4.5E: When?

[Mercurius]

I'm kinda serious. After finally getting the gift set, I'm agreeing with Chris Pramas: why-o-why couldn't all powers and spells have their own chapters like skills and feats? Why-o-why are the magic items in the PHB? And why-o-why are many of the creatures in the MM lacking anything more than rudimentary description? Etc.

All that said I like the books and am looking forward to getting deeper into them. But I am wondering if some of the clunky aspects of 4E will eventually be smoothed out in another "sub-edition" ala 3.5. Yes? No? If yes, when?

 

[Mark]

4.5E: When?

When Hell freezes over, which happens to be the theme of an epic adventure due out in *cough* 20** *cough*

 

[Wik]

Four years from now. But it won't be 4.5E... it'll be something more along the lines of Skills and powers... or, better yet: Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.

 

[SPoD]

They'll never use the ".5" terminology again, it was too universally criticized. They will probably have re-organized/expanded core rulebooks in 2-3 years, but without the level of changes we saw in 3.5, followed by 5E in 2013-2014.

 

[Mercurius]

Four years from now. But it won't be 4.5E... it'll be something more along the lines of Skills and powers... or, better yet: Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.

I don't see it as the game is already complex enough to be advanced. But I agree with the sentiment: I would have liked to see Basic and Advanced D&D this edition, but it wasn't meant to be. Another point of Pramas's that I agreed with is that the core rulebooks are too dense for newbies. It would really behoove Wizards to come out with some kind of Basic Rules book, a starter kit...BEFORE the core books came out. Maybe a 96-page book with a smaller number of classes and races, less powers etc, and a short adventure. Why the freak not? Are they worried it will keep folks from buying the core rulebooks? I just don't see how this wouldn't help sales in the long-run.

Get on it, Wizards!

 

[CleverNickName]

There will never be a 4.5E "official" release. No, it is much more likely that each new PHB, MM, and DMG will contain all of the rules revisions and errata that would have gone into a 4.5 Edition, with a note stating that these edits supercede the rules in previous books.

This worries me.

 

[Mercurius]

There will never be a 4.5E "official" release. No, it is much more likely that each new PHB, MM, and DMG will contain all of the rules revisions and errata that would have gone into a 4.5 Edition, with a note stating that these edits supercede the rules in previous books.

This worries me.

I think you (and SPoD) are probably right. It is one way to sell more books (and keep the vitriol flowing!).

 

[Kzach]

Although I disagree with the reasoning of the OP for the introduction of a 4.5 (or AD&D or Skills & Powers or whatever it ends up being called), I do think something along those lines will happen.

My reasoning is that there are already changes being discussed by the dev team (re: skill challenges), and it's obvious that there are still some loopholes that haven't been closed (rangers), and some oversights that have been made.

That, and the layout and art could definitely do with a more professional and artistic touch.

I don't think the changes will be radical like the OP is suggesting. I think it'll be more of a refinement of the existing structure with errors and corrections included. Much like the 2e PHB which was revised about three or four times without most people even realising it. In fact, if you look in the foreword of the most recent reprinting of the 2e PHB, you'll see in big, red, bold writing, "This is not AD&D 3rd edition!" despite them making the book 33% larger and revising a lot of the rules and rewriting pretty much the entire book.

It'll be more like 4.1 than anything else and will probably look prettier and be better laid out with higher quality paper, artwork, binding, etc.

At least, that's what I hope.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Soon, I hope. Skill challenges are b0rken.

 

[Belorin]

It will happen as soon as everyone stops criticizing 4E.

Bel