I am Wizards' Bitch [4e discussion]

jrients · August 18, 2007, 04:36:48 PM

QuoteMike Mearls is the lead developer for 4th edition.

This is good news. I don't always agree with everything the man says, but as far as I can tell he's the most competent mechanic in the industry.

Brantai · August 18, 2007, 06:21:02 PM

Quote from: James McMurrayI agree. If archetype reinforcement means I can't make a tribal shaman who found an ancient library and learned dark magics within (i.e. Barbarian 1 / Cleric 3 / Necromancer x) then it's a bad thing. If it curtails of min-maxing at the expense of creativity I'll be disappointed.

Or a fighter-mage that actually works. I think Monte's mageblade from AU/AE actually managed this, but the closest I ever saw WotC come was the servicable but bland-as-hell eldritch knight.

Seanchai · August 18, 2007, 06:31:00 PM

Quote from: RPGPunditThey're a busy junky mess, too full of stuff, and trying too hard to show off the images that are supposed to represent their new rules system.

Images are cool. Selling your product is about telling the story of your product. But there's something about them - maybe the big white bar - that puts me off.

Seanchai

hgjs · August 18, 2007, 06:31:32 PM

Quote from: BrantaiOr a fighter-mage that actually works. I think Monte's mageblade from AU/AE actually managed this, but the closest I ever saw WotC come was the servicable but bland-as-hell eldritch knight.

Fighter 2 / Wizard 8 / Eldritch Knight 10

is the core-only, by-the-numbers fighter mage. Ends up with caster level 17 (enough to cast level 9 spells) and BAB 16 (enough for four attacks per round).

If you have access to the Complete Warrior, you replace a level of Wizard or Eldritch Knight with a level of Spellsword.

Brantai · August 18, 2007, 06:51:24 PM

Quote from: hgjsFighter 2 / Wizard 8 / Eldritch Knight 10

is the core-only, by-the-numbers fighter mage. Ends up with caster level 17 (enough to cast level 9 spells) and BAB 16 (enough for four attacks per round).

If you have access to the Complete Warrior, you replace a level of Wizard or Eldritch Knight with a level of Spellsword.

Right, which is why I included the caveat about the Eldritch Knight.

Marco · August 18, 2007, 08:08:53 PM

Quote from: SosthenesDidn't JAGS split mana points into two pools, one for the combat stuff, one for the rest?

Close: there's a "short term" pool you get back every turn and a long term pool that comes back far more slowly.

This means you can do cheap spells (short term or less in cost) all day long (subject to endurance if you are tracking it)--but capital spells--heavy combat spells--require more points than your short term can handle so you use up your long-term spell pool.

This means, in combat, you usually only get a few of them.

-Marco

James J Skach · August 18, 2007, 08:46:30 PM

Lack of multi-classing does not equal archetype enforcement. From what I've read, I've seen talk of a fighter having spell casting ability if he takes a certain path and gives up something from his fighting ability. And IIRC, the quote was that a fighter, a fighter w/spells, and a spellcaster would be equivalent in power in combat.

Let the arguments about the definition of archetype enforcement commence.

Blackleaf · August 18, 2007, 09:14:47 PM

More details from WotC's 4e Q+A (via ENWorld):

Changes to (Vancian) Magic

QuoteAll classes have defined roles – a fighter is never penalized for being a "tank", a "healer" is never penalized for curing, a mage is never penalized for "magic missiling"

All characters have at will, per encounter, and per day uses they will have to keep track of.
No more mages pulling out crossbows. You will never be penalized for doing what you do best – your clearly defined roles.

...

Vancian magic system – there's an element of that we held on to, but it's a much smaller fraction of their overall power. A wizard will never completely run out of spells. They can run out of their "mordenkainen's sword, however".

Encounters:

QuoteEncounters will be built differently in 4th edition. There will be much more "situation" and complexity in the environment, swinging bridges, gouts of lava, etc. An encounter is like a scene of a play – could be talking to a town guard, could be defending a town gate, could be traversing the mountainside to enter the shrine of Asmodeus.

Sounds good.

QuoteThere will be many more monsters for PC's to fight. It's more fun that way. There are very few encounters that are built to be all the PC's against one big powerful bad guy. There will be more mechanics built to leverage the monsters and THEY'RE fundadmental roles. An ettin will be talking to itself throughout the encounter. This is the "monster's job on the battlefield" this is how he reacts.

Very good idea -- same kind of thing I've been working on.

It's High(er) Fantasy:

QuoteIncrease of magic across the board in all aspects of the game.

