The Campaign Builder's Guild

Here here sparkle. I think I'm going to be going back to my 4E rewrite, at least to keep busy.

Quote from: Elemental ElfIf I understood the complaint, I would explain it... People I talk to absolutely hate the way 4E handled spells. They said there was no flavor text (even though there was) and the effect text was "boring to read." I really don't understand the complaint but apparently enough people felt that there was a problem and WotC is now correcting it.

To me, a great part of the charm and whimsy of D&D sprang from the spells and spell descriptions, the plethora of strange little utility spells and spells that could be applied with great creativity in different situations, the spells that were just plain weird (Rope Trick?! Antiplant Shell?? WTF?).  4E reduced all that to a collection of powers.  Sure, that may make more sense from a balance perspective and an ease of reading perspective, but to me at least it dumbed down the game a vast amount, drained the spellcasting classes of their quirky flavour and pizazz, and homogenized everything, so that all the classes were more like variations on a theme.  There's flavour text to 4E spells but it's brief and there just aren't that many spells compared to the enormous trove of weirdness of 3.X.

It's like the cosmology.  They simplified everything in 4E, smushed everything together, homogenized stuff (Elemental Chaos crams together the Abyss, Limbo, and the Inner Planes, while Shadowfell is like the Plane of Shadow, Negative Energy Plane, and Pandemonium).  The Greet Wheel was so much weirder, richer, and charmingly nonseniscal than the simplified and largely dumbed-down cosmos of 4E.  The Great Wheel made less sense, but that was part of its glorious absurdity.  Like, Bytopia and Acheron are bizarre, but I'm just glad they're there!

Part of this may be rose-tinted goggles and nostalgia, but I honestly prefer the unique oddity of 3.X with all its variegated lopsidedness, sacred cows, perversity, and detail to 4E's more rational but (IMO) boring approach.

EDIT: Frankly, flavour-wise, AD&D has all later editions beat, for my 2cp.  Hence why I'm GMing Planescape using Pathfinder rules...

Quote from: XeviatI think I'm going to be going back to my 4E rewrite, at least to keep busy.

That is quite the monumental task in itself. :D
Maybe you should start with something covered by the OGL instead, though, so that you can at least have "ownership" over what you create.

Quote from: SteerpikeTo me, a great part of the charm and whimsy of D&D sprang from the spells and spell descriptions, the plethora of strange little utility spells and spells that could be applied with great creativity in different situations, the spells that were just plain weird (Rope Trick?! Antiplant Shell?? WTF?).  4E reduced all that to a collection of powers.

A lot of people feel that way. I do, too, really. 4e seems to lack a certain 'charm' that earlier editions had, and I think it's largely because its powers became rather bland. However, I really think that you're comparing apples to oranges, here. I don't see any reason why crunch presented in a systematic, consistent, and easy-to-reference manner necessarily precludes the sort of zany, whimsical, and quirky powers that you (and I!) miss. No matter how out-there the power is, it's going to interact with the rules in some way, and that way is going to hopefully involve concepts that someone who knows the rules is already familiar with, to avoid the need to design a bunch of little subsystems that aren't used outside of one spell. Like, ultimately, a spell is probably going to have some sort of school and/or elemental association, a range, a duration, maybe need a saving throw, targets, and whatever. There are all kinds of common factors to how a spell interacts with the system that are useful to have at a glance. There's no reason that any spell, even the crazy ones, can't still present that stuff in a consistent and easy to read manner... except that the people responsible for designing this edition didn't feel like bothering to do the hard work of crunching the crunch, so to speak, that would have to be included in each and every stat block. It's far easier to just say, "make something up!"

Quote from: sparkletwistI don't see any reason why crunch presented in a systematic, consistent, and easy-to-reference manner necessarily precludes the sort of zany, whimsical, and quirky powers that you (and I!) miss... There's no reason that any spell, even the crazy ones, can't still present that stuff in a consistent and easy to read manner.

That's an excellent point: 3.X might have done a better job at making its spells a bit more mechanically balanced and readable.  This is basically why I prefer Pathfinder's "revise, refine, reshape, tweak, expand" approach to 4E's "gut, cut, scrap, homogenize, simplify" approach.

Quote from: Steerpike

Quote from: sparkletwistI don't see any reason why crunch presented in a systematic, consistent, and easy-to-reference manner necessarily precludes the sort of zany, whimsical, and quirky powers that you (and I!) miss... There's no reason that any spell, even the crazy ones, can't still present that stuff in a consistent and easy to read manner.

