4E information

[Crissa]

Why the stupid 'flavor' names, too?

None of this seems to make the game faster or easier to play. In that less than five hundred words are four new mechanics that I have to explain to existing players let alone new ones.

-Crissa

[Voss]

Without new mechanics, there isn't much point in a new edition.

The speed/ease change is likely to come in the game play. There have been hints that character creation isn't really much easier, and the speed change picks up after the front-loaded character process.

Though none of these feats are particularly complex

bonus hps? done

small bonus, written on the sheet? done. Not giving a combat advantage? Unclear, but it likely means that they don't get a bonus against you (and so attack normally)

Don't want to be surprised? Spend the AP.

Drop an AoE? Handwave a small number of allies out of it.


As for the flavor? This bunch just seems bad at it.

[Koumei]

1196131094[/unixtime]]Why the hatred of dwarves? Is it jealousy? 'Cause I can't think of any other reason to hate them.

No, it's partially a case of how they're played, and partly me being sick of fantasy meaning "Lord of the Fucking Rings", which we know would be a terrible example of an actual game. I think lizardmen are really cool because of:
A. Warhammer, and
B. They're not in LotR

As an example. Now, humans I understand. We are human. And one cat. Elves I put up with because at least they're pretty, but I rarely like how they're played (see: LotR). Halflings aren't a problem if they're the new style and not Kender. Gnomes weren't in there, huzzah! Sure, no-one really knows what they're up to, but I don't care too much. No-one actually plays half-orcs and half-elves, so we can skip those.

Dwarfs. They're short, fat, ugly, alcoholic, bad-tempered, greedy and probably every other bad thing I could think of. It's a mixture of stuff I hate, poured right out of the cauldron that is LotR and into my D&D.

As for the experience, most times I've seen them played, it's an excuse to be obnoxious. Sure, you could argue that's a problem with the players, but if you don't present them with something that screams "Be obnoxious!" they're less likely to do it, or they'll be forced to be obnoxious in a mildly original manner.

[Crissa]

I didn't even mention the complexity of the feats.

People don't come up to me and whine about how hard it is to use feats. They come up to me and whine that they don't know the new edition so they don't want to learn it. They don't care that x is a bad feat or that y is only a number on their character sheet. They only see the four new mechanics -Heroic? -Action Points? -Combat Advantage? -Class Powers? and don't know what they belong to or why they're there.

Making up new mechanics is not a good reason for a new edition.

-Crissa

[Voss]

No, money and the old edition being pretty busted are the reasons for a new edition.

But... if its the same shit all over again, with nothing new, there isn't any point in doing it. Without new stuff to replace the old stuff that doesn't work very well, its just about the money. And not for very long, because if people drop $X on a 4E and get 3.57, they are going to be very displeased.

I am rather curious as to how often people come up to you whining about how they don't want to learn new things. Coupled with the math issue from the other thread, it sounds like it could be happening disturbingly often.

[PhoneLobster]

If no one else will go whining about the new mechanics I will.

I mean ACTION POINTS.

There is nothing smoother, faster, better or good about them.

I've seen several incarnations of those bitches now and I'm still not sure how they are supposed to work.

And really, "Heroic" - "Paragon" which way round do those even go? Do they mean different things at all, what are the other categories called "Champion" and "Avatar" just to be even more STUPID.

And seriously you have to be Paragon (WTF) before you can blow an indeterminate possibly limited and confusing AND annoying commodity (action points) to not be surprised. WOW.

Combat Advantage? The surprise round has changed from being stupid and complex to being stupid and complex with a new stupid complex thing added (or renamed pointlessly)?

You want to add changes for the sake of change, there are about a billion different things that NEED changing, and a billion others that aren't stupid.

But nooo, someone has to go using action points (a mechanic I suspect is on the top list of things that got house ruled into oblivion around the world for the d20 modern system), complexificate the fricking surprise round, and produce a tiered feat system based around a thesaurus.

[RandomCasualty]

1196131954[/unixtime]]
surprise is a 'combat advantage', whatever that means mechanically. Maybe = flat-footed. maybe not.

I think this is how combat advantage works...

