Deliberating switching to 5th

[Shocksrivers]

Dear fellow GiTP-ers from across the great divide,

I hail from the olden lands, the lands of 3.5 and... I will drop this affect now.

Hi, I am a long time TTRPG'er and have been playing 3.5 since I started playing DnD in 2012, with a group of very inexperienced players.

We have had the odd person dropping out, or joining briefly, and a character or two retire because they were boring, but overall we have been playing for around 7-8 years with a group of 5 core players and characters. As we mastered the system, we expanded what books we could use, unhindered by prior knowledge about them, leading to rather complicated multiclassed/prestigeclassed characters for the mundanes (including the dreaded and amazing ToB).

We are a very casual group, just a fighter, a druid, a fireballing sorcerer and a swashbuckling-swordsaging-rogue-thing. How casual are we? The fighter is easily the strongest character and until really recently, the druid was the worst... We play a little under twice a month.

First, we all DM'ed in turn, to let everyone experience both sides of the screen, and to let everyone add to the world and story. Because people didn't really know the rules that well, I was always a sort of back-seat rules DM, where they could ask me how something was supposed to go. If they just made something up that worked as well, we just went with that, and I wouldn't contradict the DM on rulings, especially in tense or exiting situations. This worked fine for a while, and then I took over DM'ing to bring all the loose stories together in an overarching plot.

Recently, a more experienced player took over DMing for me for a while, and let slip that he disliked the clunkyness (I feel this is a word, but don't know how to spell it) of 3.5 and would really prefer 5th. The other players seemed interested, but as I am sort of the walking rulebook for the group I objected that I didn't really want to have to learn and then teach a whole new rule set.

So, at long last, my question: how hard do you think it is to learn 5th? Do you think it is maybe better for the more casual players who can't after 7 years keep all the rules straight? Or should we stick to the system that they now have the basics down off? And, but if we switch I will specifically come back for this, how hard is it to redo the characters in a way that they resemble themselves as they are in 3.5, especially for the ToB characters... (I gathered that 5th doesn't have prestige classes and less base classes over all, right?)

[Safety Sword]

I made the switch a while back and I can tell you that 5th edition takes a fraction of the time to prepare combats for, the stories can be just as good and new players are not as confused trying to learn it.

"One of us. One of us"

[Kane0]

5e is quite a bit more friendly to new and casual players. Its also easy to pick up, though if you’re well into certain 3.5isms the. There are some things to look out for. The free players pdf should be enough to get started but if you would like a hand converting specific characters to 5e thats actually a pretty enjoyable pastime for many of us here.



And if you happen to be interested:

- Proficiency bonus is used for skill/ability checks, attacks and saving throws instead of BAB, save progressions and skill points. It's all based off Stat + Proficiency, and the numbers are lower and scale slower. HP and abilities/options are the primary differentiation between low and high levels.
- Due to reduced scaling of basic numbers (skills, attacks, damage, AC) it is expected that low CR creatures remain a threat to higher level parties in significant numbers. This is intended.
- You have a saving throw type for each attribute.
- You can't have a stat higher than 20 by normal means, nor a stat higher than 30 by any means.
- Movement is not an action, and actions can happen between movement. Bonus actions are like swifts, reactions are like immediates. No action can be traded for another type. You can also make one interaction (grab a weapon, open a door, etc) per turn for free.
- Attacks are classified oddly but they all boil down to a combination of [melee or ranged] and [weapon or spell]
- You cannot delay, only ready an action.
- Only one thing provokes an AoO: Moving out of a creatures reach.
- Learn the advantage / disadvantage mechanic, it replaces 90% of fiddly +1s and -2s.
- Dying works differently. You only die outright when you take damage equal to your max HP in one hit after reaching 0. When reduced to 0 you make saving throws, three successes stabilizes you and 3 failures you die. Taking damage while making death saves counts as one failure.
- Damage resistance, reduction and vulnerability is simplified. It's half damage, doesn't exist (as such) and double damage respectively.
- There are two kinds of rest: short and long. There is expected to be two short rests for every long on average, which is important to maintain balance short rest classes (monk, warlock) against long rest classes (paladin, sorcerer).
- Everybody can heal via hit die, which are spent during short rests.
- Concentration is a thing you need to know well. Most buff, debuff and control spells need concentration, and you can concentrate on one thing at a time. You have a chance to lose concentration each time you take damage.
- All casting is 'spontaneous', as in you don’t put individual spells into slots, you just have a collection of spells available to you and spell slots to fuel them with. Your spells will either be prepared or known based on class.
- High casting stat doesn’t give you additional spell slots, but does affect your spell attack bonus and spell DC (which is the same across all spell levels).
- Cantrips are notable now, offering viable damage output based on PC level not caster level
- Levels 1-3 are supposed to go by very quickly, and 4-5 fairly quickly. The majority of PC time is angled to be spent in the level 6-11 range.
- Encounter design and challenge rating is also different. A CR 6 enemy is an easy (little resource expenditure & low chance of falling) challenge for a level 6 party of 4, not an easy challenge for a single level 6 character. You are expected to deal with half a dozen or so medium encounters during an adventuring day, not one or two hard ones.
- Don't use any optional rules to start with. This includes multiclassing and feats.
- The core math of the game does not expect you to get magic items by default. You can play through levels 1 to 20 without seeing a magic item at all, anything you get/give is a bonus.
Golden Rule: Thou shalt not assume to know that which shares a name
Sneak attack works differently. Protection from Evil works differently. Critical hits work differently. Do not skim over things that look familiar because they are almost all different in subtle ways that become very apparent in play.

[Shocksrivers]

"One of us. One of us"

Hahaha, oh, no, you're getting to me...


Kane0, thanks for everything, that list is one of the thinks I was looking for. I can find advise for completely new players, not specifically for people coming from 3.5. This one seems very important:

Golden Rule: Thou shalt not assume to know that which shares a name

[J-H]

5e is simple to pick up, has fewer fiddly rules to remember, and is much more balanced. There are very few "trap" options for character-building, and many fewer "dominate the game" builds, so intra-party balance is much better. It's much, much faster to play, to run, and to build monsters for. Magic items go from "follow the rules magic mart" to special and more unique.

I made the change and am glad I did.

Some character classes don't make the jump over as well, and the 5e characters that replace them will be less complex, but it'll work out.

For ToB classes, conversions are most likely to go to:
Fighter Battlemaster (has maneuvers, fights well)
Monk (gets monk weapons using martial arts die, has manuverability, extra attacks, stuns, and other options throughout combat)
Paladin (it's actually a good class now)

[Justin Sane]

5e is much simpler than 3.5e, that part is obvious. Your biggest issue will be in translating the characters over - while I'm sure that if you post their 3.5 sheets someone here will help you rebuild them, it might be simpler to start from scratch, just keeping the basic concept, and accept they'll not have the exact same abilities that they had.

[MrStabby]

I would suggest that before you start a 5th edition campaign you play a brief game at levels 3 and 4.

