Opinions on 5th edition mechanics compared to other editions/retro clones [Archive]

Waterdeep Merch

2017-09-18, 03:09 PM

The greatest strength of 5e lies in its simplicity. Its mechanics don't fully suit my style of play usually, but thanks to how light and breezy the rules are, it's extremely easy to change things to suit any sort of game I want.

Players not in mortal peril enough? Change the rest mechanics, remove all the resurrection spells. Add the grievous wounds rules. Tell your players to prepare some extra character sheets and keep a paper shredder on hand. Look them dead in the eyes when you shred their favorite wizard.

Players not magicy enough? Create (or borrow) rules for purchasing and creating magic items. You could use the ones in the book, but that's probably not a great idea. You're now monty hauling with the best of them!

Want more character choices? You can custom make a subclass or even an entirely new class in a matter of hours. Balancing isn't too difficult, either, especially with the former. Special snowflakes for everyone!

I can populate an entire dungeon with custom monsters hinging on unique mechanics in a few hours. They're really simply to balance.

The only stuff that really sucks for me are how the skills interact with the social/exploration pillars, because it's too lightweight for my tastes. But even here, the system is so bare bones that it can accept basically anything as a substitute. Go nuts.

Dankus Memakus

2017-09-18, 03:21 PM

Fear of death in 5e is in the hands of the DM. KorvinStarmast died, and was eaten by ogres. The game certainly allows characters to die/fail, particularly at lower levels.

It seems almost like players must be exceedingly stupid to die or the dm is unessesarily brutal. The retro clone put me on the cusp of death without feeling attacked by the dm.

Tanarii

2017-09-18, 03:45 PM

It seems almost like players must be exceedingly stupid to die or the dm is unessesarily brutal. The retro clone put me on the cusp of death without feeling attacked by the dm.
My experience with BECMI/classic was you die. Frequently. No 'cusp of death'. Unless you're power-leveled by higher level characters and hanging back, it can easily take 10 characters to get just 1 to second level. Unless you get lucky with a huge loot find. Even fighting in ranks, plate & shield up front, polearm in second rank, archers & mages in back .. it's brutal.

DCC (Dungeon Crawl Classics) has the right idea for classic IMO. Start with 4 characters, play the characters that survive to 2nd level. Although DCC makes it so easy to get to pass that first deadly spot that they can get away with only 4 characters to start.

OTOH depending on the dungeon, going in to Classic with a 1 non-Fighter each and a full complement of level 1 Fighter retainers each (per main characters Cha), you can usually get out with your non-Fighter alive (or not having failed Morale and run away). You can keep hiring replacement lvl 1 Fighters as retainers until the non-Fighters get powerful enough keep some Fighter retainers alive.

Chugger

2017-09-18, 03:52 PM

While the zero mechanic is strange (wait til someone zero's to heal, for instance - characters dropping and popping in fights), between the 1980s and now I not only did not play post-AD&D versions of the game, I didn't even finish reading the rules (say when out of curiousity I'd pick up a phb for 2, 3.5 or 4 in a store and scan it - I went meh, then gack, then put it back). I play 5e. I'll accept this one peculiarity for all the other things it fixed.

Eric Diaz

2017-09-18, 04:42 PM

Well, 5e is my favorite version to play RAW, but B/X is my favorite version to play around with, house rule, etc. I actually wrote a house-rule version of B/X mixed with 5e.

I like options and SOME complexity - my ideal would be somewhere between B/X and 5e.

Play both if you can, play your favorite if you cannot.

Now, as far as "fear of death" goes, I don't think 5e is particularly easy, but is certainly less deadly than B/X.

Tanarii

2017-09-18, 05:33 PM

Now, as far as "fear of death" goes, I don't think 5e is particularly easy, but is certainly less deadly than B/X.There's a pretty huge difference between dying when you hit 0 hit points, and not dying unless you either fail 3 death saves before succeeding 3 times / being bandaged, or get Crit so hard you take your current hit points + max hit points in a single attack. And healing up to full hit points in a single Long Rest. And getting to spend Hit Dice on a Short Rest. And more plentiful healing slots for Casters to heal.
(I'm granting benefit of the doubt as to 5e having far more hit points by assuming that damage output of enemies scale, although I've never looked at that.)

mephnick

2017-09-18, 05:46 PM

PCs pretty much can't die in 5e past like..2nd level...unless you have a DM cut down, drag away and aoe downed PCs like I do. Only when it makes sense of cousre, which is actually most of the time if you play your monsters right.

alchahest

2017-09-18, 06:19 PM

it's pretty easy to die for the first few levels if the DM doesn't pull punches! a first level wizard or sorceror with 12 con can be killed with a single good damage roll from an Orc. (doesn't even have to be a crit).

Kane0

2017-09-18, 06:28 PM

Players not in mortal peril enough? Change the rest mechanics, remove all the resurrection spells. Add the grievous wounds rules. Tell your players to prepare some extra character sheets and keep a paper shredder on hand. Look them dead in the eyes when you shred their favorite wizard.

Oh man, now I gotta go dig out my old shredder. I might set it up in the corner and see if anyone notices.

Finieous

2017-09-18, 06:30 PM

Now, as far as "fear of death" goes, I don't think 5e is particularly easy, but is certainly less deadly than B/X.

That's the understatement of the year! It's not just "dead at 0" in B/X that makes the difference. It's also:

* More fragile at low level (HP vs monster damage)
* 1st-level clerics with no spells
* Slow healing
* Save or die
* Level drain
* Slow advancement
* No rez until 7th level (50,000 XP) - and even then you were out of action two weeks

It's really not even comparable. In 5e, you blink and you're 5th level and the cleric has revivify.

I like 5e a lot, especially as a DM, because it's easy to give my players the game they want. As a player, I really miss playing B/X with other players who share the same preferences. My single biggest complaint is what they've done to monsters: On the one hand, overall they've made them too fiddly -- even kobolds have to have a special ability; on the other, they've nerfed into absurdity all the special abilities that put the fear or Orcus in you. From a design perspective, it's the worst possible combination.

Combat in 5e can be a lot of fun, but for a good team at 5th level and beyond, the only real danger is a TPK.

Tanarii

2017-09-18, 06:33 PM

Pex

2017-09-18, 06:45 PM

Eric Diaz

2017-09-18, 06:59 PM

There's a pretty huge difference between dying when you hit 0 hit points, and not dying unless you either fail 3 death saves before succeeding 3 times / being bandaged, or get Crit so hard you take your current hit points + max hit points in a single attack. And healing up to full hit points in a single Long Rest. And getting to spend Hit Dice on a Short Rest. And more plentiful healing slots for Casters to heal.
(I'm granting benefit of the doubt as to 5e having far more hit points by assuming that damage output of enemies scale, although I've never looked at that.)

The damage output of enemies do indeed scale, and succeeding 3 times / being bandaged will not protect you if there is no one to save you (or if you're outnumbered), and even 1 point of damage will make you fail a death save, and a 5e orc will deal 1d12 + 3 damage instead of Moldvay's 1-6 or weapon, and probably a level 10 Moldvay character will have better luck than a level 10 5e character against a dozen orcs... But overall I agree with you, Moldvay is deadlier, as I said.

That's the understatement of the year! It's not just "dead at 0" in B/X that makes the difference. It's also:

* More fragile at low level (HP vs monster damage)
* 1st-level clerics with no spells
* Slow healing
* Save or die
* Level drain
* Slow advancement
* No rez until 7th level (50,000 XP) - and even then you were out of action two weeks

It's really not even comparable. In 5e, you blink and you're 5th level and the cleric has revivify.

I like 5e a lot, especially as a DM, because it's easy to give my players the game they want. As a player, I really miss playing B/X with other players who share the same preferences. My single biggest complaint is what they've done to monsters: On the one hand, overall they've made them too fiddly -- even kobolds have to have a special ability; on the other, they've nerfed into absurdity all the special abilities that put the fear or Orcus in you. From a design perspective, it's the worst possible combination.

Combat in 5e can be a lot of fun, but for a good team at 5th level and beyond, the only real danger is a TPK.

Same thing as above. I agree with most points and the conclusion. But overall I don't think 5e is particularly easy at low levels. "For a good team at 5th level and beyond" you're right.

Well, it also depends... if you look from a DCC perspective or a 4e perspective, for example.

Orcs do 9 damage with their Greataxe. That's not enough to kill a 7 HP Wizard or Sorcerer.

Well, it is if there is no one to save them. Also, orcs do 1d12+3; if they roll a 12, insta-death against 7 HP. 33% chance of instant unconsciousness. 5% chance of a crit - insta-death if you do 6+6+3.

EDIT: 5e orc also has a javelin an moves with a bonus action RAW... if the sorcerer/wizard looses initiative, I wouldn't bet on him. In fact, level 1 wizard versus 1 orc might be more survivable in Moldvay if you consider all this.

Dankus Memakus

2017-09-18, 07:21 PM

Kish

2017-09-18, 07:26 PM

There's something to be said for race-based class restrictions: it has to be said, because it's unprintable.

ZorroGames

2017-09-18, 07:32 PM

I wholeheartedly agree, I just wish the combat system was more brutal. I want to actually fear the BBEG not run up to him and kick him in the throat.

Change the game to suit you or play something else.

I spend a lot of effort keeping noobies alive (and suffering because of it if I get sloppy) fir the first few levels. Though my first game in Chult I noted Five players had healing magic plus several (level 2-4) with multiple potions of healing.

ZorroGames

2017-09-18, 07:33 PM

There's something to be said for race-based class restrictions: it has to be said, because it's unprintable.

Hated such since White Box OD&D.

Eric Diaz

2017-09-18, 07:34 PM

I wholeheartedly agree, I just wish the combat system was more brutal. I want to actually fear the BBEG not run up to him and kick him in the throat.

"0 HP means death" requires little effort to make 5e way more deadly.

Now, one thing I'd like to add: TSR D&D is probably TOO deadly for me sometimes. 1st level characters are very likely to die if they fall from 10 feet of fight a house cat. I don't remember the original rules for starvation and dehydration, but I probably know people that survived things that would kill a 2nd level fighter. etc.

Safety Sword

2017-09-18, 08:19 PM

If you play enemies intelligently then players will fear death just fine.

If you knock down a foe but they are healed and continue fighting you have two options:

Knock them down again. Then chop them into small pieces to make sure they stay down
Kill the healer with maximum effort to be sure it doesn't happen again.

Both make players protect their healer and decide that being knocked down is a sometimes food.

Finieous

2017-09-18, 08:25 PM

Same thing as above. I agree with most points and the conclusion. But overall I don't think 5e is particularly easy at low levels. "For a good team at 5th level and beyond" you're right.

And it's only 6,500 XP to 5th level and rez magic. By the book, it's one adventuring day each to make 2nd and 3rd level, 1.5 to make 4th level, and a bit over two adventuring days to make 5th. Round up and call it six adventuring days to get rez magic. It's just not hard.

In B/X by the book, you could play six years and never get a character to 7th level and that raise dead spell.

Again, I have a terrific group of players and I'd much rather run 5e for them because I know what they like, and B/X ain't it. I really like 5e, but on standard settings, it's pretty damn easy.

DivisibleByZero

2017-09-18, 08:36 PM

All of these reasons and more are why AD&D 2e is my favorite edition, far and away. Heavily modified for personal taste, as all games needed to be back then.
3e ruined the game for me.
4e didn't even feel like DnD, like, at all.
5e is a conglomeration of all of the best parts of all of the earlier editions, but combined in such a way that it isn't better than what came from TSR back in the day. It's better than 3e/4e were, but not as good as 2e was, in my opinion. It's just to easy. There is no challenge and there is nothing for your character to fear.
But at least DnD is worth playing again, so I don't complain about it too much.

Eric Diaz

2017-09-18, 08:38 PM

And it's only 6,500 XP to 5th level and rez magic. By the book, it's one adventuring day each to make 2nd and 3rd level, 1.5 to make 4th level, and a bit over two adventuring days to make 5th. Round up and call it six adventuring days to get rez magic. It's just not hard.

In B/X by the book, you could play six years and never get a character to 7th level and that raise dead spell.

Again, I have a terrific group of players and I'd much rather run 5e for them because I know what they like, and B/X ain't it. I really like 5e, but on standard settings, it's pretty damn easy.

Yeah, I completely agree, just saying it is important to shows DMs that 5e might be dangerous at low levels. An orc can easily kill a first level fighter 1 on 1. LMoP had a significant umber of TPKs in the first goblin ambush. If you want to guarantee your players can survive in 5e, maybe start at level 3, tone down CRs and make sure there is always someone left to raise deal/stabilize/etc. Of course, I play with no guarantees. ::smallsmile:

Tanarii

2017-09-18, 08:43 PM

A DM is doing it wrong if he boasts about killing PCs.Theres a difference between boasting about running a campaign dangerous enough that players have to play very smart or die, and boasting about killing PCs. Not that the line doesn't get awfully blurry sometimes when you're running lethal game. :smallamused:

A DM is doing it wrong if PCs are killed on a regular basis. No. That's no truth. That's an opinion, and one one that I wholehearted disagree with. There is nothing wrong with that so long as the players buy in. Just as there is nothing wrong with a game where the PCs can't die no matter how poorly they make decisions, as long as everyone buys in. In modern gaming it's an extreme way to play, but that doesn't make it doing it wrong.

It is not the DM's job to kill PCs. BBEGs want to. The DM should never want to. There's a difference.But he sure can giggle a little inside when he's made it perfectly clear they're getting in over their own head, and they get themselves killed anyway. While saying "better luck next time guys" out loud. And commiserate as they talk about how they could have done better. I mean if he just wants to kill them, that's easy and boring. It takes a lot of skill to give players every opportunity to stick their head in a noose, while telling them the noose is there, in a way that they know that's what they choose to do it of their own free will after the fact.

Of course, if reasonable precautions were made, at a certain level, recovering the bodies for Raise Dead or more powerful magics is a whole 'nother mission for henchmen or another PC party. Dead doesn't have to mean forever gone, once you've invested some time, in Classic nor in 5e. Even in a very lethal game.

For that matter, in 5e the old 'you're all captured' as a result of a TPK (or partial TPK with some party members fleeing) is easier than ever for the DM. Since you're just bleeding out at 0hps, the DM can easily have intelligent enemies stabilize and capture you. Of course, they might just off you after pumping you for info, if they're anything like PCs.

Well, it is if there is no one to save them. Also, orcs do 1d12+3; if they roll a 12, insta-death against 7 HP. 33% chance of instant unconsciousness. 5% chance of a crit - insta-death if you do 6+6+3.

EDIT: 5e orc also has a javelin an moves with a bonus action RAW... if the sorcerer/wizard looses initiative, I wouldn't bet on him. In fact, level 1 wizard versus 1 orc might be more survivable in Moldvay if you consider all this.
Good point. I'm wrong. A DM is not required to use the average damage, and can certainly roll it. An Orc Greataxe can kill a character with 7 hit points or less without a critical hit.

Finieous

2017-09-18, 08:45 PM

5e is a conglomeration of all of the best parts of all of the earlier editions, but combined in such a way that it isn't better than what came from TSR back in the day. It's better than 3e/4e were, but not as good as 2e was, in my opinion.

My opinion is that I prefer 5e PCs. I like class abilities over magic item dependence. I like the implementation of skills. I like the 5e spellcasting mechanics, but prefer Classic spells. To repeat myself, my biggest disappointment with 5e is the monsters: Too many special abilities (and complex stat blocs), too few that actually matter.

If I get ambitious someday, maybe I'd try to do a redesign of all the monsters along Classic lines to create a kit-bashed game that hits the sweet spot for me. Ah, who am I kidding. That would be a ****-ton of work.

At least DnD is worth playing again, so I don't complain about it too much.

Yep.

Eric Diaz

2017-09-18, 08:50 PM

Also, if you want deadly but do not want house rules... Tomb of Annihilation is out (in online bookstores) in a few hours!

EDIT: and it does seem VERY deadly... I'm very curious!

Kane0

2017-09-18, 08:51 PM

You mean like Beholders that shoot random eyerays?

bid

2017-09-18, 09:00 PM

DCC (Dungeon Crawl Classics) has the right idea for classic IMO. Start with 4 characters, play the characters that survive to 2nd level. Although DCC makes it so easy to get to pass that first deadly spot that they can get away with only 4 characters to start.
I don't like DCC's lack of resources. That cleric can keep on healing forever... Even 10 failures is nothing if you never roll 3-5 and have some luck.

And then your caster crits his sleep and the whole castle (including the party) falls into a sleeping beauty story.:smallbiggrin:

Pex

2017-09-18, 09:04 PM

I wholeheartedly agree, I just wish the combat system was more brutal. I want to actually fear the BBEG not run up to him and kick him in the throat.

That's what PCs are supposed to do. That's why they're the heroes.

No. That's no truth. That's an opinion, and one one that I wholehearted disagree with.

And water is wet.
:smallamused:

Finieous

2017-09-18, 09:24 PM

That's what PCs are supposed to do. That's why they're the heroes.

I mean, you do realize this is a preference, right? That there are different styles of play and different preferences aligned with them? Some people (albeit not very many, these days) prefer a game of treasure-seeking, tomb-robbing and survival where the protagonists are often knaves and scoundrels, and very often doomed. Some folks (most, these days) prefer a game of heroic fantasy designed so "BBEGs" lose and The Heroes win.

Different sorts of games, both legit. Right?

guachi

2017-09-18, 09:25 PM

High level heroic fantasy, no fear of death, and combat as sport are what some people prefer. The majority, as far as I can tell.

I love me some classic D&D, in particular BECMI. 5e can easily give you the feel of it. Advancement rate is the biggest problem though. It's far faster.

This.

Death, if the game is played RAW, is really hard. It basically requires a TPK. A few things lead to this: HD can be used to top up HP is a minor part of it. But the big two are recovering all HP on a long rest of 8 hrs and death saves. Alter any of those three and the game becomes more frightening for players.

In my game, I used the DMG variants (with some tweeks) of a long rest equals seven days and players don't get all their HP back on a long rest, just HD. Specifically, the players don't have to rest for seven days of doing nothing, they get back a bit their resources a bit each 8 hours of rest. For example, if you had 4 1st level spell slots and 3 2nd level spell slots (for 7 total) you'd get back a 1st level spell on M/W/F/Su and a 2nd level on Tu/Th/Sa.

I haven't changed death saves, but if you made it something like two successes needed before one failure you'd greatly increase deaths, especially at low levels.

