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!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6682834" data-attributes="member: 996">Idiosyncratic is fair, too.  In 3e, 4e or 5e, characters in the same party are likely to level at about the same time, because everyone's on the same experience chart, while in 1e each class advances at a different rate.  You could say that's an idiosyncrasy of older versions of the game, or you could say it's been simplified by newer versions.  Similarly, what you get for leveling became more consistent in 3e (there were only three kinds of BAB progression, and two kinds of save progression), then even more so in 4e & 5e (1/2 level & 'bounded' proficiency bonuses instead of different BABs).   If you only ever check out and learn to play one class, especially a traditionally simplistic one like the fighter, classic D&D may seem pretty simple compared to choosing feats in 3e, exploits in 4e, or styles & archetypes in 5e, but if you look at all the classes, it's a very different picture.  For us dinosaurs, the complexities of the traditional class designs are familiar and expected, so they don't get in our way, but just because we're accustomed to them doesn't mean they aren't there.So, yeah, when I say classic D&D was complex or complicated, 'idiosyncratic' works as well.  When a fellow grognard says that classic & 5e are simpler than modern eds, 'more familiar' would work as well, too. 'Universal System' to me, means a system that can do any character in any genre, from a standing start (like Hero System), even GURPS only claims to be 'multi-genre,' these days.  D&D has never remotely tried to be universal.  It got less baroque and inconsistent in the first two modern editions, while 5e has stuck with a higher level of consistency in some areas, like Advantage or Proficiency or exp to level, and reflects less consistent, more traditional, designs in others, like class, sub-classs, & progression or expected wealth/level & magic items.But, yes, there are different kinds of complexity, too.  Look at the 3.x fighter, for instance, it has a very simple, positively elegant design, with a bonus feat every other level, but the sheer number of possible builds you can make with those bonus feats is huge, and creating an optimal build, potentially a complex undertaking.   Conversely, the traditional Vancian caster has more obvious complexity in both design, and in what you can do with that design.  4e classes had that former sort of complexity, though dialed down a bit, since each decision point didn't give you access to every possibility, just the ones for that level.Every version of D&D, though, has run up against ballooning complexity as material is added.  That 3.x fighter would 'need' a 20 level build to be done optimally, for instance, and might use feats from many different books late in the game's developent.  4e classes were similar, going from a few choices available each level, with re-training and a relative lack of prerequisites meaning you didn't have to plan full builds, to having power choices spread out over multiple books and even Dragon articles, until you were thankful for even the balky on-line CB to pull them all together for you.  5e's design may be at least as vulnerable to that pernicious effect of 'bloat,' as any prior ed, but this time, they're actually exercising some restraint and have thus far avoided it.</blockquote>

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