This is simple enough to pick up still without legion abilities and spells. It gives players a chance to sense how different classes play and how character choice will interact with the rules set. Then players are in a good spot to chose what they want to play in a longer campaign.

But 5th is a great game, quite a lot different from 3rd edition. It is simpler, which has advantages and disadvantages and it feels quite different (low level threats remaining dangerous means there is less of the "OK, so we go out there and fight their army, then we go and...").

HP becomes a primary defence, growing more quickly than AC, which again feels different.

As a DM you will want to be abstemious with magic items, at least at first. Small changes to to hit rolls are pretty big news and the game avoids the AC treadmill that makes magic swords needed.


But pile in, 5th ed is great, it is pretty intuitive, it is fun. Also, this forum is full of support so if you run into difficulty there are a hundred people waiting to answer your questions.

[DrKerosene]

Honestly, I started with 3.5e around 2012 too. I switched to 5e a couple years ago for the ease of finding players. I don’t regret it. I just steal from 3.5e if I find 5e lacking (like with the rules for populating/generating cities from 3.5e DMG)

It’s basically like E6 for skill checks and roll-totals (bounded accuracy), so less math but basically the same math.

Most circumstantial bonuses, potential modifiers, and possible penalties, are basically abstracted into rolling one or two D20s (maybe 3) instead of having all those numbers.

There are less “trap” options (4 elements Monk, beast master Ranger), less assumptions of the Party composition in monster design, very little WBL assumption. Etc.

You don’t really need to dig out obscure sections for rules (like how a 3.5e Noble Outfit description says it also needs 100gp worth of jewellery to not give you a penalty).

There is a bit of an emphasis on refluffing things with descriptions, like a commoner wearing different clothes and using a different d4 weapon is an entirely different creature than the last one (“half naked desert raider” vs “arctic barbarian” but it’s the same statblock).

I miss templates, but tweaking creatures is simple enough. Most humanoid NPCs can have a race added like a template.

Most 3.5 prestige classes would have to be treated as roleplaying, or thematic self restrictions, if you wanted to maintain a very specific character idea (I’m still waiting for a good 5e Fleshwarper). And probably require a little bit of DM permission & homebrew to get a capstone ability ported to 5e.

The 5e spell Shadow Blade basically replaced the entire 3.5e Soul Knife class.

[EggKookoo]

And, but if we switch I will specifically come back for this, how hard is it to redo the characters in a way that they resemble themselves as they are in 3.5, especially for the ToB characters... (I gathered that 5th doesn't have prestige classes and less base classes over all, right?)

I think you might do best by reducing your existing party down to concepts, and creating them fresh in 5e with builds that best fit that concept. Don't expect to replicate specific pet features. You'll need to be happy with "close enough," but in general 5e's builds are pretty good. Pay close attention to the ranger as it's considered the class most in need of love by a lot of players.

Kane0 covered a lot but maybe some things should be expanded on...


- You cannot delay, only ready an action.

Take a good look at this rule. Readying your action is powerful and flexible and players should be encouraged to use it, but it does have some limits, especially regarding spellcasting.


- Encounter design and challenge rating is also different. A CR 6 enemy is an easy (little resource expenditure & low chance of falling) challenge for a level 6 party of 4, not an easy challenge for a single level 6 character. You are expected to deal with half a dozen or so medium encounters during an adventuring day, not one or two hard ones.

Specifically, CR is largely balanced around a PC party of 4. As you deviate from this in party size, the formula changes. I highly recommend getting your hands on Xanathar's Guide to Everything and using the encounter tables in that, rather than the ones from the DMG (although the CR calculator for monster creation in the DMG is good).

On a related note, monster creation and customization is a breeze in 5e compared to 3e, but it doesn't necessarily seem so at first glance. To me it feels like they built a convoluted monster-creation mechanism first, organized the DMG instructions around that, and then only late in development realized they had built something really simple and elegant and ran out of time to reframe those instructions.

Also, NPCs are not built like PCs. They don't really have levels, feats, and so forth. In short, they don't have a progression mechanism, as they're typically meant only to exist for their one encounter and are simplified toward that.


- Don't use any optional rules to start with. This includes multiclassing and feats.

I second that about multiclassing, but feats in 5e aren't so daunting. If anything you might find them anemic.

Fifth makes use of subclasses (and subraces, for that matter) which are designed to satisfy many basic multiclassing needs. For example, you want the classic fighter/magic-user? Pick the Eldritch Knight subclass from fighter and you get to pop off a few spells.

Don't skip or just skim the section on backgrounds. A background in 5e isn't a backstory, it's like a pre-class you select. What your PC did before they became what their class is. It typically provides extra proficiencies, a feature, and some roleplaying hints. A player is meant to define the event or decision that changed the course of their life from what their background represented to what their class now represents. It's a great element.


Golden Rule: Thou shalt not assume to know that which shares a name
Sneak attack works differently. Protection from Evil works differently. Critical hits work differently. Do not skim over things that look familiar because they are almost all different in subtle ways that become very apparent in play.

Also, paladins can be any alignment. Alignment itself is deprecated. And if you do multiclass, while there are no class-combo restrictions (yes, a paladin/rogue can be done), there are Ability score minimums.

Strictly speaking, there are no skills. If you do a "skill-like" thing, it's just a d20 roll made using the most relevant Ability mod. If the thing is something specific within that, which you might be extra good at, you get to add your Proficiency Bonus. So like, if you need to pull off a feat of agility, you make a Dexterity check. But if you're proficient in Acrobatics (which can be generalized as a feat of agility), you get a bonus on the roll.

Also, check out this thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?609172-Commonly-misunderstood-rules). It's getting a little old now and there was some sidetracks that I totally had nothing to do with, but it has some good info.

[Lyracian]

I also swapped over from 3.5 last year. It was an easy transition and I really like the new edition.

Skills are a bit simplistic but really happy with the rest of it. Bounded accuracy and Advantage/Disadvantage mechanics are wonderful

[MoiMagnus]

I'd like to point that you will probably only have positive answers in this subforum.
If you want some counter-arguments, you will need to ask peoples that are still on the 3.X subforum, or came back to it after trying 5e.

There are definitely some kind of players or DM that didn't like 5e at all. But among the peoples I've encountered, this is definitely a minority of players. And I've yet to encounter in real life a DM that prefer DMing 3.X to 5e.

[wookietek]

I was forced to switch as it seems to be only edition in town, so to speak. With that said, I am enjoying myself a lot despite my yearning to play 3.5. I bought with real money just about every book there is, and now that money is collecting dust. The real reason that I miss 3.5 is the character customization. I love building characters, and making them each unique and useful, but 5ed doesn't have near the scope to do that as 3.5 did.

At the end of the day, though, I am having a good time, and that is largely to it being an easy system to learn, but mostly because I have a fun innovative group. It is a worthwhile version of the game, and may be easier for your group that still struggles with 3.5 rules.

