Heh. I and another guy just answered the "should I change from PF to 4e?" question simultaneously with nearly opposite answers based on the same concepts.
@somori Thank you. I think the other guy has some good points against 4e, but overall I think 4e wins in this particular scenario because of advantages in other areas for this person.
One thing I really like about 4e is that it uses the same basic power system for everybody (instead of having to learn an entirely new subgame for sorcerers, clerics, and fighters respectively) but clever use of class features makes it feel different for each class (and subclass; a feylock and an infernal lock are surprisingly different in combat).
@somori Yeah. And as a DM I fell in love with the fluff.
(We came into 4e straight off a campaign where I had to fluff a 3.5 warlock as having a fey pact, and it was very straining on disbelief. Also, PoL is brilliant metagame-wise.)
@somori Ah, yes. My sudden and whiplash-inducing topic changes claim another victim.
PoL explicitly removes the "always a bigger fish" feel of most other settings I've run in: the PCs are now the heroes because there is no one else who can help.
Hehe. I'm not sure those gamers will suffer horribly if they move away from d20. Something like BRP might work well enough to help them learn their feet.
@somori Possibly, but they've already started in d20 and there might be feet-dragging about discarding all that effort.
I know that if I had spent a weekend reading the PHB and making a character in a system I had no previous experience in... and then the GM said "Nope, we're doing Dresden Files RPG instead!" I might mutiny.
(Despite that I'd probably really love DF RPG given half a chance.)
@BESW Well, it wouldn't be that big a jump. It would still be the same setting, and possibly the same characters (which apparently aren't very invested in).
But none of this is really here or there, as the question was pretty explicit. I like the comments because we get to say random off-question stuff that might be relevant, without just ignoring the guy's carefully-worded missive and giving an answer that doesn't have anything to do with his concern.
That's a different thing though - Google Search is changing our use of memory (and possibly making us stupid) but RSS reading is more "Is the Internet drowning us in rubbish?"
It's about how the information age is actually causing us to learn less because we have to filter out all the useless stuff. Each piece of information coming to us has to be evaluated as "pay attention to" or "ignore," and as a result of the overload of decision-making we either close down and stop processing much at all, or we lose our evaluative processes and become gullible.
"I don't need to remember that; I can look it up later" is functionally the equivalent of "I will download this knowledge to be accessed at a later date."
(Google is not just a search engine; it's a philosophy that's being embedded in our culture without comment.)
It's a force multiplier of a kind though - keeping just the index in our wetware does help increase the amount of knowledge an individual can access in their lifetime.
@somori yeah, there's no "Internet Bad! Memorizing Dictionary Good!" simplicity to this.
But Google's stated objective is to create a program that appears to read your mind by anticipating what you personally are interested in before you know it yourself.
And the wife of one of the owners of Google has founded a company to collect the DNA of everyone in the world (though the clip of her actually saying that is increasingly hard to find).
And if I didn't already have a strong sense of my narrative position in the world, I'd probably become a conspiracy theorist.
@somori I have great faith in the continued existence of humanity and the continuing process of building an ever-advancing civilization that reaches great new social, technological, and spiritual heights. I don't pretend to think it'll be easy, quick, or painless, or that we may not do some really stupid things on the way.
@somori Yes. Yes, I have. I think Mrs. Brin has too.
MLWM has a simple single-roll conflict resolution system. The idea is to narrate a TotM situation with tension, conflict, and pathos, and use that to set up mechanical advantages to add to the single roll (touching someone on the shoulder reassuringly so you can invoke the Intimacy die, for example).
DitV uses a wager-based conflict resolution system where the situation is set up in the TotM as the outset, and then everyone rolls dice connected to the situation and bets using the results.
The main difference being that in DitV, the conflict continues during resolution.
Say you started out trying to talk to a guy, so you rolled whatever negotiation dice you have. You narrate your conversation and wager dice to try and make if effective.
If the guy you're talking to has better dice than you, or bets more cannily, you may be in danger of running out of dice (and losing the debate). However, if you decide to swing a punch then you can bring in your fist/melee dice... and so can he.
You can then escalate to gun dice by drawing (making consequences even more significant, of course), and hope he doesn't have a gun so you get gun dice and he doesn't.
@Novian I asked why "miniature dependent" is a common insult for RPGs that use them, and @somori 's links led to me start thinking about my group's experiences with gridless systems.
@somori Yeah, but my party was as engaged in DitV as they are in D&D, and not nearly so engaged in MLWM's single-roll system. I'm curious about that and trying to figure out what it means about my group.
@BESW The glib answer is that they are looking for short actions to achieve advantages that they can use later. MLwM clearly doesn't have a tight enough feedback loop.
@BESW Good to know. Although it suffers when you present thought by thought in a forum like this.
The new rules in FATE core provide for your players too - they can take lots of actions to get aspects in conflicts that should make them much less of a slugging match.
@somori Typical Evil Corporate Overlord Jerking Small Businesses Around and Sending Them Out of Business stuff... and they keep pretending Guam isn't part of the USPS.
They'll mail books to me, but not let me download ebooks because I'm "not part of the United States." They won't give me software under any circumstances because I'm "international."
Heck, Netflix only noticed Guam less than a year ago.
(Before then they'd mail us disks but not let us stream.)
I never noticed any, but I never really rechecked the maths. Even with the level 30 versions of the Brotherhood fo the Golden Skull going up against Orcus.
