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[UristMcDwarf]

How much controversy would they rouse up, and why?

[Cthulhu]

You mean 4e?

I dunno.  It doesn't seem like there's much of a thread here which is asking for an edition war, but if you had somethign to discuss and kept tight reins on the discussion it might not be too bad.  There'd still be quite a few people who just couldn't resist throwing their "My edition is better than your edition" cents into the thread but you might prevent a full derail.

[Sensei]

The current DnD books? You must mean Pathfinder of course. 

[Heron TSG]

I'm not sure what you're asking with this thread, so I'll give you some information.

D&D 4th edition is the current version. It is roughly the same as the other editions, but the classes are more balanced. As a drawback, however, pretty much every class works the same way. I own the three core books for this, and have only played one campaign from first to third level. (We went back to 3.5.)

D&D 3.5e is about equal in popularity, though it is far more popular than 4e online. It is slightly unbalanced towards magic users, but due to an abhorrent number of sourcebooks (I have access to 87 separate PDF books loaned to me by a friend, for some scale. I think that's most of them), you can do pretty much anything you want. Each class works in a totally different way, and through the hundreds of prestige classes it's almost impossible for two people to play the same character in a campaign without prior planning. Some say that magic is incredibly unbalanced towards the end of the game, but for some that's what makes it interesting. It's a high-magic game. A good fighter can still beat an average wizard if he plays his cards right, though.

I haven't played Pathfinder, but it seems to be a more balanced 3.5. It keeps the variety of 3.5 while slightly scaling back magic and boosting the mundane characters.

[Renault]

I had to get get a new copy of the 6th edition Call of Cthulhu book at my local nerdstore, and hot damn, they had three entire shelves just for DnD 4th edition books. 3.5 may have released a staggering number but I doubt 4 is going to have any less.
...and they had only one copy of CoC, just sort of tucked into a corner next to Vampire. Even Pathfinder had its own shelf. Lamentations...

Sidenote: and then the stereotype at the register started talking to me about the CoC system and how it was depressing and I was going to crazy and all that as if I'd never played the game before. I despise being condescended to. (I assume that's a real word since Firefox seems okay with it.)

[UristMcDwarf]

No, no no. What I mean is the contents.

[Grakelin]

We had a thread about this a while ago.

And, if I do say so myself, the OP communicated his intentions pretty clearly.

[Darvi]

How much controversy? That's like asking "how hot is the sun?"

I for my part like the 4th edition. It doesn't have so much where you can customize your character where multiclassing is concerned, but it's a lot more balanced, what with non-casters being able to use class specific skills and what not. Also, minions. Awesome red shirts, that don't just get wiped away by a single fireball spell.

Really, the only thing that bothered me was the change in the alignment system. I want chaotic neutral back for Ollidammara's sake!

[Ampersand]

Really, the only thing that bothered me was the change in the alignment system. I want chaotic neutral back for Ollidammara's sake!

The redeeming feature of every DnD edition, is rule 0. Everything is at the GM's discretion. Even alignments.

[Darvi]

Really, the only thing that bothered me was the change in the alignment system. I want chaotic neutral back for Ollidammara's sake!

The redeeming feature of every DnD edition, is rule 0. Everything is at the GM's discretion. Even alignments.

True. Still, I want to be able to smite lawful beings with a single word T_T

[Chutney]

A good fighter can still beat an average wizard if he plays his cards right, though.

if the wizard is using just the PHB, and the fighter has EVERY splashbook available, I still feel like the fighter would be in a hopeless position.
Wizard get's Time Stop, Wizard always wins :p

that's why 4e is both superior, and inferior. On one hand, everyone is about equal in power for what they do. On the other hand, everyone is about equal in power for what they do...haha

Each class works in a totally different way

I also have to disagree with that. Fighters/Barbarians/Monks are going to work just about the same. Barbarians get to rage, though, and slightly more mobility. Monks get more mobility, which also means they can't use their main class feature... Monks in general are just really bad in 3.5e.
In the end, though, most people are going to play their turns as a slight variation of "I power attack the gnome for ... 16 damage".

Casters have less of that problem, but many of them share the same spell lists. Mechanically, their only difference is (usually) the number of spells per day, and how fast they access new spell levels. some prestige classes give spell-like abilities or class features that allow you to change things up, which is good, but most prestige classes are fairly lacklustre.
speaking of prestige classes, many prestige classes, especially the ones that merely specialize a base class, can often be done better using the base class, making it a whole "what's the point" situation. Sure, there is the flavor of the class, but why can't you add that flavor to your base class? What separates a duelist from a rogue, or even fighter, besides the name (and the fact that duelists get class features easily replaced by feats :p).

That said, Psionics is really fun to play. The Psionic classes, while limited, offer a variety of different ways to play (psychic warrior plays different from soulknife plays different from lurk, while all being melee type classes, although the lurk is more of a rogue than a fighter), but Psionics gets a LOT of hate for being "overpowered" (false, as I can tell you from first hand experience playing the only psionic character in the party many times :p).
Also, Tome of Battle helps martial classes a lot...by making them play like 4e classes...

Too bad nobody ever wants to play 4e with me. I feel like it could be a lot of fun, but everybody I play with has this dire opposition to it for not being 3.5e, and most admit to not even reading the 4e books

I'd say both versions are equal, depending on what you want to do. 3.5e works better for Lord of the Rings world-changing conflicts against Eternal God-Terrors and high magic adventuring, while 4e is more for Beowulf like heroics, battling fearsome yet local foes.

[Sir Pseudonymous]

I got a hold of leaked pdf copies of the basic 4e rulebooks several days prior to the release. I read through most of the players guide before stopping in disgust. It removed exactly everything interesting about 3.5e, in favor of a bland "everyone is super special and identical" system that made fuck all sense.


Reading over the topic again, I almost feel it's asking more about controversy of the likes of the batshit insane "D&D are satansims! Is witches! BURNBURNBURNBURN!" shit various assorted dumbfucks stirred up in the eighties/nineties.

[Darvi]

My mother was never worried about any of those foundless allegations that Dungeons & Dragons led to any sort of satanic behaviour  or odd personality disorders, but perhaps it was just as well that she never flipped through the latter pages of the DMG. 

And about that "everybody is identical", I've never been in a DnD session where less than half of the group was either a arcane spellcaster or a rogue :/

Also, while most classes in 4th edition get the same amount of skills and feats, they still are fundamentally different from each other. A spellblade tank, for instance, needs different tactics than say, a fighter tank.

[Cthulhu]

There's not going to be any witchcraft controversy on here outside of people trolling.

As you can see, we're already up to our ears in edition warring.

3.5e:  More simulationist.  Older (and therefore has an entrenched fanbase).  Rules break at very low levels and very high levels, you've got like a seven to ten level window where the game is balanced and after that spellcasters take over.  Playing a fighter basically amounts to "I hit the troll" over and over again.  More fluff.

4e:  More gamist.  Takes some obvious cues from WoW.  Very balanced.  Sometimes the classes seem a little similar (Although they still have strengths and weaknesses).  "ha ha i kil u"-style DMs probably won't like the PCs' survivability.

Pathfinder:  Who cares?

[Darvi]

<stuff>

This.