D&D 4E 4e - Too much change?

[scruffygrognard]

I gotta disagree. Wasn't the marketing for 3E "back to the dungeon"?

And you can't look at flavour changes in isolation. To consider how much an edition changes, you have to look at both mechanics and flavour. Even if the flavour changes in 3E were minor (which may or may not be true), the mechanical changes were not minor.

The mechanical changes were not minor but they made sense, were needed and didn't effect the flavor of D&D's classic (Greyhawk and FR) settings too badly.

4th edition has killed Greyhawk off and totally threw the Realms and universal cosmology for a loop, while also changing what races and classes are core. Add to this the removal of wizard schools and Vancian magic and you might as well be playing another game (like Rolemaster or Fantasy Hero).

As for 3E's motto, at least it didn't declare that all previous editions sucked in the way that 4E's GenCon video and subsequent designer blogs have.

I guess we'll agree to disagree with one another but this new game isn't what I'd call D&D.

 

[tomBitonti]

There's no rub. If the designers and developers think it's better, that's the only measure that can be relied upon. They can't release the stuff to the public, take extensive polls to see if the majority agree if it's better, and THEN release the game for sale or invest more in development before releasing it. The design of D&D is not democratic. It will never be released in a form that will please everyone.

Umm, why can't they release their stuff to the public? Not all of it, but is there a need for so much secrecy? They have a dominant market position (or do I have that wrong?) After all, if they are pushing the embrace of new technology (D&D Insider, GleeMax, Dungeon and Dragon as Online publications), why can't they use the same technology to provide extensive previews and to obtain widespread audience feedback. In particular, before they are locked into what they send to the printers?

 

[tomBitonti]

Folks, let's be realistic. 4E is being released for two reasons:
1) enough players demand it
2) it's good business

Except that is what is being debated.

I'm seeing that players are demanding improvements to 3rd edition, namely, to fix outstanding problems. But are they demanding the 4th edition as so far shown to them?

And whether or not it is good business will depend on how well it does. One presumes that Hasbro / Wotc are trying to move their business in a positive direction. But, who knows how well it will actually turn out? And, what can we say about their decision making process to know if it is sound?

 

[The Ubbergeek]

The mechanical changes were not minor but they made sense, were needed and didn't effect the flavor of D&D's classic (Greyhawk and FR) settings too badly.

4th edition has killed Greyhawk off and totally threw the Realms and universal cosmology for a loop, while also changing what races and classes are core. Add to this the removal of wizard schools and Vancian magic and you might as well be playing another game (like Rolemaster or Fantasy Hero).

As for 3E's motto, at least it didn't declare that all previous editions sucked in the way that 4E's GenCon video and subsequent designer blogs have.

I guess we'll agree to disagree with one another but this new game isn't what I'd call D&D.

For me, all those changes are really minor in the whole stuff.

It's still D&D at the bottom, as the basic mores are.

 

[Brian Compton]

4th edition has killed Greyhawk off and totally threw the Realms and universal cosmology for a loop, while also changing what races and classes are core. Add to this the removal of wizard schools and Vancian magic and you might as well be playing another game (like Rolemaster or Fantasy Hero).

Every edition changes core races and classes. 2E didn't have assassins, barbarians, or monks at the beginning, but it had bards as a base class. 3E put barbarians and monks back in and added sorcerers. 2E didn't have half-orcs, and non-human races could only advance so far in different classes (none but humans could make it to level 20 in almost anything). 3E changed that, for the better IMO.

Also, it doesn't sound like schools are completely gone. If anything, they're going back to 2E and almost making (eventually) specialist mages their own classes. They've said, down the line, that they'd like to make an Illusionist and, potentially, a Necromancer. A wizard can still cast some illusions, like Invisibility; an Illusionist can just do it better in some way. Some transmutations are still around; divinations are going to be done via rituals, which may be spells or may not be. We won't know for a while. But the core divisions of magic still remain. Likewise, Vancian magic may still apply to "per day" effects (sounds like it will) without being the core of the Wizard class. That for me is fine, as it was one of the things keeping me from playing wizards in the past. And giving them at will and per encounter powers is great; I've been in games where the wizard or cleric blows his wad early on buffs and the party has at most one or two encounters before stopping for the "day" because the caster has nothing left to offer.

