Flowchart of the Editions

[Mark Hope]

I'm pretty sure there's a provision for a 'withdraw' in Moldvay/Cook Basic/Expert D&D too . . . again, I don't know if they used that term or not. (Damn, shouldn't have sold off all my pre-3.x stuff!)

There is. It's called a "Fighting Withdrawal", which is basically backing up slowly at 1/2 movement rate (or less.) It allows you to back away without losing any combat effectiveness. "Retreat", by comparison, is any movement backwards at more than 1/2 movement rate, which gives opponents +2 to hit against the retreating character, who also loses any shield bonus. Attacks from behind are treated in the same way as attacks against retreating characters, which is the closest Moldvay gets to having AoOs. (I went and looked this up since yesterday, lol. It's on pages B24 and B25 .)

 

[diaglo]

I'm pretty sure there's a provision for a 'withdraw' in Moldvay/Cook Basic/Expert D&D too . . . again, I don't know if they used that term or not. (Damn, shouldn't have sold off all my pre-3.x stuff!)

there is one in 1edADnD too. tactical retreats are different than fleeing. but i suck at the rules.

 

[Kwalish Kid]

I really like the chart and I'll be using it, or something like it, in the future.

The only problem with it is that it needs some development in the 1st edition section. Unearthed Arcana really added quite a bit to the game (even if it was only a portion of what was available through Dragon Magazines). Heck, Dragon Magazine might be listed there beside the books, since it really did change play (I remember so many anti-paladins, witches, and other classes were added to the groups I knew as those issues came out.)

Additionally, the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide and Wilderness Survival Guide really changed play as well, with the proficiencies system they added.

Finally, the options books (Skills & Powers and Combat & Tactics) shook things up as well, though I think they had far less impact on games as played than the earlier products. They were more of an off-shoot. (I remember that the characters I saw made with those rules were way more powerful than standard PCs of the day. I think I'll take another look at those books this week.)

 

[pawsplay]

I'd say that 3e and 4e really only branch off from the AD&D game. The basic D&D line pretty much died out after the RC and the black box.

The Companion set introduced D&D's first prestige classes, and the 3rd edition skills system owes a lot more to the Cyclopedia's skill system than to AD&D's NWP. Additionally, dragons were more similar to the Companion Set's advanced dragons than to AD&D dragons with their "hit points per age category." D&D 3e also followed the basic rules in collapsing the longsword and broadsword into one weapon, not including a khopesh, and so forth.

3e monks, like RC's Mystics, have acrobatics and extra attacks per round.

The 3e combat grid is more like Basic D&D's, with the exception of using 5 foot squares and making reach a general rule.

"Max hit points at first level" is an optional rule from Basic D&D.

So many systems were similar it would be hard to trace on to the other.

Some AD&Disms that made it into 3e: the Outer Planes and the Astral Plane, larger hit dice, bonus spells for high ability scores, cover, XP costs for spells, two axis alignment, Druid wildshape, paladin base class, thief-acrobats (in 3e, most thieves are thief-acrobats), Underdark races, the elven sub-races, gnomes, separate race/class, etc.

 

[T. Foster]

I like this chart. I'd add a solid line from the OD&D box to 1E AD&D and make the line from Holmes box to 1E AD&D dotted. I'd add the 1994 and 1996 "Classic Dungeons & Dragons Game" sets in with the Black Box set. I'd make the line from the RC to 3E D&D dotted. I'd separate 3.0 and 3.5 into separate boxes (since unlike the 1E and 2E revisions which were essentially just changes to the art, the 3.0 to 3.5 revision involved substantial rule-changes).

Also, you have the dates on OD&D, the Black Box, and the RC wrong: OD&D was in-print through 1980 (overlapping the entire run of the Holmes Basic Set), the Black Box was released in 1991 and went through 1993 (1996 if you count the two "Classic D&D" sets); the RC was also released in 1991 and went out of print in 1994.

 

[rossik]

i would like some words from the OP, hes a little "out" from this topic

 

[TerraDave]

FWIW, the 1st Basic Set literally referred you to the upcoming AD&D manuals if you wanted to know more - it was explicitly an "entry drug" to AD&D. It was only with the Moldvay Basic Set that Classic D&D started to establish its own identity.

I know that. But I really don't see it as an influance on ADD (where it certainly was an influance on the latter basic sets).

I would also support putting in the 2.5s as its "own" edition. And it did have an influance on 3E. When my group first got 3E, it was essentially a cleaned up, streamlined, version of a game we were already playing.

 

[WayneLigon]

I would say:

The basic editions really are their own product line and never really impact the rest of the 'D&D universe'; there might be a few off-handed influences from it but no direct ancestry. I wouldn't worry about Skills and Powers. It was a supplement and not a core book; certainly no reason to consider it an 'edition'.

 

[Mark]

I would say:

The basic editions really are their own product line and never really impact the rest of the 'D&D universe'; there might be a few off-handed influences from it but no direct ancestry. I wouldn't worry about Skills and Powers. It was a supplement and not a core book; certainly no reason to consider it an 'edition'.

That's how it would more accurately seem to have been but the "O" on OD&D needs to be parenthetical, as in (O)D&D.

 

[rossik]

I would also support putting in the 2.5s as its "own" edition.

but it didnt had any product direct for him, had it?