D&D 4E What I want from 4E DnD in 3 simple steps.

[Zaran]

My list is down to one item.

1. I want a working monster builder. That's all.

Of course, I would love to see Dungeon and Dragon with content again but I doubt that will happen. For me it's simply about having the tool that saves me some time and I will just play the game that I have grown to like. I have enough 1E, 2E and 3.xE products to muck around with until the day I give up D&D entirely (or go to Swords & Wizardry: White Box- I'm starting to understand diaglo after all these years...).

I want a working DDI as a whole. Every portion of it needs work. This is especially important since they want to get away from printing books.

 

[kaomera]

For me, I've always liked 4E because of its structure and how easy it was to expand on that structure in a balanced manner. Additionally the steady improvement in nearly every book - with Dark Sun and Psionic Power being two of my favourites (coincidentally, released right before Wizards clear decline IMO).
To be frank, it's because I have nothing to look forward to anymore. There is no Dark Sun this year. There is no Eberron (from the previous year). There was no "Just about everything" like in the first year (albeit in fairness that would be hard to reproduce, as the system was new and I was excited to see where it went!). I should be endlessly excited about Threats to the Nentir vale. I mean the preview they showed absolutely 100% knocked it out of the park.

IMO WotC has two problems - one, they've oversaturated the market, leaving themselves with too many classes, races, etc. to actually support, and two, they really would have been served by not releasing their core products before they had years or errata and feedback under their belts. Paizo got this right with Pathfinder, and even beyond that they had a clear idea of what they wanted to do and they did it, while WotC fell into the trap of trying to launch a million ships with a new setting every year, constant stream of power books etc... WotC needed to exploit the advantages they had, and instead we got the DDI.

If they have no intention of doing it anymore, I'm really not going to put in the huge amount of work required for it (which is a shame, because I really want to do it).

AFAICT WotC have said quite plainly that they do intend to support epic tier, the issue is just whether and how much they can follow through on that intention.

I mean it's the DMG, it has a lot of DM advice in it and it's widely considered very good advice. What on earth were people expecting?

From what I saw when the DMG2 was released? Crunch.

You already had a book that limited it's customer base, leaving out those who only play and never DM, and a lot of people seemed to flip through the advice section at the front, go "meh, I already know all this", and put it back on the shelf. It sold worse than the DMG1, which sold worse than the PHB1 or nearly any player book. I see the return of magic items to the DM book (and probably the impetus behind the whole rarity scheme) as an attempt to get players buying these books again (which is hilarious as the compendium totally undermines that effort anyway).

DMG2 was a fantastic book, even as someone who has been involved in DMing since the mid-90s. DMG1 was actually a great book too, if not especially novel for someone with a lot of experience who already knows the basics of running a game.

I agree wholeheartedly, but I saw a number of people here and elsewhere pan the idea that WotC dare suggest they where not 100% perfect DMs already, an that they needed to be "told how to DM".

As I understand it, the last update to MB screwed it up.

Not entirely; IMO pulling development on the OMB "screwed it up", because a lot of little, niggling issues went from "ok, I can deal with this until it gets fixed" to "fffffffffffffffffffff". Even before that update I was having to export monsters into OpenOffice to do a final run-through of editing, adding back in things that where dropped, etc. because trying to do it in the MB just dropped more stuff. The last update did introduce a slew of new problems, though, and that was just "icing" on the "cake".

Which is extremely sad, because pre-essentials Wizards were succeeding at all three. Especially because you knew support would come eventually under the old model, just a matter of time. Now? Who knows.

Personally, I'd put the "point of failure" a bit further back, with the release of the PHB3. Again, I think that it's kind of an issue that when PHB3 was released a number of classes in there seemed like WotC might have been able to fix them with future products (there was never any hope for the races, unfortunately). The idea of subclasses really seems like a (somewhat stopgap, I'll admit) attempt to address the issue of "support". WotC can't really afford to "support" all of the classes it's churned out in these last few years, but if they can make new concepts support old ones then they have lessened the issue, at least.

