3.5e vs 5e

[GoblinGuy]

Which is better? What are they better for?

[Mortis_Elrod]

Pls dont. This is so toll

[ProsecutorGodot]

To the first question, whichever one you prefer.

As for the second question, 3.5E is better for mechanical players who want to optimize their characters. 5E is for players who want a balanced between that and roleplaying.

These are loaded questions with no real answer, just sharing my opinion.

[Rfkannen]

It depends on what is important to you.

If what you really enjoy about playing dnd is comeing through splat books, spending all your time creating that perfect encounter and that perfect character. And You also really dfeel the need to make sure your character idea is perfectly represented in game, 3.5 is for you.

If you want to just sit down and play some dnd, not worrying to much about the actual math behind it, and just kinda accept that things will probably be balanced. 5e is probably better for you.

Personally I prefer 5e.

[sithlordnergal]

I grew up playing 3.5, personally I prefer 5e.

3.5 is great for those who want nearly unlimited options to optimize and carefully craft their characters. There are so many options, and so many things you can do it is a bit overwhelming at times. It is also great for a higher level of player, where you can reasonably expect to be killing Gods at some point

5e is great for people who still want to optimize, but also want things a bit more balanced. Things are still strong, don't get me wrong, but there 5e lacks the insane power that 3.5 had. Especially when it comes to casters.

[Ninja_Prawn]

Pls dont. This is so toll

We really needs a stickied thread that sums up the forum consensus on transitioning from 3.5e to 5e & related topics. There are entirely too many of these threads.

[Wolfkingleo]

GoblinGuy
3.5e vs 5e

Which is better? What are they better for?

There is not an objective way to answer this, it falls completely on what you are looking foward on a Tabletop RPG


Rfkannen
Re: 3.5e vs 5e

It depends on what is important to you.

If what you really enjoy about playing dnd is comeing through splat books, spending all your time creating that perfect encounter and that perfect character. And You also really dfeel the need to make sure your character idea is perfectly represented in game, 3.5 is for you.

If you want to just sit down and play some dnd, not worrying to much about the actual math behind it, and just kinda accept that things will probably be balanced. 5e is probably better for you.

Personally I prefer 5e.

This is the most streamlined and accurate answer that I could provide [+1]

Cheers

[ciarannihill]

I started in 4e, then returned with 5e after a long hiatus, and never went back to 3.5e, but this is what I've gleaned from friends who've played it substantially (grain of salt, yada, yada):

3.5 was a far more fleshed out framework, more circumstances were codified and had defined mechanics. Essentially it was a very robust system -- but due to it's robustness had a reasonably tough barrier to entry, in particular for running the game.

5e's mission statement was essentially to be more flexible by previous editions -- it has baked into it a philosophy that the DM should make the best call with the information available, "rulings not rules". This is frustrating to people who prefer the defined robustness of 3.5e and other previous editions, and that's a fair call -- there's less to sink one's teeth into from a optimizer or mechanics mastery perspective. The thing 5e gained in the tradeoff is accessibility -- it's easy to pick up and run compared to previous editions, especially for new players.

Which is better? It depends entirely on what you want out of the experience. If you're looking for a looser framework to improve stories of spells and steel with friends without dealing with a ton of minutia 5e is a good choice. If you're looking for a granular and robust framework to play a mechanics and tactics driven game 3.5e seems like the "better" choice. Both editions can do both things, but one is built intentionally robust and the other intentionally looser essentially.

[Willie the Duck]

It depends on what is important to you.

If what you really enjoy about playing dnd is comeing through splat books, spending all your time creating that perfect encounter and that perfect character. And You also really dfeel the need to make sure your character idea is perfectly represented in game, 3.5 is for you.

If you want to just sit down and play some dnd, not worrying to much about the actual math behind it, and just kinda accept that things will probably be balanced. 5e is probably better for you.

Free time (particularly DM prep time) seems definitely to be a major defining toggle on the question of 'who is best served by this edition?' Desire for codified, definitive answers might be another.

That said, the only way you can put 3e and 5e at opposing ends of a spectrum is if they are your only data points. There are many tabletop RPGs that are much further in any given direction than these two examples are from each other.

[Doug Lampert]

I started in 4e, then returned with 5e after a long hiatus, and never went back to 3.5e, but this is what I've gleaned from friends who've played it substantially (grain of salt, yada, yada):

3.5 was a far more fleshed out framework, more circumstances were codified and had defined mechanics. Essentially it was a very robust system -- but due to it's robustness had a reasonably tough barrier to entry, in particular for running the game.

