Quote from: Christopher Brady;846036It's an edition they're hoping quietly goes away.

Yep, just like each edition that has come before for the past 15 years they want their current one to be what EVERYONE plays. Still doesn't take away from comparisons of 4e, 3e, 2e, etc.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;846036I've not looked at many of the surveys, but of those I've looked at, not one of them has anything to do with 4e.  Are there any? (Honest question, like I said, I've missed many a survey.)

The last one was about campaign settings to bring into 5e and 4e's Nentir Vale was one of them. One before that was about previous classes re-imaged into 5e and the Warden and I believe Invoker was also included. Those 2, off the top of my head, both held 4e options. Not only that but they kept ALL the flavor from 4e for the Warlock and you can thank 4e for healing Hit Die and pretty much all of the Battle master fighter and supplemental rules like Marking in the DMG. For a system trying to cut 4e away they sure internalized a lot of core assumptions.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;846036So why haven't they?  Even as Unearthed Arcana articles.

Looking at the past UA articles they have converted just one previous class (Favored Soul) into a Sorcerer sub-class. In one year. They also attempted an Artificer but that went back to the drawing board. They also came up with a spell-less Ranger which, when you look at it sideways, could be a 4e attempt since they didn't have magic in 4e.

Quote from: Batman;846057Yep, just like each edition that has come before for the past 15 years they want their current one to be what EVERYONE plays. Still doesn't take away from comparisons of 4e, 3e, 2e, etc.

Actually no.  As WoTC has rereleased in either physical or PDF form, I believe Rules Cyclopedia, AD&D 1e, 3e and I THINK maybe even 2e (at least I heard rumours that they were), but I haven't seen anything come out.

Quote from: Batman;846057The last one was about campaign settings to bring into 5e and 4e's Nentir Vale was one of them. One before that was about previous classes re-imaged into 5e and the Warden and I believe Invoker was also included. Those 2, off the top of my head, both held 4e options. Not only that but they kept ALL the flavor from 4e for the Warlock and you can thank 4e for healing Hit Die and pretty much all of the Battle master fighter and supplemental rules like Marking in the DMG. For a system trying to cut 4e away they sure internalized a lot of core assumptions.

Actually the Artificer was a late, late, late 3e class, and really freakin' popular too.  I'll grant you the Warlock however, they did change the class a lot from it's 3e incarnation, now that they got a better handle on what they wanted.

As for settings, well, we know how well that survey turned out.  The only thing that they kept race-wise from 4e was the Dragonborn and the Tiefling fluff.

Quote from: Batman;846057Looking at the past UA articles they have converted just one previous class (Favored Soul) into a Sorcerer sub-class. In one year. They also attempted an Artificer but that went back to the drawing board. They also came up with a spell-less Ranger which, when you look at it sideways, could be a 4e attempt since they didn't have magic in 4e.

I don't know about the Ranger, there were a lot of people back in my 2e days that wanted a spell-less Ranger, so it might be a 4e thing, or it might just be a skipped step in it's potential evolution as a class.  I dunno about that one, because I have no evidence either way.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;846076Actually no.  As WoTC has rereleased in either physical or PDF form, I believe Rules Cyclopedia, AD&D 1e, 3e and I THINK maybe even 2e (at least I heard rumours that they were), but I haven't seen anything come out.

Mostly because a lot of 4e stuff is still in stores or is easily available where as 3e isn't and definitely not pre-3E. I have 2 half-price book stores where I live and it's pretty easy to get your hands on 3e and 4e material, a little bit harder for diverse AD&D 2e stuff and practically nothing prior to that. Perhaps that has something to do with it?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;846076Actually the Artificer was a late, late, late 3e class, and really freakin' popular too.  I'll grant you the Warlock however, they did change the class a lot from it's 3e incarnation, now that they got a better handle on what they wanted.

Yeah the Artificer was first released in the Eberron setting for revised 3rd and later updated to 4e. I do feel, however, that 4e gave it a better treatment than it got with 3E with way more support and possibly one of the reasons why it went back to the drawing board after it's UA debut? From what I read, it didn't do well as a Wizard's tradition and it probably needs it's own class.  

Quote from: Christopher Brady;846076As for settings, well, we know how well that survey turned out.  The only thing that they kept race-wise from 4e was the Dragonborn and the Tiefling fluff.

