Ok, only 1 test left before finals, (2 weeks away), so I took some time off tongiht and read a couple of the WotC staff blogs and a little bit of EnWorld and made a list of intersting things and quotes: (Sorry if its magled, it was an email and I kiinda hit send as plain text only.
Some interesting lines from the 4e staff blogs:
"I remember specifically asking Logan Bonner about the 3.5 problems with
level adjustment and challenge rating. With a wry grin, he replied,
“Challenge rating, what’s that?”" -Greg Bilsland
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"So, here we go. Early on in the week, I discovered that Michele Carter
was working on the playtest characters that would shortly be going out.
What at first was me helping out with the level 2, 4, 6, and 8 cleric
soon became me working on the level 2, 4, 6, and 8 of the five classes
that we were playtesting. These included:
Dwarven Cleric
Human Fighter
Elven Ranger
Eladrin Rogue
Tiefling Wizard" -Greg Bilsland
-----
"I used stealth powers pre-battle to position myself for a nice
surprise, so I get sneak attack damage and, luckily, a crit! It makes
the attack feel very satisfying as I step out of the shadows and *clock
the spawn upside the head, knocking him prone and dazing him (which sets
him up for my next sneak attack).*" -Greg Bilsland
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"New multiclassing rules, you ask. Yep, we've got 'em. Multiclass
characters are running at a couple of our internal playtest tables right
now." -David Noonan
"/Terminology Note:/ When I say "gish," I'm not referring specifically
to githyanki fighter/wizards.[...] I'm talking more generally about
characters who are capable melee combatants and reasonably good arcane
spellcasters, too. " -David Noonan
"We really like the configurability and freedom of 3e multiclassing,
[...] But it's got some problems--and in particular, it doesn't tackle
the gish very well. There's the arcane spell failure problem, which
takes some levels of the spellsword PrC, a little mithral, and some
twilight enhancement to take care of. But beyond that, the low caster
level can be just crippling for the fighter/wizard who wants to blast
the bad guys into oblivion, rather than use his spellbook as a really
good utility belt.
So that's one big problem--the caster level situation. In 3e, we've
cemented over that with some prestige classes and feats. But there's
another problem: Your journey through the "Valley of
Multi-Ineffectiveness." For the gish, it's hard to truly be, well,
/gishy/ at low levels before you've figured out a reasonable answer to
the armor problem. You can't really wade into melee like a fighter,
because you're gonna get creamed. So you have to take an "I'm basically
a wizard for now" or "I'm basically a fighter for now." That works, but
you're just biding your time until you get to play the character you
want to play." -David Noonan
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"Among the guys who are writing the D&D game right now--*which is about
a dozen of us, give or take*--it's a sure bet that everyone has played
World of Warcraft. [...] Some tried it, declared it a busman's holiday,
and moved on. Others got up into the 50 or 60s.
But I'm the only one on the RPG side of the office with a level 70
character. /(Note, he corrected this next post: There are 2 people.
Also, Mr Noonan plays hord- Nova) /And I'm also the guy around here
that waves his RP freak flag the highest. I'm Mr. Social Challenge. I'm
the guy who assigns his players backstory homework assignments. So
anyone with preconceptions about WoW fans who play D&D...all I ask is
that you adjust those preconceptions to include me." -David Noonan
----------
"This "lifestyle constraint" is why you can bet that when we get a
digital game table for D&D, I'm going to be dual-booting my trusty Mac
late at night. The computer aspects of 4e aren't for everyone. But us
late-night, stuck-at-home guys are going to appreciate it." -David Noonan
-----------
"...And out comes a new iteration of our social challenge rules. We
extracted a ton of useful data out of the test, and I'll probably spend
the rest of the morning typing that up for my colleagues and messing
with some the rules. But I can share some broad outlines with you. [...]
2) There was a lot of variety in both the mechanical techniques used
(the checks/rolls/etc.) and the actual table dialogue. That's a pretty
high priority, so it was good to see it emerge in actual play. But my
table is predisposed to show those behaviors, so I can't see anything
more definite than "it's a good system for people who throw themselves
into that play style wholeheartedly."
3) The system we were testing involves skill checks (big surprise,
huh?). One of the things I found fascinating was that some players
preferred to deliver their dialogue, then roll the skill check and
report the result. Others preferred to roll the skill check first, then
deliver dialogue that matched their result (good or bad). The system
works either way, so I might just make it explicit that you can "roll,
then talk" or "talk, then roll."
