Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition Announced

bigstrat2003 writes "For the past day, Wizards of the Coast has had a countdown to "4dventure" on their web site. The countdown ran out at 6:30 eastern time today (and the web site promptly crashed), but stories are already appearing on the rest of the web. Wizards also has had their 4th edition forums up for a couple of days."

Why did the site crash?

[tonsofpcs]

Well, I left the countdown running on my computer, when it ran out, it auto refreshed and showed me the new page. Maybe a few thousand other people did the same. Anyway, the site looks quite different now, and seems to have a lot of new content, although I can't navigate it (the server being down and all). the coral cache [nyud.net] does work though (at least it was around 8pm).

Re:Why did the site crash?

[Anonymous Coward]

They failed on their save vs. nerds roll.

Re:

[The Evil Couch]

Their site ate it because their website's been poorly maintained for at least the past year. I've lost track of the number of times that I've gone to WotC's website and gotten a friendly error message saying that some portion or another was "down for maintenance" for hours at a time. Almost as often was the times I'd get an unfriendly error message for an entire wing of their site. I'm not sure if they maintain their servers in house or if they have it contracted out to someone else, but I'd say that either

I'm not buying any more WoTC products...

[thesymbolicfrog]

First they cancel the popular and successful Dungeon and Dragon magazines by not renewing the subscription with Paizo, and next they pull a stunt like this? I don't believe I'm the only one to find the DRM-laden "Digital Initiative" to be potentially a very poor substitute for the magazines, and this blunder will only compound the ill will directed against them.

This move will only alienate their consumer base. The fact that 3.5 is working, and in no need of overhaul, exposes the fact that they are doing this under the motivation of short-sighted greed. I shudder to think what sort of backlash (as before with Dungeon and Dragon were canceled) is taking place on the forum.

I'm literally in shock right now. I thought Wizards of the Coast understood its consumer base better and was comprised of people more concerned about the integrity of the game and more competent about long-term business strategies.

Re:I'm not buying any more WoTC products...

[jaseparlo]

FWIW my favourite version is still the old Basic/Expert/Companion version - the technical parts intruded less on the role playing, and you didn't need to by loads of stuff to get going. Advanced that came out around the same time was OK, you could get going with three books at least, but you got caught up in stats and dice rolls and technical aspects of the game. I thought the version 3 upgrade was mostly about selling books, let alone a new upgrade. The integrity went once the game was sold to WOTC really.

Re:I'm not buying any more WoTC products...

[Hawthorne01]

Bah! Back in my day, we just had Greyhawk! And we liked it! You kids and your fancy-schmansy role-playing games these days! Back in my day, the nearest store that sold polyhedral was a four-day walk from my house! Uphill! Both ways! In the snow! You kids have it easy these days!

Re:I'm not buying any more WoTC products...

[Nazlfrag]

Bah! You think that was hard, do ya sonnyjim? Back in my day, the only polyhedral die were marbles, and we didn't have no fancy books, just stone tablets. Of course, we had knights and dragons back then too, which made things easier in some ways. Didn't need an imagination, for starters.

Bah, Easy I say!

[TiggertheMad]

You think you had it hard with marbles for dice and real dragons trying to eat you? PFFFt, you were pampered.

Why, When I played D&D, there were no dragons yet, and they hadn't even invented magic. To us the game was sci-fi!

NOW GIT OFF MAH LAWN!

Re:I'm not buying any more WoTC products...

[Antique Geekmeister]

Greyhawk. Now, *that* brings back memories. Graph paper, polyhedral dice rounded off from rolling, the original cardboard dungeon master's shields with the critical hit tables listed on them. Scrounging for money to pay for new lead figures and paint. Way too much soda and chips all evening, the leaden sound of grades dropping below passing as we spent nights playing instead of "studying at a friend's house, mom, honest!" The smell of far too many unwashed young men in a room, great fat older men sitting on and breaking every chair they sat on as they tried to reach over the table to move their elven-princess-wearing-only-a-tiara leaden figures.

Now send me your address so I can mail *you* these memories and kill your desire for sex for the next ten years.

Anti-Succubus

[ultranova]

Now send me your address so I can mail *you* these memories and kill your desire for sex for the next ten years.

Speaking of sex, I always wondered why there were no Upper Plane equivalent of Succubus. I mean, flirty fishing works and would be a perfect fit for Chaotic Good outsiders, so why don't they go about seducing blackguards away from evil or something ? A wink, kiss and some bedroom gymnastics could easily stop entire evil armies in their tracks.

In fact I'd say that the Balance requires such beings, unless of course sex is inherently evil in the DnD universe. I guess WotC is just too prudish to add them...

Re:I'm not buying any more WoTC products...

[Junior J. Junior III]

Greyhawk. Now, *that* brings back memories.

Memories? BAH! Back in my day, we didn't even have memories. Nothing had happened yet. The universe was still cooling off from the Big Bang, which was all anyone could talk about, since there were no stone tablets yet for us to carve the news in. We had to assemble everything from gluons and bosons and mesons with our bare hands, and we liked it that way. None of those pre-fabricated nucleons with their fancy positive and negative electrical charges.

Re:I'm not buying any more WoTC products...

[podperson]

I finally understand D&D. In D&D the rules are the content. They need to change them frequently because you run out of content. If you're actually interested in stories and "role-playing" (vs. leveling up and trying out new spells and magic items), then D&D's rules get in the way and you play something else... You also prefer your rules not to change constantly.

Re:I'm not buying any more WoTC products...

[Ohreally_factor]

You're starting to get it, but you're not quite there. The purpose of the game is to argue about the rules, not "play" them.

Re:I'm not buying any more WoTC products...

[someme2]

Yes, insightful. (A)D&D rules are about imagining how much fun playing this game would be.
Reading rules, looking at monsters in the monster manual, discussing adventures and planning and planning and planning all those great games you are going to play.
The actual game experience never lives up to the imagination. They sell content that inspires dreams of games.

Re:I'm not buying any more WoTC products...

