Convince me to get into 5e

[Jallorn]

So as a long time 3.5 player who has built several worlds for the system, I have yet to really look at 5e. I dabbled with 4e, but it never really caught me much. I appreciate that it did what it set out to do well, but it just never seemed to be what I was looking for in a DnD system; 3.5 was plenty adequate for my purposes. Maybe 3.5 took a little more work, but I enjoyed that work, tinkering with the rules and mixing and matching.

So why should I take a look at 5e? What do you think it offers that 3.5 or 4e don't? Why do you play 5e? What are your favorite things about it?

[Contrast]

Maybe 3.5 took a little more work, but I enjoyed that work, tinkering with the rules and mixing and matching.


Why do you play 5e? What are your favorite things about it?

As someone who never played 3.5 because the learning curve seemed (pointlessly) steep, I like 5e because it doesn't take a lot of work while still hitting that fantasy adventure vibe. :smalltongue:

[Deathtongue]

Currently playing weekly games in both 5E and Pathfinder. The crowd for 5E D&D is noticeably younger, less male, and more casual than the OSR/Pathfinder/3.5E D&D crowd. Considering that at least 70% of your enjoyment from a TTRPG will come from who you're playing with, that's not a trivial consideration depending on what kind of crowd you're looking for.

[MrStabby]

In 5th edition you can't do everything but you can do more things. In 3rd you had maxed abilities in a narrow area and ignored them in all others (assuming you were aiming for effectiveness). In 5th edition there are fewer rewards to totally specialising and more rewards to having broader abilities. Sure there are still specialists, it is still important but the edge has been taken off.

In 5th edition you can play the game, rather than writing spreadsheets and code to manage your character for you. It is a bit simpler, but much of the simplicity is in the arithmetic rather than tactical simplicity. The ratio of fun to hard work is higher in 5th.

If you want to be effective you can play more classes. All of them are viable and it is fun to find ways to make them work. The action/bonus action/reaction paradigm works well for making multiclasses and "builds" that work surprisingly well a little more subtle than in 3.x (although I never caught all the later splat so maybe that changed).

In 5th there are more plausible adventures. An army can fight a dragon. Goblins in sufficient numbers can fight high level heroes. You are not limited to things matched by level for a challenge. Failing saves is always a possibility. The game is made more exciting for it.

In 5th edition the first turn is important in combat but it is not alone the decisive turn. You can no longer completely see how combat will end by looking at initiative rolls. I like that.

There are downsides to 5th. Well fewer options as there isn't that much that has been released yet. That is the main one.

[Specter]

I played 3e for 4 years before shifting to 5e. Main selling points:

- Casters aren't gods anymore.
- Martials can be good without very specific builds, like the infamous Leap attacking Barbarian.
- Much less reading than 3.5 (it's what, 50% of what it used to be?).
- No more adding hundreds of modifiers for every attack or spell.
- Beginners feel much more at home when they're not stupid for playing 'wrong builds', so it's easier to bring new people in.
- At every level, classes get something new, so you don't need to multiclass into 5 different classes to enjoy leveling up.

In short, the only people I see that still prefer 3.5 are the massive powergamers and those who need specific rules for every Climb (ahem, Athletics) check. I'm neither.

[Desamir]

I played a lot of 4e. 4e got me into D&D in the first place. It's probably the one edition where I can claim some level of system mastery.

The reason I switched over to 5e is because it's just a better classic D&D experience. It massively simplifies the math and sticks to the basics. It still provides plenty of depth (in the form of spellcasting) for players who seek it out, but it doesn't force it on them. It's not nearly as laser-focus on tactical combat as 4e.

All I can say is, give it a try. You may find yourself missing the fiddly bits of 3.5 at first, but if you're like me, after a while you'll be wondering how you ever put up with them in the first place.

[KnotaGuru]

3.5 was a numbers game. Characters could do things bordering on metahuman with skills alone. Casters were better martials than the martials. And some of the multiclass powering gaming combinations were ridiculous.

5e brought D&D back to role-playing rather than power gaming. The classes are better balanced and there is always an element of danger. The characters never feel too powerful. The main mechanical difference is advantage/disadvantage, which simplifies game play tremendously.

[Asmotherion]

A) Bounded Accuracy. Basically, even a CR 1/4 monster can still hit you at level 20. It does have less probability to do so, but it can still happen. Basically, low level monsters don't ever become obsolate. Some people don't like it... I love it.

B) Viable Multiclassing. Even among spellcasters, you can dip into an other class without destroying your character. Your DCs no longer add up based on your class level rather than pure spellcasting modifier+proficiency bonus (aka character level instead of class level), so you don't destroy your DCs by stepping out of your Class.

C) Class Dips. The bread and butter of (almost) every optimiser. 2-3 Levels from one class give you a basic "feel" of that class, without hurting your base class progression. I just love it.

D) No more weird prestige classes needed for optimisation. You can stick to 100% core material for full optimisation, and very unique customisation. You have Archetypes that makes sure of that.

E) The target in no longer "stacking more and more power" but instead "getting realistically strong in a fantastical setting".

[Puh Laden]

On the DM side I enjoy the the simplicity of the rules, it's more state-based than number based and you don't have to worry about what stacks with what and what doesn't (like criticals are just roll double dice don't worry about creature type or damage origin). There's also how you have the freedom to make new monsters without having to adhere to a specific system of creation (which you don't have to with any edition but you're more encouraged in 3.5 to use the system).

[Deleted]

So as a long time 3.5 player who has built several worlds for the system, I have yet to really look at 5e. I dabbled with 4e, but it never really caught me much. I appreciate that it did what it set out to do well, but it just never seemed to be what I was looking for in a DnD system; 3.5 was plenty adequate for my purposes. Maybe 3.5 took a little more work, but I enjoyed that work, tinkering with the rules and mixing and matching.
So why should I take a look at 5e? What do you think it offers that 3.5 or 4e don't? Why do you play 5e? What are your favorite things about it?

You should see 4e now that there are multiple books and rules out, character building is just as or more in dept than in 3e. If you like this, you will hate 5e, there is just not enough stuff in it and WotC basic ideology is "use homebrew or DMs guild for more stuff" which is utter crap.

But, 5e takes the core principals of 4e and makes them look like 3e.

Coming from 3.5... There is a lot of stuff in 5e you will either love or hate. Just give it a try and see what you think.

Don't let the words of random internet strangers sway you one way or the other.


edit===

Casters are still unbalanced versus other classes but not versus the world as much. But it seems that WotC wants to make casters more unbalanced with every UA they put out.

[jaappleton]

Less is more. The rules system, the ability to be effective without huge feat chains, etc.

5E is just... It works.

[Deleted]

Less is more. The rules system, the ability to be effective without huge feat chains, etc.

5E is just... It works.

Eh...

The Saving Throw system is borked and the skill system is half-donkey but the rest is pretty damn good.

[tKUUNK]

I'm playing my first 5e character right now, still learning the ropes. I loved 3.5, and skipped 4e entirely (no reason, just fate). So unfortunately I can't compare 4e.

What I've noticed about 5e is this: it is deceptively nuanced. The rules are straightforward compared to 3.5, so I expected a drier experience than what actually results in practice. You won't be let down by the apparent simplicity of it.

I agree with earlier comments in this thread re: multiclassing. It just produces more joy in this edition. Look at all the "sorcer-whatever" posts in this forum, haha.

Combat....seems inherently 50% to 100% faster than combat in 3.5. NOT needing to constantly re-calculate AC, save DCs, and attack bonus every time someone uses a spell or ability helps.

Heck, I would play 3.5 again. I sort of enjoyed the cheesey "stack effects til you're unbeatable" element, though I don't miss it as much as expected.

So then, here's a related question for those who can answer:

Do previous editions feel clunky or cumbersome after playing a couple campaigns in 5e?

[Hathorym]

The majority of my 25 years of D&D, I have been DM and have enjoyed it. As editions have gone by, I have been intrigued by the newer innovations and design philosophies. But began to feel a bit of a detachment between the stories I wanted to tell, and the supporting mechanics of the systems. I almost felt that the rules were impinging upon my creativity. By the time I was running 4e, I felt I was more of a moderator than a DM.

5e has changed all that. It has made me feel as if my ideas have room, my creations can flourish, and the rules are working with me rather than in spite of me. It is also, incidentally, the first edition I've ever had a desire to play since AD&D, and have begun to do so.

Not everyone is going to get the same things from 5e that I have, but from my perspective, I feel as if 5e *is* D&D again.

The fact that it brings nostalgia to these old bones isn't a bad side effect either.

[cZak]

Seems a thread with a general title like this pops up about every three weeks...

[Deleted]

Seems a thread with a general title like this pops up about every three weeks...

Woo! More people joining 5e?

I'm not seeing this as a bad thing.

[mephnick]

Woo! More people joining 5e?

I'm not seeing this as a bad thing.

Gets annoying when people won't do their own homework. There have been millions of words written on differences betwwn 3.5 and 5e, or outlining the theories behind 5e. Just google it.

[Deleted]

Gets annoying when people won't do their own homework. There have been millions of words written on differences betwwn 3.5 and 5e, or outlining the theories behind 5e. Just google it.

Just sticky this

Difference between 3.5e and 5e D&D (http://bfy.tw/A8u5)

[Tetrasodium]

So as a long time 3.5 player who has built several worlds for the system, I have yet to really look at 5e. I dabbled with 4e, but it never really caught me much. I appreciate that it did what it set out to do well, but it just never seemed to be what I was looking for in a DnD system; 3.5 was plenty adequate for my purposes. Maybe 3.5 took a little more work, but I enjoyed that work, tinkering with the rules and mixing and matching.

So why should I take a look at 5e? What do you think it offers that 3.5 or 4e don't? Why do you play 5e? What are your favorite things about it?

5th is kind of like 3.5 with some of the traps & jaggy bits shaved down. The biggest difference I can quickly sum up in a way that spills over to lots of other unrelated systems is the changes in how skills work. In 3.5, sure you could do things like take lore:arcane as $notWizard, but you better not expect to do much beyond try to make an arcane check on the stuff you used to fight 10 or 15 levels ago if you weren't a wizard or very specifically built to do it. In 5th, a skill exists in a state of proficient, or not. if you are proficient, you get to add your proficiency bonus (+2@1 to +6@20) to that skill check. classes mostly get 2ish skills, most races add similar, and your background can add a couple more plus a tool or two.
If you aren't proficient at $skill, but you have proficiency with a set of tools that is situationaly relevant, you can use those to add your proficiency bonus instead if you can work them in. Thus a fighter with no proficiency in deceive/animal handling/perform could maybe use their hypothetical proficiency with a lute to bluff their way into the big party as one of the entertainers, calm an angry/scared animal, or to put the tavern into a thrall with a musical tale of his epic adventures and add his proficiency bonus in each situation. There are a -lot- of different tools to mesh with the various background options, but they also can also o things like criminal giving you proficiency with deception, stealth, a gaming set, & thieve's tools if that fighter looks at the group & decides "none of these guys are going to play a rogue, but we still need to do things like open locked doors & such... Og the fighter has a criminal background!"

