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[Sensei]

In 3.5, yeah there is a lack of things for mundane classes to do against non-humanoids. Fighters sure are fun to BUILD, though. "Lessee, I want to be a minotaur (large creature) with monkey grip from complete warrior and a huge full blade from the arms and equipment guide... -2 to attack, 4d8 base damage, mmmmm..."

[Neonivek]

Honestly Mundane classes would do so well in mundane settings where the enemies are people with nonmagical equipment. Breaking armor, tripping, bull rush.

Nevermind that Dungeon masters never use the creature's abilities to their advantage almost ever. Though I know why...

When I used quicklings for example (120 feet per turn high-AC fairies) I found that they were in fact neigh unbeatable if I used them intelligently.

In fact I found a lot of creatures, if I used them in non-suicidal situations, tended to have a lot of advantages. It actually caused my players a lot of pain and trouble to find that some of the easiest creatures were giving them trouble simply because I actually took advantage of their abilities rather then their straight forward combat abilities.

I once had a animated statue block the exit to a room filling up with sand where they only escaped was because of a broken class (It was one of those classes based upon being uttarly broken in the early game... in fact so broken that the person threatened to quit when I said they should use another one because I said it was ok before realising they were so broken because I trusted them not to break the game).

[Sensei]

Yeah, broken classes... ugh, I had a player build a dusk blade from phb 2 with a mighty whip dagger... the gimmick of a dusk blade is that they can cast touch spells through their weapon... and the whip has a 15 foot reach. Fortunately complete warrior was closed or he would have been able to threaten attacks of opportunity with a whip too. Even so, he gets to make a free trip attempt on a hit with the whip, so he can do damage with the spell as he makes a trip instead of just damaging or tripping. Combine that with a horizon walker dimension door ability (completely broken) and, well, fuck.

[Neonivek]

Honestly I'd have no issue with characters using very powerful classes except they were VERY hard to balance especially with the rest of the party.

For example one player chose a Pathfinder class who could throw bombs who in the early game... were so many times stronger then everyone else because he could throw powerful bombs that did continuous damage that most monsters could not avoid that ignored spell resistance AND could do it more times then a Wizard. (Once again this class... like many others... is based off of being broken in the early game and leveling off later)

Yet because, coincidently, I structured my game around the Fae and nature it meant I just uttarly trumped him to uselessness because he was based on touch. Thus this uttarly broken class build could only be beaten by uttarly negating it.

Actually I like some of the things I did in that game and I wish I had a better group of players to host games with. I am unskilled but they are the sort of players who dislike roleplay so to speak.

For example in one room there was an ambush with tiny creatures, who would normally not be a big deal. Except these ones are rogues who know exactly how to use their small blades to slice arteries (In fact these creatures can do that without rogue levels) in an area that impeeds movement for all but tiny creatures (Furnature and all that). Thus making what is usually a no big deal creature into one with large advantages and specified uses.

It is kinda one thing I kinda ended up disliking when looking through the monster manuals is how the monsters themselves were structured (Ignoring the monsters who seemed to exist only for combat inspite their creature description CLEARLY not involving such) with good creatures clearly not intending to be fought.

[BishopX]

back on topic, I've played Next three times so far, and it has gotten to the point where I prefer it over 3.5 (I never played 4). Here's why:

• They fixed alignment descriptions. Lawful/Chaotic is now culture specific so you can have meaningful disagreements between lawful good characters and the addition of unaligned made true neutral into an actual moral chice again, not just a place for people who didn't want to bother.
• Cleric dieties are now archytipal, so you're not tied to a specific cosmology. I still have some issues with how they assume every panthion has a certain types of dieties and they all have similar powers, but it's a huge step up from the old D&D fixed cosmology
• Skills now give a flat bonus to checks, rather than having people invest in ranks. This  makes skilled/ vs. unskilled less of an issue.
• They've intentionally reduced the frequency of magic items. There is no longer an assumption that character will have a certain level of magic items at any given point.
• The new advantage/disadvantage system has greatly streamlined things (flanking, supiorior position, surprise, DR, armor checks/resistances). It's pretty intuitive and works really well.

There are still a few wrinkles they need to work out:

• Armor still sucks mechanically
• Clerics are still broken
• Fighter are still boring out of combat
• Magic missile is OP
• Orcs are not a playable race

[symonthewise]

• They've intentionally reduced the frequency of magic items. There is no longer an assumption that character will have a certain level of magic items at any given point.

If I understand correctly this is awesome. Takes the magic out of magic items if you expect to get them at certain points in your advancement.

[Rince Wind]

• They've intentionally reduced the frequency of magic items. There is no longer an assumption that character will have a certain level of magic items at any given point.

If I understand correctly this is awesome. Takes the magic out of magic items if you expect to get them at certain points in your advancement.

Yep, that was one thing I disliked about DnD 3.5. A low magic setting was not really in the rules (iirc, I did not play it much). In our ADnD Campaign we were happy about those two or three +2 weapons we had around lvl 10 (for the whole group, mind). Sure, we had some other fancy stuff, but magic items were rare in our (custom) world, you could not just go to a shop and hope they have what you want.

[ndkid]

It is kinda reminded me of Tactics Ogre: LOCT where refusing to murder an entire town is in fact the "Chaotic" action that leads to a lot of hardship. Yet the Lawful choice was to follow orders and commit murder of hundreds or even thousands of villagers and actually leads to what is seemingly the better route. It is odd for a game to actually make the good route the one where the most sacrifices had to be made (and yet it isn't good versus evil. It is whether or not the ends justify the means).

