Will there ever be a D&D 4th edition cRPG?

Yes, there was a firestorm with 3E as well.

But, I've liked each iteration more than the last - at first glance - UNTIL 4E.

So, I don't really care what others think - as I'm the one making the decision for myself ;)
 
Here's one D&D -> AD&D -> AD&D 2 ed. -> D&D3 -> D&D3.5 -> D&D3 player who didn't complain about D&D3. I did think D&D3.5 was at best a step sideways. In fact I rolled back to D&D3 when starting my latest kung-fu-China themed campaign, but that was because Oriental Adventures was never updated to 3.5, and I thought it simpler just to maintain consistency by sticking to 3.0.

And yeah, from my POV D&D 4 sucks, precisely because of the more rigid ruleset, specifically the character development. It's much more difficult to adapt for, say, a culturally different setting or a low-magic or hidden-magic setting: a warlord is a warlord is a warlord, pyrotechnics and all, and there's just not a whole lot left if you put restrictions on those powers.

The only real problem I've had with D&D 3 is that starting characters are way underpowered, but that's easy to solve just by a "first chapter" that lets the players get to level 4 or so without getting them killed. I did this by making my first chapter almost completely combat-free; it involved exorcising some ghosts by resolving an ancient murder mystery and bringing the (surviving) perpetrator to justice. It took several sessions to go through, served as a great way to introduce the setting and the important characters in it, and my players liked it a lot.

I also didn't like that many if not most of the powers assumed that you were playing with figurines on a tabletop — for example, the Warlord powers that let you move either your side or the opposing side pieces some squares on the map. I play pen-and-paper D&D, not tabletop-figurine D&D, and it's just not possible to play pen-and-paper D&D4.

As a pure game system, D&D4 clearly better structured, more coherent, more balanced, and easier to understand than D&D3. I just don't see the point of playing that kind of game in PnP, when there are so many computer games that let you do that so much better and in greater depth.

As an aside, as systems go, my all-time PnP favorite is Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu. IMO it strikes a perfect balance between fluidity and complexity — it's simple enough to play fast, yet rich enough to let you resolve just about any game situation fairly, as well as give scope for character development. I just don't want to play CoC all the time.
 
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And then there are no Druids. At least in the core 3. Or Gnomes. How am I supposed to load catapults with no Gnomes to put in the baskets?

Players Handbook 2 IIRC. Both definently exists anyway, even if it doesn't happen to be in PH2.

The Powers system is interesting, but at a glance it appears that the difference between a Mage and a Fighter is in thematics and range; Fighter "Powers" look more like spells geared towards a front-line magi, than abilities a Fighter would pick up.

That, to me, sounds more like a swordmage than a fighter. ;) In purely technical game terms it is the same thing (with the exeption of what kind of damage you do and that spells have a tendency to use fixed dice damage rather than using your weapon damage), but if you look at the descriptions of the powers (and the likes) it isn't.

This is, of course, without playtesting it. So there could be some differences that a glance wouldn't tell. At a glance, however, I see nowhere that it is significantly different playing a Mage from a Fighter, and that is somewhat insane.

The difference is that they have different roles, and therefore they are good for different things. A fighter is supposed to stand in the front line and take damage while the mage is supposed to stand behind him and throw AOE spells.

I can't really say how much the difference has changed since earlier iterations though, because I've only really played the computer games. I do however think that mages don't have the potential to become as powerful as they could become in earlier iterations (the system is too well balanced) for better or for worse. Due to the new role system everybody usually have one aspect that they're good at, one that they're decent at and they can't really do anything else. This works when it comes to group fights, but left on your own you're pretty useless because you can only do one fourth of what you have to do good, one fourth decent and you can't do half of it.

As for what PJ said, I think that he's right. And I also think that those problems he's talking about is kind of inherent in cRPG's anyway which is why I think D&D4E would work well in a cRPG.

Besides that my favorite system so far is White Wolf. That's a system that's easy to grasp yet translates well to the real world. It also has far more going to it than combat (if you compare it to D&D you can really see the difference in focus between the systems) and it's quite easy to make a useful characer out of most concepts.

Übereil
 
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As a sidenote, Pathfinder (being distriibuted by Ulisses here, who are also the distributors of TDE here) appears to have become quite an success here - or even a huge success.

I can't really say, because I know too little about it, but in the forum of Ulisses there are quite a lot of people who like it.
 
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I've heard mixed reviews of Pathfinder; mostly some people feel it's "broken". Since I haven't read any of it, I can't comment on that. Since I have the original 3.5E books, I have no real need for it, though I'll still consider picking it up.

Druid should have been in the Core books. Not a addon. Gnomes are another thing; I was joking somewhat, since I have little use for DnD Gnomes except as ammo for a catapult. I think the same for Kender.

