Dwarves are gay bakers now in d&d
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Some time around 4th edition as far as I can tell. 3rd edition was still crunchy enough to keep the filthy unwashed masses at bay, but 4th edition marks a clear delineation where it became simple enough to be infiltrated(or rather that was probably a result of the infiltration).
As an aside, 3rd edition was the last good edition, too. In 5th, nothing is balanced, nothing is calculated, the DMG literally has for loot and treasure tables "eh, fuck it, just go by feeling, we ain't helping you do shit-all here" and then drops single use low-level health potions on the same example random treasure table as "ignore all damage reduction and resistances" magical swords.
Bring back THAC0 and they'll flee to other softer bullshit.
Ah shit, I didn't realize it had gotten that bad.
I remember reading through my library's entire stock of 3rd edition books one summer, cover to cover and marveling at all the meticulous tracking of everything in all those tables. It just fascinated me in a way that is, I think, indicative of the kind of obsessive nerdy nature required to really dive into the hobby. If I don't have several tables to look up random loot in and then have to dig out a separate source book to figure out what that loot even does, then am I really playing D&D?
Isn't Pathfinder supposed to be a return to the uber autistic TTRPG format?
Which Pathfinder?
The previous edition of Pathfinder started from the rules of 3.5E, and went on from there.
The current edition of Pathfinder is a totally different thing, and the company itself is pretty fucking woke.
You have to realize that the TTRPG industry was the first to fall to Woke, back in 2005 or something. The industry has relentlessly been driving out people who are not woke for almost 20 years.
There are non woke games. Just not the current Pathfinder. Go play Reign by Greg Stolze or EarthDawn by Red Brick Games.
It sounds like you never played 4e. Like most cultural institutions, WotC didn't lean hard into faggotry until the 2010s, well after 4e's dev was finished.
4e was pretty unpopular. The infiltrators pretty categorically target wildly popular brands.
4e wasn't simple. Unlike 3.5e, it was just organized.
4e solved some issues, and it created had some issues of its own. In particular, here’s what comes to mind for me:
It increased the base hit points, which solved the issue of low-level characters dying to one unlucky damage roll, but created the issue of making everything feel stickier. If I have to hit every goblin two or three times before it’s even “bloodied,” combat gets slower, and characters feel less heroic if even the most basic enemies can consistently tank multiple hits.
It introduced a system of “daily” and “encounter” powers for everyone. This reduced the issue of spellcasters eclipsing martial classes at high levels, but it created the issue of spellcasters and martial classes feeling similar. Forget spell slots and such, now everyone has the exact same number of special powers in play, and all classes can debuff or hit multiple enemies or move people around or whatever.
This guy gets it.
Again, sounds like you didn't play it. 1 HP minions were a defining feature.
I won't disagree with your assessment on the action economy, but the big picture is that 4e was a tactics game, unlike basically anything since OD&D. It basically defined the genre of 'combat-as-sport.' So, yeah, fighters had "slots" and that looks weird from an AD&D perspective. But within that framework, roles were actually mechanically enforced. No one could AoE like a wizard. No one could tank like a fighter. You could piece together a build to have a couple "out of role" powers and serve as an off-tank or a high damage fighter or whatever, but the classic classes always did better in their niches.
I'm aware that 1hp minions were a feature. They were a clever idea. Functionally, however, they did not solve the issue I'm talking about. Building an adventure for a party of level 1 or 2 PCs that only includes minions is (of course) pretty boring. It also makes the at-will 3x3 AoE spells that many spellcasters get overperform, undermining the whole attempt to balance spellcasters and martial classes.
However, once you stick 2-3 30hp goblins (or kobolds, or bullywugs—this is another issue; everything at a level has about the same HP within its "role," which increases the feeling of sameness) in an encounter, then combat almost inevitably lasts a few turns longer than is welcome, just because all those hit points will need to be depleted.
Wasn’t this a broken thing on release which they errata/patched down?
They buffed monster damage and to-hit rolls at higher levels because they didn't scale well against PCs in Paragon and Epic tier after they started collecting multiple good magic items. To my knowledge, they didn't do anything that would have changed what I was talking about, which was the comparatively bulky nature of everything as opposed to other editions that had lower HP on average, especially at lower levels.
They fixed it in MM3 iirc
A good game, a bad Dungeons and Dragons
Not a lot, but enough to glean that 4th edition streamlined a lot of stuff and took out some of the crunch. Or at least that was the impression I got from my brief foray into it.
4th Ed was shit.
It was a tactics game that was optimized to deliver a computer game experience on a table with miniatures and terrain.
It was fucking broken out of the gates. I had a party of very experienced players run optimized characters with carefully planned builds. We were routinely taking on encounters that were +3 or +4 above our Challenge Rating.
The DM was just about ready to cheat, because we could steamroll anything that wasn't an engineered TPK; by level 4!
There wasn't any "role playing", there is no other mechanic for getting XP other than killing things and taking their stuff, and the game was a shitty TT War Game dressed up pretty to sell extra accessories.
Pathfinder was launched specifically because 4th Ed was so shit.
4e didn't have the sprawling build-crafting that 3.5e made its name on (and 5e returned to) but it was a miniature tactics game. Agree to disagree, but I don't see how a game where you only control one unit could get much crunchier than 4e.
That's the time period I identified. I wasn't really going based on DnD editions. I didn't notice a woke edition until ONE. There's some years in there, though, for WotC to be doing woke stuff. And the culture in general was getting more woke. DnD editions lagged that. MTG gets a lot more sets.