D&D 4E What would you like 4E to look like.

[tx7321]

Q: "Again, this is totally YMMV. In my games, I've seen the full plate fighter FAR more than the dex monkey. Actually, I'll go so far as to say that in 6 years of playing 3e, I've yet to see a dex monkey fighter. Barbarian, yup. Fighter? Paly? Cleric? Nope. All wearing the heaviest armor they could."

My experiance in 3E is just the opposite. Almost no one (in the groups I played in, over a 3 year period) wanted to look like the wieghted down boring bulky fighter in plate (infact plate became a symbol of low dex...oh that guy has plate, you know his dex sucks). Most of our fighters took feats and skills that maximized their dex advantage. In the 3 years I played 3E the heaviest armor anyone wore was chain shirt (under cloths so you couldn't tell). So, pretty much everyone looked and dressed the same (down to those playing wizards who usually wore some light armor and took a sword and the clerics going out of their way to get a God that allowed a sword). Sure, these weren't the most logical ways to split your feats and skills, but nobody cared. Everyone wanted to look kewlest, and low and behold ended up looking "mysteriously" the same. I couldn't tell a fighter from a ranger from a cleric from a rouge. All the visual cues common to 1E were gone. This I'd like to get back in 4E. A fighter should look like a fighter, a wizard should look like a wizard, a cleric should look like a cleric (with a non-cutting weapon) etc.

 

[Sir Elton]

I want to see 4E move from away from the "X encounters per day" model, where wandering monsters serve to try to wear down the party resources before the fight with the BBEG. I'd like to see it move to a system where every encounter has the potential to kill the party, but the party always starts at full power. Best example I have is the maneuver use in Tome of Battle. Spellcasters would use a similar type of system, where they have access to a few combat spells, but also have spell abilities they can use outside of combat.

HELLLOOOOO ROLEMASTER!

 

[Sir Elton]

Anyway, less is more. You'll never compete with World of Warcraft on WoW's home turf. If you want to compete, give people a rules-lite game that sparks their imagination. Leave the number-crunching for the computers.

That's a great point. But I don't see how I could pay $30 dollars for OD&D when I can buy the Cyclopedia for $5.

 

[WayneLigon]

One thing also that must go is the loss of dex bonus when wearing heavy armor. When no one wears plate anymore but loads up on dex instead, something is wrong. Its bad when everyone looks and dresses the same. I miss seeing the fighters in plate or banded, the thief in leather and the magic user in robes. This one rule does so much damage to the "look" of the party and NPCs its not funny.

If 'everyone' is going for Dex instead of armor, something is a little weird. Dex AC is fairly easy to get rid of most of the time (flanking is the best way but there are a lot of things that deny you your Dex Bonus) but armor sticks around regardless. The guy going for Dex AC gains some encumberance advantages (and some class abilities can only be used in Light armor) but he always gambles on retaining that bonus.

 

[RFisher]

2. Cut character creation time to 5 minutes by adopting a philosophy of "adaptive radiation": all 1st level characters of a certain class start with the same stats, and diversify as they level up.

Say, I like that a lot! I don't know that I'd want to always do it, but that has potential.

3. Get rid of assigning skill points.

This is exactly the sort of thing where the basic/advanced split is pretty easy. Provide skill points as the advanced system.

And, somehow, is there a chance to cut the ability stats in half?

Nah. Just double everything else instead. It becomes the 2d20 system. ^_^

I've thought about this too. It would be nice if 4e had explicit rules-light and rules-heavy guidelines right in the same book. Easier said than done, I'll bet.

Sure. But that's why we pay for the books.

In the 3 years I played 3E the heaviest armor anyone wore was chain shirt (under cloths so you couldn't tell). So, pretty much everyone looked and dressed the same (down to those playing wizards who usually wore some light armor and took a sword and the clerics going out of their way to get a God that allowed a sword). Sure, these weren't the most logical ways to split your feats and skills, but nobody cared.

In 3 years, why didn't you play a PC with armor heavier than a chain shirt?