With a few tweaks, 5e can, indeed, very easily replicate BECMI as I'm doing just that in my current campaign. You can slow down advancement simply by giving fewer XP. I cut the listed XP by 20%. However, by making regaining resources harder you can make easier adventures harder to defeat. A CR 2 creature, for example, becomes as dangerous as a CR 3 because the party can't burn through resources as quickly. This reduces the XP from 700 to 450. I did have to warn players this would be the case, but they feel very heroic when accomplish anything because they know how hard it is.

Waterdeep Merch

2017-09-18, 09:45 PM

A DM is not doing it wrong if the unfortunate happens and a character dies.

A DM is doing it wrong if he boasts about killing PCs.

A DM is doing it wrong if PCs are killed on a regular basis. If it's only the character of one particular player, that's the player doing it wrong. I allow it is possible the players haven't a clue about tactics and do dumb things to be them doing it wrong.

A DM is doing it wrong if he gets upset no PC went into Death's Door at least one per combat.

It is not the DM's job to kill PCs. BBEGs want to. The DM should never want to. There's a difference.
Some of this yes, some of this no. I run some games where the whole point is hyper lethality. It's not for everyone, but neither is any game ever.

Part of my favorite "DM persona" is a mocking, pompous supervillain that chides players for making costly mistakes and revels in their misfortune. It's not appropriate in every game and it's not for every player (I'm especially soft on newbies and kids), but it's often part of what makes me the preferred DM in my gaming circles. Some of my oldest players even know it's just an act, as I rarely kill anyone and never take anything away that can't be replaced by something better just down the next bend of the dungeon.

I actually have to kill them from time to time just to prove I will.

Finieous

2017-09-18, 09:48 PM

Death, if the game is played RAW, is really hard. It basically requires a TPK. A few things lead to this: HD can be used to top up HP is a minor part of it. But the big two are recovering all HP on a long rest of 8 hrs and death saves. Alter any of those three and the game becomes more frightening for players.

I sound like a broken record, I know, but that's just the start. The game no longer has 1/2 HD spiders (and ubiquitous traps) with save-or-die poison. It doesn't have 2-3 HD giant centipedes, carrion crawlers and ghouls that paralyze for 2-8 turns (120-480 rounds). It doesn't have 3 HD wights that drain a level on a hit, no save.

It's a potent combination of easiness: The only way to die is to lose all your hit points and then fail your death saves or eat a coup de grace, and it's super-easy to replenish your hit points. The plentiful hit point resources wouldn't sap all the suspense from the game (at least, to the same degree) if there were still other ways to die.

Kane0

2017-09-18, 10:33 PM

Fun and interesting ways to die when I DM:

- Max HP drain
- Exhaustion (6 stage death spiral)
- Target death saves directly (three strikes and you're out!). Good for drowning and the like.
- Attribute drain (reduce you to vegetable status)
- Prof bonus reduction (emulates level drain of previous editions quite nicely)
- Death by Age

mephnick

2017-09-18, 10:54 PM

Sigreid

2017-09-18, 11:19 PM

I say we bring this **** back.

Forget Skill DCs! Let's set up our own crowd-sourcing thread with save or dies, and blackjack and hookers!

If you want to go real hard core go back to losing a spell from memory when it's cast and it taking, if I remember right, 1 hour per spell level to re-memorize a spell. After the first few levels it could take days and eventually weeks for a wizard to re-prepare his spells. That's not even going into a spell taking a full page per spell level in a book. So a high level wizard had to carry around several spell books if he wanted to re-prepare his spells.

Oh, and the extremely high chance that any caster will only be capable of casting a few spells from their spell list anyway because the rest were going to be beyond them.

Leith

2017-09-18, 11:37 PM

5e monsters actually have some really fun ways to kill characters. You don't get too many at lower levels 'cause. yeah, the game is softer, but also you don't need them. A wight can drain a character to 0hp and they die, no save. Banshees scream, you fail your save and drop to 0. Intellect devourers eat your brain and can make you stupid, more or less permanently unless you're level 9 or higher and have 100gp of diamond dust on hand. At higher levels you can combine these types of creatures with bigger bad guys.

A death tyrant with wight minions: roll the tyrant's eye rays all at once then decide where they're gonna go; paralysis first then disintegrate at the same target. If the tyrant doesn't kill you the wights probably will, especially if they outnumber the PCs. CR starts to mean less and less the more unbalanced the actual force sized are in a 5e combat.

Volo's actually has a specific note about random eye rays. It's for flavor, to make a beholder seem more unpredictable, not less dangerous. If you want I suppose you could just choose which ones it uses.

Another thing about resurrection in 5e; yeah it's softer, but you do have to have the materials and how strict you as a DM are about that can have a huge impact on character death. If your 5th level party doesn't have 300gp worth of diamond dust on them RIGHT NOW that character who just died in the middle of a dungeon is staying dead.

Chugger

2017-09-18, 11:52 PM

90sMusic

2017-09-19, 12:24 AM

I played 3.5 and pathfinder before 5e.

I enjoy 5th edition a lot more because it simplifies so many rules and makes so many things just seem more logical. The bounded accuracy means even low level things can potentially be threatening if there's enough of them and the difference between level 1 and level 20 isn't a whole lot as far as +hit and +damage.

I mean with standard array and racial bonus, you begin play at +5 to hit and after maxing prof bonus and ability score, you end play with +11 to hit. That is pretty awesome I think. Compared to older editions, the way hit increases were calculated were just downright stupid honestly, especially the idea of getting an extra attack for every +5 to hit and those new attacks had less chance to hit and etc etc, it was all just convoluted nonsense really.

I think most of the mechanics are far better in 5th edition and I enjoy the emphasis more on storytelling than rules/mechanics that 5th edition seems to foster (even though some folks just cant get out of the old school mechanics heavy mindset and keep houseruling and homebrewing convoluted crap back in).

The only problems I have with 5e, which i'm hoping will be resolved with time, is just a lack of options.

1. Lack of spells. Sure, there were probably too many spells (and too specific) in older editions, but at least you had a lot of variety. 5th edition simplifies it, which is good for new players and casual players because it is less to remember or have to look up, but it also makes combat feel rather samey because the same spells are always taken. Everyone that can take fireball will take fireball for example, very few exceptions.

2. No way to customize your race. In pathfinder, you had a huge variety of options listed for each race and you could swap out standard racial traits for variations. The balance was maintained because the new ones explicitly stated which standard trait or traits they replaced, and you couldn't replace the same trait more than once. It was awesome to really build the specific sort of character you wanted.

3. Lack of Feats. The number of feats in pathfinder is overwhelming. I don't even know how many there are, a couple hundred maybe? Trying to choose which one from that list as a new player was mindblowing. I understand and like the fact 5th edition wanted feats to be less common and more powerful, I think that is a good choice, but you still lack a huge amount of variety and customization that you used to have. For instance, the Eldritch Heritage line of feats were some of my favorites. Also learning the different styles of martial arts. There were tons of awesome little things like that. I think there is room for that sort of thing in 5th edition with making something like Eldritch Heritage in 5th edition being equivalent to 3 or so of those feats in pathfinder due to the relative rarity and power difference 5th edition feats are supposed to have. But alas, unless WOTC prints a book with such content in it, most tables will never allow it because people are silly sheep and think something is broken unless WOTC says so.

So yeah, ultimately my complaints all stem from the fact player characters are all so similar to each other. Every barbarian you play with will do the same stuff. Every cleric or sorcerer or wizard will have mostly the same spells. All of it feels the same from game to game, I think that's why there is such a huge thirst for homebrew content in 5e for experienced players because otherwise you're just doing the same thing over and over, people like doing new stuff.

In pathfinder, it was "possible" to run into someone who had the same setup as another player you've run with, but unless it was a hardcore min/max build, it was almost impossible that it actually happened. I played with so many sorcerers in pathfinder over the years and all of them were drastically different because of the huge array of bloodline abilities as well as the bloodline spells that changed their playstyles up in huge ways.

Even within the classes, you could swap features out for other features and that made a big difference. Customizing and tailoring your class to suit your desires was great.

5e lacks all that customization and versatility. It was the price they chose to pay for simplicity, approachability, and to keep it as easy as possible for both players and the DM to remember how everything works. It sped up the game a lot, which is great, but some of those options I don't feel would hinder or slow the game down and would be great to give more life to the game.

Otherwise, the only difference between you and the millions of other folks who are playing the same class and archetype, is how you roleplay, but even that is going to usually be inspired by class features and archetypes, so there isn't as much variation there.

Le Sigh

Still my favorite system though.

Kane0

2017-09-19, 12:42 AM

Well it's a good thing we live in the internet age where one can sign into a website or 7 and just pick their favourite content from a long list, often for free!

Pex

2017-09-19, 08:09 AM

Sigreid

2017-09-19, 08:15 AM

DMs don't (or shouldn't) kill characters. Players kill their characters with the choices they make. Th DM only killed the character if the character was railroaded.

Finieous

2017-09-19, 08:59 AM

A wight can drain a character to 0hp and they die, no save.

Great example of the difference, actually. In 5e, first the wight has to hit with its +4 attack bonus. Then it's just 1d6+2 (5) necrotic damage. Then you get a DC 13 Con save. Only if you fail the save is your hit point maximum reduced by the damage taken, and then you get it all back after a long rest. You only die if your hit point maximum is reduced to 0, which, even if you threw the wight at 1st level PCs, is multiple hits and multiple failed saving throws.

In B/X? One hit and your 1st-level character is a wight.

Sigreid

2017-09-19, 09:11 AM

How about vampires? Say goodbye to those last 2 hard won levels.

Stan

2017-09-19, 09:16 AM

In most of the games I played in in the 90s house rules had things like unconscious at 0, dead at negative con. A character death per session (or more) causes weirdness with new characters popping in all the time, often with difficulty fitting in, bends belief and makes things gamey in a different way. It makes it hard to have any kind of story or character development. Sure, a DCC style where you expect most early characters to die is a viable play style but it's not any more realistic than others.

Lethality is easy to tweak to taste in any version of D&D. It takes only 1-2 lines of new rules.

Beyond lethality, the various versions of D&D have real differences in complexity and customization. Of all the versions, I like 1e the least. It had a great deal of arbitrary complexity but not much customization. Unless they had a strange piece of gear or something, every fighter was almost the same. Sure, you can customize characters through personality and things beyond the rules. But if you are going to rely on that, why have so many rules. On other end is Pathfinder, which I generally like but can be so burdensome. Each part can be further tweaked with options. Customizable but there are also real game differences between the options. If you spent only 5 hours going through all character options and someone else spent 20, they are likely able to build a character twice as powerful as yours. 3e, to me, is like an older, clunkier version of Pathfinder - I'd never pick it now over Pathfinder.

2e was a good game (pre-Skills and Powers and ignoring some of the fluff changes). You had customization through kits, thieves could choose what to be good at, skills were there, though in a clunky way. Not my favorite but I'd play it. Chargen was fairly quick.

Basic is a solid contender for what it is. Extremely little customization but chargen is very quick. Highly lethal doesn't go well with time consuming chargen - if initial life expectancy is < 1 hour then it's nice to have chargen that can be done in a minute. Basic is so simple that it's easy to house rule. And house rules were the norm in the 20th century, varying from only a page or two all the way to tomes that were full rewrites of the game. (It got to where you didn't know what you were in for if you switched groups. Maybe that started the 21st century trend of most players being wary of house rules.) If you and/or your players aren't into learning a bunch of rules, Basic is a good option. For a fun, simple game, you can get a free download of Labyrinth Lord or Basic Fantasy, add in whatever parts of Labyrinth Lords advanced rules you care for, and start playing. This also most captures how we actually played in the 1e era. Most kids had started with Basic and added in the fun parts of 1e when they switched over. The 1e books were a mess with hard to find, contradictory rules so we mostly added in the easy to understand customization options.

For me, 5e is the best middle ground for complexity. The rules supply options but don't slow things down too much. The game rewards clever builds but the differences between good builds and simple builds isn't overwhelming.

UrielAwakened

2017-09-19, 09:34 AM

5e is alright but it tries to please everyone, leading to a system that's the tabletop equivalent of vanilla ice cream. Biggest flaws in my mind:

- The incredibly low power ceiling compared to top-end 3.5 and 4e. I'm fine with low-level monsters being a threat but lots of people really enjoy epic-level content. Hopefully we get expanded epic level rules and monsters in the future. Omitting them from the base rules was probably a mistake. 3.5's top end was bad because there were too many axis that combat happened on beyond HP, and 4e's top end wasn't developed well enough, but at least it had one.

- The magic item system is half-assed and poorly thought out. A better balance exists between magical christmas tree land that 4e gave us and this barebones approach with nothing but rarity and random item tables to guide us. First off, actually giving hard-coded item slots like waist, foot, hands, etc...would do a ton to organize things, and a real pricing system for those of us that like buying and selling magic items would be nice too.

- The complete lack of rules for narrative progress. Not surprising, this is something D&D has never figured out, even though every other major table top system in the past decade has. I don't know why Wizards can't learn how to do this. Until they do their system will struggle to serve as a real narrative vehicle and finding a DM will be a barrier to entry.

- 3.5 had the best experience system (1000 times level to get to next level), 4e had the best encounter creation rules (it was expected you had one monster of the player's level per player as the baseline, and variations were built off of that, rather than this weird 5e system where it says a CR 1 monster is an equal combatant for four 1st level players, which is absolutely never true at any level).

- 4e treating Fort, Ref, Will as defenses, rather than saves, made a ton more sense as well. Having the attacker always being the one rolling dice is a unifying mechanic that makes sense and saves a lot of time in detailing what powers can affect what dice rolls. 3.5's system was also superior to whatever 5e is trying to do. You basically still have only 3 saves, with something like 85% being Con, Ref, or Wis. There are like 3 monsters in the entire game that have Int saves, so what's the point?

- Custom monster rules is another thing 4e did better. 5e is still completely arbitrary in terms of things like hit dice for monsters and damage dice per attack, choosing multi-attacks as the primary mechanic to inflate monster damage. There's no real baseline for what a monster should be able to do at any given level in 5e, and the custom monster creation rules only make sense if you work backwards from the CR you want, subtracting its proficiency bonus from the final attack bonus you want it to have and reverse engineering that into what it's primary attack modifier should be (which also decreases its damage modifier). And heaven forgive you if you want it to use Dex for attacking as well because now its armor is in the mix too.

PhoenixPhyre

2017-09-19, 09:38 AM

- The complete lack of rules for narrative progress. Not surprising, this is something D&D has never figured out, even though every other major table top system in the past decade has. I don't know why Wizards can't learn how to do this. Until they do their system will struggle to serve as a real narrative vehicle and finding a DM will be a barrier to entry.

I'm curious--what do you mean by "narrative progress?"

UrielAwakened

2017-09-19, 09:41 AM

I'm curious--what do you mean by "narrative progress?"

Rules that the DM uses to advance the story, rather than pages and pages of general advice like the DMG tries to give you.

Check out Dungeon World for a simple example of what I mean.

http://www.dungeonworldsrd.com/gamemastering/#Moves

Dungeon World has a system where you can either succeed, succeed with consequences, or fail, depending on how you roll as a player. The DM then has several "moves" he can use that advance the plot based on failures more than successes. It's actual game-running rules designed to drive a story forward, and it's a staple of pretty much every system not named D&D.

It also has larger rules called "Fronts" which are basically the ongoing quests and plot threads that drive the story. It sounds unnecessary but providing an organizational structure for all of this stuff, as well as clear rules that it's supposed to happen, helps average players become great gamemasters.

It's crazy to me that in a genre designed around collaborative storytelling, the most successful system has no mechanics to actually help tell a story.

Ravinsild

2017-09-19, 09:43 AM

I mean, you do realize this is a preference, right? That there are different styles of play and different preferences aligned with them? Some people (albeit not very many, these days) prefer a game of treasure-seeking, tomb-robbing and survival where the protagonists are often knaves and scoundrels, and very often doomed. Some folks (most, these days) prefer a game of heroic fantasy designed so "BBEGs" lose and The Heroes win.

Different sorts of games, both legit. Right?

I kind of like both, personally. I like my low tier to be that first thing you said, then to later evolve, after lots of tomb-robbing, treasure hunting, exploration, and surviving, to evolve into that second thing.

Some people like games like Diablo where you just button mash and murder-kill everything, and some people like other styles. I kind of like mix and match styles.

mephnick

2017-09-19, 09:45 AM

Rules that the DM uses to advance the story, rather than pages and pages of general advice like the DMG tries to give you.

Check out Dungeon World for a simple example of what I mean.

http://www.dungeonworldsrd.com/gamemastering/#Moves

Dungeon World has a system where you can either succeed, succeed with consequences, or fail, depending on how you roll as a player. The DM then has six "moves" he can use that advance the plot based on failures more than successes. It's actual game-running rules designed to drive a story forward, and it's a staple of pretty much every system not named D&D.

It's crazy to me that in a genre designed around collaborative storytelling, the most successful system has no mechanics to actually help tell a story.

Yeah, no thanks. I like Dungeon World and the PbtA games, but they are not D&D and D&D should never be designed to be more like them or attempt to capture the same market. They're two completely different products and serve different purposes.

UrielAwakened

2017-09-19, 09:47 AM

Oh yeah I forgot: The weird divide between choosing ABIs or Feats is the worst thing I've ever seen in a game. Maybe 4e did give way too many feats but even getting a feat at level 1 and then every 4 levels would be fine. If I ever host a 5e game on my own (not sharing a chair with other DMs) I would absolutely give them that much.

Yeah, no thanks. I like Dungeon World and the PbtA games, but they are not D&D and D&D should never be designed to be more like them or attempt to capture the same market. They're two completely different products and serve different purposes.

This is why the hobby will not progress. At least Wizards figured out how to steal the "advantage" mechanic but they could learn a lot more from other games than just that.

mephnick

2017-09-19, 09:51 AM

This is why the hobby will not progress.

How old are you? The hobby has progressed at an INSANE pace in the last couple of decades. The fact that things like Dungeon World, FATE or Fudge exist at all is proof of this. Even D&D is absolutely nothing like when it started. D&D doesn't have to completely change and destroy its identity (I'd say it's already getting close) to change the industry.

Scripten

2017-09-19, 09:51 AM

The moment the DM enjoys killing PCs is the moment he should leave the DM chair. The DM is not the players' enemy. I do not apologize for abhoring Killer DMs.

