4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons Magic Spells

[Anaie]

The WoW similarities are in concept only... if even that really.  Khorshah is pretty much dead on.  The Taunting does not MAKE the enemy attack the tank like a WoW taunt... it merely gives more incentive to attack the tank.  The old D&D (as much as I love it) had no concept of tanking beyond a fighter has a crapton of hit points and high AC. Now it is much more "realistic" in that the fighter is between the squishy mage and the monster, and it is a tad more difficult for the monster to just walk up and crush the mage.  Is  it still the monsters first priority to kill the mage and cleric? Sure, but now they actually have to deal with the bodyguards first... It was silly that the old fighters had nothing to do with actually keeping wizards safe. 

There are tons of other comparisons, but really all of them are just superficial.

My down side to the high level playtest we did this weekend was that everyone and there mother can teleport at high levels and that the status effects are just rampant.
Erz did roll like crap though heh. 

[Khorshah]

My down side to the high level playtest we did this weekend was that everyone and there mother can teleport at high levels and that the status effects are just rampant.
Erz did roll like crap though heh. 

The game play is pretty insane at the epic levels, particularly 'at 30'; characters are kind of silly. I find the most fun is in early to mid Paragon (11-16 or so); characters are probably at their coolest at that stage, without being broken.

[Agrovale]

Yes 4th edition does not have elite mobs.  Of course not.

The taunting, the set rolls etc is WoWish.  May not be a photo copy of WoWish MMOs but it is close enough to turn me off from 4th edition.  If it was my choice I'd go back to 2nd edition where the various worlds were fleshed out and you had a variety of options to play in.  I just don't like 4th edition as it reminds me of WoW too much.  And yes I have played 4th edition. 

I've had the same experience in 2nd & 3/3.5 that Khorshah is explaining about 4th.  Including the various rolls and power levels.  I've seen rogues step up and wtfpwn a fighter with a well timed backstab.  Not that hard to do if one thinks in the game.

4th edition is a meh for me.

No worries.  Soon enough D&D will be all online in virtual rooms like WoTC wants and pen and paper will go to the wayside.

[Khorshah]

Yes 4th edition does not have elite mobs.  Of course not.

Never said it didn't. The Minion / Elite / Boss division has been around since before WoW, and appears in other pen and paper games (Savage Worlds, GURPS Dungeon Fantasy) as well - both of which predate 4e, I might add. The D&D designers looked at that and said "You know, that makes sense, and people like it. In it goes!"

The taunting, the set rolls etc is WoWish.

I'm not sure how 'I've placed a mark on an enemy that causes it to take damage / have a penalty to hit people who aren't me' is 'a taunt identical to the one in WoW' - or even REMOTELY like the taunt in WoW. Trust me, if I had an ability that said 'Hey, Saurfang, you can go hit Greebo now, but if you do, I'm gonna whack you!' I'd be slamming that button every cooldown.

As for the roles, they're far less set in stone for D&D than they are in WoW, and far FAR less set than they were in previous editions of D&D. Just how good was your 2nd edition or even 3/3.5 edition Rogue at immobilizing his enemies, or moving them around the battlefield to his tactical benefit? How often were you able to make a Cleric whose primary role was actually damage-dealing, and who only healed as a sort of sideline? Just what were Bards good for?

I think you're confusing the fact that they've clarified terminology and built some assumptions into class design with the idea that characters can do one thing and only that thing.

May not be a photo copy of WoWish MMOs but it is close enough to turn me off from 4th edition.  If it was my choice I'd go back to 2nd edition where the various worlds were fleshed out and you had a variety of options to play in.  I just don't like 4th edition as it reminds me of WoW too much.  And yes I have played 4th edition. 

Regarding fleshed-out worlds: There's absolutely zero world information in the D&D 2nd Ed Player's Handbook - less, in fact, than there is in the 4th Ed. book, which at least gives you a list of gods. For fleshed-out world info, you needed to go to the worldbooks - which were boxed sets for 2nd ed, but are some really very nice hardcovers these days. I recently picked up the Eberron Campaign Guide, and it's one of the richest world supplements I've owned in almost twenty years of gaming. I'm immensely pleased with it.

As for options: Eight races, eight classes, at least two build options for most classes, a huge variation of feats, and a half-dozen special abilities to choose from nearly every level, and that's just for the Player's Handbook. For variety in settings? They've published Forgotten Realms, Eberron, and the generic 'points of light' setting, with Dark Sun due out this year. If you were really, REALLY attached to Dragonlance or Greyhawk, the non-system world information from those settings is entirely portable. So for options, I'll stick with 4th.

