Looking back at 3.5 from a 5e perspective

[Waazraath]

When 5e came out, all groups I played with almost immediately switched to 5e. It was fun, much more streamlined, better balanced, friendlier for newbees and for people who simply aren't into very rule-heavy games. I still think 5e is a great edition.

But. The release pace has been slow. And while the PHB covered a huge number of fantasy concepts, the additions in the 8(?) year since have been... few. Especially looking back at 3.5. I mean... a lot of adventurers like to ride a dragon. It's not a very obscure fantasy (check almost every fantasy art book ever and see). In 3.x, you had several ways to do it as a paladin (through alternative class features) from lvl 5; you had a feat (draconic leadership or something) from level 9 onward, everybody could take it; there were ways to summon dragons,

Same with concepts around 'fighting unarmed'. You had monks, using wis but also instead using cha or int, but also variants with arcane spells, divine spells, who could grapple, throw people around, who used psionics, who grew claws and used natural attacks, you could do builds where you turned into a bear and then did martial arts... possiblities were legion.

In 5e, we have one draconic ranger subclass, after 7 years, that can ride a flying dragon at level 15. If you want to fight unarmed, there are (wis based monks), and recently claw using barbarians... and that's more or less it. You can't even combine stuff like sneak attack or smite with unarmed attacks. And there are still no variants for that.

And that's disregarding the lack of any new power systems (like ToM, ToB, Incarnum) - ok, maybe a half one with infusions, if you're generous.

The start was good, but the follow up... less so. And what I've seen so far from 5.5 isn't giving me a lot of hope that things get better, and I find myself more and more contemplating running another 3.5 or AD&D campaign as soon as we've finished OoTA.

[Jervis]

I can relate to this. I love 3.5 and the only reason I don’t run it more often is some rules congestion. Feat taxes, feats giving the power to do things you should just be able to do (throw ally and throw enemy are some funny examples), and over all a lot of jank in combat with full attacks needing pounce and not being able to break up movement. I’ve been trying on and off to do a 5.3 that combines what I like from both editions but that’s not likely to happen soon.

[animorte]

I can relate to this. I love 3.5 and the only reason I don’t run it more often is some rules congestion. Feat taxes, feats giving the power to do things you should just be able to do
These two are perfect examples of 3.5e issues. Massive feat chains were just obscene. A few things I'll add to it: Keeping track of the math for skills, just a bit silly, and I like math. Cantrips having limited use and not scaling whatsoever (we homebrewed this before 5e appeared). Though I will say that the exceptional amount of precise rules prevented some of these RAW vs RAI vs DM fiat argument circles, and somehow also paved the way for "god-builds."

Otherwise, I also enjoyed it very much. One of the reasons we don't have as much content is because it comes in the form of subclasses instead of brand new classes entirely. I built several homebrew classes in 3.5e that I've gradually worked on translating to 5e, but it's been a bit more work than anticipated just because they're needing to be reformatted to one base class specifically.

I'm happy with the direction they've gone, but I genuinely look forward to them working to incorporate more of our beloved memories from 3.5e.

[Jervis]

Yeah I will say just having EX, SP, and SU tags in 5e would stop so many arguments. I wish we had more things like that for disambiguation in 5e. That IMO is a good example of 3.5 rules density. For all of 3.5s jank at least there was almost always an answer somewhere in the rules for a question you had.

Class design in 5e is also a lot harder because every class must have two subclasses minimum. In 3.5 you could make classes and subclasses with a narrow focus and unique mechanics. In 5e you either need to shove an idea into a subclass where it doesn’t fit or you need to make it into a class and bloat them concept out to 20 levels with multiple subclasses.

[Skrum]

I’ve been trying on and off to do a 5.3 that combines what I like from both editions but that’s not likely to happen soon.

It seems to me you could get a lot of that same vibe by
- all feats are half feats (and able to add a point to any stat)
- get rid of ASI's entirely
- give all characters a feat at 1
- make feat progression tied to character level, not class level
- possibly speed up feat progression (like every 3rd level instead of 4th)
- allow some "3rd Party" content. I'm thinking specifically of the stuff written by 5e developers

[Rukelnikov]

It seems to me you could get a lot of that same vibe by
- all feats are half feats (and able to add a point to any stat)
- get rid of ASI's entirely
- give all characters a feat at 1
- make feat progression tied to character level, not class level
- possibly speed up feat progression (like every 3rd level instead of 4th)
- allow some "3rd Party" content. I'm thinking specifically of the stuff written by 5e developers

Can you name a few of those? That I'd be interested in reading.

[Unoriginal]

When 5e came out, all groups I played with almost immediately switched to 5e. It was fun, much more streamlined, better balanced, friendlier for newbees and for people who simply aren't into very rule-heavy games. I still think 5e is a great edition.

But. The release pace has been slow. And while the PHB covered a huge number of fantasy concepts, the additions in the 8(?) year since have been... few. Especially looking back at 3.5. I mean... a lot of adventurers like to ride a dragon. It's not a very obscure fantasy (check almost every fantasy art book ever and see). In 3.x, you had several ways to do it as a paladin (through alternative class features) from lvl 5; you had a feat (draconic leadership or something) from level 9 onward, everybody could take it; there were ways to summon dragons,

Same with concepts around 'fighting unarmed'. You had monks, using wis but also instead using cha or int, but also variants with arcane spells, divine spells, who could grapple, throw people around, who used psionics, who grew claws and used natural attacks, you could do builds where you turned into a bear and then did martial arts... possiblities were legion.

In 5e, we have one draconic ranger subclass, after 7 years, that can ride a flying dragon at level 15. If you want to fight unarmed, there are (wis based monks), and recently claw using barbarians... and that's more or less it. You can't even combine stuff like sneak attack or smite with unarmed attacks. And there are still no variants for that.

And that's disregarding the lack of any new power systems (like ToM, ToB, Incarnum) - ok, maybe a half one with infusions, if you're generous.

The start was good, but the follow up... less so. And what I've seen so far from 5.5 isn't giving me a lot of hope that things get better, and I find myself more and more contemplating running another 3.5 or AD&D campaign as soon as we've finished OoTA.

Looks more like you're looking at 5e from a 3.5 perspective.

[BoutsofInsanity]

I'm not someone who really ever enjoyed my time in 3.5 / PF.

It was such a pain in the rear to try and build a character that seemed like it should be able to do anything in combat.


You could only move 5 feet if you wanted to full attack
Caster supremacy was 10x worse than now
Why ever play a fighter
Skill bloat
Feat bloat


Basically anything that I thought I should reasonably be able to do as a base character was restricted behind feats. I got told more NO's in the few years I played those games than the entirety of the time I played 4e and 5e.

There were some cool stuff in 3.5. But I do not miss it one bit. It was a nightmare to play in unless you wanted to bust the system open or play a caster.

Now if I want to play a character concept it's so much easier to just build right off the classes already provided. It's easier to Gish, build an unarmed combatant, archery, stealth, or just about anything. The only real broken stuff is some specific high level spells and some items.

[Spriteless]

Can you name a few of those? That I'd be interested in reading.
Forums' own Grod has Grod's Guide to Greatness, which is many crunchy player options, and also another smaller pdf with psionics.

ChamomileHasAdventures has a good many nice little books with classes (base and monster) and a few fun optional rules. Also some monsters in each book.

Airship Campaigns by Arcane Minies is great if you need airship fights. Better than Saltmarsh at least.

Fateforge of Studio Agate has lots of world building and spells and equipment. In expensive books.

[furby076]

I was in between groups, so didn't switch to 5e for a while as I wasn't playing for a few years, but when I did, there are definitely some things I liked and didn't like.
Things I don't like about 5e
1) Lack of defining rules (e.g., climbing a wall is typically dc 15, add or subtract if mitigating factors)
2) Lack of more expansions
3) Making feats optional, which just causes arguments. Nothing wrong with feats, at all
4) No prestige classes. The specialization at 2nd/3rd level is nice, but PrCs were awesome
5) Magic item section should explicitely state that just because we list a dagger of venom, doesn't mean you can't have an Axe of venom, or longsword of venom, or whatever slashing/piercing weapon of venom
6) I dislike getting away from alignments. Sorry, certain critters are just plain evil (red dragons) and certain critters are just plain good (unicorns). Can there be exceptions to the rule, sure, but that doesn't mitigate the rule entirely. Also, detect evil/good spell should do exactly that
7) Lack of a cost chart if you want to buy magic items. Not every campaign treats magic as these super elusive items that you can ONLY find in the wild. Times to build magic items, even with the new rules, are kind of high and require setting the story aside. They need to add a rule supplement "Crafting to Go: The Definitive guide to crafting magical and non magical items for the busy adventurer"

Things I like about 5e
1) Less math is good. Don't get me wrong, I loved having cool things that stacked and stacked, but it could get math crazy...in a particularly high powered/magic rich pathfinder eberron game, I had an excel sheet. This game was insane though due to the DM being super comy with high powers and crazy numbers. He could handle it.
2) Smaller barrier to entry (learning curve) is great to get new folks. I don't think this had as much of an impact as people say it does, cause it's still a steep learning curve. I think LOTR and Harry Potter did more good for D&D than 5e did
3) No more Feat chains...i see their merit...you want an awesome end feat and you gotta work for it...but some of those pre-requisite feats just sucked...as in take it, and forget where you wrote it

[furby076]

These two are perfect examples of 3.5e issues. Massive feat chains were just obscene. A few things I'll add to it: Keeping track of the math for skills, just a bit silly, and I like math. Cantrips having limited use and not scaling whatsoever (we homebrewed this before 5e appeared). Though I will say that the exceptional amount of precise rules prevented some of these RAW vs RAI vs DM fiat argument circles, and somehow also paved the way for "god-builds."


I'm happy with the direction they've gone, but I genuinely look forward to them working to incorporate more of our beloved memories from 3.5e.

The thing with God-builds....most people forget these were pure theory crafting. Math exercises. They required very liberal interpretations of the rules and required the rest of the table to have mental issues to not realize what was happening. I mean, in reality, even if a player snuck in a god-build, the moment he dropped his nuke, DM would be like "yea, nope. Your character dies. Roll a new one"

On a side, we did a one-off game. The player said "do your worst". He looked at me in particular because he knew I loved looking at the god-builds. I played a talentia gnome (forget the class) that wielded two +1 boomering of con drain and he had something like 16 attacks per round. We all knew what we were getting into and it was fun for the night and we all agreed that we would never really play anything like this or even attempt to try

[Pex]

My pre-Virus Apocalypse Pathfinder group got back together. I am enjoying the game, Pathfinder 1E, but something always comes up that I wish I was playing 5E. There are so many can't do this and suffer a penalty to attack happening I'm screaming in my head. "You need a feat for that" has come up a few times. The only thing I like better in Pathfinder is Point Buy and the Skill System.

[Tanarii]

5e could have done with even less player option releases.

I don't know how the pandemic will affected popularity trajectory since games stores aren't allowed to be open in full swing again yet, but it was massively popular in a way no previous edition of D&D has been. Slow splat release clearly wasn't hurting it.

[animorte]

5e could have done with even less player option releases.

I don't know how the pandemic will affected popularity trajectory since games stores aren't allowed to be open in full swing again yet, but it was massively popular in a way no previous edition of D&D has been. Slow splat release clearly wasn't hurting it.

Somebody mentioned fairly recently not minding fewer published adventures and fewer sourcebooks. One beautiful nature about 5e is that it has enough of a good foundation that if you apply some common sense and remember to have fun, there's a lot that can be accomplished with what we have been given. The games I play in and DM are homebrew adventures 80% of the time.

[BoutsofInsanity]

My pre-Virus Apocalypse Pathfinder group got back together. I am enjoying the game, Pathfinder 1E, but something always comes up that I wish I was playing 5E. There are so many can't do this and suffer a penalty to attack happening I'm screaming in my head. "You need a feat for that" has come up a few times. The only thing I like better in Pathfinder is Point Buy and the Skill System.

That's nearly exactly how I feel.

I mean, just the movement rules in 5e alone make the switch worth it. Don't get me wrong, I miss often the minute details of building a character. Being able to build a monk with like 10 DR or a Dragon Magus with a base 26 strength is tons of fun. But everything is so fiddly and restrictive that you can't do anything without going to the DM and asking for it.

[Dork_Forge]

When 5e came out, all groups I played with almost immediately switched to 5e. It was fun, much more streamlined, better balanced, friendlier for newbees and for people who simply aren't into very rule-heavy games. I still think 5e is a great edition.

But. The release pace has been slow. And while the PHB covered a huge number of fantasy concepts, the additions in the 8(?) year since have been... few. Especially looking back at 3.5. I mean... a lot of adventurers like to ride a dragon. It's not a very obscure fantasy (check almost every fantasy art book ever and see). In 3.x, you had several ways to do it as a paladin (through alternative class features) from lvl 5; you had a feat (draconic leadership or something) from level 9 onward, everybody could take it; there were ways to summon dragons,

Same with concepts around 'fighting unarmed'. You had monks, using wis but also instead using cha or int, but also variants with arcane spells, divine spells, who could grapple, throw people around, who used psionics, who grew claws and used natural attacks, you could do builds where you turned into a bear and then did martial arts... possiblities were legion.

In 5e, we have one draconic ranger subclass, after 7 years, that can ride a flying dragon at level 15. If you want to fight unarmed, there are (wis based monks), and recently claw using barbarians... and that's more or less it. You can't even combine stuff like sneak attack or smite with unarmed attacks. And there are still no variants for that.

And that's disregarding the lack of any new power systems (like ToM, ToB, Incarnum) - ok, maybe a half one with infusions, if you're generous.

The start was good, but the follow up... less so. And what I've seen so far from 5.5 isn't giving me a lot of hope that things get better, and I find myself more and more contemplating running another 3.5 or AD&D campaign as soon as we've finished OoTA.

I can see what you mean about release times and things not being covered, I still long for an official Mystic, ideally a polished version of the UA which will never come...

Just in case there are things you want but are missing out on, I wanted to list a few things though:

-Paladins have the option of a dragon mount in Find Greater Steed (the Dragonnel?) from Fizban's

-If you want to go unarmed there's Monk, Beast Barbarian, Tavern Brawler feat, an assortment of races with natural weapons, Fighter with unarmed style, and taking unarmed style with the style feat

From my (little) understanding of 3.x it was the ideal place if you enjoyed choice, with as you say, legion for whatever concept you wanted to do. However, my understanding is that the large amount of splat was also an issue, with trap options not being uncommon.

I think it's okay to like both systems though, play an AD&D of 3.x campaign whenever you get the itch for more options and systems, then play a 5e game when you long for stuff you like about 5e. I do hope we see more content for 5e soon though, and in the vein of more content, not content aimed at changing things.

[KorvinStarmast]

It seems to me you could get a lot of that same vibe by
- allow some "3rd Party" content. I'm thinking specifically of the stuff written by 5e developers I'll pass on that, and leave to any DM or table to decide which 3d party content they all want to fold in. The bloat in AD&D 1e was in part driven by the never ending stream of 'this cool new thing' is Dragon Magazine that were sometimes interesting and often times the making of a new mess.

5e could have done with even less player option releases. Concur. The bloat in the spell list is a to me a problem that may never get resolved.
Slow splat release clearly wasn't hurting it. Concur.
I still long for an official Mystic, ideally a polished version of the UA which will never come... Maybe some day. I'd like to see the next polishing of the psionic at least attempted.
[/QUOTE] More adventures and settings: honestly, I get a lot of value from the Candlekeep adventures (I have to tailor them slightly to get the FR slime out of them) and the Tales From The Yarning Portal. And I am finally getting a chance to play in Eberron (on line game) next month. Looking forward to that.

[Burley]

I started playing D&D in 3e and I bought just about every book I could get for 3.5. I had all the Completes and the various Tomes and Folios and I loved flipping through the pages and seeing all the cool prestige classes.

When 4e came out, my group switched and I found that I actually really enjoyed the combat focus of 4e, feeling like an isometric tactics video game. It gave "martial" classes the ability to do cool stuff, and let them do it right out of the gate, instead of at level 8, after multiclassing and prestige classing. I'm pretty sure I purchased all the books for 4e, too. These books were... colorful, to be sure, but they were mostly just colorful boxes, changing a 3x3 square from a burst to a blast.


When 5e came around, I was a hesitant. 4e was short-lived and expensive, but 5e hasn't flooded us with books that give your rogue a chance to have +2 when they're holding rope, or whatever. 5e simplified the game enough that we didn't need a ton of new books. The omission of prestige classes that gives me magic powers based on masks is a felt loss, until I realize that 5e would just let me have a Warlock with masks. The omission implies, to me, that I can do what I want, and I don't need to reference three sourcebooks to make sure I'm the most powerful being possible.


I look back on 3.5 a lot, y'know. I've got all those books, with their inspirational illustrations and frameworks for cool abilities. When I'm DMing, I use them to offer alternate class abilities, if its not being used or the player feels they don't fit their concept. When I'm a player, I create 1st level characters with more flavor than a 12th level 3.5 character; its prestige classes acting as gatekeepers to the spice rack.



3.5 had a lot, but it also had too much. 4e had a lot and also didn't have much, at all. 5e doesn't have nearly as much, but I'm able to use it quickly and reliably.

[Sception]

5e is easily my favorite version of D&D, but there are definitely things I miss about earlier editions. 4e's rest mechanics, mechanical focus on teamwork, and commitment to every character having interesting things they can do at will, per fight, and per day. 3/3.5's wealth of content and, especially in its latter days, willingness to experiment with not just new classes & features, but entire new subsystems - something I thought 5e would be all about with its supposed emphasis on 'modularity', but that we really just haven't seen at all. 2e's focus on lore and role play and willingness to incorporate both in-universe characterization and direct out of character discussion of narrative tropes and literary inspiration, particularly in the 'complete X handbook' line, imo still the best implementation of the 'splat book' concept.

[Dame_Mechanus]

Same with concepts around 'fighting unarmed'. You had monks, using wis but also instead using cha or int, but also variants with arcane spells, divine spells, who could grapple, throw people around, who used psionics, who grew claws and used natural attacks, you could do builds where you turned into a bear and then did martial arts... possiblities were legion.

See, I think this is actually to 5e's credit, and it's one of the reasons I prefer it over 3.5/PF in general. Which is not to say it's better, but it does speak to a difference in how the game is designed and how it wants to work.

In 3.5, you had a lot of different options for totally different classes that could all fulfill the basic option of "punching and grabbing people in melee" as your primary combat discipline. This was actually kind of necessary, because... character power was literally all over the place, and monks were not really all that great when you looked at overall power level. The whole tier list exists for a reason. That doesn't mean you couldn't build a Monk better or worse, but it does mean that in order to make your unarmed combat character, you had to take a look at what the rest of the party was making, have a stack of sourcebooks at hand, and be at least passingly familiar with all of your options from top to bottom.

By contrast, if you want to do that in 5e, you play a Monk. You have a lot of different Monk types and options, but your fundamental concept means you will be playing a Monk.

The idea of "unarmed combat means playing a Monk" definitely makes it easier to onboard new players and even veterans, with the varied subclasses meaning you still get the feeling of a variety of different Monk options even though the class remains the same. At the same time, if you liked sitting down with a stack of sourcebooks and building out an odd collection of feats and proudly showing off this kitbashed character who punches like a queen and can roll with your party of relatively powerful characters because they're not actually just a Monk, it's a bit underwhelming. I don't think one is necessarily better than the other (although I know which one I personally prefer), but if you're used to a steady stream of new gumballs, the one that needs fewer gumballs feels sparse.

[Dork_Forge]

More adventures and settings: honestly, I get a lot of value from the Candlekeep adventures (I have to tailor them slightly to get the FR slime out of them) and the Tales From The Yarning Portal. And I am finally getting a chance to play in Eberron (on line game) next month. Looking forward to that.

I've ran Candlekeep multiple times, but it's... problematic to say the least. It feels like they bit off more than they could chew, or were willing to pay for, in a single book. The map situation is dire and the new monsters... iffy, but I like the concept of the book. I'd enjoy another Eberron book, expanding upon what we already have and providing a more substantial adventure.

Of course Dark Sun would be nice, but... I sadly doubt it any time soon.

[Catullus64]

3e/3.5e definitely walked so that 4e could run, and so that 5e could soar. It's the point where a lot of key innovations were introduced that would really stick:

It's the edition where the d20 really became the unified core engine of dice gameplay, as opposed to the many d6 and d100 sub-systems of previous editions. The attack resolution system finally reached the presentation it has maintained ever since (roll d20, add bonus, try to equal or beat AC), as opposed to the mathematically-identical but unintuitive systems of THAC0, attack matrices, and whatever the deal was in Chainmail. This is possibly the single biggest change to the game's feel: rolling high or low on a d20 is now the unified measure of success and failure.

All classes now have uniform level progression (mostly; level drain, XP costs for crafting, XP penalties for resurrection, et alia, still create uneveness). The modern multiclassing system emerges here, merging the multi-class and dual-class systems of AD&D. The game definitely becomes less anthrocentric at this point; humans are still a top-tier race, especially under the new age of feats, but the game no longer tries to explicitly make them better than everybody else.

It's the system that decided on a universal skills system that all characters would participate in; AD&D only flirted with this idea using its fairly marginal Proficiency system. It revolutionized (and solidified the name of) the Rogue class by finally folding its role into this skill system. Ability score bonuses that apply system-wide come into being here. Before, there was your hit adjustment from Strength, damage adjustment from Strength, encumbrance modifier from Strength, chance to Lift Gates and Bend Bars from Strength, all different; now there was your Strength modifier, which applied neatly across the board.

I have very little desire to revisit 3.5, since for me it was always kind of a quagmire of overly fiddly, simulationist rules and unbalanced options, even before you start considering bloat. But it's hard not to appreciate that it was a big watershed moment in the game's development, bigger perhaps than any that had come before.

[BoutsofInsanity]

3e/3.5e definitely walked so that 4e could run, and so that 5e could soar.

I have very little desire to revisit 3.5, since for me it was always kind of a quagmire of overly fiddly, simulationist rules and unbalanced options, even before you start considering bloat. But it's hard not to appreciate that it was a big watershed moment in the game's development, bigger perhaps than any that had come before.

Damn son spitting straight facts.

[animorte]

But it's hard not to appreciate that it was a big watershed moment in the game's development, bigger perhaps than any that had come before.

Something my theater teacher in high school (and favorite mentor of all time) told me and that I will always remember. When you are seeking to create a new project, consider all of your options as if without limits. When you formulated the ultimate design, then take into account your limits and start to pull it back from there.

I think this is what 3.5e basically did. They gave us so much content that will always be referred back to as an inspiration for design, play testing, and new thematic concepts.

[Skrum]

By contrast, if you want to do that in 5e, you play a Monk. You have a lot of different Monk types and options, but your fundamental concept means you will be playing a Monk.

The idea of "unarmed combat means playing a Monk".....

......bugs the heck out of me. I don't mind so much that there's a class one turns to for an unarmed fighter, but monk comes with an *insane* amount of other baggage and assumptions. If you're unarmed, you're also unarmored. You also have low str. You also have high wisdom. You also have a pretty strong mysticism vibe. Monk is also one of the weaker classes, arguably the weakest. Thankfully, weak in 5e doesn't mean the same thing it meant in 3e (one of the best changes of all), but you'll be working harder than most other players to get similar results.

[KorvinStarmast]

The omission implies, to me, that I can do what I want, and I don't need to reference three sourcebooks to make sure I'm the most powerful being possible. I think that the sub classes are a milder version of prestige class (EK, AT, Blade Pact, and so on) .

I look back on 3.5 and am glad that I took all of the books I had to the used book store and got beer money for them. 5e brought me back to the hobby, which I had left with relief (what, they want me to buy more books, again? ) once I'd put it all into a few boxes that stayed nearly untouched for about a decade.

The map situation is dire and the new monsters... iffy, but I like the concept of the book. It is for sure 'some assembly required in nature.

I'd enjoy another Eberron book, expanding upon what we already have and providing a more substantial adventure. An official Eberron adventures book would be nice.

Of course Dark Sun would be nice, but... I sadly doubt it any time soon. Yes, 5e needs Dark Sun, because if done correctly it will become the gritty rules variant. :smallbiggrin:

[H_H_F_F]

I think 5E made the best decision it ever did making feats optional, and it's a shame they didn't follow through on that. Let me explain:

So, I'm a 3.5 man through and through, as you can probably tell from my signature (this round of the Villainous Competition is currently accepting submissions, by the way!) I love the intricacy, I pove how robust the system is and just how darn much you can do with it.

However, that robustness will always cone at a cost: a harsh learning curve. Not everyone feels like spending weeks book-diving just to play a game. Mot everyone feels like spending months book-diving just to DM.

5E did something very clever with feats. It presented a game, and then presented a hugely impactful completely new subsystem that can be added to that game for more experienced players and DMs looking to expand the system. It lets a DM run a complete and coherent game without learning the system at all, but offers a better and more complex experience to those who are willing to invest the time.

Imagine if they did that with subclasses - introducing the base game where every barbarian is a berserker, and then making "subclasses" on optional system, where you replace your class abilities at levels x and y with new features.

Now imagine if instead of just introducing new feats, new subclasses, and new spells, each expansion would mainly focus on introducing a new subsystem, that would be able to interact with the base game and every other subsystem. You'd get the advantages of 3.5 complexity, while keeping the accessibility that has been 5E's greatest achievement.


You can't do anything without going to the DM and asking for it.

Funny; I feel like that about 5E. In 3.5, there are rules, good or not, saying what you can and can't do. Break your enemies weapon, pin them to the ground, crawl through a space only as wide as your head. 5E says "ask your DM".

[Mastikator]

5e could have done with even less player option releases.

I don't know how the pandemic will affected popularity trajectory since games stores aren't allowed to be open in full swing again yet, but it was massively popular in a way no previous edition of D&D has been. Slow splat release clearly wasn't hurting it.

For me it meant more TTRPG, not less. Suddenly people weren't too busy to play. Then again we don't have AL or game store based gaming, it's always been lure befriend people and trick get them to join my game. Nevermind trying to join an existing group, there's 2 in the whole country and both of them are full.

[JLandan]

I started playing in 1974 with the original white box set. I played all the editions considered to be a single 2e. Loved 3e/3.5e, hated 4e.

I much prefer 5e for all of the previously stated reasons. What I don't like, I have found is easily corrected with a few house rules. I'm sure many would require a great deal more correction, but for me, this does it.

1) Unarmed Strike is a light simple melee weapon. (Note: it is not finesse.)
2) Small characters have a cap of 16 strength. Large a cap of 24 strength. Small have +1 AC, large -1 AC.
3) Centaurs are large. (If a horse is large, a centaur is large.)
4) Powerful Build allows use of large weapons.
5) Sneak Attack includes Unarmed Strike, clubs, and improvised weapons.
6) Magic Items have a gp value equal to 3.5 version.
7) Item crafting is a homebrew system, but very similar to the one in Tasha's.
8) Druids may use the Beastmaster Ranger archetype, each feature at one level sooner.

I don't particularly care for what I've read of 5.5/6 race changes. I'm more of a traditionalist, I suppose. Not a fan of the amorphous blob racial characteristics.

[BoutsofInsanity]

Funny; I feel like that about 5E. In 3.5, there are rules, good or not, saying what you can and can't do. Break your enemies weapon, pin them to the ground, crawl through a space only as wide as your head. 5E says "ask your DM".

That's pretty true TBH. I think a more accurate version of my experience was I spent more time fighting the rules to do something then using the rules to do something.

If I wanted to do something, I would run into either...