[Aladrin]

You say that as if it's negative, but I see it otherwise.

While I haven't played a lot of pen & paper D&D, there have been quite a few video games based on fairly loose rules that you use in the right way to really come up with a great character.

For instance: In Guild Wars, someone figured out that you could purposefully use runes to reduce your health to about 10% of what other people had... And use the game's rules to keep yourself healed and deal major damage to a whole group of enemies all at once. This is obviously WAY beyond what the game designers had thought of, and shows how flexible the system is. To this day, people are still finding new combinations of classes and skills that seem to be way overpowered. Most of them COULD have been created on day 1, but were just finally imagined.

I see D&D's rules and arguments about the rules in the same way. All those arguments come from people interpreting the rules or the rules' interactions differently and coming up with new strategies. So for those who just want to play mindlessly, it's a pointless argument. For those that care, it's pretty much a basic part of the fun.

Re:

[Thyamine]

I was often the DM for our group of players, and I was always amazed at how people came up with ways to create crazy new things to do. Usually it annoyed the piss out of me, but it was always quite inventive. The problem was always then having to deal with the 'problem'. If a roomful of [insert baddies here] stop being a challenge, then you have to find your own inventive ways to get the players to work. 'Hmmmm, you put your armor on for the 54th day in a row... (rolls d20, pretends to look at it)... yo

Re:I'm not buying any more WoTC products...

[ckaminski]

I distinctly remember one game where as a bunch of third level characters we got to meet an evil dragon who was going to be instrumental in our DMs campaign, but we thought we were goners and attacked him, so one of us jumped in his mouth (the dragon failed a dodge, go figure) and tried to stab him in the brain... figure that one out...

Re:I'm not buying any more WoTC products...

[thebdj]

I finally understand D&D. In D&D the rules are the content. They need to change them frequently because you run out of content. If you're actually interested in stories and "role-playing" (vs. leveling up and trying out new spells and magic items), then D&D's rules get in the way and you play something else... You also prefer your rules not to change constantly.

I call bullshit, not only from the D&D perspective, but from all other RPG perspectives. I know people who still play Second Edition World of Darkness, which was replaced by Third Edition (and now the "New World of Darkness"); there are also people who refused to ever change to 3rd Ed D&D. The rules provide a framework, the rest is based on your imagination. If your GM/DM/ST (or whatever you want to call them) is unimaginative, then yes, you might get hindered by what is in the rulebook. The fact is a good GM can create new settings, add new characters, add new creatures, or change the entire outlay of the world.

There are rules and systems in place for a lot of these creations that GMs make. People have created tons of player generated content for various RPGs, which other people will in turn adopt. I have seen where an entirely new game was created within the rules of a larger system, like White Wolf's World of Darkness. You are truly only confined by the rules of these systems if you let yourself be that way.

D&D vs Roleplaying

[gaijin99]

I'll agree that if you ignore the fact that D20 is a class based system, add many house rules, and have a good group and DM you can actually do something other than munchkin the game. But why not just use a different system if you want to really roleplay instead of rollplay?

Each gaming system has certain strengths and weaknesses, and D20's strength lies in its appeal to munchkins, rules lawyers, etc. Now, I'll also admit that there are some systems which manage to out munchking D20, Rifts comes to mind.

But I think the original poster's point stands: If you want to play something more than a hack and slash type game, you are vastly better off with a different system. For pure kick in the door type monster slaughters D20 isn't bad at all, you want a more nuanced gaming experience and you'll find that the rules begin to hold you back. I'll take GURPS, thanks. Now if only SJ games would do something like the OGL I'd be truly happy, and I think GURPS would benefit.

Re:

[dreamchaser]

I've never bought one of their products. I stuck with 1st/2nd Edition hybrid+house rules. I've yet to see WotC do anything worth purchasing, unless I was out of paper to wrap fish with or something I suppose.

Re:

[bigstrat2003]

That's a matter of opinion on the rules more than anything else. I hate 2nd ed rules, so just for making D&D a game I'd be willing to play, WotC rules the world in my book. (Note that I'm not trying to turn this into a "which edition is better?" debate, just saying that they did do a major update with 3rd ed, which is either good or bad depending on who you ask)

Re:

[Beardo the Bearded]

Uh, it's an open gaming licence. The core books can be downloaded for free from Wizard's web site.

There are HTML versions online as well. Here are a few good links:
Sovelior Sage's d20 [systemrefe...uments.org]
Crystal Keep d20 [crystalkeep.com]

If you're intent on not paying for the other books, you can get them from The Place That Shall Never Be Named.

(I've been playing for 20 years. That gives me a +5 dodge bonus vs cries of "N00b!!")

You're refering to the SRD

[gd2shoe]

Not quite, but close.

WoTC has provided an open source license that they call "open game license" (for, get this "open game content"). They have NOT provided the core books under this license.

What they have done however (and I applaud) is provide a vast majority of the core rules under the OGL. This is referred to as the SRD (System Reference Document). The SRD does not contain everything that the books do. In general, the books are more verbose, but the SRD relates the rules just as well. The SRD rarel

Re:I'm not buying any more WoTC products...

[Anonymous Coward]

I played D&D in the transition of the 1st and 2nd edition, and I think the reason they release new versions even when the old ones are working is to stabilize things. Dragon Mag articles, supplements, special rules in modules, house rules, con rules, third party rules, and so on eventually made the game kind of a mess. I look on a new release like a "STABLE" branch in software - it's a way to allow flexibility, but occasionally fold the results back into the core.

Re:

[cyphercell]

I played 2nd edition, first edition cyclopedia, 3rd edition, and I've been interested in Open Game Licensing since around 3.5 I have visited the thread yet, but here's a link.

