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I think the thing I liked the most - and simultaneously didn't like - was that every class functioned on the same chassis. The problem with the way the chassis was set up, in my opinion, was that you had to keep swapping powers around every couple of levels to stay relevant. The system would have functioned much smoother if there was simply one at-will, encounter, and daily power for each build within a class, and you tacked on your choice of secondary effects to the power.

I don't plan on buying Next, not because it's retro - which I think is a good move marketwise - but because there's no solid direction. It's like watching a football team at practice who can't execute a play, with every linebacker looking confused, the quarterback changing his mind every hike, the receivers keep runnning into each other, blah blah, shenanigans.

Anyway, between me and the folks at 13th age, the spirit of 4th edition will live on in one fashion or another. It just won't carry the D&D brand.

And I'm ok with that.
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]]> Tue, 16 Apr 2013 09:01:53 -0500 http://community.wizards.com/fouregrognards/blog/2013/04/16/appreciate_the_add http://community.wizards.com/fouregrognards/blog/2013/04/16/appreciate_the_add
I think the thing I liked the most - and simultaneously didn't like - was that every class functioned on the same chassis. The problem with the way the chassis was set up, in my opinion, was that you had to keep swapping powers around every couple of levels to stay relevant. The system would have functioned much smoother if there was simply one at-will, encounter, and daily power for each build within a class, and you tacked on your choice of secondary effects to the power.

I don't plan on buying Next, not because it's retro - which I think is a good move marketwise - but because there's no solid direction. It's like watching a football team at practice who can't execute a play, with every linebacker looking confused, the quarterback changing his mind every hike, the receivers keep runnning into each other, blah blah, shenanigans.

Anyway, between me and the folks at 13th age, the spirit of 4th edition will live on in one fashion or another. It just won't carry the D&D brand.

And I'm ok with that.
0 Comments - Leave a Comment
]]> 0 New to the group
I really think that a 5th ed which came as an evolution of 4e could have been precisely what they want Next to be, and what it seems (to me) to be failing at.

Specifically,
-a game with classes that ranged in simplicity from the Slayer to the Wizard, for role focused to role bending

- expanded mc rules based loosely on the basic concepts of 4e mc rules (ie, mc feats, but where the first gives a class feature and a skill, another gives access to the second class' utillity powers for the rest of character progression, etc. or something along those general lines)

- Class skills gain a small bonus when trained, no actual restrictions on what skills you can train. Maybe backgrounds have a couple skills that you treat as class skills or something. Smaller trained bonus, skill training feat also gives one skill power.

- Smaller list of class specific powers, make many powers common to Power Source, Weapon/impliment/other gear if appropriate/skill training, etc.

- Themes, Paragon Paths and Destinies as an assumed third teir of the game, with easy to grok rules for not using any of them. Rather than prestige classes replacing levels of your class, themes, PPs and Destinies have optional powers that you can take instead of your class powers. So do the races, and possibly even backgrounds. Not just utility powers.

-No universal math feats. Period. Any feat which improves your math does so situationally.

-Scale way down on basic accuracy/ac progression and damage/hp/healing progression. Keep HS but reduce number, while greatly reducing monster HP, keeping baseline 4e damage numbers, or thereabouts.

-No untyped bonuses to attack or damage. Ever. Not even one single instance in the entire life of the edition, for any reason.

-Solid rules for grid combat, arena/range band/etc style combat and totm combat, without needing to change how powers work.
..."window.parent.tinyMCE.get('body').onLoad.dispatch();" contenteditable="true" />-make 3 at-wills the norm, while making basic attacks key off of each classes primary stat.

-18 max in any stat at chargen, with liberal pointbuy, encouraging well rounded characters. Use stats (not just mods) for things like defenses (which should stay ref/wil/fort/ac), DCs for opponents in certain general use things, like being grappled, etc. And for streamlining things like whether you can move aside an obstacle, figure out the gist of a conversation in a foreign language, get out of bonds, etc. If your stat is equal to or exceeds the DC, you don't have to roll. (if you're under pressure, harried or otherwise experience adverse circumstance, that can increase the DC, possibly making a roll required)

-Find other ways to reward generalization, without punishing specialization.

