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Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, Latest News
Lord Aramil of Dreadwood writes "Blogger and Dragon magazine writer Jonathan Drain is tracking the latest developments on the new D&D edition. Highlights include: Thirty levels instead of twenty, no more XP costs for magic items creation, flexible talent trees replacing feats and prestige classes, a new racial bonuses system that obsoletes ECL, and an end to rubbish skills like Forgery and Use Rope. A quote from the blog: 'Unlike 3.5, all the changes this time around sound like they're definitely for the better... If nothing else, at least they have the opportunity to get rid of Mialee.'"
News for Nerds.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Will it be a DX10/Vista only title?
(Said in jest, not out of ignorance)
Contributing to the prevention of teen pregnancy since 1974! (and not through any fault of the girls either)
The Banjo Players Must Die!
Property is theft.
"Blogger and Dragon magazine writer Jonathan Drain is tracking the latest developments on the new D&D edition. Highlights include: Thirty levels instead of twenty, no more XP costs for magic items creation, flexible talent trees replacing feats and prestige classes, a new racial bonuses system that obsoletes ECL, and an end to rubbish skills like Forgery and Use Rope. A quote from the blog: 'Unlike 3.5, all the changes this time around sound like they're definitely for the better... If nothing else, at least they have the opportunity to get rid of Mialee.'
Unfortunately I don't know whether to feel old or cool.
When I first saw the headline, I said to myself, "are they kidding?"
In this age of MMORPG's, where issues with game balance can be tweaked monthly, the game universe can be expanded just as often (if not on the fly), and campaigns can involve real-time cooperation among dozens of players, could there really be a thriving market for a pastime as "last-gen" as D&D?
Then it occurred to me, at least with D&D you're actually interacting with real, identifiable people. No griefing, no gold farming, no bots, no avatars with tearing polygons, no server lag to contend with.
Then I could see the market.
There are no karma whores, only moderation johns
I know that having more levels is the "in" thing to do.
Originally, in AD&D First Ed, you hit level 20, there was a high chance that your DM would suck up your char sheet because your character was so powerful that it was a god, and not a minor one.
The first MUDs were somewhat based around that, when you hit the topmost level, you became an immortal. The level limit for "ascension" ended up being between 20-30.
As time went on, this limit climbed to 40, 50, then on some MUDs, even was as high as level 100.
Around 1999, MMOs came into the picture. UO didn't use a level based system, but EQ did. To keep players going, and the game interesting for people at the level cap, the original level 50 limit was raised to 60, 65, 70, now 75, and in the next major expansion 80. EQ2 similar, except the game is structured by tiers, starting at 50, then 60, now 70, and will be 80 come the next expansion. WoW too. Next expansion, level 80.
There is something lost in this climb for levels, to the detriment of everything else. In WoW, level pretty much is the gauge of your character's abilities, so a character that is level 70, that has crappy equipment is more often asked for groups/raids than a level 65 with excellent stuff.
I used to DM, and have been since First Edition AD&D. In campaigns, levels were there, but they were mainly a gauge of progress, of what difficulty I needed to make encounters. Characters had a lot more ways to progress and gain in power. They could gain reputation by pushing back orc scout parties, learn spells (In First Ed., magic items were VERY rare, and a +1 sword would be something that would be a 3-4 session campaign, but worth obtaining.), and perhaps travel, guarding trade caravans (or waiting until the caravan was alone, then sacking the people on it.) As the party grew, they became impressed into a local ruler's service as a scout group for taking care of enemies and seeking relics, then the party eventually was able to start their own kingdom after a number of fights, and having to not just go head off places, but make sure the kingdom was in good order while they were gone.
I like levels at a low number. For a lot of intents and purposes, 20 is enough. Epic levels in third edition and up never really played a part, because at that level of character power, I'd have to move the party off of the usual medieval fantasy world into either different spheres (Spelljammer), or do like everyone and their brother does, and start plane hopping, which meant that it wasn't really my campaign world, but just using the Planescape sourcebooks pretty much verbatim.
Maybe I am an old timer, but I try to get player characters to grow "horizontally", and focus on getting reputation, gear, and status with their class guilds, rather than climb the numbers with regards to level. When getting status and doing missions, the XP comes in its due time.
When last I checked, nothing is stopping "hardcore" roleplayers using the older rules for there games.
"I may be full of crap about this game, and I may be wrong, and that's fine." -Jack Thompson
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While I'm still not sure if I'll drop a bunch of money on getting this new edition when it comes out I'm slightly more optimistic about this edition of the game. The designers seem to have a few good ideas in their heads; not least of which is getting rid of those bloody prestige classes. I've lost count of the amount of times I've seen that feature abused!
