4E Midnight?

So now that 4th Edition has come out: thoughts?

I like what they have done with the rules but it makes for a very flashy game. I'm not sure how you would adapt it all.

Removing Clerics is drop dead easy. They are, in fact, no longer required. Characters have healing surges and therefore will not require much of a healer.

Something would have to be done to alter Warlorks and Wizards (would there even be Warlorks?). Could you just give them the channel limit? It might be too weak.

How do you handle learning new powers? Sure, a fighter could accidentally stumble onto the idea of hitting an enemy with random slashes and those become his Exploits. Shrug.

I don't know. I would like to use the Midnight Setting and would like to use 4th Edition. I just don't know how to accomplish that right now.

Sarim Rune wrote:So now that 4th Edition has come out: thoughts?

I like what they have done with the rules but it makes for a very flashy game. I'm not sure how you would adapt it all.

Removing Clerics is drop dead easy. They are, in fact, no longer required. Characters have healing surges and therefore will not require much of a healer.

Er, part of the grit of the setting was that healing magics weren't available. 4e makes them more available.

How do you handle learning new powers? Sure, a fighter could accidentally stumble onto the idea of hitting an enemy with random slashes and those become his Exploits. Shrug.

How do you handle characters learning new class abilities/feats in 3.5? Same difference.

I don't know. I would like to use the Midnight Setting and would like to use 4th Edition. I just don't know how to accomplish that right now.

Personally, knowing what I know now about 4e, I'm still very much of the opinion that a Midnight conversion is a bad idea. While a lot of the mechanics have been streamlined, which Midnight could make use of, most of the classes would need completely reworking, and things like the healing surges removed. In short, I think it'd be more work than it's worth.

A healing surge is a non magical way to recover HP. It is a big difference to the setting to include them in. I think you could modify them to provide either a) less of a HP recovery or b) have less of them in a day.

I like the concept of healing surges myself, only because HP does not (and has never represented) physical wounds. It represents endurance both physical and mental, physical wounds, determination to win, luck, skill at avoiding blows, etc. Since it represents all that (or is supposed to) the ability to take rests between combat and regain your determination and the like, is very acceptable representation.

The advantages of healing surges is that Midnight is a grueling world. There are skill challenges that can be done during the course of the day which represent lack of food, lack of good sleep, traveling, etc. A good DM can use these rolls to remove healing surges away from the characters. This is a fine way to represent the loss of over-all endurance without removing precious HP's from a character and thus, making them more prone to dying too quickly in combat.

AS a side note, I ran a Ravenloft game with a different system. This system had lingering damage and no magically healing. I was hoping that player would take this to mean that they couldn't jump into the fray with everything, especially when wounded. These are good role players and I found that the loss of being at full strength (full wounds) didn't matter to them. They had to leap into every fight because they were good guys and it was the right thing to do. Instead of avoiding combat because they had to respect that they were badly wounded, some of them greatly disliked the idea of the wound system and resented it in a way.

Thus I feel that Midnight is no different. Walking around with low HP's and seeing a village in peril is no fun. The players will want to act, regardless of the danger. Yes, they SHOULD act with cunning but the D&D system barely supports that. Where there clear rules for luring enemies into traps or being able to actual knock out or render an orc helpless by pushing a bale of hay on them, then maybe the wounded characters using guerrilla tactics would work better. But as it is, the players will get 1 round of surprise and then it's a fight as normal.

"How do you handle characters learning new class abilities/feats in 3.5? Same difference. "

Classes have very few inherit abilities now. Every level gives you a new Feat or a new Power. Powers are exploits (combat tricks, like hitting and knocked down an opponent), prayers or spells (both of which work pretty much the same as exploits but with more 'dazed, stunned, held effect). Spells have been steamlined to make them much...less...than they were.

In fact, I don't see why you wouldn't just include Wizards in the game now. They really don't have the power they once could possess.

I VERY badly want to use the Midnight setting as my campaign world for 4e and have ordered the core book and Crown of Shadow to use as an adventure source (even though the latter is 1e). However, I completely understand what you are all saying in regard to the difficulties of doing as such. Could you please make suggestions on what I should do to make this a success while capturing the spirit of the setting and its nuances. I'm talking in regard to races, classes, feats, spells, and overall nuance of the setting world.