Prime, I think you'd be a DM I'd like to play with, given your description of that campaign. I might enjoy the occasional goofy campaign with Gnome-a-pults and other insane things, but I'd prefer a less gimmicky, less combat-oriented campaign.

The problem is, the differences in how a Mage vs a Fighter is used is the problem. Both of them, you use daily or encounter powers, or at will powers. The main difference is a mage has lost the versatility of the 3.x and older mages, who could take feats, multiclass, and take levels in a PrC to make them viable in the front line. Or cast Tenser's Transformation, and be more viable in the front line.

Now it seems that there is very little a player can do to alter a build significantly. One of the best things about 3.x was that you basically could build a character around a concept. While it was far from perfect (Vanican spell casting), it was fairly open. And I find 4E more obtuse than 3.5E by far. And I had no problems with THAC0.
 
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I didn't mind THAC0 either. What I did mind was the proliferation of different systems for doing different things and especially the rock-stupid character level system with the geometrically rising XP limits that were different for each class, never mind dual- or multi-classing. In retrospect, I'm kinda amazed we managed to hobble along with it until the books almost fell to bits. My old PHB and DMG are held together by packing tape, no lie. (It's a shame really that I lost most of my old First Edition rulebooks -- I think I left them at my parents' house when I moved out about twenty years ago, and then they went and sold the house.)

There's an opening in my campaign, but unless you're in the Helsinki area, this might be difficult to arrange. Feel free to use my source material, though. :)
 
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I thought Gnomes were a still "core" in 4e? Just not as a playable race, but as a monster? More reason to kill them, as a [3.5e] Paladin (and use them as ammo) :mwahaha:! About that, none-"lawful good" Paladins in 4e? Bah, sacrilege!

Also, from what little I know about 4e, wasn't the idea that additional playerbooks would also be concidered as "core" instead of supplements for 4e? Wouldn't that mean that Druids are a core class then? :eek:

And I didn't dislike THAC0 either, but compairing 2 positive numbers instead of always having to substract, is a bit easier. (Talking from a CRPG pov, never played AD&D as tabletop)
 
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Heh, I'd come by, but that's a bit of a drive for me. I don't even have a LCS anymore; the last one went under back in '98 or so. Amazon is basically my only means of getting most books.

Not sure on the core question. I've always considered the three core books; PHB, MM, and DMG, as the core books; and anything else as a supplement. 4E is just a change from the norm I guess. And a way to get more money, by spreading out stuff that should have been in 1 book into 3-4. I wonder if that's just the DMG/PHB/MM series, or if they're including everything as "core"?

THAC0 is about the only thing in AD&D that I could tolerate. I didn't say I thought it better. :p The insane multiclassing, level limits, and the horde of other stuff that was wrong with it I hated (and one of the chief reasons I don't care as much for the older AD&D based games, which followed them more religiously). I liked 3E because it did away with all of that.
 
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In 4E PHB comes in three parts (so far…). I'd at least consider PH2 part of the core books, because that book is full of "required" races and classes (mostly classes). Apart from Druid you get Sorcerer and Bard. In fact, all primal classes came in PH2 (making it kind of mandatory right there). I agree with you with that at least one of the primals (with druids being the most reasonable choice, not only because of it's concept but also because there's only one other controller in PH1) should have been in the main book.

And I've heard the best thing about old D&D was the insane ammounts of XP you needed to level up after a while… :p

Übereil
 
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And I've heard the best thing about old D&D was the insane ammounts of XP you needed to level up after a while… :p

The only thing that did was cause massive XP inflation, which had all kinds of extremely weird effects. For example, if XP is split evenly between the adventuring party (as recommended in the DMG), a level 1 adventurer joining a level 10 party would hit level 10 at the same time as the rest of the party hit level 11, and would hit level 11 when the others would be halfway to level 12. That's just stupid.

Personally, I'm pretty generous with XP, with a heavy emphasis on story awards. We play every other week minus holidays, giving maybe 20 sessions a year. If a campaign lasts a couple of years, that means that to make it to level 20, the characters would have to gain a level every three sessions or so.

I usually set things up so that everybody gains a level at least when every subplot gets resolved, and usually a bit more, with very rapid progress from level 1-4, slowing down progressively from there on out. I'm also pretty generous with skill bonuses from books, artifacts, or other cleverness, plus the occasional bonus feat.
 
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The old rules were incredibly poor in hindsight - but in terms of pure entertainment value, they were kinda fun.

3E is an excellent balance between silly fun and sensible rules. Sure, it could be improved in a myriad of ways - but nothing comes close to the flexible nature of this class system. Usually, alternate systems go "skill-based" for total freedom, which is either restrictive or completely out of whack in terms of balance.

Now, I'm not going to claim 3E 3.5 is balanced, but it works out ok all the same.

