D&D 5E First experience with 5th edition and Lost Mines of Phandelver (no spoilers)

[ddaley]

Sounds like every 3.5 fan's opinion of 5e that I've heard so far. Actually, that's higher praise than usual. 5e strives to accommodate a range of playstyles and fans of all prior editions. Perhaps more than any others (OSR is close), 3.5 fans have alternatives - particularly PF, obviously - to the current ed of D&D.

Not sure how you can say that. I started with the basic edition in the 80s and have played every edition since. Played 3.5 the most and then quit for a while. Tried to get back into it with Pathfinder and then 4th edition. Neither of those worked out too well with new players. Now, we are playing 5e and like it well enough.

I have seen other post similar stories. So, I don't think you can say that the OP's opinion sounds like every 3.5 fan's opinion.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

It just depends on why we preferred 3.5 I think. For me, I just found it better than any of the other D&D options. The things that bugged me about it weren't as bad as the things that bugged me about each other D&D edition.

5e came out, and better captures the feel of the kind of D&D I've always wanted to play (more AD&D), while the things that bug me about it are less than any other edition of the game, and house ruling can be done much easier (and with a lighter hand) to fix it.

My friend OTOH, liked the nitty-gritty aspects of 3.5. For him, although he did decide he would transition his DMing to 5e, it took him a lot longer "let go" of 3.5. Part of it was investment, and part of it was enjoying the character creation and advancement minigame. If I hadn't been pushing 5e by talking about it non-stop and running games in it, he may have been one of the players who never switched. I think he's done with 3.5 now, but since he is focused on other (fun) RPG projects I'm not sure when he'll get around to running 5e. Which is sad for me because I've been DMing it since the playtest, and I really want the chance to also play it.

I should also add that there is a certain amount of not realizing you'll like it until you play it for some people. If you preferred 3.5 and are immediately coming from it, you are more likely to notice what isn't there that you enjoyed than what is there that you might actually like better. Some of things that you "lose" will possibly start looking less like bugs and more like features after playing it a bit.

 

[Imaculata]

Did you play in person or on a VTT?

We played in person around a table. The campaign module does of course provide a map for all the important locations. But I think our first time DM may have felt like he was expected to only read us the pre-written text, and add no details of his own. In fact, the module instructs you to do as such. (what they mean of course, is to not read the DM notes to your players by accident, but I can see how a new DM might think like he should only read the description that was provided.)

I personally feel that adding your own description is a better way to go.

I've been waiting a long time to hear your thoughts on this edition.

Completely understand you miss the crunch of 3.5.

I wonder whether you'd grow more fond if you played regularly for 3 months or so.


-Brad

I definitely think I could get used to it. 5th edition plays very easy, and the rules are extra simple when you're already used to 3.5 rules. I did miss the number crunching, as did a female friend of mine, but I was able to put all that aside, and just focus on the role playing and fun. And we had a lot of fun.

I could definitely see how it would be just as much fun as 3.5, with a more experienced DM and group. But I also don't see any added value of playing 5th over 3.5th edition. I didn't notice anything that would make it more fun for me than 3.5. So for me, there's no reason to switch.

Are there more options at higher levels to reach the same sort of character tweaking that exists in 3.5?

It seems a little harsh to judge an entire edition based on one session with an inexperienced DM.

As I said, this was just my first experience with 5th edition.

I take it the DM and the group were new or newish to you as well.

Only two people in the group were people with whom I had role played before. All the others had never played DnD at all, as far as I know.

It feels like a perfect setting for confirmation bias to thrive: inexperienced role players around you, inexperienced DM behind the screen, is going to result in a less polished experience, which will colour your thoughts. Possibly (subconsciously) this scenario was sought on purpose in order to confirm your preference for the older version you are comfortable with and enjoy.

Speaking of bias.... That's an awful lot of negative assumptions you're making there.

You're kind of setting yourself up to fail to like it.

Give it a bit longer.

Of course, you might just not like it full stop. Which is fine, of course, but give it a fair shake first.

Wait... at what point did I say that I didn't like it?

