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    Canonfire :: View topic - WoTC Poll
    Canonfire Forum Index -> World of Greyhawk Discussion
    WoTC Poll
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    Grandmaster Greytalker

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    Sat Sep 03, 2011 4:37 pm  
    WoTC Poll

    FYI all, whether you're one of those who wants to see some Greyhawk content get into Dragon and Dungeon magazines or would rather Wizards not touch GH with a seven-league pole, you can now vote in a poll (at the bottom of this article - http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4dmxp/20110901 asking which themes you want to see in the mags. "Greyhawk revisited" is one of the subjects in the poll.
    GreySage

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    Sat Sep 03, 2011 8:47 pm  

    I voted 'Greyhawk revisited'.

    I would prefer for authors to avoid making serious changes to the campaign world, like the Greyhawk Wars and Living Greyhawk did, but I realize that it will die out if there isn't some infusion of new ideas. If we greybeards (figuratively speaking, as I still have some color left in mine...) are soley responsible for keeping the love of Greyhawk alive, I fear it is doomed to fade away into history. We need the industry itself to encourage a love of Greyhawk in the youngbloods.

    SirXaris
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    Sat Sep 03, 2011 8:59 pm  

    Agreed, Xaris. Last year I might have voted for something else, just to "keep them from messing with GH" but now that I'm running a full-on GH campaign I wouldn't mind seeing if somebody at Wizards could toss something useful my way. If I like it I can use it and if I don't I can ignore it ( And commiserate with everyone else about how they screwed it up). Smile
    Grandmaster Greytalker

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    Sat Sep 03, 2011 10:27 pm  

    Sir Xaris,

    I second that notion. True most of the Greyhawk community usually believes that fan created content is all we need. To a point that is true but as Sir Xaris clearly stated without support the Greyhawk fan base diminishes. I just want them to consult the fans and previous authors on the revisited Greyhawk.

    We can't make everybody happy but we can keep our beloved setting going strong. The setting is only as strong as its fans support. Vote for Greyhawk revisited if you support the setting and wish it to thrive once more.

    Later,

    Argon
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    Sun Sep 04, 2011 5:47 am  

    Gah! I can only choose one?!? But..but... Nautical campaigns are on there! Granted, by nautical I assumed they meant ships, pirates, and the like.
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    Sun Sep 04, 2011 9:34 am  

    I wish somebody like Paizo could take it over. Guys whatWoTC did to Forgotten Realms for 4th Ed should be a felony. I know they would do something like that to Greyhawk as well.
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    Sun Sep 04, 2011 11:02 am  

    I haven't read any 4E products and Dymond may be right, but I went and cast a vote for GH revisted. My logic being that all of the companies who've ever controlled D+D (TSR/WotC/Hasbro) have made nothing but bad business decisions anyway. They wasted resources on a cartoon show, dumped Gygax, made too many hardbound rule books, approved the Estes novels, had a terrible web policy, made an atrocious movie, produced 3E, 3.5, and 4E, and ran their magazines into the ground...BUT, in spite of all that, we've continued to be graced with some decent products over the years. I think it all depends on the author. It's always a toss-up, but for every Slade Henson we're had a Carl Sargent, Roger Moore, or Wolfgang Baur. I think lightning can strike again.
    Grandmaster Greytalker

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    Sun Sep 04, 2011 12:06 pm  

    I thought they did a pretty decent job with Dark Sun. No blowing up the world. In fact they took it back to before TSR originally blew up the world. Like Vestcoat said, it all depends on who they get to write it.
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    Sun Sep 04, 2011 3:31 pm  

    As long as they don't give the setting a coup-de-crace with the articles, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Even if we're talking about WoTC... :P
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    Sun Sep 04, 2011 3:49 pm  

