[Hold Your Horses!] Buy.com breaks DnD 4e rstreet date!

Buy.com, the same dickwads who released Harry Pooter and the Order of teh Feenix early (and nearly got crucified as a result) has broken the DnD 4.0E street date by TEN days! People who ordered through there have recxieved their books and wotc has nearly imploded with rage.

ANyhow, on the plus side we are getting reviews in! Apparently, humans and half-elves now suck as races, the game is very video-gamey and roleplaying is not the focus at all. Not even compared to past editions. Apparently the mentality of the game has returned to 1e roots (for some this might be a good thing).

Here is a verbitim quote taken from the DMG, posted at enworld from someone who browsed through the books for a few hours. It gives good insight into how much roleplaying oriented this ediion will be:

Just a paragraph I couldn't avoid writing down from the DMG:

"Memorable nonplayer characters are best built on stereotype. The subtle nuances of a NPC’s personality are lost on the players. Just don’t rely on the same stereotype for every NPC you make"

1980 or 2008?

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While the above paragrpgh might be sound advice for deigning an inkeeper who runs a wayside inn you stop by on your way to whereever, its certainly NOT good advice for designing NPC's as a whole. And I don't mean plot critical NPC's, I mean standard NPC's your players might meet such as the village guardsman with a nervous tick (which he developed when he saw a horrifying creature that stalked the village gates at night), the Old Nanny to the Princess who the pc's are guarding, etc.

Furthermore 4e has 17 pages only devited to non-combat roleplaying, and these mostly contian advice on puzzles and how to design them. The rest of campaigning advice is built on combat, combat and combat. All abilities are combat oriented (save some rituals). All monster abilities are combat oriented. All the artwork in all the books has characters weilding weapons and/or with powAhZ at the ready (glowing hands, laser shooting eyes, etc)

I wish that if they were looking at previous editions to model the game theme on, they would have chosen AdnD 2e? That was hands down THE most roelplay intensive edition of dnd.

Heck, at the very least someone who played through Baldurs' Gate 1 and 2 should have been on the dev team, rather than WoW, Diablo and Neverwinter Night fanboYz!



p.s. Oh and btw wotc has apparently dealt with buy.com, so no more orders are being shipped. Or so wotc rep Scott Rouse tells enworld. Hmm, I wonder if buy.com shares the spoils with certain people, since they should have been grounded after the harry potter incident but weren't. And after this fiasco they still appear to be fine.

Gone.

- Calis

If you want to make a memorable npc, use archetypes, not stereotypes.

The rulebooks are now available at *cough* alternate sources *cough*. Will post my impressions in a couple of days.

Torrenting it eh Lestat? You dawg you.

Hey, I am going to buy them all when they are officially released, you know. I like what I see thus far, and 60 bucks aren't that much. Sure, they are likely to turn into 100 if you add up the delivery price, but dollars are as cheap as the dirt right now, so it isn't a big deal.

First thoughts, having gotten the book while sailing the seven seas of the internet:

Fighters don't start able to use plate. WHAT.

Clerics mostly shoot laser beams at near-melee range.

On that note, there's practically zero non-offensive combat moves. EVERYTHING is associated with an attack. Cleric wants to heal someone? Shoot them with a laser beam. Buff? Laser beam.

Warlords are rediculous. "Buck up old chap!" (+10 hp!)

Clerics cannot champion a cause, which strikes me as really weird, because their choice of deity no longer matters at all.

Fighters don't start off able to use plate. WHAT.

Wizards no longer start off weak and end amazingly strong. They now start off weak and end mediocre. They do less damage to single targets then the "striker" classes. However, AoE is fucking useless because minions don't take damage on successful rolls, and you will *never* want more then one monster heavily wounded because of all the super powers they get while blooded.

Dragonborn are even worse then I thought. New tieflings are pretty close to my low expectations.

Nobody will ever multiclass. Ever. It's neutered bad.

Nobody will ever learn new languages. Ever. It's now a feat.

Rogues are ninjas. No, seriously, they gain bonuses to shurikens.

