A word on Backward Compatability

[Zappo]

The adventure which contains the "old" bard can still be normally used without having to fix it. It doesn't become scrap paper. It doesn't even become significantly worse. Heck, if you double-check the skill points total in the MM, I think half the creatures have the wrong number of skill points for their type, Intelligence and HD, and yet noone is bothered about this. Should WotC not have published the rules for monster skill points for fear of making the MM obsolete?

Uh? Invaders 1976 is converted to work on a Pentium IV [...]

Ok, wrong metaphor (though I did have a conversion for the 286 a long time ago). These days I'm taking emulators too much for granted. Make that Castle Wolfenstain 3D, the only 3D shooter that can run on a 286 IIRC. Return to Castle Wolfenstain looks better, but CW still works.

 

[Zappo]

Added note: the E-Tools thing is another matter entirely. E-Tools must use the latest rules because whatever discrepancies it has will be transmitted to any product you make with it. Have an E-Tools that believes the bard gets 4 skill points, and all the bards you make even after buying the revised PHB will still have 4 skill points.

The same is not valid for adventures and splatbooks though.

 

[MerricB]

It's a bard with error in it in the eye of someone who has the new PHB and not the old (I think that it is the goal, to have clearer content in the book so that new customer do not need to read 100+ pages of FAQ or old player could get all the info in one book, plus some nice crunchy bits) .

True, the older bard may have an 'error' in it, but that doesn't mean it's not backwards compatable.

Backwards compatable simply means you can use the old material with the new system, not that you can re-create it.

If I use Monte Cook's ranger in my game, does that mean that I have to revise every ranger stat block from a Wizards product? No, it just means that there is more than one definition of "ranger" that was used to create characters.

Has anyone used Windows XP? I can run Word 97 on Windows XP, but the appearance of the window is quite different... but I can run Word 97. That is Backwards Compatability.

(Windows XP isn't fully Backwards Compatable with older versions, nor do I expect 3.5E to be so, but it is mostly BC.)

Cheers!

 

[Blacksad]

True, the older bard may have an 'error' in it, but that doesn't mean it's not backwards compatable.

Backwards compatable simply means you can use the old material with the new system, not that you can re-create it.

Yeah, if you take a strict definition of compatible, in this case if you gives hit point to star wars character they are compatible (except that their CR will not be right).

But I think that the backward compatible was targetet at store owner, so that they don't sell product with "wrong" statblock and EL, which could piss off newbies, and so that those store owner keeps carrying those product and do not choose to sell instead up to date product from other d20 publisher.