Planning start PnP with buds, 3.5 or 4.0?

[Nocturnal_Illusion]

I'm not going to say either way which I prefer or which you should play, however, I think it ironic though at the complaints of D&D 4.0 when you consider that the original version of Dungeons & Dragons, "Chainmail" began its life as an adaptation of fantasy based strategy war game. Interesting how things have come full circle, for right or wrong.

[Uska]

I'm not going to say either way which I prefer or which you should play, however, I think it ironic though at the complaints of D&D 4.0 when you consider that the original version of Dungeons & Dragons, "Chainmail" began its life as an adaptation of fantasy based strategy war game. Interesting how things have come full circle, for right or wrong.

If you played chainmail and original dnd then you know that your really cant compare them to 4E not really and I started with mini gaming(not chainmail) and then original dnd if I wanted a mini combat game I would pick a good one and generally when I want mini combat I dont want fantasy I want something like little wars or napoleonics or tank battles or maybe one of the warhammer lines. Yes dnd evolved lossely from chainmail we dont need to devolve back to that.

[Zimuel]

People have their preferences, but I think you've been giving 4th edition a bit of a bad rap. I've DM'ed both versions, 3.5 and 4.0. Now, D&D 3.5 is the system that DDO is based on, so you'll be more familiar with it. D&D 4.0 is a different system. As a DM I've had fun with both, but it depends on your style. We were all a bit sceptical about 4th, it looked dumbed down, some of the stuff looked silly, but once we gave it a go ... wow. It's been a great trip. Since most posters have been pro 3.5, I'll try to offer the other perspective.

Why D&D 4.0 rocks:

1) It's cool and cinematic and promotes improvisation - really, it does. You're given these simple building blocks and then you just build from there. A lot of folks miss out on these bits, like skill challenges in combat and the DM's best friend rule, but they're a must. It is not gritty - this is wu xia style, over the top, heroics. With my player's it feels like we're in a Conan movie. Coolness.

2) It's simple. And that's a good thing. You get into the story, into the action ... and just keep going.

3) It's a rugged system. You can house rule it all you like, bend it, twist it ... it can take a lot of abuse. And we abuse it, a lot. But it keeps working.

4) You get to do stuff. If you're a fighter, you suddenly have oodles of cool stuff to do. Yes, it's a bit campy at times, some of the names are silly, but ... the end result is still, more opportunities for everyone to shine.

5) As a DM it's simpler to fluff, wing-it, and go with the flow - it's in the DMG, winging it. You copy out about 2 pages worth of tables, and you're good to throw pretty much anything into it.

6) And you can easily play it without miniatures. Despite what everyone says. Our group plays loose and fast, and it's still a great game.

BUT - it's not 3.5. You can make it gritty, easy, but by default it's a hacking and slashing camp festival of destruction ... which isn't too bad really. And the DMG has really good tips for DMing, campaigns, adventures, story hooks, all the important stuff is detailed, while a lot of the chunky rules for things like bending bars (I think I used that ONCE in my whole 2nd ed. career) are gone.

For a taste - our next session features a battle with multiple sides and branching possibilities depending on what the characters do and how the enemy leaders react - but we've got bridge defenses, river fordings, mystic runes, wall scalings, pitch battles, ambushes and chases planned, starring a host of elves, necromancers, ents, giants, trolls, priests of light, men-at-arms, centaurs, dwarves, undead and dragons ... and for all that, I need just my players, 2 print outs worth of rules and 2 pages of notes. So yeah, it is simple - but it's fun. Consistently. Which is really good.

Oh, and grappling is simplified too.

[Kace]

A quick point about finding old editions. 3.5 is still going as 'Pathfinder', you can still find new material. And the old AD&D was purchased by Kenzer co. (of the hilarious Knights of Dinner Table comic) and they based their Hackmaster rules on it. Ie 4th edition, I absolutely adore the fights, very action packed, I'm less enthused about character creation.

[Aesop]

After reading all the most recent systems. 3.5 4.0 PAthfinder... I'm liking Pathfinder

I myself am going to start DMing that one pretty soon

Pathfinder is essentially 3.5 that's been beefed up. Classes that seem a little bland in 3.5 really have some nice flavor added to them.

There are more customizable aspects to the system too, and they've simplified a number the wonkier systems.

look it up.