I also want to allow for every class that D&D has to offer so any good ideas for how I could include Clerics, Paladins and Rangers would be appreciated. I intend to keep their numbers VERY low and also to work it into the story that Clerics and Paladins will be hunted by the Shadow's agents but I need a good plot tool to make them fit somehow, given the setting and how their kind of abilities would be hampered after being severed from their power source. Perhaps there is some good source still left somewhere in the world that they are able to draw power from and maybe they do not even know what/where it is and its discovery will be part of the ongoing staory of the campaign, leading to self discovery and their realization of their heroic destiny in regard to their special place in bringing the fight to the Shadow himself. Perhaps this hidden source is the key to restoring contact with the beyond that Izrador had once severed.

Well, the problem you have with Clerics and Paladins in particular, is that they are completely cut off from their gods, meaning they have no divine power at all. This is clearly why they died out in the Midnight timeline, and why they're missing from the rulebook.

I understand. However, I want to think of a solution that would allow me to allow one or 2 in a campaign, making them VERY rare and even dangerous to be associated with. I am also working on a way in which all of a sudden they are able to exist again but only in small numbers. I am working on a plot device that may end up being the key to fix what Izrador has done to cut off the pantheon from the people and that may end up being the key to freeing the world from his evil grasp. Any ideas as to what this plot device should be would be greatly appreciated as well.

Any ideas?

I understand. However, I want to think of a solution that would allow me to allow one or 2 in a campaign, making them VERY rare and even dangerous to be associated with.

Can I ask what the reason is? Of all editions that D&D has ever had, 4th edition requires the trademark healing powers of the cleric and the paladin the least. Because everybody can heal themselves.

Further to consider, I've come to realize one thing that makes Midnight stand out from other games is access to equipment. Your fighter is typically defined by his sword, shield and sheets of steel (armour) in a typical D&D setting. But not in Midnight. In Midnight, the Fighter is tougher than most but might often have a dagger as their starting weapon. anything not concealable is tricky.

A cleric and Paladin take a little bit away from that feel in 4th edition, because they can both 'wield' implements as their form of attack (meaning their holy symbol). Since a typical Implement would be easily concealable (although recognizable), the fighting classes would be hindered in the world of Midnight, while the Cleric and Paladin would not likely be (assuming that they can get their Implement).

So I for one, don't see the need to include them since the game itself has taken great pains to exclude them. It seems fundamental to the world that the separation to other plains has ended the classes of clerics and paladins.

As a side note: Until the 2nd Player's Handbook comes out (which will include Barbarians, Monks and Druids) I think Midnight is a little difficult to use with D&D 4th edition.

After both reading and playing 4e, I think it's miles better than 3rd. Anyone who thinks that all the characters having healing surges and 'powers' now makes the fights easier seriously needs to play it. The monsters are now a lot meaner than last time, and usually come with characterful touches that sting, such as orcs getting nastier when they're hurt. Healing surges only sound silly if you're thinking from a 3e point of view, where the attrition of hit points over a period of time was an important pacing element. Running out of healing surges is seriously Bad News, since nearly all healing goes off you having some left, and you will need them. Losing them to poor food or lack of lodgings is a good idea, since it allows the party to have some pretty intense fights, but means they'll be keeping low for a while afterwards.

There's more, but I'm nearly missing my point which is that, having said it's a good game, I actually don't think it'd make sense commercially for Midnight to port over to 4th edition. My reasoning is that, well... it's really no effort to convert across. Anyone with either 3.0 or 3.5 setting guide could put together something similar with 4e in an afternoon.

Arcane classes? Multiclass only. Branching out into Wizard from any of the martial classes has Channeler covered. Let characters multiclass into Warlock as equivalent to some of the weirder bloodline powers, then? Rituals are fine, since they were in Midnight already.

Divine classes, well... The only source of divine power is Izrador, so the clerics and paladins of Midnight serve him only. It'd be interesting to allow some to 'spontaneously' develop, but even then I'd only go as far as letting a PC multiclass into one, possibly as a testament to their utter faith rather than being a conduit to the gods (basically, the Faithful bloodline). A full-on cleric in the world of Midnight is called a Legate, or more frequently, 'Sir'.

Lastly, you keep the gritty Midnight feel by not using Minion monsters, making fights a little less action-heroic. Many of the Paragon paths would need to be either reflavoured to match an existing prestige class, or made fresh from same, but not that many. Hell, for most games, you'd want to keep things at Heroic level, avoiding the situation completely

.

And that's really it, apart from setting fluff.

(Having said that, I'd gladly buy up a 4e/systemless version of Midnight (and good ol' Dawnforge) in a snap.)

