D&D 4E Where was 4e headed before it was canned?

[vivsavage]

I have vague recollections that WOTC had announced a Nentir Vale book and a "new" PHB that had errata-ed versions of the 4 core classes and the Warlord. Does anyone remember that? Were there other indicators as to where WOTC wanted 4e to go before deciding D&D needed a new edition?

 

[the Jester]

I have vague recollections that WOTC had announced a Nentir Vale book and a "new" PHB that had errata-ed versions of the 4 core classes and the Warlord. Does anyone remember that? Were there other indicators as to where WOTC wanted 4e to go before deciding D&D needed a new edition?

I think the Essentials books, along with later books like the Heroes of... books, are a good indicator of the direction they were pushing 4e. Basically, they were reducing the 'sameness' of the classes, trying to speed up combat, and bringing back a lot of the flavor that had been missing in early 4e books. (Look at how anemic the lore in the original Monster Manual was compared to the rewritten material in Monster Vault.) I think they were trying to push the game in new directions without invalidating material from earlier in the edition; they really wanted to avoid a 4.5e but were updating and revising a lot of stuff to improve play.

 

[Garthanos]

The most interesting direction I saw was exemplified by the Heroes of the Fae Wild it was very very flavorful and shows interesting experimentation (a flying race, a subclass that changed battle role on the fly). And is a very popular book from what I can tell for the die hard fans in spite or because of the new elements in it.

I think I have heard it called a favorite book from 4th edition by some even though it was post essentials.

 

[Mycroft]

It seemed to be going into damage control territory, for classes, as many did not like the AEDU (wizard) structure for all classes. Maybe if they had taken a bit more time to release, and not quite designed in such isolation by Heinisoo & Co., it could have been better received.

 

[jgsugden]

I think... nowhere? They had a plan to go to a 5th edition at some point. They ran 4e to the end of its life and then moved on.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I have vague recollections that WOTC had announced a Nentir Vale book and a "new" PHB that had errata-ed versions of the 4 core classes and the Warlord. Does anyone remember that?

Essentials marked a violent change of direction for 4e, really, Essentials presaged some of what 5e aimed for: natural language, aesthetics like the Red Box, 'Player's Option' & 'Survival Guide' titles meant appeal to returning fans, a flood of errata 'to bring into line with the classic game' (followed by a near-moratorium on errata to actually fix balance issues), daily-less 'L' fighters & 'Thieves,' spell-accumulating 'Q' wizards, and casting rangers, in a doomed attempt to appease edition-war critics, etc... all too late (at only 2 years in), and too little (because of trying to maintain compatibility to 4e).
That included a planned Class Compendium that re-jiggered the PH classes to fit the Essentials aesthetic, which may be what you're thinking of, but it was scrapped as too-blatantly selling the same material twice (something Essentials was already doing pretty aggressively), and the modded classes-as-sub-classes released on-line (I think DDI, but could've been free).

Were there other indicators as to where WOTC wanted 4e to go before deciding D&D needed a new edition?

Prior to the Essentials bootlegger reverse, 4e seemed to be to putting out additional PH, MM, DMG, & setting products each about annually, so, from that & the direction implied by the books we'd already gotten, we might have expected:

• A DMG III could thus have been expected, and it would have been consistent with the DMGII's focus on Paragon levels if it had focused on Epic.
• An even-later PH IV might presumably have added a full slate of 4 Elemental or Shadow source classes (presumably Shadow, since HoS preceded HotEC), like PHIII added 4 psionic classes and PHII 4 primal classes (the 'no gridfilling' assertion notwithstanding, they filled every grid but Martial). Also, judging on the Psionics trend, you might well have seen new advancement structures beyond AEDU, though still balanced with AEDU through resource parity, like Psionics (which substituted short-rest-recharge Power Points for Encounter Powers).
• There'd likely have been a Shadow Power & an Elemental Power before Arcane/divine/psionic/primal got Power II's - and all that and perhaps more before seeing a Martial Power III.
• 4e MMs did not follow themes, particularly, so a MMIV wouldn't likely have been anything like Threats to Nentir Vale nor the MV.
• They also seemed to be working their way through the world axis, there were books for the Astral Sea & Elemental Chaos, already, we could probably have expected, similar 'secrets of' books for the Shadowfell and Feywild, expanding on material in the Manual of the Planes, and probably including what non-player-facing material was in HoS and HotFw.
• 4e was also working its way through settings, we'd already seen FR, DarkSun, & Eberron - I can't recall any indication what classic setting might've been next, but probably not the development of "Nentir Vale" we saw with Essentials, the original direction was for the 'default' PoL generic setting to remain generic. Edit: Apparently Ravenloft was next on the docket, for 2011, had things not changed direction. After that? Who knows? Maybe Greyhawk? Spelljammer (the Astral Sea evoked a fair bit of that vibe already)?
• Finally, The VTT was sorta working by the end, so presumably, development might've continued on that and, maybe, even finally completing the promised DDI tools, putting the CB on an app, etc.