That's an excellent point: 3.X might have done a better job at making its spells a bit more mechanically balanced and readable.  This is basically why I prefer Pathfinder's "revise, refine, reshape, tweak, expand" approach to 4E's "gut, cut, scrap, homogenize, simplify" approach.

I do think you are both right here.
There was no reason to continualy homogenize the internal game quirks that were derived from the rules but were not part of the core mechanics, such as certain spells, abilities, restrictions, etc, when they changed editions. Maybe they need to change some rules to make the game smoother or more balanced or whatever, One does NOT preclude the other,

The problem was mostly that the spells were all essentially the same with a few numerical differences: damage, area or duration. They didn't allow themselves to have spells with effects which weren't already on the condition list or could be described with dice rolls.

Quote from: CrowThe problem was mostly that the spells were all essentially the same with a few numerical differences: damage, area or duration.

Are you talking about 4E, or 3.x?  I started writing a post about 3.x but maybe you were criticizing 4th...

Whatever the case, there were a lot of redundancies in 3.x, though there are lots of ways to escape that trap with damage-dealing spells, and the better 3.x spells manage this.

Take Chaos Hammer vs. Searing LIght: two spells that deal 1d8 damage for every 2 levels but which couldn't feel more different.  In addition to different areas of effect, level, domain association, and duration, one spell zaps anything but is particularly good at finishing off powerful undead, while the other only works properly against creatures of a certain type and carries a slow effect.  You use one to snipe individual Wraiths, Bodaks, undead boss-monsters, etc and the other to clear out rooms full of Orcs, slowing them so that archers etc can pick them off or whatnot.

Of course, dispensing with a spell stat-block would only aggravate redundancy issues, in a sense, since there's less and less to differentiate spells.  You either have way too many redundant spells, or your actual spell list dwindles to like a dozen broad effects.

It was about 4E. With 4E, the numbers were often the most important, with fluff coming in second (and last). With 3.x they were given (almost) equal priority.
This goes hand in hand with the accusations that the game (4E) was essentially a MMORPG since every spell had to conform to the underlying rules structure, just like everything in an actual MMORPG has to conform to the programmed framework. You can't make a telekinesis spell if there is no physics engine, for instance. 4Es rules were simply too restrictive for elaboration.
Incidentally, telekinesis and other open-ended spells (e.g. prestidigitation) are favorites of mine, because they rely on player creativity and ingenuity. They are tools you use to bring about consequences, rather than consequences in and of themselves. While it's been a while since I looked at 4E, I seem to recall that this was another thing they were lacking.

EDIT: Unfortunately for 3.x, Vancian spellcasting has a tendency to punish the player for ecletic (and situation-specific) spell choices. The focus on balance and combat, combined with the low number of spells, meant to compensate for their relatively high power level, leads to all but the bravest players clinging to their magic missiles and fireballs for dear life, rope tricks be damned.  

Yeah, that's a good point, although I think the Sorcerer helped in that regard.  I think a lot of spell preparation logic is connected directly the GM style - so a GM who runs an action heavy game is going to encourage blaster mages instead of telekineticists.

Today there was a survey. While I understand that they're not going to be able to get rigorous mathematical analysis out of the impressions of a bunch of random people on the internet, I have no idea how these survey answers are supposed to help anyone figure out anything. The entire thing is based on how 'satisfied' you are with different aspects of the game, without really any clue what that's supposed to mean, and without opportunity to provide clarification, save for a bunch of comment fields which you know won't be read by anyone who can actually do anything useful with them. I mean, shameless powergamer are going to be "very satisfied" with something that's grievously overpowered, but that doesn't really mean anything-- and I don't think it's a particularly good reason to not rebalance the overpowered thing, but the survey won't include that kind of depth. I'm not convinced they're actually paying much attention to the results, anyway.

By the way, I was right. Look at this:

Quote from: Mike MearlsSo, here's our goal: We want to make it easy for a DM to improvise and use the rules as guidelines. DMs who want more specific rules can lean on the examples we give in this document for the different typical actions to guide them. We don't want, for instance, to create a rule that says that climbing the side of a glacier is a DC 18 check, and if you fail you fall. We'd rather give DMs good guidelines for picking DCs, and we also want to introduce concepts such as hazards and requirements to make checks. Then, by showing DMs how to apply these tools, such as when climbing glaciers, we hope to allow them to really own their campaigns and take on the referee part of the DM's duties, rather than relying on the book to do so.

