4.0

[The Hound]

There is no such thing as version 4.0. It's all just a hallucination caused by swamp gas and misidentified bright stars and planets (Clicks button on flashy thingy, emitting a powerful flash of blue light). Move along folks, there's nothing to see here.

 

[Ranger REG]

I would skip right to 4.5

Only WotC will break their record and have it out in half the time (3.5e came out in three years after 3.0e, so they're shooting for 18 months).

*placeholder: evil laughing smiley*

 

[Baby Samurai]

If they adopted Star Wars Saga as a base line and made some good changes to make it fit D&D that would be great.

That's what my group thought, so in out fortnightly session yesterday we implemented the following changes from Saga:

-Charge is a standard action

-Withdraw is a move action.

-No 5 ft. step.

-Diagonal movement is 2-2-2-2, rather than 1-2-1-2

-No iterative attacks – replaced by Double Attack, Triple Attack, Cleave, Great Cleave, Whirlwind Attack, Rapid Strike, Dual Weapon Mastery etc

-No confirmation rolls for critical hits – a longsword automatically critical hits on a natural 20, a rapier automatically critical hits on a natural 19, or 20, and a keen rapier automatically critical hits on a natural 18, 19, or 20.

-Half character level as bonus damage on attacks.


There was definitely more movement, and the combats were tactically more interesting. There were still plenty of full attacks, but no one missed the diminishing return iterative attacks, Double and Triple Attack worked out great. The lack of the 5 ft. step and the new withdraw action as a move action was so cool and elegant. And the fact that charge is a standard action makes for some interesting choices and is more fun for everyone.


The party consists of:

-CN drow psion (seer) 10
-CG half-orc barbarian 2/ranger 10
-N human spirit shaman 12
-LG half-celestial human psychic rogue 8
-NG gold dwarf divine bard 4/fighter 1/battlesmith 1/deepwarden 2/dwarf paragon 1/hammer of moradin 3


They went up against:

-4th level drow warriors (x10)
-6th level drow chaos monks (spring attack build x4 and grapple build x4)
-9th level drow druid
-8th level drow sorcerer
-1st level illithid chaos monk

 

[Pbartender]

I heard theat D&D 4.0 will knock down old ladies, eat puppies and kittens, and steal candy from small children.

Below, A Wizards of the Coast freelance game designer prepares herself for a long day at work.

 

[der_kluge]

In 4th edition, all playable character races are size: tiny.

It's true. I heard it from a current WoTC employee who will remain nameless.

 

[Eldragon]

In 4th Edition, There is no Monstrous Manual. All monsters are sold via randomly inserted plastic D&D Mini's boxes. These Mini will be a different scale of the older D&D Minis. To alleviate confusion, These D&D Minis will be called D&D Miniatures: 3rd Edition.

Spells will no longer be printed in the players handbook, instead they will be printed on cards and placed in randomly assorted booster packs. These spells will be labeled D&D: The Gathering.

Finally, There will no longer be a PHB or DMG. Instead players will need to register with WotC fan website Gizfoobo, which for only $15 a month will allow players access to the complete ruleset. Players can purchase additional feats, skills and classes as an electronic download, similar to how players purchase e-books now. However unlike normal PDFs These books are loaded with DRM Crippleware and will only work on Windows Vista.

I heard it all from an "inside source" at WotC. Its all true. every word. Because this is written on the internet. and the internet never lies.

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

I'll echo what some other have said. I've pretty much given up D&D for GURPS, but if 4e is an evolution of SW Saga, I may be convinced to give it a try.

I like GURPS better than SW Saga, but it is certainly very cool.