How Mythusmage Would Change D&D for 4th Edition if Wizards Hired Him

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Ever try schlepping a 2" three ring binder around? It's a pain. Rings get damaged, holes tear or wear through. And don't ask me about flipping pages.

More trouble than it's worth. Ask TSR, ICE, and the Harn people about it sometime.

I tend to agree, unfortunately. What they SHOULD do, however, is include a CD with the book that DOES have everything indexed to separate pdfs. That way, you can put a copy on your hard drive (or your personal portable solution) and they can release downloadable errata that fix errors on your pdfs.

That also allows me to spend the time and money (if I wish) to put the most referenced sections in sturdy clear plastic sleeves in a sturdy binder (you can get them, they just cost an arm and a leg). That would ultimately be cheaper than paying WotC for crappy binders anyway.

In any case, this is interesting, but I'm really waiting for the rules thoughts. Chop chop

 

[delericho]

Issues that they'll probably tweek?

If they're going to put out a 4th edition, I hope they go further than just tweaking the system. Some changes I think should be made:

1) A proper fix for multiclass spellcasters needs to be found. This in turn may result in a whole bunch of knock-on changes, but that's fine. They should not even think about announcing 4th edition until they have a solution to that problem.

2) Something needs done about races with a +1 level adjustment. They are currently generally not worth the expense. I don't know what should be done, but I think something is needed. This is another issue that should be resolved before 4th edition is announced.

3) Metamagic and counterspells need more work. The current rules are a decent first attempt, but they should go further. Bringing in Monte's idea about heightened/diminished versions of all spells is a good idea. There are others, I'm sure.

4) Some of the classes are too fixed in their progressions. I'd like to see ability trees like those seen in d20 Modern brought in, at least for Monks, Paladins, Rangers and Barbarians. This allows more customisation of characters with a minimal increase in complexity of the system as a whole.

5) A minor point, but a pet peeve of mine: Mithral Full Plate is medium armour. There is therefore absolutely no reason a Barbarian shouldn't wear it, and get an AC equal to the party Fighter. I don't see an obvious fix to this one, though.

6) They might want to remove the Strength penalty from halflings and gnomes. At the moment, it's not sensible to play a Small Fighter. They're already suffering for using small weapons, having reduced carrying and lifting capacities, and reduced movement rates, do they really need to suffer a lower Strength as well, and be hit with all these same penalties twice?

7) Half-orcs and Half-elves are underpowered. They should either be brought onto a par with the other PHB races, or removed and placed in the MM as options there (since all monster races are now designed to be playable, that's not exactly a hardship).

8) Ditch weapon familiarity. All that results from it is that every Dwarf with any warrior-type class will use the waraxe or the urgrosh, which hardly promotes diversity, does it? Besides, dwarves are already the most powerful race; they could stand to be toned down a bit.

They absolutely should NOT remove alignment (or the paladin LG restriction) or Vancian magic. They also absolutely should NOT increase the default power level of the game. It is very good as it stands, and it's far easier for a group to increase the level to suit themselves than it is to reduce the level.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Do not put the "edition number" anywhere on or in the book. It should be "Dungeons & Dragons", not "Dungeons & Dragons X.Y edition".

No, it is absolutely imperative that they continue to do so-- I would prefer that supplements also include an edition number or logo on them, preferably on both the front cover and the spine, for quick categorization and compatibility comparisons.

Took me a year and a half to sort out the differences between the 2.0 and 2.1 core books, mainly because it wasn't clear which was the most recent version. At least the Player's Option series was clearly understood to be most-recent, even if half the DMs I played with wouldn't let me touch them.

I tend to agree, unfortunately. What they SHOULD do, however, is include a CD with the book that DOES have everything indexed to separate pdfs. That way, you can put a copy on your hard drive (or your personal portable solution) and they can release downloadable errata that fix errors on your pdfs.

This would be better if it were the SRD instead of the main work-- it would at least maintain some obstacle to piracy, and would be more useful to professionals and others who have to be careful about the distinction between OGC and PI.

Also, it would be a much better format for the SRD than the standard three dozen or so RTF files.

Heh. I don't want to start rules speculation about Fourth Edition. I'm just finally getting my 3.5 House Rules the way I like them, and unless Fourth Edition implements most of my tweaks, I'll have to start all over. (And it's almost guaranteed they won't-- I use some odd variants and variants-of-variants.)

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

This would be better if it were the SRD instead of the main work-- it would at least maintain some obstacle to piracy, and would be more useful to professionals and others who have to be careful about the distinction between OGC and PI.

Also, it would be a much better format for the SRD than the standard three dozen or so RTF files.

Well, I'm torn on this. I wants the purty pictures. The SRD (if such a thing continues to exist, and I think it will) is readily available to professionals and kit-bashers like me if we decide to seek it out. I want my friends to have those pretty pictures on a nice portable format along with the errata and any revisions we make without me having to hunt the internet and spend time sticking pictures in (once the errata and the revisions happen, no one looks at their books when they're designing characters anymore, so any evocative art that manages to sneak past the corporate process just goes to waste under the current system).

