D&D 4E What changes aren't being made in 4E that you think should be

[Incenjucar]

For an orcish villain, maybe. The heroes neither need nor make sense with a military officer in the party (heck, it's not even named right). They're not an army or a warband. Nor is the warlord the "lord" of anything or anyone, and the idea of one of the party shouting orders to the others grates against D&D's hero archetypes as a whole (heroes are independent agents who cooperate, not soldiers under orders). It's just a nonstarter for me on multiple levels.

Leadership is a fairly common theme. It's just usually the role given to another archetype rather than being an archetype all its own. Usually a warrior.

 

[Voss]

For an orcish villain, maybe. The heroes neither need nor make sense with a military officer in the party (heck, it's not even named right). They're not an army or a warband. Nor is the warlord the "lord" of anything or anyone, and the idea of one of the party shouting orders to the others grates against D&D's hero archetypes as a whole (heroes are independent agents who cooperate, not soldiers under orders). It's just a nonstarter for me on multiple levels.

Ah. Well, since I don't see it as a military officer in any way, take the term lord in that particularly sense or think of it as 'shouting orders', I don't have a problem with it.

An inspiring battlefield presence doesn't require control, and is quite useful, even for a small group of people. It also goes back to quite a bit of history and myth. So it works for me.

'battle adept' doesn't quite have the evocative ring in English that warlord does, but thats closer to how I conceptualize it.

 

[Rechan]

For an orcish villain, maybe. The heroes neither need nor make sense with a military officer in the party (heck, it's not even named right). They're not an army or a warband. Nor is the warlord the "lord" of anything or anyone, and the idea of one of the party shouting orders to the others grates against D&D's hero archetypes as a whole (heroes are independent agents who cooperate, not soldiers under orders). It's just a nonstarter for me on multiple levels.

Hey, if Bards have an archetype to fill, then the Warlord does.

There are quite a few sources of "This group of people fights better when this guy is in their presence".

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Li Shenron

Unfortunately, in 4e they are removing entire group of spells and abilities from the PHB classes and push them to later books. There will likely be no summoning spells for instance, no polymorph, and no undead creations. So yes, you are forced to use extra material to just recreate the same archetypes of all previous editions (although there will be something new as well).

Rather than different cars, it is more like someone would remove a certain feature (like having a car radio, or an opening roof) to all available models for some time, and later make them available only together with a SUV or a 4x4.

Mort
Now this is an extremely relevant criticism (or at least something to worry about) of 4e and probably deserves it's own thread. How much "well we'll address that later" type thinking is tolerable?

IMHO? Very little. I've already preordered my 4Ed Core 3 (to get a discount), but if there is too much of the archetypal stuff just shunted until later books, I'll take that personally and stop buying 4Ed.

After all, I've shelf after shelf of 3.X, HERO, and other RPGs on my shelves already...and I have gemstones & guitars to buy!

And on top of that, I can almost guarantee that that business model would cost them sales other than mine- I'm "the librarian" in my current group of players. No one player has 1/10th of what I have in D&D alone, much less other systems. If they weren't willing to shell out for 3.5 books, I doubt they'll cough up the cash for 4Ed books that lack elements they might find crucial.

 

[Orius]

I am one of those players and GMs who likes a large number of base classes. It makes it much easier to find a class that does exactly what you want it to do.

I'm the opposite, I've never liked D&D's tendency towards class glut.

It started back in the original game, and more noticeably 1e. There were lots and lots of classes, and in some cases they were just minor variations of each other.

With 2e, some of the glut went away. The rules focused on a few basic classes, but there was still a good deal of glut when one took into consideration the number of specialty priests that were out there. However, they were theoretically pretty easy for a DM to control, if the god isn't in the campaign, then the special priests aren't either.

Instead of class glut, though, 2e had kit glut. Kits were a good idea in theory, unfortunately they were largely imbalanced, and a lot of them were terribly front loaded.