A healer or three is a good particularly idea at 1st level. Life Clerics are better at it than Bards, too. 1st level has a very different feel, that way, from most of the rest of the game, and the exp charts are weighted to make your time spent at 1st & 2nd very brief. Exactly why - probably because it evokes the feel of the classic (pre-3.0) game, though I have a pet conspiracy theory that it's to create a first impression that the game is deadlier than it is, when it actually gets relatively 'easy' quite quickly.

You might be right. While several of our players would often find themselves at 1 or 2 hit points during any combat encounter, none of them were ever at 0 hit points. So often my barbarian would come in the next round, and cut down what ever enemy was attacking them. One short rest later, and we'd all be healed up. Maybe the system is intended to be this way. It feels deadlier, but you're able to recover much faster from injuries.

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

I was taking your comments of "I won't be changing any time soon" and how you dislike the simplicity of the system overall as being indicators that you found 5e not to be to your tastes. While you made some positive noises about certain aspects, the overall feeling of your post was "meh - it's ok but...meh".

I was just saying that to give any edition a fair shake you are better off having a stronger/more experienced/familiar infrastructure in place so that variables are reduced.

Semantically, my "you might not like it" was intended to mean "...enough to change".

Hey, it's totally your decision, I just wanted to stick up for 5e cause I like it a lot, and it looked like your first taste was a small mouthful from one corner of the plate only.

 

[Imaculata]

I was taking your comments of "I won't be changing any time soon" and how you dislike the simplicity of the system overall as being indicators that you found 5e not to be to your tastes. While you made some positive noises about certain aspects, the overall feeling of your post was "meh - it's ok but...meh".

My biggest criticism of 5th edition, is that it is simply not different enough from previous systems. Its a perfect blend of elements from 2nd and third edition, but with everything more streamlined and made more accessible. All positive things. But I feel it is also a missed opportunity to do away with some of the illogical rules inherent to DnD.

Such as the way armor works (armor makes you harder to hit, but has no effect on how much damage you take. The exact opposite of reality), or the way weapons work (all melee weapons are pretty much the same. No mechanical difference between piercing, bludgeoning and slashing).

They also didn't change much about the way spells work. There was some opportunity here to introduce some actual magical dueling into DnD.

And they didn't change DnD's illogical initiative system. It is exactly the same as in 3.5. But meanwhile there's been quite a lot of advancements in tabletop combat games. There are many systems out there nowadays that have more dynamic and realistic initiative rules, that are not based on just a random dice roll, but on the situation.

If I were to consider a new system, then I would want a system that doesn't feel almost exactly the same as the system I'm already playing, but with less detail. I'd want something that feels like a clear improvement over the previous system (aside from 4th edition). And offers something that wasn't there before.

Now it was not my intention to turn this thread into another edition wars. I just wanted to clarify the context of my opinion on 5th edition. This was an opportunity for me to try an edition that I had not tried before. And I enjoyed it. But it wasn't good enough to convince me to switch.

I was just saying that to give any edition a fair shake you are better off having a stronger/more experienced/familiar infrastructure in place so that variables are reduced.

Semantically, my "you might not like it" was intended to mean "...enough to change".

Hey, it's totally your decision, I just wanted to stick up for 5e cause I like it a lot, and it looked like your first taste was a small mouthful from one corner of the plate only.

I wouldn't say that this experience has put me off 5th edition entirely. I wouldn't mind playing along with another 5th edition game in the (near) future. But it won't sway me to switch editions either. Because with what I've seen so far, there was nothing that stuck out as a huge improvement to me.

 

[Bigkahuna]

5th edition to me is like going to Italy for Italian food rather to an Italian restaurant. In that its presumed that Italian food in Italy will always be better than an Italian restaurant at home, but if you travel enough its just not always the case. You have to know where to go, find a proper authentic, well cared for Italian restaurant in Italy. If you do you will never find anything back home even close to it no matter where you look.