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?s=a7885fd 86618b84315bbfab43af9fe41&t=905801 [gleemax.com]

Re:

[ajs]

I've played every edition of D&D as well.. I'm certainly not buying 4th edition. I have a bookshelf of D&D products, and I canceled all of my outstanding orders when they canceled their relationship with the brilliant folks at Paizo [paizo.com], dumping the hardcopy magazines, Dungeon and Dragon. Now they're issuing a new version of the game, which will put further nails in the coffin of Paizo, and trying to milk the franchise for another round of "upgrade", which will incidentally harm all of the third parties

Re:

[Planesdragon]

I'm literally in shock right now. I thought Wizards of the Coast understood its consumer base better and was comprised of people more concerned about the integrity of the game and more competent about long-term business strategies.

They are. Go over to enworld.org and read the information.

3e was a much-needed refresh. 3.5 was a patch. 3.5 + all the cruft is an unstable, annoying, POS that I haven't played in years. Not because the game has gotten worse, but because a better game is so easy to make.

4e is

Re:I'm not buying any more WoTC products...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm literally in shock right now.

I hope you're near a hospital. Do you want me to call 911 for you?

Or perhaps find a dictionary so you can look up "literally"?

Re:I'm not buying any more WoTC products...

[vonFinkelstien]

Hah, hah, I literally laughed my ass off when I read your comment. Now if I could only find where it rolled off to under the computer desk.

Re:

[kpharmer]

I used to play back in the 70s and 80s.

1st edition was poorly designed, but at least it was relatively simple.
2nd edition tried to fix the design with a lot of poorly thought-out patches.
3rd edition tried to redesign the solution and managed to make it worse.
3.5 edition tried to fix the bad redesign with more bad patches.
4th edition will supposedly fix the prior bad designs.

However, this vendor has no credibility when it comes to go design - they've never really created an elegant gaming system and clearly

Re:

[Anthony Boyd]

The fact that 3.5 is working, and in no need of overhaul, exposes the fact that they are doing this under the motivation of short-sighted greed.

No. The 3.5 edition has many needed changes. Anyone who has the d20 Star Wars Saga knows that the rules can be improved, because that improved it. If WotC is basing 4th edition on SW Saga, it's a good sign.

I personally just wrapped up a gaming session tonight, and I have to tell you that 3.5 edition rules on grappling and turning undead are brain-dead. Not bra

Re:

[porl]

um... slashdot, remember?

That's called 'Bad GMing'

[Elemenope]

Most rules books for RPGs explicitly say 'these rules only at the discretion of the GM', and they are right to do so. If a character is doing infinite damage every turn due to munchkining and slavish and/or badly twisted interpretations of some rules set, the GM is not doing his/her job, period. My favorite D&D system was 3rd ed, right out of the box (well, corebooks); needed few dice, easily scalable, removed most of the cruft from prior eds, and was easy to ad hoc or homebrew rules. When a book rule

Re:

[bigstrat2003]

If a character is doing infinite damage every turn... the GM is not doing his/her job, period.

Heh heh heh... if I were a DM, I'd allow that. Unless my other players complained about it, of course. I'd think it was hilarious. Really, it's about what you want out of the game. But you are right in saying that if you have a problem with the rule balance, then change the rules to fix it. The DM's discretion, not Wizards', is final.

Re:

[TaoPhoenix]

Fascinating comment compared to their other lead flagship that allowed them to buy D&D at all.
In the Magic world, they did whatever they wanted and/or had to, to declare a central ruleset. There are no house rules at sanctioned events. Also, no turning back the clock. No "ditching all the new sets and playing like it's 1993".

I really expect that a movement will grow that will adhere closely to their 4th ed. rules as the central corpus. I expect Wizards to forcefully deprecate any prior version. However,

Re:That's called 'Bad GMing'

[bigstrat2003]

Not really. The difference between D&D, and Magic, is that people (as far as I know) don't play D&D in any sort of tournaments. If there were WotC-run D&D tournaments, they'd be within their rights to specify which version of the rules were used. You have to have a level playing field.

D&D, on the other hand, is played by small groups of people, rather than in tournaments. There's nothing they could do to stop house rules if they tried. Similarly, there's nothing they could do to stop house rules in Magic if they tried, as long as you're not talking about a sanctioned tournament.

Re:

[mazarin5]

Of course people play at tournaments! [youtube.com]

Unrealistic!

[SoupIsGood Food]

Speaking from experience, if you are:

1) Intelligent enough to win a D&D tournament
2) Lucky enough with the dice to win a D&D tournament
3) Big and strong enough to literally bash through a wall

Then, yes, the one, single, supa-hot D&D honey will be all-up-ons. And lordy, lordy, will she ever be into cosplay, with more vinyl and leather than you can conceive of... super bonus round for fetish-addled roleplay freaks. Hot chicks love a fat geek, so long as he can kill a jock with his bare hands and understands the difference between her Sailor Moon costume and her Sailor Mars costume.

The rest of you will die alone.

Re:

[bladesjester]

The difference between D&D, and Magic, is that people (as far as I know) don't play D&D in any sort of tournaments.

Unless you count D&D minis, and then there are quite a few tournies. But for standard D&D rpg? I just can't see a tournament working.

Re:

[Mprx]

Ability to modify the rules is no excuse for bad rules. The problem with 3.5e is that it is only balanced for the "iconic" party of 4: meatshield fighter, blaster wizard, healbot cleric, skillmonkey rogue. If you bothered to read the rules you'd quickly realize that this party is highly suboptimal, to the extent that playing a good character (eg. wildshaping druid, battlefield control wizard, self-buffing combat cleric) quickly makes the traditional roles irrelevant without even trying. However, a lot of

Re:I'm not buying any more WoTC products...

[Ohreally_factor]

Shades of SCO!

Uh, the Shades of SCO aren't due until 4.5.

Well at least the "news for nerds" part is back

[Liquidrage]

A front page D&D news story. That's gotta be hard to top.

Re:Well at least the "news for nerds" part is back

[jimbug]

I'm posting this with my level 20 monk.

Re:

[adelord]

Cheater, I know you faked most of those experience points! You are so out of our playgroup! You'll never run a character in one of my games again!

Re:Well at least the "news for nerds" part is back

[mickwd]

Wow, a +3 Post of Flaming!