IMO seeker and runepriest (and even going back to things like the artificer and swordmage)
would have worked better overall as sub-classes. The runepriest in particular* could have been designed with more generic effects surrounding the runestates, then they could plop a list errata-ing keywords onto select cleric powers, and hey wuddyaknow? The class launches with "support" built right in.

(* In particular only because it's the only one of those four concepts I'm really that interested in seeing "salvaged".)

The thing is - go back to the PHB1. Look at the cleric section. That is the cleric. If that's not good enough to play without "support" forthcoming, then the class is dead in the water (ok, it may have had some traction if it was the only divine leader in existence at the time of it's launch...). That's my issue with the runepriest, etc. If they aren't good enough to play without "support", then they aren't worth throwing good money after bad.

So, yeah, I think that unless they manage to pop out a class that the entire player base just goes nuts over, I think that "fire and forget" is the way they're going to go. And, personally, I'm more than fine with that if the classes are good in the first place. I do not want to see any more classes that rely on "support" to make them worth playing. And, furthermore, I don't think we're going to see a new class that creates enough excitement within the playerbase to make it really worth WotC churning out more "support" at this point; personally I have dozens more characters I want to give a go in 4e than I will ever get to, even if I gave up on DMing right now, just in the HoWS* books...

(*Heroes of Whatever Something, thanx domino for that one...)

 

[NewJeffCT]

I want a working DDI as a whole. Every portion of it needs work. This is especially important since they want to get away from printing books.

That is what would be most important for me - since the old downloadable character/adventure builder DDI is not going to be supported, I want the new one to work properly.

(after the online CB was released, the reviews/feedback were so bad that I have not even looked at any of the online DDI stuff since...what was that - 6-7 months ago now?)

 

[Incenjucar]

"Fire and forget" classes and races aren't actually a horrible thing... if you get it right the first time. A class needs 3-4 builds to be flexible enough for most people, with reasonable choices for each build, and a few feats for customizing within a build (so, NOT rune feats). The problem with the runepriest is that it has about as many real choices as the average Essentials class, while the seeker simply has bad choices. The artificer could use another build, but honestly really isn't that bad off.

As for DMs who think they're too good for DMG advice... yeah... that would explain certain posts.

 

[Riastlin]

1. I too doubt that you'll get an answer on this one. Saying "No." would be dumb as it would just anger people, particularly those of us who actually like one or more of these classes and are playing one now. Saying "Yes." boxes them in with a "promise" and then each month that goes by without any support increases the "broken promises" rage. I agree that I would rather have a definitive answer, but I just don't think it would be a wise decision on WotC's part to give one.

2. I agree. They definitely do need more epic support and I definitely think they should provide it. The thing is, it doesn't need to be a product that is nothing but Epic Tier. A DMG 3 is useful regardless of whether or not you play Epic, just like DMG 2 was useful regardless of whether or not you play Paragon. Same goes with monster manuals (or vaults). Those products need not be entirely epic-based (in fact they probably should not be in my opinion), but providing epic monsters in them pleases those who want epic support without alienating those who do not play epic. I'm not sure where the idea came that "epic support" means "only epic tier material and nothing but epic tier material". I've seen very few people requesting epic support who have said that the support must be in the form of a product that is only useful if you are playing epic tier.

3. I agree with the earlier post that this will almost assuredly be done -- its just a matter of time. My offline builder is still working to a point but I admit that it does require a lot more fine tuning than I'd like (including writing in things like triggers or recharges after I print the stat block out).

As for the DMG 2, I must confess that I too am confused by the assertion that people were unhappy with it. I can't recall any complaints about it to be honest. Much like psionic power, primal power, etc. there were people who said "It's not for me" but I can't recall any actual complaints about its content. There were a lot of complaints about the DM's Kit content because it not only reprinted a lot of previously published content, but it was even reprinting content published in the Rules Compendium and the Heroes Of . . . books. If you were a new player and bought all 3 books you were almost assuredly going to be disappointed at the amount of duplicative material you paid for (which seemed to be contrary to the intended goal of making the game more accessible to those new to the hobby).

