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<blockquote data-quote="Scorpienne" data-source="post: 6832180" data-attributes="member: 39774"><p>Hiya Kilgore! Welcome.</p><p></p><p>The best way to get the difference is to play both and decide for yourself. Or to read some of the D&DAL modules and draw your own conclusions. Obviously this is a topic that is HEAVILY influenced by each person's individual experience.</p><p></p><p>This is one woman's opinion on the subject, so take it for what it's worth. </p><p></p><p>I have played a lot of highly technical 3.5. Yeah, I was one of those people with two belts of battle, a +5 weapon, 200-400hp of damage per round, a 16th level character, and the stack of ARs to go with it all. I can powergame with the best of them. I'm no Eric Pelkey, but I can hold my own in his league. (And I say that with affection and respect for Eric. He's got a gift. There were few better number crunchers in all of Gran March.) </p><p></p><p>What broke me from 3.5 was running an APL 16 Sheldomar Valley metaregional. Some 20th level bad guy cleric, his succubus sorcerer girlfriend, a ghoul corpsechanter bard back up singer, and a whole Chippendales Revue of drowned. If that doesn't mean much to you, suffice to say it was a high level mod with some seriously high end technical stuff going on. Cleric was buffed to the gills. The party (who are 16th level badasses) open with the spell that lets them win initiative (+20 init) and a greater dispel, a reaving dispel, and an empowered dispel.</p><p></p><p>Half the cleric's buffs were gone. No big deal. I just have to recalculate his entire stat block on the fly. Drop a contingency, eagle's splendor, divine favor... what have you. I sent the players to get snacks, told them to get me something, and to come back in 10 minutes and we'd continue. Which they did and which we did. No big deal. But afterwards, all I could think was "that wasn't fun. Not for anyone." It was finally driven home that *for me* the moneyball approach to D&D was successful, it just wasn't fun. This is one reason I've embraced 5E with love - the sabermetrics are gone. We can just play make believe with as few rules as we have to in order to be fair.</p><p></p><p>To me PFS "feels" powergamery. It doesn't have to be, but it "feels" that way. And that's ONLY from secondhand information. I have dear friends who play. I have the base book and I've read it. But I don't play because I'm really over 3.5. Listening to my friends who play talk, it *seems* more focused on the numbers than the story, more about the +7 modifier at 2nd level than the character background. That's a fine way to play D&D. It works for a lot of people who really enjoy it and I can see why they enjoy it. It just doesn't do it for me at this point in my life.</p><p></p><p>5E (in comparison to 3.5/3.75) is a much simpler game and WotC has (thank goodness!) decided that splatbooks and powercreep aren't the way to go. So the rules set is dead simple in comparison. It's really easy for a new player to get involved. It's really easy to jump to a different character. And - and this is just my experience, your mileage may vary - when people aren't sweating the rules too much, they become more focused on the RP and the story. RP and story is where my delight is these days, so that's why it appeals to me.</p><p></p><p>"We've seen what happens when we do too much content, so the plan is to take things slow." - Mike Mearls</p><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/413uu7/dd_ama_with_mike_mearls_and_chris_lindsay_115/cyzhdyn" target="_blank">https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/413uu7/dd_ama_with_mike_mearls_and_chris_lindsay_115/cyzhdyn</a></p><p></p><p>So that's a very long winded way of saying I think that 5E and 3.5x appeal to very different playstyles. 3.5x is more technical. 5E has more room for RP and story. Now, you can tell a very fine story and have great RP in 3.5x - and holy smokes is Paizo telling some good stories. And you can do some highly technical stuff in 5E as the charop forums will show you. But in general, that's the difference I've found.</p><p></p><p>p</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Scorpienne, post: 6832180, member: 39774"] Hiya Kilgore! Welcome. The best way to get the difference is to play both and decide for yourself. Or to read some of the D&DAL modules and draw your own conclusions. Obviously this is a topic that is HEAVILY influenced by each person's individual experience. This is one woman's opinion on the subject, so take it for what it's worth. I have played a lot of highly technical 3.5. Yeah, I was one of those people with two belts of battle, a +5 weapon, 200-400hp of damage per round, a 16th level character, and the stack of ARs to go with it all. I can powergame with the best of them. I'm no Eric Pelkey, but I can hold my own in his league. (And I say that with affection and respect for Eric. He's got a gift. There were few better number crunchers in all of Gran March.) What broke me from 3.5 was running an APL 16 Sheldomar Valley metaregional. Some 20th level bad guy cleric, his succubus sorcerer girlfriend, a ghoul corpsechanter bard back up singer, and a whole Chippendales Revue of drowned. If that doesn't mean much to you, suffice to say it was a high level mod with some seriously high end technical stuff going on. Cleric was buffed to the gills. The party (who are 16th level badasses) open with the spell that lets them win initiative (+20 init) and a greater dispel, a reaving dispel, and an empowered dispel. Half the cleric's buffs were gone. No big deal. I just have to recalculate his entire stat block on the fly. Drop a contingency, eagle's splendor, divine favor... what have you. I sent the players to get snacks, told them to get me something, and to come back in 10 minutes and we'd continue. Which they did and which we did. No big deal. But afterwards, all I could think was "that wasn't fun. Not for anyone." It was finally driven home that *for me* the moneyball approach to D&D was successful, it just wasn't fun. This is one reason I've embraced 5E with love - the sabermetrics are gone. We can just play make believe with as few rules as we have to in order to be fair. To me PFS "feels" powergamery. It doesn't have to be, but it "feels" that way. And that's ONLY from secondhand information. I have dear friends who play. I have the base book and I've read it. But I don't play because I'm really over 3.5. Listening to my friends who play talk, it *seems* more focused on the numbers than the story, more about the +7 modifier at 2nd level than the character background. That's a fine way to play D&D. It works for a lot of people who really enjoy it and I can see why they enjoy it. It just doesn't do it for me at this point in my life. 5E (in comparison to 3.5/3.75) is a much simpler game and WotC has (thank goodness!) decided that splatbooks and powercreep aren't the way to go. So the rules set is dead simple in comparison. It's really easy for a new player to get involved. It's really easy to jump to a different character. And - and this is just my experience, your mileage may vary - when people aren't sweating the rules too much, they become more focused on the RP and the story. RP and story is where my delight is these days, so that's why it appeals to me. "We've seen what happens when we do too much content, so the plan is to take things slow." - Mike Mearls [url]https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/413uu7/dd_ama_with_mike_mearls_and_chris_lindsay_115/cyzhdyn[/url] So that's a very long winded way of saying I think that 5E and 3.5x appeal to very different playstyles. 3.5x is more technical. 5E has more room for RP and story. Now, you can tell a very fine story and have great RP in 3.5x - and holy smokes is Paizo telling some good stories. And you can do some highly technical stuff in 5E as the charop forums will show you. But in general, that's the difference I've found. p [/QUOTE]
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