Was there a real need for a fourth ed.? Or would tweaking 3.5 have done it for you?

[Glyfair]

I think 4e was warranted and justified; reselling 3.75 as 4e wouldn't have cut it for most of the RPG community.

Before 4E was announced, Chris Pramas made some comments about a potential 4th edition. He stated at the time that if it was a "3.75" it would have been a failure. If they were going to do a 4th edition then it needed to be an evolution of the game and not just some tweaks here and there. I agreed then and I agree now.

Was a 4th edition needed? In my opinion, yes. 3E had gotten long in the tooth and the flaws were a source of constant discussion and complaining. I had become very frustrated with the flaws of the system, and the flaws were becoming more apparent in books that were being released for the system (from such things as WotC's Tome of Battle and the Paizo adventure paths). While we could quibble about whether the timing was exactly correct, it was about time.

Now, there is certainly a lot of room to discuss whether 4E was the proper way to handle a new system, I am sure that an evolution was needed. 4E certainly is that.

 

[WalterKovacs]

I played tons of 3.5, only really had 1 campaign of 2e and was pretty ignorant of the rules for it. 3.5 I dove in headfirst, picking up tons of splat books and wanting to do lots of cool things.

What ended up happening?

Had a high level game that was fun, but when it ended the group didn't really meet up anymore.

Had another game that went to pretty good levels but eventually got rebooted because it got to a level where the PCs were uber powerful [i.e. we made it to the top end of the sweet spot].

Then there were the "start at level 1" games ... none of those games EVER got us to the sweet spot, we always gave up before then ... having the option of doing. So the idea of the sweet spot when I started hearing about it, was definitely in my mind.

I liked parts of 3.5, but I'm really enjoying 4e. With the ammount of stuff in 3.5 ... any "update" would have been a reboot anyway, and I'm not sure how many people would wait for a 3.75 version of Complete Arcane to come out with the new and improved warlock and pay for the same book again, to get most of the same stuff with slight improvements.

3.75 would still have some of the same problems as 4e in terms of eliminating tons of options by going back. It would then be covering all the same ground in basically the same way but with less "fix the earlier stuff" content in splat books ... well, to start anyway.

Also if they were going to do a new edition ... making it significantly different was the way to go. A minor improvement over 3.5 would beg the question... is the improvement worth rebuying all the 3.5 books you already know? A lot of people say that 4e is a different game ... and it is. 2e and 3e are also very different games. I think that quite a few people would be insulted if someone tried to sell you a game you already own.

 

[Drkfathr1]

I guess it depends on your definition of tweak vs. re-write. I voted tweak, and when 4E was announced I was hoping it was going to be more like the Saga Edition of Star Wars. To me, that would have still just been a tweak, albeit a fairly large one. I would still have considered it a 3.X game.

Even though 4E seems like a pretty good game so far, I, and my players feel it went too far in some areas.

 

[Wisdom Penalty]

One of the things I would have liked from a fourth edition is the options & fluff of 3.5 with the speed of 1E.

[off-topic]
I agree with you, David, on the things I wanted to see in 4e. I also agree that the "options & fluff" isn't there, but I really think the "speed of 1E" is.

While I understand every group is different, we fly around the table during combat in 4e. I have 7 PCs, sometimes 8 PCs, and the length of a single round of 4e combat is a fraction - and I do mean 'a fraction' - of what it used to be.

There are certainly things I dislike about 4e, but significantly increasing the speed of gameplay, IMO, is one of its strongest points.

WP
[/off-top]

 

[thecasualoblivion]

[off-topic]
I agree with you, David, on the things I wanted to see in 4e. I also agree that the "options & fluff" isn't there, but I really think the "speed of 1E" is.

While I understand every group is different, we fly around the table during combat in 4e. I have 7 PCs, sometimes 8 PCs, and the length of a single round of 4e combat is a fraction - and I do mean 'a fraction' - of what it used to be.

There are certainly things I dislike about 4e, but significantly increasing the speed of gameplay, IMO, is one of its strongest points.

WP
[/off-top]

This is weird, but I actually have found the opposite to be true. Combat is much faster paced, and 45 minute rounds are a thing of the past, but on the whole the length of the entire combat has only been lessened by a small degree. On the other hand, me and my gaming group haven't been unsatisfied with the options available. Of course, more is better and there are those who truly miss Bards and Druids, but to us 4E as it stands has enough. Fluff, to us, has been an improvement in 4E.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

My personal take is that there was a strong need for just over half of the changes to 4E. The powers and the healing surges, which two seem to generate the most ire, could have been done in other ways

Interesting. While I dislike powers quite a bit, I actually like the concept behind healing surges. (My beef with healing surges, and granted it's a fairly big one, is that 4E no longer has injuries with any potential to last longer than an extended rest.)

but a lot of the other changes, to monsters, to conditions, defenses, reining in the math, the battlemap simplifications in movement, etc. were all to my eyes fairly important changes.

From my experience, 4E didn't fix conditions. If anything, it made them more niggling and more numerous. And the idea that non-Euclidean movement "simplification" was somehow needed, much less desirable, boggles my mind.

I picked "3.5 tweaking," but the truth is that I would have been okay with fairly major alterations. (And I'm getting seriously annoyed with the Pathfinder designer's apparent desire to keep tacking on additional rules subsystems, if people think of that as tweaking.) I'm just not okay with the way 4E made those fairly major alterations.

 

[Wisdom Penalty]

This is weird, but I actually have found the opposite to be true. Combat is much faster paced, and 45 minute rounds are a thing of the past, but on the whole the length of the entire combat has only been lessened by a small degree.

Good points. What I meant was that we fly around the table taking turns (i.e., each PCs turn comes up much more quickly), but the overall real time requirement of an encounter is probably only a 10-20% improvement or the time requirement for a 3.5E round.

This is due, of course, to the fact that a 3.5E combat could be finished in 2-4 rounds on average, and 4E combats generally last significantly longer in terms of number of rounds. (Not saying one is better than the other.)

WP

 

[IanArgent]

Interesting. While I dislike powers quite a bit, I actually like the concept behind healing surges. (My beef with healing surges, and granted it's a fairly big one, is that 4E no longer has injuries with any potential to last longer than an extended rest.)

Use the disease track mechanic.

 

[JeffB]

Haven't read the other posts but IMO, D&D needed big changes- while 4E is not perfect, I like it quite a bit.

My motto has become "anything but 3, for D&D" (though ginormous thanks to Ryan Dancey for the OGL/SRD! )

 

[DaveMage]

Good points. What I meant was that we fly around the table taking turns (i.e., each PCs turn comes up much more quickly), but the overall real time requirement of an encounter is probably only a 10-20% improvement or the time requirement for a 3.5E round.

This is due, of course, to the fact that a 3.5E combat could be finished in 2-4 rounds on average, and 4E combats generally last significantly longer in terms of number of rounds. (Not saying one is better than the other.)

WP

The reports I've been hearing about 4E is that indeed rounds are much faster, but overall combat time is the same - and sometimes longer (especially the reported 4E grind that can apparently occur when all the daily/encounter powers have been spent for both sides and it's down to whittling away hit points).

With 1E, there were times when one could get through an entire adventure module in a 5-6 hour session. In 3E/4E, it takes 5-6 SESSIONS to get through an adventure.

That's the speed I'm talking about.