So I’ve made some initial progress on a D&D 4E character builder:
1) I’ve named it Mulciber after the forger aspect of Vulcan the Roman god of constructive and destructive fire.
2) I started with a pretty strict relational model but while that works for most cases it failed to handle some of the exceptions well and would require a bunch of tables with heavy keyed relations. Just didn’t work right.
3) So I’m switching to an XML document based model (which will have a simpler relational model DB behind it) that seems to work VERY well. This format allows me to encapsulate both data and workflow (choices and options) in the same object. Very nice….
4)I’ve created a fully fleshed out schema for powers that holds all of the appropriate data and can take into account other factors (such as character level or feats) that impact the some values. This flexibility means that a power like the dragonborn’s “Dragon Breath” that has 6 values that vary (ability that the attack roll & damage is based on, the value of the ability bonuses, energy type of the attack, the range of the attack, the number of dice rolled for damage, and the type of die rolled for damage) — thus very specific power cards can be generated with out all of the extra verbiage that is currently present.
5) I’ve started the XML descriptions of some other elements (class, race), but they need some refinement.
I’ll probably work on the XML documents and how they stack for a little bit more — so I get a very good understanding of the workflow. Then I’ll start making document builders (WebUI to enter data to create the documents) and the database backend to store the data.
Wizard’s Randy Buehler posted an update on the D&DI product set yesterday. Although it is disheartening that none of the unreleased major products is ready for release, I want to thank Randy and Wizards for providing what seems like an honest assessment of the current situation. Leaving customers in the dark is the worst thing you can do, so regular, realistic updates are critical to not pissing off your potential customer base — particularly for a new product.
Let’s look at each element of D&DI:
1) Dragon and Dungeon magazines. These are up and running and I have been happy with the content and presentation. I really like the landscape page layout because it minimized column length and allows for better inclusion of sidebars, stat blocks, and resources. Good work Wizards!
2) The D&D Compendium. This has been a bit of a let down, but they are making improvements (posted by our favorite gnome) and soliciting feedback. But it looks like you still can’t search by keyword — such as “at-will”. [CORRECTION: You can! This makes the compendium much more useful.] Doing search right and satisfying everyone is hard as long as Wizards keeps improving the functionality, I won’t get too ranty.
3) The Bonus Tools. I suppose for “bonus items” I shouldn’t complain, but both the Encounter Builder and Ability Generator while having some limited usefulness are pretty clunky and not very friendly. If I had made them for myself I would be satisfied, but for a product for customers they need some more work.
4a) The Character Visualizer. I have never cared about the Visualizer. Creating a portrait of my character really isn’t important to me. I only have the vaguest impression of what my characters look like — it is the personality and effectiveness that I care about. Additionally since this is a Windows client application, I won’t be using it.
4b) The Character Generator. This is the application that I have been fairly excited about — to simplify my desire to find an build for optimal flavor and efficacy, and to simplify the process for those that I play with so that they don’t have to invest time into meticulously copying powers and computing bonuses. But the latest update dashed my hopes. I finally noticed that this is a Windows client application. WTF?!?! There is nothing about generating a character sheet and power cards that prevent this from being a web application. This also explains why this isn’t ready yet. Looks like I may be using what I learned creating spellbook to create a character generator of my own (for my personal, not public, use).
5) Dungeon Builder. It would be nice if this was also a web app, but since it isn’t I probably won’t be using it. Wizards believes that it is “mostly done” but since the Game Table (below) isn’t ready the primary use of the application is negated. Wizards should let people give this a try so that DMs can discover bugs now so they can be resolved before there is a crush of bug reports for the Game Table.
6) The Game Table. Another Windows client application that seems could be significantly more simple as a 2D web application. The minimum set of functionality for on-line playing of D&D is chat (voice chat would be great), a 2D map that players can interact with via their character and DM can add monsters, traps, etc. While 3D is neat-o, it is entirely unnecessary and is only add-on eye candy. But since this is a Windows client app, I doubt I’ll ever use it.
7) Pricing. Since none of the client applications are ready they’ll be staring with a “web-only” price of $4.95/month (with a 12 month commitment). This price is fair (for Dragon and Dungeon alone) and I will pony up the cash. I do hope that Wizards has thoroughly though out on-line payment — they don’t want a crush of people trying to subscribe only to fail because of some bug in the process. If after the client applications are available the web-only option is eliminated it is highly likely that I will be unwilling to pay $9.95/month (with a 12 month commitment) for D&DI — there is just too much that I won’t be able to use.
