4th ed books you want at launch

[Greatwyrm]

Probably a psionics supplement. I'm not a huge fan of psionics, like a couple of my players, but if it was something we used from day one, instead of bolting on later, it'd be easier for everyone. I know there's a lot of "keep your sci-fi out of my fantasy" feelings about this, but I think the previous stuff has been successful enough to include a psion in the core rules finally.

I'd like to see Fantasy Flight Games produce Midnight and/or Dawnforge for 4e. Both of those settings were pretty dang cool. Even though Midnight had a better following, Dawnforge might be a cool idea for a release setting. It's a new edition, the world is young, and you're the ones the legends will be written about.

I've also always liked monster templates and Mike Mearls' Monster Handbook. Then again, with monsters being redesigned/streamlined/recombobulated, who knows if stuff like that is still applicable.

 

[heirodule]

Everything I need to run eberron, which means psionics, (half-elves|half-orcs|gnomes), and a quick and dirty conversion sheet until the ECS is re-released.

This is the *bummer* for me with 4e, is that all our "toys" have been taken away for probably at least a year, if not more.

 

[w_earle_wheeler]

One or two conversion books updating all the (usable) feats, core classes, prestige classes, races, magic items and spells from 3.5 to 4.0.

I imagine that under the new rules many of the feats and core classes will become obsolete, so they wouldn't need to be included. Instead, a page explaining "you don't need xxx class in 4.0 because you can do it with xxx talent tree instead" similar to the conversion section in Urban Arcana explaining how to port between d20 Modern and D&D.

As for spells, hopefully under 4.0 many of them will have become obsolete or redundant as well (see the scaling orbs of [energy] spells for example), and they can be explained away in one table.

I have no idea what 4.0 is going to do with prestige classes, and there are so many of them they would probably need their own book. I'd rather see one book devoted to a 4.0 update of all the relevant 3.5 prestige classes and have the rest of the 4.0 books dedicated to new material.

There is so much material from 3.5 that it would be a shame to waste it or use it as a staggered release over various books by a score of designers who might not have the same approach.

When 3.0 was released, enworld had hundreds of files converting nearly every bit of crunch from 2.0 and 2.5. If WotC doesn't do it, I hope the community will.