So, what did 4E do *right*?

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Post by rasmuswagner »

Voss wrote:
4e races were fucking terrible.
A) racial stats and 4e classes and math meant every race or class had right and wrong choices. If you mismatched stats you did it wrong, and were objectively worse than you should be forever.
3rd races and classes have the exact same issue you fucking twat. In PF, they at least put the +2 Int Elf in the corebook and gives floating stat modifiers to humans and halv-elves, but if you roll a Halfling Wizard or a Gnome Rogue, you're still doing it fucking wrong. In 3.5, not only do you need to pick the right race, you need to go dumpster diving in the fucking Monster Manuel for a Grey Elf or whatever the fuck it's called.
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Post by rasmuswagner »

Look at this fucking piece of shit: Babau Demon. Is that a good statblock? Do you need to know that this CR 6 demon with at-will greater teleport has +11 open lock, that is has +1 Survival and Use Rope?

How about sneaking past this guy? Oh, he has no listed Spot modifier? Well, at least you're a pretty cool GM, so you remember that Outsiders have Darkvision. And then you look over his SLAs if you remember it, and see that he might (or might not) have cast See Invisibility.

I think sometimes you guys forget how shitty 3rd edition monster design is.
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Post by Koumei »

rasmuswagner wrote:but if you roll a Halfling Wizard or a Gnome Rogue, you're still doing it fucking wrong.
Hey, cockgobbler, in editions that aren't called 4th, there are things other than "your one main stat" that are relevant to your race. In 4E, that is the first and often only thing you care about. You could have made a better case by going out of your way to provide bad match-ups (Half Orc Wizard - gain Strength (and not Constitution), lose Intelligence! Also gain... basically nothing else at all. Or Half Orc Almost Anything, because it's just a shitty race.), but instead let's look at the ones you chose to go with:

Halfling Wizard: okay, no bonus or penalty to Intelligence, that's not so great. Also no penalty to Constitution. You're at -5 to avoid being grappled, but against things that actually try to grapple you, that makes close to no (or in some cases actually no) difference. +2 on fucking armour class (Touch AC too), and +2 to hit with Ranged Touch Attacks (+3 on attack rolls for spells that specifically create a thrown weapon or magic sling bullets). +1 on Fort and non-Fear Will Saves, +2 on Ref Saves, +3 on Will Saves vs Fear. I would argue this is amongst the best choices.

Gnome Rogue: -2 to a stat you don't really use, +2 to Con (so +1 HP per level for a class that only has a d6 and gets close to the enemy, and +1 to Fort Saves, but not an increase to attacks, AC, saves or skill points). Low-Light Vision and Small Size are both nice (the latter being particularly good because it adds to your AC and your attack rolls), and 20' move speed isn't crippling, it's just unfortunate. A bunch of things you might forget to even put on your sheet, but bonus to AC against giants, and attacks against goblins and kobolds (ie common enemies at low levels when the RNG is the biggest relative to your own numbers), and Saves vs Illusions. Also a bonus to Listen, which isn't terrible for a Rogue, and they can sometimes make use of their Spell-Like Abilities, I guess. Not one of the best choices, but absolutely workable.

Which means one of two things: either you are completely wrong with the premise, or you just picked bad examples because you're a terrible judge and don't know what the fuck you're talking about, so definitely shouldn't be weighing in with your "expert" opinion.
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Post by Voss »

rasmuswagner wrote:
Voss wrote:
4e races were fucking terrible.
A) racial stats and 4e classes and math meant every race or class had right and wrong choices. If you mismatched stats you did it wrong, and were objectively worse than you should be forever.
3rd races and classes have the exact same issue you fucking twat. In PF, they at least put the +2 Int Elf in the corebook and gives floating stat modifiers to humans and halv-elves, but if you roll a Halfling Wizard or a Gnome Rogue, you're still doing it fucking wrong. In 3.5, not only do you need to pick the right race, you need to go dumpster diving in the fucking Monster Manuel for a Grey Elf or whatever the fuck it's called.
Not really, there were a few problems, but very much not to the extent of 4th and 5th (or 1st and 2nd). Yes you could min/max the primary stat by race and that was silly. And while dwarf sorcerer was a terrible life choice, dwarf wizard was not. Especially if you focused on summons, battlefield control and buff spells, and never used a ranged touch or DC based spell at all.

