Upgrading to new D&D edition?

[Melkar]

So the new D&D rulebooks are scheduled to come out summer 2024, and I was curious to see who is planning to upgrade to the new rulebooks when they come out. I’ve got to be honest, I don’t fully understand how they can be backwards compatible with the current ruleset or how that would work. Are we going to have two different rule sets in play at the same time?

In all honesty though, I’ve invested so much money in 5th Edition that I can’t justify the expense to buy a whole new set of rules, definitely not in these days of financial crunch. I’m quite happy with what I have but I’m also intrigued to see who does plan on upgrading to the new books?

Edited December 17, 2023 by Melkar (see edit history)

[cailano]

Edition changes are part of the WotC business plan. They’ve got a mixed success record. Fourth Edition is one that did not go well, obviously, at least not for them.

Other companies will try to pull a Paizo and publish their own 5th edition rulesets. Kobold has one in the works already. https://www.talesofthevaliant.com/

Hasbro doesn’t have a lot of good will in the community right now. A lot of players may decide to jump to Pathfinder or a indie system if they have to learn something new anyway.

I’m an outside observer since I never got into 5E but it’s going to be an interesting show!

[Michael Silverbane]

I made a decision some time ago not to support Hasbro / WotC anymore after the shenanigans the corporate overlords of those companies have got up to. I would recommend others do the same.

[Roughtrade]

1 hour ago, cailano said:

Paizo and publish their own 5th edition rulesets.

Pazio is reissuing all of the Pathfinder 1st Edition rules with some changes which are solely to remove everything D&D from their books. The general push behind it was the attempt by WotC to murder the Open Gaming License. Summation of Pazio press release could be "We don't trust that they won't try and pull this dreck again, so we are making books judgement proof" as the reason.

One interview I saw online had the comment of "We don't know if they can copyright the word 'Owlbear' successfully, but why wait to see if they sue us over it?"

Interesting take, they are getting rid of 3d6 for attributes. Again, paraphrasing - If the only reason for rolling attributes is to find out if you have a bonus or not, why not just skip the rolling process? Instead of rolling for attributes, just distribute points to give your character a +0 to +5 on game mechanics.

I will probably buy in, just to see how the system works.

[MrAndrewJ]

I am also so horrified by Hasbro's behavior that I won't be updating to the new books.

The only open gaming night I know of in this area plays D&D. I am sad about withdrawing support from the FLGS, but I don't even want to be a warm body at a D&D table. Likewise, I'll be avoiding online D&D games. I don't want to be warm pixels at someone's digital table, either.

The only condition of my return is that D&D is completely removed from all things Hasbro.

[hakootoko]

I wonder if they can make that deadline after sacking so many staff. But perhaps they'll put out something shoddy instead of delaying.

I didn't buy 4 or 5, so I can't see myself buying 6. 2 and 3 are different enough I can just continue to play those.

[Kylia Quilor]

On 12/17/2023 at 11:29 AM, Roughtrade said:

Pazio is reissuing all of the Pathfinder 1st Edition rules with some changes which are solely to remove everything D&D from their books. The general push behind it was the attempt by WotC to murder the Open Gaming License. Summation of Pazio press release could be "We don't trust that they won't try and pull this dreck again, so we are making books judgement proof" as the reason.

One interview I saw online had the comment of "We don't know if they can copyright the word 'Owlbear' successfully, but why wait to see if they sue us over it?"

Interesting take, they are getting rid of 3d6 for attributes. Again, paraphrasing - If the only reason for rolling attributes is to find out if you have a bonus or not, why not just skip the rolling process? Instead of rolling for attributes, just distribute points to give your character a +0 to +5 on game mechanics.

I will probably buy in, just to see how the system works.

That is... several layers of horrifying. Hope to god aonprd or d20pfsrd don't get hit with all this. I mean, I have pretty much all the old 1st edition PF books at this point, at least the main books, in pdf or print, but the prds are so damn useful. And I really don't want to imagine what an OGL-less ruleset would look like.

Also, Paizo decided to excise the Dark Elves from Golarion because of this, which is silly since Dark Elves aren't owned by D&D, but... w/e.

Whatever is coming, I think Wotc/Hasbro will try very hard to pretend this isn't actually a 6th edition.

[cailano]

8 minutes ago, Kylia Quilor said:

That is... several layers of horrifying. Hope to god aonprd or d20pfsrd don't get hit with all this. I mean, I have pretty much all the old 1st edition PF books at this point, at least the main books, in pdf or print, but the prds are so damn useful. And I really don't want to imagine what an OGL-less ruleset would look like.

Also, Paizo decided to excise the Dark Elves from Golarion because of this, which is silly since Dark Elves aren't owned by D&D, but... w/e.

Whatever is coming, I think Wotc/Hasbro will try very hard to pretend this isn't actually a 6th edition.

Right? Paizo has completely confused me with their messaging around the Remastered Edition. I mean, if they wanted me to convert, why did they just sell me all the non-remastered PF2E books in a giant Humble Bundle? It has everything I'd need to run the system (if I chose to do so) for around five years, so I have basically zero motivation to make the switch.

