Min/Max Boards

...Somehow, I don't think that is the reason.

It was my solution.

There was some culture shock, but from a DM perspective god was it worth it.

I am educating people.  And one of the things that I'm educating them about is that you are evangelizing about the garbage that is Pathfinder/3E

Let us consider the following:
- I noted that they fixed the stacking save debuff issue with errata
- I noted that they have stated that they are aware of the issue of forced movement/zone interactions, as well as the house rules that have sprung up (no more than 1 zone application/round), and the effect (some zones are designed and balanced around 2-3 applications per round, or even 2 applications per turn with sufficient time investment). 

You state the following:

Sliding people though "zone" effects like dribbling a ball is getting nerf? I'd say the problem still persists. And don't forget, there was hundreds of people expecting errata to be finished or even some off hand article after the conclusion of 3rd to wrap things up. 4th came out and WotC immediately halted all product support for 3rd. Their working on publishing 5th edition right now, don't expect much out of them.

5th edition is a rumor that is based around the following:

1) Book publication has slowed

Counterpoint
- Token, Tile, and accessory production has risen dramatically.  Given that each edition has had a number of books that sold poorly (probably costing them money), and that indeed they've refocused away from certain types of products that historically sell very poorly (Martial Power, Arcane Power) to ones that sell well (Setting/fluff presentations, such as Heroes of the Feywild)
- New forms of D&D have arisen such as Lair Assault and D&D Encounters
- D&D Insider gives them a viable, non-publication based income source for maintaining a system

2) Pathfinder is apparently popular

Counterpoint
- WotC has always welcomed the rise of other RPGs, as they have held that the larger the market, the better for everyone.  Indeed, AD&D was over 50% of the market at one time (hell, at one time it D&D 1st edition was 100% of the RPG market), but since then the market has grown by a factor of at least 20 (that's 2000%).  A share of an enormous pie is better than the entirety of a very small pie. 


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There is no WotC confirmation, no basis for the rumor, and any supposed 5E is at least 2-3 years out.  And yet, you state that I am being unhelpfun.

No.

You are spreading rumors that have no basis in fact
You are ignoring WotC's past actions to state that they will do something SOLELY on the basis of 3E
You are ignoring the fact that you have been told that many of the so-called problems you list aren't problems, but simple statements of reality rephrased as problems (there is a problem because Wizards can cast spells everyone!)
You ignore, blatantly, things about the system that are so painfully basic that 12 year old children who have never played D&D understand them.  Namely, that powers you receive at maximum level and powers you receive at level 1 aren't at all the same thing (and lets add in that at max level you are GODHUNTING, and that maybe one campaign in a hundred will care about that level)

And you are accusing me of being unhelpful.

You just admitted to not playing 4E, in the 4E forums.  Let me assure you of the following:

As a dungeon master, 4E is the best edition of D&D ever produced.  It allows more creativity, more interesting encounters, more balanced setups, and gives me less work dealing with problem gamers than any edition ever produced, or any variant on any other edition.

Frankly, most of the people who don't like it are either people who don't play it, or a subset of said problem gamers (who are unhappy that they can't just roll up a human cleric with DM and Persist spell as their feats, and know that they will 'win D&D'). 

With a side that occasionally you'll just get a bad DM, or a new DM who runs an encounter as-is with no real effort to be creative or interesting because he feels like he 'should DM because he always plays and has never DMed.' 

Let me assure anyone reading this: I know far more about 4E than SorO does. 

P.S.  How are the fixes for Cleric, Druid, and Wizard breaking the entire game in half coming along? 

Huh, lets take on White Wolf.


Wraith: the Oblivion - Somehow made it up to a second edition before anyone bothered to actually play a game of it.  Once they did, they discovered that the system was horrid.  Having a destined nemesis?  Kind of cool.  Making your alter ego that destined nemesis so that they advanced at EXACTLY the same rate as you (allowing you to defeat them by metaphorically sitting at home and eating potato chips)?  Less cool.  Making  them manifest by dumping taking you over so that not only could you never meet them, but it needed either DMs or other PCs to hijack your character?  This enters wallbanger territory.

Probably the system White Wolf would most like to forget producing.  It was clearly driven by writers and artists, not by actual gamers who created systems that were fun to play.  To this day, I'm sure there's White Wolf employees who don't understand why it failed... and others who don't understand what the first group are thinking. 

Kindred of the East - So all the vampires in Asia are from a completely different line of ur-vampires who have nothing to do with other WoD vampires, are more powerful, and just happen to share certain mechanical similarities?   

I knew virtually no one who really liked this system.  African vampires, when they were introduced, thankfully all came from the same clans as everyone else, they just had a very different set of cultures and traditions, which made a ton of sense. 

Return of the Scarlet Empress - so this entire time the main drama of the Exalted storyline has actually been a sidenote to the ACTUAL enemy, who sweeps in at the 11th hour, kicks everyone's ass, and takes over the world with nothing anyone can do about it?  Being a system where all the PCs can do is either die honorably or run like scared children brings it into the straight "screw you" territory.

I'm fairly certain every single person who likes Exalted considers this book non-canon.  It's a middle finger to their entire fanbase, and some people will never forgive them for it. 

Chicago by Night, 1st edition - the only, the ONLY V:tM setting to EVER get two editions was Chicago by Night.

White Wolf prefers it to be remembered as only being printed once.  The first edition didn't stop at getting mere game mechanics wrong (in an official White Wolf Publication), it was filled with grammatical errors and obvious mistakes, as well as featuring subject matter that was horribly written.  It's nigh on legendary.

I'd at least drop everything orange and below into a spoiler section.

Lets face it, the majority of this stuff is red, and do we really need to read that?

See, as I read this my eyebrow climbs because it seems like an overly wordy setup for an infinite damage attack loop.

The problem is, it's fairly clear what's intended.  You can roll 3 dice and pick the highest if you argue long enough, which raises your crit chance a lot, but at the end of the day rolling to hit with Magic Missile just wastes everyone's time.

I... don't like the way 4e is going (not that I care that much... my chosen system is 3.5).

(Be warned. The following information comes from someone who haven't read about 4e in a while, so it might have mistakes.)

First, the Essentials classes (or e-classes) simplified 4e even further, reducing classes like the Fighter (Slayer) and Ranger (Scout) into one trick ponies that can beef up their trick of choice - in this case, charging. You don't do anything else; you just charge. There was a Dragon somewhere with rules for picking powers from other classes, allowing the e-classes to pick stuff from the o-classes. Even then, the OMGWTFBBQ stuff still belongs with the o-classes (Ranger's Blade Cascade+minor action off hand powers, Barbarian's Hurricane of Blades/Storm of Blows, etc...). While this is nice, I don't think the Essentials idea is the best way to go...

Actually their one trick is hitting things real hard.  Don't look at the Character Optimization boards, those are theoretical builds.  Looking there is like looking at a party of a Hulking Hurler, the Cheater of Mystra, a Planar Shepherd with Greenbound Summoning, and Pun-Pun. 

It basically was for people who had 3rd as their preferred system and didn't like their fighter having all these newfangled choice things in combat. 

The fact that everyone roundly hates them probably indicates how much people liked THAT aspect of 3.X (I don't know a single 3.X veteran who regularly plays a purebred fighter, rogue, or barbarian).

Hoops beat spambots

That said, this is odd.