Why do people like 5th Edition?

[Raimun]

Disclaimer: Do note this is personal opinion and so on. It still doesn't mean I'm not right.

So, I've been looking for reviews and opinions on 5th edition a few times. I would have thought there were reviews that were more critical of the new edition. But no, pretty much all of them have praised 5th edition and said it was the best thing since sliced bread.

I don't understand this.

I mean, I have played 5th edition (and even playtested it) and pretty much the only good thing I can say about the rule set is that it's fast to use. That's it. Apart from that the rule set is simplistic, unimaginative and simply unintresting. As a whole, it looks haphazard and kind of a compromise that shouldn't make anyone happy. Furthermore, the rules in play feel kind of like... uncanny valley. On first glance it looks like D&D... but not quite. Apart from the grand lines, which are off, many of the small details are also just off.

Now, I know that the design team listened to the playtesters and people have thought it's a good thing. Even I used to think it was a step to the right direction. However, now I kind of think you shouldn't make writing a book a democratic process. Here's some random thoughts/rambling/ranting/etc. :

People also say GMs are now empowered. Weren't they always? Did they really have to make so many of the things optional? That were printed on the book? That makes no sense. GMs have always been able to alter and tinker with the rules as they like, if they feel like it will improve the game. Also, isn't this kind of an excuse to not write so much stuff? Is it really empowering trying to invent how the skill system should work when the situation is on?

Then there's the argument that 5e is good for the beginners. Now, I can't say anything about that because I have played D&D (and other games) for years. However, I do remember that when I began playing the game with 3rd edition, I had no problem grasping the rules of the games. They were simple enough. It looks like to me they are underestimating their customers.

I could go to the small details, like the way Feats are handled now or the way how all weapons feel too same-y but I would be here all day. Suffice to say, there isn't much that is handled well. Pretty much the only detail that has surprised me in a positive way have been the backgrounds. They allow some customization options and it's always good if all of the Fighters aren't completely stereotypical generic fantasy warriors.

Now, I have had fun playing 5th edition but that's because of the people I've been playing with and that's the only reason I have even given 5th edition a chance. While I do think interaction is the main source of fun in RPGs, a good rule set enhances the experience. 5th edition simply doesn't deliver it.

Luckily, this is not the only RPG I'm playing.

[Human Paragon 3]

Well, if you've read many other reviews you already know why people like the new edition. Sorry you don't enjoy it, but like you said, there are many other RPGs you can play.

[Shadow]

it's fast to use.
That's one of the great things, yes.


People also say GMs are now empowered. Weren't they always?
Not since 3e, no. Not at all.
The past two editions basically tried to lay out and explain exactly hoow every little thing worked and how they interacted with each other. It left zero room for DMs to make judgement calls about things. If and/or when they tried to, players argued and directed them to page X of rulebook Z. They power was in the players' hands, not the DM's.


when I began playing the game with 3rd edition, I had no problem grasping the rules of the games. They were simple enough.
I couldn't disagree more on this point. 3e was a mechanical mess as far as grasping the rules goes for new players. You already had tons of experience playing RPGs, so it mattered less to you. I remember trying to teach a new player under 3e's rules, and it was a damned nightmare.


a good rule set enhances the experience. 5th edition simply doesn't deliver it.
Again, I disagree. I think 5e's ruleset is both elegant and fluid enough that it delvers far more enjoyment than I've had playing D&D since before the turn of the century.

[ProphetSword]

Here's why I love 5th Edition:

* It reminds me of 2nd Edition, my favorite version of D&D, except with better rules. It's what I think 3rd Edition should have been. Easy rules, focused on narrative over mechanics, with just enough crunch to satisfy most players and DMs (except those who like a lot of hard-core rules and board game mechanics).

* Fast combat resolution, just like the old days of D&D. No longer do I have to have the party wade through trash fights that take two hours or more. 5e combat is fast and deadly, which is a hard combination to get right...but this edition managed it.

* It takes a lot of what works from 40 years of D&D and melds it all together into one edition. You're right that it "brings nothing new." But, what it does bring is a combination of what everyone loved in just the right measures to make it the best version of D&D to a lot of people.

* It supports "theater of the mind" combat for those that want it. Miniatures aren't required.

* The power-level of the PCs and monsters is kept to a minimum. We don't have numbers breaking through the atmosphere and breaking the game anymore. It's easier to plan long-term encounters and challenges as a result. Bounded accuracy rules.

* Low level monsters are still a threat to high level PCs in numbers. This greatly increases how long certain monster types can be a threat without requiring those monsters to suddenly level up in classes to keep up with the PCs.

* It has removed a lot of the game-breaking build nonsense that went on during the 3.x era. Players have options, but it's harder for them to build something so powerful that it wrecks the game for everyone. The power level seems to be just right to satisfy players without being too much.

* It doesn't assume magical items. And when magical items are granted and give a bonus of any kind (even +1), the boost to ability is significant, as every +1 counts as a +5% increase in ability.

* DMs can make rulings about things. There aren't rules for every...tiny...little...thing anymore. You state that DMs always had this power...but in reality the last few editions has made it very hard to do this because rules were definitive about most things, leaving very little flexibility in regard to some matters.

* It feels like D&D. Coming off of 4E, that's incredibly important.

* It's fun.

* As a DM, it's easier to run than 3.x. I had just come from a Pathfinder game when I started running D&D Next during the playtest. The difference is night and day. One is just harder (3.x) and one is simple (5e), at least in my opinion. I can tell the same stories and introduce the same challenges with about a third of the work now. That's a win in my book.

There are other reasons. These are good enough. Others will probably want to fill some in.

[Rallicus]

I mean, I have played 5th edition (and even playtested it) and pretty much the only good thing I can say about the rule set is that it's fast to use.

Which is huge, in my opinion. The less time spent pouring over rules, cracking open your book, etc., the better the sessions will be.

Just thinking about how many times the PHB was cracked open to reference rules in 3.X sends a chill down my spine.


People also say GMs are now empowered. Weren't they always? Did they really have to make so many of the things optional? That were printed on the book? That makes no sense. GMs have always been able to alter and tinker with the rules as they like, if they feel like it will improve the game. Also, isn't this kind of an excuse to not write so much stuff? Is it really empowering trying to invent how the skill system should work when the situation is on?

Leaving certain things deliberately vague does in fact empower DMs, especially when it comes to dealing with disruptive, argumentative players.

DM fiat has always been a staple of D&D... but that doesn't mean that the players abide by it when RAW is clearly defined.

Only problem I see with this is when it comes to organized play. Every table is gonna be different, and it'll undoubtedly throw the synergy off.


Then there's the argument that 5e is good for the beginners. Now, I can't say anything about that because I have played D&D (and other games) for years. However, I do remember that when I began playing the game with 3rd edition, I had no problem grasping the rules of the games. They were simple enough.

I don't share in your opinion. 3.X rules were bloated and convoluted, even back during 3e. We all know the notorious grapple rules, but even modifiers, checks, spell tracking, etc. were so needlessly complicated.

Simple implies easy to grasp rules. Now, I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but the fact that I never ran or participated in a 3.X game without cross-referencing rules in the books in the many years I played the system...

... Well, obviously it's not all that simple.


Now, I have had fun playing 5th edition but that's because of the people I've been playing with and that's the only reason I have even given 5th edition a chance. While I do think interaction is the main source of fun in RPGs, a good rule set enhances the experience. 5th edition simply doesn't deliver it.


I've never played DND because the system was good. No, in fact, D&D has never been a good system, far as I'm concerned. However, it is most recognizable name in tabletop, and the settings attached to it are pretty interesting and thought out. I've always enjoyed the idea of D&D, but the system itself has always fallen short.

5e, at least, is so simple that I can spend more time focusing on storytelling and presenting a fun campaign to the players over having to flip through rulebooks, or worry about magic item economy, or be concerned with certain classes overshadowing others, etc.

That alone makes it the best D&D edition in my opinion.

(Although, as a sidenote, looking through the DMG leaks and seeing all the +/- modifiers for crap they've been adding... eugh, it does not bode well for the future.)

[Knaight]

I consider 5e fundamentally usable, and to still feel like D&D. D&D represents a very particular niche, which is filled only by various editions of D&D, retroclones, and a handful of other games. As for why I would choose it in particular, the big thing is that it gets what it needs to do done, and then it gets out of the way. Take the complaint about mechanical differentiation of weapons - I honestly don't care all that much about it. A game as combat focused as D&D should have a long spear feel different than a dagger which feels different than an axe, but I really don't need weapons to have a bunch of stats just so that a one handed axe and one handed sword are different mechanically. 5th differentiates enough for my taste, without getting in the way for clunky mechanics.

Then there's the competition. 4e doesn't feel like D&D to me personally. 3.5 feels downright clunky (the skill points system is a titanic mess, cross-class skills are a dumb idea, the feats are all over the place, etc.), and early editions are clearly lacking in cohesive design, which I personally value.

[pwykersotz]

For me, the real advantage is not having to spend nearly as much time on anything at all. This is a little to do with the lack of published splatbooks so far, and a lot to do with the super streamlined rules. There are also currently far fewer traps in character generation than there were in 3.5. These things together make it a great deal more fun for me to both GM and play the game.

Also, I agree largely with what has already been posted above.

Of course, as splatbooks and even the DMG come out, things will get somewhat more complicated. How much more remains to be seen.

[MaxWilson]

While I remember 2nd edition very fondly, it must be said that it had a lot of quirks and corner-cases--I know it did because I houseruled a lot of them out of existence. 5E works decently well out of the box, without too many houserules.

So far my favorite things about 5E vs. 2nd edition vanilla are: 1.) the revised magic system. Concentration takes some getting used to, but I have always really liked spell point/slot systems better than Vancian casting, and in 5E that's not a house rule. 2.) tactical mobility. 5E really encourages you to move around the battlefield.

One thing I like equivalently well between 2nd edition and 5E is that most options belong to everyone at gametime without requiring you to build the option into your character as a special power: most options are pretty generic, e.g. anyone can grapple/shove enemies in combat (I expect the DMG to expand this set of options in ways similar to the Complete Fighter's Handbook). I also really, really like that 5E supports low-magic play and non-CR-correlated monsters: you can use orcs against a 14th level party and you can use dragons against a 7th level party, and the game doesn't break. This reminds me of 2nd edition.

Edit: in relation to the above point, I also like that 5E has gone back to ACs having an actual meaning. AC 16 is "as hard as chain mail." An Earth Elemental with AC 17 is therefore pretty tough. In my exposure to 3rd edition, I could never figure out what ACs like 44 were supposed to mean. 5E calls this part of the larger "bounded accuracy" philosophy, but as far as I'm concerned I'm just happy to have something concrete. Same thing for DCs.

In short, 5E isn't exactly like 2nd edition, but it's better in some ways and not much worse in others and it's actively being developed, so I'm certainly willing to play it. That makes it more successful than 3rd or 4th edition in my eyes.

[McBars]

Disclaimer: Do note this is personal opinion and so on. It still doesn't mean I'm not right.

So, I've been looking for reviews and opinions on 5th edition a few times. I would have thought there were reviews that were more critical of the new edition. But no, pretty much all of them have praised 5th edition and said it was the best thing since sliced bread.

I don't understand this.

I mean, I have played 5th edition (and even playtested it) and pretty much the only good thing I can say about the rule set is that it's fast to use. That's it. Apart from that the rule set is simplistic, unimaginative and simply unintresting. As a whole, it looks haphazard and kind of a compromise that shouldn't make anyone happy. Furthermore, the rules in play feel kind of like... uncanny valley. On first glance it looks like D&D... but not quite. Apart from the grand lines, which are off, many of the small details are ...blah blah blah

Duly noted.

Aren't there already a couple hundred threads like this floating around?

[ArqArturo]

I started playing D&D in the dying days of 3.0, then 3.5, then a brief moment of 4th, passed to Pathfinder, then 2e (old DM wanting to play a good-old fashioned dungeon crawler), and then going to 5e.

I like the game, because it frees you up of power mechanics, and lets storytelling come into play.

It's not to say that you can't do storytelling on (my beloved) Pathfinder. Hell, in my group I'm the Apostle of Pathfinder, but, PF and 5e both have different places in the scope of things. Pathfinder gives way to high fantasy, to larger-than-life characters that can be almost gods.

5e, to me anyways, feels more like a grittier fantasy game. Much darker, even, in a sense. Heck, it reminds me a lot of the Diablo 1 narrative (http://youtu.be/YfIyLdiMq8I).

[Invader]

There's definitely things I like about 5th but from what I've played so far I still prefer 3.X. I agree that I don't like that they left to many things up to the DM. I'm perfectly fine with very expansive specific detailed rules and if I find something doesn't work then I'll make the decision to tweak it one way or another.

If im honest, it feels like they wanted to make 3.X again but changed things just for the sake of changing them for a new game although I think they succeeded in making it slightly easier to pick up and play but not to the extent that some other people seem to think.

[jaydubs]

Then there's the argument that 5e is good for the beginners. Now, I can't say anything about that because I have played D&D (and other games) for years. However, I do remember that when I began playing the game with 3rd edition, I had no problem grasping the rules of the games. They were simple enough. It looks like to me they are underestimating their customers.

My own experience is very different. Even when playing with players (and DMs) that have been at it awhile, I still often find myself explaining the different action types, and what can and can't be crammed into a round.

For new players, it's usually that they can't take a move and a full attack in the same round. But for the semi-experienced, I still need to remind people that you can't 5-foot step in the same round that you move. That there's a difference between moving and taking a move action. That you can 5-foot step in the middle of a full attack. I have to explain how full round spells work in regards to when summoned creatures appear. I have to explain how that is altered when the summoning is a spell-like ability. I've had to explain the difference between caster level and levels in a casting class (and the difference that makes in regards to spell slots available). I've had to explain that withdrawing only avoids AoOs from a single square. That you can't charge through your allies. That potions can't be made from personal target spells. Which bonuses will stack and which don't. The difference between the penalty shooting into melee and shooting through allies. The targeting points on the grid when determining flanking and cover, and the differences in that when using melee vs ranged weapons. The difference between cover and concealment. And that's not even delving into specific classes or spells yet.

All of that is just what I can remember off the top of my head, from a single weekly gaming group, that has been going on for less than a year. And it's not because my fellow players and DMs are stupid or haven't tried reading the rules - it's because the rules are quite complex once you get down to the details. I find myself getting corrected often as well.

That said, I sometimes miss that rules heavy, wargamey feel, which is why I play Pathfinder as much as I play 5e. But 3.x is certainly not a simple system, if you're trying to get things right.

[GiantOctopodes]

3.5 battles took *hours* to prepare, and *hours* to play out. The same fight can be prepped in about 5 minutes in 5th Ed without the results being a bit, let's say "underwhelming". They can also be played out in about 30 minutes. So, points for 5th Ed.

4th Ed combat felt very "samey". I could be a fighter, or a Rogue, or a Wizard. Like a well balanced MMORPG, I would be provided options that are only slightly different and carefully balanced in power scale against each other, and at no point would I feel like a uniquely contributing individual. In 5th Ed, I feel like I'm playing a *completely* different class than the Barbarian next to me and the Wizard next to him, so there is cohesion to our differences outside of combat. Yet, the power scales are so clearly defined that we felt entirely comfortable completely drawing up a class from scratch, because as long as we kept within certain limits we knew it would not be unbalanced. Points for 5th Ed.

In 2nd Ed, the combats and rules were so clunky and archaic I can't even really talk about it. Sure, Thac0 and saves vs rods vs saves vs polymorph and determining which takes effect when hit by a rod of polymorph was all well and good at the time. Sure, at the time I accepted that since I wasn't a human, I couldn't hit max level, and that's all there was to it. At the time, thief skills as separate percentages fed into individually, with 5 different factors influencing them, was the best system I had ever seen. 5th ed provides rules that are easy to understand with only a basic explanation, which apply consistently and fluidly, and uses generalized principles to cover a *lot* of situations, rather than trying to anticipate every situation that might arise, and create a rule for it. Points for 5th Ed.

One of my favorite moments when introducing a character to an RPG is when they're asked what they want to do, and I am able to reply "You can do anything you want. Just tell me what you want to do, no matter what it is, and we'll figure out the rules for it." In no edition is that sentiment *more* true than 5th ed. Trying to do something? Cool. Is there a skill for it? No? Ok, what attribute most closely ties into it? Great. Now, are you facing favorable circumstances or unfavorable circumstances (advantage vs disadvantage). Great! Let's roll and see what happens.

D&D has always been my favorite setting, but not my favorite rule set. It's still not my favorite rule set, but it's *much* closer than the previous editions I grew up with. 5th Ed is smooth, it's fast, it's all about the "rule of cool" and collaborative storytelling. Have someone good at something? They probably just do it, no rolling required. Unusual circumstances? One base set of rules, no trying to ad hoc modifiers and having the players feel you are unfairly punishing them or letting someone off the hook. Still need to make that lock unpickable? DCs still let the DM run the show and secretly railroad as much or little as he needs to. We've been playing in a naval trade empire type adventure (think a mix between Black Flag, Pirates, and Firefly), and travelling around this island chain without *any* idea as to what we're really doing at the moment or what our long term plans are. Right now, we're just trying to keep sailing. Note that the rules don't really cover *any* of that. So, we've made up our own rules as we go along. And for us, it's been working, and for me personally, it's been the most *fun* I've had in all my time playing D&D, including our times playing a campaign where we were all dragons, the undead horror campaign, the trek through the Temple of Elemental Evil with a party of all Genasi, and even those first campaigns where the only type of hero that made sense was a dark and brooding one with a tragic past, and the toughest question at character creation was whether an elf or a halfling made a more badass rogue.

So, I guess that's why I like 5th Edition. The question is a tough one, because the factors are varied and many, but ultimately the answer is simple.

It's fun.

[silveralen]

It just feels like it got a really good balance of every edition of DnD I played. It stripped out the things I disliked while combining all the best parts. Sure, it feels like it might still be missing bits an pieces, but we don't even have the full core out yet, so I'm not exactly worried.

[Invader]

One of my favorite moments when introducing a character to an RPG is when they're asked what they want to do, and I am able to reply "You can do anything you want. Just tell me what you want to do, no matter what it is, and we'll figure out the rules for it." In no edition is that sentiment *more* true than 5th ed. Trying to do something? Cool. Is there a skill for it? No? Ok, what attribute most closely ties into it? Great. Now, are you facing favorable circumstances or unfavorable circumstances (advantage vs disadvantage). Great! Let's roll and see what happens.



I couldn't wholly disagree with this more. Unless things vastly change with the set up of 5 it's no where near as customizable as 3.X was.

[GiantOctopodes]

I couldn't wholly disagree with this more. Unless things vastly change with the set up of 5 it's no where near as customizable as 3.X was.

Define customizable? What on earth are you trying to do in 5th Ed that you can't ad hoc rules for? I'd be happy to put this to a test, describe any desired course of action, without any regard for what rules do or do not exist, and I'll indicate how I, were I a DM in your campaign, would have it play out mechanically. Indicating Race and Class would help, but is definitely not required at all.

[Eslin]

Not since 3e, no. Not at all.
The past two editions basically tried to lay out and explain exactly hoow every little thing worked and how they interacted with each other. It left zero room for DMs to make judgement calls about things. If and/or when they tried to, players argued and directed them to page X of rulebook Z. They power was in the players' hands, not the DM's.

The power was very much in the DM's hands. Playing 3.5 at all required a gentleman's agreement amongst players not to break anything in the first place - I loved the game, but it was incredibly unbalanced. In 5e you can have them play whatever you want and not worry about anyone outshining each other until mid-high levels, in 3.5 you had to sit and discuss what kind of power level you wanted to run the game on and have players voluntarily limit themselves to it or you couldn't run it at all.

Past that point, what does the DM need to make a judgment call on? 3.5 had detailed rules for how everything worked, so you and the players knew what was and wasn't possible - you created a world and ran it around them, they immersed themselves and tried to achieve their goals. What part of that needs judgment calls, and what part of it disempowers the DM? They each have one character, you create everything else - there's never going to be a time they're more powerful than you, just like they're deliberately toning down their characters to keep things managable you're giving them challenges roughly appropriate to their power.


I couldn't wholly disagree with this more. Unless things vastly change with the set up of 5 it's no where near as customizable as 3.X was.
5e is nearly as customisable as 3.5 was, with the major exceptions being race and items in which you're forced into a far narrower band of choices than 3.5 had. The system itself is just as open as 3.5's, but only two books have been released so far so it doesn't have 3.5's amount of options yet. The setup itself is very similar to 3.5, just with simpler rules and less fiddly mechanics - with the exception of save scaling, I think it's worked wonderfully, it got rid of a lot of complexity without removing much depth.


5e, to me anyways, feels more like a grittier fantasy game. Much darker, even, in a sense. Heck, it reminds me a lot of the Diablo 1 narrative (http://youtu.be/YfIyLdiMq8I).
Not disagreeing with you as I have the two above (who are probably wrong), since yours is a matter of opinion, but why does it feel dark/gritty to you? I like 5e, but mechanically it's not even as dark as the absurdly high powered 5e. A level 3 barbarian can still survive falling to earth from low orbit, people can get shot by 10 arrows and sleep it off in the course of an afternoon nap and the dead can be brought back to life again and again - it's closer to Dragonball than it is to what medieval life looked like. Darkness wise most of the worst penalties have disappeared, no more permanently having levels drained from you or being instantly killed for failing a save.

