D&D 4E 4E requisites

[Darrin Drader]

Never.

I will never buy another version of D&D again. I counted up the number of times that I have bought different versions (Basic, AD&D1, AD&D2, 3, 3.5) and I found that I have bought basically the same game at least 20 different times.

I'm done.

I feel your pain and I've had similar thoughts myself. I have more material for D&D than I could use for the rest of my life, and I own enough Player's Handbooks that I can supply all my players with them. On the other hand, d20 isn't perfect, but True20 is more perfect than standard d20, and it's very easy to convert existing material to it.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

In case WotC is basing all of their business decisions on me -- and I know they are -- I would be willing to buy new editions of the core books every two years, with each iteration simply including the latest errata and things like swift/immediate actions.

Obviously, not everyone would -- the corrections are free online, after all -- but I suspect there's enough folks who would to make it worth updating each printing as the previous print run sells out.

 

[Arkhandus]

I'll be ready for 4E in a few years at earliest. I'll still be playing and running 3E games for a long time probably, but I'd welcome 4E too if it were superior. I still intend to get around to running 2E games, after all, once I get a regular group again and have the time for it.

I'll be ready for 4E when the designers decide not to lazily half-arse anything, and not to listen to every whiner, munchkin, curmudgeon, or aspiring thespian that wants something completely different from D&D but wants to do it with core D&D anyway 'just because'. Please, please, please do not listen to the extremists and warp D&D into something completely different from what it's been so far, WotC! It's a lot easier to house rule a well-rounded and intermediate game system to fit a particular person's tastes, than it is to house rule a very specialized game system to fit other peoples' campaigns.

More options, more roleplay support, more classic-modules/classic-setting support, and more streamlining are all well and good, but one cannot honestly think that the designers of D&D are going to twist D&D into fitting any one person's ideal game while giving the middle finger to everyone else. D&D certainly needs some tweaking to make it work better in play, but it's done fine for a few decades now and I don't see why anyone would think it NEEDS to be drastically changed in any particular way. D&D only needs to remain D&D, and recognizably similar to its roots without tripping over them.

People who worship at the metaphorical altar of Classless Levelless Point-Buy Gaming (or nearly-classless, nearly-levelless, point-buy gaming) can go tweak GURPS, HERO, or something else just the teeny bit needed to fit their individual preferences, rather than giving Wizards of the Coast the evil eye and demanding that 4th Edition be some kind of Ultimate GURPS Fantasy Clone. People who love restrictions, few class choices, and hardcore roleplaying 'without the crutch of in-game social skills' and such can continue playing 1st Edition, 'original', or 2E D&D for all eternity, and no one's going to try stopping them. Even if they like a few things about 3E, it can't be all that monumentally hard to convert just a few bits of 3E, like BAB, feats, or skills, into an older edition as house rules.



Some basic stuff I'd want to see 4th Edition handle to some extent:

*Either make the oriental and psionic classes core, or give them their own supplements shortly after the 4E core rules are published, and don't shoehorn them into fitting individual concepts like Rokugan or wierd-crystal-punk-crud. Balance the darn oriental and psionic classes and don't leave them off-kilter like in 3E, and abandon those odd and unrealistic notions of how many encounters will occur each day for adventurers. Streamline psionics already and stop taking half-measures with them; don't try to shoehorn psionics into being like magic but with spell points, don't try to give it some wierd-arse 'flavor', bring back the 2E flavor of psionics and just remove the pseudo-science terminology, don't radically alter psionics into a skill and feat system, bring back the 2E term 'Psionic Strength Points' and PSP so we don't have to use PP/pee pee as shorthand for it darnit (besides its redundant since PP also unfortunately refers to platinum piece coins in D&D), and don't try to make super-narrowly-focused psionic classes.

*Make sure each class fills a useful role, defines the character, and doesn't straightjacket the character nor overload their brain with options. Stop making a variety of mismatched classes that are randomly designed to be either super-flexible or super-narrow or occasionally just-right.

*Fix multiclassing to be fair, not underpowered or overpowered or clunky. Don't you DARE ditch or severely limit multiclassing and strangle us with stupid ideas.

*Fix the CR and ECL components of the system. Ditch any invisible, biased, unusual ideas about how every DM is going to run their game. Balance stuff on reasonable terms, not on the most unusual, most extreme, most unlikely, best case or worst case scenarios.

*Do something better with feats and skills. I don't know what for sure, yet, but just do something with them. Streamline them or make them more important or some such thing.

*Fix the scaling of things so that people don't hate low-level or high-level games in particular. Make low levels interesting and not suicidal or dull, make high levels more than just 'higher-powered', make epic levels more than just 'sorta-maybe-a-little-epically-higher-powered'. Feel free to exclude epic-level rules and material from the core and just make a proper Epic Level Handbook that doesn't suck or bore people to tears.

