From WotC_Logan: "Maybe a Charlie Brown Christmass Tree"

[The Little Raven]

Please keep your dagger away from my loincloth.

So long as your loincloth doesn't violate my airspace.

Otherwise, my dagger will wish to have words with it.

 

[Falling Icicle]

The idea of reducing the need for magic items is something I really like. I hate all the "necessary" magic items like rings of protection, etc. I prefer magic items that do cool things rather than just give a + to a stat.

Unfortunately, they added the staff, orb and wand items to the Wizard class so that Wizards would need +5 orbs just as a fighter needs a +5 sword. Really sounds hypocritical to me. If they want to reduce the christmas tree effect, why build the need for such lame items into a class?

 

[Baby Samurai]

Yep, this is great news – so sick of every character having a ring of deflection, amulet of natural armour, cloak of resistance and whatever ability score modifying item just to keep up.

 

[Nebulous]

Interpretations:
- Resting is easier and/or heals more hit points.
- Characters have significantly more hit points.
- Most likely IMHO: Magical healing via clerics (edit: or via mentioned magic wand) is made at will / per encounter, making it practically infinite. Which I don't like. Probably more fun that way :\ .

Just to make a video game analogy, Halo is fantastic fun with the recharging shields. To survive an "encounter" you just have to keep your shields from getting depleted, and once healed, you can move on to the next encounter. I wonder if 4e is taking a similar approach, letting you heal much more quickly with less downtime than we're used to.

 

[FourthBear]

The idea of reducing the need for magic items is something I really like. I hate all the "necessary" magic items like rings of protection, etc. I prefer magic items that do cool things rather than just give a + to a stat.

Unfortunately, they added the staff, orb and wand items to the Wizard class so that Wizards would need +5 orbs just as a fighter needs a +5 sword. Really sounds hypocritical to me. If they want to reduce the christmas tree effect, why build the need for such lame items into a class?

I would think that they might have done the above not hypocritically, but very deliberately. My suspicions are that this discussion went along these lines:

A: Let's redesign staff, wands and items into permanent wizardly implements, rather than charged items.
B: OK, we don't want to make them necessary to cast, that'll go over like a lead balloon. How can we strongly encourage wizard implements, but not make them out and out needed?
A: When I look at 3e, we see a whole rack of items that pretty much "every character must have" We can find them infesting damn near every high level characters' sheet. The magic item team has been rooting these out of the game, but what if we *wanted* to make implements necessary, not in the strict sense, but in the sense of old 3e magic items, like the ring of protection or Circlet of Intelligence?
B: OK-doke, along with fun, interesting powers, we'll have wizard implements add a significant plus to the wizards' (Whatever) bonus. That way, they'll become pretty ubiquitous without our having to make them strictly necessary.

Obviously, I strongly suspect that they thought the implements were cool, not lame. Such are the problems of game designers.

 

[Henry]

Just to make a video game analogy, Halo is fantastic fun with the recharging shields. To survive an "encounter" you just have to keep your shields from getting depleted, and once healed, you can move on to the next encounter. I wonder if 4e is taking a similar approach, letting you heal much more quickly with less downtime than we're used to.

While fun in a real-time game, I don't know if I'd find it as fun in an ongoing RPG. Does Halo have level gains, improvement over time (other than newer weapons), etc.? I've never played, because I dislike first-person shooters, myself. With only minimal rest time on resources, characters would rocket up through levels, and gain multiple levels on the same day of game-time -- which would not be fun at all to me. Compare to something like World of Warcraft, where they balance levelling time by requiring you to have TONS of experience to go up in levels after level 10 or so.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

While fun in a real-time game, I don't know if I'd find it as fun in an ongoing RPG. Does Halo have level gains, improvement over time (other than newer weapons), etc.? I've never played, because I dislike first-person shooters, myself. With only minimal rest time on resources, characters would rocket up through levels, and gain multiple levels on the same day of game-time -- which would not be fun at all to me. Compare to something like World of Warcraft, where they balance levelling time by requiring you to have TONS of experience to go up in levels after level 10 or so.

Well, WoW's first two levels alone took too long for my tastes, which is why I gave up immediately. Have no time for boring quests to gain little XP. :/

But then you're observation is correct, that leveling to fast might be a problem. Though I don't think that this would affect the game play, since combats still takes time to play out, and thus you have the same amount of sessions. But in-game, you might have just made a non-stop adventure brining you from 1st to 10th level in 12 hours.

A few things that can avoid this (most the time)
- Travel Times. Unless there are dozens of dungeons within a few mile radius, players still require a few days of time before they can level next.
- Appointments. In a city campaign, travel times are neglible, but some people only have time for you at specific times.
- Timed Events. Some events that prompt a player reaction or require their interaction happen at specific times - Eclipses, Holy Days, Festivals, the yearly visit of Gundulf the Rainbowcolored...
- A Few Daily resources remain. We already know that this is the case, so if these resources are important or useful enough (Teleportation, Ressourection, Strong Divination Magic, Second Wind abilities), characters still have an incentive to rest.

The last thing is pure DM fiat - they don't allow the players to get into an adventure before a certain time has passed (simply because they decide that the next adventure will take 1 week after the last one...). It is a lot like Timed Events, but less predictable (since nobody except the kidnappers know when they capture the princess, and nobody knows when a drunken cultist happens to boast about a secret underwater base near an equally drunken PC...)

 

[Imperialus]

I'm kind of excited about the way it sounds like they're dealing with magic items. Especially if they incorperate some of the ideas from Weapons of Legacy. I for one like the idea of a weapon or other item that grows with the character or the character grows into it depending on how you play it. PC's become identified with their items and the items themselves take on lives of their own. Lord Kayan Redsteel, known for his distinctive blood red sword isn't quite as cool if Lord Kayan pawns his red sword because it's a +3 sword and at this point he would really like a +4 sword of shock with spell storing.

Magic items were one of the first things that drew me into D&D. I remember reading the magic items chapter of the 2nd ed DMG and thinking "wouldn't it be cool if I had X or Y". In 3rd ed though, magic items had become just another source of book-keeping and you were constantly working to upgrade your gear. Cutting down on the Christmas tree, not eliminating it all together but making magic items special and cool again would be perfect IMO.