A PC death can itself be a fun experience such as a glorious sacrifice to kill the BBEG and save the world or at least the party for that combat. The game can still be fun when the unfortunate happens and a PC dies. You can mourn the loss and enjoy the game. That's a separate issue. I am not advocating no PC should ever die.

Edit: For those players who enjoy the adversarial relationship, so be it.

I imagine DMs like me are confounding, then. :smallbiggrin:

See, I brag about killing PCs all the time, but I've also not yet done so. The only character that's died in my current campaign was killed by another player in an AoE attack. (Also, important to note that both players consented to the idea OoC and the player that was killed had failed a death saving throw and was grappled by an Annis Hag with an ogre blocking the door to the room, splitting the party. The powder keg took out the hag, the ogre, and the PC was vaporized because she was also carrying a large number of powder kegs on her person. The players had no idea that both enemies had only about 10 HP left and were expecting a TPK if they didn't get serious.)

I just like to keep players on their toes and to get them immersed in the atmosphere of danger.

DivisibleByZero

2017-09-19, 09:52 AM

UrielAwakened

2017-09-19, 09:52 AM

How old are you? The hobby has progressed at an INSANE pace in the last couple of decades. The fact that things like Dungeon World, FATE or Fudge exist at all is proof of this. Even D&D is absolutely nothing like when it started. D&D doesn't have to completely change and destroy its identity (I'd say it's already getting close) to change the industry.

They exist but really nobody plays them. People don't use D&D as a gateway to the hobby, they play D&D and stop there.

The hobby is the equivalent of a diner menu: Huge, but laminated so it's unchanging, and most people never order anything but the chicken fingers anyway.

And that's largely D&D's fault for not adapting.

I'm on the other side of that particular fence.
I think having to choose between gaining a cool new non-class related ability or raising a stat is the perfect medium. It keeps the balance.

But it doesn't. Gaining feats is fun and allows you to truly customize your character concept. ABIs, on the other hand, are not fun. But they're necessary and almost always the best choice.

If the fun choice can't be the best choice you need to let them make both choices. Or better yet just get rid of ABIs altogether and make every feat give +2 to one ability score as well. That would be good game design.

BETTER YET. Why do we even still have ability scores when they only ever matter when the modifier changes? Make abilities range from 0 to 5 instead and get rid of this archaic 10+n/2 system. It's purely cosmetic and more of what I'm talking about when I say D&D can't change.

DivisibleByZero

2017-09-19, 09:55 AM

But it doesn't. Gaining feats is fun and allows you to truly customize your character concept. ABIs, on the other hand, are not fun. But they're necessary and almost always the best choice.

If the fun choice can't be the best choice you need to let them make both choices.

ASIs are not necessary. That's the 3e/4e/CRPG mindset you have, but Bounded Accuracy means that this mindset is outdated.
The choice is what helps to prevent power creep and what helps to keep the balance point in the area that they want it.

UrielAwakened

2017-09-19, 09:56 AM

ASIs are not necessary. That's the 3e/4e/CRPG mindset you have, but Bounded Accuracy means that this mindset is outdated.
The choice is what helps to prevent power creep and what helps to keep the balance point in the area that they want it.

You can think that if you want but the math bears out and I've never seen someone take a feat when an ABI would give them more mathematical benefits overall.

DivisibleByZero

2017-09-19, 09:57 AM

You can think that if you want but the math bears out and I've never seen someone take a feat when an ABI would give them more mathematical benefits overall.

Yes, the math does work out. And that math says that a level 1 fighter with a 14 Str, who has a +4 to hit, can still mathematically hit every single monster in the game.
Just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean that it doesn't happen.

The fact of the matter is that many feats are so powerful that taking an ASI is the inferior choice.

UrielAwakened

2017-09-19, 09:58 AM

Yes, the math does work out. And that math says that a level 1 fighter with a 14 Str, who has a +4 to hit, can still mathematically hit every single monster in the game.

And a level 1 fighter with Str 16 will do it better and more often.

And when he has 20 Str he will do it even better than that.

Just because you technically can play an entire campaign with 14 in your primary attack attribute doesn't mean anyone ever will, or should have to choose to do so.

mephnick

2017-09-19, 09:58 AM

But it doesn't. Gaining feats is fun and allows you to truly customize your character concept. ABIs, on the other hand, are not fun. But they're necessary and almost always the best choice.

Complete fallacy. You can play easily play 5e up to 20 with an 18 in your main stat or 16's in multiple important stats, hell some classes don't even need that. Even using the Standard Array that's a whole 1 ASI (out of 5-7) you may need to spend on stats over feats. Some feats are also significantly stronger than any ASI, to the point of it not even being a fair choice.

DivisibleByZero

2017-09-19, 09:59 AM

And a level 1 fighter with Str 16 will do it better and more often.

And when he has 20 Str he will do it even better than that.

You said it was necessary.
It's ONLY necessary for min/max'ers or those with the 3e/4e/CRPG mindset.
Which is to say that it isn't necessary at all.

UrielAwakened

2017-09-19, 10:00 AM

Complete fallacy. You can play easily play 5e up to 20 with an 18 in your main stat or 16's in multiple important stats, hell some classes don't even need that. Even using the Standard Array that's a whole 1 ASI (out of 5-7) you may need to spend on stats over feats. Some feats are also significantly stronger than any ASI, to the point of it not even being a fair choice.

Again, just because you can doesn't mean anyone will.

And just because they do doesn't mean it's good game design. It's not. If you ever force your players to choose between a mathematical benefit and a fun benefit, you have made a flaw in how you designed your game.

Defend it, I don't care. The industry is behind me here.

You said it was necessary.
It's ONLY necessary for min/max'ers or those with the 3e/4e/CRPG mindset.
Which is to say that it isn't necessary at all.

I really don't know what world some of you live in where only min-maxers like to hit stuff.

Across an entire campaign hitting only 5% less often (assuming 3 rounds per combat, 200 combats across a campaign, let's say, what, 1.5 attacks on average a round?) means you're missing an average of 45 attacks more than the guy who used his ASI correctly.

Ravinsild

2017-09-19, 10:02 AM

Again, just because you can doesn't mean anyone will.

And just because they do doesn't mean it's good game design. It's not. If you ever force your players to choose between a mathematical benefit and a fun benefit, you have made a flaw in how you designed your game.

Defend it, I don't care. The industry is behind me here.

I really don't know what world some of you live in where only min-maxers like to hit stuff.

Well GWM+PAM+Sentinal is both fun and a greater mathematical benefit than +2 STR or w/e so?

UrielAwakened

2017-09-19, 10:03 AM

Well GWM+PAM+Sentinal is both fun and a greater mathematical benefit than +2 STR or w/e so?

Yeah having one feat be a no-brainer and mandatory in basically every weapon build is good game design, you're right. I have no idea what i'm talking about.

DivisibleByZero

2017-09-19, 10:03 AM

I really don't know what world some of you live in where only min-maxers like to hit stuff.

I really don't know what world you live in if you think that a level 1 fighter with a 14 Str being able to hit literally every single monster in the game means that raising his Str to 20 is something that you can call necessary.
Helpful? Sure.
Necessary? Not even close.

UrielAwakened

2017-09-19, 10:04 AM

I really don't know what world you live in if you think that a level 1 fighter with a 14 Str being able to hit literally every single monster in the game means that raising his Str to 20 is something that you can call necessary.
Helpful? Sure.
Necessary? Not even close.

Yeah that player is gonna have a good time missing something like 15% of the time more often than his buddy who built his character correctly.

Tanarii

2017-09-19, 10:12 AM

Edit: For those players who enjoy the adversarial relationship, so be it.You've got the most antagonistic and adversarial attitude towards DMs on these boards, hands down. It's like reading rants posted by some of our more anti-player DM posters, but from the player side instead of the DM side.

DMs don't (or shouldn't) kill characters. Players kill their characters with the choices they make. Th DM only killed the character if the character was railroaded.Agreed. If it might as well have been rocks fall or a red dragon swoops in out of nowhere, there's unlikely to be any point to a highly lethal game. The point is for the Players to be proud they've managed to survive a highly lethal challenge due to their skills. Or to understand where they messed up, and try to address the new challenge of rescuing the bodies (captured or dead) of the fallen, to get them back into play, if possible.

In most of the games I played in in the 90s house rules had things like unconscious at 0, dead at negative con. A character death per session (or more) causes weirdness with new characters popping in all the time, often with difficulty fitting in, bends belief and makes things gamey in a different way. It makes it hard to have any kind of story or character development. Sure, a DCC style where you expect most early characters to die is a viable play style but it's not any more realistic than others. Agreed, discussions about lethality should not be arguments to 'realism'. They should be about play style, such as tactical/strategic challenge or 'emergent story'. And yeah, those house rules were very common, because keeping a character alive under the default rules was HARD and that's not the level of challenge most players wanted, and in many cases players were invested in just one character.

It's important to remember that D&D came out of a war game. Story had absolutely nothing to do with TRPGs until much later on. And bringing in a new character was simple: you introduced him the next session. Because session = adventure = going out from base once and coming back again. In the mean time, you played your retainers/henchmen.

Lethality is easy to tweak to taste iany version of D&D. It takes only 1-2 lines of new rules.The differences in lethality between classic or AD&D 1e and 4e or 5e are legion. It takes a lot more than 1-2 rules to really bring it back. If you played with house rules on HPs, I bet you also played with house rules for energy drain, ability drain, long term paralysis from deadly creatures, save or die poisons / magical effects, etc.

Beyond lethality, the various versions of D&D have real differences in complexity and customization. Of all the versions, I like 1e the least. It had a great deal of arbitrary complexity but not much customization. Unless they had a strange piece of gear or something, every fighter was almost the same. Sure, you can customize characters through personality and things beyond the rules. But if you are going to rely on that, why have so many rules. Again, war gaming.

This resulted in several things things: a love of complex rules for everything, because that's what they were used to and the designer in particular loved charts and stuff. Also in theory, a neutral DM judge / referee. The DM wasn't supposed to be on the side of the players, nor against them. He doesn't care if they live or die. He presents a world in motion but without favoritism, thus random tables for encounters and weather and stuff in towns etc etc, and even reactions of creatures encountered. (Although from accounts I've read, despite this Gygax was a huge fan of DM adjudication of results of player actions on the fly. He just thought you should do it with a 'neutral' mindset.)

The other result was TRPGs started off having nothing to do with story. They were about controlling (usually multiple) individual characters trying to survive a hostile environment and get rich. Playing a role of one of them didn't mean developing your character or talky time or voice acting, it meant (and still really means at its core) making decisions for your character in the fantasy environment.

But the TRPG systems have adapted to many player expectations, just like video games have. Attachment to a single character, the desire not to start all over if your character dies because that's too hard/pain in the neck/de-motivating, desire for multi-session adventures where introducing a new character is difficult, and in the late 80s and early 90s the ideas that roleplaying is character development/talkytime/voice acting. And of course, story! story! story!

(I've got some issues with story. :smallwink: )

Willie the Duck

2017-09-19, 10:15 AM

So I started playing d&d briefly in 3.5 then moved on to 4e which I played for a few months and then dropped as soon as 5e came out, I always thought that 5e had the greatest system. All restrictions removed complete freedom but over time I had issues developing and loving a character and the system left me with something to be desired. Now I used to ignore all the retro clones and older editions of d&d. Recently I played a game of basic fantasy which is a retro clone and it's made to be simple and I fell in love with the old school simple restrictions. (Ie dwarf cant be a wizard) and now I'm thinking the amount of ridiculous heroic freedom may kill my fun. Also I noticed it revived the fear of death which is nonexistent in 5e. This is just some stuff I noticed I'd like to hear other opinions.

This is a new one for me. I can't remember a maybe more than 3 or 4 people ever saying that they preferred it when there was racial class restrictions, and those were all people who started with TSR-era games, so I assumed it was a case of "back in my day, we didn't have no stinkin' elven paladins or dwarven wizards, we played real, manly D&D!" ;rolleyes:. So, why? What about not having dwarven wizards allowed make it enjoyable, given that you always have the freedom not to play a dwarven wizard if you didn't want to?

I'm curious, because BECMI is "*my*" game. It is what I cut my teeth on, and it can do no wrong--except for what I consider 'stupid, legacy stuff that should have been dumped after oD&D,' and racial class restrictions and racial level limits as balancing factor are right up there in the top tier slots.

The deadlier overall game, I can definitely see. I get that. I like parts of it too. Although... wait until you're DM has accidentally TPK'd you guys with some weird monster with paralysis attack or a level-draining pack-undead troop (or some 'have this high-level spell memorized by a party member other then the one effected right now or they are killed without possibility of resurrection, even with a Wish'-type cursed magic item) and you will at least appreciate why the WotC-era designers would think that a little bit more 'fairness' or 'predictability' or whatever was advisable.

It seems almost like players must be exceedingly stupid to die or the dm is unessesarily brutal. The retro clone put me on the cusp of death without feeling attacked by the dm.

Fear of death in 5e is in the hands of the DM. KorvinStarmast died, and was eaten by ogres. The game certainly allows characters to die/fail, particularly at lower levels.
Both of these are true at the same time. It is harder (although not only when attacked by the DM) to be the only PC to die in 5e, but it is no harder for the party to die in 5e than it is in basic.

There's a pretty huge difference between dying when you hit 0 hit points, and not dying unless you either fail 3 death saves before succeeding 3 times / being bandaged, or get Crit so hard you take your current hit points + max hit points in a single attack. And healing up to full hit points in a single Long Rest. And getting to spend Hit Dice on a Short Rest. And more plentiful healing slots for Casters to heal.
(I'm granting benefit of the doubt as to 5e having far more hit points by assuming that damage output of enemies scale, although I've never looked at that.)

Agree. There is a difference. But it is very much not hard to make a house-ruled version of 5e that works better than any of the basic D&Ds where you died at 0 (which honestly just makes some number approximately equal to one-hits-worth of damage the same as 1hp in later editions). Some kind of 'if you hit 0, you will be ineffective all fight' combined with slower healing (perhaps you get your hd to spend back with long rests, but don't actually heal any hp, or something like that).

Theres a difference between boasting about running a campaign dangerous enough that players have to play very smart or die, and boasting about killing PCs. Not that the line doesn't get awfully blurry sometimes when you're running lethal game. :smallamused:
But this, nope. I have never met a person who fell into the former category who wasn't self-aggrandizing and/or clueless to the reality of their game.

Edit: I saw where the rest of this thread has gone, so I want to make clear: I'm not trying to say something about GMs or Gm vs. Player or anything like that. But about gaming groups in general and about boasting. I have seen a whole lot of people brag about how awesome and smart their group is and how they play smart so their DM can absolutely play rough with them. And then I've watched them play and they play just like everyone else who are grown adults with 1+ years gaming experience. I have never met any true badasses of table-top gaming. And that frankly, is a good thing, AFAIC. Because that means that likely most of us are doing pretty well, tactically.

DivisibleByZero

2017-09-19, 10:15 AM

Yeah that player is gonna have a good time missing something like 15% of the time more often than his buddy who built his character correctly.

Thank you for perfectly illustrating the 3e/4e/CRPG mindset that I was referring to.
Having max stats is helpful, as I said. It is also not necessary, as I also said, unless you have this mindset where min/max is a requirement.... which you obviously do.
And that's fine. You can think that. But it isn't an objective truth as you're making it out to be.

UrielAwakened

2017-09-19, 10:16 AM

Thank you for perfectly illustrating the 3e/4e/CRPG mindset that I was referring to.
Having max stats is helpful, as I said. It is also not necessary, as I also said, unless you have this mindset where min/max is a requirement.... which you obviously do.
And that's fine. You can think that. But it isn't an objective truth as you're making it out to be.

It is necessary. Mathematically it is almost always the best choice.

Make poor choices if you want but I don't see why you're defending this from a game-design perspective when obviously better alternatives exist. The question isn't, "Can a player get away with it?" It's "Why did the product make it out the door in this state?"

KorvinStarmast

2017-09-19, 10:21 AM

It seems almost like players must be exceedingly stupid to die or the dm is unessesarily brutal. The retro clone put me on the cusp of death without feeling attacked by the dm. Nope.
At low levels, combat can be swingy even in 5e. Our paladin hit an incredible cold streak with the dice, which was our first problem, and it snowballed from there.

Tanarii

2017-09-19, 10:22 AM

You can think that if you want but the math bears out and I've never seen someone take a feat when an ABI would give them more mathematical benefits overall.
The math of the system appears to be that a 16 is expected until high level (approx 8-12), then an 18 after that.

So one ASI in your primary is 'expected' by the system if you start with a 16 or 17 primary, and 2 if you start with a 15.

Edit: you can, of course, decide to focus and get ahead of the curve, if you choose. But that's not the same as the math of the system expecting it nor it being necessary.

Edit:

But this, nope. I have never met a person who fell into the former category who wasn't self-aggrandizing and/or clueless to the reality of their game.

Edit: I saw where the rest of this thread has gone, so I want to make clear: I'm not trying to say something about GMs or Gm vs. Player or anything like that. But about gaming groups in general and about boasting. I have seen a whole lot of people brag about how awesome and smart their group is and how they play smart so their DM can absolutely play rough with them. And then I've watched them play and they play just like everyone else who are grown adults with 1+ years gaming experience. I have never met any true badasses of table-top gaming. And that frankly, is a good thing, AFAIC. Because that means that likely most of us are doing pretty well, tactically.And that's what I meant by the line getting blurry. Most of the time people are talking about how dangerous their game is, they're proud of the challenge. The trap is looking down on others not playing that way. That's the line that gets blurry. Between justifiable pride, and unjustifiable hubris. How often players get themselves killed unless they are careful (or 'smart' within the rules of the game), compared to the baseline, with no 'rocks fall' BS, becomes a metric.

And the difference between people who have played classic btb, or lethal games, and those who haven't is always noticeable to me at the table. The difference is the former don't assume they will live unless they really mess up. Instead they assume they will die unless hey are really careful. (This can lead to player paranoia.)

(Adding: Just to be clear, I've run many campaigns and adventure arcs of various editions of D&D where the primary goal wasn't for the players to try to desperately to survive based on their own wits. For 5e, I consider "desperate survival based on your wits" to be a special challenge as a DM to set up, because the base rules don't really support it. I am mostly proud of it because that's so difficult to do well. I fully acknowledge that I slip over the line into hubris many times.)

spinningdice

2017-09-19, 10:24 AM

I think people on this board are enthusiastic enough about the game that they care a lot more about optimising, realistically 90% of players are going to go with what seems cool, not what scrapes you out another 15% (or whatever - surely +1 on a d20 is 5%?) chance to hit?. Personally I tend to pick straight bonuses only when there's nothing more interesting/fitting to take as they are pretty boring.

