Was 3.X the end of DnD?

[K]

Something that came to when when reading 5e design blogs was that they weren't making improvements on any version of the DnD engine.

The design progression is clear. Red/Blue/Black/Gold Box is a watered-down version of 1e, then 1e, then refinements in 2e, then more refinements in 3e, but there it stopped. 4e was a complete divergence that took a few elements from 3e and scrapped almost all the major elements that had been preserved in the progression since 1e. 5e is shaping up to be a less interesting version of the Red Box to try to draw the grognards in.

So the question is: was 3.X the best that DnD will ever be? Will we never get a better monster creation system than the mostly non-functional CR system? Will spell effects ever be as interesting and as balanced as 3e versions? Will fighting guys ever be as interesting as spellcasters?

Considering just how many major problems are known to need a solution in 3.X, it makes me wonder if they aren't being solved because the current crop of designers can't do it and thus must write completely new systems that shouldn't even share the name of DnD (4e and 5e, for example).

[Maxus]

Considering just how many major problems are known to need a solution in 3.X, it makes me wonder if they aren't being solved because the current crop of designers can't do it and thus must write completely new systems that shouldn't even share the name of DnD (4e and 5e, for example).

Really? You're only wondering about this?

Mearls is capable of identifying problems...sometimes. Usually after the fanbase points it out and has a bitter fight over it.

He then promises to look at/fix said problem. Then he discovers this would involve actual work and effort and it's usually kinda hard and his ideas aren't gonna work without extensive retooling/tweaking.

Then he does something else.

[virgil]

And has been successfully proven with Pathfinder, you can just say you improved the system from 3E without doing so and many will believe you to the bitter end.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Personally, I think there's still hope for a better edition of DnD. We just need to wait for Mearls and crew to get old and die or screw up so impressively that they are permanently assigned somewhere else.

[Voss]

And has been successfully proven with Pathfinder, you can just say you improved the system from 3E without doing so and many will believe you to the bitter end.

Well, the trick there is they have specific elements they can point to (a little less MAD on some classes, sorcerers slightly less sucky) that even though the system as a whole isn't really better at all, they did do some work with some things that are positive off by themselves.

That said, while 4e was worse in most ways than 3rd, I don't really agree with K's assertion that 4th was a complete divergence. The spell system was clearly pureed into a mass of worthless shit, but elements of the defense sytem were improvements (and continuations) of the 3e model (even if they ultimately fluffed the progression), and healing (at least as initially conceptualized) was better than D&D had ever handled it (to the point that 5e healing looked like a really terrible step back into the past during the playtest- burn out the cleric or haul a wagonload of healing potions).

It is also hard to tell if 5e is really less interesting than the old red box. It is possible, but I think too many elements of 80s rpgs have been shed to really go back to that level of design. I don't know if it will be _good_, but I doubt it will be that sparse.

As for the question of will 3rd be the D&D best ever, its a rather bullshit unanswerable question, since it depends totally on future knowledge. Is it the best edition so far? Probably. It is better than earlier edition simply because it provides options for anyone who isn't a spellcaster (even if they it isn't totally successful at making them good, earlier editions just ignored them entirely), and it is better than 4th, both for being more of an RPG and having a foundation in functional basic math. Will 5e necessarily be worse? Maybe. Even likely if they don't pick design goals and stick with them. But there are a lot of elements of 3rd that I'd rather not deal with again. And spell effects NOT being balanced is one of the biggest, since spells range from 'trivial shit you'd never, ever cast' to spells that win D&D, and those occur at every fucking level.

[Username17]

The D&D fans are incredibly forgiving. It takes literally years for them to actually collectively agree that a problem exists, and that's with the internet allowing them to share that information instantly. AD&D grognards still refuse to believe that high level fightan mans were irrelevant in a world where Magic Users could and did simply summon squads of angels which were better at fighting than they were and also could like raise the dead and shit. You can indeed keep D&D going for literally years by making extremely meaningless superficial alterations and announcing that things are fixed now. Anyone remember the claim that nerfing Haste, Harm, and Hold Person would somehow bring casters into line? People believed that shit.

That being said, what amazed me about 4e was how much they abandoned everything they knew. And secondarily how little they checked to see if anyone actually liked the direction they were going. There was no open or even semi-open playtest. They decided that they needed to scrap their entire game in 2006 and restart because they decided in-house that they absolutely needed daily powers even though everyone fucking hates daily power use limits.

-Username17

[hogarth]

So the question is: was 3.X the best that DnD will ever be? Will we never get a better monster creation system than the mostly non-functional CR system? Will spell effects ever be as interesting and as balanced as 3e versions? Will fighting guys ever be as interesting as spellcasters?

