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13 months ago ::
May 26, 2012 - 7:27PM
#1
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I've been playing since college (1979) and running dungeons since 1980. I can safely say the WotC has done a great job on this so far. Simple, abstract combat and fairly easy rules allow my players and myself to role play without the need for "rules lawyers" that the AD&D PH and DMG encouraged.
Can't wait for the later installments to give us the systems for character generation and some of the in-game rationale behind these and other classes and races.
Plays much like AD&D. Congrats and good job, guys.
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13 months ago ::
May 26, 2012 - 7:41PM
#2
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Date Joined:
Oct 28, 2008
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I'm curious what exactly ran much like AD&D. We were able to spot the little bits of 4th and a good amount from 3.5, but the rest we couldn't figure out what was D&D or AD&D. I never played either of those.
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13 months ago ::
May 26, 2012 - 7:54PM
#3
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I'm curious what exactly ran much like AD&D. We were able to spot the little bits of 4th and a good amount from 3.5, but the rest we couldn't figure out what was D&D or AD&D. I never played either of those.
The concept behind just what the regular classes were, if you ignored the background and themes, could be one.
In addition, relegating checks to ability checks primarily is another trait of AD&D (which had nonweapon proficiencies, but those were basically modifications on the ability checks you'd be doing otherwise).
Lastly, I have a sense that the combat being much more abstract atm regarding action economy is more AD&D in nature than 3.5 and 4e. You have just a move and an action as opposed to a Standard + Move vs. Full Round, or Standard+Minor+Move with combination sorta thing.
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13 months ago ::
May 26, 2012 - 7:59PM
#4
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Date Joined:
May 24, 2012
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I'm curious what exactly ran much like AD&D. We were able to spot the little bits of 4th and a good amount from 3.5, but the rest we couldn't figure out what was D&D or AD&D. I never played either of those.
The simplified stats for monsters off the top of my head. There is a lot of modified 3.5 in there, but the Caves of Chaos could easily be mistaken for its predecessor in The Keep on the Borderlands module. The lack of a numerical balancing system for combat is also from AD&D/D&D. DMs had to make judgement calls when writing adventures.
I think there is a lot more 3.5 with a D&D/AD&D feel to this than a lot of actual rules from those systems.
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13 months ago ::
May 26, 2012 - 8:02PM
#5
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Date Joined:
May 24, 2012
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I'm curious what exactly ran much like AD&D. We were able to spot the little bits of 4th and a good amount from 3.5, but the rest we couldn't figure out what was D&D or AD&D. I never played either of those.
The concept behind just what the regular classes were, if you ignored the background and themes, could be one.
In addition, relegating checks to ability checks primarily is another trait of AD&D (which had nonweapon proficiencies, but those were basically modifications on the ability checks you'd be doing otherwise).
Lastly, I have a sense that the combat being much more abstract atm regarding action economy is more AD&D in nature than 3.5 and 4e. You have just a move and an action as opposed to a Standard + Move vs. Full Round, or Standard+Minor+Move with combination sorta thing.
I didn't think of that, but I agree. People complaining about Fighters being boring don't seem to remember what Fighters were like in AD&D. Kits and multiclassing gave you more options in 2e, but Fighters in AD&D were always about hitting things really hard.
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13 months ago ::
May 26, 2012 - 8:03PM
#6
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Date Joined:
May 24, 2012
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Also I'm glad they didn't go all the way back to the D&D/AD&D reverse AC system. That was needlessly complicated.
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13 months ago ::
May 26, 2012 - 8:06PM
#7
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I didn't think of that, but I agree. People complaining about Fighters being boring don't seem to remember what Fighters were like in AD&D. Kits and multiclassing gave you more options in 2e, but Fighters in AD&D were always about hitting things really hard.
Sure, but I don't think that going back to that style of fighter is a great idea when it comes to making a compelling class to play.
Many have suggested to use Improvise as a means of making Fighters do more than hit things, some claiming that this is what people did back then by usign their imaginations to come up with interesting ways to make the fighter do stuff. While I agree with that sentiment, it's sort of offset by the fact that classes like Rogue, Wizard, and Cleric have access to that PLUS other rules that give them some more mechanical variance/crunch over the fighter.
I really liked the spirit of the Fighter/Weaponmaster in 4e from the standpoint of him incorperating a wide range of tricks/manuevers as part of his attacks, and honestly, if there were a flexible system in place to include improvisation as part of an attack roll, with some mechanical framing of how it would be done, I could see the Fighter in this edition being one that not only retains the direct simplicity of the older editions, while enabling a lot of clever, lateral thinking from players.
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13 months ago ::
May 26, 2012 - 8:07PM
#8
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Also I'm glad they didn't go all the way back to the D&D/AD&D reverse AC system. That was needlessly complicated.
The main mechanical AD&D complaints I had were having to deal with sometimes wanting to roll low, and sometimes wanting to roll high, and the notion of having a crit success/fail being possible as part of an ability/nonweapon proficiency check.
The fact that 3e/4e make it clear that crit succcess/fails really can't occur in skill checks was such a great, subtle way to address that issue.
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13 months ago ::
May 26, 2012 - 8:14PM
#9
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Date Joined:
May 24, 2012
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I didn't think of that, but I agree. People complaining about Fighters being boring don't seem to remember what Fighters were like in AD&D. Kits and multiclassing gave you more options in 2e, but Fighters in AD&D were always about hitting things really hard.
Sure, but I don't think that going back to that style of fighter is a great idea when it comes to making a compelling class to play.
Many have suggested to use Improvise as a means of making Fighters do more than hit things, some claiming that this is what people did back then by usign their imaginations to come up with interesting ways to make the fighter do stuff. While I agree with that sentiment, it's sort of offset by the fact that classes like Rogue, Wizard, and Cleric have access to that PLUS other rules that give them some more mechanical variance/crunch over the fighter.
I really liked the spirit of the Fighter/Weaponmaster in 4e from the standpoint of him incorperating a wide range of tricks/manuevers as part of his attacks, and honestly, if there were a flexible system in place to include improvisation as part of an attack roll, with some mechanical framing of how it would be done, I could see the Fighter in this edition being one that not only retains the direct simplicity of the older editions, while enabling a lot of clever, lateral thinking from players.
I think this points out one of the strengths I see so far in this system. I could easily drop in feats from 3.5 or M&M or whatever d20 system to spice up the fighter. Some of the standard combat options from those systems would easily port over as well such as all out attack, aim, power attack, etc.
I think the advantage/disadvantage system could be the way to provide a bonus for clever thinking as a fighter. My players tend to do this type of gaming anyway so I'm used to coming up with stuff on the fly.
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13 months ago ::
May 26, 2012 - 8:21PM
#10
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I have a small input to tpamwow's last paragraph. I think they should make advantage/disadvantage and great advantage/major disadvantage. Just my opinion.
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