What should WOTC do about Golden Wyvern Adept? (Keep Friendly)

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Golden Wyvern would be cool with me if it meant something like 'Fire spells are treated as sunlight' or gain the 'Sun' descriptor or allow clerics with Sun domain to use Flight spell at will or...

Something goldenish, or wyvernly, or... something.

Similarly, if 'spellshaping' was 'Golden octopus,' I could be persuaded to go with it.

Or maybe it refers to an order of battle wizards with their emblem a golden wyvern. Kind of like the purple dragon knights arent actually purple dragons, dont squirt grape soda, etc.

 

[Cam Banks]

So you're instead changing your opinion that instead of the feat being renamed, there shouldnt be any style based specialties? Thats an entirely different complaint it seems.

Unless you're going to have black/white/red wizards all using the same focii effects and specialties, you will need to revise and split things up amongst the three. Its an entirely new edition, with new mechanics. Styles, be they weapon or spell effects, are given greaqter emphasis in 4th edition so that two members of the same class have different feels from a mechanics standpoint. Renaming the feats and styles seems the least of your issues.

No, I'm saying I would prefer that names like Golden Wyvern Adept be kept as names for mage traditions, and falling under those traditions are listings for suggested related feats typically chosen by those traditions, and that the feats not have the tradition hardwired into their name. That way, new mage traditions may be created, without requiring the feats to be renamed in the process. Think of it as being the same as the class skill list for each class. We don't need to rename each class skill from "fighter intimidation" or "rogue move silently" in order to share those around, and likewise I would expect it would be easier for a new mage tradition (in Dragonlance, FR, Eberron, etc) not to have to worry about those hardwired names for the feats.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Cam Banks]

Does Dragonlance fall apart the minute someone mentions bigby's crushing hand?

Dragonlance has crushing hand.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[Doug McCrae]

D&D's not great for homebrewing. It's not a toolbox like GURPS. Sure it's fine if you just want to recreate Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk with the names changed, draw political and physical maps and create organisations and NPCs. But it's not fine if you want a different magic system or a grim n' gritty feel. Then you have to make a lot of changes to the core rules.

D&D isn't a particularly good system for worlds such as Dark Sun. You have to communicate to your players that metal is rare, arcane magic harms the environment, halflings are cannibals, half-giants and muls are core races and so on and so forth. That's a lot more trouble than renaming a single feat.

 

[Greg K]

Druids. What if there are no Celts in my game? Should be called a neutral name like 'nature priest'..

I'd love for the druid to be renamed to something else. Maybe animist.

The 3e monk abilities ki strike, diamond body, diamond soul and tongue of the sun and moon. What if I don't want the concept of ki? What if there are no diamonds? What if there's no moon?

I'd like to have those abiities not to be hardcoded into the monk and made feats so I could more easily ignore those abilities that don't fit.

 

[La Bete]

D&D's not great for homebrewing. It's not a toolbox like GURPS.

I'd disagree with this - within certain bounds I think D&D is just fine for homebrews - but I get your point about needing cooperation from the players.

To add to Najos list:

Kits?
Speciality priests?

 

[Doug McCrae]

The problem of learning what 'Golden Wyvern Adept' means is not as great as it's being made out to be. D&D is full of stuff you just have to learn.

You have to learn that druids are not necessarily Celts and that monks are the Shaolin Temple sort, not the Western sort. You have to learn that Combat Reflexes doesn't improve your initiative bonus, Mobility doesn't increase your movement rate and Whirlwind Attack doesn't let you blast your foes with wind. You have to learn that a falchion is a two-handed scimitar. You have to learn what glaives and guisarmes are. You have to learn what Sequester and Antipathy and Enervation do.

 

[Corinth]

No fluff in the Core. Crunch Only.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

How about: create a 32-page PDF including all the information required to run a 4E campaign in the implied setting, including all the organizations, names for things, etc. Something like Paizo's Rise of the Runelords Player's Guide. Give it away for free.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Ranger's and druid's Woodland Stride ability. Wouldn't that have to be renamed in a setting such as Dark Sun where there are no woodlands left?

There are so. They're full of cannibal halflings.