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

[Charlaquin]

Way of doing things from the dm side, as in, exploration mechanics, big battles, movs and raids, etc. Subclasses don't impact that at all IME.

Right, so they don’t affect your way of doing things as DM…

I love optional systems, but imo they close off rulings over rules, not enable it. If you are a more experimental DM it doesn't matter, but if you play by the book, and the book tells you how to do something, that is how you now do that thing, no?

I mean, if the book gives you one way of doing things, you either do it as the book says, or you build your own rules from the ground up, players are more likely to balk if you opt for the latter. If the book gives you three or four ways of doing the same thing, there are many ways of doing it, including taking bits you like of each variant and blending them together in a new way. Players are going to come already expecting a discussion about “how are we going to do this thing?” and will then be more receptive to more experimental approaches.

 

[jayoungr]

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

When I first introduced 5E to a group of friends who played the heck out of 2E back in the day, their immediate comment was "It feels like 2nd edition with cleaned up math." They didn't elaborate, but apparently it did immediately make them think of 2E. The most recent edition they had played before that was 3.5.

 

[ezo]

3. People hate the ranger (though that might be universal to all editions)

FWIW I loved the ranger in 1E and 2E...

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I would actually agree with the premise that the edition 5E is most like is 2E. It's one I've advanced myself.

As @Reynard correctly says, they have very similar tones/genres (High Fantasy Adventure, which isn't quite what 3E and 4E were about), and they both present fairly simple and straightforward "cleaned up" rules-sets.

Further, for my money, 5E's rules feel like what 3E could have been with a different (better, sorry but genuinely better) design team. There are elements obviously derived from 3E and 4E, but the rules, again, to me, don't feel like they're really extending from either, as much as reconsidering D&D, which ends up in a place more similar to 2E.

I agree entirely. I played 1e first, but I got "serious" about D&D with 2nd, and I've played, sold, and run D&D at least weekly ever since. 5e is what they intended it to be - a "love letter" to all editions, but the result of that is that it "feels" most like 2e.

Clearly it has different mechanics than 2e, and much of that is based on 3e's innovations, but it dropped a lot of 3e's mistakes (IMO).

 

[payn]

Way of doing things from the dm side, as in, exploration mechanics, big battles, movs and raids, etc. Subclasses don't impact that at all IME.

I love optional systems, but imo they close off rulings over rules, not enable it. If you are a more experimental DM it doesn't matter, but if you play by the book, and the book tells you how to do something, that is how you now do that thing, no?

I think for organized play minded folks, yeah thats sort of true. I read about plenty of folks bummed about 1 thing in a book but felt like they had to allow it because the players wanted it. My group never worked that way, I would say CRB+APG-gunslinger and everyone was cool with it.

Right, so they don’t affect your way of doing things as DM…

I mean, if the book gives you one way of doing things, you either do it as the book says, or you build your own rules from the ground up, players are more likely to balk if you opt for the latter. If the book gives you three or four ways of doing the same thing, there are many ways of doing it, including taking bits you like of each variant and blending them together in a new way. Players are going to come already expecting a discussion about “how are we going to do this thing?” and will then be more receptive to more experimental approaches.

Yeap, this is exactly how we operate. Though I do see a lot of RAW only folks posting about how they dont feel empowered to do so.

 

[Zardnaar]

A few things.

1. Can't buy magic items.
2. Archetypes/kits.
3. Optional rules in dmg.

 

[Retreater]

Something about the D&DNext playtest felt more like 2E than 5E later turned out feeling. It could be that I had been playing 4E, so the callback was more pronounced.

But then 2014 5E felt more like 2E than "later day" 5E did (probably post-Tasha was when I first noticed it).

 

[Minigiant]

5e is 3e but slower and weaker.

 

[GreyLord]

5e doesn't feel like anything related to 2e at all, to me.

The closest one might say would be the sub-classes/archetypes each class gets in 5e, at least in relation to Kits (though Kits were not mandatory in 2e and you could play the game just fine without any kits at all).

The very limited Bounded Accuracy (that +4 deviation) is perhaps one of the biggest things that make it extremely different than 2e (even if one says 2e had a type of bounded accuracy, that was at least a 20 point difference, which on a D20, is massive).

The HP bloat also kills a lot of how similar 2e is to 5e, and changes just about everything between the two.

The way Skills are handled also is different to the degree that it doesn't really resemble 2e.

In fact, I'd say 1e was far closer to 2e than 5e. 5e isn't even compatible, much less a successor.

3.0 (3e, the original, not 3.5) is much more like a successor than 5e, and 3.0 isn't even compatible with 2e.

If anything 5e is a combination of 4e (the first with a more serious bounded accuracy, though not quite as severe as 5e, and various other items such as how they handle skills. It's just not popular to refer people to how much of 4e is found within 5e's system) and 3.5 D&D. It's closer as being a successor to 3.5 than to 2e...IMO.

 

[overgeeked]

No. It is not available to peruse locally.
However, it seems like it would be simpler just to reduce character Hit Points than change the damage of everything.

Might be, but you'll get far more push back from messing with the player's side of things. Far, far easier to up monster damage.