Well, looks like 4e is coming in a relatively (pbp speaking) short time, and seems that it'll be different enough that character conversion will be very difficult or impossible, and will have it's own SRD. Maybe it's still a bit early to talk about the changes in EnWorld (if there's going to be one) but, as I said, 9 months is a short time in pbp - many adventures last that or longer.
Last edited by Bront; 2nd September 2007 at 05:57 AM..
Speaking as one who eagerly awaited 3E, and couldn't understand the position of the grognards who said, "I'll never give up my beloved 2nd Edition," I find myself now in the situation where, without a regular face to face gaming group, and no chance to play except on ENWorld, I'm not in the least excited or inspired by the announcement of 4th Edition.
No doubt I'll be drawn into the new marketing ploy to a greater or lesser extent but my overall response is ... meh!
But to actually respond to Someone's raising of the question, I would hope that 3.5 will continue to be played at least in parallel with 4E when it comes - and that players can be given the option to continue with their PCs until they choose to retire them. And if they're forced to retire characters because of a lack of 3.5 games, then I hope they'll be able to pick up new characters of a similar sort of level in a 4E game.
Retired PbP Characters:
Alton Highlea: Halfling Quest - Rooting Around
Andarin Startoes: Turtle Soup
Coraine Vagrius: Rhun’s Temple of Elemental Evil
Elyan Kolodah: CB’s Sunless Citadel
Hunolf Hjordsson: Sunless Citadel
Jimmy Masters: Deadlands: Savage West
Kelloran: Night’s Embrace: A Touch of Darkness
... And All The Rest ...
Last edited by Boddynock; 17th August 2007 at 01:18 PM..
I was wondering when that question would crop up. As far as I am concerned, the question whether Living Enworld updates to 4E or remains 3.5 should, and probably will be, a community decision, when the time comes for that.
My own personal opinion? LEW should stay at 3.5. Conversions between editions is always messy. Time-consuming. Tough, when you don't have quite a handle of the new rules yet. I mean, 3.0 to 3.5 was messy as well! WotC themselves suggest that campaigns should not attempt to convert to the new edition (and of course they'd want you to start new campaigns with the new rules). There are indications that gnomes and/or half-orcs will be dropped from the core books (to be reintroduced later in the year), and a few classes will get the axe as well. Add to that that LEW has quite some custom rules, and we would have a ton of conversion work (and we'd need to hope we can get a grasp of any possible balance problems!).
Under no circumstances should Living Enworld mix 3.5 and 4E characters. It's one, or the other. If the community decides to move forward, I'd propose a lull of adventures and temporarily locking the (old) character thread, so that no one is on adventure for a time, allowing for a period in which everyone can help with the update process, so it can go smoothly and without distractions from eevnts in adventures, characters levelling, and so on.
__________________ Also posts as Ashardalon (here and elsewhere) and as Eques Concordia and Guinea Pig (only elsewhere).
If levels 1-20 in 4th edition are going to be basically the same thing as in 3.5, and levels 21-30 still epic in some way, then at least the level/xp of the characters wouldn't be that much of a problem.
But since they're scrapping some classes and changing others, levels might be the only thing that can be salvaged, and possibly ability scores. Every character needs to be rebuilt and reapproved in any case.
It's going to be one hell of a hassle though. Every character, item, spell and prestige class needs to be updated.
I'd prefer the trouble instead of either starting from zero again, or keeping the 3.5 ruleset, if the 4th edition turns out to be even marginally better than 3.5 (and I like what I've read thus far).
From the reports, it sounded more like levels 1-30 would correspond fairly well to current levels 1-20. At least, that's what I take from the 'expanded sweet spot' thing.
From the reports, it sounded more like levels 1-30 would correspond fairly well to current levels 1-20. At least, that's what I take from the 'expanded sweet spot' thing.
That might be the case, though I remember reading something about epic levels being in the core books. That might just have been speculation though.
From the reports, it sounded more like levels 1-30 would correspond fairly well to current levels 1-20. At least, that's what I take from the 'expanded sweet spot' thing.
Since the reports also mention things like Epic being built into the Core, I don't think it's quite that simple, but I suspect that is a part.
__________________ Also posts as Ashardalon (here and elsewhere) and as Eques Concordia and Guinea Pig (only elsewhere).
Yeah, and things are going to be a bit more complicated over at LEB w/ the switch-over, adding to the mix that Eberron does not appear to be supported in 4E until '09 at the earliest. That may or may not be a good thing for transition purposes (LEB being smaller and newer than LEW).
__________________ stonegod -- LEB judge and spawn of Khyber since 2005 (Blog)
I was wondering when that question would crop up. As far as I am concerned, the question whether Living Enworld updates to 4E or remains 3.5 should, and probably will be, a community decision, when the time comes for that.
My own personal opinion? LEW should stay at 3.5. Conversions between editions is always messy. Time-consuming. Tough, when you don't have quite a handle of the new rules yet. I mean, 3.0 to 3.5 was messy as well! WotC themselves suggest that campaigns should not attempt to convert to the new edition (and of course they'd want you to start new campaigns with the new rules). There are indications that gnomes and/or half-orcs will be dropped from the core books (to be reintroduced later in the year), and a few classes will get the axe as well. Add to that that LEW has quite some custom rules, and we would have a ton of conversion work (and we'd need to hope we can get a grasp of any possible balance problems!).
Under no circumstances should Living Enworld mix 3.5 and 4E characters. It's one, or the other. If the community decides to move forward, I'd propose a lull of adventures and temporarily locking the (old) character thread, so that no one is on adventure for a time, allowing for a period in which everyone can help with the update process, so it can go smoothly and without distractions from eevnts in adventures, characters levelling, and so on.
