The known changes are mostly fairly vague at this point, unfortunately. A lot (all, I think) of it is on Morrus's
4e news page, too.
That said, I copied & pasted the text into the sblock below. Beware slightly busted formatting.
[sblock]
4th Edition
What we know:
A compendium of 4th edition facts and tidbits
Release Schedule
· 4th Edition preview books:
o Wizards Presents: Classes and Races: December 2007
o Wizards Presents: Worlds and Monsters: January 2008
· Adventure H1: Keep on the Shadowfell: April 2008. This is a quick-start adventure, which will include pre-generated characters -- "Get a jump on 4th Edition with Keep on the Shadowfell™, a D&D® adventure for characters of levels 1–3. This adventure includes a quick-start rulebook, an adventure booklet, a players’ booklet, 3 poster maps, and pre-generated characters. Additional adventure content will be presented on D&D Insider™
(www.dndinsider.com)." 96 pages.
· D&D Miniatures Game Starter Set: April 2008 - "This new starter set for the D&D® Miniatures Game includes everything 2 players need to play, including revised rules that will appeal to experienced players as well as players new to the game. Now anyone can experience an adventure right out of the box with this comprehensive set.
Included are:
o 5 exclusive, non-random pre-painted plastic D&D minis, including a new Green Dragon
o Battle map
o d20 die
o Rulebook
o Stat cards and damage counters"
· Dungeons of Dread: April 2008. Miniatures expansion -- "Battle the D&D game’s most iconic
monsters with Dungeons of Dread™, a 60-figure expansion for the D&D Miniatures Game. Creatures are drawn from the pages of the new 4th Edition Monster Manual. Each booster pack contains:
o 8 pre-painted plastic D&D minis, randomized with varying degrees of rarity to enhance collectability
o Stat cards and damage counters
o Set checklist"
· Player's Handbook: May 2008 (hardcover, 288 pages) -- "The Player’s Handbook® features a new cover design, a fresh new page layout, new character options, new magic items, and new rules that facilitate faster and more exciting gameplay from level 1 to level 30."
o Character Record Sheets: May 2008
· Monster Manual: June 2008 (hardcover, 288 pages) -- "Classic D&D® monsters and fearsome new foes populate the pages of the Monster Manual®. The book presents monsters
of all levels, along with full-color monster illustrations and easy-to-use monster statistics." The cover depicts Orcus, and Scott Rouse (WoTC Brand Manager) confirmed that the encounter range within the book would run from 1st-30th level. Orcus is one of the creatures in the MM.
· Dungeon Master's Guide: July 2008 (hardcover, 224 pages) -- "Weave thrilling tales of heroism, filled with magic and monsters, with the new Dungeon Master’s Guide®. This book
helps Dungeon Masters run great games, create exciting adventures, and build their own D&D® campaigns." [Note: the D&D Q&A panel at GenCon Indy said the DMG would
have 256 pages; the press release says 224].
o DM's Screen: July 2008.
The look of 4th Edition would be much less "textbook" and much more "magazine"; they
felt this would be friendlier, clearer and more accessible. Expect to see a higher reliance on
images and diagrams. PCs will be "points of light in a dark world."
The "Christmas tree" effect, whereby characters are loaded down with magic
items, buff spells and other magical effects was one of the designers' goals to remove
Star Wars Saga Edition and Book of Nine Swords were both "significant previews" of
4th Edition.
"Yes, there are some similarities [between Iron Heroes and 4th edition], i.e., putting
more emphasis on the class vs. the items for characters." – Mike Mearls
"3e got a lot of things right, but anyone who has played it for a time knows that it gets things wrong. There are also legacy issues with the game that have persisted unquestioned for years. 4e is all about taking the things that work in D&D, keeping them in the game, and fixing everything else." – Mike Mearls
"Going back to some 4E specifics, one of the things I have enjoyed about 4E is that it's very much a "yes you can" game. It lets people do fun and exciting things, and it lets them do them without much complication. My character is Thicket, a brawny dexterous rogue that's not too up on social graces and has some friends in low places. At one point the tougher fighter-types had gone down and I was the #1 target for the monsters. While the other players whittled the enemies down, I was leading them around in a chase across the battlefield, running up walls and flipping over bad guys to keep them from laying down the inevitable smack. I'd built the character to be kind of a mobile combatant and it worked to
my advantage. Thanks to one of my magic items I would occasionally dash across the battlefield when an enemy got too close, and we barely made it out alive. It was very exciting, and I essentially played the defensive role in the party once the fighter-types were down, just in an unusual way." – Rodney Thompson
“[Alignment’s] not going to be what it is now. Alignment is part of the story, part of the character. It is a useful shorthand, but too many books and too many players mistake it for limitation. We want to treat alignment as something bigger than that. We won’t get rid of it, but we don’t want it to be a replacement for character and personality."
