5e Concerns

[carrdrivesyou]

So I've been with this edition for a while now, and I have to say...it seems a bit bland as systems go.

1. The spell lists are short and lack imagination.

2. Magic items are few, far between, and stick to basics; even then, they really don't change things up that much.

3. There seems to be very little class versatility. There are no prestige classes, just subclasses that just lock you into something simple and straightforward.

With this in mind, I am curious what the overall angle is here. As far as versatility goes, I feel like this edition is just role-playing in a straight jacket. That being said, I also know this edition is the newest and is still growing.

My questions to the Playground are these:

1. Should we expect to see Prestige Classes in the future or no?
2. Will there be more base classes available in the future (I know about the Mystic), or are they just going to continue expanding by subclass?
3. What's the appeal of this edition over previous ones?
4. Will we see something akin to 3.5's MIC, or are we stuck with basic, ineffective magic gear from 1-20?

[Daphne]

1. Should we expect to see Prestige Classes in the future or no?

No, prestige won't be a thing in this edition, the designers said it wasn't a well received idea.


2. Will there be more base classes available in the future (I know about the Mystic), or are they just going to continue expanding by subclass?

They might release the Mystic and the Artificer, other than that it will probably be just new Archetypes.


4. Will we see something akin to 3.5's MIC, or are we stuck with basic, ineffective magic gear from 1-20?

MIC is not a thing in this edition, but a DM can give as much magic items as he wants. Magic items are not necessary, but that doesn't mean you can't have them in abundance.

[youtellatale]

So I've been with this edition for a while now, and I have to say...it seems a bit bland as systems go.

1. The spell lists are short and lack imagination.

2. Magic items are few, far between, and stick to basics; even then, they really don't change things up that much.

3. There seems to be very little class versatility. There are no prestige classes, just subclasses that just lock you into something simple and straightforward.

With this in mind, I am curious what the overall angle is here. As far as versatility goes, I feel like this edition is just role-playing in a straight jacket. That being said, I also know this edition is the newest and is still growing.

My questions to the Playground are these:

1. Should we expect to see Prestige Classes in the future or no?
2. Will there be more base classes available in the future (I know about the Mystic), or are they just going to continue expanding by subclass?
3. What's the appeal of this edition over previous ones?
4. Will we see something akin to 3.5's MIC, or are we stuck with basic, ineffective magic gear from 1-20?

1) No and I hope not. That's too much crunch and prestige classes required feat chains, and encouraged immense amounts of cheese for many of them. I sincerely hope they never come out. The subclasses are their own version of Prestige Classes anyway.

2) Maybe one or two like the Mystic. There seems to be enough fanfare around it to get WotC to add a new class.

3) Simplicity and ease of play. You don't have to read 4 different books to know how this version plays.

4) There are more than enough tools & instructions in the rulebooks for DMs and players alike to create their own magic items. If there's something that you want that doesn't exist then create it.

[kebusmaximus]

So I've been with this edition for a while now, and I have to say...it seems a bit bland as systems go.

1. The spell lists are short and lack imagination.

2. Magic items are few, far between, and stick to basics; even then, they really don't change things up that much.

3. There seems to be very little class versatility. There are no prestige classes, just subclasses that just lock you into something simple and straightforward.

With this in mind, I am curious what the overall angle is here. As far as versatility goes, I feel like this edition is just role-playing in a straight jacket. That being said, I also know this edition is the newest and is still growing.

My questions to the Playground are these:

1. Should we expect to see Prestige Classes in the future or no?
2. Will there be more base classes available in the future (I know about the Mystic), or are they just going to continue expanding by subclass?
3. What's the appeal of this edition over previous ones?
4. Will we see something akin to 3.5's MIC, or are we stuck with basic, ineffective magic gear from 1-20?

1. I don't know if we will. There was an Unearthed Arcana some time ago that experimented with a prestige class, but we haven't seen anything else with them since then.

2. The artificer is confirmed to be coming; like the mystic, there's a ua version up on dmsguild.

3. Main reasons are: it's d&d and therefore well-known, but is much simpler than the next most popular edition; it's still in print with good support; I actually like the system, even if it's not perfect.

4. Also speculation, but I don't think so. See, I disagree that 5e magic gear is "basic [and] innefective." 3.5 depended on magic items because it was all but necessary to have higher stats. 5e gets rid of that idea, but magic items can still do all of the things other than raising abilities, saves, and skills. It's just that it's up to the dm when you get everything, as opposed to using strict timetables.

[SirGraystone]

The appeal of this new edition is not needing dozens of books to play.

But if you need more options, you can check the website like http://www.dmsguild.com

Book like Elminster's Guide to Magic or the book of lost spells for example add a lots of new (or old) spells.

[johnbragg]

2. Will there be more base classes available in the future (I know about the Mystic), or are they just going to continue expanding by subclass?

I won't say none. But, in addition to Fighter Wizard Rogue Cleric, Barbarian Sorcerer Bard Druid, Paladin Warlock Monk Ranger, I'd be shocked if the number of 5e official base classes ever cracks 20.


3. What's the appeal of this edition over previous ones?

Less bloat. You don't have to (and really can't) plot out a 20-level build with feat chains, prestige classes and dips. It's condescending, but "play your character, not your character sheet." (Ironic, to me, in that if that's the design goal, you could dial it way back to BX/BECMI levels of complexity while using modern, unified mechanics.)


4. Will we see something akin to 3.5's MIC, or are we stuck with basic, ineffective magic gear from 1-20?

I think part of the design philosophy is to AVOID the magic christmas-tree effect, so I'd expect published magic items to be unique (intelligent magic weapons, that sort of thing) or very situational.

[sophontteks]

Most of these missing things are the things that killed 3.5 and are not coming back.

I personally really like the 5e spelllist. They did something really smart with spells by compiling many spells into one.
- many charm spells work on undead now, allowing them to remove spells that were specific to undead.
- Enhance ability is 5 spells compiled into 1
- Spells like suggestion and phantasmal force are as strong as your imagination.
- There are less improved versions of spells, instead the original spell gains power when upcast.

I give 5e credit for simplifying the spell list without reducing the options. It makes managing spelllists easier and keeps lower level spells valuable.

5e is a bit of a return to the roots of pen and paper where we don't need a stat for everything. We roleplay. Like above said. Play your character, not your sheet.

[smcmike]

1. Should we expect to see Prestige Classes in the future or no?

No.



2. Will there be more base classes available in the future (I know about the Mystic), or are they just going to continue expanding by subclass?

Maybe a couple, but it seems mostly subclasses. If you aren’t happy with what exists, I don’t think there is anything coming down the pipe that will change your mind.



3. What's the appeal of this edition over previous ones?

Compared with 3.5, the simplicity of 5e is the major appeal. The stacking modifiers of 3.5 feel absurd to me, in comparison, and there are fewer statuses to keep track of as well. In a related note, the base classes are better balanced, with basically no trap options, whereas it doesn’t take long in 3.5 to feel useless in many of the base martial classes. The classes also get more interesting abilities built into them than base 3.5 classes did.



4. Will we see something akin to 3.5's MIC, or are we stuck with basic, ineffective magic gear from 1-20?

I don’t understand this question. What sort of magic gear are you looking for, exactly? It always seemed to me that 3.5 was largely about gear with big numbers attached to it, which is insanely boring.

[Contrast]

4. Will we see something akin to 3.5's MIC, or are we stuck with basic, ineffective magic gear from 1-20?

Others have answered the other questions adequately I think but I thought I'd just chime in here.

If you find the magic items in the DMG boring (I agree a lot of them are pretty uninspired) there's nothing stopping you adding new ones, just keep in mind the edition favours less significant boosts than previous editions (no +5s here). I really like the common magic items from Xanathars in that they provide flavour and minor utility without being straight up powerful.

[strangebloke]

Characters are much stronger now, on average. They have loads of abilities that in previous editions required specializations, and individual spells are way more flexible.

For example, in 3x you had fireball, greater fireball, epic fireball... In 5e you have fireball, but it can be cast at like five different levels. Enhance ability covers the same ground as bull's strength, cat's grace, eagle's splendor, mass bull's strength, mass bear's endurance... etc.

For martials, every Strength-based character can shove, trip, bullrush, and grapple right out of the gate. They can move, attack, move, and then attack, all from level 1. If you wanted to simulate a 5e character in 3.5, you'd have to give them like 10 feats.

So when you say that there's less customization, you're right, but the capabilities of characters are much broader and allow for much more creativity in the moment. There's no reason my Dex-based paladin can't pick up a bow and start shooting.

1. Prestige classes are never coming back. They're crappy design. When was the last time that you took a PRC for the flavor? And flavor was what those classes were designed to add.
2. New classes will come out eventually. Like everyone else, I think we'll see an artificer and a mystic. With their current release schedule, we'll get some more subclasses next year. If you want more base classes, there is some good homebrew. Most DMs will allow Matt Mercer's Blood Hunter, for example.
3. I'm so glad you asked!

-Intuitive play. You want to play a martial artist? Go monk. Compared to 3.5 where it was: "Play a sword sage without a sword and get into shou disciple."
-Small number of books with high average quality of content. 90% of the material in 3.5 books was garbage. Remember the Shining Blade of Heironeous?
-Intuitive play.
-Lots of options on each turn of combat for each player. I already went into this, but compared to 3.5's "I run forward and hit him" turns, I'll take 5e.
-Fast rounds of combat, more rounds. Easier to keep players engaged when their turn comes back up every 5-10 minutes.
-More enemy options at every level. Legendary and Lair actions make boss monsters feel very powerful and engaging. Bounded accuracy means you can kill 20th level characters with goblins.
-etc.

4. Magic items are more impactful. The Christmas Tree was always stupid. I say this as someone who started in 3.5: I hated it from the first game I played. you can't build attachment to your gear when your gear is on a constant, boring +x treadmill. (I know that most people didn't go for +x items, I'm just using that a way to speak about needing contant boosts.)

3.5: "Ooh, I got a +2 shield, yay me, I don't have to buy that one in town now."
5e: "Oh my word, its a +2. I'm basically unstoppable now."

[strangebloke]

Characters are much stronger now, on average. They have loads of abilities that in previous editions required specializations, and individual spells are way more flexible.

For example, in 3x you had fireball, greater fireball, epic fireball... In 5e you have fireball, but it can be cast at like five different levels. Enhance ability covers the same ground as bull's strength, cat's grace, eagle's splendor, mass bull's strength, mass bear's endurance... etc.

For martials, every Strength-based character can shove, trip, bullrush, and grapple right out of the gate. They can move, attack, move, and then attack, all from level 1. If you wanted to simulate a 5e character in 3.5, you'd have to give them like 10 feats.

So when you say that there's less customization, you're right, but the capabilities of characters are much broader and allow for much more creativity in the moment. There's no reason my Dex-based paladin can't pick up a bow and start shooting.

1. Prestige classes are never coming back. They're crappy design. When was the last time that you took a PRC for the flavor? And flavor was what those classes were designed to add.
2. New classes will come out eventually. Like everyone else, I think we'll see an artificer and a mystic. With their current release schedule, we'll get some more subclasses next year. If you want more base classes, there is some good homebrew. Most DMs will allow Matt Mercer's Blood Hunter, for example.
3. I'm so glad you asked!

-Intuitive play. You want to play a martial artist? Go monk. Compared to 3.5 where it was: "Play a sword sage without a sword and get into shou disciple."
-Small number of books with high average quality of content. 90% of the material in 3.5 books was garbage. Remember the Shining Blade of Heironeous?
-Intuitive play.
-Lots of options on each turn of combat for each player. I already went into this, but compared to 3.5's "I run forward and hit him" turns, I'll take 5e.
-Fast rounds of combat, more rounds. Easier to keep players engaged when their turn comes back up every 5-10 minutes.
-More enemy options at every level. Legendary and Lair actions make boss monsters feel very powerful and engaging. Bounded accuracy means you can kill 20th level characters with goblins.
-etc.

4. Magic items are more impactful. The Christmas Tree was always stupid. I say this as someone who started in 3.5: I hated it from the first game I played. you can't build attachment to your gear when your gear is on a constant, boring +x treadmill. (I know that most people didn't go for +x items, I'm just using that a way to speak about needing contant boosts.)

3.5: "I got a +2 shield. Yay. I don't have to buy that one in town now."
5e: "Oh my word, its a +2. I'm basically unstoppable now."

[2D8HP]

So I've been with this edition for a while now, and I have to say...it seems a bit bland as systems go


Well I first bought the 3e PHB nearly 18 years ago, but I just bought the 3.5 PHB this year, but I still haven't played 3.5 yet (I also bought the Pathfinder Corebook again this year as I lost the first one I bought years ago), so I've never played 3.5, but I own that editions PHB, I played a lot of 0e and 1e way back, and I've played some 5e which has been fun, so I'll try and answer the best I can.
.
1. The spell lists are short and lack imagination.


There's more spells in Xanthar's Guide, the SCAG, and other books


2. Magic items are few, far between, and stick to basics; even then, they really don't change things up that much.


More in Xanthar's Guide and other books.


