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DSCrankshaw
2010-08-11, 09:07 PM
I looked, but I didn't see any discussion of the change to racial stats coming with Essentials. It's been confirmed (http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/drfe/20100809) that races will now get options in their attribute bonuses--for example, dwarves now get Con + Str or Wis.

What do people think? Is this a bad idea? A good one?

Reverent-One
2010-08-11, 09:25 PM
It has come up, you might have missed it because Kurald Galain generally makes the threads for such discussion and he likes to call it 4.4.

As for the attribute options, it makes sense they'd give them to the older races since they're reprinting them anyway. The newer races all have the optional stat boost, so it just brings all the races in line.

Tough_Tonka
2010-08-11, 10:36 PM
Its nice to hear Dwarves will make good fighters instead of just decent fighters if you get the right feats.

Swordgleam
2010-08-11, 11:18 PM
There'd been speculation about that happening before Essentials were ever announced, just because it went over so well with the new races. So I am not surprised.

Excession
2010-08-12, 12:17 AM
Anyone want to speculate on what extra stat options the existing races will get?

Dwarves getting Con+Str (fixed) is confirmed in the preview.

Elves I suspect will get Int+Wis to make them better arcanists as the article promises.

Half-Elves seem likely to get Wis based on the Dragon article a while back. I actually suspect Wis+Cha rather Con+Wis. Cha seems to be their defining stat from a fluff point of view; it'd be strange to see it optional.

Eladrin could use an Int+Con option to make them the best Swordmages, or maybe an Int+Cha option for Feylock.

Shifters already have variant of the stat choice. It's be nice to choose stats and encounter power separately perhaps.

Not sure about the rest.

DSCrankshaw
2010-08-12, 12:23 AM
Actually, the preview says it's Con + (Str or Wis).

According to someone who's seen the new Essentials, the other known ones are:

Halfling: Dex + (Cha or Con)
Elf: Dex + (Int or Wis)

Excession
2010-08-12, 12:38 AM
Actually, the preview says it's Con + (Str or Wis).

According to someone who's seen the new Essentials, the other known ones are:

Halfling: Dex + (Cha or Con)
Elf: Dex + (Int or Wis)

My bad on the Dwarf, thanks for the correction. I didn't expect to see Elves with the same stats as Eladrin, but I guess Dex is their defining stat fluff-wise.

cupkeyk
2010-08-12, 12:42 AM
My bad on the Dwarf, thanks for the correction. I didn't expect to see Elves with the same stats as Eladrin, but I guess Dex is their defining stat fluff-wise.

I wish they'd do away with the eladrin entirely. Make them elf, wood and elf high like 3.5 with your choice of racial features from the pool of the two 4.0 races.

Kaun
2010-08-12, 12:52 AM
I wish they'd do away with the eladrin entirely. Make them elf, wood and elf high like 3.5 with your choice of racial features from the pool of the two 4.0 races.

Thats what house rules are for.

tcrudisi
2010-08-12, 02:03 AM
I think it's a wonderful idea. I know there are some races I really enjoy playing (Deva) and others I'm not so hot on (Dwarf). Yet, sometimes the Dwarf is just the optimal race. By giving more flexibility, it allows players to more often select a race that makes sense for fluff and roleplaying purposes and not just stats.

Kurald Galain
2010-08-12, 04:21 AM
What do people think? Is this a bad idea? A good one?
I think it's an okay idea, decent but unimpressive.

I find that some people, particularly on the WOTC forums, vastly overstate the importance of a +1 bonus. I've heard people claim a rogue in unplayable with a race that doesn't boost dex. In practice, this matters so little that it's barely even noticeable. Sure, you don't want a rogue with 10 dex because you'll end up missing a lot. But it's very viable to end up with 16, 17, or 18 dex on a race that doesn't boost it.

A useful racial power strikes me as more important than just a +1. So yeah, gnomes make good rogues, and elves make good fighters.

tcrudisi
2010-08-12, 05:26 AM
I find that some people, particularly on the WOTC forums, vastly overstate the importance of a +1 bonus. I've heard people claim a rogue in unplayable with a race that doesn't boost dex. In practice, this matters so little that it's barely even noticeable. Sure, you don't want a rogue with 10 dex because you'll end up missing a lot. But it's very viable to end up with 16, 17, or 18 dex on a race that doesn't boost it.

A useful racial power strikes me as more important than just a +1. So yeah, gnomes make good rogues, and elves make good fighters.

