I've decided that the 3.5 rules are not overkill for a CRPG. Coming up with different character builds is quite enjoyable. Playing with a D&D based game also made me think back and realize I started playing D&D in the 4th grade which is the grade my daughter is in. Somehow that makes her seem suddenly older.

I didn't start playing until sophomore year of high school.

Link presented without comment: [link]

Titan Quest is a Diablo type game that I've played the demo for and decided I'd pick up sometime in the future. Impulse Driven (a very steam like service) is having a weekend sale for $3.99.

[link]

If you ever wanted Titan Quest, I doubt that there will be a much lower price.

Billytea, or anyone else around, have you played Notre Dame? I'm trying to go through the rules to play tonight and I'm hoping it'll make more sense when we play.

Billytea, or anyone else around, have you played Notre Dame? I'm trying to go through the rules to play tonight and I'm hoping it'll make more sense when we play.

I have not played that one. I did, however, find a teaching guide that might help: [link]

Just got back from playing the first session of the 4th Edition game I'm in with several guys from work.

I decided to go a with a Human Trickster-build Rogue. In my 20 years of gaming, I've never played the amnesia card as a player, so I decided to give it a shot this time around. My character's memory only goes back two weeks to when he woke up in a dark alley with an ornate dagger piercing his hand and a note attached reading "Next time, we'll take the rest." His goals are simple: find out who did this to him, force them to give him back his memories, and then return their dagger to them, preferably through their eyesocket.

My first impressions:

Each player having index cards with their powers written out on them seems to the be the way to go. The one player who didn't do it spent a lot of time digging through the book on his turn, which was kind of annoying for the rest of us.

Rogues are bad-ass if they can manage to maintain Combat Advantage. My rogue was easily doing 2-3x the damage of any other party member most rounds. It was kind of frightening. Especially since I took Quick Draw and Jack of all Trades as my feats, so I wasn't exactly trying to maximize damage.

The game is fairly easy to pick up: we were playing with one complete newbie, one person who hadn't played since 2nd Ed and one person who had played WoW, but not table-top before and then myself and one other player were experienced D&Ders. There was a definite learning curve, but by the end of the night only the newbie was asking questions every round. The other two only had to ask questions occaisionally by the end.

Healing surges seem like a nice addition. Especially coupled with Healing Word being a minor action for clerics. The cleric never had to spend a turn just healing someone. Which was a definitely problem in previous editions. It seemed like you were almost always stuck playing medic and that any other spells you cast were potentially robbing the other party members of precious hitpoints.

Overall, the powers work pretty well, though there is a tendency to just repeatedly do the same At-Will power most rounds (which really doesn't achieve the goal of giving you something to do other than simply attacking every round). One of my At-Wills, Sly Flourish, was notably superior to the others so I tended to use it constantly, but I tried be creative with describing the distraction aspect of the attack to keep it from seeming too repetetive.

We didn't engage in any skill challenges, so I can't say how well that part works yet, though lousy math aside, I do like them as a concept.

Role-playing doesn't seem any more or less encouraged than in previous editions. The folks who want to RP are going to do it, and those who don't, aren't. Of course, with so many new players, it's going to be awhile to find out who does actually want to RP and who doesn't.

The hardcore "watching encumberance, tracking rations, make sure every hitpoint healed is accounted for, what's the overland movement rate for this terrain, etc" simulationist in me doesn't care for the simplifications, like everyone completely healing over night, but I think 4th Ed definitely manages to be fun in its abstractions.

Notre Dame was very fun. As with many German-style games, there was a lot to read through that made no sense since none of us had played, but once you start it goes pretty quickly (there is a set number of rounds).

I think I may like it better than Catan since I think it is easier to pick up on the first time you play, and play itself is fairly flexible so you don't get locked into a certain style of play based on the initial set-up. I also think it is slightly more obvious what you should be doing. However, if you are more of a strategy type of person, it might get old quicker. There is randomness because you do a card exchange every round, but you have more control than a random role of the dice as in Catan.

We've been using the index cards for years, with 3.5 and Savage Worlds and 4.0, and they are really handy. In fact, one of the things that they got really right with 4.0 is the online character builder program. Among other good things, it prints those cards out with your character sheet.

I think I may like it better than Catan since I think it is easier to pick up on the first time you play, and play itself is fairly flexible so you don't get locked into a certain style of play based on the initial set-up.

I've gone off Catan after a couple of bad experiences. I still rather like a related game called Elasund. It retains the roll-for-resources deal, though the resources have been pared down to gold and favours or council permits or something. Oh, and the robber's been replaced with pirates (yarr).