30 DODND Day 14: Favourite NPC

           

         His name was Deceito, and I hated him.  Yes, the clue was in the name, but I just heard Desuto and thought nothing of it.  He was supposedly an old school friend of my wizard Kuraileon.  His favourite 4^th ed. ritual?  Explosive Runes.  He managed to get me with that spell a good 3 or 4 times within a single session.  He infuriated me, but I managed to get the ritual out of him, which was useful.  But he provided a lot of fun for the party.

            I think the most interesting thing about Deceito was that he wasn’t a villain, nor was he an ally.  He was just a random prankster who had decided to make my life a pain.  It’s difficult to know how to handle an NPC like that.  Villains are to be punished, but old friends who are just having a laugh by repeatedly using Explosive Runes on you?  What’s the protocol?  It was just fun to have a character who had really very little to do with any plot or side quest.  He was just a pain.

30 DODND Day 7: Favourite Edition

Remember when this needed a whole book?

I’ve flipped back and forth between 3.5 and 4^th edition for quite a while now, and I have to say I’ve settled somewhere in the middle.  They’re both excellent, but I can see the problems with both.

            Some people find 4^th edition to be both over-powered when compared the more dangerous world of 3.5.  Now, given that the only character I have ever played which died was in 4^th edition, I have to say that this is simply not the case.  4^th edition certainly gives characters more power at an earlier level, which I don’t view as a bad thing.  Playing any 1^st level character in 3.5 is usually a rather tedious endeavour, particularly for wizards.  Now, everyone always has something to contribute right from the start.  If players aren’t being challenged by the adventure, then that is a problem for the DM to solve, not the system.  There is another complaint that all of this power makes the characters seem less human.  That I can see is a more valid concern.  A first level fighter should not be able to kill that efficiently.  Or should they?  I mean, that’s kind of the point of having a PC class, isn’t it?  A first level fighter isn’t someone who has just picked up a sword and is out to see how much damage they can do with it.  They have already spent years training to get to that level, working out daily and training their swordsmanship techniques, learning special moves taught to them by their trainer.  They may have spent some time in the city guard or whathaveyou, effectively as a minion.  Only now do they feel competent enough to act on their own or in a small group to take on even the smallest band of kobolds.  Still pretty human to me.

          So 4^th edition is pretty good, as far as I’m concerned.  But 3.5 isn’t any worse because of this.  What makes 3.5 edition stand out is its complexity and depth.  4^th edition was largely created to meet the demand of a simpler system, because of the stereotypical image of the 3.5 game: endless flipping through rulebooks to find just the right rule.  Grapple checks are particularly notorious.

        What 3.5 edition had though, that 4^th edition sadly got rid of, was a massive spell list.  Wizards, sorcerers and clerics had an amazing variety of spells they could draw upon, to tool themselves to be incredible in different fields.  You could be an illusionist, a necromancer, all of the things I mentioned on Day 4.  It is simply fantastic.  And yes it takes you ages to look through all the rules that the game has, but only because in the game system you can really do just about anything.

      Overall, I love them both.  If 4^th edition had kept the spell list though, it might have edged ahead.

30 DODND Day 3 - Favourite Playable Class

He is too a wizard!

            In 3.5 edition?  Wizard.  In 4^th edition?  Still wizard.

            There are a lot of fun classes to play as.  Bard, Monk, Rogue, Paladin, Warlord, Fighter, Cleric, I’ve played as all of them and enjoyed it.  There are only a few classes I’ve never played as in fact.  However, the wizard is always (unless you’re level 1) a blast to play as, sometimes literally.  True, you’re weak and frail and can’t carry anything and don’t get cool weapons, but if you play it right, a wizard can dominate any situation.

            The real difference is in their spell list.  In 3.5 edition, a wizard is the greatest toolkit known to mankind.  With the appropriate spell choices, a wizard can be a DPS, hexer, buffer, controller, thief, summoner or any number of things.  My current favourite is the Transmuter wizard, who spends the first rounds of combat casting Bull’s Strength and Enlarge Person on the fighters to make them unstoppable, and then sitting back to watch.  It’s hilarious!  In 4^th edition, a wizard is far less flexible, but much more powerful.  You can really either control or damage, and control is definitely the better option.  Consider this: by spending an action point at the start of a battle to cast Wall of Fire and Wall of Ice simultaneously, you can box in and seriously damage most of the battlefield.  What more could you want?  Well, the 3.5 edition spell list for a start, but it’s a refreshing change of pace.  Thunderwave is just fun.

            Basically, of all the classes, wizards are the most complicated, the weakest, and the most likely to have to run away.  But you keep rolling them up because there is something to be said for having unparalleled control over the laws of physics.  It’s a beautiful thing.

RPG vs DND Part 1: Graphic Imagination

      So I love RPGs, both regular and MMOs.  They’re great fun, and I’ve already explained why they are amazing.  But given the opportunity to spend the afternoon playing Neverwinter Nights or playing Dungeons and Dragons, I’d choose D&D every time, even if we were playing multiplayer NVN.  Why?  This week I would like to look at the relationships between virtual and tabletop RPGS.  Conveniently, I have three points, so I’ll divide this into three posts. 

                    Part 1: Visual Graphics vs Imagination

Can you say 'special effects'?  I can.

One of the best cases in favour of virtual RPGs is that you can actually see what’s going on.  In Neverwinter Nights you can see the enemies, see how many, what weapons they have, and all of that.  Also, it saves having to listen to the Dungeon Master giving a ten minute description of just how imposing the fortress is.  You can see it.  Your eyes process faster than your ears, at least when it comes to images.  I suppose reading a description of a sound is slower than hearing it.

So is this a crypt or a marketplace?

In D&D (or whatever tabletop RPG you prefer.  We can discuss that another day.) you have to rely on your imagination and memory to keep track of what’s going on.  You can use models and grids to map out a battle, and maybe the DM will be nice and draw you a map or a sketch of a building.  Generally though, you have to visualize everything yourself, and this does lead to confusion.  As DM I often find that I have forgotten to mention something important, like the giant pit in the center of the room, or the description of the altar the necromancer is standing behind.  This causes problems that you don’t really have as often in a video game.

Nowadays, with 4^th edition, there is supposed to be a lot of software you can buy to make all the rooms on your laptop for your dungeon and visual aids are a lot easier to construct.  For those of us who don’t have that luxury however, the graphics and sound effects of video games seem much easier than belaboured and detailed descriptions of the stickiness of the floor.