Dungeons and Dragons 4th ed. preview: Swamp Hobbits!

The Game Room
101

Well, that’s enlightening. I’m not sure I agree with all the choices, but it appears they are succeeding at streamlining the gameplay. The healing surge mechanic is a little dubious (Cleric: “Okay, I’ve healed you as much as I’m going to today, but the elf here can have more HP goodness”) although it does increase the Paladin’s Lay on Hands value.

Some of it looks like they sacrificed game balance for simplification: diagonals costing 1 square, for example, is going to open up certain instances whereby you can get a noticeable speed increase with judicious use of diagonals. There’s a reason diagonals cost 1.5 in 3.5E, after all.

It certainly seems playable, but some of it seems simplified for simplified’s sake. A shame they haven’t mentioned the grappling rules yet, I’d like to see what those are. And if they say there will be no grappling in 4E? That’s going to hurt their credibility where I’m concerned. The rules were complex, yes, but it’s a natural action to be able to do, and it’s more than a little odd to go “No, you are no longer physically able to grab someone and pin them to the floor.”

102

Some rules stuff, from the enworld link.
The following is from Xath, one of EN World’s moderators, and one of EN World’s press representatives at D&D Experience:

While I havn't been able to get my hands on one of the coveted 4e preview rulebooks, I've been able to glean a few things about complex combat maneuvers from playtesting. Thanks to my 8am 4e preview group for having their characters pull some of these stunts!

The big ones we looked into were Trip, Grapple, Disarm, Bull Rush, and Full Defense. On the way, we also discovered a few conditions.

Trip & Disarm - Trip and Disarm are no longer normal combat maneuvers. In order to attempt either, you're going to need some sort of power or class ability.

Bull Rush - To initiate a bull rush, you need to make a Strength Check vs. the target's Fortitude Defense. This does not provoke an Opportunity Attack (formerly AoO). If you succeed, you may push the target 1 space. The margin of success doesn't matter, and 1 space is the maximum that a target can be moved with Bull Rush (without taking special abilities).

Push, Pull, & Slide - These are the methods by which you move a target in 4e. You can push a target forward, diagonally forward or to the side. You can pull a target towards you, diagonally towards you, or to the side. And you can slide a target in any direction.

Grapple - You can attempt a grapple check with anything that is within 1 size category of you. To initiate, you make a Strength Check vs. Reflex Defense. This also doesn't provoke an Opportunity Attack. If you fail, nothing happens. If you succeed, you cause your target to be "Immobilized" for one round. The target can escape his immobilized condition using an Acrobatics or Athletics check. You may move the target 1 square by succeeding on an additional grapple check in the following round.

Immobilized - Deciding to immobilize a target is essentially like a PC deciding that he would like to spend his combat rounds as a Tanglefoot bag. An immobilized target can still attack normally, but cannot move. Foes around an immobilized target receive Combat Advantage against him.

Combat Advantage - You get a +2 to hit the target. Flanking a target allows you to have Combat Advantage against a target, as do most physical afflictions (such as being immobilized or prone). Being on fire, however, does not grant foes combat advantage.

Stunned - If you are stunned, you can't take any actions for a round, but you no longer drop all of your held items.

Slowed - The movement of a slowed character drops to 2, and this applies to all movement types except for teleportation.

Charging - Charging in combat grants a +1 to hit, and no penalty to AC.

Full Defense - You don't take any actions, but you get a +2 to all defense scores until the start of your next turn. As far as we can tell, there's no rule yet for fighting defensively.
103

They… took the metallic dragons out of the monster manual.

104

:eek: Although maybe they have been planning this for quite some time, because AFAIK they haven’t released a colossal metallic dragon “miniature” even though they’ve been out for around 2 years. Although the red dragon and black dragon are worth nearly every penny for their aesthetic value alone versus the small, expensive, and poorly painted regular minis, I was waiting for them to release some good dragons for me to buy :mad:

105

Fifteen bucks a month for D&D Insider, going down to 10 bucks a month if you pay for a full year. What the hell is worth that?

