An interesting conversation took place with my other DM. Put simply we are both getting bored with 5E. Due to RL issues time to design stuff is in short supply as well. He prefers sci fi type games and wants to play Star Wars again either Saga or D6.
A lack of adventures is not helping I have run LMoP twice for 2 different groups and played through it myself as a PC. We bought the Rise of Tiamat Adventures but HotDQ is bad and it kind of crashed and burned with the early encounters and the Half Dragon duel. Killing 3/5 PCs early on did not go down well and the adventure is garbage anyway.
Even 4E had what was left of Dragon and Dungeon early on at least online, 3.0 had heaps of adventures and I used Dungeon magazine a lot. Running conversions of TSR era adventures kind of works I suppose but I can run them with even less work and effort required using house ruled AD&D/BECMI or clones as once I convert THAC0 to BAB and flip ACs over my players understand them a lot easier.
The pther players are also getting semi bored of the llimited stuff you can do orr class abilities that start to blend into each ohter. This class gets an extra 1d6 damage this class gets an extra 1d8 sort of thing.
I have a lot of material left over from 3E such as every issue of Dungeon magazine except issue 95, a lot of AD&D/BECMI adventures, probably around 11 Paizo APs to pick from and 10 Castles and Crusades PDFs to use. They are a bit hit and miss as for every Assault of Blacktooth Ridge or RIse of the Runelords there is a Forest Oracle.
Lost Mines of Phandelver and part 1 of The Night Below (2E adventure) have been the best adventures so far I have run with 5E. There is just not much there and no quality for the little that has been made. 6 months of nothing.
Maybe not the d20 game for you
Run hotdq twice, to very different groups and all been very pleased with 5e. Next up gonna write the next thing we do
Lack of non AL adventures is an issue I do agree with.
. . . Why don't you have issue 95?
That was, weirdly, the part of your post that makes no sense to me.
My group is having a lot of fun with 5e. We started with LMoP, and then I've been designing my own stuff, with stuff from 1e, 2e, 3e, and 4e as inspiration for encounters and the like. I've adapted a couple things from HotDQ that fit what we were doing, but I didn't think much of the story so the context is very different. I find it doesn't really take me any longer to convert the old stuff as it does if I was handed a 5e module b/c I just grab the monster stats from the MM or I make a similar monster, but since I play on a virtual tabletop, the most time consuming aspect is finding or making good art for the monsters and the set pieces.
My players seem to be really in to 5e. A couple of them have switched characters; I dunno if it was out of boredom or just a desire to try something new. The classes that they have picked seem really different from one another -- a rogue assassin, a shapeshifting druid, a vengeance paladin, a berserker barbarian, a monk, a cleric, and a warlock -- both in terms of flavor/personality and mechanics. We started our campaign in August and the PCs are almost level 6.
As an aside, I ran the Night Below about 10 years ago with this same group (playing 3.5 at the time). A whole lot of fun, but incredibly deadly (it didn't help that we were using the critical tables from the 2e combat & tactics and spells & magic books).
Yeah, but Zard, your model of play is the 'break it' model. Your groups goal of play is to break the system. You group has broken it about as much as they will break it, so they are done - it's just a bit of an anti-climax to have finished breaking it. Which says something about playing to break a game - it's pretty bland.
Find another system, anti-climactically break it, repeat.
Not bored at all! In fact I'm more energized to play and DM again than I have been in over 10 years. Converting 2e stuff and such from dragonlance and forgotten realms has been a blast.
We are having fun with 5e still, but we also started playing Star Wars Edge of the Empire.
At first Edge of the Empire looks difficult to learn because it has such a crazy dice pool mechanic, but after a while, we started to get into it. It is a really gritty, fast paced, star warsy feeling game.
You should try that. I used to love West End Games d6, but Fantasy Flight has taken what is cool in d6 and built upon it. The only bad thing about the rule books is that each new book is 60% the same, just adding in some new content to focus on the focus of the core...for example, Edge of the Empire is about smugglers, hired guns, and the seedier side of the galaxy, Age of Rebellion is about the rebels and the empire, etc.
