Wow. That was quick. I wonder if it will follow the "good system, bad system" axiom we've seen so far starting with 1st edition, or if it will follow in the epic fail tradition of 4th.

There is a gaming group that meets every week here in Longmont at a gaming store. Apparently they play 4th ed. I have though about going and seeing what the fuss is about. I would most likely stand there with my arms folded in firm disapproval most likely. Kind of like seeing a shitty emo band opening at a good metal band I want to see. But I am still curious

"Well yeah I'm a little curious"

Bikecurious?

Some of the 4ed folks think this is a money grab. Given how quickly the versions have turned over, it MIGHT be, but I much more suspect the obvious- 4ed is selling worse than Pathfinder, so it is obvious that there is more support for a system more like that.

Will it be open, like 3.X, or stupidly closed, like 4?

Will it tie you to their servers like 4ed does, to generate characters quickly?

Will it "seem like an MMO" and have extremely similar skills per class? Will the balance be think in the air?

Will it have rules for what you can do out of combat?

Will it have names for moves, such that fighters are basically casting spells?

Will it try to model reality?

Will there be ninjas?


Older versions answer all THESE questions correctly. Shit like game balance, you can shove into place as you like. I would strongly suggest anyone interested in "another version" check out Pathfinder.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/

However.... if it's good, sure, I'll check out a new RPG by Hasbro. Hell, they even bought the D&D name so Paizo couldn't use it, so they must sort of like it!
It might be sort of like D&D, or based on it. Could be good.

We'll see.

If you actually give a shit about 5ed, check this out:

http://www.enworld.org/index.php?page=dnd5e

This is the ever-updating list of stuff we know about it.


Some that stick out to me as being a bit more concrete:



In 4ed, everyone has the same "attack bonus" at a given level, so this sounds more in line with that. Orcs and ogres can stay relevant in 3ed if you progress them (orcs are all set up to gain PC levels, as long as you don't do it like a jackass), and even in the 3.X MM, one of the two ogres provided is an ogre with some levels of barbarian. Being completely honest, I never thought that the FIGHTER had anything to do with these meat-heads going obsolete at high levels- it's mostly about the fact that their low thinking abilities result in the more creative characters being able to manipulate or avoid them if they are any form of threat- it's hard to find a 2nd level spell that isn't effective against an orc, and it's almost impossible to find a 5th level spell that isn't effective against an advanced orc. So this statement REALLY implies to me that magic will be more like 4th and less like 3rd, a fact that doesn't interest me much.

That being said, while I do really like the BAB racing upwards for the martial guys, this COULD be ok. But I'm just more worried that everything will be more MMO stuff, with cooldowns aka once-per-encounter powers. These do make for some compelling gameplay, but they throw away modelling reality in exchange for interesting stuff, a balance I feel 3.X does much friggin better.



This is good and bad. I definitely like that starting with a 22 Str versus starting with a 16 Str makes for a noticeable difference, but I'm a big fan of the fact that by high level, the 16 Str fighter is still ok. Str 18 is very strong. You have big muscles. Many games have been ignoring this fact recently- literally ALL THE POPULAR ones, as stats become abstract. Why? Well, a big part I think has been to sell strong female characters to fools with no conception of reality, who want the strength without looking the part. The female characters are as powerful as the male characters, but tend to resemble glamour models, or even fashion models, while the males are unilaterally equipped appropriately, physically, for their task. By simply assuming that high strength means high fucking strength (and therefore a big and powerful physique), I never had this issue, but many games nowadays, do. This means that either the females in these game worlds are very strong while looking like some waif or are ludicrously more competent than their male counterparts- either assumption is insultingly sexist, and has no place in my game worlds. So the starting stat values, which often result from the players choosing the characters that they want to play, have, in my mind, an adequate amount of ramifications even in the endgame- ESPECIALLY involving Strength. Strength is such an alpha stat, affecting every hit roll and every damage roll, in addition to helping you move stuff over, resist grapples, resist trips, DO grapples, DO trips, carry shit, and in some cases fling things around.

Now, I will say this- I would like a character who is charming to have a bigger benefit with diplomacy. A Cha +3 versus a Cha +1 represents a reasonably large difference, statistically, and for this to be eaten away by two levels of skill points seems... Hrm. How many levels should blow this difference up, really? I don't have a great answer.