I guess what I'm saying is that 5th edition is the single best version of D&D I have ever played, hands down, no question about it. But Its because I play under great GM's who know how to use it, guys who know what they are doing. I have played under these GM's using other versions of D&D and they were great don't get me wrong, but nothing compared to what they where able to do with 5e.

The strength of 5th edition is that its immensely flexible and not reliant on the system to make a game for you, but reliant on the GM. Its a tool, a powerful one, but you can't crack open the book and be awesome at running out of the box. Their are subtleties and intricacies here, little secrets of the system and sometimes of the very well thought out absence of systems that become apparent only with experience.

As a GM I have found this to be true when I run the game as well. In particular I have found that editions like 3rd and 4th both suffer from GM gotchas. I'll design something, something clever and interesting that will require some thought to resolve by the players, but they will sniff out rules in the system that will expose it's weaknesses and overcome it through mechanics. 3rd edition required insane amounts of GM mastery, but not of the creative type, but of the "understanding the rules" types and then coming up with impossible (unrealistic) situations in order to create elements to the game that are resolved through role-playing rather than the rules. In the end, you just end up being a holistic "you can't do that because I said so" type of GM as the rules frustrate you by empowering the players to circumvent your vein efforts to create a story. Some will blame the players for this, but why should we, is it not their job to overcome your challenges? I think it is, so I don't blame the game, I blame the system.

This I think is the biggest flaw in particular of 3rd edition and its where 5th edition really shines. There aren't very many rules for players to hang their "get out of role-playing" hats on. The rules that are going to allow players to weasel out of role-playing through mechanics just don't exist, so when I write a story/encounter, I usually don't even have to think about the mechanics of the game and the intracacies of the many extra-ordinary things classes/races/spells/items/mechanics etc.. can do. In the end the solution is in the same realm in which its created (story) and its what I love about the system both as a player and as a GM:

 

[Tony Vargas]

5th edition to me is like going to Italy for Italian food rather to an Italian restaurant.

Getting a passport and paying for & enduring a transatlantic flight (including TSA & customs), then dealing with foreign exchange and foreign language - vs driving across town? That's a little unfair. ;P

 

[Tony Vargas]

Not sure how you can say that.

It's very simple: I'm only relating /what I've personally heard/, and doing so honestly.

 

[happyhermit]

I normally play 3.5 with a group of seasoned role players. But last weekend I had the opportunity to join a 5th edition game with a first time DM, and some newb players. The module he ran for that evening, was Lost Mines of Phandelver.
...
I'm curious to hear what other people think. This is by no means a review of the entire module, because we only got to play a very small part of it.

As someone who has had very little experience playing or running "published" adventures, and who hasn't spent all that much time talking to strangers about rpgs in general over the years, I find it interesting to hear other people's experiences with something I actually used. I don't think the starter set is amazing on it's own, but like I said I haven't much experience with other stuff (other than lots of reading), I do think that it can be fun as written or used as a loose guideline though.

It seems like you didn't approach it with a "I'm going to hate this" attitude that I have seen a bit, which makes the info a bit more straightforwardly useful to me.

If you have a chance, I have a couple questions that I have asked others who played it;

If you started it in the BTB way, how did the GM run the initial goblin encounters, especially the initial ambush but also the ones leading to the cave? Did they run them TOTM, or map and minis?

What had the GM played before, what was their favorite edition or system?

 

[ddaley]

If you started it in the BTB way, how did the GM run the initial goblin encounters, especially the initial ambush but also the ones leading to the cave? Did they run them TOTM, or map and minis?

What had the GM played before, what was their favorite edition or system?

I am not sure what BTB or TOTM means... but when I ran this for our group, the ambush turned out to be one of their most difficult encounters. At least one party member went down and others suffered significant damage. I had 2 goblins on each side of the road and had them pop up, fire, then hide. The party was rolling poorly on their perception checks. One party member charged toward a goblin that he couldn't see and ended up running right into a hidden goblin. Even though it was a tough encounter for them, it was a fun encounter.

We usually use minis, even though I use Fantasy Grounds for displaying material to the group.

I thought I would answer your questions from my experience with the module, even though they were not directly to me