Can WotC really set "Core" to what they want?

[Jedi_Solo]

I don't see that as a weakness; I see it as a strength.

I think it's both. it's a strength because you can go into the store, pick up a book and be fairly sure you can use anything in it tonight without having to have any previous books. It's a weakness because if you pick up a book that has a Warlock base class (or the Bo9S or the 3e Tome of Magic) and you "know" you'll never see and expansion for the new stuff.

Yes, I am well aware that new Warlock Invocations and Binder stuff eventually came out. People screamed their love of the Warlock and begged WotC to give it new stuff. When they finally did print it there was clammering and gnashing of teeth from those that didn't have the earlier books that there were now wasted pages.

Personally, I'm willing to let stuff refer back to earlier books. When I pick up a book I'm not expecting to use the while thing. I'm not expecting to ever use all of the feats or all of the spells or all of the magic items. I will admit, I'm not sure how bad it got in the 2e days.

I see three options:

1) Don't refer to earlier books: No new love for stuff like the Warlock or the Binder.
2) Refer to earlier books in new books: Means useless pages if you haven't bought the earlier books or wasted space by redefining terms or 'cheats' for abilities.

The third option may be the answer depending on how it is handeled:

3) Put the "Warlock and Binder" stff online with the DDI. People will scream that they need to pay but they would need to pay for the book if it was in there. Monthly fees and there is the whole issue of DRM and the like raise questions as to how this will work.

Not enough info to say that option three is a 'no-win' answer yet. It might work perfectly or they may hit a half-dozen problems and have the whole thing blow up in their face. AT this point - with what we know - it could go either way.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

However, I do believe them the best-balanced for any long-running campaign. I've never seen any class, feat, or monster that has blown up a campaign come from them; they've been very good bases for any D&D campaign I've seen run in the past six years.

Wow. I couldn't disagree more.

In all the campaigns I've run, admittedly over only four years or so, I've never seen anything as game-breaking, difficult to meaningfully challenge (without a TPK), frustrating and spotlight-consuming as a core 3.5 druid prior to the polymorph nerf. The closest I've seen (frenzied berserkers, whisper gnome snipers and feral minotaurs) all had 'solutions' that could remove them from dominance; I never encountered a situation that a well-made druid couldn't handle, aside from those that simply overwhelmed the PCs with raw power.

Certainly there are other, worse options out there (Pun-Pun, anyone? Or the 'goes-infinite-at-first-level,-but-slower' BESM d20 Shapeshifter), but I've never seen anyone seriously try to play the really silly stuff.

Of course, that's only talking about things that are too STRONG. I would argue that quite a few core book options (most of the DMG prestige classes, a good chunk of MM1) are much too weak for their alleged level/CR.

Offhand, I would say Arcana Evolved is the best balanced d20 book for a long campaign. Other standouts for me would be Complete Arcane and Blood and Fists. Certainly I would rank all three of those as closer to the midpoint of balance than the core three.

 

[Nifft]

If they add it to the SRD, they can call it core.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Personally, I think that should be only the SRD.

Second this. If they want to make it core, putting it in the SRD seems fine. Though I doubt that they would really go there, since it might make the main reason to buy books moot...

 

[Ruin Explorer]

For me, I think the big difference is if they make this material optional stuff that's simply easy to add in or "implied mandatory".

For example, if the PHB2 comes out and says "The FR now has Raptorians", they can get bleeding bent, frankly, unless they already clearly laid out that they would be appearing in the 4E FRCS. I could be even worse with more irritating/setting-breaking races and classes.

What I fear for most, though, isn't the FR, but rather Eberron, with it's whole "everything that's in D&D is in Eberron" mandate. Through 3.5E, thats' not actually been true, thankfully. Eberron has no "Eastern" area that I'm aware of, nor does it features Samurai, Wu Jen, etc. If we see that each and every PHB update includes classes which are forcefully jammed into Eberron, well, I don't think that would be a good thing.

Similarly, if an adventure module REQUIRES PHB2 or DMG6 or what have you (how you could do, say, six DMGs and still have meaningful content in them I find hard to fathom, but hey, after six years, thats where they're implying we'll be), it'd better bloody say on the back, just like the "System Specs" for computer game.