Skill list has been cut into about 1/4th what what it used to be. For example, open lock, disable device, and sleight of hand have all become "Thievery." One step close to "FIGHTAN," "MAGICKAN," and "THIEVAN!" Furthermore, you can no longer change your skills mid game. Nor can you try to do a skill you choose, ever. You choose your skills when you make your character, and they're your skills 4lyfe.

Two weapon fighting no longer exists. At all. Instead, you can take the "two weapon fighting" feat which just gives you +1 damage while holding a weapon in each hand. Rangers get a few abilities that use both weapons, but if you aren't a ranger, you're shit out of luck.

Did I mention fighters (who no longer get extra feats) need to spend a feat to use platemail? Also, no more tower shields. Also, no more exotic materials. There are three types of armor for each "armor group."

No more exotic materials because there's no more crafting.

Things get really distorted between the PHB and the MM, because the MM talks about weapons that don't exist in the PHB. Like whips. Yeah, spiked chains are still there, but not whips. So I guess if you kill an enemy, you have to explain to the players that they can't actually take their obviously magical weapons. Because they don't exist

I'll do more on this later. Maybe.

Damn it sounds like Bethesda helped write those new rules (can you tell how bitter i am about Fallout 3?) seems to have been "dumbed down" which means doing pc games using these new rules will now be a snap for any developer who gets the rights.

WalterKinde said:

Damn it sounds like Bethesda helped write those new rules

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This is easy to confirm, just check what type of damage axes do.
Unless they removed that.

Huh? What is this whinging about? Do you need a guide to tell how to roleplay?

Also, I really dig the changes to wizards(the sorcerers are now out, yes). The beginning with a single magic missile was annoying as hell, and going all demigod by the end was irritating.

Lurkan said:

Nobody will ever multiclass. Ever. It's neutered bad.

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At last. Something good came out of this... thing.

Eh, I'll guess I'll get it from... somewhere on the internet... and check if it's really as bad as Lurkar says. Sounds pretty shit so far, no reason to abandon the good old 3E rules that I've become accustomed with. And, anyways, I'm using True 20 most of the time because it's way more flexible.

Dark Individual said:

Huh? What is this whinging about? Do you need a guide to tell how to roleplay?

Also, I really dig the changes to wizards(the sorcerers are now out, yes). The beginning with a single magic missile was annoying as hell, and going all demigod by the end was irritating.

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I always liked this actually. Aside from the general retardedness of a housecat being able to kill your average level 1 wizard (Which, for any other class, would take a staggering TWO housecats.) wizards starting out as mostly utility always seemed cool to me. Magic Missile shouldn't be your first spell, something like grease or sleep should be, they can change an entire encounter easily. Throw magic missle in later on when you can go invisible and fly and shit. And a high level wizard should be much more a demigod than a high level fighter. A high level fighter should be nigh unkillable, but not able to kill 2 people per second. The concept of a wizard destroying an entire castle with a single spell seems about right to me. The only change I'd have made would be limiting level 8+ spells to specialists and making a lot of the buff spells require concentration. Being able to walk around with a globe of invulnerability or iron skin is pretty insane.

Does it attempt to copy game play mechanics from a popular MMO? Rock, paper, scissors. Tank, DPS, Healer. Blah blah blah... Simplicity is easy and fun, depth is boring and difficult.

More bits.

You need a DC check of 15 to know what a bear is. As commoners cannot make this check, nobody but adventurers know what bears are. Furthermore, you need a DC check of twenty to find out bears attack with their arms.
To emphasize this, the DC 20 for Manticores: "DC 20: Manticores have three rows of teeth, which constantly grow throughout their lives. They often leave old teeth and iron spikes in the bodies of their mauled victims as sure signs of manticore attack. Although dimwitted, manticores understand Common and can speak a few Common words and phrases. They are exceedingly impatient and tend to attack those who attempt to parley with them."
Oh, and about bears? Templates can be applied to any monster, ever, and they stack. You can make an intelligent dire bear death knight. Work is being done to make one into a lich.
And those death knights? They require an evil soul blade to suck out their soul. I don't want to compare it to WoW. Stop making me.

Side note: All classes work the exact same mechanically. A wizard plays the exact same as a ranger plays the exact same as a warrior. Also, all classes have some pretty big MAD.

