4th Edition D&D announced

Cynical Cat · Post by **Cynical Cat** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 2:00 pm

Comrade Tortoise wrote:Indeed... The Ben is Not Amused. Especially just getting rid of all the gods of magic. What the fuck?

That I actually approve have. Having gods micromanage magic makes those gods insanely powerful. Having them then take sides is just dumb, because you know have the uber gods taking sides.. They've been writing themselves into a hole ever since Mystra started to have favorites. At best, some gods should be patrons of certain kinds of magic. You have lawful good Mystra allowing lawful evil Bane to feed power to his clerics and unleash a wave of terror and opression over the Realms. It simply doesn't make sense.

frigidmagi · Post by **frigidmagi** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 2:06 pm

On the flip side it seems like the rule of thumb is Whenever we have a new edition Mystra dies... Poor Girl.

I would actually favor having no god of magic at all.

Cynical Cat · Post by **Cynical Cat** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 2:21 pm

frigidmagi wrote:On the flip side it seems like the rule of thumb is Whenever we have a new edition Mystra dies... Poor Girl.

Its actually a sign of every crappy edition change. 1st to 2nd (2nd wasn't that bad, but really not much different than 1st). 3rd edition avoided "cataclysm=rules change."

And we all know how we feel about about most of the stuff we've been hearing about 4th, with its ration of three shitty ideas to one good one.

D&D. Shadowrun. 4th edition seems to be ill-omened.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 2:26 pm

Having been keeping up with the plot.. Good. They aren't gonna just yank a Deus Ex Machina and wipe away the building up of a crescendo of pain for the Good Guys. At the point at which the forces of Shadow Magic have two active Netherese Cities, the Weave is gonna get fucked.

Killing Mystra is practically a mercy-killing, though. 'Crucible: Trial Of Cyric The Mad' was an atrocity, mostly for it's mangling of trying to resolve the 'Good-aligned Goddess allows evil magic' issue.

As for the end of high magic? I doubt it. Thousands of mages is a blink. It's a painful blink, but.

frigidmagi · Post by **frigidmagi** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 2:30 pm

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.ph ... st13901719

Post 12

Teiflings will be a core playable race. I'm good with that.

Following information from here

[quote]Set the wayback machine to May of 2004!

Even at that point, we knew 4th Edition was coming, though official work on it wouldnâ€™t start for another year. At the time, the design team used to meet regularly in what we jokingly called the â€œDesign Cabal.â€

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 2:32 pm

Ever since Greenwood grew out his beard, Elminster's become invincible.

Cynical Cat · Post by **Cynical Cat** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 2:57 pm

SirNitram wrote:Ever since Greenwood grew out his beard, Elminster's become invincible.

An invincible guy with a harem.

Honestly, most of the game mechanicky stuff seems fine or good (and some of it reminiscent of Arcana Evolved). The device dependency stuff for wizards seems to be Harry Potter/Arcana Evolved inspired and Arcana Evolved Magisters rock the fucking world so I'm not going to go cry into my beer quite yet. I like Dying Earth (note the cool Rhialto avatar) and its magic (although its magicians wield staggeringly powerful magic and can skewer people with swords quite well), but its not necessarily a good match for the rest of D&D.

The Minx · Post by **The Minx** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 5:19 pm

I'd actually like to see goblins becoming playable rather than tieflings: they're a lot more common after all, and it makes sense to include them.

As for mages: they were way overpowered in 3.0 and 3.5, I don't mind seeing them made more dependent on equipment the way fighters are (beyond their tomes, I mean).

Cynical Cat wrote:And we all know how we feel about about most of the stuff we've been hearing about 4th, with its ration of three shitty ideas to one good one.

D&D. Shadowrun. 4th edition seems to be ill-omened.

WH40K 4th was pretty damn good, though.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 6:29 pm

Minor update, albeit nestled in a humorous animation of an interview with Beholder.

1) Save Or Die is gone. This was where mages go stupidly, ridiculously overpowered previously, so depending on how the new mechanics for death/petrification/etc spells go, it could be very good.

2) 'Solo Monsters'. Specific ones meant to challenge a normal sized party on their lonesome. Obviously, Beholders are among them.

