Wizards R&D Seminar at GenCon 2007
Resource Management
All classes have defined roles – a fighter is never penalized for being a “tank”, a “healer” is never penalized for curing, a mage is never penalized for “magic missiling”
All characters have at will, per encounter, and per day uses they will have to keep track of.
No more mages pulling out crossbows. You will never be penalized for doing what you do best – your clearly defined roles.
Encounters will be built differently in 4th edition
There will be much more “situation” and complexity in the environment, swinging bridges, gouts of lava, etc.
An encounter is like a scene of a play – could be talking to a town guard, could be defending a town gate, could be traversing the mountainside to enter the shrine of Asmodeus.
There will be many more monsters for PC’s to fight. It’s more fun that way. There are very few encounters that are built to be all the PC’s against one big powerful bad guy. There will be more mechanics built to leverage the monsters and THEY’RE fundadmental roles. An ettin will be talking to itself throughout the encounter. This is the “monster’s job on the battlefield” this is how he reacts.
The fog of war is much more interesting because when you approach an orc, he isn’t a set of specific stats. He has a very specific role, and you won’t know what it is until he unleashes it on the battlefield.
Heroic 1-10
Paragon 11-20
Epic 21-30
Increase of magic across the board in all aspects of the game.
Monster Manual is a 288 pagebook, with over 300 monsters
New format for stat blocks, simpler and easier to use
D&D is still a Tabletop RPG – now it could be in person or on internet
Cooperative storytelling
The D&D world is points of light in a big dark world, sword and sorcery (medevil fantasy)
Lots of blank spaces on the map
Greyhawk will not be default setting in core
We want to leverage the assets of the assumed parts of a D&D world – Mordenkainen, Bigby, Vecna, Llolth, Tiamat, Asmodeus, etc. However, we also want to call upon the great mythology that is more commonly known such as Thor, etc.
More options, not restrictions. Everyone will be a constructive, useful member of the party, no accidental lame characters
Vancian magic system – there’s an element of that we held on to, but it’s a much smaller fraction of their overall power. A wizard will never completely run out of spells. They can run out of their “mordenkainen’s sword, however”.
D20 gaming system – this is still a d20 game and game system. We got rid of the parts that didn’t help it out, but most of the things that work continue to be used.
Skill system – familiar but truncated. Getting rid of tailor, rope use, etc. Focus on the skills that are really useful in an encounter. Saga edition is a significant stride forward and should be considered a preview. Same for profression, etc. We want characters making acrobatics, bluff, jump, etc. No characters will be stuck at 10th level saying “oh I never invested in that.” Hide/Move Silent are brought together. Now an important part of your character, and here’s how to apply it to an encounter. It’s rarely a check and done, it’s now, I make a check, and they react to it. What happens now.
Primarily focused on physical products (PH, MM, DMG).
Living Greyhawk – will be coming to a triumphant close next year, and they will be starting fresh with a new batch of characters and players. This will be discussed tonight or tomorrow
4 parts of 4E
Physical Products
Community
Organized Play – conventions, tournaments, etc.
Working much closer with R&D to integrate
Chris Tulac(?) part of the playtesting, in from the ground up
Digital Offerings
Think of this like the second DVD with “extras”
Character Building: Less feat trees, easier for characters to swap out abilities much easier and try different things out. Each level from 1 – 30 each character will have interesting character development options to choose.
Personalizing and specializing your character is amped up, it’s one of the most powerful things about 4th edition. If you’re a barbarian, you’re not a frenzied berserker. If you’re a barbarian, you’re a barbarian for your entire career. The frenzied berserker and bear warrior will be at the very end.
Multiclassing – lots of compelling and interesting choices. A fighter who dabbles in wizard or dabbles in cleric is something compelling, Andy’s brother is playing a rogue wizard and he’s said in the conversion this is the character I wanted to play all along. The choices and powers are good powers on both sides. Backstab, throw chromatic orb across the room, then teleport across the room. There is no more “crappy fightrer” attached to a “crappy wizard”
XP not getting rid, and for those not comfortable with eyeballing it will have a clear time as to when to advance. Much easier for the DM. I’ll build a level 8 encounter, totaling 8000 xp, this one, plus this one = 8000 done. No tables. Monsters have a level, just like characters. “A group vs. a “group” of 5th level is about the same as an EL5 encounter today.
4 player groups as the baseline? They are aiming for right around 5. Encounters are more modular, and now that there are a bunch, it’s a lot easier to scale it. Most data is 4-6 players are 80% or more of the gaming groups out there.
