D&D: Honor Among Thieves

[Solauren]

Hasbro surrendered?

They released the newest/current version of D&D to creative commons. For a corporation and IPS and Copyright, that's a surrender

Or how Wizards created a whole new, not backward-compatible game (3.0) with the whole 'Buy all the books again" business model?

You mean instead of having 3 separate gaming systems, with numerous subsystems, that often confused new players? That had a library so staggering, new people getting into the hobby were absolutely horrified by it's sheer size?

pre-3e had around 900 titles to it, not counting Dragon Magazine, Dungeon Magazine, or Polyhedron.

Oh, and I have no problem porting most pre-3e stuff into 3e. They even released a free guide to help people convert.

Only to have them try the same compounded trick, not just seven years later with 4th edition? A whole new game involving the "Buy all the gooks again" model. Except that enough in the industry pushed the boundaries of their license, and D20 continued to roll onwards without them, causing Hasbro to...

Most of there 3.X developers had left for Paizo. You can tell by looking at the game system, and the support settings/novels.

Again, falling back into their now seeming old habits (Since Paizo then came to dominate the market), causing yet another "Completly change the game+"Buy all the books again" drive. This time with a rule set that was B/X/3.X mashup reversion. (Never admit any wrongdoing. Just bull sheet forwards) so as to claw back those who'd continued on with Paizo.

So, using elements of a tried and true system, that WOTC itself developed, to try to attract back customers, is wrong? Whatever you are on, it's not working.

Only to again seek to subsume all possible profits from the movie release earnings (Including doing things like screwing companies over such that Hasbro stifled any productions other than the one from which they would wring the most money) by throwing yet another "Take it all (Plus buy more books again)" ploy (One D&D)?

That they admitted was fucked up on their part and then released it all to creative commons.

Hasbro is a corporation. It can't be reasoned with. It can't be bargained with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will. Not. STOP... Ever. Until all other I.P.s are dead.

Please don't quote good movie lines in an attempt to justify your anti-corporate whining.

Please enjoy the movie. I won't be giving Hasbro any money, personally.

Cheers.

The only thing not fueled by whining in your entire post. Bravo.

[Dass.Kapital]

Again, may you enjoy your entertainment.

That Intimidating and horrifying amount of material was, at least, cross/backwards compatible. 3.x etc was not. It was wholly new, not really improved with myriad bugs etc. Hence the revisions, which couldn't actually fix some of the problems which were built deeply in. Whether those problems were by design or incompetence? *Shrugs*.

It took seven odd years for the folks who would become Paizo to get their feet under them and work at going from 'Subcontractor' to 'Competitor', which they would not have necessarily had to do if Wizards hadn't been d!ckish. Something of a behaviour that corporations just seem to keep on inheriting down through the ages.

"Anticorporate whining'? Okay, nice. So if I'm whining about the big, bad, meany corporations? Does that make your side of the playing field that of the 'Corporate shill'? Just asking for clarification if we're switching from playing the ball to body wrestling.

Much cheers etc for you and yours.

[Solauren]

That Intimidating and horrifying amount of material was, at least, cross/backwards compatible. 3.x etc was not.

You appear to be working from incomplete data. WOTC released a conversion guide to allow people to bring in most pre-3e stuff into 3.0.

Classes actually converted rather easily, once you read both the PHBK and DMG and saw Prestige Classes, and did a little thinking. Kits, tended to be lacking when converted.
Monsters, required rebuild from the ground up. Fortunately, there was a magazine in one of the first '3e' Dragon Magazines on that.
Spells were rather easy to convert with that guide. Psionics as well once the Psionics Handbook came out.
Magic Items, Weapons, Armor - pretty straight forward conversion.

It was wholly new, not really improved with myriad bugs etc. Hence the revisions, which couldn't actually fix some of the problems which were built deeply in. Whether those problems were by design or incompetence? *Shrugs*.

Whole new? No. Partially new? Yes. Reworked and cleaned up? Definitely.
And list the problems you experienced. Otherwise, you're starting to sound like something qouting someone else, qouting someone else.

It took seven odd years for the folks who would become Paizo to get their feet under them and work at going from 'Subcontractor' to 'Competitor', which they would not have necessarily had to do if Wizards hadn't been d!ckish. Something of a behaviour that corporations just seem to keep on inheriting down through the ages.

Wow, you clearly don't know the history of Paizo, so let me enlighten you.

Paizo was formed when WOTC decided they didn't really want to be the ones running Dragon and Dungeon magazine. So, the staff of Dragon + Dungeon formed their own company, and licensed the magazines, and continued producing them, without interuption. Various staff and writers followed them.

When 4.0 was announced, Paizo was already working on what would become the Pathfinder Campaign setting. The evidence of that was how quickly the first adventure in their first adventure path came out.

"Anticorporate whining'? Okay, nice. So if I'm whining about the big, bad, meany corporations? Does that make your side of the playing field that of the 'Corporate shill'? Just asking for clarification if we're switching from playing the ball to body wrestling.

