D&D 5th edition playtest reception?

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**Da Boss**

I think 4th edition characters are more superhero-y than 3.5 characters. 3.5 only gets really super after level 6 or so, whereas 4th edition characters are all action heroes from level 1.

**nomotog**

3.5 characters could be almost whatever you wanted them to be. That was one of the advantages 3.5 had over 4ed. You could have classes based around anything from combat to potion making. I even recall a fan made class the merchant.

This detail is something that I think next is doing even better then 3.5. Now you aren't even required to give a class a BAB. You could literally have a class that gives you no combat ability at all. (3.5 required that it gain attack and saves at least.)

**Manchu**

nomotog wrote:
even it's good ideas carry the stink of death

Agreed. Dark Sun is a tragic casualty of 4E. I hope everyone who curses WotC for not re-releasing Ravenloft and Planescape will come to appreciate that much as a blessing.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Da Boss wrote:
I think 4th edition characters are more superhero-y than 3.5 characters. 3.5 only gets really super after level 6 or so, whereas 4th edition characters are all action heroes from level 1.

True enough but, when you think about it, isn't that really more of a criticism of 3.5 than 4E. Again, 4E was just the logical extension of 3.5.

**Ahtman**

nomotog wrote:
(My feeling is that 4ed killed D&D, so even it's good ideas carry the stink of death.)

That is ok, I think 3 killed D&D, and spread it's foul stench over much of game design for to long, but we all have to move on.

**nomotog**

Ahtman wrote:
nomotog wrote:
(My feeling is that 4ed killed D&D, so even it's good ideas carry the stink of death.)

That is ok, I think 3 killed D&D, and spread it's foul stench over much of game design for to long, but we all have to move on.

D20 really did get around didn't it. That was one of the things I liked about it. You could type anything with a d20 after it and you would find something for it. Maybe just a class, maybe a whole system, but always something. I mean they made a d20 game about living in a post apocalyptic wallmart. My biggest hope for next is for that to return. Where I can once again find next conversions of megaman and bubblegum crisis. If next can't bring back these conversions, then I will consider it a failure.

**Ahtman**

nomotog wrote:
living in a post apocalyptic wallmart

I would play that game.

**warboss**

Ahtman wrote:
nomotog wrote:
living in a post apocalyptic wallmart

I would play that game.

Just LARP it by walking into a Walmart a few hours after the zombie Black Friday shopping hordes leave.

Does 5e have a release date yet? If not, I wonder if its ready enough for a date announcement this year at GenCon or if they'll wait for the next D&D con thing WOTC does (assuming they still do that in Jan/Feb).

**Ahtman**

Manchu wrote:
Dark Sun is a tragic casualty of 4E. I hope everyone who curses WotC for not re-releasing Ravenloft and Planescape will come to appreciate that much as a blessing.

I think we all know the lack of Al Qadim was what brought the edition down. I liked Dark Sun for 4E, though I hated that we kept being told they were doing Ravenloft, and then it just ended up being a board game. A very hard board game.

**Alfndrate**

Ahtman wrote:
Manchu wrote:
Dark Sun is a tragic casualty of 4E. I hope everyone who curses WotC for not re-releasing Ravenloft and Planescape will come to appreciate that much as a blessing.

I think we all know the lack of Al Qadim was what brought the edition down. I liked Dark Sun for 4E, though I hated that we kept being told they were doing Ravenloft, and then it just ended up being a board game. A very hard board game.

I'm undefeated in that board game. I'm 1 and 0

But yeah it's a tough game. Also Dark Sun is what drew me back into 4th long enough to run a game... by the end of the adventure my players wanted to play 3.5 again :(

**Manchu**

Ahtman wrote:
I think we all know the lack of Al Qadim was what brought the edition down.

PHB4 should have been Spelljammer.

Ahtman wrote:
A very hard board game.

I've had a decent amount of fun with the Drizzt one.

**Da Boss**

The Darksun stuff for 4th is some of the best stuff. The setting book is as good as it ever was I think- some stuff has been altered a bit but the feel is there, and the darksun monster book has the best designed monsters I've seen in 4th.

**Manchu**

Sure, I agree (except that the setting was as well presented in 4E as previously). But going back to nomotog's point, it's not that 4E had no good points; it's that the good points are associated with the bad press/fumbled marketing/consumer confusion/dissatisfaction.

**Da Boss**

I'd agree with that.

I'd also say that 4th edition doesn't do gritty survival in a post apocalypse as well as other editions would seem to.

**Manchu**

Yeah, 4E characters are glowy super heroes. Can be fun.

**Balance**

warboss wrote:
Ahtman wrote:

Does 5e have a release date yet? If not, I wonder if its ready enough for a date announcement this year at GenCon or if they'll wait for the next D&D con thing WOTC does (assuming they still do that in Jan/Feb).

No, but they're releasing a special 'play test edition' at GenCon this year that apparently includes 10 levels of several classes, base rules, and several adventures... Basically an expanded and cleaned-up playtest document.

**reds8n**

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/25873.html

Rolling for Initiative is a weekly column by Scott Thorne, PhD, owner of Castle Perilous Games & Books in Carbondale, Illinois and instructor in marketing at Southeast Missouri State University. This week, Thorne looks at what it will take for Dungeons & Dragons to regain the #1 spot in the RPG market.

The recent announcement by Wizards of the Coast that the first release for Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, or D&D Next as the company keeps calling it, Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle, would only be available for pre-order for sale at this year's Gen-Con, got me thinking about what to expect when D&D 5th Edition, or Next, finally releases, probably in 2014. Can Dungeons & Dragons regain the top position it ceded to Pathfinder when WotC released 4th Edition to a market that has strongly demonstrated it doesn't want the game? Yes, 4th Edition still sells, but when you go from market leader to Pathfinder outselling you by a margin of three to one (and that is probably a bit generous in my estimate), it is a pretty strong indication that your customers do not want your product that much.

As I said, I expect D&D 5th Edition to launch summer of 2014. I also expect Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast to really push within the next few months to get the movie rights back to the Dungeons & Dragons name, as releasing a movie with the Dungeons & Dragons name could do nothing but help publicize the launch of the new edition. However, though I am no expert, it seems a year is not much time to complete a feature film for theatrical release. IT could be released on SyFy perhaps, as with the second D&D movie, but not to the theaters.

Anyhow, D&D has lost the dominant position it held in the RPG market for over two decades to Pathfinder for two reasons. First, there is the perception among many players that D&D 3.5, and hence Pathfinder, is a superior system to 4th Edition D&D. (Whether that is true is a discussion for an online forum someplace. I regularly run into people who swear that 1st Edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons still outshines any edition produced since then.) Second, Pathfinder offers a superior organized play experience. While WotC offers two fine OP opportunities, D&D Campaigns and Lair Assault, they offer little of the flexibility and opportunities to advance to participants that Paizo Publishing's Pathfinder Society does.

Every Wednesday night, players across the country know they can find a D&D 4th Edition game at any participating store. However, they also know that it will be the exact same scenario of the exact same campaign and that characters created and played in it have proscribed levels of growth and are limited in lifespan to the length of the Encounters campaign. Compare this to Pathfinder Society, which bears a strong resemblance to WotC's late RPGA Living OP program, which, while it does not offer the regularity of the D&D Encounters program, does offer a wider selection of scenarios, a wider venue in which to play them, and greater flexibility in character design and advancement. So popular is Pathfinder Society among its players that I have seen a resistance to purchasing non-PS approved books, much as I did during the RPGA heyday.

Can D&D 5th/Next take back its crown from Pathfinder? Difficult but possible. It is D&D, so that gives it huge brand awareness within the market. I expect to see a large percentage of the market sample the game rules when they first come out. Whether they adopt them in preference to either 4th Edition or Pathfinder depends on how well they improve on D&D 3.5, since that, it appears, is what the vast majority of players want. Due to his work on the original 3.0 and 3.5 editions, Monte Cook's departure from the development team last year has me worried about that.

WotC will also need a strong OP program for the game, hopefully one that launches either concurrently with or soon after the release of the new edition. The importance of OP to the success of Magic, as well as Pathfinder, should indicate to the company the necessity of having an OP program ready to involve players with the new edition. I have not heard of one currently in development, but hopefully there is a group at WotC working on this in the background. The company has a year or better to look at what worked for the RPGA and what is working for Magic and Pathfinder and to build a program incorporating what players like from all of them. There are some pretty smart people at WotC, so I am expecting they will.

**Manchu**

I'm surprised the article is silent on the matter of WotC leveraging TSR IP. A number of RPG products demonstrate that franchise can be more important than mechanics. While Paizo 3.75 may be perceived as the superior system, what percentage of the market is as attached to Golarion as the various D&D "spheres"?

**warboss**

reds8n wrote:
http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/25873.html

Yes, 4th Edition still sells, but when you go from market leader to Pathfinder outselling you by a margin of three to one (and that is probably a bit generous in my estimate), it is a pretty strong indication that your customers do not want your product that much.

As much as I prefer Pathfinder to 4e, I'd point out that it's much easier to outsell an RPG product line that isn't coming out with any new product (i.e. 4e isn't "trying" anymore). WOTC abandoned 4e new releases over a year ago and was sparse for the year prior to that whereas Pathfinder has been coming out with steady releases throughout. The fact that Pathfinder was outselling D&D in alot of stores as well as was able to knock off 4e from the ICV2 top selling spot at least once during 4e's height was a huge achievement... but outselling a book line that is only doing occassional reprints of old material isn't.

**Ahtman**

While I think the article is right about them needing to create a solid organized play environment, the other part sounds like he thinks they should make Next like 3.5, which I think would be a mistake. Trying to compete as evolved 3.5 vs evolved 3.5 gives the advantage to Pathfinder I would think. If anything I think they should make it more AD&Dish but with lessons learned from 3.5 and 4E. Retro-new-school? Eh, I don't know. I would just hate to see them end up with Pathfinder 1.5. for the next D&D.

One thing I think he left out was online support. Pathfinder has a huge pool of resources online that make getting into the game easy.

**Manchu**

Seems to me that 5E is indeed a riff on 3.5:
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20130422

**warboss**

Manchu wrote:
Seems to me that 5E is indeed a riff on 3.5:
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20130422

That sounds... interesting... not sure if positive or negative frankly as I think it is a set of mechanics I'd have to try in person in game rather than just reading it. I'm not getting much of a 3/3.5 vibe from it though. The "simplified" nature of it to me feels more 4e than anything else. 4e would have worked for me personally if they had stuck with the Star Wars Saga midstep version instead of taking it to the next (albeit logical) level of 4e. The simplification and consolidation of skills plus the addition of *some* encounter powers (as opposed to vancian magic) for *some* classes were welcome additions to the core 3/3.5 ruleset; pathfinder adopted those as well to a slightly lesser degree but 4e took it too far for my tastes. I'm not sure what category better fits the 5e rules in that article.

**Manchu**

Putting 3.5 and 4E into separate categories strikes me as splitting hairs. All the major contributions Third Edition made to D&D are simply concentrated/stream-lined into 4E. It just turns out that what people liked about 3.5 was actually its clunkiness and incoherence. Next is shaping up to be an even "cleaner" but non-miniatures-based Essentials in its most basic (not to be confused with Basic) incarnation, while the more "advanced" rules are bolt-on complications. In other words, "modularity" means "customizable emulation of 3.5."

**warboss**

Manchu wrote:
Putting 3.5 and 4E into separate categories strikes me as splitting hairs.

