D&D General Your favorite things about editions that aren't your favorite.

I think the best edition of D&D would have the dice mechanics of 5E, the lore of 4E, and the character options of B/X or BECM. And the artwork of Easley and Elmore.

My favorite edition is Rules Cyclopedia Basic, but I like/appreciate/use material from all of them.

1e: doesn't really count for me, since I started in 2e and didn't even realize there was a difference for over half a decade.

2e: modularity and innovation. The edition that proved you can do ANYTHING with D&D.

NOTE: since all TSR era editions used essentially the same mechanics and structure at the core, it's super easy to mix and match material from these in my games.

3e: unified mechanic. Though this feature ended up being a crippling factor more than anything else in the long run.

4e: rituals.

5e: advantage/disadvantage. Such a simple idea/mechanic that has such a huge impact on the game.

And of course I have all my own houserules compiled over the decades . . .

Things I like* about editions I don't:

2e - some of the settings, which can easily be made edition-agnostic. Also some of the splat books - the scattergun effect means some of them have to be worthwhile, right? Also the expansion of non-Human pantheons.

3e - casting mechanics for Sorcerers: whatever's on your spell list can be cast to a total of x slots per day per level. Simple, easy, and does away with that gawd-awful pre-memorization stuff. Love it! Also liked 3e's general beefing up of monsters.

4e - bloodied as a mechanic. We already had/have a fatigue/body point system in our games but it's nice to see some official reference to above-zero hit point loss having mechanical effects. Wish they'd gone further with this. Also liked the set-piece battle encounters in the published adventures.

5e - advantage/disadvantage as a mechanic. 5e overuses this to a ridiculous extent, but if used in moderation it's brilliant.

* - as in, like enough to have ported into my own games in some form or other.

I don't like 3E/PF but I do like all the Eberron lore books published during 3E. Even though I do ignore almost all the canonical lore when I run Alice's Adventures in Eberron.

First, 5e is my favorite edition.

1e
Expedition to the Barrier Peaks
World of Greyhawk box set
Monster Manuals 1 and 2
Legends & Lore

2e
Dark Sun
Time of Dragons (Dragonlance, Taladas sub-setting). It’s very much like a proto-Eberron.
The Monstrous Compendiums

3e
It gave us Eberron, which is my 3rd or 4th favorite D&D setting.

4e
The Dawn War, and how it seemed like every monster was given a place in relation to said conflict.
Points of Light as a defined concept, though not as a specific setting.

BX/BECMI
Isle of Dread
Where Chaos Reigns.
Creature Catalogue

Pathfinder RPG
Numeria, Land of Fallen Stars
Iron Gods
Bestiary 3

Old/Classic D&D: Honestly, most of what I like best about Classic is just stuff that AD&D broke and WotC just kept grinding further into the dust. But if I wanted to get specific, I would point out Race as Class meant that playing a nonhuman character meant something. Name Level Subclasses mark 9th level as a substantial change in your character's role in the campaign world. Divine Ascension as the ultimate endgame.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Multiclassing. Monks. Assassins. Oriental Adventures. As little regard as I have for the original AD&D... I recognize that it also laid a lot of the groundwork for everything I loved about later editions.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Second Edition: If you include the Player's Option rules, this is my absolute favorite edition of D&D; if you don't include them, it drops to the bottom half. Everyone else has already said the campaign settings, but it really can't be said enough. Kits. The PHBR series in general, but especially Humanoids, Priests, Paladins, and Bards.

Dungeons & Dragons Third Edition and 3.5 Revision: I really like Feats and Skills. I like that basic adventuring abilities are part of that skill system instead of exclusive class features. Spontaneous spellcasters. Savage Species, Expanded Psionics Handbook, Book of Nine Swords, and Unearthed Arcana. I can take or leave the setting as a whole, but Races of Eberron and Magic of Eberron.

Pathfinder: The non-core classes in PF are way better than the non-core classes in 3.X and they actually (most of them) got full support going forward. Third-party materials for Pathfinder are head-and-shoulders better than what was available for 3.X. d20PFSRD.com. Class archetypes. Dreamscarred Press versions of psionics and martial. Pathfinder Unchained.

Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition: Healing Surges. A/E/D powers. Primal and Shadow as independent power sources. Psionics mechanics. Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies as additions to your class instead of replacements for it, harkening back to BECMI's name level subclasses. The handling of races is better than it's been since before AD&D separated race and class. edit: Oh, hey, also monster design; monsters don't just have attacks and spells, they have unique, defining powers.

Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition: Advantage/Disadvantage. The new Feats are amazing compared to previous versions. Spell scaling using higher-level spell slots. Every class having mandatory subclasses that you can specialize in.

3e: Unified action resolution
4e: Hard to pick, since there’s so much to love about it, but I guess I’ll go with monster design.

David Howery said:

I didn't really like any edition after 2E, but I did like how they finally fixed that 'AC runs backwards' thing...

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I came here to say "THAC0" actually.

Parmandur said:

I came here to say "THAC0" actually.

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Gesundheit.

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