I think part of the issue is that complexity is a large part of 3/3.5E's strength, but the market for people who want to play a complex non-computer game isn't growing (in my experience). So even if you could create a clearly better version of 3.X (which is non-trivial, despite what some people say), you wouldn't be growing.

The alternative is to create a streamlined version of D&D which is what 4E and 5E are aiming at (poorly). But it's not clear to me that there's a huge market for "D&D lite" on the tabletop either.

[Wrathzog]

3.X is one of D&D's peaks, but I wouldn't call it the end of D&D. It's too big to go away even if it's not officially being developed or supported. At least not until Tabletop gaming as a whole bites it.

[MfA]

Wait ... wasn't TGD concensus that just stamping the D&D brand on a good game would be a raging success, and that trying for an evolutionary approach which didn't ditch Vancian, throwing lots of damage dice, doing math on 2+ digit numbers, +X weapons etc. etc. was a completely worthless enterprise?

[Josh_Kablack]

That said 1e to 2e was an upgrade where a number of common houserules became official and then a crazy number of broken splatbooks were released.

2e into 3e was a pretty radical overhaul of the base engine, but many legacy mechanics were kept and the base engine was still recognizable to anyone who knew what "multiply by -1" meant.

3e into 3.5 was a bunch of clarity and editing improvements in the text, but the rules changes were split roughly evenly between improvements and worsenings, both of which were dwarfed by the number of "changes solely for change's sake" See also, Pathfinder

3.x into 4.0 was an even more radical overhaul of the base engine than 3e was. And despite the general sentiment on this board, there were a number of discrete improvements (character action sequence, saves becoming defenses, larger death thresholds, introduction of the bloodied condition, etc) in 4e and an even larger number of good ideas implemented poorly (removal of vancian casting, every class having access to non-combat magic, push/pull/slide effects, skill use as a standardized minigame, attempt to keep combat on the RNG, etc)

So far nothing and I mean nothing I have seen about D&D Next looks to be in any way an improvement over 4e and the designers talking it up continue to contradict each other while presenting ideas for needlessly complex systems that should have been streamlined, if not outright rejected shortly before they made it out of the initial brainstorming session instead of being mentioned to the public as selling points.

[deaddmwalking]

So the question is: was 3.X the best that DnD will ever be?

For the forseeable future, probably.

D&D Next doesn't really show any signs that it's going to do any of the things it needs to do to make a 'better' version of the game.

There are lots of ways you can measure 'best', and by most of those measures, 3.5 is a good system. It had robust sales (there was a time where if you weren't playing 3.5, you weren't playing a TTRPG); it had a lot of flexibility; it was easily expanded. And 3.5 had huge coat tails. The whole hobby took a ride during the 3.x boom, and that was a really amazing thing. Sure, a lot of it was crap, but in that huge steaming pile there were a number of gems - and it really provided a 'toolbox' to help make any game you wanted to make...

Obviously, there were problems. I have more fun playing my home-brew than I do playing 3.x, and even then, I still don't think I'm 'there' yet (but considering I don't have full-time designers, I'm still further than Next).

I don't think D&D Next will be better than 3.x. I don't think the people at Wizards have learned what didn't work in 3.5 or 4th and they're the wrong people to put out a new edition of the game.

After D&D Next fails spectacularly, there are a few possibilities. But the version AFTER Next will probably be good. At least, I hope so.

Because even if there are other games that are 'objectively' better, people still want to play D&D. If they can put together a game that achieves critical mass, they'll be in good shape. It doesn't necessarily mean 'being all things to all people' - you just have to be the best at what you want to achieve and everyone is going to have two choices - play D&D with their friends, or find a different game. That's the position Pathfinder is trying to stake out, and they've been relatively successful.

I wonder if the D&D After Next (and I'm going to Trade Mark that) will be built in-house or licensed. But either way, I think it's going to have to pull on tradition a little more firmly, but really fix things. I think it's going to have more 'modularity' between classes, and that's going to solve a lot of issues. Fighters are going to be able to pick up 'Storm' powers (whether through a Feat, or something) so you're going to see a lot of 'prestige classes' turned into 'base classes' through these 'optional power-ups'. I don't want to call them feats (urinal cakes), but that's the direction it's going to have to go to improve on the flexibility of 3.x without removing 'everything cool' to balance classes. There are going to be some people that object (and I've been spending enough time on RPGforum to know who they are), but they're pretty safely ignored - if you build a flexible system, they'll have fun with it, even if they wish they wouldn't. And if they don't, well, they're happy with 1st edition anyway, so they're not really a market that you can focus on moving...