“After having played (and worked on, a bit) D&D 4E, I really feel like a lot of things get blown out of proportion. When I play my 4E rogue, I feel like I'm playing what I call "3rd Edition ++" to steal a computer programming colloquialism. My rogue still sneaks around, leaps from the shadows, stabs a bad guy, and retreats just like in 3rd Edition. But my 4E rogue does all that, then leaps over the heads of a line of enemies, waits for an opening when an opponent
attacks him and then counterattacks immediately, and twists the knife to create a
huge gash in the enemy. I'm still finding traps, unlocking doors, ambushing bad guys, leaping from rooftops, and all of those things, but as I do so I'm far less distracted by the rules than I am under 3E." – Rodney Thompson
“I came to the realization that perhaps the most significant change in 4e is the one that's going to be the least visible: the math underlying the system. But it's hugely important! The reason there's a "sweet spot" in the current game is that it's the approximate range of levels where, purely by coincidence, the math of the system actually works. In those levels, PCs don't drop after one hit, and they don't take a dozen hits to wear down. In those levels, characters miss monsters occasionally, but less than half the time, and monsters miss characters only slightly more often. It's pure chance, really, but it means the game is fun. Outside of those levels, the math doesn't work that way, and the game stops being fun.
In Fourth Edition, we've totally revamped the math behind the system, and that's a big part of the way that we've extended the sweet spot across the whole level range. When PCs fight monsters of their level, they'll find that the math of the system is more or less the same at level 30 as it is at level 1. There will always be variation with different PCs and different monsters, but that variation won't be so great that monsters are either too deadly or too weak.
Of course, there's more to the sweet spot problem than just the math. The proliferation of save-or-die effects and adventure-breaking effects like etherealness and scrying also makes high-level adventuring more difficult to pull off, and we've addressed those issues as well. Fundamentally, this has meant we've had to abandon some things that might have seemed like sacred cows—fireball spells don't do 1d6/level any more, for example—but it's all in the interest of a far superior play experience." – James Wyatt
Classes
· Levels run from 1-30; these levels attempt to capture the feel of the "sweet range" of 3E, which is levels 7-14.
o 1-10 Heroic: foes are orcs and ogres, some giants, small dragons. Adventures tend to be
local.
o 11 - 20 Paragon: on par with the current low to mid teens right now. Bigger threats are faced that might threaten a kingdom.
o 21 - 30 Epic: world or planar threats.
· Fewer than 11 core classes. (source: James Wyatt)
Although two PCs may serve the same role, they may do it in different ways. (Like fighters with different styles.) The roles are geared towards combat; a PC's non-combat aspects can differentiate him further. He also said that they are still considering the possibility of there being a class or two that doesn't quite fit the four "roles".
· Fighter, Cleric, Rogue and Wizard definitely stay (multiple mentions and examples). Also mentioned Barbarian, Paladin and Ranger. Mentioned that wizard and sorcerer won't merge. Sorcerer will be different from wizards in more ways than just resource management.
· There are four "roles".
o Defender: fighter & paladin classes
o Leader: cleric & warlord classes
o Controller: wizard class
o Striker: rogue & ranger classes
· Character Powers are to be sorted into “at will, per encounter and per day abilities”
· All classes will have resource management aspects.
· All classes have defined roles – a fighter is never penalized for being a “tank”, a “healer” is never penalized for curing, a mage is never penalized for “magic missiling”.
· More options, not restrictions. Everyone will be a constructive, useful member of the party, no accidental lame characters.
· Less feat trees, easier for characters to swap out abilities much easier and try different things out. Each level from 1 – 30 each character will have interesting character development options to choose.
