D&D 3E/3.5 So what's the BIG diff between 4E and 3E? (Remembering 2E-3E transition...)

[Driddle]

I remember when 3E was announced that there was much discussion about the HUGE character class advancement changes (no more dual-classing! no more racial limits!), combat mechanics changes (goodbye THAC0! an AoO works exactly how?), etc. It was a major make-over.

I'm not getting the same feeling with the move toward 4E. Have I missed the mega differences, or does this feel more like version 3.995?

 

[hong]

Well, of course it's going to be a smaller change than 3E. 3 is 50% bigger than 2, but 4 is only 33% bigger than 3.

 

[Henry]

To be honest, there will be some fairly large changes, that we already know about; dividing everyone's resources into "at will, per encounter, and per day" sources is one large enough to rearrange the power balance of all the classes. Then, the murmurs made about changing the way races get their abilities over time instead of all at once sounds like it will totally re-jigger people's favorite choices for races. So even two weeks out of the starting gate, it looks to be a significant change - just not as significant as the entire realignment of what dice to roll to accomplish something, as it was done in the 2E to 3E change.

 

[Someone]

Looks like the intent of the change changed: in 3e they gave D&D a consistent rules system, instead of being a lot of totally different mechanics duct taped together; for 4e I believe the intent is (or should be) tweaking the mechanics so they don't hurt the game. 3e: consistency and balance 4e: playability.

 

[Stalker0]

I do think 4e will not be as good a change as 3e, and that's good in some ways. That means that the mechanics of 3e work...and work well. The new system will cut out and recreate the pieces that have failed.

That said, I do hope to see a fair amount of change. I don't need to see the 2e-> 3e revolution, but I do need to see enough to warrant a change of edition.

 

[Delta]

I'd suggest:
(1) The fact that it won't be possible to convert characters.
(2) The fact that the Vancian spell slot system is 80% going away.
(3) The fact that 1st-level PCs have 3 HD.

Personally, I think the 3E->4E change sounds much bigger than 2E->3E. In 2E->3E the statistics were pretty much the same (as a mathematician, changing the core mechanic from low AC to high AC isn't really a change in the statistics of how the game plays out; there's a clear linear conversion you can do from one to the other). It's been stated that in 4E they intentionally want to change all the statistics behind the play at low and high levels.

 

[Szatany]

I'd suggest:
(3) The fact that 1st-level PCs have 3 HD.

That's a fact? Who said that? Link please.

 

[thundershot]

4E is to 3E as 2E was to 1E.


Yes, I think that's about right.

 

[Marshall]

most likely, talents.
It looks like 4e is going to go from around 7 choices for character customization to over 20. Thats a plus.
The negative is that if they go with the SAGA version of things, theres really no difference between the base classes other than what talents are available. I'd hope that each class has a small list of actual class abilities on top of selectable talent trees.

On the issue of race, I wonder if we're going to get a number of 'racial talent' slots at certain character levels. I cant see spending class granted talents on racial abilities.

 

[drothgery]

4E is to 3E as 2E was to 1E.


Yes, I think that's about right.

I'd say it's more like 4eOD&D (based entirely on what I've read -- which doens't include the 1e rulebooks; I never actually played 1e or OD&D). 2e was the '3.5' of 1e, mostly minor rule tweaks and codifying things around the margins. Whereas 1e was a very different game from OD&D though it had very similar underpinnings.