[Invader]

Define customizable? What on earth are you trying to do in 5th Ed that you can't ad hoc rules for? I'd be happy to put this to a test, describe any desired course of action, without any regard for what rules do or do not exist, and I'll indicate how I, were I a DM in your campaign, would have it play out mechanically. Indicating Race and Class would help, but is definitely not required at all.

I don't count the rules just saying make up whatever you want as being customizable. Technically you could do that in 3.X as well. As far as making specific builds 3.X's prestige classes, skills, and feats offer far more flexibility within the rules for customization than the more generalized rules of 5.

And it's not even the fact of 3.X having more material. It's the rules structure that I feel limits 5.

[Sartharina]

I couldn't wholly disagree with this more. Unless things vastly change with the set up of 5 it's no where near as customizable as 3.X was.I actually find it easier to play the character I want in 5e (Aside from javelin-throwing Barbarians, or Longsword-wielding Highwaymen Rogues) because, instead of lots of fiddly little mutually-exclusive, tiered customization options all competing for the same space, you get broad, widely-applicable archetypes that can fit a wide variety of character types. The character in 5e is more about what you play at the table, instead of what you write on the character sheet.

In 5e, the game asks what I want to do. In 3e, the game asks what you want to not suck at. The loss of the Level Treadmill, feat taxes, and -4s/-8s/-2s thrown around the place also dramatically assist in this.


PrCs and feats in 3e were terrible. In 5e, you can generally play a character concept that functions the way you want from level 1 to 20. In 3e, you had to wait several levels to make a character concept function (a multiple of 3 to get the feat taxes to unlock your favored playstyle, and then either 6 or 8 levels to get to the Prestige Class that matches your character concept you want to play... and that class will suck for a number of levels because of a lack of level-appropriate support... and wonky-as-hell scaling)

[McBars]

I don't count the rules just saying make up whatever you want as being customizable. Technically you could do that in 3.X as well. As far as making specific builds 3.X's prestige classes, skills, and feats offer far more flexibility within the rules for customization than the more generalized rules of 5.

And it's not even the fact of 3.X having more material. It's the rules structure that's feel limits 5.

Yeah and all those PrCs, feats and skills in 3.x were a royal pain in the ass to keep track of as a DM or player. I liked 3.5, but I'm happy to leave those garbage features behind.

[Eslin]

Yeah and all those PrCs, feats and skills in 3.x were a royal pain in the ass to keep track of as a DM or player. I liked 3.5, but I'm happy to leave those garbage features behind.
We still have all those things, it's just prestige classes are subclasses now (though actual prestige classes are likely to reappear). Skills being simpler now is a good thing, I think 3.5 paid more in complexity than it got back in depth with how it treated skills - though now that we have the simpler 5e to contrast, 3.5 has its place as the edition to go to if you don't mind paying a huge price on complexity for better depth and customisation, just as we have 4e for if your players want the best tactical combat D&D has and don't mind paying in verisimilitude and customisation.

That's why I like 5e, it's the best all rounder and also the best starting point for new players.


I don't count the rules just saying make up whatever you want as being customizable. Technically you could do that in 3.X as well. As far as making specific builds 3.X's prestige classes, skills, and feats offer far more flexibility within the rules for customization than the more generalized rules of 5.

And it's not even the fact of 3.X having more material. It's the rules structure that I feel limits 5.
They really didn't. Compare the amount of viable builds with the 3.5 PHB, contrast with the amount the 5e PHB can provide - 5e actually has more.

3.5 ended up with better overall customisation than I think any other edition will ever have - I have played as a housecat wizard, an orc totemist, a warforged artificer, a floating psychic peanut butter and jam sandwich, a half minotaur who threw flaming returning lions at people and a sahagin binder, all of whom played in unique and different ways that we probably won't see again. 4e and 5e certainly can't make an artificer in the way 3.5 could, can never create that same ability to choose how your items shape your play in any way even approaching the awesomeness of what the artificer could do back in third, but it was so complicated that it required several multi page guides to even play competently and needed a character sheet at least 5 pages long.

What I'm getting at is we've HAD that, there's no point in trying to create it again. 4e was an attempt at something different (didn't work, they sacrificed too much in one direction). now 5e is an attempt to create a simple edition that combines as many good points from each edition as they can.

[JAL_1138]

*snip*



Agreed, especially the first bit about feeling like 2e (despite not resembling it much from a mechanical standpoint) and being like a do-over of 3rd.

(Forgive me if I repeat anyone else's points...)

Third didn't feel like D&D to me, largely because of how intricate the crunch got, and in fact I barely played it. 2e wasn't rules-light by any stretch and most of its subsystems were disconnected but 3.X felt like nothing but fiddly modifiers and fiddly feats and fiddly abilities and distinctions and exceptions and calculations and cross-referencing. That trend started in late 2e (or, arguably, the 1e initiative and combat rules...), but in 2e most of that was optional instead of baked-in with core. My head starts to hurt and my eyes cross when I look at 3.X stat blocks, let alone try to balance it and play it. The class balance--casters got nuts to the point you could accidentally render anyone else useless, and their drawbacks nearly vanished. 2e classes weren't balanced, but sort of had enough weird things and drawbacks here and advantages there that they kind of almost evened out in the end and everyone was useful...it was weird but it almost worked.

I'm in a 4e campaign now and I'm not saying it's a bad game, because it isn't, but doesn't even vaguely resemble D&D as I used to know it (which was a combination of 2e and older modules run in 2e--and largely without the Player's Option "2.5" books).

But 5th has monsters that are a lot easier to use than 2e's (especially if you're new); class balance is good; and encounter guidelines that--while clunky compared to 4th--are still pretty clear.

5th isn't perfect. I still like AD&D better in a lot of ways, though I'll freely admit some of that is just nostalgia talking, because it was weird and wonky and arcane. And I have issues with some parts of 5th that I'll be houseruling when I run it. But it's good. It's like they took a swing at making a 3rd edition of AD&D.

[Invader]

I actually find it easier to play the character I want in 5e (Aside from javelin-throwing Barbarians, or Longsword-wielding Highwaymen Rogues) because, instead of lots of fiddly little mutually-exclusive, tiered customization options all competing for the same space, you get broad, widely-applicable archetypes that can fit a wide variety of character types. The character in 5e is more about what you play at the table, instead of what you write on the character sheet.


Fair enough point. I guess personally I like the specific minutia and crunch of 3.X over the more generalized flow of 5.

[Madfellow]

Apart from that the rule set is simplistic, unimaginative and simply uninteresting. As a whole, it looks haphazard and kind of a compromise that shouldn't make anyone happy. Furthermore, the rules in play feel kind of like... uncanny valley. On first glance it looks like D&D... but not quite. Apart from the grand lines, which are off, many of the small details are also just off.


Simplistic rules I'd say are a boon.
Unimaginitive rules are owing to the game's long history, legacy, and countless lessons learned over the decades. In this particular case, I call it a boon.
As for uninteresting... they're rules. Rules are boring by definition.
Compromise means that everyone gets at least a little of what they want. Again, a boon.
The uncanny valley effect likely comes from playing Pathfinder for so many years. You see similarities and difference at the same time and it's jarring. Not sure if it can be helped.



People also say GMs are now empowered. Weren't they always? Did they really have to make so many of the things optional? That were printed on the book? That makes no sense. GMs have always been able to alter and tinker with the rules as they like, if they feel like it will improve the game. Also, isn't this kind of an excuse to not write so much stuff? Is it really empowering trying to invent how the skill system should work when the situation is on?


Yes GMs always had power, but now they have more of it.
Options are nice. Boon.
The more they write, the more the players and GM have to learn, remember, and keep track of. They're reducing the workload for everyone involved, not just themselves.
The skill system is simple. You have 6 abilities, 18 skills, and 6 saves. Sometimes you have advantage or disadvantage. It's easy.



Then there's the argument that 5e is good for the beginners. Now, I can't say anything about that because I have played D&D (and other games) for years. However, I do remember that when I began playing the game with 3rd edition, I had no problem grasping the rules of the games. They were simple enough. It looks like to me they are underestimating their customers.


Sure 3e is easy enough to grasp, but it's needlessly complex. You have BAB, 3 saves, spell slots, hit points, skill points, AC, and feats to keep track of, and they change almost every level. Making a character, especially at higher levels, was an absolute chore. Figuring out BAB and saves for a multiclass character is something I never even attempted. Balance issues and splatbook bloat exacerbated the issue. In short, 3e required a big investment of time and energy to learn and use, meaning there was a barrier to entry if someone didn't have the time or enthusiasm for it.

[Celcey]

I think once the DMG comes out, race/class customization will be a lot easier. I also think a lot of stuff can be refluffed, and you can easily switch/enhance/add features to already existing races, classes, and subclasses. You could also just create another subclass within an existing class. I know a lot of people don't like the ranger, for example so they houserule something in to make it better. I'm going to be meshing elves and orcs for a player who wants to play a half elf half-orc character, and I don't think I'll have much trouble beyond deciding what to keep and what to leave.


It's closer to Dragonball than it is to what medieval life looked like.

D&D does not take place in medieval Europe. In fact, it doesn't even take place on Earth, unless you want it to (in which case, medieval Europe is also an option). I wanted to point that out because it comes with such a negative connotation attached, as if it's a bad thing that a D&D world has different physics than normal Earth.

[GiantOctopodes]

I don't count the rules just saying make up whatever you want as being customizable. Technically you could do that in 3.X as well. As far as making specific builds 3.X's prestige classes, skills, and feats offer far more flexibility within the rules for customization than the more generalized rules of 5.

And it's not even the fact of 3.X having more material. It's the rules structure that I feel limits 5.

But that's just the thing about it. In terms of the rules, 3.5 had lots of rules for a lot of things. And a large part of the challenge was finding the rules that applied in those circumstances and applying them, and when the rules did not support the actions in question, you did not have a consistent baseline to work from. In 5e, the rules are general enough and consistent enough that they are easily applied, regardless of the situation.

A fine example is this: "I wait until the brigands are underneath the chandelier, then cut the rope, having it crash down on them. I grab the rope as it rides up, hang from one of the beams on the ceiling with my legs, and start shooting them with my bow and arrows."

Ok, so in 3.5e, the rope has HP and hardness, so you make a sunder check against it, or just attack the structure of the rope. Either way, if you do enough damage, you cut the rope, and then you would make some kind of check to grab onto the rope (maybe use rope?), while the chandelier would deal damage to the enemies based upon its weight and falling distance, which would invariably spark a debate about whether the weight of the chandelier should have your weight subtracted from it, since you are effectively counterbalancing an equivalent amount of weight from the other side. Once you had ridden to the top, you would make some kind of check (maybe Balance, maybe Tumble? Possibly even a grapple check depending on what the DM felt was appropriate) to snag the beam with your legs, and then you would shoot at enemies, with some kind of penalty (though who knows what, it's not like they have that modifier spelled out in there, so probably ad hoc by the DM).

Along the way, based on the spread of skills, if you didn't have the particular skill the DM decided was applicable, you would never have a chance to make whatever check was required to grab that beam (and probably would feel the DM was punishing you for wanting to do something cool), you could fail to cut the rope and look like an absolute moron, or you could get up there and quibble with the DM over how much of a penalty should apply to your subsequent attacks.

In 5e, you just cut the rope (the rule of cool applies, heros don't fail to cut ropes). You grab it (once again, it's right there, and you're not assumed to be incompetent), and the chandelier does some damage based upon the generic falling damage rules, probably knocking the guys prone unless they succeed on a Dex save. You make an Acrobatics or Dex check to hang from the beam, and your attacks have disadvantage. If you're a dextrous person, you can probably do this. If not, I'm confused as to why you tried.

Do you not see how that is much smoother, less cumbersome, and conducive to allowing actions like that to take place? The fact that they don't have rules for object HP, fall damage by weight, and every little nitpicky skill under the sun, does not reduce options, it just makes it far more likely that fewer things get in the way of your desired actions, that you haven't customized incorrectly, or fail to meet the mechanical threshold required to do something cool.

[Knaight]

I don't count the rules just saying make up whatever you want as being customizable. Technically you could do that in 3.X as well. As far as making specific builds 3.X's prestige classes, skills, and feats offer far more flexibility within the rules for customization than the more generalized rules of 5.

You can do that in 3.x, but 3.x is a delicate system - you make a small tweak in one area, and something in some completely different area is suddenly wonky. Plus, you specify builds, which gets into what customization matters for people. If it's about mechanical customization for interacting with the game, then 3.x has a huge advantage with the plethora of varied subsystems and such. If it's the ability to make a wide range of characters that can generally contribute (where you don't necessarily care all that much about the system side of things) I'd argue that 5e has an edge precisely because the system is light enough that it can be tweaked easily without worrying about some unrelated subsystem breaking.

[Eslin]

D&D does not take place in medieval Europe. In fact, it doesn't even take place on Earth, unless you want it to (in which case, medieval Europe is also an option). I wanted to point that out because it comes with such a negative connotation attached, as if it's a bad thing that a D&D world has different physics than normal Earth.

Yep, I'm just a little annoyed that they never explicitly spell it out. There's a thread here I created about poisons where people keep insisting they'll be illegal, which is a holdover from the real world. In D&D an injury poison works the same way a flaming weapon does, +xd6 damage per hit.

Things work entirely differently in D&D, but D&D presents itself as 'like the real world, but' while it's almost entirely disconnected from how the real world works. Harry Potter and the Natural 20 is my favourite example of it, makes it clear how alien a D&D character is to how our reality works.

[Invader]

Sure 3e is easy enough to grasp, but it's needlessly complex. You have BAB, 3 saves, spell slots, hit points, skill points, AC, and feats to keep track of, and they change almost every level. Making a character, especially at higher levels, was an absolute chore. Figuring out BAB and saves for a multiclass character is something I never even attempted. Balance issues and splatbook bloat exacerbated the issue. In short, 3e required a big investment of time and energy to learn and use, meaning there was a barrier to entry if someone didn't have the time or enthusiasm for it.

There are a few things that are simpler and more streamlined in 5 but I think a big misconception that 5 is so easy is because in many aspects it's very similar to 3.X and most people are already familiar with it. It seems easier to grasp because you already know 65% of the mechanics. I'm a bit confused that you list saves, spell slots, hit points, AC, skill points, etc. for being complex in 3.X when you have all the same things in 5 and honestly BaB isn't quantum physics, it's not that hard to figure out lol.

[Madfellow]

Playing 3.5 at all required a gentleman's agreement amongst players not to break anything in the first place - I loved the game, but it was incredibly unbalanced. In 3.5 you had to sit and discuss what kind of power level you wanted to run the game on and have players voluntarily limit themselves to it or you couldn't run it at all.

I cannot stress enough how much of a PAIN this was back in my 3.5 days. I always wanted to play a low-power game--no tier 1 or 2 spellcasters--so that the fighters could have a chance to shine. Everyone else always wanted to play high-power games--tiers 3 and up--with gestalt rules. :smallfurious: I HATE gestalt.

[MaxWilson]

There are a few things that are simpler and more streamlined in 5 but I think a big misconception that 5 is so easy is because in many aspects it's very similar to 3.X and most people are already familiar with it. It seems easier to grasp because you already know 65% of the mechanics. I'm a bit confused that you list saves, spell slots, hit points, AC, skill points, etc. for being complex in 3.X when you have all the same things in 5 and honestly BaB isn't quantum physics, it's not that hard to figure out lol.

Actually, the hardest part of 5E is that it is 65% similar to previous editions, because things end up not meaning what you think they mean. It wasn't until recently that I realized (after someone, I think Eslin, pointed it out) that the Great Old One Warlock's Create Thrall ability does not actually permanently charm the victim the way you think it does, because "charmed" now just means "cannot attack you and you get advantage on Charisma checks against them" instead of "regards you as a trusted friend and ally to be heeded and protected." If you were starting fresh in 5E it would never even occur to you to make this mistake, you would just look up "charmed" in the index and never be confused.

[Invader]

Actually, the hardest part of 5E is that it is 65% similar to previous editions, because things end up not meaning what you think they mean. It wasn't until recently that I realized (after someone, I think Eslin, pointed it out) that the Great Old One Warlock's Create Thrall ability does not actually permanently charm the victim the way you think it does, because "charmed" now just means "cannot attack you and you get advantage on Charisma checks against them" instead of "regards you as a trusted friend and ally to be heeded and protected." If you were starting fresh in 5E it would never even occur to you to make this mistake, you would just look up "charmed" in the index and never be confused.

So knowing exactly how half the rules and mechanics work is the hardest thing about 5 :smallsigh:

[Shadow]

Actually, the hardest part of 5E is that it is 65% similar to previous editions, because things end up not meaning what you think they mean.

Exactly this.
One of the main sources of confrontation, on these boards especially, is that people don't realize the subtle differences between things because they *think* they already know what it means, when in fact it's something entirely different this time around.
You need to forget what you think you know about D&D and just read the rules/descriptions in context as a whole and decide what they mean.

Someone earlier said to me "[this] is a defined game term, while [that] is not," and the [this] he was referring to was actually a defined game term in 3e, but it is not in 5e.

[Eslin]

I cannot stress enough how much of a PAIN this was back in my 3.5 days. I always wanted to play a low-power game--no tier 1 or 2 spellcasters--so that the fighters could have a chance to shine. Everyone else always wanted to play high-power games--tiers 3 and up--with gestalt rules. :smallfurious: I HATE gestalt.

Urgh, I can see how that would get frustrating. Gestalt's fun, but only for high power games and only occasionally, it adds an extra layer of complication and power to an already complicated and high power game.

Though fighter wise, they were honestly pretty boring and useless - their lack of options meant fighters having a chance to shine meant not letting anyone else make an interesting character. Tiers 3-4 always worked out best, they had useful abilities but didn't break the game unless you tried or went to far (hello, 2000 damage power attack). Letting the fighter be useful meant all players had to be character like adepts and monks - if everyone wanted to play a game that low power, then good for them and your DM should run it, but it's just as annoying for players who want their character to be useful as level 1 gestalt would have been for you.


Actually, the hardest part of 5E is that it is 65% similar to previous editions, because things end up not meaning what you think they mean. It wasn't until recently that I realized (after someone, I think Eslin, pointed it out) that the Great Old One Warlock's Create Thrall ability does not actually permanently charm the victim the way you think it does, because "charmed" now just means "cannot attack you and you get advantage on Charisma checks against them" instead of "regards you as a trusted friend and ally to be heeded and protected." If you were starting fresh in 5E it would never even occur to you to make this mistake, you would just look up "charmed" in the index and never be confused.
Yep, that was me. Similar mishaps include spellcasting not provoking attacks of opportunity (players keep forgetting this), flanking no longer existing unless you have an ability for it and charging not being a thing.


You need to forget what you think you know about D&D and just read the rules/descriptions in context as a whole and decide what they mean.
Nope. A lot of the rules (crossbow expert says hello!) are ambiguous to some and aren't given any other context, while many others are ambiguous and given contradicting or unclear context. You shouldn't have to decide what rules mean, the rules should tell you.

[Sartharina]

D&D does not take place in medieval Europe. In fact, it doesn't even take place on Earth, unless you want it to (in which case, medieval Europe is also an option). I wanted to point that out because it comes with such a negative connotation attached, as if it's a bad thing that a D&D world has different physics than normal Earth.D&D takes place on a world that's supposed to be "Conan in Middle Dying Earth", as far as I can tell.

[Baptor]

Here's why I love 5th Edition:

* It reminds me of 2nd Edition, my favorite version of D&D, except with better rules. It's what I think 3rd Edition should have been. Easy rules, focused on narrative over mechanics, with just enough crunch to satisfy most players and DMs (except those who like a lot of hard-core rules and board game mechanics).

* Fast combat resolution, just like the old days of D&D. No longer do I have to have the party wade through trash fights that take two hours or more. 5e combat is fast and deadly, which is a hard combination to get right...but this edition managed it.

* It takes a lot of what works from 40 years of D&D and melds it all together into one edition. You're right that it "brings nothing new." But, what it does bring is a combination of what everyone loved in just the right measures to make it the best version of D&D to a lot of people.

* It supports "theater of the mind" combat for those that want it. Miniatures aren't required.

* The power-level of the PCs and monsters is kept to a minimum. We don't have numbers breaking through the atmosphere and breaking the game anymore. It's easier to plan long-term encounters and challenges as a result. Bounded accuracy rules.

* Low level monsters are still a threat to high level PCs in numbers. This greatly increases how long certain monster types can be a threat without requiring those monsters to suddenly level up in classes to keep up with the PCs.

* It has removed a lot of the game-breaking build nonsense that went on during the 3.x era. Players have options, but it's harder for them to build something so powerful that it wrecks the game for everyone. The power level seems to be just right to satisfy players without being too much.

* It doesn't assume magical items. And when magical items are granted and give a bonus of any kind (even +1), the boost to ability is significant, as every +1 counts as a +5% increase in ability.

* DMs can make rulings about things. There aren't rules for every...tiny...little...thing anymore. You state that DMs always had this power...but in reality the last few editions has made it very hard to do this because rules were definitive about most things, leaving very little flexibility in regard to some matters.

