D&D editions

[Dancingdeath]

I've played every edition of D&D and keep going back to 3.5. The rest feel far too limiting. While I agree that 3.5 is the most breakable, a good DM can put a stop to a lot of that by making a few simple rules. Because that's what DMs do. Provide balance when things break.

My question is this. Is there a way to make 5th, which does have some merit despite its bland feel, have that same wide open, Planscape scope, and customizable feel as 3.5 has? My imagination is too large to fit into anything else and I need the freedom to create and travel.

[Actana]

I think one big thing to enjoy other systems more is to calibrate your expectations properly. In this case I think it might help to not expect everything to be represented through thorough mechanics. 3.5 has this weird thing with almost everything needing rules no matter how minor, whereas other systems don't concern themselves with it so much.

That, and perhaps try looking outside of D&D as well to broaden horizons. Even if you don't like other systems, they can be very helpful in learning what and how other RPGs do things so you can do similar things in D&D.

Overall however, if you're happy with 3.5 why do you want to move to 5e?

[Kane0]

Theres nothing wrong with liking 3.x the most man, no need to crowbar your fun into another system.

But if you must, it sounds like content and customisation is what you are looking for if i had to guess. Theres plenty of homebrew around and youre always free to put that creativity to work yourself to make exactly what youre feeling around for.

[Anonymouswizard]

I agree with looking outside of D&D, compared to some games 5e is downright customisable. But, for something where the core is even more flexible than 3.X: Anima: Beyond Fantasy and GURPS.

Now, character generation can vary wildly. RAW Traveller character creation has you roll your stats randomly (thankfully the books no longer insist you play characters where the stats are all 2s), pick three skills to have basic competency, then pick a career, try to qualify for it, if you fail either roll for a military service or take the drifter career, roll to see if you have a mishap, roll for an event, roll for a skill or stat boost, roll for promotion, and then repeat until your character is old enough for you to start playing. Start rolling for aging once you hit 34. Hope you don't loose too many stat points to aging an injury, and hope you get a decent amount of cash and equipment from your career terms. Hope that you manage to spend at least five consecutive terms in one career so you can have a pension. Hope you don't get too many enemies. But there's no way to know where you'll end up (to try out the character creation I rolled an engineer, ended up honourably discharged from the navy in my second term and decided that the character spent the next 20 years too ashamed to fly on a ship).

Then there's games like GURPS where you get control over everything. It's so much more customisable than 3.5, generally allowing you to make the exact character you want.

So I suggest looking outside D&D for a game you might like.

[Eldan]

One problem with that regard in 5E may just be that wizards is publishing comparably slowly, compared with high times in 3E. Or at least it feels that way. There are just very few books with new player options. I mean, 3E with just core books is nice and all, but a lot of concepts just dont' work well.

[Darth Ultron]

Well, just add all of 3.5E 's crunch to 5E....

3.5E has a ton of books and a ton of crunch....but it took years to stack it all up. And they were years when Wizards put out ''a lot'' of books.

So just take whatever you like form 3.5E and add it to 5E.

[Dancingdeath]

I have played dozens of other rpgs. I actually played a Traveler game a few weeks ago. There's a tendency with the people at my local comic shop to throw together a game, build characters, play them once and never touch them again.

I'm in the process of building a more stable and long term party. Looking into Warhammer Fantasy second edition. 3.5 will always be fun though.

To be honest the most fun I ever had playing a game was when we played Aberrant. Now that was a fun game, in large part because of the group. Trying to recapture some of that magic.

[JAL_1138]

The basic race and class/subclass chassis is easy enough to use for homebrew customization purposes, there's just not a ton of official material out there and no system for making Monster Manual critters into PCs since they're on a different chassis than PCs. Building new monsters is relatively simple with the DMG guidelines, and there's a third-party MM-type book out ("Tome of Beasts," I think?).

Xanathar's Guide to Everything comes out in November and looks to be a sort of "PHB 2" given that it has twentysomething new subclasses in it. The Unearthed Arcana articles have a lot of extra playest-grade "pencil, not ink" material. And the homebrew forum here has a lot of stuff for 5e.

3.5 was out for a good deal longer than 5e has been, and WotC put out a lot more splats for it. And there were a ton of 3rd-party publishers putting out d20-system material, more than have jumped on the 5e train despite the return of the OGL.

