One innovation per edition

[fuindordm]

The healing system being proportional to each character and limited by a per-character resource (surges), so for the first time non-combat classes like mages didn't recover from injury faster than combat classes like fighters

True, I forgot that one. It doesn't quite fit into an 1e/2e style game but introducing healing surges (and later hit dice) as a player-controlled, mundane resource was brilliant.

5e could have run with the concept and done something really interesting with hit dice, by making them a balancing factor for powerful spells and other magic, or allowing PCs to use them for other things like feats of adrenaline.

 

[PHATsakk43]

While it’s probably forgotten now, but 2E initiative was the best the game has ever had. Roll low mechanic is the best for initiative. 1E was so bad in comparison.

THAC0 has been suggested for 2E but BECMI and I think B/X had it, both of which came first.

5E has to be advantage/disadvantage

 

[The Sigil]

1e - base rules for campaign
2e - incentives for single-class PCs (specialty priests, specialist wizards, weapon specialization for fighters...)
3e - feats, so that players have some leeway to customize their base class
4e - a warlord base class
5e - class/subclass structure

As I'm writing these, I realize that they are all on the player side. Frankly, I can't think of any major innovations in the rules that really transformed the game for me as a DM. Advantage/disadvantage is useful but doesn't quite meet the "gotta have it" threshold. 3e-style magic item creation is a mixed blessing and more for the players than the DM.

How about you all? Are there any rules or quirks from earlier editions that you now consider essential, no matter what edition you're playing?

• 1e - Initiative Rules - declaration of intent before actions are resolved... which means Weapon Speed and Casting times for spells affect your initiative roll (EDIT: and yes, "roll low is good" but it does kind of conflict with my 3e choice of the d20 mechanic where higher is always better) - Weapon Speed and Casting Times actually gave you a mechanical reason to use lighter weapons or lower level spells since those resolved faster!
• 2e - Skill/NWP/Ability score checks ("roll under ability score") - makes the 3-18 spread make sense instead of the modern game where ability scores are really "-1 to +4"
• 3e - This is a hard one; the core d20 mechanic, but that includes ascending AC. Probably the Fortitude/Reflex/Will division among saves would be my second choice. (This one also goes against the best things I am pulling from 1e and 2e which are "roll under" mechanics). Honorable mention: Metamagic Feats.
• 4e - This will probably be unpopular, but abstraction of powers to "at will", "encounter" and "daily" (kind of match up with 5e's "unlimited cantrips", "once per short rest" and "once per long rest")
• 5e - Advantage/Disadvantage (which is much easier to track than 3e's stacking/overlapping bonus system where you had to pay attention to the "type" of bonus). Honorable mention: Upcasting/heightened spells (which I thought was a brilliant solution to 3e's geometric wizard problem).
• BECMI: The Companion Set's Dominion and War Machine rules (I consider those both to be part of the "Domain" rules though some might separate them)

 

[Mannahnin]

THAC0 has been suggested for 2E but BECMI and I think B/X had it, both of which came first.

They did not. They used combat tables like 1E and OE.

While it’s probably forgotten now, but 2E initiative was the best the game has ever had. Roll low mechanic is the best for initiative. 1E was so bad in comparison.

I played with that for years, and while it was undeniably cleaner and easier to understand than 1E initiative, I still find it clunky and slow and probably the second-worst initiative system after 1E. The slower speed factors for longer weapons are also backward, as IRL weapons with longer reach almost always get to swing first. 1E only made bigger weapons slower on tied initiative, AFTER sides had closed to melee, so it was representing a realistic situation where the shorter, lighter weapon is already inside the longer weapon's reach and a tiebreaker representing the longer reach being unable to open the distance again. But 2E makes it a massively important part of the initiative system every round.