* It feels like D&D. Coming off of 4E, that's incredibly important.

* It's fun.

* As a DM, it's easier to run than 3.x. I had just come from a Pathfinder game when I started running D&D Next during the playtest. The difference is night and day. One is just harder (3.x) and one is simple (5e), at least in my opinion. I can tell the same stories and introduce the same challenges with about a third of the work now. That's a win in my book.

There are other reasons. These are good enough. Others will probably want to fill some in.


This. In every way this is how I feel. Thank you sir, it saves me time.

I will add this one bit. Until 5e, 3.5 was my favorite edition. That said I must say in the end I was sick to death of it. I remember opening up the 3.0 PHB opening day at my FLGS. I was so excited because although I loved 2e, there were so many wonky rules (thacO, retrograde saves, oh my) that 3e was like a breath of fresh air. The rules were simple, clear and effective.

That lasted for all of six months until the first splat books hit the shelves. Then all of a sudden there were loopholes in the rules which allowed for absurd characters. What was worse is that while some combinations were deadly other basic concepts were lackluster (ranger, paladin, monk). I had legit players who just wanted a nice ranger left with crap and powergamers who got a high off ruining everyone's day playing wizard/arcane archer/assassins one hitting umber hulks at level 7.

Then 3.5 hit the shelves, and for a moment there was time to breathe.

Then the new splats hit. Oh. my. goodness.

Eventually I banned everything but the core rulebooks and the rulings in them. I took out several mechanics I felt were insane (grappling rules, I am looking at you) and replaced them with 2e look-alikes. The result was a game that worked for us but that required heavy errata and a lot of handwaiving to do.

5e is simply put, the game I wanted out of 3e.

[Eslin]

D&D takes place on a world that's supposed to be "Conan in Middle Dying Earth", as far as I can tell.

The last setting I made included water falling upwards for no reason in a few places and animals growing backwards into infants and then turning into trees just to hammer in how illogical the universe was to the players so they'd stop assuming everything went by our rules.

[GiantOctopodes]

So knowing exactly how half the rules and mechanics work is the hardest thing about 5 :smallsigh:

Hrmm, I think you're still not getting it.

In 3.5: An Archer is shooting at someone partially behind a rock. It's somewhat dark, and there is light mist. The target is 100 feet away. The Archer is prone, and there are people milling about between them. What are the modifiers to hit? Ok, best pull out the rulebook and check (taking 5 minutes away from the action).

In 5e: The Archer has disadvantage.

If I want to make a halfling that chucks spears from the back of a wooly mammoth, while wearing a Gilly Suit and using the mammoth as improvised cover in 3.5e, I can do that. I can also do that in 5e.

If I want to make a Dwarven Runepriest in 3.5e, who inscribes runes onto objects which bear within them the fundamental building blocks of the cosmos, and in that way imbues them with magical properties, I can't do that. I can start with the Artificer and try to work from there, but fundamentally, if I want to make an entirely new class, with entirely different mechanics from existing classes, I would need to spend *months* trying to carefully balance it against existing abilities.

Meanwhile, if I wanted to make an entirely new class in 5e, thanks to bounded accuracy, relatively minimal damage scaling with clear points of delineation, and clearly defined action economy, I can do so, with minimal muss or fuss, without any concerns whatsoever that I am going to break the game, or that the things I have introduced can be combined with existing abilities in unforseen ways to absolutely break the game and ruin the enjoyment of everyone playing.

5e is *way* faster, and much simpler, and with that increased simplicity comes a reduced ability to accidentally break things, which frees up people to be more creative without being held back by the system.

[Knaight]

There are a few things that are simpler and more streamlined in 5 but I think a big misconception that 5 is so easy is because in many aspects it's very similar to 3.X and most people are already familiar with it. It seems easier to grasp because you already know 65% of the mechanics. I'm a bit confused that you list saves, spell slots, hit points, AC, skill points, etc. for being complex in 3.X when you have all the same things in 5 and honestly BaB isn't quantum physics, it's not that hard to figure out lol.

It's not about them individually, it's about all of them in aggregate. Consider the numerical ranges alone. You've got:
Level: 1-20
Attributes: 3-18 base, variable maximums with class/level/etc.
Max Skill Ranks: 0-23 in class.
Spells: 0-9, or 0-6, or 0-4 depending on class.
Feats: 7, plus bonus feats.
BAB: 0-10, 0-15, or 1-20
Poor Saves: 0-6
Good Saves: 2-12
DC: -10 to about 50 (not including ELH material), plus lots and lots of circumstantial bonuses.

Then there's the matter of when one transitions from each level to the next. That right there is a pretty huge mess all on its own, and it makes the game needlessly difficult. Now, consider 5e:
Level: 1-20
Attributes: 3-18 base, variable maximums with class/level.
Spells: 0-9, or 0-6, or 0-4 depending on class.
Proficiency: 2-6
Feats/Ability Increases: 5-7
DC: 5-30, based off of one scale.

That's still kind of messy - I'm familiar with plenty of systems that trim things down much further - but it's a change in the right direction, as far as I'm concerned. Every subsystem having its own numerical scale just gets weird, and once you get into what changes when it gets weirder. Granted, I favor Fudge, which has the following:
Skills: -3 to +4
Attributes: -3 to +4
Difficulties: -3 to +4

That sort of thing is obviously contingent on a different dice mechanic. Still, there's plenty of organization that can be done to getting a more easily memorized core chassis. That 5e took a few steps in that direction is a very positive thing in my mind.

[Eslin]

This. In every way this is how I feel. Thank you sir, it saves me time.

I will add this one bit. Until 5e, 3.5 was my favorite edition. That said I must say in the end I was sick to death of it. I remember opening up the 3.0 PHB opening day at my FLGS. I was so excited because although I loved 2e, there were so many wonky rules (thacO, retrograde saves, oh my) that 3e was like a breath of fresh air. The rules were simple, clear and effective.

That lasted for all of six months until the first splat books hit the shelves. Then all of a sudden there were loopholes in the rules which allowed for absurd characters. What was worse is that while some combinations were deadly other basic concepts were lackluster (ranger, paladin, monk). I had legit players who just wanted a nice ranger left with crap and powergamers who got a high off ruining everyone's day playing wizard/arcane archer/assassins one hitting umber hulks at level 7.
...what? That's a terrible way to build a character. And 3.5 was filled with loopholes from the start, the splats raised the ceiling for casters proportionately less than it raised the ceiling for martials.


Then 3.5 hit the shelves, and for a moment there was time to breathe.

Then the new splats hit. Oh. my. goodness.

Eventually I banned everything but the core rulebooks and the rulings in them. I took out several mechanics I felt were insane (grappling rules, I am looking at you) and replaced them with 2e look-alikes. The result was a game that worked for us but that required heavy errata and a lot of handwaiving to do.
Again, WHAT? The vast majority of the worst material in 3.5 was in core. Core came with the majority of the edition's broken classes (both too good and too bad) and had very few useful feats or prestige classes. Later supplements provided the vast majority of 3.5's tier 3-4 characters, ie the tiers where you weren't gods or peasants. 3.5 got much more imaginative and less restrictive as it went on - there were a few spells and classes as bad as the core ones, but core had a far far higher ratio of broken to usable stuff than any other part of 3.5. As 3.5 went on classes like warlocks, binders, crusaders, factotums and totemists started appearing - classes that were unique and had new and interesting ways to play, but weren't useless like the monk or way too good at everything like the druid. In 3.5's core all classes were basically either a collection of minor, crappy abilities and/or 4-9 levels of Vancian spellcasting, it was core that I had to ban the most stuff from - 3.5 is almost unplayable until you add splats.


Hrmm, I think you're still not getting it.
An Archer is shooting at someone partially behind a rock. It's somewhat dark, and there is light mist. The target is 100 feet away. The Archer is prone, and there are people milling about between them. What are the modifiers to hit?

In 3.5: Ok, best pull out the rulebook and check (taking 5 minutes away from the action).

In 5e: The Archer has disadvantage.

In 5e the archer has disadvantage and -2 to the attack, actually.

In 3.5 the archer has -4 to attack and a 20% miss chance (assuming a heavy crossbow, prone means you can only use crossbows in 3.5).

Didn't take any longer to think of than it took to write the sentence out. I do like 5e's way of doing it better, but you've also highlighted one of the things 3.5 does better - it often doesn't get any harder in 5e if you add more difficulty. Difficulties do nothing until they provide disadvantage, and past then they continue to do nothing. 3.5 has more complicated rules and more modifiers, but it does mean that you can add the benefits and positives together to figure out how hard or easy something is rather than 5e's system of advantage, disadvantage or nothing.

I like the 40k RPG system best - gotta get under a certain total on a d100 to succeed, with how far above or below you get determining your degree of success. Trying to shoot a target? Roll under your ballistic skill (55). Target is unaware of you (+30, now you have to get under 85) and you took a half action to aim (+10), but there's heavy rain (-10) and you don't know how to use the heavy bolter you stole (-20), in total you have to roll a 65 or under. Roll a 20 and you get several hits, roll a 70 and you miss, shoulda fired on single shot for an extra +10.

[Invader]

Hrmm, I think you're still not getting it.

In 3.5: An Archer is shooting at someone partially behind a rock. It's somewhat dark, and there is light mist. The target is 100 feet away. The Archer is prone, and there are people milling about between them. What are the modifiers to hit? Ok, best pull out the rulebook and check (taking 5 minutes away from the action).

In 5e: The Archer has disadvantage.

If I want to make a halfling that chucks spears from the back of a wooly mammoth, while wearing a Gilly Suit and using the mammoth as improvised cover in 3.5e, I can do that. I can also do that in 5e.

If I want to make a Dwarven Runepriest in 3.5e, who inscribes runes onto objects which bear within them the fundamental building blocks of the cosmos, and in that way imbues them with magical properties, I can't do that. I can start with the Artificer and try to work from there, but fundamentally, if I want to make an entirely new class, with entirely different mechanics from existing classes, I would need to spend *months* trying to carefully balance it against existing abilities.

Meanwhile, if I wanted to make an entirely new class in 5e, thanks to bounded accuracy, relatively minimal damage scaling with clear points of delineation, and clearly defined action economy, I can do so, with minimal muss or fuss, without any concerns whatsoever that I am going to break the game, or that the things I have introduced can be combined with existing abilities in unforseen ways to absolutely break the game and ruin the enjoyment of everyone playing.

5e is *way* faster, and much simpler, and with that increased simplicity comes a reduced ability to accidentally break things, which frees up people to be more creative without being held back by the system.

I understand perfectly well.

The problem with your example is that you're not focusing on what my point is. You're pointing out a few new rules which are easier than the old rules which is fine, I said as much as myself, some things are more streamlined.

My point is that the learning curve is much easier because you're only learning those new rules. You already know how AC, saves, movement, spell areas, hit points, d20 mechanics in general, spell slots, feats, skills, etc. etc. etc.

5 is not so different from 3 as 3 was from 2nd. You're only learning half a game because you already know the first half.

[Eslin]

I understand perfectly well.

The problem with your example is that you're not focusing on what my point is. You're pointing out a few new rules which are easier than the old rules which is fine, I said as much as myself, some things are more streamlined.

My point is that the learning curve is much easier because you're only learning those new rules. You already know how AC, saves, movement, spell areas, hit points, d20 mechanics in general, spell slots, feats, skills, etc. etc. etc.

5 is not so different from 3 as 3 was from 2nd. You're only learning half a game because you already know the first half.

The learning curve's still easier. Roll a d20, add the relevant ability modifier and your proficiency bonus if it applies is a chunk simpler for new players than keeping track of skill bonuses, BaB, saves and all kinds of miscellaneous modifiers.

[silveralen]

I like the 40k RPG system best - gotta get under a certain total on a d100 to succeed, with how far above or below you get determining your degree of success. Trying to shoot a target? Roll under your ballistic skill (55). Target is unaware of you (+30, now you have to get under 85) and you took a half action to aim (+10), but there's heavy rain (-10) and you don't know how to use the heavy bolter you stole (-20), in total you have to roll a 65 or under. Roll a 20 and you get several hits, roll a 70 and you miss, shoulda fired on single shot for an extra +10.

The only complaint I would have with that it the differences between the various lines. Jumping from black crusade to rogue trader basically means either porting a bunch of rule updates from the newest line into the oldest or having to deal with different modifiers and difficulties for each line.

I get it was a refinement process, but the least they could do is errata all the old books.

[S_Dalsgaard]

...and honestly BaB isn't quantum physics, it's not that hard to figure out lol.

This is more or less what I used to say about Thac0...

After a long break from RPG, I tried to get into D&D again back in 2005, but gave up because the 3.5 rules where so complex, that it was a nightmare, not only learning to use them myself, but also having to explain them to my group. Two months ago I tried again with 5e (having read the reviews) and it has been extremely easy getting started and getting the group up to speed (more or less the same group as in 2005). In two sessions we were basically running the game with full rules and while there are still stuff we have to look up occasionally, it is nothing compared to the constant book browsing of 3.5.

This probably isn't a completely fair comparison, as I think I was more motivated to get a game going this time, than I was in 2005, but I still think, that 5e is a much more smooth, balanced, and elegant edition than 3.x ever was (with or without splat).

[Knaight]

My point is that the learning curve is much easier because you're only learning those new rules. You already know how AC, saves, movement, spell areas, hit points, d20 mechanics in general, spell slots, feats, skills, etc. etc. etc.

The explanation curve doesn't have this bias though, and I've consistently found 5e easier to get across than 3e was. Plus, you're assuming a linear progression through D&D editions, where a primary factor in learning is picking up specifically on the changes. A lot of us are working off of secondhand information where people either knew no RPGs prior or entirely different games (most everyone I've introduced to RPGs was through Fudge, and that's completely useless to learning any edition of D&D).

[Strill]

The biggest reason I like it is because they kept 3.5e's distinctive classes, while also balancing them. In 3.5e, casters are king and fighters are crap. On the other hand, having having one class with primarily at-will abilities, and another with primarily per-day abilities, is a very compelling idea. 5e combines 3.5's diverse classes while keeping all the classes balanced.

They also eliminated 3.5's swathes and swathes of options, most of which are crap, in favor of a smaller number of more important and much more balanced options.

[Deathtongue]

Hrmm, I think you're still not getting it.

In 3.5: An Archer is shooting at someone partially behind a rock. It's somewhat dark, and there is light mist. The target is 100 feet away. The Archer is prone, and there are people milling about between them. What are the modifiers to hit? Ok, best pull out the rulebook and check (taking 5 minutes away from the action).

In 5e: The Archer has disadvantage.


And that is precisely why I don't like 5th Edition. Let's look at your situation again: It's somewhat dark, there's no mist, the target is 80 feet away. The Archer is still prone, and while there's a light crowd of people most people are paying rapt attention to the druid's speech.

In 3.5E, that situation would have a significantly different difficulty than the first one. It'd be easier, but by no means easy. It's the difference between an experienced but unremarkable archer veteran reliably making the shot and Robin Hood reliably making the shot. But in 5E D&D... the difficulty is exactly the same. If the archer in 3E and 5E D&D absolutely has to make that shot for story reasons but can't do anything about one of the factors their responses would be different. The 3E D&D archer might try to get closer. They might try to drink one of their darkvision potions. They might decide to stand and risk detection -- or find a way to hide. They might switch to a poisoned crossbow instead. Hell, they might tell their pet dog to run in the middle of the crowd and be enough of a nuisance so that people scatter and create enough of an opening for a clear shot. But in 5E D&D, unless they can take care of all of those things there's no reason for them to bother with any of them. They just take the the shot and eat the disadvantage without doing anything in-story. So you don't get the story of the archer trying something desperate or creative to increase the odds of making the shot because it'd be a waste of time.

There's nothing inherently wrong about this sort of setup. It's a tradeoff we have to make. If you want more specific stories and thus more imaginative reactions to things that happen in the story, you have to increase the granularity of the rules and thus make it more difficult to play. But let's get real here: rules-light fantasy games are literally the easiest kinds of popular TTRPGs to design. If I want to play a fantasy game where situations are easily adjucated and I can master the game after a few sessions, what advantage does 5E D&D have over Legend d20, Torchbearer, Dungeon World, microlite 20, E6, or FATE Core?

People take 3E D&D and more generally d20 for granted because they don't realize what a rare duck the game is: a reasonably rules-rich fantasy game that doesn't implode in the first-few sessions or require DM fiat for most tasks. Don't get me wrong, the game has a ton of problems and omissions, problems I'd be happy to talk about. But it fulfills a niche in traditional gaming that can't quite be replicated by other rule systems.

[Kurald Galain]

I don't understand this.

I mean, I have played 5th edition (and even playtested it) and pretty much the only good thing I can say about the rule set is that it's fast to use. That's it. Apart from that the rule set is simplistic, unimaginative and simply unintresting. As a whole, it looks haphazard and kind of a compromise that shouldn't make anyone happy. Furthermore, the rules in play feel kind of like... uncanny valley. On first glance it looks like D&D... but not quite. Apart from the grand lines, which are off, many of the small details are also just off.

Well, to people who are dissatisfied with 3E or 4E, the new system does a pretty good job at countering the most common complaints about those games. Of course, most fans of 3E or 4E don't particularly mind (or agree with) those complaints, so I'm not sure how well 5E will do in converting those players. Then again it probably wasn't aimed at them in the first place.

[Deathtongue]

Well, to people who are dissatisfied with 3E or 4E, the new system does a pretty good job at countering the most common complaints about those games. Of course, most fans of 3E or 4E don't particularly mind (or agree with) those complaints, so I'm not sure how well 5E will do in converting those players.

Whoa, slow down. I'm a huge fan of 3E D&D I'll be the first one to admit that most of the complaints about 3E D&D had some merit. If you ask most people familiar with the system their biggest problems with 3E D&D, you'll get a large number of points of contention. Some of them are just preferences (rule granularity vs. speed) and some of them, while needing to be fixed in a later edition, worked okay enough be ignored with patches or tribal knowledge (the wonky CR system). But some of them were intractable within the paradigm of 3E.

Non-Caster vs. Caster disparity. If you ask people to name the faults of 3E D&D, 90% of the time people will lead with this one. And it's a pretty big one. While the noncaster/caster gap isn't that big for the first 8 levels of the game, it causes the game to collapse even among the most min-maxxed of non-casters at around level 12. And it doesn't just collapse because casters are too powerful; even if you're running an all-non-caster party, they just plain can't continue to adventure in the higher levels without constant DM intervention in the form of convenient artifacts and helpful NPC spellcasters.
Related to the first problem, there's multiclassing. It doesn't work. Not even a little bit. Okay, it works sort of okay for the first few levels where you could argue that a Fighter 1 / Wizard 3 was about equal in power to a Wizard 4, Fighter 4, Fighter 3 / Wizard 1, and a Fighter 2 / Wizard 2 dependent on system mastery. But it breaks down pretty quickly. The non-caster classes are too front-loaded, making bizarre Frankenstein classes the order of the day. Contrariwise, caster classes were so empty that clerics and sorcerers and wizards would jump into the first available Prestige Class even if it didn't fit their character concept. And who can forget the adage 'thou shalt not take a level in something that fails to increase your caster level'?
Also related to the first problem, high levels don't work properly. Even ignoring the caster v. fighter issue, numbers diverge too much and effects get all weird. D&D magic is designed to be used in a dungeon crawl or to make getting to the dungeon crawl easier. So you have some game effects which are impressively epic and high-powered and others that... are not. People will tell you with a straight face that unless you're specifically kitted for it AC doesn't matter and that skills, even those that can't be replaced asymmetrically with magic (which is another huge problem), break in half with things like Improvisation and Moment of Prescience.
Lack of a campaign setting. There are plenty of popular TTRPGs that are more broken in gameplay than 3E D&D. Yet people still play Call of Cthulhu. Warhams Fantasy can't mechanically do anything better than any edition of D&D except grimdarkness. And let's not even talk about Exalted. But people still love those games because the default campaign settings for those games are rich and evocative. 3E D&D pretty much told DMs that they're on their own. Now while you can extrapolate a campaign setting out of the core rules of 3E D&D with reasonable rigor, as Order of the Stick shows, it's too much work and is a kludge of unsatisfying memes.
Classes are too samey. I don't think people have really internalized this, but have you noticed that core 3E D&D classes are kind of uniform? Sorcerer and wizard is the most obvious one but it's far from the only one. Paladin and ranger, druid and cleric, rogue and fighter, etc. Now before you get on my case and tell me about how a rogue and a fighter are totally different and play different because of such and such, let me ask you this: what are the points of comparison between the Dread Necromancer and the Cleric? What about the Artificer? What about the Psion? Or the Truenamer? Or the Warblade? Or the Warlock? Near the end of its lifecycle, 3E D&D experimented with a bunch of new classes and resource management systems and while they were very hit-or-miss it was clear that the old class creation system that gave us lame, safe tweaks like the Swashbuckler and Samurai and Archivist and Hexblade and Favored Soul wouldn't cut it anymore. People want more from their classes than two distinct feat chains, a signature ability, some defense booster, and spellcasting inversely proportional to its BAB. Outside of min-maxers, I've seen very few people want to play one of the 'tweak' classes when they have a choice between them, core classes, and the mechanically unusual ones.


