Favorite Change in any D&D edition

[Hussar]

Me too for the linear attributes. No more gigantic jumps with the all important percentile strength.

I guess one of my favourite changes would be giving ability scores to monsters in 3e.

 

[Haltherrion]

But for me, far and away, the change that makes it most unlikely I'll go back to a previous edition, is the introduction of character powers in 4E.

Now, every class has a selection of cool, useful things to do, every round.

I think the class balancing is a huge change (and a positive one). It's the biggest change I can recall.

Making everything go the same direction, calling demons demons, that is more superficial for.

 

[howandwhy99]

Linear Attribute scaling...

I never got the 2ed attribute thing... Dex 8 and dex 14 was almost the same thing...

It was a pain for me to do my house ruled World of Darkness cross overs ;-P

2e was based on OD&D's attribute scaling, a Gaussian normal distribution curve. It doesn't work with a point buy system, but it can with a 3d6 die roll. Those result in such distributions ...unless dice stop rolling linear distributions. For instance, if all the dice in the world started rolling only 1's.

You roll and keep and, if you didn't like the rolls, you could drop them and choose to roll again. It's effectively killing the character (losing the game), but any distribution of dice rolls could be used to win even all 3s. It's simply more difficult to play with certain results and easier with others.

 

[Hussar]

2e was based on OD&D's attribute scaling, a Gaussian normal distribution curve. It doesn't work with a point buy system, but it can with a 3d6 die roll. Those result in such distributions ...unless dice stop rolling linear distributions. For instance, if all the dice in the world started rolling only 1's.

You roll and keep and, if you didn't like the rolls, you could drop them and choose to roll again. It's effectively killing the character (losing the game), but any distribution of dice rolls could be used to win even all 3s. It's simply more difficult to play with certain results and easier with others.

Which, boys and girls, is a rather long winded way of saying, everyone cheated.

That or there was some freakish statistical anomaly which caused nearly every character I ever saw to have an 18 in their prime stat.

See, H&W, I do disagree with your point that "any distribution of dice rolls could be used to win even all 3s.". Not in my experience. A character which had all 3's had a half life similar to small furry animals on busy highways.

I would also point out that 3d6 in order was dropped after OD&D.

 

[howandwhy99]

Which, boys and girls, is a rather long winded way of saying, everyone cheated.

That or there was some freakish statistical anomaly which caused nearly every character I ever saw to have an 18 in their prime stat.

See, H&W, I do disagree with your point that "any distribution of dice rolls could be used to win even all 3s.". Not in my experience. A character which had all 3's had a half life similar to small furry animals on busy highways.

I would also point out that 3d6 in order was dropped after OD&D.

In a postmodern world cheating is a fiction, isn't it?

We've been using 3d6 in order for the last six years. And it has come back into popularity lately too. Even if the rationale for its' design is no longer well known.

 

[Joshua Randall]

4e's innovation that any abiilty score can be your attack stat did a HUGE amount to open up character options and "design space". (I'm not really sure what that phrase means, but the WotC guys use it and I want to sound hip.)

 

[Wik]

I would also point out that 3d6 in order was dropped after OD&D.

3d6 in order was still the default in 2e.

Also, we never cheated - our only rule was if you didn't have at least one 15 or higher, you re-rolled.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Which, boys and girls, is a rather long winded way of saying, everyone cheated.

No, say rather that there were not so many rules yet graven in stone telling us what to do - and the game was better for it.

See, H&W, I do disagree with your point that "any distribution of dice rolls could be used to win even all 3s.". Not in my experience. A character which had all 3's had a half life similar to small furry animals on busy highways.

All characters DID have a half-life similar to small animals on a busy highway. At least the game was created and initially developed with that in mind which is why there weren't more and better changes to the game to enable more meaningful character generation and more reliable, longer-term PC survival. 1E and 2E were built without too much objective critcism. The designers were ignorant of what SHOULD be done with the game because the hobby itself was still in early stages of growth and nobody knew what COULD be done with it. Even through 2E it was still expected that each individual DM would be making SIGNIFICANT changes to the rules to suit his/her own needs and tastes.

I would also point out that 3d6 in order was dropped after OD&D.

Not even remotely correct. Method III in the 1E DMG made multiple rolls per stat but stats were still recorded in order. Method IV recorded rolls in order but called for the player to choose from 12 such generated characters. And of course just because it wasn't listed in the DMG it did NOT stop people from continuing to use 3d6 in order because that's what they'd always used before (and inventing countless new ways of generating stats.) 2nd Edition - Method I - is roll 3d6 in order just once for each ability. Method II was also 3d6 recorded in order but allowed taking the best of two rolls per stat.

Even in 3rd Edition it still exists. It was labeled in the DMG as the "Random Average" method, and was straight-up 3d6 in order.

 

[JeffB]

the introduction of character powers in 4E..

I agree with this but for a couple different reasons than yours..

1)now most of the rules a player needs are on a character sheet. PLayers can reference the CRS instead of taking time to crack open a book and looking up a spell description, or class ability description. Doubly good for the DM side of things and monsters. In 3E you'd have to possibly reference a few different areas besides the actual MM stat block and maybe the PHB too if the monster had an ability that functioned like a spell. With 4E I rareley reference anything besides the stat-block itself.

2) very important- the powers are now so easily translated/re-skinned to take into account flavor. Running a glorantha type game with its massive focus on a characters culture, mythology, and divine magic was an absolute PITA at best with prior editions of D&D and it's strict "world structure". It was never worth it. With 4E I can re-skin the powers and monsters, and even completely drop arcane spell users if I want and run a balanced game. The Magic item system can be dropped as well too. (and simply use the bonuses per "tier")

As for other editions-

I like 3Es D20 licensing. Possibly the best thing to come out of the game-I'm enjoying the OSR becuase of this and faves of mine like RuneQuest returned too. Also this was possibly the worst thing though :stifled the industry's creativity as everyone hopped on the D20 bandwagon and created alot of sub-par product. I think varied systems makes for a healthier gaming community, but thats just me., and I'm getting way OT. Rule-wise, I liked the unified mechanics and saving throws- just wish they had not built so much rules depth into the system.

2E- I liked the intent to promote and produce alot of "non generic" settings, and focus on something besides combat and dungeon crawling. Of course they had alot of crap products and product direction and went overboard on "story" but the intentions were good.

Moldvay/Cook/Marsh- FINALLY! A cleaned up, easy to reference more "open" OD&D-esque ruleset without all structure of AD&D. I grew up playing LBBs and mixed in some stuff from the AD&D volumes- it was a mess. I loved all the new variety of spells, classes, items that AD&D rules brought, but could not stand the structure compared to that wild & wooly OD&D game. MCM was a breath of fresh air. Still my fave version of the game.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

After some consideration I'd say it'd have to be "Higher rolls = always Better". It's a simple quality-of-life issue that one cannot argue against for any sane reason. Nearly every other change between any two editions worth discussing has had advantages and disadvantages - saving throws and cyclic intiative included, but Higher=Better is universally beneficial.