One of the many things that is extremely annoying about the D&D site is the lack of an option to remember my login. The first time I try to access restricted content after restarting my browser, I get warnings that I need to login. This is D&DI not my bank account — there is no reason not to allow sessions to persist longer. Please get a clue and implement.
Page 280 of the PHB lists 15 different ways to gain combat advantage — and there are more. But there is no advantage to stacking these unfavorable conditions which makes the game a bit easier, but really doesn’t make any sense:
Senario 1: You are attacking a troll. The troll is unaware of you so you have Combat advantage — +2 to your attack roll.
Senario 2: You are going to attack a troll. Two of your companions have flanked the troll, and the troll is dazed from an attack by your warlock companion. You have remained hidden so the troll is unaware of you. You have combat advantage 2 ways (dazed, unaware), or 3 ways in my reckoning (flanked, dazed, unaware), but your bonus to your attack roll is still +2.
When fighting stronger opponents it is very helpful to be able to stack as many tactical advantages as possible to increase your chances of hitting and doing damage — in other words wolf pack tactics. But it doesn’t make sense to stack some of the conditions (like Surprised and Stunned). My rule:
Combat Advantage (Mental): The defender’s mental condition has been compromised such that it is less able to defend itself. The attacker gains a +2 Mental Combat Advantage bonus to attack if the defender is Dazed, Helpless, Stunned, Surprised, or Unconscious.
Combat Advantage (Physical): The defender’s physical situation limits its ability to defend itself. The attacker gains a +2 Physical Combat Advantage bonus to attack if the defender is Balancing, Climbing, Prone (melee only), Restrained, Running, Squeezing.
Combat Advantage (Tactical): The attacker (or his allies) has the defender in a advantageous tactical situation. The attacker gains a +2 Tactical Combat Advantage to attack if the defender is Flanked, Unable to see the attacker, or Unaware of the attacker.
Stacking: Combat Advantage bonuses do not stack within type, but an attacker can stack Combat Advantages of multiple types. For example, an attacker would have a +6 bonus against an unconscious opponent with a melee attack (Mental: Unconscious, Helpless; Physical: Prone; Tactical: Unaware of, Unable to see attacker).
This is more complicated but strongly rewards parties (and nasty DMs) when they think creatively to place and opponent in the worst possible situation.
From page 278 of the PHB:
Natural 20: If you roll a 20 on the die when making an attack roll, you score a critical hit if your total attack roll is high enough to hit your target’s defense. If your attack roll is too low to score a critical hit, you still hit automatically.
From a realism perspective, this rule is fine — even though the 1st level Fighter rolled a natural 20 to hit the Ancient Dragon (and thus scored a miraculous hit) she shouldn’t do critical damage because it was a fluke that she could even hit the dragon. But from a game perspective this is just an additional rule complication that shouldn’t be necessary. Just about any opponent you face should be able to be hit by a 20 + your attack bonuses (and the reverse). If not the encounter is not balanced properly. Why not just simplify matters and have a 20 always be critical?
Natural 20: If you roll a 20 on the die when making an attack roll, you score a critical hit.
The 4E rules on flanking are very similar to the 3.x rules that I didn’t like. The rules are quite clear (PHB 285): “Combat Advantage: You have combat advantage … against an enemy you flank.” [emphasis mine]. I hate this because it doesn’t make any sense that if a monster is flanked by two PCs that a third PC attacking the monster should not also have Combat Advantage over the monster. If you are distracted by two foes on opposite sides of you adding a third vector of attack should be harder not easier to defend against.
My rule change would be to add a new condition to the list of conditions on page 277 of the PHB:
Flanked
* You grant combat advantage
You would gain the Flanked condition under the same rules on page 285 of the PHB, but once flanked anyone attacking you would have combat advantage.
This rule change will help encourage parties (and nasty DMs) to use the tactical roles better. If two melee beaters maneuver to flank (perhaps with assistance from a leader), not only will they have an easier time hitting, but the fragile ranged specialists (e.g., bow wielding ranger, warlock, or wizard) will be able to take advantage of the opponents compromised position.
Today as a part of Dragon Magazine issue 364, Wizards released some new illusion based powers for the Wizard. It is nice to see some additional powers with specific flavor for the Wizard who is a bit fragmented in the Player’s Handbook — and since these powers attack an opponent’s Will defense they can be a critical part of a successful party since many tough creatures have deficient Will defenses. Additionally, while these powers don’t deal as much damage as others, they have some very useful additional effects — imposing attack penalties, slowing, knocking prone, immobilizing, and granting combat advantage. Having a party member that can degrade the capabilities of enemies at range thus allowing the melee beaters to do their job more easily will greatly improve your chances of accomplishing multiple milestones per “day”. I’ll probably draw up a wizard that uses some of these powers soon.