These are all huge problems any 3E D&D fan will admit and it creates a huge opening for any successor game to put it permanently under. Unfortunately, IMO the design teams decided to either misinterpret the complaint or completely punt on it. Using 4E D&D for an example: Oh, non-caster fans don't like how their swords and lockpicks are lame expressions of power compared to clockwork armies and intedimensional necrocracies? Guess what? Now no one can do anything cool at high level, because these game effects were stripped from the casters and locked behind rituals. People don't like having to rely on Forgotten Realms and Eberron sourcebooks to quickly a non-homebrew game running? Here comes Ninter Vale with its Points of Darkness! Multiclassing works poorly in 3E D&D? Let's make it so onerous and difficult that no one will even bother! That was everyone will stay the same class.

It's not because 3E D&D fans doesn't care about these things, it's that they don't like the solutions! The solutions either ignored the complaints or caused too much collateral damage. Having only 4 of 13 classes being interesting on their own merits at high level is tiresome and disappointment, but it beats having the game passively-aggressively deciding to strip out high level play at all. This is why a formerly second-tier OGL holdout is the dominant name in the industry while 4E D&D got cancelled early.

And from what I can see, 5E D&D is on the same course of destruction. I like it better than 4E D&D, sure, but it's not going to get me to switch. Not until it handles the majority of complaints on that list appreciably better than 3E D&D's baseline.

[McBars]

snip

As a fellow 3e fan I agree with most of your complaints, where I disagree strongly is over your claim that 5e doesn't address them very well.

In my experience it certainly satisfies problems #2 & 5. 3e core classes were sad and pathetic, dreary even, whereas 95% of the core classe content in 5e is interesting, sufficiently different from one another, and most important, balanced. Gone are the days of some classes being ridiculous traps. #1 & 3 are also reasonably well-accounted for; @ level 15 (admittedly as high a level as we've played) inter-class balance was maintained, AC definitely still mattered, and skills are not marginalized in favor of spells.

[Kurald Galain]

These are all huge problems any 3E D&D fan will admit
What I'm referring to is the huge problems that people who aren't fans see in 3E. If you ask fans, you'll get a highly specific list of details like how Celerity is broken, that (1) casual players never notice, and (2) non-casual players fix with houserules. But if you look at actual reasons why people don't play 3E, then the big complaints really boil down to:

It's overcomplicated
Certain classes are much stronger than others
Character building takes too long


Similarly, most 4E fans will have a list of why power X doesn't work or feat Y is overpowered, but the big reasons why people don't play 4E boil down to:

Lack of realism / verisimilitude
Choice paralysis in character building
Combat takes too long


Regardless of whether you personally agree with those complaints, it's an obvious fact that these complaints are common on message boards such as this one. And the point is that 5E does a pretty good job at fixing all six of those.

[Regulas]

3.5 was awesome because of all the rules it had for every little thing. 3.5 sucked because of all the rules it had for every little thing.



More then anything though the biggest thing for me with 5e is that it doesn't feel like I need a very good DM and experienced players to be able to have a decent experience, as the point of 5e loosing rules is so as to focus more on the fun/ the experience then the why and how.

[Sartharina]

Well... 5e does address all those points, even with its largely-unified system. Level 2 makes every class play substantially differently, and it only goes up from there.

1. Casters still have more options, but it's still better to have a fighter in the party than another cleric or wizard. Martial characters can keep up with the game.
2. Multiclassing is always a problem... frankly, I think 4e handled multiclassing best. 3.5/5e's multiclassing is as dangerous as 4e's Hybrid classes. Fortunately, 5e's 'multiclass' subclasses and Multiclass Feats work pretty well... though I wish there were more (And some for non-casters).
3. 5e addresses this one very well! Magic is usefull both in dungeon crawls and on a strategic level, but is restrained enough that it's not the be-all end-all of the world.
4. Eh... this is a strength of the system IMO. It has plenty of stuff that creates an evocative metasetting, but DMs aren't constrained to having to get through dense, pre-generated geopolitics. You can have "Here's a dungeon, here's a a town. Have fun" work out excellently.
5. Well... even with similar structure that makes the classes easy to learn and play, 5e's classes all play dramatically differently from each other.

[Deathtongue]

In my experience it certainly satisfies problems #2 & 5.

It doesn't really satisfy #2. Multiclassing spellcaster classes is slightly more sane, but it still doesn't quite work. And because attribute (with optional feat) bonuses are relative to the class, multiclassing still has the underlying problem of being a screwjob unless you're doing something abusive. At this point, I'm pretty much convinced that 3E and 5E D&D's multiclassing systems don't work and can't be made to work.

As far as interesting classes go, there are two aspects to it. It has to have an interesting effect on the story and has to have interesting gameplay. And what's more, the first caveat is much, much more important. The second is a nice-to-have, but if you don't have the first then it's just number shuffling. 5E D&D still has the same problem of 'casters do everything interesting that can't be replicated by Madmartigan and Conan' that 3E D&D have, only that they lowered the ceiling of cool. Now, while a 5E D&D wizard is in a way more interesting gameplay-wise than a 3E D&D wizard (this is extremely arguable, but let's just take it for granted) it's at the cost of reducing their story impact. It's certainly more than 4E D&D, but it's still less. And 5E D&D can't even really make the argument that it's the price you pay for class balance, because it still doesn't have it. And you won't have it until you retire the non-casters or boost their story power. The most you can say is that they adjusted the sliders between the two editions.

I'm also not impressed at how 5E D&D 'solved' the problem of number divergence. They solved it by keeping the numbers uniformly and artificially low. Which is workable and even helpful when you're trying to emulate a power level of Game of Thrones or King Arthur, but not higher-powered games. But bounded accuracy opens up a whole new can of worms, not least the Mist Archer problem I brought up a few posts ago.

[mephnick]

We have an 11 page thread on this topic in the main role-playing forum. If you don't want to play 5e, nothing we can say will change your mind. None of us play in your group, so we also shouldn't care if you change your mind. These threads are useless.

Let's just abandon the discussion at it's logical end point:

"Some people like this thing. Some people like this other thing."

[Sartharina]

I'm also not impressed at how 5E D&D 'solved' the problem of number divergence. They solved it by keeping the numbers uniformly and artificially low. Which is workable and even helpful when you're trying to emulate a power level of Game of Thrones or King Arthur, but not higher-powered games. But bounded accuracy opens up a whole new can of worms, not least the Mist Archer problem I brought up a few posts ago.Depending on what you mean by Higher Powered games, you can redefine DCs downward in D&D 5e, instead of forcing players/DMs to either abandon a campaign or be forced into dealing with the effects of extremely high numbers.

The mist archer problem is something that no version of D&D handles well because of the resolution mechanic. Disadvantage, though, is much faster to adjudicate in play, and reinforces a 'yes, roll for it' mindset over "Take a -10 penalty" which is just a fancy way of saying 'No"

[McBars]

It doesn't really satisfy #2. Multiclassing spellcaster classes is slightly more sane, but it still doesn't quite work. And because attribute (with optional feat) bonuses are relative to the class, multiclassing still has the underlying problem of being a screwjob unless you're doing something abusive. At this point, I'm pretty much convinced that 3E and 5E D&D's multiclassing systems don't work and can't be made to work.

As far as interesting classes go, there are two aspects to it. It has to have an interesting effect on the story and has to have interesting gameplay. And what's more, the first caveat is much, much more important. The second is a nice-to-have, but if you don't have the first then it's just number shuffling. 5E D&D still has the same problem of 'casters do everything interesting that can't be replicated by Madmartigan and Conan' that 3E D&D have, only that they lowered the ceiling of cool. Now, while a 5E D&D wizard is in a way more interesting gameplay-wise than a 3E D&D wizard (this is extremely arguable, but let's just take it for granted) it's at the cost of reducing their story impact. It's certainly more than 4E D&D, but it's still less. And 5E D&D can't even really make the argument that it's the price you pay for class balance, because it still doesn't have it. And you won't have it until you retire the non-casters or boost their story power. The most you can say is that they adjusted the sliders between the two editions.

I'm also not impressed at how 5E D&D 'solved' the problem of number divergence. They solved it by keeping the numbers uniformly and artificially low. Which is workable and even helpful when you're trying to emulate a power level of Game of Thrones or King Arthur, but not higher-powered games. But bounded accuracy opens up a whole new can of worms, not least the Mist Archer problem I brought up a few posts ago.

I think your point about classes being interesting with respect to the story is rubbish; this is a game and the object of the game is fun for the table. If you do it well a rich story should follow organically. A good story should have nothing to do with the classes of the characters but rather the players & DMs behind the sheets and screens.

The Game does not exist to operate as the DM's storytelling forum.

Gameplay wise I think the classes are very interesting, and if the gameplay is good I know a cool story will follow

[S_Dalsgaard]

Besides, in 5e the mist archer actually only have to find one thing to give him advantage and that will negate all the disadvantages he has (I know many people house rule differently). That means that if he can come up with some good way to give him an edge, he can benefit a lot, while in 3e he would probably only get a minor bonus, which might still leave him with multiple negative modifiers.

[Deathtongue]

What I'm referring to is the huge problems that people who aren't fans see in 3E. If you ask fans, you'll get a highly specific list of details like how Celerity is broken, that (1) casual players never notice, and (2) non-casual players fix with houserules. But if you look at actual reasons why people don't play 3E, then the big complaints really boil down to:

It's overcomplicated
Certain classes are much stronger than others
Character building takes too long


Similarly, most 4E fans will have a list of why power X doesn't work or feat Y is overpowered, but the big reasons why people don't play 4E boil down to:

Lack of realism / verisimilitude
Choice paralysis in character building
Combat takes too long


Regardless of whether you personally agree with those complaints, it's an obvious fact that these complaints are common on message boards such as this one. And the point is that 5E does a pretty good job at fixing all six of those.

This is why I focused my complaints about 3E D&D into those of implementation. A lot of complaints exist as sliders on a gradient. People, sometimes even the same person, will simultaneously tell you that character creation is too complicated yet classes feel too uniform. You can do a certain amount of untangling without sacrificing either desire (Exalted swordfighters are both too complicated to make and aren't differentiated enough), but at a certain point you have to accept granularity or simplicity. People complaining about 4E D&D's lack of realism / verisimilitude may or may not realize that 4E D&D going in that direction is a response to the complaint of caster supremacy; that is, the only way that LW/QW can be solved is by ending the power scaling of the game early, retiring or empowering non-wizards so that they can create castles with sword dances and be so good at picking pockets literally teleport, or by abstracting things like 4E D&D. So on and soforth. At the end of the day, all we can really say is 'I think 5E D&D sits comfortably between the balanced flatness of 4E D&D and the gonzo high poweredness of 3E D&D' or 'I think that 5E D&D is committing the balance fallacy and that 4E D&D's view of the endgame was already optimal'.

Don't get me wrong, from a marketing perspective the position of the sliders are really important. But it's hard to say that doing this fixes things, especially when we don't have the actual sales numbers and focus group surveys -- let alone a control environment -- to compare the editions against. Bad implementation of product specs (multiclassing doesn't work well, numbers devolve into meaninglessness, the vision of high level is incoherent) is significantly less subjective.

[Deathtongue]

Besides, in 5e the mist archer actually only have to find one thing to give him advantage and that will negate all the disadvantages he has (I know many people house rule differently). That means that if he can come up with some good way to give him an edge, he can benefit a lot, while in 3e he would probably only get a minor bonus, which might still leave him with multiple negative modifiers.

You still have the same problem, you just inverted the parameters.


The mist archer problem is something that no version of D&D handles well because of the resolution mechanic. Disadvantage, though, is much faster to adjudicate in play, and reinforces a 'yes, roll for it' mindset over "Take a -10 penalty" which is just a fancy way of saying 'No"

1.) What's wrong with saying no? Why should an option have a chance of success just because a player can take it?

2.) Depending on the particulars, it might not be a no. If the DM gives the situation and announces the penalty, the archer can take actions to partially or even completely mitigate the penalty for distance, cover, and concealment. Or if they're as good at archery as Robin Hood or Green Arrow, they can just eat the penalty and go from 'surefire chance of success' to 'significant but not certain chance of failure'. In our abstracted 3E D&D system the archer might decide to neem that penalty down to a mere -4 (instead of -10) because they can only do something about two of the crowd, scoping problems, and distance. In the 5E D&D system if you can't eliminate all of the disadvantages then it's a waste of time -- so you just get the less detailed story of an archer defaulting the shot and having the same chance of success as if they did anything about it short of full mitigation. That, to me, seems even more disempowering than giving them conditional scaling penalties.

You can make an argument how it's a necessary disempowerment to keep the game running smoothly, but at that point it's not a fix. It's just picking your poison.

[mephnick]

In the 5E D&D system if you can't eliminate all of the disadvantages then it's a waste of time -- so you just get the less detailed story of an archer defaulting the shot and having the same chance of success as if they did anything about it short of full mitigation.

No, you just need to find one advantage. An open, distracted target from a hidden position is probably good enough for me as a DM to cancel your disadvantages.

If you want to argue that the DM has too much say in what garners advantage and disadvantage, you have a point, but then it isn't the edition for you.

[Eslin]

No, you just need to find one advantage. An open, distracted target from a hidden position is probably good enough for me as a DM to cancel your disadvantages.

If you want to argue that the DM has too much say in what garners advantage and disadvantage, you have a point, but then it isn't the edition for you.

That still leaves a 3 point system - disadvantage, neutral and advantage. And as a side note, pretty much everyone does houserule it from what I've seen three sources of advantage shouldn't get cancelled out by one source of disadvantage.

[mephnick]

That still leaves a 3 point system - disadvantage, neutral and advantage. And as a side note, pretty much everyone does houserule it from what I've seen three sources of advantage shouldn't get cancelled out by one source of disadvantage.

Sure, but there are layers to that three points. You still have to do things to justify or modify the three points. Role-playing!

Of course, it only matters if you think a game needs more than 3 levels of variables to adjudicate a single action. I find this to be tedious. Others don't. That's why these discussions never go anywhere.

[silveralen]

It doesn't really satisfy #2. Multiclassing spellcaster classes is slightly more sane, but it still doesn't quite work. And because attribute (with optional feat) bonuses are relative to the class, multiclassing still has the underlying problem of being a screwjob unless you're doing something abusive. At this point, I'm pretty much convinced that 3E and 5E D&D's multiclassing systems don't work and can't be made to work.

As far as interesting classes go, there are two aspects to it. It has to have an interesting effect on the story and has to have interesting gameplay. And what's more, the first caveat is much, much more important. The second is a nice-to-have, but if you don't have the first then it's just number shuffling. 5E D&D still has the same problem of 'casters do everything interesting that can't be replicated by Madmartigan and Conan' that 3E D&D have, only that they lowered the ceiling of cool. Now, while a 5E D&D wizard is in a way more interesting gameplay-wise than a 3E D&D wizard (this is extremely arguable, but let's just take it for granted) it's at the cost of reducing their story impact. It's certainly more than 4E D&D, but it's still less. And 5E D&D can't even really make the argument that it's the price you pay for class balance, because it still doesn't have it. And you won't have it until you retire the non-casters or boost their story power. The most you can say is that they adjusted the sliders between the two editions.

I'm also not impressed at how 5E D&D 'solved' the problem of number divergence. They solved it by keeping the numbers uniformly and artificially low. Which is workable and even helpful when you're trying to emulate a power level of Game of Thrones or King Arthur, but not higher-powered games. But bounded accuracy opens up a whole new can of worms, not least the Mist Archer problem I brought up a few posts ago.

1. As far as multiclassing goes, what do you mean by successful? As in "I can slap any two classes together in any combination and have them be viable"? That's not true, but it also isn't realistic there are too many variables to account for. However, in 5e just about any combination of classes can work with proper planning. So I'm not sure I see what your problem is.

Now, if you want to be able to multiclass to make your character flat out better that's more difficult, it'll almost always be a trade off (though the trade off gets much easier to make when you are in the 16-19 range I admit). But for modeling people with a diverse background 5e works pretty well.

2. This problem is one without an inherent solution, at least for DnD. It will always be about getting the two close enough to one another it doesn't get in the way of the game. 5e manages that pretty well, in a variety of ways.

You have the open ended skill system with backgrounds to help give players options, you have even the non magical classes being given default access to some magic if they choose, and you still have some truly extrordinary abilities tide to the casters.

Part of it is that DnD's default settings don't really lend themselves to mythic campaigns. Moving away from that alienates people who love the settings. 4e made more sense in exalted's setting than it did in greyhawk, forgotten realms or ravenloft (it actually worked for dark sun, especially if you handwaved a lot of stuff as psionics).

It can be improved further, but it's got a good balance now. Besides which, restricting casters to below 3.x levels makes high levels playable. Trying to challenge a party of full casters at lvl 15-20 was something a novice DM just couldn't do, and even veterans needed to spend a lot of time to make such encounters work.

3. This again comes back to the problem that the default for DnD has always been more along those lines. Using it model other higher level games has always taken a bit of doing. 3.X didn't really model high level play, it just gave you really high abstract numbers that didn't actually mean anything. It takes more for a high powered game than a larger attack bonus gap.

That being said, bounded accuracy again works in your favor because modeling a high power campaign has never been easier. Raise the default stat cap to 30 and tinker with character generation to allow for higher base stats and you already have characters who, within their own system, feel very powerful. If you increase the gains for prof and ability bonuses they will gain power faster as well. It'll be on you to figure out how to challenge them, but such is always the case.

[JoeJ]

And that is precisely why I don't like 5th Edition. Let's look at your situation again: It's somewhat dark, there's no mist, the target is 80 feet away. The Archer is still prone, and while there's a light crowd of people most people are paying rapt attention to the druid's speech.

In 3.5E, that situation would have a significantly different difficulty than the first one. It'd be easier, but by no means easy. It's the difference between an experienced but unremarkable archer veteran reliably making the shot and Robin Hood reliably making the shot. But in 5E D&D... the difficulty is exactly the same. If the archer in 3E and 5E D&D absolutely has to make that shot for story reasons but can't do anything about one of the factors their responses would be different. The 3E D&D archer might try to get closer. They might try to drink one of their darkvision potions. They might decide to stand and risk detection -- or find a way to hide. They might switch to a poisoned crossbow instead. Hell, they might tell their pet dog to run in the middle of the crowd and be enough of a nuisance so that people scatter and create enough of an opening for a clear shot. But in 5E D&D, unless they can take care of all of those things there's no reason for them to bother with any of them. They just take the the shot and eat the disadvantage without doing anything in-story. So you don't get the story of the archer trying something desperate or creative to increase the odds of making the shot because it'd be a waste of time.

That's incorrect. If the archer hides, or distracts the target, or does something else creative to gain advantage than they are much more likely to make that shot.

[Raimun]

So, in a nutshell, 5e is for people who want to play standard issue fighters with standard issue long swords and shields? Got it.

[Ellington]

So, in a nutshell, 5e is for people who want to play standard issue fighters with standard issue long swords and shields? Got it.

Yes, that is the only thing that has been said in these three pages of discussion. Glad you created this thread with an open mind.

[Madfellow]

So, in a nutshell, 5e is for people who want to play standard issue fighters with standard issue long swords and shields? Got it.

No, 5e is for people who want to play any type of character they want, without having to worry about hogging the spotlight or turning into the team mascot.

A fighter in 5th can use any kind of weapon or weapons, plus shields if they feel like it. You can optimize for critical hits, or you can take all the fancy combat maneuvers you want, or you can dabble in magic if that tickles your fancy, and the backgrounds system gives you any two skills, languages, and/or tools you want. You can be a valiant knight or a hardened criminal. You can be a brawling street rat or the disciplined graduate of a military academy.

A rogue has even more skills to choose from. You can be a master thief, a dangerous assassin, or again, you can dabble in magic.

Variety is the name of the game. It doesn't matter what class you take, mundane or magical. 5e gives you the tools to make it your own. No feat taxes included.

That's why we love it.

[VeliciaL]

So, in a nutshell, 5e is for people who want to play standard issue fighters with standard issue long swords and shields? Got it.

Keep in mind, "standard issue" fighters in 5e, starting at 2nd level, get to take an extra action once per rest. This is something no class can fully emulate (even Haste has limitations). That's the charm of 5e, each class gets its own unique thing it gets to do*, even fighters.

*And doesn't have certain design decisions a lot of people didn't like about 4e.

EDIT: Also, what Madfellow said.

[ProphetSword]

So, in a nutshell, 5e is for people who want to play standard issue fighters with standard issue long swords and shields? Got it.

5e is for people who like the style of D&D it offers. 5e is not for people who don't like that style or who don't want to like it.

This thread will probably devolve into "some people like one thing, some people like another thing, and everyone argues about how everyone else is wrong for having an opinion; because there must only be one true way to play D&D." That's too bad, really.

[Kurald Galain]

This thread will probably devolve into "some people like one thing, some people like another thing, and everyone argues about how everyone else is wrong for having an opinion; because there must only be one true way to play D&D." That's too bad, really.

Strawberry!

[Sartharina]

Strawberry!Rocky Road or GTFO.


... wait, no. Cherry Vanilla is the one true flavor, but The Man has managed to suppress almost all production of it.

[Jane_Smith]

My current concerns with 5e;

1: The layout of classes and the advancement of ability scores/feats.

