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

[Lanefan]

I read all the class descriptions.

Explain how a fighter gets proficincy with every weapon and armor in the game but others don't?
How does a wizard learn wizardry and multiple spell slots.
Where does a rogue's expertises come from?

D&D used to have class based age modifiers in 3e to explain the time that training for a class takes.

1e has that as well, ranging from 0 years for a Fighter to 12 years for an Illusionist. This represents time you spent studying/training/practicing what's needed for your class before you reached 1st level.

A couple of modules, and the 1e Cavalier, bypass this time requirement: there's modules that in effect take you-as-commoners through the equivalent of 0th level and you pick your class at the end based on what you did during the adventure, and the Cavalier has 0th level baked right in to its design.

 

[tetrasodium]

The inhabitants of the setting don't walk around with "PC" or "NPC" stickers on their foreheads.

If a PC inhabitant of the setting can do it, then - all other things being equal - an NPC inhabitant of the setting can also do it; and vice versa. If the PCs are all alien to the setting then this doesn't apply; but you've then imposed a hard limit on the size of the pool of potential replacement/additional PCs if any are needed during the campaign, that being the number of such aliens in the setting.

Any other approach blows away internal consistency for the setting, making the whole thing pointless.

It's worth noting that it's easier to vanquish a troll revenant mummy or other regenerating monster than a pc. I've run superhero ttrpg systems with regeneration & damage nullification superpowers that pale in comparison to death saves+healing word & short/long tests. In fact recovery is often a serious issue in them.

 

[Remathilis]

Did we have the same Pathfinder Society GM? I was literally told I couldn't do this in a Pathfinder Society game, for that reason. That was also when I realized I was probably done with Pathfinder...

That was also totally wrong. You most definitely can use the Dirty Trick maneuver to impose the blinded condition if you lack the Improved Dirty Trick feat. You just offer up an attack of opportunity to do so (which may also make the maneuver check a lot harder).

In fairness, it's been a long time since I played PF1, and I don't remember how the feat actually worked. (I remembered that bloody gnome feat though, because if there was ever a case for "role-play it out" vs. "do you have the right feat", its that). That said, you could probably find a bunch of good examples of abilities locked behind feats (or 4e, behind powers). On the one hand, such abilities open up actions and abilities that normally would be completely up to DM fiat, but on the other hand, the existence of such feats (and often the wording of them) made them the gate behind which cool things get locked behind.

 

[Fifinjir]

Accidental downs and TPKs were a big thing loered in 4e and 5e. The monsters kill you, not the die.

And IMO, this is the ideal.
No one in my group’s campaigns have died yet (our one shots are another matter, sometimes dying in the funniest way possible is the implicit goal) but we’ve had enough close calls to show that 5e gives plenty of tools to put the pressure on the PCs.

For a lore-thing that’s changed, I noticed that more creatures reproduce asexually in 5e. Beholders dream each other into existence, several fey are born from emotions, gnolls are transformed hyenas, and in Fizban’s dragons eggs and half-dragons can show up multiple ways. It seems like with player classes and race’s becoming more fantastical, the magical creatures needed to become more otherworldly to stay distinct.

 

[LordEntrails]

I read all the class descriptions.

Reading and comprehending nuance are different things.

Explain how a fighter gets proficincy with every weapon and armor in the game but others don't?
How does a wizard learn wizardry and multiple spell slots.
Where does a rogue's expertises come from?

Sure, a fighter gets proficiency with every weapon and armor in the game because he's a special person and his mother was a special person and as a child taught him everything he needed to learn the basics of every weapon. He has a natural talent with weapons that Bob the militia man does not.

The wizard learned all those spells because she was bit by a magic spider that gave her dreams and understanding.

The rogue has expertise because her father was 1/4 kinder!

Do you get it yet? The 5E rules don't say how a starting character got it's abilities. Maybe training, maybe a blessing by a god, maybe from years of experience, maybe anything. It's up to each player to decide how/why their character is special/knows what it knows.

D&D used to have class based age modifiers in 3e to explain the time that training for a class takes. 5e has a few limited methods of gaining profiecincies as training and it takes time.

You said it yourself, "used to". 5E doesn't have any of that, therefore it's not applicable to 5E RAW. 5E doesn't say anywhere that gaining proficiencies at level 1 takes any time at all. You keep melding things from past editions into the 5th edition. That's fine at your table, but that is not RAW or RAI.

There is a training time, either alone or via an instructor.

Wrong. In 5E for level 1 abilities there is no such thing. Prove me wrong with a quote from an official 5E source, not what the 3E or 2E, or some 3PP product says. You won't find it in 5E.

But if commoners, bandits, goblins, and kobolds could pick up a longsword and instantly be a fighter, D&D 5e would not the the easy mode people claim it is.

PCs are special. They are the rare, the unusual. It's why NPCs are not built (RAW) with PC classes. It's why sidekicks don't have abilities comparable to PCs at the same level.

 

[Lanefan]

Reading and comprehending nuance are different things.

Sure, a fighter gets proficiency with every weapon and armor in the game because he's a special person and his mother was a special person and as a child taught him everything he needed to learn the basics of every weapon. He has a natural talent with weapons that Bob the militia man does not.

The wizard learned all those spells because she was bit by a magic spider that gave her dreams and understanding.

The rogue has expertise because her father was 1/4 kinder!

Do you get it yet? The 5E rules don't say how a starting character got it's abilities. Maybe training, maybe a blessing by a god, maybe from years of experience, maybe anything. It's up to each player to decide how/why their character is special/knows what it knows.

What the 5e rules also don't provide is any way for a starting character to adventure its way up to 1st level. There's no rules as to how to play an adventuring commoner; and there's a fair bit of space in there for a 0th level between commoner and 1st level, sadly ignored by the designers.

You said it yourself, "used to". 5E doesn't have any of that, therefore it's not applicable to 5E RAW. 5E doesn't say anywhere that gaining proficiencies at level 1 takes any time at all. You keep melding things from past editions into the 5th edition. That's fine at your table, but that is not RAW or RAI.

We've no idea what RAI is here, or even whether the designers gave this any thought at all.

PCs are special. They are the rare, the unusual. It's why NPCs are not built (RAW) with PC classes. It's why sidekicks don't have abilities comparable to PCs at the same level.

Fortunately this can be kitbashed into shape with relative ease such that sidekicks and other NPCs use the same chassis as PCs, otherwise it'd be a very good reason for anyone interested in setting consistency to turn away from 5e entirely.

 

[Minigiant]

You said it yourself, "used to". 5E doesn't have any of that, therefore it's not applicable to 5E RAW. 5E doesn't say anywhere that gaining proficiencies at level 1 takes any time at all. You keep melding things from past editions into the 5th edition. That's fine at your table, but that is not RAW or RAI.

Xanatar's Guide.

It suggests much of the background information of how most the PCs with character classes get their features and the events before hitting level 1 as intended expected by the designers.

• Bards have defining works
• Clerics have temples.
• Druids have mentors.
• Fighters have instructors
• Monks have monastery
• Monks have masters
• Rogues have benefactors

Now you 100% can thinkof and create backstories that don't have these, however it is against the norm. And many of those ideas are intended to come with implied secondy aspects to mesh with the other backgrounds.

So yes you can be a random villager who picks up a longsword and uses it right. But it's supposed to be weird. You see numbers and math when you fire an arrow. You are the reincarnation of Richard Swan, the greatest swordsman of the Classical Age. Your dad has been secretly melding weapon techniques in your farmwork actions and chores. Because you have the skill of a squire who has been training for years under a knight.

 

[teitan]

It has definitely changed a lot. 0e and 1e, even core 2e, were very gritty games. They were deadly and adventuring was a serious undertaking with consequences. 2e kind of shifted away for a little while with fantastic settings like Planescape that that really played into the storytelling trends of RPGs at the time.

I think the real noticeable change was in late 3.5 era where it seemed like the game started moving towards more fantastical ideas for races and classes. 3e and early 3.5 still carried some of that grit, especially with the "Back to the Dungeon!" push of early 3e and the adventures. It seemed like they didn't miss a clip. We had playable monsters before for sure and fantastic races but they were rarer as PCs. Earlier editions were very humano-centric and all that entails. 3.5 and into 4e and 5e it seems we moved from humanocentric and skipped over the standard demihumans (elves, dwarves, halflings) and into the more eccentric races as a norm more and more. Early on it was mostly tieflings but elves and the like were still fairly common but as Volo and Mordy opened up new race options and the campaign settings started coming out a once recognizable D&D game to something more fantastical and colorful and out there. I like both styles. Both have their place and both are fun but boy is it jarring.

 

[teitan]

Reading and comprehending nuance are different things.

Sure, a fighter gets proficiency with every weapon and armor in the game because he's a special person and his mother was a special person and as a child taught him everything he needed to learn the basics of every weapon. He has a natural talent with weapons that Bob the militia man does not.

The wizard learned all those spells because she was bit by a magic spider that gave her dreams and understanding.

The rogue has expertise because her father was 1/4 kinder!

Do you get it yet? The 5E rules don't say how a starting character got it's abilities. Maybe training, maybe a blessing by a god, maybe from years of experience, maybe anything. It's up to each player to decide how/why their character is special/knows what it knows.

I don't think any edition said how they got their training... why is this a thing? Why is it a mark against 5e when literally no core book ever gave rules for that? In fact the 5e rules give a stronger sense of background and motivation that previous iterations of the game with the background template, which offer suggestions, and the Ideals, Bonds and Flaws. Why does there need to be a mechanic for this? Do I need a mechanic to make up my training and other details? I don't think so.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I think for some people, the death funnel is the training. They want to play out the training, so the characters have to start out sad.