1e/3e Epiphany

[Henry]

It took a lot longer than it should, but it dawned on me that the similarities between the 1e to 2e changeover, and the 3e to 3.5e changeover are striking.

The main complaints that so many people had with 1e versus 2e were the drastic changes in power and character options that went on. Half-orcs were eliminated; assassins were eliminated; fighters had double-weapon specialization removed; drow elves were removed; thief-acrobats and cavaliers were made kits instead of subclasses. In the end, many people never made the change. The changes were simple enough to where they could be ignored, however, and many of the old imbalances re-added back in.

Switch to now: the term "nerfing" is used (and abused, some would say) over and over again. Power balances have shifted. Mages have haste and mass haste removed or altered; spell focus and GSF are altered; Damage resistance is altered; spell power abilities are altered. In short, the power balance has shifted to more conservative, and again, the changes are small enough to re-add the preferred elements.

Perhaps WotC SHOULD have called it 4E; it will likely introduce the same result.

It's odd, but I anticipate seeing the 4th edition change mechanics completely yet again, probably to something very skill-based and slaughtering all remaining sacred cows such as class and level left and right; and many people will be totally offended by the changes, and most will love them, and most will switch, and the minority will pool together to form a loose club of individuals still using the "nostalgic" old 3e rules (which will collectively be 3e and 3.5e rules) while the majority uses something that looks outwardly like a combination of TORG and GURPS...

 

[kenjib]

I hope 4e will kill spell slots. Dumb and archaic mechanic. I think keeping levels but killing classes (somewhat freeform ability purchase with optional template paths called "classes") would be good too. You could still play a ranger or fighter or whatever, but you could also play something new and unique.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Depending on how the D&D mini game and how the whole clix movement is going I wouldn't be suprised if D&D 4 is something closer to a tabletop board/war game with collectable elements involved. Probably keep revenues higher that way.

 

[rangerjohn]

Why change D&D to emulate an already existing game? If you want those mechanics GURPS and Fantasy Hero already exist. But your probably right, it will happen. I won't be there as they lost me with 3.5. Everybody thinks I love 3.0 I don't I had my doubts back when Eric Noah was doing the scooping, and a lot of them were born out. 3.5 just excerbates the situation.

So I will probably be retiring from the hobby when the pbp games I am in die out. I just don't recieve the same enjoyment from the game as I used to have. It really is a different game with the old name.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I'm psyched about a OD&D play by post game I'm getting in. 3d6 six times and take them in that order. I got a decent set for a Fighter. Roll 1d6+1 for HP and pow I was ready. A dwarven Fighting-Man who is trying to avoid the responsibility that his name and heritage are pushing on him so he can make enough cash to buy a merchant ship and become a sea captain and escape the destiny others want him to embrace.

3.0e is far enough from 1e for me. If I was going to follow WOTC further away from the classic D&D I may as well switch to Exalted.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I think the 1E-2E analogy is close, but still stretching a bit. We're not seeing major elements eliminated in this revision. I think the revision of OD&D to the first Basic Set (Holmes), or the later Basic Set revisions are better parallels -- clearer, simpler mechanics, a number of minor tweaks in a lot of places, but generally recognizable and playable as the same game (you could mix rulebooks without too much difficulty).

When 4E comes along, they're welcome to do anything they want as long as they keep the elements that make D&D D&D. To me that includes:

- Fantasy adventuring centerpiecing dungeon exploration, overcoming fierce monsters to get great and mystical treasures.
- Race, class, and level-based mechanics
- HP (well, could be WP/VP) and AC -- ie, abstract combat system
- Vancian magic (fire & forget/spell slots, levels, etc)
- Stong archetypes in race/class organization

 

[Sejs]

The 1st-to-2nd Ed and 2nd-to-3rd Ed changes were much more widespread and fundamental than the 3rd-to-3.5 ones.


3.5 revisions feel alot more like the release of the Player's Option books for 2e than a release of a whole new edition.

 

[EricNoah]

I gotta say ... the more I'm sitting here reading the 3.5 books, the less it seems all that different than 3.0. I could go either way with my groups and probably do just fine.

 

[enworldatemylogin]

Is the conversion document really 40 pages?

How can 3.0 and 3.5 be that compatible if you have to read 40 pages of conversion notes?

 

[rounser]

probably to something very skill-based

Not if they're wise, although the temptation would be overwhelming. Turning D&D into a skill-based melange would make it like every other RPG out there that looks better on paper than it plays. We've currently got a hybrid of simple, fast and archetype-strong class mechanics and flexible and expandable skill-and-feat mechanics.

I think it's not out of line to assume that a fair proportion of D&D's popularity is built on those archetype-strong roots, and yet, it suffered from lack of flexibility, so there was a need to take some steps towards skill-based mechanics. However, pushing it further in the skill direction would do the following:

1) Dilute class archetypes, which are arguably D&D's lifeblood. This is a biggie that people take for granted; it outweighs most of the other points. When you can no longer say "4th level Ranger" and have any idea of what a character can do, that's gone too far. The Fighter and Rogue are taking steps in that direction, but quite not too far yet, IMO.

2) Increase bookkeeping, system learning time and preparation time. Some of us need computer programs mainly to keep track of skills and feats, right? If 4E stands for good design it should reduce and streamline that overhead, not cause it to bloat further. This is another biggie - increase preparation time and you decrease the game's popularity. One reason why I think people return to D&D is that it's easy to write adventures for.

3) Cause more balance issues. Recombination of different skills and feats causes unforeseen consequences, and beyond the core books, it's already a bit of a lucky dip to see whether adding feats and other modular components weakens game further or not. Probably the least compelling reason, but there nonetheless.

The designer in all of us would love to reduce D&D to a minimum number of classes (say, a Magic-User class, a Skilled-Up class and a Fighting class) and just throw customisation rules (i.e. skills, feats, choices of special abilities etc.) at it. From a mechanical design perspective, it's an elegant solution. From an archetype and character identity perspective, it cuts part of the heart out of the game. No longer are you a Paladin; you're just another fighty character who chose arbitrary feats and skills X, Y and Z, which if you step back and look, are intended to form a theme. You need only look at primarily skill-based systems to see how much weaker this is than having a solid class archetype to hang a character hook from.

I can't emphasise this enough; some of D&D's greatest strengths come from what you can already assume about a Wizard, or a Ranger, and about the implied setting. The game is powerful because that work is done for you, and you can then build upon, subtract from, or put a new twist on that material. Modularise it and sap the identity from it, and there's no foundation for a "Wizard with a twist", because you can't assume what a wizard is any more. Likewise, take away all the quirky fluff which builds D&D's implied setting, and you'll have to build up a setting from scratch as you would for Fudge, as opposed to build upon and subtract from a massive amount of material, from elves to dungeons to thieves guilds, as you do D&D.