Trickstergod
First Post
By all rights, a new edition should never be necessary.
Of course, it's not reasonable to believe any one rules set will be perfect and that there won't be room for improvement. No set of rules will ever be perfect and there will always be room for improvement.
For my part, I believe 3.5 was, over-all, an improvement. It has its holes to be sure, but it fixed some things, like with the bard, ranger and how monsters work all around.
But I still think it was too soon. The chances were minor for the most part and seemed namely to fix niggling little things. The differences weren't big enough to warrant dropping nearly $100.
The same thing goes for any 'incremental' claptrap. The progression from 3.0 to 3.5 to 3.75 to 4.0 might make things fairly similarly from one increment to the next, but if the final product is distanced enough from the initial one, then just bother all with the increments. Give me the drastic change, instead of leaving me with this 3.5 supplement here, this 4.0 supplement there and this other 3.0 supplement that, while similar to the nearest increment, or possibly nearest two, is still effectively too drastic a change from the books furthest away from it.
I'd rather go full out for the Core books and its supplements 10 years from now then keep buying essentially the same Core books every four years and its accompanying supplements. A little change here, a little change there, makes for a tangle; one increment to the next will easily transition, but the furthest increments won't. So effectively, the rules are just as drastically changed from 3rd to 4th, only now some few hundred dollars have been wasted on the increments.
Time really shouldn't be the factor for when a new edition is due. A new edition should roll around when there's enough change to warrant one. It could be 10 years; it could be 4. I don't think 3.5 was due to come out yet. Natch; make that, never was. Give me 4th edition. Incremental revisions seem nothing more than, as others have put it, money grabbing sucker punching.
Of course, it's not reasonable to believe any one rules set will be perfect and that there won't be room for improvement. No set of rules will ever be perfect and there will always be room for improvement.
For my part, I believe 3.5 was, over-all, an improvement. It has its holes to be sure, but it fixed some things, like with the bard, ranger and how monsters work all around.
But I still think it was too soon. The chances were minor for the most part and seemed namely to fix niggling little things. The differences weren't big enough to warrant dropping nearly $100.
The same thing goes for any 'incremental' claptrap. The progression from 3.0 to 3.5 to 3.75 to 4.0 might make things fairly similarly from one increment to the next, but if the final product is distanced enough from the initial one, then just bother all with the increments. Give me the drastic change, instead of leaving me with this 3.5 supplement here, this 4.0 supplement there and this other 3.0 supplement that, while similar to the nearest increment, or possibly nearest two, is still effectively too drastic a change from the books furthest away from it.
I'd rather go full out for the Core books and its supplements 10 years from now then keep buying essentially the same Core books every four years and its accompanying supplements. A little change here, a little change there, makes for a tangle; one increment to the next will easily transition, but the furthest increments won't. So effectively, the rules are just as drastically changed from 3rd to 4th, only now some few hundred dollars have been wasted on the increments.
Time really shouldn't be the factor for when a new edition is due. A new edition should roll around when there's enough change to warrant one. It could be 10 years; it could be 4. I don't think 3.5 was due to come out yet. Natch; make that, never was. Give me 4th edition. Incremental revisions seem nothing more than, as others have put it, money grabbing sucker punching.
). But we will see a 4th ed. in less than 10 years. Why? Look how fast WotC puts out new books. How much longer before WotC goes "gee the well is dry", I mean how many complete class,race,weather,etc books can you put out? My guess is we'll start hearing about a 4th edition in the next year (2006), maybe 2007. Is it too short? Well the older I get the faster time seems to go. Two years doesn't seem to take that long. My son was born in 2000, that didn't seem to be that long ago, (5 years in July). I think the real question here is what's your preception?
