Sword of Spirit
Legend
I think it feels like a 2.75e.
In its most fundamental mechanics it is based on 3e.
Its most fundamental lore is built on 2e, informed by 1e, and with heavy expansion from 3e and 4e.
I'm definitely in that category that likes it and sees it as being most like my preferred editions.
It goes beyond the scope of this topic, but a lot of what determines how players respond to change is how much they liked the stuff that already existed before the change, and how compatible that stuff is with the change. Adding stuff to what you already loved isn't as much of a problem as replacing it. Replacing or removing something you were indifferent about won't be likely to bug you much. Replacing or removing something you actively disliked is a personal feature.
So with 2e to 5e, as someone who considered 2e and 3e my favorites before 5e, here's what I see.
-It did a better job with the Planescape cosmology I love than any other non-2e version. I have to change it (ignoring some of their replacements, andding back the rest of the Inner Planes, etc), but it's no harder to do that it was in 3e.
-I didn't like the general mechanics of 2e. Other than being slow and unwieldy, I thought 3e was a complete upgrade. So I do not miss the 1e/2e elements that were replaced with the 3e-like d20 system.
-The combination of rules being simpler than 3e and more consistent and less punitive than 2e combined with lore framework that is "2e positive" hits the best spot of any published D&D.
That being said, I can't run D&D without house rules. I have a "platonic ideal of D&D" in my head that I want to experience, and no edition has perfectly captured it. 5e captures it better than any other with less house rules. I think most enthusiasts have such an ideal. Some 4e enthusiasts love it 4e because it is the closest to the ideal they had for decades before 4e was made.
So, here are a few details about how I can get that 2e/3e hybrid ideal I want with 5e (2014 only) better than others.
-The optional rules in the DMG for slow natural healing and healers kit dependency do a lot to eliminate the feel of too fast overnight healing.
-I always hated things like level limits, having to qualify for classes with random rolls, or permanent mechanical losses like level drain. Not having any of that is a complete feature to me.
-I didn't mind 3e's finer granularity in spells (monster summon at every level, etc) compared to 2e, but when 5e dialed that back to something closer to 2e, that was a plus to me.
-5e has coarser granularity than 3e (and 4e) in general, and feels more like 2e in a positive way in that sense. It goes even further in that direction than 2e, which is something I mostly like.
-While 2e adventures handed out a lot of magic items, they felt rare and magical because you couldn't just buy whatever you wanted as part of character advancement like in 3e/4e. 5e makes items rarer but leans into using what you find like 2e. Even though I have my own house rules for magic items creation and economy, it remains way more like 2e than what came after. This also leans into the granularity issue. 3e had lots of greater and lesser, and incremental upgrades. 2e, you found a flametongue, and that's what you have.
-Specialty priests as generally underpowered custom classes never much made a post impression on me. 3e domains didnt make clerics very distinct from one another, and I was mostly indifferent. 5e cleric subclasses feel like an improved hybrid of those. Differences that can have a pretty big effect, but still based on a common cleric chassis.
-Not really sure where the concept of lost wizard specialties is, unless you are looking at 2024 OP (I'm which case it has moved away from the 2e elements, see below, and I'm talking about 2014). The PHB has all 8 wizard specialties and I find them more interesting than the little details and restrictions on 2e. They occupy the same lore space with better mechanics. What is missing that I had to house rule in was the generalist mage.
I see would like to go on, but I need to sleep. But something that I said got me thinking.
What I want in a new edition is the same lore-space (compatible additions are great, replacements and subtractions not) occupied by mechanics that better support my ideal image of D&D with less house rules than others. 2014 5e D&D is the winner for me and feels like in overall feel it sits somewhere between 2e and 3e with plenty of adopted elements from all other editions.
I liked that they included at-will cantrips, short rest abilities, added the Feywild, and other things from 4e that were included because, like most of what was or wasn't included playtests of tens of thousands of players of all editions had a large support for it. (They did the playtests differently for Next than they did for 2024.)
But it feels like someone who really likes 4e wanted to shift 5e a lot more that way and and really started doing it once Mike Mearls moved on. I'm not sure if doing so will make 4e-preference players happy with 5e, because it is still fundamentally so different that it doesn't seem like it can really give 4e fans what they want. (4e fans, correct me if I'm wrong and the shift from 2014 to 2024 has converted you to playing 5e where you didn't before). What it certainly does is alienate existing 5e fans who aren't interested in such a shift.
In its most fundamental mechanics it is based on 3e.
Its most fundamental lore is built on 2e, informed by 1e, and with heavy expansion from 3e and 4e.
