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infinitypanda
2008-06-28, 04:26 PM
Have any of you guys played it? Is it any good? I was leafing through the rulebook, and it seemed like not enough DnD to be fun like DnD, and not enough WoW to be fun like WoW.
Is it better when one is actually playing it?
Thanks.

JadedDM
2008-06-28, 04:52 PM
Are you talking about 4E or something else?

(Zing!)

Isomenes
2008-06-28, 05:11 PM
He's talking about this (http://www.warcraftrpg.com/index.php). Though honestly I'm having a hard time telling if it's for real, mostly 'cause I've never played WoW.

Matthew
2008-06-28, 05:19 PM
Actually, there are two World of Warcraft D20 based RPGs (well, one is called just Warcraft). Anyway: Products at RPGNow (http://www.rpgnow.com/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=World+of+Warcr aft&quicksearch=1&search_filter=&filters=&search_free=&search_in_description=1&search_in_author=1&search_in_artist=1).

Breltar
2008-06-28, 05:47 PM
There are ones for both Everquest 1 and Everquest 2 as well as Diablo. Most are pretty well done if you already like those MMOs but not for those that do not play or have played those games.

Swordguy
2008-06-29, 06:31 AM
Neither version of the WOW RPG models the MMORPG especially well. Large swaths of text are basically copy-pasted from the SRD, even when it makes no sense whatsoever (Warriors getting lots of feats instead of effective aggro-inducing abilities, Druids as a prestige class, etc - depending on which version you use - both have issues). Further, the balancing is awful.

I wrote a review of the hunter class, specifically, on another website some time ago. Let me see here...

Got it!



Okay, since I've actually played it:

The Hunter class in the latest d20 variant (WW-17210) is significantly less OP than the hunter is reputed to be in the game.

1) They gain a d8 hit die. This isn't bad, especially since they're clearly build as ONLY a ranged attack class. There's no Survival-spec melee hunters here.

2 )4+Int skills is only average, and it really only becomes 1+Int because several important class abilities key off of Survival, Knowledge (nature), and Handle Animal. Those three skills are critical to the hunter's class abilities, so no hunter can be without them. It becomes even worse when you consider than a hunter really needs Spot, Listen, and some Stealth to do their job. You'll be really short skill points.

3) Saves and BAB are decent. BAB is 1/1 progression, and is a little more effective than a fighter with a similar BAB, because the fact that you're a ranged character means you shouldn't have to move as much, preserving your ability to make Full Attacks. (What helps even more is that Tank classes actually have an ability to FORCE enemies to attack the tank, unlike regular D&D where they can ignore the fighters and go straight for the classes that don't suck.) You lose out on saves, essentially mirroring the Core book Rogue in save progression. It's nothing special, but Aspect of the Wild helps a lot here.

4) You gain proficiency in light and medium armors (decent, esp for a pure ranged character) and in all simple and martial weapons (overkill for a ranged character). Unfortunately, firearms are considered exotic weapons, so you'll have to blow a feat to use one. This sucks. A LOT. A specific list of proficient weapons should have been used instead.

5) Stings. These are half of your primary class abilities. Tragically, you get 3 per day until 5th level, then gain 1/day every 5 levels thereafter. This is CRAP. Not only do you not get very many per day, but if you miss with the attack roll the sting is used for the day. And then the enemy often gets a save on top of that, so the target gets multiple attempts to avoid the effects.
a) Serpent Sting. Deal 1 extra point of damage on an attack and 1 point per round (non-stackable) for a number of rounds equal to your class level. The suck? This is it.
b) Scorpid Sting. Deal 1d4 in Str and Agility for the hunter's level in rounds. Not horrible (though it's not that impressive), but the save is a fairly low DC, though it scales by level.
c) Viper Sting. Make a fairly low DC Fort save or be unable to cast spells for 1 round. No effect on non-casters. Almost never worth it.

6) Aspects. These are pretty decent. You can gain a variety of useful abilities (Evasion, a scaling to-hit bonus, increased speed [with no daze FX if you're struck while this one's up!]. or increased saves.) that are easily switchable (free action) and with no limit to the number of times it may be switched per day.

