A Thread For Those Somewhere In The Middle


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I expect 4E to be good, but I don't expect it to be so hot that I have to get my grubby little hands on it in June. (I'll probably pick it up late 2009, early 2010-depending on reviews, and when I'll have a chance to actually use it). So giving my personal scheduling reasons, I'm rather blaise about a new D&D right now, good, bad or ugly.

Generally, I like what I'm hearing about the design goals. I don't give a rip about the flavor either way, since it's uncommon for WotC to put out much flavor that fits my preferences, anyway. (My expectations are low, and thus I'm perversly almost impossible to disappoint. Plus, I think some of the flavor will be good, if not to my tastes, and I can at least appreciate it on quality grounds. And, they hit my preferences enough to let me enjoy it when they do.)

On the pessimistic side, I expect all the software to range somewhere between "barely useful" and "total, unsupported failure"--based on the track record thus far of such D&D products. I'm hopeful of being wrong, but unlike the flavor am not really expecting quality here. My biggest worry, however, is that the execution of the game design will fail. That is, not only will the game fall short of its promise, but the good design will be somewhat discredited by flaws in execution. Since I like where the design is trying to go, that would be a real bummer.

Fortunately, I'll pretty much know the state of affairs before I spend a dime, and I'm perfectly content to wait until such is known.
 

Im in the middle.

The key thing that keeps me optimistic is that I think they started from the right place and got the problems with 3.5 D and D 100% correct. Eg: The christmas tree problem, the silly number of classes, the sweet spot issue etc. The responses to these problems (that we have seen) has been sensible and well thought out. I still hold out hope that the wizard will be a flexible class.

I like the focus on terrain and the way it seems that flying will be higher level magic than in previous editions.

However, I think that some of the flavour things are unnecessary and are elements which are going to be ignored by many campaigns. For instance the dragonborn are not crucial or iconic ( but I guess neither are tieflings but they worry me less for some reason). I also think the information about deitys sounds like they are trying to set up a strong flavour for clerics. I just want information about different archtypal gods, anymore info should be campaign specific IMHO.

So I hope they tone down the flavour of the core system.
 

Pbartender said:
"Wait and see" succinctly sums up my attitude.
Ditto. A year from now I could be running/playing any of three quite different editions (running/playing all of them would be a gaming dream come true that is just not going to happen.)
 


I'm mostly just opposed to making decisions based on inadequate data. I fully expect to buy, play and enjoy 4e. I do have moments of worry, and in those moments I reasure myself that my group can always choose to stick with 3.5 if we don't like 4e after all.

Heck, I skipped all of 2e, I can skip all of 4e if I have to.

I need a lot more data in order to meaningfully evaluate whether 3.5 or 4e will be the game I want to play.

If Paizo would be so kind as to put the 3 core books in a nice slip case up on their web store for preorder, though, I'd place my order today. After all, I've still got about $50 worth of credit from the demise of the magazines. ;)

The cost of three rulebooks is low enough that I'll definitely buy and read the books for myself before solidifying my position on which set of rules our next campaign should use.
 

*I like the promises made by the devlopers

*I like the very limited crunch we have actually seen

*I have been baffled at points by the "roll-out" and related issues (see Gleemax)

*I see what the "world building" they are doing is trying to achieve

*I don't like (but don't really hate) many of the "world" specifics we have learned
 

Seeing as the player base will shift to 4e in droves (doesn anyone not believe this or that 4D&D will remain the major market share?), I'd be willing to play it too. It's just not designed so I can run the game in the style I prefer. To be honest, this happened with 3e too. I'd love something more flexible, more modular and accomodating, but the final details really have to be known before I can figure out what's what exactly.

Can skills be ignored? Will I be able to remove feats & talents from the game? How easily? Back in one of those good, bad, average thread I listed a bunch of positive elements. For me, it's almost entirely the mechanics I see as hamstringing my choice to play.
 

MerricB said:
Do you remember where you heard that? I really don't want the fighter to have healing powers at higher levels.

Perhaps I should qualify that: I have a problem with the fighter being able to heal other characters. The fighter being able to heal - or shrug off - the effects of poison and other damage to himself at high levels doesn't bother me as much.

Actually I don't recall off the top of my head Merric. I believe I read it somewhere on EN World as a quote from one of the developers.

It is entirely possible that the way you described shrugging off damage will be the way its handled. I can live with that!

Not to threadjack, but does anyone have more details about this aspect of the fighter? I bet its derived from Bo9S.

C.I.D.
 

Does "I see some things that make me wish I liked it more" count?

There are some mechanical things I think are really good ideas, like unified baseline for attack and defense, DCs instead of saves, room for psionics built in, etc. I just regret that the felt the need to conceptually alter the game to the point I can't really think of it as D&D, and pollute the core books with non-core stuff.
 

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