I'm actually using some stuff from the Pathfinder RPG to guide me since I liked what they had done but also like 4e. Initial things I've put into House Rules or plan on adding for doing this -
Races -
No Dragonborn, Tieflings, or Eladrin. Gave Elves the Trance racial trait and longsword proficiency of the latter. Added immunity to sleep spells as part of Trance.
I may tinker with Dwarves some. Will of course be adding Gnomes and Half-orcs. I'm looking at some of the builds for the latter two that people at ENWorld and WoTC have come up with.
Classes -
Adding Druid. Found a good build on ENWorld that I mentioned in a previous post.
Monks. I've never been in love with Monks, mainly due to the religious theme of their backgrounds. I may tinker with making some of the martial classes the equivalent but with more variety by converting the Beast-Wrestling fighting style for Rangers from the Class Acts column in DRG # 326. If you want religious-style Monks I might do something similar with the Paladin class by giving them a Fighting Style class feature, maybe Mounted, Unarmed and a melee weapon style, and developing powers for them.
Warlocks. Make them more like Sorcerors, in that their powers come from their bloodline instead of pacts. Use the bloodlines from Pathfinder as inspiration. Star Pact=Abberant Bloodline, Infernal Pact=Fiendish Bloodline (combining Pathfinders Infernal and Abyssal Bloodlines), Fey Pact=Fey Bloodline. Add Elemental, Celestial and Draconic bloodlines. I'd also want to limit powers to whatever you bloodline is, whereas in 4e you can pick powers from other pacts.
Paladins - Give them back mounts.
Rangers - Give them back companions.
Warlocks and Wizards - Give them back familiars.
I'm not going to make major changes to 4e, although I am ignoring most of the fluff. Making Grey (and High?) elves into eladrin works fine. Making gnomes fey works fine. Tweaking the cosmology works fine. Using the MM orc template for half orcs works fine.
It's frustrating that we don't have all the necessary classes for the npcs but most of them are coming in PHB2 and can be approximated with powers with the rules we have now.
Make the Warlocks of Rookroost into warlocks. Make Gleep Wurp the Eyebiter into a warlock. Probably a few sorcerers could be re-tooled as warlocks as well but there were not that many notable npc sorcerers at any rate. The Artificers of Rel Deven can be artificers. The Silent Ones of Keoland are trickier. I never liked them as sorcerers but Psion/bards might work when the relevant rules come out.
Most fighter leaders will become warlords or multiclass warlords; most high priests will be non-combat casters with rituals. Swashbucklers become rogues. Fighter mages can be a mix of wizard/fighters, fighter/wizards, swordmage/wizards, wizard/swordmages, swordmage/fighters, and fighter/swordmages. Npcs that don't fit neatly into a class category can be given powers from several classes, paragon paths, or monsters.
Plus in order to fit in more with the points of light theme, I'm going back to the lower pre-Living Greyhawk population densities so that there are fewer people and far fewer demi-humans.
Tieflings will not form part of an empire but can be the descendents of House Mahlel, or parts of the Great Kingdom, or in the Empire of Iuz. Dragonborn can come from the Far West.
I agree with the fact that Tieflings, Eladrin and Dragonborn don't fit Greyhawk on the basis WotC made them but I, for the sake of giving it a shot, have losely justified players using the races. Eladrin are outerplanar and not from Oerth, Tieflings are actually a bit more plausible in Greyhawk then the other races. I imagine the Great Kingdom has enough debauchery and depravity in it to say that Tieflings are from there and Dragonborn have a very small pocket (haven't devised where or how, though I am toying with planar travel and again they are not from Oerth originally) in some small remote area.
The biggest hurdle in 4E is that in all honestly, from what I have read and gathered, is not a story driven version of D&D. It is all about recapturing Online RPGs and spatial combat is all the powers seem to really support. There are some rituals that allow limited story development but basically it's all about combat. So I am going to have to find ways to do things like Geas and Sequester which allow DMs to manipulate NPCs by other more powerful beings into doing what they want. I suppose I can work them in but the fact that it wasn't even really addressed seriosuly disappoints me. Then to not release DDi at or near the release date and an unwillingness to give any real info as to where they are in regards to it and how long it will take, even a rough ball park, soon, a few mopnths or a year... anything would be appreciated.
I'm returning to Greyhawk after a 25 year or so absence.
