D&D 5E (2024) Rate D&D 2024

[payn]

There is an old addage: neither growth nor D&D Editions last forever.

5E gonna...

 

[Pamphylian]

Not sure about a score, but relative to 5e 2014, which I generally enjoy and think has a good core despite its flaws, I think almost every change I can think of from 2014 to 2024 is for the worse. The changes are mostly small and subtle, but cumulatively are definitely not to my taste. I'm not sure if this it was intentional aping the competition or just the current design zeitgeist of heroic fantasy games, but the overall flavor of the changes seems to be a Pathfinder 2e-ifying. At the margin the changes are in the direction of:

• Chunkier character abilities
• Less emphasis on resource management (e.g., more plentiful healing lessening HP attrition considerations)
• More abstract gaminess as opposed to impactful in-world flavor/open-endedness (this post on the new Command spell captures this well - case in point, this is how it works in Pf2e as well). Where possible, things are reduced to numerical effects, hp damage, AOE, or Conditions. The sword of sharpness no longer can lop off a limb! (admittedly it was a very small chance to begin with, much diminished from AD&D, but nonetheless, a level of exhaustion in exchange is far more boring and less flavorful.)
• Less possibility for the wild and unpredictable (good or bad) - Wild Magic Surge table no longer fireballs oneself!

This is all philosophically aligned with Pf2e, a philosophy not to my taste - but it's a less coherent one than that game because there are perhaps even more "unbalanced"/broken class options (e.g. Pact of Chain warlock) in 2024 vs 2014, so the changes aren't really in service of a clockwork-like game with perfect math, just one with marginally less flavor across the board. 5e 2014 seemed to occupy a niche with a surprisingly limited amount of competition, one that they could have fleshed out and perfected, a middle ground compromise among fantasy games in character build complexity and open-ended playstyle. But 5e 2024 pushes it towards one direction in a way I'm not a big fan of.

This assessment is not at all based on the 2024 DMG, which I don't have. My vague impression is that the DMG further reduces the emphasis on random tables (unfortunate), but I don't know how true this is so I will withhold this from my rating.

Edit: also, not a huge fan of the art, and it seems mostly worse than 5e 2014, but admittedly my metrics for this (closer to looking like a 70s/80s fantasy/scifi book cover the better) are pretty far from either!

Edit 2: things I do like - maybe higher monster damage overall? And Stunned being more differentiated from Paralyzed, but full movement seems too generous - I think making the effects of the Slow spell into a condition would have been my solution.

 

[payn]

Not sure about a score, but relative to 5e 2014, which I generally enjoy and think has a good core despite its flaws, I think almost every change I can think of from 2014 to 2024 is for the worse. The changes are mostly small and subtle, but cumulatively are definitely not to my taste. I'm not sure if this it was intentional aping the competition or just the current design zeitgeist of heroic fantasy games, but the overall flavor of the changes seems to be a Pathfinder 2e-ifying. At the margin the changes are in the direction of:

• Chunkier character abilities
• Less emphasis on resource management (e.g., more plentiful healing lessening HP attrition considerations)
• More abstract gaminess as opposed to impactful in-world flavor/open-endedness (this post on the new Command spell captures this well - case in point, this is how it works in Pf2e as well). Where possible, things are reduced to numerical effects, hp damage, AOE, or Conditions. The sword of sharpness no longer can lop off a limb! (admittedly it was a very small chance to begin with, much diminished from AD&D, but nonetheless, a level of exhaustion in exchange is far more boring and less flavorful.)
• Less possibility for the wild and unpredictable (good or bad) - Wild Magic Surge table no longer fireballs oneself!

This is all philosophically aligned with Pf2e, a philosophy not to my taste - but it's a less coherent one than that game because there are perhaps even more "unbalanced"/broken class options (e.g. Pact of Chain warlock) in 2024 vs 2014, so the changes aren't really in service of a clockwork-like game with perfect math, just one with marginally less flavor across the board. 5e 2014 seemed to occupy a niche with a surprisingly limited amount of competition, one that they could have fleshed out and perfected, a middle ground compromise among fantasy games in character build complexity, and open-ended playstyle. But 5e 2024 pushes it towards one direction in a way I'm not a big fan of.