Elf cleric archer was one of the more broken builds you could do, and never had a bonus to wisdom. I could go on and on with legitimate powerful examples of character builds that don't min/max stat bonuses in 3.x and pathfinder that simply don't function in 4th.

It was incredibly common for divine Spellcasters to arrive at the table with a 15 wisdom, and even Martials could (and should) dial back from the 18s so they can not completely suck elsewhere. Because there was room in the system to pick up the relevant bonuses elsewhere. It wasn't a do this now or never treadmill the way 4th is was. Because of these games, guess which edition is still relevant?

You are fucking wrong in all ways.
Last edited by Voss on Wed Apr 26, 2017 11:15 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Kaelik »

rasmuswagner wrote:Look at this fucking piece of shit: Babau Demon. Is that a good statblock? Do you need to know that this CR 6 demon with at-will greater teleport has +11 open lock, that is has +1 Survival and Use Rope?

How about sneaking past this guy? Oh, he has no listed Spot modifier? Well, at least you're a pretty cool GM, so you remember that Outsiders have Darkvision. And then you look over his SLAs if you remember it, and see that he might (or might not) have cast See Invisibility.

I think sometimes you guys forget how shitty 3rd edition monster design is.
It's funny because your criticism boils down almost entirely to

"Since I refuse to read the stat block, I'm constantly confused!"

I mean, apparently you want an ability that says:
See Invisibility (Sp): You can see any objects or beings that are invisible within your range of vision, but not ethereal, as if they were normally visible. Such creatures are visible to you as translucent shapes, allowing you easily to discern the difference between visible, invisible, and ethereal creatures.

The spell does not reveal the method used to obtain invisibility. It does not reveal illusions or enable you to see through opaque objects. It does not reveal creatures who are simply hiding, concealed, or otherwise hard to see.
And then repeat that for Dispel Magic and Greater Teleport.

But then you'd just complain about how there are too many abilities written, and we'd be right back to where we were, which is that you are really whining about creatures having abilities, because you like 4e where they have weird recharge attack abilities and nothing that is strategically useful at all in any way.

Not to mention, most people probably just skimmed over see invis and didn't notice that I changed what see invisibility does to something slightly different to fit in with 4e's "two abilities with the same name do different things for no reason" bullshit.
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Post by Judging__Eagle »

Sir Aubergine wrote: You can furrow your caterpillar-eyebrows and wriggle your walrus-mustache all you like, but it must be said that 4th edition made great strides in increasing the diversity of playable races beyond the usual offerings of: elf classic, dwarf, human, hobbit, and half-breed du jour.
Where were the "Monsters as Races" rules in 4e? Where was it's version of Savage Species?

While OD&D was the first book to officially state that "playing a Dragon is possible"; only until 3e were rules for "Playing as a Troll [or w/e]" were a clear and visible part of the main set of rules.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monstersAsRaces.htm

Really, 4e was a pile of unmitigated shit when it came to "Playing as a Monster" compared to 3e. Specifically because it went back to the 1e/2e form of monster statblocks that no longer would have analogous attributes to a PCs character sheet.

Now, I'm never going to state that 3e's "Monsters as Races" DMG rules; nor Savage Species were actually "good" rules; but they did pave the way for monsters to be playable at all.

The fact that the utterly shitty "Monsters as Races" & Savage Species rules existed also meant that they could be used to determine what "remotely acceptable" Playable Monsters rules could be thanks to Frank & Kieth's "Powerful Races" work for "Races of War".

It was in 3e that I was really able to see a wide variety of creatures and monsters used as PCs:

Including:

-Meteoric Disintegration Cherubim ((v big) Aasimar Soulborn Teleporting Whirlwind-Charger)
-Awakened Origami Golem Wizard (Strength of 50+; used Kaelik's [Tome] Errata to achieve 28 10' cubes for their Major Images)
-Werecockroach Bloodwitch Lancer Field Marshal (Infinite low-end spells due to Knight ability damage regen + Blood Magic's Con damage cost; also three "You lead an army" feats)
-Magic Robe of Anyshaping Rats (mechanically, a Phasm/Shoggoth)

-Minotaur Monk
-Gnoll Monk
-Aasimar Monk(s) (several players picked this up)

-Awakened Raccoon Druid (w/ Puma animal companion/mount)
-Magic Jar'd Troll/Storm Giant/&etc. Child Necromancer/Stranger with the Burning Eyes