-More utility powers and non power exploration/interaction class features. Some of the things put into rituals and martial practices etc can live here.

-Either assume magic items in the game math, and include inherent bonuses as an option in the first core books, or don't assume them and keep the flat bonus numbers low.

-If a power comes from outside class (from an item, theme, etc.), make it either add to a basic attack, or make the attack stat specifically be "your highest stat"

-Expand the heck out of the pg 42 guidelines. Make it a chapter. Put it in the PHB. Remind players of ways in which they can utilize the guidelines to do cool things. Make sure it allows for using skills and attacks together, and....

-Make sure skill challenges can be integrated with combat, and encourage it. Don't be afraid to reward creativity in this and the point just above it with mildly increased efficacy. If you don't, players may be "punished" with longer, slower combats. Absolutely don't decrease efficacy when improvising.


Those (along with not being afraid to package things differently*) would be my main points to turn 4e's successor into an edition for everyone, without sacrificing making it a good game for those of us who aren't that motivated by nostalgia.


*I'd be fine with the books presenting a lot of options like Star Wars Saga does force powers and starship manuevers. It's really just as easy to read, but doesn't look like a "power card".
1 Comments - Leave a Comment
]]> Sun, 14 Apr 2013 04:11:33 -0500 http://community.wizards.com/fouregrognards/blog/2013/04/14/new_to_the_group http://community.wizards.com/fouregrognards/blog/2013/04/14/new_to_the_group
I really think that a 5th ed which came as an evolution of 4e could have been precisely what they want Next to be, and what it seems (to me) to be failing at.

Specifically,
-a game with classes that ranged in simplicity from the Slayer to the Wizard, for role focused to role bending

- expanded mc rules based loosely on the basic concepts of 4e mc rules (ie, mc feats, but where the first gives a class feature and a skill, another gives access to the second class' utillity powers for the rest of character progression, etc. or something along those general lines)

- Class skills gain a small bonus when trained, no actual restrictions on what skills you can train. Maybe backgrounds have a couple skills that you treat as class skills or something. Smaller trained bonus, skill training feat also gives one skill power.

- Smaller list of class specific powers, make many powers common to Power Source, Weapon/impliment/other gear if appropriate/skill training, etc.

- Themes, Paragon Paths and Destinies as an assumed third teir of the game, with easy to grok rules for not using any of them. Rather than prestige classes replacing levels of your class, themes, PPs and Destinies have optional powers that you can take instead of your class powers. So do the races, and possibly even backgrounds. Not just utility powers.

-No universal math feats. Period. Any feat which improves your math does so situationally.

-Scale way down on basic accuracy/ac progression and damage/hp/healing progression. Keep HS but reduce number, while greatly reducing monster HP, keeping baseline 4e damage numbers, or thereabouts.

-No untyped bonuses to attack or damage. Ever. Not even one single instance in the entire life of the edition, for any reason.

-Solid rules for grid combat, arena/range band/etc style combat and totm combat, without needing to change how powers work.
..."window.parent.tinyMCE.get('body').onLoad.dispatch();" contenteditable="true" />-make 3 at-wills the norm, while making basic attacks key off of each classes primary stat.

-18 max in any stat at chargen, with liberal pointbuy, encouraging well rounded characters. Use stats (not just mods) for things like defenses (which should stay ref/wil/fort/ac), DCs for opponents in certain general use things, like being grappled, etc. And for streamlining things like whether you can move aside an obstacle, figure out the gist of a conversation in a foreign language, get out of bonds, etc. If your stat is equal to or exceeds the DC, you don't have to roll. (if you're under pressure, harried or otherwise experience adverse circumstance, that can increase the DC, possibly making a roll required)

-Find other ways to reward generalization, without punishing specialization.

-More utility powers and non power exploration/interaction class features. Some of the things put into rituals and martial practices etc can live here.

-Either assume magic items in the game math, and include inherent bonuses as an option in the first core books, or don't assume them and keep the flat bonus numbers low.

-If a power comes from outside class (from an item, theme, etc.), make it either add to a basic attack, or make the attack stat specifically be "your highest stat"

-Expand the heck out of the pg 42 guidelines. Make it a chapter. Put it in the PHB. Remind players of ways in which they can utilize the guidelines to do cool things. Make sure it allows for using skills and attacks together, and....