    I voted greyhawk revisited. 3rd ed. and 3.5 seemingly used greyhawk as it's base world, and with 4th ed. players becoming biased agiainst old 3.5 settings they might see greyhawk as an edition limited game with no story worth exploring or continuing.
    I for one couldn't get enough of the Greyhawk modules that came from Paizo when they ran Dungeon.
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    Sun Sep 04, 2011 4:42 pm  

    WoTC could really do us a service. I was hardcore 3.5/Pathfinder. My friends were too. I started my kids on 3.5 but they had 4e going in an after school club. They loved 4e and asked me to try it, and so I did. Suddenly I found myself...liking it. I had my friends try it too. They liked it as well. I still read and purchase the Pathfinder products because Pathfinder is so well done but right now, I'm playing 4e using Greyhawk. I'd love updated information, encounter blocks, villains, etc. that are exclusive to Greyhawk. The points of light actually works well with Greyhawk, especially after the Greyhawk Wars. Greyhawk 4e won't please everybody but it could provide those of us using 4e with plenty of material for the setting and put so much of the "core world" Greyhawkisms back in Greyhawk.

    I happily voted for it.

    The best case scenario would have WoTC contract with Paizo to revisit Greyhawk but that's wishful thinking on my part.
    Apprentice Greytalker

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    Tue Sep 06, 2011 6:10 pm  

    I'd be down for Greyhawk Revisited if they did something cool with the other areas they never developed. Leave the core stuff alone and expand on what has just been hinted at or fan developed. That would be interesting...
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    Grandmaster Greytalker

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    Tue Sep 06, 2011 6:23 pm  

    illustr8or,

    I agree Western Oerik should be developed more I myself am working on a project to etch out my portion of it. I know a few other people have looked into this as well. So hopefully Wotc gets on board, if not we still have CF and other sites keeping Grey Hawk alive.

    Later Argon
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    Tue Sep 06, 2011 8:44 pm  

    I would like to see WoTC Revisit GreyHawk. I loved Living GreyHawk and was crushed when it ended. I had just had my first mod approved by the Geoff Triad a few weeks before they announced the end of Living Greyhawk. I’d love WoTC to release all of the Living GreyHawk mods from all regions in some kind of collector’s edition books and PDF. There could be one hardback book with each region’s mods and setting info along with copies on a PDF disc or something. That would be awesome.
    I don’t know if any of you remember. A few years ago WoTC released an “Expedition to Castle Ravenloft” book that was basically a remake of the original Ravenloft adventure, just converted to 3.5 rules. They could do much the same for all the TSR worlds. A basic campaign setting with 4th edition stats for Dragon Lance, Dark Sun, Spell Jammers, GreyHawk, Ravenloft, and others. Not just Forgotten Realms and Ebberion.
    I hate 4th edition and Living Forgotten realms. Have the 4th edition Player’s handbook. Tried paying in LFR and in a home brew game. Everyone went back to 3.5 almost instantly. Tried playing a few times since but hated every time.
    I know WoTC won’t go back to 3.5 or LG but would be nice. LFR just killed on the gaming cons in this area. Had four or five good ones a year with interregional battle interactive that were a lot of fun. Wish we could return to that.
    Master Greytalker

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    Wed Sep 07, 2011 7:31 am  

    I think 4E edition took a while to recapture the D&D flavour but with the recent push to introduce themes independent of class and the final introduction of some flavourful non-cookie-cutter magic items in Mordenkainen's Emporium I think it is now getting to the stage where there is enough versatility in the game. You can build the same character concept in several different ways with various combinations of classes, powers, and feats and can refluff a lot of stuff to fit your character concept. This is very similar to Mutants & Masterminds.

