I have alot of 2nd edition material, and I was curious as to what the changes are to the 4th edition and how much material would be useful if I was able to get the group to try it out. I figure the new edition has been out long enough that folks here may have given it a try. Thanks.
Quote from: oggsmash;1097436I have alot of 2nd edition material, and I was curious as to what the changes are to the 4th edition and how much material would be useful if I was able to get the group to try it out. I figure the new edition has been out long enough that folks here may have given it a try. Thanks.
I bought it, but I have to confess that I've only flipped through it a little and it's been on my shelf for a few months.
Some of the biggest differences are that the career system has changed. You now have four tiers within a career, so the Wizard career starts with Apprentice Wizard, then Journeyman Wizard, then Master Wizard, and finally Wizard Lord. At each you unlock new things you can buy, and some can only be bought in certain tiers (but you can step back, for example going back to your roots and returning to Apprentice to pick up a talent you'd skipped or underdeveloped). Also, you can switch careers, and you might even be able to skip to a higher tier in your new career if you already have the skills and talents associated with the new career.
Also, character creation is still random but you can override the randomness if you choose. If you do so, you lose out on some bonus XP that are awarded with each surrender to randomness. Still, if you really want to play an elf, you're almost certain to have to override the randomness because the chances of rolling an elf are very small.
Skills are now advanced 1% at a time with low but escalating (high levels of skills cost more to improve than low levels) costs, and some talents can be purchased multiple times (like Hardy can be purchased a number of times up to Toughness Bonus). That part on Talent ranks is where you might "go back" to advance a talent after the relevant Characteristic bonus rises. Also, buying characteristics and skills outside of your career costs more but is possible, but I don't think you can buy talents outside of your career.
In play there are some differences in success levels, particularly for combat, but as I've mostly skimmed the character creation section and not yet played, I leave that for others to detail.
Check out the Winds of Chaos forums. You can find pretty much everything regarding 4e and it's changes there.
Overall, I do not like it. There is a ton of talents and many are combat maneuvers and some counteract other combat talents and...
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Combat is more complex then 2e, less dark and grim, 2e art is better, elves and dwarves are too powerful out of the gate, I preferred 2e magic, too much minutiae, too much time to make up non - prewritten games. There's more but overall not for me.
On a somewhat related note, when and why did Strike to Stun kick the bucket? I liked that place.
Maybe some answers here for you ~ http://forum.strike-to-stun.net/viewtopic.php?p=83102#83102
I can't remember the exact date but if was a few months back.
Well, crap!
Quote from: HellHound;1097637Check out the Winds of Chaos forums. You can find pretty much everything regarding 4e and it's changes there.
Overall, I do not like it. There is a ton of talents and many are combat maneuvers and some counteract other combat talents and...
[ATTACH=CONFIG]3661[/ATTACH]
Combat is more complex then 2e, less dark and grim, 2e art is better, elves and dwarves are too powerful out of the gate, I preferred 2e magic, too much minutiae, too much time to make up non - prewritten games. There's more but overall not for me.
Have you played both? It sounds like you certainly played 2nd ( I more or less collected it, never got to play it, but game group is opening up a good deal) so I was curious if you have had a chance to play both to compare (given if you played alot of 2nd I am sure you can tell if the new things were improvements or just stuff a new publisher tacked on to be "different". I have leafed through the book, but it did not grab me looking at the combat section when I saw all sorts of mentions of status effects or some such. Thanks for your response so far though, it was the vibe I got leafing through the 4th edition, but I have learned over the years some things play different than they read (as in faster/better).
How big are the differences from the original WHFRPG from the FFG one? From what I have heard it is a totally new system?
Quote from: oggsmash;1097671Have you played both?
I've played and ran 2e quite a bit but only played a few sessions of 4e.
I guess one complaint about 2e is that players can miss a lot and my understanding was that 4e tried to correct some of that. IMO, however it just ended up causing new issues by adding in too much minutiae.
But I don't want to get into all of that here, just go to Winds of Chaos and you'll see. Some like it some don't and I'm happy for people if they do like it. I like learning new games but this version is not for me. I remember some guy jumping out a window and falling 30 ft and taking an unbelievable amount of damage. To me it wasn't well thought out or perhaps rushed or maybe the younger generation of gamers like different games then me?
No game is perfect and 2e isn't either but it's as combat crunchy as I want to get and wasn't so talent dependant. I think the art is too concerned with political correctness and worrying about offending cultures by exclusion and heaven forbid people actually miss…