· "Fighters care about which weapons they use much more than other characters. Other character classes have specific weapons and weapon types that they tend to rely on while still maintaining access to a larger chunk of the weapon chart. The fighter is the only current 4th Edition class with capabilities that depend on the weapon they have chosen to train the most with. Even at 1st level, a fighter who uses an axe has a different power selection than a fighter who relies on a flail or a rapier or a pick. In the long run, fighters can diversify and master powers related to a few different weapons, but most will opt to focus on the weapon that suits their personal style, helps their interactions with the rest of the PCs in the group, and carries all the magical oomph they’ve managed to acquire."
· "Plus I had a nice, meaty design assignment to work on. Suffice it to say that I'm working on a significant customization choice your character makes midway through his or her career--and it's a choice that'll evolve over, say, ten levels or so. More on those when I get 'em written." – David Noonan
· The goal is to have the levels play in a similar manner - they don't want a 25th character overwhelmed with 80 abilities. The main differences should be in the story, not how they play.
· Mentioned that paladins can be of other alignments other than lawful good!
· New class: Warlord
· “Backstab” mentioned.
· "A skilled halberdier can hack a foe with his weapon’s blade and spin around to smash a second foe with the haft. A fighter with a longsword disarms her foe with a flick of her wrist, while a battle hungry axeman cleaves through shields, armor, and bone."
"Rogues have a similar relationship with skills. A nimble rogue dives through the air to tumble past an ogre, while a charismatic one tricks an enemy into looking away just before she delivers a killing blow with her dagger. Just as fighters do more with weapons than any other character, rogues push skills beyond the limits that constrain other PCs."
· Cleric mentioned creating a "surge of healing power" alongside a critical hit. This hints (yet unconfirmed) to mechanics similar to some Crusader maneuvers, from Tome of Battle.
· Some current base classes disappear; classes yet to be mentioned and therefore good candidates are Monk and Bard. Classes that don't appear in the PHB will appear in future products
· Psionics not to be included in core, though they'll have support.
· Prestige classes stay.
· “Very good” chance that Monks are in, and DR is out.
Races
· There is a tiefling on the player’s handbook. There may also be a changeling (from Eberron). Mike did all the talking, where there will be a very REAL ACTIVE difference within the races that will really make a difference between the Dwarf Fighter and an Elven Fighter.
· "[ECL] is a good example of something applied to the game to help make some things work easier. We don’t want to recreate this. We’re not going to give you rules to play a blink dog fighter… There will be many more choices, however, and we want to make sure they are all playable right out of the gate. If say, for instance, we put a tiefling in the PHB, we would certainly want to make it playable right out of the gate. So, for example, we might have had to make a lot of the other races a little bit cooler to keep the balance straight between the races."
· “In the final version of 4th Edition, most of your racial traits come into play right out of the gate at 1st level—dwarven resilience, elven evasion, a half-elf’s inspiring presence, and so on. As you go up levels, you can take racial feats to make those abilities even more exciting and gain new capabilities tied to your race. You can also take race-specific powers built into your class, which accomplish a lot of what racial substitution levels used to do: a dwarf fighter with the friend of earth power can do something that other 10th-level fighters just can’t do."
· Classes can be improved by racial feats, in a similar way to how current racial substitution levels work.
Advancement
· Personalizing and specializing your character is amped up, it’s one of the most powerful things about 4th edition. If you’re a barbarian, you’re not a frenzied berserker. If you’re a barbarian, you’re a barbarian for your entire career. The frenzied berserker and bear warrior will be at the very end.
· There will be rules akin to the retraining rules in PHBII - they don't like the idea of people planning their careers from level 1 to 30.
· Multiclassing – lots of compelling and interesting choices. A fighter who dabbles in wizard or dabbles in cleric is something compelling, Andy’s brother is playing a rogue wizard and he’s said in the conversion "this is the character I wanted to play all along". The choices and powers are good powers on both sides. Backstab, throw chromatic orb across the room, then teleport across the room. There is no more “crappy fighter” attached to a “crappy wizard”.
· "Gish lovers (and those who are, um, gishcurious), I've got your back. Terminology Note: When I say "gish," I'm not referring specifically to githyanki fighter/wizards. Nor am I talking about a really good Smashing Pumpkins album, Gish. I'm talking more generally about characters who are capable melee combatants and reasonably good arcane spellcasters, too.
