As with most big changes, this will keep many doomsayers busy and the rumor mill working full time. This thread will try to collect only meaningful information that is verified or from an official source.
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This thread is locked as it’s only here for information. There are already threads discussing the change elsewhere on this board.
However, this information post can grow with your help : please bring me back the information you find (PM me) and I will update this post with relevant and additional information.
PM me the new information and the source (url link needed). I want to see information directly from the horse’s mouth, and not third party saying XYZ said ABC.
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First, here’s the official announcement, made on August 16th :
http://www.icv2.com/articles/home/11123.html
Rucht also found a WotC interview that details more about 4th Edition. This one makes a pretty big claim : 4th Edition will be so different from 3rd Edition that you probably won't be able to make an easy conversion.August 16, 2007
Wizards of the Coast is announcing at GenCon today that it will release the 4th Edition of its category-leading Dungeons and Dragon roleplaying game in 2008, the first full new edition in eight years. The three core books will be released next summer on a monthly schedule: Player's Handbook in May, Monster Manual in June, and Dungeon Master's Guide in July. Pricing and page counts of the new products will be consistent with current packaging. Graphics have been updated, art will be used on the covers, and interior design has been opened up to make the books less intimidating to new players.
Lead-in products, Wizards Presents: Classes and Races and Wizards Presents: Worlds and Monsters, will be released in December. An April release, Keep of the Shadowfell, will include a set of quickstart rules for 4E.
While there are changes in play (such as incorporating "epic-level play," with 30 levels instead of 20), they are described as "evolutionary" rather than "revolutionary." Other changes include new power sources, changes in resource management, and new encounter design, and more clearly defined monster roles. Changes will speed play, make the game easier to learn, and make DM-ing easier. Concepts for 4th Edition gameplay were tested in the new Star Wars RPG, and the Book of 9 Swords.
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.
Gameplay features on the Web will include a digital D&D game table, and voice chat and text messaging, to allow online players to communicate with each other. The online play is designed to "supplement, not replace" meatspace play.
The Open Gaming License will continue as it has in the past, allowing the use of the rules in other publishers' games.
Work on the new edition began in 2005, with the major work all accomplished in the last year.
D&D products released between now and the launch of 4th Edition will fall into three groups. Edition-proof products (which are mostly story) will not include mechanics that are edition-specific. Some products will be "enhanced" to 4th Edition mechanics after release through DnDInsider, and a couple of series will end as 3.5 products.
The setting for the core books are campaign neutral. Forgotten Realms will be the first campaign setting to be updated (in August 2008). Other campaign settings will be updated at a rate of one per year.
Marketing support will initially focus on migrating the existing player base, and then move to an acquisition strategy to re-activate lapsed players and acquire new ones. Midnight launch parties will be used to kick off sales of the first new release in May.
http://www.wizarduniverse.com/magazine/ ... 672645.cfm
Last for the moment, here’s another detailed report from someone (srhall79) who was at the convention when they announced the change (thanks Guardian of Twilight for the link). Remember it’s an outsider’s report, with possible perception bias, and perhaps not all 100% truth. We’ll try to verify this information in the future.THE FOURTH AMENDMENT
Roleplaying granddaddy ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ is leveling up, redefining online gaming and bringing huge changes to ‘D&D Minis’
By Thorin McGee
Posted August 16, 2007 2:30 PM
If you thought the advent of d20 was a giant leap for gamer kind, they’re looking to jump Springfield Gorge with this one. 2007 marked Wizards of the Coast’s summer of big ideas: Magic’s getting planeswalkers and two blocks a year, Gleemax.com is spearheading the company’s conquest of the Internet, and at Gen Con, Wizards announced the Fourth Edition of Dungeons & Dragons.
THE BOOKS
“We think Third Edition is a wonderful platform and we’re building upon that,” said Bill Slavicsek, Wizards of the Coast director of RPG research and development and the man at the wheel for Dungeons & Dragons, d20 and all of Wizards’ roleplaying initiatives. “But we have learned a lot about what’s worked and not worked over the last eight years, and we’re certainly looking to get rid of the slow and bumpy parts and just get to the fun” in Fourth Edition.
This new edition will stick with the d20 system, but the designers see many elements that can be improved. One big emphasis has been on streamlining turns to help the game get around the table a bit quicker; they know there’s nothing the rules can do to keep a party’s mage and barbarian from wasting 15 minutes screaming over tactics at the start of every combat, but at least they can get you out of grappling details a bit faster. And the mage and barbarian might get along a little better thanks to revamped spell recovery rules that won’t do away with the need to rest to replenish spells, but will give players more options to recover spells and in-game incentives to do something other than call nappy-time every two encounters.