"I just don't like it" is the only argument you've made that doesn't make me say "but you're WRONG!". Obviously, you'll like what you like and dislike what you dislike, but don't trash the system by saying 'It's identical to WoW', or 'it doesn't offer choices'. It's got almost nothing in common with WoW's mechanics, and it's got more (and better balanced) options than anything D&D's ever done.

[gurthoira]

The taunting, the set rolls etc is WoWish.

I'm not sure how 'I've placed a mark on an enemy that causes it to take damage / have a penalty to hit people who aren't me' is 'a taunt identical to the one in WoW' - or even REMOTELY like the taunt in WoW. Trust me, if I had an ability that said 'Hey, Saurfang, you can go hit Greebo now, but if you do, I'm gonna whack you!' I'd be slamming that button every cooldown.

As for the roles, they're far less set in stone for D&D than they are in WoW, and far FAR less set than they were in previous editions of D&D. Just how good was your 2nd edition or even 3/3.5 edition Rogue at immobilizing his enemies, or moving them around the battlefield to his tactical benefit? How often were you able to make a Cleric whose primary role was actually damage-dealing, and who only healed as a sort of sideline? Just what were Bards good for?

I think you're confusing the fact that they've clarified terminology and built some assumptions into class design with the idea that characters can do one thing and only that thing.

and with taunt in 4ed you have real world(magic in this case is real world when it come to mages) reason to have the effect there.
fighter.. im in your face give me a opening and I will hit you. even if your fighting somone else you got to keep an eye on me.
paladin.. I change you to a fair fight. if you dont my god will hurt you.
warden.. tree will aid me in protecting my allys.
shild mage.. I will use my magic to aid my allys.

[Araun]

I play 4th ed with Khorshah a lot, and I have to say I love the game.  It's very different from previous editions, mostly because it is very definitely a board game - you could get away without using miniatures or a grid in 2nd or 3rd ed if you fudged some details, but 4th is absolutely dependent on having a board to play on.

Battles are much more strategic than they were before; tactical discussions and long-range plans are rampant.  As a GM, I can actually set up puzzles, right there on the board, using the game rules and effects - by which I mean the encounter itself, and the monsters in it, form the puzzle. And it's easy.  GMing this game has been a breeze, if I don't feel like putting a lot of work into monsters I can just rip something out of the monster manual and it will all work.

At first blush D&D4 seemed kind of like WoW, but the more I play the more it just seems like a very clever board game.  It's actually much more reminiscent of Magic the Gathering (unsurprising, considering the source) given the way you can combine abilities, or operate within a theme.

But even if it was like WoW, imagine this:  imagine a game of WoW with much more open-ended character classes, where the fights scale to your ability and playstyle, where the enemies are controlled by an actual human who is more interested in having fun than ganking you and teabagging your corpse, where the story is about you and your characters rather than Metzen's army of Mary Sues, and the voice chat actually works and none of the loot soulbinds.

[Anaie]

Really the only thing I do not like about 4e is the magic items... they are all pretty generic and bland.  Granted this is how it must be with this system... oh and I do miss the "fear" of death.  While Save or Die did suck... it made some things so terrifying hehe.

Otherwise, it is a great game and the combat is so much easier and sped up.  I loved 2nd Ed, but to be honest, I do not know how I used to run combats in it for the life of me without a battle grid!  Utter chaos! (but I did it... and did it well! I just don't recall how now a days)

Obviously we all have our opinions, and believe me, If I could run/play 2nd ed right now, I soooo would.  I may even do so to break up 4e here and there, but 4e is a great game on paper for its flow and such.  It has rules for systems, all the RP and world lore and those things are yours to create.  RP does not need rulebooks!

[Agrovale]

I said fleshed out worlds not fleshed out PH.  If I wanted to romp around the planes? Planescape.  If I wanted to run around in a High Fantasy world? Forgotten Realms.  If I wanted to take part in a political world descended from gods?  Birthright.  Horror? Ravenloft.  Political Middle Ages?  Greyhawk.  Dragon/Dungeon magazine was in its prime, and Kits were another flavor to flesh out a character.  In Forgotten Realms you could pick a city and get bonuses/negatives to even further flesh out a character.  Combat and Tactics offered crit tables with hit locations.  One of the other books offered different ways to play 2nd Edition like pts, changing around racial abilities, skills etc.  There were so many more options then anything out today.  This is partially because of the fact that 2nd edition was around for so long.

Not a fan of Eberron.  The "world of 3/3.5" was a failiure.  It is why I see an asston of those books at Half Price Books instead of other worlds like Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, or Ravenloft settings. 

What I don't understand is what people are saying that 4th edition can have puzzles or riddles or what not but 2nd or 3rd can't? 

Clerics that can dmg? Hold person then Coup De Grace, flame strike, spiritual weapon, spike stones etc.  I will admit that clerics in 2nd weren't all that but was quicky solved in 3rd edition.  Even so 2nd edition had wonderful spells like Prayer, Heroes Feast, Bless, Negative Plane Protection, Blade Barrier etc.
Bards? Good at everything but great at nothing.  In 3rd edition they are able to buff up the party to make them nastier in combat.  In the current group I am adventuring with our Bard is prolly #2 out of 7 for pure killing.

Any class can be turned into a monster with just a few tweaks.

I've never had a problem with RP as I don't follow any rules.  I simply reward my players for rping.  Good or bad.

Once again maybe it is the groups I ran with but we were very tactical in our various adventures and would plan ahead.  Hell we were planning and the dragon we were planning on killing polymorphed into a human form, walked in, and proceeded to lay waste to us. 

What Araun has said is why I don't like 4th edition.  It feels like a board game.  Board games bore me and that is all 4th edition did. 

[Greebo]

Hero System.




Noobs.

[Khorshah]

Hero System. Poor Man's GURPS

Fixed that for you.

[Araun]

What I don't understand is what people are saying that 4th edition can have puzzles or riddles or what not but 2nd or 3rd can't? 

What I mean is the game itself forms the puzzle.  Like, if you have a rank of monsters with powerful ranged attacks, and a rank with a knockback attack keeping you from getting close - you can figure out a way around the problem using the abilities provided to you by the system.  You could probably set up the same sort of thing in other editions but 4th ed makes it really easy.  All the parts click together neatly, right out of the box, because the rules are simple but rigorous and consistent.

What it boils down to is that I find combat a lot more complex and interesting this time around.

What Araun has said is why I don't like 4th edition.  It feels like a board game.  Board games bore me and that is all 4th edition did. 

Yeah, I guess it's  just a matter of personal taste.  I'm enjoying how easy it is to whip up encounters if I don't feel like putting work into that side of the session (or if the players do something unexpected, which is basically all they ever do).  But if you don't like it, you don't like it - such is life.

[Araun]

And GURPS is for people who wish they could do their taxes every day.

[Bloodscream]

I could go into the actual mechanics, but I suspect it'd be wasted effort.

Have you actually played the game, Blood, or just glanced through a rulebook and listened to people on forums bitching about it?

 D&D Doesn't have an aggro table but apparently you do. Defensive and insulting much?

I got my opinion of the game from playing it and I don't care what they call it now, they have aggro.
We tried it out the first week it was out cause a friend of mine is a huge D&D whore and he wanted us to try it.

The GM has never played WOW. Couple hours into it though those of us who DO play WoW all kind of turned to each other and asked:
"When did this turn into WoW"?

However, there was barely 100 years of gaming experience around that table.

I mean... it's not months...but it's something...right?

So tell me "No aggro table" guy... my rogue spent alot of time to the side and rear of things attacking and doing quite a lot of damage.
Yet the mob oh so rarely ever got a chance to turn around and try and kill me...

Weird.
No aggro table though. The mob just wanted to keep wailing on the big guy in plate cause of a traumatic plate mail experience in its youth.

[Greebo]

I play GURPS. because the Hero system is too daunting for me and I think that four stats and exponentially scaling costs of abilities is the way to go.

Fixed that for you there.

*caveat - I left GURPS for Hero System a long time ago, it may very well have improved. They do do an excellent job, better than anyone really, of providing a huge variety of good quality genre rule books.

[Khorshah]

I play GURPS. because the Hero system is too daunting for me and I think that four stats and exponentially scaling costs of abilities is the way to go.

Fixed that for you there.

*caveat - I left GURPS for Hero System a long time ago, it may very well have improved. They do do an excellent job, better than anyone really, of providing a huge variety of good quality genre rule books.

Yeah, 4th ed. was where I got into GURPS, and it left exponential scaling of ability costs (along with a LOT of other junk from 3e) by the wayside. It's a pretty damn good system, and I've never found a publisher who puts as much effort into editorial control and consistency as SJGames.