    The one thing I don't like is the over-dependence on particular high stats (started in 3E). Mutants and Masterminds eventually divorced attack rolls and defences from ability scores and I can see how something similar could work effectively in 4E. If ability scores just affected your skills, feat qualifications, and damage rolls with perhaps a minor effect on your defences, I can see how the system would be much friendlier to role players and it would not be so important to build characters tactically.
    Apprentice Greytalker

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    Wed Sep 07, 2011 9:00 am  

    I have not been keeping up with the books coming out for 4th. A friend of mine has all the books (Can’t imagine what he paid for all of them) and he says it has gotten better. That’s fine, but I still have a big problem with it. I judge a system mostly by its basic core books. In D&D’s case: the Player’s handbook, DMG, and Monsters Manual. From these books you should be able to play virtually any kind of character you want. 2nd edition was fairly restrictive on classes, but allowed freedom enough to create a character that played and left different than others of the same class.

    3.0 and 3.5 D&D allowed a massive amount of freedom. The feats and powers of a class would make for massively different characters of the same class. A “tricky fighter” trip, disarm, quick draw. A powerful fighter power attack, sunder, cleave. A “ranged fighter” rapid shot, precise shot, multi shot. And those are just fighters. On top of all that you could multi class in any number of other classes. I had a guy actually play a Barbarian 1, Bard 1, Cleric 1, Druid 1, Fighter 1, Ranger 1, Rouge 1, Sorcerer 1 at APL 8. Why? Because he could. Consider Bards. Warrior Bards, high physical abilities fights on front grow with other warriors. Caster Bard, all charisma uses spells and songs like other casters. Knowledge bard, has every knowledge in the game maxed out and also have a very high bardic knowledge roll giving him two changes to make a knowledge roll.

    In the player’s handbook of 4th you were forced to play a character like virtually other character of the same class. You had a handful of powers to choose from which really did not matter all that much. The only real difference made solely from the PHB was the gear and the role-playing. Insufficient in my opinion.

    I’m not just bashing 4th, 3.5 got out of hand at the end. The constant publishing of new classes and feats in a ton of different books made APLs virtually meaningless. A character made from the PHB alone was much much much weaker than a character using all the extra books and classes. Monster’s power levels also rose. Challenge Ratings jumped from Monsters Manual to Monsters Manual IV. In this case WoTC gave too many choices. When I am dealing with new players. I always restrict play to the core books. This allows new players to learn the rules, get used to playing, and have the same basic power level as the more experienced players. The once they have the rules down I will start to allow other books.

    Over dependence on stats is just bad gaming. In LG I had a problem with all the 1st level 20 Strength half-orc barbarians. It was like every half orc on the planet was as strong as any half-orc could possibly be. It happened in second edition too. A high school friend always played a character with 18/00 strength. Every character he made magically rolled 18/00 strength; he would not use the stats otherwise. Min Maxing for combat is fun sometimes but it gets old fast. If you want a fun game, have a character with flaws and a personality. Otherwise you are playing a very slow broing video game. I’m guilty of min maxing myself but I tend to do it in something funny or quirky, like the bard with the +24 to diplomacy and bluff at 6th level. That was just funny. Did not help much in a fight though.

    I do feel that the core books should be the measure of a game. The extended books are nice, but you should not be required to keep up with the power balance of the game. Anyone agree?
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    Wed Sep 07, 2011 10:29 am  

    This has been a good discussion! I for one don't want to see Greyhawk fade away, so I did vote for it, even though in the hands of WOTC it makes me nervous. I think GH does and still would make a great Sandbox campaign without a major overhaul. We don't need a meteor hitting Greyhawk City or magic becoming unstable changing the gender of all halflings to make it interesting. Its a great setting as it is, all it would need is some updating to make it relevant to 4e. Maybe create some new adventures or take all those great modules already created and update them to 4E, no muss no fuss! To me it seems that updating GH is a no-brainer for WOTC. Instead of starting from scratch they already have the foundation made and could get it out the door fairly inexpensively vs creating a new campaign from the ground up.
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    GreySage

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    Wed Sep 07, 2011 11:54 am  

    Boccob help those of you who voted for anything other than Greyhawk revisited! Mwahahahahaha!