3. There seems to be very little class versatility. There are no prestige classes, just subclasses that just lock you into something simple and straightforward.


Really? I find most of the classes pretty complex.


With this in mind, I am curious what the overall angle is here. As far as versatility goes, I feel like this edition is just role-playing in a straight jacket. That being said, I also know this edition is the newest and is still growing.

My questions to the Playground are these:

1. Should we expect to see Prestige Classes in the future or no?


I hope not, but who knows?


2. Will there be more base classes available in the future (I know about the Mystic), or are they just going to continue expanding by subclass?


Maybe


3. What's the appeal of this edition over previous ones?


More than TSR D&D?

Actual other people play it.

First level PC's can do a lot and usually survive to reach second level.

Compared to Pathfinder?

The Adventurers League game night isn't on the same night of the week as my Union meetings.

"Feats" are an option that I may ignore.

I can play the types of PC's that I want to play longer without as much fear of just being a Wizard's waterboy.


4. Will we see something akin to 3.5's MIC, or are we stuck with basic, ineffective magic gear from 1-20?


Sorry, I don't have a guess on what you mean.


....If the game features a Dragon sitting on a pile of treasure, in a Dungeon and you play a Wizard with a magic wand, or a warrior in armor, wielding a longbow, just like the picture on the box I picked up in 1978, whatever the edition, I want to play that game!


Yes... provisionally.

So, 2e was my game.

I started playing D&D in or around 1993. I was a young geekling just taking their first steps into true nerddom. I walked into a comic and gaming shop called "The Bookmark" to buy some magic cards and saw some people playing a game I didn't know anything about... so I sat in.

Within a couple of weekends, I was rolling up a Mage that was horribly derivative of Raistlin for the Dragonlance campaign Toby (The DM) was running. I was easily distracted, unfocused, annoying, and constantly needed help to do literally anything from character creation to rolling the dice because the rules didn't make sense, yet.

And it was kind of fun. Mostly I think I enjoyed having so many older teens focused on me in a positive way, sharing something they enjoyed, was a precious feeling that I'll never forget. Over the next few years my brother and I got a real "Feel" for what roleplaying and Dungeons and Dragons were about.

It wasn't long before both of us were running our own games. Sometimes at home, sometimes at the Bookmark. My parents were delighted because the family was pretty poor at the time, but people were happy to loan us their books if it meant someone else was the DM, y'know? My parents would drop us off at the Bookmark on Weekends and due to the way gaming worked at the shop, we'd get a decent meal without it costing the family precious food stamps...

I traveled the Sea of Silt in a skiff. My brother walked through the doors of Sigil. We fled from Darkon with riches untold, and died at the teeth of countless fantastic beasts. The game was fantasy, and escape, and warmth of camaraderie. Surrounded by people who would die for me, even if it was only in a game of imagination.

Over time, we scrimped and saved enough to buy a few sourcebooks, the Dark Sun Boxed Set, and the core rulebooks. But Norman grew out of tabletop gaming and, without my knowledge, sold all of the books for some cash so he could buy tickets to a Metallica Concert. I was devastated.

Still. I borrowed books. I wrote until my wrist hurt. I memorized charts and tables of attacks and experience and I continued to run games to the best of my ability, and play in them.

Third Edition came out while I was in Job Corps. I had been unable to get to a tabletop game for over a year, and satisfied myself with reading GURPS books and the like or trying to play in some ridiculous games that had as much focus as a camera with no lens dipped in bacon grease. These weren't even beer and pretzels games, folks, they were hollow attempts at self-aggrandizement by the GM while everyone else tried and failed to do anything interesting.

My boyfriend and I bought the core books for 3e somewhere around 2001. I started running games pretty much immediately and pretty much nonstop. I used old campaign notes and adapted monsters to the new stats and systems, but it all felt... wrong. The stories didn't feel supported by the rules, being things of deadly seriousness while the rules were too lenient with the players, giving them endless solutions and choice paralysis.

The feeling of real RISK was gone. My players? Loved it. So I ran.

3.5 came along and, for a brief time, it was a bit better. With the changes they made, there, helped to limit some of the shenanigans, but soon the massive glut of rulesets bogged everything down, again. Endless new classes and prestige classes and feat trees created mires that left my stories by the wayside... Most of my old campaign notes and adventures were lost around that time. I just gave up on ever hoping to have that feeling, again.

4e was a mess. I had minimal interest in it. But Pathfinder was a new and interesting take on 3e's systems while killing off the 3.5 glut. New class design and features shifting things around and made the overwhelming quantity of tables and rules-infringements disappear... at least until they made it all 3.5 compatible.

At that point, I more or less left tabletop gaming behind for the second time in my life, and threw myself into MMORPGs and Internet Chat RP to scratch that escapist itch. It's where I eventually met my husband (A different story, altogether!) and the best friend we both have. This best friend? He does tabletop gaming online. And brought us into it, full force. Mutants and Masterminds, Pathfinder, 4th Edition D&D, some small measure of Savage Worlds... None of it felt -exactly- like home, but it was warm, and friendly, and I loved it.

5th edition came down the pipeline. By this point in my life, I was a systems design nerd. I love breaking down the mechanics of how a game determines successes or damage, balances different characters, and more. So 5th edition initially drew me in on -that- basis.

But as I played, I started feeling that old feeling, again. Just glimmers of it, here or there. The feeling I had, sitting at a table of friends, looking up from character sheets to dice and shouting with delight at the result. OF being truly -excited- by the game, by the friends, by the outcomes. Feeling nervous when I rolled a die. Feeling like there was a real weight in my hand...

It still wasn't perfect. Not until I started running Tyranny of Dragons. I know. I know. It's so simplistic and railroady and site-to-site... But my players don't always hold to the rails. Don't always follow the plan. They're players like that. And during one of the first encounters in that game, the whole table, scattered across the US as we are, felt the excitement, the weight of the dice. The feelings I'd not truly felt in almost two decades crystallized in that moment, into perfect clarity.

And suddenly I was a kid, sitting at the table with my friends, watching a die bounce in slow motion, feeling the trepidation and hope for how it would land, the fifth death save of my husband's character, bouncing across the digital playspace as a computer generated image of a polyhedral dice...

And the feeling stayed. It hasn't faded, yet.

When I look at 5e D&D I feel that joy, again, that unbridled exuberance. Like a sleeping dragon finally taking to the skies, anew, after a decades long slumber. And the glory of the world is blinding and bold. Worlds. From Athas to Faerun to Golarion and Krynn. Across Oerth and the Planes I'm ready, again, to step forth onto a skiff to cut across the sea of silt. To step into the dungeon-tomb of Acererak. To plunder Undermountain and to stand Against the Giants.

5th edition isn't for everyone. 5th edition won't rekindle everyone's childhood feeling of what D&D truly -was-. It's not a perfect system, by a long shot. And it's definitely not 2nd edition. But it's closer, in my opinion, than anything has ever been. And it did it while moving forward, while learning from 2e's mistakes and making new ones that it'll learn from as it goes on.

I highly recommend it.

[Petrocorus]

3. What's the appeal of this edition over previous ones?

Compared to 3.5 (because that's mostly what we are speaking about), 5E is much much more balanced and more beginner friendly, and simple. At least for any player who just take the time to read his class features and basic spell list.

No trap options, no need to optimized everything to stay relevant. You basically have what was good with 3.5 with some of the best idea of 4E. Every class can shine and no class can easily break the game. Only a few subclasses have real issue.

Of course, you don't have as many options as in 3.5. In 3.5, you could build the X-Men and made them fine characters. You won't do this easily in 5E. But on the other hand, several character type work much better in this edition, like Dex-based melee warrior or archers for instance




4. Will we see something akin to 3.5's MIC, or are we stuck with basic, ineffective magic gear from 1-20?
A MIC with a lot of new magic items is not going to happen, but we may have at some point a compendium of the specific items published in campaigns and other supplements.

[Knaight]

So I've been with this edition for a while now, and I have to say...it seems a bit bland as systems go.

1. The spell lists are short and lack imagination.

2. Magic items are few, far between, and stick to basics; even then, they really don't change things up that much.

3. There seems to be very little class versatility. There are no prestige classes, just subclasses that just lock you into something simple and straightforward.

With this in mind, I am curious what the overall angle is here. As far as versatility goes, I feel like this edition is just role-playing in a straight jacket. That being said, I also know this edition is the newest and is still growing.

1. The spells are pretty much the standard D&D spells - which have been short on imagination since about 2nd edition, as the core system has been pretty static since then and the spells have mostly been repeats or mild offshoots within a fairly static structure (4e pushed out on the structure a bit, but even then it was mostly the same spells conceptually).

2. No argument here. This was a deliberate design decision to kill the Christmas Tree effect, and if you like a magic item dense game that gets in the way.

3. Again, no argument here. The class system lends itself well to fairly archetypal characters which fit a few broad fantasy archetypes.

As for the overall angle, it's not a versatile system. Magic items are largely a side note here; completely historical games, modern games, sci-fi games, and others which don't have them work fine and can be varied, but many other decisions, starting with the use of a class system at all, the specificity in setting, the numerous adventuring rules built around the particular structure of dungeon crawls, etc. The overall angle is that 5e is a game to play powerful adventurers going on combat heavy adventures in which they explore dungeon heavy environments, and not a general toolkit system.

It's not GURPS, it shouldn't be GURPS, and while it lacks 3.5's flexibility that puts it outside of the awkward middle range 3.5 fit in, where it could clunkily and indirectly make a small fraction of the concepts easily handled in basically any generic system, while simultaneously being worse at archetype representation than systems that go all in there. 5e is also in this awkward middle ground in certain ways, but it's at least less central.

*Partially because of the way D&D has warped fantasy, admittedly.

[Grod_The_Giant]

So I've been with this edition for a while now, and I have to say...it seems a bit bland as systems go.
I mean, D&D is a bit bland, so...


3. What's the appeal of this edition over previous ones?
It has the feel of playing D&D (race/class, hit points, spell slots, d20 rolls, 6 abilities, iconic names/abilities, etc) without being as intimidatingly large and complicated as 3e or 4e. "3e but simpler;" to some that's a selling point, to others it's a weakness. If it doesn't appeal, there are about a million other systems out there. If you liked the power and complexity of 3e but want something new, maybe check out something like Exalted?

[Willie the Duck]

With this in mind, I am curious what the overall angle is here. As far as versatility goes, I feel like this edition is just role-playing in a straight jacket. That being said, I also know this edition is the newest and is still growing.

Let's just skip to the meat of this. Sorry if I'm being abrupt, but we have about one of these every 4-6 weeks and they rarely go well.

5e is not 3e. Is not meant to be 3e. In many ways is a reaction to the ways that 3e failed a bunch of people (whom you may or may not agree with). If the only games you have played are 3e/PF, or if you've played both TSR-era D&D and 3e/PF and don't understand why anyone would not agree that 3e/PF was a step in the right direction, then 5e will probably seem like a strange form of 'advancement.' If you have played table top role playing games other than D&D, 3e/PF is just one particular wavelength along a huge spectrum of character rules-variability and specialization, and there's no particular reason why any other game (including another edition of D&D) would conform to that very specific position.

Suffice to say, 5e has most of the spells and magic items people consider 'iconic,' without the expansion that 3e (and 4e) added, and it seems a lot of people like that. That's not good or bad, it just is. If that is unsatisfactory, WotC has made quite clear that they expect the 3rd party product market to fill voids where the game does not meet everyone's preferences.

[brainface]

3. There seems to be very little class versatility. There are no prestige classes, just subclasses that just lock you into something simple and straightforward.

Something I want to bring up that's drastically different in 5e and easy to miss on first pass: multiclassing is much, much more viable. In 3e, if your fighter takes a level of wizard, you can cast burning hands for 1d4 damage, you can cast charm person at a very low dc, you either have to ditch your armor or face massive spell failure penalties, or jump through some other hoops.

In 5e, your burning hands will do 3d6 damage, your charm person dc is potentially as high as a single classed spellcaster's highest level spell, and you can cast all these spells while wearing full plate.

So in 3e, if you want to be "a fighter wizard", you have to plot out a path, find a prestige class, look for some feats, maybe find mithril armor.

In 5e, you take fighter and wizard levels. Want to be a cleric/mage? Take cleric and wizard levels. You'll lose some higher level spells, but you'll gain the same number of spell slots, which is going to wind up very close to the same power level.

There's still optimization involved--level in the wrong order or at the wrong time and there's definitely a power loss involved, warlock is... weird, but it's nothing on the scale of 3rd edition.

So while it appears 5e has a lot less options (it does! it has many, many fewer options), its percentage of viable options are much higher in a way that's easy to miss if you're thinking from a 3e mindset, and they tend to "just work" compared to previous editions.

[Tanarii]

The point of 5e is to play the game, not engage in character building pr0n. As such they gave a fairly robust, while still not overly complex, set of character options.

It feels a little more like D&D, and a little less like GURPs or shadowrun.

