Every Edition is a Failure

[Neonchameleon]

But you can't count 3.0 and 3.5 as different editions but treat 4th and Essntials as the same.

Why not?

At my table the impact of Essentials is that of a couple of good splat books and a monster manual. You can sit an Essentials Wizard down alongside a PHB wizard and almost no one will notice. Essentials rangers or fighters play quite happily alongside PHB rangers or fighters. The DM guidelines for handing out treasure have changed. But that's DM guidelines - I ignore both equally when it suits me because they are only guidelines.

Compare that to 3.0 -> 3.5. You couldn't sit down with two bards at the table, one from each PHB - there are serious upgrades to one but not the other making a large power change rather than being in practice two different classes. Or two rangers. For that matter put two PCs side by side riding horses. One's ten foot wide, one's five foot wide.

And that's why it's consistent to call 3.5 a different edition and Essentials not. You need to actually know which edition you are playing between 3.0 and 3.5. (I could make the argument that 3.5 is at least as different from 3.0 as 2e is from 1e). You can mix 4e and Essentials with no problem at all on either side of the table and without having to specify what you are doing other than use of magic item dailies.

 

[FireLance]

I do NOT want healing surges in the next edition. I dislike their very premise. If I hit you with a sword for more than 1 HP, NOTHING except time/medical attention or magic will get you back in shape and ONLY magic will get you back in shape within a day. PERIOD.

This is good, because this can actually be the basis for a conversation.

For example, based I this, I would infer that the key problem is that of non-magical healing. Perhaps other aspects of healing surges, such as healing which is proportionate to the recepient's hit points, a daily limit on easy healing per day, or self-healing (as long as it is magical in nature), might not be as divisive.

 

[Hussar]

But you can't count 3.0 and 3.5 as different editions but treat 4th and Essntials as the same.

Yes, 3rd Edition did get a minor overhaul after two years, compared to a more significant overhaul of 4th Edition after 2 years. But 3.5e went for 4 years after release before 4th Edition was announced. Essentials just barely made it for only one year before 5th Edition was announced. I consider that a very different quality.

Really?

If I sat down at a WOTC Living Forgotten Realms game, after the release of 3.5, could I bring my 3.0 D&D character? If they are the same editions, I should be able to shouldn't I?

Now, OTOH, if I sit down at a 4e Living Forgotten Realms game with a PHB 1 Fighter, can I play?

Essentials is no more a new edition than Unearthed Arcana (1e) was a new edition. It's rules that are meant to run side by side with the core rules. I can play any PHB 1 character at any official WOTC game anywhere in the world at any convention.

I cannot play a 3e character in a 3.5 official game. Ever.

And once again... people completely miss or ignore the intention of a thread and go off to complain/debate about 3E & 4E, making the same tired arguments that have been made for years.

It's really not that hard to understand, people...

Hussar's entire point was that if you're going to claim some aspect of the rules from one of the D&D editions does not work well and should not be adapted to 5E... back up your argument with evidence.

THAT'S IT. END OF STORY.

If you can't do that... then obviously your argument is invalid.

And, again, someone comes along and makes my point much more succinctly than I could. Sorry, can't posrep at the moment. And P1Nback, the above quote would be the "point" of the thread.

If your entire argument can be summed up with, "X mechanic is bad because it comes from an edition I don't like" then it's time to do a bit more examination about the point you're trying to make. (Note, the you here is the non-specific one, not anyone in particular.)

 

[Neonchameleon]

I played both extensively, 3.5 was a minor revision. They changed things here or there that certainly required use of the new books if you wanted to incprporate those changes but the overall change was not that big. You could jump into 3.5 after playing 3.0 with very little effort. Obviously it was a bid to sell more books. It was essentially the same system. By no stretch would I regard 3.5 as a new edition. It was a revision.

I can make exactly the same claims about 2e and 1e. You can jump straight from one to the other with very little effort. And in terms of substantive game-impacting changes there's a case to be made that 3.5 changed more (like the shape of a horse) than 2e did.

Where Essentials differs is that you don't actually need the new books and there aren't the tweaks to most of the rules. You probably want the new books because they (especially MV) rock. But that's a different kettle of fish.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Essentials is no more a new edition than Unearthed Arcana (1e) was a new edition. It's rules that are meant to run side by side with the core rules. I can play any PHB 1 character at any official WOTC game anywhere in the world at any convention.

Encounters anyone? Didn't they become essentials only?

 

[Janaxstrus]

What's the point of this thread again?

I assume that people are mad that people are talking bad about their preferred edition and it has wounded them deeply.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Yes, 3rd Edition did get a minor overhaul after two years, compared to a more significant overhaul of 4th Edition after 2 years. But 3.5e went for 4 years after release before 4th Edition was announced. Essentials just barely made it for only one year before 5th Edition was announced. I consider that a very different quality.

Are you comparing like with like? As I understand it, 5e has been announced much earlier in the development cycle than 3e or 4e were. 3e and 4e were announced only shortly before launch and so far as I can tell 5e is still in alpha. 3e went for two years before they started on 4e. How much of the difference is what is, and how much is what we have been allowed to see? That said it hasn't lasted as long - but I don't think the difference is as big as you claim.

 

[Yora]

The 1E books are being reprinted not so much to meet a demand for the books themselves (although there is one) but as a tribute to one of the founders of the game. Gamers will buy the book, not so much to play the game as to have them (as a group, gamers are packrats) and to fund a project they believe in.

What? Building a statue?

 

[P1NBACK]

I assume that people are mad that people are talking bad about their preferred edition and it has wounded them deeply.

So, instead of derailing every other thread, we're cutting right to the chase now? Nice.

 

[Glade Riven]

I expect that a mod will step in soon, though. This is getting rather flamebaity with a side of edition warring.