    Does anyone here know which way the vote's leaning yet?
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    Wed Sep 07, 2011 2:40 pm  

    shield2099 wrote:
    I would like to see WoTC Revisit GreyHawk. I loved Living GreyHawk and was crushed when it ended. I had just had my first mod approved by the Geoff Triad a few weeks before they announced the end of Living Greyhawk.
    I was about to have finally my first Verbobonc LG game too when they announced 4th ed. and the end of LG..I feel ya. I'm all for looking forward but it still stung when it first happened.
    Grandmaster Greytalker

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    Wed Sep 07, 2011 6:08 pm  

    Hey, any chance you guys can release these unreleased adventures?
    Apprentice Greytalker

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    Wed Sep 07, 2011 7:18 pm  

    I'd be nervous about a 4th edition Greyhawk. Not a big fan of 4th. That being said, I would love to see Greyhawk return and I would play it. As most of you have said, it would be better for them to do something original and not change Greyhawk. Maybe they could create adventures on Oerth but not necessarily in the Flanaess. 4th edition has already stolen so much Greyhawk lore anyway.
    Paladin

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    Wed Sep 07, 2011 7:38 pm  

    illustr8or wrote:
    I'd be down for Greyhawk Revisited if they did something cool with the other areas they never developed. Leave the core stuff alone and expand on what has just been hinted at or fan developed. That would be interesting...

    My thoughts as well.
    There are after all 3 1/2 continents they could detail out if the simply follow the GH structure and history
    Adept Greytalker

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    Wed Sep 07, 2011 8:49 pm  

    I voted for Greyhawk Revisited, and here is why...

    1. Core 4e D&D pretty much has Greyhawk covered on races, classes, and monsters. There at most there are a few things here or there on the monster front that would need to be statblocked. And "re-skinning" currently published monsters to make monsters that don't exist is super easy.

    2. Really all you need to make Greyhawk playable out of the gate is Deities and Themes to make a Greyhawk game super awesome on the crunch (rules) side. The rest is all fluff (story).

    3. Since the reorg at WotC, product has been coming out less frequently but the quality has been waaaaaaay better. While the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (FRCS) was a mess, in contrast the recent Neverwinter Campaign Setting (NWCS), which is also set in FR, is one of the best RPG products released this year.

    The low crunch (just enough), heavy fluff (juicy campaign hooks tied to the crunch) is outstanding.

    The theme tech introduced in Dark Sun is even better in NWCS. Each theme immediately gives the player a hook into the region and all the products supporting Neverwinter have made excellent use of this.

    I don't want a diffuse campaign setting al la FRCS, I want something tightly focused like NWCS that introduces the setting in a rich and interesting way with just enough crunch to fill in the gaps we have in Core D&D. That is a product I would buy.

    As an aside, if you think they are going to seek permission from us to play in their own IP, you have an inflated sense of your own importance. We are fans, rabid fans of Greyhawk. We don't own Greyhawk, they do.

    Besides, if they made it to our specifications it would be a hot mess because we all want different things. It wouldn't sell very well because in the end you want an entry point for new players with just enough for us old fogies so that we can make our own Greyhawk 4e campaigns sing.

    They are already planning to release older material online (some type of subscription service) so they could open up the older Greyhawk material for folks that want to go beyond the tighter focus of the 4e book (or eDragon and eDungeon magazines).

    My Two Coppers,

    Bryan Blumklotz
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    Adept Greytalker

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    Thu Sep 08, 2011 8:01 am  

    Poll results are in:
    Lies My DM Told Me - Dungeon Master Experience

    Greyhawk placed in the top 5.

    Dragonlance revisited 13.4%
    Ravenloft revisited 8.8%
    Everything on this list! 7.9%
    Planescape revisited 7.7%
    Greyhawk revisited 7.3%

    At least we beat Spelljammer! Razz

    Bryan Blumklotz
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    Thu Sep 08, 2011 8:13 am  

    Really? Dragonlance and Ravenloft over Planescape? I guess that means I wont have to pay attention to 4th edition (not that I was anyway's)

    I guess we are just going to have to roll up our sleeves, and come up with stuff on our own. ;)
    Adept Greytalker

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    Thu Sep 08, 2011 8:24 am  

    Relax. This is an informal poll and hardly scientific.

