This is Epic?

A bit more on the PHB2.

For starters, I can see now why they include classes like the Shaman, Warden, and Warlord. For sure those "classes" are pale variants on stronger classes, but I can't say that they're not necessary. We need as many of these banal tweaks as we can get so that we can find something that closely fits most any character concept.

A ranger might not be quite right so there's the Warden. A druid kinda makes sense but the Shaman has powers that are better suited. Etc...

I still hate the idea of that, but I understand the design now.

I love the Paragon Paths. The more of these that come out in each book the better. They are really the one and only thing to look forward to. The one meaningful decision in your character's career.

So much for Rob Heinsoo's goal of widening the sweet spot. What they really did was set the Paragon Tier as the de facto sweet spot.

That's most obvious when you look at the Epic Paths. My god they suck! I mean, seriously suck. There is absolutely nothing there to look forward to. For any class.

Epic levels should bring epic choices. This is the time when we should be weighing every decision in light of our character's goals. We're talking heroic destiny here.

Yet we get repetitive drop-this-power-and-select-from-three-of-these-to-replace-it decisions. If you want to call that a decision.

Maybe they'll address that in PHB3. Or in some Epic Powers add-on. Or both. What better way to ensure that we drop another $50 into WotC's coffers?

Oh wait. They have already found a better way to snag our money. By putting core rules in "optional" source books.

How else does one explain the fact that they still didn't address double weapons in the PHB2? If double weapons had been overlooked or cut from the original PHB, well, so be it. Adding them in to the PHB2 would have been a reasonable remedy.

Instead they put the rules for double weapons in the Adventurer's Vault and nowhere else. If you want those rules, dig out your wallet chump.

On the bright side, I'm sure the "Adventurer's Vault" and similar books will have plenty of other good stuff. Enough at least to justify the extra money spent.

Maybe even something epic.

An interview with the devil (just kidding Heinsoo)

My interest in all things DnD has been pretty low lately (for a number of reasons) so I haven't had much to write about.

Until Crwth pointed out this interview with Rob Heinsoo.

Now, I've been unfairly critical of Mr. Heinsoo in the past. In my defense I was in a foul mood that day and his Dev Post about his desk (when I was expecting something relevant) just pushed me over the edge. While it's true that I'm extremely jealous of the fact that he holds my dream job (and embittered by the knowledge that he's certainly more qualified and better at it than I'd ever be) I have a lot of respect for Heinsoo.

That said...

For starters Heinsoo says (and I'm paraphrasing here) that he designed 4E so that it would play like he expected the game to play when he was ten years old. Not to be smarmy, but if there's one overwhelming impression I get from 4E, it's that it was designed for ten year olds.

By that I mean that it's very much a game where you can whip up a character in a few minutes and dive right in. Over all that's not a bad thing, but I feel like they simplified by taking away choices from the players. At the same time there seem to be even more keywords and effects and conditions that need to be repeatedly looked up (although that might just be due to mixing them up with the more familiar 3.5 terms).

Otherwise, for the most part I agree with some of the things Heinsoo has to say.

First off I agree that a 1st level 4E character definitely has the feel of a 4th level 3.5 character. Not a bad thing, to be honest. My only counter is that I never had a 1st level character die. Oddly enough all of my dead PCs were in the 4th to 15th range of levels. In other words, right in Heinsoo's "sweet spot".

Is that from DM Crwth pulling punches at the early levels? Dumb luck? More care with delicate low levels PCs? All of the above?

While I'm at it, I'll also agree with his point on the "sweet spot". I definitely looked forward to hitting 3rd level as the feat gained felt like the point where my character concept finally began to be realized. Above and beyond that I can't say that I enjoyed the 4th thru 10th levels any more than the levels 11 and up.

However, and this is admittedly damning, my upper level characters were a rogue/sorcerer and a sorceress, so I can't really say that fighter-types were outshone at those levels. I do find it hard to believe that an 18th level Fighter with the plethora of feats and the ability to deal out 100+ damage in a round wouldn't be as much fun as my 18th level sorceress. But it's possible.

Still, I've gotta disagree with Heinsoo's assertion that in 3.5 not all of the classes "rocked". In my opinion every class from the Barbarian to the Wizard (and I'm sticking to the PHB core classes here) most definitely rocked. Most importantly, they all rocked in decidedly different ways. Whether it was the ability to Rage or sing or change shape; or a plethora of feats, or sneak attack, or smite, every class had an identity.

While I applaud the intent of 4E to give every 1st level character a fighting chance via a ton of hit points (and healing surges) I think they just went too far with the various powers.