In essence, what you’re going to see mechanically is the d20 system evolved: rebuilding the clunky parts, greasing the wheels and polishing the chrome until you can see your character in it. Part of that polishing includes ramping up the coolness factor on some of the less-popular character classes to make sure that every class has a unique and essential role in a well-balanced party; you might see some of the traditional classes fall out of the base book in favor of sexier roles. The same thing will happen to the races covered in the core books, where the half-demon tieflings will claim a place at the expense of an undisclosed race—we’re guessing a half-elf, gnome and halfling were shut up in a dark cave with some paring knives, and no questions were asked of whoever came out…heck, there might even be three new races in the new edition! Not to worry; Slavicsek promises that any beloved races cut from the core books will appear in early Fourth Edition expansions.
Not all of Fourth Edition’s changes will add to the game by subtraction; many rules tweaks they’ve experimented with in books all over Wizards’ RPGs will show up as well. For example, Slavicsek tells us that “The Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords book, which gave fighter-type characters the same types of options spellcasters do by basically giving them spells for fighters,” was received very well. “That idea has been extremely popular, and we’re adopting something similar for Fourth Edition.”
As always, the Player’s Handbook, Monster Manual and Dungeon Master’s Guide will be the core of the new edition, and you’ll see them in May, June and July of 2008 respectively, just in time for everyone to get new campaigns up and running for next year’s Gen Con. And yes, Wizards does recommend you begin new campaigns with Fourth Edition. “It’s not going to be as huge a jump,” as from Second Edition to Third Edition, said Slavicsek, “but there’s enough changing in the core system of how we are doing classes and races and characters that we’re not even gonna attempt it—we’re just telling you it’s better to start over.” Conversion went over like a lead balloon with Third Edition anyway.
THE PLASTIC PERIPHERALS
So Fourth Edition will be a new rule set based on d20, but not remotely compatible. What’s that mean for the minis game? Effectively, this is D&D Minis 2.0 as well. Starting with Dungeons of Dread in April of 2008, D&D Minis sets will use Fourth Edition rules. According to Slavicsek, “All your plastic will still be usable, but your stat cards will need to be updated.” However, you’ll be able to get updated stat cards for free on Wizards’ website for Unhallowed and the sets printed since. In addition, there will be a sort of all-star set of updated cards available for download that will include updated stats for the figs getting the most tournament play. And of course, there’s always room for re-releasing popular figs in post-Fourth expansions of the future.
THE NEW ONLINE WORLD
But updated stat cards aren’t the only piece of Fourth’s puzzle being played online. Today, millions of people go online to pretend they’re elves and orcs and goblins on epic quests in various MMOs, sometimes even in the D&D universe with D&D Online. But we can’t help but feel that all those MMOs have just been honing in on D&D’s territory. After all, how many World of Warcraft and EverQuest players started because their D&D group broke up? Wizards aims to find out through an online initiative called D&D Insider.
“If you think of your favorite movie double-DVD set, the movie is the books, and all the specials, that’s D&D Insider,” said Slavicsek about the subscription-based web initiative that will let any D&D player expand their experience on the official website. “It’ll start with your electronic version of Dungeon magazine and Dragon magazine,” which Slavicsek is particularly familiar with because he used to be the editor of Dragon. However, because they’re moving the production in-house, all of the content will be official D&D canon, most of it developed by the actual designers. In addition, there will be a suite of DM tools—experience calculators, a dungeon tile mapper, etc.—to help the most overworked players in gaming get their campaigns running in record time, and private pages for the DM to post information on the world for his group to access. On the PC side, an official character generator will let players design the character they want to play, save it and print it out at any organized play event, which will make organizing such events a lot easier and may—hopefully—spur a resurgence of organized RPG play. Players will also be able to create an exact representation of their character’s look through the character generator much like you might in an MMO, and then use a custom-tailored “virtual mini” of that character on D&D Insider’s most exciting offering, the virtual game table.
“The D&D game table is basically the place where you can play D&D 24/7. It’s the kitchen table on the internet,” explained Slavicsek. “It lets you do everything you can do on the kitchen table—roll the dice, lay out your battle map, lay out your dry erase marker map, lay out your dungeon tiles, lay out your virtual miniatures,” and it will let players use voice chat through the company Vivox to communicate directly through the game table just like if they were all in the same room.
“What we really like about this is that with a lot of groups, after college the group breaks up, never to see each other again. Well now you can call each other and log into D&D Insider and play on the D&D game table. And suddenly your groups that have been gone for 10 years can get back together and play with each other.” According to Slavicsek, all of this will be free to D&D Insider subscribers, but also available to nonsubscribers for a nominal fee.