The first article previewing 4E is a short piece on the fighter. Despite the horrible theoretical dialog (“He’s sword and board, man.”), there are some good hints about the current planning for the 4E Fighter.
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.
So a fighter’s special attacks/abilities are going to be based on which weapon they use, exactly what mechanism that is used (be it feats, maneuvers, or talent trees) is unknown, but this is a much needed improvement to the fighter that should help balance the fighter compared to the spellcasting classes and also add some great flavor. I also like the idea because different weapons lend themselves to very different fighting styles. For example, to successfully fight with an axe you need to stay on the attack the entire time. With a flail, you must keep the weapon moving until you have an opening to strike. A sabre or scimitar lends itself to wearing an enemy down with disabling cuts before the final blow.
I just hope the “sword and board” and “oppy powers” language vanishes quickly. I hate dialog that is supposed to be between two people with an intelligence of less than 6.
UPDATE: Playability and Speed
Jon brings up a good point that I was going to wait until later to address, but since he brought the issues of playability and speed up. In other tidbits, Wizards has mentioned that ease of play and speed of play are two items that they will be focusing on. The grappling rules have been specifically mentioned as a rule set that was reworked to be easier to understand and quicker to resolve. Another target is the iterative attacks that all players get as they increase in level. For example an 11th level fighter (or equiv) gets 3 attacks in a full action. And if the improved two-weapon fighting and greater tw0-weapon fighting feats are added, he’s up to 6 attacks in a full action. So a fighter ends up spending each turn doing one of two things: move and attack; or multiple attacks.
Continuing the example take an 11th level ranger (two weapon fighting path) with a two-bladed sword. In a full attack, he has 6 attacks, and with his keen edges there is a ~10% chance he’ll have to confirm a critical on each roll. We’ll assume our ranger got one potential criticals and that confirmed. So we’re up to 7 d20 rolls with 3 different attack bonus levels (base, -5, -10). At 11th level it is highly likely that those attacks were successful — we’ll use 4 hits (including 1 critical), so for damage he’ll have to roll 5d8’s for damage and only 2 of those are part of a single attack. With all of this math and rolling, if he was attacking a creature with DR 10 that the ranger could not bypass, it is very likely he did no damage. To be effective, our ranger really needs a magically enhanced weapon.
Conversely, some per-encounter powers that the player understands can simplify play. Most of the maneuvers from the Tome of Battle, gave you a very limited set of powers such as: overcome damage reduction, do some additional damage, or a special attack. This can mean that you only make one attack, but the damage done is considerable — and you can do this in a standard action rather than relying on a full attack action. When I played my swordsage (who died at a low level because I was too aggressive with him), I had 3×5 cards with each of my powers and it was easy to select, execute, and discard.
On Jon’s final point about Splat (rules) vs. Fluff (descriptive text) books, it is hard to strike a balance. Producing too much fluff can be dangerous as well, because their text becomes canonical and can invalidate the campaigns that inventive DMs have created within a World. So that rather than advancing the story of a world, game publishers tend to fully describe a point in time and then jump forward (5-50 years) to cover a new event in the world with rich detail.
At Gen Con last week Wizards of the Coast announced that they will be releasing the fourth edition of Dungeons and Dragons in the Spring/Summer of 2008. The announcement was, of course, accompanied with the regular complaining about Wizards. They are either ruining the game, demonstrating their avarice, or both. I am cautiously optimistic for the following reasons:
1) Third Edition was a vast improvement on Second Edition. Second Edition was an attempt to consolidate classes and rules into generics that could be easily specialized, but there was not sufficient organization and frameworking to allow this to be an easy or regular process. Third Edition (with all of it’s currently obvious warts) was a massive improvement. The design goal of simplification and standardization dramatically eased starting play and allowed for a framework that helped keep game extensions fairly sane.
2) Some of the recent innovative rules books (not the more generic stuff) have included some very good alternate mechanics that improve the game. This includes the Tome of Battle, Tome of Magic (I really like the mechanics of the Truenamer), and the Star Wars Saga Edition.
3) The deliberate manner in which Wizards has approached the Magic Items Compendium and the Monster Manual V (and seems to be approaching 4E) demonstrates a concern for simplifying management while enhancing playability.
We’ll see as Wizards slowly releases more information about the forthcoming Fourth Edition.