4th Edition D&D announced

[Rogue 9]

I am not amused. Apparently, for a third party publisher to be allowed to publish 4e content, they have to discontinue all open license games they publish, D&D related or not, and not develop any further ones.

[Cynical Cat]

Except it's not true

And then she goes on to rephrase that to make it clearer that this means not only can a single product not have both licenses in it, but that two different versions of the product (one for each license) can not exist either:

Publishers can put out a product under the OGL - OR - they can put out a product under a 4E GSL.

3.x or 4E

Not both.

One or t'other.

By "mutual exclusivity" I mean, different versions of the same product cannot occur at the same time.

There's more stuff here, including about the expiry of the OGL and stock but you can crank out both OGL and GSL product. Its complicated and too long to quote.

[Rogue 9]

It could well be yet. Clark Peterson of Necromancer Games interpreted what WotC told him (not what they posted on the board; what they told him as a publisher) that way, and they haven't confirmed or denied it yet. We'll see what they say about it; they pretty much have to answer if a rumor like that is flying around.

[SirNitram]

So a third handed interpretation of the policy says that, Rogue?

You see why no one's taking that as binding, I should bloody well hope.

[SirNitram]

This week's Wizard's dumps are up on their site; I'll brief them later. News from the front lines.

Multiclassing: Entirely redone. Instead of trying to balance two sets of levels(Which always leaves casters pitiful), feats handle this. A starting feat lets you grab a power from another class, and from other comments, seems to let you into the new PrC's, Paragon Paths. Additional feats, additional powers.

Rituals replace many divination, illusion, and longer-term spells. They require a bit of a while to cast, material components, and knowledge, either permenantly from studying a book, or temporarily cast from a scroll. There's a feat which lets you use rituals, which wizard's and cleric's get free.

No subraces in the PHB.

Lots of feats. Lots.

Confirmed settings to get some luvin' from Wizards: Ravenloft, Greyhawk, Dark Sun, Planescape, Spelljammer(W00T!).

[Comrade Tortoise]

mmm Ravenloft and spelljammer....

[Rogue 9]

Angels are any alignment now, because apparently everything in the game has to be an appropriate enemy for a good-aligned party.

[Cynical Cat]

I have to say I don't have a problem with how they've redefined angels. They're divine servitors who execute the will of their lords and some of their lords are quite nasty. I can't picture Bane relying on a bunch of chaotic demons, mercenary yugoloths, or devils who are probably secretly reporting to Asmodeus as his supernatural agents. WTF does that leave? Now that nasty ass angel from Raiders of the Lost Ark or from Jericho Dawn, that's more like Bane's speed.

[SirNitram]

The Angel revamp is a No Duh, frankly.

The Dragon article on Epic Destinies in 3.5 suggests the sheer level of OMFGWTF in the Epic Tier. Everything from 'Every day, at dawn, if you are dead, ressurect(As per True Ressurection).' to 'One per day, use Miracle using your own divine power'.

[frigidmagi]

I wouldn't call it a No Duh myself but when I thought about it, it did end up making sense. As Cat has pointed out this is a polytheist setting, there are a lot of gods. Every god needs servants and demons and devils are unreliable or working their own agenda. This is something that would be unacceptable to a divine being.

So they make their own servants. Now you could create different servants for each god but that would be tiresome, take up alot of print and frankly odds are most groups will never use most of these monsters making them wasted effort and space. The alternative is to take the creature known for serving gods without any hidden agendas and modify it so it is a common servitor for all divine forces and give a rationale for why this is so.

To wit, the war with the Tita... I mean Primordial creators of the material plane. In this war all the gods worked together as a team. It would make sense that the creation of the angels date to this time and that the secrets of their creation were shared among the gods, despite any alignment differences. And so you have angels serving all the gods.

Although I gotta say... Making individual supernatural servant races for each divinity would have been fun...

[Cynical Cat]

I like the angel look, but I love the Gith art

[Cynical Cat]

By the same artist, I think I've found a picture of frigid

[SirNitram]

By the same artist, I think I've found a picture of frigid

I see that, and for some reason I remember Nick Cage reciting his most memorable line.

