WoTC products, going downhill?

[HeinorNY]

No AC, just Defenses (re-named Saving Throws), which are static.
Everyone has a Standard, Move and Swift action per round. You can trade an action for a lesser one, and several actions require that you spend more actions in a round (aiming, for instance, requires two swift actions, so you'll stand still while aiming, and then ignore less-than-total cover).
Condition Monitor (Normal, -1, -2, -5, -10, unconscious or disabled).
Objects are subject to critical hits and have a condition monitor as well.
Every natural 20 is a hit, and is a critical (no confirmation roll needed).
No iteractive attacks (+11/+6/+1). You can take feats to attack more than once in a round, but all attacks are at the same penalty (attack once at +14 or twice at +9/+9).
Class-based bonus to defenses. If you multiclass, use the best bonus (and they're flat).
Level-based bonus to defenses. If you wear armor, you *must* use the armor's bonus instead. You can take talents that allow you to choose wether to use your level- or armor-based bonus, and later on you can use both.
Etc, etc...

From this list I believe the ones you can't find in other books are Condition Monitor and the swift-action trading system. Not entirely sure though.

 

[Aaron L]

The most current books I have seen (PHB II and later) have been a definite, if slight, improvement over what has come before.

 

[gribble]

Yeah. I am glad I was, and am, in no hurry to buy this. I'll definitely wait until a printing is done where all of this is cleared up. If they don't print such a book then I will never play SAGA.

There seems to be a common misconception that SAGA is riddled with errors and there is a huge list of errata that is required.
This is simply not true.

There are very few changes of substance in the errata - most is simple editing mistakes (problems with stat blocks, wrong words here and there, etc). The biggest changes are around weapons - particularly ranged weapons - unfortunately an older version of the table crept into the rulebook.
There are also some changes to a small number of talents and force powers, but really 99% of the rules work just fine without the errata.

All in all, I'd estimate there are no more errors than creep into your average D&D suppliment (going by recent trends in the Expedition series and Drow of the Underdark, I'd say considerably less!).

Personally, I see it as a good thing that the line has responsive & proactive enough developers/designers that there is official errata out already. Your average D&D suppliment probably wouldn't (yes, I realise Drow does, but there hasn't been anything for the glaring errors in the Expedition series yet...).

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

I haven't managed to take a look at the new Star Wars, so you'll have to excuse me... but are there any real innovations (ok, not related to the force) that weren't already in Unearthed Arcana? I mean, I might be completely wrong in this, but most of the brilliant new changes(tm) have read to me like some of the speed-up versions from UA.

If you were to comb the "Best Of d20 Design" - certain Unearthed Arcana variants, True20, Mutants and Masterminds, the Book of Nine Swords and other D&D 3.5 supplements, Iron Heroes, Arcana Evolved, Spycraft, Elements of Magic, d20 Modern, Grim Tales, the D&D Miniatures and Star Wars Miniatures games and more - you could probably cobble together a d20-based rulesset as streamlined, tactical, cinematic and evocative as the complete package of Star Wars Saga.

Indeed, I sincerely hope so, because if that's true, it should be possible to reverse-engineer an OGL equivalent as good as Saga is - which will, presumably, eventually get even better than the current offering.

Prior to Star Wars Saga, however, such a system did not exist in print.

Mutants and Masterminds may be as good a system as Star Wars Saga overall, perhaps even better - but it is a fundamentally different sort of game despite their common, d20 roots - one without the positioning-based tactics D&D and its descendants have prided themselves on since emerging from Chainmail, one without the classes and regularly advancing levels so familiar to D&D players.

Savage Worlds may be on the same level as Star Wars Saga and fills a similar niche, but because it's not d20, it is both a new system to learn (albeit quickly) and unable to readily access the wealth of d20 Modern and D&D-compatible material released under the OGL - most of which can be ported to Star Wars Saga with little to no modification.

Saga is an evolutionary step, not a revolutionary one. It's not doing anything completely new or different - it's doing pretty much the same thing as D&D and d20 Modern, just much, much better.

 

[Agamon]

Meh. I've bough few new books in the last year. PHBII (fairly good), ExptRL (ok), MIC (awesome), ExptDWP (meh). Nothing else is interesting to me. I'm not a huge SW fan, so how good Saga is is neither here nor there for me. I have little interest in moving to 4E, I hace lots of 3.5 stuff to keep me going, and I think I'll be moving on to another game when my AoW campaign ends anyway.

 

[Deset Gled]

Personally, I see it as a good thing that the line has responsive & proactive enough developers/designers that there is official errata out already. Your average D&D suppliment probably wouldn't (yes, I realise Drow does, but there hasn't been anything for the glaring errors in the Expedition series yet...).

IMX, if WotC doesn't issue an errata within the first couple months of a book being printed, it never will.

Check out this link: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/er/20040125a

No D+D errata has been issued in over a year now.

 

[Pants]

Mid-2006 saw the release of several very, very worthwhile books IMO. Since then, the topics have mostly covered things that I have not been very interested in at all or have received some very poor press (the recent Complete books and Expedition books).

Based on what I've seen (Fiendish Codices, MIC, ToB, EtR, CM, DotU), the books have been much better and very good resources. Then again, it's possible that I may have skipped all the crummy books that have been released lately.

 

[blargney the second]

That sure looks like a bell curve to me.

 

[Kheti sa-Menik]

Eh, downhill.

There's been a few I've liked...UA, PHB2 because of some nifty feats, the environmentals because they have as much fluff as crunch...I hate endless PrCs, feats, base classes...and the environment books seem to be a lot more than that.
But it seems they have quit doing them. I had looked forward to forests, mountains, swamps but alas, none.
I liked Heroes of...once again because they offered more then endless lists of escalating powers. But once again, nothing has come of them.

Book of 9S was awful, anime derivative crap.
Eberron is just a waste of resources and WOTC needs to use the money they're dumping into it to do other books.

Some adventures have been okay but nothing that made me say wow.

The second round of Completes are pretty bad.

Star Wars SAGA is eh. Of course, there's been no movement on D20 Modern material but that's typical of WIzards by now.

But really all of this is moot....with the destruction of Dungeon and Dragon, I don't plan on ever spending money on WOTC product again. Further, whenever I buy something from another company instead, I write WOTC and tell them why they've lost my money.

At any rate, the quality is going downhill, fast.

 

[Nepenthe]

Thanks for the info, guess it's not as clear-cut as I had been lead to believe.