D&D 5E So 5th edition is coming soon

[UngainlyTitan]

I agree with the thrust of Raven Crowking's post above, even if I would disageee with the details.
I think it is too early to bring out a new edition, at the very least the digital tools must be completed and allowed to mature before a new edition can be released, unless Wixards wants to throw away what goodwill they have left.
delericho's vault idea is a good one and could be implemented for 4e.

I think that 4e has enough powers, feats, clasees and class builds even if there are specific classes that could do with a bit more support.

However, I do think some areas of the game could do with a second look and perhaps some alternate mechanics (probably optional)

The skill challange subsystem could do with a second look and perhaps there are other ways to obtain the same result. Perhaps the game could embrace some outright narrativist mechanics.

It could certainly benefit from more discussion and perhaps examples of play in podcasts.

Rituals could also do with some more love and more intergration into the game, maybe some adventures with ritual use involved.

What about themes outside of Dark Sun?

 

[webrunner]

I agree with the thrust of Raven Crowking's post above, even if I would disageee with the details.
I think it is too early to bring out a new edition, at the very least the digital tools must be completed and allowed to mature before a new edition can be released, unless Wixards wants to throw away what goodwill they have left.
delericho's vault idea is a good one and could be implemented for 4e.

I think that 4e has enough powers, feats, clasees and class builds even if there are specific classes that could do with a bit more support.

However, I do think some areas of the game could do with a second look and perhaps some alternate mechanics (probably optional)

The skill challange subsystem could do with a second look and perhaps there are other ways to obtain the same result. Perhaps the game could embrace some outright narrativist mechanics.

It could certainly benefit from more discussion and perhaps examples of play in podcasts.

Rituals could also do with some more love and more intergration into the game, maybe some adventures with ritual use involved.

What about themes outside of Dark Sun?

If you count the skill #'s revamp, the later skill challenge update for DMG2, then the changes in the RC, it'd be what, a 5th look?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I have to agree that what I've seen of 4e adventures are generally lackluster. There are a couple good ones, but beyond that, not so much. I'm not sure what the earlier poster meant by 'delve format' though.

Frankly I think there are 2 problems with existing 4e adventures. They lack really compelling NPCs in most cases. Key NPCs should have several column-inches of backstory at the very least, and some mention of their longer-range plans and how they fit in with other bad guys. Beyond that I haven't seen a lot of really creative encounter design. 4e simply doesn't LIKE having large numbers of vanilla encounters. EVERY encounter should fit into the plot, have some kind of dynamic elements, or at least some little clever shtick that makes it seem interesting and unique.

I just haven't seen much of this with 4e adventures in general. There have been a couple of moderately decent ones in Dungeon, but they tend to be quite short and still lack good NPC bad guy characters. Adventures should not just be a vehicle for encounters, they need to actually be good adventures and the encounters should support the adventure, not be the whole point of it.

However, I will state that I think a LOT of the old classic modules of yesteryear are almost exactly delves. Many of them would trivially work well as 4e modules, even the way WotC has been writing them.

 

[Raven Crowking]

However, I will state that I think a LOT of the old classic modules of yesteryear are almost exactly delves. Many of them would trivially work well as 4e modules, even the way WotC has been writing them.

Show me.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

If you count the skill #'s revamp, the later skill challenge update for DMG2, then the changes in the RC, it'd be what, a 5th look?

That is all tinkering around the edges and I do not find them satisfactory as originally intended. In that, it is a useful framework for the DM for skill checks but IMO for giving an encounter like structure, and running in initiative order, I think they fail.
So I think thare is scope to start again from scratch and consider what is intended and how it is supposed to work in play.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Show me.

Oh, come now. The entire G series, vast parts of D series, and Q1 too for that matter. The B modules ARE delves straight up. T1 (large parts of it), and practically all the popular contemporary modules. I agree that many had strong themes, but there was tons of just rooms and rooms full of enemies in there too. The whole A series for instance. And the 4e modules have themes and various other elements too, so it isn't like either all the new or old modules are 100% one thing.

The point would be more like there were some very good AD&D modules, and there is really maybe at most 2 or 3 really good 4e adventures. Personally I don't care a whole lot for the format they have used in 4e either, but the idea that the old days were all a wonderland of good adventure design, no. Especially not the earlier stuff. it is classic because it established so much of canon and convention in the game, not from amazing quality. The bar is higher these days.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I understand what you are saying; I disagree. Show me.

 

[Stormonu]

However, I will state that I think a LOT of the old classic modules of yesteryear are almost exactly delves. Many of them would trivially work well as 4e modules, even the way WotC has been writing them.

I would ask, what do you consider a "delve?" There is a lot of leeway in that word if it isn't given further explanation.

