D&D 4E Looking Ahead: What's Next for 4E?

[Herremann the Wise]

Hello Everyone,

I was wondering if anyone knew or could speculate what else is in the works for 4e? At present, it looks like we have:
- Book of Vile Darkness [Dec11]
- Heroes of the Elemental Chaos [Feb12]
- The Dungeon Explorer's Guide [May12].

While all of these look good (the Dungeon Explorer's Guide is right up my alley!), I am concerned with quantity (that's not a lot of books for the next 6 or so months). Could it be that there are more books coming but they're getting the Mearls/Monte treatment before being officially scheduled? Or is this the rate of books which customers should now adjust their minds to? Or is WotC sending 4e into a bit of a holding pattern for reasons best known to itself?

What do you think is going on?

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[MerricB]

Part of the trouble is that the list of books that D&D players actually require at the moment is pretty slight; I'm sure that 4e is very much in a quality over quantity pattern at present.

The effect of the shadow on the horizon that is 5E can't be ignored, either.

I'm pretty sure that Wizards is currently evaluating where 4E is. The past eighteen months, with the release of Essentials and the later 4E products, has really shaken up the 4E landscape. The corporate line of "simple, linear, combat-heavy adventures" is beginning to fade, thank goodness.

Cheers!

 

[Incenjucar]

It's apparent that there are some "Let's go old school!" and optional rules materials on the horizon. We can expect a lot more fluff-filled books and partial rehashes like Gloomwrought, Threats of Nentir Vale and MME. With the return of minis, and the way WotC has been dishing out card-based products and board games, we can expect a lot of non-book materials to come as they try to find every avenue for revenue and piracy-proof material they can. WotC seems to be comfortable with, or at least done building the skeleton of the system, and so is now seems to be focusing on filling in the gaps.

In general, I expect there to be more niche material from here on out, and products which are less subject to being made obsolete by DDI.

 

[RangerWickett]

At the very least, they ought to put out an Unearthed Arcana book with some rules they might consider putting in 5e, to test people's reactions.

 

[Saracenus]

I don't believe 5e is imminent. Sure its probably in proto stages of consideration and there might even be some test product for eventual inclusion in the pipeline.

I will bet that the new campaign world due out next year (supposed to be something completely new) will use a modified subset of the 4e rules to support the story of it. Think of Gamma World. Only instead of a quick, light game it will instead take 4e D&D with all its complexity and depth and take it in an interesting direction.

You get the best of both worlds. You get to modify your 4e rules without invalidating what came before (D&D Core still exists and is supported) and you get to stretch the design space and really test what eventually might become part of a new edition later.

My two coppers on the speculation-train

 

[jodyjohnson]

3 Upcoming Tiles sets listed on Amazon: Shadowghast Manor, Cathedral of Chaos, The Urban Underdark (non DDI, and limited piracy value)

2 Upcoming Map Packs: Haunted Temples, Vaults of the Underdark (non DDI, and limited piracy value)

Halls of Undermountain - April, looks like a second Dungeon Delves.

3 books/boxes: BoVD, Heroes of Elemental Chaos, Into the Unknown: Dungeon Survival Guide (WotC lists The Dungeon Explorer's Guide).

With monthly Official character options being added in Dragon the schedule looks fine to me. They did do a ton of surveys on monthly spending and how much crunch most folks could handle.

 

[OnlineDM]

At the very least, they ought to put out an Unearthed Arcana book with some rules they might consider putting in 5e, to test people's reactions.

They've been doing occasional Unearthed Arcana articles in Dungeon via D&D Insider, much along these lines. I doubt if they'd print this sort of thing in a book without making it "official".

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I would not be very surprised to see a stripped down rules set compatible with the monsters and math of 4e released at some point. I suspect that the M&M musing will lead to something appearing in 4e before any fullblown 5e implementation.

My tuppence is that it will concide with the end of the VTT beta and be used to market the vtt.

 

[Pour]

I hope it's 4.5 wrapped up into the new setting kind of like Saracenus said (sorry, can't XP you).

 

[delericho]

Bearing in mind that I'm not a 4e customer, and there's roughly a 0% chance of me actually buying these, two things I would like to see:

Area Effect Cards: In any of the 'Delve' encounters, you'll see a little sidebar giving the rules for the environmental conditions (lighting, difficult terrain, etc). These would just be cards containing that same sort of information. Basically, a handy help for the DM when running encounters, and also when prepping them. Like "Condition Cards", this wouldn't be a 'sexy' product, probably wouldn't sell terribly well, and could be done just as well as a fan-made effort. But they would be extremely useful.

At least one really good adventure. I've heard good (but mixed) things about "Gardmore Abbey", but it doesn't seem to have grabbed the position of the 'iconic 4e adventure' (the way "Red Hand of Doom" seems to have for 3e).

I think this is actually a pressing need before 5e can be considered. In truth, while it's certainly not my favourite edition, the rules for 4e are fine and perfectly servicable. They don't need revised. But in gameplay it is adventures that we play, and it's probably in adventures that WotC need to show us that they still "get it".

So there's the challenge for them: one really good adventure. Preferably one that doesn't feature any of the old edition artifacts, locales or villains. Develop some new IP!