[Lupine]

And I've yet to encounter in real life a DM that prefer DMing 3.X to 5e.

Actually one of my IRL friends has stated a very strong preference to DM 3.X over 5e, citing the complexity, and the more concrete and defined rules. He also stated that he doesn't like the ways abilities and skills interact in 5e.

I DM for my group, and find 5e very easy to run, but I admit I find myself strangled by the lack of rules in 5e. I often see players wanting to do things, and I have to invent rules on the fly for that, which is not fun, but do-able. I see no issue with 5e outside of its lack or rules for a lot of things.

[wookietek]

I'd rather DM 3.5 because of the concrete rules also. It takes way longer to prepare, but when you finish the prep you basically become a player because everything is now all thought out. I also don't allow arguing rules at my (now virtual) table. If we can't agree after a minute or so, then I'll hand wave a ruling, and then we can argue like crazy offline after the session. If I have to I have no problem retconning the game as necessary when I've messed up majorly. I just feel like for someone with a decent handle on the 3.5 rules there are fewer opportunities to have to figure things out on the fly like there are in 5ed.

With that said, the simplicity of 5ed is what has helped grow the game immensely in the past years better than any edition ever did. I'm hoping to bring some newbs over to 3.5 eventually when they start wanting more complexity.

[FrancisBean]

I'd like to point that you will probably only have positive answers in this subforum. If you want some counter-arguments, you will need to ask peoples that are still on the 3.X subforum, or came back to it after trying 5e.
Oh, I wouldn't say that. Here's my top 2 peeves with 5e:

Advantage/Disadvantage does not stack. E.g., if you're trying to shoot a prone target, you have disadvantage to the roll. But you only get one instance of disadvantage. We can add doing it in the dark and it's no harder. Or being within 5 feet, and it's still no harder. Or while you're blinded, suffering 3 levels of exhaustion, frightened, poisoned, prone, restrained, and your opponent is invisible (so long as you know which square to target), and it's still no harder.
Bounded accuracy limits specialization. In 3.5, you can build a character who does one thing so well that there's no point in anybody else in the party trying it. 5e fixes that by putting success within everybody's reach. The problem is that it also puts failure so far within the reach of the putative expert specialist that it happens more than it should. It's frustrating and demoralizing when you've built a character around doing one thing very well, and then due to random die rolls, everybody in the party succeeds while you fail.

Add to the list of things which are different: there's no such thing as a surprise round in 5e. If you think about surprise as an individualized combat condition, it'll make more sense. (And I still don't know why the designers didn't just write it that way, it would have been so much clearer!)

[Man_Over_Game]

One thing that hasn't been touched on is that 5e was designed to be simple, not just for simplicity's sake, but to also allow room for your DM to adjust things as-needed. There aren't many hard rules on how much fire damage tossing down a brazier of coals would do, or what kind of environmental effect it'd have. It was designed around being a toolbox, of sorts, and all of its simplicity will get old if the party's default tactics and actions are the best things they can do.

[Theodoxus]

I agree with all the advice being proffered, especially Kane0's Golden Rule, but I'll throw in a giant caveat. If you do decide to make the switch (preferably after testing the waters a bit) - play a campaign using RAW and note which things you really like and which things bother you. 5E is great, especially for new or 'low concentration' (as I call them) players who are there for the camaraderie more than the crunch of character development.

Probably the majority of posters here have generated some homebrew - adding or subtracting some aspect. I've gone so far as to basically mash 4th and 5th ed's together, as I prefer a lot of the granularity, especially around movement and tactical combat that 4E provides, but the much smoother and less cumbersome rules around Bounded Accuracy.

From a 3.5 perspective (I switched from Pathfinder - converting the last half of Skulls and Shackles in the process - in 2015) the Attack of Opportunity rules (really, the lack thereof) tended to be a bit obtuse. It can really power up a caster. Potentially missing an attack because of disadvantage doesn't suck nearly as hard as getting whacked in the head for casting on an enemy next to you. Also, my players from day 1 begged for a 5' step. I eventually relented and brought back the 5' Shift, allowing a character to sacrifice their movement speed to make an unprovokable 5' step while still granting an action - basically, a 5' disengage that didn't suck up your ability to do anything else. funnily enough, now that it's officially part of the game, players don't use it often...

The other really big thing that I literally just had to stand back and say "ok, this is purely gamist in nature, nothing 'simulationist' works for this" is lighting. That covers everything from darkness and darkness to cloud spells and stealth/hiding/invisibility. Having 3 light levels (bright, dim and darkness) with only 2 sight levels (normal and darkvision), and adding concealment and cover... if something is hidden or just stealthed... ugh... and of course the various interpretations therein (if you want to be lost of a couple days wandering a warren of rabbit holes, just google "Stealth in 5th Edition"...

Stick with the gamist concepts for these. It makes zero sense in a real life physics sense, but it'll make your game run smoother even as it destroys verisimilitude.

TL;DR - I hope you enjoy 5E. Always ask questions, stick with the answers that work for your group and don't ever worry about RAI. The f'n developers don't even know what the F RAWRAI is.

[Sigreid]

I think you'll find 5e much friendlier for casual players. It might even help with encouraging other members of the group to step up and DM once in a while.

A few tips:

1. Don't just assume that a rule works like an earlier edition.
2. Some people really hate this, and some like it; but the rules are written in a way to guide the DM to making decisions for their campaign rather than dictating what that decision is. Things can work somewhat differently table to table. That's OK. It's meant to work like that and let groups play the game they want to play instead of the game everyone tells them to play.
3. Because of number one, if your group swaps out DM's you might want to talk about how the rules work in some areas. A common debate around here is DCs for ability checks for things like climbing trees (such as is climbing a tree DCx or does it depend on the tree?).
4. Don't get too hung up on the rules. For my group, the DM makes a ruling. If a player things it's a bad ruling, he briefly states his position and the DM decides how to proceed, with the rules being referenced later and then the group being told how it will be handled going forward. This part only works if there's reasonable trust between the entire group that everyone is trying to be fair.

[EggKookoo]

One thing that hasn't been touched on is that 5e was designed to be simple, not just for simplicity's sake, but to also allow room for your DM to adjust things as-needed. There aren't many hard rules on how much fire damage tossing down a brazier of coals would do, or what kind of environmental effect it'd have. It was designed around being a toolbox, of sorts, and all of its simplicity will get old if the party's default tactics and actions are the best things they can do.

I see a frequent complaint about 5e that takes the form of "I know it's meant to be simple, but I wish they added ." Most of us have one or two little things we wish 5e hard-codified, and if we all agreed on what those one or two little things were, they could almost certainly be added. But we all have our own pet fiddly rules, and if the game tried to add them all, it would rapidly turn into a bloat.

The price I pay for not having to deal with [I]your favorite mechanical minutia is that I don't get my favorite minutia. The good thing is, I can still stick my favorite bit in at my table without interfering with yours.

[KorvinStarmast]

Jump In.
This edition brought me back to the hobby after being away from it for over a decade.