I feel the progression of +ability scores and feat gain didnt need to change so significantly. What was wrong with getting feats at set intervals for everyone, equally, same with ability increases? Everyone loves feats, period, regardless of role or class, and everyone loves ability increases equally. Having to pick either/or/what to pick and each class having there own different levels they get increases just feels... ick. Id much prefer to get feats at the typical 1/3/5/7/etc or the 1/3/6/9 levels and abilities like 4.0 or 3.5'.


2: Love the number-crunching for bonuses, etc, but wtf hp/damage?

Look - i love the number-reductions, cause, less bookkeeping, same results, is amazing you know? I especially love advantages/disadvantages/resistances, ability-saves over fort/ref/will, etc. But why did they opt to lower all the bonuses/penalties/strip out so many minor +'s and -'s, but then make hp the same as 3.5/etc, and buff damage significantly for several options? Wouldnt the game be better served with weapons and spells doing damage in the 1-10's and nerfing health considerably to like 6-12 level 1, but only 1-3 per level? It just feels akward having a 200+ hp barbarian with a +6 proficiency bonus to attacking with a weapon. Should have just capped rogue to like 3d6 sneaks, 2d10 top damage eldritch blasts, etc in my eyes. They should have likely used true20's damage system for weapons, to I think, and just made damage set values to speed up gameplay further - longswords do a set 3, daggers 1, shortswords 2, etc. Apply str/dex as per usual for bonus damage. If your goal is to make a game faster to play/streamlined rules, go all the way or go home!


3: Ability caps? what the flying ****'.

Look, i get it. Players can do crazy **** - but, dm's, grow a spine/balls, whack them if they try to break the game. That being said - hard-capping abilities should be a nono. Just cause -your charisma- as a sorcerer caps out at 20 doesnt mean enemy saves/levels/hp stop growing. This is the same issue of set dc's in 3.5 had - early game there questionable, mid/late they are virtually useless. Rather then hand out +2 ability increases every X levels as X class, make it a slow/steady gain of 1 every 2-4 levels between everyone and dont put a cap on it. If a dm cant find a way to put the screws to a 21-30 dex rogue (looking at that low con/wis/cha/str/int....), then they arnt trying hard enough. Dont handicap players for dm's ignorance or impotence!

My 3 cent's.

[ArqArturo]

Rocky Road or GTFO.


... wait, no. Cherry Vanilla is the one true flavor, but The Man has managed to suppress almost all production of it.

We all know that Cthocolate is the King of flavors.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-SMIY-IeXg2U/TZi0cviuvcI/AAAAAAAAAHo/ON-fEm4ssnw/s400/fhtagn-dazs.png

[Sartharina]

My current concerns with 5e;

1: The layout of classes and the advancement of ability scores/feats.

I feel the progression of +ability scores and feat gain didnt need to change so significantly. What was wrong with getting feats at set intervals for everyone, equally, same with ability increases? Everyone loves feats, period, regardless of role or class, and everyone loves ability increases equally. Having to pick either/or/what to pick and each class having there own different levels they get increases just feels... ick. Id much prefer to get feats at the typical 1/3/5/7/etc or the 1/3/6/9 levels and abilities like 4.0 or 3.5'.Actually... not everyone loves feats, especially if the designers couldn't decide on what to do with them (As in 3e and 4e). They add a lot of fiddly moving parts that can combo and form game-breaking combinations, or fail to combo and result in garbage.



3: Ability caps? what the flying ****'.

Look, i get it. Players can do crazy **** - but, dm's, grow a spine/balls, whack them if they try to break the game. That being said - hard-capping abilities should be a nono. Just cause -your charisma- as a sorcerer caps out at 20 doesnt mean enemy saves/levels/hp stop growing. This is the same issue of set dc's in 3.5 had - early game there questionable, mid/late they are virtually useless. Rather then hand out +2 ability increases every X levels as X class, make it a slow/steady gain of 1 every 2-4 levels between everyone and dont put a cap on it. If a dm cant find a way to put the screws to a 21-30 dex rogue (looking at that low con/wis/cha/str/int....), then they arnt trying hard enough. Dont handicap players for dm's ignorance or impotence!This was probably to combat the feel of "I must increase my primary ability every chance I get!" that plagued the math of 3.5 and especially 4e.

[Pex]

I like 5E, I do, but only as much as I recognize it as D&D and having to accept the game moves on. When it comes to the crunch of the rules I prefer Pathfinder. I can name one particular rule of 5E that I prefer over Pathfinder, that being warriors aren't The Suck in combat ability when moving more than 5 ft in a round - a 3E legacy. Pathfinder does offer warriors stuff do when not full attacking, but the lack of full attacking when moving more than 5 ft has shown to be troubling to players in my current group and previous one where we played 3E. However, for the overall game - feats, combat, magic, skills, saving throws, class abilities Pathfinder is more fun for me.

There is an inherent bias in that I have yet to play 5E. It's not a truism that if I do get to play 5E I'll like it more than Pathfinder. I'm still able to make a judgment based on the rules and compare. I know I like 5E more than 2E, which I have played. I like 5E's rules much more than 4E's which I also haven't played. Just from reading the rules I know I can enjoy a game of 5E. I have my gripes, but I can get over them or work around them. They're not big enough to ruin my fun of play as my gripes of 4E were. Preferring Pathfinder does not equate to hating 5E.

[MaxWilson]

This was probably to combat the feel of "I must increase my primary ability every chance I get!" that plagued the math of 3.5 and especially 4e.

Also, it's more traditional, for grognards.

[Jane_Smith]

This was probably to combat the feel of "I must increase my primary ability every chance I get!" that plagued the math of 3.5 and especially 4e.

That is not our faults - blame wotc for making SAD classes a thing. And the idiots who think "oh, a class that requires more then 1 stat to function is underpowered" rather then the normal standard.

Look at pathfinder, art of war. Those brilliant peeps made Dex/Wis stalker, Con/Int warder, and Str/Cha based warlord classes - and of course, str/con for stalkers is useful somewhat, str/wis for warder and dex/con for warlord as "secondaries". Even paladins (str/cha primary, con, etc), clerics (wis/cha, str/con), monk, etc are multi'ed.

Thats how you design a class - 2/6 = required, 2/6 = secondary, 2/6 = useless. But no, lets make a CLASS THATS 100% DESIGNED AROUND ONE STAT, then say they have a hardcap of 20. Grats'. Enjoy the pain later when everyone succeeds your saves 50% of the time or more, for no fault of your own.

But, alas, you exist as a SAD-class, you need that 1 ability, you need it to scale, to. And there is no reason your -entire essence of what your profession is-, should be hard capped. Hell, even allowing 2 points for +1 for every ability increase beyond 20 would be a glorious attempt at a soft-cap, but just saying "NOPE, your maxed at 20" seems a bit extreme you know?


Also, it's more traditional, for grognards.

Tradition does not equate to "Good", "Balanced", or "Fun" - and should be a listed -variant-, not an established "Core rule" everyone must follow.

[Madfellow]

Just cause -your charisma- as a sorcerer caps out at 20 doesn't mean enemy saves/levels/hp stop growing.

The ability score cap of 20 applies to all abilities, not just those used by primary spellcasters. That means that the targets of those spells have their saving throw bonuses capped, just as the casters have their saving throw DCs capped. Plus, a single ability score of 20 can be used to target any of the 6 ability scores of the creature they want to zap, and no creature is going to have a 20 in all of its stats. So more often than not, your spell is going to hit its mark.

[Jane_Smith]

From what I have seen, however, you do not get proficiency bonus to spell dc's, but you do to saves, and its easier to obtain +saves, resistances, and immunities, and advances vs. spells then it is to boost your spell dc's from several things - from just race, class, feats, etc.

[Madfellow]

From what I have seen, however, you do not get proficiency bonus to spell dc's, but you do to saves, and its easier to obtain +saves, resistances, and immunities, and advances vs. spells then it is to boost your spell dc's from several things - from just race, class, feats, etc.

You do add your proficiency bonus to your save DCs, though.

[Finieous]

From what I have seen, however, you do not get proficiency bonus to spell dc's, but you do to saves, and its easier to obtain +saves, resistances, and immunities, and advances vs. spells then it is to boost your spell dc's from several things - from just race, class, feats, etc.

I agree with you, in general.* This is one of the best features of 5e.

The last part, I mean. You do get proficiency bonus on save DCs.

[Sartharina]

That is not our faults - blame wotc for making SAD classes a thing. And the idiots who think "oh, a class that requires more then 1 stat to function is underpowered" rather then the normal standard.

Look at pathfinder, art of war. Those brilliant peeps made Dex/Wis stalker, Con/Int warder, and Str/Cha based warlord classes - and of course, str/con for stalkers is useful somewhat, str/wis for warder and dex/con for warlord as "secondaries". Even paladins (str/cha primary, con, etc), clerics (wis/cha, str/con), monk, etc are multi'ed.

Thats how you design a class - 2/6 = required, 2/6 = secondary, 2/6 = useless. But no, lets make a CLASS THATS 100% DESIGNED AROUND ONE STAT, then say they have a hardcap of 20. Grats'. Enjoy the pain later when everyone succeeds your saves 50% of the time or more, for no fault of your own.

But, alas, you exist as a SAD-class, you need that 1 ability, you need it to scale, to. And there is no reason your -entire essence of what your profession is-, should be hard capped. Hell, even allowing 2 points for +1 for every ability increase beyond 20 would be a glorious attempt at a soft-cap, but just saying "NOPE, your maxed at 20" seems a bit extreme you know?SAD and MAD aren't the deals - the issue is the Scaling Treadmill. You need to constantly be boosting your most-used ability scores in order to keep parity with the abilities of monsters and other party members. A STR 16 fighter can keep up with a STR 20 fighter - it's just a +2 on the swing of a d20. That same 16 STR fighter cannot keep up with a, say, STR 30 fighter - things that would challenge the 16 STR fighter would be a breeze for the 30 STR fighter, and anything that challenges the STR 30 fighter would pwn the STR 16 fighter.
You do add your proficiency bonus to your save DCs, though.
Which is something I hate, and intend to houserule away.

[McBars]

Which is something I hate, and intend to houserule away.

Wait why do you hate that?

[Dalebert]

They just take the the shot and eat the disadvantage without doing anything in-story. So you don't get the story of the archer trying something desperate or creative to increase the odds of making the shot because it'd be a waste of time.

*snip*

People take 3E D&D and more generally d20 for granted because they don't realize what a rare duck the game is: a reasonably rules-rich fantasy game that doesn't implode in the first-few sessions or require DM fiat for most tasks. Don't get me wrong, the game has a ton of problems and omissions, problems I'd be happy to talk about. But it fulfills a niche in traditional gaming that can't quite be replicated by other rule systems.

Exactly my primary concern with the game. It's not nearly as bad as 4e was in this respect, but that sense of flavor and variety calls for more detail that has now been simplified. I'm playing my first game and I think I'm going to enjoy it, but it seems like it will get old quickly. I feel like all the characters of a certain class are substantively the same.

[Kaeso]

For me, 5e is like 3.5e, except without all the things that made 3.5e bad.
Making character sheets was tedious in 3.5e, it's quick in 5e.
There were huge power gaps in 3.5e, the powergaps are closed in 5e.
Some classed had zero use outside of combat in 3.5e, thanks to character backgrounds everyone can be useful in 5e.

Call 5e simplistic, but if you do please keep two things in mind:
1. We only have Core. Who knows what splatbooks await us. If you want a fair comparison, compare 5e Core to the Core of other editions.
2. More complex is not per se better. The splatbooks of 3.5e were chocful of prestige classes, but only a handful were actually useful. Others could even be complete and utter downgrades for the classes using them. In 5e, every choice has its merits to a certain degree. I'm still iffy on how good the Beastmaster Ranger and Champion Fighter are, but I can at least tell that they aren't utterly useless. They're far, FAR from being as bad as the 3.5e monk or, dare I say, the truenamer.

[Safety Sword]

And as a side note, pretty much everyone does houserule it from what I've seen three sources of advantage shouldn't get cancelled out by one source of disadvantage.

No. Not even close to everyone.

[Sartharina]

Wait why do you hate that?DC 19 saves, when most modifiers never get anywhere near that. Essentially, between Prof, SAD, and save-targeting, it breaks the game's math. 10+Attribute gives a better scale.

[McBars]

DC 19 saves, when most modifiers never get anywhere near that. Essentially, between Prof, SAD, and save-targeting, it breaks the game's math. 10+Attribute gives a better scale.

Depends on how you measure "better."

At the levels your spell dc is up at 19, well I think that difficulty accurately reflects the power of such characters. Why do you think it breaks thibgs?

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Perhaps many of you should try out Dungeon World. It keeps the D&D feel, has even less fiddly crap than 5e, and is super easy to pick up and play. And since granularity/complexity is apparently the enemy, it's the perfect system to encapsulate a wide variety of actions with just "roll your attribute."

The only thing I'd fix in that game is how often you get stat bumps when leveling up.

[Shining Wrath]

Because my 7 year old girl was able to make a solid, playable character in about an hour, mostly on her own with a little explanation from me.

Tell me that was possible in 3.5 or 4 and I will laugh for longer than it took her to roll her ability scores.

Now, admittedly, she's in her 7th level of Human Paragon, Cute Little Girl archetype, but still, a 7 year old can create a playable character.

For the curious, she chose mainly by the art work, and wound up Wood Elf Monk with Outsider background.

So that's another thing; there are no crunch advantages so strong that you must make your Warlock a Tiefling or your Paladin a Dragonborn, or suck. You can create playable characters from pretty much all the race / class combinations. Some will be stronger, but all will be playable.

[Kurald Galain]

So that's another thing; there are no crunch advantages so strong that you must make your Warlock a Tiefling or your Paladin a Dragonborn, or suck. You can create playable characters from pretty much all the race / class combinations. Some will be stronger, but all will be playable.

But that's true in every edition. Some people just like to claim that it isn't, also in every edition.

[Forum Explorer]

But that's true in every edition. Some people just like to claim that it isn't, also in every edition.

Not really. In 3.5 you had to be relatively equal to your allies power level, or else they would render you unnecessary. My friend basically did this by accident because he went pure Druid.


Now if you're all around the same power level, then you can go Dwarf Wizard, with your Half-Orc Druid friend, and your Gnome Cleric, but if you're 4th member is going Warlock? He'll need every advantage he can get to not get outstaged.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Not really. In 3.5 you had to be relatively equal to your allies power level, or else they would render you unnecessary. My friend basically did this by accident because he went pure Druid.


Now if you're all around the same power level, then you can go Dwarf Wizard, with your Half-Orc Druid friend, and your Gnome Cleric, but if you're 4th member is going Warlock? He'll need every advantage he can get to not get outstaged.I was about to reply with something like this, but I realized Kurald is actually making a smaller point. You can get away with picking one particular suboptimal aspect of your character, like race or a feat, in any edition. (Class, maybe not.) If you're a mailman in 3.5, you can get away with being a Half Orc who burns one of his feats on Spell Thematics. You're still going to wreck things.

The difference is that, without bounded accuracy, a series of small suboptimal choices builds up and becomes a mountain of differences. Now IMO there are benefits to unbounded game design; it's easier to model a character who's just so much better at something like juggling that he'll never juggle worse than Joe the Commoner who took up juggling 2 days ago. With BA you can't do that. But if you always want there to be a chance that the lowly underdog succeeds, which can be especially important in combat, and your combat resolution mechanic is a uniform distribution, you need BA.

[Baptor]

*Sigh* It's so difficult to tell whether questions like these are genuine or not. :smallconfused:

I mean, are you someone whose looked at 5e and thought, "Well I don't really get this at all but so many people like it and I'd like to know more because maybe it really is great and there is something I missed."? If so that's a genuine question and I'm happy to help show you why I think 5e is a great edition of D&D, though honestly you'll never know until you try it in a game.

Often times, sadly, questions like this one are really just a vehicle for attacking the edition and the players who love it. I think I can speak for most here by saying play the edition you like the most. It's all about having fun, so play the edition that is the most fun for you.

When someone asks, "Why do you like 5e?" and a reply says, "Oh because its so easy to make a character now!" and the someone replies back, "Hah! No its not its way easier in edition X you are such a tool lol!" Then the question wasn't a genuine one and was designed only to bait well-intentioned people into a meaningless debate. That is not OK.

I have played 2e, 3e, and 5e. I loved things about all of them and there are things about all of them I don't like too. I even liked things about 4e, and the only reason I never got into that edition was simply because I stopped playing D&D in 2007. When my friends and I reunited to start playing in 2012, the playtest was out and we figured we'd hop on that.

If a friend wanted to run a game in any of those editions, I'd play in a heartbeat. As it is I am the only DM around and we all want to play 5e, and so we do.

I don't think 5e is objectively superior to all other editions. That is a ridiculous claim for anyone to make about any edition. I do think, subjectively, that for me and my group, 5e works best.

To the 5e haters, please play whatever you like, but please don't come around flaming my preferred edition. I don't do that to you so I would appreciate it if the courtesy was returned.

[silveralen]

DC 19 saves, when most modifiers never get anywhere near that. Essentially, between Prof, SAD, and save-targeting, it breaks the game's math. 10+Attribute gives a better scale.

I'm somewhat confused given that Saving throws scale about the same with prof in them. You won't get quite as much if the save isn't a primary attribute, but that's why it has the base 8, slightly below the average roll on a d20.

Now, it means odds dip dramatically when you don't have prof, but you can pick it up via feat (the biggest reason to play with feats), and there are other ways to boost your saves. Paladin, fighter, monk, and warlock all have some class features that boost the chance of success for a save off the top of my head (paladin even works for teammates), bless is a level 1 spell, you can pick up a couple feats that provide minor bonuses, etc.

Is this a problem you theorized or one you actually saw happening? Because nudging your players towards helpful choices could fix this.

[Knaight]

Because my 7 year old girl was able to make a solid, playable character in about an hour, mostly on her own with a little explanation from me.

Tell me that was possible in 3.5 or 4 and I will laugh for longer than it took her to roll her ability scores.

I don't know your daughter (obviously), but I can say that I was able to do that in 3.5 when I picked it up, and I wasn't much older than her. Granted it didn't take very long for me to decide that 3.5 was tedious as heck and bail to some random crappy system I found on the internet, so the point pretty much stands.

[Eslin]

I don't know your daughter (obviously), but I can say that I was able to do that in 3.5 when I picked it up, and I wasn't much older than her. Granted it didn't take very long for me to decide that 3.5 was tedious as heck and bail to some random crappy system I found on the internet, so the point pretty much stands.

Good for you, but most people aren't like that. I began a campaign with some adult friends two days ago, and one managed to accidentally give her monk three starting feats and 40 point buys worth of stats. That kind of thing still happens sometimes in 5e, imagine how much worse 3.5 was.

[Knaight]

Good for you, but most people aren't like that. I began a campaign with some adult friends two days ago, and one managed to accidentally give her monk three starting feats and 40 point buys worth of stats. That kind of thing still happens sometimes in 5e, imagine how much worse 3.5 was.

Like I've said, I'm all for streamlining. Just because I technically can do something the hard way doesn't mean I particularly want to, and that includes RPG system choice. Our standards for RPGs are kind of ridiculous anyways - D&D pushes 1000 pages, boardgames frequently hover around 10. Sure, RPGs are generally more conceptually complex and need more for advice and similar, but two orders of magnitude? I think not.

[Pex]

To the 5e haters, please play whatever you like, but please don't come around flaming my preferred edition. I don't do that to you so I would appreciate it if the courtesy was returned.

Amen, say the 3E/Pathfinder players.

[Jane_Smith]

To the 5e haters, please play whatever you like, but please don't come around flaming my preferred edition. I don't do that to you so I would appreciate it if the courtesy was returned.


Amen, say the 3E/Pathfinder players.


People forget it works both ways, and all these people who love 5e seem to use 3E/pathfinder as 'failures' or broken, clunky, unplayable, not fun, etc, example as to why they love this "NEW AMAZING FASTER SYSTEM WITH LESS ISSUES". He who does not want his edition attacked should not sling stones, least someone beats him with them' trying to defend there preferences or mechanics they enjoy.

I for one i always enjoyed spending skill points, getting +1 abilities every 4 levels, getting feats at set levels, sure, i disliked some things like full attack actions being weird and druids being able to turn into tier-9 casting t-rex's, but besides that it was uniformed and streamlined rather well, I thought. So I was disappointed in 5e cause they got rid of all those things, and a great deal of mechanical options for customization was ripped out - so i plan to stick to 3E/pathfinder. But im not saying 5e is bad, its just my prefrence - its a solid system, and i can see its merits, its just not me'.

Someone else will say that 3e/path was garbage/bad/broken and "5e" is the new messiah most likely in how 'rpgs should always be made' or tell me its 1000 virtues over the older systems, with no mechanical evidence to back it up except "they made there characters faster and easier" or "its simpler." I grow tired of such ignorance, because complexity also is not a bad thing. For people who have full time jobs, go to college, who popped out 1+ kids, etc? Sure, enjoy it, it was specifically designed for your group of peeps - they even SAID as much, they made you hit level 2 at 300 exp, they sped up every aspect of the game and simplified it and more. But its not for people like me who have free time, no kids, and a solid income, who enjoy writing, stats, number crunching, and going into depth of my character in every regard, and who plans to use the same 1-5 characters for several years and many, many sessions. Its also not for people who enjoy high fantasy/epic feeling games - in 5e four or five level 1 fighters could reasonably fight a level 10 fighter with a solid chance of victory as players are more mortalized/realistic and scale slower in power, but some people enjoy feeling like Hercules at level 5+. Thats there personal preferences, neither is bad or wrong.

