Will there be a 4.75 a la Pathfinder?

[Tony Vargas]

Plus maybe a ban on Frost-cheese and a DM encouragement away from Interrupt and Minor Action Attack powers.

Wouldn't help with minor actions, but: one DM I know has a table rule that if you call out an immediate action and then end up not taking it (for instance, because the trigger wasn't actually met, or you realize you can't/don't want to use it afterall), you lose the action. With experienced players "who should no better" she'll even rule the power expended. Harsh, but it cuts down on the turn-sequence disruption of immediate and opportunity actions.

 

[Neonchameleon]

There are is at least one person who has been working on it.

Curious to see if they post here.

There is more than one such idea going on I've beaten the rules down to a trifold, but need to sort my classes out to be mathematically compatible. (I've also made a few houserules such as cleaning up most of the modifiers to Advantage/Disadvantage (+/-2) and Major Advantage/Disadvantage (2d20) and defaulting to hexes). But the big change will be with the classes - I'm looking at Apocalypse World/Dungeon World inspired Playbooks that can be filled in fast, and no feats or enhancement bonusses.

The big problem is that no one else has Paizo's pre-existing reach. Or Lisa Stevens knowledge of the market...

 

[Obryn]

That's your opinion, but as someone coming right out of 4e it directly scratches my itch.

Yeah, I'm still in 4e.

I have much love for 13A, but it fills a different niche than 4e, for me. I'm a fan of a lot of things it does, but it moves back towards d20 design in a lot of ways. Spells, for example. And I'm not a fan of the odds/evens attack rolls, since it removes agency from the Fighter.

It also fully embraces TotM combat and moves away from tactical combat, which is a move away from both 3e and 4e.

It follows 4e's lead in other areas, like Recoveries and monster design, though, so I definitely think it has more in common with 4e than 5e does.

All in all, it's like a mix of 3e and 4e with narrative mechanics thrown in. Which is great, but it's not filling the same niche 4e does.

 

[Campbell]

I think there is far less uniformity of purpose within the 4e community than existed when Pathfinder became a force within the game industry where most fans really wanted a straight continuation of 3.5. From where I stand there is a lot of interest in a spiritual successor to 4e, but that interest goes in some pretty different directions. When this topic first came up at rpg.net a few years ago there was a lot of debate as to what form a 4.75 should take. Fans disagree on the role of feats, what form classes should take, how much of an emphasis should be placed on the game's thematic content, etc.

More importantly there is a leadership gulf. There is no established company with established credentials, experience with producing professional products, and a desire to unify 4e fans like existed with Paizo. 13th Age and Dungeon World have captured pockets of the more indie-inspired segments of the community, but lack certain essential facets to really set a new standard for 4e fandom.

 

[Nikosandros]

Yeah, I'm still in 4e.

I have much love for 13A, but it fills a different niche than 4e, for me. I'm a fan of a lot of things it does, but it moves back towards d20 design in a lot of ways. Spells, for example. And I'm not a fan of the odds/evens attack rolls, since it removes agency from the Fighter.

It also fully embraces TotM combat and moves away from tactical combat, which is a move away from both 3e and 4e.

It follows 4e's lead in other areas, like Recoveries and monster design, though, so I definitely think it has more in common with 4e than 5e does.

All in all, it's like a mix of 3e and 4e with narrative mechanics thrown in. Which is great, but it's not filling the same niche 4e does.

I agree that 13th Age moves away from 4e in a lot of ways (maybe 13 True Ways? ), but I disagree that it moves in the direction of 3.5.

I actually see very little of 3.5 except in that 13th Age pays a general homage to older editions of D&D.

 

[Dungeoneer]

It also fully embraces TotM combat and moves away from tactical combat, which is a move away from both 3e and 4e.

You make it sound like 13A kicks tactical map combat to the curb. It doesn't. It just streamlines it.

You CAN run mapless combats, but I think most people are going to use a map but employ the fast-and-loose near-far-engaged system rather than counting squares and worrying about OAs.

If someone, like me, enjoys some tactics in their combat but could do without the grind of two hour battles, I think 13A is a logical step from 4e.

 

[Abstruse]

Short answer: No.

Long answer: the GSL that allows 3pp 4e products is /very/ different from the OGL that enabled Pathfinder. A 3pp wanting to do a 4.75 would have to actually sign up to do it with WotC, and WotC could pull that license and kill the product at any time. The GSL is also subject to be pulled, entirely, ending any vestiges of support for 4e, completely. So anyone trying it would have to be a very gutsy 'nothing to lose' type, and how likely is that kind of effort to produce a worthy successor?

