Bloat already?

[The Little Raven]

Considering that each class needs to have its own, entirely unique list of 80+ powers, that should cut down on excess classes considerably. It's alot more work to make a new class in 4e than in 3e, and I think that will result in fewer but higher qualty classes in later supplements.

Exactly. Instead of the 3.X philosophy of "I need a Fighter-like class that is only slightly different," you'll most likely be adding powers, feats, paragon paths, and such to the existing classes. Only in a particular situation where your needs are not met in the slightest by an existing class (or power source) will you really need to start creating new classes.

 

[Shroomy]

Considering that each class needs to have its own, entirely unique list of 80+ powers, that should cut down on excess classes considerably. It's alot more work to make a new class in 4e than in 3e, and I think that will result in fewer but higher qualty classes in later supplements.

That's what I hope also. In addition, if the multi-classing mechanic works as promised, you'll be a lot lessed gimped by multi-classing, making more class combinations workable, and thus reducing the need for new core classes.

 

[Celebrim]

It seems like people are clamoring for such and such race and new power sources with 4 more classes. How many classes do we actually need?

Based on the 4E design - quite a few. 4E classes are generally less generic than even 3E classes. Consider that you can't even play a necromancer, illusionist, or a summoner out of the box, that you need an as yet non-existant build to play a smart rogue, that you need possibly a whole other class to play a fighter who is an archer or one not wedded to heavy armor. Expect a huge proliferation in just the first year. In addition to probably a 10-12 more classes, expect to see at least 1-2 more build options for each base class (smart rogue, for example). Additionally, even though they've got 4 times as many feats as 3rd edition core, expect that to increase by 50% by the end of the first year. Additionally, expect another 30-40 paragon paths and another half-dozen epic destinies.

And that's just the first year. It will slow down a bit after that, but you should still expect 4-6 more base classes, 15-20 more paragon paths (we've seen how simple they are), and a slew of other stuff every year.

Whether this is insanely exciting and good or dreadful is a matter of personal preference.

It seems like the design decision has been to create a lot of little boxes that players can jump into, rather than give players a toolkit to build what they want.

Yes. That much has been obvious since the rogue preview came out months ago. And it wasn't necessarily obvious before that, but it was pretty much the implications of going to a 'at will'/'per encounter' magic system. As soon as you knew that, you knew that spell-casting classes would be restricted to little boxes of abilities. From there it wasn't really hard to imagine how the rest of the system would work.

I'm starting to think I'd prefer just four classes: Leader, Controller, Striker, and Defender.

LOL.

 

[RigaMortus2]

Speak for yourself!!

I think he was... Unless you are a player in this game...

 

[Spatula]

Considering that each class needs to have its own, entirely unique list of 80+ powers, that should cut down on excess classes considerably. It's alot more work to make a new class in 4e than in 3e, and I think that will result in fewer but higher qualty classes in later supplements.

Well, not neccessarily. I expect that many new classes will be borrowing powers from existing classes, perhaps with a new name, or as time wears on, perhaps not. There's only so many combat effects of a given role and level that you can create, after all. Heck, I expect a certain amount of redundancy just in the PHB1 classes. There's no way that every melee striker class, for example, has 80+ completely distinct and unique powers, especially as we move beyond the ranger & rogue.

 

[Nytmare]

Speak for yourself!!

Um, I was?

 

[Dice4Hire]

Well, one reason I like 3.5 is bloat. Lots of options, some I used, and some I did not.

What I cannot figure out is why some people seem to think this is a surprise. We all saw 3.x, where new supplements came out at a rate of about twice a month, plus all the 3rd party stuff, and no one could really keep up. I doubt anyone allowed everything, everyone did some picking and choosing

WOTC will keep coming up with stuff as long as it sells and it is not time for 5E yet. Simple business principles.

 

[neceros]

Fourth edition is taking 3.5's end game and smoothing it into one big pile of balanced core. They did this with Second ed, too.

3.5 was a horrible system. I don't mean it's mechanics, which were... unique. I mean it's splat books and extended rules. Too much information to take into one game. It got to the point where people were ruling on using a proper set a books only, and not allow players to use their thousands of dollars in books.

Mind you I paid a lot for those books and I like to have options to play what I feel is fun. However, playing what was fun was usually very, very broken according to Core rules.


There is a vast difference in 3.5 when it was released as intended and 3.5 now. 4e is everything 3.5 wanted to offer in it's later years condensed into a neat package that works.

 

[Spatula]

Fourth edition is taking 3.5's end game and smoothing it into one big pile of balanced core. They did this with Second ed, too.

3.5 was a horrible system. I don't mean it's mechanics, which were... unique. I mean it's splat books and extended rules. Too much information to take into one game. It got to the point where people were ruling on using a proper set a books only, and not allow players to use their thousands of dollars in books.

Mind you I paid a lot for those books and I like to have options to play what I feel is fun. However, playing what was fun was usually very, very broken according to Core rules.


There is a vast difference in 3.5 when it was released as intended and 3.5 now. 4e is everything 3.5 wanted to offer in it's later years condensed into a neat package that works.

...minus all the options, which caused said broken-ness...

It remains to be seen if 4e avoids the pitfall of powercreep and overpowered splatbooks content, and we won't know if it does or not for a while yet.

 

[DandD]

Nah, one thing for sure, powercreep will arise, and there's nothing to avoid it. That's as granted as 5th edition coming in around 10 years, sooner or later.