This is... dangerous, and interesting. Right now, by high level, groups are "expected" to have some amount of "wealth". Naturally, the players have picked apart the mostly ancestral lists of magic items, finding the most powerful ones, and assuming that they are available, and then telling you to bully your DM if they aren't. But then some games, such as mine, have a whole trade district that includes MULTIPLE magical shops. In my current game, the PCs pretty much fucking LIVE in Emerald, the most relevant city in the "Europe" equivalent. While they had one quest leading them there, they pretty much decided, ok, this place is cool. Since the world is high magic, they have rather high access to items, limited mostly by their moderately above wealth-by-level earning potential.

So, how would this goal work in Caligo? It sounds like, pretty well. If magical items really are removed from the assumptions, then a high magic game will feature more magical items, and a low magic game less, with characters progressing smoothly in terms of power. Right now, a low magic game definitely punishes fighters, for instance, and in 4ed the wealth by level is much more predictable in terms of how many pluses you get from items. The problem that I see is...
Ok, lets take the flying improved invisible wizard throwing spells. In a high level 3.X game, this characters opponents will have some measure of answer here, even if they are mostly melee fighters. He's made himself probably LESS of a target- the enemy may have to expend a precious action to see invisible, or only some of the enemies may see invisible or have blindsense, the melee enemies may be much less effective at range, or have to take cover to avoid a 400 foot distance wizard lobbing fireballs from essentially orbit, but he's probably not an unstoppable killing machine as he would be at, say, level 2 (and these powers aren't available by then). Without being balanced around this assumption.... how do these powers work? Do they even exist? This is a noble goal, but I think to get here you probably have to throw away a lot of stuff that I hold dear.






Back to this, because it's interesting. I'm a bit puzzled about the races getting +1 stat instead of +2. The reasoning in 3.X was pretty clear- you wanted your plus to increase. This looks like it splits the difference between race and class. This is fucking genius. Steal this idea. Thus far, this is the greatest thing I've seen so far. Right now, if you choose some retarded race for fighter (say, a halfling), that gives you a -2. Meanwhile, someone choosing the correct race for fighter (say, a half orc) is at +2 for that. In this setup, the half orc is still at +2, but the halfling draws 0, his training overcoming his goofy fucking body, and more importantly, reducing the delta betwixt to a mere 2 instead of 4. Very clever, methinks.

The ability to "just bust down the door" without making a roll is... maybe good. Earlier editions mapped these stats pretty strictly in some cases, and for the most part, I really liked that. The question I have is, what do I have to know about the door?

Without a system- I need some way of rating how strong the person is, how long he takes, his skill in bashing doors down (probably either doing it right or not). I need to know what the door is made of, how thick it is, the number of hinges, the material, the fasteners. It's a lot, and there's a lot of estimating. The end result will be loosely accurate and probably take about 15 minutes to resolve.

3.X- I have a hardness and hitpoints for the door, based on the material and the thickness. This comes from a table. I could also have a Str check, or break DC, because you could knock it off the hinges without actually breaking the door itself (this is a pretty good way to actually fuck a door up IRL).

5- Apparently I need a min Str required to succeed. But what if he's below that? The door breaks for Str 17, what about 15, 12, 10? Does it take you longer (it should, even Roxie can claw through a door if given a few hours)? How much longer? This could be better or not, because I might need to know more or do more math, but it sounds like it will make for faster execution if pregenerated (aka, 5 inch wood with steel hinges might be Str 18, 4 inch iron with mithril hinges might be Str 23, and below that there's some method to figure time and/or hitpoints).


Yes, fucking please. This is my big gripe with skills- they take away a huge part of the roleplay. 3.X was created to be played in a narrative fashion much like previous versions, but it became obvious when the rules lawyers hit about their second year of training that you could do literally ludicrous shit with a high enough skill check. By rules, if the bard could say just a sentence at about 13th level, he could convince the arch bad guy to join his side. Now, I don't know anyone who runs a game that fucking bad- I normally throw skill checks at players whenever they are attempting to change state but haven't made an overwhelmingly convincing case (for instance, when they talk with the allied good wizards, they don't have to spam diplomacy dice to get help), or a hopeless one (dice don't get rolled when you are talking to the guy that wants to kill you, no matter how cute your pixie face). I like skills that work like balance (though balance itself is an awkward place to spend skill points, something both Pathfinder and 4th address, and presumably 5th will as well) when players are thrown down, or have to cross narrow walkways, and I like a whole lot less skills that result in shortcutting plot or dungeon obstacles. If I had more time, I'd like trapfinding and disarming to be a much more narrative process, instead of abstracting it into the head of the rogue and "roll 5 or above to not get fucked".