Iron Heroes vs. 4th Edition – Mike
Yes, there are some similiarities, ie, putting more emphasis on the class vs. the items for characters.
D&D Insider – DRM, Downloadable vs. view online
We are still investigating, digital issues will be usable without being connected. Books – You will need to be logged in to use them. Still working out how to make this work for you and for us.
Will the Wizard and Sorcerer merge? No. How many core classes? More than 3 less than 15, see the “pre-releases” at Wizards.com
“We had an expression from earlier discussions, the ranger kills the scout and takes his stuff…sorry Scout, you’re not going to make it. But now the Ranger’s going to be cooler because he’s taking all your stuff.”
Do you know why the sorcerer’s in the game (3.5)? 1/3 of the PH was supporting only one class, hence the sorcerer came about.
Monstrous races? Can you still make kobold barbarians?
We’re not going to put limitations on the way we build monsters to make them work right. We know there are monsters that will become player character races. For example, it will be obvious how to play a goblin PC right out of the monster manual and PH.
Will the D&D Insider authors be considered “canon”? Yes, it is our intention to treat this material as integral to the game and to the campaign worlds.
Will alignment be a factor in the new edition?
It’s not going to be what it is now. Alignment is part of the story, part of the character. It is a useful shorthand, but too many books and too many players mistake it for limitation. We want to treat alignment as something bigger than that. We won’t get rid of it, but we don’t want it to be a replacement for character and personality.
Platform compatability?
Starting with PC, because there are more.
When can we start to play?
Module comes out in April, with Quick Start rules. You could start that early.
All the great content in Dragon and Dungeon magazines will be 4e, and will be relevant to 4e. We can start playing a month early.
Magical Item Creation – they will no longer use Magic Item XP. XP are NOT a resource to be spent.
FR will be the first campaign setting they support for 4e. They will get around to all of them, much of it will be available early on D&D Insider.
Every adventure we put in Dungeon magazine will be portable to the Digital Gametable.
Magic Item Creation
We tried to fool ourselves into the fact that there was a hard pricing, but we started recognizing that with MIC, that we should look at them more wholistically. There will not be magic item creation rules for DM’s as we realize that as professional game designers we don’t even get it right every time. We’re going to give you lots and lots of examples and suggest that you build it, test it, etc. Will it be easier for a wizard to create magic items?
Yes, characters can still build magic items, it will be a way for characters to acquire things, but it will be more flexible and easier. There will be a preview article on this in two weeks on D&D Insider. Three releases a week (this one will be on Wed).
Design philosophies on races. There is a tiefling on the player’s handbook. There may also be a changeling (from Eberron). Design philosophies of races. Mike did all the talking, where there will be a very REAL ACTIVE difference within the races that will really make a difference between the Dwarf Fighter and an Elven Fighter.
Will we be doing ECL?
That’s a good example of something applied to the game to help make somethings work easier. We don’t want to recreate this. We’re not going to give you rules to play a blink dog fighter… There will be many more choices, however, and we want to make sure they are all playable right out of the gate. If say, for instance, we put a tiefling in the PH, we would certainly want to make it playable right out of the gate. So, for example, we might have had to make a lot of the other races a little bit cooler to keep the balance straight between the races.
Grazzt will be in the Demonomicon on D&D Insider in October.
All classes have defined roles – a fighter is never penalized for being a “tank”, a “healer” is never penalized for curing, a mage is never penalized for “magic missiling”
All characters have at will, per encounter, and per day uses they will have to keep track of.
No more mages pulling out crossbows. You will never be penalized for doing what you do best – your clearly defined roles.
Encounters will be built differently in 4th edition
There will be much more “situation” and complexity in the environment, swinging bridges, gouts of lava, etc.
An encounter is like a scene of a play – could be talking to a town guard, could be defending a town gate, could be traversing the mountainside to enter the shrine of Asmodeus.
There will be many more monsters for PC’s to fight. It’s more fun that way. There are very few encounters that are built to be all the PC’s against one big powerful bad guy. There will be more mechanics built to leverage the monsters and THEY’RE fundadmental roles. An ettin will be talking to itself throughout the encounter. This is the “monster’s job on the battlefield” this is how he reacts.
The fog of war is much more interesting because when you approach an orc, he isn’t a set of specific stats. He has a very specific role, and you won’t know what it is until he unleashes it on the battlefield.
Heroic 1-10
Paragon 11-20
Epic 21-30
Increase of magic across the board in all aspects of the game.