Now for more class info:

CLERIC:
Needs Strength, Wisdom, and Charisma.
As stated earlier, your choice of deity makes no difference on your powers.
"A cleric can choose to worship any deity, but steer clear of choosing an evil or chaotic evil deity unless you have permission from your DM to choose one"
Both of these are caused by clerics not getting their powers from their god (Yet they still need one...why?)
The *vast* majority of your heals can only be done by attacking.
As 99% of all attacks are either SHOOTING LASERS or channeling shiny radiant energy, I
recommend you throw glitter around every time the cleric moves.
The "Angelic Avenger" paragon seriously looks like a fucking protoss. This isn't even me drawing random conclusions - I saw it and immidiately thought "HOLY FUCK IT'S A PROTOSS." Dead fucking serious, it'll be the first thing that comes to mind when you see it.
Final thoughts: Power wise, clerics don't really bug me much (though the lack of heals that AREN'T offensive is a bit irritating), but fluff wise, this is abysmal.

FIGHTER:
Needs Strength, Wisdom, Constitution, and (maybe)Dexterity.
They seriously have a power called "Get Over Here" that forces the target to slide towards them.
Greatswords no longer exist. As you now get feats every other level, there's no reason not to just use a bastard sword which has the same stats, and if you're going two handed or bust, great axe has a huge advantage.
On that note, I'll go onto weapons here: Wizards has really, REALLY fucked up here. Because a simple +1 bonus is a huge deal now, the weapon you choose has a BIG effect, but to the point where 90% of weapons are absolute shit and useless compared to the other 10%.
Some fighter abilities have a "second bonus" if you're using a certain weapon. However, these bonuses are dependent on a specific stat for each weapon. As things like spears use dexterity, and fighters are ALREADY strapped on MAD, chances are, you won't see any of those. Not a bad idea in concept, but executed badly. And again, some of these abilities are grossly stacked in the favor of some weapons - and most these weapons are in that top 10% to begin with.
Kensei? Fuck that weeaboo bullshit. And did we really need a seperate paragon class for "Swordmaster?"
Can "mark" an enemy, giving it -2 to attack and other bullshit if it targets anyone but the fighter. No saving throw.
Fighters don't start with the ability to use plate. They need to spend a feat on it. WHAT.
End thoughts: Despite the complaints, not THAT bad. Wizards was ambitious, but in many ways, this class is the very personification of the "MMORPG" complaint.



PALADINS:
Uses cleric stats.
Paladins can give their party telepathy. I'm not making this shit up.
They can also teleport.
Not only does their deity of choice make no difference, neither does their alignment.
Paladins cannot fall, nor are their powers given by their god.
Same "marking" bullshit as fighter. Same lack of saving throw. Oh hey, the paladin one also does damage.
Starts with a plate. Only class to do so. WHAT.
Oh, they can teleport party members, too.
Ok, I'll just say this now and only now: These move names are beyond fucking retarded.
End thoughts: Not that bad, but seriously, can't fall and the choice of alignment/deity doesn't matter? Weak. Also, what the hell is with this teleporting/telepathy shit?

Ranger
Uses Strength, Dex, Wisdom. Jesus, are WARRIORS the most MAD?
Rangers have two modes: Sniper and Faggot
The Sniper stands in the back and shoots things
The Faggot uses two weapons and dances around the enemies.
Yes, dances.
They can also give allies bonuses equal to wisdom. Because of how wise and knowing rangers naturally are.
OH GOD MY EYES ARE BLEEDING.
Rangers do, bar none, the most damage.
I am now drinking.
"Like the gazelle, you startle allies and enemies alike with your sudden swiftness." Who WROTE this?
Jesus fuck "Cruel Cage of Steel" takes up like half the fucking column.
EVERYONE WILL BE A RANGER. EVERYONE.
Christ, the Pathfinder paragon path. You heal yourself EVERY TIME you attack an enemy.
So, in closure, the ranger does the most damage of all classes, has abnormally high AC, dances around the battlefield, can heal themselves with every attack, and they're classified as the wisest, most knowing and understanding class in the game.
"When you catch sight of your quarry, will the transgressor perish by swift bow shots from a distance, or by the twofold blades that glint and glitter in each of your battle-scarred hands?"
It actually says that at the beginning.
WHY DID I NOT HEED THE WARNING?
End thoughts: I just projectile vomited.

