D&D 4th Edition, rumours becoming official rumours now

[babayaya]

Before passing midnight in runequest system i played with the tiome of magic, a third in fact, the chapter about shadow magic particularly fit in midnight world as the tome of horror dread necromancer...
anyway, i'm fed up with a system that constantly upgrade and not for the better.........sorry, again complaining against woc...
i'won't do it anymore, i promise!
;-)

[Radovarl]

Yeah me too.  Sorry I keep ranting.

[Nifelhein]

I would like to point out there is nothing different betwee what Wizards is publishing and what as published under 3.0, relaly, there are new core classes, new prestige classes and new feats, true, but more often than not they are less thatn good, take complete warrior for example, it has a very well done core class (Scout) and some small comments on dwarven mastery of crafting,  that is all that could catch my interest, about 3 pages (2 for the class) in 128.

The Warlock is a powergamer's choice, it has the video game feel, it gets new video game abilities at given levels, it uses magic instead of weapons, and well, it does not require any sort of special roleplaying ability to be played. If you want to ask me, 3.5 was an improvement over 3rd edition, at the beggining I did not want to hear of it, then I read what was getting changed, and I can't say I kept using any 3rd edition rule instead o the 3.5 revised one.

But everyhting that came after the core books is merely a revision of the good material they published under the 3.0 grouped with a lot of unbalanced, uninteresting, and useless mechanics, mainly feats and prestige classes. Last WotC book I bought? Complete Warrior, bought it at a local store for about 5 dollars, sincee then I have focused on Midnight.

And well, there is soemthing wrong with WotC, tyhey are using the draw new fans to the game tatic, but they are forgetting that those fans, will more easily slip away than us old timers, and theya re not giving us options, I expect 4th edition to be just that, an edition with experience and improvements made to support our old style (roleplaying and less rules and minis) while giving the newcomers their videogame feel.

[babayaya]

the main problem is that we must all admit one thing...

we are not really enough in the world to be worth big investments...
and in france we really are lucky for this because in proportion of the population we have a small (really small) weight....
but what do we represent for Hasbro in comparison of magic????????
If one day tehy wanted to stop all, they could, and so the rpg industry in their fall.....
we have then two choice left, hope or despair....
wich half of the glass do you choose? lol

[Bleak Knight]

Fan-made RPG material, distributed via the internett.

I willl never buy D&D 4th edition. Nor do I believe that RPGs will die if Hasbro decide to shut down D&D.

[rochin]

I have been a DNDer since way back in the mid 80s.  DND is spose to be fun and allow a person to enjoy themselves with a group of friends, playing a nice fantasy game.  WOTC has lost track of this.  To them its all about the allmighty dollar.  Why keep pumping out more and more books that add very little to the overall game.  I agree with most here that very little of the newer 3.5 E  stuff is any good.  The books are plagued with grammer and spelling mistakes.  They are in such a rush they have lost the main thing, quality.

If they make 4th edition a mini only game, its dead.  The people that have played old D&D up to and including 3.5E will not enjoy that.  I am all for the DND brand going somewhere else.  Somewhere that wants to embrace and make DND what it used to be.  As of now there are way way way to many choices for your character.  It leads away from Roleplaying to Rollplaying.   I have in the last 8 months switched to the Midnight setting.  It is utterly fantastic!!   In my opnion it is how DND should be.  Its about Heroics, Roleplaying and dare I say it Teamwork.   I used to try and stay current on all the new WOTC stuff.  With it changing almost as fast as I can read it whats the point?   I feel that WOTCs version of DND if it stays on its current path will die a slow slow death.  Thank goodness for Midnight and Fantasy Flight Games.

[Radovarl]

Fan-made RPG material, distributed via the internett.

I willl never buy D&D 4th edition. Nor do I believe that RPGs will die if Hasbro decide to shut down D&D.

I think you're absolutely right; RPGs won't die if Wizards kicks the bucket.  In fact, I think just the opposite would happen.  Companies that have produced great RPGs, both under the d20 rubric and those with different systems, will probably fill the gap and flourish.  Who knows, FFG might actually be able to make resurrecting Dragonstar, Dawnforge, or some other new settings cost-effective.  Look at the great stuff that was starting to be produced just before 3rd edition hit (Seventh Sea, etc.) from publishers who were subsequently "forced" to go d20 or die...  Wizards getting out of RPGs would be the best possible thing for new and innovative systems.  I doubt online fan-created material would be part of what fills the gap, though; the quality of web-published work I've seen is just plain poor.  But please tell me where to find the good stuff, and I'll keep an open mind .

