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3 years ago ::
Feb 05, 2010 - 2:59PM
#101
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Date Joined:
Dec 23, 2009
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I'm beginning to hate how much 'intent' is thrown around on these boards.
Unless it's communicated directly from the writers mouth/keyboard how are we supposed to determine intent?
Talk it out, get other people's opinions, get some feedback, not work in a vacumn...
LFR consists of many intelligent, smart people who read the rules and get their feeling of where things are going and where they would like things to go. By talking over these rules and their implications we can get feedback on how our actions can impact the campaign and the people in the campaign.
Personally, I'm very surprised as to how wide open the training is and I'm trying to get a gauge as to what may have led to such changes so I can understand them better.
If I talk with a diverse collection of non-local people, I feel better about how my actions may impact them.
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3 years ago ::
Feb 05, 2010 - 5:09PM
#102
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Date Joined:
Oct 11, 2005
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My thought is simple. Every month, they have been releasing something that is new and relevant to the base game and base rules. As was stated in the WPN seminar, they want people to come and try these new ideas at the Living Events so that they can go home and share the cool ideas and move them around. The goal of the retraining ability to to encourage experimentation, and to let people do crazy stupid things, and not get punished for it. It also serves not to discourage the casual player, who leaves and comes back with five to ten new rulebooks and supplements and magazine articles lying around, and they have been out teched because they don't play all that often.
I understand that this can annoy people, too, but you already are playing based on faith that the person in the chair next to you has actually played through the modules and done all the work, and not just cobbled together a character 'on the spot', anyway. I think the most impact you are going to see from this is during convention play, and not so much from regular game groups.
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3 years ago ::
Feb 06, 2010 - 1:37AM
#103
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Date Joined:
Aug 26, 2008
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Rules, such as Retraining: I absolutely recall all sorts of mechanical details about PCs in LG. I recall how Churk, the half-orc monk, would yell "Full Powa Attack!" often. I recall how Ancev, elven genius, would bump up his INT and claim to have a "big brain", would stay 50' behind the rest of the party, and would hide behind cover while lobbing his specialty spells. I can tell you 90% of the feats that Boshek, worshipper of Azmekidom, had as an arcane trickster. I can tell you that Lamont of Onwall, despite working very hard on his fort save (and I can name how), failed at least 3 fort saves to disintegrate. I can go on and on about people I didn't play with often but that were from the same region. Daniella Fontaine, Alf, Ingot, Torm, Rockhard, Deadspeaker, etc. The PCs were memorable for their personality and their powers. LG had 2-3 rebuild moments, but what PCs did was seldom undone, because it was core to who the PCs were. Retraining in 4E can mean wildly different PCs. You can be an aggressive leader one minute, healing-focused the next. You might be known for your superior crossbow one moment, then your bow the next. It breaks the ability of PCs to be recognized.
Players don't have to switch their character concepts, and those who want to be iconic won't. I wasn't around for Living Greyhawk, but I imagine you played with a fair number of forgettable characters as well. Also, 4E is pretty young; for many classes, at least in Heroic, there's only one or two viable powers at some levels. I've sat down at quite a few tables where two players could literally trade character sheets and not notice a difference. So unless you're willing to take some mechanically weird options, most characters' powers won't be memorable.
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3 years ago ::
Feb 06, 2010 - 6:16AM
#104
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Date Joined:
Mar 16, 2006
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One thing I do want to make clear, for those writers, editors and admins reading this groups, is that LFR is a ton of fun, something I strongly look forward to and I have found the quality of the adventures has been significantly improving over time. I strongly approve of ideas like linking mods from different regions (Arts and Crafts), the MINI campaign, the battle interactive, and the SPEC mods that have the same basic plot across several tiers. They make LFR more living and less of a "disposable mercenary" experience.
Thanks for all the innovation and thought that came up with these new ideas. I hope y'all have been getting positive feedback on them. It occurs to me, as a slight aside, that if two or three regions got together and decided to have a joint storyline for a year, you could end up with a significantly strong linked set of modules. Just a thought.
Anyway, hate the rule change, love LFR. That's the summary. Thanks!
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3 years ago ::
Feb 06, 2010 - 8:01AM
#105
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Date Joined:
May 19, 2004
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I know this is late in the thread, but out of curiosity, are we certain you can retrain attributes. From, what I can tell, the CCG allows unlimited retraining, but it does you the key word "retraining".
From page 28 of the PHB -> Every time you gain a level, you can retrain your character: change one feat, power, or skill selection you made previously.
That is a rather specific definition of retraining. Even if I can retrain an infinite number of times, it still seems, per the PHB, that the only things I can change are feats, powers, and skills. Does the wording of the CCG specify attributes, or are we just assuming?
