Ummm....
I am such a Paizo fanboy, but I am seeing some hypocritical talk here.
Paizo is tossing out race books too. Yes Paizo seems to focus more on adventure paths, stand-alone adventures, society stuff and all that but arguably the adventure paths have feats, classes, equipment, etc. that all add tons of stuff to the game. And they are hitting with race books and guide to XXX area books. If anything Paizo has a more ambitious publishing schedule than WOTC. It's just that they aren't bloating the rules as much, they are smothering the adventure arena.I mean come on, some people like things, some don't. If you don't like it then ignore it instead of pointing a finger and attacking.
I think adventure paths, stand alone adventures, and the like, are precisely what the company should be cranking out. By keeping the rules system relatively managable via a small number of 'core books', you can then justify the additional material, as it doesn't add to the basic rules of the game. When you've got the 'basic/core rules' of the game spread out into literally dozens of books (as 3.5 did), a GM can't then feasibly officiate the game without: A.) owning all the books (and then somehow managing to locate a rule in question on the fly), or: B.) banning the book(s) which tends to irritate the players (particularly the munchkins who buy all the splat books) and then want to use them.
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I think adventure paths, stand alone adventures, and the like, are precisely what the company should be cranking out. By keeping the rules system relatively managable via a small number of 'core books', you can then justify the additional material, as it doesn't add to the basic rules of the game. When you've got the 'basic/core rules' of the game spread out into literally dozens of books (as 3.5 did), a GM can't then feasibly officiate the game without: A.) owning all the books (and then somehow managing to locate a rule in question on the fly), or: B.) banning the book(s) which tends to irritate the players (particularly the munchkins who buy all the splat books) and then want to use them.
DDI basically solves this problem. You can get the rules for any new book with that tool without owning the book. It's not an inconsequential expense, but it's still far less than buying each and every book.
I never felt the need to buy the 3.5 race books; designating these as "core" doesn't really change that fact. Some of my players wanted to use the race books in 3.5, and my typical response was no. I'm much more likely to allow these books in if my players do buy them given that I can always access the relevant materials on DDI.
DDI basically solves this problem. You can get the rules for any new book with that tool without owning the book. It's not an inconsequential expense, but it's still far less than buying each and every book.
The DDI, (if it can indeed do what you have suggested) would be a very helpful tool, in that, people wouldn't have to own (much less haul around) every book in the game, just to know the necessary & applicable rules, and have them at your fingertips when you need them.
As to the 'race' books, never owned them nor allowed them, and in agreement with you there.
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DDI basically solves this problem. You can get the rules for any new book with that tool without owning the book. It's not an inconsequential expense, but it's still far less than buying each and every book.
The DDI, (if it can indeed do what you have suggested) would be a very helpful tool, in that, people wouldn't have to own (much less haul around) every book in the game, just to know the necessary & applicable rules, and have them at your fingertips when you need them.
As to the 'race' books, never owned them nor allowed them, and in agreement with you there.
DDI updates about once a month, and includes any new material put out by dragon or in their books. This information is then also uploading into their index where you can search it by name, and see the information right in front of you. So all you need is access to their website and you can look up any aspect of a character class.
It also makes being a 3PP suck for 4e because they can't compete with the free access to information for the low low price of ten bucks a month. Its like a magazine subscription that keeps on giving. Its easily affordable to most players, and if parents are willing to pay for WoW, they'll definitely be willing to pay for this.
Also in their character builder you can set up the rules for your game, banning certain books from the outset so that when a player goes about updating their character, it'll tell them whether or not this character is campaign legal.
The default one is Living Forgotten Realms.
folks like Stefan simultaneously criticizing this for being an unnecessary product, and then criticizing it for not having enough content.Think decafe - it may help?
I think that the idea of a Fluff based publication is a good one and one NOT previously explored well by WotC (aka 3e). I think that a Crunch based publication given the current volume of Crunch seems out of place. More Crunch DOES have an effect on the game. If you recall there were numerous posts about DM's restricting a players access to material is a bad thing. More Crunch DOES mean MORE work for the DM. A DM who is made aware at the gaming table of new ability A or B is at the mercy of these rules and ill-prepared. You suggest having your cake and eating it too me thinks.
S.