1E is horribly explained and implemented, but I think the core concepts in there are great. Simple side-based initiative, with special case exceptions to allow spells to be interrupted (and make magical devices like wands faster, and Clerical and powerful high level MU spells slower, creating tactical depth), and for longer weapons to get first strike when sides are closing to melee, allow for verisimilitude while avoiding the slow around the table count-ups (2E) or count-downs (3E and later) of initiative. I still rank 1E at the bottom for the poor quality of implementation, though.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

games I have actually played and know enough to compare it. I mean... Holmes Basic for me was my intro, so "everythinng" was innovative when I played it back in the day. But we played like 2 sessions when I was 13, so memory not so hot on innovations in the rules.

1e - all the classes. I liked in the MM the terrain most likely to find the monster
4e - power sources and party roles and utility powers
5e14 - advantage, spell slots (wait, did they have spell slots in 3e?)

I am house-ruling this thread-game and say everyone can put in more than one thing if they want

 

[Lanefan]

If we're taking innovations that are, in our eyes, improvements:

0e - the base game
1e - splitting out species from class; risky and interruptable magic; level drain; Cavalier's percentile stat increment system; the Ranger class
2e - slow advancement; open-ended level structure (no 'capstone' level); the only edition that's ever got multi-classing halfway right
3e - PCs and NPCs follow the same rules (that they then made those rules waaaaaay too complex doesn't deny a good concept)
4e - bloodied, maybe?
5e - rulings not rules

 

[Theory of Games]

Hm.

1. Chainmail
2. OD&D/Men & Magic (Skills)
3. Basic (phased Initiative)
4. Expert (Cook/Marsh + Mentzer: Levels 4-14 + Wilderness adventure rules)
5. Companion (Stronghold/Dominion rules)
6. Master (Weapon Mastery)
7. Immortals (Spheres)
8. 1e (Dungeon creation)
9. 2e (Players' Option)
10. 3e (Feats)
11. 4e (Skill Challenges)
12. 5e (Ability saves)

 

[Voadam]

1e - splitting out species from class; risky and interruptable magic; level drain; Cavalier's percentile stat increment system; the Ranger class.

The ranger started in 0e in the Strategic Review.

You can also see race split from class with thieves in 0e Greyhawk.

I would have to look up specifics for 0e undead to say whether that was a 1e innovation.

Edit: Wights, Spectres, and Vampires from 0e have energy drain so it was there from the start:

WIGHTS: Wights are nasty critters who drain away life energy levels when they
score a hit in melee, one level per hit. Thus a hit removes both the hit die and the
corresponding energy to fight, i.e. a 9th-level fighter would drop to 8th level. Wights
cannot be affected by normal missile fire, but silver-tipped arrows will score normal
damage, and magic arrows will score double hits upon them. Magical weapons
will score full hits upon them, and those with a special bonus add the amount of the
bonus in hit points to the hits scored. Men-types killed by Wights become Wights.
An opponent who is totally drained of life energy by a Wight becomes a Wight.

SPECTRES: These monsters have no corporeal body which makes them totally impervious
to all normal weaponry (but can be struck by all magical weapons), including
silver-tipped arrows. They drain two life energy levels when they score a hit.
Men-types killed by Spectres become Spectres under the control of the one who
made them.

VAMPIRES: These monsters are properly of the “Undead” class rather than Lycanthropes.
If they are exposed to direct rays of sunlight, immersed in running water, or
impaled through the heart with a wooden stake they are killed; otherwise they can
be hit only as Spectres, but such hits do not kill them but only force them to assume
gaseous form if they lose all hit points. Vampires drain two life energy levels as do
Spectres when they hit an opponent in combat.

 

[Lanefan]

The ranger started in 0e in the Strategic Review.

And the total circulation of The Strategic Review in these parts at the time was, at my best guess, exactly zero.

Which means for us, the Ranger is a 1e invention.

 

[Tonguez]

5e Advantage mechanic and Lair Actions
4e Weapon groups, Monster roles
3e D20 Feats
2e Profeciencies
1e seperating race and class
Becmi- tiers from Basic delver to Expert wilderness adventurer to Champion of the realm to planar explorer to immortal