1^st Edition languages (50+): Beholder, Brownie, Bugbear, Centaur, Couatl (?), Djinni,Dragon (black, blue, brass, bronze, copper, gold, green, red, silver, white), Drow Silent Language (?), Dryad, Dwarf, Elf (common, sea elf), Giant (cloud, fire, frost, hill, stone, storm), Gnoll, Gnome, Goblin, Halfling (Hobbit), Hobgoblin, Ixitxachitl, Ki-rin, Kobold,Lammasu, Lizardman, Giant Lynx, Merman, Mind Flayer, Minotaur, Naga (guardian, spirit, water), Nixie, Nymph, Ogre, Ogre Mage, Orc, Peryton, Pixie, Sahuagin, Styr, Shedu, Sphinx (andro, Crio, Gyno, Hieraco), Sprite, Sylph, Titan, Treant, Triton, Troglodyte.

Greyhawk languages: (Ancient) Baklunish, Flan, Old Oeridian, Suloise, Amedi, Cold Tongue, Keoish, Lendorian, Nyrondese, Olman, Ordai, Rasol, Touv, Ulagha & Velondi. Semi-restricted languages at character creation time: Rhopan, Druidic, Ferral, Lendorian Elven & Ur-Flan.

In a Greyhawk 1^st edition campaign, you had 19 Greyhawk languages, 50+ languages from the monster manual, 9 alignment languages plus the common tongue. When you add in additional languages from other sources, we can probably get that number up to 100. One of my favorite 1^st edition classes to play was the bard. Not only were you a jack of all trades – part fighter, part thief, part druid with musical skills both mundane and magical. The bard also got bonus languages. You were generally free to choose obscure languages that would rarely if ever come into play. But in the rare instances that you had an obscure language and it came into play it rocked!

Languages were mostly unchanged in 2^nd edition. In third edition, the languages were greatly reduced. Now in 4^th edition, the languages have been reduced to 10 choices. By using a few feats, you can have access to all languages.

When I started playing, it annoyed me that we kept coming into contact with encounters and we couldn’t communicate effectively. As a beginning gamer, how would I know I might need o speak bugbear or hill giant. I was straight off the farm. At higher levels, we got access to spells that could help bridge the language barrier (tongues, comprehend languages) or possibly a magic item (helm of comprehending languages and reading magic). The interesting thing is it forces you to roleplay situations which exist in the real world. I’m not talking about taking an adventuring group into the jungles of South America and running into amazon warriors. I run into language issues at the local super market. Donde puedo encuentre los tomates?

In a fantasy world, I find it hard to believe that a high elf would have as robust of a vocabulary for describing deep sea environments as would an aquatic elf. Likewise, I would expect a frost giant to have dozens of words to describe various types and extremes of cold. A fire giant might just have a few words to describe cold (chilly, cold, frozen).

As a player, we fought Mind Flayers that had a Tome of Understanding written in Mind Flayer. If you didn’t happen to be the bard who already could read mind flayer, you other choices were to be a thief and risk using decipher script, learn a new language or come up with a way to permanently use ‘comprehend languages’. This was a creative way to make the players work a bit harder to use the tome (which in 1^st edition was a very power item to come across). There was also a short sword giant slayer we encountered that spoke 3 giant languages (hill, stone, frost) and the common tongue. This is one of my favorite magic items. My 19^th level ranger would have a hard time choosing between his longsword +3 vorpal blade (which has had some nice upgrades since he first acquired it) or his short sword +2 giant slayer which speaks more languages than he does.

I think the over simplification of the language system is a result of trying to create a pen and paper gaming system that is mechanically too much like World of Warcraft and places more emphasis on combat than roleplaying. If this trend continues, 5^th edition won’t have languages – just like the 80’s video games (Wizardry, Ultima, Bard’s Tale, et al).

Deities and Demigods

4th edition has 4 good deities (2 lawful good, 2 good), 7 unaligned, and 8 for evil for a total of 19 deities. In earlier editions, the deities were broken into groups by rank: greater, intermediate, lesser, demi, hero-gods, racial and special cases (e.g. Quetzalcoatl). An argument could be made that there were too many deities to choose from. In first edition, it was essential to get a first edition copy of Deities and Demigods so that you could have access to the info on Cthulhu and Melniboian deities. Not that we ever created characters that used these deities or monsters, but it was a must have.

