D&D 4E New "Confessions of a Full Time Wizard" - 4e tidbits!

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It could mean there's just a list of spells, and you pick which spells are at-will, per-encounter, or per-day.... maybe.

It'd be tough to balance that way, since each spell would have to have three versions. I suspect they've just got one (scaling) version of each type of spell. A per-encounter spell will offer something an at-will one will not (probably area of effect in the case of burning hands), and the dailies will be even more impressive (sleep was overpowered for most of D&D's history).

I'm curious to what degree every spellcaster will operate this way.

 

[Najo]

Gotta say, this column has solidified my decision on D&D 4e. I am sure other people love it, but for me, D&D and point buy character creation systems are mutually exclusive. When I create D&D characters I expect to be rolling dice for attributes. If I want to play a point buy fantasy game, I will pull out my GURPS and play that. That little bit of information pushed me from "I am going to continue playing 3e at least until this campaign is over, possibly longer," to "I really don't see how 4e is D&D anymore, I don't think I will bother." It just strikes me as another "let's change it because we can" situation. As I said, I am sure lots of people love the change to point buy. I just don't like it.

She said you still can roll dice. Honestly, I think most people use the point buy system once they get serious groups together. Nearly every group through our store does. WOTC just made the game system more balanced by doing that.

Everything else we have seen with the rules so far has felt like D&D. 4e is going to be awesome.

 

[delericho]

Exactly. I haven't used the roll method for 10+ years now. Heck I still dislike rolling for hit points

I simply won't roll for hit points. If the DM insists, and won't be shifted, I'll cheat. If called on it, I'll walk.

After 5 years of never rolling higher than a '1' for hit points for any character ever, it stopped being fun.

 

[Spatula]

I still fail to see how talking about how point buy works (either on the blog or here) is relevant at all. It's not some amazing new feature, it's been a part of the D&D rules for 7 years now (and it's also been the ability-generation system of choice for every single d20 video game). "Wow, so I take six base scores and add points to them? Amazing!" Is this how desperate people are for 4e info?

 

[Gort]

I simply won't roll for hit points. If the DM insists, and won't be shifted, I'll cheat. If called on it, I'll walk.

After 5 years of never rolling higher than a '1' for hit points for any character ever, it stopped being fun.

I wouldn't take it this far, certainly not cheating on my dice rolls, but I also dislike rolling for hitpoints. I've seen it argued that being a fighter with 18 hitpoints at level 6 "adds character and variation", but it sure sucks to be that characterful and varied.

 

[Najo]

Yes, because, dice rolling will most likely be optional. Optional rules don't have to be allowed by a DM, and quite often are not allowed, at least in the games I have seen over the years. the DMs I have played with in the recent past have been extremely frugal on allowing optional rules. Not only that, but it is one of those changes that, I feel, is being done just to make it different from previous editions. "See, this edition is cooler because you do not have to use those nasty dice to create your character, you can assign points just like your favorite video games!" Sorry, to me, that's not D&D.

No offense, but I honestly do not think WOTC would risk D&D like that. As you saw, I was a big anti-GWA commentor. I have very good reasons for it too. I am still concerned that extensive built in fluff could backlash on the artsy DMs who like to homebrew. WOTC has even acknowledge this in forums I contacted the designers on.

Still, the fluff built in was a hard descision that they had to weigh the pros and cons of. I clearly see now why they did it. I feel they made the right choice for the greater good of D&D as a brand and to ensure the future of the game.

4e is not being made to milk you of your cash and to slay the D&D you love. Sure, they are a company and sure they are out to make money, but I do not think the D&D designers nor WOTC want to hurt the D&D brand or the game we all love. All of the evidence I have seen to date shows they are making well thoughtout, informed, streamlining (not dumbing down) changes to D&D and keeping its spirit very much true to all editions of the game.

You need to see the game and even play it, before writing off 4e.

 

[delericho]

Odd, this is how long it takes me to do my character sheet now with 3.5. I may take days or even a week to come up with a concept, but once the concept and something I like about the character's history is decided, the char sheet is a snap.

