The 4th edition FoS manifesto

[Lord Soth]

I just think that they may be trying to win over WoW fan's... Good luck WotC! Your going to need it for some of them.

They want more players, certainly. Although if they were going after WoW fans in specific, then not only would the Gnomes be in the PHB, but they'd be the tinker/inventor variety that you have in WoW. WotC, however, is going in a wholly different direction with Gnomes from all appearances, making them more fey.

But as I mentioned, before, I wouldn't be to concerned about it. They'll be available as a player race from day one out of the Monster Manual. And they'll likely get their full glorious PC race write-up in the PHB2, which is where the Barbarian, Sorcerer, Bard, and Druid will debut in. That's some pretty nice company, altogether.

[Azalin Rex]

This is a huge program, Azalin would say...

Indeed it is.

[Jester of the FoS]

Keep in mind, gnomes just aren't in the first Player's Handbook. They went with what they thought were the strongest of the classes and races.

Gnomes will be in the monster manual and include rules on how to use them as characters, along with at least three other races.
They just won't have the same selection of feats as other races.

Concerns of tactical play... remember that D&D started as a miniature wargame so, technically, role-playing, social encounters and non-combat situations are the change and aberration.
There's no way they can stop it. They can cut down on skills but remember that 1e had no skills so even a single skill is still a step forward from that, to say nothing of 2e proficiencies.

Fastplay, boardgame? Sign me up. Once I started using miniatures I haven't looked back, combat is crazy easier. People know how far they can move, know who they can attack, can use the terrain, can flank, can take opportunity attacks, etc. Sometimes descriptions don't work, and you have to remember to still add atmosphere and mood and not let the minis do the work for you, but it's one less thing for a DM to worry about.
And anything to speed-up gameplay is good.
Still, I heard these same complaints about 3e and it was quite usable without minis.

[A G Thing]

These are all good points and I agree with them I just don't want to invest in a game that takes away the improvements made for faster play and see it become another totally table top wargame. I have Warhammer Fantasy/40k for that or even D&D Mini which yes are great for speeding up combat, but I don't use the Mini rules in D&D, just the figures and boards for terrain.

Truly I can say I was one of those that was both fearful and too a much lesser extent hopeful with 3rd and while I found it good I still have doubts about this sudden change.

So I guess I will just have to suck it up and deal with the change in the wind if my players like the new system. I just hope I am worrying for nothing and maybe a little misinformed about it by what my group keeps bringing up.

If my computer was not a out of date dial up using piece of crap then I would be more informed but this is one of the few pages that doesent implode and fail to get on screen. Heck I am having trouble with the WotC page for that reason mostly.

I just need a better computer so perhaps I can keep up to date myself.

[Jester of the FoS]

These are all good points and I agree with them I just don't want to invest in a game that takes away the improvements made for faster play and see it become another totally table top wargame. I have Warhammer Fantasy/40k for that or even D&D Mini which yes are great for speeding up combat, but I don't use the Mini rules in D&D, just the figures and boards for terrain.

Thanks.
I think the game can take some good combat elements from such games. Combat doesn't have to be slow and laborious and think that's the intent. When you come right at the changes it looks bad (OMG, they're doing all movement =, range and effect areas with squares instead of feet! They're trying to force us to use minis!!!). But if you go through their though process it really does make sense (squares are easier to count and keeps the numbers small. Plus its a nice concession to the non-imperial rest-of-the-world without unnerving the changephobic US fanbase that's a large minority of D&D gamers).

Truly I can say I was one of those that was both fearful and too a much lesser extent hopeful with 3rd and while I found it good I still have doubts about this sudden change.

So I guess I will just have to suck it up and deal with the change in the wind if my players like the new system. I just hope I am worrying for nothing and maybe a little misinformed about it by what my group keeps bringing up.

My homegames are remaing 3.5 for a while (just started the MWP 3e update of the Dragonlance modules with one) but I'll probably do some Living Forgotten Realms to try out 4e and might launch an eTable Ravenloft game if I like the rules and WotC D&DI enough.

I just get tired of the motiveless 4e bashing with the unfounded rant "they're making D&D WoW!" being a particular pet peeve.

When we can play shamans, demon-controlling warlocks, trolls, minotaurs and undead and the races are divided in half, then we can worry.
Most of what makes WoW fun is computer restricted or too complicated for most PnP games, or doesn't translate, or actually is a good idea that should be used in PnP RPGs. I don't believe that just because an idea came from.... a video game... we shouldn't be afraid to implement it.

[Lord Soth]

We are thinking of first converting the stats in the WW and FoS Gazetteer sourcebooks to the 4th edition

Quick mention, but if you folks need help converting characters to 4E, I'm there. It's something I was planning on doing, anyway. Damn shame they're not coming out with the Necromancer class sooner, though, as the lack of it makes translating Strahd a bit troublesome at first. Oh well. He can be a Wizard til then (Either Strahd's a Warlord with heavy multiclassing into Necromancer through retraining, or he started in the Warlord class and then retrained out of his base class entirely and became a Necromancer, instead. I'll have to see the multiclassing and retraining rules before making that determination).

