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lowkey13
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So it's an Orcs to Orcs comparison. Orcs just have bigger hp/damage numbers in 5e, like most every monster, just like 5e PCs have more healing to patch themselves up after fighting 'em.
I get that it /seems/ that way, when you look at overnight recovery vs 1hp/day + CON mod/week or whatever you used back in the day. But that's not a meaningful comparison, because the latter just didn't happen if you had any renewable daily healing resources. Instead, you healed using those. The difference on that end is thus largely bookkeeping. In 5e, you just recharge everything in 32-48 hrs (depending on exactly how you rule the 24 hr hard limit, getting back all your HD adds at least 24 hrs). A low level party in 1e could go through a number of re-memorization cycles in that time, and also be at full hps with all their spells ready. It's just not a major difference in the way the system dictates pacing to the campaign.
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And, at high level, in 5e, they get a lot safer, which is /also/ similar to 1e, as you accumulate hps and get better saves and more protective items and more spells to negate/reverse bad things happening to you.TLDR; Yes, at low levels (say, level 1 and 2) combat in 5e can still be a little swingy, especially with monster crits, but the differences between the two systems are so vast that saying that 5e is a little swingy at first level therefore it is similar to 1e doesn't seem quite right.
Definitely. I played 3e & 4e each for their full runs. 5e was like coming back to AD&D, in contrast. If I'd never left, it'd seem radically different, because I'd be noticing all the little (and huge) technical differences, rather than the broader similarities, the ways in which the game had changed, rather than ways it changed back.Yes, but no. I think it depends on your frame of reference?
It feels more similar than, perhaps, 3e or 4e.
/The/ major thing, IMHO, is the privilege of the DM relative to the other players. 3e works so well for PvP, because PCs, monsters, & NPCs all follow the same creation rules. By the same token the DM can engage the players on a more equal footing, following the RaW rather than interpreting it, sticking to a set of CR/EL guidelines to keep it 'fair,' and 'play to win.' 4e was easier on the DM to run because it off-loaded responsibility, the rules ran well (arguably best) with complete transparency, it didn't matter - might've helped - if the players could look right at the monster's stat block, for instance.Maybe a more interesting question is what OSR and 5e share that, say, 3e and 4e don't
Ok...So, as someone who went from 1e to 5e, I can tell you that there are more than just technical differences! The similarities (such as classes, races, ability scores, etc.) mask a deeper structural difference which becomes more obvious (to me at least) over time.
Magic has always been /so/ pervasive in D&D. It's an infinitely-renewable, daily (or 4hr-nap) resource. You kill a few monsters, one of them'll eventually drop a magic item. There's /fewer/ items, in theory, in 5e, and not really a lot more spells/day (and fewer spells overall)…I posted this in the other thread, but the prevalence of magic, alone, is such a huge factor, and the difference between innate abilities and magic items creates a massive difference in play and expectations.
Empowerment, responsibility, force, illusionism, POWER! Mwuahahahahahah! Take your pick.Mmm.... maybe? I'm not sure I'd use the phrase privilege, "privilege of the DM" because that might carry some baggage today, but I do understand your point.
Not entirely unfair. I feel like 5e just natural falls into the groove of /feeling/ like a return to the classic game (from the WotC era, as you rightly point out), prettymuch without trying (but then, that's with me, an old-timer, running).To my mind, this gets into a lot of other issues, specifically the primacy of RAW (ugh!) and DIY (yay!) and divergent play styles and player trust etc.
I would say that 5e allows you to emulate certain aspects of OSR, while having more modern underpinnings.
The difference in ease of use is certainly there, that's been the game's direction the whole time, it's one thing the WotC era hasn't deviated from.The difference between limited Vancian spellcasting, as you had in OSR, and today's spellcasting, is VAST.
You could absolutely have a 1e party who could all cast spells. The option to have a non-caster isn't gone, in 5e, either, it's just isolated to a few sub-class choices. So you can still have a population in which casters are just as rare as you like. Doesn't speak to pervasive, in the setting.And the difference between very few characters having the ability to cast spells, and every .... single ... character ... being able to cast spells (if not as a base class, then as an archetype, or at a minimum, they can take a feat) is also vast.
Old-school magic items are a little bit of a difference from 5e. Again, it's one of those things where if you see them /returning/ from their relative absence of the prior decade or so, it's a different impression if you see them getting tweaked from 'what they'd always been' (from '74 or 79 through 1999). One of the stand-outs, for instance, is that items that replace stats, Gauntlets of Ogre Power &c. They were changed to stat boosts in 3e, basically erased in 4e, and, now, boom, they're back. But 18/00 and 19 aren't the same thing, and they're "not assumed" anymore...Yes, OSR had magic items that (roughly) approximated the character class abilities we now have.
OK that's an interesting take. I thought of OSR as /distinct/ from the games they were cloning or evoking, which was one of the things that always made me wonder about it. Like, I can just dust off the old books... right?I tend to use "OSR" as generic term for OD&D, B/X, and pre-UA 1e, in addition to the retroclones that model those rules. In my opinion, those rulesets are all part of a continuum that is easily distinguishable from "OSR 2.0" (1e post UA, 2e) which has a different feel.
That's certainly one of the things it was going for.One of the interesting things about 5e, IMO, is that it manages to have just enough of other editions that people always say that it's like their favored edition, if you just do X.
I know I shouldn't reply again and against my better judgement...