-Succubus True Fiend
-Malenti Vampire Barbarian (i.e. Sahuagin mutant that looks like a Sea Elf)
-Human Vampire Summoner

-Bugbear Assassin
-Dragon Dragonslayer (w/ an dimensional pocket Armoire of Dragonscale Armours)
-Fire Lich Wizard

-Gargoyle Paladin Whirlwind Meteor (& CR-reduced Bulette companion)
-Scorpionfolk Deathknight (MM2 & [Tome] DK; a living bulldozer, their first adventure they toppled a demonic possession antenna by charging its supports)
-Firbolg Cleric Firestar (like the Elven Cleric Archer, also (ab)using the Firbolgs uncharacteristically high Str score for its size/CR/HD; generally flying, and wearing a bunch of fire-themed items)

-Ogre Barbarian(s) (there were several, it's a good combo)
-Ogre Samurai
-Red Cap Samurai (one would think that the [Tome] Samurai Autocrit ability + Red Cap cultural weapon == Scythe, was a moment of inspired wargaming analysis... but this particular player based their decisions on MM art and the fact that they wanted "to be a samurai"; they never knew x4 autocrits were a possibility)

-Phasm (well, really, Phasm/Warshaper)

Sort of not-humans:
-lots and lots of humans with Product of [Otherworldly] Dalliance feat-variants of one sort or an other ((mostly)fiends, but of course some: celestials, axiomatics, chaotics, & genies)
-Encouragement towards players dumpster-diving for obscure PC races from (didn't really happen much; people liked t

While there were several times more "PC race" PCs than "Monster PCs" among those games; and many of them had more interesting builds due to not having their CRs chewed up w/ Monster CR, instead of sweet, sweet, PC levels... I feel that "Monster PCs" were much more likely to be playable than they were outside of 3e.

The truth of the matter is that 4e's "exception based design" of creatures actually walked back the early promises that even Gary Gygax both made, and could not fulfill; that had only finally been realized in 3e.
Last edited by Judging__Eagle on Thu Apr 27, 2017 2:53 am, edited 4 times in total.
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Post by JonSetanta »

Judging__Eagle wrote:
JonSetanta wrote: Compare to the 4-HP Wizard from 3e that dies to a rat bite.
Better than the 1 HP Wizard from 2e that actually drops in one giant rat's bite.

That's literally how my groups experience with tabletop 2e started; the wizard was using a dagger, and thought melee with 1 hp would be fine.

The truth of the matter is that you could go as far as D&D Online did when it comes to bonus PC HP. Just give all PCs +30 HP "just to be safe", most likely they won't die as often early on.
I had a similar experience with a multiclass AD&D Fighter/Mage. Rolled for HP, divided by two, voila... 1 HP Elf.

As with you, it died fast. To a rat.
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Post by Judging__Eagle »

JonSetanta wrote:
I had a similar experience with a multiclass AD&D Fighter/Mage. Rolled for HP, divided by two, voila... 1 HP Elf.

As with you, it died fast. To a rat.
Ouch. Our gaming group was.... rather miffed at that event; and quite unanimously decided that the rules could fuck themselves, in this particular incident.

We "decided" that we'd "wait" until the wizard had recovered from their near-fatal 1HP bite wound; b/c it would be faster than the player making a whole new character that was playable.

After that, the wizard hung back in almost every encounter. Using a sling over a dagger. Also Fireballs, b/c they were using the Complete Wizard's War Wizard, they had ... lots of Fireballs; and it was 2e, when Fireball was still amazing.

Honestly, I felt rather vindicated when I read that other people's 2e gaming groups had their own ways of saying "fuck you" to 1 HP wizards at level 1.
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Post by Sir Aubergine »

Judging__Eagle wrote: Where were the "Monsters as Races" rules in 4e?
Monster Manual 1, pp. 276-279.

The inanity of your argument nearly gave me vertigo. You openly admit that the 3rd edition method for making a monster PC is "utterly shitty," but still claim superiority to 4th edition's solution of prefabricated racial packages because Frank and K come riding in on snow-white chargers to save the day?

I have nothing but respect for Frank and K's exhaustive and transformative 3rd edition-inspired creations, but that is not what is being discussed here.

Making a monster character using the methods described in the 3rd edition Monster Manual or the Savage Species supplement is an exercise in boredom, a one-way ticket to an early grave, or both.

