D&D General D&D Editions: Anybody Else Feel Like They Don't Fit In?

[Remathilis]

They're not perfect, but at the same time not as bad as they're made out to be. Giving them access to a slightly wider weapon selection and-or allowing them to use some previously-Fighter-only magic items can make a huge difference.

Having played a 2e thief until high level, I will say they were bad unless you DM was absolutely on your side. The skills start too low to be useful and by the time they are reliable, magic has overtaken them. Backstab was far too situational to be useful unless you were using it on guards or other way-below level mooks. The best trick for an AD&D thief is to multi class with fighter or mage. Unless the DM is going to make major effort to make your skills usable, your going to be outclassed.

For as imperfect as 3e rogues were, they were a godsend.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Specialty priests are one of those things that sound really good on paper but for a homebrew setting and-or pantheon represent a stupendous amount of work for the DM in order to a) implement in the first place and b) get right. My DM has gone down this road a bit by adding in a bunch of Cleric sub-types and then re-doing the spell lists for each, leading to a lot of "Whaddya mean my Cleric doesn't have [spell-X] that every Cleric has had from the dawn of time?!"

Kits and NWPs etc. start pushing the character-build side of the game farther forward than I'd want.

That's part of the problem, of course; whether overt or not, there are certain types of support people expect a cleric to supply, and if a specialty priest isn't doing that, they likely view them as a variant (and probably more limited) wizard. At that point either the regular cleric wins out in attractiveness, or if it doesn't exist whichever priest carries the majority of the traditional blessing/protection/healing magics (likely the latter since its the one wizards can't just do their own version of).

 

[Thomas Shey]

Indeed, as written MU level progression really makes no sense; in comparison to the average of other classes they start out slow, then at about 6th level speed up dramatically, then at name level slow down again to about the overall average.

That said, compared to most other kitbashing projects tweaking the advancement chart is a triviality.

You've got to at least decide its serving a purpose.

They're not perfect, but at the same time not as bad as they're made out to be. Giving them access to a slightly wider weapon selection and-or allowing them to use some previously-Fighter-only magic items can make a huge difference.

At least the OD&D/AD&D thief is going to be hard for that to be true, since their combat capabilities are only even up with a fighter under special circumstances. I mean, honestly, when they can't pull off a backstab, they're worse fighters than a cleric (lower hit points, worse armor) and weapons are only going to help that so much.

 

[Thomas Shey]

More important is whether and-or how well the system can handle the presence of characters of different levels within the party. The TSR editions were quite good for this, while 3e was awful - being just a level behind the rest of the party made you close to useless.

It wasn't great with spellcasters even with the TSR editions. The difference between a 4th level wizard and 5th could be pretty dramatic.

 

[Voadam]

That's part of the problem, of course; whether overt or not, there are certain types of support people expect a cleric to supply, and if a specialty priest isn't doing that, they likely view them as a variant (and probably more limited) wizard. At that point either the regular cleric wins out in attractiveness, or if it doesn't exist whichever priest carries the majority of the traditional blessing/protection/healing magics (likely the latter since its the one wizards can't just do their own version of).

I think that is a big attraction of them.

They are either like druids, an alt healer with funky different powers than the standard magical knight Templar cleric or they are like weird specialist wizards with fairly different themed magic and abilities. They can be designed for either role or to even be fairly close to clerics with just some themed changes.


The range of roles the individual classes could be designed for was an attraction.

 

[Lanefan]

Having played a 2e thief until high level, I will say they were bad unless you DM was absolutely on your side. The skills start too low to be useful and by the time they are reliable, magic has overtaken them. Backstab was far too situational to be useful unless you were using it on guards or other way-below level mooks. The best trick for an AD&D thief is to multi class with fighter or mage. Unless the DM is going to make major effort to make your skills usable, your going to be outclassed.

Thieves are a good multi-class option, but I've found single-class Thieves work well enough (and single-class Assassins, even better!). There is, however, an element of patience required to play one, along with eschewment of the expectation of being front and centre in every combat. Not sure if they're different in 2e than 1e.

One of the things I like with the Thief (and which 3e-and-since have really destroyed with almost-always-on sneak attack) was that you had to set up your backstrike and could only use it at best every other round.

For as imperfect as 3e rogues were, they were a godsend.