Monster Manual is a 288 pagebook, with over 300 monsters
New format for stat blocks, simpler and easier to use
D&D is still a Tabletop RPG – now it could be in person or on internet
Cooperative storytelling
The D&D world is points of light in a big dark world, sword and sorcery (medevil fantasy)
Lots of blank spaces on the map
Greyhawk will not be default setting in core
We want to leverage the assets of the assumed parts of a D&D world – Mordenkainen, Bigby, Vecna, Llolth, Tiamat, Asmodeus, etc. However, we also want to call upon the great mythology that is more commonly known such as Thor, etc.
More options, not restrictions. Everyone will be a constructive, useful member of the party, no accidental lame characters
Vancian magic system – there’s an element of that we held on to, but it’s a much smaller fraction of their overall power. A wizard will never completely run out of spells. They can run out of their “mordenkainen’s sword, however”.
D20 gaming system – this is still a d20 game and game system. We got rid of the parts that didn’t help it out, but most of the things that work continue to be used.
Skill system – familiar but truncated. Getting rid of tailor, rope use, etc. Focus on the skills that are really useful in an encounter. Saga edition is a significant stride forward and should be considered a preview. Same for profression, etc. We want characters making acrobatics, bluff, jump, etc. No characters will be stuck at 10th level saying “oh I never invested in that.” Hide/Move Silent are brought together. Now an important part of your character, and here’s how to apply it to an encounter. It’s rarely a check and done, it’s now, I make a check, and they react to it. What happens now.
Primarily focused on physical products (PH, MM, DMG).
Living Greyhawk – will be coming to a triumphant close next year, and they will be starting fresh with a new batch of characters and players. This will be discussed tonight or tomorrow
4 parts of 4E
Physical Products
Community
Organized Play – conventions, tournaments, etc.
Working much closer with R&D to integrate
Chris Tulac(?) part of the playtesting, in from the ground up
Digital Offerings
Think of this like the second DVD with “extras”
Character Building: Less feat trees, easier for characters to swap out abilities much easier and try different things out. Each level from 1 – 30 each character will have interesting character development options to choose.
Personalizing and specializing your character is amped up, it’s one of the most powerful things about 4th edition. If you’re a barbarian, you’re not a frenzied berserker. If you’re a barbarian, you’re a barbarian for your entire career. The frenzied berserker and bear warrior will be at the very end.
Multiclassing – lots of compelling and interesting choices. A fighter who dabbles in wizard or dabbles in cleric is something compelling, Andy’s brother is playing a rogue wizard and he’s said in the conversion this is the character I wanted to play all along. The choices and powers are good powers on both sides. Backstab, throw chromatic orb across the room, then teleport across the room. There is no more “crappy fightrer” attached to a “crappy wizard”
XP not getting rid, and for those not comfortable with eyeballing it will have a clear time as to when to advance. Much easier for the DM. I’ll build a level 8 encounter, totaling 8000 xp, this one, plus this one = 8000 done. No tables. Monsters have a level, just like characters. “A group vs. a “group” of 5th level is about the same as an EL5 encounter today.
4 player groups as the baseline? They are aiming for right around 5. Encounters are more modular, and now that there are a bunch, it’s a lot easier to scale it. Most data is 4-6 players are 80% or more of the gaming groups out there.
Iron Heroes vs. 4th Edition – Mike
Yes, there are some similiarities, ie, putting more emphasis on the class vs. the items for characters.
D&D Insider – DRM, Downloadable vs. view online
We are still investigating, digital issues will be usable without being connected. Books – You will need to be logged in to use them. Still working out how to make this work for you and for us.
Will the Wizard and Sorcerer merge? No. How many core classes? More than 3 less than 15, see the “pre-releases” at Wizards.com
“We had an expression from earlier discussions, the ranger kills the scout and takes his stuff…sorry Scout, you’re not going to make it. But now the Ranger’s going to be cooler because he’s taking all your stuff.”
Do you know why the sorcerer’s in the game (3.5)? 1/3 of the PH was supporting only one class, hence the sorcerer came about.
Monstrous races? Can you still make kobold barbarians?
We’re not going to put limitations on the way we build monsters to make them work right. We know there are monsters that will become player character races. For example, it will be obvious how to play a goblin PC right out of the monster manual and PH.
Will the D&D Insider authors be considered “canon”? Yes, it is our intention to treat this material as integral to the game and to the campaign worlds.
Will alignment be a factor in the new edition?
It’s not going to be what it is now. Alignment is part of the story, part of the character. It is a useful shorthand, but too many books and too many players mistake it for limitation. We want to treat alignment as something bigger than that. We won’t get rid of it, but we don’t want it to be a replacement for character and personality.
Platform compatability?
