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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 8054827" data-attributes="member: 1465">I don't see how these four fundamentally alter the way the game is played between 3e and older editions.1) I have played BECMI on a grid back in the day, I don't know if it was our DM's house rule, maybe it was not the standard but nevertheless3) feats are just plug-in abilities, they have an effect in how you level up your PC but not necessarily in how you play the game5) players don't even need what CR is, for a DM it's just an additional tool for encounter building7) was the old Bard that different? how about kits? the fact that there were 100s of PrCls published doesn't matter, if people abused them instead of taking 1 (or none at all) per PC, it's their faultThese certainly changed the game big time instead.2) AoOs were all over the place in 3e and massively defined how characters played in a combat encounter, even if indirectly i.e. by shoving players to not doing certain things in order to avoid AoOs. They definitely shaped 3e combat in a certain way that is different from both older and newer editions (5e OAs have a much lesser impact). They forced players to think a lot more in terms of exact actions and movements.4) Very different approaches between pre-3e and post-3e. In older edition the main idea of class balance was to choose between the egg today or the chicken tomorrow. Be an ant or a cicada: "suck now to shine later, or shine now to suck later". Honestly, it was an awful idea that stinked of cheap moral lessons.6) Here is a major shift in mechanics that also affected narrative. Older editions carried a much stronger "magic is rare" feeling that is definitely lost since 3e. In 20 years of the "modern" editions of D&D I have seen countless discussions about the various ways to setting up a low-magic game, clearly showing that there is a large number of gamers who would like (at least sometimes) to recreate that feeling. OTOH I am pretty sure there were at least as many people who felt that magic was way too rare in older editions.8) Pros and cons about this one too. The 3e-specific d20 DC system was really very codified and standardized. Some groups like having hard rules to rely on, and others like free-form rulings without limitations. Both have their own strength and weaknesses. 3e clearly went pretty extreme with this, and it's understandable that it alienated older editions players. If codification is about having rules and DCs for everything (something on which 5e has lessened significantly, bringing back more DM's rulings), standardization is about the general mechanics (d20) apply to lots of things: 5e still retains this idea, but it still doesn't work very well without some DM's rulings (we still have the issue with extreme swinginess that doesn't work the same well for all skills).9) Definitely a huge deal in 3e, related to the edition's general purpose of balancing everyone. Caused a lot of problems to any group who didn't want to play a monty haul game. No surprise here that 5e has left this behind.</blockquote>

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