4) There is a totally valid D&D playstyle that
/haaaaates/ the idea of
social interactions being resolved with a die roll. This system should
work for that playstyle, too, once you flip a few switches. That just
isn't the playstyle we were testing last night." -David Noonan
------------
"*Social Challenges:* The uninterrupted thinking time on today's run got
me to thinking more about Thursday night's playtest. A couple of thoughts.
1) When I talk about "roll, then talk" or "talk, then roll," I think we
can pull it off so that some people at the table can do it one way, and
others at the table can do it the other way. Or even that a player could
shift between 'em from round to round. As long as the DM doesn't provide
feedback until both roll and talk are done, then everything works just fine.
[...]
4) Maybe the biggest change that we're contemplating is that no matter
where you are on the roll-talk continuum, it's going to be more than a
single exchange that determines whether you overcome the challenge. Or
at least let me put it this way: A single exchange is as likely to
determine a social outcome as a single attack roll is likely to
determine a combat outcome.
5) "Exchange" is probably not going to be a game term. I'm just using it
like (gasp!) a regular word."-David Noonan
"*Silos:* After two class meetings yesterday, I discover that I'm still
smitten with the way we're "siloing" PC capabilities now. For example,
it was always unfortunate how
/phantom steed/ had to compete with
/fireball/ on a wizard's "Spells Prepared" list. Don't get me wrong:
Both spells are great, and they both have their place. But when all eyes
at the table turn to you, it's a lot better to say, "I didn't prep
/phantom steed/, but I've still got
/fireball/," rather than "I didn't
prep
/fireball/, but I've still got
/phantom steed/."
/Phantom steed/
suffers by comparison, despite its coolness, and thus it's relegated to
scroll use and the occasional splash from a high-level wizard.
Not so in 4e. We've devised various ways of grouping like capabilities
with like capabilities, so you don't have to sacrifice
/phantom steed/'s
utility for
/fireball/'s killin'-the-bad-guys effectiveness. You'll get
both. And one of the clever bits in D&D--figuring out combat uses for
utility spells and vice versa--remains.
In some ways, it's like having a major and a minor in college. And 4e
characters are looking a lot more well-rounded than their 3e
counterparts." -David Noonan
"*A Little More On Silos:* Rereading what I said last week on silos
(scroll up a little to see it), I should have mentioned that there's a
old D&D heritage at work there, too. Remember the 1st edition
magic-user? His spellbook started with one offensive spell, one
defensive spell, and one miscellaneous spell. That's siloing! Now the
silo walls weren't maintained once the game actually started, and
randomly generating your starting spells could be an unbelievable screw
job...and it's not like 1st-level magic-users had it easy in AD&D. But
the concept is actually an old one, and I bet Gygax's motivation was
pretty basic: make sure those beginning magic-users were well-rounded.
Seems like a solid design principle to me." -David Noonan
"...Among the battle highlights:
• Karhun the warlord/wizard fireballed a bunch of the minotaurs... and
Hammer, the paladin. Nothing fills a DM's heart with glee more than
"friendly fire incidents."
• Sijil the rogue is getting really good at a "rope-a-dope
<http://forums.gleemax.com/leaving.php?destination=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rope_a_dope>"
strategy. Every time the minotaurs try something clever, she's able to
evade it, then counterattack with aplomb. Except that once. But that's
what healing is for.
• Karhun's magically-aided battlefield mobility enabled a switcheroo
(no, that's not the game term) that simultaneously set up about three
flanking/sneak-attack type situations.
• Warlock +
/iron crown of madness/ = fun for the whole family.
• And Cradle the cleric's
/seal of righteousness/ was effective, but the
text includes a rules loophole that I'll be spackling shut this morning.
• It's gradually dawning on the PCs that traveling with a 9,700-year-old
dwarf may impose some new restraints on their "Here's the plan...get
'em!" combat style." -David Noonan
"A few weeks ago in the podcast, I said the thing that excited me most
about 4e was revisiting adventure pacing...the whole "wizard is done at
9:05 a.m." problem. (I know that "done at 9:05 a.m." is not always the
best specific example of the problem, but it's a useful shorthand.
Suffice it to say that when the characters in a cooperative game are on
radically different "power attrition curves," it can make it awfully
hard for them to, well, cooperate. And the power attrition curves of a
fighter and a wizard could hardly be more different.)
