Opinions on D&D

I'm sure there must be other D&D players on this board besides myself, so I thought this might be a good discussion to start.

How do you guys feel about:

1) 4th edition? Better, worse, or just a different flavor?

Personally, I much prefer 3rd, but I don't have the vehement dislike of 4th that I've encountered from some, and I actually think a few of the changes are improvements, such as 1st-level wizards not dying when you look at them funny.

2) Evil PCs and evil parties? Does the immersion level/style of the game (tabletop vs. LARP, intense in-character playing vs. lots of OC cracking-wise) make any difference on this issue to you?

I don't find it personally mentally or spiritually harmful to me to be the villain for a bit, but I just don't like playing evil characters, or adventuring with a party that's out to terrorize the village rather than save it. If I want to indulge more bloody impulses, I'll play a conquest RTS. When I'm role-playing, I want to be the hero.

3) The warlock class in 4th edition? Particularly the infernal pact variant?

As I understand it, this class was available in one of the supplements for 3.5, but 4 is the first time it's been in the core player's handbook, so it's the first time I've encountered it, and I'm on the fence about it. I'm curious as to how other geeky Christians feel about it, and how you think you could fit such a character into a heroic party.

I've only played a few sessions of D&D and had a great time. But when I tried to learn the rules(3rd Ed.) in order to run it, I realized I am just not freakin' smart enough.



I have been very curious about 4th edition, since they've reportedly tried to make it accessible to new players. But I don't have the cash for buying a bunch of minis, and the system seems to pretty much require them.

Would you say the rules have been streamlined, Rohelf? Dumbed down?

I'm guessing that in order for me to be able to run a game of 4th Edition, it would have to be dumbed down to the point of infuriating D&D fans universally and would look and play nothing like D&D.

I played with 2nd Edition rules...when we used the rules. I was really playing for the story. We tried to keep it to a 'real' rule of thumb. If you could realistically do something with the equipment you had, then I (when I was DM'ing) would give you a % chance of accomplishing the feat, considering certain attributes of your character. I never played 3rd or 4th edition rules. I have never played with mini's. It sounds cool tho. Just seems like it would take up alot of space.

Yeah, Paeter, I can see how the multitude of rules in 3rd ed. would be intimidating to someone who didn't have a knack for memorization and an interest in lots of backstory/flavor text (huh... makes a lot of sense that the librarian prefers 3rd, doesn't it? ). When they came out with 4th, it seemed to be a reaction to a lot of people who felt like you did about 3rd (and especially 3.5), and wanted something simpler, but a lot of people felt they overdid it, and I agree. They've also obviously taken some influence from card games like Magic: The Gathering and mixed it in.

The biggest change is that instead of your fighter just attacking with his weapon in combat, and it being up to you to elaborate on basic attacks or describe them in interesting ways, you now have a short list of attacks/powers that you can use, some once per day, some once per encounter, and some at will. You hardly ever use a basic attack option anymore unless forced to somehow, because your at-wills are always at least as good as that. Instead of having a huge list of potenital spells to prepare, your wizard and cleric have much the same setup: a more limited palette of more frequently-usable powers. Both these things do make combats proceed more quickly, and they do make it easier on new players, who would often freeze up and not know what to do when presented with limitless options, but the converse of that is that they can feel confining to experienced players who are used to letting their imaginations run wild.

Also, you get a lot less information for your money in the 4th edition PHB than you did in the 3rd. More than half of the book is taken up with lists of the powers to choose from for each class (which aren't given as much loving/anal detail as the spells in 3rd, either), and there are fewer classes to choose from- plus, some of the more popular classes from 3rd (like bard, druid, barbarian, or sorcerer), got shuffled into the PHB2, so if you want to play one of those, you'll have to shell out for another sourcebook, which really does feel like a cash grab.

For all that, though, I am enjoying the 4th edition game I'm currently playing in, but I still wish I could find some people willing to play 3rd with me again.

Sorry the rules are a letdown, Rohelf. I wonder if WotC feels like their tactic succeeded?