Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)

[The Ugly One]

What are your honest opinions about 4e?

For the longest time I've had only heard bad things about it, but I have recently decided to run a 4e Dark Sun campaign for some internet friends and I'm really enjoying it so far. I absolutely love the way statblocks are done and the art of Wayne Reynolds has really grown on me.

4e was a very interesting and fun system that didn't resemble Dungeons & Dragons in any meaningful way. Combat bogs down a lot at high levels, and making it playable requires fixing the math, which actually isn't hard at all. I've heard 13th Age is effectively the spiritual successor.

 

[Corn Flakes]

As for "happy go lucky high fantasy", I kind of disagree. The games I run and play in are that, but most people seem to be demanding a super serious mud farmer Tolkien rip off game. I say demanding because grognards never seem to actually play the games they demand, but that's a whole rant on it's own.

Both grognards and theater majors never play the games they demand. That's half the problem. In my experience, though, I see more people wanting high-fantasy settings full of queer people these days. But that's what I get browsing Roll20. Thankfully, I've got my established groups to play with. Not grognards, but people who can stick to the tone the GM set for more than two minutes.

4e was a very interesting and fun system that didn't resemble Dungeons & Dragons in any meaningful way. Combat bogs down a lot at high levels, and making it playable requires fixing the math, which actually isn't hard at all. I've heard 13th Age is effectively the spiritual successor.

Every D&D game both bogs and breaks down at high levels, so that's not really a huge issue. It's not like most games, 4e or otherwise, last long enough for players to reach high levels to begin with.

I've got to look up 13th Age, though. Thanks for the tip.

 

[The Ugly One]

Ok, but 4e really bogs down. I remember combats taking multiple hours. I eventually cut all monster HP in half and doubled their damage, which was a common fix.

 

[Corn Flakes]

Ok, but 4e really bogs down. I remember combats taking multiple hours. I eventually cut all monster HP in half and doubled their damage, which was a common fix.

That's fair, at least there was a common fix to it.

I didn't experience that issue, but it might have just been the GM's preferred way of building encounters. He also used a lot of custom monsters and liked setting up droves of minions for the Wizard to knock over. So... yeah, in hindsight it wasn't the "default" 4e experience.

 

[WhatIsThePunchline]

I can't quote due to site problems.


That's fine. I like me some eberron which limits races to official material. And even then Dragonborn feel under developped.


I think 1 is the most important point. It's why Eberron and Spelljammer are tolerated.

As for "happy go lucky high fantasy", I kind of disagree. The games I run and play in are that, but most people seem to be demanding a super serious mud farmer Tolkien rip off game. I say demanding because grognards never seem to actually play the games they demand, but that's a whole rant on it's own.

I've heard good things about the anime rpg anima, but never read it.

Nine times out of ten, people who want a game that is serious, or gritty, low magic, or low fantasy really just want a game that is difficult without being unfair, and where the setting's atmosphere has some cohesion to it.

Dark Sun has cohesion and is easy as shit to justify things being difficult in. It's also niche so people who play it will have some extra interest in it and people who don't won't care about it.

Rpgs just never cater to people that want a difficult game. If you don't shift the difficulty so that the worst players in the group can survive they'll just leave. Character death is also to much of a cost for it to be fun going trough repeatedly. It works fine in single player video games where people can grind, you can always respawn/start a new character, the character doesn't have a huge plot tied to them that gets cut off when they die and so on. So you can have your Dark Souls and your Rouge Likes and whatever and the people who enjoy the grind can enjoy it and the people who don't can scream endlessly about rng. But that doesn't work in rpgs. There are no dark souls for rpgs, and getting together a group for one is going to be far to difficult.

 

[Acrid Alchemist]

What are your honest opinions about 4e?

For the longest time I've had only heard bad things about it, but I have recently decided to run a 4e Dark Sun campaign for some internet friends and I'm really enjoying it so far. I absolutely love the way statblocks are done and the art of Wayne Reynolds has really grown on me.

I absolutely love 4e. If I want to play the specific kind of fantasy that D&D is good at its the only edition I'll ever use. I've played 3.5 and 5e and I had noticeably more niggles with them than 4e. It does have its issues but most of its bad rap comes from people who haven't read a single sentence of the books. The way you are going about it of trying it yourself and deciding your own opinion is how I wish more people would do it.

 

[Fictional Character]

But that doesn't work in rpgs. There are no dark souls for rpgs, and getting together a group for one is going to be far to difficult.

There is, in fact, a Dark Souls ttrpg. A Japanese one that's supposed to be pretty good from what I saw and another one that's based on Dnd 5e and seems to be crap.

