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EvilElitest
2007-12-17, 01:34 PM
with 4th edition what about third do you think will be lost

examples include the magic system, the classes, the flavor ect

Personally, I don't like the fact that we have lost the infleunce of novels as a source and fourth editions seems to be more based on anime and video games, but that is just me


from
EE

Mr. Friendly
2007-12-17, 01:39 PM
What we are losing:


Class Imbalance
A CR system that didn't work
Wizards needing to choose between helping the party and hurting the ememy
Clerics needing to choose between healing the party and doing anything else

Wordmiser
2007-12-17, 01:46 PM
Homogenous Clerics. The idea of armor proficiencies, identical spell lists and Turn Undead for all priest characters has gotten so many complaints that I can't imagine it staying. I imagine there will be more focus on the specific deities and domains a player picks.


Personally, I don't like the fact that we have lost the infleunce of novels as a source and fourth editions seems to be more based on anime and video games, but that is just me
But I don't think this is so much Video Game-influenced as it is Game-in-general-influenced. The designers appear to be tightening the various aspects of the game to make it more "fair" than 3E. And the "Everything's anime now" attitude is bunk. Either the has always been anime or it isn't anime now, there haven't been any changes beside the deliberate fluff of a single book (which happened to feature some of the mechanics that will apparently be in 4E).

Fixer
2007-12-17, 01:50 PM
Some other things I see being lost (at least temporarily)


Due to incompatability reasons, lots of old prestige classes, feats, and other customizable options.
Legions of fanboys for 3.5 who refuse to 'upgrade' and continue playing 3.5, thereby causing a bit of a rift between the two gaming groups. ("Those guys? Yeah, we don't associate with them. They are 4.0ers. We are 3.5ers. 3.5 FOR LIFE!"
Specific tweaked characters that require a particular odd combination of feats, prestige classes, and other various variants to work.

Lady Tialait
2007-12-17, 01:50 PM
Gnomes will be lost...and that makes me sad...I will cry myself to sleep for the gnomes

I don't personally have all the information, I didn't like the Machanics of ToB, I'll leave it at that. I don't want to discuss it don't ask.

I have to say, the only thing they can do about Turn Undead is make it back into a spell. and that I don't think anyone wants. For differnt spell lists I guess they could go back to Sphere's of infulance..there you go..merry freakin' christmas!

Telonius
2007-12-17, 01:52 PM
Well, I don't read the novels, and have removed myself from online gaming after EverCrack (this (http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20071208)and this (http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comic.php?d=20071210)aren't too far from the truth :smalleek: ). I really wouldn't know or care whether or not 4th edition is more or less like the novels or WoW.

What will be lost? Vancian magic, some class names, a couple of races. With any luck, extraneous skills and favored classes.

Mr. Friendly
2007-12-17, 01:54 PM
Gnomes will be lost...and that makes me sad...I will cry myself to sleep for the gnomes

Gnomes are not lost, they just aren't in the PHB. They may be in the MM and if not then in the PHB2 in '09.

Crow
2007-12-17, 01:57 PM
What we are losing:


Class Imbalance
A CR system that didn't work
Wizards needing to choose between helping the party and hurting the ememy
Clerics needing to choose between healing the party and doing anything else



Just so you know, Mr. Friendly has access to the new mechanics and can attest to these things with absolute confidence.

Kurald Galain
2007-12-17, 02:04 PM
Legions of fanboys for 3.5 who refuse to 'upgrade' and continue playing 3.5, thereby causing a bit of a rift between the two gaming groups. ("Those guys? Yeah, we don't associate with them. They are 4.0ers. We are 3.5ers. 3.5 FOR LIFE!"

Yeah, like that's never happened before... :smallcool:

Lady Tialait
2007-12-17, 02:04 PM
Gnomes are not lost, they just aren't in the PHB. They may be in the MM and if not then in the PHB2 in '09.

I can deal with that, if kobolds arn't in the PHB....that would make me cry.

AKA_Bait
2007-12-17, 02:09 PM
Half Orcs as a core race. I'm not really sad to see them go, but baffled why they go but Half Elves remain.