I think there is a fairly good chance that they'll begin to head in a crunch lite direction. The DDI provides all ones crunch needs in a package that is pretty significantly superior then a book in terms of actually using it with ones character. Fluff on the other hand is still not all that popular to read online. In my group if the book is really crunch heavy its not bought but something like the DMG II with its heavy emphasis on fluff is snatched up in book form. One suspects that this will become increasingly apparent too WotC as time goes on as massive numbers of books stacked all over the place is just not a very good way of creating a character when compared to using the DDI's character builder and it'll likely eventually effect WotC's sales figures if they don't adjust to their own online subscription model.
Truth is I don't even know from which books some of my clerics feats and powers are from and I can't really say that I care that I don't know the book as its just not relevant in a system where everything about a feat or power is always made explicitly clear.
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The 4e DMG2 is a beautiful example of a worth while "add" to the game. It builds on what we already have rules wise and explains and extends. If the racebooks do this, I'm all for them - if they just add what I call needless options to fills up pages then I'm against them. Even if they are only 32 pages long.
Exception based systems begin to fall apart as the number of exceptions increase. Worst case is exceptions that become exceptions to exceptions...
S.
Exception based systems begin to fall apart as the number of exceptions increase. Worst case is exceptions that become exceptions to exceptions...S.
In some significant sense I agree with you. At some point in 3.5 I just stopped buying books and refused to allow any new ones in the game. I had a compiled feat list that ran more then 30 pages and adding more to that was just insane (especially since I had to choose new feats for my monsters in an attempt to keep up with the tricked out players). However I'm not yet feeling that way in 4E.
This is especially so because the DDI automatically reduces your list of options straight down to things your character can legally choose so much of the time I'm still only going through a fairly reasonable list. The fact that the feats (the most extensive list) is well organized with headers for different types of feats keeps things under control as well. In some sense WotC has made access to the DDI near mandatory but the high quality of the product and the fact that its extremely well organized means I can probably actually handle a greater load of options then was the case in 3.5 where there was no truly effective and comprehensive character builder. Code Monkey's one (can't remember the name) was probably best (though it meant buying the subscription for each book you owned) but even it eventually seemed to collapse under the weight of the system (we eventually stopped using it as there were to many problems and errors).
The balance in the system helps in this regard as well as I don't need to plan my character out in advance to be reasonably certain that the character will be on par with my comrades so I use the system when I level up and don't bother with trying to keep on top of everything from every book.
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Well, Wizards is being better about making the stuff they put out balanced with this edition at least. Still, I agree that if nothing else they're going to be getting into feat/power bloat soon if they don't slow down the release schedule a bit.
I wouldn't go that far. The first Powers book, at the least, was definitely a power creep over the PHB. Fighters gave up the 1h or 2h specialization feature (+1 to hit with 1h or 2h weapons) and got to choose either Tempest Technique, which essentially gave you +2 to hit and damage for dual-wielding and gave you Two Weapon Defense for free, or the Battlerager Vigor feature, which gave you a crapton of hitpoints, and with the right build could generate 5 temp hit points on a miss and 10 on a hit, at will.
Not really any more balanced than previous editions' splat books.
I wouldn't go that far. The first Powers book, at the least, was definitely a power creep over the PHB. Fighters gave up the 1h or 2h specialization feature (+1 to hit with 1h or 2h weapons) and got to choose either Tempest Technique, which essentially gave you +2 to hit and damage for dual-wielding and gave you Two Weapon Defense for free, or the Battlerager Vigor feature, which gave you a crapton of hitpoints, and with the right build could generate 5 temp hit points on a miss and 10 on a hit, at will.
Not really any more balanced than previous editions' splat books.
Tempest Technique? You mean the one where you needed to be using two off-hand weapons and not wear the best armor to get the full bonus?
You're right about Battlerager Vigor though. I'm just glad they errata'd it.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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With respect, DDI may well only partially solve the problem. As a case in point all the current rules for the Magic: The Gathering are online at the moment on the Wizards of the Coast Site. The current comprehensive rules is a massive document, over a hundred pages long (*link to page where current set can be accessed*), and it's been a long time since I felt confident enough of my knowledge of the current rules to be certain what was supposed to happen in an odd situation without spending half an hour looking things up and pondering. Just because all the rules are on the DDI it doesn't mean that the game won't stop every...