I think, to be honest, though, WotC are just talking smack. If we see the new PHB, DMG, etc. as anything other than "PHB2: Eberron Races and Psionics", "PHB3: Oriental Adventures", "DMG3: City Campaigns" and so on, I'm going to be pretty darn surprised.

 

[Henry]

Wow. I couldn't disagree more.

In all the campaigns I've run, admittedly over only four years or so, I've never seen anything as game-breaking, difficult to meaningfully challenge (without a TPK), frustrating and spotlight-consuming as a core 3.5 druid prior to the polymorph nerf.

Really? That might have been the closest one I say, and I honestly wished they hadn't changed from the Masters of the Wild vesion, which seemed to fix most everyone's problems up till then. Even then I played a druid from 17th to 25th level a year ago, and never ran into being too overpowered compared to the rest of the group - then again, we had lots of supplements running around, and I was almost playing a straight core druid, so I never noticed much. Maybe in a core-only game it might have been worse. Each varies, I suppose, but the druid's wildshape was one of the last things I had ever thought about as being game-breaking.

I will say this - I did gloss over other such things as 3E's haste, and harm, and the whole thing with spell DC's being so high - but it always seemed to me like those things became a problem AFTER the various supplements augmented them, rather than beforehand on their own. Heck, even the old 3E righteous might never became a problem in our games, because it took an action to fire it up, and it didn't make the cleric any stronger than his barbarian or fighter buddy.

I still think it's a bad idea to re-open TSR's kettle of fish which cross-referenced the heck out of different books. If they aren't going that route, that's one thing, but I also hope the first three books are complete enough to not HAVE to have future books if I want a "core-only" game. One of the biggest ways a DM's job became tough was having to understand each and every supplement book out there to understand the capabilities of every player's character.

 

[Pygon]

I'll be less likely to buy 4e adventures after they add more core books, then. I guess the online adventures won't be so useful either. That is, unless I can still somehow refer to what I need without having to buy more hardcovers.

I was willing to do that for 2e, for a time. But not anymore.

 

[Glyfair]

Quote]

"Core" has never been a solidly defined term before.

Of course, it wasn't "solidly defined" before D&D, either. It could be the center of something (say an apple) or a cylindrical sample drawn from something to show layers, a lump of stone from which tools were made, etc. Words have different usages.

The complication here is that the various definitions are used close together. I very well might want to discuss the "core books" (PHB, MM & DMG) in the same discussion as I discuss the "core books" (all WotC D&D supplements that aren't campaign specific). Both are reasonable definitions of the word, but using them together doesn't help clarity. We need a word to replace the others.

But I'd guess its definition should be something like, "The material that we will assume you own when we write later books and adventures."

Personally, I think that should be only the SRD.

I think this holds together well. The big issue that I'm surprised hasn't been discussed more is about what will go into the SRD. That's really important.

Consider something I mentioned in another thread last night. We know that there will only be 8 classes in the PHB. What if a 3rd party publisher wants to update a product to 4E where a sect of druids is important and druids are in the PHB, and only the PHB classes make it to the SRD? More than likely that publisher will make their own "druid," and this will be repeated for most publishers (with a few sharing designs). We'll have more "druids" than we had "rangers" in 3.0!

Because of this, I expect that the 4E SRD will be drawing from a lot of sources. Maybe they will all be collected in the yearly PHB, MM & DMG and we'll get an annual update of the SRD with all or most of the updates.

 

[hexgrid]

All throughout 3e, the WotC website has classified non-setting specific D&D books as "core." Apparently, nobody noticed this.

The difference in how they're using the word in 4e is... nothing.

 

[Greg K]

In my opinion, it is marketing and designed around selling more books. By labeling additional books core, they hope to get Dms to readily except new books into their campaigns and give players more leverage in introducing new material because "WOTC says it is core".

That said, I could care less what WOTC determines to be core. I personally disiked 90% or more of their3.5 non-setting supplements and the content within them- especially the player oriented material. Therefore, most WOTC supplements and/or supplemental material is disallowed in any game I run and several third party material is core for my games