Re:

[Short Circuit]

The last time I recall that happening was when Zonk wrote up an original review--complete with graphics--of the 3.5 core rulebooks.

That probably signifies the end of new books

[bigtangringo]

I own damn near every 3.5 book there is. I haven't looked too much into the "new version" but I have no intention to replace the books I own. If the "new version" is mostly moot, as far as system changes, then I'll continue to buy their books.

Given that the system is fairly hashed out, I don't see much reason to change.

Re:

[bigstrat2003]

I saw something saying that anything coming out between now and 4th ed (besides things which were already in the pipeline, I imagine) will be written in such a way that you could use them with either version. Either that means that they're not planning on having anything in the way of game mechanics in those books, or that 4th ed isn't going to change much.

old news

[DreadSpoon]

People said the same damn thing about D&D, and then AD&D, and then second edition AD&D, and then D&D 3.0. "I'm not buying the new edition, I wasted more money than I can count on these [lame-ass over-priced useless] source books!"

A year or two after the new edition was out, they all usually break down and buy the new edition, sell off their old books to collectors or hobby stores, and move on.

Or you can be one of those old foggies who swears by the old edition, never upgrades, and then runs out of people to play with. But then, if you honestly bought every single 3.5 source book (seriously, why the hell would you possibly need all of those?), I imagine you have bigger problems than finding people to play with.

Website Down

[JezTheBandit]

So how much xp do we get for killing the website?

Re:

[Jarjarthejedi]

10,000 xp since it was CR 40.
-20,000 xp since the DM didn't want you to kill it this early in the campaign, it was supposed to return for an epic battle around the time of 4.5, then a final confrontation when 5 came out. Now the DM's stuck trying to figure out a new arch-villain for the rest of the campain.

Re:

[jombeewoof]

Any DM worth his dice would find a way to bring the server back online.

Re:Website Down

[Nephilium]

Or use the classic:

Rocks fall. Everyone dies!

Nephilium

Re:Website Down

[bladesjester]

Almost as good as the following.

My character is standing watch one night while the rest of the party is sleeping. A lone goblin approaches.
Me: I toss a marshmallow to the goblin
*DM looks at we strangely for a moment*: the goblin pokes the marshmallow with his spear and then sticks it into his mouth
Me: I cast enlarge on the marshmallow.
*everyone falls out of their chairs*

(sometimes I think the DM just wanted to see what the heck I was going to pull next)

Re:

[Discoflamingo13]

If we didn't have to use a wish after reducing it to -200 HP to kill it, no way was that website CR40. This is some serious Monty Haul crap.

Re:Website Down

[Anonymous Coward]

Internet Information Server

Climate/Terrain: Windows
Frequency: Common
Organization: Solitary or cluster
Activity Cycle: Any
Diet: RAM
Intelligence: Non- (0)
Treasure: Nil
Alignment: Chaotic evil
No. Appearing: 1-1,000,000
Armor Class: 9
Movement: 1
Hit Dice: 2
THACO: 20
No. of Attacks: 1
Damage/Attack: 1-4
Special Attacks: Crashing
Special Defenses: Nil
Magic Resistance: Nil
Size: L
Morale: Unreliable (2)
XP Value: 12

First edition forever!

[mark-t]

I had to try 3e when it came out... I figured it was really cool that my favorite RPG was getting a facelift, as I was never really satisfied with the 2nd edition rules. But alas, after trying it out and playing it for a few weeks I concluded that it was a big mistake to have sold all my 2e stuff to finance the purchasing of 3rd edition material. 3rd edition D&D was not a role playing game as I understood it... it was basically just a pen-and-paper version of a computer game, requiring a ridiculous amount of number crunching and bean counting. Suddenly every single thing that a character was supposedly able to do was governed by a skill associated with a number... taking away a vital element of creativity that in my opinion is a vital core of any real RPG. Rather than trying to reacquire the 2nd edition stuff I formerly had, however, I decided instead to go all the way back to the beginning (well, almost) and go with first edition AD&D, because the number of books published for it was small enough that it wouldn't completely break my pocketbook to get them all. I spent a couple of weeks hunting for bargains on ebay and eventually got all the hardcover rulebooks for the game. I bought pdf's of modules through rpgnow, and I was good to go. I have now have a group of 4 players, and we play weekly.

Fans of 1st edition AD&D, check out the Dragonsfoot web site [dragonsfoot.org]. 2nd edition is well received there too.

Speak it, my brother!

[Infonaut]

3rd edition D&D was not a role playing game as I understood it... it was basically just a pen-and-paper version of a computer game, requiring a ridiculous amount of number crunching and bean counting. Suddenly every single thing that a character was supposedly able to do was governed by a skill associated with a number.

So true. IMO, the profusion of classes, monster types, feats, and other additions were really just an excuse to keep pumping out new rules supplements. Rather than fostering creative

Re:

[Nephilium]

Hmmm... my favorite systems to play under (in no particular order) were:

The Morrow Project
Feng Shui
Call of Cthulhu
Earthdawn (Yes... I liked the fact that a windling could kill a dragon if they were damned lucky!)
Mechwarrior
Mage

I never got a chance to play RuneQuest... but I will say I hate all RoleMaster system games with a never ending passion...

Nephilium

Re:

[Infonaut]

I never got a chance to play RuneQuest... but I will say I hate all RoleMaster system games with a never ending passion...

Cthulhu uses the same underlying game mechanics. Gotta love a game where your favorite PC stories are about how your character turned into a gibbering idiot. Chaosium has put out some great stuff in their time.

I bought The Morrow Project but never could convince anyone to play it. Perhaps the fact that we were so firmly entrenched in Aftermath! had something to do with it. Talk abo

Another vote for Runequest.

[khasim]

Runequest - where you can play a duck.

Forget the ducks. You can play a baboon.

Don't forget the "cults". When choosing a religion MEANS something to your character.

Yep. When Avalon Hill got it, they ruined it. Particularly if you've ever read the errata for their stuff. Lunar sorcery beats everything.

