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.
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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.
Por enquanto, o que eu vi, ele tem idéias interessantes, não que o resultado vaio ser bom, isso só esperando para ver.
Agora vai haver diferenças entre as armas, não apenas dano, cada arma terá um estilo de combater diferente, aparentemente, cada um com seus pontos + e pontos -.
Outra diferença, em classes é: haverão menos classes, mas haverá mais variedade de opções.
Como?
Simples, cada classe terá uma "arvore de habilidades" para pode escolher (Talent Tree no orignal, mar como ainda não existe uma tradução para isso e o Feat já é Talento em Br, então, fica por enquanto uma tradução caseira mesmo pra vcs entenderem). Ou seja, uma classe poderá se transformar em diversas "sub-classes", de acordo com sua escolha de habilidades.
Em raças, aparentemente, como visto aí em cima, as raça serão melhoradas e equilibradas e poderão ser aprimorada ainda mais com o nível.
Tem outras coisas, mas não me lembro todas elas agora, mas até onde vi agora, ele tem um potencial para ser bom. Por mais que seja roubo, facada, caça-níquel, pode ser que seja bom.
Eu ainda acho que é cedo para uma nova edição, mas e se ele for realmente bom, bem, pq não?
Se por um algum acaso e louco motivo, a Wizards começasse a fazer bolos de chocolate (sei lá, em formato de... monstros?) e que fossem gostosos, pq não comer? Deixar de comer algo gostoso (SE for gostoso) só por birra é sacanagem.
Oq quiz dizer com esse exemplo ridículo aí em cima é: não precisamos repudiar algo antes de testar. Falar mal e dizer que não vai usar sem nem ao menos olhar como é é sacanagem. Por mais que seja caça-níquel da Wizards, tem a possibilidade de eles fazerem um bom produto que seja melhor que a 3ª edição. Então, antes de chutarmos o pau da barraca, vamos esperar para ver como tá.
Como eu disse, eu não tenho ainda uma opinião formulada, devido a escasses de material dele ainda. Ele tem idéias interessantes, vamos esperar para ver se essas idéias geram bons resultados.
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