JonWake
First Post
That is something New Schoolers and Old Schoolers will never, ever, ever ever agree upon.
I cannot disagree more.
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Something Awful leak.
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That is something New Schoolers and Old Schoolers will never, ever, ever ever agree upon.
I cannot disagree more.
Savage Wombat
Hero
I suppose it's possible that this is real, but it sounds like trolling the 4th ed players to me.
nightwalker450
First Post
Whoa... If that's true, I think we're looking at D&D -3.5. As in 3.5 but done worse.
Or maybe we're lucky and they exorcised that version of the playtest.
I so want my hands on the playtest so I can know whether there's any reason for me to even follow this information anymore.
Or maybe we're lucky and they exorcised that version of the playtest.
I so want my hands on the playtest so I can know whether there's any reason for me to even follow this information anymore.
TwinBahamut
First Post
If this is true then it is... terrifying.
I really hope this is either an elaborate hoax on someone's part or the playtest he is looking at has been heavily revised and obsoleted already...
I really hope this is either an elaborate hoax on someone's part or the playtest he is looking at has been heavily revised and obsoleted already...
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
I'm not sure it's so much "fake" (though it could be) as "really really super-duper early." The leaker mentions this is info from the 1.0 version, and they're on 1.5-ish by the time of his post. It sounds like a lot of it was derived from earlier books, just pasted all together and given out to people for the first early round of testing.
What you're looking at is the reason WotC doesn't give out the playtest documents yet. They are not ready for prime time. They are copypasta of old documents. They are disorganized. They are unstandardized. They are mathematically gormed. They haven't been developed or cross-tested. There are multiple cooks in the kitchen and it shows.
They are still potentially useful for very early playtesters and folks who know how to give constructive feedback in the context of an early document, but they're not very useful for the general fanbase, which is full of folks just itching to read the whole thing as functional gospel and cry about how Monte Cook is ruining everything because he <3's wizards so much and that everyone on the design team secretly hates 4e and that Mearls shot their dog or whatever.
I woudn't read too much into it. Especially since the poster really seems to have a "4e 4EVA, 3E N3VA!!!!!" flag waving around.
Forex, there's this:
...it doesn't seem like anyone with good context could make any statement about how they're "making their system" with an early playtest document. It doesn't show how they're "making their system," it shows a bunch of arrows thrown at a dartboard to see what sticks, to be organized and codified and balanced and reworded at some later time before publication, but not now, because now there are bigger issues to tackle. "Readability" isn't important when the only folks reading your stuff are a hand-selected group of people who already presumably know the context for what you're doing.
What you're looking at is the reason WotC doesn't give out the playtest documents yet. They are not ready for prime time. They are copypasta of old documents. They are disorganized. They are unstandardized. They are mathematically gormed. They haven't been developed or cross-tested. There are multiple cooks in the kitchen and it shows.
They are still potentially useful for very early playtesters and folks who know how to give constructive feedback in the context of an early document, but they're not very useful for the general fanbase, which is full of folks just itching to read the whole thing as functional gospel and cry about how Monte Cook is ruining everything because he <3's wizards so much and that everyone on the design team secretly hates 4e and that Mearls shot their dog or whatever.
I woudn't read too much into it. Especially since the poster really seems to have a "4e 4EVA, 3E N3VA!!!!!" flag waving around.
Forex, there's this:
the leaker said:
...it doesn't seem like anyone with good context could make any statement about how they're "making their system" with an early playtest document. It doesn't show how they're "making their system," it shows a bunch of arrows thrown at a dartboard to see what sticks, to be organized and codified and balanced and reworded at some later time before publication, but not now, because now there are bigger issues to tackle. "Readability" isn't important when the only folks reading your stuff are a hand-selected group of people who already presumably know the context for what you're doing.
Libramarian
Adventurer
Janaxstrus
First Post
*shrug* I liked most of what I read, especially the distancing themselves from less immersive things.
I don't like the idea of capping scores at 20, but I'm glad to see healing surges gone. So I guess it's a give and take.