Aesop

[Dymond]

I recently got back into gaming too and my wife bought me the 4E starter kit and I borrowed a friends 4E players guide at the same time. First thoughts? It was HORRIBLE. Like Uska said its all about the combat to the point of excluding everything else and the combat cards and all that ****.. WOW..Lets make DnD like WoW meets Magic the Gathering.. If your going to play 3.0, 3.5, heck even 2.0 and older, there is still a TON if resources on the web selling modules etc. After my disillusionment with 4e I was surfing the web when I came across the MicroliteD20 ruleset and it was exactly what I was looking for, D20 cooked down to its bare essence. I grabbed an adventure I downloaded right from their website, adapted it to an old campaign setting I created back in *gulp* D&D B/E and set my wife and kids off on their first adventure and we all had a blast, even me as the DM.

[Uska]

A quick point about finding old editions. 3.5 is still going as 'Pathfinder', you can still find new material. And the old AD&D was purchased by Kenzer co. (of the hilarious Knights of Dinner Table comic) and they based their Hackmaster rules on it. Ie 4th edition, I absolutely adore the fights, very action packed, I'm less enthused about character creation.

The new version of hackmaster is a much better game and doesnt have dnd as a true base as hasbro pulled the license

[erolat]

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.)

I cannot support this idea enough. I have been running a verity of role-play settings (D&D, Gamma World, and a few home brews) for over 25 years. In that time I have tried going with out a “battle mat”, with an abstract setting (figures only and rough movement/locations), and with a grid and figures. Of all three options the mat and figures proved the best way to go.

It not only helped the GM know exactly where everything was and control the flow of the story (or combat), but the players were often better able to “see” exactly what was happening and why. “You cannot shoot at that giant spider because the fighter is in the way.” “No, there is not enough room for all three of you to stand next to each other and still fight that troll.” “The passage curves to the left into the darkness. (And on the inside of the curve is a nice ambush spot. )”

[deephoenix]

Let me try and make a quick comparison about the two as I play one game of each on a weekly basis.

3.5: If it exists, there is a rule for it, or a rule that closely mimics what you are trying to do. However, with newer or less dedicated players this tends to become confusing and can overall slow the game down just to look up some obscure rule.

4e: Decided that having a rule for everything was too complex and the designers said screw it, lets make combat balanced and leave the roleplaying very free-form and up to the players. For anything not in rules they say look at this table and come up with something reasonable (page 42).

A glowing example of this difference would be the perform skill. In 3.5, you have to take every different perform skill (dance, sing, string, brass, oratory, etc) as a separate skill. In reality, the Perform skill had very little mechanical bearing on the game except for bard class abilities and a couple of prestige classes. However, you couldn't have a character who could competently perform without putting some ranks into perform.
4e takes this to the other extreme and removes Perform as a skill altogether. Bards are just assumed to be masters of all performance arts and any character who wants to play a flute in the downtime can do so without sacrificing other more useful abilities. However, there is no longer any measure of how good you can perform except for how good you say your character is. Thus a more free-formed approach to roleplaying.

just my 2 cp

[DoctorBadWolf]

I decided to not read the whole thread right now, mostly because I don't want to get myself into an edition war.

If your group likes using computers, 4e is nice with the character builder. The free version only goes up to level 3, but that works fine for starting a campaign, and it gives you all the options in all the books, all of which are core as per statements by wotc.
If your group like making characters quickly, the builder is just awesome.
If you've never played DnD before, 4e is even better. I've been playing since 2e, and I love 4e, but there are many people who hate it because there are things that feel different to them. 4e is easier to play, easier to get into. It has less of a learning curve, basically. That doesn't mean that you don't have as many options, you do. It just uses the same system for leveling characters, and puts the variety in what options are available for each class and race, and what the class features are, etc, rather than is what system your class uses to do things and level.

In my opinion, it's simply a more well made system, but 3.5 is still quite fun.

4e has more online support, of course, and new stuff coming out.

hmm, on a direct comparitive note:

In 3.5 a lot of the roleplaying support comes in the form of class flavor, and skills.
In 4e most of the roleplaying support comes in the form of things like backgrounds, skill challenges, and leaves a lot of it up to the players and DM. While I prefer that, as it affords more roleplaying freedom, imo, if you prefer the other way it's worth checking out.

I would at least go to wizards.com and download the free quickstart ruleset for 4e and check it out. Aside from obvious reasons, it also comes with a low level adventure set.

[AnderlornLOTR]

You can not go wrong with 3.5 or Pathfinder 3.75 - personally I like Pathfinder 3.75 and the Forgotten Realms.

2nd Edition was an improvement over 1st edition.

1st edition is nostalgic, however there were a lot of problems with monster balance. Dragons were a big improvement in 2nd edition. It gave them a fighting chance while first edition dragons were push overs.

4th edition is for people who adamantly opposed of all the rules in 3.5 and below or they are new to role playing and only played MMOs prior to PnP.