Battle magic was the best idea ever. And their hit chart was great, too. Lose a leg in combat? Well you're out of the fight (unless you're a scorpion man). But if your teammates surrender soon enough (and the en

Re:

[Hawthorne01]

Well, from a pure game mechanics point of view, I thought Victory Games' "James Bond 007" game was *outstanding*: It was easy-to-understand yet complex and open-ended and really allowed you to get into the spirit and flow of a Bond movie/book. And of course for sheer flexibility, it's either GURPS or The Hero System (flamewar in 3...2....1...) :-). An underappreciated system, IMO, was Traveller 2300: Nice and light with a great setting.

Re:

[Infonaut]

GURPS or The Hero System

GURPS definitely had it for flexibility. I thought the Hero System tended to create really quirky characters, but I suppose that's part of its charm. I'd give Hero System the nod for encouraging roleplaying, and GURPS for breadth.

Traveller 2300 was a fun game too. I really got a kick out of the future history they created for it, and it was more fun than regular Traveller in my opinion. Then again, you have to love the compact form of the original Traveller books. Perfect for a

Re:

[sgant]

my friends and I played Fantasy Hero and Danger International all the time. You do get some pretty quirky characters, which was great for our group.

Our favorite was Call of Cthulhu though...by far. I never played it when it converted to d20 though.

Re:

[the_ed_dawg]

Suddenly every single thing that a character was supposedly able to do was governed by a skill associated with a number... taking away a vital element of creativity that in my opinion is a vital core of any real RPG.

...only if your DM wants it to be. We regularly play fast and loose with the rules, allowing us to spend more time with the role-playing aspect.

Re:

[deniable]

OSRIC [knights-n-knaves.com] is trying to replicate 1st ed with OGL material. I've not given it a good look because AD&D isn't my thing.

Re:

[Acer500]

3rd edition D&D was not a role playing game as I understood it... it was basically just a pen-and-paper version of a computer game, requiring a ridiculous amount of number crunching and bean counting.

My feelings exactly. I'm not an RPG fan, but I do have some books and computer games and I play WOTC's other money-sucking game (Magic: The Gathering)... and the 3rd edition game stuck me as impossible to manage with just pen and paper...

Fortunately there are several cool games based on the D&D rules engine which I enjoyed a lot because I wasn't stuck with the pen-and-paper stats management (see: Bioware).

Please God! Let it kill DDO.

[dameron]

That would be a very good thing.

Predictions:

1) reductions in all rules requiring any DM adjudication
2) more caster nerfing to "balance" the classes across all levels
3) a new campaign world
4) idiotic marketing

Wizards doesn't seem to get the idea that it doesn't have enough momentum to carry the MMORPG market.

Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and the (incredible) Planescape:Torment put them on perfect footing to make a huge splash in the MMORPG arena, but they chose to hack their dong off by setting Dungeons and Dragons Online in Eberron, their new PnP setting.

Mind you DDO launched well after WoW.

They actually decided, I can only assume, to set their 1st mainstream attempt at an MMORPG in a completely foreign world to most of their customers in order to drive book sales.

Books.

Pulp.

Magazines. (now sadly gone)

That's how out of touch they were.

Wizards is still trapped in a world where metal must hit paper to make money, to their loss.

Remember...

[Rix]

WoTC got its start with Magic, the object of which is to purchase as much printed matter from WoTC as possible.

Oh, man, have to spend more money

[Jim in Buffalo]

I'm going to have to spend all my money buying the new books! If I had a girlfriend, she'd kill me!

Re:

[LordEd]

If you had a girlfriend, perhaps you would have to put on your robe and wizard hat [adamchance.com].

The Saga Continues

[ShakaUVM]

I run a nationwide 3.5ed D&D campaign (anyone can play -- www.livingplanar.com), and have talked a little bit with some people at WOTC about 4th edition. If you've been paying attention to their releases over the last year or two, you'll have noticed like I did that they've been experimenting with a lot of new 'systems' for doing stuff. The Tome of Battle completely redid combat for non-spellcasters, the Tome of Magic introduced 3 new magic systems which didn't fit in with the standard magic-user/cleric model that we've had since the '70s. Magic of Incarnum was another alternate magic system. Complete Scoundrel introduced 'skill tricks' which rewrote how skills worked. Complete Mage introduced 'reserve feats' which allowed spellcasters to cast (weak) spells all day long. Hell, the Warlock (which was a weak spellcaster that never ran out of spells) was probably their first real attempt at 'fixing' magic in D&D, which has long been problematic, is it has always overshadowed your mundane fighter types.

In 3ed or 3.5ed D&D, if you want to play a fighter (and you're optimizing your character), you play a spellcaster, and use spells to make yourself more human than the human.

At the San Diego Comicon this year I was a WOTC volunteer who was basically the 'Star Wars Saga Edition Guy' who got to explain the rules of Saga Edition to maybe 50 tables of people, running half hour games each time. Since Saga Edition is supposed to be real close to 4th edition, I'm probably as familiar as anyone with the hypothetical rules right now. Saga edition, in a nutshell... is okay. It removes your armor class and saving throws. Instead you have a joint AC/Save thing called Fort Defense, Reflex Defense and Will Defense, and the attacker makes all dice rolls (with the defense numbers normally 10 points higher than your old save, so a +5 reflex save would be a 15 reflex defense in the new system) so if I were to, say, fireball the party as a DM, I'd roll one d20 with my 10d6 fireball damage. If I got a 15 on the d20 'attack' roll, it would do full damage to everyone with a Reflex Defense of 15 or lower, and half damage to everyone higher. So you don't have to wait for 6 people to break out their dice, figure out their saving throw bonuses, etc. You just pitch the dice together, announce the result, and move on. A nice touch, though I'm a bit leery of running spells like Wail of the Banshee that way, as it will greatly increase the chance of TPKs -- we'll see if they keep one save for the party with that.

AC is now your Reflex Defense.

