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Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ariosto" data-source="post: 4808719" data-attributes="member: 80487">Supplemental material foreshadowing the next edition goes back all the way, to 1E-->2E and Original-->Advanced.I did not have that "frog getting boiled" kind of experience with 2nd or 3rd, at most glancing at some supplements. (Having grasped the solid foundation, I can add my own rococo superstructure that eventually collapses under its own weight; I don't need to shell out hard-earned simoleons for that!) So, I really noticed the differences when introduced to 3rd and 4th.In 2nd and 3rd, it seemed the design committees were trying to "have their cake and eat it" -- not only keeping a bit of the old that clashed with the new but pulling in different new directions simultaneously. With 4th, it's more like (as one fellow put it in my first session), "Dungeons & Dragons is on the cover, but what's inside is a whole new game." It's clearly been redesigned from the bottom up, with a pretty coherent focus on the new goals.The rogue is no longer primarily a burglar, nor the ranger a woodsman and spy; they are both primarily "strikers", defined by how they fight. Law and good deeds are no longer the meat and drink of paladins, but rather the "defender" combat role is. And so on: the reorientation of character concepts is holistic, reflected throughout the highly integrated system.Likewise, the mantra of "balance" is not at all half-hearted. In a dispassionate triage, whatever could not be made to fit the scheme was discarded. One Rule to rule them all, One Rule to find them, One Rule to bring them all and in the system bind them ... with a thousand and one exceptions.</blockquote>

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