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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 5981155" data-attributes="member: 87792">And that is such a different version to the 4e I played that I wonder if we ever actually read the same books. The PHB had a wide range of races and classes.  8 classes was about on a par with the 2e PHB and more than 1e.  It just wasn't as many as 3e - and I think that the only differences in class they had between the 2e PHB and the 4e were that they have openly admitted they did not know what to do with the Bard in the PHB1 (the Bard being different in literally every edition of D&D) but instead included the Warlord, and they didn't have the specialty priest from 2e that was the druid.  That you chose to expect a 3.X model for 4e rather than more like 2e or 1e is your issue. There are precisely three DMGs I consider worth using for games outside their own.  Those are the Gygax-written 1e DMG, and the 4e PHB 1 and PHB 2.   And as for the Monster Manual, it compares favourably in terms of fluff to the 2e Monstrous Manual, never mind the washed out versions we got in 3e.  And in play it kicks the ass of any other edition's monster manuals, especially the 3.0 and 3.5 ones which it makes look literally half-finished.  ("Casts as a nth level wizard" is a literally half finished monster).  What the 4e Monster Manual was not was a coffee table book or bedtime reading.  Instead it's one of the best written monster manuals there has ever been in actual play (no need to wade through half a side of text to find the stats for a goblin chieftain right in the middle of a paragraph, thank you 2e, and no need to actually finish off writing the monsters, thank you 3e) - and all the other competitors are from 4e (I can literally make the case for any monster manual 4e has produced to be the best monster manual D&D has ever seen, with the sole exceptions of the MM3 for being too niche, and Dark Sun for being too setting specific).  They did - incredibly so.  The player-produced conversion guide ran to 2.9 MB zipped and that was literally just detailing the changes in PDF format.  (I.e. not the 4e replace everything format).  You aren't making the case that this is any different from the 1e/2e change here.  An edition is marked by publishing model. Actually, no.  You don't actually need roles in 4e for anything.  What they are is monster design guidelines with many indirect effects but no actual direct impact on play.  The reason 3e monsters would be hard to use in 4e is that they are fundamentally unfinished.  It's the feats and the spells that are the problem - both of which are part of the monster stats but not actually in the statblock.  And you make comments about the 4e monster manual! Converting 4e monsters to 3e on the other hand is a lot easier because the stats you need are already there.  <a href="http://blogofholding.com/?p=512" target="_blank">And the math has been made obvious</a>.  Take 25 hit points off every 4e monster (doubled for elites, quadrupled for solos) and then 11 off the fort/ref/will.  And they will be workable although scale differently (doubling every 2 levels in 3.X, every 5 in 4e).  Add 10 to the attacks vs fort/ref/will and call them DCs.  Why is 2e a different edition from 1e as an edition then?</blockquote>

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