You calculate your attack roll by rolling d20+applicable stat bonus+proficiency bonus+ weapon mod type stuffrather than the +BaB system in 3.5 where different classes were both going to be using stronger/weaker weapons, but also slowly losing their ability to simply hit things with those weaker weapons, or miss them with the stronger ones.

in 3.5 you were expected to have two rings, a bracelet, a belt, pants, boots, hat/helmet/crown, necklace/gorget, gloves/gorget, etc just to keep up & had a truckload of magic items that were pretty bland, now you can have 3 magic items attuned to you... want three magic rings?... sure. Logical exceptions like the fact that it's physically unlikely that you could wear three sets of boots or two helmets of course; but by trimming down the number of magical items you can have active at any given time you can ditch needing +1 +2 +3 stat item type treadmills where you are happy to be keeping up, but not really excited beyond the extra +1 means that magic items can be "wow, cooool" special things that really differentiate individual characters.

classes in 3.5 made builds that ranged from broken munchkiny or just "dude, wtf were you thinking.... what do you mean you didn't plan ahead?" useless & could take a lonnnnng time to get there. in 5th, it's still possible to make boneheaded choices, but it's much harder because at level 2-3ish classes fork within themselves to quickly spool up into thematic gears that existed for a lot of the 3.5 ones. For example druid splits into moon or land druids at 2... Moon druids are the bad ass bear that sometimes casts spells while not wildshaped; Land druids have a the default weak wildshape with oodles of magic. Spell slots for that magic can be recovered more easily to allow more casting in encounters, & depending on which of the 8 lands you choose you always have access to a bunch of extra/iadditional spells to boot making them the bear throwing lots of bears at things & starting them on that path quickly.


so on & so forth.

[Vaz]

Nobody else played 3.5e so I had to learn 5e was what got me into it. Nobody is forcing you to play 5e.

It's not a bad game system, it's just worse than 3.5e for what I want out of it, in my opinion, and would rather play 3.5e if I have a choice.

[Deleted]

Nobody else played 3.5e so I had to learn 5e was what got me into it. Nobody is forcing you to play 5e.

It's not a bad game system, it's just worse than 3.5e for what I want out of it, in my opinion, and would rather play 3.5e if I have a choice.

Oh, if given the choice...

Tier 3 3.5 and 4e would happen way before 5e.

Hell, I just learned about 13th Age and I would play that before 5e.

I love 5e but it is missing so much. Plus wotc just plain sucks now days.

[djreynolds]

Do you want to get a 100% on the test... than 3.5

Do you want an A... than 5E

Its simplified, it is still D&D. The dice are very swingy.

There is no more pre-buffing which is actually fun... much more dangerous

And concentration is used to maintain the spell, not to cast it

[Fishybugs]

While getting feedback from others is great, you won't know until you try it. Download the free rules from Wizards and play.

For maximum enjoyability: don't try and overthink the rules. Yes, they really are as simple as they seem.

[Breaklance]

What I've noticed about 5e is this: it is deceptively nuanced. The rules are straightforward compared to 3.5, so I expected a drier experience than what actually results in practice. You won't be let down by the apparent simplicity of it.


The action economy is very deceptively deep. You can work out a lot of combos with actions, bonus actions, and reactions but only having one of each a turn and a lot of features that use one but not any others allows combat to feel more fluid. Your not always going to be doing the same attack rotation.

There certainly are some optimal combinations within a class (like warlock hex, eldritch blast, and certain evocations) that you want to use a lot but not always

Maybe this is a bad comparison but I want to ask if anyone as ever played Biowares two major franchises Dragon Age and/or Mass Effect? I want to say 3.5 is like Dragon Age:Origins and 5e is like Dragon Age: Inquisition. DAO was very complex and had a lot of min/maxing going on and the game was significantly easier if you did it. Dragon Age 2 went overly simplistic and was more of an action/adventure game than RPG. Inquisition was a great middle ground imo there are choices to make and some power gaming type options but the system isn't bloated there is way less trap abilities or just useless stuff. Which is how I'd describe 5e. Similar could be said of the RPG elements of the Mass Effect series.

[Deleted]

The action economy is very deceptively deep. You can work out a lot of combos with actions, bonus actions, and reactions but only having one of each a turn and a lot of features that use one but not any others allows combat to feel more fluid. Your not always going to be doing the same attack rotation.

No, it is not.

The action economy is nice but it is pretty darn shallow.

Which is one of the things 4e attempted to do with 3e's system but didn't go far enough.

Action, Bonus Action, Reaction.

That's all you really get. Everything is tied off that (plus "free action" but that's mostly talking and Movement isn't an action anymore).

This isn't deep. But that's fine. You want deep? Play 3.5 or 4e where you can replace action types with other action types and that there are two types of reactions.

Just because something is good doesn't mean it is deep.

[Hawkstar]

I take issue with the "Multiclassing is great!", due to how the game has notable power bumps at benchmark levels that are tied to the class itself. Casters multiclass far better than noncasters, which kinda sucks (I want to roll a Fighter/Barbarian, but delaying ASI and extra attack progression hurts)

As someone who loves martial characters, though, I love that 5e got rid of the restrictions on movement and killed the 'full attack' action. No Goddamn Full Attack. Your dual wielding fighter can actually move around the battlefield while striking with both weapons. The monk is actually awesome.

[MrStabby]

No, it is not.

The action economy is nice but it is pretty darn shallow.

Which is one of the things 4e attempted to do with 3e's system but didn't go far enough.

Action, Bonus Action, Reaction.

That's all you really get. Everything is tied off that (plus "free action" but that's mostly talking and Movement isn't an action anymore).

This isn't deep. But that's fine. You want deep? Play 3.5 or 4e where you can replace action types with other action types and that there are two types of reactions.

Just because something is good doesn't mean it is deep.

Well it can be deep in terms of not being sure what the right choice is.

For example you want to cast a concentration buff spell at the start of combat. Is something like hex better or something like bless better? Well bless has the better effect but it takes an action not a bonus action, so the question then becomes how much more useful is your action than your bonus action? In turn you need to ask how long the combat will be - over 5 turns the lost action might be recovered in terms of benefit, over 3 or 4 the extra action might be more useful.

When selecting what spells to learn, having some take a bonus action is nice as it lets you do more in a turn. Again it depends on what you can do with your action - and the value of a spell slot as they are a limited resource.

It also limits the things that can be combined together. Shoving someone down is nice. Shoving them down with a bonus action so you can make multiple attacks against them before they get to their feet with shield master is much better still. But then the value of shield master must be weighed against alternative bonus actions.

For a simple rule it does add a lot of complexity and consideration. Yeah it isn't the deepest thing in the world but it is deep given the complexity of the rule itself.

[NecroDancer]

5e is simple, faster, and more balanced without dumbing the game down.

I recently got into pathfinder and I love its complexity but in 5e you dont have the complexity of 3.x, you don't need to plan levels ahead to enjoy your class, you don't need a spread sheet to keep your character in line. 5e is a breathe of fresh air that combines the mechanic of 2e (or so my friends say), the flavor of 3.5 and a bit of the balance of 4e (without its blandness). I can't say that you will love 5e but seeing as the rules are free online (legally!) you should at least give it a try.

Also there is a thousand 5e campaign podcasts/streams that you could watch to get a minor feeling of what it's like.

[Deleted]

I take issue with the "Multiclassing is great!", due to how the game has notable power bumps at benchmark levels that are tied to the class itself. Casters multiclass far better than noncasters, which kinda sucks (I want to roll a Fighter/Barbarian, but delaying ASI and extra attack progression hurts)

As someone who loves martial characters, though, I love that 5e got rid of the restrictions on movement and killed the 'full attack' action. No Goddamn Full Attack. Your dual wielding fighter can actually move around the battlefield while striking with both weapons. The monk is actually awesome.

I'm with you, multiclassing is back to the system that 3e used, but that system has never been great. It always leads to unbalanced characters and many issues. The fact that extra attack doesn't stack like cantrip upgrades bugs me a lot.

Well... It isn't that 5e got rid of the full attack, they changed it, but it is still there. They took a very popular 3.5 and 4e houserule and made it a base rule.

With regards to the base rules, 4e simplified 3e and no 5e has simplified 4e.

It's neat to look at the core mechanics without getting hung up on how the systems look and see the progression.

Sadly the good things about martials from 3e and 4e got left behind when 5e was created.


Edit===

If "deep" = not sure what the right choice is...

3e and 4e blow 5e out of the water ten times and back.

You don't have to romanticize 5e's action economy. It is very basic and that's the best thing about it.

[Iamcreative]

Well it can be deep in terms of not being sure what the right choice is.


Agreed, unlike 3.5 where the question is "can you cast a spell with that action?" If no -> full attack or charge. If yes -> win the combat

[Deleted]

Agreed, unlike 3.5 where the question is "can you cast a spell with that action?" If no -> full attack or charge. If yes -> win the combat

Oh please go play 3.5 again.

Wizards won because of their manipulation of the action economy beyond their "action". If you aren't mentioning swift actions then you haven't truly played the wizard.

[Iamcreative]

Oh please go play 3.5 again.

Wizards won because of their manipulation of the action economy beyond their "action". If you aren't mentioning swift actions then you haven't truly played the wizard.

Oh thats what I meant. (And why I didnt specify 'standard action')

With all of the ways to cast more spells you can have arcane casters blowing cities to bits in a single turn. Admittedly thats more of a balance issue. But "blow up everything in the fight, then cast extended rope trick and pull the rope up in order to regain any lost spell slots" made combat pretty much pointless after level... 5 I think?

[N810]

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRKu66UQ1G77LI9--W3n1yWsT3XAPpkykpnT6H-qVfRCaPURygE

[Demonslayer666]

So as a long time 3.5 player who has built several worlds for the system, I have yet to really look at 5e. I dabbled with 4e, but it never really caught me much. I appreciate that it did what it set out to do well, but it just never seemed to be what I was looking for in a DnD system; 3.5 was plenty adequate for my purposes. Maybe 3.5 took a little more work, but I enjoyed that work, tinkering with the rules and mixing and matching.

So why should I take a look at 5e? What do you think it offers that 3.5 or 4e don't? Why do you play 5e? What are your favorite things about it?

As a long time 3.5 and Pathfinder player, I'm not sure I can convince you to play 5th since I slightly favor those. :smallcool:


5th edition has some cool stuff in it that I really like. It feels pretty streamlined and rule light. Character creation is great with background and traits to flesh them out. Inspiration allows an easy method for rewarding players. Advantage/Disadvantage make it easy to apply modifiers to rolls. I also like the character archetypes.

[Deleted]

Oh thats what I meant. (And why I didnt specify 'standard action')

With all of the ways to cast more spells you can have arcane casters blowing cities to bits in a single turn. Admittedly thats more of a balance issue. But "blow up everything in the fight, then cast extended rope trick and pull the rope up in order to regain any lost spell slots" made combat pretty much pointless after level... 5 I think?

My message was more of a pleading than being sarcastic, btw, everyone should experience the Wizard in its full glory.

The balance issue wasn't how strong the Wizard or another class was. The balance issue came from many classes not getting options. They either had one option that they did well (tier 4) or they couldn't really do anything well (tier 5 or 6).

Tier 4, 5, and 6 is completely unacceptable to me. Sadly this is where two of the three martials land in 5e (tier 4).

So if anyone is bothered by haves and have-nots from 3e, they are still here. The floor has been shifted up (thanks 4e!) but the exact same issues remain and nothing that fixed them got brought over from 3.5 or 4e. Well, except for the Rogue, they got bumped up a tier, now to get the other two martials up there and we will be golden.