But the closest to Dark Souls in rpgs is probably Pendragon. A crit from a competent enemy can kill you or take you out of the action for the rest of the year. If you fumble a passion roll, you go mad and can't return that character to play until the GM says so. Do you want to be smart and retreat from a hopeless fight? Oh, you're famously brave (as in, you have at least 16 Valorous trait on a scale of 0-20?)? Then the GM can tell you that you can't run. You're not famously brave? Then if you want to run and the fight isn't completely hopeless, you have to pass a roll for your Cowardly stat (which is 20-Valorous) and if you are cowardly and run, your Honor stat can take a hit. Bad rolls can screw you over massively and since it uses d20, you will fumble.

But a starting character is pretty competent. You can start with a sword skill of 15 and get +10 to it when you pass a passion roll. Armor is tremendously useful and you usually fight mounted which gives advantage against enemies on foot. It's a high risk, high reward type of game, it assumes it will play out over multiple generations of player characters (the Grand Campaign has at least one point where a TPK is all but assured), dying gloriously gives bonuses to your descendants and everyone probably knows what they signed up for. It might, in fact, be the greatest TTRPG of all time. Certainly the greatest work of love of all TTRPGs.

 

[AccountForLurking]

There is, in fact, a Dark Souls ttrpg. A Japanese one that's supposed to be pretty good from what I saw and another one that's based on Dnd 5e and seems to be crap.

But the closest to Dark Souls in rpgs is probably Pendragon. A crit from a competent enemy can kill you or take you out of the action for the rest of the year. If you fumble a passion roll, you go mad and can't return that character to play until the GM says so. Do you want to be smart and retreat from a hopeless fight? Oh, you're famously brave (as in, you have at least 16 Valorous trait on a scale of 0-20?)? Then the GM can tell you that you can't run. You're not famously brave? Then if you want to run and the fight isn't completely hopeless, you have to pass a roll for your Cowardly stat (which is 20-Valorous) and if you are cowardly and run, your Honor stat can take a hit. Bad rolls can screw you over massively and since it uses d20, you will fumble.

But a starting character is pretty competent. You can start with a sword skill of 15 and get +10 to it when you pass a passion roll. Armor is tremendously useful and you usually fight mounted which gives advantage against enemies on foot. It's a high risk, high reward type of game, it assumes it will play out over multiple generations of player characters (the Grand Campaign has at least one point where a TPK is all but assured), dying gloriously gives bonuses to your descendants and everyone probably knows what they signed up for. It might, in fact, be the greatest TTRPG of all time. Certainly the greatest work of love of all TTRPGs.

Is the version or edition you recommend most? Sounds quite fun!

 

[Fictional Character]

Is the version or edition you recommend most? Sounds quite fun!

Pendragon 5.2 is pretty much the definitive edition, since Greg Stafford has sadly passed away. There is a 6th edition in the works based on his notes that has potential, but the last time I checked, it wasn't nearly ready. There's a bunch of books for 5e and almost all of them add a lot to the game.

Apart from the main rulebook, there is:
Pendragon Grand Campaign: The actual heart of the game. It's a campaign that takes players from the era of Uther Pendragon uniting Britain and fighting Saxons to King Arthur's last battle at Camlann. It will take several years worth of weekly sessions to finish, but it's absolutely amazing and totally worth reading on its own.
Book of Uther: Expands the start of the Grand Campaign by 10 more years. Not really necessary, but it can make certain events in the Grand Campaign easier on the players.
Book of Knights and Ladies: Almost mandatory, a lot of expanded chargen options for knights from other cultures.
Book of Battles: There's a lot of army battles in the Grand Campaign and this gives them a lot of extra depth.
Book of Manor: The game assumes the default player knight is landed and this book gives options on how to customize their home manor and also expands manor economy beyond the harvest being decided by GM fiat and the current conditions as set in the campaign.
Book of Estate: An expansion for the larger landowners. Apart from expanded rules for family members aging and dying, it's not necessary.
Book of the Warlord: Another expansion for playing even larger landowners. Again, unless the players are into that, it's not needed.
Book of Armies: Really useful for the GM, since it has stats for a lot of enemies that can be encountered in battles.
Book of Entourage: A smaller book covering expanded rules for squires and all other types of hirelings you can take with you on adventures.

The only absolute must from the extra books is the Grand Campaign. Uther, Battles and Armies are very useful. Everything else comes with extra bookkeeping, so it's really up to any potential player group if they want to deal with that. Pendragon has a lot of bookkeeping: a player will probably want to have one or two alternate knights in case something happens to their main one. Even if you get invested in a family line, it's absolutely possible for a knight to die with their heir being five years old. Plus you have to roll for every adult family member surviving the year once they hit certain age. And your wife has a chance of dying in childbirth every year and small children are also prone to dying. If you want to play a female knight, it's better to focus on the Chastity virtue.