4th edition's racial stat distributions bind you to a vexingly small number of viable character classes, but it does not, at the very least, insist that you brave the world as a paper tiger, doomed to fall away into wet mush under the stiff opposition of a warm, spring rain.
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Post by Wiseman »

rasmuswagner wrote:Look at this fucking piece of shit: Babau Demon. Is that a good statblock? Do you need to know that this CR 6 demon with at-will greater teleport has +11 open lock, that is has +1 Survival and Use Rope?

How about sneaking past this guy? Oh, he has no listed Spot modifier? Well, at least you're a pretty cool GM, so you remember that Outsiders have Darkvision. And then you look over his SLAs if you remember it, and see that he might (or might not) have cast See Invisibility.

I think sometimes you guys forget how shitty 3rd edition monster design is.
Either that or you have no fucking idea what your talking about. If the modifier for a skill is not listed, it has no ranks it it, and thus it's just an ability check. Thus +1 to spot.
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Post by erik »

Sir Aubergine wrote:
Judging__Eagle wrote: Where were the "Monsters as Races" rules in 4e?
Monster Manual 1, pp. 276-279.
Ghostdammit. You dick. You made me read 4e once again, and for what? All that is contained in that section is a list of humanoid monsters, most of which are ECL 0 in 3e and the rest are nerfed to the point that they are essentially ECL 0. They did not provide rules for monster creation as PCs, they provided a short list of "ECL 0" humanoid races, and no way to apply this if you wanted to play anything outside of their list. Those "monster races" don't even fit because they fail as monsters.

The challenge for the system is how do you fairly play as a monster that is more powerful than a level 1 adventurer? 3e did a shitty job of it, but 4e didn't even attempt to provide that. 3e had rules you could fix. Hell, back in the day for 3e we just gave discount of 1 to any ECL over zero (and were starting at level 5 I think) and that worked out pretty well. 4e had arbitrary stat blocks and powers such that you may as well reinvent the wheel each time you want to make an adjustment.

P.S. However wrong you may be Sir Aubergine, at least you aren't rasmuswanger. There's a dipshit who exhales own-goal arguments like he's huffing lead paint.
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Post by Sir Aubergine »

erik wrote:Ghostdammit. You dick. You made me read 4e once again, and for what? All that is contained in that section is a list of humanoid monsters, most of which are ECL 0 in 3e and the rest are nerfed to the point that they are essentially ECL 0. They did not provide rules for monster creation as PCs, they provided a short list of "ECL 0" humanoid races, and no way to apply this if you wanted to play anything outside of their list. Those "monster races" don't even fit because they fail as monsters.
Yes, it was truly contemptible of me to induce you to read 115 words of text, and not a single word more, as it is quite apparent what the monster names and stat blocks following immediately after the introductory paragraphs to the "Racial Traits" section of the Monster Manual signify. If only I had spared you the trauma of reading those ineffable words by explicitly stating what I was talking about in my post. Alack, why am I, a scurrilous jackanapes, allowed to run roughshod over the Den. I should be flogged for my effrontery. What is the world coming to? :rofl:
erik wrote:The challenge for the system is how do you fairly play as a monster that is more powerful than a level 1 adventurer? 3e did a shitty job of it, but 4e didn't even attempt to provide that. 3e had rules you could fix. Hell, back in the day for 3e we just gave discount of 1 to any ECL over zero (and were starting at level 5 I think) and that worked out pretty well. 4e had arbitrary stat blocks and powers such that you may as well reinvent the wheel each time you want to make an adjustment.
Thank goodness I didn't take such an untenable position, eh? All I have been saying is that 4th edition did a good job in providing you with a fair number of different races that are playable from the jump. 3rd edition whispers honeyed words into your ear, promising you confections, fellatio, and playable monster races, but it is naught but a pack of lies!

To my great misfortune, each time I have made such a modest claim, either another Denner comes along and recounts the many-splendored ways in which 4th edition spectacularly fails (and my reply has always been to agree wholeheartedly), or worse yet, Rasmuswagner leaps from the undergrowth, hurls a generous handful of dung into one of your faces and skedaddles, flecks of phlegm and foam trailing behind him as he laughs maniacally. Then you all blame me for his antics. I'm a victim of circumstance, I tells ya.
erik wrote:P.S. However wrong you may be Sir Aubergine, at least you aren't rasmuswanger.
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Post by tussock »

It's a pretty simple argument.