That's exactly the mental straightjacket I am talking about.  The game tried to judge your action in an artificial way that brought you out of the story with the ridiculousness of their moral 'judgement', which did not match yours.  From that point forward you will be making decisions based on trying to meet this artificial judgement system, which you may not even agree with.  To me it is far more interesting to present no judgement whatsoever.  Let the player stew upon their decisions themselves.  If there is to be any judging, it should only be among the other characters involved, both player and non-, entirely within the context of their story.  Alignment is an unnecessary "meta" game mechanic.

I think alignment is the wrong tool for the job, but part of what some RPGs do that I enjoy is putting players in a position where they are playing a character with a moral system different from their own. Not "opposite/wish fulfillment" style, where a regular person takes glee in killing hundreds of orcs "because they're evil", but *different*. Legend of the Five Rings is a good example of this, with its attempt to build a world where a pseudo-historical view of Honor, Face, and what constitutes truth and guilt and such blend together to encourage players to work within a cosmology where a modern western moral system would make one an outsider, and a stereotypical fantasy "killing for a cause" mentality would, too.

[Neonivek]

I never minded the number of magic items.

I always figured that the reason we have so many magic items is because we are exceptional.

This isn't Fantasy Warhammer where they go out of their way to say you suck.

[ZebioLizard2]

The main thing I'm disappointed about it is how blatant they are in their dislike of 4E, much of the current core revolves around 3.5 mechanics, and even a related article talks up how Paragons were just prestige classes even when they didn't come close, and then had a poll that excluded paragon classes while talking about "Iconic" upgraded classes...


If you read the forums even the 4E players have grown tired of being led on a leash, and have grown a bit paranoid and bitter about this. When Next was supposed to "Unify" all groups.

[BishopX]

• They've intentionally reduced the frequency of magic items. There is no longer an assumption that character will have a certain level of magic items at any given point.

If I understand correctly this is awesome. Takes the magic out of magic items if you expect to get them at certain points in your advancement.

Yep, that was one thing I disliked about DnD 3.5. A low magic setting was not really in the rules (iirc, I did not play it much). In our ADnD Campaign we were happy about those two or three +2 weapons we had around lvl 10 (for the whole group, mind). Sure, we had some other fancy stuff, but magic items were rare in our (custom) world, you could not just go to a shop and hope they have what you want.

That's now explicit. You cannot get magic items at a shop except if you're in some sort of exception area (mages college for example). Anything better than a +1 now requires a backstory per the rules. So while common magic items are certainly possible....they're going to be a crap ton of work if the GM does it right.

[Neonivek]

I don't think they can be unified

Though I think 4E brought a lot of genuin improvements to the game that a lot of diehard haters of 4E tend to overlook.

Just "Resting" was something I considered to vastly improve the game. Spells that don't run out as a spell caster vastly improved the game. Having attacks you can do as a Fighting class vastly improved the game.

The fact that 4E done combinations of might AND magic within one class better then ALL DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS COMBINED is something to be said.

You cannot get magic items at a shop except if you're in some sort of exception area (mages college for example). Anything better than a +1 now requires a backstory per the rules. So while common magic items are certainly possible....they're going to be a crap ton of work if the GM does it right.

That sounds setting explicit... however knowing them they are going to enforce it across all settings somehow.

Even though... you know... any Hero worth its salt should have a lot of magic items seeing as even in "Low fantasy" worlds there are a big load of magical creatures and quite a few powerful mages.

I cannot think of many settings where magic would be so rare. Certainly not Ravenloft, Forgotten Realms, Darksun, Oriental Adventures, Ebberon or Planescape.

Is the main setting Greyhawk? Ok maybe Dragon Lance, I mean I know they have official magic schools but maybe you could justify next to no magic especially given that there is a hard enforced level limit.

Anyhow limiting magic items to me isn't because they want to make "magic more magical" but more likely to remove magic item gathering as a required part of the game. Besides I never found how common magic was to ever lessen its magicalness. Though that is because I find rarer magic to be less magical and for good reason.

Mind you magic in dungeons and dragons never made sense from a societal point of view, but I always figured it was because they were just focusing on the aspects of combat and left the spell that could rejuvinate fields alone.

[sambojin]

While I haven't played D&D in years, I think I might take a look at this. I mostly played 2nd, 3rd and 3.5 back when I did muck around in it (I thought 4th would probably work quite well as a computer game, possibly a diablo-like). So, can we break it?

This isn't necessarily the sort of player I am, but this is the right forum for it. Let's weaponize it. Let's see how easily broken D&D Next is. Are there any really obvious things that need to be adjusted. Is there a spiked-chain in the main rulebook?

This is WotC. You know there's going to be expansions that are going to be horribly out of whack and that are hard to play with a balanced world or playgroup. But is this initial set of rules like that? Let's find out.

I'll be back soon

[Grakelin]

I think this is a business mistake. They're already competing with Paizo because of the grognard split from 3.5-4E. Yet they forget that there actually is a nice chunk of consumers who prefer 4E for one reason or another. Now they're going to cut that market loose and try to build upon 3.5, which Pathfinder has already done? They're going to try to share the market?

It has nothing to do with what system we actually like more: it just doesn't make any business sense.

[Mephansteras]

They're probably relying on the fact that D&D has the better name recognition, especially when it comes to bringing in new RPG players. They're not so much sharing space as trying to recapture lost market share, which is a bit different. Particularly when it's the big player going back into an area they once dominated.

Plus, they probably figure that the players who enjoy 4th may be tapped out and they really need to do something to try and bring back the 3.5 players who moved on to Pathfinder.

Whether or not it's good business sense really depends on how well they pull it off. I'm sure there are players out there who prefer the D&D settings over the Pathfinder setting, and this is WotC's bid to bring them back.