Which edition change changed the game the most?

[Wik]

I'm going with 4e on this one, although it was a bit harder conclusion to arrive at than I thought it'd be. But in the end, I have to stick with my gut answer - 4e is absolutely the greatest derivation from previous editions of D&D.

We can argue the changes from 2e to 3e were more drastic, but in the end, they really are not - the attack bonus change isn't really that huge, and many of the skill systems, feats, and the like had already appeared gradually in earlier TSR products (let's not forget that Gamma World of the time was a precursor to 3e).

While the play style was a definite change from 2e, we were still comparing apples to apples. My first 3e character, a human sorcerer, was still playing in the same sort of adventures as my last real 2e character, a human druid. My spells still felt like spells, and swinging a sword still felt like swinging a sword. There were differences, of course (for example, in 3e, I stopped buying things like clothes and worrying on whether or not my character had a belt, because the equipment list wasn't as granular).

While there were definitely major changes between 2e and 3e, they felt (to me, at least) like organic extensions of existing rules. High Level adventuring in 3e was a PITA, but then again, it had always been a PITA. It was just that in 3e, you weren't stuck running the kingdoms mini-game as you had been before.

Compare that to 4e. Dragonborn and Tieflings replaced the gnome - "new fantasy" as opposed to "old fantasy". Classes all followed a powers system that was quite more tactically oriented than most expansions on previous editions of D&D (Combat and Tactics, for 2e, is the only system I think that comes even close). The races felt different, the planes felt different, and the monsters felt different.

Oh, the monsters ESPECIALLY felt different. In any previous edition, it was logical to draw your mace when you saw a skeleton, for example. Now, a skeleton wasn't really any different than, say, a zombie. Or a goblin. While we can argue that mechanically a goblin "feels" more like a goblin that it did in any other edition (what with their shifty tactics and all that), the table-based implementation sometimes made the monsters almost seem interchangeable.

And then there were the splat changes. In 4e, the game was PRESENTED in an entirely different way. Different art direction. Different focus on "crunch" instead of "fluff". A focus on so-called "gamist" elements at the expense of narration (read a 4e book and read a 3e book... even if you prefer 4e mechanics, as I do, I can almost guarantee the 3e book is more entertaining, with a few exceptions).

And the other major change in 4e - it's harder to house rule, at least "officially". There is no real official forum for how to make changes to the rules, and that's a situation that has never really occurred previously.

Anyways, my two cents. 4e was the biggest change.

 

[Stoat]

We can argue the changes from 2e to 3e were more drastic, but in the end, they really are not - the attack bonus change isn't really that huge, and many of the skill systems, feats, and the like had already appeared gradually in earlier TSR products (let's not forget that Gamma World of the time was a precursor to 3e).

However, many features of 4E appeared gradually in late 3.5 products, including in SWSE, which was explicitly acknowledged as a testing ground for 4E mechanics.

 

[Aldarc]

That is a change to the market & industry, not the game itself. Even in the 1970s, you had 3PPs making products usable with D&D, like Judge's Guild.

While that may be true, the OGL and d20 system basically permitted a flourishing of 3pp that provided alternative rules to those of D&D 3e, which formed the central backbone or starting point of those changes. These 3pp probably served as an excellent tool for market research, as WotC would likely be able to judge through the ENnies which products with what changes were garnering the most attention and acclaim.

Compare that to 4e. Dragonborn and Tieflings replaced the gnome - "new fantasy" as opposed to "old fantasy". Classes all followed a powers system that was quite more tactically oriented than most expansions on previous editions of D&D (Combat and Tactics, for 2e, is the only system I think that comes even close). The races felt different, the planes felt different, and the monsters felt different.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with your post, but from my own perspective, the support for the new races seemed, again, like a natural progression from the decisions of 3e. Half-dragons were extremely popular templates to add to characters, and the Draconomicon with its dragon races, which were further supported in Races of the Dragon, were also popular. Plus, Eberron of 3.5 already seemed to prefer a "new fantasy" playstyle. And many of these tactical changes were already appearing towards the end of the edition, much like how you say the 3e changes appeared towards the end of 2e.

 

[Reynard]

Somethings occurs to me: are we talking about Core to Core changes, or are we talking End to Beginning changes? If it's the latter, the question becomes a lot more difficult to answer, since every edition moved gradually into the next. It also becomes easier in a way, though, because the answer is definitely 4E: so many implied setting elements changed or were discarded it was a whole new milieu.

 

[MerricB]

In 4e, the game was PRESENTED in an entirely different way. Different art direction.

I'm sorry - have you looked recently at 1E and 2E art? There was a massive stylistic change from 2E to 3E; much less apparent than the 3E to 4E change. The difference between early 1E art and early 2E art is also pretty big.

Cheers!

 

[Wik]

I'm sorry - have you looked recently at 1E and 2E art? There was a massive stylistic change from 2E to 3E; much less apparent than the 3E to 4E change. The difference between early 1E art and early 2E art is also pretty big.

Cheers!

Yeah, I have. But let's take a look at it a little bit closer, and I can explain where I'm coming from.

First, in terms of quality, D&D art has become better and better. While some may prefer the line drawings in 1e, if we're going to talk in terms of pure technical skill involved, the 4e art is generally better than the 3e art, which is better than 2e art, etc. But that's not really what I'm getting at, because we can talk about technical skill all we want; lots of people love Erol Otus, and he's pretty from being a "technically proficient" artist or anything like that.

But let's take a look at the content of D&D art.