'Put.. The bunny.. Back.. In the box.'

[SirNitram]

Lots of Excerpts I haven't posted, but I assume everyone knows where to go by now. For those throwing bitchfits over Gnomes not being in Core, there's a reason.

Gnomes are frighteningly badass. Roll Hide instead of Initiative in the opening of an encounter. Turn invisible 1/encounter when taking damage. Combine with the nasty, nasty Combat Advantage-based powers of a Rogue, and they'll straight up murder things.

Raise Dead gets easier. At lower tiers, the ritual costs a mere 500gp reagent. Paragon levels costs 5,000, Epic costs 50,000. Minor penalty of -1 until you pass three 'milestones'; previous comments suggest a milestone is every two encounters.

Timestop got a much needed gimp. 2 extra actions, neither can be an attack.

Stat boosts are up. At /4 levels, add one to two stats, your choice. Comments about 11 and 21 adding one to all stats? Wierd.

[Comrade Tortoise]

So... they change the gnome, making them admittedly badass, but also removing the the Arete' of Gnomeness as we know it? And make them too badass to be a core player race... that seems a bit... off to me.

Then again, a lot of what WoTC has done has been a bit off to me...It is kinda like what the director of Nemesis did to the crew of TNG

[LadyTevar]

Rumor has it there will be a sneakpeak at Marcon. WotC are Featured Gaming Guests this year

[SirNitram]

So... they change the gnome, making them admittedly badass, but also removing the the Arete' of Gnomeness as we know it? And make them too badass to be a core player race... that seems a bit... off to me.

Only, and only, if you define a Gnome's Arete as being illusionists wizards. Which would fall apart as soon as someone finally got around to destroying the badly put together specialization rules anyway.

Them being small, clever tricksters who have inherent illusion powers and a knack for causing Bigfolk trouble is apparently intact.

Then again, why bother and assemble facts when one can, once again, go off half-cocked, the same way you did when you first heard Gnomes weren't in the PHB?

Because, of course, you didn't bother to ask if the Gnomes were set up to be a PC race out of the box. They are. Their powers, while terrifying mixed with the right tactics, are probably no more so than a Dragonblood or the (Thankfully) powered down Warforged.

Then again, a lot of what WoTC has done has been a bit off to me...It is kinda like what the director of Nemesis did to the crew of TNG

Congratulations. You went off with half-data and made yet another blatantly stupid statement.

[SirNitram]

Monster Manual races which will be 'Out of the box playable'. This means no LA and roughly on-par with the PC races, since LA for player races appears gone.

Bugbear, Doppleganger, Drow, Githyanki, Githzerai, Gnoll, Gnome, Goblin, Hobgoblin, Kobold, Minotaur, Orc, Shadar-Kai, Shifter (2 types), Warforged.

Most are familiar. Shifters and Warforged are Eberron races, but expect them to be tweaked into everything. Shadar-Kai are a sort of cursed shadow-fey. Warforged are powered down from there 'I'm immune to every-fucking-thiing' levels. They do have a fun encounter power which lets them bounce back when bloodied.

Star Pacts seem blessedly free of tentacles. That being said, being banished to a realm of space which disorients you, deals damage, and makes you attack everyone when you return is not nice. But Warlocks aren't generally 'nice'.

PHB core races are not nice. Half-elfs? Grab an at-will from any class, make it an encounter. Humans? Extra feat, extra skill, extra at-will from your class. Dragonborn's breath weapon is a minor action area attack.

Easily the nastiest powers I've seen belong the monsters, though. White Dragons and Storm Giants, for example, have areas around them that deal constant damage.. Blasting cold and elemental storms. Both make it harder to fire in. Green Dragon? Hope you can save vs. poison; if you get two 'counters' of poison, you can't attack until you cleanse it.

And I close with a just plain funny power: It's 15th-ish level, and I've only heard about it as something hilarious, but basically, run through enemies provoking AoO's. The trick? The attacks resolve against each other.