I'm definitely in that category that likes it and sees it as being most like my preferred editions.
It goes beyond the scope of this topic, but a lot of what determines how players respond to change is how much they liked the stuff that already existed before the change, and how compatible that stuff is with the change. Adding stuff to what you already loved isn't as much of a problem as replacing it. Replacing or removing something you were indifferent about won't be likely to bug you much. Replacing or removing something you actively disliked is a personal feature.
So with 2e to 5e, as someone who considered 2e and 3e my favorites before 5e, here's what I see.
-It did a better job with the Planescape cosmology I love than any other non-2e version. I have to change it (ignoring some of their replacements, andding back the rest of the Inner Planes, etc), but it's no harder to do that it was in 3e.
-I didn't like the general mechanics of 2e. Other than being slow and unwieldy, I thought 3e was a complete upgrade. So I do not miss the 1e/2e elements that were replaced with the 3e-like d20 system.
-The combination of rules being simpler than 3e and more consistent and less punitive than 2e combined with lore framework that is "2e positive" hits the best spot of any published D&D.
That being said, I can't run D&D without house rules. I have a "platonic ideal of D&D" in my head that I want to experience, and no edition has perfectly captured it. 5e captures it better than any other with less house rules. I think most enthusiasts have such an ideal. Some 4e enthusiasts love it 4e because it is the closest to the ideal they had for decades before 4e was made.
So, here are a few details about how I can get that 2e/3e hybrid ideal I want with 5e (2014 only) better than others.
-The optional rules in the DMG for slow natural healing and healers kit dependency do a lot to eliminate the feel of too fast overnight healing.
-I always hated things like level limits, having to qualify for classes with random rolls, or permanent mechanical losses like level drain. Not having any of that is a complete feature to me.
-I didn't mind 3e's finer granularity in spells (monster summon at every level, etc) compared to 2e, but when 5e dialed that back to something closer to 2e, that was a plus to me.
-5e has coarser granularity than 3e (and 4e) in general, and feels more like 2e in a positive way in that sense. It goes even further in that direction than 2e, which is something I mostly like.
-While 2e adventures handed out a lot of magic items, they felt rare and magical because you couldn't just buy whatever you wanted as part of character advancement like in 3e/4e. 5e makes items rarer but leans into using what you find like 2e. Even though I have my own house rules for magic items creation and economy, it remains way more like 2e than what came after. This also leans into the granularity issue. 3e had lots of greater and lesser, and incremental upgrades. 2e, you found a flametongue, and that's what you have.
-Specialty priests as generally underpowered custom classes never much made a post impression on me. 3e domains didnt make clerics very distinct from one another, and I was mostly indifferent. 5e cleric subclasses feel like an improved hybrid of those. Differences that can have a pretty big effect, but still based on a common cleric chassis.
-Not really sure where the concept of lost wizard specialties is, unless you are looking at 2024 OP (I'm which case it has moved away from the 2e elements, see below, and I'm talking about 2014). The PHB has all 8 wizard specialties and I find them more interesting than the little details and restrictions on 2e. They occupy the same lore space with better mechanics. What is missing that I had to house rule in was the generalist mage.
I see would like to go on, but I need to sleep. But something that I said got me thinking.
What I want in a new edition is the same lore-space (compatible additions are great, replacements and subtractions not) occupied by mechanics that better support my ideal image of D&D with less house rules than others. 2014 5e D&D is the winner for me and feels like in overall feel it sits somewhere between 2e and 3e with plenty of adopted elements from all other editions.
Yes. And for me, as someone who really likes original 5e, the shift that irritates me at least as much is what feels like a shift from 2e to 4e related to things like: NPCs operating under completely different rules, level of prominence of magic and fantastic demographics, and general shift from "roughly simulationist mechanics if you use the right options and lean into it" to "full gamism, no simulationism considered/supported/compatible".
I liked that they included at-will cantrips, short rest abilities, added the Feywild, and other things from 4e that were included because, like most of what was or wasn't included playtests of tens of thousands of players of all editions had a large support for it. (They did the playtests differently for Next than they did for 2024.)
But it feels like someone who really likes 4e wanted to shift 5e a lot more that way and and really started doing it once Mike Mearls moved on. I'm not sure if doing so will make 4e-preference players happy with 5e, because it is still fundamentally so different that it doesn't seem like it can really give 4e fans what they want. (4e fans, correct me if I'm wrong and the shift from 2014 to 2024 has converted you to playing 5e where you didn't before). What it certainly does is alienate existing 5e fans who aren't interested in such a shift.
