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

[William Ronald]

Don't we do that now anyway? When a new player joins the group with, say, a party of 3 people already
there is a fighter wizard and rogue

There is no cleric so new guy has to be a cleric or druid. But druids suck so play a cleric new guy.


Same thing really. Now it just spells it out.

Cake Mage, find the James Wyatt Interview from either the link on the front page or the first post. Wyatt said that druids will be as effective healers as clerics.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

Merric, I've posted this is the 4e covers thread here, but I'll repeat it here (as I think it's important):

"I don think anyone else has noticed that under "PLayer Handbook" on the PHB cover, it says, "Arcane, Divine and Martial Heroes"

Rogues are considered martial, by the way.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

There could be a risk, if there is a race that dominates when combined to a certain class (e.g. Elf ends up being a straight better choice for anyone wanting to play a Mage). But I think the chance of barred combinations is non-existant.

Like dwarves and the role of tank in 3.5e?

 

[caudor]

If it's $9.99/month as I've seen reported, the question becomes, it is worth $120/year to you?

We all wanted e-tools to do many of the things that this new program is supposed to do. The question is, is it worth $120/year?

The answer will probably depend upon how often you will use it.

For me, yes! Just being able to use the future sourcebook data in the character generator is worth it to me. I spent a bundle on eTools datasets, and many of them were not entirely as complete as I had wished.

 

[Simplicity]

- Finally, regarding the VTT. It would be possible, given that the DI is going to have a MySpace aspect to it, to have "groups" and do a check allowing everyone access to the group's pooled online content. For example, if the DM has two books that the player's dont, and has paid the unlock fee, anyone who is listed in his gaming group can make use of them with the character generator. Same if Player A has a book that nobody else has; members of his/her regular gaming group can access them for games if he's paid the fee. Obviously this would require a permission-based "Join Group" feature of the site, so the DM and his/her players are all linked together as being a regular gaming group who regularly plays online. That said, I doubt they'll go this route and either everyone will have to unlock their own copy (thus forcing you to purchase more books...) or have a license fee for multiple licenses like in the software industry.

You know, if WotC actually did this, it would be such a sign of good faith to the community that I would probably sign up and pay without a thought. But getting a company who has DRM on a product to let users SHARE that product? Good luck. If it were an application like iTunes, it might let you share on the same LAN. But a web application... hmmm...

 

[JoelF]

I just got back from Gen Con and on the main news page I didn't see a few tidbits I picked up from direct questions to designers.

I asked about armor in 4th edition and if there will be more than 3 types worth wearing and got an emphatic "Yes!". I was told that every type of armor will have reasons to wear it and advantages.

I also asked about their current games in 4th edition and asked if they used the DND insider DM tools during the game at the table and if they envisioned that model as the way most players would use the tools and was told that no, at least not initially they didn't expect that type of use at the table to be predominant and they currently didn't in their game.

On a different note, I asked at Paizo about their plans once 4th edition comes out and the answer I got was "we'll wait and see". They not only said they'd wait to see what the fan response was, but what they thought about the new system. It sounded to me that if 4th edition was not significantly supported by the current subscriber base, that they would stick with 3.5. I believe I was talking to Wes Schneider.

I'm sorry if any of this is already in the thread, but I simply don't have time to read through it all. I'm also sorry to say that I don't recall who I spoke to at WOTC for that informaiton.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Cake Mage, find the James Wyatt Interview from either the link on the front page or the first post. Wyatt said that druids will be as effective healers as clerics.

There's no indication that the hypothetical new guy will be allowed to play something that isn't a cleric or druid, though. I haven't seen anything that suggests you don't need all four of the four roles.

 

[JoelF]

I remembered one other thing I asked about. I asked about how the D&D Insider tools interact with user generated content and intellectual property ownership. I basically asked that since Gleemax has stated that anything you post on your personal page there can be used by WOTC, what about user generated content for the character generator in D&D insider? I was told that a) you will be able to add your own stuff (feats, spells, etc.) into the character generator, and b) it would not be subject to WOTC poaching unless you also put it in either your gleemax page or in some sort of community library for the D&D insider tools.

 

[Nyaricus]

Rogues are considered martial, by the way.

I would assume so? What's your point, mate?

 

[RFisher]

I thought the point of 3.x was that there were no defined roles, and you could play whatever you want?

Well, IMHO, that wasn't the right direction for D&D. A fine direction for others games, but not what D&D does best.

Although, in most games I've found that, for the best results, you end up creating the roles anyway. There's something to be said for making them up yourself, but there's also something to be said for games that are designed with a certain set of roles in mind.

It sounds to me, however, like there will be plenty of room for ignoring the roles a bit & exploring other options. Maybe not to the extent of 3e. Plus, I think having the roles better defined may make the challenge of making "incomplete" parties (e.g. parties with one or more roles unfilled) work more interesting.