I saw this on the ENWorld main page this morning.  Their member Someone has done a pretty impressive job of compiling everything known about 4th ed thus far:

QuoteRaces:

• Mentioned some race disappearing from core (bets go for the Gnome), possibly to be included in an early supplement.
• Tiefling included, and they look much more demonic than now (almost half-demon).
• Changeling from Eberron may be included.
• "Dwarven resilience, elven evasion, a half-elf's inspiring presence" mentioned as racial traits.
• Classes can be improved by racial feats, in a similar way to how current racial substitution levels work.
• All classes have at will, per encounter and per day abilities.

Classes:

• Levels go up to 30, instead of 20;

Level division:

• 1-10 Heroic - foes are orcs and ogres, some giants, small dragons. Adventures tend to be local.
• 11-20 Paragon - on par with the current low to mid teens right now. Bigger threats are faced that might threaten a kingdom.
• 21-30 Epic- World or Planar threats.

• The goal is to have the levels play in a similar manner - they don't want a 25th character overwhelmed with 80 abilities. The main differences should be in the story, not how they play.
• From GamerZer0's interview with James Wyatt: There are four "roles".
  • Defender: fighter & paladin classes
  • Leader: cleric & warlord classes
  • Controller: wizard class
  • Striker: rogue & ranger classes
• Although two PCs may serve the same role, they may do it in different ways. (Like fighters with different styles.) The roles are geared towards combat; a PC's non-combat aspects can differentiate him further. He also said that they are still considering the possibility of there being a class or two that doesn't quite fit the four "roles"
• Fighter, Cleric, Rogue and Wizard definitely stay (multiple mentions and examples). Also mentioned Barbarian, Paladin and Ranger. Mentioned that wizard and sorcerer won't merge. Sorcerer will be different from wizards in more ways than just resource management.
  
• Mentioned that paladins can be of other alignments other than lawful good.
  
• Mentioned a warlord class
• Druid mentioned in D&D's seminar's summary
  
• Backstab mentioned.
• Fighter's "powers" depend highly on the weapon they chose as primary - spears have different "powers" available than axes; swords and greatswords are very flexible in terms of said "powers"
• Wisdom helps with power selection.
• Mentioned a "rain of blows" power or maneuver for swords; mentioned making a choice between taking the abilities "Supreme Cleave" or "Massive Strike".
• More on martial abilities: "A skilled halberdier can hack a foe with his weapon's blade and spin around to smash a second foe with the haft. A fighter with a longsword disarms her foe with a flick of her wrist, while a battle hungry axeman cleaves through shields, armor, and bone." "Rogues have a similar relationship with skills. A nimble rogue dives through the air to tumble past an ogre, while a charismatic one tricks an enemy into looking away just before she delivers a killing blow with her dagger. Just as fighters do more with weapons than any other character, rogues push skills beyond the limits that constrain other PCs."
  
• Cleric mentioned creating a "surge of healing power" alongside a critical hit. This hints (yet unconfirmed) to mechanics similar to some Crusader maneuvers, from Tome of Battle.
  
• Some current base classes disappear; classes yet to be mentioned and therefore good candidates are Monk and Bard. Classes that don't appear in the PHB will appear in future products
  Psionics not to be included in core, though they'll have support.
  
• Prestige classes stay.

Feats and skills:

• Move silently and hide rolled into one ("Stealth?")
• Some of the more obscure or less used skills disappear (mentioned tailor and rope use)
• Mentioned that Sage should be "considered a preview [of the skill system]"
• Feats won't form long chains.
  
• There will be rules akin to the retraining rules in PHBII - they don't like the idea of people planning their careers from level 1 to 30.

Combat and encounters:

• Rules for non-combat encounters. The example given was social interaction. Unlike 3E, where negotiation amounts to a single Diplomacy check, it's treated almost like a combat in 4E. I make a skill check, but I also tell the DM what/how I'm doing. The opponent responds with behavior (and a check) of his own. I counter with a new check, and new words. And so forth.
  
• Saves mentioned
  AC mentioned, apparently with the same function as it has today.
  
• Free, immediate, move and standard actions mentioned. (it stands to reason Swift actions will be present too).
  
• Critical hits mentioned.
• Attacks of opportunity gone or greatly changed/simplified: a fighter charges a dragon and no AoO is mentioned.
  
• Grapple greatly simplified.
• Confirmation rolls for critical hits possibly go away.
• Combat still uses a square grid

Spells and magic:

• Vancian system survives, but it's ony a "fraction" of the magic (or magic options) available to characters: "a wizard who casts all his memorized per day spells should be at about 80% of power."
  
