So I've been playing a Pathfinder game for the last year, but a lot of are pretty interested in the "5e" changes. Basically, they simplified a lot of the tedious bits of 3.5 and removed the weird role concepts. The Basic rules, which come as a PDF, are now available[1]. In general it looks closer to 3 than 4, but is still attempts to remove lots of the table calculation from the game.

What this article somewhat mentions and what seems really weird for people that like Pen and Paper and want to play this new edition is that they are releasing the CORE books over the span of a few months. It's kind of weird for players. Sure we get the Player's handbook this Tuesday, but without a DM book and a Monster Manual it makes things a little limited for a few months.

A decent portion of the core audience moved on to Pathfinder and feel pretty comfortable there. It'll be interesting to see if this push can sway us back.

The key part of course is you don't NEED to change. A lot of people still stick to old versions. I play once a month with a group of 5 others. It'll take us a couple years just to get through our current campaign in Pathfinder. Moving to 5E right now will just be a curiosity.

http://dnd.wizards.com/sites/default/files/media/DnDBasicRul...