Dragonblade
Adventurer
As I have seen now via several playtest leaks and various columns and comments by WotC, they are importing ideas and concepts from 4e, but appear to be deliberating obfuscating the terminology and descriptions.
Seriously, its silly and stupid. I can only imagine that the purpose of doing so is to appease a small minority of reactionary and incendiary prior edition players, but frankly it needs to stop.
First of all, who are they fooling? Really? And second of all it makes the resulting rulebook unnecessarily obtuse, opaque, and dense. There are all sorts of legitimate and rational reasons why someone who prefers a prior edition over 4e might feel that way. But one thing that I think 4e got absolutely correct is the way it distilled down concepts and terminology into simple and concise rules.
I have seen a lot of prior edition players state they really want a simple easy to play game in a rule package that is much smaller than the hefty Pathfinder core book. Well, if thats what you want, then you should be all over how 4e vastly simplified a lot of things. And you can be on board with the conciseness of 4e and dislike how 4e worked or felt in play. Its ok.
Case in point, Opportunity Attacks. 4e simplified OA's into a two to three sentence description. 3e/Pathfinder needs several paragraphs of rules text to describe virtually the same rules.
Another example, is the recent Legends and Lore column where Rodney Thompson implies that 5e might use the concept of a 4e solo, but perhaps not keep the term. Why not? When I'm designing a monster, it helps me as DM to know immediately through that simple word how that monster works. Now if 5e comes up with a better way to describe or deal with that same thing then fine.
But if 5e gets rid of the term "solo" merely to replace it with a paragraph of dense rules text that describes this monster is designed to fight the entire party by themselves then what have we gained exactly? That same space on the monster's Monster Manual entry could be used to provide more interesting background details on the monster or its abilities. Space that is now gone because we need to describe something which could have been distilled down to a single word description at the top of the monster's stat block. Simpler and easier to run monsters is something that players of all editions should be able to get behind.
I never have to crack open a rulebook or have my PC open to a website when I run or play 4e. Thats something I haven't been able to do since 1e. It would be nice if 5e were the same way. 5e should strive for clear, simple, and concise rules. And if that means that some 4e terms are kept as is, then they should be kept as is. Trying to hide concepts imported from 4e through blocks of unnecessarily complex rewritten text is ridiculous and counter to everything 5e is supposed to be about.
Seriously, its silly and stupid. I can only imagine that the purpose of doing so is to appease a small minority of reactionary and incendiary prior edition players, but frankly it needs to stop.
First of all, who are they fooling? Really? And second of all it makes the resulting rulebook unnecessarily obtuse, opaque, and dense. There are all sorts of legitimate and rational reasons why someone who prefers a prior edition over 4e might feel that way. But one thing that I think 4e got absolutely correct is the way it distilled down concepts and terminology into simple and concise rules.
I have seen a lot of prior edition players state they really want a simple easy to play game in a rule package that is much smaller than the hefty Pathfinder core book. Well, if thats what you want, then you should be all over how 4e vastly simplified a lot of things. And you can be on board with the conciseness of 4e and dislike how 4e worked or felt in play. Its ok.
Case in point, Opportunity Attacks. 4e simplified OA's into a two to three sentence description. 3e/Pathfinder needs several paragraphs of rules text to describe virtually the same rules.
Another example, is the recent Legends and Lore column where Rodney Thompson implies that 5e might use the concept of a 4e solo, but perhaps not keep the term. Why not? When I'm designing a monster, it helps me as DM to know immediately through that simple word how that monster works. Now if 5e comes up with a better way to describe or deal with that same thing then fine.
But if 5e gets rid of the term "solo" merely to replace it with a paragraph of dense rules text that describes this monster is designed to fight the entire party by themselves then what have we gained exactly? That same space on the monster's Monster Manual entry could be used to provide more interesting background details on the monster or its abilities. Space that is now gone because we need to describe something which could have been distilled down to a single word description at the top of the monster's stat block. Simpler and easier to run monsters is something that players of all editions should be able to get behind.
I never have to crack open a rulebook or have my PC open to a website when I run or play 4e. Thats something I haven't been able to do since 1e. It would be nice if 5e were the same way. 5e should strive for clear, simple, and concise rules. And if that means that some 4e terms are kept as is, then they should be kept as is. Trying to hide concepts imported from 4e through blocks of unnecessarily complex rewritten text is ridiculous and counter to everything 5e is supposed to be about.
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