Comments on the 4th Ed fact thread

[Jester of the FoS]

Weapon groups make sense. Good with swords, then you should be good with all swords.

[Lord Cyclohexane]

Well, I wouldn't like to spoil your enthusiasm, but (...)

(bottom lip slowly thrusts out like a glacier crushing the landscape)

Oh, well. I was hoping that there could be some weapon-variability, rather than just the "huh, all picks are the same, all axes are the same... huh, [this type of weapon] is the best because it has best mix of immediate damage with X% chance to get crit, as proven by my Probability notes that I've written here it has the greatest percentage chance of taking off N hp, so all of the characters I ever build will be using this weapon and all of the rest of you are fools to not use [this weapon]"

Not that I really thought it would prevent munchkin powergamers, but I thought it might allow enough variability that they wouldn't piss me off for a while... (shrugs) I'm naive, I guess.

Also the way the pick is written just mentions the properties of the war pick. The same way flails give a +2 to disarm checks or scimitars have a 18-20 critical range or axes have x3 crit modifier.

Sounds just like 3rd Ed. Makes me wonder what that article was supposed to be about, with Fighters needing to pay attention to their weapon types then, since this now sounds like 3rd Ed weapons but just readding the 2nd Ed notion of weapon-speed (can't recall the term, but big weapons moving slower than smaller weapons)

IMO proficiency group 2 means that the war pick will be grouped with a group of similar weapons for things like feats etc.

Yeah, exactly. I figured the "Prof. 2" referred to the old 2nd Ed idea of "Weapon Proficiencies" vs "Non-Weapon Proficiencies" and how you could (and pretty much only got bang for your buck) buying Weapon Proficiencies as groups, like 2-Handed Weapons and 1-Handed Weapons PoleArms and Bows and etc. I figure "Prof. 2" means you need the 2-Handed Weapons Weapon Proficiency group to use it without penalty, and that some Feats might affect only 2-Handed Weapons.

It would be cool to have properties depending on the skill of the crafter though, I agree on that... let's just hope something like that will be incorporated.

I can hope, but considering the typical party haul vs the price of magical items/upgrades, it'd just make the rules unnecessarily complex to add rules like I'm thinking of. Besides, in true fantasy (Tolkien, Howard, Leiber, Paul, Dunsany, etc), any weapons that are better-than-average are due to some magical property, not due to any craftsman's skill, so it'd be kinda silly for WotC to change the feel, much as I might want them to.

[Jester of the FoS]

Well, it's good for making all weapons simpler.
Instead of designing each and every single weapon you design the base groups and then the variants. So there might be a few different weapon groups (swords, maces, hammers, axes, picks, etc). Then there's likely a light, medium and heavy variant possibly with a finesse, or other variants as well, all of which would be similar.
So instead of looking at a short sword and just trying to make it unique and separate, instead you look at swords and light weapons then design it around that.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Well, I wouldn't like to spoil your enthusiasm, but in the previous teasers the designers said they will downgrade crafts to focus chars more on RP and creature bashing. As they said "If you want your char to be a cobbler just put it in his background".

I gather that this is meant to spare players from choosing between skills that have solid payoffs on adventures, and ones that are more of a way to round out your character's background. That way, the 4E rules won't punish players for caring about non-adventuring skills. (I know a DM who gives 3E PCs an extra skill point per level to invest in Craft or Profession, specifically to prevent that from happening.)

IMO proficiency group 2 means that the war pick will be grouped with a group of similar weapons for things like feats etc.

My guess is that that's what the "Category: Pick" entry is for, actually. Perhaps "Prof.: 2" means that a non-proficient wielder suffers an attack penalty of -2, when using a war pick...?

[Lord Soth]

I'm hoping we'll have Weapon Group Proficiencies, and that you get a number of points at character creation to spend on Weapon Proficiencies, like the Weapon Group Feats from Unearthed Arcana. That's what I'm guessing the Proficiency 2 number means.

