# Why do people still play older editions of D&D? Are they superior to the current one?



## Kidbooo (Feb 23, 2019)

Hello everyone,,
This is kind of a general question, and I know that, but I see lots of people playing 3rd edition and even more 3.5, but why do they play those instead (Mod Edit: spam link removed  ~Umbran) of 5e? I'm fairly new to 5e as a whole, and I'm just wondering, in what ways are 3.5 and 3rd better than 5th? Is it simply for the feeling of playing something original? Or does 5e do something terrible that can only be done correctly in past editions? Just genuinely curious, and would it be worth it for me to learn the older versions?


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## cmad1977 (Feb 23, 2019)

*Why do people still play older editions of D&amp;D? Are they superior to the current one?*

It’s nostalgia mostly I think. I grew up with the red box and played 3.0/3.5 for... a looong time.now I play 5e. Also people have invested financially in earlier editions and don’t want to just dump that investment or buy another 150 dollars worth of books.

IMO: there is no part of the earlier editions that is ‘better’ than what they’ve done with 5e.

Also: I don’t think it’s about ‘superior’, it’s just different style preferences.


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## Legatus Legionis (Feb 23, 2019)

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## DeathbyDoughnut (Feb 23, 2019)

Mike Mearls on the What Would the Smart Party Do podcast recently talked about how people don't like learning new rules. Outside of communities like this, I wonder how true that is? I can say of my couple gaming groups, all but one or two of my fellow group members have ever read a rpg rulebook, much less multiple.


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## Tonguez (Feb 23, 2019)

I went from the Basic Red box to Gurps and then back to DnD for 3e

3.5 (and Pathfinder) does what I need it to do, 4e was terrible so I stayed with 3.5 and 5e while good isnt different enough to warrant the change

I'm tending more towards FateAccelerated now though


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## billd91 (Feb 23, 2019)

Kidbooo said:


> Hello everyone,,
> This is kind of a general question, and I know that, but I see lots of people playing 3rd edition and even more 3.5, but why do they play those instead of 5e? I'm fairly new to 5e as a whole, and I'm just wondering, in what ways are 3.5 and 3rd better than 5th? Is it simply for the feeling of playing something original? Or does 5e do something terrible that can only be done correctly in past editions? Just genuinely curious, and would it be worth it for me to learn the older versions?




I’ll take your questions one at a time.

Why play older editions instead of 5e? Lots of reasons, generally based on preferences. For example, The 3e family (including Pathfinder) allows for lots of nitty gritty customization of characters. Some people prefer that to 5e’s character development. 

Are there ways 3e is better than 5e? If your preferences and styles are satisfied by 3e more than by 5e, then yes. But this is obviously pretty personal. I think there are some things 3e does better such as alternate forms of damage not based on hit points - like stat damage. But there are other things I think 5e does better like offering character-building backgrounds.

On the topic of originality - both are later editions of an existing game and while both include some new mechanics, neither game is “more original” than the other.

5e doesn’t do anything “terrible” any more than other editions. 

And it’s worth looking into playing if you have other players near you who like the older editions. In fact, learning about other games people play is usually good advice - gives you more things to do together.


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## reelo (Feb 23, 2019)

cmad1977 said:


> IMO: there is no part of the earlier editions that is ‘better’ than what they’ve done with 5e.




I wholeheartedly beg to differ, but I don't want to get into "edition-warring".

For example, prior to 3E, most (if not all) classes were "front-loaded". The class abilities your class would get were all available from the get-go. At level-up, you just got *better*, but didn't get any *NEW* abilities, other than possibly spells or multiple attacks.
Also, skills and feats: their mere existence in the rules enables "builds" and optimization. In editions where they don't exist, everybody can do (or at least attempt to do) everything. It's much more liberating, even to a point where a DM might even NOT ask for resolution with a dice-throw, if the player describes his actions thoroughly.

Instead of the player saying "I want to search the room, I have a ...(rolls die) 19" he could say "I probe the underside of the drawers with my hand to see if anything is glued underneath, and I peek behind every painting on the wall" , in which case success would be automatic.

So, in short, the reason why *I* prefer older editions (and everybody's opinion might be different) is because 5E enables too much build-optimization (i.e. class abilities spread out, skills, feats) and because I find the current race and class selection way too bloated. Sometimes restrictions boost creativity...

YMMV.


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## MwaO (Feb 23, 2019)

I think 5e can be expressed as 'Greatest Hits Edition' in many ways. OSR martial options+3e Sorcerer casting+4e/2 math+3e feat chain/4e style Expertise feats that do multiple things in the form of single feats.

But...if you really like the mechanics from one specific edition, 5e can fall short very quickly. And both 3e/4e tend to have a lot of crunchy mechanics to play around with, allowing a very wide range of PCs. 5e's 3e Sorcerer casting is insanely complicated, which most people respond to by spamming instead using the complexity. As opposed to more traditional Vancian, where you, the player, start the day with lots of options and as you, the player, get a little more tired, you get less options.


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## Dioltach (Feb 23, 2019)

For me and my groups, it's a question of "we're comfortable with what we're playing, we've invested large amounts of money in the books, we see no reason to change."


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## Lanefan (Feb 23, 2019)

Does the new system or edition give me more bang for less buck than what I already have?  How much kitbashing am I going to have to do to make it what I want, vs. how much kitbashing to my current system will it take to incorporate the new edition's good ideas?  How much of a headache will it be to convert the ongoing campaign to the new system - or do I have to start a new one?  How much is it gonna cost, both in raw dollars and in time to learn?

Every new edition starting with 2e I ask myself these questions and every time the answer ends up the same: it's simpler and easier to stand pat and tweak what I've already got. (though 5e did get the closest yet to making me think about a full conversion)


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## ccs (Feb 23, 2019)

Kidbooo said:


> in what ways are 3.5 and 3rd better than 5th?




If you like lots of options then 3/3.5/Pathfinder v1 are the systems for you.  Overall there's:
*Dozens of classes.
*Nearly any race can be made into a character race.
*About 3x as many skills, rules for them all, & you assign pts to them as you level - so you end up customizing wich skills you have & how good you are at each (though many peoples skill lists end up looking very similar)
*Upwards of 1000+ feats
*Alot more spells
*Many many times more monsters
*Defined rules for how to make & buy magic items.
*There's ALOT of support material written for these systems - settings, region books, adventures, etc
*Working psionics systems (I personally don't count that as a +, but if it floats your boat....)
*Direct PDF support for Pathfinder.  Whatever Paizo prints you can get from them in PDF form without jumping through hoops.

IMO, between 3/3.5/PFv1?  There's almost nothing you can do in 3/3.5 that you can't do at least as well with PF. 

Can you convert monsters, adventures, various rules from 3x/PF1 into 5e?  Sure.  I do it all the time in our Thur game.
But if you've got a group willing to play 3x/PF you don't have to go to that effort.  




Kidbooo said:


> and would it be worth it for me to learn the older versions?




If you've got other people willing to play it, absolutely.
If you're thinking of converting something (say an adventure or monsters) from it into 5e then I'd recommend being familiar with the PHB/DMG/MM for 3.5 or the Core Rulebook + Bestiary I for PF.  It'll make the task easier if you know what's being talked about rulewise.
For ex: I have a friend who ran a module series from AD&D 1e for our 5e game.  He'd never read or played 1e, so he had a tough time translating the stat blocks (especially the AC & Saves).  I had to sit down & translate stuff for him.


As to why people still play previous editions?
*They like them.  Or they like the current system less.
A perfect example of this is everything vs 4e.  The vast majority of gamers simply didn't (and still don't) like 4e.  At the time they wanted more 3x.  But that's not what WoTC decided to try & sell....  It's WHY Pathfinder exists & has sold so well.  Others simply went & played something else altogether.  And after 4 years of not making the $ they'd hoped to, WoTC retooled the game into 5e - wich is doing much much better.  

*$ - Unless you've pirated the PDFs, you could have spent *ALOT* of $ on books.  Many people aren't real fond of flushing that kind of investment.

*The people they play games with are more willing to play ____ than they are 5e.

Myself?  I prefer AD&D 1e, Pathfinder v1, & 5e.  I'll happily play any of those 3.
Right now, of the two groups I play with, one prefers PFv1 & the other 5e.


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## Retreater (Feb 23, 2019)

I can have fun with other editions. Last night we played Keep on the Borderlands with Labyrinth Lord with my old college friends visiting for the weekend. I also run regular 4e games, which I find better balanced and a better designed game than 5e. 5e is what I play when I want to introduce new players to the hobby, as D&D is what most people think of when they think of rpgs.
But in my opinion, 5e is nowhere near the pinnacle of great game design.


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## Immortal Sun (Feb 23, 2019)

I'd say there are obvious reasons, like you have an existing game going and converting is hard.  Or, you just really like XYZ addition.  

But also, you can do different things in different editions.  3.5 is a little more LEGO-like, lots of fiddly bits and pieces to put together.  5E is more like Duplo, still bits and pieces, but less of them.  4E by comparison is lincoln logs, it's got similar elements, but totally different style and results.  Older editions play differently as well.

I mean, you might as well ask why everyone isn't driving the newest car.


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## (un)reason (Feb 24, 2019)

There are vastly more supplements for previous editions, and it looks like that will be the case for a long time with 5e's glacial release pace. That means more options for both players and DM, especially when using all the various 3e compatible 3rd party games released using the OGL. A ton of books written by a whole bunch of different writers at different companies allows for a lot more play variety than half a dozen all released by the same small group of writers and editors.


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## Celebrim (Feb 24, 2019)

First, before I answer your question, the most important thing to realize about RPG's is that your processes of play are more important than your rules.  That is to say, how you choose to play the game actually dominates over the experience of play compared to what rules you use to adjudicate the dicey stuff.   You can play basically the same game with every edition of the game.

So beware arguments that revolve around how the rules force some particular process of play on to the game inevitably, especially if the person is not talking about 4e, which is the edition where the designers most tried to entwine the process of play and the rules together and most tried to tell the table how to play the game.  (Certainly other editions have done so, as there are notable 'how to play right' comments in the 1e and 2e DMG, but they were mostly ignored.)   While it may be true that the rules tend to cause groups to think about play differently, how you play D&D in any edition is very open ended.

The main reason that that people stick with an edition is familiarity.  That is to say, once you are really comfortable with a system, it's just a lot easier to turn out content and run it smoothly than it is to pick up a new set of rules and map everything you did in one edition over to a new edition.   Add to that that groups may have a lot of money invested in an edition, and they just don't have any reason to move. 

Notalgia can be an important and related issue.  While the 1e rules are kludgy, inelegant, incomplete, and often downright incomprehensible, the very fact that I spent 15 years playing the game that way gives me a warm glow when thinking about them.   

And there are a lot of attractions still with 1e.  The very incomprehensibility gives the 1e game a certain arcane appeal, as if its very lack of clarity contributes to its mysterious air.   Reading a 1e rule book is less like reading a rule book than it is like reading a guide to some fairy tale world of which mortals have only a dim report.  The vast majority of 1e tables not only evolved unique processes of play, but they evolved unique house rules that contributes to the particular flavor of the table.  It's an organic and very modular play style, and it has almost all the defining IP of D&D.  It's extremely basic character generation means its pretty quick to roll up a character, and equally quick to stat out unique foes.  And it's the only system which has an attempt to model the effectiveness of medieval weaponry versus different types of medieval armor.   It also has one of the best balances between casters and non-casters straight out of the box, as spell options are limited, casting in combat quite restrictive, and non-casters are vastly less squishy at high levels of play, balancing well with the M-U's ability to create dramatic effects.

It also has a ton of problems that will probably force you to keep houseruling for decades.

Right now I play 3.X and I've really never been happier with any RPG system I've played than my houseruled version of 3.X D&D.  While 5e doesn't seem like a bad system, and I'd play it, I probably would never run it because I'm just so comfortable with my 3.X rules.  If I played 5e, I'd almost certainly soon find problems I had with it along with things I'd like and wish I could steal.  The advantage and disadvantage concept for example, is simultaneously the mechanics I most envy about the 5e design because its so elegant, and the mechanics that I think I would be most frustrated with where I playing 5e.


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## Raith5 (Feb 24, 2019)

MwaO said:


> I think 5e can be expressed as 'Greatest Hits Edition' in many ways. .




If you play previous editions for 'education' (rather than fun), I think  the value of doing so is that it will give a you a better sense of  the strengths and limitations of 5e. I have played all the editions of D&D and I think 5e's success is capturing the good elements of many editions, and really streamlining everything, even though it did indeed cut back on the options for PCs (compared to 3e and 4e). Playing previous editions also can enable you to draw in good game elements or ideas from previous editions.


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## Zardnaar (Feb 24, 2019)

Older editions do certain things better. 3E/Pathfinder/4E has more options, AD&D is more gritty, 2E has a lot of settings that don't translate well to 5E, B/X you can build a domain and be a ruler and work your way up to King/Queen. 

Generally I like 2E, 5E and B/X clones and ye olde classic adventures. B/X and 1E adventures are mostly compatible with each other. 

 If you want a gritty low magic setting 2E might be a good idea or if you like settings and levers. if you like grittier dungeon hacks 1E might be your thing, clean and simple rules that is grittier than 5E well B/X. Opitons options and more options 3E/4E.

 It depends on what your preferences are or even mood. Sometimes I want to play 5E, other times OSR. Mostly its about your friends and hanging out playing D&D edition doesn't matter. The latest edition is easier to find players for, 4E being an exception there when Pathfinder took over.


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## Morrus (Feb 24, 2019)

Different editions have very different "feels" to them. Some people prefer a certain feel.

You could think of it like music - various artists might cover a certain track over the decades. They'll all be great, and each will suit the time they were recorded, but some people will prefer certain version to others, even though it's basically the same track.


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## GreyLord (Feb 24, 2019)

Kidbooo said:


> Hello everyone,,
> This is kind of a general question, and I know that, but I see lots of people playing 3rd edition and even more 3.5, but why do they play those instead of 5e? I'm fairly new to 5e as a whole, and I'm just wondering, in what ways are 3.5 and 3rd better than 5th? Is it simply for the feeling of playing something original? Or does 5e do something terrible that can only be done correctly in past editions? Just genuinely curious, and would it be worth it for me to learn the older versions?




Your Question in the Title and your question above are two different questions.

In answer to the Title...



> Why do people still play older editions of D&D? Are they superior to the current one?




Yes.  

The answer is absolutely...but whether that answer holds true for someone is also entirely opinion based and reliant on EACH individual.

Thus, while some would not agree...for many, with whatever edition or version is their favorite, if it is not 5e, then they would probably say yes. 

However, there is not a single solitary edition that this could be applied to.

For example, I love OD&D (w/Greyhawk...has to have Greyhawk to qualify in this for me), AD&D, BX, and BECMI.  I prefer them FAR above 3e.  If I had to go to a desert Island and could only bring one or two editions with me, I would choose any of those older versions before 3e or Pathfinder.

Which is what makes your actual question



Kidbooo said:


> Hello everyone,,
> This is kind of a general question, and I know that, but I see lots of people playing 3rd edition and even more 3.5, but why do they play those instead of 5e? I'm fairly new to 5e as a whole, and I'm just wondering, in what ways are 3.5 and 3rd better than 5th? Is it simply for the feeling of playing something original? Or does 5e do something terrible that can only be done correctly in past editions? Just genuinely curious, and would it be worth it for me to learn the older versions?




An absolute

NO

For me.

Even though it may be a YES for someone else.  I HIGHLY prefer 5e over 3e currently.  In my opinion, it is FAR superior.  

