NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6681513" data-attributes="member: 996">Plus, in 1e it should be 'long sword,' because you're not going to find many magical axes & magic swords can be a lot better.  Oh, 2e it should be plural, because only a chump wouldn't be double-specialized in hand-axes and duel-wielding instead of making one lousy attack with a battle ax. 3e a fighter's unlikely to have cross-classed acrobatics /and/ use an ax - spiked chain, maybe.  4e you completely forgot about the enormous complexity of marking (you have to be able to remember who you attacked last round).   And I guess we should note that this comparison was at 1st level, before the 5e fighter gets Action Surge, or maneuvers, or spell casting.But, that is a very narrow - contrived-seeming, really - comparison of only one class.  Yes, the poor fighter was a stultifyingly simplistic beatstick prior to 3e, and is, again, in 5e (especially if you go Champion).  Other classes have different arcs, as does the game as a whole...  A comparison of magic-users over the editions would be funny, but I think there's a limit to how long a post can be, and I have other things to do with my weekend than illustrate how whacked casting was in early D&D... I thought so, but figured I'd mention bloat, as well. As were 3.x & 4e - they're all 'd20 games' even if only one of them has an OGL.  There's nothing too 'clean' about the 5e core system, it relies heavily on the DM interpretation, which is not a sign of simplicity, and isn't applied all that consistently, with different sub-systems for attacks, saves, skills & other checks, much like 3e (though it at least avoids multiple ACs).  Once you get into classes core 5e is, if anything more complex even than 3e, with more classes, each with more features and many more sub-classes.  It benefits from being familiar, of course, which makes it more approachable and may give it a feel of being simpler than it actually is, if you have the right background (and, really, the vast majority of us do), you're not learning the whole system, only the differences between it and past systems. If we compare PH1 to PH1, no.  4e feats, though more numerous, do not represent a lot more complexity, since they're more consistently doled out, and 'smaller,' each feat being much simpler, in itself - more little choices is still a bit more complex than fewer bigger, less consistent ones, but not nearly so muchas if the feats, themselves, were comparable.  'Powers,' OTOH, are one thing where 4e was much less complex than 5e, by virtue of a common format and progression for all classes.  Add to that fewer classes and fewer builds per class, in the PH1, and 4e was much less complicated than 5e.  (But, also, less familiar to long-time players, which has the opposite effect of making it seem more difficult to grasp than it is, if you're not accustomed to taking in new systems - you're not only learning a whole new system, you're un-learning assumptions about it.)  Similarly, if you compare 3e to 5e, the classes, though as varied in structure in both, are not so numerous, with no sub-classes vs 38, and not quite so complex - 3e feat-trees represent a little more complexity, as do skill ranks and more detailed combat options, but not enough to pull it ahead overmuch.  Now, relative to classic D&D, 5e does simplify a lot of things, myriad resolution systems paired down to variations on the d20, cyclical initiative, matrices replaced with simple formulas, but then it also adds two new spell-casting systems, and arguably complicates the Vancian system, to boot.   I think I've at least scratched the surface enough to make it pretty clear that 5e, at release, is at least as complex as other modern (and classic) editions of the game, also judged at release.  But, I happily concede that there's no question it's less complex, as it stands now, than each prior full edition in their 'bloated' glory, and faces little immediate danger of becoming so, thanks to the more stately pace of releases.  And, really, that's the more practical comparison - you're unlikely to find a 'PH1 only' 4e or 3.0 game out there.  It's really not.  The base level of play, the Basic Game, includes two profoundly complex classes, the Cleric and Wizard.  They're each more complex than the corresponding version of those classes in 3e (so, for that matter, is the 5e fighter relative to the austere elegance, but surprising depth of the 3e fighter), and either of them is more complex than any 4e class.But, 5e does Empower the DM to throw a veil over it's complexities, and a player can go no further than the 'how to play the game' blurb, discover that he just describes his actions to the DM who resolves them, and get started with a pregen without being exposed to even a fraction of the actual system.  (You could do the same with other editions, but 5e sets it up for you so neatly, y'gotta love it.) I think it's funny that people act like there's a "preference for complexity" out there.  Simplicity is certainly a virtue for any rule set, but RPGs demand a high level of complexity by their very natures.  If someone prefers a game that seems more complex to you, it may just be because you're unfamiliar with it, so it's complexities stand out, and, even if not, they prefer it not for the complexity itself, but for how much more that complexity allows the game to accomplish.    IIRC, it was more editions than degrees of complexity, and it was rather fanciful:  the idea that 3.x-style system-mastery optimized characters and 4e balanced characters and classic-D&D random characters could all coexist under one system at one table.  The 'modularity' actually delivered more lets the DM lean towards modern (mostly 3e) or classic (mostly 2e-ish AD&D) style, depending on the rules you opt into or out of.  Which is still a nice range, and bridges a large part of the gap between old-school and modern.  Quite a laudable accomplishment, really.</blockquote>

Verification