Still, is it enough to get me to spend money? I dunno. And the sting of needing to update the material I've written hasn't quite worn off yet. It'd be nice, though, if they could cut down to one core rulebook, or failing that have a basic rulebook handling the first few levels -- sort of a digest version of the core rules
As a player of D&D since third edition (maybe four or five years going, now), I have to say that my group of friends is not particularly interested in investing the time and money of purchasing/learning the new 4.0 source books, when they're finally released. We just don't have a need for them.
As of right now, most of our gaming sessions (which last between 4 and 6 hours) involve at most, a dozen die rolls that mean anything, and I'd say more often than not, a session ends without a single combat. I guess our campaigns have evolved into what could be considered drama. And to be honest, it's a much more enriching experience than a traditional hack & slash game that I so often see with newer/younger players.
This isn't to say we won't do a bit of research into the new system, but if all it does is revise the combat and levelling system, then we won't be adopting 4.0.
they will get the hard core gamers to come back.
Real hard core gamers make up their own game systems and game worlds.
Only slightly less hard core people rape, pillage, and convert their vast piles of source materials from a diverse set of game systems and versions thereof. The good ones can do most of it on the fly.
That's half the point of p&p rpgs and why their translations to the computer have been relatively weak and unsatisfying, at best capturing the numbers game of equipment design and basic combat.
Seriously if your problem with D&D is that a setting is 'missing' or 'wrong', the problem is you.
It's more a matter of the value you can get out those skills. You might have an actual need for 'use rope' once every five sessions, while other skills such as 'spot' or 'diplomacy' would be used repeatedly during a session. So you have the choice of spending your limited number of points gaining ranks in a skill that might eventually be useful versus one you know will be used over and over.
The other side of this is that the people writing the adventures know that most players don't take those skills. So they don't add events that require the skills, or provide alternative ways of solving the problem. So it spirals down fast.
my scout/assassin, Ropeman the Forger, is going to need a little work.
No Longer a Menace to Society.
Alexandria Morrigan born 2/22/01 l. 20.5in wt. 7 lbs. 5 oz.
Agreed.
I'm chuckling at people who think any change to simplify the system is a change for the worse. The Hackmaster crowd can always play Shadowrun if they want an evershifting catalog of contradictory rules and exceptions.
Obviously, the proof is in the pudding, but for now what I'm hearing about D&D 4.0 is very positive. There are lots of rules like grappling that bear no relation to the other game rules and which grind the game to a halt when you try to use them. There are skills like Use Rope which are clearly inferior to other uses of your skill points, like Spot or Use Magic Device. Other skills and abilities quickly become obsolete: e.g. Climb, Heal and Jump (both are replaced by spells). Gear, especially flat +stats items, has become the end-all and be-all of advancement. And the endless prep work and bookkeeping, especially for the GM, is a waste of time and detracts from the fun of the game.
Plus, a game needs a reboot from time to time. AD&D became bloated with endless supplements, kits and spells that eventually made play completely impenetrable. 3.5 is heading in the same direction. YOu can't stop that, but you can occassionally reboot, reproducing and refining the stuff that works and dumping or rewriting the stuff that doesn't.
None of this is specific to newbies, either. Hard-core players would love to have a simplier but still thematically and tactically rich game, because then you can have five fights a night instead of three. Or your GM can afford to make the same three fights much more interesting, unique and challenging. Or you can free up some time for, G-d forbid, actually RP your character.
There are tons of games out there with clunky rules if you want difficulty and tedium for its own sake. I'm cheering for D&D because while I love 3.5, I can see the game becoming much more fun.
Well, I hope you make it clear to your players that their actions are irrelevant and you are the one directing the play and not them.
