Suggestion for OGL publishers

[Knight Otu]

Well, I'd be glad if I misread danbutler1 so much that your reading (and thus my suggestion) is actually what he meant. It would make much more sense.

Glad to see that this is the case, and sorry for accidentally mangling your name there.
A much better plan, though it can still backfire (Tome of Horrors is an example here too - many of the monsters that Necromancer was given green light to were little later updated in the Fiend Folio, though there was a bit of "planned overlap" (Orcus)).

 

[see]

Yeah, this space is pretty much pre-owned by Necromancer Games. The ability to draw monsters from the 3e/3.5e Tome of Horrors makes it much easier to fill out a classic monsters volume with established D&D monsters. (While theoretically in the grasp of any publisher, the ToH copyright notice and the Tome of Horrors brand name both favor Necromancer.)

 

[BASHMAN]

OGL publishers could make a ton on any product by simply putting the words "Fourth Edition" before the title of the product. Say you are making a product of new fighting styles. Call it "Fourth Edition fighting styles" and it will sell. Heck you could write 70% of it first, then add the mechanical details after 4e comes out. The sooner it's released, after PHB, the more it will sell during the vacuum of no other new products.

 

[Simia Saturnalia]

Given what this policy gave us the first time around, I'll certainly be waiting for the chance to compare any 3rd party rush releases against the Wizards version - I'll wait a year to have frost giants that aren't re-painted fire giants. Considering everybody's all up in arms about 'how little playtesting 4e is getting', why this rush to sell products without any playtesting?

 

[Orcus]

Necromancer Games is definately doing a Tome of Horrors for 4e that will fill in the gaps. And yes, it will include frost giants (which per the recent podcase will not be in the initial monster manual).

Its slated for a June/July release. So it will be out pretty darn quick.

My design team is in place and the product has been conceptualized by me with Erik Mona and with Scott Greene, monster guru extraordinaire.

As for "just using the SRD," I repeat that there will likely not be a full SRD available at launch. There wasnt with 3E. That didnt happen for some months.

Clark

 

[danbuter1]

Great news!!!

And a suggestion on the frost giant, if things are going the way I think they are, make them a giant with actual cool frost/ice powers.

 

[Amphimir Míriel]

Necromancer Games is definately doing a Tome of Horrors for 4e that will fill in the gaps. And yes, it will include frost giants (which per the recent podcase will not be in the initial monster manual).

Its slated for a June/July release. So it will be out pretty darn quick.

My design team is in place and the product has been conceptualized by me with Erik Mona and with Scott Greene, monster guru extraordinaire.

As for "just using the SRD," I repeat that there will likely not be a full SRD available at launch. There wasnt with 3E. That didnt happen for some months.

Clark

One question: if there is no SRD and you are already planning 4th edition products... How the heck are you doing it? Do you guys have a pre-srd-rules pack?

 

[Seeten]

They are going on gut instinct, feel, and fluff right now, and they'll fill in the crunch when the pre-srd-rules pack comes out.

 

[DaveMage]

Necromancer Games is definately doing a Tome of Horrors for 4e that will fill in the gaps. And yes, it will include frost giants (which per the recent podcase will not be in the initial monster manual).

Its slated for a June/July release. So it will be out pretty darn quick.

My design team is in place and the product has been conceptualized by me with Erik Mona and with Scott Greene, monster guru extraordinaire.

As for "just using the SRD," I repeat that there will likely not be a full SRD available at launch. There wasnt with 3E. That didnt happen for some months.

Clark

Do you have the rules yet?

 

[dmccoy1693]

Do you have the rules yet?

When weird al wrote The Saga Begins (from Running with Scissors CD, parody of American Pie), he came up with all the lyrics from the spoilers and fan interpretations of those spoilers. He paid the increadibly high price to see the Phantom Manace a few days early so he could have that much more time to record the song/make the movie. After seeing the movie, he ended up changing 1 line from "Yea [Anakin] may even marry [Padme] someday," to "Yea [Anakin's] probably gonna marry [Padme] someday." That's it.

Necro and the rest are probably going to do something similar. Write up the fluff for said monster, have an outline for the powers that he wants it to have at various levels, guess at rolls means and extrapolate from there. They'll figure out the hard stats after the pre-SRD is released.