@ Daddystabz:
Eredane being removed from the heavens is not the work of Izrador. Basically, the world of Midnight is Izrador's prison, sealed off by the gods, which just happened to be previously occupied.

My only counterpoint to 4th Edition being better than 3rd edition is that there is no longer any capacity to playing a non-combat character or at least a supportive character. I'm not saying that it's such a horrible thing to lack, but the fact that the option is not available is surprising to me. The Rogue is a better warrior than he is a thief at 1st level. And not being able to have more utility powers than attack powers is equally dumb.

Regardless, it does improve combat a great deal, making it more exciting and yes, it can be just as dangerous if not more so than before.

I like the idea that Arcane classes are only accessible through Multiclassing. That's a fine idea and I will steal that.

I will disagree with the Minions suggestion, myself. I've found that using Minions, so far, adds exciting flavor to combat. In fact, I think it would be extra dangerous in Midnight, since Wizards are the 'controller' class and lacking that would make minions very challenging.

Also, I feel that Midnight has a close design affinity to the Lord of the Rings world (making magic more rare, having Orcs as the most common baddie, The Shadow and his 4 Ring-Wraiths, etc). As such, I would expect that players would want to see the battles that the characters had in the movies (at least the first movie with the Urak Hai). And Minions allow that a lot better. Minions are a great contrast to show that while some Orcs are killed with a quick stab to the throat, the really mean ones are much tougher than the characters would typically want to face. Minions are a nice 'gauge' for the players to feel that they are accomplishing something in a fight. Technically chipping away at the HP's of a big creature is a similar effect, but it feels a little more rewarding to remove figure after figure on the board.

Oh and some creatures get real benefits from using minions (or rather their abilities are designed to aid lots of figures and Minions just fit that bill better.

First off, there are a great deal of misconceptions out there about healing surges. Yes indeed, players now have the ability to heal themselves somewhat in combat BUT you cannot use healing surges in combat. They are only able to be used during a resting period between encounters! And most of the time, to use a surge during combat you have to be given the opportunity to use one of your surges by your Cleric or Paladin using an ability that allows you to spend one of your surges. Without a Cleric or a Paladin, this ability is pretty well done for, making combat that much harder and deadlier right off. The only other way to heal yourself while in combat is to use your Second Wind ability, that allows you to spend a surge in combat. You can only do this once per encounter though and in either of these 2 cases for healing in combat if you are out of healing surges you are out of luck. 4e is deadlier than people think. Even though characters have more hit points now and a little bit of an ability to heal themselves once per encounter, the monsters in 4e are also quite a bit tougher and can take out an even level PC.

In response to sleeping_demon: As for Izrador and my references to him, what I am referring to is when Izrador was cast out of the celestial kingdom he tricked the others in the pantheon, thus cutting off their contact with the mortal world. This is simply what I was referring to in my earlier post. I plan on making a plot device that the player characters will be seeking that might once again allow contact with the celestial beyond and that has once again allowed very limited arcane and divine power into the world. The players will be desperately seeking it out to save their world and the forces of the shadow will also be seeking it out to destroy it.

Here are some suggestions for using Midnight in a 4e campaign from the WotC boards:

Converting Midnight to 4E? Well, to start with...

Drop the following races:

Dragonborn
Half-Elves
Tieflings

Add the following races:

Gnomes
Orcs

Drop the following classes:

Cleric
Paladin
Warlock
Wizard

Keep the following classes:

Fighter
Ranger
Rogue
Warlord

You'd still need a Channeler equivalent. Sadly no Sorcerer at present. However, if you really want it, then throw in either the Warlock or the Wizard as a replacement. In addition, Clerics and Paladins do exist. They're all exclusively servants of Izrador, however. Although with the changes to how Clerics and Paladins get their powers, it's possible to have a character who was a Cleric or Paladin of Izrador who's switched sides, yet retains his class powers.

Then get rid of magic items, but in lieu of magic items, give PC's the following every five levels or so:

+1 to hit
+1 to damage
+1d6 damage on a critical hit
+1 AC
+1 Fort Defense
+1 Ref Defense
+1 Will Defense

Personally I say start handing out those bonuses at level 3 and every five levels after (8th, 13th, 18th, 23rd, 28th).

That's all I can think of for now.