It does seem this would be very cumbersome in the least and given all the ENWORLD unique feats classes spells etc... I would not enjoy the change over. Adventures could be on hold for a year to review and go through an entire new approval process. Would the judges take a leave of absence from their regular jobs? Everyone helping could add to confusion-too many cooks or something like that. Ugghh I am sure there will be some alluring stuff though so I will help however I can if we decide to go with a change for now I will appreciate what we have and all the great work the judges have done.
Well, the 4E announcement blindsided me completely. I really didn't expect that. Makes sense in retrospect now after seeing the Gencon and Wizards sites with "INDI4N4POLIS" & "4DVENTURE", but I really didn't grasp what it meant until after the announcement. Not to mention why the Wizards site was down and ENworld was so slow last night that I couldn't open it.
As it relates to LEW, I agree with most that when/if the community decides to switch it should all switch over together. Maybe we can even work it into the storylines and make the change happen 'in-story' for all of LEW? I know that this could really screw up the proposed big series of linked adventures that were just around the corner, unless those become the world shaking events that lead to the 'world conversion'? Kinda like the 'Apocalypse' module/adventure that TSR put out at the end of 2E/begining of 3e? Could be neat maybe?
If we eventually decide to switch over, I think we may want to use some variant of our 'retirement' mechanic, and create all new 4th edition characters.
First thing I would like is to see 4th edition before making my mind. But I agree with KO, it is 4th or 3.5, but not a mix of both. Also, we should wait for a website with all SRD rule to be avalaible before doing the switch if we do so. SRD need to be avalaible and easily navigated.
__________________ Living ENWorld di Senzio's Magical Shop, the best place to buy and sell magical items in Orussus
If we eventually decide to switch over, I think we may want to use some variant of our 'retirement' mechanic, and create all new 4th edition characters.
I tend to agree. And I don't see that bad to mix 3.5 and 4e for a while - we could allow current adventures for 3.5 to continue, but not to start new adventures; the characters in these adventures would be adapted/retired when the adventure finishes. That will/would ease the work on character judges a lot, while at the same time not paralyzing completely the boards for weeks.
I really don't see much reason to switch LEW to 4e, especially not right out of the starting gate before the inevitable errata, unless it turns out to be an astonishing gameplay improvement over 3.5 (and a sizeable majority of active LEW players agree that it is!). It's not as though LEW really needs to keep 'current', since as it is we use only a tiny fraction of the 3.5 material that exists.
There's a good chance from what little I've read about 4e that it might not be possible to convert existing 3.5 LEW characters meaningfully. If 4e melee classes go ToB-style, for example, converted fighters won't retain much more than their names.
I fear that requiring the retirement of current characters would really knock LEW on the head. Part of the attraction (and frustration!) of the world is that some people here have spent 3 or 4 years building up a character from 1st level to the dizzying heights of... well, 6th or 7th level, mostly. If we re-start with 1st level 4e characters, all that effort gets wiped out. Some people just won't be able to be bothered doing it all again (and eventually we'll just have the same restart problem 5 years down the track when 4.5 or 5e comes out). If the 3.5ers retire from adventuring and we start over with higher level replacement characters, we lose the L from LEW, that sense of ongoing continuity, even if some characters can be more or less converted and still feel like the same people.
Retirement should not be mandatory in any way. But conversion of characters, if it happens, will be more of a re-creation by theme rather than a "follow these 100 easy steps."
__________________ Also posts as Ashardalon (here and elsewhere) and as Eques Concordia and Guinea Pig (only elsewhere).
I'm strongly opposed to conversion, largely for the same reasons as Knight Otu. Our game works fine as it is. No doubt some characters would be quite recognizable in 4e-form, but others (dropped races/classes, anyone) won't, and I don't think we should require anyone to change their character beyond recognition mid-stream.
If people want to play a 4e living system, let the next living game to be started on ENworld be a 4e game.
If the community does decide to make the switch, I think the smoothest way to do it would be to have all characters converted when they end their current (at the time of the conversion decision) adventure. Of course, if the community does make that decision, I'm not promising I'll remain involved.
The one main drawback to keeping the old rule system: as it becomes obsolete, recruiting new members will be harder. I'm willing to take that chance.
__________________ Living ENWorld judge and player Jo Guilan, half-elf druid 1, would rather never return to Orussus Nurlan, human bard 5 / fighter 1, is in the Red Dragon Inn
I'm of the opinion that LEW should remain 3.5E as is.
If we want to take it to 4E, I would more likely suggest a reset, or a branch off where the world fluff remains in tact, and splits off from the old 3.5E version.
Now, a year or two after 4E comes out, we can reexamine our position, but I think we need to wait at least that long before thinking about converting.
__________________ PbP Mod. PM or E-mail if you have questions or issues. Visit Bront.org
I'm back, but my posting rate will not quite return to normal for a while.
On the conversion to 4e: I think it's way too early to say much, but as of right now, I'm pro-3.5, for the same reasons as Trouvere. Also, I really don't feel like learning a whole new set of rules and approving 100 new characters.
On a related note, I see that the character approvals have been ridiculously busy in my absence. Thanks for putting up with my absence, I'll try to review everything that's happened and contribute some this weekend.
to review and go through an entire new approval process. Would the judges take a leave of absence from their regular jobs? Everyone helping could add to confusion-too many cooks or something like that. Ugghh I am sure there will be some alluring stuff though so I will help however I can if we decide to go with a change for now I will appreciate what we have and all the great work the judges have done.
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