D&D (2024) What is "compatible"?

[Krachek]

We got two cases in DnD history.
3 to 3.5 not compatible.
4Ed then 4ed essential, fully compatible.

For now is a marketing announce.
But I guess it’s really straight forward to rebuild the classes and keep them compatible as the 4ed Essential. Clean up races, feats, spells, monsters, magic items, can be done with 100% compatibility. For resting they can rebuild classes and not using short rest features, they will become pretty much like actual rogue, and be 100% compatible. They won’t touch skills, action, reaction, possibly use less bonus action.

For sure we gonna have a lot of UA and survey on the subject.

 

[TerraDave]

So they rewrite the PHB keeping the broad power levels of characters the same, and core rules the same. All the classes and races stay. So compatible.

But they spend years making it better. One implication is that stuff from other sources may be "compatible", but new material is "better".

Whatever that means.

 

[Parmandur]

So they rewrite the PHB keeping the broad power levels of characters the same, and core rules the same. All the classes and races stay. So compatible.

But they spend years making it better. One implication is that stuff from other sources may be "compatible", but new material is "better".

Whatever that means.

To be honest, it's probably more about refraining issues like Race than game balance. Also, based on how they are talking, a radical overhaul of the DMG advice and MM layout based on the past many years of feedback. The PHB might be the least changed portion, in the end

 

[Malmuria]

From reading/listening to reviews of Tasha's, it seems like it increases the power level of subclasses significantly, so that a PHB and Tasha's characters would not fit well in the same party. Is this the case, for those of you who have played with those rules? It seems that powercreep make editions somewhat not compatible with themselves, because while everything might use the same underlying structure, the amount of options make the play experience very uneven.

Reading over Tasha's, I also wonder if there is only so much one can do with exception based design. The subclass abilities and options strike me as overly fiddly and complicated, and make it so there is a lot more to track (per rest abilities, temporary hp, etc). There seems to be an attempt to fill out the action economy for each class, so that there is constantly uses for bonus actions and reactions and pet actions. This is not from play experience, however.

 

[TerraDave]

To be honest, it's probably more about refraining issues like Race than game balance. Also, based on how they are talking, a radical overhaul of the DMG advice and MM layout based on the past many years of feedback. The PHB might be the least changed portion, in the end

Could be. But they have done on all these surveys, and are spending years on it. They are probably going to do something,

 

[Parmandur]

Could be. But they have done on all these surveys, and are spending years on it. They are probably going to do something,

Yes, buy the modular, exception based design allows them to retool the feel of an option, without necessarily being out of balance in their spreadsheets.

 

[Mistwell]

I think it means you can use an old PC or an old Monster at the same table as a new PC or a new Monster. So you could have a combat which involves an old version of a Githzari, and a new version fo the Githzari, and it will all work fine. Similarly, you could have a PC with the old version of a Champion and a PC with the new version of the Champion. They might not all be as balanced as each other, but they will all still function OK as they're all based on the same basic rules behind them.

 

[TerraDave]

From reading/listening to reviews of Tasha's, it seems like it increases the power level of subclasses significantly, so that a PHB and Tasha's characters would not fit well in the same party. Is this the case, for those of you who have played with those rules? It seems that powercreep make editions somewhat not compatible with themselves, because while everything might use the same underlying structure, the amount of options make the play experience very uneven.

Reading over Tasha's, I also wonder if there is only so much one can do with exception based design. The subclass abilities and options strike me as overly fiddly and complicated, and make it so there is a lot more to track (per rest abilities, temporary hp, etc). There seems to be an attempt to fill out the action economy for each class, so that there is constantly uses for bonus actions and reactions and pet actions. This is not from play experience, however.

These are classic issues with player supplements. (You can even go back to the original barbarian or cavalier, and don't get me started on 2e) Then a new edition comes and cleans everything up, until it gets all messy again,

Now we getting that while the supplements are still out there. One possibility is just that a very solid ranger, a better elemental monk, etc, etc, will just make the supplements redundant for a lot of players. Until new supplements come along.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Back in the day, we freely mixed and matched stuff from 1e and 2e, so I'd consider that level of difference to be "fully compatible".

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I still think it's compatible if a CR 14 monster becomes a CR 20 monster.