Sorry, it was Melf's Acid Sheath, not Shield. It's like 3d10+caster level acid damage dealt to the attacker every time you're hit in melee. It may not have transferred with 3.5, but it was an absolutely stupid spell in 3.0.
Eh, its rounds/level spell thats pretty tame in comparison to things like Teleport/Planar Binding/Celerity/Haste/Polymorph and such. I mean, I don't even think you can stack the good metamagics on it and doing 3d10+20ish damage in a round is pretty sad when you're fighting stuff with 400+ HP. Its why the Warlock was pretty bad, 9d6 damage all day is pathetic at level 18 because of the way HP scales. If a Wizard is doing HP damage, he's usually doing it wrong unless you're doing This.
I do think that is one of 4e's greatest failings though Infidel, the complications and imbalance that appears once the game is above 5 players. The introduction of "Roles" was nice for a new player, so they could identify with what a class is supposed to do, but it just causes unnecessary complications if you have a large D&D group. Complications that I feel hinder the game.
o_O
What complications? I've been involved in groups with 6 players fairly regularly and there have been no problems.
I do think that is one of 4e's greatest failings though Infidel, the complications and imbalance that appears once the game is above 5 players. The introduction of "Roles" was nice for a new player, so they could identify with what a class is supposed to do, but it just causes unnecessary complications if you have a large D&D group. Complications that I feel hinder the game.
I think it's more that balance is dependent on player scale in any game, and they balanced around the typical number. There is rarely a game that works for any number of players outside of what it was designed for, board game or computer game or whatever. It's less of an "issue" for 3.5e/PF because it's not balanced at any number! :P
edit: In my experience, 7 is the max for 4e before it really starts to become a mess, and I don't like more than 6 now.
Sorry, it was Melf's Acid Sheath, not Shield. It's like 3d10+caster level acid damage dealt to the attacker every time you're hit in melee. It may not have transferred with 3.5, but it was an absolutely stupid spell in 3.0.
Eh, its rounds/level spell thats pretty tame in comparison to things like Teleport/Planar Binding/Celerity/Haste/Polymorph and such. I mean, I don't even think you can stack the good metamagics on it and doing 3d10+20ish damage in a round is pretty sad when you're fighting stuff with 400+ HP. Its why the Warlock was pretty bad, 9d6 damage all day is pathetic at level 18 because of the way HP scales. If a Wizard is doing HP damage, he's usually doing it wrong unless you're doing This.
Well, you could Empower it, so it'd be more like 45~ damage...every time you're hit. Not once per round. You combined it with Premonition and Stoneskin and stuff. Keep in mind, at level 20+ everything attacks 4 times a round (or more) unless it's something trivial.
Sorry, it was Melf's Acid Sheath, not Shield. It's like 3d10+caster level acid damage dealt to the attacker every time you're hit in melee. It may not have transferred with 3.5, but it was an absolutely stupid spell in 3.0.
Eh, its rounds/level spell thats pretty tame in comparison to things like Teleport/Planar Binding/Celerity/Haste/Polymorph and such. I mean, I don't even think you can stack the good metamagics on it and doing 3d10+20ish damage in a round is pretty sad when you're fighting stuff with 400+ HP. Its why the Warlock was pretty bad, 9d6 damage all day is pathetic at level 18 because of the way HP scales. If a Wizard is doing HP damage, he's usually doing it wrong unless you're doing This.
Well, you could Empower it, so it'd be more like 45~ damage...every time you're hit. Not once per round. You combined it with Premonition and Stoneskin and stuff. Keep in mind, at level 20+ everything attacks 4 times a round (or more) unless it's something trivial.
Yeah, but at level 20 you shouldn't be getting hit at all (Astrally projecting from your own private Demi-plane where time runs 10 times faster than the Material plane!) or even Greater Magic Image and Superior Invisibility. Stoneskin is expensive with its material component, and Sheathe needs to be cast in combat because it lasts a maximum of 20 rounds unless you pull off some Divine Metamagic persist shenanigens. And there are way better spells to persist.
I do think that is one of 4e's greatest failings though Infidel, the complications and imbalance that appears once the game is above 5 players. The introduction of "Roles" was nice for a new player, so they could identify with what a class is supposed to do, but it just causes unnecessary complications if you have a large D&D group. Complications that I feel hinder the game.