[AnderlornLOTR]

You can not argue people dislike 4th edition because it is radically different than version 3. Version 3 was radically different than version 2 - all of the good acronyms\systems like THAC0 and some of the good psionic powers went out the door in version 3. The reason why people liked version 3 over version 4 is because they worked with the gaming community. Hasbro only selected a very few and were hush hush about it. In addition, I have reviewed 4th edition and to me it leaves out the feeling of role playing. It is is too regimented and no feel of you can make this game your own like in previous versions. It feels more like a static MMO than the dynamic feel of a role playing pnp game.

And for some people, 4th edition is great. For the majority, it is not. Pathfinder is for the die hard role players that have been playing since the 80s or have been immersed in true role playing experiences. I agree there should be many forms of games and I have no ill will against 4th edition. It is just not for me and I feel cheated by Hasbro because they did not inform us or worked with us. And made the game feel more static and removed very nice and comfortable dynamics that role players love.

[AnderlornLOTR]

And frankly these are fighting words ...

Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition (2008-Present)

According to the Dungeons & Dragons Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide, Mystra has been murdered by Cyric, and is no longer a part of the Forgotten Realms pantheon.

Cyric murder Mystra, yeah right! That is like stating Mystra stripped AO of all of his powers...

[DakFrost]

I would say 3.5 is a role playing game that relies on creative story telling and imagination. Takes some time to learn and requires more work by the DM to run the game.

4th is more like a bigger version of the old Hero’s Quest game. Just with more abilities and more monsters. Great for kids, easy to learn, and very little work for the DM.

It all depends on what style you like.

[DoctorBadWolf]

I recently got back into gaming too and my wife bought me the 4E starter kit and I borrowed a friends 4E players guide at the same time. First thoughts? It was HORRIBLE. Like Uska said its all about the combat to the point of excluding everything else and the combat cards and all that ****.. WOW..Lets make DnD like WoW meets Magic the Gathering.. If your going to play 3.0, 3.5, heck even 2.0 and older, there is still a TON if resources on the web selling modules etc. After my disillusionment with 4e I was surfing the web when I came across the MicroliteD20 ruleset and it was exactly what I was looking for, D20 cooked down to its bare essence. I grabbed an adventure I downloaded right from their website, adapted it to an old campaign setting I created back in *gulp* D&D B/E and set my wife and kids off on their first adventure and we all had a blast, even me as the DM.

I know it's easy to skim through the books and get that impression, but it really is a false impression. I never even encountered combat cards for the first almost year I played 4e. They're not only not needed, I prefer not using them. I'd rather have my powers printed out on two sheets of paper with the rest of my character sheet, and just keep track of what I've used.
They are rather useful as a recordkeeping tool for absent minded/forgetful people, I suppose, but I don't really see much benefit from using them, for myself.
Also, it bears no resemblence to wow.

[DoctorBadWolf]

You can not go wrong with 3.5 or Pathfinder 3.75 - personally I like Pathfinder 3.75 and the Forgotten Realms.

2nd Edition was an improvement over 1st edition.

1st edition is nostalgic, however there were a lot of problems with monster balance. Dragons were a big improvement in 2nd edition. It gave them a fighting chance while first edition dragons were push overs.

4th edition is for people who adamantly opposed of all the rules in 3.5 and below or they are new to role playing and only played MMOs prior to PnP.

No, it's not. I loved playing 3.5(for some reason my group didn't abandon 2nd until 3.5 came out), didn't play MMOs until after highschool, so I'd been playing DnD for years at that point, and after playing in 4e for a while, I just gradually realized that in my opinion, it's a better system. I felt more free to make whatever kind of character I wanted, to tell whatever story I wanted, and to do inventive things in and out of combat. My characters have more thought put into them now, because I don't have the crutch of class fluff, and my games, both as player and DM are more engaging, complex, and less hack and slash than in previous editions.
The system needs less houseruling to work well, and supports more houseruling should you want to use it. I love 4e because I'm a long time DnDer, and not particularly fond of WoW.

Anderlorn: As I've said before, the impression that 4e is flat and doesn't support roleplaying isn't, in my experience, supported by actually playing 4e. Uska disagrees, but if I were a suspicious man, I'd wonder if Uska actually has played it, because our experiences and impressions are almost literally the opposite of one anothers. :P See above for why I think it's a false impression.

Cyric murdering Mystra bummed me out, to be sure, but it's pretty much like the whole avatar thing where cyric became a god: it happened to justify in the setting game system changes to how magic works. Also, if you've read the avatar books, it makes sense, at least. they're still bastards, of course. :P

I also have the impression from people I know who sell books and/or gaming supliments, that DnD 4e is doing quite well, so it probably isn't the majority who don't like 4e.

