What Would Matt Do

If you’re a regular reader (I’m talking to both of you), you might have noticed I haven’t updated in over a week now. It may appear I’ve been slacking, but really, I’ve been chewing on D&D 4th Edition. I literally haven’t been able to post because I’ve been so unsure of what to think about the next version of D&D recently announced. And honestly, I still haven’t decided.

The Bad

Most people might start with the good, but me, I’m more worried about them ruining the game more than anything else. Yeah, that’s a pretty pessimistic view on the whole thing, but I’ve lost a lot of faith in Hasbro/Wizards since the release of 3.5 and beyond. With that in mind, lets see how they can screw this up.

Online Components

This is the big one, the potential clincher of full on suck. There isn’t too much known about it yet, but here it goes (reg required):

Sometime in the spring, when all of D&D Insider’s digital components go live, we’ll begin charging a monthly subscription fee to access some of our online content. We don’t have final pricing details ready to share, but one subscription fee will cover all aspects of D&D Insider, including more than two print issues’ worth of editorial content each month. You’ll get access to the amazing set of tools D&D Insider will provide—the D&D Game Table, the D&D Character Creator, and the Dungeon Master’s Toolkit, details of which will be unveiled in the coming months. You’ll also get more of the great content you’ve come to expect from Dragon and Dungeon over the past umpteen-dozen years.

That’s pretty much what we know right now…except this key point. Each book you buy will have online components that you can only get by subscribing to their site. Which will cost “more than a magazine subscription, but less than an MMO.”
Here’s my worry. Lets say I get the new Player’s Handbook. And to be able to view the Barbarian class (if it even exists in 4.0), I’ll need to sign up and pay a monthly fee. That will kill PnP. It’s expensive enough as it is to be a D&D PnPer. If you start adding even more cost in, you’re going to screw the guys that don’t have a lot of disposable income for their habit. And you’ll make the pool of available players less, not more, with your spiffy new system. This is my biggest worry about 4.0.

Roleplaying

This isn’t so much a worry as a request. Can we have some roleplaying in my roleplaying game? I don’t feel that’s asking for a lot. I’m not asking you to completely redesign the system in the manner of Vampire or the like where you don’t even talk about numbers or powers until after you come up with a character concept, motivation, etc, but maybe something closer? And they don’t need to be mandatory. Optional rules are just fine. I just want something as a DM I can point to say, “this is the idea, this is what I’m taking about”. I’d love it if the book would talk about these things before they had players rolling dice. Instead of Roll Dice > Pick Race > Pick Class > Pick Feat/Spells/Powers/Gear > Consider having some motivation and history for your character, I’d love to see the last step be the first. Just something to help people along towards being a roleplayer…in D&D, a RPG. I don’t think I’m asking for too much. And if this isn’t there, I won’t be stunned, but it would make 4.0 less than it could be.

The Good

Wow. Not the MMO, but the actual word. There is so much potential good to talk about, I’m considering being happier than a puppy with two peters. It could happen. Lets hit some of the best points.

Customization

Races (reg required):

In the final version of 4th Edition, most of your racial traits come into play right out of the gate at 1st level—dwarven resilience, elven evasion, a half-elf’s inspiring presence, and so on. As you go up levels, you can take racial feats to make those abilities even more exciting and gain new capabilities tied to your race. You can also take race-specific powers built into your class, which accomplish a lot of what racial substitution levels used to do: a dwarf fighter with the friend of earth power can do something that other 10th-level fighters just can’t do.

Classes (reg required):

The fighter is the only current 4th Edition class with capabilities that depend on the weapon they have chosen to train the most with. Even at 1st level, a fighter who uses an axe has a different power selection than a fighter who relies on a flail or a rapier or a pick. In the long run, fighters can diversify and master powers related to a few different weapons, but most will opt to focus on the weapon that suits their personal style, helps their interactions with the rest of the PCs in the group, and carries all the magical oomph they’ve managed to acquire.

Monsters (reg required):

In 4th Edition, your dungeons are going to be a lot more densely populated. The typical encounter has one monster per PC in the party, assuming that the monsters are about the same level as the PCs. An encounter’s total XP value determines its difficulty, allowing you a lot more freedom to mix tougher and weaker monsters. Even better, the difference between a level X monster and a level X + 1 monster is much smaller. You can create an encounter using monsters that are three or four levels above the party without much fear. Add in the rules for minions (which will be described in a future Design & Development article), and you could (in theory) match twenty goblins against a 1st-level party and have a fun, exciting, balanced fight.

I’m so going to be a shield and board dwarven fighter with earth power! Whatever that is! The point being, is you’ll have an almost unlimited number of ways to customize, and game/munchkin, the system. It’s like they are promising to ship non-model thin super models with the game. Well, maybe not quite that good, but close. And that doesn’t even get into the Talent trees, the way skills will be changed (the just released Star Wars book is supposedly a good preview of what they are planning on doing for both) and numerous other changes they are talking about (lots more monsters sounds particularly cool for encounters).

Temporary Conclusion

I’m excited. Very excited. But I’m cautious because this is Wizards and while they promised a lot from 3.5, all it really boiled down to were some slight modifications and bug fixes on 3.0. Which meant I had to buy numerous other books if I wanted to play 3.5, but it didn’t really have much bang for it’s buck. That doesn’t even go into the bajillions of books they’ve pumped out, like second player’s handbook, the six jillion class customization books, the extra races, etc. Most of which is pretty worthless. Not all of it mind you, but a fair amount of it isn’t worth the paper is was written on. Which is disappointing to say the least. So I’m hoping that’s not going to happen. Oh, and I wish they would release the damn books all at once. Why bother releasing the PHB without the DMG? They say they’ll be launching 4.0 in May, but really, it won’t be launched and playable until sometime in august. So I’m excited. Excited, but wary.

What Would Matt Do: I’m going to be praying and hoping they don’t pooch this one. Don’t charge me an arm and a leg to play it and screw the system up. That doesn’t seem like a tall task, but for Wizards/Hasbro, it just might be.