RPG Evolution: The Half-Edition Shuffle

The next edition of Dungeons & Dragons is finally on the horizon, but it's not here just yet. So when do publishers makes the shift?

A Historical Model​

D&D has been through several editions in recent memory, but few match the recent transition between two compatible editions. Although backwards compatibility is often promised, it's rarely delivered. And there's also the consideration of the thousands of small press publishers created through the Open Game License movement, which didn't exist before Third Edition. Of all the edition shifts, the 3.0 to 3.5 transition seems closest to what D&D is going through right now, so it's a good place to start this thought experiment.

Compatible, Sort Of​

Fifth Edition's transition to Sixth involves tweaks to the game. Those tweaks seemed largely cosmetic, at first. With the release of Mordenkainen's Monsters of the Multiverse, it's clear that the spellcasting section of monsters is going to be significantly changed. In short, while players may find their characters compatible with the latest edition of D&D, DMs may find their monsters aren't. And that's a problem for publishers. But mechanically, all of these issues can be addressed. What really matters is what customers think. And that's often shaped by branding.

What a Half-Edition Means​

The transition between Third Edition and 3.5 was more significant than many publishers were expecting. You can see a list on RPG Stack Exchange, which shows just how much the new edition changed the game.

This did not go unnoticed by consumers. The OGL movement was still developing but it caught many publishers by surprise, including the company I wrote for at the time, Monkeygod Publishing (they're no longer in business). When we released my hardcover book Frost & Fur, the only identifier was the D20 System logo. Little did we know that it was imperative to identify the book as 3.5-compatible (which it was), because stores wouldn't carry it and consumers wouldn't buy it if it wasn't.

There wasn't nearly as much communication from WIzards of the Coast back then as to how to prepare for the edition change, much less columns from the company explaining their strategy. More communication about the upcoming edition may mitigate its impact on third-party publishers.

Between the DM's Guild and DriveThruRPG, there is now an ecosystem that can more readily update itself without taking up shelf space or clogging up inventory. Digital products can be changed, covers can be rebranded, and newsletters can announce the update. Wizards of the Coast has also given considerable lead time on the coming changes by announcing the edition well in advance and updating books piecemeal so developers can see what changed. But there's still one important piece of the puzzle.

What Do Consumers Think?​

One of the ongoing concerns for supporting publishers of Third Edition was how the Open Game License would be updated and, at least as important, how to identify that compatibility.

Updating the OGL enables publishers to ensure their products are compatible. The OGL doesn't specify stat block structure, so it may not even be necessary to update the license much if at all.

Identifying compatibility will be even more critical. At some point, publishers will start identifying their products as Sixth Edition compatible. And that will happen when consumers shift their spending habits.

The Changeover​

But first, WOTC has to declare that Sixth Edition has officially arrived. Wizards was hesitant to put a number on Fifth Edition, preferring instead to indicate it was simply D&D to potentially head off edition controversy. Failure to do that in a timely fashion (or worse, failure to recognize a new edition at all and continue calling it Fifth Edition) will cause potential confusion in the marketplace, with both consumers and publishers.

At some point the tide will turn and consumers will expect compatibility with the new edition. That change is complicated by the fact that Sixth Edition should be largely compatible with Fifth Edition. But only consumers can decide that for sure; if they don't feel it is, there will be a sharp drop off in Fifth Edition buying habits. For smaller publishers, they'll stay close to the market to determine when that shift is happening and how to transition smoothly without harming their business model.

Getting it right can be lucrative. Getting it wrong can sink a company. The market convulsed massively when 3.5 came out, wiping out publishers and game store stock that were unprepared for the change. Here's hoping with enough foresight and planning, we don't have a repeat of the 3.0 transition.

 

[Jer]

IMO the issues such people had with 4e weren’t about presentation. Such assertions dismiss their actual stated issues.

I disagree that this is entirely true - as I said a lot of 4e mechanics that people complained about ended up in 5e with a different presentation. There are far fewer complaints about them in 5e because they're presented in a way that is more compatible with how people view the game.

