[Fan Film Friday] Roll Initiative - Dungeons & Dragons Short Film

[Fan Film Friday] The Roleplayers: A Dungeons and Dragons Fan Film

[Fan Film Friday] Fantopia - Dungeons and Dragons Inspired Fantasy Short Film

[Fan Film Friday] Dungeons & Dragons Concept Trailer

Fan Film Friday is a new feature of my blog.  I watch a ton of fan films on youtube and I recommend them to others that might be interested so I thought why not just add it to my blog. For the month of June, I am linking to D&D fan films; whether they are based on or just inspired by the game.   

Classic 4E from Necromancer Games

On February 28, 2009 the following post was made by Clark Peterson to the Necromancer Games forums:

"OK guys. I am getting ready to jump into 4E (and Pathfinder too, settle down). 

Here is my plan: I am going to create "Classic 4E": a set of alternate content for 4E to replicate the old school way of playing D&D. It will work in conjunction with the 4E PHB. 

It will contain the classic races--elf, dwarf, half-elf, halfling, human, gnome, etc. No dragonborn, no warforged. Now, that said, if you and your DM want to use that content from the PHB you can. 

It will contain the classic classes--fighter, ranger, paladin, rogue, cleric, druid, wizard, monk, as well as some 3E favorites such as the barbarian and bard. 

It will have some rules changes: 

--things will not be tied to the grid, they will be done in feet. 
--there will be no more hopping around the grid teleporting, but movement in combat will still be stressed 
--the old powers that have to do with things other than combat will make their return 
--spell memorization will return in a fun new way 
--powers will be more limited for the classes, but more useful. Not every class is a wizard 
--alignment returns (optionally) 
--buffing is not forbidden anymore. 4E took away buffing spells. I dont mind putting them back. 

I want to do this the way Paizo is doing Pathfinder. I want to develop it as a community. I will soon be opening a "4E Classic" forum with a thread for each class and race etc. We can post incremental updates of our rules compiled as a pdf as alpha and beta. The final version will be available as a pdf and perhaps in print as well since people love thier printed game books. 

But I want to develop this together. 

So what do you think? 

Clark" 

I read those words and my interest level was pretty high.  I had already decided to go with Pathfinder after buying the 4E PHB, DMG, and MM rule books.  I could tell that 4E was moving in a different direction than I was interested in at that time.  The goals of this project seemed more in line with what I was interested in from my D&D gaming.  I would continue to check in from time to time to see what kind of progress or suggestions had been made. 

Further down in the thread is a proposed Classic version of Smite Evil:

Smite Evil [Classic] Paladin Attack 1                                                                                                                                                         

Your weapon shines with holy radiance as you strike your evil foe.

At-Will • Divine, Radiant, Weapon

Standard Action Melee weapon

Target: One Evil creature

Attack: Strength vs. AC

Hit: 1[W] + Strength modifier radiant damage. If you marked the target you gain an additional bonus to the damage roll equal to your Wisdom modifier.

Increase damage to 2[W] + Strength modifier at 21st level. 

Even further down the thread is a proposed Classic version of Magic Missile:

Magic Missile [Classic] Level 1 Wizard Spell

A missile of magical energy flies unerringly to its target

Encounter • Arcane, Force, Implement

Standard Action Ranged 100 ft. (20) + 10 ft. (2)/3 levels

Target: One creature within range and in line of sight per missile

Attack: Automatically hits the target unless target has total cover or total concealment

Hit: 2d4 + Intelligence modifier force damage per missile

Increase damage to 3d4 + Intelligence modifier force damage per missile at 21st level.

You fire an additional missile at 6th, 12th, 18th and 24th level when you cast this spell. If you fire multiple missiles you can have them strike a single creature or several creatures. A single missile can strike only one creature. You must designate targets before you check for resistances or roll damage.

Special: You can use this power one additional time per encounter at each multiple of 3 levels, i.e.: 2 times at 3rd level, 3 times at 6th level, 4 times at 9th level, and so on, though never more than once per round. [Note: this may be deleted if a spell point system is used, which it appears will be the case]

On page three of this same thread Elton Robb suggested the following changes to the Classic version of Magic Missile:

Magic Missile [Classic] Level 1 Wizard Spell

A missile of magical energy flies unerringly to its target

Encounter • Arcane, Force, Implement

Standard Action Ranged 100 ft. (20) + 10 ft. (2)/3 levels

Target: One creature within range and in line of sight per missile

Attack: Automatically hits the target unless target has total cover or total concealment

Hit: 2d4 + Intelligence modifier force damage per missile

Increase damage to 3d4 + Intelligence modifier force damage per missile at 21st level.

You fire an additional missile at 6th, 12th, 18th and 24th level when you cast this spell. If you fire multiple missiles you can have them strike a single creature or several creatures. A single missile can strike only one creature. You must designate targets before you check for resistances or roll damage.

Special: You can use this power once a day.

Why the changes?

I feel that 4e borders on Superheroic. There's a good case for this, and Superheroism is too high an austerity level for classic play. Reducing it to once a day while maintaining it's machine gun effect makes it a special "main gun" type power (akin to the Wave Motion Gun in Leiji's classic Manga -- Starblazers). This will make it precious to the wizard, as the wizard won't be overpowering the fighter. It makes the magic more limited in this case.

