I’ve had chefs (I’m gonna make dinner out of you!), scribes, and miners. I agree that if the campaign isn’t tailored for it, those skills don’t come up much, but they are a lot of fun to roleplay.

Give it some time. You can’t make a fourth edition omelette without breaking a few third edition eggs.

Some of these reports do give me a glimmer of satisfaction, as the changes in the system are right on par with many of my house rules and the flavor with which I try to host my games and custom settings. Some of these changes, however, evoke something of an angry gag reflex somewhere deep within my soul; something that wants to lash out, pained in a warped sense of betrayal.

I recognize that some races and classes jive slightly more well together than others. Making a grey elf sorcerer is a little bit more pleasing to me than the prospect of having to play an orc sorcerer, but that’s because I like casters with really high spell DCs. At least the orc sorcerer could choose to take transmutation and abjuration spells so as to become a brutal force of untoward destruction similar to his barbarian friends (thank you Tenser!), differing only in practice. To make these differences extreme to the point of deterring certain racial/class combinations completely sounds like a danger that may pigeonhole or even punish more ‘risky’ players that wish to experiment.

Releasing or forgetting about profession, knowledge, craft, or other trade or RP skills strikes a resounding chord of danger in my mind. Will this game appeal to more than just the trigger-happy?

While I recognize that prestige classes aren’t necessary to the existence of the game, they do provide interesting role-playing venues as well as great rewards in power and, well, prestige for characters who were able, or fortunate enough, to ascend into their ranks. Although, if prestige classes are abandoned, does this speak to more of a skill-based, or build-based system, almost akin to White Wolf or to the SPECIAL system? If D&D moves into a more ‘diabloesque’ form, this in itself presents it’s own host of worries for me. While streamlining game play, the decision to diablerize D&D will, I feel, ultimately crush a certain form of ingenuity and the clever, creative planning I enjoy when approaching character builds, as it was ever so fun for me to find ways to combine feats in ways that may or may not have been seen as valid for certain character builds or even useful in the cases of others. Creating a fast track, skill tree-like system may discourage this.

Although there are a few things that throw up warning flags, I do ultimately see a lot of good in some of the overarching ideas surrounding 4th Ed. The move to make magic more flexible in terms of choosing when your magic refreshes (probably to allow casters to choose where they want to exist on the spectrum of Wizard to Warlock; lots of power with limited flexibility, limited power with lots of flexibility, or somewhere in between) and the move to create a more personal item creation system (which means that you probably won’t be buying magic items en-bulk) puts more emphases on personal power and character development, not on the gear said character is wearing; an aspect I try to promote in my own games.

About the skills: I have run campaigns where hide and move silently were one skill; it just makes sense. So as far as skill revamping goes, I’m all for it. Just don’t remove the ability for skills to be an important aspect of character development in the sense that skills which find almost no combat usage are required for decent role playing.

Better exp. system? Sounds great! The epic group I lead will no longer get headaches trying to calculate their experience, and I’ll have more free time to figure out what the next most-horrid-thing-you-can-imagine I’ll throw at them.

I enjoy that critical hits confirm instantly; that’s how I first started playing D&D anyway.

It does sound like the combat has been streamlined to be even faster than before, that’s good. I know I’ve spend one entire 5 or 6 hour session doing one big fight (near campaign ending) with a 9 person group I led about 3 years ago; that would have been a ripe atmosphere for some streamlined combat effectiveness.

But in the midst of creating a more powerful combat engine, I hope WotC doesn’t forget that depth of customization gives us the tools for powerful role playing, which in turn gives players the motivation for why that half-elf became a ranger in the first place, or why that dwarf chose to pick a life of knowledge as a wizard over that of honor. I believe the game will still be what we as players make it, but there is a difference between over-simplification and streamlined effectiveness.

These are just my 2 cents as a faithful fan, player, and dungeon master who has purchased my fair share of books from WotC. Ultimately, I hope that these opinions would be read as more than just mine, but as the opinions of the many people I role play with and several others who will not get online or spend the time to host their opinions. I will probably at least browse the 4th Ed. books when they come out.

I do admit, when I first heard of 4th Ed. I felt betrayed. Hopefully I’ll be able to tell if this is a reform sparked by a desire to enhance and elevate the gaming experience, not an ‘evolution’ born of greed. Only time will tell, I guess.

Encouraging, or even pressuring people into being certain race(s) for a class is more than a little silly.

Also, the third edition heavy emphasis on combat being the main source of exp discourages rp, rather than encouraging it. And should not an RPG be focused on the RP, not the combat?

Chibz, the legendary blacksmith, will not be buying this edition.

And lastly — @#$%!!! No useless Profession skills? What’s next, no useless Knowledge skills? Sure, Use Rope is silly, but Profession skills *are* important… sure, not for combat… but for role-playing and flavor and all that stuff. Furthermore, Professional skills are often a significant factor in 3rd party OGL systems. For that matter, I did always like 2nd edition’s rambling list of skills like flower arranging and cooking and calligraphy. ;)

Nice and sad.
Wizard of The Coast announced just few hours ago the forthcoming new release of Dungeons & Dragons (v. 4). I personally thought the development of the game kind of dead (never investigated about it though).I and my group of friends ha…