D&D 5E Differences between D&D Next and 5e?

[Charlaquin]

Thanks. Yeah, I've been playing and DMing 5e for a few years now and it would have been clearer if I had said that.

I played a one shot game in the caves of chaos playtest materials as a player but I and my group were happy with pathfinder and d20 modern for a number of years so I did not pay in-depth attention to much of the Next era stuff. It wasn't until a few years into the full 5e era before I played or ran any 5e.

I got Murder in Baldur's Gate a few weeks ago when it was on sale and it got me thinking about all the Next stuff and wondering how compatible it is.

MiBG is a fantastic adventure, one of my all-time favorites, and fully 5e compatible. It was written to work with Next, 4e, and 3.X/PF. Mostly it does this by instructing the DM to call for easy/medium/hard ability checks rather than specifying a skill and a DC. Monsters/NPCs should be easy to find 5e equivalents for.

 

[Charlaquin]

Yes that's right, the designers at WotC were torn over whether 4e was failing because of poor design or for reasons unrelated to its design. The latter side gradually lost influence but especially in Next's earlier stages you can catch glimpses of what 4.5e might have looked like had WotC gone that route.

Haha no

 

[CapnZapp]

So I've got Murder in Baldur's Gate, some of the late 4e Dungeon and Dragon issues with D&D Next stuff, and various other D&D Next material that was put out before the release of 5e. Is there any information on what changed between Next and the final 5e rules?

Thanks

As I recall, the most significant late change was hit points. Final rule heroes will slice through next monsters like butter.

You can use the Next adventures pretty much as-is, just as long as you use the Monster Manual stats instead.

 

[CapnZapp]

D&D Next was constantly changing. It was playtest. So it depends what date the Next material was created on.

No, he mentioned a specific adventure. Your advice should thus target that specific ruleset or it isn't valuable to him.

 

[CapnZapp]

I will echo what @LordEntrails said. The Next playtest spanned a year and had more than 10 revisions if I remember correctly. That being said most of the change was to the PCs. I don't think you would need to change much, if anything, to run Next material in 5e.

Next adventures come with monsters that are severely underpowered even for 5E. The change you need to make is to use 5E monsters if you use 5E heroes.

(I totally get why you out of all people would have missed that fact. Don't go look at them, they're far too weak for you - you would only get yourself a heart-attack, Dave )

 

[dave2008]

Next adventures come with monsters that are severely underpowered even for 5E. The change you need to make is to use 5E monsters if you use 5E heroes.

(I totally get why you out of all people would have missed that fact. Don't go look at them, they're far too weak for you - you would only get yourself a heart-attack, Dave )

I know, I almost made the same comment. Asmodeus was only cr 20!

 

[CapnZapp]

Well, as you know, my main beef with CR 20 creatures is that they're seldom given enough tools to distinguish themselves from simple sacks of hit points. That, and how minmaxed characters can take them out at a ridiculously low level.

The fact a given monster is CR 20 instead of 25 or 30 bothers me much less.

I just want CR 20 monsters to be challenging to level 20 heroes...

 

[dave2008]

I just want CR 20 monsters to be challenging to level 20 heroes...

I only want that if it is the expectation. It is not in 5e. Though I think it is a good idea (because it is easy), I don't need that be the standard.

Though I agree that higher CR monsters (and I would say CR10+) need more tools to accommodate the above average group.