It reminds me of the D&D Essentials during late 4E that was somewhat backward compatible in theory but was a parrallel line of game elements in practices. I wonder if it's that they have in mind again.
Didn't WotC say 4e would be compatible with 5e, and that it wasn't a new edition back then too?
No i don't recall them ever saying that, in fact WoTC were really aiming to make 5E very different and closer to how 3E worked to my memory.
Fair, I didn't play much then but remember friends wondering and debating what was going to happen.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
Consider, when OneDnD is released the 2014 PHB will most likely stop being sold shortly after. So getting the book now (or when the next sale occurs) means you'll have the book in your account even after it stops being published/distributed. So even if you get the new ODD materials, you'll then have both options to draw from going forward.
This is a very good point which I hadn't considered. When 3.5 was replaced by 4, it seems that PHB was off the market within minutes! We loved version 3.5 and had no intentions of getting 4 while I had hundreds (or thousands) of dollars invested in 3.5. And other than greed, I saw no point in a new version when 3.5 and the D20 shared content bubble was still floating so high. I still find older versions of the game helpful for things that don't exist in 5e. And while the announcement video clearly stated that One would be backward compatible to 5, the PHB will clearly have the biggest changes.
It reminds me of the D&D Essentials during late 4E that was somewhat backward compatible in theory but was a parrallel line of game elements in practices. I wonder if it's that they have in mind again.
Didn't WotC say 4e would be compatible with 5e, and that it wasn't a new edition back then too?
There will be differences, expect the three action economy copied from Pathfinder 2 and expect the ancestry system to be copied from Pathfinder 2 as well. Why? Because D&D had to hire half the senior dev team from Paizo to continue to update. IMHO, they screwed up horribly in the community and keep screwing up in the communiy, so rather than a minor update D&D One, they have to do a larger update introducing new gameplay features. They have to have to do something about combat, its a long slog. That being written, I just ran my first full Fantasy Grounds game, and after finding the right tutorials, it greatly sped up combat with automation features. But that's Fantasy Grounds, combat is faster due to that VTT, without it or other full service VTT's (Foundry etc) the combat will slog.
The new weapon effects are very bland, but they will put them in to give fighters something, I'm changing the effects significantly I'll be copying a lot of the weapon effects from BG3 and they will be limited in use.
I think there was a time in the development of 5E, when it was called 'D&D Next’ where the developers were promoting the idea that they wanted the new edition to be compatible with all previous editions of D&D, including 4th edition. This may be what people are remembering when they say 'WotC said 4e would be compatible with 5e’. In a sense, 5E is compatible with 4E in as much as the share a genealogy and many of the 4E ideas were integrated into 5E design, sometimes subtly.
However, like I say, it is mostly marketing talk. 4E was a bit of a commercial and critical flop, if we are being honest, and quite divisive. When 5E was being developed, the notion of a new edition was trying to sweep all the conflict away. 10 years later, after the comparative success of 5E, they don’t want to lose any 5E fans by suggesting that the new edition is actually new.
Fair, I didn't play much then but remember friends wondering and debating what was going to happen.
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
This is a very good point which I hadn't considered. When 3.5 was replaced by 4, it seems that PHB was off the market within minutes! We loved version 3.5 and had no intentions of getting 4 while I had hundreds (or thousands) of dollars invested in 3.5. And other than greed, I saw no point in a new version when 3.5 and the D20 shared content bubble was still floating so high. I still find older versions of the game helpful for things that don't exist in 5e. And while the announcement video clearly stated that One would be backward compatible to 5, the PHB will clearly have the biggest changes.
There will be differences, expect the three action economy copied from Pathfinder 2 and expect the ancestry system to be copied from Pathfinder 2 as well. Why? Because D&D had to hire half the senior dev team from Paizo to continue to update. IMHO, they screwed up horribly in the community and keep screwing up in the communiy, so rather than a minor update D&D One, they have to do a larger update introducing new gameplay features. They have to have to do something about combat, its a long slog. That being written, I just ran my first full Fantasy Grounds game, and after finding the right tutorials, it greatly sped up combat with automation features. But that's Fantasy Grounds, combat is faster due to that VTT, without it or other full service VTT's (Foundry etc) the combat will slog.
The new weapon effects are very bland, but they will put them in to give fighters something, I'm changing the effects significantly I'll be copying a lot of the weapon effects from BG3 and they will be limited in use.
I expect an update from 3E to 3.5E style.
I think there was a time in the development of 5E, when it was called 'D&D Next’ where the developers were promoting the idea that they wanted the new edition to be compatible with all previous editions of D&D, including 4th edition. This may be what people are remembering when they say 'WotC said 4e would be compatible with 5e’. In a sense, 5E is compatible with 4E in as much as the share a genealogy and many of the 4E ideas were integrated into 5E design, sometimes subtly.
However, like I say, it is mostly marketing talk. 4E was a bit of a commercial and critical flop, if we are being honest, and quite divisive. When 5E was being developed, the notion of a new edition was trying to sweep all the conflict away. 10 years later, after the comparative success of 5E, they don’t want to lose any 5E fans by suggesting that the new edition is actually new.
That is my reading of it anyway.
I am also a supporter of picking up the free stuff and giving D&D a try that way.
You can still have a TON of fun with just the free stuff. If you like it enough, then wait for the hot new thing next year.
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