D'karr
Adventurer
Actually grouping Essentials into that is a stretch. Minor race changes, some rules clarifications, and new "builds" for classes is completely optional too.
3.5 is the only "revision" that can actually be classified a New Edition.
new mearls interview?
- Thread starter Gundark
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Actually grouping Essentials into that is a stretch. Minor race changes, some rules clarifications, and new "builds" for classes is completely optional too.
3.5 is the only "revision" that can actually be classified a New Edition.
G
Guest 85555
Guest
Actually I agree, and it occured to me that Essentials was an optional version of 4E, not really a replacement (if I understand it correctly--haven't played 4E in a while). So point is taken.
And even 3.5 is contentious. Some people think the changes were so minor (less than say the shift from 1E to 2E) it is barely an update. I do think there were some substantive changes in 3.5 but at the same time it did take a while to notice them (at least in my case) and it was pretty easy to bring 3.0 characters right into a 3.5 campaign.
UngeheuerLich
Legend
skills and powers changed so much, it was a new edition...
you could build your races and classes with point buy, your skills worked differently...
spells and magic changed the whole casting system (in a very good way) Exactly as vancian as needed!
Essentials didn´t really change anything fundamental. Skills and powers did. And 3.5 did. If you had a character that made the transition, you had to retroactively do some changes. A 4e pre essentials character usually had no or only minor changes. Sneak attack 1/turn instead of round.
A specialist wizard of 3rd edition needed to look at each spell, because so much changed schools, and maybe he had to add an extra prohibited school...
you could build your races and classes with point buy, your skills worked differently...
spells and magic changed the whole casting system (in a very good way) Exactly as vancian as needed!
Essentials didn´t really change anything fundamental. Skills and powers did. And 3.5 did. If you had a character that made the transition, you had to retroactively do some changes. A 4e pre essentials character usually had no or only minor changes. Sneak attack 1/turn instead of round.
A specialist wizard of 3rd edition needed to look at each spell, because so much changed schools, and maybe he had to add an extra prohibited school...
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Guest 85555
Guest
I disagree. If you incorporated it into your game it did, but it wasn't issued as a revision, it was entirely optional. Most people I know didn't even use it. It was basically a supplment with optional rules. Skills and powers wasn't the new players handbook.
Yeah, I think Paizo is in a good spot here. The thing about Paizo is that they're in the business of making adventures; Pathfinder is just a support system. (Pathfinger, well... can't get into that on this board. Eric's grandma, you know.
)The goal of 5E is to be compatible with the style, if not the exact rules, of all previous iterations of the game. WotC hasn't explicitly said "We want to steal back some of our fanbase from Pathfinder," but it's pretty obvious that's one of the goals. That means 5E will be compatible with PF-style adventures, and there's a good chance Paizo will be able to create adventures with a version for each system; it won't be like 4E where the whole underlying paradigm of the game was different.
So, if 5E eats Pathfinder's lunch, Paizo switches over to making 5E adventures. If 5E tanks, Paizo carries on just like before. If 5E and Pathfinder coexist, Paizo can either keep doing Pathfinder adventures, or support both, depending on which seems like the better business proposition.
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UngeheuerLich
Legend
Maybe... but if you look at the psionic rules, it was a revision to an option... I didn´t see it as a revison back then too, but if you used it, it did revise a lot. Totally different to essentials, which did not change anything when you played a monk Psion of PHB 3...
Consonant Dude
First Post
My favorite quote from Mearls was at the end: People are going to see how the game is changing based directly on their feedback. The plan is to not just have a single playtest. We want this to be a conversation with D&D players.
I certainly hope this will be the case!
I certainly hope this will be the case!
This.
One of the best features of the OGL -- and one about which Ryan Dancey used to constantly remind -- was that it ensured WotC would be subject to market discipline in crafting the next edition of D&D. If a large chunk of the gaming community decided the new edition (what we now call 4e) was inferior to the previous one, then they could go the Pathfinder route (though he obviously didn't mention Pathfinder by name!) and simply not make the transition. Knowing that, WotC would have every incentive to make sure 4e would be a clear improvement over 3e, and knowing *that*, gamers could look forward to that new edition with confidence rather than the trepidation that accompanied the introduction of 2e in 1989 and 3e in 2000.
People can and probably will debate until the end of time whether 4e was "better" than its predecessor -- and I certainly have a view on this -- but I think such a discussion ultimately misses the mark. The key question with which WotC seems to be preoccupied at the moment is why a large chunk of the gaming community found 4e to be unappealing, and what can be done to bring disaffected gamers back to D&D proper *without* driving away those who prefer 4e. And doing that necessarily entails "stealing back" current Pathfinder players, whether or not this is ever specifically mentioned as a goal of the new edition.
One early indicator of potential success will be whether WotC proves willing to "put its money where its mouth is" and bring back the kind of expansive OGL we saw with 3e. While having an expansive OGL doesn't guarantee that the new edition will be good, it does set the stage for a symbiotic rather than parasitic relationship between WotC and third-party devs in the RPG marketplace, which is in my mind one of the reasons why D&D did so well in the 3.0 days. And that could ultimately benefit Paizo as well as WotC, even if it did ultimately redirect some of Paizo's efforts from Pathfinder to 5e-compatible products.
ShinHakkaider
Adventurer
See I'd be fine if a 3rd Party company handled the conversions of PF material to 5E or D&D Next. That way everyone wins. But if Paizo (and they've said that that they wouldn't do dual statted modules or books) starts supporting both, that means that they'll be putting less support into actual Pathfinder products which would potentially alienate their fans who have no intention or interest in playing or supporting 5E.
I hope that Paizo's wait and see attitude is partially because theyre trying to figure out and time their next move in relation to the Pathfinder RPG. They've also made it very clear in the past that they are fine being their own masters and not hitching their wagons on to anyone else. They did that with WOTC already and as a result they had the licensees of both Dungeon and Dragon magazines pulled (with enough warning so they could finish the SAVAGE TIDE AP. YAY!) and we also never got our AGE OF WORMS and SAVAGE TIDE hardback AP's because of that.
Lest everyone forget it was WOTC's restrictive GSL and inability to get 4E into the hands of the 3rd party companies well before 4E's official release (IMHO a purposeful move) that really kind of gave birth to the Pathfinder RPG to being with.
IanB
First Post
Plus, let's face it, Paizo is absolutely straining at the limits of the amount of work/product they can push out already. They're always scrambling to get things done. In order to take on 5e stuff on top of what they're already doing they would have to expand their staff massively and that's a huge risk for a company like that to take.
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