Is WotC's policy of no 4.5 good or bad?

[ferratus]

I am of course, using ludicrous hyperbole.

Sure, rules increase what you can do with the game, but it would be better if those rules were fluidly updated. You cannot create rules without changing the nature of the game itself, so why not have the game in a format that can adopt these changes easily? Physical books get in the way of that.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Sure, rules increase what you can do with the game, but it would be better if those rules were fluidly updated. You cannot create rules without changing the nature of the game itself, so why not have the game in a format that can adopt these changes easily? Physical books get in the way of that.

But all that 'getting in the way' generates $$. Why else would they put 98% of book content in the DDI and not the other 2%?

Easy. The majority of the stuff is in easy to implement electronic format and comes with a subscription. The remaining tidbits are available only in the book. This is a good way to give away a bunch of content with the subscription while holding select bits for sale at premium book prices.

 

[knightofround]

I'd support a 4.1. Which would basically be a reprinting of PHB/DMG/MM1/MM2 with all the up-to-date errata.

The monster manuals are really annoying to me right now. I hate trying to remember which book which monster comes from, so I can get it on the MM3 damage spread. And then remembering which modifiers to make based upon role, which modifiers to make based upon spread, etc. I'd buy all 3 MMs all over again just to be rid of that hassle.

 

[ferratus]

ExploderWizard, I'm not sure if they are deliberately withholding info so much as the Compendium needs to be better indexed. I was able to find the rules for beasts, though not familiars, in the Compendium. So maybe this is a matter of incompetence rather than malice.

Even so, I'm not sure the profit margins on selling books through either amazon or the FLGS are really worth big money. It seems to me that as long as people are using DDI and its tools, you can charge a subscription fee without all the extra costs or hassle of distributing physical books. As well, you would have the flexibility to fix/add/reinvent the rules for customer satisfaction without worrying about the backlash of "invalidating" books and making them worthless to the current edition of D&D. That has to be worth a couple of dollars too.

The only reason I can see to keep publishing books is that a) people demand them or b) to keep up their presence on store shelves.

 

[ExploderWizard]

The only reason I can see to keep publishing books is that a) people demand them or b) to keep up their presence on store shelves.

I think these are important. Maintaining visibility in the marketplace would be tough with digital products.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

ExploderWizard, I'm not sure if they are deliberately withholding info so much as the Compendium needs to be better indexed. I was able to find the rules for beasts, though not familiars, in the Compendium. So maybe this is a matter of incompetence rather than malice.

Even so, I'm not sure the profit margins on selling books through either amazon or the FLGS are really worth big money. It seems to me that as long as people are using DDI and its tools, you can charge a subscription fee without all the extra costs or hassle of distributing physical books. As well, you would have the flexibility to fix/add/reinvent the rules for customer satisfaction without worrying about the backlash of "invalidating" books and making them worthless to the current edition of D&D. That has to be worth a couple of dollars too.

The only reason I can see to keep publishing books is that a) people demand them or b) to keep up their presence on store shelves.

Thing is, you can't just easily update the rules when they become LARGE and thus rather unwieldy as 4e is now. I mean you can make a few minor tweaks but nothing serious. Every 'fluff' book actually has a modest chunk of mechanics in it (items, monsters, rituals, sometimes even entire races etc). This is actually a lot of what holds back updating the core rules to some kind of not-quite-compatible 4.5. Even if its all PDFs you have to pay people to lay them all out again after doing some significant errata, etc.

And this is why we won't see 4.5. Really fixing things would require breaking compatibility, which would break pretty much ALL the books (admittedly some in quite minor ways). If you want to fix skill bonus issues you need to do away with ability score boosts for instance, and if you do that then you need to rework armor, and then you need to change the bonus progression for monsters attack and defenses, etc. There are other aspects as well, but the remaining rough spots in the rules really stem mostly from fundamental design elements. There are other ones of course.

I really don't think you can ultimately blame printed material for 'holding back' the game. It is mostly just the sheer SIZE of the game. I mean I've got a lot of gaming stuff, but 4e is just HUGE.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The basic 4e system actually could have lent itself to a less destructive (less power creep, less issues with new rules and options introducing broken and problematic combos and complexity, etc) mode of suplements. If they hadn't gone immediately for the '________ Power' books, and instead introduced more classes and power sources, perhaps tying some specifically to certain campaign world, and kept new feats specific to those new classes/sources (well, /and/ not introduced hybrid rules), they could have presented a fairly expansive game with a lot of character-building options, that was really made up of 'power source silos' with minimal interaction.

They could have added sources and powers for as long as demand kept up. Then they could have rounded out each source to cover all 4 roles and added new builds in the various 'Powers' books, but kept it to one such book per source for years to come.

Even just releasing fewer universal feats - sticking to class-, race-, and source-specific ones, would have helped.

 

[DEFCON 1]

If they hadn't gone immediately for the '________ Power' books, and instead introduced more classes and power sources, perhaps tying some specifically to certain campaign world, and kept new feats specific to those new classes/sources (well, /and/ not introduced hybrid rules), they could have presented a fairly expansive game with a lot of character-building options, that was really made up of 'power source silos' with minimal interaction.

Adding more classes rather than supplement the ones we already got? Ugh. No thanks. With only 3 or 4 powers per level for each class in the first PH... many classes and levels felt pretty barren. I don't think the classes came into their own until they each had their own Power book, thereby giving you a choice of about 6 to 8 powers for each level.

Was MP2 or all the additional powers we got through Dragon necessary? Perhaps I'd give you that. But I for one appreciated getting the Power books as quickly as we did to really flesh out the options for each of the classes we had.

 

[Tony Vargas]

There's not telling what people will like. I was just pointing out a way releases could have been managed to put off the need for a system 're-boot' - be it 'new edition,' .5 edition, or 'new direction.'