[Pex]

The problem with 5E magic items is one of DM overreaction. They are so excited that PCs do not absolutely need any one particular magic item to be effective for any level (which I agree is a good thing) and magic item shops aren't a thing, but they take that to mean there shouldn't be any magic items at all yet if you must have a magic item only make it a one time use consumable.

5E does not forbid magic items. 5E does not fall apart into unplayable brokenness when PCs have permanent magic items. 5E does not fall apart into unplayable brokenness when PCs have permanent magic items that increase their power a little in combat. 5E can be played without magic items but it's not supposed to be that way, never intended to be that way, nor badwrongfun playing wrong when you do have permanent magic items.

[strangebloke]

The problem with 5E magic items is one of DM overreaction. They are so excited that PCs do not absolutely need any one particular magic item to be effective for any level (which I agree is a good thing) and magic item shops aren't a thing, but they take that to mean there shouldn't be any magic items at all yet if you must have a magic item only make it a one time use consumable.

5E does not forbid magic items. 5E does not fall apart into unplayable brokenness when PCs have permanent magic items. 5E does not fall apart into unplayable brokenness when PCs have permanent magic items that increase their power a little in combat. 5E can be played without magic items but it's not supposed to be that way, never intended to be that way, nor badwrongfun playing wrong when you do have permanent magic items.

Indeed, although I'll note that most of the 3.5 DMs I had didn't give out magic items basically ever, and usually wouldn't let you buy them. Encounter difficulty was scaled down accordingly, but as a guy who plays martials, it sucked pretty hard. (I can't really complain, since I minmaxed and powergamed like my life depended on it.)

Anyway, while this problem might be worse in 5e, it's not a new thing entirely.

[Theodoxus]

So I've been with this edition for a while now, and I have to say...it seems a bit bland as systems go.
[snip]


I'm gonna be that guy. You don't have to play 5e, unless there are literally no players willing to try something else... but really, unless you live in a podunk town of no-numbers, you should be able to find a group of likeminded folk.

I have friends who HATE 5e, and will never move from Pathfinder (and yes, they played an entire campaign with me of 5e, so it's not a matter of just not trying it). They hate the idea of Pathfinder 2 as well, because it 'dumbs down the math'. So I get it, the game isn't for everyone.

Yes, you can stretch 5e to do the things you're ranting about, but honestly, it's just easier to stick to the system(s) that already include them natively. It's ok.

[Sception]

Should We Expect Prestige Classes?

- at the moment, no. There was playtest material for it earlier on, but it didn't go over well and has been largely abandoned. That said, this is the slowest developing edition of D&D basically ever, barely one major expansion a year - and generally not player content focused. We've already seen some pretty noticeable design philosophy shifts, so it's entirely possible that by the time 5e is getting its 4th or 5th significant expansion that the developer & community outlook on this will have changed.

I personally kind of miss what Prestige Classes in 3e and Paragon Paths / Epic Destinies in 4e added to the experience of playing a character, in the form of mid-game milestones that let your character change what they were in some fundamental way, and let you as a player make the sort of major character building decision part way through your career that you made when choosing your race & class at first level. 5e is rather lacking in those sorts of major milestone & build option points after the first few levels.

Will There Be More Base Classes

Probably. Artificer and Mystic were already mentioned, and play test versions are in largely playable if not entirely balanced/coherent form. Others are possible. In general, though, most new character concepts are made into subclasses and shoved under the skirt of the most thematically appropriate existing class. This definitely has advantages and disadvantages. The overall system stays simpler and more coherent, but there is a significant sacrifice made in creativity and variety on the mechanical end. 5e offers much less in the form of innovative mechanical content leading to novel game play experiences than what we saw from 3e's warlock, theme casters (warcaster/beguiler/dread necromancer), factotum, & psionic classes, let alone anything from the more out there books like tome of battle, tome of magic, or magic of incarnum.

So new classes are coming, but more slowly than I personally would like, and a lot of concepts that could have provided the thematic round for entirely new classes with their own bespoke mechanics are getting gobbled up by existing classes with mechanics in many places only barely distinguished from other builds of the same class.

Now don't get me wrong, in some cases new subclasses work beautifully. Oath of Conquest is amazing and playing it is a considerably different experience from playing other paladins (at least from level 7 on). I cannot imagine a stand alone class doing the concept any better justice. But in other cases, like Bladesinger or Arcane Archer, the subclass treatment really lets the concept down. Even if the result is mechanically viable, it just doesn't do the concept justice the way a full class treatment would have.

Even in the new classes that are being worked on, we see some of this. The current version of the Mystic in particular suffers heavily from trying to be 'every possible psionic character concept in a single class'. Imagine if there were a single 'magic user' class that tried to replace not just cleric, wizard, druid, warlock, and sorcerer, but also paladin, ranger, eldritch knight, 4 elements monk, and arcane trickster as well, and you'll get an idea of the problem with the current Mystic. It really wants to be at least 2 and as many as four different classes, but for whatever reason (lack of manpower, arbitrary restrictions of development philosophy, whatever) so far the development team has been trying to restrict psionics to different builds of a single class.

The minimalism also causes problems if something is covered poorly by the first attempt. For instance, the undying warlock patron really is terrible, which is such a shame because a necromantically themed warlock with an undead patron is such a brilliant concept and now I doubt we'll ever see a good version of it in 5e since the designers don't want to recover the same conceptual ground with different mechanical implementations.

Or take the Paladin of Treachery, introduced in playtest form along with the Paladin of Conquest, but later dropped, I'm convinced, for thematically overlapping with the Oathbreaker too much. I mean, sure paladin of tyranny was also a bit overpowered, but that would have been an easy fix. Now don't get me wrong, Oathbreaker is a cool subclass mechanically, but it's a much better fit for an avowed servant of evil powers, rather than the treacherous, self-interest deceiver and, well, oath breaker fluff that was assigned to it originally. Paladin of Treachery was a much better fit for that! Illusion & escape abilities, poison, confusion, etc. Really fantastic stuff in terms of bringing a character concept to life through evocative mechanics. But it's been dropped, and will likely never see the light of day again, for fear of stepping on the thematic toes of printed content, and a lot of good good content has been and will be lost because of this mind set.

I mean, compare to 3rd edition - the core content was fine, but it was only after time and experience and feedback that the best, funnest, and most fully realized content emerged. Beguiler and Warblade were infinitely better designed and funner to play than anything in the first PHB, but never would have seen the light of day under the 5e design philosophy which would have said 'we already have wizards and fighters' and stopped there.

I'm way off on a tangent here, I know, and don't get me wrong, I like 5e a ton, probably my favorite edition in the broad strokes, but this issue bothers me. How much better content will we have to miss out on, just because it's conceptually similar to some inferior content that's already been published?

What's the Appeal of 5th Edition

Despite my long diatribe, 5th edition is my favorite edition of the game so far. I think the designers are needlessly hobbling their own ability to grow and innovate past the core material, but that core material is itself the strongest and most coherent of any edition of D&D to date. 3rd & 4th edition were both years into their lifespan before they were producing content with the same polish and refinement, and by the time they were those editions were cluttered with so, so much garbage. 5e aimed for and reached a high quality mark right out of the bat.

Every class and almost every build is playable and uniquely enjoyable in some way. A few shine or falter, but none to the degree seen in previous editions.

Decision points have been dramatically reduced, which is a bit of a bummer for those like myself who enjoy character crunching for its own sake, but care has been taken to make sure every decision point is manageable, intuitive, and meaningful. Choosing spells is about as hasslesome as it gets, but no more will you be wading through thousands of terrible options to find good ones, and players who don't think about builds and just make relatively straight forward, intuitive choices will rarely be punished doing so, and never as harshly as in the past. I think some more significant decision points later on would be good, but so much of the fiddling and clutter is gone, and the emphasis is put more on the actual round by round, at the table game play than it was in 3rd edition. Now, 4th edition, maligned as it was, had an admirable focus on actual gameplay and team based party mechanics, but it suffered from the clutter problem more than any other edition and that absolutely got in the way.

Mostly 5th edition just works. you can just jump right in and play it, with enough option variety to be significantly replayable, if not infinitely so.


Will We See More Magic Items

Yeah, but probably not an entire book of just that any time soon. 5e supplemental content has been extremely slow (convergence of design philosophy and understaffed development team), and a magic item book would be pretty low priority when we haven't even seen psionics, setting supplements outside of forgotten realms, etc. That said, 5e supplements so far have been rather hollistic, with both player and DM content. Player's Guide to the Realms had setting description, monsters, some race & class content. Volo's Guide was a lot of monster info, plus some new races. Xanathar's Guide was a bit of everything including new magic items (mostly weaker ones to sprinkle into earlier levels, but still). Next book is another monster focused book but with some PC race options and info.

The Magic Item Compendium in 3.5 had a lot of new items, and some new systems for creating & distributing them, but was mostly a collection of items from several other books. Same with the rules compendium which collected supplemental and core gameplay rules from many expansions. Same with the spell compendium with mostly collected & updated new spells from a dozen other 3rd edition books. Something like that is certainly possible, even likely, as a product much later on, late in 5e's lifespan, when there have been several books with similar content scattered between them and a collected compendium of all that content would be a meaningful hassle saver. But because of the glacial pace of 5e supplement releases, there probably won't be a real need for something like that for several more years.

In the mean time, you're likely to see new items, but they'll be a few at a time in supplements that add both player and DM content under a unifying thematic angle.

[Petrocorus]

Will There Be More Base Classes

Probably. Artificer and Mystic were already mentioned, and play test versions are in largely playable if not entirely balanced/coherent form. Others are possible. In general, though,...... this issue bothers me. How much better content will we have to miss out on, just because it's conceptually similar to some inferior content that's already been published?


I wholeheartedly agree with you. This and the very slow pacing of publication are my big contention with the game.

To follow up, it also means that they tend to never truly fix a poor design outside of UA. Several subclasses and one class have big issues, and instead of fixing them, they published some other thing that are thematically different but mechanically do the same kind of job.

Instead of fixing the Blade Pact's ability to do its job, they published the Hexblade which is a Patron, and which push you do use the Blade Pact. Instead of fixing the 4E Monk, they published the Sun Soul Monk which mechanically is a specialized 4E Monk. Since we didn't had the Revised Ranger in the Xanathar, we probably never going to have it in a book. And the Berseker could be fixed with a single variant rule, that we never going to have.

[2D8HP]

The Magic Item Compendium in 3.5.


Oh, that's what the O.P. meant by "MIC".

Thanks!

I actually have The Magic Item Compendium, it was fun to flip through, I never did use it in play though.

[Eric Diaz]

1. The spell lists are short and lack imagination.

Man, I am certainly on the minority on this issue, but spell lists are SHORT? They take what, ONE THIRD of the PHB? And we have new spells in every new book... but how many new weapons, fighting styles or battlemaster maneuvers? A couple? None?

Just my 2c...

Anyway, if you're looking for more options there is always the DMs guild, but I for one like the "less bloat" aspect of 5e. Feels more contained. If you want huge number of classes, Pathfinder is a good bet I think (but soon to be discontinued IIRC).

[Grog Logs]

1. The spell lists are short and lack imagination

Scott (The Angry GM) on the Digressions and Dragons podcast believes that the number of spells is still too many in 5e as the human memory cannot remember all the spells available to the wizard. He talked with Fiddleback about how the ideal magic system would have a few basic components that combine to make specific spells. To paraphrase from memory, you can cast Burning Hands. Then, you can add the distance modifier to cast Fireball. Then, you can add the sky/power modifier to cast Firestorm.

Personally, I really like this idea. It makes more institute sense about how magic would work if based on Somatic components.

To echo the statements of others, it seems like you (the OP) would be happier with 3.5/3.PF. Those who prefer 5e, like me, do so because of the simpler and more unfied aspects.

[2D8HP]

Man, I am certainly on the minority on this issue, but spell lists are SHORT? They take what, ONE THIRD of the PHB? And we have new spells in every new book... .


+1


Scott (The Angry GM) on the Digressions and Dragons podcast believes that the number of spells is still too many in 5e as the human memory cannot remember all the spells available to the wizard[..]


It's certainly too many for me to remember, but that was true of AD&D as well.


[...]To echo the statements of others, it seems like you (the OP) would be happier with 3.5/3.PF. Those who prefer 5e, like me, do so because of the simpler and more unfied aspects.


Since the 48 of the 1977 Dungeons & Dragons "bluebook" is what was imprinted on me as the example of what D&D, and indeed FRPG's are, seeing 5e called "simpler" is still a bit baffling, I suppose simpler compared to GURPS in full.

Pathfinder sounds really intimidating.

[Mith]

+1
It's certainly too many for me to remember, but that was true of AD&D as well.


For me, I think what helps the Cleric lists of older editions is that they paired up opposing spells.

As far as a broad level spell, is the idea being: I take a basic fire range attack cantrip (1d6 fire damage), boost range + add 1d6 damage (1st level spell), add area of effect (2nd level spell), add 1d6 (3rd level spell) for a 4d6 Fireball? So spell levels are damage and modifiers? Sounds like what I've heard of Spheres of Powers for Pathfinder.

