http://slamdancr.com/wp/2011/02/saturda ... iron-lich/
Looks kind of nice, a 4E/Essentials dungeon crawl with an oldschool fuck-the-player attitude. Although the name fourthcore is vomit-inducing.
Iron Lich
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Username17
- Serious Badass
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I just read the fourthcore manifesto. OK, I skimmed it, because that was fucking stupid.
As for the adventure itself, even the plot insults my intelligence. At its core it's standard convention bullshit: a dungeon crawl with a completely arbitrary time limit that arbitrarily prevents you from using lock or wall bypassing magic for no reason. Those things are stupid, but I understand the purpose. Meanwhile, the embellishments they added to that formula make it stupider. The place is a "tomb" but it was built by the Iron Lich to live in, so it's really not a tomb at all, it's just a fortress. The Iron Lich problem started in ancient times when he found an ancient tome... why? There doesn't seem to be anything added to anything by having a mysterious double ancient book author, it just confuses the issue. The Iron Lich himself was a paladin before he changed into a "Magic User" and then changed into a Lich. What the fuck? If you're going to fap about how "fourthcore" you are, could you at least pay lip service to using the actual 4th edition rules instead of blatantly using AD&D dual classing to generate your backstory?
As for the adventure itself, I genuinely don't understand how that constitutes "less math, more wrath!" or whatever the fuck. The four armed iron golem that has special accounting that kicks in if you crit it three times over the course of combat and different special accounting that kicks in if you hit it with fire damage and is laughably easy to kite takes an entire page (and 481 words) by itself. The rest of the special rules for that room take up three more pages.
The whole exercise lays bare the intense problems with old school ideas and with 4th edition. Everything is gonzo and stupid all the time, and on top of that it needs page after page of special rules to make even a basic combat encounter or produce even a single interesting combat choice.
-Username17
As for the adventure itself, even the plot insults my intelligence. At its core it's standard convention bullshit: a dungeon crawl with a completely arbitrary time limit that arbitrarily prevents you from using lock or wall bypassing magic for no reason. Those things are stupid, but I understand the purpose. Meanwhile, the embellishments they added to that formula make it stupider. The place is a "tomb" but it was built by the Iron Lich to live in, so it's really not a tomb at all, it's just a fortress. The Iron Lich problem started in ancient times when he found an ancient tome... why? There doesn't seem to be anything added to anything by having a mysterious double ancient book author, it just confuses the issue. The Iron Lich himself was a paladin before he changed into a "Magic User" and then changed into a Lich. What the fuck? If you're going to fap about how "fourthcore" you are, could you at least pay lip service to using the actual 4th edition rules instead of blatantly using AD&D dual classing to generate your backstory?
As for the adventure itself, I genuinely don't understand how that constitutes "less math, more wrath!" or whatever the fuck. The four armed iron golem that has special accounting that kicks in if you crit it three times over the course of combat and different special accounting that kicks in if you hit it with fire damage and is laughably easy to kite takes an entire page (and 481 words) by itself. The rest of the special rules for that room take up three more pages.
The whole exercise lays bare the intense problems with old school ideas and with 4th edition. Everything is gonzo and stupid all the time, and on top of that it needs page after page of special rules to make even a basic combat encounter or produce even a single interesting combat choice.
-Username17
Re: Iron Lich
Ugh, this little gem sure stood out.
That blog wrote:Is it really an ‘old-school’ mentality if it was born, nurtured, and refined by kids in the 2000′s playing 3.5 and idolizing Mike Mearls? Dangerous delving pays tribute to no school, and if Return to the Tower of Gygax teaches us anything, it’s that geeks of all ages secretly yearn to leap hands-first into a sphere of annihilation..
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attackdrone
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Raise Dead: 8th Level Ritual. Cost - 500 gold. Penalty = -1 to rolls/defenses for 3 milestones.First, it’s about atmosphere – creating a sense of danger and foreboding that lingers over every decision the PCs make.
Oh wait, there's no sense of danger. Apply some unguent on the dead person (or pay somebody in town to do so), and all is well again! Did you accidentally open the portal to the Abyss and get your head chopped off by a Demon Lord? Raise Dead! Perhaps you slipped and fell off a cliff hidden behind a DC 28 illusion. Raise Dead! Did the GM spring a "Rocks Fall Everyone Dies" trap? Perhaps as the wise player you should be, you remembered to leave travel plans with a friend with the instructions: "If you do not hear from me in 15 days, open this envelope." Inside the envelope: 500 gold for... Raise Dead!