Merin

I'm finally just going to jump in here and say that Dragon Age: Origins is in my top ten all time favorite video games. Number one on that list, though, is Wasteland. And Pools of Darkness (representative of all the Gold Box games) is above DA:O. There are some things not so great about DA:O. And that statement applies to every game I've ever played.

I think you are confused. This is what happened with 2nd ED. Upset fans, ones who never went back to D&D, TSR burrying... no, no, wait - that was 3rd. WotC buys TSR, changes the game horribly, D&D fans not happy and never come back... no, wait, it was 4th... no,no, wait... it's 5th. This happens each addition. New company or not. I find it extremely funny, the 3E fans, who say how WotC ruined it with 4. The same company. Which, in it's previous edition, drastically changed the game. Just admit - you like 3E. You didn't want it to change from that. Everything else is hyperbolic "my team vs. there team" nonsense. I should have known better than to get into this "discussion." It's as bad as most other topics on here, like Vancian. I'm so tired of the snide comments and insults. Carry on the 4E bashing to your hearts content.

If it's like 1st or 2nd ED D&D... I'd have no problem with multi-classing. Or 4E's version, even. I can see someone who's been a thief all their life spending some time training with monks and getting some of their abilities, but at a lesser skill level and not all of them (like 4E), or a long-lived race being able to focus on training two skill-sets are once, but doing so very, very slowly (1st and 2nd) or even the dual-classing of old D&D (when you start your new class, your old class stops advancing... if you use abilities from your old class, you don't get XP as your aren't training in your new class.) Running around for weeks casting spells, and saying that the experience (XP) of doing such suddenly means you know how to wear heavy armor and swing a halberd is très stupide.

It's not tanking in the sense you mean. For one, the company as a whole made several really bad calls. One, they ended their skirmish game support for their mini's. I never played the skirmish game, but they cut out half the reason for getting the figures. Two, they introduced stupid products like the pre-printed power cards (which, yes, looked cool, but if you ever tried to use them you'll realize quickly why they aren't useful) and very expensive dice sets. Three, they killed their magazines and placed them behind a pay-wall - that paywall, DDI, being the biggest mistake of all. Four, they left a HUGE opening with OGL for hard-core 3E fans to not have to try to adjust to 4E - ergo, Pathfinder for the 4E haters. All of those blunders ended up "coinciding with" (I'm not saying caused, but it's certainly possible they did cause) some shake-ups in the people in charge. Different designers get in charge, they have different visions. Look at DA:O to DA2 for a prime example. Different people in charge have different design ideas. WotC was doing fine, sales wise, with 4E. Yes, Pathfinder grew to out sell it at times - but if you look at those times, 4E hadn't released books for a long time and therefore a big glut was open for new Pathfinder books to continue excitement. But the misstep of Essentials (not a tragic misstep, but a wholly unnecessary one) was followed by a driving desire (and this was absolutely wrongheaded) to "win back" 3E fans. Now, realize, I'm not defending WotC - it should be clear that I'm pretty close to bashing it openly. From 3E forward, with the exception of finding some of the mechanics and design aspects of 4E actually to be quite good. And... this is quite the thread derail... (checks the OP.... remembers that Mods are quite laissez faire here) ... never mind, let's continue the discussion!

I just don't understand this. For me, for decades, D&D was "human paladins" , multi-classing was a non-human, limited affair. When you made a character you could just role-play that he could ride a horse or tie a knot or smith his own tools. And classes stood on their own. Leveling up, unless you were a spell-caster who picked your new spells, took seconds. 3E introduced Feats, Skills, and virtually unlimited multi-classing. Any race could be any class. It certainly doesn't feel like D&D to me, if we're talking mechanically. *shrug* I guess it's what your priorities are. If the powers systems, boiling down of the alignment system, and removal of unlimited multi-classing makes it "not D&D" to you, so be it.