I have played Basic (red box) through 5e (actually never played 4e, but did have the books for a while), and I play with some grognards, so do still play 2e more regularly than any other edition. I prefer 5e. 2e (and even more so older editions) just feels like it lacks any customisation. A fighter is pretty much defined by his gear over anything else, playing against type is actively punished by the system. And everyone had their own batch of house rules, I've never player 0=death because no group I've played in thought that was interesting (either -10 or -CON was fairly standard), only recently have I played with someone who enforces weapon/casting speed (and that's a headache), we've never strictly enforced the level limits (though for some reason it never occurred to us to ignore the racial class restrictions, except for clerics, as clearly many races have priests, but aren't technically allowed to).

You can take this philosophy that everyone had to 5e just as easily, if you want to capture that deadliness. Rule that 0=Death, or rule that you suffer a level of exhaustion every time you hit 0 or rule that if a blow gets you to negative = CON kills you outright instead of negative = HP. Use the rules in the DMG that expli****ly make it oldschool. Unless you're playing AL then it only matters to you and your group (and if you are playing AL then it's all really a moot point).

5e makes me feel I can have the most organic characters out of any D&D, as it has some of the choices from 3E, combined with a lack of trap options (3E and even more Pathfinder made you feel like you had to plan out to expected level end or miss the cooler options)

mephnick

2017-09-19, 10:26 AM

Ravinsild

2017-09-19, 10:33 AM

Feats I would rather have than +2 to my main stat (assuming 16 current): Pole-arm Master, Sentinel, GWM, Shieldmaster, Lucky, Crossbow Expert, Sharpshooter, Alert, Mage Slayer, Ritual Caster, War Caster.

Hey that's most of them. And that's not even counting things like Resilient, Heavily Armoured and Observant that add a +1, all of which I'd rather have than a +2 in a vacuum. AND that's not counting the skill and race feats that will likely be in Xanather's, which were are comparable or better than a +2.

My Barbarian has 16 Strength no racial bonus (Halfling) and I am strongly considering picking up Dual-Wielder feat at 4 for +1 AC (she has bad AC w/o real armor, I don't have the stats to pull off Unarmored Defense well) and the bigger weapons (regular 1 handed weapons like Longsword) for more rage damage. Rage on 1 hand, Rage on 1 hand, Rage on bonus attack off-hand at 5th level is probably a lot of damage especially with non-finesse weapons right? I may do a Fighter dip for Two-Weapon Fighting style also for +str mod on off-hand weapon attack.

UrielAwakened

2017-09-19, 10:34 AM

KorvinStarmast

2017-09-19, 10:36 AM

There's something to be said for race-based class restrictions: it has to be said, because it's unprintable. It made sense in a humanocentric world where non humans were rare and name level (8th, 9th, or 11th, for Cleric, Fighter, and Magic User respectively) was nearly an end game (and hard to get to). In the later versions, it made less and less sense until it went away.

Hated such since White Box OD&D. Oddly enough, we had no problem with it. Played, had fun. I don't get the hate.

If you want to go real hard core go back to losing a spell from memory when it's cast and it taking, if I remember right, 1 hour per spell level to re-memorize a spell. Not memorize. Prepare. As Jack Vance described it, the magician's brain could only hold so much stuff. A good analogy I've seen is that preparing a spell is like tying a not: you unravel it when you cast the spell. My preferred metaphor is charging a capacitor. You have to take some effort to charge it up, and then release it. Suggest you read this brief explanation (https://rpg.stackexchange.com/a/12311/22566).

Oh, and the extremely high chance that any caster will only be capable of casting a few spells from their spell list anyway because the rest were going to be beyond them. That was part of the effort to keep magic users from becoming overpowered. (It started in Greyhawk, in one of Gygax' attempts to make various stats mean more in a mechanical sense. Sometimes I wonder if that wasn't the start of a mistake ...). I guess not, it seems to have worked out.
The moment the DM enjoys killing PCs is the moment he should leave the DM chair. The DM is not the players' enemy. I do not apologize for abhoring Killer DMs. Agree 100%.

A PC death can itself be a fun experience such as a glorious sacrifice to kill the BBEG and save the world or at least the party for that combat. The game can still be fun when the unfortunate happens and a PC dies. You can mourn the loss and enjoy the game. That's a separate issue. I am not advocating no PC should ever die.
Likewise.
How about vampires? Say goodbye to those last 2 hard won levels. Vampires were a real S.O.B monster in OD&D. Likewise specters.
How old are you? The hobby has progressed at an INSANE pace in the last couple of decades. The fact that things like Dungeon World, FATE or Fudge exist at all is proof of this. Even D&D is absolutely nothing like when it started. D&D doesn't have to completely change and destroy its identity (I'd say it's already getting close) to change the industry. +1 for this observation.

They exist but really nobody plays them. People don't use D&D as a gateway to the hobby, they play D&D and stop there.
I guess the people you know have very limited free time, and / or also have various computer based or phone based games that they also like to play. When D&D started, we played that, Tunnels and Trolls, Gamma World, Metamorphisis Alpha, Traveler, Space Quest, then Runequest and Chivalry and Sorcery ... anything we could find. We also still played miniatures and board games, since that is where we came from.
And that's largely D&D's fault for not adapting. Risible and unsupported assertion. There are over 4000 RPG's. The biggest challenge to the hobby, IMO, is Computer games of various sorts. (I like me a bit of LoL, Diablo, StarCraft now and again).

You said it was necessary. It's ONLY necessary for min/max'ers or those with the 3e/4e/CRPG mindset. Which is to say that it isn't necessary at all. Yeah. 3d6 in order, and those were your stats for the game unless you came across a magic item, worked for us for years. We had immense fun.

Note: M.A.R. Barker's Empire of the Petal Throne had ability score increases on level up starting in 1975. ). It also had secondary skills, divine intervention, and a whole lot else. He was a bit of a trend setter.

Sigreid

2017-09-19, 10:36 AM

You can think that if you want but the math bears out and I've never seen someone take a feat when an ABI would give them more mathematical benefits overall.
Based on this and your story narrative comments, you and I want very different things from our RPG time. As either a player or a DM I don't want the DMs story driven forward. I want the DM to facilitate the players driving their own story forward. To me, the DM is not a story teller. The players are.

UrielAwakened

2017-09-19, 10:38 AM

Based on this and your story narrative comments, you and I want very different things from our RPG time. As either a player or a DM I don't want the DMs story driven forward. I want the DM to facilitate the players driving their own story forward. To me, the DM is not a story teller. The players are.

A good story is based around the players, not a sandbox experience. The DM absolutely has a role in creating the world and what the primary challenges facing it are going to be. It's up to the players how they respond to those challenges.

Order of the Stick is actually a great example of this approach. Player driven choices change the story, but the story is going to happen regardless. It's the players jobs to face it head-on and avert whatever crisis is bound to occur without them.

A good DM knows how to create a place in the world for his players. He doesn't rely on the players entirely creating their own place.

And beyond that you get into all sorts of deeper dimensions of good storytelling, like making sure it's driven by character decisions, includes important themes, gives believable motives for NPCs, etc... These are all the sorts of things that narrative rules help accomplish.

Sigreid

2017-09-19, 10:40 AM

A good story is based around the players, not a sandbox experience. The DM absolutely has a role in creating the world and what the primary challenges facing it are going to be. It's up to the players how they respond to those challenges.

Order of the Stick is actually a great example of this approach. Player driven choices change the story, but the story is going to happen regardless. It's the players jobs to face it head-on and avert whatever crisis is bound to occur without them.

A good DM knows how to create a place in the world for his players. He doesn't rely on the players entirely creating their own place.

We want different things. I'll keep my sandbox to play in, thanks.

UrielAwakened

2017-09-19, 10:41 AM

We want different things. I'll keep my sandbox to play in, thanks.

Enjoy your escapism I guess.

Sigreid

2017-09-19, 10:42 AM

Enjoy your escapism I guess.

Likewise, enjoy you're railroad.

UrielAwakened

2017-09-19, 10:44 AM

Likewise, enjoy you're railroad.

See this is the problem: You think having structure is a railroad. It's not. It's cohesion and gives the players' actions deeper meaning, which is more rewarding to the players than Feudalism Simulator '17. A world with its own agenda is more realistic than some big sandbox. And more importantly it's more appealing to the players.

We're human. We got to where we are through the medium of storytelling. It's how we passed knowledge on for generations, and its principles are ingrained in us through evolution. We crave it and innately search for it everywhere.

I've always wondered how people never seem to have a campaign last the full breadth of levels. I've had one get to level 30 and my current one is already at 12 and unless I die, will finish at level 30 again.

And the reason is good storytelling.

Scripten

2017-09-19, 10:50 AM

I'd argue that the problem is that you two are both playing in a mixed environment on slightly diverse sides of the spectrum, because neither of you appear to have an empty white room or a linear tunnel game going. I highly doubt either of you are enmeshed in the extremes the other is talking about, because we have a poster or two on this very forum where those extremes are laid bare.

Sigreid

2017-09-19, 10:51 AM

See this is the problem: You think having structure is a railroad. It's not. It's cohesion and gives the players' actions deeper meaning, which is more rewarding to the players than Feudalism Simulator '17. A world with its own agenda is more realistic than some big sandbox. And more importantly it's more appealing to the players.

We're human. We got to where we are through the medium of storytelling. It's how we passed knowledge on for generations, and its principles are ingrained in us through evolution. We crave it and innately search for it everywhere.

I've always wondered how people never seem to have a campaign last the full breadth of levels. I've had one get to level 30 and my current one is already at 12 and unless I die, will finish at level 30 again.

And the reason is good storytelling.

You were describing earlier a situation where the story is going to happen and the players are just choosing how to get there. Sandbox isn't without structure, or story. It's player controlled story. My style is to have the general stuff going on in the world but the players choose their goals. The players choose what they wish to engage with. There may be consequences if they choose to ignore something, but what the game focused on is driven by what their characters want to do. This works wonderfully with players that give their characters real aspirations

UrielAwakened

2017-09-19, 10:58 AM

You were describing earlier a situation where the story is going to happen and the players are just choosing how to get there. Sandbox isn't without structure, or story. It's player controlled story. My style is to have the general stuff going on in the world but the players choose their goals. The players choose what they wish to engage with. There may be consequences if they choose to ignore something, but what the game focused on is driven by what their characters want to do. This works wonderfully with players that give their characters real aspirations

The difference between us is I have an overarching theme (which consists of antagonists, challenges, and bare-bones direction for each tier of play) and then take what the players want to do and fit it in, or adjust what I already had to fit it in.

For instance, when designing my current campaign, I knew there was going to be a major conflict around the role of the gods and the primal spirits in the world. I had a player who wanted to be a half-orc who left an orc tribe, joined a human settlement, and then had another conflict with his orc family while defending his homeland, where he realized he was some sort of emissary of Kord, all in his backstory.

Suddenly, there's an orc tribe in my world, and it's warring with a human settlement nearby. That orc king (the player's father) ended up being the primary driving force for their adventuring for the first ten levels. He asked his son and his friends to travel the world to different governments, serving as a diplomatic envoy asking for support in their war efforts. He later revealed that he had been sacrificing family members to Bael in exchange for augmenting his armies, including sacrificing the player's human mother. At the end of the tier, his brother betrayed the father and took the power of the World Tree, gaining dominion over every primal spirit. His brother is now the primary antagonist of the entire story.

I planned none of that before I knew what my player was about. I had a skeleton, knew what the themes of the story would be, and found a place for my player in it. And then I did that five more times.

Railroading, to me, is when you force you players to fit your story. I force my story to fit my players.

Finieous

2017-09-19, 11:04 AM

Onetruewayism derails another thread!

DivisibleByZero

2017-09-19, 11:05 AM

Railroading, to me, is when you force you players to fit your story. I force my story to fit my players.

That's called a sandbox. That's what Sig is describing.

UrielAwakened

2017-09-19, 11:06 AM

That's called a sandbox.

Disagree. A sandbox is somewhere you let players go nuts and do whatever. Maybe you design a city, or even an entire world, but that world will continue even if the players do nothing but hang out and build a castle.

In my world if the players do nothing, there will be no more world.

Sigreid

2017-09-19, 11:06 AM

The difference between us is I have an overarching theme (which consists of antagonists, challenges, and bare-bones direction for each tier of play) and then take what the players want to do and fit it in, or adjust what I already had to fit it in.

For instance, when designing my current campaign, I knew there was going to be a major conflict around the role of the gods and the primal spirits in the world. I had a player who wanted to be a half-orc who left an orc tribe, joined a human settlement, and then had another conflict with his orc family while defending his homeland, where he realized he was some sort of emissary of Kord, all in his backstory.

Suddenly, there's an orc tribe in my world, and it's warring with a human settlement nearby. That orc king (the player's father) ended up being the primary driving force for their adventuring for the first ten levels. He asked his son and his friends to travel the world to different governments, serving as a diplomatic envoy asking for support in their war efforts. He later revealed that he had been sacrificing family members to Bael in exchange for augmenting his armies, including sacrificing the player's human mother. At the end of the tier, his brother betrayed the father and took the power of the World Tree, gaining dominion over every primal spirit. His brother is now the primary antagonist of the entire story.

I planned none of that before I knew what my player was about. I had a skeleton, knew what the themes of the story would be, and found a place for my player in it. And then I did that five more times.

Railroading, to me, is when you force you players to fit your story. I force my story to fit my players.

And I've walked away from tables like yours. It's all good. It would be a boring world if we all wanted the same things. The difference as it pertains to D&D is I don't need or want those tools for driving the story forward you were talking about earlier and would probably find them disruptive to my style.

UrielAwakened

2017-09-19, 11:08 AM

Yeah I guess I just don't see the point without real consequences to decisions, either as a player or GM. As a GM I need to know that we're getting somewhere, and as a player I need to know that my actions matter. Otherwise i'm just an NPC with class levels.

Scripten

2017-09-19, 11:08 AM

Could we get a split on this or something? This isn't even remotely related to the original topic, which was being discussed up to and for the first few posts on this debate.

Ravinsild

2017-09-19, 11:12 AM

By the way, for what it's worth, I don't really like AD&D. It's the only other edition beside 4th and 5th I've played, and actually have the most experience on as I've played more AD&D games combined than 4th or 5th, but my Barbarian in AD&D is literally named "Swordspam Autoattack" because the only thing Barbarians can really do is make melee basic attacks. Sometimes more than 1, like every other turn or something silly like that.

Also the race/class restrictions I don't like. I don't like how basic everything is. There's no cool abilities that I'm aware of, or really anything beyond just basic attacks for martials. I have a bard and mostly he just attacks with a bow.

I also dislike all the NPC's that follow us everywhere. Henchmen or something? I like the 3.P cover art (I don't like 3.P games, I just like the art for it) of like the "main characters" the Rogue, the Wizard, the Cleric, the Fighter all together in a dark dungeon with danger looming around the corner. I like being the Hero and being Heroic. Managing all these followers is annoying. I usually try to get them killed. They won't go away because my Uncle who is the DM likes them and so does my cousin. Well he likes the "idea" of them.

Edit: I like how the Critical Role crew handled followers and bases. While we have a home base in our AD&D campaign, our followers go with us, even into the Cave of the Frost Giants (after we beat the Hill Giants, I think the campaign is called Against the Giants). In Critical Role they have a base in the main/home city, like a WoW Garrison, and the followers stay there. They come and go from the Keep named like Castle Greyskull or something, and talk to the NPC's when they are there, but those NPC's just guard the fort. They don't follow the party anywhere and they're not really present except when the story calls for it.

Sigreid

2017-09-19, 11:18 AM

Could we get a split on this or something? This isn't even remotely related to the original topic, which was being discussed up to and for the first few posts on this debate.

Far as I'm concerned the side conversation is over, so it shouldn't be a problem.

More or, I like the smotheness of 5e. It plays very well. I do think that if I were going to change anything to be more retro, being hit would be a much bigger deal. Diseases and curses would be a much bigger deal and far harder to get rid of. As An example, it kind of annoys me that lycanthropy is so easy to cure.

KorvinStarmast

2017-09-19, 11:18 AM

Onetruewayism derails another thread! Yeah.

By the way, for what it's worth, I don't really like AD&D ... my Barbarian in AD&D is literally named "Swordspam Autoattack" because the only thing Barbarians can really do is make melee basic attacks. Sometimes more than 1, like every other turn or something silly like that. . If you don't know how your character works, I am not sure why you are complaining. (call me confused)

Also the race/class restrictions I don't like (here we go again ... nvm)

I also dislike all the NPC's that follow us everywhere. Henchmen or something?
A part of the game for decades. It deepened our game world in some games, but in some other games they just cluttered up the board. It was very table dependent.
I appreciate that in the 3e and later editions, there was deliberate streamlining so that the style of play didn't have as many people on your team. Decluttering the board has some virtues.

Curious: did you play the Barbarian out of the Unearthed Arcana 1e, or from AD&D 2e?

UrielAwakened

2017-09-19, 11:19 AM

Could we get a split on this or something? This isn't even remotely related to the original topic, which was being discussed up to and for the first few posts on this debate.

Nah it's fine I think we've both said our peace on it.

Ravinsild

2017-09-19, 11:21 AM

Ravinsild

2017-09-19, 11:25 AM

Yeah.

If you don't know how your character works, I am not sure why you are complaining. (call me confused)
(here we go again ... nvm)

A part of the game for decades. It deepened our game world in some games, but in some other games they just cluttered up the board. It was very table dependent.
I appreciate that in the 3e and later editions, there was deliberate streamlining so that the style of play didn't have as many people on your team. Decluttering the board has some virtues.

Curious: did you play the Barbarian out of the Unearthed Arcana 1e, or from AD&D 2e?

I wanted to be a Half-orc Barbarian because Half-Orc is my favorite race, but my Uncle made it sound like it wasn't possible. He comes from an era, though, from the 80's and heavy metal and that book cover that I showed you. He loves Tolkien more than anything so Orcs are /always/ evil all of the time. I come from a Warcraft era and Thrall was my childhood hero. I picked up Warcraft III in 6th grade (2000-2001) and it changed how I viewed Minotaurs (Tauren), Trolls, Orcs and so forth.

