D&D (2024) Why no new packs since late September?

[mellored]

No. Not everyone was an archer or great weapon user.

Lots of the best feats have gotten nerfed. Like lucky.

Also, they only did a few classes so far. We haven't gotten to spells yet.

And more if their class has been made better.

And less if their class has been made worse. I wouldn't be surprised if Paladins aura taken down a notch.

And more if their race has been made better.

And less if their race was made worse. Like humans lost access to a lot of feats.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Yep. It's going to be 5.5 unless it's completely incompatible with 5e. 6e will be incompatible.

4e had the absurd notion that every book was core.

Are you talking about the erratas? If so, and they changed the PHB, those were changes to the core of the game and altered the game, however small, from being what it was. Those were fundamental changes. 5.5 will be significantly greater.

There's nothing arbitrary about a reasoned definition.

As lomg as you enumerate them with .x then I agree.
I think "fundamental" is too big of a word to describe minor changes... but yes, they are changing the core or fundament, as you call it.

I would not call it fundament, as I don't see every little rule of the core book as fundament, as I don't see every stone in a house as fundament. Only those below the surface that are necessary to keep the structure functional.

So I would make a difference between:

Core book changes,
structural changes,
and fundamental changes.

I would see core book changes in the form of little errata or update to a class or subclass as not warranting any change to the edition name.
I would see a structural change as a reason to increase the .x.
I think a fundamental change will increase the number before the floating point.

3.5 is barely below that mark, hence the jump to 3.5. There were massive changes in the structural layer. There were a few fundamental changes in the mentality, but only going from the rules, characters were quite compatible.

4essentials was only barely a structural change. Every class of core 4e could still be used.

OneDnD falls between those two, going from the playtests we have seen.
A few core rule changes, but every character can easily be played with the new rules.
If you want to grapple, just don't use athletics, use unarmed attack instead. Exhaustion? Just use this effect.
Most character sheets donvt have to be altered, as grapple is not noted explicitely anywhere. Neither is exhaustion.

 

[Maxperson]

As lomg as you enumerate them with .x then I agree.
I think "fundamental" is too big of a word to describe minor changes... but yes, they are changing the core or fundament, as you call it.

I would not call it fundament, as I don't see every little rule of the core book as fundament, as I don't see every stone in a house as fundament. Only those below the surface that are necessary to keep the structure functional.

Okay. I see what you're saying. What I am saying is that the core rules are just the foundation. To go with the house analogy, all the stones that make that up the rest of the house above the foundation are the game play. The campaign that is built by the shared imagination of the DM and players that uses the foundation.

So I would make a difference between:

Core book changes,
structural changes,
and fundamental changes.

I would see core book changes in the form of little errata or update to a class or subclass as not warranting any change to the edition name.
I would see a structural change as a reason to increase the .x.
I think a fundamental change will increase the number before the floating point.

3.5 is barely below that mark, hence the jump to 3.5. There were massive changes in the structural layer. There were a few fundamental changes in the mentality, but only going from the rules, characters were quite compatible.

I'm not seeing that the game needs to be wholly incompatible(3e vs. 4e vs. 5e) to alter the foundation of the game. Just look at the 1st level feat for PCs. In 5e the foundation stone is that there are no feats in the game unless the DM engages that optional rule. In 5.5e that foundation stone has been altered to make feats not only the default state, but to give all PCs a free one at 1st level.

That's a significant change that will alter how the rest of the house above it is played.

4essentials was only barely a structural change. Every class of core 4e could still be used.

I know very little about 4e, but I've seen people here say that there really weren't any foundational changes with essentials.

A few core rule changes, but every character can easily be played with the new rules.
If you want to grapple, just don't use athletics, use unarmed attack instead. Exhaustion? Just use this effect.
Most character sheets donvt have to be altered, as grapple is not noted explicitely anywhere. Neither is exhaustion.

The bolded is already false. All sheets have to be changed to reflect 1st level feats. Most, perhaps all of them have to be further altered to reflect the new racial changes. Then, and I'm assuming here based on what we've seen in the first two packets, most or all sheets will have to be altered yet further to reflect class and/or subclass changes. And altered yet again to reflect the background ability score bonuses which very likely do not match the racial bonuses you originally received. And yet more to reflect the new languages you get due to background.

And all those changes are just from the first two packets. I expect more to come down the line.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It depends on what you are comparing it to and what monsters you are comparing. I still contend the MM had more lore than most give it credit for:

• each creature had a intro paragraph, some got several paragraphs, of lore
• each monster had a "Lore" section.
• each monster had a "Tactics: section which often had lore in it
• each monster had an "Encounter Groups" section which included some more lore.
• Many monster entries had several types of the same monster and each of those types might have an additional paragraphs of lore (as in giants) or simple more tactics lore (as in orcs).

