D&D (2024) What would change for you if Wizards started calling it 6E?

[mamba]

Considering WotC's track record with over- and under-powered archetypes and spells, and with half-baked rules, it makes a lot more sense to accept there could be problems right now then just assume everything is going to be perfect.

this has nothing to do with under- or overpowered, only with how easy it is to use 2014 subclasses in 2024. So far that looks pretty straightforward, and I have no reason to believe that it will become less so

I am not saying there will be no issues whatsoever, but your concern seems way overblown.

So far you have nothing but a vague feeling, you will need more to convince me, so I suggest we revisit that once the 2024 books are out. Until then you have nothing, as you yourself said.

We won't know until the books come out.

I am not sure why this is enough to convince you, it sure isn’t enough to convince me.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Or

4) Group mixes both '14 and '24 for whatever reason, it turns out the rules aren't actually as compatible as they're supposed to be. We won't know until the books come out.

5) Some players only want to play with one version and not the other, causing friction with other players who want to play with the other one or who want to combine them. As an example, people who don't mind playing '14 because they already have the books but are refusing to have anything to do with any new WotC books.

6) Group plays with one version, except for that one guy who didn't get the message and is using the other version and now is super-confused. And since there's no difference in the name and, lets face it, most people aren't going to care about the dates printed in the book because they don't hyperfocus on the game like we forum-dwellers do, they may not even realize how many differences there are, beyond the book's cover.

7) Group goes through the books and decide which version of any particular thing they're going to use (use '14 warlock but '24 warlock archetype, and one spell uses the '14 version while another spell uses the '24 version), creating, as I said, a confusing Frankenstein version of the game that needs to be referred to each time a new PC is created. When the playtests first came out, my group wasn't interested in getting the new version but we had found a few elements we were going to use, like giving '14 rangers expertise in a skill, while ignoring the rest of the '24 ranger. I have to assume that there are going to be other tables who are like this as well, not even taking entire classes or archetypes but fractions of them.

8) the one guy who knows the difference exactly but wants to exploit something by combining both rule sets.

I am pretty sure, people will get the difference easily.

Magic has a lot of editions.

Revised
3rd edition
4th edition

and the rule set has updated regularily. People still easily can use interrupts from older editions by just remembering that they are now instants.

Also some old cards are worth looking at again, because damage is resolved as every other effect.

A bit confusing? Maybe. Should wizard not update rules? They should.

Is it the same game? Yes. Editions in magic are way less of a change as in d&d.

So why is everyone set on putting a number on it, when it bears not a lot of meaning. Wizards is referring to it as revised 5e. Can't people in a group easily communicate by referring to the new set of rules as revised rule set?

 

[Faolyn]

this has nothing to do with under- or overpowered, only with how easy it is to use 2014 subclasses in 2024. So far that looks pretty straightforward, and I have no reason to believe that it will become less so

What it has to do with under- or -overpowered-ness is that WotC is not necessarily all that good at tuning things well or including everything they need to include (see: Spelljammer's ship combat rules, or lack thereof). I see no reason to think that they're going to be magically better with this supposedly-backwards-compatible not-edition they're putting out.

I am not saying there will be no issues whatsoever, but your concern seems way overblown.

Have you ever read any post by any D&D player who gets into the rules nuances? Like, ever? Heck, look at all the vitriol that's been spilled on this forum by WotC officially getting rid of racial ASIs in MPMM. Some people absolutely hate it, causing multiple threads, each many hundreds of pages, to be created and later closed by the mods due to the vitriol. And that's just one little thing that doesn't even prevent the player from putting their floating ASIs in the traditional attributes! And you think a book full of these little changes, that can't be unchanged without switching books, isn't going to cause problems?

I mean, '14 could turn out to be great. No major issues whatsoever. Which brings me back to my initial post to this thread: by making it not-5.5e/6e/5e Essentials, they're making it so I, and people like me, have no reason to buy it whatsoever (it's not different enough to be worth the money). And while that's fine--it doesn't have to be marketed to me, it's great that it's there for new players--what it means is that if I, or someone like me, gets into a game with someone who did buy the new books, things are going to be confusing. And not in a way that's going to be fun. If it were my table, we'd gladly give each other the necessary rules, or show each other the books if we were gaming in-person. But there are a lot of tables where that's not the case. And, as I've mentioned, a lot of people who join groups with people they don't know and are expected to come into the game with a fully-fledged character.

One game I'm in has two warlocks in it. Imagine if one is from '14 and one is from '24. One of those warlocks would be probably quite underpowered and feeling left out. And I imagine that other classes have similar issues. A '24 ranger is going to be better with ranger knowledge than a '14 ranger will be.