He only played Warcraft 1 & 2 where Orcs were still evilbad murderkill 0good demon worshippers. So he said if I was a Half-Orc the game would be 12x harder because everyone would hate me and wouldn't trust me and might try to team kill me in combat.

Pex

2017-09-19, 11:33 AM

You've got the most antagonistic and adversarial attitude towards DMs on these boards, hands down. It's like reading rants posted by some of our more anti-player DM posters, but from the player side instead of the DM side.

I plead no contest.

I blame 2E. Not all my 2E DMs were tyrants, but that is where I had them along with their subset the Killer DM. 3E was figuratively liberation, helping me to learn it doesn't have to be that way. DMs can play with their players, not against them. It was such a contrast between 2E DMG and 3E DMG on teaching DMs how to run the game, and it showed in the 3E DMs with whom I played.

Ironically my favorite DM is one I had during my 2E days. I don't doubt part of it is because he was the first 2E DM I had who wasn't tyrannical. His style was unique for me in those days that he left a strong good impression. Adding more to the irony in one of his games there was a TPK. Sad as it was it did not tarnish his image. I'd play with him as DM without question were it possible. We've long since parted ways due to real life.

KorvinStarmast

2017-09-19, 11:34 AM

Nah it's fine I think we've both said our peace on it.

You've said your piece, and I hope you both make peace with one another. :smallcool:

As to our friend playing with his uncle.

I wanted to be a Half-orc Barbarian because Half-Orc is my favorite race, but my Uncle made it sound like it wasn't possible. He loves Tolkien more than anything so Orcs are /always/ evil all of the time. Right. Orcs, The Original.

I come from a Warcraft era and Thrall was my childhood hero.
Orcs, revised.
(Aside: I loved Warcraft I, and I think I have found the old disk for that game. Nostalgia ... but I also enjoyed the dickens out of Warcraft III. Good stuff. Got to play in the beta test a bit before they nerfed Zepplins. )

So he said if I was a Half-Orc the game would be 12x harder because everyone would hate me and wouldn't trust me and might try to team kill me in combat.
His world, you play in it. At least he has the courtesy to tell you ahead of time that you aren't playing in Warcraft World. So you play something else. Big deal. Stretch you imagination a bit. I played a crap ton of hobbits and halflings in my early D&D days, but I also played dwarfs, gnomes, half elves, humans (my first character was a human magic user) and much else. There's so much variety, it's almost a tyranny of having too many options.
Suggestion: Stop complaining and play.
In my brother's world, there are no Tieflings, and no Drow, as PC's. Period. You know what we did at character creation? We didn't complain about it, we each picked something that's available. (My hill dwarf druid is a back up to the human cleric who is my current alt).

How many other people are there in your group? Three?

Tanarii

2017-09-19, 12:22 PM

I plead no contest.

I blame 2E. Not all my 2E DMs were tyrants, but that is where I had them along with their subset the Killer DM. 3E was figuratively liberation, helping me to learn it doesn't have to be that way. DMs can play with their players, not against them. It was such a contrast between 2E DMG and 3E DMG on teaching DMs how to run the game, and it showed in the 3E DMs with whom I played.
No one should have to sit down at a table with a 'killer DM' that doesn't want to. And IMO the vast majority of players don't want to. As evinced by some of the most common house rules in early D&D being survival oriented, especially zero HP not meaning instant death, and things like max hit points at first level. IMO it's a good thing the default rules of D&D have moved away from those things, along with save or die effects.

Despite enjoying both running and playing Classic, and recently higher lethality & combat as war games, I think it's a good direction for the game to have moved. If I want a more lethal game, or one more combat as war oriented with no assumption that you can beat a foe just because it's there, I can make that work. That doesn't mean I think it should be some kind of default setting.

Ravinsild

2017-09-19, 12:35 PM

You've said your piece, and I hope you both make peace with one another. :smallcool:

As to our friend playing with his uncle.
Right. Orcs, The Original.

Orcs, revised.
(Aside: I loved Warcraft I, and I think I have found the old disk for that game. Nostalgia ... but I also enjoyed the dickens out of Warcraft III. Good stuff. Got to play in the beta test a bit before they nerfed Zepplins. )

His world, you play in it. At least he has the courtesy to tell you ahead of time that you aren't playing in Warcraft World. So you play something else. Big deal. Stretch you imagination a bit. I played a crap ton of hobbits and halflings in my early D&D days, but I also played dwarfs, gnomes, half elves, humans (my first character was a human magic user) and much else. There's so much variety, it's almost a tyranny of having too many options.
Suggestion: Stop complaining and play.
In my brother's world, there are no Tieflings, and no Drow, as PC's. Period. You know what we did at character creation? We didn't complain about it, we each picked something that's available. (My hill dwarf druid is a back up to the human cleric who is my current alt).

How many other people are there in your group? Three?

Yes, I believe there are 3 of us in my Uncle's AD&D group, my 2 cousins and myself with him as DM. I chose Human Barbarian and am around 6th or so level, but we don't play often. I just really don't like AD&D much. That's a me thing though, I think the game was fine enough because it survived and got up to 5 more editions :P

I prefer 5th edition so I have another group that's friends which will also be 4 players, 1 being the DM.

Edit: I suppose I don't like editions like 3.P and AD&D because your "cool stuff" came from gear more than your class. That may be because I'm from the era of WoW and Warcraft III where the hero unit/your character class had defined abilities in and of itself regardless of gear. Gear just makes you do more damage and live longer, but you don't get all your powers and special abilties from it.

In the early days of D&D and even 3rd Edition from what I understand, your character is pretty bare bones basic attacks. It's the gear that allows you to fly or shoot lasers from your eyes or hit things 4 times instead of once, etc. I want my character to be inherently cool, not cool because they found lucky treasure.

I guess I prefer Superman heroes to self made Batman/Iron-man heroes.

Finieous

2017-09-19, 12:56 PM

In the early days of D&D and even 3rd Edition from what I understand, your character is pretty bare bones basic attacks.

It's a tricky thing. In the worst-case scenario, if there isn't much on your character sheet, you can't do much. In the best-case scenario, since there isn't much on anyone's character sheet, you can try pretty much anything you can imagine. You don't have the DM saying, "Ah, sorry, you can't throw caution to the wind and attack recklessly because you're not a barbarian with that class feature."

IMO, this is a feature of Classic that began to break down with the introduction of the thief. If you can reclaim it*, the various Classic editions are amazing games that can be tremendous fun. Any character that wants to attack recklessly, or try any other creative action or maneuver, can do so because there aren't any class abilities or feats to step on.

* In B/X, I remove the thief class and add a "profession" that players can make up, which amounts to "stuff I want to be good at," and that profession could be "thief." Or it could be knight, minstrel, woodsman, barbarian, wizard's apprentice, swashbuckler, or anything else the player imagines.

ETA: The above applies to TSR D&D. I certainly wouldn't say characters are just "bare bones basic attacks" in 3.x!

KorvinStarmast

2017-09-19, 01:28 PM

Yes, I believe there are 3 of us in my Uncle's AD&D group, my 2 cousins and myself with him as DM. I chose Human Barbarian and am around 6th or so level, but we don't play often. I just really don't like AD&D much. The picture you posted was AD&D (1e) so that would be the 1985 Unearthed Arcana version of Barbarian. (Which IIRC was previewed in the Dragon Magazine in an article some time before that). It was an interesting class. I played a lot of 1e. That said, I find 5e very playable and likeable, in that a lot of clutter was cleaned out.

@Fineous: yeah, the Thief was a very interesting class for OD&D, and I saw an article recently that argued (I felt successfully) that the thief was the only class in OD&D who was specifically designed for the dungeons of that era. A thief was more or less most at home in a dungeon. That whole bucket full of skills were areas he could get better while others were still trying to hear noise or sneak or something else on a 1d6. You could say that "fiddly bits" really got kicked off when the Thief class went live, and TSR never really looked back.

Finieous

2017-09-19, 01:35 PM

You could say that "fiddly bits" really got kicked off when the Thief class went live, and TSR never really looked back.

I'd specifically say "fiddly bits" for ordinary or mundane stuff that you'd otherwise expect anyone could try. At conception, the game already had lots of specialized class abilities in the form of spells.

Willie the Duck

2017-09-19, 02:01 PM

yeah, the Thief was a very interesting class for OD&D, and I saw an article recently that argued (I felt successfully) that the thief was the only class in OD&D who was specifically designed for the dungeons of that era. A thief was more or less most at home in a dungeon. That whole bucket full of skills were areas he could get better while others were still trying to hear noise or sneak or something else on a 1d6. You could say that "fiddly bits" really got kicked off when the Thief class went live, and TSR never really looked back.

Well, it certainly made a discontinuity, where the other classes could mostly do dungeon things as adjudicated by the DM, whereas the thief had rules for it. It's arguable whether leaving it in the DM's hands is better or worse (the old argument that if you specifically list things that a character can do, you are mentally constraining them from 'anything'). Still, D&D stuck with this dichotomous relationship with task resolution for another 25 years (and we did manage to play, and fall in love with, the game during that time). 'No one perfect answer' strikes again.

guachi

2017-09-19, 02:48 PM

I sound like a broken record, I know, but that's just the start. The game no longer has 1/2 HD spiders (and ubiquitous traps) with save-or-die poison. It doesn't have 2-3 HD giant centipedes, carrion crawlers and ghouls that paralyze for 2-8 turns (120-480 rounds). It doesn't have 3 HD wights that drain a level on a hit, no save.

In my BECMI-themed game I've added some of these back in. I specifically told the players that undead and lycanthropes were scary in earlier editions, especially to demihumans who died (eventually) from lycanthropy instead of being turned into a were creature.

Carrion Crawler from the Red box adventure? Have fun facing 8 attacks each with a paralyzation save! Of course, it doesn't kill you but the party was certainly surprised.

Meet a ghoul? Everyone fled to range except the elf EK.

Werewolf? The only human was a sorcerer so the rest sucked it up and when one Dwarf was bitten and failed her save they raced against time to find the one NPC cleric who could cure her before she died. A very fun Remove Curse encounter ensued! It was a full-blown ritual with all sorts of fun things happening.

Wight or wraith? Baited breath on the saving throw! (Ruled that it removed 1/4 of the XP need to advance from your current level to the next on a failed save. Even this is bad!) Four save attempts and the party missed only one!

Personally, I think all of these things are great as they provide challenges to the party other than death or dropping to 0 and making death saves.

Astrella

2017-09-19, 03:08 PM

KorvinStarmast

2017-09-19, 03:11 PM

'No one perfect answer' strikes again.I can live with that. :smallbiggrin:

Safety Sword

2017-09-19, 06:13 PM

Another thread that devolved into magic elves vs enchanted dwarves. Great...

In my opinion 5E is very much fairer on the DM and the players compared to other D&D versions.

On the DM side, preparation can be a lot easier, there are less fiddly things to worry about and that allows me to focus on the story elements a bit more than the mechanics of how a fight is going to go.

On the player side it's really very hard to make a character that can not do anything at all. Yes, yes, optimal is still a thing, but characters can always contribute in some way and players can explore the options without totally taking away any chance to contribute meaningfully to any area of the game.

So my opinion: it's the best version of D&D so far for everyone at my table. And we've played a a lot of versions. We have also played a lot of other RPGs and this version of D&D is the easiest to get into and the most attractive to social players.

Tanarii

2017-09-19, 06:25 PM

In my opinion 5E is very much fairer on the DM and the players compared to other D&D versions.

On the DM side, preparation can be a lot easier, there are less fiddly things to worry about and that allows me to focus on the story elements a bit more than the mechanics of how a fight is going to go.

On the player side it's really very hard to make a character that can not do anything at all. Yes, yes, optimal is still a thing, but characters can always contribute in some way and players can explore the options without totally taking away any chance to contribute meaningfully to any area of the game. 5e is far more complex than classic, and many retro-clones I've tried (which I admit isn't many), for both the DM and the players.

It doesn't have an many options for the players though. And obviously, survivability is the bugbear in the room, which is why the thread went down that rabbit hole. Plus advancement is at a place that crawls if you're used to most modern games (TRPG or CRPG). Especially as a casual player only playing once a week or less.

Safety Sword

2017-09-19, 06:41 PM

5e is far more complex than classic, and many retro-clones I've tried (which I admit isn't many), for both the DM and the players.

It doesn't have an many options for the players though. And obviously, survivability is the bugbear in the room, which is why the thread went down that rabbit hole. Plus advancement is at a place that crawls if you're used to most modern games (TRPG or CRPG). Especially as a casual player only playing once a week or less.

It may be more complex, but it doesn't feel like you need as much system mastery to play it. As an example, AD&D was way more complicated to work out whether you hit a thing in combat. THAC0 was a novel way of having combat but it wasn't user friendly by any measure.

To your other point: Advancement is entirely in the control of the DM. I generally speed through the first 3 levels and try to get to Level 5 in a couple of sessions. Low level characters are mechanically quite bland, I think, and too fragile to DM fairly.

PhoenixPhyre

2017-09-19, 07:19 PM

It may be more complex, but it doesn't feel like you need as much system mastery to play it. As an example, AD&D was way more complicated to work out whether you hit a thing in combat. THAC0 was a novel way of having combat but it wasn't user friendly by any measure.

To your other point: Advancement is entirely in the control of the DM. I generally speed through the first 3 levels and try to get to Level 5 in a couple of sessions. Low level characters are mechanically quite bland, I think, and too fragile to DM fairly.

Agreed. I had two groups of complete newbies (never played a TTRPG before at all) up and running in about an hour each this week. They even started making leaps into trying unconventional strategies and using their tools creatively. They had picked up the basic mechanics and were playing normally (if a bit slow) after a total time investment of about an hour--25 minutes shared between 8 of them making characters plus 35 minutes of play through a tutorial-type scenario including combat and some ability checks (helping an NPC cross a dangerous chasm). They caught on real fast--the slowest part is finding the right die in the row.

Levels 1-3 should go in about 1 3-hour session each (or less). 4-8 take longer, but that's where lots of people find fun. If you only do XP based on combat, yeah, it drags. But I don't, so...no problem there.

Eric Diaz

2017-09-19, 07:23 PM

They exist but really nobody plays them. People don't use D&D as a gateway to the hobby, they play D&D and stop there.

The hobby is the equivalent of a diner menu: Huge, but laminated so it's unchanging, and most people never order anything but the chicken fingers anyway.

And that's largely D&D's fault for not adapting.

This is baffling.

Me - and everyone else in my group, really - grew up playing everything. Pendragon, GURPS, TSR-D&D, Runequest, L5R, CoC, Kult, Fate, SW, 3e, 4e, etc. We don't like the "fate point economy", altough Inspiration works well enough. Buring Wheel bores me, even thought like BIFTs and 5e's implementation of it. We didn't like 4e (well, one of us did). We play D&D because we like it, not because we only know D&D. Well, if it weren't for 5e we would probably be playing some other game, becasue we certainly wouldn't be playing 4e.

I'm glad 5e exists. I'm glad D&D exists as it is. People who live PbtA can always play DW (great game, BTW, but not my cup of tea).

Tanarii

2017-09-19, 08:08 PM

It may be more complex, but it doesn't feel like you need as much system mastery to play it. As an example, AD&D was way more complicated to work out whether you hit a thing in combat. THAC0 was a novel way of having combat but it wasn't user friendly by any measure.Im talking about classic, not AD&D. And having run many newcomers through both, I can tell you it takes them far FAR longer to learn 5e characters and combat than BECMI. You can basically drop them in-situ and off they go, unless they are trying to play a Thief. Edit: that doesn't even include session 0. 5e takes newcomers over an hour to make a character. Classic usually takes 15 minutes for a newcomer to make a character.

To your other point: Advancement is entirely in the control of the DM. I generally speed through the first 3 levels and try to get to Level 5 in a couple of sessions. Low level characters are mechanically quite bland, I think, and too fragile to DM fairly.The only way to speed to level 5 in classic is to get a huge pile of treasure handed to you. Or for the DM to house rule something.

Safety Sword

2017-09-19, 08:39 PM

Im talking about classic, not AD&D. And having run many newcomers through both, I can tell you it takes them far FAR longer to learn 5e characters and combat than BECMI. You can basically drop them in-situ and off they go, unless they are trying to play a Thief. Edit: that doesn't even include session 0. 5e takes newcomers over an hour to make a character. Classic usually takes 15 minutes for a newcomer to make a character.

The only way to speed to level 5 in classic is to get a huge pile of treasure handed to you. Or for the DM to house rule something.

I was talking about 5E when I said that advancement was up to the DM, sorry, that wasn't clear.

You might be right about classic too... but it's been so long I hardly remember it.

Marcloure

2017-09-19, 09:07 PM

I like the specials abilities each monster had in 4e. In the 5th edition, many many monsters have only one or two types of basic attack, and casting spells isn't something unique per se. In 4e, even a kobold or the simplest goblin would have a trick up their sleeve, and the very combat could change just by the loss of half HP (a.k.a. bloodied value). That is another thing I miss from the 4e, things that interact for better or worst depending on the current hit points of the target/attacker.
At least, the monsters from Volo's are far better in this matter. The giants there, for instance, aren't the same thing with different stats as are the ones in MM, they actually have unique traits.

Tanarii

2017-09-19, 09:12 PM

I was talking about 5E when I said that advancement was up to the DM, sorry, that wasn't clear.Oh, my bad. Yeah, the 'default' is XP and if you follow the suggested adventuring day guidelines, it takes about 6.5 adventuring days. But that's got nothing to do with how many sessions it might take, and the DMG explicitly has alternatives to XP that could make it a lot faster. Or slower. But if you run XP, 5e is a lot faster than classic or AD&D.

You might be right about classic too... but it's been so long I hardly remember it.Getting to first level takes 2000 XP for a fighter. Something like 80% is supposed to come from treasure, but it can take a while to loot 1800 gp per PC. Unless you're power leveling with already established players.

AD&D was actually worse in regards to leveling, because you needed the XP and 1500-6000 gp for training to level 2. Unless your DM ditched those rules. (IMX most did.)

Safety Sword

2017-09-20, 12:13 AM

Oh, my bad. Yeah, the 'default' is XP and if you follow the suggested adventuring day guidelines, it takes about 6.5 adventuring days. But that's got nothing to do with how many sessions it might take, and the DMG explicitly has alternatives to XP that could make it a lot faster. Or slower. But if you run XP, 5e is a lot faster than classic or AD&D.

Getting to first level takes 2000 XP for a fighter. Something like 80% is supposed to come from treasure, but it can take a while to loot 1800 gp per PC. Unless you're power leveling with already established players.

