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<blockquote data-quote="Mannahnin" data-source="post: 8214653" data-attributes="member: 7026594">Eh. 3E made a lot of pretty radical changes as well, and IME use of the Players Option books in 2E was pretty sporadic.&nbsp; They definitely weren't universally adopted. In addition to Feats and the unified mechanic, let's not forget skills with skill points, the unified XP chart, the complete change to multiclassing and removal of all race/class limitations, and rationalizing all monsters to use the same rules as PCs (which was one of the biggest headaches and pains for a DM). That being said, 3E still wasn't quite as radical a shift as 4E, and they made a lot of efforts in playtesting and feedback to appease players' sensibilities about what &quot;feels like&quot; D&amp;D.&nbsp; I was watching an interview with Jonathan Tweet from Sunday, for example, and their first take on Magic Missile for 3E allowed a save for half damage; which of course would also allow save for zero with Evasion.&nbsp; Playtest response was very negative, so they kept it no-save.&nbsp; A number of classic &quot;D&amp;Disms&quot; were kept that way, not all because they were actually great rules.4E OTOH seemed to set out to deliberately slay sacred cows- Magic Missile becoming a cantrip (at-will power) and rolling to hit(!) for example. (although they later made an auto-hitting variant again).&nbsp; In some ways they really succeeded at making a good new edition with a solid play experience (my groups played five different campaigns up to 30th level or close, though about half those started at Paragon), but for too many folks it just didn't feel like D&amp;D.I think there's some merit to your thesis that 4E kind of served to clear the palate and get us some space from the baroque CharOp excesses of 3.x (which Pathfinder continued), and set the stage for 5E.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Mannahnin, post: 8214653, member: 7026594"] Eh. 3E made a lot of pretty radical changes as well, and IME use of the Players Option books in 2E was pretty sporadic. They definitely weren't universally adopted. In addition to Feats and the unified mechanic, let's not forget skills with skill points, the unified XP chart, the complete change to multiclassing and removal of all race/class limitations, and rationalizing all monsters to use the same rules as PCs (which was one of the biggest headaches and pains for a DM). That being said, 3E still wasn't quite as radical a shift as 4E, and they made a lot of efforts in playtesting and feedback to appease players' sensibilities about what "feels like" D&D. I was watching an interview with Jonathan Tweet from Sunday, for example, and their first take on Magic Missile for 3E allowed a save for half damage; which of course would also allow save for zero with Evasion. Playtest response was very negative, so they kept it no-save. A number of classic "D&Disms" were kept that way, not all because they were actually great rules. 4E OTOH seemed to set out to deliberately slay sacred cows- Magic Missile becoming a cantrip (at-will power) and rolling to hit(!) for example. (although they later made an auto-hitting variant again). In some ways they really succeeded at making a good new edition with a solid play experience (my groups played five different campaigns up to 30th level or close, though about half those started at Paragon), but for too many folks it just didn't feel like D&D. I think there's some merit to your thesis that 4E kind of served to clear the palate and get us some space from the baroque CharOp excesses of 3.x (which Pathfinder continued), and set the stage for 5E. [/QUOTE]

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