Neverwinter Nights

Based on my understanding, Atari isn't allowed to make a second D&D MMO as long as Turbine keeps theirs running.

Just because the flavor text is different doesn't mean the mechanics are. I've read through a couple of those 4e classes in the book store. They very much look identical to each other.

so, he ran over your dog or something? or did a fan of his slash your tires?

in all seriousness, im always surprised at the level of hate (not saying you, you're actually a pretty measured response from most of the folks i've seen) that the dude generates. he's by no means a great writer, but he at least manages to keep his stories entertaining. sure, you say 'hack', but at least he's a well paid hack.

Yea, really. Creating a character in 3/3.5e for me always seemed more an exercise in optimization than really creating a character, and I'm not really much of one for min-maxing either. The things those people can do with that system are just terrifying.

I suppose I just favor a certain bit of genericness to a character. It makes it easier for me to build a character in my head when I don't have to justify so much of their skill-set and likes through their skills.

I also really dislike 'class skills' for somewhat the same reason. They bother me a bit less in 4e since their skills are so broad. Still bug me though.

They really aren't all that identical. There's some amount of similarity, but they do seem to play out differently enough. A bard, a cleric, and an ardent all play fairly differently in spite of their all being 'leaders'. Similarly a rouge, a monk and a warlock all seem to work rather differently as well. Sure they all seem to do roughly the same amount of damage with skills of the same level, but they all have rather different class specific abilities, range focuses and attack different defenses.

It's not quite the bevy of special abilities of previous incarnations of D&D but they're by no means identical.

My point precisely. Same stuff, different flavor text. Thus, mechanically identical.

You missed my point entirely. They do the same damage but a significant portion of the rest of the power is different. What you're basically trying to say is that a ranger with a longbow and a fighter with a longsword are mechanically identical because they do the same amount of damage.

It's roughly the same damage but a lot of different other things.

They're not quite as mechanically varied as they could be in 3/3.5e but they're also certainly not identical classes.

I wouldn't say either system is perfect. I prefer 3.5 myself. I'll say that they made magic and bonuses that stack/don't stack sometimes complicated, and the interaction of feats sometimes created problems in 3.5, you had to be a bit of a rules lawyer to understand the lingo. But I agree, what I always loved about 3.5 was the virtually endless supply of content and customization. Think of any character in mythology or pop culture are and 99% of the time you could build a character like that via cross-classing or prestige class. Both from a roleplaying aspect and power-gaming.

(Frenzied Berserker killing allies and other PC's.....good times!)

Sorry if my original thread breaks or broke forum posting rules. I just noticed it on the WoTC website a few days ago, tried to add two and two from the War Witch interview and remembering/reading somewhere that Posi played D&D, then forgetting Paragon Studios isn't part of Cryptic anymore, or whatever/however the relation was and now is.

A victim of Drizzt's popularity I suppose. There are alot of people who really reallt hate Drizzt, the drow and Bob Salvatore.

Personally I liked the Icewind Dale Trilogy and liked the Dark Elf Trilogy even more, after that it seemed like RA burned himself out on the character and I stopped reading about Drizzts exploits not long after. I think the last book I bought that concerned Drizzt was neat hardbound deal that gave alot of background info on Faerun as it concerned Drizzt for people who haven't played D&D or dabbled in other worlds.

i get that. i stopped buying them after Legacy of the Drow, but i borrowed them from a buddy who kept picking up the series, and it was alright. i usually see the hate from folks who have apparently played in campaigns where there's always at least 1 bad Do'Urden rip-off running around, as if what those guys are playing is Salvatore's fault.

ah well. as for a new NWN game, with any luck it'll be better than the 2nd one was. for as much vitriol as they get, Cryptic isn't that bad either.

No I did not miss your point, you're just failing to comprehend the underlying sameness.

Same hit chance. Same damage. It doesn't matter where your miniature is standing on the board, you're still effectively doing the same damn thing to the enemy. There's nothing that feels different down to the core of what your character's effects are.

4e is just... boring.

This illustrates precisely what I loved about 3.5. Sure, there were the rules lawyering munchkins, but I didn't care about that. It was never my focus. What meant to me the most was customizing my character to my heart's content. I could make a rogue that was radically different from any other typical rogue and so on and so forth. You could be different, and different is good.

Same is bad.

Not terribly. My initial impression was kind of the same as what you're saying, but after playing around with it for a while though it really isn't terribly samey aside from a couple of the classes. Unfortunately they're in that first player's handbook. Not the best foot forward there, though even there the Warlock would be a decent example of a non-samey class.

I'm pretty sure that no matter how much I expound on how the classes and even the different ways you can build the classes makes them play differently, you're not going to agree. Just like no matter how much anyone I've known tried to tell me how 'great' the 3/3.5e characters were I've just never seen it.

That said ... I still really wish they'd kept 2e around.

gotta admit, much as i enjoyed moving on up to 3/.5, i do miss a lot of the awesome splats and the feel of the books written for 2E. they just didn't have the same feel to them in the later editions. loved reading a lot of the various "Complete Handbooks to..." and the boxed set stuff for campaign settings. Makes me wish they'd intro'd Eberron in an old school box like that.

this is one of the few times ill actually lament 'the good 'ol days.' heh.

Batman sucks.

Sorry, couldn't resist. (I'm not a huge Salvatore fan either. Isn't he tired of those characters yet?)

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Apparently because he's been killing them off lately!











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