The power level reduction, for example - that was always a huge issue that people complained about. And the problem turned out not to be "you're adding the same thing to everyone every level" but "you're making the characters too powerful too quickly". Changing it from a +1/2 level to +1/4 level ends up with the same mechanic, but a slower power curve giving it a different presentation than what 4e had.

 

[Oofta]

IMO the issues such people had with 4e weren’t about presentation. Such assertions dismiss their actual stated issues.

Yeah, I'd explain why I burned out on 4E even though I played it a ton and thought it had some good ideas but that only leads to thread wars with people explaining why my opinion is dead wrong and I'm lying. Or something.

 

[Jer]

Yeah, I'd explain why I burned out on 4E even though I played it a ton and thought it had some good ideas but that only leads to thread wars with people explaining why my opinion is dead wrong and I'm lying. Or something.

This is part of why I didn't ever bother talking about how similar 5e was to 4e for 5-6 years after 5e dropped. Too many folks on either side of that divide who will argue about it. I still will mostly just say my piece and then go quiet again if people really want to fight about it.

 

[ctorus]

They did do that - it's called 5e. They just threw out even more than 13th age did. If they'd included a more tactical engine for the game the similarities would be more obvious but the core game for 5e has a lot more in common with the core of 4e than of any other edition prior to it. The presentation of 5e is much more like 3e - had they released 4e with a presentation format more like 5e it probably would have had less pushback (the math on the first MM and the GSL likely would have still killed a lot of interest IMO tho).

ducks and runs for cover

People often say that and I've seen 5e described as a partial evolution of 4e. For me as a 4e player it feels like far more was thrown out than kept.

I realise they didn't literally go back to 3e but they fundamentally changed (and reverted) several things beyond the tactical engine, such as 4e's gamist design and presentation of powers and monsters; the scale of attributes and bonuses relative to dice variance; the function of traps and diseases.. Also the presentation is more than just superficial, it's integral to how 4e works: it's focused on being a game not a faux in-world description.

Of course 6e won't be anything like such a dramatic change, partly because what they have now learned is that the wider RPG market isn't actually that bothered about game rules. Most people don't learn them anyway, and you hardly even need rules if what you want to do is ape the play style demonstrated by Critical Role etc.

 

[overgeeked]

People often say that and I've seen 5e described as a partial evolution of 4e. For me as a 4e player it feels like far more was thrown out than kept.

I realise they didn't literally go back to 3e but they fundamentally changed (and reverted) several things beyond the tactical engine, such as 4e's gamist design and presentation of powers and monsters; the scale of attributes and bonuses relative to dice variance; the function of traps and diseases.. Also the presentation is more than just superficial, it's integral to how 4e works: it's focused on being a game not a faux in-world description.

Yeah, for some reason that change to 5E really bugs me. That it's trying to somehow not be game rules despite, you know, being game rules. The natural language approach drives me nuts.

Of course 6e won't be anything like such a dramatic change, partly because what they have now learned is that the wider RPG market isn't actually that bothered about game rules. Most people don't learn them anyway, and you hardly even need rules if what you want to do is ape the play style demonstrated by Critical Role etc.

Which is weird considering Critical Role runs straight 5E with a few house rules, most notably dropping Inspiration, which is the most story-game mechanic D&D's ever had.

 

[Voadam]

It worked then - they were trying to package up their mechanics in a 3e framework to get people to reconsider the game.

But if you look from where Essentials had the game to where 5e did (instead of the 4e core rules) you see a lot more similarities than differences in how the class mechanics work EXCEPT in presentation. Essentials weakened the AEDU idea across classes and had classes that had only at-will/encounter powers.

I disagree.

The vancian caster non-caster mechanical divide in 5e seems more similar to 3e than to 4e essentials to me.

Spell slot resource mechanics in 5e seem a lot more 3e than 4e essentials to me.

A lot of the differences you indicate come from halving the power curve - the so-called "bounded accuracy" which means that the math for 5e works out to where a 20th level character in 5e has "roughly" the bonuses for a 10th level character in 4e.

That seems to have little bearing on any of the issues I brought up.

Starting hp, monster design, lack of movement powers.

