Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 shadowoflameth2 Sep 27, 2015 9:03:27	We're just now going to go into 5th edition. A player has expressed missing 3.5 which we played for years. Since there is no online support at WOTC for 5e we're planning a character generation night with one encounter which I play tested successfully with my kids. Still, I'm facing the desire of a regular to try 3.5 again. How have players of older editions found 5e in comparison? Positive? Better Worse, broken? Too Restrictive?
#2 CCS Sep 27, 2015 9:51:09	I play multiple editions & like 5e just fine. My order of preference is: AD&D1e, 5e, Pathfinder/3x, 2e, BECMI. I'll elaborate a bit more in awhile as work is calling....
#3 AaronOfBarbaria Sep 27, 2015 12:25:03	shadowoflameth2 wrote:
#4 Krusk Sep 27, 2015 14:51:14	Ive played a lot of 3.5, and a single game of 5e. I do own all the core books for 5e though.    5e seems like it was written by that guy we kicked out of our group. He DMed a couple of sessions, and kept telling us how it was super "Old Skewl" and he walked up hill both ways through the snow, and he liked it and so thats how the game should be. Its all about letting your players really "Earn" things instead of just letting them have fun.    Basically, go into an game shop and ask for someone who is looking to run an "old school game" then let them wax poetically about why they love it. Imagine that guy wrote the rules for 5e. Its all mother may i with the DM, and "if you are lucky the DM might do something fun". One key component of the guy to talk to though, he definatly has to err to the "rules are optional, the DM just making stuff up is better" side of the house. A DM who actually remember 2nd ed rules would probably have written something better.    From the perspective of a 3.X player, the editions go 3.5 > 3.0 > 2e=5e> 1e > 4e  > Essentials
#5 Chaosmancer Sep 27, 2015 18:50:17	I never got a chance to play 3 or 3.5, but looking at the books I had for it, it looks very intimidating. Many little points and multiple types of skills and little feats and small modifiers that make everything very complicated to keep track of. You may not have had the expeirence, but that's something I think I would have loathed if I ever played the system.   Played  and ran 4e and enjoyed it, but the numbers got too big and all the powers did feel restrictive to me.   5e has hit a perfect balance for me. You get between 4 and 6 skills you focus on (two of which come from your background) but you have scores for all of them and the ability to roll them, and... the math is so easy to keep track of, all the abilities feel signifigant and thematic to me. I also love how it is completely possible to run an entire 1-20 (or more accurately 3-20 since most people don't start at level 1) game with only your starting equipment. It felt weird to me to be handing out magic items like candy in 4e, in 5th you are encouraged not to. The whole thing feels just right to me, sure there is plenty of space for DM/player discussion, but I see that as a bonus with a good group.
(Reply to #4) CCS	Krusk wrote:
#7 Ralif_Redhammer Sep 29, 2015 7:16:57	I love 5e. Easily my favorite edition since 2e. Or at least, 2e in the beginning, before skills and powers and the umpteen million splat books.   As far as missing 3.5e, I wonder if it’s the rules, or just the massive amount of options that’s missed?
#8 Slagger_the_Chuul Sep 29, 2015 15:12:52	Ralif_Redhammer wrote:
#9 Krusk Sep 29, 2015 16:11:49	CCS wrote:
(Reply to #9) CCS	Krusk wrote:
#11 WorBlade Sep 29, 2015 20:44:11	As a DM I am more partial to 5e than any of the other earlier versions I have played over the past 30 years. Not 100% sure why. Just feels cleaner and less messy to deal with, probably from fewer options. Players don't surprise me and mess up my plans by whipping some obscure but official rule book with an odd power or spell. I prefer that the bonus stacking common to 3x versions (uh, lets see i Bless, Bull;'s Strength, grant temp HP, and....) is not really possible. I like the power scaling where monsters don't change and level up but still remain viable over 5 or 6 levels of a character's career. At first I was dissapointed with the more simplist combat rules than I was used to running - but then I warmed up to them. Players are not complaining and things run fairly fast in combat. I miss psionics (which where an important part of my game world which I still using so I have fudged background things related to psi powers). I got used to the advtantage / disadvantage mechanic pretty quick.      Better is in the eye of the beholder I suppose. So far I find 5e more employable than 4e (when I had twelve books to run the game), and though it has less fluff and player options than 3x versions I don't mind house ruling as needed so it hasn't been a problem for me. I even let a player go old school 2e style double class splitting the XP to see what would happen. So far have not broken anything. So I'd say as a DM, my recommendation is to use 5e. If your player groups demands 3.5, well I suppose you will have to go 3.5/Pathfinder.
