Quote from: One Horse Town;361406and if there were the same people would be crying about infringements on free speech.

Textbook double-bind.

Quote from: IMLegend;361399Shit man, when are there ever repercussions for slander here? That's just par for the course. Not taking sides, I'm just sayin'....

I know, and, frankly, I'm not expecting any.  But it is worth pointing out the difference between spouting spurious shit about people that doesn't ultimately matter, and accusing someone of essentially the only bannable offense here.  CavScout rode this same rail for months, and its not uncharacteristic of AM's argument style -- distract from someone's argument by forcing them to defend themselves on an unrelated, and manufactured front.

Since there won't be any repercussions, I just think it's worth pointing it out and calling it for what it is.

!i!

Quote from: One Horse Town;361406and if there were the same people would be crying about infringements on free speech.

Oh, no argument from me on that one. I'm certainly not advocating a "crackdown" or anything. I guess I'm saying something more along the lines of "don't act surprised, thicken your skin and move on". That's how it is and I don't think I would be hanging around here were it any different.:idunno:

Quote from: Ian Absentia;361410I know, and, frankly, I'm not expecting any.  But it is worth pointing out the difference between spouting spurious shit about people that doesn't ultimately matter, and accusing someone of essentially the only bannable offense here.  CavScout rode this same rail for months, and its not uncharacteristic of AM's argument style -- distract from someone's argument by forcing them to defend themselves on an unrelated, and manufactured front.

Since there won't be any repercussions, I just think it's worth pointing it out and calling it for what it is.

!i!

Point taken.

Quote from: IMLegend;361399Shit man, when are there ever repercussions for slander here?

The beatings.

Seanchai

Quote from: rezinzar;361295It is in that sense hardly worse than 3e. In that game, you have:

* 7 pseudo-Vancian (2 spont.; effectively only 3 spell lists with a few extra spells chucked in)

* 4 non-casters (mostly with variations of "I hit things")

Not exactly the stuff of world-building (for me.) If mechanics are taken to be that significant, that is.

Yeah, but everyone works off of the same resource management system in 4e.  In 3.5, a sorcerer's magic works differently than a wizard's and arcane magic works different from divine, and a monk's combat skills work differently than a fighter's, etc.  It's not to much the actual 'unique-ness' of an action, but how it feels to utilize the subsystems in play.  Unifying the subsystems into one big resource-management system that's the same for everyone makes classes feel less "different", IMO.  

You can still tell the difference between  how a wizard plays and a fighter based on their role, but the nuances of playing each class are less varied.  Rather than everyone having their own "mini game" to play, everyone is playing the same thing.

Quote from: RandallS;361387I have a description of a version of these rules I wrote up for S&W on my blog:
Hit Points and Body Points for Swords & Wizardry.

This description has 100% HP recovery on as night's sleep. To get the rules I used originally just substitute 75%. The reason for 75% was that I noticed if (in real life) I really exhaust myself completely, one night's sleep still leaves me less than 100% of my normal oomph the next day.

Cool, I'll check them out. Many thanks

Quote from: T. Foster;361390I think a lot of that's a matter of skewed perspectives, though -- people who are more focused on higher-level play, or on combat as the primary activity of the game and the only thing that matters. True, a lot of the 1st level spells would be pretty unimpressive if it's the only spell you know (light, detect magic, hold portal, etc.) but the "big two" -- sleep and charm person -- both qualify as big fucking deals from the perspective of the 0-level baseline -- the former can instantly drop a dozen or more men and there's nothing they can do about it, the latter can turn any person (including a king, or a high priest, or a wizard) who fails his saving throw into a virtual slave of the caster for at least a few days, possibly longer. Both of those are way more powerful than anything any other class can do at 1st level, and are downright miraculous from the perspective of what a typical 0-level person (i.e. 99% of the population of the game-world) can ever do.

Even a seemingly-innocuous utility spell like read languages is pretty miraculous in effect when compared to what a normal person without the spell can accomplish -- it allows the caster to read and understand any writing in any language, which isn't going to kill anybody, but is still a pretty big deal (and, in fact, in my play experience this seems to be one of the most commonly nerfed spells, when the GM has some code or enigma he wants the players to have to puzzle out or be mystified by and not be able to short-circuit by casting a "lowly" 1st level spell).

Hum, interesting. But it also could be argued that, as an important part of the game happens into the dungeon that argument you use is quite moot: there are few 0 level commoners to be impressed in a dungeon.

Quote from: StormBringer;361396I guess between yourself and WinkingBishop, I have a popular board game to start working on.  

Oh yeah.

Quote from: Peregrin;361417You can still tell the difference between  how a wizard plays and a fighter based on their role, but the nuances of playing each class are less varied.  Rather than everyone having their own "mini game" to play, everyone is playing the same thing.

Which, IMO, is a very good thing.

Pretty much every edition since OD&D has made a point to cut out "wacky flavor rules" in favor of "more standardized rules".  It makes the game easier to design and play.

I won't say I or my group get the same amount of flavor from the books that we used to.  We certainly don't.  And the wizard favoring PC may love the new at-will powers and being less weak, but laments the loss of the variety of spells of yore and getting to be much more powerful than everyone else.