In 3.5 the problem wasn't that Wizards were gods, the problem wasn't that martials couldn't be gods, the problem was that (until Tome of Battle came out) martials didn't go above tier 4 unless you introduced magic. Doing one thing well is nice when that one thing is going on but there are more phases to the game than just damage and a class shouldn't rely on character options as a crutch.. Or else, why do you even have the class.

As much as people cry "5e isn't unbalanced", it is. It really is. It may not be as broken as 3e, but it is definitely unbalanced. 4e wasn't perfectly balanced either you know, but the classes that weren't as powerful still had options and things to do other than "i do damag".

[Unoriginal]

5e is not unbalanced, aside from a few shenanigans relying on end-game spells.

Some classes are a bit stronger than others, but not by much, and certainly not enough to make the other classes irrelevant. And if casters do have access to spells that are useful for the road, they're not that great either. Just useful.


Using 3.X's tiers for 5e seems pretty pointless to me. IMO.

[Iamcreative]

My message was more of a pleading than being sarcastic, btw, everyone should experience the Wizard in its full glory.

The balance issue wasn't how strong the Wizard or another class was. The balance issue came from many classes not getting options. They either had one option that they did well (tier 4) or they couldn't really do anything well (tier 5 or 6).


Agreed! Martial characters had a lot of problems in 3.x. But the main one was 'all I do is hit things' (admittedly the fact that wizards could also do that better than the fighter is an issue but I think a smaller one honestly).
Which is why I prefer 5. I'd also agree thats its unbalanced a little, but it is better. But more importantly the martial classes can do so many things! Sure you could probably still build a wizard or sorc who can stand toe-to-toe with a fighter, but there are mechanics and things that are entirly unique to fighters!

[Nimlouth]

AD&D2e: Role Playing Game
3.5/Pathfinder: Power Gamer's Fantasy Simulator
4e: Casual Gamer's Fantasy Simulator
5e: Role Playing Game

[rlc]

Oh, look, it's this thread again.


Woo! More people joining 5e?

I'm not seeing this as a bad thing.

There's a bit of a difference between, "Hey, I'm interested in 5e, so can someone point me in the direction of some more information about how it's different from 3.5?" and "convince me to get into 5e."

[KorvinStarmast]

D&D 5e brought me back to D&D. 3.x 3.5 had driven me away, but that may include the fact that raising a family gets in the way of trying to master yet another D&D system. (After OD&D, AD&D 1e, 2e ... )

It's a good D&D game. Who you play with matters. Rules and system mastery helps, and what our group found was that teamwork/synergy is rewarded.

[ad_hoc]

AD&D2e: Role Playing Game
3.5/Pathfinder: Power Gamer's Fantasy Simulator
4e: Casual Gamer's Fantasy Simulator
5e: Role Playing Game

This.

If you are big into 3.5 you probably won't like 5e (or if you do it will be for a different experience).

5e is much more like 2e than 3.x or 4.

[Jallorn]

Ok, so I'm looking at the rules, and I'm really weirded out by the +1 racial modifiers to ability scores. I'm used to the 3.5 logic that you default to changes of +/-2, because that actually impacts the modifier, which is really the only part that matters most of the time. (barring ability damage and a few other circumstances)

[ad_hoc]

Ok, so I'm looking at the rules, and I'm really weirded out by the +1 racial modifiers to ability scores. I'm used to the 3.5 logic that you default to changes of +/-2, because that actually impacts the modifier, which is really the only part that matters most of the time. (barring ability damage and a few other circumstances)

There is a very common situation in which a +2 modifier has the same impact as a +1.

Think of it like a math problem.

[Jallorn]

There is a very common situation in which a +2 modifier has the same impact as a +1.

Think of it like a math problem.

I get that, but the difference is that a +2 is always worthwhile, while a +1 is only sometimes.

I can get used to it, it's just weird.

[Unoriginal]

I get that, but the difference is that a +2 is always worthwhile, while a +1 is only sometimes.

I can get used to it, it's just weird.

It's worth a couple of points you can invest somewhere else, in point buy.

[retaliation08]

I get that, but the difference is that a +2 is always worthwhile, while a +1 is only sometimes.


A +1 largely worth while in 5e considering the standard point buy and how many solid feats give you a +1 to an ability.

Also a +1 = 1/2 of a feat. It is necessary for balancing the feats with each other, and the races as well.

It is a weird change from 3.5, but it works for the most part.

I like the fact that you can choose a race without having to worry about attribute penalties. I can play a halfling strength based paladin without any issue.

[toapat]

So why should I take a look at 5e? What do you think it offers that 3.5 or 4e don't? Why do you play 5e? What are your favorite things about it?

3.5 is a Puzzle. it is a complex set of rules with high complexity for the DM and the players to utilize based on trying to make "your thing" and to make that thing Awesome.

4th edition is a tabletop war game. Everything is built to a "level buy" but the system is extremely simple in reality with many fiddly bits that eat time. I would be surprised if someone hasnt figured out how to turn everything in 4E into a Pointbuy system for actual wargaming to see if the system is more fun giving 2-4 players 4 figures to beat eachother.

5th ed is a game, it is a set of conflict resolution tools in a cute little package where players have to work together to achieve goals, where even the party barbarian can know something once in a while and the Wizard who hasnt socialized with another human being in 3 years can make that deep meaningful connection with another socially defective person once in a while. you can face real challenges of much lower power than you, and be challenged by it simply because you have limits


Using 3.X's tiers for 5e seems pretty pointless to me. IMO.

Quite, expecially since where as there was fair granularity, the only real way to classifyclasses in 5E is mostly by subclass and whether they are Generally strong, Specifically Strong, or Never strong, and Never only really covers 2 subclasses and the UA Artificer

[ProphetSword]

So why should I take a look at 5e?


Because it's a solid D&D game.



What do you think it offers that 3.5 or 4e don't?


- Faster combats
- Easier rules
- Less bloat
- Less opportunities to break the game



Why do you play 5e?


Because, to me, it feels like 3rd Edition AD&D instead of some other game I don't recognize.


What are your favorite things about it?

It's not 3rd or 4th edition. :smallcool:

[Sigreid]

Oh, if given the choice...

Tier 3 3.5 and 4e would happen way before 5e.

Hell, I just learned about 13th Age and I would play that before 5e.

I love 5e but it is missing so much. Plus wotc just plain sucks now days.

I'm the opposite. I'd rather play 5e than 3.x or 4e. I hope they resist the temptation to bring too much of either into it.

Haven't played 13th Age and don't know anything about it.

Edit to actually address the question. 5e plays pretty fast and smooth with the rules not getting in the way of play. While their are options that provide more raw power in one or more areas than others, I've yet to find a trap option that leaves you feeling like the lame 3rd wheel for the party. Your class doesn't trap everything about your character. Thanks to the way background works, you can be the mighty warrior, and be the scholar, or entertainer, or diplomat or explorrer...

[Deleted]

I'm the opposite. I'd rather play 5e than 3.x or 4e. I hope they resist the temptation to bring too much of either into it.

Haven't played 13th Age and don't know anything about it.

Edit to actually address the question. 5e plays pretty fast and smooth with the rules not getting in the way of play. While their are options that provide more raw power in one or more areas than others, I've yet to find a trap option that leaves you feeling like the lame 3rd wheel for the party. Your class doesn't trap everything about your character. Thanks to the way background works, you can be the mighty warrior, and be the scholar, or entertainer, or diplomat or explorrer...

5e is 3e and 4e... It's a little late on that one.

Look up Essentials (specifically Fighter: Slayer and the Rogue) and you will see 5e Fighter and Rogue.

The issue is that when you build a character you get tons of options with casters and shoehorned when you make a martial character. Giving options to martials doesn't take away from casters.

13th Age was made by a 3e and 4e designer and seems to be 5e before 5e. Has some interesting mechanics, I really like how the Fighter works.

[LordVonDerp]

No, it is not.

The action economy is nice but it is pretty darn shallow.

Which is one of the things 4e attempted to do with 3e's system but didn't go far enough.

Action, Bonus Action, Reaction.

That's all you really get. Everything is tied off that (plus "free action" but that's mostly talking and Movement isn't an action anymore).

This isn't deep. But that's fine. You want deep? Play 3.5 or 4e where you can replace action types with other action types and that there are two types of reactions.

Just because something is good doesn't mean it is deep.

You're confusing deep with complicated.

[toapat]

You're confusing deep with complicated.

quite, 3.5's action economy is extremely complex in terms of what is and what is not worth casting/doing, and is generally very poor at actually offering depth. To compare, for most classes in 5E, you should have multiple viable choices of action in a given round for a given function, casters should have multiple choices of Bonus Action, and you have to choose how your reaction is invested since you cant just take a feat and get 4 more in a round.

[retaliation08]

5e has Adventurers League, which I haven't been able to participate in but seems really great. If you are in a decently populated area, you would likely have less trouble finding games for 5e.

[Sigreid]

5e is 3e and 4e... It's a little late on that one.

Look up Essentials (specifically Fighter: Slayer and the Rogue) and you will see 5e Fighter and Rogue.

The issue is that when you build a character you get tons of options with casters and shoehorned when you make a martial character. Giving options to martials doesn't take away from casters.

13th Age was made by a 3e and 4e designer and seems to be 5e before 5e. Has some interesting mechanics, I really like how the Fighter works.

I didn't do much with 4e as it wasn't to my taste, but I found the class role divisions rigid and the mechanics monotonous. It's entirely cool that the game spoke to you differently, but I'm not eager for that here.

Also, I have the minority opinion that the Tomb of Battle was a horrible thing to do to 3.x.

[rlc]

Ok, so I'm looking at the rules, and I'm really weirded out by the +1 racial modifiers to ability scores. I'm used to the 3.5 logic that you default to changes of +/-2, because that actually impacts the modifier, which is really the only part that matters most of the time. (barring ability damage and a few other circumstances)

Ability scores (currently) max out at 20

[toapat]

Also, I have the minority opinion that the Tomb of Battle was a horrible thing to do to 3.x.

i feel its good practice to view material in relation to itself and the thing it is supplementing as a whole. Tome of Battle is good mechanically, if not that the Divine Spirit school is a mechanical clone of Stone dragon. the problem is for a book of PHB length, it basically exists to invalidate most martial material entirely, as opposed to just supplementing it or presenting alternative class options to fix one of the core problems of 3.5 in that mundanes didnt have Swift/Immediate actions.

is the ToB good? yes, but it does that by being one of the least inclusive expansions in all of 3.5, and again, futher contributes to that "Puzzle to solve, not Game to Play" that 3.5 suffers from

[Hawkstar]

I do have two major issues with 5e, and they're specific class features.

1. The Champion Fighter's level 7 ability is effectively just a +2 to Sleight of Hand checks, because it doesn't stack with proficiency.
2. Barbarian rage has the most bull**** "Auto-End" clause ever implemented. Want to try applying your rage to an environmental hazard to take advantage of the advantage on strength checks? **** you. Oh, that Goblin disengaged then dashed 45' away from you? **** your rage there, too. Hit by a low-level caster's CC effect? **** you and the Rage you need to contribute to the battle.

[2D8HP]

I bought and read but never played 3e. I boycotted 3.5 and 4e because they came out so soon after 3e (every year for over a decade Half Priced Books has had real cheap year 2000 printings of the PHB), and really the only reason I bought 5e is because it came out when my son turned the same age I was when I discovered D&D in '78, but having bought it, I think the "core" books are worth it for the bibliographies and artwork alone!

