I'm saaaad!

[Cicciograna]

Sigh! My first experience as Master has come to an end. One of my players, playing a 3.5ed Fighter got sick about Magic: he says that it's way too powerful, and the entire 3.x Edition is a bug due to Magic. So my group chose to play 4th Edition, and for time issues I can't read all the new manuals to learn the rules and be the DM again. I'm really really sad... Give me a good word, please...:frown::frown::frown:

[Dirk Kris]

It'll be alright, man.
{scrubbed}

EDIT: My apologies - didn't mean to offend or upset anyone.

[RabbitHoleLost]

It'll be alright, man.
{Scrubbed}
...
I love you, Dirk.
Please, marry me

Edit for clarification: I myself do not play DnD (yet) and have no opinion on any of the editions. I just thought the way Dirk put it so bluntly was cute >>
Unless it gets Dirk introuble.
In which case I don't <<
But I still love Dirk regardless.

[Kaelaroth]

I'm not a wuss. Am I? :smallfrown:
On topic, I started my first 4e campaign with no idea of how anything worked. I did the same with 3.5. Your players should help you, and forgive you if you make mistakes. It's simple, if your group is good. If the group isn't good, then why're you in it?

[Hazkali]

There's no rule saying that you can only have one game going on at a time. You could DM a 3.5 game that runs concurrently with the 4E game- if you have limited meet-up time, you could always alternate between who runs sessions, or else you could run your game on a different evening (and get double the amount of gaming done!).

Also, try ruling that spellcasters are only allowed core spells, whilst feats and abilities can be drawn from any available splatbook. It's not a perfect fix but the unofficial way my current game is being played- my cleric doesn't really overshadow the party, whilst the fighter is by everyone's admission "broken", and it works.

[UncleWolf]

Just hope that no one wants to play a monk, barbarian, or sorcerer.

[reorith]

sounds like the problem is your players. ditch them and take up golf.

[Pyrian]

The balance of 3.5 is by no means perfect, but its flexibility is part of its charm.

4th edition smooths things out a bit too much, IMO. It lost me when I realized a rogue could effectively cast burning hands with his crossbow.

[mangosta71]

FEAR MY FLAMING CROSSBOW OF DOOM!!!

Erm...how do I put it out so I can reload it?

[Coplantor]

Hop on a plain and come to uruguay, it's almost holidays time and we need a full time DM

[valadil]

Who cares what the fighter says? Play whatever game you want. He can't stop you from GMing, he can only stop showing up to your game.

[Shadic]

Why not just nerf magic in your campaign, or buff Melee types?

Is part of his issue the fact that Fighters have terrible Will saves against spells? If so, buff that aspect of him.

[FdL]

{Scrubbed}

And this better not turn into a 3.5 vs. 4E thread. I think every forum has had their share of that crap, and this isn't even the right place.

If OP's players don't like the 3.5 system and prefer to try 4E, more power to them. A shame he can't get the material. That's it.

[Agamid]

{Scrubbed}

i read the books, laughed and told my players that they were dreaming if they thought i'd ever let anything beyond flat 3E into my game.

Cicciograna, the important thing to remember is that YOU are the DM, which means YOU make the rules. the best rule in the whole DND system is the one that says 'every rule is optional'.

[RTGoodman]

{Scrubbed}

Do we REALLY have to get into this again? :smallannoyed: Honestly, it's just going to end in infractions, bannings, and hurt feelings all around.

Cicciograna: Don't worry about it right now- just like when you started 3.x, you're obviously NOT going to know everything about 4E right at the beginning. Take some time to play it, and then once you've gotten used to everything (which shouldn't take long), start up a new game. And honestly, I find 4E DMing to be MUCH easier than 3.x DMing, and much more fun, too. I mean, I HATED DMing for 3.x, but I actually enjoy it for 4E.

[Roland St. Jude]

Do we REALLY have to get into this again? :smallannoyed: Honestly, it's just going to end in infractions, bannings, and hurt feelings all around.

