D&D 4E Did the Errata to 4e Fix it ??

[Istar]

A thread I was interested in was shut down.
So raising what I was interested in over here.

I know its business to keep spitting out editions to make money and keep the business alive.

But had they fixed 4e ??
A lot of Errata was produced to make the rules work better, to nobble and nerf quite a bit of silly stuff.

Note: Just limiting PP's to the ones of your class would have solved most issues.

But I felt they had just about got there.
A few years putting out the PHBs and manuals and suppliments.
And we are playing 2 campaigns now that seem to work quite well.

It took a lot of time to get to grips with the rules and the ongoing errata to the rules, we have just got to grips with our classes and the rules.

And now their is 5e next or whatever its called to start again and learn from scratch.

For the sake of ease of roleplay, do we really need to now go to another version.

Isnt 4e good enough now ??

Its a question we are asking ourselves as much as posting here.
What is going to be substantially better in the next version really ??

 

[delericho]

I know its business to keep spitting out editions to make money and keep the business alive.

But had they fixed 4e ??

No. Any complex system contains an infinite number of bugs. Or, rather, it contains a finite number of bugs, but the process of fixing those bugs inevitably introduces new ones.

The consequence of applying so much errata to the 4e system was that it was better, but they could have worked at it for another hundred years and it would never have been 'fixed'.

And now their is 5e next or whatever its called to start again and learn from scratch.

For the sake of ease of roleplay, do we really need to now go to another version.

Isnt 4e good enough now ??

That's a question for each group to answer for themselves. I know that, for myself, 3.5e was good enough and (more importantly) that neither 4e nor Pathfinder were "better enough" to persuade me to switch. 5e may or may not manage this feat.

Its a question we are asking ourselves as much as posting here.
What is going to be substantially better in the next version really ??

Bear in mind that very little of the reason for 5e has anything to do with the mechanics of 4e. It is principally a business decision - whether WotC feel that 4e 'failed', or they simply feel that they can do better, they've decided they'll make more money by trying to "reunite the clans" than they will by just continuing with 4e.

So, if you're happy with 4e, and especially if you're happy to continue playing it without WotC support, then by all means continue - the Edition Ninjas aren't going to come and steal your books!

 

[Istar]

No but they could steal the hearts of enough of our group to enforce the change

Especially one DM who is a teacher and has lots of spare time to be in one of the playtest groups

 

[Blue]

It's all good

For the sake of ease of roleplay, do we really need to now go to another version.

Isnt 4e good enough now ??

4e's good enough to play and have fun. So's 3.5. And 3.0. And AD&D 2nd ed (with or without Player's Option books), and so on. So's Alternity, Star Frontiers, and Gamma World. So's Hero System, Dogs in the Vineyard, Dresden Files RPG, GURPS, Amber Diceless Roleplay, Marvel Heroic Roleplay, Pathfinder, Mutant City Blues, Mouseguard, Spirit of the Century, Traveller, Torg, and Runequest.

Different RPGs cater to different styles of play. It's very rarely a straight line "game X is exactly game Y but better". You might be able to argue 3.0 to 3.5, but you can't even say that between any major versions of D&D.

4e has a certain feel. They ALL have certain feels. If you find a system that supports the feel that you and your group are looking for, it'll work. One of the stated goals of D&D Next is trying to be more modular to support more feels.

Other games go the other route, making the rules strongly support a specific campaign world and be less general. Both are valid. What do you want to play today? It's not always the same answer.

Yes, there have been changes and generally advances to RPG design, both philosophical and mechanic over time. We've become more sophisticated and mature in what we want our rulesets to do. So as a gross generalization, there's movement towards "better" across the industry as time goes on. You might find rules written a few decades back to be simplistic, or cumbersome, or unbalanced.

One difference you will find is that the few larger players in the industry put out a lot more material. If that's good, bad or indifferent will depend on you as well.

So if you're happy with 4e, play it. Or try Next/5e when it's out. Or try other, non D&D games. We're happy with fellow gamers of all stripes, what games you play isn't an exclusive choice. You can play 4e at a table even if your friend also likes horror games and your DM is designing a My Little Pony RPG in his spare time.

The water's fine, jump in and play what you want.

 

[the Jester]

4e is just fine, but won't ever be perfect (just like nothing ever reaches perfection in the real world).

The thing is, though, it strongly pushes a specific playstyle: encounter-centered, no long-term resource game, focused on tactical combat, pushes the default cosmology HARD, etc, etc. Not everyone who wants to play D&D wants to play "that" D&D.