[Petrocorus]

Mandatory link to this this thread made for this: The Grognard's Guide to 5E (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?358474-A-Grognard-s-Guide-to-5E-D-amp-D-Rules).

5E is a very good edition, balance, simple, while keeping a lot of goodness from 3.X. But just so you know what you're stepping into, i'd like to point out two things that may be an issue for you.
Whether they are flaws or perks is still debated.

- The rules are worded in a vague not-so-consistent way. This is a feature, not a bug. This is supposed to give freedom to the DM to make rulings. But for a DM new to this edition, it can be a real hindrance. Don't hesitate to ask for help here.

- There are far less character options. In 3.5 you could build the X-Men or the Avengers, or anything you put your mind on. This is not true in 5E. Most of the common concepts or archetypes can be build, sometimes easier than in 3.5, but you will find here and there an archetype that you simply cannot build or that simply doesn't work well. For instance, most arcane gish builds don't work the way they used to in 3.5.

Plus one thing that is a perk but can be unsettling for you.
- Action economy as a whole works differently from 3.5, much simpler and fluider, and that can be really confusing at first for 3.5 players. No charge action, for instance.



- Don't use any optional rules to start with. This includes multiclassing and feats.

Personally i like feats and don't think they complicate things too much. They also are one of the reasons martials remains relevant even beyond level 10.



There are very few "trap" options for character-building, and many fewer "dominate the game" builds,
I'll lay out some of this trap options.
- The berserker Barbarian. His frenzy comes at the cost of Exhaustion, which hinder the rest of the adventuring day for him. Many DM houserule it.

- The Ranger class as a whole. It speaks volume that WotC has tried to fix it one way or another basically every year since the release of the PHB.
It has a pretty good DPR, but it cannot properly do its out-of-combat role. The last fix from Unearthed Arcana was what we needed, but you'd rather avoid the class at first, unless the DM and the players at up for crunching numbers.

- The 4 Element Monk cannot cast has much as it should. The Ki cost of its spells is just a bit too high.

- The Assassin is not as good as it first read. The wording of his assassination ability makes come in action much less often that the player would like.

- The Pact of the Blade doesn't do what it advertise. It doesn't work to make a melee Warlock, not without MCing. The Hexblade subclass is the melee Warlock.

- The Warlock as a whole can be a trap option, or rather a trick option, simply because it's the most customizable class and is not really a full caster despite having access to 9th level spells. It's a good class but not for beginner players who don't want to invest time in crunch.

- The Champion Fighter and the Thief Rogue can be underpowered and boring. But in this case, this is not a trap. They are designed specificly to be easy options for new players who don't want to bother with a lot of rules, notably the Champion.

For the rest, most of classes and subclasses (and i think there are like 90 subclasses by now) are rather good to really good. Most races are balanced, even if some of them can be less good when not combined with a class that plays on their strength.

[Zalabim]

A few of these are just memes that get passed around to explain something a bit subtler that's the actual truth.

Mandatory link to this this thread made for this: The Grognard's Guide to 5E (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?358474-A-Grognard-s-Guide-to-5E-D-amp-D-Rules).

5E is a very good edition, balance, simple, while keeping a lot of goodness from 3.X. But just so you know what you're stepping into, i'd like to point out two things that may be an issue for you.
Whether they are flaws or perks is still debated.

- The rules are worded in a vague not-so-consistent way. This is a feature, not a bug. This is supposed to give freedom to the DM to make rulings. But for a DM new to this edition, it can be a real hindrance. Don't hesitate to ask for help here.
The rules are written in an approachable, conversational way, but as much as possible, also written in a very careful and precise way to mean exactly what it says. If something has a bit different wording, it almost always his a little bit different function too. This especially applies to abilities, features, and spells. Stealth, lighting, and detection, or more broadly, the Senses, are a notable exception where the rule is for the DM to decide and there is not a carefully calculated system of rules to explain what players can see, smell, or hear. I do advise throwing away 3.5's rules for listen, spot, darkness, and invisibility, and burning the remains before sinking the ashes in a barrel of concrete dumped into the deepest ocean trenches, as they are truly an eldritch abomination.


I'll lay out some of this trap options.
- The berserker Barbarian. His frenzy comes at the cost of Exhaustion, which hinder the rest of the adventuring day for him. Many DM houserule it.
Here, the cost is too high for the benefit and it's compounded by a tendency for groups to skip downtime and recovery and hit dice. They run on a schedule of constant adrenaline, non-stop adventure and near-death battles, which should by all rights wear down and exhaust any PC. The berserker can burn through its abilities by stacking up exhaustion and recovers those abilities on a timescale of days of downtime, much like Hit Dice and realistic people, but not like the spellcasters who want to cast all the fireballs every day. Definitely best to change the cost of Frenzy, but it's also an opportunity to highlight an underused part of adventuring: blowing a mountain of gold on frivolous **** back in town.


- The Ranger class as a whole. It speaks volume that WotC has tried to fix it one way or another basically every year since the release of the PHB.
It has a pretty good DPR, but it cannot properly do its out-of-combat role. The last fix from Unearthed Arcana was what we needed, but you'd rather avoid the class at first, unless the DM and the players at up for crunching numbers.
It's not really number crunching and is just like you said: Ok in combat, so not a trap in the normal sense, but lacking when it comes to the core Ranger skillset. More of a feature lack than a number thing. The alternate class feature unearthed arcana has some first draft material aimed at rangers, but also monks and warlocks too. It's worth a look.


- The 4 Element Monk cannot cast has much as it should. The Ki cost of its spells is just a bit too high.
This is a player expectation issue. The subclass is good for some things that no other monk could do. The real problem is a lack of features gained and each individual discipline tends to have very limited practical applications. You can have the character unlock all 17 of the elemental disciplines and they'd still just rarely be useful, next to the core monk features. Cutting costs or expanding ki access can make it feel better, but it's really just the effects having limited purpose. Wizards hardly ever cast burning hands either, and making it 1 ki doesn't change the action calculus. I'm not a fan, but there is homebrew aimed at addressing it.


- The Assassin is not as good as it first read. The wording of his assassination ability makes come in action much less often that the player would like.At the same time, players underestimate the convenience of advantage on the first round's attacks if you win initiative. The assassin doesn't need to already be hidden, or immediately hide, or wait for an ally to close to melee like a thief does. The autocrit benefit is just gravy when you manage to start a fight at the biggest advantage.


- The Pact of the Blade doesn't do what it advertise. It doesn't work to make a melee Warlock, not without MCing. The Hexblade subclass is the melee Warlock.Hexblade doesn't have to be melee, and is arguably better off at short (its Curse is 30' range) or mid range with eldritch blast. A melee warlock is a whole set of choices, including ability scores, spells, and invocations. Pact of the blade is just one part. Multiclassing has never been required for it. The warlock as a whole just has good multiclass options.


