[ddo] D&D 4th Ed

[Diarmuid Reidy]

Some more information has been revealed. The number of core races and
character classes has been cut down, with some classes merged - ranger
will merge with scout, and rumour suggests the same with wizard and
sorcerer. D&D’s historic Vancian spellcasting system (spell preparation)
will be retained, although a spellcaster’s magic will be split between
at-will, per-counter or a per-day basis. Magic item creation finally
returns to second edition simplicity - no item creation feats or XP
costs, and even magic item pricing guidelines are getting the axe.
Creating a new magic item is once again a special occurrence that any
spellcaster can attempt.

Preliminary covers are out for the core books, with 3e’s
pseudo-constructed finish superceded the fantastic art of Wayne
Reynolds. The Player’s Handbook features an old male tiefling mage and
what I think is a female elven fighter, while the Dungeon Master’s Guide
has a red dragon and the Monster Manual an epic-level encounter, Orcus.

Setting-wise, Greyhawk fans will find that their special status as the
implied setting of 3e has not carried over into this one. D&D’s default
setting is now an unnamed setting, and the Greyhawk pantheon is replaced
with the DM’s choice of homebrewed religions or popular mythologies. I
like this. You will meet clerics of Lugh, or warriors who revere Thor,
or encounter the worship of the DM’s own Nalost, The Sharp Hunter.
However, the named spells (Bigby’s, Mordenkainen’s, Tenser’s) and the
big name powers (Vecna, Tiamat, Asmodeus) will still make appearances.

If we didn’t know it already, it’s now official that huge improvements
from Star Wars: Saga Edition and Mearls’ Iron Heroes/Tome of Battle will
become core rules in the new edition of D&D. We can surmise from Saga
Edition that feats and class abilities are replaced by flexible Diablo
II style talent trees, and Skills have been consolidated into
straightforward groups - finally, Hide and Move Silently are a single
skill, while rubbish like Profession and Use Rope has been discarded.
Double-fistfuls of dice are no longer required to roll attacks at high
level, critical threats automatically confirm. From Iron Heroes, we can
expect to see an emphasis on “action fantasy”: melee fighters who can
learn special combat techniques, emphasis on cool character abilities
instead of magic items and buff spells, much more tactical management,
and a simpler XP system.

Even basics like class and race have been overhauled. Prestige classing
is out, flexible talent trees are in. Multiclassing is much more
feasible than the previous edition, and a dual-classed character is now
balanced for their level. Even more significant is the new race system,
and how this interacts with monsters, monster advancement and monster
characters. You unlock new racial abilities as you level up, making a
dwarf fighter very different to an elf fighter. Humans will no longer be
the dominant race in all fields, and in a return to earlier editions,
races will be more strongly suited to their favoured classes.

An excellent side-effect of this racial bonuses is that level adjustments
have been eliminated in favour of simply granting the racial abilities
gradually as the character levels up in his normal class. Interestingly,
this paves the way for creatures who advance by class level to have
their own racial abilities! I fully expect that when you open the
Monster Manual at “orc” or “hobgoblin” you won’t see a statblock for a
“typical orc”. It’s entirely feasible that the “orc” entry will read
more like the twenty-level NPC listings Dungeon Master’s Guide. This is
a good move, especially since it means you’re going to get much more use
out of your standard humanoid miniatures. I also wouldn’t be surprised
to find the majority of monsters featuring some sort of advancement
options, such that you can run an advanced minotaur or troll straight
from the manual without preparation. Again, good for variety, and you
get a lot more value out of your miniatures.

If you really want to play your kobold sorcerer, we’ve been assured that
this will be an option presented in the Monster Manual. For the moment,
at least, monster player characters like beholders are right out. This
is no big loss - as well as a lack of variety in many monsters’
abilities, the level adjustment required to balance most monsters made
them unplayably weak and left no advancement options. We may see a book
on playing monster characters later, but in the meantime, DMs can ad-hoc
monster PCs like they used to in second edition.



As part of their online offering

The plan is that when you buy a book it will have a unique code and with
a very nominal fee you can unlock the e-book version. This will also
auto-populate the data bases in the character creator so the system
knows what books you own/play with.
They also have a 3d virtual tabletop option included which takes in all
the books you have added to your collection and can pull / populate from
them.