D&D 5E (2024) New Campaign: Should I make the switch to 5.5?

[Belen]

I voted No simply because I do not think 5.5 is an upgrade. At best, it is annoying in its small changes. At worst, it actively messed some things up. Sure, the MM is marginally better than the 2014 MM, but even then you have a TON of better MM to choose from.

This is well stated.

 

[Belen]

We even transitioned our ongoing campaign to it. It was not too big of a change, and if you have martial character it just feels a bit less unfair for them to playing together with casters. (Only exception rogue with support is now feeling worse).


biggest thing you should do, even if not switching, is take its advice to start on level 3 (and not level 1), level 1 and 2 always were intended as just tutorial levels and for players mostly just feel bad.

I find this interesting since the martials tend to dominate my 5.0 games.

 

[Steady Vane]

5.24 slows down combat and complicates with lots of little conditions to track. Character sheets get much more busy, and I have two players who like to keep it simple. Neither could remember masteries, we kept doing the "wait this thing should have happened last turn" rigamorale. Someone suggested status rings. I suggested I did not want to go back to 4e and we reverted back to base 5e options. Combat got faster and everyone was happy.

5.5 was not an upgrade, especially compared to some homebrew classes and subclasses we then looked at. If you want new options, I would suggest Ryoko's Guide or other similar caliber offerings. If you get Ryoko's you can play a fire-bender from Avatar! If you play 5.5, you can play, I don't know they somehow made Ranger and it's subclasses feel worse.

I wanted to like 5.5 but ended up not. Stick with actual 5e imo

 

[el-remmen]

Switch to 5.5E, combine the parts of 5.0 you like with it. Sprinkle in some ToV, and use the buffed versions of the 5.5E spells that needed it.

This. Except replace ToV with Level Up A5E or whatever other flavor of 5e or all of the above mixed and matched.

 

[humble minion]

I'm mostly a 5.0 guy myself, but honestly, have this conversation with your players. Ask them what the ruleset pain points were in the previous campaign, then see if those coincide with the fixes that 5.5 applied.

I've stolen some of 5.5's stuff to use as houserules in my game, and that might be an option if you don't want to adopt the ruleset wholesale. I give some monsters special rules that apply on getting below 50% health in an analogy to the Bloodied condition, I've allowed the use of things like the 5.5 True Strike to fix useless 5.0 character options, and I raid the 5.5 Monster Manual for enemies from time to time. There's some good stuff there, but I find the PC power level and the frustrating intrusiveness of the Weapon Mastery rules just too big a hurdle to make the switch.

 

[AlViking]

5.5 is a series of marginal or obvious improvements alongside numerous arbitrary changes for change's sake with no clear guiding design principles. If you want to introduce elements of it that makes sense to me, but I think a group that already knows the rules for and owns the materials for 2014 5e won't get much from switching completely to 2024 5e other than a headache and added expenses.

But I am bitter because I crammed the 2024 PHB over the course of two or three nights after my group of newer players I was DMing for voted for those rules. It's like 90%+ the same, but that just means the differences (usually buried under the same spell, ability name, etc.) are hard to spot. I think I chucked the book at the wall when I was skimming through the Spells and found that Sleep was a completely different spell in almost every way but still had the exact same name. The commitment to preserving the same names to hide the changes extends to the names of Hunter Ranger abilities being the same even where the actual abilities no longer correspond to those names. For my brain this sort of crap makes it harder to get real system mastery of the 'not an editio"n edition than just learning a new system, but clearly other people's mileage varies.

The group I learned it for has basically ended up playing a loose mix of 2014 and 2024 rules, partly because when you google a rule, statblock, etc. for "5e" or "D&D" you still get hits for 2014 rules first, and actually I'm probably the only one who cares about the rules edition for anything outside of character options anyway, and I can't keep them straight.

But learning 2024 rules did do a great job of muddling my 2014 rules knowledge. So if you're worried you aren't confused enough I highly recommend it.

Let's take Sleep as an example of what they changed. Old version: 20 foot sphere that put 5d8 HP worth of monsters to sleep - lowest HP first. Undead and creatures immune to being charmed are unaffected. New version: 5 foot sphere, Wis save or fall asleep and the caster chooses who's affected. Creatures that don't sleep or have immunity to exhaustion are unaffected. In either version of the spell it lasts for 1 minute and someone can use an action to awaken the sleeper; the 5.5 version makes it concentration.

They have the same effect (attempting to put 1 or more creature to sleep) so ... it's still a sleep spell. But to me? The new version is superior, more effective, easier to run. The old version could effectively wipe out a small horde of low level creatures if you rolled well. Meanwhile it was potentially dangerous to your own party - how many HP does that barbarian have and is there any reason for the caster to know? It was a PITA to run often taking a couple of minutes to figure out who was affected. The new one is effective, quick, easy and is useful at all levels of play.

I think it's an improvement to an annoying spell that was rarely if ever used and had just been copied from previous editions. I think it was great that they broke with the "traditional" version of the spell because it wasn't a very good implementation. I don't agree with everything they changed but the majority of changes make the game cleaner and easier to run while still maintaining the feel of the game. If that doesn't work, your 2014 books will not self destruct.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It is just some small but impactful improvements that make the game run smoother, make each class have fewer amd less intense pain points, make most species more interesting (though some it does the opposite sadly), and adds some clarity by putting stuff from the dmg like "how to influence some guy" into the phb as "here is the influence action".

Influence, study, and search, are all well done.

 

[Shiroiken]

I would suggest planning a one shot adventure using the basic rules first. If your group enjoys the changes, then go for it. I feel that mechanically it's a significant upgrade, even if I'm less than thrilled by various lore changes.

 

[Tigris]

I find this interesting since the martials tend to dominate my 5.0 games.

This is against what most people experience, but sure its possible as a GM to make adventure days really long, but thats for players normally also not fun.


Especially outside combat I am really glad I play a 5.5 fighter and not a 5e one. Having at least some chance to matter with skill checks.

 

[Belen]

This is against what most people experience, but sure its possible as a GM to make adventure days really long, but thats for players normally also not fun.


Especially outside combat I am really glad I play a 5.5 fighter and not a 5e one. Having at least some chance to matter with skill checks.

Nope. The martials outclass the pure casters when fully rested. They just out damage them.

I tend to have fewer encounters but difficult in my sessions.

My 5.5 cleric; however, destroys martials.