AD&D was actually worse in regards to leveling, because you needed the XP and 1500-6000 gp for training to level 2. Unless your DM ditched those rules. (IMX most did.)

Milestone leveling is a wonderful thing.

And different XP for different classes to gain levels. Those certainly were some sort of days...

Estrillian

2017-09-20, 09:36 AM

It's really not even comparable. In 5e, you blink and you're 5th level and the cleric has revivify.

I don't understand how other people's Cleric's seem to be able to afford revivify. Ours has cast it twice now, and it's been a massive drain on the party's stocks of gems each time. Indeed all gemstones found now go to the Cleric just to have the chance to cast it in the future.

Finieous

2017-09-20, 09:42 AM

Tanarii

2017-09-20, 10:05 AM

I don't understand how other people's Cleric's seem to be able to afford revivify. Ours has cast it twice now, and it's been a massive drain on the party's stocks of gems each time. Indeed all gemstones found now go to the Cleric just to have the chance to cast it in the future.Usually by buying the gems needed. It kinda sucks if you're nowhere near civilization though. If you have to 'find' components that cost GP, that's gonna suck when you get to the more esoteric ones.

There's no reason not to keep all your wealth in gem form anyway. What are you going to do, carry around 3000 gp in gold (60 lbs of coins)? Of course, real estate like a castle is always the other traditional (and harder to steal) thing to do.

For those who are interested, the default DMG treasure rewards provides roughly enough for 5 castings of Revivify per Hoard gained, or 15 casting per level gained in the 5-10 range. Thats a lot of combat res.

Willie the Duck

2017-09-20, 10:10 AM

For those who are interested, the default DMG treasure rewards provides roughly enough for 5 castings of Revivify per Hoard gained, or 15 casting per level gained in the 5-10 range.

Are you saying that between turning level 5 and turning level 6, a party would be expected to earn 4500 gp in treasure? Am I reading that right?

2D8HP

2017-09-20, 11:23 AM

Wow am I late to this thread!

....I suppose I don't like editions like 3.P and AD&D because your "cool stuff" came from gear more than your class. .

That fits, IIRC in playing TSR D&D I paid far more attention to my PC's iten inventory thsn to the "stats".

.....And the difference between people who have played classic btb, or lethal games, and those who haven't is always noticeable to me at the table. The difference is the former don't assume they will live unless they really mess up. Instead they assume they will die unless hey are really careful. (This can lead to player paranoia.)...

Yeah, when I first played 5e I found other players attitude of "The DM wouldn't give as an antagonist we can't handle" annoying.

Okay shortened version of my game history:

While I've played other RPG's I never played 2e to 4e D&D.

I started as DM 1978-ish when I got the "bluebook" with my little brother as my first victim player.

1979-ish: Classmate invites me to play in a game him and some teenagers including his big brother who is the DM the "rules" are oD&D, plus the Greyhawk, Blackmoor, Eldrich Wizardry, and the Gods, Demi-Gods and Heroes supplements, and the AD&D Monster Manual, and the Arduin Grimoires (third party), and the third party All the World's Monster's (including the Perrin Conventions), which was the BEST GAME EVER!

Except for the "bluebook" (and to some extent the AD&D PHB, and DMG that I got 1979-1980) while I get the "gist" the rules are pretty much opaque to me, it's only upon reading later editions that I go, "Oh that's what they meant".

1980's: My circle plays many FRPs, one of which, Chaosium's Runequest just seems to make more sense to me, but I realize I'm just not having as much fun as I did with D&D. The game I most played was probably Traveller and the game I most GM or "Keeper" was probably Call of Cthullu.

1992: I'm just not finding the games that are available to play (Champions, Cyberpunk, and Vampire) much fun, so no more games for decades.

2015: 5e D&D,

As a player I prefer AD&D, and "5e" D&D.

As a DM/GM I prefer TSR "Basic"/"Classic" D&D, and Call of Cthullu,

I like "standard equipment" in 5e, and I like having PC's survive first level, and I've "drinked the Kool-Aid", and like no longer playing with "ten foot poles and bags of flour", but... by 11th level 5e is dull for me, wheras TSR I like.

Basically if I'm invited to play five sessions WotC 5e D&D is my choice, but if I'm invited to play fifty sessions TSR D&D is my choice.

Pex

2017-09-20, 11:34 AM

Tanarii

2017-09-20, 11:49 AM

Are you saying that between turning level 5 and turning level 6, a party would be expected to earn 4500 gp in treasure? Am I reading that right?
Actually, my numbers appear to have been wrong. It's ~13500 gp awarded per level to the party. ~4500 per hoard, 3 times per level.

However, I'm not going off having crunched the numbers myself. I'm taking an online source at face value. (I probably should double check it, because I've been taking this source at face value for some time.)
http://dmdavid.com/tag/what-is-the-typical-amout-of-treasure-awarded-in-a-fifth-edition-dungeons-dragons-campaign/

Keep in mind his "cumulative gold" column is for the entire party. Not per person.

Estrillian

2017-09-20, 11:53 AM

They exist but really nobody plays them. People don't use D&D as a gateway to the hobby, they play D&D and stop there

I think you may be experiencing a bias from what you have experienced. Where I live (a city full of roleplayers, with multiple active clubs and a large convention) D&D is a vanishing minority of games played. Top games here would be FATE, World of Darkness systems, 7th Sea, and a multitude of Indy titles. It is true that 5E has increased the amount of D&D being played here, so in that sense it is a gateway, but it is no more than a minority.

Willie the Duck

2017-09-20, 11:55 AM

Actually, my numbers appear to have been wrong. It's ~13500 gp awarded per level to the party. ~4500 per hoard, 3 times per level.

However, I'm not going off having crunched the numbers myself. I'm taking an online source at face value. (I probably should double check it, because I've been taking this source at face value for some time.)
http://dmdavid.com/tag/what-is-the-typical-amout-of-treasure-awarded-in-a-fifth-edition-dungeons-dragons-campaign/

Keep in mind his "cumulative gold" column is for the entire party. Not per person.

Hmmm. I also don't have time to check their math, so I certainly can't fault you for not. However, given the level people say that the party Str+heavy Armor prof. characters should be expected to have platemail, that seems high.

KorvinStarmast

2017-09-20, 12:51 PM

Saving Throws

The old table system where you tended to be better at all saving throws as you go up in level has been overtaken by the proficiency model.

As you go up in level, there are certain things you'll be a lot more vulnerable to, since you will in most cases have proficiency/level based bonuses in two, and maybe three if you take the resilient feat, ability saving throw categories.

While I think this is a part of bounded accuracy (so that even high level characters are vulnerable to some things) it feels weird.

Without a feat, for example, your ability to save on 2/3 of the required saves is the same at level 1 as at level 16. Feels weird.

Even with feats, the general rule is that you can take each feat only once unless the feat's description says otherwise.

RESILIENT
Choose one ability score. You gain the following benefits:
1. Increase the chosen ability score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
2. You gain proficiency in saving throws using the chosen ability.
At best, proficiency in half.

That said, DC's vary quite a bit.

Tanarii

2017-09-20, 01:14 PM

Hmmm. I also don't have time to check their math, so I certainly can't fault you for not. However, given the level people say that the party Str+heavy Armor prof. characters should be expected to have platemail, that seems high.Their numbers are off. You can look at his sources and recalculate them and see they messed up the math. Or crunch them yourself pretty easily. But they're high by a factor of about 600gp/hoard, or 1800gp/level.

Basically it works out to a 50% chance of around 3400 per Horde, or a 50% chance of around 4400 per hoard, depending on what kind of gems/art you roll. Standard Deviation looks like plus or minus maybe 600 from those values. So on average, about 11,700gp/level, or 2900 / PC in a 4 PC party.

(Assuming Hoards are found evenly across levels. No such assurances in most games, of course.)

I assume Full Plate is available at level 6-8 personally. OTOH I also 'assume' (ie have as default rules for a campaign) characters spend 10/gp per day on living expenses starting at level 5, and take 10 days of downtime between each session/mission. And will regularly spend money on expensive things like Potions of Healing and consumable items in the PHB in an attempt to stay alive long enough to buy Full Plate. So that can easily push it back to level 8 instead of by 6. :smallwink:

Willie the Duck

2017-09-20, 01:49 PM

Saving Throws

The old table system where you tended to be better at all saving throws as you go up in level has been overtaken by the proficiency model. As you go up in level, there are certain things you'll be a lot more vulnerable to, since you will in most cases have proficiency/level based bonuses in two, and maybe three if you take the resilient feat, ability saving throw categories. While I think this is a part of bounded accuracy (so that even high level characters are vulnerable to some things) it feels weird. Without a feat, for example, your ability to save on 2/3 of the required saves is the same at level 1 as at level 16. Feels weird.
...
That said, DC's vary quite a bit.

I think, beyond numbers, if we're discussing saving throws, one has to mention that what you are saving to do has changed. Save-or-dies are nearly gone (I think there might be one or two left that are behind something like a 'fail three times and you'll die' gate). Save-or-sucks still exist, but almost all are constrained by something like you get a new save every round to permanently shake off the effect or the effect lasts until you next take damage. In general, there appears to be a strong design-ethos change such that you are supposed to usually fail your saves, but that that should be less of a problem than before. How well that worked (and the mathematical satisfactoriness of not improving your save as you level) is a YMMV.

mephnick

2017-09-20, 02:24 PM

Tanarii

2017-09-20, 02:49 PM

You make an absolutely idiotic amount of money RAW once you get past level 5. Money is absolutely no obstacle to death in 5e. I had to cut gold/gems earned by like 60% for my game to even make it a depletable resource.its just about perfect if you make one huge assumption:
The party is trying to build a keep around the end of Tier 2.

Alternately, if they're trying to do it individually it usually comes late Tier 3.

If you're not playing that kind of game, the only other thing you're saving for is the visit you're planing to the extra-planar bazaar to buy magic items of dubious veracity (a la Myth Inc.). Or whatever else the DM can come up with.

If you're not playing that kind of game, the other choice is to do what you did and cut back treasure rewards drastically.

Stan

2017-09-20, 03:53 PM

Carrion Crawler 8 attacks each with a paralyzation save! ...Meet a ghoul? Everyone fled to range except the elf EK. ... Werewolf? ....Wight or wraith? Baited breath on the saving throw
Personally, I think all of these things are great as they provide challenges to the party other than death or dropping to 0 and making death saves.

That sounds fun. I prefer 5e overall but I think they went too far in nerfing special attacks. Undead and poison were SCARY.

AD&D was actually worse in regards to leveling, because you needed the XP and 1500-6000 gp for training to level 2. Unless your DM ditched those rules. (IMX most did.)

That was one of several rules that I never saw used. Along with the weapon vs base AC charts.

I feel like 5e advances too fast and and AD&D/Basic is too slow. We used to start of at level 2-3 (technically 2500 to 5000 xp due to class variances) to help with this and to aid in survivability. Though I've stopped tracking detailed XP, too much work for too little payoff.

Tanarii

2017-09-20, 04:16 PM

That was one of several rules that I never saw used. Along with the weapon vs base AC charts.I tried a game with training costs btb exactly once. :smallyuk:
Weapon vs Base AC was fine if you only used it vs armored opponents. Same with weapon speeds/lengths. I used them primarily for Dueling situation vs other human(oids). They were perfect for Oriental Adventures, or a urban campaign with few monster-like 'monsters'. All enemies being 'monsters', technically. ;).

I feel like 5e advances too fast and and AD&D/Basic is too slow. We used to start of at level 2-3 (technically 2500 to 5000 xp due to class variances) to help with this and to aid in survivability. Though I've stopped tracking detailed XP, too much work for too little payoff.My payoff for using XP is my player's won't lynch me for trying to not use XP. I like it, but I checked with a few groups after the last thread about XP vs Level Advancement without XP (not to be confused with Milestones) ... apparently I can take away their gaining of XP over their dead bodies. :smallamused:

xroads

2017-09-20, 04:26 PM

I've never really been one to look back fondly on older systems (with exception of Warhammer Fantasy 2ed). In general, I find the designers improve the system over time.

As it has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, death is still very real in 5e. For example, with my current group, we have one guy who averages about one dead character per level.

KorvinStarmast

2017-09-21, 04:29 PM

You make an absolutely idiotic amount of money RAW once you get past level 5. Money is absolutely no obstacle to death in 5e. I had to cut gold/gems earned by like 60% for my game to even make it a depletable resource. Convert to gems with an eye to the future, since spell casters are going to need components for some key spells as time goes on.

Pex

2017-09-21, 06:42 PM

That sounds fun. I prefer 5e overall but I think they went too far in nerfing special attacks. Undead and poison were SCARY.

I don't miss 2E undead attacks. Players spend real world time and effort on the game gaining levels. To lose one or two levels because you get hit once is stupid and unfair. Players did not have the means to get them back most of the time. By the time they do the cleric players loses years off his character's life which doesn't mean anything for the campaign but still adds insult to injury.

3E/Pathfinder's version works fine. Negative levels gives you penalties, but you don't lose class abilities, it's a good chance it won't be permanent, and you can get them back anyway sooner in campaign life starting at 7th level. They're still dangerous for the combat but not screw you for the campaign. I agree 5E is less dangerous but still potent. Keep the danger at the combat level not the campaign level.

Willie the Duck

2017-09-22, 06:52 AM

I don't miss 2E undead attacks. Players spend real world time and effort on the game gaining levels. To lose one or two levels because you get hit once is stupid and unfair. Players did not have the means to get them back most of the time. By the time they do the cleric players loses years off his character's life which doesn't mean anything for the campaign but still adds insult to injury.

Well, it isn't unfair, but it is stupid. At least given that all the similar concepts are falling by the wayside. The original idea of constantly moving up the ladder of PC ability through gaining xp and magic items, but slowed/halted/occasionally falling down a few rungs due to level drains and losing items to failing your fireball or black dragon breath saves no longer makes sense. PCs are expected to (comparatively rapidly) rise in level and all the levels covered by the books are supposed to be played (or at least are playable, regardless of whether your group likes high level play). The whole paradigm stopped making sense roughly when restoration spells were introduced (and that was the original Greyhawk supplement, 1975) and drain instead became a resource tax (got to get person X to a high level cleric and scrape the funds together to get him restored).

I will note that restoration aging the cleric in 1e/e2 did have a game effect -- each time they magically aged themselves, they were supposed to have had to make a system shock roll or die. Now whether any DMs ever did that (and I certainly don't think many people did that for every party member effected by every casting of Haste, for example), it's hard to say.

Sigreid

2017-09-22, 07:59 AM

Well, it isn't unfair, but it is stupid. At least given that all the similar concepts are falling by the wayside. The original idea of constantly moving up the ladder of PC ability through gaining xp and magic items, but slowed/halted/occasionally falling down a few rungs due to level drains and losing items to failing your fireball or black dragon breath saves no longer makes sense. PCs are expected to (comparatively rapidly) rise in level and all the levels covered by the books are supposed to be played (or at least are playable, regardless of whether your group likes high level play). The whole paradigm stopped making sense roughly when restoration spells were introduced (and that was the original Greyhawk supplement, 1975) and drain instead became a resource tax (got to get person X to a high level cleric and scrape the funds together to get him restored).

I will note that restoration aging the cleric in 1e/e2 did have a game effect -- each time they magically aged themselves, they were supposed to have had to make a system shock roll or die. Now whether any DMs ever did that (and I certainly don't think many people did that for every party member effected by every casting of Haste, for example), it's hard to say.

Level drains were ok when there were hard level limits. I think they were intended to keep you off the cap.

Finieous

2017-09-22, 08:17 AM

Level drains were ok when there were hard level limits. I think they were intended to keep you off the cap.

I always thought level drains were intended to make you scared ****less of the undead! I once had a freaking cleric of Osiris jump from the top of a tower to escape two specters. It was at least thirty years ago, so it was clearly memorable!

It doesn't have to be that particular mechanic, IMO, but monster abilities like that which are truly feared greatly enhance the experience of the game (for me), and they're almost completely absent in 5e. OTOH, I recognize my preferences are in the distinct minority in this regard -- these abilities have been progressively nerfed for a reason.

Sigreid

2017-09-22, 08:19 AM

I always thought level drains were intended to make you scared ****less of the undead! I once had a freaking cleric of Osiris jump from the top of a tower to escape two specters. It was at least thirty years ago, so it was clearly memorable!

It doesn't have to be that particular mechanic, IMO, but monster abilities like that which are truly feared greatly enhance the experience of the game (for me), and they're almost completely absent in 5e. OTOH, I recognize my preferences are in the distinct minority in this regard -- these abilities have been progressively nerfed for a reason.

Yeah, it takes some getting used to. I started in the 70s, and it's still weird to me that the party can't be worn down over the course if days or weeks.

Willie the Duck

2017-09-22, 08:27 AM

Level drains were ok when there were hard level limits. I think they were intended to keep you off the cap.

I don't know that the existence of a hard cap was the defining factor. I just think it was a checking-of/slowing-of advancement. The more you could potentially lose, the more the DM could give you without you sliding into the upper levels (which, regardless of whether they were capped or not, were just not as well designed and often not as fun to play).

Sigreid

2017-09-22, 08:33 AM

I don't know that the existence of a hard cap was the defining factor. I just think it was a checking-of/slowing-of advancement. The more you could potentially lose, the more the DM could give you without you sliding into the upper levels (which, regardless of whether they were capped or not, were just not as well designed and often not as fun to play).

That too. And AD&D had a lot of what could be considered panic buttons for a panicking DM who wanted to reset his mistakes.

DivisibleByZero

2017-09-22, 08:36 AM

I always thought level drains were intended to make you scared ****less of the undead! I once had a freaking cleric of Osiris jump from the top of a tower to escape two specters. It was at least thirty years ago, so it was clearly memorable!

It doesn't have to be that particular mechanic, IMO, but monster abilities like that which are truly feared greatly enhance the experience of the game (for me), and they're almost completely absent in 5e. OTOH, I recognize my preferences are in the distinct minority in this regard -- these abilities have been progressively nerfed for a reason.

This kind of fear of monsters is exactly what's been missing from the game for the last two decades.

Beelzebubba

2017-09-22, 08:55 AM

They exist but really nobody plays them. People don't use D&D as a gateway to the hobby, they play D&D and stop there.

Be careful, you're showing selection bias.

I've been playing since 1977, and almost every D&D group I've been in mixes in a healthy dose of board games and other RPG systems. Champions, Shadowrun, Paranoia, Car Wars, Rolemaster, Stormbringer, Toon, Twilight 2000, Marvel Heroes, Dalmuti, RoboRally, it goes on.

