D&D 4E 4E: What we think we know

[Jer]

I don't like this. If they're rescaling the existing framework to fit into 30 discrete chunks rather than 20, I disagree with it on grounds of nostalgia: D&D has always been a 20 level game (in the incarnations I've played). If they're keeping scale the same, but offering more support for level 21-30, I question the usefulness of the material: how many games have you had which went on beyond 21st and you found yourself thinking "gee, I wish I had better options for 27th level"?

I'm offended by this statement - D&D is a 36-level game and always has been in any incarnation I've played it.

Kidding aside, the level-20 limit in 3e is arbitrary - there were no limits in 1e, the limit in OD&D was somewhere around 10 IIRC, the Basic/Expert/Companion/Master sets limited advancement to 36th level. 20 was a nice round number for 3e, but it was arbitrary.

My hope is that expanding out the top level of play means that they've balanced the damn game for levels over 15. It's been silly running a 3e game with 15th+ level characters. I suspect given what they did for Star Wars and what's in the release that theyr'e doing just that.

 

[Mercule]

I do not like hearing both "Bo9S was used to test 4E ideas" and "there will be changes in resource management". Bo9S was interesting, but not even remotely what I'd want to see happen to the magic system. It very much in my list of things that would make it worse. Still, I'll wait and see.

 

[TerraDave]

Let me preface this by saying I'm not casting aspersions on you, your motives, or the quality of your products in what I am about to say:

Can you think of at least one competitor who can also afford $1000, but is otherwise, pretty much, a shoveler of sh*t?

And are you more concerned about that $1000 fee eliminating competition, or somehow acting as a gateway to quality?

I maintain that it will do the former, but will not significantly act in the latter capacity.

In fact a fee of any kind immediately puts the focus on "How best to publish for profit?" as opposed to, "How best to publish for quality?"

We are probably getting off-topic..But yes, there was that infamous 3rd edition company that came in with a big wad, and a big name and made some of the worst stuff released in RPG history.

But I think market forces kicked their ass. On the other hand, I obviously would prefer an SRD with these nifty rules (if there are any). That really would kick ass, but in the other way.

 

[Hjorimir]

I do not like hearing both "Bo9S was used to test 4E ideas" and "there will be changes in resource management". Bo9S was interesting, but not even remotely what I'd want to see happen to the magic system. It very much in my list of things that would make it worse. Still, I'll wait and see.

And here I sit loving Bo9S thinking it is a great direction to take the game. Balance per encounter > balance per day.

 

[Xyxox]

Why would they need DRM at all? It looked like everything would be online, and you register which books you own with "Book-Keys" much like a CD key in an online game today. I'm more concerned their online tools are IE Only.

If they go with Java, it'll be platform agnostic. If they go with .Net, IE only will be what we see.

I'm hoping for Java.

 

[borc killer]

Whoever said something about DRM: if I was designing a system to host games/characters/your d&d books, I'd make it all 'web 2.0'. No need for anything but a browser (and probably flash or java), the books will likely be slick webcode or PDFs you can't download, and all the other features will be proprietarily loaded through web apps.

I am hoping they are going with SilverLight. I just started working with that and with all the Mac/Linux/browser support it is getting it could be a darn good environment for this.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'm solidly in the "more options is better" camp of RPG design.

That in mind, I've bought WotC releases like the XPH, UA, ToM, MoI and Bo9S. I think they're decent products, but in neither case would I want the entire system modeled on those books.

So, for me at least, revamping ALL of D&D to resemble one of those niche products would be bad, regardless of my love or dislike of them.

Including their mechanics in the Core (say, 1-3 classes each) of the game to be expanded in later releases, OTOH, would be perfectly acceptible to me. By that, I don't neccessarily mean that it would be the Core classes of 3.5 + 3 from each of the alternative systems...I mean that some of the Core classes might actually work better with some of the other mechanics than they do now. For instance, a MoI version of the Monk (something I'm designing right now) might be mechanically and thematically superior to the current one in several ways. Perhaps ki=incarnum or some such.

So...wait & see, wait & see.

 

[Nebulous]

I'm not apologising for WotC, but what did you expect them to do? Announce it when they first started working on it and hope poeple still buy the 3.5 stuff? Not likely.

I agree, they lied through their teeth, but if they hadn't, it would have resulted in heavy financial loss for existing products. I probably just repeated what a dozen people just said.

 

[Tewligan]

Really? Looking at the now-defunct OD&D/BD&D stream, they never changed at all after Hobbits (later renamed Halflings) were introduced. Looking at the AD&D/D&D3 stream, 2E removed half-orcs and 3E brought them back. That's it. If anything, it's surprising how little change the selection of base races has seen.

Well, Unearthed Arcana for 1e DID add a bunch of demihuman subraces as PC's - drow, svirfneblin, blah blah. Dunno if they count as base races, but there's that.

 

[jasin]

My hope is that expanding out the top level of play means that they've balanced the damn game for levels over 15.

Good point.