D&D 4E David Noonan on 4E "Cloudwatching" (Added Dave's newest comment from his blog)

[Khaalis]

The WotC NDA is pretty similar to any of the software gaming NDA's. From what I understand (2nd hand from a lawyer friend, so take with a grain of salt) that most NDA's have become pretty much a form contract, meaning that every NDA basically starts with the same core clauses and wording. These are then "tweaked" as necessary for each individual case, but this doesn't take very much. Its very similar to how divorce papers are a set form and can be done without a lawyer by filling in the blanks. Granted an NDA is more complex, but its the same basic idea.

In this particular case it sounds to me as if WotC is using the exact same kind of NDA as most MMORPG's use this day, including the clause that you can't even say that you ARE a tester. This has become SOP for NDAs.

 

[Khaalis]

To Raven:
More specifics on some of the class abilities at: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drpr/20070907a
Richard Baker's newest Playtest Report

Is this the kind of information you were looking for?

 

[Raven Crowking]

To Raven:
More specifics on some of the class abilities at: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drpr/20070907a
Richard Baker's newest Playtest Report

Is this the kind of information you were looking for?

Thank you, kind sir.

Unfortunately, I can't actually read that report because I am shooting myself in the foot in protest of the loss of print magazines, and therefore will not sign in to Dragon.

You know, if nothing else, this whole series of discussions related to 4e has caused me to re-evaluate some of my own house rules, hopefully for the better.

RC

 

[WizarDru]

If grappling rules are grinding your combats to a halt then that's extremely poor DM'ing.

Brewhammer, welcome to ENWorld. You might want to read the The Rules, which is stickied at the top of the topics page. In particular, you might want to read this part:

Keep it civil: Don't engage in personal attacks, name-calling, or blanket generalizations in your discussions. Say how you feel or what you think, but be careful about ascribing motives to the actions of others or telling others how they "should" think. People seeking to engage and discuss will find themselves asking questions, seeking clarifications, and describing their own opinion. People seeking to "win an argument" sometimes end up taking cheap shots, calling people names, and generally trying to intimidate others. My advice: don't try to win.

I think you can find a better way to get your point across than calling someone a Bad DM because they (and many others AND THE DEVELOPERS THEMSELVES) find a particular rule cumbersome and unwieldy and have neither the time nor patience to create and test their own rules variant.

Thanks.

 

[Celebrim]

Is this the kind of information you were looking for?

Yes and no. Yes, that sort of detail is the sort of information I'd like to have about the upcoming edition. No, that kind of information is not something I wanted to discover about the upcoming edition.

It's sorta like losing a friend.

I feel like Charleston Heston at the end of 'Planet of the Apes'.

 

[WizarDru]

Unfortunately, I can't actually read that report because I am shooting myself in the foot in protest of the loss of print magazines, and therefore will not sign in to Dragon.

Allow me:

Our first instinct was to begin blowing things up. Logan’s warlock laid down a Mire of Minauros on one side of the room, dissolving a couple of vampires and creating a nice acidic bog to guard our right flank. Infandous, Bruce’s “psion,” blasted another bunch of vampires with an area-effect attack. Then Karhun got his turn; I used one of those multiclass abilities I was talking about, and used a wand attack on more of the vampires. We discovered, much to our relief, that we were facing vampire minions—dangerous if they mob you, but otherwise easy prey for some big AoE attacks like the sort we were throwing out.

On my next round I saw several bad guys lined up in a row, so Karhun dashed a few squares over and used another wizard ability—my once-per-day scorch, a powerful fire attack. Karhun blasted two mummies and a hapless vampire minion for a pile of fire damage. After that, we were down to just a couple of monsters left, so Karhun switched over to melee attacks and spent the rest of the fight laying about him with his sword. I rolled pretty badly from that point on and managed to miss for the next three swings. Fortunately, the other players picked me up, and we finished off the mummies without too much trouble.

As it turns out, Toby’s warforged paladin is essentially indestructible under the current rules. I suppose a warforged ought to be tough, but the really odd thing is that his damage resistance (any DR, really) ignores psychic damage and poison damage. I’m not sure things ought to work that way; it seems to me that some sorts of damage ought to bypass DR by their very nature.

So there you see one of the 'per day' abilities, as well as a potential issue revealed during playtesting.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Allow me:

Thank you.

Was there any note as to what level these characters are supposed to be?

RC

 

[Caliber]

Thank you.

Was there any note as to what level these characters are supposed to be?

RC

It was said they ranged between 6-8 without any hard numbers given for any particular character.

 

[wedgeski]

If grappling rules are grinding your combats to a halt then that's extremely poor DM'ing.

You're trying to get me banned aren't you.

 

[Raven Crowking]

It was said they ranged between 6-8 without any hard numbers given for any particular character.

Hmmmm.......quite a bit too "woo hoo!" for my tastes, then (at least as described).