Second edition was a cleanup and revision of first, and was badly needed. Third edition was a brilliant elaboration on the first two,
3.5 cleaned up some problems with it, and by this point it has an unparalleled richness to it.
4.0? It doesn't actually follow on from any previous version of the game; it's something completely different, and many of the most basic options from
the previous games are suddenly unavailable (monks, barbarians, sorcerers, bards... even specialist wizards!).
That, and for some bizarre reason they felt it necessary to gut the Forgotten Realms setting, subjecting it to a DC-Crisis-level century of disaster in order
to make the world AND its cosmology conform to that presented in the new core books. I can't read that as anything but a studied insult to the fanbase.
I would be a lot less pissed off by this if they weren't calling it Dungeons & Dragons. Or if they advertised it as a new "Basic
set" and kept 3.5 going. If it was a separate game, it'd be a nice little change, a simplistic tactical board game for the younger set.
As it is? I am frothing in rage here.
Fortunately we've got Paizo Publishing and their Pathfinder RPG, an ongoing experiment in "3.75th edition" to keep me sane.
--Sam
"I'm very mad now. I may even be tingling."
3.5 cleaned up some problems with it, and by this point it has an unparalleled richness to it.
4.0? It doesn't actually follow on from any previous version of the game; it's something completely different, and many of the most basic options from
the previous games are suddenly unavailable (monks, barbarians, sorcerers, bards... even specialist wizards!).
That, and for some bizarre reason they felt it necessary to gut the Forgotten Realms setting, subjecting it to a DC-Crisis-level century of disaster in order
to make the world AND its cosmology conform to that presented in the new core books. I can't read that as anything but a studied insult to the fanbase.
I would be a lot less pissed off by this if they weren't calling it Dungeons & Dragons. Or if they advertised it as a new "Basic
set" and kept 3.5 going. If it was a separate game, it'd be a nice little change, a simplistic tactical board game for the younger set.
As it is? I am frothing in rage here.
Fortunately we've got Paizo Publishing and their Pathfinder RPG, an ongoing experiment in "3.75th edition" to keep me sane.
--Sam
"I'm very mad now. I may even be tingling."