D&D 5E Is 5e really that different?

[DarkCrisis]

+1 for to easy.

Fail THREE saves to turn to turn to stone. That’s insane. And of course Death Saves

Sleep fixes 99% of issues. Raise dead at 3rd level spell (Revivify). And don’t get me started on the over abundance of healing spells.

 

[Vaalingrade]

It's the 'compromise' edition. 3e without the customizability or robustness, 4e without that game design chops or narrative control. Probably 2e without something to, but I never played 2e.

 

[Shardstone]

But, that's the point. In the OSR, you don't have a 600 pound gorilla leading the pack. All you have is home-brew. New "official" material hasn't been made in over twenty years. Good grief, it's getting very close to the point where WotC has published D&D longer than TSR did. So, of course you see lots of experimentation. That's all you have.

When your hobby is nothing but home-brew, then, well, home-brew is what you have. When your hobby is massively dominated by a single publisher, any single book probably outselling all home-brew options combined, then of course official is the way to go.

It's not that people are more judgmental about 5e home brew, it's that, like OSR, the overwhelming majority of the material comes from a single source. The only difference is that in OSR that single source is home-brew whereas in 5e, it's WotC.

The old canard that home-brew is this source of superior material if only the majority of players would realize it has been around since the earliest days of the OGL.

No, it is that people are judgmental. What you're saying is true, and I don't disagree with most of it, but I have experienced many times, and seen many more, the widespread judgement against homebrew and third party publishers specifically for 5E, even when compared with other game systems with OGLs.

 

[tetrasodium]

No, it is that people are judgmental. What you're saying is true, and I don't disagree with most of it, but I have experienced many times, and seen many more, the widespread judgement against homebrew and third party publishers specifically for 5E, even when compared with other game systems with OGLs.

I think the way the wotc folks often used the words homebrew/home game like ithey were a dirty word in podcasts & videos that treat AL & d&d as one entity contributed

 

[TarionzCousin]

It's the 'compromise' edition. 3e without the customizability or robustness, 4e without that game design chops or narrative control. Probably 2e without something to, but I never played 2e.

It's 2E without THAC0.

 

[Maxperson]

No the epic encounters use the numbers from the DMG. That table is fan made, but it uses the encounter / daily XP budgets from the DMG. They are the RAW numbers, just extrapolated to provide an encounter more challenging than "deadly."

Yeah, but the DMG kinda implies pretty heavily that DMs shouldn't go past deadly via the description of "deadly" encounters.

"A deadly encounter could be lethal for one or more player characters. Survival often requires good tactics and quick thinking, and the party risks defeat."

That SOUNDS pretty nasty and like you probably shouldn't go any harder than that.

 

[Hussar]

No, it is that people are judgmental. What you're saying is true, and I don't disagree with most of it, but I have experienced many times, and seen many more, the widespread judgement against homebrew and third party publishers specifically for 5E, even when compared with other game systems with OGLs.

Not really. This was always true. Homebrew was always considered "lesser" than anything official. It's always been thus. The only difference is that now, unlike in 3e, it's far, far easier to actually SEE all the homebrew material out there. Things like DM's Guild have tens of thousands of products for D&D. Of course a lot of it is dross.

In AD&D times, there was no Internet. The only "homebrew" material you ever saw was either locally created or appeared in Dragon magazine. And, let's be honest, TSR was certainly not going to let other people play in their sandbox.

 

[teitan]

Easy to overcome the level "appropriate" challenges as set forth by the default rules. I think this stems from the design(poor in my opinion) of 6-8 medium to difficult encounters in an adventuring day balance. If you're expected to beat that many encounters on 1 day's worth of resources, no like level encounter can really be all that hard. It's an endurance run(6-8), not a sprint(1 challenging encounter). The overall feel to me is that the game is very easy.

I threw the encounter building guidelines out the window and said "let's do what's fun for me and my players". I then learned what they like, their play styles and adapted what they encountered to that style of play. A more roleplay and puzzle oriented group is fine to throw a group of giants at even if the giants, RAW, would maul them, because they are going to find other ways to overcome the encounter that doesn't involve a brawl because, believe it or not, the XP doesn't come from going full murder hobo, it comes from... overcoming the challenge, meaning, solving the puzzle, resolving the situation, whether by negotiation or force and if they fail in negotiation, a good DM will tailor things to the party so that there is an out to win another day, just not this go around. It's more interesting than a group of 7th level character encountering a string of CR5-9 encounters and a CR10-11 boss fight. It becomes samey and lamey. But a 3rd level party convincing a hill giant that eating the farmer's daughter is going to give him indigestion and to help them in their fight against the Ettin in the valley that is causing the dought by damming the river valley? That's memorable.

 

[teitan]

+1 for to easy.

Fail THREE saves to turn to turn to stone. That’s insane. And of course Death Saves

Sleep fixes 99% of issues. Raise dead at 3rd level spell (Revivify). And don’t get me started on the over abundance of healing spells.

To be fair... sleep fixed 99% of issues in every edition.

 

[teitan]

It's the 'compromise' edition. 3e without the customizability or robustness, 4e without that game design chops or narrative control. Probably 2e without something to, but I never played 2e.

yes and no. It's only 3e in that it has something called feats which are an optional rule that are not a necessary part of the game unlike 3e. It's a stealth 4e in the healing with short rests, long rests, hit dice to heal, ritual magic, a more customizable Vancian magic system though lifted from Arcana Unearthed. And it's like 2e in that sub classes are very much like kits in the same way that they are similar to Prestige Classes without the requirements.

In fact, when you turn off the optional feats you get a game much more similar to 1e, 2e and B/X than we've seen since they ended and as much of a successor and natural evolution of 1e and 2e and B/X as 3e seemed to be, if not more so. It's a compromise in that it is a simpler version of the game, making for a better introduction than any other edition. Even bounded accuracy is much closer to older editions than the escalating math of 3 and 4e. Harkening to 1e and 2e where the D20 represented 5% chance to per pip with armor modifying that chance. Characters accelerate in power faster but it isn't as reliant on equipment to define your character like earlier editions so... they aren't really that much more powerful, they just don't have equipment that defines that power. Extra healing means less healing potions and scrolls etc. than we used to dole out. So is it... all that much more or less? I don't think so. Just different.