One of the things I'm working on is some character-building pieces to support the archetype. And as I write, I wonder, "I'm not sure the gish needs the help. He might be OK with just our crazy new multiclassing rules."
Multiclassing: New multiclassing rules, you ask. Yep, we've got 'em. Multiclass characters are running at a couple of our internal playtest tables right now. Early results are promising, but we're talking about only a couple of characters, so we haven't seen broad proof of concept yet.
It's easy to critique 3e multiclassing, but it's also important to remember that they represent a massive, double-quantum leap from multiclass/dual-class rules in 1e/2e. We really like the configurability and freedom of 3e multiclassing, the way it's extensible even when you add new classes to the mix, and how it respects (to a degree, anyway) the changing whimsy of players as their characters evolve.
But it's got some problems – and in particular, it doesn't tackle the gish very well. There's the arcane spell failure problem, which takes some levels of the spellsword PrC, a little mithral, and some twilight enhancement to take care of. But beyond that, the low caster level can be just crippling for the fighter/wizard who wants to blast the bad guys into oblivion, rather than use his spellbook as a really good utility belt.
So that's one big problem--the caster level situation. In 3e, we've cemented over that with some prestige classes and feats. But there's another problem: Your journey through the "Valley of Multi-Ineffectiveness." For the gish, it's hard to truly be, well, gishy at low levels before you've figured out a reasonable answer to the armor problem. You can't really wade into melee like a fighter, because you're gonna get creamed. So you have to take an "I'm basically a wizard for now" or "I'm basically a fighter for now." That works, but you're just biding your time until you get to play the character you want to play.
And for the gish's cousin, the wizard/cleric, his "Valley of Multi-Ineffectiveness" isn't quite as deep, but it lasts a little longer--until he qualifies for mystic theurge, anyway.
So the improvement we're seeking from the multiclass system is something that solves some specific math problems (the caster level thing) and some specific career-path problems (letting you feel like a blend of classes from the get-go).
The Gish, Today: So what does this mean for our gish PCs at the playtest tables? Well, from very early levels, he's weariing armor, stabbing dudes, and casting spells. He's not as good at stabbing as the fighter, nor as good at casting as the wizard. But he's viable at both. In theory.
In theory? Well, like I said, the gish characters don't have a lot of mileage on them yet. And creating hybrid characters involves a careful balancing act. Multiclass characters can't be optimal at a focused task (because that horns in the turf for the single-class character) and they can't be weaksauce (because then you've sold the multiclass character a false bill of goods and he doesn't actually get to use the breadth of his abilities). There's a middle ground between "optimal" and "weaksauce" that I'll call "viable." But it's not exactly a wide spot of ground. Finding that viable middle ground isn't a problem unique to 4e. The 3e designers (myself included) took lots of shots at it; the bard, the mystic theurge, and the eldritch knight are all somewhere on the optimal-viable-weaksauce continuum. And any WoW shaman, druid, or paladin knows firsthand the sorts of continual rebalancing they've undergone as Blizzard tries to keep their hybrid classes in the middle of that continuum." – David Noonan
· XP remaining, and for those not comfortable with eyeballing it will have a clear time as to when to advance. Much easier for the DM. "I’ll build a level 8 encounter, totaling 8000 xp, this one, plus this one = 8000 done." No tables. Monsters have a level, just like characters. “A group vs. a “group” of 5th level is about the same as an EL5 encounter today.
Magic
· Vancian 'spell slots' will be reduced in how much they control a caster's total ability – "Vancian magic system – there’s an element of that we held on to, but it’s a much smaller fraction of their overall power. A wizard will never completely run out of spells. They can run out of their “mordenkainen’s sword, however”
o BTW, who knew that so many people disliked Vancian spellcasting? The entire audience [at Gen Con] cheered and clapped when we told them it was (mostly) gone." – Mike Mearls
· To the question of whether XP will be required to make magic items Andy Collins replied, "No, Hell No." How magic items will be made in character wasn't discussed beyond a vague statement that you wouldn't be burning a feat on it, and out of character the structure of magic item creation will become more loosened.
o Magic Item Creation. "We tried to fool ourselves into the fact that there was a hard pricing, but we started recognizing that with MIC, that we should look at them more holistically. There will not be magic item creation rules for DM’s as we realize that as professional game designers we don’t even get it right every time. We’re going to give you lots and lots of examples and suggest that you build it, test it, etc. "
o Will it be easier for a wizard to create magic items? "Yes, characters can still build magic items, it will be a way for characters to acquire things, but it will be more flexible and easier. There will be a preview article on this in two weeks on D&D Insider. Three releases a week."