[Lord Vukodlak]

Pathfinder sounds really intimidating.
Pathfinder is 3.75 its as much a change to 3.5 as 3.5 was to 3.0

[hymer]

Scott (The Angry GM) on the Digressions and Dragons podcast believes that the number of spells is still too many in 5e as the human memory cannot remember all the spells available to the wizard.
Maybe he should go see a doctor. Could potentially be a serious neurological condition. Compare to how much you have to remember to learn a new language, drive a car, or any number of pretty mundane capacities that are very much within the limits of human memory.
But I'm guessing he really means that it's beyond what most people care to remember, which wouldn't be quite so far out an argument. Now all you have to learn is how to be organized. :smalltongue:

[Pelle]

With this in mind, I am curious what the overall angle is here. As far as versatility goes, I feel like this edition is just role-playing in a straight jacket. That being said, I also know this edition is the newest and is still growing.


If you like building a character more than playing it, you may be disappointed.

[Vorpal Crowbar]

1. The spell lists are short and lack imagination.
2. Magic items are few, far between, and stick to basics; even then, they really don't change things up that much.
3. There seems to be very little class versatility. There are no prestige classes, just subclasses that just lock you into something simple and straightforward.


Sorry to cut against the tide of opinions, but:

1. Agree the spell list is a bit short (don't like what they did to Miracle, and no Earth Mote ritual, Ironwood ritual, etc...) , But I disagree about imagination; the spells are, I think, well thought out, for what they have.

2. Gotta Agree Here - +1, +2, +3, to weapons- except for small handful and a load of swords
Why just "any sword" gets the cool features? Longsword, shortsword, greatsword - gee thanks; no love Glaives, Whips, etc. Want to be a melee character? Want a cool weapon? well you can have a sword, a sword, or a sword.

Yes I know: "But you can make your own weapon in the rules..." - 20 years of playing and never had a DM that let anyone make their own weapons with their own properties. If it ain't in the book...

3. I would just like more feats.

VC

[Sception]

I would also like more feats. More to choose from, more per character. I get that 3e and 4e both went way way overboard with feats, but 5e went too far in the other direction, imo. The racial feats in xanathars were nice, but I'd like to see more. Skill feats were a cool idea. Feats for casters would be nice.

[Chaosmancer]

Prestige classes are an interesting thing for me, i consider them a lot like the paragon paths from 4e... And I like this idea that over the course of the game you could become a "knight of the Winter Court" and gain these cool abilities.

However, mechanics and story come into conflict here. In 4e everyone gained this story boost exactly at level 11, which made it less organic and it could mean that you gain prominence with the fey when no one, you included, have ever even met a fey creature.

Now, built closer to 3.5 methods they could be gained when appropriate, but, making them a "class" means they take up levels and they have to at least be as good as the best 3 levels of any class to make them viable with multiclassing. And then you're talking balance issues galore.

My current idea is using the blesssings and boons section from the DMG and thinking about these "prestiges" as similar to leveling magic items. Gain them, DM adjusts group balance to compensate, and the design space is far more open than to try making them full classes.

I do think that if the WotC team can offer something optional like magic items or feats and make it interesting and flavorful I'd love it, but I don't think we'd actually get something as flexible as I'd like

[Willie the Duck]

Now, built closer to 3.5 methods they could be gained when appropriate, but, making them a "class" means they take up levels and they have to at least be as good as the best 3 levels of any class to make them viable with multiclassing. And then you're talking balance issues galore.

It is interesting to think about what prestige classes could have been in a version of 3e that started with something approaching reasonable balance (and perhaps a gaming culture at the time that didn't put loophole-abuse on a pedestal). Would the new and unique powers and abilities make something both more flavorful (than say 2e's kits or 5es archetypes) and a decent combination of never insanely underperforming and never the 'always best choice?'

[Unoriginal]

If you want to emulate the "gain special power through joining X/getting Y special training/encountering Z circumstences" principle of what Prestige Class were supposed to be, then using Boons is perfect. You can grant them when the PCs do the thing to warrant it.

The Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes will have Boons that are granted by Fiends to mortals they favor, for exemple. That's basically what a Prestige Class would be.

[PhoenixPhyre]

If you want to emulate the "gain special power through joining X/getting Y special training/encountering Z circumstences" principle of what Prestige Class were supposed to be, then using Boons is perfect. You can grant them when the PCs do the thing to warrant it.

The Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes will have Boons that are granted by Fiends to mortals they favor, for exemple. That's basically what a Prestige Class would be.

I agree. It's also much more flexible and less of a balance concern than PrCs--it's tied entirely to the fiction and augments, instead of replacing, class progression.

[Tanarii]

If you like building a character more than playing it, you may be disappointed.
I used to be into character building pr0n, especially at some times in the 3e era when I couldn't play very much.

Really the solution to that desire is pretty simple & time honored, for people who want to spend their time creatively designing things: Start DMing. Again in my case. It can eat up your free time fitting together niggly little parts in interesting ways like no tomorrow.

[strangebloke]

I would also like more feats. More to choose from, more per character. I get that 3e and 4e both went way way overboard with feats, but 5e went too far in the other direction, imo. The racial feats in xanathars were nice, but I'd like to see more. Skill feats were a cool idea. Feats for casters would be nice.

This is one thing I'd agree with. For martials, I actually think there are enough feats, but there are too many good ones to pick from.

Which is why I give all my guys free feats out the wazoo.

As far as spells &items go, I'm a big fan of custom spells/items. Makes people less intensely focused on the crunch if they know that I'm down to bend the rules to allow for something cool to be viable.

[Ignimortis]

IMO, there is very little reason to switch from 3.5 to 5e, except the following ones:

Boredom. You've tried everything and done everything in 3.5, and want to try something new.
Genre concerns. 3.5 doesn't really do lower-powered fantasy well without extensive work from the DM. Bounded accuracy and lower character growth "fix" that in 5e.
Your DM wants to spend less time preparing for the game. 5e is significantly more lightweight.



Characters are much stronger now, on average. They have loads of abilities that in previous editions required specializations, and individual spells are way more flexible.

For example, in 3x you had fireball, greater fireball, epic fireball... In 5e you have fireball, but it can be cast at like five different levels. Enhance ability covers the same ground as bull's strength, cat's grace, eagle's splendor, mass bull's strength, mass bear's endurance... etc.

For martials, every Strength-based character can shove, trip, bullrush, and grapple right out of the gate. They can move, attack, move, and then attack, all from level 1. If you wanted to simulate a 5e character in 3.5, you'd have to give them like 10 feats.

So when you say that there's less customization, you're right, but the capabilities of characters are much broader and allow for much more creativity in the moment. There's no reason my Dex-based paladin can't pick up a bow and start shooting.

1. Prestige classes are never coming back. They're crappy design. When was the last time that you took a PRC for the flavor? And flavor was what those classes were designed to add.
2. New classes will come out eventually. Like everyone else, I think we'll see an artificer and a mystic. With their current release schedule, we'll get some more subclasses next year. If you want more base classes, there is some good homebrew. Most DMs will allow Matt Mercer's Blood Hunter, for example.
3. I'm so glad you asked!

-Intuitive play. You want to play a martial artist? Go monk. Compared to 3.5 where it was: "Play a sword sage without a sword and get into shou disciple."
-Small number of books with high average quality of content. 90% of the material in 3.5 books was garbage. Remember the Shining Blade of Heironeous?
-Intuitive play.
-Lots of options on each turn of combat for each player. I already went into this, but compared to 3.5's "I run forward and hit him" turns, I'll take 5e.
-Fast rounds of combat, more rounds. Easier to keep players engaged when their turn comes back up every 5-10 minutes.
-More enemy options at every level. Legendary and Lair actions make boss monsters feel very powerful and engaging. Bounded accuracy means you can kill 20th level characters with goblins.
-etc.


I'm surprised how different our experiences are. Any character I ever made in 3.5, even unoptimized ones, had been better/stronger/more useful than their closest versions in 5e would be after level 3 or so. And while you can build a 5e character in 3.5, that's rarely the case in reverse.

1) Prestige Classes are one of the things I love about 3.5 - yes, maybe a third of them is unsalvageable garbage, and another third is situationally good or broken in a good way, the good ones redeem the whole system with both flavor and abilities. And they're way more impactful than most archetypes, usually.

3) Unless you're a spellcaster, you still have very few options on each turn unless you specifically build into subclasses that give you options like Battlemaster (which is still underwhelming, since you can only use the abilities a certain amount of times). Yes, a fighter in 3.5 doesn't get cool tricks without optimization, but martial adepts do, and their design, despite not being perfect, is superior to 5e's classes on the whole for me. For instance, I absolutely despise the fact that 5e doesn't have proper interrupting actions for martials. At best, BM fighters and rogues get damage reduction or ripostes, and even those are severely limited.

In my experience, 5e is all about choosing between cool and sometimes useful stuff and universally useful stuff. You can be a variant human and get a feat which enables your concept straight away, or be someone else for flavour. You can pick a feat instead of an ability score increase, and lose out on accuracy/damage/spell save DCs to get some situational advantages.

[Petrocorus]

Which is why I give all my guys free feats out the wazoo.

I'm currently thinking about it. Do you allow Vuman with 2 feats at the start?

[smcmike]

I'm surprised how different our experiences are. Any character I ever made in 3.5, even unoptimized ones, had been better/stronger/more useful than their closest versions in 5e would be after level 3 or so.

How unoptomized are we talking, here? You’re gonna have to convince me if you are suggesting that a 3.5 PHB Paladin or Monk holds a candle to the 5e versions at any tier of play.

[Grog Logs]

Maybe he should go see a doctor. Could potentially be a serious neurological condition.

Bravo. Good points. But, my point (and I suspect Scott's) is that you are confusing long term memory with working memory. Working memory only hold 7 +/- 2 chunks of info at a time. In D&D we are often relying on working memory to make quick decisions or if the options that we have. If an important goal is making decisions quickly to keep the narrative flowing (especially in combat), then limiting the number of common options to 9 chunks is ideal.

A chunk can be more than one thing. For instance, 2-0-1-8 is for chunks but 2018 is one chunk because it had a pre-existing meaning. Similarly, fire spells and hold/dominate spells can be two chunks. Meta-magic would be its own chunk. Arcane recovery would be its own chunk.

[Ignimortis]

How unoptimized are we talking, here? You’re gonna have to convince me if you are suggesting that a 3.5 PHB Paladin or Monk holds a candle to the 5e versions at any tier of play.

Paladin and Monk arguably got the best lift from 3.5 to 5e, that's true - so far that I consider them (except 4 Elements monk, which is underwhelming) to be the best designed classes in 5e.

But to be fair, I don't think of 3.5 PHB single-class Monks/Paladins and compare them to 5e ones. A 5e monk is a 3.5e swordsage, and a 5e paladin is a 3.5 crusader or barbarian 6/Champion of Gwynharwyf or Paladin 5/Hellreaver. I haven't ever engaged in heavy optimization on the level of Persistent DMM buffs with nightsticks and other things which are very popular for pushing the boundaries of just how strong spellcasters are, but not sinking feats into Toughness, either. So, maybe medium optimization, or slightly less than that.

[2D8HP]

Maybe he should go see a doctor. Could potentially be a serious neurological condition. Compare to how much you have to remember to learn a new language, drive a car.... :smalltongue:


Despite many attempts, starting with a Latin class in my teens, I've never been able to learn another language, and I hate driving!

But leaded gasoline was still a thing when I was a child, so some impairment is likely.


IMO, there is very little reason to switch from 3.5 to 5e, except the following ones:

Boredom. You've tried everything and done everything in 3.5, and want to try something new.
Genre concerns. 3.5 doesn't really do lower-powered fantasy well without extensive work from the DM. Bounded accuracy and lower character growth "fix" that in 5e.
Your DM wants to spend less time preparing for the game. 5e is significantly more lightweight....



As I went from 1e to 5e, and skipped 2e to 4e, and am more interested in playing a Conan or a Grey Mouser than an Elric or Naruto, so I suppose that I shouldn't try 3.x or PF?

[Unoriginal]

You don't have to remember all spells by heart. It's why, you know, they are written in books.

That is true both for wizards and for players.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Paladin and Monk arguably got the best lift from 3.5 to 5e, that's true - so far that I consider them (except 4 Elements monk, which is underwhelming) to be the best designed classes in 5e.

But to be fair, I don't think of 3.5 PHB single-class Monks/Paladins and compare them to 5e ones. A 5e monk is a 3.5e swordsage, and a 5e paladin is a 3.5 crusader or barbarian 6/Champion of Gwynharwyf or Paladin 5/Hellreaver. I haven't ever engaged in heavy optimization on the level of Persistent DMM buffs with nightsticks and other things which are very popular for pushing the boundaries of just how strong spellcasters are, but not sinking feats into Toughness, either. So, maybe medium optimization, or slightly less than that.