• "Wizards will be able to cast 25th-level spells."
  
• Fireballs don't deal 1d6/level damage any more. Also, game breaking spells (spells that fundamentally change the gaming scenario, like etherealness, scrying, and save or die effects) "have been addressed as well".
  
• Mentioned a "ray of freezing cold".

Magic items

• Magic item creation doesn't use XP or require a feat.

Monsters:

• The monsters will have their own roles and their own abilities- the orc will have orc abilities, not fighter or barbarian abilites
  
• Monsters no longer drain XP (implied no draining of levels?)
  
• Vulnerability to energy likely to work differently in 4e, with additional effects (like slowing in the case of cold) instead of (or in addition to?) extra damage.
  
• "The ettin, for instance, has the whole two-heads thing, so it can go twice in one round, and take unrelated actions."
  
• Ancient (red?) dragons apparently now can do a lot of things:
  • An inferno aura, useable as a free action.
  • A tail slap attack with an added pushback effect, useable as a free action.
  • Two claw attacks, useable as a standard action.
  • A fireball spit that sticks to the target dealing extra damage, useable as a standard action.
  • A breath weapon, but we don't get to see what kind of action it normally takes - a free one like the inferno aura, as different uses of the same ability?
  • A special action granting an extra standard action.
  • They may take an immediate action to use their breath weapon when reduced blow half damage.
  • They may take an immediate action to use their tail slap when about to be flanked.
• Said dragon would have around 1000 hit points.

Figured that might be worth some grounds for discussion.

I guess I'm not as old fashioned as I thought, I like what I see.

I like the confirmation rolls for crits went away.  We never used that anyway.

I like the division of the classes into the four "roles": I suspect the different roles will end up being the "meta-classes" and all the other classes will be sub-classes of them. (It would also potentially make designing new classes easier - just mix and match which of the relevant role's talent trees and powers and whatnot the class gets).

After doing some reading on the game industry, and listening to the D&D Podcast last night, I'm now of the opinion that this is likely to be a very good game.

I also think I understand the motivation behind the Digital Initiative a bit more, but I'm still skeptical on whether or not it will work.  It's worth the effort they're putting into it though, so hopefully it'll be successful.

The magic changes and apparently making dragons more complicated are both freaking me out man.

So far it all sounds excellent. If the implementation is as good as I hope then this may be the edition that draws me back into being a regular mainstream D&D player again. I'm far more interested in 4E than I was in it's predecessor eight years ago.

I am really loving what I'm hearing.  Seriously.  Things like:

• spells going to level 25 rather than the old standby of 9.  Sounds like this will add some nice granularity to a Wizard's power progression.
• no XP (level?) drain.  I suppose they'll handle it like a blanket "-N" penalty which makes it dirt simple to apply.
• no mention of the Monk (yet - crosses fingers for never) for the core books.  And some of you were thinking that D&D was going all "eastern influence".  

I'd personally be cool with the Monk going completely away.  I'd like to see a skill monkey class that was less focused than the bard, but not back-stabby like the road, perhaps either a troubador, professional or academic-type class.  But for now, I'll stick on rooting for the monk to go away.

Sometimes I thinks Ima comin' onto that hidebound oldfashionedness...

Other times I dasnt.

Here is the thing: I likes the sound of many of the changes, I das.  Ok then, soma da changes.

Most of the changes I shrug at.  Why? 'Cause they sound like an RPG, but not D&D.  I Like RPGs as a group more than I like D&D, so mostly I don't mind changes to what is D&D... and don't get me wrong, there are some mighty big changes.

But there is one thing I see that could be a serious deal breaker.

I play me some WoW. I got kinda bored with it when I got to higher levels. See: Here is the thing of it. When I think of a fighter, I think of that dude you wouldn't want to get on the bad side of, the guy who hangs out in the dark alleys sort of. He's BAD NEWS in a scrap. He kills shit for a living. He regularly faces down things that would make lesser men tremble.  When the villagers are running and hiding because 'Orcs are on the march' he's the guy that shrugs on his battered helmet, grabs the sword from the wall and goes out to carve up some swine.

The rogue is the guy who lifts your wallet when you aren't looking.  

Navarre and Mouse from Ladyhawk.

