D&D General Balanced vs. Imbalanced vs. Today's D&D

[Maxperson]

3e was definitely the best version at capturing the idea of the "wizard power fantasy". With enough player planning, and enough in-game time and resources, you can do damn near anything. But not have the right buffs or contingency plans in place, and you can get vaporized in a turn by a similar level enemy. It rewarded planning and game mastery more than any other edition, which is its own type of fun.

That was very fun, but for me the best part of 3e was being able to envision almost any character concept and then achieve it mechanically through a combination of race/class/feats/skills/prestige classes. 5e doesn't even come close to that.

 

[CleverNickName]

Rebuild the path so it goes around the boulder.

Bore a hole through the boulder.
Build a bridge over the boulder.
Bury the boulder with an earthen ramp.

 

[TwoSix]

That was very fun, but for me the best part of 3e was being able to envision almost any character concept and then achieve it mechanically through a combination of race/class/feats/skills/prestige classes. 5e doesn't even come close to that.

That's fair, but I tend to prefer just homebrewing something in 5e if "building to a specific concept" is a priority. I used to enjoy the research and tinkering of character building, but my tastes have changed to where I now find it a bit tedious.

Of course, that's also probably because the best and most interesting builds in 3e and 5e are already solved problems, I do still enjoy tinkering with characters in systems that are relatively fresh for me.

 

[Incenjucar]

That was very fun, but for me the best part of 3e was being able to envision almost any character concept and then achieve it mechanically through a combination of race/class/feats/skills/prestige classes. 5e doesn't even come close to that.

Indeed. 3E was a hard-to-use imbalanced mess, but it was at least a gloriously creative mess full of ideas.

 

[Maxperson]

That's fair, but I tend to prefer just homebrewing something in 5e if "building to a specific concept" is a priority. I used to enjoy the research and tinkering of character building, but my tastes have changed to where I now find it a bit tedious.

Of course, that's also probably because the best and most interesting builds in 3e and 5e are already solved problems, I do still enjoy tinkering with characters in systems that are relatively fresh for me.

See, that doesn't really appeal to me. I'm more interested in achieving concepts than the "best/most interesting builds." 3e never got old for me in that regard.

 

[Hussar]

Bore a hole through the boulder.
Build a bridge over the boulder.
Bury the boulder with an earthen ramp.

Throw yourself at the boulder and miss?

 

[payn]

I do as well, but... I kind of miss pondering whether my Fighter could get by with just Int 8, while being tempted by Int 14 giving so many more skillpoints (and access to a lot of fighting feats).

Thats another bit I miss dearly. Modern design has all characters SAD and always the same allocations. There isnt much variety in types of a class anymore.

 

[Hussar]

The other aspect about having a balanced system means that it's FAAAARR easier to run as a DM. I constantly have to police my players in my 5e games to make sure that they are running their characters properly because the whole "rulings not rules" thing means that every bloody spell seems to have loopholes. Which means that every single time a new splat book or whatever comes out, I get to restart the process yet again to plug up the holes.

It's exhausting to be honest. I just wish I could go back to the days of being able to trust the system and that it would work. As broken as 3e was, by and large, you could actually usually trust the system. At least in single digit levels where we typically played. I find that because 5e has been around so long, everyone and their mother has keeps finding yet another exploit that needs to be dealt with.

I've got enough on my plate as a DM without having to know in detail all the rules for every single class as well.

 

[Incenjucar]

Thats another bit I miss dearly. Modern design has all characters SAD and always the same allocations. There isnt much variety in types of a class anymore.

I really wish that D&D was built with universal MAD with balanced value for each attribute.

 

[Maxperson]

Throw yourself at the boulder and miss?

That's the somatic for the Fly spell.