I think it's more that balance is dependent on player scale in any game, and they balanced around the typical number. There is rarely a game that works for any number of players outside of what it was designed for, board game or computer game or whatever. It's less of an "issue" for 3.5e/PF because it's not balanced at any number! :P edit: In my experience, 7 is the max for 4e before it really starts to become a mess, and I don't like more than 6 now.
I disagree. The uniformity and standardization of actions in 4e makes it easier to run games. Large campaigns requires discciplined players and good encounter design by the DM to accomodate a larger battlespace. It also requires a very visible form of initiative management. One of the players should also be tasked with tracking conditions on a whiteboard. With that kind of setup, I could run a game for 10 to 12 players.
SkyCaptain on
The RPG Bestiary - Dangerous foes and legendary monsters for D&D 4th Edition
Well, for instance in the Pathfinder game I'm playing in (11 people, huge campaign), I'm playing one of the new Magus. I am an overpowered powerhouse. I switched over from a Barbarian and am able to do 25% more damage at the same level, with a much higher AC (albeit lower HP). so I can see your point Z0re.
I'm going to be DMing a huge campaign in PbP format using 4e, and it looks to be much easier to just say "roll this, now roll this" instead of "calculate this skill bonus, now roll it. Ok no calculate this one +/- campaign based modifiers, and roll that..." I do like how 4e gives you some base line DC information as a DM.
I'm not against 4e at all, I'm just having a hard time transferring from Pathfinder to 4e, the skill changes seem to take the wind out of the sails of a DM who wants to run a more character driven campaign then a combat driven one.
I do really love the lay out for powers and such, makes the imagination part of combat more fun, as well as the removal of all negatives for things like 2-weapon fighting and race choices.
One thing I don't like about 4e is the stigma against running over 5 people in a group. My gaming group is 12 guys, which is why there is resistance to running 4e over Pathfinder.
I can't imagine any game running well with 12 people.
Well, for instance in the Pathfinder game I'm playing in (11 people, huge campaign), I'm playing one of the new Magus. I am an overpowered powerhouse. I switched over from a Barbarian and am able to do 25% more damage at the same level, with a much higher AC (albeit lower HP). so I can see your point Z0re.
I'm going to be DMing a huge campaign in PbP format using 4e, and it looks to be much easier to just say "roll this, now roll this" instead of "calculate this skill bonus, now roll it. Ok no calculate this one +/- campaign based modifiers, and roll that..." I do like how 4e gives you some base line DC information as a DM.
I'm not against 4e at all, I'm just having a hard time transferring from Pathfinder to 4e, the skill changes seem to take the wind out of the sails of a DM who wants to run a more character driven campaign then a combat driven one.
I do really love the lay out for powers and such, makes the imagination part of combat more fun, as well as the removal of all negatives for things like 2-weapon fighting and race choices.
One thing I don't like about 4e is the stigma against running over 5 people in a group. My gaming group is 12 guys, which is why there is resistance to running 4e over Pathfinder.
I can't imagine any game running well with 12 people.
Me neither. You'd have to have a bigass table for them all to sit around, for one thing.
I was under the impression that 3E's ideal party size was 4. I know 4E's ideal party size is 5, but I've honestly never had more than 4 players at a time (and most often I only have three, which makes it hard to ever use solos).
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
I do think that is one of 4e's greatest failings though Infidel, the complications and imbalance that appears once the game is above 5 players. The introduction of "Roles" was nice for a new player, so they could identify with what a class is supposed to do, but it just causes unnecessary complications if you have a large D&D group. Complications that I feel hinder the game.
o_O
What complications? I've been involved in groups with 6 players fairly regularly and there have been no problems.
I used to have 6 a long time ago, but now I never take more than 5 - even if I would love to maybe take 6. In the end most of my design work deals with 5 players as an assumption and it's just much easier for me to deal with. I don't run with more than 6 players anymore, especially if I intend to go to higher tiers where turn length can already be very complicated.
4e wins for me simply because I can drive a story regardless of the system, so a system that plays well (simple and consistent to not have to look up rules all the time, can get new players up and running quick) is all I need.