1e Art is a mixture of sword-and-sorcery art and humour. Most of the art has a strong background, and tells a story - whether it's a barbarian and a swordswoman fighting off a pack of hungry wolves, a warrior in a flooding room pounding on a door to escape a skeleton emerging from the waters, or a bunch of dwarves ascending a spiral staircase.

2e art has more "filler" art, especially in the core book - those blue-inked drawings of treasure and celtic knots and the like. However, it is filled with many full colour paintings that are again evocative of scenes - orcs storming a castle, negotiations with an elven king, an elven woman negotiating with dwarves, or a wizard summoning a spectral woman to dance for his private amusement.

3e art carries on in that tradition, although it morphs it - we have a lot more "character pictures", wherein a character becomes the primary focus of the picture. Many pictures, especially in the core PHB, are characters on a white background. However, these characters are (except in the class section, for the most part) doing stuff - picking chests, casting spells, and the like. When we get out of the PHB, the art is still based around a story - although backgrounds are often absent, and the technical skill is leaps and bounds ahead of what was in 2e.

And then there's the art in 4e - guy posing for an image. And then guy posing for an image. And then we have a guy jumping through flame, posing for an image. And dude holding sword. It seems like every damned image in 4e is some guy posing for an image over a white background. Every image - even on the covers of the books! - are PCs posing for images. It always seems to me that earlier editions' art would say "hey, these are the adventures you could play in!", while 4e art seems to say "hey, these are the characters you could play". And that bugs the bajeezus out of me.

 

[Wik]

However, many features of 4E appeared gradually in late 3.5 products, including in SWSE, which was explicitly acknowledged as a testing ground for 4E mechanics.

Yeah, and this happens - try out new mechanic ideas in a different product line to give them a trial by fire where it's no harm no foul if they fail.

But if we look at what 2e was the day before 3e came out, and what 3e was the day before 4e came out, the differences still make 4e vastly different in playstyle from 3e than 3e was from 2e (if that sentence makes sense!).

After all, in the "last day" of 2e, we had skills and powers + combat and tactics, which had (among other things) flexible skill systems, flexible races, opportunity attacks, various combat actions, and all those D&D spells. To put it basically, when we first played 3e, we still knew the basics of making a character, and our first characters for the system were actually pretty decently built.

When 4e came out, it pretty much got rid of the idea of a vast number of "utility" actions outside of a fight. It changed the way combats are played almost to the core. It felt for us like we were playing a completely new game... and our first characters, built using tried-and-true D&D methods (spread your ability points out a bit), were pretty much useless.

I really do think 4e is a complete break from the previous editions of D&D in many, many ways, which is probably why there's a significant backlash towards it. While I play a 4e game every week, there are many times where I just have to shake my head in silent frustration with how parts of the game play out.

 

[pemerton]

In 3e terms I meant to say that fighters and wizards (and every other character) have the same 'base' attack bonus. Obviously the typical fighter will be strong and the typical wizard will be smart, but a wizard (especially remembering he gets a choice of ability scores for attacks) has a much better chance of hitting with a weapon in 4e than in 3e. What differentiates them is mainly their power options. That's the change I'm getting at. BAB/THAC0 used to be a fighter's best asset (for better or for worse).

Well, 4e doesn't really have such a thing as BAB or THACO.

I don't know 3E - and especially mid-to-high level 3E - well enough to comment. But I can compare to 1st ed AD&D. In AD&D it would be comparatively rare for an M-U to face a foe that can be hit with a weapon only on a 20. At 6th level, for example, the MU hits AC 10 on a 9 (if memory serves me correctly) and so hits any AC worse than -1 without needing a 20. And comparatively few monsters in 1st ed have ACs of 0 or below (NPCs with good magic armour being a noticeable exception).

On the other hand, the AC build rules for monsters in 4e mean that there are many foes whom the wizard in my game would need a 20, or very close to, to hit. I think the wizard is actually worse with weapons than an AD&D wizard.

 

[MerricB]

And then there's the art in 4e - guy posing for an image. And then guy posing for an image. And then we have a guy jumping through flame, posing for an image. And dude holding sword. It seems like every damned image in 4e is some guy posing for an image over a white background. Every image - even on the covers of the books! - are PCs posing for images. It always seems to me that earlier editions' art would say "hey, these are the adventures you could play in!", while 4e art seems to say "hey, these are the characters you could play". And that bugs the bajeezus out of me.

This complaint was made a lot about 3E art.

 

[Wik]

This complaint was made a lot about 3E art.

Agreed. And if we're going to talk about art differences, I would agree that the 2e - 3e art change was the biggest (which makes sense - TSR to Wotc, after all). However, 4e has definitely expanded on the trend.

in 3e, at least most of those portraits are of characters DOING stuff (outside of the PHB, for the most part). Lidda's been burnt from casting a spell. Or is picking a lock. Or regdar is busy, you know, dying.

In 4e, the art is generally "Guy or girl looks right at the camera while flexing". Or they're jumping. Or swing a sword directly at the viewer.

3e art is not really much better, I would fully agree with you, but there is definitely a difference - there are still stories that are told in some of the better 3e pieces. In 4e, those stories are few and far between (I can only think of two off the top of my head - a town scene for Fallcrest, I believe, and a dragon flying over a guy riding a horse from the Draconomicon). And at least in 3e, the art isn't just sitting in a square against a flat white background... in 3e, the text wraps around the art, which is much more visually pleasing than 4e, which generally looks like it was done through MS Word.