D&D 4E Star Wars Saga Edition as preview of 4e?

[pawsplay]

And of course I'm equally and symmetrically boggled by claims such as yours. I can't for the life of me picture character creation in 15 minutes flat, and I'd love to see it in practice to know what's being left out. When I had a party of 5 new players make 1st-level characters in 3E, it took over 4 hours -- it simply takes all kinds of time to parse the dozens and dozens of abilities, races, classes, skills, feats, equipment, and spells in the PHB that must be selected.

I routinely write up monsters with class levels on the fly. I suppose I might have made some minor errors along the way, but so far, no one has noticed....

In an hour, I can get an entire group of new players ready to go with 6th level characters. If everyone does everything at more or less the same time, it doesn't take much longer. And equipment is actually quite easy once you've gotten a feel for what qualifies as "the basics."

 

[Reynard]

The flip side of all this is the time it takes the DM to "thoroughly" stat out a higher level NPC. Lots of posters here have advocated "faking it" by just generating what is needed at the moment then filling in later. One reasone "faking it" is often needed is playing around with all the skill points.

Skills are the least of my worries. 12th level human rogue with a 13 int (so he can get Improved Feint) = 10 skills at rank 15.

Bluff, Craft (Trapmaking), Disable Device, Hide, Listen, Move Silently, Open Lock, Search, Spot, Tumble.

Ta-daa! That took about 2 minutes. I can even choose feats (1 bonus human, plus 5 more) off the top of my head:

Improved Initiative, Combat Expertise, Improved Feint, Weapon Finesse, Dodge, Weapon Focus: Rapier.

Remember -- I am making an NPC to irritate the PCs. I might take a few minutes to skim Complete Adventurer if I wanted a long-term villain, but a long term villain is essentially a GMPC, so it is worth the extra effort.

But determining equipment -- that'd take me a good half hour of going through the DMG and thinking about things.

 

[JohnSnow]

Quick Reynard, what are that character's skill bonuses? Clock is ticking...

For the more ridiculous claims, we could test this you know. But whoever takes the test is on the honor system not to cheat.

We (the folks here) give race, class and concept.

Then you put up a post that says "Starting Now."

Then, without cutting, pasting, or using a pre-existing character, you type a complete character into your next post. The time difference between the two is the amount of time it takes you to make such a character. If you're really right that you can do it in 10-15 minutes, you won't "time out" while you're typing your custom character post.

And of course, any errors you make will be etched in digital bits for all to see.

But I don't think anyone will take my challenge without cheating.

 

[Sammael]

Skills are the least of my worries. 12th level human rogue with a 13 int (so he can get Improved Feint) = 10 skills at rank 15.

Bluff, Craft (Trapmaking), Disable Device, Hide, Listen, Move Silently, Open Lock, Search, Spot, Tumble.

Ta-daa! That took about 2 minutes.

What if he has a Headband of Intellect +2, which he got at level 10? What if his Int was initially 11, and got raised to 12 at level 4, and then 13 at level 8? What are the synergies (if any)? What sort of armor is he wearing and how does it affect the skills? Does he have any equipment which affects the skills (masterwork thieves' tools and such)?

 

[Delta]

I think it's funny that you assume that I must be leaving something out though. It's times like this that I really miss the rolleyes smilie.

And I 100% completely share your sentiment, friend.

 

[Felon]

While I'm not yet convinced we have achieved the new holy grail in skill mechanics here, I dont think this is as much of a problem. Just have them roll all the dice at once rather then one at a time. So long as you dont have any house ruled 'The higher the result, the better the result' additions, so long as you get a single success, that's all that matters.

This is ... a really, really good idea. These aren't "n times per day" rerolls - these are every time you use a skill, you get to reroll if you fail. So why not just roll all of your attempts at once and take the best?

It is....a really, really bad idea, and it's exactly because the rerolls are unlimited. That's pretty darn broken right there, but many if not most rolls are not simply pass/fail. Rolling and taking the best in a system where there are degrees of success is a demonstrably horrible idea, Heck, forget giving out a bonus equal to half-level. Just amass those rerolls and you're bound to get one high number. You think this new system will still have critical hits?

 

[Felon]

Because there's no reason for a wizards' BAB to go up.

Well, sure there is, and it's the exact rationale that's used for giving the half-level bonus for skills, so I don't know why you're not seeing it. Attacking is certainly even more fundamental than jumping chasms or riding tauntauns.

 

[Felon]

I doubt it. I've played other games that utilize a reroll feature quite a bit, notably Blood Bowl. It doesn't cloy at all.

Just looking over the last few pages, evidence suggests you're just in a contrary frame of mind, but please tell me of these games where characters are just constantly getting takebacks.

 

[I'm A Banana]

The big issue I see with re-rolls is that it might slow up play.

HOWEVER, because they're removing some complex calculation to the roll, it might also speed up play.

So perhaps no real effect on smoothness.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

I just wish they would have dumped the ability scores and gone straight to the modifiers, which is what is really important anyway. Having a number just so it can represent a number is downright silly; take that cow out and shoot it!

I would dislike it if they did away with ability scores and went to just the modifiers. They need to come up with ways to better utilize the ability scores, along the lines of Iron Heroes.