3e let you play most powerful monsters as a character that worked just like the monster in the MM, only they taxed it so hard that it was a bad idea to do that if you wanted to have a reasonably powerful character (outside a few corner cases that usually worked better with a Wizard doing it anyway).

4e doesn't even have all the Orcs in the MM use the same rules, so asking for something that works like an Orc to play doesn't even make sense, let alone a Hill Giant or a Troll. Even though they let you write Orc on your character sheet, that's not what a lot of people wanted.

--

Things 4e did well? Demonstrated that you can't just stick the name D&D on a turdburger and expect people to eat it up. Created the conditions for Pathfinder to do well despite not having a brand name.

Even as a replacement for the minis battle game, which is all it really is, it didn't seem to bring any of their sales back either. People who played it seemed to like that there was less rules than 3e, which I guess is why they went with almost no rules at all for 5e.
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Post by Username17 »

3rd edition really did bring in the ECL experiment and that was a terrible idea that went nowhere. But the plans that came before and after weren't really any better. The 2nd edition and 4th edition plans were exactly the same: We'll make some large number of arbitrary races that you can play at first level and some of them might be balanced enough for your DM to let you play them and good enough that you might want to. That plan has never been good. It's been a bad plan.
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Post by erik »

If you count playable races, 3e still has 4e beat. If you limit it to core only then 3e still comes out well ahead thanks to subraces. And if you are counting warforged and shifters from 4e MM then you should allow them in 3e since that's where they became available. And let's be honest, the reason the changeling wasn't offered in 4e MM was because doppelgänger was nerfed into the exact same thing.

So, 4e does not supply more racial support than 3e. Certainly not more monster PC races since 4e provides zero. (Monster races in this case being something more powerful than a human or even non-humanoid)
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Post by Judging__Eagle »

Sir Aubergine wrote: Monster Manual 1, pp. 276-279.
Hmm. Since Remuz has a D&D repository I can look at 4e's MM to refresh my memory.

Bugbear, Doppleganger, Drow, Githyanki, Githzeria, Gnoll, Gnome, Goblin, Hobgoblin, Koblod, Minotaur, Orc, Shadar-Kai, Longtooth Shifter, Razorclaw Shifter, Warforged...

Looking at each entry individually; the same shit that ruined every other playable species in 4e is seen smeared, each species has it's own special snowflake power all created without rhyme or reason with respect to making a player care, making them notable Encounter powers, or making any of them remotely on par with each other (e.g. when looking at the details of each supposedly playable monster species: Orc can 1[W]+Str damage & Surge, while Warforged get a 3 + (1/2 lvl) HP heal @ Bloodied, obviously not unmitigated shit, check).

Looking at the collection of entries as a whole. The same unmitigated shit that ruined the entire concept of having different playable species in a fantasy game (variety) in 4e was (obviously) shit on even here (seriously though, Minotaurs and Dopplegangers seem like the best options of them all, which means variety wasn't the real goal).
The inanity of your argument nearly gave me vertigo. You openly admit that the 3rd edition method for making a monster PC is "utterly shitty," but still claim superiority to 4th edition's solution of prefabricated racial packages because Frank and K come riding in on snow-white chargers to save the day?
Frank & Kieth didn't save the day. Find me the progression that Frank & Kieth made for a fucking Phasm? How about for a Gargoyle? How about for a Dragon? Where is the [Tome] Dragon level progression that came out with Races of War?

Which is where the rub comes. Those CR = Level progressions weren't built when the idea was first released. Those creature progressions need to be hammered out into something playable from the rulebooks they're sourced from.

That's the one glaring detail you seem to not realize. No snow white chargers came in and delivered any Monster PC progression to my gaming table for a player to use. That level of detail needs to be figured out for each CR the dragon will be played for; and the Dragon PC will probably have to be rebuilt every time it upgrades its CR.

What Frank & Kieth did was elucidate what people knowingly opine; and even the Savage Species book flat out states*: you can play monsters out of the rulebook As-Is, and the rest of the bulk of SS' rules can be ignored.

*
Specifically:
Copypasta from SS P12:
QUICK AND DIRTY
You might want to copy a monster out of the Monster Manual, give it appropriate class levels, and start playing. We do not recommend that method, but you can do it. In some cases, such as with fey characters, you can get more skill points that
way. The ability scores are already generated and assigned. Skill points are already spent and feats are already chosen. All you really have to do is add class levels and buy equipment.