With the simplification of alignment also comes the simplification of deities. I think 19 deities is too small a list. Corellon is still around. Where are the rest of the Seldarine? There are two elven deities (Loth & Corellon) and two draconic deities (Bahamut and Tiamat). There does seem to be a bit of fondness for dragons and elves in this version of the game. Orcus is still around (foe of the Raven Queen) but is not listed as a deity.

The one saving grace of the new deity list is the Raven Queen. While the descriptions of each deity is short, this one caught my eye. I am thinking of retrofitting the Raven Queen into 3.5 (fate, reprose, destruction, protection). I have been seeing a number of paladins of the Raven Queen popping up on the internet. The intent was probably for Bahamut to be leading the paladins, but leave it up to the players to derail the gaming world.

So for deities, I’m giving the new edition 3 stars out of 5.

As an after thought, just because I am still reading, it seems that a follower of the Raven Queen ‘might’ have some issues with epic destinies.  If death is the natural end of life than immortality could be deemed a violation of this rule.

]]> http://wednesdayknights.com/archives/297/feed 0 http://wednesdayknights.com/archives/224 http://wednesdayknights.com/archives/224#comments Sun, 31 Aug 2008 23:07:17 +0000 Bryan http://wednesdayknights.com/?p=224 So Chuck asked:

so does this mean scroll have gone away? What about potions that duplicate spell affects?

The short answer is no. First, with respect to potions, the PH lists four different potions: healing, vitality, recovery, and life. These are the only potions listed, however. Also, (once again hearkening back to Earthdawn), every class receives a certain number of healing surges every day, that the character can use to heal himself. These potions (for the most part) allow you to spend healing surges and regain a certain number of hit points.

With respect to scrolls, they still exist as well. However, rather than for spells, they exist for what are called rituals. Rituals are essentially 3E spells or feats (comprehend language, Tenser’s floating disk, brew potion, knock, enchant magic items, etc.) that are converted to a ritual, which is a spell that takes and extended period of tiime to cast. Just flipping through them, 10 minutes, 30 minutes, and an hour seem to be popular casting times.

Anyone can cast a ritual, as long as they have access to it and have spent the time to learn it (by studying it for eight hours). You can cast a ritual from a scroll, however, it still takes one half the time it takes to cast the ritual normally. Thus, these are clearly not useful for most combat situations. The PH also contains 30+ pages detailing various available magic items, including armor, weapons, holy symbols, orbs, rods, staves, wands, rings, etc.

The one thing that I do like about clerics is that can get a magical holy symbol that will allow them to perform their powers more effectively. Wizards can do the same with orbs, rods, or staves.

Skills: As I explained in my review of Star Wars Saga Edition, the skills have been changed significantly. The list of skills has been reduced to 17 different skills. Some of these make perfect sense. For example, you no longer have hide and move silently. You have stealth. This is something that my group moved to long ago. Similarly, you no longer have spot, listen, and search. Instead, you have perception. This is another great improvement. On the other hand, Thievery seems to be a bit all encompassing in that it includes disable trap, open lock, pick pocket, and sleight of hand.

Additionally, you no longer have ranks in skills. You are either trained in a skill or you aren’t. If you are trained, you receive a +5 on your skill check. Your skill check is d20 + 1/2 your level + your ability score modifier + 5 (if trained). Also, unless you take a feat, you get no more skills than the ones you start with at character generation.

In sum, for the most part, I like the combing of the skills. However, I am not crazy about the +5 or +0. one of the things I liked about the 3E system is the ability to customize your character based upon the skills that you chose as you advance in levels.

Movement: The change with movement that I do not like is that the system has changed from movement in feet to movement in squares. Sure you can do the conversion of 5 feet per square, but changing it to squares really ties you to a map board. We typically use a map board for combat scenes. However, the new system pretty much requires the use of a map board.

From my perspective, this just seems to be a bit of the dumbing down of the system, so that you need only count squares.

Hit Points: You will have significantly more hit points in this system that you had before. For example, at first level, a cleric starts with 12 + constitution score, a fighter starts with 15 + constitution score, and a wizard starts with 10 + constitution score. This means that you will actually have the ability to fight things at first level. Similarly, when you advance in levels, you gain a set number of hit points, rather than rolling a hit die. For example, cleric gets 5 hit points per level, a fighter gets 6 hits points per level, and a wizard gets 4 hit points per level.

