D&D 5E (2024) Rate D&D 2024

[TheSword]

I would actually rate 2024 the same score as D&D 2014, Pathfinder 1e, 3e and AD&D. Because all those systems were great for me at the time I played them. Each absolutely captivated me at the time of playing and continued a lifelong love of D&D

I do a lot of work with 1-10 scale surveys. It’s fascinating the psychology behind scoring.

WFRP of course gets 100… it’s a percentile system after all

 

[Benjamin Olson]

In a vacuum I might give it a 7 or an 8. I love Fifth Edition Classic, and New 5e is just a version of it which set out to be a little more needlessly complicated, a little less simulationist, a little less license to make it one's own, and a fair amount more homogeneous, all things I dislike, but had I come to it fresh without a nearly identical system I liked better that wouldn't amount to much.

But I'm giving New 5e a 3. I'm particularly unimpressed with what was produced, given how obvious all the positive changes were. But mostly I deeply resent that in order to continue freely playing with a wide number of 5e folk I had to buy new books then struggle through a new PHB where nearly everything was the same but worded slightly and subtly differently, and then there were snakes hiding in the grass of things that were completely different but had the same name, all so I can play a game I don't think is quite as good. 5e was already a game whose biggest flaw to me was the diminishing returns in terms of additional fun from the additional mastery which always seemed to be required, but I put in the hours mostly joyfully the first time around, this needless second time around I'm going to do it resentfully (or just not do it). I tried to get my new group to play Fifth Edition Classic, even brought a few extra copies of the PHB to our session zero in case anyone needed them, but there were brand new players and I really couldn't justify making them learn a system on its way out for my preference or convenience.

It's also full of "Look how they massacred my boy" moments of ruining things I was particularly fond of or had good 5e memories attached to like hybrid races, lycanthropy, the gloomstalker ranger dread ambusher ability, the Keen Mind feat, and the Sleep spell.

Just generally my gaming life is objectively a bit worse off for this edition existing. I put up with more complications and juggle more rules in my head to have a little less fun, and have spent about $150 for the privilege. So arguably I should give it some sort of negative score. But I'll be kind and stick with the 3.

 

[FrogReaver]

I don't think rating a thing needs to be in comparison to anything else. I liked Superman 2025. Great fun movie. I don't need to rate it in comparison to any of the other Superman things.

IMO it’s impossible to rate without some context around the rating. That might be other movies in general or other Superman movies or all entertainment. But implicitly you are rating it against something. Usually it’s the closest category that one possess enough high quality data points to differentiate items in that caregory. But not necessarily so.

 

[FrogReaver]

For what it’s worth I rated 2024e as a 6. Id have rated 2014e as a 7.

 

[Maggan]

Huh. I didn't expect to be the only "no opinion" vote. Y'all are an opinionated bunch today.

I missed the "no opinion"! So now you are not the only one ... or, rather, there are six of us now!

Why "no opinion" from me? I haven't played, read or even seen the latest D&D rules, so I haven't formed an opinion of them.

 

[SteveC]

For me, I rated it a 3, because I already have 5E. With the exception of some cleanups of classes, I don't really see anything that makes me want to adopt it. Now if I were a new player coming into the game, it would be more like a 7. It's definitely not my favorite edition, but it made the game playable for me at higher levels, so that's something.

Maybe this should go without saying, but I'll say it anyway: if 5.5E is your 10/10 and favorite game of all time, this is just my opinion, and you should play the game that you love and ignore me.

 

[Charlaquin]

It’s hard for me to rate with a single number, because there are things about it I really like and things about it I really dislike, especially relative to base 5e. I guess those things should balance out to a middle of the road rating. 6 or 7, probably? It’s interesting because it improves on some of the minutia of 5e, while losing sight of some of the design philosophy that won me over on 5e in the first place.

 

[Chaltab]

Makes me wish there was a generic 5E VTT engine where I could take a grab bag of what I like from every version of the game.

 

[CleverNickName]

Makes me wish there was a generic 5E VTT engine where I could take a grab bag of what I like from every version of the game.

I think the hard part would be excluding the parts that you don't want. Like, in Roll20, I can add both the 2014 and the 2024 rules sets to the same game via the Shared Compendium, along with other splatbooks like Tasha's Caldron of Everything. I think you can do that in Foundry also; they are pretty similar.

The trouble is, they all overlap and there's no way to sort them...so it's up to the users to decide which parts to include in that grab bag. So whenever anyone searches the Compendium for "Ranger," for example, they will get three matches: the 2014 PHB version, the 2024 PHB version, and the Tasha's version. And that's fine and good, assuming everyone knows which version you are using for the campaign. There's no way to remove the two versions of Ranger you don't want. And this is true for classes, subclasses, spells, feats, monsters, combat rules, the whole thing.

So it can be done, but I don't recommend it. (And I haven't tried this with editions earlier than 5E because I don't own any of them in Roll20. I bet you would run into issues with character sheets and combat mechanics if you tried.)

 

[Chaltab]

I think the hard part would be excluding the parts that you don't want. Like, in Roll20, I can add both the 2014 and the 2024 rules sets to the same game via the Shared Compendium, along with other splatbooks like Tasha's Caldron of Everything. I think you can do that in Foundry also; they are pretty similar.

The trouble is, they all overlap and there's no way to sort them...so it's up to the users to decide which parts to include in that grab bag. So whenever anyone searches the Compendium for "Ranger," for example, they will get three matches: the 2014 PHB version, the 2024 PHB version, and the Tasha's version. And that's fine and good, assuming everyone knows which version you are using for the campaign. There's no way to remove the two versions of Ranger you don't want. And this is true for classes, subclasses, spells, feats, monsters, combat rules, the whole thing.

So it can be done, but I don't recommend it. (And I haven't tried this with editions earlier than 5E because I don't own any of them in Roll20. I bet you would run into issues with character sheets and combat mechanics if you tried.)

Yeah it would have to be built from the ground up with these things in mind, including the ability to disable things from the compendium that you don't want.