However, that may not apply to those who love 3e or Pathfinder.  Some things they may feel that 3e did better than 5e could be...

No bounded accuracy.
No limited to level 20
Spellcasters are seen as more powerful
System mastery grants rewards to those who understand it
More classes and subclasses to choose from

And that's just the beginning or tip of what they might come up with.  I think it is FAR more than simply whether one wants to learn another ruleset or not, I think many 3e players (and AD&D, and many other fans of other editions) simply just prefer the strengths of whatever editions is their preference.

The same would go for those who put 5e as their favorite.  5e is an extremely popular and well designed edition, and so anyone would also be justifiably right to say that there are no advantages (for them in their opinion) of any other editions over 5e...that 5e is the best and their preferred version.

There is no single ONE right answer to your questions, though I think the original question found in the topic is more open ended than the one you actually asked.


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## Zhaleskra (Feb 24, 2019)

4e brought on a lot of changes that I didn't like, as I know what I like in a game. 5e claims to be able to emulate any previous edition of D&D. As far as I'm concerned, after being put off by 4e, that was too little, too late.

Also, when you've been a gamer long enough, you eventually have to ask yourself "How many times am I going to buy "the same" game?"

That said, I have discarded any idea of going back as far as AD&D2E. While I'm familiar with its warts, those warts are far easier to notice now than they used to be to ignore, and that's a problem for me.


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## LuisCarlos17f (Feb 24, 2019)

Older editions are like music from previous decades. When you hear a old song and start to remember past there is a feeling you don't find most of new music. And you enjoy more when you have just collected your books than waiting the new version of some titles. 

And when you have spent a lot of money with books, you don't want buy the remade titles.


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## Grogg of the North (Feb 24, 2019)

I started playing with 3.5. My group is currently playing 5E. I prefer 3.5 over 5. 

Does 5E have things I like? Yes. Does it have things I don't like? Yes. But the same can be said for 3.5. It all comes down to your and your group's preference.

"Edition wars are like telling your friend his prom date is ugly. You may have your reasons. You may even be right. But you're still a jerk for doing so." - Bill Cavalier


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## (Psi)SeveredHead (Feb 24, 2019)

Numerous reasons.


First, learning new rules takes a long time. I like to have a complete understanding of the game rules, but that takes time. This becomes a problem as the edition gets more and more bloated, and it's even worse if I'm GMing (because I'm expected to know some bizarre new feat or some nonsensical new prestige class that almost nobody asked for). Then the edition is abandoned by WotC or Paizo (or whoever) and I'm asked to do it again.

The same issue impacts adoption of new RPGs entirely. If I already know a game system that can handle sci-fi, do I really want to learn another game system that can also handle sci-fi? Not if the first game system is "good enough".

I've found this issue different editions of other RPGs. I started with Fate: Spirit of the Century. Then Diaspora, which made for great sci-fi gaming (I only ever want to play Fate or Mutants & Masterminds for sci-fi gaming), but learned later the Storyteller (GM) had actually dropped some rules that I'm glad we never saw. Then we tried Dresden Files, and things started getting worse. Then Strands of Fate (superhero themed), which fell apart after only two or three sessions. Each version of Fate seemed to be making things worse compared to the previous version. 


Second, when you like an edition, the newer edition may not have "what you want". I'll use my own gaming experience as an example. I started with 2e. I didn't actually like it much, with some things, such as the rolled ability score system, driving me up the wall. The rules were not well-written (using 3e-style gamist language) and there was little unified math, so people were forever looking up the saving throw charts, the turn undead tables, and the like. The moment 3e came out I jumped, as fast as possible. During the "interregnum", when 3e had come out but my gaming group had not switched yet, I tried (and failed) to convince the GM to allow Magic Fang as a 2e spell. I hadn't even played 3e yet but I was already seeing things the new edition was doing better, and wanting that.

So 3e came out and we adopted it. Pretty quickly, we were using point buy, and I refuse to have rolled stats. In addition to the lack of rolling, the ability score scaling made sense. Do you know what was the difference between Con 8 and Con 14 in 2e, without consulting the chart? I have no idea. In 3e? Con 8 gives you -1 to hit points per level and Fort saves, Con 14 gives you +2 to those instead. I was also delighted that "exceptional strength" vanished, that classes gained levels at the same rate, and so forth. But 3e still had problems, mainly in terms of game balance between characters of different classes.

Then 4e came out. I bought the three core books and started running. Fighters no longer seemed boring. Mages were interesting but not overpowered. Clerics had a role beyond healing and condition relief (without poaching other character's turf such as buffing to be stronger than a fighter, blasting like a wizard, using Hold Person like a wizard, and so on). It's my favorite edition. Of course, it still has its own flaws.

Then 5e came out. At this point I was getting older and had less time. We played the first playtest document and I noted the lack of 4e's mathematically tight game balance. I could not predict ending numbers. This brought back bad memories of trying to run 3e. I haven't made the switch, and unless Pathfinder and 4e gaming completely disappears I won't make the switch. The longer I avoid a switch, the bigger and more bloated 5e gets, which means the barrier to game mastery simply gets higher and higher for me. By not wanting to play 5e as soon as possible, I've essentially discarded it as an edition.


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## MNblockhead (Feb 25, 2019)

I have years of backlog in WotC and third-party adventures for 5e. I have a home brew world that has so much more that I would like to explore.  I could not buy another 5e product every again and I would still have many years worth of material to play. And D&D is not the only game I like to play. 

My current campaign alone will likely take 2-3 years to complete. 

If 6E were to come out in the next couple years I would see no reason to buy it.  It would have to be exceptionally compelling for me to by a new D&D core ruleset and use it for all the material I already have. I would rather spend my money on a completely different rule system for a different genre. I'm happy using 5e for my medievalish fantasy RPG. 

So I understand why folks stick with older editions.


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## Sadras (Feb 25, 2019)

MNblockhead said:


> I have years of backlog in WotC and third-party adventures for 5e. I have a home brew world that has so much more that I would like to explore.  I could not buy another 5e product every again and I would still have many years worth of material to play. And D&D is not the only game I like to play.
> 
> My current campaign alone will likely take 2-3 years to complete.
> 
> If 6E were to come out in the next couple years I would see no reason to buy it.  It would have to be exceptionally compelling for me to by a new D&D core ruleset and use it for all the material I already have. I would rather spend my money on a completely different rule system for a different genre. I'm happy using 5e for my medievalish fantasy RPG




This. Is. Me.


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## Kyle Davis (Feb 25, 2019)

Nostalgia is a helluva drug!

And, I dunno, I just like the way 3.5 makes the game-world 'feel'. Which doesn't make any sense, but there ya go.


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## zztong (Feb 25, 2019)

I'd say it depends on the mindset of the DM, what rules they think is best for themselves, the story to be told, and the players. The older rules are generally simpler and less defined. Continuity fits into this too. If you're part of a long-running game where character continuity matters, changing game systems tends to be a challenge to character conceptions just because what is possible changes.


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## Baron Opal II (Feb 25, 2019)

Kidbooo said:


> Hello everyone,,
> This is kind of a general question, and I know that, but I see lots of people playing 3rd edition and even more 3.5, but why do they play those instead showbox.bio/ tutuapp.uno/ vidmate.vet/ of 5e? I'm fairly new to 5e as a whole, and I'm just wondering, in what ways are 3.5 and 3rd better than 5th? Is it simply for the feeling of playing something original? Or does 5e do something terrible that can only be done correctly in past editions? Just genuinely curious, and would it be worth it for me to learn the older versions?




I prefer a simpler game with fewer moving parts. For me, B/X D&D with the addition of feats (a very small list of them, as well) allows for all of the customization we need. It's not nostalgia, it is that 5e has nothing to offer me that I don't already have.


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## Deset Gled (Feb 25, 2019)

I "grew up" on 3.x, and didn't care for 4e.  Recently, after a couple years of downtime with little tabletop gaming, I was asked by a group of friends to introduce them to D+D and DM for them.

I would love to take the time to learn 5e and teach them all the current version.  But that means I have to learn 5e not just well enough to play it, but to teach it to others and DM it.  Alternatively, I can throw together a tailored campaign, half a dozen character sheets, and hit the ground running in 3.5 with a solid Saturday of work.

So, I'm teaching a new generation of players 3.5.  It's not because of nostalgia, it's not personal preference, it's not storytelling, it's not mechanics, it's not third party support, it's not complexity.  It's just what was easiest at the time.  I would love to play 5e with a group where someone else teaches us 5e, but that's simply not the social situation I am in.


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## Flexor the Mighty! (Feb 25, 2019)

Yes. 

Yes they are.

Well some of them are.


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## ccs (Feb 25, 2019)

Deset Gled said:


> I "grew up" on 3.x, and didn't care for 4e.  Recently, after a couple years of downtime with little tabletop gaming, I was asked by a group of friends to introduce them to D+D and DM for them.
> 
> I would love to take the time to learn 5e and teach them all the current version.  But that means I have to learn 5e not just well enough to play it, but to teach it to others and DM it.  Alternatively, I can throw together a tailored campaign, half a dozen character sheets, and hit the ground running in 3.5 with a solid Saturday of work.
> 
> So, I'm teaching a new generation of players 3.5.  It's not because of nostalgia, it's not personal preference, it's not storytelling, it's not mechanics, it's not third party support, it's not complexity.  It's just what was easiest at the time.  I would love to play 5e with a group where someone else teaches us 5e, but that's simply not the social situation I am in.




You know 3.5?  And you can create a tailored campaign in one afternoon?  Then trust me, you can learn 5e in a single afternoon as well.


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## Deset Gled (Feb 25, 2019)

ccs said:


> You know 3.5?  And you can create a tailored campaign in one afternoon?  Then trust me, you can learn 5e in a single afternoon as well.




Learn to play, I believe you.  Learn to teach and DM, I am more skeptical about.  I've played enough game systems in my life to know what I don't know.  I've heard 5e is supposed to be easier to balance, but I would have to force everyone to play as generic fighter-rogue-cleric-wizard to be sure on the first time out (instead of the unique feeling characters I was able to help people build for 3.5 using the wide variety of feats and classes that I'm familiar with).

All game mechanics aside, 3.5 is the most navigable system for me, simply because of experience.  If anyone has a question I don't know the answer to, I know the books (and my curated files) well enough to find the answer fast enough to get it right and not slow down gameplay.  5e may not take the typical 10,000 hours to master, but there's no way I could be that fluent in it without at least a few games under my belt.

So, I hear what you're saying.  I like what you're saying.  Someday, I hope to experience what you are saying.  But today is not that day.  Tomorrow doesn't look good either.


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## Tony Vargas (Feb 25, 2019)

Kidbooo said:


> in what ways are 3.5 and 3rd better than 5th?



3.5/PF is a much richer and more detailed system, there's also a lot more material out for either of them than for 5e, and they're fairly adaptable to eachother (and to 3.0), so 5e's relative dearth of support is in competition with the vast pool of stuff available for those systems, combined.  

As a player, you can get a lot closer to playing /exactly/ the character you envision in 3.x/PF than in 5e.  It may or may not be viable along side what everyone else is playing, but you can do it.  Conversely, as a DM, 3.x/PF can be a bit of a nightmare.




> Is it simply for the feeling of playing something original?



 The original D&D, pre-Greyhawk 'Oe' or '0D&D,' is not played that much, AFAIK.  But, nostalgia or authenticity or whatever you want to call that fetish for the old, is a major part of people choosing AD&D or other 20th-century/TSR-era editions/variations over more modern ones. 



> Or does 5e do something terrible that can only be done correctly in past editions? Just genuinely curious, and



 No, the terrible things that 5e does can generally also be done in past editions - sometimes even more terribly.



> would it be worth it for me to learn the older versions?



 Probably not.  
The appeal of TSR era D&D is mainly nostalgia, if you didn't experience it in the 20th century, you won't get it, now - at most it'll be bemusing, like listening to a gramophone or watching a silent movie.  
The learning curve of 3.x/PF is quite steep, and part of the reason people have stuck with it through two easier/'better' subsequent editions is in part the investment sunk into learning it (and the payoff it offers said system mastery).  Even if you wanted the payoff of mastering 3.x/PF, the existing community will always be ahead of you on that curve.

Retreater has made a case for 4e actually being better for new D&Ders, even those who have already started with 5e. (It does have a gentler learning curve, is easier to DM, and is the best-balanced edition of a very badly-balanced game.) 
_Edit: Actually, I see he's already weighed in on this thread:_


Retreater said:


> . I also run regular 4e games, which I find better balanced and a better designed game than 5e.



 But, if you really want to play a game that's better than 5e D&D, you might as well go all the way and play a game that doesn't even purport to be D&D.  There are lots of games that are /much/ better than any edition of D&D has been, or even tried to be.  
Most games, really.  

The problem is picking one, and finding 5 other gamers who agree with that choice.  
;P




Kidbooo said:


> Why do people still play older editions of D&D? Are they superior to the current one?



 TL;DR - no, but the current one is not superior to the older ones, either.


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## Zardnaar (Feb 25, 2019)

Old games are not nostalgia. When I run AD&D it's for 3E, Pathfinder and 5E players. I don't have a bag of grogs I can pull out a OSR gamer from.

 They tend to prefer 5E but liked 2E AD&D although I dumped THAC0.

 Last Adventure I ran was X8 Drums of Fire Mountain iirc. Never played a few of the older adventures so the nostalgia factors not there.

 I wouldn't go out of my way to play old D&D but if you get the opportunity to try it why not.


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## MNblockhead (Feb 26, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> I don't have a bag of grogs I can pull out a OSR gamer from.




"Bag a Grogs" now *has* to be a magic item in my campaign.

A bag of endless pints of Ale?

A bag that summons a goliath barbarian/fighter to join your battle?

No. You summon an old soldier who calls you a pussy and talks about how soldiers in his day were real men who wouldn't need to summon old guys about of a bag to get things done.


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## ParanoydStyle (Feb 26, 2019)

Personally, 3.5 is my favorite edition of Dungeons & Dragons. It is not perfect, but I know its flaws well and have developed workarounds for the ones that come up most often. (Pathfinder does make some improvements but also adds complexity, and there's the "false compatibility" issue.)

However, I have a feeling I'll be playing D&D 5E for the foreseeable future because it is HUGE and I want to both work and play in this industry. It's at the point where you don't even say D&D 5E, just "D&D". There's a whole generation of vocal, enthusiastic players with disposable income for whom this is the only edition of D&D they have EVER KNOWN (which is very strange to me). I'd prefer to be playing and working on 3.5, but people aren't playing or buying 3.5, they're playing and buying 5E. I'm more relieved that 5E is good enough that I can enjoy playing it than I am annoyed that I'm not getting to play my personal very favorite edition.



> You summon an old soldier who calls you a pussy and talks about how soldiers in his day were real men who wouldn't need to summon old guys about of a bag to get things done.





Someone needs to somehow splice this into at least one line on every "Random Magical Effect Table" in every single work printed for 5th Edition, wand of wonder, spell mishap, etcetera etcetera. That would be AMAZING.


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## Man in the Funny Hat (Feb 26, 2019)

ccs said:


> You know 3.5?  And you can create a tailored campaign in one afternoon?  Then trust me, you can learn 5e in a single afternoon as well.



Thing is, ANY edition can be learned in an afternoon.  Less, if someone who ALREADY knows the edition can teach it.  But just because a new edition exists does not invalidate any older edition.  No edition has an expiration date.  The choice to NOT learn 5E is not just a matter of, "can it be learned fast/easily".  If you have ANY other edition that works well enough for you and the people you game with, you don't NEED another edition.  "I like it," is all the more reason anyone needs to play any past edition, and "I just don't want to," is likewise sufficient (or should be...) to end any and all attempts to convert the Luddite Heathens.  

As DM my first choice of editions is 1E.  I have pretty much got it how I want it after some 40 years.  I can also run or play 3.5 at the drop of a hat and have chosen to do so over 1E in the past simply because I can do so without needing as many house rules and it's easier to teach to complete newbs.  I've played a LITTLE bit of 5E and will gladly do so again, but will almost certainly NEVER run it as DM because I just don't care to put forth the time and effort and money to gear up to do so.  I've got 1E and 3.5 with associated adventures and campaign settings and decades of experience and familiarity with running them.  I can run them with FAR less effort and be just as happy if not more so.


Tony Vargas said:


> The problem is picking one, and finding 5 other gamers who agree with that choice.



And this.


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## Arnwolf666 (Feb 26, 2019)

I love 2E and BECMI. Most things that are feats are just things u can do inthe combat section. There is a power attack in rc and becmi for example. I guess u could call weapon specializing, mastery and grand mastery feats also. But not alot of complication to it. I also love the roll under ability score skill mechanic. 

And I hate making perception checks. If I search in the right place u find it. A surprise roll suffices for me for other things
I like the way spells and magic work. Not a fan of the way concentration is implemented. 
I love morale and henchman with charisma. In fact I think morale works better than intimidation and makes more sense. 
I think the reaction adjustment checks makes more sense than persuasion for how it is applied. And gives more rp opportunities imho.


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## Sadras (Feb 26, 2019)

MNblockhead said:


> No. You summon an old soldier who calls you a pussy and talks about how soldiers in his day were real men who wouldn't need to summon old guys about of a bag to get things done.




*Captain Redbeard Rum:* Aaaaaaahrrrrr Aaaaaaahrrrrr Aaaaaaaaaaahrrrrr. Me laddy.

*Blackadder:* Ah-haah-ah, indeed. So, Rum, I wish to hire you and your ship. Can we shake on it? [holds out hand]

*Rum:* aah-ahhh! [strokes his hand] You have a woman’s hand, milord! I’ll wager these dainty pinkies never weighed anchor in a storm.

*Blackadder:* Well, you’re right there.

*Rum:* Ha ha ha. -Aah! Your skin milord. I’ll wager it ne’er felt the lash of a cat [‘o’ nine tails], been rubbed with salt, and then flayed off by a pirate chief to make fine stockings for his best cabin boy.

*Blackadder:* How canny, I don’t know how you do it, but you’re right again.

*Rum:* Why should I let a stupid cockerel like you aboard me boat?

*Blackadder:* Perhaps for the money in my purse [holding it up]

*Rum:* Ha. -Aah! You have a woman’s purse! [takes it from him and examines it daintily] I’ll wager that purse has never been used as a rowing-boat. I’ll wager it’s never had sixteen shipwrecked mariners tossing in it.

*Blackadder:* Yes, right again, Rum. I must say when it comes to tales of courage I’m going to have to keep my mouth shut.

*Rum:* Oh! You have a woman’s mouth, milord! I’ll wager that mouth never had to chew through the side of a ship to escape the dreadful spindly killer fish.

*Blackadder:* I must say, when I came to see you, I had no idea I was going to have to eat your ship as well as hire it. And since you’re clearly as mad as a mongoose I’ll bid you farewell [gets up]

...(snip)...

*Rum:* I’ll come, I’ll come [holds out his hand]

*Blackadder:* Well, let us set sail as soon as we can. [they shake] I will fetch my first mate, and then I’ll return as fast as my legs will carry me.

*Rum:* Ah! [pointing] You have a woman’s legs, my lord! I’ll wager those are legs that have never been sliced clean off by a falling sail, and swept into the sea before your very eyes.

*Blackadder:* [crossly] Well, neither have yours.

*Rum:* That’s where you’re wrong [throws aside table showing his lack of legs]

*Blackadder:* Oh my God!


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## Nymblwyly (Mar 1, 2019)

Interesting question - and answered pretty well in the posts above. In my experience it tends to be where you came in and made the most investment - time and money. I still play basically 1st ed rules but have added a few extra things from 2nd ed (like the secondary or non-weapon skills). Does it limit play? Not in my opinion because the way we play is much more collaborative group puzzle solving...plus beer/wine and a belly full of laughs. The basic rules do limit initial character selection and development but is that really why you are playing the game? There are plenty of other fun things to do with it and at the end of day it's more about you and your group of friends getting together on a regular (or irregular) basis.  We are still playing after 35 years - marriages, kids, divorces and a ton of other real life nonsense getting in the way. When we want to switch pace or fancy a change someone else in group runs some Call of Cthulhu, RuneQuest, or Traveller for a while and/or we start a new campaign. For AD&D I think I have almost every module, rule book and supplement issued for both 1st & 2nd Ed. Why change to a new edition of the same game? Will we role play any differently? I don't think so...


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## Flexor the Mighty! (Mar 1, 2019)

Nymblwyly said:


> Interesting question - and answered pretty well in the posts above. In my experience it tends to be where you came in and made the most investment - time and money. I still play basically 1st ed rules but have added a few extra things from 2nd ed (like the secondary or non-weapon skills). Does it limit play? Not in my opinion because the way we play is much more collaborative group puzzle solving...plus beer/wine and a belly full of laughs. *The basic rules do limit initial character selection and development but is that really why you are playing the game? There are plenty of other fun things to do with it and at the end of day it's more about you and your group of friends getting together on a regular (or irregular) basis.*  We are still playing after 35 years - marriages, kids, divorces and a ton of other real life nonsense getting in the way. When we want to switch pace or fancy a change someone else in group runs some Call of Cthulhu, RuneQuest, or Traveller for a while and/or we start a new campaign. For AD&D I think I have almost every module, rule book and supplement issued for both 1st & 2nd Ed. Why change to a new edition of the same game? Will we role play any differently? I don't think so...




Exactly. For us the rules are secondary to generating the fun unless they are getting in the way. Or just fail to do what I want them to do for my current game.  But for us 99% of the fun isn't based off someones using the kung-fu grip feat at the right time, or putting complicated mechanics together for max effect, its from player interaction and player decisions, and bad dice rolls. My OD&D clone gets out of the way and provides a framework for our antics that works fine. Most of my group said they had no desire to go back to AD&D, which I would gladly run, so I took them back even further, just disguised it a bit from them.  At first they were a bit hesitant, "how can I be a great hero with a d8 HD, and my fighter has a 14 STR..." but the stats don't matter all that much since the bonuses are mostly +/- 1 for most things and the lower damage dice worked well with the lower HP values for foes. We are having a blast from a single 144 page volume, though I can use most of my D&D stuff up to 2e without much issue if I need to. The rules put most of the work on me to be a fair, fun, and impartial referee so its a good thing I rule.   3.x I was looking up the rules too often in our massive pile of rule books and 5e was just far too easy and I was re-working stuff too often.  

Its a vast difference between systems at our table.  In my S&W game its "oh crap a spider...save or die...RUN AWAY, RUN AWAY!"  In 5e its more "well its a 100 foot drop so I'm going to jump off the side and try to land a headbutt...yeah I'll take damage but 8 hours of sack time cures cancer and if I "die" we have revivify and I'll get a 20 minute nap in"  totally different focus. One is more Fafhrd and Grey Mouser the other is a Micheal Bay take on wuxia.  I know someone who wanted over the top action vs having to be cautious and worry about logistics and henchmen would not enjoy our game as much but its rocking for us.  Not pure nostalgia, I'd be running 1e, but just a better fit for what we are doing.  And I could just rework 5e for that but why?


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## Nymblwyly (Mar 1, 2019)

I remember DM'ing a group of kids on their first time out (including my own!) and one of them did something pretty stupid. Instead of killing his character as the rules and directions stipulated I had the large rock that should have killed him land on him and jam his helmet on his head. For the rest of the adventure he wasn't allowed to speak unless he put his hand tight over his mouth and shouted! They all thought that was hilarious and he changed his character name to meathead. After the adventure I told him that the blacksmith had to take a tin opener to him to get him out. He and his brother still play and are both DMs now running their own campaigns in 5e.  They've switched because they have less invested in the old systems and that's what all their friends are now playing. But the one universal rule still remains - use the rules where and when they help but feel free to bend them as you see fit (within reason) - keep the fun flowing, that's why we play, not because of the rules!


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## Eltab (Mar 1, 2019)

I can play Dark Sun in 4e.  But not 5e - yet; psionics rules (and eventually a _Dark Sun Campaign Setting_ book) are still under construction.
I got the 4e DSCS for Christmas.  Therefore I am creating a 4e DS campaign.  If/when 5e gets everything together, I can convert over.
If I wanted to lay out some money, I could play DS in 3e or 2e.  If I also wanted to do a lot of conversion work I could play DS in 1e or BASIC.


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## KenNYC (Mar 2, 2019)

I still play the older editions because I think they are superior games.   Just this week I was playing a retro clone called Basic Fantasy.   I am a 1st lvl Magic User with 3 HP.  My one spell is Sleep.   We come across a giant room with two entrances on the same wall about 40 feet apart.  We look in one doorway and see 20 zombies and skeletons standing dormant.  We knew from a previous session that the moment anyone walks through a door all 20 come to life and go on the attack.   1st lvl party, 6 characters, what to do?

I had 10 vials of oil.  I made a puddle in front of the doorway covering the entire width of the doorway, in the hallway between the two doors I made 3 more giant puddles of oil 10' apart.     I stepped in the room, the zombies shambled first because they were in front.   They're slow, so I waited til they got close and set the first puddle in front of the door on fire.   Then I backed up down the hall and led them like the pied piper from puddle to puddle setting them on fire as I went, each one doing 1d6 of damage for 2-4 rounds.  By the time they followed me all the way down the corridor, all the skeletons and zombies were dead, and not a single HP had been lost.

The 5e way would have been probably 70 rds of arrows and me with a non-stop cantrip with an ice ray--rolling dice endlessly.   The older cloned system required me to think about the problem, and solve it using my head, not my sheet.   That's why I prefer the older editions.  And so much for the notion that wizards need cantrips or they have nothing to do.


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## The Crimson Binome (Mar 2, 2019)

Kyle Davis said:


> And, I dunno, I just like the way 3.5 makes the game-world 'feel'. Which doesn't make any sense, but there ya go.



That makes plenty of sense. The rules of the game go a long way to describing how the game world works, and the rules of 3.5 describe a world which is internally consistent and mathematically regular. Other editions describe game worlds which are more ad-hoc and less predictable.


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## Morrus (Mar 2, 2019)

*Why do people still play older editions of D&amp;D? Are they superior to the current one?*



Kyle Davis said:


> And, I dunno, I just like the way 3.5 makes the game-world 'feel'. Which doesn't make any sense, but there ya go.




This is so literally a thing. And I don't get why people don't seem to feel the same way.

Every rules system feels different. 5E feels different to _Fate _feels different to _Rolemaster _feels different to _Savage World_s feels different to WFRP (I mean, obviously they do - why else would people play different games?)

5E feels different to 4E feels different to 3E feels different to 2E feels different to 1E.

I find it hard to agree with folks who say "the rules don't matter, it's just the style of play which matters". Because really, they_ feel_ different. They create different styles of play, and a game designer's art is creating a style of play through rules.

Different rules *feel* different. They literally embody different game worlds as much as the fluff text does. The rules are part of the world.

And that's why it's OK to say "2E feels better to me" or whatever.

I mean, Michael Bay's _Transformers_ feels different to _Goodfellas_, right? And Gygax's 1E feels different to Mearls' 5E.


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## Tony Vargas (Mar 2, 2019)

Morrus said:


> I mean, Michael Bay's _Transformers_ feels different to _Goodfellas_, right? And Gygax's 1E feels different to Mearls' 5E.



 I feel the same level of total disinterest in both Bayformers and Goodfellas.  ;p  
And, the major reason I like running 5e is that it feels so much like running AD&D.

Some games hard-core more feelz than others, though.  For all that 5e openly wants you to ignore it's own rules, and AD&D necessitated doing so, they both keep a definite feel, however far afield the DM takes them.


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## ccs (Mar 2, 2019)

Eltab said:


> I can play Dark Sun in 4e.  But not 5e - yet; psionics rules (and eventually a _Dark Sun Campaign Setting_ book) are still under construction.
> I got the 4e DSCS for Christmas.  Therefore I am creating a 4e DS campaign.  If/when 5e gets everything together, I can convert over.
> If I wanted to lay out some money, I could play DS in 3e or 2e.  If I also wanted to do a lot of conversion work I could play DS in 1e or BASIC.




If you can run DS in BASIC, then you can certainly run it in 5e.


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## Zardnaar (Mar 3, 2019)

ccs said:


> If you can run DS in BASIC, then you can certainly run it in 5e.




Alot more conversion work and Basic has that gritty feeling that 5E lacks. You can outright port the 2E psion rules to Basic, can't do that in 5E.

 In BASIC, 1E, 2E and 3E to a lesser extent energy drawing undead are feared. You might bolt from a 4HD Wight as a lost initiative roll and good attack roll you lose level.

 Death also matters a lot more pre 3E as resurrection is not guaranteed and gets smaller the more you are raised. 

 1E is more Sword and Sorcerery 5E more high fantasy. 

 If you like modern mechanics but old feelings there are also clones. I'm not a fan of 4E but understand why fans like it. 

 A lot of okd settings are also better off under original rules than newer updates assuming they actually got updated.


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## MechaPilot (Mar 3, 2019)

Kidbooo said:


> Hello everyone,,
> This is kind of a general question, and I know that, but I see lots of people playing 3rd edition and even more 3.5, but why do they play those instead (Mod Edit: spam link removed  ~Umbran) of 5e? I'm fairly new to 5e as a whole, and I'm just wondering, in what ways are 3.5 and 3rd better than 5th? Is it simply for the feeling of playing something original? Or does 5e do something terrible that can only be done correctly in past editions? Just genuinely curious, and would it be worth it for me to learn the older versions?




Every edition of D&D has it's own quirks and features that changes the feel of the game; it's part of why people develop favorite editions.

For some people, being able to perform cantrips all day long makes magic feel less magical.  For others, it makes sense to them if their wizard can always have something magical they can do, instead of resorting to a crossbow or running away and hiding when they run out of spell slots.

For some people, overnight healing makes combat feel like there aren't any repercussions.  For others, it speeds up play so the party doesn't spend a week or four recovering from the first fight of the adventure.

Some people enjoy the more rule-heavy tactical part of the game that some editions offer, while others prefer a more rules-light combat experience with less moving parts to track.

I love the way AD&D 2e handled multiclassing (though I wasn't a fan of it being restricted solely to non-human races) in which you simultaneously advanced in levels of each class by dividing your XP among all your classes; and I despise the 3e and 5e versions of multiclassing, where you have a set number of total level slots in which to equip class levels, and you have to pick and choose at each level.

I also love the to hit paradigm of editions 3, 4 & 5, where you simply roll, add bonuses and compare to AC, and where high ACs are better.  By contrast, AD&D 2e had a system where ACs ranged from 10 to -10 (with -10 being the best) and a Thac0 score (meaning To Hit Armor Class Zero) that determined what number you needed to roll to hit a creature with an armor class of zero.  Thac0 and 10 to -10 AC aren't overly difficult to use, especially over time and with experience, but it is algebraic and counter-intuitive, and I find a lot of people have a more lengthy time struggling with it before it finally breaks through and they're fine with it.