Someone else mentioned the bad grammar in the later Wizards releases, and I have to agree with you.  These guys are either not bothering to use an editor at all, or are really pressed for time.  Sure, I've found a few spelling mistakes in the Midnight books I've read so far, but not one grammatical error, and the caliber of the writing itself is top-notch.  It seems like the Wizards folks are writing down to a 3rd or 4th-grade level (from an 11th grade level at best, don't think they'd be capable of matching the stylistic complexity of Vaughn or Benage, et al.).  More of the same...trying to capture the teenie-bopper audience.

[Nifelhein]

You can find some pretty god web made things on this site. Not to say The God of the Dell and The Death That Comes in the Night, they were both made by Iain "Shadowfane" Brogan without any gain out of it, sure he has worked on more than one of the Midnight books, but he started as a fan, working with Eric "Kane" Olson in a secret project, that project became Forge of Shadow and turned them into freelancers, who worked on many other Midnight titles, including the praised Fury of Shadow, and some other non Midnight works, in the case of Iain that would be Fireborn.

Wil Upchurch also started as a fan making web material, there is a lot of good things out there, trust me. In the Eden boards for Unisystem jason vey started as a fan and his work ultimately led to Dungeons and Zombies and Cinematic Unisystem, they are examples, not exceptions.

Aside from all that, the older editions are not deaad, they have a lot of good followers and guess what, they may be redone too, setting information may have to wai more time, but game mechanics, they are not possible to be copyrighted and may be printed and sold as is.

If Wizards leave D&D behind, i doubt they will just turn it off and keep the trademark, they will more likely try to seel it to a great profit, adn that would probably not lead it to a less money focused future. There are great systems aside from D&D out there, one of the most popular in Brazil, and I dare say rivalling D&D and Storyteller here, is 3D&T, made by a national designer who i really have no love for, the system is abusrdly simple, very cheap to get and guess what, very very popular with teenagers, specially because it can easily emulate things like Street Fighter, Smaurai X and the like. But it can also lend itself to "higher class" games.

And on writing quality, Midnight is meant for mature audiences, true, D&D isn't, that is a lot of difference in itself, but I haven't really read new WotC stuff, mostly scanned through the book, ane asy task sicne it is all mechanics. I like Kane's writing a lot and am always awed by Fane's.

[Eresket]

My only consolation is that this approach seems to be backfiring on them fairly regularly (anyone here own a copy of Sandstorm, Stormwrack, or Races of Stone....thought not).

Yeah, right here. I absolutely loved the environment series sourcebooks, and which they'd done a couple more (specifically, I'd like to see one on jungles and swamps). I also own all the Races of... books (except Races of Eberron). And Tome of Magic, but not Magic of Incarnum.

Admittedly, I am a collector. I don't even run Midnight (I am simply a player) but I own nearly every book for it (I don't see a reason to buy AtS, as the relevant stuff was included in 2e). However, as a DM, I find the more "generic information" books to be incredibly useful; both for alternate rules and as inspiration for stories.

{Side note: I call books like the "Races of..." or "Frostburn" generic because they are not tied to any specific setting. I can maybe use "Waterdeep" in any given game that I wished to, but it is intended for Forgotten Realms. With D&D, I desire "generic" because I am using it to tell stories in my own settings. For me to want to purchase a setting, it has to be very intriguing to me.}

As for everything else in this thread...I refuse to gripe about "the state of the hobby." I will not often say that "x is better than y." If D&D turns into something I don't like, I will not continue to purchase it. It's that simple. It wouldn't be the first time I'd played a "dead" system. I am a creative person, and even if the entire hobby collapsed around me, I would still play because I have a social group that enjoys the game.

[Nifelhein]

Eresket,

We are not really saying X is better, at least most of us are not, we are currently disappointed with the releases for 3.5 and disliking how 3.5 actually works for us. I am also a collector, I own near all 3.0 books released by WotC (like you, generic) and did check most of the 3.5 ones, but i found them lacking, at least to my own taste and library.

I would like to know, for that could be compared to my own experience, how much from each book have you used? For monster books that would not be much anyway, but for player resources or even more, environment books, that should be much greater.

And welcome to our thread, glad to have someone with a disagreeing position here too.

[Eresket]

I would like to know, for that could be compared to my own experience, how much from each book have you used? For monster books that would not be much anyway, but for player resources or even more, environment books, that should be much greater.

