Which edition change changed the game the most?

[Lanefan]

One thing I find weird and I'd love for someone to explain... are the claims of 3e "HERO'izing" D&D. As I remember it this was exactly the path AD&D was on before WotC took over D&D, it's like everyone is ignoring those Player's Options books that came out for AD&D 2nd edition... if anything was the start of the HERO'izing of AD&D, along with the build mentality, I think it was those books, not 3e. It's one of the reasons I feel 3e didn't diverge away from what D&D was in the version before it as much as 4e did.

"2.5e" may have laid lots of groundwork for 3e but I didn't see any of it; I pretty much stopped buying 2e stuff (other than occasional adventure modules and settings) about 1995. So when I look at 2e as I know it, then at 3e as I know it; I say "yep, that's a pretty big change".

Lan-"and somewhere along the line, mules disappeared"-efan

 

[MerricB]

Lan-"and somewhere along the line, mules disappeared"-efan

Ah... that was Gary's fault.

Cheers!

 

[renau1g]

I'll say 4e. It's my favourite edition, but I found it the largest change. A note though I only went from 2e to 3e to 3.5e to 4e.

 

[Ahnehnois]

As others have said well, you can make essentially the same characters and do essentially the same things regardless of whether you're playing 2e or 3e, the numbers are just different. 3e cleaned up those numbers and made them make more sense, but is basically another version of the earlier game that plays more smoothly.

4e is rife with wild shifts in paradigm that are quite explicit in the rules.

Fighters and mages now use the same power system and have the same attack/save bonuses, where magic had always been a separate system and BAB or THAC0 had previously separated combat ability.

All characters now have daily limitations on power use where previously half of the four classic classes had none and the other two rationalized the arbitrary nature of such limits by calling them 'magic'.

Low-level characters essentially no longer exist with the introduction of at-will powers and increased hit points, and the play style that accompanied low levels is gone.

Monsters are no longer built off the same skeletons as characters, and are designed as 'encounters' more than living creatures.

Movement is expressed in 'squares' instead of real distances, and the powers cause characters to be moved around constantly, almost requiring a battle map.

Numerous changes to individual classes, races, spells or other abilities permeate the game. The base setting had to be completely changed, and existing settings required massive overhauls because the old ones made no sense under the new rules.

Whether the changes are for the better is debatable (and has certainly been debated enough), but it's hard to debate that the changes are massive and fundamental.

 

[pemerton]

Absolutely the 4E.

Lookl at it this way. Take a 10th level fighter, now convert from up one version from the one immediatly before.

In terms of character building, absolutely 4e.

But in terms of how the game is played, 4e doesn't come close to 3e.

I was going to say that character build is not the whole game. You beat me to it.

From my admittedly highly-biased perspective, the change from 2e to 3e took the game focus away from character *play* (fluff) and put it firmly on to character *build* (crunch). System mastery went from being useful to being essential. Powergamers and number-crunchers finally had the D+D they'd always wanted.

I would add - Skills and Powers for 2nd ed AD&D made build-matery pretty important as well.

But yes, I agree the move from play to build has been a big change from the earlier days of the game.

One thing I find weird and I'd love for someone to explain... are the claims of 3e "HERO'izing" D&D. As I remember it this was exactly the path AD&D was on before WotC took over D&D

Agreed, although I personally think it's a bit of an insult to the HERO designers to put them in the same boat as Skills and Powers, which must be one of the worse-designed points-buy systems ever.

 

[pemerton]

Supplement I: Greyhawk.

There is a chasm of difference between the original booklets and what appeared in Supplement I.

I voted AD&D before reading your post. I think you're right, though - the features of AD&D that I had in mind are already there in Greyhawk.

As the only person at this point to have said 2e, I suppose I should explain why. It's the change in the motivation for being an adventurer.

Great post.

 

[pemerton]

Fighters and mages now use the same power system and have the same attack/save bonuses

Just for the record, it's actually not the case that fighters and mages have the same attack bonus.

Fighters have a higher attack bonus with weapons (because they use Weapon powers that are STR based, and have high STR). Magic-users do not (even with daggers and staves, M-Us don't have very good STR, and so don't have very good weaopn attacks).

The converse of the above is true for implement attacks (ie spell casting). Fighters typically aren't so good - and especially won't be good at Wizard attacks, which are INT-based, because few fighters will have very high INT.

One exmample of the practical relevance of this: in my 4e game I routinely have monsters run past the wizard. The wizard in my party is a Tome wizard, and doesn't even carry a weapon. He takes his OAs with his Tome as an improvised attack (+0 prof bonus, +0 STR, +5 level for a total +5 to hit for 1d4 damage). One time he needed exactly 20 to hit, rolled it, therefore got a crit, and out of sympathy I let him do his Tome crit damage (+2d10 fire) even though by the rules he's not entitled to it. This was the only time the wizard ever killed a creature in melee combat - I can't remember for sure, but it may be the only time he ever hit a creature in melee combat!

The fighter, on the other hand, has +1 class bonus with two-handed weapons, +2 prof bonus for his halberd, +4 for 18 STR, +3 for his magic axe and +5 for level - at total of +15 to hit for something like 1d8+11. His 16 WIS means he is +18 to hit on OAs.

The wizard and the fighter certainly do not have the same attack bonus. (What has changed is the build rules whereby that bonus is derived, and also the build rules whereby the ACs of the enemies against whom attacks will be made are derived.)

 

[Bluenose]

snip a long and informative post.

I must spread XPs around before giving them to Greylord again. But I applaud anyway.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

*Sigh* From a purely subjective stance 4e changed it the most - by making D&D the game I never intend to play.

From an objective viewpoint, it is closer. Both 3e and 4e changed things, but 4e killed more (too many?) 'sacred cows'. So, I still give 4e the nod, but it is closer.

The Auld Grump

 

[Aldarc]

I voted for 3e. Although 4e "killed" many D&D sacred cows, many of these cows were already dying or being systematically killed-off during the lifetime of 3e D&D through the collaboration of the d20 System, OGL, and 3pp. The enormous amount of 3pp capitalizing on the OGL effectively sped up the clock on house-ruling the core D&D system. By the time of 3.5, it became quite apparent in the d20 market as to the direction that the system as a whole was heading. Many of the "changes" that people saw in 4e or the late-3.5 era were already circulating with popularity throughout the d20 market. The core mechanics of 4e are essentially the same as 3e. But 4e redesigned around those core mechanics based on a number of reoccurring issues* with 3e. I say "issues" instead of "problems," as not everyone found these matters to be problematic in 3e.