I think the 3.x fans are different. They've agreed that 3.x has reached the end of the product cycle (but 2008 was about 3 years too early), so they're ready to try something new, but so far, D&D Next hasn't spoken to the things people LIKED about 3.x

A big thing for me is having actual rules for character and moster advancement that mostly work the same way... I like the idea of 'advancing' monsters, and I like that it tends to be consistent. Some of the CR versus HD wonkiness is a problem that might get addressed... Hard to say. That's definitely something I'd expect to see in the next 'successful' version of the game. People want to pull open the hood and play with the mechanics - and that's only going to work if they make the mechanics available.

[hogarth]

So far nothing and I mean nothing I have seen about D&D Next looks to be in any way an improvement over 4e and the designers talking it up continue to contradict each other while presenting ideas for needlessly complex systems that should have been streamlined, if not outright rejected shortly before they made it out of the initial brainstorming session instead of being mentioned to the public as selling points.

I wouldn't be surprised if I ended up liking 5E more than 4E (talk about damning with faint praise). But I think the open playtest is backfiring on them somewhat compared to Pathfinder's playtest. Pathfinder's was just a way for 3.5E fans to say "I like 3.5E and Pathfinder is pretty much 3.5E, so I pretty much like Pathfinder!" whereas 5E is almost certainly going to be fairly dissimilar to 3.5E and 4E so they don't get the same amount of cheerleading from 3.5E or 4E fans.

[ModelCitizen]

3.x into 4.0 was an even more radical overhaul of the base engine than 3e was. And despite the general sentiment on this board, there were a number of discrete improvements (character action sequence, saves becoming defenses, larger death thresholds, introduction of the bloodied condition, etc) in 4e and an even larger number of good ideas implemented poorly (removal of vancian casting, every class having access to non-combat magic, push/pull/slide effects, skill use as a standardized minigame, attempt to keep combat on the RNG, etc)

Is it really consensus that this didn't happen? If you take just the core 4e combat engine - ignore all printed classes, powers, monsters, rituals, and every single word of the DMG - then 4e looks like a pretty good start for a new system. It managed to fix most of the problems with 3e's combat engine, even the ones no one talks about like surprise rounds.

And there is a big market for a new and better system. Look at the attention Pathfinder got initially - they're the #1 TTRPG now essentially because they're printing new 3.5 material, but look at the attention they got back when they told people they were going to fix 3.5. Or look at how much praise SW:S gets even though that game is the Suction Tester at the dick factory. People want a streamlined-but-still-functional 3e to the point that they'll pile adulation on anything that even superficially looks like that.

[deaddmwalking]

So far nothing and I mean nothing I have seen about D&D Next looks to be in any way an improvement over 4e and the designers talking it up continue to contradict each other while presenting ideas for needlessly complex systems that should have been streamlined, if not outright rejected shortly before they made it out of the initial brainstorming session instead of being mentioned to the public as selling points.

I wouldn't be surprised if I ended up liking 5E more than 4E (talk about damning with faint praise). But I think the open playtest is backfiring on them somewhat compared to Pathfinder's playtest. Pathfinder's was just a way for 3.5E fans to say "I like 3.5E and Pathfinder is pretty much 3.5E, so I pretty much like Pathfinder!" whereas 5E is almost certainly going to be fairly dissimilar to 3.5E and 4E so they don't get the same amount of cheerleading from 3.5E or 4E fans.

This is a good point.

[FatR]

Or look at how much praise SW:S gets even though that game is the Suction Tester at the dick factory.

A dumb question: what is SW:S? Star Wars Saga?

[sabs]

Well they now have shat upon both 3.5 and 4E fans. I'm not sure how much more feces squatting the D&D Sheep can take before they all nerdragequit.

[ModelCitizen]

Or look at how much praise SW:S gets even though that game is the Suction Tester at the dick factory.

A dumb question: what is SW:S? Star Wars Saga?

Yeah, that's the one. I couldn't remember if the proper name was Star Wars Saga or Star Wars: Saga or Star Wars SAGA.

[Libertad]

1. So the question is: was 3.X the best that DnD will ever be?

2. Will we never get a better monster creation system than the mostly non-functional CR system?

3. Will spell effects ever be as interesting and as balanced as 3e versions?

4. Will fighting guys ever be as interesting as spellcasters?

5. Considering just how many major problems are known to need a solution in 3.X, it makes me wonder if they aren't being solved because the current crop of designers can't do it and thus must write completely new systems that shouldn't even share the name of DnD (4e and 5e, for example).

1. I don't think so. D&D has too much brand recognition and history to die. It's like an undead creature this way; lots of folk worried about the "death of D&D" during Lorraine Williams' TSR days, and the company collapsed. But then it got picked up by WotC and we got 3rd Edition from it. So even if Wizards screws up big, it's only a matter of time before someone else comes along to pick it up. And they may do a better job.