ROGUE:
I love the rogue because it isn't a fucking ranger.
Uses Dex, Strength, Charisma.
I'm laying off the booze now. Honest.
Gains a bonus when using dagger and shurikan.
TOTALLY NOT A NINJA
Sneak attack is pretty weak.
Fucking thank you, these moves look more like they should then the ranger "YOU DANCE AROUND WITH THE DELICACY OF A SNOWFLAKE AND STRIKE LIKE A BUTTERFLY"
Wait, what? They have an ability to steal once an encounter?
Are you shitting me?
Lots of attacks set the enemy up for other partners to attack it better, which I actually like.
Having each and every fucking class get it's own ten pages dedicated to explaining their unique ORIGINAL CHARACTER combat abilities is getting really fucking tiresome.
All the abilities require a light blade, which seem odd. I wasn't aware that I needed a dagger or short sword to throw sand in someone's eyes.
These names are still recockulously retarded
End thoughts: I actually like the rogue stuff I see. Even the paragon classes looked fairly decent, and their abilities fit really well.

WARLOCK:
Uses Charisma, Constitution, and Intelligence.
"The darkness holds no terror for me, demon! I curse you now under the Sign of Ill Omen!"
It seriously says that. That's honestly how this class starts.
I'm getting the booze out.
Ok, admittingly, the pact thing is kinda cool. You choose what pact you signed to gain your powers - in this book, it's got Fey pack, Infernal Pact, and Star Pact (Star Pact is Cthulhu).
On one hand, it's lame that they have the same number of abilities as the other classes, only obviously only some can be used by different pacts, thus limiting their choices sharply
On the other hand, less for me to read.
End thoughts: Really not much to say here. The new warlock is pretty much an upgrade in every way.

WARLORD
Uses Strength, Intelligence, Charisma
Cleric without lasers and glitter, really. Aside from the lack of "your nameless and really unimportant god..." in the fluff, it's the same class.
One thing bugs me: Many of these abilities really don't strike me as something only one class should be able to do. For example, Inspiring War Cry. Why is everyone else apparently mute?
Oh god he heals people by talking charismatically to them. "What a guy!"
End thoughts: Really, the Warlord, which I didn't have much negative to say, is easily the biggest argument AGAINST 4e. Quite frankly, this class shouldn't exist, and these abilities should be feats or otherwise somehow freely chosen by other classes. The idea of each class having their own unique abilities falls apart when these abilities are things like "Yell Loudly."

WIZARD:
Uses Intelligence, Wisdom, and Dexterity
I'm not covering rituals, as ANYONE can do those
The wizard seriously just falls apart. This is shit. This is beyond shit.
To show why this is so horrifying, you first need to understand that all classes work the same way. ALL classes know the same number of at-will, encounter, daily, and utility powers. At your highest, at level 30, you have 2/4/4/7. That means a wizard will, at EPIC level, have 17 spells they can cast. Furthermore, you can't memorize the same spell twice. If one of your spells is per-encounter, you can only use it once per encounter. Period. You can't just use a second slot for the same spell. In the end, that means you will never use lower level spells once you get higher ones. This pretty much destroys the wizard.
Wizards attack and only attack. Seriously, that's all they do - blow shit up. EVERYTHING does damage. FORCE CAGE does damage. MAZE does damage. Motherfucking MAZE does damage.
Invisibility, Fly, and other spells have been horrifyingly butchered. Far beyond the point they needed.
I'm not even going to finish this class.
End thoughts: Don't play a wizard. There's pretty much no point. There's nothing left of this class. The worst thing is, the actual in game mechanics PUNISH wide spread damage over single target damage. I understand they wanted to reduce the "YOU MUST HAVE A WIZARD IN YOUR TEAM" problem in 3.5, but they did it by making the class worthless. This is the shittiest thing I've seen yet. I could at least finish the ranger section.

Small note on EPIC DESTINIIIIIEEEEES:
Archmage: He sits in a tower all his life and studies the "demispell," which, despite the usage of "demi," is somehow MORE powerful then everything else. WELCOME TO LEVEL THIRTY, YOU NEVER SEE ANYONE ELSE AGAIN.