There is a feat for that so you can't do it without that feat
There is a feat for that, so if you try to do it without the feat it won't be worth it to do
Oh you can't do that because of how the rules prevent you from being able to do that basic thing that REALLY feels like it should be able to be done but arbitrairly can't because rules
I want to play a level adjusted race without the level adjustment. Anyway we can make that happen with a nerf? No? Ok then.
I feel like my character should be good at this thing. But I didn't have enough skills to go around to make it work. No one told me I needed to spend my precious two skill points on "Performance Weapon Drill".


Basically, if you were trying to do anything that wasn't spellcasting related, or feat specific related, I got told no. I fought the rules every step of the way in a way I never have had to do with 4e or 5e.

I understand why people like the old 3.5 days. The ability to point at an ability and tell the DM "No I do the thing because my character sheet says I can" is very empowering. But I find that it necessitates an adversarial relationship overtime and prefer having the DM more often then not say "Ok, that makes sense, lets use a previous subsystem like grappling to model this new action off of it mechanically."

--------------------
To be fair, there are rules for pinning an enemy to the ground and crawling through a space as wide as your head.

[Hal]

If I wanted to do something, I would run into either...

There is a feat for that so you can't do it without that feat
There is a feat for that, so if you try to do it without the feat it won't be worth it to do
Oh you can't do that because of how the rules prevent you from being able to do that basic thing that REALLY feels like it should be able to be done but arbitrairly can't because rules
I want to play a level adjusted race without the level adjustment. Anyway we can make that happen with a nerf? No? Ok then.
I feel like my character should be good at this thing. But I didn't have enough skills to go around to make it work. No one told me I needed to spend my precious two skill points on "Performance Weapon Drill".


Basically, if you were trying to do anything that wasn't spellcasting related, or feat specific related, I got told no. I fought the rules every step of the way in a way I never have had to do with 4e or 5e.


This was always a huge headache for me, one of the things I criticized the most about the d20 systems of the time. It was sort of the natural result of splat book/rules bloat; new book, new rules to justify the book, new reasons you can't just improv since there's a rule/skill/feat tree for it now.

I played in a short-lived Star Wars: Saga Edition game about a decade ago. I made a wookie fighter (or whatever their equivalent was, I don't recall any more) and I was introduced to the party as a slave being transported by a couple guards the party was supposed to take out. Well, when the shooting started, I wanted to grab the two guards around me and bonk their heads together (literally happens on screen, you know?) No dice; that's a high level feat for the class, so you gotta pay your dues if you want to do that.

[H_H_F_F]

That's pretty true TBH. I think a more accurate version of my experience was I spent more time fighting the rules to do something then using the rules to do something.

If I wanted to do something, I would run into either...

There is a feat for that so you can't do it without that feat
There is a feat for that, so if you try to do it without the feat it won't be worth it to do
Oh you can't do that because of how the rules prevent you from being able to do that basic thing that REALLY feels like it should be able to be done but arbitrairly can't because rules
I want to play a level adjusted race without the level adjustment. Anyway we can make that happen with a nerf? No? Ok then.
I feel like my character should be good at this thing. But I didn't have enough skills to go around to make it work. No one told me I needed to spend my precious two skill points on "Performance Weapon Drill".


Basically, if you were trying to do anything that wasn't spellcasting related, or feat specific related, I got told no. I fought the rules every step of the way in a way I never have had to do with 4e or 5e.That's a legitimate gripe, though I'd say it's covered by my "weeks of book-diving" comment. 3.5 takes a crazy amount of time and effort to master, and most people just aren't that excited about rules. It's a game for lawyers, basically.

For example, CW told you that you needed to invest in weapon drill if you wanted to do that, and you certainly can play a nerfed version of many LA races - 3 ways off the top pf my head. But knowing those takes knowledge of Savage Species, or the Web articles for savage progression classes, or the PGtF rules for lesser planetouched.


I understand why people like the old 3.5 days. The ability to point at an ability and tell the DM "No I do the thing because my character sheet says I can" is very empowering. But I find that it necessitates an adversarial relationship overtime and prefer having the DM more often then not say "Ok, that makes sense, lets use a previous subsystem like grappling to model this new action off of it mechanically." haven't found that to be the case, actually, but I feel like nkne of us have much to offer here except our own experience. In mine, having concrete rules makes it less likely for one to feel like the DM is being "unfair".


--------------------
To be fair, there are rules for pinning an enemy to the ground and crawling through a space as wide as your head.There are rules to holding someone on the ground, not pinning them - in 3.5 those would be two distinct actions, with different rules for both, and pinning has catastrophic results for the pinned.

Same for the difference between squeezing (5E) which lets you squeeze through a space fit for a smaller creature, and 3.5's myriad of different widths and their associated skill DCs, movement rates and stipulations - including the difference between normal squeezing and "as wide as your head".


I sound like I'm anti-5E, maybe. I'm not. I've started running it, and I like it a lot because of how well it lets players adjust to the system and understand it. I'm the only person I know IRL who I think has more to gain from 3.5 than from 5E, which I think is a superior system for what most folks come to the table for.

[Pixel_Kitsune]

There's only two things 3.5 did that I miss here and even then I don't always LIKE how it's used, I just liked the general idea.

Stronger Races. Level Adjustment and more powerful races worked fine for the most part in my mind, though I'd prefer not forcing the Monster HD into some of the tougher ones, make it a case of every X levels lose one to get more features instead of having to front load everything and either have Monster HD or have only one HD while everyone else is level 6 or such.

Prestige Classes: I HATE the way you have to aim at them from level 1 and basically graph out your character. But the Prestige Classes gave a lot of cool and niche ideas that are just hard to repeat with just the base classes of 5e. Not even for power, but one of my favorite nonsense characters was a Changeling Druid/Master of Many Forms/Warshaper. Was awesome playing into the Shape Shifter to almost anything plus using Changeling ability to disguise it. I've tried repeating it in 5th ed, but closest is basically a Changeling with either Moon Druid and it's just... Not as robust.

[noob]

The thing with God-builds....most people forget these were pure theory crafting. Math exercises. They required very liberal interpretations of the rules and required the rest of the table to have mental issues to not realize what was happening. I mean, in reality, even if a player snuck in a god-build, the moment he dropped his nuke, DM would be like "yea, nope. Your character dies. Roll a new one"

On a side, we did a one-off game. The player said "do your worst". He looked at me in particular because he knew I loved looking at the god-builds. I played a talentia gnome (forget the class) that wielded two +1 boomering of con drain and he had something like 16 attacks per round. We all knew what we were getting into and it was fun for the night and we all agreed that we would never really play anything like this or even attempt to try

The guide to the god wizard is about using buffs and cc and other spells like that to allow to act as a ridiculous force multiplier for the team, it actually requires no dubious rule interpretations and is really strong and many gms will not even notice because it is too indirect: they will not realise the fact the fighter is hitting and killing reliably is because of the wizard behind and not due to his own intersect power.
TO is a different thing from the god wizard and it have its own term: Theoretical Optimisation(TO).

[Waazraath]

Thnx for all the replies, read them with interest. Too much to reply to everybody, but some replies here:


Looks more like you're looking at 5e from a 3.5 perspective.

Haha, fair enough, can imagine you have that impression rereading my text. It's not what happened though: I needed some stuff to read past weeks and went through some old 3.5 books. Looking to those with the past 8 years of 5e experience, I couldn't help noticing all the stuff we had then, and now still don't have in 5e, even after all these years. So the process really was as described in the title of the OP.



Now if I want to play a character concept it's so much easier to just build right off the classes already provided. It's easier to Gish, build an unarmed combatant, archery, stealth, or just about anything. The only real broken stuff is some specific high level spells and some items.

This is true, and one of the reasons I'm enthusiastic about the 5e core books. But the other side of this is: still now decent way to play a thrower, not possible to use shapechange in combat unless a very specific subclass limited to animals and elementals, and as mentioned, no (hardly) dragonriding, hardly options for unarmored combat, etc. etc.


5e could have done with even less player option releases.

I don't know how the pandemic will affected popularity trajectory since games stores aren't allowed to be open in full swing again yet, but it was massively popular in a way no previous edition of D&D has been. Slow splat release clearly wasn't hurting it.

True. I'm not really interested in the sales/overall popularity - this is a rambling about what I miss / notice, fair enough if 'the community' (or the majority) thinks otherwise, but that alone won't change how I see it. Thinking about your post: maybe my main problem is that thare have been quite some splat books, but they just don't deliver on what I think is fun and relevant player content. On the contrary: they regress to mistakes of earlier editions by publishing far too much spells, which is dangerous to class balance (cause there's always that one spell that's above the curve), and annoying for folks who want more feats or totems or infusions or maneuvers. We had a few cool adventures, nice, but also several books with mostly races (and who needs 70+ playable races?). Plus some really weird design failures have become part of splat, like deviating from established norms (300ft darkvision wut??) and 18 ability stat at lvl 1 without rollilng and backgrounds or races that give extra spells.

In other words: the quality difference between core and splat is just too big, and that's part of my problem.


Somebody mentioned fairly recently not minding fewer published adventures and fewer sourcebooks. One beautiful nature about 5e is that it has enough of a good foundation that if you apply some common sense and remember to have fun, there's a lot that can be accomplished with what we have been given. The games I play in and DM are homebrew adventures 80% of the time.

true.


I can see what you mean about release times and things not being covered, I still long for an official Mystic, ideally a polished version of the UA which will never come...

Just in case there are things you want but are missing out on, I wanted to list a few things though:

-Paladins have the option of a dragon mount in Find Greater Steed (the Dragonnel?) from Fizban's

-If you want to go unarmed there's Monk, Beast Barbarian, Tavern Brawler feat, an assortment of races with natural weapons, Fighter with unarmed style, and taking unarmed style with the style feat

From my (little) understanding of 3.x it was the ideal place if you enjoyed choice, with as you say, legion for whatever concept you wanted to do. However, my understanding is that the large amount of splat was also an issue, with trap options not being uncommon.

I think it's okay to like both systems though, play an AD&D of 3.x campaign whenever you get the itch for more options and systems, then play a 5e game when you long for stuff you like about 5e. I do hope we see more content for 5e soon though, and in the vein of more content, not content aimed at changing things.

Ah, thank you for the additions, you are correct. I don't consider the natural weapons a viable route, but that might be just not having looked into them enough. For the rest, agreed, also about the mystic. And yeah, 3.x had a lot of trap options, and even without those you could get too big differences in power. That never really was a problem in my games, people agreed on and adjusted power level to something where everybody was happy. But it could be annoying for new players, and lead to problems in groups without session 0 or with players who wanted the bestest character.



By contrast, if you want to do that in 5e, you play a Monk. You have a lot of different Monk types and options, but your fundamental concept means you will be playing a Monk.


And that was fine, at release. But that we more or less are still there (ok, few other options, I exaggerated in the OP but not too much), even though 20 something books are released, is dissapointing. No wrestling, no throwing, no 'martial arts' weapons like nunchucks or sai or whatever (and "just use club stats" was fine 8 years ago, but it's starting to feel a bit cheap)



Now imagine if instead of just introducing new feats, new subclasses, and new spells, each expansion would mainly focus on introducing a new subsystem, that would be able to interact with the base game and every other subsystem. You'd get the advantages of 3.5 complexity, while keeping the accessibility that has been 5E's greatest achievement.


Has my vote :)

[Snowbluff]

I mean, just the movement rules in 5e alone make the switch worth it. Don't get me wrong, I miss often the minute details of building a character. Being able to build a monk with like 10 DR or a Dragon Magus with a base 26 strength is tons of fun. But everything is so fiddly and restrictive that you can't do anything without going to the DM and asking for it.

This. I think that the action economy rules in 5e are intensely underrate. Movement is very fluid. Your full attack doesn't conflict with your movement a vast majority of the time. I kinda wish I could have both in a system.

[Telok]

Movement is very fluid. Your full attack doesn't conflict with your movement a vast majority of the time. I kinda wish I could have both in a system.

Ad&d.

Really to me 5e feels like someone took Ad&d, dropped a whole bunch of stuff, homebrewed some more stuff, stuck in a few things from 3.x &4e, and half-assed everything else.

Like the prof/skill system is just a watered down & consolidated Ad&d npw. Its nice to have a single consolidated list but then you have things like all the good stuff in the healing proficency got shoved in a feat or two and what's left is just "eh, make something up". Then they dropped all the chase & faster-than-a-jog movement rules from everything previous for... some pathetic unfinished half-hack of some other system chase rules, and you get to make up your own rules to fix it or nobody can go running.

All I really wanted at the end of 3.x was a trimmed and rebooted 3e with fixes & better advice on DMs setting limits. We got the book of 9 swords insult errata, 4e with its huge bags of hit points, devs failing their math checks, and some four hour long combats. Oy, talk about chucking babies out with the bathwater.

And now we're back to the casters getting free & easy magic with rules to back them up while the non casters are all stuck hitting stuff with sticks and asking the DM if they can make dc 20+ ability checks to emulate half a second level spell.

Still think you could do a lot ditching all asi, fixing the spell lists, putting feats in as the appropriate subclass features, and letting people take a second base class at a slower rate for their subclass. Ah well.

[Ignimortis]

The start was good, but the follow up... less so. And what I've seen so far from 5.5 isn't giving me a lot of hope that things get better, and I find myself more and more contemplating running another 3.5 or AD&D campaign as soon as we've finished OoTA.

I'm running a 3.PF campaign right now, and while it shows its' age, the sheer character variety does my heart good. There's a martial adept, a truenamer, a totemist - the only two "defaults" are a sorcerer (with a bent 5e wouldn't be able to provide) and an unchained rogue. Everyone contributes in rather different ways, and with how power sources work, I can mostly focus on making fun fights instead of siphoning resources.



Really to me 5e feels like someone took Ad&d, dropped a whole bunch of stuff, homebrewed some more stuff, stuck in a few things from 3.x &4e, and half-assed everything else.


All I really wanted at the end of 3.x was a trimmed and rebooted 3e with fixes & better advice on DMs setting limits. We got the book of 9 swords insult errata, 4e with its huge bags of hit points, devs failing their math checks, and some four hour long combats. Oy, talk about chucking babies out with the bathwater.

Completely agree.


And now we're back to the casters getting free & easy magic with rules to back them up while the non casters are all stuck hitting stuff with sticks and asking the DM if they can make dc 20+ ability checks to emulate half a second level spell.

Still think you could do a lot ditching all asi, fixing the spell lists, putting feats in as the appropriate subclass features, and letting people take a second base class at a slower rate for their subclass. Ah well.
When people talk about how 5e balanced the casters and martials better than 3.5, they tend to forget one thing. While casters did get nerfed noticeably, martials got nerfed even more. Even in the dull 3.5 PHB paradigm, your high-level Fighter could obliterate a lower CR enemy in one round, or jump 20 feet high, or outswim a fish. And do it all day long, too. Additional splats expanded on that greatly. 5e? You're pretty much limited by baseline level 1 rules and DM-may-I.

[Kuu Lightwing]

3.5e is not ideal, not close to it, but I think with transition from it to 5e, a lot of things were lost, or simplified so much that they don't seem as attractive before. There's a lot of bad content for 3.5e, classes or prestige classes that don't work well, feat chains that are entirely too long and require too many useless feats to get the one you want, but at the same time it provided a lot of variety and build options.

I find subclasses woefully inadequate at providing the variety that was provided by classes and prestige classes in 3.5e. Often times subclass is just 4 features, half of which you won't even see because it's at levels you don't play at. Often times subclass just doesn't have enough power budget because main class has too much of it.

Some restrictions that 3.5e had also allowed for design space. Common problem with martials in 3.5e is needing full-round action to make a full attack, so martials have to acquire Pounce to be able to move decent amount of distance and make a full attack. However this problem was somewhat solved by Tome of Battle system with many maneuvers being Standard action. I think if it came out earlier, it would create an interesting system where full attack action (or maneuvers that do require full-round action) is still useful, but no longer required. But this is personal bias I guess, as I find maneuvers much more interesting than just being able to full attack as a standard action (what 5e does). I saw the attempts at recreating Tome of Battle in 5e, but I feel most of them were rather unimpressive, and I feel like ToB in 3.5e environment is much more appealing.

3.5e also had Combat Reflexes and more restrictive rules for movement in threatened squares, which in conjunction of full-round attack made melee more "sticky", which may or may not be a good thing, but it allowed for some builds focused on AoO and locking enemies down in melee, so people who like to be "the frontline" could arguably do it better than in 5e.

I think 3.5e is a mix of good things and bad things, but I definitely wish 5e took more good things from it than it did.

[Segev]

A side note: you can play a dragon rider in 5e at any level, with any class, as long as you can convince a dragon to cooperate. Which is basically a game of "DM, may I?" admittedly. But it isn't impossible. It just requires working things out with your DM.

I love 3.PF, and fully understand the desire and preference for your dragon mount to be a guarantee granted by class or feat or other build resources. It helps both player feel they paid for it and DM feel it is not a "freebie" he's being foolishly generous in granting. In a sense, things like a dragon mount in 5e are a province of more experienced or braver DMs, because the balance is to the table and up to the DM to determine.

Notably, sidekick rules provide for ways to recruit monsters of CR 1/2 or lower, and to level them up in a theoretically balanced way so they stay relevant and useful. But they are extra characters on the party's side, and imminently more powerful than most class-feature-granted companions due to action economy. So, again, the DM has to determine how to balance for them.

Incidentally, using sidekick rules to advance a mundane mount is a great way to combat the fragility problem those present.

A sidekick is somewhere between 1/2 and 2/3 as strong as a character with a regular class of the same level. It is probably safe to suggest a DM who feels a sidekick is an acceptable addition to the group could add a monsterous sidekick (e.g. a dragon) whose CR is at around 1/2 the party level.

[Tanarii]

True. I'm not really interested in the sales/overall popularity - this is a rambling about what I miss / notice, fair enough if 'the community' (or the majority) thinks otherwise, but that alone won't change how I see it.
Absolutely. One thing about our own desires and opinions are they're our own, and as long as we're not denying some kind of objective reality or promoting directly harming or controlling others, we're generally entitled to them.

But explosive popularity of something we dislike can indicate when our desires are out of step with other folks desires. It's not a defense of the popular opinion or an indication our less popular opinion is wrong, but it does tell us what a large group likes vs ... well in this particular case a slightly less large group liked.

It's worth keeping in mind that in its first 2 years at least, 3e was huge. Just not as huge, nor maintaining momentum, as 5e. Even by 3.5 it was in decline, and all the splats were for the niche hobbyists. But the opinion of the 5e lead designer was those splats also created a perception of a barrier to entry for new players, driving down sales of core.

[Telok]

, your high-level Fighter could obliterate a lower CR enemy in one round, or jump 20 feet high, or outswim a fish. And do it all day long, too. Additional splats expanded on that greatly. 5e? You're pretty much limited by baseline level 1 rules and DM-may-I.

Heh, I recall playing a dex warblade who ran past a phalanx (144 in 12x12) of hobgoblins, jumped over a second, and one-shot (yeah, crit) an equal level enemy wizard. The DM saved the dirty look for the artificer who burned a chunk off a staff of fire to nuke both phalanxes next round. Fun times.

Its part of why 5e melee reminds me of AD&D more than 3.x, the fighty types don't get class based stunts. You're reliant on sweet talking the DM and hoping to get good magic items that aren't just another weapon or armor. Well, not totally like AD&D since most of your saves fail more as levels go up and you can't block a 10' wide hallway worth crap.

[Kuu Lightwing]

Heh, I recall playing a dex warblade who ran past a phalanx (144 in 12x12) of hobgoblins, jumped over a second, and one-shot (yeah, crit) an equal level enemy wizard. The DM saved the dirty look for the artificer who burned a chunk off a staff of fire to nuke both phalanxes next round. Fun times.

Its part of why 5e melee reminds me of AD&D more than 3.x, the fighty types don't get class based stunts. You're reliant on sweet talking the DM and hoping to get good magic items that aren't just another weapon or armor. Well, not totally like AD&D since most of your saves fail more as levels go up and you can't block a 10' wide hallway worth crap.

Sounds fun! Although not very wise of hobgoblins using formations so easilly destroyable by AoE magic in 3.5e.

[KorvinStarmast]

But the opinion of the 5e lead designer was those splats also created a perception of a barrier to entry for new players, driving down sales of core. This veteran D&D player saw that cancerous growth and declined to go any further than core. (Although I still have Complete Divine). And then I sold off core. I had enough TSR era material collected to have all of the fun I needed to until D&D got put in a box for about a decade.

[Tanarii]

This veteran D&D player saw that cancerous growth and declined to go any further than core. (Although I still have Complete Divine). And then I sold off core. I had enough TSR era material collected to have all of the fun I needed to until D&D got put in a box for about a decade.Splat expansion inundating the core until an edition reset clears the underbrush and starts over isn't just a D&D sacred cow, it's a TTRPG sacred cow. :smallwink:

That the 5e lead designer recognized it and explicitly called it out in advance with a policy to address it was one of the most groundbreaking things about 5e. In a lot of ways, it's on par with eliminating THAC0 or Vancian Casting.

[Telok]

Sounds fun! Although not very wise of hobgoblins using formations so easilly destroyable by AoE magic in 3.5e.
Well if they'd made it into javelin range the arty would have been boned. Luckily some warrior crossing the map, ganking their magic support, and menacing the commanders with a small knife jumbled their plans enough that they were delayed just a bit too long.


Splat expansion inundating the core until an edition reset clears the underbrush and starts over isn't just a D&D sacred cow, it's a TTRPG sacred cow. :smallwink:

I can think of a fairly good number of them that don't have that issue. But they also aren't heavily advertised cash cows that depend on book sales, misc. stuff purchasing, and licensing out the ip to make money. Several lines make (admittedly rather a lot less) money by producing adventures & other non-rules suppliments. It seems to me mostly a set the biggest rpg corporations that push continual splats of additional rules.

Honestly even many of 5e's adventure & setting books are still additional rules splats with the continual introduction of feats, subclasses, and spells.

[Dame_Mechanus]

Splat expansion inundating the core until an edition reset clears the underbrush and starts over isn't just a D&D sacred cow, it's a TTRPG sacred cow. :smallwink:

I think I'm far too early in my posting career to embed a YouTube video so instead I'll just link to a favorite for these situations (https://youtu.be/6TMOMTtAMBI). (No cussing, I promise.)

[Snails]

Splat expansion inundating the core until an edition reset clears the underbrush and starts over isn't just a D&D sacred cow, it's a TTRPG sacred cow. :smallwink:

That the 5e lead designer recognized it and explicitly called it out in advance with a policy to address it was one of the most groundbreaking things about 5e. In a lot of ways, it's on par with eliminating THAC0 or Vancian Casting.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,...

The idea that pumping out sundry supplements is a mark of the success of a game and is actually necessary to support continued sales of the game goes back forever. 5e is the first game I know of that made an overt decision to do otherwise, with explicit reasoning about why this is better for the community as a whole and also made economic sense as well.

[Sorinth]

Now imagine if instead of just introducing new feats, new subclasses, and new spells, each expansion would mainly focus on introducing a new subsystem, that would be able to interact with the base game and every other subsystem. You'd get the advantages of 3.5 complexity, while keeping the accessibility that has been 5E's greatest achievement.

WotC have arguably been doing that already, for example Xanathar's did it with downtime as there's now a subsystem for handling downtime activities. Ravnica/Theros added Renown and Piety subsystems, etc...

[Jervis]

Yeah I understand the reasoning for the content drought in 5e but that doesn’t change the fact it feels like buying a console on launch. Homebrew exists thankfully which is, IMO, the only way to stay interested in 5e as a system.

[Xervous]

Yeah I understand the reasoning for the content drought in 5e but that doesn’t change the fact it feels like buying a console on launch. Homebrew exists thankfully which is, IMO, the only way to stay interested in 5e as a system.

It looks to me like buying a Bethesda game. The devs knew they could ship half baked because there’s name brand recognition, Adoring Fans, and devoted modders. It only took them a while to realize they were best off selling an open invitation for fans to put in their work, capitalizing on the equivalence of TTRPG == D&D in the public lexicon.

[Snails]

Several lines make (admittedly rather a lot less) money by producing adventures & other non-rules suppliments. It seems to me mostly a set the biggest rpg corporations that push continual splats of additional rules.

A tangent about context...RPGs and boards games are largely a labor of love. How many people on the planet earn the equivalent of a full time salary designing and/or publishing games? Probably a lot fewer than you think. In order to maintain more than zero full time staff, there has to be a substantial revenue stream. If you want to quit your day job to become a full time game publisher, you need to pull in ballpark a few hundred thousand in retail gross sales. If you want staff to help you, crank up your sales by a multiple of that.

[PhoenixPhyre]

It looks to me like buying a Bethesda game. The devs knew they could ship half baked because there’s name brand recognition, Adoring Fans, and devoted modders. It only took them a while to realize they were best off selling an open invitation for fans to put in their work, capitalizing on the equivalence of TTRPG == D&D in the public lexicon.

I may be weird, but this is exactly what I want from a TTRG. A basic, extensible framework/toolkit and some fallback "starter" content. And then let me build my own thing. My ideal game would have nearly 100% homebrew content (classes, races, lore, adventures, spells, etc) or at least most of those things would have been tweaked by the people involved.

[noob]

Splat expansion inundating the core until an edition reset clears the underbrush and starts over isn't just a D&D sacred cow, it's a TTRPG sacred cow. :smallwink:

That the 5e lead designer recognized it and explicitly called it out in advance with a policy to address it was one of the most groundbreaking things about 5e. In a lot of ways, it's on par with eliminating THAC0 or Vancian Casting.

That is a business model and not a sacred cow, lots of free ttrps will simply publish one thing then stop.(ex: all the one page ttrpgs)

[Xervous]

I may be weird, but this is exactly what I want from a TTRG. A basic, extensible framework/toolkit and some fallback "starter" content. And then let me build my own thing. My ideal game would have nearly 100% homebrew content (classes, races, lore, adventures, spells, etc) or at least most of those things would have been tweaked by the people involved.

The biggest gulf I see here between your desires and 5e is that 5e does a very poor job of explaining the whys of various design points. There’s common discussions that users have been encountering and solving for their individual use cases but the books completely avoid many such topics.

It’s what I really like about M&M3, a simple framework of a game with a smattering of examples that flags its own sharp edges, tells you not to stick forks in outlets, and also notes that while some people will brush their hair with forks there’s combs over here.

[noob]

The biggest gulf I see here between your desires and 5e is that 5e does a very poor job of explaining the whys of various design points. There’s common discussions that users have been encountering and solving for their individual use cases but the books completely avoid many such topics.

It’s what I really like about M&M3, a simple framework of a game with a smattering of examples that flags its own sharp edges, tells you not to stick forks in outlets, and also notes that while some people will brush their hair with forks there’s combs over here.

Forks are the superior hair care tool, meanwhile combs are meant to help at eating food?

[pothocboots]

Forks are the superior hair care tool, meanwhile combs are meant to help at eating food?

What else am I supposed to eat my angel hair pasta with? :smallconfused:



This. I think that the action economy rules in 5e are intensely underrate. Movement is very fluid. Your full attack doesn't conflict with your movement a vast majority of the time. I kinda wish I could have both in a system.

I am currently running a 3.PF campaign where I've ported those back. So far it's working out great.

[PhoenixPhyre]

The biggest gulf I see here between your desires and 5e is that 5e does a very poor job of explaining the whys of various design points. There’s common discussions that users have been encountering and solving for their individual use cases but the books completely avoid many such topics.

It’s what I really like about M&M3, a simple framework of a game with a smattering of examples that flags its own sharp edges, tells you not to stick forks in outlets, and also notes that while some people will brush their hair with forks there’s combs over here.

Sure. But as it turns out... It doesn't really matter. At least in my experience. The basic framework actually handles lots of things quite well as long as you're willing to address things on the fly and trust each other. Which is exactly what's expected. And what I prefer.