First off, there are a great deal of misconceptions out there about healing surges. Yes indeed, players now have the ability to heal themselves somewhat in combat BUT you cannot use healing surges in combat. They are only able to be used during a resting period between encounters! And most of the time, to use a surge during combat you have to be given the opportunity to use one of your surges by your Cleric or Paladin using an ability that allows you to spend one of your surges. Without a Cleric or a Paladin, this ability is pretty well done for, making combat that much harder and deadlier right off. The only other way to heal yourself while in combat is to use your Second Wind ability, that allows you to spend a surge in combat. You can only do this once per encounter though and in either of these 2 cases for healing in combat if you are out of healing surges you are out of luck. 4e is deadlier than people think. Even though characters have more hit points now and a little bit of an ability to heal themselves once per encounter, the monsters in 4e are also quite a bit tougher and can take out an even level PC.

I don't think anybody who's posted so far has had any misconception on how Healing surges work.

The fact remains that 3rd edition Midnight was played without clerics or paladins AND without healing surges. The Healing skill was important and players were forced to pick or choose their battles. Anybody who dropped in a battle was pretty much screwed because it would take them days (weeks) to fully recover.
So by virtue of the fact that one gets to have healing surges improves your survivability in the world of Midnight considerably. You might be dropped in a fight but afterwards, you will likely be able to recover all your HP's before the next encounter.

Also, Warlords has a few powers that allow the use of a healing surge and give temporary HP's.

4e combat should be deadlier than regular D&D, so I don't see what the problem is.

Also, the Cleric eventually gains access to utility prayers (Cure Light Wounds and higher) that do not use the Healing Surges of a character, but just heal them X number of HP's. At this point, the healing starts to fall more into the realm of pure light fantasy, rather than the dark horror that is Midnight. A well designed cleric helps take the sting out of combat, making encounters just an obstacle on the road to gaining XP, rather than a true life or death challenge.

I can't see Midnight being published with the new 4E GSL for a number of reasons. The main reason is in section 6.1 which states that 3PP who publish in 4E cannot continue to print 3E material and must immediately stop selling PDFs of 3E material. That means if FFG converts Midnight to 4E using the GSL (the more restrictive 4E version of the OGL), then they cannot continue to support 3E.

For this and other reasons, Paizo, Green Ronin, Troll Lords, and Kenzer are currently not planning material for 4E. Paizo is developing Pathfinder RPG as a new version of 3E to support their material, and Green Ronin has the True20 system.

Necromancer and Goodman Games are looking at publishing some 4E material. It looks like Goodman at least may not be using the GSL, because they have any early release date, which would be in violation of the GSL, but it's difficult to tell at this point whether they got special licensing permission or if they are taking the risk of publishing outside of the GSL agreement, either by using the existing OGL or copyrighting their own material and making it 4E compatible. Necromancer intends on publishing 4E at the moment, but they do not intend to publish any existing product lines that they wish to continue to sell 3E versions of.

I am pretty certain that in light of these other 3PP's decisions, Fantasy Flight will take a wait-and-see approach to 4E. The new WotC GSL is a very tricky thing and dangerous territory for any 3PP. I'm certain they will need to go over it very carefully with their lawyers before they make a decision on how they move forward with 4E.

Sarim Rune wrote:My only counterpoint to 4th Edition being better than 3rd edition is that there is no longer any capacity to playing a non-combat character or at least a supportive character. I'm not saying that it's such a horrible thing to lack, but the fact that the option is not available is surprising to me. The Rogue is a better warrior than he is a thief at 1st level. And not being able to have more utility powers than attack powers is equally dumb.

I'm still cool with the idea that combat capability is no longer balanced against out-of-combat utility. Because they shouldn't be mutually exclusive, and it mostly just ended up with 50% of the characters doing nothing of interest at all times. Glad to be rid of it.

Sarim Rune wrote:I will disagree with the Minions suggestion, myself. I've found that using Minions, so far, adds exciting flavor to combat. In fact, I think it would be extra dangerous in Midnight, since Wizards are the 'controller' class and lacking that would make minions very challenging.

I concede to this point. We've got a wizard and a ranger in our games, so minions just die. Without the wizard, them ganging up becomes a real issue, especially when they're helping the 'full' monsters get combat advantage and the like. Very good point about the LotR fights, too.

As for healing, I agree the Cleric gets very good, but I'd like to shout out for my friend the Warlord, who is a lot better at it than many think. You just don't need a cleric any more, even in regular D&D. As an aside, I had a thought: modifying several rituals from the PHB to use Nature rather than Religion would mean we'd have Herbalism covered. The GP cost for casting is intended to be a measure of component expense, rather than actual gold, so that works, I think.

