Raven Crowking
First Post
JDJblatherings said:
Quoted for Truth.
What are the biggest threats?
- Thread starter mcrow
- Start date
Quoted for Truth.
JustinM said:
Exactly:
New player: "Why do I have fireball twice in my spellbook?"
The DM: "No, that's how many times you've memorized it."
New Player: "But I have it twice in my spellbook."
The DM: "But your character would never do that, and…"
This is from a real conversation I had (the DM) about 15 years ago with a very intelligent, at the time 30-years old, friend of mine.
WayneLigon
Adventurer
Hmm. There are always ways one could screw something up but off the top of my head I really can't think of one based on what we've seen so far. Nothing I've seen concerns me or sends signals of 'they don't know what they're doing'. I mean, I'd like to go even further down the sacred cow slaughterfest and get rid of classes as we know them, alignment, spells, and such but that's not the question. It would have to be pretty bad to count as a screw-up and so far I'm not seeing anything I don't really like.
At first my concern was with monsters not mapping exactly to the same rules as PCs but recent stuff may have convinced me to not mind.
Right now, the thing that worries me a little is multiclassing. Mainly because we only have a couple vague hints about it since it's not finished, yet. I'm hoping they come up with a different way of doing it so that pure spell casters don't get screwed, but yet doesn't make them into fighters with complete spell progression either. I dunno. They could screw it up, I suppose.
I'm hoping they don't strip some of the abilities away from the teifling in making it a PC race. The piddly amount it could do before hardly warrented it being an ECL+1 race if I remember correctly.
At first my concern was with monsters not mapping exactly to the same rules as PCs but recent stuff may have convinced me to not mind.
Right now, the thing that worries me a little is multiclassing. Mainly because we only have a couple vague hints about it since it's not finished, yet. I'm hoping they come up with a different way of doing it so that pure spell casters don't get screwed, but yet doesn't make them into fighters with complete spell progression either. I dunno. They could screw it up, I suppose.
I'm hoping they don't strip some of the abilities away from the teifling in making it a PC race. The piddly amount it could do before hardly warrented it being an ECL+1 race if I remember correctly.
JRRNeiklot
First Post
mcrow said:
Publishing it.
Crazy Jerome
First Post
The biggest threat? I agree that they will probably go a "Bridge Too Far" in the sacred cow slaughter, somewhere. And then they won't go far enough elsewhere. But I don't see that as the biggest threat.
Rather, they'll make a set of totally reasonable, fun changes that we will all come to know and love. However, these changes will have subtle, unintended side effects that annoy more and more as time passes. Because these side effects are subtle, and the result of something obviously otherwise good, we will not get a clear fix to them. Instead, we will get a "thousand cuts" trying to work around the issue--and that will contribute a lot to any bloat that develops.
In 3E, using prestige classes to cover holes in the rules, such as the caster multiclassing issue, is an example of what I mean. As we see from some of the design comments already, removing the need for patch prestige classes has consumed some of their energy, but probably was only possible in a new design. There is a window with the new structure to clean up such design issues in 4E without waiting for 5E, but can the issues requiring new design be teased out from the ones that would do better with tweaks and patches?
Rather, they'll make a set of totally reasonable, fun changes that we will all come to know and love. However, these changes will have subtle, unintended side effects that annoy more and more as time passes. Because these side effects are subtle, and the result of something obviously otherwise good, we will not get a clear fix to them. Instead, we will get a "thousand cuts" trying to work around the issue--and that will contribute a lot to any bloat that develops.
In 3E, using prestige classes to cover holes in the rules, such as the caster multiclassing issue, is an example of what I mean. As we see from some of the design comments already, removing the need for patch prestige classes has consumed some of their energy, but probably was only possible in a new design. There is a window with the new structure to clean up such design issues in 4E without waiting for 5E, but can the issues requiring new design be teased out from the ones that would do better with tweaks and patches?
WayneLigon
Adventurer
Imaro said:
You don't cross spells off as you cast them in GURPS, you just keep track of points. You can cast a spell an infinite amount of times depending on the mana level and your skill with it. Same with Mage; you hav even less restriction than GURPS, actually; the only thing you ever have to worry about there is your paradox level and the observers.
The other two I haven't seen anyone play in ten years or so, so I can't speak as to them. I ran Earthdawn for many months but I can't now remember a single thing about it save the unique profession system.
Not providing decent support for a sufficient number of character archetypes.
Look at melee fighters alone. There's a ton of possibilities just in weapon choice. You could have weapon and shield, two handed weapon strong, two handed weapon fast, two weapons, weapon in one hand and nothing in the other, and unarmed.
