D&D 4E 4E Races and Classes

[Stormonu]

Back around June of 2008, I started to compile a "book" of 4E stuff that was missing from first round of PHB/MM books. The gnome, half-orc, monks, druids, morkoths, chromatic dragons, magic items, rituals and the like. Over a period of a few months, it grew into about a 500 page document. (Link below)

4E Classes and Races

I created the thing for two reasons: first and foremost, I wasn't willing to wait for WotC to come out with the missing stuff; some of it I wanted right then and there. Secondly, it was an exercise in learning the rules; I generally learn best by diving into to stuff and trying to figure out how all this stuff is supposed to work together.

Unfortunately for me, our group didn't care much for 4E and we moved on to other games. I "finished" the document, posted it on scribd, and just let it sit there. It's had time to accumulate some 23,000 reads.

But very few people have made any comments about the actual rules - whether they were any good. I got looking through it lately, did some touch up to its appearance and thought I'd put this post here about it and see if I could get any comments on it, or just let folks know it exists if they've never had the chance to look at it. Of course, we're now up to the PHB 3 and I'm sure a good bit now exists in WotC's books, but I'd be extremely curious to see how people compare what I wrote up almost 2 years ago to what WotC put out (I'm sure WotC's stuff is superior in most, if not all, ways).

 

[weem]

Over a period of a few months, it grew into about a 500 page document. (Link below).......

......But very few people have made any comments about the actual rules - whether they were any good.

I would imagine you got very few comments because that is a lot to read through for something as heavy as trying to comment on the rules. Obviously you put a lot of work into it (I skimmed it), but it would also take a lot of work to review it all - especially since so much has been covered/released now.

My recommendation would be to pull out everything that has been covered leaving only that which has not (the Necromancer being one example) - make that a separate document perhaps.

The problem for me is not so much the length, but that I (as I post as a disclaimer from time to time) am not a rules/balance guy. My mind shuts down if I try to determine how large (and especially new) systems work themselves into pre-existing rules with regards to the balance of the overall system.

Anyway, I want to skim it again later when I can, though obviously not from a rules perspective... I just like to mine things like this for inspiration/ideas

Oh, and one more thing... have you tried posting this over at RPG.net? Specifically the Game Design & Development thread. When I work on my own new systems, I like to post them there since thats what other people are there for as well - I have gotten very good feedback there over the years. (It's also a place to post things that you are adding to a pre-existing system, or that modify one, etc).

 

[Stormonu]

I would imagine you got very few comments because that is a lot to read through for something as heavy as trying to comment on the rules. Obviously you put a lot of work into it (I skimmed it), but it would also take a lot of work to review it all - especially since so much has been covered/released now.

Yeah, unfortunately when I do things I don't tend to work in the small scale. Back in 2E, I made my own "Book of Infinite Spells", scanning/typing in all the 1E/2E spells into a document and adding gobs of my own (and finished shortly before TSR published the Wizard Spell Compendium - d'oh!). In 3E, after the Dragon article on "How to Make a Feat", I was staring at a document I'd made with over 200 new feats, and so on.

Most of all, I like to share what I've done. I put a lot of work into this, even though most of it's been probably rendered obsolete now. Heh, at least it's free ('cept for the ink to print it).

Thanks for the tip on posting it at RPG.net - I'll pop over there and possibly make a post .