Someone also made a rule set for it on Fantasy Grounds so the die roller converts and tabulates the die outcome for you on the Fantasy Grounds gametable. It shows if it is a failure or how many net successes, advantages, triumphs, threats and despair the roll gets. That makes playing online really easy. For the DM, interpreting the dice is kind of fun (especially if you like to improvise).
We find the game really refreshing because it is so different from D&D (fantasy in general).
But, if you don't want to check out Edge of the Empire....d6 is still a fun game for me.
You may be suffering from fantasy burn out syndrome. Try sci-fi to recharge.
Noon wrote:
We have barely begun to see characters develop! For me, more material will make thinks even better
Eote is great too if you like good narrative and funky dice in your starwars
TheNovaLord wrote:
Noon wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
We're still having as much fun with 5E as we have with any edition. Just played a session this afternoon and it was fun, tense, and exciting. No complaints here and I don't anticipate having any soon.
It's a set of tools and it can laregely be what you make of it. If you've run all of the material that's available and either don't have time or won't take the time to create your own, don't blame the system.
One last thing about the OP.
I'm baffled at the notion that one has to repeatedly play the few published adventures because there's nothing else to do. Especially when its abundantly clear how convertable and easily adaptable old stuff is to this new system. You've got countless older published stuff you could use to jump start endless campaigns. Not to mention the good ol' DM standy: write your own darn stuff.
It's amazing OD&D survived its inception to ever become a hobby. What with the lack of support adventures and modules "needed" during the early stages of its introduction.
Kids these days. Sheesh...
Zardnaar wrote:
We enjoyed HotDQ.
I always wrankle when I hear a GM blame an adventure for killing the party.
IT didn't kill the party, YOU did. Part of the art of GMing is knowing how to
pull back on your NPCs if they ar being too successful and push forward with
them if they are making it too easy. Both are easy mistakes to make in 5E,
balance is not obvious, but accept that it was your error. I made a few running
HotDQ myself.
ChrisCarlson wrote:
I am confused by the OP's statement but to each their own. The excitement of 5E has me writing things for it ever since the release of the PHB and even more so since the DMG was released.
I don't have enough time in my days to reading and creating things for 5E. I don't know anyone that just waits for new adventures to come out, that would bore me actually.
Converting monsters and existing adventures and making magic items has never been more fun for me.
By the way... I should add, sometimes the GM kills the party, and sometimes the party kills themselves.
Smart players will chose their battles carefully. Players who think everythign is just there to be killed by'them
earn swift deaths.
By the way... I should add, sometimes the GM kills the party, and sometimes the party kills themselves.
Smart players will chose their battles carefully. Players who think everythign is just there to be killed by'them
earn swift deaths.
By the way... I should add, sometimes the GM kills the party, and sometimes the party kills themselves.
Smart players will chose their battles carefully. Players who think everythign is just there to be killed by'them
earn swift deaths.
Cyberqat wrote:
By the way... I should add, sometimes the GM kills the party, and sometimes the party kills themselves.
Smart players will chose their battles carefully. Players who think everythign is just there to be killed by'them
earn swift deaths.
How did you kill 3/5 of the party with Cynwrath? All he does is challenge one opposing fighter to a battle of honor.
After he beats that player he leaves, you should have had plenty of opportunity to patch even that player up and keep him from
dying.
If they were stupid enugh to try to all jump him and his men instead, they got what they deserved.
2/5 died fighting an encounter after the PCs had a look at the timber mill IIR as it was their 6th or 7th encounter for the day. Cyanwraith killed another PC later and the players were screw that. PCs were to far away and they rolled a 1 on the death save.
Beats me how you are supposed to do the 1st part of HotDQ there is a lot of encounters to get through with no long rest and the rest of the adventure is terribru anyway assuming the PCs do not wonder why they should attack a town under seige by a Dragon.
If time is a constraint in converting older adventurers to 5e, then maybe do like Rhenny mentions and play another game like Star Wars to get a different flavor. By then mid March will be here and Elemental evil will be out so we all will have some new stuff to use. I rather like the planned releases where by the time an average group plays through it, the next release is ready. They have to make a guess what the hobby is doing as far as average weekly game sessions, how long etc. some that play weekly for 6-8 hours will blitz through anything, but if they are using the game speed of AL, then they kinda know once a week, about 4 hours a session, 16 episodes of which 1 session per week means about 4 months for new stuff to come out. I'm glad they aren't doing like paizo with one AP per month. Having subscribed through the first 3 or 4, I still haven't played 2 of them and now I rarely glance at the email notification that a new one has come out....burnout in the other direction I guess of too much to even use for my gaming speed.