Also, 16th level wizard spells do like 4d6 damage. Yeah, spells are by level now.

106

Where are you getting this information? That spell thing is either flat out wrong, or they have really gone off the deep end.

107

I didn’t find enough worthwhile content to inspire me to subscribe to either Dungeon or Dragon for far less money. I’ll be interested to see how many suckers they get to buy into this. Sure, the online D&D tools sound great, but I can do chargen with a spreadsheet, and I can do online gaming with OpenRPG. It’s not as fancy, but at least I can play more than standard-issue D&D. Plus, if it is set to allow you to add content from the book you bought, does that mean each book has a unique number which when used diminishes the resale value of your book? And can you add custom items at all, when any system by which you could do so would allow you to get the effect of buying the book in which an item appears without buying it?

108

There is some spoiled info here, but that of course does not match what E-Sabbath seems to be sneering at.

Spells will apparently be listed by the level at which you can start using them, instead of having a spell level altogether unrelated to character/caster level. Rather as though, instead of “2nd level spell” it becomes “spell usable by 3rd level wizards.”

Some examples from there: thunderlance is usable each encounter by wiz 13+, causes a 5 (square?) blast, inflicts 4d6 + Int mod and pushes the victims 4 squares, but apparently does nothing if the attack is unsuccessful. blast of cold is usable daily by wiz 15+, is a blast 5, causes 6d6 + Int mod and immobilizes victims, and even on a save does half damage and slows victims.

Really interesting that fly seems to be an at-will for wizards 16+ – same for greater invisibility. hmm.

109

The built-in specifics about the races bug me a bit. I’ll decide which races to have, and I’ll plant them wherever I want, thank you. I build my own worlds, for the most part, and material that doesn’t contribute to that is useless to me and will be ignored.

I have to admit that a lot of the changes to the magic system look kind of appealing. The spell level crap has bothered me for years, and the will/encounter/daily setup looks like it might be easier to balance than the (frankly ludicrous) Vancian system. The at-will abilities could offer roleplaying scope as well–at one point, cantrips were basically at-will, and they added a lot of flavor to wizardly roleplay.

On the other hand–Magic Missile isn’t autohit?! :wink:

110

But since you no longer have to target something with hit points you could theoretically attack…well, you know.

111

The shadows?!

Yeah, Magic Missile may not be to-hit, but you can also use it whenever you could otherwise make a basic ranged attack. IOW: no more crossbow-mages. I kinda like that.

112

This would seem to suggest that a 10th level wizard will not be able to spam the battlefield with 3 10d6 fireballs, or even 1 10d6 fireball. I agree that the Vancian system of [del]memorization[/del] preparation ( :rolleyes: ) sucks, but I’m skeptical of this new method.

113

Since I intend to avoid 4E until the Inquisition comes for me, I’ve got to ask…have they actually said what “encounter” and “day” mean?

-Joe

114

I don’t know if they’ve defined them officially, Merijeek, but I can imagine how I’d use them if I were to run a campaign with the system. I would define a “day” as a period set off by by some predefined amount of rest/sleep (probably no less than four hours). An “encounter” would be similar–a single fight or set-piece (like a trapped room) with a period of at least a few minutes of rest or low activity (like walking) before or after it.

For example, a trapped room in which one of the traps causes enemies to teleport in and attack the party would be considered a single encounter. If the trap triggers an alarm, and the enemies set up an ambush a 10-minute walk down the corridor, the trap-room and the ambush would be two separate encounters.

115

I think “encounter” was more-or-less defined with the D&D Experience handout – check the link E-Sabbath posted above for character sheets. Apparently a ~5 minute rest period is enough to reset “per encounter” abilities (and… something about hit points, maybe?).

“Per day” stuff wasn’t mentioned; presumably the demo scenarios didn’t last long enough for that reset to occur, so they didn’t detail it.

116

One of the guys in my gaming group is following 4e (he’s the only one of the lot of us who likes most of the changes he’s mentioned*), and he reported differently.

