D&D 4E 4E: The Biggest Changes in any D&D Edition Switch

[Simon Marks]

Compare how Magic Missile works in 3E as opposed to the earlier versions.

Magic Missile is mostly unchanged, wrong target.

Mirror Image, however got some actual mechanics in 3e (unlike 2e which only told you how many images there where and that it was impossible to tell them apart).
Displacement isn't even in 2e, and I don't think it was in 1e or Basic D&D.

 

[ferratus]

Again, I'm really curious at which mechanics have been changed for 4e that haven't been changed in prior editions at least as significantly. The only thing I can come up with is Vancian magic and healing surges.

Powers are just feats on steroids for the most part. Unarmed combat has changed and changed again. Skills and Weapon proficiencies have changed from 2e to 3e. Saving throws have changed between editions. Class lists and race lists have changed from edition to edition as well. I remember not being able to play the half-orc during 2e, and not being able to play the Barbarian or Monk during 2e.

Help me out here, I'm scratching my head as to what mechanics have changed significantly in 4e that hadn't changed from D&D to AD&D or AD&D 2e to AD&D 3e. I'm coming up with nothing.

 

[Clavis]

The results are pretty telling.

A lot of the recent WotC message has been "It's still D&D!"

Perceptions, at least on this self-selecting subset of a subset, appear to differ drastically.

I wonder why that is, that the most vocal people interested (or not) in the new edition think that it's a HUGE change, while WotC seems to be saying "It's not THAT big, guys!" in some places.

However much noise they make about bringing in new players, WOTC has to know that the market for 4th Edition is almost entirely existing D&D players. The recent obituaries for Gygax were very telling in this regard. Almost all of them that I read spoke about D&D in the past tense, as something that created much of todays' culture but which is not culturally important itself anymore. Much was said about how World of Warcraft wouldn't exist without Gygax, but I can't remember a single mention of an upcoming 4th Edition in the mass market press. D&D, as far as the wider culture is concerned, is something that stopped being important in the late 80s.

I recently bought some dice in the local game store, which is really a boardgaming/Magic the Gathering club with with a retail operation. The guy operating the register asked me "You still play D&D?" I had to tell him that yes, there really were people that still played PnP RPGs. He thought it had completely died out. I can't personally name anyone I know under the age of 30 who plays D&D, and I know plenty of people in their 20s.

New players simply aren't coming. Few of us want to face up to that, but we are part of a dying hobby. When the last time you saw an ad for D&D anywhere but the geek press? Nobody but the existing player base knows or cares about a 4th Edition of D&D. In fact, most of the actual player base (who don't read the online forums and don't go to Cons) neither know nor care about the 4th Edition.

 

[SmCaudata]

2E to 3e was a bigger change. Linear stat progression. No more negative AC or THAC0. Much better use of Feat and Skills instead of supplemental books.

3e to 4e means no more crossbowing wizards. No more saving all your couple times per day powers. More tactical combat. Quicker combat. Revamped save rules.

4e to me seems like an evolution of 3e to make it better. 3E was nearly a different game than 2e. Actually, in some ways 4e is again like 2e. Monsters that break normal rules by not adhering to PHB feats and skills is gonna be awesome again.

 

[Zaruthustran]

I voted that the changes are larger in both crunch and fluff. But I don't think the game is all that different in feel. Sure it's a change in feel from 3E, but I think it's a good change, and a change in the direction of the feel of OD&D. More freeform, more focused on the in-game events than the out-of-game mechanics.

 

[Thyrwyn]

The crunch changes from 2e => 3e were pretty huge.

The changes to "monsters" alone was huge: they got basic attributes, could be given levels, and played as characters.

2e core cosmology? I can't remember any core gods at all - were there any?

 

[kennew142]

I have to say that I really dislike the term 'fluff'. The word makes it seem as if the flavor text is unimportant somehow.

That said, I voted for more change in fluff, but not in crunch.

The flavor of the game has changed a lot. Of course this element is the easiest part to change in a home game. I almost never use the flavor presented in the core rules when running a home brew campaign. When I run FR, that's a different matter. I try to stick to the canonical flavor.

The crunch changes are difficult for me to assess. On the surface, 4e looks like a radical departure. I'm not sure, however, that it's greater than the jump from 2e to 3e. In that transistion there were some pretty major changes, including:

1) unified system for determining stat bonuses
2) iterative attacks for everyone
3) skill system added
4) feats added
5) change in die rolling conventions (higher is always better)
6) much faster xp progression
7) equipment tied to character power
8) expected wealth per level
9) expected magic items
10) introduction of the magic mart
11) change in the way hp were determined (extra die every level)
12) change in clerical magic (addition of domains, removal of spheres)
13) multiclassing for everyone
14) no more level restrictions for non-humans
15) bonus spells for all spell-casters
16) radical change in saving throw conventions

I'm sure there are many more that I could add, if I had the time to think about it.

