D&D 5E Going from 1st to 5th Edition

[Voadam]

I remember first Banshee wail only dropping to 0 rather outright killing ya. Still fearsome though. Or how ghouls (and many other monsters) paralyse you, yet you can shake it off right by next turn as opposed to being for a MUCH longer period.

OD&D "As stated in CHAINMAIL for Wights, Ghouls paralyze any normal figure they touch, excluding Elves" and Chainmail said "Wights (and Ghouls) can see in darkness, and must subtract 1 from any die roll they roll when in full light. If they touch a normal figure during melee, it becomes paralyzed and remains so for one complete turn. A paralyzed figure is considered to be able to strike a blow at the Wight just prior to paralysis taking effect, so melee can occur but only one round."

Moldvay Basic "This paralysis is the normal type (lasting 2-8 turns unless removed by a cure light wounds spell)." So 20-80 minutes.

1e D&D Monster Manual "Their touch causes humans — including dwarves, gnomes, half-elves, and halflings, but excluding elves — to become rigid (paralysis) unless a saving throw versus paralyzation is successful." No specified duration listed.

2e MCI and Monstrous Manual "This paralysis lasts for 3-8 (2 + 1d6) rounds or until negated by a priest." Not necessarily the whole rest of the fight but at least three rounds.

3.5 MM "Those hit by a ghoul’s bite or claw attack must succeed on a DC 12 Fortitude save or be paralyzed for 1d4+1 rounds."

4e MM and Monster Vault "and the target is immobilized (save ends)."

 

[Plaguescarred]

@Voadam Thanks we can see the duration as lowered as editions rolls (FWIW turns in AD&D was 10-minutes)

 

[Jack Daniel]

I've only run a game set in a published setting once—when I decided to plop the Barrowmaze down in the middle of the Grand Duchy of Karameikos—and, eh, it's not something I think I'll ever do again. Not my dungeon, not my world. All that reading just to play a simple game, oy vey.

I'm curious to hear what other funny stories of edition 'jumps' people have to relate.

I started gaming with 1st & 2nd editions in the 90s, switched to 3rd edition in 2000 thinking "hey, this is better in every way!" Then, after some years, I realized, "oh, wait, no it's not" and jumped back. I guess that's a funny story in a "tragic irony" sort of way?

 

[Mannahnin]

4e MM and Monster Vault "and the target is immobilized (save ends)."

Wasn't the 4E one a little more complex than this?

If I recall correctly, if you fail the save vs being Immobilized, it worsens to Stunned; can't remember if it continues to progress past that.

I believe the ghouls also got extra bonuses to attacking any target that was Immobilized or Stunned, so had an incentive for nasty follow-up attacks.

 

[Voadam]

I do remember that going from 3.0 to 3.5 the Mummy jumped from a 6 HD CR 3 monster with +6 to attack, to an 8 HD CR 5 with +11 to attack. This was enough of a power jump to screw up the estimated challenge and resulting math for plugging in new 3.5 monsters when using older 3.0 modules which were generally OK to just plug in or mix and match new 3.5 stuff and go.

 

[Voadam]

Wasn't the 4E one a little more complex than this?

If I recall correctly, if you fail the save vs being Immobilized, it worsens to Stunned; can't remember if it continues to progress past that.

Nope.

Other monsters had such progressions but not ghouls in the monster manuals (I can't speak for all variants). Also not all ghouls had it. The Ravenous ghoul in the Monster vault does not inflict immobilization.

I believe the ghouls also got extra bonuses to attacking any target that was Immobilized or Stunned, so had an incentive for nasty follow-up attacks.

Yep for some. For instance here is the ghoul attack options in the Monster Vault:

STANDARD ACTIONS
􀀵 Claws ✦ At-Will
Attack: Melee 1 (one creature); +10 vs. AC
Hit: 2d6 + 6 damage, and the target is immobilized (save ends).
􀀬 Ghoulish Bite ✦ At-Will
Attack: Melee 1 (one immobilized, restrained, stunned, or unconscious creature); +10 vs. AC
Hit: 4d6 + 6 damage, and the target is stunned (save ends).