So rule of the thumb - DO NOT REGARD EACH EDITION AS THE SAME GAME, same system, playstyle or comparable in any way, and do not throw crap at the other! They were catered for entirely different groups of people, keyword "Groups" not -you-. You need to remember that just because its something you dont like does not mean it should cease to exsist, and that the world isnt going to bend backwords to make a rpg system 100% to your damned whims - because theres several million people on this planet who like different things. And you need to respect that before they remind you how to.

[Eslin]

Lotsa stuff

Agreed - though if you're a 3.5 fan, I recommend playing your first campaign with new players in 5e, then moving onto 3.5 once they start wishing for more customisation and options.

One of 5e's main advantages is it honestly is a bunch easier to do with new players than 3.5 was.

[Madfellow]

People forget it works both ways, and all these people who love 5e seem to use 3E/pathfinder as 'failures' or broken, clunky, unplayable, not fun, etc, example as to why they love this "NEW AMAZING FASTER SYSTEM WITH LESS ISSUES". He who does not want his edition attacked should not sling stones, least someone beats him with them' trying to defend there preferences or mechanics they enjoy.

I for one i always enjoyed spending skill points, getting +1 abilities every 4 levels, getting feats at set levels, sure, i disliked some things like full attack actions being weird and druids being able to turn into tier-9 casting t-rex's, but besides that it was uniformed and streamlined rather well, I thought. So I was disappointed in 5e cause they got rid of all those things, and a great deal of mechanical options for customization was ripped out - so i plan to stick to 3E/pathfinder. But im not saying 5e is bad, its just my prefrence - its a solid system, and i can see its merits, its just not me'.

Someone else will say that 3e/path was garbage/bad/broken and "5e" is the new messiah most likely in how 'rpgs should always be made' or tell me its 1000 virtues over the older systems, with no mechanical evidence to back it up except "they made there characters faster and easier" or "its simpler." I grow tired of such ignorance, because complexity also is not a bad thing. For people who have full time jobs, go to college, who popped out 1+ kids, etc? Sure, enjoy it, it was specifically designed for your group of peeps - they even SAID as much, they made you hit level 2 at 300 exp, they sped up every aspect of the game and simplified it and more. But its not for people like me who have free time, no kids, and a solid income, who enjoy writing, stats, number crunching, and going into depth of my character in every regard, and who plans to use the same 1-5 characters for several years and many, many sessions. Its also not for people who enjoy high fantasy/epic feeling games - in 5e four or five level 1 fighters could reasonably fight a level 10 fighter with a solid chance of victory as players are more mortalized/realistic and scale slower in power, but some people enjoy feeling like Hercules at level 5+. Thats there personal preferences, neither is bad or wrong.

So rule of the thumb - DO NOT REGARD EACH EDITION AS THE SAME GAME, same system, playstyle or comparable in any way, and do not throw crap at the other! They were catered for entirely different groups of people, keyword "Groups" not -you-. You need to remember that just because its something you dont like does not mean it should cease to exsist, and that the world isnt going to bend backwords to make a rpg system 100% to your damned whims - because theres several million people on this planet who like different things. And you need to respect that before they remind you how to.

First of all, let me just say that I agree with basically everything you're saying here. People should play what they want and leave each other alone.

But I'm not sure exactly why you felt the need to say it here in the first place. As far as I can tell, this thread has been very civil so far (for which I am grateful). The OP basically asked, "Hey, why do you folks like 5e?" and the general answer was, "Because we feel it's better than 3e." Really the only way to answer the question is to compare the two systems, and people in this subforum are inclined to favor 5e over 3e. This, I think, is because 3e's bugs (which everyone, even 3e fans, will admit to) hindered our enjoyment of the game and the hobby. We weren't satisfied with 3e when it was out, so when 5e was released we felt a sense of relief.

At the same time, 3e fans have popped in to answer, "We don't like 5e, so we're going to stick to 3e." I'll admit right now that this kinda ruffles my feathers, but I need to realize that said ruffling is an illogical response on my part. Of course people are going to disagree with me. I don't need the world to agree with me. But it still bugs me, so I and other 5e fans try to defend our new favorite system from what the illogical parts of our brains label as an attack.

But again, this conversation has actually been really civil and candid so far. It's basically been, "I like 5e because it does this new thing," or, "I still prefer 3e because of X, Y, or Z." Nobody's been calling names or anything like that. So just take a step back and relax. And this is directed at everyone on this thread. I don't want Jane Smith to feel like I'm singling her out or anything like that.

[ProphetSword]

People forget it works both ways, and all these people who love 5e seem to use 3E/pathfinder as 'failures' or broken, clunky, unplayable, not fun, etc, example as to why they love this "NEW AMAZING FASTER SYSTEM WITH LESS ISSUES". He who does not want his edition attacked should not sling stones, least someone beats him with them' trying to defend there preferences or mechanics they enjoy.


The only problem with that is that the thread wanted to know why people liked 5E. And sometimes the reason that people like the new edition is because it fixed what they hated about previous editions. So it's less about slings and arrows being tossed at a previous edition and more about explaining why we think 5th edition is superior (which completely fulfills the thread's intention).

What I don't get is why, when someone explains their opinion on why they like 5E, someone feels the need to tell them why they're wrong or why a previous edition did that thing better. That's not how the thread started or where it was meant to end up.

EDIT:
Madfellow beat me to the punch as I was typing this out.

[Sartharina]

A big problem with the visciousness is that a lot of the 3.P haters are 3.P players who've been burned badly by the game's nonsense - and 5e fixes the game for them. It's impossible to discuss the virtues of 5e without ignoring how it cleans up/removes the abuses suffered from 3.5.

[McBars]

Someone else will say that 3e/path was garbage/bad/broken and "5e" is the new messiah most likely in how 'rpgs should always be made' or tell me its 1000 virtues over the older systems, with no mechanical evidence to back it up except "they made there characters faster and easier" or "its simpler." I grow tired of such ignorance, because complexity also is not a bad thing. For people who have full time jobs, go to college, who popped out 1+ kids, etc? Sure, enjoy it, it was specifically designed for your group of peeps - they even SAID as much, they made you hit level 2 at 300 exp, they sped up every aspect of the game and simplified it and more. But its not for people like me who have free time, no kids, and a solid income, who enjoy writing, stats, number crunching, and going into depth of my character in every regard, and who plans to use the same 1-5 characters for several years and many, many sessions. Its also not for people who enjoy high fantasy/epic feeling games - in 5e four or five level 1 fighters could reasonably fight a level 10 fighter with a solid chance of victory as players are more mortalized/realistic and scale slower in power, but some people enjoy feeling like Hercules at level 5+. Thats there personal preferences, neither is bad or wrong.

I think most people are neither crapping on 3x nor exalting 5e...or for that matter throwing "badwrongfun" around.

I played 3.0 from release & thoroughly enjoy 3x today. I thought and still think it's better than 2e in every respect....but the longer I've played, the lazier I've become, and the more annoying the bookkeeping/crunch/"added complexity & customization options!" seem, especially as a DM. It's a pain in the ass to track, and I got plenty of free time, haven't crapped out any kids, & have a solid income.

Still enjoy 3.x, but hate paperwork.

5e does support a lot of the stuff you enjoy (writing, character depth, etc.) No mechanical evidence forthcoming to support that, just the opinions of this man who started off as a HIGHLY skeptical 3.x addict defiantly paging through the 5e PHB & on playing it discovered most of my suspicions to be ill-founded.

Whatever your message is, stop with your smug and obnoxious tone.

[Eslin]

A big problem with the visciousness is that a lot of the 3.P haters are 3.P players who've been burned badly by the game's nonsense - and 5e fixes the game for them. It's impossible to discuss the virtues of 5e without ignoring how it cleans up/removes the abuses suffered from 3.5.

They're different games. 3.5 has a lot more content and a lot more openness, the game has more possibilities than 5e ever will and is able to simulate a breathing world better.

5e has the benefit of time and experience and operates on a very similar chassis, but is more balanced and much harder to break, far simpler and easier to pick up and doesn't have the same magic item treadmill (it requires you to have some, unlike what the devs claimed, but it's nowhere near 3.5's level).

They're different games with different strengths. Right now 5e's better to start players on and 3.5's useful if players want more options than 5e can provide and I hope that in time 5e will have enough options that 3.5 is almost replaced by it. Don't pretend 5e 'fixes' the game though, it does well some things that 3.5 did badly and partially fixed some other things (I'm looking at you, 5e caster supremacy at end game) - there's some overlap, but 3.5 still does some things better, as does 4e for that matter (martial leaders, tactical combat).

There's no such thing as a better game, only a game more suited to what you want out of it. 4e failed because it didn't suit enough players needs, 5e suits a good range that already overlaps somewhat with 3.5 and will likely keep increasing to cover even more desires, including more areas 3.5 is suited to, but it will never be better than it at everything.

[silveralen]

They're different games. 3.5 has a lot more content and a lot more openness, the game has more possibilities than 5e ever will and is able to simulate a breathing world better.

Could you elaborate? I'm somewhat curious as to how the 3.5 is more open. More content for sure, but in regardless to openness I naturally think of 5e's more open ended rule system, which makes adding new options fairly easy.

Same with the breathing world bit. I'm not quite sure how one can do that better than the other.

I'm not trying to argue or disagree, I'm merely curious because neither aspect was something that ever struck me as a strong point of 3.X

[Sartharina]

They're different games. 3.5 has a lot more content and a lot more openness, the game has more possibilities than 5e ever will and is able to simulate a breathing world better.... no, it's really not.

[Eslin]

... no, it's really not.

It really is. 5e pretends to be a real world more than 4e did, but it still has PCs blatantly work differently from the rest of the world. It lets players do whatever is in the realms of possibility - after all, if liches are humanoid mages that became undead, the players should be able to even if it's not a great idea. In fifth edition, however, they're monsters that don't have a class of their own or any way for players to become one.

3.5 may be illogical at times, in much the same way 5e is (economics make no sense, dragons aren't covered in magical equipment for some reason, nations seem to operate the same way they did in the past despite the fact that magic should change society on a fundamental level), but it gives the tools to make the world work. 4e took nearly all those tools away and 5e gives some of them back, but it still doesn't present a game world constructed with the game's tools in the way that 3.5 did.

[ProphetSword]

It really is. 5e pretends to be a real world more than 4e did, but it still has PCs blatantly work differently from the rest of the world. It lets players do whatever is in the realms of possibility - after all, if liches are humanoid mages that became undead, the players should be able to even if it's not a great idea. In fifth edition, however, they're monsters that don't have a class of their own or any way for players to become one.

3.5 may be illogical at times, in much the same way 5e is (economics make no sense, dragons aren't covered in magical equipment for some reason, nations seem to operate the same way they did in the past despite the fact that magic should change society on a fundamental level), but it gives the tools to make the world work. 4e took nearly all those tools away and 5e gives some of them back, but it still doesn't present a game world constructed with the game's tools in the way that 3.5 did.

I respect what you're trying to say here, but I disagree. A lot of it comes down to the DM and the world they want, which is true of all systems.

[Madfellow]

I feel like each of the modern editions (3e, 4e, and 5e) has its own specialty. I haven't played any of the earlier editions, so I can't speak for them.

3e is simulationist. It is rules-heavy and very granular; there's a rule for basically everything, but you need to go out and find all of those rules, read them, understand them, and remember them. It requires a good deal of effort to play, but it does reward that effort. Some people like that, others find it exhausting and want nothing to do with it. The downside is that it's horribly unbalanced.

4e is gamist. Also rules-heavy, its highest priorities are game balance and depth of play, and on these two fronts it delivers superbly. It offers a rich combat system with a wealth of meaningful choices at all times, encouraging cooperation and coordination. The downside is that combat takes a long time, encompassing a majority of the time spent at the table. This, combined with its heavy use of jargon, led to it feeling like a video game on paper.

5e is narrativist. It is rules-moderate (rules-light if you use only the Basic Rules), with a focus on speed, simplicity, and storytelling. It provides just enough rules to function and keep everyone entertained, and then gets out of the way and lets the players do the rest of the work.

[Eslin]

I respect what you're trying to say here, but I disagree. A lot of it comes down to the DM and the world they want, which is true of all systems.

Well, obviously. If everyone cared about the details of how the world functions, 4e would never have been played. 4e doesn't even try to pretend it simulates a world that makes sense - it blatantly seperates the player characters into their own little category that works differently to any other creature, has high level minions that still have 1hp and gives very few of the tools that make the world function to players, meaning no matter how hard the characters try they can't recreate most of the stuff around them.

And that's not a bad thing, it was acknowledged that's what they were doing in exchange for having tightly balanced classes and combat tactics. Not everyone cares to have the world make sense - hell, look at Harry Potter, best selling series of all time and a completely illogical world with no internal consistency at all. But when players really do care about the details, usually when the campaign is focused on nation building or exploring the stars or manufacturing magical items or something that doesn't follow D&D's normal focus, 3.5 gives you the tools no other edition of D&D does.


I feel like each of the modern editions (3e, 4e, and 5e) has its own specialty. I haven't played any of the earlier editions, so I can't speak for them.

3e is simulationist. It is rules-heavy and very granular; there's a rule for basically everything, but you need to go out and find all of those rules, read them, understand them, and remember them. It requires a good deal of effort to play, but it does reward that effort. Some people like that, others find it exhausting and want nothing to do with it. The downside is that it's horribly unbalanced.

4e is gamist. Also rules-heavy, its highest priorities are game balance and depth of play, and on these two fronts it delivers superbly. It offers a rich combat system with a wealth of meaningful choices at all times, encouraging cooperation and coordination. The downside is that combat takes a long time, encompassing a majority of the time spent at the table. This, combined with its heavy use of jargon, led to it feeling like a video game on paper.

5e is narrativist. It is rules-moderate (rules-light if you use only the Basic Rules), with a focus on speed, simplicity, and storytelling. It provides just enough rules to function and keep everyone entertained, and then gets out of the way and lets the players do the rest of the work.
A nearly perfect summation, I've put it into words myself but not nearly so succinctly. Copying this, will attribute it to you whenever I quote it.

[Madfellow]

A nearly perfect summation, I've put it into words myself but not nearly so succinctly. Copying this, will attribute it to you whenever I quote it.

Cool. :smallsmile:

[silveralen]

It really is. 5e pretends to be a real world more than 4e did, but it still has PCs blatantly work differently from the rest of the world. It lets players do whatever is in the realms of possibility - after all, if liches are humanoid mages that became undead, the players should be able to even if it's not a great idea. In fifth edition, however, they're monsters that don't have a class of their own or any way for players to become one.

3.5 may be illogical at times, in much the same way 5e is (economics make no sense, dragons aren't covered in magical equipment for some reason, nations seem to operate the same way they did in the past despite the fact that magic should change society on a fundamental level), but it gives the tools to make the world work. 4e took nearly all those tools away and 5e gives some of them back, but it still doesn't present a game world constructed with the game's tools in the way that 3.5 did.

Okay, first off, this is entirely a problem with the fact we have barely gotten the core books. Unless there were mechanics for player lichdom in the 3.5 DM/MM. I'm not quite sure why you would call that a failure of 5e.

Secondly, the game world has barely been presented. We don't have any setting books. Most of the monsters actually follow similar rules to the PCs, the only obvious one they break being stat maxes. You can even calculate the prof of most. So again, that's a really odd claim.

[Eslin]

Okay, first off, this is entirely a problem with the fact we have barely gotten the core books. Unless there were mechanics for player lichdom in the 3.5 DM/MM. I'm not quite sure why you would call that a failure of 5e.
There were, yes (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/lich.htm). It's not a failure of 5e - each edition chooses to sacrifice certain amounts of certain qualities for certain amounts of certain other qualities, and I think 5e has the best balance of those qualities and best average quality across them so far.


Secondly, the game world has barely been presented. We don't have any setting books. Most of the monsters actually follow similar rules to the PCs, the only obvious one they break being stat maxes. You can even calculate the prof of most. So again, that's a really odd claim.
The monsters don't really follow the PC way of doing things in the way they did back in 3.5. The lich is a good example - compared to a 3.5 lich, where a lich would be for instance a dwarf wizard with the lich template applied, the lich in 5e is a monster in its own right, one that doesn't correlate with any other set of abilities. Despite being the end form of a caster, the lich has no levels in that caster and effectively just has 18 levels in lich.

Again, it's a balance I'm ok with. 5e got a lot back for the sacrifices it made, but choosing to go 75% of the way there instead of 3.5's 90% of the way there was one of those sacrifices.

[silveralen]

There were, yes (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/lich.htm). It's not a failure of 5e - each edition chooses to sacrifice certain amounts of certain qualities for certain amounts of certain other qualities, and I think 5e has the best balance of those qualities and best average quality across them so far.

The monsters don't really follow the PC way of doing things in the way they did back in 3.5. The lich is a good example - compared to a 3.5 lich, where a lich would be for instance a dwarf wizard with the lich template applied, the lich in 5e is a monster in its own right, one that doesn't correlate with any other set of abilities. Despite being the end form of a caster, the lich has no levels in that caster and effectively just has 18 levels in lich.

Again, it's a balance I'm ok with. 5e got a lot back for the sacrifices it made, but choosing to go 75% of the way there instead of 3.5's 90% of the way there was one of those sacrifices.

Was that actually in the orginal manual? I thought templates came in and level adjustments came in the later ones. Never ran 3.5 so I'm actually surprised.

Looking through my friend's MM briefly, I saw lots of monsters without class levels, just stats. Including some spell casters who had spells but no official class levels.

So was it really something 3.5 routinely did, from the start?

[Eslin]

Was that actually in the orginal manual? I thought templates came in and level adjustments came in the later ones. Never ran 3.5 so I'm actually surprised.

Looking through my friend's MM briefly, I saw lots of monsters without class levels, just stats. Including some spell casters who had spells but no official class levels.

So was it really something 3.5 routinely did, from the start?

Yes, it was. Lich was in there, along with things like half-fiend and ghost.

Most monsters that had spellcasting from their racial hit dice had spell-like abilities - a unicorn could use cure moderate wounds, neutralise poison and greater teleport (within its forest only) once a day, and cure light wounds three times a day. Not really spellcasting, more a collection of pseudo-spells meant to represent their magical abilities.

Some monsters had direct spellcasting without class levels, however - a mature adult gold dragon cast as a ninth level sorcerer, for instance. Which stacked with any sorcerer levels they decided to take, or indeed any sorcerer levels you decided to take if you decided playing as a dragon was worth the level adjustment.

Keep in mind all this came with a cost - 3.5 was balanced poorly, and many options were either too good or worthless. I like the edition for what it does well, but I am very glad that 5e came out as a general replacement - it can't imitate all that 3.5 did well, and shouldn't try (we want to maintain the balance, it's not set up to do so like 3.5 was and 3.5's already done that, it's time for something new), but it's a great all rounder with room to grow and an easy to pick up and use chassis.

Edit: Casting wise, the unicorn's a decent example. It has a few spell-like abilities from being a unicorn, but right next to it is a celestial charger, a unicorn that has taken 7 levels of cleric. That's now how it has to be, it's only an example, you can have a unicorn that took 5 levels in monk instead, but it is an example of how the system sets up the world so everything is set up the same way, as opposed to 4e where player characters and monsters operated under such different rules that I assume they were made of different particles or inhabited different sets of realities or something. 5e's a lot closer to 3.5 than it is to 4e in that regard, but 3.5 still has its place.

[Nargrakhan]

To me it felt like I had to have a degree in mathematics to understand 3e. It was more complex that I was willing to invest time to comprehend... especially when the endless flow of official splat books hit the shelves. I had gotten to the point where "Feats" was the other terrible "F-word" to use. Then the OP casters... oh gods... the casters. I hated 3.x so badly, I totally ignored and abandoned DnD when it went 4e. I hated the brand that much.

Then a friend swore to me that 5e was different. It was simpler. The martials weren't ridiculously outclassed by the casters at lower levels. So I came back... and I actually liked it. Not to say I don't have issues with 5e, but I haven't enjoyed DnD this much since second edition.

***EDIT***
Just a minor aside... but I thought the point of this thread was to ask people their opinion as to why they like 5e over earlier editions.

At what point did it become a: tell us why you think 5e is better, so we can pick apart your opinion and prove your opinion is wrong because it's not the same as our opinion?

[Scirocco]

3e is simulationist. It is rules-heavy and very granular; there's a rule for basically everything, but you need to go out and find all of those rules, read them, understand them, and remember them. It requires a good deal of effort to play, but it does reward that effort. Some people like that, others find it exhausting and want nothing to do with it. The downside is that it's horribly unbalanced.

It tried to be/pretended to be simulationist, but 3rd was filled to the gills with rules that made ZERO sense even while trying to suspend disbelief because it's fantasy. Diplomancy, 360 degree awareness at all times, house cats, etc...

[cobaltstarfire]

I like 5e because it doesn't stress me out with a huge number of interconnected rules and constant math like other games I've played.

