Krusty is seriously considering a 4E jump.
When I was in London, obviously I did as much gaming as possible, and to be honest I am becoming more and more disenchanted with 3rd Edition. Its unnecessarily complicated at low levels and nightmarishly complex at epic levels (even after I tried to dumb down as much as possible).
3.5 does have its flaws, to be sure... but 4E doesn't fix them - it just builds an entirely new system. That's one of the issues I have with 4E - despite its flaws, 3.5 works. Even that wouldn't have been enough to turn me off, if they'd done it right; I just don't like 4E, from what I've seen, because it looks too tactical and too ToB for my taste. Everyone can teleport around the map, and "shift" themselves and their opponents, and... ugh. I like using using minis, but I have lousy spatial perception (and let's face it - they're fun to paint and they look cool
). But... a game that's centered around minis, that effectively removes the choice of whether or not you want to use them, is not a game a lot of people want to play.
I can understand it from a business POV - they want to tie it more closely to their minis line so they can make more money - but that doesn't mean I have to buy into it. My books aren't going to burst into flame on June 6th, and my ability to write new material (either for myself or for publication) isn't going to suddenly vanish.
My books are in excellent condition (despite heavy use), I've got tons of material that I can't (and won't) convert over, and there won't be an SRD like the one we have now that I could refer to... And, really, I can't afford it. That, more than anything, is the largest deciding factor. I don't know anyone around here who is, either, so I can't borrow their books, even if I were interested. And really, I enjoy designing for 3.5. It took me several years and a lot of work to get to where I am now in terms of knowledge of the system, and I don't want to flush most of it down the toilet to learn a new system.
Instead, I'll keep working on my 3.75 revision. The change to 4E has offered us a unique opportunity - Paizo's jumped on it with both feet, and so am I. The difference is, I'm not going for publication, so that cuts down my production time/costs.
I've identified many of the major flaws in the system and am working on correcting them at low levels (which, incidentally, will provide a lot of fixes for high-level play) - immunities, BAB/saves, spells, skills, the wealth system, etc. And yes, I'm borrowing some of your rules - the CR/EL system chief among them - to help.
And, quite honestly, I take some issue with how sacred the idea of "balance" has become. If the CR of a monster isn't exactly equal to the average party level, then things won't really be that bad, so long as it's close enough.
Yeah - once you hit epic, the CR increments space out even further, so the range of creatures that could provide a challenge for the PCs keeps increasing. The whole "balance" is getting a bit absurd - with everything being tied to numbers more closely than ever before, it's become easier to balance things out, but it's also become easier for rules lawyers to point out things that are broken. I think that's why the pendulum swung the other way for 4E - they wanted a looser, more flexible system where the DM could fudge things here and there and still be able to provide a challenge for the party.
