D&D (2024) Its The Same Game Right? 5.0 Options in 5.5

Love your blog. But I don't think it's fair to say that 2024 and 2014 are not backwards compatible because of a single encounter in a 3rd party adventure which modifies a creature from the Monster Manual. I'm still open to the possibility that there are bigger issues with compatibility, but this is not a smoking gun.
It's one of many interactions that doesn't work like you expect it to.

Get a duergar encounter that talks about them changing size... and that doesn't work with their stats in 2024.

You can use 2014 and 2024 together - absolutely - but it's not like a computer system where a backwards compatibility means these things don't arise. You put a 2014 product into a 2024 game and things will break.
 

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I wouldn't say many. Probably less than the number of things errata'd.

And you can add Shepard druids to that list.
It's the unexpected things that get me. The snake thing really surprised me - wasn't something I was expecting.

The monsters changed a LOT, and that will cause a few things you don't expect. (Even the appearance of the marilith changing can have effects when an adventure describes her one way and then the MM describes her another!)

In the larger scheme of things - we can deal with it. Anyone on EN World shouldn't have a problem. But there are caveats to the compatibility of 2014 and 2024!
 

I been running Adventure league which allows almost any 2014 build which has not be overwritten. I like Merric view of the math works. But if you just started with 24 any official Wotc adventure will have some hiccups. Not much if you are an experienced dm, but a total new dm will have to go to net and look for any major problems.

As Johnny said you may need an adaptor keep
 


"Compatible" does not mean "balanced". Those words have never meant the same thing.

Elven Accuracy is an example of something that has always been busted. No surprises that it's busted in 2024. It's a bad design. They should not have made it that way in the first place. The fact that it's had such a persistent position for charop since the day it was printed is a symptom of the problem.

Booming Blade and Green Flame Blade should be brought into line with the design of True Strike 2024, Thorn Whip, or Primal Savagery. That is, they should be melee spell attacks.
 


"Compatible" does not mean "balanced". Those words have never meant the same thing.

Elven Accuracy is an example of something that has always been busted. No surprises that it's busted in 2024. It's a bad design. They should not have made it that way in the first place. The fact that it's had such a persistent position for charop since the day it was printed is a symptom of the problem.

Booming Blade and Green Flame Blade should be brought into line with the design of True Strike 2024, Thorn Whip, or Primal Savagery. That is, they should be melee spell attacks.
I was explicitly assured, by several people, in a thread perhaps a year ago at most, that "compatible" literally did mean just making extremely small tweaks (of the tune "you get feature A at level 3, not level 2" or similar--bookkeeping tweaks, nothing more) in order to directly use all options from 5.0 in 5.5. Moreover, that it would make no difference whatsoever that some people used options from 5.0, and others used options from 5.5, and a few might even use a mixture of options from either one, without issue.

Is it your position that this is not the case, nor has it ever been the case? That, in fact, "compatible" actually means, and has always meant, "you must review each not-yet-translated option with a fine-toothed comb", because there could easily be significant problems due to failing to take into account rules differences?

Because it would be exceedingly useful to me if I could cite this as being not only the current understanding, but that it was always the understanding that "compatibility" between 5.0 and 5.5e merely meant that you wouldn't have to ground-up rebuilding, but would still need to carefully review for the possibility of game-harming consequences. That would, in fact, be something I would eagerly accept and run with--should you really mean what it seems you are saying here.
 

I was explicitly assured, by several people, in a thread perhaps a year ago at most, that "compatible" literally did mean just making extremely small tweaks (of the tune "you get feature A at level 3, not level 2" or similar--bookkeeping tweaks, nothing more) in order to directly use all options from 5.0 in 5.5.
Using options together does not mean they are also balanced to each other. Those are not synonyms.
 

Using options together does not mean they are also balanced to each other. Those are not synonyms.
Whether that is true or not, and indeed whether I agree with it or not, isn't really my interest here.

My interest is the specific claim that that is not only what we should currently understand "compatible" to mean, but that this was always what "compatible" meant. More or less, that no one does or would have reasonably argued otherwise.

That is the thing that is both interesting and useful to me. I should be extremely pleased to have even one person on this forum who holds to that position.
 

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