- The Warlock as a whole can be a trap option, or rather a trick option, simply because it's the most customizable class and is not really a full caster despite having access to 9th level spells. It's a good class but not for beginner players who don't want to invest time in crunch.I think cleric is easier, but warlock is on the easy side for new players. It especially cuts out clutter from play and the character sheet. The Wizard is more intimidating and if any spellcaster is a new player trap, it's sorcerer. Sorcerer can get very frustrating. Warlocks just want more short rests.


- The Champion Fighter and the Thief Rogue can be underpowered and boring. But in this case, this is not a trap. They are designed specificly to be easy options for new players who don't want to bother with a lot of rules, notably the Champion.And in both cases they can be surprising when a player does make the choice to optimize what they do offer. In the thief's case, it's helpful to know that damage from improvised weapons will still add the ability modifier used by the attack roll, so alchemist fire is more deadly than it looks.


For the rest, most of classes and subclasses (and i think there are like 90 subclasses by now) are rather good to really good. Most races are balanced, even if some of them can be less good when not combined with a class that plays on their strength.
Even that one everyone tells you is awful. May not apply to anything you see from Uneaethed Arcana.

[Laserlight]

I've taught several new people 5e, including some who'd previously played 4e and some who'd never played any RPG before. There have been a couple who needed help with the tactics implied by their build (Yes, your rogue really *does* want to choose a target for which he can Sneak, and no, your archer ranger or bard really *doesn't* want to run ahead into melee with the whole enemy force), but they had very little difficulty building a character and learning the basic mechanics.

[Snails]

I miss 3.5. But I recognize that 5e is much easier on the DM, and some friends of mine who are casual players. The net effect is I get more gaming this way.

The one thing I really really miss is how skills do not significantly improve like 3e. The flat-math/bounded-accuracy steamrolls flat the skill effectiveness of all characters who lack Expertise (Rogue, Bard). In other words, most PCs are not that much better 10 levels on.

Level 1 PC, proficient, ability score 14 --> +4
Level 11 PC, proficient, ability score 18 --> +8

I would not say that the 5e skill system is bad, just underdeveloped, but underdeveloped in a way that makes life easy on the DM.

There is an argument to be made for building an entirely new skill system 5e, in the spirit of 3e. But even as I am attracted to the idea, I accept that such would probably not improve the gaming lives of most gaming groups. YMMV.

[MeeposFire]

One thing to remember is that the numbers for things like DCs are generally much lower and stay that way and the game expects you to not have to roll for things that have little consequence for failure and you will eventually succeed over time.

[Petrocorus]

A few of these are just memes that get passed around to explain something a bit subtler that's the actual truth.

The rules are written in an approachable, conversational way, but as much as possible, also written in a very careful and precise way to mean exactly what it says. If something has a bit different wording, it almost always his a little bit different function too. This especially applies to abilities, features, and spells. Stealth, lighting, and detection, or more broadly, the Senses, are a notable exception where the rule is for the DM to decide and there is not a carefully calculated system of rules to explain what players can see, smell, or hear. I do advise throwing away 3.5's rules for listen, spot, darkness, and invisibility, and burning the remains before sinking the ashes in a barrel of concrete dumped into the deepest ocean trenches, as they are truly an eldritch abomination.

This is not a meme.
Yes, a significant part of the rules are correctly written, but a significant part have issues in wording. Some things have different wording while meaning the same thing, some things have close wording while being really different, and some things have clear wording but are missing parts.

For instance, all the mess about "melee attack with a weapon" and "attack with a melee weapon" and "melee weapon attack", don't tell me it's clear because it's one of the most discussed subject on thread about rules.
There also the fact that by RAW, you can walk through a Flaming Sphere unharmed. It completely hurts common sense, but someone forgot a line in the spell description.
You have the Lucky feat that turn disadvantage into super-advantage and they now pretend it was intended.
And this is just the tip of my mind.

I may be a non-native English speaker, but my English is good enough to read novels and press articles (including political or scientific ones), to watch movie and TV shows without subtitles and so on.
I read the whole rulebooks of Vampire V20 and big parts of 3.5, Shadowrun 5, Warhammer 1 & 2, and many other RPG rules in English over the years and 5E is probably the one game with which i have the most difficulties to be sure of the intent.



Here, the cost is too high for the benefit and it's compounded by a tendency for groups to skip downtime and recovery and hit dice. They run on a schedule of constant adrenaline, non-stop adventure and near-death battles, which should by all rights wear down and exhaust any PC. The berserker can burn through its abilities by stacking up exhaustion and recovers those abilities on a timescale of days of downtime, much like Hit Dice and realistic people, but not like the spellcasters who want to cast all the fireballs every day. Definitely best to change the cost of Frenzy, but it's also an opportunity to highlight an underused part of adventuring: blowing a mountain of gold on frivolous **** back in town.

You get one bonus attack per turn during 9 turns and it cost you a Exhaustion level.
Meanwhile all other Barbarian get an offensive or defensive bonus without a big cost.
And you can get bonus attack with GWM or PAM or using two weapons.

So yes, Berserker has an issue compared to other barbarian options and to other bonus attack options.

The fact that many playing group are too lax with PC resources is a whole other issue.



It's not really number crunching and is just like you said: Ok in combat, so not a trap in the normal sense, but lacking when it comes to the core Ranger skillset. More of a feature lack than a number thing. The alternate class feature unearthed arcana has some first draft material aimed at rangers, but also monks and warlocks too. It's worth a look.

Maybe "crunching numbers" was not the best way to say it. I meant to have to look ar 1 or 2 UA in addition of the book and try to look at all the possible features and having to look at what would the effect on the character's capabilities.

So you do agree that the Ranger is lacking when it comes to do out-of-combat what it's supposed to do and what its fluff says it can do.
How is this not the definition of a trap option.



At the same time, players underestimate the convenience of advantage on the first round's attacks if you win initiative. The assassin doesn't need to already be hidden, or immediately hide, or wait for an ally to close to melee like a thief does. The autocrit benefit is just gravy when you manage to start a fight at the biggest advantage.

I've seen more than a player here complaining about it, because the autocrit was the reason they took the subclass.



Hexblade doesn't have to be melee, and is arguably better off at short (its Curse is 30' range) or mid range with eldritch blast. A melee warlock is a whole set of choices, including ability scores, spells, and invocations. Pact of the Blade is just one part. Multiclassing has never been required for it. The warlock as a whole just has good multiclass options.

I'm not saying that Hexblade have to go to melee. I'm saying that Pact of the Blade was supposed to be the go-to option for Warlock who wanted to go into melee, but failed totally at making a melee viable for Warlock on its own.
Hexblade is the go-to option for Warlock who want to go melee, mostly because of the Cha synergy and the armor proficiencies.



I think cleric is easier, but warlock is on the easy side for new players. It especially cuts out clutter from play and the character sheet. The Wizard is more intimidating and if any spellcaster is a new player trap, it's sorcerer. Sorcerer can get very frustrating. Warlocks just want more short rests.

