I would rank 3.0ed as the worst D&D iteration. There were so many many many things broken in just about every book published for it. The skills were crazy, balance was off... the whole thing was a step backwards from AD&D.

Without too much trouble I could break the system time and time again. My favorite was the freebie trip attacks with the feat that lets you take a free trip attack if you deal over 10 pts of damage in oneblow

3.0 had some broken feats and broken spells. The shield spell as a 3/4 cover bonus (+7 to ac, +3 reflex from 50% battle field) was case in point. That was one of the broken things. The fact that there were class only skills added to it. Still it was a rich system that if you have a careful DM could work. It was a good basis for 3.5 and addressed the skill failings that 2nd edition had. Magic item pricing was way off as well. Wings of flying were about 1/3 what their price should have been.

2nd was better than 1st in that it actually had a skill system so players could do more than than just basic class skills. You had skills for dancing, etiquette, languages, making weapons or armor. It was flawed though in that a good ability score made you master of any skill off that ability you took. (18 dex, the moment you took dancing you had 90% chance of succ) and additional proficiences made a weak skill not get much better. (4 prof into cooking with 10 base stat was still weaker than someone with 15 base stat).

3.0 and 3.5 did make item crafting a little too easy for things outside potions and scroll even as 1st and 2nd left it much too vague. Plus not all items fit the creation formula (anyone know how 12000 for boots of speed was determined)

4.0 was designed to be a MMO based game. Every level had to give something and nothing that couldn't be programmed into a game could be included. I don't want to play an MMO, I want to play a role playing game with quirks, odd spells, things that don't necessarily computer code easily.

I'm with you on that.

There are somethings that are good about some editions, and some things good about others.  If I had the time to devote to it, I'd make my own version, taking the best from each.

Class-specific skills, that was taken from 2e.  Only the rogue got the skills, hence his reputation.  Well, the ranger and bard got a few.

Now here's a big one.

750gp for a Healing Belt in the Magic Item Compendium. It can heal up to 6d8hp a day.

750gp for a Cure Serious potion...a one shot item that heals 3d8+1...once.

Yeah, some things are broken.  You think maybe there should be another zero on there?

ok thanks for the ratings guys, I was just curious is all. Seems no one really likes 4th that much.

Here's the big question. Do you like WoW enough that you feel that D&D should play more like it?

If (yes) {goto 4th ed}
else
   {stick with 3.5};

Healing belt is 6d8 but in three 2d8 doses which means not a lot at once.

Cure serious is 3d8+5 (min caster level is 5) which is slight higher than 4d8 average score and delivers it all in one dose which in battle makes it more valuable. I would say price probably should be closer to 1000 gp for the healing belt but it isn't that badly priced.

You can overload the belt to do 4d8 points of healing in one turn, so it can do 6d8 over 3 turns, 5d8 over 2 turns, or 4d8 in 1 turn.

Considering that it recharges daily, I think it should just tack on a '0' at the end of it's cost. If you do the math it costs about 6,800gp without factoring the ability to use multiple charges in one turn.

The way I see it, Healing Belts were WotC's way of saying "no, you don't need to have a cleric in your party, just grab one of these" - so the low cost was probably intentional.  It costs the same as a Wand of Cure Light Wounds, I think, which would give a total of 50d8+50 points of healing, but is of course limited to just about half the core classes who gets access to the spell, and/or Use Magic Device as a class skill.

That and only a couple charges per day items are cheap compared to other items.

Think about it, overload it for 4d8 and you have average healing of 18 vs the potion of cure serious wounds (18 1/2). Now doing it every day does make it a better value however there are the following catches and comparisons:

1) It uses up your belt slot (no girdle of giant strength, monk belt, etc) while wearing it. Potions are unslotted items
2) potions are expensive in comparison to some other items: Scroll of cure serious wounds is only 375, wand of cure light that heals 50d8+8 is same price.

I would have to look at the entry but it seems as if its base power is off the cure moderate wounds (level 2 spell) and 3rd level caster vs cure serious potion whose power is based on 3rd level spell and 5th level caster. I suspect if I worked at it, I might be able to reason out the costing formula but I am not sure.

Like I said, if you follow the magic item creation forumla you get an item that is x10 times as expensive and doesn't let you "overload it"


The wand is restricted by class and the fact that you can only do 1d8 a round.
The belt is basically a reusable cure serious potion at the exact same price as the only difference is that, on average, the potion does 1/2 hp better, which because you round down makes them the same item.

I think I might be willing to accept the belt as 750gp if it didn't have 3 charges a day.

Having only 1 charge that renews a day would be the same as having an eternal cure moderate wand...hmm...wonder what one of those costs.

Anyway, we're off topic!

I think if I remember the formula, 1800 * 6 * .2 = 2160 for cure moderate at 1 charge a day doing 2d8+3, cheaper by a lot if you factor in spell trigger rather than command word. I could be off.

Spell trigger = wand/staff

remember, it gets 3 charges a day, so divide by (5/3) instead of 5.
This message was last edited by the player at 10:51, Fri 24 Oct 2008.

You asked about 1 charge a day eternal wand so that was my calculation. Yeah, belt of healing should be 6880 base (including factorign in the +2 to heal skill) but then you have to reduce a little since it is 2d8 rather than 2d8+3

Cure Serious 1/day is 5800 with the +2 to heal skill.

I still think that is a little high since it does use your belt slot compared to potions being unslotted.

