Planning start PnP with buds, 3.5 or 4.0?

[magnvix]

Hey there guys.

My friends and I have recently decided, after realizing our love for board games, to start playing DnD. We are all complete newbs to the game (except I, playing DDO and had very brief 3.5 intro with a friend via VOIP).

We were wondering if we should play with the 3.5 ruleset or 4.0. Thats the only question I've got now, but any advice for us new players would be great!

EDIT: Few more questions... my friend wants to know if the DM 'has fun.' I guess he means will he be having the DnD experience if he is the DM (I would say that yes, definetly, but I'm not one to speak from experience)

How many people would we want to play? Right now we've got 4 total dedicated players, is that enough being that one has to DM?

[Uska]

Well if your chosing dnd I would say 3.5 but there wont be any new material coming out I cant in good faith recomend 4E I tried it for a year and cant stand it. Younger folk then I am seem to love it, now I game I highly recommend is Hackmaster Basic it feels to me a lot like old school dnd and at 19.95 for all you need to start its a steal.

As to your number of players yes your fine there a few more would be nice but to many can be a pain. As to gming many find it fun, I do just dont have the time to much of it lately.

[FluffyCalico]

3.5 -Pick if all players in the group are very smart and love complicated things.

4.0 -Pick if you have anyone of about average intelligence. The main reason for the changes that happened in 4.0 were to make it fun and enjoyable for more than just 1% of the population. Some call it increasing your audience size, some call it dumbing it down.

Anyway you slice it both are fun to play. One is just easier. There are always a ton of people who are "OMG" when anything about anything changes. If you want proof just read the forms lol. Simple truth is both are great games even though many people refuse to allow themself to believe that anything different could be good.

I hate what they did to the sorc in 4.0, but the new sorc is still fun, just not what I was expecting.

[Uska]

3.5 -Pick if all players in the group are very smart and love complicated things.

4.0 -Pick if you have anyone of about average intelligence. The main reason for the changes that happened in 4.0 were to make it fun and enjoyable for more than just 1% of the population. Some call it increasing your audience size, some call it dumbing it down.

Anyway you slice it both are fun to play. One is just easier. There are always a ton of people who are "OMG" when anything about anything changes. If you want proof just read the forms lol. Simple truth is both are great games even though many people refuse to allow themself to believe that anything different could be good.

I hate what they did to the sorc in 4.0, but the new sorc is still fun, just not what I was expecting.

I call 4E giving dnd a lobotomy but thats me.

[FluffyCalico]

I call 4E giving dnd a lobotomy but thats me.

And if they called it Fred so you didn't have preset expections of how it should be most likely you would have thought
Hey this is alot like DnD it's fun.

[Uska]

And if they called it Fred so you didn't have preset expections of how it should be most likely you would have thought
Hey this is alot like DnD it's fun.

No I wouldnt have 4E is a combat sim and thats what I thought when I first tried it back in beta and what I still think and there are better combat sims out there. I really tried to like it and gave it a year as a player and gm and wont touch another WoTC dnd game again. If ddo ever becomes to much like 4E I am out of here.

[Ereshkigal]

3.5 -Pick if all players in the group are very smart and love complicated things.

4.0 -Pick if you have anyone of about average intelligence. The main reason for the changes that happened in 4.0 were to make it fun and enjoyable for more than just 1% of the population. Some call it increasing your audience size, some call it dumbing it down.

Anyway you slice it both are fun to play. One is just easier. There are always a ton of people who are "OMG" when anything about anything changes. If you want proof just read the forms lol. Simple truth is both are great games even though many people refuse to allow themself to believe that anything different could be good.

I hate what they did to the sorc in 4.0, but the new sorc is still fun, just not what I was expecting.

Nicely summed up Fluffy. I just wish they would've made it two separate games instead of replacing one with the other.
oh well.

[Zenako]

I would offer that if any of you had prior gaming experience with D&D to just go with 3.5, since that mimics a lot of what you see in DDO. You would feel more comfortable with the system.

Given that your group has no preconceptions about the system or how characters work per se, going with 4.0 has the advantage of being readily available in shops.

Personally my groups are all long time players, with 30+ years of D&D experience. None of us who looked at how 4.0 were in the least interested in going that way. Now in our defense, we have everything we need to keep going with 3.5 until none of us can roll a d20 anymore, so getting gaming materials is a non-issue.