Hack/ did a interesting study on the evolution of the fighter in the various editions of D&D. He describes his experiment as follows:

The ground rules followed for this comparison were: Human Fighter with the stats that would be expected from using the standard stat generation method for a given edition. Equipment would be long sword, shield, and the best armor that average starting money would allow. After generating the fighters for each edition, they would then be paired up against an unending stream of Goblins (also from that edition), one at a time, to see how effective they were. These combats were run at least 1,000 times each by a Javascript simulator program.

Based upon these simulations, in the original D&D, a fighter could kill 2.7 goblins. In 3E he could kill 10.1, In 4E he can kill 23.4. Check out this chart to see all of the results.

I think a larger part of this change is a result of the additional hit points at first level. I am certainly in favor of having a few more hit points at first level. I just question whether these amounts are a little too much.

Powers: This is where the real change comes in. Every class gains certain powers that can be used. Some powers (at will powers) can be used any number of times. Others, such as encounter powers (used only once per encounter) and daily powers (used once per day) have more limited uses.

Rather than having spells, the magical classes just have powers that act like spells did in prior versions. In addition, all classes have special powers. No longer will a fighter just hit someone with a sword. Instead, he will strike with a Tide of Iron, which allows him to push his opponent back with each hit, or he will cleave, which means that if he hits, he also does damage equal to his strenght modified to an adjacent enemy.

If you have ever played Earthdawn, the concept of powers in 4E reminds me a lot of Earthdawn talents. Significantly, anyone can swing a sword, but special heroes have advantages that ordinary people do not.

I am reserving judgment on how this works out until I have an opportunity to actually play the game a little. However, I will say that I am not crazy with what has been done to spellcasters. It seems, at least to me, that wizards aren’t as powerful or useful as they were in 3E.

Other Thoughts: Another thing that jumped out at me when I was reading the book was the fact that multiclassing is essentially nonexistent. You can take a feat that allows you to take a power from a different class. However, the multiclassing that was available in 3E is simply not available under these rules. I definately don’t like this.

Additionally, these rules have essentially done away with prestige classes. Again, this is not something that I like. I think the prestige classes went a long way toward allowing people to customize their characters. I am sure that the argument is that you can now customize your character by using the powers rather than using prestige classes. I think I prefer the prestige class route, however.

I like what has been done to the various races in that all of the demihumans get bonuses to two attributes. Also, the demihumans have a racial power.

Finally, I like the fact that the fortitutde, reflex, and will defenses are based upon the better of two attributes. For example, fortitude is based upon strength or constitution, reflex is based upon dexterity or intelligence, and will is based upon wisdom or charisma.

In sum, based upon reading through the book, it seems like there are some good and bad things about 4E. I am looking forward to playing it once to see how it works out in actual play.

After reading the PH for the same time, my reaction has not changed. It’s nice. I don’t have a great desire to start playing it right now. On the other hand, I wouldn’t be opposed to trying it on for size.

Before addressing some of the particular rule changes, mechanics, etc., I wanted to make a note on my overall impressions of the book. First, it has very nice production quality. It is well bound and well put together. It has lots of color art. Plus the table of contents and the index appear to be accurate and useful. Also, the title of any particular section appears on the top of the right hand side margin of each page. This makes it very easy to flip through the book to find a particular section.

Second, this game is not 3.0/3.5. Although there are some terms that are the same, and some of the concepts are similar (e.g. move action, standard action), you are better off just forgetting anything you know and start afresh.

Third, the book is put together very consistently. By that, I mean that there was clearly a concerted effort to make sure that feats, powers, skills, etc., all work in the same way. Also, all of the classes and their powers work in the same way. Clerics are the same as fighters, which are the same as wizards, etc. Sure their powers are different, but conceptually, they all work the same way. I think that this is a great attribute for the game.

Fourth, the authors did a great job of explaining things at the beginning of each chapter. For example, on the chapter dealing with the classes and their powers, there are several pages devoted to explaining how to read a power description and explaining what the various terms means. I think that this is a great addition.

Related to this, is the fact that the different powers are color-coded. Characters can have three different types of powers: at will powers, encounter powers, and daily powers. In the book, the theme name is color coded. Thus, making it easy to tell, at a glance, what type of power you are looking at.