As for 4th Edition killing Greyhawk, no. No more than 3E killed Mystara, Birthright, Planescape, et al. People found ways to keep them alive while still playing 3E and 3.5E. Besides, we don't know what WotC's going to do with Greyhawk; they haven't talked about any worlds except FR and Eberron. So don't say goodbye to Mordenkainen just yet.

As for 3E's motto, at least it didn't declare that all previous editions sucked in the way that 4E's GenCon video and subsequent designer blogs have.

While I think that's a little drastic, the designers do seem to rag on 3E frequently. You never hear a car company say "Our previous year model was complete crap, but this year's model rulez!" It would really make you question the competency of the designers. Though it seems like many of the current designers were not around when 3E was first created, so it -sort of- can be understood, but that bespeaks to a serious issue with PR and corporate loyalty.

 

[mxyzplk]

Funny, it seems to me WotC is actually addressing the many complaints about 3e I've seen on this board.

Christmas Tree Characters
Save or Die/Nerf & Campaign-problematic Magic
Weak Low Level Characters
Unbalanced & Unwieldy High Level Play
Stat Abominations
Useless Skills
Speed of Play
AoO
Grappling
Boring Fighter Classes
The Much Maligned Vancian Magic System
Dependency on "Per Day" Effects for Game Balance
Poor Multiclassing Rules
Etc...

And that's the part of this that I don't mind so much.

See, I play 3.5e. I like both the Book of Nine Swords and Star Wars: Saga Edition. If they just took the simplified skills from SW:SE and gave Warblade type abilities to the Fighter - fine, cool.

But many of the changes don't have anything to do with that. And they're not "fluff" either.

Yes, people have been clamoring for faster action, grappling not being complicated, etc. But...

- Removing classic races in favor of new ones that I haven't seen anyone clamoring for.
- Removing the school based theory of magic, which I haven't seen anyone clamoring for.
- Removing the Great Wheel, which I haven't seen anyone clamoring for.
- Removing several major schools from wizards, which I haven't seen anyone clamoring for.

In my opinion, there is a need for a certain kind of continuity between D&D versions. The entire D&D "thing" - versions, books, movies, comics, etc - creates a mindscape based on what has come before. Sure, switch from tables to THACO to BAB - that part is great tuning to make things better, faster, stronger. But with this new edition (from what we've heard, and sure it's incomplete blah blah) you can't reconcile Dragonlance with it. Or Greyhawk, or Forgotten Realms, or Planescape. So when you attract some new player who liked Planescape: Torment and they go look at 4e and say "uh, what?"

One poster mentioned that to him, D&D is races, levels, classes, etc. I think that's half of it, the core mechanics half. But the other half of the core feel is dwarves with axes, elves with bows (eladrin=bah), wizards commanding magics of various sorts, warriors sword-and-boarding it out with big green critters, and priests healing them and shooing the undead.

And then you have expanding circles of "core"-ness in mechanics and fluff. In the second circle is where we're seeing a lot of impact, a very high percentage of turnover. "Necromancers!" "Uh, no, not really anymore." It's OK to turn over a little second-circle stuff and lots of the third-circle stuff (things people don't have a lot of vested mindshare in - creating magic items, for example).

So to me, they are changing too much of what classical D&D consists of. The raw core might be there, but too many of the familiar tropes are being messed with.

 

[GVDammerung]

The more I hear, the more I think that while this may be an interesting game in its own right, it isn't D&D.

Pretty much my feeling, as well. "D&D" may be on the cover but, as described to this point, 4e bears little resemblance to all that has been understood to be D&D in prior editions once you get beyond "kill the monster and take its treasure with swords and magic."

 

[Reynard]

So to me, they are changing too much of what classical D&D consists of. The raw core might be there, but too many of the familiar tropes are being messed with.

But those things are old and tired and no one wants them anyway.



Apparently.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Pretty much my feeling, as well. "D&D" may be on the cover but, as described to this point, 4e bears little resemblance to all that has been understood to be D&D in prior editions once you get beyond "kill the monster and take its treasure with swords and magic."

OD&D (1974), etc.

The "it's not D&D anymore" thing has been done to death. Editions ago.

 

[Grog]

Klingons are allies of the Federation now?!?! This isn't Star Trek anymore!