I'm only familiar with 2ed, so your first statement makes me laugh. Min-max as I know it is about pure specialization (vertical), never about hybridizing across competencies (horizontal). Unless we're using different meanings. Okay, so let me give you a very brief example of 3E munchkin character building. "I'll take a level of this, it gives me these bonuses. And now I'll take a level of this, as it gives me these abilities. Now I'll take more levels of this third class, as it has the best bang for it's buck... until it's fourth level, at which later additions don't add anything... and now I'll take this prestige class, as it's abilities add well with what I have to make a killer build!" In 3E a lot of the classes give a lot of their bonuses and abilities at the first level - so, for example, grab just one level of Monk for some great stuff! There are also almost no restrictions on multi-classing, certainly not what you had in 2nd ED and earlier. Any race can be any class, and there's no limit to how many classes you can take. And there are prestige classes. 2nd ED is a very different game than 3E. Or, to put it another way - go look on any forums or talk to any hardcore 3E players - you'll have a tough time finding anyone who'll advocate you taking a straight class build. This isn't to say there aren't players out there who do it for fun or RP reasons... there are. But they aren't the majority of the people I ran into.

No. If anything, it was the "Magic the Gathering-ing" of 3E that I disliked. 3E is such a major departure from the D&D that came before it's not even funny. I always find it amusing that 3E fans call 4E "not D&D"... all the big changes from earlier D&D to 3E are still in 4E. Feats, Skills, any race being any class, paladins of any alignment.... Tipping my hand. I like clearly delineated classes. I like races feeling special, being more than just some bonuses added on top of human. I don't like multi-classing. 3E is a munchkinners dream. If people want to play that way, that's cool, but I don't want to play with people playing that way. Every 3E game I played was a big mess of "my character can kill your character" or each player doing his own separate story and each of us taking turns... or that horrible experience with all the random encounters, random loot rolls.... *shudder* - I know the random tables are from earlier editions, too, but we almost never used any of that stuff before. My favorite game system ever was TSR's Marvel Super Heroes RPG. My favorite setting was Palladium's Rifts. For more modern systems I've got a tie between Eden Studios or the Cortex system (great for storytelling.)

When I first heard about it, my friends and I were excited. "Here's a real-life version of Dragon Poker!" I played it for about a year with my friends - we're talking, uhm, like 1994. It got old pretty fast after that. Especially when I hit college and started to see the "competitive" scene (and I'm not even talking tournaments - I just mean players who read magazines (pre-web here) or went to BBS's and got "killer deck builds") I was absolutely turned off. My circle of friends for gaming only had one min/maxer who joined early in our gaming and we beat it out of him, so the "win at any cost" dynamic is a huge turn-off for me. So, yes, I played for about a year back when the game was fairly new nearly twenty years ago. Why?

Multi-classing just feels all about min/maxing and is almost never about role-playing. I'm strongly against it - especially the ridiculous mess that is in 3E. If it's handled like 1st ED D&D or 4th ED, maybe I'd be okay with it. But, overall, I'd just say no. Make each class stand on it's own.

It's my favorite edition of D&D, just edging out 2nd ED (which is where the majority of my playing was spent, even though I started in the Red Box.) Anything I dislike in 4E was stuff that 3E introduced.

You know if I were ever to make my own fantasy setting, I'd just make up random words for the classes just so avoid some of the prior conceptions, or realistic conceptions, of what they should be based off of X or Y or Z and all that. These class discussions have all brought me to that conclussion. I'll let you know when my current high fantasy novel is finished, then.

There are two identifiable camps in this discussion, clearly - A - Those focused on mechanics (who should then admit that there need only be two camps - physical vs. spells - since the mechanics for barbarians, rangers, rogues, fighters and monks will be the same, whereas the mechanics for clerics, wizards and ciphers will be the same... with any odd cases (stealth, rage, animal companion) crossing the two (stealth is an invisibility spell ability for rogues, animal companions is a familiar or summon animal ability for rangers, etc.) B - Those focused on lore, purpose and role-playing (who think that each class and sub-class bring something vitally different to the table.) Camp A is logically correct that paladins can be created using priests or fighters. But they need to admit the same for all the other non core 4 (or, more mechanics wise,core 2 IMO.) Camp B is esthetically correct that paladins are vastly different than priests or fighters. And they have on their side that we already have a slew of sub-classes to prove the devs seemingly agree with the B view.

If only this could be true.

At least we'll get an honorable mention - "once, long ago, there was a class of people known as Paladins.... they fought for order, justice, protecting the weak and innocent, and sought out the greatest evils to slay... but then the last of their order was eaten, as were all his fellows, by the ravenous incursion of Kerfluffles gelatinous cubes.... civilization was saved, but at the cost of all it's greatest defenders"

I think, at worst, you had a group of people who weren't for or against it, but indifferent. Maybe some who'd prefer it to Vancian, but that doesn't equate to liking it. For example, I don't want Vancian, I wouldn't mind cool downs depending on how they are implemented. But if it were Vancian I'd still play and enjoy the game despite it, like many years of AD&D games, SSI Gold Box games and IE games.

