We were discussing this in the LGS thread, but I feel it deserves it's own thread and not buried.
A couple of folks have now stated that 4e. is more tactical than previous 3.Xe or earlier editions. Could someone explain this? How is it more tactical than 3.5 or Pathfinder for example?
Can't tell you a lot about Pathfinder, but DD4e has a lot of class abilities that are very tightly defined to a grid-based combat map and gives detailed ranges, areas of effect, etc, based on that grid.
You can "Attack then Shift 2 and attack again" for instance. That "shift 2" refers to how you move around the combat grid and makes many of the decisions in combat very tactical. Flank attacks are important, adjacency to allies becomes important for certain powers to be triggered. Maneuvering your ranged assets requires a lot of attention, and not just "my mage is hanging back to the side of the fight" because an area effect might catch him based on where he's positioned.
I think DD4e is definitely a "wargamer's RPG" - and that might be a big reason why it didn't succeed to the level of other RPGs.
So a generic vinyl map is required for combat to determine radius effects and positioning.
Yes. Or you could take a sheet of graph paper to Kinko's and blow it up to 1" squares (I'd personally go to 1.25" squares just to the minis fit better).
Then take that sheet and put it in a $5 poster frame you buy from 5 Below or Target during 'back to school' week off of the 'decorate your dorm room' display.
But the Chessex maps are cooler.
http://chessex.com/mats/Battlemats_MegamatsReversible.htm
Quote from: Bison on May 21, 2012, 01:06:26 PM
So a generic vinyl map is required for combat to determine radius effects and positioning.
If you're buying pre-made adventures, they will usually come with maps to play the various battles in those adventures on.
Aside from that, yeah, you'll need a grid.
You can also buy tons of map tile packs covering all sorts of settings.
Other folks have gone the dry eraseboard route. They are surprisingly cheap.
Get a 2x3 or so. Get a ruler. Start putting small dots every inch. Mark those with permanent ink. Try playing with that for a while. Some have gone as far as to draw out the grid, but I would not recommend it.
Now, as long as you can keep yourself supplied with dry erase markers, you can draw an infinite variety of maps for 4e.
I got the chessex grid, erasable markers, and a pound o' dice all from Amazon.com when I was starting to get into this. All are pretty reasonably priced and will serve you well. I've heard nothing but overwhelming praise for the chessex grid map.
Any of you guys ever used anything from Gaming Paper?
http://www.gamingpaper.com/
They also have a pretty funny Youtube channel where they put their product through all kinds of crazy test that customers have questions about.
http://www.youtube.com/user/GamingPaper/feed
Quote from: TheCommandTent on May 22, 2012, 07:49:32 AM
Any of you guys ever used anything from Gaming Paper?
http://www.gamingpaper.com/ (http://www.gamingpaper.com/)
I bought 3 rolls for my games here with the kids (1" squares). It works really well, pretty much like it says in the ads. I'll have to post some pictures from our next game.
Gaming Paper sounds interesting, but they are made with 1" squares. Chessex mats have a 1.5" version I think.
Chessex has more battle mats than you can shake a stick at. They have inch grids, they have 1.5 inch grids. They have grids on side hexes on the other (unfortunately, I don't they have a 1.5 grid / 1 inch grid combo). They have roughly 70,000 sizes, including one that reputedly completely covered a certain home in abbotobad for several months.
I've used gamepaper before -- it's a good product. My personal preference are the actual dnd tilesets. I prefer these because of their quality, their immersion factor, their interchangability, and their weight. They are hefty enough that when you lay them out, it takes a good thump or bump to move them. Paper print outs (drivethrurpg has 200+ tilesets for purchase/download/printing). My chessex battlemat is stored rolled up, and no matter how many times I reverse roll, it still needs to be weighted down at the ends. Gamepaper has the same problem for me.
I've played almost exclusively with DnD and Pathfinder minis. While the 1 inch grid can get a little clustered at times, particularly with minis that have pointy things sticking out horizontally, but in general it is not in my experience a common enough problem to look at the size of the grid as a primary decision point.
I've seen Dungeon Tiles at the store before and have summarily dismissed the idea (because sometimes I can be a cheap bastard). You are making me think twice on it. I feel a road trip to my LGS this Saturday (not so local as it is an hour away in Kansas City).
I'm a BIG fan of the WotC dungeon tiles. They've made for some great atmosphere in some of our game. I do NOT like the pre-fab dungeon components that you piece together to make a minis-style dungeon. THey've always seemed way too inflexible to me.
Quote from: bayonetbrant on May 23, 2012, 10:00:09 AM
I'm a BIG fan of the WotC dungeon tiles. They've made for some great atmosphere in some of our game. I do NOT like the pre-fab dungeon components that you piece together to make a minis-style dungeon. THey've always seemed way too inflexible to me.
Clarify please. I know you are talking about the essentials packs. GM Dungeon Kit with tiles, but what is the cross reference item?
Quote from: DeltaCharlie on May 23, 2012, 09:38:33 AM
I've seen Dungeon Tiles at the store before and have summarily dismissed the idea (because sometimes I can be a cheap bastard). You are making me think twice on it. I feel a road trip to my LGS this Saturday (not so local as it is an hour away in Kansas City).
They do add a lot of immersion and in some cases detail to your games. Probably the best place to start building a collection is the larger boxed sets.
In my opinion, there is a fairly high investment before have a decent collection. But once you start building a collection, the individual sets are not too expensive.
The pre-fab terrain Brant is talking about is something I picked up at Origins years ago by Dwarven Forge (http://www.dwarvenforge.com/index.php/products). Pretty cool, but only if you're constantly in the terrain you buy.
I have a friend who does everything on his computer and uses a projector (or even plugs it into a monitor or TV) - he uses MapTool from RPTools (http://rptools.net/).
Quote from: Bayonet_Chris on May 31, 2012, 06:37:35 PM
The pre-fab terrain Brant is talking about is something I picked up at Origins years ago by Dwarven Forge (http://www.dwarvenforge.com/index.php/products). Pretty cool, but only if you're constantly in the terrain you buy.
I have a friend who does everything on his computer and uses a projector (or even plugs it into a monitor or TV) - he uses MapTool from RPTools (http://rptools.net/).
Dwarven Forge is beautiful stuff, but is too limited in scope and too high in price point to be practical for me. I use a small projector to display images and sometimes small narrative pieces. A group I recently played with used MapTools locally with a projector -- they had it mounted over the gaming table to project a virtual map down. We then used a Wii remote to interact with the virtual table (to move our avatars, set up zones, etc). It was effective, but I still prefer the minis route.
Quote from: Bayonet_Chris on May 31, 2012, 06:37:35 PM
I have a friend who does everything on his computer and uses a projector (or even plugs it into a monitor or TV) - he uses MapTool from RPTools (http://rptools.net/).
I am he... I have been using Maptool off and on for several years(don't get to GM very often) and have even contributed several patches and features to the application since...um say 2008 or so.
is anyone still playing 4e? Or has everyone jumped to 5e?
I'm still playing 2e.
Quote from: mirth on September 22, 2017, 12:14:21 PM
I'm still playing 2e.
that's b/c you have trouble counting to 4 ;) O0
I can count to 932475394854387564329857431
Quote from: mirth on September 22, 2017, 12:33:26 PM
I can count to 932475394854387564329857431
touche
(but what about fractions?)
I'm not half bad at fractions.
Quote from: bayonetbrant on September 22, 2017, 12:11:11 PM
is anyone still playing 4e? Or has everyone jumped to 5e?
I picked up a bunch of 4e books, but haven't played it yet.
^harlot
Did you ever get to peruse that C&C book?