Use in the new system of all of the wonderful homebrew I've come across on these forums. :-(

Mr. Friendly
2007-12-17, 02:13 PM
Just so you know, Mr. Friendly has access to the new mechanics and can attest to these things with absolute confidence.

And Crow can make sniping attacks because he has already decided he hates 4th Edition.

And what I said would be lost:

Class Imbalance - this is pretty obvious from just the tidbits that have been released. Clerics and Wizards are losing most of their game-breaking abilities and Fighters and other under-powered classes are getting more abilities and stuff they can do (also obvious from the released info so far)
A CR system that didn't work - Yeah, the current CR system works, so, perfectly. Note that I didn't say 4es system would be any better, sicnce I don't know that for sure. But I do know 3.X CR is broken.
Wizards needing to choose between helping the party and hurting the enemy - Again, from the so-far released information; they are getting rid of a lot of vancian magic and replacing it with at will, per encounter and out of combat rituals. Unless you think Wizards is just lying and making this all up?
Clerics needing to choose between healing the party and doing anything else Same as above.

So, despite your snarky comment Crow, I don't posess any secret knowledge of the new system, nor did I purport to. I am simply literate, that's all.

ALOR
2007-12-17, 02:18 PM
And Crow can make sniping attacks because he has already decided he hates 4th Edition.

And what I said would be lost:

Class Imbalance - this is pretty obvious from just the tidbits that have been released. Clerics and Wizards are losing most of their game-breaking abilities and Fighters and other under-powered classes are getting more abilities and stuff they can do (also obvious from the released info so far)
A CR system that didn't work - Yeah, the current CR system works, so, perfectly. Note that I didn't say 4es system would be any better, sicnce I don't know that for sure. But I do know 3.X CR is broken.
Wizards needing to choose between helping the party and hurting the enemy - Again, from the so-far released information; they are getting rid of a lot of vancian magic and replacing it with at will, per encounter and out of combat rituals. Unless you think Wizards is just lying and making this all up?
Clerics needing to choose between healing the party and doing anything else Same as above.

So, despite your snarky comment Crow, I don't posess any secret knowledge of the new system, nor did I purport to. I am simply literate, that's all.

That was not very friendly, Mr. Friendly. :smallbiggrin:

to the OP's question. I think 4e and 3.5e well be drasticly diffrent unfortunatly. I don't think much will be similar other than the use of dice and people getting together for social interaction. I do wish that an independent company could either by the license to 3.5 or continue to support 3.5.

AKA_Bait
2007-12-17, 02:21 PM
I am simply literate, that's all.

And easily convinved by marketing it seems.



Class Imbalance - this is pretty obvious from just the tidbits that have been released. Clerics and Wizards are losing most of their game-breaking abilities and Fighters and other under-powered classes are getting more abilities and stuff they can do (also obvious from the released info so far)

Certianly this is the marketing strategy they are using. We don't know if it accuratley reflects the game or not. We do know that this is one of the more consistant problems with 3.5 (at least it seems to be on the boards) so ovbiously they are going to try to address it, or at least make it look like they are. Doesn't mean they will suceed/care enough to do all the needed playtesting.




A CR system that didn't work - Yeah, the current CR system works, so, perfectly. Note that I didn't say 4es system would be any better, sicnce I don't know that for sure. But I do know 3.X CR is broken.

See above.


Wizards needing to choose between helping the party and hurting the enemy - Again, from the so-far released information; they are getting rid of a lot of vancian magic and replacing it with at will, per encounter and out of combat rituals.

Since wizards and clerics will, it seems, need to pick areas of speciazation, insofar as the abilities they will have per encounter, this problem may very well still exist. We just don't know.


Unless you think Wizards is just lying and making this all up?

There is a fine line bettween lying and marketing your product as superior to an older product. WotC wants to sell books. They are going to make the product look good even if it's not, because they want to sell books. Without knowing the mechanics we really can't tell if it will be better in reality.

kamikasei
2007-12-17, 02:34 PM
Legions of fanboys for 3.5 who refuse to 'upgrade' and continue playing 3.5, thereby causing a bit of a rift between the two gaming groups. ("Those guys? Yeah, we don't associate with them. They are 4.0ers. We are 3.5ers. 3.5 FOR LIFE!"