I tend to be very restrictive in my games--meaning that all and sundry are not present in a world I create. For example: in my primary campaign, I have precisely six "intelligent" races--Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Gnolls, Lycanthropes (specifically Werewolves) and Dragons. Even then, the Humans, Elves, and Dragons are the only races created by the world's deity. Gnolls and Dwarves are offshoots of the Elves, while the lycanthropes are offshoots of humanity. What that means is that the "Monster Manuals" typically have very little to offer me. What they do have...what I absolutely love...is templates. I adore being able to slap a template down on a humanoid and get something new, but still fitting into the setting.

I apologize. That was a rather meandering answer to a simple question. Like you, I do not get much use out of monster books. New races and critters typically fall to the wayside for me. As does the planar travel stuff (so far). But classes, templates, spells, etc. always get a good look.

Mostly, as I said, it's inspiration. I have the psionics books, not because i've ever used them in a game, but because I have a skeleton of an idea for a game centered on psionics, and want to see what is out there to mine from. In that way, I have gotten great use out of most of the books I purchase.

I am curious what it is about the 3.5 releases that you didn't care for? I find them typically well-edited (perhaps not when compared to a textbook, but definitely when compared to the rest of the industry) and relatively creative.

Thank you for the welcome. I love to disagree, especially with people as agreeably disagreeable as you.

[Radovarl]

I'd have to agree..  I love to read new monster entries, but I seldom if ever just throw a bunch of new creatures into a campaign world (even a published one).  I mean, really, how many intelligent species can one world hold?  If we all used every creature, even from just the Monster Manuals (up to 4 now), things would be a bit crowded..

Unfortunately I feel the same way about "generic" D&D base and prestige classes..  Unless there is a campaign-specific context to place them in (such as Midnight, Forgotten Realms, etc.), I very rarely consider using them.  The "Complete" series especially has a glut of seemingly random prestige classes with little if any decent background information or justification.  Sure, I could wedge them into a campaign somehow, but why bother when there are good options available already for each setting?

As for feats and spells...  Well, how many could I possibly need?  One character can only accumulate about 7 - 15 (for fighters) feats by 20th level. 

To cut this short, the superabundance of options in 3.x just doesn't appeal to me, which is why I no longer purchase anything from Wizards aside from FR material (and that mostly because I have everything published so far for that setting). 

[Nifelhein]

Well, I don't get WotC material mainly because I have been avoiding being a blind consumer, when i look at a coming book I do not judge if it will be cool or not, but if my game is currently in need of more options, favoring ones not yet presented in some other way. This has led me to judge a book by its use in my games and not by how cool it may be in theory.

One thing I do think D&D needs is a good core Archer class, sure there are some around for D20 or in other games, but thereisn't a good one in D&D yet, or at least i haven't seen it. I will speak of compete warrior, for one book. The book is good? I would say average, most of the feats are jut 3.0 stuff updated to 3.5, which I already bought before with sword and fist and the other books, the weapons are not really any good, sure there can be many options, but in the end it all ends up as longsword, longbow, dagger, short sword and if it is at all needed, a mace. If a logical and mechanically better option surfaces all choices may see changes, like a mercurial greatsword instead of a greatsword, or a thinblade instead of a longsword, but that does not improve my game, it just changes the standards.

I ahev started to feel it would be better to have less weqapon names and types and more balance between them to amke them all equally likely to be picked instead of how it is, why bother havign a scimitar and akhopesh if they won't Be taken? They could be just different flavours for the same blade, a sword (one-handed).

Core classes are a miss most of the time, compelte warrior has all crappy ones and I am not even judging if I would have them in ym games or not, prestig classes are a palce where we all like to read, but most of them lack the prestige factor, others are clearly overówering to my own game and all lack the niche it shoudl have to make it fitting to the game.

But the book has areas where i liked readingg, sure, like the weapon drill skills, or the new tactical feats, but in the end I doubt I will ever see weapon drill at work, unless i make one charcter using it myself, and feats have turned the game not about wanting to do, but rather about having the feat to do. You can't try to take the potion away from the legate's hand with your arrow anymore, because that is a ranged disarm, and guess what, you cant disarm with a ranged weapon unless you have the ranged disarm feat from Complete Warrior! I don't like this, at all.

On top of that the prestige classes fail to impress me in flavour and mechanics, the book is all about system and I realy prefer reading a book like any of the Midnight line, which springs thousands of ideas to mind and leaves many hooks open for me to use, than have another options book that won't see much use, in the end, it all ends up like a monster book, I hand pick one or two monsters every campaign and use them.

Environment series could have my attention, but it is not all that good itself, and I own FFG's Wildscape (from the Legends and Lairs series) and it already provides me with great environmental tools and ideas to use, and whenever I need a system counterpart to that (like new feats, classes and the like) I own AEG's Wild, which is not anwyehre near half as good as Wildscape, and as good as th environment books I have seen from WotC.