-Make sure skill challenges can be integrated with combat, and encourage it. Don't be afraid to reward creativity in this and the point just above it with mildly increased efficacy. If you don't, players may be "punished" with longer, slower combats. Absolutely don't decrease efficacy when improvising.


Those (along with not being afraid to package things differently*) would be my main points to turn 4e's successor into an edition for everyone, without sacrificing making it a good game for those of us who aren't that motivated by nostalgia.


*I'd be fine with the books presenting a lot of options like Star Wars Saga does force powers and starship manuevers. It's really just as easy to read, but doesn't look like a "power card".
1 Comments - Leave a Comment
]]> 0 Thanks for the invite. 1 Comments - Leave a Comment ]]> Tue, 09 Apr 2013 11:57:24 -0500 http://community.wizards.com/fouregrognards/blog/2013/04/09/thanks_for_the_invite. http://community.wizards.com/fouregrognards/blog/2013/04/09/thanks_for_the_invite. 1 Comments - Leave a Comment ]]> 0 New Member Appreciates Invite 1 Comments - Leave a Comment ]]> Mon, 25 Feb 2013 17:33:08 -0600 http://community.wizards.com/fouregrognards/blog/2013/02/25/new_member_appreciates_invite http://community.wizards.com/fouregrognards/blog/2013/02/25/new_member_appreciates_invite 1 Comments - Leave a Comment ]]> 0 CB Tweaks while 4e is still here?
I started right in the middle of the 1st ed AD&D/2nd ed changeover, and have played every version since.  I avoided 4e when it first came out, because I heard rumors it had turned D&D into an MMORPG.  After playing it for several years now, though (and running lots of Encounters), I can honestly say it's the best edition I've ever played.

By giving everyone various types of powers, they made every class, every player feel like they could DO something all the time.  The first D&D Game day I attended w/ 4e blew me away... I have a 1st lvl wizard with 24 HP?!?  It was great.  At-Will powers were fantastic, and bigger powers had the same sort of once-a-day feel that older versions had.  I felt like my character was actually a HERO.  As they moved forward, there were a few missteps along the way, but they were very pro-active about errating stuff to make it not broken (as much as I whined when my lvl 15 cleric lost the ability to do ridiculous damage over a huge area with his Turn Undead power, I understood why they toned it down in area and damage).  

Now the writing is on the wall that D&DNext is their new cash cow, so I'm just hoping and praying we can get as much done for 4e before they stop developing new stuff for it.  Not that I imagine most of this will ever get done, but here are a few things on my 4e wishlist... all of which should be minor programming things for Character Builder... 

- normalization of themes in CB.  There are lots of great themes, but the Dark Sun ones from earlier are harder to read than the newer ones, which have everything spelled-out in the theme description box.
- support for weirder rules... i.e., if a theme lets you create a weapon, there should be a way to equip that weapon so the rest of CB will calculate your stats properly (Unseelie Agent theme)
- sortability of backgrounds.  There are basically two types of Backgrounds: the normal ones (+2 to a skill or add a skill to your class list) and the advanced ones (like most of the Forgotten Realms ones, or a few of the Scales of War ones, all of which give you multiple things... "add class skills AND get a bonus to them", or "calculate your HP differently", or "gain resistance to these 3 damage types", etc).  Put a filter in the CB so we can ignore the lesser ones and go straight to the useful ones.
- printout of basic weapon stats.  If a character has multiple weapons, it'd be handy to have a listing on the printed character sheet of what the proficiency bonus, damage, & traits of the weapons are, so you can do the math when you swap out weapons.
- addition of HP bonuses to powers.  When an item (healers brooch, weapon of healing, etc) grants a bonus to the number of HP you can heal, mark that somewhere on the card for that healing power.
- paragon/epic class suggestions.  It's a minor thing, but if I've got a Str-based cleric, maybe list the Str-based paragon classes first.  I know enough of them that I can kind of skip the ones I know won't match a particular build, but a lot of my players who are newer to 4e have no clue, and end up spending lots of time reading things that really aren't at all appropriate for their stat builds.