Sheriff of Moddingham: Indeed. I strongly recommend that people drop that particular line of discussion and edit any prior posts they'd rather I not look at in the morning when I have more time. Insulting others, individually or by group, based on playstyle is flaming on this board. We also have a broad definition of "trolling" that covers a wide range of flame-baiting and troublemaking.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Sigh! My first experience as Master has come to an end. One of my players, playing a 3.5ed Fighter got sick about Magic: he says that it's way too powerful, and the entire 3.x Edition is a bug due to Magic. So my group chose to play 4th Edition, and for time issues I can't read all the new manuals to learn the rules and be the DM again. I'm really really sad... Give me a good word, please...:frown::frown::frown:

Just play "core"?
Yes, I know the the PHB/MM/DMG isn't "All of core" in the new edition, but its the "Core" books that are out NOW.

4e is really... "user-friendly", and esy-to-read, smoothing pretty much everything out for a nice, easy time. I'm in a real-life 4e group atm, and the closest thing we have to a "rule lawyer" is me, and thats mostly "Thats how things work in this edition? Can I look it up?"

The "big" rules you'll want to read are all covered in the PhB. Mostly, check out how Death and Dying has changed, and the various status effects.
Expect your players to have the effects of their powers either memorised or on-hand (Power Cards!), just like you would with a 3.x Mage and his spells.

You can learn as you go, thats what my DM and I are doing - the scary thing is, we're teaching at least one guy as we do so (hes never played before), and the other two weren't so well-versed in 3.x to get hung up on minor differances.

Its a game, have fun, and remember Rule Zero.:smallbiggrin:

Funny Anecdote: I came to this thread with the DT open in another tab, and fully intended to copy-paste the URL.

[Extra_Crispy]

Not getting into the debate versis the 3.x and 4, I have my way of thinking and thats it. As to the fighter being mad because "magic is broken" what type of fighter is he? A game I recently played in had a fighter that was very much of the if I go first any magic user in the game is dead. When he could do 50+ points of damage in one non-critical hit, without epic a magic user is not making that concentration check, and next attack kills many mages. He also complained about being under powered "I worthless when the mage can take out an army by himself" untill we ran into some HIGH spell resistance creatures. If it was not for him it would have been a total party wipe AND he bairly got hurt.

I agree with others in saying maybe you should look at what he really thinks is broken about mages, and why this sudden flair-up. If he is getting constantly controled by mages specializing in mind effects then you need to stop that some, if it is just the damage output from effects like maximized fireball then he should be able to put up with it better than almost anyone else because of his high hp, and then be able to charge power attack the stupid mage that tried to fight the fighter. I know there have been huge disscussions in other parts of this board about the impossiblilty of a fighter to beat a magic user, if you use this too much, play too smart then yes the fighter is always going to lose to mages and the fighter is going to feel magic is broken. It is better to hurt them badly but they win because the "mage was too supremely confident in his abilities that the fact that any fighter could hurt him is laughable" leaving the fighter a opening to do just that.

I guess what I am trying to say is it depends on the circumstance of why he got fed up and refused to play 3.x anymore. If you can talk to him about it and get to the root maybe you can find a solution to the rules/play style/DM style etc that will make it more enjoyable for him and everyone else thus allowing you to continue running the game

[Cicciograna]

On topic, I started my first 4e campaign with no idea of how anything worked. I did the same with 3.5. Your players should help you, and forgive you if you make mistakes. It's simple, if your group is good. If the group isn't good, then why're you in it?
The problem is that we used to play 3rd Edition. As we realized that it was way too bugged, we decided to move to the 3.5ed, so I bought the manuals. Now, after...what, two months of game, there's this new issue with the rules. I'm a bit struck down. More, we already played a demo of the 4th: from what I saw, PC growth is based on an ability tree, instead than class levels; since I had a really BAD experience with ability trees playins White Wolf's Exalted, I'm not too eager to start a new campaign with this method...


There's no rule saying that you can only have one game going on at a time. You could DM a 3.5 game that runs concurrently with the 4E game- if you have limited meet-up time, you could always alternate between who runs sessions, or else you could run your game on a different evening (and get double the amount of gaming done!).
Already done in the past, with Vampireand Werewolf: it ended with the premature conclusion of BOTH the games...



