New Legends & Lore

[delericho]

Personally, I am rather certain that they have begun work on 5ed.

My gut feeling is that that's right, and that we'll see it sooner rather than later. I'd quite like to be wrong about that.

As for the constant 5% chance of success/failure, keep in mind that only applies to attacks, not to skill checks. Although I still agree with the idea that it is hard to imagine a master archer missing a point blank shot at all, much less 5% of the time. I do like the idea of the "exploding dice" though. i.e. a 10 or 20 grants another roll.

The problem with exploding dice, especially with d20s, is that you then introduce a massive disparity in results between the guy who rolled a '19' and the guy who rolled a '20'.

The same applies to rolls that count a roll of '20' as a '25' or '30' or whatever.

Honestly, I'd be inclined to accept the auto-success/auto-failure as a concession to 'fun' over 'realism' - it's common enough to be exciting, while still being rare enough to not totally blow it. (For the auto-failure part of it, it would of course be important not to roll for silly tasks!)

The 1-hit death possibility is interesting. I think that is at least pretty close to what I would consider ideal, though it still might be a bit much. 1-hit unconscious maybe, I just think that even limiting it to a crit could still result in too many 1-shot kills.

Although I complained at the time, I have come to accept that 4e was wise to have PCs and NPCs use different rules (at least in some areas). Where the question of mortality is concerned, I see absolutely no reason to prevent a low-level/minion NPC from dying outright from a single hit.

For PCs, however, I would be inclined to give a significant boost to starting hit points, even if this was in defiance of 'realism'. Again, I would consider that a concession to 'fun'.

The rule I would be inclined to consider would be a "hit point advance" rule, where 1st level PCs get triple hit points... but they don't gain any more hit points until 4th level is gained. This gives low-level staying power, without inflating the overall total.

(It also has the advantage that those seeking 'realism' can just get rid of the advance.)

 

[Klaus]

I'd have a modular system, with example classes.

For instance, at 1st level you'd pick 5 options, and you'd get a new option every level. You could build your own weird character at 1st level with mage cantrips, a brute fighting style, no armor proficiencies, magical luck, and a pet falcon. Or you could pick a premade class that tells you what you get.

If you use a premade class, you can still customize with what weapons you want (sorta like Gamma World), and what your background is.

So... Shadowrun?

 

[Riastlin]

Good point about exploding d20's. Shadowrun used exploding d6's so the discrepancy was much less severe unless you managed to keep rolling 6s.

As for how long until 5ed? I don't know. Certainly I think that they will want to give some time for Essentials to sell and I think that they will also want to get their online tools and DDi base up and running again. Seems as though it would be a bit of a waste to spend all this time designing and testing the VTT for 4ed and then turn around and release 5ed next year. Besides, that would also likely mean an announcement of 5ed at GenCon this year which would at best be right after releasing the finished version of VTT.

My guess would be no earlier than 2013 for 5ed, and likely not until 2014. As I said, I think that they would want to at least give people a chance to run through the Epic tier first, if for no other reason than to see if they should go back to a 20 level system or keep the 30 level setup. Of course, the bigger problem here is simply the lack of support for the epic tier which I think is the main sticking point for a lot of groups. The DM's workload increases dramatically when you hit Epic tier because unless you run E1-E3 or Scales of War, you are pretty much reduced to designing everything, including monsters in many cases, yourself.

 

[Incenjucar]

So... Shadowrun?

Shadowrun has the problem where they penalize you like mad to force you into something like a class so that you can't be, say, a magic-using cyborg.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Shadowrun has the problem where they penalize you like mad to force you into something like a class so that you can't be, say, a magic-using cyborg.

I think they did that to enforce some kind of "balance" in the system (haha). I don't think it worked very well, and it did limit the scope of your choices.

But that is what a point-buy chargen system should be all about - making choices. And I think at that, Shadowrun excels.

 

[RangerWickett]

I'm guessing WotC won't release a 5e. I mean, at its core, the basic rules work fine. The math is balanced. All that I see as frustrating is that some of the older options are too fiddly, and not as fun to play with as some of the newer stuff.