Even better? A gnome that gets the option to have the boost to Dex, so they get the good power and stat boost. That's why I like this change.

However, I do think that the +1 is extremely important, as each +1 really adds up. Take a starting 18 vs. 20... then it comes time to choose a weapon. The 18 will have to choose a +3 prof. bonus weapon to try to keep their attack bonus up or risk falling behind even further... which is very frustrating at a table. Yes, the 18 will excel in other areas, but combat tends to be the most important thing in D&D.

Kurald Galain
2010-08-12, 05:50 AM
However, I do think that the +1 is extremely important, as each +1 really adds up. Take a starting 18 vs. 20... then it comes time to choose a weapon
Yes, combat is very important in most 4E campaigns.

There are three things to realize:
(1) there are multiple ways to get +1 bonuses;
(2) while getting none of them is a bad idea, getting all of them isn't necessary;
(3) each of those comes at an opportunity cost; what are you giving up for this, and is it worth it?

Suppose you're making a fighter...

You can be an eladrin. That means you're giving up a +1 (because your race doesn't have a strength bonus) in exchange for teleportation. That strikes me as a fair trade.
You can decide to use a longspear. You're giving up a +1 in exchange for reach. Also a fair trade.
You can wield a khopesh. Now you're giving up a +1 in exchange for brutal-1. If you do the math, that's not such a good idea, really.
You can lower your strength to boost charisma: you trade +1 to hit for a +1 on diplomacy. As you're likely going to make many more attack rolls than diplomacy checks, this is not such a good trade-off either.
You can take weapon ex at level 1, or you can take another feat. There are some good trade-offs; you'll probably pick up weapon ex eventually, but it needn't be at level 1.


A fighter can have +10 to-hit at level 1 if he wants to. Lowering this in exchange for a cool ability is a good idea; lowering this in exchange for a small bonus to some skills or defenses is not such a good idea, mechanically speaking.

TheEmerged
2010-08-12, 08:38 AM
RE: The importance of that +5 bonus. Heh. Our gaming group is talking about playing against this trope next time we remake characters. What we were talking about was that you couldn't play a race/class combination that could start with a 20 in its primary stat (we haven't decided what this would mean for a human) or easily start with an 18 in both key stats. I'm not sure *how* seriously it's being taken but it has come up more than once.

Kurald Galain
2010-08-12, 08:56 AM
Our gaming group is talking about playing against this trope next time we remake characters. What we were talking about was that you couldn't play a race/class combination that could start with a 20 in its primary stat

I like this approach. It will give you more original class/race combinations, and the slightly lower primary stat will not make a noticeable difference in gameplay.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-12, 09:51 AM
I like this approach. It will give you more original class/race combinations, and the slightly lower primary stat will not make a noticeable difference in gameplay.
A fine HR if people are routinely taking double 18's or single 20's in your game. So far, my players have preferred building around different criteria (racial powers, feat choices, Rule of Cool) so I haven't seen much stagnation.

Anyhoo, the more I hear about the flexible racial modifiers, the more I like them. The Eladrin choice (+Int, +Dex/Cha) seems quite appropriate as well - although I suspect there will be very few Int/Dex Eladrin in 4.4 :smallfrown:

Nai_Calus
2010-08-12, 10:31 AM
{Scrubbed}

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-12, 11:05 AM
{Scrubbed}
Essentials is 4.anything :smallamused:

Seriously though, we need a shorthand for the new set, and 4E is already taken. I guess you could call it DDE or something, but Kurald is breaking most of this news and 4.4 seems as good a term as any.

Reverent-One
2010-08-12, 11:47 AM
Seriously though, we need a shorthand for the new set, and 4E is already taken. I guess you could call it DDE or something, but Kurald is breaking most of this news and 4.4 seems as good a term as any.

Ooh, I hadn't thought of that. Thanks, I'll be stealing it. *Yoink*

And I'll reiterate why I think 4.4 is poor terminology, which is because traditionally numerical changes in naming for D&D have been used for different, incompatible editions, see 3.0, 3.5, and Pathfinder (3.75). DDE, however, is within the same edition and compatible with the books before it.

The Glyphstone
2010-08-12, 12:00 PM
3.0 and 3.5 (and 3.5 and PF) are mostly inter-compatible, though, or at least reverse-engineerable from one to the other. There are a few exceptions, but a good majority of 3.0 material can be imported into 3.5 games without significant modifications. Your point stands better for the X.0 numbering (2E versus 3E, or 3E vs. 4E) - those are fundamentally incompatible rulesets.