Haven't had any interest in Pathfinder because their goal was to fix 3.5e, not necessarily make it more simple. From everything I hear, 4e is much easier to run.
Their goal may have started there but it rapidly became "Shut the fucking fan boys up". They only fixed portions of the rules, they did clean up grapple and the other combat maneuvers, but they didn't touch some of the bigger issues sitting around. More over half the fans were saying "4e is cool" so we have 4e-isms in the game and the other half hated it so we have some of the worst parts of 3e still around. In the end they lacked any kind of vision.
And a personal peeve, but they changed literally every other LA0 race, even monster races, to have a +2 overall stat modifier... except Kobolds/Goblins who keep their shitty -4 and +0 modifiers.
Heh, I will bring up halflings. Every other PHB race got new abilities....the halfling lost a couple. I must have missed all these super powered halflings in the crowd of dwarves and elves.
I've said before how I feel about PF, but to me the thing that really spells out just how bad it is: they ran a "beta" test and invited feedback then ignored any sort of criticism or "bug reports" people had. Why take a deeply flawed system like 3.5 and try to "fix" it but ignore any input from people who want to play it?
It's easy to play 4E with 12 people - make two games of 5 with 2 DMs and have the two parties interact occasionally.
edit: actually the worst thing about PF is the art, holy crap
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited June 2011
You know, as somewhat of a counterpoint I see 4E making the same mistakes. The gutted martial classes in Essentials (even if they do actually work) and newer books that have extremely on rails classes (EG Vampire) or are filled with infinite fucking wizard/warlock builds (seriously, enough is enough there) are 'throw-backs' to previous editions. The degree people hate them will vary: Some just hate the martial classes on principle, personally I dislike the more repetitive mechanics (various mage builds) and linear options (Vampire - also because it's mechanically deficient). I also dislike that some other previous edition sacred cows that should have stayed dead crept back into the game: Like racial penalties (Shade, Vryloka). Especially because without the penalty one of those is a perfectly competent race. The other is just a pile of crap whatever way you look at it. It's bad design though and should never have been reintroduced into the game.
The difference is that 4E is just mechanically incredibly hard to break entirely unless you REALLY make poor decisions. The only genuine 100% awful class in 4E is the Binder (Builds like Beastmaster are an entirely different barrel of useless). It's the only class in 4E I can say has no inherent mechanical merit of any sort and is utterly superseded by an existing class (the Warlock/Hexblade).
It's easy to play 4E with 12 people - make two games of 5 with 2 DMs and have the two parties interact occasionally.
This is what my group did when we moved from a mass group for Rifts to 3rd Edition. I think we may have ended up with 9 eventually and just had one of the DM's running a character along with the party to round out their numbers, but it worked pretty well at the time.
Having the parties come into contact once in a while is a really good idea.
Have tales of each others exploits reach the other party's ears through rumour and tales told in inns, and perhaps successes (or failures) affect the overall campaign in some tangible ways.
It could be quite a feat at times, but seems like a lot more workable to make a natural split like that than to try to cram 11 players into any given system outside of a heavily story based one. I know that with players who are a little less than on the ball even waiting through 4 other players can be a cause for lapsed focus, let alone 11 others plus the small army the DM would likely need to present a significant challenge.
Forar on
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Why would you even nerf power attack? Why would you nerf rage, even? And...bard songs? Really? The only unique thing a bard offers a group other than War Cry, which is really just a group Battletide? Did they at least nerf the shit out of Melf's Acid Shield?
Power Attack got nerfed because Power Attack was stupidly powerful to the point of being hideously metagame-warping. There's a reason Roy from Order of the Stick uses a greatsword as opposed to sword and board: if you invested in Strength at all, you either took Power Attack and a two-handed weapon or you were horribly gimping yourself.
Rage actually got buffed, since now you can pick and choose in which rounds you rage rather than "X rounds X times / day".
The Bard nerfs were completely out of left field, since the Bard was just about the sweet spot for balanced class design to begin with.
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Lord Palingtonhe.him.hisHistory-loving pal!Registered Userregular
edited June 2011
That's what my group is doing now. I had a stable amount of players, then had a bunch of people who had friends who wanted to play, so when the choice of two different directions came up, one group went one way and the other group went the other.
