D&D 4E What has you excited about 4e?
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Gold Roger
First Post
Focusing on things that seem sure to me and leaving out hopes and speculations:
On PC's:
-A Warlock that is integrated with the games flavor and fiends mechanics and isn't tacked on, as the one in 3.5
-A martial leader type class with the Warlord. And I actualy like the name.
-Keeping the big four classes in
-at will, per encounter and per day abilities for all classes. Moving martial types closer to the Bo9S and making migical types more durable.
On Monsters:
-Monsters as seen in MM5 from the beginning. MM5 critters are mechanically made of awesome.
-Monsters build to be encountered in groups.
-Choosing Monsters for the first MM by their niches.
-Differentiating Demons and devils.
-Statblocks like that of the Spined Devil.
-Changed creature types.
The flavor:
-The splitting of elves into (wild) elves and eladrin.
-The respectless grab what works aditude when creating the Core pantheon. Bane is a great god. So is Pelor. Corellon is the god of elvy elvness, but he could serve as the basis for a good more general god. Bahamut is the most interesing LG god out there. Asmodeus as god is awesome.
-The new cosmology, giving us a strong place for fey, which always felt misplaced in D&D and with it a place for "Spirit world" flavor. Putting the Souls of dead in a non-paradise.
-The Point of Light paradigm for Core products.
All in all I'm pretty positive about 4th edition.
On PC's:
-A Warlock that is integrated with the games flavor and fiends mechanics and isn't tacked on, as the one in 3.5
-A martial leader type class with the Warlord. And I actualy like the name.
-Keeping the big four classes in
-at will, per encounter and per day abilities for all classes. Moving martial types closer to the Bo9S and making migical types more durable.
On Monsters:
-Monsters as seen in MM5 from the beginning. MM5 critters are mechanically made of awesome.
-Monsters build to be encountered in groups.
-Choosing Monsters for the first MM by their niches.
-Differentiating Demons and devils.
-Statblocks like that of the Spined Devil.
-Changed creature types.
The flavor:
-The splitting of elves into (wild) elves and eladrin.
-The respectless grab what works aditude when creating the Core pantheon. Bane is a great god. So is Pelor. Corellon is the god of elvy elvness, but he could serve as the basis for a good more general god. Bahamut is the most interesing LG god out there. Asmodeus as god is awesome.
-The new cosmology, giving us a strong place for fey, which always felt misplaced in D&D and with it a place for "Spirit world" flavor. Putting the Souls of dead in a non-paradise.
-The Point of Light paradigm for Core products.
All in all I'm pretty positive about 4th edition.
I'm honest enough to say that what excites me most is probably the New Shiny! aspect of 4e. However, there are some specifics that I really, really like:
1) New Demon & Devil fluff.
2) supposedly quicker prep and play.
3) Points of Light
4) DDI and the VTT (even though I use a mac. The possibilities to help this hobby survive and maybe even grow are there.)
5) Warlock
1) New Demon & Devil fluff.
2) supposedly quicker prep and play.
3) Points of Light
4) DDI and the VTT (even though I use a mac. The possibilities to help this hobby survive and maybe even grow are there.)
5) Warlock
I can't be sure until I have it in my hands, but in theory I *love* the following...
1. Monsters, items, classes, races, and more that are being reimagined. Not necessarily just being made different, but being evaluated and in some cases (like the zombie) made to more closely resemble non-game fiction.
2. Dynamic Combat. You could certainly run dynamic encounters in 3E and earlier editions, but it feels like this edition is being designed for it so the DM can do it with minimal processing requirements.
3. Martial characters who might be as interesting and diverse as arcane or divine ones... and who might scale in levels with them without needing a ton of magic items (which come from the arcane and divine characters making the martial characters further dependent on them).
4. Power Sources. This could be good or bad. I'm kind of hoping to see only two per PHB after PHB1, as I don't want the game to bog down with power sources, or have a ton of power sources that are virtually the same.
5. The possability of old settings returning (i.e. Dark Sun) or whole new settings. I'm still hoping that most of these, beyond the primary money makers, are done as single large books without a ton of additional follow up books. Support them via the additional PHB, DMG, and MM releases instead.
6.) Social rules in the core. The recognition that this game is both role and roll playing. The ability to have purely social encounters with mechanics and rewards.
7.) Points of Light as a default setting. I hope they open that up for use by 3rd parties. I don't necessarily want ALL of my campaign settings modeled as points of light though.
1. Monsters, items, classes, races, and more that are being reimagined. Not necessarily just being made different, but being evaluated and in some cases (like the zombie) made to more closely resemble non-game fiction.
2. Dynamic Combat. You could certainly run dynamic encounters in 3E and earlier editions, but it feels like this edition is being designed for it so the DM can do it with minimal processing requirements.
3. Martial characters who might be as interesting and diverse as arcane or divine ones... and who might scale in levels with them without needing a ton of magic items (which come from the arcane and divine characters making the martial characters further dependent on them).
4. Power Sources. This could be good or bad. I'm kind of hoping to see only two per PHB after PHB1, as I don't want the game to bog down with power sources, or have a ton of power sources that are virtually the same.
5. The possability of old settings returning (i.e. Dark Sun) or whole new settings. I'm still hoping that most of these, beyond the primary money makers, are done as single large books without a ton of additional follow up books. Support them via the additional PHB, DMG, and MM releases instead.
6.) Social rules in the core. The recognition that this game is both role and roll playing. The ability to have purely social encounters with mechanics and rewards.
