D&D 4E Concerned with 4e now, do you agree or not?

[Najo]

WOTC, look at it this way...


The harder you make it for 3rd parties to work their IP along with your core rulebooks, the more likely they are going to make their own verison of 4.0 and compete with you instead of working to encourage D&D source book sales.

Let's say Piazo decides that they can't do their Pathfinder setting with 4.0. They could easily start a 3.75 or 4.5 type ruleset, glam it up and make it compatible with your 4.0 enough, and then pull customers back into the team who gave them dragon and dungeon without messing it up.

The company has said itself they are waiting to see whether or not they are going to do something like this. Why give them more reason to?

 

[Doug McCrae]

I bet you 20 pence Golden Wyvern is a style of magic (like evocation), not an order (like the Red Wizards of Thay).

 

[fuindordm]

And this is why these wizard orders need to be removed. They force wizards into prestige classes basically. They give them concepts that the player may not even want on their characters. Those sort of colorful, fluff driven material shouldn't be tied to any part of character creation or advancement unless your playing in a specific world and using its official sourcebooks. D&D 4e needs to remove world neutral in the building blocks that can't be removed.

WOTC is it so hard to leave the classes, feats, spells, talent trees and skills from core book 1 as open as possible? Use sidebars with optional rules to add flavor and special setting type rules & other extras please.

I agree with this sentiment. While I don't want to see flavor removed from the books, I would like setting-specific information separated cleanly from core rules information. In that light, I would really prefer to see a whole chapter right after class descriptions which says "here are some sample wizard orders...". "Here are some sample gods..." "Here is some martial arts traditions..." and so on. Any optional, flavorfully named spells and feats could go in this chapter; they aren't necessary to the game, but they make a nice supplement to it.

Ben

 

[neceros]

Just wait to see.

 

[Odysseus]

I agree with this sentiment. While I don't want to see flavor removed from the books, I would like setting-specific information separated cleanly from core rules information. In that light, I would really prefer to see a whole chapter right after class descriptions which says "here are some sample wizard orders...". "Here are some sample gods..." "Here is some martial arts traditions..." and so on. Any optional, flavorfully named spells and feats could go in this chapter; they aren't necessary to the game, but they make a nice supplement to it.

Ben

I also agree. I have a growing concern the 4E core rules won't really be core , but are core setting specific. And running any other setting , realms or a homebrew. Will mean saying to players, you can only use some of the core rules. Such as core rules, but no dragonborn or warlords etc. Which to me isn't what I want to do. I'd like to be able to say Core plus xyz options.

 

[Najo]

I agree with this sentiment. While I don't want to see flavor removed from the books, I would like setting-specific information separated cleanly from core rules information. In that light, I would really prefer to see a whole chapter right after class descriptions which says "here are some sample wizard orders...". "Here are some sample gods..." "Here is some martial arts traditions..." and so on. Any optional, flavorfully named spells and feats could go in this chapter; they aren't necessary to the game, but they make a nice supplement to it.

Ben

This is exactly what I was thinking too. I agree with you 100%

 

[Wormwood]

I agree with this sentiment. While I don't want to see flavor removed from the books, I would like setting-specific information separated cleanly from core rules information. In that light, I would really prefer to see a whole chapter right after class descriptions which says "here are some sample wizard orders...". "Here are some sample gods..." "Here is some martial arts traditions..." and so on. Any optional, flavorfully named spells and feats could go in this chapter; they aren't necessary to the game, but they make a nice supplement to it.

Not every DM is a worldbuilder, after all. Some of us just like running adventures.

The more setting and flavor is in the core books, the easier it is for me to run my game without having to fill in all the gaps myself.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Not every DM is a worldbuilder, after all. Some of us just like running adventures.

The more setting and flavor is in the core books, the easier it is for me to run my game without having to fill in all the gaps myself.

I think the consensus is that the flavour should be in there. It just shouldn't be welded to the mechanics in ways that make it difficult to remove. It should be extremely simple to work a class into an existing setting or into a setting that's being written, and one of the ways to do this is to design the flavour to be modular. In the implied setting, we can call the wizards with the Spell Shaping talent tree Golden Wyvern wizards. Fine. But we should also be able to call them "wizards with the Spell Shaping talent tree" so that in Campaign Setting X they can be the Dweomercraft Cabal. As things appear now, the name "Golden Wyvern" is built into the abilities they can choose. So the conversation will look like this:

DM: You are attacked by some acolytes of the Dweomercraft Cabal.
Player 1: Which ones were those guys again?
Player 2: They're the Golden Wyvern wizards.
DM: No, Golden Wyvern doesn't exist in this setting. They're Dweomercraft Cabal.
Player 1: What do Dweomercraft Cabal wizards do?
DM: They use the Golden Wyvern abilities.
Player 2: So they're Golden Wyvern wizards, after all?
DM: No. They're exactly identical to Golden Wyvern, but they're not called Golden Wyvern, and even though you need to look for Golden Wyvern in the index if you want to look up their powers, because there's no generic name for them, they're definitely not Golden Wyvern wizards.
Player 1: I attack a Golden Wyvern wizard.
DM: *gets up, begins to leave*
Player 2: Where are you going?
DM: I'm going to Renton, Washington to find Andy Collins. I'll need bail money.

 

[Wormwood]

I think the consensus is that the flavour should be in there. It just shouldn't be welded to the mechanics in ways that make it difficult to remove.

I understand your position.

While I appreciate how annoying it is to have to fight against the rulebook---it also appears in this particular case that the parts hindering your game may actually enhance mine.

So again, I appreciate a defined setting (and all the flavor elements accompanying it) in the core books.

 

[Najo]

I think the consensus is that the flavour should be in there. It just shouldn't be welded to the mechanics in ways that make it difficult to remove. It should be extremely simple to work a class into an existing setting or into a setting that's being written, and one of the ways to do this is to design the flavour to be modular. In the implied setting, we can call the wizards with the Spell Shaping talent tree Golden Wyvern wizards. Fine. But we should also be able to call them "wizards with the Spell Shaping talent tree" so that in Campaign Setting X they can be the Dweomercraft Cabal. As things appear now, the name "Golden Wyvern" is built into the abilities they can choose. So the conversation will look like this:

DM: You are attacked by some acolytes of the Dweomercraft Cabal.
Player 1: Which ones were those guys again?
Player 2: They're the Golden Wyvern wizards.
DM: No, Golden Wyvern doesn't exist in this setting. They're Dweomercraft Cabal.
Player 1: What do Dweomercraft Cabal wizards do?
DM: They use the Golden Wyvern abilities.
Player 2: So they're Golden Wyvern wizards, after all?
DM: No. They're exactly identical to Golden Wyvern, but they're not called Golden Wyvern, and even though you need to look for Golden Wyvern in the index if you want to look up their powers, because there's no generic name for them, they're definitely not Golden Wyvern wizards.
Player 1: I attack a Golden Wyvern wizard.
DM: *gets up, begins to leave*
Player 2: Where are you going?
DM: I'm going to Renton, Washington to find Andy Collins. I'll need bail money.

DING DING DING!!!

WOTC, read this .. this is what we are trying to avoid.....that, and keeping Andy Collins out of traction.