Doesn't that show that you need to have a strong grasp of 3.5 mechanics (knowing that you should take a swordsage and not use a sword to reasonably represent the "punches things" archetype, instead of the "punches things" class) to be successful? A 5e monk is good to go right out of the gate. A 5e paladin similarly. No need to spend 6 class levels to start your schtick and be locked into a single narrow lane?

3.5e has a higher ceiling, to be sure. But the floor is much much much lower. Edit: Call it the "looks good" test. If you can pick options based on thematics (it looks good for the character I'm building) and still be reasonably effective but not overpowering, you have a balanced system. 3.5 fails that hard in both directions. On one end you have monks and fighters, on the other you have druids.

All in all, I prefer having fewer options, all of which work well to having lots of options where 66% (by your own measure) are broken.

[Ignimortis]

As I went from 1e to 5e, and skipped 2e to 4e, and am more interested in playing a Conan or a Grey Mouser than an Elric or Naruto, so I suppose that I shouldn't try 3.x or PF?

Probably not. 3.5e and PF are the most high-power editions of D&D. I can get an animesque (not on the seinen levels like Naruto or DBZ or w/e, because they really lack any objective scaling, and something more grounded but still noticeably superhuman like FMA or, for darker games at higher levels, Berserk) They cease to be about Conan-level characters at about level 7 or 9, depending on who you ask. In contrast, 5e is Conan-level up to maybe level 13 or 15, and few campaigns ever go past that point.

[2D8HP]

Probably not. 3.5e and PF are the most high-power editions of D&D....

...They cease to be about Conan-level characters at about level 7 or 9, depending on who you ask. In contrast, 5e is Conan-level up to maybe level 13 or 15, and few campaigns ever go past that point.


Good to know, thanks!

One of my chief complaints about 5e is that most DM's have PC's gain levels too fast (for my tastes).

Do you gain levels in 3.5 at about the same rate as in 5e?

[Ignimortis]

Doesn't that show that you need to have a strong grasp of 3.5 mechanics (knowing that you should take a swordsage and not use a sword to reasonably represent the "punches things" archetype, instead of the "punches things" class) to be successful? A 5e monk is good to go right out of the gate. A 5e paladin similarly. No need to spend 6 class levels to start your schtick and be locked into a single narrow lane?

3.5e has a higher ceiling, to be sure. But the floor is much much much lower. Edit: Call it the "looks good" test. If you can pick options based on thematics (it looks good for the character I'm building) and still be reasonably effective but not overpowering, you have a balanced system. 3.5 fails that hard in both directions. On one end you have monks and fighters, on the other you have druids.

All in all, I prefer having fewer options, all of which work well to having lots of options where 66% (by your own measure) are broken.

That's true, 5e doesn't really require knowing it well. I never argued that the base design of 5e is solid and is arguably better than 3.5's, from the "every class is playable and viable" angle. But...
It has a much lower ceiling as well. I've been playing in three 5e campaigns since 2015, and recently I got to play Pathfinder again. I can honestly say that mechanically, the PF character I made was by far the most fun one out of four I've played in three years, and also adhered to my vision the best.


Good to know, thanks!

One of my chief complaints about 5e is that most DM's have PC's gain levels too fast (for my tastes).

Do you gain levels in 3.5 at about the same rate as in 5e?

3.5 is slightly slower, I'd say. Especially if you don't get non-combat experience and face level-appropriate foes instead of deadly encounters every second time :P
5e, on the other hand, is explicitly designed to get the characters into the "sweet spot" of 4th-5th level quickly and then keep them there for a long time, as most players usually play in the 3-10 level range, with some who prefer to start at level 1, and very few who go beyond level 13 or 14.

[sophontteks]

No reason to play 5e over 3.5???
3.5 couldn't tell the forest from the trees. It got so stuck up on mechanics that it lost its roots as an RPG. Its all about optimizing your character and buying up all the DLC (What better thing to call all the reading material your required to buy to stay competitive). None of that stuff reinforces the thing the game is supposed to be about.

3.5 with its many many rules is great for conversion into video games and lends well to online play where there are systems in place to account for everything. As it is its hardly even a pen and paper RPG anymore. All the rules just slow pen and paper down.

4e is just an MMORPG posing as a pen and paper game, so I'll just skate by that version.

Now 5e. Finally someone thought "Hey isn't this supposed to be a pen and paper RPG?"
They streamlined everything. Its easier for players to get into and more importantly its easier for a DM to get into. You can actually track everything without needing a ton of auxiliary programs and the focus returns to roleplay.

One of the best additions to 5e is backgrounds. 3.5 folk just love ignoring backgrounds. A testament to how much they lost touch with actual roleplay. Choosing a background is one of the most important decisions in the 5e character creation process.
- It dictates how people treat you
- It assembles key personality traits of your character.
- It actually gives pretty significant mechanical advantages.

Reading the backgrounds its clear how 5e differs from 3.5. The focus is on creating a dynamic character, not fishing for mechanical advantages. A player who has never roleplayed before can read the backgrounds and quite easily be guided through the steps to create a dynamic character who reacts to the world as a person instead of meta-gaming. It will even help convert 3.5 players back into roleplayers so long as they don't just scoff it off as 'insignificant'.

Another thing is that almost every class/archtype has out of combat thematic abilities. Something that continues to bother me in the guides I read here is how many people scoff these abilities off as niche. "If its not combat, its niche" despite most modules being balanced towards only 30% of the game being about combat encounters.

5e didn't just streamline the mess of 3.5's content, it significantly built upon character creation, not through mechanics, but by making the background of a character a tangible part of the game experience.

[Ignimortis]

No reason to play 5e over 3.5???
3.5 couldn't tell the forest from the trees. It got so stuck up on mechanics that it lost its roots as an RPG. Its all about optimizing your character and buying up all the DLC (What better thing to call all the reading material your required to buy to stay competitive). None of that stuff reinforces the thing the game is supposed to be about.

3.5 with its many many rules is great for conversion into video games and lends well to online play where there are systems in place to account for everything. As it is its hardly even a pen and paper RPG anymore. All the rules just slow pen and paper down.

4e is just an MMORPG posing as a pen and paper game, so I'll just skate by that version.

Now 5e. Finally someone thought "Hey isn't this supposed to be a pen and paper RPG?"
They streamlined everything. Its easier for players to get into and more importantly its easier for a DM to get into. You can actually track everything without needing a ton of auxiliary programs and the focus returns to roleplay.

One of the best additions to 5e is backgrounds. 3.5 folk just love ignoring backgrounds. A testament to how much they lost touch with actual roleplay. Choosing a background is one of the most important decisions in the 5e character creation process.
- It dictates how people treat you
- It assembles key personality traits of your character.
- It actually gives pretty significant mechanical advantages.

Reading the backgrounds its clear how 5e differs from 3.5. The focus is on creating a dynamic character, not fishing for mechanical advantages. A player who has never roleplayed before can read the backgrounds and quite easily be guided through the steps to create a dynamic character who reacts to the world as a person instead of meta-gaming. It will even help convert 3.5 players back into roleplayers so long as they don't just scoff it off as 'insignificant'.

Another thing is that almost every class/archtype has out of combat thematic abilities. Something that continues to bother me in the guides I read here is how many people scoff these abilities off as niche. "If its not combat, its niche" despite most modules being balanced towards only 30% of the game being about combat encounters.

5e didn't just streamline the mess of 3.5's content, it significantly built upon character creation, not through mechanics, but by making the background of a character a tangible part of the game experience.

So, point by point...
"DLC": Nowadays you can get all of that for free on Pathfinder's official SRD on the internet. 3.5 doesn't have the same luxury, but its' SRD also has everything you need to play. While 3.5 books are not free, they're quite cheap (as long as your national currency isn't immensely outweighed by US dollars) nowadays from WotC themselves.
Pen-and-paper: True, 3.5 is much easier to play with automated calculations and so on.
Roleplay: all games I've played in were quite roleplay-focused. While I admit that the background system was a neat idea, it doesn't do anything new except actually giving you some mechanical bonuses for choosing a background. In general, unless the DM puts a significant focus on the background of your character, it's not as important as you make it out to be, IME.

More significantly...are you implying that striving for a good mechanical build is somehow detrimental to roleplaying? I've never found it to be if you just focus on optimizing around your concept and not to "win the game". And 5e is way worse at enabling concepts to work mechanically than 3.5 is.

[JoeJ]

More significantly...are you implying that striving for a good mechanical build is somehow detrimental to roleplaying? I've never found it to be if you just focus on optimizing around your concept and not to "win the game".

Mechanically building a character is different from playing a character. No better, no worse, but different. Not everybody enjoys both equally.

[Garfunion]

So, point by point...
"DLC": Nowadays you can get all of that for free on Pathfinder's official SRD on the internet. 3.5 doesn't have the same luxury, but its' SRD also has everything you need to play. While 3.5 books are not free, they're quite cheap (as long as your national currency isn't immensely outweighed by US dollars) nowadays from WotC themselves.
Pen-and-paper: True, 3.5 is much easier to play with automated calculations and so on.
Roleplay: all games I've played in were quite roleplay-focused. While I admit that the background system was a neat idea, it doesn't do anything new except actually giving you some mechanical bonuses for choosing a background. In general, unless the DM puts a significant focus on the background of your character, it's not as important as you make it out to be, IME.

More significantly...are you implying that striving for a good mechanical build is somehow detrimental to roleplaying? I've never found it to be if you just focus on optimizing around your concept and not to "win the game". And 5e is way worse at enabling concepts to work mechanically than 3.5 is.
I am inclined to agree with Sophontteks. I have played at many 3.5 tables and a lot of the players there are more focused on mid/max their characters then role playing (I was one of them, 4e fix that for me). Many of these players ignore what is going on at the table until they can show off their character.

[PhoenixPhyre]

While I admit that the background system was a neat idea, it doesn't do anything new except actually giving you some mechanical bonuses for choosing a background. In general, unless the DM puts a significant focus on the background of your character, it's not as important as you make it out to be, IME.

This is only true if you're mechanics-first in roleplay. I've seen players (including brand new ones) take their background and use them in all sorts of ways, completely unprompted. Backgrounds, in my experience, are a major force.

[sophontteks]

The key to backgrounds is to stop looking for numbers and start looking at the story. Being a noble, for example, has a very large impact on the game if you lean upon it. Your not just some nameless character that was suddenly dropped into the universe, you come complete with very real influences and resources that you can use.

I love the noble background. I'm freaking royalty. I go through the whole process of writing the nature of my family, where they come from, their titles, their influence in the region I hail. In 5e thats not fluff, thats a real resource my character can use. Being a noble in the times D&D is based upon is a really really big deal.

People get stuck on the lack of numbers behind this. As if it needs a number to be real. Really, the lack of numbers only makes it stronger. Its a driving force that can reshape the narrative.

[smcmike]

Paladin and Monk arguably got the best lift from 3.5 to 5e, that's true - so far that I consider them (except 4 Elements monk, which is underwhelming) to be the best designed classes in 5e.

But to be fair, I don't think of 3.5 PHB single-class Monks/Paladins and compare them to 5e ones. A 5e monk is a 3.5e swordsage, and a 5e paladin is a 3.5 crusader or barbarian 6/Champion of Gwynharwyf or Paladin 5/Hellreaver. I haven't ever engaged in heavy optimization on the level of Persistent DMM buffs with nightsticks and other things which are very popular for pushing the boundaries of just how strong spellcasters are, but not sinking feats into Toughness, either. So, maybe medium optimization, or slightly less than that.

Right. The group I play with is not interested in that level of investment (in time, energy, or money) just to build a charactar that works. With 5e, you can flip through one book and build a monk who does awesome monk stuff without any issues, instead of avoiding half the content in the base book and seeking out obscure supplements to make something viable. If you are interested in going through everything that 3.5 has to offer, yeah, it offers a lot more. But if you mostly just want to play from the PHB, there isn’t any comparison.

[Ignimortis]

This is only true if you're mechanics-first in roleplay. I've seen players (including brand new ones) take their background and use them in all sorts of ways, completely unprompted. Backgrounds, in my experience, are a major force.

I've had a campaign with custom backgrounds, and those really did prove to be a major force. But I still find backgrounds to be more of a crutch for situations where you can't find a good motivation for your character on your own or to immerse yourself in them, and can instead do what the background suggests you could do. However, I do tend to play around things my character can do, and this might be a part of why I'm rather dissatisfied with 5e after 3 years of playing it.


The key to backgrounds is to stop looking for numbers and start looking at the story. Being a noble, for example, has a very large impact on the game if you lean upon it. Your not just some nameless character that was suddenly dropped into the universe, you come complete with very real influences and resources that you can use.

I love the noble background. I'm freaking royalty. I go through the whole process of writing the nature of my family, where they come from, their titles, their influence in the region I hail. In 5e thats not fluff, thats a real resource my character can use. Being a noble in the times D&D is based upon is a really really big deal.

People get stuck on the lack of numbers behind this. As if it needs a number to be real. Really, the lack of numbers only makes it stronger. Its a driving force that can reshape the narrative.