It's just more enjoyable for me, and has thus far been pretty flexible for both players and gm in the game I'm in. We can do things without worrying if there's two-three other rules governing whether we can actually do something or not.

I also like it because I've witnessed quite a few people, several of whom were completely new to tabletop games entirely make a character from scratch in a fairly short amount of time, whereas the other two-three systems I've played or looked at take quite a while.

[pwykersotz]

To support a lot of what I've seen here, I absolutely LOVE 3.5. The system gave me the nuts and bolts to build anything and everything (and boy did I!). I still love 3.5, and would gladly run/play a game in an instant.

Having played it, however, 5e now gives me something to the effect of 3.5++. Because it's rules-lite and more DM dependent, I can get even more stuff in the game, and without a lot of cost. Basically, 3.5 gave me the many, many seeds and 5e gives me the fertile soil to make them grow. I couldn't have seen or achieved nearly as much in my campaign design without both editions. Had I played 4th, I would probably have even more good bits to throw in.

[Pex]

A big problem with the visciousness is that a lot of the 3.P haters are 3.P players who've been burned badly by the game's nonsense - and 5e fixes the game for them. It's impossible to discuss the virtues of 5e without ignoring how it cleans up/removes the abuses suffered from 3.5.

The interesting thing about this statement, which is not meant as any critique of Sartharina, is the absence of talk about 4E. While in the many threads of 5E there has been some mention of 4E, I find the majority of edition comparisons have been between 3E and 5E with Pathfinder as a tag-a-long. Are there 4E players who have switched to 5E due to their disappointments with 4E that 5E "fixed"? I think upthread someone did talk about this. It's not that it's not mentioned just rarely mentioned.

Casual conversation appears to give the assumption that those switching to 5E are unhappy 3E players for those players going to 5E who aren't just playing it because it's the newest D&D. Maybe these are the 3E players who never switched to 4E. Maybe many 4E players really, really like that system and aren't switching at all. As Oscar Wilde said "There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." Who talks about 4E here?

[McBars]

The interesting thing about this statement, which is not meant as any critique of Sartharina, is the absence of talk about 4E. While in the many threads of 5E there has been some mention of 4E, I find the majority of edition comparisons have been between 3E and 5E with Pathfinder as a tag-a-long. Are there 4E players who have switched to 5E due to their disappointments with 4E that 5E "fixed"? I think upthread someone did talk about this. It's not that it's not mentioned just rarely mentioned.

Casual conversation appears to give the assumption that those switching to 5E are unhappy 3E players for those players going to 5E who aren't just playing it because it's the newest D&D. Maybe these are the 3E players who never switched to 4E. Maybe many 4E players really, really like that system and aren't switching at all. As Oscar Wilde said "There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." Who talks about 4E here?

Search any thread with "Lokiare" posting

[Shadow]

Search any thread with "Lokiare" posting

That doesn't count.
He didn't switch. He can't even find a game that will have him (his own words).
He bashes on 5e based on theorycrafting, not experience.

[ProphetSword]

One of the things that I love about 5E is the fun times that come up when advantage and disadvantage come into play.

Like the time a player had advantage and rolled a 1...and then a natural 20 on the second die. Talk about turning things around!

Or the time that a player with disadvantage rolled two 19s and still managed to take down the bad guy.

So, it's not always about rules or whatnot. Sometimes it's just about the experience at the table.

[silveralen]

The interesting thing about this statement, which is not meant as any critique of Sartharina, is the absence of talk about 4E. While in the many threads of 5E there has been some mention of 4E, I find the majority of edition comparisons have been between 3E and 5E with Pathfinder as a tag-a-long. Are there 4E players who have switched to 5E due to their disappointments with 4E that 5E "fixed"? I think upthread someone did talk about this. It's not that it's not mentioned just rarely mentioned.

4E was so different it doesn't lend itself to an easy comparison, but a lot of things it "fixed" are debatable as problems and more akin to preference.

For example, the system of powers and scaling could be seen as a strength to some and a weakness to others, personally I disliked it. Having tons of minor situational bonuses on the order of +1/2 is fun for some, tedious for others. The emphasis on combat, and more drawn out tactical combat, is a plus for some a negative for others.

It did fix the same magic item treadmill that four inherited from 3.

[MaxWilson]

Casual conversation appears to give the assumption that those switching to 5E are unhappy 3E players for those players going to 5E who aren't just playing it because it's the newest D&D. Maybe these are the 3E players who never switched to 4E. Maybe many 4E players really, really like that system and aren't switching at all. As Oscar Wilde said "There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." Who talks about 4E here?

I also know 2nd edition players who are now switching to 5E after having skipped 3rd/3.5th/4th.

[Tvtyrant]

Are there 4E players who have switched to 5E due to their disappointments with 4E that 5E "fixed"? I think upthread someone did talk about this. It's not that it's not mentioned just rarely mentioned.

Casual conversation appears to give the assumption that those switching to 5E are unhappy 3E players for those players going to 5E who aren't just playing it because it's the newest D&D. Maybe these are the 3E players who never switched to 4E. Maybe many 4E players really, really like that system and aren't switching at all. As Oscar Wilde said "There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." Who talks about 4E here?

I actually liked 4E as a player, but I hated that the rules did not apply to world building. Having to use "a wizard did it" and then telling the wizard not be able to do it drove me nuts as a DM. We went back to E6 (which is the 3.5 attempt at making 5E IMO) because I disliked the split in rules between players and world.

[Occasional Sage]

The interesting thing about this statement, which is not meant as any critique of Sartharina, is the absence of talk about 4E. While in the many threads of 5E there has been some mention of 4E, I find the majority of edition comparisons have been between 3E and 5E with Pathfinder as a tag-a-long. Are there 4E players who have switched to 5E due to their disappointments with 4E that 5E "fixed"? I think upthread someone did talk about this. It's not that it's not mentioned just rarely mentioned.

Casual conversation appears to give the assumption that those switching to 5E are unhappy 3E players for those players going to 5E who aren't just playing it because it's the newest D&D. Maybe these are the 3E players who never switched to 4E. Maybe many 4E players really, really like that system and aren't switching at all. As Oscar Wilde said "There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." Who talks about 4E here?

On this forum, at least, you will have trouble finding 4e converts amongst the 3.x crowd. 5e already has more posts (75k) than 4e (50k), with both together a tenth of 3.x posts (1.1m).

Whether that imbalance reflects actual numbers in the real world is debatable, but I suspect that accounts for the biased assumptions.

[Tarvil]

Well, I really like that rules are simple and fast (big fight under one hour? no problem!), but it's still a lot of place for interesting combos and tactical fight.

I like that can make so many different characters without digging through bazillion of books, prestige classes, subraces etc. Just pick a class and fitting subclass, choose good background, a little bit of multiclassing et voilà, a character that perfectly fit my imagination.

[JFahy]

I like D&D 5 because the rules are elegantly simple, I don't consider it important
for a ruleset to be uniform or all-encompassing, and I don't think the 'Stormwind
Fallacy' is fallacious - so when rules encourage players shift their attention away from
their character sheets, it feels to me like the gameplay gets better. I also love the
flatter power curve; before D&D 5 I was getting interested in the P6 project.

I'll be slightly surprised but thrilled if they keep the rules streamlined throughout
the life of the game, by putting out more setting sourcebooks and adventures rather
than power-inflating splat. Every game has that potential early on, and so I guess
another thing I like is that D&D 5 hasn't had time to blow it yet. :smallsmile:

[Sartharina]

The interesting thing about this statement, which is not meant as any critique of Sartharina, is the absence of talk about 4E. While in the many threads of 5E there has been some mention of 4E, I find the majority of edition comparisons have been between 3E and 5E with Pathfinder as a tag-a-long. Are there 4E players who have switched to 5E due to their disappointments with 4E that 5E "fixed"? I think upthread someone did talk about this. It's not that it's not mentioned just rarely mentioned.
4e was largely rejected by 3.P players for "Not being D&D" - and it IS an outlier in the progression from OD&D to AD&D to AD&D 2e to D&D 3e, sidetrack at 4e to try out new things, and D&D 5e tried to 'recapture' OD&D, AD&D, AD&D 2e, and 3e to an extent. 5e is recognized as D&D - but opinions are split on whether it's better D&D than 3e or not.

[Gnomes2169]

Since I've only DM'd it so far, I'm going to have to judge it from that perspective... And I myst say that 5e is waaaaaay easier to run from a DM's perspective. Far fewer rules to reference, easier to eyeball creature stat blocks that I can throw at my players without destroying my party or having the monster just roll over and die, easy to patch flaws/ ambigous RaW with clear RaI, etc. I do want to run it as a player eventually (I have waaaaaay too many character concepts I want to try out... It's sort of bad...), but as a DM I just love using it.

PF/ 3.All just took too dang long for situations that only lasted 5 minutes at most, because my players would wreck the monster I'd spent making for an hour with a single spell, or fail a really, really easy saving throw and get roflstomped. If I wanted to make a trap or skill challenges, the DC's just had to go up and up to the point where only a character specialized in the skill could succeed them, and there were way too many build options for me to account for them all. It just wasn't as fun as a DM to run as 5e is.

[JoeJ]

The interesting thing about this statement, which is not meant as any critique of Sartharina, is the absence of talk about 4E. While in the many threads of 5E there has been some mention of 4E, I find the majority of edition comparisons have been between 3E and 5E with Pathfinder as a tag-a-long. Are there 4E players who have switched to 5E due to their disappointments with 4E that 5E "fixed"? I think upthread someone did talk about this. It's not that it's not mentioned just rarely mentioned.

Casual conversation appears to give the assumption that those switching to 5E are unhappy 3E players for those players going to 5E who aren't just playing it because it's the newest D&D. Maybe these are the 3E players who never switched to 4E. Maybe many 4E players really, really like that system and aren't switching at all. As Oscar Wilde said "There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." Who talks about 4E here?

The reason I don't compare 5e to 4e is that reading the 4e Quick Start left me with no desire whatsoever to play the game, so I don't know enough about 4e for a comparison to mean anything.

[Pex]

Search any thread with "Lokiare" posting

Touche

:smallbiggrin:

[Eslin]

It did fix the same magic item treadmill that four inherited from 3.
4e didn't only inherit it, it took it and ran with it. At least there was some variation in 3.5, even if I think 5e's approach where they aren't necessary (mostly, hello magic weapons) is WAY better, in 3.5 you could play a druid or wizard competently on few items and it had a few positives - it was complicated, but the artificer was insanely fun to play if you had the right mindset (a lot of people would have hated playing one) and was only possible due to how 3.5's items worked, we'll never see its like again. 4e took it and built it into the game itself, making magic items a series of increasing +s that had no point but complicating things, since you could have just decreased monster attack and armour by 6 and taken the +6 swords and armour away from players and nothing would change.

That's my main answer to why I like 5th edition, aside from simplicity - it can be played with lots of magic items, but classes can (mostly) succeed without doing so.


That doesn't count.
He didn't switch. He can't even find a game that will have him (his own words).
He bashes on 5e based on theorycrafting, not experience.
To be fair, it is perfectly possible to criticise a game based on reading it rather than playing it, pretty much everything I thought, both good and bad, about 5e before I ran it turned out to be the case in play. You just need to not be determined to hate 5e regardless of merit like he is.


It tried to be/pretended to be simulationist, but 3rd was filled to the gills with rules that made ZERO sense even while trying to suspend disbelief because it's fantasy. Diplomancy, 360 degree awareness at all times, house cats, etc...
Every edition is filled with that, please observe than in 5e if you have people building a house, for every day you aren't directly supervising they dismantle three days worth of work instead of working. 3.5 had the tools to make everything, they just didn't do a fantastic job writing a lot of them. Doesn't mean there's anywhere better to go if you want to, say, have players playing as devils working their way up the infernal hierarchy.

[Scirocco]

Every edition is filled with that, please observe than in 5e if you have people building a house, for every day you aren't directly supervising they dismantle three days worth of work instead of working. 3.5 had the tools to make everything, they just didn't do a fantastic job writing a lot of them. Doesn't mean there's anywhere better to go if you want to, say, have players playing as devils working their way up the infernal hierarchy.

I don't disagree with that at all, just noting that from a simulationist perspective 3.5 fell flat in a good many times. 5th is definitely lacking verisimilitude in a number of areas.

[JAL_1138]

house cats, etc...

Housecats have been killing first-level wizards since AD&D; that wasn't solely a 3.5 thing. I've had a 2e character get killed by one, in one hit. There is some literary precedent, with Discworld's Greebo, Nanny Ogg's hateful cuss of a tomcat, whose list of confirmed kills includes an elk, an elf, and two vampires.

[Eslin]

Housecats have been killing first-level wizards since AD&D; that wasn't solely a 3.5 thing. I've had a 2e character get killed by one, in one hit. There is some literary precedent, with Discworld's Greebo, Nanny Ogg's hateful cuss of a tomcat, whose list of confirmed kills includes an elk, an elf, and two vampires.

"He brought in half a wolf last month"


I don't disagree with that at all, just noting that from a simulationist perspective 3.5 fell flat in a good many times. 5th is definitely lacking verisimilitude in a number of areas.Yes, it did. It's a pity, especially since 3.5 went so far in the direction it went that later editions are unlikely to try to do the same, but then no-one ever claimed 3.5 was well balanced.

[Ermac]

After reading the 4e PHB, I decided that I would just keep playing 3.5. After reading the basic rules for 5e, I decided to try it. Still haven't gotten around to doing that.

[MaxWilson]

Housecats have been killing first-level wizards since AD&D; that wasn't solely a 3.5 thing. I've had a 2e character get killed by one, in one hit.

Wizards dying to housecats is a venerable tradition. In fact, some people say that it's an important part of the housecat lifecycle. No tom advances to full breeder status without killing 100 XP worth of 1st level wizards. Wizard : housecat :: kobold : fighter.

[azoetia]

Casual conversation appears to give the assumption that those switching to 5E are unhappy 3E players for those players going to 5E who aren't just playing it because it's the newest D&D. Maybe these are the 3E players who never switched to 4E. Maybe many 4E players really, really like that system and aren't switching at all. As Oscar Wilde said "There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." Who talks about 4E here?

I never switched to 4E. I bought the PHB, read it, found a lot of things I liked but one thing I didn't terribly care for but could probably live with (powers system) and one absolute deal-breaker (requires minis and a grid because of all the fiddly move-a-square-this-way powers.) It just wasn't compatible with my style of play, and I wouldn't have been able to sell anyone I know on it if I had tried. I explained to my group how the 4E powers system works because they were curious. Their unanimous response was "that's ****ing stupid," and that was the end of that conversation. Tactical combat just isn't anything any of us has any interest in. Our gaming table is for ale, pretzels, and dice, not maps and minis.

I did bail on 3.X and PF after a decade because I got tired of the prep, teaching new players, reminding people--even decade-long veterans--to use their feats, and shaving off chunks of the tactical combat rules to accommodate faster and looser play without knowing in advance how it would throw encounters out of balance. 3.X and PF's options and granularity I need not. I require fast character generation, fast combat, and easy rules. Characters will die early and often, and replacements need to be rolled up in about 10 minutes. I personally really love almost everything about 5E and have only felt the need to make three house rules, but for running games for my group I could just as easily do Basic Fantasy, Swords & Wizardry, or Castles & Crusades and we'd all have hours upon hours of gonzo, suicidal fun. We could definitely get on fine with Old School Hack, too. The advantage/ disadvantage mechanic and bounded accuracy were ultimately what tipped things toward 5E instead of one of those other games. I feel like what complexity 5E has is optional and you're not risking breaking anything by leaving things out or fudging details on the fly, which I do constantly.

I don't hate 3.X, PF, or 4E. They're just made for different kinds of people than me. 5E hits the sweet spot of what I want out of a game.

[Sartharina]

4e didn't only inherit it, it took it and ran with it. At least there was some variation in 3.5, even if I think 5e's approach where they aren't necessary (mostly, hello magic weapons) is WAY better, in 3.5 you could play a druid or wizard competently on few items and it had a few positives - it was complicated, but the artificer was insanely fun to play if you had the right mindset (a lot of people would have hated playing one) and was only possible due to how 3.5's items worked, we'll never see its like again. 4e took it and built it into the game itself, making magic items a series of increasing +s that had no point but complicating things, since you could have just decreased monster attack and armour by 6 and taken the +6 swords and armour away from players and nothing would change.The idea was that, if on the odd chance your adventures DID have you come across a low-level enemy, or you managed to get a +6 item before you were supposed to, it would be a huge difference.

It's difficult since there's no guideline support, but you actually can take 4e 'off the track' and run it similar to a more classic game.

[Kurald Galain]

The interesting thing about this statement, which is not meant as any critique of Sartharina, is the absence of talk about 4E. While in the many threads of 5E there has been some mention of 4E, I find the majority of edition comparisons have been between 3E and 5E with Pathfinder as a tag-a-long. Are there 4E players who have switched to 5E due to their disappointments with 4E that 5E "fixed"? I think upthread someone did talk about this. It's not that it's not mentioned just rarely mentioned.

I think this is mainly because most people consider 1E-2E-3E-PF-5E to be iterations of the same game, and 4E to be a different game. After all, every edition was based on tweaking the previous one, except 4E which was rebuilt from scratch.

Also, bear in mind that 3E remained vastly more popular than 4E, even at 4E's peak.

[JAL_1138]

"He brought in half a wolf last month"


I can't believe I forgot the wolf. And yet Granny Weatherwax's kitten has a bluff on him...


Wizards dying to housecats is a venerable tradition. In fact, some people say that it's an important part of the housecat lifecycle. No tom advances to full breeder status without killing 100 XP worth of 1st level wizards. Wizard : housecat :: kobold : fighter.

Agreed, it's on the scale of lone kobold or lone goblin, 3' tall and 50lbs soaking wet, malnourished, stupid, and cowardly, utterly trouncing a 6'5" 250lb brute wearing chainmail in one round. It's a common, perfectly normal occurrence and part of the natural order of things.


I require fast character generation, fast combat, and easy rules. Characters will die early and often, and replacements need to be rolled up in about 10 minutes.

This is a big part of what drew me to 5e. Reminds me of AD&D. You can roll up a new character and be playing in a few minutes, and you'll need to. I'm starting to get twitchy in the 4e campaign I'm in because it's been months and none of us has died yet. It's like watching someone blow up a balloon past where you'd expect it to burst that just keeps getting bigger and bigger instead...
And I'm the only one in the party who bought a 10ft pole--which has gone unneeded...

I'm disappointed in the polearm selection in 5e, though. Glaive, halberd, spear, pike, trident...aaaaand that's it. Where is the fauchard-fork? The spetum? The guisarme-voulge? The bec de corbin?

[Dalebert]

Characters will die early and often, and replacements need to be rolled up in about 10 minutes.

Ugh. Can't agree with this part. No matter how fast the system allows me to mechanically make a new character, I will invest careful thought and some emotion, frankly, into my character's back story and goals. I'm seriously in mourning for the last three characters I made for games in which the DM got bored with the system and quit to start a new game. The characters didn't even die. They just faded away. Without that investment, who cares if the character dies? There's nothing at stake. I'm not playing in any more of his games. I consider him a killer DM, in a manner of speaking.


The interesting thing about this statement, which is not meant as any critique of Sartharina, is the absence of talk about 4E.

It doesn't surprise me at all. I'm one of those people that pretends 4e didn't happen. I realize that there are people who liked the game and I'm not dissing them. It's not that it was a bad game necessarily, but it really didn't take off with many people who had been fans of 3.5. It was just too radically different. It's like the 3rd X-Men movie or the 2nd Highlander movie that were almost universally hated by the hardcore fans. The sequels were made to either ignore the previous and pretend it didn't happen or just outright retcon it away.

[cobaltstarfire]

I agree that most people don't mention 4e cause most of them may have never played it ect.

For me 4e came out about the same time I had a lot of life changes that prevented me from being able to buy/play the game. (I also wasn't impressed by what I saw when I browsed through one of the books) but since I have no experience with it I can't really pass a real judgement on it.

Almost every player I've talked to in Meatspace simply skipped 4e for one reason or another. Everyone was coming from 2e or 3.5 (haven't met any pathfinder folks though). The group I found to play with in person has a background of many role play games, and they feel that 5e is probably the best D&D edition yet, and that it's hit a sweet spot between rules and flexibility. That's the impression I've gotten from reading reviews/discussion on the system on amazon, and the AL facebook pages.

[azoetia]

Ugh. Can't agree with this part. No matter how fast the system allows me to mechanically make a new character, I will invest careful thought and some emotion, frankly, into my character's back story and goals. I'm seriously in mourning for the last three characters I made for games in which the DM got bored with the system and quit to start a new game. The characters didn't even die. They just faded away. Without that investment, who cares if the character dies? There's nothing at stake. I'm not playing in any more of his games. I consider him a killer DM, in a manner of speaking.

I'm not a killer DM, but the early levels of 5E are fairly lethal and my players... I suppose it's exaggerating to say they're suicidal. It's more that they just don't have a whole lot of survival instinct or get emotionally attached to their characters at all, even if they get heavily invested in roleplaying them. I'm close to just making a stack of fifty 1st, 2nd, and 3rd level pregens so someone can take a character off the top and keep things moving. In my current campaign everyone is still alive after four sessions, but only as a result of extremely lucky dice rolls on multiple occasions. I figure it'll catch up with them eventually.

