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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Some Thoughts on Historical Edition Changes, and What that Portends for OneD&D
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<blockquote data-quote="Jack Daniel" data-source="post: 8851186" data-attributes="member: 694"><p>I've heard 3.0 to 3.5 compared to AD&D 1e to 2e, since that's actually kind of a fair comparison. Nobody ever really talks about "AD&D to B/X," though, because B/X wasn't based on AD&D, it was based on Holmes Basic and the white box (and Greyhawk).</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>There are a bunch of little differences in the attack roll tables, saving throw tables, XP tables for certain classes (thief comes to mind), spell tables (cleric and elf), and of course the vaunted thief skill progressions. But it's hard to call them an "incompatible difference" when the changes to thief skills were made <em>after</em> the 1983 printing of the Mentzer Expert Set, which <a href="https://imgur.com/d3FEHwY" target="_blank">conforms</a> to the to the thief skill table in the <a href="https://imgur.com/MITM61m" target="_blank">1982 Cook Expert Set</a>. The thief skills weren't stretched out until after the Companion Set was published, and then the Expert Set was updated to match in 1984.</p><p></p><p>In short, if B/X and BECMI are different and incompatible editions because of the thief skills table, then the 1983 Mentzer Basic and Expert Sets are part of the B/X edition and not the BECMI edition. (I think the more defensible position is that Classic D&D is one game that was gradually changed in small, piecewise increments between its debut in 1981 and its twilight in 1996.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Jack Daniel, post: 8851186, member: 694"] I've heard 3.0 to 3.5 compared to AD&D 1e to 2e, since that's actually kind of a fair comparison. Nobody ever really talks about "AD&D to B/X," though, because B/X wasn't based on AD&D, it was based on Holmes Basic and the white box (and Greyhawk). There are a bunch of little differences in the attack roll tables, saving throw tables, XP tables for certain classes (thief comes to mind), spell tables (cleric and elf), and of course the vaunted thief skill progressions. But it's hard to call them an "incompatible difference" when the changes to thief skills were made [I]after[/I] the 1983 printing of the Mentzer Expert Set, which [URL='https://imgur.com/d3FEHwY']conforms[/URL] to the to the thief skill table in the [URL='https://imgur.com/MITM61m']1982 Cook Expert Set[/URL]. The thief skills weren't stretched out until after the Companion Set was published, and then the Expert Set was updated to match in 1984. In short, if B/X and BECMI are different and incompatible editions because of the thief skills table, then the 1983 Mentzer Basic and Expert Sets are part of the B/X edition and not the BECMI edition. (I think the more defensible position is that Classic D&D is one game that was gradually changed in small, piecewise increments between its debut in 1981 and its twilight in 1996.) [/QUOTE]
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