Haven't played in or run a game there since childhood, but 4e has come out and my group wants to play it, so I've agreed and decided it might be fun to return to Greyhawk.
Up front: I only own the Living Greyhawk Gazetteer and I have on order the issues of Dungeon with the big maps. I'd be glad to hear what other things people think I should grab (since most are available as PDFs from Drivethru).
My take is to keep as much as possible from the 4e corebooks. So, Eladrin are in as the elves from Celene and the Lendore Isles. Those not in one of those two locations are on quests or outcasts. Dragonborn in as a race that migrated to the Flanaess 300 years ago. Small numbers, live mostly in enclaves but some do work as sellswords. Tiefling as one of the many twisted remnants of the Suel Imperium. Like the Dragonborn, small in number and living in the shadows of the human empires.
Will be adding some material of my own of course into the back history. Dead gods and Fell weapons. The blood of gods running through mortals, thus the powerful PC classes, wilder regions between the cities/towns post war etc., etc.
My campaign will take place in the Rel Astra region with the PC's as heroes forcefully bound together in a region of darkness and depravity...
The biggest hurdle in 4E is that in all honestly, from what I have read and gathered, is not a story driven version of D&D. It is all about recapturing Online RPGs and spatial combat is all the powers seem to really support. There are some rituals that allow limited story development but basically it's all about combat. So I am going to have to find ways to do things like Geas and Sequester which allow DMs to manipulate NPCs by other more powerful beings into doing what they want. I suppose I can work them in but the fact that it wasn't even really addressed seriosuly disappoints me. Then to not release DDi at or near the release date and an unwillingness to give any real info as to where they are in regards to it and how long it will take, even a rough ball park, soon, a few mopnths or a year... anything would be appreciated.
Just a few points, since I have actually played it recently: 4E is still DnD. Period. It has no intrisic weakness a good DM can't get past (btw, not suggesting you aren't, just stating my opinion ). And it also has not removed the "DM said so" rule of if the player's don't have it, the DM doesn't. You want geas? Say that particular NPC has it, as you want it to be. I personally despise this as a generally available power, except for DM plot potential. But then I like my adventurers free-willed and heroic, not forced.
4E is still very able to tell involved stories, easily. All you have to do is get your players involved in the background of the character and the world, and make sure they choose their characters based on concept, not a cool power build. That was true in every edition of the game. Don't punish a person who happens to use a power build, even if it was intentional, as long as they can come up with some decent reason for being that character. I personally love the power source idea, and it means I can build enemies around a theme, and have that theme shien through. I can't wait until they have a martial controller and I can throw an all martial band at some players!
Are the mechanics of the system geared towards story-telling? Not particularly, but they can be used quite easily to do just that, as could 1E, 2E, and 3.X.
Is 4E as robust a system as 3E? I don't think so, personally. Is it still DnD? Yes, absolutely. Is it problem free? not by a long shot. As a DM, I always go under the assumption that if a rule doesn't exist, I make it up until a better rule comes out. Then I either change my rule, substituting it for the old rule, as if the old rule had been the new one all along, or I come up with some reason why something fundamental just changed. I usually use the first scenario, but I have used both before.
As far as 4e Greyhawk goes, I personally couldn't stomach it, however I did see someone post how they were going to use the uncharted western areas to start their Greyhawk 4e campaign. Not a bad idea since the area is alien for the most part. Most folks tell me that area is not strictly canon anyways so why not.
Dragonborn could have the remnants of their ancient empire in a remote area as well as the tieflings (going by the 4e text about them) perhaps the east is far more intact and imperial and the lands in the west have fallen into ruin (ala points of light).
The Nentir Vale where Fallcrest is could be located in the West as well for a starting town. That is how I would approach things. My issues deal with personal feel of the gameplay not the mechanic. It just feels hollow to me but placing it into a setting where you can try to develop your own nations could be a challenge to say the least but might be the most rewarding.
At least you always would have the east to fall back on in case your campaign is set closer to the Dry Steppes/Paynims/Sea of Dust.
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). And it also has not removed the "DM said so" rule of if the player's don't have it, the DM doesn't. You want geas? Say that particular NPC has it, as you want it to be. I personally despise this as a generally available power, except for DM plot potential. But then I like my adventurers free-willed and heroic, not forced.
Jim