4e complaining, 2010 style - split from Lago's Kickass etc.

[A Man In Black]

WotC just updated the catalog with the newly announced 4E releases.

http://wizards.com/dnd/Catalog.aspx

Somewhat lackluster and unimpressive.

Player Essentials: Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms - This essential supplement for the 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons Fantasy Roleplaying Game presents exciting new builds for the game’s most popular classes: the cleric, the druid, the paladin, the ranger, and the warlock.

Player Essentials: Heroes of the Fallen Lands - This essential player product for the 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons Fantasy Roleplaying Game presents exciting new builds for the most iconic classes: the cleric, the fighter, the ranger, the rogue, and the wizard.

So I guess people dig on druids more than warlords? And clerics most of all?

-----

Also:
2/16/2010 - Martial Power 2, featuring the shadowy rogue, "built to slip in and out of sight and find the opportune moment to strike".
3/16/2010 - Player's Handbook 3, featuring (among other things) the assassin, who "the ghost in the night and the whisper on the wind" who "strike ... foes with sudden, precise force."

>:|

[hogarth]

Also:
2/16/2010 - Martial Power 2, featuring the shadowy rogue, "built to slip in and out of sight and find the opportune moment to strike".
3/16/2010 - Player's Handbook 3, featuring (among other things) the assassin, who "the ghost in the night and the whisper on the wind" who "strike ... foes with sudden, precise force."

>:|

Ooh...when's the ninja coming out?

[ggroy]

[A Man In Black]

Ooh...when's the ninja coming out?

Bwaha.

But jokes aside, until this MP2 preview I was happy with how they were dealing with the issue of trying to fit the rogue and assassin in the same game. They're both sneaky ambush guys, but the rogue is the sneaky-cunning guy who hits you in the head, hits you in the knee, and then steps on your face, whereas the assassin is the sneaky-stealthy guy who shoots people in the eyes from the shadows. Now, the rules are completely fucked (particularly for the assassin, which is an unplayable trainwreck unless you cheese miss effects to kill everyone invisibly) but at least the concepts were sound and at least reasonably distinct. Rogues are footpads and pirates, assassins are ninjas.

...and then they're coming out with a ninja rogue book. A month before PHB3.

I don't think "magical ninja" and "nonmagical ninja" are satisfying distinctions to make.

[shadzar]

Is Rules Compendium an update to the online software, or a book compiled of it I wonder?

Gamma World Really? How about some Hollow World for 4th?

[ggroy]

[shadzar]

"Core" 4e D&D rules meaning...everything printed up to this point in book and DDi form?

[ggroy]

[ggroy]

[TOZ]

Well, taking out the classes would make it nice and slim for quick reading.

[shadzar]

So Rules Compendium (the book), will be the missing elements form the DDI version, so that people can get the rules (AKA SRD) on how to use all the things presented in the DDi Rules Compendium.

Its a companion to the item lists online, that offers the rules not present.

Interesting idea. I wonder if it will gian more DDi subscribers by being able to buy the rules, and then go to DDi and be able to use what is there without having to buy the "core books".

[ggroy]

[shadzar]

Gamma World Really?

Yup. Three Gamma World box sets.

Coming back to this it seems Gamma World will be more like a board game version of D&D, but an incomplete one, that you must buy booster packs of cards to get the entire board game for 8 cards @ $4 to get the 120 booster cards.

You don't make characters, but your traits/abilities are your characters, and they are found on the cards so.....

Seems WotC has gone full circle and lost its damn mind. Selling boosters to get a complete board game.

I guess HASBRO will next start selling the Chance and Community property cards for Monopoly in boosters so if you are lucky you can get a complete game after a couple hundred dollars worth of buying boosters as opposed to that feeble $10 price tag from xmas.

A Gamma World board game or whatever it really is, is a cute idea, but sad they didn't make it an actual part of 4th using the real RPG rules. The booster pack bit is just going to bite then on the ass.

The unpainted 40+ plastic minis in the Ravenloft game makes me want it even more, because it brings back memories of Hero Quest and old school board games where you got your little static army minis of various colors, and you could paint them if you want.