Would more "design notes" be good? Sure. But in the end, there are only a few things that actually break games of 5e, and most of them are OOC, not system issues. Or what one person may see as an issue is a feature for others.

I dislike opinionated systems, where either you play it the "right" way or it fights you. I also dislike systems that fall apart when you change things. I don't see house rules and homebrew as fixes for issues, they're just customization for one specific use case.

Basically, I don't defer to designers as anything more than a source of ideas.

[Segev]

What else am I supposed to eat my angel hair pasta with? :smallconfused:

Why, the Dinglehopper, of course!

[Waazraath]

I'm running a 3.PF campaign right now, and while it shows its' age, the sheer character variety does my heart good. There's a martial adept, a truenamer, a totemist - the only two "defaults" are a sorcerer (with a bent 5e wouldn't be able to provide) and an unchained rogue. Everyone contributes in rather different ways, and with how power sources work, I can mostly focus on making fun fights instead of siphoning resources.

...

When people talk about how 5e balanced the casters and martials better than 3.5, they tend to forget one thing. While casters did get nerfed noticeably, martials got nerfed even more. Even in the dull 3.5 PHB paradigm, your high-level Fighter could obliterate a lower CR enemy in one round, or jump 20 feet high, or outswim a fish. And do it all day long, too. Additional splats expanded on that greatly. 5e? You're pretty much limited by baseline level 1 rules and DM-may-I.

Wonderful party, would love to play in one of those (or DM for one). As for fighters being harder nerfed than casters in 5e compared to 3.x: I don't know. I understand what you're saying, but at the same time (as mentioned above by several folks) 3.x fighters couldn't walk and make more than 1 attack, bar heavy or very specific investments, nor can they self-heal like even a champion can in 5e, and action surge was a 9th level maneuver in ToB. Imo the balance between martial and casters really improved a lot in 5e, to the point where it is ok for all practicle purposes. Then again, that balance already was ok in my 3.5 games, because we had good session 0 agreements on what power level we wanted to play on, and if somebody really wanted to optmize the heck out of a class when the powerlevel was low, they could just pick a paladin and go all in and still not be overpowered. Then again, at high levels non-casters are hampered a bit that skills make don't grow to more spectacular effect over the levels compared to 3.x, which limits stuff like swimming and jumping.


Absolutely. One thing about our own desires and opinions are they're our own, and as long as we're not denying some kind of objective reality or promoting directly harming or controlling others, we're generally entitled to them.

But explosive popularity of something we dislike can indicate when our desires are out of step with other folks desires. It's not a defense of the popular opinion or an indication our less popular opinion is wrong, but it does tell us what a large group likes vs ... well in this particular case a slightly less large group liked.

It's worth keeping in mind that in its first 2 years at least, 3e was huge. Just not as huge, nor maintaining momentum, as 5e. Even by 3.5 it was in decline, and all the splats were for the niche hobbyists. But the opinion of the 5e lead designer was those splats also created a perception of a barrier to entry for new players, driving down sales of core.

Yeah, I'm aware I'm probably a niche hobbyist and part of a minority, no worries. And as I said, I love 5e. It's just that it didn't really do much that made me enthusiastic, after the core books. A few good adventures (but also a few bad ones), some interesting settings but also a few terrible ones (I thought Theros awful tbh). I follow the lead designers idea that splats can create a barrier (maybe not even a perceived one, but a very real one for a new player that wants to join a table but 4 alternative systems are on the table. But even taking that point of view as a starting point: when the designers made the decission to do little splat, why not invest the time and effort in those few books/year to make them outstanding products? Comparing 3.5 to 5e, the quality of the splat is more or less even (and it evens out due to 3.5 has great content but also sucky one, where 5e is over all more average).

What I think would be a hit, even in the 5e context of slow release schedules, is more new campaign settings, each having explicitly optional material for that setting, and presenting additional player options there. Think Spell Jammer or Dark Sun with Psionics, an Anime / eastern flavored setting with new 4e monk options, more maneuvers, more unarmed fighting options and new weapons, etc. It only has to be 1/year, as long as the quality is high.

And of course, by engaging in talks like this, I hope to find if more folks are feeling the same way, and if that is the case, it somehow ends up somewhere on a WotC meeting that 'on fora people are dissatisfied with not keeping the good stuff of 3.5 and the quality of splat - we should do something with that' - a boy can dream, oi?


This veteran D&D player saw that cancerous growth and declined to go any further than core. (Although I still have Complete Divine). And then I sold off core. I had enough TSR era material collected to have all of the fun I needed to until D&D got put in a box for about a decade.

Shame though - I remember from earlier conversations we had that you skipped the latter part of 3.x, but I honestly think some of the best game design in d&d was late 3.5.

[Ignimortis]

As for fighters being harder nerfed than casters in 5e compared to 3.x: I don't know. I understand what you're saying, but at the same time (as mentioned above by several folks) 3.x fighters couldn't walk and make more than 1 attack, bar heavy or very specific investments, nor can they self-heal like even a champion can in 5e, and action surge was a 9th level maneuver in ToB. Imo the balance between martial and casters really improved a lot in 5e, to the point where it is ok for all practicle purposes. Then again, that balance already was ok in my 3.5 games, because we had good session 0 agreements on what power level we wanted to play on, and if somebody really wanted to optmize the heck out of a class when the powerlevel was low, they could just pick a paladin and go all in and still not be overpowered. Then again, at high levels non-casters are hampered a bit that skills make don't grow to more spectacular effect over the levels compared to 3.x, which limits stuff like swimming and jumping.

The thing here is that martials in 3.5 did grow with levels a lot more than they do in 5e. A level 20 fighter with a vampiric weapon can quite possibly mow down a low-level army mechanically. A hundred or two crossbowmen will bring down a 5e Champion Fighter in a head-on fight, despite their regen and Action Surge. Out-of-combat ability also scales a lot worse - yes, your Fighter has 2+INT skillpoints per level, and that hurts, but things they do invest into will still be the stuff of legends, and magic items that improve skill use are seen as normal and expected (+skill items are some of the cheapest in the game, getting something like a +10 slotless skill item is easy by level 15). Oh, and you could also play Warblade with a secondary INT focus and thus an easy 6 skill points per level with a decent-ish list.

Combat balance is a lot better in 5e, but that's because most enemies are just scaled down to Fighters this time around. 3.5 Pit Fiend can pretty much destroy four level 20 3.5 Fighters unless they come specifically prepared with magic items to counter particular defenses. 5e Pit Fiend will die in a round to four level 20 5e Fighters - but that's not because 5e Fighter is that much better, it's because the devil is now basically a brute-type foe with a couple spells that don't really do anything for its' battlefield superiority (or otherwise).

Meanwhile casters did get a couple nerfs (concentration and specific spells, mostly)...but they also gained better HP, easier access to armor, easier access to weapons, and some absolutely stupid subclasses like Bladesinger that pretty much say "I'm a full-scale martial, except with a d6 for HP, but a lot more reactive defenses and I still get full casting prog".


Shame though - I remember from earlier conversations we had that you skipped the latter part of 3.x, but I honestly think some of the best game design in d&d was late 3.5.
I hold that mid-to-late 3.5 (2005 onwards) was the diamond in the rough WotC never got to properly cutting. ToB, ToM, MoI, specialist casters, some nifty ideas like 3.5 Warlock - all of that could be analyzed and recombined to give players a lot more choice in how they want to play without really stifling them with 3.5 bloat.

[Waazraath]

I hold that mid-to-late 3.5 (2005 onwards) was the diamond in the rough WotC never got to properly cutting. ToB, ToM, MoI, specialist casters, some nifty ideas like 3.5 Warlock - all of that could be analyzed and recombined to give players a lot more choice in how they want to play without really stifling them with 3.5 bloat.

Yes, these. Of course, there's also plenty of critique to give on the systems/books you mention as well, both mechanically (Truenamer) as well as in fluff ('blue' theme of MoI, binder flavor drawn from real life books on 'magic' which didn't feel comfortable for some folks). But they hit the bulls eye regarding:
1) class balance
2) allowing focussed builds representing staple fantasy archetypes
3) avoiding 'classes that could do everything really well all the time' (there were classes that could do a bit of everything, but either at a cost in power, or required the player to deceide on what role to play in a party at the start of an adventuring day, like the Binder)
4) not drowning players in 1000's of options (1000's of spells to pick from) while
5) giving all classes, whether with more a skill, magical or martial orientation, plenty of options both in and out of combat (without making them feel 'same-ish').

Personally I'd add 3.5's Expended Psionic Handbook and the way AD&D handled priests as examples that 5e's designers should draw more inspiration from.

[Ortho]

The thing here is that martials in 3.5 did grow with levels a lot more than they do in 5e. A level 20 fighter with a vampiric weapon can quite possibly mow down a low-level army mechanically. A hundred or two crossbowmen will bring down a 5e Champion Fighter in a head-on fight, despite their regen and Action Surge.

I wouldn't call that a very good example, because no character in 5e can really survive that. Some quick back-of-the-envelope math tells us that 1d6+5 damage (same as a 1st-level character), times 200 crossbows (assuming 90% miss) - will still do somewhere in the vicinity of 170 damage.

That might well drop even a 20th level character.

[Ignimortis]

Yes, these. Of course, there's also plenty of critique to give on the systems/books you mention as well, both mechanically (Truenamer) as well as in fluff ('blue' theme of MoI, binder flavor drawn from real life books on 'magic' which didn't feel comfortable for some folks). But they hit the bulls eye regarding:
1) class balance
2) allowing focused builds representing staple fantasy archetypes
3) avoiding 'classes that could do everything really well all the time' (there were classes that could do a bit of everything, but either at a cost in power, or required the player to decide on what role to play in a party at the start of an adventuring day, like the Binder)
4) not drowning players in 1000's of options (1000's of spells to pick from) while
5) giving all classes, whether with more a skill, magical or martial orientation, plenty of options both in and out of combat (without making them feel 'same-ish').

Personally I'd add 3.5's Expended Psionic Handbook and the way AD&D handled priests as examples that 5e's designers should draw more inspiration from.

Exactly. One of the best parts of late 3.5 is that you actually get to be awesome without being a spellcaster. Also, "do everything" classes are far less powerful than fullcasters, and therefore actually do feel like jacks of all trades instead of masters of all.

Not a fan of psionics myself (though the general PP idea is solid, maybe more solid than spell slots, really), but the AD&D clerics is very close to how I'd do clerics myself.


I wouldn't call that a very good example, because no character can really survive that. Some quick back-of-the-envelope math tells us that 1d6+5 damage (same as a 1st-level character), times 200 crossbows (assuming 90% miss) - will still do somewhere in the vicinity of 170 damage.

That might well drop even a 20th level character.

That would be 1d8+nothing/1d10+nothing for 3.5, you don't get to add DEX or anything to damage (normally). For 5e, that would be 1d8+3/1d10+10 at best, if your soldiers have 16 DEX (I don't really buy a low-level army with tons of 20 DEX rank-and-file).

Furthermore, in 3.5, it's almost inevitable that 95% of them miss (what's their to-hit? because even +10 is incredibly easy to outscale), plus you can have any number of things by your WBL to improve both miss chance and damage reduction (Blur, Fortification on your armor, etc, etc). But even with no magic besides some basic AC (as per Big Six), only one attack in 400 actually crits (because you cannot confirm a crit with +10 to-hit against an AC of 31+ without another nat 20), and only one in 20 hits. So those 200 crossbowmen land 10 shots, none of which crit. That's 10d8 (average 45) damage against someone who has 20d10+100 (very low-balled, could easily have 20d10+200) HP and who can, each round, kill 5+ of them with basic optimization (Pounce-charging or archery), and regain (attack number)d6 HP with Vampiric or (half total damage dealt) with Wrathful Healing.

Basically, it will take at least a thousand crossbowmen to drop this guy. If they have concealment or meaningful DR (even DR 3/- from basic Adamantine Full Plate could majorly affect the damage taken), well, after the first hundred lost the army should start running in fear.

[Zombimode]

Also, as soon as the high level warrior makes it to melee range the number if crossbowmen ceases to matter. There are many, many ways for the high level character to get into melee range quickly so it is questionable of how many shots the crossbow army could actually fire. Ie. the high level warrior could chug a 300 gp Invisibilty potion and simply walk to the enemy without being shot at all.

[Ortho]

That would be 1d8+nothing/1d10+nothing for 3.5, you don't get to add DEX or anything to damage (normally). For 5e, that would be 1d8+3/1d10+10 at best, if your soldiers have 16 DEX (I don't really buy a low-level army with tons of 20 DEX rank-and-file).

Whoops, you're right - mixed up my to-hit and damage bonuses. Assuming 1d8+3 on a hit with a 90% miss rate, that'll come out to ~150 damage. Not enough to kill a 20th-level character on turn one, still enough to kill them on turn two.

Rereading it, my initial post was a bit ambiguous - I'm only talking about 5e characters. I've edited the post to make that more clear.

[H_H_F_F]

I wouldn't call that a very good example, because no character in 5e can really survive that. Some quick back-of-the-envelope math tells us that 1d6+5 damage (same as a 1st-level character), times 200 crossbows (assuming 90% miss) - will still do somewhere in the vicinity of 170 damage.

That might well drop even a 20th level character.

Can't they, though?

Let's look at the situation. A 200 man strong force is marching on a defenseless village full of elderly and children. The enemy force is armed with crossbows, spears, jacelins and shortswords. 50 of them are on horseback. They're all level 1 fighters, or some equivalent npc statblock.

In 3.5, no 20th level character should have a problem dispensing these. You're saying in 5e, no character has a chance, right?

Well...

The caster can go invisible, or fly out of their range. They can cast invulnerability. They can cast wind wall to block all of their arrows. Wall spells. That's just off the top of my head, and I'm not very experienced with 5e.

As for offense... They can blast them with a meteor swarm, cloud kill, circle of death. They can cast illusory terrain to hide the village, they can summon monsters with immunity to non-magical attacks, they can cast tidal wave...

The fighter can leave the children to their fate, or they can charge and die.

The high level caster can still deal with armies in 5e, even though they were nerfed. The fighter can't, and they used to be.

[Dork_Forge]

Can't they, though?

Let's look at the situation. A 200 man strong force is marching on a defenseless village full of elderly and children. The enemy force is armed with crossbows, spears, jacelins and shortswords. 50 of them are on horseback. They're all level 1 fighters, or some equivalent npc statblock.

In 3.5, no 20th level character should have a problem dispensing these. You're saying in 5e, no character has a chance, right?

Well...

The caster can go invisible, or fly out of their range. They can cast invulnerability. They can cast wind wall to block all of their arrows. Wall spells. That's just off the top of my head, and I'm not very experienced with 5e.

As for offense... They can blast them with a meteor swarm, cloud kill, circle of death. They can cast illusory terrain to hide the village, they can summon monsters with immunity to non-magical attacks, they can cast tidal wave...

The fighter can leave the children to their fate, or they can charge and die.

The high level caster can still deal with armies in 5e, even though they were nerfed. The fighter can't, and they used to be.

From reading Igmortis' break down, it seems that martials in 3.5 basically benefitted from heavy AC and crits needing to be 'confirmed?' Rather than sheer martial power?


Whilst 'casters*' with AoE spells are well positioned to mowing down low HP, low stat mobs, they're also well positioned to die immediately without prebuffing.

*For some reason casters here seems to, yet again, refer to arcane casters rather than casters at large.

Though your assessment assumes that the martials are incapable of dealing AoE damage, which is far from the case in reality.

[Zombimode]

From reading Igmortis' break down, it seems that martials in 3.5 basically benefitted from heavy AC and crits needing to be 'confirmed?' Rather than sheer martial power?

No, that is just one aspect. The argument is more along the lines of "even without regarding any actual abilities that a high level warrior type character could have, high AC alone will leave high level character pretty well protected from scores of low level crossbowmen".

[Dork_Forge]

No, that is just one aspect. The argument is more along the lines of "even without regarding any actual abilities that a high level warrior type character could have, high AC alone will leave high level character pretty well protected from scores of low level crossbowmen".

So on top of that they have abilities that would withstand such a bombardment?

Is this indicative of martials, or how 3.5 scaled?

[H_H_F_F]

So on top of that they have abilities that would withstand such a bombardment?

Is this indicative of martials, or how 3.5 scaled?

How 3.5 scaled, first and foremost. The system was built to scale way harder than 5E. But I think the point is that full casters still scale like crazy in 5E, while martials don't. So a 5e cleric is still a world-altering force by mechanics alone, while a 5e fighter is extremely good at dealing damage to very powerful monsters in small numbers... and that's about it.

[Dork_Forge]

How 3.5 scaled, first and foremost. The system was built to scale way harder than 5E. But I think the point is that full casters still scale like crazy in 5E, while martials don't. So a 5e cleric is still a world-altering force by mechanics alone, while a 5e fighter is extremely good at dealing damage to very powerful monsters in small numbers... and that's about it.

Whilst I understand the general thing you're going for, I feel like that doesn't actually reflect the current state of the game.

[KorvinStarmast]

Shame though - I remember from earlier conversations we had that you skipped the latter part of 3.x, but I honestly think some of the best game design in d&d was late 3.5. There was a lot I liked, organizationally, about how WoTC cleaned up the game. The three saving throws scheme was one, the AC change (higher is better) was another, and the 'every few levels you get to adjust an ability score' all appealed to me. The whole thing was a lot better organized for the most part. From what little I played, as compared to AD&D, there were a lot of things to keep track of and combat took too long. (AD&D ran into that some times as well depending on which optional rules on applied).
I was also not at a place in life where investing the time and effort to establish systems mastery of the new editions was going to happen. Raising a family, moving every few years, and all that.

The liposuction 5e did was refreshing. This edition can be complex, or less complex, depending on the tastes of the table. The complexity is dialable.

[Corsair14]

Having played and ran years of 3.x and a few years of 5.0 I definitely prefer 3.5 as a DM. Characters were not super heroes and while it was entirely possible to make obscene characters over time, I liked the build up. I prefer the concept that characters are not some exceptional figures at low level aside from the drive to go out and actually do something rather than just farm the land or be a town watchman. The feat chains never bothered me, they were part of your character's learning experience and development. You arent supposed to suddenly just be a badass at whatever. One of the reasons I am looking forward to running Warhammer Fantasy in the Fall is because characters literally start out randomly as peasants, watchmen, and beggars with an eye to make something of themselves or they just get wrapped up in exceptional circumstances.

5e is very hard for DMs to balance, and while I enjoy knock down drag out combats, to the point where one player has a dice tray that says "MY DM IS TRYING TO KILL ME", the challenge rating system really isnt that accurate and players, even low level ones, will plow through enemies even a rating or two higher. In addition, all the crazy abilities that some of the newer classes appear to have make accounting for things difficult. Its very hard to kill players, all of the save or die stuff has been removed, even poisons are meh. Yeah I know I can modify things and so forth but I am not rewriting a flawed game from scratch when there are other games that already do.

I disagree on the content amount produced, while at the beginning it was scarce, now they pump out new books "seemingly" almost every month to the point I am not even trying to keep up and limit all my players to PHB and SCAG, before they just started putting out splat book after splat book with more and more unhinged player options to make super characters even more super. 3rd had its issues but I didnt really have a problem with its splat books and didnt feel each one added to the arms race.

As a player, I still preferred 3.5 to 5 for the same reason that I felt my character was actually growing as he achieved new feats. 5e isnt not fun as a player, I just feel that its very front loaded and you get a whole lot at level 3(typically) and with practically every class getting "magic" abilities at some point feels like a game of Super Heroes Unlimited instead of sword and sorcery, nail biting fantasy.

I will play 5e as a player, but without major restrictions I will not run it as a DM any more, its just not fun to me. There are other games out there which do actual fantasy much better than Fantasy Super Heroes 5e. I would be more than happy to run 3.5 as a DM or play it as a player again. I forget if my signature has it, "PCs are not exceptional, they are normal people thrust into exceptional circumstances."

[animorte]

"PCs are not exceptional, they are normal people thrust into exceptional circumstances."
This reminds me of an extremely similar quote from Boondock Saints. I appreciate the concept.

Or they could be normal people who seek to train exceptional skills or have chosen the path to power. I get where you’re coming from but I dislike the concept of everything is tragic and you don’t have a choice but to rise to the occasion, via class levels.

[Ignimortis]

From reading Ignimortis' break down, it seems that martials in 3.5 basically benefitted from heavy AC and crits needing to be 'confirmed?' Rather than sheer martial power?

So on top of that they have abilities that would withstand such a bombardment?

Is this indicative of martials, or how 3.5 scaled?
Yes, even the baseline numbers were enough to put you out of reach of normal opponents pretty quickly. WBL is pretty much assumed in 3.5, so getting items that would help a lot with such situations would be easy as well.


No, that is just one aspect. The argument is more along the lines of "even without regarding any actual abilities that a high level warrior type character could have, high AC alone will leave high level character pretty well protected from scores of low level crossbowmen".

How 3.5 scaled, first and foremost. The system was built to scale way harder than 5E. But I think the point is that full casters still scale like crazy in 5E, while martials don't. So a 5e cleric is still a world-altering force by mechanics alone, while a 5e fighter is extremely good at dealing damage to very powerful monsters in small numbers... and that's about it.
Yes to both. 3.5 scales from zero to demigod, 5e scales from potential-hero to well-established hero, especially in the case of martials, who don't really get a lot beyond bigger numbers.


Having played and ran years of 3.x and a few years of 5.0 I definitely prefer 3.5 as a DM. Characters were not super heroes and while it was entirely possible to make obscene characters over time, I liked the build up.
Here's the funny thing - I prefer 3.5 for almost exactly opposite reasons. I haven't started a 3.5/PF1 game under level 3 in years, and I like the way it lends itself to making unique characters with skillsets rarely replicated in the world around them. There certainly aren't many Mystics or Truenamers in my current setting - 99% of NPCs are NPC classes or, rarely, PHB classes. And while low levels are pretty deadly, levels above 10 get far further than 5e in establishing your characters as someone who's transcended being "normal".

[Tanarii]

5e is very hard for DMs to balance, and while I enjoy knock down drag out combats, to the point where one player has a dice tray that says "MY DM IS TRYING TO KILL ME", the challenge rating system really isnt that accurate and players, even low level ones, will plow through enemies even a rating or two higher. In addition, all the crazy abilities that some of the newer classes appear to have make accounting for things difficult. Its very hard to kill players, all of the save or die stuff has been removed, even poisons are meh. Yeah I know I can modify things and so forth but I am not rewriting a flawed game from scratch when there are other games that already do.Defintiely true that a 3e E6 character, was easier to kill. But 5e depends on the adventuring day to kill characters, for them to willingly overextend and stick their neck in the noose. When I started my campaign, character death and TPKs were extremely common, because players didn't scout, pick their battles wisely, etc. But now it's mostly because they pushed on when they should have fallen back and recouped.

Sure, PCs can plow through a solo rated a CR above them. But without optional rules, they can't easily plow through two back to back Deadly+ battles with 7-12 enemies, and will start struggling after the third one even with short rests between them all. The sweet spot for the CR & difficulty system "working" is definitely the intended one, 3-12 enemies per encounter and 6 Medium / 4-5 Hard / 3 Deadly per adventuring day.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Sure, PCs can plow through a solo rated a CR above them.

Yeah. In fact, the "intended" CR for a solo (which they're supposed to kill without too much issue) is (according to Xanathar's) between "equal to the PC level" (4 PCs, level 1) and +5 (15th level, 6 PCs). But generally, solos are CR = APL + 2-3 for most level bands/party sizes.

This is scaled for "a legendary creature opposing a party of four to six characters, creating a satisfying but difficult battle." Which roughly translates (although the exact breakpoints shifted) to somewhere around Hard. It then goes on to say "For a more perilous battle, match up the characters with a legendary creature whose challenge rating is 1 or 2 higher than optimal."

Also note that solo === legendary. Any non-legendary creature is expected to be fought in groups. Also note that the reverse is not true--you can fight a legendary monster with minions (legendary actions/resistances change CR, so it's accounted for).

5e CR actually works pretty well for its intended purpose[1], under its working assumptions[2]. It fails to work primarily when people ask it to do something it wasn't intended for (being the final word on encounter difficulty) or take it far outside its core assumptions. As does any model.

[1] Being a first-run, threshold filter for monsters that are likely to a) pose a threat and b) survive to do their cool thing. It's one step in choosing monsters, designed to narrow the field of possibilities slightly. And mostly for newer DMs before they have their own sense dialed in.
[2] No variant rules (feats/multiclassing/etc), PHB only, few (and mostly random) combat-relevant magic items, multiple fights per day with short rests. And generally > 1 enemy per fight.

[H_H_F_F]

I prefer 3.5... for the way it lends itself to making unique characters with skillsets rarely replicated in the world around them.

Exactly. Even if your world is filled to the brim with every subsystem and experienced people are aware of nearly every PRC, the way character abilities and playstyles stem from the interactions between different feats and class abilities makes it possible to constantly build characters with entirely new concepts, playing differently to any character you've seen or played before. Just look at any round of the Iron Chef (or the villainous competition, wink wink) over at the 3.5 aide of the forum to see constant proof of this.

[DomesticHausCat]

There's a couple of things I like more in Pathfinder/3.5 than 5e. The skill system, which was very flexible with where you can place your points. And Intelligence was such a fun stat because it gave you more skill points.

And the crit ranges on weapons. Making scimitars and rapiers crit on an 18-20 made them really stand out. Plus the ones that only crit on a 20 often had a higher crit multiplier, multiplying damage by 3 or even 4 in some cases. This made weapons very unique, whearas in 5e they all feel extremely samey.

I am currently using the weapons table from Pathfinder in my current 5e game. But carrying over the skills system doesn't seem wise, the game is balanced for the skill system that's already in place. But I don't think that bringing in different weapon crit statistics changes the game that much.

[Corsair14]

@DomesticHausCat- Oh yeah, I totally forgot all the weapons. Mentally I tend to merge PF and 3.5 since the rules are relatively interchangeable. Weapons were another big part of why I loved this older edition(s). That and proficiencies in using weapons. No one is going to be able to just pick up some exotic weapon that is completely different than the generic weapons one is used to and be able to use it effectively without learning it. Its kind of silly as it is that if you know swords then you are automatically proficient with all swords. From practicing medieval martial arts for two decades at this point, getting used to a particular sword and switching to a different length sword, let alone a sword with different blade characteristics will throw you off for a good long while in practice. Jumping immediately into combat with that that cool new sword you found should force some kind of penalties until you get used to it after several weeks of relearning muscle memory.

[Segev]

@DomesticHausCat- Oh yeah, I totally forgot all the weapons. Mentally I tend to merge PF and 3.5 since the rules are relatively interchangeable. Weapons were another big part of why I loved this older edition(s). That and proficiencies in using weapons. No one is going to be able to just pick up some exotic weapon that is completely different than the generic weapons one is used to and be able to use it effectively without learning it. Its kind of silly as it is that if you know swords then you are automatically proficient with all swords. From practicing medieval martial arts for two decades at this point, getting used to a particular sword and switching to a different length sword, let alone a sword with different blade characteristics will throw you off for a good long while in practice. Jumping immediately into combat with that that cool new sword you found should force some kind of penalties until you get used to it after several weeks of relearning muscle memory.

Magical atunement could explain some of this.

[Tanarii]

From practicing medieval martial arts for two decades at this point, getting used to a particular sword and switching to a different length sword, let alone a sword with different blade characteristics will throw you off for a good long while in practice. Jumping immediately into combat with that that cool new sword you found should force some kind of penalties until you get used to it after several weeks of relearning muscle memory.
No one wants to deal with pointless and fiddly details like training any more though. Clearly that kind of stuff all had to go!