Could you provide some insight into how power attack could be broken?
I've always been of the belief that there is no such thing as too much +to hit, so sacrificing any significant amount of that for a few extra points of damage always seemed risky at best and counter productive at worst, since a miss deals 0 damage (barring some circumstances).
I'd rather deal 1d10+5 at +10 than 1d10+10 at +5 any day of the week, and have rarely seen foes who were so easy to hit but also a significant enough threat that the risk/reward ratio was worthwhile.
Forar on
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited June 2011
This isn't true of 3rd edition, where your initial attack bonuses on the first attacks were so high you were basically guaranteed to hit anything. In 4E, with the more reasonable scaling of bonuses you can't get anywhere near the ridiculous to hit rates and absorb tons of penalties easily (sometimes close though).
Could you provide some insight into how power attack could be broken?
I've always been of the belief that there is no such thing as too much +to hit, so sacrificing any significant amount of that for a few extra points of damage always seemed risky at best and counter productive at worst, since a miss deals 0 damage (barring some circumstances).
I'd rather deal 1d10+5 at +10 than 1d10+10 at +5 any day of the week, and have rarely seen foes who were so easy to hit but also a significant enough threat that the risk/reward ratio was worthwhile.
Partly it was that the trade-off was skewed so that you got more damage than you gave up in accuracy. If you were a Fighter/Barbarian with Pounce, you go got so many attacks off of a charge that it made more sense to throw in Power Attack.
Mostly though, it was that attacks scaled faster than defenses did. Both were gear dependent, but defense was entirely gear dependent while attacks got a bonus from Hit Dice. Plus it was easier and generally a better idea to buff attacks via things like Heroism and Inspire Courage than it was to buff defenses.
Uh, 3rd edition used a simulationist approach to AC so if a big, clumsy monster was made of pudding he could have an AC of 5 even though he was CR 15. This was supposed to be "balanced" by the stack of hit points but when the 15th level greatsword fighter says "I can't miss on a 2, with my last attack of 4" that feat would give him +120 to damage (114 weighing in 1's.) a round. The 15th level sword and board fighter could get +60...losing 60 points of damage for 2 points of AC. 2 points of AC that because of the whole simulationist thing is likely completely irrelevant to the giant pudding monster which might only have a single attack that hits everybody on a 2.
There were also a lot of ways to buff power attack, mostly in the feat Shock Trooper which let you dump your AC instead of attack bonus, but also things like giving you higher modifiers on a charge and such.
The highest non-infinite damage build was called the Ubercharger for a reason. And he outdamaged the hypothetical Hulking Hurler who had the capacity to throw more mass then there was in the universe and who's damage had to be expressed in scientific notation.
Didn't mean to start a PF v 4e fight (even though it seems everyone here is pro-4e), but this has given me some insight. My biggest problem with PF is the fact that "to hits" do not scale with AC very well. At a certain point, AC means dick since "to hits" keep going up, and AC starts to stall out at around 25 (at which point +1 gains are rare and very gear based).
4e Doesn't seem to have this problem, the scaling of to hit and AC means that even the lowly wizard will dodge a hit once in a while.
Didn't mean to start a PF v 4e fight (even though it seems everyone here is pro-4e), but this has given me some insight. My biggest problem with PF is the fact that "to hits" do not scale with AC very well. At a certain point, AC means dick since "to hits" keep going up, and AC starts to stall out at around 25 (at which point +1 gains are rare and very gear based).
4e Doesn't seem to have this problem, the scaling of to hit and AC means that even the lowly wizard will dodge a hit once in a while.
I have seen, without any question as to legality, ACs that push 60.
Pathfinder axed some of the easier ways to get there but didn't address the underlying problem. This is one of the largest issues with 3.x, AC is more a function of (real life) attention you pay to it (and luck with resources) rather than directly level.
4e does a good job of letting you push the balance around a bit with in game resources but doesn't let you flip over the scale and cackle.
Agreed, I too have seen characters get up to 40, but it was temporary and required a great many resources. One thing that has taken me some getting used to is the way the attacks work. The powers are really cool, but it's a shock to go from the "BAB" system to "Here is how the attack works, it's all laid out, and the math is simple."
