4e Planescape Brainstorm

Obviously things are a little too early to say anything for sure, but by appearances:

Aasimar shouldn't be too hard to create, as you can base it off the Tiefling racial advancement abilities.

The PS Cosmology is completely shafted in 4e, but I guess we'll have to wait and see how much crunch we're getting along with it, or if its just fluff that can be ignored. At the very least we're getting two more planes coterminous (is that the right world?) with the Material Plane (Feywild and the 'Dead Zone'), and vaious people seem to be suffling their home plane about.

Basic character classes should be fine. New 'planar abilities' for race and class will need developping but taking the 4e stuff as a base shouldn't be too hard. PS always went for wierd special abilities in its heroes...

Faction abilities will probably need rolling into the new style prestige classes, and actually sounds like it will work well (you'll be a Fighter whose also a sensate now, not a Fighter/Sensate - much like 2e)

You can run your adventure on-line via D&D Insider, so I can play it too!

That's just off the top of my head. Everything else is just wait and see

Spell levels are changing. A 20th level spellcaster in 4e will cast 20th level spells, for example.

That means the Outlands will need 30 rings rather than 9. I would also make sure it dampens all "power sources" equally, not just magic, since 4e fighters will have special abilities parallel to those of wizards. The easiest way would be to have each ring represent the maximum class ability, that on the 30th (outermost) ring, you can have up to 30th level abilities, and in the 1st ring you can only produce 1st level effects.

Heh, I was thinking of asking something like that, but I figure that most people will just do it because it's expected. So there's not much point in asking

Well that and the fact that we won't really know anything for sure until it comes out and some folks actually play it.

Plus, it looks like roughly 80-90 percent of Planescape creatures and locations have been dropped from the game or at best canibalized for spare parts and names (Eladrin are now Elves, Archons are now elementals, Great Wheel's gone, Loths are likely gone, Guardinals are gone, Modrons are probably still gone, Slaad might be gone, Limbo was merged with the Elemental planes and the Abyss, and so on).

4th Edition looks to be a fun game, good mechanics, decent setting (I'm looking forward to their feys); but weishan's right, it'll be a lot of work to run Planescape in it.

They've said that Planescape/The Great Wheel is no longer the default planar setting, which means that their cosmology changes (and it looks like there are quite a few) don't really affect us.

It's just that this means that anyone running 4th ed planescape is going to have to come up with their own stats for anything that's dropped/modfied beyond recognition, with the note that a lot has been dropped/modified beyond recognition.

I just started reading the articles about the 4ed. The article about devils and demons was like a direct kick in my nuts. ending the blood war?! f***!

truth is, wizards wants to sell more books and miniatures... and it doesn't seem a good deal if you can use a tana'ari miniature (let's say, a succubus, for example) to replace a baatezu one (in this case, an eryines)... so, their complete opposite philosophies are not just enough... after all, the d&d "mainstream" is still about beating dragons in dungeons, and it'll be this way for ages, and monsters with different "philosophies"... that just doesn't fit.

sorry, i'm just pissed off about this whole 4e thing. this was more of a katharsis than anything worth reading.

you know what this means to us, fellow planewalkers? i'll see this as a opportunity for us to feel more free from the official material. planescape is no longer the simplified suppoting cosmology that appears in the 3/3.5e material, but instead again a scenario of it's own.

more work for us DM's, and less chance that players will know the dark of it beforehand.

I'm not especially worried about the fluff or lack of creatures, etc, that's easily fixed. It's some of the crunch that I find very worrying (monster PCs spring immediately to mind)

and just to answer the question, "is 4e fun?", my most direct answer is: it's confusing... hope they still use the d20.

it seems good, of course. everything is a marvel in the chant of game developers... it wouldn't be different, anyway.

my opinion is: we'll have to play it, but since i'm greatly pissed off by WotC politics regarding releases, i'll not buy it. at least not promptly buying it as soon as it gets to the stores. i'll have to read it. a lot. and like it. a lot.

Should 4e Planescape advance a hundred years to keep pace with the 4e Forgotten Realms (for those who want to integrate those two campaigns)?

It'd be interesting to see what might happen to Sigil, its people and factions in that amount of time without going the "Urban Planescape" route.

NPCs that would might still be around in 100 years time:

A'kin
All Believers of the Source (reincarnated)
Many Dustmen (reincarnated)
Anyone in a Maze (certain factols, if they don't escape in the meantime).
Morte
Kesto Brighteyes and Sir Cleve
Cirily
Djhek'nlarr (and other githyanki who spend most of their time on the Astral Plane)
Adamok Ebon (was around before bladelings gained their immunity to rust)
Estavan
Farrow
Fell
Judge Gabberslug
The Grixxit (although it's unlikely she'd survive the Lady's retribution all that time - unless she was mazed, or imprisoned in a shadow fiend's gem)
Jemorille the Exile (Faerun's Spell Plague was surely his fault)
Koe
Kylie
Ly'kritch
Milori
Morvun and Phineas (heavens forbid)
Omott
Patch the sentient razorvine (what might it have grown into? - another candidate for the Mazes)
Qaida
Rule-of-Three (I'd like to see him with a barony in Azzagrat by now, or fallen out of favor with Graz'zt and exiled)
Alluvius Ruskin
Saure
Seaumusxanthuszenus
Shemeshka the Marauder
Tarholt (but not his grandfather)
Tripicus
Unity-of-Rings
The Us
Verden
Xideous
Ylem
Zadara
Ely Cromlich
Skall
Aram Oakwright
Ombidias

That's what I thought too...Rip, come and save us from uncertanties with cannon!

Also, I note you've got Skall on the list. Faction War claims that he was mazed, but that always seemed messed up to me because Manifesto says he almost never visits Sigil in person.

Was there ever anything else said on the matter?

Personally I'd prefer to see the development of a post FW multiverse (read, 5-10 years) rather than skipping on ahead a hundred years. I'd also like to see the reaction the rest of the multiverse has when Mystra tops herself in, what, 9 years time? Toril is a pretty well-known world in PS. Darkwood was from it among others and with such a major event taking place you can bet that they'll be people watching as well as some major after effects.

In addition, I would like to convey my doubts about whether Seaumusxanthuszenus would be around in a hundred years time.

Heck, with Seamus, its always a wonder that he's still around after one week's time.

But yeah, I agree with Arytiss.

Where was it confirmed that spells go to 20th level?
Last I read the Vactacian spell progression is still there but is less important due to the adding of per round/per encounter and per day powers.

Finally.

Best D&D rule change ever.

Personally, I feel that for the purposes of Planescape, the phrase "Sodding Clueless ramblings" sums it up rather succinctly. They heard a story from a passing planar, puffed it up with some creative interpretation, added a healthy dose of their own personal God/pantheon's doctrine, and there ya go

Careful, man, I think they're going to make d20 modern 4e. Don't encourage them to retcon the real world. :help!!:

Faction abilities will probably work well as belief powers(an addiction of your arcane,divine or martial powers). No more prestige class & feats, and action points replaced by belief points.

Faction abilities, well they could belong to another "power source" to go with martial, arcane, divine, psionic, shadow and so on. But I think they'll be better represented through talent trees and particular paragon paths (prestige class replacements) and epic destinies.