They have something called a condition track which runs concurrently with your hit points (you still have hit points -- Saga Edition is 90% the same as D20 rules). Any time you take more than your 'damage threshold' in damage (it's usually somewhere around a number between 15 to 20), you get a point of impairment, which adds a cumulative penalty to all your D20 rolls (-1, -2, -5, -10 KO), until you get knocked out at 5 points of impairment. So even if you have 200 hit points, if you take 20 damage 5 times in a combat, you'll be KOed, because they were bigger hits to you than 10 10 point hits.

The main thing that annoys me about the new system is that it is a little too generic. There's very little difference in the classes, with saves being almost totally revamped so that everyone's saves will be within 2 points of each other (your class save bonus only applies once, and you get the best of all classes that you multiclass in, and then progresses the same for everyone). Likewise, everyone gets a bonus to damage equal to half their class level. So a 20th level noble does the same damage with a blaster as a 20th level Jedi (3d6+10). The only difference in the classes are their 'special ability' talent trees, which work like in World of Warcraft. Essentially, every other level you get a new 'talent', many of which have prerequisites of other talents. So if you want the ability to reroll an attack roll once per day (a rogue ability) you might need the talent to reroll a skil

Re:

[bigstrat2003]

magic... has always overshadowed your mundane fighter types.

Did you play the same D&D I did? Magic users are incredibly gimped compared to fighters. Maybe it gets better at higher levels (I never had the patience to play past level 10ish), but you find yourself either a) having the completely wrong spells for your situation prepared, or b) out of spells, constantly. I swore that if I ever ran a campaign, spell preparation would be GONE as a house rule, and I'd use the spell point system from Unearthed Arcana.

Then again, this was my experience, and may not be

Re:

[oscarmv]

Yeah, things do invert after level 10, with the full-fledged spell casters overshadowing the fighter-types. Badly.

Re:

[ShakaUVM]

You can end a whole fight with a color spray, sleep, or web. I've tanked before as a 5th level sorcerer before, since with shield, mage armor and alter self up the monsters couldn't hit him, and if they did hit him, he'd just recast false life.

While you might think that playing a wizard is difficult, I've leveled up enough wizards and sorcerers through the years to know their strength in low levels is things like the above, not pitching out the solitary useless 1d4+1 magic missiles. You just find the niche

Re:

[bigstrat2003]

I played a wizard, because I didn't want limits on what spells were in my spellbook (the wizard has some, but they're fairly inconsequential if I remember correctly). I was frustrated that you either gimped yourself in terms of what spells you knew (sorceror), or you gimped yourself in terms of casting what you did know (wizard). Really pissed me off to no end, trust me.

Archive of the website

[rdwald]

I managed to get into the site long enough to copy some of the files; they're available as a torrent here:

http://cw.enlightning.de:6969/stats.html?info_hash =6455bdea4c06c4583302c452ed0363b06447a6e0 [enlightning.de]

New disclaimer on the cover too

[rsanta74]

WARNING: The following product contains orcs, trolls, wizards and knights. Neither the author nor the publisher shall assume any explicit or implied responsibility for potential loss of sex, lunch money, or dignity. Prolonged use may result in permanent retention of "virgin" status.

Dungeons and Dragons.

[momerath2003]

Satan's game [themadmusicarchive.com].

Kinda like software...

[ConceptJunkie]

There's a pattern here that was also the same with DOS, Windows, Netscape, and perhaps others.

Version 1 was awful.
Version 2 was a little better.
Version 3 was excellent and stable.
Version 4 was big and bloated.
Version 5 fixed all the problems with version 4 that shouldn't have been made after version 3.

Of course, I played mostly 1ed and a little 2ed. I haven't played since the 3ed came out, but I always liked the 1ed rules with all the leftover nonsense from miniatures and wargames and stuff (1" = 10' indoors, but 30' outdoors).

To be honest I thought TSR was totally jumping the shark by the late 80's with all their "If it's not 'official', you can't use it." crap, and by 1992 or so most of the people I played with had moved out of town.

I really can't speak to WotC, but I thought of software given the comments I've read. "3.5 is stable" "3.5 is buggy"...

Great Potential, Worrisome Indications

[logicnazi]

I really like the idea of a new D&D version. It's a chance to improve some of the imperfect rules in the last edition. For instance the fact that it's nearly impossible to create a fast moving dexterous fighter that has parity with a burly strength based one.

As far as people complaining about having to buy another version I sympathize but you don't have to buy the new version and WoTC shouldn't be forced not to fix the system just because some of us bought the previous version. I don't know if I will buy the new one (I have 3.5) but the next generation of gamers shouldn't be stuck with the imperfections of the system we played.

On the other hand I'm a bit worried about the online subscription part. The publication of feats and other rule changes in dragon was bad enough but an online subscription has even more of an official air about it and will give WoTC a very strong incentive to put overpowerful feats in the subscription. Hopefully, they will mostly just include story/background material and the occasional fix but we will have to wait and see.

Re:

[The Rizz]

If your group always concentrated on two-weapon fighting, it sounds like you were min-maxing damage, but still choosing suboptimal options. If you're going for a survivable tank, you make use of a shield (even more-so now with all the Magic Item Compendium goodness); if you want to dish out the damage, you take a two-handed weapon and power attack. The only reasons to use two-weapon fighting are: (1) if you have sneak attack or similar damage-adding mechanics on your character; (2) use of Tactical or Weapon

Will 4ed be OGL content?

[Dachannien]

Because there's one very good reason [d20srd.org] that my players and I are using 3.5ed right now instead of the 3ed that we bought all those books for.

Great!

[swillden]

I need some more 3.5 stuff. Maybe this will put a little more of it on ebay.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Did they fix the stupid combat system yet?

[jombeewoof]

A "hit" was considered a hit that would cause damage. Physically touching your opponent with your weapon was not enough to cause damage. (this was covered in the rules)
That is why certain armor types were better against certain weapon types.
Piercing weapons had a bonus to hit plate type armor, but a penalty to chain type armors.
slashing weapons had the opposite.
Bludgeoning weapons would have a penalty for leather, and an even worse penalty for padded armor types. etc...