For example, you can put down 1 rank in Proficiency with Picks. That'll get you Proficiency with Light Picks and Heavy Picks, and boosting it up to two ranks will get you Proficiency with War Picks. Likewise, 1 rank in Proficiency with Swords will get you Proficiency with the Shortsword, Longsword, and Greatsword, while 2 ranks will get you Bastard Sword Proficiency.

That's what I'm hoping, anyway. I vastly prefer that over the Fighter or whoever being proficient in a vast swathe of weapons which he'll likely never use, but having to burn a Feat in order to gain Proficiency with a Bastard Sword or other similar weapon. You'd effectively gain the ability to trade in worthless Proficiencies for something more useful (Goodbye Mace, Trident, and Polearm Proficiencies, hello Spiked Chain Proficiency).

[alhoon]

To Cycloexane: Hey, I don't have any info you don't have. I just said my opinion. Also many of such things as weapon groups were in Unearthed Arcana like L.Soth said.

About the magical properties of better than average weapons, there was mention that better than average crafters could make enchanted swords. I.e a The best blacksmith of the area, in his best day could make a magical weapon of shorts, like Bruenor did in Crystal Shard.

[Rock of the Fraternity]

Did they ever explain why the shape of the universe has been completely turned over? Again? I rather liked the Great Wheel. It was a bit messy, but it had a certain charm. The 4E system seems simpler, but less ... expressive, somehow.

[Jester of the FoS]

I think it's a "we've had the Great Wheel since the '70s and done that, let's try something new" approach.
2E changed practically nothing. 3E mostly just confined itself to mechanics and minor changes. 4E is the first real revamp of almost everything.

[Rock of the Fraternity]

How about in-game? What's the backstory here?

[Rotipher of the FoS]

I'm not sure there'll be a "backstory" per se, only suggestions. If you're determined to keep using the Great Wheel, you can treat most of those planes as "Divine Domains" within the Astral Sea, and the old Elemental Planes as regions of the Elemental Storm that happen to be a lot less of a multi-element blend than most. Basically, the actual places can still exist if you wish: it's just the old map of how they were "arranged" (which was never meant to be taken literally; it's a schematic, not a big circle of boxes) that's wrong.

Mostly, though, it's a retconn. I think the designers have realized that the vast majority of DMs out there don't actually run extraplanar adventures very often, so their campaigns won't be affected all that much. As long as there's a place for demons and elementals and so forth to come from, it's not that big a deal for most campaigns: Planescape's the only setting this will really screw over, and it's already had its glory days.

[Jester of the FoS]

It doesn't look like there's a story for the change, as that would imply in-world there was a change and invalidate the millennium-long backstory for the new planes.

[Rock of the Fraternity]

Somehow, that feels just a little ... cheap to me. Oh, well.

[alhoon]

I never actually liked the Great wheel or used it as it was presented. As for the new system, I already like the way elementals-not-boring will be. In 3rd edition they were really boring and not very usefull. Sure you could summon a fire elemental with CR 2... or something else that was also CR2 but more fit to the situation than a single flame with intelligence 4 that does nothing more than punching people.[/i]

[JinnTolser]

(I know a DM who gives 3E PCs an extra skill point per level to invest in Craft or Profession, specifically to prevent that from happening.)

I've thought of doing something simliar myself, except allowing that extra skill point to go toward certain Knowledge skills as well. Nobody ever takes Craft, Profession, or Knowledge skills in the games I play in or run, unless they have to in order to qualify for a PrC or something.

How does it work out for the DM you know who does it?

[Ail]

Hurray for Shelly Mazzanoble! I loved her Confessions of a Part Time Sorceress and even gave a copy of it to my girlfriend in an attempt to woo her to DnD.

(It didn't quite work out as planned. My girlfriend never got round to reading it because of work constraints, and eventually her 14-yo kid sister read it instead and now wants to roleplay a druid.)

Yeah, I really like her column too