Except that's not the way DDI is set up, so the above is entirely irrelevant.
It'd be great if people who hadn't used DDI could quit muddying the waters with speculative bs like this. At least become familiar with the basic elements of it before you criticize it.
Also, this might be a deeper flaw in your computer literacy given that you can look up a particular MTG card on the Wizards site and see all the related errata and various FAQs.
But, if the general point is, more rules equals more time to understand any particular rule, then, yes, that is true. I'm not sure how it fits in to this particular discussion, or what it had to do with my post given that the conversation went like this:
A: Looking up rules in multiple books sucks.
B: DDI vastly reduces that problem.
Does it absolutely eliminate the problem? No. The only way to absolutely eliminate the problem is to only play with a finite number of books.
Does it absolutely eliminate the problem? No. The only way to absolutely eliminate the problem is to only play with a finite number of books.
And I thought my gaming collection was impressive... :(
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16, 2011 Top 32
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My only issue with creating race books is that, generally, race books focus on how a race fits in a certain context, usually a campaign setting. And given that WotC is doing the whole 3-book and done campaign setting model, which setting will this be focusing on? I'd be happier to see a book that expands on the implied setting from the DMG and turns it into a fully realized world.
Although I had hoped that WotC would have learned the lesson with the 3.x splatbooks. They missed more than they hit, at least for me, and I'd rather see them focus on event books, ala Monte Cook's Requiem for a God or on expanding their existing campaign settings. I was very disappointed in Eberron's 4e-ment. Where are my Quori? There's a lot on that setting that isn't currently covered by existing 4e material that could be and I'd like to see them support that line.
JM
I'm confused about the controversy over race books. Paizo has the Elves of Golarion, Dwarves of Golarion, and Gnomes of Golarion. Why shouldn't WotC also have race books? There are clearly uses and market for them.
I'm confused about the controversy over race books. Paizo has the Elves of Golarion, Dwarves of Golarion, and Gnomes of Golarion. Why shouldn't WotC also have race books?
We were only worried about it before we found out they were 32 pages and $10. Wizards may not have the best history with race books, but for $10 I'm willing to give them benefit of the doubt.
New race "Alves" or "Alfs"
"I don't care who you are, that there was funny!" ; )
I'm confused about the controversy over race books. Paizo has the Elves of Golarion, Dwarves of Golarion, and Gnomes of Golarion. Why shouldn't WotC also have race books?We were only worried about it before we found out they were 32 pages and $10. Wizards may not have the best history with race books, but for $10 I'm willing to give them benefit of the doubt.
I think what they are trying to do is get away from the "consolidated race" books they did in 3e. Nobody wants to spend $30 on a book where they'll only use part of it.
With a $10 book, they can focus specifically on the race and the people will buy what they want. Using this approach, they can see what the number of books being sold is and focus on that race, or bring another race up to that level in a PH expansion.
Sometimes you just have to test the waters. I think it's a marketing gimmick to see how it would do. If it runs well, they can do a "class flavor/optimization" book for the same low price. It may even bring in the people that only buy the core books due to a tight budget. Or, based on the before mentioned "cool" description, a younger crowd.
Also, this might be a deeper flaw in your computer literacy given that you can look up a particular MTG card on the Wizards site and see all the related errata and various FAQs.Uhh, the the point and flaw of 'FAQs' is that they are the most frequently asked questions, not the ones about interactions between Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, Kormus Bell, and an Ovinise.... It's either cross your fingers and hope for a reply from customer service on that one, or try to work your way through their timing and state-based effects and abilities-that-generate-effects rules, some of which seem to have been written for the benefit of their computer programmers rather than for making sense to players at a table.
Granted 4E isn't anywhere close to that point yet, but 4E has only been going for a year or so thus far.
