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<blockquote data-quote="Arkhandus" data-source="post: 2959730" data-attributes="member: 13966"><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>People who worship at the metaphorical altar of Classless Levelless Point-Buy Gaming (<em>or nearly-classless, nearly-levelless, point-buy gaming</em>) 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.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Some basic stuff I'd want to see 4th Edition handle to some extent:</p><p></p><p>*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 <em>flavor</em> 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.</p><p></p><p>*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.</p><p></p><p>*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.</p><p></p><p>*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.</p><p></p><p>*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.</p><p></p><p>*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.</p><p></p><p>*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.</p><p></p><p>*Balance spellcasters versus mundanes already, durnit.</p><p></p><p>*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.</p><p></p><p>*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.</p><p></p><p>*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.</p><p></p><p>*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.</p><p></p><p>*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.</p><p></p><p>*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.</p><p></p><p>*Make better travel, vehicle, and chase rules for 4E.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Arkhandus, post: 2959730, member: 13966"] 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 ([I]or nearly-classless, nearly-levelless, point-buy gaming[/I]) 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 [I]flavor[/I] 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. [/QUOTE]
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