*Ditch the wealth by level crud, and come up with a more reasonable suggestion on vaguely how rich the PCs or NPCs should be at various levels. At most give suggestions like 'PCs of 3rd-level will typically have 0-2 long-lasting minor magic items and 1-3 short-lasting minor magic items' or some such thing. Fix masterwork mechanics and include rules for lower-quality items. Don't just make a unilateral 'poor-quality items give -1 and masterwork items give +1' rule. Make different armors, shields, and weapons really mean something and really be worthwhile compared to one another, or vastly simplify those rules to allow each player and DM to just give personal descriptions for the form of their combat gear.

*Balance spellcasters versus mundanes already, durnit.

*Don't ditch the Vancian spellcasting, but do fix it to some extent so it's more palatable to people who would prefer spell-point systems but may settle for a reasonably-designed spell-slot system.

*Don't ditch gnomes or halflings or anything like that, and don't try to twist them into some stupid niche again like in 3E. Make halflings make sense, durnit, rather than being 'hobbits but not really hobbits because they're athletic and lean but still homely and orderly but also really good thieves for no particular reason'. Either make halflings tough, brave, and sneaky versions of hobbits, who just prefer laziness more often than adventure, or make them the less-annoying-but-still-fun and adventurous beyond-Krynn cousins of kender. Don't shoehorn gnomes into being bards, and don't shoehorn them into being tough magic-users who aren't really any more talented with magic than humans. Fix them. Make gnomes as they were in older editions but without the magic-resistant and illusionist-restricted parts. Or something. Tinker gnomes need not apply outside of Krynn and Faerun, but magic-loving prankster gnomes deserve to be properly presented for other settings.

*If half-orcs are going to remain, give them a place other than being the offspring of victims you stupid jerkwads at WotC. Make orcs less godawful ugly and universally-racist in 4E so we can actually believe half-orcs aren't all bastard-born. Likewise with regards to half-ogres; if you're going to insist on keeping them in some 4E Monster Manual or Savage Species book, either make ogres less vile or give half-ogres some other background.

*Change prestige classes. Make them prestigious or ditch them. Rename them advanced classes if they're just going to be more-specialized or organization-focused classes. Maybe handle prestige classes to some extent as prestige feats instead, I dunno.

*If you're going to insist on using a particular setting as the 'baseline' or 'standard' for the core rulebooks and whatnot, WotC, then support the danged setting already. If Greyhawk's going to be the 'core setting', support Greyhawk while you're at it. It doesn't have to be constant support. But more than just a single small gazeteer for Pete's sake. Also, sidenote: make the darned D&D cosmology fit with all the settings if at all possible. Somehow. Whether it's through a Spelljammer 4E book or a 4E Manual of the Planes or something else.

*Get rid of the forced use of miniatures and battlemats, and the wierd cube-shaped 5-foot-increment spaces for creatures and whatnot in combat.

*Make better travel, vehicle, and chase rules for 4E.

 

[catsclaw227]

I will never buy another version of D&D again. I counted up the number of times that I have bought different versions (Basic, AD&D1, AD&D2, 3, 3.5) and I found that I have bought basically the same game at least 20 different times.

I'm done.

It's funny. I feel that way sometimes when I look around at all the books I have accumulated. But the truth is, if/when it comes around, I'll cave in. (Actually, if some of the 3rd party companies make a 3.75 version and call it something else under the OGL, then I might stick with that.) And I wonder, of the many of the people here that say they'll NEVER do 4.x D&D, how many of them will find themselves in an EnWorld thread 3 years from now talking about so and so mechanic and why it's so cool/sucky.

 

[wilrich]

Make it 4ed, NOT 3.75 -- that is to say, make it different and truly a 4th edition, don't just tweak 3.5 and call it 4th edition. To put it another way, I'd want the differences between 3.5 and 4 to be like the differences between 2nd and 3rd edition, not like the differences between 1st and 2nd.

As long as it truly is a 4th edition, I say, bring it on now! I believe that 3/3.5 are tapped out, and I am ready for some new ideas!

 

[Kunimatyu]

I'm okay with a 4th edition in 2008. Earlier will leave a bad taste in my mouth.

I think that the magic system has to change. If D&D wants to attract the new players it needs to survive for the next 20 years, it needs to give them a magic system they understand, and that's Magic Points(MP). Yes, it'll be harder to differentiate psionics (or give psionics vancian magic -- wouldn't THAT be weird?) from 'standard' magic, but nearly everyone I've introduced to D&D (and it's been a lot) has shied away from playing a magic user simply because of the clunky Vancian system.

I'm loath to make minis an integral part of the game, but if there's a way to streamline D&D rules/stats to be more like the skirmish statcards for D&D Minis, I'm not inherently opposed to some experimentation there. The game should still remain perfectly playable sans minis -- they should be a draw, not a requirement.

 

[drothgery]

Make it 4ed, NOT 3.75 -- that is to say, make it different and truly a 4th edition, don't just tweak 3.5 and call it 4th edition. To put it another way, I'd want the differences between 3.5 and 4 to be like the differences between 2nd and 3rd edition, not like the differences between 1st and 2nd.

