Balsamic Dragon
First Post
Hello all! I haven't been on these boards in some time, mostly due to law school and work and the bar exam and such. So hi to everyone!
The other reason I haven't been around though is that yes, I've become burned out on third edition D&D. I loved it so very, very much for a long time. I poured many, many hours into writing, running and playing games, tinkering with the system, writing prestige classes and spells and feats and magic items and monsters. Good times...
But I'm ready to move on. D&D still has some major flaws, flaws which are keeping my fellow gamers from wanting to play as much as I do. Flaws which are beginning to keep me from wanting to play as well.
So I'm going to write Fourth Edition. Because I don't want to wait for it, and I have some ideas now
Presumptious of me? Perhaps. But really I only have to please myself and those I game with
Here's the "bible," if you will, for the new system:
Rule 1: Cut the game session down to the good bits, get rid of the filler. D&D is currently designed to have many small encounters and then one big encounter per game session. The small encounters are boring. They exist only to a) provide a sense of scenery and mood, b) whittle down the party's resources and c) fill up time. In D&D fourth edition, there will be one combat per session, and it will be a kick ass cool combat. What will fill the rest of the session? Roleplaying! This metaphor extends to other aspects of D&D as well. No more will there be four or five traps in the dungeon level. There will be one trap and it will require an entire scene, careful thought and planning to get past, not a simple Disable Device roll.
Rule 2: Give players options not plusses. A fighter, over the course of her 20 levels, gains 11 fighter feats (plus those for level and race). They can almost all be described as: feat a) get a plus, feat b) do this manuever without incurring an AOO. Now, one thing I have learned is that players will almost _never_ deliberately incur an AOO (unless it's from a vastly weaker opponent, see Rule 1). So the fighter ends up by 20th level with 5-6 options (bull rush, feint, etc...) and a bunch more plusses. In fourth edition, there will be many, many more options. A third level fighter will have 5-6 combat maneuvers that he can try out, with no AOO. Apply Rule 2 to magic as well. A 20th level wizard gets, what, 5 metamagic feats? If they don't take any item creation? The third level wizard in fourth edition will have at least five metamagic options right up front.
Rule 3: No required classes. The nice thing about one combat per session is that it makes the cleric no longer mandatory. If you survive the combat, you can probably get to a temple and find some healing. So no required cleric. Also, no required thief (i mean rogue). Anyone with the proper skills and intelligence can learn to disarm traps. In fact, you can start a game with four characters who are all of the same class. The prestige class system will differentiate them as they grow more experienced. Plus, they will have different options in combat and spell casting (see Rule 2).
Rule 4: Characters are not their equipment list. If your high level character is stripped naked and left out in the middle of the desert, he should still be able to kick ass and take names. He might have to go hunt down and kill the guy who took his grandfather's sword, but other than that, he's cool. Magic items are rare, powerful and they _all_ level up with the user. In other words, they take time to master, and they increase in power the more of their secrets you can unfold. A third level character won't have any. A tenth level character will have maybe two. The party spellcasters can still make all those one shot magic items, potions, scrolls, magical arrows and the like, but they won't last forever. So the party will actually use them, not horde them in their multiple bags of holding. Oh, and no more bags of holding
So that's my rant for today. D&D needs to stop trying to emulate video game RPGs and get back to what it does best, adventure roleplaying. Crunching numbers is fun, I'm the first to admit that, but I don't want to spend more time tinkering with my character's stats than I do playing the game. And when my character gets a new ability, I want to think about the cool ways I can use it in the game, not the fact that she's simply more powerful now. And if I never again have to figure out how to spend my starting gold for my 12th level pre-gen character, I will die a happy Dragon
Balsamic Dragon
The other reason I haven't been around though is that yes, I've become burned out on third edition D&D. I loved it so very, very much for a long time. I poured many, many hours into writing, running and playing games, tinkering with the system, writing prestige classes and spells and feats and magic items and monsters. Good times...
But I'm ready to move on. D&D still has some major flaws, flaws which are keeping my fellow gamers from wanting to play as much as I do. Flaws which are beginning to keep me from wanting to play as well.
So I'm going to write Fourth Edition. Because I don't want to wait for it, and I have some ideas now
Presumptious of me? Perhaps. But really I only have to please myself and those I game with Here's the "bible," if you will, for the new system:
Rule 1: Cut the game session down to the good bits, get rid of the filler. D&D is currently designed to have many small encounters and then one big encounter per game session. The small encounters are boring. They exist only to a) provide a sense of scenery and mood, b) whittle down the party's resources and c) fill up time. In D&D fourth edition, there will be one combat per session, and it will be a kick ass cool combat. What will fill the rest of the session? Roleplaying! This metaphor extends to other aspects of D&D as well. No more will there be four or five traps in the dungeon level. There will be one trap and it will require an entire scene, careful thought and planning to get past, not a simple Disable Device roll.
Rule 2: Give players options not plusses. A fighter, over the course of her 20 levels, gains 11 fighter feats (plus those for level and race). They can almost all be described as: feat a) get a plus, feat b) do this manuever without incurring an AOO. Now, one thing I have learned is that players will almost _never_ deliberately incur an AOO (unless it's from a vastly weaker opponent, see Rule 1). So the fighter ends up by 20th level with 5-6 options (bull rush, feint, etc...) and a bunch more plusses. In fourth edition, there will be many, many more options. A third level fighter will have 5-6 combat maneuvers that he can try out, with no AOO. Apply Rule 2 to magic as well. A 20th level wizard gets, what, 5 metamagic feats? If they don't take any item creation? The third level wizard in fourth edition will have at least five metamagic options right up front.
Rule 3: No required classes. The nice thing about one combat per session is that it makes the cleric no longer mandatory. If you survive the combat, you can probably get to a temple and find some healing. So no required cleric. Also, no required thief (i mean rogue). Anyone with the proper skills and intelligence can learn to disarm traps. In fact, you can start a game with four characters who are all of the same class. The prestige class system will differentiate them as they grow more experienced. Plus, they will have different options in combat and spell casting (see Rule 2).
Rule 4: Characters are not their equipment list. If your high level character is stripped naked and left out in the middle of the desert, he should still be able to kick ass and take names. He might have to go hunt down and kill the guy who took his grandfather's sword, but other than that, he's cool. Magic items are rare, powerful and they _all_ level up with the user. In other words, they take time to master, and they increase in power the more of their secrets you can unfold. A third level character won't have any. A tenth level character will have maybe two. The party spellcasters can still make all those one shot magic items, potions, scrolls, magical arrows and the like, but they won't last forever. So the party will actually use them, not horde them in their multiple bags of holding. Oh, and no more bags of holding
So that's my rant for today. D&D needs to stop trying to emulate video game RPGs and get back to what it does best, adventure roleplaying. Crunching numbers is fun, I'm the first to admit that, but I don't want to spend more time tinkering with my character's stats than I do playing the game. And when my character gets a new ability, I want to think about the cool ways I can use it in the game, not the fact that she's simply more powerful now. And if I never again have to figure out how to spend my starting gold for my 12th level pre-gen character, I will die a happy Dragon
Balsamic Dragon