As far as any books or other products that might make it out before they cut off 4th ed, as long as they're as amazing as the latest Into the Unknown, I'll have no complaints.  Oh, and FYI, let me pimp the Tome Show podcast (#196) about that Into the Unknown book... since I was a guest on that show.  As they say in the podcast, if books like Into the Unknown had come out at the start of 4e, we wouldn't be talking about D&DNext right now. 
thetome.podbean.com/2012/06/02/into-the-...

I suppose this is just a hopeful musing at this point, but the programming can't be that hard to just tweak the 4e CB a little before they shut the lights out on it and move all their tech support folks over to whatever the Next CB will look like. 
0 Comments - Leave a Comment
]]> Mon, 16 Jul 2012 21:56:06 -0500 http://community.wizards.com/fouregrognards/blog/2012/07/16/cb_tweaks_while_4e_is_still_here http://community.wizards.com/fouregrognards/blog/2012/07/16/cb_tweaks_while_4e_is_still_here
I started right in the middle of the 1st ed AD&D/2nd ed changeover, and have played every version since.  I avoided 4e when it first came out, because I heard rumors it had turned D&D into an MMORPG.  After playing it for several years now, though (and running lots of Encounters), I can honestly say it's the best edition I've ever played.

By giving everyone various types of powers, they made every class, every player feel like they could DO something all the time.  The first D&D Game day I attended w/ 4e blew me away... I have a 1st lvl wizard with 24 HP?!?  It was great.  At-Will powers were fantastic, and bigger powers had the same sort of once-a-day feel that older versions had.  I felt like my character was actually a HERO.  As they moved forward, there were a few missteps along the way, but they were very pro-active about errating stuff to make it not broken (as much as I whined when my lvl 15 cleric lost the ability to do ridiculous damage over a huge area with his Turn Undead power, I understood why they toned it down in area and damage).  

Now the writing is on the wall that D&DNext is their new cash cow, so I'm just hoping and praying we can get as much done for 4e before they stop developing new stuff for it.  Not that I imagine most of this will ever get done, but here are a few things on my 4e wishlist... all of which should be minor programming things for Character Builder... 

- normalization of themes in CB.  There are lots of great themes, but the Dark Sun ones from earlier are harder to read than the newer ones, which have everything spelled-out in the theme description box.
- support for weirder rules... i.e., if a theme lets you create a weapon, there should be a way to equip that weapon so the rest of CB will calculate your stats properly (Unseelie Agent theme)
- sortability of backgrounds.  There are basically two types of Backgrounds: the normal ones (+2 to a skill or add a skill to your class list) and the advanced ones (like most of the Forgotten Realms ones, or a few of the Scales of War ones, all of which give you multiple things... "add class skills AND get a bonus to them", or "calculate your HP differently", or "gain resistance to these 3 damage types", etc).  Put a filter in the CB so we can ignore the lesser ones and go straight to the useful ones.
- printout of basic weapon stats.  If a character has multiple weapons, it'd be handy to have a listing on the printed character sheet of what the proficiency bonus, damage, & traits of the weapons are, so you can do the math when you swap out weapons.
- addition of HP bonuses to powers.  When an item (healers brooch, weapon of healing, etc) grants a bonus to the number of HP you can heal, mark that somewhere on the card for that healing power.
- paragon/epic class suggestions.  It's a minor thing, but if I've got a Str-based cleric, maybe list the Str-based paragon classes first.  I know enough of them that I can kind of skip the ones I know won't match a particular build, but a lot of my players who are newer to 4e have no clue, and end up spending lots of time reading things that really aren't at all appropriate for their stat builds.

As far as any books or other products that might make it out before they cut off 4th ed, as long as they're as amazing as the latest Into the Unknown, I'll have no complaints.  Oh, and FYI, let me pimp the Tome Show podcast (#196) about that Into the Unknown book... since I was a guest on that show.  As they say in the podcast, if books like Into the Unknown had come out at the start of 4e, we wouldn't be talking about D&DNext right now. 
thetome.podbean.com/2012/06/02/into-the-...

I suppose this is just a hopeful musing at this point, but the programming can't be that hard to just tweak the 4e CB a little before they shut the lights out on it and move all their tech support folks over to whatever the Next CB will look like. 
0 Comments - Leave a Comment
]]> 0