What I see as a "delve", for example, is a linear dungeon adventure with set-piece battles, perhaps a skill challenge or two and a thin plot stringing them together (K1 - Keep on the Shadowfell is my primary interaction with a delve adventure, with H1 - Standing Stone a secondary experience). While the "B" series has many uninter-related encounters and generally a relatively thin plot, to me they don't fit my idea of delve in that they tend to be about exploration (battles may occur, but are not forced or the primary objective in each room; often trickery, stealth and/or parley with the enemy may get you further) and are anything but linear.

PS: I wouldn't consider G1 a delve either; one of the possibilities outlined in that adventure is to burn the whole fort down without ever entering it! There is, to me, a lot more fluidity in the older modules and inflexibility in the delve adventures.

 

[doctorhook]

1. Dragonborn and Tieflings as PC races removed from the PHB and brought back in a supplement.

I agree.

2. Warlocks also removed from PHB and brought back in a supplement

I disagree. This class has a lot of flavour and potential; what it lacks is a clear focus beyond "pact magician". Solve that problem and it would deserve to be core.

3. Less broad skills

What do you mean exactly? If you're saying you want more skills, I totally disagree (unless you come up with something better; the 4E skill list is tight).

4. skill points back for PCs and the removal of the +1/2 level bonus

No opinion on the +1/2 level (it's mathematical). Skill points should be an optional rule at best (again, pending some radical new skill system).

5. Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies made optional (and introduced in a supplement) or removed

Disagree!! I do think Paragon Paths could use some conceptual tightening though.

6. Hit Points:
a. Hit Points made less abstract and a condition track for hit point loss ; or
b. hit points removed for a M&M/True20 Toughness Save

I'm not familiar with B and I don't understand what you're suggesting with A.

7. Martial Powers handled more like Malhavoc's Book of Iron Might by Mike Mearls. This would cut back on power bloat or at least give a system for building attack maneuvers. It would allow the players to describe what they are trying to do with their attack and the DM would look up a small chart of modifiers based on the condition inflicted or alternate ability score used as an attack modifier to determine the attack penalty and then apply appropriate drawbacks (target gets AoA, target gets a save, attacker falls prone, etc.) that reduce the penalty.

HELL NOOOOO!! You're mad, man! lol In all seriousness I think this is a cool idea in theory, but would be awful, awful, awful in practice. Martial characters ought to be simple to play; swinging my sword shouldn't be something the DM has to consult a chart for.

8. Drawing from Savage Worlds, combine several conditions into a single one like Savage World's Shaken.

I'm not familiar with this, but it sounds cool.

9. An option for the disease track to model long term injury

Cool for sure.

10. Action Points to work like M&M Hero Points/True 20 Conviction

Not familiar again...

11. Healing: more distinction between magical and non-magical healing

Interesting idea...but how do you make non-magical healing meaningful in contrast to magical healing? Answer this and you might have a good idea on your hands.

12. a pantheon of original deities if the are not going to use Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms as the default. If they are going to use Greyhawk, use the pantheon created by Gygax and leave out the Suel deities.

I definitely do not think they should use either the FR or Greyhawk pantheons by default! (Massive deity-bloat in both cases.) The 4E pantheon is awesome! It's broad enough to allow for pretty much any kind of D&D you like, but small enough not to be spilling-over with obscurities and redundancies (two things both Greyhawk's and FR's pantheons have in spades).

13. Rituals that work like the TV shows Buffy and Supernatural and the comic book, Hellblazer

Rituals are a good idea, but I agree that they need some serious work.

 

[delericho]

I have to agree that what I've seen of 4e adventures are generally lackluster. There are a couple good ones, but beyond that, not so much. I'm not sure what the earlier poster meant by 'delve format' though.

The "Delve Format" is the format used in all current WotC adventures. The key feature is those 2-page spreads for each encounter (okay, sometimes 1-page; occasionally 3). It is so-called because it was first developed for use in the "Dungeon Delve" events at Gen Con (and other conventions?). In print, I believe it debuted in the 3.5e module "Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde", although it has been refined somewhat since (and does work better in 4e than 3.5e, FWIW).

This is as opposed to the 'traditional' format used by, well, everyone else. Check out any of those older (pre-2006) modules.

The format isn't really anything to do with "dungeon delves" as such.

Raven Crowking's contention is that if you took B2 and changed nothing but the formatting, moving it across to the Delve format, you would in doing so strip out the soul of the adventure, and so destroy it.

Personally, I don't agree - I believe that the format could work, especially for an adventure of that sort (but almost certainly not for the original "Ravenloft" - ironic that WotC have done one but not the other ). However, I don't have either the time or, frankly, the interest to put this to the test.