Cynical Cat · Post by **Cynical Cat** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 7:00 pm

SirNitram wrote:
1) Save Or Die is gone. This was where mages go stupidly, ridiculously overpowered previously, so depending on how the new mechanics for death/petrification/etc spells go, it could be very good.

Speaking as Nalifan's player, a mage built around save or die, I'm glad its going. Save or take a whole bunch of damage and a debilatating condition and all the variations that that entails is superior (and I delight in pointing out that Earthdawn did that fifteen years ago).

Clerics were pretty much as bad as mages for the save or die business. 3.5 heavy handed save nerfs took down save or die, which lead to ranged touched attack abuse being the mage cheese of choice. As for problems with mage power levels, D&D only took steps away from the "mage feeble bitch at low level, god at high" and a bunch of poorly designed spells like force cage didn't help. As someone who has had to shell out for spellbooks and spell components (and flinched at the cost of maintaining a contingency) if equipment costs go up for mages other costs need to go down.

The Minx · Post by **The Minx** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 3:09 pm

Link.

Apparently, the Wish spell is gone (and possibly some others too).

I haven't been able to see any official confirmation for this, though.

Other points raised there: monsters won't have their full Reach with all their natural weapons.

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 4:32 pm

Both sound profoundly sensible to me. Think about some of the creatures; does it make sense their bites reach as far as their arms? And Wish was consistantly abused and misused. I'm kinda hoping it remains for the Great Elemental Djinns, but not as a spell the players can use.

The Minx · Post by **The Minx** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 4:58 pm

SirNitram wrote:Both sound profoundly sensible to me. Think about some of the creatures; does it make sense their bites reach as far as their arms? And Wish was consistantly abused and misused. I'm kinda hoping it remains for the Great Elemental Djinns, but not as a spell the players can use.

Agreed on both. And there are a few other spells/spell combos that spring to mind as needing work also: the infamous Time Stop/Gate combination, for one. Perhaps they could rule that certain high level dimensional anomalies within one another is bad news (like placing a Bag of Holding into a Portable Hole or vice versa) or at least, the one spell disrupts the other.

Teleport spells in general could use some nerfing. Alternatively they could have an XP cost to make them less routine, at least ones with ranges beyond that of Dimension Door.

PS: As an aside, why is Gate a Creation type spell and not a Teleport type spell? After all, Gate is to Plane Shift as Teleport Circle is to Greater Teleport (sort of, anyway) and those other three are all Teleport spells.

Cynical Cat · Post by **Cynical Cat** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 8:45 pm

I'm with Nitram about Wish, some high level outsider types should retain it but it probably be out of PC hands. It was never a problem in my campaigns, although most of my PCs had an unreasonable fear of GM word twisting and cruelty. Ironically, the person who made the most use out of Limited Wish was horrible at wording his wishes and is in law school.

I have to say I'm pleased that they're moving away from the dependency on having the right magical gear for your build. Magical gear should be a nice add on to your character, not something you must have certain amounts of in certain quantities to be competitive for your level.

Bloody Good · Post by **Bloody Good** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 8:57 pm

I'm always skeptical when someone (anyone, even the creators) drags my hobbies back to the surgery table. That being said, there's always d20 Modern if they bugger it up. I think that, once all the kicking and screaming dies down, it'll be just fine. Different, but still good.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » Thu Nov 08, 2007 5:28 pm

I would just like to point out that there are already multiple monsters that have different reaches for different natural attacks. Krakens come immediately to mind, as do dragons and displacer beasts. So while a good idea, they're not really fooling anyone who's paying attention by packaging it as a new idea.

Comrade Tortoise · Post by **Comrade Tortoise** » Thu Nov 08, 2007 5:34 pm

Teleport spells in general could use some nerfing. Alternatively they could have an XP cost to make them less routine, at least ones with ranges beyond that of Dimension Door.