Hopefully you and your group find a good happy medium and enjoy future releases.
Noon wrote:
Psikerlord wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
Coredump00 wrote:
Heh, I'm using Keep on the Borderland with on the fly conversions and alterations with very little prepwork. It's going well so far. 
Azzy1974 wrote:
Pretty happy with it myself.
Esp as I dislike the sort of powercreep and option paralysis that happens with crunch bloat.
But then I run/play in self-written campaigns within homebrew worlds, often with less focus on combat and got a lot of first time players at my table; so 5E currently fits me very well (as do a fair number of other RPGs).
Zardnaar wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
I'm hardly surprised your giving up on 5e given the tone of your posts lately/since the playtest. You've certainly played it enough to know if the game is for you though. I hope you and your group have a lot of fun going back to Castles & Crusades. These boards will sure have less anti-5e threads though given you won't be playing it though.
JohnLynch wrote:
TheNovaLord wrote:
Rhenny wrote:
My groups have been happy with 5th ed. My HotDQ players loved it (up to the end of part 5 when I had to bow out due to the amount of time a weekly game at a game store was taking). My home game group are just about finished LMoP and I'm prepping Books 2-6 of Serpent's Skull. Everyone's loving it and the prep work isn't a significant issue for me as I only have to create a handful of monsters each month for the ones that don't have corresponding monster in 5th ed.
Honestly, Im not surprised you made this thread. I dont think the system is the problem. Trying not to be a jerk, but your playstyle in general is off putting to me. People on these boards are right, it seems like your groups try their hardest to break the game and create bad scenarios for themselves.
The group I game with plays 5th edition about once a week. The HoTDQ adventure we started on but as a group abandoned because we (including our DM) felt it was poorly written and Cyranwraith or whatver his name is (the half dragon) did kill the PCs in a challenge that the PCs were railroaded into. Yes, you can choose not to go out and face Cyanwraith but then you have repercussion of losing help from the town, possibly seeing the keep overran, or having some poor hapless guard killed in your stead. The adventure puts pressure on a PC to step out and face Cryanwraith. The PC was not fresh because we have been adventuring saving various parts/undertaking various missions in the town and Cyanwraith between his 2 attacks and breathweapon pumped out an ungodly amount of damage that would be enough to kill a 1st level PC, even a healthy one in fact. So, yes, the adventure may have been written for a PC to lose but unless the DM chooses not to do lethal damage that encounter, an encounter PCs are de facto railroaded into, is an encounter that is the death of that PC. There is also another encounter later in this module the DM told us about that he stated he saw no way the PCs even had a shot at winning. I am not certain what that encounter was but I think it had to do with a tavern brawl involving assassins (but again I am not sure). The fact is, we collectively stopped HoTDQ and almost abandoned 5E due to this adventure.
Luckily, our DM started doing homebrew adventures via converting old modules from past editions that we never played before. As a group we are enjoying it thus far but are starting too feel a lttle bored due to the release model of 5E. In every edition of DnD especially 2E there was a plethora of player based options and books that expanded options for PCS. This is smart because most gamers are Players and not DMS, which is why DMs are a hot commodity at any gaming table. Despite what 5E fans say having plenty of options (splat books and crunch) you ensure you have a steady income since most peopel are players and players like to have expansions and options. Historically this has been the way DnDn operated:
2E-was the most prolific edition. I mean if you look at some of the old TSR, inc product catalagues its is astoninshing how much they produced a month. In addition to a rules expansion per month for mainline DnD like say the Complete Fighter's Handbook, Complete Psionics, etc, They had no less than 10 campaign worlds in production at the same time (Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun, Greyhawk, Dragonance, Mystara,Ravenloft, Spelljammer, Planescape, Birthright, and Al-Qadim) which they were producing crunchy expansions for every month too.
3e/3.5-Again a very expansive edition every month they had something being released. A campaign setting, a rules expansion that was nice and crunchy and they were very smart about it, because they realized that since most people are Players and not DMS even the material geared towards DMs they put a bunch of player options into the book so that that Players wanted to buy the product. This started with even the basic DMG which had the prestige classes in it so just in the base game a player had to purchase the DMG. They continued with other DM products like the Draconomicon and so forth that while geared towards DMs had enough material in them that players could justify purchasing them for the spells, prestigce classes, and feats. Then of course they had the plethora of player based books they were releasing with new classes and so forth like The Complete Warrior, The Complete Scoundrel, Book of Nine Swords, etc.
4E-Was another edition that initially had a robust schedule although ironically even when it was initially released 4E, which is often demonized by grognards as a "money-grubbing edition" with rapid releases yet 4E NEVER produced even at its height as many splat books as 3rd edition and not even a drop in the bucket to what 2E produced MONTHLY. In fact, what I think hurt 4E in terms of sales, which is not to say 4E did bad (I think when people talk about 4E bombing in terms of sales they have a hard time backing this up because 4E lasted just as long as any other edition except 1e and 2e...although many considered players option in 2E to be a de facto new edition. Also, let's face it 3E to 3.5 did a complete reboot in terms of splat books I mean for fighters in 3E you had the sword & fist supplement in 3.5 that book became The Complete Warrior which made th splat books obsolete. Whereas Essentials characters you could play right alongside standard 4E DnD characters just like we are doing. So, DnD 3E lasted 3 years, 3.5 lasted 5 years, 4E lasted 6, but on this I will digress), but 4E hurt itself by listening to whiners and making supplements purely for the DM or purely for a player and not both.
Example, if you look at the 4E DMG there is absolutely no incentive for a player, whch again is the majority of gamers to buy that book. Likewise look at DM geared 4E supplements like Draconomicon for 4E and so forth and again you will see no incentive or PCs to purchase them. This is totally opposite of 3.5 supplements by the same name. This is not to bash 4E as honestly it is my favorite edition thus far (and yes I am an old school gamer saying this) but I think 4E made a mistake when they made products purely for DMs or purely for PCs. That being said, 4E consistently produced a great deal of material for PCs like the Complete X books , PHB 2 an PHB 3, and so forth. They produced enough where a PC never felt deprived of new material being released, and this was in addition to the updates presented online. In fact, the other mistake I think WOTC made is that when they announced 5E that stopped production on 4E WAY too early. I mean going a year without producing anything allowed PF to be on t op in terms of book sales (it is easy to beat the king when the king is sleeping and not producing) but if WOTC wasn't going to release supplements like Complete Arcane 2, etc for 4E they should have done atleast iconic titles like a Tome of Magic, Unearthed Arcana, and so forth.
Now, we get to 5E and the PHB has been out since October. The complete game has been out since December and are not getting a release until April and even that release is limited. An adventure with a few PC items thrown in to match the setting of the adventure. I know 5E fans (at least the vocal ones on forums seem to like it) but for myself, everyone including the 5E fans in my group, and people at my local RPG shops that I have talked to all seem to think this is a mistake and not like the model. I like crunchy expansions that give my character options. I get excited when I see a new book of rules has come out for the games that I play. I don't want supplements tied specifically to adventures. I want a Psionics supplement and I will tie it to a campaign or adventure as I see fit. I want A complete Warroris book for 5E, a Tome of Magic for 5E and so forth. I want complete campaign settings for 5e. I mean, if Forgotten Realms is the de facto world for DnD 5E then there should be a 5E FR campaign setting released in hardback or boxed set released first quarter.
I am not a fan of Pathfinder (again not knocking any edition or game it just doesn't suit my personal taste) but one thing I can say is that there players seem happy with having plenty of crunchy options between the core book, The ultimate combat book, the ultimate magic book, the advanced players guide, the advanced classes guide, the advanced races guide, etc and as soon as those books drop they seem to fly off the shelves. Yes, I know their campaign setting sell to and they can probably sell more campaign settings because people (DMS always have need of adventures) but despite what 5E fans say I would bet the initial sales of those splat books far exceed what PF campaign books sale although in the long term the campaign books will catch up to this (given months and years) because DMS have to create worlds/adventures for PCs to create characters with all those options in.
