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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Transformer" data-source="post: 6319765" data-attributes="member: 70008">As you say yourself, it's always been the case that a group can keep using the older version of a rule. So how is this a substantially new approach? Significant rules elements are still getting overhauled. As Mearls says, things that get overhauled are things that are seriously problematic for both DMs and players. We're talking about major game fixes here, game fixes that most groups will use and that will be integrated into organized play. Mearls seems to genuinely believe that this is fundamentally different from the 3.0 > 3.5 transition, but I don't see how it is. It's more gradual, but that's a minor difference. Either way, in five years, the PHB is going to be significantly different from the PHB sitting on my shelf.You say that this is "my issue," but I seriously doubt I'm the only one. In 4-5 years, when the PHB contains several major rules changes and overhauled classes, and looks every bit as different from the launch PHB as the 3.5 PHB looked from the 3.0 PHB, I doubt I'm the only one who will feel like a sucker for buying physical books at launch.As I specifically said in my post, I expect problems and issues. I'm fine with the type of minor errata discussed in the first half of Mearls' article. My hope was not a lack of problems and issues, but a lack of problems and issues major enough to warrant completely re-writing classes or whole sections of the rules. You seem to think that is an unreasonable thing to hope for. I don't. I don't think it's unreasonable to hope that my $150 book set which was publicly playtested for a year will manage to avoid having a substantial number of design problems so fundamental that they justify major re-writes.And as for the designers' intentions, well, those were never in dispute. I have no doubt at all that Mearls is trying to act in the best interest of the game and its players. But unfortunately, Mearls' good intentions aren't what directly affect the game. His concrete decisions are what directly affect the game. And the fundamental decision here is "look out, there's going to be a ton of errata for this edition."And that's really it. What this L&L says, at its heart, is "there's gonna be a ton of errata, including major rules overhauls." There are lots of (entirely sincere) good intentions thrown in, and there's some clarity on how it's all gonna happen (minor updates are rolled out on an annual basis, major updates are released for free for public playtesting). But the most important thing that was clarified here is that in the debate between "as little errata as possible" and "lots of errata," they're going with "lots of errata." That is not my preference. Not at all. And it's the first thing I've read that makes me reconsider buying the core books at launch.EDIT: Two more things.First, I hope the designers avoid extremely minor errata, by which I mean corrections to typos and wording errors and the like. If the meaning of the rule is clear, then please don't bother putting a correction in the errata document. Such corrections only clutter up the errata document and make it dozens of intimidating pages long, like with 4e's errata. Actual substantive rules changes and clarifications only, please.Second, I like the dwarf.</blockquote>

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