When you add all that up it was often very similar to previous editions (2e excluded). Now I will say it tended to be more generic, but there was a good deal there often. Some examples (PS I realize differences in stat blocks don't make this a 1-1 comparison):

	3e	4e
Aboleth	3/4 page	2 pages
Doppelganger	1/2 page	1 page
Dragons	9 (just chromatic + generic)	12 pages (just chromatic + generic)
Giants	4 pages	6 pages
Orcs	1 page	3 pages
Troll	3/4 page	2 pages
Unicorn	3/4 page	1 page
Yuan-ti	almost 2 pages	5 pages

Fair enough. It's not really the kind of lore I care for, but honestly I compare all lore to the stuff we got in 2e, and very little measures up to that in my opinion.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Whether you are correct or incorrect may depend largely on what your definition of 100% compatible is. The '24 MM is likely to be different from the '14 MM but I fully expect to be able to use the monsters in that book with any version of 5e I'm playing. The same is true for MotM. Just as I can use monsters from that book with '14 D&D, I expect I can use them with '24 D&D.

Also, WotC, to my knowledge, never promised 100%.

That's why I spelled out what I was expecting in my earlier post.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Thus far, the only thing I see as not compatible is trying to combine the 2 different character creations, mostly the sub-classes not lining up.

But even then, it doesn't take too much house ruling to make it work.

Not even a houserule, if they include a simple rule in the new PHB that you pick a feat if your class says you gain a subclass feature, but the subclass you are using has already given you all your subclass features. Done.

And that’s the biggest “issue” in the playtest ideas.

I mean, does anyone think that the rules won’t say, “if you are using a background from a source that does not grant a level 1 feat alongside your background, you may choose to gain a level 1 feat in place of your Background feature”?

People keep acting like they just won’t address this stuff, as if the UA were a finished product.

 

[mellored]

I know very little about 4e, but I've seen people here say that there really weren't any foundational changes with essentials.

Essentials effectively added a few simple to play classes. Similar to the 5e champion fighter.

The base 4e game had everyone with higher complexity, closer to a 5e warlock. Which was too much for some, especially newer players.

They played side by side just fine. Usually with the original complex classes buffing and giving out extra attacks to the simple class, who could hit harder.

Really, the biggest change over 4e was adding "once per turn" to everything. Otherwise you could still play a class from the first book with a class from the last one.

And many of the most powerful things in the game where from the first book. They simply got better at balancing it over time.

 

[Maxperson]

Essentials effectively added a few simple to play classes. Similar to the 5e champion fighter.

Adding new classes doesn't alter the core rules, so that's different.

The base 4e game had everyone with higher complexity, closer to a 5e warlock. Which was too much for some, especially newer players.

They played side by side just fine. Usually with the original complex classes buffing and giving out extra attacks to the simple class, who could hit harder.

And that's a good thing and why I think the Champion in 5e should remain simple. I've had players in 1e-5e(obviously not 4e) who refused to play spellcasters, sticking to fighters and rogues just to avoid complexity. They were either afraid of the complexity, or just wanted to play simple because they got enough complexity in their daily life and were playing to relax and get away from that. My 5e player who joined the group in 2007 just a few years back tried a caster for the first time and enjoyed it(he was of the type afraid of the complexity) and hasn't avoided a class since.

Really, the biggest change over 4e was adding "once per turn" to everything. Otherwise you could still play a class from the first book with a class from the last one.

And many of the most powerful things in the game where from the first book. They simply got better at balancing it over time.

5.5e is going significantly beyond that point, though. While we don't know the final form of things, the first two packets show their thoughts and it changes quite a lot. Races, classes, feats, terms, rules, etc. It's going to be a full .5 edition unless these first two packets were some sort of smoke screen, which I very much don't believe they were.

 

[dave2008]

Those three books provide the foundation for the game. You can tinker with it(house rules/optional or variant rules/home brew), but they are still the foundation that you work from. Foundation = fundamental.

My argument would be that parts of those books are the foundation/fundamental to game, not the whole books.

IMO, if I can the run the game without it, it is not part of the foundation/base/fundamental part of the game. And there is a lot in the PHB, DMG, and MM that I can run the game without.

 

[dave2008]

That's why I spelled out what I wasexpecting in my earlier post.

Sorry - I missed that.