Even now, my current table plays mostly 5E, but we've done Dominion, Fiasco, and this Sunday we're running Dungeon World.

Beelzebubba

2017-09-22, 08:59 AM

Yeah, it takes some getting used to. I started in the 70s, and it's still weird to me that the party can't be worn down over the course if days or weeks.

It's only a small alternate rule or two away!

That doesn't mean it'll work, though. I think the zeitgeist has moved away from Fantasy Vietnam Heist Shenanigans and towards Cinematic Heroics, so it might not be a welcome change.

I floated more encumbrance tracking as an idea at my table, pitching it as a mechanic to elevate the drama and risk, and everyone barfed.

ShneekeyTheLost

2017-09-22, 09:16 AM

5e is about the best D&D system since TSR went under.

3.5 was a lot of fun, don't get me wrong, but good lord it was abusable because of all the splatbooks. There could be an enormous amount of difference in power level between two characters just based on their class progression. Heaven preserve the poor fool who took more than two levels of Fighter, thinking that it would actually help him fight, for example.

4e was a knee-jerk reaction going the other way to turn the entire game into a bland, tasteless cardboard mush that felt like a failed attempt at an MMO done on paper.

5e took certain concepts from several different versions and editions.

* Okay, fine, THAC0 is gone, which just means the AC numbers got flipped. For ease-of-newbies, I can see that.
* In general, the low levels are more survivable due to auto-max HD at 1st level than the older editions, but not quite to the same degree that 3.5 and 4e was. Which is good.

* Concentration removed the possibility of 'batman wizard' and 'cleric-zilla' archetypes, by seriously nerfing buffs/debuffs simply through this simple mechanic. You can have ONE buff/debuff going. One. With very few exceptions which are highly prized simply because they are the exceptions. This is a dramatic nerf to casters in general as compared to 3.5, and one that needed to happen.

* Another thing 3.5 did that was stupidly abusable was take core mechanics not intended to be in player hands, and put them in player hands. Polycheese, as the saying goes. Assume Supernatural Ability. Things along these lines. I don't think that is remotely possible in 5e

* In 3.5, almost every status effect was Save or Lose, and you could boost the DC's pretty easily, if by no other means than simply stat-stacking. With absolute hard-caps on stats, and the way saving throws and DC's scale, this has, if anything, gone the completely other direction. You never want to rely on a 'save or lose' effect unless you can also reliably make sure targets are at Disadvantage. Which goes back to 2e and 1e roots where wizards primarily blasted and provided arcane out of combat support, instead of being the Save or Lose encounter-enders with a single spell effect and buffing deities.

* Melee Got Nice Things. Without using psudomagic like ToB did. Not as nice as 2e and previously, but still very solid. Many DPS builds are melee oriented. Without being an Ubercharger.

* Advantage/Disadvantage system has a way of providing a measurable buff/debuff without making it an automatic thing. But you still never wanted to try to do something under Disadvantage if you could help it, and getting Advantage in a situation was always a desired thing. This ended up replacing a whole slew of bonuses that previously would stack, which removed a huge problem by simply having them all offer advantage, and stacking advantage has no net effect unless someone is trying to stack Disadvantage. Instead of doing something like "+1 per 5 levels", it is simply "Gives Advantage", and problem solved. This was a clever way of still being able to give a benefit without abusing it. Combined with Concentration, it was the death knell of abusing buff/debuff stacking.

* Archetypes gives you the ability to tweak certain classes fairly easily, being a plug and play means of bolting on something to a class. This is a great way to 'tweak' classes, and removes the need for multiclassing in most cases. For example, Arcane Trickster and Eldritch Knight were, previously, multiclass PrC's. Now, they're just straight-up archetype options. Which is far easier to keep track of.

* No Prestige Classes. It was a good idea, but ultimately too abusable. The problem with Prestige Classes is that they begged to be optimized, because they were the quintessential versions of 'kits' from 2e... "I give up this thing to get that thing". However, multiclassing rules have changed so that, by and large, prestige classes are simply unnecessary for multiclassing to be effective.

Now, that's not to say that everything is perfectly balanced, because it isn't. Straight Warlock is a pretty poor bet after level 10, for example. No one plays Rangers for a reason. But on the whole, it's FAR more balanced than 3.5, where you had 'Cleric/Wizard/Druid' as 'I win', Sorcerer as 'I usually win', a smattering of classes as 'I am effective', and a majority of options being 'not very effective in most situations'.

It's not nearly as lethal as 1st-2nd edition, AD&D was brutal on characters. But it's a heck of a lot less a cakewalk than 3.5 was if you were even marginally competent at character building, and a heck of a lot better balanced.

On the whole... I've pretty much totally retired from 3.5 and played 4e ONCE, and now either play AD&D 2nd ed or 5e. To me, 5e is pretty much as good as you can expect in a post-Gygax universe.

Willie the Duck

2017-09-22, 09:53 AM

It's only a small alternate rule or two away!

Oh, I thought the discussion was strictly regarding RAW. Definitely the game is very easy to fix to accommodate an older, harsher gamestyle (much moreso than 3e or 4e, which would require some systematic tweaking). Get rid of a specific spell (healing word) to get rid of the bonus-action jack-in-the-box effect. Make hitting 0 hp mean you won't be able to fight well even if you are healed above 0 hp (perhaps a level of exhaustion?). Turn the long rest to recover undead-drained hp into a full day of comfortable bed rest (so in town, perhaps) or the like. Perhaps require some drained hp requiring a lesser restoration (maybe upcast as a higher level) if you want something to be a 'you need a cleric of level X in your party, or one nearby you can hire' type effect.

That doesn't mean it'll work, though. I think the zeitgeist has moved away from Fantasy Vietnam Heist Shenanigans and towards Cinematic Heroics, so it might not be a welcome change.
I floated more encumbrance tracking as an idea at my table, pitching it as a mechanic to elevate the drama and risk, and everyone barfed.

One thing that gets lost when people bemoan the 'good old days' is how often the things that they complain about being gone are things that people were actively complaining about the game since roughly 1974-and-a-half. Was oD&D all about Heist Shenanigans? Yes, maybe, but at the time a lot of people complained about why-would-they-want-to-play-that? Was encumbrance measured in coins because you were playing a careful resource-management game where each pound of equipment you carried into the dungeon to help you survive was 10 coins you couldn't carry out of the dungeon (unless you wanted to leave your equipment behind)? Yes, and lots and lots of people ignored it because they wanted to play heroes fighting dragons instead.

What I'm saying is, yes, the game has certainly changed, but who knows about the zeitgeist. Has it moved away, or was it never there to begin with? People differ on that (in no small part because their own personal experiences differ).

Ravinsild

2017-09-22, 10:05 AM

It's only a small alternate rule or two away!

That doesn't mean it'll work, though. I think the zeitgeist has moved away from Fantasy Vietnam Heist Shenanigans and towards Cinematic Heroics, so it might not be a welcome change.

I floated more encumbrance tracking as an idea at my table, pitching it as a mechanic to elevate the drama and risk, and everyone barfed.

For better or worse my idea of fantasy is largely and in whole shaped by Warcraft 1, 2, 3 and to a smaller extent Warhammer Fantasy (lore, not the war game itself) and a dash of LOTRO. Whatever those would be or mixtures of archetypes would be IDK. Probably not Vietnam Heist Shenanigans though. Maybe cinematic? Warcraft 3 and WoW have a lot of cutscenes...

Ravinsild

2017-09-22, 10:14 AM

Oh, I thought the discussion was strictly regarding RAW. Definitely the game is very easy to fix to accommodate an older, harsher gamestyle (much moreso than 3e or 4e, which would require some systematic tweaking). Get rid of a specific spell (healing word) to get rid of the bonus-action jack-in-the-box effect. Make hitting 0 hp mean you won't be able to fight well even if you are healed above 0 hp (perhaps a level of exhaustion?). Turn the long rest to recover undead-drained hp into a full day of comfortable bed rest (so in town, perhaps) or the like. Perhaps require some drained hp requiring a lesser restoration (maybe upcast as a higher level) if you want something to be a 'you need a cleric of level X in your party, or one nearby you can hire' type effect.

One thing that gets lost when people bemoan the 'good old days' is how often the things that they complain about being gone are things that people were actively complaining about the game since roughly 1974-and-a-half. Was oD&D all about Heist Shenanigans? Yes, maybe, but at the time a lot of people complained about why-would-they-want-to-play-that? Was encumbrance measured in coins because you were playing a careful resource-management game where each pound of equipment you carried into the dungeon to help you survive was 10 coins you couldn't carry out of the dungeon (unless you wanted to leave your equipment behind)? Yes, and lots and lots of people ignored it because they wanted to play heroes fighting dragons instead.

What I'm saying is, yes, the game has certainly changed, but who knows about the zeitgeist. Has it moved away, or was it never there to begin with? People differ on that (in no small part because their own personal experiences differ).

This is just how things are. Vanilla WoW was objectively a terrible game with lots of bugs, horrible balance, etc. It was BETTER than other competitors, but it wasn't designed very well. It had a lot of book keeping and silliness and gear was poorly itemized, not enough of it dropped for the content people were doing, etc. The problems have been fixed, were actively complained about, and yet there's still the rose tinted goggles of nostalgia "we want vanilla back!" Meanwhile maybe 100,000 MAYBE were playing on the vanilla server Nostalrius whilst millions are still actively playing the current version.

Sure some people may prefer brutal death game of AD&D but most people, I imagine, are loving current D&D after all the "patches" so to speak. I could be wrong though.

mephnick

2017-09-22, 10:39 AM

This kind of fear of monsters is exactly what's been missing from the game for the last two decades.

Now it's just disappointment. I play with old and new players and you should see the look on the older gamers faces when they encounter a former scary monster like a wight and start telling the new players how crazy dangerous they are. They light up like Christmas....Then I inform them that they're just another hack and slash monster with a weak ability that will never actually turn you into a wight and they look heartbroken.

KorvinStarmast

2017-09-22, 10:54 AM

This kind of fear of monsters is exactly what's been missing from the game for the last two decades. Yeah.
For better or worse my idea of fantasy is largely and in whole shaped by Warcraft 1, 2, 3 and to a smaller extent Warhammer Fantasy (lore, not the war game itself) and a dash of LOTRO. . Mine was shaped by RE Howard (Conan), Michael Moorcock(Elric) Fritz Lieber (Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser) and Burrroughs (John Carter of Mars) with a few sprinkles of Lord of the Rings, Hobbit, and the Dragon Riders of Pern. (Reading is such a great hobby for kids, where has it gone?) . Poul Anderson's books (Operation Chaos and Three Hearts/Three Lions) were a really neat addition to that.

But I was also raised on Brothers Grimm and Aesops fables, and had extensive understanding of Greek and Norse Mythology, thanks to reading, as well as Amerind legends thanks to our scout master taking my interest in Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha and pointing me to the legends of the thunderbird and a lot of Amerind fables ( a favorite being the one about the coyote and the wolf). Add in tall tales like Paul Bunyon and Pecos Bill, Arabian Knights, Sinbad, Ali Baba and the 40 thieves, Alladin's lamp and ring (and those geniis) and a few books with Chinese fables and stories and you had a hell of a nice mix for adding flavor to any campaign.

And all of us were familiar with King Arthur, Merlin, and his knights. (Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart, and her other Merlin books, were great stuff as references).

I still need to read some of the books on the "bibliography" list from the original D&D books, as well as a few from the 5e "inspiration" list.

The FR books were enjoyable, but are more like eating fries and a coke rather than a nice plateof fettucini alfredo made by someone from the old country.

Tanarii

2017-09-22, 11:03 AM

I always thought level drains were intended to make you scared ****less of the undead!Wether that was the original intent or not, it was certainly the effect.

This kind of fear of monsters is exactly what's been missing from the game for the last two decades.Definitely a YMMV and personal preference statement.

Level drain is really easy to reintroduce, and regaining levels is a cakewalk with such fast XP advancement. Just bring it back. The consequences of going down a level are usually pretty easy to figure out. Just ... make sure the players are on board first. Good luck with that. :smallamused:

---------------
(A general rambling spawned by above comments and several other in this thread.)

I like 5e, but baseline it has a host of 'problems' (air quotes) for anyone that played Classic or AD&D. The vast majority of which stem from what's usually referred to derogatorily as being too board-game-y (later on, video-game-y), and not 'realistic'. Recently (as in during the run up to 5e), combat-as-sport, which I like because it's slightly less derogatory and more play-style sounding. But most of them can easily be 'fixed', if that's desired.

Things like full healing on Long Rest, individual combats being very not dangerous if you use the guidelines, super fast level advancement by the XP tables, nothing so scary that will make the players (and by extension PCs) shake in their boots.

About the only one of those not easily changed, or in fact already has suggested variant rules in the DMG, is individual combats not being very dangerous. Most 'fixes' for that, any thing beyond 3 so-called Deadly encounters per adventuring day, usually end up making the game super-rocket-nova-tag and unbalancing something, or ramp up the risk of TPKs so hig no party can make it to level 5 ever. IMO a better approach is to make losing not the same thing as dying.

Ravinsild

2017-09-22, 11:30 AM

Yeah. Mine was shaped by RE Howard (Conan), Michael Moorcock(Elric) Fritz Lieber (Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser) and Burrroughs (John Carter of Mars) with a few sprinkles of Lord of the Rings, Hobbit, and the Dragon Riders of Pern. (Reading is such a great hobby for kids, where has it gone?) . Poul Anderson's books (Operation Chaos and Three Hearts/Three Lions) were a really neat addition to that.

But I was also raised on Brothers Grimm and Aesops fables, and had extensive understanding of Greek and Norse Mythology, thanks to reading, as well as Amerind legends thanks to our scout master taking my interest in Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha and pointing me to the legends of the thunderbird and a lot of Amerind fables ( a favorite being the one about the coyote and the wolf). Add in tall tales like Paul Bunyon and Pecos Bill, Arabian Knights, Sinbad, Ali Baba and the 40 thieves, Alladin's lamp and ring (and those geniis) and a few books with Chinese fables and stories and you had a hell of a nice mix for adding flavor to any campaign.

And all of us were familiar with King Arthur, Merlin, and his knights. (Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart, and her other Merlin books, were great stuff as references).

I still need to read some of the books on the "bibliography" list from the original D&D books, as well as a few from the 5e "inspiration" list.

The FR books were enjoyable, but are more like eating fries and a coke rather than a nice plateof fettucini alfredo made by someone from the old country.

Ah yeah, I love the Conan stories. I have both books with the "Complete Collection" and even rough drafts of all his stories. I've read them all through multiple times, and I have several WoW books and have read probably every wowpedia.org page possible haha. Same with Warhammer lore wikis. I also read a lot of Tracy Hickman and that other person, especially "The Death Gate Cycle". Those were good books.

I also enjoyed Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" series. Roland has been a big inspiration, as well as that fallen world idea.

KorvinStarmast

2017-09-22, 11:39 AM

"The Death Gate Cycle". Yes, enjoyed those as well, as well as the Black sword books.

I also enjoyed Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" series. He lost me after book 4, but I loved Roland the character.

Willie the Duck

2017-09-22, 11:44 AM

Reading is such a great hobby for kids, where has it gone?

What makes you think it has gone anywhere? I have children of most ages 3-18 in my life, and they are all reading. Heck, if you're just talking fantasy, Harry Potter has got to be the single biggest literary phenomenon since Tolkein.

KorvinStarmast

2017-09-22, 11:47 AM

What makes you think it has gone anywhere? I have children of most ages 3-18 in my life, and they are all reading. Heck, if you're just talking fantasy, Harry Potter has got to be the single biggest literary phenomenon since Tolkein. Well, for badly written teen drama, they sure were popular. My son wanted to read the first one when he was in third grade, and we spent a lot of weeks doing a chapter at a time with him reading to me. (I read all of the books, as they came out, since my daughter (3 years older than my son) began with book one and got each one as it came out.

Glad that you are seeing a lot of reading. Goodness. (My aunt was a librarian ... we always had books to read or on loan ... and we didn't get to watch much TV at all. Parents saw to that)

Ravinsild

2017-09-22, 11:53 AM

What makes you think it has gone anywhere? I have children of most ages 3-18 in my life, and they are all reading. Heck, if you're just talking fantasy, Harry Potter has got to be the single biggest literary phenomenon since Tolkein.

I kept expecting him to get more advanced and cool magic as he got higher in education, but I don't think the story was about them becoming cool wizards, for which I had hoped. Instead it was about...idk what but I didn't like it. I felt the final battle was absolutely anticlimactic. Was hoping they'd go from a level 1 wizard to an MTG summoning fiends and dragons and slinging fire wizard.

NOPE. Didn't happen. RIP Harry Potter in my eyes.

Willie the Duck

2017-09-22, 12:01 PM

I have no intention of defending Harry Potter (although I am sure for every flaw we can find in it, a dedicated fan could point out our own selective memory regarding the flaws in LotR, Conan, The Dark Tower, etc.), just that it exists and kids are reading it (along with plenty of other series that I don't know about, since I am not a kid).

Sigreid

2017-09-22, 12:05 PM

I kept expecting him to get more advanced and cool magic as he got higher in education, but I don't think the story was about them becoming cool wizards, for which I had hoped. Instead it was about...idk what but I didn't like it. I felt the final battle was absolutely anticlimactic. Was hoping they'd go from a level 1 wizard to an MTG summoning fiends and dragons and slinging fire wizard.

NOPE. Didn't happen. RIP Harry Potter in my eyes.

IMO, Harry Potter was a pretty good story, not always skillfully written. Covered a lot of good themes. The importance of standing against evil, even if it costs you. The dangers of supremacist thinking. And others.

Pex

2017-09-22, 12:15 PM

Wether that was the original intent or not, it was certainly the effect.

Definitely a YMMV and personal preference statement.

Level drain is really easy to reintroduce, and regaining levels is a cakewalk with such fast XP advancement. Just bring it back. The consequences of going down a level are usually pretty easy to figure out. Just ... make sure the players are on board first. Good luck with that. :smallamused:

How shocking, not, but I would pass on such a game. My immediate thought would be why is the DM so hard set on taking a way levels from PCs, to punish them for the audacity of gaining XP and leveling. The DM would be labeled "tyrannical" by me. :smallwink:

Monsters are scary enough, even the brutes who just do damage.