My personal experience with the two is that they played like completely different games, much like 3rd compared with 2nd. If that's splitting a hair, it's one as big as the metal cables holding up the Golden Gate bridge.

3/3.5/Pathfinder feels like evolutions of the same core set but 4e was a completely different game. I'm not sure where I'd put Star Wars Saga or 5e currently.

**Manchu**

warboss wrote:
My personal experience with the two is that they played like completely different games

It really depends on what else one has played. Play some Basic and then 3.5 is just disorganized 4E.

warboss wrote:
I'm not sure where I'd put Star Wars Saga or 5e currently.

Saga Edition is proof that 3.5 and 4E are in the same category, mechanically.

**Ahtman**

3.5 and PF are just Erratas of 3, but 4E is the next evolutionary step of the ideas brought about in third.

**warboss**

Saga Edition is proof that 3.5 and 4E are in the same category, mechanically.

No, it's proof that you can combine elements of go fish and rock paper scissors for a result that is neither but can still be fun.

**Manchu**

Ahtman wrote:
3.5 and PF are just Erratas of 3, but 4E is the next evolutionary step of the ideas brought about in third.

I agree but maintain this is still hair-splitting. The differences between Third and Fourth look big when you don't consider the rest of D&D.

warboss wrote:
Saga Edition is proof that 3.5 and 4E are in the same category, mechanically.
No, it's proof that you can combine elements of go fish and rock paper scissors for a result that is neither but can still be fun.

That's a misguided analogy. It seems like you are saying 3.5 and Saga Edition are completely different games, which is simply false. Earlier, you correctly identified Saga Edition as the midstep between 3.5 and 4E. Another example would be Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords. These midstep products show that very little changed conceptually between 3.5 and 4E; rather, the changes were about improving on mechanics underpinning the existing D&D 3E (or WotC D&D, if you like) viewpoint.

**Ahtman**

Manchu wrote:
Ahtman wrote:
3.5 and PF are just Erratas of 3, but 4E is the next evolutionary step of the ideas brought about in third.
I agree but maintain this is still hair-splitting.

I don't disagree, per see, just trying to be clear on what was being said.

**Manchu**

@Ahtman: Yeah, you said it more clearly. I certainly don't mean 4E is just a Third Edition FAQ. The WotC crew wanted to take the good ideas they had since 2000 and do a discrete product running with that. I think they succeeded, personally (especially with Essentials). On the other hand, looking at Nine Swords and Saga Edition, the line between them is much blurrier than New School Edition Warriors would have you believe. There is an incredibly direct legacy between Third and Fourth that simply does not exist between AD&D 2E Revised and Third, much less regarding the entirely separate branch that is BECMI.

**warboss**

Manchu wrote:
No, it's proof that you can combine elements of go fish and rock paper scissors for a result that is neither but can still be fun.
That's a misguided analogy. It seems like you are saying 3.5 and Saga Edition are completely different games, which is simply false. Earlier, you correctly identified Saga Edition as the midstep between 3.5 and 4E. Another example would be Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords. These midstep products show that very little changed conceptually between 3.5 and 4E; rather, the changes were about improving on mechanics underpinning the existing D&D 3E (or WotC D&D, if you like) viewpoint.

Saga and 3.5 are not completely different games but they're not the same game either despite one being derived from the other. 3.5 and 4e are IMO completely different games though as 4e crossed the line from evolutionary to revolutionary for me (especially if you didn't have the benefit of the completely different product line step of Saga). I played saga and so expected *some* of the changes in 4e but they took it alot further unexpectedly in 4e. Several long time 3/3.5 gamers I played with didn't play in my Saga campaign and transitioned directly from 3.5 to 4e and had no clue what to make of the new editon. The change for them was too drastic to be anything other than a completely new game that shared a few mechanics and many terms (with frequently different meanings). I suspect neither of us will convince the other and in any case it's not the point of this thread.