This doesn't need a background system to work. I run a 3.5 campaign and there are two PCs who are nobles, and this impacts how they're treated quite a lot. This is what the backstory is for, after all. The fact that it's added to the mechanics is nice, but not really essential in my view, because I've seen that done before 5e came about.


Right. The group I play with is not interested in that level of investment (in time, energy, or money) just to build a charactar that works. With 5e, you can flip through one book and build a monk who does awesome monk stuff without any issues, instead of avoiding half the content in the base book and seeking out obscure supplements to make something viable. If you are interested in going through everything that 3.5 has to offer, yeah, it offers a lot more. But if you mostly just want to play from the PHB, there isn’t any comparison.

Oh, absolutely. I wouldn't play 3.5e if the only thing on offer was PHB. But neither would I play 5e (at this point, at least). Actually, the only game I've played that is "somewhat ok" core-only for me was VtM. Again, I'm not denying that 5e is simple and works out of the box. Those are the best things about it.

[strangebloke]

The key to backgrounds is to stop looking for numbers and start looking at the story. Being a noble, for example, has a very large impact on the game if you lean upon it. Your not just some nameless character that was suddenly dropped into the universe, you come complete with very real influences and resources that you can use.

I love the noble background. I'm freaking royalty. I go through the whole process of writing the nature of my family, where they come from, their titles, their influence in the region I hail. In 5e thats not fluff, thats a real resource my character can use. Being a noble in the times D&D is based upon is a really really big deal.

People get stuck on the lack of numbers behind this. As if it needs a number to be real. Really, the lack of numbers only makes it stronger. Its a driving force that can reshape the narrative.

I've had painfully uncreative characters at my table who still built serviceable characters by reading through the trait/bond/flaw table and picking what they liked. XGtE improved upon this, letting you generate a whole family, completely with names and their own traits.

I have a player who's always rolling up new characters without ever taking a class level. She'll often come up to me before a session with a smile and note: "I rolled up a tiefling who was born to noble human parents yesterday. He fervently believes in the greater good but is incredibly greedy himself. I decided that's because he never had the nice things his three siblings has. He's adorable."

[strangebloke]

I've had a campaign with custom backgrounds, and those really did prove to be a major force. But I still find backgrounds to be more of a crutch for situations where you can't find a good motivation for your character on your own or to immerse yourself in them, and can instead do what the background suggests you could do. However, I do tend to play around things my character can do, and this might be a part of why I'm rather dissatisfied with 5e after 3 years of playing it.

Good players don't need backgrounds.

Good players, however, don't need rules at all. Or the other players. Or a GM. Sufficiently good players can just write fricking novels.

The rules exist to make things easier. Backgrounds make producing a fun, interesting character much easier for a newby to figure out.

[2D8HP]

Backgrounds


To me Backgrounds seem like the biggest change from 1e to.

[Contrast]

You don't have to remember all spells by heart. It's why, you know, they are written in books.

That is true both for wizards and for players.

If I had £1 for every minute I've spent twiddling my thumbs after someone cast a spell or was trying to decide what to cast and then didn't quite know how it worked and had to frantically flick through the relevant rulebooks to try and find it I'd be rich.

And I've only ever played 5e, I hate to think how bad this could be in 3.5.

I'd never play a spellcaster (well...maybe a warlock) if I didn't have an app on my phone with the spells on it.

[Ganders]

The OP made some keen observations. Let me see if I can explain the overall angle.

I prefer to think of 5E as deliberately simplified and streamlined for DMing purposes rather than bland. And as for the lists sections (feats, spells, magic items) you need to look at them as not so much limited but incomplete, or representative samples.

5e's design philosophy deliberately avoids stacking effects, with multiple protections against it. The designers fully support the sense of 'you can do anything you can imagine', and almost everyone can almost always have something cool thing to do. They actually do a lot to support this: every character in 5e can dual wield, cast spells in armor, and move between attacks without even needing feats to do it like they would in 3.5. 5E characters are more powerful in general. But they REALLY don't want you doing two cool things at once: everything about the system shouts NO STACKING, to the extent that it also starts to feel like "No Combining": Concentration limits you to one ongoing effect at a time. Also advantage doesn't stack, so there's no point in overdoing it. Feat trees and prestige classes are both ruled out. There is even the CORE+1 rule against combining features from different books.

All of that isn't meant to make the game bland. I believe it's to make it easier for the DM to keep track of. Each character has only one 'factor' or 'status' to keep track of and play up... and that's considered enough. It's different enough from the 3.5 approach for people to miss the stacking. But it doesn't limit you to blandness, there's still plenty to do and describe if you're willing to play up one theme at a time. Some even argue that it's better that way, because you can concentrate on that one thing and make it great rather than dealing with a muddle of different things. But you can enjoy 5e even if you don't agree with that.

As for the magic items... you are correct, they do stick to basics. Intentionally. Look, there are items that set INT to 19, STR to 19, CON to 19... but where are the items for the other three abilities? Obviously they could exist, DMs can fill in the details if they want them. There's a Staff of Fire and Staff of Frost, but where's the staves for electrical, sonic, necrotic, etc.? Again, they would exist. The list doesn't strive for completeness, and that's to save page count as much as anything. But it's also an approach: pare down the list to the point where there are enough examples to use as a guideline and inspiration, and let people fill in the blanks.

The feat list is incomplete too, in the same way, and I would argue for the same reason. There are representative examples of each type of feat as a guide to how powerful things should be, but some obviously omitted gaps. Isn't it obvious that other weapons could also use their versions of 'Crossbow Expert'? Once you look you'll see obvious gaps in certain specialties, expertises, even just a need for more half-feats so there's more than one way to add +1 CHA. That leaves plenty of room for each table to add more or customize as needed (or future books, possibly setting-specific, to fill in).

It's harder to see in the spell lists. But when I started looking at specific sections of spells, I could see it there too. Take the Firebolt cantrip as a starting point. Where's the equivelant Icebolt, Sonicbolt, etc. Oh, they're in there! As for cantrips, they chose to have representative effects other than damage on the other cantrips: the electric cantrip stuns, the cold cantrip slows, etc. I consider this a guideline on how to use the different damage types for different status effects. There's one cantrip for melee spell attack, one for saving throw, one for AE effect, a couple for range attacks... I consider that a starter set. It's easy to imagine that every damage type could have a saving-throw cantrip, and every damage type could have an AE cantrip, etc. Or... instead of comparing cantrips you can compare different spell levels. Comparing Firebolt to Lightning Bolt shows relative power of low level spells vs Level 3 spells. Comparing Firebolt to Fireball or Ice Storm also does that. Or... take touch spells (also 'melee spell attack' spells). Once I made a list of all of them (there's only a dozen, maybe 20 counting other sources) I could see that there's really just one example of each type of touch spell -- including an example of how to twist the wording in such a way that your familiar can't deliver it. There's plenty of room to invent more if you have a reason to.

[strangebloke]

If I had £1 for every minute I've spent twiddling my thumbs after someone cast a spell or was trying to decide what to cast and then didn't quite know how it worked and had to frantically flick through the relevant rulebooks to try and find it I'd be rich.

And I've only ever played 5e, I hate to think how bad this could be in 3.5.

I'd never play a spellcaster (well...maybe a warlock) if I didn't have an app on my phone with the spells on it.

Alternately, write flash cards. It's seriously just polite.

[PhoenixPhyre]

But it's also an approach: pare down the list to the point where there are enough examples to use as a guideline and inspiration, and let people fill in the blanks.


As a note: PHB + 1 is only for AL games; it's a rule for simplicity there. It's not part of the greater game at all.

But the idea that things presented are templates, examples, and inspiration is valid. There's a reason that the 3 parts of the DMG are (in order)

* Master of Worlds
* Master of Adventures
* Master of Rules

Every section says "here are some examples. And guidelines to build your own. None of these are exhaustive lists--they're just some examples that we think work together well and can be used if you don't want to make your own."

The mentalities of "if it's in a book it's fair game unless explicitly excluded" and "if it's not in a book it doesn't exist" are alien to this edition. 5e uses whitelists (only things explicitly permitted are allowed), but leaves great freedom to go beyond the books in all aspects.

[Amdy_vill]

So I've been with this edition for a while now, and I have to say...it seems a bit bland as systems go.

1. The spell lists are short and lack imagination.

2. Magic items are few, far between, and stick to basics; even then, they really don't change things up that much.

3. There seems to be very little class versatility. There are no prestige classes, just subclasses that just lock you into something simple and straightforward.

With this in mind, I am curious what the overall angle is here. As far as versatility goes, I feel like this edition is just role-playing in a straight jacket. That being said, I also know this edition is the newest and is still growing.

My questions to the Playground are these:

1. Should we expect to see Prestige Classes in the future or no?
2. Will there be more base classes available in the future (I know about the Mystic), or are they just going to continue expanding by subclass?
3. What's the appeal of this edition over previous ones?
4. Will we see something akin to 3.5's MIC, or are we stuck with basic, ineffective magic gear from 1-20?

the system is more built to be a backbone for you to build on. they have expansions to it but they eery clearly want the game to be community driven. if you think these things are lacking just pick up some third party stuff

[MilkmanDanimal]

I'm an endless min-maxer and powergamer, and the thing I love about 5e is it specifically keeps me from doing that and lets me focus on just finding a fun character concept and going with it. I spent years playing Champions and Hero System, and was a master at squeezing every single point of viability out of my characters, but, at some point, it became the job I had to do to have fun in the game, and I got sick of it. In 5e, you can go for the obvious builds (Lightfoot Halfling Rogue, Tiefling Warlock, Half-Orc Barbarian), but, even if you don't do that (Lightfoot Halfling Barbarian!), you can still build an absolutely viable character who you can have fun with.

I don't want powergaming and planning and work, and I don't want to be someone who learns the rules at such a granular level I can tweak my builds to be the best possible. There's just enough structure in 5e to give me a common set of rules we can all play with and just go. I've been playing D&D and loads of other tabletop RPGs since maybe 1980 or 1981, and 5e's my favorite system I've ever played, just because it strips away a lot of the planning and work and just focuses on creativity and having fun.

[2D8HP]

3.5 is slightly slower, I'd say. Especially if you don't get non-combat experience and face level-appropriate foes instead of deadly encounters every second time :P
5e, on the other hand, is explicitly designed to get the characters into the "sweet spot" of 4th-5th level quickly and then keep them there for a long time, as most players usually play in the 3-10 level range, with some who prefer to start at level 1, and very few who go beyond level 13 or 14.


Thanks again for the info!

[JoeJ]

If you enjoy working out an entire level 1-20 build before starting to play, you'll probably find 3e more to your taste. If you'd rather make decisions as you advance based on in-world events without thinking about how that will affect you mechanically in the future, 5e will be better. If you don't want to have to make any decisions at all when you go up in levels, your best bet is some version of TSR D&D.

[Petrocorus]

I'd never play a spellcaster (well...maybe a warlock) if I didn't have an app on my phone with the spells on it.

Excel is your friend. You can stack most of the relevant infos of 2 or 3 level of spells on one single page.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Excel is your friend. You can stack most of the relevant infos of 2 or 3 level of spells on one single page.

They also sell very nice spell cards if apps/digital things aren't your chosen poison.

[EvilAnagram]

They also sell very nice spell cards if apps/digital things aren't your chosen poison.

I keep relevant text on my sheet. Of course, I mostly play classes that don't prepare spells.

[GlenSmash!]

I've been thinking of printing out my own spell cards for a while now.

I may not even stop at that. I might print out Feat cards and Class feature cards too, and then just have my character sheet be a binder with trading card pages holding all my things.

I think I could keep the stuff that changes like HP and gear down to a single card.

[Maelynn]

I might print out Feat cards and Class feature cards too, and then just have my character sheet be a binder with trading card pages holding all my things.

This is exactly my plan as a DM, as a handy means to have all sorts of monsters and NPCs ready. Just write their stat blocks on a card the size of a TCG card and slide it in. New monster, new NPC, just swap out old ones. Bought a pack of 100 cards for €2,04 on AliExpress, easypeasy.

Other than TCG pages, my binder also holds regular A4 punched pockets for the party's character sheets, an overview of the quest(s) they're on, the occasional map that I can slide out and present them by the time they arrive at the location... oh, so many uses.

[Efrate]

As a longtime 3.5 and path player with a little 5e xp, I see merits in all systems. As far as role-playing and backgrounds go, it's still entirely possible to pick mechanically useful backgrounds etc. And adjust a concept to fit if needed.

If you build a character in any system having an idea of that stuff is a great idea. You shouldn't need a mechanical anything for a background. It's a nice very trope centric thing for newer players but If you rp at all you should do some of it automatically.

I don't try to optimize but I try to remain useful and relevant and survive, but that doesn't mean you don't have a character as opposed to a bunch of mechanics.

My 2nd ever 5e game I had a character concept that essentially filled out all the relevant boxes with backgrounds, bonds, etc in a few moments. I didn't need a bunch of lists to have a reason to advanture, where I come from or what my goals are. A few minutes thinking about the character and I had it ready. That's just being a good role player, edition and rules don't come into it.