In short, yes our group is getting bored with 5E too, not because the system is bad per se, but because of the lack of options the release schedule gives us. I hope WOTC rethinks this model. As, I stated in another forum many of us are past our adolescent/teen years and are fortunate (blessed, lucky) enough or whatever to have a enough disposable income to indulge ourselves without going broke. In short, I can spend 40-60 a month on a hobby I love without taking food out my refrigerator or missing a bill unlike in my younger days ( There has to be some benefits of getting older . I mean, I think DnD is a cheaper hobby than clubbing, golf, computers and even games of a similar genre like wargaming (God knows Warhammer is expensive) and MTG. I am willing to spend 40-60 books a month on a campaign setting that has crunch (not just fluff) to it and/or a rules expansions that presents more options to me as a PC. As it stands no however I am spending my monthy recreational funds on other games/items besides DnD, and it is not that I don't want spend money on DnD but you have to release something for me to buy it.
To me the classes are different enough from previous editions that I don't need Pathfinder's release schedule (which sees one Big Crunch book a year). Characters that are significantly different (IMO) are:
Fighter Great weapon Champion
Fighter Two-Weapon Fighting Battlemaster
Fighter Sword and Board Eldritch Knight
Ranger Archer
Beast Master Ranger
Wizard (specialist)x8
Laser Cleric
Weapon Cleric
Druid Shapeshifter
Avenging Paladin
Holy Knight Paladin
Paladin Warden
Totem Barbarian
Warlock
Thief Rogue
Arcane Trickster Rogue
Dragon Sorcerer
Wild Sorcerer
Open Hand Monk
Elemental Monk
That's 5 party's worth of character archetypes without any double up. When you factor in race these characters can feel very different in actual play.
If your getting through 5 party's worth of characters after only 6 months then that's a lot of playing your doing. For my group though we've only got 1 party's worth of characters at around level 4 so we've got plenty of gaming to do before we ever need any updates. IMO Pathfinder needed a lot more expansions a lot quicker because it was so heavily based on 3.5 that people had already been playing these options for 8 years when Pathfinder hit the shelves. 5th ed is so different (and yet recognisable) that it doesn't suffer the same problem IMO.
JohnLynch wrote:
I'm not really bored of 5e as it stands yet, but I'm having a really hard time getting excited for the upcoming releases. I've never been one to buy published adventures becaues I find running them to be more chore than fun, and I could really give a damn less about the forgotten realms. From what I've seen all the upcoming releases annoucned are either adventures or something to do with the realms in an intimate way. I'll be honest, if I don't get some new material soonish (preferably another monster manual that's more like the 4th style of having lots of varitations on the same theme) I will probably go back to 2nd when I want to play D&D. I know this edition is still new, but looking at the horizon all I see are things that hold no interest to me. If they announced even just a new setting book for something besides the realms I would probably be excited. I think one of 4ths big problems was the lack of setting support, and I really hope they don't repeat that mistake.
Now as for crunch I don't need a constat stream of new player material, but the monster manual needs some help I think. There might be a lot of monsters in there, but honeslty most I will probably never use, or use just once, and the monsters I want to use a lot of get boring to run because you can only kill 1 of the same 4 kinds of orc for so long before it becomes routine. An unearthed arcana type book with lots of little rules modules to be plugged in and used would be great too, honestly just having a book like that would go a long way to increasing the long term ability of this edition to hold interest.
Easy dude, don't think that much about it. Just get another game and go back to 5E when more things are published. Or convert or write
Fallstorm wrote:
ChrisCarlson wrote:
TheNovaLord wrote:
FFSAA wrote:
Fallstorm wrote:
tehsquirrely wrote:
JohnLynch wrote:
JohnLynch wrote:
CCS wrote:
Coredump00 wrote:
GIGO, perhaps?...
Wow you should go to Pathfinder to spend the money that is burning in your wallet while next 5E book is released.
I mean you can get crunchy bunchie of never ending supplement, books etc. Yes I read you don't like it. You can always colour some elves and pretend they are drows, that can do the job.
Cellullose-Based-RPG-Methadone for you, sir!
