4E (spoilers)

I'm posting information I know about 4E because I can and I want to rant about it. ...That and just about preview we can hope to get has already been released.

Basics
Checks are 1/2 your level + ability bonus + other bonuses. This include ability, skill, attacks, and save checks. There are three levels in 4E, and 30 1/10th levels. Eer I mean there is 30 levels, but most class abilities do not upgrade until you reach a new tier of play. The tiers are lame, istillsuck, and about3E. An example would be a Rogue's sneak attack upgrades once per 10 levels, in +2d6 inceriments, however it was too freaking hard to give +1d6 SA per 5 levels so they had to do it their way.

Alignments
There are FIVE alignments in 4E. They are general-Good, I-have-to-be-Lawful-Good, general-Evil, I-must-rip-you-aprt-Chaotic-Evil, and I-flunked-english-so-Unaligned-is-a-real-alignment. No more chaotic good robinhoods, no lawful evil alignment to make pacts & bargins with, etc. As a good person, your either bound to your word, or not, no gray area. As an evil person, you must be mass murdering beast of death, or anything else. This is so stupid...

Abilities
You gain a +1 bonus to TWO ability scores instead of one every four levels, and an additional +1 bonus to any one ability per teir upgrade. This is a lesson learned in 3E, no munchkin ever wants anything less than a +3 in all of his stats.

Feats
3E had a major flaw in it, 90+ books offered feats, but people could only take, on average, seven of them. so in 4E, everyone gets an extra feat every two levels on top of a 1st level feat! That is not 7, not 8, not 12, but 16 feats just from leveling up! Now we just need a library of feats to find some worth while ones...

Skills
4E has 17 skills, this includes the fact knowledge(X) skills have become their own thing. P.S. There is no craft skills, crafting is left up to NPCs as it should be. Other changes include loss of a DC table in diplomacy, it is entirely up to the DM with no guidelines, and detect magic has been rolled into the arcane knowledge skill.

XP
The table rivals that of 3E's wealth by level. Probably so people have to have the book instead of a calculator to play. There is also a milestone thing (see excepts on action points).

Dragonborn
Think of a nerfed half-dragon orc, only renerfed. How nerfed? At epic their breath weapon does 3d6, that should spell it out for you. The str & cha bonuses cry out for warlocks to take the class. Because we all know, warlocks get their powers from dragons. Just like those sorcerer throw backs in 3E.

Dwarf
Dwarves of 4E don't know a rock from an empty hole as they have lost stone cunning and the ability to know what a gem is. However, due to the race discovering the stone of chaos, or whatever it is that makes the juggernaut kick ass, dwarves get bonuses to help them move, and resist others from moving them. They can also trigger second wind as a swift action. Short and sweet, their a freaking tank, run from them and throw movtails to kill one.

Elf 1 (Eladrin)
The gay human race, eer I mean the fey that looks like a human race. Its an elf, only (as if it were possible) feyer. Oh a side note, they are the wizard based elf.

Elf 2 (Elf)
It is an elf, who cares to explain it? This is the cleric version.

Elf 3 (Half-Elf)
The elf version for rogues.

Halfing
Halfings get a bonus to cha now. The years spent in 3E lying about the crap they stole paided off I guess. Due to their small size preventing them from grabbing stuff of the top shelf and thus die from starvation, halfings have grow up and adapted to fear and get bonuses against it. Or maybe its because they were fed to traps by adventuring parties in 3E, the book was not to clear on that...

Human
They suck now. Thanks to a combination of racial penalties have been replaced with even more bonuses, twice the amount of feat slots, there is no real reason to play a human. Even the skill bonus sucks, other races give a +2 bonus in two skills while a human just becomes trained in an extra skill. Sure trained means +5, but trained does not stack. A dragonborn warlord has +2 racial and a +5 trained bonus, while the human wizard has... +5 in a nonwizard skill yeahee. The only real bonus a human gets is an extra at-will power that sucks to begin with.

The Bard (Tiefling)
For rogues wanted to be warriors, or warriors wanting to be rogues. Play this race if you want to be better at being generic than a human. You'll net int & cha bonuses, a stolen dragon bonus on attacks, and the ability to smite evil. Not to mention you'll have low light vision, something humans (dragonborn and halfings only) lack.

