… aber diese Taten sagen alles, was es dazu zu sagen gibt. Und die Gesichter des Publikums erst recht. Meins sah wahrscheinlich bei ersten betrachten dieses Videos so ähnlich aus.
Ein “Dank” an unsere treue Leserin Fiona
Having delivered a very undewhelming player’s handbook, WotC isnow adding insult to injury with new guidelines for 3rd party developers doing D&D stuff. You might remember that by transforming Dungeons & Dragons into some kind of RPG-Linux in 3E, Wizards helped create a burgeoning accessories market for their game. Which resulted in some really brilliant products (like Scarred Lands, Midnight and Monte Cook’s stuff).
But WotC clearly are not just intent on ruining my favorite game, but also on ruining some people’s businesses models. Foaming 4E critic mxyzplk has done a nice compilation of people who think the new Game System Licence (GSL) sucks big time. They include Green Ronin, Paizo, Kobold Quarterly and many others.
Sean K. Reynolds (Former D&D designer, Greyhawk, FR, Baldur’s Gate etc.) says: “As restrictive as the GSL is, there are going to be fewer people publishing for 4E. Which means you, as a player/DM, will have fewer choices when it comes to ready-to-use material.”
Boy this sucks. See the full list of GSL critics here.
Dou you tink 4E sucks? Then join the Facebook Group!
Ein an typografischer Coolness kaum zu überbietenes Video zu Justices »D.V.N.O.«. via Fontblog
Summary: This is a brief review of the 4th edition (4E) of WotC’s role playing classic Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). It outlines the major changes in game mechanics, design and philosophy and is based on The Player’s Handbook. I try to answer the question whether it is any good or more specifically: Should you switch to 4E you are a 3E veteran gamer? The answer is an emphatic no. 4E is in my opinion lacking its predecessor’s parsimony, focuses too much on combat and tries too hard to appeal to video games (in short it really sucks)
First, the formalities. As regards paper quality, artwork and binding, this is a fine hardcover. 3E was a bit more colorful, giving it the feel of an old tome. 4E is looking more modern and is more sparsely illustrated. Which is probably a good thing from a readability point of view, as the book is heavy on charts and boxes (more on that later).
There are quite a few changes in the races section: The designers have kicked out the gnome and have added three new races: the dragon born (mighty warriors with a breath weapon), sinister horned tieflings and the Eladrin a fey folk. While there is precedence for the tiefing, the other two races do not have any foundation in former (A)D&D editions. There is a certain lack of continuity here, especially with the dragon born, who have a monsterlike feel to them. This is the kind of race that will certainly appeal to younger players. Still, I do not understand the rationale behind adding it to the PH. Anyone running a campaign in the Forgotten Realms, Ebberon or Greyhawk will need the gnomes - while dragon born humanoids are not a big thing in any of these settings. Adding them to the game is a huge continuity issue and so far there is no info on how this is going to be resolved.
The biggest changes are in the characters section. Here too, some staples have been thrown out: Good bye monk, au revoir, bard, auf wiedersehen, barbarian, sayoonara, druid. A new character class that to my knowledge no one ever petitioned for is the warlord, a military leader type.
Characters can now advance through 30 levels. These are divided into three tiers: heroic, paragon and epic. The first tier is pretty much self-explanatory; as a paragon, characters can choose a subclass, in pretty much the same way as people could choose prestige classes in 3E (remember those? they seem to be a goner, too). The rogue’s career path, for instance, forks into the cat burglar, the daggermaster, the master infiltrator and the shadow assassin. It is a safe bet that future supplements will provide zillions of additional paragon tier subclasses. When a character reaches the epic tier (21+), he no longer has a clearly set path before him, but can pick individual advancements and powerful abilities. All in all this seems to be a pretty reasonable approach; it certainly is a little more balanced,streamlined and categorized than the prestige class system.
Putting them into stereotype boxes
Rob Heinsoo, Andy Collins, James Wyatt and the other 4E designers really seem to like categorizing things: The categorize levels into tiers; they categorize character abilities into at-will, encounter and daily powers. They also categorize character classes into four distinct character roles, which is one of the parts of this book where it gets pretty ridiculous. On page 16, pretty much before anything else, we learn that there are controllers (wizards), defenders (fighters, paladins), leaders (clerics, warlords) and strikers (rangers, rogues, warlocks). Strikers, for example “specialize in dealing high amounts of damage to a single target at a time.”
Ah, so that is why I play a rogue. And all the time I thought it had to do with portraying a mischievous character, torn between being an outlaw and doing good .. well never mind that. It’s the back stab ability that counts. I might sound a little unfair, but these definitions (”controllers deal with large numbers of enemies at the same time”) set the tone for the whole 4E concept: make D&D a better, more colorful hack & slay experience. Throw out the stuff that is not conducive to this - like lots of skills, wimpy races and pussy character classes (monk, bard) that get killed in the first encounter anyway.
