Dnd 5th edition

[GodBeastX]

Not to mention the Yugioh cards you have to have while you play

[Snowmane]

Insinuating that fans of previous editions just want to make powerbuilds is more than a little rude, to be honest.

To address your point, there's a difference between "balanced" and "homogenized". 4E stripped classes of a lot of their flavor, nuance, and unique feel by trying to wedge them all into MMO categories of "Healer/Tank/Damage Dealer". That design (the Holy Trinity as it's called) is lazy, lazy, lazy game design, and always has been.

Previous editions had far more interesting class design, where the lack of rigid class categories made classes much more unique. It was not "We need a tank and a healer!", it was "okay, these are the unique tools we have at our disposal in the party, now how do we approach this situation?" Pretty much the only thing you really NEEDED in previous editions was someone with thief/rogue skills.

My name is Snowmane, and I approve this message.

[Rhifox]

The round-by-round mechanics were split very evenly, so every class had routine abilities along with big whammies. Wizards no longer stood around shooting crossbow bolts until the big fight. Fighters had more capabilities than bashing and slashing. So no one was special anymore - they all had routine and they all had amazing.

In my opinion, this was a good thing. It does lend itself very well for an MMO party system. People don't want fair and balanced mechanics, but they should. I personally hate that wizards in 3.5 are typically buff machines, shooting crossbow bolts until that ONE BIG FIGHT where they can use an actual offensive spell... I'd rather routinely use magic. 3.5 wizards never felt like wizards to me. At least in 4th, they corrected this.

3.5 wizards feel far more like wizards than 4e. Sure, you get spells you can use every round. But you lose all the flavor of actually having to study and pick the most appropriate spells, and prepare yourself properly for the coming encounters. That is something that I love about playing a wizard and that was completely removed in 4e. 4e wizards (like pretty much everything in 4e) are basically warlocks. If I wanted to play a warlock, then I'd roll one.

You don't need to fling spells around on every round to be magical. Honestly, I'm actually tired of how many game systems seem to think that. For me, being a wizard means intelligence and mystical knowledge, which 3.5 wizards did right. You had to know what you were doing, you had to know what was coming down the pipeline, you had to know your spells. You spent ages staring at your spellbook, looking through your spells, trying to decide just what you should use. You tried to find as many new spells out in the world as you could, because that would give you even more options to consider.

There's also nothing wrong with being a support caster, who's big job is buffing people and making sure to have the right tools for any emergencies that come up instead of simply flinging fireballs everywhere. Again, that's something I liked about wizard... I vastly prefer being a support caster over straight DPS.

4e took all of that away, and turned wizard into warlock. It removed all the intelligence, in favor of a bunch of flashy spells.

[Zoberraz]

I enjoyed 4th edition. I DMed it, and I think I was actually fonder of it than my player group. My PCs mostly stuck around because they enjoyed my storylines.

But, I did.

The bigger flaws I found in 4th edition was the skill challenge system - which mechanized roleplay encounters too much - and the initial power level progression: it started too dry, though it hit a sweetspot around level 7 where it felt that my players had a bigger variety of powers.

As a DM, I liked 4th edition encounter designs. Monsters stood out with the variety of little power they had and their slightly larger hitpoint pools. One of my players was incensed that kobolds had near 20 hitpoints, but for me, it gave me that chance to do things with said kobolds before they died.

Though when I started out as a DM I was very 'theater of the mind' inclined, it was my players whom required the greater detail that brought a battlemat and miniature into use when we were playing 3.5e. So, when 4th arrived, we were prepared for it.

Miniature battles had their appeal, but it was the way they helped represent the classes that I liked - and not just for the matter of a wizard's area effect spells and flanking. I liked how it brought into play the lockdown mechanic of the "Fighter's Challenge" - where it felt like the group's fighter really could create 'stickiness' to an opponent he engaged and tried to hold the line.

I liked how the balance felt with the group's ranger made him something of a glass cannon. Her strengths and weaknesses in coparison to the fighter made her stand out as useful, but for other reasons. I got a kick out of seeing interrupt abilities too. She had perception and trap mechanics also - but defeating traps and other obstacles was something that the whole party could participate in.

