What If....4E had been a modular option sub-set for 3.5?

athos said:

People were happy with the game they were playing, but WotC wasn't showing enough profit, so some wag says, "Hey, let's make a game anyone with any IQ can play" and off they went trying to capture the WoW market. They knew good and well 4e couldn't compete with 3.5, so there was no choice, they couldn't make it a part of 3.5, too different. So they had to kill 3.5 and hope that 4e caught on.

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4th edition was inevitable. I agree with the posts above about it needing to be its own edition. 4e was streamlined, fun to DM and had solid, balanced math. Most of the 3.5 rules are in there too, as far as option and systems. In almost everyday, 4e was better than previous editions. What they got wrong was the class system, multiclassing and the feel of the AEUD powers making everything feel homogenized. That caused the backlash against 4e, the characters feeling to gamey and not immersive enough. Other than that, 4e was a bold and very improved d20 system.

Mercurius said:

In another thread I had the thought: What if Wizards of the Coast had published 4E as an alternate rules sub-set, or modular option, for 3.5? It would have focused on the AEDU power system and emphasized more "gonzo" play. I'm thinking something along the lines of Magic of Incarnum, Tome of Battle, and the 3E version of Unearthed Arcana, but as its own distinct line of products (Warlords and Dragonborn? Powers and Surges?). The key difference, though, is that this would have been under the umbrella of 3.5 rather than replacing it. 3.5 would have been the default, core game - but this variant would have been a line within D&D, not unlike the mega-settings of the 2E era.

I'm guessing that it would have been relatively successful and wouldn't have fractured the fan-base as much. Of course this would likely have meant no Pathfinder, or at least Pathfinder not being as successful or different (maybe marketed as "getting back to true, traditional 3.5").

If WotC had taken this route, say starting in 2007, my guess is that the edition cycle would have lasted a few more years and we would have seen a new edition sometime in the 2010-12 range. This edition probably would have been a simplified reboot somewhat similar to what we're likely to see with 5E. After 10-12 years of dense rules complexity and hundreds of rule books, WotC would have been chomping at the bit for a clean start. They'd be thinking, "We liked having that variant for 3.5, but we need to make the core simpler so we can more easily attach these modular options on."

Of course this is entirely speculative, but what do you think? What could have been?

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Stormonu said:

Um, from WotC articles I've read, Tome of Battle WAS an attempt to convert 4E mechanics into 3E rules (along with skill stunts and reserve spells from the 2nd line of Complete books).

And Dragonborn appeared in Dragon Magic first under 3E.

Anyways, my reaction to it would be the same as my overall reaction to 4E - I would have ignored the product and not included it in my 3E games (in fact, for my 3E games, pretty much everything from PB2 onward is banned).

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A significant portion of 4E can be found in various parts of 3E.

Unearthed Arcana contains quite a few 4E aspects; skill challenges in particular.
Tome of Battle -as said- was a sneak peek into how 4E powers would work.
PHB2's Knight has more than a few Warlord and 4E-Fighter elements.

...it's scattered around 3E, but you could run 4E with 3E mechanics using things which actually were published.

Johnny3D3D said:

A significant portion of 4E can be found in various parts of 3E.

Unearthed Arcana contains quite a few 4E aspects; skill challenges in particular.
Tome of Battle -as said- was a sneak peek into how 4E powers would work.
PHB2's Knight has more than a few Warlord and 4E-Fighter elements.

...it's scattered around 3E, but you could run 4E with 3E mechanics using things which actually were published.

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UA also introduced rituals, if I remember correctly. Likewise, the MM4 & 5 were obviously designed with 4E in mind.

I'm not surprised at all - a lot of 3Eisms actually were already in place back during the 2E era in the various Option books. 4E wasn't designed in a vacuum, and neither is 5E.

Maybe.

But that's only predicated on the rejection of 4e being based on the rules differences compared to 3.x, and that was only part of it (and I would argue potentially a lesser part of the discontent). Even if they'd done 4e as a modular sub-set of 3.5, if they'd still attempted to redefine huge swathes of default D&D lore and pre-existant campaign setting history to push the tropes and content of the 4e PoL/Nentir Vale pseudo-setting I think it would have still fractured the market and opened it up to OGL competition and other games besides D&D.

And that's before we get into the marketing and PR fumbles in the edition rollout, and some of the presentation such as the bizarre lack of much descriptive text in the 4e MM.

In something of a contrast to the tone of my last post, I do think a new edition needed to happen. 3rd Edition is the edition of D&D I started with. I still play it, and I still enjoy it, but there are some flaws in it which I do not believe can be fixed without a new edition. Pathfinder does a pretty good job of fixing a few issues, but some of the most glaring problems still exist.

When it comes to 4th Edition, I have something of a love/hate relationship with it. Today, as I type this, I'm someone who has reached a point where I can say I enjoy 4E and have learned how to use it properly. In the past, there were times when I had a very negative impression of 4E; in fact, I credit 4E with prompting me to try non-D&D games again. Still, there are many things about 4E I enjoy and feel it does well. Some of those things include the mentality behind encounter design; I like the idea of a lot of moving pieces during a combat, and I especially like the idea (though not necessarily the execution) behind traps in 4E. One of the other things I vastly prefer about 4E is the lessened power curve between levels; as a DM, it was nice to know I didn't need to rewrite huge swatches of my game because the players had gained one or two levels. All things considered, I actually liked a lot of the new cosmology too; in particular, I liked the Feywild and Shadowfell concepts of being echoes of the world, and I vastly preferred the 4E version of angels. The ease of running a game for a DM* is also undeniable -for the most part. I think Dragonborn are cool; I'm a fan of playable lizardfolk... er... dragonfolk I guess in the vase of Dragonborn, but they fit a trope that I highly enjoy. I like 4E Devas better than 3E Aasimar.

