D&D 3E/3.5 Comparison to 3.5e

[Umbran]

I know you guys will tear me apart for this post.

No. But I will note that you are responding to a discussion from 5 years ago...

 

[Samloyal23]

Are you trying to suggest feats made 3e paladins more mechanically distinct than 5e's paladin subclasses and 5e's fewer feats? Paladins throughout editions have always seemed rather "seen one seen them all" mechanically until you get into various antipaladin and champions of specific gods/alignment/causes.

Feat chains just allowed more customization than the tiny number of feats in 5E. The variety of feats in 3E was VAST...

 

[Parmandur]

Feat chains just allowed more customization than the tiny number of feats in 5E. The variety of feats in 3E was VAST...

They allowed more numerical fiddling. The Background system, including Ideals/Traits/Bond, allows for much more in the way of actual character concept customization.

 

[Fenris-77]

They allowed more numerical fiddling. The Background system, including Ideals/Traits/Bond, allows for much more in the way of actual character concept customization.

This is one reason I really wish the Inspiration mechanic were, you know, actually good.

 

[Parmandur]

This is one reason I really wish the Inspiration mechanic were, you know, actually good.

It works, and it's not being strictly necessary for the game to function is part of the modularity of the whole game.

 

[ccooke]

It works, and it's not being strictly necessary for the game to function is part of the modularity of the whole game.

It depends heavily on the group, I find.

I have one group who really buy in to it. I bought a set of gold-coloured metal dice dice for it, and it's become a ritual for the group to pour out their dicebags at the start of a session and blame/shame/priase people for what they did to deserve the gold dice.

Another group just doesn't use them at all.

 

[wingsandsword]

Early in playing 5E, I made this observation:

3.x, 4e, and 5e are almost more of alternate offshoots of AD&D (2E). 5e borrows most strongly from the "good stuff" in 3e, but it also pulls a few things from 4e. In other places, it feels like they went all the way back to 2e and fixed something that didn't work without worrying about what has come since.

3.x and 5e are alternate offshoots of different styles of AD&D 2e.

5e was taking basic core-rules 2e and deciding to make a streamlined, fast-playing, easy-to-run game that had the same general feel but had a much more modern design, but at the cost of not gaining the flexibility of all the other books that existed beyond the core rules.

3.x was taking AD&D with all the Skills and Powers/Players' Option books, Complete Handbooks, and countless other supplements and going through the same process. It was complicated, intricate, ornate. . .and a masterpiece for certain styles of play.

The gaming groups I played with were usually in the latter camp, hence my preference for 3.x, but I'm coming to see that 5e comes from the same lineage. . .just a different evolutionary path.

4e? 4e was an alien shapeshifter from the Far Realms that morphed into something resembling D&D. It didn't follow in the D&D design lineage at all and only bore a superficial resemblance to D&D. It didn't look like, act like, play like, or have rules like 1e or 2e or 3e. It passed itself off as part of the family, but that was more of a Disguise check instead of an actual family resemblance.

 

[Parmandur]

3.x and 5e are alternate offshoots of different styles of AD&D 2e.

5e was taking basic core-rules 2e and deciding to make a streamlined, fast-playing, easy-to-run game that had the same general feel but had a much more modern design, but at the cost of not gaining the flexibility of all the other books that existed beyond the core rules.

3.x was taking AD&D with all the Skills and Powers/Players' Option books, Complete Handbooks, and countless other supplements and going through the same process. It was complicated, intricate, ornate. . .and a masterpiece for certain styles of play.

The gaming groups I played with were usually in the latter camp, hence my preference for 3.x, but I'm coming to see that 5e comes from the same lineage. . .just a different evolutionary path.

4e? 4e was an alien shapeshifter from the Far Realms that morphed into something resembling D&D. It didn't follow in the D&D design lineage at all and only bore a superficial resemblance to D&D. It didn't look like, act like, play like, or have rules like 1e or 2e or 3e. It passed itself off as part of the family, but that was more of a Disguise check instead of an actual family resemblance.

Similarly to 3E and Skills & Powers, 4E flows very logically from late 3.5 product developments that were well received in certain quarters. What they found out when they went out and got Big Data is that they took a wrong turn by more and more alienating the main D&D playstyle over the years...so they made a game that appealed to how most people played, 5E. Even most 3E players, they found out, were playing more like looser old AD&D than like Skills & Powers (that's Mearls post-mortem of 4E and 5E reception, from an insider's perspective, at any rate).

 

[ccooke]

4e? 4e was an alien shapeshifter from the Far Realms that morphed into something resembling D&D. It didn't follow in the D&D design lineage at all and only bore a superficial resemblance to D&D. It didn't look like, act like, play like, or have rules like 1e or 2e or 3e. It passed itself off as part of the family, but that was more of a Disguise check instead of an actual family resemblance.

Can we please skip the edition warring? It's fine to dislike 4e, but I really wish we could move past this sort of factionalism. 4e wasn't my favourite edition, but it absolutely was the best edition (at the time and, for some, still) for a significant proportion of the playerbase.

Hell, my absolute favourite trait of 5e is something it inherited from 4e: Both editions have an underlying concept and design behind them which they try to implement through mechanics. Sure, they have very different core designs and neither of them is a perfect implementation of that ideal concept, but there is a design and intent behind the mechanics, and they both do well with it. I think the lack of a feeling for that sort of ... architecture, if you will, is what most turns me off from Pathfinder 2e; it seems to have a lot of good ideas, but I can't really get the feel of an overall plan behind them (But then - maybe there is one, and I just didn't look hard enough).

 

[Samloyal23]

Fourth Edition was not a Bad Game, it just was not D&D, it did not really evolve from earlier editions. Proficiency slots, feats, and even backgrounds have precedents that go all the way back to AD&D, 4E made unprecedented changes, practically starting from scratch. It was just too big a change...