5e's mission statement was essentially to be more flexible by previous editions -- it has baked into it a philosophy that the DM should make the best call with the information available, "rulings not rules". This is frustrating to people who prefer the defined robustness of 3.5e and other previous editions, and that's a fair call -- there's less to sink one's teeth into from a optimizer or mechanics mastery perspective. The thing 5e gained in the tradeoff is accessibility -- it's easy to pick up and run compared to previous editions, especially for new players.

Which is better? It depends entirely on what you want out of the experience. If you're looking for a looser framework to improve stories of spells and steel with friends without dealing with a ton of minutia 5e is a good choice. If you're looking for a granular and robust framework to play a mechanics and tactics driven game 3.5e seems like the "better" choice. Both editions can do both things, but one is built intentionally robust and the other intentionally looser essentially.

An enormous amount of 3.5's robustness was illusionary, lots of details, which didn't always work or make sense. This is why there are now NINE threads on dysfunctional rules in 3.x, eight of them closed for hitting 50+ pages plus the current one at 37 pages.

[GlenSmash!]

Which is better? What are they better for?

Now why would you go and pick fights like this?

[Particle_Man]

Which is better? What are they better for?

They are both better. 3.5e is better at 3.5e stuff, and 5e is better at 5e stuff.

[Louro]

If you're looking for a granular and robust framework to play a mechanics and tactics driven game 3.5e 4e seems like the "better" choice. Both editions can do both things, but one is built intentionally robust and the other intentionally looser essentially.
Actually, I find 5e to be way more robust than 3.5
Not very difficult to figure things out, or improvise stuff. Simple solid mechanics, which frees up brain usage to work on story and evil stuff. Mostly evil stuff.

[Mordaedil]

I'm glad both the 3.5 and 5th edition threads actually get along enough to actually agree on these matters.

It's a very different beast from the time 4th edition was around.

[MoiMagnus]

Both aim to different goals.

However, I consider 5e more polished and robust, thus "better" if you want an absolute scale.
The success of 5e is to have a system that run quite well (at least at low level) even with a average/bad DM, while 3.5/Pathfinder can completely break if you have a player more experienced than the DM (or a Munchkin).

3.5e still has some balance problems, some "rules that are too complex for what they do", ... hence the existence of Pathfinder, and the upcoming Pathfinder 2nd edition (and a lot of other systems I've not played). All of them aiming at being "3.5 in better".
But assuming a good DM, 3.5 is a good edition, which offer things that 5e cannot offer.

Personally, I find character building far more interesting in 3.5e/Pathfinder, but actually playing and DM-ing more interesting in 5e.

[ciarannihill]

Actually, I find 5e to be way more robust than 3.5
Not very difficult to figure things out, or improvise stuff. Simple solid mechanics, which frees up brain usage to work on story and evil stuff. Mostly evil stuff.
To clarify, when I say "robust" I don't mean it in terms of what can occur in play, I mean it in terms of whether or not "Thing A" that occurs has set rules associated with it as opposed to being something that requires DM adjudication.
5e leans on DM adjudication because they realized that spending 20+ minutes of a 2-3 hour session looking up specific rules wasn't a terribly good time and that new players were likely to spend an even larger percentage of their playtime doing so. IMO it's a much smarter move, and it empowers the DM to make decisions based on a plethora of factors that codified rules could never take into account and allowing for the DM to work with their table of players as a feature instead of having to bend the rules -- rulings are inherently far more flexible.

Having said that, this means it by definition is less "robust" than 3.5e, with it's complex and numerous rules.

[KorvinStarmast]

I find character building far more interesting in 3.5e/Pathfinder, but actually playing and DM-ing more interesting in 5e. Nailed it in one. I feel similarly. That said, if everyone at the table has a bit of rules mastery, 3.5e and Pathfinder both can be very appealing since you spend less time looking stuff up. A table like this has multiple people who DM for a session, and everyone pitches in with "how does that work" from their niche of expertise. Is that a rare table? Maybe.

5e doesn't require as much system mastery, but I do wish that a short text box in the PHB with "this is the action economy for a turn" would have tightly summarized the text describing various elements of play. They went to great lengths in the spell casting section to have side bars that were very useful; an action economy box in Ch 9 would have been play very nice for when we were first starting with a few of the novices in the group.

[EvilAnagram]

I think the major difference is about 1.5 dungeons and/or dragons. Basically a Dungeons and Drac.

[Eric Diaz]

Edition warring aside, while I prefer 5e 90% of the times, 3.5 has a much better treatment of melee weapons. Also, if you want real "epic"/"unbounded" characters, 3.5 is better: even the tarrasque in 5e looks like he could be brought down by a hundred well trained first level archers with the sharpshooter feat, and twenty goblins with bows seems dangerous for a 12th level fighter in some cases.

