Edition Wars: Burying the Hatchet...

[Aehrlon]

People, thought I would start a new thread & try to put a positive spin on things regarding the so called Edition Wars. Discussion of this sort might bring out some great ideas for D&D Next (aka 5E). For the record, I think we all agree that each edition of the game had its own merits. 3.5 was my favorite, despite its flaws. But I have played each edition for nearly 30 years. Here's my idea: post something about rules or mechanics that you like in whichever edition of the game you enjoy. I'll start.

In 4E I liked that there was a mechanic (i.e. Healing Surges) that made it so a character could recover a bit without having to camp & without necessarily having to rely on a Cleric. Some sort of mechanic in D&D 5E that allowed some sort of limited recovery (and less each time) would be excellent. Discuss & please try to stay positive... Let's 'bury the hatchet' so to speak on the Edition Wars! We all love D&D, right?

 

[Ichneumon]

Hatchets are buried in shallow graves.

I want potion miscibility.

 

[kitcik]

IMHO 4E was a great game, it just wasn't "D&D."

I don't like "healing surges" as part of D&D. I like the 1E feel of resource management and danger.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

I play 3.x, used to play 2nd ed. nearly 20 years ago.

What I like about the 3.5 system is diversity of character options. Got a character idea? There's a Class/PrC/Feat combo build for that. Yeah. Even that idea. Yup, that one too.

I've only dabbled with 4th ed and didn't like it because it seemed to simple, to vanilla.

One of my favorite things about these boards is someone comes in and says "I want to build X, how do I do it?" and everyone else references a dozen different official source material in combination to generate the effect you're looking for.

In 3.5 there's a clear mechanic for everything. Sometimes it's broken, sometimes there are vast differences in power and sometimes it's really complicated, but at least we can all speak the same language working off the same rules. I don't feel that 2nd ed was as clear mechanics-wise.

 

[Duke Arioch]

4th brought only a few interesting things. One of them (as was said in OP) is healing surges. The other thing I liked is that there were spells (ok, powers) that could be used at will. There is a feat in 3.5 that allows this, but, IMO, that should have been the part of the mechanic from the start. And good bye riddance to x-bows.

Every other edition (1st-3.x) had the distinct D&D feel that 4th lacks. And every one of those had interesting mechanics.

 

[xigbar]

5th edition is the best, and anyone who disagrees is a heathen!

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Not burying the hatchet, at least not yet. 4E marketing involved insulting 3E, and pirating of 4E books was used as a bs excuse to halt all legal sales of 3E pdfs to remove it as competition. Those were incredibly douchy things to do, and thanks to 4E's short lifespan, they're not even "the distant past."

Most of the things I like about 4E were stuff introduced in 3E that was codified as the default rules for 4E:

- Ability arrays or point buy
- Fixed hp
- DMs encouraged to provide items on players' wish lists, instead of just stupid random table rolls
- More focus on encounter-based resources
- 5 man party as the default (though I like it because as a player it provides a spot for the "5th wheel" jack of all trades guy and as a DM it makes the math of dividing stuff like money between the party much easier, don't think either was a reason it was adopted as default for 4E)

Stuff like that.

EDIT: I guess the theme I have going for the 4E rules I like is a massive lessening of the importance of random die rolls for factors that will have a long term or permanent impact on the players. I really, REALLY hate that. Even though I prefer to play martials, it's crap like that that drives me to make casters.
Going to trivialize a d12 HD's use by making it have a chance of coming out 1 or 2? May as well go for the d4 and play a class not expected to be up front!
Going to make ability scores a crap shoot? I'll play a caster! Then I only need one decent roll, and I can change the physical scores with polymorph/wildshape.
Going to enforce rules that make the likelihood of getting a good enhanced guisarme statistically impossible? I'll play a caster! I can just make my own items to suit my needs or get by with spell buffs otherwise, then!

Freaking hate all the randomness with long term consequences in 3E that was brought in as a sacred cow from earlier editions. Thankfully, in practice I've found few 3E DMs actually run their games as the RAW tells them to.

 

[kitcik]

5th edition is the best, and anyone who disagrees is a heathen!

Not that there's anything wrong with it.

 

[Aehrlon]

Guess I'm a heathen too... but I will give D&D Next a chance. Possibly uniting the fractured factions caused by dropping 3.5 like a bad habit, making 4E, than planning to drop it after a few short years... yeah, they had better try to appease the masses. Otherwise I fear folks will just continue with their preferred edition or Pathfinder.

 

[Vegepygmy]

Here's my idea: post something about rules or mechanics that you like in whichever edition of the game you enjoy.

1E: If there's one thing I'd revive from 1st, it's system shock.

2E: No one single thing about 2nd really stands out in my memory. There were just a lot of little tweaks that added up to a significant improvement over 1st. Things like thieves being able to choose how to improve their class abilities rather than every thief improving in exactly the same way.

3E: I like almost everything about 3rd, but one of the very best things would be its robust multiclassing rules. They aren't perfect, but they're the best in any edition to date.

4E: I really like the idea of rituals as a way for casters to access utility spells without filling up their daily slots or having to carry a bunch of scrolls or similar items around. 4th horribly botched the implementation, but the idea was good. Also, the skill list from 3rd was consolidated in a very smart way (though everything else they did with skills was a mess).