    I am totally not surprised that Dragonlance topped the list, their fan base is larger than ours. And I am sure someone on a Dragonlance themed site posted up and said go vote just like ours did... Razz

    What gets published in eDragon and eDungeon is more of a function of what theme the publisher is pushing and writers availability to write for them.

    October is going to be Kara-Tur themed for instance. There will be classes, races, monsters and adventures published in the eMagazines.

    If we got one month like that, I would be a happy man.

    As for book publishing, WotC has already announced that the next campaign setting will be something completely new. Also it will have a variation of the 4e core rules to support that world (Think Gamma World from this year as inspiration).
    Grandmaster Greytalker

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    Thu Sep 08, 2011 9:08 am  

    Thanks for the brief review of Neverwinter, Saracenus. I was wondering if it was worth looking at.

    5th place isn't a bad showing, and it probably won't affect product content, other than possibly some Dragon and Dungeon content, and then I'll be expecting to see Dragonlance articles. They really creamed us in the poll. I don't get it. DL has always been the least interesting setting for me, and I'm even comparing it to Jakandor and Red Steel. But that's probably just me.
    Adept Greytalker

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    Thu Sep 08, 2011 11:15 am  

    smillan_31,

    The reason they are so beloved is the novels, frankly. Lets face it both FR an DL have fantastic book publishing attached to them.

    Also, DL had great 3e support from Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis' company via the OGL and the D20 license.

    Greyhawk had a huge following in Living Greyhawk but the fandom was different. Where most of us came into Greyhawk via the box sets (or the folio and early 1e mods) alot of people in the 3e era had Living Greyhawk as their only reference.

    Many just played because it was the D&D Du Jour for Organized Play and didn't translate into obsessive fans. A few came into already part of the Greyhawk Tribe and a few others joined us after LG ended.

    That translates into a smaller fan base. Also, remember betamax was a better format, but because the Pr0n industry went with VHS, and so went the market.

    DL may be boring to you or the source of some hateful 2e play during college for me but many folks love it. Evidently more folks than we have.

    Further, remember this is a super unscientific poll that will probably make them think about content but by no means is it a clarion call for anyone's world. Besides DL, no one broke out into double digits.

    I will bet that if we had been allowed to select more than once choice the poll would have been a little different.

    There you go,

    Bryan Blumklotz
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    Thu Sep 08, 2011 12:14 pm  

    Eh maybe it would have, but honestly you are right that DL was likely to be a winner. Really the surprise for me was Ravenloft I had thought there was more love for Planescape over Ravenloft.

    I am with Smillan that DL is one of my least favorite settings as well though that is neither here nor there.

    Anyway's thank you for bringing the poll to our attention smillan_31. :)
    Grandmaster Greytalker

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    Thu Sep 08, 2011 1:43 pm  

    Well said Iressi,

    Now submit some articles. Sorry MS was channeling his Mysticwhip duties through me.

    Later

    Argon
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    Fri Sep 09, 2011 12:43 am  
    I couldn't believe it!

    Well, in one respect, it's not surprising. Dragonlance was/is an enormously popular series - both in its incarnations as an RPG, and in the line of novels. so ... that goes to give evidence that it never stopped being popular. There are likely a lot of readers out there that have never played D&D a day in their lives but have read Dragonlance novels. It is after all, where most people get their ideas of halflings as hyper-active, thieving little buggers. ( rolleyes Ugh, no Kender, please!)
    At any rate, this goes to show WotC that the most popular idea from their readership is settings. True enough, there's other settings above GH, but, it's certainly an important fact for them to know. IMO, the "everything on this list" is a throw-away response for those who were too indecisive to render a more coherent response, and can essentially be disregarded by WotC, because they'll never be able to fill that request or please *all* of those people. but, just the fact that GH is in the Top 4 (technically 5) is certainly a good thing to me. I don't think that regardless of Ravenloft's poularity they're likely to do it again. They tried it in 3.5, and they recently did a board game version of it as well, I believe and neither were overly popular from the buzz I've heard. Dragonlance was given license, and while popular enough, didn't get the sales that they'd have liked to have. And Planscape has had several resurrection attempts in Dragon Magazine and other places. As far as I am concerned, Greyhawk is the most likely among the top responses to have any luck of being revisted.