S
Sunseeker
Guest
Honestly, this is early alpha at best. And the subjective nature of MANY of both the supposed "playtester"s comments as well as the person he's chatting with really throw this whole thing into "elaborate troll" area.
We've still got what, a year before the game comes out? I doubt we're looking at anything other than the "hey guys we had a neat idea, lets see how it plays!" alpha.
We've still got what, a year before the game comes out? I doubt we're looking at anything other than the "hey guys we had a neat idea, lets see how it plays!" alpha.
grimslade
Krampus ate my d20s
Alpha test rules are alpha; also water is wet.
These rules sound pretty kludgey. C and P from multiple editions, weird mechanics wording to change from current edition terms, and no universal terminology, i.e. advantage, combat advantage, skill advantage, point to an early test document without real direction.
There is a lot of 3.x in there, especially the wizard. Monte Cook is one of the lead designers for Next and was one for 3e, plus he loves an all powerful wizard class. Plus, there is still a lot of good stuff to mine from 3E. It should be a catalyst for a new synergy.
Also, PF is eating WotC lunch with a game based on 3.x. Reactionary game design is bad. PF is eating WotC lunch because it put out consistently good story and adventures on an already mature game system. There is not a lot of noise about how fantastic the PF system is; it is familiar and also a system time-intensive enough to warrant lots of AP and adventure sales. Who wants to stat out all those higher level NPCs all the time? The 3E horse is out of the stable and long gone. Buy a new horse to race and train it better.
I think the 1.0 playtest stuff looks horrid, but it is an opening blast. The next series of rounds of playtests will start to gel the design better. The fighter is rough, but it has been consistently mentioned as being a rough class to balance. The flat math sounds positive, reliance on artificial magical additives to adjust the flatter math sounds nasty, and the inclusion of bull strength in an ability score driven game sounds broken. But alpha is alpha, and beta will be beta.
These rules sound pretty kludgey. C and P from multiple editions, weird mechanics wording to change from current edition terms, and no universal terminology, i.e. advantage, combat advantage, skill advantage, point to an early test document without real direction.
There is a lot of 3.x in there, especially the wizard. Monte Cook is one of the lead designers for Next and was one for 3e, plus he loves an all powerful wizard class. Plus, there is still a lot of good stuff to mine from 3E. It should be a catalyst for a new synergy.
Also, PF is eating WotC lunch with a game based on 3.x. Reactionary game design is bad. PF is eating WotC lunch because it put out consistently good story and adventures on an already mature game system. There is not a lot of noise about how fantastic the PF system is; it is familiar and also a system time-intensive enough to warrant lots of AP and adventure sales. Who wants to stat out all those higher level NPCs all the time? The 3E horse is out of the stable and long gone. Buy a new horse to race and train it better.
I think the 1.0 playtest stuff looks horrid, but it is an opening blast. The next series of rounds of playtests will start to gel the design better. The fighter is rough, but it has been consistently mentioned as being a rough class to balance. The flat math sounds positive, reliance on artificial magical additives to adjust the flatter math sounds nasty, and the inclusion of bull strength in an ability score driven game sounds broken. But alpha is alpha, and beta will be beta.
StreamOfTheSky
Adventurer
Actually it sounds like the posters are trolling 3E players...
"So...yeah, it's bad. It's really bad. Unless you really, really liked 3.5! Or you are Monte Cook, I guess. Or wanted your rules to be written in the most obfuscatory language possible. Hopefully they can scrap the whole thing and build on 4e's improvements, but the design team has really strongly shown what they want the next edition to look like, and it looks like 3.5 with a few tweaks here and there. "
Except reading through all the stuff up to there, it all looks like an unholy love child of 4E and 1E/OD&D/etc...
"So...yeah, it's bad. It's really bad. Unless you really, really liked 3.5! Or you are Monte Cook, I guess. Or wanted your rules to be written in the most obfuscatory language possible. Hopefully they can scrap the whole thing and build on 4e's improvements, but the design team has really strongly shown what they want the next edition to look like, and it looks like 3.5 with a few tweaks here and there. "
Except reading through all the stuff up to there, it all looks like an unholy love child of 4E and 1E/OD&D/etc...
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