Would it be fair to say that you have been playing for a few years now, and are something of an expert gamer? See, most gamers aren't experts, and take much longer to create characters than that, especially if there is a whole stack of optional books available (can't just advise them to go 'Core only' - they wouldn't want to be penalised for not having all the options, you know).

And if that's the way of it - that it's going to take upwards of 30 minutes to create a basic character so they can start to have fun - they'll just not bother, and go and play WoW instead. The buy-in to these games is too high, and it is killing them.

So, I definately applaud WotC in their efforts to make character creation faster. But by the same token, I'm really worried at this two hour figure (or even the 20 minutes figure for the presumably more expert members of the group).

 

[Najo]

I still fail to see how talking about how point buy works (either on the blog or here) is relevant at all. It's not some amazing new feature, it's been a part of the D&D rules for 7 years now (and it's also been the ability-generation system of choice for every single d20 video game). "Wow, so I take six base scores and add points to them? Amazing!" Is this how desperate people are for 4e info?

For the last 7 years, D&D has been roll dice or use OPTIONAL point buy system.

For the first time in its history, D&D is putting the point buy first. That is the big deal. This is a slaying of one of the "Sacred Cows". Each time one is killed, people say I am never playing the game again, and then they realize...that hamburgers taste good and new baby cows are born and raised better than their parents

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

I still fail to see how talking about how point buy works (either on the blog or here) is relevant at all. It's not some amazing new feature, it's been a part of the D&D rules for 7 years now (and it's also been the ability-generation system of choice for every single d20 video game). "Wow, so I take six base scores and add points to them? Amazing!" Is this how desperate people are for 4e info?

The reason she put it in her article is (I'd assume) because she's less of a super-hardcore player than most of the Wizards guys, so she (gasp!) may not have even known that it was an alternate system in 3e. (Or if she did, she still thought this was worth mentioning because it's now in the "real rules.")

The reason other people on this thread are commenting on it is because it's a good opportunity to affirm their predispositions for or against 4e in the context of a debate that's already well-rehearsed. Per-encounter abilities and so on are big changes, but you can only argue about them so much; we're really going to have to wait and see how they play out before saying they're a big improvement or "not D&D enough." Point-buy versus rolled stats, though? Everyone knows what that's all about.

 

[Najo]

And if that's the way of it - that it's going to take upwards of 30 minutes to create a basic character so they can start to have fun - they'll just not bother, and go and play WoW instead. The buy-in to these games is too high, and it is killing them

So, I definately applaud WotC in their efforts to make character creation faster. But by the same token, I'm really worried at this two hour figure (or even the 20 minutes figure for the presumably more expert members of the group).

20 mins is nothing. D&D is going to smoother its players with fluff, character concepts and story. Your D&D characters are going to not die as easily as you do in WOW. D&D is going to make the players the heroes of the story, and they won't have to kill boars for tusks...over...and over...and over...and over...

D&D is coming with a vengence

BTW, the buy in your refer to is an industry term called Barriers to Entry. Most expert gamers do not conciously think of the Barriers new players face, often seeing things from their own perspective instead of that of the gaming novice.

WOW has virutally no barriers to entry from level 1-10. Very few from 11-40 and a handful up to 60. Then you hit a brick wall with raiding, which WOW has been working on fixing.

Until now, roleplaying and D&D especially, has many Barriers to Entry:

Finding a group to play with
Understanding the abstract/ non-rule aspects of role playing
different play styles (hack n slay vs plot driven games mostly)
good vs bad DMs
finding a DM
Having to become a DM
No solo play
overwhelming rules
boring books to read
no immediate reward when you buy the game
character changes not frequent enough
step learning curve
multiple books to buy
confusing starting point (basic game or players handbook)
obscure lore and fluff
complicated/ non-intutive rules (vancian magic, multi classing, hit dice, magic item locations, grapple, tripping, sundering, environmental rules, etc)

As you can see, this is why D&D needed a 4th edition. It was losing players to WOW and it wasn't bringing in new blood. 4e is trying to solve that and make D&D survive into the mainstream fantasy market (as much as it can) so new blood is attracted to it. This is a good thing.