And pathfinder, and to a lesser extent 3.5, can get you to shonen levels of power as a martial. It's not limitlessly bounded, that's caster territory, but you can get nutty. Look at path of war in pathfinder. Funnest over the top martial ive played.

[guachi]

3. What's the appeal of this edition over previous ones?

It's phenomenally good at mimicking older versions of D&D and fantastic at playing old adventures with them. It's fairly easy to take a 2015 rules system and play an adventure from 1980 with it.

It's the best of both worlds.

[Luccan]

I don't think there's a good way to do prestige classes in 5e. They didn't manage to control them for 3.5, which lead to a "must take prestige class to be relevant" problem (mostly for non-casters). Further, many prestige classes, like feats, were trap options. 5e makes multiclassing more viable, but also attempts to encourage 20 level single classed characters, so having "better" classes seems to run against the idea. If they want to give an alternative progression, they can make a subclass (or, if it's different enough, hopefully a new class). As others have mentioned, Artificers and Mystics have both gotten UAs and it seems likely we'll get official releases for them in the future. There haven't been mentions of any new classes beyond that, but if they're open to exploring past editions, I think Incarnum and other systems would be interesting to explore in 5e, so here's hoping. At the very least, I'm hoping a half-"caster" Mystic counterpart and some psionic subclasses for other classes when that comes out.

As for items, I've always found magic weapons the least interesting magic items in D&D, but fortunately you don't need them to contribute at certain levels this edition. This allowed me to select the Ebony Fly for 6th level fighter and feel like it was a valid choice instead of a +x Sword of Numbers.

I simply can't agree the spell lists are boring, but that's a matter of preference. As to the size of the lists, as others have mentioned, some effects got rolled into singular spells for more versatility, but the length increases with each non-core release.

I enjoy 5e because it's simple, aims to avoid trap options (and largely succeeds), and even what would be subpar choices in 3.5 are valid. I still like 3.5, but I don't always need the granularity and agonizing over character choices. Sometimes I want to play Gnomish Barbarian or a Bugbear Wizard and that be ok. Also, I don't have to be a Rogue to make use of Rogue-type skills and that's great.

[Sception]

It really does just play very well. Like i wrote a lot about concerns and complaints i have, but it really is my favorite edition because it just... it just plays well.

[PhoenixPhyre]

It really does just play very well. Like i wrote a lot about concerns and complaints i have, but it really is my favorite edition because it just... it just plays well.

Amen. The thing that I like is that the play feels fluid; the system is unobtrusive where you want it to stay out of the way while still having enough complexity to handle interesting combat (a difficulty for systems at higher levels of abstraction).

[2D8HP]

It really does just play very well. Like i wrote a lot about concerns and complaints i have, but it really is my favorite edition because it just... it just plays well.


I've belly-ached a lot about 5e, but I want to praise something that I think it's done better than any other RPG I've played:

Beginning PC's feel done.

With TSR D&D, losing all hit points hung like Damocles sword waiting to fall, with 5e I'm confident that my PC will survive.

With BRP, GURPS, HERO, Traveller I just never felt that I had enough skill points to do all I wanted my PC's to be competent at.

I know that leveling up is a staple of D&D, but a first level 5e PC feels right to me, and the additional levels are just icing on the cake.

[MeeposFire]

One big advantage for me with 5e over 3e in particular (and only 3e really) is that I do not feel that I need to fight the game to make characters that work in particular weapon users.

For example in 3e you will find that all weapon users one way or the other have to fight the game itself via the full attack action. If your weapon user cannot get full attack actions or have alternative abilities that let you get around the full round action you get worse and worse as the game goes on. Abilities like pounce (full attack on a charge), ToB Path of War (essentially the boost is that they give all sorts of ways to avoid at least for a time the full attack action problem sometimes by making an action worth while or giving you mobility that doe snot conflict with full attacks), or sadly spells (somehow casting a spell is easier for an apprentice than it is for a master swords man to swing his sword and hit something twice in a round).

5e is the most permissive in this regards and by and large the system stays out of the way. For instance all your weapon attacks are given with just your normal action and your move does not prevent you from making all of your attacks (moving more than 5 feet in 3e type games will prevent you from making all of your attacks in a round so think how bad that is for your melee person). Even more awesome is that the rules allow you to move before and after your weapon attacks and even split up your weapon attacks during that movement for free. That is awesome and gives weapon users so much more versatility. You cannot do that at all in 3e to that degree and to even do the idea at all requires at least 3 feats (2 of which were crap) and that only let you make one attack and at level 20 you still would only get one attack from that so you can imagine how effective that was (if you were willing to spend at least 2 more feats you could get up to 2 more attacks at lower accuracy while doing this movement but that was still less attacks than you would get with your full attack).


Now 5e is not perfect in this regard. Sadly the 5e two weapon fighting rules does end up fighting the game design a bit and that is too bad and is why that is one of my houserules to change. However that being said two weapon fighting is a relatively small detail of the fighting system and so is not as much of a problem compared to my problems in 3e which unfortunately goes to the heat of the combat system and is much more pervasive to fix (hence why the "fixes" for it have been patches in the form of things like ToB).

[Tanarii]

I've belly-ached a lot about 5e, but I want to praise something that I think it's done better than any other RPG I've played:

Beginning PC's feel done.

With TSR D&D, losing all hit points hung like Damocles sword waiting to fall, with 5e I'm confident that my PC will survive.

With BRP, GURPS, HERO, Traveller I just never felt that I had enough skill points to do all I wanted my PC's to be competent at.

I know that leveling up is a staple of D&D, but a first level 5e PC feels right to me, and the additional levels are just icing on the cake.
They don't feel done to me. That implies an ending point. But they do feel like a good beginning point for a hero. By the time a 5e character hits level 5 thru 10, they feel like full blown heroes. My one gripe as a DM is that comes mighty fast. But since the beginning characters have far more definition than Bob the Fighter, that kinda works, especially if you're only able to play one session a week or less. They're proto-heroes that rapidly prove their mettle.

I agree that compared to TSR D&Ds you certainly don't expect to die over and over again, with a hero resulting partly from careful play and partly from sheer luck and/or DM benevolence. Another reason you can make than Bob the Fighter. And Bob the Fighter Too, and the Third, etc. I like high lethality in D&D. But I only truly experienced it after I'd grown used to a larger assumption of survival, and went back to BECMI for a while. It was a new and different kind of challenge. As a baseline assumption of the system, it's a bit too limiting.

But Backgrounds, while a simple concept and certainly done before by other systems, feel very innovative for 5e. The combination of Race, Class, Background, and explicit one sentence motivations, all built in and "officially" part of your character, make the character just feel more complete. It's doesn't feel like something tacked on by the player or a splat book, it's something inherent to the core "build" right out of the PHB. Innovative for D&D.

[2D8HP]

They don't feel done to me. That implies an ending point. But they do feel like a good beginning point for a hero. By the time a 5e character hits level 5 thru 10, they feel like full blown heroes. My one gripe as a DM is that comes mighty fast...


Oh wow, I thought I was alone in feeling that way!


..my chief complaints about 5e is that most DM's have PC's gain levels too fast (for my tastes)...

[Pex]

The fragility of 1st level characters irks some people. While they're not wimps given appropriate level challenges, even a warrior is two hits away from dropping. If there's a crit game over, facetiously speaking. There's nothing stopping those players starting at a higher level. Third is a good one since that's where everyone has their archetype. The game offers the suggestion. The problem is some people feel the levels needs to be earned through play. It's subjective emotion. You have to start at 1st level or else the universe won't make sense. Ergo the fast leveling of the first few levels satisfying the angst - the necessity of starting at 1st level and get out of vulnerability quickly to survive to round 3 of combat.

[Petrocorus]

Now 5e is not perfect in this regard. Sadly the 5e two weapon fighting rules does end up fighting the game design a bit and that is too bad and is why that is one of my houserules to change.

Out of curiosity, what are your houserule about two weapons fighting?

[Sception]

not the one asked, but personally I think the best change would be to make the off hand attack from twf part of the regular attack action, freeing up bonus action for additional attacks or something else. that change would probably necessitate a few others, though.

would fix the base line. I'd probably also improve the feat support as well, since that's the biggest thing that puts two handed weapons above dual wielding for weapon users focused on dealing damage. Maybe add 'if you hit the same enemy with both weapons during an attack action, you may make an additional attack with your off hand weapon as a bonus action' to the dual wielder feat?

Eh, would need some work.

[Tanarii]

The fragility of 1st level characters irks some people. While they're not wimps given appropriate level challenges, even a warrior is two hits away from dropping. If there's a crit game over, facetiously speaking. There's nothing stopping those players starting at a higher level. Third is a good one since that's where everyone has their archetype. The game offers the suggestion. The problem is some people feel the levels needs to be earned through play. It's subjective emotion. You have to start at 1st level or else the universe won't make sense. Ergo the fast leveling of the first few levels satisfying the angst - the necessity of starting at 1st level and get out of vulnerability quickly to survive to round 3 of combat.
I'm not talking about fast leveling for 1 to 5. I understand why that's there.

It's the fast leveling for the rest of the game. It only takes something like 15 adventuring days (ie sessions) to get from level 5 to 11. That's about 2 months for some of my players, at 2 sessions per week, and some come to more sessions than that.

Even assuming someone is playing a more reasonable 1/week, that's still 4 months to hit high levels (11+). And it only takes another 10 sessions to reach epic levels (17+). An entire 1-20 character lifespan can easily take 9 months of weekly play. That's ridiculously fast.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I'm not talking about fast leveling for 1 to 5. I understand why that's there.

It's the fast leveling for the rest of the game. It only takes something like 15 adventuring days (ie sessions) to get from level 5 to 11. That's about 2 months for some of my players, at 2 sessions per week, and some come to more sessions than that.

Even assuming someone is playing a more reasonable 1/week, that's still 4 months to hit high levels (11+). And it only takes another 10 sessions to reach epic levels (17+). An entire 1-20 character lifespan can easily take 9 months of weekly play. That's ridiculously fast.

That sounds just about right to me. I ran a 1-20 campaign (using "level up when I feel like it" as the model) in about 13 months of not-quite-weekly play and nothing felt forced or rushed. But I'm not a grognard (having started only about 4 years ago).

Maybe modern campaigns tend to be shorter--fewer multi-year campaigns, more short/focused campaigns?

[Tanarii]

9 months to a year would be about right to hit level 11 for me, assuming weekly play.
But then I consider level 11+ to be very high level play.
Must be the grognard in me. :smallamused:

[2D8HP]

I'm not talking about fast leveling for 1 to 5. I understand why that's there.

It's the fast leveling for the rest of the game. It only takes something like 15 adventuring days (ie sessions) to get from level 5 to 11. That's about 2 months for some of my players, at 2 sessions per week, and some come to more sessions than that.

Even assuming someone is playing a more reasonable 1/week, that's still 4 months to hit high levels (11+). And it only takes another 10 sessions to reach epic levels (17+). An entire 1-20 character lifespan can easily take 9 months of weekly play. That's ridiculously fast.


That sounds just about right to me. I ran a 1-20 campaign (using "level up when I feel like it" as the model) in about 13 months of not-quite-weekly play and nothing felt forced or rushed. But I'm not a grognard (having started only about 4 years ago).

Maybe modern campaigns tend to be shorter--fewer multi-year campaigns, more short/focused campaigns?


9 months to a year would be about right to hit level 11 for me, assuming weekly play.
But then I consider level 11+ to be very high level play.
Must be the grognard in me. :smallamused:



Could be.

:amused:

oD&D before the Greyhawk supplement didn't support high level play in the modern sense, and not much afterwards unless you consider all TSR D&D one "edition" from 1974 to 1999.

Yes there was "no theoretical limit to how high a character may progress, i.e. 20th-level Lord, 20th-level Wizard, etc."

but

they were no spells above 6th level, and all classes after 11th level only accumulated one hit point with each level, Elves and Hobbits could not be Fighting-Men/Fighters past 4th level, Dwarves couldn't get past 6th level, Elves couldn't get higher than an 8th level Magic Users, indeed only Elves and Humans could be Magic-Users at all, and only Humans could be Clerics, so until Greyhawk and the introduction of the Thief class, no non-humans could be a 9th level or above anything.

Epic?

Mythic?

Nope

not in terms of later D&D/AD&D, but it was still gloriously fun.

Anyway, while then as now exactly how fast one "leveled up" was different table to table, the suggested rate of advancement was indeed slower:


"D&D IS ONLY AS GOOD AS THE DM

Successful play of D&D is a blend of desire, skill and luck. Desire is often initiated by actually participating in a game. It is absolutely a reflection of the referee's ability to maintain an interesting and challenging game. Skill is a blend of knowledge of the rules and game background as applied to the particular game circumstances favored by the referee. Memory or recall is often a skill function. Luck is the least important of the three, but it is a (actor in successful play nonetheless. Using the above criteria it would seem that players who have attained a score or more of levels in their respective campaigns are successful indeed. This is generally quite untrue. Usually such meteoric rise simply reflects an incompetent Dungeonmaster.