I'm a slow learner, and if I still find a table for it I would've been happy to still play D&D, using the 1970's rules I was familiar with, but the more I play it, the fonder I've become of 5e and I now realize that it's easier for me to houserules 5e into being like what I like about 5e, than it is to make old D&D like what I like about 5e.

I think Phandelver and Storm Kings Thunder are great adventures and I'm happy with the Sword Coast and Volo's supplements.

But the main reason to learn 5e is to play more D&D! You have the Pathfinder Society so you may play 3.5 on Thursdays and now you have the Adventurers League so you can play more D&D on Wednesdays, so double your chances! (since there's no "Fatbeard Alliance" on Tuesdays, old D&D fans are out of luck as are 4e fans).

If you want some free content to try 5e out you can use 5esrd.com or 5e.d20srd.org to look up all of the freely available spells from the Player's Handbook (which is maybe 90% of them, plenty to work from). The Elemental Evil Player's Companion (http://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/EE_PlayersCompanion.pdf) is free through WotC's site, as are other options. The free Basic Rules (http://media.wizards.com/2014/downloads/dnd/PlayerDnDBasicRules_v0.2.pdf) are available on their site as well, which will be useful if you don't have access to a PHB.

[Vaz]

i but it does that by being one of the least inclusive expansions in all of 3.5,

Lol. Because every other class allows progression without class level investment, right?

[Dudu]

Well, I played 3.5 for a long time. Love it during that time.

Then 4.0 came and I couldn't enjoy it. As soon as I tried making my wizard, that the DM said "you have two option, staff wizard or orb wizard" I though "what even is that bull****?", played that session and then never more.
3.5 I could be nearly everything I wanted, and I loved it.

Well, loved and hated it. That was my relationship with 3.5. I always liked playind wizards and clerics. And to a lesser degree, druids. But not because I was obviously superior to other options, that fact bothered me. And 3.5 had this specialization problem, you do what you do, you are a god in it. What you don't do you shouldn't even bother trying.
And if you dared play with a fighter, you would face a wave of boredom. Your decisions ranged on how much you would invest in your power attack. Or once you made your leap charger build, that was literally all you would do the whole game. Maybe you wanted to do something fancy instead of attacking? Maybe... a grapple? Well, better open the PHB to understand how grapple works because not even the DM can remember. And after all that reading you realize grappling is, indeed, too much trouble for little to no reward. So you attack instead.

When 5.0 arrived we decided to give it a try. It was, so simple. But simple in the right way, an elegant way. No more stacks and stacks +1, +2, +5 bonus, but advantage or disadvantage. No more "use magic or be useless" situation either. You wanna rock as a monk, go ahead and rock as a monk, you'll be a force to be reckoned. You don't pile yourself with magic trinkets, most of them being some bland bonus to your Str or Con (or Int, for most of my chars). Now you have attunement. And magic items are a rare find. There's no point in the game where every mook is carrying a +1 weapon like in 3.5.
Oh, and concentration. It's such a harsh limit to my casters. And I love it. It's the necessary limit.

5.0 sounds more limited too. You don't have tons of prestige classes. But there was something to be said about 3.5 so called variety. Most of it was rubbish. A good chunk of the options avaible were either useless or so good no DM would allow. That was true for classes, prestige classes, feats, spells, magic items, etc. Just a big trap to newbies, nothing more.

After playing 5.0 for more than a year, I played again one campaign in 3.5. My feeling was: the system was clunky. More diverse, ok, but so absurdly clunky that the cons overweighted the pros. Spell Resistance rules for example were utter bull****. The grapple I mentioned earlier was a pain in the ass. The way the skills worked are so much clunkyer than 5.0 too. A pletora of useless rullings, like SLA not being able to be readied, for no reason. All the "add this +2 subtract this -3" bothersome math that made encounters last twice longer than they do in 5.0.

I say, try 5.0. It really is a better system. The "less diversity" issue is getting smaller and smaller for each UA published too.

[Murdu]

So as a long time 3.5 player who has built several worlds for the system, I have yet to really look at 5e. I dabbled with 4e, but it never really caught me much. I appreciate that it did what it set out to do well, but it just never seemed to be what I was looking for in a DnD system; 3.5 was plenty adequate for my purposes. Maybe 3.5 took a little more work, but I enjoyed that work, tinkering with the rules and mixing and matching.

So why should I take a look at 5e? What do you think it offers that 3.5 or 4e don't? Why do you play 5e? What are your favorite things about it?

I'm an old 3.5 player myself. 4th made me gag but 5e made me never look back to 3.5 again. I find the rollplaying parts to be much more fluid in 5e than 3.5. At first I thought the simplifications would be dumbing it down but by golly it really works and does not detract from fun at all. It is BALANCED both class vs class and class vs difficulty progression. I know the last one is really a task for the DM to balance but I find there's a lot less balancing work to do as a DM, 5e BARELY takes any work compared to 3.5. I find that I and other player whether I am DM or PC get to spend a lot more time roleplaying, exploring, and fighting. 5e is great. It feels like D&D, like 3.5 but unlike 4th, but it just feels more like fluid and natural.

[Deleted]

I'm an old 3.5 player myself. 4th made me gag but 5e made me never look back to 3.5 again. I find the rollplaying parts to be much more fluid in 5e than 3.5. At first I thought the simplifications would be dumbing it down but by golly it really works and does not detract from fun at all. It is BALANCED both class vs class and class vs difficulty progression. I know the last one is really a task for the DM to balance but I find there's a lot less balancing work to do as a DM, 5e BARELY takes any work compared to 3.5. I find that I and other player whether I am DM or PC get to spend a lot more time roleplaying, exploring, and fighting. 5e is great. It feels like D&D, like 3.5 but unlike 4th, but it just feels more like fluid and natural.

5e is not balanced lol

Like... It isnt as extreme as 3.5 but 5e is in no way a balanced system.

Saying otherwise is just straight up ignoring what the system gives you and what it doesn't give you.

[Zalabim]

The issue is that when you build a character you get tons of options with casters and shoehorned when you make a martial character. Giving options to martials doesn't take away from casters.
The problem is fighter-in-a-box and modular-wizard, which is a whole category less severe than the linear fighter/quadratic wizard problem.


Maybe you wanted to do something fancy instead of attacking? Maybe... a grapple? Well, better open the PHB to understand how grapple works because not even the DM can remember. And after all that reading you realize grappling is, indeed, too much trouble for little to no reward. So you attack instead.
This right here really exemplifies one of the things I like about it. Everyone can more or less attack with a weapon, grab, push, trip, disarm, break objects, use a ranged weapon, use a finesse weapon if necessary, draw a weapon, and move around in combat without needing two or three feats, often with different prerequisites (13 Int, really?), to enable each option. Options besides melee attack aren't automatically penalized right out of the gate. When the opportunity arose, my halfling bard pushed a gnoll down a mineshaft. It wasn't suicidal or anything.
Deleted will probably explain how the following is a bad thing.
This message is a trap.
On top of this, the number scale is condensed so that the best anyone could do at a thing isn't astronomically higher than the best that you can do at that thing. No more hearing "Sorry, this lock is supposed to be picked by a +2 racial, +2 masterwork tool, +5 enhanced skill, +2 racial Dex, +4 enhanced dex, level+3 skill ranks lockpicker taking 20. You're missing one or more of those so it's impossible." Some things are still impossible, but the hardest tasks are possible for anyone that wants to specialize in it.

[Murdu]

5e is not balanced lol

Like... It isnt as extreme as 3.5 but 5e is in no way a balanced system.

Saying otherwise is just straight up ignoring what the system gives you and what it doesn't give you.

Sorry for not being specific enough. I'm comparing to 3.5 and to me, though my experience is pretty limited, it seems pretty balanced. Yes some classes can mostly just fight in different styles and others are more versatile, but it doesn't feel like the party with a ruffian and a demigod like it could easily end up being in 3.5.

[Unoriginal]

5e is not balanced lol

Like... It isnt as extreme as 3.5 but 5e is in no way a balanced system.

Saying otherwise is just straight up ignoring what the system gives you and what it doesn't give you.

It's balanced, but it's not perfectly so.

Some options are a bit stronger, others kind of weaker, but no class are outright outclassed to the point their contribution is meaningless.

[Deleted]

It's balanced, but it's not perfectly so.

Some options are a bit stronger, others kind of weaker, but no class are outright outclassed to the point their contribution is meaningless.

The barbarian and fighter class gives nothing outside of damage.

Build, using a Bard/Cleric/Wizard that is a damage dealer, a social manipulator, buffer, and debuffer using class options.

Possible. You may not be able to do everything in one go, but you have the options and spell slots to do such a thing.

Now do that with a Barbarian, Fighter, or Monk. Your ceiling is waaaaay below. You can damage/mitigate damge well enough... But what class options does any of these classes give you that helps with exploration or social situation?

Aren't fighter susposed to be the town guare or military police not even counting their back ground.

What you have is Tier 4 classes. That is unacceptable. Look at the Rogue, just one class class feature (Expertise) makes them awesome at whatever you want to build them to be awesome at. Even then, bards get that feature too.

The game is unbalanced. You have mostly "tier 2" characters, a couple tier 3, and most martials and the monk get pushed to tier 4. If it wasn't for subclasses the Monk would stay tier 4 their entire career.

I honestly don't care if some claases were stronger than others.

The unbalanced issue mostly is a problem when it comes to the aheer lack of options you get when playing some classes or how insanely restrictive the rules get for no reason other than *shrug*.

The Sorcerer is a great example. I will play a sorcerer over a wizard any day of the week. However, the sorcerer has to fight against itself to use its class features and doesn't get enough SP. But you can build the class multiple way and you can have multiple options whenever you build your character a specific way.

When you have to rely on character option s to justify why your class doesn't have class options, you have an unbalanced system.

[Spellbreaker26]

Aren't fighter susposed to be the town guare or military police not even counting their back ground.

When you have to rely on character option s to justify why your class doesn't have class options, you have an unbalanced system.

Fighters have fighting ability, that can come from anywhere. A fighter with the Noble background might have learnt their fighting from the family's master-of-arms. A fighter with the sage background might have studied ancient combat techniques. A fighter with the charlatan background might have had to pick up some skills to survive in prison, and so on.

You're right that some of the classes are significantly more restricted in their build options than others, but a class does not constitute the whole of a character. The player who takes a Champion Fighter with a Soldier background - probably the most "only combat" option that can be taken - can still use his background feature and intimidation to collect rumours. His Athletics can also be used to, for example, pull up a portecullis, or Acrobatics can be used to jump a crevice with a length of rope to allow the rest of the party to cross - and so can contribute very importantly out of combat.

Of the three Pillars of DnD, background can easily matter a lot more than class for Roleplaying and can be a huge asset in Exploration as well. Just because a Champion Fighter (a class, it should be noted, that are all but declared to be designed as one that can be played on autopilot) will spend most of their time in Combat basic attacking - ignoring the various tactical applications that can have, like flanking or tanking - doesn't mean that the system is unbalanced.