    At any rate, settings are clearly in the works if they pay any attention to their readership, and if there came a regular column on GH in a magazine, they'd certainly get me to start paying for content again. and if they got a product or two in a year, I'd be able to die a happy man. Lord knows we haven't seen anything since Living Greyhawk, and it was 2000 since we've seen anything substantial in book form. (which is just one more reason that the others are less likely, IMO.)
    So ... here's to hoping that they listen to the poll responses, and start doing a little market research into it, and try to produce a little something.
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    Fri Sep 09, 2011 9:46 am  

    I loved the DL novels.. especially the first series but never understood the campaign. It seemed that you were so constrained to follow along with what happened in the books, you had no freedom.. it was MEH for me.
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    Fri Sep 09, 2011 2:37 pm  

    The thing I liked most about Dragonlance was the pre-rolled characters! They produced a Raistlin build a while back but I'd like to see them do the others too. In 4E the classes are so balanced it will be interesting to see how they can replicate the intentional imbalance of the 1E builds.

    My own 2e shadowmage character is much more fun in 4E than the 3E version was. I think the over reliance on stats (a rot that started to come along in 3E) is the thing I like least alongside the lacklustre magic items. Building monsters and designing encounters is far more fun in 4E but I admit that after 2 years, we are only just becoming comfortable with winging it with the rules and injecting more role-playing.

    My PCs killed their first dragon yesterday after 21 years in our campaign (well, only one of the players and two of the current PCs have been around for 21 years. It's taken them 21 years to reach level 13 and they act surprised that I don't expect them to reach epic levels before I die. Crazy fools.
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    Fri Sep 09, 2011 3:06 pm  

    Not to threadjack or anything here but Paul how often do you guys play that game?
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    Fri Sep 09, 2011 5:18 pm  

    Not often! LOL

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    Mon Sep 12, 2011 2:26 am  

    No, we play once a week roughly, although not always with the same characters. I have always divided standard Xp by three so that I can hand out extra xp for role-playing so the progression has been slower than suggested in the rules. They also suffered a drop back to level 10 between 3e and 4e just because the level relationship was not as immediately obvious and it gave us a chance to experiment with the builds a bit before picking paragon paths.

    I long ago took the view that there was little point bumping the pcs up quickly so that they were too high level to play all thos modules I'd bought. At level 13 they are still among the most powerful heroes Greyhawk has to offer. By level 20 they will be approaching the status of hero gods - I'm in no hurry to reach that stage as it will lead the adventures away from Greyhawk to other planes. It will come but we are building to it very slowly!

    When I told them that I expected the campaign to culminate at about levels 17-24 they seemed quite upset (although my co-DM is of a similar mind). At that stage I think it's time to move on and play them just a couple of times a year. Greyhawk just isn't a power gamer's paradise!
    GreySage

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    Mon Sep 12, 2011 6:28 am  

    It depends on how powerful you want to make Eli Tomorast, for example. http://www.canonfire.com/wiki/index.php?title=Eli_Tomorast

    Castle Greyhawk and Maure Castle have many more levels than have ever been explored -- for the imaginative DM. Zagig kept 9 demigods imprisoned in his castle. Who knows WHAT all else might be down there?