Moving on to page 4 of that thread and there is even another proposed change - this time by phoenixfeather - to the Magic Missile:

Magic Missile [Classic] Level 1 Wizard Spell

A missile of magical energy flies unerringly to its target

At-Will • Arcane, Force, Implement

Standard Action  Ranged 100 ft. (20) + 10 ft. (2)/3 levels

Special: You can use this power a number of times per day equal to your Intelligence modifier (minimum 1), but only once per round.

Target: One creature without total cover or total concealment within range and in line of sight per missile

Effect: 2d4 force damage per missile.

You fire an additional missile at 6th, 11th, 16th, 21st, and 26th level when you cast this spell. If you fire multiple missiles you can have them strike a single creature or several creatures. A single missile can strike only one creature. You must designate targets before you check for resistances or roll damage.

Special: This power may not benefit from modifiers or abilities that affect damage rolls. 

I still find it all a fascinating read.  It has become even more interesting to me since I have found a co-worker friend of mine that is unloading all of his 4E books for a steeply discounted price.  I now have quite a collection but I still have not played rules as written or otherwise.  One of these days I am going to have to give it a test run.  

It seems that all discussion of Classic 4E has been dead for some time now.  Honestly, I do no think it was going to be an easy fix of whipping up a quick document of a few pages to use in conjunction with the 4E manuals.  I am pretty certain that it would have required another manual of several hundred pages to get it to work once you started assembling information on a Classic 4E version of races, classes, spells, powers, etc. 

It is a shame that this project just stopped and was never completed.  It was easy to see that there were people interested in seeing the results.  I know that Clark Peterson gave it up but does anybody know if a dedicated group of fans continued this work?  If so, does anybody know the secret handshake to qualify for receipt of this material.  Yes, I know about some of the proposed 4E clones games and I have information on them.  I am just curious about this particular project.   

5E Basic Rules - Short and Simple

Like many in the role-playing blogosphere, I downloaded the free 5E Basic Rules document yesterday.  After a few minutes of browsing the information I got on the Office Depot site and looked into getting the document printed and bound to make it easier to read further; I am one of the old guys so I prefer physical books in my hand.  The price was right - just $14.06 for card stock covers and coil binding - so I ordered it and it was ready two hours later.  I have been reading through it off and on ever since I picked up yesterday.

I am not going to bore you with any details or a complete review in this post but I am going to keep it short and simple - Wizards, you have my attention and I am interested in seeing more.  My original intention was to get the Starter Set and evaluate from there.  That changed when I discovered that character creation would not be included in the boxed set.  Then I decided to go with these Basic Rules after it was revealed it would include character creation rules.  Now I WILL be getting the Starter Set when it hits my FLGS.

My Thoughts on the D&D 5E Starter Information...

As the information on D&D 5E is slowly coming out the blogosphere has been lit up with various posts about the cost of the books, release dates, the OGL (or lack thereof), and the upcoming $20 Starter Set coming soon.  My tentative plan was to pick up the Starter Set and see how well the rules match my expectations.  With the latest word of mouth containing information similar to "the Starter Set will be geared towards the DM" and "pre-generated characters instead of character creation rules" I am starting to re-think that decision.

There are several Basic Sets from the old TSR catalog that can serve as fine examples of how to do the 5E Starter Set correctly; Holmes, Moldvay, & Mentzer all have their own strengths and following in their foot steps would improve the quality of any new version.  I am going to touch on some of the information I have read from other blogs in this post. 

It has been pointed out that the 5E Starter Set will cater to the DM in several posts.  I understand this approach because there will be plenty of experienced hobbyists that use this set to introduce new players and the owner will most likely be the DM in those instances.  I do think that 5E would be better served by a  Starter Set placing equal importance on the role of player and DM by including a condensed PHB and DMG that are both around 48 to 64 pages in length.

The other bit of information I keep reading in posts is the inclusion of pre-generated characters instead of character creation rules in the Starter Set.  I realize that pre-generated characters could lead to quicker set up time if the characters were presented in a clean layout with notes about rolling, combat, skills, etc. on the character sheet.  I have heard that the character creation rules will be available for free online for people to reference.  Why not just include them in the Starter Set?  It was done with the old Basic Sets from the past and it was great so why not just do it again?  Character creation is one of the most basic essentials of a role-playing game so they should be included.  The Starter Set should serve as a snapshot of the full rules.  

I have flip-flopped a few times on whether or not I am going to buy the Starter Set or skip it.  I would like a "complete" product but with the exclusion of character creation rules in the box I am not sure.  Ideally, along with character generation the rules should cover the first 5 levels of play with the appropriate information split between a condensed PHB and DMG.  I would assume that they would only include 3 or 4 races with the same number of classes.  Of course, any DM information would only include information appropriate for the possible levels.  Throw in some dice and an introductory adventure and I am all over this.

Now I hear that Amazon has the Starter Set listed for $12.66 so maybe I will be buying it...