[arrowed]

My 2 copper pieces: In a Pathfinder game I'm currently in (started at lv 8, using mythic rules) I managed to build a rogue without putting ranks into Disable Device. My rogue can see traps with extreme skill, but absolutely cannot disarm them. It's fun, and I get to feel cool playing my character, but I messed up making my character in a way that shouldn't be possible.
In 5e it is impossible to build a rogue who cannot use Thieves' Tools via the PHB's written rules.
Pathfinder, 3.5 etc have huge options, especially for spell-casters, to the extent that unless you follow a guide or do some kind of statistical analysis, you run the risk of making a character who can't contribute effectively, especially if playing with others who do design intelligently. In 5e the amount of choice isn't overwhelming, though casters still have more choice than non-casters, and any build can contribute to combat, and most builds can contribute in other ways outside combat.
:thog: 5e elegant in 5e's simplicity :smallsmile:

[Hawkstar]

Now do that with a Barbarian, Fighter, or Monk. Your ceiling is waaaaay below. You can damage/mitigate damge well enough... But what class options does any of these classes give you that helps with exploration or social situation?
Well, both classes have "I CAN escalate this social situation into a combat situation, and you will not enjoy it" going for them (In addition to a few tidbits for social ability, and "I am not going to mind-control you" is a plus as well when it comes to building relationships). As far as Exploration goes... this is what pisses me off about the Champion Fighter's level 7 ability not stacking with proficiency (Allowing them to actually be remarkable athletes, instead of slightly better at things they don't do anyway), and the Barbarian's rage auto-end clause. Barbarians SHOULD be allowed to use their rage for a minute of enhanced strength to overcome environmental obstacles. They also get a few bonuses in their subclasses, especially Totem Barbarians (Which, at level 3, can use animals to scout, and talk with animals as well. In addition to seeing for miles, or tracking at high speed, or carrying the entire inventory of Adventuring Equipment)

[goatmeal]

Seems a thread with a general title like this pops up about every three weeks...


There's also a site policy against necromancy.

And lots of people who seem interested in addressing this question. I don't get the hate. If you don't find the subject interesting then don't read the thread. I don't even look at 75% or more of what gets posted here.

[Unoriginal]

Build, using a Bard/Cleric/Wizard that is a damage dealer, a social manipulator, buffer, and debuffer using class options.

Social manipulator, really? I'd be interested in seeing those builds.


Now do that with a Barbarian, Fighter, or Monk. Your ceiling is waaaaay below. You can damage/mitigate damge well enough... But what class options does any of these classes give you that helps with exploration or social situation?

You might be surprised, but pretty much all the classes are at equal level concerning dealing with social situations.

As for exploration, yes, the casters have access to stuff to make it faster/easier, if they decide to invest into it. And it helps. But I don't think there is anything they do the group wouldn't be able to eventually succeed at.



Aren't fighter susposed to be the town guare or military police not even counting their back ground.

No, a Fighter is a guy who know how to fight good.


What you have is Tier 4 classes. That is unacceptable. Look at the Rogue, just one class class feature (Expertise) makes them awesome at whatever you want to build them to be awesome at. Even then, bards get that feature too.

The game is unbalanced. You have mostly "tier 2" characters, a couple tier 3, and most martials and the monk get pushed to tier 4. If it wasn't for subclasses the Monk would stay tier 4 their entire career.

I don't know what definition you use, but you're the one attributing "tiers" from another game to 5e characters.

5e doesn't work like 3.X on many things.


The unbalanced issue mostly is a problem when it comes to the aheer lack of options you get when playing some classes or how insanely restrictive the rules get for no reason other than *shrug*.

5e is ridiculously not restrictive to play.



When you have to rely on character option s to justify why your class doesn't have class options, you have an unbalanced system.

Having more options doesn't make balance.

[Spellbreaker26]

You might be surprised, but pretty much all the classes are at equal level concerning dealing with social situations.


This is manifestly untrue. Bards are probably king since they can combine expertise in social skills with having Charisma as their main stat. They also have access to loads of manipulation spells like Charm Person (which make short term-persuasion easier, if not long-term since the other guy will eventually cotton on to you using magic to get inside his head).

After Bards come Warlocks and Rogues, then Paladins, then much lower down other spellcasters(charm spells) then martials.

A bard by level 8 can be expected to have Charisma 20. He can also have Proficiency and Expertise in at least persuasion. That's a +11 to persuasion checks with barely having to devote any resources to it (just proficiency and expertise). A bard devoting minimum resources to persuasion has +6 to checks, by the way, at level 8; they will also have this bonus to *all* their social skills.

A fighter, on the other hand, might have a +3 to *one* social skill at that level, if he has a Charisma of 10, since fighters can't afford to put much in charisma. This is explicitly devoting one of their skills to it.

A player who has weak social skills can still contribute via background, however; this is 5e's way of allowing good social skills to be important without completely hamstringing roleplaying for people who lack them. However, saying that "pretty much all the classes are at equal level concerning dealing with social situations" is wrong.

[Unoriginal]

This is manifestly untrue. Bards are probably king since they can combine expertise in social skills with having Charisma as their main stat. They also have access to loads of manipulation spells like Charm Person (which make short term-persuasion easier, if not long-term since the other guy will eventually cotton on to you using magic to get inside his head).

After Bards come Warlocks and Rogues, then Paladins, then much lower down other spellcasters(charm spells) then martials.

A bard by level 8 can be expected to have Charisma 20. He can also have Proficiency and Expertise in at least persuasion. That's a +11 to persuasion checks with barely having to devote any resources to it (just proficiency and expertise). A bard devoting minimum resources to persuasion has +6 to checks, by the way, at level 8; they will also have this bonus to *all* their social skills.

A fighter, on the other hand, might have a +3 to *one* social skill at that level, if he has a Charisma of 10, since fighters can't afford to put much in charisma. This is explicitly devoting one of their skills to it.

A player who has weak social skills can still contribute via background, however; this is 5e's way of allowing good social skills to be important without completely hamstringing roleplaying for people who lack them. However, saying that "pretty much all the classes are at equal level concerning dealing with social situations" is wrong.

Charisma is not a class feature, and any character can have Profeciency in any skill. A Bard inherently has Profeciency + Expertise in social skills, indeed, and so can the Rogue. So there is two classes, one martial, one caster, who are better than the rest.


Of course, classes with powers depending on Charisma will have a higher Charisma, but it's "people with high CHA are good at social, and those classes have high CHA", not "those classes are good at social").


Mind-manipulation magic does not really help to solve social situations. It's a "you can skip this social situation, but things will get ugly with this person once the magic ends" button, which I admit is useful in some situations (especially when it's "make this monster stop trying to kill me for a while"), of course, but it's not going to solve a social encounter (and probably start a fight once the spell expires).

[toapat]

Lol. Because every other class allows progression without class level investment, right?

most books present legitimate alternative progression options for classes that arent the primary classes being discussed. the PrCs are "available" outside of the 3 classes presented but you dont get a recovery option and all it really does is create further feat burden on characters. they could have added 5 pages making the material legitimately backwards compatable

at least so far, weve only gotten 1 piece of material that invalidates previous material, and that is that Quicksmithing gives a Tool Proficiency, Int Only Ritual casting from any list, and Stone Gnome's tinker

[Sigreid]

i feel its good practice to view material in relation to itself and the thing it is supplementing as a whole. Tome of Battle is good mechanically, if not that the Divine Spirit school is a mechanical clone of Stone dragon. the problem is for a book of PHB length, it basically exists to invalidate most martial material entirely, as opposed to just supplementing it or presenting alternative class options to fix one of the core problems of 3.5 in that mundanes didnt have Swift/Immediate actions.

is the ToB good? yes, but it does that by being one of the least inclusive expansions in all of 3.5, and again, futher contributes to that "Puzzle to solve, not Game to Play" that 3.5 suffers from

You're opinion is fine. Mine differs. Boring world if everyone had the same opinions.

[SaintRidley]

I do have two major issues with 5e, and they're specific class features.

1. The Champion Fighter's level 7 ability is effectively just a +2 to Sleight of Hand checks, because it doesn't stack with proficiency
Remarkable Athlete boosts Initiative, as well as general ability checks, and any of the skills you didn't pick (I don't always pick athletics and acrobatics on a fighter). The Initiative boost is the real bonus.

[Spellbreaker26]

Charisma is not a class feature, and any character can have Profeciency in any skill. A Bard inherently has Profeciency + Expertise in social skills, indeed, and so can the Rogue. So there is two classes, one martial, one caster, who are better than the rest.


Of course, classes with powers depending on Charisma will have a higher Charisma, but it's "people with high CHA are good at social, and those classes have high CHA", not "those classes are good at social").


Mind-manipulation magic does not really help to solve social situations. It's a "you can skip this social situation, but things will get ugly with this person once the magic ends" button, which I admit is useful in some situations (especially when it's "make this monster stop trying to kill me for a while"), of course, but it's not going to solve a social encounter (and probably start a fight once the spell expires).

You said previously "all classes are pretty much equal at social skills". I agree that rogue is one of the best social skill classes without being a spellcaster. If you had said that I wouldn't have disagreed. Yes, when you create your character you can choose to put your highest stat in charisma regardless of class, but doing so as a fighter or barbarian is so heavily gimping the character that it shouldn't even enter the equation when we talk about what the individual classes can do. If I said "wizards are as good at athletics as a fighter, because all I need to do is get the skill then put my highest stat in strength" I would be being disingenuous, because no even halfway properly built Wizard would put their highest stat in strength.

I also agree that Charm Person and whatnot are explicitly only for short-term interaction, and indeed, said so in my post.

[Sigreid]

OK, here's my best argument for 5e. Our group has a eagle barbarian, an arcane trickster, a moon druid, a hunter ranger and a storm sorcerer (replacing a wizard who played with a deck of many things) played levels 1-9 so far; and they all regularly get to be the awesome-hero-star-of-the-show without the DM having to go out of their way to plan for it.

[Sigreid]

You said previously "all classes are pretty much equal at social skills". I agree that rogue is one of the best social skill classes without being a spellcaster. If you had said that I wouldn't have disagreed. Yes, when you create your character you can choose to put your highest stat in charisma regardless of class, but doing so as a fighter or barbarian is so heavily gimping the character that it shouldn't even enter the equation when we talk about what the individual classes can do. If I said "wizards are as good at athletics as a fighter, because all I need to do is get the skill then put my highest stat in strength" I would be being disingenuous, because no even halfway properly built Wizard would put their highest stat in strength.

I also agree that Charm Person and whatnot are explicitly only for short-term interaction, and indeed, said so in my post.

If you want to be a leader of men, and social expert, the fighter actually has enough ASIs to do that without killing his ability to fight.

[Spellbreaker26]

If you want to be a leader of men, and social expert, the fighter actually has enough ASIs to do that without killing his ability to fight.

True, especially if you take the right background. So let's say our fighter has 14 Charisma, and the skill. That's +5. Still less than a bard who doesn't even need to invest at all outside of his main stat.

I'm not denying that any class can be reasonably good at a skill if they invest - they can, and it's one of the things I like about 5e. But they still will be recognisably worse than a class geared towards skill use - and that's another thing I like about 5e. It strikes a careful balance.

[Sigreid]

True, especially if you take the right background. So let's say our fighter has 14 Charisma, and the skill. That's +5. Still less than a bard who doesn't even need to invest at all outside of his main stat.

I'm not denying that any class can be reasonably good at a skill if they invest - they can, and it's one of the things I like about 5e. But they still will be recognisably worse than a class geared towards skill use - and that's another thing I like about 5e. It strikes a careful balance.

This is very true. No class will be better than a bard or rogue at a skill the bard or rogue chooses to excel at. They're designed that way (well, except things like knowledge cleric at Arcana etc.). Similarly, you have to have an amazing natural talent (attribute) to be better at a skill than you and the bard are both unskilled at.

