D&D 5th Edition makes the New York Times

[horseboy]

Is that any different than saying "In the campaign we start, you can use psionics and Binders, but no Incarnum and Tome of Battle. Also your characters can not be evil, will start at 4th level and everyone starts with one magic item worth about 2,500 gp."?

Yeah. Especially if they're all in the core book. It's far easier to say "Nothing past companion 1" than it is to go "okay, so in companion 2 take q-v skills, but not m, oh and skill b now has options 2, 5, and 12.

[Nero24200]

As long as their marketing strategy for this one isn't "You played 3.5? Wow, how could you like a game that stupid? Try this one instead" like it was for 4e I'll be keeping an eye on it to see how it develops.

[Yora]

Being able to decide to branch out into other groups of abilities is also a major thing for me. Didn't like how multiclassing was handled in AD&D and 4th Edition seemed even worse.
When my barbarian decides at 8th level to become a devout believer and starts to train in divine magic, I don't want to have to rebuild him, but to add that to the abilities he already has.

[Seerow]

Well, I'd sure like Dungeons and Dragons this time, rather then Dungeons and Dragons: World of Warcraft. A return to subtle, awesome, animeish Tieflings, rather then "DEVILS FROM 1990 DEATH METAL ALBUMS!". Something like a total return to form.

How is it 5 or 6 years later the 4e is like WoW myth is still around?

[Yora]

Apparently they are going the other way now. "Wasn't it great back then?!" Which is just sad if you're a huge Essentials fan, of which I heared there aren't many.

[Yora]

I think the one at CNN is best. It's much better structured and probably easier to follow if you're not already deep within the whole thing.

[navar100]

Bring magic back to D&D instead of "casting a spell" be another way of saying "swinging a sword" or "firing a bow".

Ideally: Use the psionic point system of Expanded Psionics as the magic system (no adding fatigue!) and use the Book of Nine Swords system for combat (fix the stance progression!) adding archery.

[Kurald Galain]

Hello, as i'm sure most of you have heard, there is word on the wind of 5th edition. What I wonder is what people want it to include and what you think would make it good?

Faster combat. This is the most important one by a long shot.

Greater variety between classes (basically what Saph said).

A larger section on skills and what to do with it (they've always felt as an afterthought in the 4E PHB1), including the Perform and Repair skills, and an abandonment of skill challenges.

Less fiddly circumstantial bonuses that everybody keeps forgetting, and less action types (combine immediate with opportunity, and free with no action).

And no disassociated mechanics.



(edit)

It's just a system without any internal logic and unique to D&D.

No, it's from the books of Jack Vance. That's why it's called "Vancian". It also shows up in a number of other RPGs, such as Amber DRP.

- Which leads me to... Why should PCs depend on magical equipment to be effective, why did you do it WotC?

The funny thing is that when 4E was announced, one of the promises WOTC made was to step away from the Magical Item Christmas Tree effect (of course, they immediately followed that up by saying that each character could use no more than twelve items at the same time...)

[WitchSlayer]

Either something completely different from that which came before or 4.5

[Psyren]

Apparently they are going the other way now. "Wasn't it great back then?!" Which is just sad if you're a huge Essentials fan, of which I heared there aren't many.

They're going too far if you ask me. "Remember how great 1e was?" I can't imagine what they could do to bring those guys to the same table with 3.5 and 4e players...

[Shyftir]

#General
I hope that it will be a lot like Starwars Saga. I think taking D&D back to its true roots (tabletop wargaming) was a good idea. I don't want your mamby-pamby white-wolfy social systems. I want RPing to be done by players not systems.
(BTW I think that 4e is pretty good, but took a few things too far and that 3.5 had become a monolithic monster of complicated subsystems.)
Please make skills a simple part of the game! 4e and Saga do this well, hint hint!

#Magic
Magic should be powerful but dangerous both to casters and enemies. I like powerpoints but I think that it should still feed off your endurance. I love it when a wizard falls to the ground utterly exhausted after unleashing incredible arcane destruction upon the enemy.

#Melee
I'd like to see mechanics that encouraged inventing cool stunts in combat not just handing out lists of stuff you can do. I want shield and sword to be viable! I want to see improvisation be key instead of lists of hard won feats.

[Yora]

Either something completely different from that which came before or 4.5

4.5e would really be commercial suicide. That's what you produce if you want to make really sure you'll never have any success with the brand ever again.
Essentials was an attempt to give 4th Edition a new kick, and shortly after that the first signs for a new edition started to appear.

And yes! If they have to base it on anything, then Star Wars Saga! By far the best d20 game there is.

[Nero24200]

They're going too far if you ask me. "Remember how great 1e was?" I can't imagine what they could do to bring those guys to the same table with 3.5 and 4e players...