· “At dinner Andrew Finch and I had an interesting discussion about the way magic items are going to work in 4th Edition. Since I was busy running Star Wars games and hosting my own seminars I didn't get to go to any of the D&D panels, so I don't know how much they revealed about magic items. Anyways, Andrew and I were having a bit of a disagreement about the way magic items contribute to the D&D experience. (As an aside, Andrew and I have had many such conversations back at the office, especially in a Star Wars context where loot and gear are almost meaningless). We both agree on this: finding a magic item is a tangible player reward that helps keep the game moving forward for the players. While XP may be its own reward, it's a delayed reward. When I conclude an encounter, I get XP, but I don't get its effects for another few encounters. The presence of magic items provides an immediate reward (or, at least, the potential for an immediate reward) at the conclusion of the encounter. You don't have to actually get a new magic item for the potential for reward to be there, and in many cases you'll feel as though you've been rewarded when someone else gets an item. In 4E, I think there is going to be a very interesting dynamic between magic items and players. I believe it was mentioned that some traditional things about magic items were going the way of the dodo, and that magic items aren't going to be required to do cool things at high levels. While that may be true, I think people are still going to want magic items because they are going to provide some cool and exciting effects. There's going to be a new dynamic where players are going to want new things but not necessarily need them as much to remain competitive, which I'm thinking is going to actually cause the "I'm happy for someone else when they get loot" mentality to spread. If I don't get new magic items for a while, I'm not becoming underpowered per se, so it's much easier for me to feel rewarded when someone else picks up a new magic item." – Rodney Thompson
· Vancian system survives, but it's only a "fraction" of the magic (or magic options) available to characters: "a wizard who casts all his memorized per day spells should be at about 80% of power."
· "Wizards will be able to cast 25th-level spells."
· Fireballs don't deal 1d6/level damage any more. Also, game breaking spells (spells that fundamentally change the gaming scenario, like etherealness, scrying, and save or die effects) "have been addressed as well".
Monsters
· "There will be many more monsters for PC’s to fight. It’s more fun that way. There are very few encounters that are built to be all the PC’s against one big powerful bad guy. There will be more mechanics built to leverage the monsters and THEIR fundamental roles. An ettin will be talking to itself throughout the encounter. This is the “monster’s job on the battlefield” this is how he reacts."
· The fog of war is much more interesting because when you approach an orc, he isn’t a set of specific stats. He has a very specific role, and you won’t know what it is until he unleashes it on the battlefield.
· Vulnerability to energy likely to work differently in 4e, with additional effects (like slowing in the case of cold) instead of (or in addition to?) extra damage.
· "The ettin, for instance, has the whole two-heads thing, so it can go twice in one round, and take unrelated actions."
· Ancient (red?) dragons apparently now can do a lot of things (the dragon can't do all those things every round - that was clarified by Wizards' staff in the Gleemax forums):
· An inferno aura, useable as a free action.
· A tail slap attack with an added pushback effect, useable as a free action.
· Two claw attacks, useable as a standard action.
· A fireball spit that sticks to the target dealing extra damage, useable as a standard action.
· A breath weapon, but we don't get to see what kind of action it normally takes - a free one like the inferno aura, as different uses of the same ability?
· A special action granting an extra standard action.
· They may take an immediate action to use their breath weapon when reduced blow half damage.
· They may take an immediate action to use their tail slap when about to be flanked.
· Said dragon would have around 1000 hit points.
· Monstrous races? Can you still make kobold barbarians? "We’re not going to put limitations on the way we build monsters to make them work right. We know there are monsters that will become player character races. For example, it will be obvious how to play a goblin PC right out of the monster manual and PH."