The chief drawback with this method is that all monsters have ability scores of 10 or 11, adjusted for racial modifiers.
While that makes an acceptable character according to Chapter 1: Abilities of the Player’s Handbook, such a character is not
very exciting. It is very easy to roll better than that. If you are playing in a campaign focused on your base creature, such as
one in lands primarily inhabited by orcs, your character will be like most of the NPCs you encounter. You may also wish to
choose different skills and feats, since monsters as opponents are designed to be viable for an encounter or two, and your
character should last longer than that.

If you do choose to copy a monster out of the Monster Manual, fill out a character sheet as explained in Chapter 1:
Character Creation Basics. Determine the total of the creature’s Hit Dice plus class levels and refer to Table 2–5:
Experience and Level-Dependent Benefits. If you added enough class levels to gain one or more ability score increases,
assign them now. Buy skills for your class levels. Do not multiply the base skill points by 4 for your first class level, because
your monster character is not a 1st-level character if you kept its monster Hit Dice. If you added enough class levels to gain
one or more feats, select them now. Then add the base attack bonus and base saving throw bonuses for the class levels to
those of the base creature. Roll your hit points for your class levels and add the result to your hit point total. Figure out your
Armor Class, initiative modifier, weapon statistics, and total skill bonuses based on your character’s monster kind, class,
ability modifiers, feats, and equipment. You are ready to play.
Okay, so SS also has CR ~= PC Level rules in it as "you're not supposed to use these but....". While the rest of the book is "These are rules, but no player in their right mind will use them."

From there, the notion that you can build monster PCs based off of CR, and throw out calculating with LA, HD and ECL becomes much more apparent.

As it is, Frank & Kieth simply pointed out something that the greater D&D playing community had figured out long ago, ECL has always been a travesty against unorthodox gameplay. While SS existed, no one took it seriously; and while people talked about how cool it would be to play as a monster, it wasn't commonly done.

The interesting thing is that Frank & Kieth stating you can use CR ~= Level for creating a PC from a monster isn't a solid example of the Oberoni fallacy; since Savage Species itself states that it's "doable" (but "shouldn't be done") to use CR ~= Level for creating PCs.

I have nothing but respect for Frank and K's exhaustive and transformative 3rd edition-inspired creations, but that is not what is being discussed here.
Making a monster character using the methods described in the 3rd edition Monster Manual or the Savage Species supplement is an exercise in boredom, a one-way ticket to an early grave, or both.
4th edition's racial stat distributions bind you to a vexingly small number of viable character classes, but it does not, at the very least, insist that you brave the world as a paper tiger, doomed to fall away into wet mush under the stiff opposition of a warm, spring rain.
Actually, 4e insists upon much worse things. Like that the wholely out of balance racial powers for 4e monster races are remotely equivalent in power with respect to each other. That a Minotaur or a Doppleganger is a perfectly fine 1st level character (that's something not even [Tome] considers in line with the idea of playing "equivalently powerful" characters).

Finally, the 4e monster rules mean that you'll have to be playing with 4e PC class levels. Where are an exercise in boredom to play with.

Finally, even if one limits themselves solely to SS rules; the "Copypasta from Monster Manual, and play As-Is" idea that was revisited in RoW is from the rules of SS in the first place.
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Sir Aubergine
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Post by Sir Aubergine »

FrankTrollman wrote:3rd edition really did bring in the ECL experiment and that was a terrible idea that went nowhere. But the plans that came before and after weren't really any better. The 2nd edition and 4th edition plans were exactly the same: We'll make some large number of arbitrary races that you can play at first level and some of them might be balanced enough for your DM to let you play them and good enough that you might want to. That plan has never been good. It's been a bad plan.
Did 1st not have any way to play non-standard races? Agreed on 3rd edition having the right idea and fucking it sideways/pear-shaped.
FrankTrollman wrote:Here's the thing: People didn't want you to play a Drow in the late 90s and early 2000s because Drzzt. It wasn't that the rules were good or bad, they just were sick to fucking death of Drow fanboys, because that was a seriously irritating time for D&D.