I don't expect the CB to do things like factor in the bonus to thunder damage that only applies because I'm using a weapon that makes all damage thunder; that's too much to ask.
But qualifying for dragonborn feats because the goblin learned draconic seems iffy.
@somori yeah, my current campaign is all about the Mythos.
I'm folding the 4e Tomb of Horrors superadventure into it, in which the Devourer is basically licking the corners of the multiverse to get enough dead god residue to become a god himself.
You know how the war between Arkhosia and Bael Turath ended suddenly with the Golden One being killed and Bael Turath's capital city exploding mysteriously?
@somori Vague is a good way to describe the canon for this.
My campaign's final chapter is going to be a fight between a fully manifested Starbeast and the party trying to shove it back through the crack in the multiverse it came through... with the Turathi city as collateral damage.
Pretty much. But whenever the mole sticks its head out, cities turn to crystal and shatter, or melt, or get up and walk away. Or any combination thereof.
I'm building on the (very scattered, loose, and contradictory) canon of the events, but adding a Far Realm interpretation.
From level 1 the party's been experiencing the cracks in the multiverse: whenever a player can't show up, his PC 'no-clips' until he comes back, and I tell him where he was (hardly any time passed for him, while the party may have been adventuring for days or weeks).
In 4e, there's an actual outside-the-multiverse place called the Far Realm that is explicitly Lovecraftian and aberrants are things from there or influenced by it.
Thrallherd vs leadership.......One could conveivably allow me into the Legendary captain and the other definitely will. I mean there is almost no difference. Exept Thralls and Belivers are more willing.
I want at least the first level of anarchic Initiate So I can SUPERboom.
another stich in my plans I aint proficient with my armor. Which while fine for most things screws over my one damage power. Armor check penalties Apply to attack rolls when not proficient so I take -2(Including Ranged attack bonus.) with the armor I want. I mean its a ranged touch but Im hurting for feats already. I cant take Meduim Heavy and then Exotic for it.
hmm so Ive solved my own problem. No need for flaw(Unless I reaaaally want leadership.) and I have the 3 feats I want. The armor Im nonproficient with would be designed for insta in insta out. and it would only give me 1 less armor than the suit I was wanting before. and impose only a -1(After adding in my RaB) on the one ranged touch attack I have(Although that is annoying.)
Damn Exotic Heavy armors being so good.
My Flat footed is gonna suck.
AC 22 Flat Footed 20 Touch 16
nevermind I recind that statement. I forgot Flat Foot keeps armor.
Hunter Druid (UA 59) Level: 1st Replaces: Armor and shield proficiencies, wild shape and all later improvements. Benefit: Bonus to AC (including Wis bonus) and fast movement as monk. Favored enemy, swift tracker, and Track bonus feat as ranger.
Hoping to find some half assed way to compensate for my Armor situation eventually. Other than that. Imagine........Warshaper + Chameleon(Kinda dumb but good for flavor.) I am anyone and everyone.
@Novian Level 30: doppelganger with warshaper, chameleon, cherry-picked levels from a half dozen different druid prestige classes, a series of poorly-worded feats, and a single very carefully worded wish, accompanied by a bard, could become literally anything with less than 38 HD. Including animated objects, insubstantial creatures, and every single creature type.
@Novian Yes. I was taking advantage of a house rule that let me ignore my four racial HD from doppelganger when calculating level, so I was technically level 34.
But still, I could shapeshift as a free action and absorb or re-shape items to fit my new shape as I pleased, so with a free action I could change my clothing (true seeing showed a doppelganger wearing several dozen pairs of clothing and suits of armor, with a dozen rings and a lot of weapons).
I was. I rendered the entire party pointless as I could replicate supernatural and spell-like abilities that let me summon minions to do my dirty work if there was too much to do myself.
My offensive stance was usually force dragon, because I got to add my ungodly Charisma bonus to attacks and damage.
Had a campaign where our group ran into these things called Doors of Wonder which did alot of random things. it was a random chance at the begginning of each dungeon that determined if it was in that dungeon due to them cosmically shifting every so often.
and I was in a personal relationship with death whom was at the time a female fallen angel. she imparted the ability(After I having died 5 times and miraculously recovering.) to find Deathflowers which allowed me to ressurect. because she didnt want to deal with my deaths anymore.
And there was no save. If you walked through one, it happened to you, but you were entirely free not to. They knew PCs didn't need to be coerced to do something like that.
In my opinion, the best dungeons are modeled after the Cyberman trap in Tomb of the Cybermen.
The Professor: How did you know we would release you? You could have remained frozen forever. The Cyber Controller: The humanoid mind. You are inquisitive. The Doctor: Ah, I see. A trap. A very special sort of trap too. The Professor: What do you mean special trap? The Doctor: They wanted superior intellects. Thats why they made the trap so complicated! The Cyber Controller: We knew that somebody like you would come to our planet someday. The Doctor: Yes. We've done exactly as you calculated, haven't we?
@Rob Having spent 6 years with 3.5, I and my group like enjoy our DDI subscription--downloadable access to all the magazines, regularly updated compendium of all monsters, PC options, and rules, a character builder that uses the compendium and provides printouts if we want, and an NPC builder that, while it has its faults, at least lets me fix them.
We've got the most of them in our Pile O' Dice, and using the same dice for everything means I don't have to take a moment to check which dice I need to roll each time.
