D&D (2024) So Will 'OneD&D' (6E) Actually Be Backwards Compatible?

[Blue]

Feats are probably one of the biggest changes, granted, but here's the deal: most people aren't using Feats in 5E as it srand. It's an optional system. I've ever seen Feats used in 5E in person, only livestream shows and Internet chatter. Is a first Level Feat a power boost? Sure, but that's been standard in 5E books since 2020. Evolutionary more, it doesn't break backwards compatibility to throw out an optional system and replace it.

OneD&D has feats as core rules and therefore when discussing backwards compatibility 5e feats must be included in the discussion.

 

[Olrox17]

I’d have no issues with a “2014 cleric” and a “2024 cleric” having slightly different class features. They would just be different builds, or schools of thought or whatever fluff.

As I DM, however, I would draw the line at having different spells sharing the same name (OG spiritual weapon Vs spiritual weapon lite). Just no. What an hassle.

 

[Parmandur]

Most of the issue of compatibility I would expect to see is more among the adventures and supplements. Say my group moves to OneD&D - can I still use the Spelljammer set I bought but haven't run yet, without all that much more work than I'd need to do anyway?

Spelljammer, at least, is clearly built with forwards compatibility in mind: no new Subclasses, Races and Monsters that follow the format of Monters of the ultiverse (which turns out to be what theybwere doing with OneD&D), seems pretty straightforward.

A better test may be "Can I run Princes of the Apocalypse or Out of the Abyss with 2024 Core books only?" and...I thinknyhat looks good, too. They have a longstanding policy with Advebture books of only including Monsters either included in the Appendix or keyed to the Monster Manual. If the new MM changes all star blocks, but includes am equivalent for everything in the 2014 MM...then it's pribavly no more difficult to run older Adventures with 2024 rules than it is already to tweak for party composition.

With the supplements like Xanathar's and Tasha's, we see sidebar text in the playtest packets so far that suggest theybwill include conversion guidelines.

 

[Parmandur]

OneD&D has feats as core rules and therefore when discussing backwards compatibility 5e feats must be included in the discussion.

Sure, but "we're using the 2024 Feat rules" is no more weird than saying "we are using the optional Feat rules from the PHB, everyone take a Supernatural Gift from the Theros book" already is. Mythic Odesseys of Theros is backwards compatible with 2014 Core, and tables that use the Feat variant from the PHB are compatible with the Core.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Sure, but "we're using the 2024 Teat rules"

Last time one of the players wanted me to use the Teat rules I had to X-card it.

 

[TwoSix]

I mean, anecdote versus anecdote doesn't get us very far: the data we have suggests that upwards of 2/3 of tables on d&D Beyond don't use Feats (including the majority if Humans being standard Human, even for paid subscribers), and WotC has said that is the case in their data as well. So, as written for 2014, all indications are that Feats are a minority report experience. Hence why they are rebuilding that system.

Yea, I mean I'm aware of the D&D Beyond data, but it's just so far outside my experience that it doesn't feel right. It's like some weird "silent majority" thing.

 

[TwoSix]

That really doesn't work for me. I mean it would throw the fiction off. You could have two of the same class, say clerics. Give them the same subclass. Give them the same god. And give them the same spells. And what you would have in the fiction are two clerics with different class abilities, different subclass abilities, and different spells, despite all being the same of everything.

Cam: "Why is your spiritual weapon so much better than mine?"
Sham: "Because Lathander likes me better! Pltththththth!"

Well, I think it depends on if things like "class" and "spells" are in the fiction. I don't play them that way, no NPC identifies as a "cleric". No one who follows a god would expect the gifts of their god to be the same from one worshipper to another.

 

[Parmandur]

Yea, I mean I'm aware of the D&D Beyond data, but it's just so far outside my experience that it doesn't feel right. It's like some weird "silent majority" thing.

That's the funny thing about personal experience: we can only ever know a sliver of the millions of people playing D&D.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

That really doesn't work for me. I mean it would throw the fiction off. You could have two of the same class, say clerics. Give them the same subclass. Give them the same god. And give them the same spells. And what you would have in the fiction are two clerics with different class abilities, different subclass abilities, and different spells, despite all being the same of everything.

Almost like they're two different people!

Elbow in the ribs aside, I think you've got a strange argument there. You can easily have two different humans who went to the same school and learned the same trade, who do it very differently and wind up with very different results on the same task. Even when the task is a science, far or less when it's an art.

 

[Scribe]

Almost like they're two different people!

Elbow in the ribs aside, I think you've got a strange argument there. You can easily have two different humans who went to the same school and learned the same trade, who do it very differently and wind up with very different results on the same task. Even when the task is a science, far or less when it's an art.

Be that as it may...we are talking about a game here. A game which makes at least a passing claim at some kind of balance, and logical abstraction.

Having the same class, with the same spells, with the same subclasses, have different results based on the rule set or version being used, is a bad look.