Your comparing apples and oranges. Magic is meant to be comprehensive without a DM while 4E has a DM. There are a million and one corner case situations in 4E (what happens if I try and use power X while in free fall?) the answer for all but the most common and most repeated questions is 'The DM decides'. 3.5 tried to, at least in part, go down the Magic the Gathering route by making the rules as comprehensive as possible - 4E really does not do that, all the heavy lifting in this regard almost always falls on the DMs shoulders unless the same question is being asked by a large chunk of the gaming population and then its answered in the FAQ. Having access to a book with the feat or power in it won't shed any more light on the topic then the DDI will unless your using some kind of complex rules set like having Alchemy (where you'll have to understand the rules for alchemy). Hence you can get buy using the the feats and powers from the halfling book without owning the halfling book - but if the Halfling book happens to include rules on river boat racing and a feat that gives you a bonus in river boat racing then the feat is only going to be useful if you understand the riverboat racing rules (and there you'd need to own the book).
The thing I find amusing out this thread is that Paizo's business model looks more like WoTC's every day, but 3/4 of the board has yet to notice.
Stop and think about it: Even with high expectations, Paizo was clearly taken aback at the fantastic response to the Pathfinder Core Rulebook at Gencon this year. One could almost write the transcript of the meeting! What largely started as a way to keep rules in print in support of adventure and setting products has become an end unto itself; look at the schedule: Advanced Player's Guide. Bestiary 2. I promise you there are half a dozen more waiting to be announced.
Is shift in focus a bad thing? That isn't for me to say. Paizo seems to be providing what it's customers want, just as it should be, and that's rarely a mistake. What I can say with certainty is that organizations don't emerge unchanged from periods of growth like the one Paizo is currently undergoing. This isn't a dig at Paizo, or at the path they've chosen. Nor is it a defense of WoTC, which has soundly pissed me off over the past year. Rather, I'm simply suggesting that those of you who are so quick to condemn WoTC might want to consider into what, exactly, Paizo may be growing.
How does that Kelly quotation go again? "We've met the enemy..."
The thing I find amusing out this thread is that Paizo's business model looks more like WoTC's every day, but 3/4 of the board has yet to notice.
Stop and think about it: Even with high expectations, Paizo was clearly taken aback at the fantastic response to the Pathfinder Core Rulebook at Gencon this year. One could almost write the transcript of the meeting! What largely started as a way to keep rules in print in support of adventure and setting products has become an end unto itself; look at the schedule: Advanced Player's Guide. Bestiary 2. I promise you there are half a dozen more waiting to be announced.
Is shift in focus a bad thing? That isn't for me to say. Paizo seems to be providing what it's customers want, just as it should be, and that's rarely a mistake. What I can say with certainty is that organizations don't emerge unchanged from periods of growth like the one Paizo is currently undergoing. This isn't a dig at Paizo, or at the path they've chosen. Nor is it a defense of WoTC, which has soundly pissed me off over the past year. Rather, I'm simply suggesting that those of you who are so quick to condemn WoTC might want to consider into what, exactly, Paizo may be growing.
How does that Kelly quotation go again? "We've met the enemy..."
While both of their business models are similar (I mean, both publish monthly books that use and support their RPG game, there is going to be overlap), I believe that a good deal of your statements come from faulty assumptions on what happened when, how much product Paizo is capable of producing, and how much growth they are currently undergoing.
From what I've seen from product schedule, staff posts on the forum, messages on the chat room, and information given during PaizoCon: the decision to make several Roleplaying Books was made a good while before GenCon. While they do probably at least half a dozen more books waiting to be announced, some will be waiting a good while as three RPG books will be made a year. Paizo is currently having a bit of a struggle right now following the Bestiary/RPG stress, not incredibly likely that think they can take on yet more projects.
I'm not condemning WotC's decisions, I'm just noting that your drawing lines to where you believe Paizo is going seem to be off from their stated direction.
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I think that a Crunch based publication given the current volume of Crunch seems out of place. More Crunch DOES have an effect on the game. If you recall there were numerous posts about DM's restricting a players access to material is a bad thing. More Crunch DOES mean MORE work for the DM. A DM who is made aware at the gaming table of new ability A or B is at the mercy of these rules and ill-prepared. You suggest having your cake and eating it too me thinks.
S.
While I'm not a huge fan of the flow of crunch, by and large due to the nature of 4e the new crunch is much less problematic than in 3.5 Also, a lot of the crunch has been pretty decent and flavoursome anyway. So I see the fears as overdone. As these are shortish pamphlets rather than full-on splat-books they seem pretty harmless and, to be frank, quite a buyer-friendly way of doing it (since profit margins on hardbacks are generally higher). WotC are basically in the book publishing business so it really shouldn't be much of a surprise that that is what they are doing, online ambitions notwithstanding. We can hardly complain about other people slagging 4e on this site if every time WotC bring out a new product those who play 4e throw up their hands in horror too. Plus, I like the Races of... books too (though they declined in quality from ...Stone to ...Destiny.)
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16, 2011 Top 32
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I'm confused about the controversy over race books. Paizo has the Elves of Golarion, Dwarves of Golarion, and Gnomes of Golarion. Why shouldn't WotC also have race books? There are clearly uses and market for them.
My only concern is what world will these race books reference? WotC has no real default setting, unlike Golarion and Pathfinder. Instead they have the 3 books and done model, which burns through settings before heading on to the next.
I believe DDI goes a long way to consolidate rule sets, but in regards to DDI, it also limits incoporating third party supplements, or even making your own, which I think is a crime.
There is a point where I will stop buying additional books. Basically once I have a working core of source material or rules, then I add my own rules, or take great ideas or concepts from wotc or third parties as necessary.
I don't mind companies releasing a multitude of source books, but it is the idea that we are forced fed when using DDI, and other WOTC tools, that only WOTC material will suffice.
Chief Technical Officer
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The thing I find amusing out this thread is that Paizo's business model looks more like WoTC's every day, but 3/4 of the board has yet to notice.
Stop and think about it: Even with high expectations, Paizo was clearly taken aback at the fantastic response to the Pathfinder Core Rulebook at Gencon this year. One could almost write the transcript of the meeting! What largely started as a way to keep rules in print in support of adventure and setting products has become an end unto itself; look at the schedule: Advanced Player's Guide. Bestiary 2. I promise you there are half a dozen more waiting to be announced.
Is shift in focus a bad thing? That isn't for me to say. Paizo seems to be providing what it's customers want, just as it should be, and that's rarely a mistake. What I can say with certainty is that organizations don't emerge unchanged from periods of growth like the one Paizo is currently undergoing. This isn't a dig at Paizo, or at the path they've chosen. Nor is it a defense of WoTC, which has soundly pissed me off over the past year. Rather, I'm simply suggesting that those of you who are so quick to condemn WoTC might want to consider into what, exactly, Paizo may be growing.
How does that Kelly quotation go again? "We've met the enemy..."
While both of their business models are similar (I mean, both publish monthly books that use and support their RPG game, there is going to be overlap), I believe that a good deal of your statements come from faulty assumptions on what happened when, how much product Paizo is capable of producing, and how much growth they are currently undergoing.
From what I've seen from product schedule, staff posts on the forum, messages on the chat room, and information given during PaizoCon: the decision to make several Roleplaying Books was made a good while before GenCon. While they do probably at least half a dozen more books waiting to be announced, some will be waiting a good while as three RPG...
As soon as we realized that we needed to develop our own core rulebook, we also realized that we needed to support it. After all, if you don't support a core rulebook with at least a few releases each year, gamers begin to perceive the system as dead. However, we also decided that we didn't want to overwhelm the basic system with tons of new rules every month, so we set our sights on releasing maybe 3 or 4 products a year: probably a couple of hardcovers and hopefully one smaller product, like this year's GM screen. I'm sure that if you look at posts from us (especially those by Erik Mona) right after we announced the RPG, you'll see that's what we've said from day 1, and it's still exactly where we are.
The number of *copies* of each book we're planning to print, though, that's another story!
Tempest Technique? You mean the one where you needed to be using two off-hand weapons and not wear the best armor to get the full bonus?How do you get two off-hand weapons?
With the 'Nonedidextrous' Flaw?
Two weapons with the off-hand property. Two short swords or daggers, for example.
As soon as we realized that we needed to develop our own core rulebook, we also realized that we needed to support it. After all, if you don't support a core rulebook with at least a few releases each year, gamers begin to perceive the system as dead. However, we also decided that we didn't want to overwhelm the basic system with tons of new rules every month, so we set our sights on releasing maybe 3 or 4 products a year: probably a couple of hardcovers and hopefully one smaller product, like this year's GM screen. I'm sure that if you look at posts from us (especially those by Erik Mona) right after we announced the RPG, you'll see that's what we've said from day 1, and it's still exactly where we are.
The number of *copies* of each book we're planning to print, though, that's another story!
I'm sure support for the RPG line was always planned. But an significant increase in the number of copies means increased investment, and continued increased sales performance to justify aforementioned increased investment, realities to which any reasonable manager must adjust...
Wait and see, my padawan. ;-)
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Two weapons with the off-hand property. Two short swords or daggers, for example.Tempest Technique? You mean the one where you needed to be using two off-hand weapons and not wear the best armor to get the full bonus?How do you get two off-hand weapons?
With the 'Nonedidextrous' Flaw?
Ok, I don't follow if you're joking here or not, but there is no such thing as an "off hand property".
Weird.
Two weapons with the off-hand property. Two short swords or daggers, for example.Tempest Technique? You mean the one where you needed to be using two off-hand weapons and not wear the best armor to get the full bonus?How do you get two off-hand weapons?
With the 'Nonedidextrous' Flaw?Ok, I don't follow if you're joking here or not, but there is no such thing as an "off hand property".
Weird.
Let's see, this is still in the 4th edition forum so...
Well, it's a weapon property in 4th edition. There.
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Two weapons with the off-hand property. Two short swords or daggers, for example.Tempest Technique? You mean the one where you needed to be using two off-hand weapons and not wear the best armor to get the full bonus?How do you get two off-hand weapons?
With the 'Nonedidextrous' Flaw?Ok, I don't follow if you're joking here or not, but there is no such thing as an "off hand property".
Weird.
Let's see, this is still in the 4th edition forum so...
Well, it's a weapon property in 4th edition. There.
Wow, sorry, didn't even realize this was the 4e forum! Oops!
Ok, having admitted that, who cares if WotC publishes books on any topic pertaining to the game? They're a division of a very large multinational corporation. They need to make money, so they need to keep interest up at a decent clip. As long as the books don't slip into some of the shoddiness (playtesting and editing-wise) latter 3x books did, and they just, as previous posters noted, expand options and don't mess with core concerns, I don't see a problem at all.
Even with all the tricks one can muster, the core system of 4E is much more balanced than you got with 3rd Edition - such that the most optimized character, alongside a normal character, are able to fight side-by-side and equally contribute to the combat.
From my experience I would have to disagree, while both characters can fight alongside each other and that they both contribute to the combat, their contributions to the combat are not equal. While I think that gap between the two is less than what existed in 3.x, I don't think that it is absent. I believe that the combats that appropriately challenge the optimized character, while not posing an incredible threat to a normal character's life, will just instead minimize the effectiveness of that normal character in that battle. That during that battle the optimized character is having hard and challenging time, but the normal character would be closer to having little to contribute aside from just being an assistant to that important character.
I'm sure support for the RPG line was always planned. But an significant increase in the number of copies means increased investment, and continued increased sales performance to justify aforementioned increased investment, realities to which any reasonable manager must adjust...
Wait and see, my padawan. ;-)
Yes? I do imagine that if they sell out of books quickly that they, in response, will produce larger print runs. Which is what he mentioned at the end of his post.
I would say he is still the master and you are still the apprentice. :P
I'm sure support for the RPG line was always planned. But an significant increase in the number of copies means increased investment, and continued increased sales performance to justify aforementioned increased investment, realities to which any reasonable manager must adjust...Wait and see, my padawan. ;-)
I'm not quite following you. What are you hinting at?
They sell all their copies of one book and have to make an immediate re-run because people are being killed for their Pathrinder books, so they do a higher print run the next time. They sell really well again. And so forth and so on. They continue to do what they're doing, since it seems to make people really happy.
All the while, they keep selling rules stuff as well as all the stuff they've been selling all the time. I haven't seen any slacking in Chronicles or APs or anything else.
Could you spell out what your concerns are? I tried to see where something bad is happening, but I got nothing.
I'm sure support for the RPG line was always planned. But an significant increase in the number of copies means increased investment, and continued increased sales performance to justify aforementioned increased investment, realities to which any reasonable manager must adjust...Wait and see, my padawan. ;-)
I'm not quite following you. What are you hinting at?
They sell all their copies of one book and have to make an immediate re-run because people are being killed for their Pathrinder books, so they do a higher print run the next time. They sell really well again. And so forth and so on. They continue to do what they're doing, since it seems to make people really happy.
All the while, they keep selling rules stuff as well as all the stuff they've been selling all the time. I haven't seen any slacking in Chronicles or APs or anything else.
Could you spell out what your concerns are? I tried to see where something bad is happening, but I got nothing.
3...2...1...
Let's not forget that the Character builder (part of a DDI subscription) also generates all the relevant power cards for each character and their items automatically. The power cards are direct quotes of the entries from the books, with relatively up to date errata and the number crunching already done. Most of the expansion books (at least for the classes) just offer new power options, but there's no looking up required if you've printed the power cards, they remain pretty straight forward. Add to that the standing rule from the DMG, that generally in a questionable situation the player should get the benifit unless the DM rules otherwise. Most of the expansion books have done very little to change the basic mechanics or rules of the game, those are pretty well spelled out in the original Core 3 books (PhBK 1, DMG 1, and MM 1). We actually spend less time at my table looking things up playing 4e then we ever did with 3.5.
There are also a few other important notes to take into consideration.
Magic: the Gathering is a directly competitive game, and as such it is important that rules disputes are adjudicated fairly, in a consistent manner.
D&D is not directly competitive. While the DM does often play an adversarial role, taking a "best guess" on a rules conflict is not going to ruin the play experience, and will probably resolve things much faster.
D&D is also an exceptions-based game, and thus very few rules controversies arise in actual play; interactions between powers are concrete, based on easily understood mechanics. It certainly helps that the idea of a "stack" doesn't exist in D&D. I imagine that a pretty huge number of rules questions revolve around the order of resolution and play opportunities when dealing with spells cast and activated abilities used within the stack in M:tG.
One thing I objected to about 4E's planning early on was the removal of Half-Orcs and Tieflings as player races in the PHB. Half-Orcs have been part of D&D since at least early days (I never played 1E so I can't say for certain there) and Tieflings/Aasimar a widely accepted part of 3E. More than that, removing the classes of Barbarian, Bard, Druid, Sorceror, and Monk. These are well established classes that there was really little reason to remove from the game. This is especially true for re-introducing them as part of the PHB2, with Monk scheduled for the PHB3.
If it had been a case of "Well, these don't fit in the new world we're establishing", a matter of design or concept, that's one thing. But it seems like instead of making things accessible, it's a planned milking of the consumer, which I am not in favor of.
One thing I objected to about 4E's planning early on was the removal of Half-Orcs and Tieflings as player races in the PHB. Half-Orcs have been part of D&D since at least early days (I never played 1E so I can't say for certain there) and Tieflings/Aasimar a widely accepted part of 3E. More than that, removing the classes of Barbarian, Bard, Druid, Sorceror, and Monk. These are well established classes that there was really little reason to remove from the game. This is especially true for re-introducing them as part of the PHB2, with Monk scheduled for the PHB3.
If it had been a case of "Well, these don't fit in the new world we're establishing", a matter of design or concept, that's one thing. But it seems like instead of making things accessible, it's a planned milking of the consumer, which I am not in favor of.
This complaint has been done to death.
First, tieflings are a player race in the 4e Player's Handbook. They were not a race in the 3e Player's Handbook. If you like tieflings, that's certainly an improvement.
Second, the removal of certain classes to make room for others (see: Warlock, Warlord) was a design decision, and a good one. A number of the classes in question were very rarely played in 3e (bards were terrible, monks were terrible), and including them in a future supplement allowed them to be given the full treatment they deserved. Every one of these classes is now awesome in its own right.
Really, if you give me the choice of having 20 classes right from the get-go, but half of them are so terrible no one wants to play them, or having 10 classes now and 10 classes later, all of which are awesome, I'm going to choose the latter option.
Finally, please get used to this "planned milking of the consumer". It is a necessary part of the hobby industry. The idea that a book full of quality additions to a game is somehow a bad thing is beyond me; the fact that people are willing to complain about it demonstrates exactly why the tabletop RPG industry often finds itself struggling.
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A number of the classes in question were very rarely played in 3e (bards were terrible...
Really, I loved playing bards in 3.5! They're probably one of my absolute favorite classes!
I really do love bards! And seriously, what other class could be used in "KISS Saves Christmas" based games... :p
/derailment