Radiating Gnome
Adventurer
(contact) said:
Ten-four good buddy. Watch the smokey on your six!
D&D 4E Your plans for 4e
Ten-four good buddy. Watch the smokey on your six!
WizarDru
Adventurer
I started out apprehensive for 4e, but each tidbit of information released impresses me more. Whether or not they succeed may be in doubt, but I think their goals are laudable, and I'm anxious to see how well they do.
My current plan will be to complete our Shackled City campaign in 3.5, and then start a new game in 4e. (or whatever remains of the SC game by that point, since I've jumped tracks from the core campaign).
My current plan will be to complete our Shackled City campaign in 3.5, and then start a new game in 4e. (or whatever remains of the SC game by that point, since I've jumped tracks from the core campaign).
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
(contact) said:Heh, Em has teh geek love.She's the one that talked me into GenCon this year.
Just want to confirm - having run a game with Em (and played in two others with her in) earlier this year, she is a kick-ass roleplayer IMO.
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
(contact) said:
I'd love to get in on the playtesting, but don't expect it will happen to me (but you never can tell. Hope springs eternal etc. etc)
While waiting for 4e I won't be running any D&D at all. I'll be either continuing my Starguild OGL campaign (sci-fi), or continuing with my RuneQuest 2 Eberron conversion and running that.
I probably wouldn't have gone back to running *any* D&D if it wasn't for the 4e news, so against my expectations they have planned it at exactly the right time for me.
So far, I love everything I've heard about it. Wizards having some 'use all day' powers? check. Martial types having neat manouvres? check. Better encounter design? Check. (I love the idea of saying 'I want this encounter to be worth 4000xp, so I'll have three of those, two of these and one of them". Gets rid of several layers of basically unnecessary maths).
SWSE is chock-full of goodness - new ideas that don't just add another veneer on the surface pretty much all supplements have, but really changes the underpinnings. I'm really quite excited about the possibilities of a 'root and branch' revision of D&D, and I hope it will breathe as much new life into the hobby as the 3e launch did.
If I was involved in playtesting, I'd not want to run a campaign - rather I'd want to do a whole bunch of episodic sessions, with different characters at different levels and in different situations. Get each player to create a 'stable' of characters at various levels, and mix and match PCs for particular adventures.
Cheers
Radiating Gnome
Adventurer
D'oh!
I just got an email about the playtest -- first email with any rules. And I've been instructed not to let anyone know that I'm playtesting . . . so . . . everyone here forget I said anything. I'm going to be playing Shadowrun for the next year.
glowy gnome out
I just got an email about the playtest -- first email with any rules. And I've been instructed not to let anyone know that I'm playtesting . . . so . . . everyone here forget I said anything. I'm going to be playing Shadowrun for the next year.
glowy gnome out
phoamslinger
Explorer
hmmm. a couple of interesting comments nipped off the Wizard's boards that a friend sent me...
"Here's a highly probable conversation lifted from the future, one year from today, as two players who've just met at a convention discuss their PC choices for their upcoming D&D game.
"I'm playing a 3rd-level human fighter named Graelar."
"Cool. Is he weapon and shield or two-hander?"
"He's sword and board, man."
"Longsword?"
"Yeah. I thought about going high Con and using a hammer, but I wanted to start with the chance to make a couple of attacks, so I'm using rain of blows as my good weapon attack, and I went with high Wis so that I can switch to the better oppy powers later."
"My elf fighter uses a spear. I like the speed and the option to go past AC. But you've got the fighter covered. I'll play a halfling rogue."
The names and destinations of the powers mentioned above might have changed by the time the game is in your hands. What won't change is that fighters care about which weapons they use much more than other characters. Other character classes have specific weapons and weapon types that they tend to rely on while still maintaining access to a larger chunk of the weapon chart. The fighter is the only current 4th Edition class with capabilities that depend on the weapon they have chosen to train the most with. Even at 1st level, a fighter who uses an axe has a different power selection than a fighter who relies on a flail or a rapier or a pick. In the long run, fighters can diversify and master powers related to a few different weapons, but most will opt to focus on the weapon that suits their personal style, helps their interactions with the rest of the PCs in the group, and carries all the magical oomph they've managed to acquire.
Many fighters will opt for swords. Swords have the most flexible assortment of powers. In a fighter's hands, the longsword is the queen of the battlefield and the greatsword is the queen's executioner. But each of the other significant melee weapons offers the fighter unique advantages and opportunities. For the first time, you'll be able to say "I'm an axe fighter" or "I'm a flail fighter" and that will mean something cool."
and
"In 3rd Edition, class and magic items were two big pieces of the PC pie. Race was important at 1st level, but by the time you hit 20th, there was rarely much to distinguish a dwarf fighter from a half-orc fighter. The difference between a +2 here and a +2 over there was drowned out by the huge bonuses from magic items and character level—it didn't matter any more.
We wanted race to matter all the way up through a character's career. We wanted there to be some difference between two characters of different races, all other things being equal. We had tried out mechanics like the racial paragons in Unearthed Arcana and the racial substitution levels in the Races of . . . series of books, and we liked the results.
In May of 2004, we started kicking around ideas like "the 20-level race." In a 20-level race, at each level you gained, you'd get not only new class features, but also new racial qualities. Your race might predetermine which ability scores you increased at some levels, so a dwarf's Constitution would always have an edge over characters of other races. It would grant you new special abilities as you advanced in level, always appropriate to your level, of course.