So the example of crossing a pit:

I have "use rope" and X ranks in "balance". What's my DC for those two? <- Not a fan
Ok, is there a thing on the other side to lasso? Good, ok, lemme roll for that (rolls). Ok, good, is it tight (rolls). Alright, I'll cross first (balance roll) <- Mostly what we have now, and I like it ok.
Ok, is there a thing on the other side to lasso? My Dex is 16, and that lets me lasso stuff within 15 feet. Alright, I'll tie it here, my use-rope-equivalent skill is 4, so that should be good enough to support us. I walk across easily with my 16 Dex, but the low Dex wizard has Dex 8, so (whatever happens in the same case above where the Str 12 guy wants to break the door down) <- Don't know how feel about.



This implies that no class is given a shit-wad of skill points and nothing else. Failing to use skills in your games results in, say, rogues, feeling pretty fucking useless. Overall, this is probably a good thing. The discrepancy between 2 and 8 point classes, especially rogue and fighter, is kind of shocking in 3.X- the fighter is lucky if he can work a job at all!



The first part of this- "weapons defined by categories not specific names" is, to me, shocking. It "solves" their weapon issues by sidestepping them completely. Presumably, a katana is a bastard sword is a scimitar. Pretty much, fuck that.

The rest I'm a huge fan of.



This is fantastic. steal this idea



No thx brah



Ok, I don't know where this is going, but if the Psion is being designed at the same time as the wizard and the cleric, that alone will make me take a VERY serious look at this game. "Designed later syndrome" is a big gripe of mine in many games, and forethought such as this will avoid it. I'm definitely sick of psionics being added in later and half-assed, with a third of the abilities terrible (feel sound, or whatever) and then a bunch of broken shit in the top 10% (uh, you totally split your mind man, and then you get double attacks from inside your impenetrable shower stall of energy).

Also, the idea of "simple to make characters" versus "complex to make characters" is attractive to me as a DM. I have varying levels of effort that I want to put into characters, as some will likely be interacted with multiple times, or actually have to roll checks versus other detailed NPCs offscreen to determine some plot events, whereas many characters mostly exist to kill the PCs or (more frequently) get farmed to fuck by them. If the second category could be generated faster, the ones that don't have to be complex out of combat and would preferably be attractive IN combat, that would be nice.

There is some discussion of "modularity"... like as in, there would be a skills module you could play with to have 3.X like skills, or you play without it. Or maybe a "weapons" module to have weapons more detailed than "sword".

The problem with all of that is... the existing setup needs to be balanced assuming it somehow, and it needs to somehow work out. They HAVE told us that grid based combat will be a "module" (I think one included in the PHB), the point being that you could play it without a grid, like 2ed, or with a grid, like 2ed or 3ed.

But... a lot of 3ed things assumed that grid. They mattered because of it. For instance, flanking is a pretty core mechanic, but it never works in favor of a wizard, but is super important to a rogue, because a lot of his trickery involves a distracted opponent. If we were playing gridless, I would have to call out "ok, well, you are both fighting him, so you can flank" or something. If your DM routinely says stuff like "he holds his back to the wall, keeping you both in line of sight", then flanking is terrible, and rogues are pretty screwed. Meanwhile, if he's very permissive and assumes you can pretty much always get a flank off, then that mechanic is probably too powerful- it's supposed to have an uptime less than 100%, but MUCH more importantly, you are supposed to have to take some risks for that positioning sometimes.

So, how does that work? Take the hex grid (or icky square grid) out of 3ed, and you have to houserule flanking, cleave, the reach weapons, the close versus medium range spells... a whole lot of stuff. I believe this LIMITS the amount of these interesting mechanics that can be in the game before and after the "module".


Still, interesting idea.