Starting with PC, because there are more.
When can we start to play?
Module comes out in April, with Quick Start rules. You could start that early.
All the great content in Dragon and Dungeon magazines will be 4e, and will be relevant to 4e. We can start playing a month early.
Magical Item Creation – they will no longer use Magic Item XP. XP are NOT a resource to be spent.
FR will be the first campaign setting they support for 4e. They will get around to all of them, much of it will be available early on D&D Insider.
Every adventure we put in Dungeon magazine will be portable to the Digital Gametable.
Magic Item Creation
We tried to fool ourselves into the fact that there was a hard pricing, but we started recognizing that with MIC, that we should look at them more wholistically. There will not be magic item creation rules for DM’s as we realize that as professional game designers we don’t even get it right every time. We’re going to give you lots and lots of examples and suggest that you build it, test it, etc. Will it be easier for a wizard to create magic items?
Yes, characters can still build magic items, it will be a way for characters to acquire things, but it will be more flexible and easier. There will be a preview article on this in two weeks on D&D Insider. Three releases a week (this one will be on Wed).
Design philosophies on races. There is a tiefling on the player’s handbook. There may also be a changeling (from Eberron). Design philosophies of races. Mike did all the talking, where there will be a very REAL ACTIVE difference within the races that will really make a difference between the Dwarf Fighter and an Elven Fighter.
Will we be doing ECL?
That’s a good example of something applied to the game to help make somethings work easier. We don’t want to recreate this. We’re not going to give you rules to play a blink dog fighter… There will be many more choices, however, and we want to make sure they are all playable right out of the gate. If say, for instance, we put a tiefling in the PH, we would certainly want to make it playable right out of the gate. So, for example, we might have had to make a lot of the other races a little bit cooler to keep the balance straight between the races.
Grazzt will be in the Demonomicon on D&D Insider in October.
Whew!
Too bad the lying liar that lied (Mr. Rouse) SWORE there would be no announement this year. As a result, I made no plans to attend (spending all my "family points" on Origins this year).
Yeah, well, too bad about that. Called off work, drove over here from Columbus, and been "absorbing" 4e all day.
It is my distinct honor to do my very, very small part to carry forward your torch Eric.
I've been around from the beginnings of this crazy thing, and I'm excited as heck for what's to come.
Too bad the lying liar that lied (Mr. Rouse) SWORE there would be no announement this year. As a result, I made no plans to attend (spending all my "family points" on Origins this year).
Yeah, well, too bad about that. Called off work, drove over here from Columbus, and been "absorbing" 4e all day.
It is my distinct honor to do my very, very small part to carry forward your torch Eric.
I've been around from the beginnings of this crazy thing, and I'm excited as heck for what's to come.
Shawn_Kehoe
First Post
The lack of initial Mac compatibility is a bitter disappointment.
I don't suppose that I'll get a price break on the D&DI since they aren't offering me all of the services.
Great work summarising the seminar!
Shawn
I don't suppose that I'll get a price break on the D&DI since they aren't offering me all of the services.
Great work summarising the seminar!
Shawn
Ruin Explorer
Legend
Thank you Ashockey, that's awesome.
It's a lot of information to absorb, and I'm not happy with 100% of it (haha, who is eh?), particularly not this 5 people, "defined roles" crap (which seems at odds with valid multiclassing), which sounds like WoW to me, but it generally sounds like a significant turn for the more interesting on the whole. I can't wait, and I hope we get regular injections of further info!
It's a lot of information to absorb, and I'm not happy with 100% of it (haha, who is eh?), particularly not this 5 people, "defined roles" crap (which seems at odds with valid multiclassing), which sounds like WoW to me, but it generally sounds like a significant turn for the more interesting on the whole. I can't wait, and I hope we get regular injections of further info!
Friadoc
Explorer
Shawn_Kehoe said:The lack of initial Mac compatibility is a bitter disappointment.
I don't suppose that I'll get a price break on the D&DI since they aren't offering me all of the services.
Great work summarising the seminar!
Shawn
I'm with you on that one, Shawn, I was really, really hoping for Mac support. However, I'll wait a bit and see what the tech is actually based on before I worry too much.
I've seen a lot of web-based stuff where a person who is not a techie gives the standard, we support PC junk, and the web platform works on everything.
Feh, though, if it doesn't.
Big feh.
Glyfair
Explorer
ashockney said:
That sounds like the discussions about wizards having a warlock like ability even after they run out of spells.
I'll bet this will be misunderstood. I bet it means that wizards will have a "magic missle" available always, so he won't have to rely on backup weapons.
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