I agree that the Wizard is more difficult and the Sorcerer is probably the worst class for new players. But the Warlock is probably the third in this ranking, maybe with the Bard. Seven of the 12 classes are easier than the Warlock and you can count 8 for players who take the Ranger only for the DPR.



And in both cases they can be surprising when a player does make the choice to optimize what they do offer. In the thief's case, it's helpful to know that damage from improvised weapons will still add the ability modifier used by the attack roll, so alchemist fire is more deadly than it looks.

I do agree they can be optimised by thoughtful players.

[Shocksrivers]

I would like to thank everyone for their advise! I never figured out how to reply to multiple people in one post, so I will just do a blanket "thank you" and I will be sure to check Grognards Guide to 5th!

It is good to see what people like and dislike, and overall I think 5th will fit our group really well, considering that we already have the "DM makes rulings and you suck it up if it's technically wrong" style of play, for expedience. After 8 years, we still have players who are unsure about, for example, how to bull rush, or what all their spells do precisely. So a more streamlined system sounds pretty nice.


I would suggest that before you start a 5th edition campaign you play a brief game at levels 3 and 4.

This sounds extremely smart, and almost obvious, but I genuinly hadn't thought of that. But I will suggest it to my players!

[BloodSnake'sCha]

From one walking rule book to another, 5e rules are easy to learn.

Porting characters are extremely difficult as 5e doesn't have mechanical variety.

[Kane0]

Depends on the kind of variety you’re looking for really, and how deep you want to dive into playtest and/or homebrew content.

[Keravath]

Personally, I think 5e is the best version yet.

The one suggestion/piece of advice I would have is to play/run the game through tier 1 and 2 and ideally into tier 3 before introducing house rules.

I've seen a lot of folks read something in the rules, think "that can't possibly be balanced", do some reading on forums, and then change the rule without actually using it in play.

There are also some things that feel overpowered when first encountered ... a moon druid at level 2-4, or a rogue in the same level range, can feel very effective with excellent CR1 beast forms on the one side and 2d6 attack and cunning action on the other (in comparison to some of the other classes like a straight fighter with one attack). However, in the end all the 5e classes are pretty balanced so first impressions should be tempered with experience.

Also, 5e has fewer issues with high level play than some of the earlier editions, so all characters can remain fun and interesting through tier 3 and even into tier 4 (my highest level character is 17 but I haven't had a chance to play him at that level yet).

Finally, 5e tends to level a bit quicker leveling than earlier editions (though that can be DM dependent) and works much better into the higher levels.

So try playing/running sessions through at least tier 2 (and ideally higher) before changing things up.

[Petrocorus]

I how to bull rush,

There are no explicit bull rush or charge in 5E. It's much more simple.
You do a normal movement to reach the enemy (without any condition of straight line) and then you take an attack action to do a normal number of attacks (depending on your Extra Attack class feature), each of them can be a shove (or grapple) attack (that use the Athletic skill instead of an attack roll) as you choose and then you can do the rest of your normal movement. You can even move between your attacks.

That's the beauty of 5E action economy/system.



or what all their spells do precisely. So a more streamlined system sounds pretty nice.

The majority of spells are fine. But you will find here and there the odd one with quirks in the wording.
Note that the best spells in 5E are not the same than in 3.5. Your caster players need not to make assumptions.

For wizard/sorcerer, Treantmonk's guide is still there.

[Corsair14]

5th is easy mode. The simplicity will drive you nuts if you are used to a more detailed system. Its quite easy for PCs to make themselves OP very quickly which makes the DMs job of running encounters difficult if he has non-OP role players at the table in addition to a couple power gamers. Proficiencies don't matter. Healing is a joke. 5th takes a lot of house rules to make it even remotely as detailed as prior editions. I would stick to 2nd if I could get away with it as I am fairly unhappy overall with 5th rules, but my group likes 5th so even bad system gaming is better than no gaming.

[Sam113097]

Let's look at how switching would affect your players! You mentioned that you have:

just a fighter, a druid, a fireballing sorcerer and a swashbuckling-swordsaging-rogue-thing

Those are all quite do-able in 5e!

Fighter: The basic fighter class is quite good in 5e, and from what I've heard, it's an improvement on previous editions (It's certainly my favorite class). To play a standard, non-magical fighter, Battlemaster and Samurai would probably be your player's best bet. Champion and Banneret/Purple Dragon Knight are also viable, but not as mechanically strong, though still enjoyable.

Druid: It depends on what your player focuses on: basic Land Druid is solid as a controller, and has a number of extra spells based on their chosen environment, Moon Druid is a shapeshifting tank, and Shepherd Druid is considered the best for summoning tons of creatures and is also a good healer. There're also some non-traditional druid subclasses like the necrotic/poison themed Spore Druid and the Fey, healing-focused Dreams Druid.

Sorcerer: A fireball-blasting sorcerer is easy to build with a Red or Gold draconic sorcerer.

Swashbuckling-swordsaging-rogue-thing: 5e actually has quite a few ways to build something like that, though you might not be able to replicate all of the 3.5 version's features. One good option is a College of Swords Bard, which gets spells and special Flourishes that help them feel like a true swashbuckling duelist. The Swashbuckler Rogue is also great, but lacks that "swordsage" magic factor, so a multiclass Swords Bard/Swashbuckler might be a good starting point.

[Kane0]

We are a very casual group, just a fighter, a druid, a fireballing sorcerer and a swashbuckling-swordsaging-rogue-thing. How casual are we? The fighter is easily the strongest character and until really recently, the druid was the worst... We play a little under twice a month.


Just the PHB will do fine for you, although there is also Xanathar's Guide which just about doubles your choices and is the prime 'splatbook'.

PHB Fighter: Champion is no bells, no whistles just extra fighter to go with your fighter, which is not to say it's bad! Battlemaster gives you a handful of tricks you can add to your attacks to disarm, frighten, move an ally, etc.
Xan's Fighter: Knight specializes in MMO tanking, locking down enemies around him and punishing those who ignore him. Samurai gives you an extra skill or two but mostly focuses on getting advantage on his (many) attacks and going nova when used in conjunction with the default fighter Action Surge feature.

PHB Druid: Land druids focus on casting, getting more spells known and spell slots over the course of the day. Moon druids focus on their wildshape, turning into temporary meatshields with average to strong attacks depending on animal chosen.
Xan's Druid: Dreams druids gets a bunch of healing and support utility, Shepherd druids buff summons and party members.

PHB Sorc: Draconic sorcerers are the 'default' since most of their features are basic and universally useful if not super interesting. Blasting with fireball and whatever else should be perfectly fine using Empower metamagic, which is pretty efficient.
Alternatively the Wild Sorcerer is also in the PHB and very fun to play if that's their thing and they get to wild surge a lot. Xan's provides the Shadow and Divine sorcerers which are both good but maybe not what you're looking for with a straightforward blaster.