Ps: no offense, I just don't know how can I help you but I enjoy reading the topic
Zardnaar wrote:
ChrisCarlson wrote:
CCS wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
Throvin wrote:
CCS wrote:
Fallstorm wrote:
Wow our group hasn't even worn the shine off our books and your getting bored with the edition? Thank goodness there are dozens, if not hundreds, of games for your to play.
Shasarak wrote:
Fallstorm wrote:
Fallstorm wrote:
Azzy1974 wrote:
Fallstorm wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Fallstorm wrote:
Shasarak wrote:
Fallstorm wrote:
VanRicter wrote:
Shasarak wrote:
Fallstorm wrote:
Fallstorm wrote:
Shasarak wrote:
Shasarak wrote:
4th edition was actually split into three parts, which was another reason it had such a short run. You had people playing vanilla 4th which was the three core books without errata. You had the essentials crowd, and you had the insider crowd. Their are people to this day playing 4th that have no idea you can hybrid your PCs.
3.5 by itself laster longer than 4E. 3E is still going via Pathfinder aswell thats 14 years and counting.
Zardnaar wrote:
masterfat78 wrote:
I'm having a hard time seeing how the change from D&D 3.0 to 3.5 would be a new edition. To me it's no different than when AD&D 2nd went to 2nd Revised and they published the Player's Options books. Both gave more choices, were updated with all of the erata, but were still compatible with the earlier same-edition material, even without updating it with the erata. (To me, Pathfinder is essentially D&D 3rd Revised and Expanded, and published by a third party.) I will grant that the AD&D 2nd Edition PHB does say on it's cover that it's just a revised, expanded, and updated version of AD&D, but not having played the earlier edition can't really comment on how the changes impacted compatibility with the earlier material.
It's also abundantly clear such revisions aren't anywhere near enough to make 3 to 3.5 an edition change when compared to the extensive changes from AD&D 2nd to 3rd, 3rd to 4th, and from 4th to 5th. I also don't see any issue with a publisher's decision to stop publishing books when they release updated, revised versions of them, or that even such might be needed after 4 years of extensive use of a dynamic system. If 4th's Essentials is equivalent to such a revision, it strikes me as meaning the initial release was rushed and/or poorly done if they had to release revised books after only being on the shelves for 2 years.
Even with all of that aside, if you become bored with a system because they aren't publishing enough splat books and premade campaigns and adventures, then it isn't the system or publisher that's at fault; instead you need to learn how to jump-start your own imagination. Or perhaps I'm crazy to think that imagination is the true core of any RPG.
The_Jester wrote:
Oriet wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Oriet wrote:
Fallstorm wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Fallstorm wrote:
FFSAA wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Fallstorm wrote:
The_Jester wrote:
seti wrote:
FFSAA wrote:
paulstrait wrote:
The_Jester wrote:
FFSAA wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
DLfan wrote:
To those clamouring about the end being near due to the lack of supplements being produced, I point you to Pathfinder.
The most common houserule in a Pathfinder game is to ban non-core material. The next most common houserule is to ban most (if not all) non-hardcover supplements due to perceived quality issues.
Pathfinder players are well aware that using the glut of supplements produced on a monthly basis isn't always the most enjoyable way to play a roleplaying game. The race to optimsation is time consuming and can trivialise all but the hardest fights. And now Paizo is listening by giving DMs the authority to ban everything that isn't core in Organised Play, Paizo's biggest program to get new players and retain existing ones. Most of those on the Paizo website seem to be heralding this as the best thing since sliced bread.
I'd much rather see WotC produce quality supplements that have enough good ideas to justify a supplement, rather than try to meet some quota/page count (like much of 3.5e, 4th ed and Pathfinder's supplements sometimes feel like). Pathfinder has yet to produce a book (other than the core rulebook) that doesn't require at least some things be banned by every DM I've played with. I'd love to see WotC not fall into that trap. I'd hate it if WotC is saying "organised play DMs can now ban everything except the PHB" in 6 years time.
To me it looks like the Adventurer's Handbook didn't have enough quality material and too much filler to justify producing the book. Here's hoping WotC keeps that standard of quality control and instead continues to release the material for free if they axe future supplements.
