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My favorites have always been warrior-types and swordmage styles of classes. Human fighter or ranger (and I get the impression they're doing something interesting with the latter...) or a tiefling warlock.

4e is in a lot of ways a vindication for me because I've been talking about compressing the disparities (BAB, Saves, AC, HP) between the classes, single Attack bonuses, wizards with more "attack roll" spells, class-based AC bonuses, stronger low level characters, removing/toning down...

I agree that as soon as you put in +X items, then PCs are expected to have them in order to meet the required level of power for their level (and are boring t'boot). And I had all but forgotten the +6 wand reference, too bad. I like the idea of weapons that only have special abilities attached...

Agreed, likely only a few key powers (perhaps a choice from a suitably small list to keep them complete carbon copies of one another), no feats, little to no magic items and covering the appropriate bases - commoner, warrior, mage, priest, thug.

Chris says only a couple of things on the topic, touching on how typical NPCs are only around for an encounter or two and so they wanted to simplify them greatly so they can be easy to create and drop in. He goes on a bit about how they don't need 70-odd spells and then kinda drifts off at the...

http://www.gamingsteve.com/ The interview with Chris starts at 48:33 and finishes over an hour later. Most of it is regarding the online content, but there are a couple of 4e tidbits in there - multiple types of Beholders in the MM, at will/per encounter/per day abilities for all classes & NPCs...

Yeah, I'm definitely enthused with the direction they seem to be going here. Many of the changes have been things I've been clamoring about for a long time, so unless they bork it in implementation :lol: , I'm definitely in.

Yeah, at this point we really don't know whether they'll go the "Return to..." route or just bring the classics up to 4e spec. They've broken down monsters into various strengths for 4e. A "typical" encounter is supposed to consist of 1 Standard monster per PC. Mooks are equal to 1/4 a standard...

Well if you can't run your game without the Illusionist class I'd say your best bet then would be to continue to play 3e and take another look at 4e when they catch up with the things that are missing for you. There's certainly no rule that says you have to switch to the new edition the moment...

I've gone back and forth on the issue over the years - in some campaigns it made sense to have "killable" gods while in others it was better that they operated far, far above mortals. I would be sanguine about it if the PCs had to take extraordinary measures, undergo a whole array of adventures...

Well, undoubtedly the designers & developers want to leave their mark on the game - they all do. However, the primary motivation will be to draw in new players and with that in mind it's not hard to see why they'd go with these choices.

Half-Fiends, Half-Celestials & Half-Dragons...? Smells more like Planescape to me.

It's not hard to see why they would introduce a half-fiend, half-celestial & half-dragon race to core D&D. Gnomes and Half-Orcs are the least popular races so they get cut in leiu of new kewl kids on the block. I'm just surprised they didn't include Drow in the mix... True, they are narrowing...

Thanks for touching on this Miko! I wasn't so keen on the idea of implement juggling wizards. This is definitely better.

I personally don't think it's worth splitting hairs over non-combatants, a "Commoner" class serves them all fine. You're an "expert" when you're a HL commoner. Aristocrats are probably better modeled by multiclassing into Warriors and so on. If it were up to me, the Commoner Class would have...

Shorthand for Basic/Expert/Companion/Masters/Immortals sets.

Iron Heroes had some very cool ideas on this front - particularly the easy-to-stat-up-&-run NPC & "Villian Classes". 4e should really take a page out that model. We really don't need an Expert or Aristocrat class IMO - a single "Commoner" NPC class could cover them all. Then an "expert" is...

I also like the idea of breaking the game down in tiers, signifying a change in style in play and opening up some new options (Paragon Paths, Epic Destinies). I don't expect there will be any significant jump in power moving from one to the other though, just different options becoming available...

Vancian magic, spell slots and daily-based resource management have been some of the most maligned elements of the game. 4e is still hanging on to a little of it, but from what I see the new 4e model is a vast improvement. I remember when Meals described how the crowds cheered when it was...

Funny, it seems to me WotC is actually addressing the many complaints about 3e I've seen on this board. Christmas Tree Characters Save or Die/Nerf & Campaign-problematic Magic Weak Low Level Characters Unbalanced & Unwieldy High Level Play Stat Abominations Useless Skills Speed of Play AoO...