Instead of losing your dex bonus, you now get hit with something called combat advantage, which is just a generic penalty to stuff, probably reflex and AC. I actually sort of like the change since it's easier to apply and applies universally to things.

As far as the rest of the article... yeah, it seems like it's going to make the game more complex.

My guess is that class abilities will be talent based, which means you'll have feats, talents and god knows what else running around.

Classes are going to be straight jackets now, which I guess might be okay assuming multi-classing works well. Because the 4E mentality is that all classes have to fit into roles. Not a terrible idea because it will hopefully prevent bullshit like the druid from ever existing (druid is out of the 4E PHB too btw). No one class can do it all, and the best way to handle that is to make classes rather specialized. I just hope that the multiclass system works well, otherwise it'll really suck.

So I guess I'm okay with feats sucking, so long as class talents and stuff are actually good. At the very least we can get away from the idea that a feat is a class ability, because that didn't work at all.

[Koumei]

1196157345[/unixtime]]If no one else will go whining about the new mechanics I will.

I mean ACTION POINTS.

There is nothing smoother, faster, better or good about them.

*snip*

But nooo, someone has to go using action points (a mechanic I suspect is on the top list of things that got house ruled into oblivion around the world for the d20 modern system),

My guess is WotC are still fellating the creator of Eberron, and sadly more than half of the fans on the WotC boards are queueing up to do so as well.

[Draco_Argentum]

1196131954[/unixtime]]

Seriously? Out of those four, only improved initiative is even vaguely good. Suddenly their design philosophy is scaring the shit out of me again. And to make it worse, he thinks Empower spell is a good option!

Even worse, he thinks empower is distinct from the making your numbers bigger feats he listed. What?

[RandomCasualty]

I actually like action points, but not for the kinds of things they do right now. I like the idea of an expendable resource you get X of per level. It's a great mechanic to use to limit casting of certain spells you don't want being cast all the time, like scrying and maybe teleport. I like the idea of some cool stuff you can do only once in a while, and the X/day mechanic sucks balls at that, because it's all based on how often you decide to turn back and rest. Having some mechanic where you get to do something awesome by spending an action point would work well.

The current add +1d6 to a roll kinda sucks though.

[Crissa]

X/lvl sucks.

You blow it early, you never level.

You blow it late, you wasted it.

It's like those potions you get in CRPGs that you can't buy more of - you never know when you're going to use them, so they really just take up a slot in your inventory and do nothing.

-Crissa

[RandomCasualty]

1196167398[/unixtime]]X/lvl sucks.

You blow it early, you never level.

You blow it late, you wasted it.

Nah, X/level isn't for combat abilities. X/level is for noncombat stuff. So you only get a fixed amount of communes, divinations or auguries or whatever before you can't cast em anymore.

X/level is a replacement for anything that would normally have an XP cost.

[Koumei]

1196167398[/unixtime]]
It's like those potions you get in CRPGs that you can't buy more of - you never know when you're going to use them, so they really just take up a slot in your inventory and do nothing.

That's why I liked FF7. There was a glitch you could abuse to duplicate items you had. So I ended up with 99 of the Important things (Megalixer, Black Cauldron, Hyper, Hourglass).

Of course, such a glitch probably doesn't exist with Action Poi... actually I think there is a way to get infinite AP. But there shouldn't be, but the idea of them sucks before you do that so why not...

I dislike them for the same reason. Although, in one game of Iron Kingdoms, aka "You're fucked, you just don't know it yet. GRIM AND DARK.", they saved our hides multiple times. Once, the entire party defeated foes so far ahead of us in CR that we levelled twice each (the DM ignored the stupid "you can only level 1/session" rule). Thanks to Action Points.

And he let us add them to any dice roll - including damage, or, for instance, Hit Points gained.

[Judging__Eagle]

That mike mearls post seriously pissed the fvck out of me, so much so that I was even willing to post in my fubarded-by-gleemax account about what mike is doing wrong.

[the_taken]

1196179115[/unixtime]]That mike mearls post seriously pissed the fvck out of me, so much so that I was even willing to post in my fubarded-by-gleemax account about what mike is doing wrong.

What would happen if somebody sent a letter to WotC telling them that this guys ideas are not good and that you want his job 'cause you can do it better?