It's the comic relief going through the barfight!

[Comrade Tortoise]

Because, of course, you didn't bother to ask if the Gnomes were set up to be a PC race out of the box. They are. Their powers, while terrifying mixed with the right tactics, are probably no more so than a Dragonblood or the (Thankfully) powered down Warforged.

Way to contradict yourself. EIther they are not core because they are too badass to be core, or there is some other reason. You by your own admission think it is the former, unless you are having internal consistency problems.

Can you not remember what you said two posts ago?

Lots of Excerpts I haven't posted, but I assume everyone knows where to go by now. For those throwing bitchfits over Gnomes not being in Core, there's a reason.

Gnomes are frighteningly badass. Roll Hide instead of Initiative in the opening of an encounter. Turn invisible 1/encounter when taking damage. Combine with the nasty, nasty Combat Advantage-based powers of a Rogue, and they'll straight up murder things.

Unless there is some logically twisted way to interpret that statement, I stand by my objection, and would ask very politely that you stop being a douchebag, and stop flaming your friends in the opening of what would otherwise be a nice polite discussion.

Only, and only, if you define a Gnome's Arete as being illusionists wizards. Which would fall apart as soon as someone finally got around to destroying the badly put together specialization rules anyway.

Gee, and you cant avoid strawman attacks either. Maybe, just maybe, I could also be refering to things that go on outside of combat? Maybe I could be objecting to the very fact that they have not had abilities that are even close to the ones you describe, ever. Perhaps I might object to some of the things they have done to other races as well, but of course you dont bother to ask.

Them being small, clever tricksters who have inherent illusion powers and a knack for causing Bigfolk trouble is apparently intact.

That part is not what bothers me. I have read races and classes, I am not a moron. The fact that everything has to have some sort of neatly defined "role" is what bothers me. What Races and Classes told me was "We could not shoe-horn them into a neat little box, so we took them out until we could" This is about more than their combat abilities, or what have, you. It is the fact that as a world builder, I am going to have to go through and fix what WoTC fucked up, even though from what I see of their mechanics, I like 4th edition.

Congratulations. You went off with half-data and made yet another blatantly stupid statement.

They retconned out the entire fucking cosmology, to say nothing of all the other stuff they changed.

[SirNitram]

Because, of course, you didn't bother to ask if the Gnomes were set up to be a PC race out of the box. They are. Their powers, while terrifying mixed with the right tactics, are probably no more so than a Dragonblood or the (Thankfully) powered down Warforged.

Way to contradict yourself. EIther they are not core because they are too badass to be core, or there is some other reason. You by your own admission think it is the former, unless you are having internal consistency problems.

Can you not remember what you said two posts ago?

Yes. These powers are enough they should be optional, not required. But thanks, dickhead, for ignoring where I pointed out they do fit the general power curve. And the other entirely legitimate arguments I've posted before on this.

Lots of Excerpts I haven't posted, but I assume everyone knows where to go by now. For those throwing bitchfits over Gnomes not being in Core, there's a reason.

Gnomes are frighteningly badass. Roll Hide instead of Initiative in the opening of an encounter. Turn invisible 1/encounter when taking damage. Combine with the nasty, nasty Combat Advantage-based powers of a Rogue, and they'll straight up murder things.

Unless there is some logically twisted way to interpret that statement, I stand by my objection, and would ask very politely that you stop being a douchebag, and stop flaming your friends in the opening of what would otherwise be a nice polite discussion.

I'd politely ask you to shut the fuck up when you have less facts than even me, and I'm working off half-revealed spoilers. But you're going to bitch either way.

Only, and only, if you define a Gnome's Arete as being illusionists wizards. Which would fall apart as soon as someone finally got around to destroying the badly put together specialization rules anyway.

Gee, and you cant avoid strawman attacks either. Maybe, just maybe, I could also be refering to things that go on outside of combat? Maybe I could be objecting to the very fact that they have not had abilities that are even close to the ones you describe, ever. Perhaps I might object to some of the things they have done to other races as well, but of course you dont bother to ask.

