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

[Mallus]

Irony.

Nope. Ironic double coding.

 

[Shroomy]

Was the marshal from the Book of Nine Swords? I know I played a White Raven x before once (for only one or two sessions) and it wasn't unbalanced IMO. However, it was still based around magic.

The marshall appeared in the Miniatures Handbook, but didn't get much support beyond that splatbook. In some respects, it is a progenitor of the warlord class, since if you described it in 4e terms it would be a martial leader. Its main schtick, beyond the ability to get a super high Diplomacy score from the get go (seriously, my 2nd level marshall had a +14 or +15 Diplomacy score), were its aura abilities which gave specific benefits to any allies who could see or hear you. I never really got a chance to play my character, but I kind of liked the class, at least conceptually. From the actual play experiences that I've read, the word was that it was somewhat underpowered.

 

[Lurks-no-More]

Reworking the game was definitely needed.

 

[firesnakearies]

Yay! The majority agrees with me. This is a feeling I am unaccustomed to...

 

[mmadsen]

I think a 4th was needed, but not this one.

Agreed.

One that adhered more closely to D&D rather than Star Wars.

Why would you say that? I would expect a system that did Star Wars well to do most fantasy well. (Haven't people here used Star Wars as their "D&D"?)

 

[Pinotage]

I didn't.

Allow me to rephrase my original point.

If you played 3e/3.5e for any significant amount of time, you likely enjoyed it for a good proportion of said time. If you didn't like it after playing it for a short time, that's fine, but if you didn't like it and played it for years - why punish yourself.

The point is that people who spent years playing 3e/3.5e very likely enjoyed it for a good proportion of the time they played it, or were otherwise succers for some form of masochistic punishment if they played it and didn't like it.

 

[justanobody]

Why would you say that? I would expect a system that did Star Wars well to do most fantasy well. (Haven't people here used Star Wars as their "D&D"?)

The powers feel kinda like Jedi mind tricks and wonky stuff like that. I don't like psionics, so the oddity of the powers is where that comes from combined with Star Wars being the testing ground for 4th edition.

The two should not play the same way for me. They should be independent systems.

 

[Stalker0]

There was only one change that I felt was "required" for 3rd edition, and that was the problems with high level play. My DM in most of his campaigns had an implicit "level cap" around 9th-10th level because he thoroughly did not enjoy the work and pains of high level gaming.

However, that is not a single change, that is the result of a whole host of 3rd edition mechanics. You can't just flip a switch and fix that problem, you have to change a lot of factors to make that work.

So I guess ultimately the question is, "could you just tweak 3e and make that work?" I don't know, I've never tried. I think E6 fixed the problem with high level play...in that you never get there, but that's a solid variant. But I've never seen mods or tweaks to the system that really fixed the high level issues, and from I've seen of pathfinder its not shaping up to fix those either.