First thoughts on D&D 4th edition

[Cybren]

quite a few books got sent out early, and a PDF has been leaked online, so now a lot of people have seen the game, myself included.

It looks like an improvement over 3.5, but i have to say, my primary fear, that the classes would be homogenized by the use of "powers" in a negative way, was valid. While certainly different classes have powers that in general do different things, the fact that they all use the same mechanic(1/2 level + ability mod vs static defense), generally only are used for the same thing (dealing, preventing, or undoing damage in combat), and are used with predictable frequency (whenever you want, once per combat, and once per day).

[trooper6]

I have a question.

So D&D 4e...each character has a number of "At Will" special powers. Is there any incentive to make basic attacks with your sword anymore, or is it all Sinister Strike (or whatever the At Will powers are called), all the time?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by trooper6

I have a question.

So D&D 4e...each character has a number of "At Will" special powers. Is there any incentive to make basic attacks with your sword anymore, or is it all Sinister Strike (or whatever the At Will powers are called), all the time?

If you have the option, an At Will is generally better. However, you may not have the option for one reason or another (attacks of opportunity, charging, and certain powers grant a basic attack, and since you only have two at-will powers, sometimes you won't have one that fits what you want to do. In particular, you may not have both melee and ranged).

[Cybren]

Originally Posted by trooper6

I have a question.

So D&D 4e...each character has a number of "At Will" special powers. Is there any incentive to make basic attacks with your sword anymore, or is it all Sinister Strike (or whatever the At Will powers are called), all the time?

From what i've seen there's little reason to use "basic attacks" when you are able to use an at will power (which is most of the time)

[sir_pudding]

Concerns:

• All the "Attack the enemy and benefit your ally" powers. These are very hard for me to visulize. Why can't you do each effect seperately? If I want to summon a magical force sheild and there aren't any enemies about do I punch the wall?
• Warlocks are a core class. Seems to be drifting fairly far away from anything that resembles a standard archetype.
• Gnomes are no longer a core race. This is going to make the 4e version of Eberron kind of difficult I suspect. House Sivis is now composed of what exactly?
• Tieflings are now a core race. Personally I associate them (and the other planetouched) as being world specific. AFAICT there aren't any planetouched in Ebberon for instance. Also if they are going to include Teiflings as a core race, where are the other plane-touched?

[Cybren]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Concerns:

• Gnomes are no longer a core race. This is going to make the 4e version of Eberron kind of difficult I suspect. House Sivis is now composed of what exactly?
• Tieflings are now a core race. Personally I associate them (and the other planetouched) as being world specific. AFAICT there aren't any planetouched in Ebberon for instance. Also if they are going to include Teiflings as a core race, where are the other plane-touched?

Gnomes have player stats in the monster manual, and i don't get what they're doing with tieflings at all. It was so arbitrary. They don't seem to be "plane touched" either. They're not "heirs to a lost demonic empire" or something, and all the artwork portrays them as "freaky demon goat people". A far cry from the "hint of the otherworldly" that they previously were

[LoneWolf23k]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Concerns:

• All the "Attack the enemy and benefit your ally" powers. These are very hard for me to visulize. Why can't you do each effect seperately? If I want to summon a magical force sheild and there aren't any enemies about do I punch the wall?
• Warlocks are a core class. Seems to be drifting fairly far away from anything that resembles a standard archetype.
• Gnomes are no longer a core race. This is going to make the 4e version of Eberron kind of difficult I suspect. House Sivis is now composed of what exactly?
• Tieflings are now a core race. Personally I associate them (and the other planetouched) as being world specific. AFAICT there aren't any planetouched in Ebberon for instance. Also if they are going to include Teiflings as a core race, where are the other plane-touched?

Gnomes will apparantly be covered in the Monster Manual, with playable stats. And I know Eberron will eventually get a 4th edition manual, so they're bound to include stats for Eberron's races.

[Jürgen Hubert]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Concerns:Gnomes are no longer a core race. This is going to make the 4e version of Eberron kind of difficult I suspect. House Sivis is now composed of what exactly?

Apparently, all Eberron PC races are listed in the appendix of the Monster Manual, complete with all required stats. They only list two shifter variants, though (oh, and while changelings are not explicitly listed, dopplegangers are now functionally identical to them, and they are listed).

[Bruno]

I don't particularly see a problem with not listing races suitable for Eberron or any other campaign setting in the core rule book. They can, after all, just add them in the new, updated, expensive, replacement campaign setting book.

I don't mind the inclusion of Tieflings but no other part-outsider. I really have problems with the idea of angels getting nookie, it hurts my brain, and I can't even figure out how a half-elemental works in the first place.

The dragon people are no more draconians than half-dragons were in 3.5; they're dragon people, a concept that's been around the block more than a few times. They'll be draconians when their colour matters and they blow up or turn to stone or whatever when killed.

I see why the gnomes have been left out of the PHB - they've been changed from 3.0/3.5 - they do potentially game-unstabilizing tricks like becoming invisible, and therefore have been left to the "DANGER: OPTIONAL" section.

Monks, barbarians, rangers, and bards have not been exiled from the game - they're just not in the first volume of the PHB. Remember that one of the explicit policies for 4.0 was admitting that the periodic supplements (Masters of the Wild, Sword and Fist, etc) are treated by the player base like required cannonical supplements, so they need to start treating them like it. I expect to find rangers and barbarians in volume 2, and probably monks as well. They may hold off on bards until volume 3, unless they think of some brilliant way to make bards functional in a dungeon crawling environment.

EDIT:

It's a little weird coming from the outside of the D&D community, but most groups really do treat EVERY SUPPLEMENT issued by the original publisher as vital expansions to the core rules, and are automatically allowed in a game unless otherwise specified by the GM.

I'm rather used to treating supplemental books as not allowed, by default, and require explicit permission to use. D&D players, as a demographic, are the other way around - by default they're used, unless explicitly forbidden.

[IrishRover]

So...what is the backwards compatability with 3/3.5 like? 1 to 2 was easy (and I'm dating myself, but I remember the ORIGINAL Unearthed Arcana as a big event in gaming) 2 to 3/3.5 was tough, and 3 to 3.5 was (for the characters I play) trivial.