I for one am shocked they bothered to leave in encumbrance and ammunition and food/water rules at all.

[MetalHeart88]

Don't know if anyone pointed this out but the unarmed fighting style can make fighters unarmed combatants, and smites do work with unarmed attacks. Smite requires a melee weapon attack and p.195 of the phb says you can make a melee weapon attack with an unarmed strike.

[paladinn]

I loved 3e when it came out. The streamlined, concise mechanics made all the sense in the world to me. And it really did "save" the hobby.

At the same time, I was soo disappointed and disheartened by the 4e debacle, so 5e was more than welcome. And the 5e spellcasting system was something I've wanted since I started playing D&D.

I prefer the 3e feat model (even if it ended up being gonzo) to 5e's. While 3e feat chains and trees and taxes and trap options are all problematic, the "macro feats" and requiring the sacrifice of ASI's are limiting. And it's impossible to take something as simple as a weapon focus feat because of bounded accuracy.

Have there been any attempts to use more 3e-type feats within 5e? Or to use 5e spells within 3e?

[Segev]

I loved 3e when it came out. The streamlined, concise mechanics made all the sense in the world to me. And it really did "save" the hobby.

At the same time, I was soo disappointed and disheartened by the 4e debacle, so 5e was more than welcome. And the 5e spellcasting system was something I've wanted since I started playing D&D.

I prefer the 3e feat model (even if it ended up being gonzo) to 5e's. While 3e feat chains and trees and taxes and trap options are all problematic, the "macro feats" and requiring the sacrifice of ASI's are limiting. And it's impossible to take something as simple as a weapon focus feat because of bounded accuracy.

Have there been any attempts to use more 3e-type feats within 5e? Or to use 5e spells within 3e?

Pathfinder's Occult Magic rules have psychic spells, many of which can be "undercast" for a lesser effect. This is essentially the same as 5e spells' upcasting, but reversed.

[Jervis]

No one wants to deal with pointless and fiddly details like training any more though. Clearly that kind of stuff all had to go!

I for one am shocked they bothered to leave in encumbrance and ammunition and food/water rules at all.
Some people do like wilderness exploration. That said the staggering amount of spells that trivialize food and water issues makes it almost pointless in most situations

[Segev]

Some people do like wilderness exploration. That said the staggering amount of spells that trivialize food and water issues makes it almost pointless in most situations

I think using the gritty realism timeframes for rest when doing the exploration phase would help with this, since now the spells don't refresh on a night's rest in the wilderness.

[H_H_F_F]

Smites do work with unarmed attacks. Smite requires a melee weapon attack and p.195 of the phb says you can make a melee weapon attack with an unarmed strike.

Well, but that's not all the ability says, as the sage advice compendium point out:


Can a paladin use Divine Smite when they hit using an unarmed strike? No. Divine Smite isn’t intended to work with unarmed strikes.
Divine Smite does work with a melee weapon attack, and an unarmed strike can be used to make such an attack. But the text of Divine Smite also refers to the “weapon’s damage,” and an unarmed strike isn’t a weapon.

They also point out that housruling it otherwise will not affect game balance - but it's still be a houserule.

[paladinn]

Well, but that's not all the ability says, as the sage advice compendium point out:



They also point out that housruling it otherwise will not affect game balance - but it's still be a houserule.

Heh, I think smiting would be cool with an unarmed strike. Kind of like Iron Fist :)

[H_H_F_F]

Heh, I think smiting would be cool with an unarmed strike. Kind of like Iron Fist :)

Unquestionably. It's a stupid rule made for stupid reasons, and very sensible to house rule away. I was commenting on the rules of the game, not on how you should run it.

[Azuresun]

I hold that mid-to-late 3.5 (2005 onwards) was the diamond in the rough WotC never got to properly cutting. ToB, ToM, MoI, specialist casters, some nifty ideas like 3.5 Warlock - all of that could be analyzed and recombined to give players a lot more choice in how they want to play without really stifling them with 3.5 bloat.

Me DMing 3.5 again would probably involve someone holding a gun to my head (playing it is a different matter). But if I did, I'd probably ban all the PHB classes, and see what happened. It feels like that really cuts out most of the worst offenders power-wise, and solves the excessive versatility of the wizard, druid and cleric (you still have those character types, but they're generally more specialised).

(edit) And it's cool to think of the worldbuilding of a setting that doesn't have Clerics but does have Divine Souls, doesn't have Wizards or Bards but has Warmages, Dread Necromancers and Beguilers, doesn't have Druids but does have Spirit Shamans, etc.

[False God]

I feel like a lot of the "....Looking back at 3.5" stems from two problems:
First: 5E is way too close to 3.5 for it's own good. From a design standpoint, it's basically "3.5 but easier to run and play".
Secondly: I find a lot of this "looking back" is done through rose-tinted glasses.

I've gone back and played 3.5...And the reality is far less enjoyable than the memory. There's a lot of options, but the vast majority never get used since they are A: terrible, B: not relevant, C: nobody has ever heard of them, or D: banned by the DM. There are taxes, penalties (not just -2's on your stats) and generally a lot of hurdles to jump just to play. The simplification and streamlining of 5E has "reduced" the total content yes, but also a lot of barriers to simply getting into the game and getting going. And it's not just the rules.

It's a lot easier to feel useless in a 3.5 game. It's a lot easier to get completely sidelined because someone built well (either on purpose or on accident). The power differential between an average character and an optimized one is WAY bigger. And you're more likely to run into "oldschool" DMs who want to engage in gameplay that frankly, I just don't find fun anymore.
IMO starts here: Meat grinders are a style I'm just happy are generally gone in 5E. I've no time for decade-long campaigns anymore, much as I enjoyed them. I've no interest in having to repeatedly suicide my character when for whatever reason they aren't useful or I'm not having fun and the DM just flat-out refuses to allow me to reasonably rework them or trade them out.

There are some things I miss about 3.5, but there are far more things I am seriously happy I don't have to deal with anymore to make me want to go back to it long term.

-----
It may be with some irony, but I actually feel the one thing 3.5 has that 5E doesn't is solid high-level gameplay. For all the whacky shenanigans, 5E's high-level gameplay (anything level 15+) just feels completely lackluster. I get the balancing purpose of limiting spells and I don't take issue with that from a mechanical standpoint to keep the game in check. But 3.X had its own whacky sense of super-powered balance at high-levels.

Of course, 4E still has the absolute best high-level gameplay. *hugs my 4E books*

[Ignimortis]

Me DMing 3.5 again would probably involve someone holding a gun to my head (playing it is a different matter). But if I did, I'd probably ban all the PHB classes, and see what happened. It feels like that really cuts out most of the worst offenders power-wise, and solves the excessive versatility of the wizard, druid and cleric (you still have those character types, but they're generally more specialised).

(edit) And it's cool to think of the worldbuilding of a setting that doesn't have Clerics but does have Divine Souls, doesn't have Wizards or Bards but has Warmages, Dread Necromancers and Beguilers, doesn't have Druids but does have Spirit Shamans, etc.

Not all PHB classes are bad, Rogue/Bard/Barb are solid options that land pretty well within the "playable, not OP" spectrum. But Wizard/Cleric/Druid need to be wiped off the face of the Oerth, and Fighter/Monk/Paladin are so lackluster that you really could replace them easily. Sorc and Ranger are outliers - Sorc isn't really that bad, and Ranger is decent enough to hang... But frankly I'd just replace "shapeshifter" Druid with Wild Shape Ranger and call it a day.


I feel like a lot of the "....Looking back at 3.5" stems from two problems:
First: 5E is way too close to 3.5 for it's own good. From a design standpoint, it's basically "3.5 but easier to run and play".
Secondly: I find a lot of this "looking back" is done through rose-tinted glasses.

My experience differs here significantly, and I am currently running a 3.PF game. While yes, 3.5 is extremely clunky compared to 5e, it also provides so many meaningful options that simply do not exist in 5e. Now, PHB-only 3.5 vs 5e? I'd pick 5e every day, even with how terrible levels 11+ are in 5e. Full 3.5 vs full 5e? 3.5, no question there. I am sick to death of most 5e classes (which are slightly streamlined 3.5 PHB classes plus 4e warlock, basically one of the worst possible set of classes out there). 5e did refine 3.5 - but it only did so for the worst parts of 3.5, which honestly should've been left behind a decade ago (and sort of have been, with 4e).


It may be with some irony, but I actually feel the one thing 3.5 has that 5E doesn't is solid high-level gameplay. For all the whacky shenanigans, 5E's high-level gameplay (anything level 15+) just feels completely lackluster. I get the balancing purpose of limiting spells and I don't take issue with that from a mechanical standpoint to keep the game in check. But 3.X had its own whacky sense of super-powered balance at high-levels.

Of course, 4E still has the absolute best high-level gameplay. *hugs my 4E books*

My issue with 4e (and, coincidentally, PF2e and 5e) high-level gameplay is that a lot of it is still level 1 gameplay. If I'm playing a game where my level and its' description implies that I can tussle with a demigod, combat shouldn't feel the same as level 1. My basic move shouldn't be "I attack with a minor rider", it should be "I scale the giant in tremendous leaps, stabbing it along the way before leaping off it's head to dropkick its comrade so hard it falls over" - and it should be mechanically plausible. Instead it tends to feel Dark Souls-y, where you stab a giant's toe/heel many times until it eventually dies.

3.5 doesn't do it well, but it has the tools to make it plausible and the closest framework to make it work reasonably well (martial adepts), and that's more than I usually get these days.

[Dame_Mechanus]

It's a lot easier to feel useless in a 3.5 game. It's a lot easier to get completely sidelined because someone built well (either on purpose or on accident). The power differential between an average character and an optimized one is WAY bigger.

This is the biggest thing that really colors my opinion of 3.5/PF and is always going to. Yes, I have a lot more options. Yes, it is almost certainly possible for me to find some combination of feats, classes, and options that allow me to make the character archetype in my head feel fun to play, and I don't mean that in the sense of "this is like a Paladin enough" but in the sense that I can probably play a specifically holy-powered character smiting evil and warding off blows as a mighty crusader at a general power tier that works with the rest of my party. (You might need to do some squinting and adjusting at higher tiers, but it's a minor quibble.) In order to do that, I just have to find all of the feats, classes, and options to make that happen... and then make sure that I didn't accidentally build something to outshine the entire rest of the table or accidentally build something that would work great at a lower-powered table but is totally useless with this particular lineup.

Or, to put it another way, in 3.5e you need to come in with your fantasy in mind and be prepared to do a lot of digging to make it work. In 5e you can rest fairly easy knowing that you can say "I want to play this kind of Paladin" and be relatively certain that even if you're not optimal for Paladins or for your table, you're going to be useful instead of just gamely tagging around without anything to do most of the time.

That's not to say that 3.5e's way of doing thing is bad or that people who genuinely prefer 3.5e/PF are somehow wrong for doing so. There is a definite genuine fun to that, the differences between tiers can mean you can wind up with different power levels ranging from "world-ending" to "more skilled average people" and you can balance a party along any level, and heck, let's not pretend that coming up with weird feat interactions and class ability cocktails isn't a lot of fun with the right mindset.

But if you asked me to run it again, my answer would be "no." And asking me to play it again makes me... less enthusiastic, because that feels like a lot of work and my hair is plenty grey already.

[Pex]

Not all PHB classes are bad, Rogue/Bard/Barb are solid options that land pretty well within the "playable, not OP" spectrum. But Wizard/Cleric/Druid need to be wiped off the face of the Oerth, and Fighter/Monk/Paladin are so lackluster that you really could replace them easily. Sorc and Ranger are outliers - Sorc isn't really that bad, and Ranger is decent enough to hang... But frankly I'd just replace "shapeshifter" Druid with Wild Shape Ranger and call it a day.

No, wizard, cleric, and druid are just fine. PCs are allowed to do powerful things. The only thing wrong with them is your personal tolerance level of PC power. Contrary to popular belief, they do not always have the exact spell they need the moment they need it, they do not have the exact metamagic feat they need at the moment they need it, they do not always get through spell resistance, monsters do get to make their saving throws making their spells not work, and not having the right spell today but will tomorrow is too late when the world needs saving today.



My experience differs here significantly, and I am currently running a 3.PF game. While yes, 3.5 is extremely clunky compared to 5e, it also provides so many meaningful options that simply do not exist in 5e. Now, PHB-only 3.5 vs 5e? I'd pick 5e every day, even with how terrible levels 11+ are in 5e. Full 3.5 vs full 5e? 3.5, no question there. I am sick to death of most 5e classes (which are slightly streamlined 3.5 PHB classes plus 4e warlock, basically one of the worst possible set of classes out there). 5e did refine 3.5 - but it only did so for the worst parts of 3.5, which honestly should've been left behind a decade ago (and sort of have been, with 4e).



My issue with 4e (and, coincidentally, PF2e and 5e) high-level gameplay is that a lot of it is still level 1 gameplay. If I'm playing a game where my level and its' description implies that I can tussle with a demigod, combat shouldn't feel the same as level 1. My basic move shouldn't be "I attack with a minor rider", it should be "I scale the giant in tremendous leaps, stabbing it along the way before leaping off it's head to dropkick its comrade so hard it falls over" - and it should be mechanically plausible. Instead it tends to feel Dark Souls-y, where you stab a giant's toe/heel many times until it eventually dies.

3.5 doesn't do it well, but it has the tools to make it plausible and the closest framework to make it work reasonably well (martial adepts), and that's more than I usually get these days.

Odd thing to say that when you just got done trashing 3E wizards, clerics, and druids for having what you crave. Still, I don't know what you're talking about. Now, it is true playing my 5E barbarian I do not fly, but I'm in a party as we should be. The cleric, having cast Planar Ally got a Planetar to help us in an epic battle to save a dwarven city. Fighting a dragon, all the Planetar did in that particular fight was toss me onto said dragon's back and went elsewhere to do battle. Hanging on with my legs with successful Athletic checks (with advantage thanks to raging), I stabbed the dragon to death by myself. Don't remember how many rounds it took, but I was the only one to fight it. Dragonhide Armor was crafted for me from its scales by the dwarves I saved in gratitude. Not being the first dragon I killed that campaign, by ceremony I was given the name Banadragos which means Dragonslayer. Later in the campaign the druid had Shapechanged into a gold dragon with me riding on top of her. I leaped off her onto the back of yet another dragon, more powerful than the previous one. The entire party helped fight this one. When it was about to die the DM decided to have it run away plane shifting to the Plane of Fire. Since I was already on the dragon I voluntarily went with the dragon for I refused to let it escape my wrath. I knew the party could rescue me. I finished killing the dragon at the Cinder Wastes on the shore of the Sea of Fire then had to deal with his two efreet companions we were also fighting who chose to go with the dragon. At a sporting event wearing only a loin cloth for show and with lots of rope in single combat I hogtied a tyrannosaurus rex. I mention in another thread an unfortunate incident on a boat sailing the River Styx with nothing to do in a battle, but I was never really lacking for epic battle. Later in that same adventure arc we fought Scylla of Greek legend portrayed as a multi-headed dragon. I leaped from head to head lopping them off eventually getting the killing blow on her body by a critical hit. Banadragos indeed.

I miss that campaign so much.

[Ignimortis]

Or, to put it another way, in 3.5e you need to come in with your fantasy in mind and be prepared to do a lot of digging to make it work. In 5e you can rest fairly easy knowing that you can say "I want to play this kind of Paladin" and be relatively certain that even if you're not optimal for Paladins or for your table, you're going to be useful instead of just gamely tagging around without anything to do most of the time.

My general issue with 5e over 3.5 is that there's a lot less fantasy that's supported, and a lot of mechanical representation for what's there is very lackluster. When I come to 3.5, I think "I want to play this, and I'm pretty sure I can make it work", and in 5e it's usually "I want to play this kind of class, although I'd rather be playing this, but there are no mechanics to support it".


No, wizard, cleric, and druid are just fine. PCs are allowed to do powerful things. The only thing wrong with them is your personal tolerance level of PC power. Contrary to popular belief, they do not always have the exact spell they need the moment they need it, they do not have the exact metamagic feat they need at the moment they need it, they do not always get through spell resistance, monsters do get to make their saving throws making their spells not work, and not having the right spell today but will tomorrow is too late when the world needs saving today.

I take umbrage with the general idea of a class that gets to completely change its' powerset every day and the powers that it gains are among the most powerful in the game still. With a Cleric, I could have a master necromancer on my hands one day and a Fighter++ the other, and yet something else the third. And considering one of my players, I'm certain I couldn't play around them having access to Wizard even if I had no scrolls in my campaign at all. Free levelup spells might be just enough for them to break it wide open by level 9 or 11.

PCs are allowed to do powerful things. The Totemist in my game stunlocked a boss for four consecutive rounds last session, which pretty much qualifies as a save-or-suck. I'm fine with that. What I'm not fine with is one PC getting to do both that and multiple other things of similar magnitude, with the list of what they can do changing every adventuring day, and the amount of those things exploding geometrically every few levels. Jack of all trades or master of few. Master of all should not be an option.



Odd thing to say that when you just got done trashing wizards, clerics, and druids. Still, I don't know what you're talking about. *snip*

I miss that campaign so much.

Not dissing your game, but how much of that was by GM rolling with it and saying "sure, it works" and then setting a reasonable DC for doing cool stuff? Because having a receptive GM is miles more important in 5e than the precise numbers on your charsheet. I did some very cool stuff in 5e too, but I almost always had this thought in the back of my head that it was the GM's goodwill that allowed me to do that (or at least didn't interfere with me doing that), instead of me explicitly having the ability to do the thing or at least having enough rule precedent for this to be extremely plausible (i.e. the result of an epic high-level move not hinging on a check that a level 1 character could beat with some degree of luck). My suspension of disbelief crumbles when something needs a DC 15 check that I could've made 15 levels ago. If it were a DC 35 check and my progression during the last 15 levels would allow me to beat that while disallowing it to PC below level 10, I'd have much less issue with 5e, honestly.

[paladinn]

I think for me, the biggest change in going from 3e to 5e (pretending that 4e never happened) was fighters and feats. Nearly every other class is pretty much ok and kind of a wash (except for bards - I don't like them as full casters at all - and warlocks, which I don't see the necessity). I mean, wizards, clerics, druids, sorcerers were all primarily casters before, and they still are (I Love the 5e spellcasting model tho). All the previous martial classes are still mostly as they were, at least from a high level perspective. I don't see the need for every class to have a casting subclass; but I guess WotC was trying to eliminate the need for multiclassing?

But when it comes to fighters, I think the change has not been a good thing. In 3e, fighters were all about the feats. A lot of people (including me) have complained about all the feat bloat, with chains and traps and trees. But more than any other class, you could make a fighter exactly what you wanted, based on the feats you chose. I think something got lost in the shuffle. And if you don't pick an interesting subclass, you're pretty stuck as a basic (Champion) fighter. I've seen a Lot of posts recommending tossing the Champion subclass altogether and requiring players who want a simple, basic fighter to go Battlemaster, which is counter-productive. In 3e, even a basic fighter could be cool. In 5e, not so much.

I wish there were One fighter subclass that maintained something like the 3e model. I know feats in general have changed, and for most characters it's not a huge deal. But I think core fighters should have at least a scaled-back, tree-less version of what they had in 3e, even if you call it something besides feats (tactics, maybe?). If anyone knows of such a treatment, count me interested.

Just my $.02

[H_H_F_F]

No, wizard, cleric, and druid are just fine. PCs are allowed to do powerful things. The only thing wrong with them is your personal tolerance level of PC power.

They are just fine when a DM is capable of dealing with and challenging them, and when the rest of the table is fine with playing at that power level.

There's nothing inherently wring with T1 classes, except for the fact that they operate on a level of play that completely trivializes everything anyone else can do. A druid is only bad game design when you assume (like many do) that they belong in the same party with the barbarian, the incarnate and the scout.

I also find them to be inherently less interesting to play than classes with a more limited tool set, but that's a matter of taste.

[Pex]

My general issue with 5e over 3.5 is that there's a lot less fantasy that's supported, and a lot of mechanical representation for what's there is very lackluster. When I come to 3.5, I think "I want to play this, and I'm pretty sure I can make it work", and in 5e it's usually "I want to play this kind of class, although I'd rather be playing this, but there are no mechanics to support it".



I take umbrage with the general idea of a class that gets to completely change its' powerset every day and the powers that it gains are among the most powerful in the game still. With a Cleric, I could have a master necromancer on my hands one day and a Fighter++ the other, and yet something else the third. And considering one of my players, I'm certain I couldn't play around them having access to Wizard even if I had no scrolls in my campaign at all. Free levelup spells might be just enough for them to break it wide open by level 9 or 11.

PCs are allowed to do powerful things. The Totemist in my game stunlocked a boss for four consecutive rounds last session, which pretty much qualifies as a save-or-suck. I'm fine with that. What I'm not fine with is one PC getting to do both that and multiple other things of similar magnitude, with the list of what they can do changing every adventuring day, and the amount of those things exploding geometrically every few levels. Jack of all trades or master of few. Master of all should not be an option.

A matter of personal tolerance level.


Not dissing your game, but how much of that was by GM rolling with it and saying "sure, it works" and then setting a reasonable DC for doing cool stuff? Because having a receptive GM is miles more important in 5e than the precise numbers on your charsheet. I did some very cool stuff in 5e too, but I almost always had this thought in the back of my head that it was the GM's goodwill that allowed me to do that (or at least didn't interfere with me doing that), instead of me explicitly having the ability to do the thing or at least having enough rule precedent for this to be extremely plausible (i.e. the result of an epic high-level move not hinging on a check that a level 1 character could beat with some degree of luck). My suspension of disbelief crumbles when something needs a DC 15 check that I could've made 15 levels ago. If it were a DC 35 check and my progression during the last 15 levels would allow me to beat that while disallowing it to PC below level 10, I'd have much less issue with 5e, honestly.

In 5E DCs aren't supposed to be 35 on a regular basis. Something that is supposed to be Hard is DC 20, and it's only Hard for whatever the task is not the person doing it. It's DC 20 for level 1, level 5, level 18. The level 18 character is supposed to be making DC 20 checks on a regular basis, but only on the things that character focuses on. 20 in ability score and +6 proficiency is only +11 to the check. No one could make DC 35 on that. Needing to beat DC 30, which 5E allows for impossible tasks, is needing to roll a Natural 19. So yes, in 5E regularly succeeding on DC 20 tasks, DC 25 tasks is a big deal that makes you epic. As such, with the dragons it's an opposed check to hang on with their own high ST (Athletics) trying to throw me off, but only I had Advantage. The dinosaur was a flat DC 17 to get out of his mouth when he chomps on you. Level 18 cleric with 10 ST and not proficient in Athletics? He needs to roll a Natural 17 or else he gets eaten next round. Me? I did multiclass rogue a bit so I had expertise. My Athletics score was +17. I needed to roll a Natural 0. I was at his head where I wanted to be so when I freed myself I was able to rope his jaws shut.

As for whatever DM dalliance there might have been, DMs are supposed to do that regardless of edition.

[Tanarii]

Not dissing your game, but how much of that was by GM rolling with it and saying "sure, it works" and then setting a reasonable DC for doing cool stuff? The nice thing about D&D 5e is it (theoretically) encourages that kind of thing, instead of discouraging it. Although opinions on how a DM picks a DC and what they should pick and if more guidance is needed differ. In 3e, it encourages either having a feat or maximizing a skill or going home.


But when it comes to fighters, I think the change has not been a good thing. In 3e, fighters were all about the feats. A lot of people (including me) have complained about all the feat bloat, with chains and traps and trees. But more than any other class, you could make a fighter exactly what you wanted, based on the feats you chose. I think something got lost in the shuffle. And if you don't pick an interesting subclass, you're pretty stuck as a basic (Champion) fighter. I've seen a Lot of posts recommending tossing the Champion subclass altogether and requiring players who want a simple, basic fighter to go Battlemaster, which is counter-productive. In 3e, even a basic fighter could be cool. In 5e, not so much.
I don't think I've ever seen someone try to argue that 3e Fighters were superior to 5e Fighters before. Or even that it was possible for 3e fighters to be cool.

Personal I miss 4e Fighters (and Rogues and Barbarians). They were amazing and very cool, and 5e tossed most of what made them that way out the window so they could be "I attack" classes again.

[paladinn]

I don't think I've ever seen someone try to argue that 3e Fighters were superior to 5e Fighters before. Or even that it was possible for 3e fighters to be cool.

Personal I miss 4e Fighters (and Rogues and Barbarians). They were amazing and very cool, and 5e tossed most of what made them that way out the window so they could be "I attack" classes again.

With all the various spellcasting options and the tactical nature of the Battlemaster, I don't think there's a problem with one subclass that is simple. But within that simplicity, is it better to have a few "canned" class features or to open it up for the 3e-type customization? Unless you pick the Archery fighting style, it's really hard to even get a simple bonus to hit.

I wouldn't mind seeing at least a mix of features and "feats"/tactics/whatever. Again, outside of the initial fighting style choice, champions really look pretty similar.

[Tanarii]

With all the various spellcasting options and the tactical nature of the Battlemaster, I don't think there's a problem with one subclass that is simple. But within that simplicity, is it better to have a few "canned" class features or to open it up for the 3e-type customization? Unless you pick the Archery fighting style, it's really hard to even get a simple bonus to hit.

I wouldn't mind seeing at least a mix of features and "feats"/tactics/whatever. Again, outside of the initial fighting style choice, champions really look pretty similar.
Okay, more flexibility in the build is different from what I was thinking you were going for.

The problem was the 3e Fighter was a flexible build but ultimately fairly likely to be useless character at the table, without some serious DM input.
5e Fighters are less flexible builds, albeit still one of the most flexible Martials, while still being surprisingly effective characters at the table. (Caveat: effectiveness may drop off in Tier 4 according to some folks.)

[Veldrenor]

Not dissing your game, but how much of that was by GM rolling with it and saying "sure, it works" and then setting a reasonable DC for doing cool stuff?

This is one of the main reasons why I prefer DMing 5e over 3.X/Pathfinder. I as the DM don't exist to describe dungeon corridors or control monster attacks or ensure that the rules are being followed, a video game can handle all of that just fine. In fact, video games do some of that far better than I can: the math is much faster and the environments are much richer because a picture is worth 1000 words and a game is 30+ pictures per second. But what any other game can't do is adapt. If you're playing Skyrim and you want to do something that the engine hasn't been specifically programmed to enable, like entering a bandit camp by rappelling down from the cliff above it, you can't even attempt that action. But in a TTRPG the engine is a living, imaginative, adaptable human brain that can adjudicate anything. I'm at the table to enable characters to do awesome stuff that isn't on their character sheets, not "run classability.exe".


My suspension of disbelief crumbles when something needs a DC 15 check that I could've made 15 levels ago. If it were a DC 35 check and my progression during the last 15 levels would allow me to beat that while disallowing it to PC below level 10, I'd have much less issue with 5e, honestly.

5e lacks example DC tables which previous editions had. It also espouses an ideology of "rulings not rules" and it's fairly loose about ability checks, leaving when to call for them largely up to the DM's discretion (different DMs will have different opinions about whether or not a specific action has an uncertain outcome and requires a check). I wonder if the design intention was for DCs in 5e to be relative rather than absolute, meaning that you couldn't have made the DC 15 check 15 levels ago because it wouldn't have been a DC 15 check back then.

[Tanarii]

I wonder if the design intention was for DCs in 5e to be relative rather than absolute, meaning that you couldn't have made the DC 15 check 15 levels ago because it wouldn't have been a DC 15 check back then.
It very intentionally was not. Whether or not that's a good thing has caused a non-trivial amount of spilt internet bytes.

[Veldrenor]

It very intentionally was not. Whether or not that's a good thing has caused a non-trivial amount of spilt internet bytes.