But you can still be really good and far better than average.

[Unoriginal]

You said previously "all classes are pretty much equal at social skills".

Actually, I said "pretty much all classes are at equal level" regarding social situations. The Rogue and the Bard are in fact the only two that are generally better, since they're (or can be) dedicated social classes. As a class, the Fighter is not worse at social than any of the non-social ones.


Yes, when you create your character you can choose to put your highest stat in charisma regardless of class, but doing so as a fighter or barbarian is so heavily gimping the character that it shouldn't even enter the equation when we talk about what the individual classes can do.

It's not disingenuous, because Deleted was specifically speaking of class options, and not of characters. So, if we take the classes as written, there is two that have features making one better at social, and two additional who have features who depend on being good at social.


If I said "wizards are as good at athletics as a fighter, because all I need to do is get the skill then put my highest stat in strength" I would be being disingenuous, because no even halfway properly built Wizard would put their highest stat in strength.

If someone complained that the wizard class was bad at athletics, would it be wrong to point out that most classes have no more features to make them better at athletics that the wizard has? If someone complained that the Cleric was bad at intelligence-related tasks, would it be disingenuous to point out only a few classes have anything to make them better at those tasks?

3.X theorycrating tends to make one treat characters like "a class + a few things glued to it to be pretty". Certainly because outside of the god-classes, you were only somewhat competent at a few things while the rest was just "don't bother"

Some people will like a character who's a high-Charisma Fighter, the same way some people will like to play a high-Strength Wizard, and in 5e they won't be much weaker than the other characters in the party. And even with only a small modifier, it doesn't mean the character is unable to contribute in any domain, because DC are not treated the same than in 3.X.

Pretending that 5e characters are limited because their classes don't have much features *is* disingenuous.


I also agree that Charm Person and whatnot are explicitly only for short-term interaction, and indeed, said so in my post.

I would argue that a power that explicitly almost certainly will make the target hostile is less a social power and more a "trading a social situation with a different kind" power, even for short-term.

[Nimlouth]

The problem with this kind of arguments is that practical application on the table is not taken in consideration.

5e IS BALANCED. Maybe not in paper, but it does in reality. And not because how the classes are built or how they progress, but because the core design of the game makes everyone have the same chances that depend on how they end up roleplaying their character.

And now you see the difference between 3.5 and 5e. "How good is your character in 5e depends on how you roleplay it. How good your character is in 3.5 depends on what kind of build you have." And that's it.

The main point of this thread is to "Sell 5e" to the person that started it, because he is interested on it. There is NO DOUBT at this point that D&DNext is a more modern, elegant, simple yet in-depth system that can easily be learned, played, tweaked, homebrewed and customised as much as you want while keeping its simplicity and charm. And it is also so much FUN.

Most people approaches the game really differently depending on the edition they prefer. People that likes 3.X/Pathfinder usually like games that are focused on specific usage of rules and character builds instead of roleplaying.

I like building a character from a narrative concept and then roleplay it, and I'm also a DM, and I like to improvise, and build traps and boss fights out of my imagination and not out of a suplement, and I also like to see my player's face of happines and excitement every week, and that's why I play 5e and recommend it to anyone.

[Zalabim]

A fighter, on the other hand, might have a +3 to *one* social skill at that level, if he has a Charisma of 10, since fighters can't afford to put much in charisma. This is explicitly devoting one of their skills to it.
There is no particular need for any fighter to dump Charisma since they aren't MAD, there is a maneuver for a Battle Master not dumping Charisma, and the Banneret/PDK actually gets expertise and proficiency in persuasion automatically.

There is also a large factor of how much other skills matter when you're dealing with a social encounter. You aren't just rolling charisma against a DC, you're bargaining, lying, or intimidating. You need bargaining power, leverage, or inside information to get that to work in tough encounters. You shouldn't threaten a widower's spouse, claim to be the duke's son while talking to the duke's son, or try to order around the duke's army by just asking real nicely and expect a high number to push you through. Or maybe you can. It depends on your DM.

All this and 5E's skill system isn't even very good, just better than people give it credit for.

[Vaz]

most books present legitimate alternative progression options for classes that arent the primary classes being discussed. the PrCs are "available" outside of the 3 classes presented but you dont get a recovery option and all it really does is create further feat burden on characters. they could have added 5 pages making the material legitimately backwards compatable

at least so far, weve only gotten 1 piece of material that invalidates previous material, and that is that Quicksmithing gives a Tool Proficiency, Int Only Ritual casting from any list, and Stone Gnome's tinker

That's because there's sweet FA material, though.

[2D8HP]

5e....
....is also so much FUN....


No argument there, I've had great fun playing the game.


....People that likes 3.X/Pathfinder usually like games that are focused on specific usage of rules and character builds instead of roleplaying....



With the caveat that I've never played 3.x D&D only '70's rules D&D, 5e D&D and a bunch of other RPG's in the 1980's, I have to question that statement.

As fun as it is my experience has been that there's an extreme focus on rule usage and "builds" in the games of 5e I've been privileged to play (a bit of culture shock for me), and I find it difficult to imagine that there could possibly be any more of a focus on rules and "builds" instead of story and role-playing among the Pathfinder players given how high the focus in 5e is.

For example from this thread:


... PrCs are "available" outside of the 3 classes presented but you dont get a recovery option and all it really does is create further feat burden on characters. they could have added 5 pages making the material legitimately backwards compatable

at least so far, weve only gotten 1 piece of material that invalidates previous material, and that is that Quicksmithing gives a Tool Proficiency, Int Only Ritual casting from any list, and Stone Gnome's tinker


Other than "Gnome's" I lack the deep rules minutiae knowledge to have any idea at all what any of that means, but it seems "build" and "specific usage of rules" focused to me!

While I skipped 3.5 (and 4e) I did buy and read the 3e PHB, and just like 5e it still seemed mostly like D&D to me, the idea that a game even more focused on deep rules minutiae and tactical advantages due to "builds" than 5e is could be as popular as it is seems ridiculous.

I'm a slow learner, but now I feel compelled to try and learn Pathfinder just to see for myself!

[Sigreid]

No argument there, I've had great fun playing the game.




With the caveat that I've never played 3.x D&D only '70's rules D&D, 5e D&D and a bunch of other RPG's in the 1980's, I have to question that statement.

As fun as it is my experience has been that there's an extreme focus on rule usage and "builds" in the games of 5e I've been privileged to play (a bit of culture shock for me), and I find it difficult to imagine that there could possibly be any more of a focus on rules and "builds" instead of story and role-playing among the Pathfinder players given how high the focus in 5e is.

For example from this thread:




Other than "Gnome's" I lack the deep rules minutiae knowledge to have any idea at all what any of that means, but it seems "build" and "specific usage of rules" focused to me!

While I skipped 3.5 (and 4e) I did buy and read the 3e PHB, and just like 5e it still seemed mostly like D&D to me, the idea that a game even more focused on deep rules minutiae and tactical advantages due to "builds" than 5e is could be as popular as it is seems ridiculous.

I'm a slow learner, but now I feel compelled to try and learn Pathfinder just to see for myself!

There really is a big difference between build talk in 3.x and 5e. While both are optimization oriented, in 3.x it was at least half about how to avoid making mistakes in building your character that will eventually have you too weak to continue. In 5e it's pretty exclusively about squeezing that last little bit of advantage over others out of a character. In 5e even if you make every mistake possible I don't think you'll find yourself unable to contribute.

[LordVonDerp]

The barbarian and fighter class gives nothing outside of damage.
But what class options does any of these classes give you that helps with exploration or social situation?


Totem barbarian gets plenty.

[2D8HP]

There really is a big difference between build talk in 3.x and 5e....
....In 5e even if you make every mistake possible I don't think you'll find yourself unable to contribute.


Really?

Other players keep hassling me about my 5e PC's being "sub-optimal". YES I KNOW THAT MY PC'S INT IS HIGHER THAN DEX, YES I'D RATHER PLAY A ROGUE THAN A WIZARD, PLEASE LET ME PLAY THE CHARACTER I WANT TO PLAY ALREADY, THANK YOU!

I spent a lot of time playing a lot of different RPG's in the 1980's (none were as fun as D&D though), but outside of a few brief sessions of Champions I never heard anything about "builds" until I played 5e.

I like core rules of 5e a lot, and I like that actual other people are willing to play D&D again even more, but I've never before experienced so much flack for not being "optimal" until I played 5e.

I really can't imagine it being worse playing 3.x.

No I'm not talking about the rules, I'm talking about the players.

So what if our party doesn't kill critters as fast? Please let me just play a character dagnabbit!

[JAL_1138]

Really?

Other players keep hassling me about my 5e PC's being "sub-optimal". YES I KNOW THAT MY PC'S INT IS HIGHER THAN DEX, YES I'D RATHER PLAY A ROGUE THAN A WIZARD, PLEASE LET ME PLAY THE CHARACTER I WANT TO PLAY ALREADY, THANK YOU!

I spent a lot of time playing a lot of different RPG's in the 1980's (none were as fun as D&D though), but outside of a few brief sessions of Champions I never heard anything about "builds" until I played 5e.

I like core rules of 5e a lot, and I like that actual other people are willing to play D&D again even more, but I've never before experienced so much flack for not being "optimal" until I played 5e.

I really can't imagine it being worse playing 3.x.

No I'm not talking about the rules, I'm talking about the players.

So what if our party doesn't kill critters as fast? Please let me just play a character dagnabbit!



There's a difference between optimization and basic effectiveness. If your starting Dex as a Rogue is, like, 12, but you have a 17 Int, and you're not taking a Rogue subclass that gets anything out of a high Int, you aren't going to be a very functional character, because your AC and hit chance will be too low to contribute much. OTOH, if you rolled stats and got an 18 Int and a 16 Dex...who cares if you play a Rogue instead of a Wizard? You're a brainiac Rogue.

With 3.5, taking the wrong feat (and there are a lot more of them to deal with), feat chain, race, class, weapon choice, prestige class, skill point investment, etc. can make your character unplayable in the group, or after a certain level, and you will generally catch a lot more flak. Try suggesting that you want to play a Monk instead of an Unarmed Swordsage, or a CW Samurai in a group with a Druid.

[Contrast]

There really is a big difference between build talk in 3.x and 5e. While both are optimization oriented, in 3.x it was at least half about how to avoid making mistakes in building your character that will eventually have you too weak to continue. In 5e it's pretty exclusively about squeezing that last little bit of advantage over others out of a character. In 5e even if you make every mistake possible I don't think you'll find yourself unable to contribute.

I played a game with a fighter who had 13s in his strength, dex and con. He liked to use a crossbow but hadn't picked up crossbow expert (I think he spent his first two feats on skilled and linguist). Thats about as hard as you can unoptimise. It was noticable but broadly fine once he stopped using the crossbow.




I really can't imagine it being worse playing 3.x.


Haaaaa :smalltongue:

[Rhedyn]

So as a long time 3.5 player who has built several worlds for the system, I have yet to really look at 5e. I dabbled with 4e, but it never really caught me much. I appreciate that it did what it set out to do well, but it just never seemed to be what I was looking for in a DnD system; 3.5 was plenty adequate for my purposes. Maybe 3.5 took a little more work, but I enjoyed that work, tinkering with the rules and mixing and matching.

So why should I take a look at 5e? What do you think it offers that 3.5 or 4e don't? Why do you play 5e? What are your favorite things about it?

Why don't you try pathfinder? The rules are free after all.