You know, as somewhat of a counterpoint I see 4E making the same mistakes. The gutted martial classes in Essentials...
I don't understand everyone's dislike of the martial classes in essentials. I found the encounter/daily system to be dreadful for the martial classes since the first time I tried it, everyone seemed to use twin strike/sly flourish/etc. almost exclusively. Rogue's hardly feel like rogues to me. The martial classes in essentials made it feel like dnd again (I played 1e AD&D way back then started again in 4e). I know a few people who played 3.5 and refused to play 4e after 5-6 attempts, all of them are back playing 4e now that the essentials builds are out.
I played a couple times at a local comic store and everyone there is hugely into dnd and most of them play essentials builds exclusively.
To me it feels like a rogue can now be a rogue all the time instead of only when he has the encounter power available and the Hunter build is the only fun controller I've ever played.
Basically, I love not having encounter/daily powers and a more diverse range of at-will 'features'.
So.... what do you not like about the new martial builds/classes in essentials?
I haven't played the caster builds yet and I've played with vampires, they seem great for RP purposes but should be a paragon path or something, not a class imo.
the Martial essentials classes are overly simplistic and reduce the game to "roll a die, miss, it's the Wizard's turn again"
Ah, I could see that. I find the rogues trick's at least have room for RP, describing the actual movement as opposed to "I move here so that I can flank and add sneak attack damage, *roll* ok mage's turn".
Everyone I have found to play with seems to degenerate to roll, miss/hit, k your turn anyway. Sadly enough, I think the essentials stuff actually helps them RP a bit more, or it helps me at least.
I figured the comic book store doing the weekly encounters would do a bit more RP but it's mostly the same as I'm used to.
The Roll/Miss/Move on trope for martial classes comes all the way from 1st ed. The martial classes really got screwed in every edition up until 4th, when they got fun little descriptions for their abilities instead of "you swing your weapon, perhaps you're yelling and hulking out, but you're still just swinging a weapon."
The fighter is vastly simplified in essentials. Everything revolves around the "basic attack" and it doesn't really get any more intricate than that. PHB fighters had powers for different builds. Axes, hammers, heavy blades, shield users, spears, etc. Powers with secondary targets, stunning, dazing, proning, grabbing, making the enemy drop their weapon. Blah blah blah.
Eh. It's not bad. It's just different.
<edit> Oh. And because it all revolves around and alters basic attacks, it doesn't mesh with any of the previous fighter powers. You can't even use power attack.
The Roll/Miss/Move on trope for martial classes comes all the way from 1st ed. The martial classes really got screwed in every edition up until 4th, when they got fun little descriptions for their abilities instead of "you swing your weapon, perhaps you're yelling and hulking out, but you're still just swinging a weapon."
Eh, 3.5 had Tome of Battle at least which was a lot like a precursor to 4e. And the best/most balanced subsytem 3.5 ever had.
You're right, but some times you have a player who needs that little "boost" to get into the RP mindset. 4e does a good job with that in combat.
Personally, I've never had trouble thinking up fantastical situations even when a character is just swinging an axe, but I know a couple guys who love D&D and have trouble amping up the imagination factor. The 4e we've played has really helped them get into the mind-set.
The fighter is vastly simplified in essentials. Everything revolves around the "basic attack" and it doesn't really get any more intricate than that. PHB fighters had powers for different builds. Axes, hammers, heavy blades, shield users, spears, etc. Powers with secondary targets, stunning, dazing, proning, grabbing, making the enemy drop their weapon. Blah blah blah.
Eh. It's not bad. It's just different.
<edit> Oh. And because it all revolves around and alters basic attacks, it doesn't mesh with any of the previous fighter powers. You can't even use power attack.
Thief at least has enough different riders on their movement at-wills to make playing a thief fun. Mix in some human bonus at-will for a rogue level 1 at-will and you have something else to use.
It would take a special breed of insanity to insist that I can't imagine something because of X. Watch me.
