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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 7866651" data-attributes="member: 996">Well, 5e did try to be simpler than 3e or 4e at their most bloated. But, 5e, in trying to be all editions to all past fans, ended up offering 12 classes in the PH.  That's more than 4e PH1 (8), 3e PH1 (11), and certainly a lot more than a TSR era Basic set.  Those 5e classes, among them, have 40 sub-classes.  In 4e, it was builds (18 in total), and 3e had no comparable concept, except perhaps Domains (22) and Wizard specialization (8).  2e Kits weren't in the PH, and in 1e & earlier sub-classes were comparable choices to the 4 parent classes.  But, that's really nothing compared to in-play complexity, within classes.  In 1e, if f you were a wizard, you randomly determined which of 30 1st level spells you could know, and which 3 spells you had in your book (plus Read Magic) and picked one of those to memorize each day (so, really, you had 3 meaningful spells you needed to familiarize yourself with to begin playing the character), and decide whether to finally cast that one spell, or keep throwing darts or whatever.  By 4e, that complexity had increased:  your PH1 wizard picked 2 at-wills from a list of 5, an encounter from a list of 5, and 2 dailies from a list of 4, you then prepared one of those 2 dailies.  So you had to be familiar with 14 spells, not merely 3, to make the initial choices, and get used to choosing between those 2 dailies, and among the 4 options in total available at the start of each round, and you always had at least two of those options, the at-wills, available, you probably never threw darts, though you might've occasionally taken an OA with your staff.Fortunately, 5e simplified things: a wizard in 5e picks 3 cantrips from a list of 14 and 6 1st-level spells, from a list 27, then, each day prepares 1+INT mod of those known spells, then, decides, each round which cantrip to cast or whether to use one of his two slots for the day to cast any of the spells he's prepared that day.  So that' s just enough familiarity with about 40 spells to make an informed choice at chargen, then decide on one of 4+INT mod casting options each round, until you're out of slots, when it drops to 3.  Yeah, so much simpler, no analysis paralysis, here.So, when you're talking the game, as encountered initially by new players, 5e is one of the more complicated editions.  But, once you factor in all the core books and supplements, it's not nearly as choice-rich, for experienced players, as 4e, 3e, or 2e.  As befits a compromise design, I suppose.</blockquote>

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