Will that be enough to draw D&D nation out of their Third Edition d20 campaigns and into 4.0? Will it be cool enough to convince some of the MMO-playing mob to try a completely different online experience? Sounds to us like it might. After all, anything that helps college gaming groups reconnect in the real world can’t be all bad.
http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.ph ... st13457928
Secrets of D&D seminar
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What follows are my notes from the Secrets of D&D seminar, held Friday at GenCon:
Alright, here goes, cleaned up so they should make some sense. First off, the Santa Fe room was a lot smaller than expected- the event guide say max numbers for the event was 200- that's about 50 over the listed Max Person Number. So, lots of people standing or sitting on the floor.
Andy Collins, Mike Mearls, Rich Baker, and Bill Slavicsek presented this, with Andy leading (and if you don't recognize the names, you haven't cracked open a D&D book in the last few years)
They started off with going over the upcoming products. Some are 3.5. Several are 3.5 with D&DInsider info planned, which should make them useable in 4E. These include Exemplars of Evil (major nasty bad guys), Dragons of Eberron, City of Stormreach, Elder Evils (mini-adventures which can involve the guys from Exemplars, as well as Cthulu-type stuff), and Deserts of Desolation, the next mini expansion which will include 4E monsters, with revisions like the new troll and new ones like the Fire Archon shown on the box art. And then there are the Edition-Proof stuff; coffee table books like Dungeon Survival Guide (art spreads of famous dungeons), books like Confessions of a Part Time Sorceress, Dungeon Tiles, and Inn Fighting, a new noncollectable dice game.
In December, we should expect to see the first major 4E preview, Classes and Races. January brings Worlds and Monsters. Both should have lots of concept art and more. After that will be Dungeons of Dread, another mini expansion; one concept art shown for this was a four armed skeleton.
The PHB is due out in May; in April, we'll get Keep of Shadowfell, the preview adventure. It will have quickstart rules and pregens, so you can start playing right away. It will focus on how 4E will approach encounters differently, including noncombat encounters, social encounters, and dynamic battlefields.
May 2008 is the release of the PHB. They stressed that this is an evolution, not a revolution- so, a more gradual change than the switch from 2e to 3e.
-30 levels, so epic support in the core.
-easier to DM. Rather than the current standard where 4-5 PCs face off against a single monster, they want groups of pcs to fight groups of monsters, and still have it go smoothly.
-Defined roles: make it clear how each character is supposed to contribute, but give the character the tools to do their job, and then other stuff. So, if your healer is a druid, he'd be able to heal, and still have all this other stuff that ties into his being a druid. I'm probably not explaining this well, but the point is, each character will have a role, and whoever you pick for that role can fill it, but that is not the be-all end-all fo the class.
-New power sources- Arcane, Divine, Martial, and eventualy Psionic (not core, but it will be supported) so that everyone has choices, beyond clerics and wizards choosing which spell to use, while the fighter gets to choose how much he power attacks by.
Is this a power up? Yes and no, more toward the no but now everyone gets to make meaningful choices.
Tome of Battle was held us as an experiment to give fighters spells, a successful experiment in WotC's eyes by the sound of it.
Every class will have abilities that function At Will, Per Encounter, and Per Day. So, still resource management, but even if you use all your per day spells, you still have other options. A specific example- a wizard should never have to rely on a crossbow because he's out of spells.
When leveling, you'll have about one decision each level- a new feat, a new power, something. There will be lots of options, but you only have to worry about this one category.
They want to get away from the reliance on magic items. Magic items will still be a part, but as tools; you'll be cool because of what your class lets you do, not because of your stuff.
Level division:
1-10 Heroic- foes are orcs and ogres, some giants, small dragons. Adventures tend to be local
11-20 Paragon- on par with the current low to mid teens right now. Bigger threats are faced that might threaten a kingdom
21-30 Epic- World or Planar threats.
The goal is to have the levels play in a similar manner- they don't want a 25th character overwhelmed with 80 abilities. The main differences should be in the story, not how they play.
PHB and MM should both be 288 pages, the DMG 256.
There will be a new encounter design, with more monsters in a typical encounter. The monsters will have their own roles and their own abilities- the orc will have orc abilities, not fighter or barbarian abilites; Mearls offered up an acid spitting orc shaman as an example that was heartily embraced by the rest of the team.
June sees the release of the MM. I hope you guys get to see the pics of the prototype gargantuan Orcus- very cool. He's also featured on the MM cover. They're hoping for about 300 monsters on the 288 pages; with smaller stat blocks, it might work.
Things that aren't changing:
-This is still a tabletop RPG (although that tabletop could be online)
-It is still a game with cooperative storytelling.
-Still Medieval fantasy, and they were pushing this. Greyhawk is out as the default setting; they don't want kingdoms and empires spanning the globe. Instead they want points of light in the darkness; there's little travel between these points of light, and those that do stick to the roads. Adventurers are the guys who go off the roads.