But then, I don't really mind the OGL stuff. I've always played Pathfinder with it and have no objection to continuing. The lawyers may think Hasbro owns D&D but I think the players know who really owns it, and it's not a company.

[Kylia Quilor]

23 minutes ago, cailano said:

Right? Paizo has completely confused me with their messaging around the Remastered Edition. I mean, if they wanted me to convert, why did they just sell me all the non-remastered PF2E books in a giant Humble Bundle? It has everything I'd need to run the system (if I chose to do so) for around five years, so I have basically zero motivation to make the switch.

But then, I don't really mind the OGL stuff. I've always played Pathfinder with it and have no objection to continuing. The lawyers may think Hasbro owns D&D but I think the players know who really owns it, and it's not a company.

Well, legally Hasbro owns D&D in many practical ways, but I do take your point.

I get why Paizo might be worried, but it just seems a little bit silly and pre-emptive, more like a marketing move to appeal to people who got so furious at WotC. Which is valid, but I mean, performative marketing is just that.

[hakootoko]

I doubt Paizo much cares if we play PF1, or PF2, or Remastered.

The 'scrubbed' version of PF is both a CYA and a challenge to Hasbro: if you pull this again, we're ready for you.

[Kylia Quilor]

yeah, but if they scrub aonprd and d20pfsrd it's an impact on my quality of life as a player.

[cailano]

19 minutes ago, Kylia Quilor said:

yeah, but if they scrub aonprd and d20pfsrd it's an impact on my quality of life as a player.

AoN says they plan to release the content from the Remaster as a separate book without taking anything else down. It probably means that the legacy material is effectively deprecated (no additional updates), but at least it will still be available.

[Kylia Quilor]

30 minutes ago, cailano said:

AoN says they plan to release the content from the Remaster as a separate book without taking anything else down. It probably means that the legacy material is effectively deprecated (no additional updates), but at least it will still be available.

Oh thank god.

[Yamazaki]

2 hours ago, Kylia Quilor said:

That is... several layers of horrifying. Hope to god aonprd or d20pfsrd don't get hit with all this. I mean, I have pretty much all the old 1st edition PF books at this point, at least the main books, in pdf or print, but the prds are so damn useful. And I really don't want to imagine what an OGL-less ruleset would look like.

Also, Paizo decided to excise the Dark Elves from Golarion because of this, which is silly since Dark Elves aren't owned by D&D, but... w/e.

Whatever is coming, I think Wotc/Hasbro will try very hard to pretend this isn't actually a 6th edition.

So here's what I've learned over the last months:

1) Pathfinder 2e Remaster is 90% a refresh of PF2e. Some classes are getting some changes, like Witch and Alchemist, because they were under performers, but most of the game remains the same. Biggest changes include the removal of Ability Scores (just modifiers now) and Alignment is going the way of the dodo as it should have ages ago.  Beyond that, it's mostly terminology changes, like Flatfooted to Off-Guard, or Spell Levels to Spell Ranks, both to avoid OGL connections and a bit of clarity. It's all backwards compatible too, at least everything I've seen thus far (I don't have the PDFs yet, but AoN is updating as time goes on).

NOTE: PF1e is not getting a remaster of any kind, to my knowledge. It'd be too much work for a now completed edition that's been over for several years now, and replacing the OGL in PF1e would be an expensive undertaking that wouldn't be worth the money involved. The same goes for Starfinder, but that's also why we'll get a Starfinder 2e, which will follow PF2e's design.

2) AoN and d20PFSRD are safe for the time being, even the PF1e portions of them, unless WotC pulls some crap regarding the OGL. It's not likely they will at this point, thanks to all of the hoopla earlier in the year. Paizo has no desire nor reason to force these sites down. Plus, they already promote AoN and give them some money for hosting for being the official SRD, so they not gonna mess with their best resource.

Additionally, AoN will have a separate thing to toggle between original PF2e and Remaster. Original is safe until WotC does something, and even then Paizo will likely fight that since there's very little OGL content (just some terms, really).

3) Paizo created their own OGL, the ORC. It's basically the same thing, only that Paizo has no control over it, and instead has a lawyer firm that they trust holding control over it, thus preventing themselves from killing the ORC without jumping thru a lot of loops. Apparently, they're taking a page from Linux's own licensing agreement in this idea. From my understanding, it's a mixed bag if you want to publish under it, but Creative Commons is a far more popular option.

4) Dark Elves aren't quite gutted out, but they've been mostly replaced in the lore. I don't understand the reasoning behind it, although I haven't really heard any, but I suspect it's to further separate Golarion from WotC's settings... Also the dark elves have always been an excessively edgelordy crowd anyhow.

5) and yeah, WotC does not want to call OneD&D or whatever they're working on right now to be a 6th edition because they very much want you to buy their new books with the understanding that it's all backward compatible... My money is it won't be, but that's marketing for ya.

[Kylia Quilor]

46 minutes ago, Yamazaki said:

Also the dark elves have always been an excessively edgelordy crowd anyhow.

You say that as if that isn't the whole *point*. That's why I *like* Dark Elves.

Well, one of the reasons anyway.