There is a 4E image supposely pulled form the classes page with harry potter blasting a silver dragon trying to make up with a pinned elf. And things just go down hill form there from what I know. The 2nd teir of classes replace 3E's PrCs, multiclassing was also twisted to being some how worse than 3E, but I'll go into that later on. In fact, I'm only going to breifly talk about each or ignore it, there is just too much to comment on and so little time to do so.

Cleric
Divine Power is not a 9th level once per day power that gives everyone +2 to their attacks, and you gain fast healing 5. This pretty much explains where the power bar is set. And if it don't...
Sun Burst (27th, encounter); deals 3d8+wis raident damage, allies heal 10+cha and get an extra saving throw to end effects.
God's Strike (29th, daily); deals seven times your weapon damage.

Fighter
At a glance, it is a metagame incarnate created at the last minute, by a guy who told the mail deliver to jog some notes does because his hands were to busy playing WoW.
Get Over Here; moves an ally.
No Opening; prevents the rogue from gaining a bonus.
Unstoppable; gain some hp.
Unbreakable; gain DR.
Come and Get It; makes the bad guys walk to you.
Into the Fray; minor action based move.
There is more, but its just to painful to read them, either they are a badly translated marital arts move, or are what you would say when you describe what you want to do.

Paladin
Just read the online except at WotC's site. I'll add to that with the paladin's 29th level power though, x7 damage, and make another attack to blind them. Better than the clerics' but umm, a chance to blind them... yeahee... Nice to know a cleric is still better than a paladin at fighting.

Ranger
Favored enemy can be switched as a swift action, and other than saying the powers favor bows or dual attacking, not much else to say.

Rogue
Read the except, and HiPS has been changed to once per encounter gain invisibility until you move. Tip on use, throw a blanket over your self (move action, hides), trigger HiPS (minor), throw the blanket off (standerd), poof, you are completely invisible! You can attack without any penalty what so ever too.

Warlock
My eyes just kinda glazed over at this hexblade/sorcerer replacement, I'll comment later.

Warlord
A fighter to grants extra bonuses when you use those metagame action points. And that is pretty much it...

Wizard
4E wizards have built in legacy item abilities called 'implements' that come in a few item types.
Crystal Ball; free extending powers, or penalize their saves with your wisdom bonus.
Magistaff; +1 AC and a 1/enc con to AC ability.
Potter's Wand; 1/enc add your dex bonus to an attack roll.
Enchanting your legacy as if it were a weapon provides the bonuses on your spell's attack rolls. IE, owning +5 balls means your rays have a +5 bonus to hit.

Wizard's Spells
Yeah, a thing into its self. The wizard's spells define the game so lets look at some old favorites.

Sleep(1st, daily); save vs slow, and if they fail, save vs sleep.
Yeah, double save or die, and they can make a save every turn to break it. Plus, you get to use it once per day. Lame...

Expeditious Retreat(2nd, daily); x2 speed.
+4 squares if cast on dwarves, +7 if cast on an elf. The flat rate doubling will undoubtably be the capstone of speed optimizers.

Feather Fall(2md, daily); it is a daily power now.
Fireball(5th, daily); 3d6+int fire damage >.>
Dimension Door(6th, daily); teleport 100 feet.
Disguise Self(6th, daily); works for an hour.
Dispel Magic (daily, 6th); it is vs will now, pity the DM that has to track all this stuff.
Invisibility(daily, 6th); lasts one round unless you spend a standard action to renew it, attacking still ends it though.
Lightning Bolt(7th, encounter); 2d6+int to main target, 1d6+int to two others.
Fly(16th, daily); fly at the speed of 8 squares, minor action to sustain or it ends.
Greater Invisibility(16th, daily); has the sustain problem.
Evard’s Black Tentacles(19th, daily); deals 1d10 necro damage and prevents movement if the fail their save.
Forcecage(27, encounter); deals 3d10+int force damage (wtf?) on top of the caged effects.

Basicely, we all wanted more encounter based limits for stuff so WotC gave us a even fewer per day limit instead. We wanted more scaling by level, so we get new unscaling powers at every level.

Lame Tier
Jack of All Trades
Gives +2 on all untrained skills. This is not a human only feat, anyway can take it. Humans suck.

Magic Weapon Boost (one effect fluffed into five feats count boosting)
+1 per tier on damage rolls with weapons that deal X element.

Improved Class Feature Damage (also fluffed into more than one feat)
SA or Favored Foe bonus damage becomes d8s, must have.

Combat Reflexes
+1 on AoO attack rolls (lame)

Blade Opportunist
Tack on needing 13 str to combat reflexes and you can pick this up, it gives +2 to attack rolls.