#12 Razintarr Sep 30, 2015 4:37:48	shadowoflameth2 wrote:
#13 Krusk Sep 30, 2015 15:05:49	You mean the books printed alongside the ADD 1e books, the ADD 2e books, and the Revised ADD 2e books?   You don't see how thats needlessly confusing at all?   Anyway, I basically don't acknowledge it, because I've never seen a real person play it. I've heard of a few people saying they were going to do it, but i never hear results. In talking with people who actually played in the 70s, the take I've seen is that no one ever played it because they were "skilled enough to play the advanced version" or something.
#14 Dreamstryder Sep 30, 2015 21:13:56	I've heard of one player who prefered the fiddly mechanical bits of 3e because he could built various mechanical capabilities into his character with them, but I've always felt confined by them. Compare how many steps it takes to create an effective archer in 3e versus 5e; 5e has fewer, more distinctive steps in building a character. I feel I have to wade thru fewer rules to make something effectively in 5e, as player and as DM.   From the DM's side, 3e's approach to creating material was to follow "balanced" mechanical formula and progressions, which often enough meant weird things like a skilled NPC needing lots of hp because HD and skill points were connected. 5e tends to tell the DM to just add only the parts you want, keep inside a given mathematical range, no procedural hoops.   From the player side, 3e buried some concepts as elementary to new players as fighting with two weapons or grabbing someone in mounds of penalties, prerequisites, and attacks of opportunity red tape, and sometimes they didn't even work as well as believed. IIRC two-weapon fighting didn't allow you to attack with both weapons in a round, for example, though it seemed like it should. In 3e there were attacks where you added half your ability modifier; it felt messy and ineffectual.   My opinion of 3e seems harsh, but I played it for years and frequently found those aspects getting in the way.   From running the game in either edition, I've heard some people afraid of what they call the "DM may I?" thing in 5e, because 5e clarified that the DM, not the rulebooks, have the final say in arbitration. No rule difference comes to mind at the moment, nor any cases where DMs abusing their groups were any more true in 5e than in 3e, unless 3e's mechanical requirement for magic items counts, because you can effectively play a later-level game without magic items, if you want, in 5e.
#15 Slagger_the_Chuul Sep 30, 2015 21:13:45	If you want to see an example of the fundamental differences between 3rd, 4th, and 5th, take a look at the time stop spell in each of the editions.  The 3rd edition version is intricately detailed, the 4th edition version is elegantly simple, and the 5th edition version is neatly bounded.
(Reply to #13) CCS	(Phone won't let me multi-quote. Or do italics. So my responses are bolded) . Krusk wrote:
#17 Imaculata Oct 01, 2015 1:58:01	shadowoflameth2 wrote:
#18 Krusk Oct 01, 2015 16:15:11	Ive never played ODD, just ADD 2e.    I didn't say they actually were skilled enough, just that this was the mentality they had, and so no one ever actually chose to play BECMI. Becasue it was seen as "for noobs".
#19 Ralif_Redhammer Oct 02, 2015 7:59:00	I’ll agree, I also found 3e to be constraining. It always seemed like when you wanted to do something crazy and exciting, there was always a penalty or an attack of opportunity. As a DM, those massive monster stat blocks just got to me. I ended up switching to the way more streamlined Castles and Crusades, which I still do love.    Dreamstryder wrote:
#20 Slagger_the_Chuul Oct 02, 2015 9:34:13	I sort of found the opposite with 3rd; needing to connect all the various bits led to me coming up with interesting explanations of how and why someone became who they were.   I find it harder to create from a vacuum, but relatively easy to find a narrative that fits existing mechanical components. I will note that 5th Edition still has the same associating between high skill checks and high Hit Dice, it's just bounded so that it's not as extreme as it was in 3rd.  But also note that in 3rd you could already get to normal-person levels of excellence at something at normal-person character levels (no higher than 5th level for the most elite people you'd ever find in the real world).  There's a very good article out there about calibrating your expectations and realizing what some of the numbers in question really mean.  There were plenty of bits like two-weapon fighting that were often impractical and clunky, but with skill checks it was usually about people expecting someone with real-world levels of skill to have an unrealistically high character level.
(Reply to #20) Dreamstryder	Slagger_the_Chuul wrote: