When Do the 5E “Ride or Die” Folks Become Grogs Like The Rest of Us in “D&D Older Editions” And When Do We Get D&D 5E Flair for Posts?

[CreamCloud0]

So, I prefer races to have bonuses to ability scores, and those bonuses to be specific and distinct (so, nothing like Tasha's options in general). I don't see something like a Venus Flytrap and a Horse having the same ability score bonuses, and I see them having different strengths related to their ability scores (if such a thing existed in real life).

However, as one would point out, it makes for optimization. If you want a Rogue, getting a race with bonuses in Dexterity and Intelligence could be extremely useful.

yeah, i certainly agree species should be fundamentally different but ASI are too broad in what they represent and essential to certain class's needs that i don't like using them as part of what defines a species, it's why in my above species rewrites i more often went for things that directly influence a skill like 'halflings have advantage on all stealth rolls', it doesn't make all halflings good at stealth like giving them proficiency would but it makes them consistently better at stealth than anyone else at their given level of skill.

it might still make for optimisation but i think it's a more equal opportunity implementation, proficiency on stealth is probably functionally useless on a 8 DEX fighter or paladin but advantage can at least negate heavy armour disadvantage or save a 14 DEX sorcerer from a fumble.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

In response to the OP: I don’t care about how I am labeled. I play D&D…I love it and have for decades.

What I would like is a tag for posts that says 5e 2014 or some such. I expect I will use some 5e 2024 material and some from 2014.

When discussing characters I just folks to know which phb we are discussing.

There are a few folks that take issue with preferences that differ from theirs…they don’t like some of the older trappings of the game in regard to art or resource management or limitations. They hey scowl and fold their arms and explain nobody likes that anymore. If they prefer to call me a grog, a member of the f’ing fossil club or something else is not consequential! I own it!

 

[Corinnguard]

so, even if people 'don't do builds' as part of their character creation builds still tend to naturally arise from playing a class unless you basically intentionally design your character against itself, and species design is being diminished from an impactful building block in previous editions to an inoffensive package which happens to provides a handful of mostly trivial perks and boons that can be useful to most anyone.

The species in 5.5e IMO certainly leave a lot to be desired compared to previous editions in D&D. Their ASIs got moved to Backgrounds where they still favor a particular character class (much like they did before Tasha's Cauldron of Everything changed the Fixed ASIs to Floating ASIs). You get a static origin feat, two skill proficiencies, and some tool proficiencies, and that's about it.

As for the species themselves in 5.5e, some of their abilities are worth borrowing for 5e (such as the Dragonborn's new breath weapon). But the other abilities don't look that appealing compared to what they were back in 5e.

It might be better at this point to borrow any species-related material from a 5e-adjacent source instead, like Level Up or Tales of the Valiant. I think the heritages and cultures in Level Up keep, if not improve, this particular building block in the character creation process.

 

[Parmandur]

I do wonder how many may share my preferences though, and how wise it has been for WotC to go off the deep end catering to what I see as a specific group of players rather than having a broader base.

I am certain WotC does know precisely, this is literally the first thing they tested in 2022, and apparently the Origons changes were a big success (they mostly just made it straight to print).

 

[Neonchameleon]

5e ride or die is, I predict, going to be about as popular as 3.0 ride or die; the changes to 5.24 are probably smaller

 

[Voadam]

5e ride or die is, I predict, going to be about as popular as 3.0 ride or die; the changes to 5.24 are probably smaller

3.5 changed a lot of small detail rules throughout the system. I had to look up the chart repeatedly to verify what specifically provoked attacks of opportunity for a long time after 3.5 came out because there were small changes that were easy to miss.

I have not gone through the 2024 PH yet. Are there a similar amount of rule changes besides the class, race/background and individual spell changes?

 

[PHATsakk43]

3.5 changed a lot of small detail rules throughout the system. I had to look up the chart repeatedly to verify what specifically provoked attacks of opportunity for a long time after 3.5 came out because there were small changes that were easy to miss.

I have not gone through the 2024 PH yet. Are there a similar amount of rule changes besides the class, race/background and individual spell changes?

Changes are somewhat difficult to assess similar to the 3 to 3.5 move as there doesn’t appear to be much desire by the publisher in either case to make a lot of the changes.

While at the same time, it seems it would make sense for the changes to be very front and center as one would suspect part of the revision is to sell books to people who already have books.

Which is what is weird about this whole thing. Honestly, they may aught to look back to the 2E roll out where there was an explicit message of backwards compatibility between the two versions. It feels on its surface that this is more like that edition change than any of the other ones. A good bit of fiddling with character class creation, but nothing that particularly invalidates an existing one. No major mechanical changes. A slight bit of fluff/character development with the Bastions being added (back? feels a lot like the old name level stuff from 1&2E) in. I can’t imagine the monster attributes being particularly different, except some fiddling with numbers.

 

[Parmandur]

Changes are somewhat difficult to assess similar to the 3 to 3.5 move as there doesn’t appear to be much desire by the publisher in either case to make a lot of the changes.

While at the same time, it seems it would make sense for the changes to be very front and center as one would suspect part of the revision is to sell books to people who already have books.

Which is what is weird about this whole thing. Honestly, they may aught to look back to the 2E roll out where there was an explicit message of backwards compatibility between the two versions. It feels on its surface that this is more like that edition change than any of the other ones. A good bit of fiddling with character class creation, but nothing that particularly invalidates an existing one. No major mechanical changes. A slight bit of fluff/character development with the Bastions being added (back? feels a lot like the old name level stuff from 1&2E) in. I can’t imagine the monster attributes being particularly different, except some fiddling with numbers.

The main goal is to sell to new players, but thw case for existing players for both the PHB and the DMG is the improved organization or the books more than any "crunch" (though Classes were all tweaked, lots of little changes to Spells and magic items, etc).

The changes were mostly to the rules exceptions (Classes, Species, Feats, etc) rather than the core rules, though. That's what makes the old compatible with the new: am old PC sheet from 2024 will still function at the table.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

3.5 changed a lot of small detail rules throughout the system. I had to look up the chart repeatedly to verify what specifically provoked attacks of opportunity for a long time after 3.5 came out because there were small changes that were easy to miss.

I have not gone through the 2024 PH yet. Are there a similar amount of rule changes besides the class, race/background and individual spell changes?

There are a similar or greater percentage of general rules changes. Almost certainly less in number since 5e has a lot less rules than 3e, but at least as high of a percentage. I also think they tend to be more impactful changes. For example, weapon mastery is a pretty big new thing that is constantly going on every fight, and drinking a healing potion being a bonus action now is another pretty major change to combat dynamics.