More Details on Dungeons and Dragons Fourth Edition

Gamespy had a chat with Chris Perkins, story manager for Dungeons and Dragons R&D, at this year's Gen Con. Though Chris had no more details to offer Gamespy than he did for us at the event, the piece puts a lot of information all into one place on what we can expect from D&D Fourth Edition. "GameSpy: We've been reading a lot about talent trees in 4th Edition ... Christopher Perkins: Talent trees aren't unique to MMORPGs. Wizards has produced other games that use talent trees, such as the d20 Modern Roleplaying Game and the Star Wars Roleplaying Game Saga Edition. The theory of game design, regardless of platform, is constantly evolving. We've taken our gaming experiences over the past decade, as well as player feedback on the games and supplements we've produced in that time period, to build a system for character creation and advancement in 4th Edition that draws inspiration from numerous sources, but isn't exactly like anything that's been done before."

Gathered Information

[LightPhoenix7]

Yeah, because no site [enworld.org] is gathering 4E information, and certainly never did for 3E either. Seriously, ENWorld is the best (and biggest non-WotC) D&D community on the net, and anyone who is a fan of any edition should be posting there.

Re:Gathered Information

[Anonymous Coward]

Nerd.

Re:

[Caste11an]

I just ran out of mod points, dammit.

Truer words were never spoken. You could be getting this info straight from some of the horses' mouths. Seriously, many of the industry giants regularly post on ENWorld.

Go there now.

Re:

[sckeener]

anyone who is a fan of any edition should be posting there.

one shouldn't always preach to the choir either. Slashdot gets a lot of hits. I know some D&D players that never go looking for new information about their hobby. They are stuck in a rut with their game. Maybe because they do not pursue the new...maybe because of the cost...who knows. The end result, if you care about the hobby, should be to get gaming news out to the heavy traffic sites.

Sure you can refer them to enworld, like you did, but

Play by the rules, die by the rules.

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, who uses unmodified rules when playing a campaign? Its not like we need some kind of campaign standard because we will change GMs mid adventure.
Me and my group always play with some heavily modified AD&D planescape settings.

Re:Play by the rules, die by the rules.

[Planesdragon]

Screwy berk, you can't chant the new rules? Armor class going up instead of down makin' ya all wobbly?

Go back to the Prime; real cutters went to d20 almost ten years ago.

Re:

[clem]

Seek out Planewalker [planewalker.com]. It has what you're asking for.

Re:

[Asmor]

Athas.org [athas.org] also exists as the Dark Sun equivalent. There's a spelljammer.org [spelljammer.org] as well.

I think they're semi-official, in that Wizards acknowledges them and allows them to post their conversion materials, with the stipulation of keeping fluff to a minimum. Basically, you still need the original 2e stuff for the full effect (which are still offered as PDF, as well as being fairly easy to find on eBay and at any hobby store with any sort of collection of old stuff).

It's also worth noting that, during Paizo's run,

Obligatory

[Arceliar]

The geeks shal inherit the earth, right?

I for one welcome our polyhedron dice rolling overloards.

Now mod me +5 Insightful

Re:

[TriezGamer]

GB2/b/

Re:

[Spy der Mann]

Obligatory (Score:4, Insightful)

Now mod me +5 Insightful

*rolls 1d6* 4 instead of 5... you lose.

What?

[Zatchmort]

We've been reading a lot about talent trees in this edition...

Wait, my character can now gain talents just by shaking certain trees? Score! This will make adventuring much easier!

Re:

[thorshammer42]

So they've made an Animal Crossing RPG?

Re:

[Psiven]

Oh wow! But does it require friends codes then? Because it's tough enough to get new D&D players as it is.

Re:What?

[DreadSpoon]

It's going to suck playing a Druid. "Protect the forest? Or beat the crap out of trees to get talents? I use the talentes to protect the forest, so is it justified? But then, I'm not really protecting it at all if I'm harassing all the animal nests to get talents. I should have been a Cleric, dammit."

Re:

[Nimey]

Druids are all wannabe clerics, anyway.

Re:

[SurturZ]

Dude, so wrong. You've obviously never played a Druid nor seen a Druid in action.

Fighters are wannabe Druids.

Re:

[wolfing]

Clerics beat druids, ask the Order of the Stick if you don't believe me :)

Re:

[Jaysyn]

That was *so* not in Weather Control's description.