I like the healing surge mechanic also because it allows the characters to do the 'hounded' thing entertainingly- their pursuers catch up to them, they fight their way out, repeat. In this way surges allow you to have pretty tense fights each time, without the fear that one of the characters will simply die from an opening blow, and has at least a fighting chance. I don't know, it just feels more heroic doing it that way.

This ended up quite rambling, sorry.

AvatarArt wrote:
Not necessarily. Will gamers pick MIDNIGHT as their 4th edition? Or will they stick with GREYHAWK, FORGOTTEN REALMS, EBERRON, etc. Seriously.

I'm a former Forgotten Realms fan. Not anymore, since they butchered the setting to make it fit 4e. They advanced the timeline for 100 years and killed of not only millions of regular folks (since 100 years is more than a lifetime for a human), but also lots of the fans' favourite characters, and dozens of gods.

I think 4e won't fit Midnight at all. The "everyone can heal" part wouldn't fit the low-healing situation, the at-will or once-per-fight powers wouldn't fit the rare magic aspect.

And, much more importantly: It seems that FFG would have to sign the GSL to do anything for 4e. No one in their right mind would sign that thing. It practically gives wizards of the cost all the advantages. FFG would have to stop producing any of their 3e stuff (you CAN'T have one product line in both systems), and would not be able to resurrect the 3e line when wizards pulls the license (which they can do at any time). Also, wizards can change the license, doesn't have to notify anyone, and you're responsible for noticing changes, because if you keep selling afterwards, you accept the new version (which might change the facts so that you can't use the OGL for anything any more, or any other nastiness).

Another thing is that if they later incorporate stuff into the GSL (like, say, druids), and your GSL material contains parts with the same name, you must remove the stuff from your book.

Furthermore, you cannot change the definition of anything in the new SRD. I'm not quite sure about this one, but that could be read like "our elves are the way elves are to be, you may not change that"

Even if 4e by itself were the better system for Midnight (what I don't think), it's still not feasible because of the cutthroat license.

I think they should stick to 3e or switch to Pathfinder RPG, published by Paizo. Pathfinder will be backwards compatible to 3e, but will try to fix most of what is wrong with 3e without turning it into a whole new game. It will be completely OGL (so there's no cut-throat license to sign, there's no expiration date, nothing to pay), but Paizo will have a small license (which they will make easy to get into) for a logo to put on your books to indicate compatibility to Pathfinder.

Just go to paizo.com and check it out. It's in Alpha stage right now (Alpha 3, and right now, it still needs the 3.5e core books, because it doesn't contain everything yet), but in August, there will be a beta version. The best about this betatesting: It's open to everyone, and the PDFs are free for download (the Beta will also have a print version, which will be something like 400 pages and cost a mere 25 bucks). It literally costs nothing to check it out.

Additionally, FFG could look into other game systems (because they're not mutually exclusive, unlike 4e) and even go dual-system, like Legend of the Five Rings did for a time.

Once again I must state that the "everyone can heal" aspect of 4e is completely blown out of proportion and overblown by most players. People should really try playing the freaking game before making insane generalizations and characterizations of the new system. It is actually a lot deadlier and harder than people realize. You only get 1 heal in a combat encounter!!!!! That is your Second Wind. The ONLY way you can heal more than this during a combat is if a friendly character uses a power that allows you to spend a Healing Surge. The surges are mostly for healing outside of combat BETWEEN encounters so you don't have to spend such a long time simply regenerating HPs before you can do anything else meaningful. The devs simply wanted to reduce downtime. Any Star Wars Saga Edition players should know what this is like. It is much harder to heal outside of combat in that game and this results in much more downtime. Downtime trying to heal back HPs is not what I consider engaging gameplay. Now NPC monsters are quite tough and even a kobold can take out an even level player character if people are not smart in their gameplay. The new system encourages teamwork more-so than any previous version. Trying to run off and solo things is a sure fire way to get killed. All characters now have abilities ("powers") that work in synergy with one-another to make the entire party more effective overall. This means that individual munckinism and powergaming will start to give way to peopl designing their characters for how certain power selections will synergize with other party member's power selections in order to maximize combat effectiveness together as a group. I feel this is a good thing!

As for everyone having "powers," you have to remember that powers are simply a generic term for abilities. Fighters and Paladins have martial powers, simply meaning that these powers are special attacks that they use as melee combatants with their swords, etc. Instead of just saying "I hit the ogre with my sword" now you have the cool option to do something special with that sword swing. Afterall, skilled combatants (fencers, martial artists, etc), do not simply swing a sword.....they know exactly how to attack with their weapon in order to exact maximum hurt on their opponent(s).