· Monsters will have roles outlined in the MM. Monster design will be more open ended. Not all monsters will have information necessary to make them playable characters.
"Anyway, dragons. Ready-to-play dragons, right in the Monster Manual! What a concept! I just pulled the 1977 Monster Manual and the 1993 Monstrous Manual off my shelf and realized that this is, in fact, the first Monster Manual in the history of the D&D game to give you complete, ready-to-play dragons right there in the book! (To be fair, you didn't have to do much for the dragons in the 1977 book, but you did have to contend with a range of possible Hit Dice, hit points per die that depended on the dragon's age, and a fair bit of text at the start of the dragon entry you had to refer back to in play. Plus, there was a random chance that a dragon might use magic, and its spells were determined randomly.
In the 1993 book, you had to consult two different tables, checking the dragon's age against the various columns, to determine its Hit Dice (let's see, page 79 tells me the silver dragon has 15 base Hit Dice, but it's adult, so page 64 tells me to add 2), AC, damage (1-8/1-8/5-30 on page 79, +6 from page 64), and so on. What fun!
And then, of course, there's 3e, with the whole stat block construction process. Choose skills and feats and spells for every dragon, and modify all the stats accordingly. Nuts!
So here we are, neck-deep in writing the 4e Monster Manual, and I have the happy task of filling in a 14-page dragon entry. (A waste of space? In a Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual? I don't think so.) Each dragon has all the information you need to run it, self-contained in its stat block. Each spread gives you tactics, descriptions, encounters, and lore for the dragon at hand. The start of the section talks about the families of dragons, a legend of the birth of dragons, advice for building and running a dragon encounter—lots of great information, but nothing you're going to have to flip back to in the middle of any encounter.
Every attack, every statistic, every magic power each dragon has is contained right there in its stat block. Self-contained. As easy to run as you could ask a solo monster to be. Ready to go. Ready to kill your characters. Awesome." – James Wyatt
"We are not going back to a 1st or 2nd edition means of creating monsters. Those editions had no standards for monster design. Everyone just eyeballed it and hoped it was fair and fun (often it wasn't).
Third edition gives the illusion of fairness by giving you formulas to rely on, but you can use all the formulas perfectly and easily end up with an unfair or unfun monster. Advancing monsters by hit dice is a great example. Depending on its type and ability scores, the CR raise you give it according to the formulas might work out okay, but just as often the monster ends up too tough for its CR or too weak.
CR is often just a shot in the dark. We usually get it right, but I'm betting you can think of some critters that are way out of their weight class.
For each level of play we're devising a range of numbers for monsters that provide fairness and fun. Those numbers are based on what the PCs bring to the fight in terms of their potency and defenses, and upon the general role in the fight a monster is likely to be in.
Thus, the ogre, who is most likely to be the tough brute in melee, uses the “brute” range of numbers for its level. The numbers in that range and their distribution are designed to be fair and fun in a fight while at the same time allowing the artillery monster (like maybe a gnoll archer) of the same level to feel different but still be fair and fun. Of course, an ogre can chuck spears and that gnoll archer can charge up and hit you, but the numbers are devised in a fashion to produce great results when the monsters are used how people normally would use them. The ogre that’s in your face has more hit points than the gnoll archer that is using the ogre as a shield.
Changing a monster will be easier and more fair that ever. Rather than jumping through hoops and doing a lot of math with uncertain results, you can just look at the numbers for where you want to be and put the monster there. You might get there by adding a class, by "advancing" a monster, by adding a template, or some combination. The key is that you'll know where you need to get to in order to make the monster work right." – Matthew Sernett
Encounters
· Encounters will be built differently in 4th edition. There will be much more “situation” and
complexity in the environment, swinging bridges, gouts of lava, etc. An encounter is like a scene of a play – could be talking to a town guard, could be defending a town gate, could be
traversing the mountainside to enter the shrine of Asmodeus.
· AOO - "It won't be the same thing, but the concepts are all there. Please note that things
ARE still in development. Nothing's finalized yet."
· Grapple gets a major overhaul!