Ah, ok. *shrug* There goes that idea, then.

[False God]

My experience differs here significantly, and I am currently running a 3.PF game. While yes, 3.5 is extremely clunky compared to 5e, it also provides so many meaningful options that simply do not exist in 5e. Now, PHB-only 3.5 vs 5e? I'd pick 5e every day, even with how terrible levels 11+ are in 5e. Full 3.5 vs full 5e? 3.5, no question there. I am sick to death of most 5e classes (which are slightly streamlined 3.5 PHB classes plus 4e warlock, basically one of the worst possible set of classes out there). 5e did refine 3.5 - but it only did so for the worst parts of 3.5, which honestly should've been left behind a decade ago (and sort of have been, with 4e).
I'll be honest, I ran a lot more 5E early on than now. I've played a few short 5E games, jumped into the occasional AL since then and yeah, I'll agree that none of the new content has meaningfully added to the game. Not detracted either, just expanded. I didn't fundamentally notice much of a play difference, or much of a party comp difference when I played about a year ago than I did when I played back in 2015.


My issue with 4e (and, coincidentally, PF2e and 5e) high-level gameplay is that a lot of it is still level 1 gameplay. If I'm playing a game where my level and its' description implies that I can tussle with a demigod, combat shouldn't feel the same as level 1. My basic move shouldn't be "I attack with a minor rider", it should be "I scale the giant in tremendous leaps, stabbing it along the way before leaping off it's head to dropkick its comrade so hard it falls over" - and it should be mechanically plausible. Instead it tends to feel Dark Souls-y, where you stab a giant's toe/heel many times until it eventually dies.
See, for all of 5E's "Keep level 1 relevant!" I actually like that the flow of high-level combat feels just like low-level combat. I personally notice the power change and the thematic change with the tiers, but the fact that 30 runs like 20, which runs like 10, which runs like 1, IMO keeps a sort of understandable flow and balance to it.

Games aren't getting whacked out crazy at high level (which can be fun, within reason), and they don't feel arbitrarily limited.

Thus when I say "best" I guess I mean "most playable" high-level content.


3.5 doesn't do it well, but it has the tools to make it plausible and the closest framework to make it work reasonably well (martial adepts), and that's more than I usually get these days.
I think on the whole, this is just a D&D problem. 3.5 certainly opens the door to high-level "mythic" gameplay, but like 4E, is still founded on a framework that has to work at level 1. 5E resolves the issue by just...not making you feel very epic at high levels.

Pathfinder tried their various "epic level" with Mythic, which I've never tried, so I have no idea how that does at making endgame play feel, well, "mythic".


This is the biggest thing that really colors my opinion of 3.5/PF and is always going to. Yes, I have a lot more options. Yes, it is almost certainly possible for me to find some combination of feats, classes, and options that allow me to make the character archetype in my head feel fun to play, and I don't mean that in the sense of "this is like a Paladin enough" but in the sense that I can probably play a specifically holy-powered character smiting evil and warding off blows as a mighty crusader at a general power tier that works with the rest of my party. (You might need to do some squinting and adjusting at higher tiers, but it's a minor quibble.) In order to do that, I just have to find all of the feats, classes, and options to make that happen... and then make sure that I didn't accidentally build something to outshine the entire rest of the table or accidentally build something that would work great at a lower-powered table but is totally useless with this particular lineup.

Or, to put it another way, in 3.5e you need to come in with your fantasy in mind and be prepared to do a lot of digging to make it work. In 5e you can rest fairly easy knowing that you can say "I want to play this kind of Paladin" and be relatively certain that even if you're not optimal for Paladins or for your table, you're going to be useful instead of just gamely tagging around without anything to do most of the time.

That's not to say that 3.5e's way of doing thing is bad or that people who genuinely prefer 3.5e/PF are somehow wrong for doing so. There is a definite genuine fun to that, the differences between tiers can mean you can wind up with different power levels ranging from "world-ending" to "more skilled average people" and you can balance a party along any level, and heck, let's not pretend that coming up with weird feat interactions and class ability cocktails isn't a lot of fun with the right mindset.

But if you asked me to run it again, my answer would be "no." And asking me to play it again makes me... less enthusiastic, because that feels like a lot of work and my hair is plenty grey already.

This is quite frankly why I still have a binder (well, it's a digital folder now) of various builds that I enjoy. Ones I've figured out fit into a solid "middle upper" (I'd argue Tier 2 or 3) that I find enjoyable to play. Reroll some stats, reskin the character, but generally come to play with a pre-packaged character that I know how to run properly and does stuff I like. (and noone complains when the healer is OP except the DM) I've got some roguey-swashbuckler-fighter-Zorro types for the less magical of games, I've got some half-angel holy-knight types, I've got "The Repairman", a couple druid variants I find more manageable than the default and a couple "core only" builds in case some DM goes that way.

I spent a lot of time digging, and yeah, I'm just not in the mood for it anymore.

[Pex]

(and noone complains when the healer is OP except the DM)


OMG yes! I was playing a Pathfinder 1E Oracle of Life. One combat a player took notes on how much damage he received vs how much I healed. He calculated that he took three times his max hit points in damage and was never near death. I particularly remember using my swift action, action, and move action to do nothing but heal the party in a different combat. It took up a good chunk of my resources (I still had plenty), but at the cost of my one character's turn of doing nothing but healing I negated all of the enemies' turns worth of damage against the party the DM did that round. The party was near or at full hit points when I finished my turn. In later adventures the DM had to go out of his way to keep me occupied to ensure I couldn't heal the party so often.

[Ignimortis]

In 5E DCs aren't supposed to be 35 on a regular basis. *snip*
As for whatever DM dalliance there might have been, DMs are supposed to do that regardless of edition.

I'm aware. I had a passive Perception of 32 on a character. But my point wasn't that you need a DC35 in regular 5e, but more along the lines of "if 5e supported actually going to the DC35 and making it reasonable and plausible for a high-level character with investment into that thing to beat it often, I'd like it more often". Basically, I highly dislike bounded accuracy in the way 5e does it - the die roll is always more important than your actual stats unless you really minmax that one thing, which you can't even do for all skills. You could still fail a DC20 and the STR 10 Athletics 0 Cleric could succeed, and I find that to be rather unacceptable for a heroic fantasy game. In a single-dice system, you should be able to outscale the die for things you are good at, or have subjective DCs instead of objective DCs. 5e does neither of that.


This is one of the main reasons why I prefer DMing 5e over 3.X/Pathfinder. I as the DM don't exist to describe dungeon corridors or control monster attacks or ensure that the rules are being followed, a video game can handle all of that just fine. In fact, video games do some of that far better than I can: the math is much faster and the environments are much richer because a picture is worth 1000 words and a game is 30+ pictures per second. But what any other game can't do is adapt. If you're playing Skyrim and you want to do something that the engine hasn't been specifically programmed to enable, like entering a bandit camp by rappelling down from the cliff above it, you can't even attempt that action. But in a TTRPG the engine is a living, imaginative, adaptable human brain that can adjudicate anything. I'm at the table to enable characters to do awesome stuff that isn't on their character sheets, not "run classability.exe".

Not arguing against GMs giving you some leeway - but it rankles me a lot if the leeway is based less on "yeah, it's very plausible your character would be able to do that, because they already can do X, Y and Z, which are very close to that" and more on "hey, you rolled high and it sounds cool". It often ends up being letting a STR 8 DEX 12 sorcerer run across a wall with no proficiency in either Acrobatics or Athletics because they rolled a 20 on an check.


They are just fine when a DM is capable of dealing with and challenging them, and when the rest of the table is fine with playing at that power level.

There's nothing inherently wring with T1 classes, except for the fact that they operate on a level of play that completely trivializes everything anyone else can do. A druid is only bad game design when you assume (like many do) that they belong in the same party with the barbarian, the incarnate and the scout.

I also find them to be inherently less interesting to play than classes with a more limited tool set, but that's a matter of taste.

Pretty much all of this, yes. I can either have a game with only great full casters, or a game with tons of very different classes that play in the same ballpark. As a GM, I will pick the second every time. Probably as a player, too - I don't have enough mental capacity to think like a wizard player (which do exist, I play with at least one).



See, for all of 5E's "Keep level 1 relevant!" I actually like that the flow of high-level combat feels just like low-level combat. I personally notice the power change and the thematic change with the tiers, but the fact that 30 runs like 20, which runs like 10, which runs like 1, IMO keeps a sort of understandable flow and balance to it.

I see it as meandering between two good ways to do things, and ending up with a great mass of mediocrity in the end. I do think that 5e would massively benefit from cutting itself down to 10 or so levels (with level 10 being equivalent to old level 13 at the most, and probably 11) and focusing its' gameplay around that. This does present one with an issue of how to handle the titular dragons, of course, but I feel that dragons shouldn't even be anything but top-tier boss-level creatures anyway.

Or there's the other way, to make high-levels feel actually different from low-levels. The issue here is mostly "how does it actually work, though?" - most of high-level tools are just "this low-level limitation does not apply to you anymore". Honestly, the only way I actually see it working is just moving systems at a certain point. Graduating from WFRP to Exalted, so to speak - the base rules themselves should be at least somewhat different for that to work. A little bit like the BECMI, maybe?

[Tanarii]

Not arguing against GMs giving you some leeway - but it rankles me a lot if the leeway is based less on "yeah, it's very plausible your character would be able to do that, because they already can do X, Y and Z, which are very close to that" and more on "hey, you rolled high and it sounds cool". It often ends up being letting a STR 8 DEX 12 sorcerer run across a wall with no proficiency in either Acrobatics or Athletics because they rolled a 20 on an check.

I'm starting to think that the six martial classes need a lvl 1 feature:
Awesome Athlete. Your DM can ask for a skill check to succeed on a physical stunt. The DM isn't allowed to apply a penalty or negative consequence if you fail the roll. Multiclass full casters do not gain this class feature.

[False God]

Or there's the other way, to make high-levels feel actually different from low-levels. The issue here is mostly "how does it actually work, though?" - most of high-level tools are just "this low-level limitation does not apply to you anymore". Honestly, the only way I actually see it working is just moving systems at a certain point. Graduating from WFRP to Exalted, so to speak - the base rules themselves should be at least somewhat different for that to work. A little bit like the BECMI, maybe?

I was thinking something of the same. Level 1-10 for good old "Adventuring", 11-20 for "conqueror-king" gameplay and 21+ for "demigod madness". Noticeable and fundamental gameplay changes with each tier, not enough to make them entirely a new game, but enough to make them feel like the step up they really are. It's hitting that sweet spot of "This is still D&D, but on a new level." where the game plays and feels different, but retains enough of the underlying rules so as not to totally lose people. As mentioned in other threads, it's hard enough to get people to learn new games.

I think D&D could purloin a lot of good systems from other games, both as new base elements to the game (such as using HD as a fatigue/willpower-like mechanic during combat, rather than only recovering health after) and as additional optional rules. But that would substantially complicate the system.

Who knows, maybe 6E will give us entirely separate systems again.

[Waazraath]

Heh, I think smiting would be cool with an unarmed strike. Kind of like Iron Fist :)

Yes, YES! And that is part of my post. Even if something like this wasn't possible in the beginning of 3.5 (it was, just not very good), you later got feats that allowed for instance both smiting and unarmed fighting (or smiting and sneak attack) to advance when multiclassing pally/monk (pally/rogue respectively). And (and, not 'or'!) you got prestige classes which allowed the same.


Me DMing 3.5 again would probably involve someone holding a gun to my head (playing it is a different matter). But if I did, I'd probably ban all the PHB classes, and see what happened. It feels like that really cuts out most of the worst offenders power-wise, and solves the excessive versatility of the wizard, druid and cleric (you still have those character types, but they're generally more specialised).

(edit) And it's cool to think of the worldbuilding of a setting that doesn't have Clerics but does have Divine Souls, doesn't have Wizards or Bards but has Warmages, Dread Necromancers and Beguilers, doesn't have Druids but does have Spirit Shamans, etc.

Sounds like a great campaign!


*snip

While I agree with the drawbacks of 3.5 that you mention, those were temporary. Once you knew which feats were worthless and which one overpowered and you knew with your gaming group to agree on a certain power level to aim for, there was stil a lot of material left to go wild with.


No, wizard, cleric, and druid are just fine. PCs are allowed to do powerful things. The only thing wrong with them is your personal tolerance level of PC power. Contrary to popular belief, they do not always have the exact spell they need the moment they need it, they do not have the exact metamagic feat they need at the moment they need it, they do not always get through spell resistance, monsters do get to make their saving throws making their spells not work, and not having the right spell today but will tomorrow is too late when the world needs saving today.

Except... as soon as you really knew what you were doing as a caster, you would have almost every spell you needed. Cause you used polymorph and / or summon monster, and had a list with every spell and ability every monster had you could summon / change into. Or you simply gave your spells 24 hours duration with Divine Meta Magic as a cleric, since that gave you something good to spend otherwise pretty useless turn attempts on. Or (etc. etc. etc.). While I agree it was often less a problem in 'real play' than it was suggested on optimization board, I played enough to see that it could be a very real problem if players did not restrain themselves.


I don't think I've ever seen someone try to argue that 3e Fighters were superior to 5e Fighters before. Or even that it was possible for 3e fighters to be cool.
3.5 fighters superior to 5e in general hell no, but 3e fighters could be great! See the last link in my signature for instance, then go to 'sample builds', for a flying teleporting archer fighter 20 which could shoot really hard, but also had loads and loads of spell-like abilities.

[paladinn]

3.5 fighters superior to 5e in general hell no, but 3e fighters could be great! See the last link in my signature for instance, then go to 'sample builds', for a flying teleporting archer fighter 20 which could shoot really hard, but also had loads and loads of spell-like abilities.

I'm looking at the basic fighter class in 3e and the Champion subclass in 5e. The cool thing about the 3e fighter is its versatility. You can make almost any fighter concept you want, because it's all about the feats.

I know the feat model in 5e is very different; and you can't give out a new mega-feat every level. But if not feats, the "basic" fighter sub/class needs some cool/powerful class features, while not being overly tactical. I don't know that improved crits, action surge, 2nd wind and indomitable really qualify.

[JNAProductions]

I'm looking at the basic fighter class in 3e and the Champion subclass in 5e. The cool thing about the 3e fighter is its versatility. You can make almost any fighter concept you want, because it's all about the feats.

I know the feat model in 5e is very different; and you can't give out a new mega-feat every level. But if not feats, the "basic" fighter sub/class needs some cool/powerful class features, while not being overly tactical. I don't know that improved crits, action surge, 2nd wind and indomitable really qualify.

Did you look at the Battlemaster?
Champion is designed to be simple, above all else.

[Telok]

3.5 fighters superior to 5e in general hell no, but 3e fighters could be great!.

Honestly the 3.x fighters mostly suffered early on from a combination of hit point inflation plus damage stagflation plus the bad feat chains. Later on they suffered from having to dump all resources into keeping up their trick or basically abandoning the fighter class.

I don't really feel 5e fighters are, mechanically as a class, an improvement*. They still have to take feats and get magic items (optional, not available in all games) to get power attack or do things beyond hitting stuff, guy in the gym athletics, and having lots of hit points.

Obviously a DM can let the fighters do stuff on rolling a high ability check and deny that to other classes, or the character can take a subclass giving them magic. Of course the most of the subclasses feel like 3.5 multi or prestige classing out of fighter anyways.

* the "no full attack when moving" in 3.x was lousy, but going back to AD&Ds full attack plus move wasn't as big a deal as some make it seem like given some of the massive damage boosts a 3.x fighter could stack on a single attack. Either way it's not a fighter or even melee/mundane improvement, just a reversion to one base combat rule from the 1980s that benefits everyone. Now if we could just get the AD&D opportunity attacks back, fighters could actually block a hallway from 3 goblins in a conga line.

[JNAProductions]

Honestly the 3.x fighters mostly suffered early on from a combination of hit point inflation plus damage stagflation plus the bad feat chains. Later on they suffered from having to dump all resources into keeping up their trick or basically abandoning the fighter class.

I don't really feel 5e fighters are, mechanically as a class, an improvement*. They still have to take feats and get magic items (optional, not available in all games) to get power attack or do things beyond hitting stuff, guy in the gym athletics, and having lots of hit points.

Obviously a DM can let the fighters do stuff on rolling a high ability check and deny that to other classes, or the character can take a subclass giving them magic. Of course the most of the subclasses feel like 3.5 multi or prestige classing out of fighter anyways.

* the "no full attack when moving" in 3.x was lousy, but going back to AD&Ds full attack plus move wasn't as big a deal as some make it seem like given some of the massive damage boosts a 3.x fighter could stack on a single attack. Either way it's not a fighter or even melee/mundane improvement, just a reversion to one base combat rule from the 1980s that benefits everyone. Now if we could just get the AD&D opportunity attacks back, fighters could actually block a hallway from 3 goblins in a conga line.

Grappling and other basic battlefield control isn't gated behind feats, and Fighters are pretty damn good at it.

[paladinn]

Did you look at the Battlemaster?
Champion is designed to be simple, above all else.

Umm yeah, thus my reference to "overly tactical."

I get simple. I just think the class abilities need to be worth it.

The fighter class already gets 2 more ASI's than most other classes, and the champion gets another fighting style. I've seem some homebrew that allows improvement to a fighting style. And one that allows extra damage for fighters with extra attacks if they consolidate their attacks. And an option to allocate all or some of one's attack bonus to AC or damage.

I just think those sort of features are better than improved crit, indomitable, 2nd wind, action surge, etc. Am I wrong? Just not sure how to package it, or make it "balanced".

[Telok]

Grappling and other basic battlefield control isn't gated behind feats, and Fighters are pretty damn good at it.

Uh, battlefield control? Could you please elaborate what control options the basic fighter chassis &or champion get beyond the generic grab & shove options that 5e bards, rogues, or barbarians won't do better, and how this is mechanically better than an equal level 3.x fighter who pursued similar options? Because that's what I was talking about.

[JNAProductions]

Uh, battlefield control? Could you please elaborate what control options the basic fighter chassis &or champion get beyond the generic grab & shove options that 5e bards, rogues, or barbarians won't do better, and how this is mechanically better than an equal level 3.x fighter who pursued similar options? Because that's what I was talking about.

Yeah, it’s basic, but it’s there.
And no, a 5E Fighter isn’t as good as a specialized 3.5 Fighter-but they’re miles better if you choose to specialize in anything else.

[Telok]

Yeah, it’s basic, but it’s there.
And no, a 5E Fighter isn’t as good as a specialized 3.5 Fighter-but they’re miles better if you choose to specialize in anything else.

Ah, ok. So it is just grabs & shoves with something like d20+8 being slightly more than d20+3.

[MoiMagnus]

Umm yeah, thus my reference to "overly tactical."

I get simple. I just think the class abilities need to be worth it.

The fighter class already gets 2 more ASI's than most other classes, and the champion gets another fighting style. I've seem some homebrew that allows improvement to a fighting style. And one that allows extra damage for fighters with extra attacks if they consolidate their attacks. And an option to allocate all or some of one's attack bonus to AC or damage.

I just think those sort of features are better than improved crit, indomitable, 2nd wind, action surge, etc. Am I wrong? Just not sure how to package it, or make it "balanced".

I think the Champion is intended to be balanced for casual players. And by casual players, I mean player who will say at the middle of the 7th session "wait, I've just reread the Arcane Recovery of my wizard, and it's good, I forgot I had this ability, I should think about using it next time we rest." (Something like that happened in a campaign I played in).

The kind of improvement you want are I think above the complexity level that a Champion Fighter should have in a no-feat game, which is basically "for peoples who don't want a class but still need one for balance purposes".

Well, you could argue for some more fancy features past level 11, as the player is supposed to have some experience with the game by then. And that would be fair.

[Tanarii]

Well, you could argue for some more fancy features past level 11, as the player is supposed to have some experience with the game by then. And that would be fair.
I'm not really sure there was any assumption on the part of the Devs that players of higher level characters would have some experience with the game by then. As opposed to just stepping into their first game with a higher level premade. In which case a really straight forward sub-class would be key.

Really, the only reason the Champion exists is because Mearls had a bee in his bonnet about his love affair with old school D&D and "I attack" fighters. He's the one that took the awesome that was the 4e Fighter and turned it into the disappointment that was the 4e Essentials Fighter.

Now, 4e Fighters wouldn't work as is in 5e because a large part of their awesome was wedded to the battlemat, and 5e is supposed to be primarily ToTM. Thus the Battlemaster, and to lesser extend the EK. And that same bee in his bonnet did some wonderful things for 5e in other areas.

[JNAProductions]

Ah, ok. So it is just grabs & shoves with something like d20+8 being slightly more than d20+3.

And multiple attacks to do it with.
Not to mention, Expertise is easy to get, for +11 and two attempts by level 6-8.

[paladinn]

I'm not really sure there was any assumption on the part of the Devs that players of higher level characters would have some experience with the game by then. As opposed to just stepping into their first game with a higher level premade. In which case a really straight forward sub-class would be key.

Really, the only reason the Champion exists is because Mearls had a bee in his bonnet about his love affair with old school D&D and "I attack" fighters. He's the one that took the awesome that was the 4e Fighter and turned it into the disappointment that was the 4e Essentials Fighter.

Now, 4e Fighters wouldn't work as is in 5e because a large part of their awesome was wedded to the battlemat, and 5e is supposed to be primarily ToTM. Thus the Battlemaster, and to lesser extend the EK. And that same bee in his bonnet did some wonderful things for 5e in other areas.

So are features like indomitable, action surge and 2nd wind actually worth keeping compared to other potential class abilities? Looking at previous editions, they just seem contrived and almost a 2nd thought. "Oh, there are dead levels.. We have to put Something there."

[PhoenixPhyre]

So are features like indomitable, action surge and 2nd wind actually worth keeping compared to other potential class abilities? Looking at previous editions, they just seem contrived and almost a 2nd thought. "Oh, there are dead levels.. We have to put Something there."

Action Surge and Second Wind? Yes. Definitely. Indomitable...needs work for the level where it appears. It's great in principle, but as implemented has issues.

And I'd put them favorably (and more so for AS) to any 3e feat chain in its entirety. 3e feats (especially fighter bonus feats), with rare exceptions, tended to be "more numbers" or "permission slips to do things you should be able to do already". That is, you needed them to fix the numbers or unlock things that are just baseline in 5e.

Personally, I wish that feats wouldn't give numbers at all. Feats should be about broadening your capabilities--each one should give you meaningful new things you can do. But all the "necessary numbers" (including things like the power attack, cleave, etc) should be just baked into the classes that need them. You should be totally fine mechanically never taking a feat. But feats should all be about letting you branch out.

4e was particularly bad about that--if you didn't take the appropriate X Focus (weapon/implement) feat at level 1, you'd be meaningfully behind the curve. You should never be able to miss a system-expected number-boost. On the converse, feats that "make your primary thing stronger" are also a problem, because those have disproportionate weight. They become "no brainers" or at least verge on doing so for anyone who cares about effectiveness at all.

And some feats need completely overhauled (the cover-ignore bullet point of SS, I'm looking at you, as well as the ease with which you can ignore concentration mechanics via Warcaster and/or Resilient: Wisdom).

[Tanarii]

So are features like indomitable, action surge and 2nd wind actually worth keeping compared to other potential class abilities? Looking at previous editions, they just seem contrived and almost a 2nd thought. "Oh, there are dead levels.. We have to put Something there."
Action Surge and Second Wind, definitely. Those are very useful abilities.

Indomitable needs a rework. TSR fighters were the absolute best at saves at high levels. IMO that's what Indomitable should have been.

What's missing from the base Fighter or even the Battlemaster is 4e at-wills like Tide of Iron or Footwork Lure. BMs and EKs are okay, but it takes to 3rd BM to get the ability to do something for 4 attacks out of 6-8 rounds of combat per SR, and 7th EK before you get your cantrip/attack rotation from War Magic.

[Dame_Mechanus]

See, for all of 5E's "Keep level 1 relevant!" I actually like that the flow of high-level combat feels just like low-level combat. I personally notice the power change and the thematic change with the tiers, but the fact that 30 runs like 20, which runs like 10, which runs like 1, IMO keeps a sort of understandable flow and balance to it.

That's honestly kind of a watchword for me as well, too. What's fun for me is picking things that my girls are good at for level 1 and watching them get progressively better and learning more tricks as they reach level 20. By contrast, it's kind of boring for me to either play a character who will be able to do the things that sound fun in 10 levels or so or who goes from "does the stuff that seemed cool to me at level 1" to "probably should use these abilities to bypass everything because they're amazingly powerful and the first few levels were practice."

Like, reaching level 10 isn't an accomplishment. You can just write that level on your character sheet whenever you want as long as the person running the game agrees. The reward for an adventure should not be "my character finally hit level 11," it should be "wow, that was a fun story with my friends! Also my girl has a new magical spear."


I spent a lot of time digging, and yeah, I'm just not in the mood for it anymore.

Admittedly some of it is me getting spoiled over the years because making a character in 3.5e is a matter of dragging out the books (at least four) and looking at spell lists and cross-referencing feats and talking with the GM and seeing what everyone else is making and recording all the adjustments... and then someone brings out Fate and my character is done in fifteen minutes, twenty if I'm indecisive. D&D is a crunchier game than that, of course, and that's a good thing and suits some games much better, but figuring out how to make a character should feel fun and exciting and not tedious.

[PhoenixPhyre]

That's honestly kind of a watchword for me as well, too. What's fun for me is picking things that my girls are good at for level 1 and watching them get progressively better and learning more tricks as they reach level 20. By contrast, it's kind of boring for me to either play a character who will be able to do the things that sound fun in 10 levels or so or who goes from "does the stuff that seemed cool to me at level 1" to "probably should use these abilities to bypass everything because they're amazingly powerful and the first few levels were practice."

Like, reaching level 10 isn't an accomplishment. You can just write that level on your character sheet whenever you want as long as the person running the game agrees. The reward for an adventure should not be "my character finally hit level 11," it should be "wow, that was a fun story with my friends! Also my girl has a new magical spear."


Agreed. Count me into the "please don't do radical gameplay shifts as you level" camp. Same goes for video games. Games that do so, in my experience, especially group games, tend to end up with most people preferring one or the other style, with a few equally-balanced. So you get something like (assuming the play-styles are split equally across levels and 40:40:20 between the three groups)
a) 40% of the people are bored during the first half
b) the other 40% are bored during the second half.
c) 20% of the people aren't bored at all.

Inevitably boring 80% of the people during the game is...not great design. And doing the split-brain approach tends to either
a) leave one style or the other under-developed
b) leave both of them half-baked.
Because there's just not enough time to do both excellently, especially when they have very different natural paradigms (as high-op, high level 3e T1 play and lower-tier/level play do) that demand different resolution mechanics and approaches to challenges.



Admittedly some of it is me getting spoiled over the years because making a character in 3.5e is a matter of dragging out the books (at least four) and looking at spell lists and cross-referencing feats and talking with the GM and seeing what everyone else is making and recording all the adjustments... and then someone brings out Fate and my character is done in fifteen minutes, twenty if I'm indecisive. D&D is a crunchier game than that, of course, and that's a good thing and suits some games much better, but figuring out how to make a character should feel fun and exciting and not tedious.

Agreed. I'm moderately familiar with the basics of PF1e, but it still took 4+ hours with a specialized software package handling the hard parts to build a relatively simple, relatively low-op Oracle (starting at ~5th level). Because the breadth of options was so wide. Just picking spells required reading through tons of them. And then there are the 2nd-order and higher-order interactions...

[Pex]

Honestly the 3.x fighters mostly suffered early on from a combination of hit point inflation plus damage stagflation plus the bad feat chains. Later on they suffered from having to dump all resources into keeping up their trick or basically abandoning the fighter class.