-SYB
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3 years ago ::
Feb 06, 2010 - 8:13AM
#106
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Date Joined:
Aug 22, 2007
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I know this is late in the thread, but out of curiosity, are we certain you can retrain attributes. From, what I can tell, the CCG allows unlimited retraining, but it does you the key word "retraining".
From page 28 of the PHB -> Every time you gain a level, you can retrain your character: change one feat, power, or skill selection you made previously.
That is a rather specific definition of retraining. Even if I can retrain an infinite number of times, it still seems, per the PHB, that the only things I can change are feats, powers, and skills. Does the wording of the CCG specify attributes, or are we just assuming?
It says "Whenever your character gains a level, you may retrain out any and all character-based rules options, except for the following." "The following" is race and class, but it mentions that you can retrain race-based options and your build. Since those two options are not covered under page 28 of the PHB, it's clear that the intent is to extend retraining to options not allowed by the base rules. I would not mind seeing some clarification at some point, since the above is rather Talmudic.
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3 years ago ::
Feb 06, 2010 - 2:35PM
#107
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Date Joined:
Mar 17, 2005
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The intent is to allow retraining stats.
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3 years ago ::
Feb 06, 2010 - 4:40PM
#108
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Date Joined:
Jul 16, 2002
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Well, with Skerrit popping in that makes two speerate globals who have confirmed that the retrainign rules include stats.
Sorry WOTC, you lost me with Essentials. So where I used to buy every book that came out, now I will be very choosy about what I buy. Can we just get back to real 4e? Check out the 4e Conversion Wiki. 1. Wizards fight dirty. They hit their enemies in the NADs. -- Dragon9 2. A barbarian hits people with his axe. A warlord hits people with his barbarian. 3. Boo-freakin'-hoo, ya light-slingin' finger-wigglers. -- MrCelcius in response to the Cleric's Healer's Lore nerf
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3 years ago ::
Feb 06, 2010 - 7:07PM
#109
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I agree with most of Alpha's great post with the exception being the effect of the re-training rules. I don't think those are nearly as important as the other points. LG had a massive conversion in 2005, which was just 2 years after the 3.0 to 3.5 conversion. Whole prestige classes were eliminated - remember Tribal Protector and Devoted Defender? LG also eventually allowed limited re-training. My BDF went from greatsword using to greatclub using (Spikes - yeah) to longsword using (keoland uber sword - perihelion). The LFR PTB are reacting to the same thing that the LG PTB did back in 2005 - namely, new material being allowed into the campaign. The pace of it now is just much faster. I think the open re-training is generally a good idea.
By far the bigger issue is the difference between the LG Regional system -- where Triads and players had ownership of particular regions. Things mattered and could change. Triads posted story interludes and results of interactives and really drived the story. There were a multitude of interactives that did this too. I don't see why we can't have open play but still allow a region's triad to be more active driving a series. Regional interactives would be great too.
I am glad that LFR has allowed the first interactivce, hopefully we'll get more. The LG ones were for the most part fantastic. I remember traveling from NY to CAL to visit family and seeing that there was a Nyrond convention nearby. I left my wife and kids to go play some Nyrond mods. As it turned out, the con had the Battle of Nyrond battle interactive -- which was going on in 3 states at once. It was fantastic -- the triad members were consulting with all 3 sites and putting up results. We had a mid-battle update. The battle actually determined who would be the ruler of Nyrond. I would love to see LFR come anywhere close to something like this.
Daren
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3 years ago ::
Feb 07, 2010 - 9:19AM
#110
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Date Joined:
Jul 16, 2002
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By far the bigger issue is the difference between the LG Regional system -- where Triads and players had ownership of particular regions. Things mattered and could change. Triads posted story interludes and results of interactives and really drived the story. There were a multitude of interactives that did this too. I don't see why we can't have open play but still allow a region's triad to be more active driving a series. Regional interactives would be great too.
The problem is that the overall system for LG and LFR are vastly different. WotC wasn't actively developing the Greyhawk setting, so the Triads had free reign, more or less, storywise. In LFR, the FR is an actively developed setting, so you can't have such free reign. Everything has to pass through the hands of the Dev team to make sure nothing too wonky is going on since it's all considered canon. How this is going to jibe with upper paragon/epic tier is beyond me, however, that means there's less freedom in making those major history changing storylines that LG enjoyed.
I enjoy playing LFR, although I still think an LG reset would have been far better than using an actively developed setting for just this reason.
Sorry WOTC, you lost me with Essentials. So where I used to buy every book that came out, now I will be very choosy about what I buy. Can we just get back to real 4e? Check out the 4e Conversion Wiki. 1. Wizards fight dirty. They hit their enemies in the NADs. -- Dragon9 2. A barbarian hits people with his axe. A warlord hits people with his barbarian. 3. Boo-freakin'-hoo, ya light-slingin' finger-wigglers. -- MrCelcius in response to the Cleric's Healer's Lore nerf
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