There are certainly a lot of changes in this edition, but some of them are reversing changes made in the 2e to 3e edition change. Overall, I believe that the changes this time around are significant, but no greater than the change from 2e to 3e. (I'll concede the change to the magic system is a really big one).

Some of the changes that appear to be major are actually just tweaks on the system.

1) saves => defenses: instead of the target rolling to resist, the attacker rolls to hit

2) introduction of powers for martial characters: this was already done in Bo9S, but in many cases feats/maneuvers in 3e have become powers in 4e

I could probably come up with more, but I have to get back to work.

 

[kennew142]

I recently bought some dice in the local game store, which is really a boardgaming/Magic the Gathering club with with a retail operation. The guy operating the register asked me "You still play D&D?" I had to tell him that yes, there really were people that still played PnP RPGs. He thought it had completely died out. I can't personally name anyone I know under the age of 30 who plays D&D, and I know plenty of people in their 20s.

New players simply aren't coming. Few of us want to face up to that, but we are part of a dying hobby. When the last time you saw an ad for D&D anywhere but the geek press? Nobody but the existing player base knows or cares about a 4th Edition of D&D. In fact, most of the actual player base (who don't read the online forums and don't go to Cons) neither know nor care about the 4th Edition.

This hasn't been my experience at all. I know lots of gamers under 30. Many of the gamers I know are the children of gamers, but they often bring their friends to the game as well. I've just begun to introduce my own children to gaming, and some of colleagues (I teach middle school) are doing the same. In fact, we're getting together this summer with our children to run some games.

The average age of the gamers at our local convention is somewhere in the mid-twenties as well.

 

[Mercule]

I said "crunch, not fluff" but what I really would have liked is "maybe crunch, but definitely not fluff".

Of course, I never took the Great Wheel as more than a guideline and Sigil was stillborn, IMO. I don't remember the Great Wheel in BECMI, but I do remember the spheres (Entropy, Energy, Thought, Matter, and ?Time). Likewise, I remember when the plane of Shadow was tied to each specific material plane, rather than tying together the multiverse -- which was the job of the astral.

Crunch-wise, BECMI had "elf" as a class, not a race. And clerics haven't always had 9th level spells -- or spells at 1st level. Illusionists used to be a separate class from magic-user/wizard. They also had their own spell list that overlapped the wizard, rather than being just a subset (in this way, 4e may end up being a throw-back, from the sound of things).

And I don't think having at-will spells for wizards (or a magic missile that can miss) is any more significant a change than the priestly spheres in 2e. For that matter, 1e clerics who followed a demigod couldn't get higher than 5th level spells (IIRC -- I know there was a restriction).

Powers for fighters is no bigger change than adding in feats and/or skills. Heck, if they'd dropped feats, it could be said that martial (and some other) powers grew out of feats the way skills grew out of non-weapon proficiencies. The big deal is that they are intentionally increasing symmetry in 4e (wizards have powers, fighters have powers, can we use a similar system to track them?).

And, there are some crunch-supported fluff that changed pretty dramatically. Demi-human level limits, "name level", and overall monster difficulty in 1e strongly indicated that anything above 10th level (and 5th level spells) were extremely unusual. The ranger went from a tough border guard with a chip on his shoulder to a ambidextrous skirmisher and archer with a religious tie to nature. Elves couldn't be raised or resurrected in 1e because they didn't have souls. And I'm still trying to figure out why 3e clerics channel positive/negative energy, rather than the power of their god.

Finally, there a few things that are non-changes in 4e, regardless of perception. Square-based measurements just replaced inch-based measurements. Neither is "more wargamey". Today's wargamers just prefer grids to tape measures.

So, no. I don't think fluff has changed more significantly. Quite the opposite -- it's always changed quite a bit both during and between editions.

Without the crunch in front of me, I can't say for sure. What I've heard, though, makes me think 4e is a significant change -- along the lines of BECMI vs. 1e or 2e vs. 3e, rather than 1e vs. 2e, Holmes vs. BECMI, or 3.0 vs. 3.5. But, I don't think it'll be significantly greater in scope of change than those.

 

[Clavis]

This hasn't been my experience at all. I know lots of gamers under 30. Many of the gamers I know are the children of gamers, but they often bring their friends to the game as well. I've just begun to introduce my own children to gaming, and some of colleagues (I teach middle school) are doing the same. In fact, we're getting together this summer with our children to run some games.

The average age of the gamers at our local convention is somewhere in the mid-twenties as well.

I hope your experience is more indicative of the wider gaming world than my own.