Might I ask why? There are spells that disrupt teleport, and the caster must have been to the place being teleported too. Any GM who has a mage who wants to teleport into the inner sanctum of the lich's fortress and allows it is incompetent

Cynical Cat · Post by **Cynical Cat** » Thu Nov 08, 2007 9:40 pm

Comrade Tortoise wrote:

Might I ask why? There are spells that disrupt teleport, and the caster must have been to the place being teleported too. Any GM who has a mage who wants to teleport into the inner sanctum of the lich's fortress and allows it is incompetent

Most of those teleport disrupting spells are rather lackluster in performance or have very high costs and teleport is extremely potent. DM's can get around it by throwing around arbitrary amount of resources, but that's a workaround, not a real solution.

The Minx · Post by **The Minx** » Fri Nov 09, 2007 9:35 am

Comrade Tortoise wrote:
Teleport spells in general could use some nerfing. Alternatively they could have an XP cost to make them less routine, at least ones with ranges beyond that of Dimension Door.
Might I ask why? There are spells that disrupt teleport, and the caster must have been to the place being teleported too. Any GM who has a mage who wants to teleport into the inner sanctum of the lich's fortress and allows it is incompetent

Not really, since you can simply scry the location first. You only need to have seen it, not been there in person. The official teleportation wards are rather limited in area of effect too. Going by the book, teleportation > wards.

Comrade Tortoise · Post by **Comrade Tortoise** » Fri Nov 09, 2007 10:08 am

you cant scry a location, you need a living target for scrying, and they get a willsave based upon your connection to them.

Cynical Cat · Post by **Cynical Cat** » Fri Nov 09, 2007 10:23 am

Comrade Tortoise wrote:you cant scry a location, you need a living target for scrying, and they get a willsave based upon your connection to them.

Sure you need a target, but the rats in the sanctum are legitimate targets as well if all you want is a visual inside it. Teleport needs rebalancing.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » Sat Nov 10, 2007 9:38 am

Cynical Cat wrote:
Comrade Tortoise wrote:Might I ask why? There are spells that disrupt teleport, and the caster must have been to the place being teleported too. Any GM who has a mage who wants to teleport into the inner sanctum of the lich's fortress and allows it is incompetent
Most of those teleport disrupting spells are rather lackluster in performance or have very high costs and teleport is extremely potent. DM's can get around it by throwing around arbitrary amount of resources, but that's a workaround, not a real solution.

Anticipate teleportation and particularly the greater version thereof do a pretty good job, especially if the teleporting mage doesn't know you're running it.

Cynical Cat · Post by **Cynical Cat** » Sat Nov 10, 2007 4:13 pm

Rogue 9 wrote: Anticipate teleportation and particularly the greater version thereof do a pretty good job, especially if the teleporting mage doesn't know you're running it.

Wow, a spell that spell that gives wizards advanced warning.

If they're running it at the time. Doesn't stop the teleportation though and does nothing for other classes. Thanks for proving my point. Blocking teleportation needs to be easy so the evil warlord doesn't get ganked in his bedroom. It isn't.

Comrade Tortoise · Post by **Comrade Tortoise** » Sat Nov 10, 2007 8:22 pm

Cynical Cat wrote:
Comrade Tortoise wrote:you cant scry a location, you need a living target for scrying, and they get a willsave based upon your connection to them.
Sure you need a target, but the rats in the sanctum are legitimate targets as well if all you want is a visual inside it. Teleport needs rebalancing.

You have no personal knowledge of the rats in the sanctum. The will save modifier will be pretty big to avoid the scry. They have a pretty good chance of making it. And you waste a scry.

Have any proposals for said rebalancing?

Cynical Cat · Post by **Cynical Cat** » Sat Nov 10, 2007 8:28 pm

Comrade Tortoise wrote: You have no personal knowledge of the rats in the sanctum. The will save modifier will be pretty big to avoid the scry. They have a pretty good chance of making it. And you waste a scry.

Have any proposals for said rebalancing?

Rats have a shitty Will save so its actually not that hard. And I can try and try again easily without alerting Lich boy.

Have teleport blocking spells be long lasting, affect a decent area, and be low level. Problem solved and teleport remains useful in most situations and for long distance travel.

LibriumArcana.Games

4th Edition D&D announced

#26

#27

#28

#29

#30

#31

#32

#33

#34

#35

#36

#37

#38

#39

#40

#41

#42

#43

#44

#45

#46

#47

#48

#49

#50