Comments on: Wizards Watch: What I Want From D&D Next

By: benensky

benensky — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 16:41:59 +0000

I had no problem with your negitive point of view in past articles. If they want you to say something positive they should give you something exciting and fun to be positive about.

I liked may of our points like pushing the design to a new level and more help for the DM.

Keep up the good work!

By: Eric

Eric — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 04:27:07 +0000

Well written and spot with my views for the most part. I consider 4e a great improvement over 3/3.5e for 1) making 1st level characters heroic with real powers and survivability, 2) tactical choices to make each character, even of the same class, unique-feeling, 3) and the OUTSTANDING At-Will, Encounter, and Daily powers concept combined with the Standard, Move, and Minor actions allowance. Where I still feel like 4e could be improved is 1) reactions and action interrupts really slow down combat to a 1crawl, so that games sessions tend to be one combat, 2) as a DM or player playing online through Virtual Table & using Character Builder, I feel it is impossible to create my own customized powers, magic items, and deities (I want to create my own magic sword, name, powers etc., but I’m stuck picking from a pregenerated list). My wishlist would include powers/actions that make a shortsword and shield a viable combination for a fighter (some combo move or something). Great article again.

By: Dave Wainio

Dave Wainio — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 05:46:23 +0000

Good stuff. In fact, a good chunk of it I house ruled back into existance with my 4E campaign. My players train between levels at a cost (although I tossed them 4th level for free as they did not gain or chang powers and were in the middle of an adventure). I added “talents” which was basically an extended skill list that added on top to the current skill system.

What I hope they bother to include is the tools for on the fly, random DMing. Encounter charts (heck, I’ll take encounter checks). And why did reaction rolls go away ? Sometimes I haven’t decided if the NPCs I hust made up on the spot like the party or not.

Yes, I built my own tools….but these types of elements being missing may have been what brought on all the “4E is just a complicated board game” complaints. They left fluff tidbits about roleplaying but took out most of the rule mechanics for initiating contacts that are not preplanning encounters.

I’d also say they should go ahead and drop thier base D&D Next system into an actual world with a few details in the DMG and PHB. No more of this vague “points of light in the wilderness” bit. Those of us with our own camaign worlds will easily strip out the fluff, but newer gamers will have some type of framework to hang their neophyte campaign on and a context to their character creation. Heck, just a single continent would do with a few notes about the rest of the world. That continent may be all that the players have ever heard of or experienced. The world can be explored when the DM and players are ready to expand out.