I really wish people would stop saying this. It's not a new edition. It's not a half edition. It's more options for 4e. It is literally, actually the same game in every possible sense, not an edition. Offering new, slightly different options that do not replace anything is not a half-edition. Not even close.
Because some people would appreciate the option, and it's not hurting the people who don't care to have the option available.
I was a big fan of 4E, and I distinctly remember there being a ton of confusion about this at the time. In hindsight, yeah, it was a bunch of fully compatible options to expand the base game (similar to Bo9S), but at the time, I put off buying them for months because I couldn't figure out if they were a new .5 edition that would require work to integrate at my table. Sadly, they're similar to Bo9S in another way, in that they were one of my favorite sets to come out for their respective editions, but I got into them too late to ever really use them.
Really? More people have downloaded the playtest documents in the first few months than in the entire D&D Next playtest. The surveys are getting something like 40 THOUSAND responses.
www.enworld.org
In the first week alone, more of you have playtested One D&D than in the entirety of 5e playtesting!
Thank you to everyone who has helped shape the future of Dungeons & Dragons!
I get what your saying, but I am trying to re-center what we call "edition." So through the life of 4e through errata and onto essentials there were significant revisions. They tweaked the math* on the player side and DM site throughout its run and completely revised how classes might be represented. This is why I went with 4.5e, though it could be 4.2 or 4.8 or whatever. The important part is the 4. Original 4e and essentials are both D&D 4.something. They are the same game; however, they represent changes. There were also many changes to 4e between the original 4e and essentials. These changes would also be considered "editions" of 4e for the purposes of my point.
Yes. You are totally correct. But people like to slab a lable on something they don't like to show their disdain. Facts come second if at all.
I don't think anyone said or even implied an obligation... they just said that they wanted them too
I mean it wasn't just the new class options. They revised Skill Challenges, altered the monster math, etc. The game changed a bit between 4e's initial offerings, and pretty quickly.
someone was working on (I don't know if they ever fully did it) a PHB1 from 4e PDF that was the orginal with hyperlink openable boxes that had all the errata at a click
Hey, I liked Essentials! It solved a lot of problems that I had with 4th edition (in play, not in theory; theory was pretty sound). I actually ran a little bit of it for my then-7 year old.