Reverent-One
2010-08-12, 12:08 PM
3.0 and 3.5 (and 3.5 and PF) are mostly inter-compatible, though, or at least reverse-engineerable from one to the other. There are a few exceptions, but a good majority of 3.0 material can be imported into 3.5 games without significant modifications. Your point stands better for the X.0 numbering (2E versus 3E, or 3E vs. 4E) - those are fundamentally incompatible rulesets.

Importanting with modifications, even not significant ones, is still not the same as not needing any modifications at all. If it was, then why do we use 3.0 and 3.5 instead of just 3e for 3rd Edtion?

The Glyphstone
2010-08-12, 12:52 PM
The comparison isn't between full compatibility and partial compatibility, but compatibility at all and incompatibility, as you originally argued. A 3.0 class can be used in 3.5 with minimal alteration (Saving throw progressions or class skills would be the likely victims), and it would be almost as simple to reverse-engineer 3.5 material into a 3.0 format. You could even have them exist side-by-side, such as a "Packmaster" 3.0 druid with a large number of weak animal companions and a "Beastmaster" 3.5 druid with a single improving companion. Similarly, as far as I understand, it'd be perfectly workable to include a 4E Rogue and a 4.4/Essentials Thief in the same party, though their roles overlap.

Their material uses the same core ruleset, so they can share a numerical identifier designation. This is the meaning of the 3.0/3.5 labelings - two sets of rules that are, while different, sufficiently similar to work alongside each other or replace each other interchangably. 4E classes/powers can be used in 4.4 without problem, and anyone wishing to run a 4E 'classic' game with 4.4 classes shouldn't have more than superficial problems.

You could not do this with truly imcompatible rulesets, such as a 2E Thief and a 3E Rogue. They cannot exist side-by-side without massive, significant modifications, so a simple ".x" divider is insufficient to label them.

Reverent-One
2010-08-12, 01:08 PM
The comparison isn't between full compatibility and partial compatibility, but compatibility at all and incompatibility, as you originally argued. A 3.0 class can be used in 3.5 with minimal alteration (Saving throw progressions or class skills would be the likely victims), and it would be almost as simple to reverse-engineer 3.5 material into a 3.0 format. You could even have them exist side-by-side, such as a "Packmaster" 3.0 druid with a large number of weak animal companions and a "Beastmaster" 3.5 druid with a single improving companion. Similarly, as far as I understand, it'd be perfectly workable to include a 4E Rogue and a 4.4/Essentials Thief in the same party, though their roles overlap.

Their material uses the same core ruleset, so they can share a numerical identifier designation. This is the meaning of the 3.0/3.5 labelings - two sets of rules that are, while different, sufficiently similar to work alongside each other or replace each other interchangably. 4E classes/powers can be used in 4.4 without problem, and anyone wishing to run a 4E 'classic' game with 4.4 classes shouldn't have more than superficial problems.

You could not do this with truly imcompatible rulesets, such as a 2E Thief and a 3E Rogue. They cannot exist side-by-side without massive, significant modifications, so a simple ".x" divider is insufficient to label them.

I originally argued that they were incompatiable, with no specification of how incompatible. And since if two things are only partially compatible, then they are also partially incompatible, my statement is still correct.

While you can use 3.0 and 3.5 material side by side, doing so is houseruling, not RAW. For example, if you're playing a 3.5 game as a wizard, you can't simply take the 3.0 version of the Fly spell. Because, as you said, 3.0 and 3.5 material is different, while this is not the case between "4.0" and "4.4" material anymore than 3.5 material is different from other 3.5 material. You are also correct that "anyone wishing to run a 4E 'classic' game with 4.4 classes shouldn't have more than superficial problems", because they will have no problems at all.

The Glyphstone
2010-08-12, 01:20 PM
Maybe the druid was a bad example then, because it's been updated/replaced, as the fly spell has. But it's not houseruling to use 3.0 material that hasn't been updated (the Knock-down feat comes to mind, out of the SRD, or the Lasher PrC for someone who likes whip-fighters), because of that specific clause in the 3.5 books (quoted earlier) that declares them to be backward-forward compatible.

