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  1. #11
    Site Moderator kgauck's Avatar
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    Converting directly from 2e to 4e does make the most sense, but let's pay attention to the old hands who converted from 3e to 4e here on the boards, and have a lot of experience navigating the minefields here. I'd love to see some of the old conversion hands come back and shepherd us through this again.

    I don't want to see the wheel re-invented again and again.

    The 3e conversion shouldn't be a guide, except that the old conversion folks know how various issues raise problems of setting vs rules, and why it is that people favored one solution or another in the past.

    We should decide questions a-new, new set of rules after all, but we should so so aware that this path has been tread before.

    Along those lines, we should not proceed as the previous conversion teams did. That is the first useful lesson that they can teach us. For far too long, documents were away from they eager eyes of the community and unavailable for constructive comment. Let's not make the best the enemy of the good. On the wiki we can label documents as "draft" "revised" and "sanctioned", so viewers know how authoritative a document is. Every version of the document is stored, so its always possible to go back and reconsider an older version. Opening the process up will speed it along immeasurably.

  2. #12
    Do you think we could get something on the Wiki specifically for 4e conversions, as I am sure people sticking to 3.X don't want to have to sift through 2 different pages for each thing to figure out which one fits them and which one doesn't.

    Its part of why I haven't been doing full write ups yet. Just putting out general ideas.

  3. #13
    Ehrshegh of Spelling Thelandrin's Avatar
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    I'm sure that Arjan or someone else equally talented can provide a 4th Edition banner. Such a page would still go in all the usual categories and suchlike, but browsers would simply have a greater choice of options.

  4. #14
    As well as we should put a link and a sticky on the rules, as well as create a doc that gets updated with changes so that people can print it with ease as well so they can playtest with a hardcopy that they can write problems up on those chapters as well. and polls would give a good idea if the chapters is good enough for us to proceed to the next step as well.

  5. #15
    Site Moderator kgauck's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Wilenburg View Post
    As well as we should put a link and a sticky on the rules, as well as create a doc that gets updated with changes so that people can print it with ease as well so they can playtest with a hardcopy that they can write problems up on those chapters as well. and polls would give a good idea if the chapters is good enough for us to proceed to the next step as well.
    Polls we can do (as well as discussion) here on the boards. A doc that gets printed probably should wait until we have chapters that are deep into revision. Making downloadable docs is an extra layer of labor, since editing for this different format is required.

  6. #16
    I agree it was just an idea as the wiki develops to keep up with the changes and docs should be later in the design process after the wiki idea goes through polls but it should just be together with the link so it is of easy for new payers to find at the beginning it would be the wiki links later the docs to be uploaded with the wiki.

  7. #17
    Site Moderator AndrewTall's Avatar
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    I would note regarding 2, 3, and 4e that a lot of thought was put into the 3e conversion about what worked and what did not (possibly in some cases more than was originally put into the 2e system) - anyone seriously planning 4e should be re-reading a lot of forum posts about the 3e conversion to get background on design theory, what choices were made and why - there is little point re-inventing the wheel and none in chasing an argument that was proved flawed years ago - and I speak as someone who had zero input on the conversion.

    I'd suggest that most of the 3e work should stand - domain level rules while imperfect removed the randomness of 2e (which is a trait that appears to be carried on into 4e) for example so the only real work needed there is to RP collection and the like. The only chapters likely to need significant revision are 1, 2, 8 and 9.

    2e I would remind people had neither feats nor skills - 4e has retained these from 3e although some tweaks will be required for the fact that 4e kiddies can't handle the complexities of skill points (bah, let them eat THAC0! ).

    4e adventure powers are new but a) fairly irrelevant outside combat and b) completely irrelevant at realm level. Of the two systems I see no real difference conversion wise in difficulty - any adventure level power will need to be re-written to fit 4e, any other power can be carried pretty much as is barring changes to fit the realm play mechanic.

    I'm not entirely sure what the rush is on the 4e conversion - some people seem to be planning the fine detail at breakneck pace whereas to build a coherent system the detail should follow the framework. Currently many people do not even have the 4e books and I expect that none have played a sufficient number of 4e games to identify flaws in the system.

