D&D 4E But 4E is already available....

[SSquirrel]

I mean, I bought Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved a few years ago and it definitely covered a lot of changes I wanted to the game. More flexible magic, new classes, no arcane/divine split, no alignment, etc etc. Mix it w/Ptolus and There's a heck of a lot to run with.

Sorry, I'm not impressed by adding back in limitations to who can do what or the continuation of the arcane/divine split. Also, until they make Psionics a core aspect, it will continue to be given crappy attention the same way their psionics system always has over the years.

 

[F4NBOY]

I also played a lot of AE and it's still one of the best RPG games ever created.
But it's not D&D. It's a different game, a great game but it's not meant to be or take the place of D&D. I think they can both coexist, and I'll be still playing AE even after 4th comes out.... no I'm lying, I won't, unless I turn it into 4edition rules.
Take a look at the new concepts for race's abilities, i think it fits very well with AE concepts.
I hope you can enjoy all the excitement that a new edition brings to the game, putting AE aspects aside for a while. If then you don't like it, just continue your advntures on Serran

 

[Glyfair]

Also, until they make Psionics a core aspect, it will continue to be given crappy attention the same way their psionics system always has over the years.

One of the playtest group reports had a player playing a psion. He stated it was just a renamed wizard, so it may or may not fit your needs. Still, it's possible the new magic system will work as a form of psionics.

Of course, there will be another psionics system later, as well.

 

[F4NBOY]

He stated it was just a renamed wizard, so it may or may not fit your needs. Still, it's possible the new magic system will work as a form of psionics.

That's how "psionics" work in AE. They are spellcaster with the Psion casting feat.

 

[Robert Ranting]

Amen.

My local group has embraced Arcana Evolved as the standard for our fantasy games. We borrow here and there from 3.x sources like monster manuals and published adventures, but most of us don't even own the 3.x core books. Why should we have bought the core books when we had the free SRD? The art really isn't worth it, and all of the fluff of gods and planes left out of the SRD was useless for AE anyways.

Aside from some gripes with the skill system, I don't see a lot of reason to change. In fact, what I do see is a mountain of 3.5 material soon to hit the bargain bins that I could scavenge for another decade's worth of campaigns. If the entire gaming industry collapsed tomorrow and no new book would ever be published again for any system, I think the fans would still have more material than they know what to deal with, or could ever run in their lifetime.

Robert "A Happy Scavenger Standing on the Bloated Corpse of 3.5 Ed" Ranting

 

[WhatGravitas]

I also feel that AE is my current 4E. But I know that WotC has produced some quality RPG books. And 4E may be revolutionary... and I'm hoping that.

Arcana Evolved is still very good, but it shares some faults with D&D v3.5: It's prep-heavy, fighting classes are more interesting, but are still very "attack-roll-attack-roll"... and while the magic system is the best I've seen for 3E, 4E will probably incorporate completely nnew paradigms (mini-rests or perma-use).

Sure, AE couldn't repair, because it was an early product in the history of OGL-products, and it was innovative - but there are things, that may be better now (look at the slick design of Star Wars Saga Edition).

So, I'm psyched about 4E.

But I know, if 4E blows, I'll always have AE as a fallback-personal-4E (that's why 4E is a win-win for me).

If 4E is cool, I'll probably take the SRD and re-write 4E with AE design intentions (kill the sacred cows! - if there are any left... but we already know about the arcane/divine split).

 

[SSquirrel]

Personally I wish WOTC nothing but luck w/4E, but I think they burned one too many publishers as well as gamers w/3.5 and 4E isn't all that long after that really.

F4NBOY>Why would you quit playing AE, which you say you really like a lot, just b/c 4E comes out? There's room for both. IMO tho, AE is perfectly capable of replacing D&D and if you aren't enjoying D&D proper currently, should replace it with it I'm so burned out on normal D&D at this point that I don't really wanna play much of anything that is d20 based. I have a lot of other games on my shelf that I would love to play, but scheduling gets weird. The only gaming I've gotten to do in the last 6 months has been some Iron Kingdoms a friend has been running occasionally.

Psionics>3E Psionics were quite obviously just a spell point version of magic, so why not just make it all a spell point system, allow similar effects for each and the difference is the delivery method?

 

[F4NBOY]

Why would you quit playing AE, which you say you really like a lot, just b/c 4E comes out? There's room for both. IMO tho, AE is perfectly capable of replacing D&D and if you aren't enjoying D&D proper currently, should replace it with it I'm so burned out on normal D&D at this point that I don't really wanna play much of anything that is d20 based. I have a lot of other games on my shelf that I would love to play, but scheduling gets weird. The only gaming I've gotten to do in the last 6 months has been some Iron Kingdoms a friend has been running occasionally.

I didn't say I'll quit playing AE, but probably I'll devote my scarce gaming time to 4E. I also had a burn out of D&D, and then started playing AU(then AE). But I recently had a burn out of AE so the cycle goes on, now with 4E!

 

[Atlatl Jones]

One of the playtest group reports had a player playing a psion. He stated it was just a renamed wizard, so it may or may not fit your needs. Still, it's possible the new magic system will work as a form of psionics.

To be clear, the author of that later clarified that that wasn't an official psion. They were continuing a game that started in 3e which had a psion PC, and didn't have 4e psion stats, so they just filed the serial numbers off the wizard to continue playing that one character.

 

[Khairn]

I agree with the OP in that AU / AE was an evolutionary step forward for 3E. When comparing it to what we know about 4E ... AU / AE is still more "advanced" in some area's, particularly when it comes to alignments, the arbitrary arcane / divine / psionic division of magic, and the slotting of classes into even tighter predefined and limiting positions within a party.

Of course that is a design feature for 4E, meant to "streamline" the game, whereas AU / AE was not designed with mandatory simplicity in mind.

But as in so many of these issues, we won't know the real play of the game for another 9 months and all of this is nothing but crystal ball gazing.