Druid is the most broken class in the core books.

[Anonymous Coward]

Says someone who has never deeply examined wild shape or summoning and who thinks that Druids are nothing more than second-class healers. A little more familiarity with the Monster Manuals will net you a truly sick reward for the effort.

Druid is the single most broken class in the core rule books. Go ask the Character Optimization boards on WotC's site sometime if you don't believe me.

And this was true even before someone in Eberron development skipped their court-ordered medication and turned out the Pla

Re:

[king-manic]

It's going to suck playing a Druid. "Protect the forest? Or beat the crap out of trees to get talents? I use the talentes to protect the forest, so is it justified? But then, I'm not really protecting it at all if I'm harassing all the animal nests to get talents. I should have been a Cleric, dammit."

Just make him chaotic neutral and your fine.

Re:

[Macgrrl]

Just cast barkskin on your enemies before you beat them up.

Those weren't talent trees...

[patio11]

... those were talent dryads. And now they're pissed talent dryads.

Re:

[insanecarbonbasedlif]

they're pissed talent dryads.

Drunk dryads has a better alliterative ring to it...

I'm sure bards would like to pick up an *alliterative ring*. I wonder what kind of charisma bonus it has?

Re:

[Trent Hawkins]

you also gain levels by buying new WotC books.

A new one comes out a week and I hear the top level is above 100.

Re:

[edward2020]

Dear Trouser-Stain, Huh? Fin.

Slashdot moderation

[Max Littlemore]

./ needs a +1 Troll moderation option.

Trees

[Velaki]

Reminds me of the career trees from WH:RPG from many years ago. Nothing new. Might interest some prolog programmers again...you know...goal-seek to the node you want.

*yawn*
-v.

Re:

[kpharmer]

> I would love to see the 4th edition finally allow you to multiclass properly

Then you'll probably want to switch to a different game. Try something like GURPS - where the entire simple concept of classes was abandoned decades ago, and you can easily combine many different types of skills. Of course, how easily you master a skill will depend on your dexterity or intelligence and prerequisite skills - but still, you have total freedom.

Re:

[chelanfarsight]

screw multi-classing go with a good skill based system like the WestEnd Games d6. that star wars game rocked.

Star wars!

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> and the Star Wars Roleplaying Game Saga Edition.

Try as I might, I never could quite 1-shot the undead guy in the second encounter near the end of the game in KotoR II. Technically if I re-loaded enough, and all my flurries crit'd, it would have, but I never took it that far. 1-almost and a second quick whack, that's enough.

Yeah, "hard" was a joke, but sheesh.

Any word on Game Table technology?

[wembley fraggle]

So has anyone said anything about what kind of platform they're using for Game Table? I for one hope there's a mac/linux client. One of the reasons I play World of Warcraft (besides the addiction) is that I have a Macintosh, and I refuse to buy a PC just to play D&D via the internet.

Re:

[Kwami]

According to WotC_DM on the Gleemax forums (he's a staff member): "The D&D game table and the character builder are windows applications driven by a 3D-engine (DirectX based). The character sheet, dungeon builder and encounter builder will be standard windows application." Source: http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?p=13615178#post13615178 [gleemax.com] Also, when confronted with the possibility that WotC's data about Macs is wrong, "We are aware of the trends in this area, and as I mentioned earlier we are l

Re:

[wembley fraggle]

Bah, oh well. At least I have a good excuse to not get a subscription to D&DI then. I can just have my friends print out stuff for me.

Not impressed by 4th edition

[Spacelem]

Meh, nothing I've seen about 4th edition has impressed me yet. At best they are fixing some terrible problems present in 3rd edition, and at worst they are ignoring all the incredible game design that has come out in the last 10 years.

They're still releasing 3 core books and separate background books, when they should be releasing 1 core book containing the rules, character generation and a little basic background. They're keeping levels, which have been hideous from the word go, and force you to wrestle wi

This is great new system, check this out:

[geekoid]

You want to level? buy a booster pack to get that level.
Want a talent, buy a booster pack.

No not really, but it wouldn't surprise me.

Skill Trees from Traveller Original?

[I.S.Bear]

Didn't the original Traveller system utilize Skill Trees? How innovative of 4th edition to reach so far back for new ideas.