Truly though, what else was left? I mean Halflings, Humans, Elves (non-eladrin type), Dwarves, Gnomes, Half-orcs, etc. all exist in 4e, 3e, and prior so they pretty much covered the bases 4e should've with the PHB. 5e did, though, produce a solid Drow option which hasn't seen PHB-like status since 4E adopted it as a player option in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide. In 3e it was in the Monster Manual and had TONS of things that made it nearly unplayable right out of the gate.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;846076I don't know about the Ranger, there were a lot of people back in my 2e days that wanted a spell-less Ranger, so it might be a 4e thing, or it might just be a skipped step in it's potential evolution as a class.  I dunno about that one, because I have no evidence either way.

Perhaps its a combination of many desires from across the spectrum? I know the spell-less Ranger was an option in the v3.5 supplement Complete Warrior but it was vastly inferior to the spell version and if you wanted to play a Ranger with spells in 4E you played a Seeker or hybrid/MC Ranger|Seeker (which was a LOT of fun, let me tell you!).

Quote from: Batman;846168Mostly because a lot of 4e stuff is still in stores or is easily available where as 3e isn't and definitely not pre-3E. I have 2 half-price book stores where I live and it's pretty easy to get your hands on 3e and 4e material, a little bit harder for diverse AD&D 2e stuff and practically nothing prior to that. Perhaps that has something to do with it?

4e stuff is still easy to acquire?  Really?  Hmm, OK.  I've got no evidence to support otherwise, except anecdotes, like all the game stores in my town nearly got rid of their stock almost immediately 5e came out.

A friend of mine was awfully disappointed.  Personally I preferred the boardgames, I found the system excelled there.

Quote from: Batman;846168Yeah the Artificer was first released in the Eberron setting for revised 3rd and later updated to 4e. I do feel, however, that 4e gave it a better treatment than it got with 3E with way more support and possibly one of the reasons why it went back to the drawing board after it's UA debut? From what I read, it didn't do well as a Wizard's tradition and it probably needs it's own class.

Honestly, I'll never understand the need to give every single niche it's own separate class.  But then again, I grew up reading S&S books, like the original REH Conan stuff, and those heroes are broad generalists, so my view is completely skewed there.

Quote from: Batman;846168Truly though, what else was left? I mean Halflings, Humans, Elves (non-eladrin type), Dwarves, Gnomes, Half-orcs, etc. all exist in 4e, 3e, and prior so they pretty much covered the bases 4e should've with the PHB. 5e did, though, produce a solid Drow option which hasn't seen PHB-like status since 4E adopted it as a player option in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide. In 3e it was in the Monster Manual and had TONS of things that made it nearly unplayable right out of the gate.

Truthfully I was more surprised that the Dragonborn were considered important enough to import.  I knew tieflings would be, simply because everyone loved them since Planescape back in 2e.

Quote from: Batman;846168Perhaps its a combination of many desires from across the spectrum? I know the spell-less Ranger was an option in the v3.5 supplement Complete Warrior but it was vastly inferior to the spell version and if you wanted to play a Ranger with spells in 4E you played a Seeker or hybrid/MC Ranger|Seeker (which was a LOT of fun, let me tell you!).

I can see that, although the Ranger was a difficult class to find it's voice, especially in 3e.  At first it was Dual Wielding badassery, but people wanted archery to be viable, so in 3.5 they lowered the HP die and gave it an archer focus as a choice, which hurt the dual wielder camp, because it was restricted to light armour, but had a cleric's hit die.  Magic was it's only saving grace, to hear some talk.  No one ever played a Ranger in my games, so I couldn't say.

Then 4e comes along, and it's suddenly the damage baseline every other class is measured against, simply due to raw output.

4e will always be remembered as the low point of D&D (I hope! I can't conceive of WoTC or any other future owner of the franchise actually doing something less-D&D than that!).

Quote from: RPGPundit;8466734e will always be remembered as the low point of D&D (I hope! I can't conceive of WoTC or any other future owner of the franchise actually doing something less-D&D than that!).

No, it won't. People tend to remember actual fun a lot more than arbitrary discussions with an arbitrary collection of strangers, mostly due to a stronger personal investment. Logically, those who played 4th edition and enjoyed ot will have a significantly stronger positive memory of it than those who never interacted much with the system outside of online discussions. So, the majority will either remember it fondly or, more likely, not at all.
Then, in ten years or so, there will be nostalgic notions about how "brave" the design decisions of fourth edition were, and  how well the system worked in a very specific content.

