Sell your books now!
© 2007 hack/
Wizards of the Coast seem to have announced D&D 4th edition for 2008. ¹
Via Jonathan Drain’s D20 Source.
I also like the `hack/` “4th Edition Threat Advisory Alert” which I had already seen back in July. At the time the threat level was set to “elevated”. 😄
So, what would I do for fourth edition? I’m not a rules lawyer, so I paint in broad strokes... 😄
1. Get rid of skills. I’m annoyed by all these Spot, Hide, Listen, Move Silently, Bluff, and Sense Motive checks. We keep looking up how Swimming and Climbing works, and it never adds to the fun. Maxing out skills and taking 10 is not enough. Get rid of skills.
2. Using feats works really well. Keep those. Don’t introduce talents (from Star Wars Saga Edition), just add more feat chains (where one feat is the prerequisite of another).
3. Change some class abilities into feats, and do away with the others. Wild empathy, evasion, rage – all are feats. Change some rogue skills to feats, if you want to. Disarm Traps, Hide, Sleight of Hands – all are feats. Give every one a feat every level. Some class abilities like Rage or Sneak Attack are feats that can be used repeatedly. Taking it a second time will allow you another Rage per day, or an additional d6 per attack.
4. Do away with classes and replace them with appropriate feat chains. Use the appropriate feats to be fighters, rangers, rogues, barbarians, paladins, clerics, sorcerers, or wizards. To be a good fighter, you need to take Power Attack, Cleave, Improved Cleave, and so on. To be a good thief, you need to take Stealthy, Nimble Fingers, Sneak Attack, and so on.
5. Change saving throws to a Defense like {AC Armor Class} (from Star Wars Saga Edition). Do away with spell resistance.
6. Simplify grappling, tripping, sundering, and so on.
7. Use a condition track with a cumulative malus instead of a gazillion conditions (from Star Wars Saga Edition).
8. Do away with buff spells. These slow down gameplay significantly.
It wouldn’t be D&D as we know it...
#RPG #Publishing #thoughts
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woah, woah WOAH!! You’d be effectively chopping the game in half. The skills disappear, the classes disappear, many of the spells disappear, and all you’re left with are feats. Sure it’ll streamline and simplify gameplay, but that’s the problem. You’re flattening the game. Diversity and specialisation - particularly specialisation - would all but disappear. You’d be left with two classes: Wizard and Fighter. Even worse, the wizards can fight, heal, pick locks and tame wild beasts.
The reason for having class feats and skills is so that not just any old fool can do it. The reason that XP multiclass penalties exist is to discourage exactly the sort of ’pick-and-choose’ level selection that you would open the game to. The power gamers would have a field day. After spending 10-15 levels in one particular class I *expect* to be able to pull of some cool tricks that nobody else can do.
– Marco 2007-08-17 15:12 UTC
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Obviously I’d strive to maintain it. Just think: How often do you see multiclass characters that take a penalty? I’ve never seen it. We might as well do away with it. All we need to make sure is that people who consistently specialize in a particular kind of feat family (eg. Power Attack and friends such as Cleave and so on) will have an advantage over jack-of-all-trades. That should be no problem at all by using feat chains. Whirlwind doesn’t come for free.
I also don’t think that we see a lot of people specializing in a particular skill like Listen... Let’s have a feat called “Improved Perception” that gives you chances to spot hiding opponents and so on, and that’s it.
– Alex Schroeder 2007-08-17 17:25 UTC
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I’m with you on pretty much all of these. I’d like to see a reduction in the number of skills. Mutants & Masterminds gets it right by folding a lot of skills together. I’m still a big fan of the Microlite20 way where there’s just four skills and you apply a different attribute modifier depending on the situation. Think I showed that covers all of D&D’s skillset pretty well 😄
My personal hope is for a simpler, faster, tighter game with less emphasis on miniatures and more of a push toward cinematic action imaginative play. If it uses d20 Modern class (smart, fast, tough, etc) & occupation (Ranger, Thief, Fighter, etc) system I’d be very, very happy indeed. I’d love to be able to create a Smart Fighter, a Tough Thief or a Charismatic Cleric. *That* would be the D&D for me 😄 There’s a fan created d20 Modern supplement called Classically Modern which did just that. It’s a work of art when it comes to RPG design and should be the boilerplate for 4th edition. It’s well worth the 11Mb download just to study.
When we get back to D&D gaming (we’re suffering from serious anti-D&D burnout right now, sadly), I reckon we’ll be using that for character generation.
– GreyWulf 2007-08-18 10:45 UTC
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If I were to return to a light system like M20, I’d do away with skills. Just do opposed level checks, applying the relevant ability and circumstance bonus. And let feats determine whether you have a particular set of skills or not.
– Alex Schroeder 2007-08-18 16:12 UTC