One key advantage we saw to this system was that it made it much easier to find room for new races without resorting to the kludgy and awkward mechanic of level adjustments. If we spread the tasty magical abilities of drow out through their levels, they could start at 1st level on a par with other character races. Races like the githyanki already anticipated some of that idea by granting new spell-like abilities at higher levels.
Well, over the next few years, things changed, as things are wont to do. We blew the game out to thirty levels, but put your most significant racial choices in the first ten. Above that, other choices started to crowd out room for special abilities coming from your race.
In the final version of 4th Edition, most of your racial traits come into play right out of the gate at 1st level—dwarven resilience, elven evasion, a half-elf's inspiring presence, and so on. As you go up levels, you can take racial feats to make those abilities even more exciting and gain new capabilities tied to your race. You can also take race-specific powers built into your class, which accomplish a lot of what racial substitution levels used to do: a dwarf fighter with the friend of earth power can do something that other 10th-level fighters just can't do.
The rules have changed a lot since that first idea of the 20-level race, but they still serve the same purpose: to make sure that your race stays not just relevant but actually important all the way up through thirty levels of adventure."
"Here's a highly probable conversation lifted from the future, one year from today, as two players who've just met at a convention discuss their PC choices for their upcoming D&D game.
"I'm playing a 3rd-level human fighter named Graelar."
"Cool. Is he weapon and shield or two-hander?"
"He's sword and board, man."
"Longsword?"
"Yeah. I thought about going high Con and using a hammer, but I wanted to start with the chance to make a couple of attacks, so I'm using rain of blows as my good weapon attack, and I went with high Wis so that I can switch to the better oppy powers later."
"My elf fighter uses a spear. I like the speed and the option to go past AC. But you've got the fighter covered. I'll play a halfling rogue."
The names and destinations of the powers mentioned above might have changed by the time the game is in your hands. What won't change is that fighters care about which weapons they use much more than other characters. Other character classes have specific weapons and weapon types that they tend to rely on while still maintaining access to a larger chunk of the weapon chart. The fighter is the only current 4th Edition class with capabilities that depend on the weapon they have chosen to train the most with. Even at 1st level, a fighter who uses an axe has a different power selection than a fighter who relies on a flail or a rapier or a pick. In the long run, fighters can diversify and master powers related to a few different weapons, but most will opt to focus on the weapon that suits their personal style, helps their interactions with the rest of the PCs in the group, and carries all the magical oomph they've managed to acquire.
Many fighters will opt for swords. Swords have the most flexible assortment of powers. In a fighter's hands, the longsword is the queen of the battlefield and the greatsword is the queen's executioner. But each of the other significant melee weapons offers the fighter unique advantages and opportunities. For the first time, you'll be able to say "I'm an axe fighter" or "I'm a flail fighter" and that will mean something cool."
and
"In 3rd Edition, class and magic items were two big pieces of the PC pie. Race was important at 1st level, but by the time you hit 20th, there was rarely much to distinguish a dwarf fighter from a half-orc fighter. The difference between a +2 here and a +2 over there was drowned out by the huge bonuses from magic items and character level—it didn't matter any more.
We wanted race to matter all the way up through a character's career. We wanted there to be some difference between two characters of different races, all other things being equal. We had tried out mechanics like the racial paragons in Unearthed Arcana and the racial substitution levels in the Races of . . . series of books, and we liked the results.
In May of 2004, we started kicking around ideas like "the 20-level race." In a 20-level race, at each level you gained, you'd get not only new class features, but also new racial qualities. Your race might predetermine which ability scores you increased at some levels, so a dwarf's Constitution would always have an edge over characters of other races. It would grant you new special abilities as you advanced in level, always appropriate to your level, of course.
One key advantage we saw to this system was that it made it much easier to find room for new races without resorting to the kludgy and awkward mechanic of level adjustments. If we spread the tasty magical abilities of drow out through their levels, they could start at 1st level on a par with other character races. Races like the githyanki already anticipated some of that idea by granting new spell-like abilities at higher levels.
Well, over the next few years, things changed, as things are wont to do. We blew the game out to thirty levels, but put your most significant racial choices in the first ten. Above that, other choices started to crowd out room for special abilities coming from your race.
In the final version of 4th Edition, most of your racial traits come into play right out of the gate at 1st level—dwarven resilience, elven evasion, a half-elf's inspiring presence, and so on. As you go up levels, you can take racial feats to make those abilities even more exciting and gain new capabilities tied to your race. You can also take race-specific powers built into your class, which accomplish a lot of what racial substitution levels used to do: a dwarf fighter with the friend of earth power can do something that other 10th-level fighters just can't do.
The rules have changed a lot since that first idea of the 20-level race, but they still serve the same purpose: to make sure that your race stays not just relevant but actually important all the way up through thirty levels of adventure."
Plane Sailing
Astral Admin - Mwahahaha!
Radiating Gnome said:
But gnome... don't forget I'm one of your co-DMs, so I'm part of your gaming group
Radiating Gnome
Adventurer
Oh, yeah, that's right -- you're all my cop-DMs . . . in my Shadowrun game. It's Shadowrun, 4th edition. They took all the guns and computers out of the game for this edition . . .
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