I do however understand what many of you are saying about 4e not fitting the Midnight setting for various reasons. I think anyone that used 4e with Midnight would need to make quite a few adjustments to the core rules to make it really fit. This is why I am leaning more toward using Castles & Crusades, which fits Midnight rather easily with very minimal adjustment.

daddystabz wrote:People should really try playing the freaking game before making insane generalizations and characterizations of the new system.

That would require to waste time and money on wizards products. After their recent activities, a lot of people will do neither.

daddystabz wrote:
I think anyone that used 4e with Midnight would need to make quite a few adjustments to the core rules to make it really fit.

Or go the wizards way, and make a lot of adjustments to the setting to fit the rules, like they did with the 4gotten realms.

And, as I said, it's all irrelevant, as the GSL just isn't feasible. wizards clearly wants their sandbox for themselves, and maybe trick a couple of companies into signing the GSL only to yank the rug out from under their feet, getting rid of them as competition in both GSL and OGL.

KaeYoss wrote:

daddystabz wrote:People should really try playing the freaking game before making insane generalizations and characterizations of the new system.

That would require to waste time and money on wizards products. After their recent activities, a lot of people will do neither.

Well, it's one thing to bash a system that you've got an informed opinion about and another to bash something that you've read, believe that you comprehend but clearly do not.

Also to say that they 'butchered the setting of something that has not yet come out yet...c'mon. I've been around the internet for so long, I've seen that same argument so many times. Why not wait until it comes out before coming to a conclusion.

I'm not refuting you about the GSL. You seem to have read it and it might be the devil for all I know.

I'm squarely in the middle of the 3.5 and 4.0 debate. I like what 4.0 does which is improve combat quite a bit. It's combat system is so much better than 3.5, it's like apples and oranges. But I dislike so many other things about it (magic, magic items, lack of character options, etc). But lots of people hated 3.0 when it came out. I think that I'll give it a year. I want to see what products they do put out and the 2nd players handbook before I completely dismiss it or not.

I'm curious about this Pathfinder. I will check it out. There are a lot of problems with 3.5 right now and to see some fixed, that would be nice.

Sarim Rune wrote:
Well, it's one thing to bash a system that you've got an informed opinion about and another to bash something that you've read, believe that you comprehend but clearly do not.

I've read parts of it. Small parts, admittedly. And I read what others who did read it said about it. It's enough for me.

Sarim Rune wrote:
Also to say that they 'butchered the setting of something that has not yet come out yet...c'mon. I've been around the internet for so long, I've seen that same argument so many times. Why not wait until it comes out before coming to a conclusion.

I don't need the final version. The parts we know about are bad enouth, and there's stuff already in books:

They just skipped 100 years, did away with the weave, had the "Spellplague" that changed the way magic worked. They did all that to make the setting work with the rules (instead of doing it the other way around, which would have been correct).

Those 100 years alone will kill many very interesting characters, since they're human and humans don't get to live that long unless they're special. And many of those who are special are already known to be dead or insane.

They killed lots of gods, often in extremely silly ways (it brings to mind 5th-class soap opera writing, and often doesn't make sense at all). Those deities include, but aren't limited to, all duergar deities, all drow deities except Lolth, Helm, Mystra, Cyric more or less (he's under house arrest in his Realm for 1000 years), and probably many others.

They split drow into drow and dark elves, who are now nice and no longer black-skinned. They also said that the remaining drow are beyond redemption and will always be evil.

Most of the changes would have been deal-breakers for me on ther own. All of them are way beyond what I could tolerate. This is simply not the setting that was my favourite any more.

And, as you said: The hardcover isn't even out yet. It's bound to have a lot more changes like this.

Sarim Rune wrote:
I'm not refuting you about the GSL. You seem to have read it and it might be the devil for all I know.

I read parts of it, and had lawyers (who happen to be roleplayers, too) take a stab at it, as well as several game designers. The consensus is that it's practically unsignable.

If they turned Midnight into 4e, they would have to stop making the old stuff. That's right. Sorcery and Shadow, Wrath of Shadow, the setting itself, Legends of Shadow, and all the other extant books would have to be discontinued, and they could never resurrect them, even if the license was terminated.

