D&D General Hot Take: D&D Has Not Recovered From 2E to 3.0 Transition

[Oofta]

that's easy... just find anyone that wants to propose any change to the current model since the current one has always out sold the one before it.

right since no edition is perfect we need to be able to discuss making every/any edition better

Did I say we shouldn't discuss? Where? Am I not allowed to state my opinion, is the only opinion allowed "D&D 5E sucks"? Why do you feel compelled to call me out when others have also disagreed?

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Am I not allowed to state my opinion, is the only opinion allowed "D&D 5E sucks"?

I missed that post, who said it sucks?

Why do you feel compelled to call me out when others have also disagreed?

because you seek out any idea to improve the game to shout it down with 'but it sells'

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Bounded accuracy works well for me, I just threw some cannon fodder level 8 monsters at my level 17 party and it worked as intended. I couldn't have done that in previous editions.

Well, I mean, you could have in 4e. It just would have been "cannon fodder minions" rather than "cannon fodder level 8 monsters."

 

[payn]

Well, I mean, you could have in 4e. It just would have been "cannon fodder minions" rather than "cannon fodder level 8 monsters."

but would level 8 minions even scratch level 17 PCs in 4E?

 

[Fanaelialae]

but would level 8 minions even scratch level 17 PCs in 4E?

They would've been level 13ish minions, so yes. That was kind of the beauty of how 4e scaled monsters.

 

[Zardnaar]

Because (IMO) the way to fix the caster/martial divide isn't to give the casters all sorts of cool powers and then make it so that they can't ever stick the power at high levels.

Let the casters have cool powers that actually work. Just make martials better than they currently are.

Contradictory though with the power levels. If the spellcasters can make their stuff stick they shut down the martials.

So you either need to remove those spellcaster abilities (4E) or make it harder to stick (OSR).

 

[GMforPowergamers]

but would level 8 minions even scratch level 17 PCs in 4E?

no but 4xparty size 15th level minions (so if your party is 4 16 of them) will do about the same as throwing a bunch of level 8 monsters in 5e... BUT it will run quicker (wow who would ever think 4e and run quicker would be the answere...lol not me) and easier then running 10ish level 8 monsters in 5e

 

[tetrasodium]

That doesn't strike me as being the case. A 20th-level spellcaster who starts with an 18 in their spellcasting stat, uses a +6 enhancement bonus item to boost it, has received a +5 inherent bonus to it, is putting all five of their ability increases into it, and is casting a 9th-level spell which they have Greater Spell Focus in, will have a save DC of 33.

A 20th-level character using their good save against that spell will have a +12 from the base save value. If we presume that they have a cloak of resistance +5 (only 25,000 gp for a +5 resistance bonus to all saves), and we conservatively estimate that their relevant stat for the save is 20 (for another +5 bonus), that's a total of +22 to the save, meaning that they succeed on an 11 or above (i.e. a 50% chance of success).

Now obviously, you can tweak those numbers in a lot of ways for a lot of different circumstances, but there has to be a pretty huge disparity to have an instance where you can only succeed on a natural 20 on your good save.

I think this almost certain success (which I agree with) is made worse because it almost never matters even if the save is a failure.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Contradictory though with the power levels. If the spellcasters can make their stuff stick they shut down the martials.

So you either need to remove those spellcaster abilities (4E) or make it harder to stick (OSR).

Given those two options, and no others, I would say the correct design choice is to tone down the powers. I'd rather have a decent ability that works a normal percentage of the time, than an absolutely OP ability that only works a tiny percentage of the time. The latter is in most cases simply bad design, IMO.

 

[Zardnaar]

according to wotc (and I don't care if you believe them or not) 3e out sold 2e, 3.5 out sold 3e. 4e outsold 3.5, and 5e out sold 4e by such an order of magnitude it isn't even funny... now maybe 1e outsold 2e (I don't know) but 3e didn't out sell 4e and 4e didn't out sell 5e.

Can you find an exact qoute? We have had numbers cone out since then so the person saying that either didn't have the numbers or was spinning stuff.

I remember them saying 4E preorders were better for example.

We don't have 4E numbers or hard 5E numbers (we have some for the starter set).

So even if that quite was made doesn't make it true. Any link to an article or something?

We do know 4E sales were very front loaded and 3?5 didn't sell that well comparatively to everything before it.