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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cybit" data-source="post: 5985294" data-attributes="member: 66111">For the record, I suspect many people will be surprised at how different the 3.5 reprints are from what the originals were.  If they bothered to reprint all of the books, you'll find that even 3.5 had a fair amount of errata.  <a href="http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/er/20040125a" target="_blank">Official D&D Updates</a>D&D Next can win me over if it does the followinga) kill the numbers game = from a DM's perspective, 3.5 is just as terrible at 4th about simulationist gameplay for higher levels.  "Natural Armor" bonuses work the same damn way as level + X for defenses in 4E.  (Except making touch attacks ludicrously broken at higher levels).  I heartily approve of the blasting of all bonuses.  Multi-attacks + stacking bonuses are what always ends up making a game imbalanced.b) balance:  although many groups are composed of friends who can talk to each other about playing broken characters (and not doing so), it is frustrating as a player to see a much better option to play than what I want to play, and frustrating as a DM to have to pore through books to allow / disallow things.  20 options are meaningless if 3 of them are heads and tails above the rest.  Everything gets balanced around the three.  c) Presentation: 4E was far too blatant in their presentation of gamist mechanics.  I have been running D&D Encounters for a local gaming store recently, and my table consists of a mother and her three little girls.  When they asked me the rules, I simply said "Tell me what you want to do, roll a d20, and roll high, and I'll explain the rest".  Once I removed the gamist mechanics explanations from the beginning, the little girls were having a blast trying out random actions.  (I also gave them essentials characters, which help immensely in this regard).  Having DM'd 3.5E and 4E extensively for years now (multiple games a week for both systems over a period of years), and DM'ing Pathfinder (2 games a week, started about two months ago), you can do the same things in each edition.  But 4E's presentation was too jarring for most, and broke people out of immersion (hence all the complaints about feel).  4E is actually, mathematically & mechanically speaking, not that different from 3.5E.  3.5 took the time to obfuscate the hell out of those mechanics, and that helped the immersion factor.  But numbers scale up at a certain mathematical rate, damage scales, skills quickly turn into "either I am awesome or I am terrible", wooden locks turn into iron locks turn into mithril locks, etc etc.  4E made the mistake of saying it outright, and breaking the immersion for some folks.D) Have an awesome initial pre-generated module.  I think KOTS doomed 4E.  It highlighted the best aspects terribly (the combat), and was a terrible example of the other pillars.  The initial module needs to be the single best module the game ever has.  Do that, and people will flock to the game.  Good modules create memories, and those memories can power people through, frankly, some terrible mechanics.</blockquote>

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