Will there be a 4.75 a la Pathfinder?

[Kinak]

There obviously are going to be plenty of 4e "retroclones" produced under the OGL. So the real question is whether any of them will have the industry clout, production values, and product support to pick up where WotC left off.

Pathfinder was a bit of a perfect storm, having as much to do with WotC pulling the magazine contracts and not revealing the new license than any "edition wars."

If 13th Age can't do it... I wouldn't really expect anyone else to. There might be another chance for someone to ride in if/when DDI goes offline, providing comparable tools as part of a new system.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

There will be plenty of offshoots made, but there isn't another Paizo out there ready to take on the game. Pathfinder became a success because it met a strong demand, had the OGL to build upon, was created by a company with an existing fanbase of D&D 3.5 players, and had a pool of top industry talent behind it. Wizards of the Coast controls pretty much the whole of 4E. The license is restrictive, the magazines are entirely theirs, and much of the game is wrapped up in digital tools they own.

I would expect that the community of 4E successors will be much like the OSR community. Small, fractured, but active enough.

 

[C4]

To clarify: I'm curious what 4e fans would consider an improvement of 4e.

In my opinion 4e variants and clones should stay away from changing the core math of combat. Nth at is 4e's greatest strength IMO. You can have alternate classes or new monster types but it should all be built on that core combat math. Sort of like how original 4e and essentials are built on the same math platform (eventually) so it's all the same game.

I agree.

Frankly, I wouldn't touch the basic post-MMIII monster design. That works and creating your own monsters and NPCs - my own personal preference - is easy, simple, and strangely satisfying. As much as I love the monster builder, it's the one DDi tool that I don't feel that I "need".

Essentially agreed on all counts. My own goal in cloning 4e is to streamline, simplify, and/or polish the areas where it isn't all it can be.

For example, I haven't fundamentally changed anything about monsters. They still exist in self-contained stat blocks with levels, roles, powers, and stats based directly on level. But they have a few less hit points, they don't have encounter powers, and recharge powers don't begin charged. This is all aimed at reducing the things that DMs must track.

On both sides of the screen, there are very few 'until next turn' powers. Effects and conditions are mostly (save ends), or they last for 5 minutes. And speaking of conditions, I've strung most of them together in 'condition tracks' which has necessitated the creation of a few more standard conditions. But it's also allowed me to give each controller class a unique and identifiably controllery feature, and to prevent things like 'stunlock the solo' without resorting to monster-specific resistances.

(I've also recently realized that I can use condition tracks to implement universal combat actions like Disarm and Grapple in an entirely simple and balanced way. I think. )

Anyhow, I could go on and on talking shop, but I really should be getting back to work.

 

[fanboy2000]

The GSL doesn't permit reproduction of rules text from the WotC-published books, and so for that reason alone is not a suitable vehicle for publishing a 4e clone.

I think that the issues with copyright probably don't apply to terms like "at will", "encounter" etc. And euphemisms could easily be found. (13th Age uses "recoveries" rather than "healing surges", for instance, and similar terminological devices.)

Reproducing the 4e layout might actually be a bigger hurdle, from the copyright point of view.

Layout would fall under trade dress (i.e., trademark) not copyright.

I'm a pedantic jerk.

 

[Dungeoneer]

Somewhere there was an interview with 4e designer Rob Heinsoo where he stated that Powers in 4e were originally going to be fewer and scale with level, but that they were basically forced for marketing purposes to design new powers for every level so they could sell splat books and power cards.

I feel like Step 1 in building 4.75 would be to go back to that original idea where each class has just a handful of powers that scale with level. Obvious exceptions would be classes with spell lists.

 

[Robyo]

I'm ready to check out any 4e retro clones whenever they become available! And it doesn't need to be as wildly popular as PF (which is a long-shot anyways), so long as it's available on Lulu or something...

Really, just a simple OSRIC-style compendium of cleaned-up classes (AEDU & Essentials), monsters (post MM3), and various treasure would be great!

 

[fjw70]

I am still hoping to be able to play a decent 4e style game with 5e. I am really interested to see the DMG.

 

[Dungeoneer]

I am still hoping to be able to play a decent 4e style game with 5e. I am really interested to see the DMG.

YOU, my friend, are an optimist!

To have a game with deep, tactical combat like 4e, you need to build the classes for it from the ground up. Even a very robust set of alternate rules is not going to get you there. And I don't think we're going to see a set of robust alternate rules. I think we're going to get three pages and a sidebar in the DMG.

But maybe I'm just a pessimist.

 

[C4]

Somewhere there was an interview with 4e designer Rob Heinsoo where he stated that Powers in 4e were originally going to be fewer and scale with level, but that they were basically forced for marketing purposes to design new powers for every level so they could sell splat books and power cards.

Oh man, wish I could read that article!

I did originally toy with this idea, but quickly ran into a problem: Scaling all powers either creates dead levels, or a kind of power creep at each consecutive new power level. I.e., scaling all powers would require a major rejiggering of character advancement, or different powers scaling differently. Not to say it couldn't be done, but I'm not sure the end result would be a big enough improvement to be worth the time.

 

[pemerton]

Layout would fall under trade dress (i.e., trademark) not copyright.

I'm not sure if it can be a trademark when it is not visible to the consumer during the course of trade (eg because it is a table in the middle of a book). WotC, in the GSL, claims very 4e-related trademarks (in clause 5.2) but the 4e layouts are not among them.

My sense is that the 4e layouts are the subject of copyright (as pictorial or graphic works).