At the beginning of 3e, the rules showed a lot of promise for eliminating glut. Instead of special abilities being front-loaded into kits, now there were feats and prestige classes. Unfortunately, prestige classes did hit a massive glut, especially with third party products thrown in. And new core classes don't help either. I think now at the end of 3e, looking at all the available classes, it's even more glutted than 1e was 19 years ago.

With 4e, I don't really like the approach they're taking to classes. I'd rather just see a focus on a small set of classes, like the fighter, rogue, cleric, and wizard, with maybe one of two others thrown in like the paladin. The game doesn't need to be crammed full of classes any more, I'd rather see the game handle abilities through feats and these paths rather than constantly making up new classes.

Bottom line, the tons of classes that have always been part of the game are one of the sacred cows that DO need to be ground up into hamburger.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'm of 2 minds on "class glut." I like choice (HERO is my favorite system), but some of the alt base classes and PrCls are just ridiculous- bad mechanics, bad fluff, too similar to others.

In my mind, you could redesign 3.X to feature a few base classes, each with a laundry list of abilities to choose from, sort of like the Rogue, but moreso. What we now call Barbarians, Rangers, Paladins, etc. could all be made with selecting "Warrior" class features...Druids would be one path of many under "Priest"...Evokers and Illusionists etc. constructed with various options under "Wizard" and so forth.

On top of that, make the kits and PrCls or whatever of the past into limited packages of PC improvements that represent membership in special orders or intense specialization in a given field...not just a pile of "kewl stuff fer my character."

IOW- limit the base, let the top branch out a lot, but within reason.

 

[Nathan P. Mahney]

The main thing I was hoping for with 4e that hasn't been mentioned so far is a simpler ruleset. Much like AD&D always had regular D&D around, I'd like to see a simpler set of core rules in 4e that you can use to introduce people to the game. It doesn't need to be a separate product - in fact, I don't think it should be that at all. But within the Player's Handbook there ought to be a game that starts simply at low levels, and scales up in complexity as the game progresses (better yet, with the option to start complex if you want, or remain simple if you want.) As it stands, it appears as though 4e is still going to be a complex beast right out of the gate - even more so for players than 3e was.

 

[TwinBahamut]

I think the issue of "class glut" is something that has already been addressed, really. I imagine that the ideas of power sources and roles will do a lot to fix it. I am finding it a bit hard to phrase why I think so, but it has to do with keeping the different classes from all filing the same archetype and eliminating redundancy, even if the actual number of classes does not change.

 

[Rechan]

I think the issue of "class glut" is something that has already been addressed, really. I imagine that the ideas of power sources and roles will do a lot to fix it. I am finding it a bit hard to phrase why I think so, but it has to do with keeping the different classes from all filing the same archetype and eliminating redundancy, even if the actual number of classes does not change.

I think that part of the class glut and PrC glut problem is "It's trying to patch a hole in the Core rules".

Take the Duskblade. The Duskblade fills the "Well I want to hit things wiht my sword, but I also want to cast spells." Before that, you could either go Fighter 10/Wizard 10, and not be able to cast in armor and be a bad wizard due to your limited caster level, DCs, and against SR, or you could go with some really meager PrCs.

The Dread Necromancer was "Well, I want to play a Necromancer, but the Cleric makes a better Necro than the Wizard, so why bother with the Wizard?"

The Archivist is "I don't want a warrior cleric, I want a bookworm priest." Seriously, look at the Cloistered Cleric from UA, and the Archivist. They're very similar.

 

[Rechan]

The main thing I was hoping for with 4e that hasn't been mentioned so far is a simpler ruleset. Much like AD&D always had regular D&D around, I'd like to see a simpler set of core rules in 4e that you can use to introduce people to the game. It doesn't need to be a separate product - in fact, I don't think it should be that at all. But within the Player's Handbook there ought to be a game that starts simply at low levels, and scales up in complexity as the game progresses (better yet, with the option to start complex if you want, or remain simple if you want.) As it stands, it appears as though 4e is still going to be a complex beast right out of the gate - even more so for players than 3e was.

You'll probably find that in Keep on the Shadowfell.

There's Basic D&D for 3e, too, I believe.