Eventually the two groups will diverge. Over time, the 4ed-ers will play simpler and simpler and more elegant rulesets, delighting in the increasing effortlessness of their fantatic pastime, like children gamboling in the sun. Gaming will become independent of props and aids, mobile, and eventually move outdoors. As less and less rule knowledge and planning is required to get fun out of the hobby, their capacity for forward thinking and prognostication will diminish, replaced with a primitive tropism of instant gratification, rolling dice occasionally and smiling beatifically whatever the result, in between wandering around in a perpetual dreaming haze.

Meanwhile the 3.5 ed grognards will shun that which seems to so delight the 4eders, disdaining anything that would make them seem so simple-minded and basely motivated. Shutting themselves up indoors to devise ever-more-elaborate systems and structures of rules and methods, growing pale and large-eyed from lack of light, honing their abstract reasoning and game-mechanical ability at the expense of contact with the ineffable spirit of gaming the rules are meant to capture. Eventually in an all-consuming quest for realism they will burrow out great geometrical warrens and labyrinths underground to test theories of goblin population density bounds and the structural integrity of Tomb of Horrors. In the end they shall be wretched troglodytes of fearsome mental prowess, able to compute instantly every possible fall and outcome of a die as soon as they look at it, but no longer remembering what they could or should feel if it would fall this way or that, forgetting happiness, feeling only a gnawing rage and hunger.

Then in the year they perfect the 802,701-sided die, a 1st-edition player shall return...


Well, I don't read the novels, ... I really wouldn't know or care whether or not 4th edition is more or less like the novels or WoW.

I think EE meant the influence of novels, as in LotR, Amber, Elric, Tales of the Dying Earth, and so on. Not the influence of the [D&D] novels.

Wizzardman
2007-12-17, 02:40 PM
Eventually the two groups will diverge. Over time, the 4ed-ers will play simpler and simpler and more elegant rulesets, delighting in the increasing effortlessness of their fantatic pastime, like children gamboling in the sun. Gaming will become independent of props and aids, mobile, and eventually move outdoors. As less and less rule knowledge and planning is required to get fun out of the hobby, their capacity for forward thinking and prognostication will diminish, replaced with a primitive tropism of instant gratification, rolling dice occasionally and smiling beatifically whatever the result, in between wandering around in a perpetual dreaming haze.

Meanwhile the 3.5 ed grognards will shun that which seems to so delight the 4eders, disdaining anything that would make them seem so simple-minded and basely motivated. Shutting themselves up indoors to devise ever-more-elaborate systems and structures of rules and methods, growing pale and large-eyed from lack of light, honing their abstract reasoning and game-mechanical ability at the expense of contact with the ineffable spirit of gaming the rules are meant to capture. Eventually in an all-consuming quest for realism they will burrow out great geometrical warrens and labyrinths underground to test theories of goblin population density bounds and the structural integrity of Tomb of Horrors. In the end they shall be wretched troglodytes of fearsome mental prowess, able to compute instantly every possible fall and outcome of a die as soon as they look at it, but no longer remembering what they could or should feel if it would fall this way or that, forgetting happiness, feeling only a gnawing rage and hunger.


And thus, the Eloi and the Morlocks were created. H.G. Wells was right all along.:smalltongue:

I dunno. I still feel like we're losing flavor and verisimilitude in exchange for supposed 'balance' with 4th Edition.

Mr. Friendly
2007-12-17, 02:43 PM
And easily convinved by marketing it seems.

Yes, clearly I must be so weak willed that simple marketing frazzles my stupid pea-brain; otherwise how could I go against "The Troof!" that 4e will suck and that WotC is an evil, heartless corporation that doesn't want to make a good product, they only want to enslave people to work in their secret mines beneath Mt. Doom! Err, Mt. Ranier.


Certianly this is the marketing strategy they are using. We don't know if it accuratley reflects the game or not. We do know that this is one of the more consistant problems with 3.5 (at least it seems to be on the boards) so ovbiously they are going to try to address it, or at least make it look like they are. Doesn't mean they will suceed/care enough to do all the needed playtesting.

Based on the blogs and info releases, I would say they are working pretty hard at writing all these "fake" accounts, to "pull a fast one" on their customers. Yeah.



See above.

