D&D 5E Fifth Edition.....Why?

[Tony Vargas]

Ahh, right, I remember that thread. It was 750k books for ALL books for the year. Sure, we've had 750 k (apparently, ish) PHB's sold in 3e years, but, we have no idea what the total book sales for all 5e books is....

We're each seem to be remembering it differently: Parmandur is remembering it being 'core books,' I recall both being 'all books,' but can't seem to find the thread in question. :shrug:

 

[Parmandur]

We're each seem to be remembering it differently: Parmandur is remembering it being 'core books,' I recall both being 'all books,' but can't seem to find the thread in question. :shrug:

Memory is funny that way. However, given what we know of 3E core book sales numbers, and the statement that 5E core has outsold 3.x combined, that number likely refers to just the core books, at a minimum. And of course, in many groups, not everyone will buy books, particularly with free versions of the Basic rules widely and freely distributed.

 

[BookBarbarian]

I would agree with "best" but not perfect.

• 
  1. SAD classes combined with deterministic score generation (and ASIs) has led to cookie-cutter, min-maxed clones.
  2. Further exacerbated by Dex being too good.
  3. Archery is too powerful; needs to have some more disadvantages.
  4. The attempt to make Feats optional by making them interchangeable with ASIs has resulted in a clear calculus: a few feats are strictly better than ASIs, the rest are strictly worse. Again, result is too little variety.
  5. Interpretation of Stealth rules left a little too much to DMs.
  6. Ranger poorly defined.
  7. Bonus actions problematic (e.g. for two-weapon fighting)
  8. Balance between long-rest and short-rest characters too dependent upon encounters-per-day.
  9. Some classes could stand to have more of their power shifted to sub-classes to allow for greater variety.

Probably more. That's off the top of my head.

I find it funny that I agree with most, if not all of the items in this list, but still they are minor enough to not really have any great effect at my table. Every time I think about houseruling a "fix" I remind myself to just wait and see if my perceived issue becomes an actual issue in play. So far it never has.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I find it funny that I agree with most, if not all of the items in this list, but still they are minor enough to not really have any great effect at my table. Every time I think about houseruling a "fix" I remind myself to just wait and see if my perceived issue becomes an actual issue in play. So far it never has.

Yup. This is why my houserules are very short and almost entirely campaign specific.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Memory is funny that way. However, given what we know of 3E core book sales numbers...

I've heard 3e PH numbers, but not 'core books' numbers.

, and the statement that 5E core has outsold 3.x combined....

Whose statement was that, again? I'm curious if it's phrased exactly that way...


...not that it wouldn't be awesome to see D&D hitting the kinds of sales it had back in the day, just that it seems we've heard a lot of vaguely good-sounding, but hard to pin down, stuff from WotC over the years...

...and, ultimately, 5e doesn't have to be popular (more or less popular than another ed or another RPG or M:tG or WoW or Marvel Movies or whatever...) to be good.

 

[Mistwell]

When I started gaming it wasn't on AD&D, it was West End Games Star Wars, TSR Star Frontiers, Top Secret, Shadowrun 3rd Edition, Werewolf the Apocalypse, Vampire the Masquerade. It wouldn't be until about 4 years into my gaming tenure when my grandmother would purchase the blue and red box of original DnD for me complete with the crayon to mark the dice with. Having begun my RP experience with systems that offered generous character options and variability. I disliked the limitation of AD&D where humans only actual benefit was they could progress through a class for a bit, then could restart progression in another class, and there was no limit to their progression, however, no group I ever played with followed that proscription, and for every 40th level Human 20 rgr/5 fgtr/ 5 rogue/ 5 mage/ 5 cleric there was a 40/40/40 Elven multiclass that shouldn't have ever been allowed. I didn't get into DnD until 3rd Edition where some of Ed Greenwood's characters in his novels finally made sense statistically. And I adored 3rd edition, it allowed me to create the fantasy character I wanted to play in an easy to delineate manner. Then came fourth edition which eliminated everything great about 3rd Edition but tried to turn the system into a tabletop World of Warcraft, a system I promptly demonstrated the idiocy of its lack of thought with by building a fey aspected warlock with a cape of the mountebank which let me basically deal damage and teleport, the damage and teleport, and when the GM tried to be clever and isolate me then I used the cape to teleport me back behind the line the party had formed, the whole system was stupid, not to mention the abject horror they turned the Forgotten Realms into.
Then I bought the 5th Edition players handbook, It seemed to actually streamline the 4th Edition and make it less a tabletop MMO while bringing back the simplicity of the old school blue and red boxes. However what drove me to ignore the rule set was that fundamental lack of variability that 3rd Edition actually offered. It seems like I'm pretty much stuck in the class I began the game in and I can either choose a mediocre stat bonus where I used to be able to alter the standard progression path by taking a feat, and the stat bonus would come later which demonstrated a focus in a differing area of my character's priority.
So, why should I play 5th Edition? It eliminated the wonderful options a player could take his character and even it's weak multiclassing can't portray the most famous characters of our favorite DnD novel characters. I mean, stat out Elminster the way he should be in 5th Ed, or even Mirt the Merciless.

Super Simple Answer - It's the best selling version of D&D since you started playing way back with AD&D. Which means if you want to play the game, the odds of you finding players (and replacing lost players) and DMs goes WAY WAY WAY up if you choose this version of the game.

That's a good reason too. Ignore all your rules quibbles about which famous characters you want to portray, you can achieve any of that with careful builds and house rules and asking people for advice here and using the very-many third party products out there for this game which fills in all the gaps you're talking about (because it's open source, just like 3e was, and there is now an official marketplace for those third party products too). Ultimately, it's finding people to play with that will likely impact your enjoyment of the game more than anything else. Which means, this is the version of the game you want to play.

 

[Shasarak]

So, why should I play 5th Edition? It's weak multiclassing can't portray the most famous characters of our favorite DnD novel characters. I mean, stat out Elminster the way he should be in 5th Ed, or even Mirt the Merciless.

I must admit that the idea of statting up NPCs as monsters is annoying.

 

[MichaelSomething]

I must admit that the idea of statting up NPCs as monsters is annoying.

In 3rd Edition (and its offspring) you can stat NPCs to be the perfect representation of your mind's idea; if you got 20-90 minutes to spare or the right software.

 

[Mecheon]

In 3rd Edition (and its offspring) you can stat NPCs to be the perfect representation of your mind's idea; if you got 20-90 minutes to spare or the right software.

Sometimes you don't want to spend 20-90 minutes to come up with "He's a powerful guy who can do some things". 3E's 'Everything uses the exact same system'

Its also debatable how well 3E does at making famous characters given the ridiculous multiclassing some of them pull

 

[Shasarak]

In 3rd Edition (and its offspring) you can stat NPCs to be the perfect representation of your mind's idea; if you got 20-90 minutes to spare or the right software.

Exactly you can see the situation.