You can pick up lots of 3.5 and earlier stuff on EBAY and in some game shops which have room to stock older stuff. Most do not, and have cleared it out, making it a lot harder to find.

IF your group has experience with Miniatures Gaming, like the Dungeons and Dragons Miniatures series, then some of the mechanics of 4.0 will be more familiar and less jarring.

If you find playing with 1 DM and 3 players leaves the party feeling shortmanned, let each player have a henchmen/hireling to augment the party force. The old Knight and his Squire type thing. A little extra muscle when needed, or perhaps a loyal priest helping with a few spells and buffs, and an occasional mace swing.

Regardless of which system, I cannot stress highly enough how much the use of a gaming mat and miniatures can enhance the experience. (and make the Job of the DM a lot easier to moderate.)

[jjkolb]

I say go back to AD&D 1.0; you can find all the source material on ebay.

That's what I'm going to do when my kids are old enough to play. Then again, they'll probably call me a geek and then go play video games.

[Aspenor]

I prefer 3.5, personally. The DM definitely has fun. I DM my tabletop game and I have a blast, it's all about keeping the game interesting.

[sirgog]

3.5 (or paizo.com 's Pathfinder which is often referred to as V3.75) is my preference.


4.0 has less of an RPG feel and more of a miniatures wargaming feel. It's a good game and all, but not on the level of 3.(7)5 IMO.

That said, if you and your playgroup are fans of World of Warcraft, I'd go with 4.0. It takes a lot from that game (the mandated 'tank/DPS/healer' role assignment, extremely well done game balance, some ability for everyone to heal themselves although not as well as a 'healer' can heal them and more).

3.5 or 3.75 allows much more character customisation (note - this creates game balance issues once you reach level 12 or so), and doesn't pigeonhole players in the way that 4.0 does.

[Uska]

Nicely summed up Fluffy. I just wish they would've made it two separate games instead of replacing one with the other.
oh well.

That would have been nice 3.5 while not even close to being my choice for pnp is a better rpg then 4E which is a fine combat sim and would be a very nice expansion or replacement for the minis rules. I dont enjoy 4E even as a combat system because of the changes to dnd that annoy me and I already have mini combat system rules I prefer.

[Uska]

I would offer that if any of you had prior gaming experience with D&D to just go with 3.5, since that mimics a lot of what you see in DDO. You would feel more comfortable with the system.

Given that your group has no preconceptions about the system or how characters work per se, going with 4.0 has the advantage of being readily available in shops.

Personally my groups are all long time players, with 30+ years of D&D experience. None of us who looked at how 4.0 were in the least interested in going that way. Now in our defense, we have everything we need to keep going with 3.5 until none of us can roll a d20 anymore, so getting gaming materials is a non-issue.

You can pick up lots of 3.5 and earlier stuff on EBAY and in some game shops which have room to stock older stuff. Most do not, and have cleared it out, making it a lot harder to find.

IF your group has experience with Miniatures Gaming, like the Dungeons and Dragons Miniatures series, then some of the mechanics of 4.0 will be more familiar and less jarring.

If you find playing with 1 DM and 3 players leaves the party feeling shortmanned, let each player have a henchmen/hireling to augment the party force. The old Knight and his Squire type thing. A little extra muscle when needed, or perhaps a loyal priest helping with a few spells and buffs, and an occasional mace swing.

Regardless of which system, I cannot stress highly enough how much the use of a gaming mat and miniatures can enhance the experience. (and make the Job of the DM a lot easier to moderate.)

good post

[Uska]

I say go back to AD&D 1.0; you can find all the source material on ebay.

That's what I'm going to do when my kids are old enough to play. Then again, they'll probably call me a geek and then go play video games.

yup my fave editon

[Uska]

I prefer 3.5, personally. The DM definitely has fun. I DM my tabletop game and I have a blast, it's all about keeping the game interesting.

While its not my fave edition by far it is fun to play and to run.

[uhgungawa]

i Say Go Back To Ad&d 1.0; You Can Find All The Source Material On Ebay.

/win!!!!!

[sephiroth1084]

Hey there guys.

My friends and I have recently decided, after realizing our love for board games, to start playing DnD. We are all complete newbs to the game (except I, playing DDO and had very brief 3.5 intro with a friend via VOIP).

We were wondering if we should play with the 3.5 ruleset or 4.0. Thats the only question I've got now, but any advice for us new players would be great!

