D&D General How has D&D changed over the decades?

[tetrasodium]

Umm, it's 1 day and 350 gp. And, let's face it, you simply craft one for each PC before you leave town, and then replace as needed.

You used spells for emergencies. The wands you broke out after every encounter. Two to 5 charges basically covered any damage you were going to take in a typical encounter. It's not like the 5MWD was not a thing in 3e.

That wasnt a problem we ever ran into and the gm could still declare that some rate component was needed to limit it. Also one day 350 gp & some exp is heck of a lot more than 5sp 8hrs & 0xp

 

[Hussar]

That wasnt a problem we ever ran into and the gm could still declare that some rate component was needed to limit it. Also one day 350 gp & some exp is heck of a lot more than 5sp 8hrs & 0xp

So, everyone who is telling you how it works when you play by the actual rules by written are just wrong, and the problem didn't exist because you, personally, never saw it.

Ok. That's groovy.

 

[tetrasodium]

So, everyone who is telling you how it works when you play by the actual rules by written are just wrong, and the problem didn't exist because you, personally, never saw it.

Ok. That's groovy.

Not at all. I'm telling you that the current setup on modern d&d with a dramatically loser cost recovery with fewer ways to limit trivialize recovery is worse.
Edit: wands could be dramatically taxed with aoe effects & things like arrow flinging annoyance mooks. That strain is no longer true with hd+con*level during short rests & full ho+half HD recovery on an 8hr nap for all

 

[Vaalingrade]

So, everyone who is telling you how it works when you play by the actual rules by written are just wrong, and the problem didn't exist because you, personally, never saw it.

Ok. That's groovy.

There is only one admissible type of evidence: Anecdotal.

 

[Vaalingrade]

That's a great picture. The cover of the 4e PH...not so much.

Going by core book covers is unfair if only because 3e was the only edition with good core book covers.

Or good book covers in general now that I think of it. Except the odd setting book like the FR ones. But even the most garbage books of the era like the BoVD, BoED and Savage Species have rocktastic covers. Everything else has been a second rate symphony. They even made the logo progressively worse after that.

Even 3rd parties were biting off them and looking good. Like all those books with the needlessly complicated traps no players has ever or will ever sit through the long winded descriptions and mechanics of.

 

[overgeeked]

Not at all. I'm telling you that the current setup on modern d&d with a dramatically loser cost recovery with fewer ways to limit trivialize recovery is worse.

There's basically no cost to recovery. You fully heal and recharge everything automatically regardless of the quality or condition of your sleep. You sleep in the street, full recharge. You sleep on a roof, full recharge. No matter how many times you were dying no matter how many death saves you failed (as long as it's not three in a row) and no matter how many hit points you lost...you're 100% perfect after a little shut eye.

It makes wandering monsters on journeys pointless. Unless you happen to get two encounters in a given day, and then it only matters for the second wandering monster encounter as you're 100% perfect again the next day...so you're literally just wasting time. Or you jack up the resting rules when out in the wilds. It's much easier to interrupt a long rest to make the PCs feel the threat of the wilds. But then to make that work you have to have wandering monsters and force them to miss a long rest...which they'll simply stop all forward progress regardless of the dramatic consequences and rest until they finally get a long rest.

Unless, of course, you believe the official line on it taking a full hour of combat to interrupt a long rest. That's hilariously bad design. They really, really want to push superhero fantasy. So you either run the ridiculous 6-8 encounters in a day or you jack up the rest mechanics or you throw an entire day's worth of encounters at the party in short order...which then screws up the balance of the short rest classes. I really hope WotC removes the short rest recharge mechanics on fighters, monks, warlocks, etc.

It'll likely be some version of this for each short-rest class:

"Recharge. When you spend [an action, a reaction, a bonus action, 5 minutes in rest, 1 hour in rest, etc], you regain all expended [ki points, maneuver dice, psi dice, warlock spell slots, etc]. You can use this trait a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest."