I don't really care for the 5e method of each attribute having its own saving throw.  The lion's share of saving throws in 5e are Dexterity, Constitution and Wisdom saves, which corresponds directly to the Reflex, Fortitude and Will saves (or defenses) of 3e (and 4e).  The rest of the 5e saves feel kind of tacked on (at least to me).

And I'm sure that's just a sliver of opinions you'll find on the matter.


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## MechaPilot (Mar 3, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> Alot more conversion work and Basic has that gritty feeling that 5E lacks. You can outright port the 2E psion rules to Basic, can't do that in 5E.




The 2e psionics rules are my favorite D&D psionics rules.


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## MechaPilot (Mar 3, 2019)

reelo said:


> Also, skills and feats: their mere existence in the rules enables "builds" and optimization. In editions where they don't exist, everybody can do (or at least attempt to do) everything.




There's no real reason why anyone can't try anything.  However, the person who invested in gaining the feat (or power) should generally do it easier, faster, better or at less of a cost than those who haven't.


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## wingsandsword (Mar 3, 2019)

Ultimately, people tend to stick with the editions they already play, and don't change to a later edition unless it offers something new that they see as being worth leaving the edition they already play, have books for, know the rules for ect.

People left 1e for 2e because 2e incorporated a lot of various optional rules that had become popular into the core rules, and included support for taking all character classes up to at least 20th level (in 1e, some classes such as Monks and Assassins reached max level before 20).

People left 2e for 3e because 3e provided a consistent, unified rule system and a LOT more flexibility than 1e or 2e in characters, monsters, ect.  

Well, I can't say why people left 3e for 4e, because I didn't and none of the people I gamed with did, they all rejected 4e _en masse_.   Presumably it provided something to someone though.


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## GreyLord (Mar 4, 2019)

wingsandsword said:


> Ultimately, people tend to stick with the editions they already play, and don't change to a later edition unless it offers something new that they see as being worth leaving the edition they already play, have books for, know the rules for ect.
> 
> People left 1e for 2e because 2e incorporated a lot of various optional rules that had become popular into the core rules, and included support for taking all character classes up to at least 20th level (in 1e, some classes such as Monks and Assassins reached max level before 20).
> 
> ...




At it's core 4e was much simpler than 3e.  It was basically a simplified form of 3.X rules.  However, each class then added it's powers which, for some, made it seem far more complex (and with all the powers it COULD be more complex).

There were some that enjoyed the more tactical nature of combat that 4e offered.  In many ways it provided a more solidified form of grid play than 3.5 or even some boardgames like Descent, while offering the opportunity for roleplay.

Others preferred how it made skills far more simpler to handle (+5 if trained), and monsters were far easier to throw into the mix or create on the fly than they were for 3.5 for many people.

Others preferred how simple many of the skills worked and thus how roleplay in general was far more open and less restrictive than the skills and feat system of 3.5 and how it handled such things.

Some felt that 4e was far more balanced, and in many ways there was no spellcaster vs. martial imbalance (like many claim there was/is for 3.5 or Pathfinder).  

Once again, there is no set answer, there were probably as many different reasons as there were groups (or even individuals) who played 4e.

In many ways, 4e was a direct precursor to 5e, if you take away the powers system and instead replace it with class based abilities that are more solidly applied.  It had the first precursor of Bounded accuracy (though it went to +15 rather than +6 for combat and saves, skills were still at +5 across the board) there are a lot of similarities between the two.  5e has many elements taken from 4e, but less emphasis on grid and miniatures in combat.

Part of what made some people get a sour taste about 4e was the marketing of it, but in many ways, 5e is probably closer to the basic core idea of 4e than most of the other versions of D&D that came before it.  This probably was another reason some jumped onto the 4e rules and later on were eager (those who did do this, as not all did this) to jump headfirst into 5e.


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## Greenfield (Mar 4, 2019)

To answer the original question, the answer is yes, they are better.  For some.

Each set of game mechanics has it's features and limitations, and it's a question of which appeals to you.

1st and 2nd edition AD&D were open ended and in many ways quite simple to play.  No dice rolls for a skill, and skills were in the "you have it or you don't" form.  They existed for role playing purposes and not much more.  Building a character took ten minutes.  Advancement was paced so you left the "squishy and easily killed" levels pretty quickly, then spent more time on the higher levels.  Time enough at each level, in fact, that you had a chance to explore who or what the character was.

3rd edition, and by extension, Pahfinder, standardized the game mechanics, bringing essentially everything down to a single D20 roll.  Numerous tables and charts, necessary for D&D, Basic and AD&D were rendered obsolete.  The additions of detailed skills and feats made character creation and advancement far more flexible.  By contrast, characters now took more than 10 minutes to create.  While many had found AD&D advancement too slow at higher levels (double current EXP to advance a level), advancement in 3rd was quick and regular.  Perhaps too quick for some, which lead to Pathfinder's option to choose advancement rate.  Prestige classes added to the flexibility and capacity to fine tune character development.  

4E was not my favorite, so bear with me if my critique seems unflattering.  It seemed like an attempt to move the computer game World of Warcraft to the tabletop.  Many concepts from WOW were codified in 4e:  The Tank, DPS, etc.  In that sense the succeeded brilliantly, except that without the computer to do the bookkeeping, tracking which effects ended when became a headache.  The first books returned a level of simplicity to character design:  You chose a class and a role, and that pretty much dictated every advancement choice from there in.  In that sense it was very reminiscent of AD&D.  They introduced, through the Powers concept, the idea that everyone had some type of near-supernatural ability:  Most combat powers did more than one thing, with many of the secondaries often hard to rationalize.  But the scale of most powers was such that it returned the game to a tighter frame, where you seldom had to deal with anything that would be "off the battle mat".  In 3rd edition, a longbow's range could allow a character to shoot over three hundred feet, which if plotted out at five feet per one inch square, was five feet on the board, which was well beyond the size of the board.  Spells like Fireball started at 900 feet (400 + 100 per caster level), which would require a table top over 15 feet long.

5th edition tried to be all things, taking parts of all the previous editions,  If they happened to take aspects that you liked then it was just about perfect.  If they saved the "wrong" parts (in your opinion) and left the good stuff behind, then it was far from perfect, and to some it seemed to fall short of anything enjoyable.  But to those who like what it offers, well, they'll like what it offers.

So yes, we play earlier editions because they are superior, at least for us.


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## Zardnaar (Mar 4, 2019)

GreyLord said:


> At it's core 4e was much simpler than 3e.  It was basically a simplified form of 3.X rules.  However, each class then added it's powers which, for some, made it seem far more complex (and with all the powers it COULD be more complex).
> 
> There were some that enjoyed the more tactical nature of combat that 4e offered.  In many ways it provided a more solidified form of grid play than 3.5 or even some boardgames like Descent, while offering the opportunity for roleplay.
> 
> ...




Bounded Accuracy is more from B/X or BECMI. ACs top out around 30 for the most part, level 20 fighter +13 to hit, only goes up to +3 weapons etc. The numbers are not that far off 5E.

 If you play B/X the numbers are even smaller a +1 sword is comparatively great.

 Some of us figured this out in the great migrations of 2008-2014 when going back to pre 3E made D&D fun again especially when you tinkered with it to import the good parts of 3.5 (ascending ACs).


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## wingsandsword (Mar 4, 2019)

GreyLord said:


> At it's core 4e was much simpler than 3e.  It was basically a simplified form of 3.X rules.  However, each class then added it's powers which, for some, made it seem far more complex (and with all the powers it COULD be more complex).
> 
> There were some that enjoyed the more tactical nature of combat that 4e offered.  In many ways it provided a more solidified form of grid play than 3.5 or even some boardgames like Descent, while offering the opportunity for roleplay.
> 
> ...




Well, I don't want to re-ignite the Edition Wars (which was the main reason I stopped posting at ENWorld regularly). . .but suffice it to say that there are a LOT of players who strongly disagree with the idea that 4th edition is in any way even _vaguely _related to 3rd edition or *any *predecessor edition.

One reason it was so controversial, besides as you mentioned its marketing that actively alienated many players and told many players that they were playing D&D "wrong" and 4e would show them how to play it "right", was that it seemed custom designed to divorce D&D from its entire history both in terms of setting/lore "fluff" and game rules "crunch".

Also, many players stick with 3.5 because they didn't just see 4e as being utterly alien to D&D (to the point that if the same game had been released by another company, under another name, nobody would have thought of it as being anything but an odd d20 fantasy variant). . .and they didn't go to 5e because they see it as stripped down, dumbed down, and gutted of options and flexibility.

I can appreciate that 5e at least looks and feels more like D&D than 4e ever did. . .but I don't play it because it removes so many options and so much functionality from the game.

When I played 2e, I'd describe my character concept to the DM. . .and we'd work together to come up with something that worked to describe it. . .even it it was often a hideous chimera of kits, optional rules, Skills & Powers variants ect. . .but it could be done.  In 3e and 3.5e, I could come up with a character concept and with multiclassing and prestige classes, feats, skills, various races and templates I could create the character.  In 4e, we quickly learned that such intricate customization was verboten and that characters were much less flexible. . .and while 5e isn't as much of a straitjacket to creativity as 4e was, it's nowhere near as versatile as 3.x or even 2e (it's got better mechanics than 1e or 2e, but not the intricate customization that 2e had by the late '90's).

I play 3.5e because to me, and the people I play with, it's the peak of D&D evolution and is far more versatile, flexible than any edition before or after and we can play whatever setting, whatever world we want and have such a vast library of classes, races, feats, spells ect. to work with. . .and a system that is designed to make the game highly customizable in ways no other edition ever could.

I've heard it argued that people stick with the edition they started with.  I started with "Black Box" basic D&D, then moved on to 2e in college. . .and we dropped it quickly when 3e came out, and moved to 3.5 not long after it came out, because in each one I saw continuous progress and improvement from the game, things that worked better and allowed me and my friends to play better games.

We never saw that from 4e or 5e, we saw a U-turn in game development at 4e, and while 5e was an improvement from 4e, it wasn't as good as 3.x (but better than 1e or 2e).


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## Celebrim (Mar 4, 2019)

Greenfield said:


> But the scale of most powers was such that it returned the game to a tighter frame, where you seldom had to deal with anything that would be "off the battle mat".  In 3rd edition, a longbow's range could allow a character to shoot over three hundred feet, which if plotted out at five feet per one inch square, was five feet on the board, which was well beyond the size of the board.  Spells like Fireball started at 900 feet (400 + 100 per caster level), which would require a table top over 15 feet long.




As a practical matter, few players of 3.Xe edition had regularly fired fireballs or longbows at things 100's of yards away.  Large distances like that existed solely because in real life, we know longbows were used in combat over great distances, and rarely did anyone try to game them (if they did, they probably ended up changing the rules).  One thing that 4e did is that it dropped any attempt to simulate anything - the part of D&D at low levels that one writer had called 'casual realism'.  Now, for most players this probably didn't matter much - they'd never used D&D for anything of the sort.  But what 4e did was it took away the option for those that had previously cared about such things.  An entire aesthetic of play disappeared, which for some players was I suppose welcome.  But it was far from the only aesthetic of play that disappeared.

This is why 5e reversed itself and went back to trying to be all things to all people, rather than trying to be the perfect game for some.  I wouldn't be surprised if 5e is, even for people who aren't playing it, almost everyone's second favorite edition.   For example, if I wasn't happy with my homebrewed 3.X (which among other things greatly reduces the range of fireball and greatly changes the spot rules so that they work better at long ranges), 5e would probably be the edition I'd play.



> So yes, we play earlier editions because they are superior, at least for us.




I certainly can understand the problems people have with 1e and 3e.  If I didn't think those editions had problems, I would have never written as extensive of house rules for them as I have.   But every edition and every rules set of every game has tradeoffs.  There is no such thing as the one best set of rules.  There are only rules that work for what you want to do.   Even my house rules, while I think they reduce the pain points of 3e (or 1e) are only reducing what I consider the pain points, and different people might experience frustration over different things.   Indeed, I can even see how some of my changes - say banning all PrCs - might, especially on first hearing them without seeing what I've done, strike many players as killing the best part of 3e, since there are indeed players who most enjoy 3e for its CharOp minigame of mixing and matching powers to do something creative.   It's just for me, planning and creating novel characters shouldn't be one of the best parts of the game.   And to the extent that you want to create a novel character, IMO the path to doing so should be more straight forward, involve fewer steps, and result in something of more predictable power given the level of the character.  But that is a subjective preference.


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## wingsandsword (Mar 4, 2019)

Celebrim said:


> This is why 5e reversed itself and went back to trying to be all things to all people, rather than trying to be the perfect game for some.  I wouldn't be surprised if 5e is, even for people who aren't playing it, almost everyone's second favorite edition.




I think that's a fair appraisal.

I'm a 3.5 devotee. . .but I'd say 5e is my 2nd favorite (albeit a distant 2nd). . .with 2e, then 1e. . .then 4e in that order.

5e at least is an honest effort to appeal to a wide variety of players and styles.  It doesn't really fit any one style perfectly, but it does fit many styles at least passably well.

Also, as you were noting, one of the reasons that 4e alienated so many players was that it made zero attempt at anything approaching simulation.  While D&D was never a game of hardcore realism in simulation, there was always a certain level of expected verisimilitude by many players, that the game should at least have enough simulation and realism that it doesn't break the illusion. . .but 4e, in its quest for game balance and mechanical perfection, placed that over any semblance of realism. . .and the focus on perfectly balanced mechanics (that often ignored even a vague semblance of realism) is one of the things that drove complaints of it being like a "video game". . .that things players might accept in a video game RPG as just aspects of the medium wouldn't be accepted in a tabletop game because many players came to expect at least a little more nod towards simulation and realism in a tabletop RPG.


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## MwaO (Mar 4, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> Bounded Accuracy is more from B/X or BECMI. ACs top out around 30 for the most part, level 20 fighter +13 to hit, only goes up to +3 weapons etc. The numbers are not that far off 5E.




5e math is literally 4e/2 math. You should expect a level 20 fighter to get a +3 magic weapon if you play in a 'typical campaign' ala page 133 of DMG, which makes the increase from levels 1-20 usually +9 additional(+2 stat, +4 proficiency, +3 weapon), where in 4e, you'd expect it likely to be +18 additional(+2.5 stat, +10 level, +4 weapon, +2 expertise).

Ditto for important skills, which are +2+4 vs +2.5+10 or +6 vs +12.

The big difference is 4e is super-transparent about expectations and 5e is trying to thread the needle of OSR people believing Bounded Accuracy wasn't abandoned and everyone else doing numbers as expected by running a 'typical campaign'. Which creates some problems when not everyone at WotC is aware of what Jeremy Crawford did, such as Adventurers League which hands out too many magic items, which then breaks numbers.


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## Retreater (Mar 4, 2019)

We are managing to play two 4E campaigns that "feel" like D&D. One is more of a dungeon hack, while the other is more roleplaying-based with political intrigue. I think that the marketing rubbed people the wrong way, as well as the way certain elements of the game were presented. (I still attest that Skill Challenges were presented terribly, and my own system works much better for us.) It's still very much D&D, and the "WoW/MMORPG feel" comes down to the way DMs run it, and how the action is presented.

I can speak only to my own experience (and my gaming circles), that we didn't want to like 4E at first. We were on the 3.5/Pathfinder train, and Paizo could do no wrong. It took so much to develop system mastery in 3.x edition and we collected so many adventures and supplements, that it stung to abandon the edition for something that was clearly very different. I had an additional chip on my shoulder because I had just published an adventure for Necromancer Games that wasn't going to be compatible with 4E. (And my magnum opus I was working on would never see the light of day due to 4E.) 

