the "truth" about classes

[Graf]

That, and by it's very nature the OGL is essentially a one-way mirror. Anything WotC likes, it keeps no one else can use it. But, anything generated on the outside (under the OGL) that isn't product identity (unique place and character names, or different rules names, ex: power points in M&M) can be renamed and used by WotC.

In principal:yeah.

In actually?
I remember OGL two monsters in the back of the MMII and that was it.
Does anybody know of anything WotC absorbed?
(Not "redid later" like how they released a Drow book after other companies but actually absorbed into the "official" rules)

 

[DonTadow]

Well, gnomes are still open, and bards are still open, and the 3.x game mechanics pertaining to gnomes and bards are still open. And if you wrote a "gnome" race and a "bard" class for the adventure you were publishing, and declared it open content, that would also be fine. However, if WotC eventually produces a gnome race and a bard class, the mechanics pertaining to those would be closed unless WotC declared them open. Not the names, just the mechanics.

Good Point

To Ad. No one is stopping you from writing this adventure. You might not be able to sell adventures with their content but they certain have a means for you to publish them.

But if you're talented enough to write adventures you're talented enough to work around the system. If one race and class is goingto make or break your adventure you've pigeon held ourself.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Suggest re-reading my original post again to figure out what I was saying and wasn't.
I'm talking about the uncritical repeating of the marketing spiel.
(the thread's exploded in other directions of course but...)

I read it. It's still unfair. First, the designers have no marketing experience and no input on the actual marketing outside these kind of Gen-con experiences and such. What we're hearing from them is what they want to say. And it's ENTIRELY likely that a small number of customizable classes was what they wanted with 3rd edition and is AGAIN what they want to do with 4th.

The market, however, (and very likely the people at Wizards who pay the bills) dictated that they deviate from that design principle. And the market is ALREADY dictating that again. And following the cash will AGAIN dictate that, as long as we as a market demand all of these character details be dictated from birth, as it were.

You're complaining that the well-meaning designers want to give us an simple, elegant, flexible game, and will be prevented from doing so by.... well.... us.

 

[Graf]

First, the designers have no marketing experience and no input on the actual marketing outside these kind of Gen-con experiences and such.

This isn't really true.
Designers are the premier marketing force for WotC now.
What they can and can't say is strictly controlled. You're not getting the "straight dope". Especially not when it's stuff coming out the WotC website.

That's the way of the world; and I'm not criticizing them or their role.
I just don't think people (i.e. 3rd parties whose goal is to present information truthfully) should absorb or repeat it uncritically.

4th edition is not going to be "the edition where we get back to basics with just a few classes".
There will eventually be scads of source books with multiple versions of ninja, samurai, knights, elves-who-cast-spells-and-fight-one-handed-with-rapiers, etc. etc.

 

[variant]

I am glad Monk is getting the boot, it doesn't fit in the typical D&D campaign based on medieval Europe. When I think monk, I think of a cloistered priest.

The Wizard needs to rip-off the 'Spells Known' from the Sorcerer which become 'Spells Memorized' (and swapped out every night). Then the Warlock poofs into the Sorcerer with less railroading where power comes from or as breschau says "I think the Sorcerer killed the Warlock and took his stuff.".

The Cleric needs to become cloistered archivist type and the Paladin needs to replace the Cleric as the role as a battle priest.

The gnome needs to stay and the half-elf needs to get the boot with the half-orc. Please no tiefling.

I wish they would put the Bard instead of Warlord.

Largely true. The way I see it, Paladin is a talent tree/character concept of a (currently non-existant) base class 'Champion'. The closest I've seen to a good implementation of this is Book of the Righteousness and the 'Holy Warrior' class, although even it had some problems do to limitations of the D&D magic system.

Paladin is effectively a warrior of a priesthood. It should be the replacement for the generic full plate wearing Cleric we have come to know.

Likewise, 'Druid' is a talent tree/character concept of Shaman. Druid is a culture, not a class.

No it isn't. A druid is a priest and has absolutely nothing to do with shamans or spirits.

 

[Graf]

It is possible that these additional base classes will be folded into the published classes.

So you'll have the initial Rogue talent development and then there will be a rogue splat book with a set of Ninja talents.
That would be an improvement over the current system, if it's not unholy complex.

However, if you have to start at 1st level and slowly construct your character perfectly (or doing so gives you some sort of advantage) then it's basically the same sort of class-inflation you see in 3.5.

 

[hong]

That, and by it's very nature the OGL is essentially a one-way mirror. Anything WotC likes, it keeps no one else can use it. But, anything generated on the outside (under the OGL) that isn't product identity (unique place and character names, or different rules names, ex: power points in M&M) can be renamed and used by WotC.

It's great for the small publisher and great for WotC. It's brilliant marketing. You get hundreds of other companies to do countless hours of research, playtesting, and work to build up games and new rules, with complete foreknowledge that WotC can cherrypick anything they want based on their license at whim.

Perfect.

OGL originators, I salute you.

... not that I recall WotC actually _using_ much of anything developed under the OGL. There was, what, a couple of monsters in the MM2? That's about it, AFAIK.

 

[Ashardalon]

... not that I recall WotC actually _using_ much of anything developed under the OGL. There was, what, a couple of monsters in the MM2? That's about it, AFAIK.

There was also the d20 Modern Weapons Locker (which seems to have stayed in shelves), and Unearthed Arcana, which ended up on a number of SRD sites (Hmmm, I really wonder why Wizards never put out more books that use the OGL...).

As for the class discussion, supposedly there will be retraining rules in 4E. For better or for worse, that could allow a "more classes" approach that doesn't necessarily mean a "build from 1st level" approach, and should reduce the "Plan from 1 to 20/30" syndrome.

 

[hong]

As far as I'm concerned, people putting out stuff under the OGL should expect to get paid in ego bucks, with everything else being gravy. That's what getting your name into section 15 of the license is about, really.

 

[Celebrim]

The Cleric needs to become cloistered archivist type and the Paladin needs to replace the Cleric as the role as a battle priest...Paladin is effectively a warrior of a priesthood. It should be the replacement for the generic full plate wearing Cleric we have come to know.

The origin of the D&D cleric is clearly the Song of Roland (for example, the original rule that clerics couldn't use edged weapons is discussed therein). It would be very very hard to Roland and the rest of the Peers were not Paladins, but clearly there are fighting clerics in the Song of Roland that aren't Paladins. So what you are expressing is an opinion, and one that isn't really grounded in the source material.

No it isn't. A druid is a priest and has absolutely nothing to do with shamans or spirits.

*sigh* The distinction between shamans and priests is almost entirely arbitrary. A shaman in colloquial usage is a priest of an animistic nature religion. From what little we know of druidism, and that's almost nothing, druidism was an animistic nature relgion similar to those found in other stone age cultures the world over. Druidic worship almost certainly involved spirits, although to be frank, sense the Romans slaughtered every single Druid and all thier family members, we don't really know anything about thier worship that isn't conjectural. Most of what you may think you know about Druidism is the product of 15th and 16th century occult imagination, and historical revisionism by reinnasance scholars in Northern Europe. But it would be extremely unlikely that ancient European religions were fundamentally different than anyone elses and besides even the imagined stuff is pretty typical of animism, and hense druids are best represented as a particular option in a base shaman class. There mythical set of powers is almost identical to those attributed to other shamans. The class limitations of having particular taboos is typical of shamanism. The particular emphasis on shapeshifting that they've come to have in game settings is a modern anchronism, and one best expressed with a particular talent tree.

If they are not shamans, then the question arises of why we don't fold them into the cleric class. Either way, the druid base class should go away.