It was all covered in the first edition rulebook, and that was only like 80 pages long.

Re:Oh okay, realistic combat

[Weedlekin]

"You you are a melee class and have chosen heavy armour. Do you know why it is called HEAVY armour? That is right, because it is HEAVY."

People who play role playing games (and write rules for them) routinely overestimate both the weight and encumbrance of armour. The heaviest combat armour from any period (i.e. ancient Greeks to late mediaeval) weighed around 40-50lbs, which is about half a modern military field pack, and unlike said pack, much of the weight was distributed around the body instead of being a heavy lump at the back. There are mediaeval woodcuts of men in full plate armour doing cartwheels, hand-stands, and running and jumping, and Joan of Arc routinely wore it despite being a peasant girl who wasn't trained as a warrior, so it was nothing like as restrictive and heavy as RPG rules (with the notable exception of Chivalry and Sorcery) routinely make it.

NB: many of the myths about mediaeval armour in particular come from the Victorian English, who failed to distinguish between late mediaeval jousting plate and war / combat armour. Jousting plate was massively reinforced on the left-hand side (the lance was couched in the right-hand, pointing to the left, so the left side took the impact), and restricted arm movement to what was necessary for aiming the lance and moving a shield up and down by about a foot, so people wearing it were unable to mount their horses without assistance. Jousting saddles were also specially designed to have low backs so that whoever got hit by a lance slid off instead of arching backwards, which experience had shown was an excellent way to end up as a paraplegic.

"What, you were already wearing? For the entire 6 hour journey through the old forest?"

I suggest you read some history, because people have been wearing armour of all types for periods of far longer than six hours for thousands of years, in climates ranging from winter ice to hot deserts and steamy, humid jungles. The reason for this was logistical: armour had to be transported by some means during campaigns, and wearing it was an excellent means of doing so that left valuable baggage train space free for food, water, missile weapon ammunition, siege artillery parts, and all the other sundry items that an army in the field requires.

"Okay you are entering combat finally, start the counter at 1. What counter you ask? Your exhaustion counter. You do not think you are going to last forever with a ton of steel hanging from your body do you? Ten rounds, that is your max before you are starting to loose it."

The main fatigue factor in pre-firearms battles came from the fact that swinging manual weapons of 2lbs+ around is a lot like chopping down trees with an axe, a notably exhausting activity despite the fact that it isn't usually done while wearing armour. Fatigue might be slightly increased by adding between 20 and 40 lbs of extra weight, but the effect would be minimal due to the fact that most of the warrior class (i.e. D&D fighters) had been training to fight in it since they were seven years old. A far bigger problem once helms with full face protection became common was limited visibility, which made it difficult to deal with threats that weren't directly in front of the armour wearer, thereby rendering them vulnerable to attacks from the side and rear.

"Also heavy armour tends to be very rigid, metals of the age just ain't the flexible, start counter3 to see when it will simply shatter."

The plates that were used in both platemail and full plate were hammer-forged, not cast, so they deformed when struck with sufficient force (i.e. they sustained dents) rather than shattering. There is no documented, or for that matter even mythical account of armour shattering, and there are no existing examples of even the cheapest munition plate (i.e. the stuff that was handed out to foot soldiers, and collected up again for storage) that shows any sign of shattering or cracking, although there are many which either exhibit dents and holes, or signs of dents / holes that ha

Re:You ever been in the army?

[Weedlekin]

"I have, nothing special, just the dutch draft system, but I can tell you that a typical military pack is NOT light."

That was my point. A military field pack is around twice the weight of a typical suit of armour, and it's all concentrated in one place instead of being spread around the body, yet trained soldiers carry them over extremely long distances, and then fight battles. An excellent example of this was British paras and commandos, who fought after marching significant distances over extremely rugged terrain in the 1982 Falklands War carrying not only their own field packs and weapons, but also a variety of heavier armaments such as mortars and the ammunition for them (this was variously termed "yomping" and "tabbing", depending on whether one is talking to a marine or para).

"Sure a trained soldier/warrior will be able to do it, BUT not without a stat hit."

Romans routinely marched 50 miles a day on their roads wearing chainmail or lorica and a metal helmet while carrying a large shield, pilum, short sword, and a pack containing a water / wine skin, food, eating and cooking utensils, weapon maintenance equipment, and various digging and cutting tools. At the end of each day's march, they would use their axes to cut down enough trees to act as supports for earth palisades around the entire army, and then use their digging tools to bank the earth, and excavate a deep ditch around this fortified camp. Remains of such "marching camps" indicate that they were often of considerable size, e.g. the one at Raedykes in Scotland that covers 114 acres.

A true historical incident serves to show how different people who spent every day from the moment they could walk doing hard manual labour were from 21st. century Western blobs of grease. King Harald Godwinson force-marched 1500 men from London to Tadcaster, York (185 miles) in 4 days, where they defeated Harald Hadrada's Viking invaders in a day-long battle so convincingly that only 24 of the original 200 invading ships managed to escape. Then, he heard that William The Bastard had invaded in the south, so he force-marched his army back to London in another 4 days, where they stopped only to gather reinforcements, then marched 105 miles to Hastings, and fought another day-long battle against the fresh Norman troops, who were unable to break their shield wall despite having cavalry. Harald's Saxons still had enough energy to pursue fleeing Breton, Flemish, and Norman forces who routed, and although this pursuit led to Harald's eventual defeat, it is an excellent indicator of how hardy pre-industrial people were, especially when one considers that those forced marches weren't on what either we or the Romans would describe as "roads".

"Remember we are after realism, and if you think someone who has just marched through a forest for the day wearing a full combat outfit is as fresh as a person who hasn't, you must be superman."