Quote from: Beagle;846678No, it won't. People tend to remember actual fun a lot more than arbitrary discussions with an arbitrary collection of strangers, mostly due to a stronger personal investment. Logically, those who played 4th edition and enjoyed ot will have a significantly stronger positive memory of it than those who never interacted much with the system outside of online discussions. So, the majority will either remember it fondly or, more likely, not at all.
Then, in ten years or so, there will be nostalgic notions about how "brave" the design decisions of fourth edition were, and  how well the system worked in a very specific content.

Precisely

Quote from: Beagle;846678No, it won't. People tend to remember actual fun a lot more than arbitrary discussions with an arbitrary collection of strangers, mostly due to a stronger personal investment. Logically, those who played 4th edition and enjoyed ot will have a significantly stronger positive memory of it than those who never interacted much with the system outside of online discussions. So, the majority will either remember it fondly or, more likely, not at all.
Then, in ten years or so, there will be nostalgic notions about how "brave" the design decisions of fourth edition were, and  how well the system worked in a very specific content.

Which is exactly how the OSR movement works.

Quote from: RPGPundit;8466734e will always be remembered as the low point of D&D (I hope! I can't conceive of WoTC or any other future owner of the franchise actually doing something less-D&D than that!).

4e D&D Gamma World. Yes. They can go lower. Lots lower. D&D as a slapstick comedy. Or say they went Dragonlance and overfocused on linear path story-adventures. Or...

Dragon Strike...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8LBpMuSTrQ

oog...

Never underestimate WOTCs ability to totally screw the pooch better than TSR ever did.

Quote from: Beagle;846678No, it won't. People tend to remember actual fun a lot more than arbitrary discussions with an arbitrary collection of strangers, mostly due to a stronger personal investment. Logically, those who played 4th edition and enjoyed ot will have a significantly stronger positive memory of it than those who never interacted much with the system outside of online discussions. So, the majority will either remember it fondly or, more likely, not at all.
Then, in ten years or so, there will be nostalgic notions about how "brave" the design decisions of fourth edition were, and  how well the system worked in a very specific content.

Perhaps, but people tend to remember negative experiences with even greater clarity and fervor, especially if it was unexpected. I may not remember all those average days of fun with coworkers and customers while working retail, but I keenly remember those embittered harpies who made customer service hell. Similarly those days at the beach blur into a happy nostalgia, but I surely remember that crab pinch, soft drink pull tab cut on my foot, and nasty sunburn.

Does it affect my future fun? Hell yes! I know what to avoid and warn others to stay clear away from in the future. I may not avoid D&D, but I definitely know what I like and don't like when I return to it.

Quote from: Beagle;846678No, it won't. People tend to remember actual fun a lot more than arbitrary discussions with an arbitrary collection of strangers, mostly due to a stronger personal investment. Logically, those who played 4th edition and enjoyed ot will have a significantly stronger positive memory of it than those who never interacted much with the system outside of online discussions. So, the majority will either remember it fondly or, more likely, not at all.
Then, in ten years or so, there will be nostalgic notions about how "brave" the design decisions of fourth edition were, and  how well the system worked in a very specific content.

Look, there were a LOT of people who had a decent amount of fun with 2e AD&D, and yet, it was STILL remembered badly by many of these people, people who actually had fun playing it, just because it was remembered as the edition that betrayed Gygax, bankrupted TSR and almost killed the hobby.

Whereas with 4e, unlike 2e, you had TWO-THIRDS of D&D gamers COMPLETELY ABANDON D&D because of it.  You seriously think those people, who QUIT THE FUCKING GAME because of 4e, will look back on it fondly?  They might look back fondly on Pathfinder, as "that RPG that got me through those totally shitty 4e D&D years when the game disgusted me, thank goodness it was around".  But 4e?  In comparison to 4e, Lorraine Williams will be remembered as a benevolent patron of the hobby.

There's a better chance I'll be remembered as mild mannered than of 4e being looked fondly upon by anyone other than the most die-hard of 4e-assholes.

And lots of people quit D&D during 2e AD&D (like me) and still there are people who generally still talk about & play it like there are people who talk/play 4e.

Which all irrelevant to the topic of the Monk in 5e. I, for one, have seen a low-level monk perform pretty well in 5e. Sure, they don't have the best AC but in a game where multi-attacks are very important, especially at low levels, he got us out of a few jams with flurry quite easily.

I think that 5e got the monk right in terms of flavor and effectiveness, at least when you compare it to pre-4e incarnation. 4e did a similar job, and effectively, but had a more magical bent than I think some really wanted. Not too mention it came out FAR too late in the editions cycle.