With a crackle and hiss the tiny goblin materialized in the center of the cavernous chamber. Disoriented, he glanced quickly from side to side, taking in the astonished looks of the small party of battle weary adventurers who had summoned him, before, finally and fatefully, looking up into the rapidly descending jaws of an enormous dragon. In a tiny, squeaky, quivering voice he uttered the only words of his brief and ill-fated existence... "oh shit".
Having played and DM'd a bit of both 4E and 3.5 now, I can definitely say 4E is a better system, especially at low levels...your range of just...types of attacks makes the game seem more active and fun rather than 'attack'. There is a greater inherent toughness to the PC's that seems more heroic in stature, and means that as a DM you aren't constantly having to pull punches because your players didn't min/max in order to not leave the character they spent all their time carefully making just a corpse at level 1 because you realistically have no means of raising the dead for the first oh, 9 or so levels.
That and frankly, I feel that I've explored about every interesting option in 3.5 as far as a character goes without doing things that are just silly and 4E, even in simple, core races and jobs, its new ground with new ideas and things to explore.
One reason I prefer 4E: Fighters can actually do things other than power attack. It's why I liked the Book of Nine Swords (which I'm not sure if anyone looked at). I would quite like to explore the system more in the near future.
That being said, I feel kinda bad that someone got that giant book and we haven't used it yet. I'd still like to get into that at some point, but we could get back to that.
So, far, the 4e advocates are being more persuasive. Plus, I suspect the ballot box is being stuffed by Ptolus partisans.
I personally haven't voted in this poll, but am leaning towards 4e at the moment. For many of the reasons articulated by Tiger and Aerin. On top of that, there are certain aspects of Ptolus that I'm just not crazy about and would have to excise from the adventures before running them. That, and the pre-written Ptolus adventures aren't so compelling-- at least from my point of view.
I've been interested in Ptolus ever since you explained it. I want a role-play based game with heavy emphasis on character interaction. I'm getting rather weary of hack'n'bash. I honestly couldn't give a shit what system it's run under, I just want the experience.
I've only voted once. It was the third vote for Ptolus. I'm not anti-4e or anything, just think it sounds like fun. Much like what Leelu just said. You just have more natural opportunities for role-play and non-violent interactions in an urban setting. When you meet someone in the wild or a dungeon or ruins or a temple or other "dangerous" places, you pretty automatically assume they're going to be hostile and looking to fight. 95% of the time you're right. Ptolus sounds like it provides more opportunities for the type of play I like.
I'm not particularly attached to 3.5, just take the attitude why fix it if it ain't broken. I'm generally happy with the system, familiar with the way everything works, own all the books I need. It seems like a lot of unnecessary work to buy new books and start relearning everything.
My feeling with characters is it's about the journey not the destination. Developing them is the best part, creating someone from scratch and seeing what he/she becomes. I like starting them at first level. And I don't like them being more inherently "heroic in stature." I want it to be someone I can relate to, someone like me but who is in a different context and provided different opportunities to become someone I'm not, but not some kind of mythic superhuman type. I want my characters to feel lived in and real. I like the danger of being low-level because that's how it would feel if I were tossed into those situations.
10 comments:
It's 2 to 2. Reasons in the comments?
Having played and DM'd a bit of both 4E and 3.5 now, I can definitely say 4E is a better system, especially at low levels...your range of just...types of attacks makes the game seem more active and fun rather than 'attack'. There is a greater inherent toughness to the PC's that seems more heroic in stature, and means that as a DM you aren't constantly having to pull punches because your players didn't min/max in order to not leave the character they spent all their time carefully making just a corpse at level 1 because you realistically have no means of raising the dead for the first oh, 9 or so levels.
That and frankly, I feel that I've explored about every interesting option in 3.5 as far as a character goes without doing things that are just silly and 4E, even in simple, core races and jobs, its new ground with new ideas and things to explore.
One reason I prefer 4E: Fighters can actually do things other than power attack. It's why I liked the Book of Nine Swords (which I'm not sure if anyone looked at). I would quite like to explore the system more in the near future.
That being said, I feel kinda bad that someone got that giant book and we haven't used it yet. I'd still like to get into that at some point, but we could get back to that.
So, far, the 4e advocates are being more persuasive. Plus, I suspect the ballot box is being stuffed by Ptolus partisans.
I personally haven't voted in this poll, but am leaning towards 4e at the moment. For many of the reasons articulated by Tiger and Aerin. On top of that, there are certain aspects of Ptolus that I'm just not crazy about and would have to excise from the adventures before running them. That, and the pre-written Ptolus adventures aren't so compelling-- at least from my point of view.
What is Ptolis?
The fact that Lummox doesn't even know what Ptolus is leads me to believe that Degolar has voted for it multiple times. J'accuse! Voter fraud!
I've been interested in Ptolus ever since you explained it. I want a role-play based game with heavy emphasis on character interaction. I'm getting rather weary of hack'n'bash. I honestly couldn't give a shit what system it's run under, I just want the experience.
I've only voted once. It was the third vote for Ptolus. I'm not anti-4e or anything, just think it sounds like fun. Much like what Leelu just said. You just have more natural opportunities for role-play and non-violent interactions in an urban setting. When you meet someone in the wild or a dungeon or ruins or a temple or other "dangerous" places, you pretty automatically assume they're going to be hostile and looking to fight. 95% of the time you're right. Ptolus sounds like it provides more opportunities for the type of play I like.
I'm not particularly attached to 3.5, just take the attitude why fix it if it ain't broken. I'm generally happy with the system, familiar with the way everything works, own all the books I need. It seems like a lot of unnecessary work to buy new books and start relearning everything.
My feeling with characters is it's about the journey not the destination. Developing them is the best part, creating someone from scratch and seeing what he/she becomes. I like starting them at first level. And I don't like them being more inherently "heroic in stature." I want it to be someone I can relate to, someone like me but who is in a different context and provided different opportunities to become someone I'm not, but not some kind of mythic superhuman type. I want my characters to feel lived in and real. I like the danger of being low-level because that's how it would feel if I were tossed into those situations.
Well, we could do both, but I don't think we want to put Hadrian through the hell of converting the entire thing.
I voted 4E because I didn't know what Ptolis is
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