This assessment is not at all based on the 2024 DMG, which I don't have. My vague impression is that the DMG further reduces the emphasis on random tables (unfortunate), but I don't know how true this is so I will withhold this from my rating.

Edit: also, not a huge fan of the art, and it seems mostly worse than 5e 2014, but admittedly by metrics for this (closer to looking like a 70s/80s fantasy/scifi book cover the better) are pretty far from either!

I still see PF2 and 5e as miles apart, but hearing you frame things like this does make some sense. I get a better sense of why you are not thrilled about 5.24 then a lot of folks who are not high on it.

 

[Reynard]

Not sure about a score, but relative to 5e 2014, which I generally enjoy and think has a good core despite its flaws, I think almost every change I can think of from 2014 to 2024 is for the worse. The changes are mostly small and subtle, but cumulatively are definitely not to my taste. I'm not sure if this it was intentional aping the competition or just the current design zeitgeist of heroic fantasy games, but the overall flavor of the changes seems to be a Pathfinder 2e-ifying. At the margin the changes are in the direction of:

• Chunkier character abilities
• Less emphasis on resource management (e.g., more plentiful healing lessening HP attrition considerations)
• More abstract gaminess as opposed to impactful in-world flavor/open-endedness (this post on the new Command spell captures this well - case in point, this is how it works in Pf2e as well). Where possible, things are reduced to numerical effects, hp damage, AOE, or Conditions. The sword of sharpness no longer can lop off a limb! (admittedly it was a very small chance to begin with, much diminished from AD&D, but nonetheless, a level of exhaustion in exchange is far more boring and less flavorful.)
• Less possibility for the wild and unpredictable (good or bad) - Wild Magic Surge table no longer fireballs oneself!

This is all philosophically aligned with Pf2e, a philosophy not to my taste - but it's a less coherent one than that game because there are perhaps even more "unbalanced"/broken class options (e.g. Pact of Chain warlock) in 2024 vs 2014, so the changes aren't really in service of a clockwork-like game with perfect math, just one with marginally less flavor across the board. 5e 2014 seemed to occupy a niche with a surprisingly limited amount of competition, one that they could have fleshed out and perfected, a middle ground compromise among fantasy games in character build complexity, and open-ended playstyle. But 5e 2024 pushes it towards one direction in a way I'm not a big fan of.

This assessment is not at all based on the 2024 DMG, which I don't have. My vague impression is that the DMG further reduces the emphasis on random tables (unfortunate), but I don't know how true this is so I will withhold this from my rating.

Edit: also, not a huge fan of the art, and it seems mostly worse than 5e 2014, but admittedly by metrics for this (closer to looking like a 70s/80s fantasy/scifi book cover the better) are pretty far from either!

Edit 2: things I do like - maybe higher monster damage overall? And Stunned being more differentiated from Paralyzed, but full movement seems to generous - I think making the effects of the Slow spell into a condition would have been my solution.

I still see PF2 and 5e as miles apart, but hearing you frame things like this does make some sense. I get a better sense of why you are not thrilled about 5.24 then a lot of folks who are not high on it.

The waffling between natural language and precise tags makes the 2024 rules harder to use in some instances, as well.

 

[mamba]

Yes. I’m saying the number of reviews is ‘wrong’ aka not complete. We know this based on the numbers of reviews on dmg and mm. My guess is there is a time horizon where reviews older than X aren’t being shown.

they show 54k reviews for the 2014 PHB, and I doubt that is outselling the 2024 one (and the other 2024 core books)

 

[Pamphylian]

I still see PF2 and 5e as miles apart, but hearing you frame things like this does make some sense. I get a better sense of why you are not thrilled about 5.24 then a lot of folks who are not high on it.

Yes, I do see Pf2e and 5e as pretty different, and I'd definitely play/run 5e 2024 over Pf2e because it's easier to tweak it in the direction of the game I want (doing that now), but the shift felt notable returning to 5e in its 2024 version from Pf2e and recognizing a lot of my issues with Pf2e in nascent form in the 2024 changes.