Not sure if that means Exalted level... we'll have to see...

QuoteSkill system – familiar but truncated. Getting rid of tailor, rope use, etc. Focus on the skills that are really useful in an encounter. Saga edition is a significant stride forward and should be considered a preview. Same for profression, etc. We want characters making acrobatics, bluff, jump, etc. No characters will be stuck at 10th level saying "oh I never invested in that." Hide/Move Silent are brought together. Now an important part of your character, and here's how to apply it to an encounter. It's rarely a check and done, it's now, I make a check, and they react to it. What happens now.

Probably a big part of why they don't advise conversion...

QuoteLiving Greyhawk – will be coming to a triumphant close next year, and they will be starting fresh with a new batch of characters and players. This will be discussed tonight or tomorrow

BURN

Glad I'm just starting.

QuoteMulticlassing – lots of compelling and interesting choices. A fighter who dabbles in wizard or dabbles in cleric is something compelling, Andy's brother is playing a rogue wizard and he's said in the conversion this is the character I wanted to play all along. The choices and powers are good powers on both sides. Backstab, throw chromatic orb across the room, then teleport across the room. There is no more "crappy fighter" attached to a "crappy wizard".

No niche protection...

QuotePlatform compatability? Starting with PC, because there are more.

Pretty wishy-washy... better get on that cross-platform stuff... especially since it's web based.

QuoteDesign philosophies on races. There is a tiefling on the player's handbook. There may also be a changeling (from Eberron). Design philosophies of races. Mike did all the talking, where there will be a very REAL ACTIVE difference within the races that will really make a difference between the Dwarf Fighter and an Elven Fighter.

I hope you can play a gelatinous cube paladin.

Blackleaf · August 18, 2007, 09:34:00 PM

More details on the D&D Insider stuff:

Quotethe D&DI client applications will be developed for the PC platform. Two of the D&DI applications use a 3D game engine based on DirectX (The game table and the character builder, both demoed in their prototype version at Gencon). The other applications will be designed for windows, but will not rely on this 3D game engine so that they can be used on lower end platforms (possibly including intel based macs with dual boot). Our recommended specs for the PC platform includes Windows XP SP2, 512MB RAM, AMD XP 2400 + or Intel P4 2.6Ghz, and a graphic card with 128 MB RAM and support of shader 2.0.
We have not yet established our minimum specifications at that time.

No support for the Mac.

John Morrow · August 18, 2007, 09:43:51 PM

Quote from: StuartNo support for the Mac.

They should at least make sure it works with WINE (which could get them on to Linux, too). I might eventually pay $60 bucks for CrossOver (a commercial WINE implementation for the Mac -- I had fun playing around with it during the demo period) or compile a free version of WINE on my Mac but I'm not buying a copy of Windows to run the handful of Windows programs that I have an interest in running and seem to work just fine under WINE.

Blackleaf · August 18, 2007, 09:51:47 PM

It's a(nother) bad decision to promote moving stuff to the web, and then cut off at least 10% of your potential customers.

If World of Warcraft is the competition, they should note that Blizzard releases for Mac + PC at the same time.

The 4e books might be great, but I think they're really dropping the ball with their Digital Initiative stuff.

beeber · August 18, 2007, 10:04:10 PM

our next computer is going to be a mac.

i'll just have to use blizzard for my d&d computer fix, then. good job, wotc :mad:

the other 4E changes are sounding more intriguing, tho.

think they'll do the first printing of the cores at $19.99 like they did with 3.0? i'd totally pick up a PH then. . . .

Brantai · August 18, 2007, 10:11:35 PM

Well... you can run windows on the new (intel-based) macs. So it's still just the PowerPC and Linux people left out in the cold. Given WotC's track record with software, thought, I'm skeptical about how well the DI is going to turn out.

hgjs · August 18, 2007, 11:14:35 PM

Quote from: StuartNo support for the Mac.

Son of a whore.

On the other hand, I wasn't wild about the idea paying a monthly fee to use a virtual meeting program with less functionality than Neverwinter Nights (which I use right now, for free). It looks like they just made my decision easier.

James J Skach · August 18, 2007, 11:19:41 PM

Yeah.

Though I reserve the right to change my mind based on the quality of the new edition, all of the signals, so far, have pointed to me ditching WotC for a while.

Then they announce that Living Greyhawk is ending, and that just about seals the deal for me.

But if their idea is anything along this rules-light-story-first thing, not helped by the fact they chose Living (Forgotten) Realms as the next living campaign and using FR Novel authors for adventure authors, You won't see anything of me except the road-runner cloud of dust.