[Willie the Duck]

5e doesn't require as much system mastery, but I do wish that a short text box in the PHB with "this is the action economy for a turn" would have tightly summarized the text describing various elements of play. They went to great lengths in the spell casting section to have side bars that were very useful; an action economy box in Ch 9 would have been play very nice for when we were first starting with a few of the novices in the group.

Sidebars and explanatory text in general would have been useful*. Given the 'rulings over rules' aesthetic, it seems like they could have done more with a 'here's what we are doing, what we were going for, and where things seem to be going opposite to that, look again as either you might have misread or we might have miswrote' kind of voice. Likewise, I know the books have to be written with someone completely new to D&D in mind, but a little more of 'this is what happened in previous editions, and thus we are doing X to avoid Y' kind of stuff would be helpful. It is too bad that a separate version of the core books for longstanding gamers would likely be unprofitable, but I would love an oversized version with genuine, middle-ages-style marginalia explaining and contextualizing the main text.
*Like action economy appears to be your spot of annoyance, lighting conditions/visibility and use-of-hands/what-can-be-held-by-spellcasters issues drive me up the wall.

[Ignimortis]

I think the major difference is about 1.5 dungeons and/or dragons. Basically a Dungeons and Drac.

Wouldn't that be half a Dungeon and a whole Dragon? Or at least a Dungeon and a Drake?

[EvilAnagram]

Wouldn't that be half a Dungeon and a whole Dragon? Or at least a Dungeon and a Drake?

Good point. It comes down to a dungeon and a drake. Maybe a dragon and a cell.

[KorvinStarmast]

*Like action economy appears to be your spot of annoyance, lighting conditions/visibility and use-of-hands/what-can-be-held-by-spellcasters issues drive me up the wall. Not to mention that surprise in this edition is the same word, but a bit different, than previous editions. Took a lot of getting used to.

[Demonslayer666]

I would say that 5th is better from the 10,000 foot view. I really like how inspiration works, and the character generation is much better.

There are many things I miss from 3.5, but 5th handles just about everything pretty well, as long as you have a good DM. It could use feat balancing and skill check examples (DCs).

[nmitchell2]

I never played 3.5 but I did play Pathfinder for a while and have played 5e for the past couple of years or so. I enjoy character building more in Pathfinder and actual play more in 5e. While I enjoy theorycrafting character builds and probably spend more time doing that because I'm not reliant on other people turning up etc, I go to DnD sessions to actually play the game and socialise with other players and have a good time with the group, so if I would have to choose I would probably pick 5e.

When building a character, I find 5e much more restrictive and therefore enjoy Pathfinder more, although I think that's because I'm used to having a wealth of options that encompass a whole host of character designs that are missing from 5e, specifically the hybrid classes. How would you go about making a Bloodrager or Witch in 5e? You would struggle without homebrew and these are gaps that I would like to see filled. However, I find 5e to be much simpler and therefore the game tends to flow so much better because new players can understand the game better and it's much less common to get bogged down in rules debates, and when there are debates it's easier to find the relevant information because there's less source books. This means we spend less time debating and more time actually playing DnD which is what I turn up to sessions to do. With the right group Pathfinder probably has the potential to be more fun, but a lot of groups need the simplicity of 5e, especially AL groups like I normally play in. I struggle to find a home game in which I'm not asked to DM.

[Derpaligtr]

Pls dont. This is so toll

Hey! What's wrong with Tolls? Toll Love baby!

[GlenSmash!]

Hey! What's wrong with Tolls? Toll Love baby!

Just robbin' the little guys to line the pockets of The Man.

Down with Tolls!

[LordEntrails]

We really needs a stickied thread that sums up the forum consensus on transitioning from 3.5e to 5e & related topics. There are entirely too many of these threads.
That's cause people are either trolling or too lazy to Google the question. It is then supported by everyone who doesn't follow Mortis_Elrod's advice and actually responds to the thread.

[Derpaligtr]

Just robbin' the little guys to line the pockets of The Man.

Down with Tolls!

Hey! Tolls just wants to love Sargnarg the Hardge Harg! Though, I guess tolls did stop them from going on that trip, which is totally ironic since Tolls collects tolls...

[Waterdeep Merch]

Eh. Might as well ask if oranges are inherently more delicious than strawberries, assuming the two gaming groups are any good at running their game. Some people will just straight up hate one or the other, but that's really just, like, their opinion, man.

I prefer 5e, but I like both.