· "See, in 3e there's a basic assumption that an encounter between four 5th-level PCs and one CR 5 monster should drain away about 25% of the party's resources, which primarily translates into spells (and primarily the cleric's spells, which determine everyone else's total hit points). What that actually means is that you get up the morning, then have three encounters in a row that don't reallly challenge you. It's the fourth one that tests your skill—that's where you figure out whether you've spent too much, or if you still have enough resources left to finish off that last encounter. Then you're done. So basically, three boring encounters before you get to one that's really life or death....It kind of makes sense, mathematically. The problem is, it's not fun. So what lots of people actually do, in my experience, is get up in the morning and have a fun encounter: there are multiple monsters that are close to the PCs' level, so the total encounter level is higher than their level. There's interesting terrain and dynamic movement. Sometimes there are waves of monsters, one after another. Whew! It's a knock-down, drag-out fight that could really go either way. And it's fun!" – James Wyatt
· Attacks of opportunity greatly changed/simplified: a fighter charges a dragon and no AoO is mentioned.
· Confirmation rolls for critical hits possibly go away.
· Combat still uses a square grid
· Free, immediate, move and standard actions mentioned.
· Rules for non-combat encounters. The example given was social interaction. Unlike 3E, where negotiation amounts to a single Diplomacy check, it's treated almost like a combat in 4E.
o "Social encounters. For those who don't just want to RP such things without some mechanical impact, the game has rules for non-combat encounters. The example given was social interaction. Unlike 3E, where negotiation amounts to a single Diplomacy check, it's treated almost like a combat in 4E. I make a skill check, but I also tell the DM what/how I'm doing. The opponent responds with behavior (and a check) of his own. I counter with a new check, and new words. And so forth." – Ari Marmell
"...And out comes a new iteration of our social challenge rules. We extracted a ton of useful data out of the test, and I'll probably spend the rest of the morning typing that up for my colleagues and messing with some the rules. But I can share some broad outlines with you.
1) I had perfect attendance at my table last night: 7 PCs, plus the dragon, plus the lich. A truly participatory social challenge at a table that big is going to be chaotic no matter how you structure it. Or at least you can't come up with rules that muzzle my players.
2) There was a lot of variety in both the mechanical techniques used (the checks/rolls/etc.) and the actual table dialogue. That's a pretty high priority, so it was good to see it emerge in actual play. But my table is predisposed to show those behaviors, so I can't see anything more definite than "it's a good system for people who throw themselves into that play style wholeheartedly."
3) The system we were testing involves skill checks (big surprise, huh?). One of the things I found fascinating was that some players preferred to deliver their dialogue, then roll the skill check and report the result. Others preferred to roll the skill check first, then deliver dialogue that matched their result (good or bad). The system works either way, so I might just make it explicit that you can "roll, then talk" or "talk, then roll."
4) There is a totally valid D&D play-style that haaaaates the idea of social interactions being resolved with a die roll. This system should work for that play-style, too, once you flip a few switches. That just isn't the playstyle we were testing last night.
The upshot? We had about 20 minutes of great dialogue at the table, then the lich was sufficiently convinced that the dragon was dangerously insane that he cautiously aided the PCs in attacking the dragon. Of course the lich turned on the PCs as the dragon fight was winding down. But the social challenge mattered, because the PCs were able to fight the dragon (with a little help), then fight the lich. That sure beats fighting dragon + lich."
– Dave Noonan
Skills
· Skill system – familiar but truncated. Getting rid of tailor, rope use, etc. Focus on the skills that are really useful in an encounter. Star Wars Saga Edition is a significant stride forward and should be considered a preview. Same for profession, etc. We want characters making acrobatics, bluff, jump, etc. No characters will be stuck at 10th level saying “oh I never invested in that.” Hide/Move Silently are brought together. Now an important part of your character, and here’s how to apply it to an encounter: "It’s rarely a check and done, it’s now, I make a check, and they react to it. What happens now?"
Settings
· At the GenCon Indy Q&A, the question of whether Greyhawk will be the default world was avoided, however Greyhawk proper names will remain – "Greyhawk will not be default setting in core. We want to leverage the assets of the assumed parts of a D&D world – Mordenkainen, Bigby, Vecna, Llolth, Tiamat, Asmodeus, etc. However, we also want to call upon the great mythology that is more commonly known such as Thor, etc."
· Forgotten Realms will be the first setting released.
· Eberron will remain without major shakeups.
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