Preview Books - Will they have answers?

[Rechan]

Do you think the books next month will finally answer the questions "What are the Classes/Races in the PHB"?

I know we've had various things confirmed. But I personally am hoping we get the final answer in those books. Any "secret" races or 9th classes revealed at this time.

 

[Toben the Many]

I would be...extraordinarily surprised if the preview books didn't have the classes and races of the PHB listed. Not doing so would be...really, really dumb. You'd be putting out a product that would take up landfill space somewhere.

My question is, how much game information will there be in the books? If it were up to me, I'd have the game information about the first 3 to 5 levels of each class listed in the books as an ultimate teaser. Also, it would get people to start playing and give them just enough of an appetizer to go crazy.

Finally, if you did something like that, there's no need to feel beholden to that. If later playtesting proves some of the rules in the preview book to be wonky, you still can change it in the core books.

 

[grimslade]

The preview books will not have all the races and classes listed. These things are still in flux and the preview book is off to print. No way it will have final say. It might list the possibilities that the designers were considering but not a definitive answer.

 

[mhensley]

I have a bad feeling about this...

 

[tenkar]

I expect the previews will generate more questions then answers

 

[Mistwell]

I want the preview books so we can see what the intent behind rules is. That way, when debating rules in the Rules forum, we can actually for once cite the intent of a rule with some actual stuff to back it up.

 

[Wormwood]

I want the preview books so we can see what the intent behind rules is. That way, when debating rules in the Rules forum, we can actually for once cite the intent of a rule with some actual stuff to back it up.

I would like to know the intent of the rules so that I never have to go to the Rules forum in the first place.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Well, they're not supposed to be preview books anymore, so I don't expect a heck of a lot of solid information about the current iteration of the rules. Rather, I expect we'll see a lot of "in the first version of the fighter, he could do X, Y, and Z. We threw out X because it was easy to break, and found that Y had some bad synergies with other feats. Z is still around, but you might not recognize it now..."

There are probably a handful of key "reveals" that are planned for the book, but I think it's probably only about 50/50 that we'll see the "official" list of classes and races. I expect a print documentary about developing the classes and races, with a partially complete list at least.

 

[Scribble]

My guess is they won't have anything terribly concrete. (Thats what the PHB is for!)

They'll just have different "blogs" almost in book format oif the various designers talking about their way of thinking when designing concepts for 4e.

Stuff they definitely trashed, stuff they disliked, and thought didn't work in 3e, and why stuff needed to be changed, followed by the concepts of how they wanted it to work out. But not everything they actually DID... If that makes sense.

 

[Rechan]

It's not much of a Preview book if it doesn't preview anything except what has been scrapped.