Give me a competent arguement that WotC is "changing rules for the sake of change"

[Wolfspider]

Elves in 3.x make terrible wizards.

Elves make terrible wizards?

Terrible wizards, even?

Really? Do they have an arcane failure chance just for having pointed ears or something?

Terrible wizards, you say?

Suffice to say that I disagree. Having a penalty to Constitution does not mean that they're terrible wizards. If you're going to claim that, then you're also going to have to argue that human wizards who reach old age should just hang up their robes 'cause look at that Constitution drop!

Please. Elves make perfectly competent and effective wizards.

Maybe I should found an organization called Bothered about the Perception that Elves Make Terrible Wizards...but BAPEMT just doesn't have a nice ring to it...not like Emerald Frost.

OK, you can carry on now.

 

[delericho]

You neglected to mention, in your history of elves through the editions, that the 'high elves' that were the default assumption in 3.x have absolutely no advantages, as wizards, over other classes. Elves in 3.x make terrible wizards.

True, but I was mostly addressing the flavour text.

New players are highly likely to associate "PC Elf" with "Legolas in the LotR movies." Legolas is a woodsy, bow-using, green-and-brown-wearing athletic ranger type.

Thus, WotC had to choose between keeping the existing fluff or aligning the fluff with what seemed likely to be the most common and approachable for new players. They chose the latter, for which I personally commend them.

Making the change thus does not a thing to make the game better. And the source material for D&D is, or at least should be, wider than "what is currently in vogue in popular culture at the moment."

However, a better example would be the change to the origin story of the Devils. Wizards have just published a book providing a detailed and flavourful origin for the Devils that builds on thirty years of the history of the game... and now they've suddenly decided to change it.

Okay, where's the rationale for that? How does that make the game better?

Now, one might argue that the same thing applies: that the rebellion against the gods is a well-understood element, and so forth. Except that to the vast majority of the audience, the word Devil should be preceded with the word the. To most people, having an entire race of these creatures doesn't make sense, it should be the Devil, and many Demons. So, why has that not also been changed?

 

[Rechan]

Or you could say an affinity for wizardry had nothing to do with having a bonus to intelligence or something, just as the stats for a half-orc don't immediately tell you whether they should favor fighter or barbarian, or halflings should be rogues or rangers.

To tell you the truth, the race that I would expect to have the highest affinity for arcane magic would be gnomes, because all gnomes can cast cantrips.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

Please. Elves make perfectly competent and effective wizards.

Competent does not a favored class make.

 

[Mortellan]

I'm stealing this idea from someone I know but it hasn't been broached on here yet so here it is:

The current R&D team was not involved in the creation of 3rd edition, but some if not all were involved in the latter developments of 3.5, where the game arguably got miserably broken. So in essence their work on 4th edition so far (to me) can sort of be justified as 'change for the sake of change (namely trying to fix the damage they caused by making essentially a new game).

 

[Rechan]

Making the change thus does not a thing to make the game better. And the source material for D&D is, or at least should be, wider than "what is currently in vogue in popular culture at the moment."

Nor should it be "What was in vogue back in the days of Gary Gygax". And while I am not saying you are claiming this, "Don't change it because it's always been that way" makes about as much sense as "change for change's sake".

As it stands, I don't quite understand how the 3e elves make good woodsmen. I mean, -2 to Con? For a long lived race that stays in the woods and would be exposed to diseases and poisonous animals? I'd expect them to drop like flies due to being so frail.

I think the race change was to make things make more sense, and to get rid of subraces. It's no longer Elf: (Smartypants) versus Elf (Woodsman). It's Elf, and something vaguely related by distant relatives but are no longer mistaken for elves, from what I grokked.

However, a better example would be the change to the origin story of the Devils. Wizards have just published a book providing a detailed and flavourful origin for the Devils that builds on thirty years of the history of the game... and now they've suddenly decided to change it.

Okay, where's the rationale for that? How does that make the game better?

There are three options here.

1) They wanted to jack you out of your money.
2) They wanted to give the Planescape/Blood War loving folk one last hurrah before they changed it. This way the Blood War fans could have their cake and use it when they switched to 4e, or a resource when they didn't switch to 4e.
3) The guys who wrote the Fiendish Codex are not the same guys who decided to change the devils.

Publishing a book in one edition and then changing it in the next edition doesn't "make the game better" but it doesn't "Make it worse".

However, the change in the Devils makes the game better by making them more Distinct from Demons. As it was said from one of the guys designing the demons and devils mechanically, fighting demons and devils are seperate experiences that are very distinct for each creature kind. So I imagine they had to make them even more seperate.

 

[NaturalZero]

... yes, a creative itch a designer had to remake D&D in his own image, if only in a small way.

"I will make the game in my own image! It will be faster and more intuitive than 3E, just like me!"

 

[Wolfspider]

Competent does not a favored class make.

Never said it did.

-2 Constitution does not an incompetent wizard make.

 

[Deset Gled]

In BD&D (where I came in), elves were effectively a class, said class being a Fighter/Magic-User hybrid. In 2nd Edition (where I progressed), the default elf was what we would typically refer to as a High Elf. They were described as a powerful magical race, and were the only race to be permitted to cast spells in Elven Chain (a huge benefit for their Fighter/Mages). And, of course, in 3rd edition they had the favoured class of Wizard, and the default elf was again the High elf. In 2nd and 3rd Edition, other types of elves existed, but these were not the default as presented in the core.

Now, in 4th edition, the default elf has been changed to be what was once a Wood Elf (perhaps a Wild Elf). They are now described as a Ranger race, with what little flavour text has been supplied backing that re-interpretation.

It may be worth noting that Ranger was the only way to build a chaotic character with full BAB and casting abilities in 3.0. It's an interesting artifact that many people forget about with the miriad of PrCs that came out later, but Rangers were about the best gish you could get in 3.0 core. Just some food for thought.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

Never said it did.

-2 Constitution does not an incompetent wizard make.

It might be worth noting that I said nothing about the elf's Constitution modifier in my condemnation of the elf wizard.

Later
silver