 

[Mycroft]

4th Ed seemed to have cut off the head to cure the headache, much as PF2 has seemed to have done.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I think... nowhere? They had a plan to go to a 5th edition at some point. They ran 4e to the end of its life and then moved on.

Yeah, 5e was announced in 2012. Only four years after 4e. In terms of edition lifespan, especially in a modern era, that’s really short. It would be like if they announced 6e last year, which seems a ridiculous notion. I’m not digging on the quality of 4e as a game, but it clearly didn’t do what they hoped it would do.

So to answer the OP, I agree with you. Nowhere seems to be the answer. They realized early on that a revision and change of perspective like essentials wasn’t enough, and a complete rewrite was needed.

 

[Mycroft]

Yeah, 5e was announced in 2012. Only four years after 4e. In terms of edition lifespan, especially in a modern era, that’s really short. It would be like if they announced 6e last year, which seems a ridiculous notion.

It does seem a stand-out, the shortest lived edition to date.

 

[Parmandur]

Essentials marked a violent change of direction for 4e, really, Essentials presaged some of what 5e aimed for: natural language, aesthetics like the Red Box, 'Player's Option' & 'Survival Guide' titles meant appeal to returning fans, a flood of errata 'to bring into line with the classic game' (followed by a near-moratorium on errata to actually fix balance issues), daily-less 'L' fighters & 'Thieves,' spell-accumulating 'Q' wizards, and casting rangers, in a doomed attempt to appease edition-war critics, etc... all too late (at only 2 years in), and too little (because of trying to maintain compatibility to 4e).
That included a planned Class Compendium that re-jiggered the PH classes to fit the Essentials aesthetic, which may be what you're thinking of, but it was scrapped as too-blatantly selling the same material twice (something Essentials was already doing pretty aggressively), and the modded classes-as-sub-classes released on-line (I think DDI, but could've been free).

Prior to Essentials the direction 4e seemed to be to putting out additional PH, MM, & DMG products almost annually.

• A DMG III could thus have been expected, and it would have been consistent with the DMGII's focus on Paragon levels if it had focused on Epic.
• An even-later PH IV might presumably have added a full slate of 4 Elemental or Shadow source classes (presumably Shadow, since HoS preceded HotEC), like PHIII added 4 psionic classes and PHII 4 primal classes (the 'no gridfilling' assertion notwithstanding, they filled every grid but Martial). Also, judging on the Psionics trend, you might well have seen new advancement structures beyond AEDU, though still balanced with AEDU through resource parity, like Psionics (which substituted short-rest-recharge Power Points for Encounter Powers).
• There'd likely have been a Shadow Power & an Elemental Power before Arcane/divine/psionic/primal got Power II's - and all that and perhaps more before seeing a Martial Power III.
• 4e MMs did not follow themes, particularly, so a MMIV wouldn't likely have been anything like Threats to Nentir Vale nor the MV.
• They also seemed to be working their way through the world axis, there were books for the Astral Sea & Elemental Chaos, already, we could probably have expected, similar 'secrets of' books for the Shadowfell and Feywild, expanding on material in the Manual of the Planes, and probably including what non-player-facing material was in HoS and HotFw.
• 4e was also working its way through settings, we'd already seen FR, DarkSun, & Eberron - I can't recall any indication what classic setting might've been next, but probably not the development of "Nentir Vale" we saw with Essentials, the original direction was for the 'default' PoL generic setting to remain generic.
• Finally, The VTT was sorta working by the end, so presumably, development might've continued on that and, maybe, even finally completing the promised DDI tools, putting the CB on an app, etc.

They said at one point in the past few years that a Ravenloft project was part of precipitating the Essentials move, IIRC, along with the confusion caused by the sequential core books method.