2. Same as above. Depends on who picks it up.

3. Spells were very interesting in 3.X, but they certainly weren't balanced. The deliberate design of system mastery meant that many options were clearly better than others, thus leading to an unbalanced system.

4. Depends on the fanbase. Tome of Battle was a step in the right direction, and fantasy fiction is full of fighter types with magic powers and superhuman abilities. But there's a base of players across editions who prefer Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards and don't view it as a flaw.

5. Trying to fix the problems of 3.X is a massive undertaking. 3.X's greatest weaknesses IMO are its complexity and Ivory Tower Game Design. The hundreds of pages worth of additional rules, feats, magic items, and others added into the system only makes things harder to balance (it's kind of like the Travelling Salesman Problem). It's a lot less work to just start anew than to try and balance 3rd Edition, especially when one can mimic the trappings and aesthetics of D&D in a simpler system.

[John Magnum]

The deliberate design of system mastery meant that many options were UN-clearly better than others, which is a somewhat different problem. I mean, yes, there WERE ALSO options that were clearly better than others. But it's by no means obvious to people who don't already know that prismatic spray and sleep are the game-winning spells, or that direct-damage spells are an utter waste of time.

[Stubbazubba]

Or look at how much praise SW:S gets even though that game is the Suction Tester at the dick factory.

A dumb question: what is SW:S? Star Wars Saga?

Yeah, that's the one. I couldn't remember if the proper name was Star Wars Saga or Star Wars: Saga or Star Wars SAGA.

It's most commonly abbreviated SWSE or SW:SE for Star Wars Saga Edition.

[Libertad]

The deliberate design of system mastery meant that many options were UN-clearly better than others, which is a somewhat different problem. I mean, yes, there WERE ALSO options that were clearly better than others. But it's by no means obvious to people who don't already know that prismatic spray and sleep are the game-winning spells, or that direct-damage spells are an utter waste of time.

Yes, I forgot to address that part.

Even then, clearly better options are bad because most players won't pick them unless they're doing a challenge run or designing intentionally weak characters for low-tier play or "role-playing" reasons.

Your point also ties back into another problem: accessibility to newcomers and casual gamers. System bloat isn't unique to 3rd Edition, but D&D is a very rules-heavy system, and it's brand recognition is its main way of drawing people in in comparison to easily accessible rules-light RPGs. It also requires a lot more time, effort, and work for players and DMs alike. I really enjoy 3rd Edition, but many gamers don't have the free time to dedicate to hours of character optimization or NPC design. Overall, it was a good run and brought many great ideas and rules to D&D, but it's ultimately too complicated to attract casual gamers or new players without revolutionary changes (which would alienate the core base).

[sabs]

Well, it was incredibly easy in 3.5 to have a halfling fighter, a drow bard, a (does it matter)CoD, a half dragon Wizard, and a half dragon, celestial template paladin.

It's like that joke:
He rides his BMX Bike, He Summons the Host of Angels
Together, they fight crime.

Someone is either not pulling their weight, or getting seriously out classed, depending on the level of the challenges.

[Libertad]

Well, it was incredibly easy in 3.5 to have a halfling fighter, a drow bard, a (does it matter)CoD, a half dragon Wizard, and a half dragon, celestial template paladin.

It's like that joke:
He rides his BMX Bike, He Summons the Host of Angels
Together, they fight crime.

Someone is either not pulling their weight, or getting seriously out classed, depending on the level of the challenges.

It really comes down to that. People didn't want to feel useless, and spellcasters dominated play in 3.X

4th Edition, despite its flaws, was appealing because it bridged the gap between casters and noncasters more so than 3.X, at the risk of alienating many fans.

WotC is in a lose-lose situations. They can address these problems and redesign a system, but they'll lose customers. They can stick with the system, flaws and all, but they'll lose players and future customers who opt for variant RPGs and rulesets.

[MfA]

WotC puts itself in a lose lose situation. Making the game recognizable is not incompatible with fixing it ... it's just incompatible with Mearl's ego.

Want to unite the player base? Put someone in charge with a little less ego and simply take what's workable from previous editions, it doesn't have to be optimal, just workable. Even 4e has enough which is workable (paragon/epic for one, you could probably adapt one of the more popular classes into 5e core as well ... Warlord perhaps?).

Trying to build a decent and balanced game when you are a-priori stuck with Vancian casters, 9 level of spells and some iconics you just shouldn't mess with (fireball does D6 per CL with save for half), and +X weapons might not be as easy or as aesthetically pleasing to a game designer as starting from scratch ... but it's not impossible IMO.

[angelfromanotherpin]

I think it's entirely possible that the D&D brand won't survive 5e. I wouldn't say it's a high chance, it's a strong brand with a tolerant audience, but the people in charge of 5e get up early.