Plus, the GSL says that you may not redefine anything from the SRD. I'm not 100% sure on this one, but to me it reads that you could not keep the elves as Midnight has them, because 4e elves are forest dwellers, not magic users. Those are the eladrin. Midnight elves are basically like eladrin and elves all rolled into one - and the GSL won't let you redefine elves like that.

Sarim Rune wrote:
But lots of people hated 3.0 when it came out. I think that I'll give it a year.

I loved 3e from the start. And back when they first told us that they were doing 4e after all (despite their assurances that it wouldn't be there for some time), I liked that, too. It was only after more and more of it was made known that I realised that I won't want it. The final conclusion came when I browsed through the PHB and MM.

Sarim Rune wrote:
I'm curious about this Pathfinder. I will check it out. There are a lot of problems with 3.5 right now and to see some fixed, that would be nice.

It's only in alpha stages now, still requiring the core books for everything it doesn't contain (it's about 150 pages, compared to the final 550+), but already a lot of things have improved: Skills are now handled a lot better (without sacrificing versatility in the process), the classes had a lot of interesting stuff added (usually more choices to better individualise your character, and things like animal companions, special mounts, and familiars now have alternatives if you don't want to remember those critters).

so...does it look like Midnight might go the way of KoK with Kenzer's gambit?

Well, I've been running a 4E Midnight game for 10 sessions now, and I have to say, 4E is a MUCH better fit for Midnight than 3.5 D&D ever was (and yes, I ran Midnight under 3.5 from 1st-8th level). I'm a huge fan of Midnight (I own every book, and its one of my favorite two published fantasy campaign settings), but using 3.5 for Midnight was unsatisfying for us. Like others on here, I had some issues with a few of 4E's mechanics, but I developed some fixes for them, and Midnight runs like a dream.

I ran into a number of problems with Midnight in 3.5, namely:

- The math is wonky. D&D 3.5 is built for superheroic characters, and it scales badly through levels. Witness the quick outpacing of AC by BAB, exponential hit point explosion of PCs over other creatures in the game world, etc.
- Complete dominance by casters, even with the Channeler class in Midnight. This was less of a problem in Midnight than it was in 3.5, but its still there.
- Bad wonky CR\EL system which is all but usless in Midnight since magic items are rare.
- Reliance on magic items. Yes, this was mitigated somewhat by Heroic Paths, but the issue still remained.

We also looked into Pathfinder, but after playing 5 adventures with Pathfinder Alpha rules ranging from 1st to 15th level, we found it has all of the same problems of 3.5 I listed above, but makes them worse and harder to work around. So Pathfinder is out.

4E works very well with Midnight IME though. Here is what we did to make 4E more gritty:

- All characters have half the normal number of healing surges. Healing surges give back 1d6+ Con bonus hp at Heroic tier, 1d8+ Con at Paragon, and 1d10+ Con at Epic.
- PCs being at full health at the start of every day bugs me a little. I know why the designers did it, but there is no way to simulate long-term injury. I've added a house rule that when someone goes to 0 hp or below, they gain 1 Wound Point per negative hit point and they have to spend 1 day of recovery for every Wound Point they went below 0 HP, and during that time, they can still move around, adventure, etc- but take a -2 to all rolls, skill checks and defenses, and cannot regain HP above their bloodied condition. Magical healing could restore the wound points on a 1 WP per 5 HP healing basis to get them back in the action sooner. The warlord CANNOT heal wound points- only magical healing or clerical spells. You could explain the WP as whatever you like- sprains, broken bones, severe lacerations, burns, etc.
- Use the Fighter, Ranger, Rogue, and Warlord as written. Cleric and Paladin only available to worshippers of Izrador. Channelers are basically Wizards, but with a slightly modified spell list (combine some spells from Wizard and Warlock). Added in homebrew Druid class from ENWorld, but with healing mostly stripped out. Added in homebrew Barbarian from ENWorld too.
- Reworked Heroic Paths so that at each tier 2 feats are available for PCs to take that give them extra abilities or bonuses in tune with the theme of the Path. (sort of like the Divine Channeling feats in the PHB).
- Allow for the spending of Action Points more than once per encounter, and APs can be used either to grant an extra action, or gain a +1d6 bonus to any d20 roll. Two action points can be spent to refresh a daily or encounter power. I also tend to give APs for actions in accord with the character's Heroic Path, rather than after every 2 encounters. Every time a character takes an extended rest, they lose 1 AP, to a minimum of 1.

Thats it. So far its working beautifully, as 4e is more streamlined and contrary to what some claim, LESS superheroic than 3e D&D was. Also, because 4e is less reliant on magic items than 3e was, its a breeze to slip it into Midnight. I hope some of these suggestions help- if you guys have any questions, feel free to ask.

