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Pen and Paper Roleplaying Games (RPGs) Discussion / Re: Perkins states "There isnt a new edition"
« Last post by Venka on Today at 12:09:10 PM »I wonder if this is to encourage people to buy more current D&D products?
I legitimately believe this is the entire reason that they are claiming "it's not a new edition".
I've paid a good amount of attention to the playtest, and while I have no idea what's coming out in September, they have really changed a lot of how the game balance works. For instance, the feats, which previously were just all generally meant to be worth +2 stats (with some being way better or way worse) are now being lined up into lesser feats and greater feats, and the idea is that you can't get the greater feats until like 4th level. Even those greater feats are nowhere near as powerful as the top feats used to be in 5.0. So the feats are nerfed!
But all the "martial" classes, are buffed. This is received pretty well as 5.0 has this as a common criticism (most of them don't know that this critique kinda goes back to early D&D and has always had some validity), because 5.0 lets casters move out of hiding, cast, and move back into hiding, depending on the shape of the place- a far cry from having to declare your action before initiative is rolled and risk interruption or your spell not being aimed at the correct target, or the scenario changing a lot. Anyway, the playtest stuff had more impressive martial class scaling.
Ok so, 5.5 comes out. It's all the same version, so you grab the variant human from 5.0, use it to take a really strong feat like 5.0 sharpshooter, and then take your first level in 5.5 fighter. Now you have a character more powerful than can be created in either version, but it's all the same version, right?
No way. They have to ramp up power options to sell books, and they can't let you pick and choose between versions. There will be some kind of creation rules to prevent that. By contrast, your 5.5 PHB built guy using something from Tasha's Cauldron Of Retcons And Apologies will be allowed, because they haven't reprinted that one yet, or... something.
So when they say that it's all the same version:
1- They want you to keep buying the existing products now.
2- They probably have a plan to keep you buying the non-directly-replaced existing products as well, later.
But I think (1) is enough to explain this obvious lie they keep pushing.