Anticorporate whining was clearly not accurate in this case. However, you appear to be operating on a lack of information, misconceptions, incorrect assumptions, and a personal prejudice on the subject.

As or 'corporate shill'

If you were to go over to EnWorld, and look around the threads discussing the 'OGL crises' (for lack of a better term), you'll find my 'online name' and learn;

I was very much against the scrapping of the OGL. To the point I was trying to start people on making a list of websites to make offline copies of to share incase Hasbro went '1990s TSR' with the internet, and people started taking their websites offline to avoid legal headaches. (So much cool stuff was lost do to that.)

You'll find discussions (some rather harsh) of various aspects of 3.0 (Between 2000 and 2007 mostly)

a rather harsh review of 4.X with me telling WOTC they no longer have me as a customer (still don't) (followed by very sporadic posting from 2007 - this year with the OGL crisis)

[LadyTevar]

Gentlemen? Take the Hasbro/WOTC company whining to Gaming or another thread. This is for the MOVIE ONLY.

[Dass.Kapital]

Gentlemen? Take the Hasbro/WOTC company whining to Gaming or another thread. This is for the MOVIE ONLY.

*Bows*

I shall, as correctly pointed out, cease and desist.

I've liked Chris Pine in pretty much everything I've seen him perform in, and I am pretty sure he'll give his very best.

The same for Michelle Rodriguez.

What would be nice/awesome is if they take a page from "Big Trouble in Little China" and have Chris and Michelle 'Swapping roles' as it were.

I truly hope this movie gives people the entertainment and value that previous endeavours haven't quite achieved.

Cheers.

[Batman]

Err-Wrath of the Dragon God and and the Vile book of Darkness were overall rather acceptable movies (not exactly Oscar material but thoroughly enjoyable movies, unlike the unmitigated disaster that was the 2000 one.)

[LadyTevar]

*Bows*

I shall, as correctly pointed out, cease and desist.

I've liked Chris Pine in pretty much everything I've seen him perform in, and I am pretty sure he'll give his very best.

The same for Michelle Rodriguez.

What would be nice/awesome is if they take a page from "Big Trouble in Little China" and have Chris and Michelle 'Swapping roles' as it were.

I truly hope this movie gives people the entertainment and value that previous endeavours haven't quite achieved.

Cheers.

The way the trailers have played out, yes Michelle is the "tough guy/strong guy" and Chris is the comic relief. It also seems the two of them are perfectly platonic the whole movie through.

[Solauren]

Saw it last night.

Enjoyed it. Good movie. (massively better then the previous 3 D&D movies. I count the attempt to make an animated Dragonlance movie as one of them). I hope more are made in them same vein. Action-Comedy is the way to go with D&D movies.

Two very surprising presences on screen that any Realms fan will go "Oh.. my... Mystra" (no, that was not a spoiler) when they appear.

[Lord Revan]

I watched the money yesterday, it's a decent movie, nothing ground breaking.

Spoilers for the movie. Spoiler

As for the the Holga and Edgar relationship, yeah the barbarian is the "tough one" in that relationship, but it's a more brother/sister relationship then anything romantic Edgar is too focused on his dead wife to look another relationship and he's not even Holga's type (she seems to have a thing for Halflings).

Also Edgar isn't really emasculated in any rational way, sure he's not an "alpha male" but still tough for someone who had rough life

[Dass.Kapital]

The way the trailers have played out, yes, Michelle is the "tough guy/strong guy", and Chris is the comic relief. It also seems the two of them are perfectly platonic the whole movie through.

*Nods*

Though the whole "He makes plans." Gives me a 'He's the brains of this outfit, Sweetheart.' vibes.

If Helga is the Barbarian, I'm guessing when blades fly, she's far more 'Helga SMASH!' side of things.

[Solauren]

I found all the interpersonal relationship dynamics to make perfect sense.

Edwin - Smart, clever. He knows his strengths, and plays to them (pun intended). Good character growth.
Helga - Tough, strong, reasonably fast, and skilled at melee combat. Plays to her strengths. Good character growth.
Simon - Powerful, but lacking self-confidence. Excellent character growth.
Doric - Skilled, powerful, buy not very trusting. Excellent character growth.

(*Growth for a 2 hour movie that is)

And we get the classic 'Tank, Stealth, Arcane Weapon, Utility' combination.

[Bedlam]

I felt that Doric get let down a bit when it came to character development and background, she had a number of fun action sequences but tended to be just following around in the background for the middle half of the movie. Not really a complaint, there is a limited amount that you can do in the duration of the film.

[Lord Revan]

I found all the interpersonal relationship dynamics to make perfect sense.

Edwin - Smart, clever. He knows his strengths, and plays to them (pun intended). Good character growth.
Helga - Tough, strong, reasonably fast, and skilled at melee combat. Plays to her strengths. Good character growth.
Simon - Powerful, but lacking self-confidence. Excellent character growth.
Doric - Skilled, powerful, buy not very trusting. Excellent character growth.