See above for what? You are the attacker here. At least make a rational attack. See above doesn't even address the point. The 3.X CR system IS broken. I didn't say 4es would be better, but something that *might* work better IS better than something that's definately broken.



Since wizards and clerics will, it seems, need to pick areas of speciazation, insofar as the abilities they will have per encounter, this problem may very well still exist. We just don't know.

Possibly. I doubt it though, at least not based on the progression of how things are shaping up.


There is a fine line bettween lying and marketing your product as superior to an older product. WotC wants to sell books. They are going to make the product look good even if it's not, because they want to sell books. Without knowing the mechanics we really can't tell if it will be better in reality.

I will give you this one as a "fair enough", with the addendum that 3.5 is broken and has some severe flaws in it. Without a lot of homebrewing, the system itself is really imbalanced and has a lot of serious problems. So I would say that 4e, if the designers, writers, players and whatnot are to be believed, will take the basic framework of 3e and improve on it, removing a vast amount of those serious flaws.

Morty
2007-12-17, 02:48 PM
Yes, clearly I must be so weak willed that simple marketing frazzles my stupid pea-brain; otherwise how could I go against "The Troof!" that 4e will suck and that WotC is an evil, heartless corporation that doesn't want to make a good product, they only want to enslave people to work in their secret mines beneath Mt. Doom! Err, Mt. Ranier.

Ah, so you don't see the difference between justified skepticism and hating 4ed for no reason either?

Lady Tialait
2007-12-17, 02:53 PM
my only complaint is I just got half my group used to 3.5....now I have to start all over, just because I should be able to pick it up, and probbly hate it to death pretty quickly doesn't mean they will...for crying out loud they still have a tendancy to ask what THAC0 for their level!.....this is gunna be annoying...just annoying!...oh well, I changed over to 3.0 to replace warped books...3.5 when my 3.0 got stolen....so i'll probbly get 4e when something happens to my 3.5 books

AKA_Bait
2007-12-17, 02:59 PM
Yes, clearly I must be so weak willed that simple marketing frazzles my stupid pea-brain; otherwise how could I go against "The Troof!" that 4e will suck and that WotC is an evil, heartless corporation that doesn't want to make a good product, they only want to enslave people to work in their secret mines beneath Mt. Doom! Err, Mt. Ranier.

Huh, I don't recall saying any of that. My point was just that there is a difference bettween finished product and marketed product. You have more faith that their marketing will accuratley represent the final product than I do.

EDIT: WotC's marketing is NOT simple. Aside from one poorly thought out attempt to increase the female market by dint of a mediocre 'girls guide to D&D' they have been nothing short of brilliant in their approach since purchasing TSR. Say what you want about the relation of your brain to a legume but do not besmirch the excellent job WotC's marketing people have done over the past few years.


Based on the blogs and info releases, I would say they are working pretty hard at writing all these "fake" accounts, to "pull a fast one" on their customers. Yeah.

What quote, exactly, do those quotation marks refer to? I neither said the accounts were fake nor that WotC was trying to pull a fast one.


See above for what? You are the attacker here. At least make a rational attack. See above doesn't even address the point. The 3.X CR system IS broken. I didn't say 4es would be better, but something that *might* work better IS better than something that's definately broken.

I didn't say 3.x wasn't broken. You did imply that 4e would be better. We aren't losing a broken system if we have a slightly different but still broken system.


Possibly. I doubt it though, at least not based on the progression of how things are shaping up.

See, that is my point. Some things in 4e we can say are going to be the case, because they are concrete features that they came out and told us. Half-Orcs and Gnomes being gone as PHB races is an example of that. Some other things we really won't know until the product is released, like what the exact mechanics of each class are and what kinds of choices someone who plays that class will have to make. You doubt that they will have a mechanic that makes them choose. I'm not so sure. The point is, neither one of us knows.



So I would say that 4e, if the designers, writers, players and whatnot are to be believed, will take the basic framework of 3e and improve on it, removing a vast amount of those serious flaws.

And if I am to be believed Victorious Press will by dint of the brilliance of its staff soon be putting out one of the best stand alone adventures written; one that has a good chance of being a classic and jumpstarting an entire marketable campaign setting. This may or may not prove to be true but I really do think it is and when the time comes we will market it that way. We would be fools not to. If it's not as good as we expect, it doesn't mean we were 'lying' or 'pulling a fast one' on anyone, we just thought our product would be better than it turned out.