So, two pieces of news since we last talked here:

1)- The playtest is out. This has some pregenned characters, a brief overview of the rules, including some weapons, armor, and a couple spells. It also has an NDA-like thing where you can't say much about it in, say, forums like this one (our private forums, being our own group, would be just fine). However, it is an OPEN playtest- everyone here can register at wotc, get the stuff. Hell, slashdot even covered it.

2)- Monte Cook left the team about a month ago. I missed that when it happened, and suffice it to say that is Bad News. Monte cited issues with management, so people speculate it could be anything from design decisions from wotc/hasbro corporate, or it could be something as "simple" as wotc shitting the bed on OGL for another edition, because it's 1985 or something. We don't know, we can only speculate on it. Since these aren't the heavily censored big traffic message boards, I'll just give a "Fuck Wotc, Monte might be a bit of a princess, but he's a damned fucking good princess, and if he's pissed about something, the rest of us probably should be too!" as my current understanding.



On topic (1), I'll avoid going into great detail because, hey, laws. But it is the most interesting piece. I'll say I don't see anything compelling like I did going from 2ed to 3ed in THEIR early announcements- but neither do I see anything frightening like we saw in 4ed. Hell, 4ed they refused to do a playtest because they were probably worried about everyone shitting on it. In any event...

I can see where they have marked sections for "modularity" to some degree, and where they have not. The pregens have class and race, but they also have two OTHER fields, each with similar roleplay tie in, and each with mechanical benefits. These are similar to the "traits" in pathfinder, but are likely pulled from a large list, and each isn't balanced at half a feat like traits are (in Pathfinder on creation you get to pick two traits- these are pretty minor, the one everyone seems to love is a +2 to init, and everything else is probably less important than that one).

These things are modular just like class and race- you could release ENDLESS variations on these, and likely should. This is solid game design, and exceeds what I am capable of.



The spells look entirely in place in D&D thus far, and this is a big mark in favor of the system to me, and likely to you guys too. The 4ed spells felt like some big corporate conglomerate took over the brand name, and was like "well, we need a spell called magic missile, because we have it in the older version SOooooo...".


There are areas that don't have wiggle room. What I mean here is, it's pretty clear that, say, if you wanted to come up with a new race (or port Nilaks to yet another version), it's obvious that you have the space to do it. You look at the benefits granted by the existing races, and you make sure that the parts of your new race that you emphasize are in proportion. For instance, Nilaks are noted for their lack of ambition beyond their community's well being- they aren't normally very selfish, and tend towards true neutral. Even though many work in the field, they wouldn't get a plus to strength, because they aren't racially stronger, as say, a half orc would be, and that would give them entirely too many pluses.

So you have that space. I don't see it for some of the stuff they probably haven't worked on much yet, such as weapons and armor. Obviously, these things are likely more important to me than they are to most gamers, but it's definitely a sticking point for me (and in fact, one of my only complaints about Pathfinder is that they have ported over the same ditzy views that 3.X had, and emphasized them in some cases- for instance, stock Pathfinder rules exalt the Falcata for some insane reason). My issue isn't that these obviously incomplete things aren't 'done right' or something, it's that given the tables that they have thus far, I don't see how to expand on it in a mechanically interesting way.



Anyway guys, you should check out:

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx ... dndnextfaq

This will let you into the playtest, and once you are in, we could actually try it out with the adventure. It's only got stuff for the first couple levels, but even half a session would give us valuable feedback for them. Not pressing, just saying.

We are still pretty far away from a release. Just seeing what I have, I can say that while we might not switch to this version, it's going to feel like D&D, and play like it, and we have no business ignoring it, because I strongly suspect it will be very good.




However- I will be running my next game as Pathfinder, unless this version is LUDICROUS GODLY. However, even if it is- Paizo has showed a dedication to their game that is pretty surreal. Everyone at Pathfinder is obviously all in, and they do have the mighty SKR, as well as a current crop of very skilled guys. More importantly, I won't have any difficulty switching you guys over to Pathfinder, and all the Pathfinder stuff is online and searchable without any kind of DRM or bullshit (everything, including the expansion stuff, is open content). No bittorrent needed! The OGL is a huge part of 3.X and Pathfinder, and if 5ed ("D&D Next", a name that will totally sound just as hip in 2025) uses that, then we can cherry pick awesome bits out of 5ed just as I have selected several parts of Pathfinder to include in our current game (note Alenka is using the Pathfinder duelist instead of the 3.X one).