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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ccooke" data-source="post: 7884127" data-attributes="member: 6695890">So, I think what [USER=7015476]@Son of the Serpent[/USER] is talking about is the mechanical simplicity and homogeneity. This is actually one of my favourite parts of 5e, but I can see why some people can dislike it. As an example, absolutely every d20 roll in 5e is either an Ability Check, Attack Roll or Saving Throw. Everything. Rolling initiative? That's a Dexterity Ability Check. Death save? That's an untyped (with no ability bonus) saving throw. Anything that affects "Saving throws" affects death saves (So, for instance, anyone making a death save within 10' of a 6th level paladin gets to add the paladin's Charisma bonus to their save).To my mind, the majority of what makes 5e, 5e at a system level is the way that the core has been pared down, simplified and interlinked. Where previous editions had special cases and specific rules covering different situations, 5e has a small number of unified mechanics that are reused and reskinned in different ways. Compare the d20 combat options - the 3.5e PHB has 27 pages of combat rules. Fifth edition has eight. The impact of the Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic is deeper because it is the standard way to make something situationally better or worse. There are a number of other examples, too - there's only one spell slot progression (for classes that get a standard per-day spell slot pattern), and different classes just advance through it at set rates (either full, ½ or ⅓ progression). Almost everything that's triggerable and supernatural as an ability is mechanically a spell, so long as a spell exists for the effect, and so on. To me, this is one of the reasons why 5e is easier to tweak and change, too. There are fewer interactions to keep in mind when you're changing things, because there are fewer (but more deeply linked) mechanics. I've said before that the actual genius of 5e is that it retains a level of depth and complexity with a vastly simpler core. To my tastes - and of course, this will be violently false to some people reading this! - 5e has managed to cut out a lot of meaningless complexity and choices that didn't matter, in favour of keeping depth where it is needed and choices that make a difference.To bring things back to 3e... One of the reasons I love 3e is that it has a system framework and it builds depth and complexity by hanging things onto that framework. I loved to play 3e and the depth of character creation was a big part of that. Where it loses to 5e (again, to me!) is that the decisions in 3e were often of very little import, and often needlessly restricted. I'm far happier with 5e's ability for me to say "Oh, $character is a drop-out from a Wizard college, so is trained in Arcana" than, say, choosing where to put four individual skill points (probably into a cross-classed skill, for many of my characters).</blockquote>

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