Tanarii

2017-09-22, 01:33 PM

Well, for badly written teen drama, they sure were popular.

I have no intention of defending Harry Potter (although I am sure for every flaw we can find in it, a dedicated fan could point out our own selective memory regarding the flaws in LotR, Conan, The Dark Tower, etc.), Yeah, when I went back to reread Dragonlance (first two trilogies), I was shocked at how it wasn't the masterpiece of the literary arts I thought it was as a teen. I mean, it's not bad, but it's pretty average for the field. Just groundbreaking at the time.

Compare to the Darksword trilogy. I enjoyed it as a teen, but even then I could see it was kinda hackey. Or worse, anything by Salvatore or Greenwood. They're so good at not being able to write that I can't even enjoy their stories.

Harry Potter is like the Darksword written for Tweens (or younger). It's just kinda painful to read as an adult if you didn't grow up on it.

How shocking, not, but I would pass on such a game. My immediate thought would be why is the DM so hard set on taking a way levels from PCs, to punish them for the audacity of gaining XP and leveling. The DM would be labeled "tyrannical" by me. :smallwink:Wow. When you called DMs tyrannical, I thought you were talking about something that's really a problem. Like hard core railroading, or regularly telling you what your character does, or regularly prohibiting actions as 'unrealistic'. Not using something that was a longstanding part of the game for a long time.

Just because you don't like losing levels when you're a player in no way makes it punishing nor tyrannical for those okay with it. Even if the majority of those people are unlikely to regularly be players on such games, as opposed to DMs or theory-crafters on their high horse.

Ravinsild

2017-09-22, 01:40 PM

Yeah, when I went back to reread Dragonlance (first two trilogies), I was shocked at how it wasn't the masterpiece of the literary arts I thought it was as a teen. I mean, it's not bad, but it's pretty average for the field. Just groundbreaking at the time.

Compare to the Darksword trilogy. I enjoyed it as a teen, but even then I could see it was kinda hackey. Or worse, anything by Salvatore or Greenwood. They're so good at not being able to write that I can't even enjoy their stories.

Harry Potter is like the Darksword written for Tweens (or younger). It's just kinda painful to read as an adult if you didn't grow up on it.

Wow. When you called DMs tyrannical, I thought you were talking about something that's really a problem. Like hard core railroading, or regularly telling you what your character does, or regularly prohibiting actions as 'unrealistic'. Not using something that was a longstanding part of the game for a long time.

Just because you don't like losing levels when you're a player in no way makes it punishing nor tyrannical for those okay with it. Even if the majority of those people are unlikely to regularly be players on such games, as opposed to DMs or theory-crafters on their high horse.

I think his point is the DM shoehorning and being adamant that such features MUST return to their, when by default in 5e such things don't exist. It's like "Why are you so insistent on this one feature...are you out to get us?" kind of vibe. Unless they explain they just want the world to feel more dangerous, for there to be higher stakes, they're running a more grim dark campaign that's a little grittier, etc... and back it up with good reasons.

If they're just like "Because that's how it used to be!!! Vanilla D&D!!!" and want to push the subject to a stifling degree, they may very well be a tyrant DM. Some DM's seem to just want to make like "trap" games, like those video games where you set up mazes set up with traps and then try and see how many people can "beat" their super trapped up thing.

I forget the genre but you may know what I mean. Some DM's are the neutral referees that I think was supposed to be the role back in the day, whatever happens happens, they have no stake they just narrate the world like it's a real place and people do things with consequences. If you die, you die, but it wasn't out of DM malice.

Sigreid

2017-09-22, 01:45 PM

I think his point is the DM shoehorning and being adamant that such features MUST return to their, when by default in 5e such things don't exist. It's like "Why are you so insistent on this one feature...are you out to get us?" kind of vibe. Unless they explain they just want the world to feel more dangerous, for there to be higher stakes, they're running a more grim dark campaign that's a little grittier, etc... and back it up with good reasons.

If they're just like "Because that's how it used to be!!! Vanilla D&D!!!" and want to push the subject to a stifling degree, they may very well be a tyrant DM. Some DM's seem to just want to make like "trap" games, like those video games where you set up mazes set up with traps and then try and see how many people can "beat" their super trapped up thing.

I forget the genre but you may know what I mean. Some DM's are the neutral referees that I think was supposed to be the role back in the day, whatever happens happens, they have no stake they just narrate the world like it's a real place and people do things with consequences. If you die, you die, but it wasn't out of DM malice.

Well, a murder dungeon can be fun once in a while, provided everyone is onboard and wants to do it as a one shot. Beyond the supernatural had specific guidance for running a game where the characters are the victims in a horror movie scenario.

alchahest

2017-09-22, 01:48 PM

The really interesting thing about Harry Potter is that the themes, writing, and dialogue all grow at the same rate as the characters, and, if timed right, the same rate as the kids reading it. I'm not a really big fan of Harry Potter, but it is fantastic for it's target audience.

Tanarii

2017-09-22, 01:51 PM

Some DM's seem to just want to make like "trap" games, like those video games where you set up mazes set up with traps and then try and see how many people can "beat" their super trapped up thing. Gygax and the Tomb of Horrors come to mind. Of course, as I inderstand it, it was designed specifically for convention play. So having a module where the goal is to see how far you can get before your inevitable death makes more sense.

I forget the genre but you may know what I mean. Some DM's are the neutral referees that I think was supposed to be the role back in the day, whatever happens happens, they have no stake they just narrate the world like it's a real place and people do things with consequences. If you die, you die, but it wasn't out of DM malice.Theres a definite difference between that and being out to actively get the Players. I mean, sometimes there's a bit of a fine line. Being out to get players who aren't 'clever' often crosses that gap. Especially when your definition of 'clever' is "completely paranoid that I'm out to get them unless they ask me 50 careful questions or they read my mind."

Willie the Duck

2017-09-22, 01:55 PM

Let's simmer down. No one is on any height of horse, and no one is being forced at gunpoint to play the game in some way or another. (Edit: Oh, you did in the meantime. Okay, carry on then. :smallbiggrin:)

I think the bigger fear than a tyrannical DM is that of a curmudgeon DM that wants to include this or that because 'that's the way it was back in the good old days, grumble grumble' without any thought put into what it gave the game, or what it would do to the current one.

Most of the changes were done with some kind of reasoning in mind, and those where the reason is of the 'some people had a problem with this, others less so' nature, there are usually optional rules to change that. Overnight hp healing, for instance, gets rid of the whole 'having to wait 15-40 or so days to heal naturally if the party doesn't have a cleric' thing that TSR D&D tended to have. If that's not a big deal to your group, there are alternative healing schedules right there in the DMG.

With undead specific powers (such as energy drain). One of the things that changing their abilities has done was make it less important to have a full-leveled cleric accompany the party. Even with a slower healing schedule, you can still get by with a bard or druid or guy with the healer feat or a cleric1/Warlock X or whatever else. If you want to add scary energy drain back into the game, make sure someone actually wants to be the cleric.

Ravinsild

2017-09-22, 02:08 PM

Tanarii

2017-09-22, 02:09 PM

(Edit: Oh, you did in the meantime. Okay, carry on then. :smallbiggrin:)Lol

I think the bigger fear than a tyrannical DM is that of a curmudgeon DM that wants to include this or that because 'that's the way it was back in the good old days, grumble grumble' without any thought put into what it gave the game, or what it would do to the current one.Absolutely. Like I said, for level draining in particular, but for many other aspects too, it's a case of some serious grognardiness high horse.

I mean, from my perspective, a good way to bring back the general 'feel' of BECMI in 5e is just to pay attention to the logistical and exploration rules. Things like torches, rations, encumberance (variant rule), front rank being only ones to detect threats in front, using mappers. Slow healing has a variant if you really want that.

You don't need to bring back level drain or save or die poison or long term paralysis unless your players want it.

Another thing I like is not planning based on adventuring day and encounter guidelines, and telling the players it's up to them to decide if they can take on an area or need to run away. But that's almost impossible anyway if you don't know who's going to be encountering an area in advance. You can plan for some 'average' number of players & levels, but unless you adjust based on party like AL (which IMO destroys the idea of a neutral DM arbiter or a persistent world), the day of session group could be anything.

Pex

2017-09-22, 06:08 PM

Wow. When you called DMs tyrannical, I thought you were talking about something that's really a problem. Like hard core railroading, or regularly telling you what your character does, or regularly prohibiting actions as 'unrealistic'. Not using something that was a longstanding part of the game for a long time.

Just because you don't like losing levels when you're a player in no way makes it punishing nor tyrannical for those okay with it. Even if the majority of those people are unlikely to regularly be players on such games, as opposed to DMs or theory-crafters on their high horse.

It adds nothing to the game but the DM's jollies at the expense of PCs. Players invest in a game just like DMs do. They do it in a different way, but they still spend real world time and effort on it and to lose it all because a monster hits the character is male bovine feces. That it was done in the past is no excuse. It was bad then; it is bad now. It's an in game happenstance affecting out of game protocol.

Tanarii

2017-09-22, 06:20 PM

It's an in game happenstance affecting out of game protocol.
XP and levels are an in-game mechanic, not an out of game anything. And there's absolutely nothing that says these have to only go up. And if you *know* that's the danger, and are that afraid of it, you can act accordingly. That's the point. I don't think it's a great idea, but to call it punishment is a small stretch. Not a big one. Just a small one.

I mean, it's not as ridiculous a position as claiming that not being allowed to bring back a new character at the old dead characters level is somehow 'punishment'. Or that not getting XP when you don't show up at a session is somehow 'punishment'. Those are just trying to justify the expectation that somehow you're entitled to a reward.

In this case, the character is actually losing a game construct assigned to the character. It's definitely negative, not just the absence of positive. But that doesn't inherently make it punishment.

Deleted

2017-09-22, 07:26 PM

PhoenixPhyre

2017-09-22, 08:01 PM

Mechanically 5e is good. However the devs try to have their cake and eat it too by making the game rather rules light in a rules heavy sort of way.

There is still a lot of fat left to be trimmed, so to say.

For example. There are so many types of attacks in the game and they count as something different. Instead of just making it "weapon or magic attack" it is weapon attack, improvised attack, unarmed attack, ranged weapon attack, melee attack, melee weapon attack, and so on... They could have keyed everything off attack or magic attack and cut all the fat. The Ranger has whirlwind attack which should be multiple attacks because you make multiple attack rolls (thus letting you move between attacks) but they wrote it wrong and was intended to be one attack that happen to have multiple rolls... Which breaks their own rules... Yeah.

Huh? There are two major types of attacks (meaning things with the attack label attached), each with one of two possible sub-types, for a grand total of 4, totally symmetric and virtually indistinguishable, cases:

* Weapon attacks are any attack with a weapon or an unarmed attack. Add proficiency if you're proficient in the weapon used--everyone is proficient with unarmed attacks, no one is proficient (without a feat) with improvised weapons.

**Ranged weapon attacks (these are "attacks with ranged weapons", not "attacks made at range") use DEX by default and have disadvantage if a hostile creature is within 5 feet of the attacker. They are also affected by cover.

**Melee weapon attacks (these include attacks with thrown weapons, even at range greater than 5 feet) use STR by default but suffer no penalties with a hostile in melee or from cover.

* Spell attacks are made specifically when a spell calls for them. The only difference between a weapon and a spell attack is the modifier used, and spell attacks always have proficiency.

The resolution method is all the same: 1d20 + MOD + (proficiency if present) vs AC, ties to attacker. Seems simple enough to me, and trying to simplify it further would erase the (important) distinction between ranged and melee.

KorvinStarmast

2017-09-22, 08:55 PM

Deleted

2017-09-23, 06:19 AM

Huh? There are two major types of attacks (meaning things with the attack label attached), each with one of two possible sub-types, for a grand total of 4, totally symmetric and virtually indistinguishable, cases:

* Weapon attacks are any attack with a weapon or an unarmed attack. Add proficiency if you're proficient in the weapon used--everyone is proficient with unarmed attacks, no one is proficient (without a feat) with improvised weapons.

**Ranged weapon attacks (these are "attacks with ranged weapons", not "attacks made at range") use DEX by default and have disadvantage if a hostile creature is within 5 feet of the attacker. They are also affected by cover.

**Melee weapon attacks (these include attacks with thrown weapons, even at range greater than 5 feet) use STR by default but suffer no penalties with a hostile in melee or from cover.

* Spell attacks are made specifically when a spell calls for them. The only difference between a weapon and a spell attack is the modifier used, and spell attacks always have proficiency.

The resolution method is all the same: 1d20 + MOD + (proficiency if present) vs AC, ties to attacker. Seems simple enough to me, and trying to simplify it further would erase the (important) distinction between ranged and melee.

A barbarian can't use a thrown or ranged weapon attack to satisfy their abilities. It must be a melee weapon attack. If it was just a weapon attack then you would be correct, but because 5e breaks down the attack types and things must be specific, we don't really have just two simple options.

Hell, the barbarian even further dictates that a Strength melee weapon attack a Dexterity weapon attack are two different thing as RAGE won't work with the later. In a simple system, rage would work with weapon attacks and wouldn't dictate what subclass of weapon attacks count and don't count.

This is the devs trying to have a simple game yet not being able to make a simple game. I'm not saying it's a terrible thing, just they tried to have their cake and eat it too. 5e isn't actually rules light, though it was sold as that way for a while... 5e is more "Rules Medium" than anything else because of all this.

Pex

2017-09-23, 09:30 AM

Level Drain

If one is going to bring Level drain back to D&D 5e, then one needs to return to the cleric's ability to turn undead to be unlimited as it was then. In OD&D, you didn't have to finish a rest to try and turn Undead again.
Granted, depending on your level and the level of the undead, you can still fail, but you also got to try again next turn.
(I seem to recall the same in AD&D 1e, but memory is fuzzy, need to go and check the book).
Also, Paladin's had a turn undead ability a few levels weaker than Cleric, but it was hard as hell to roll/qualify for paladin.

Trouble is now someone has to play a cleric. A good thing about 5E is no single class must be played by someone. The ability to heal is spread among classes, short rests, and an effective feat for those who are interested. Anyone can look for and disarm traps and add proficiency to it depending on build. This would be a step backward.

Tanarii

2017-09-23, 09:53 AM

Trouble is now someone has to play a cleric. A good thing about 5E is no single class must be played by someone. The ability to heal is spread among classes, short rests, and an effective feat for those who are interested. Anyone can look for and disarm traps and add proficiency to it depending on build. This would be a step backward.
Yeah, that's a very good game design argument against Level Drain. Also in favor of Long Rest healing. As long as the DM provides a level 9 cleric within 10 days of travel, Raise Dead isn't a problem either.

It means accepting some things as artifacts of the game, like full recovery in 24 hours. Or needing to introduce variant rules like Gritty Realism resting and Lingering Injuries if you want more brutal healing rates and injuries.

KorvinStarmast

2017-09-23, 08:18 PM

Trouble is now someone has to play a cleric. Given that cleric is one of the original classes, wrong. But if you have a dozen classes, and level drain, then adding to the number of ways undead could be turned/handled would be appropriate.

That said, I won't say that as a player I miss level drain. there are still ways for some undead like wights, shadows, etc to, if they hit you often enough, get you to 0 HP and then under their control that the danger is still there.

What 5e has going on in that regard is fine, as it's something you can at least work against/try to deal with. Not quite as "save or suck" as the first time I was hit by a wight in OD&D

(OK, you are now a 4th level magic user, and can't use fireball. That sorta sucked.) We killed it, adventured more, and eventually I got back to 5th level.

mephnick

2017-09-23, 08:27 PM

there are still ways for some undead like wights, shadows, etc to, if they hit you often enough, get you to 0 HP and then under their control that the danger is still there
.

The attacks are so weak I bet it hasn't come up in the history of 5e at any table in the world, so I'm not really sure they count..

Whether save or suck is something you want, the ones that do have the abilities should at least be effective.

Stan

2017-09-23, 09:16 PM

I kinda want a middle ground with special monster powers. I don't miss save or die or AD&D level drain. But I want more than most just amount of hp damage. On the other hand, 3e had ability score damage and things and it could be a pain in the ass - it could affect a dozen types of rolls that you had to keep track of. I guess I just like the fear aspect, where characters were afraid to get near a monster.

Finieous

2017-09-24, 03:35 AM

To be clear, I wouldn't reintroduce level drain and save-or-die in a game I'm running for my wonderful group of players. It's not what they enjoy. I'd love to play in such a game again. This is because it adds a sense of real risk, suspense and danger to the game that daily hit point attrition followed by full recovery can't touch, and I like those things.

So enough with the "Tyrant DM just wants his jollies" crap.

Eric Diaz

2017-09-24, 08:14 PM

Sigreid

2017-09-24, 08:43 PM

What if some rare monsters caused festering wounds that couldn't be healed by magic and didn't heal over night. The basic idea rattling around in my head is they could only be healed by spending hit dice over a long rest, leaving at best fewer HD for the next day.

Stan

2017-09-24, 09:24 PM

Exhaustion seems to be a good compromise. Other than that, I use Constitution damage.

That's a good idea. I've used it for non-lethal damage for a particular case. But it could be a monster power for something akin to a vampire. It can be healed at higher level but still takes resources. One hit isn't nearly as painful as level drain but it adds up and can be debilitating for a couple of days.

A lesser draining creature might give a level of exhaustion only on a critical or only when it rolls max damage.

Willie the Duck

2017-09-25, 07:15 AM

A barbarian can't use a thrown or ranged weapon attack to satisfy their abilities. It must be a melee weapon attack. If it was just a weapon attack then you would be correct, but because 5e breaks down the attack types and things must be specific, we don't really have just two simple options.

Hell, the barbarian even further dictates that a Strength melee weapon attack a Dexterity weapon attack are two different thing as RAGE won't work with the later. In a simple system, rage would work with weapon attacks and wouldn't dictate what subclass of weapon attacks count and don't count.

This is the devs trying to have a simple game yet not being able to make a simple game. I'm not saying it's a terrible thing, just they tried to have their cake and eat it too. 5e isn't actually rules light, though it was sold as that way for a while... 5e is more "Rules Medium" than anything else because of all this.

Weapon v. non-weapon, melee v. ranged, and Str-based v. Dex-based means there are three binary, toggle-switch flags you have on attacks. That's less than the number of flags that exist on damage type, and I've never heard anyone suggest that you can have different vulnerabilities or resistances to piercing damage instead of fire damage etc. indicates that the game is rules medium instead of rules light.

So, also not saying wrong. I'm just not finding the argument convincing.