I don't really feel 5e fighters are, mechanically as a class, an improvement*. They still have to take feats and get magic items (optional, not available in all games) to get power attack or do things beyond hitting stuff, guy in the gym athletics, and having lots of hit points.

Obviously a DM can let the fighters do stuff on rolling a high ability check and deny that to other classes, or the character can take a subclass giving them magic. Of course the most of the subclasses feel like 3.5 multi or prestige classing out of fighter anyways.

* the "no full attack when moving" in 3.x was lousy, but going back to AD&Ds full attack plus move wasn't as big a deal as some make it seem like given some of the massive damage boosts a 3.x fighter could stack on a single attack. Either way it's not a fighter or even melee/mundane improvement, just a reversion to one base combat rule from the 1980s that benefits everyone. Now if we could just get the AD&D opportunity attacks back, fighters could actually block a hallway from 3 goblins in a conga line.

I think you're undervaluing 5E fighters. Action Surge is a big deal, and it doesn't have to be used for Attack. That extra action can make the difference depending on the combat because sometimes you really need to do Two Things in a round. Dash to be in a particular spot Someone must be in. Use An Object to affect the environment or achieve a goal. Even a basic Attack has value because it does make a difference to drop an enemy one round sooner than otherwise. Second Wind is an effective ribbon. Staying up one more round makes a difference.

Champion is simple on purpose and has a right to exist. Some people really do not want to deal with fiddly bits of tracking class resources. Bear Totem barbarians attract the same people. There are other reasons people play Champion and Bear Totem, but those who want simple gravitate towards them. Battlemaster is for tactics. I know Maneuvering Attack is effective. I've used it and literally saved the lives of party members because they really needed to move Right Now. Rune Knight, Psi Warrior, Echo Knight, they have their own tricks useful for even out of combat buttons to push. No feat is a must have for Fighters, though one could argue Resilient (Wisdom) is a stronger contender. Great Weapon Master, Pole Arm Master with or without Sentinel, Sharpshooter, Crossbow Expert, all good and hooray for the fighters who have them, but fighters don't need them. They can achieve damage on their own, but for the fighters who do have them so what? Fighters get extra ASI as their class features, so getting a Feat is a class feature. Taking one of those feats or something else is the on purpose design feature.

[AdAstra]

Action Surge and Second Wind, definitely. Those are very useful abilities.

Indomitable needs a rework. TSR fighters were the absolute best at saves at high levels. IMO that's what Indomitable should have been.

What's missing from the base Fighter or even the Battlemaster is 4e at-wills like Tide of Iron or Footwork Lure. BMs and EKs are okay, but it takes to 3rd BM to get the ability to do something for 4 attacks out of 6-8 rounds of combat per SR, and 7th EK before you get your cantrip/attack rotation from War Magic.

I think Indomitable, instead of being a single feature that just got more uses over multiple levels, probably ought to have been split into multiple separate ones. Some sort of Jack of All Trades-equivalent for saves, to give the Fighter some generalized resilience, and Legendary Resistance, letting them just power through nasty effects every once in a while. Basically as simple, but feels much more impressive. Yeah, it'd be strong, but they're high level fighter features, competing with things like high level spells.

[Telok]

I think you're undervaluing 5E fighters. Action Surge is a big deal, and...

No, we have a pretty good one in our game. Once a SR he can cross a whole map in one turn or lay down good single target damage. Other than that he's just sort of... consistent, and has a "good" athletics score as long as he doesn't roll under 7 or 8. Oh, plus if we throw protection from evil on him he's basically immune to stuff like undead melee mooks.

And that's it. He doesn't have +6 to +11 in five or six non-perception proficiencies like the casters do (because, ya know, str & con basically required to function). He can't stop more than one creature from running past to attack squishies in a 10' corridor. He's functionally ineffective at ranged combat or at doing more than hit point damage & lifting heavy stuff. And I reiterate that the feats are supposedly optional, they should not be the basis of lifting a class out of the only-a-mostly-ok-beatstick morass.

Grabbing & shoving & "halve your damage to maybe affect the environment in a way that maybe makes any difference" basically doesn't do all that much unless the DM is specifically setting it up for you. Set a DC at 20 so the fighter or barbarian strength & athletics matters and they fail half the time. Set it at 15 and the warlock's imp that normally just stays the heck out of combat or delivers touch buffs & heals can make it.

In your games maybe it matters. Maybe you set stuff up explicitly to showcase the fighter's abilities. We get an occasional minor cliff, some stairs, and maybe a pond, creek, or water trough. And it's not like our fighter doesn't try that stuff, it just reduces his damage dealing and most of the important fights the main opponents are mostly going to be immune (size, abilities, incorporeality) or don't care (damage auras, big melee damage, casting).

So, mechanically, it's pretty much like old AD&D except less impressive because he fails way more status effect saves than an AD&D fighter (level 13 these days), he doesn't get his full set of attacks on an opportunity attack, and we aren't rolling ability checks at d20 under stat but d20+mod vs DC 15+. Of course at least he wasn't the barbarian today, that one was down to 100 max hit points before sucking up one of the cleric's last high slots on greater restore and spent a whole 6 round combat failing a DC 16 or so intelligence save stun. There was a guy bemoaning not having the old save paradigms.

[Rukelnikov]

I think Indomitable, instead of being a single feature that just got more uses over multiple levels, probably ought to have been split into multiple separate ones. Some sort of Jack of All Trades-equivalent for saves, to give the Fighter some generalized resilience, and Legendary Resistance, letting them just power through nasty effects every once in a while. Basically as simple, but feels much more impressive. Yeah, it'd be strong, but they're high level fighter features, competing with things like high level spells.

IMO Legendary Resistance belongs to the Barbarian

[Waazraath]

Imo indomitable is generally underestimated. At the higher levels, even bad saves are in my experience boosted enough through items, paladin aura's, bardic inspiration and Artificer's flash of genius and the like that having a second go is really worth it (and not just another shot with e.g. 80% failure). It depends a bit on the table (lots or few items, what party members) but games with both low items in combination with a party without save boosters is rare in my experience.

[Tanarii]

IMO Legendary Resistance belongs to the Barbarian
Barbarians saved ad Fighters in AD&D. So did Rangers. They all benefited from Fighter save awesomeness.

[paladinn]

Barbarians saved ad Fighters in AD&D. So did Rangers. They all benefited from Fighter save awesomeness.

Hmm.. you make me think.. Always a dangerous thing..

I'm not a fan of the barbarian class in general. Are there any features that might look good on the fighter class, or at least on a subclass? Maybe brutal critical? I'm already thinking to grab volley (for a ranged fighter) and whirlwind attack (for a melee fighter) from ranger.

[Willie the Duck]

Personally, I wish that feats wouldn't give numbers at all. Feats should be about broadening your capabilities--each one should give you meaningful new things you can do. But all the "necessary numbers" (including things like the power attack, cleave, etc) should be just baked into the classes that need them. You should be totally fine mechanically never taking a feat. But feats should all be about letting you branch out.
Decidedly. The least interesting thing for me is putting more +s on both side of the equation and pretending it is progress. Give me more (and balanced to be useful) feats like Healer, Inspiring Leader, the get-minor-spellcasting feats (Magic Initiate, Ritual Caster, and so on), and so forth.


Really, the only reason the Champion exists is because Mearls had a bee in his bonnet about his love affair with old school D&D and "I attack" fighters.

Champion is simple on purpose and has a right to exist. Some people really do not want to deal with fiddly bits of tracking class resources. Bear Totem barbarians attract the same people. There are other reasons people play Champion and Bear Totem, but those who want simple gravitate towards them. Battlemaster is for tactics...

I'm going to have to agree with Pex here. Mearls was not the only one who wanted the thing to exist. There is an audience for this kind of character. Mind you, the Champion we got needs work, and it is unfortunate that they didn't actually separate fighter into a complex and non-complex varieties at more than the subclass level (because a Champion as a distinct entity could have been even more straightforward, and because the people that wanted 4e-style fighters could have gotten more of what they wanted), but those are side issues to its' actual existence.


And that's it. He doesn't have +6 to +11 in five or six non-perception proficiencies like the casters do (because, ya know, str & con basically required to function). He can't stop more than one creature from running past to attack squishies in a 10' corridor. He's functionally ineffective at ranged combat or at doing more than hit point damage & lifting heavy stuff. And I reiterate that the feats are supposedly optional, they should not be the basis of lifting a class out of the only-a-mostly-ok-beatstick morass.

Grabbing & shoving & "halve your damage to maybe affect the environment in a way that maybe makes any difference" basically doesn't do all that much unless the DM is specifically setting it up for you. Set a DC at 20 so the fighter or barbarian strength & athletics matters and they fail half the time. Set it at 15 and the warlock's imp that normally just stays the heck out of combat or delivers touch buffs & heals can make it.

In your games maybe it matters. Maybe you set stuff up explicitly to showcase the fighter's abilities. We get an occasional minor cliff, some stairs, and maybe a pond, creek, or water trough. And it's not like our fighter doesn't try that stuff, it just reduces his damage dealing and most of the important fights the main opponents are mostly going to be immune (size, abilities, incorporeality) or don't care (damage auras, big melee damage, casting).

So, mechanically, it's pretty much like old AD&D except less impressive because he fails way more status effect saves than an AD&D fighter (level 13 these days), he doesn't get his full set of attacks on an opportunity attack, and we aren't rolling ability checks at d20 under stat but d20+mod vs DC 15+.
I think that's really where things do fall flat for the fighter -- lack of TSR-era level of spell resilience, skill/general OOC support, and basics of the game combat rules (rather than the fighter class specifically) making being a really capable frontliner not be as impressive as it has sometimes been (not being able to blockade a 10' corridor being a specific example towards a general trend).

[BoutsofInsanity]

Decidedly. The least interesting thing for me is putting more +s on both side of the equation and pretending it is progress. Give me more (and balanced to be useful) feats like Healer, Inspiring Leader, the get-minor-spellcasting feats (Magic Initiate, Ritual Caster, and so on), and so forth.




I'm going to have to agree with Pex here. Mearls was not the only one who wanted the thing to exist. There is an audience for this kind of character. Mind you, the Champion we got needs work, and it is unfortunate that they didn't actually separate fighter into a complex and non-complex varieties at more than the subclass level (because a Champion as a distinct entity could have been even more straightforward, and because the people that wanted 4e-style fighters could have gotten more of what they wanted), but those are side issues to its' actual existence.


I think that's really where things do fall flat for the fighter -- lack of TSR-era level of spell resilience, skill/general OOC support, and basics of the game combat rules (rather than the fighter class specifically) making being a really capable frontliner not be as impressive as it has sometimes been (not being able to blockade a 10' corridor being a specific example towards a general trend).

As we get into the twilight of the 5e ruleset, I've come to the following conclusions on the Martial Caster thingys.

11th level and Lower Martial Characters and Casters are generally even "enough" especially if the DM is using appropriate resource draining Adventuring Days. It's not perfect but it's there. But getting into high level D&D just makes me miss 4e's 30 level spread and how the abilities shifted as you engaged in each tier of gameplay.

Like, as you went up in Tiers the base abilities got better. I could imagine for a Fighter in 5e translating into that upper Tier of gameplay looking like...


80 Base Movement Speed.
A 60 Foot vertical.
Double damage to objects.
3 Reactions per round to make attacks.
No stealth disadvantage to armor.
Automatic proficiency in Athletics or Acrobatics.
Skill Expert Feat twice for free.
Resiliency Feat for free twice.
Indomitable auto-saves.
Advantage on Death Saving Throws.
REACTION to MOVE half your movement enabling you to move out of spell casting AOE's like Force Cage.


Like the issues facing high level martial characters aren't really combat spells outside of the non interactive ones. It's teleport, flight, planeshifts that get in the way. Its the fact that casters can get a lot of the goodies that they can get without heavy investment. It's also partly DM's faults for not world building correctly or removing spell options. Like if added the above abilities to Fighters/Rangers/Barbarians in the upper levels of the game I think it would still work out fine.

[paladinn]

Like the issues facing high level martial characters aren't really combat spells outside of the non interactive ones. It's teleport, flight, planeshifts that get in the way. Its the fact that casters can get a lot of the goodies that they can get without heavy investment. It's also partly DM's faults for not world building correctly or removing spell options. Like if added the above abilities to Fighters/Rangers/Barbarians in the upper levels of the game I think it would still work out fine.

I think a lot of your suggested features would end up making fighters into wuxia characters. Nothing wrong with that as maybe a subclass, but not as a "generic" fighter. IMHO

[Dork_Forge]

As we get into the twilight of the 5e ruleset, I've come to the following conclusions on the Martial Caster thingys.

11th level and Lower Martial Characters and Casters are generally even "enough" especially if the DM is using appropriate resource draining Adventuring Days. It's not perfect but it's there. But getting into high level D&D just makes me miss 4e's 30 level spread and how the abilities shifted as you engaged in each tier of gameplay.

Like, as you went up in Tiers the base abilities got better. I could imagine for a Fighter in 5e translating into that upper Tier of gameplay looking like...


80 Base Movement Speed.
A 60 Foot vertical.
Double damage to objects.
3 Reactions per round to make attacks.
No stealth disadvantage to armor.
Automatic proficiency in Athletics or Acrobatics.
Skill Expert Feat twice for free.
Resiliency Feat for free twice.
Indomitable auto-saves.
Advantage on Death Saving Throws.
REACTION to MOVE half your movement enabling you to move out of spell casting AOE's like Force Cage.


Like the issues facing high level martial characters aren't really combat spells outside of the non interactive ones. It's teleport, flight, planeshifts that get in the way. Its the fact that casters can get a lot of the goodies that they can get without heavy investment. It's also partly DM's faults for not world building correctly or removing spell options. Like if added the above abilities to Fighters/Rangers/Barbarians in the upper levels of the game I think it would still work out fine.

Those suggestions seem incredibly out of place in 5e... period.

80ft movement speed is faster than the average 20th level Monk... with Mobile. That kind of movement speed as standard for any class is crazy and just trivialises too much.

60 ft vertical I assume is jumping? I canget behind Fighters being better at jumping, but 60 ft?

Double damage to objects... I just don't understand why this is a suggestion?

I disagree with multiple reactions being handed out to PCs as standard, the Cavalier already touches on this.

There's only disadvantage to Stealth in certain armors, there's no need to remove than and step on the armors that don't have disadvantage, or the entire category of mithril armors.

Getting four feats, or feats worth in features, on a class that already has 2 ASIs is no, just no.

Indomitible being autosave is alright but removes tension IMO.

Advantage on death saves... death is already so hard to achieve in 5e, there's no need to make it even easier to survive.

The reaction to move seems like a reaction to forum talk about Forcecage being so broken.

[Willie the Duck]

Like, as you went up in Tiers the base abilities got better. I could imagine for a Fighter in 5e translating into that upper Tier of gameplay looking like...

80 Base Movement Speed.
A 60 Foot vertical.
Double damage to objects.
3 Reactions per round to make attacks.
No stealth disadvantage to armor.
Automatic proficiency in Athletics or Acrobatics.
Skill Expert Feat twice for free.
Resiliency Feat for free twice.
Indomitable auto-saves.
Advantage on Death Saving Throws.
REACTION to MOVE half your movement enabling you to move out of spell casting AOE's like Force Cage.


Those are nice and all, but honestly not changing the class at all and just changing the rule framework such that a fighter with the criminal background and a 14-16 Dex could make a competent skulking character or that a fighter with a polearm could actually lock down a front line in a not-featureless plain would do more, IMO.


Like the issues facing high level martial characters aren't really combat spells outside of the non interactive ones. It's teleport, flight, planeshifts that get in the way. Its the fact that casters can get a lot of the goodies that they can get without heavy investment. It's also partly DM's faults for not world building correctly or removing spell options. Like if added the above abilities to Fighters/Rangers/Barbarians in the upper levels of the game I think it would still work out fine.

Those are big, although exactly how often one shifts planes is an open question. You are correct, though, that OOC is where casters really have a huge upper hand.

[BoutsofInsanity]

Those suggestions seem incredibly out of place in 5e... period.

80ft movement speed is faster than the average 20th level Monk... with Mobile. That kind of movement speed as standard for any class is crazy and just trivialises too much.

60 ft vertical I assume is jumping? I canget behind Fighters being better at jumping, but 60 ft?

Double damage to objects... I just don't understand why this is a suggestion?

I disagree with multiple reactions being handed out to PCs as standard, the Cavalier already touches on this.

There's only disadvantage to Stealth in certain armors, there's no need to remove than and step on the armors that don't have disadvantage, or the entire category of mithril armors.

Getting four feats, or feats worth in features, on a class that already has 2 ASIs is no, just no.

Indomitible being autosave is alright but removes tension IMO.

Advantage on death saves... death is already so hard to achieve in 5e, there's no need to make it even easier to survive.

The reaction to move seems like a reaction to forum talk about Forcecage being so broken.

I don't really know how to respond to this. It's like, what's your complaint here? Your telling me that warriors being able to be fast, strong, dynamic, mobile and so forth is not ideal in a world at 15th level plus where casters can turn into dragons?

[Dork_Forge]

I don't really know how to respond to this. It's like, what's your complaint here? Your telling me that warriors being able to be fast, strong, dynamic, mobile and so forth is not ideal in a world at 15th level plus where casters can turn into dragons?

That the extreme you propose does not match the system you're proposing it for. Case in point: Both the Monk and Barbarian are already fast classes, your suggestion blew them both out of the water with added investment.

Your comparison to 'casters turning into dragons' is also... missing some nuance.

Firstly, casters aren't turning into dragons at 15th, they're waiting until 17th level and using their most powerful and limited resource to do it.

Secondly, you can't point to the pinnacle of caster power, restricted by numerous factors, as justification for out-of-bounds passive buffs. I'm not against the description you just gave, but your suggestion of how to implement it does not line up with the system.

I support martials getting nice things, but I also don't think they're as neglected as the echo chamber seems to intermittently suggest they are.

[False God]

That's honestly kind of a watchword for me as well, too. What's fun for me is picking things that my girls are good at for level 1 and watching them get progressively better and learning more tricks as they reach level 20. By contrast, it's kind of boring for me to either play a character who will be able to do the things that sound fun in 10 levels or so or who goes from "does the stuff that seemed cool to me at level 1" to "probably should use these abilities to bypass everything because they're amazingly powerful and the first few levels were practice."
Yeah but the idea that later stuff replaces earlier stuff is pretty central to D&D. It doesn't really matter what edition, "abilities that scale with you" are fairly rare in most D&D editions and it's various spin-offs. Not really saying it's good or bad, just that's how it is.


Like, reaching level 10 isn't an accomplishment. You can just write that level on your character sheet whenever you want as long as the person running the game agrees. The reward for an adventure should not be "my character finally hit level 11," it should be "wow, that was a fun story with my friends! Also my girl has a new magical spear."
Yeah but one of these is a mechanical game-reward and the other one is a fluff role-play reward. I can have a cool story with my friends and get a cool magic item without ever leveling at all, to be honest, I don't even need a system for it. We can all just free-form it (and I've done that). The GAME rewards you for the adventure with level 11 and a cool spear. You and the other players reward you with a fun story.

[Rukelnikov]

Barbarians saved ad Fighters in AD&D. So did Rangers. They all benefited from Fighter save awesomeness.

I remember, but in 5e if any PC class gets LR it should be for the barb IMO. They are the ones who should be the unstoppable juggernauts.

[Dame_Mechanus]

Yeah but one of these is a mechanical game-reward and the other one is a fluff role-play reward. I can have a cool story with my friends and get a cool magic item without ever leveling at all, to be honest, I don't even need a system for it. We can all just free-form it (and I've done that). The GAME rewards you for the adventure with level 11 and a cool spear. You and the other players reward you with a fun story.

Right. My point here is not to point to one or the other and say "this is the One Right Way to do things and all other ways are bad," and my apologies if that's how my words come across; my point here is just that this isn't particularly fun to me. Everyone's going to have different priorities there. For some people, the game and the mechanics are the tools you use to facilitate fun storytelling and character interactions, and for others, the storytelling and interactions are the things you use to facilitate the game mechanics. Neither one of these is the One True Path to having fun with tabletop roleplaying, they just speak to different values and priorities for players.

As the person who specifically brought it up earlier, for example, I like D&D over Fate when I want to run something that's crunchier and relies more on players making tactical decisions and considerations rather than just going with freeform everything. It's not that the latter can't make for entertaining combats, but it's much easier to have entertaining combat when there's more mechanical structure to hang everything upon.

But speaking personally, I prefer 5e's implementation over 3.5e. I don't feel it's a perfect balance of "appreciable and interesting crunch" with "character creation doesn't feel like filling out mortgage paperwork," but it's tilted further in the direction that I personally enjoy.

[Snowbluff]

I think the Champion is intended to be balanced for casual players. And by casual players, I mean player who will say at the middle of the 7th session "wait, I've just reread the Arcane Recovery of my wizard, and it's good, I forgot I had this ability, I should think about using it next time we rest." (Something like that happened in a campaign I played in).



I'm not really sure there was any assumption on the part of the Devs that players of higher level characters would have some experience with the game by then. As opposed to just stepping into their first game with a higher level premade. In which case a really straight forward sub-class would be key.

Really, the only reason the Champion exists is because Mearls had a bee in his bonnet about his love affair with old school D&D and "I attack" fighters. He's the one that took the awesome that was the 4e Fighter and turned it into the disappointment that was the 4e Essentials Fighter. There does have to be some consideration for less involved players. I share MoiMagnus's experience in that I know young/less involved/less tactically minded players who are fine with just a-clicking, personally. I despise it, but I think the system is better of recognizing that there are multiple levels of player. This isn't a video game, with only a limited number of experiences.



Now, 4e Fighters wouldn't work as is in 5e because a large part of their awesome was wedded to the battlemat, and 5e is supposed to be primarily ToTM. Thus the Battlemaster, and to lesser extend the EK. And that same bee in his bonnet did some wonderful things for 5e in other areas.

5e has had options for movement manipulation since core. I'm not sure the additional options for this sort of thing that were added for Tasha's were primarily made for TotM either.

Of course, I don't think fighters in 4e were awesome either. What kind of melee controller defender only functions literally at melee range? :smalltongue:


That the extreme you propose does not match the system you're proposing it for. Case in point: Both the Monk and Barbarian are already fast classes, your suggestion blew them both out of the water with added investment.

Your comparison to 'casters turning into dragons' is also... missing some nuance.

Firstly, casters aren't turning into dragons at 15th, they're waiting until 17th level and using their most powerful and limited resource to do it.

Secondly, you can't point to the pinnacle of caster power, restricted by numerous factors, as justification for out-of-bounds passive buffs. I'm not against the description you just gave, but your suggestion of how to implement it does not line up with the system.

I support martials getting nice things, but I also don't think they're as neglected as the echo chamber seems to intermittently suggest they are.

This has always driven me crazy. I don't find caster-martial debates helpful in the slightest. Again, in they exist in the Champion zone devoid of nuance. People act as if an option of something happening is a certainty, like it's a video game. These are all options, people might not choose to exercise them or they may not choose to exercise them in the same say. Spell casting requires, as a rule, a more judicious use of resources and further understanding of the game rules than the fighter does, and I would argue this is intentional. If someone wants a swordswinger that's more capable of doing a variety of things, there are Paladin and Ranger.

[Waazraath]

That the extreme you propose does not match the system you're proposing it for. Case in point: Both the Monk and Barbarian are already fast classes, your suggestion blew them both out of the water with added investment.

Your comparison to 'casters turning into dragons' is also... missing some nuance.

Firstly, casters aren't turning into dragons at 15th, they're waiting until 17th level and using their most powerful and limited resource to do it.

Secondly, you can't point to the pinnacle of caster power, restricted by numerous factors, as justification for out-of-bounds passive buffs. I'm not against the description you just gave, but your suggestion of how to implement it does not line up with the system.

I support martials getting nice things, but I also don't think they're as neglected as the echo chamber seems to intermittently suggest they are.

Quoted for truth. (and bolded part by me for emphasis)

(and related: https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?612915-Probably-unpopular-take-%96-we-have-large-portions-of-Bo9S-ToB-in-5e-already )

[Ignimortis]

This has always driven me crazy. I don't find caster-martial debates helpful in the slightest. Again, in they exist in the Champion zone devoid of nuance. People act as if an option of something happening is a certainty, like it's a video game. These are all options, people might not choose to exercise them or they may not choose to exercise them in the same say. Spell casting requires, as a rule, a more judicious use of resources and further understanding of the game rules than the fighter does, and I would argue this is intentional. If someone wants a swordswinger that's more capable of doing a variety of things, there are Paladin and Ranger.

The issue here is that both Paladin and Ranger are explicitly magical in the spellcaster sense. So the only complexity and width of ability switch in 5e is "do you have spells?", for the most part. Contrast that with 3.5, where you could have a non-spellcaster character with decent complexity and ability to do varied things (nothing of the Wizard level, but certainly above Fighter and even Paladin or Ranger).

[paladinn]

The issue here is that both Paladin and Ranger are explicitly magical in the spellcaster sense. So the only complexity and width of ability switch in 5e is "do you have spells?", for the most part. Contrast that with 3.5, where you could have a non-spellcaster character with decent complexity and ability to do varied things (nothing of the Wizard level, but certainly above Fighter and even Paladin or Ranger).

Both paladin and ranger started as fighter subclasses back in 0e. IMO they are both actually better left there. Both of them would work hung on the basic 5e fighter chassis. I did a ranger that works just fine: https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?643497-Ranger-Champion-Alternative

There are spell-less paladins out there as well that either separate smites from spells or just use spell slots for smites. I think the spell-less versions are good in that they emphasize that they are fighters first and foremost, not junior clerics and druids.

[Snowbluff]

The issue here is that both Paladin and Ranger are explicitly magical in the spellcaster sense. So the only complexity and width of ability switch in 5e is "do you have spells?", for the most part. Contrast that with 3.5, where you could have a non-spellcaster character with decent complexity and ability to do varied things (nothing of the Wizard level, but certainly above Fighter and even Paladin or Ranger).

And? So much of what you do already exceeds human ability to the point it might as well be magic, especially for the good Fighter subclasses such as Echo Knight, Rune Knight, and Eldritch Knight. Heck, Ki is explicitly called out as magic in the Monk's fluff. This applies to 3.5 as well, with Supernatural and Extraordinary (literally physics defying) with "Blade Magic" on literally page 5 of the Tome of Battle.

Spellcasting isn't just magic in 5e. It's a system of attrition use that has a higher end of decision making in its use. The complexity of a class is often delineated by the presence of it yes, but to ignore spellcasting for being used to increase complexity and rewarding complexity is definitely against the spirit of the design. Additional daily resource mechanics that functioned identically would have required different rule sets and interactions in order to accomplish essentially the same thing. I have no problem with an overarching system of daily slot expenditure, it creates a lot of elegance in the game design.

[Ignimortis]

And? So much of what you do already exceeds human ability to the point it might as well be magic, especially for the good Fighter subclasses such as Echo Knight, Rune Knight, and Eldritch Knight. Heck, Ki is explicitly called out as magic in the Monk's fluff. This applies to 3.5 as well, with Supernatural and Extraordinary (literally physics defying) with "Blade Magic" on literally page 5 of the Tome of Battle.

Spellcasting isn't just magic in 5e. It's a system of attrition use that has a higher end of decision making in its use. The complexity of a class is often delineated by the presence of it yes, but to ignore spellcasting for being used to increase complexity and rewarding complexity is definitely against the spirit of the design. Additional daily resource mechanics that functioned identically would have required different rule sets and interactions in order to accomplish essentially the same thing. I have no problem with an overarching system of daily slot expenditure, it creates a lot of elegance in the game design.
I have no issue with things being magical/supernatural (in fact, I would like for the designers to drop all pretenses that a character above level 7 is "mundane" regardless of class, that might help them make better classes - regardless of whether their power source is magic, ki, sheer transcendent skill or anything else). But I certainly do have an issue with spellcasting being the only subsystem that creates extra complexity above the level of Monk.