For someone who loves templates, and I do see a lot of good things in them myself, I would advise you to check out Green Ronin's Advanced bestiary, it is a monster book of templates only, so it will probably please you much more than the standard monster books.

Well, that is about it.

[Radovarl]

Speaking of Wildscape, how do you guys feel about using the Legends & Lairs sourcebooks in Midnight campaigns?  I only own Traps and Treachery and Seafarer's Handbook, but I've been thinking of picking up some of the others (esp. Wildscape, Dungeonscape, etc.).  Do they "fit" with Midnight, or is there a lot of unusable material?  I'm not attracted to Wizards' environment series at all, but would like something to round out rules for handling different climates, weather conditions, etc.

[Nifelhein]

Wildscpae is a perfect fit, not only it inspired many of Iain's works in the Fury of Shadow book (diseases and other environmental stats), but it covers a good range of terrain and climates. I don't own any other LEgends and lairs book beyond that and Traps and Treachery though, which i do use when I need a trap, specially in dwarven holdfasts.

I wanted to get a copy of dungeoncraft and cityscape mainly because i do need more on those, but I heard they aren't as good as Widscape, and then there is WotC's City book too, of which i haven't heard much and I am still to seek info, not even sure if it is already out!

it is officially derailed, the thread, that is.

[Radovarl]

Nope, Cityscape isn't out yet.  Yes, we've derailed, but there isn't much concerning 4th edition to really grab hold of right now.  We could speculate idly some more....

[Nifelhein]

Reading the preview of the Tome of Battle review, there is a comment for what we may see in 4th edition based on the class abilities of some repstige classes in the book, warrior classes with flashy abilities that are usable once per encounter. I must say balance per encounter would really be a good thing, instead of dedciding how many per day, which is as open as hell, you define how many times a given ability amy be used in a single encounter, this could lead for a lot of change if it goes toward the spellcasting classes, eventually makign their potential unlimited, but truly limiting them more than now.

If that is a change in coming editions, than I must say it does look promising.

[Radovarl]

I'm afraid I have to totally disagree.  I'm somewhat familiar with the abilities from Tome of Battle that you're referring to (though I don't own the book), and to me this sounds like they're turning D&D into a video game.  From a game balance perspective I understand how this is a plus, but from a "realism" standpoint why should a fighter or warrior type get any flashy pseudo-magical abilities at all?  It completely destroys the "feel" of the D&D milieu for me.  Then again, I think dwarf or halfling wizards are a silly notion, and the very idea of drow ninjas makes me want to puke .  D&D - Street Fighter Edition!

[Bleak Knight]

HADOKEN!

Truth be told, I'm happier with games that don't have all the flashy abilities evey class in D&D does. I'm more happy with minor numerical modifiers, if any at all.

I'm also happier with no classes, and merits and flaws.

Then again, Midnight is D20, so classes and flash it is, at least for the moment.

[Nifelhein]

Well, as I said, i don''t know the book and don't know exactly what the flashy abilities there are, but to me, a fighter flashy ability is something like a whirlwind attack, I am old school in this.

I was approaching this not on a power perception, but as a design choic, which you seem to agree might work well. I doubt we will see a 4th edition with any rate of power lower than 3.X, it appeals a lot as it is, and like Bleak I am more happy with systems without class, without flahy things all around, and so on. That is why i am going to try and see how unisystem works, it is even less clunky than Storyteller is, old or new.

Making myself clear.

[Radovarl]

From what I've read, the "flashy abilities" are a little more than Whirlwind Attack (which is flashy enough) but somewhat short of HADOKEN! LOL.  I do agree that the game balance issue is probably being addressed when they put out feats/class abilities like this, but I take issue with the notion that game balance is the end-all, be-all of play.  I like the old school (AD&D) way, where 1st level fighters tossed "spent" (used their magic missile, yeah just 1) 1st level magic users to the orcs as a delaying tactic, but the same fighters at 15th level wouldn't have a snowball's chance in Hades of defeating a 15th level mage, unless they got VERY lucky.  It made you really pick and choose from the few options you had (class, race, a handful of others); there were real tradeoffs that had long-term effects.  With a "I get to use this ability once an encounter" approach, its like the game reloads after every combat.  There would be no need for long-term planning, no need to retreat to town (or wherever) to rest and recuperate after a few hard-fought combats, and to my way of thinking, no damn fun.  Next thing you know wizards will be able to cast every spell they have once per combat...  Yuck.

