D&D eXPerience: Core Mechanics (now compiled in 1st post!)

[breschau]

Khuxan gave the tiefling racial entry, courtesy of davethegame's scans:

Wow, that fluff text and the example characters at the end scream: "All you World of Darkness players out there, come play D&D. Look! We can do whiny, dark, and brooding characters too."

And the modern names section, come on. Great. Now I never have to worry about players trying to make names that sound archaic. "What's your character's name again?" "Brooding Dark McDark." "Right. How could I forget."

 

[Incenjucar]

Eh. Angsty punk and its variants and relatives are pretty huge these days, at least fashion-wise, so there's no reason to cut them out of marketing.

 

[hong]

Wow, that fluff text and the example characters at the end scream: "All you World of Darkness players out there, come play D&D. Look! We can do whiny, dark, and brooding characters too."

Well... whiny, dark and brooding characters with tails.

Die, stupid tail. Die. Die. Die.

(And BTW, the shadar-kai description is even more emo/goth than tieflings, FWIW.)

 

[FadedC]

I noticed that the human cleric had one more at will power then everyone else. Could be just a cleric thing, but also seems quite possible that humans get to choose 3 at will powers instead of 2 at lvl 1.

 

[MaelStorm]

Well... whiny, dark and brooding characters with tails.

Die, stupid tail. Die. Die. Die.

(And BTW, the shadar-kai description is even more emo/goth than tieflings, FWIW.)

I want the Dragonborn now!

 

[Geron Raveneye]

4ed: 1 extra action once per encounter.

3ed: Haste. 1 extra action per round.


Do you see the difference?

To be complete:

3E Haste: 1 additional partial action per round for #rounds = caster level, 1/spell/day

4E: 1 additional action per action point, at least 1 action point/day, averaging 1/encounter

And then the spell was nerfed for granting additional partial actions (unspecified ones) for what amounted to be 1-2 combats/day, because people could do other things with it than attacking with a weapon, which supposedly made hasted characters "overpowered"...in part because the nasty setback from older variants of the spell was gone as well. Now everybody can have the same effect, at least once per encounter, most likely more than once or twice a day, depending on how many action points they gain during their encounters, with the "only" setback the loss of an action point.

Yes, I see the difference.

Geron,

It seemed to me that 3e haste was changed because it gave an extra spell every round to spellcasters, not because it granted an extra attack to the fighty types. I mean, they kept that in the 3.5 version, after all.
-CW

Yeah, that's basically what I alluded to. They changed the unspecified "partial action" to "1 additional attack" because characters were allowed to use other special abilities with a partial action, too.
What I've seen from the rogue in play description, getting another action will enable characters to use their special abilities again. That's what I find ironic. I realize, though, that 4E most likely places a different emphasis/importance on one action in combat. So my only judgement before I've seen the rules fully will be "ironic".

And this is more an observation, less a point of discussion, for me. It simply shows some of the design principles behind 4E again, that's all.

 

[hong]

To be complete:

3E Haste: 1 additional partial action per round for #rounds = caster level, 1/spell/day

4E: 1 additional action per action point, at least 1 action point/day, averaging 1/encounter

And then the spell was nerfed for granting additional partial actions (unspecified ones) for what amounted to be 1-2 combats/day, because people could do other things with it than attacking with a weapon, which supposedly made hasted characters "overpowered"...in part because the nasty setback from older variants of the spell was gone as well. Now everybody can have the same effect, at least once per encounter, most likely more than once or twice a day, depending on how many action points they gain during their encounters, with the "only" setback the loss of an action point.

To be precise, they realised that the action budget being what it is, haste granting extra actions would have been a must-have regardless of what level it is. As a 9th level spell, it would still have been gold, let alone 3rd level.

So instead of leaving it hidden as a class ability, they brought it out into the open and nerfed it. Spiking for anywhere from 5 to 20 rounds is a far, far cry from spiking for 1 round.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

How did crits work?

Were they maximized dice of a standard attack, or maximized dice plus an extra die, or 2x...?

 

[Falling Icicle]

That's likely a function of the Half-Elf racials. Half-Elves are highly adaptable, and they likely can select abilities from other class lists. That Half-Elf chose a wizard power from the wizard list as a racial benefit. All classes can normally select 2 at-will powers, 1 encounter, and 1 daily at first level. The Half-Elf has 3 at-will, thus confirming that the Wizard power isn't a function of the class, but of the race.

This sounds pretty good, but three of the characters don't fit. The Wizard gets 5 at will powers. The Cleric gets 3 at will powers and 5 encounter powers. The Paladin gets 4 at will powers and 3 encounter powers (not counting the halfling racial). The other classes do fit the 2 at will, 1 encounter and 1 daily power formula though, assuming you take racials into account. The Paladin, Wizard and Cleric do list some of these extra powers as class features, though. Taking that into account, it does seem that Half-Elves and Humans get one extra power of their choice as a racial feature.

 

[Wormwood]

Wow, that fluff text and the example characters at the end scream: "All you World of Darkness players out there, come play D&D. Look! We can do whiny, dark, and brooding characters too."

Nerds in glass houses.