D&D (2024) First playtest thread! One D&D Character Origins.

[Parmandur]

D&D Next actually had a few published products as well, if that counts.

Yeah, good point: it's a real mess if you try to approach the idea of "Edition" in a rational way.

 

[Charlaquin]

We won't actually know if that's true until the playtest is finished. The designers have talked about doing new things with HD, for example.

I suspect by “doing new things with HD” they mean more things like how the healer feat works in the packet, not like changing how they function or how many you get.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think most other RPGs actually follow more of a normal publishing world approach, honestly.

By my reckoning, which may be incomplete:

1. OD&D
2. Holmes Basic
3. AD&D
4. B/X
5. BECMI
6. AD&D 2E
7. Black Box Basic
8. Rules Cyclopedia Basic
9. AD&D 2E Skills & Powers
10. "Third Edition" just "Dungeons & Dragons
11. "3.5" (slightly worse than OneD&D even!)
12. "4E"
13. "4E" Essentials
14. "5E"
15. "OneD&D"

You could almost count D&D Next as its own entry on this list. It’s at least as different from 5e as Essentials is from 4e.

 

[Parmandur]

You could almost count D&D Next as its own entry on this list. It’s at least as different from 5e as Essentials is from 4e.

I suspect I'm missing something else, too, this was just off thbtop of my head!

Heck, D&D Next from what I've read was moatly more different from 5E than OneD&D is looking.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I wonder if the 2024 MM or DMG will even suggest customizing NPCs with racial traits, or if generic NPC statblocks will be expected to reflect all races.

That second one. It's more "streamlined".

 

[Charlaquin]

I suspect I'm missing something else, too, this was just off thbtop of my head!

Heck, D&D Next from what I've read was moatly more different from 5E than OneD&D is looking.

This UA does look similar to the kinds of changes we’d see from one Next packet to another. Just, you know, one small section of it.

 

[Parmandur]

This UA does look similar to the kinds of changes we’d see from one Next packet to another. Just, you know, one small section of it.

Interesting, particularly given thst Crawford said future packets would be smaller!

 

[Charlaquin]

Interesting, particularly given thst Crawford said future packets would be smaller!

Well I say this would be “one small part” because the Next packets always included the full rules, even stuff that wasn’t being changed, and there would be a doc that summarized the changes since the previous packet, much like an errata list. So, yeah, this is small compared to a full packet (except in the earliest parts of the playtest). But thinking about how much content may have changed in a given packet? I feel like this would be a bit of a light one on its own, but not, like, tiny.

 

[Aldarc]

Hardly.

• Essentials is the origin of 4e races choosing between two stats for one of their stat boosts.

Not quite. They started doing this in 4e PHB 3:

Githzerai
Ability Scores: +2 Wisdom; +2 Dexterity or Intelligence

• Many feats, powers, and magic items, were changed
• Sneak attack changed to allow short bows
• Rapiers dropped down from superior, making them a more common weapon
• That’s just what I could find or remember off hand, and doesn’t get into the specifics of changes to specific options.

The Rules Compendium also contained altered rules for Skill Challenges, and I may be wrong but I think it was Essentials that changed how often Sneak Attack could be used, from once per round to once per turn.

Wasn't some of this already updated in later portions of 4e before Essentials? I seem to recall, for example, that there were revised rules for Skill Challenges in either DMG2 or DMG3 pre-Essentials.

 

[overgeeked]

I think most other RPGs actually follow more of a normal publishing world approach, honestly.

By my reckoning, which may be incomplete:

1. OD&D
2. Holmes Basic
3. AD&D
4. B/X
5. BECMI
6. AD&D 2E
7. Black Box Basic
8. Rules Cyclopedia Basic
9. AD&D 2E Skills & Powers
10. "Third Edition" just "Dungeons & Dragons
11. "3.5" (slightly worse than OneD&D even!)
12. "4E"
13. "4E" Essentials
14. "5E"
15. "OneD&D"

Definitely incomplete. If you're going to call BECMI, RC, and Black Box Basic three different editions of D&D, then OD&D definitely had four separate editions. AD&D had at least two. 5E's had at least two, if not three. Etc.