I would be interested in knowing more about these other systems, though (never heard of Unisystem or Storyteller before reading posts here).  Since Midnight was designed with d20/D&D in mind, I wouldn't bother trying to convert, as it seems to me it would be like reinventing the wheel, but I'm always looking for something different.

[Nifelhein]

There is a conversion of Midnight to Unisystem in our forums, I will probably be making another one myself if it turns oput as good as promised, you can check it out on the house rules & conversion forums, sub forum unisystem, there is even a free pdf with the rules, it is egared toward playing modern day mafgic wielders, name pf the book: Witchcraft. The msot popular games are Buffy RPG (and Angel too) with cinematic sub system (less kills, more epic stuff), and All Flesh Must be Eaten, a game of survival horror (classic ruleset, lots of skills and less epic stuff).

Storyteller system I doubt you haven't heard of, it is the one from White Wolf's world of darkness, mage, Vampire, Werewolf and the like, there is a new one with the latest World of Darkness though, and I am not familiar with it myself.

I do think balance should not be as a worry as it is, but I do like to have fun regardles of the chocies I make, in 2nd edition the fighter did have fun until 12th or so, but not as much after that, but still, it was a lot more fun than having spells and magic be balanced with a figher's mudane abilities to use weapons, a rogue's special training to deliveer killing blows and so on and so forth.

If things kep going that way we might see the end of spells like Wish, Meteor Swarm and the most powerful ones you can find in the 8th and 9th level of a wizard spell list. Magic should not be balanced against anything other than itself, but wizards could be balanced against fighters, true.

If they use this design approach to things like crippling strike, heck, even sneak attack, then i say it si a good one, if they use it as a way of making fighters or whatever more magical and the like, then I could just use Earthdawn to play a fantasy game, and  think the system is much better too. Next thing we might see with this is a core archer class that either conjures arrows, brings them back to him or has no need for them, he can use "magic stuff" as missiles. Nothing wrong with that, it fits Earthdawn damn well, but it is not how I like my fantasy games.

[Radovarl]

Ugh.  I think I'll try to digest the standard Midnight rules before I go any farther afield.  While it might be interesting to try Midnight with another system, I guess I'm just too set in my ways to change much more.  I'm more interested in campaign worlds (fluff) than actual game mechanics, anyway, and with all the buzz about 4th edition and the steady reduction in quality (IMO) of the offerings from WotC, I've recently been buying up material for what I see as the decent and innovative world-building efforts that have been made within the 3.x/d20/OGL realm (among which I include FFG's Dawnforge, Dragonstar, and Midnight, WotC's Forgotten Realms [F(*K Eberron!]; A Game of Thrones, and maybe later Ptolus and the Wilderlands of High Fantasy). 

Basically I'm stocking up and settling in for what I see as the oncoming looong, hard winter of crap.  I've seen extended periods of RPG desertification before (from the advent of AD&D 2E until Planescape and Dark Sun came out, for instance), and want to make sure I have enough fluff squirreled away to keep me in reading material (and hopefully actual campaign fodder) for at least 5 years.  Can you tell I'm not very optimistic, haha?  My only hope is that Midnight: Chronicles will be a huge hit (unlikely) and the product line explodes into a more popular and successful entity than it is today without diluting its punch. 

[Eresket]

One thing I do think D&D needs is a good core Archer class, sure there are some around for D20 or in other games, but thereisn't a good one in D&D yet, or at least i haven't seen it.

I will possibly reply to the rest of your post in later days, but I wanted to hit this really quickly.

I have gone on to say that I'm a big fan of the new options and such. When I run, though, I end up being very restrictive--core book or "x" supplement only for classes or races or whatever. As a result, I tend to look at some of the basic stuff in a different light.

You want a good archer? Make a fighter--simply focus your feats.

My DM for midnight is adding characters to our long-running game (if it ever gets back off the ground). They got to create characters of an equivalent level to those of us who have been playing since the start. One of them wanted to be an archer, so immediately turned to Wildlander. I told him "Play an Erenlander Fighter, and focus your feats on ranged attacks."

He is mechanically unreal with a bow. He also has that Heroic Path for erenlanders only that gives you extra feats...I can't remember the name.

Seriously, fighter has so few restrictions and so many options that if you focus on doing one thing well, you will do it very well.

Anyway, off to bed.

[Nifelhein]

That is what I usually have to resort to, but to me archers should focus more on skils as well, spot and listen, for example, he also does not need heavy armor and shields, or even light armor, likewise I think an archer class would have a refelx save, maybe fortitude too, but definately reflex, so all in all, a fighter does the job, true, but it does not satisfy me, that is why I said that.