So we made fun of it. We tried to wreck the system. We tried to prove that it "wasn't D&D." We played one bad adventure (Keep on the Shadowfell) and wrote off the entire edition. 

I begrudgingly got into 4E when it was "the only game in town" due to D&D Encounters. I made many wonderful new friends who are still in my gaming groups. Then 5E came and became the dominant system for all my groups for a time.

Now I run a mix of both 4E and 5E campaigns. I think it depends on the group which system works better. 4E has much better balance and tactical combat. 5E is more streamlined and pared down. 

Personally, I don't think I would want to go back to 3.x/PF as it has the complexity and tactical richness of 4E without the balance. OD&D/OSR games can be streamlined, but they present very few options, so I'm not a fan of those systems.


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## billd91 (Mar 4, 2019)

MwaO said:


> 5e math is literally 4e/2 math. You should expect a level 20 fighter to get a +3 magic weapon if you play in a 'typical campaign' ala page 133 of DMG, which makes the increase from levels 1-20 usually +9 additional(+2 stat, +4 proficiency, +3 weapon), where in 4e, you'd expect it likely to be +18 additional(+2.5 stat, +10 level, +4 weapon, +2 expertise).
> 
> Ditto for important skills, which are +2+4 vs +2.5+10 or +6 vs +12.
> 
> The big difference is 4e is super-transparent about expectations and 5e is trying to thread the needle of OSR people believing Bounded Accuracy wasn't abandoned and everyone else doing numbers as expected by running a 'typical campaign'. Which creates some problems when not everyone at WotC is aware of what Jeremy Crawford did, such as Adventurers League which hands out too many magic items, which then breaks numbers.




Looking at the math in 4e without also looking at the target side makes it an incomplete picture. 5e is literally *not* 4e math in the sense that it isn't built in with the expectation of defenses rising at the same rate to produce a relatively static hit chance. So while +3 weapons might appear on the random treasure tables for a high level character, there's no expectation they will get or, more importantly, need one just to make the math work.

And since the same limited improvement applies to PC defenses and not just NPC/monsters, there's no issue with OSR people believing bounded accuracy wasn't abandoned. Lower powered opponents can still chip away at the PCs without needing to bloat their offensive numbers while gimping their hit points and PCs don't need to pursue astronomical stats and bonuses to hit any potential enemy in the Monster Manual. The whole point of bounded accuracy is met.


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## MwaO (Mar 4, 2019)

wingsandsword said:


> 4e, in its quest for game balance and mechanical perfection, placed that over any semblance of realism. . .and the focus on perfectly balanced mechanics (that often ignored even a vague semblance of realism) is one of the things that drove complaints of it being like a "video game". . .that things players might accept in a video game RPG as just aspects of the medium wouldn't be accepted in a tabletop game because many players came to expect at least a little more nod towards simulation and realism in a tabletop RPG.




4e is extremely good at modeling realistic expertise. A 20th level Wizard can auto-succeed on Arcana checks that would be expected to be difficult for 1st level Wizard to succeed at doing. Or a 20th level Rogue disarming a trap that might end up with a poisoned 1st level Rogue. And you'll never end up with a scenario where an untrained incompetent beats out the supercompetent expert with any consistency.

The only way to get realistic expertise as a _default_ of the system is to tell DMs what DCs will make the expert feel like an expert. And then build your encounters accordingly. If you don't do that, you'll end up with the Bounded Accuracy article's example of verisimilitude where the incompetent Next PC succeeds at opening the Iron Shod Door 15% of the time and the Next expert succeeds slightly more than twice that at 35% of the time. Which is completely without realism even as it is touted as such.


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## Celebrim (Mar 4, 2019)

MwaO said:


> 4e is extremely good at modeling realistic expertise. A 20th level Wizard can auto-succeed on Arcana checks that would be expected to be difficult for 1st level Wizard to succeed at doing. Or a 20th level Rogue disarming a trap that might end up with a poisoned 1st level Rogue. And you'll never end up with a scenario where an untrained incompetent beats out the supercompetent expert with any consistency.
> 
> The only way to get realistic expertise as a _default_ of the system is to tell DMs what DCs will make the expert feel like an expert. And then build your encounters accordingly. If you don't do that, you'll end up with the Bounded Accuracy article's example of verisimilitude where the incompetent Next PC succeeds at opening the Iron Shod Door 15% of the time and the Next expert succeeds slightly more than twice that at 35% of the time. Which is completely without realism even as it is touted as such.




I agree with the overall thrust of your observation, although I think you confuse your argument by using 'realistic' to describe what you are going for.  You'd actually I think be clearer by dropping realistic from your discussion and just say, "4e is extremely good at modeling expertise", which is I concur one of the problems I have with 5e's approach is that it doesn't model expertise or advantageous circumstances in the way past editions have. 

On the other hand, compared to earlier editions, 4e modelled expertise as universal, in the manner of action heroes or Star Trek bridge crew, where your expertise increased over time in all fields regardless of whether it was your field.  A 30th level Wizard in 4e isn't merely competent in Arcana, but universally competent in everything.   Again, whether that appeals to you depends on what you want from the system.

As yet another take, Pathfinder takes a middle ground between 3e and 4e, by making it much easier to achieve competence outside your field while not assuming that competence automatically happens.   Again, whether that appeals to you depends on what you want from the system.


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## wingsandsword (Mar 4, 2019)

MwaO said:


> 4e is extremely good at modeling realistic expertise. A 20th level Wizard can auto-succeed on Arcana checks that would be expected to be difficult for 1st level Wizard to succeed at doing. Or a 20th level Rogue disarming a trap that might end up with a poisoned 1st level Rogue. And you'll never end up with a scenario where an untrained incompetent beats out the supercompetent expert with any consistency.
> 
> The only way to get realistic expertise as a _default_ of the system is to tell DMs what DCs will make the expert feel like an expert. And then build your encounters accordingly. If you don't do that, you'll end up with the Bounded Accuracy article's example of verisimilitude where the incompetent Next PC succeeds at opening the Iron Shod Door 15% of the time and the Next expert succeeds slightly more than twice that at 35% of the time. Which is completely without realism even as it is touted as such.




Yet it's utterly awful in modelling injuries.  Get mauled to within an inch of your life?  Rest for a while, you don't even need healing magic. . .just rest and camp and you get everything back (thanks to so many non-magical healing abilities) you can be back in action in no-time.  In prior editions, if you were seriously wounded and didn't have magical healing available, it would take days (and in some cases weeks) of rest and non-magical treatment to get back in action, not just a good night's sleep.  

Giving characters the ability to non-magically force other characters to attack them (or compel them to take some kind of action), like a taunt ability from an MMORPG, was another utterly immersion-breaking, simulation-destroying aspect.  It's one of the things that is most obviously something out of a video game, not a tabletop RPG.

"Well, now you have to attack him, or else"
"Why?"
"Because he used an ability that says you have to"

Giving them various non-magical tricks and abilities that somehow only work X times per day was another thing that made no sense.  With magic, yes, it can make sense that magical power can run out, but when your super special fancy sword trick only works once a day that doesn't make sense as to why you can't just do it twice in a fight, other than it being a pure game rule reason which, again, flies in the face of any concept of immersion and totally destroys the idea of suspension of disbelief.

1e, 2e, 3e. . .were all based and modeled on myths and legends, on fantasy novels (including D&D novels), and historic combat. . .4e was based on video games and didn't care if it didn't reflect anything historical, mythical, out of fantasy novels. . .or even out of prior D&D novels (like how they had to completely break Forgotten Realms into something unrecognizable to shoehorn it into 4e).


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## MwaO (Mar 4, 2019)

billd91 said:


> Looking at the math in 4e without also looking at the target side makes it an incomplete picture. 5e is literally *not* 4e math in the sense that it isn't built in with the expectation of defenses rising at the same rate to produce a relatively static hit chance. So while +3 weapons might appear on the random treasure tables for a high level character, there's no expectation they will get or, more importantly, need one just to make the math work.




You might want to check out page 274 in DMG. Monsters literally increase defenses and to-hit at the exact same rate that PCs are expected to get bonuses in defenses, to-hit and attack.

Also, while you might not expect a +3 weapon, the system expects you get roughly a +3 weapon in a typical campaign. It might not be +3. It could be +2 or as high as +7. Odds are very favorable though that you get the +3 weapon and that you will get a total of 5 good number moving items per PC.
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?437937-Magic-Item-Math-of-5e

And a +3 weapon, when you're a Fighter that does an average of 12 damage per swing and hit 65% of the time, makes for more than a 50% increase in damage. When you take Action Surges into account, you can very easily end up in scenarios where the Fighter with the magic weapon defeats a creature in 2 rounds and the Fighter without a magic weapon takes 4 rounds.


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## Zardnaar (Mar 4, 2019)

wingsandsword said:


> Well, I don't want to re-ignite the Edition Wars (which was the main reason I stopped posting at ENWorld regularly). . .but suffice it to say that there are a LOT of players who strongly disagree with the idea that 4th edition is in any way even _vaguely _related to 3rd edition or *any *predecessor edition.
> 
> One reason it was so controversial, besides as you mentioned its marketing that actively alienated many players and told many players that they were playing D&D "wrong" and 4e would show them how to play it "right", was that it seemed custom designed to divorce D&D from its entire history both in terms of setting/lore "fluff" and game rules "crunch".
> 
> ...




4E evolved out of late 3.5. The problem being what if you did not buy a lot of 3.5 books, or at least bought the right ones. I had around 80 odd 3.x books but missed Races of the Dragon, Book of Nine Swords etc but was aware they existed. 

 If you went from 3.5 PHB and maybe a few of the Complete XYZ (especially the 1st 4), yeah 4E would be unrelated to D&D for you.

 I also would not call 4E bounded, the numbers were a treadmill, there was no cap on ability scores, magic weapons went higher than +3 etc and have your prime be 5-10 points higher than your other scores would not be to unusual. A gap in skills of +14 or +15 (level 1) between an expert and untrained also existed which was similar to 3.X. Monster ACs also went up as high as they needed.

 Playing B/X and 2E again 2012-2014 the numbers being all out of whack in 3E and 4E was very noticeable. 4E was not as bad as 3.5 in some ways worse in other ways.


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## MwaO (Mar 4, 2019)

wingsandsword said:


> Yet it's utterly awful in modelling injuries.  Get mauled to within an inch of your life?  Rest for a while, you don't even need healing magic. . .just rest and camp and you get everything back (thanks to so many non-magical healing abilities) you can be back in action in no-time.  In prior editions, if you were seriously wounded and didn't have magical healing available, it would take days (and in some cases weeks) of rest and non-magical treatment to get back in action, not just a good night's sleep.




Every edition is horrible at modeling injuries. Get mauled within an inch of your life so you only have 1 hp? Well then, fight just as well as if you weren't hurt at all as long as you don't get hit. And you're dying and low-level and magically healing with a cure light wounds to full hp, but at high levels, it might not even heal a small scratch?

All 4e does is represent the mechanical reality of hp in D&D as per Gygax. That it is mostly luck, skill, and magical or divine protections. All of which seems easy to recover given a night's rest.



wingsandsword said:


> Giving characters the ability to non-magically force other characters to attack them (or compel them to take some kind of action), like a taunt ability from an MMORPG, was another utterly immersion-breaking, simulation-destroying aspect. It's one of the things that is most obviously something out of a video game, not a tabletop RPG.




Martial is not exclusively defined as non-magical unless your table decides that it is. 

If a Fighter takes Come And Get It, there are a few things can happen:
Come and Get It is a theatrical example of what can happen in combat and non-magical.
Come and Get It is a martial power that has some magical aspects.
Come and Get It is a martial power that is actually magical and some Fighters can do magical things.
Fighters can't take Come And Get It because Fighters are not magical, period, and it is a magical power.

Up to your table as to what's the correct answer for your table. Instead of being up to your table what's the correct answer for everyone.


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## Celebrim (Mar 4, 2019)

*OOC:*










MwaO said:


> All 4e does is represent the mechanical reality of hp in D&D as per Gygax.




Let's not start that again.  4e models a very different reality than the one 1e does, not the least of which is Gygax never suggested that hit points ought to be easily recoverable from a night's rest.  Let's not pretend otherwise.  You can fully describe the reality that 4e models and defend it without resulting to spurious claims that it isn't any different than the one modelled by 1e.  There are two huge differences.

And while it is true that every edition is horrible at modeling injuries and generally does not try, injuries in 4e are actively deprecated as even a thing.  There is a scale to this.  There are differences in degree.  The last thing we need is to resurrect one of the great battles of the edition war, namely, that 4e was actually truer to 1e than 3e had been.


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## Tony Vargas (Mar 4, 2019)

wingsandsword said:


> Well, I don't want to re-ignite the Edition Wars (which was the main reason I stopped posting at ENWorld regularly). . .but



 Nothing before the "but" matters.  
;P



> suffice it to say that there are a LOT of players who strongly disagree with the idea that 4th edition is in any way even _vaguely _related to 3rd edition or *any *predecessor edition.



 It can be hard to see the relation, since 4e was so much more evolved.  Like how did T-Rex evolve into hummingbirds?  It didn't, the common ancestor was further back, a teeny warm-blooded saurian that diverged into many species of dinos and has living descendants in birds, as well.

The commonalities are there, though.  3.0 divested itself of some of the worst needless complexity in AD&D, for instance -- some.  Though 4e cut a lot deeper, it didn't just scrap it all and start from scratch -classes, levels, hps, AC, etc … - many a hoary D&Dism remained. 5e pasted much of it back, though, in some cases, only as a veneer.



> I can appreciate that 5e at least looks and feels more like D&D than 4e ever did. . .but I don't play it because it removes so many options and so much functionality from the game.



 Just one example:  Spells Levels.  Spell levels could almost be trade dress of D&D, they're so emblematic of the game.  Yet, they are an example of needless, complexity, they never /did/ anything, just gated spells by class level - 2nd level wizard spells were gained at 3rd level, they'd've a more intuitively been 3rd level spells.  
3.5 manufactured a function for spell levels:  they added to the DC of saving throws.  5e dumped that, and gave spell levels a different, even more arbitrary function in the form of slot-based up-casting.  Of course, calculated DCs and up-casting are both, themselves, examples of needless complexity, as well.  ::shrug::



> In 3e and 3.5e, I could come up with a character concept and with multiclassing and prestige classes, feats, skills, various races and templates I could create the character.  In 4e, we quickly learned that such intricate customization was verboten and that characters were much less flexible. . .



There was intricate customization in 4e - you had race, class (including builds, alternate class features, hybrids and sub-classes), feats (including multi-classing), backgrounds, and themes.  And most of those could be extensively re-skinned one way or another, without appealing DM fiat.  The level of customization was generally comparable to 3.x, the main difference being that more of the universe of theoretically possible characters was viable, because balance was so much better.  

And, sure, 5e, especially if your DM hasn't opted into feats & MCing, is pretty limited, as far a character customization is concerned:  that's one of the main ways in which it claims to be rules lite - by taking away a lot of player choice from the get-go.  And, reducing player choice ('agency') also key to delivering on DM Empowerment over 3.x/PF/4e/E "Player Entitlement."  Of course, it's also just a matter of there being less material published for players than in those editions (or in 2e AD&D for that matter).  Still, if you just consider viable options, 5e doesn't present a lot less than 3.x does.


