D&D 5E Going from 1st to 5th Edition

[schneeland]

The main thing that confused me when I moved from 3e to 5e was that I couldn't figure out how many skill points I would get. Turned out: none. My beloved skill points had not made it to this edition.

Similarly, I think fireball blowback and lightning bolt reflection were gone at some point (I think this happened in 3e, but at the same time I feel we still used it at least in the first years of 3e).

The undead thing I remember, and I find these guys to lack scariness overall, especially in 5e. But at least in that case I noticed

 

[Thirteenspades]

The main thing that confused me when I moved from 3e to 5e was that I couldn't figure out how many skill points I would get. Turned out: none. My beloved skill points had not made it to this edition.

Similarly, I think fireball blowback and lightning bolt reflection were gone at some point (I think this happened in 3e, but at the same time I feel we still used it at least in the first years of 3e).

The undead thing I remember, and I find these guys to lack scariness overall, especially in 5e. But at least in that case I noticed

Appear from unintimidating mechanics, the cartoony art also plays a role, wish it were the way it was in 4e and 3e. But most of the time WOTC takes a "maximum blandness to suit everyone" approach.

 

[Thirteenspades]

Your statement requires an understanding of the word desire (an understanding I, personally, lack). Desire is a concept that continuously mystifies me. I understand people desire different things. But the origins and awakenings of desire - why someone desires one thing and not another - alludes me. Unfortunately my knowledge of psychology and neuroscience is lacking.

Here is an understanding of the word desire. @dave2008 would agree, he often calls out his fascination with this lady. Not hard to see why...

Spoiler

 

[pogre]

I'm curious to hear what other funny stories of edition 'jumps' people have to relate.

Just wait until someone casts sleep.

 

[Puggins]

The not-so-great tone aside, you do have to understand the prevailing gaming environment up through somewhere around 1987, when the forgotten realms gray box came out and there was a big push to use it. Up to then (and for quite a few years afterwards) there was essentially no established world that most DMs had access to- sure the Greyhawk folio had been around for a few years, and the Greyhawk box had come out in 1983, but- and I'm not exaggerating here- I was the only D&D player (out of 30+ that I had met and played with) that owned either one. So the only recourse that every DM had, frankly, was to make his/her own world. Even the published modules were used very sparingly- many of the "old timers" back then (those who started in the 70's usually hadn't touched them past B1/B2.

So yeah, someone who came into 5e (or PF, or 4e) would be really surprised regarding the current environment. Personally, I don't see how D&D could possibly be so popular without the existence of the pre-published worlds and adventures. Sure, there are plenty of DMs that have the time to careful plot out their adventures, storylines and worlds. But plenty more (probably most, I'd say) just don't have that kind of time available.

 

[Shiroiken]

I was quite surprised nonetheless at many things.

A spectre showed up, and I pooped my pants. I immediately started running away. Imagine my surprise when it hit another party member, and...their max hitpoints went down, temporarily.

I thought, wow. "You used to lose two levels of experience, permanently!"

I started with 1E so I understand, although I played through each edition over the years. AD&D (both editions) were HARD. Played correctly it took forever to level, half the time you got nothing but HP, and death awaited around every corner. Level drain wasn't quite as bad as death... but not by much.

5E is based on Easy Mode (to use video game terminology), but fortunately it's not hard to ramp up the difficulty with a few house rules (it's also super easy to house rule 5E!). For example, I change the temporary HP loss to semi-permanent, where you have to spend downtime to get rid of it. This forces an afflicted character to be in more danger for the entirety of the adventure, increasing the probability of death from 0 Max HP and bringing about new undead.

I also found a lot of the spells I remembered had been nerfed. "Wait, Fire Shield does 2d6 damage to the person attacking you? It used to do double the attacker's damage! Hold Person requires concentration to maintain, and only affects one target? Haste only gives you one extra attack?"

This is because everyone levels the same amount now. Before, you were lower level than everyone else, but your lower level stuff was really cool. Now that everyone's leveling the same, the spells have to be toned down to prevent casters from dominating the game (as they did in 3E when the change first occurred).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Most 5e DMs I see just run by the book word for word with little to no improvisation, and get all worked up if you stray from the one allowed path.

That isn't specific to 5e either.

 

[Stormonu]

The spectre thing got me too. Also lot of spells caught me off guard, and I'm still ticked about Shield.

As an aside, I've used modules since I got into D&D (most notably Keep on the Borderlands). But I did use a generic/homebrew world for a while even after getting the Greyhawk boxed set (though I used it as a template for some of my world-building). Dragonlance was actually the first "published" gameworld I used, and when FR came out, it blew me away - and marked when fleshing out my homebrew really took off. Oddly enough though, a lot of times these days I use the published worlds moreso than my own homebrew world.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The not-so-great tone aside, you do have to understand the prevailing gaming environment up through somewhere around 1987, when the forgotten realms gray box came out and there was a big push to use it. Up to then (and for quite a few years afterwards) there was essentially no established world that most DMs had access to- sure the Greyhawk folio had been around for a few years, and the Greyhawk box had come out in 1983, but- and I'm not exaggerating here- I was the only D&D player (out of 30+ that I had met and played with) that owned either one. So the only recourse that every DM had, frankly, was to make his/her own world. Even the published modules were used very sparingly- many of the "old timers" back then (those who started in the 70's usually hadn't touched them past B1/B2.

So yeah, someone who came into 5e (or PF, or 4e) would be really surprised regarding the current environment. Personally, I don't see how D&D could possibly be so popular without the existence of the pre-published worlds and adventures. Sure, there are plenty of DMs that have the time to careful plot out their adventures, storylines and worlds. But plenty more (probably most, I'd say) just don't have that kind of time available.

When I started playing, around 1982, City State of the Invincible Overlord setting was popular, at least in my circle in the UK. I owned the World of Greyhawk campaign setting (folio version) but was unimpressed by it. I preferred my own homebrew setting.

That is significantly different to Traveller, which I played more than D&D in the 80s, where the default Third Imperium setting was closely integrated into the game. I've played quite a few tabletop RPGs over the years with integrated settings - Call of Cthulhu, FASA Star Trek, WEG Star Wars.

 

[Lanefan]

But people I knew didn't use them. Instead, we laughed at them. We saw them as something to ridicule, not to utilize.

I neither laughed at pre-made settings nor used them (much). What I did do was gleefully pillage them for any good ideas they might have that I could use for my own settings.

Pre-made adventures, on the other hand: used 'em all the time! Still do, for that matter.