Deleted
I am surprise someone from this list hasn't talked about the possible forking between the 3.0/3.5 Open Gaming License (OLG) and the proposed new 4e OGL. Unlike a new version of Linux, the new D&D rules do not have to be under the old OGL, they are in effect a completely new operating system for D&D. It has been confirmed there will be a version of the OGL/D20 license, but with some added restrictions: 1) Professional game companies will need to pay a license. 2) Fan/Non-Pro offerings will have to be through their site www.gleemax.com (unconfirmed). Here is a list of known stuff about the new edition on the ENWorld forums: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=204119 Gleemax.com has stirred some controversy already because of the Terms of Service. The most blatant is that anything you post their grants Wizard's of the Coast limited rights to republish your material and limits your ability to publish anything that uses their IP, e.g. Greyhawk, Planscape, Forgotten Realms, etc. So, what does this all mean? Well, if the use restrictions on the 4e OGL/D20 license are, well too restrictive (and kinda takes the O out of OGL) that will mean a fork in the D&D development path. Some publishers will want the latest and greatest and put up with it, others will not and use the 3e OGL which has no licensing fees and cannot be terminated. There are already some development forks in 3e, Green Ronin's True 20 and Mutants and Masterminds rules, Iron Heroes and Arcana Evolved from Malhavoc Press (Monte Cooke) which take the core mechanics in new and different directions. Anyway, my two coppers on the subject, Saracenus
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The AD&D 3.5 manuals are just too damned complicated. Hundreds of pages and table after table after table. It's more like a software spec than game instructions. No one new is going to get onto this. If you're going to make it that complex, let a computer handle all that messing around.
Enter WoW. It's the AD&D online that AD&D never had. Must irk them to see all that money going to someone else. Their own DDO Stormreach bombed. This is a desperate ploy to cling some of their market back. If they can find people who'll pay $$$ for all new AD&D 4.0 books. In this day and age of the net does it have to be WOTC that rewrite the rules a few solitary voices claim so badly need repairs. Nope. Fans could do this by themselves. WOTC, like the RIAA, are on an outdated business model.
If someone went to a VC with this as a business plan, they'd get laughed out of the office. WOTC on their way out.
Of course, if your on board with the D&D Insider your probably going to need to buy the core set. The Insider is actually the Dungeon and Dragon magazines which WOTC brought back in house, combined with a ton of digital tools such as an online game table, dungeon master tools, character creator and visualizer, and other features. That would probably be the only reason to buy the core set, unless of course you have some reason to want to see WOTC succeed, which I do. Of course that doesn't mean I'm going to buy supplements I'll never use. I'm pretty far from the completist.
This really isn't a money grab, at least not on some levels. Yeah, I'm sure Hasbro is happy about the core set, but Third Edition being tapped dry. There is nowhere else to go. I don't want to see WOTC die. If they don't release a new edition, its over. Look at whats been released lately, compendium after compendium, splatbook sequels, worthless environment books, adventures I have no interest in playing. Nobody is buying these books, nobody but completists, and there isn't enough of those to keep a company afloat. Besides, there is plenty of rules that need to be tweaked, plenty of skills that need to go, plenty of classes that need revision. Third edition was broken the day they released it, ask Monte Cook, who wrote third edition.
Its time to take what everyone learned playing third edition for the last eight years, and make the game better. WOTC deserves their coin for what they do. Of course, I'm a WOTC fanboy, what do I know.
-- 4 8 15 16 23 42
Those are good examples, and you make a great point at low and mid-levels, but when you get to high level play you can easily add 10 minutes per day of Spider Climb to your boots for 7,200gp. At that point, costs like that are a rounding error. Or better yet, buy an item that gives you flight-- not only do you never need to worry about jump or climb again (except in antimagic fields), but you also can bypass content and travel more swiftly. You no longer need a mount or other transport other than as a tactical choice (eg mounted combat). You have a potent kiting mechanism against many ground-only monsters.
:)
Sure there are situational cases where Climb or Jump are still useful; but those are so rare that at high level play you're likely to jump less often than you are to use Use Rope. RP purists can still buy those skills (along with Profession: Basketweaver) but D&D is designed around combat, so you're shooting yourself in the foot if you do. Ideally, D&D shouldn't punish you for good RP; games like World of Darkness actually reward it. Ideally since skills cost the same they should be similar in overall utility; you'll never be perfectly balanced but it's like setting a level for a spell: if it's a spell you couldn't imagine NOT getting it then it's too powerful and if you can't imagine ever blowing a valuable spell slot or action casting it then it's not powerful enough.
Some people think that roleplaying and gaming are mutually incompatible-- or at least compete with one another. At times, that's true, but it needn't be so. We power-game in real life. My friend who had a high Int dumped all his skill points into "Knowledge: Computer Programming" to maximize his weekly skill check to earn the maximum number of gold pieces. Another friend, who has a high Cha score, splurged on masterwork clothing (+2 to diplomacy checks) and constantly socializes (checks Diplomacy) to maximize people's attitude towards him. These friends give him business connections (Aid Another on his weekly profession check), let him in on the latest gossip (aid another on his already-good Gather Information score) and do him favors (since they are Helpful towards him). He also has had a string of great girlfriends, which I can't put into D&D terms because I don't know the system for seduction, but you get the point.
Is that min-maxing? Sure! And it's definitely true to life because it is real life.