eve_of_dante said:
Hee hee - I was just reading Races and Classes and remarking on how inspired by the sucess of the LOTR movie the designers seemed to be... there are wood elves and high elves, Wizards have staffs, they kept halfling and made them LOTR sized... They have the Boromir class - the Warlord, and the Aragorn class - the Ranger...
Oh wow! That's exciting! I am SO getting R&C now!
But, back to the OPoster, I think the primary reason for a "rule focus on battle" is because battle is the most complicated part of the game. In case you didn't know, there is going to be rules for 'social encounters,' which apparently promote RP.
About your finer points:
-Something like prestige class options are now built into the standard character progression, apparently. What should define a world is the people in it, not what levels they have taken. I will be happy when samurai and red wizard are no longer class names, but the names of the 'social class' that they are in their particular settings.
-Warlord can be as much of a architypical class as any other. Give it a chance. Do you perhaps remember when 'druid' was a kit of the priest, but then it was made it's own class? Same thing.
-No, there will be no 'threat' system. Any sort of 'tank' powers will not force a foe into a decision, but will probably limit the decisions it can make by giving it penalties, etc.
-I have no clue what this 'full dex modifier' thing you are talking about is...
-Trees are speculative. And so you know, in theory they would apply to both feats and
'Powers,' which is the new term for selectable class features. Remember, 3e had feat trees, though they never brought attention to it. What I mean by 'talent tree' is a group of powers that fit a particular theme. Being able to freely pick your class features as you level up
is freeing, actually. Worry not, I doubt it will look anything like WoW's system.
-Ever hear your group say they needed an 'arcane blaster' or a 'healer'? Same thing, except this time WotC is being a bit more newbie friendly about it, and making sure that there are no classes that just plain suck/never get picked.
-I disagree with you on multiclassing. All the characters I want to play right now are multiclassed in D&D terms, except for one which is a *gasp* dwarven wizard. Character creating freedom, which you were just complaining about (possibly) loosing, is enhanced with multiclassing. Whenever a player comes up with a unique idea for a character, any steps should be taken to see the idea come to fruition, because that character is special. Always.
-I kind of have to agree with you on dragonborn, but its really just going to be the same thing as saying "no Gnomes" if you do. The DM is boss anyway, and if it really doesn't fit the setting (like Middle Earth, for example) then the players should respect that. I happen to have high hopes for dragonborn, however. (You know that tieflings are a core race now, right?)
-The mythology of spell components never fit my world, but I do like the idea of wands being something other than a spell-spamming machine. One will hopefully be able to house rule changes to magic as easy as it is to house rule that sorcerers get Eschew Materials as a bonus feat at first level.
-I just can't agree with you on the speeding up battle thing, sorry. I was a little skeptical about that too, at first, but there are some improvements that have been made that are just brilliant. Check out the new stat card for the
spined devil to see a comparison between the 3e monster and the 4e monster. Perhaps this will give you an idea of the differences being made.
-We have no word about skills that are available. One minor thing is that when they were talking about skills, someone said that they didn't want someone to say 'Oh, I never invested in that skill, oh well." It would be reasonable to think, then, that either use rope got folded into another skill, or something along those lines.