Hmm... if "Dave's fourth edition" was what WotC built, it'd be pretty mechanically compatible with 3.5 for NPCs and mosters, and tweaking a 3.5 class to fit wouldn't be tough. But the base magic mechanics, and the set of core classes would be very different.

Here's how it would look (some small repeates from a little bit upthread) ...

core base classes
wizard, priest (non-melee divine caster), fighter, rogue, theurge (core class mystic theurge; access to all spells, very limitted other abilities), duskblade, beguiler, cleric, archivist, scout

core advanced classes
bard, druid, monk, paladin, ranger, specialist wizard

mechanics canges/magic
- all casters are spontaneous casters, and use magic points
- spells would scale like 3.5e psionics
- every class has an advancement in magic rating, determines MP/level (no bonus MP for ability scores)
- spells known are by class (so a priest 5/wizard 5 would have an MR of 10, and so a tenth level character's MP, but only the spells available of a 5th level priest or a 5th level wizard)
- theurge, priest, wizard, and archivist would have an expandable spellbook/prayerbook, and use a "spells readied" mechanic like Arcana Unearthed/Arcana Evolved
- duskblade, beguiler, and cleric would have a small, fixed list where they know everything; cleric would also get some deity-specific spells ala 3.x domains
- spell resistance mechanic goes away, because it's making a saving throw to see if you can make a saving throw (instead just have better than normal saves)

mechanics changes/skills
- skill list would be slightly consolidated (swim, jump, climb-> athletics; spot, listen -> notice; hide, move silently->sneak; maybe some others)
- no class gets less than 4 skill points/level

mechanics changes/combat
- sword & shield and two-handed weapon work equally well
- two weapon and single one-handed weapon are effective with the right feats/class abilities
- more striaghtforward AoO rules
- Turn Undead follows d20 conventions
- damage reduction mechanic goes away, because in a purely abstract damage system dodging and soaking up damage are effectively the same thing (instead conditional bonuses/penalties to AC)
- no class gets d4 hit dice

psionics would be an add-on that presented a new core class or two and a skills & feats psi system, because that's easier to integrate without building a whole new set of combo classes

oriental flavor would be an add-on covering spells, equipment, skills, and feats

 

[GQuail]

Most of your ideas, Arkhandus, I think are pretty well thought out. However, one catches my eye:

*sidenote: make the darned D&D cosmology fit with all the settings if at all possible. Somehow. Whether it's through a Spelljammer 4E book or a 4E Manual of the Planes or something else.

I've got to say, I don't think this is something a core rules package should be trying to do again. The big thing with D20 for me is flexibility: it's now a lot more idiot proof to alter monsters, to create your own magic items, and to design your own cosmology. As fun as I think Spelljammer is, forcing every single setting into the same Uber-Cosmology goes against this goal for no clear reason: for one thing, consider that Eberron (the poster chld of 3.X) would need its planar stuff redone or beaten up in order to fit this new metasetting, much like Dragonlance and Dark Sun and how they fitted into Planescape was seen by some as a bit rough around the edges.

I should add, in no way am I against people running campaign crossovers: hell, I fully intend to one day crash a mysterious flying boat full of Giff into my campaign world. ;-) I'm just against adding it as a default.

Otherwise, though, I think you've got a 4.0 I'd happilly grab. ;-)

 

[GQuail]

Make it 4ed, NOT 3.75 -- that is to say, make it different and truly a 4th edition, don't just tweak 3.5 and call it 4th edition. To put it another way, I'd want the differences between 3.5 and 4 to be like the differences between 2nd and 3rd edition, not like the differences between 1st and 2nd.

On the one hand, a full seperation is the only way to really sell a new edition. I'm not going to cough up for a 4.0 version of Manual of the Planes, or Epic Level Handbook, or the Draconomicon, or whatever, if it's basically the same book as before but with a few switched numbers. If a new version can't support all those new book purchases, it'll be an ecomoc disaster.

On the other hand, it's one thing to say "I want a totally new edition" and another to actually suggest what that totally new edition would contain. Some of the changes between 2E and 3E were obvious: some only in hindsight, others were things people had whinged about in the system for years. That you want a new edition but aren't sure what should be new about it implies either it's not all that bad, or that it's so horrible you don't know where to start.

Whizzbang's idea of a "living" document with minor changes and new errata every so often is the antithesis of your suggestion, and maybe not great businesss sense for the reason given above: but I think the next edition of the game might bear more resemblance to that than to the paradigm shift of 2E to 3E.

 

[Hussar]

*Make better travel, vehicle, and chase rules for 4E.

Hear hear!

Why is it? With umpteen publishers and whatnot, there is not one single decent (that I've been able to find) set of rules for ship to ship combat? Or combat with a few hundred participants on a side? Trying to run naval campaigns just stutters to a halt as soon as you try to have one ship fight another ship.

I don't need a new edition for this, but I WOULD LOVE SOMEONE TO MAKE IT!