And actually that math isn't even quite correct because 1st level 5e characters start at a lower power level than 4e characters did. They also separated out AC defense and made them NOT improve directly with level. That changes the needs for things like minions because you don't need to explicitly call them out to get them - throw a squad of low AC 5 hp monsters at a 5th level party and you get minions. You needed explicit minion rules in 4e because of the power scale and because AC progressed at the same rate as attack bonuses. Untying AC from level means that you can throw a "level 1" monster (in 4e parlance) at a 5th level party and it will act like a minion - dying quickly but still potentially able to do some damage. A level 1 monster in 4e terms would be likely to miss their attacks every time, which is why you needed the scaled up minions with more attack bonus but not so much in the hp department.

Bounded accuracy applied to 3e seems mechanically to be closer to 5e than bounded accuracy 4e minions would be.

To replicate a 5e CR 7 monster going against 15th level parties I think it would be closer to a bounded accuracy 3e CR 7 monster than a bounded accuracy 4e level 15 minion.

And the legendary and solo actions for monsters come squarely out of 4e monster design - one of the best parts of the 5e MM as a DM IMO.

Sure, as I said that part seems 4eish.

They also hid the AEDU mechanics better in natural language text and put wizard superiority back into the game and that second part is a nod to 3e, but the classes are designed much in a daily/short-rest/at-will mechanic selection than folks think (in fact most of the pushback on short rest abilities tends to be because of how they kept hat format but changed the resting mechanics without considering what that meant for the rest of the game).

I think you are significantly discounting the mechanical differences between casters and non-casters in 5e.

The difference in 4e between a cleric, a bard, and a warlord are mostly aesthetic flavor and some different specific mechanical implementations of doing the same general effects for the same effective healer and buffer role.

In 3e and 5e it is hard to imagine a martial non-caster character mechanically doing the same healer buffer role as the bard or cleric.

The various subclasses are designed for specific combat roles if you play with people who optimize - it's just not as noticable because they don't tell you outright how the classes are "supposed" to be played and so you have the 3e thrill of discovering an optimal build that the designers hid there instead of the 4e experience of having the designers not hide it in the first place.

I would not say the 5e subclasses are a place they put defined 4e defender, striker, controller, leader roles so that 5e is closer to 4e than 3e.

The 5e full classes still mostly have these 4e combat role functions, same as in 3e and AD&D and Basic, but I would say they are not designed at core to mechanically hit those combat roles the way 4e was.

Also losing the tactical system means its less noticable that certain classes are playing certain roles (also the misguided attempt to create a "Controller" role for the wizard class was dropped - that role never made sense. The Wizard should have been a half Support/half Striker role but they hadn't gotten the idea of half roles when the edition dropped yet).

Saving throws just move back from fixed bonus to variable bonus and the math is scaled down to 5e levels. Mathematically there's not a real difference between having 10+1/4 level Fortitude Defense vs. rolling a d20 + 1/4 CON defense. It's swingier and might make for a more exciting game feel to make a save rather than have a defense but the explicit tying of your saving throws to the same bonus progression regardless of the type of save is absolutely a 4e thing, not a 3e thing where every save had its own progression. (Also you can see the effect of the changes of scale and the lower power level by the fact that they made it 8+prof bonus for saves instead of 10).

In 5e some saves get better faster than others (some have advancing proficiency bonus, some don't). The difference in saves grows as the character levels.

In 3e some saves get better faster than others. The difference in saves grows as the character levels.

In 4e all defenses get better at the same rate. The difference in defenses does not grow as the character levels.

(Also to reveal my bias - IMO 5e saving throws are the single worst aspect to the entire game. Expanding from 3 saving throws to 6 saving throws was a bad move and then having skill checks as well as saving throws for many things makes for annoying rules calls. If anything were to lead me to ask for a 6th edition it would be to remove ability score saving throws from the game).

Everyone having the same attack bonus of +1/4 level +1 feels a lot more like 4e's +1/2 level attack bonus than 3e's variable bonsues across classes as well.

As I said, I think this is debatable. Does 5e's everyone makes physical attacks at the same proficiency bonuses but a different formula than save attacks feel closer to 4e's everyone makes the same formula attacks against everything, or closer to 3e's AC attacks and save attacks are different.

