Altri dettagli di questo capolavoro di sterco fumante:
Citazione:
Here’s a highly probable conversation lifted from the future, one year from today, as two players who’ve just met at a convention discuss their PC choices for their upcoming D&D game.
“I’m playing a 3rd-level human fighter named Graelar.”
“Cool. Is he weapon and shield or two-hander?”
“He’s sword and board, man.”
“Longsword?”
“Yeah. I thought about going high Con and using a hammer, but I wanted to start with the chance to make a couple of attacks, so I’m using rain of blows as my good weapon attack, and I went with high Wis so that I can switch to the better oppy powers later.”
“My elf fighter uses a spear. I like the speed and the option to go past AC. But you’ve got the fighter covered. I’ll play a halfling rogue.”
The names and destinations of the powers mentioned above might have changed by the time the game is in your hands. What won’t change is that fighters care about which weapons they use much more than other characters. Other character classes have specific weapons and weapon types that they tend to rely on while still maintaining access to a larger chunk of the weapon chart. 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.
Many fighters will opt for swords. Swords have the most flexible assortment of powers. In a fighter’s hands, the longsword is the queen of the battlefield and the greatsword is the queen’s executioner. But each of the other significant melee weapons offers the fighter unique advantages and opportunities. For the first time, you’ll be able to say “I’m an axe fighter” or “I’m a flail fighter” and that will mean something cool.
Citazione:
Set the wayback machine to May of 2004!
Even at that point, we knew 4th Edition was coming, though official work on it wouldn’t start for another year. At the time, the design team used to meet regularly in what we jokingly called the “Design Cabal.” And one day, in May ’04, we started kicking around the question of how many slices of pie a D&D character should consist of, and how big each piece should be.
In 3rd Edition, class and magic items were two big pieces of the PC pie. Race was important at 1st level, but by the time you hit 20th, there was rarely much to distinguish a dwarf fighter from a half-orc fighter. The difference between a +2 here and a +2 over there was drowned out by the huge bonuses from magic items and character level—it didn’t matter any more.
We wanted race to matter all the way up through a character’s career. We wanted there to be some difference between two characters of different races, all other things being equal. We had tried out mechanics like the racial paragons in Unearthed Arcana and the racial substitution levels in the Races of . . . series of books, and we liked the results.
In May of 2004, we started kicking around ideas like “the 20-level race.” In a 20-level race, at each level you gained, you’d get not only new class features, but also new racial qualities. Your race might predetermine which ability scores you increased at some levels, so a dwarf’s Constitution would always have an edge over characters of other races. It would grant you new special abilities as you advanced in level, always appropriate to your level, of course.
One key advantage we saw to this system was that it made it much easier to find room for new races without resorting to the kludgy and awkward mechanic of level adjustments. If we spread the tasty magical abilities of drow out through their levels, they could start at 1st level on a par with other character races. Races like the githyanki already anticipated some of that idea by granting new spell-like abilities at higher levels.
Well, over the next few years, things changed, as things are wont to do. We blew the game out to thirty levels, but put your most significant racial choices in the first ten. Above that, other choices started to crowd out room for special abilities coming from your race.
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.
The rules have changed a lot since that first idea of the 20-level race, but they still serve the same purpose: to make sure that your race stays not just relevant but actually important all the way up through thirty levels of adventure.
Citazione:
June 28th, Thursday Night, Wizards Conference Room (Wayne Manor).
Campaign Arc: Castle Smoulderthorn
DM: Dave Noonan
Players: Bruce Cordell (yours truly), Richard Baker, Logan Bonner, and Toby Latin
Before we begin play, another player is giving Rich grief about one of Rich’s character’s abilities that grants the rest of us a blanket +2 to saves; it just ain’t sexy. Rich says something like, “I don’t know, I doubt I’ll use it that much, but who knows, maybe everyone in the party will get entangled.”
Sure enough, not 10 minutes later this fire-crazed flame priest has entangled half the party with fire snakes! Rich throws up his +2 to saves and, voila, at least two of us get free immediately. I guess that power isn’t so corner case after all.
In my case, I’ve thrown together a “psion.” It’s because prior to the shift to the new playtest rules, I was playing a psion elan named Infandous. You wonder, why the scare quotes? Well, just between you and me, updated-Infandous-the-psion is actually a wizard with the serial numbers filed off.
Anyhow, I missed the last few sessions, so I’m slightly confused when the session begins—apparently the group is still breathing hard from their last session, not even rested or healed, when we hear a shuffle of footsteps from behind a set of double doors. The doors aren’t completely closed, so I “mentally” whip them open from across the room.
Coming down the hallway is a troop of azer, some sort of burning serpent, and the flame priest I mentioned earlier. And it was a fight! And . . . we won. Without really breaking a sweat, either, truth be told.
Emboldened, we advanced down that hallway now littered with azer remains and ash, took a right, and pretty quickly found a dusty lintel inscribed with the words: Tomb of the Black Host.
“Sounds like someplace loot is stored,” said Infandous, eager to expand his repertoire of cool equipment. A little more discussion, and we pushed on the door. It opened . . .
