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What is your top question/concern about 4th edition?


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I just want to know when Publishers are getting early access to the rules and how the application process will work. We have tentative plans for releasing several 4e products at Gencon next year and I'm hoping we get the rules in time to make that happen.
 



My absolute top concern about D&D 4th Edition is how the effects of armour will be represented in the mechanics. I am partial to the "knight in shining armour" archetype, and I want it to be worth my while to wear my full plate all the way to 30th level. I don't want somebody who wears little to no armour and invests his character development into dexterity to be able to ignore more attacks than I can in my plate.

This could involve giving DR to armour, or allowing it to add a bonus to my fortitude/toughness save to resist damage in addition to adding to my AC, or adding "armour specialization" feat/talent trees so I can get more out of my armour, or simply ratcheting up the bonus armour grants to AC, or any number of other possibilities. I don't care which they pick, just as long as wearing heavy armour is rewarded rather than penalized at high levels. I feel armour got shafted in 3rd Edition, and want desperately to see this changed.
 


My main concern is that, despite what they are promissing us, the game will still be complex (too complex to my tastes at least). I have a feeling they are just swapping one kind of complexity (rules in general, combat & some spells) into another (class abilities and advancement).
 

My #1 concern is that they not wimp out on particular changes, trying to please everyone all the time, and thus pleasing no one. I don't even have particular changes in mind when I say that. Rather, I'm sure the designers have some ideas that are halfway improvements on the current system, but also have signifcant drawbacks. My preference in that situation is that they either keep things the way they are, push on to make the new thing really sing, or punt (that is, look for a third way out).

Given all the changes that are being made, I would expect "keep", "push", or "punt" to all happen at some point, if they are flexible. Don't keep trying to "push" situation X, just because the last 4 were successfully pushed. If it's not working, back off. Otherwise, you end up with the 3E craft rules. :D
 

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