I think that all of these should be viable in their own way. Some should be better at sheer damage, some better at sheer defense, and others better at other aspects of gameplay.
I worry that this won't happen. It could happen easily enough, with proper design effort, but I'm afraid it won't. I'm worried that things like "Weapon in one hand nothing in the other" and "two handed weapon fast" will be forgotten. I'm ok if the advantages are non combat related. There just needs to be something to support them.
Look at melee fighters alone. There's a ton of possibilities just in weapon choice. You could have weapon and shield, two handed weapon strong, two handed weapon fast, two weapons, weapon in one hand and nothing in the other, and unarmed.
I think that all of these should be viable in their own way. Some should be better at sheer damage, some better at sheer defense, and others better at other aspects of gameplay.
I worry that this won't happen. It could happen easily enough, with proper design effort, but I'm afraid it won't. I'm worried that things like "Weapon in one hand nothing in the other" and "two handed weapon fast" will be forgotten. I'm ok if the advantages are non combat related. There just needs to be something to support them.
I think the biggest element added to 3E that was a bad decision was the implementation of Prestige Classes.
Virtually all PrCs have either more utility or more power than the same level base class. Because of this, the proliferation of splat books was almost a requirement for the game (i.e. a player does not want to buy a splat book and then be told that he cannot play his favorite PrC out of that book).
The prerequisites for PrCs also added a major element of designing a PC for the future, not for the present.
I like the concept of PrCs, but I think that they should be slightly weaker than base classes and have virtually no special prerequisites. Not significantly weaker, but slightly.
That way, the incentive for taking a PrC is for flavor and roleplaying reasons, not soley for crunch power reasons.
In 3E/3.5, many players will say that they that they want a specific PrC for flavor or roleplaying reasons, but I suspect that it is also for crunch power reasons as well most of the time. Why have a Sorcerer above 10th level if virtually nobody ever takes it?
I hope they fix this for 4E, but I haven't yet seen anything that indicates that they even perceive a problem here.
Virtually all PrCs have either more utility or more power than the same level base class. Because of this, the proliferation of splat books was almost a requirement for the game (i.e. a player does not want to buy a splat book and then be told that he cannot play his favorite PrC out of that book).
The prerequisites for PrCs also added a major element of designing a PC for the future, not for the present.
I like the concept of PrCs, but I think that they should be slightly weaker than base classes and have virtually no special prerequisites. Not significantly weaker, but slightly.
That way, the incentive for taking a PrC is for flavor and roleplaying reasons, not soley for crunch power reasons.
In 3E/3.5, many players will say that they that they want a specific PrC for flavor or roleplaying reasons, but I suspect that it is also for crunch power reasons as well most of the time. Why have a Sorcerer above 10th level if virtually nobody ever takes it?
I hope they fix this for 4E, but I haven't yet seen anything that indicates that they even perceive a problem here.
catsclaw227
First Post
I like the OP's question; it's valid and food for discussion. I would appreciate it if we can cut the threadcrapping.JRRNeiklot said:
1. I would like to see SOMETHING said about turning in these previews, it might give some people some hope for they way undead are handled by holy powers.
2. We need a cleaned up DR system.
3. I really like Monte's (Arcana Evolved) system of undead (some at least) being a template instead of a unique monster itself.
4. I hope they don't make the tactical part of the game too much like a boardgame. It should have rules for highly tactical play, and a set of quick combat rules for those that don't use minis.
Paying attention to people who don't really like D&D in the first place.
There is a vocal minority out there who prefer games like Hero or Exalted. They will clamor for D&D to become more like those things. They may or may not invest heavily in D&D if it does become like them (after all, they already have games that the really like, and they aren't D&D).
D&D shouldn't become part traditional D&D, part Gurps/Hero, part Exalted. A compromise is something that makes everybody equally unhappy. It might be good diplomacy, but it's a bad way to forge brand identity in an entertainment product. You can't be all things to all people in the entertainment world. So you should decide what you're going to be, and be the heck out of it.
Don't try to be trendy, and don't add niche cream to the world's leading coffee.
There is a vocal minority out there who prefer games like Hero or Exalted. They will clamor for D&D to become more like those things. They may or may not invest heavily in D&D if it does become like them (after all, they already have games that the really like, and they aren't D&D).
D&D shouldn't become part traditional D&D, part Gurps/Hero, part Exalted. A compromise is something that makes everybody equally unhappy. It might be good diplomacy, but it's a bad way to forge brand identity in an entertainment product. You can't be all things to all people in the entertainment world. So you should decide what you're going to be, and be the heck out of it.
Don't try to be trendy, and don't add niche cream to the world's leading coffee.
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