Exception-based design is tearing 4th Edition apart.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Sun Mar 01, 2009 9:26 pm

From the wording, it LOOKS like dazed overrides using either of those since it says you may only take one normal action.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Mar 01, 2009 9:32 pm

name_here wrote:From the wording, it LOOKS like dazed overrides using either of those since it says you may only take one normal action.

No it doesn't. It says:

4e wrote:You can take either a standard action, a move action, or a minor action on your turn (you can also take free actions). You can’t take immediate actions or opportunity actions.

Where does it say "only?"

-Username17

Absentminded_Wizard · Post by **Absentminded_Wizard** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 2:33 pm

And apparently you can still take as many free actions as you want (unless there's something else in 4e that limits free actions per round; too tired to look it up now). I wonder if there's an exploit for that.

spasheridan · Post by **spasheridan** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 11:41 pm

THe exploit comes when I can use my sudden metamagic (quickness) feat that has the penalty of dazing me but allows my spells as a free action.

Yeah - that's 2 wizard supplements away. Maybe only 1 cleric supplement away.

Tequila Sunrise · Post by **Tequila Sunrise** » Tue Mar 03, 2009 4:46 am

Crissa wrote:I dare say most posters here have written an RPG or contributed to one by now, even if it was only modules for D&D or unpublished d20 content. (Seriously, at the store I worked at most of the employees who did the game side had written a workup or faction for a wargame, a board game, or campaign setting. It's not hard, just most people don't think about how to publish it, or why to.

Frank has several writing credits to his name, and most of the others have a game flavor or contributed to Tome.

That complaint is tiresome on the WotC boards, and it seriously doesn't fly here. It doesn't take someone published to critique a game, just like it doesn't take a chef to write a review of a restaurant, and like anyone can grade papers, you need not be a professor. I may not be able to draw, but I can tell when a figure has broken limbs.

What a tired and sore troll.

-Crissa

"OMG look how this theoretical online discussion between nerd-ragers breaks this game!" is even more tired. I'm really happy that you folks have written for games too, but it doesn't make these hysterical threads any less laughable. A reviewer can write all the criticism he wants about a restaurant, but if it's packed night after night then the chef obviously isn't "tearing it apart".

TS

Absentminded_Wizard · Post by **Absentminded_Wizard** » Tue Mar 03, 2009 5:06 am

"OMG look how this theoretical online discussion between nerd-ragers breaks this game!" is even more tired.

The discussion isn't what breaks the game. The fact that WotC words their freakin' mechanics so poorly breaks the game. Really, to people familiar with the English language, there's not really a debate about what the rule does. It's not a theoretical discussion. It's a concrete case of WotC not understanding their own design paradigm and thus failing to write rules accordingly.

Are you really arguing that it's okay for WotC to word things badly because most D&D players are morons who don't understand the English language?

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Tue Mar 03, 2009 5:34 am

The problem isn't that someone can play the game and not know there is a problem. Because in any small group, the language is general used similar, and those who are not, either adapt or are set out.

However, you take two happy groups now, and your odds of those two happy groups playing the same game just dropped based upon how poorly the language of the rules is written.

I'm sure that doesn't happen with Monopoly or Warcraft, so why should it happen with D&D?

And if D&D were at its sales volume of even previous editions, Hasbro would be happy to give them a passing mention. That they did not, in its initial year of 4e, means that it did terribly. Unfortunately, the only independent source which was calculating sales in this dying industry of paper printed games went out of business a few years ago, hence, I can't tell you specifically how well 4e did compared to prior editions.

-Crissa

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Mar 03, 2009 9:34 am

And yet TS, 4e actually is collapsing. Sales figures for the expansion products in the last year were about as bad as sales figures for products in 3.5's last year. That's atrocious, and well below projected sales values for a new edition. So kindly: fuck off.

-Username17

MartinHarper · Post by **MartinHarper** » Tue Mar 03, 2009 10:01 am

Crissa wrote:I'm sure that doesn't happen with Monopoly...

Are you kidding? I've never once played a game of Monopoly by Rules as Written. People make up all kinds of crazy rules to make it more luck-based and go on longer.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Tue Mar 03, 2009 9:40 pm

MartinHarper wrote:Are you kidding? I've never once played a game of Monopoly by Rules as Written. People make up all kinds of crazy rules to make it more luck-based and go on longer.

I fail to see how 'house rules' are at all similar to two groups who believe they aren't playing house rules.

You make up house rules when you're balancing for your house... Like stopping a player from winning all the time, since you play with the same group of people.

House rules aren't when you read the rules and come to a completely different conclusion.

-Crissa