[ckafrica]

probably ask you how many books you've sold then tell you to fuck off. No offense.

[Voss]

1196179115[/unixtime]]That mike mearls post seriously pissed the fvck out of me, so much so that I was even willing to post in my fubarded-by-gleemax account about what mike is doing wrong.

Which aspect of it? I can spot several things that would make someone cranky.

[Username17]

Action Points can suck my balls. They weren't good in Eberron. They weren't good in D20 Modern. They won't be good in 4e. It's a shit idea.

Seriously, did you notice that the ability where you don't suffer drawbacks from being surprised is just plain better than the abilty where you can spend an Action Point to act during the surprise round? Hell, even if you spend that action point, they still get combat advantage on you if you tank your initiative roll. And you don't even get a pathetically small bonus to Perception checks out of the deal.

The game usually gives you the ability to salvage an action from failure to success with an Action Point at least occassionally without any special abilities at all. That means that spending an Action Point to essentially reroll a failure is just sad. An action that you don't get is essentially a failed roll, so spending an action to not lose an action is generally speaking a little bit worse than spending the same action point to upgrade a miss into a hit. So the feat where you can spend an action point to not lose an action when you're surprised - that's basically worse than what Action Points do normally with no feat at all. This is assuming of course, that you have a limied number of action points, which is hopefully a good assumption if the mechanic is to mean anything at all.

---

Mike Mearls hasn't ever participated in a project that was internally consistent and functional at the end. Basically, he can give a halfway decent "vision statement" which is why people are willing to give him jobs and the benefit of the doubt that Iron Heroes was ever going to be a coherent and playable system under his watchful eye. But all his work sucks.

-Username17

[Voss]

Whats really insulting about the action point feat is that you're spending a limited, mid level (11-20) resource (the feat), in order to spend another limited resource (action points), in extremely limited circumstances (surprise rounds), in order to not be penalized by a failed perception roll (if you failed it, because you decided you didn't want to take one of the most used skills in a combat/adventure heavy game), in order not to be slightly penalized for a round (or maybe even only a standard-action-only round)

It may suck on the rare occassions it comes up, but the character has survive 10 fucking levels without it. You've either come up with some way to avoid the combat advantage angle, you've got a good perception check, or you can just take the damn hit and heal yourself afterwards.

Seriously, how many times is being surprised going to *really* matter? 4? 5? Especially without a lot of save or die nonsense?

As for the Golden Wyvern crap, (which... eh. Some variation of sculpt spell or accurate spell or not blowing the fuck out of your allies would have been much better than goofy fluff related names) this feat will only matter if blasting spells suddenly don't suck ass. Or... are the only option, which feels like a legitimate concern at this point. A lot of stuff was missing from that wizard article a way back. Like necromancy, conjuration and illusions...

[Voss]

Ah. Race info from the sneaky Hungarian copy of the Races and Classes Book.
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t ... uote]First of all bear in mind that the book reflects the state of the art as of Aug 2007, before the announcement. It still has May as the release date. It is full of fluff and art. Sometime a whole page is just a picture, so don’t expect longish text. There is no mechanic, just a few mentions that hint at mechanics.

Ability scores
Ability score adjustment have a net positive benefit (i.e. not of the type -2 / +2). I think that it will be a flat +2 most of the time. In the entry for dwarves it says that the charisma penalty is gone, thus they might have +2 Con, and that is all.

Races
Each race seems to have a clear “homeland”. Dwarves live in mountains, elves in forests. Now they come up with something for all major races. Humans are tied to plains, Halfling to rivers (swamps and marshes), Dragonborn to deserts (at least their great empire were in desert).
I will list a favoured class. As we know, mechanically it is not the favoured class of 3.x, but they admit, that some races are better at being certain classes. The “favoured class” is not listed as such, I inferred it from the text.

Human
They will remain the flexible, adaptable race as in 3.x.
Their negative personality flaw is corruptible (I don’t think it is mechanic, just fluff or the basis of some racial feat).
The text mention that humans never give up, and try thing again-and-again; this can be a racial characteristic (allow retry in some cases).
Each of them know how to handle at least one weapon (fluff or ability?).
Their homeland is the plains. Horses are important to them.
Favoured class: They fit to all classes equally well (or at least more or less equally well, the text is not that clear hear).