[DoctorBadWolf]

I would say 3.5 is a role playing game that relies on creative story telling and imagination. Takes some time to learn and requires more work by the DM to run the game.

4th is more like a bigger version of the old Hero’s Quest game. Just with more abilities and more monsters. Great for kids, easy to learn, and very little work for the DM.

It all depends on what style you like.

Both 3.5 and 4e are perfectly capable of story-light hack and slash dungeon crawls, and of creative story telling. 4e expects you to use your imagination, rather than filling in the blanks for you, which in my experience helps story telling. If I want there to be a rule for everything, GURPS does it much better than any edition of DnD ever has, and by a large margin.

[Furluge]

People have their preferences, but I think you've been giving 4th edition a bit of a bad rap. I've DM'ed both versions, 3.5 and 4.0. Now, D&D 3.5 is the system that DDO is based on, so you'll be more familiar with it. D&D 4.0 is a different system. As a DM I've had fun with both, but it depends on your style. We were all a bit sceptical about 4th, it looked dumbed down, some of the stuff looked silly, but once we gave it a go ... wow. It's been a great trip. Since most posters have been pro 3.5, I'll try to offer the other perspective.

Why D&D 4.0 rocks:

1) It's cool and cinematic and promotes improvisation - really, it does. You're given these simple building blocks and then you just build from there. A lot of folks miss out on these bits, like skill challenges in combat and the DM's best friend rule, but they're a must. It is not gritty - this is wu xia style, over the top, heroics. With my player's it feels like we're in a Conan movie. Coolness.

2) It's simple. And that's a good thing. You get into the story, into the action ... and just keep going.

3) It's a rugged system. You can house rule it all you like, bend it, twist it ... it can take a lot of abuse. And we abuse it, a lot. But it keeps working.

4) You get to do stuff. If you're a fighter, you suddenly have oodles of cool stuff to do. Yes, it's a bit campy at times, some of the names are silly, but ... the end result is still, more opportunities for everyone to shine.

5) As a DM it's simpler to fluff, wing-it, and go with the flow - it's in the DMG, winging it. You copy out about 2 pages worth of tables, and you're good to throw pretty much anything into it.

6) And you can easily play it without miniatures. Despite what everyone says. Our group plays loose and fast, and it's still a great game.

BUT - it's not 3.5. You can make it gritty, easy, but by default it's a hacking and slashing camp festival of destruction ... which isn't too bad really. And the DMG has really good tips for DMing, campaigns, adventures, story hooks, all the important stuff is detailed, while a lot of the chunky rules for things like bending bars (I think I used that ONCE in my whole 2nd ed. career) are gone.

For a taste - our next session features a battle with multiple sides and branching possibilities depending on what the characters do and how the enemy leaders react - but we've got bridge defenses, river fordings, mystic runes, wall scalings, pitch battles, ambushes and chases planned, starring a host of elves, necromancers, ents, giants, trolls, priests of light, men-at-arms, centaurs, dwarves, undead and dragons ... and for all that, I need just my players, 2 print outs worth of rules and 2 pages of notes. So yeah, it is simple - but it's fun. Consistently. Which is really good.

Oh, and grappling is simplified too.

This is a pretty good synopsis of what you have in 4e. One of the biggest problems I see people saying about 4e is that it doesn't encourage roleplaying. Which isn't true because the core books in 4e talk about roleplaying, and identifying the different reasons people like to play D&D, and how to do your best to satisfy everyones needs and have good variety of story, exploration, combat, and puzzles, than 3.0 (Look for an entry on puzzles in the 3.0 DMG. You won't find it because it doesn't exist. 4.0 devotes pages to puzzles and using free-formish roleplaying encounters with a loose framework called a skill challenge.) What I think gives this impression is that in 4.0 things that don't effect your adventuring career aren't given mechanics. The mention on perform above is a perfect example. Even though they spend pages talking about giving your character personality, trying to get you thinking about how he would act in certain situations, encouraging you to be descriptive in what your character does in combat rather just rolling dice and calling out numbers, encouraging you to give your spells, exploits, prayers, etc. their own visual flair to fit your character, for some reason because there isn't lines for Profession, Craft, and Preform and doesn't tell people /how/ exactly to roleplay their character, suddenly 4e doesn't encourage roleplay. This of course ignores the fact that frequently players in 3e constantly ignored those kinds of skills and spells so that they wouldn't be weaker. Often players couldn't roleplay what /they/ wanted to because they couldn't get or afford the mechanics to go with it.