I also do not consider it, as done in 5e, to be elegant design, and would rather have multiple subsystems that you can either go all-in on, mix-n-match, or ignore. The only thing 5e accomplishes well is outward simplicity of use (which might or might not fall apart when you get into the system deeper).

[Tanarii]

I have no problem with an overarching system of daily slot expenditure, it creates a lot of elegance in the game design.
Now if only the same system had been extended to all classes, with some abilities usable all the time, some slots coming back on short rests, and some slots coming back on long rests ... :smallamused:

[paladinn]

Now if only the same system had been extended to all classes, with some abilities usable all the time, some slots coming back on short rests, and some slots coming back on long rests ... :smallamused:

Sounds like you really enjoyed the AED concept from 4e

[Tanarii]

Sounds like you really enjoyed the AED concept from 4e
Yes, it was very cleverly done.

It made Fighters / Rogues awesome instead of just "I attack".

It put reasonable limits on full casters to prevent the 5 Minute Workday. As opposed to putting responsibility on the DM to not Do It Wrong(TM) when designing content.

The downside to 4e was it required a battle grid to run combat, and despite introducing the first D&D game structure that was a universal out of combat system, was viewed (and IMX usually played) as being only combat. It also continued to suffer from the 3e-style treadmill.

Overall, comparing 3e and 4e, I found 4e to superior design on many, but not all, fronts.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Overall, comparing 3e and 4e, I found 4e to superior design on many, but not all, fronts.

4e IMO had a lot of great ideas that they implemented...unevenly. Personally, the cosmology was way better than anything before or after[1]. The concept (but not implementation) of power sources was great. Rituals needed more love and less timidity, but are a great idea that should be brought back to replace most of the "exploration" spells. The concept (but not implementation) of skill challenges was good. The concept of Paragon/Epic Destinies was good and ended up turning into the archetypes/subclasses (combined with prestige classes[2]). AEDU was ok, but the concept of standardizing refresh rates was excellent, as was the idea of Healing Surges (which turned roughly into Hit Dice). Freeing people from the constraints of "realism" was an excellent idea, as was re-focusing on fantasy adventuring, rather than trying to simulate the entire world. Splitting monster design from PC design[3] is a superb idea. Doing away with level-by-level multiclassing is something I'm all for.

[1] the Great Wheel is trash-tier worldbuilding, and that's a hill I will die on.
[2] which are something I'm very glad to see excised from the game entirely
[3] 4e was way further down that path than 5e ever went, and it was good (even if I wasn't so fond of the narrow level band concept for balancing fights)

[Snowbluff]

I have no issue with things being magical/supernatural (in fact, I would like for the designers to drop all pretenses that a character above level 7 is "mundane" regardless of class, that might help them make better classes - regardless of whether their power source is magic, ki, sheer transcendent skill or anything else). But I certainly do have an issue with spellcasting being the only subsystem that creates extra complexity above the level of Monk.

I also do not consider it, as done in 5e, to be elegant design, and would rather have multiple subsystems that you can either go all-in on, mix-n-match, or ignore. The only thing 5e accomplishes well is outward simplicity of use (which might or might not fall apart when you get into the system deeper).
Simplicity is relative. Neither 3e or 4e are simpler. I do wish for more subsystems, but it is elegant for the long rest, slot using abilities to be put under the same umbrella.

I will point out another thing about 5e is that added effects are often placed as attachment to standard attacks. Stunning Fist, Smite, Maneuvers, etc. Of course, all of these have different rules for their resource consumption, but they are applied in a similar manner to each other. Another thing I like about the attack action in relation to 3e editions, is it is the sole, core mode of slicing someone, as opposed to Full Attack/Standard Attack and its varieties being largely delineated with a large number of accompanying rules that apply to one and not the other (in core alone look at TWF/Rapid Shot/Multishot etc). Pulling something like the ToB forward would likely mean working in 5e's framework rather than 3e's.

I like some things about 4e but I still definitely prefer 5e's use of the Attack action and its movement system. Also usually being left to a single attack per turn is pretty lousy feeling compared to other editions where multiple attacks are standard. Not to mention that despite testament to the contrary, 4e is very much a TTRPG like many others in terms of design, which means inconsistently applied and designed rules like "musical instruments are wondrous items that are used as implements are a category of item, with no tag in a tag heavy system, that have their own rules for how to use one. These rules are not presented in most sources of these items."

I could go further into things I think 5e does much, much better than 4e, and what good things it brought forward from it, but I think that's a different thread.

Now if only the same system had been extended to all classes, with some abilities usable all the time, some slots coming back on short rests, and some slots coming back on long rests ... :smallamused:

What class doesn't have spells as an option? Barbarian. Oh boy, barbarian. Fighter gets a lot of flak but barbarian is an a-click machine. :smallyuk:
There is also Warlock getting their spells back on a short rest, as well as wizard getting some back on a short rest.
So I feel like this is already the case.

I play 4e a lot. AED is full of holes. It was published for so long with so much splat, and we still only have 2 subsytems in the whole thing. It's elegant, but lacks the judicious use of powerful resources that spell slots simply did. This limits game experiences substantially. Relatively balanced, sure, but that means relatively little you can do with it as a system when so constrained.

[paladinn]

[1] the Great Wheel is trash-tier worldbuilding, and that's a hill I will die on.

Can you please define "trash tier"?

I had a Lot of problems with 4e, to the point that I never played it even after I got the books. I did think the alignment system was an interesting throwback to the Holmes model. "Chaotic evil" was a step beyond just "Evil"; which sort of made demons more evil than devils.

Requiring a mat and minis was the killer for me. Everything about the game was tactical. It was just.. not D&D for me.

It was also a bit annoying the way classes were "developed." Basically you had a spreadsheet with Role on one side and Power Source on the other, and each class had to fill a cell in the sheet. For a long time I could never understand where the "Martial Controller" was until someone 'splained, "Oh, that's the role of an archery-focused ranger" Really?? I know some classes/builds naturally fill a specific role, but to codify it all seemed very artificial.

[Xervous]

.

It was also a bit annoying the way classes were "developed." Basically you had a spreadsheet with Role on one side and Power Source on the other, and each class had to fill a cell in the sheet. For a long time I could never understand where the "Martial Controller" was until someone 'splained, "Oh, that's the role of an archery-focused ranger" Really?? I know some classes/builds naturally fill a specific role, but to codify it all seemed very artificial.

I must say the archery ranger was effective, even though it only had one main status condition it inflicted: dead.

[Telok]

The only things I, personally, despised about 4e were:
1. That the "utility" powers were often so pathetic or were really just combat powers that weren't direct attacks, plus a weak & lousy skill system with the level appropriate dcs. And that really made the game from "D&D: rpg game" to "Combat: D&D flavored"
2. All the damn niggling little +/-1 or 2 status effects with saves and saves and saves to try to keop track of. We tried 3 or 4 different systems of tracking that **** and nothing worked well.
3. It was all about huge piles of hit points, and they were bloody ****ing stupid huge that took forever to grind through after your three or four not-**** attacks in a fight.

[Snowbluff]

The only things I, personally, despised about 4e were:
1. That the "utility" powers were often so pathetic or were really just combat powers that weren't direct attacks, plus a weak & lousy skill system with the level appropriate dcs. And that really made the game from "D&D: rpg game" to "Combat: D&D flavored"
2. All the damn niggling little +/-1 or 2 status effects with saves and saves and saves to try to keop track of. We tried 3 or 4 different systems of tracking that **** and nothing worked well.
3. It was all about huge piles of hit points, and they were bloody ****ing stupid huge that took forever to grind through after your three or four not-**** attacks in a fight.

1) Yeah everycheck does feel like it has the truenamer problem from 3e, where DCs just scale with you so it's often difficult to get head.
2) It is tricky and I think it was intentional most small bonuses were left behind in 5e. Even with token markers many players and DMs I play with forget effects.
3) See 1, in that the best utility powers are the combat able ones. Some utilities like Glib Tongue and Life's Losing Hand simply made you better that both skill challenges and combat. Others were just a lump in one or both, and not using the ones good at combat often hampered your effectiveness.




I must say the archery ranger was effective, even though it only had one main status condition it inflicted: dead.

4e heuristics for ever noob to follow.

1) Defender and Controller are actually the same role.
2) Leader and striker are actually the same role.
3) Everyone is actually a striker because that's the only way to end encounters in 4e.

:smalltongue:

[PhoenixPhyre]

Can you please define "trash tier"?


It's entirely an exercise in box-checking. Most of the planes are just empty expanses (or are internally incoherent). The concept of infinite planes (or infinite anything) means that everything breaks down unless you put really artificial safeguards. Because infinity isn't a number.

It's also really crappy to try to adventure in, due to the "mostly just empty" thing. And the planar-specific challenges mostly just boil down to "do you have the appropriate immunity? Ok, good to go."

Modeling the outer planes rigidly along alignment lines encodes the worst parts of alignment into the cosmology.

I could go on, but it basically boils down to "I don't like it at all", like all other tiering statements about subjective matters :smallwink:

[paladinn]

It's entirely an exercise in box-checking. Most of the planes are just empty expanses (or are internally incoherent). The concept of infinite planes (or infinite anything) means that everything breaks down unless you put really artificial safeguards. Because infinity isn't a number.

It's also really crappy to try to adventure in, due to the "mostly just empty" thing. And the planar-specific challenges mostly just boil down to "do you have the appropriate immunity? Ok, good to go."

Modeling the outer planes rigidly along alignment lines encodes the worst parts of alignment into the cosmology.

I could go on, but it basically boils down to "I don't like it at all", like all other tiering statements about subjective matters :smallwink:

I just see the word "tier" being thrown around a lot, with lots of different implied meanings, and not all accurate. There are tiers of levels, tiers of classes, tiers of spells. Someone decided back in 3e that wizards and clerics are "tier 1" while fighters are like "tier 17."

Ultimately it's all a matter of personal opinion. Using "tier" implies that everything else has been "tierized." I'm not sure that "trash tier" is at all helpful without a frame of reference.

[Telok]

1) Yeah everycheck does feel like it has the truenamer problem from 3e, where DCs just scale with you so it's often difficult to get head. Well, you could sort of break stuff by getting a bonus of about +10/+11 over most of the rest of the party because of the take 10 instead of rolling on anything setup. We had that with a druid & perception plus a rogue & stealth. Someone choosing their minimum result to be equal or greater than basically everyone elses maximum posdible result and no real group buffs, the skill system... well you see the same thing in 5e with the +17 perception before modifiers builds. That was expected in 3.x and had counters/alternates in the system, not so much after that.



It's also really crappy to try to adventure in, due to the "mostly just empty" thing. And the planar-specific challenges mostly just boil down to "do you have the appropriate immunity? Ok, good to go."

Change "immunity" to "magic" plus add "if you don't then you can't" at the end and I think you just described 3e, 4e, and 5e winderness, ocean, and planar exploration in general. If I recall the last edition to publish an actual book, or indeed anything significant & useful, about exploration in general was AD&D 1e &or 2e.

[Tanarii]

4e IMO had a lot of great ideas that they implemented...unevenly.


Requiring a mat and minis was the killer for me. Everything about the game was tactical. It was just.. not D&D for me.
Both of these are fair statements. I enjoyed 4e a lot, and it had a lot of improvements, many of which either made it into 5e or at least influenced the shape of 5e classes, but it also had a lot of flaws. Sometimes of those influences were by being a negative, just as the gear treadmill and the fiddly bonuses in play issue, both of which were also 3e issues. Also being more tactical / battlemat than even the heavily tactical 3e, which of course could be positive or negative depending on group.

But the complaint I'll never understand is against the AEDU system, especially in regards to Martials. The AEDU system was a vast improvement, and while Mearls turned out to do many things right with 5e, he did violence to the Fighter, Barbarian and Rogue classes. They were greatly diminished beyond what we'd been shown they could be.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Change "immunity" to "magic" plus add "if you don't then you can't" at the end and I think you just described 3e, 4e, and 5e winderness, ocean, and planar exploration in general. If I recall the last edition to publish an actual book, or indeed anything significant & useful, about exploration in general was AD&D 1e &or 2e.

You can explore the wilderness (in any edition) and most of the (4e) planes just fine without special magic or immunities. And you can do ocean exploration with relatively simple magic/gear (a boat for most of it, or a 2nd level spell/uncommon item for the rest). And there are meaningful differences even if you do have magic (other than just skipping past it via teleport). A forest feels much different and has challenges a mountain doesn't, and vice versa. The broad sight lines of plains produce very different challenges than the limited (if any) sight lines of a dense jungle. All you need is a DM who looks beyond "can you find food and water" for challenges.

But the Great Wheel planes (especially the 3e elemental planes) are basically "you're not immune? You die. You are immune? It's just a palette swap for mundane terrain." 5e's a mixed bag, but the planes just don't work for adventuring.

Plus, you get weird dissonance--the planes are infinite...but everything interesting happens in one or two locations within them. And they're basically featureless beyond that. It's entirely one-note. And, as mentioned, infinity messes up all sorts of worldbuilding.

The worst, however, is 5e's procrustean bed model, where every setting is forced into the exact same cosmology and all the interesting metaphysical bits are lopped off or explained away as "they're just ignorant and don't realize that X is really just <multiverse Y>". Especially where the gods/origin myths are concerned.

[paladinn]

But the complaint I'll never understand is against the AEDU system, especially in regards to Martials. The AEDU system was a vast improvement, and while Mearls turned out to do many things right with 5e, he did violence to the Fighter, Barbarian and Rogue classes. They were greatly diminished beyond what we'd been shown they could be.

Again, I think it was the implementation. So many of the "cool new" martial abilities were very tactical in nature. "Pushing your opponent X squares" or "adding to your allies' AC within Y squares" by definition requires a mat. I think it would have been very difficult to port those into 5e without the same requirements; and Mearls and company did right (IMO) to restore D&D to "theater of the mind."

So the question is, how could those "cool martial powers" be adapted to a game without a mat?

[Segev]

Again, I think it was the implementation. So many of the "cool new" martial abilities were very tactical in nature. "Pushing your opponent X squares" or "adding to your allies' AC within Y squares" by definition requires a mat. I think it would have been very difficult to port those into 5e without the same requirements; and Mearls and company did right (IMO) to restore D&D to "theater of the mind."

So the question is, how could those "cool martial powers" be adapted to a game without a mat?

I mean, translate "N squares" to "5xN feet." That's what 5e does.

5e takes a lot of the good ideas from 4e and does a better job dressing them up to play like D&D, rather than like a fantasy combat simulator that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike D&D.

I actually think 5e would benefit a bit from taking a nod from 3.5 and experimenting with some additional subsystems for different kinds of features. Expand the battle master's maneuvers into a full subsystem usable by more subclasses across multiple classes. I support the notion of changing it so that all fighters get maneuvers. Maybe even make superiority dice have a mechanic to play into Eldritch Knight casting in some fashion.

But, structurally, every class needs more short rest features. They need to be leaning more heavily into short rests restoring just enough to keep you going, so that 15 minutes of adventuring followed by a nearly full day of building fortifications and waiting until you can long rest again happens before you can move on. Time pressure is not developed well enough to punish that style of play, and PC boredom is realistically something they'd put up with in character when their lives are on the line. And not something players have to deal with, so there's no "impatience" factor in RL decision-making.

The fact they're heading for more Proficiency Bonus/LR abilities rather than 1-2/SR abilities is a bad decision on WotC's part, and is only going to make the game's problems worse, not better.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Again, I think it was the implementation. So many of the "cool new" martial abilities were very tactical in nature. "Pushing your opponent X squares" or "adding to your allies' AC within Y squares" by definition requires a mat. I think it would have been very difficult to port those into 5e without the same requirements; and Mearls and company did right (IMO) to restore D&D to "theater of the mind."

So the question is, how could those "cool martial powers" be adapted to a game without a mat?

Really, all you have to do is translate "1 square" to "5 feet". Sure, the heavy dependence on forced movement is messy, but there are lots of powers to that effect currently (cf warlocks).

What they did was strip out most the non-damage effects from martials because people got in a tizzy about "sword magic".

Looking at the 4e Fighter at-wills:
* Cleave: attack against one, plus some splash damage on hit
* Reaping Strike: Attack against one, plus some damage on a miss (more if 2H weapon)
* Sure Strike: More accurate attack, but without the STR mod to damage.
* Tide of Iron (shield): Attack one, push it on hit (if one size larger or smaller) and move (no OAs) into its square.

All of those would translate basically fine.

Level 1 Encounter powers:
* Covering Atack: Big Attack vs 1, ally adjacent to target can move 10' without provoking
* Passing Attack: Attack vs 1, then move 5' (no OA) and attack someone else.
* Spinning Sweep: Attack and prone on hit.
* Steel Serpent Strike: Big hit vs 1, target is slowed (reduced to 10' move in any mode) and cannot shift (ie no 5' step) until end of next turn.

All of those would translate just fine, and some are akin to battlemaster maneuvers.

[Spacehamster]

For me, main gripe with 5e is feats were introduced as an optional rule and replace ASI instead of being a separate entity. If you got one less ASI but on each ASI would also pick a feat that would be so nice, just power up the half feats slightly and remove their ability score bump and you would be golden. This would lead to more varied play since you could pick feats to lean into a certain flavor/fantasy for your character.

And yep I miss the multitudes of options from 3.5 as well but would say the pathfinder 1e system is better if wanting rules heavy since they made martial characters much more fun. :)

[paladinn]

Really, all you have to do is translate "1 square" to "5 feet". Sure, the heavy dependence on forced movement is messy, but there are lots of powers to that effect currently (cf warlocks).

What they did was strip out most the non-damage effects from martials because people got in a tizzy about "sword magic".

Looking at the 4e Fighter at-wills:
* Cleave: attack against one, plus some splash damage on hit
* Reaping Strike: Attack against one, plus some damage on a miss (more if 2H weapon)
* Sure Strike: More accurate attack, but without the STR mod to damage.
* Tide of Iron (shield): Attack one, push it on hit (if one size larger or smaller) and move (no OAs) into its square.

All of those would translate basically fine.

Level 1 Encounter powers:
* Covering Atack: Big Attack vs 1, ally adjacent to target can move 10' without provoking
* Passing Attack: Attack vs 1, then move 5' (no OA) and attack someone else.
* Spinning Sweep: Attack and prone on hit.
* Steel Serpent Strike: Big hit vs 1, target is slowed (reduced to 10' move in any mode) and cannot shift (ie no 5' step) until end of next turn.

All of those would translate just fine, and some are akin to battlemaster maneuvers.

Cleave, Reaping Strike and Sure Strike have all been around since BECMI, maybe under different names. In 3e I think they were all repackaged as feats. The others seem a bit tactical for a basic fighter; that's what the Battlemaster is for.

The problem is, I don't think things like Cleave, Power Attack/Smash/Reaping Strike, etc. have been effectively brought forward to 5e. All of those are things that should be available for "basic" fighters. I've got a list of a few other things as well. Just not sure how to work them into the "Champion" subclass or the fighter class. None of them are good enough to be 5e feats.

[Brookshw]

5e's a mixed bag, but the planes just don't work for adventuring.

Plus, you get weird dissonance--the planes are infinite...but everything interesting happens in one or two locations within them. And they're basically featureless beyond that. It's entirely one-note. And, as mentioned, infinity messes up all sorts of worldbuilding.


Absolutely untrue, I've run PS campaigns that lasted years with plenty of unique locations, environmental effects, various adventure types (many of which wouldn't make sense on a Prime); emptiness was never an issue. I believe you started in 4e, and may not be familiar with the PS supplements that helped flesh out the planes; they're worth a look still.

Also, "Infinity" is useful, there's always blank map space to place things.

[Ignimortis]

Simplicity is relative. Neither 3e or 4e are simpler. I do wish for more subsystems, but it is elegant for the long rest, slot using abilities to be put under the same umbrella.
My general issue with 5e is that it's very predicated on the rest structure, short rests are poorly thought-out, and there are no classes beyond Rogue who can actually do their cool special thing every turn or at least on 3 out of 4 their turns all day long without needing rests.



I will point out another thing about 5e is that added effects are often placed as attachment to standard attacks. Stunning Fist, Smite, Maneuvers, etc. Of course, all of these have different rules for their resource consumption, but they are applied in a similar manner to each other. Another thing I like about the attack action in relation to 3e editions, is it is the sole, core mode of slicing someone, as opposed to Full Attack/Standard Attack and its varieties being largely delineated with a large number of accompanying rules that apply to one and not the other (in core alone look at TWF/Rapid Shot/Multishot etc). Pulling something like the ToB forward would likely mean working in 5e's framework rather than 3e's.
All of these are in 3e too, and they generally work in the same way. Also, I intensely dislike the Attack action, since it tends to create a lot of issues down the line. I think I've made a thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?644161-The-D-amp-D-Basic-Attack-Issue) about it. I much prefer 4e's at-wills, and I see ways to positively iterate on them, too.



I like some things about 4e but I still definitely prefer 5e's use of the Attack action and its movement system. Also usually being left to a single attack per turn is pretty lousy feeling compared to other editions where multiple attacks are standard. Not to mention that despite testament to the contrary, 4e is very much a TTRPG like many others in terms of design, which means inconsistently applied and designed rules like "musical instruments are wondrous items that are used as implements are a category of item, with no tag in a tag heavy system, that have their own rules for how to use one. These rules are not presented in most sources of these items."

I see people having a single "attack" per turn as an improvement, because it means you can easily ratchet up the expected hit chance to 80% or so, reduce HP bloat noticeably and put more thought into what your attack does beyond doing damage. 5e's Attack action and movement system does not encourage any specific maneuvers or pre-planning your movement for anything more than "can I hit that guy on this turn" - unlike, say, Pathfinder 2e's action and movement system, which is set up in a very specific way that discourages moving around too much or charging in, and encourages setting up chokepoints, knocking people down so that they have to spend an action getting up, and waiting for people to come to you, or keeping your distance as a ranged attacker, because it takes away from your opponent's actions they could otherwise use for attacking.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Cleave, Reaping Strike and Sure Strike have all been around since BECMI, maybe under different names. In 3e I think they were all repackaged as feats. The others seem a bit tactical for a basic fighter; that's what the Battlemaster is for.

The problem is, I don't think things like Cleave, Power Attack/Smash/Reaping Strike, etc. have been effectively brought forward to 5e. All of those are things that should be available for "basic" fighters. I've got a list of a few other things as well. Just not sure how to work them into the "Champion" subclass or the fighter class. None of them are good enough to be 5e feats.

I was just saying that it doesn't seem there's much difficulty in technically implementing them. They're not too fiddly/tactical even for TotM play at the system level. And I agree that, frankly, most of those options should be relatively available to fighters and barbarians. Cleave shouldn't be locked behind a talent on one particular subset of weapons. Heck, just saying "anyone can cleave with a non-light weapon; give up the STR mod damage to the primary target and one other creature nearby takes that damage instead on hit". Done. Could even say that heavy weapons keep the STR mod vs primary target.

I've got a (very WIP) project to add "Weapon Talents" as a parallel path for things like that. Those are a bit more weapon specific, but include most of the basic effects.

[paladinn]

I was just saying that it doesn't seem there's much difficulty in technically implementing them. They're not too fiddly/tactical even for TotM play at the system level. And I agree that, frankly, most of those options should be relatively available to fighters and barbarians. Cleave shouldn't be locked behind a talent on one particular subset of weapons. Heck, just saying "anyone can cleave with a non-light weapon; give up the STR mod damage to the primary target and one other creature nearby takes that damage instead on hit". Done. Could even say that heavy weapons keep the STR mod vs primary target.

I've got a (very WIP) project to add "Weapon Talents" as a parallel path for things like that. Those are a bit more weapon specific, but include most of the basic effects.

A problem, at least in 5e, is that almost anything you do in the way of these kind of bonuses runs a risk of blowing "bounded accuracy." I've been told that even the equivalent of a weapon focus feat is not allowed because of this.

I agree about the concept. I've worked on a list of "tactics" for "basic" fighters (I had Champions in mind). But I'm not sure how to work them into the mix for Champions. And I'm not sure other martials need that sort of buff.

[JNAProductions]

A problem, at least in 5e, is that almost anything you do in the way of these kind of bonuses runs a risk of blowing "bounded accuracy." I've been told that even the equivalent of a weapon focus feat is not allowed because of this.

I agree about the concept. I've worked on a list of "tactics" for "basic" fighters (I had Champions in mind). But I'm not sure how to work them into the mix for Champions. And I'm not sure other martials need that sort of buff.

You were told weapon focus was a bad idea not just because it breaks system math, but mostly because it’s the worst combo of powerful and boring.

It’s good enough that you’d be silly to not take it, but doesn’t add anything fun other than “number gets bigger”.
It’s exactly what a feat should NOT be.

[Spacehamster]

You were told weapon focus was a bad idea not just because it breaks system math, but mostly because it’s the worst combo of powerful and boring.

It’s good enough that you’d be silly to not take it, but doesn’t add anything fun other than “number gets bigger”.
It’s exactly what a feat should NOT be.

When feats are so rare as in 5e I agree, if plentiful like for a 3.5 or pathfinder fighter, boring but strong works well to. :)

[Telok]

You can explore the wilderness (in any edition) and most of the (4e) planes just fine without special magic or immunities. And you can do ocean exploration with relatively simple magic/gear (a boat for most of it, or a 2nd level spell/uncommon item for the rest). And there are meaningful differences...
...All you need is a DM who looks beyond "can you find food and water" for challenges.

I was being a bit hyperbolic, but the game requires DM buy in & extra effort to get anything more than a string of rooms with monsters guarding a bit of treasure.

Technically all you need is DM effort & buy in to walk through & explore a forest, boat across & explore an ocean, or stumble across a portal and end up in the astral (heya, astral projection at level 1 without a spell! just add fiat!), or just not get lost in a 20 house one street village. But I haven't seen evidence of anything more robust than telling the DM to make up skill checks and fights if the players don't bypass stuff with magic.

AD&D is just the last edition that I recall putting out real amounts of general and specific exploration content & rules for people to use. I personally don't consider wotc's approach of a few environment hazards, a map or two, a couple mini-dungeons, and a handful of random event/encounter charts to be "exploration". Especially not when they're usually hidden in pricey "this is just another adventure" books.

Who knows? Maybe we'll get lucky and the new Spelljammer stuff won't be a horrible retcon **** up or a dull mess of derivitive regurgitated old ideas hidden behind 10% new artwork. That would be a great place for exploration material with the "new undiscovered worlds" theme traditional in SJ.

Edit:
You were told weapon focus was a bad idea not just because it breaks system math, but mostly because it’s the worst combo of powerful and boring.

It’s good enough that you’d be silly to not take it, but doesn’t add anything fun other than “number gets bigger”.
It’s exactly what a feat should NOT be. And magic items!

[PhoenixPhyre]

I was being a bit hyperbolic, but the game requires DM buy in & extra effort to get anything more than a string of rooms with monsters guarding a bit of treasure.


It needs DM buy in and extra effort for everything. By design. And is the better for it. Even a string of rooms with monsters guarding a bit of treasure requires DM buy in and extra effort.

[paladinn]

You were told weapon focus was a bad idea not just because it breaks system math, but mostly because it’s the worst combo of powerful and boring.

It’s good enough that you’d be silly to not take it, but doesn’t add anything fun other than “number gets bigger”.
It’s exactly what a feat should NOT be.

