April 3rd, Rule of 3

[gyor]

Well the rule of three is finally up and its interesting.

It appears 4e will have a major influence on 5e along with other editions. Nonmagical and self healing is still in, perhaps confirming the the three types of rest refered to in the 5e info sheet.

Also of important we may see more stuff of a 4e flavour once they're done focusing on the core mechanics, 4 basic classes and 4 basic races.

This makes me think that the Open Playtest will be just cleric, fighter, wizard, and Rogue with Halfing, Elf, Dwarf, and human at first. After the common classes and races get tested for like

 

[Radiating Gnome]

Here's the link

Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Rule-of-Three: 04/03/2012)

 

[TwinBahamut]

They continue to realize my worst fears...

A laser focus on a "core game" built for the fighter/wizard/cleric/rogue team with only humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings as the races is a terrible way to go about the designing the game and building it to leave room for more race and class concepts. The "we'll just write the variant rules later" approach is not the way to build a modular game. If you want modularity and flexibility, the only way is to build in all the major modules and the needs of those modules into the game from the very beginning.

Also, saying "we're borrowing somethings you like from 4E!" to answer the first question isn't going to be very persuasive when they are outright rejecting (or even completely misunderstanding!) the core tenets of 4E's design with the second question (and elsewhere).

I really hope I'm wrong about all of this, but it is becomingly ever more visible that I'm right the more I read.

 

[Janaxstrus]

Healing surge mechanics are in? Awesome.

I guess I'm out. That's not the game I want to play, personally.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

A laser focus on a "core game" built for the fighter/wizard/cleric/rogue team with only humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings as the races is a terrible way to go about the designing the game and building it to leave room for more race and class concepts. The "we'll just write the variant rules later" approach is not the way to build a modular game. If you want modularity and flexibility, the only way is to build in all the major modules and the needs of those modules into the game from the very beginning.

That's true of a design made to be kept secret, put into print, and then add supplement for there. You get locked in to the design, inevitably.

It's not necessarily true of an open playtest document. You have to start somewhere--and those races and classes in a simple game is as good a place as any, and better than most. They key being, of course, that the modules need to be developed concurrent with the playtest, while that core can change.

 

[Viking Bastard]

Also, saying "we're borrowing somethings you like from 4E!" to answer the first question isn't going to be very persuasive when they are outright rejecting (or even completely misunderstanding!) the core tenets of 4E's design with the second question (and elsewhere).

Oh? What are the core tenets of 4e that they are rejecting/misunderstanding in the second question?

 

[I'm A Banana]

I'm a little nervous about how they're going to do "non-magical healing," since the HP Problem was a big component of why some folks rejected 4e. But they should be aware of that, so we'll see how it goes.

They continue to realize my worst fears...

Such strum und drang! Such woeful melodrama!

A laser focus on a "core game" built for the fighter/wizard/cleric/rogue team with only humans, elves, dwarves, and halflings as the races is a terrible way to go about the designing the game and building it to leave room for more race and class concepts.

Ah, yes, because OD&D had such difficulty putting in more races and concepts...that's why you don't see much variety in anything based on OD&D!

...wait...

Besides, I think in that context, he's just talking about what they're preparing for the playtest. It makes sense that they'd start with the big iconic character types, and work from there.

Also, saying "we're borrowing somethings you like from 4E!" to answer the first question isn't going to be very persuasive when they are outright rejecting (or even completely misunderstanding!) the core tenets of 4E's design with the second question (and elsewhere).

He's given quite a list of 4e-style things they're planning on keeping. In fact...

Here in Rule-of-Three alone, I’ve made mention of themes, martial maneuvers/powers, class parity, monster design, and making it easy for the DM to run the game and to improvise.

And that's just what he's mentioned!

He's also not throwing out the core tenets of 4e's design with that second question. In fact...

Want to run a game where players are always healed up to full hit points between fights? No problem; we’ve got rules for that.

Which is exactly the encounter-focused game that 4e provides.

However, to make everyone play that game would be a mistake. 4e's encounter focus is not what everyone wants out of the game. It's not tenable. So 5e needs to have the adventure as the main focus. They're leaving in the option to turn it back to an encounter focus, which is impressive, but that can't be what the game has everyone do.

It sounds to me exactly like he's saying, "We're putting 4e in context with the rest of D&D, and keeping what makes the game better in that context, with the option of turning off that context, if you're a 4e diehard."

I understand 4e diehards might not like that, but right now, there's a lot more people playing D&D who don't play 4e than there are 4e players. So they need to put in that context, if they hope to gather anyone who doesn't like 4e, but likes D&D.

 

[Sunseeker]

Healing surge mechanics are in? Awesome.

I guess I'm out. That's not the game I want to play, personally.

They don't actually say that. They said they're considering forms of non-magical and self-healing.

Me personally I'm pretty unhappy with the idea of the "core four" design. I'm not saying it's not D&D, I'm just saying it's a very boring version of D&D. I realize that these four classes emphasize some of the basic elements of D&D, defense, damage, casting, healing, but it just strikes me as rather mundane. I realize they said they'll get to the others later, but that sort of design philosophy I've seen in action before, it doesn't produce good results. My sentiments are the same for the racial "core four", I've no interest in reenacting LOTR, I want a diverse and multifaceted world able to be represented with the "basics", and like with classes, leaving "other races" for later tends to inspire the "they don't matter as much" philosophy, which as I said, is not a good way to produce quality content.

 

[Steely_Dan]

I am very pleased they are going with the 4 base/core of race and class (I'm a big fan of Basic D&D/Moldvay), I would even like the 4 base races to be classes as an option.

I really hope we don't have Martial Powers (or "Powers', period), but would like martial classes to be able to do all sorts of funky stuff (stunts, tricks etc).

 

[Knight Templar]

I'm fine with non-magical healing, in fact I've been using it in my campaigns since the 90s. At least as far back as 1E the rules have been very specific that only a small part of damage is actual physical wounds. Much of it is luck, stamina, and skill. I see no reason hps should heal slowly without magical aid, unless it's specifically a wound (i.e. critical hit in my games.)

The part that DOES worry me is the mention of at-will magic. The ability to blast off a magic missile every round is very video-gamey, I'm not interested in that.