Deadly Trickster: You're pretty much champion douche. You betray your companions and laugh as the BBEG wins after all, and you do it because it amuses you. This is my favorite epic destiny. Oh, and you can decide not to betray everyone, but fuck that.

Demigod: Welcome to the corporate world of the gods! You become the cubical boy for whatever god wants you. Or maybe you strike off on your own and immidiately fail as every other god decides they don't want more competition and bitch slap you. Whoever in Wizards wrote this might've been a bit bitter about life.

Eternal Seeker: We called these guys in previous editions "Adventurers who are level 30." Seriously, an Eternal Seeker is pretty much "You decide fuck epic destinies and just keep adventuring. You can also gain the powers of any class. You enjoy a cool beer and laugh as the demigod walks by with some folders that need to be photocopied."

I have taken a general look around the books, and I will try to take a better look tomorrow. Still, the non combat encounters catch my eye. They are a way to solve non combat situations like they were combat ones, by requiring the players to roll enough successes before so many failures. If they fail, different situations are possible. For example, if they fail to find their way through the forest, the adventure may take a different turn.

Each skill roll is (or at least should be) roleplayed, with the GM and the players describing what is happening at each turn. Each non combat situation has suggestions of possible skills to use, with different difficulties for each. The book describes various situations, and I think this might be a nice framework to help GMs design their own encounters in a less linear manner, and while the encounters described are a bit simple (they can only end on success or failure, and the result is the same no matter the skills used, Still, it is a nice start, and hopefully other GM guides will expand on it.

I really disliked what I have seem of the classes up to now. For example, wizards change spells much like sorcerers did on 3e. Still, rituals seems nice. They actually seem to be an expanded form of the rituals from Unearthed Arcana. Still, the execution seem a bit uninspired, probably because they lacked space, so the rituals don't have specific descriptions, and sometimes are a little silly in execution. For example, this is how magic items are created now:

Enchant Magic Item
Magic drawn from the warp and weft of the universe infuses
the item you hold in your hands.
Level: 4
Category: Creation
Time: 1 hour
Duration: Permanent
Component Cost: Special
Market Price: 175 gp
Key Skill: Arcana (no check)
You touch a normal item and turn it into a magic item of
your level or lower. The ritual’s component cost is equal to
the price of the magic item you create.
You can also use this ritual to resize magic armor (for
example, shrink a fire giant’s magic armor to fit a halfling).
There is no component cost for this use.

All in all, there might be some salvageable parts to this book. I will need some time to read with calm, but I almost certainly won't be using the ruleset directly anytime soon.

Wow , well on the upside WOTC will sell a ton of new Drizzt/Icewind Dale, pure DnD novel trilogies and spinoffs to introduce all these new changes.
That the sorcerer which was always a fascinating character build has been done away with is a bit of a let down but with every build including general magic users now on the offensive spellwise the sorcerer build became redundant.

4e = crap

4e = epic win

I can't wait to play an Eladrin Rogue/Fey Pact Warlock.

R00fles!

MAD? (Next time, Gadget! NEXT TIME!)
BBEG?

Sounds like D&D will stay a shitty system. But I actually liked the fluff, as incoherent and silly as it mostly was... Why WotC, why !?!

EDIT: But the Warlock fluff sounds cool.

Shannow said:

MAD? (Next time, Gadget! NEXT TIME!)
BBEG?

Sounds like D&D will stay a shitty system. But I actually liked the fluff, as incoherent and silly as it mostly was... Why WotC, why !?!

EDIT: But the Warlock fluff sounds cool.

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Warlock is probably the only thing good from 4e.

BBEG is Big Bad Evil Guy.
MAD is Multiple Ability Dependency. Your character needs three or more different stat points to be good.

Hehe... yes, the Ranger stuff really reeks of Drizzt.

Can't sleep, black halflings will chop me.

Yawn.

Also:

I wish that if they were looking at previous editions to model the game theme on, they would have chosen AdnD 2e? That was hands down THE most roelplay intensive edition of dnd.

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What?

I LOL'd.

Lurkar said:

Christ, the Pathfinder paragon path. You heal yourself EVERY TIME you attack an enemy.

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How? Do they drain the life of their enemies? Lick the blood of their blades?