D&D Next rules discussion extravaganza!

[Zardoz]

I'll probably stick to Pathfinder because they actually added some pretty cool character options among other things like monster fluff/ecologies like we had in 2e and they seem to avoid the spatbook rules bloat/power creep syndrome pretty well so far. From what little I've seen from 4e it was just some lame reprint with even less viable/fun character builds than 3e.

 

[CappenVarra]

Well, since 5th is at least partially based on getting old players back, WoTC has finally decided to sell PDFs of older edition material through DriveThroughRPGs. And they're offering B1 In Search of the Unknown for free as a gift. The site (http://www.dndclassics.com/) works slow as molasses for me at the moment, but hey - I'm salivating just looking at the covers...
Wonder if they have Planescape monster compendiums with those delicious DiTerlizzi illustrations...

 

[Mother Russia]

Well, since 5th is at least partially based on getting old players back, WoTC has finally decided to sell PDFs of older edition material through DriveThroughRPGs. And they're offering B1 In Search of the Unknown for free as a gift. The site (http://www.dndclassics.com/) works slow as molasses for me at the moment, but hey - I'm salivating just looking at the covers...
Wonder if they have Planescape monster compendiums with those delicious DiTerlizzi illustrations...

Sorry to break it to you but all those old modules were utter shit. Only a bare few exceptions, like I6: Castle Ravenloft

 

[mediocrepoet]

Sorry to break it to you but all those old modules were utter shit. Only a bare few exceptions, like I6: Castle Ravenloft

Dunno what you're talking about. The puzzles and writing were brilliant.

OWAT
AGOO
SIAM

Genius!

 

[Mother Russia]

Bare few exceptions.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

Sorry to break it to you but all those old modules were utter shit. Only a bare few exceptions, like I6: Castle Ravenloft

: x

Hey, I loved some of those. They were influenced by old pulp tales, such as Dwellers of the Forbidden City and The Lost City.

 

[CappenVarra]

Fiend Folio (1e)
Uncaged: Faces of Sigil (2e)
HR3 Celts Campaign Sourcebook (2e)
HR5 The Glory of Rome Campaign Sourcebook (2e)
HR6 Age of Heroes Campaign Sourcebook (2e)

Damn, seems their site is overloaded since it keeps breaking like crazy and won't let me through... Guess I'll wait until tomorrow.

 

[Mother Russia]

D&D Next playtest packet has been updated recently. All 20 levels of classes provided have been released, including Barbarian and Monk. Ranger/Paladin/Warlock/Bard/Druid/Warlord still missing/being developed.

All in all, I have to say fans of 3E and Pathfinder will be happy with the direction (backwards) this version of D&D is taking. I am not, as I though 4e was a great step in the right direction, but with flawed execution. At the least, they could have used the system used in Star Wars SAGA edition rpg (also by WOTC). That was a great rule system.

 

[rashiakas]

I am not, as I though 4e was a great step in the right direction, but with flawed execution.

 

[Grunker]

That's basically how I'd describe 4th edition as well. Great ideas, horrible execution.

 

[Mother Russia]

That's basically how I'd describe 4th edition as well. Great ideas, horrible execution.

Yeah. But if they had built on that, they could actually have a real winner on their hands. Imagine a real crpg in the vein of ToEE powered by something like that. Heck, even 4e as is could make for a great combat based dungeon crawl or even a full on crpg.

So could this TBH, but as pnp...it's such a massive step backwards. And all due to Pathfinders success.

They are better off selling the brand...though Hasbro would never agree and no other company could match the price.

 

[Ulminati]

4Es main problems:

1) HP bloat caused combat encounters to take even longer. They were already a sizable part of D&D
2) Too many status effects with different expirations made bookkeeping tedious unless you ran it on a digital battlemat that automated it
3) Non-combat interactions still laughably underdeveloped. Skill challenges nice in theroy but the execution was just rolling a d20 over and over with very little room for creativity.
4) The powers system meant that every god damn single book was 95% listing powers for a new class, all of which were nearly identical to aleady existing powers.
5) Classes all felt too similar, being deeps/tank/aoe support with slightly altered fluff text
6) Official published adventures (what 90% of all groups will run as introduction to a new system) were banalshitboring
7) Motherfucking healing surges and residuum is regenerating health for pen&paper
8) Really uninspiring magic items made looting the dungeons far less exciting.
9) Dragonborn. Goliaths. Other popamole monster races. Stop trying to add AWESOME BUTTANZ to my D&D kthx.

