D&D 5E So 5E is the Successor to AD&D 2nd Edition? How and How Not?

[GobHag]

It needs more 4eisms.

 

[Zardnaar]

Sure, I'd agree that it lends itself a bit more to grid-based play. I wouldn't say it was on par with 3.x though, which was certainly no less grid-dependent than 4e.


In what way? I can't think of any "4eisms" that would particularly resemble them. Especially since they're confined to martial-leaning classes.

Weapon traits in 4E. Brutal and the rest. I cant remember what they were called.

Proto traits turned up in 2E iirc.

OP
Advantage also got used in 2E. Wasn't keyworded though.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Weapon traits in 4E. Brutal and the rest. I cant remember what they were called.

Proto traits turned up in 2E iirc.

OP
Advantage also got used in 2E. Wasn't keyworded though.

I mean...I guess if you squint really hard? But it's not like 5e did not have weapon properties already, and 3e functionally had them as well, and as you say 2e had the same sort of idea via weapon proficiencies. So I'm not really sure how that's any more a "4eism" than advantage, which goes back a long way, just not as a named and hard-coded structure. (Well, for everyone. It was a hard-coded thing for one class, specifically, it was one of the damage-boosting features of the Avenger in 4e.)

The big differences, at least for me, are that:
1. Weapon masteries are something learned by the character, rather than a property of a weapon.
2. Most, albeit not all, weapon masteries are not passive effects. Graze, Sap, and Vex are the only ones that are meaningfully passive. All of the others specifically involve giving the player a choice to do a thing or not do a thing. 4e properties are entirely passive. Anything active required feat or power investment.
3. Sort of branching off from 1, only select classes get access to weapon masteries, and most classes cannot use them. A 4e character always benefits from any properties of weapons they use. Heck, it even works for weapons you aren't proficient with!

 

[Zardnaar]

I mean...I guess if you squint really hard? But it's not like 5e did not have weapon properties already, and 3e functionally had them as well, and as you say 2e had the same sort of idea via weapon proficiencies. So I'm not really sure how that's any more a "4eism" than advantage, which goes back a long way, just not as a named and hard-coded structure. (Well, for everyone. It was a hard-coded thing for one class, specifically, it was one of the damage-boosting features of the Avenger in 4e.)

3E didn't have named ones as such. You had the crit range I suppose.

I'm talking about extra effects eg brutal or nick, vex etc. They didn't keyword them but 2E had Fighters Handbook and Combat and Tactics bit more advanced.

1E had Weapon type vs armor. Cant remember if it was optional and it was damage type vs specific Weapon abilities.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

3E didn't have named ones as such. You had the crit range I suppose.

I'm talking about extra effects eg brutal or nick, vex etc. They didn't keyword them but 2E had Fighters Handbook and Combat and Tactics bit more advanced.

1E had Weapon type vs armor. Cant remember if it was optional and it was damage type vs specific Weapon abilities.

I edited in the following to the post you replied to after you sent this, so I'll add it here.

The big differences, at least for me, are that:
1. Weapon masteries are something learned by the character, rather than a property of a weapon.
2. Most, albeit not all, weapon masteries are not passive effects. Graze, Sap, and Vex are the only ones that are meaningfully passive. All of the others specifically involve giving the player a choice to do a thing or not do a thing. 4e properties are entirely passive. Anything active required feat or power investment.
3. Sort of branching off from 1, only select classes get access to weapon masteries, and most classes cannot use them. A 4e character always benefits from any properties of weapons they use. Heck, it even works for weapons you aren't proficient with!

 

[Zardnaar]

I edited in the following to the post you replied to after you sent this, so I'll add it here.

The big differences, at least for me, are that:
1. Weapon masteries are something learned by the character, rather than a property of a weapon.
2. Most, albeit not all, weapon masteries are not passive effects. Graze, Sap, and Vex are the only ones that are meaningfully passive. All of the others specifically involve giving the player a choice to do a thing or not do a thing. 4e properties are entirely passive. Anything active required feat or power investment.
3. Sort of branching off from 1, only select classes get access to weapon masteries, and most classes cannot use them. A 4e character always benefits from any properties of weapons they use. Heck, it even works for weapons you aren't proficient with!