As a player I get really attached to my characters and I try to keep them alive, but that doesn't come up often.

[Telwar]

Agreed, it's on the scale of lone kobold or lone goblin, 3' tall and 50lbs soaking wet, malnourished, stupid, and cowardly, utterly trouncing a 6'5" 250lb brute wearing chainmail in one round. It's a common, perfectly normal occurrence and part of the natural order of things.

It's the other way around. The housecat brings home lowbie wizards to feed its kittens, just as the fighter loots kobolds for ale and wench money.

[Shadow]

Ugh. Can't agree with this part. No matter how fast the system allows me to mechanically make a new character, I will invest careful thought and some emotion, frankly, into my character's back story and goals. I'm seriously in mourning for the last three characters I made for games in which the DM got bored with the system and quit to start a new game. The characters didn't even die. They just faded away. Without that investment, who cares if the character dies? There's nothing at stake. I'm not playing in any more of his games. I consider him a killer DM, in a manner of speaking.

Dalebert, for the sake of your own peace of mind and your nerves, I would encourage you to be less emotionally invested in characters until they get beyond level three or so.

[Selkirk]

Dalebert, for the sake of your own peace of mind and your nerves, I would encourage you to be less emotionally invested in characters until they get beyond level three or so.

yeah but how do you become invested in a character that you don't really care about when you create them? phb seems to be saying create meaningful characters while dm's are reading characters are disposable. and of course the problem is the 'new' character will generally be an archetype of the char that died (without all of the interesting fluff...).

[Shadow]

yeah but how do you become invested in a character that you don't really care about when you create them? phb seems to be saying create meaningful characters while dm's are reading characters are disposable. and of course the problem is the 'new' character will generally be an archetype of the char that died (without all of the interesting fluff...).

It was more in response to this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?385218-Find-Steed&p=18469735#post18469735).

[Sartharina]

yeah but how do you become invested in a character that you don't really care about when you create them? phb seems to be saying create meaningful characters while dm's are reading characters are disposable. and of course the problem is the 'new' character will generally be an archetype of the char that died (without all of the interesting fluff...).Simple - Start simple, and develop them as they develop. You become invested in them as you succeed with them and they accomplish goals, survive, and grow with successes and defeats. When you create them, they're disposable and forgettable. By the end of the session, they're someone, but you can't risk too much attachment. By the 5th session, if they've survived, it's someone you can't imagine not playing without. I'm tempted to link an AGC strip (Namely, Joe's panic over the near loss of his character Lothor, who started out as a generic, disposable fighter)

Having essentially disposable but still fluffed characters (Backgrounds, traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws) also has the benefit of reducing "Speshul Snowflake Syndrome" - Is this character so unique that you can't just tweak a few details if he dies and get a similar one in play? If no, you're probably the only one who thought the 'lost' fluff was interesting in the first place.

[Dalebert]

Dalebert, for the sake of your own peace of mind and your nerves, I would encourage you to be less emotionally invested in characters until they get beyond level three or so.

That's probably good advice and I should attempt to follow it but I'm not optimistic. I tend to obsess about my characters.


Having essentially disposable but still fluffed characters (Backgrounds, traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws) also has the benefit of reducing "Speshul Snowflake Syndrome" - Is this character so unique that you can't just tweak a few details if he dies and get a similar one in play? If no, you're probably the only one who thought the 'lost' fluff was interesting in the first place.

Can't help it. I'm an (attempted) writer. It's in my nature to make every character a "speshul snowflake".

[Lord Raziere]

That's probably good advice and I should attempt to follow it but I'm not optimistic. I tend to obsess about my characters.



Can't help it. I'm an (attempted) writer. It's in my nature to make every character a "speshul snowflake".

Ah yeah, I am of the same mindset, I am kind of a writer too: either the character has to be a "special snowflake" or I can't even play it, because I'm not even interested in making anything like a "normal" character.

my recommendation? leave. find a group that understands. don't stay with a killer DM in any manner. roleplayers like us don't mix with old school roleplayers that go through characters like tissues, optimizing roleplayers you can probably work with to get a compromise because they just want to make your character effective and thus more survivable and often don't care about the fluff as long as it works.

in my honest opinion, you should go find a group that consistently plays a narrative or flexible universal system. they will probably be the most accommodating.

and if you can't find a group, don't roleplay. no roleplaying is better than bad roleplaying. make your characters, keep them in notes, wait for the opportunity to bust them out, be patient. trust me. better in the long run.

Back to the lurkmobile...I go!

[azoetia]

yeah but how do you become invested in a character that you don't really care about when you create them?

To me those two ideas have no relationship to each other at all, so I don't understand how one could be dependent upon the other. I don't need an emotional attachment to a character in order to sink into it. I'm fine with someone handing me a character I had no hand in rolling up, especially if it's nothing like anything I would have ever created on my own. If I have the same toon for many sessions of hi-jinks I will definitely become attached, but never at character creation. The in-game history of the character is what matters to me, not their back story. And if my character dies I'm going to make a new one that's nothing whatsoever like the last.

Actually, one thing I like about 5E is that I can just roll a die to get my traits, ideal, bond, and flaw and come up with a character I would never have otherwise considered. It's more interesting and challenging. Maybe it's because of having been a DM consistently for so long, but I'm fine playing epic heroes, scheming villains, idiot henchmen, janitors, bar maids, and blacksmiths. I have no preference.

[McBars]

yeah but how do you become invested in a character that you don't really care about when you create them? phb seems to be saying create meaningful characters while dm's are reading characters are disposable. and of course the problem is the 'new' character will generally be an archetype of the char that died (without all of the interesting fluff...).

That's not what's being said; be invested but accept that death is around every corner.

[Madfellow]

That's not what's being said; be invested but accept that death is around every corner.

And try not to draw its attention. :smalltongue:

[VeliciaL]

And try not to draw its attention. :smalltongue:

Army rule: never go first, never go last, and never volunteer for anything. :smallbiggrin:

[ImperiousLeader]

It doesn't surprise me at all. I'm one of those people that pretends 4e didn't happen. I realize that there are people who liked the game and I'm not dissing them.

I understand that, and I do get that this isn't personal, but this general attitude from people really ****ing annoys me. I made the change from 3.5 to 4, and I didn't really regret it. And all the "it's not really DnD and it's just a videogame" feel ignorant and dismissive to me.

I started playing DnD with 3.5, and I'll always have a soft spot for it. But my first attempt to DM it was a disaster, and it made me gun shy about DMing until 4e came out. 4e gave me the game that I can enjoy from both sides of the screen. The balance is better, the PCs all have fun combat tricks and monsters also have fun elements but aren't bogged down in play. I love that 4e makes player cooperation a prerequisite. I played a Bard, and it was a great joke that my Bard could "cast Assassin", as I could move my party-mates, and the Assassin had a feat that allowed him an attack after he was slid around the battlefield. Sure, 4e combat was time-intensive, but it was the right kind of time-intensive. If the Fighter could get to this spot and knock the goblin into this square, the wizard could combo off this spell ... the combat system in 4e sings. Most of the players in my group started with 4e, and they all love it.

Now, that being said, I, as a DM, have moved on to 5e. I imagine I will still play 4e, we've got some active campaigns that are simply waiting for the DM to get in gear. But I'm running 5e, and I'm liking it. While the full mini and grid combat will never go away, I've only cracked them out once in 5e. And that does speed up play. I like how fast and loose 5e works.

I'm not a fan of 1st level PCs in 5e though. I imagine that I'll be starting future campaigns at third level, as the PCs feel too fragile right now. And, I'll fully admit that one of the big draws to 5e right now is the lack of bloat. 3.5, Pathfinder, and 4e are swimming in bloat. Too many feats, magic items and spells to sort through, making it a chore. But it's inevitable that 5e will also suffer from the same eventual bloat, so that is an advantage that will go away.

[JAL_1138]

It's the other way around. The housecat brings home lowbie wizards to feed its kittens, just as the fighter loots kobolds for ale and wench money.

You'd think so, but I've seen too many kobolds get lucky against a first level fighter who only rolled middlin' hit points.


yeah but how do you become invested in a character that you don't really care about when you create them? phb seems to be saying create meaningful characters while dm's are reading characters are disposable. and of course the problem is the 'new' character will generally be an archetype of the char that died (without all of the interesting fluff...).


That's not what's being said; be invested but accept that death is around every corner.

Agreed with McBars. To me I get more invested in keeping them alive, not less and the ones who stay alive I get particularly attached to because of the sheer luck and (sometimes) good play that kept them alive that long. I feel like a character is more alive when I'm at risk of losing them to a mistake or to a monster getting lucky on a roll. I also feel like it means more to RP one as foolhardy or self-sacrificing because it's likely to get them killed. To steal a quote from Pratchett, "What don't die can't live. What don't live can't change. What don't change can't learn. The smallest creature that dies in the grass knows more than [an immortal]."

But to each their own. Start at higher levels for better surviveability, would be my suggestion.

[Selkirk]

@ many above...

yeah i guess i approach my chars with a certain level of 'snowflakiness' (don't judge me :smalleek:...:D). i really like concepts and backgrounds and motivations and i think the 5e rules really encourage more involved char building. i don't want to play a game where i'm just playing a class (might as well be dungeonworld :smallfrown:). not a knock on that style just a matter of preference.

why kill characters at 1st level? why kill characters when they have literally nothing at stake? makes no sense to me. might be a good lesson for first time players but for more experienced gamers it's just a recipe for frustration. the challenge for a dm isn't in how to kill low level characters but how to keep them alive...building good low level encounters is challenging but tough low level fights are intensely gratifying (the party is scrambling at every turn).

but this isn't to say that the game should be a series of campaigns for level 1-3 :D. just that i bring a lot to char creation and i don't want to burn thru a bunch of characters for no reason other than they are statistically weak. in that spirit i like a game that gets deadlier as it goes along-it makes more sense that the chars would be more challenged as they gain levels and power. and in fairness i don't think most dm's are as 'killer' as they imagine...and certainly not as kill crazy as the players imagine.

but i don't want to sidetrack thread- let me give a shoutout to 5e.. yeah i love it :smallcool:. rules lite makes all the difference.

[Eldan]

Death happens. Honestly, you can turn this thing around. Why play at first level, if there are no risks? Your character is a hero. There's nothing heroic about it if you know your character can't die because they aren't powerful enough to be threatened yet.

As a DM, I don't set out to kill characters. But it's always a possibility.

Edit: at least in a standard "adventuring" campaign, of course. I run more political, investigation and sandbox games by far than standard adventures. In those, the risks either aren't of a physical nature, as such, or the players manage them themselves. In a sandbox, no one is forcing you to go into the Mountains of a Thousand Gruesome Deaths, but if you want artefacts and experience, that's where they are.

[Stella]

Yep, I'm just a little annoyed that they never explicitly spell it out. There's a thread here I created about poisons where people keep insisting they'll be illegal, which is a holdover from the real world. In D&D an injury poison works the same way a flaming weapon does, +xd6 damage per hit.

Things work entirely differently in D&D, but D&D presents itself as 'like the real world, but' while it's almost entirely disconnected from how the real world works. Harry Potter and the Natural 20 is my favourite example of it, makes it clear how alien a D&D character is to how our reality works.

To be fair, while it does touch on how alien D&Dland is to the real world, it spends much more time comparing D&Dland to the HPverse, yet another system which is quite alien to the real world. The HPverse violates the laws of physics just as handily as D&Dland, after all.

And the fact that D&D physics and mechanics don't accurately model the real world isn't spelled out in the D&D rules is because as you said it's supposed to be just like the real world, with magic. All the mechanics which Milo (the main character in HP:N20) refers to in that story and finds shocking that they don't work the same in the HPverse aren't supposed to be known to the characters in D&D, just the players. When a D&D character remembers the answer on a test you aren't supposed to roleplay it by going "Whew, I made my Knowledge (whatever) roll," nor is the character supposed to know that they are acting first in combat because they have the Improved Initiative feat and also rolled well when initiative was called for. That's far more appropriate to a gag setting like OotS, or the D&D setting which Milo apparently came from. In a more immersive setting the players are supposed to use the willing suspension of disbelief to gloss over the fact that no game system will ever be able to accurately model the real world.


I like 5e because it does away with what was, in my group, the biggest sticking points against 4e, which caused us to fall back to 3.5:

1) The ever increasing time it took to conduct combat, which seemed to be quite the opposite of how things were intended to go due to the 1 HP minion rule. A plan which failed, it appears.

2) Daily and Encounter abilities. Failing to connect with these was always a point of contention in my group, and most of them offered no greater chance to connect than any at will ability. My group felt that giving a character a heroic and limited use ability which had the same failure chance as any other ability was counter-intuitive for a heroic setting. And while 4e did offer the "aid another" action which I think was introduced in 3.0 and still remains in 5e (called the Help action), in neither 3.X nor 5e is it as vital to use this action tactically in order to (hopefully) not fail to connect with those daily and encounter abilities. Spending your action aiding another just doesn't feel as heroic as accomplishing something within the options of your own character's unique abilities. And much of the time you could look at the dice and determine that you either "didn't help enough" or that your help was unnecessary, which also detracts from the heroic atmosphere.

3) The return to a more varied spell book for Wizards (and casters in general), where the 1st level Wizard knows 3 cantrips and 6 1st level spells rather than the far more limited abilities offered in 4e. Combined with the general reduction in game breaking magical capabilities this makes 5e both more varied and customized by character and more balanced.



And 3.5 was filled with loopholes from the start, the splats raised the ceiling for casters proportionately less than it raised the ceiling for martials.

I disagree completely. Every splat published introduced more and more spells, even those supposedly published for the martial classes. Many introduced more and more ways to swap around class features, caster specific feats, or other goodies for the casters. And every author and the WOTC design team thought that this was a good thing somehow.

In the end the casters ended up with thousands and thousands of spells, a spell for any possible situation conceivable, and the ability to change them out or select them on the fly using non-core feats such Uncanny Forethought and many other broken feats and abilities, while some of the newly introduced "martial*" classes ended up just not sucking as much as most of the core martial classes.

The Tier system is like the Richter Scale: Logarithmic. Going from 5 to 3 means far less than going from 3 to 2, which is still less than going from 2 to 1. Creating T3 martial classes in no way proportionally raises the ceiling for martial classes compared to casting classes, and especially not when you are simultaneously redefining the T1 ceiling by constantly adding more spells, more feats, more class abilities, more prestige classes, all the time, to the casters who already started at T1.


* I put quotes around "martial" above because publishing what is essentially a T3 Fighter/Magic-User (to use AD&D terminology) doesn't really create a T3 martial class, and many of the highest tier and most praised "martial" classes are exactly that.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

Many 4e characters had dailies that were sustainable zones or self-buffs (stances, rages, warden shape-shifting thingies). Persistent no-roll dailies were definitely my favorite type for the reason you mentioned. Well, that and the grind-fest combats that lasted way too many rounds making persistent effects incredibly useful.

[Jager Fury]

I have never played 5th edition until I volunteered at my local library to run a game of D&D for international game day. The last time I DM'ed D&D was with B/X. Granted it was a group of elementary kids, but they all knew how to play the game. One kid brought the PH and MM and a Tiefling(?) Monk. The other kids I handed out pregens I made from online resources the night before. I brought B2 Keep on the Borderlands and converted on the fly.

I don't think I could have done what we did with 3.X - 4 from what I am reading here. And this group of adolescents interacted with PC's in the Keep, went off on tangents in the forest, explored the swamp south of the Keep with a real creepy encounter with lizard men before even stumbling upon the Caves of Chaos. Once there they even managed to thoroughly explore one of the orc lairs. Done in three hours. Now that I have my own copy of the PH I adore 5e. Glad I missed everything in between.

[Fishyninja]

I enjoyed 5e as I found the rules a little easier to master than Pathfinder but still had the same fantasy elements.
The fact a lot of the rules encourage exploration and adaptation is a nice feature it feels like your character is more than a Race/Class character but someone you are more invested in.

I would like to state I only played about 5 or 6 sessions of Pathfinder before using 5e.

[Steel Mirror]

Agh! It clawed its way back through the gates of death to spread terror among the living! KILL IT WITH FIRE!

I mean, ahem, this was already an old thing to bat back and forth when the thread was active 2+ years ago. I think we can let it rest in peace. :smallbiggrin:

[Sigreid]

I like it because it's fast and plays well at the table.

There's far less need for a legalistic style knowledge of the rules to make it work.

There's no need to plan your character out through his or her carrier from the very beginning due to the valid fear that one misstep will close a door you don't even know you want to open yet.

Separating background and class and having them both contribute meaningfully to character capabilities opens up a lot of options even without multi-classing.

Fairly forgiving death rules means I can rough the party up more than I would have dared in 3.x without taking away the threat of real character death.

While I wouldn't say all classes are equally powerful, I would say that all classes are always useful to the party. i.e. the fighter isn't told to just sit in the corner while the wizard sorts everything out.

No mobs can be completely ignored, no matter what level you are. It annoyed me that a level 20 character could completely ignore orcs, for example, knowing they could not possibly cause him meaningful harm, no matter their numbers.

There are systems I like as well, or maybe even a tad bit better, but they are not class based. If you're going to go with a class based system, I think 5e does it close to as well as that format's limitations will allow.

[Dr. Cliché]

Whilst I like 5e overall, I just want to say that the monster manual can sod off to the plane of fire.

So many of the monsters have been turned into nothing more than sacs of hp with all their spells and interesting abilities removed.

I appreciate that you don't want too much complexity in terms of 'basic' monsters, but why did boss creatures like Pit Fiends and Dragons have to lose virtually all their fun stuff? These are battles that *should* be complex.

[ChildofLuthic]

...So many of the monsters have been turned into nothing more than sacs of hp with all their spells and interesting abilities removed...

So much this. The only good thing I can say about 5e is that the CR calculation system is pretty easy to figure out, so when I do go adding spells and things, I can get a rough estimate about how much more difficult the monster is when it has spellcasting/other abilities.

[MadBear]

So, in a nutshell, 5e is for people who want to play standard issue fighters with standard issue long swords and shields? Got it.

why did you even bother creating this thread?

You obviously don't like 5e, and don't care what others have to say about it. What did you honestly expect to get out of posting this thread?

Especially posting this in the 5e forum, which is where you'd find people who play 5e.

For others, you've at least sparked interesting discussion, but since you've only posted once since starting the thread, and not even acknowledging what others have said, your lack of caring suggests ill intent.

seriously.... some people....

[DMJ1]

why did you even bother creating this thread?

You obviously don't like 5e, and don't care what others have to say about it. What did you honestly expect to get out of posting this thread?

Especially posting this in the 5e forum, which is where you'd find people who play 5e.

For others, you've at least sparked interesting discussion, but since you've only posted once since starting the thread, and not even acknowledging what others have said, your lack of caring suggests ill intent.

seriously.... some people....

I don't think it suggests ill intent. But even if it did, I would put a statute of limitations on it. After two years I would say it has passed and you can let it go!

[Asmotherion]

Things are simpler, easyer... You need less than 10 minutes for character creation. You can neglect die rolls altogether, making it easyer for online play. Things don't scale off like they used to in 3.5E were you had to make a power-hunt, or your PC would be useless, and yet is not an oven-ready character edition like 4e, as it allows a lot of customisation. Bounded accuracy (imo the best thing that's happened in D&D since the warlock class came to be) makes the game balanced, and even 1/4 critters might become lethal to a 20th level character, if enough of them are grouped together.

PS Edit: Just realised this is a necro-thread... Seriously, I hate zombie-threads... it's embarasing and awkward. Feels like people arguing with someone that may not even be part of the forum anymore....

[Corsair14]

I am not impressed with 5th. I agree with everything the OP said. The skill system is silly, combat at least is pretty straight forward. I am not a fan of the whole archetype system and prefer the prestige class way of doing things. I still prefer 2nd edition above everything, complain about thac0 all you want, the system does make sense. 3rd is my next favorite system although I agree Pathfinder(I call 3rd and PF the same as I see little functional difference) has gotten far too bloated and I dislike the main PF campaign world and would always run my own and steal bits and pieces. I absolutely hate 4th and played it once and sold my phb. If I wanted to play WoW I would log in.

My main problem with 5th is it doesn't feel right. I like hard fights but it seems like its difficult to make fun interesting fights without being too hard so I house rule a lot to fight the system. I don't like how it takes so long to get your class abilities when most campaigns never reach those points and quite a few classes have fairly worthless class abilities in the middle. I hate the adventure paths. Why the F they keep putting them out instead of world books I don't know. I want source books and class books with options, not adventure paths. That and the whole feywild concept is retarded. Its one plane, the prime material plane, then you have the other elemental planes and the inner and outer planes(yes I grew up reading Planescape). The lack of true sourcebooks(volos just came out I know) and alternate game worlds besides boring FR is likely my biggest complaint. I wish they would put their resources to playtesting and releasing those and cease with the giant adventure paths crap.

[MadBear]

I don't think it suggests ill intent. But even if it did, I would put a statute of limitations on it. After two years I would say it has passed and you can let it go!

LOL, I didn't realize this was a 2 year old thread. It popped up on top so I assumed it was new.