They are going for "Just make stuff up!" But hey, I bet it's really fun to read.

I should probably just sign up to get the playtest materials myself, but having literally NO ONE I can play with under their rules for actually playtesting, it seems kind of pointless, so I will just ask here.

You guys said that they removed the BAB.  What are they using in its place to determine attack success or failure?  I always thought that attacks worked basically the same as a skill, except that your ranks were pre-set by your class.  The opponent's Armor Class was the DC for the roll.  I always thought it would make sense to take away the standard attack progression, and give all characters more skill points per level, letting them choose how much to put into their attacks.  Classes that had had slower progressions would treat it as "cross class." This would work for 3.x, but not for Pathfinder, which changes skill progression a little.

But most GMs who want to run social-heavy games wouldn't dream of running D&D, it's a viscious cycle of supply and demand :D

I think the key element to pay attention to in that quote is the mention of how they are introducing "hazards and requirements". Now this might just be wishful thinking, but that seems to imply they are rethinking how long (and dull) tasks, like climbing a glacier, can be redesigned to become an interesting part of the game. Just giving a glacier DC wouldn't really aid anyone, so I think they are on the right track, now they just need to find the right solution.
That being said, I hope there is more to this than just a few guidelines on how to pick a DC...

Where do you actually get the playtest?

Quote from: Seraphine_HarmoniumYou guys said that they removed the BAB.  What are they using in its place to determine attack success or failure?

You add your ability modifier plus what it calls "weapon or magic training" to get your bonus. The playtest fighter has an attack bonus of +6: a strength bonus of +3, so I figure the other +3 of that comes from this "weapon training." The playtest document doesn't explain it though. It's not like BAB, because it doesn't scale by level-- at least, it doesn't increase in the three levels that they give you for the playtest. So I'm not sure what the story is behind the other +3 of the bonus.

Quote from: Superfluous CrowWhere do you actually get the playtest?

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/DnDNext.aspx
Scroll down to "Start playtesting now."

Quote from: Superfluous Crow
EDIT: Unfortunately for 3.x, Vancian spellcasting has a tendency to punish the player for ecletic (and situation-specific) spell choices. The focus on balance and combat, combined with the low number of spells, meant to compensate for their relatively high power level, leads to all but the bravest players clinging to their magic missiles and fireballs for dear life, rope tricks be damned. 

Except DD spells were always a poor choice for spell slots.

I got to try this last weekend a bit.  We did an encounter, not sure if it was the module or not.  I (poorly) played the elf wizard, but only got one spell off before an ambush undid me.  Magic missile is the most amusing spell in the playtest - unlimited casts, no prep required.  'Tis fun for some pew pew.

The advantages mechanic is interesting and easy to remember.  I'm with Sparkletwist though; the package was not very concrete about most of it.  We just kind of D20 + Bonus for skills (as expected).  Pretty sure that's what they're going to have for a mechanic, at least.  We all assumed it did not include ability score modifiers.

Oh, as an aside:  Does the Elf really have 16HP at the beginning, and the dwarf 17?  I did not get much of a chance to read the packet - spur of the moment playtest called right as I got off work the night after I got the rules.  I was rather confused, as nothing my 3.5 oriented mind saw measured out to 16.

Still on the fence about much of the system, being as I skipped 4th ed completely.  Makes me unqualified to formulate an opinion regarding its improvements.  I'm also purely GURPS these days, so I'm obviously a complete crackhead.  We're trying to get another afternoon in to play.

M.

Quote from: sparkletwist

Quote from: Seraphine_HarmoniumYou guys said that they removed the BAB.  What are they using in its place to determine attack success or failure?

You add your ability modifier plus what it calls "weapon or magic training" to get your bonus. The playtest fighter has an attack bonus of +6: a strength bonus of +3, so I figure the other +3 of that comes from this "weapon training." The playtest document doesn't explain it though. It's not like BAB, because it doesn't scale by level-- at least, it doesn't increase in the three levels that they give you for the playtest. So I'm not sure what the story is behind the other +3 of the bonus.

In 4E, you received an attack bonus from weapons to help simulate how accurate they were. I think this is where the +3 is coming from.