5e wants to be "better" by accommodating both the people that enjoy the 4e tactical play emphasis and the earliest editions' more freeform "WAHOO!" style, both the "I don't want to keep track of arrows and stuff" types and the "watch out, we're going to run out of torches and fresh water" types. 5e's hope is that it will be a broad enough system that the "lost sheep" of the gamer flock can come back and feel comfortable while the ones still playing D&D won't be driven away.

 

[fba827]

Did the Errata to 4e Fix it ??

To understand if it is fixed for you, you'd have to figure out what you think was broken about it in the first place?

In my opinion, 4e is as fixed as 3e as ad&d as any edition really... they all just have different things about them that might still need tweaking, but then that's all just stuff that are personal preferences.

 

[delericho]

In my opinion, 4e is as fixed as 3e as ad&d as any edition really...

Actually, I'm going to disagree with this. 3e is my favourite edition to date, but 4e is more fixed than 3e was.

One of the things that WotC did manage with that errata (that I hated so much) was that they genuinely did make the game "more fixed" as they went. By contrast, 3e actually became more broken as it went, as "Player's Handbook 2" and "Book of 9 Swords" introduced some serious power-creep. So, credit where it's due on that one.

 

[frankthedm]

Did the Errata to 4e Fix it ??

No, all the piles of errata did IMHO was to prove how much more editing the books needed before printing. It felt like to me Wotc was selling hardcover playtest documents.

 

[Blue]

No, all the piles of errata did IMHO was to prove how much more editing the books needed before printing. It felt like to me Wotc was selling hardcover playtest documents.

As much as the piles of errata drove we away from book purchases and toward DDI, I'm not sure I agree. There are things that won't come up until either (a) it hits a large enough audience or (b) you get some more options out there.

I'll easily give you that there were more than a few balance issues that needed to be corrected that should have been caught in playtest, and there were typos that should have been caught in editing.

But there was also some design changes that came about as more options made some things snowball, such as save penalties that you used to be able to permanently make it impossible to save, or just rewrites of subsystems like flying or mounted combat that would have been in a half-edition patch in an earlier design space.

I personally wouldn't classify original 4e books as "hardcover playtest documents". I would call the first books the beginning of a new system that needed to mature - but that's a truism. Each time there's a major change (in anything), the new one need shake out time and season with a large player base.

All in all, I think the errata was a good thing, but you can play 4e happily ignoring it.

 

[delericho]

At the risk of derailing the thread...

As much as the piles of errata drove we away from book purchases and toward DDI, I'm not sure I agree. There are things that won't come up until either (a) it hits a large enough audience or (b) you get some more options out there.

This is true. What I objected to with the 4e errata, though, was three things:

- Things that were actually revisions being labelled as 'errata'. This actually started with the 3e polymorph changes, and distinctly gave the impression that WotC were trying to patch the game as one might patch buggy software.

- Repeated errata of some game elements.

- For a while there, it seemed we were getting a huge dump of errata every couple of weeks, even after the game had been out a couple of years. That really gave me the impression that they didn't know what they were doing.

...just rewrites of subsystems like flying or mounted combat that would have been in a half-edition patch in an earlier design space.

IMO, WotC (specifically, Scott Rouse) made a mistake when they stated categorically that there would be no 4.5e. With the level of change to the system, a 4.5e revision was actually more justified than with 3e, and there were areas where they seemed locked in to some poor decisions, because they'd denied themselves the opportunity to change them. In many ways, I wish Essentials had been a true 4.5e, rather than what it was.

Each time there's a major change (in anything), the new one need shake out time and season with a large player base.

That's very true. I don't really object to the amount of errata required, and I certainly appreciate that the online tools made applying it pretty painless (with the exception that my Wizard seemed to change every session for a while there). I just feel it was handled poorly.

What I think they should have done:

- Where possible, release the material to DDI first for playtest.

- Once they're happy with the playtest version, take it forward to print.

- Once it's in print, spend some time collating the necessary errata. In particular, when something new combines with something old to cause problems, it must be the "something new" that gets changed.

- A few months after the book is published, produce one set of errata for the material, fixing the known problems. Thereafter, that material should be considered "locked", and only changed in the most extreme cases.

- Thereafter, if problems with the material are found, they need to just live with them until the next time the material is reprinted (whether in Essentials, 4.5e, or similar). Obviously, an exception to this needs to be available, but it should be for game-breaking exploits only. And in those cases, unless there's an obvious and reliable fix, they should deal with it by removing the offending element from the game entirely, again until the material is reprinted - this last gives them time to properly consider the issue, and develop an actual fix.