Just wanted to reiterate this. 4th Edition is not OGL. Pathfinder is available because the majority of the material needed to make it was available as OGL. OSRIC used a trick to pull this off as well, using terms available as OGL material and the loophole that game mechanics can't be copyrighted in order to craft a recreation of a previous edition of D&D.

That trick won't work for 4e because there are many terms which are core to how that edition functions that are not available under OGL (At-Will Power, Encounter Power, Utility Power, Daily Power, Striker/Defender/Controller/Leader, the Expertise feats, etc). If a company tried to do a 4e clone, they would have to put in a hell of a lot of work and spend a lot of money on lawyers to analyze it to make sure it doesn't violate copyright. From a return on investment perspective, no one is going to do it. If anyone tries and doesn't spend the money on the legal advice, odds are they're going to get slapped down hard by Hasbro legal, especially if they try to monetize it.

Will there be fan-based clones and additional material online? Yes. There always will be. And there are licenses in place to allow fans to create material. But there's no way to monetize a 4e clone to enough precision that it would still be recognizable as 4e without hitting some violation of WotC's IP. Someone may be insane enough to try, but the market isn't nearly as big as the one Paizo went after with Pathfinder, and it won't support the level of investment that would be needed. A company would be far better served attempting to create something original that they own that uses something similar to 4e's powers structure if that's what they wanted to do.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I am curious about your thoughts here. 13th age shrinks the number of levels and does share some role playing hooks with 5e, but I don't see these two points as a step back... just different (it is not a clone).

13A and 5e set out to do many of the same things. 13A calls itself a 'love letter to D&D.' 5e says its 'for everyone who ever loved D&D.' 5e uses bounded accuracy to cut down on number bloat, while 13A pairs itself down to 10 levels to do the same thing. 13A and 5e both try to escape 'grid dependence,' 13A by providing a range/area/positioning system that doesn't use or require a grid, 5e by putting everything in feet and calling the grid optional. 13A and 5e both get back to making classes 'unique' - 13A by giving /every/ class unique mechanics, even if risks screwing up balance, 5e by making classes vaguely resemble their pre-4e selves, even (especially?) where that's known to cause major balance headaches, or when it results in classes being mechanically very similar (the Basic Cleric & Wizard use the exact same casting system and gave identical slots/level/day tables, for instance). Both try to speed up combat by making it a little simpler, 13A also tries to wrap up a fight with the escalation die that tilts a battle in the PC's favor if it starts to drag, and the 5e playtest made combats lightning fast via a stunningly fragile set of monsters.

13A has a few unique things - like, well, "one unique thing" - 5e, of course, has all the D&D IP. But, 13A and 5e really are very similar in kind if not in details. They try to do many of the same things for some of the same reasons and in similar, if not superficially 'the same,' ways.

 

[GX.Sigma]

Why clone 4e? WotC is still printing and selling 4e.

To clarify: I'm curious what 4e fans would consider an improvement of 4e.

 

[pemerton]

the GSL that allows 3pp 4e products is /very/ different from the OGL that enabled Pathfinder. A 3pp wanting to do a 4.75 would have to actually sign up to do it with WotC, and WotC could pull that license and kill the product at any time. The GSL is also subject to be pulled, entirely, ending any vestiges of support for 4e, completely. So anyone trying it would have to be a very gutsy 'nothing to lose' type

The GSL doesn't permit reproduction of rules text from the WotC-published books, and so for that reason alone is not a suitable vehicle for publishing a 4e clone.

4th Edition is not OGL. Pathfinder is available because the majority of the material needed to make it was available as OGL. OSRIC used a trick to pull this off as well, using terms available as OGL material and the loophole that game mechanics can't be copyrighted in order to craft a recreation of a previous edition of D&D.

That trick won't work for 4e because there are many terms which are core to how that edition functions that are not available under OGL (At-Will Power, Encounter Power, Utility Power, Daily Power, Striker/Defender/Controller/Leader, the Expertise feats, etc). If a company tried to do a 4e clone, they would have to put in a hell of a lot of work and spend a lot of money on lawyers to analyze it to make sure it doesn't violate copyright

I think that the issues with copyright probably don't apply to terms like "at will", "encounter" etc. And euphemisms could easily be found. (13th Age uses "recoveries" rather than "healing surges", for instance, and similar terminological devices.)

Reproducing the 4e layout might actually be a bigger hurdle, from the copyright point of view.