Wizards R&D Seminar at GenCon 2007

[Remathilis]

When are gnomes coming back?

None of the leaked 2008 books seem to be an obvious home for them.

leaked 2008 books? Did I miss something?

 

[Hjorimir]

The cover of the Player's Handbook cover is finalized. DMG and MM are close to final.

That's a bummer, because that's the one of the three I really didn't care for at all.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Living Greyhawk – will be coming to a triumphant close next year, and they will be starting fresh with a new batch of characters and players. This will be discussed tonight or tomorrow

I'm cautiously optimistic. I'm one of the Living Greyhawk regional triads. Knowing whether I'm going to be escorting a campaign that is slowly circling the drain into oblivion is one thing. It is another if I'm going to be around to help set up a restart.

Platform compatability?
Starting with PC, because there are more.

This is a solid kick in the nuts, a punch in the gut, with a middle finger to my face. Seeing WotC's execution on D&D Insider right now leaves me with no confidence I'll ever see feature-equivalence (if ever that!) on my platform of choice. *hangs head*

 

[Michael Morris]

ashockney, I'm in the rightmost chair of the second row. If your are at the 6PM seminar and see this please see me. You're better at news article posting than I am, I'd rather work with you on getting notes on on the 6 PM OGL / 4e seminar in line please

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Resource Management
Encounters will be built differently in 4th edition
There will be much more “situation” and complexity in the environment, swinging bridges, gouts of lava, etc.
An encounter is like a scene of a play – could be talking to a town guard, could be defending a town gate, could be traversing the mountainside to enter the shrine of Asmodeus.

There will be many more monsters for PC’s to fight. It’s more fun that way. There are very few encounters that are built to be all the PC’s against one big powerful bad guy. There will be more mechanics built to leverage the monsters and THEY’RE fundadmental roles. An ettin will be talking to itself throughout the encounter. This is the “monster’s job on the battlefield” this is how he reacts.

What does that have to do with a new edition? Isn't all that pretty much the DM's turf?

 

[Remathilis]

What does that have to do with a new edition? Isn't all that pretty much the DM's turf?

Last Friday, I ran an encounter for 5th level PCs. It featured.

* A small area underground.
* 14 orc war1
* 3 Ranger4
* 1 Goblin Cleric7
* Wild Magic Zone
* the potential that spells can free powerful aberrations.

the books I had open were:
* Players Handbook (cleric's spells, later, the confusion table)
* DMG (Wild Magic Table)
* Explorer's Handbook (most of the info for the encounter, including stat blocks)
* Lords of Madness (when the Gibbering Mouther was freed)
* Monster Manual (Orcs at first, then the devourer freed. Stupid spellcasters)

Anything that can reduce me, the DM from using six books to run one encounter is A+ in my book...

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

Anything that can reduce me, the DM from using six books to run one encounter is A+ in my book...

That's a very good point but prepackaged encounters sounds a lot like TV dinners to me. I'm a DM. I like to cook.

 

[green slime]

Anything that can reduce me, the DM from using six books to run one encounter is A+ in my book...

I'd have prepped a page of handwritten text with the neccessary details, and winged the rest. I find it hard to see how a new edition is going to remove the monster prep.

 

[Razz]

I checked the new artwork and that does seem to be the case.

It looks like the classic monsters are going to get seriously overhauled.

A little part of me just died.

A lot of sacred cows are going to be at the slaughterhouse, apparently. This one about the beholder is just the beginning...sad sad time for D&D.

 

[Agamon]

Thanks ashockney and Michael. The news you delivered, unfortunely hasn't chnaged my mind. In fact, I'm trying not to hurt myself as I bang my head on the wall. At first blush, I'm not liking 30 levels, classic monster changing, at will/per encounter/per day abilites, play-it-by-ear magic item creation, and worst of all, keeping alignment (no matter how they treat it).

I'm very wary of ability swapping, platform compatibity and encounter design.

I like the skill ideas, though. And if Innfighting is as fun to play as Three-Dragon Ante, I'm game for that.

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