Well, GenCon is over, and there’s been a bunch of 4e stuff posted. Mostly it seems like it will be similar to 3e, Star Wars Saga, but simpler in many, many ways.
One of the goals of the revision is to produce more “per encounter” abilities rather than “per day”. It’s been observed that the way the 3e system works, you get 3 encounters that take 25% of your resources to defeat or so, which are really pretty easy, and then you get the 4th encounter that actually challenges you, so you go and rest. Or, if you have a DM who wants things more interesting, you get the tough encounter right away… and then you have to go and rest. That’s pretty accurate as I see it.
So, what’s the solution? Well, at present you have classes like the cleric and the wizard who have basically a bunch of 1/day abilities. (Ok, you may memorize fireball 3 times, but it’s still effectively a per day resource). Recent books like Complete Arcane added at will abilities (reserve feats). There’ll be three levels of abilities in 4e:
At will.
Per Encounter
Per Day.
So, you’ll *always* be able to do something related to your class. No more wizard shooting his crossbow (badly). But you’ll still have limited resources – the *really* important spells – that are single use per day. I like that idea.
This isn’t going to be limited just to the spellcasters, either. No, it looks like fighters and rogues will have similar abilities. Not actually magic-based, rather special things they can do as a result of talent and training. When you come down to it, the fighter currently has “at will-swing sword”. The paladin has “per day-smite”. And that’s normally about it. They’ll be able to do more in 4e.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20070820a
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20070816b
“A skilled halberdier can hack a foe with his weapon’s blade and spin around to smash a second foe with the haft. A fighter with a longsword disarms her foe with a flick of her wrist, while a battle hungry axeman cleaves through shields, armor, and bone.”
So, the fighter will be gaining abilities based on the weapons they train with; rogues will be getting skill-based and mobility and other combat abilities…
Fun stuff.
Oh, and apparently Diplomacy as a flat roll will be gone. It’ll be treated more like combat, with a sequence of rolls and things the person you’re trying to persuade can do…
Of course, this isn’t going to have any effect on the campaigns we’re playing at the moment. Shackled City and Savage Tide and Ulek will conclude with the 3.5e ruleset.
However, expect me to start running 4e games when it comes out. The first adventure is coming out in April 2008. About then, I guess. The Ulek campaign will be coming to its close just about then. (Savage Tide will have a way to go; I’m not sure about Shackled City).
A couple of RPGA notes – the established campaigns are coming to a close. Living Greyhawk will be over after 2008. That’s it. It’ll be replaced by Living Forgotten Realms, using the 4e ruleset. I probably won’t run it, but some of you may be interested.
Mouseferatu wrote in his blog a few highlights of 4e, which I’ll end by repeating:
Less insanely arduous prep. Easier and dramatically shortened stat blocks and faster monster/character/adventure creation.
No more wizard with a crossbow. Spellcasters now have three suites of abilities: once/day spells, once/encounter spells, and “at will” spells. No more breaking out the crossbow (with which you can’t hit the broad side of a hill giant), or forcing the rest of the party to camp for the night, because you’re out of spells. Even if you’ve burned through all your “once per day big guns,” you’re only somewhat less effective, rather than totally ineffective.
Maneuvers and powers. No more boring “I hit it, I hit it again, woo-hoo, I hit a third time” combat. Every class now has suites of abilities to choose from, so that the fighter and the rogue have the same sorts of meaningful options and resources as the spellcasters.
Appropriate monsters. Monsters are built by purpose, as much as (or even more than) creature type. It means that they’re better suited to toolbox use by the DM, and much harder for players to metagame.
No more CR calculations. Monsters have a set difficulty, but it’s much easier to mix, match, and combine different critters than the old complex CR system.
Race matters. An elf fighter and a dwarf fighter are now differentiated by more than a few stat boosts and different kinds of vision. Race grants abilities and choices as you level up. And speaking of…
No dead levels. Meaningful options for every class at every level.
Who you are, not what you have. Lessened reliance on a specific and set quantity of magic items. Characters are cool because of what they can do, not because of what loot they’ve found or purchased.
“4dventure”
This is a fantastic post. It combs through all the fluff and rumor of all the articles I’ve been reading over the past few days and gets down to reliable content. I am very excited for 4e. Of course I am extremely nervous as well considering I came into DnD 3.5 and all my books are 3.5 splatbooks. I hope I will be able to convert a good deal of the smorgasboard of options in 3.5(such as Incarnum) to 4e. Who knows, my group may just stick it out with 3.5 for a while.
Thanks loads!
Re: “4dventure”
No problem. Glad you liked it; and I hope there’ll be more like it!
I use Incarnum a lot in my game, and I’ll be investigating ways to convert it to 4e as well.
Who you are, not what you have. Lessened reliance on a specific and set quantity of magic items. Characters are cool because of what they can do, not because of what loot they’ve found or purchased.
This very last point is probably one of my favorite adjustments in design philosophy that we’ve seen evidence of thus far. I’ve always tended to balance my games a little more toward character with lower reliance on their magic items and such. Nice entry, by the way…
Thanks!
Yeah, I’m looking forward to that as well. I’ve gotten very sick over the last few years of everyone needing belts of strength +4 and similar. There’s been a couple of problems to my mind:
* Everyone needs 8 magic items to compete
* Those 8 magic items are the same for everyone
I’d prefer only two or three magic items per player, they don’t need them to compete, but they are Cool To Have.
“4dventure” again
Yeah, I really like Incarnum too, even if I’m the only one who uses it in my group. I hope that magic items are revamped too be more exciting, interesting and meaningful. I want every magic item to feel like the first magic item I got in my first session, that’s a tall order and I doubt it can be fulfilled, but it sure would be nice.