    Some Balor or Pit Fiend may have set up house in one of the lower dungeons. A Balor and his hosts are not that easily defeated, even by 20th level characters. And now that they've gone and 'loosed' this demon and its hordes upon the Oerth, they have to find a way to deal with it -- since they obviously do not possess the Crook of Rao. (The Canon of Veluna does.)

    Stupid 20th level MORTALS didn't know when to quit. Typical.

    But that's just me.
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    Master Greytalker

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    Mon Sep 12, 2011 6:43 am  

    4e may have its faults but it is very simple to adjust monsters to suit your PCs. If you want Eli to be a challenge for a level 13 group, just adjust his level down. You probably only have to make about 6 or 7 changes. You can even change his powers every time the PCs meet him to represent his different spells that he needs to further the particular plot. NPC wizard level is simply a function of the maximum level ritual they can 'reproduce' but that need not be the same as their actual level to make a fight with the PCs enjoyable. So Eli could a 15th level solo controller (leader) with a rider to say that he may cast rituals of up to 17th level. You don't really even need the rider, since the effect of any rituals will be a function of the story and not the fight.

    The same holds true of making monsters too powerful for your PCs. I'd probably just do a level appropriate monster (group level +4) and just add an extra die of damage to all their powers plus one extra debilitating power like a stun or daze power - you'd be surprised how easy it is to head for a TPK with just a bit of extra damage.

    Having said that, I thought the 4e version of the lich is terrible. It has no wizardly flavour at all. A decent version should be quite simple to customise from the basic template though.
    Apprentice Greytalker

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    Mon Sep 12, 2011 7:06 am  

    -shrugs- To each their own, if your players are enjoying it then that is awesome! :)

    I don't think I could personally play in a game like that myself, but that might just be the fact that I am a 'youngling' compared to most people on Canonfire. I would just like to say though that Greyhawk like a lot of things is what you make of it.

    For you it is one thing, for another player it could be vastly different. In my current game I am running the players are level 11, and the only hard cap of how high level they can get is really up to the players. It could be 20th level it could very well be higher. There are lots of very powerful things in the canon of Greyhawk that would be nigh impossible for a band of 13th level adventurers to take on.

    However one thing isn't better than another necessarily and like I said if your players like it then great. I like a fairly regular rate of growth with the games that I run, but again that might just be because I am from a newer breed of gamers. Then again I tend to stick with running one group at a time where it sounds like you run multiple groups so I can see why it would take longer to level.

    Though again I didn't want to threadjack which it seems that I did so I will shut up for now.
    Master Greytalker

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    Mon Sep 12, 2011 7:31 am  

    Well, the reason why I want my pc progression to be slow is precisely because I want them to meet more 'classic' villains at the appropriate levels even if under 4e that isn't strictly necessary.

    I would also add that I allow them to retrain between each adventure rather than just when they level up to give them a bit of variety between levels. We also use a free 'floating' feat, which they have to retrain between adventures so that they can try out different feats to see if they like them.

    There was quite a bit of discrepancy between the dragonlance characters' levels and their stats were designed to give the characters a bit of a niche. Tanis could be built as a standard ranger while Riverwind might be better suited as split primal ranger. I wonder how Laurana, a fighter with only 13 strength will fare in 4e? They might be able to build her as an essentials class (possibly a knight or inspiring warlord) with melee training dexterity and armour training for elven chain? There are quite a few possibilities.

    Just had a quick look at Raistlin's stats - from (distant) memory his 1e stats were something like:
    Wizard 3, S10, I17, W14, D16, C10, Ch13
    While his 4E stats are:
    Wizard 6, S9, I21, W14, D15, C8, Ch13

    The 1e characters were levels 3-7. If they pitch the 4e characters at level 6 instead then it's not a bad approximation. Personally, I was never happy that Raistlin's strength and con were so high in 1e. They made such a show of him being sickly at con 10, you had to wonder just how sickly somebody with below average con was actually supposed to be. The 4e version actually does a better job if capturing the essence of the character. He's physically weak but his spells will be accurate and really pack a punch.
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