Spell completion is only priced for single use, spell trigger for 50 charge item.

Anyway, even if you cut the cost in half due to it being not very scalable and taking up a valuable slot, it's still a lot more expensive then 750gp.

Anyway, so about 4th ed. Reading through the PHB reminded me of reading through a computer game manual, with the little one line blurbs about what each power does, the whole "select one power per level" stuff.

Oh well, this will probably mean that new D&D games will follow the rules much closer, which always annoyed me about NWN(2) is that many of the rules were warped or twisted or just hard to get right on the computer.

If you're itchin' to play 4e, or at least get into some combat, then I recommend my arena game.  Start at various levels, form teams, do PvP or challenge The Tower, which is a set of 7 levels/maps each with a different monster encounter intended to be undefeatable, or at least a good challenge, since you fight each battle after only a short rest.  Check it out!

link to another game

I've just dropped the 4E games that I joined in order to give the system a go. I just don't rate it.

I started DND on 3.5, and my entire roleplaying experience prior to that had been online freeform gaming. I found 3.5 really easy to learn and pick up, while not getting boring because hey, they was about five years ago, and I'm still finding new things that I want to do with it!

I don't know what it is about 4E, but I just have found it annoyingly frustrating to pick up, even though I'm at least going into this with some idea as to what system gaming involves. It's comprehensible, it just annoys me. I don't feel like I have as much freedom to do what I want with it. Everything appears to be typecast, with no real option to vary or individualize your own path.

I can see compendiums, alternate rules and other independent publications being a lot more prolific with this.

I dunno, the problem I see is that it cries out for people to powerbuild like in MMO's. Pretty soon you'll get guides saying "the only way to build X is by taking Y and Z at levels A and B etc. etc. They don't even try to encourage people to take the crappy powers with neat RP fluff text to entice those of us who don't metagame, but instead everything just gets a one-line blurb like in MMORPG computer manuals.

I completely agree with you. I've never really played an MMORPG - the closest I've come to that was making an attempt at Runequest about seven or eight years ago. I think that was the game, anyway.

I've always RPed for the roleplaying, the characterization and the story, and I know that there's a lot of people who'll say that the story's up to the DM, characterization's up to the player, and roleplaying's up to both. However, 4E just doesn't feel like it encourages that sort of development. It feels like its solely built just to leap in, beat the crap out of the bad guys, and get the treasure. It doesn't feel like you can play a more mundane character who doesn't go that deep into adventuring.

Perhaps it's that I've only so far purchased the PHB, but the thing is, the PHB was the only thing I bought to start with in 3.5, too. Within a very short amount of time, though, I wanted to go out and buy the other core books, and then some of the additional resources as well. This one just hasn't made me want to go out and do that.

From what I've seen, the other books aren't much better.

Even the expansion books like the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting is RP-lite. It has the timeline (as usual) and one page per kingdom, with half of that being dedicated to "latest rumors and plothooks."

I watched as all of Cormyr's rich and varied history is summarized into a couple paragraphs :(

Now, I'm far from a 4E-lover, but honestly, this just isn't right.  The primary trait 4th edition has that makes it stand out, is the fact that it's very well balanced - which means that not only will a Wizard and a Fighter of equal level be equally powerful and useful, but also that you'll almost have to sabotage your character to create one that's not efficient at his primary duties.  There aren't many clear-cut sub-par powers - they're more or less equal, really.  4E, for all it's traits that makes people (myself included) dislike it, is a system that doesn't require you to powerbuild to beat foes of appropriate challenge levels.


Also, I'd definitely reccomend getting the 4E DMG, even if you'll never run a 4E campaign.  It's really very good, and instead of being filled with materials like magic items and prestige classes, it actually serves as a guide to running campaigns, and has many pieces of tips and advice useful for games regardless of system.  A very solid book, the highlight of 4E for me, so far.


But, yes...  4E FR is utterly FUBAR.  No redeeming points to it whatsoever.  ><

The 4th Ed DMG is like the 3.5 ed DMG II, (i.e. useful to a DM)

I've been running a 4E message board game since the edition came out, and I think it's wonderful!  I don't think it's any harder to run on a board than 3.5, and it is soooooooooo much easier to DM!  I did not like keeping a freaking spreadsheet just to track treasure, among other things, and the encounter setup is much easier as well.  The abilities easily lend themselves to reflavoring such that it's pretty easy to get the feel you want--want a wizard that just casts fire spells?  Re-describe them all as fire and ask the DM to let you change all damage types to fire (which Keith Baker and others have recommended as something that doesn't affect balance, and I've been allowing with no problems).  Etc.

The only problems we've had have to do with Immediate Reaction powers.  I've just asked people to tell me in advance the general timing they'd want to use those skills, and if they reply quickly to a question I do what they want; if they don't reply quickly I make the call for them.  Not really much of a problem so long as the PCs accept that on a message board you might have to do that.

I've just not been able to get into 4e at all.  I love 3.5.  I love Star Wars Saga Edition.  I'm loving Serenity so far.  But I just can't get into 4e.  My characters that I built all felt the same.  One rogue had almost the exact same powers as the next.  The weapons were the same.  Everything was the same no matter how different backgrounds and personalities were.  Plus, I don't like the thought of everybody having all those powers.  It just doesn't feel right to me.  I just plain don't like it although it's far too early in the morning for me to really discuss it.  :p