During my campaigns, combat is mostly "entertainment filler" anyway, and the challenge is about other things.

But character development is essential to me, and in this way it's pretty brilliant because it combines the flavor of classes, with the freedom of skill systems in a way I've not seen before.
 
The only thing that did was cause massive XP inflation, which had all kinds of extremely weird effects.

I believe this to be the reason why the amount of given xp is much higher in the English translations of the NLT. You know, Blade Of Destiny, Startrail, Shadows Over Riva.

Investigation showed that some small elements of the rules system were "adapted", perhaps to mee the standard U.S. RPG player, who is just used to (A)D&D. One result (of that adaptation) was that the amount of given xp was increased.

Usually, the amount of given xp is very, very small in "classic" TDE. This was somehow changed to some extend for the international version.

The results of these investigations can be read somewhere at "Crystal's DSA-Foren", in German language only, as far as I know. Apart from that, it's an excellent site with lots of information about the NLT.
 
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The old rules were incredibly poor in hindsight - but in terms of pure entertainment value, they were kinda fun.

The original AD&D rules were even more fun, in terms of entertainment value. Drunkenness tables? Check. Assassination tables? Check. Crypt Thing? Throat leech? Double-check.

I was a relatively new DM when I started with that, and I made the mistake of applying that particular table literally… for antagonists. I can tell you that the time one of my PC's failed a couple of rolls and got assassinated with a single hit from an unseen opponent was not one of the best moments in my campaign — especially since the party was at a level where raise dead was totally out of their reach. And that shortly after somebody failing a poison saving throw during a random encounter, causing, you guessed it, instant death.

I learned a lot about gamemastering from Paranoia, Star Wars, Call of Cthulhu, and the Al-Qadim setting. Paranoia taught me that cheating and lying are perfectly OK if the intention is to fuck with people's minds in an entertaining way, Star Wars taught me the concept of script immunity which I have since applied with great success to all my DM'ing, Call of Cthulhu taught me that it's possible to run a fun campaign even though the loot makes you go permanently insane just from looking at the pictures, and Al-Qadim taught me how to put tension into a campaign by offing NPC's.

3E is an excellent balance between silly fun and sensible rules. Sure, it could be improved in a myriad of ways - but nothing comes close to the flexible nature of this class system. Usually, alternate systems go "skill-based" for total freedom, which is either restrictive or completely out of whack in terms of balance.

Now, I'm not going to claim 3E 3.5 is balanced, but it works out ok all the same.

I agree, and would add that it's very easy to re-balance on the fly simply by handing out some bonus feats, spells, or skills, if it feels that something's going out of whack.

I've got a nice example of "emergent balancing" in my current campaign — by the numbers, one of the PC's is way, way more powerful than the others: she had incredible luck with her stats and did a pretty bang-up job of min-maxing with the rest. Trouble is, she's a slave girl belonging to another PC, and because of the social constraints she's only able to use her magical and combat abilities when there's nobody looking — everybody assumes she's just there to serve tea and… other things.

We had a pretty fun session where her master, a shi (kind of a Chinese samurai; this one is the younger son of a minor noble, and not quite as much into the duty-and-honor thing as his family expects him to be) got himself ambushed by some bandits. He would certainly have gotten captured (which was sort of how I'd planned it) if said slave girl hadn't first cast an Obscuring Mist and then surrepetitiously healed his bodyguards, and after running out of spells, taken up a heavy branch and started whacking the remaining bandits upside the head. She ended up saving the day, and nobody knew it. (Well, of course, my players know it, but the characters still think she's just a pretty plaything said knight likes to keep for company in his palanquin.)

During my campaigns, combat is mostly "entertainment filler" anyway, and the challenge is about other things.

But character development is essential to me, and in this way it's pretty brilliant because it combines the flavor of classes, with the freedom of skill systems in a way I've not seen before.

Yup, I agree on both counts.
 
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I actually really like the first few levels. Some people prefer to 'skip' over them. I find them fascinating. My level range and level of 'liking' is sort of like:
1-4: 80
5-8: 90
9-11: 100
12-16: 70
17-20: 50
20+: 25
(This is in D&D up to 3.5 levels, don't know if level ranges changed in 4th ed)
I.E. I hate 'epic' levels with a passion
 
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That's not that different from my curve. My only real problem with levels 1-3 is that serious combat is really out of the question, because characters can get killed with a single unlucky die roll. The wu jen in my party started out with 3 hit points. A critical hit from an ordinary arrow shot from an ordinary bow can do a maximum of 24 points damage. That's an instant kill, even with the "death's door" house rules, and since he won't have access to Protection from Arrows (since it's a 2nd level spell).

Random instant kills are no fun for anybody. Combat only becomes playable once the characters actually have enough survivability to be able to rescue each other, and to decide to run away if things start going badly.