    To put it simply, we have yet to even discuss, much less agree:

    1 whether we are building a low level or high level magic conversion - and the impacts of that choice,
    2 whether bloodlines will be restricted to realm play or not,
    3 whether scions should be 'better' than unblooded,
    4 how to deal with awn and ehrshegh, etc, etc.

    Without agreement on that sort of fundamental issue before we start the detailed of the conversion, any efforts will be mainly wasted.
    Last edited by AndrewTall; 06-08-2008 at 08:36 AM.

  8. #18
    Although feats and skills are similar from 3e to 4e there is big diffrence of assumption.

    First LA is gone.
    Second, feats were retooled in a massive way, every class has specific feats that benfit them, as does every race.

    Third, NPCs who will not see combat do not get levels.
    This means that for domains to be effective they have to not be level depedant.

    These differences alone mean that while we should maintain as much of the 3e conversion as theoretically possible, we should look to see if the new rules offer a better system under which to achieve similar results.

    Personally the mere loss of data from a conversion of a conversion means its better to convert from 2 to 4, while keeping an eye on how 3 handled the converision for what we can use to shortcut the process.

  9. #19
    Junior Member Capricia's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by AndrewTall View Post
    I would note regarding 2, 3, and 4e that a lot of thought was put into the 3e conversion about what worked and what did not (possibly in some cases more than was originally put into the 2e system) - anyone seriously planning 4e should be re-reading a lot of forum posts about the 3e conversion to get background on design theory, what choices were made and why - there is little point re-inventing the wheel and none in chasing an argument that was proved flawed years ago - and I speak as someone who had zero input on the conversion.

    I'd suggest that most of the 3e work should stand - domain level rules while imperfect removed the randomness of 2e (which is a trait that appears to be carried on into 4e) for example so the only real work needed there is to RP collection and the like. The only chapters likely to need significant revision are 1, 2, 8 and 9.

    2e I would remind people had neither feats nor skills - 4e has retained these from 3e although some tweaks will be required for the fact that 4e kiddies can't handle the complexities of skill points (bah, let them eat THAC0! ).

    4e adventure powers are new but a) fairly irrelevant outside combat and b) completely irrelevant at realm level. Of the two systems I see no real difference conversion wise in difficulty - any adventure level power will need to be re-written to fit 4e, any other power can be carried pretty much as is barring changes to fit the realm play mechanic.

    I'm not entirely sure what the rush is on the 4e conversion - some people seem to be planning the fine detail at breakneck pace whereas to build a coherent system the detail should follow the framework. Currently many people do not even have the 4e books and I expect that none have played a sufficient number of 4e games to identify flaws in the system.

    To put it simply, we have yet to even discuss, much less agree:

    1 whether we are building a low level or high level magic conversion - and the impacts of that choice,
    2 whether bloodlines will be restricted to realm play or not,
    3 whether scions should be 'better' than unblooded,
    4 how to deal with awn and ehrshegh, etc, etc.

    Without agreement on that sort of fundamental issue before we start the detailed of the conversion, any efforts will be mainly wasted.
    Well said.

    As I understand it, it took hundreds of man hours and massive amounts of cooperation to make the last conversion. To leap in and start demanding whole scale changes without a plan in place will only result in chaos. This is a long term project which will hopefully result in a true "standard" that can be worked from for years to come. (or until 4.5 comes out...)

    I am not part of the conversion team. Hell... is there such an entity? Because that might be step one...

  10. #20
    Well people are excited ... and that is a good thing.

    I agree on needing a framework. I also agree at hitting the chapters that need to be rivised the most. Also not to ignore some of what was already done for third edition.

    For example is the court set up. This is a million times better in 3rd edition verison vs. 2nd. No need to re-invent. Also the basic domain set up of court actions, standard actions .... this can be transposed into 4th edition fairly easy. Need to change some terms but mostly it can stay in tact.

    Maybe someone can create a list of the most basic things that need to be changed and put some things to a vote so we know the framwork of the change ...

    Examples would be.

    Tying bloodline powers to feats and paths ...
    How will we seperate different humans .... Khinasi, Vos, Brect ...


    -BB

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