D&D 4E Mythusmage's D&D 4e Thoughts

[Greg K]

Take a look at the HERO system. I can't think of a single D&D spell you couldn't duplicate in HERO. Better yet, take a look at Fantasy HERO (or, even better, the Fantasy HERO Grimoire; I seem to recall a book of that name) - they have the vast majority of spells, including oddball spells, done in HERO terms.

Provded, that a) the DM is in control of building spells and b) the spells on the character sheet look nothing like the format for building spells and powers in Hero System, I wouldn't mind such a thing. The Hero System format of powers and spells on the character sheet makes reading them both boring and a pain the butt !

 

[GreatLemur]

Oh, Christ, if I didn't have work to do, I would spend all day in this thread. For the moment, though, I'll just say that I want D&D 4E to be something like a less-simplified version of True 20: Three classes that are extremely customizable through a very large catalog of feats (divided up into nice, convenient sections!), a more 3.5-style skill system than True 20 has, no more damned prestige classes (feat trees with strict requirements are enough), a magic system that doesn't require eight hours of sleep after every serious fight, and a combat system that's somewhere between D&D 3.5, True 20, and Iron Heroes.

I'm interested by the amount of support for ditching Half-Elves and Half-Orcs. I've always liked the idea of replacing Half-Orcs with just plain Orcs, myself. But, yeah, making "Elven Heritage" and "Orcish Heritage" feats sounds like a great idea.

Personally, I'm kind of the fuzzy definitions of Wisdom and Charisma, and I'd really like to see them replaced by something like Perception and Willpower, but I know that'll never happen.

Also, Gnomes need a complete overhaul and Bards were a blatantly dumb idea from the very beginning.

 

[Greg K]

Bring back Kits but call them something else.

The class variants from Unearthed Arcana? The 3.0 and 3.5 PHB included a fighter variant. Providing one or two Unearthed Arcana variants for the classes in the PHB would be a good starting point to adding more flexability to the classes. I would include:

Barbarian: Barbarian hunter (UA)
Druid, urban Druid (not UA, but forget the source)
Ranger, Urban Ranger (UA)
Rogue, Martial Rogue (UA): useable with standard rogue or wilderness rogue
Rogue, Wilderness Rogue (UA)
Sorcerer, Battle Sorcerer (UA)

 

[Greg K]

Bards were a blatantly dumb idea from the very beginning.

I would like to see Bardic Knowledge become a talent or feat. Then by taking it with certain classes, you can better emulate the type of bard you want- arcane spellcasting, divine spellcasting, nature spellcaster, charm and illusion specialist (Beguiler), roguish non-spellcasting, warrior non-spellcasting.

 

[Hairfoot]

Ditch half-elves and half-orcs, bring back hobbity halflings, and include goblins and hobgoblins as core races. That way there'd be mediums and smalls of four racial types: human/hobbit; elf/halfling; dwarf/gnome; and hobgoblin/goblin.

 

[RFisher]

I just don't think WOTC is going to do this. Piracy issues are twitchy enough without making it even easier for people to steal copies of the core material. What business reason would compel them to think this would be a good idea?

Exactly. If they were going to put out PDFs, they might as well just make the core system available for free downloads as RTF files...

...er...

I mean, it's not like there are people out there today that are scanning the print D&D books the day they're released & putting high quality PDFs of them out on the file sharing networks...

...er...

Pretending that you are safe from electronic copyright infringement just because you only sell paper books instead of PDFs--especially if you are the big player in your niche--is just sticking your head in the sand.

In any case, though, a company that can see the business case behind releasing the SRD under the OGL can certainly see the business case for selling PDFs.

 

[Hairfoot]

That's one reason I don't mind seeing WotC being more miniature-centric in its marketing. I'd hate to see D&D go under due to piracy, which is rampant.

 

[GreatLemur]

Pretending that you are safe from electronic copyright infringement just because you only sell paper books instead of PDFs--especially if you are the big player in your niche--is just sticking your head in the sand.

In any case, though, a company that can see the business case behind releasing the SRD under the OGL can certainly see the business case for selling PDFs.

Also, there's DRM to consider. A big "IF YOU BITTORRENT THIS THING WE'LL KNOW IT WAS YOU" warning on the first page ought to cut down on that kind of skullduggery. I know there are valid objections to DRM, but none that should hinder WotC, far as I know. (Of course, there is no unbeatable anti-piracy measure, simply because there are legions of very smart people out there who live to tear apart stuff like this.)

But, really, I'm less interested in PDF versions of the books than XML versions. I want to be able to take every new race, class, and feat, alter them to my heart's content, and combine them into my own variant SRD. Of course, there are a lot of reasons that ain't gonna happen.