Actually it wouldn't surprise me if they just aimed for the 3.5 crowd. Pathfinder's success is an indication that there IS a market for people who like 3.5 style roleplaying games, something they might have previously thought of as a non-issue when starting 4th edition.

It's been a while since I've been to the PF forums, but IIRC many have said one of their reasons for liking PF is because "it continues 3.5".

[Yora]

And I am very sure it won't be the same table. What we can realistically hope for is having people at different table having the same Basic Rulebook and completely different expansion books.

But the 3.5e crowd might be very hard to get. Lots of Pathfinder fans seem very dedicated.
However, I am very diehard 3.5e crowd and stuck to PF for convenience, and I very much hope they'll make something that finally allows me to get a better game for me. I really hope that this will be something for me. Though I don't know how many other 3.5e fans think similar.

[Sorcerer Blob]

I think the one at CNN is best. It's much better structured and probably easier to follow if you're not already deep within the whole thing.

Linky?

The NYT one came off kind of.... judgmental. I kept feeling like it was yelling "NERDS!" at me the entire time I was reading it.

[motoko's ghost]

I remember someone homebrewed a 5.0 version once.
It was 3.5 core but with a point buy system, where everything was pointbuy(abilities,save,BAB,etc)

[Yora]

http://geekout.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01...s-and-dragons/

[Manateee]

So Mutants and Masterminds?

[motoko's ghost]

So Mutants and Masterminds?

no, it was a direct copy of 3.5 except for the point buy(as in word-for-word)

[WalkingTarget]

No, it's from the books of Jack Vance. That's why it's called "Vancian". It also shows up in a number of other RPGs, such as Amber DRP.

To be fair, Zelazny started writing the Amber books before D&D came out (and "hanging" a spell is flavored slightly differently too - spells aren't forgotten once cast, I don't think that characters needed a book to remember them; they just take a long time to set up each time - similar in principle, though, and it's entirely likely that Zelazny had read some Vance).

edit - hmm... now that I think about it, I'm not remembering how early in the series that sort of thing started happening. So this may be moot if we didn't see spells being hung until, say, the Merlin-centric books.

[Maxios]

{{scrubbed}}

[Seerow]

no, it was a direct copy of 3.5 except for the point buy(as in word-for-word)

So the generic class system in UA?

[Tal_Akaan]

(What step one should be, or should have been, for creating the new edition.)

-Sit down with development team, open Star Wars Saga Edition Core Rulebook. Apply changes, re-work, re-tool, and re-write as needed.

Ok it’s not that simple, but I think there is SO much that that game got right it’s hard to overlook it. I think the core principals of that system can be made to work for any genre.

(Yes I have brought this up in another 5E thread, but this IS what I would want in a new edition.)

[Metahuman1]

Saga's was 4E light. The idea was to get some distance form 4E. That would there for make moving more toward saga edition counter productive.

[Yora]

4th Edition wasn't a step in the wrong direction, it just went too far.

[deuxhero]

Let's see of how many i can think.

Tome of Battle: per-encounter powers.
Warlock: At-will powers.
Vancian: per-day powers.
Psionics: points for powers, on-the-go.
Incarnum: points for stat increases and powers, usually pre-invested.
Binder: selection of power-sets, with cooldownper ability.

Hmm. That's six.

Anyway, as for alternate classes: I'd prefer those more as alternate class features. Make Paladin an alternate class feature for clerics. that kind of thing. Swap out a few abilities, keep others.

Indeed, that was really one of the strengths of 3.x, every class felt different (Balance was not its strength though and all of them are on a completely separate tier, but not the point.)

[Mushroom Ninja]

I'd like multiclassing to be much more like 3.5 than 4e.

[Tal_Akaan]

Saga's was 4E light. The idea was to get some distance form 4E. That would there for make moving more toward saga edition counter productive.

I didn't see in the article where it was said that they were distancing themselves from 4E.

It would seem that if they wanted to make the best game they could, they wouldn’t want to distance themselves from any version of the game. That way they can cherry pick as needed from all editions.

[Beholder's Eye]

Hello, as i'm sure most of you have heard, there is word on the wind of 5th edition. What I wonder is what people want it to include and what you think would make it good?

This is more of a presentation thing than a rules idea, but I personally hope that they keep the important crunch clearly separated from the fluff in the books as they did in 4e. From what I have seen of them, it was harder to make out what the really important stats were in older editions. While I am all for going back to their variety at the expense of some balance (which kind of killed some of the fun) I also think that the green color coded stat blocks for monsters, yellow for magic items, etc. made things much easier.

[Vknight]

{Scrubbed}