I will say that we still get the same flavor in play.  In fact, changing to 4e has really improved a lot of things:
* The books are the easiest of any edition to use as an actual rulebook for reference.
* The rules are thin and concise enough that everyone understands the rules and there are rarely any rules questions and pretty much never a rules argument.  Which is in sharp contrast to attempts to play 2e and 3e with the same basic group, which led to non-stop arguments over rules.
* Combat is far more interesting in play than in past editions, which tended to just be drawn-out "I roll to hit" affairs (but yes, does tend to be overly long - they should have reduced HPs about 30% or so).

Quote from: RandallS;361384Power sources aren't in any other edition of D&D that I'm aware of, so it would be hard to say.

Power sources aren't codified as a game concept before 4E, but the game has it written all over it. If you do a text search on "divine power" (calling down_, drawing on_, ...) on the cleric and paladin class write-ups in the 3E PHBs, you'll see it. What's really new is primal power, but even that got rationalized by recourse to the split in faith among the inhabitants of T1's village of Homlet: divine (St Cuthbert) vs primal (old druidic).

Quote from: Imperator;361418Hum, interesting. But it also could be argued that, as an important part of the game happens into the dungeon that argument you use is quite moot: there are few 0 level commoners to be impressed in a dungeon.

Well, there are probably some bandits or berserkers down there, and the party has likely brought along some men-at-arms or torch-bearers, plus the low-end humanoids (kobolds and goblins) are functionally the same as 0-level humans. Plus, it helps the players learn to respect those spells when they're used against them -- a single sleep spell against a party of 1st or 2nd level characters is an almost guaranteed TPK (at least until AD&D introduced the rule that elves are 90% immune), and a charm person against the party's best fighter isn't much better (especially since you presumably want to avoid killing him but he has no problem killing you, so you're trying to immobilize or KO him while he's stabbing you in the face .

Quote from: Seanchai;361366I want to play OD&D or preferably AD&D again some time to compare and contrast. Just an adventure. And using all the rules.

One of the members of my group keeps commenting on the length of our fights. He's an AD&D fan. I don't disagree that they're longer than those in previous editions - I'm thinking, however, that they're more satisfying.

I'd be curious to see what my own and other folks in my group would think of OD&D and AD&D after having played 3e and 4e.

Seanchai

Oh sure.  4e fights are definitely more satisfying -- moreso than 3.x IMO.  But the thing is, the dungeon was the focus of old play, so having satisfying combat minutiae wasn't as necessary since the entire dungeon was the focus of play, rather than set-piece battles in an otherwise (relatively) static environment.

Quote from: T. Foster;361397But Chainmail also allows wizards to cast either a fireball or a lightning bolt every single round. D&D magic-users obviously don't have this ability, so the only way to reconcile the sources is to assume that all wizards in Chainmail must have a wand of the appropriate type.

ok, but what if we don't assume the wands, what if that were the concept all along?

Quote from: Ian Absentia;361410I know, and, frankly, I'm not expecting any.  But it is worth pointing out the difference between spouting spurious shit about people that doesn't ultimately matter, and accusing someone of essentially the only bannable offense here.  CavScout rode this same rail for months, and its not uncharacteristic of AM's argument style -- distract from someone's argument by forcing them to defend themselves on an unrelated, and manufactured front.

Since there won't be any repercussions, I just think it's worth pointing it out and calling it for what it is.

!i!

A new user registers, posts two posts in one discussion, directly related to the most controversial subject we ever have here, that seemingly contradict each other. First post is a simple anti-4E troll, similar to anything any of you regular nitwits could come up with.  The second one is more advanced, sort of a false flag "Anyone who doesn't like 4e is brain damaged". Here he proves that he's been around for a while (referencing the famous Ron Edwards brain damage quote and then falsely tying it to some kind of Pro 4E comment).

Ironically, who leaps out of the woodwork to defend the guy? The other 4E haters.

It was probably IP-masked, but it's definitely a sock puppet account. Are you guys like..in on it? All I ever said was "ignore him" and you are all going "SLANDERRRRR!"

Quote from: Ian Absentia;361410Since there won't be any repercussions, I just think it's worth pointing it out and calling it for what it is.

!i!

Each of us should be allowed to defend themselves against false accusations, especially when they are posted by nutbags solely to stop conversation.

Quote from: jgants;361424* Combat is far more interesting in play than in past editions, which tended to just be drawn-out "I roll to hit" affairs (but yes, does tend to be overly long - they should have reduced HPs about 30% or so).

I don't have a huge issue with your other points, and not even a huge one on this, but I will say that I think this is more an artifact of using miniatures rather than the system itself. I ran a one-shot 3.5 game using a bunch of minis and dungeon tiles that I got on eBay about a month ago and the combat was night-and-day different than "freeform" or verbalized combat. When using miniatures, combat moved much smoother IMO because there were no questions about who was where, what could hit who, can I see it, etc. I'm probably going to use minis as much as possible now that I've invested in them, but still likely to use 3.5 or eventually Pathfinder. I haven't played 4e enough to really comment on the other issues - EXCEPT - to say that the 4e books are really REALLY handsome and I enjoyed reading them.

Of course, if you aren't using miniatures in your 4e, then bill me for the last 30 seconds of your time.

Of course of course - if you aren't using miniatures, you aren't plaing 4e, are ya?