Historical accounts from periods ranging from early classical to late mediaeval seem to indicate that there was little effective difference in freshness between armoured and unarmoured troops that was actually caused by its weight rather than other factors such as its tendency to trap heat on hot days, and radiate it on cold ones. However, the fact that people from very hot climates such as Greek hoplites and Persians clibanarii wore it, as well as those from cold ones such as Vikings is an excellent indicator of the fact that the advantages it conferred on its wearer far outweighed any discomfort that they endured.

"If you believe that soldiers wore their full equipment all the time because of ease of transportation I suggest you read up on tactics. You can do this, IF you want your soldiers exhausted when they reach wherever they are going."

Copious historical examples show that this is not the case. If tactical sources diverge from historical fact, then those tactical sources should be revised.

"This is known from roman times with accounts from soldiers on the difference between their march

still playing 2nd edition...

[Jorgandar]

....and using some 1'st edition rules and books too. I just think D&D has kinda lost its "magic" that made the original game. I never really got into 3'rd edition or 3.5 edition. It's not about rules, it's about gameplay and overall 'feel' that made D&D what it is. If you didn't like a rule - throw it out. if you want to change something, then change it. The heart of D&D has always been flexibility to adapt. updaing the rules ad-nauseum doesn't bring the original theme back. In fact it dilutes the game.

"We can sell them paper ... on computers!"

[justinlee37]

"What the company does describe as revolutionary is the method of product delivery, which will incorporate online play for the first time. WotC is incorporating online components into the game through a new Website, DnDInsider.com. Each paper product will include codes to unlock digital versions on the site for a "nominal" activation fee. Players will also be able to use DnDInsider tools and access regular new content similar to the material that was previously released in Dragon and Dungeon magazines (see "Interview with Liz Schuh") for a monthly fee (as yet undetermined) greater than the old subscription price, but less than a MMORPG subscription. Magazine-style content will be added to the site three times a week and compiled into digital "issues" monthly."

I like how WotC's idea of "revolutionary product delivery" is "We can sell them paper ... on computers!"

Granted, they are adding that online client "to 'supplement, not replace' meatspace play," and a client like that is something that me and my friends have been saying would be cool for years now, but ...

They're still just selling us paper, but on computers.

What for?

[Opportunist]

I hated the 3.0 edition of D&D. It crippled the rather detailed world of D&D2 (i.e. AD&D) with its rich cultural and RP-able background into a hack'n slash orgy much like Diablo. It was geared away from sophisticated RP towards mindless slaughtering of mobs, character development meant "gather stuff" instead of actually developing your char.

Sure, the GM could lessen that effect, but still, what remained was that "character growth" was reduced to killing mobs left and right and looting. If you played actually by the rules, there was no room for "good role play" as something that could be rewarded sensibly.

Then 3.5 came out and, frankly, I hardly looked at it because after the 3.0 desaster, I didn't even want to take a closer look. It looks much like they heard the outcry, but I stick with AD&D.

Now, after everyone bought the books, we're hitting 4.0. So what now? Buy all those books yet again? Thanks, no. There simply is no need to. I can see that you have to stay current with games where you want to play tournaments and compete with people outside your group of friends, like in tabletop games or card games, but for role play? I choose the people I play with carefully. I don't need to compete with anyone outside of my group.

Who plays D&D anymore?

[stmfreak]

I was introduced to TSR's D&D and AD&D in the late seventies while in school, so it only affected my dignity as a pre-teen and I was okay with that. Of course, having a bunch of friends that played meant that I played ocassionally through my teens as well. My parents no doubt approved of this method of birth control.

Coincidentally, I worked at WotC when they aquired TSR, but had long ago stopped playing D&D since I had no time as a working professional and my D&D friends had scattered to the winds after High School. I left WotC before they were acquired by Hasbro, but cannot imagine that move was good for the product.

Now I'm a certified adult with job, mortgage, wife, kids, etc. and cannot imagine having time to play D&D. My kids aren't playing it. They're into Madden '08 and Guitar Hero II or sports outside. They'll ride a bike, surf the web^Wmyspace, chat with friends or play video games.

So who exactly is the core audience for this product? And why did it need to get rev'd into what is apparently a very different game from the story-telling enterprise it was thirty years ago?

Re:

[PresidentEnder]

Ya know, calling it 3.5 was a good idea. Maybe it will shut up that annoying guy who kept writing letters to Dragon about how Wizards was evil for releasing new editions. The ".5" implies that it was intermediate.

Re:

[cyphercell]

And it was indeed intermediate, I remember the conversion sheets, the day they came out, they weren't that big. And they were available before the books came out.

Re:I knew if I waited long enough...

[Arthur Grumbine]

I think that I am (rolls a d20)...happy for this news.

Re:I knew if I waited long enough...

[Surt]

Come on, this deserves positive moderation for the oblique futurama/gygax reference:

                        GYGAX
                                                  Greetings! It's a ... (rolls dice) ... pleasure
                                                  to meet you!

http://www.imsdb.com/transcripts/Futurama-Anthlogy -Of-Interest-I.html [imsdb.com]

Re:I knew if I waited long enough...

[NosTROLLdamus]

I don't think he meant for him to be modded funny...

Re:I knew if I waited long enough...

[Arthur Grumbine]

Hey, WTF!! He was talking about my post! Not his own! I'm the one that needs validation, not him!!
*shakes his fist at the gods of moderation*

Re:

[jombeewoof]

I lost interest when they started coming out with all the specialized books for the various specialties.
When I realized I had more money tied up in D&D than I had in my stereo and computer systems combined I decided to quit cold turkey.
And I realized trying to get a game of D&D together when you're 19 is a pretty sad thing. Everyone else with their girls and drugs and booze, and me with my Horseshoes of a Zeyphr, and bag of holding.

Re:

[KTheorem]

When 4th Edition comes out it will have been about 8 years since the 3rd edition books came out. Being mad because they were inconsiderate enough to release a new set of rules after that length of time seems a bit silly to me. Especially since the new edition coming out in no way makes the version you have less fun to play.

How come you aren't pissed that they made a 3rd Edition in the first place? How dare they give you a new system to use!