Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lurks-no-More" data-source="post: 3912299" data-attributes="member: 8226">First of all, thank you for taking the time to write such an extensive answer! Reading it through, I agree with you on many points.If you don't mind, I'll respond, below, only to those parts where I disagree with you.I do like alignment, for the most part, but I must point out that it is one of the most contentious, disliked and frequently excised or house-ruled parts of (A)D&D. Much of that dislike probably dates from the earlier editions, where alignment sometimes was used as the straitjacket its opponents claim it is. (IIRC, 2e had the character stop gaining experience or even losing it if they changed their alignment!)That said, I think, based on the designer comments, that 4e will still have alignment, but not all creatures will be aligned. It seems to me that they're reserving aligned status to beings who, under the current 3.5 rules would have auras stronger than faint: undead, fiends, celestials, clerics, and high-level characters who've taken an active role in the world, either for good or evil.If this turns out to be the way they handle alignment in 4e, I'll be satisfied.That sounds like it would be appealing to dung beetles. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> Anyway, I think I think you're exaggerating a bit here. I think that character classes, levels, abstracted HP, six ability scores and such are more important parts of D&D's core identity than alignment, and WotC is retaining all those concepts.I agree with you. The thing is, I don't think the implied setting we're seen is going to cause any problems. The information about races sounds very similar to what we've seen in earlier editions; tieflings and dragonborn are new to PHB, but IMO they broaden the possibilities for campaigns with tone differing from Tolkien, medieval romances etc.I can see your point about the implied setting becoming more extensive and pervasive, but I have to disagree about it limiting your options or reducing diversity. In my gaming experience, what the Monstrous Manual or the PHB said about elven culture, or the feeding and care of griffons, never came in the way of either the players or the DM. When problems arose, they were because the DM and the players had differing ideas about elves or whatnot, but not because one or another of them diverged from the books. I don't see anything bad about there being a 4e shared experience, or that it is not the same shared experience as in the earlier editions. As for being able (or not) to run KotB in 4e, I think we do not have enough information about the new rules to come to definite conclusions yet.Now, I've never played KotB (not a part of my shared experiences, unlike, say, The Isle of Dread), but from what I've seen online, it is a fairly basic adventure scenario with the keep, and nearby caves, with some monsters in them, and the "meat" of the thing comes from the DM building upon this basic structure as the PCs explore the place. For low-level 4e characters, what sort of extensive modification do you think would be necessary?To be honest, rust monster seems to be designed as a "gotcha" monster, much like the gelatinous cube. The adaptability and multiple uses you indicate are not something inherent in the critter itself.Again, in my (admittedly anecdotal) experience, we've changed the fluff - names and implied setting connections - of prestige classes, spells and magic items without much difficulty. I don't think it is going to be as big an issue as you believe.Well, by now the name "tiefling" has been around for thirteen years (Planescape was released in 1994); I'd think it has become very much a part of the D&D shared experience. As for the rarity of lizard people as protagonists, you have a point. But then again, in the sword & sorcery fiction where the reptilian peoples are fairly common, wizards are rarely the protagonists, either. (Besides of which, there is something very appealing with lizardfolk; a lot of people have mentioned having a soft spot for them.)I don't quite see how the presence of tieflings forces the new example cosmology down your throat. As you said, humans with demonic or devilish taint are a common theme in both myth and in fiction!Again, I agree. But I don't see them taking away all that much. Gnomes and (I believe) half-orcs will get treatment in the MM, but neither of them were very popular (vocal gnome fans on these boards notwithstanding <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> ) races, I think. (Half-orcs were missing entirely from the 2e, and neither existed in the D&D boxed sets as PC races.)With classes, you have a better point, since apparently monk, bard and druid will appear in later books. However, monks and bards are probably the two least used and most disliked classes in the PHB. Druids are much more popular, and I understand people wishing to see them in the first book. However, classically druids have been basically a cleric variant, and as such it makes IMO sense for WotC to put, say, warlords in their place in the PHB.In the end, I think we agree in many ways about what D&D is, and should be, but disagree in how much and in which ways WotC's stated design changes will affect this. This is, for the most part, obviously up to personal preference, and neither of us can be said to be "right" or "wrong" about these issues.Again, thanks for taking the time to make your case! Now, we'll have to wait for the 4e (or at least more preview stuff) to see what the final game will look like, and how it will feel; who knows, maybe you'll end up loving 4e, while I will drop it! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

Verification