They’ve removed 2 of them from the initial MM - Bronze and Brass, I think…2/3 of the ‘wait, which was that?’ trifecta at the bottom of the Metallic stack, in any case - but replaced them with two new ones - Iron and…Adamantine? The flavour text has also apparently been adjusted, so they read more as good Dragons, not scaly Celestials.

  • I think the changes to Wizards look interesting, but most of it isn’t striking me as necessary, and most of the new flavour text is stuff I’d specifically be altering. Or, as in the case of Dragons, already matches the way I use them. [Edit - I like the devaluing of Alignment as a game mechanic, too, but I already mostly ignore it, so it drops into both the first and last category. Heh]
117

I got the ‘removed the metallic dragons’ from the guy at AICN, who claims to have been playtesting and DMing 4E.

118

Oh interesting, this thread popped up again in a totally different forum. How about that?

In the meanwhile, Wizards released its second preview brochure, Worlds and Monsters, which I also glanced at. My brief perusal did not appreciably stir the fires of interest in 4th Edition D&D. I’m thrilled that the game designers are so confident in their upcoming product, that they feel justified in publishing self-congratulatory literature about how they’ve made everything so much better now. Frankly I found the tone a bit off-putting. “You know how the older editions weren’t particularly fun to play? We’ve fixed that!”

Also, the “Worlds” they feature in the preview honestly seem… not very exciting, at all. “Feywild–” because it’s fey, AND wild! “Shadowfell–” because it’s shadowy, AND fell! “Underdark–” because… hm. I forget why it’s called that. Yet somehow the Elemental Chaos avoided being named “Elementalchaotic.” I personally can’t get too jazzed up about adventuring across the “Feywild” or “Shadowfell,” which sound all too much like rejected levels from Thief: The Dark Project.

The designers make a big deal about dumping the “Great Wheel” planar arrangement from 3rd Edition, as if this had been some huge obstacle to gameplay. Maybe, to them, it was; maybe that’s where you finally arrive at if you make a living at game design. “God DAMN IT! I can do NOTHING with this! NOTHING! How the HELL am I supposed to DM a game that has separate planes for EVERY ELEMENT?”

Personally, I admit that I’m used to the concept of tapping into discrete planes to channel elemental power. It’s simpler. You want fire magic? Here is a plane with nothing in it but magic fiery things. But now, an elemental mage not only has to forge a bond with another plane, but with a specifically desired zone of an ever-shifting landscape? This seems like a cure worse than the disease. The whole point of separate elemental planes is that they’re in opposition to each other! This antithetical nature is rather subverted by having them all exist on the same plane. Anyway, isn’t that the situation on the Material Plane already?

One other aspect of the new design that I found rather distressing: ongoing Shadowcreep. For some reason, every new edition of D&D has more and more Shadow in it. Now, I think all reasonable people can agree that Shadow has one essential purpose in D&D: it is there for Hiding In. But now it’s getting to the point where Shadow is taking over. This is unacceptable. 3rd Edition introduced the “Shadow Plane,” and later “Shadow Magic.” Now 4th Edition suggests that Shadow magic is somehow preeminent over honest necromancy, and I don’t need to tell anyone how bass-ackwards that is. Now there’s supposedly a “Shadowfell” plane but not a Negative Energy Plane? Screw you 4th Edition! You’ll take my Negative Energy when you pry it from my cold dead fingers.

Shadows are not scary. You’ll note that mythologies around the world all have innumerable vivid and compelling tales of the undead: how to placate them, how to drive them away, how to send them to their final rest. There is no remotely comparable body of myth dealing with shadows, because nobody is afraid of them. Fear of shadow is the essential characteristic of cowards and infants. Therefore, let us have no more talk of Shadow ever again, anywhere.

119

The cosmology change is what really burns my ass about 4E. It just doesn’t seem that interesting, whereas the Great Wheel had that certain ring of…well, greatness to it. Luckily, that should be the easiest thing to fix in a homebrew game.

120

Ahem

“Cold, undead fingers.”

Sadly, I think it’s another sign of the anime-zation of the game.