There will be some sample gods in the PHB, and building blocks for making your own. Figures like Asmodeus, Tiamat and Orcus will all still factor into the game. There are still some Greyhawkisms, like Vecna, Modenkainen and Bigby. They want to give the DM more flexability.
Options not restrictions is a key point. Make it easier to make characters that don't suck.
-a question came up, does this mean the end of Vancian spell casting? Answer, yes and know. There'd still be elements of it, but a wizard who casts all his memorized per day spells should be at about 80% of power.
-Still D20, still have the OGL, but modified (I wasn't able to attend the OGL meeting that night). The skill system would be truncated; if you want to be a tailor, write tailor on your sheet because they're tossing profession: tailor. The focus will be on active skills. Some skills are getting combined. Who buy Hide without Move Silent? Almost no one, so they're getting combined. Skills will also be more interactive; diplomacy should be more than just a single die roll.
What about conversion? They admitted the conversion guidelines they'd put out had never covered everything. Now, there are 8 years of books, how could they convert them all? What has been done as WotC staff games moved from 3.5 to 4E, they would build up the character from the ground up, making the as they thought he/she should be. Rich mentioned his 8th leve Warmage/Warblade. He picked 8 levels of classes and ended up with a character that he felt captured his original intent. Andy talked about his brother's spelltheif, which was remade as a wizard/rogue that really got the magic-using rogue feel that was intended.
DMG in July
The 4 Parts of 4E
-Physical Products
-Community
-Organized Play
-Digital Offerings
D&D Insider
-A lot of stuff on that's been on the website for free- previews and such, will still be free
-Subscription should cost about what a Dragon and Dungeon subscription cost, but it sounds like there will be more overall content.
-Dragon and Dungeon should still be the place for newcomers to get published.
Now into answers to questions
Prestige classes will still exist, but different. They want to make them easier to integrate. They also don't want you to have to stop being your core class to enter a prestige class- you could be a frenzied berserker but you'd still advance as a barbarian. They couldn't say much on this.
They want to make it so you don't have to plan so far ahead. Retraining akin to the PHB2 rules should help. Also getting rid of some- not all- feat trees. Whirlwind was an example here, with 5 or so prereqs; they don't want you to have to spend several levels working toward something.
Multiclassing will be more useful. No more bogus combo- a fighter/wizard shouldn't be a character who sucks as a fighter and sucks as a wizard. To help with this, they're trying to smooth out the power curves.
XP will be easier; no more comparing CR to party level to find out how much they're worth. CR is also gone, melded into monster level. To build an encounter, you determine the XP value you want, and then pick out monsters that total that XP value. This should also make it easier to modify encounters.
A question on grim and gritty play was that it wouldn't be addressed in the PHB, but maybe in the DMG- though not necessarily the first DMG.
For monsters, the focus is going to be on what the monster is likely to do. As they did from 3.0 to 3.5, they'll cut out a lot of monster abilities because a monster with a life expectancy of 7 rounds doesn't need 30 abilities.
Digital issues of Dungeon and Dragon (the compilations at the end of each month) should be useable offline. D&DInsider expansions for books will probably require you to be online (and they are working on how to keep someone from copying a code in the store and logging on with it)
Wizard and Sorcerer are being pushed further apart; there will be a bigger difference in the classes than just resource management.
A common phrase with R&D is "Class X kills Class Y and takes his stuff." Example- Ranger and Scout cover a lot of the same themes. Are both needed? Not really, so Ranger kills Scout and takes his stuff; the scout is out, but his abilities will be kept as options for the ranger.
This is not 4.0, this is 4th Edition; they do not want a 4.5. Errata will be downloaded into the virtual copies of the book.
Monsters are not going to be designed with the idea that they might be used as PCs, as it was felt this limited monsters. Some monsters will be obvious choices as races; goblins and such. The goblin won't have as much support as a core PC race, but with enough interests, it might get more in online enhancements.
There will be slightly fewer core classes, since each will take up more space.
Alignment will not be as it is now. Andy Collins doesn't want it as a mechancial element, Bill backs him, so Andy's getting his way.
Will magic item creation use XP? No. Hell No! XP are not a resource. So says Andy, and again, he gets his way. Likewise, no monsters eating XP.
Every adventure published in Dungeon online should be portable to the virtual table top.
They want to make active cool things for races, so that a dwarf fighter is really different from an elf fighter, and more than the dwarf getting +1 to damage vs goblins. Mike spoke about his dwarf fighter, who took a beating and kept going, because he's a Dwarf fighter.
Conscious avoidance of ECL- it was a kludge they want away from. Since they don't want everything to be playable, that should help.
And that's the end of my notes. Hope you've learned something new looking through those words.
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-- as well as some examples of between-session DM duties under the 4E rules.
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