7.) Points of Light as a default setting. I hope they open that up for use by 3rd parties. I don't necessarily want ALL of my campaign settings modeled as points of light though.
UndeadScottsman
First Post
Currently in D&D, we have 2 PHB's, 2 DMG's, 5 Race books, 8 Splatbooks, 2 Alignment Books, 5 Monster Manuals, 7 Specific Monster Books, 2 books about major foes, 5 Environment books, 5 New Powers books, and books on everything from themes (horror and large scale battles) to the planes, gods, special weapons, general items, miniatures, traps, strongholds, heroes, playing monsters, and variant rules.
Oh, 3 compendium's compiling info from those previous titles. Plus stuff I've probably forgotten about and a load of adventures. And that's just core D&D.
Honestly, I'm most looking forward to a fresh start.
I'm not opposed to a big library, but I'll enjoy only having three simple books to start out with.
Oh, 3 compendium's compiling info from those previous titles. Plus stuff I've probably forgotten about and a load of adventures. And that's just core D&D.
Honestly, I'm most looking forward to a fresh start.
I'm not opposed to a big library, but I'll enjoy only having three simple books to start out with. 
Mercule
Adventurer
UndeadScottsman said:Currently in D&D, we have 2 PHB's, 2 DMG's, 5 Race books, 8 Splatbooks, 2 Alignment Books, 5 Monster Manuals, 7 Specific Monster Books, 2 books about major foes, 5 Environment books, 5 New Powers books, and books on everything from themes (horror and large scale battles) to the planes, gods, special weapons, general items, miniatures, traps, strongholds, heroes, playing monsters, and variant rules.
Oh, 3 compendium's compiling info from those previous titles. Plus stuff I've probably forgotten about and a load of adventures. And that's just core D&D.
Honestly, I'm most looking forward to a fresh start.
Amen. Last night, I was working on the outline to the next "dungeon" for my game. I carried two armloads of books from my bookshelf to the table. PHB 1&2, DMG 1&2, MM, Draconomicon, Libris Mortis, Dungeonscape, Sandstorm, three "complete" books, XPH, MIC, Spell Compendium. Probably a couple other.s
As long as we aren't kidding ourselves about the Wizard's intentions here. We will eventually have just as many, or more if the market will take it, official products... and likely a new generation of 3rd party material as well. Those bookshelves will fill again.
I think some streamlining of products, like the PHB/DMG/MM lines or my idea of one-off campaign bibles, might lessen the feel of the bloat... but that's mostly going to be perception.
I think some streamlining of products, like the PHB/DMG/MM lines or my idea of one-off campaign bibles, might lessen the feel of the bloat... but that's mostly going to be perception.
datainadequate
Explorer
Things I'm looking forward to:
- Simpler combat - This is the biggest thing for me, 3e combats always seemed to have too many non-fun complications and fiddlyness.
- Faster combat -3e combats also went too slow for me.
- I love the fact that someone is actually thinking happening about how you make a D&D fantasy game world make sense. The "Points of light" concept sounds like a step in the right direction to me.
- I'm hoping that it will be easier to level up characters. When my rogue/wizard character got beyond 7th level, each level advance became a major chore. Way too much calculation, way too many interactions between different abilities to keep track of, way too much time taken up, and the process was not really that much fun. Levelling up should take 20 minutes, not 2 hours.
- I'm also hoping that 4e will be more flexible and allow characters built to concepts to be effective. The promise of better multiclassing is a good start here.
When 4e comes out, I have a test for it. I want to create a "Grey Mouser" inspired character that is not made sucky by the rules. The Grey Mouser is excellent at thieving, good at climbing, very acrobatic, an excellent two-weapon fighter with rapier and dagger, a fast talker with some diplomatic ability, and has the ability to use useful but low-level magic. He can also put all that agility to good use for defence. Those who remember the Lankhmar supplements for AD&D might recall that they had to seriously mess around with the multi-classing rules to create suitable stats for the Grey Mouser (and for Fafhrd too). Of course, there won't be any such supplements for 4e, but it would be nice if the system would allow me to create this sort of character and for it not to be useless in combat.
- Simpler combat - This is the biggest thing for me, 3e combats always seemed to have too many non-fun complications and fiddlyness.
- Faster combat -3e combats also went too slow for me.
- I love the fact that someone is actually thinking happening about how you make a D&D fantasy game world make sense. The "Points of light" concept sounds like a step in the right direction to me.
- I'm hoping that it will be easier to level up characters. When my rogue/wizard character got beyond 7th level, each level advance became a major chore. Way too much calculation, way too many interactions between different abilities to keep track of, way too much time taken up, and the process was not really that much fun. Levelling up should take 20 minutes, not 2 hours.
- I'm also hoping that 4e will be more flexible and allow characters built to concepts to be effective. The promise of better multiclassing is a good start here.
When 4e comes out, I have a test for it. I want to create a "Grey Mouser" inspired character that is not made sucky by the rules. The Grey Mouser is excellent at thieving, good at climbing, very acrobatic, an excellent two-weapon fighter with rapier and dagger, a fast talker with some diplomatic ability, and has the ability to use useful but low-level magic. He can also put all that agility to good use for defence. Those who remember the Lankhmar supplements for AD&D might recall that they had to seriously mess around with the multi-classing rules to create suitable stats for the Grey Mouser (and for Fafhrd too). Of course, there won't be any such supplements for 4e, but it would be nice if the system would allow me to create this sort of character and for it not to be useless in combat.
Raven Crowking
First Post
Odhanan said:I'm pretty much on the line with RC.
I am so, so sorry.
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