But in regards to "hordes of pant-wetting Buffy fans", I are confuzed... ? Care to explain that one? Yeah, I somewhat take offense at that one. Are fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and other fine Joss Whedon shows people who can't control their bladder?

I don't want D&D. I certainly don't want 3E D&D. A different set of attributes, with something outside taht 3-18 range. And no multi-classing, for the love of Commodore 64!

I think I actually, weighing one against the other, prefer the companions getting back up after a fight than the assumption that losing a fight and reloading to try again is desired. If there's one thing I hate about games with staggered save points, or most platformers... is doing the same thing over and over again, trying to get it right. I don't mind failing. If I lose badly and have to reload, so be it. But advocating fail / reload to redo / rinse / repeat as a positive? Uhm, no.

Without going King Arthur, unfortunately, or Don Quixote, I really can't think of film paladin references....

Cool. How about this - http://youtu.be/_IjA8U9MCL4 But I guess this is the traditional bard, right? http://youtu.be/WrdtUDxiDn4

I'm assuming this is a thread about not allowing "beaten" companions to just pop back up after the end of combat? If that's the gist of the message - I'll add a +1 to the sentiment. There could be a "casual" difficulty that allowed it, I'd be okay with that. But, yeah, dying in a fight should be possible.

*considers posting in thread* *considers who started the thread* *wants to add to conversation* *doesn't want to engage with certain individuals...* Uhm, I guess I'll just say I don't fit any of the "groupings" I've seen yet.

Wonders what 2 seconds of internet searching can do for ignorance - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paladin Since you obviously have not read that article, let me point out the third sentence to you: "The paladins and their associated exploits are largely later fictional inventions". You're welcome. ... You're serious? What is your point? That monks, ciphers and mages ARE real and not fictional? No, of course not. That because something is part of literature it isn't historical? I think that's what you mean. Now, here's the problem... I don't think anyone, anywhere, was claiming that there were REAL paladins, especially the kind you find in D&D. Just like there weren't rangers or druids or bards like you find in D&D. But that there is precedence, historically in literature, of paladins before D&D. That's what I meant. Paladins are as fictional, as much literary constructions, as KNIGHTS. The "knighted" people, the lowest level of aristocracy of the medieval period, were not heroes, protectors of the people, or any such nonsense. They were warlords, people with the most powerful weapons of their day, who lorded over people by the point of their sword. The romantic notion of knighthood and chivalry was invented by the church to try and instill a sense of morality in the nobility - and it failed. Paladins are as real as knights. In any case, thanks for not understanding that historical doesn't have to refer to real people - it can refer to literature and ideas and beliefs.

Wonders what 2 seconds of internet searching can do for ignorance - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paladin *sigh* please don't use Wikipedia as a reference for anything but how incredibly stupid the human race is becoming Please stop the conspiracy theory that wikipedia is useless. Like any piece of writing, check the references. Here are the references on the wikipedia page for Paladins - ---- References ^ a b c d e f g "Paladin". From the Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved November 23, 2008. ^ a b "Palatine". From the Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved November 23, 2008. ^ Wilson, Peter H. The Thirty Years War; Europe's Tragedy, Harvard University Press, 2009 ^ Dutton, Paul Edward, ed. and trans. Charlemagne's Courtier: The Complete Einhard, pp. 21-22. Peterborough, Ontario, Canada: Broadview Press, 1998. ^ Conradus the priest (12th century), Song of Roland. ISBN 3-920153-02-2 ^ Frank, Grace, La Passion du Palatinus : mystère du XIVe siècle, in : Les Classiques français du moyen âge (30) Paris 1922. ^ The Divine Comedy, Canto XXXII. ---- So, what you are saying is that, what, the human race is incredibly stupid for trusting the Oxford English Dictionary, a book published by the Harvard University Press, and the Song of Roland? .... Right. I think you questioning the credibility of wikipedia... ... is ironic.

Wonders what 2 seconds of internet searching can do for ignorance - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paladin