Spells using a Point Pool?

[Wormwood]

3. Fighters have multiple types of attacks, each with its own name.

Sounds interesting.

4. Wizards cast spells using a spell pool.

Non-Vancian magic would probably look like a spell pool. Fantastic!

5. Random derogatory comments that have been discussed to death on the boards. He basically indicated that he and his group thought the new edition killed too many sacred cows and the game wasn't for them.

Sacred cows don't matter to me, so ... whatever.

 

[Christoph the Magus]

Just to clarify, the gentleman definitely said spell POINT pool. As to whether or not he was lying-who knows? I can't think of why he would, unless he thought I was going to go nuts and beg him for details. He didn't seem to be a 4E/WOTC hater. I got the impression that he was genuinely disappointed in the direction that 4E is taking the game.

As far as "quitting because it wasn't fun" goes, makes sense to me. I mean, back when 3.0 came out I was single and had lots of time to game, as did my group. Now that I'm married my gaming time is limited to once a week and I could definitely see my group saying, "Ugh, 4E sucks. It's cool that we're playtesters and all, but since we can only game 4 hours a week let's play something that we actually like."

Anyway, just passing on something I heard and, as I said in the initial post, take it with a grain of salt.

 

[Stogoe]

Yeah, I'm willing to bet "Guy from Store" is pulling your chain because lying to people is fun.

 

[Nikosandros]

Is that a trick question?

Not at all. I think that it's very unusual for a group to playtest for one week only. Therefore, if the story it's true, it's possible that the person has identified himself to WotC (since I'm assuming that very few groups drop out of playtest so quickly).

 

[Wolfspider]

Not at all. I think that it's very unusual for a group to playtest for one week only. Therefore, if the story it's true, it's possible that the person has identified himself to WotC (since I'm assuming that very few groups drop out of playtest so quickly).

Well, what I was hinting (unsuccessfully) is it is possible that there might be many playtesting groups who have bowed out that early....

Just being a smartalec.

 

[Christoph the Magus]

Quick update:

Gamed with my group on Thursday. Another member of my group asked me if I knew a guy that worked at the local bookstore. Seems that he was in the store about a week before I was and struck up a similar conversation with the same guy. We compared notes and didn't come up with any new information, but if this guy is lying he must be making sure to tell the same lies to everyone.

 

[Scholar & Brutalman]

Good. Would you please ask him for his playtest materials?

You can post them here since you haven't signed any NDAs, and if he's telling the truth he's already broken his.

We'd all love to see them.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Just to clarify, the gentleman definitely said spell POINT pool.

Given what's already been said about at-will, encounter, and daily abilities, I'd say we already know this is pretty much patently false.

 

[MerricB]

A spell point system doesn't seem so outlandish to me. After all, they did experiment with one in Unearthed Arcana, and wasn't that one of the books that introduced early 4e concepts?

Mostly it was the book which demonstrated how horrible a lot of requested concepts were: spell points, armour-as-DR, facing, etc.

Cheers!

 

[Frostmarrow]

His group might have gotten the job to playtest a spell point system. That a certain group playtests a certain variant doesn't mean it's in the game. Sometimes I come up with a cool idea but that doesn't mean I incorporate it into the game. First I need to playtest it, and more often than not the cool idea turns out to suck, and so I ditch it. But I still need to playtest everything because sometimes, rarely, I come up with something that works and is actually cool in play too. That also means playtesting stuff that you are quie sure it's going to suck because you know that a playtest might surprise you. E.g. cyclic initiative. (Not my idea, though.)