Dwarf
Resilient industrious folks.
One of their racial feat allow a second “second wind”.
They no longer have darkvision, only low light vision (most races will have only normal vision).
Favoured class: Fighter

Eladrin
They are the magical high elves. Both elves and eladrins were elves, but one preferred magic and stone, while the other nature and the woods.
One of their racial feats allows them to briefly enter Feywild and reemerge at another place, making a short teleport (was hinted at one of the playtest report, right?).
Favoured class: Wizard

Elf
Favoured class: Ranger

Dragonborn
Dragonborn are kin to dragon, they are egg laying (so why on Earth do females need a halter?). They are a strong race with martial incline. I think dragonborn replaces half-orc as the main damage dealing race.
At higher level they can choose racial feat that gives them breath weapon or wings.
Probably have claw attack.
Favoured class: warlord

Halfling
Now they admit, that the main source of inspiration for the 3.x halfling is the kender. We suspected it all along. They are still the lucky, bit thievery race as they were. Added their liking for rivers and boats (and thus being a merchant and wandered).
Favoured class: Rogue

Thiefling
Lots of fluff, but really not so much crunch. I never played them, so I don’t know how they were in 3.x. Their look is rather unified now.
Favoured class: Warlock[/quote]

Not sure why some of it isn't clear, but hey. Some people can't read and type. There is some followup on the wizards board link. Dragonborn are actually a true breeding race (no stupid egg metamorphosis shit), and so are Tieflings, and thus all pretty much look alike, with horns and tail (grammy wasn't all about the demon cock after all, which is slightly disappointing).

[Judging__Eagle]

You can't have a fucking empire in a desert. Unless you are a people that doesn't need to... you know... eat.


Last I recalled, Dragonborn aren't Constructs or Undead or Plants and the flavour doesn't suggest that they don't need to you know... eat.

The flavour is made of fail. If that is even possbile, which it seems can now occur.

WoTC, bringing fail beyond fail.


This is the mearl's post I was referring to if anyone wants to know:

Mearl's can't solve his own problems

[Captain_Bleach]

1196196879[/unixtime]]You can't have a fucking empire in a desert. Unless you are a people that doesn't need to... you know... eat.


Last I recalled, Dragonborn aren't Constructs or Undead or Plants and the flavour doesn't suggest that they don't need to you know... eat.

The flavour is made of fail. If that is even possbile, which it seems can now occur.

WoTC, bringing fail beyond fail.


This is the mearl's post I was referring to if anyone wants to know:

Mearl's can't solve his own problems

What about the Islamic Empire in the Middle Ages, around the Crusades, which was not entirely desert, but comprised a significant portion of it?
I don't know if it was considered an empire or not, but the royal family had a large sphere of influence.

[Voss]

What about it? There were deserts in their dominion, but no one cared about them beyond a few nomads. No one tried to take away the desert areas and not many people lived in them.

The main areas were the big, fertile river valleys like the Tigris, Euphrates and Nile, and the resource heavy areas like those in and around the Black and Caspian Seas (and all those mountains). And, you know, major trading centers like Constantinople. The desert areas were just colored in on a map.

J_E- I figured that was the post you were referring to, but which bit? The extra steps slowing down the game bit, or the suggestion that 3 numbers are exponentially harder to balance than 2, so you have to drop one or make it constant? (I can't find an actual reason for that, other than, it was hard).

I was just as glad to see it not be in, but that was because to make it meaningful across 30 levels, it quickly gets stupid. Useful DR at level 15 means a level 1 guy can't ever hurt him, ever, except on a crit. And tying that to the base armor makes for a fucked up progression and economy (like WOW, where Plate was forbidden for 2/3rds of a character's levels)

[angelfromanotherpin]

Um, Create Water is a 0th-level spell. Assuming 4th ed doesn't remove the ability of Clerics to make water spring from rocks, desert societies are 100% viable.

[Voss]

OK, get all the water pumps, er... clerics, together; its time to fill the well.

Yeah, thats good flavor. It also doesn't really address the food issue. Crops and animals are going to quickly outpace whatever % of the population who are actually clerics and willing to be used this way.