But this doesn't answer the question. Let's say a player wanted his fighter to be able to cleave. How could "tactics" like that be packaged and made available? There's no way it's good enough to sacrifice an ASI; but there's no real way to gain features otherwise.

[PhoenixPhyre]

But this doesn't answer the question. Let's say a player wanted his fighter to be able to cleave. How could "tactics" like that be packaged and made available? There's no way it's good enough to sacrifice an ASI; but there's no real way to gain features otherwise.

That's stupid simple. That one, in particular, can just be a thing anyone with martial proficiency can do. At most, gate it behind wielding a weapon with STR (so no finesse cleave). Done. It's just a Special Attack you can use.

For a more detailed implementation:

Cleave
When you take the Attack action with a melee weapon and are using Strength, you can replace one attack with a cleave. Make a melee attack against one creature within your reach. If you hit, you do not add your Strength modifier to the damage dealt, but one other creature of your choice within your reach takes damage equal to your Strength modifier. Special: If you're wielding a weapon with the heavy or two-handed properties, both the original target and the secondary target take damage equal to your Strength modifier on a hit.

----

Wording can be cleaned up, to be sure. But lots of the 4e stuff can be just ported over pretty directly. Or added as a class feature.

But Weapon Focus is a horrible example of something, because its entire existence was "fix the fact that the numbers didn't work as written". Which is a thing that should never have been--get the numbers right from the get go. It gives nothing to the game.

[BoutsofInsanity]

But this doesn't answer the question. Let's say a player wanted his fighter to be able to cleave. How could "tactics" like that be packaged and made available? There's no way it's good enough to sacrifice an ASI; but there's no real way to gain features otherwise.

From the DMG.

"Cleaving through Creatures
If your player characters regularly fight hordes of lower-level monsters, consider using this optional rule to help speed up such fights.

When a melee attack reduces an undamaged creature to 0 hit points, any excess damage from that attack might carry over to another creature nearby. The attacker targets another creature within reach and, if the original attack roll can hit it, applies any remaining damage to it. If that creature was undamaged and is likewise reduced to 0 hit points, repeat this process, carrying over the remaining damage until there are no valid targets, or until the damage carried over fails to reduce an undamaged creature to 0 hit points."
---------------------------
That's an optional rule in the DMG.
----------------------------------
"Before you add a new rule to your campaign, ask yourself two questions:


Will the rule improve the game?
Will my players like it?


If you’re confident that the answer to both questions is yes, then you have nothing to lose by giving it a try. Urge your players to provide feedback. If the rule or game element isn’t functioning as intended or isn’t adding much to your game, you can refine it or ditch it. No matter what a rule’s source, a rule serves you, not the other way around."

Bolded emphasis mine. It's the best and worst part about 5e. You are expected to tailor your game to your specific table. For DM's like me, who are invested in their game and have time to do so, this is the best edition of D&D ever. EVER. I have to do so little work to make my game feel the way I want it to feel that it's mind boggling.

But for some DM's who do not have the time or investment, and struggle with taking the time to study or prep, 5e can feel a bit obtuse or clunky.

[Snowbluff]

All of these are in 3e too, and they generally work in the same way. Also, I intensely dislike the Attack action, since it tends to create a lot of issues down the line. I think I've made a thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?644161-The-D-amp-D-Basic-Attack-Issue) about it. I much prefer 4e's at-wills, and I see ways to positively iterate on them, too.


I see people having a single "attack" per turn as an improvement, because it means you can easily ratchet up the expected hit chance to 80% or so, reduce HP bloat noticeably and put more thought into what your attack does beyond doing damage. 5e's Attack action and movement system does not encourage any specific maneuvers or pre-planning your movement for anything more than "can I hit that guy on this turn" - unlike, say, Pathfinder 2e's action and movement system, which is set up in a very specific way that discourages moving around too much or charging in, and encourages setting up chokepoints, knocking people down so that they have to spend an action getting up, and waiting for people to come to you, or keeping your distance as a ranged attacker, because it takes away from your opponent's actions they could otherwise use for attacking.

I'm going to preface this by admitting that Pathfinder 2's action system is the worst in every way imaginable. This is often cited as "the best thing about it" and if that's the best thing, no one should play it. PF2's action system doesn't have a way to solve it's ailments within itself, the problems are intrinsic. Your complaint about the Attack Action is solvable (and is even currently solved) with the framework 5e establishes, with attacks being altered with special moves, modifiers that add another effect that attach themselves to an otherwise ordinary attack.

I could go on about that, but to bring that to the topic at hand. In 3.5, a huge and frequent complaint is that Full Attacks are largely mutually exclusive with movement. This meant that melee characters were hampered with a primarily unfriendly action system to their playstyle. Pathfinder 2 enforces this terrible aspect about 3e without a hint of irony or understanding.

What 5e does, essentially, is looks what people would be taxed for and just let them have it. No need for a long feat chain to give every Spring Attack/Flyby, or Pounce, or that sort of them. You're able to use your movement freely, and you can even mix movements! You still have the ability to physically block space, and opportunity attacks still exist to discourage disengagement. If you force someone outside of attack range, they might opt to use their action otherwise.

This also rolls back into why the attack action is better the way it is. Since the action scales differently for each class, the classes that do get better scaling (well fighter, mostly, and to a lesser extent the other extra attacks) also don't lose attacks for using 5e's special moves, if they have them. If there was a ToB for 5e, it would be vastly unfair if the maneuvers available to both say, Fighter and Rogue, took an Action to perform the same move. Instead, 5e would probably express Lightning Throw as "When you make an attack, you can throw your weapon x squares and do x bonus damage. Your weapon returns to your hand after the attack is made."

As for special moves themselves, I'm not saying there shouldn't be more of them, just that the framework of them being attached to attacks a free action riders fits well with multiple class this way. I think that Battlemaster probably should have been rolled into the melee guys. I will point out that as it stands, some classes get more use with continuous special moves. Swarm Keeper is also up there with rogue on having it all of the time, but I'm not sure if rogues "do more damage" should count towards wanting more varied effects like you said in the thread. Basically all rangers and half of all clerics would count, otherwise. Bladesinger, for as hilarious as this ability being limited to wizard sub, does get to blend cantrips with their attacks.



I see people having a single "attack" per turn as an improvement, because it means you can easily ratchet up the expected hit chance to 80% or so, reduce HP bloat noticeably and put more thought into what your attack does beyond doing damage. It's just math at that point. I did say feels because it's more of a personal thing that than a strategic one. It does kind suck to make your one roll then pass it if it doesn't do anything. This is the best thing about PF2's action system, for it's 1 credit in a blood-filled sea of demerits, is that it lets you attack more at level 1.

[paladinn]

That's stupid simple. That one, in particular, can just be a thing anyone with martial proficiency can do. At most, gate it behind wielding a weapon with STR (so no finesse cleave). Done. It's just a Special Attack you can use.

For a more detailed implementation:

Cleave
When you take the Attack action with a melee weapon and are using Strength, you can replace one attack with a cleave. Make a melee attack against one creature within your reach. If you hit, you do not add your Strength modifier to the damage dealt, but one other creature of your choice within your reach takes damage equal to your Strength modifier. Special: If you're wielding a weapon with the heavy or two-handed properties, both the original target and the secondary target take damage equal to your Strength modifier on a hit.

----

Wording can be cleaned up, to be sure. But lots of the 4e stuff can be just ported over pretty directly. Or added as a class feature.

But Weapon Focus is a horrible example of something, because its entire existence was "fix the fact that the numbers didn't work as written". Which is a thing that should never have been--get the numbers right from the get go. It gives nothing to the game.

So you would see it as a feat? Is it really worth giving up an ASI?

I see this as also reproducing the old "multi-attacks vs. creatures < 1 HD" thing from 1e. So once a fighter starts cleaving, they can continue until a foe doesn't drop, or a number of swings equal to his/her level. No limit on the HD though. Which might just make it worth a feat?

Doesn't Great Weapon Master (or the fighting style) do something similar already? I'm also looking at the Whirlwind Attack feature of the ranger.

Sorry to offend if this is all too "stupid simple."

[BRC]

So you would see it as a feat? Is it really worth giving up an ASI?

I see this as also reproducing the old "multi-attacks vs. creatures < 1 HD" thing from 1e. So once a fighter starts cleaving, they can continue until a foe doesn't drop, or a number of swings equal to his/her level. No limit on the HD though. Which might just make it worth a feat?

Doesn't Great Weapon Master (or the fighting style) do something similar already? I'm also looking at the Whirlwind Attack feature of the ranger.

Sorry to offend if this is all too "stupid simple."

Great Weapon Master gives you a bonus action attack if you defeat a creature with your main attack. So it limits it to a single extra swing.

[paladinn]

From the DMG.

"Cleaving through Creatures
If your player characters regularly fight hordes of lower-level monsters, consider using this optional rule to help speed up such fights.

When a melee attack reduces an undamaged creature to 0 hit points, any excess damage from that attack might carry over to another creature nearby. The attacker targets another creature within reach and, if the original attack roll can hit it, applies any remaining damage to it. If that creature was undamaged and is likewise reduced to 0 hit points, repeat this process, carrying over the remaining damage until there are no valid targets, or until the damage carried over fails to reduce an undamaged creature to 0 hit points."
---------------------------
That's an optional rule in the DMG.
----------------------------------
"Before you add a new rule to your campaign, ask yourself two questions:


Will the rule improve the game?
Will my players like it?


If you’re confident that the answer to both questions is yes, then you have nothing to lose by giving it a try. Urge your players to provide feedback. If the rule or game element isn’t functioning as intended or isn’t adding much to your game, you can refine it or ditch it. No matter what a rule’s source, a rule serves you, not the other way around."

Bolded emphasis mine. It's the best and worst part about 5e. You are expected to tailor your game to your specific table. For DM's like me, who are invested in their game and have time to do so, this is the best edition of D&D ever. EVER. I have to do so little work to make my game feel the way I want it to feel that it's mind boggling.

But for some DM's who do not have the time or investment, and struggle with taking the time to study or prep, 5e can feel a bit obtuse or clunky.

Thanks! Completely missed this in the DMG.

Still there are other such things that could be brought in to buff a "simple" fighter. Just trying to figure out how to do it in such away that either it's a sub/class feature, or it's a feat worth ditching an ASI.

[Snowbluff]

Bolded emphasis mine. It's the best and worst part about 5e. You are expected to tailor your game to your specific table. For DM's like me, who are invested in their game and have time to do so, this is the best edition of D&D ever. EVER. I have to do so little work to make my game feel the way I want it to feel that it's mind boggling.

But for some DM's who do not have the time or investment, and struggle with taking the time to study or prep, 5e can feel a bit obtuse or clunky.

I very much agree with this sentiment. Maybe it's my 3e DMing DNA, but I do not find 5e very all that different from 3e when setting up or running a session. I can see how some people would prefer something more structured I suppose, but a tabletop game often isn't gonna look the same from table to table. It's important to the health of a system to be able to accommodate different kinds of players, and it's always been the case that Rule 0 has been a core tenet of DND. However, this also means more tools to help newer DMs could be developed, or at least some friendlier designed modules.

[BoutsofInsanity]

Thanks! Completely missed this in the DMG.

Still there are other such things that could be brought in to buff a "simple" fighter. Just trying to figure out how to do it in such away that either it's a sub/class feature, or it's a feat worth ditching an ASI.

Honestly, if you really wanted to "buff" the fighter you could do about 4 things that kind of super change the way the game is played in a good way.

1. Really let characters use the improvised action rules and the "contests in combat" rules from the PHB. Essentially use the grapple/shove rules to model other actions out of it. Disarms, pocket sand, eye gouges, wrist locks, throat slams etc... Martial characters benefit from extra attacks, so mixing those conditions into their attack string does a lot.

2. Gritty Realism - Freaking changes everything. It has massive world building implications, is a massive buff to short rest heroes and helps pace the game. Goodberry can't solve food problems anymore for example. I could write paragraphs on how it changes everything in great ways. Or just make short rests 5 minutes. That's another change.

3. Restrict some spells that are clearly problematic at higher levels. Force Cage/Wish and such with no interaction are quest spells in my games for example.

4. Lastly, a free skill expert/prodigy/skilled feat or removing the feat tax of GWM from the game and making it available to anyone who chokes up on a weapon goes a long way as well.

[paladinn]

4. Lastly, a free skill expert/prodigy/skilled feat or removing the feat tax of GWM from the game and making it available to anyone who chokes up on a weapon goes a long way as well.

This one got my attention. Any thoughts as to what this would look like?

Define "choking up on a weapon." So this would be for Any class? Any weapon, or just a 2-hander or ? What would be the downside to taking this "tactic"?

[Snowbluff]

Martial characters benefit from extra attacks, so mixing those conditions into their attack string does a lot.
Ye! :smallcool:


4. Lastly, a free skill expert/prodigy/skilled feat or removing the feat tax of GWM from the game and making it available to anyone who chokes up on a weapon goes a long way as well.

I feel like since fighter already gets additional ASIs, it already has this. I'm not sure if this would be as effective as intended.

[Segev]

Honestly, if you really wanted to "buff" the fighter you could do about 4 things that kind of super change the way the game is played in a good way.

1. Really let characters use the improvised action rules and the "contests in combat" rules from the PHB. Essentially use the grapple/shove rules to model other actions out of it. Disarms, pocket sand, eye gouges, wrist locks, throat slams etc... Martial characters benefit from extra attacks, so mixing those conditions into their attack string does a lot.

2. Gritty Realism - Freaking changes everything. It has massive world building implications, is a massive buff to short rest heroes and helps pace the game. Goodberry can't solve food problems anymore for example. I could write paragraphs on how it changes everything in great ways. Or just make short rests 5 minutes. That's another change.

These two are ones I'm fond of. Though I feel like it actually needs a bit more depth on Gritty Realism, which does not work for dungeon crawling, and would actually make the 15-minute adventuring day even worse.

My personal solution, which I have written a rough draft of but not fleshed out to my fullest satisfaction, is to have long rests be 8 hours, but require a "settlement" to rest in. That can be as simple as a semi-permanent outpost, or a large encampment, but under most circumstances, establishing the barest minimum to meet the requirement takes a week of work (during which you're "roughing it").

After any long rest, you can short rest with an hour of rest and a meal in just an hour of resting, for 24 hours. After 24 hours, though, short rests take 8 hours. Short rests, however, can be taken anywhere, even while roughing it.

[PhoenixPhyre]

So you would see it as a feat? Is it really worth giving up an ASI?

I see this as also reproducing the old "multi-attacks vs. creatures < 1 HD" thing from 1e. So once a fighter starts cleaving, they can continue until a foe doesn't drop, or a number of swings equal to his/her level. No limit on the HD though. Which might just make it worth a feat?

Doesn't Great Weapon Master (or the fighting style) do something similar already? I'm also looking at the Whirlwind Attack feature of the ranger.

Sorry to offend if this is all too "stupid simple."

Not a feat. A basic thing anyone can do. gWM needs rework anyway, and whirlwind attack is better.

[paladinn]

Not a feat. A basic thing anyone can do. gWM needs rework anyway, and whirlwind attack is better.

so if I grab Whirlwind Attack or Volley (depending on if ranged or melee fighter) from the Ranger and maybe Brutal Critical from the Barbarian, what level of the Champion would be reasonable to give them?

[Tanarii]

AD&D is just the last edition that I recall putting out real amounts of general and specific exploration content & rules for people to use. I personally don't consider wotc's approach of a few environment hazards, a map or two, a couple mini-dungeons, and a handful of random event/encounter charts to be "exploration". Especially not when they're usually hidden in pricey "this is just another adventure" books.
You're talking about game structures here right?

Notably, 4e is the only WotC edition of D&D that does have a game structure for non-combat: Skill Challeges. It's just a really broad universal one that requires a lot of DM work. But at least it had one.

That's not to say I consider it a good replacement for the TSR game structures for both dungeon and wilderness exploring, especially BECMI.

Edit: actually I take that back, the 5e DMG has a very broad game structure for Social in the DMG. It's a nice one too, because it makes it clear that the players need to frame a social interaction in terms of "what does my PC want from this creature/NPC?", because that's the primary question to be resolved, if the PCs get what they want, and how far the creature/NPC will go to do it.

[PhoenixPhyre]

so if I grab Whirlwind Attack or Volley (depending on if ranged or melee fighter) from the Ranger and maybe Brutal Critical from the Barbarian, what level of the Champion would be reasonable to give them?

I guess I'm not understanding. You wouldn't be grabbing anything from anyone from what I described. You'd simply be adding a new "generic" rule that anyone can do. Whirlwind Attack would be Cleave++ (or if it needs to be buffed, do that), Volley shouldn't change (ranged already has enough of an advantage), and Brutal Critical is kinda trashy as it is.

I'd say if you're giving new abilities to the champion based on 4e abilities, I'd be looking at different things. Stuff like "shove and move", things like stances (ongoing toggled passives like "whenever an enemy ends their turn next to you, they take damage" or "allies near you can XYZ"). I had a list of things partially written, but work got in the way.

[Pex]

Both of these are fair statements. I enjoyed 4e a lot, and it had a lot of improvements, many of which either made it into 5e or at least influenced the shape of 5e classes, but it also had a lot of flaws. Sometimes of those influences were by being a negative, just as the gear treadmill and the fiddly bonuses in play issue, both of which were also 3e issues. Also being more tactical / battlemat than even the heavily tactical 3e, which of course could be positive or negative depending on group.

But the complaint I'll never understand is against the AEDU system, especially in regards to Martials. The AEDU system was a vast improvement, and while Mearls turned out to do many things right with 5e, he did violence to the Fighter, Barbarian and Rogue classes. They were greatly diminished beyond what we'd been shown they could be.

It was the "samey" thing. Part of it was everyone using the same mechanics. The other part is everyone using the same powers just with different labels. Someone doing martial damage while another does fire damage and a third does radiant damage are not different powers. Everyone did X[W] damage of type (color) plus condition or someone moves. If condition is harmful save ends. For Wizard X can equal 0. X and condition severity increases as levels increase. Also within a class was little variation in many cases. A Daily power was an Encounter power with a larger X. Magic items were no better. They were just Daily powers by another name. Magic weapons only changed the type (color) of the damage. Everything is not exactly the same, just "samey".

[PhoenixPhyre]

It was the "samey" thing. Part of it was everyone using the same mechanics. The other part is everyone using the same powers just with different labels. Someone doing martial damage while another does fire damage and a third does radiant damage are not different powers. Everyone did X[W] damage of type (color) plus condition or someone moves. If condition is harmful save ends. For Wizard X can equal 0. X and condition severity increases as levels increase. Also within a class was little variation in many cases. A Daily power was an Encounter power with a larger X. Magic items were no better. They were just Daily powers by another name. Magic weapons only changed the type (color) of the damage. Everything is not exactly the same, just "samey".

That was certainly a perception, but a very surface one. There were substantial differences if you looked beyond the standardized language (which a lot of people want for 5e--everything done via tags and defined bolded terms).

Looking at just the "core" classes (Cleric/Fighter/Rogue/Wizard) and their level 1 At Wills only:
* Clerics have abilities that have either fixed dice (1d8 + Wisdom) OR weapon damage. Which is the same as they do right now. Every single one of their at-wills buffs an ally (+atk, +AC, or THP or can save). All their things are single target.
* Fighters only have abilities that use W, and none of them debuff or buff. One pushes, one hits two people, one does damage on a miss, and one is more accurate (for less damage).
* Rogues key off of W, but have things that let them move before attacking, require different weapons, allows you to "reaction attack" if the target attacks you, and adds your charisma to the damage.
* Wizards have all fixed-dice abilities. Some linger, some debuff (slow), some are aoe, some push. All but magic missile (which is a basic attack replacement, so can be used on an Attack of Opportunity) have other properties.

And that's just the At-wills and doesn't even consider things like marking, sneak attack, etc. There's lots of diversity there, but people saw the standardized, "card like" language and bounced off.

[Witty Username]

I personally find 3.5 much easier to run from a DM perspective, mostly because of frameworks. 3.5 has a lot of subsystems and rules, that the DM can choose to use, modify or discard at their leisure. 5e doesn't really have this, relying almost entirely on the universal ability checks to define actions. This makes tailoring the game a hassle as to have subsystems, the DM needs to create them wholesale.
Even things like feats have this effect, say cleave or spring attack sounds like a thing every martial should be able to do, boom rules exist just give the feat as a bonus at first level. (I actually saw a hack of 3.5, that gave the shot on the run feat for free, as the setting was Sci fi, so run and gun was an expectation of the setting).

Say you want to break an enemy's weapon in 5e, first, is that a roll with a DC? Is that an attack roll? What is the AC of a weapon held by an opponent? Would that be a Hard check? We have some advice for objects HP in the DMG but they are vague and tricky to use on the fly.
3.5 has a nice table of examples, guides for different materials and items, and several points to fiddle with numbers as needed. Or you can not and do it yourself.

This comes up with alot of stuff personally, I have just gotten into the habit of stealing systems in other games for 5e, in 3.5 that was simply less nessasary as I could find something close to what I needed most of the time, or something I could fiddle with.

Not all is lost though, I like the travel rules in 5e, even if I usually use a tweaked version of them (I usually have forced march as one con roll with a failed roll representing when the exhaustion set in during X hours, rather than rolling for each hour of travel).

[Snowbluff]

That was certainly a perception, but a very surface one. There were substantial differences if you looked beyond the standardized language (which a lot of people want for 5e--everything done via tags and defined bolded terms)

And that's just the At-wills and doesn't even consider things like marking, sneak attack, etc. There's lots of diversity there, but people saw the standardized, "card like" language and bounced off.

Some powers might be for different roles, as given in your example, but the roles aren't as distinct as one might think. Swordmage powers are essentially just worse Wizard powers, and since the role of a Controller and Defender are to slow down and hinder your opponents you really are better off with the Wizard ones. The barrier for ditching your swordmage ones is pretty low with Hybriding as well, and you can make back up what you lose with way fewer feats than MCing for better powers would cost you.

What really gets me is daily powers. In general, they are the source of your effects that last more than a single round. Also, you get much, much fewer of them than a 3.5 or 5e player may get. For example, I will probably sit on my Visions of Avarice as a 4e Wizard or my Hypnotic Pattern as a 5e wizard as the really big thing I do that fight. It's largely not economical in 4e to use another daily, and I generally can't used another long duration spell, with quite a few exceptions, in 5e due to concentration. However, if anything were to go wrong in 4e, such as being stunned out being able to sustain Visions, that's it. I'm out of a daily and I'm sitting on my much less interesting and powerful abilities. If my get smacked and my conc check fails on Hypnotic Pattern in 5e, I can use a back up option.

[Ignimortis]

I'm going to preface this by admitting that Pathfinder 2's action system is the worst in every way imaginable. This is often cited as "the best thing about it" and if that's the best thing, no one should play it. PF2's action system doesn't have a way to solve it's ailments within itself, the problems are intrinsic. Your complaint about the Attack Action is solvable (and is even currently solved) with the framework 5e establishes, with attacks being altered with special moves, modifiers that add another effect that attach themselves to an otherwise ordinary attack.

I could go on about that, but to bring that to the topic at hand. In 3.5, a huge and frequent complaint is that Full Attacks are largely mutually exclusive with movement. This meant that melee characters were hampered with a primarily unfriendly action system to their playstyle. Pathfinder 2 enforces this terrible aspect about 3e without a hint of irony or understanding.


What 5e does, essentially, is looks what people would be taxed for and just let them have it. No need for a long feat chain to give every Spring Attack/Flyby, or Pounce, or that sort of them. You're able to use your movement freely, and you can even mix movements! You still have the ability to physically block space, and opportunity attacks still exist to discourage disengagement. If you force someone outside of attack range, they might opt to use their action otherwise.
I don't like Pathfinder 2e very much, but I feel that the issue with PF2's action system is less about the system itself and more with the actions it offers to the player, which is in part caused by PF2 devs copying the 3.5 PHB yet again for most of their ideas and forgetting what Swift actions are.

As for how to tackle this in 5e, I would rather double down on free movement and make it actively beneficial for many classes to move. However, this would require a somewhat more granular system, as, say, granting disadvantage to attackers whenever you move at least 20 feet during your turn would be rather powerful and also liable to get drowned in ways to get advantage at times. +2AC or 20% miss chance would be right at home in such a situation, however. The way I see it, since there's no full attack, one should really try and focus on the momentum of combat, even if it's just two guys circling each other, or if it's a high-speed wuxia back-and-forth. Make it possible for someone to actually take up a 10-ft space without being Large (i.e. your real dimensions are still 5x5, but for the purposes of bodyblocking, you are 10x10 or even 15x15). Make it so that archers can't just endlessly run away while peppering enemies with arrows.

But to begin with, I'd rather D&D went back to grid combat as the default and TotM as a secondary way of running it. The current tactical combat is just too lightweight to actually have a lot of impact on how things turn out, outside of very basic things like terrain being impassable and AoOs (which are very basic and often can be avoided altogether by not leaving the creature's reach).



This also rolls back into why the attack action is better the way it is. Since the action scales differently for each class, the classes that do get better scaling (well fighter, mostly, and to a lesser extent the other extra attacks) also don't lose attacks for using 5e's special moves, if they have them. If there was a ToB for 5e, it would be vastly unfair if the maneuvers available to both say, Fighter and Rogue, took an Action to perform the same move. Instead, 5e would probably express Lightning Throw as "When you make an attack, you can throw your weapon x squares and do x bonus damage. Your weapon returns to your hand after the attack is made."
Frankly, it would be best to let most martials have 2 attacks per turn, and maybe have Champion have Extra Attack (2/3) in exchange for other class features. Then again, that would be more like PF1 archetypes, which I feel function better than subclasses, since their power budget is a lot more flexible.



As for special moves themselves, I'm not saying there shouldn't be more of them, just that the framework of them being attached to attacks a free action riders fits well with multiple class this way. I think that Battlemaster probably should have been rolled into the melee guys. I will point out that as it stands, some classes get more use with continuous special moves. Swarm Keeper is also up there with rogue on having it all of the time, but I'm not sure if rogues "do more damage" should count towards wanting more varied effects like you said in the thread. Basically all rangers and half of all clerics would count, otherwise. Bladesinger, for as hilarious as this ability being limited to wizard sub, does get to blend cantrips with their attacks.
The thing about special moves is that 1) they shouldn't be all that special (i.e. you should have them available almost every turn if not every turn) 2) they shouldn't include something that is unequivocally "just more damage". Finishing moves? Sure. But not "just do +2d6 damage".



It's just math at that point. I did say feels because it's more of a personal thing that than a strategic one. It does kind suck to make your one roll then pass it if it doesn't do anything. This is the best thing about PF2's action system, for it's 1 credit in a blood-filled sea of demerits, is that it lets you attack more at level 1.
The smart move here, I think, is to use PF2's success staging system, and unless you critically miss, you get to apply some damage as a glancing blow, but have no rider activate. That way whiffs don't feel like "I didn't do anything this turn". As for the current PF2's action system, attacking more than once per turn without specific features that enable this is usually a waste of an action. The option is there, but it's mostly a frustration-driven one.

[BoutsofInsanity]

This one got my attention. Any thoughts as to what this would look like?

Define "choking up on a weapon." So this would be for Any class? Any weapon, or just a 2-hander or ? What would be the downside to taking this "tactic"?

I can only tell you what I did.

GWM no longer exists as a feat.

Instead the following exists.

If you can wield a weapon in two hands you can take a -5 to your to hit bonus and add 10 damage to its damage roll.

The Heavy Property now also has this added to it. You can re-roll 1's on the damage dice.

That's what I did for my game.

[Itsfrank]

I've only been playing for maybe a year. Kinda new so we started on 5th but I'm learning a lot. It looks pretty good about what they did to make it more user friendly based on some of the talk about 3.5. A good experience so far.