 

[FrogReaver]

I disagree that this is entirely true - as I said a lot of 4e mechanics that people complained about ended up in 5e with a different presentation. There are far fewer complaints about them in 5e because they're presented in a way that is more compatible with how people view the game.

I’m not saying presentation wasn’t also an issue for some people. But suggesting it’s the primary issue is dismissive to the countless people saying it wasn’t their issue.

The power level reduction, for example - that was always a huge issue that people complained about. And the problem turned out not to be "you're adding the same thing to everyone every level" but "you're making the characters too powerful too quickly". Changing it from a +1/2 level to +1/4 level ends up with the same mechanic, but a slower power curve giving it a different presentation than what 4e had.

As an example. Someone may dislike running but be perfectly fine with a brisk walk or a slow jog. Both activities are very similar, the primary differences being the speed and strain on the body.

Going from a treadmill of 1/2 level + 1/4 level magic item bonuses to a treadmill of 1/4 level is much like the difference in running vs brisk walking or slow jogging. Also 5e broke up the treadmill aspect even more by making no magic item assumptions.

So while superficially one can claim ‘that’s the same’, IMO on further inspection it’s not actually the same. There’s a difference in underlying substance and not just the outer coat of paint.

 

[tetrasodium]

I disagree.

The vancian caster non-caster mechanical divide in 5e seems more similar to 3e than to 4e essentials to me.

Spell slot resource mechanics in 5e seem a lot more 3e than 4e essentials to me.

That seems to have little bearing on any of the issues I brought up.

Starting hp, monster design, lack of movement powers.

Bounded accuracy applied to 3e seems mechanically to be closer to 5e than bounded accuracy 4e minions would be.

To replicate a 5e CR 7 monster going against 15th level parties I think it would be closer to a bounded accuracy 3e CR 7 monster than a bounded accuracy 4e level 15 minion.


Sure, as I said that part seems 4eish.


I think you are significantly discounting the mechanical differences between casters and non-casters in 5e.

The difference in 4e between a cleric, a bard, and a warlord are mostly aesthetic flavor and some different specific mechanical implementations of doing the same general effects for the same effective healer and buffer role.

In 3e and 5e it is hard to imagine a martial non-caster character mechanically doing the same healer buffer role as the bard or cleric.



I would not say the 5e subclasses are a place they put defined 4e defender, striker, controller, leader roles so that 5e is closer to 4e than 3e.

The 5e full classes still mostly have these 4e combat role functions, same as in 3e and AD&D and Basic, but I would say they are not designed at core to mechanically hit those combat roles the way 4e was.

In 5e some saves get better faster than others (some have advancing proficiency bonus, some don't). The difference in saves grows as the character levels.

In 3e some saves get better faster than others. The difference in saves grows as the character levels.

In 4e all defenses get better at the same rate. The difference in defenses does not grow as the character levels.

As I said, I think this is debatable. Does 5e's everyone makes physical attacks at the same proficiency bonuses but a different formula than save attacks feel closer to 4e's everyone makes the same formula attacks against everything, or closer to 3e's AC attacks and save attacks are different.

No I think @Jer is right about going from 3 to 6 saving throws. In another thread there was talk about a big fight with a blue dragon & I looked up the stats to make a point. the gargantuan cr23 ancient blue dragon I found first at the time (alphabetical order) has strength 29(+9) dex10(+0)con27(+8) int 18(+4)wis17(+3)cha21(+5) with such a size and that dumpstat dex alongside an int probably higher than any nonwizard/nonartificer in the party or even a couple of them together you'd expect a dex save spell to have better odds? Not quite because it's proficient in dex & con plus half proficient in wis & charisma saves with these saves con+15 wis+10 cha+12 str +9 dex+7 int+4.

At the end of the day there's no "hmm I think we should target x save" because it rarely if ever makes any meaningful shift in the odds if the spell change is at all less optimal & shy of looking up statblocks in true metagame style there is no longer any way to make educated guesses

By contrast the 3.5 gargantuan cr21 wyrm blue dragon had fort28/reflex20/will25. That might not seem too different but the 5e one has 3x legendary resist a caster can basically do nothing about while the 3.5 one has only SR that only matters against spells affected by SR allowing the caster to invest in spell penetration or choose spells that ignore SR for the fight

 

[Voadam]

No I think @Jer is right about going from 3 to 6 saving throws.