It's different for newcomers. If a newcomer already has a table or group in mind, go with the flow. If you have options and are new to TTRPG's and somehow don't have an opinion on either table, I'd edge towards 5e first because it's much easier to grasp. If you're new, your group is new, and you're the DM? 5e again. 3.x requires a lot more system mastery to get the most out of it.

Though I'd really recommend trying both eventually. If you've only ever had oranges, you've got no way of knowing if you might also like strawberries.

[Kane0]

5th is like cruising the motorway on bikes with your mates.
3.5 is like going 4WD out in the bush with your mates.

It's a matter of preference.

[Asmotherion]

3.5 is better if you want mechanics about everything, High optimisation (probably), at the cost of being extreamly non-newbe friendly (will take you some time to become relativelly good, ages for system mastery due to the extream amount of information avalable, and as you go, you will find more and more stuff that can combine, and that the possibilities are virtually endless, so apparently you can always make something even better). The more system mastery you have, the more broken your builds can and will eventually get, and this will result in a relative power inbalance between PCs and CRs that are irelevant to the level of the Party.

5e brings us Bounded Accuracy, together with an other healthy amount of power limitations that don't allow you to take the power level up to 11, so that everyone, no matter the amount of system mastery or level of optimisation they have, will be of relativelly the same power level. It is also much more simplistic in it's mechanics, thus a complete newbe in Tabletop RPGs will be able to master the system in a matter of few days if he or she tryes. CRs stay relevant, and there is a limited amount of books to look in for information.

PS: I love 3.5 and 5e. Each for it's own reasons.

[Astofel]

I've never played 3.5, but judging from what I've heard about it 5e definitely sounds like the better system for me. My perception of 3.5, which mainly comes from discussions I've read on these very forums and a few splatbooks I've browsed through, is the following:
-Good gravy there's a ton of classes and prestige classes
-Like so many
-So many that even veteran players have some they've never heard of
-But a huge number of them are just flat-out awful
-There's like 5 really good ones and the rest are varying degrees of bad
-Also there's a bunch of weird and complex rules for just about everything
-So it's really easy to make a character who is terrible at everything and isn't worth playing
-But it still takes like three hours to put a character together

My issue with 3.5e is basically that there's too much of it and the quality is too inconsistent. From what I've heard it sometimes even seems like the designers didn't know what they were doing because of how bad a PrC is at doing the stuff it's meant to do. For 5e, I can keep all the various classes and subclasses in my head and remember roughly what each of them does so I don't need to have all my books in front of me when I'm thinking of character concepts. I don't think I could ever keep track of all the options 3.5 provides, and I have a pretty decent memory.

[furby076]

An enormous amount of 3.5's robustness was illusionary, lots of details, which didn't always work or make sense. This is why there are now NINE threads on dysfunctional rules in 3.x, eight of them closed for hitting 50+ pages plus the current one at 37 pages.

meh, and how many raw threads are in 5e? Rules questions will always abound and what is simple to one is complex to another. 3.x had dozens of books, and d20 system made it easy for other companies to add many dozens (hundreds)more. So yea, you eventually put all that stuff together and you will get "didn't always work or make sense". That is where a reasonable player, sat down with a reasonable DM and worked it out like big boys and girls.

My DM allowed us to use any official WOTC books. FOr his sanity he always used core phb, dmg, mm- and he would wipe the floor with us using lower level encounters. One of the best campaigns i ever played in (last ten years, level 1-20 though we were epic power level, and was one of the top stories being followed in ENworld)

[Arkhios]

Good point. It comes down to a dungeon and a drake. Maybe a dragon and a cell.

How about a dungeon with a half-dragon warden?

...I must run this some day!



To OP's question, which seems to be an obvious attempt to incite an edition war, please don't. Not again.

I love 3.5 as much as I love 4th edition, Pathfinder (1.0, can't say much about 2.0 yet), and 5th edition. I've played them all, and wouldn't think twice if I was asked "Do you want to join a game running on X"; I definitely would.

[nmitchell2]

3.5 is better if you want mechanics about everything, High optimisation (probably), at the cost of being extreamly non-newbe friendly (will take you some time to become relativelly good, ages for system mastery due to the extream amount of information avalable, and as you go, you will find more and more stuff that can combine, and that the possibilities are virtually endless, so apparently you can always make something even better). The more system mastery you have, the more broken your builds can and will eventually get, and this will result in a relative power inbalance between PCs and CRs that are irelevant to the level of the Party.