And Dave spent nearly 10 minutes constructing (using Dungeon Tiles!) an ominous, crypt-lined ruin complete with three golden sarcophagi that emanated magic. Dave did a good job laying out the floor plan of the room. Such a good job that we lingered in the door looking into the shadow-lined mausoleum for a minute, then, another . . . then decided as a group that, loot or no loot, perhaps it would be better to let whatever lay in the deathly quite of the tomb alone. So, we closed the door and continued down the main hallway.
Citazione:
The 4th Edition announcement event has just finished. It took place in a massive ballroom filled with hundreds of people. A large screen flashed images and videos; full-size models of a beholder and a troll decorated the floor before the stage. The event was presented by Bill Slavicsek and Chris Perkins.
1) History of the editions video - 1e, 2e, 3e and then 4e. A comical video looking at the improvements over the years, finishing wih 4E presented as a 21st Century hi-tech combination of digital media and physical product. Also, jokes were made of clunky rules, such as the grappling rules - to which we are assured, we can say goodbye!
2) Covers revealed for the core rules - the covers of the PHB, MM and DMG were revealed. The MM shows Orcus (in my earlier meeting, I was told that the MM would range from CR 1-30 critters). THe DMG had a dragon fighting an adventuring party on it.
3) Character advancement is meaningful at each level - touched on earlier, each level will provide new abilities and challenges.
4) High level play as fun and meaningful as low level - and as easy to run. The "sweet point" concept was reiterated, illustrated as levels 7-14. This is the game experience that the whole game should be providing.
5) Resource Management overhauled - the game will keep going even when the caster
is out of spells, or when the cleric has run out of healing.
6) Monster roles are being redefined - DM will have easier time finding right monster for the right job. Statblocks are simplified.
7) Four parts to 4E - physical product (core rules, adventures, supplements, tiles, miniatures); Organized Play (Living Campaigns, convention play, special events, connecting players and DMs in new ways); Community (Gleemax.com, a suite of social ntworking tools, ways for players to communicate with each other and with WotC, organise characters); Digital Offerings (DND Insider: collection of online tools for DMs, character creation, editorial game content, online expanded content for books, behind the scenes content for books, designer commentaries -much of this was analogous to the second disc in a DVD box set: every physical product will have a code which can be entered into D&D Insider which will
unlock the product's digital version for you online, along with extra content).
8) Dragon/Dungeon - Online content will be added every few days (Dragon and Dungeon content), and colated into monthly issues.
9) Digital tabletop - a wireframe of a dragon was shown, an online dice roller (very pretty) , the ability to use purchased digital tiles or to draw on the tabletop. It's not a game, just a toolbox - you still provide the DM, the players and the adventure.
10) DNDInsider.com was apparently set to go live right after the announcement. It will be live in preview form. It's not available as I type this, but it's worth checking periodically.
Citazione:
The very first thing they said to me was that the core rulebooks will span levels 1-30. Not only that, but those levels are supposed to extend the "sweet spot" of D&D, which WotC guesstimated at currently being levels 4-14ish. They have also tried to ensure that every class gets something new and exciting at every level. They did not list the core classes (although indicated that psionics will be supplementary, and not core), and they pointed to the front cover for the 4e PHB where is referred to (if I recall correctly), where it says "Arcane, divine and martial characters". I asked about the Rogue, and was told that the Rogue is a "martial character".
They spoke also of character "roles", and about how different classes would have different roles more explicitly predefined than at present. Continuing the concept of every class receiving cool new stuff at each level I asked if this meant that they were spreading the magic around more than at present; their response was "yes, to an extent", but that, for example, the Fighter would have maneuvers and so forth.
The release schedule is as follows: in April 2008, a quick-start adventure called "Adventure H1: Keep on the Shadowfell" will be released. This will include pregenerated characters. May 2008 sees the 4th Edition Player's Handbook and Character Record Sheet, June 2008 sees the Monster Manual, and July 2008 brings us the Dungeon Master's Guide and DM's Screen.
On magic, they touched briefly on the PHB containing various "power sources", expanding the concept of arcane and divine sources.
The look of 4th Edition, they said, would be much less"textbook" and much more "magazine"; they felt this would be friendlier, clearer and more accessible. Expect to see a higher reliance on images and diagrams.
You've already heard about dndinsider.com, which is due to go live soon. This i their digital content. I saw examples of the Dragon and Dungeon pages (it looked a lot like the magazines). The intention is to provide subscriber services alongside the current free content, although some free content will move over.
The whole digitial thing is heavily linked in to the physical product line. They empasized that they were marrying to two together. D&D books will have a code in them which, when entered into the online service, will provide digital access to that content. The digital game table was a large part of the conversation, with screenshots on how you generat a character online using the physical books you own, customize its appearance, and then generate a "virtual miniature" for use in the online game experience. The online game is tool, not a game in itself - a mapping system with battlemaps, generators and so forth, all run by a DM. I saw a few screenshots, showing overhead and isometric views, and virtual miniatures including a PC and a green dragon.
Regarding the OGL and the d20 System - both will continue to be actively supported. There WILL be a 4th Edition SRD; some publishers will get access to it early, just like with the 3 rollout.
WoW.
Non nel senso dell'esclamazione. :stress: