D&D (2024) So IS it a new edition?

[pukunui]

How much would need to change for you to consider it a new edition?

The underlying mechanics / assumptions would need to change, like we got between 2e and 3e, or 3e and 4e.

All this revision has really done is provide a book’s worth of alternative player options. With a few minor exceptions, you can mix-and-match all 2014 and 2024 species, classes, subclasses, feats, spells, etc.

You can’t do that with 3e and 4e options, or 4e and 5e options. I also think mixing 2014 and 2024 options will be smoother and easier than mixing 3.0e and 3.5e options, but I don’t particularly want to argue that point.

 

[Aldarc]

Why would it matter if it was a new edition?

 

[Nikosandros]

What I remember most from Revised AD&D 2E is the terrible artwork, layout, and trade dress. I still have nightmares! Ugliest version of D&D!

Ugh. You are so right. It was terrible and I was sorely disappointed that this is the version that they made available as a PDF. I'm glad that I bought the 2e PHB from Paizo back then, so that I have the original version.

 

[FrogReaver]

The underlying mechanics / assumptions would need to change, like we got between 2e and 3e, or 3e and 4e.

Can you be more specific. What kind of mechanics and what kind of assumptions?

Because almost all character creation options have changed quite a bit. Skills like stealth are totally rewritten.

I mean surely you don’t mean it’s a d20 game with skills and modifiers. So outside of that what kinds of changes do you have in mind.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I voted "yes," because it is a revised edition, in effectively the same way that 3.5e was a revised edition of 3.0. Is it absolutely perfectly the same kinds of change? No, not really. But that is far and away the most comparable thing we have. It is, by conscious intent, backwards-compatible with adventures of yesteryear--just as 3.5e was compatible with 3.0 adventures. It is not directly compatible with old content, which requires varying levels of adaptation and, as the people making it have said, old content is probably not going to work quite right, you're on your own--much like adapting things like Savage Species (which never got a 3.5e version).

It's smaller than the jump between 2e and 3e, between 3e and 4e, or between 4e and 5e. I would say "it is bigger than the jump between original 4e and Essentials 4e," but there is no jump there, the two are the same game. I don't have enough familiarity with 1e to be able to compare it with the jump between 1e and 2e, otherwise I would include that one too.

This is the new system going forward. It can run any adventure written for the old system. It can adapt--with varying degrees of comfort--rules from the original version. It changes a lot of things, some big, some small, some subtle, some dramatic. It is, genuinely, replacing the original version in terms of player-facing content; naturally, as with any "replacement" in a TTRPG, fans are completely free to do whatever they want at their own tables, but the rules will be written with the expectation that people use the revised base, not the original base.

It is a revised edition. The fact that WotC is too afraid of the consequences of admitting this plain and simple fact does not, in any way, diminish that it is the plain truth--no more than any other ad campaign that tries to pretend that something is other than what it is. WotC is free to speak whatever marketing gobbledygook they wish. Those with eyes to see and ears to hear will know.

 

[Li Shenron]

Is it or isn’t it, in your eyes? Using whatever criteria you want. Simple question, just yes or no. Don’t worry, it’s not legally binding or anything!

I had to think harder than I thought I would...

Since you let us free to choose the criteria, I went with not a strictly defined but more intuitive approach: does it matter which core PHB we are going to use? And the answer for me is yes, it's a new edition. 5.5 PHB classes work significantly different enough (mainly because of the many occurrences of "swap this ability on a short/long rest") that which PHB is used to create characters yield a very different type of game for me.

 

[Deset Gled]

Why would it matter if it was a new edition?

Because people need to have a way to communicate what system/books/rules they're using.

It could be an edition, a revision, a version, a. 2, or a smerp. But the fact that the marketeers in charge have pointedly refused to give it a name other than D&D has left the job to the community. And, as a people, we struggle with that.

 

[FrogReaver]

Theory - those who dislike the overall changes are much more likely to call this a new edition?

 

[pukunui]

Can you be more specific. What kind of mechanics and what kind of assumptions?

Because almost all character creation options have changed quite a bit. Skills like stealth are totally rewritten.

I mean surely you don’t mean it’s a d20 game with skills and modifiers. So outside of that what kinds of changes do you have in mind.

OK, so one example that springs to mind is if they had changed the proficiency bonus math (so it went from +1 to +10 or something) or had replaced it entirely with, say, 3e's BAB, with different mathematical progressions for different classes.

Another example might be if they had altered the levels at which various class features came online -- I'm talking about more than just having all subclasses kick in at 3rd level. Imagine if they'd made it so all classes got ASIs/feats at every odd level. Or what if they had made it so classes used talent trees instead of set features at specific levels.

Those are the sort of fundamental mechanical / structural changes I'm talking about. Nothing in the 2024 rules is so drastically different from the 2014 rules as to make them incompatible with each other.

If the 2014 rules were a car, the 2024 rules would be a newer model with the same underlying chassis and engine and such but with newer bodywork and a better organized interior or something. Unlike 3e or 4e, which would be fundamentally different models of car with different bits under the hood.

Does that make more sense?

 

[dead]

I don't think it's a new edition in the same way 3.5 and 4.5 (Essentials) weren't new editions. Don't worry, I think we'll definitely know it when a new edition (6th edition) comes out.