We really enjoyed how the cleric was able to be more than just a healing machine like our dwarf cleric was in 3rd edition. The 4th edition cleric was more fun because there was much more he could do while still being able to dispense that sorely needed healing magic.

The warlord class was also an interesting concept, but it made hard to describe the kind of wounds the PCs were sustaining. In my third edition game I pretty freely described gouging blows, flesh wounds and when you dropped to zero, you were getting a stab at the wrong place (gutted, or something). A warlord's "Come on, you can do it!" inspiring word making a character recover from a wound that was making him bleed to death was suspension-of-disbelief awkward.

I liked how much more active and magical a wizard became in a fight, and the wizard was able to be played very strategically too depending on his spell choices. It seemed a good idea in theory to have more dynamic spells - some you could always use, some that you could renew with a little bit of study, and some that you had to rest to be able to memorize - and the ritual magic that you could do at any time but with long incantations. Unfortunately, rituals = money was a factor which was never popular with my players and rituals were seldom ever used.

Combat group dynamics felt much better. When a player group was making use of teamwork, it showed, and it was great to see in action. To see them challenged, buckling under the pressure, and to them organize themselves and try to defeat their opponents. I loved that.

* * *

This said, I'm kind of looking forward to seeing where DnD Next is going. I've the playtest packages, and I kinda like what I see. The thinking behind the design process feels like it's in the right place.

To be honest, 4th edition seemed to be an exercise where they dared to change D&D. It was an experiment I think was successful to a degree, but it wasn't for everyone. I know: I was pretty isolated in my liking of 4th edition, while my players were much more enthused by d20 Pathfinder. D&D Next looks like it might actually retain some of the good points I thought 4th edition had, but return to some things that were more distinctive to previous DnD editions in the past as well.

[Silas North]

Insinuating that fans of previous editions just want to make powerbuilds is more than a little rude, to be honest.

To address your point, there's a difference between "balanced" and "homogenized". 4E stripped classes of a lot of their flavor, nuance, and unique feel by trying to wedge them all into MMO categories of "Healer/Tank/Damage Dealer". That design (the Holy Trinity as it's called) is lazy, lazy, lazy game design, and always has been.

Previous editions had far more interesting class design, where the lack of rigid class categories made classes much more unique. It was not "We need a tank and a healer!", it was "okay, these are the unique tools we have at our disposal in the party, now how do we approach this situation?" Pretty much the only thing you really NEEDED in previous editions was someone with thief/rogue skills.

Sorry Kirin, but I'm siding more with PL (and seemingly Zob) on this one. My experience still comes from pretty much only video games, however from what I've seen, balance breeds diversity, which breeds rp. Yes, it seems that many of the classes were wedged into specific categories but from a game presepective, that sounds just fine. With the system currently in place I've ALREADY often been with a party saying in ooc that a tank/healer/attacker is needed. I see no difference with a new system of rules except that it would be a nice change of pace for certain roles to be fulfilled exceptionally well by more than just 2-3 builds and slight variations thereof. Because of the limitations and major mistakes made with the current nwn2 system, a lot of 'powerbuilds' are taken just in order to survive and compete on SOME level.

I do see your point regarding certain matters though, the skills in particular. Adventures weren't all about just hacking enemies up after all. And actually I found the non-combat elements of 3.5 to be very well done. A blend between the good elements of 3.5 and 4 E may be what this 5E will be all about.... and hopefully another game like Nwn won't be too far off. I realize that may be very optomistic thinking, but I'm fine with that.

As for the lore... Well.. I think this is where we see most eye-to-eye Kirin. I don't HATE that the 'god-list' was narrowed down. But I didn't really see it as necessary (Mystra and Helm WHYYYYY!?) The fact that so many elements seemed re-written made a lot of things just seem.... 'weird'. I don't really know what else to call it. Too much unnecessary elements to a lore that wasn't perfect, but still pretty good overall. Personally, I'd probably stick to rules more akin to 4E, but timelines more common in 3.5E, maybe even ignoring Spellplague altogether.

