Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)

The weird gamification of 4e magic items is still a sore spot for me, since I was used to the really interesting weird magic stuff from AD&D that got watered down somewhat in 3e but was still head and shoulders above the garbage "you get +1 to thing and a mediocre daily power" that they did in 4e. As far as monster HP goes, they got modified after release to tweak down HP and tweak up their attacks to make them less of a slog to fight while still being appropriate challenge for their level. I very highly recommend applying those modifiers to any monster that hasn't already been revamped by the Essentials monster books and later Monster Manuals.
 
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robobobo said:
The weird gamification of 4e magic items is still a sore spot for me, since I was used to the really interesting weird magic stuff from AD&D that got watered down somewhat in 3e but was still head and shoulders above the garbage "you get +1 to thing and a mediocre daily power" that they did in 4e. As far as monster HP goes, they got modified after release to tweak down HP and tweak up their attacks to make them less of a slog to fight while still being appropriate challenge for their level. I very highly recommend applying those modifiers to any monster that hasn't already been revamped by the Essentials monster books and later Monster Manuals.
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Gauntlets of ogre power is the reason why my friends only layed a one shot in 4e lol.
we had a 3 year campaign in ad&d. it was great but we had to play it from roll20, and it sucked so we tranferred it to a pf game in foundry. not the worst thing i did in my life but damn...
The Ugly One said:
There are fun ideas in there, but all monster HPs need to be reduced by at least 1/2.
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ehh, hp's might seem much but i runned a campaign and played in 2 of them. yes it is not 5e but unless you are playing 20+, the combat was not as slow as people complained about. especially in paragon when all have 4 encounter powers, it is easier. 1 encounter power per turn+ 1 daily is enough per encounter. it is that systemized, and it is how you should play 10+ levels.the longest combat i had was the one i dm'ed. it was a deadly encounter(no solo monster, but many standart, 2 elites and a decent amont of minions.) and it was 10 turns. no other enocunter came close to that. normlly it took 4 to 6.
 
The Ugly One said:
There are fun ideas in there, but all monster HPs need to be reduced by at least 1/2.
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Supposedly they fixed that in Monster Manual 3 by changing the maths for HP.

Though that goes back to what others said. They listened to player feedback, they tried to nickle and dime players with yearly updates.

Again, never played it, never read it. But from the stuff I'm learning about they did at least care. Though that could be nostalgia from biased people. More and more 5e feels like something WotC stumbled into. There were good intentions initially, but so much of 5e content, especially late on, feels like low effort pandering. 4e? They were still releasing bangers even late on. Supposedly the last campaign setting had no mechanics because there was a new edition in the works and they didn't want the DMs buying a book that would be obsolete in a few months, so it's all fluff and system neutral content.
 
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The Ugly One said:
There are fun ideas in there, but all monster HPs need to be reduced by at least 1/2.
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-3hp depending who you ask

Red Dragon said:
I heard they butchered Dragonlance more than the 'Dragons of a New Age' trilogy, is that true? I never played/DM'd in Krynn, but I find the setting interesting.
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iirc the novels already did that by making raistlin even more of a "tragic" edgelord, but the details elude me atm
 
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Judge Dredd said:
Supposedly they fixed that in Monster Manual 3 by changing the maths for HP.
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I never got MM3. I only had MM1 and MM2, and my fix was to halve monster HP and double their damage, as well as giving everyone that weapon feat for free that gives you +1/+2/+3 to hit at different tiers. This ended up serving to fix the game well enough to keep it playable.

Judge Dredd said:
Again, never played it, never read it. But from the stuff I'm learning about they did at least care.
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It was obvious the people who actually worked on 4e were trying to deliver a good product. There was some really good stuff in that edition. It didn't feel at all like D&D, not really, but it was clever and fun. Open Grave: Secrets of the Undead is one of my all-time favorite D&D supplements. PHB2 was full of good races and classes. The Warden and Avenger classes were really good, and I always liked the 4e Fighter. The Eberron books are really good. However, the published adventures were generally crap, although I hear the later ones were good.

Judge Dredd said:
More and more 5e feels like something WotC stumbled into. There were good intentions initially, but so much of 5e content, especially late on, feels like low effort pandering.
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The rise and fall of 5e is a good example of "personnel is policy" and "don't ever hire homosexuals." Mike Mearls was not a particularly good rules designer, as most of his ideas during 5e's development ended up getting shitcanned or becoming optional rules that nobody liked. His critics tend to focus on that. And I agree, he was and is a bad "engineer." But lots of failed products that nobody wants are made by brilliant engineers.

What Mearls did that hasn't really been done with D&D for a very long time, or RPGs in general, is care more about what players enjoyed than what he, personally, liked to play, to the point there are things in 5e that are the diametric opposite of his personal preferences because he was that disciplined about paying attention to players. A good example is the most popular D&D class, the Champion Fighter, exists entirely because Mearls let player feedback override his personal preferences. A great team lead isn't one with brilliant ideas, it's one who's willing to shelve ideas he thinks are brilliant that the market is clearly going to reject.

Mearls built 5e around answering questions like:
  • Why did people start playing D&D?
  • Why did people quit playing D&D?
  • Why did many people keep playing AD&D or BECMI after 3rd edition came out?
  • What puts people off trying D&D at all?
A lot of people shit on him because they think a "good designer" shouldn't need to ask those questions, but those people have never worked on a team trying to create a successful product. The reality is very few people can pursue questions like that in a disciplined way to overcome their personal biases, so most products are just, "This is the lead designer's personal vision, and if you don't like it, get fucked." See everything Monte Cook has ever done for details.

Anyway, what happened to 5e is that Jeremy Crawford, who is a pretty competent rules guy, also is a flaming homosexual. And like all homosexuals, he ultimately wants to make everything he does a vehicle for his ass sex fetish and the politics connected to it. He led the charge to turn WotC woke, eventually sidelining or firing people who cared more about what players wanted than what dangerhairs on Twitter wanted. That leads us to the current era, where the core rules are still mostly fine, but everything has just gotten gayer and more retarded, especially the adventure content, because Jeremy Crawford is a woke faggot who loves the taste of other men's dicks.
 
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The Ugly One said:
The Warden and Avenger classes were really good, and I always liked the 4e Fighter. The Eberron books are really good. However, the published adventures were generally crap, although I hear the later ones were good.
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Also 4e Fighter is rediculous good. Out of the box they can completely control an area.
Move away? Attack of opportunity.
Tried to disengage (Shifting in 4e)? Fuck you, attack of opportunity, and your move action is canceled; This fight isn't over until I say its over.

The adventures I find are very good... for 4e adventures. Again, there's a lot of "You show up at the fight" that goes on.
Harkenwold is great, Keep on the Shadowfell is good. Madness at Gardmore Abbey is great - there's a little bit of a weakness in making a conflict-adverse party continue to engage with the area.

And the assembly is great. Everything fits on a max two-page spread with everything you need to run the adventure. Its super easy to take encounters from a module and put them into whatever you want.

The worst thing about 4e was the cashgrab, and with the availability of PERFECTLY LEGAL PDFS that's no longer an issue.
 
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Reavers of Harkenhold is a good adventure to play. I would even say it is the best starting adventure for first time playing in 4e.
Aside from essential classes, i like all aedi classes to some degree. Some i find creative(monk os the best monk) some are meh(weabu swordmage and artificer) some saw no support(seeker, runepriest) but find them all kino.
Forgotten realms books were horrible, yet better than 5e ones.
H1 2 3 are not good because they were still holding bias towards 3e style adventures. H1 was written by Bruce Cordell and i like the guy. But 4e does not love3e style games. The encounter number/level etc is very tight.
 
There are a few actual good 4e published adventures out there that the fans typically recommend in the following order as they flow reasonably well level-wise for a party:

The Slaying Stone (1st)
Reavers of Harkenwold (DM's Kit, 2nd-3rd)
Cairn of the Winter King (Monster Vault, 4th)
Orcs of Stonefang Pass (5th)
Madness at Gardmore Abbey (6th-11th)

I DMed my friends through those for a few years and have few complaints. Gardmore Abbey however is a little challenging because there is a mcguffin involved that requires the party really treasure hunt around for lots of pieces, and my players just sort of noped out on the artifact rather than keep going for several more sessions searching. So be aware that you might have to tweak things a bit as the writer seems to be convinced that the party will be automatically motivated to jump through a whole lot of hoops that the players might not be so keen for.
 
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The core mechanics he devised are all pretty good. Some of his attempt to rules-lawyer his own rules via a very autistic approach to RAW (IIRC, Magic Missile was intended to be three dice, but he decided the way it was written said one die) has resulted in very weird rulings. I started ignoring Sage Advice once he said he tried to ignore what his own intent was in order to be hyper-literal.
 
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I remember being in love with the Eberron material for 4E. Also, the DM book is great - it really teaches you how to DM not only 4E but TTRPGs in general. It was clear a lot of passion was going on while making 4E material.

Too bad the hyper focus in combat made me stay away from playing it. It's really hard to convince people to try it nowadays.
 
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Red Dragon said:
I remember being in love with the Eberron material for 4E. Also, the DM book is great - it really teaches you how to DM not only 4E but TTRPGs in general. It was clear a lot of passion was going on while making 4E material.

Too bad the hyper focus in combat made me stay away from playing it. It's really hard to convince people to try it nowadays.
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I have found the best way to get people to try 4e is to run a starter adventure - the 4e Redbox is unironically great as a 4e intro as it has a little bit of everything - with Pregens and printed power cards. Not having to build characters reduces the mental effort of players making them more likely to participate and lets the toe-dip focus solely on play.
The printed power cards let them see what their shit is straight away and the at-will/encounter/daily is pretty easy to grok once they're shown it.

strawberry15 said:
Do not forget Jeremy "True Sight allows you to see invisibility but does not let you negate the condition" Crawford.
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Eh, I can kinda dig it. "You know where the invisible thing is to within 5ft, but still take the -5 to hit"
 
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strawberry15 said:
Do not forget Jeremy "True Sight allows you to see invisibility but does not let you negate the condition" Crawford.
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I spent a few hours reading through JCraws twitter shit-takes after I had a player at my table try to rules lawyer me with one of his rulings. I also listened to a few of his sit downs where him and his other butt-buddies would come up with said rulings. And my biggest problem with him is his rulings always fall on the side of "what's most fun" which on its face sounds great.

The only problem is he will make some of these rulings completely off the cuff, without regard to how they interact with other rulings, or just be like "Lol fun!" Not realizing every retard is going to take these as concrete laws and loopholes to do the dumbest shit imaginable.

It's been a few years now since I read through them, but I just remember being incredibly pissed that to this day everyone treats him like this sage-like game design philosopher.
 
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