4e Books That Should Have Been

What are some 4e books that you think should have been real, or, actually came out?

I personally would've loved to see:

A DMG 3 for Epic Level Campaigns.

The Class Compendium which sadly was cancelled.

Arcane Power 2. More magic, what can I say?

A 3rd Monster Vault (Possibly giving us access to more classic and higher level critters).

A Ritual Book. I would've loved to see a book only about rituals (Lore, Procedures, Ingredients, and of course Rituals)! Rituals were a terrific 4e creation.


What are some books you would've loved to see?

A feywild set like the shadowfell one

^Wasn't there a Heroes of the Feywild book? ^

I'd have liked to see a Heroes of Shadow book that wasn't gutted by Essentials.

While Essentials did provide some interesting classes, Heroes of Shadow is generally a book of terrible design decisions.

After the book was out, WoTC did talk about possibly making a true necromancer class if there was enough community excitement for one, and some mechanics that could work for it. I felt both the necromancer and nethermancer schools of the mage were very underpowered and forced you to take powers that were trying to find niches amongst existing wizard spells.

Also, with Essentials breaking the mold, I think they could have tried to bring stuff like Incarnum and Binders (as in the 3e binder, not 4e's warlock without a curse) to 4e.

CHIA wrote:

^Wasn't there a Heroes of the Feywild book? ^

there was a heroes of the feywild but i mean a boxed set like the glomwright and beyond set. maybe a bright beauty card set like the opposite of the despair deck.

Janx_14 wrote:

I'd have liked to see a Heroes of Shadow book that wasn't gutted by Essentials.

While Essentials did provide some interesting classes, Heroes of Shadow is generally a book of terrible design decisions.

After the book was out, WoTC did talk about possibly making a true necromancer class if there was enough community excitement for one, and some mechanics that could work for it. I felt both the necromancer and nethermancer schools of the mage were very underpowered and forced you to take powers that were trying to find niches amongst existing wizard spells.

Also, with Essentials breaking the mold, I think they could have tried to bring stuff like Incarnum and Binders (as in the 3e binder, not 4e's warlock without a curse) to 4e.

I don't think Essentials is to blame for anything to do with magic in 4e. I think the problem is that "arcane" as a power source just doesn't work that well. It tosses a lot of stuff into one bin and then eats all sorts of other stuff. With Arcane gone then many more possibilities open up. You can have Elemental, Primal, Shadow, Fate, etc instead, and then various sorts of character fall out of that more naturally and your specialty mages are first class casters, not generalists with a little bit of something tacked on as the Necro/Nether mancers in HoS are.

AbdulAlhazred wrote:

I don't think Essentials is to blame for anything to do with magic in 4e. I think the problem is that "arcane" as a power source just doesn't work that well. It tosses a lot of stuff into one bin and then eats all sorts of other stuff. With Arcane gone then many more possibilities open up. You can have Elemental, Primal, Shadow, Fate, etc instead, and then various sorts of character fall out of that more naturally and your specialty mages are first class casters, not generalists with a little bit of something tacked on as the Necro/Nether mancers in HoS are.

The thing is, before essentials, WoTC was not afraid of having 2 classes have a very similar power. Since essentials it also had a love of making every caster a wizard.

Now yes, I do agree arcane was too vague, and having specialized casters would have been great. But I'm pretty sure if it wasn't for Essentials, we would have gotten a full Shadow power source instead of bolting it onto other classes.

Janx_14 wrote:

AbdulAlhazred wrote:

I don't think Essentials is to blame for anything to do with magic in 4e. I think the problem is that "arcane" as a power source just doesn't work that well. It tosses a lot of stuff into one bin and then eats all sorts of other stuff. With Arcane gone then many more possibilities open up. You can have Elemental, Primal, Shadow, Fate, etc instead, and then various sorts of character fall out of that more naturally and your specialty mages are first class casters, not generalists with a little bit of something tacked on as the Necro/Nether mancers in HoS are.

The thing is, before essentials, WoTC was not afraid of having 2 classes have a very similar power. Since essentials it also had a love of making every caster a wizard.

Now yes, I do agree arcane was too vague, and having specialized casters would have been great. But I'm pretty sure if it wasn't for Essentials, we would have gotten a full Shadow power source instead of bolting it onto other classes.