 

[Grunker]

4Es main problems:

1) HP bloat caused combat encounters to take even longer. They were already a sizable part of D&D
2) Too many status effects with different expirations made bookkeeping tedious unless you ran it on a digital battlemat that automated it
3) Non-combat interactions still laughably underdeveloped. Skill challenges nice in theroy but the execution was just rolling a d20 over and over with very little room for creativity.
4) The powers system meant that every god damn single book was 95% listing powers for a new class, all of which were nearly identical to aleady existing powers.
5) Classes all felt too similar, being deeps/tank/aoe support with slightly altered fluff text
6) Official published adventures (what 90% of all groups will run as introduction to a new system) were banalshitboring
7) Motherfucking healing surges and residuum is regenerating health for pen&paper
8) Really uninspiring magic items made looting the dungeons far less exciting.
9) Dragonborn. Goliaths. Other popamole monster races. Stop trying to add AWESOME BUTTANZ to my D&D kthx.

1) Most definetely.
2) Are you daft? 4E did status effects exactly right. One back-side of my GM's screen covered every single status effect in the game. I've never had such an easy time using status effects in a D&D game.
3) Horrible design.
4) Yup, class empowerment = right idea, power execution = horrible design.
5) Different classes were basically different sets of powers. The worst transgression of 4E, and the prime reason the system sucks so bad.
6) Yep.
7) Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
8) Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
9) Yup.

All in all, every reason you give is good. Again, great ideas, horrible execution. But your #2 is idiocy. 4E handled status effects better than any other RPG in existance.

 

[Ulminati]

2) Are you daft? 4E did status effects exactly right. One back-side of my GM's screen covered every single status effect in the game. I've never had such an easy time using status effects in a D&D game.

The status effect descriptions were fine. The problem was when you had 3 units bloodied, 2 marked (until end of fighters turn), 1 marked (until end of paladins turn), 2 blinded (3 turns), 1 immobilized (until save), 1 stunned (until end of orc chieftains next turn) and 2 ongoing damage (2 turns, until end of sorcerers turn). At that point, keeping track of which effects should end when became tedious. And since every class would regularily use an attack that dealth some kind of status effect, they ended up all over the place.

 

[Grunker]

2) Are you daft? 4E did status effects exactly right. One back-side of my GM's screen covered every single status effect in the game. I've never had such an easy time using status effects in a D&D game.

The status effect descriptions were fine. The problem was when you had 3 units bloodied, 2 marked (until end of fighters turn), 1 marked (until end of paladins turn), 2 blinded (3 turns), 1 immobilized (until save), 1 stunned (until end of orc chieftains next turn) and 2 ongoing damage (2 turns, until end of sorcerers turn). At that point, keeping track of which effects should end when became tedious.

Ah, got you. I misunderstood you. Yes, the number of status effects was bad. Or rather, too early. When digitalized battle mats become the norm, such stuff would be great, and it would also be great in a video game. But on a regular battle mat? No.

 

[Ulminati]

4E was so painfully obviously written with WotCs planned online digital d&d battlemat in mind. All the mechanics are designed to be easy to write computer logic for and it would force people into paying monthly fees for d&d insider to make combat non-tedious to run. Maptools with a 4e framework sort-of works as intended, but the damn thing is a memory hog and tends to get unstable after a few hours of use.

 

[Grunker]

4E was so painfully obviously written with WotCs planned online digital d&d battlemat in mind.

The problem is they never got around to commercializing that product line properly (Character Builder as well) and I have no idea why. The market is certainly there. Whoever was product line manager at Wizards must have fucked up and run out of money, or had too little money to begin with because of stingy investors.

 

[Ulminati]

4E was so painfully obviously written with WotCs planned online digital d&d battlemat in mind.

The problem is they never got around to commercializing that product line properly (Character Builder as well) and I have no idea why. The market is certainly there. Whoever was product line manager at Wizards must have fucked up and run out of money, or had too little money to begin with because of stingy investors.

Nah. They did a lot of hype for it, built the system around it, then realized that they were a board game company with no programmers capable of building the product they had promised.

 

[Grunker]

4E was so painfully obviously written with WotCs planned online digital d&d battlemat in mind.

The problem is they never got around to commercializing that product line properly (Character Builder as well) and I have no idea why. The market is certainly there. Whoever was product line manager at Wizards must have fucked up and run out of money, or had too little money to begin with because of stingy investors.

Nah. They did a lot of hype for it, built the system around it, then realized that they were a board game company with no programmers capable of building the product they had promised.

So sad. I've played with Surface, and it played quite well, even the early edition I tried.

