-
The VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Which edition change changed the game the most?
- Thread starter Aberzanzorax
- Start date
Aberzanzorax
Hero
For sure. I didn't include Original D&D (1974) or "nothing to OD&D" for that reason. I'm interested in the details.
JacktheRabbit
Explorer
Absolutely the 4E.
Lookl at it this way. Take a 10th level fighter, now convert from up one version from the one immediatly before.
There are no real changes until you go from 1st edition to 2nd, then there are a few changes and you might take 30 minutes to decide.
Go from 2nd to 3rd and you could spend a couple hours depending on if you convert some level to a PrC and how long you debate feats.
Now upgrade to 4E. Okay I have my class and my character name. Everything else I basically read through 4E and create all new. Only the most basic flavor focus of my character carries over.
Lookl at it this way. Take a 10th level fighter, now convert from up one version from the one immediatly before.
There are no real changes until you go from 1st edition to 2nd, then there are a few changes and you might take 30 minutes to decide.
Go from 2nd to 3rd and you could spend a couple hours depending on if you convert some level to a PrC and how long you debate feats.
Now upgrade to 4E. Okay I have my class and my character name. Everything else I basically read through 4E and create all new. Only the most basic flavor focus of my character carries over.
How do you measure how much a given rules difference changes the game? How can you compare, say, the introduction of detailed skills to the change to an at-will/encounter/daily power structure? I don't know how to do that.
I can give you a subjective overall impression of game play, but that will miss all the details for the larger scale, which might well be more due to my own changes as a player over the decades, or differences in the GMs or groups, than in the games.
I find human beings are remarkably bad at taking a bunch of details, the value of each of which is subjective, and summing them up. There's a change in scale in there, from detail to Big Picture, that we don't handle very well.
Which isn't to say that others cannot take a shot at it. I just don't think I'm going to try it.
Siberys
Adventurer
Third edition.
The fundamental core of 4e is mechanically very similar to 3e - the math is simply tightened up and monsters are designed differently. Both use F/R/W, both have feats/skills, and both have a unified central d20 mechanic, et cetera. 3e was a huge departure from previous editions from a mechanical perspective.
Note that this is not necessarily a bad thing. When I first started playing, I tried 2e because it's what my dad had from when he played. Then I picked up the first 3e starter set and never turned back, at least mechanically, simply because I found it so much easier to grok than 2e.
The fundamental core of 4e is mechanically very similar to 3e - the math is simply tightened up and monsters are designed differently. Both use F/R/W, both have feats/skills, and both have a unified central d20 mechanic, et cetera. 3e was a huge departure from previous editions from a mechanical perspective.
Note that this is not necessarily a bad thing. When I first started playing, I tried 2e because it's what my dad had from when he played. Then I picked up the first 3e starter set and never turned back, at least mechanically, simply because I found it so much easier to grok than 2e.
Last edited:
Wepwawet
Explorer
Vancian magic has always been a big part of D&D. Even in 3E, the spontaneous casters would be the freaky classes, while the casters who had to prepare spells each day would be the norm.
4e finally took that off from D&D. That's why I voted 4E.
There are more changes, but for me that is one of the biggest.
4e finally took that off from D&D. That's why I voted 4E.
There are more changes, but for me that is one of the biggest.
Third edition definately.
Sure 4e looks different on the surface, but if you just realize that "powers" are just very flexible substitution levels, the difference between 4e and 3.5 is obviously much less of a change between 3e and 2e. All of the core mechanics underneath the powers are pretty much unchanged.
3e on the other hand changes the playstyle a lot from 2e. The subsystems are gone and are replaced by unified central rules system. Combat becomes less risky and action becomes more important. The characters continue to grow in power throughout their adventuring careers instead of slowing at higher levels (unless you are a spellcaster). Owning a keep and commanding followers becomes optional rather than assumed at high level play.
4e merely continued the trends that 3e began. 3e changed the direction of the game.
Sure 4e looks different on the surface, but if you just realize that "powers" are just very flexible substitution levels, the difference between 4e and 3.5 is obviously much less of a change between 3e and 2e. All of the core mechanics underneath the powers are pretty much unchanged.
3e on the other hand changes the playstyle a lot from 2e. The subsystems are gone and are replaced by unified central rules system. Combat becomes less risky and action becomes more important. The characters continue to grow in power throughout their adventuring careers instead of slowing at higher levels (unless you are a spellcaster). Owning a keep and commanding followers becomes optional rather than assumed at high level play.
4e merely continued the trends that 3e began. 3e changed the direction of the game.
Aberzanzorax
Hero
Thanks to Siberys for some reasons he voted 3e.
I'd love to hear more from the people who think the 2e to 3e change was larger than the 3e to 4e change.
I'd love to hear more from the people who think the 2e to 3e change was larger than the 3e to 4e change.
I voted 4Ed.
My primary reason: I'm part of a campaign that has been active since the mid-1980s, and has been updated with each edition change...except 4Ed. Conversion would involve too many fundamental changes to too many PCs- spell changes, class changes and even lopping off classes from some*- that it would wreck the feel.
And of course, there's more: the truncation of the alignment system, removing alignment as a meaningful force in the game, the excision of Vancian magic, etc.
Certainly, 3Ed changed the game a great deal. That is unarguable. But to me, the change wrought by 4Ed transmogrified the game into something that was D&D in name only. It's still an enjoyable, well-designed game to play, but to me it jettisoned too much of what separated it from all those other FRPGs out there. It lost it's unique flavor. And that makes the 4Ed change bigger.**
* not because the class functionality was mimicked more efficiently by 4Ed classes- which would have been fine- but purely because of 4Ed's multiclassing rules.
** and yet not big enough. I've come to the conclusion that if 4Ed had been released as a new FRPG "from the makers of D&D," it could have been bigger than it is. Released from the shackles of legacy concerns, the 4Ed design could have been so much more. IMHO, of course.
My primary reason: I'm part of a campaign that has been active since the mid-1980s, and has been updated with each edition change...except 4Ed. Conversion would involve too many fundamental changes to too many PCs- spell changes, class changes and even lopping off classes from some*- that it would wreck the feel.
And of course, there's more: the truncation of the alignment system, removing alignment as a meaningful force in the game, the excision of Vancian magic, etc.
Certainly, 3Ed changed the game a great deal. That is unarguable. But to me, the change wrought by 4Ed transmogrified the game into something that was D&D in name only. It's still an enjoyable, well-designed game to play, but to me it jettisoned too much of what separated it from all those other FRPGs out there. It lost it's unique flavor. And that makes the 4Ed change bigger.**
* not because the class functionality was mimicked more efficiently by 4Ed classes- which would have been fine- but purely because of 4Ed's multiclassing rules.
** and yet not big enough. I've come to the conclusion that if 4Ed had been released as a new FRPG "from the makers of D&D," it could have been bigger than it is. Released from the shackles of legacy concerns, the 4Ed design could have been so much more. IMHO, of course.
Last edited:
Similar Threads