Who knows? I don't really see much connection between Essentials and the Shadow source. Essentials just rehashed the existing Wizard with very few changes. At the root of the whole thing IMHO was the original way that classes were designed in 4e. Each one needed an entire power list, which meant that it soon became very attractive to make subclasses, and things like the Sorcerer were left high and dry. What would have been better was a more robust and varied type of subclassing or some form of different class design that would have allowed for more variation. As it is the weak subclass/specialist stuck to the all-encompasing monster of the wizard class was inevitable and limiting.

We had Heroes of the Feywild, sure, but I'd like to see a Feywild book aimed at DMs. Something along the lines of Open Grave, or the Draconomicons, but centered on Fey.

Some compendiums would be great, too. Perhaps split up along power sources, since it'd be huge if they put everything into one book. I could see dropping some money on a Martial Compendium, that put together every build for every Martial class, along with some feats, paragon paths and with the errata all baked in.

herrozerro wrote:

CHIA wrote:

^Wasn't there a Heroes of the Feywild book? ^

there was a heroes of the feywild but i mean a boxed set like the glomwright and beyond set. maybe a bright beauty card set like the opposite of the despair deck.

Ah, yeah. That definitely would have been cool.

Well, I'd love to see something like a set of books that consolidated all the most up-to-date core 4e stuff. It could be edited some to include the latest things and merge similar/redundant stuff. A DM Handbook say that had most of DMG1 and 2 in it, maybe 3 player's reference books that had the classes and races plus power book stuff. They could edit out a few things that never really went anywhere, include only one unified list of items from MME, etc, but throw all the main stuff in there. They'd be hefty books, but I think all of pre-Essentials 4e could be condensed down into say 7 volumes. I'd probably buy that. Certainly if DDI is going to go bye-bye at some point something like that with good indices and stuff organized for minimal book flipping would be a real boon.

AbdulAlhazred wrote:

Well, I'd love to see something like a set of books that consolidated all the most up-to-date core 4e stuff. It could be edited some to include the latest things and merge similar/redundant stuff. A DM Handbook say that had most of DMG1 and 2 in it, maybe 3 player's reference books that had the classes and races plus power book stuff. They could edit out a few things that never really went anywhere, include only one unified list of items from MME, etc, but throw all the main stuff in there. They'd be hefty books, but I think all of pre-Essentials 4e could be condensed down into say 7 volumes. I'd probably buy that. Certainly if DDI is going to go bye-bye at some point something like that with good indices and stuff organized for minimal book flipping would be a real boon.

This would be nice. I would also like to see the same for Essentials (Essentials had some really good stuff in it).

Felorn Gloryaxe wrote:

AbdulAlhazred wrote:

Well, I'd love to see something like a set of books that consolidated all the most up-to-date core 4e stuff. It could be edited some to include the latest things and merge similar/redundant stuff. A DM Handbook say that had most of DMG1 and 2 in it, maybe 3 player's reference books that had the classes and races plus power book stuff. They could edit out a few things that never really went anywhere, include only one unified list of items from MME, etc, but throw all the main stuff in there. They'd be hefty books, but I think all of pre-Essentials 4e could be condensed down into say 7 volumes. I'd probably buy that. Certainly if DDI is going to go bye-bye at some point something like that with good indices and stuff organized for minimal book flipping would be a real boon.

This would be nice. I would also like to see the same for Essentials (Essentials had some really good stuff in it).

Yeah, though I think there's less need for it with Essentials, the stuff was already cleaned up a good bit. Actually the only thing that I wasn't fond of with Essentials was the presentation of the classes. I suppose that could be fixed in a 'cyclopedia' but it might be more effort than it is worth. For the core 4e stuff it would definitely be handy.

Anyway, I think I'd like to see a 4e Feywild book/box too. Gloomwrought is kind of nice but there are a LOT of cool locations in the Feywild that could be filled out, Mag Tureah, the various courts, the halls of the Goblin King, etc etc etc. I think those would be even cooler. The locations in the Abyss, Shadowfell, etc are nice and all, but they're also pretty specific. I think a fey court would offer a more varied set of interesting options.