 

[catfood]

4Es main problems:

1) HP bloat caused combat encounters to take even longer. They were already a sizable part of D&D

This killed it for me. I remember one fight we had with a solo/elite/whatever. We were around level 2. After fighting the thing for about 15 minutes one of us scored a critical hit on it dealing some ~40 dmg.
Everyone was cheering and we asked the DM: is it bloodied?
DM: uh, no, not yet.
The rest of us: fuck this shit!

The thing had some 150 HP in total. It's not like it did anything special either. It was just a big orc with an axe who occasionally could hit two enemies at the same time, but every power he had had some ridiculous name like SAVAGE SMASH or FURIOUS FIST or some shit.

About healing surges: their main problem was that it was a rigid mechanic. For example in pre 4e you could easily make a house rule so that the party could regain all of its HP after every battle or a night's rest. If you wanted a more action oriented game you could easily do that. On the other hand, in 4e, if you want a more realistic approach it was almost impossible to do so, because the healing surge mechanic is so rigid that it would take heavy tinkering to make it work.

Actually the whole game felt very rigid. Often times I felt like I was playing a video game.

For instance: I once wanted to make a fighter who specialized in ranged weapons (because this archetype is one of my favourite to create in the IE games). Lo and behold it is impossible to do so, because every single power that a fighter has requires a weapon to be wielded. But let's say that the you could talk with the DM about it and he would let you use a ranged weapon instead of a melee one. That's doesn't help either because most of the fighter's powers are all about taking aggro and tanking, which is retarded for a ranged specialist.

I admit was very excited about it at first, and even 'whiteknighted' but soon the flaws became apparent and I stopped playing it. Oh, well good thing I didn't spend a dime on it.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

As a BECMI D&D grognard, I have touched every edition of Dungeons and Dragons except 4th edition. I admit part of this was edition snobbery, but another part was that I could always find players for the older versions; usually for 3.5 or Pathfinder which I did not prefer but I enjoyed. I didn't feel like spending money on a new edition when I could play some of the old school remakes for free. After reading some of the critiques above, I am glad I didn't try to sate my curiosity over the new edition.

 

[sser]

Never really played 4E P&P, but it made a really decent board game in Wrath of Ashardalon. I'm surprised nobody tried to make a video game adaptation, even in a simple, downloadable content sort of form. It kinda made me wonder about the overall popularity of D&D today in comparison to just a decade ago.

 

[tuluse]

I think it was in some kind of licensing hell so you would have got sued to high heaven if you made a video game from it.

Btw, does anyone want to share any specifics about dnd next?

 

[Deuce Traveler]

Never really played 4E P&P, but it made a really decent board game in Wrath of Ashardalon. I'm surprised nobody tried to make a video game adaptation, even in a simple, downloadable content sort of form. It kinda made me wonder about the overall popularity of D&D today in comparison to just a decade ago.

4E seems to have been built for the video game crowd, with things such as healing surges and higher hit points at low levels fitting in better with the MMO crowd instead of simulating sword and sorcery weird tales of the 1930s-1970s. But WOTC seemed to have shot themselves in the foot by ditching 4E after just a handful of years. At least 3.5 was around long enough for us to get Knights of the Chalice, a true computer game translation of 3.5 rules. 4E was around long enough to get Daggerdale, which to my understanding didn't even use the 4E rules. This was a system built for video game play, and WOTC couldn't get a publisher to make a video game with it, nor could they get their DnD virtual table working properly. I think sales were hurt by a resurgence for the old at the same time. People either turned to Pathfinder, which was basically DnD 3.75created by a company run by people who loved the older editions and campaign worlds like Greyhawk. Other former fans went to games revisiting the old school vibe like Goodman Games 'Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG'. These developments hurt sales to the point you found Pathfinder games sold next to Dungeon and Dragons games in the book stores. This probably freaked WOTC out and there are indications that their sales suffered for it. So instead of WOTC sticking by its guns and pushing 4E until the kinks were worked out in their online community and a fan-base nurtured, they are now kneejerking and doing DND Next. But their already late to the party. Grognards like me have moved on to Pathfinder, Dungeon Crawl Classics, and freeware clones like Dark Dungeons, OSRIC, Mutant Future and so on. Now there are some good things about WOTC kneejerking, such as their reprinting older editions against like 1E, the original DnD White Box, and many of the adventure modules. But this all feels like desperation considering a few short years ago they pulled their support of the older editions' pdf sales so you could no longer purchase the older adventure modules, crapped on 3.5 fans by no longer supporting what was still a lively market by ending Dungeon and Dragon magazines in print form and stopping development on the 3.5 product line, pushed an end to Living Greyhawk in order to focus on their new Points of Light campaign and pushed out the video gamey 4E and digital magazines out unto the market without ever having proper IT and software support for their digital vision.