(*Growth for a 2 hour movie that is)

And we get the classic 'Tank, Stealth, Arcane Weapon, Utility' combination.

Well we sort of get the classic combo though both Edgin and Doric handle the stealth part as they're a Bard and Druid respectably and there's no rogue in the main party.

What I find interesting is that you can sort of guess the stats for the characters based on how they act. For example I'd suspect that the Red Wizard main villain has high INT (Wizard after all), but low WIS and CHA based on how she behaves in the movie. (actually I checked the official stats and Sofina has WIS of 14 and CHA of 8 so actually better the average Wisdom but I was right about the Charisma, oh and she has Intellect of 20 (max what players or player like NPCs can have))

[Bedlam]

Given the Spoiler

Intellect Devourer's

reaction to the party we can surmise than none of them are particularly blessed in the Intelligence department.

[Lord Revan]

Spoiler

According to the official stats most of them are above average INT with Holga being the only exception and even she has average, that's probably why they got so insulted . Their scores are 16 for Doric, 14 for Edgin, 11 for Holga, 16 for Simon and 14 for Xenk, so I'm guessing (in-universe) it was more of the Intellect devourers not wanting to become cerebral footballs should their attacks fail

It was still a funny gag though.

[LadyTevar]

I really hope this movie is still in the theaters when I get paid. I want to see this more than John Wick 4.

[Rogue 9]

Paramount taking the piss out of their own cameo.

[KraytKing]

Generally liked it. Pretty much just a good popcorn flick. Normally I hate those, so I don't know what this one did differently. I wouldn't see it a second time, though, and I couldn't pick out a moment where I thought "Damn, that's some good [acting/shooting/writing]. Pretty much just worked. Nothing was good, but nothing was bad, so I had fun. The one thing I would really point out is that Edgin was obviously supposed to be a bard, but compared to his comrades, really didn't have any clearly defined class abilities. He was just a weirdly normal guy while all of his friends had obvious magic or superhuman power.

I really loved that it didn't obviously set up a sequel. I wouldn't mind more D&D movies like this one, but like D&D adventures/campaigns, they should just do their own thing in a vaguely common universe. No need to make an MCU out of it.

[Rogue 9]

I went to a matinee this afternoon. It was fun. But yeah, the fact that the bard didn't display any real bard abilities (first of all between him and the druid they should have had healing enough for Holga; "Red Wizard's blade" doesn't mean anything) is a little odd.

[Bedlam]

I know he's got a character sheet out there but really in my head he's more a 'rogue who took perform' rather than a bard.

[Lord Revan]

I went to a matinee this afternoon. It was fun. But yeah, the fact that the bard didn't display any real bard abilities (first of all between him and the druid they should have had healing enough for Holga; "Red Wizard's blade" doesn't mean anything) is a little odd.

The "red wizard blade" isn't just fancy dagger but rather a legendary magic item on its own that does 3D12 necrotic damage (per hit) in addition the dagger damage and if you drop to 0 you're dead, no saving throws or raise dead, only the tablet (or deity according to the rules WOTC released) can bring you back. 36 points of damage (and IIRC Holga isn't bear totem so no resist there) per hit isn't that small even for a level 20 character.

[Batman]

3d12 is 3 TO 36 damage per hit on top of the dagggers rather pathetic 1-4, so that's 4 to a maximum of 40 per hit.Nothing even a lvl 20 character can safely IGNORE but not a guaranteed kill even with multiple hits by far.

[Lord Revan]

The official Stats give between 64 and 176 hp max (16d8+48), I dunno what level she's suppose to be but that hitpoint total suggest sub level 20 (she's listed as challenge rating 5 but that isn't same as level) as the official stats are NPC stats, my quick maths would give a level 20 barbarian between 34 and 243 HP with her Con mod of +3 with and average of 139 hp.

Granted we got no idea of how much damage she took during the battle before so who knows what HP total she had when the dagger hit.

EDIT: could see this being a case of DM homebrewing on the spot that Relentless Rage feature of the Barbarian suspended the instakill feature the dagger but only for as long as the Barbarian was raging and if Barbarian was had not gained HP beyond the 1 gained from Rage they would drop dead.

[LadyTevar]

Hoping to go see this tomorrow. We'll see if plan survives.

[Dass.Kapital]

About the dagger.

Are 'Critical hits' still a thing in 5E?

Also, "Called Shot" affairs? Do items like the classic 'Vorpal sword' still take beings' heads off in one swipe?

Basically, I took away that it was (A) A unique/super weapon of DOOM and (B) Other than going into her head, an actual 'Shot to the heart' seems pretty close to a vorpal 'Take the head off' shot.

Everything after that is "Heroic death speech" territory, no?

It's a good movie, though.

Cheers.