[JAL_1138]

Because it's a solid D&D game.

- Faster combats
- Easier rules
- Less bloat
- Less opportunities to break the game

Because, to me, it feels like 3rd Edition AD&D instead of some other game I don't recognize.

(emphasis added)

This sums up most of my feelings on 5e. It does feel like a third edition of AD&D, picking up the torch from where 2e left off. I'm a 2e fan, and 5e quickly became my second-favorite edition (a very close second, too)--although I have to say I wasn't tremendously impressed when I first read it. It seemed like an improvement over the past two-and-a-half editions from WotC due to being more streamlined, but just sort of middlin'. It took a little bit of playing for me to really get hooked on it--it plays much better than it reads, IMO.

Most of the mechanics are quite a bit different than 2e, and most of its guts derive from 3.X and 4th, but neither 3rd nor 4th edition felt like a D&D game to me, but rather some other game with the same names for certain things, that felt unrecognizable as Dungeons and Dragons to me. Despite the significant rules differences (and being quite a bit less lethal than the TSR era), 5th Edition feels like AD&D again. I actually recognize this game. No, it's definitely not the same as the old-school rules were, and in terms of crunch it bears very little resemblance, but the feel is there, when it wasn't in 3.X and 4e.

[2D8HP]

....but the feel is there, when it wasn't in 3.X and 4e


While I don't know if the O.P. (who likes 3.x) is convinced to try 5e, this thread has convinced me to not try 3.x!

There are things I like about 5e more than old D&D (I call it that instead of 0e, Basic, or 1e AD&D, because what I used to play mixed bits of each, and we just regarded AD&D as another supplement).

I like that most of my PC's survive to second level.

I like that both point buy and rolling for stats are options.

I like that some of the core mechanics are simpler.

I love the artwork and bibliographies!

There is also stuff I don't like (most of which becomes more pronounced at higher levels).

But the chief thing I haven't liked about 5e is that people kept trying to sell it to me in a way that rang false to me, because they kept saying "it's simpler", "no build obsessions", etc. "compared to old D&D", because they leave out the words compared to 3e.

When people said "It's simpler than old D&D", my response was "in some ways, not in others, the 1977 "blue book" rules were only 48 sublime pages!".

When people said it "emphasis role-playing more than builds", compared to old D&D, my response was, "What in.the Abyss are you talking about? No one talked about builds in old D&D?.

I was getting very irritated, as it really seemed that people kept saying the opposite of my experience, it was only after seeing:



D&D 5e brought me back to D&D. 3.x 3.5 had driven me away, but that may include the fact that raising a family gets in the way of trying to master yet another D&D system. (After OD&D, AD&D 1e, 2e ... )

It's a good D&D game. Who you play with matters. Rules and system mastery helps, and what our group found was that teamwork/synergy is rewarded.

That it clicked for me.

By "old" people meant 3.5, not the old D&D I knew.

Which means that while 5e is:


...my second-favorite edition (a very close second, too)...


(To a bit more nuance, I prefer 5e as a player most of the time, and I prefer 'to DM using '70's rules)

But if I assume that when people say "unlike old D&D 5e is not....", they actually mean "5e is less.... than 3.5", then I must assume that the elements of 5e I don't like are more pronounced in 3.x.

So where am I going with this?

5e is a compromise. An elegant, inventive, fun compromise, but that is what it is, and that brings me to the O.P.'s request of "Convince me to get into 5e".

5e is a way for players of the 25 years of TSR D&D, to play with players of 14 years of WotC D&D and to play together in a game they both recognize, and still have fun.

[JAL_1138]

It's a heck of a lot simpler than 1e in some ways, too. I could never quite get the hang of the initiative, surprise, and segments rules. 2e cleaned up the combat system a lot.

The learning curve for 5e is shallower than 2e's was, too--2e's pretty fast and simple once you know what you're doing and where to look things up, but figuring it out in the first place is tough. For example, the 2e books give you the least-useful, most unintuitive, most time-consuming way to use your THAC0 to see if you hit or not, asking you to proceed from a known AC to figure out the target number you need to roll, instead of just subtracting your roll and bonus from your THAC0 to see what AC you hit.

There's also fewer fiddly bits in 5th than there were in 2nd in some ways, despite all the new options characters have--consider climbing for example. In 5e, you climb at half your movement rate, or your climb speed if you have one, and maybe make an Athletics check against a DM-determined DC.

In 2e AD&D, there are rules for what type of surface you're climbing that affect how fast you move, what type of climbing gear you need, modified by rules regarding what armor you were wearing, mountaineering nonweapon proficiency, whether there was enough of an incline, your race, etc., and whether you were the right class to attempt to climb certain types of surface at all. There was even a percentile check with modifiers for whether a piton pulled loose if you had anchored your rope and fell.

People talked about builds in AD&D plenty. Maybe not in Holmes Basic, but once that "A" got stuck onto the front of it, yeah. Weapon specialization, class/race combos, should a human dual-class or should a demihuman multiclass, what were the best breakpoints for a dual/multi-class, what spells should your cleric choose, what spells should your wizard or bard try to find (in 2e where they cast like wizards, instead of like 1e where they were a prestige class for a dual-class Fighter/Thief that rolled crazy-awesome stats, that cast off the druid spell list), dart-wielding weapon-specialized fighters were broken, etc., etc., so on and so forth. And that's before you get into Unearthed Arcana for 1e or the Complete Whatever's Handbooks for 2e...

[Hawkstar]

3e was a remarkably different beast from 3.5. It still had fun advice for doing things like switching out race/class features, building new classes, and just making stuff up on the fly (And greater emphasis and examples of how to Rule 0 responsibly and effectively). NONE of that made it into the revision of the edition, which codified everything and created a culture heavy on optimization and rules lawyering (especially since it also coincided with the internet's rise)


I really can't imagine it being worse playing 3.x.
You have no idea... Not only do you have to optimize ability scores, you also have to optimize class selection (Don't play a Fighter, Monk, or Paladin - they flat-out suck), feat progression (you have to have it planned out in advance due to PrCs), skill point allocation (Flat-out avoid some skills, keep others maxxed, and put only 5 in some for the synergy bonuses or bonus perks), spell preparation, action economy (If you're a martial character, you cannot move if you want to deal damage. Casters have to keep track and be able to use swift, immediate, standard, and move actions), prestige class selection (Ties into skill point and feat progression)... and the numbers quickly outpace the d20. A character can have a +30 to one skill function, and a +2 to another.

[Anderlith]

@Deleted

The casters are way more grounded than 3.P that encourages balance. You want to play a martial that controls the battlefield? Battlemaster.
You want that same guy to be social & sneaky? Actor talent & Spy Background.

An example of my time playing,
I rolled up Noble Warlock (GOO) youd think Id blast away with hex & EB? Not really, i missed most of my attack rolls. You'd think my spells would control the battlefield? Nah, Battlemaster bro had that handled fine. Maybe my spells would have maximum utility like levitate/leomunds or such? Nah, the rogue & the barbarian had enough equipment between them to handle most environmental encounters. You know what my character was good for? Social stuff. I was clever & diobalical, & rolled deception & persuasion, any character with social skills could have done what i did. If made me feel great. To play a character that wasnt restricted by 1/2CLASS LEVEL +3 in skills. To play a character that i didnt need to take Nymph Kiss, half celestial, half elf, bard, + half a dozen other things, just be be a social power.

& as for lack of options... sure its a bit light right now but look to the UA articles, they are working on more material. They just want to do a good job with it

[Vaz]

3e was a remarkably different beast from 3.5. It still had fun advice for doing things like switching out race/class features, building new classes, and just making stuff up on the fly (And greater emphasis and examples of how to Rule 0 responsibly and effectively). NONE of that made it into the revision of the edition, which codified everything and created a culture heavy on optimization and rules lawyering (especially since it also coincided with the internet's rise)
Poor example. Much of the discussion that takes place on forums is in respnse to empirical information available.



You have no idea... Not only do you have to optimize ability scores, you also have to optimize class selection (Don't play a Fighter, Monk, or Paladin - they flat-out suck), feat progression (you have to have it planned out in advance due to PrCs), skill point allocation (Flat-out avoid some skills, keep others maxxed, and put only 5 in some for the synergy bonuses or bonus perks), spell preparation, action economy (If you're a martial character, you cannot move if you want to deal damage. Casters have to keep track and be able to use swift, immediate, standard, and move actions), prestige class selection (Ties into skill point and feat progression)... and the numbers quickly outpace the d20. A character can have a +30 to one skill function, and a +2 to another.



Let's take a CR20 creature, like a Balor. On a 20th level attacker, like a Fighter with an 18 in strength, advancing by +5 to 23 means you have a +26 to hit, vs an AC35 monster, on your first attack. Throw on a +5 weapon, which is kind of like the exoected gear, and a +6 Item, and you have a +34 to hit. This ISN'T optimizing. At this stage, you've not even picked up Weapon Focus or Greater Weapon Focus, for +36 to hit. Your average roll lets you hit with 3 of your 4 attacks.

Assuming you've picked up Weapon Specialization and Greater Weapon specialization. So, your Longsword is dealing 1d8+4+5 per hit for 10 to 17 damage pe hit with a 20% Crit Chance. I'm assuming that you have researched about end game boss monsters appropriate to what you are facing, so you know that your Balor opponent has DR15/Cold Iron&Good, and you have picked up a weapon of Cold Iron and have that weapon either enchanted or cast Greater Magic Weapon on it, and have someone cast Align Weapon on it so that you can now deal that damage, so that every round you are dealing an average 41 ish damage a turn, on average, just under 1/7th of the targets HP.

This is a similar level of optimization as any 5E Fighter can expect to put in. Those are Core spells.

Where 3.5e falls down is that someone who puts time into researching the content in the books and handbooks online can create a spellcaster who can do the same as a low tier fighter. An Divine Metamagic Persisting Cleric with Divine Power (Set Base Attack Bonus (effectively your proficiency in attacking) equal to your character level and with +6 Strength and gain 20Temp HP), for example can do much of the same as a Fighter all day everyday provided they aren't dispelled (DC14, vs D20+10 rolls) and has the ability to cast Greater Magic Weapon and Align Weapon without need for the Fighter AND can still have all but 1 2nd level spell and 2 4th level spells remaining.

Then you get other things like a Wizard being able to call in a Great Wyrm Gold Dragon and order it to fight for you for 2 minutes which can further obviate a fighter. All that costs is one of a 20th level Wizards' 6+ 9th level spell slots.

That is why people say that Fighter etc abilities are bad. Fighters aren't bad. Fighters are outclassed by many other things, and having a word with the DM may see some magic item goodies come your way. 3.5e isn'r shy about magic weapons being essentially part of your character.

Why should a high level character be skilled in something they aren't invested in? There are downsides of 3.5e such as the Fighter having low skill points and a bad skill list. But in that same level, why should a wizard who is skilled in Using Magical Devices, Spellcraft, Concentration, and various Knowledge checks suddenly get to be good at spotting things, or profession (Farmer) or Craft (Ukelele's)?

5e's one huge benefit is that it makes an effort into divorcing backgrounds from Character level mechanics and so you can have a Sailor skilled at sailing without needing to take cross class Profession (Sailor) skills on a low intelligence class with only 2+Int skill points.