There's a fair amount that used to take a feat or specific rule in 3.5 that you can just do in 5e, like cast spells in melee without taking an op attack, or moving between iterative attacks. That pares down the number of feats the system needs, which also makes it look like there's less to it. 5e doesn't have as much of the "you must have X listed ability or Y specific rule to do Z thing," in general. It does have a bit, granted, but not as much.


For sheer volume of splats, 2nd Edition AD&D gives 3e a run for its money. Unfortunately TSR had a "no playtesting on company time" policy thanks to Lorraine Williams, so a fair amount of it is a bit borked. But there's a LOT of material out there for it, including a (very, very breakable) quasi-point-buy system for character/class-creation system in the "Player's Option" series.

[wumpus]

RAW Traveller character creation has you roll your stats randomly (thankfully the books no longer insist you play characters where the stats are all 2s).

When did that happen? My [original] books were quite happy to let you kill off any character you wanted (during generation). It even included a "mission" that couldn't be started without filling a small cemetery full of characters (you needed a scout ship. Building the bonuses needed to roll the scout ship tended to be suicidal. Obviously any character with a few 2s would tend towards the extreme end of the suicidal bonus generation).

Yes, traveller was so lethal it killed plenty of characters during character generation. Old school RPGs at their finest.

[Anonymouswizard]

When did that happen? My [original] books were quite happy to let you kill off any character you wanted (during generation). It even included a "mission" that couldn't be started without filling a small cemetery full of characters (you needed a scout ship. Building the bonuses needed to roll the scout ship tended to be suicidal. Obviously any character with a few 2s would tend towards the extreme end of the suicidal bonus generation).

Yes, traveller was so lethal it killed plenty of characters during character generation. Old school RPGs at their finest.

The Traveller Book pg17, 'Obviously, it is possible for a player to generate a character with seemingly unsatisfactory values; nevertheless, each player should use the character as it is created.' Of course, suiciding characters in character generation was possible, and if you somehow survive to 66 you can retire if all your physical stats total ten or less. But RAW you're supposed to play a character with all 2s if that's what you roll (of course any sensible GM would realise when you're suiciding a character and allow a reroll, but that's the RAW).

Actually, I now want to get a piece of paper and run an all 2s character through both CT and Mongoose Traveller 1e, and see which one is more playable and less in debt at 60. Might take a few tries for CT.

[Quertus]

I'm in the process of building a more stable and long term party. Looking into Warhammer Fantasy second edition.

Just how do you plan to create a stable, long term party in a system with not one but multiple character-level death spirals? You've got insanity, mutations, and the ever present disease rules that should render all but the luckiest characters unplayable long before I would even consider retiring a character in most systems.

[Airk]

Just how do you plan to create a stable, long term party in a system with not one but multiple character-level death spirals? You've got insanity, mutations, and the ever present disease rules that should render all but the luckiest characters unplayable long before I would even consider retiring a character in most systems.

I suspect but cannot prove that when he says "create a more stable, long term party" he means "create a more stable, long term gaming group"

[Dancingdeath]

That is in fact what I meant. Sorry, I thought that would be obvious. More stable PLAYERS. Not those who have what I've begun to think of as character diarrhea.

[Psikerlord]

What about simply making custom feats for 5e? That's what we did. You cam then pretty much make any concept you like.

[RazorChain]

Just how do you plan to create a stable, long term party in a system with not one but multiple character-level death spirals? You've got insanity, mutations, and the ever present disease rules that should render all but the luckiest characters unplayable long before I would even consider retiring a character in most systems.

Well that's what Warhammer is about, fighting the odds until you die horribly. Not everybody wants to play four color power fantasy.

[Anonymouswizard]

Well that's what Warhammer is about, fighting the odds until you die horribly. Not everybody wants to play four color power fantasy.

Of course, four colour power fantasy is more popular over here

In all honesty, a high lethality system tends towards Combat as War, which in my experience makes it more satisfying when your character survives, even better if they've been beaten to the point that you need three weeks of bed rest. Nothing is better then when you see the ambush coming and simply sneak round them and undam the river. Then you attempt to redam the river, find the bodies, loot them, get proof of killing them, find the local authorities, find out which is offering a reward, ideally keep some proof of killing them back so you can claim another reward from a different local authority, skip town before dawn, grow a beard, and finally change your name to Smith John.