Or they'll make short rests 5-minutes long again. LOL. Wouldn't that be something. But with the removal of any and all references to short rests in the recent races, they're likely to just remove it entirely for balance reasons. Or both. Rebalance based on long rests, include a recharge ability, and make Hit Dice spending short rests take 5 minutes.

What's going to be really interesting is the reaction of the people who came in with Critical Role and 5E. Their baseline is this style of basically unhurtable and nearly unkillable PCs. Any downward change won't go over well. Other than writing the possibility of death out of the game entirely they don't really have anywhere to go up.

 

[Hussar]

What's going to be really interesting is the reaction of the people who came in with Critical Role and 5E. Their baseline is this style of basically unhurtable and nearly unkillable PCs. Any downward change won't go over well. Other than writing the possibility of death out of the game entirely they don't really have anywhere to go up.

Again, doesn't seem to matter how many people don't play the way you do does it?

I mean, you've got someone in this thread telling you in no uncertain terms that they have killed PC's very frequently. But, apparently, your anecdotes are stronger? My own experience has certainly seen more than a few permanent PC deaths in every campaign. Generally lower level, but, not always.

You have to remember that not all of us play with hyper-focused power gamers who are extracting every single last bonus they can out of the system. Lots of us don't. And lots of us aren't seeing a huge difference in the lethality between editions.

 

[Hussar]

Not at all. I'm telling you that the current setup on modern d&d with a dramatically loser cost recovery with fewer ways to limit trivialize recovery is worse.
Edit: wands could be dramatically taxed with aoe effects & things like arrow flinging annoyance mooks. That strain is no longer true with hd+con*level during short rests & full ho+half HD recovery on an 8hr nap for all

Naw. It's not particularly any different. Sure, it might have taken two days to get all your HP back in 1e, but, rarely more than 3. And most of the time, 1 day.

You do realize there's a REASON why this sort of recovery has been added to the game right? it's being added because that's the way most of us play. It's simply a reflection of how the game has always been played. This is not some "Oh, we need kids gloves to spare the poor gamers" narrative that people keep spouting. It's more, "Well, since everyone is already playing this way, why not just make that part of the game so the game can get out of the way?"

This is the reason behind virtually all changes you see in the game.

 

[Lanefan]

So what's the alternative? Endless mindless easy mode? No thanks. I'm going to run challenging games. The players at my tables know that. If they're not onboard, they don't sit down. I can either nerf the PCs or buff the monsters. Players' choice. I haven't had a player yet tell me they'd rather I nerf their PC than buff the monsters. Maybe your players are different.

And all you end up with then is an arms race, and those tend not to end well.

 

[Minigiant]

What's going to be really interesting is the reaction of the people who came in with Critical Role and 5E. Their baseline is this style of basically unhurtable and nearly unkillable PCs. Any downward change won't go over well. Other than writing the possibility of death out of the game entirely they don't really have anywhere to go up.

I don't know if that's true.

I think the basline of people coming in 5e is that a random encounter is medium.

Easy. An easy encounter doesn’t tax the characters’ resources or put them in serious peril. They might lose a few hit points, but victory is pretty much guaranteed.


Medium. A medium encounter usually has one or two scary moments for the players, but the characters should emerge victorious with no casualties. One or more of them might need to use healing resources.


Hard. A hard encounter could go badly for the adventurers. Weaker characters might get taken out of the fight, and there’s a slim chance that one or more characters might die.


Deadly. A deadly encounter could be lethal for one or more player characters. Survival often requires good tactics and quick thinking, and the party risks defeat.

Basically in 5e, if a DM throws an encounter at a party with zero hints of difficulty a player with a 5e mindset will mentally default it to medium. This creates a sense of shock when it is calculated for hard or deadly.

In my experience, 1e was defaulted for a mindset of any encounter to be difficult. So you get less pop of when a encounter is more difficult. However you get a bigger rush of power when an encounter is easy and you crush the foe.

4e was an anomaly as it was bult for every encounter to be hard. Bad tactics or getting nova would drop you low. However leveling doesn't give you a cushion vs an encounter in appropriate ranges.