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Hello everybody Jorphdan here the PH is silent.
I wanted to talk about the changes from 3.5 to 4th edition and what eventually caused
5th edition.
I had a patron ask me why everyone hates on 4e so much.
I couldn’t give a super great answer so I did some research to make a video about
it.
I’ve played 4e for about 8 months, and I did enjoy my time playing 4th edition but
I see the problems people have with it.
This video is mostly my opinions as there isn’t a definitive book or article on “Why
do people hate DnD 4th edition.”
Starting off we have to dip into 3.5 edition for a little bit.
3rd edition came out in 2000.
By July 2003 a revised version of 3rd edition came out and was termed 3.5.
It incorporated numerous rule changes addressing common complaints about the aspects of gameplay.
They made changes to certain spells, but many things like magic items and monsters remained
the same.
Not everything but that’s why it was called 3.5; they just updated 3rd edition.
This was the start of 4th edition.
People complaining that the rules weren’t clear enough for players and dungeon masters.
I’m sure only Wizards knows if these were the loud voices of a few players or the majority
of the community.
Regardless I believe it was here that Wizards of the Coast started to see their game as
more of a tactical combat game with light roleplaying.
By 2007 Wizards announced 4th edition, which was then released June 2008.
This was early, 3rd edition was now the shortest supported D&D edition; and the rumor was that
4th edition was going to be super different.
Another problem that upset players is traditionally Dungeons & Dragons was released in three books,
a player's handbook, a monster manual, and a dungeon master’s guide but this wasn’t
the case for 4e.
With numerous volumes of player’s handbooks WotC was encouraging players to pick them
all up.
I’m sure from their standpoint more books equals more money and players wanted more
so it kind of made sense.
The game was then also changed drastically to balance Dungeons and Dragons from the ground
up rather than an attempt to fix 3.5.
Dungeons & Dragons was completely overhauled to resemble a miniature combat game more than
a traditional RPG.
Trying to compete with World of Warcraft?
Was the MMO going to destroy conventional TableTop RPGs?
Wizards of the coast wanted to get new players, they wanted to appeal to the MMO WoW player.
Now I couldn’t find any articles or anything that specifically states that Wizards of the
Coast was targeting this MMO market.
Nor that they intended D&D to feel more like a video game, however the consensus with a
lot of the fans is that they did.
For many Table Top Role players 4e felt like a tabletop MMO.
Focused on combat, tactics, and gearing up, less on story.
Traditional fans of 3e and AD&D didn’t really care to play a video game at the table.
The game was changed from the ground up.
Spells and abilities were replaced with powers.
Every class had powers so every class was essentially easier to balance with one another,
and appealed to more people.
Characters were played essentially the same way to encourage players to try different
classes.
No longer would a fighter be left in the dust to an all powerful wizard.
A rogue would use their stealthy sneak stabby powers and a sorcerer could use their produce
fireball powers.
But every character had essentially a few At-Will Powers (abilities they could use anytime)
Encounter Powers (abilities they could use once per fight), and Daily Powers which could
be used only once a day or long rest.
This put many of the characters on the same playing field which was wasn’t necessarily a bad thing
I mean Fighters want to feel powerful at level 20 just like a wizard does.
Combat was very tactical as new books came out more “powers” were released that would
shape the battlefield making miniatures and a battlemap key to playing.
However many people played 3.5 and earlier editions using theater of the mind.
They didn’t want to invest in miniatures, a general description of the battlefield should
have been enough for a few friends to roll some dice and play an RPG.
Many players enjoyed the new system for eliminating DM rulings in favor of Wizards of the Coast
or “official” rulings.
DMs and players couldn’t agree on how far away a monster was, or where a monster was
pushed, or how many hit points it had.
All of these were very mathematically scripted out.
Many 3.5 players had invested heavily into that game and were sad to see D&D coming out
with a new system so quickly.
Those players wanted WotC to update 3.5 to something like 3.75 which would fix a few
more rules than completely overhaul the game.
If you play 5th edition at this point you can kind of see the lessons they learned from
both 3.5 and 4th edition when creating 5e.
