Was there a real need for a fourth ed.? Or would tweaking 3.5 have done it for you?

[cougent]

I took this question quite literally and for me there was no need for a 4E, tweaking would have been just fine. Also for me that is why Pathfinder works very well to fit that niche.

However, I am realistic enough to realize that for WotC a tweaking or a 3.75 or any other stupid moniker would have been a disaster. For WotC a new edition was required.

Despite my lack of acceptance of 4E, I think it was a sound business decision for WotC. I just wish that for me 4E was more of a tweaked 3.5. I would have rather had more focus on fixing the complaints of players and less on "let's add new stuff" aspect to the design, but again I do recognize that for WotC and maybe for the bottom line (which ultimately drives everything in the universe today) it may have been required to "let's add _____ stuff". Insert your approved / disapproved adjective of choice.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

i also remember having TIME to play back then. we would spend 25 hours of a 48 hour weekend playing, a few weekends a month. now we're lucky to get in 3 hours a week, a few times a month.

Slackers! We played for 48 hours, and if we got more than 4 hours sleep (2 per night) and took longer than 5-6 for all meals, we felt like we were doing it wrong.

 

[FireLance]

Shouldn't that be "4wesome"?

 

[rounser]

Irony.

 

[pawsplay]

I was really looking forward to a 2010 release of a new D&D using an update of the 3e core system. I was prepared for big changes, but not a total overhaul, and nothing so soon.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I voted it had to change.

I just finished running a session of 4e a few hours ago, and if it was 3e it would have bogged down.

I was running the 4e campaign path, and finished up Keep on the Shadowfell. One player joined and begged to play a bugbear. They're overpowered, and I'll probably have to nerf them, but they're not core races IMO (they're not in the races section of the PH, so...). And that's not the fault of 4e, it was my fault for letting that in.

So between the Keep on the Shadowfell and the next adventure, Thunderspire Labyrinth, everyone else decided to play a goblinoid (except one minotaur, who everyone mocks due to lack of low-light vision). We have a Strength 16 goblin cleric (yes it's point buy!), a hobgoblin warlock, a bugbear ranger (the original - we let him use one bastard sword as if it were two weapons ... trust me, that actually works) and a few other PCs.

They decided to be evil, on the ground that whe a band of goblins do something evil, humans tend to strike out at all goblinoids and they'll get hunted anyway, so they started taking slaves and basically completely messing with the adventure, allying with the guys they were supposed to fight and transforming it into a reverse dungeon.

If this were 3e I'd have to beg them to follow the adventure. In 4e, I was able to create reasonable human (and humanoid!) NPCs. I didn't have to juggle skill points, I could give them the abilities I want (flavor mine, numbers from the "monster maker"), I didn't have to buy the NPCs magic items (yay!), etc. If I wanted to make a monster that was, say, a duergar trader, all I had to do was substitute Dunegeoneering for, say, Diplomacy and it would take me 3 seconds to do the math (I suck at math), fast enough that I don't bother creating a creature card. The most complicated NPC I made was Marshall McDonough, a human guard with the "warlord template" added (and I dropped some stuff and added one ability; the system is modular enough to stand that). It took me ten minutes, and with practice I could do it faster. Heck, if I wanted to use McConnell McElfy, archer warlord, I could have made an NPC (using the monster rules) and it still would have worked!

(And I'd like to note that 3.x could barely deal with a warlord-style class. The closest thing I saw to it was a weak Dragonlance noble class.)

 

[JohnBiles]

I said revision was necessary. A variety of problems were too deeply laid down in 3.5 to fix them with just tweaking. Adventure design is a LOT easier for me now, and it looks like high level play shouldn't become as difficult to DM / game-shattering as it was in 3.5.

 

[Runestar]

(And I'd like to note that 3.x could barely deal with a warlord-style class. The closest thing I saw to it was a weak Dragonlance noble class.)

Theoretically possible, in the form of a crusader/marshal multiclass. How viable it is in actual gameplay however, I have no idea...

 

[Minigiant]

A new edition was needed. 3.5 was good but had too many bad parts of it's core. Anf part of that core was too deeply implanted in the system.

It was like making a meal with one too many low quality ingredients and you'd already mixed the food up. Spices wont work at this point. You need to go back to the store and make it again with better ingredients. I'm not paying for any more sauce. The 4E sandwich may not EXACTLY what I want but it tastes good. If you are trying to hide the 3E fish with MORE sauce, I'd rather order something else.


Many of the aspects of 4E are not woven together. Most complaints (powers and surge) can be fixed with simple changes. This will make the justification for 5E harder if it comes.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Theoretically possible, in the form of a crusader/marshal multiclass. How viable it is in actual gameplay however, I have no idea...

The crusader wouldn't work. It was magical and recovered powers randomly.

Was the marshal from the Book of Nine Swords? I know I played a White Raven x before once (for only one or two sessions) and it wasn't unbalanced IMO. However, it was still based around magic.

But perhaps more to the point, Bo9S was a preview of 4e anyway, and I'd rather see that in a system designed to admit it.

Re: Magic. Some warlord powers, like Inspiring Word, are bordering on magic anyway, but you can still reflavor it as a Caesar/Captain Sisko-style inspirational speech.