In WoW, the fighter is the dumb lug that gets beat on all day and the rogue is the bad motherfucker who goes out to carve the other guy up. :confused:
In D&D the Fighter is still the dumb fuck, though as long as you aren't going hog wild with the magic, he's still the serious bad ass in close quarters, able to go toe to toe with just about anything in the book and hold his own for a while. I've had fighters in various editions of D&D that at mid-teens could, on a good day, dish out 100+ hps of damage in one round of attacks (okay, with some buffing...), and averaged 20-30 per attack. That's mid to low teens, really, I've never gone above 14th level.

But some dumb shit says 'Nah, fighters are defenders, yo. These weedy lockpickers, they are the 'strikers'.'

Fuck you, Wizards. Fuck you with the blizzard logo you cock sucking shitbags. Where, in all the history of literature, fantasy and movies.. all the things that inform our desires of play, does the weedy cowardly sneaky mother fucker get to whup ass while the bad ass with the sword, the ax, and the psychotic gleam in his eye have to stand there like a punch drunk ox?  Where the FUCK does this psycho shit come from?

Quote from: SpikeFuck you, Wizards. Fuck you with the blizzard logo you cock sucking shitbags. Where, in all the history of literature, fantasy and movies.. all the things that inform our desires of play, does the weedy cowardly sneaky mother fucker get to whup ass while the bad ass with the sword, the ax, and the psychotic gleam in his eye have to stand there like a punch drunk ox?  Where the FUCK does this psycho shit come from?

Uh ... the Grey Mouser?

Now in part I'm with you.  I like the idea of fighters as the pre-eminent in combat ... I like it in fiction.  But if you're going to run a combat-heavy game (as I think D&D should support you in doing) then making the fighters A-number-one in all combat ... that's sort of like adding a "Financier" class to Monopoly, and then expecting other people to play classes like "Janitor" and "Railroad conducter," because somebody needs to do it.

I like the idea that rogues have their own way of fighting.  It means that when we want to get down and dirty with some lovely combat, I don't feel like I'm excluding my friends who are playing non-fighters.

Wasn't Conan a thief too?

Don't get me wrong, Tony... I'm not about trying to exclude rogues from shankin' some dude in the back, cutting some throats, whatever.

But it seems to me that in the 'defender' model, the ability of the class/role to do damage always seems horribly crippled. (to the point one guy I know, a braggart about his beta testing days, but generally a crack smoker, actually said Warriors in WoW had their DPS halved... which if true (I doubt it) would have been horribly fucking stupid (meaning, among other things, that mages did more damage in melee....).

If not crippled, then limited... just as bad.  I can make a warrior with a HUGE motherfucking ax. Then I can sit there and see that the little shitcake with a dagger did 18 fucking times the damage I did. Why? because all the combat damage options are given to him, and all I get is the choice to play punching bag.

So too D&D if they are serious about this fucking 'defender' crap.  I can see it now (borrowing from Saga) that the feats will be classless/roleless as always, but the talent trees... fighters will have (lets say...) three, one for wearing armor, one for extra hit points, and maybe one that includes some minor ability to whack a fool.

Rogues, by comparison will have One sweet dodge tree, one 'shank a motherfucker in teh back tree' and one 'use skills to shank a motherfucker' tree....

Wait: Thats two defensive trees for fighters... neither one being particularly defensive, and one weak offense. Rogues with two offensive and one pretty damn good defense.

Now, that's a 'worst case' senario, sure. Its even hyperbole. Its not like I was basing the fighter trees off of anything we've ever seen before....is it?

Me? If I don't have a VALID option to go 'I have a sword. I hit you with it. You fall down.'   but the rogue class IS reinvisioned as 'I have a dagger. I hit you with it. You fall down. Also, I have skills.'... then I will be seriously, and unmitigatedly, pissed the fuck off.  WoTC would have to hire a score of hookers to blow me to even consider making me want to not be pissed off. Strangely, I don't see that happening.



Oh, and for the record: No, I don't think fighters have had a particularly fair shake from D&D in the past, though at the lower levels of the game this never really was a problem (though, if you think 1st level fighter vs. wizard was still a 'fighters match' you obviously never heard of the infamous sleep spell... held up as a low level 'I win' button for mages for over a decade...)

Quote from: AosWasn't Conan a thief too?

Don't get game terms mixed up with descriptives.  Conan was a theif because he stole stuff, not because he slunk around and stuck daggers into peoples backs.

In a sense most adventurers are theives of one sort or another. After all, that dragon's horde technically belongs to that dragon, don't it?

Quote from: SpikeDon't get game terms mixed up with descriptives.  Conan was a theif because he stole stuff, not because he slunk around and stuck daggers into peoples backs.

He also does plenty of sneaking, trap-evading, and climbing. Check out The Tower of the Elephant if you don't believe me.