Well, with 4.5 well on the way...
I got a look at PHB3 today...looks like they're finally starting to lose it for balance. Although their erata is going a mile a minute at over 88 pages so far and to the point where there will be a published book of pretty much all the errata to date at some hundred pages. I'm calling it 4.5, although I'm not sure it will be an improvement in my eyes.
One of the big problems with D&D under WotC is they've really tried to make the RPGA THE D&D, that is to say that all the 4e errata is done for RPGA purposes. This to me is problematic because it basically becomes a popularity contest of how many people think something is too good for someone else's class in regards to what gets nerfed. I've seen a lot of things nerfed of late that frankly weren't broken, unless you think it's bad for a non-Avenger to be able to hit the broad side of a barn more than 25% of the time. For those who don't know the Avenger is basically a holy assassin whose big schticks are being really hard to hit and getting to roll 2d20s and take the best result for melee attacks against a specific target. It can choose a new target when the old one bites it. Like they needed more promotion. 9_9;;;
So yeah, call me crazy but I don't see the balance in making every other class harder to hit. Nor do I see the balance in introducing new races that have more options. Kind of further takes away from the point of playing a human. Not that there was much of one but the human's big schtick was customization and now that's creeping into newer races that frankly have more than enough going for them. Oh sure, these are "extremely rare" races so any PC playing one is going to be truly exotic and therefore not many will want to play them right?
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ROFLMAO! Ok, yeah, that's BS. The second something is made exotic, gamers tend to jump all over wanting to play it. At least that's my experience.
Also they screwed the pooch with the double-psionic system. Monk is fine, very balanced actually since it works like previous classes. The other three classes are actually pretty broken near as I can tell for their ability to augment at-wills (basic attacks) using psionic points. In theory this was to compensate for lack of Encounter powers. From what I can tell without playtesting, it gives them about twice as many Encounter powers in effect as they would have had otherwise.
So yeah, too much errata and the balance is starting to fail near as I can tell. Oh well, 2 years is pretty average for that. Going off the rate of changes, I expect 5th ed will be along in 2013.
One of the big problems with D&D under WotC is they've really tried to make the RPGA THE D&D, that is to say that all the 4e errata is done for RPGA purposes. This to me is problematic because it basically becomes a popularity contest of how many people think something is too good for someone else's class in regards to what gets nerfed. I've seen a lot of things nerfed of late that frankly weren't broken, unless you think it's bad for a non-Avenger to be able to hit the broad side of a barn more than 25% of the time. For those who don't know the Avenger is basically a holy assassin whose big schticks are being really hard to hit and getting to roll 2d20s and take the best result for melee attacks against a specific target. It can choose a new target when the old one bites it. Like they needed more promotion. 9_9;;;
So yeah, call me crazy but I don't see the balance in making every other class harder to hit. Nor do I see the balance in introducing new races that have more options. Kind of further takes away from the point of playing a human. Not that there was much of one but the human's big schtick was customization and now that's creeping into newer races that frankly have more than enough going for them. Oh sure, these are "extremely rare" races so any PC playing one is going to be truly exotic and therefore not many will want to play them right?
...
...
ROFLMAO! Ok, yeah, that's BS. The second something is made exotic, gamers tend to jump all over wanting to play it. At least that's my experience.
Also they screwed the pooch with the double-psionic system. Monk is fine, very balanced actually since it works like previous classes. The other three classes are actually pretty broken near as I can tell for their ability to augment at-wills (basic attacks) using psionic points. In theory this was to compensate for lack of Encounter powers. From what I can tell without playtesting, it gives them about twice as many Encounter powers in effect as they would have had otherwise.
So yeah, too much errata and the balance is starting to fail near as I can tell. Oh well, 2 years is pretty average for that. Going off the rate of changes, I expect 5th ed will be along in 2013.