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D&D 4th Edition Details Released
Wired is reporting that some juicy details of Wizards of the Coast's new 4th edition for Dungeons and Dragons are being leaked on to the web from the D&D Experience in Arlington, VA this week. "Wizards of the Coast, the current custodians of the D&D universe, have been talking about the upcoming fourth edition of the game for months, but they've been fairly cagey about hard details, preferring to tell us more about how elves love footraces than how much damage a fireball does. They're running actual 4e games at D&D Experience, though, and thanks to people with scanners, you can too!"
A hat trick is a term from cricket referring to the rare instance of a bowler getting out three consecutive batsmen out on three consecutive balls. From there it spread to other sports (cricket was still widely played in North America when the term came into use, which was also before ice hockey became common). Cricket players don't tend to be violent off the field, although bowling to the batsman's face is considered legal as long as it bounces first.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
I'm looking at the back of that specific Tiefling Wizard's sheet, and it seems to me that conversion is going right out the window. This 1st level character seems pretty beefy to me, in terms of sheer spell face-meltage. Does 'At-Will' really mean "as much as you want, just so long as it is your turn"?
Likewise it seems the Fighter gets to throw a 3d10+5 blow once per day. Yes, I typed that right. 8-35 damage, once daily, renews if you miss - AT LEVEL ONE?
If so, wow. Just wow.
[i]I was hoping that someday we would see PnP actually go online, but I'm having my doubts.[/i]
Yeah, I wonder if that'll ever happen. We'd need forums and bulletin boards,
If only there were forums or chat rooms where we could play.
http://forums.gleemax.com/forumdisplay.php?f=278
http://forums.gleemax.com/forumdisplay.php?f=342
http://www.onlineroleplay.com/Chat_Rooms_And_IRC/
Of course, we'd need online dice-rolling programs to do it. Wonder where I could find those?
http://invisiblecastle.com/
http://www.aroooo.com/rpg_stuff/dice_roller/
But that wouldn't be as good as having an electronic online game table sanctioned and run by the publishers themselves.
http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=905805
You're right. We'll never see PnP go online. But it's nice to dream.
While not quite exact, the list is based on this.
Psionics is not overpowered.
Actually, it was the various settings that I think were the nail in the coffin for TSR... because not everybody in their market niche would be interested in buying every single campaign setting, they ended up fragmenting their audience to below sustainable thresholds. But it's not Planescape's fault, I still think that was the best campaign setting TSR ever came out with. Long before planescape came along, however, TSR was already in serious trouble.
When 2nd edition came out, had TSR instead of focusing on campaign settings, instead focused development on adventure modules that are enjoyable and good for one-off adventures that could be played in just a few hours, they really could have kept the gravy train going and probably never been in so much trouble that WotC was able to buy them out. The way this could work (and actually *did* work in the early first edition days when Gygax was still running things) is that people who had not necessarily played before could easily be invited to such a one-off session, where they could try the game with no major commitments and if they liked it, they could easily turn around and go buy their own books (the latter, of course, being where the most profit was, and an easy mechanism for bringing newcomers into the game ensured a continually growing market segment).
All that said, I'm sticking with first edition. The reason being is that the ruleset is the most manageable... There were less than a dozen rulebooks in total for first edition, and materials are pretty easy to come by cheaply on ebay.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
There's a glowing playtest review of the game on Ain't It Cool News. Part One, Part Two. Part Three should be posted some time today.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Yeah, the Rules Cyclopedia kicks ass. Everything you need, including the skills system presented in the Gazetteers. Even simple easy to use mass-combat and dominion rules in one book. Plus, Classic D&D (the Basic to Master's box sets or this book) is designed to remain balanced even when your characters hit high level.
Not only that, the book has a short overview of TSR's best and most underrated fantasy world, Mystara. Blows away Greyhawk (Oerth)for comprehensibility, blows away The Realms (Abeir-Toril) for coherence, and even on using "history" to good effect it beats out Dragonlance (Krynn)
Except maybe Ireland, where Gaelic Football is just called Football and its English counterpart is called Soccer.
And since they all stem from the same root game anyway, and are so named because they are played on foot rather than on horseback like Polo, it's a moot point.
Yup...