What I'd do if I were them is make a plan to slowly transform 4e into 5e via the Character Builder. Some time later this year they could implement an option for "Limit options by release date." Then you could say, "I'm only keeping stuff released from Dark Sun on, to avoid most of the crappy chaff feats and overpowered Dragon magazine options that came out early in 4e."

WotC can then work in a Magic: the Gathering style release schedule. "Every year we'll put out new products that give you new content, along with a few tweaks to classes as we take advantage of innovations in game design. But you'll always be able to use older material because it will be in the CB."

Maybe somewhere along the way they'll put out an article revising Athletics, to address concerns like yours about superhuman leaps. Something like:

When you jump, make an Athletics check (DC 10). If you succeed, you can jump over a gap up to 1 square wide, plus an additional square for every 5 points you beat the DC. For every 2 squares your speed is greater than 6, increase your jump distance by 1 square.

Halve the distance jumped if you don't have a running start of at least 2 squares.

Feat - Long Jumper
You gain a +1 bonus to Athletics checks to jump, and are always treated as having a running start for your jumps. At 11th level, add 2 squares to the distance you jump. At 21st level, you can jump your speed as a move action, and if you spend a second move action in the same turn you can add additional distance equal to your speed to the jump.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I think many of the more "niche" feats, for instance, would be better off as "floating" options that most characters could take during a fight (not unlike the Fortune Cards, which are essentially floating benefits).

So, it would be more like 3e, where any character could perform some basic combat moves (disarm, grab, trip, whatever -- not that we need to make those as potent as they were in 3e)? I'm pretty much for that. Just don't tell me they're coming in collectible card form, and I'm peachy.

The "how" is very complicated. How much do we gain from knowing how the fighter fights anyway?

Personally - and I know that not everyone feels this way - I find 4e combat too complicated to begin with. Too many choices, too many fiddly bits, too much bookkeeping.

I believe that a more abstract system, which didn't require minis or a grid, and didn't rely so much on push/pull/slide/shift/run/difficult terrain effects, would cut down on a LOT of it.

Movement and positioning eats up a pretty massive amount of brainspace.

I've also got some issues with the quantity of equal options you need to weigh at level-up.

...oh, and as for the question about at what point PC's become superhuman? As a thought experiment, I'd like to see a different tier division, where LV 1-5 is the "mortal teir" and level 5-15 is the "heroic tier" and maybe level 15-20 is the "epic tier."

...re-arrange as necessary if you think the game needs 30 levels...

 

[TwoSix]

With regard to the aspect/talent thing: I think we already have the essential mechanic for this, it just needs to be redesigned a bit. Backgrounds seem to fit the bill pretty well. Just change them so instead of stacking on other mechanics (+2 to this skill, that skill is a class skill, resist random damage type), they're defined on their own terms. Something like:

Seems to me like feats and skills need to go, and be replaced with FATE-like Aspects.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

I think they did that to enforce some kind of "balance" in the system (haha). I don't think it worked very well, and it did limit the scope of your choices.

But that is what a point-buy chargen system should be all about - making choices. And I think at that, Shadowrun excels.

Shoot, apparently you can have magic-using hackers now (adepts can buy extra dice for Hacking, etc, as well as gunbunnydom). It's inefficient as hell, but it's doable.

Brad

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Shoot, apparently you can have magic-using hackers now (adepts can buy extra dice for Hacking, etc, as well as gunbunnydom). It's inefficient as hell, but it's doable.

Brad

Are you referring to SR4? I have the pdf, but I haven't really read it much yet. I did gather that there have been quite a few changes to the 6th World setting - a lot of "everything is wireless now!" type stuff. I guess they didn't see that coming in 1987 or whenever SR1 came out.

Still, I kind of liked that the 2050-2060 of SR1-3 was like a quaint late 1980s early 1990s view of what the future would be like.

I look forward to giving it a try sometime.

Anyway, back to your regularly scheduled thread.