So, with the new license out for 4th Edition, and from what I've heard about it, I doubt we'll see a 4E Midnight. The new license is insanely restrictive, and a lot of what was done for Midnight doesn't look like it will work well with 4E. While, mechanically, 4E would be excellent for Midnight, the hoops FFG would have to jump through to be allowed to make Midnight for 4E, I find, way too restrictive.

That said, perhaps Piazo's 3.75 (Pathfinder)...

Pontius Glaw wrote:Well, I've been running a 4E Midnight game for 10 sessions now, and I have to say, 4E is a MUCH better fit for Midnight than 3.5 D&D ever was (and yes, I ran Midnight under 3.5 from 1st-8th level). I'm a huge fan of Midnight (I own every book, and its one of my favorite two published fantasy campaign settings), but using 3.5 for Midnight was unsatisfying for us. Like others on here, I had some issues with a few of 4E's mechanics, but I developed some fixes for them, and Midnight runs like a dream.

I ran into a number of problems with Midnight in 3.5, namely:

- The math is wonky. D&D 3.5 is built for superheroic characters, and it scales badly through levels. Witness the quick outpacing of AC by BAB, exponential hit point explosion of PCs over other creatures in the game world, etc.
- Complete dominance by casters, even with the Channeler class in Midnight. This was less of a problem in Midnight than it was in 3.5, but its still there.
- Bad wonky CR\EL system which is all but usless in Midnight since magic items are rare.
- Reliance on magic items. Yes, this was mitigated somewhat by Heroic Paths, but the issue still remained.

We also looked into Pathfinder, but after playing 5 adventures with Pathfinder Alpha rules ranging from 1st to 15th level, we found it has all of the same problems of 3.5 I listed above, but makes them worse and harder to work around. So Pathfinder is out.

Thats it. So far its working beautifully, as 4e is more streamlined and contrary to what some claim, LESS superheroic than 3e D&D was. Also, because 4e is less reliant on magic items than 3e was, its a breeze to slip it into Midnight. I hope some of these suggestions help- if you guys have any questions, feel free to ask.

I find this interesting. I've run some playtests myself with the 4e rules and I have to say...I'm convinced that they are less of a fit than 3.5.

4e is nothing more than a tactical combat system. One could make the same argument about 3.5 but in 3.5 I can make a non-combat character, or at least a character who focuses more on non-combat elements of the game. All 4e needed to do was provide more Utility powers and allow you to swap out Attack powers for Utility powers and I think it would have been better received.

Basically they made combat more interesting by sacrificing everything else in the game.

I also strongly disagree with the concept that 4e's monster ratings are in any way better than 3.5. At 1st level, I was able to make some challenging encounters. I've tested the system out at 4th, 16 and soon 26th level. So far, the standard encounter that I've made has yet to even challenge the group. They've crushed the opposition but it does take them a good long while. But it seems so easy to bring a new power that circumvents the monster's abilities or blows the monsters away. I tried two Ogres against the party and it was a joke. They were just boring meat shields, dishing out laughable damage. They should have been a challenge according to the XP system. I tried an 'tough' encounter and did a little better but by the end of the fight, the entire party pretty much tore apart the undead I threw at them and were pretty much a full HP's by the end (with plenty of healing surges). Oh and minion damage scales horribly. 7 damage for level 16 minions? The characters have over 100 HP at that point and so many AOE's that minions are useless at higher levels.
So basically, whether a CR or an XP rating, they are both out of whack.

The powers, in too many cases are just too flashy. I really like the concept of what they were attempting. At-Will attacks, scaling damage and the like. All good. But the game is too tied to a board now. Too many strict Adjacent, Shifting, Healing surges and AoE's.

The best concept out of 4e is that players can do Minor, Move and Standard attacks. This opens up the game very well, as fighters don't have to root themselves to the ground and Clerics can heal and attack.

I think that Pathfinder is a great start but will still need more work. But I no longer think 4e is a good fit for Midnight. But concepts of it can be put in. Bloodied status, Action points, Healing Surges (lowered as was suggested is a great idea) and the like are all great features that can be imported seemlessly into 3.5. I would like to import the action sequence (Minor, Move and Standard) but that's a little trickery.

NeoSamurai wrote:so...does it look like Midnight might go the way of KoK with Kenzer's gambit?

Once again, for those of us who do not follow every nerd thing out there, please?