Also, try ruling that spellcasters are only allowed core spells, whilst feats and abilities can be drawn from any available splatbook.
Interesting: since IMHO almost all the WotC manuals are a load of crap (and my players are the first to agree with me), we decided to use only Core Manuals, Forgotten Realms and Magic of Faerun as sources for the spells. All the sort of Complete Anything have been utterly banned...


sounds like the problem is your players. ditch them and take up golf.

Who cares what the fighter says? Play whatever game you want. He can't stop you from GMing, he can only stop showing up to your game.
I don't want to lose players: they are my best friends, and our frindship grew with RPGs, I can't just ditch them...


It lost me when I realized a rogue could effectively cast burning hands with his crossbow.
TELL-ME-HOW!:smallamused:


Hop on a plain and come to uruguay, it's almost holidays time and we need a full time DM
Woo-hoo!!! I love Uruguay! I'm a big fan of my soccer team, Napoli, in which many players (among the best) are from Uruguay!


no you're right, 4E isn't for wusses, just for power-gamers and people who can't actually role-play.

Do we REALLY have to get into this again? :smallannoyed: Honestly, it's just going to end in infractions, bannings, and hurt feelings all around.


And this better not turn into a 3.5 vs. 4E thread. I think every forum has had their share of that crap, and this isn't even the right place.

Sorry, never imagined that we could go so far. I don't want to wage war against 4th Edition, I don't want any arguing about which edition is better...

I'll tell you what made my fighter mad. My party is a party of lamers. For example, I had to put a cap on the maximum number of classes one could pick, because one of my players, level 8th had 6 classes, "just to have high saving throws". Another one, a rogue, at level 9th, had AC 32, which, in my opinion, is way too high for a character of his level (almost all my monsters hit him only with 19 or 20). My fighter got angry in the aftermath of a fight against a vampire cleric: he says that being a fighter he should be the best in melee combat; but after seeing the vampire cast Righteous might and Divine power, having his Strength increased by 14 points, his size augmented and many other bonuses, he said that he was useless; later, when the cleric killed him with Slay living (and he was really unlucky with his ST) he went mad.
Moreover, he specifically questioned some 9th level spells, namely Mordenkainen disjunction, saying that it could potentially annihilate manymonth of adventuring disjoining all the magic objects, and Wail of the Banshee, stating that it was too powerful having the chanche to kill many PC in just one turn, as 9th level spells cast by 17th level wizard with 26 Intelligence (and this is not so weird) would have a CD to resist of 27: low-will classes would have all their magic items reduced to useless crap, low-fort classes would theirselves be reduced to useless crap from the Wail, not to mention some other effects that the wizard could bring into existence, like Time stop, Prismatic sphere and others. I told him that the wizard cannot just cast ALL these spells at the same time, and a fighter closing to him, preparing every round the action "when I see him casting, I smash his head!" would inevitabily cause all his spells to fizzle, but he didn't want to recede from his position.
Maybe Disjunction is a bit too powerful, but the fact is that all the other players seem to be convinced that he's right. Now yesterday they asked me to convert our campaign to 4th Edition, but I don't think I will do it: putting apart any flaming, I don't like 4th. I don't say it's for wusses, I don't say it's for powerplayers (at least not more than the 3.5), but what casts me down is that all my players think that 4th will solve EVERY bug in the game, that it will be the perfect solution to all issues, and that balance will be perfect. Since i believe that perfection is not achievable in any way, I'm sure that they say this because we don't know it: we just have to start our journey into the vast and unexplored lands of the 4th and bugs will start to pop in...

[Silence]

Just jack up his weapons, armor, and other magic items. That'll make him quit his complaining.

[Krytha]

I'm sure you could help out your melee in some inoffensive way to the magic users who are no doubt far more powerful.