That depends on what you and your friends are looking for. Third edition has a more complex set of rules and attempts to cover a lot of the bases as far as bringing as many elements of popular fantasy into the game. Character creation is more complex from one standpoint and simpler from another, and characters play very differently from one another.

Fourth edition is simplified to a great extent, making for a difficult time if you like to improvise a lot (house ruling stuff in 4E seems prohibitively difficult due to the way the rules are constructed), while a much greater emphasis is placed on combat, with potentially more interesting combats for the melee and ranged types, but less dynamic for casters (much of what casters can do has been seriously nerfed, which preserves a balance of power, but makes for a somewhat stale system).

Personally, I prefer the type of customization 3.5 offers, along with its rules structure. I played a few 4 E games with my friends, and we all pretty much decided to just drop it and go back to 3.5.

EDIT: Few more questions... my friend wants to know if the DM 'has fun.' I guess he means will he be having the DnD experience if he is the DM (I would say that yes, definetly, but I'm not one to speak from experience)

The DM can have fun, but their fun is more situational than that of the players'. I DM fairly frequently, and love writing a story and taking people through it, but after a while I start getting antsy and want to be on the other side of the proverbial screen again.

A friend of mine has something of a complex, and gets high on the power of being a DM, and seems to enjoy running pre-written adventures (or modules). I don't see the fun in that, but getting him to be a player takes a lot of nudging.

My suggestion would be to first use a module to get the game started, then see if anyone has any desire to write their own stuff. If not, continue with modules, rotating who DMs every adventure/story-arch. My friends are looking to try this out as a way of keeping games moving and avoiding DM frustration.[/quote]

How many people would we want to play? Right now we've got 4 total dedicated players, is that enough being that one has to DM?

You can run a game with 3, but just remember that you have to scale encounters down a little. If you're playing 4E that's less of an issue because each character can handle a lot more combat. Ideally though, you'd want to try and find a 4th player (5th person). Not a big deal, though. I've had games with just 2 players and a DM, and games with 9 players (incredibly difficult to deal with and don't recommend having a group larger than 6 players and a DM).

[FluffyCalico]

You can run a game with 3, but just remember that you have to scale encounters down a little. If you're playing 4E that's less of an issue because each character can handle a lot more combat. Ideally though, you'd want to try and find a 4th player (5th person). Not a big deal, though. I've had games with just 2 players and a DM, and games with 9 players (incredibly difficult to deal with and don't recommend having a group larger than 6 players and a DM).

You can also allow one of your more experienced players to run a 2nd person.

[sephiroth1084]

You can also allow one of your more experienced players to run a 2nd person.

True. Also, the DM can play as a character as well. It can be a bit awkward at times, and I suggest playing a character who is not going to be leading often (trying to lead while still trying to be ignorant of your DM foreknowledge can be tough).

I ran an NPC healer who functioned a lot like a hireling in DDO (healed, buffed a little, took orders, but didn't speak). It worked fairly well, but I kept forgetting about her, until a player would ask, "And what is Aldawyn doing?" Hehe.

[SquelchHU]

Hey there guys.

My friends and I have recently decided, after realizing our love for board games, to start playing DnD. We are all complete newbs to the game (except I, playing DDO and had very brief 3.5 intro with a friend via VOIP).

We were wondering if we should play with the 3.5 ruleset or 4.0. Thats the only question I've got now, but any advice for us new players would be great!

EDIT: Few more questions... my friend wants to know if the DM 'has fun.' I guess he means will he be having the DnD experience if he is the DM (I would say that yes, definetly, but I'm not one to speak from experience)

How many people would we want to play? Right now we've got 4 total dedicated players, is that enough being that one has to DM?

3.5 rules, no contest. Let's put it this way: Would you enjoy DDO if it ran at 5% of the speed it is supposed to and didn't display any graphics or perform any processing for you? No, you would not. Yet that is what 4th edition gives you. 3.5 at least allows you to do other things, thereby playing to the strengths of a tabletop gaming medium rather than its weaknesses. The video games and MMOs can handle the hack and slash and the grinding just fine.

You should have at least 4 people acting as players. If you don't, then you have to adjust nearly everything you use as a DM, which takes up a lot of time. So if you get one more, you should be fine. You can take more than that, but that also requires heavy adjusting.

As for the DM, that depends on him, the game, and other factors. It is not a question that I, or anyone else here can answer.

But as a general rule, as long as you do not touch 4th edition with a 10 foot pole, and do not touch Pathfinder with an eleven foot pole you and your game will be fine.