[alhoon]

I am mostly anxious to see the "Social combat" system they put up in the DMG. I don't know why so many people overlook it. The designers (in a podcast) say that they're trying a few new things on the social combat/ diplomacy arena. Hopefully it will move us away from the dreadful table:
Hostile / Unfriendly / Indifferent / Friendly / Helpful table where with a single roll and a minute of talking could turn a band of hostile enemies to helpful.
Most people would say "Your enemies wouldn't hear you for a whole minute" that's not right. They may keep you for ransom.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Damn shame they're not coming out with the Necromancer class sooner, though, as the lack of it makes translating Strahd a bit troublesome at first. Oh well. He can be a Wizard til then (Either Strahd's a Warlord with heavy multiclassing into Necromancer through retraining, or he started in the Warlord class and then retrained out of his base class entirely and became a Necromancer, instead. I'll have to see the multiclassing and retraining rules before making that determination).

It's likely that we'll be holding back on creating 4E stats for several of the A-list BBEGs, until PHB2 (Shadow power source: necromancy & illusions) comes out. Building stats that will become obsolete in a year isn't the best use of our writing-time -- particularly when you consider that most PCs don't engage in direct battles with the likes of Strahd or Azalin, if they know what's good for them -- although fans could certainly write up temporary statistics for inclusion in QtR. Even then, Harkon Lukas will probably have to wait for the bard class's return next year.

OTOH, we'll probably tackle a few darklords who can be described using the PHB1 classes this year, just to tide folks over. For once, martial villains like Drakov and second-tier spellcasters like Hazlik may actually get to hog the limelight!

[Mangrum]

Foremost among these is that the game is set up to reward tactical play... that is to say miniatures and dungeons and multi-session dungeon crawls. Skills have been pared down to few, and only those affecting "active" uses (one of the designers actually makes a joke about campaigns that actually use the Profession skill not being fun). The core concept is that D&D is about killing monsters, finding treasure, etc. Action is fun.

On the topic of a limited skill set, I have to say that, as a game designer during the 3E era, I was originally thrilled to be able to reflect NPCs' noted noncombat talents -- such as Frantisek Markov's painting -- mechanically. That quickly -- very quickly -- transformed into frustration arising from the knowledge that in order to accurately stat these NPCs as they'd been depicted, I was going to have to, quite frankly, waste precious resources on "flavor" skills that would never, ever, get a die rolled in their name. Knowledge skills were particularly painful in the early days when they really did nothing. (Ah, who am I kidding? For most Knowledge skills, it wasn't until the very end of the 3E era that they actually had some kind of mechanical use within the game, and even then that was never applied universally.)

If 4E goes back to a system where the only skills that need to be expressed mechanically (and thus "paid for") are the ones that have direct and immediate uses in encounters with PCs -- and then on top of that you can just toss in as much "and he's an excellent artist and serves a mean soup to boot" as you want -- I'd be perfectly fine with that.

But that's just my take on the skill set. When it comes to 4E as a whole, I think Ravenloft would require some major conceptual reinvention to fit at all well. My take on 4E RL would be very, very different to my approach to 3E RL.

But to be honest, I'm about five years sober when it comes to RPGs, and I haven't really been following the 4E rumor buzz.

[Joël of the FoS]

Yes I had the same problem with my players - they did put all their skills into useful uses, while neglecting those that were part of the flavor of their background.

I once had the thought of two sets of skills, one for adventuring, one for what you can do in society. With separate number of points for each.

Joël

[Jester of the FoS]

I like having one or two skills with flavour, and put a couple ranks in them. But any more than that tends to be a waste.

The choice isn't really hard. I can have my character with a lush background have skills that accurately reflect him for his short career until he dies from a critical hit from an attack of opportunity. Or I can put those ranks in tumble.

And while it's nice to have the skills reflect talent, how often does a hard number come into play? How often is a profession rolled?

[Rotipher of the FoS]

If you just plain like having skill ranks for non-adventurous skills IYC, you could always house-rule it that 4E characters get a couple of extra "trained" skills as freebies, which they're only allowed to invest in Craft, Profession, or (for non-bards) Perform. NPCs who don't pursue an adventuring class could get training in three or four of them.

[alhoon]

Yeap. Saying that Geor has a +1/2 +charisma +5 when it comes to singing (but not playing the harmonica) seems too easy to implement.
Or that the dwarf Fredab has +1/2 +charisma +7 when it comes to designing mines (why +7? Because you just like the number of course!) is also easy.

[DocBeard]

Yeah, as much as one hates to admit it, just leaving that sort of thing to the imagination would, at least, make statting out NPCs less of a pain in the ass.

[Jakob]

Did anyone check out the Pathfinder RPG from the good people at PAIZO? While it's still in the making, it might be an interesting middle ground between 3.5 and 4E.