A book on running games without a grid, expanded and alternative ways to handle improvisation (including bonuses for using existing powers, rather than building improv as new powers), rules for kingdom/trade empire building, and including (to fill the book out) a list of themes that basically constitute multiclassing.


a Specialists Handbook. New options for Assassins, Artificers (possibly including an E+ style subclass), Seekers, Runepriests and any other specialized class than could use some support, along with themes, PPs and EDs for those characters. Include updated rules for alchemical items while we're at it.

Speaking of which, I've a new thread to start.

Away!

Janx_14 wrote:

Now yes, I do agree arcane was too vague, and having specialized casters would have been great. But I'm pretty sure if it wasn't for Essentials, we would have gotten a full Shadow power source instead of bolting it onto other classes.

Oddly enough, if I'd been designing 4e, I'd probably have done to the Arcane power source what WotC actually did to the Shadow and Elemental sources. So, Shadow and Elemental would have been full, independent power sources with their own classes, while characters like wizards and bards would have had powers with both the Arcane and [another source] keywords; Arcane would be the power source that lets you access a wide variety of effects from other power sources. There would be no exclusively Arcane classes. A sorcerer or an evoker wizard would have spells with the Arcane and Elemental keywords, while a bard would have Arcane+Primal and Arcane+Psionic powers (and possibly a rule to let her cherry-pick powers from other classes and add the Arcane keyword to them); an infernal pact warlock would have Arcane+Divine powers, while a gloom pact warlock's powers would be Arcane+Shadow. All the other power sources are "where does this power come from", while Arcane is "how do I access this power".

That Nentir Vale gazetteer that they advertised then cancelled would have been awesome.

That would have been cool. Not so sure about that liche's taste in interior design, though: 'scantily-clad-girl-in-a-cage' is so 1990s...

Maybe this makes me weird but I'd have liked a Birthright book. It probably would have done well, too, considering GoT's popularity.

frothsof wrote:

That Nentir Vale gazetteer that they advertised then cancelled would have been awesome.

This really should have been a book...

It is stuff like this that makes me dislike Hasbro and WotC. They promised so many great things and products and we got only a piece of them.

I really would have liked to see a Divine Power 2, a Primal Power 2, a Psionic Power 2, and a Shadow Power book.

Also a Dragonlance campaign setting would have been appreciated.

Dragonlance....why wotc no love you?

Yeah, I definitely would have loved to have seen the announced Nentir Vale book. I may be a FR DM but I still would have love to have seen an expanded treatment of the default PoL world which I rather liked. I just needed more before I would have been prepared to use it....

With the success of Neverwinter Campaign Setting I would have loved to have seen a 4E treatment in a similar style - but untouched by R A Salvatore - covering the Dalelands as a sort of classic FR setting. Also, because I want an updated map for the Dalelands that wasnt created by wiping a baby's dirty bum across a piece of canvas (referring to the 4E maps in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide, of course).

doctorbadwolf wrote:

Dragonlance....why wotc no love you?

I think it's because all of the interesting stories have already been told. I know that saying that can offend Dragonlance fans but, for those of us who are not fans, it comes across as a world where the novels have covered everything, even more so than in the Forgotten Realms.

Duskweaver wrote:

That would have been cool. Not so sure about that liche's taste in interior design, though: 'scantily-clad-girl-in-a-cage' is so 1990s...

He's the main villain the first adventure of my next FR campaign (although he's a necromancer and not [yet] a lich). I've been wondering what do to about the "girl-in-a-cage" as it really doesn't fit with our sensibilities....

CHIA wrote:

Maybe this makes me weird but I'd have liked a Birthright book. It probably would have done well, too, considering GoT's popularity.

I am thinking now that Birthright would have been a very interesting setting to enhance the martial practices element of the game... Blood-lines and Practices

Epic levels DMG would have been nice and make it feel like they had finished the game instead of abandonment.

Actually, what I really wanted to see for 4E was a... drum roll, please... PLAYER'S HANDBOOK.

Think about it.

For over 30 years D&D has been based on pointing new players to a player's handbook. In fact, the entire d20/OGL strategy was built around selling more PHBs.

And what did the clowns responsible for both Essentials and now Next? They ditched the PHB for some mini-books called something else. No wonder 4E died.

Thanks, Mike, you wrote two of the worst D&D adventures of all time and then killed the concept of the PHB.