Also, one last thing. If your friends are new to D&D, go 4e. 4e did a lot new things for the game, they made a lot of changes, but switching editions is always jarring. If you go through learning 3e then try to learn 4e it's going to be harder. 4e on the other hand is written with learning the system in mind. The layout of the books is better and mimics the style and layout you will find in quality college textbooks. It's written for comprehension and it shows.

If your DM is new then WITHOUT QUESTION pick 4e. 4e's biggest contribution to the system, IMHO, is making this easier on your DM to create an adventure. Let me elaborate. Let's say your DM has an idea for a dungeon...

In 3e your DM is going to have to first look through every entry in a wide range of CRs to determine what sorts of challenges might be suitable for you. The monster stat blocks are going to have a poor layout and your DM will have to read the entire monster just to get a basic idea "what it does". Don't even get started on cross-referencing monster manuals either. Once he's got an idea of what he can use he's going to have to pick monsters that will fit the story of his dungeon without hitting any sticking points in weaknesses for your party members so it's not overpowering. He also will have no guideline how the monsters will interact with each other if they are in a group, and when they work together they may prove incredibly deadly without him meaning to do so. He may or may not also have to get involved in giving monsters class levels and or extra hit dice to make the encounters appropriate. Doing this he can easily make something pathetically weak or painfully deadly. He's also going to have only a gold piece guideline to determine what sort of treasure is approrpriate

In 4e your DM will start with the DM. The DM will explain to your new DM that monsters have been given one of several different roles to help give him a general idea "what the monster does". (Note: These roles existed in 3e too, but they weren't clearly noted.) He will then be given several ideas for what sorts of makeups of what groups of enemies with certain roles makes a good encounter. He'll know how those enemies work together in a group because their roles give a general idea how they work together in a group. He can then goto the monster manual know and look through monsters or decide what kinds of encounters he wants in his dungeon and then look up the monsters. The DM can then look through the index of monsters and use the heading of the easy to read monster stat block to determine if the monster is something he wants to read in more detail or if he wants to skip over that monster. There will generally be several different versions of each monster to fit the different roles (IE: Orcs can be priests, fighters, barbarians, etc.) which means he generally won't have to give monsters class levels to give them "flavor". (3E monsters didn't come in flavors. There was just one entry for kobold, unless it was another race of kobold, and you had to "Flavor it up" yourself.) He'll also be able to get a good idea if a group of monsters is appropriate for your group thanks to the suggestions in the DM. If the DM wants to "level up" a monster doing so in 4e is simpler than it was in 3e. In addition the DM is also given suggestions about what mixture of items should be in treasure (IE: One magic weapon x level, coinage in this amount, etc.) rather than having to play it by ear.

In short 4e is going to save your DM LOADS of time trying to figure out the mechanical aspect of your encounters, allowing him to focus more time on the storytelling aspect and flow of his adventures. If you make him go through 3e he's going to go nuts trying to find the monsters to fill out his stories and he'll probably fall into, "Here is the one big bad monster for this fight" because 3e makes that easy to do.

[GramercyRiff]

And frankly these are fighting words ...

Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition (2008-Present)

According to the Dungeons & Dragons Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide, Mystra has been murdered by Cyric, and is no longer a part of the Forgotten Realms pantheon.

Cyric murder Mystra, yeah right! That is like stating Mystra stripped AO of all of his powers...

Had to respond to this one.

It is ridiculous, I have to agree; at least on the surface. Cyric did have Shar's help. Shar is no pushover by any means. Cyric didn't go unpunished too. He's permanently trapped in his plane. Shar lost the Shadow Weave as well, so her power is diminished. Mystra had a Contingency. All great Wizards do. Mystra will return. She's died before, and has always come back. It could be she's already back, but hasn't told anyone/made her presence known yet.

As for 4E, people see what they want to see. It's a cliche, but it seems to be true from my perspective.

4E and 3.5 have their pros and cons just like anything else. Most of the posters offer good advice here. I agree the players new to DnD should go 4E. 3.5 has more problems "out of the box". The biggest is the disparity between melee and casters. In other words, the learning curve of 3.5 is much steeper. Both systems are miniature war games to an extent. They're really more like mini skirmishes. You absolutely want to have a grid and minis (or some type of representation) when you play.

The most important thing to remember when playing 4E or 3.5 is that you're playing in a fantasy world. It's up to the DM and players, working in concert, to make it seem like a living, breathing world. This is the most important and fundamental aspect of a fun and dynamic RPG. The great thing is, you don't need any rules to do this. You're only limited by your collective imaginations.

[EDarkness]

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.

The good thing is that people can still use AD&D 1st Edition and 2nd Edition. No one has to be limited to just 3.5 or 4.0.