While adventurers in a D&D campaign must grade their play to their referee, it is also incumbent upon the Dungeonmaster to suit his campaign to the participants. This interaction is absolutely necessary if the campaign is to continue to be of interest to all parties. It is often a temptation to the referee to turn his dungeons into a veritable gift shoppe of magical goodies, ripe for plucking by his players. Similarly, by a bit of fudging, outdoor expeditions become trips to the welfare department for heaps of loot. Monsters exist for the slaying of the adventurers — whether of the sort who "guard" treasure, or of the wandering variety. Experience points are heaped upon the undeserving heads of players, levels accumulate like dead leaves in autumn, and if players with standings in the 20's. 30's and 40's of levels do not become bored, they typically become filled with an entirely false sense of accomplishment, and they are puffed up with hubris. As they have not really earned their standings, and their actual ability has no reflection on their campaign level, they are easily deflated (killed) in a game which demands competence in proportionate measure to players' levels.

It is therefore, time that referees reconsider their judging. First, is magic actually quite scarce in your dungeons? It should be! Likewise, treasures should be proportionate both to the levels of the dungeon and the monsters guarding them. Second, absolute disinterest mast be exercised by the Dungeonmaster, and if a favorite player stupidly puts himself into a situation where he is about to be killed, let the dice tell the story and KILL him. This is not to say that you should never temper chance with a bit of "Divine Intervention," but helping players should be a rare act on the referee's part, and the action should only be taken when fate seems to have unjustly condemned an otherwise good player, and then not in every circumstance should the referee intervene. Third, create personas for the inhabitants of your dungeon — if they are intelligent they would act cleverly to preserve themselves and slay intruding expeditions out to do them in and steal their treasures. The same is true for wandering monsters. Fourth, there should be some high-level, very tricky and clever chaps in the nearest inhabitation to the dungeon, folks who skin adventures out of their wealth just as prospectors were generally fleeced for their gold in the Old West. When the campaign turkies flock to town trying to buy magical weapons, potions, scrolls, various other items of magical nature, get a chum turned back to flesh, have a corpse resurrected, or whatever, make them pay through their proverbial noses. For example, what would a player charge for like items or services? Find out, add a good bit, and that is the cost you as referee will make your personas charge. This will certainly be entertaining to you and laying little traps in addition will keep the players on their collective toes. After all, Dungeon masters are entitled to a little fun too! Another point to remember is that you should keep a strict account of time. The wizard who spends six months writing scrolls and enchanting items is OUT of the campaign for six months, he cannot play during these six game months, and if the time system is anywhere reflective of the proper scale that means a period of actual time in the neighborhood of three months. That will pretty well eliminate all that sort of foolishness. Ingredients for scroll writing and potion making should also be stipulated (we will treat this in an upcoming issue of SR or in a D&D supplement as it should be dealt with at length) so that it is no easy task to prepare scrolls or duplicate potions.

When players no longer have reams of goodies at their fingertips they must use their abilities instead, and as you will have made your dungeons and wildernesses far more difficult and demanding, it will require considerable skill, imagination, and intellectual exercise to actually gain from the course of an adventure. Furthermore, when magic is rare it is valuable, and only if it is scarce will there be real interest in seeking it. When it is difficult to survive, a long process to gain levels, when there are many desired items of magical nature to seek for, then a campaign is interesting and challenging. Think about how much fun it is to have something handed to you on a silver platter — nice once in a while but unappreciated when it becomes common occurrence. This analogy applies to experience and treasure in the D&D campaign.

It requires no careful study to determine that D&D is aimed at progression which is geared to the approach noted above. There are no monsters to challenge the capabilities of 30th level lords, 40th level patriarchs, and so on. Now I know of the games played at CalTech where the rules have been expanded and changed to reflect incredibly high levels, comic book characters and spells, and so on. Okay. Different strokes for different folks, but that is not D&D. While D&D is pretty flexible, that sort of thing stretches it too far, and the boys out there are playing something entirely different — perhaps their own name "Dungeons & Beavers," tells it best.*It is reasonable to calculate that if a fair player takes part in 50 to 75 games in the course of a year he should acquire sufficient experience points to make him about 9th to 11th level, assuming that he manages to survive all that play. The acquisition of successively higher levels will be proportionate to enhanced power and the number of experience points necessary to attain them, so another year of play will by no means mean a doubling of levels but rather the addition of perhaps two or three levels. Using this gauge, it should take four or five years to see 20th level. As BLACKMOOR is the only campaign with a life of five years, and GREYHAWK with a life of four is the second longest running campaign, the most able adventurers should not yet have attained 20th level except in the two named campaigns. To my certain knowledge no player in either BLACKMOOR or GREYHAWK has risen above 14th level.

By requiring players to work for experience, to earn their treasure, means that the opportunity to retain interest will remain. It will also mean that the rules will fit the existing situation, a dragon, balrog, or whatever will be a fearsome challenge rather than a pushover. It is still up to the Dungeonmaster to make the campaign really interesting to his players by adding imaginative touches, through exertion to develop background and detailed data regarding the campaign, and to make certain that there is always something new and exciting to learn about or acquire. It will, however, be an easier task. So if a 33rd level wizard reflects a poorly managed campaign, a continuing mortality rate of 50% per expedition generally reflects over-reaction and likewise a poorly managed campaign. It is unreasonable to place three blue dragons on the first dungeon level, just as unreasonable as it is to allow a 10th level fighter to rampage through the upper levels of a dungeon rousting kobolds and giant rats to gain easy loot and experience. When you tighten up your refereeing be careful not to go too far the other way."

-Gygax
THE STRATEGIC REVIEW APRIL 1976

[Luccan]

Leveling too fast is why I've usually done "when it feels right" or Milestone leveling rather than following a strict XP guideline. You really will blow through early levels if you follow the XP charts, because low level encounters on low level characters are worth more proportionally than CR appropriate challenges for higher level PCs.

[Pex]

I'm not talking about fast leveling for 1 to 5. I understand why that's there.

It's the fast leveling for the rest of the game. It only takes something like 15 adventuring days (ie sessions) to get from level 5 to 11. That's about 2 months for some of my players, at 2 sessions per week, and some come to more sessions than that.

Even assuming someone is playing a more reasonable 1/week, that's still 4 months to hit high levels (11+). And it only takes another 10 sessions to reach epic levels (17+). An entire 1-20 character lifespan can easily take 9 months of weekly play. That's ridiculously fast.

I think it's campaign/DM dependent. My previous cleric game took a year to go from 1st to 8th playing every three weeks on average before the campaign ended. My Paladin game is 3 years old or so. Started at 6th level. Playing every three weeks on average took a year to reach level 7 and another almost year to level 8. The DM has finally increased XP awards a bit such that 9th level took half a year. One more session I'll reach 10th level. 9th to 10th level has been unusually fast given the comparable XP awards previously given.

I'm not doubting your experience. Given as you say it's possible it was on design. As much as levels 5-10 might be the "sweet spot", people do want to play the high levels. Trouble is real life interferes causing games to end for whatever reasons. If it takes a real world year of weekly play to get to level 20 it allows for a "complete game" before real life comes in destroying everything with its pesky interference of other priorities.

[Tanarii]

Leveling too fast is why I've usually done "when it feels right" or Milestone leveling rather than following a strict XP guideline. You really will blow through early levels if you follow the XP charts, because low level encounters on low level characters are worth more proportionally than CR appropriate challenges for higher level PCs.
Assuming 1 sessions = 1 adventuring day for a party of all the same level.
Level 1 to 3 takes one session each.
Level 3 to 4 takes 1.5 sessions.
Level 4 to 11 takes 2.4 sessions each.

That works for me, for a very specific reason: I assume level 1-4 characters are local adventurers, doing local adventuring stuff, including 1 session dungeon delves, taking 10 days of downtime or so between sessions.

If those levels were something big and adventuresome away from town, it might feel way too fast. For example, if I were running OotA or ToA, I wouldn't want to start at level 1.


I'm not doubting your experience. Given as you say it's possible it was on design. As much as levels 5-10 might be the "sweet spot", people do want to play the high levels. Trouble is real life interferes causing games to end for whatever reasons. If it takes a real world year of weekly play to get to level 20 it allows for a "complete game" before real life comes in destroying everything with its pesky interference of other priorities.
Oh for sure it's by design. And I think it's probably a good design for most groups. I'm just going *grumble grumble* because it doesn't match my person preferences for the campaign I want to run. And slowing down XP awarded significantly below the baseline is a good way to ensure you won't get enough players to maintain a open table sandbox campaign at game stores.

[Hecuba]

As I went from 1e to 5e, and skipped 2e to 4e, and am more interested in playing a Conan or a Grey Mouser than an Elric or Naruto, so I suppose that I shouldn't try 3.x or PF?

No. Or, at least, you should not try it unmodified at this point in emergent play. There's a fairly common, if informal, variant called E6 that caps level advancement at 6 and uses alternate progression thereafter (generally additional feats). It works well, but has limits.

You could also look at Mike Mearls' Iron Heros - it was a 3rd party 3.5ed D20 product designed for a much grittier fantasy world than 3.5 D&D, but it runs on the same mechanical chassis. Fiery Dragon sells it through Drive Thru RPG.


They don't feel done to me. That implies an ending point. But they do feel like a good beginning point for a hero. By the time a 5e character hits level 5 thru 10, they feel like full blown heroes. My one gripe as a DM is that comes mighty fast. But since the beginning characters have far more definition than Bob the Fighter, that kinda works, especially if you're only able to play one session a week or less. They're proto-heroes that rapidly prove their mettle.

If you thought 2nd and earlier ed. leveling rates felt correct, then anything that came later will indeed seem very fast.
This is perhaps an overcorrection, but Gygax's original intended pace positively glacial:



Using this gauge, it should take four or five years to see 20th level. As BLACKMOOR is the only campaign with a life of five years, and GREYHAWK with a life of four is the second longest running campaign, the most able adventurers should not yet have attained 20th level except in the two named campaigns. To my certain knowledge no player in either BLACKMOOR or GREYHAWK has risen above 14th level.


The DM can and should correct for this as needed, but as compared to 2nd edition (which is arguably the most important predecessor from which 5e took its design goals), this is pretty clearly a deliberate design change.

[Willie the Duck]

FantasyCraft is also a good system for playing a D20/3e-like game without the insane power spiking. Of course, if you have systems you already like...

[2D8HP]

No. Or, at least, you should not try it unmodified at this point in emergent play. There's a fairly common, if informal, variant called E6 that caps level advancement at 6 and uses alternate progression thereafter (generally additional feats). It works well, but has limits.

You could also look at Mike Mearls' Iron Heros - it was a 3rd party 3.5ed D20 product designed for a much grittier fantasy world than 3.5 D&D, but it runs on the same mechanical chassis. Fiery Dragon sells it through Drive Thru RPG....



FantasyCraft is also a good system for playing a D20/3e-like game without the insane power spiking. Of course, if you have systems you already like...


Thanks for the tips!

With hundreds (if not thousands) of FRPG's out there I've little doubt that there's some system I'd like more than the big two, it's more a matter of deciding if the many open tables are worth it (I don't just mean time spent playing, as I'm a very slow learner).

[MeeposFire]

Out of curiosity, what are your houserule about two weapons fighting?

Well there are several changes.

1. You can use two weapon fighting whenever you make a weapon attack as an action. If you wield two light weapons you can opt to make an attack with the off hand weapon and this extra attack has no mod to damage. This allows it to use the same action economy as every other fighting style.

2. If you get the extra attack ability (or an equivalent) then you get to add your ability mod to the off hand attack. This allows it to be viable at a basic level for all warrior types.

3. Two weapon fighting style allows you to wield two one handed weapons for two weapon fighting. This puts it closer to what other fighting styles give for example dueling gives +2 damage per hit while this gives +1 damage per hit plus slightly more due to critical hits being bigger.


Mostly the changes are to make it more consistent with other fighting styles and easier to make character concepts just work. I was trying to reduce the amount the two weapon fighting was fighting the game. It is definitely more powerful than the RAW but it is less powerful than some ideas I have seen out there and some may say it does not go far enough but I think it is ok and more playable (which is what I really wanted to do more than power).

4. Two weapon fighting feat- This gives three benefits 1. +1 AC while wielding two weapons 2. If you use the attack action you can make an additional attack with your off hand weapon as a bonus action. 3. If you make an opportunity attack you can make an additional attack with your off hand weapon. This feat gives many of the same sort of benefits other powerful feats.

5. You get one object interaction per attack you can make with an attack action and when you make an object interaction you can draw or stow two weapons with that interaction so long as they both happen at the same time. This allows you to play throwing weapon characters with little trouble including two weapon throwing characters ala diablo 2 barbarians (I have a player that likes that sort of thing).

I think I put everything down but I am posting hungry so I hope I did not miss anything.