WotC is never going to be able to publish a product that EVERYONE will want. Primal power or Psionic Power may be great books, but really, if you are not playing a primal/psionic character and not a DM who wants a heavy feel of these sources (without creating your own fluff) in your campaign, then you just don't have a need for them. This is pretty much always going to be true. About the only exception is going to be the PHB1 and that means a new edition (which would definitely be bad to do on a frequent basis).

The real problem with the epic tier support is that it is most useful to DMs and players if it comes well before the campaign reaches epic tier. Campaigns need to be planned in advanced. Plot arcs need to be prepared and character goals need to be set. All of this means that the group needs an idea of where the campaign is headed for the long haul. I definitely want to see epic tier support, but if they wait until my campaign hits 20th level to provide it, it may come too late. By that time I have almost certainly already decided whether or not to continue the game into the epic tier. If I am not going into the epic tier (because of a lack of sufficient support) then I am going to be making sure that my plot lines are tied up and resolved by the end of paragon tier. If I tie everything up and THEN we finally get the epic tier support it becomes a lot more disjointed to suddenly move into the epic tier with those characters. After all, the story's already over as far as we're concerned. That being said, if I were to get some solid epic tier support now (well in advance of my players hitting epic tier) I can virtually guarantee that I would want to carry the game into the epic tier. I might still go into epic anyway, but it would be far more likely if there was some decent support out there.

All of this, in my opinion, explains why the whole epic tier thing really is a "Chicken or the egg" scenario.

 

[the Jester]

As I understand it, the last update to MB screwed it up. Older versions - like the one my DM uses - seem to be reasonably OK. Not whoa-awesome, but useable. I do recall chasing a problem something like the ones that have been mentioned, a modified power or resistance not working right. It seemed to be a problem with the original power/trait, only. If you deleted and re-created the offending power, you could edit the result all you wanted with no issues.

While the last update made it worse, older versions were still badly crippled by bugs, dropping or refiguring info, bad math, etc.

 

[Mapache]

While the last update made it worse, older versions were still badly crippled by bugs, dropping or refiguring info, bad math, etc.

Yeah, the last update removed the (quite often half-assed) RPGA monsters. It was the update in the spring with the MM3 format that broke saving and duplicating existing monsters.

 

[malraux]

My list is down to one item.

1. I want a working monster builder. That's all.

That's pretty much what I want too. I've got a campaign idea I'd love to start detailing out, but I'm reluctant to get started with the offline MB because it sucks, I'm not a huge fan of writing out monsters by hand, and the online version is dreck from what I hear.

Without a way to get started on a new campaign, its hard to really get excited about DnD in general. Sure, I've got some ideas, but no good way to instantiate them. Boardgames are starting to infringe on game night more and more.

 

[Peraion Graufalke]

It was the update in the spring with the MM3 format that broke saving and duplicating existing monsters.

It was the August 2010 update that did the breaking. (I've got no problems with the May 2010 update, which is what I'm using on my computer.)

 

[UngeheuerLich]

1. Yeah, 3.5 supported all classes equally... not... we are behaving like spoiled childs.

2. Epic play: we have more support for more or less balanced epic play. Do you remember the 3.5 epic handbook? I rather liked the simple 1 side FRCG epic support than what we really got later...

3. Kind of annoying, the Monster builder thing, I admit... I liked to use it. But they have just shot themself into the foot by bringing out a full functional builder that makes books more or less redundant. Again we are behaving like spoiled childs...

IF you want seeker and runepriest aricles, submit them. It is ok to leave classes behind. You can´t support everything.

“I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure-which is: "Try to please everybody” - Herbert Bayard Swope


http://thinkexist.com/quotes/herbert_bayard_swope/


Maybe WotC has learned something in the last few years... to me it looks like that!