On the whole, I think that the game and system are put together nicely and that there was clearly a coherent theme guiding the production of the system. From my perspective these are all good things. That, however, does not mean that the game will be a great game. Instead, it just ensures that the rules will be consistent.

With respect to my overall thoughts on the production of the book and the consistancy, I could not give this book higher marks. In my next post, I will deal with the rules system and see how well it turned out.

Well Bryan gets his wish….sort of.  Each class starts out with more hit points 10 + con up to 15 + con.  But it looks like you only gain a set number of hit points per level (4 for a wizard).   Maybe things willchagne with 4.5 n January ‘09.

Nearly every class has 4 At-Wills available to chose from at 1st level, Wizard has 5. Same goes for Encounters. Fighter, Paladin and Rogue have 3 Dailys, everyone else has 4. More become available at higher levels.

Multi-Classing requires a related Stat of 13+. Each class has an Initiate Feat associated with it. Get to pick 1 Skill from class, also get 1 specified power. There are also 3 Power Swap Feats starting at 4th level. Swap any (Encounter Attack, Utility, Daily) Power you have for one of equal or lower level from your chosen Multi-Class. The 3 feats are of different levels, one for each power type (Encounter, Utility, Daily.)

2-weapon fighting is a feat, but just gives a damage bonus, not an extra attack. The ranger can take an at-will that gives him an extra attack.

Rogues are AMAZING. Like seriously, damn near Op. At 3rd level they get a utility power that lets them re-roll any bluff check (Trigger: when player rolls bluff, and doesn’t like the look of the roll.) They also have a nice garrotte ability that does 7w and can be held for a bit…fun thing about holding it is that attacks on the rogue have a possibility of hitting the person you’re choking). They get auto-escpape grapple abilities, and lots of things playing off Combat advantage (including one that we figured could add 7W dmg +10d8 +dex mod). Very sick.

Minotaurs are a MM race, and get a fun per encounter charge attack, and +2str and +2 con.

Gnomes. GNOMES. Gnomes are insane. Gnomes can *turn invis* once per encounter after they’ve taken dmg. They can also choose to roll “hide” instead of intialtive at the start of an encounter.

Rituals: range from cheap to learn and cast to expensive. As an example: Raise Dead costs 650GP to learn uses a 500gp reagent, and “scales” at levels. At lowever levels, it’s “free” except for the reagent cost.” At medium levels it’s 5,000gp. And at epic levels it’s 50,000. Oh, and the raised person gets a penalty of -1 until you’ve passed “3″ milestones.

Oh, and another interesting/weird feature….there is an easy to cast ritual that clears 1 status ailment (curse, disease, etc) each time it’s cast, but with a catch. You make a heal check, and your result =’s how much dmg the TARGET sick player takes while being healed. SO, a low roll can kill outright, or can do dmg. A high roll causes very little dmg.

Timestop is a spell in 4e. Gives you 2 extra actions, neither of which can be used for attack.  (which really sucks!).

Trapfinding is part of thievery.

Tumbling is a Rogue Utility power. Once per encounter, shift half your base move.

+1 to each of two different stats at about every 4th level, but there are a few levels (????) where every stat gets a +1 bonus.

There are 5 Alignments: Good, Lawful Good, Evil, Chaotic Evil, Unaligned.

Magic itms now have levels:

Flaming Weapon

Level 5+

You can will this weapon to burst into flame.

Lvl 5 +1 1,000 gp Lvl 20 +4 125,000 gp
Lvl 10 +2 5,000 gp Lvl 25 +5 625,000 gp
Lvl 15 +3 25,000 gp Lvl 30 +6 3,125,000 gp
Weapon: Any
Enhancement: Attack rolls and damage rolls
Critical: +1d6 fire damage per plus

Power (At-Will Fire): Free Action. All damage dealt by this weapon is fire damage. Another free action returns the damage to normal.

Power (Daily Fire): Free Action. Use this power when you hit with the weapon. Deal an extra 1d6 fire damage, and the target takes ongoing 5 fire damage (save ends).
Level 15 or 20: 2d6 fire damage and ongoing 10 fire damage.
Level 25 or 30: 3d6 fire damage and ongoing 15 fire damage.