D&D 4E 4E: What we think we know

[papakee]

Watching the Sizzle youtube video...I have to say....HA!..I said it months ago on enworld that their would be a laptop involved with 4E and people scoffed ...

 

[Kaodi]

Hopefully, 4e Eberron will have unique elements for every race. So, an Eberron halfling will look and play different from a core halfling, because they should.

 

[Radazim]

More info

From James Wyatt's GenCon Blog: http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=906388

Here's a teaser:

And it is a rise, let me tell you. I'm so excited about Fourth Edition I can barely contain myself. Running the Delve in our booth yesterday was awkward—I saw so many of the things I have grown to dislike about 3E come into play. Oh, the poor rogue's useless against all these plants and elementals. Oh, the poor dwarf didn't confirm his crit. Oh, look at all the people forgetting about attacks of opportunity (especially at reach) and getting pummeled as a result. I can't say too much about it, but you can be sure it's not just grapple that got an overhaul.

From Jennifer Clarke Wilkes' GenCon Blog: http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=906382

Snippet:

The lights dim, the crowd quiets, and the preview video starts. It's a hit--especially the Grapple bit. Bill and Chris come out and swing right into the highlights. There are loud cheers at the mention of books that unlock electronic text. The character builder gets a lot of favorable comment, and people are digging the digital game table demo. The preview art and book covers look great. Bill and Chris reassure them: Keep playing. Look at what we're doing. And help us playtest 4E to make it the very best it can be. The lights come up, and people are clapping. From where I'm sitting, it looks good.

From Rodney Thompson's GenCon Blog: http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=906384

Let me just say it right now: I've played 4th Edition. I've even worked on it a bit. I love it, and I think that it's going to be very hard for me to continue playing 3.5 over the next few months, just as it is hard for me to go back and play 2nd Edition now. The player in me has fun with it, but the DM with me loves how easy it's going to be to DM. I know there's going to be a lot of trepidation out there, and that's understandable; people love 3.x, me included, so it's wild to think about a new edition in some ways. I can say that, after tonight's announcement, people are going to bubble over with questions, and I just hope everyone comes to the seminars this weekend to get them answered.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Oh, the poor rogue's useless against all these plants and elementals. Oh, the poor dwarf didn't confirm his crit. Oh, look at all the people forgetting about attacks of opportunity (especially at reach) and getting pummeled as a result. I can't say too much about it, but you can be sure it's not just grapple that got an overhaul.

Oh, look at all the things introduced and marketed and presented as "strengths" of 3.X suddely getting the black-painting treatment upon the rise of a new edition. Hilarious in its own way.

 

[Presto2112]

It's called "closure." They're finalizing the 3.5 ruleset into a single book, which will apparently include errata, in order to create a clear stopping point for 3.5e rules.

So the Rules Compendium is effectively the "Die, Vecna, Die" of 3.5

 

[TerraDave]

so this really is a NEW edition.

What they have said already seems to go farther then I imagined. And they are just getting started.

 

[Dragonblade]

I'm on board with everything I have heard, especially when they said they will take a design queues from the new SW RPG and Tome of Battle. Both excellent books.

But hey WotC guys if you are listening, I have two suggestions:

1) NO LEVEL-BASED USE IT OR LOSE IT RESOURCE!! i.e. no Eberron-style action points, or SW Saga Force points. As a DM, I should be able to level my party at my pace without worrrying about the PCs running out of a resource they can only gain when leveling.

2) If level 30 is truly the end cap of the game, then come up with some sort of rules that make playing a level 30 character remain interesting despite the fact that no levels remain after 30. In other words, even though I hit level 30, there should still be something worth gaining that keeps me excited about playing my character. Like even if my BAB or saves cap out, thats fine but I should still be able to learn new feats or skills, or something.

I have some other pet peeves too, but most of them start to get nitpicky. Like there needs be a new way to handle energy drain. The whole notion of permanently reducing a character's level because an undead monster touched you is a ridiculous metagame mechanic that has for some reason held over since 1st edition AD&D. It needs to go.

My group actively plays D&D 3.5 and we have numerous house rules, I'd like to get in on the 4e play testing but unfortunately dndinsider.com has been down for a while.

EDIT: Just noticed another thread for my thoughts. Ideas have been posted over there:

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?p=3706216#post3706216

 

[Yair]

Here are three nice Video-Links that I found on rpg.net:

D&D Info 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ3J8t2-RVs
D&D Info 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWZ2WdeTo1M
D&D Sizzle (funny Intro): http://youtube.com/watch?v=g_dfdfk2QtQ

Those are great, thanks!

 

[Hjorimir]

Updated again. I managed to pull some information about races from dndinsider before it crashed again.

Hey Merric, just a suggestion: Do you think you could color the font to orange or something for new information when you update the OP? I seem to recall that was done back in ENWorld first started and it made finding the new tidbits really easy.

Just a thought and thanks for compiling.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Robin Laws has just been too busy designing games to be a primary designer of 4th edition.

Indeed. However, as it happens, he does have something relevant to say about the designers:


"At dinner, any concerns I might have about WotC screwing the pooch on the new D&D are 100% allayed by the news that the lead designer is none other than my boon compadre Rob Heinsoo. Whenever I’ve asked him what he’s working on over the last year plus, Rob has responded with this peculiar spasm of guilt, then mumbled something about new collectible projects. Now that I know what he couldn’t tell me it all makes sense. I absolutely trust that Rob knows what needs to be done to make the game faster and easier to run, while still hitting the pleasure centers of D&D fans everywhere, and has the design moxy to implement the vision. I am also very heartened to hear that Mike Mearls is on board as developer and James Wyatt is steering the story team.

So when asked what I think about the new master plan, I don’t need to lay out one of my usual long-winded, either-or scenarios. All I have to say is: “Heinsoo. Wyatt. Mearls*. It will rock, end of story."


If he has faith in the designers of 4E, then I, at least, am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.