True, but it would get boring if all you do is describe a Basic Melee Attack over and over in different ways and the GM never improvises anything for you. Cause essentially (hah) you're just doing the same thing. You never get anything special like grab, daze, stun, disarm, push, pull, or slide. You're relying on the GM being lenient and improvising from your description, which in and of itself isn't bad... but it moves the game back towards being GM-centric instead of a cooperative narration.
SkyCaptain on
The RPG Bestiary - Dangerous foes and legendary monsters for D&D 4th Edition
The argument I've heard most from disgruntled former 3.5 players is that everything is a mage now. Even with the encounter/daily powers people only used the RP opportunity for the first 2-3 sessions, after that it turned into "I use brutal strike", miss, "NOOO MY DAILY", <other person> "It's reliable", "woot!".
TBH, the most fun I've had playing is with my room mate DMing, we played for a total for 10 hours before our first combat encounter and he'd let you make up attacks on the fly so long as they were awesome. If it was too unrealistic you just failed horribly, if it was awesome and totally made sense you could even 1 hit kill something that you'd have no chance of killing.
I found out after the fact that none of his monsters had any HP, he just decided when they should die based on how the fight was going. He did keep track of how much damage they had received just to make things a little consistent and not screw us if we happened to hit one really hard. Ya that's right, his monsters had plot HP.
It would take a special breed of insanity to insist that I can't imagine something because of X. Watch me.
True, but it would get boring if all you do is describe a Basic Melee Attack over and over in different ways and the GM never improvises anything for you. Cause essentially (hah) you're just doing the same thing. You never get anything special like grab, daze, stun, disarm, push, pull, or slide. You're relying on the GM being lenient and improvising from your description, which in and of itself isn't bad... but it moves the game back towards being GM-centric instead of a cooperative narration.
Uhhh, that's exactly my point on how it's the GM that needs to drive things appropriately for RP, in all systems and settings. Materials can help them but it's their responsibility for success or failure.
My introduction to D&D :
me: I attack him.
DM: How?
me: Uh, with my longsword.
DM: Describe it.
me: uhhh...
It was 2e where I was just a simple iterative attacks warrior based class. The DM and players had all of the impact on getting me to RP and understand the game. The books had nothing to do with it. What got them doing it? Probably a bit of books, their descriptions they could crib from splat books, mostly they got it from their parents (2nd generation gamers got me into things). Myself? I described things based on what I saw in movies, read in fantasy books, etc. I barely knew the system.
The system of D&D was irrelevant to my ability, encouragement, and enjoyment of RP.
So while I will say that, sure, some systems encourage RP a bit more than others, it's just like any other hook. The GM has to run with it. Nothing will enforce or restrict it.
I've been looking into an obscure setting from the 90's called Jakandor and have discovered that it had magic mecha (BTW, Jakandor was made by the same guy that created Spelljammer). Is there anyway something like this could work in 4E?
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Eh, its rounds/level spell thats pretty tame in comparison to things like Teleport/Planar Binding/Celerity/Haste/Polymorph and such. I mean, I don't even think you can stack the good metamagics on it and doing 3d10+20ish damage in a round is pretty sad when you're fighting stuff with 400+ HP. Its why the Warlock was pretty bad, 9d6 damage all day is pathetic at level 18 because of the way HP scales. If a Wizard is doing HP damage, he's usually doing it wrong unless you're doing This.
o_O
What complications? I've been involved in groups with 6 players fairly regularly and there have been no problems.
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I think it's more that balance is dependent on player scale in any game, and they balanced around the typical number. There is rarely a game that works for any number of players outside of what it was designed for, board game or computer game or whatever. It's less of an "issue" for 3.5e/PF because it's not balanced at any number! :P
edit: In my experience, 7 is the max for 4e before it really starts to become a mess, and I don't like more than 6 now.
Well, you could Empower it, so it'd be more like 45~ damage...every time you're hit. Not once per round. You combined it with Premonition and Stoneskin and stuff. Keep in mind, at level 20+ everything attacks 4 times a round (or more) unless it's something trivial.
Yeah, but at level 20 you shouldn't be getting hit at all (Astrally projecting from your own private Demi-plane where time runs 10 times faster than the Material plane!) or even Greater Magic Image and Superior Invisibility. Stoneskin is expensive with its material component, and Sheathe needs to be cast in combat because it lasts a maximum of 20 rounds unless you pull off some Divine Metamagic persist shenanigens. And there are way better spells to persist.
