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<blockquote data-quote="MerricB" data-source="post: 5371383" data-attributes="member: 3586">I believe that Wizards were terribly worried about retaining and creating new Dungeon Masters. This would seem to be their primary aim with the redesign of 4e: a game that was easier to run and prepare for than 3e. Their second goal was to fix the mathematics of the game. 3e has retained a lot of the mathematics of 2e, but then overlaid on top a lot of new bonuses. This had gotten out of control; in my final 3.5e campaign, a couple of players absolutely broke Armour Class (a key system), taking every bonus to it they could find. When they could increase their Dexterity scores, Shield enhancement, Armour enhancement, Ring of Protection and a few other modifiers... it was an astonishing result, and quite broken.The third goal - and the one most astonishing - was to smooth out the play experience. Part of this required a new starting point for the maths (1st level isn't so deadly and swingy; high level doesn't take so long to play), but in their pursuit of this they also completely overhauled the class/power structure. This re-imagining of the class structure was both radical and conservative: radical because it was different to what had come before, and conservative in that they applied it to *all* the classes, rather than making exceptions.With D&amp;D Essentials, I can see Wizards continuing their process of learning from what has gone before. This is not a company that is afraid of change or learning from its mistakes. Of course, they don't always agree with us what their mistakes are...Cheers!</blockquote>

[QUOTE="MerricB, post: 5371383, member: 3586"] I believe that Wizards were terribly worried about retaining and creating new Dungeon Masters. This would seem to be their primary aim with the redesign of 4e: a game that was easier to run and prepare for than 3e. Their second goal was to fix the mathematics of the game. 3e has retained a lot of the mathematics of 2e, but then overlaid on top a lot of new bonuses. This had gotten out of control; in my final 3.5e campaign, a couple of players absolutely broke Armour Class (a key system), taking every bonus to it they could find. When they could increase their Dexterity scores, Shield enhancement, Armour enhancement, Ring of Protection and a few other modifiers... it was an astonishing result, and quite broken. The third goal - and the one most astonishing - was to smooth out the play experience. Part of this required a new starting point for the maths (1st level isn't so deadly and swingy; high level doesn't take so long to play), but in their pursuit of this they also completely overhauled the class/power structure. This re-imagining of the class structure was both radical and conservative: radical because it was different to what had come before, and conservative in that they applied it to *all* the classes, rather than making exceptions. With D&D Essentials, I can see Wizards continuing their process of learning from what has gone before. This is not a company that is afraid of change or learning from its mistakes. Of course, they don't always agree with us what their mistakes are... Cheers! [/QUOTE]

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