I DMed 4th Edition's Into the Shadowhaunt today for Worldwide D&D Gameday at a local retailer. The adventure takes place in a mausoleum "Shaded by the towering Barrier Peaks ..." And, the white dragon in the follow-up encounter Against the White Dragon mentions that a young white raids "... caravans passing through the nearby Barrier peaks."
It made me smile to see a little Greyhawk reference in there, whether it was intentional or not. Perhaps Stephen Radney-MacFarland had some flashbacks from his Living Grehawk days while he wrote Into the Shadowhaunt and Against the White Dragon.
Don (Greyson)
Nyrond Triad
Last edited by Greyson on Sun Jun 08, 2008 7:16 am; edited 1 time in total
So how was the game (4th edition)? Did it treat you well, so-so, meh? What was your opinion of the game system? _________________ Eileen of Greyhawk, Prophet of Istus, Messenger of the Gods
So how was the game (4th edition)? Did it treat you well, so-so, meh? What was your opinion of the game system?
Hi, Eileen.
The game was a lot of fun, despite being too short. But, Worldwide D&D Gameday adventures are always short. Into the Shadowhaunt is a great introduction to 4th Edition. I thinks it's a great lead into Keep on the Shadowfell. It was easy to run, required minimal prep time (something 4th Edition is good at), and ran smoothly.
My opinion of 4th Edition is that it's awesome. So easy to learn and play. I could go on and on, but not in this thread. Suffice it to say that I think Wizards of the Coast did a great job with the new edition.
We just gotta see if and when Greyhawk gets some treatment in the new edition. Seeing the Barrier Peaks mentioned twice gives me hope that someone has Greyhawk on the brain at Wizards of the Coast.
So how was the game (4th edition)? Did it treat you well, so-so, meh? What was your opinion of the game system?
here in brazil, some friends of mine are saying that the magic missile attack is too much for wizard, monster are too tough and combats are too long.so far, thres not so good replies
I'm hearing a pretty mixed sort of responses here in the U.S. I didn't purchase the rules myself so I can't rightfully comment much more than I have in previous posts. I did look at the books yesterday, and just by browsing through them here was my overall impression from just page flipping and not buying.
1. The art for the races was very good (humans, dwarves, elves).
2. Monster Manual art was terrible (except the wraith, loved the wraith).
3. As a DM, I think it would be hard to slip back and forth through the PH classes. For example, say your running an encounter with a few classes as NPCs and you were learning the system, too many pages to flip through trying to keep track of things. Bookmarks necessary.
4. Seems like a lot less spells available, but I honestly didn't spend enough time looking at this area of the book.
5. DMG seemed impressive, reminded me more of the 1st edition version, though I think a lot of special damage rules might be missing, not sure, was going through it quickly in the store.
5. Lots of dead space and large print, hate to pay for dead space.
6. Expensive.
7. Easier to read overall.
8. Monster entries reminded me more of 1st edition.
9. Hated the power creep in hit points. Gnolls had like 50 hp. Many 7th level monsters had around 200 hit points. This bothered me considerably.
10. I spent the money on 3.5, for better or worse, I'll keep playing that.
I think after one becomes familiar with the game, it will seem like D&D, but getting this feeling would take time to acquire. As for fitting into Greyhawk, well...like I said, my page flipping through all three books was pretty short. If I was to buy it, I would try and customize the rules for Greyhawk and not purchase a bunch of assessory books down the road. The only extra books I would buy are the ones that fill in the missing gaps, such as gnomes (as a PC race), barbarian, druid, sorcerer, monk, etc. etc. etc. and those giving us the classic 1st edition monsters that were missing, like Frost Giants. My two cents from a extremely limited view of the actual books. _________________ Eileen of Greyhawk, Prophet of Istus, Messenger of the Gods
1. The art for the races was very good (humans, dwarves, elves).
2. Monster Manual art was terrible (except the wraith, loved the wraith).
3. As a DM, I think it would be hard to slip back and forth through the PH classes. For example, say your running an encounter with a few classes as NPCs and you were learning the system, too many pages to flip through trying to keep track of things. Bookmarks necessary.
4. Seems like a lot less spells available, but I honestly didn't spend enough time looking at this area of the book.
5. DMG seemed impressive, reminded me more of the 1st edition version, though I think a lot of special damage rules might be missing, not sure, was going through it quickly in the store.
5. Lots of dead space and large print, hate to pay for dead space.
6. Expensive.
7. Easier to read overall.
8. Monster entries reminded me more of 1st edition.
9. Hated the power creep in hit points. Gnolls had like 50 hp. Many 7th level monsters had around 200 hit points. This bothered me considerably.
10. I spent the money on 3.5, for better or worse, I'll keep playing that.
Eileen
Without wanting to turn this into a debate on 4E thread, thought I'd chip in since I've got the books and have spent the last three days going through them page by page in between other things. I should say that I was dead against 4E initially and have been thoroughly converted. Your points in order as far as I judge the books:
1&2. Very impressed with the artwork. The dragons are particularly good but everything, particularly the two page spreads in the PHB seems excellent to me.
3. There is a simple method to create classed NPCs and to incorporate all that you need to know into the stat block. No page references needed.
4. There are spells and there are rituals and some spells from previous editions are now rituals. There may well still be less but I didn't see anything missing that I needed.
5. There are side bars and some dead space.
6. I got all three core books for just over £40 here (roughly $80) from Amazon and I had them on Thursday afternoon which I thought was early. I had no complaints for the quality of what I was getting.
7. Agreed.
8. Also agreed. There is less background and more focus on how the monsters play. The background will presumably come from D&D Insider and books like the Draconomicon.
9. The power creep should (in theory) keep pace with the increased staying power PCs have at each level. Can't say for certain whether this is true since I've only played through one encounter but everything seemed to work.
10. That was how I felt certainly a few weeks ago. Had kind of got more and more interested in 4E as more previews came out. Having gone through the books I am thoroughly impressed and pretty much converted. Not getting rid of my 3E as I'm planning on using the Prestige classes as power groups and secret societies and use the rest of the fluff for GH. I've always used the principle of if its Core I'll fit it into GH if I can.
Hope this sheds some light for those who haven't seen the books yet.
Excellent, glad your enjoying them, make liberal use out of them as well. I think for the sake of any further 4th edition conversation we should move discussion to the 4th edition thread. I do wish all those who have or will have the books, many hours of happy gaming. _________________ Eileen of Greyhawk, Prophet of Istus, Messenger of the Gods
Question... how are NPC's handled? i.e. Are there warrior/commoner/expert/adepts type NPC classes?
Thankfully, the NPC classes from the 3.x Dungeon Master's Guides are gone in 4th Edition. Non-Player Characters are like PCs without action points. But, with the same racial and class powers. It's a lot easier and gets rid of the redundancy of 3rd Editions "NPC classes."
I like it this way because crafting NPCs is easier and faster, and the tricks of "non-associated" class levels messing up EL and CR considerations are gone. The "DM's Toolbox" in the new DMG has great tools for customizing monsters with templates and level adjustments. So, you can have a creature be just about anything you want - from a vampire lord to a deadly lich king. You can even create your own monster from scratch with the "DM's Toolbox." It's pretty cool.
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