5e brings us Bounded Accuracy, together with an other healthy amount of power limitations that don't allow you to take the power level up to 11, so that everyone, no matter the amount of system mastery or level of optimisation they have, will be of relativelly the same power level. It is also much more simplistic in it's mechanics, thus a complete newbe in Tabletop RPGs will be able to master the system in a matter of few days if he or she tryes. CRs stay relevant, and there is a limited amount of books to look in for information.

PS: I love 3.5 and 5e. Each for it's own reasons.

I agree with all of this with one exception, and it has nothing to do with 3.5e vs 5e so feel free to ignore.

I disagree that CR stays relevant in 5e. Even at level 7-8 I found that our group was easily capable of defeating CR 11-12 enemies without even spending more than a couple of spell slots and some hit dice on our front line characters. The campaign my group are currently playing is designed to be less intense than our normal campaigns and even silly at times, every single character is multiclassed in an attempt to achieve obscure character concepts, and yet we are easily defeating encounters designed for characters 4 levels higher than us. For example, two of my friends are playing the yin ninjas who specialises in spying and assassination missions for their clan, one uses disguises to hide in plain sight of his enemies and the other is so stealthy he is never seen at all. The former is a Bard/Sorcerer with Subtle Spell and spells like Disguise Self and Suggestion, the latter is a Monk/Rogue who stacks Expertise in Stealth with Pass Without Trace and the Observant feat. Heck, with an optimised party of 5, we have defeated Ancient Dragons at level 11-12. I disagree that the CR system stays relevant in 5e. 5e did so many things right compared to 3.5e, but the CR system wasn't one of them.

[Derpaligtr]

3.5 is better if you want mechanics about everything...

PS: I love 3.5 and 5e. Each for it's own reasons.

I feel like this is more of a matter of time than the systems themselves. With all the homebrew, homebrew support, and with some time for the official stuff to come out... 5e will be able to do the same thing.

WotC is playing it safe and releasing things slowly (which is why they're supporting homebrew) so it may take a while... But 5e will get there eventually.

Anything from 3e can be converted into 5e, I've seen Tome of Battle and Magic of Incarnum homebrews after all.

PS: I love 3.5, 4e, and 5e. They all have their flaws but they all have their points.

[Doug Lampert]

meh, and how many raw threads are in 5e? Rules questions will always abound and what is simple to one is complex to another. 3.x had dozens of books, and d20 system made it easy for other companies to add many dozens (hundreds)more. So yea, you eventually put all that stuff together and you will get "didn't always work or make sense". That is where a reasonable player, sat down with a reasonable DM and worked it out like big boys and girls.

My DM allowed us to use any official WOTC books. FOr his sanity he always used core phb, dmg, mm- and he would wipe the floor with us using lower level encounters. One of the best campaigns i ever played in (last ten years, level 1-20 though we were epic power level, and was one of the top stories being followed in ENworld)

I didn't count RAW threads or questions about rules threads. Those are specifically threads listing rules that don't actually work, nothing else. Not debates over how does this work, just, this doesn't work, and there are over 400 pages collectively in them.

[NorthernPhoenix]

I think 5e is better in basically every way except character build variety and other system-mastery aspects of the character building metagame, where 3.5 is clearly superior. Which one you prefer will heavily depend on how much you prioritize this part of the game.

[Kurald Galain]

there are now NINE threads on dysfunctional rules in 3.x, eight of them closed for hitting 50+ pages plus the current one at 37 pages.

I didn't count RAW threads or questions about rules threads. Those are specifically threads listing rules that don't actually work, nothing else. Not debates over how does this work, just, this doesn't work, and there are over 400 pages collectively in them.

That's really not what these threads do. The "dysfunctional rules" threads are about (1) silly situations that appear when you take rules out of context in a way that no DM would allow in the first place, or (2) turtuously abusing grammar and logic to twist rules into saying the opposite of what they normally do, in a way that no DM would allow either.

I mean sure, 3E has its share of issues (as does any edition), but those threads are completely unrelated to that.

[furby076]

I didn't count RAW threads or questions about rules threads. Those are specifically threads listing rules that don't actually work, nothing else. Not debates over how does this work, just, this doesn't work, and there are over 400 pages collectively in them.

with hundreds of books, some written poorly, never play tested, etc plus YEARs of this stuff, what else would you expect? Add to that different interpretations, or someone who is reaching for the stars...you know the super multiclassed characters that could do infinite damage? They were thouht exercises some tried to incorporate into legit games.

I remember light spell didn't work, for the very reason it was listed as a figment. Figments cant work to light a room up, because they are in your head.

Doesn't make one system better than the other, it's just a matter of preference. I loved the number crunching, but know some who don't. I prefer PF, but am in a fun 5e game. It would probably be fun in PF too.