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## Zardnaar (Mar 4, 2019)

Celebrim said:


> Let's not start that again.  4e models a very different reality than the one 1e does, not the least of which is Gygax never suggested that hit points ought to be easily recoverable from a night's rest.  Let's not pretend otherwise.  You can fully describe the reality that 4e models and defend it without resulting to spurious claims that it isn't any different than the one modelled by 1e.  There are two huge differences.
> 
> And while it is true that every edition is horrible at modeling injuries and generally does not try, injuries in 4e are actively deprecated as even a thing.  There is a scale to this.  There are differences in degree.  The last thing we need is to resurrect one of the great battles of the edition war, namely, that 4e was actually truer to 1e than 3e had been.




Go to a grog board and find out their opinion on 4E lol. Go there and compare it with 1E, if you think they don't like 3E their opinion of 4E is even lower. 

Rather than argue about what models damage better I think its just better to look at rapid healing vs 1-3 hp. What one you like better is up to you. OSR has combat as dangerous, modern D&D is more kick in the door. Kick in the door in AD&D you might find yourself a level or 2 lower (or dead). Ones gritty ones not, what you like is up to you.

 It was quite funny running AD&D for modern gamers, I did warn them about the differences going in. Sure enough they were tapping the ground with a 10' pole, rolling marbles around looking for slopes and using Elves to look for secret doors. Well actually everyone did once they found out everyone was roughly as good at it as anyone else.


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## Retreater (Mar 4, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> Go to a grog board and find out their opinion on 4E lol. Go there and compare it with 1E, if you think they don't like 3E their opinion of 4E is even lower.
> 
> Rather than argue about what models damage better I think its just better to look at rapid healing vs 1-3 hp. What one you like better is up to you. OSR has combat as dangerous, modern D&D is more kick in the door. Kick in the door in AD&D you might find yourself a level or 2 lower (or dead). Ones gritty ones not, what you like is up to you.
> 
> It was quite funny running AD&D for modern gamers, I did warn them about the differences going in. Sure enough they were tapping the ground with a 10' pole, rolling marbles around looking for slopes and using Elves to look for secret doors. Well actually everyone did once they found out everyone was roughly as good at it as anyone else.




I don't dislike OD&D because it's "gritty." It's because your mechanical choices matter very little. Trying to sneak past a guard station of 6 kobolds (which are basically as good as 6 characters), your thief has a 14% chance to sneak past them. Your other classes can't even attempt it. Prodding the floor with a 10' pole every step of the way is as passive way of playing as relying on Passive Perception in 4/5E.


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## Tony Vargas (Mar 4, 2019)

Retreater said:


> I don't dislike OD&D because it's "gritty." It's because your mechanical choices matter very little. Trying to sneak past a guard station of 6 kobolds (which are basically as good as 6 characters), your thief has a 14% chance to sneak past them. Your other classes can't even attempt it. Prodding the floor with a 10' pole every step of the way is as passive way of playing as relying on Passive Perception in 4/5E.



 True, mechanical choices matter a great deal in 3.x(or PF or 4e/E - even 2e, to a lesser extent), while they matter less in 5e or 1e AD&D where choices you make in your interaction with the DM are far more important.  

But that's part of the point.  Zard's players ended up poking around with 10' poles and having everyone look for secret doors because that's what he, as the DM, allowed to work.  It was just a matter of fumbling about with the rules for a bit before determining that doing so consistently led to failure, then fumbling about outside them until you found something that worked.  Then doing that.  Constantly.  

Decisions matter either way, just a different set of decisions.


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## Zardnaar (Mar 4, 2019)

Note I don't regard the OSR thief as good design or positive part of OSR gaming. The 3.X Rogue translated to AD&D is probably a better example of where I think the thieves power should be.

 If I were to make my own clone I would probably start with the 4E or 5E engine tweaked to make AD&D 3E, a new 4E or a fixed 3.5.

 Then you would just plug in the class design you want and design other things around that. 
 A tweaked 5E champion could also work well in a new B/X type game and you could use a simple 5E type skill system and add micro feats if desired. Some of the clines are well done but you could go a bit further IMHO. To fix 3.x I would reverse some of the decisions they made from 2E to 3E. To fix 4E I would look more at 5E and Star Wars Saga.

 I own OD&D but look more at 1E or B/X for OSR gaming. OD&D isn't that good IMHO.

 Some things that are obsolete could be redone as well as I liked the concept but execution was off. Prestige classes and microfeats come to mind.


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## Salamandyr (Mar 4, 2019)

Retreater said:


> I don't dislike OD&D because it's "gritty." It's because your mechanical choices matter very little. Trying to sneak past a guard station of 6 kobolds (which are basically as good as 6 characters), your thief has a 14% chance to sneak past them. Your other classes can't even attempt it. Prodding the floor with a 10' pole every step of the way is as passive way of playing as relying on Passive Perception in 4/5E.




This is a common mistake, and understandable.  I know a lot of 1st edition games that played exactly thus.  That impression has led to a whole host of players moving to skill based systems over the decades.


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## The Crimson Binome (Mar 4, 2019)

MwaO said:


> You might want to check out page 274 in DMG. Monsters literally increase defenses and to-hit at the exact same rate that PCs are expected to get bonuses in defenses, to-hit and attack.



The difference is that 4E assumed you would only fight things of roughly-equal level, while 5E characters are supposed to fight things of any level up to their own. A fighter in 4E needs their +3 weapon to stay on track with expected foes, while a fighter in 5E can keep using their +1 weapon forever, and won't notice anything wrong in most instances. While the latter character will be relatively less accurate than they probably should be against harder foes, the fact that at-level encounters are less frequent means that there's not a huge sample size for that deficiency to make itself felt.


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## Zardnaar (Mar 4, 2019)

Saelorn said:


> The difference is that 4E assumed you would only fight things of roughly-equal level, while 5E characters are supposed to fight things of any level up to their own. A fighter in 4E needs their +3 weapon to stay on track with expected foes, while a fighter in 5E can keep using their +1 weapon forever, and won't notice anything wrong in most instances. While the latter character will be relatively less accurate than they probably should be against harder foes, the fact that at-level encounters are less frequent means that there's not a huge sample size for that deficiency to make itself felt.




That is a misconception, PCs can face monsters whose CR is far above their level. Its based on xp and as the higher you go the more the gap increases.
 For example level 7 PCs can encounter CR 12/13 critters RAW.


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## The Crimson Binome (Mar 4, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> That is a misconception, PCs can face monsters whose CR is far above their level. Its based on xp and as the higher you go the more the gap increases.
> For example level 7 PCs can encounter CR 12/13 critters RAW.



I suppose, but you're expected to die in those cases, in which case your accuracy isn't super relevant. Anyone _can_ trip over the Tarrasque, regardless of your level or the edition you're playing.

The meta-game guidelines for 4E are that you should encounter monsters that are within two levels of your own (IIRC). The meta-game guidelines for 5E are that you should encounter a certain XP budget worth of monsters _and_ that none of those monsters should be higher level than the PCs. You're free to ignore the guidelines, but whether the encounter turns lethal because a single monster is higher level, or whether it's because the XP budget for that fight is too high, both cases are because you've ignored the guidelines. The XP budget guidelines aren't somehow _more_ canon than the level-limit guidelines. They're all just suggestions.


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## Lord Shark (Mar 5, 2019)

/ "I don't want to start the edition wars again, but..." 
// immediately repeats all the same crap we've been hearing since 2008


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## MwaO (Mar 5, 2019)

Saelorn said:


> The difference is that 4E assumed you would only fight things of roughly-equal level, while 5E characters are supposed to fight things of any level up to their own. A fighter in 4E needs their +3 weapon to stay on track with expected foes, while a fighter in 5E can keep using their +1 weapon forever, and won't notice anything wrong in most instances. While the latter character will be relatively less accurate than they probably should be against harder foes, the fact that at-level encounters are less frequent means that there's not a huge sample size for that deficiency to make itself felt.




Honestly, that's really marketing at play. Both games can kind of work when you don't follow system guidelines. 4e actually works a bit better mechanically, just players know that's not supposed to happen, and get unhappy.

Really is what happens when you only expect to have Stat+Enh as a bonus to damage vs say Stat+Feat+Item+Enh...


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## Zardnaar (Mar 5, 2019)

Saelorn said:


> I suppose, but you're expected to die in those cases, in which case your accuracy isn't super relevant. Anyone _can_ trip over the Tarrasque, regardless of your level or the edition you're playing.
> 
> The meta-game guidelines for 4E are that you should encounter monsters that are within two levels of your own (IIRC). The meta-game guidelines for 5E are that you should encounter a certain XP budget worth of monsters _and_ that none of those monsters should be higher level than the PCs. You're free to ignore the guidelines, but whether the encounter turns lethal because a single monster is higher level, or whether it's because the XP budget for that fight is too high, both cases are because you've ignored the guidelines. The XP budget guidelines aren't somehow _more_ canon than the level-limit guidelines. They're all just suggestions.




Nope you are transplanting 3E/4E expectations into 5E. Level has nothing to do with 5E encounter building guidelines. It's xp but a CR 15 critter is not for lvl 13 to 17.

 Even a "deadly" encounter in 5E isn't that hard. For example assuming a 5 person party. The budget for a deadly encounter is 5500 xp CR 9 is 5000xp CR 10 is 5900.

 At level 10 the budget is 14000 xp. CR 15 is 13000 xp CR 16 is 15000.

 Level 15 is 32000xp CR 20 is 2500p CR 21 is 33000.

 Level 20.  Xp budget 63500 xp. That's roughly CR 24. 

 Things also don't really get deadly as such until you go triple to X5 over the xp caps.  If you do exceed it reduce the number of encounters per day.  CR 25+ is for high level play where you only have a few encounters so nova away.

 Personally I think the guidelines are trash but I share the same opinion of the 3E and 4E ones. CR 13 can be fine on level 7 PCs and it's only a few points over the xp cap. 

  The encounter guidelines are basically gamist all editions. The old wandering monsters tables from AD&D are more for living world type games. Just because PCs are level 4 they can still encounter old dragons. Suggestion be very polite and persuasive. 

Much like the real world don't go to certain parts of the world as a civilian.


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## The Crimson Binome (Mar 5, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> Nope you are transplanting 3E/4E expectations into 5E. Level has nothing to do with 5E encounter building guidelines. It's xp but a CR 15 critter is not for lvl 13 to 17.



There are a few relevant bits of text here: 







> When putting together an encounter or adventure, especially at lower levels, exercise caution when using monsters whose challenge rating is higher than the party’s average level.





> You can build an encounter if you know its desired difficulty. The party’s XP thresholds give you an XP budget that you can spend on monsters to build easy, medium, hard, and deadly encounters.





> Assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day. If the adventure has more easy encounters, the adventurers can get through more. If it has more deadly encounters, they can handle fewer.
> 
> In the same way you figure out the difficulty of an encounter, you can use the XP values of monsters and other opponents in an adventure as a guideline for how far the party is likely to progress.



There's a guideline for how strong of a monster is likely to not overwhelm the party, and then there's a guideline to estimate the difficulty of an individual encounter, and finally a guideline for how far a party can progress in a day. These correspond to the monster's level, the encounter experience budget, and the daily experience budget.

The game doesn't _expect_ you to break any of those limits. They don't _expect_ your level 13 party will face a level 15 monster, anymore than they expect your party will face an encounter that's beyond Deadly on the scale, or that they'll encounter more than their daily budget worth of monsters in a single day.

You're free to have your party face a high-level monster, in the exact same way that you can have them break their encounter or daily experience budgets. That's what it means to be a guideline, rather than a rule. You're making it sound like the experience budgets are actually rules, and the level limit is just a suggestion, but they're all just guidelines.


Zardnaar said:


> Even a "deadly" encounter in 5E isn't that hard.



This isn't a question of how hard it is. It's a question of guidelines and expectations.


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## Zardnaar (Mar 5, 2019)

Saelorn said:


> There are a few relevant bits of text here: There's a guideline for how strong of a monster is likely to not overwhelm the party, and then there's a guideline to estimate the difficulty of an individual encounter, and finally a guideline for how far a party can progress in a day. These correspond to the monster's level, the encounter experience budget, and the daily experience budget.
> 
> The game doesn't _expect_ you to break any of those limits. They don't _expect_ your level 13 party will face a level 15 monster, anymore than they expect your party will face an encounter that's beyond Deadly on the scale, or that they'll encounter more than their daily budget worth of monsters in a single day.
> 
> ...




Had not finished typing. CR 15 is roughly a medium encounter for level 13 PCs. And you can do a few of them in a day.


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## Tony Vargas (Mar 5, 2019)

Zardnaar said:


> Nope you are transplanting 3E/4E expectations into 5E. Level has nothing to do with 5E encounter building guidelines. It's xp but a CR 15 critter is not for lvl 13 to 17.
> 
> Even a "deadly" encounter in 5E isn't that hard.




Oh, CR still maps to level.  As in 3e, 5e CR = level means the party can take on a lone creature of that CR as a sort of speedbump challenge.  5e skews significantly easier than 3e, in spite of that assumption, especially once magic items come into it, but it's there.  In 3e, if you went against a too-high-level opponent it'd get too hard for everyone (possibly even the fighter) to hit, too easy for it to save, it would have special abilities you couldn't cope with, and it'd hit too easily for too much damage - TPK in short order.  In 5e, you'll still be able to hit it, it still might miss you, but it'll hit way too hard, while your best shots barely make an impression on its mountain of hps - TPK in short order.  5e scales more dramatically on the hp/damage side than 4e/E did or 3e/PF1 does, to make up for hardly scaling at all on the d20 bonus side.  It still scales, though, monsters of a given CR pretty closely approximate the proficiency bonus corresponding to that level if you care to reverse engineer them.


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## Jacob Lewis (Mar 5, 2019)

Everything I play is superior to whatever I'm not playing at the time. At least, that is my hope as I spend more time playing one thing and not something else.


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## MwaO (Mar 5, 2019)

Celebrim said:


> On the other hand, compared to earlier editions, 4e modelled expertise as universal, in the manner of action heroes or Star Trek bridge crew, where your expertise increased over time in all fields regardless of whether it was your field.  A 30th level Wizard in 4e isn't merely competent in Arcana, but universally competent in everything.   Again, whether that appeals to you depends on what you want from the system.




It is really strange that a 20th level PCs would ever be assumed to not improve at things that they saw for 19th levels, even if they themselves didn't do that. I think it is abundantly realistic that a 20th level incompetent is roughly as skilled as a 1st level expert in all things. Sure, the 20th level Fighter with an 8 Int isn't trained in Arcana. But they've seen all kinds of strange things that if they were adventuring with a party of 1st level PCs, would be awesomely useful. But then again, they're not doing that. You watch a Cha-Bard negotiate his way out of every mishap, you're going to pick some of that up after again, 19 levels of it. Sure, you might not be able to do it with an expert negotiator, but convince the low level peasant to tell you about their day? Why wouldn't you know how to do that?

You can pretty much apply this to any skill in the book.



Celebrim said:


> Let's not start that again....defend it without resulting to spurious claims that it isn't any different than the one modelled by 1e...The last thing we need is to resurrect one of the great battles of the edition war, namely, that 4e was actually truer to 1e than 3e had been.




You're arguing here with someone else that isn't me who said things I didn't say.


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## Celebrim (Mar 5, 2019)

MwaO said:


> It is really strange that a 20th level PCs would ever be assumed to not improve at things that they saw for 19th levels, even if they themselves didn't do that. I think it is abundantly realistic that a 20th level incompetent is roughly as skilled as a 1st level expert in all things.