In spirit with this philosophy, every character class now is an impressive collection of special powers with flashy names. Fighters have class abilities like dance of steel” or “griffon’s wrath” that give them special attacks. PCs accumulate lots of these powers. Pretty much like spells or magic abilities in most RPGs, they can be used, daily, per encounter etc. 4E character descriptions have become long lists of these powers, around a dozen pages for each character. Note that the old slot based magic system is gone, too - wizards an clerics simply have a list of powers like everyone else (though technically, these are still spells).
More variety, more book keeping
The good thing is that this makes for more colourful characters and more variety than before; in 3E a 5th level fighter is a 5th level fighter. The downside is that things are getting a lot more complicated. Everyone’s a wizard now. I know a lot of players who opt for fighting types not because they think spell users are uncool; they go for warriors because these are fairly easy to play and keep track of.
On the other hand, playing a high level wizard or cleric in D&D is a daunting task. Did the WotC designers every wonder why there are spell cards, spell sheets, and spell tokens for sale in very game store? It is because this magic stuff is pretty complicated. For this reason many people find playing a spell slinger is as atrractive as an entry level job in controlling - it’s ledgers galore.
Hence the appeal of the good ol’ simple sword slinger. But in 4E, there is no simplicity, no parsimony left in classes like the fighter. A 15th level human fighter will have around 15 special powers as well as 10 feats. So if you really want to play Holdrik the Slasher effectively, you’d better stock up on them multicolored B7 index cards. Ask the cleric. Or the wizard. The have plenty.
Feats? Powers? Confusion?
The power system with its feel of “Mortal Kombat meets Exalted” is my main bone of contention. So I will fast forward through the rest: Skills have been revamped, there are now 18 of them, with subsills. Hit points are no longer rolled when leveling (you just get a set amount). You have more of them, but NPCs with the new combat powers will drain you quickly. There is something called a healing surge to get back lost hits.
The feats are still here, many of them are now race or class related. This is not entirely logical. Why are feats like power attack still around? Shouldn’t these be subsumed under the new character powers? Let’s hope they clean that up in 4.5 (in two year’s time I’ll wager). There are also tons of magic items (swords, armor) in the book.
To sum up: In my opinion WotC has tried too hard to appeal to the MMORPG crowd by giving D&D more of a computer feel. The outcome is rather disappointing. “Geek Related” calls it ” a World of Warcraft-inspired tactical combat game, but very unlike (and incompatible with) previous editions of D&D”, which pretty much hits the nail on the head.
The brilliant thing about 3E was that while revamping D&D and redefining the game, it did manage not to alienate the fan base by keeping enough 2E stuff. 4E doesn’t do a good job at this. If you are playing a very combat oriented campaign and like having lots ofadditional powers for your PCs, then this book might be interesting. If you are a vet like me, tending a little more to the roleplaying / problem solving side of the game, then there is really no reason to delve into this and spend around a 1000 bucks for it. Too much? You’ll only buy two or three books? Get real, fan boy.
Are there alternatives? Plenty. If you would like your characters to have some flashy powers, take a look the Midnight Player’s Handbook 2E. It offers so called heroic paths that can be easily incorporated into your FR or WoG campaign. In addition, there is Paizo’s Pathfinder RPG - they are doing a new edition of D&D 3.5 under the OGL licence which, in the light of what a dud 4E appears to be, now seems like a brilliant move.
And never forget that you can always make up your own stuff. I remember meeting a couple of Midgard players way back in the 80s. They still played with the original stapled courier typeface xeroxed low circulation version of this German RPG classic and had never bothered to upgrade. This is a bit extreme, but before shelling out lots of money for 4E, I’d rather invest in completing my 3E set.
Tom Hillenbrand, 35, lives in Hamburg (Germany) is a professional writer and editor. He has been playing RPGs since he was ten years old and will continue to do so as long as he can hold a sword.
Eine Perle des Internets: Die Homepage von Boxpromoter und Brillenconnaisseur Ebby Thust.
Inklusive des von ihm selbst gesungenen Rap-Songs “Life is a fight”. Reinklicken und genießen.
Die Iren haben den EU-Vertrag gekippt. Das kann man verstehen, oder? Ich meine, im Ernst: Außer den neu gepflasterten Straßen, den Agrarbeihilfen, der Anhebung des Pro-Kopf-BIP um 50 Prozent, der Senkung der Arbeitslosigkeit, der Verbesserung der Bildungschancen, der Revitalisierung ländlicher Gebiette, der Ansiedleung eines halben Dutzend neuer Industriezweige und der neuen Schienenwege - was haben die Europäer je für uns getan?
Aber Dein Chef sitzt Dir im Naken?
Jetz gibt es für alle Windows XP Nutzer die ultimative Lösung:
http://readatwork.com/
Ausprobieren.Staunen.Lesen.
Eine großartige Umfrage. Laut dem Test bin ich ein chaotisch-böser zwergischer Dieb.
Ich finde einfach keine Worte hierfür…
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