I'm still jazzed about that. But it might be eclipsed by my new favorite
thing: easy-to-mix monsters. Encounters at my Thursday night game are a
lot richer when Monster A employs technique 1 to assist Monster B's
technique 2. You can do that in 3e, of course. But in 4e, I find it:
• Easier to assemble those mixed monster groups on the fly.
• Easier to keep those monsters alive long enough to pull off their cool
tricks.
• Easier to convince my players that they're a threat (in 3e, the power
curve is such that a monster quickly falls from "appropriate challenge"
to "speed bump" in the space of only a couple of levels).
• Easier to run those mixed monster groups at the table without my head
exploding.
[...]
And before anyone gets too worried, yes, there's still plenty of room
for the big bad solo encounter. That's iconic to D&D, and we wouldn't
dream of messing with it. But it feels a little "different" now, and on
balance, that's probably good for table drama." -David Noonan
"My 4e wizards are capable of the same breadth of tricks as their 3e
ancestors...regardless of the choices I make about implements. But I do
care about my implements. Smart choices there make me more effective and
differentiate me from all those other--and assuredly lesser--wizards out
there.
It's easy to take this analogy too far, but it might be worthwhile to
think of a wizard's implements as analogous to a 3e fighter's weapon
choice--if you assume that the fighter hasn't deeply, deeply specialized
in that weapon through feat choice. Mid-level Tordek prefers axes, sure,
and he probably has an advantage with an axe that's substantial but not
overwhelming. You put a polearm in his hands, though, and he functions
just fine. And he's accessing the salient properties of the
polearm--reach, for example." -David Noonan
"*Daily Work:* A little something for the DMG we've variously called
"skill challenges," "extended challenges," and "complex challenges." And
if we're calling it those three things, you can probably suss out where
we're going with the system. The part that excites me is that these
rules represent a broadening of what constitutes a fun, engaging
encounter. If we pull this off, we'll deliver more variety for the
players and some more narrative freedom for the DM when he's wearing his
"adventure writer" hat.
And I'm trying like crazy to keep the system simple enough that it'll be
improvisable/[sic]/ for an intermediate DM. That's a tricky part, to be
sure." -David Noonan
"*DMG:* Over the weekend, I got to work some on treasure generation
systems. We've had the economy (or at least
/an/ economy) in place for
some time, but it was based on average rewards for each successful
encounter. Now we've got a system that takes those benchmark numbers and
applies a little dice magic.
And there's a nifty innovation that I call "monkeys without blinders."
Since the days of letter-coded treasure types, random D&D hoards have
historically been generated by independent dice rolls, which I'll
metaphorically refer to as "monkeys." In 3rd edition, for example,
there's the coins monkey, the goods monkey, and the items monkey. You
roll on all three columns on pages 52-53 of your DMG, and presto! You've
got your treasure. /(...This is exactly how my 1st year university
calculus professor explains many things.....)/
But the monkeys have blinders. The goods monkey has no idea what the
coins monkey is doing, nor the items monkey. Because those rolls are all
independent, you get some really disjointed treasures. And while the
system delivers appropriate results over time, many of the individual
treasures along the way are disappointing and obviously randomly
generated. If you've ever played with a software random treasure
generator, you know what I mean. How many of us click them over and over
again, trying for a result that doesn't look like a heap of unrelated,
useless junk? The problem isn't the software--it's those capricious,
blinder-wearing monkeys.
So here's the innovation--and I'm aware that it isn't exactly like
inventing the phonograph. We take the blinders off the monkeys and build
a simple algorithm. The first monkey does his job, and then those
results influence what the next monkey does, and so on. Treasures have
more consistency and more utility. In other words, the hoard is more
likely to be an actual reward for the PCs. That's good for the game.
I'm also writing some alternatives to random generation. They won't be
the answer for every table, but certain play styles will gravitate to
them. Heck, some of them will give us the following validation: "We've
been doing it that way for years." Nothing warms my phylactery oops I
mean heart like that." -David Noonan
"[...]Why does the word we pick for a game term matter? Well, we have to
be mindful of a few issues.
• You don't want to grab a generally useful word and turn it into a game
term, because then you can't easily use it for its ordinary meaning
anymore. Anyone who's written a lot of 3e adventures knows how limited
the vocabulary is when you want to say that something is big. "Large"
and "Huge" are taken as creature size categories, and "big" doesn't
carry a weighty enough connotation. "Massive" and "immense" become your
go-to terms, but you can draw water from those wells only so many times.
