D&D 4E Are the 4E previews like turning it up to 11?

[Cadfan]

The answer is likely no because neither does WOTC.

I'd rephrase that to, "The answer is likely no because WOTC doesn't want to preview material that is still under playtesting and might be revised. They don't want to do that because certain persons will jump on any errors in it and proclaim doom and gloom across the internets."

If I were looking a previews for a car I would want to know it comes with a 2.5L V-6, not that it drives "ultrafast".

And if you were being billed today for material that won't be released until February, you might have a really good point. But that's not the case, and you don't. If you don't feel the current previews provide you with adequate information with which to judge the quality of 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons, feel free to wait, and make a purchasing decision only when your needs have been satisfied.

 

[Arashi Ravenblade]

If I could I would take what is good in 4e and add it to 3e and make an alternate 3e players handbook for those of us that still like to play the 3rd and truest form of D&D I would. Someone should. Ive already started brainstorming.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

If I could I would take what is good in 4e and add it to 3e and make an alternate 3e players handbook for those of us that still like to play the 3rd and truest form of D&D I would. Someone should. Ive already started brainstorming.

Any thread you see on the 3E board or Rules forum called "Saga" is doing just that. There are at least two projects taking the good stuff from Star Wars Saga and adding it to 3E.

Incidentally, those projects will likely be decent 4E previews.

 

[Jack99]

If I could I would take what is good in 4e and add it to 3e and make an alternate 3e players handbook for those of us that still like to play the 3rd and truest form of D&D I would. Someone should. Ive already started brainstorming.

pfft, 2e is true DnD, 3e is for munchkins and powergamers!!















Just kidding ofc

Seriously though, I vastly prefer 3.5 over 2nd edition, but whenever someone asks me about DND, I think about 2e. Weird, perhaps, perhaps not.

 

[The_Gneech]

If I could I would take what is good in 4e and add it to 3e and make an alternate 3e players handbook for those of us that still like to play the 3rd and truest form of D&D I would. Someone should. Ive already started brainstorming.

Plug, plug. (See sig.) Mine is not a direct D&D port, but has a lot of commonality. You'd need to write up the non-human races, give scholars the wizard or cleric spells/day and switch over to the D&D spell list. But it might give you a springboard.

-The Gneech

 

[Celebrim]

Or, alternately, they're months away from finalizing the PHB, and they simply don't have anything finalized that they're willing to commit to at this time.

I'd like to state that if this is the case, it makes all the hype even more absurd. If core elements haven't already been finalized, how can they state that they've made improvements in any way? Surely you actually have to have a new rules set, and actually have used it before you can make claims about how the new rules play out.

For example, in a recent play test there was a discussion of whether a certain multiclassed character would work out or whether a new 'gish' core class would be needed. If things are at this state, how can you claim that 4e has fixed the problems with mutliclassing?

 

[Imaro]

Plug, plug. (See sig.) Mine is not a direct D&D port, but has a lot of commonality. You'd need to write up the non-human races, give scholars the wizard or cleric spells/day and switch over to the D&D spell list. But it might give you a springboard.

-The Gneech

Hey, Gneech I downloaded it and like what I see so far(still have some more to read), but I was wondering if you've given any thought to a more fantasy based character sheet for it?

 

[broghammerj]

Any thread you see on the 3E board or Rules forum called "Saga" is doing just that. There are at least two projects taking the good stuff from Star Wars Saga and adding it to 3E.

Incidentally, those projects will likely be decent 4E previews.

Well, I don't own either of those books nor do I plan on buying them. If they are such a good preview, then I don't see why releasing some real information about 4E is so dangerous. Again, I think it's because they are rushing production without official playtesting, etc.

 

[broghammerj]

It is quite instructive to look at the ENworld archive here

http://www.enworld.org/article.php?c=9

Which allows you to see the rate (and kind) of information that was released in the year coming up to the PHB release for 3rd edition. (some of the text formatting means you have to highlight pages to see it).

I've just had a quick glance at 1 year in advance (Aug 99) and to be honest I was surprised at the depth of information that was already being revealed at that point!

I will pull some examples from Plane Sailing's link.

Ryan Dancy said the following in:

SR VP Ryan Dancey discussed the rationale for moving from the 2nd edition 1-minute combat round to the 3E six-second combat round:
We want to reduce the distance a figure can move on the battlefield to something reasonable for use with miniatures. A 1 minute round allows movement all out of proporation with most tactical combat environments.

One minute rounds are also (in my opinion) ludicrously long when using the D&D combat system. Imagine playing Baldur's Gate with 1 minute combat rounds (shudder!).

That decision gave us two usable increments - 10 seconds and 6 seconds. We elected to go with 6 seconds to make the math easy when converting to 'time' units. (from the TSR message board)

This seems like great marketing. It gets real information about the product to the consumer. WOTC of the past: Here is a problem and heres how we fixed it. WOTC today: Here is a problem and don't worry it works great now.

 

[broghammerj]

I'd like to state that if this is the case, it makes all the hype even more absurd. If core elements haven't already been finalized, how can they state that they've made improvements in any way? Surely you actually have to have a new rules set, and actually have used it before you can make claims about how the new rules play out.

For example, in a recent play test there was a discussion of whether a certain multiclassed character would work out or whether a new 'gish' core class would be needed. If things are at this state, how can you claim that 4e has fixed the problems with mutliclassing?

I wholeheartedly agree with you. If you look at PlaneSailings link and see what Jim Bishop had to say regarding playtesting:

On playtesting 3E: "In the early days of the 3E project they decided to throw as many beta testers at it as they could find, and over the past months there have been literally hundreds of testers and thousands of pages of comments, as well as a brutal discussion/development board. While new beta testers are no longer being accepted, the existing groups are still plowing away at the latest revision. If nothing else, 3E will be the most-tested RPG ever produced."

That was a whole year before 3E was released! Do you think 4E is seriously in a similar position?