Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6793611" data-attributes="member: 996">Business factors were by far the biggest problems:&nbsp; promising 2-4x the revenue the entire industry was pulling down, and the death of the key developer of the subscription-based service that was supposed to drive that revenue, while simultaneously burning OGL bridges were just three big strikes against WotC at the time.&nbsp; More circumspect presentation might've given edition-warriors less ammunition, but they never had any trouble making up more.&nbsp; Powers were only presented as 'cards' in the CB, for instance.&nbsp; No amount of obfuscation would have undermined class balance enough to deliver the kind of system-mastery-rewards PF could.&nbsp; But, yes, maybe leading with Essentials and improving on it to get to 4e would have been a better path.&nbsp; IMHO, timing was off, too.&nbsp; It was too early to toss 3.x to the curb, and OSR was just getting rolling.&nbsp; Well, other sub-classes.&nbsp; All classes have some access to spells.That's only a problem if you insist on playing a non-caster.&nbsp; The game's fairly up-front about that being something to do only if you hate having choices &amp; 'agency,' and just want to hit stuff.That's just the pendulum swinging.&nbsp; 4e swung away from 3.x rocket tag to big set-piece encounters and 5e swung back.&nbsp; Inevitably that's going to be too fast for some of us.&nbsp; We can always just have 3-4 doubled-up, thus bigger, longer &amp; more complex, encounters per day, with a short rest after each of 'em.&nbsp; That'd be the same amount of exp and the same number of short rests per day - probably at least as many rounds/day, too.It's the attrition model:&nbsp; it's not just any theoretical balance that might exist, it's the whole challenge of the play experience that's emergent over that magic number of 6-8 encounters.&nbsp; Maybe there's a point w/in that 6-8 Encounter prescription where the party's mix of classes (if it even includes any non-casters) will happen to balance, maybe not, regardless the DM can contrive to impose spotlight balance.That's what the PH options and DMG modules are. They're the Advanced Game.&nbsp; The pdf, by itself, is the quick &amp; simple Basic Game.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 6793611, member: 996"] Business factors were by far the biggest problems: promising 2-4x the revenue the entire industry was pulling down, and the death of the key developer of the subscription-based service that was supposed to drive that revenue, while simultaneously burning OGL bridges were just three big strikes against WotC at the time. More circumspect presentation might've given edition-warriors less ammunition, but they never had any trouble making up more. Powers were only presented as 'cards' in the CB, for instance. No amount of obfuscation would have undermined class balance enough to deliver the kind of system-mastery-rewards PF could. But, yes, maybe leading with Essentials and improving on it to get to 4e would have been a better path. IMHO, timing was off, too. It was too early to toss 3.x to the curb, and OSR was just getting rolling. Well, other sub-classes. All classes have some access to spells. That's only a problem if you insist on playing a non-caster. The game's fairly up-front about that being something to do only if you hate having choices & 'agency,' and just want to hit stuff. That's just the pendulum swinging. 4e swung away from 3.x rocket tag to big set-piece encounters and 5e swung back. Inevitably that's going to be too fast for some of us. We can always just have 3-4 doubled-up, thus bigger, longer & more complex, encounters per day, with a short rest after each of 'em. That'd be the same amount of exp and the same number of short rests per day - probably at least as many rounds/day, too. It's the attrition model: it's not just any theoretical balance that might exist, it's the whole challenge of the play experience that's emergent over that magic number of 6-8 encounters. Maybe there's a point w/in that 6-8 Encounter prescription where the party's mix of classes (if it even includes any non-casters) will happen to balance, maybe not, regardless the DM can contrive to impose spotlight balance. That's what the PH options and DMG modules are. They're the Advanced Game. The pdf, by itself, is the quick & simple Basic Game. [/QUOTE]

Verification