The problem with the word realistic is the same that it has been since its ubiquitous use in the 1980's, namely that too often 'realistic' is used to pretend that subjective preferences are objective truths.

Can you rationalize the 4e system to create in game meaning for the rules?  Sure.  You can go further and suggest it has verisimilitude to certain sorts of genre.  But you can't actually prove that it is 'realistic'.



> You can pretty much apply this to any skill in the book.




Or not.



> You're arguing here with someone else that isn't me who said things I didn't say.




That's quite possible, but whether you are aware it or not, you are edging into one of the most divisive issues on the EnWorld forums.  You asserted: "All 4e does is represent the mechanical reality of hp in D&D as per Gygax."  That's not a statement that there is remotely universal agreement on, and it tends to be one that causes absolutely explosive arguments.


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## GreyLord (Mar 5, 2019)

I did not actually intend to spark a discussion regarding the various criticisms or angst about 4e.  

I was answering the question of WHY someone chose 4e or leaped into it.  AS such, I was simply giving out reasons why someone might have done so.

We get too engaged in dissing on a favorite edition as well at times (for example, I may diss hard on 3e or 3.5 or Pathfinder), but not sure that was the intent of the thread and sorry if my post derailed it to that degree.

On that note, I thought about putting a poll, but instead how about we rank which editions we like the most in order.  I expect 5e may be in the top 3 of most people's lists...but it could be interesting.

My list changes depending on what I'm playing and how I feel about it.  Some editions will move up or down depending on the day.  I'll list my favorites in order today.  

The choices could be (and sorry if I miss any)...

OD&D, OD&D w/ Supplements (aka Greyhawk), Holmes Basic, AD&D, BX, BECMI, AD&D 2e, RC, 2.5 (combat options/skills & Powers), 3e, 3.5, 4e, 4e Essentials, 5e.

So mine currently (today, could be different tomorrow so don't hold me to these)...

1. AD&D
2.  AD&D 2e
3. RC
4. BX
5. BECMI
6. OD&D w/ Supplements
7. Holmes
8. 5e
9. 4e
10. 3.5
11. OD&D
12. 4e Essentials
13. 3e
14. 2.5

You can tell I really enjoy/enjoyed AD&D.  

5e is pretty much middle of the pack for me, meaning it beats out many of the newer editions.  As you can also tell, OD&D doesn't really light my fire as much as some others.  It may be that Greyhawk was the one that I really got into (a supplement of OD&D) and with the supplements it actually is very close to AD&D in many ways.  AD&D solidified and consolidated OD&D, and basically was OD&D on steroids.  I'm trying to think of another D&D type analogy that could fit, but cannot think of one off the top of my head.  Maybe, sort of like the 3e Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting which really gathered up a lot of various FR information over the years and put it in one book, or perhaps the Grand History of the Realms is to a general timeline of the Realms.


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## GreyLord (Mar 5, 2019)

Ah, I got it.  It's so obvious looking at it.  When they did AD&D it was like a consolidation of OD&D and all it's supplments and dragon articles into one set of books.  

In that way it is sort of like the Rules Cyclopedia for the BECM sets.  It doesn't have EVERYTHING from them, but has a LOT of the highlights and basically gathers it into one place.

This also brings up the thing that appears on my list of favorites above...why the RC is rated above BECMI?

For me, it is that many things were simplified and more direct in the Rules Cyclopedia. In addition, some of the more wonky listings that were harder to gather are better organized.  A good example is the mystic which you could play a monk like character as it was listed in the Master Set but it meant that you had to gather information from several different parts of the book (the Monster listing as well as the other information) where as in the Cyclopedia it is all neatly packaged into one place with the rest of the classes.


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## Celebrim (Mar 5, 2019)

GreyLord said:


> My list changes depending on what I'm playing and how I feel about it.  Some editions will move up or down depending on the day.  I'll list my favorites in order today.




Mine would be:

1. 3e/Pathfinder (I have an existing homebrew rules set)
2. 5e
3. 1e/2e (any attempt to run this would result in a game so house ruled it would be difficult to determine which rules set I was playing) 
4. 3.5e (I'd run this as basically core only to avoid the issues of bloat.)
5. 4e/4e Essentials (At this point and below I can't see myself ever running or playing a game.)
6. BECMI/RC/BX/Holmes 
7. 2.5
8. OD&D (I'd reinvent AD&D before even trying to play this game.)


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## Greg K (Mar 5, 2019)

I started with Holmes and then moved to AD&D 1e, AD&D 2e, and then 3e. I had also played occasional sessions of B/X  and BECMI  basic.  I stick with 3e when I run D&D for several reasons

a. Many of my house rules for pre-3e were default for 3e.
b. Some other changes that I wanted were default in 3e including a skill point system, the save categories
c. Using some options from the DMG and Unearthed Arcana, I could reintroduce a tone or feel that I liked about AD&D and early 2E as played by my friends and I and from which we felt 3e began to deviate away.
d. Unearthed Arcana and third party options provided me options to further tailor the game to my liking.
e. Much of what i dislike about 3e is easily ignored because they are optional in core (e.g. PrCs) or appeared in supplements 
f. Oriental Adventures provided me with a replacement for the monk class that is easy to modify to fit my campaigns.​
4e had several things that I liked (e.g. rangers as non-spellcasters, magic missile needing a to hit roll,  the Feywild, removal of the Great Wheel,  p.42 (in theory). However, despite picking up PHB2 and Martial Power, I ended up not running it.  The default feel (to me) was not the fantasy that I wanted. I did not like several of the classes (e.g. cleric, barbarian, sorcerer). I also did not want to play paragon and epic levels.  Then, looking at the things that I wanted to change, my house rule list would have been the size of 3e.

5e looked good at the start out of the basic box and SRD.  There are even a few additions that I like in the PHB.  The main things that I like are the Battlemaster Figher, Bard as full caster, spell progression for full casters, backgrounds, Inspiration, advantage/disadvantage.  However, there is still much that I dislike including 

a. the design of many classes (e.g. cleric, barbarian, monk, sorcerer)
b. most classes receiving their subclasses at second or third level. Potential issues that I foresaw during open playtesting have arisen in Mearls Happy Fun Hour when he has come across the creation of certain subclasses breaking design considerations that they came up with later in the design process after several classes were created.  The design consideration was mentioned in a Warlock episode where it was noted  that the Valor Bard broke those design rules. In a more recent episode,  his Urban Ranger broke it again requiring him to make some additions to the ranger class.  The Rogue Scout breaks this design consideration as well.  Also, all classes receiving their subclasses, in my opinion, would have made creating class variants much easier (including a non-spellcasting Ranger).
c. I don't like the design of the majority of WOTC's subclasses.  Some issues are mechanical (including introducing class elements that I disliked about pre-3e D&D) and most create a specific type of fantasy "feel" that I don't like about default WOTC D&D.
d. I don't like the unified level based attack bonus (based upon being trained or untrained)
e. It is another edition that I do not want to run past levels 10-12.
f. There is much that I want to house rule and my house rule list would be long as my 3e.  It would be easier to bring what I like about 5e to 3E​


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## Staffan (Mar 5, 2019)

wingsandsword said:


> Yet it's utterly awful in modelling injuries.  Get mauled to within an inch of your life?  Rest for a while, you don't even need healing magic. . .just rest and camp and you get everything back (thanks to so many non-magical healing abilities) you can be back in action in no-time.  In prior editions, if you were seriously wounded and didn't have magical healing available, it would take days (and in some cases weeks) of rest and non-magical treatment to get back in action, not just a good night's sleep.



I blame 3e's _wand of cure light wounds_. Its existence and cheap price meant that you could expect to be at full hit points shortly after the end of every fight that didn't bring you to 0 hit points, which in turn made spell slots the primary means of attrition, and those recover with a night's rest. So we might as well recover the hit points as well.

4e actually made things a little more short-term attrition-based than 3e, because you didn't have nigh-infinite wands to deal with hp loss. Almost every ability that recovered hit points used healing surges, which limited the number of hp you could recover in a day to a large but still finite number.


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## wingsandsword (Mar 5, 2019)

Staffan said:


> I blame 3e's _wand of cure light wounds_. Its existence and cheap price meant that you could expect to be at full hit points shortly after the end of every fight that didn't bring you to 0 hit points, which in turn made spell slots the primary means of attrition, and those recover with a night's rest. So we might as well recover the hit points as well.
> 
> 4e actually made things a little more short-term attrition-based than 3e, because you didn't have nigh-infinite wands to deal with hp loss. Almost every ability that recovered hit points used healing surges, which limited the number of hp you could recover in a day to a large but still finite number.




I keep hearing that, but you know what. . .I never ran across such casual use of CLW wands in the 3e games I played in.  It was always something people would bring up online (mostly here), but I didn't see it at the table in actual everyday gameplay.

I always hear that as a complaint about 3e. . .but like many other "complaints" (elaborate powergaming "builds" ect.) about 3e, I never saw it in actual gameplay with actual players in a regular game.

Maybe the groups I played with had a different mentality, but people weren't buying bulk CLW wands and insta-healing after every encounter.  When they bought magic items from NPC's, they were buying new weapons and armor, and consumable items were usually healing potions and maybe some scrolls of utility spells that would be nice to have on hand but often weren't worth keeping a spell slot devoted to them constantly.

I knew one guy, ONE, who even tried any of that powergaming stuff. . .and most of his little "tricks" were things that were patched going from 3.0e to 3.5e (I never played with him after 3.5e came out, so I don't know what he did then).  I saw a lot of the changes going to 3.5e as being superfluous, but gaming with that one guy showed me that they were done to put a stop on some very specific rules exploits being used by some players apparently.


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## Celebrim (Mar 5, 2019)

Staffan said:


> I blame 3e's _wand of cure light wounds_.




I agree.  I very quickly banned all divine wands as soon as I noted the issue.  Although the CLW wand is the worst offender, the problem isn't specific to it.   

A quick perusal of the wand, staff, rod options available to clerics in 1e shows that this is a major oversight, as the sort of cheap spell on a stick devices the rules generalization made available just don't exist in earlier editions.   This was part of the stack of rule changes that lead to CoDzilla.  Other major changes included 5' step out of melee while spell-casting, no casting time, chance to save decreases with spell level, and overcompensation for the relative weakness of the cleric class in 1e (where it was almost strictly limited to being the Band-Aid).

However, the offense of the CLW wand was generally overlooked by players of RAW 3.5e because encounter balance was generally set on the assumption of frequent and continuously available healing, and the CLW wand was the only thing in the RAW that allowed you to play a party without a dedicated healer.   Of course, at that point the CLW wand's justification was in part circularly the CLW wand. 

I've seen the 'short-term attrition based' concept you mention in 4e, but only in some rather experimental dungeon designs that pushed the boundaries heavily on what you could do with the system and the healing surge as resource.  However, my suspicion is that that sort of play was as rare in practice as my house rule eliminating the CLW wand (or a social contract/lack of system mastery not to abuse it that did the same thing).  Both tweaked the system in one way or another, either with a rules change or a different approach to play than the default, in order to achieve a result that the system normally didn't.


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## The Crimson Binome (Mar 5, 2019)

wingsandsword said:


> I keep hearing that, but you know what. . .I never ran across such casual use of CLW wands in the 3e games I played in.  It was always something people would bring up online (mostly here), but I didn't see it at the table in actual everyday gameplay.



I didn't see it at all while I was playing 3.x, but I saw it immediately when I switched to a Pathfinder group. It had everything to do with the players, and the fact that one of the players in that group had already accepted the trick as fundamental to their way of playing.

Once you know of the trick, it becomes hard to justify ignoring it, unless the GM does something to house rule it out. I can't convincingly role-play a character who is so incompetent as to not take advantage of something that beneficial when it is presented. I tried to house rule them out of existence when I ran Pathfinder, but the kinds of players who like that game tend to focus strongly on RAW, so it was politically untenable in the long run. Nowadays, I only run _Gishes & Goblins_, which doesn't have that problem.


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## wingsandsword (Mar 5, 2019)

Saelorn said:


> I didn't see it at all while I was playing 3.x, but I saw it immediately when I switched to a Pathfinder group. It had everything to do with the players, and the fact that one of the players in that group had already accepted the trick as fundamental to their way of playing.
> 
> Once you know of the trick, it becomes hard to justify ignoring it, unless the GM does something to house rule it out. I can't convincingly role-play a character who is so incompetent as to not take advantage of something that beneficial when it is presented. I tried to house rule them out of existence when I ran Pathfinder, but the kinds of players who like that game tend to focus strongly on RAW, so it was politically untenable in the long run. Nowadays, I only run _Gishes & Goblins_, which doesn't have that problem.




If I ever had that come up in a 3.5 game I was running I'd be quickly to house-rule healing wands, either to say that spells with the (Healing) descriptor either can't be put into a wand, or they have a substantial cost multiplier to do so.  It's never come up for me.  It certainly seems like a more elegant solution than completely rewriting the rules on regaining HP and healing to make healing so ubiquitous in response.

It's been a LONG time since I've played with any group that was fanatical about the RAW.  The idea that the DM may need to change things to fix any broken parts of the game that may creep up, or adjust it to fit the campaign ect. seems pretty much like an accepted social norm of the gaming groups I know.


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## Tony Vargas (Mar 5, 2019)

Salamandyr said:


> This is a common mistake, and understandable.  I know a lot of 1st edition games that played exactly thus.  That impression has led to a whole host of players moving to skill based systems over the decades.




Treating the rules of any edition of D&D (OK, other than 3.x/PF/4e/E) as if they were, well, /rules/, is a lamentable lapse in judgment, in that sense.  Even 'guideline' is pushing it.  

In the shell-game of DM Illusionism, the rules are just the shells, their purpose, misdirection. 

;P



Staffan said:


> I blame 3e's _wand of cure light wounds_. Its existence and cheap price meant that you could expect to be at full hit points shortly after the end of every fight that didn't bring you to 0 hit points, which in turn made spell slots the primary means of attrition, and those recover with a night's rest. So we might as well recover the hit points as well.
> 
> 4e actually made things a little more short-term attrition-based than 3e, because you didn't have nigh-infinite wands to deal with hp loss. Almost every ability that recovered hit points used healing surges, which limited the number of hp you could recover in a day to a large but still finite number.



And non-surge healing tended to be a Daily resource, as well.  Though there were a few small, circumstantial non-surge healing effects that were limited in other ways (Astral Seal, I think it was, which got errata'updated' at least once to avoid abuse).

The WoCLW in 3.x, seemed endemic and apparently assumed, AFAICT.  In 3.0 it looked like it might have been an oversight, but 3.5 didn't do a thing to limit them, and doubled down with Lesser Vigour.  PF1, as well, seemed to continue to embrace low-level healing wand spam (I recall the first time I saw flyers for a Pathfinder Society convention, the advice included something along the lines of "don't bother showing up with a character that doesn't have his own healing, such as a wand or at least potions").

Of course, 5e does give everyone some native healing in the form of HD, so surges & wands aren't necessarily a reason to prefer a prior WotC ed, by themselves, anyway.

But, even in TSR eds, spell slots were still the primary limiter, because cleric spells were converted into hps via cure..wounds, once your cleric was tapped out, you rested until he could heal you all up - through several days and full slates of healing if necessary.  Rest & time was largely moot.