Swashubckling rogueish guy: There is specifically a Swashbuckler rogue, but its actually not in Xanathar's guide but in the Sword Coast adventurer's guide. The PHB Thief rogue and Xanathar's Scout rogue are both viable alternatives however, and if he's interested in dabbling in something else there is multiclassing and feats (such as martial adept, mobile and magic initiate).

[J-H]

Swashbuckler is in Xanathar's also.

The mechanics don't carry over, but much of the feel does. 5e doesn't need the complex, detailed rules of the TOB manuevers to let martials move and attack, shove (trip), or keep up with the casters on damage. My experience (levels 3-10) has been that the martials are consistently ahead of the casters on raw HP damage.

[Eldariel]

A lot has already been said on the good sides of 5e. On the downsides...
The primary issue for my own personal enjoyment is that it didn't ultimately port in mechanical martial variety. The closest thing is Battlemaster with 3 moves known at first, one of which is almost inevitably gonna be "hit instead of miss", since it'd just ridiculously good.

Thus, any player who wants to do more than "thwack at it with a sword" is going to have to play a caster of some persuasion. In short, all magic classes are complex, all mundane classes are simple (comparatively). Half of PHB exists only for caster classes.

ToB doesn't exist and likely never will; Battlemaster takes that design place without recovery mechanics, stances, scaling maneuvers, etc. It's just a sad state of affairs. The only real solution is something like Dreamscarred Press coming along but even then you'll always have to fight to get it allowed at any table but your own.

Otherwise, I like much of what they did with casters and class design in general. And certainly most of what they did with saves and scaling in general (except saves, your average character is just tragically poor at those). Legendary resistance and magic resistance are the worst iterations of the concept to date though, but that's easy enough to rectify.

[Psyren]

I'm a Pathfinder aficionado but even I have to admit that 5e has all the other D&D editions/variants beat on sheer ease of play and ease of adoption by newcomers. Give it a try and see if you enjoy it.

[DrKerosene]

ToB doesn't exist and likely never will; Battlemaster takes that design place without recovery mechanics, stances, scaling maneuvers, etc. It's just a sad state of affairs.

Well, I do agree a Battle Master does basically fit the ToB style, I feel like playing a Swordsage without the the feat Adaptive Style would be comparable to the whole “short rest” maneuver recharge mechanic in 5e.

It’s probably redundant to point out a College Of Swords Bard getting Flourishes is similar to the Battle Masters

I do feel like some Hexblade and/or BladePact Warlock builds could feel very similar to a ToB character, if you use your spell-slots for certain smites, or take some Invocations that kind of replicate some 3.5e maneuvers.

[Zalabim]

Since a lot of people mention Saving throws at high levels as a minus, not to try to say it isn't for you, but to explain why and how it is that way:

The intention is that you deal with high Save DCs from high CR enemies the same way you deal with their escalating attack bonus against your mostly or entirely static AC. You use ways to avoid having to make the save, avoid suffering the effect of failing the save, or you just suck it up and deal with it the same you deal with losing HP when you get hit. Ancient Dragons are scary. That never goes away. Instead, you get ways to resist, ignore, negate, remove, or avoid being Frightened. This starts as early as Heroism, a 1st level spell.

[Eldariel]

Since a lot of people mention Saving throws at high levels as a minus, not to try to say it isn't for you, but to explain why and how it is that way:

The intention is that you deal with high Save DCs from high CR enemies the same way you deal with their escalating attack bonus against your mostly or entirely static AC. You use ways to avoid having to make the save, avoid suffering the effect of failing the save, or you just suck it up and deal with it the same you deal with losing HP when you get hit. Ancient Dragons are scary. That never goes away. Instead, you get ways to resist, ignore, negate, remove, or avoid being Frightened. This starts as early as Heroism, a 1st level spell.

The thing is, it's kinda stupid though: enemies do get improved saves on all categories. Enemies also get save-or-be-really screwed effects targeting almost all saves; things can cast Imprisonments or Plane Shifts or whatever on the PCs - PCs better have at least Wis, Con, Dex, and Cha-saves covered or the ability to nuke the enemies before the enemies get a chance to take an action (of course, there are rather brutal Int-or-lose spells as well).

If you got half your proficiency into all saves or something, there'd be at least some progression. You'd still be like to fail if your stat were average, but if you had a 5 in stat, you'd at least have a decent shot at making some high level saves on your off-save (which, I argue, you should. It's the same for monsters, incidentally: if you, the Wizard, can find a weak save on an enemy, CR20 things still fall at your feet with low level spells unless they have Legendary Resistance (and not nearly all of them do, and the ones that do you simply can't use save-or-X effects against). I think this edition could really benefit of a "partial success" and "partial failure" system for saves with a four-step resolution to make it more engaging and make you less likely to entirely SOL if you fail a save. Bounded accuracy caters to this; just make it +5/-5 for partial success/success and partial failure/failure (few monster abilities actually use this already, such as the Mummy gaze) and suddenly you're no longer 50%+ to be screwed. Incidentally PF 2e went this way but they went with a ridiculous -10/+10 for critical success and failure instead, so in practice it never comes up.

[BoringInfoGuy]

If you are looking to switch to 5E, then after reading through the PHB, take a read through the Sage Advice Compendium found on the Wizards of the Coast website. (NOT the .eu website called Sage Advice that is a record of every tweet)

The SA Compendium is the only source of Official Rulings on the 5e rules. Reading through it early on is a good way to pick up on how 5e works. You aren’t forced to use the rulings - even according to the SAC itself - but it is a good learning tool. Helps avoid that problem on Psyren’s quote.

Also, check out the Errata and which printing of the Rule book you have. After an Errata is released, future printings will have the Errata applied. So if you pick up the latest printing of the PHB, all the changes are there. But different people at the table can end up with different versions. Be aware.

[J-H]

There are lots of ways to mitigate high level saves. The 10th-level party I'm running for has a Paladin, and they're generally staying within 10' of him. Last night:
Reverse Gravity DC 14, throw everyone to the ceiling? Everyone saves! Dragon breath x 2 DC 15? Everyone saves! Deafening shriek DC 13? Only 1 player fails the save!

[Myth27]

Dear fellow GiTP-ers from across the great divide,

I hail from the olden lands, the lands of 3.5 and... I will drop this affect now.

Hi, I am a long time TTRPG'er and have been playing 3.5 since I started playing DnD in 2012, with a group of very inexperienced players.

We have had the odd person dropping out, or joining briefly, and a character or two retire because they were boring, but overall we have been playing for around 7-8 years with a group of 5 core players and characters. As we mastered the system, we expanded what books we could use, unhindered by prior knowledge about them, leading to rather complicated multiclassed/prestigeclassed characters for the mundanes (including the dreaded and amazing ToB).

We are a very casual group, just a fighter, a druid, a fireballing sorcerer and a swashbuckling-swordsaging-rogue-thing. How casual are we? The fighter is easily the strongest character and until really recently, the druid was the worst... We play a little under twice a month.

