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Jan 21, 2012 -- 5:00AM, WriterAtLarge wrote:

If the same / a very similar AEDU Powers system is in full force for all classes the way it was in 4.0E, I will probably not adopt the system.

This is it for me as well. There were things I liked and things I didn't like about 4e. This is the only one that I would consider an outright dealbreaker, not because it is inherently bad or anything like that, it's just not the sort of game I'm interested in. I expect to see these aspects of 4e gone from 5e, however, because I think this is one of the major reasons many did not transition to 4e.

• The tighter math: for an example, in 4e, even at higher levels, the gap between a character's lowest defence and highest defence won't be as drastic as the difference between a character's low save and high save in 3e. In 4e, you have a more than a 10% chance of not being subject to an effect that your character class isn't built to defend against (either by static defence bonuses or ability score requirements).
• Many of the fixes made to spells that mean they no longer break the game at their appropriate levels yet they retain their flavour. As an example we have the 4e sleep, which still makes enemies that it targets fall unconscious, but allows a save for enemies to wake up each turn.
• Ease of monster and encounter design. The game should be built in such a way that I can throw a bunch of level-appropriate enemies at the players and not have to worry about it being an unfair challenge. Due to the lack of balance in 3e, encounter design involved a lot of double-checking, just to make sure that monsters didn't overpower the group's weaker members while at the same time not being a cakewalk to the stronger members.

So, if 5e isn't a mathematically sound and balanced system while at the same time retaining the flavour of previous editions, I will be sorely disappointed. None of these, however, are deal-breakers to me.

the goal of 5e is to unite all the D&D players of all editions.

To do that, the game must begin at it's core as something more basic, traditional, and familiar to most players and DMs than 4.0 and later add modular rules variants that would bring some part of 4.0 back to D&D.

so at the core of the game... its going to be something more akin to 3.0,

and that means..

lower magic level, less feats, less choices for players regarding character generation (race, skills, inate abilities, etc) less spell like powers, a less tactical and more descriptive combat system.

It means defining what it means for a game to be Dungeons and Dragons at it's most minimum. swing the sword, roll the dammage... not look over 40 ability cards, activate three powers, roll for ongoing powers and effects, roll a bunch of ability checks, shift people all over the map, and use interupt abilities at any point along the line, etc etc,

It means gothikaiju will likely not be spending money on 5e and it means if 4e players are hoping for the game to be 4e with even more rules... their probabily going to be disappointed.

if 5e ends up being just a re-vamping of 4e with some nods to older players by bringing back alignment and not tieing magic to expected power levels, it wont be enough for me, it would mean that the Devs have lied to us again to leech the money from our pockets, and I'll skulk back to my lair, start a new skyrim game and never spend another dime on WotC products.