I don't know what happened with the quote here. Tor issues, I guess.

 

[WhatIsThePunchline]

There is, in fact, a Dark Souls ttrpg. A Japanese one that's supposed to be pretty good from what I saw and another one that's based on Dnd 5e and seems to be crap.

But the closest to Dark Souls in rpgs is probably Pendragon. A crit from a competent enemy can kill you or take you out of the action for the rest of the year. If you fumble a passion roll, you go mad and can't return that character to play until the GM says so. Do you want to be smart and retreat from a hopeless fight? Oh, you're famously brave (as in, you have at least 16 Valorous trait on a scale of 0-20?)? Then the GM can tell you that you can't run. You're not famously brave? Then if you want to run and the fight isn't completely hopeless, you have to pass a roll for your Cowardly stat (which is 20-Valorous) and if you are cowardly and run, your Honor stat can take a hit. Bad rolls can screw you over massively and since it uses d20, you will fumble.

But a starting character is pretty competent. You can start with a sword skill of 15 and get +10 to it when you pass a passion roll. Armor is tremendously useful and you usually fight mounted which gives advantage against enemies on foot. It's a high risk, high reward type of game, it assumes it will play out over multiple generations of player characters (the Grand Campaign has at least one point where a TPK is all but assured), dying gloriously gives bonuses to your descendants and everyone probably knows what they signed up for. It might, in fact, be the greatest TTRPG of all time. Certainly the greatest work of love of all TTRPGs.

I saw this post earlier but then I forgot about it. Anyway this sounds cool, if extremely time intensive.

 

[Bloitzhole]

Apropos of nothing - a recent exchange at my table, after I brought in a new player by having the party find his gnome character in a cupboard, where he was stashed by slavers fleeing the bay:

A: "I don't like non-humans. Do I know what that is?"
GM: "It's a gnome"
A: "Do I speak his language?"
GM: "Your character sheet indicates you only speak Goblin, not Gnomish, but you both speak common of course"
A: "These short people are all the same, I ask him what he was doing in the cupboard - in Goblin"

B: "Do I understand what he's saying? Or at least what language he is gargling at me?"
GM: "Give me a knowledge check and add your intelligence"
B: "Critical Fail"
GM: "This must be a highly academic gnomish dialect that you are not familiar with."
B: "I nod and answer 'Very well', and feel embarrassed his Gnomish is so good"
GM: "In Common?"
B: "No, in Gnomish"
A: "Do I know what he's saying?"
GM: "You have no fucking clue what this little person is blabbering about"
A: "I nod gravely"

For the next half hour, during combat, the two characters would regularly shout at each other, each assuming the other understands.
Every time I'd ask: "Do you shout that in common, which everyone speaks, or in Goblin/Gnomish?"
The answer was always: "In Goblin/Gnomish of course!"
leading to such exchanges as
A: "There is a skeleton behind you"
B: "I give him a thumbs up"
GM: "The skeleton takes you by surprise and hits you with advantage"

A lot of completely unnecessary accidents happened, but by the end of the session, my belly was aching from laughter - this is why I play DnD.

 

[Gingervitis]

I wish D&D would revisit the idea of playing as a dragon, even a wyrmling. I think Dragon Magazine did it the best, and if WotC just revisited the idea of playing one, it might work

 

[Mr. Manchester]

I wish D&D would revisit the idea of playing as a dragon, even a wyrmling. I think Dragon Magazine did it the best, and if WotC just revisited the idea of playing one, it might work

I feel like it would be really easy to implement in 5e too. Magic items aren't really a consideration for a base game anymore so you could just hook them up with weapons and an armor class on par with a similar character and you're good to go. Wizards doesn't like to make things people can play larger than medium sized but I think I'd want to be large if I was a legit dragon.

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

I've actually played a dragon a couple times; once using someone's custom rules, and once with those Dragon Magazine rules.

Your biggest issue is that you're very much locked into your racial class for a long time. The progressions are built off the old monster progression rules from Savage Species, which were usually meant for critters with 2-5 hit dice. Normally a monster cannot multiclass into an actual class (such as fighter) until it completes its monster class progression; dragons only need to complete their age bracket. For example, a 1st level brass dragon PC cannot take levels of any class (or prestige, if he qualifies) until he has reached fifth level (which completes his hatchling age progression).

That being said, even hatchlings can wreak havoc. I played a tiny-sized brass dragon in a campaign; that +8 Hide bonus came in very handy when I needed to scout.

