Jason Bulmahn Speaks about DDXP(His take on the system)

[AZRogue]

I think people may be taking the criticism from certain game designers a little too much to heart. As designers, they're going to try to make as balanced a review as possible; that includes posting those things they didn't like or that worried them. Also, they're not going to review the product with an eye to what is most likely included in the core rules, but will review the actual product they played. A guy trying to find good and bad might come off as having a negative review when that might not have been his intention.

Overall, I'm just trying to take their reviews in context with the other, positive, reviews we've received from gamers that were at the con. In the end I'm going to have to find out for myself but they're all helpful.

 

[cdrcjsn]

I think that the fear is that "This cleric has radiant powers, so every cleric must have radiant powers."

I for one don't have a problem with this.

A cleric of the god of Shadow using radiant spells not make sense in your campaign? Who says that the god of Shadow has to have clerics? Maybe he has necromancers as his main priests instead?

Now that leaders of various power sources (shadow, primal, etc) are gonna be available, I have no problems with shoehorning clerics into armor wearing wielders of light and healing.

After all, if it's true that all non-combat spells are being moved into rituals, then things like commune, consecrate and other "prayer" type spells can now be used by non-clerics taking on a "priest" role of a religion.

It never did make much sense to me why a god of death or entropy would grant healing...

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

But doesn't that add an element of uncertainty and variability that would make fights with the same monster type less repetitive, since fighting the same creature twice can be quite different if one is chock full of special powers, while the other is less flashy? I mean, it makes monsters less predictable than monster from older editions, who get a clearly defined 1/day or 1/round ability.

While I mostly agree with Jason's points, I find myself agreeing with Mourn here. I think I like the recharge mechanic.

What I find interesting is that the combination of 'swingy' fights and PCs not dying until they're way way negative seems like it will resolve into more situations where the whole party gets captured. I am wondering if 4E will have an 'Escape' mechanic.

Ken

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

When it comes to concerns about creativity and repetitive actions, never underestimate the ability of players and DMs to be unpredictible. The Demos had limited options on purpose. Once the full rules are available and gamers everywhere get to use them under less structured circumstances, I'm fairly certain the results will be very different.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I'm afraid "casting magic missile" is going to become the new "shooting a crossbow" for 4e wizards....

I see no problem with that. Aside from D&D, wizards in most fantasy stories pretty much attack with magic exclusively.

Really the only thing I've heard about 4e that I just shake my head at is the static saves.

 

[dm4hire]

Well I think what a lot of people will miss will be the repertoire of spells they had before where they could go through a battle and cast several spells throughout the course of a battle and now they won't. Gone are the days of having eight or nine spells to cast in a given battle if not for a given level of spells alone at high level. Might still have the same number of things to choose from but will not be able to go through all of them like before.

As a side note, I wouldn't mind a third party consolidating the various 3.x stuff and coming out with an OGL set making it available in just three or four books within limits so we have a final authoritative set. Basically harvest all the good stuff and put it together. Even if only making it available through PDF or Lulu. I think there will still be a demand for 3.x modules for a very long time so there will still be a market for them, just not as big as right now.

 

[National Acrobat]

Interesting, and the one thing I keep seeing is 'monsters don't have that many options anymore' is something I fully expect many GMs to fix from the 'cookie cutter' mold almost immediately.

Everyone in my group that I have talked to about this agrees that they would simply start altering monsters to fit their needs, as they have through every version of the game so that every encounter isn't the same.

 

[themilkman]

Regarding the swinginess of the system, Jason hit the nail on the head. Whereas he breezed through his games, I got TPKed in both of mine. Mostly, this was due to two things:

1.) The loss of a party member. This one is pretty obvious. In one game, we lost both of our defenders, and in the other game we lost our Ranger, which was a big loss against the big bad dragon (BBD). All of these deaths were due to poor familiarity with the game mechanics. Our defenders didn't Second Wind when they should've, and our Ranger kept moving close to enemies to avoid concealment and firing-into-melee penalties that weren't there. I'm sure that a group more familiar with the rules (and possibly with more options available) would have fewer character deaths. Also, dead characters tend to get replaced quickly in my home games, but that wasn't possible in the preview adventures.

2.) Coin-toss rolls. In the BBD fight, the dragon recharged his breath weapon just about every other round, and we failed about 75% of our saving throws to stop ongoing damage. This means that some people had damage from two (or more) effects stacked up. If you're taking 10+ damage per round automagically, you're not going to stand for long. I'm not sure what to do about this, but for the times when we weren't horribly overwhelmed, it did make for some pretty tense throws.

-The Milkman

 

[fafhrd]

Well I think what a lot of people will miss will be the repertoire of spells they had before where they could go through a battle and cast several spells throughout the course of a battle and now they won't. Gone are the days of having eight or nine spells to cast in a given battle if not for a given level of spells alone at high level. Might still have the same number of things to choose from but will not be able to go through all of them like before.

Wait. What? You are talking about the notorious 2-3 round battle of 3.x right?

 

[Wolfwood2]

I see no problem with that. Aside from D&D, wizards in most fantasy stories pretty much attack with magic exclusively.

Really the only thing I've heard about 4e that I just shake my head at is the static saves.

Remember that these aren't saves in the 3E sense of saves. The initial determination of "does this power affect your character" is made by comparing the bad guy's attack roll versus your defense. Both of those will alter from leveling and various effects.

4E "saves" are much more analogous to rolling 1dX+Y to determine how long an effect will linger. Instead of rolling as soon as the effect hits and then remembering to tick down once each round, you roll each time.

In 3E, a lot of spells would last 1 round per caster level. At higher levels, this is pretty much "the entire combat". At lower levels, it was annoying trying to recall how many rounds ago the Prayer was cast. And if you did keep track successfully, the effect was predictable and less tactically exciting.