I can't imagine any game running well with 12 people.
Me neither. You'd have to have a bigass table for them all to sit around, for one thing.
I was under the impression that 3E's ideal party size was 4. I know 4E's ideal party size is 5, but I've honestly never had more than 4 players at a time (and most often I only have three, which makes it hard to ever use solos).
I used to have 6 a long time ago, but now I never take more than 5 - even if I would love to maybe take 6. In the end most of my design work deals with 5 players as an assumption and it's just much easier for me to deal with. I don't run with more than 6 players anymore, especially if I intend to go to higher tiers where turn length can already be very complicated.
Their goal may have started there but it rapidly became "Shut the fucking fan boys up". They only fixed portions of the rules, they did clean up grapple and the other combat maneuvers, but they didn't touch some of the bigger issues sitting around. More over half the fans were saying "4e is cool" so we have 4e-isms in the game and the other half hated it so we have some of the worst parts of 3e still around. In the end they lacked any kind of vision.
Shame, because the fluff was fairly good.
Heh, I will bring up halflings. Every other PHB race got new abilities....the halfling lost a couple. I must have missed all these super powered halflings in the crowd of dwarves and elves.
It's easy to play 4E with 12 people - make two games of 5 with 2 DMs and have the two parties interact occasionally.
edit: actually the worst thing about PF is the art, holy crap
The difference is that 4E is just mechanically incredibly hard to break entirely unless you REALLY make poor decisions. The only genuine 100% awful class in 4E is the Binder (Builds like Beastmaster are an entirely different barrel of useless). It's the only class in 4E I can say has no inherent mechanical merit of any sort and is utterly superseded by an existing class (the Warlock/Hexblade).
This is what my group did when we moved from a mass group for Rifts to 3rd Edition. I think we may have ended up with 9 eventually and just had one of the DM's running a character along with the party to round out their numbers, but it worked pretty well at the time.
Having the parties come into contact once in a while is a really good idea.
Have tales of each others exploits reach the other party's ears through rumour and tales told in inns, and perhaps successes (or failures) affect the overall campaign in some tangible ways.
It could be quite a feat at times, but seems like a lot more workable to make a natural split like that than to try to cram 11 players into any given system outside of a heavily story based one. I know that with players who are a little less than on the ball even waiting through 4 other players can be a cause for lapsed focus, let alone 11 others plus the small army the DM would likely need to present a significant challenge.
Rage actually got buffed, since now you can pick and choose in which rounds you rage rather than "X rounds X times / day".
The Bard nerfs were completely out of left field, since the Bard was just about the sweet spot for balanced class design to begin with.
I've always been of the belief that there is no such thing as too much +to hit, so sacrificing any significant amount of that for a few extra points of damage always seemed risky at best and counter productive at worst, since a miss deals 0 damage (barring some circumstances).
I'd rather deal 1d10+5 at +10 than 1d10+10 at +5 any day of the week, and have rarely seen foes who were so easy to hit but also a significant enough threat that the risk/reward ratio was worthwhile.
Mostly though, it was that attacks scaled faster than defenses did. Both were gear dependent, but defense was entirely gear dependent while attacks got a bonus from Hit Dice. Plus it was easier and generally a better idea to buff attacks via things like Heroism and Inspire Courage than it was to buff defenses.
It just radically altered the tempo of the game.
The highest non-infinite damage build was called the Ubercharger for a reason. And he outdamaged the hypothetical Hulking Hurler who had the capacity to throw more mass then there was in the universe and who's damage had to be expressed in scientific notation.
Melee types could do damage in 3.5.
and this was without any silly build acrobatics to do so
every other class was going bonkers trying to stitch together feats and prestige classes to get anywhere near that
4e Doesn't seem to have this problem, the scaling of to hit and AC means that even the lowly wizard will dodge a hit once in a while.
Pathfinder axed some of the easier ways to get there but didn't address the underlying problem. This is one of the largest issues with 3.x, AC is more a function of (real life) attention you pay to it (and luck with resources) rather than directly level.