They were different, to be sure, but to me it's an open question as to whether they were better or worse or the same as before.

 

[Lanefan]

It wasn't great with spellcasters even with the TSR editions. The difference between a 4th level wizard and 5th could be pretty dramatic.

Could be, but wasn't always, depending on what spells the 5th-level mage could get access to. Remember, in the TSR editions you didn't get to choose your spells; what you got at level-up was random and after that it was all about what you happened to stumble across and-or what other mages in the party happened to have and were willing to let you learn.

 

[Lanefan]

You've got to at least decide its serving a purpose.

"Its" meaning what, here? The variable xp tables? Very much serving a purpose as one of many balancing mechanisms between classes. Xp at all? Also very much serving a purpose, allowing characters to advance at different rates based on what they do.

At least the OD&D/AD&D thief is going to be hard for that to be true, since their combat capabilities are only even up with a fighter under special circumstances. I mean, honestly, when they can't pull off a backstab, they're worse fighters than a cleric (lower hit points, worse armor) and weapons are only going to help that so much.

Exactly, which means when backstrike opportunities don't present, oftentimes a Thief's best move is to stay clear of combat entirely; stand guard, be ready with healing potions if someone goes down, use ranged weapons vs enemy backliners or casters, etc.

I say this despite playing my own Thief* as if she's a Fighter a lot of the time, because she's tough (high Con) and has some nice toys that really do help her in a fight.

* - and yes, her name is Black Leaf.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I'm not suggesting you should roll back changes. I'm saying you should embrace them. We change through learning. I cannot go back to being the ignorant kid I was when I first started playing D&D. I can see behind the curtain now. The same game is not the same game to me. Which just means I need a new game that suits the person I am now.

Okay. The problem is that the 5e we were sold was specifically sold, in part, on promises that you COULD have the old experience again, exactly as it was before. Hence the "make magic feel magical again" and stuff like that. It was openly a sop to old-school fans and the """winners""" of the edition war.

D&D 5E does not intend to recreate the experience of playing earlier versions of D&D. It is not "chasing the dragon".

The marketing and playtesting openly offered exactly that. If you did not see that, I don't know what to tell you.

D&D 5E does rely heavily on nostalgia to evoke, to a degree, the FEEL of playing older versions of D&D. Nothing wrong with nostalgia, which is a different thing from "you can't go home again" or "chasing the dragon".

Er...that's exactly what doing marketing based on nostalgia is. "Remember that thing you loved so much? We'll give it back to you again." That's very literally what marketing based on nostalgia is. As you just directly said, 5e relies heavily on that, and...not a whole lot else. It's trying to please at least three different groups and often failing to please any of them, now that the honeymoon is over and folks are starting to appraise the whole thing with a chary eye.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Of course that's just another reason some people don't like to GM. They don't want that distance.

Precisely. Or, at least, I don't want that distance from my PCs.

For several years, I was pretty much GM-only, running my (ongoing) Dungeon World game. I was kindly offered a short-run 4e game by MichaelSomething, and around the same time cordially invited to Hussar's group, which I'm still part of now. None of my attachment to my PCs has eroded from the several years spent being GM. I simply don't attach myself to NPCs the way I do PCs. It's...just a fundamentally different experience. Heck, I try not to even attach myself to the world as much as I do a PC, because becoming precious about a world means denying players the ability to truly shape it and drive it toward new things.

I guess the only GM-side thing comparable to how I invest in player-side PCs is...the campaign. Not the setting (though I care a lot about keeping a setting consistent!), not the NPCs (though I try to portray good ones, whether allies or foes!), not the magic systems or the plots. It's more...the entirety of the campaign. If that campaign truly comes to an end, I want it to be a good one, whether a pleasant "and the adventure continues" state, a "and so they rode off into the sunset" sort of thing (which may be anywhere between purely sweet and very bittersweet), a "heroic last stand that made a difference", or some other reasonably satisfying, non-downer ending.

And that's...pretty comparable to my stance toward PCs--my own and others. I get invested in other PCs too as a player! I don't necessarily need to see them get Happily Ever After, nor even Happily For Now. But I do want their story to reach some kind of satisfying conclusion. Tragedy can be satisfying in the right context, but the right context is hard to build in a TTRPG environment. Earned victory is of course the most satisfying, but even just "earned reprieve" or "freed from burdens" etc. can be enough.