The rules can be found in Dragon #320 (for metallics) and 332 (for chromatics).

 

[Snekposter]

Apropos of nothing - a recent exchange at my table, after I brought in a new player by having the party find his gnome character in a cupboard, where he was stashed by slavers fleeing the bay:

A: "I don't like non-humans. Do I know what that is?"
GM: "It's a gnome"
A: "Do I speak his language?"
GM: "Your character sheet indicates you only speak Goblin, not Gnomish, but you both speak common of course"
A: "These short people are all the same, I ask him what he was doing in the cupboard - in Goblin"

B: "Do I understand what he's saying? Or at least what language he is gargling at me?"
GM: "Give me a knowledge check and add your intelligence"
B: "Critical Fail"
GM: "This must be a highly academic gnomish dialect that you are not familiar with."
B: "I nod and answer 'Very well', and feel embarrassed his Gnomish is so good"
GM: "In Common?"
B: "No, in Gnomish"
A: "Do I know what he's saying?"
GM: "You have no fucking clue what this little person is blabbering about"
A: "I nod gravely"

For the next half hour, during combat, the two characters would regularly shout at each other, each assuming the other understands.
Every time I'd ask: "Do you shout that in common, which everyone speaks, or in Goblin/Gnomish?"
The answer was always: "In Goblin/Gnomish of course!"
leading to such exchanges as
A: "There is a skeleton behind you"
B: "I give him a thumbs up"
GM: "The skeleton takes you by surprise and hits you with advantage"

A lot of completely unnecessary accidents happened, but by the end of the session, my belly was aching from laughter - this is why I play DnD.

I was once part of a D&D game where common didn't exist thanks to being in the GM's homebrew setting. Only two of the PC's could speak to each other at any time. Interrogating the poor dude we suspected of involvement in the village well getting poisoned went about as smoothly as a Slovakian scout reporting to his Austrian lieutenant through his Hungarian platoon sergeant. Unironically fun times, and not just because we surprised the poor bastard while he was pulling his pants up after taking a dump in one of the public outhouses.

 

[Wormy]

I wish D&D would revisit the idea of playing as a dragon, even a wyrmling. I think Dragon Magazine did it the best, and if WotC just revisited the idea of playing one, it might work

If I'm not mistaken, didn't one really old version even let you play as friggin Balrog?

 

[Agent of Z.O.G.]

Any of you wodfags read through that fifth edition Hunter the Reckoning book?
The one with Hebrew Hammer

 

[Cpt. Stud Beefpile]

Ok, but 4e really bogs down. I remember combats taking multiple hours. I eventually cut all monster HP in half and doubled their damage, which was a common fix.

What little I remember about actually playing 4e involved a single mixed band of orcs and other common nasties taking like 3 hours, and the party hadn't moved past the first couple rooms. I noped right out.

5e is much better and Cantrips mean that magic users dont have to hide behind a rock with their useless dagger the minute they run out of spells.

 

[Mr. Manchester]

Ok, but 4e really bogs down. I remember combats taking multiple hours. I eventually cut all monster HP in half and doubled their damage, which was a common fix.

I remember that being my experience with 4e. A friend of mine ran it a couple of months after it came out and half of us were strikers. Fought a dragon and burned through all of the encounter/daily powers and then it turned into a slog fest of just pecking at it until we got bored and just focused on drinking instead. That being said the idea behind it is really cool.

Lancer is supposed to be based on 4e and that game is fantastic. I've talked about it on the thread before but the basic stuff is all on https://compcon.app/#/new that just lets you set up what you want. Had enough fun with that game that I'll shill it when it comes to mind.

 

[The Ugly One]

What little I remember about actually playing 4e involved a single mixed band of orcs and other common nasties taking like 3 hours, and the party hadn't moved past the first couple rooms. I noped right out.

5e is much better and Cantrips mean that magic users dont have to hide behind a rock with their useless dagger the minute they run out of spells.

The early adventures tried to design things using AD&D-like approaches, which was absolutely unplayable, plus the aforementioned math problems.

It cleaned up nicely when you

1. 2x Monster damage + 1/2 Monster HP
2. Realized you should have mostly minions in a fight, maybe 3 regular monsters at most
3. Designed things for no more than 3 or 4 set piece battles per day.

Ironically, it was just no good at dungeon crawls, but there were things it was very, very good at. Set piece battles with environmental hazards and active traps were fantastic in 4e. Just take for granted than a battle will take an hour or more, then think about what an interesting hour-long battle looks like. Terrain should shift, waves of new minions should appear, fire jets shoot out of the walls, that kind of thing.