No? The going from 3 to 6 saves was the one point of his I did not address.

It did not seem relevant in whether 5e is closer to 4e or 3e mechanically, both of the old ones had the same three non AC defenses so it seems a point for a different argument.

In another thread there was talk about a big fight with a blue dragon & I looked up the stats to make a point. the gargantuan cr23 ancient blue dragon I found first at the time (alphabetical order) has strength 29(+9) dex10(+0)con27(+8) int 18(+4)wis17(+3)cha21(+5) with such a size and that dumpstat dex alongside an int probably higher than any nonwizard/nonartificer in the party or even a couple of them together you'd expect a dex save spell to have better odds? Not quite because it's proficient in dex & con plus half proficient in wis & charisma saves with these saves con+15 wis+10 cha+12 str +9 dex+7 int+4.

Why dragons have proficiency in dex and not int is an oddity.

However for comparison between 5e and 3.5 we have, Con +15, Wis, +10, Dex +7 to match up to 3e's fortitude, reflex, will.

At the end of the day there's no "hmm I think we should target x save" because it rarely if ever makes any meaningful shift in the odds if the spell change is at all less optimal & shy of looking up statblocks in true metagame style there is no longer any way to make educated guesses

So A big blue dragon has +8 more to save against a con save poisoning over dex save dodging a fireball. That seems significant and matches up to the expectations of big and tough and low dex.

Matching up int save spells to guessing high level int proficiency saves seems the oddity here.

By contrast the 3.5 gargantuan cr21 wyrm blue dragon had fort28/reflex20/will25. That might not seem too different but the 5e one has 3x legendary resist a caster can basically do nothing about while the 3.5 one has only SR that only matters against spells affected by SR allowing the caster to invest in spell penetration or choose spells that ignore SR for the fight

So the 3.5 dragon also has +8 more to save against a fortitude save flesh to stone than a reflex save fireball. Which also matches expectations for the big tough dragon with a low dex.

 

[Neonchameleon]

5e seems a lot more 3e than 4e to me.

Class design with vancian casting and different progressions for powers and subclass abilities seems more 3e than 4e AEDU or 4e unified add on points of paragon paths and epic destinies.

There is not one single class in 5e with Vancian casting. Subclasses being worked into the classes is pure undiluted 4e. Different progressions for powers and abilities were part of Essentials. As for seeming 3e I see no Paragon Paths anywhere.

Classes without designing mechanics for specific combat roles seems more 3e than 4e.

I'm curious which classes those are. Because I'm trying to think of any without specific things like damage mechanics and intended roles.

PC HD and Hp seems straight out of 3e and not 4e.

HD are healing surges and equate to nothing in 3.X. HP are a flat number rather than rolled. Flat hit points per level, a game that really gets started at level 3, and a personal recovery mechanic is 4e with a light coat of 3e paint.

Fewer PC and monster movement powers seem more 3e than 4e.

It's possible to make the claim that it seems more AD&D than 4e. But 3.X was incredibly distinctive with a huge pile of feats, "spell like abilities" dominating everything, monster types overwhelming everything. Meanwhile the monsters (especially the later ones) have a lot of 4e style movement ability and very few of them are wizards with prosthetic foreheads.

And then the movement abilities are there and continuously coming back. Picking a pocket as a bonus/swift/minor action is a power, not a -20 on a skill check. You can move and attack.

Multiclassing seems more 3e than 4e.

What? Vestigial? Although this is an actual place it is.

5e Saving throws seem closer in mechanics to 3e saves expanded out to all stats than to 4e set defences.

There is this - and this makes 5e the worst saving throw system (with 3.X being second worst).

Hit Dice healing between combats with no integration into spells seems more like the optional 3.5 reserve points mechanic than 4e where healing surges were tightly bound up into magical/class power in combat major healing.