Mind you, I can't stand 4E, and I doubt this 'update' will be any better no matter what it's called. But I can see calling it 4.4 as valid of terminology as any other given name for it, greatly for the reasons given - it doesn't invalidate any old material the way 3.5 did for 3.0, but does fundamentally alter the course and design philosophy of its own material and likely anything printed afterwards.

Reverent-One
2010-08-12, 01:29 PM
Maybe the druid was a bad example then, because it's been updated/replaced, as the fly spell has. But it's not houseruling to use 3.0 material that hasn't been updated (the Knock-down feat comes to mind, out of the SRD, or the Lasher PrC for someone who likes whip-fighters), because of that specific clause in the 3.5 books (quoted earlier) that declares them to be backward-forward compatible.

Except that the fact that some 3.0 material can't be used without houseruling means that said 3.0 material is incompatible with the 3.5 material. Does that make 3.0 and 3.5 as incompatiable as 2nd and 3rd edtion? No, but there still is some incompatibility. Without which incompatibilty, we wouldn't need the 3.0 and 3.5 monikers. And so we arrive at my point, as "4.0" and "4.4" has no such incompatibily.

shadowmage
2010-08-12, 01:59 PM
Essentials is 4.anything :smallamused:

Seriously though, we need a shorthand for the new set, and 4E is already taken. I guess you could call it DDE or something, but Kurald is breaking most of this news and 4.4 seems as good a term as any.

That is easy 4Es for 4Essentials

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-12, 02:03 PM
That is easy 4Es for 4Essentials
Eh, the likelihood of confusion is too great.

...if DDE catches on, I'm totally taking the credit for that shorthand :smallcool:

Erom
2010-08-12, 02:46 PM
I've seen it shorthanded as 4EE as well.

Kurald Galain
2010-08-12, 03:20 PM
Seriously though, we need a shorthand for the new set, and 4E is already taken. I guess you could call it DDE or something,

Meme battle is on! :smallbiggrin:

However, you have to compete with DichlorodiphenylDichloroEthylene, Dynamic Data Exchange, a certain Norwegian rockband, and more importantly D&D Encounters.

This is why WOTC should really have called it D&D Fundamentals, or D&D Generics, or D&D Masterwork; that way everybody could simply use 4F, 4G or 4M instead.

Oracle_Hunter
2010-08-12, 03:28 PM
Meme battle is on! :smallbiggrin:

However, you have to compete with DichlorodiphenylDichloroEthylene, Dynamic Data Exchange, a certain Norwegian rockband, and more importantly D&D Encounters.

This is why WOTC should really have called it D&D Fundamentals, or D&D Generics, or D&D Masterwork; that way everybody could simply use 4F, 4G or 4M instead.
Well, as long as it's not confusing within the RPG context, it's a good label. Admittedly, I don't know how popular D&D Encounters are (I always felt they were kind of silly) so if it gets discontinued, I'm totally asserting DDE as the chosen short-form.

In the alternative, we could go DD-ES, but 4.4 really is just a much more convenient form. 4F, of course, is very similar to "4-F," a classification used by the US military for someone sufficiently "defective" to be free of conscription.

Kurald Galain
2010-08-12, 03:37 PM
In the alternative, we could go DD-ES, but 4.4 really is just a much more convenient form. 4F, of course, is very similar to "4-F," a classification used by the US military for someone sufficiently "defective" to be free of conscription.

It is? Wow, I didn't know that...

...maybe they declare people unfit if they spend too much time playing RPGs? :smallsmile:

Reverent-One
2010-08-12, 03:52 PM
Eh, how often does anyone talk about D&D Encounters here? Not enough for it to merit a shorthand form at the very least.

The Glyphstone
2010-08-12, 03:55 PM
It is? Wow, I didn't know that...

...maybe they declare people unfit if they spend too much time playing RPGs? :smallsmile:

I remember reading somewhere that the Israeli army denies security clearances to gamers. Don't remember why though.

Hzurr
2010-08-12, 07:01 PM
I remember reading somewhere that the Israeli army denies security clearances to gamers. Don't remember why though.

"Why did you turn over the top-secret information?"
"He rolled a 20, what else was I supposed to do?"

theMycon
2010-08-12, 08:44 PM
Meme battle is on! :smallbiggrin:

Oh, I autowin that. Who do you think leaked the info that Madonna made a 25-minute dance version of the U.S. National Anthem 9 years ago, and is holding it as a bargaining chip over all who would threaten the homosexual agenda, to be released should we ever be in serious trouble?

It wasn't Harvey Milk, I'll tell you that.