4e does a good job of letting you push the balance around a bit with in game resources but doesn't let you flip over the scale and cackle.
I don't understand everyone's dislike of the martial classes in essentials. I found the encounter/daily system to be dreadful for the martial classes since the first time I tried it, everyone seemed to use twin strike/sly flourish/etc. almost exclusively. Rogue's hardly feel like rogues to me. The martial classes in essentials made it feel like dnd again (I played 1e AD&D way back then started again in 4e). I know a few people who played 3.5 and refused to play 4e after 5-6 attempts, all of them are back playing 4e now that the essentials builds are out.
I played a couple times at a local comic store and everyone there is hugely into dnd and most of them play essentials builds exclusively.
To me it feels like a rogue can now be a rogue all the time instead of only when he has the encounter power available and the Hunter build is the only fun controller I've ever played.
Basically, I love not having encounter/daily powers and a more diverse range of at-will 'features'.
So.... what do you not like about the new martial builds/classes in essentials?
I haven't played the caster builds yet and I've played with vampires, they seem great for RP purposes but should be a paragon path or something, not a class imo.
Ah, I could see that. I find the rogues trick's at least have room for RP, describing the actual movement as opposed to "I move here so that I can flank and add sneak attack damage, *roll* ok mage's turn".
Everyone I have found to play with seems to degenerate to roll, miss/hit, k your turn anyway. Sadly enough, I think the essentials stuff actually helps them RP a bit more, or it helps me at least.
I figured the comic book store doing the weekly encounters would do a bit more RP but it's mostly the same as I'm used to.
Eh. It's not bad. It's just different.
<edit> Oh. And because it all revolves around and alters basic attacks, it doesn't mesh with any of the previous fighter powers. You can't even use power attack.
Eh, 3.5 had Tome of Battle at least which was a lot like a precursor to 4e. And the best/most balanced subsytem 3.5 ever had.
That's the GM's job to encourage and everyone involved can do fine regardless of system.
It would take a special breed of insanity to insist that I can't imagine something because of X. Watch me.
Personally, I've never had trouble thinking up fantastical situations even when a character is just swinging an axe, but I know a couple guys who love D&D and have trouble amping up the imagination factor. The 4e we've played has really helped them get into the mind-set.
Thief at least has enough different riders on their movement at-wills to make playing a thief fun. Mix in some human bonus at-will for a rogue level 1 at-will and you have something else to use.
True, but it would get boring if all you do is describe a Basic Melee Attack over and over in different ways and the GM never improvises anything for you. Cause essentially (hah) you're just doing the same thing. You never get anything special like grab, daze, stun, disarm, push, pull, or slide. You're relying on the GM being lenient and improvising from your description, which in and of itself isn't bad... but it moves the game back towards being GM-centric instead of a cooperative narration.
TBH, the most fun I've had playing is with my room mate DMing, we played for a total for 10 hours before our first combat encounter and he'd let you make up attacks on the fly so long as they were awesome. If it was too unrealistic you just failed horribly, if it was awesome and totally made sense you could even 1 hit kill something that you'd have no chance of killing.
I found out after the fact that none of his monsters had any HP, he just decided when they should die based on how the fight was going. He did keep track of how much damage they had received just to make things a little consistent and not screw us if we happened to hit one really hard. Ya that's right, his monsters had plot HP.
Uhhh, that's exactly my point on how it's the GM that needs to drive things appropriately for RP, in all systems and settings. Materials can help them but it's their responsibility for success or failure.
My introduction to D&D :
me: I attack him.
DM: How?
me: Uh, with my longsword.
DM: Describe it.
me: uhhh...
It was 2e where I was just a simple iterative attacks warrior based class. The DM and players had all of the impact on getting me to RP and understand the game. The books had nothing to do with it. What got them doing it? Probably a bit of books, their descriptions they could crib from splat books, mostly they got it from their parents (2nd generation gamers got me into things). Myself? I described things based on what I saw in movies, read in fantasy books, etc. I barely knew the system.
The system of D&D was irrelevant to my ability, encouragement, and enjoyment of RP.
So while I will say that, sure, some systems encourage RP a bit more than others, it's just like any other hook. The GM has to run with it. Nothing will enforce or restrict it.