I was meaning more conceptually vs exact effect. 4E and 5E di it better imho. Multiple weapons have brutal or prone or whatever.

The very early attempts in 2E individual weapons had traits per weapon.

Conceptually it was different weapons having different effects beyond damage.

I'm seeing newbies struggle a bit with nick+vex.

 

[Aldarc]

When Chris Perkins says that 5e is a love letter to D&D, it feels like that is coming from an incredibly nostalgic Gen X perspective of D&D and its glory days. I think that is one reason why you get heavier shades of 2e D&D than other editions, particularly 4e D&D, which was too recent and controversial to be part of a Gen X "love letter" to D&D.

 

[GothmogIV]

AD&D 2nd edition is at my nostalgic core for TTRPGs. It was my first edition. It was the one game that I felt got "yanked out" from me when my players demanded we upgrade to a very different 3rd edition. It was the home of my longest and most "meaningful" campaign (in case you're wondering, it served as the catharsis as my players and I navigated entering adulthood and the death of a friend) - in short, it was our "Stand By Me" experience. I am still best friends with the players from that group 25+ years later ... even though we have moved hours apart.

So when I say I loved 2nd Edition AD&D and the nostalgia of it, I really mean that.

In Chris Perkin's recent interview with Stan!, he claimed that 5e was the descendent of 2nd edition. As I bemoan on online forums that there isn't a good modernized update of 2nd edition (as Old School Essentials does for B/X), people say "you've got 5e - that's the 2nd edition retroclone." However, 5e has been a struggle for me and it feels very different from 2e.

Here's a list of differences between 5e and 2e that I think keep 5e from delivering on 2e feel...
Overnight full heal.
Easy access to healing magic (ESPECIALLY Healing Word).
No stat requirements to qualify for "rare" classes (Bard, Druid, Paladin, etc.).
Bonus actions.
HP bloat.
Bounded accuracy.
Monster damage resistances and spell resistances being inconsequential.
Monster special attacks not being threatening (Mummy Rot, Lycanthropy, etc.)
No specialty priests or specialist wizards.

Some differences, such as positive AC I think are good changes and don't really detract from the feel anyway.

What do you think? Do you think 5e feels like 2nd edition? Do you see any other differences? What are the similarities?

Not only is 5e an entirely different gaming engine, the vibe of the thing--the zeitgeist-- is completely different as well. That's not a judgment about which edition is 'better': better is in the eye of the beholder (no pun intended). But if you are coming from a 2e background, 5e is a very, very different beast. Someone on Reddit put it this way: what was once narrative is now mechanical.

I came into 5e with a 2e mindset after not running D&D for a long time (I played 3e, but never DM'd it). I was in for a very rude awakening, to say the least. Totally different games.

For example: cutsey bubble-gum stuff like this:

 

[Reynard]

Yeah...because who wants to play anyone that ever does anything interesting or cool or impactful? Let's all just play dirt-farmers who farm dirt for 60 years and then die of dysentery or a random marauding bandit clan. That'll definitely get new blood pumped to play D&D!

You misunderstand. If the wants to be important and impactful, they need to do things that are important and impactful in the world of the game.

For serious, what is this phobia with having PCs that have some kind of importance? There are very good reasons things like Critical Role became as popular as they did, and one of them very much is that the PCs in it are, in fact, important to some degree. No-name do-nothing characters don't have major appeal.

Critical Role is entertainment meant to be watched. The GM and players explicitly make choices that make it fun to watch.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

You misunderstand. If the wants to be important and impactful, they need to do things that are important and impactful in the world of the game.

And doing so never...y'know...makes them important???

You literally said "ew" to the entire idea of PCs being important.

Critical Role is entertainment meant to be watched. The GM and players explicitly make choices that make it fun to watch.

Yes...and it's also the thing that got a CRAPTON of people interested in 5e. People liked what they saw. People wanted to have experiences like that themselves. Telling them to go play literal absolute nobodies with no special skills, training, origin, or anything else? Not going to enthuse them very much.