Because you just never voice them. You just bitch about Gnomes because you can't build super-powerful wizards. They do, by the way, have abilities that are thematically similar. You did notice in 3e they all have innate illusion powers, right, and invisibility is one?

Power level got ramped up for PC's. This was a working assumption so the game was more playable from 1st level.

Them being small, clever tricksters who have inherent illusion powers and a knack for causing Bigfolk trouble is apparently intact.

That part is not what bothers me. I have read races and classes, I am not a moron. The fact that everything has to have some sort of neatly defined "role" is what bothers me. What Races and Classes told me was "We could not shoe-horn them into a neat little box, so we took them out until we could" This is about more than their combat abilities, or what have, you. It is the fact that as a world builder, I am going to have to go through and fix what WoTC fucked up, even though from what I see of their mechanics, I like 4th edition.[/quote

What a more astute observer would notice is that the Gnome's overwhelming role in previous editions.. In FR, in Spelljammer, and in Krynn, especially in the latter two in 2e but definitely tehre is 3e.. Was a tech-based tinkerer. And that there's no place for that in the core theme.

I expect we'll see more of them in Eberron, because it's a setting to support tech-tinkerers and mad alchemists.

And this 'fuckup' is in fact, already fixed, sitting in the MM waiting for it to be slapped in. But you ignore that again. Ignoring reality works well for you.

Congratulations. You went off with half-data and made yet another blatantly stupid statement.

They retconned out the entire fucking cosmology, to say nothing of all the other stuff they changed. Oh but of course, anyone who dares voice disagreement with Martin must by definition be a blithering idiot.

No, anyone who operates without knowledge of what he speaks must be a blithering idiot. Nice man of straw, though, you get alot of mileage out of that.

The cosmoslogy isn't 'completely retconned', given they're still going to have FR, Greyhawk, etc. They're even bringing back the ones they dropped like Ravenloft and Spelljammer and Dark Sun. They've just made a new base setting. But no, let's go off half-cocked, again. No doubt this is somehow my fault.

[frigidmagi]

Okay Enough. Back to your corners now.

Nitram, I understand that this can be annoying to you, but as a special favor to your second favorite Mod (or am I 3rd favorite meh) I would like you to try responding to people who disagree with you on this thread without insulting them. Seriously folks there is no reason to be slinging around names like 4th graders over DnD. It's a game.

Comrade Tortoise. Wait til the books are out before screaming about shit. Also of course they retconned the cosmology they do that every bloody edition change these days.

[SirNitram]

Pardon me if I'm getting a little sick of the 'You're just angry!!!!!!' bullshit increasingly pulled by people who have no rebuttal. I'll try and cut it down, but it's gotten stupid, both here and elsewhere. What gets me to react like this is, shock, amazement, me trying to fork over some interesting things, only to have utterly stupid comments fired back without a thought, hence the half-cocked statements.

Which makes me come to another point: My first post contains no flames or insults, merely the accusation that he went off half-cocked, not knowing everything. Which.. Was true. That he claimed I called him a douchebag doesn't hold water, given we can scroll up to the post. Ever wonder if being accused of something you haven't done might make people flame the accuser, whose already acting like an over-generalizing idiot?

[Comrade Tortoise]

when did I claim you called me a douchebag?

[SirNitram]

when did I claim you called me a douchebag?

Oh, I'm sorry. That was you calling me such. I blame my medicated eyes.

But you still claimed flames over 'Look, you went off half-cocked, let me try and answer...'

As for out-of-combat? Insufficient Data for the base campaign, but Spelljammer will have tinker gnomes out in force.

We are all fucking doomed.

[Comrade Tortoise]

when did I claim you called me a douchebag?

Oh, I'm sorry. That was you calling me such. I blame my medicated eyes.

But you still claimed flames over 'Look, you went off half-cocked, let me try and answer...'

As for out-of-combat? Insufficient Data for the base campaign, but Spelljammer will have tinker gnomes out in force.

We are all fucking doomed.

That thought makes me happy inside like you wouldnt believe....