7) Tame Animal. This is incredibly disappointing. You gain the ability to tame (Handle Animal and Survival checks) a normal animal (not Dire!) that has a number of HD equal to your level-2. Starting at 5th level. First off, the deal here is that hunters need their pets. Their pet is their PRIMARY class-defining ability. Not to get one until you're a quarter of the way through your entire non-epic career is criminal game design, especially because under d20, levels are supposed to be gained after a generally set amount of gameplay time (it should take the same number of encounters, 13-14, to go from level 2 to 3 as well as level 19-20). This is different than in WoW proper, where because of the XP system, you spend an increasing amount of time at each level (2 hours of gameplay, 3 hours, 5 hours, 7 hours, etc). This means that you get your pet in WoW proper MUCH faster than in d20. Now, the pets do get some nice abilities (very similar in effects to Paladin mounts), but there's one thing that absolutely kills them as viable companions...they gain a maximum of 2, yes...TWO Hit Dice. So your 3 HD boar you buddy up too at 5th level? Yeah, when you're 20th it'll have 5 HD. How useful do you think it'll be? What's worse is that there aren't tamable normal animals over 10 HD. You do eventually get to tame "magical animals" once you hit 14th level...but what happened to your devoted animal companion that's with you from level 10 to 70?

8.) Eagle Eye. Big bonuses on Spot Checks, etc. Nice and fluffy. Not that useful.


So, I give it about a 2.5 out of 5. It's got the major class abilities, but does then in a crappy fashion. Casters are still better due to the large and flexible spell lists that enable them to do more than just be DPS machines. If you want a hunter to feel like it does in WoW (without the claims of being unbalanced), do the following:
-Drop the animal companion minimum acquisition level to 3 and allow it to gain HD at the same rate you do.
-Make Stings at will but so only 1 sting per hunter can be active on a target at once (and that only one sting per round can be applied).
-Give them access to Firearms as martial weapons and give limited choices in the melee weapon skills (so you're proficient with 1-H swords, 1-H Axes, and 2-H Axes OR 1-H swords, 1-H Axes and polearms for example).
-I'd love to see 6+int skill points, but I'm known for giving ALL PCs +2 skill points per level, because d20 games hate having characters with skills outside that class's pidgeonhole.
-Figure out some way to make damage scale better (melee PCs can Power Attack for huge damage bonuses, but ranged PCs will never be able to do more than weapon damage+str mod (or just weapon damage for firearms), meaning that they quickly get left behind on the damage curve, which is the opposite of what it should be).


OVERALL, both versions of d20 WoW have copy-pasted LARGE sections of class abilities and class themes from regular D&D, and to hell with whether or not it accurately represents the computer game. A far better job was done with the d20 Diablo.

Roog
2008-06-29, 07:03 AM
Have any of you guys played it? Is it any good? I was leafing through the rulebook, and it seemed like not enough DnD to be fun like DnD, and not enough WoW to be fun like WoW.
Is it better when one is actually playing it?
Thanks.

The Warcraft RPG is not really based on WoW.

Warcraft: The Roleplaying Game was published in 2003, while WoW was not realeased until 2004; so it would seem to be based on Warcraft III rather than WoW, and designed to allow the use of the Warcraft world as a D&D setting, rather than to emulate the game.

The second edition World of Warcraft: The Roleplaying Game was published in 2005, but they did not include the kind of major rules changes that would have been needed to create character with abilities matching WoW characters.

In general it looks like it would be better for a Warcraft III inspired game than a WoW inspired one.

Mjoellnir
2008-06-29, 08:09 AM
I have both, but had never the chance to actually play them. I think they are pretty decent, BUT absolutely not WoW. I started playing WoW after reading everything from the first edition, and WoW sucked in comparison, because nobody knew anything about the background, and Blizzard made this dumb speech barrier between the factions. Normally a human warlock who enters Darnassus with a demon would be killed on sight, while a tauren druid would be welcomed. In WoW, it's exactly the opposite. Worse than that (if that's possible) the RP material is NEVER accurate, because WoW changes always to provide new bosses.

If I would ever make a P&P campaign in WarCraft I would take both editions and mix them with the normal 3.5 D&D. Since that's a bit expensive I would say first edition and D&D 3.5 is best, in that material there are the gods, the titans, the dragon aspects, very cool races, feats etc. you only have to allow some D&D core classes and disallow some of the WarCraft prestige classes. The WoW edition has only better spellcasters, and races, but only if you like racial levels instead of LA.