[furby076]

So as a long time 3.5 player who has built several worlds for the system, I have yet to really look at 5e. I dabbled with 4e, but it never really caught me much. I appreciate that it did what it set out to do well, but it just never seemed to be what I was looking for in a DnD system; 3.5 was plenty adequate for my purposes. Maybe 3.5 took a little more work, but I enjoyed that work, tinkering with the rules and mixing and matching.

So why should I take a look at 5e? What do you think it offers that 3.5 or 4e don't? Why do you play 5e? What are your favorite things about it?

Short answer: It's the new shiny object - just try it. If you like it, keep playing, otherwise go back. New stuff will get published for this, but not for 3.5

Long answer: I've been playing since 2nd edition. I liked 2e, and 3.x was awesome. I tried 4e and hated it to no end. 5e took some time to grow on me, but it's not bad. Reading it at first I thought it was worse than 3.x, but it's great for newer/less intense players. Yes, I miss having Paladin, CLeric, Sacred Exorcist of the silver flame....but I don't miss having an excel sheet to calculate all my damage and add my bonuses...that may or may not apply based on the specific scenario. Hecky, a couple of months ago I showed the excel sheet to my 5e players...not only were they confused about it...so was I...and I played it for 9 years!

[LordVonDerp]

While I don't know if the O.P. (who likes 3.x) is convinced to try 5e, this thread has convinced me to not try 3.x!

Good




I like that most of my PC's survive to second level.

Also good.




When people said "It's simpler than old D&D", my response was "in some ways, not in others, the 1977 "blue book" rules were only 48 sublime pages!".

Was that the one that only had 3 classes and a handful of spells?




No one talked about builds in old D&D?.

Was it even possible pre-3e?



By "old" people meant 3.5, not the old D&D I knew.

Well 3e is some 15 odd years old.

[LordVonDerp]

action economy (If you're a martial character, you cannot move if you want to deal damage.



Correction: Pounce.
Probably why pounce was considered essential.

[Hawkstar]

Correction: Pounce.
Probably why pounce was considered essential.

Pounce only applies to Charges (Which have extreme movement restrictions, and incur certain penalties), and is only possible through a level of Spirit Lion Totem Barbarian.

[toapat]

Pounce only applies to Charges (Which have extreme movement restrictions, and incur certain penalties), and is only possible through a level of Spirit Lion Totem Barbarian.

no, you got an extremely limited version of pounce from Spirit Lion Totem barbarian and the actual monster feature from the Sphinx Claws Soulbind from Incarnum


(Don't play a Fighter, Monk, or Paladin - they flat-out suck)

Im going to have to disagree (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?336196-I-cant-Believe-its-Not-Druid-(Its-a-monk)-(Pseudobrew)-Peach) with you on at least 2 of those points (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AkwO1h9g297qe3LnJ_Bk29ga4TE8dMur62HMyS6Y8cA/edit?usp=sharing)

[LordVonDerp]

Pounce only applies to Charges (Which have extreme movement restrictions, and incur certain penalties), and is only possible through a level of Spirit Lion Totem Barbarian.
And yet it was still considered essential

[toapat]

And yet it was still considered essential

because the charge rules are ludicrously complex when you add Vertical movement, as IIRC a charge only needs a 15' descent to become active.

[Hawkstar]

And yet it was still considered essential
Because D&D 3e hated the idea of characters fighting and moving just that much.

[Tehnar]

I don't know why people consider 5e balanced when you have stuff like hypnotic pattern, animate dead, banishment, polymorph and spirit guardians. So low level spells that completely dominate combat encounters.

[Vaz]

Because D&D 3e hated the idea of characters fighting and moving just that much.

No, more because it made sense at inception that someone couldn't sprint 60ft and then make 4+ weapon attacks in 6 seconds at something within that time.

This of course got gradually realised to be an incorrect process which is why they introduced further modifications to it later; Lion's Charge, Psionic Lion's Charge, Spirit Lion Barbarian, Tome of Battle Maneuvres, Shadow Pounce, Natural Weapon based classes, viable reach builds, and Attack of Opportunity builds to ease up.

[Spellbreaker26]

I don't know why people consider 5e balanced when you have stuff like hypnotic pattern, animate dead, banishment, polymorph and spirit guardians. So low level spells that completely dominate combat encounters.

Each of those spells has a specific weakness, though they are all quite competitive. Hypnotic Pattern and Spirit Guardians are excellent against groups of weak enemies but aren't that great against one strong enemy. Banishment is the opposite. Polymorph is a last ditch spell since it prevents the user from casting and the options really aren't that great. Animate Dead is almost certainly going to get you in trouble if the local populace find out, and you need corpses for it.

More importantly, all of those spells are concentration, and can be broken by damage and unlucky rolls; and at the levels you get them, you're only going to be able to use them a few times. There's a sense of resource management -do I slam the panic button now or try to outlast this encounter?

[LordVonDerp]

because the charge rules are ludicrously complex when you add Vertical movement, as IIRC a charge only needs a 15' descent to become active.

Because D&D 3e hated the idea of characters fighting and moving just that much.

I thought it was because of shock trooper.

[toapat]

I thought it was because of shock trooper.

no, shock trooper is not what allows you to use dives to make charge using a relatively low DC jump check, but it does let you use your AC for fueling Power Attack on a charge

[BillyBobShorton]

All the cool kids are doing it behind gym class.


Don't you wanna be cool??

[Vaz]

no, shock trooper is not what allows you to use dives to make charge using a relatively low DC jump check, but it does let you use your AC for fueling Power Attack on a charge
Leap Attack is a requisite feat of ST however and does allow you take a Jump Check to increase PA returns by 100%.

[toapat]

Leap Attack is a requisite feat of ST however and does allow you take a Jump Check to increase PA returns by 100%.

while part of what makes Shocktrooper Charge the Preeminent melee damage in 3.5, theres still something besides Pounce, Shock Trooper, and Leap Attack that lets you charge with a 15' fall that is key to making it all work

[Knaight]

Most of the mechanics are quite a bit different than 2e, and most of its guts derive from 3.X and 4th, but neither 3rd nor 4th edition felt like a D&D game to me, but rather some other game with the same names for certain things, that felt unrecognizable as Dungeons and Dragons to me. Despite the significant rules differences (and being quite a bit less lethal than the TSR era), 5th Edition feels like AD&D again. I actually recognize this game. No, it's definitely not the same as the old-school rules were, and in terms of crunch it bears very little resemblance, but the feel is there, when it wasn't in 3.X and 4e.

There's definitely a distinction in feel where 5e fits in better with pre 3.x than post 3.x to an extent. The whole group is pretty similar though; the differences between them that seem so stark when playing only different editions of D&D and things within that sphere (Pathfinder, OSIRIC, 13th Age) suddenly seem pretty tiny once one gets well outside it.

[Sigreid]

Anyone else wonder what the OP decided to do?

[KorvinStarmast]

While I don't know if the O.P. (who likes 3.x) is convinced to try 5e, this thread has convinced me to not try 3.x! Good choice. You and I are the same vintage, and I found it not to my taste.

There are things I like about 5e more than old D&D

I like that most of my PC's survive to second level.
Hee hee.

I like that both point buy and rolling for stats are options. Yes, makes for simpler character generation.

I like that some of the core mechanics are simpler. The action economy is more structured, but it took me a while to get the hang of action, bonus action, reaction and all of the stuff in between. Once we did, yeah, works well. The one thing that's kinda weird in this edition is how surprise works, and how it doesn't.

I love the artwork and bibliographies! Yes.

No one talked about builds in old D&D? Yes, pre point buy, and also "will I even be able to survive beyond level 3?


O.P.'s request of "Convince me to get into 5e".

5e is a way for players of the 25 years of TSR D&D, to play with players of 14 years of WotC D&D and to play together in a game they both recognize, and still have fun.
Yep, good summary.


Was that the one that only had 3 classes and a handful of spells? Yes, and we had insane fun playing it.

I don't know why people consider 5e balanced when you have stuff like hypnotic pattern, animate dead, banishment, polymorph and spirit guardians. So low level spells that completely dominate combat encounters. If you only have one encounter per day, sure.

On that note, SG can be pretty cool if you keep making concentration saves, or don't get hit a lot. We had an interesting fight with a giant and his gnoll minions (me a cleric): his minions (gnolls) had come out to swarm us. I had spiritual guardian up.
Bard was in second rank, me up front with the barb and fighter.
Combat fast and furious for five rounds, then giant's arrival (to clean us out since (one of the gnolls had run back to get the boss) and we've taken a bit of damage. (Those crits can make combat quite swingy, and each of our martials had been hit with a crit).

With five rounds of SG expended, (heh, guess who made two concentration saves? I did!) the battle got interesting.
Giant arrives to swat my puny little head, but the bard had cast vicious mockery. Good thing too: disadvantage turned a 20 into a 5.
I take the bold move and go in close, knowing that one hit is gonna hurt, a lot.
Bard casts VM again, and a 16 turns into 7. (disadvantage FTW).
Bard basically saved my life for four rounds by using vicious mockery and Giant kept missing his save. Good thing too, as our martials were down.
SG stayed up (against all odds) and my last attack was lucky:
I burnt my last spell slot on Inflict wounds and hit. So down went the giant.
The bard and I were the last ones standing, the rest of the party was down, and there was a sizeable pile of gnolls scattered about.

SG can, in certain situations, be awesome. But if you miss that first concentration check (as I did in the following adventure during a battle with trog hordes) all of a sudden it's not so awesome ...

[Spellbreaker26]

SG can, in certain situations, be awesome. But if you miss that first concentration check (as I did in the following adventure during a battle with trog hordes) all of a sudden it's not so awesome ...

Gah, I hate when that happens. Once lost concentration to a thrown rock against a minor giant. And I had War Caster!

[Knaight]

Yes, pre point buy, and also "will I even be able to survive beyond level 3?

It wasn't the same, but there was definite discussion of builds in terms of equipment selection. See: Dart throwers.

[Chaosmancer]

I wonder if a lot of the optimization and build talk, the insistence on playing race/class combos with no less than an 18 in your primary stat, ect ect is a holdover from the insanity of 3.5.

I never played 3.x but talk of spreadsheets, multi-classed monstrosities (I've a friend who's playing a... Half ogre death knight kensei fighter monk barbarian... I think?), heck even the discussion in this thread just tells me how complex things had to be to be effective.

The floor of effectiveness is much much lower in 5e, but we still feel the need for that optimization because of how 3.x set up this generation of gamers

[LordVonDerp]

no, shock trooper is not what allows you to use dives to make charge using a relatively low DC jump check,

What does any of that have to do with what I said?



but it does let you use your AC for fueling Power Attack on a charge

Yeah, I know. Which is why I said that it was why pounce was so important.

[LordVonDerp]

while part of what makes Shocktrooper Charge the Preeminent melee damage in 3.5, theres still something besides Pounce, Shock Trooper, and Leap Attack that lets you charge with a 15' fall that is key to making it all work
No, there isn't, a 15 ft fall isn't even part of that combo.

[toapat]

No, there isn't, a 15 ft fall isn't even part of that combo.

yes, there is, i forget what feat it is that lets you Pogostick on the lance, its the lastt part of the chain and it makes the entire deal as broken as it is because it means you get to attack again and again with your ubercharge

[LordVonDerp]

yes, there is, i forget what feat it is that lets you Pogostick on the lance, its the lastt part of the chain and it makes the entire deal as broken as it is because it means you get to attack again and again with your ubercharge

...But the combo uses a spiked chain and great cleave to potentially clear a massive area of enemies. How can you be using both at once?