4.5E: When?

[MightyTev]

I find everything you guys are talking about is hilarious. I have never had more fun with RP than with this edition of DnD. The idea that its broken is ridiculous, sure maybe there are some slightly off powers and mechanics, but nothing is really broken. Personally this is the first edition of DnD I look forward to buying the splat books. I only have two from the old edition, dungeon scape, and the magic item book. At the moment there isn't a single product aside from the dungeon tiles and minis I would think of buying.

Agree completely. Loving 4e, and while they might need to issue some errata in a month or two that'll be incorporated into 2nd printings, I don't think they "botched" it enough to warrant an "early patch" on any level enough to warrant a "4.5".

 

[jdrakeh]

The fact that we're even TALKING about massive errata and changes in 4e just a matter of days after the release...

To be fair, this amount of errata is not uncommon in today's RPG market. Look at Weapons of the Gods, Cyberpunk 3.0, Shadowrun 4e, etc. The only reason that WotC is getting a lot of flack is because they called wide attention to the errors by providing immediate support for them. If they hadn't, fans would have happily bumbled along and house-ruled things as they saw fit -- much as they did with the games that I mention above (or much as they did with past editions of D&D).

The irony here is that WotC has worked very hard to bring about transparency in the design, marketing, and other internal processes typically hidden from consumers. Now that consumers have this new level of transparency, the majority of them seem to be using it to lambast WotC. Frankly, at this point, if I were them I'd cut way back on the transparency and get back to Business As Usual. So far, they've won nothing but grief from consumers for their time and trouble.

 

[Korgoth]

The irony here is that WotC has worked very hard to bring about transparency in the design, marketing, and other internal processes typically hidden from consumers. Now that consumers have this new level of transparency, the majority of them seem to be using it to lambast WotC. Frankly, at this point, if I were them I'd cut way back on the transparency and get back to Business As Usual. So far, they've won nothing but grief from consumers for their time and trouble.

Was it really transparency, though? I remember condescending blog posts about shaking your fists at the clouds, controversial statements about leaving stuff out of the first run of books so that they would have stuff to put in the second run, and little teasers doled out in dribs and drabs. I don't remember any large scale "transparency", though it is entirely possible that I just missed it.

 

[Relique du Madde]

I don't think there will be a 4.5e BUT I'm willing to place my bet on there being a Dungeons and Dragons 4e, Revised Players Handbook followed by a Dungeons and Dragons 4e, Revised and Expanded Players Handbook.

 

[Wik]

Fair enough. I can see where you're coming from, Alikar and MightyTev. But, I can also see the flip side of the argument.

The PHB is horribly organized, and an absolute mess for a newb to get into. There are a bunch of fiddly bits that shouldn't be there (my rogue gets theivery and stealth as automatic trained skills... yet he can choose those skills again, seemingly, on his class skills list!) It really takes some searching to find how many powers you begin play with... both my best friend and I searched for half an hour each, on seperate occasions, to figure out that it's all included on a table. There are at-will powers, and then there are powers that can be used at-will; these are not the same thing, apparently. It doesn't describe what [w] means until halfway through the damned book, and I still haven't figured out what [ts] means (but I'm guessing it's 'times').

Some of these are minor things... a lot of them are a bit more major. And we're not looking at powers or anything yet, either.

And, hey, look at the DMG! It seems like every chapter was half-written, or no examples were given. When I flip through the "making a monster" section, I find that it seems to be missing two pages. There are no "making traps" rules, for some silly reason. And I can't find anywhere that tells me, explicitly, how to turn a gnoll into a minion, for example.

(maybe they are there... I just can't find them. Which says something about the poor layout and index of these books)

Yeah, frrom what I've seen of 4e so far, it looks like it'll be fun in combat. But there's way too much errata in there for me to be that happy about the game so far.

On the plus side, I really like how wotc released all three books simultaneously, as opposed to 3e's original release. Some of you may not remember it, but the books were staged in their release date. I have a first printing 3e PHB that included some basic magical items and monsters, as well as XP rules of a sort, just so players could play the game they had just bought. 3 months of fighting goblins and skeletons is not fun...

 

[Zogmo]

I think one of the BIG attractions to DDI will be the digital books being updated very quickly and often and not having to wait for printed material to see the changes or updates.

That being said...

I don't know what books you guys got but my set works great. I have 3 people who gave up on 3.5 completely three years ago totally having a blast in our games so far. As a DM I don't think I've had as much fun either in many years. Some things may need tweaking in the future for me (hasn't happened yet) but so far all of the things listed in this thread as problems are just fine. If there are issues then I'll deal with that on the fly. But so far this is fun!

 

[JDJblatherings]

That's easy. Who uses magic items more at the table: players or DMs?

Me (as DM). There are more NPCs then PCs in the world.


Heck they might put them (magic items) back in the DM for a deluxe edition in a year or so.

 

[YourSwordIsMine]

Well, I'm going on record in my statement that we will get a Revised (basically 4.5) Edition in 2010. This will of course require all printed books to be redone and Revised to fix the issues with 4e.

Like I didnt see this coming when they announced 4e at Gencon last year...

Oh well... It's sad really... I, again like with 3.5 and 4e will not be buying it.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Me (as DM). There are more NPCs then PCs in the world.


Heck they might put them (magic items) back in the DM for a deluxe edition in a year or so.

But JD, NPCs don't use magic items any more, they just have stats which are as if they did, and daily and encounter abilities as if they did.

 

[Grazzt]

Well, I'm going on record in my statement that we will get a Revised (basically 4.5) Edition in 2010. This will of course require all printed books to be redone and Revised to fix the issues with 4e.

Like I didnt see this coming when they announced 4e at Gencon last year...

Oh well... It's sad really... I, again like with 3.5 and 4e will not be buying it.

2010 maybe. But I still don't see them labeling it as such. Bad bad idea. They will simply do what others mentioned above: incorporate new rules, variant rules that supercede the PH/DMG into the newer PH (2, 3, 4, whatever) or DMG.