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Well, I can see that, but if I was new to the hobby and saw that there were 15 PHBs, each with different material, that would be intimidating to say the least.

That would make it much harder for new gamers to join the hobby, would it not? Take 3.5. Suppose you were a new gamer joining a group that was using the 1st 4 splatbooks, the Spell Compendium, and the PHB2. If you just bought the PHB, your fighter would be MUCH weaker than one designed with...

Can somebody please explain to me why this is? What has D&D done so wrong that it is on perpetual life support? Why it is always threatened with extinction and needing to adapt or die? Why is its staying power seen to be so utterly pathetic compared to rule systems for other games? Why can't...

By taking away the possibility of delayed gratification (sub-par feats now in exchange for superior PrC abilities later), you are taking an option away from the players. A class like the DD shows a steeper power curve (if you are looking at core only). The character is somewhat weaker than a...

But there's a fundamental difference. Cars wear out over time and you *have* to replace them. They simply become nonfunctional. Game rules don't. I expect that I'll be playing Scrabble, Monopoly, 5-Card Draw, softball, and basketball by the same rules for the rest of my life.

I think there was much more widespread dissatisfaction with 2E, especially after the 2.5 material. Then TSR went bankrupt and it looked like the hobby would be dead. 3E was extremely welcome news as I recall. On the other than, 3.5 had just seen the release of a number of neat options that...

Well, that depends on present value and projected cash flow for each scenario, doesn't it? The cash flow from continuing to support 3.5 vs. the cash flow from introducing a whole new edition and possibly losing some of their customer base but increasing sales for the remainder. With a 10%...

While I don't imagine that 4E will bringing in many new RPG gamers, it might bring in (or bring back) D&D gamers. That is, of the 40% of the gaming market that D&D *doesn't* control, at least some of those players may have left D&D for other games because of things like the Vancian magic...

I think their market research is focused on how much money they can make, as it should be for a business, and not how many new gamers they could bring into the hobby. Selling new sets of core rules and splatbooks will make far more money than selling campaign settings and modules, even if they...

Oh yeah, remember "TSR has gone bankrupt and D&D might be dead. Hey, look, WotC is picking up the pieces." How about that one?

Yes, they have to attract new gamers. But they don't have to change the game to do that. By and large, the people who don't play D&D now haven't turned their backs on D&D because they don't like the mechanics; rather, they're just not into tabletop RPGs as a whole. They're not going to notice...

As it is almost certainly my 20th-level druid that MarauderX is gunning for... I'd say that he could easily be driven off if he were caught unawares. A well-prepared enemy could even KO him and capture him. On his home turf, I don't imagine that a Ran20 could beat him by any other than the...

Good Will saves, class bonus to AC, good skill selection, d12 HD, and uncanny dodge are all better benefits than most of the CORE bonus feats you would be picking up by staying in the fighter class. PHBII may change this calculus somewhat but I never picked up that book. And the stance is...

Hey! What are you doing to my druid? *grumble*

I have no idea if 4E is going to fix multiclassing. But what exactly needs fixing? What does and doesn't work in 3.5? Spellcasting, right? Ftr/Rog combos seem viable mixed any which way. The Ftr1/WizX, primarily a wizard, is pretty well balanced in the core rules. For a player who values...

Well, a cleric has to have the right feat -- how many take Forge Ring upon hitting 12th, and how many take, say, Quicken Spell? It didn't seem to me that there'd be many ring-crafters, but as you say they do last a long time and many campaigns do have a long backstory.

Sub-par feats had their uses. They allowed for meaningful trade-offs. Dodge, Endurance, and Toughness aren't great feats, but the abilities of the Dwarven Defender class are pretty phenomenal compared to the fighter class. So a fighter makes a sacrifice, giving up three precious feat slots to...

This item is terribly problematic. I had players expecting that such rings would be common -- and indeed the DMG seems to suggest they are. But it requires a 12th-level cleric to create such a ring! I had only six clerics of that level or higher in my entire campaign setting!

Of course you won't need it, but some players will still want it. Increasing base class power just won't do it. Look at it from the character's point of view. No matter how much power a PC has, as long as there is a real chance of them losing a fight now and then they will want MORE POWER...

Certainly the relative power of the evocation school has gone way down -- but the expanded spell list and the number of no-save spells has balanced this somewhat. Can I post in this thread? I'm really not interested in running 4E, but there's a number of ideas I'd like to poach from it: 1)...