By giving Powers to all they've stripped away the relevance of those powers. Once every one has them, they cease to be anything special. Where's the noticable difference? Where's the defining characteristic of the character?

The answer is that it depends on the character's role. The Controller directs traffic. The Striker deals out damage. The Defender holds the line. The Leader gives out the buffs. Every class has a set of powers that support the given role. That's what defines the 4E character. The role within the party has become king.

I'm not arguing that having roles is a bad thing. It's called a Role Playing Game for a reason. Plus, semantics aside, it just makes sense for a party to have as many bases covered as possible. From experience every time we created a new party it always began with a question of who was going to play what. We didn't necessarily handcuff ourselves to having someone to take care of healing or deal with traps but it was in our heads at the very least.

Putting my quibbles aside, I did enjoy getting a little insight into the aims and thought processes of the 4E designers. I'll also say that they seem to have hit the mark on everything that they wanted to do. 4E does play easily, it flows nicely, the encounters are fun, and there are never any moments where a player has nothing to do.

It should be a really great game.

So why don't I enjoy it nearly as much as 3.5?

Gen Con hints

I've gone and watched all of the video on YouTube posted by GamerZer0, where they're interviewing members of the D&D development team and getting a few bits of information from them before it's posted on the Wizard's website.

One issue mentioned was that 3.0/3.5 currently has a "sweet spot" in a character's development, somewhere in the levels 7-14 range, where gameplay is the most exciting -- before that, it's hard to stay alive, and after that, an encounter gets too cumbersome. I can see what they're saying, though I still find that the low levels are where the biggest challenges lie -- staying alive -- and nothing shows the better than the numerous young corpses we've left scattered around Faerûn. The claim by Andy Collins (the interviewee) was that they're looking for what makes these sweet-spot levels the best, and will try to distribute those features throughout the 30 levels which make up the base range.

Continuous playability was mentioned briefly, specifically the sad tale of the spellcaster that uses up all of his or her spells early on, and is resigned to drawing crossbow or dagger to try and stay helpful. They want to ensure that this isn't necessary -- that a wizard can be a wizard -- which makes me wonder if some spells are going to be considered spell-like abilities, much like the Warlock class in the Complete Arcane. I must admit, this is what appealed to me about the Warlock.

Conversions from 3.5 to 4.0 were briefly discussed, and it was mentioned that attempts to provide conversions from 2.0 to 3.0 failed, and that this time they're just encouraging players to watch the new 4.0 unfold and consider how their character can be created in 4.0. This tells me that the 4.0 rules are going to be quite different, which isn't good to hear for those of us that have a whole library of 3.0/3.5 material. On the other hand, it might just imply that there are so many options available in 4.0 that you'd just rather recreate your character than move it across.

It was pretty much admitted that many of the variant books that have been released lately were beta tests for different design ideas, ones that may or may not be moved into 4.0. At least they admit it, but it feels kind of cheap. Granted, it was always our choice as the players and consumers to buy or not buy a book. I know that some in our group just hated all of the variant types of magic that kept getting introduced (pact magic, etc.) and some feel that psionics should be banished completely. The Book of Nine Swords was mentioned as being "early 4.0" content, which is interesting for those that have read it, to get a feel for the direction of the designers.

Character roles were discussed, where they focused on designing the core classes to specific tasks in a part. One part that struck home was when they said that if someone wanted to play a druid, say, the party had to be such-and-such size, so it had the required roles already filled. We've seen this many times when starting a new campaign -- players will say "if you're not making a rogue, then I will, but then we still need a cleric..." Of course, they're talking about making these lines more defined, which might be contrary to this problem -- will multiclassing be a requirement, now, or vanish?

While discussing designing encounters, they mentioned how monsters will also have roles, such as the upfront fighter against the party, the hide-in-the-shadows foe, etc. They started introducing this in 3.5 with the later books, with the idea of a Tactics section. It sounds like they're focusing on this more to help out the DM in designing encounters, which I think could work well. Of course, it doesn't stop the DM from doing whatever they want with monster, but helps those that might just have everyone charge forward, even when they shouldn't.

One worry from many fans, myself included, was that D&D was becoming more and more miniature-based -- the fact that the books have "feet" as well as "squares" as units of movement started to worry me a bit. We're assured in one interview that the miniatures will be no more needed in 4.0 than they are in 3.5, and that the changes in 4.0 that streamline the rules have a "ripple effect" that means that representing your party with miniatures is less necessary to follow what's going on and determining if you can use this or that ability. I felt this was good news indeed.

That's it for the time being, but it might give a bit of hope... time to go hear about the electronic versions of Dragon and Dungeon magazines, the demise of which really struck a blow with me.