Scrying The 4e Crystal Ball - More News From The D&D Experience

I'm still very down this week. Reading Mad Pawn's post made me think of all the things I wouldn't have if I wasn't into rpgs... a list that includes most of my friends and my husband. It's sobering to realize just how much one thing, even a small thing can influence your life. But that's not the topic for today (I could muse about that one for hours!).

Today we're going to look at some more news from the D&D Experience about 4e. One of the best summaries of the D&D Experience that I've read over the past week comes from Paizo's Jason Buhlman. I love this guy - he's direct and honest, and spent plenty of time drinking at the con too (that obvious sign of the down to earth), at least if you believe his blog! Besides, I trust his game design instincts from his time on Dragon magazine, and it touches me that he isn't above mentioning that it bothered him that they messed up a sacred cow (magic missle). He also stresses that these are opinions based on a very limited snap shot of the game... so take heed, and read on.

You can find Jason's thoughts here, though a brief summary follows:

• There's a horribly broken rule involving pits in the miniatures game (okay, so it's not really 4e news, but he spent a lot of time on that thought!)
• Encounters DID include skills encounters, but most encounters were fights
• The game was easy to learn, though finer points of characters took a couple encounters
• Each class had a sort of fallback at-will power - this eliminates forcing the wizard to use a crossbow, but could get repetitive.
• Once you've faced a particular monster, you pretty much know it, it does the same thing every time, the variation seems more in room setup than in monster tactics.
• Static random rolls may be too common... this lends a "swingy" feel to the game.
• Dying may not be possible without a cruel DM. The rules are setup to keep you from actually dying, there are a lot of steps involved first during which the other players can interfere and rescue the dying character.
• What Jason calls "More Options, Fewer Choices" - while each character had a lot of choices, there always seemed to be one that was the obvious choice - and it tended to be the same one... which led to a feeling of repitition.
• Sacred cow (or hamburger as Jason puts it) - you have to roll to hit with magic missile.
• Skill challenges seemed fun
• ... but almost everything revolved around combat

There's more, check out the above link to his blog to take a look at his comments for yourself!