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## Celebrim (Mar 5, 2019)

> Treating the rules of any edition of D&D (OK, other than 3.x/PF/4e/E) as if they were, well, /rules/, is a lamentable lapse in judgment, in that sense. Even 'guideline' is pushing it.
> 
> In the shell-game of DM Illusionism, the rules are just the shells, their purpose, misdirection.
> 
> ;P




Yeah, well don't let your players know that.



Tony Vargas said:


> ...but 3.5 didn't do a thing to limit them, and doubled down with Lesser Vigour.




From a balance perspective, 3.5 was terrible.  Before it came out, the big arguments were over whether or not Haste and Harm were broken as written and needed errata (remember those?).  

3.5 came down on the side of nerfing the spells, so my expectation was that 3.5 would take a look at overall spell power (clearly the worst designed part of 3.0e) and roll it back wherever the spells were abuseable - Force Cage and Find the Path would be cases that immediately came to mind as needing attention.  Instead, 3.5 implemented the worst slate of unplaytested rules errata I had ever seen, turning what had already been a shaky balance between casters and non-casters into a joke.  Virtually every change to every spell other than Haste and Harm had to be undone - Blasphemy, Polymorph, Ray of Weakness, Alter Self, etc., etc., etc.  It was so blatantly unprofessional and ill-considered, that I never bought a 3.5 book - all my purchases for D&D after that were from third parties.  Even a decade later, I'm still finding tiny changes that 3.5 made in the rules that just make my jaw drop, in a "What the heck where they thinking?" way.  It was like some eager but ill-seasoned rulesmith was handed the keys to the game's canon with zero oversight.  

At that's before the rules bloat choked the life out of what had been a decent system, and is still even with its blemishes my favorite system of all time.


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## Tony Vargas (Mar 5, 2019)

Celebrim said:


> From a balance perspective, 3.5 was terrible.  Before it came out, the big arguments were over whether or not Haste and Harm were broken as written and needed errata (remember those?).
> 
> 3.5 came down on the side of nerfing the spells, so my expectation was that 3.5 would take a look at overall spell power (clearly the worst designed part of 3.0e) and roll it back wherever the spells were abuseable - Force Cage and Find the Path would be cases that immediately came to mind as needing attention.  Instead, 3.5 implemented the worst slate of unplaytested rules errata I had ever seen, turning what had already been a shaky balance between casters and non-casters into a joke.  Virtually every change to every spell other than Haste and Harm had to be undone - Blasphemy, Polymorph, Ray of Weakness, Alter Self, etc., etc., etc.  It was so blatantly unprofessional and ill-considered, that I never bought a 3.5 book - all my purchases for D&D after that were from third parties.  Even a decade later, I'm still finding tiny changes that 3.5 made in the rules that just make my jaw drop, in a "What the heck where they thinking?" way.  It was like some eager but ill-seasoned rulesmith was handed the keys to the game's canon with zero oversight.



 3.5 did introduce repeated saves vs Hold and eventually nerf Polymorph.

But, yes, even minor-seeming, subtle, changes and changes to spells that seemed to decrease their power actually favored casters.  The one that stuck out, for me, was Bull's Strength/Cat's Grace/Bear's Endurance.  In 3.0 they had very long durations and gave a random bonus.  (So if you had an odd stat, half the time, the spell would help you out a little more than if you'd had an even stat, and they made the stat-booster items a little less must-have, at the same time.) But, the main point was that they were very powerful for 2nd level spells, and casters would be fools not to pass them out, even though they didn't much benefit most casters. 
3.5 'nerfed' those spells, significantly cutting their duration, so a mid-high level caster couldn't casually pass them out to his friends.  But they also filled out the stat 'grid' with Fox's Cunning/Eagle's Splendor/Owl's Wisdom, and, boom, casters began to use their 2nd level slots to buff their own caster stat all day with repeated pre-castings instead of helping out their whole party.


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## (Psi)SeveredHead (Mar 6, 2019)

wingsandsword said:


> I keep hearing that, but you know what. . .I never ran across such casual use of CLW wands in the 3e games I played in.  It was always something people would bring up online (mostly here), but I didn't see it at the table in actual everyday gameplay.
> 
> I always hear that as a complaint about 3e. . .but like many other "complaints" (elaborate powergaming "builds" ect.) about 3e, I never saw it in actual gameplay with actual players in a regular game.
> 
> Maybe the groups I played with had a different mentality, but people weren't buying bulk CLW wands and insta-healing after every encounter.  When they bought magic items from NPC's, they were buying new weapons and armor, and consumable items were usually healing potions and maybe some scrolls of utility spells that would be nice to have on hand but often weren't worth keeping a spell slot devoted to them constantly.




I saw this all the time, and if I was in a group that didn't do this, I told them to do it. (Buy wands, craft wands... if I were the cleric I would be crafting wands.) Sorry, but starting combat, half-dead, is just not sensible for a mortal PC. If D&D wants to "fix" this, they needed to fix the high attack bonus vs relatively low AC and low starting hit points issue. (4e pretty much solved all of those issues.)




> I knew one guy, ONE, who even tried any of that powergaming stuff




I wouldn't consider that power gaming. I had been in too many pre-3e D&D games where we never even thought about that, and don't want to go through that again.


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## The Crimson Binome (Mar 6, 2019)

(Psi)SeveredHead said:


> I saw this all the time, and if I was in a group that didn't do this, I told them to do it. (Buy wands, craft wands... if I were the cleric I would be crafting wands.) Sorry, but starting combat, half-dead, is just not sensible for a mortal PC.



It's not sensible for a mortal PC _if_ there's an easy alternative, which is why the burden is on the DM to not provide an easy alternative unless the PCs are meant to take it.


(Psi)SeveredHead said:


> If D&D wants to "fix" this, they needed to fix the high attack bonus vs relatively low AC and low starting hit points issue. (4e pretty much solved all of those issues.)



The math wasn't too terrible in 3.x, because you actually could get a decent AC if you tried. It is the primary issue preventing trivial fixes to the healing rules in 5E, though. Low AC makes damage unavoidable.


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## dave2008 (Mar 8, 2019)

Kidbooo said:


> Hello everyone,,
> This is kind of a general question, and I know that, but I see lots of people playing 3rd edition and even more 3.5, but why do they play those instead (Mod Edit: spam link removed  ~Umbran) of 5e? I'm fairly new to 5e as a whole, and I'm just wondering, in what ways are 3.5 and 3rd better than 5th? Is it simply for the feeling of playing something original? Or does 5e do something terrible that can only be done correctly in past editions? Just genuinely curious, and would it be worth it for me to learn the older versions?




There are still a significant amount of people who play OD&D, or 1e, or 2e, or 4e as well.  Every edition has is proponents.


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## pogre (Mar 9, 2019)

Kidbooo said:


> Hello everyone,,
> This is kind of a general question, and I know that, but I see lots of people playing 3rd edition and even more 3.5, but why do they play those instead (Mod Edit: spam link removed  ~Umbran) of 5e? I'm fairly new to 5e as a whole, and I'm just wondering, in what ways are 3.5 and 3rd better than 5th? Is it simply for the feeling of playing something original? Or does 5e do something terrible that can only be done correctly in past editions? Just genuinely curious, and would it be worth it for me to learn the older versions?




Do you enjoy 5e? If the answer is yes, then there really is no reason to learn an older edition.

I always try to run the new edition. The excitement and player base around a newer edition are going to mean it is much easier to find a game and players. 5e is booming right now - if you like it - play/run it and do not waste time that could be spent playing learning an older edition.

Now, if someone offers to run a game with a different rules set, by all means give it a shot. However, I would say this for almost any rules set, not just old D&D editions. If someone wants to run Blades in the Dark, Dungeon World, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, GURPS Fantasy, Ars Magica, Savage Worlds, etc. - jump in - you may  find your favorite new game.


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## Flexor the Mighty! (Mar 11, 2019)

dave2008 said:


> There are still a significant amount of people who play OD&D, or 1e, or 2e, or 4e as well.  Every edition has is proponents.




I think the only edition of D&D I didn't see at GaryCon was 4e. But I was neck deep in OD&D, B/X and AD&D.


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## Salamandyr (Mar 11, 2019)

Speaking for myself, every edition of D&D has its strong points, and depending on what I'm interested in, every one has its charms.  But the ones that get my motor running are 1st edition AD&D and B/X.  While I'm sure my love for them is based, at least in part, on a fair bit of nostalgia involved, they also have a vitality to them that no later edition possesses.


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## Zardnaar (Mar 14, 2019)

Salamandyr said:


> Speaking for myself, every edition of D&D has its strong points, and depending on what I'm interested in, every one has its charms.  But the ones that get my motor running are 1st edition AD&D and B/X.  While I'm sure my love for them is based, at least in part, on a fair bit of nostalgia involved, they also have a vitality to them that no later edition possesses.




I like B/X, 2E and 5E although mixing 1E and 2E might be the way to go.


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## Mepher (Mar 21, 2019)

I spent 30 years running a 1E/2E hybrid.  A couple years ago I decided to make the switch to 5E.  In hindsight I cannot tell you why we switched other than it was current and people were raving about it.  I spend a LOT of money on all the books, spell cards, monster cards, DMsguild stuff and in the end, it NEVER felt right to me.  There is a lot to be said about the "feel" of a game.  Maybe want to pretend that you can make any game feel a certain way but that just isn't true.  Each game has its own mechanics that give it it's own feel.  Last Sunday, after 2 years of two different 5E campaigns, we finally decided to make the switch back to AD&D 2E.  We spent a session making characters and I prepped T1 Village of Hommlet mixed with B2 Keep on the Borderlands which the players will begin this week.  I am overjoyed.  Just sitting around the table for 4 hours last week helping a couple new guys make characters as well as explaining the differences and reacquainting other players brought that feeling back.  It already felt like home.

5E is a good system....for other people.  For me I grew up quickly learning on BX and 1E.  2E came along early in my game career and we gravitated to the 1E/2E mix.  It feels right so that's where I am back to.  I have already decided that I wont chase 5E anymore and definitely won't chase a 6E when it comes along.  I had it right back when 3E came out, I have the system that works for me and that's where i'll stay.


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## pming (Mar 21, 2019)

Hiya!

 [MENTION=61277]Mepher[/MENTION] pretty much nails it for me.

Different game systems (and even editions) have their own "feeling". Me? I'm a BECMI or 1e/HM4 guy. We played (still play often enough) 5e since the Starter Box. It's definitely got a better feeling than 2.x through Pathfinder, but it just has too many...hmm... "expectations of heroically epic PC's"? In that I mean with 1e/HM4 or BECMI, you make a PC. Everyone forms a party. Everyone decides, usually by vote, on what to do, where to go, etc. The PC's are just barely above commoners, overall, in survivability. What PC's have is the ability to actually gain levels (and in some cases, even have a Class to begin with). How "heroic" and what "heroics" to undertake is up to them. There is no expectation in 1e or Hackmaster that a PC will 'eventually get to 10th, 20th or 36th level'. In fact, quite the opposite; expectation of death is the norm. 

With 5e, that's not the case. With 5e it is expected that a PC will gain levels and eventually get to 20th level...simply in the way that character class special abilities are spaced out for 20 levels. As others have said, Basic, 1e, 2e are all "Front Loaded" for Classes; you get most of your stuff in the first three levels, maybe one or two more by the time you hit 7th or so, and perhaps one more ability with 'oomph' at 9th or thereabouts. Some classes, the more "unusual" ones, had more spread out abilities (at least in 1e/HM), like Monk or Assassin...but those were pretty rare classes for a PC (remember, in 1e/HM you had class Prerequisites for your stats...and some of the rare classes needed really high numbers...even hard to get when you use the default 3d6 in order!).

As for "if you like 5e, no point in learning another", I find this perplexing. It's like saying "if you like vanilla ice cream, no point in trying any other flavour". Variety is the spice of life...and this goes for RPG systems and editions too. 

^_^

Paul L. Ming


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## Imaculata (Mar 21, 2019)

I still play 3rd edition (specifically 3.5), because a wealth of books exist for it (more than for 5th edition) and I have quite a lot of them. It is also compatible with pathfinder, so there's an infinite amount of resources to harvest from. The quality of the books is also really good.

Secondly, because I really like the system. It is easy to understand and pickup, and offers just the right amount of number tweaking and character progression that I look for in a roleplaying game. 5th edition does an adequate job at this too in my opinion, but it is a lot more simple than 3rd edition.


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## Malrex (Mar 21, 2019)

"Why do people still play older editions of D&D? Are they superior to the current one?"

YES---but that is strictly my opinion. I bought the three core books of 5e...mainly because people said it was like 2e. I started reading 5e..it felt good, brought some nostalgia...then it veered off quickly and I completely lost interest. Mainly because it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks I suppose. A half hour of reading is not a fair assumption for 5e--clearly people dig it, and heck, I might even dig it if I found a group or had the patience to re-learn rules....

Pming above gives an ice cream comparison. I think those are wise words. However, I am either stubborn or just impatient learning new things, I'd rather just stick to my 1e/2e. You throw a great DM of 3e or 5e, or some random other game--then I could probably have a fun night regardless, but 1e/2e will always be my favorite...I mean...it's been over 30 years with the same game...


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## billd91 (Mar 21, 2019)

Malrex said:


> "Why do people still play older editions of D&D? Are they superior to the current one?"
> 
> YES---but that is strictly my opinion. I bought the three core books of 5e...mainly because people said it was like 2e. I started reading 5e..it felt good, brought some nostalgia...then it veered off quickly and I completely lost interest. Mainly because it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks I suppose. A half hour of reading is not a fair assumption for 5e--clearly people dig it, and heck, I might even dig it if I found a group or had the patience to re-learn rules....




Hopefully you'll get a chance to give it a good test. It is, by far, the most 2e-ish D&D since 2e and we've been able to settle back into our 2e-style of play with it fairly easily.


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## Malrex (Mar 21, 2019)

billd91 said:


> Hopefully you'll get a chance to give it a good test. It is, by far, the most 2e-ish D&D since 2e and we've been able to settle back into our 2e-style of play with it fairly easily.




Maybe one day. I'd be open to it. But I am VERY skeptical about it being like 2e. The reason is I have tried 4 different people now who play 5e to try and convert my 2e adventures to 5e. All gave up...one said it was 'impossible'. So if it's impossible to convert an adventure, not sure how it would still feel the same.


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## 5atbu (Mar 21, 2019)

It's not at all impossible to convert, just don't try to make it an exact fit.
Look at the options in DMG to dial the grittiness of the game a little.
Practice balancing encounters to your players, 5e does softball things a bit, so dial up the opposition until you get the sweet spot.


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## UngeheuerLich (Mar 21, 2019)

5atbu said:


> It's not at all impossible to convert, just don't try to make it an exact fit.
> Look at the options in DMG to dial the grittiness of the game a little.
> Practice balancing encounters to your players, 5e does softball things a bit, so dial up the opposition until you get the sweet spot.




Hmmh... I am not sure this is good advice in general. Instead you should look at each encounter and compare how the monster has changed. I converted night below and just used every encounter as is. I made some npc´s that tried to be faithful to 2nd edition npcs regarding class and equippment.

Here is what I´d do now:

- ignore the npc levels and class. Instead find matching npcsin the book. They are easier to run and more balanced for a single encounter
- at level 1, don´t use plate armor on the opposition. Too high AC makes the game stale/swingy. Instead embrace the slightly higher HP as main enemy defense. Same goes for saving throws.
- divide every magical item bonus by 2 and round up.

- monster´s might be quite different in power level. A death dog of 5e is worth several death dogs in 2e for example. So adjust numbers to make it a good match for your party´s power level if you think the combat in the adventure was also a beatable challenge.


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