D&D 5E Not upgrading? What version of D&D 5e are you sticking with?

[mamba]

Do people really think of pre and post Tasha's as a split in 5E? That seems way too fine a distinction to me.

works for me, I like a lot more of the pre-Tasha stuff than the post-Tasha ones, do not use Tasha’s either

 

[TwoSix]

I’m not using the 2024 books, but I’m not not using them, you know?

I just let people use whatever. The difference between pre-Tasha’s and after is eyelash thin to me.

 

[Remathilis]

Do people really think of pre and post Tasha's as a split in 5E? That seems way too fine a distinction to me.

I used it as the fine line because it's when you see a fundamental change in certain elements. Racial ASI (and the change from Volo to MotM races), things like sorcerers getting bonus spells and the stealth fixing of certain classes via Alt abilities, the 1st level bonus feat in all backgrounds after Strixhaven, etc. Even monster design moving away from spell slots. That's why I pegged it as 5.1, it's the first time there was a marked change in how supplements actually changed base game rules and design beyond just adding "the same, but more of it".

It's not a clean break though. For example, Van Richten and Wild Beyond the Witchlight both use the new race design but not the level 1 feat in their backgrounds. Xanathar gave rangers bonus spells before Tasha, etc. but if there was a point where I looked at the game and saw the changes that would inspire 5.2/2024, Tasha is the real start of it.

 

[TiQuinn]

My preference is pre-Tasha’s but there may be a few things I experiment with it. But generally, I didn’t like a lot of the new subclasses that came out of Tasha’s and felt we started hitting the downside of the edition once it came out, the inevitable power creep that’s endemic in every edition of the game. Usually that’s where I’m all for a new edition of the game. Something to come along and do clean up and revamping. I just haven’t felt the juice was worth the squeeze with the new edition this time around.

 

[Li Shenron]

Ok, you're not upgrading to D&D 2024. You also aren't interested in moving to a different 5e system. You're sticking with D&D 5e. But what version?

For this poll, there are two categories: I'm naming them 5.0 and 5.1. The dividing line is Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. I'll explain both groups below.

5.0: 2014 PHB, Xanathar's Volo's and Tome of Foes. Racial ASI. Class features per PHB. No bonus feats. Artificer class (from Eberron). Subraces.
5.1: Post Tasha's. Alternate class features. Customize your Origin. Backgrounds give bonus feat at level 1. Monster of the Multiverse style races.

Obviously, some games may use elements of 5.1 and not others (for example, using the alternate class features, but opting for 5.0 racial ASI). For this purpose, if you are use the bulk of the rules from 5.0 with only a few additions, use 5.0 but if you are mostly allowing the post-Tasha additions, use 5.1.

I'm curious how many holdouts are going all the way back to the beginning and how many are just not progressing to 2024 (5.2 for this purpose).

For the foreseeable future, I am sticking with 5.0, definitely without Tasha (for my tastes that book was the start of the undoing of 5e).

I use core books, Xanathar and Volo.

I didn't get Mordenkainen because it didn't pass my interest threshold, but maybe one day it will.

With adventures and settings books I am less picky about which revision/edition they belong to.

 

[ezo]

Do people really think of pre and post Tasha's as a split in 5E? That seems way too fine a distinction to me.

Yes. Tasha's was a huge power creep addition to the game compared to other publications IMO, if you ignore the CR garbage out there.

Here is the order of publications (I believe) and a summary of what I allow and don't.

PRE-TASHA'S:
Player's Handbook (2014)
Monster Manual (2014)
Dungeon Master's Guide (2014)
Volo's Guide to Monsters
Xanathar's Guide to Everything
Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes
Guildmasters' Guide to Ravnica*
Acquisitions Incorporated
Eberron: Rising from the Last War*
Explorer's Guide to Wildemount (NEVER!!!! OP crap IMO)
Mythic Odysseys of Theros

*some races allowed in the past, but not much, probably never again.

POST-TASHA'S:
Tasha's Cauldron of Everything
Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft
Fizban's Treasury of Dragons
Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos
Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse
Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants

Nothing from this list except currently I have a player with a Rune Knight, but it is WAY OP and I will never allow it again.

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

Note: I agree that there was a shift in the middle of the life of 5E in presentation and outreach; once they had recaptured all the grognards and lapsed genXers they could, they moved on to other demographics and you can see it in the art and "vibes", but I don't feel like there were any major mechanical changes in play.

What's different about the art?

 

[Meech17]

I don't really know. My game is kind of a hodgepodge. I started running it out of just the 2014 PHB, so all my players were classes/sub classes and races from there. As we've been playing over the last year or two however, I've expanded a bit. I've acquired other books like Tasha's and some of my player's re-rolled with new subclasses. But I'm also incorporating things from Level Up, and then I got the 2024 PHB for Christmas, so I'll read through it, and I may pick a choose some things to steal from it, but I'm not going to be starting a new game or anything because of it.

 

[Reynard]

What's different about the art?

More "cutesy" elements. I sue that term half-jokingly, but you can see the shift to more anthro, more bright colors and cartoonishness. And I am not saying it is universal or that all the art went that way. I am just saying you can see the shift. Flip through your collection in publication order and you will see it.

For the record: I am totally okay with WotC marketing (and art direction is a form of marketing) the game at younger folks that grew up on everything from Harry Potter to Stephen Universe and Adventure Land. They should. And I know that cutesy stuff existed beforehand. Fewer chainmail bikinis is a good thing, too. But like everyone else on Earth, I have preferences and they are generally anti-cutesy.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

There was one subclass in XGtE that stood out to me as a harbinger of change, as well as the book having presentation changes I didn't care for from previous works, but I think I really started seeing the changes of philosophy with MToF (so way before MMotM). It was a continuous slide into a new edition from there. I look at (un-revised) VGtM as the high point of 5.0e.

I'm trying to think if there is anything I like about the changes from original 2014 design, and I'm having a hard time. At one point they experimented with using Investigation for finding traps more, and I was totally on board with that, but then they turned around and made it all Perception.

I liked the idea of letting dragons use certain features as bonus actions, or as a replacement for an attack that I saw in Fizban's, but I don't like any of the other monster design changes in that book, nor the book design.

Off the top of my head those are about it. Pretty much everything else has been changing the underlying structure and presentation of the game, from what I see as the pinnacle of D&D rules design and the runner-up of multiverse design (behind 2e).

Basically, I thought they did such a fantastic job with original 5e, that the bar for improvement was extremely high, and almost everything they have done to change it has been a failure and a downgrade. 5e wasn't perfect, and I've had house rules from the beginning, but it was the best version of D&D by such a large margin that messing with it has almost always been a bad thing.

I can only hope that in 18 years or so there will be a rediscovery of 5.0e as a "forgotten edition" and an enthusiastic OSR kind of interest in what it did and it differed from the 2024 5.5e that people will be more familiar with.

"The Forgotten Genius of original 5e D&D"

"What we could learn from the 5e D&D play test"

"I just discovered the original 2014 5e and I think I'm love"

Stuff like that. I'll guess I'll wait and see if that happens or not. Usually my predictions turn out to be right, but on this I don't have a confident prediction, so I'll have to see.