Of course, that's a mediocre example since 10k Days will be awsome. :smallbiggrin:

EvilElitest
2007-12-17, 03:06 PM
What we are losing:


Class Imbalance
A CR system that didn't work
Wizards needing to choose between helping the party and hurting the ememy
Clerics needing to choose between healing the party and doing anything else


rephrase, the good thingsthat will be loss, as i agree with you about the first two, and the second two really needed to be nerfed but not lost

Just a quick note, the thread is for what you will miss and you think will be lost. Thing that you are glad are gone (over powered wizards ect) or things your glad they fixed aren't for here

And why did they take out Half orcs and gnomes. They were fine races, just they were awfully sterotyped


from,
EE

Mr. Friendly
2007-12-17, 03:34 PM
They got rid of gnomes, IMO, because they were an infrequently used race. Most people (in my experience) choose halflings most of the times over gnomes. Gnomes and halflings are basically there to fill the niche of "the shorties" and really, why do you need two when one does the job? And gnomes are not "gone" they are just not in the PHB. There has been allusion that they may be in the MM and if not there then almost certainly in the PH2. I am excepting Chaos Gnomes and Whisper Gnomes, because after those races came out, Gnomes became quite a bit more popular. (Again, in my experience, YMMV)

They got rid of Half-Orcs, in my opinion, for reasons I outlined in a different thread. Essentially it comes to a question of explicitness and maturity. Where DO Half-Orcs come from exactly? Given the general "realities" of Orcish culture, I can guarantee that 9 out of 10 Half-Orcs didn't come into the world due to mutual love between two consenting partners. (Obviously in some campaign settings this is less true, but as a general rule...)

Half-Orcs, like Gnomes though ar not "gone" they have simply been relegated to the MM, which honestly is where they belong. Half-Orcs should be a one-in-a-million PC. The cultural realities of their existence make it virtually impossible to believe that there are enough "heroic" half-orcs running around to justify their inclusion as a Core race.

Jayabalard
2007-12-17, 03:43 PM
Yes, clearly I must be so weak willed that simple marketing frazzles my stupid pea-brain; otherwise how could I go against "The Troof!" that 4e will suck and that WotC is an evil, heartless corporation that doesn't want to make a good product, they only want to enslave people to work in their secret mines beneath Mt. Doom! Err, Mt. Ranier.Wow, that's quite a collection of straw men there.

Wordmiser
2007-12-17, 03:46 PM
Apparently alignment is almost entirely removed from the mechanics. That's a feature of the system that I won't be missing.

KIDS
2007-12-17, 03:52 PM
I support Mr. Friendly. But while I do acknowledge that nothing can be said for certain about 4E without seeing its mechanics and that marketing is not reliable as a source, do note that 4E continues the trend appeared in WotC books during the last year and a half. For example:

- Abandoning imbalanced spells/abilities per day system to allow for non-wrecking adventures that don't run 4 encounters per day. You no longer have to send ninjas against your players at night if you want to keep the wizard in check. Also see skill tricks.
- No more narcolepsy (see above). The game is not based on 16 hour sleep/10 minute exploration/battle cycles anymore. Also see Reserve feats (poor, but a good start)
- Slightly nerfing the full casters and buffing fighting types. Also see PHB2's Shapeshift.
- Reflavoring and massively adding diversity to actual maneuvers and fighting styles. No more "I swing my sword, x40". Also see Tome of Battle
- New kinds of magic that aren't just Vancian Magic. Out with the crap, in with the shiny. Also see Magic of Incarnum, Dragon Magic, Dragon Shaman, Beguiler.
- Scaling abilities and feats. No more Stupidity Focus, enter the scaling feats. Also see Complete Champion's Domain Devotion feats.
- You should now have a reason to take all levels of a class. See Warblade as a good example of well done class and Sorcerer, Rogue, Fighter, Ranger, Cleric, Wizard, Paladin for examples of the opposite.