JohnLynch wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
JohnLynch wrote:
paulstrait wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
Yeah, I do not look at 3.0., 3.5, and Pathfinder as separate editions, the differences are negligible, I don't even really look at 1st and 2nd Ed as really different editions (kept on trucking using the monk in 2nd Ed and what-not).
I look at the editions as:
-Basic
-1/2nd Ed
-3rd Ed (includes 3.0, 3.5, PF)
-4th Ed (includes Essentials)
-5th Ed (which also seems like a 2.5, or a Basic 3rd Ed).
JohnLynch wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
JohnLynch wrote:
Brock_Landers wrote:
Oriet wrote:
My issue thus far is that I don't find enough I like in the game to counter the things that bug me even though I think the structure is there for it. They've taken a lot of what I hated from every edition or bastardized to flavorless mush the stuff I liked.
For example: Vancian casting is the dumbest idea ever. While I do like the addition of cantrips, most casters either rely on spamming a cantrips with a couple of short-rest recharge abilities that lack flavor (Warlock) or still being tied to the nonsense of Vancian mechanics. Or making a character that kind of sucks, mechanically. There's a balance that hasn't been met, even though there's potential for it to be.
Example 2: 3E-style multiclassing is an abomination. "You make x by taking three levels of A, four levels of B one level dip in to C at 7th and then finish out with A again. Your character won't work at all until level 5 in any semblence of the character you wanted, but can then blow the power curve at 10th and up." I can't begin to tell you how much I absolutely detest this on every level. It's the worst or second-worst immersion-breaking thing in the game unless you're playing a schitzophrenic character. It also opens the door for ridiculous requirements for system mastery or too-conservative content release.
This overshadows some of the stuff I really like about the edition, such as taming the ridiculous numbers bloat of 3E and 4E and the old school conversion ability.
This is why I don't jump to new editions right away. I may dabble, but there's always a break in period with any new edition that often doesn't get felt until a round or so of added materials. Were this 1982 I may be more accepting of what we have, but with 33 years and five editions as well as numerous other games experienced, it's not enough to make me switch over.
Brock_Landers wrote:
Oriet wrote:
Brock_Landers wrote:
3.5 to PF was about the same as 3.0 to 3.5. SLightly annoying. Pathfinder classes can be used in 3.5 and vice versa. At 1st we used PF as errata to 3.5 befre swiching over to PF. Wasn
't really ready to switch in 2008, by 2012 I was.
Oriet wrote:
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Running HotDQ as a PC. We went so off the rails that our experienced DM basically said "I'm just going to start filling in gaps." We've done such amazing things in what he called "one of the worst campaigns I've ever seen." He was going to try and end it early, but we filled in with tomfoolery and PC-driven content, and our DM is happy at this point to continue it. I made the monk that we freed from the enemy encampment try to sit down on an invisible crate and fall on top of a half-eaten horse that was killed by one of our black dragon eggs hatching. Then we worked with a drunk paladin to scour the sewers for the foul beast, and convinced it that the kobolds it was in charge of were going to betray and murder it.
The campaign so far has no semblance of its original self, and neither the PCs nor the DM care. We're having fun.
Worry less about the campaign and more about what you can do with it. 5e rules allow for all sorts of insane hijinks.
To paraphrase Emperor Palpatine: if you're not having fun with the material presented to you, it's merely the price of your lack of vision.
To paraphrase Levi Hawken: Nex Minute - Tiamat!
Talreign wrote:
It is my experience that boredom with D&D is cumulative. So if you have played through multiple versions of the game, you will tend to get bored quicker with the seen that, done that syndrome. There are only so many fantasy stories you can experience, before it all starts to blend together. Nostalgia and trying to recapture the feeling of D&D does not help much from my perspective. That is where I have a problems with 5E. It did not go far enough to head in a new direction, or add sufficient complexity or a new approach to the game. SInce it is fairly abstract, and the rules are light, then alot of emphasis is placed on the imagination. For new players i think it has an acceptable level of complexity, but offers nothing to add depth over time. I still enjoy playing fantasy settings, and D&D will always have a special spot since it introduced me to roleplaying, but I definitely wanted it to offer a new spin on things from a rules perspective and expand on mechanics like maneuvers for martial characters.