houser2112
Explorer
That depends on what constitutes a "3e adherent". Do you mean someone who stuck to the 3e family (including PF) rather than play 4e? Or do you mean someone who will pretty much never stop playing 3e until something with even more options comes along? Or do you mean people who like the options of the 3e family for when they want to scratch that particular itch, but are willing to play other games? Those are, in essence, three different groups of "3e adherents", two of which will likely have no inherent problem adopting 5e if they like the game.
Groups 1 and 2 seem like the same group of players, since Pathfinder IS that "something with even more options", and I dispute the notion that 5E belongs in the 3.PF family. Group 3, in their willingness to play games other than 3.PF, to me fail to live up to the definition of "adherent". 3.PF is just one of many games they like to play.
They didn't stop fighting the edition war in 2009.
And it's not like there was a plausible chance that every 3pp was going to abandon the 3.0 & 3.5 SRDs... the potential for continuous, legal support for 3.5 was there in 2008 and remains, today. That can't ever be changed.
Unfortunately true. I was mollified by Pathfinder, though.
ASI's and 'bigger' feats seem like a modest sort of change. They retain the innate flexiblity & customization of feats, if with less granularity and far fewer options.
Combining them into one class-based "resource" is not a modest change.
5e has Class & sub-class, background & personality traits, race &sub-race, and optionally Feats & MCing to differentiate characters. 3.5 has race & templates, class, multiclassing & PrCs, and Feats.
But for the vast gulf in sheer number of options under each of those headings, 5e is not particularly behind 3.x in build complexity or amenability customization.
Subclass is a decision made once, no later than 3rd level; background, 1st level; personality traits are too fluffy to include in this discussion; (sub)race, 1st level.
If you're not a spellcaster, feats and multiclassing are all you have after 3rd level at the latest. Your skill proficiencies are locked at 1st level (unless you multiclass into one of the two classes that explicitily grant them or spend a precious feat), and they're all at the same proficiency level relative to each other forever. ASIs/feats sharing a resource changes the "which feat should I take?" question by kicking it up a level into "should I take a feat at all?". Making that resource class-based makes the decision whether to multiclass (which dilutes your power already) harder than it was.
All of this together makes the character builder in me sad.