Now of course you may wonder, "WTF is this guy talking about?". All of these changes are a trend that appeared in the last series of supplements. After much trying (with side casualties such as the gimped Hexblade), trends of all the above are all easily noticeable and all books recently written (for me, Tome of Battle, Complete Scoundrel, Complete Champion, Complete Mage, etc.) have major improvements in all areas.

AKA_Bait
2007-12-17, 03:54 PM
Apparently alignment is almost entirely removed from the mechanics. That's a feature of the system that I won't be missing.

Really? I must have missed an article. Where are you getting that from?

If that's the case, I for one will miss alignment. Yes, it needed help but deep down I liked it.

Wordmiser
2007-12-17, 04:01 PM
It was in a Races and Classes review. How accurate it is, I don't know.

Alignment: One major change to this system in 4 E is the fact characters can choose to be “unaligned,” having no significant impulses towards good or evil. Characters can still choose to be good or evil (law and chaos are not mentioned), but most characters and monsters will be unaligned. Unsurprisingly, most spells and powers that revolve around alignment are now gone.

Here (http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=14537842&postcount=1)'s the source.

AKA_Bait
2007-12-17, 04:10 PM
All of these changes are a trend that appeared in the last series of supplements. After much trying (with side casualties such as the gimped Hexblade), trends of all the above are all easily noticeable and all books recently written (for me, Tome of Battle, Complete Scoundrel, Complete Champion, Complete Mage, etc.) have major improvements in all areas.

You forgot the PHBII, Dungeonomicon, Tome of Magic and Complete Adventurer, all of which had sucessful new classes that changed balance. Scout, Binder, Factotem and Duskblade are good new classes that were introduced.

However, I'm not sure I'm willing to go so far as to accept that there is a strictly positive trend. On balance many of the suppliments had things that improved the game and things that harmed it, mechanics that worked and mechanics that didn't. ToM has Binder and Shadowcaster with decent mechanics and interesting flavor but it also had the mechanical disaster which was the Truenamer.

My larger concern is not that they aren't attempting to correct the problems of 3.x but that they will go overboard in doing so and gimp casters too much by comparison as they did with Rangers and Paladins going into 3.x. I really can't see that fear being alleviated until I see the mechanics.


It was in a Races and Classes review. How accurate it is, I don't know.

Here (http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=14537842&postcount=1)'s the source.

Thanks. That doesn't sound so much like it's gone as that it's toned down and most things are what we would now refer to as 'neutral' under the current system are called 'unaligned' in 4e. I'm not too bothered by a change of semantics.

Person_Man
2007-12-17, 04:14 PM
1) Memorized spells, i.e., Vancian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Vance) casting, are the biggest casualty. It gave D&D a very unique feel and gameplay style. Specifically, in order to challenge many players, a DM had to expand the number of encounters per game day. This often lead to a lot of resource conservation/management, as well as a variety of balance issues whenever you had a party composed of both casters and non-casters (almost always). Now they're shifting to having most abilities be once per round or once per encounter, eliminating the need to artificially increase the number of encounters per game day, and solving a lot of balance issues.

2) Lots of rules will be simplified: BAB, Saves, Skills, and AoO being chief among them. Also, virtually everything (including spells like fireball) will require a roll of some sort, and virtually every roll will be d20 + attribute mod + class mods + feat mods, with a high roll being good and a low roll being bad. Prestige classes are also gone, which means that the very common Base Class 5/PrC X/PrC Y build is dead.

3) Other rules will be much more complex. Every class will have a set of Tome of Battle like abilities. There will be no "generic" class like the 3.5 Fighter, or a "easy to play, never changing" class like the Barbarian (who basically just gets a slightly better Rage as they progresses). So character creation, management, and gameplay will be more difficult for some players (meatshields and sneaky types) but much simpler for casters (who no longer have to worry about memorizing spells).

4) All of the rules will be written in a way that they support online play. This will no doubt have an impact on the rules, and make playing tabletop D&D without miniatures almost impossible (its pretty hard under 3.5 anyway, but now it will be even more difficult).

Mewtarthio
2007-12-17, 04:17 PM
Here (http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=14537842&postcount=1)'s the source.

Doens't seem all that different. It's just the Neutral alignment without balance connotations.

Altair_the_Vexed
2007-12-17, 04:55 PM
Ouch - this thread is getting close to flamy..!