Now boosters of minis for that is what they should have done all along, so if you wanted goblins, you just buy a box of plastic goblins of various colors of plastic, and you can paint them yourself. That old plastic feeling and mass produced ability to save time, will make me want them even more, and they get minis out to people for RPGs even quicker.

Say like the Hero Quest expansions that you got more minis in for it, but without the added overhead of the adventure, you just get little plastic minis packs like the Zombies!!! game you can just buy more zombies for.

Only time will tell, but it better be real good to be that costly when my original Axis and Allies game was only $45 and had all those minis in it, so for the number Ravenloft had better have some nicely detailed unpainted minis.

[ggroy]

[RandomCasualty2]

If I had to guess, 4E Gamma World may be WotC's way of testing the market to see how receptive it is towards an rpg game with random booster cards packs. If the random booster cards turns out to be a success, I wouldn't be surprised if "5E D&D: The Fleecing" will use the same marketing model of random booster cards for powers, magic items, races, weapons, monsters, etc ...

Honestly turning powers and feats into random boosters would probably be something doable if they were willing to drop the concept of classes entirely. 4E's main problem is that most of the new shit only ever mattered if you made a new character, and that's very incompatible with random boosters. To make random boosters work, you need a bunch of characters who can use very similar powers.

Possibly they could divide it entirely by power source, and just have arcane, divine and martial card types, and each character uses one of those.

But having like 20 different character classes just can't work for random powers, because that means that 95% of the crap you get is completely useless to you.

[ggroy]

[ggroy]

[RandomCasualty2]

If I had to guess, 4E Gamma World may be WotC's way of testing the market to see how receptive it is towards an rpg game with random booster cards packs. If the random booster cards turns out to be a success, I wouldn't be surprised if "5E D&D: The Fleecing" will use the same marketing model of random booster cards for powers, magic items, races, weapons, monsters, etc ...

Honestly turning powers and feats into random boosters would probably be something doable if they were willing to drop the concept of classes entirely. 4E's main problem is that most of the new shit only ever mattered if you made a new character, and that's very incompatible with random boosters. To make random boosters work, you need a bunch of characters who can use very similar powers.

Possibly they could divide it entirely by power source, and just have arcane, divine and martial card types, and each character uses one of those.

But having like 20 different character classes just can't work for random powers, because that means that 95% of the crap you get is completely useless to you.

[shadzar]

Coming back to this it seems Gamma World will be more like a board game version of D&D, but an incomplete one, that you must buy booster packs of cards to get the entire board game for 8 cards @ $4 to get the 120 booster cards.

You don't make characters, but your traits/abilities are your characters, and they are found on the cards so.....

Seems WotC has gone full circle and lost its damn mind. Selling boosters to get a complete board game.

If I had to guess, 4E Gamma World may be WotC's way of testing the market to see how receptive it is towards an rpg game with random booster cards packs. If the random booster cards turns out to be a success, I wouldn't be surprised if "5E D&D: The Fleecing" will use the same marketing model of random booster cards for powers, magic items, races, weapons, monsters, etc ...

WotC just doesn't get everyting isn't a collectible game via randomness....

[A Man In Black]

Apparently one of the paragon paths for the new Battlemind class has a power named "Knifing Wind", where "As you slash your foe, you generate a psionic wind that knifes into your enemy’s mind."

[A Man In Black]

3/16/2010 - Player's Handbook 3, featuring (among other things) the assassin, who "the ghost in the night and the whisper on the wind" who "strike ... foes with sudden, precise force."

Apparently, this is wrong. PHB3 is going to have the Seeker, the Psion, the Ardent, the Monk, and the Battlemind. The assassin is a Dragon Magazine subscriber exclusive, apparently.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Battlemind

That just rolls off the tongue.

[mean_liar]

So does gonorrhea.

[hogarth]

Battlemind

That just rolls off the tongue.

Sounds better than "Knifing Wind" which sounds like a condition you'd have after eating razor blades at Taco Bell.

[A Man In Black]

That just rolls off the tongue.

It's just as bad as psionic warrior.

Apparently it has serious issues actually participating as a defender, and most of the builds people are playing with abuse one or two of its really out-there at-wills.