D&D 5E (2024) So IS it a new edition?

[Valetudo]

I wasn't just referring rules changes. I'm talking the day one erratta that most books needed because they didn't edit them properly. The way they changed powers online like it was a video game is another thing.

 

[Minigiant]

Honestly, I kind of agree. The proliferation of new resource systems and experimental class structures just...feels like that.

The Factotum is a Bard truly specialized in flexibility, for example, while Binder-type stuff is clearly the Warlock coming into its own. The Tome of Battle classes are reworks of three major martial-ish classes (Fighter = Warblade, Paladin = Crusader, Monk = Swordsage), and if the Rogue were moved in a clearly magical direction, Shadowcaster wouldn't be the worst fit for it. Truenamer, for all its horrible horrible jank, seems like an attempt to reinvent arcane casting. Etc.

Late Stage 3e was literally a fantasy heartbreaker but officially commissioned.

When I use terms like "5.5e," I really do mean it--I see 5.5e as half a step toward a new edition. It isn't really a new edition. But it also isn't really the same edition, either. It's in the awkward no-man's-land where it's almost the same, but not the same. The skeleton is (mostly) the same, but the flesh is new

The 2024 version is 5e going to the gym and dietingto look good for their wedding or vacation or family reunion.

The same person with bigger muscles and better outward shape with the lingering health problems caused by extreme dieting and stress.

 

[Valetudo]

I'm just guessing but I think 6th edition will be a much bigger change.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I wasn't just referring rules changes. I'm talking the day one erratta that most books needed because they didn't edit them properly. The way they changed powers online like it was a video game is another thing.

This wasn't anywhere near as bad as you claim.

And if we're going to talk about needing to errata things because they weren't edited properly, I'd like to introduce you to a thing called "Pathfinder 1st edition." Which had such editing gems as Prone Shooter (which removed a non-existent penalty before it was errata'd) and Death or Glory (which forces you to trade away your whole turn for a single attack, only against Large or larger enemies, and you pay for the privilege by letting the target get its OWN, buffed attack against you). Or the problems with Gunslinger that would cause it to misfire more and more often per turn as it gained more attacks, a thing that got people outright banned from Paizo's forums for pointing it out.

And that isn't even talking about stuff like Shadowrun, which is openly notorious for being full of typos, bad editing, and more, which doesn't even get errata in the first place.

Do you have any actual, concrete examples? Or are you just engaging in partisanship for its own sake? We know about the errata for stealth rules. (And guess what 5e also got!) What, exactly, was the horrible awful editing that was so desperately needed? Because I own the books, and have read them extensively, and don't recall such horrific problems in the text itself.

Finally, I'm not going to dignify the "video game" comments with a response beyond this sentence--it's crass name-calling with literally no thought or content in it, and even this response is more than such an argument deserves.

 

[Valetudo]

Yes it was that bad I still have the books and the stack of erratic I printed from it. It was a huge pet peeve of mine when 4th was coming out. They treated it as a video game that could be fixed online afterwords.

 

[mamba]

Now, once they had published 3.5e, they did in fact want to immediately begin ground work on a new edition. Internally, it was referred to as "Orcus," and you're correct that this new edition failed to cross the finish line properly. Instead, they published it...as the Book of Nine Swords.

going by the link you provided it sounds more like some of the lessons they learned from early 4e were incorporated into the Bo9S but that the book was in development for 3.5 already anyway

“Baker, Donais, and Mearls translated current versions of the Orcus I mechanics into a last-minute revision of Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords”

 

[Oofta]

Yes it was that bad I still have the books and the stack of erratic I printed from it. It was a huge pet peeve of mine when 4th was coming out. They treated it as a video game that could be fixed online afterwords.

Yeah, I printed out a ton of errata, cut out just the text I needed and pasted it into the books. Not a good solution. Small things are bound to creep in here and there, these were not small things and it was everywhere.

 

[Remathilis]

And if we're going to talk about needing to errata things because they weren't edited properly, I'd like to introduce you to a thing called "Pathfinder 1st edition." Which had such editing gems as Prone Shooter (which removed a non-existent penalty before it was errata'd) and Death or Glory (which forces you to trade away your whole turn for a single attack, only against Large or larger enemies, and you pay for the privilege by letting the target get its OWN, buffed attack against you). Or the problems with Gunslinger that would cause it to misfire more and more often per turn as it gained more attacks, a thing that got people outright banned from Paizo's forums for pointing it out.

And that isn't even talking about stuff like Shadowrun, which is openly notorious for being full of typos, bad editing, and more, which doesn't even get errata in the first place.

You know, this is strangely reaffirming that the errors already found in D&D 2024 aren't as bad as they could have been...

 

[DEFCON 1]

You know what I'm going to use as my demarcation between the various revised versions of 5E and a true 6E? When all the creators and designers of foundational 5E get let go from the company... probably when the game has fallen greatly in popularity and financial success and the D&D department needs to get contracted... and then a new set of designers come into power on the team and they are given the go-ahead to come up with something truly new for the game.

Once that happens, and we get something truly different-- which to me would most likely be a game designed specifically to be used with all the bells and whistles of the 3D VTT which would have been released and in use for probably five or six years by that point-- that's what they will call 6E. Rather than a tabletop game that found itself being adapted into a VTT version... it will be the VTT game that gets adapted into a tabletop version.

My guess would be that it would result in a lot of 4E-type formatting that is more grid-based... rules for things like fog-of-war adapted to the tabletop space... spells that are more "creatively interpreted" normally in 5E (say illusions) will become more focused on actual "spell-effects" that a VTT can display and the idea of using those spells to just "make crap up" won't be options mechanically in the tabletop game anymore because those can't be displayed in the VTT. Basically anything that has been built for the VTT and works for the VTT will get adapted to the 6E tabletop game. And the two of them will be updated/designed in collaboration with each other so that there is almost no actual difference between the two. Even someone who says they want to play Theater of the Mind will have to play TotM using the same mechanics and mechanical effects as if they were using the VTT.

Which will of course result in a lot of players feeling "left behind", and switching to other games and not moving to 6E. But I don't expect any of this to occur until way past the VTT having been released and at least several years of seeing how the VTT gets used, who uses it, what their expectations are with it, and what the pain points are between using 5E rules and its game engine. At that point-- and once Jeremy's salary becomes too high for WotC to hold onto and he "moves on" from WotC and someone like Makenzie De Armas becomes the head of the D&D tabletop division-- will a true 6E get designed and released.

 

[Corinnguard]

You know, this is strangely reaffirming that the errors already found in D&D 2024 aren't as bad as they could have been...

Somewhere out there, there is an RPG rule whose errors will make any rule in D&D 2024 actually look better by comparison. Believe it or not.