D&D 4E 4e Gold Rush: What 3rd Party Support Do You Expect?

[Kid Charlemagne]

I see most of the same things that we saw with the beginning of 3rd edition. Monster books, because you can never have enough, and especially to fill in the gaps. Ditto with magic items and spells - you can never have enough. Missing "core classes" especially if things like the Druid aren't in the PHB. Adventures, because we always need those, especially at the beginning of a new edition.

I don't think we'll see too many compilation books - there won't be much to compile yet. I think we'll see some new rules, just like Relics and Rituals introduced new Ritual Magic rules in one of the very first d20 books, but I don't think we'll see anything on the scope of Hyperconscious or Mindscapes within the first five months. Someone will probably try to stake out the psionics design space before WoTC gets there, but I don't think it'll happen within that timeframe.

 

[Bacris]

IF Dreamscarred Press can join with other PDF publishers to get our hands on the SRD, and IF the OGL doesn't disallow such a thing, we WILL be making a dedicated psionics book for 4E in 2008. That's right, I said it. Not sure anyone cares, but hey.

If not, it'll be in 2009.

 

[GlassJaw]

It's going to be kind of weird to have 3rd-party products reintroduce the "missing" races and classes when we know full well WotC is going to be including them down the road. Just seems odd that WotC wouldn't include all the races that appeared in 3ed since it's fairly obvious those are going to be the first to get 3rd-party attention.

 

[Pinotage]

Why's that?

What do you think exists this time around to disincentivize publishers from publishing as fast as they can, especially within the early protected competive window, regardless of whether they have a good grasp on the rules or not?

How do you know whether any given product will demonstrate a good grasp of the rules?

How will the retailers know?

Does the 5k fee guarantee quality?

Lessons learnt from 3e largely. There was an awful lot of very poor stuff that came out soon after the release of 3e, and that hurt a lot of publishers. Granted, given that the 4e ruleset will be largely similar, the entry point is not so high. I would think publishers would attempt to get it right. Releasing new rules (and I'm not talking feats, spells, etc.) requires a better understanding of the system and how it gels together to make it work.

The answers to your latter is questions are: You won't, they won't and it doesn't. But if publishers want to maintain their 'brand' they wouldn't want to release rubbish just for a quick buck.

Pinotage

 

[GlassJaw]

I do think the consumer will be more educated this time around and be on the lookout for duds. I also think the fallout will be greater for a publisher that tries to put out crap - fool me once and all that.

 

[SteveC]

I think the biggest thing you will see initially will be those things that were a part of the last edition but aren't now. So that means bards (hey, I'm doing that project!), druids, barbarians and so forth, along with whatever monsters and spells we don't see.

After that, I think you will start to see some real additions to the paths and destinies that are specific to campaign worlds. Midnight already did something like this, and it would seem only natural to update those paths to 4E.

What I don't want to see is a whole new series of race/class splat books. I don't need to see your new update to the book of elves, or the complete book of fighting men or what have you. I have some of those early books, but I stopped buying them a looooong time ago because they were (almost) all bad.

What I'd like to see is an update of the Masters of Arms books to the new edition, with more options for specific weapon combinations. Consider that a hint to involved parties.

--Steve

 

[WayneLigon]

Well, I didn't read closely and kinda dinked the poll results a bit. I didn't see the 'first 5 months' part. I think eventually we'll see all those types of products but not as quickly as we did in 2000. There are far fewer publishers than there were back then and I think they are going to be much more cautious about what they produce. From what I remember, a lot of distributors and retailers were burned by the d20 glut and it's going to take some time to regain their trust and support.

 

[Cergorach]

One Word: Mongoose

I suspect that they'll produce everything you might want, some things you've never heard of, and probably a few things you'll never want to see...

(if 3E was any indication)

 

[Warbringer]

How about just "Missing core" a single book that covers the gaps left between Core 3e and Core 4e

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

How do you read the results so far?

1) Mid to High level adventures and Psionics will be under-served;

OR

2) Players don't expect these kinds of products in the first 5 months because they don't want these kinds of products in the first 5 months.