D&D General D&D's Utter Dominance Is Good or Bad Because...

[GrimCo]

Just like with Skills and Powers, I do think that some of the writing was on the wall for 4e if people bothered picking up the later 3e books like Bo9S or even d20 Star Wars Saga. Of course I know that many people didn't buy those books so 4e was surprising. For those of us who did, 4e wasn't that surprising.

I'm comparing 2ed to 3ed and 3ed (not 3.5) to 4th. I did like Bo9s, it's one of my top 3.5 books and at my table in those days, Warblade was default fighter. But decent amount of people didn't do half edition upgrade so when 4th came out, it was big change. Imho, Bo9s just gave martial version of spells with stances and maneuvers a bridged martial-caster power gap a bit. That's why i find 5th ed Battlemaster maneuvers underwhelming since Warblade did it better and more interesting.

 

[Aldarc]

I'm comparing 2ed to 3ed and 3ed (not 3.5) to 4th. I did like Bo9s, it's one of my top 3.5 books and at my table in those days, Warblade was default fighter. But decent amount of people didn't do half edition upgrade so when 4th came out, it was big change. Imho, Bo9s just gave martial version of spells with stances and maneuvers a bridged martial-caster power gap a bit. That's why i find 5th ed Battlemaster maneuvers underwhelming since Warblade did it better and more interesting.

Sure, but Skills and Powers was probably more comparable to 2.5. It's one of those situations that if you went along for the ride through the edition, the transition to the next edition wasn't necssarily that shocking, depending on your perspective.

 

[TwoSix]

They changed the math around, but the base concepts were pretty much the same. Some of it depends of course on what supplements you used, the Skills and Powers book for example was almost a 2.5 version.

I mean, in terms of overall change, S&P was pretty radical. It completely upended character creation to a greater extent than pretty much any core book has. Compared to 3.5, S&P is closer to a 2.8.

 

[Oofta]

Just because you kept playing it like you had been doesn't mean the game did not change significantly. it just means you were so wrapped up in your preferred playstyle that you ignored the fundamental shifts in design.

Lets see. Checking notes ... nope you don't get to tell me what I and the people I played with thought.

As others have stated it was an evolution, not a revolution. It felt similar to the changes we had gotten with previous edition. Up until 4E the biggest change was from OD&D to basic or AD&D. We played 2E using Skills and Powers so most of the base concepts had already been introduced and simply transformed a bit.

Maybe adding all your numbers together was mind-blowingly radical change to you. Having a more logical reason for the the rules and how saves worked used was nice, not game changing. To us, it was streamlining and an evolution of the game that should have been in 2E. Compare that to 4E which still had classes but changed everything about how classes were built and functioned in play. It's night and day.

 

[TwoSix]

Just like with Skills and Powers, I do think that some of the writing was on the wall for 4e if people bothered picking up the later 3e books like Bo9S or even d20 Star Wars Saga. Of course I know that many people didn't buy those books so 4e was surprising. For those of us who did, 4e wasn't that surprising.

I will always believe that an alternate history 4e, where they just renamed Warblade to "Fighter" in the new PHB, gave all the other martial classes 9 level maneuvers like the Warblade, and left most of the underlying structures of 3.5 pretty much the same, would have been a much more well-received revision to 3.5.

 

[Oofta]

I will always believe that an alternate history 4e, where they just renamed Warblade to "Fighter" in the new PHB, gave all the other martial classes 9 level maneuvers like the Warblade, and left most of the underlying structures pretty much the same, would have been a much more well-received revision to 3.5.

Eh. They changed the basic daily play loop and how PCs functioned significantly with 4E. It needed more testing and development time that they were not given. Water under the bridge now, but there were many reasons why 4E did not do as well as 5E. It's difficult to discuss without getting accusations of edition wars I just don't think 4E was the right direction for a D&D game, at least not all of the changes.

 

[TwoSix]

Eh. They changed the basic daily play loop and how PCs functioned significantly with 4E. It needed more testing and development time that they were not given. Water under the bridge now, but there were many reasons why 4E did not do as well as 5E. It's difficult to discuss without getting accusations of edition wars I just don't think 4E was the right direction for a D&D game, at least not all of the changes.

To be clear, I'm saying leave in the underlying structures of 3.5.

 

[Oofta]

To be clear, I'm saying leave in the underlying structures of 3.5.

I could have seen adding things like that for specific prestige classes, but that style of play is not for everyone. Or just keep the warblade. But ... water under the bridge. If they had done public playtesting from early on for 4E like they did for 5E I suspect the end result would have been far different.

 

[Aldarc]

I could have seen adding things like that for specific prestige classes, but that style of play is not for everyone. Or just keep the warblade. But ... water under the bridge. If they had done public playtesting from early on for 4E like they did for 5E I suspect the end result would have been far different.

However, maybe not as dramatically different as you expect. You may have just ended up with a more polished version of 4e.

 

[Corinnguard]

That's why i find 5th ed Battlemaster maneuvers underwhelming since Warblade did it better and more interesting.

The Battle Master's maneuvers are also underwhelming compared to the maneuvers and combat traditions in Level Up. The latter can be used by any of the martial classes in that RPG.