It seems like a 4e lite to me. But 4e grew out of 3.5

No explicit minion, elite, solo monster design seems more 3e than 4e. Legendary and lair actions start to come into 4e solo territory a little, but overall monsters seem more 3e to me.

Monster design is a complete and utter rejection of 3.X monster design, thank goodness. There are no special rules for subtypes. There's no looking things up - and you get racial powers like all goblins having a free disengage. It's 4e lite, dropping the tactics while keeping most of the philosophy.

Proficiency bonus on attacks instead of BAB and set save DC is debatable on whether it feels closer to 3e or 4e IMO.

You mean that it's debatable whether it seems more like the literal game that gave you actual proficiency bonus of +2 or +3 for being proficient in your weapon (rather than a penalty for not being proficient) and where everyone scaled at the same rate than the one that had non-proficiency penalties and where different classes had different BAB rates? That's a very short debate.

Skills seem more 4e binary choices than 3e points.

They are.

The vancian caster non-caster mechanical divide in 5e seems more similar to 3e than to 4e essentials to me.

It's not Vancian. It's its own thing.

Starting hp, monster design, lack of movement powers.

Starting HP - when you're intended to start at 3rd level. Monster design is very little to do with 3.X. And there are movement powers there. It's a lite version of 4e - but most monster type has powers and they do not have feats.

Bounded accuracy applied to 3e seems mechanically to be closer to 5e than bounded accuracy 4e minions would be.

That's because 4e minions were a different solution to the problem bounded accuracy tries to solve.

To replicate a 5e CR 7 monster going against 15th level parties I think it would be closer to a bounded accuracy 3e CR 7 monster than a bounded accuracy 4e level 15 minion.

There is no such thing as a "bounded accuracy 3e monster". It doesn't exist. So the 4e minion would be closer than an actual 3e monster - and have the same sort of effect as the 5e monster. Meanwhile 3e has nothing. It's the reason bounded accuracy is needed because it scales so harshly.

I would not say the 5e subclasses are a place they put defined 4e defender, striker, controller, leader roles so that 5e is closer to 4e than 3e.

This looks like word salad to me.

The 5e subclasses were more or less taken straight out of 4e. 3e didn't have them at all. And even when 3e had something that very vaguely resembles subclasses they are far closer to the 4e version with something from powers thrown in. To take an obvious example a 3e illusionist is simply someone who gets to cast a free illusion spell per day but can't cast from a specific school of spells. A 4e and a 5e illusionist both get no more spells than generalist wizards and no spells they can't cast that other wizards can or ones they can that other wizards can't. But they are actually better with illusions than non-illusionists.

And no the subclasses aren't where they put roles. They basically just didn't name the roles and didn't put much in in the way of explicit defender mechanics. A 4e evoker might be a controller on paper - but are a lot more like a striker. Just as they are in 5e except (just as with a lot of the rest of 5e) they realised that a lot of people wanted obfuscated game design reason.

The 5e full classes still mostly have these 4e combat role functions, same as in 3e and AD&D and Basic, but I would say they are not designed at core to mechanically hit those combat roles the way 4e was.

I'd say that they pretty obviously are. And one of the reasons 3.0 had problems and 3.5 didn't fix it is that no one bothered to check what e.g. the monk's role in combat was. (The 1e monk it was based on was a thief with the serial numbers filed off).

In 5e some saves get better faster than others (some have advancing proficiency bonus, some don't). The difference in saves grows as the character levels.

In 3e some saves get better faster than others. The difference in saves grows as the character levels.

In 4e all defenses get better at the same rate. The difference in defenses does not grow as the character levels.

In practice in 4e defences get better at different rates thanks to ability score increases. 3 points over 30 levels is half as fast as 4 points over 20 levels, but it's something. And then there are the feats and whether you have one feat covering all your NADs or one to three separate ones (and the feats also scale with level).

As I said, I think this is debatable. Does 5e's everyone makes physical attacks at the same proficiency bonuses but a different formula than save attacks feel closer to 4e's everyone makes the same formula attacks against everything, or closer to 3e's AC attacks and save attacks are different.

This is one place where 5e throwing 3.X paint on a 4e engine made it less functional.