[Thanatos 51-50]

More, we already played a demo of the 4th: from what I saw, PC growth is based on an ability tree, instead than class levels; since I had a really BAD experience with ability trees playins White Wolf's Exalted, I'm not too eager to start a new campaign with this method...

Um... what?
How did you come to this conlcusion?
Basically what happens is every class gets a "spell list" they can draw from and the same basic advancement table for when they learn new spells (excuse me, "powers"), feats, et. cetera.

In no way is there a skill tree.

Taking King's Castle, for example, doesn't obligate me to take any of the similar encounter powers when time for re-training comes around, and taking Fleeting Ghost doesn't obligate me to pick up any of the other stealth utilities. There is plenty of room for character customization (and, also, more feats than a 3.x human fighter for everyone)

Its a spell list, not a skill tree.

[Mando Knight]

new spells (excuse me, "powers")

Well, considering that more than half the classes available in published 4E books use names for powers that were considered "Spells" in previous editions (two classes with "Prayers" and three (including FRPG's Swordmage) with "Spells" vs. four Martial classes), it's not that inaccurate of a term...

The fighter was right, in a way. You pulled ClericZilla with an NPC, and showed him through that how weak not-full-caster-or-ToB characters are in 3.5. Thus, he heard (correctly) that Fighters were actually competent in 4E compared to spellcasters, and demanded that you switch. If you like to play with the guy, then you may have made the right decision. If you dislike tactical wargames (like Fire Emblem...), you'll probably despise the fact that 80-90% of the crunch is dedicated towards combat. However, if you primarily role-play non-combat encounters anyway, this lack of hard rules in that regard should make no difference whatsoever.

There aren't "ability trees," there's just bonuses for about every level (more powers, feats, and/or ability points), and a recommended set of powers for optimizing your character according to the flavor desired. A fighter with a sword will do better picking powers that benefit Heavy Blades rather than ones that are empowered by Axes or Hammers, for example, just like a 3.5 save-or-die focused mage shouldn't pick blasty-mage powers.

[FoE]

But OP, learning 4E isn't that difficult, especially if you're already acquainted with 3.5E. And it's waaaaaaaaay easier on DMs.

[FdL]

Seriously dissapointed here at some people's expressions towards other edition than the one they like. I thought here of all places we could do without that. Without resorting to insults and that kind of things. Figures.

To OP (before they lock this thread or whatever happens, which would be right anyway): 4E is in no way difficult to learn. It's a streamlined, simpler version of 3.5. So taking a look at the stuff that changes, if you don't have time, implies reading a handful of chapters fully, then you can look up stuff.

There's also some short "rules primer" (http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/news_20080228.zip) with the new things to have in mind while switching to 4e. It's good, and there was also a pretty good summary of stuff in the first part of the published adventure called "Keep on the Shadowfell".

Now, the DM Guide is a must read because it has the rules for building encounters, giving experience and treasure, and other essential things. It's a great book too.

My recommendation is to give it a try. Then judge for yourself. You should know that DMing is made simpler in 4E, so that's something you could like. In our group we play it and we enjoy it, and we do just anything that we did when we used 3.5. But again, judge for yourself and don't listen to the naysayers.

[Flame of Anor]

Interesting: since IMHO almost all the WotC manuals are a load of crap (and my players are the first to agree with me), we decided to use only Core Manuals, Forgotten Realms and Magic of Faerun as sources for the spells. All the sort of Complete Anything have been utterly banned...

Aww, I like the Completes... :smallfrown:

[averagejoe]

The balance of 3.5 is by no means perfect, but its flexibility is part of its charm.

4th edition smooths things out a bit too much, IMO. It lost me when I realized a rogue could effectively cast burning hands with his crossbow.

:smalleek: But crossbows have no hands!

[Flame of Anor]

That's because you've only ever encountered the handless ones. If you'd encountered the hand-wielding crossbows...let's just say you might not be around today.

[ivendale]

I feel you man, I feel you

[Quorothorn]

Aww, I like the Completes... :smallfrown:

Me too. Warlocks are really interesting, for example.

Of course, my actual playing experience with D&D can accurately be described as "non-existent", so...