My beef with epic levels is that they need an epic setting. I've run one campaign where that could have worked, and that was set in Planescape. There, even a 20+ level mortal is still a relative weakling compared to the heavy-duty Outsiders he mixes with, and there's gobs of fun material to work with. But that really doesn't work in most settings.
 
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I was a relatively new DM when I started with that, and I made the mistake of applying that particular table literally… for antagonists.

[snip]

Paranoia taught me that cheating and lying are perfectly OK if the intention is to fuck with people's minds in an entertaining way,

To part 1 : Yes, there are tables like that for TDE.

And GMs use them !

To part 2 : In the Ulisses forums (distributor of TDE) there is one topic that recurrs all of the time. It just pops up out from nowhere ... It is called "game master arbitrariness".

And the discussions about it are quite heated.

But I alo learn that styles of GMing exist which are totally different from one another.

Looting in TDE is usually done ithout a shrug, even, but officially one should be careful and even bury the dead ones, not only because they might become resurrected (kind of) by some sort f Black Mage or Necromancer, but also because the God Boron demands it to be done o. At least if you have a holy member of the Boron church, then he'll surely demand o do so. If he or she is a strict one, then he or she will even demand not to loot the enemies at all. Although no-one likes that, of course.

The Phex church, on the other hand, would have anything against looking at all, I guess. Only greed is greatly frowned upon by the members of th Phex church.
Because greed brings one nearer to the demon antagonist(s) of the god Phex himself.

Recently someone asked in the lisses forums if it was tolerable or what could be done against a party which not only looted enenies, but also skinned them, took the sjkin from them with the intention to sell it.

That was considered to be quite unnormal, and a behaviour even a "dark-themed" group shouldn't have, taking the skin from an enymy, that is.
But this is also a perfect example of greed, so much greed that this party should have come too near to the demon antagonist of Phex. In fact, they would soon step into the "first circle of damnation", I guess. A demon might soon appear and offer them a pact. Which would be the begin of their ends. (Unless a holy man manages to save their souls.)

But ... I think this behaviour is party also the result of current games like wow, and especially Action-RPGs, where loting is everything. Looting and fighting. Not only "I fight, therefore I play a role", but also "I loot, therefore I play a role".
 
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As a DM, I tend to be somewhat stingy with XP.

Reason?

I like to give a sensation of progress that's tangible and earned, because I believe it enhances the entertainment.

Like I said to my brother, when he used to complain about Gandalf in LOTR. He said he was disappointed in Tolkien's character, because he had SO much power and yet he never used it.

I said:

Well, think back on the sequence at the begninning of LOTR - where Bilbo grows very angry with Gandalf - and the wizard needs to display some of his power. If you remember the sequence, at least from the movies, it makes an incredibly powerful impression on the reader/viewer - because it's the first time we really see what kind of power he holds within, even in its subdued and almost subtle form.

If he had been running around casting fireballs left and right, that entire sequence would have been rather weak and impotent.

So, that's kinda my approach. I want a steady curve, and I want people to be ecstatic about their first level gain and the first +1 weapon they come across. Because I feel that's how you maximise the feeling of true progress.

But that's me.
 
I used to run my campaigns that way; in fact, the Al-Qadim one I mentioned lasted about five or six years, and the characters only made it to around level 8 or 10. However, especially with D&D3, that means that we'd be completely missing out on stuff like prestige classes, higher-level spells, and feats near the end of feat sequences, which are also quite interesting and entertaining IMO; in a way, I was only using half the game we were playing.

I've gradually drifted to being more generous with XP, feats, skills, and spells, while getting stingier with magic items and treasure (as well as being quite ready to destroy, drain, or otherwise wipe out items and treasure).
 
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I used to run my campaigns that way; in fact, the Al-Qadim one I mentioned lasted about five or six years, and the characters only made it to around level 8 or 10. However, especially with D&D3, that means that we'd be completely missing out on stuff like prestige classes, higher-level spells, and feats near the end of feat sequences, which are also quite interesting and entertaining IMO; in a way, I was only using half the game we were playing.

I've gradually drifted to being more generous with XP, feats, skills, and spells, while getting stingier with magic items and treasure (as well as being quite ready to destroy, drain, or otherwise wipe out items and treasure).

Yeah, who has the time anyway these days ;)

I've had trouble keeping that balance - but it's hardly ever me DM'ing anymore, so I don't get to practice it much.

Our current DM is rather generous, and he tends to grant us ~1 level pr. session. Our sessions last 6-10 hours, so that's a lot of XP.
 
me, on the other hand, the campaign I remember the most and love the most too of all I played was one that started as level 1, played once a week for 2 or 3 years, and at the end we were level 7 :)
 
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