 |
4venture |  |
For those who have not already, go and look at this.
Back, are you? I believe that the popular theory is that this is a countdown clock to the announcement of Fourth Edition D&D, and that’s certainly what it looks like to me. Many people would add a lot of doom and gloom at this point: “It’s too soon!”, or “They’re obsoleting my material!” I won’t be doing that. I look at this with pure optimism and anticipation, for two main reasons.
First, while it’s only been a scant seven years since the release of 3E, I feel somewhat satiated with it. I maintain that the d20 System is a good one, particularly for what it was originally intended for: heroic fantasy. I enjoy playing with it, and I like D&D. But really, how many new rules do you need for 3E? I used to get really excited about the new crunch books, books like Song and Silence or Masters of the Wild. But since the advent of 3.5, I’ve felt that it’s largely been more of the same, a simple updating of material that I’d already seen. In fact, the only D&D supplements that I’ve really been interested in in recent years are those geared toward my favored campaign setting, Eberron.
The second reason is that I have seen Star Wars Saga Edition, it it is good. I can only hope that the changes wrought in that iteration of the d20 System presage those yet to be enacted in Fourth Edition, and if that is indeed the case, it will be something truly special. I hunger for a slimmed-down class list, with a single class that covers ranger, fighter, and barbarian, and another that covers wizard, sorcerer, and cleric alike. I dearly hope that they continue to use the Condition Track, being that it is a unified mechanic that simplifies 90% of the rules bloat in D&D.
At any rate, this is all purely conjecture. I hope that I’m right, that this is coming, because this is the most excited I’ve been about D&D for more than a few years (the release of Eberron is the last time I really felt something like this). I guess we’ll find out in less than a day, won’t we?
[Edit: The countdown is now over, but the website is down. Methinks Wizards underestimated their traffic.]
August 16th, 2007 at 8:51 am
Here’s something I found while digging around the forums -
http://theminiaturespage.com/news/519193/
I agree with the optimism for 4E - and the DI (Digital Initiative). As we all saw with TSR in it’s twilight, there is no end to the splat books that can be spread around, and they do tend to get very thin. I think this problem is compounded now by the OGL. There are so many splat books out there, it’s hard to find any that are worth it anymore. The first few books (ala song and silence) with their prestige classes really blew us all away, but now that they’ve been refined and reprinted as hardbacks, and we have race books, and we have world books, and we have equipment books - none of which are really necessary. If I want a new feat, or a certain class, I’ll make it up. Sure, I’ll have to try and worry about game balance issues, but with a lot of the products out there this hasn’t been adequetly addressed. IMHO, the stuff of value that WOTC has put out since the original 3E books is limited to Unearthed Arcana, Eberron source material, and very little else. I don’t do Forgotten Realms, which I’m sure is a decent product, but I wonder about the need for a new book on every little geographical feature.
Back to the matter at hand - 4E - my hopes are that they have a fully realized system this time around. I never bought the 3.5 books, simply because anything that comes with a 3.x version is a revision, and the revisions should be made available free to people who purchased the original. I was able to get most of the info I wanted from the SRD, but it was a large hassle. So please, WOTC, finish it right the first time. As for the DI side of it, I long for an intuitive interface which has all the rules programmed in, but still allows for modifications, and built in voice communications is a must. As for the system itself - Saga Edition is a great build upon what 3E started. With the simplified classes on top of the multiclassing that 3E made possible (compared to 2E dual-class and multiclass) it will be easier to make exactly the character I want. Also, simplified combat. Fights should take 10-20 minutes not 1-2 hours. Finally, I demand to see level 10 magic and sword-chucks.
August 16th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
Personally, I hope they heavily revise the magic system in 4E. The current system works, but it’s a little bit goofy and there are way, way too many damn spells. Do we really need a separate spell for each individual circumstance? I’d rather see fewer, more broadly-interpretable spells, and a less restrictive system for casting them. I like the Force power system in Star Wars, and something similar would be nice for 4E; I’d much rather encounters be balanced on a per-encounter basis rather than a per-day basis (I hate limited use per day abilities), and Saga Edition seems to address this pretty well (though there are still one or two uses per day abilities, like Wookie Rage). I’d also like to see spells scale better, so that the need for nine different cure wounds spells replaced by a single cure wounds spell that scales with caster level or check result.