People will let you play a Drow now because the people who were coming of age during the 2 Scimitars and Drow period aren't twelve anymore and many of them have kids of their own. There's nothing that 4e did to make that a reality. Time just naturally passes and old annoying fads fade into memory.

-Username17
I defer to your expertise on the matter.

On an unrelated note, I was searching for a reading of your "Giant Crab" analysis and I found a couple of decent photos of you. It's nice to be able to put a face to your posts Sir. Your presence here is one of the primary reasons to be a member of these forums. If a plurality of you, Ancient_History, Lago_PARANOIA (s/he seems not to post much anymore), Whipstitch, and Kaelik stopped frequenting this site, I don't think I would even bother lurking here anymore. :sad:

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@Erik I'm not sure how you are doing your bean counting. All races with a listed LA, all races with a "XXX as characters" entry, all creatures with the humanoid type, etc.

If your underlying contention is, "The 3rd edition MM is less shit than the 4th edition MM," well bully for you I suppose. While the 4th edition MM has one of the most spectacular monster entries ever printed in any bestiary, it is inferior to its 3rd edition counterpart by many metrics.

You can bang on about the total number of "playable" races 3rd edition brought to the table, but we are not playing shirts vs skins here. The original post query is, "So, what did 4E do *right*?" I originally said, "I liked 4th edition's decision to have a good number of races playable from 1st level." You countered with, "well 3rd edition has more playable races total, whether or not they are playable from 1st level." That may be true, but you cannot say that 3rd edition's impressive collection of playable races are easy to find, as they are scattered across the entirety of the MM. It would be disingenuous to trivialize the convenience of having all of your playable races in a separate section. Once you know where the section is, you can flip to it or punch in a page number on your PDF and viola. You are ready to make a character.

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@Judging Eagle For goodness sake, Sir, please stop mentioning Savage Species. The less said about that supplement, the better.

Your point about balance between different races is entirely without merit. To suggest that there were not winner's and losers in 3rd edition, including and especially among the standard races, is absurd.

I cannot say I find your suggested solution of building racial progressions from scratch persuasive. That sounds like a tremendous amount of work for little benefit.

Lastly, you keep telling me to look at what you think is the D&D equivalent of the Rosetta stone. "Look you fool," you tell me, "You can run monsters as characters with an ECL equal to their CR. Why won't you see the truth." Sir, I made that fantastic discovery before I even understood how 3rd edition wants you to pay for the privilege of being a monster. So you can kindly stop grabbing my face and pointing at that concept. You are preaching to the choir, as it were.

I would ask you to consider that not every gaming group is as laser-focused on quixotic, character-optimization flights of fancy as yours seems to be. Did you ever consider that some groups frown on real or perceived "wargaming" shenanigans. Let me tell you, beginning a pitch for a character concept with a non-standard race is a non-starter for many referees. On the other hand, having your off-brand races be neatly collected in a small section in the back of the MM, and all playable at 1st level is more persuasive than anything you have told me in this thread thus far.

This is neither here nor there, but much respect for using a photo for your handle picture.
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Kaelik
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Post by Kaelik »

Sir Aubergine wrote:While the 4th edition MM has one of the most spectacular monster entries ever printed in any bestiary,
Uh... fucking what?
Sir Aubergine wrote:You can bang on about the total number of "playable" races 3rd edition brought to the table, but we are not playing shirts vs skins here. The original post query is, "So, what did 4E do *right*?" I originally said, "I liked 4th edition's decision to have a good number of races playable from 1st level." You countered with, "well 3rd edition has more playable races total, whether or not they are playable from 1st level." That may be true, but you cannot say that 3rd edition's impressive collection of playable races are easy to find, as they are scattered across the entirety of the MM. It would be disingenuous to trivialize the convenience of having all of your playable races in a separate section. Once you know where the section is, you can flip to it or punch in a page number on your PDF and viola. You are ready to make a character.
You can't say you like 4e's decisions to have a good number of playable races from 1st level when 3e has way more of them.

At best, you can claim that 4e had the good idea to put them all in one section. That's about it. As far as things 4e did write, that's probably a thing done right, but "slightly better book organization when it comes to one specific thing" is such a lukewarm compliment that it's a block of ice.
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Post by Pixels »

I don't have anything to say about 4e that hasn't been said already, but I'd like to point our for Sir Aubergine benefit that there is a nifty tag, [hr], that will add a horizontal rule to your post. It looks a lot nicer than a big line of X's and won't force the page to be wide.

An example:

Enjoy.
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Post by Username17 »

1st Edition AD&D's suggestion was that people would probably want to play Ogres or Gold Dragons and you should just let them - no rules provided. Then it told you to ramp up the difficulty because they were obviously power gamers and deserved to have their characters killed.

-Username17
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Post by Krusk »

4e put a ton of playable races in the monster manual as well. So it didnt really even win in terms of "all races in one place".

3e scattered in the mm next to or as part of monster stats. So i can search for kobold and then play one. It also has them in the phb.

4e put them in the back. So i can search for kobold, find stats and ask "how do i play one?" Then get annoyed, and check the toc again and find a second entry for playable monsters in the bAck. It also has them in the phb.

Thats basically the same distribution, only less of them. And In a different place that may or may not be easier to find. (Coin flip on personal preference)
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Post by erik »

Sir Aubergine wrote:You can bang on about the total number of "playable" races 3rd edition brought to the table, but we are not playing shirts vs skins here. The original post query is, "So, what did 4E do *right*?" I originally said, "I liked 4th edition's decision to have a good number of races playable from 1st level."
O RLY? I just clicked to read the OP:
Despite being a mismanaged dumpster fire, 4E did do a few things better than 3rd.
But whatever. Ooookay. 4e did right by having a goodly amount, if not as many as 3e, of playable level 1 races. *golf clap*

Long as we are using that metric then do we have any other limbo bars for 4e to walk under?

No THAC0. Good job 4e.
Challenge Ratings to help DMs create appropriately challenging adventures. Spot on 4e.
Including iconic monsters like dragons, and some modest support for settings such as dungeons. Cherry on top 4e!

What. Is. Your. Point?


and one last dig
Sir Aubergine wrote:Once you know where the section is, you can flip to it or punch in a page number on your PDF and viola. You are ready to make a character.
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Hiram McDaniels
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Post by Hiram McDaniels »

Sir Aubergine wrote:I'm surprised that no one has mentioned races yet.

I have liked the drow since I discovered the Drowtales comic...
I looked at that. I think I was a few dozen pages in when the story was still in it's expository preamble before I realized: Oh - this is garbage writing.
Sir Aubergine wrote:But god forbid you dared to suggest that you might want to play one in an actual game of D&D before 4th edition. Three-quarters of the time the referee would think you wanted to play a Drizzt clone and/or have bullshit equipment for free.
That wasn't it. The reason DM's of old-timey D&D don't like Drow characters is because that shit got real trite real quick, because the character concepts invariably boil down to: "Fuck yeah wearing all black is cool as fuck and katanas are hella cool and I'm a brooding loner because that's cool as shit and my name's Kane, or Cain, or Khaine fuck yeah!"
Sir Aubergine wrote: The thing is, I don't want to play a drow because it offers me a mechanically distinct ability from elf classic. I want to play a drow so's I can have gray/charcoal/inky-black-with-a-hint-of-purple skin and fabulous white/platinum hair. Nothing more. Level adjustments and random spell-like abilities can burn in Hell!
Well it's fortunate for you that you're not at my table, because even though Drow are available for play right in the 5E PHB, in my world they are hairless with translucent, milky-white skin.
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Hiram McDaniels
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Post by Hiram McDaniels »

Kaelik wrote:"I like 4e monsters better, because they don't have any monsters with more than 3 abilities, and I'm too stupid to remember what dispel magic does when reading the MM."
I think monsters with 3 abilities is fine for the squad-based skirmish game that 4E tried to be (TRIED to be) if the monster isn't going to be on the table for long. It becomes a problem with solo monsters who are intended to be an extended fight, but don't have enough tools in their kit to keep things interesting from round to round and essentially become a giant bag of HP that's perpetually neutered by stunlock.

The disappointing thing about 4E is it had a lot of ideas that were good in theory, but failed in execution. It's like someone saying they want to make you some delicious avgolemono soup with salmon and fennel, but when they open the pot it's just scrambled eggs and turds.
Last edited by Hiram McDaniels on Sun May 07, 2017 5:58 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Sir Darkmane »

I enjoyed the 4e "passive perception" mechanic. It seperated "active searching and looking at things" and "things you notice in the background". In my group it helped the rogues generally feal sneakier, as long as they avoided people who were actively searching for them, no checks were required.
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