Plus, I want the print publishing industry to at least try to come to grips with the electronic format (having the big dog among RPG publishers actually do that can only help our little corner of the marketplace).

 

[MaxKaladin]

I recall that Ryan Dancey once suggested releasing different aesthetic editions of the core rules - for instance, a set illustrated in the manga style, a set illustrated in traditional Elmore/Caldwell/old-school-esque style . . .

It seems like if they could do this without charging $75 per book, it might make them money as all the collector types go out and snap up both versions.

 

[dvvega]

The spiral/ring binder thing was a concept as much as a suggestion.

There must be a way to do what I suggested. Doesn't have to be binders or spirals.

The electronic PDF method idea is good, however I like physical entities so my preference is for the binder concept.

I can probably generaet a list of methods, but in the end its an idea.



I agree that artwork should be unqiue per book. I was reading one of my supplements (Races of Stone) last night just for something to do and noticed that one of the Clerical Prestige Classes has the same artwork as the Ollam from Complete Divine. That really put me off because its a pretty mediocre picture.


Hmmm okay here's an idea combining the PDF idea with my binder idea ... and electronic book but the size of a D&D manual. You buy the inital book with one of the books (say PHB) and then you can buy extra books in electronic format (either on a memory card from the store or downloadable).

Any erratta to the books is easily applied, using the one thing per page concept for ease of navigation, and you will only own a single "book" as long as the sofware allows you to split the screen to show multiple books etc.

A tablet PC is halfway there, but you need the books to be designed with navigation in mind, and not limit it to Windows or Mac or Linux. So the "book" would have its own special engine.

Now that would be cool - it makes me happy (a physical item) - it makes the electronic people happy, and then clever boffins could work out how to add little software apps to it to supple a dice roller, etc.

Hmmm I wonder ...

D

 

[Bront]

5) A minor point, but a pet peeve of mine: Mithral Full Plate is medium armour. There is therefore absolutely no reason a Barbarian shouldn't wear it, and get an AC equal to the party Fighter. I don't see an obvious fix to this one, though.

The extra 10,000 cost is the prohibiter. So it's only an issue at much higher levels if you're using the monitary guides in the DMG. And a fighter can still get something out of that (10K is less than going from +4 to +5, or from not magic to +3 on armor) by having more money to put elsewhere.

Otherwise, you do bring up some good points. I don't nessesarily agree with all of them, but I don't think anyone ever will completely agree with things, because we all have different ideas of what's best for the game, which is fine.

 

[Hussar]

Well, a minimalist tablet PC that only runs DnD books would only work if you could make it extremely cheaply. We're talking in the under 100 dollars range. I'm thinking that's out of the reach of current abilities, but, then again, in four or five years, this might be possible. That would certainly be something I would LOVE to have. Be able to carry my entire library in a single book? Yes, please.

However, that being said, I doubt that paper is going to get replaced that quickly. You will likely have to wait until 5th Edition for that.

Maybe you could produce three different copies of the core books. A low end with very minimal art, simple covers and strong binding. A medium end book, similar to the books you see on your shelves right now. And a high end, leatherbound collector's edition for the ubergeek in all of us.

While I realize that won't sort out erratta issues, it would fill the niche nicely for all types of gamers. The only problem is, producing so many different copies of the same book is prohibitively expensive. I'm just not sure how realistic that would be.

 

[delericho]

The extra 10,000 cost is the prohibiter. So it's only an issue at much higher levels if you're using the monitary guides in the DMG. And a fighter can still get something out of that (10K is less than going from +4 to +5, or from not magic to +3 on armor) by having more money to put elsewhere.

The problem is that the best AC available to a Fighter using the core rules is as follows:

Mithral full plate +5
Heavy Shield +5
Ring of Protection +5
Amulet of Natural Armour +5
Dusty Rose Ioun Stone (+1)
Dex bonus +3 (either naturally, or with a stat-boosting item)

There are other possible increases, but nothing permanent.

A Fighter who prioritises protection will therefore make that investment. A Barbarian who prises protection will make exactly the same investment, for exactly the same cost, and there is absolutely nothing to prevent them doing so. Since one of the big strengths of the Fighter compared with the Barbarian is that the Fighter probably has a better AC, and this negates that, I see it as a problem.

(Now, a lot of this could be fixed by including more high-level and defensive feats in the next PHB. If the Fighter could build up defences that don't rely simply on armour, I wouldn't have an issue. As it is, though, a high-level Barbarian is usually superior to a high-level Fighter because the mithral armour negates the Fighter's AC benefit, the Fighter's feat chains have reached an end, leaving him with multiple 'low-level' chains or 'wasted' feats, and the Fighter has nothing that can match the Barbarian's rage.)

 

[Psychic Warrior]

*Looks at 2nd Edition Monstrous Compendium, or rather, at all the torn pages spewing out from it*

For the love of all that is pure and properly bound, please, no!

Agree completely. The one thing that would stop me cold from buying a new edition would be to have it in a binder. It was tried, it failed miserably. Cut up your current book and punch holes in it. Let me know how long it takes before 50% of the pages are ripped and falling out.
:\

As usual mythumage is completely off the mark as to what makes good design.