So after paralyzing they can bite a paralyzed opponent for 2d6 extra.

 

[Bacon Bits]

A few more things after a few more months of play...

*You regain HP a lot quicker than you used to (all HP after a long rest rather than 1 HP). This makes extended dungeon crawling much more practical than it used to be.
*You can have a lot more variety in party construction--you don't necessarily need a full cleric, and there's a bunch of not-wizards (sorcerer, warlock).

These two were both explicit design decisions. One of the complaints about 3e, when you could buy magic items, was that PCs would spend a lot of money buying wands of cure light wounds. It was the most GP-efficient way to restore HP.

If players are going to work that hard to recover HP to keep adventuring, the 5e design reasoning went, then why not just let the PCs recover anyways?

So, now the default is to let the PCs recover fairly quickly, and if some tables want it slower they can always adjust it downwards with the optional rules in the DMG. But you end up with a design more people favor in actual play if you make healing ubiquitous and cost only a small amount of time.

*Characters get extra abilities at given level points. In 1st ed this was more or less just the monk. The fighter also gets a bunch of extra attacks the other fighter-types like barbarian and paladin don't, which makes sense as they are the specialist in that area.

Well, there were higher attack routines at high level for Fighter, Paladin, and Ranger, but they were so slow to advance that they might as well not exist. And spellcasters get higher level spells, of course.

But, yes, there was an assumption in 1e that much of the progression your character would make would be tied to what they accomplished or found, rather than what the PHB gave them "automatically". There's pros and cons to both styles.

*If you use milestones for advancement, there is less incentive to kill everything you see.

Alternately, if your table likes a lot of combat you can run a ton of encounters without power leveling the party.

Milestone XP really lets the DM control party advancement (which can really help with adventure design), and doesn't pin the PCs to performing in any preconceived manner. I can understand some players missing XP tallies, but it's a ton of extra bookkeeping that, IMO, really feels totally unnecessary.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

My shock was going from 2e to 3rd. I couldn't even recognize the game anymore. My initial thought was to throw out the system and stay with 2e. It took years (literally) to wrap my head around the d20 system 3.x/PF, and it's still not perfect.
The shock was skill checks, movement, attacks of opportunity, measuring areas of effect, and just how game-y it all felt.

I loved the change from thac0 to a rational resolution mechanic, but otherwise I was like..."okay, well, this dnd thing isn't that great, I wonder what other games are out there" and stayed that way until 4e came out and the game was engaging and not blatantly broken for the benefit of munchkin CharOp builders.

 

[ECMO3]

in combat. In 1e, sometimes your character had nothing to add, and sometimes they were key.

Unless you were a fighter(including subclasses) or high level magic user this was the rule.

Often it seemed a waste of time for the thief or cleric to even attack. Ok the thief hit even with his crappy THACO .... he does 3 damage .... oh he was hidden at the start of the fight so this was a backstab and he gets triple damage for 9 can you say NOVA .... BIG DAMAGE! Meanwhile, the fighter does 25 and kills his bad guy then walks over and does 15 more to the one the thief hit and kills him too.

 

[Aging Bard]

Unless you were a fighter(including subclasses) or high level magic user this was the rule.

Often it seemed a waste of time for the thief or cleric to even attack. Ok the thief hit even with his crappy THACO .... he does 3 damage .... oh he was hidden at the start of the fight so this was a backstab and he gets triple damage for 9 can you say NOVA .... BIG DAMAGE! Meanwhile, the fighter does 25 and kills his bad guy then walks over and does 15 more to the one the thief hit and kills him too.

I disagree about the cleric, they were pretty good in melee (go check the tables, and blunt weapons are pretty great if using ACAs). But thieves were terrible in straight up melee, to be sure. That's why backstab and ranged combat needed to be emphasized, which is a different mode of combat. So you have fighters in melee, clerics in melee or support, thieves in ranged or stealth combat, and magic-users casting spells. Exactly want I want.