It's that time again, and a new version of D&D has come round. This happens every 8-10 years, so what are peoples feelings about how the latest version
will interact with the WoHF? In giving my thoughts I'm presuming you have at least a basic familiarity with the new 4E rules.
Thinking over the setting I can't see the changes in the rules as they stand making all that much of a difference to the actual campaign setting, and probably not even all that much to how people play in it. A lot has been written about how drastic a change 4E is from 3E, but I don't see it. The only significant change is to the magic system and how class features are handled. Magic systems though are notoriously variable, with any number of different ways of handling magic floating around out there. In actual play zapping and buffing is still going to be standard practice. The standardised method of giving out class features puts a very uneven practice on a more consistent footing. Less important than how they are handed out though is the fine detail of them. The biggest difference here is that 4E class features/powers tend to require battlemats and minis/markers more. If you played 3E 'straight' though it was only a little less dependent in that regard. Actual combat rules apart from various minor alterations are so similar in their basics as to be near identical. The reduction and simplification of skills makes a bit of a change, but once again unless a campaign is for some reason very heavily predicated on skills this won't have much of a play impact, and if that's the case then 4E probably isn't the system for such a campaign.
The detail given for characters and their equipment and powers in WoHF hardly needs rewriting at all I think. All you really tend to get is class, alignment and level, with maybe ability scores. Only a few characters are ever actually fully statted out. Just sub in a 4E class in place, which can often be done directly. 4E low level characters are rather more powerful than in 3E though, and stand farther above the common herd. The tendency of WoHF and products set within it to give even non-heroic NPC's several levels of a heroic class i.e. CSIO where even shopkeepers and dancing girls have several levels of fighter, will have to be scaled back. Heroic classes will now have to I think be confined to prominent named NPC's that you could describe as heroes, such as military commanders, adventurers, knights, Amazons, Sword maidens, magic-users, lords and so on. Regular troopers and barbarian warriors who are listed as numbers, even most elite ones, will instead need customised stats like those given in the new MM. 4E heroic classes need more 'mental bandwidth' to run, especially the previously simple fighter types, so this may be necessary for speed and ease of play and DM sanity. The listings for these in the MM though are quite limited at present, so either DM's will have to create them themselves, or Necromancer games could create a new type of 'monster' supplement, one which lists peoples of all types and abilities (hint, hint). Of the few really powerful NPC's in WoHF, these can just be directly translated into heroics (Hygelak is a 20th level fighter under 3E, so he is again a 20th level fighter under 4E, just pick or create a Paragon path for him) or created as super-monsters by DM design (the Green Emperor possibly, though he could also work as an Archmage Epic character if you want).
WoHF is fortunately a setting where the 'Industrial Light and Magic' phenomenon of magic as technology substitute has never taken hold. Magic is rare and idiosyncratic in the Wilderlands, though of course some peoples make extensive use of it at low levels. Low level magic can be done by having races with minor magic effects as racial powers, the same as several races do in 4E (and as gnomes did in 3E actually). Some peoples having a large chunk of the population be low level sorcerers or wizards can be done by creating MM style stats for them, as explained above. Powerful magic is handwaved a lot as it is, with NPC's, monsters and creatures from beyond the mortal plane able to do things that there are no actual rules for.
An area where rather more work will need to be done if you want to use it will be doing all of WoHF many and varied playable races. 4E has some noticeable conventions when it comes to race features, and of course the rules aren't the same anyway. This is not a massively complex area and I imagine any DM worth his dice could do it quite easily. Converting character classes unique to the WoHF will be a lot more work though. A 4E character class has a listing many times the size of a 3E one. A 4E class has close to a 100 different powers and features that they get or can choose from, and these are all an integral part of the class. A half-dozen or so different class features which a class will always get as they level up is not the 4E way, and there is no massive book of spells and spell listings, or scope for bonus feats, to provide a convenient shorthand. Necromancer games though has already boldly stated that it will be publishing additional classes for 4E though, so here's hoping for the Amazon (hint, hint again).
4E is a less flexible and more narrowly focused game than 3E. As the rules stand it is very much a game of 'Dungeons and Dragons'. You go into a dungeon, or some analogue thereof, and slay dragons, or some analogue thereof. Doing a great deal of anything else calls for rules it just doesn't have, at least at present. If all your players want to do is wander and explore, slay monsters, loot treasure, get into disputes with warlords and magic-users, conquer or seize control of areas, and possibly make heroic quests out of all these violent activities, then 4E is probably as good as many other systems. You can do complex and immersive roleplaying and storytelling if you want, just don't expect any sort of rules to support these activities as some other game systems do. In 4E if it doesn't revolve around amoral, impersonal violence then the rules aren't interested. I would say that 4E is very much a game system for 'sword and sorcery' type settings. The DMG notes that S&S is 'old school' D&D and frankly I think D&D has never gotten very far away from this and is now closer to it than ever. Since the WoHF on its 'default setting' IS a sword and sorcery setting this may well work out just fine.
Thinking over the setting I can't see the changes in the rules as they stand making all that much of a difference to the actual campaign setting, and probably not even all that much to how people play in it. A lot has been written about how drastic a change 4E is from 3E, but I don't see it. The only significant change is to the magic system and how class features are handled. Magic systems though are notoriously variable, with any number of different ways of handling magic floating around out there. In actual play zapping and buffing is still going to be standard practice. The standardised method of giving out class features puts a very uneven practice on a more consistent footing. Less important than how they are handed out though is the fine detail of them. The biggest difference here is that 4E class features/powers tend to require battlemats and minis/markers more. If you played 3E 'straight' though it was only a little less dependent in that regard. Actual combat rules apart from various minor alterations are so similar in their basics as to be near identical. The reduction and simplification of skills makes a bit of a change, but once again unless a campaign is for some reason very heavily predicated on skills this won't have much of a play impact, and if that's the case then 4E probably isn't the system for such a campaign.
The detail given for characters and their equipment and powers in WoHF hardly needs rewriting at all I think. All you really tend to get is class, alignment and level, with maybe ability scores. Only a few characters are ever actually fully statted out. Just sub in a 4E class in place, which can often be done directly. 4E low level characters are rather more powerful than in 3E though, and stand farther above the common herd. The tendency of WoHF and products set within it to give even non-heroic NPC's several levels of a heroic class i.e. CSIO where even shopkeepers and dancing girls have several levels of fighter, will have to be scaled back. Heroic classes will now have to I think be confined to prominent named NPC's that you could describe as heroes, such as military commanders, adventurers, knights, Amazons, Sword maidens, magic-users, lords and so on. Regular troopers and barbarian warriors who are listed as numbers, even most elite ones, will instead need customised stats like those given in the new MM. 4E heroic classes need more 'mental bandwidth' to run, especially the previously simple fighter types, so this may be necessary for speed and ease of play and DM sanity. The listings for these in the MM though are quite limited at present, so either DM's will have to create them themselves, or Necromancer games could create a new type of 'monster' supplement, one which lists peoples of all types and abilities (hint, hint). Of the few really powerful NPC's in WoHF, these can just be directly translated into heroics (Hygelak is a 20th level fighter under 3E, so he is again a 20th level fighter under 4E, just pick or create a Paragon path for him) or created as super-monsters by DM design (the Green Emperor possibly, though he could also work as an Archmage Epic character if you want).
WoHF is fortunately a setting where the 'Industrial Light and Magic' phenomenon of magic as technology substitute has never taken hold. Magic is rare and idiosyncratic in the Wilderlands, though of course some peoples make extensive use of it at low levels. Low level magic can be done by having races with minor magic effects as racial powers, the same as several races do in 4E (and as gnomes did in 3E actually). Some peoples having a large chunk of the population be low level sorcerers or wizards can be done by creating MM style stats for them, as explained above. Powerful magic is handwaved a lot as it is, with NPC's, monsters and creatures from beyond the mortal plane able to do things that there are no actual rules for.
An area where rather more work will need to be done if you want to use it will be doing all of WoHF many and varied playable races. 4E has some noticeable conventions when it comes to race features, and of course the rules aren't the same anyway. This is not a massively complex area and I imagine any DM worth his dice could do it quite easily. Converting character classes unique to the WoHF will be a lot more work though. A 4E character class has a listing many times the size of a 3E one. A 4E class has close to a 100 different powers and features that they get or can choose from, and these are all an integral part of the class. A half-dozen or so different class features which a class will always get as they level up is not the 4E way, and there is no massive book of spells and spell listings, or scope for bonus feats, to provide a convenient shorthand. Necromancer games though has already boldly stated that it will be publishing additional classes for 4E though, so here's hoping for the Amazon (hint, hint again).
4E is a less flexible and more narrowly focused game than 3E. As the rules stand it is very much a game of 'Dungeons and Dragons'. You go into a dungeon, or some analogue thereof, and slay dragons, or some analogue thereof. Doing a great deal of anything else calls for rules it just doesn't have, at least at present. If all your players want to do is wander and explore, slay monsters, loot treasure, get into disputes with warlords and magic-users, conquer or seize control of areas, and possibly make heroic quests out of all these violent activities, then 4E is probably as good as many other systems. You can do complex and immersive roleplaying and storytelling if you want, just don't expect any sort of rules to support these activities as some other game systems do. In 4E if it doesn't revolve around amoral, impersonal violence then the rules aren't interested. I would say that 4E is very much a game system for 'sword and sorcery' type settings. The DMG notes that S&S is 'old school' D&D and frankly I think D&D has never gotten very far away from this and is now closer to it than ever. Since the WoHF on its 'default setting' IS a sword and sorcery setting this may well work out just fine.
