and say 2 + 4 for Int, +1 for being Human = 7 per level. That's 7 skills you can keep maxed.
Furthermore, increases to Int now provide skill points retroactively (which they didn't in 3.5) so that by 8th level that Int score will be 20, not counting Int boosting magic items which ALSO grant skill points now (specifically one skill per modifier increase at Max ranks).
So if that same Wizard has a +2 int item by 8th level, that's 9 skills at max ranks. And that's assuming that the Wizard is smart and uses his Favored Class bonus to HP rather than Skills (otherwise it's 10 skills at max ranks by 8th level).
I've seen that in older editions when the group needed a heal-bot (I fondly recall a 2nd Edition game when the group realised the cleric would have no fun in combat; the DM opened up an interplanetary rift and had the priest vapourized by a blaster, requiring the god Gilean to drop off one of his own clerics to keep the timeline intact), but not since then. Especially in a 3rd edition game, the Druid has a lot of powers, and it would be hard for a new DM to keep his character balanced and in the background without tipping his hand. You are right, though, in that there is nothing strictly prohibiting it.Bara_no_Hime said:
Compared to the skill monkey that is the rogue, who'd likely go with 10 skills at max or so. Actual dedicated skill monkeys would have one or two more. Or maybe more skills but not necessarily at max. At any rate, the difference is not that great, despite the wizard only getting 2 instead of 8 base skill points.Bara_no_Hime said:
Ok, for one, fourth edition does not suck, I also have difficulty believing Wizards would disparage their own product. It's different from 3.5, but not worse, in fact in many ways it's better. It's more balanced, far far far more streamlined, and the rules all actually agree with each other.Copper Zen said:
If you're only a player you only need a players handbook really. In the case of 3.5, just the PHB, in 4.0 it'd be the PHB2. As for third edition, BE VERY CAREFUL. The rules in half of the supplement books condradict the core rules and almost always clash with each other. It is insanely easy to break a character in 3.5, I've been a DM for 13 years and I've never seen a system as unstable and prone to contradiction and failure as 3.5, that being said, it is a lot of fun to play with because the system is very wide-spread and robust for those who don't like just making stuff up on the fly which happens in other games like the venerable White Wolf: World of Darkness series'zenoaugustus said:
4.0 is far less easy to break, easier to understand, has a lot of the unnecessary weight from 3.5 to cut off and is probably a much better jumping off point if you don't know D&D very well. 3.5 is quite complicated which is fine if you're a veteran but learning the system can be difficult to the point of frustration for new players, I've had more than one player just say 'fuckit' because the rules were so convoluted and insane.
Fun Facts: In 3.5 D&D you can make the following...
A monk who can perform a 2 1/2 mile flying kick.
A character who can deal 100+ points of ability damage in one hit (the average ability score is 15-20)
A magical item that spews holy water that deals 240d4 damage per round to anything vulnerable to holy water. (average hp being around 100-150)
A character who can score debilitating critical strikes on every single successful attack.
etc...
In other words, play what you like but by Celestia's beard do your homework on the games before spending cash moneys on them. Nothing more frustrating than buying a Tabletop RPG book then never playing it because it's a frustrating turd to learn how to use.
I would very much advice you to find a pre made adventure somewhere. There should be places where you can get them for free or cheap. The only way to learn D&D is to play it, so just get a DMG, PHB and a full set off dice and get rolling with everything else premade.
This will allow you to figure out how combat flows, what is a balanced encounter, how you handle non combat encounters in a fluid and fun way while still rolling the numbers. Because that is what you want to get going, the roleplaying. Getting your character in your situation and talking and acting like you would think he would talk and act.
If you have a steady group a premade will also allow you to figure out what balance of combat/non-combat encounters you guys like best and what level and type of reward you enticing and aproriate. I don't like treasure tables, your better off making and handpicking your magic items and money on a level that you find approriate for the campaign at that time.
Now that I think about it, if you really want a flying start I think the very best thing would be to find an experienced DM (or at least one that knows the ropes) and have him run a session or 2. That way everyone can really get a feel for the game and figure out the things I spoke of above without having to worry about what page the "line of sight" rules are on and wether or not farting forfits your rounds actions.
(on a side note, A session of D&D is at its absolute bests if things like farting and sentences like "can I use his severed ass spike as a piercing weapon?" get involved. Don't shun the silly, stupid and imaginative.)
This will allow you to figure out how combat flows, what is a balanced encounter, how you handle non combat encounters in a fluid and fun way while still rolling the numbers. Because that is what you want to get going, the roleplaying. Getting your character in your situation and talking and acting like you would think he would talk and act.
If you have a steady group a premade will also allow you to figure out what balance of combat/non-combat encounters you guys like best and what level and type of reward you enticing and aproriate. I don't like treasure tables, your better off making and handpicking your magic items and money on a level that you find approriate for the campaign at that time.
Now that I think about it, if you really want a flying start I think the very best thing would be to find an experienced DM (or at least one that knows the ropes) and have him run a session or 2. That way everyone can really get a feel for the game and figure out the things I spoke of above without having to worry about what page the "line of sight" rules are on and wether or not farting forfits your rounds actions.
(on a side note, A session of D&D is at its absolute bests if things like farting and sentences like "can I use his severed ass spike as a piercing weapon?" get involved. Don't shun the silly, stupid and imaginative.)
Exactly my point. The Rogue has no reason to pump her Int, but the Wizard does (caster stat) so the low skill points per level is compensated for.DoPo said:
There are only 10 knowledge skills, after all. If you want to make a Wise Sage wizard, then you really only have to worry about 11 skills (10 knowledge skills plus spellcraft).
The Rogue, on the other hand, has around 13-16 core skills (depending on whether you count Appraise, Climb, Diplomacy, and Intimidate). Several of those (Disable Device and Perception) must be maxed to make basic class features function at the intended DCs. Hence why the Rogue needs 8 skill points per level. The Wizard can still cast spells if she has taken no ranks in Spellcraft, but the Rogue can't find or disable traps if she doesn't have those skills maxed.
Anyway, I've never had a problem with the skill system except maybe for Clerics.