• You want it to be reasonably elegant. In 3e, you'd think we could have
come up with a term for "attack of opportunity" that employed less than
eight syllables, huh?
• It has to be something that rolls off the tongue and doesn't send the
table into convulsions of laughter. I'll pick a fictitious example here:
You wouldn't want to refer to petrification as becoming "stoned."
• It shouldn't over-describe what's going on. The nauseated condition in
3e, for example, is useful in the mechanical sense. But there are times
you'd want to limit a bad guy to just a single move action, but the
origin of the effect isn't something that would cause stomach distress.
Nauseated is fine viewed in isolation, but the game term carries more
meaning than the mechanic actually delivers." -David Noonan
*"Daily Work:* Expanding a DMG section: How to customize a monster.
We're doing more with making 'em different, better, "classier," and (le
gasp!) weaker.
/That's something 3.5 never did very well--let you quickly crank out a
version of the monster that's weaker than the standard one in the
Monster Manual./ But it's a nice arrow for the DM and/or encounter
designer to have in the quiver. You might want to do a juvenile beastie,
one that's been weakened by fell magics...or maybe you just don't want
to wait until 12th-level to spring a frost worm on your PCs.
To pull off that trick in 3.5, there's the quick way (impose some
across-the-board penalties to pretty much everything numerical in the
stat block and call it good) and the slow way (pull HD off the monster,
changing skill totals, feats, and probably reduce the base stats, too,
changing the relevant DC and damage dice...oh, and do something about AC
before you finish). Neither is completely satisfying, and both have some
potential landmines that won't blow up until you're in the middle of the
encounter.
That strikes me as an improveable /[sic]/ situation...but we'll see.
Can't make any claims about the 4e technique until I write it, can I? In
any case, I'm also writing a warning: Don't downshift your monsters too
often. Part of the thrill of D&D is seeing that mind flayer or beholder
come around the corner for the first time--and it's a thrill because you
know those are dangerous monsters. But if every monster becomes widely
downshiftable, then that mind flayer coming around the corner feels less
thrilling, because for all you know, he's pretty weak. And that beholder
hovering over the treasure hoard isn't a big deal if you've been facing
beholders of increasing difficulty throughout your adventuring career."
" * "The Core Mechanic" deals with the "roll d20 plus modifier to beat a
target number" dice roll which is the core of the system. As the article
points out, it's still the 3rd Edition core mechanic, but there are a
few differences in its application:
o Life-or-death saving throws: gone.
o Spellcasters get to roll attack rolls and can achieve critical hits.
o Touch and flat-footed AC: gone.
o AC is one of four standard defences (AC, Reflex, Fortitude, Will), and
all four work in the way that AC did in 3rd Edition - in other words, an
attacker rolls to beat it: "When a dragon breathes fire on you, it
attacks your Reflex and deals half damage if it misses. The DM rolls a
d20, adds the dragon’s modifiers, and asks you what your Reflex score
is." These attacks can all automatically miss on a 1 or critical on a
20." -EnWorld
"[3E]... assumed that the party fought only one monster. In 4th Edition,
we’re doing things a bit different. We’re shifting to a system that
assumes a number of monsters equal to the number of characters." -Mike
Mearls, via EnWorld
"A hazard simply fits in in the same way that a monster does: "That
makes it much easier to design green slime, pit traps, whirling blades,
fountains that spray acid, and crumbling stone walls. One such hazard
can simply take the place of one monster, leaving you with three or four
monsters in the encounter. Since monster level is a more rigorous
measure of power, we can turn those measures and scales around and use
them to create environmental hazards, traps, set pieces, and other
interesting tactical twists. ... A swaying rope bridge battered by
howling air elementals fits under the encounter building system. A
burning building that collapses around the PCs as they fight the evil
hobgoblin wizard fills a similar role, as does a bizarre altar to Vecna
that randomly teleports characters around the room. Hazards, traps, and
other dangers simply fill in for one or more creatures in a fight."
"-EnWorld (Might be Mike Mearls)
-Nova
IT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY of intellectuals to speak the truth and to expose lies. --The Responsibility of Intellectuals, Noam Chomsky. The New York Review of Books, February 23, 1967.