Which means that the best way to do it might very well be to only allow one set of PHBs at the table--which means that some people will have wasted money, which means that these '24 books might as well be a new edition. Except they're not, because they're not different enough to be called that.

So far you have nothing but a vague feeling, you will need more to convince me, so I suggest we revisit that once the 2024 books are out. Until then you have nothing, as you yourself said.

Well, so far all you have is a vague feeling that everything is going to turn out all right. So I don't know why my vague feeling--backed by the way WotC's books have historically been written--is one to be dismissed.

 

[TwoSix]

What it has to do with under- or -overpowered-ness is that WotC is not necessarily all that good at tuning things well or including everything they need to include (see: Spelljammer's ship combat rules, or lack thereof). I see no reason to think that they're going to be magically better with this supposedly-backwards-compatible not-edition they're putting out.

I mean, if you don't trust them to put out good material, then it's really sort of irrelevant what they publish, right? As the only correct answer would be for them to not publish anything at all as they aren't actually good at publishing game material?

I mean, '14 could turn out to be great. No major issues whatsoever. Which brings me back to my initial post to this thread: by making it not-5.5e/6e/5e Essentials, they're making it so I, and people like me, have no reason to buy it whatsoever (it's not different enough to be worth the money). And while that's fine--it doesn't have to be marketed to me, it's great that it's there for new players--what it means is that if I, or someone like me, gets into a game with someone who did buy the new books, things are going to be confusing. And not in a way that's going to be fun. If it were my table, we'd gladly give each other the necessary rules, or show each other the books if we were gaming in-person. But there are a lot of tables where that's not the case. And, as I've mentioned, a lot of people who join groups with people they don't know and are expected to come into the game with a fully-fledged character.

While there are a lot of different talking points in this thread, I feel like a major point of contention is how confusing it is to integrate two compatible books in the same campaign.

My own frame of reference is that I've used lots of 3pp in my games, including many "revised" classes, and never seen an issue that wasn't resolved with a few second of conversation. So I lack an understanding as to how someone using a 2014 warlock and a 2024 warlock, as an example, in the same game could possibly cause a problem. If someone feels underpowered, then just switch to the warlock version they like better!

 

[mamba]

Well, so far all you have is a vague feeling that everything is going to turn out all right. So I don't know why my vague feeling--backed by the way WotC's books have historically been written--is one to be dismissed.

That is simple, because you not once backed up your opinion with anything other than more opinion. And as the saying goes ‘that which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence’

I on the other hand did back my claims up, so what is your excuse? I for example have the playtests to back me up when it comes to how easily 2014 and 2024 integrate, as I mentioned earlier too, something you do not have. So I do not just have a vague feeling… but all that ever happens is that that point gets ignored and you just reiterate what you said before.

This is tiring, I made my point, you ‘made’ yours, no one is convinced by the other, as always. No need to continue this.

Is this forum always like this during an edition change? All this pointless bickering is tiring

 

[Faolyn]

My own frame of reference is that I've used lots of 3pp in my games, including many "revised" classes, and never seen an issue that wasn't resolved with a few second of conversation. So I lack an understanding as to how someone using a 2014 warlock and a 2024 warlock, as an example, in the same game could possibly cause a problem. If someone feels underpowered, then just switch to the warlock version they like better!

Presumably all that 3pp you use was built for the '14 game, which is different than using materials for two similar-but-different games.

 

[TwoSix]

Presumably all that 3pp you use was built for the '14 game, which is different than using materials for two similar-but-different games.

I've run a game with a PHB druid and a revised version of the druid in the same game. It wasn't complicated.

 

[Shardstone]

I think it's been explained: right now, the naming can be bit confusing, especially since the books are supposed to be mostly but not entirely similar and you can supposedly use them both at the same time--but how practical will that actually be? You know there's going to be people comparing every single thing in the books, trying to find out which version is "best," and that's going to lead to some Frankenstein characters.

If WotC straight-up said that this was 6e (or 5.5, or 5e Essentials, or anything like that), it would be less confusion because people can easily compartmentalize the books that way, even if 6e and 5e were compatible in the way that 2e and 1e were compatible).

Sounds like the very definition of a first world problem.

 

[Faolyn]

Sounds like the very definition of a first world problem.

We're talking about games. Of course it's a first world problem.

 

[tetrasodium]

Sounds like the very definition of a first world problem.

And that makes the player behavior described in the post you quoted into a thing that GMs should be on the hook of juggling for wotc why exactly?