First, we all DM'ed in turn, to let everyone experience both sides of the screen, and to let everyone add to the world and story. Because people didn't really know the rules that well, I was always a sort of back-seat rules DM, where they could ask me how something was supposed to go. If they just made something up that worked as well, we just went with that, and I wouldn't contradict the DM on rulings, especially in tense or exiting situations. This worked fine for a while, and then I took over DM'ing to bring all the loose stories together in an overarching plot.

Recently, a more experienced player took over DMing for me for a while, and let slip that he disliked the clunkyness (I feel this is a word, but don't know how to spell it) of 3.5 and would really prefer 5th. The other players seemed interested, but as I am sort of the walking rulebook for the group I objected that I didn't really want to have to learn and then teach a whole new rule set.

So, at long last, my question: how hard do you think it is to learn 5th? Do you think it is maybe better for the more casual players who can't after 7 years keep all the rules straight? Or should we stick to the system that they now have the basics down off? And, but if we switch I will specifically come back for this, how hard is it to redo the characters in a way that they resemble themselves as they are in 3.5, especially for the ToB characters... (I gathered that 5th doesn't have prestige classes and less base classes over all, right?)

There are a lot of flaws with 5th edition and for experienced players it can get boring kinda fast, but for new/casual players it's just better without question, it's so much simpler and so much easier. I had played for 2 years with a "new" player who never bothered to read the manual and he kept making mistakes and needing help every session, the moment we switched to 5e he became autonomous almost overnight. It really is better in that sense. You personally are probablly not gonna like it after a while. at the beginning it can be very exiting for veterans too.

As far as redoing characters, I would not advise to do it, the new one will seem underpowered and everyone will think they lost something and will miss some ability, or at least that is what happened with our group.

[Snails]

The intention is that you deal with high Save DCs from high CR enemies the same way you deal with their escalating attack bonus against your mostly or entirely static AC. You use ways to avoid having to make the save, avoid suffering the effect of failing the save, or you just suck it up and deal with it the same you deal with losing HP when you get hit. Ancient Dragons are scary. That never goes away. Instead, you get ways to resist, ignore, negate, remove, or avoid being Frightened. This starts as early as Heroism, a 1st level spell.

That is a weak analogy because everyone substantially improves in the HP department, even if it is some more than others.

An individual PC may have literally nothing they can do -- magic items are optional, feats are optional, multiclassing is optional, ASIs are too few to cover the bases. Your likelihood to fail a save goes up and up, and the penalty for failing a save goes up and up as the effects grow in nastiness.

[Chester]

I play with two groups. One is switching to 5th. We haven't even had our first adventure yet, and I already like it way more than 3.5. It just seems less complicated . . .

[MrStabby]

That is a weak analogy because everyone substantially improves in the HP department, even if it is some more than others.

An individual PC may have literally nothing they can do -- magic items are optional, feats are optional, multiclassing is optional, ASIs are too few to cover the bases. Your likelihood to fail a save goes up and up, and the penalty for failing a save goes up and up as the effects grow in nastiness.

I was inclined to agree, but thinking through I am less sure. Admittedly, this is based on spells rather than abilities but I am not sure that the conditions do get worse.

Hold person is a level 2 spell. The higher level spell is hold monster... with likely no extra impact on the party. You can cause Fear with a level 1 spell, taking fear at level 3 just means more people get affected and you have to run around the corner before saving (although dropping a weapon can be a pain). Tahsah hideous laughter incapacitated at level 1, banishment does the same at level 4 whilst protecting you from harm - the only difference is the likely duration rather than severity of the condition.

Generally I dont think the conditions get much worse (some things like feeblemind might buck this) but areas of effect do get larger, eligible targets are more diverse and the conditions can permit saves less often.

Some of these dont even really allow a save - force cage for example. You dont get to even try and save if you dont teleport.

[DrKerosene]

I was inclined to agree, but thinking through I am less sure. Admittedly, this is based on spells rather than abilities but I am not sure that the conditions do get worse.

Some of these dont even really allow a save - force cage for example. You dont get to even try and save if you dont teleport.

I think, if a Party doesn’t have easy access to several spells (Dispel Magic, Remove Curse, and Lesser Restoration) it becomes increasingly likely the Party will encounter a “save or suck” scenario that could start a death spiral, on a long enough timeline.

This was one issue that 3.5e had with monsters of CR 7+, assuming the Party would have access to certain spells to fix an issue (or prevent it).

You’re more likely to encounter a Devourer or Nightwalker as you gain levels, eventually being of a high enough level to face multiples of each.

[Ignimortis]

I'd like to point that you will probably only have positive answers in this subforum.
If you want some counter-arguments, you will need to ask peoples that are still on the 3.X subforum, or came back to it after trying 5e.

There are definitely some kind of players or DM that didn't like 5e at all. But among the peoples I've encountered, this is definitely a minority of players. And I've yet to encounter in real life a DM that prefer DMing 3.X to 5e.

To elaborate on the downsides...

5e lacks the sheer variety of playstyles and mechanics you could be used to in 3.5e. All 5e content is basically 3.5's PHB+PHB II content. No martial adepts, no binders, no incarnum, no fixed list casters, very few features that allow you to diverge from the standard set by the PHB. There are no martials that do anything beyond Captain America levels aside from Monks who can run on walls and go ethereal at very high levels.

The power curve is broken, IMO. Bounded accuracy means you are never going to have a martial going up against an army on his own, and something like two thousand unmodified MM orcs cannot be faced head-on even by a level 20 party. Therefore, levels matter much less, and I would say that 5E would've fit neatly into 3.5's first 10 levels, if it wasn't for spellcasters still getting access to things like Wish, Plane Shift and other high-level stuff. Martials stop developing as a concept at level 7 or so - after that, you only get slight upgrades to your already present powers, but nothing spectacular. Skills in particular feel badly designed, because unless you're a rogue, you will never have enough bonuses to avoid the situation where an absolute untrained novice with no talent can succeed where a specialist has somehow failed.

The abilities everyone gets are more restricted. It's now less "martials' powers are at-will, casters' spells are per day", and more of "everyone gets some weaker at-will abilities, but anything worthwhile is either per short rest or long rest", so unlike, say, Tome of Battle, you cannot have your cool ability back in a round or two.

Enemy HP is, on the surface, unchanged, but their survivability is much greater. Your fighter will not be able to do triple-digit damage until very late in the game, and even then only by using some resources. Your wizard's blasting spells are also worse off in general (as in, they're stronger when you first get them, but fall off quickly), as they don't scale automatically and do poor damage even compared to 3.5's blasting. An even-CR encounter after level 10 might very well take 3 to 4 rounds, despite not being particularly interesting or even fun.

I didn't find the default MM monsters as engaging as they were in 3.5. 5e monsters usually have one gimmick or no gimmick at all, and certain iconic creatures like older dragons and high-power demons/devils have lost a major part of their abilities in exchange for being able to deal a lot of HP damage.