My last 3e character was a cleric in heavy armor who didn't use a sword.

I guess I get what you're saying. You want the rules to have a heavier hand in telling other people what their PCs should look like. I guess I'm just happy that the rules allow my PC to look like what I want without gimping him. I've always--even in my 1e days--been happy to let people make suboptimal choices in the name of style. If they didn't realize the choices were suboptimal, I was also happy to prove it to them.

 

[mmadsen]

Visually, I would like the game to move away from the dungeonpunk esthetic.

In terms of format, I would like to see the new Players Handbook become more of a Rules Cyclopedia, with enough rules to really play the game, but without quite so many races, classes, spells, etc.

Given the sheer bulk of spells in the Players Handbook and magic items in the Dungeon Masters Guide, a core Tome of Magic is justified.

The Monster Manual, the first/core one, should include rules for playing monsters as characters, and it should include samples of the common monsters with the right class levels and equipment -- goblin scout, goblin wolfrider, captain of the goblin wolfriders, etc.

The Dungeon Masters Guide should have less abstract advice and more examples and lists of cool adventure elements. Warhammer did an excellent job of conveying the basics of its pre-modern society by listing common careers and adventure locales.

I also think the Dungeon Masters Guide should have a highly malleable adventure -- with multiple options spelled out for the DM -- to get every group started off on the right foot and with a shared D&D experience.

As for rules, I'd love to see D&D move away from most of its sacred cows, as long as the new rules really work.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Interesting that almost every single thread on 4e has indicated that the existing fan-base don't want WoTC to go down this path. Many people obviously believe that the emphasis placed on miniatures in v3.5 was a mistake. Do we really think that the folks at WoTC haven't noticed this fact?

Personally, I don't think that decreasing the emphasis on miniatures in 4e would hurt the sales of official D&D miniatures all that much anyway. Many people (myself included) would still collect them and would still use them sometimes during play.

I have no idea on what the data Hasbro has that will make their choice. I think 4e will be far more DDM than classic D&D RPG. I'm thinking there may be more cash in that method. Some books but a lot more reliance on minis, and terrain packs, and scenery stuff.

 

[GreatLemur]

Good post. Although, like it was mentioned earlier in this thread, people seem to keep describing True20, myself included. Maybe Green Ronin should make a bid for the D&D license?

Yeah, True20 is a beautiful improvement on d20, and it's effectively a first draft of what I'd want D&D 4E to be. If Steve Kenson got hired for a big hush-hush project over at WotC, I would cry with joy.

 

[Shadowslayer]

If you assume mundane equipment for CR, then the DM adjusts CR on the basis of "WAHOO Factor" that exists in the game world.

Exactly. If an encounter is EL7, give me a chart that says "if the group has base magical weapons then decrease by 1, if it has x amount of magic, decrease by 2 etc"

If you go with mundane weapons and armor as a baseline, then build up, you'd actually make it a little easier for everyone, not just the high magic guys.

 

[tx7321]

If 'everyone' is going for Dex instead of armor, something is a little weird. Dex AC is fairly easy to get rid of most of the time (flanking is the best way but there are a lot of things that deny you your Dex Bonus) but armor sticks around regardless. The guy going for Dex AC gains some encumberance advantages (and some class abilities can only be used in Light armor) but he always gambles on retaining that bonus.

Typically battles in our 3E games were so complicated enemy numbers were kept small, thus flanking almost never came up. Anyhow, like I said, it was an "image" kewl thing. Logic wasn't first on the mind of our players. 3E is very much about "looks" and "image" through customization (in 1E you had templates so it wasn't really possible, thus not an issue). As another poster mentioned, in the "old days" if someone wanted to play a ranger, they just played their fighter as if he knew alot about surviving in the woods (no special rules or props needed). 3E went the other direction with rules and props for everything (maximum customization).

Even the artwork suggests this shift. Compare 3E artwork to 1E and ask yourself, which looks more like the Midievil period, more like the guys running around in Excalibur. I always assumed everyone new and accepted this. Look, why else would the creators even have the armor/dex rule in the first place?