What will be lost?
Eleventy-thousand Splatbooks. This is a good thing.
(Of course, they will reform one round later, radioactive.)


What will be lost if we're lucky? By this, I mean, wouldn't it be nice if they threw out some of the stuff that we've been building up over the decades since the seventies...
Mechanical mysticism, or "the strip mining of fantasy". Sure, we need balance, but I like guidelines rather than rules to tell me what a magic thingumy that I'm trying to invent for my players can and can't do, how much it costs, which in turn implies that it can be sold and bought...
Druids as a separate class. Why aren't they clerics of nature? If you want those super-druid-fu powers, why not let clerics have them? You'll increase clerical diversity that way...
In fact, classes. Why do we need them anyway? Can't we have a set of powers that we build characters out of..? Or is that too GURPS?


I'm just throwing ideas around, with no idea if they'll find favour. I home-brewed 3.5 so hard it turned into my own game. Naturally, I'm entirely satisfied with it (and smug, too :smallbiggrin: ) and won't be changing over to 4ed very soon.

EvilElitest
2007-12-17, 06:34 PM
1) Memorized spells, i.e., Vancian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Vance) casting, are the biggest casualty. It gave D&D a very unique feel and gameplay style. Specifically, in order to challenge many players, a DM had to expand the number of encounters per game day. This often lead to a lot of resource conservation/management, as well as a variety of balance issues whenever you had a party composed of both casters and non-casters (almost always). Now they're shifting to having most abilities be once per round or once per encounter, eliminating the need to artificially increase the number of encounters per game day, and solving a lot of balance issues.

2) Lots of rules will be simplified: BAB, Saves, Skills, and AoO being chief among them. Also, virtually everything (including spells like fireball) will require a roll of some sort, and virtually every roll will be d20 + attribute mod + class mods + feat mods, with a high roll being good and a low roll being bad. Prestige classes are also gone, which means that the very common Base Class 5/PrC X/PrC Y build is dead.

3) Other rules will be much more complex. Every class will have a set of Tome of Battle like abilities. There will be no "generic" class like the 3.5 Fighter, or a "easy to play, never changing" class like the Barbarian (who basically just gets a slightly better Rage as they progresses). So character creation, management, and gameplay will be more difficult for some players (meatshields and sneaky types) but much simpler for casters (who no longer have to worry about memorizing spells).

4) All of the rules will be written in a way that they support online play. This will no doubt have an impact on the rules, and make playing tabletop D&D without miniatures almost impossible (its pretty hard under 3.5 anyway, but now it will be even more difficult).

those are teh things i htink i will miss the most. I would love to have them reformed (aka balenced) but the essentails still there
Also, i still don't know about the aligment system, but i really liked the way it worked. The jist was making sure that everybody understood the rules before playing. I think all WOTC needed to do was make it clear to everyone, as Ebberon and to a lesser extent FR Voilates it a lot
from,
EE

horseboy
2007-12-18, 02:02 AM
Personally, I don't like the fact that we have lost the infleunce of novels as a source and fourth editions seems to be more based on anime and video games, but that is just me

I've decided I'm going to start making Tau references every time I see this line anymore.

ALOR
2007-12-18, 09:15 AM
Ouch - this thread is getting close to flamy..!

What will be lost?
Eleventy-thousand Splatbooks. This is a good thing.
(Of course, they will reform one round later, radioactive.)



for the 1st year, then you will get all of eleventy-thousand back. Then 4.5 will come out and you can buy all new books :smallbiggrin:

Sebastian
2007-12-18, 10:16 AM
Gnomes will be lost...and that makes me sad...I will cry myself to sleep for the gnomes


The gnomes are still there, now they just call themselves halflings.

Snadgeros
2007-12-18, 11:02 AM
those are teh things i htink i will miss the most. I would love to have them reformed (aka balenced) but the essentails still there
Also, i still don't know about the aligment system, but i really liked the way it worked. The jist was making sure that everybody understood the rules before playing. I think all WOTC needed to do was make it clear to everyone, as Ebberon and to a lesser extent FR Voilates it a lot
from,
EE

:smalleek: *Points to spoiler in sig.*

Was this intentional? It's hard to tell, but I've seen EE post before and he's never been THIS icoherent.:smallconfused: