This is just a little poll asking you to tell us your group's stance on 4th edition D&D.

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Richard M.
Grimfang
"Whisper"
Xaeraes

The other sites I'm on have both but the ones I'm comfrotable with are still the 3.5 groups,  I'm willing to play almost anything but I am more at home in the old system.  Maybe because I already have the books and a certain comfort level with the system.  

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) Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time. I think I've forgotten this before.

My group has been fired up about 4.0 for a while now. Not sure why, but there it is.

We're coming up on our 3rd campaign.

We started with a homebrew thing based loosely out of the DMG. Party consisted of a Dragonborn Warlord, Dragonborn Cleric, Human Wizard, Halfling Thief, with occasional players of a Dragonborn Fighter and a Dwarven Fighter. Started at first ran to 4th. We learned that Saves are very important. Ongoing Damage can drop you before you get your save on your turn, so powers that grant saves are HUGE. Also, while Warlords can heal, they can't heal like Clerics can. We were feeling that recommended treasure is light. We stopped at a cliff hanger to give another guy a chance to DM.

Second campaign was the first Published module "Keep on the Shadowfell". Party this time through was Halfling Rogue 2.0, Tiefling Warlord, Human Wizard, Dragonborn Paladin, Human Ranger. (Ken never showed) We ran from first to fourth. Treasure again seemed a little light, and this advture at least was heavily stilted to Clerics or Fighters. Nothing at all for wizards. We learned that having a devoted healer is vital to a solid game. We also found that Cross Class feats are not bad. Basically it's a Skill training Feat with a free Encounter or Daily power. We lost the final battle, out tacticed and down a player, but of the 5 players, 4 were multiclass at this point. (Wizard/Cleric, Paladin/Ranger, Ranger/Thief. Thief/Warlock, and Stubborn Warlord)

Now we're geering up for the Thunderspire Labyrinth, the suviving Ranger and Thief 2.0 are comming back, The other three dead charcters are being replaced with Human Wizard 2.0, Dwarven Cleric, Dwarven Fighter. We've desided that magic items were light in the published module. It says you should have about 3 items, 1 level +, 1 level, 1 level -, and level - in gold. This would mean 15 magical weapons in the module, and we only had 12, after the DM upped the treasures. We start Thunderspoce this weekend, so I'll update next week on how we're doing.

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I liked the prefix "stubborn" for the warlord. ;)   

Multiclass definitely rocks, its the equivelent of the old prestige class system in some ways, letting you cherry pick a bit while still keeping your original class.  The spellphage class in the FR player's guide I think is a good hint of where it will eventually go, enabling classes to exist that don't deserve their own full class listing just a small part. 

Having said that, while its really cool and always makes your character "better", it doesn't always make your character better at whatever you're trying to do.  The wizard I play I couldn't justify taking a multiclass feat because it wouldn't help me do what I do, which is pretty traditional wizard type activities.  We do have several multiclass characters in the party though, and both a cleric and a paladin, so we don't normally have any issue with healing, the only multiclass from the PHB that would probably help the party for me.  Instead I took action surge and whatever the feat is that gives the bonus to fire and radiant effects, both of which help me do wizard stuff.

What did you think of Keep on the Shadowfell?  I found it pretty disappointing myself, like it was kind of shallow, though I understand its supposed to introduce players and DMs to the game, I thought there could be more. 

Let us know how Thunderspire goes!

 

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Richard M.
Grimfang
"Whisper"
Xaeraes

Bounty, the Level+1, Level+0 and Level-1 standard for magic items is only for creating new characters above 1st level.  The standard "treasure parcel" recommended by the DMG has items of Level +1,+2,+3 and +4 per level (not per PC) for a group of 5 PCs (which you have).  So for the three levels covered by the modules, that's 3 x 4, or 12 items.  Looks like it's right on the money.  Just so you know.

We tried playing 4e briefly, but one guy got really bent out of shape by a combination of poor choices and bad rolls and "game over simulation", eventually suiciding his character out of frustration by killing the mayor of Winterhaven. (Curiously I've heard that he's since taken to running a couple of games for other groups, despite the fact that he supposedly hated the system so much *shrug*).  Most of the group liked the game, though we all agreed that most of its appeal was tactical.  I was personally annoyed by the lack of proper attention given in the rules to Skill Challanges, and the rest of the group seemed annoyed that there were Skill Challenges at all.  I'm hoping that the DMG2 will clear things up in that regard, perhaps reprinting the Skill Challenge rules with the included errata as well.  We're planning on running a Paragon adventure sometime in the future,though, level 13 or so, to get a feel for Paragon play.  And then someday we'll give Epic a go as well.

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"If you fudge dice rolls, your system is failing you!" -Sons of Kryos

"I genuinely think that some people measure their free will by reading how unhappy their GM is." - TonyLB

I'm blessed with a group that likes to try out different games. So while I'm playing in a 3.5 World's Largest Dungeon group, and running a 3.5 campaign online, I'm also running 4th edition tuesday nights. I have a monthly World of Darkness game that's currently on hiatus, and tuesday nights just switched over to my 4th edition D&D from a 2nd edition Exalted game. This weekend, I'll be running a one-shot Heroes Unlimited session.

sadly I'm the only one in my small group of fellow players who had fun with 4e, the rest refuse to play it now. The general sentiment was that there wasnt enough range between the classes, which i found to be true too. While it makes the game easier to play, the whole power system just felt un-D&D to me

my group hasn't switched mainly because im too poor to buy 4.0 (at least not if i wanna buy some wii games). Also, i'm still a little skeptical of the lack of gnomes,half-orcs, bards, sorcerers, druids,monks, and barbarians and those healing surges seem illogical, captain.

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"DnD teaches us an important lesson. Always loot the corpses of your dead enemies."

Thats one of my buge in the bonnet.  Everybody starts out as a super duper with seemingly little difference between them, sometimes a little imbalance is not a bad thing.  I miss the missing races and classes.  Of course I've always wanted to play a kender but nobody who has seen me play a Halfling rogue will let me near a Kender.  Heavy Sigh!

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) Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time. I think I've forgotten this before.

Well, all of those races and classes will be added eventually (if they haven't been already).

As for Healing Surges, they're only illogical if you think Hit Points are logical.  I mean, it's not like every single point of damage that you take from an opponent results in a cut or bruise.  If nothing else, your clothes would be shredded after the first fight.  Hit Points are an abstraction and not tied strongly to the fiction, and as such, Healing Surges make just as much sense.  Like anything, it might sound odd, or take some getting used to, but once you've played a few games, it becomes second nature and nobody even thinks about it (generally) anymore than they worry about a cleric restoring "psychic" damage with cure-light-wounds spell.

As for all characters starting out with seemingly little difference between them, the operative word there is "seemingly".  In play, the different classes play pretty differently.  Amongst the individual classes, the builds make the main difference.  Within the same build, the difference will be one of skills and personality, but the same could be said of two 3.5 edition "chain trippers".

As for the characters starting out as kind of "uber", there's some truth to that, and then there's not.  Yes, everybody can do "cool", powerful things.  Except that they're not that powerful.  If the Fighter has to take two or three (successful) swings to take down a lone kobold, is he really all that "super-duper"?  By the book (MM p 162), a squad of five plain old human guards and bandits would prove to be a pretty challenging encounter for a 1st level party of five, especially mid-way through a session.  Still, they're not bumbling incompetents, and some people don't like that, but I think most people who really examine the game in play will find many of their concerns to be, if not unfounded, at least very minor.

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"If you fudge dice rolls, your system is failing you!" -Sons of Kryos

"I genuinely think that some people measure their free will by reading how unhappy their GM is." - TonyLB

you make good points. if i had enough money I would buy 4e, though buying the books which convert the old classes to new form would probably wipe out all my saved up money. I might just wait for 4.5.

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"DnD teaches us an important lesson. Always loot the corpses of your dead enemies."

I doubt there will ever be a 4.5 (or maybe it's already here, as the latests "deluxe" editions contain the extensive skill challenge and DC revisions), but yes, money is obviously the bottom line.  Perhaps you can hope for it as a gift, or you and your friends might pool your money to buy a set of core books.  Of course, if you're having fun with 3.5 or any other RPG, then there's no rush to get 4e.

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"If you fudge dice rolls, your system is failing you!" -Sons of Kryos

"I genuinely think that some people measure their free will by reading how unhappy their GM is." - TonyLB

My group tryed one game of 4th, we hated it and went back to 3.5

Weird that they hated it, did they go into the game already wanting to dislike it? 

The roleplaying should be the same in either game, the only difference I'd think is that the combat should be more fun in 4e.  I'm running a tabletop 3.5 game on Saturdays and every time one of the players gets taken out by some sort of save or die effect I mentally groan inside.  The "we've had one combat, lets try and find a place to rest" I've seen in years of 3.5 drives me nuts too.  How about the fact that race is mostly unimportant by level 10?  The only times race comes into place is when I specifically push it as the DM.  More and more I get bothered by the way 3.5 has most people standing still as long as possible.  People say 4e is WoW like, but 3.5 is more WoW like if you go over the battles.  People move forward, then are discouraged from moving or they'll lose their full round attacks so everyone stands still, just like WoW. and X number of teleports per day? Try unlimited in 4e, I like the fact that casters can cast their most interesting spells as often as they have components for them.  No "we would have prepared the noncombat spells, but they're useless 95% of the time so we focused on combat spells", nope, which means as DM I can more easily rely on players having the rituals and being able to use them. 

Granted, I don't care about character/race options (from my perspective there are no missing options in 4e, just options that haven't been released yet), give out my books as fast nearly as I buy them so don't care about buying new ones, and don't believe in using obfuscated rules as a sinister way of implimenting elitism at the gaming table so don't mind the fact that while the rules are just as complex, now they're distributed out so everyone can easily absorb the bite-sized nuggest of game rules, not just the DM or the intellectual elite. 

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Richard M.
Grimfang
"Whisper"
Xaeraes

We were actoly realy looking forward to 4e the fromat was to focused on combat and Min maxing for are tastes