What lore from previous editions do you wish stayed?

Sacrosanct said:

Speaking of clerics and warlocks, I do miss the old days when role playing had an effect on your character. Meaning, if clerics didn’t follow the guidelines set by their god, they wouldn’t have spells granted. Similar to how if paladins and rangers strayed, they lost their abilities. Since then, the game feels like the role playing fluff is completely divested from the class, where each class is now just a box of stats and the role that class is inspired by doesn’t matter; where role playing doesn’t matter if you don’t want.

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Will point out that a lot of what you see is people only wanting to play a class for the powers... a lot of the players of that class repeatedly experienced as wanting to play that class for the flavor only to have excessively rigid and/or actively malicious DMs strip their class powers in contrived no-win situations or for delusionally arbitrary "violations".

I want those classes to have meaningful conduct restrictions, too, but the developers have been poisoning the alignment well for too many years with toxic bad advice and even more atrocious moral logic-- and suggestions that alignment restrictions be replaced with more specific, more concrete, more fair Codes of Conduct have been met with nothing but chatterig primate derision from the fanbase.

Psyzhran2357 said:

See, I'm a young whippersnapper, and I don't understand the love for racial class restrictions.

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They're the #1 thing that defines the race. Racial abilities and penalties at 1st level are already too insignificant at 1st level, and get progressively worse as the character gains levels. Since AD&D abolished the original racial classes, the differences between these supposedly distinct sentient beings have grown steadily fainter.

4e's racial abilities were actually, ironically, a breath of fresh air that, once again, had to be taken away from us to satisfy the worst parts of the former 3.X fanbase.

This is probably more of a mechanic that I would like from previous editions, though it is related to lore. Priestly spell spheres for priest classes. I liked that you could have two priests with vastly different spell access because of the go they worshipped. It was also a great way to customise your world. If Zeus is the pre-eminent ruler of storms then it could be made that no other god could grant major access to the weather domain meaning those higher level spells like control winds and control weather were only accessible to priests of Zeus and if you want to have your fallen compatriot resurrected, then best hope that you are on good standing with the priests of Hades. I always thought that was cool and kind of wish they kept it.

doctorbadwolf said:

Halflings that aren’t hobbits with toddler proportions whose communities just don’t get attacked because the universe loves them too much.

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This is one thing that I actually miss from 4e...

Gradine said:

Basically all of the monster lore created for 4e that 5e abandoned. I guess that would necessarily include the Dawn War and the Elemental Chaos.

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I believe the Dawn War is still D&D canon for 5e.

I'd like the 3.5e Binder back with it's original creepily more. Making it a type of Warlock just didn't work, it lost all it's flavour.

FaerieGodfather said:

They're the #1 thing that defines the race. Racial abilities and penalties at 1st level are already too insignificant at 1st level, and get progressively worse as the character gains levels. Since AD&D abolished the original racial classes, the differences between these supposedly distinct sentient beings have grown steadily fainter.

4e's racial abilities were actually, ironically, a breath of fresh air that, once again, had to be taken away from us to satisfy the worst parts of the former 3.X fanbase.

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Yeah no. What defines a race/species/people is their fluff, how they fit into the world. You don't need to squeeze them into even tighter a box. I already know how to differentiate in roleplay Amber the Dwarf Cleric from Silaqui the Elf Fighter from Alberich the orphaned Elf Artificer raised by Amber's family. I don't need unnecessary racial restrictions to know that an Elf and a Dwarf won't think and act the same way, and that an Elf raised by Dwarves will act like a mix of both.

But more emphatically, trying to restrict non-human class options on the system level just stereotypes them, forcing them into cookie-cutter shapes. It's just too contrived. Plus, why should my character's race be their defining feature? It shouldn't, just like a Human PC's defining trait shouldn't be "Human: short-sighted, stubborn, ambitious, and will have sex with anything with two legs". Their race will inform their cultural background and their psychology, but it shouldn't be so strict a filter that it chokes out everything else about their character.

Plus, all that info is setting specific. Maybe Halflings can't be Sorcerers in the Kingdom of Pancakes setting. Sure, I'll accept that. But they can be in the Syrupmists setting. Hooray! But leave it to the setting splats, where they can actually give an in-universe justification for why Orc Orcsson can't be a Wizard. Don't bake it into the core system for no reason. Biological essentialism is terrible.

FaerieGodfather said:

Will point out that a lot of what you see is people only wanting to play a class for the powers... a lot of the players of that class repeatedly experienced as wanting to play that class for the flavor only to have excessively rigid and/or actively malicious DMs strip their class powers in contrived no-win situations or for delusionally arbitrary "violations".

I want those classes to have meaningful conduct restrictions, too, but the developers have been poisoning the alignment well for too many years with toxic bad advice and even more atrocious moral logic-- and suggestions that alignment restrictions be replaced with more specific, more concrete, more fair Codes of Conduct have been met with nothing but chatterig primate derision from the fanbase.

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Are you talking about 5e Paladin oaths with that last one? I thought people loved those. Or are you referring to something else?

Psyzhran2357 said:

Are you talking about 5e Paladin oaths with that last one? I thought people loved those. Or are you referring to something else?

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Yeah 5e oaths are great. I guess what’s “missing” is a rule that the DM can take away the player’s powers?

gyor said:

I believe the Dawn War is still D&D canon for 5e.

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I know Primordials are referred to as still existing in the Forgotten Realms modules (specifically Storm King's Thunder), but I think the Dawn War itself is mostly limited to the 4e pantheon being labelled as the "Dawn War Pantheon" in the DMG as its sample pantheon.