Elf 1 (eladrin) Soldier
+2 on sword & spear damage rolls, cus elves are badass right?

Group Insight
For Elf 3 (half-elf), grants +1 to insight & initative, to the entire party.

Human Perseverance
+1 all saves, for a total of +2 on saves for playing a human.

Power Attack [scales]
As 3E, but you PA for 2 and two handed weapons get a +50% boost. Base damage boost gets a +2 bonus per tier.

Quick Draw
Now gives +2 on initative.

Two-Weapon Fighting
And I quote, "While holding a melee weapon in each hand, you gain a +1 bonus to damage rolls with your main weapon." When I comb though combat I'm sure this will make sense.



IStillSuck Tier

Action Recovery
When you spend an action point as a belt of battle (extra standard action), you get to roll a save to end ongoing effects. This is a human only feat and in case you missed it by now, humans are only good at making saves.

Double Roll (fluffed into multiple feats focusing on a single type of roll)
Always roll X twice and take the higher of the two.

Save Boost (fluffed into three feats)
+2 on one save.

3E Defense
Choose one, AC/Reflex or Fort/Will. If an attack of that type misses you and would still harm you in some way, ignore it.

Scimitar Powergaming
Deal your dex bonus in damage with any attack you miss while using a scimitar.

Spell Focus
Instead of giving you +1 to your spell's save DCs, others get a -2 penalty to their save DCs. This of course invokes the idea of you taking a feat that nerfs everyone in the area without a save. Like a blackguard's aura of dispaire or something. This concept clearly was ignored by the devas and futher advance the total lack care of in game elements presented.


About3E Tier

Arcane Mastery
Once per day, recover another once per day spell. It's 3Es Extra Spell Slot feat with the Archmage's name!

Blind-Fight
Blindsight out to five feet.

Weapon Mastery (fluffed into six feats)
You crit on a natural 19 or 20.

That is all for now.

Stupid Rule #1: Putting on any type of armor takes five minutes.
It takes 10 minutes to put your pants & shirt on. So as a word of advice, don't sleep with any wife who's husband can possible walk into the door. You won't get dressed in time to escape.

Stupid Rule #2: If you are clueless on how to use the armor, you have -2 to attack and reflex saves.
Why is this stupid? Both the mage class and the armor section don't comment on arcane spell failure chances. By accepting a -2 penalty on attack rolls (mind that a wizard's BAB is the same as a fighter's now, and wizards gain bonuses on attack rolls by enchanting their tool) and reflex saves, you can run around in full plate, woot.

Stupid Rule #3: Magic items that can be used daily go above and beyond expectations. Instead of only being able to use your cloak of resistance once per day, you instead can only use a single magic item once per day!
You can use one daily power from a magical item per teir level.
Each magic item can only be used once reguardless of how many times you can use daily powers.
Every milestone (+2 encounters without rest) of the day allows you to use another daily power from magical items.

On to item spoilers!
(Note - the bonuses to not scale as you level, they are simply take into account buying the next upgrade as soon as you can)

Armor (pre-made armor with enchantment bonuses to AC, up to +6 for cap)
Barkskin Armor; daily, +(1+tier) AC, each time your hit this bonus goes down by one.
Bloodthread Armor; when bloody, gain +2 on AC & saves.
Hydra Armor: gain fast healing 5 (or 10 if 23+ level) when someone crits you.

Weapon (same, all premade, enchantment bonuses to attack and damage, up to +6)
Flaming Weapon: damage is fire based, daily - (tier)d6 fire damage with ongoing (tier*5) damage.
Vorpal Weapon: 30th level weapon, any time you roll the maxium number on damage, you get a bonus die to roll.

Others
Bracers of Defense: daily, (tier*10) DR for one round.
Bracers of Mighty Striking: +2 item bonus to damage per 11 levels.
Boots of Spider Climbing: move at 1/2 speed while climbing, daily - full speed climb.
Amulet of Protection: +1 to saves per 5 and +1 levels.
Ring of Freedom of Movement: daily - +5 power bonus to escape stuff FoM auto beats in 3E.
Ring of Protection: +1 item bonus to saves, daily - +2 power to AC (milestone; lasts for one round)
Bag of Holding: holds 200lbs but weighs only 1.
Handy Haversack: holds 1,000lbs but weighs only 1.

Will talk about later

Will talk about later

Waiting on me to finish the above.