And PL wasn't being insulting. The guy's cool, trust me

[Fezzik]

2nd Edition is what turned me to GURPS.

[Zoberraz]

4th Edition FR says:

Hanali was actually Sune.
Sehanine was actually Selune.

The nowhere elf deity no one cared about, Angharradh, is her own thing.

Blasphemy!

* * *

Oh, one thing DnD Next is also doing is putting Eladrins back to being High Elves. Which feels appropriate. They seem to stand better as 'the magic-using elven race' (because, let's face it, nothing in 3rd edition has something regarding elves that seem very magic-user aside from a possible Int bonus and Wizard favored class if - IF - you were a Sun/Grey elf) with access to one more minor spell (or a minor spell if not a wizard) ensuring that any High elf has a bit of magic, and that the magic-users have a little more at their command.

Also, the full-colored opalescent eyes seem to be gone. I didn't dislike this bit of alienness to the 'Eladrins', but it grossed my players out and seemed a factor against choosing Eladrins as a PC race to people whom supposedly enjoyed playing elves.

One odd point of D&D Next so far with the races is the ability score adjustments. For example, a wood elf only gets +1 to Dex, rather than the +2s we've been getting used to from 3rd and 4th edition. This annoy me a bit, because modifiers are accrued in even numbers. A +1 doesn't make as much of a statistical impact as it did before at low level.

However - Humans get a +1 to all ability scores and a +2 to an ability score of their choosing. Which is to say that if a human gets +2 to one score, +1 to the rest... and that all the other demihuman races get +1 to a specific score... it puts the human even with a dwarf's toughness, an elf's grace or a gnome's ingenuity (which are all supposed to be strong points of those races). All demi-human races, not getting the general +1 the human gets, are worse than humans in every other ability score. And a human's +2 bonus allows them to be even higher than any of those demihuman races' score specialities (a human's +2 dex would be better than the wood elf's +1 dex bonus).

On the other hand, the present demihuman racial features are excellent. Seriously, most of it is really neat and meaty stuff... whereas the humans in my playtest document get... next to nothing beyond the basics. Hence their huge ability score bonuses are richly justified balance-wise, but this isn't the sort of thing we've been used to seeing before. The humans won't ever be impressed by a dwarf's stoutness, or an elf's preternatural grace when they can be as good or better.

High Elf Wizard: "You've rushed through your training so, human. The decades I have spent painstakingly studying the magical arts have allowed me to wield more minor spells and cantrips."

Human Wizard: "Maybe. But I have more raw talent. You've Int 17. But I have Int 18."

[Silas North]

Sehanine was actually Selune.

Blasphemy!

You WISH Sehanine was as cool as Selune :P
...though I guess technically she is.

[Doubtful]

D&D 5th edition will no doubt suffer the same tragic flaws as all of its predecessors, namely a pretty terrible chunk based non-skill related leveling system.

BRP laughs at you.



/trolling (and possibly tunneling)

[Fezzik]

BRP laughs at you.
/trolling (and possibly tunneling)

I did Runequest for a while, but all the beheadings sort of got tiresome ... that system was pretty good, but if I remember it had a steep learning curve.

[Talleyman99]

4th ed was about as much fun as a bowl of plain oatmeal sure it's filling and you can live on it but man there is no flavor. ALSO the biggest problem with it Magic missile could miss!
I can not say 5th ed will be Core dnd's saving grace, Piazo is all the great minds that brought you all your best lore, dungeons, monsters, and so forth form 3.5 when wizards fired them all they made there own game and are out doing there former employers.

[Kitsunestume]

~Shameless Shadowrun bump~

[Thief Of Navarre]

They have new mechanics but even delved into 1E stuff. I have to say, I like it gobs more than 4E. They have some interesting spells and some apparently can be slotted for multiple spell levels to have different effects.

This interests me alot. Been thinking about something like this for years in homebrew rules.

[Phantom Lamb]

Rolemaster 4tw!

[caterpillar]

Seriously? What are you all talking about? What does it mean for me? I am used to click at the enemy with my mouse and wait until it dies! Or run! I don't want to complicate it any more!