Things I didn't like about 4E: In my opinion, there was a clash between the style of the game the mechanics support, ad the style of the game which was portrayed via fluff in the preview books and the early books. At times, the game seems to more heavily being something like Descent* than being a rpg. At times, the game can (by default) have a more narrow* focus than I'd like. In spite of generally liking the cosmology far better than the Great Wheel, there are a few elements scattered across 4E lore which I strongly dislike; I certainly missed some (but not all) of the 3E gods. I hate 4E Tieflings. In many cases, the game rules don't make a whole lot of sense, and, while I understand that some sacrifices need to be made for the sake of playability, one of the things I had to learn about 4E to help my enjoyment of it was "just don't think about it and accept that's how the rules say it is."

* The same footnote can cover everything I want to say about the three things I marked. I am aware it is possible to go outside of that narrow focus. I can play 4E in a variety of styles. However, I personally feel that it is very heavily tied to a particular style. While I can do things like build a castle and have interests which focus on things outside of combat encounters, the game doesn't do a very good job of rewarding me for wanting to do those things. Again, it's not that I cannot play differently; the game just isn't set up in a way which tends to reward me in a way I find satisfying for doing so. That leads into my positive comment about ease of DMing because, while I do feel the entry barrier into being a DM is very low for 4E, I believe it can be somewhat more difficult to learn not the rules of the game, but the intent behind how those rules should work. Ze game did not remain ze same; there is a different mindset behind how I run 4E compared to other games, and it took me a long time to learn that; not realizing that is a big reason I felt negative toward the game before. So, while learning to use the rules of 4E is very easy, I'm not so sure that learning to use them well is easy.

Shemeska said:

And that's before we get into the marketing and PR fumbles in the edition rollout, and some of the presentation such as the bizarre lack of much descriptive text in the 4e MM.

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Really?

Compare the descriptive text in the 4e MM to the descriptive text in the AD&D MM for any of the following: demons, devils, goblins, spiders, hydras, orcs, even bullettes, and tell me how it is lacking.

Maybe you never read the "lore" entries?

Johnny3D3D said:

A significant portion of 4E can be found in various parts of 3E.

Unearthed Arcana contains quite a few 4E aspects; skill challenges in particular.
Tome of Battle -as said- was a sneak peek into how 4E powers would work.
PHB2's Knight has more than a few Warlord and 4E-Fighter elements.

...it's scattered around 3E, but you could run 4E with 3E mechanics using things which actually were published.

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Stuff like that is fine added to the game but not replacing the sacred cows IMHO. Even I am not reactionary enough to say "you can't have that". one of my players have used the tome of Battle yet but I would probably allow them to use it.

pemerton said:

Really?

Compare the descriptive text in the 4e MM to the descriptive text in the AD&D MM for any of the following: demons, devils, goblins, spiders, hydras, orcs, even bullettes, and tell me how it is lacking.

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Both the 1e and 4e entries don't have a ton of description, neither has the lore as a selling point IMO. I find the 2e approach to be the high point of lore in D&D, with 3e not bad, and PF moving closer to 2e but with room for improvement.

Maybe you never read the "lore" entries?

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The 4e MM was the first 4e book I read, so yes, I read the "lore" entries.



The profound lack of visual description for monsters in the book, combined with many of the lore entries recycling the sparse intro text were things that 4e botched out of the gate. Now in its defense, they did get much better in this regard in later books such as the Monster Vault. I think they realized how poor of an approach to monster fluff the edition began with, and to their credit they really tried to improve on it (though the fact that much of that lore was PoL centric and tried to replace/retcon large amounts of 1e/2e/3e lore on monsters made it something of a lost cause even if I approve of the approach to expanded lore in some of those later books).

Shemeska said:

Maybe.

But that's only predicated on the rejection of 4e being based on the rules differences compared to 3.x, and that was only part of it (and I would argue potentially a lesser part of the discontent). Even if they'd done 4e as a modular sub-set of 3.5, if they'd still attempted to redefine huge swathes of default D&D lore and pre-existant campaign setting history to push the tropes and content of the 4e PoL/Nentir Vale pseudo-setting I think it would have still fractured the market and opened it up to OGL competition and other games besides D&D.

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Conversely, what attracted me to 4E was the fact that the rules were integrated, clear and coordinated as a set of rules, in stark contrast to what I had seen in D&D hitherto. If the lore and background changes had not been even attempted I would, I think, have had almost the identical reaction to 4E as I did - "thank the gods we finally have a coherent rule set!"

Adding options to 3.x would not have achieved this; the "features" of AEDU and so on being bolted onto 3.x basic systems would not have engaged me in anywhere near the same way. In fact, had 4E been written with the coherent, integrated systems it has but without AEDU I think I would still have liked it better than 3.x (though maybe not so much as to actually get me running a full campaign - I'd have stuck with other systems for that).