A new emphasis on the story, using Dungeons and Dragons to allow people to tell a unique
story.
The rules are important but flexible.
I myself play with miniatures but there have been times, narratively it just works out
better to have a theater of the mind and see where the dice take us.
I’m thinking back to every underwater combat I’ve ever ran.
4e ran a lot like a video game, people often use the term it was codified.
Lore wise 4e shunned a bunch of their player base too.
4th edition came up with a new creation myth, a war with the primordials and the gods.
The gods existing up in the Astral Sea and the Primordials existing down in the elemental
chaos.
The primordials created the shadowfell and the feywild from the prime material plane.
Certain iconic monsters or locations were now tied to this new mythology.
The elves came from the Feywild and Barovia was part of the shadowfell.
The plane of shadow was now kind of the shadowfell all along, and it just confused players.
But that was just general D&D lore, now we get into some of the Forgotten Realms specific
stuff.
WotC wanted to combine older lore with their new creation story.
They wanted to explain new races and a new magic system put in place in the core mechanics
of D&D.
They did this with the previous mentioned creation story and the Spellplague.
You can learn more about the spellplague in the link above, but in short Mystra the goddess
of magic was murdered in 1385 DR at the hands of Cyric which was engineered by Shar.
With her the weave was torn apart and magic ceased to exist how we know it.
It was 10 years that blue magical fire tore across Faerun reshaping it.
Bringing with it parts of Abeir, a lot world, and thus the Dragonborn.
The Feywild, which was new to 4th edition was explained as always being there but now
very accessible via the prime material plane.
It was called the realm of faerie back in the day.
Savras died, Azuth was devoured, Lathander turned into Amaunator.
Cyric was imprisoned for his crime.
The World Tree was destroyed and whole sections of Faerun were changed geographically.
The Sea of Fallen Stars shrunk being dumped into the Underdark.
Mulhorand was completely destroyed and the Mulhorandi pantheon disappeared.
As I go over this again I’m not sure why Wizards of the Coast wanted such dramatic,
sudden, and intense changes to the Forgotten Realms.
Maybe they felt it would shake it up.
But with deities changing or dying, geography rearranging, spells not working like they
used to, and parts of Faerun burning under blue fire nobody felt like it was the realms
they grew up with.
The past books, the stories people loved were now changed forever and well people don’t
usually like change.
Rather than trying to remember what was happening in the Realms it was now easier just to play
in it during the 3.5 era.
By 1395 DR most of the devastating effects of the spellplague ended but Faerun was changed.
By 1480 DR Wizards of the Coast with 5th edition invented the second sundering, returning most
of what happened back to it’s 3.5 era.
Rewinding the clock in a way.
The events had occurred, they still took place, but the fallout was no more.
Deities were resurrected, the sea of fallen stars refilled, Magic went back to the way
it was before.
The weave restored along with Mystra.
If you plan on playing 4th edition, or any RPG really, you might need some miniatures
or better yet Tactical Tokens!
Tactical Tokens has a kickstarter currently in progress where you can grab yourself some
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They are durable and spill resistant, in fact you can even use dry erase markers on them
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Flip them over from color to black and white to show fallen characters.
It’s a great tactical option for your D&D game, and the art they’ve licensed has some
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Check out their kickstarter today, they have a variety of pledge levels so you can get
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If you supply your own art they can even craft some custom tokens for your game.
I believe that any RPG you can tell a good story if you have the right people.
If you have roleplayers who want to play even 4th edition wouldn’t stop you.
I think in remembering all the hate that editions get, it’s important to remember that 4 edition
was someone’s gateway into D&D.
It was their first experience and they probably had a blast with it.
Pretending to be a Dragonborn Paladin fighting an evil beholder.
I don’t think the game was bad so much as people were holding onto Nostalgia.
That’s probably an unpopular opinion but people don’t like change.
I’ll be very curious with the success of 5th edition how Wizards of the coast handles
a 6th edition.
If they release basically the same system they’ll get crap for not being innovative
enough.
However if they rewrite D&D like they did between 3.5 and 4e..
Well we all know how that turned out.
Thanks for watching everyone!
I’ll see you in the next video.