D&D General Why TSR-era D&D Will Always Be D&D

[Minigiant]

The biggest issue though is simply the sheer number of spells casters get in later era D&D. Remember, your 3e wizard (or later) is getting bonus spells at each spell level (probably up to 4th in 3e) and can recover spells during the day without resting. Plus, since 5e makes all casters basically sorcerers, you don't need to lock in slots. You can have fireball and Leo's Hut, and if you don't need the Hut, you can just fireball again. Plus, with upcasting, you can simply burn that 3rd level slot on a 2nd or 1st level spell in a pinch.

It was far more common in AD&D for casters to have unspent spells all the time. And the opportunity cost of taking spells that were more limited use just wasn't worth it.

OTOH, in 5e, I am seeing spells being used that I had never seen used in D&D before. Heck, our Cleric just cast Control Water and the group was nowhere near a boat. I'd never seen that before.

Not to mention that in later editions, you could easily create scrolls or perform rituals of obsure use magic. You got scribe scroll at level 1 as a wizard and everyone got a feat at level 1 in 3e.

It's really like comic book multiverses. All the same people exist in each edition. However Elf Wizard A, Elf Wizard B, Elf Wizard 250, Elf Wizard 336, Elf Wizard 400, and Elf Wizard 58 have origins, limits, alignments, history, and capacity. Elf Wizard 58 HAS A BEARD!

 

[jasper]

Yes until the 6e Wars. Then the fate of D&D will be decide with the evil 4E and 5E players rise up and try to destroy the nice 1E and 2e players. The 3E generation having no allies will die quick. So it is spoken so it will be.

 

[Oofta]

The biggest issue though is simply the sheer number of spells casters get in later era D&D. Remember, your 3e wizard (or later) is getting bonus spells at each spell level (probably up to 4th in 3e) and can recover spells during the day without resting. Plus, since 5e makes all casters basically sorcerers, you don't need to lock in slots. You can have fireball and Leo's Hut, and if you don't need the Hut, you can just fireball again. Plus, with upcasting, you can simply burn that 3rd level slot on a 2nd or 1st level spell in a pinch.

It was far more common in AD&D for casters to have unspent spells all the time. And the opportunity cost of taking spells that were more limited use just wasn't worth it.

OTOH, in 5e, I am seeing spells being used that I had never seen used in D&D before. Heck, our Cleric just cast Control Water and the group was nowhere near a boat. I'd never seen that before.

I would say that it's a difference of quantity and options, not substance. Things have obviously shifted and evolved, but that wizard is still casting magic missile, the cleric is still healing and the fighter is still swinging a sword. Current edition has more in common with TSR D&D than 4E.

On the other hand 4E did get one thing right, for a brief moment of glory we didn't have gnomes. But then they blew it and brought them back again because they thought it might bring some of the old school players back.

 

[Maxperson]

I was honest. When asked I said the information I had (It came from WotC I think mearls) and that both I and others HAVE shown this before but I didn't have it on me at this time...

I'm still interested in seeing those numbers.

 

[Maxperson]

I call wrong becuse the ONLY sources we have say it outsold 35 and PF(when competing) and we have NO source for 35 out selling... now spin happens maybe mearls lied... maybe someone lied to mearls, but it is all we have.

And what we have could very easily have been spin on his part, or even unintentionally vague. What does outsold mean? Number of units? Total money? He doesn't say and those are different things and can easily have different leaders depending on which you are looking at.

The issues with this comparison include the following. First, the 4e PHB was 15%(approximately) more expensive than the 3.5 PHB, so it would take fewer units sold to exceed the 3.5 total money brought in. We don't know from what he said which one sold more units, which would show popularity. Second, 3e and 3.5 are still one edition, so the sales there need to be combined. Just like you need to combine 4e and Essentials, which are one edition. Which combination sold more? No idea and Mearls doesn't say.

 

[overgeeked]

I would say that it's a difference of quantity and options, not substance. Things have obviously shifted and evolved, but that wizard is still casting magic missile, the cleric is still healing and the fighter is still swinging a sword.

It all depends on what part of the game you look at. If all that matters is the bolded bit above, then every edition is functionally identical. Yet the mechanics, in some editions, makes the differences quite glaring.

Current edition has more in common with TSR D&D than 4E.

Sort of. Spell levels are not identical to caster level. Check. Quadratic casters, linear non-casters. Check. Stupidly OP spells. Check. 5E and TSR D&D have these but 4E does not.

But not really. Different classes advancing at different rates. Nope. Race-based level limits. Nope. Penalties for races. Nope. Level drain. Nope. Multiple dice systems. Nope. Long healing times. Nope. Time spent memorizing spells beyond resting. Nope. DM-controlled spell acquisition. Nope. DM-controlled magic item creation. Nope. Meaningful magic items. Nope. Hit point caps. LOL, nope. Resource management. LOL, nope. Niche protection. Nope. Things to spend gold on. Nope. Domain management. Nope. TSR D&D has these but 4E and 5E do not.

5E has more in common with 4E than TSR D&D. 5E has a thin veneer of TSR D&D wrapped around WotC D&D. That’s it. All the meat. All the texture. It’s still WotC D&D.

 

[Morrus]

okay... then umbran doesn't believe me. Got it. in most circles I travel in people like to say "I don't owe you research or labor" but I generally don't do that... but when I say why I don't have something at my finger tips and someone tries to turn that into "unknown places" I think that is BEYOND rude. I expected much better of you, but I am fine with you just not believeing me then since I don't have my PC on me at work all the time.

and if you are going to ask for someone to show you proof and they tell you they don't have it on them they will show you later and you pretend they just said "My imaginary friend told me" you ought to expect people not to take you seriously.


I was honest. When asked I said the information I had (It came from WotC I think mearls) and that both I and others HAVE shown this before but I didn't have it on me at this time... but you turned me trying to be honest into a challenge... so I will not be responding to you on this thread again.

Normally I'd just leave a note for something like this, but this is the second time in the last few days I've seen you getting aggressive with people who challenge your view of the world. I gave a friendly note last time, but in future when people ask you for citations or present information which contradicts your own claims, aggressiveness is not an appropriate response.

 

[Lanefan]

The biggest issue though is simply the sheer number of spells casters get in later era D&D. Remember, your 3e wizard (or later) is getting bonus spells at each spell level (probably up to 4th in 3e) and can recover spells during the day without resting. Plus, since 5e makes all casters basically sorcerers, you don't need to lock in slots. You can have fireball and Leo's Hut, and if you don't need the Hut, you can just fireball again. Plus, with upcasting, you can simply burn that 3rd level slot on a 2nd or 1st level spell in a pinch.

Of these issues, IMO upcasting is the problem one.

I don;t mind casters using the 3e Sorcerer mechanics in that over the years I've come to loathe pre-memorization. The counterbalance, though, is to limit how many slots per level a caster can have (and no at-wills!) and have it that a slot can only ever be used to cast a spell of that level.

I've run it this way in my current campaign and thus far learned the following:
--- pro: at low levels I saw spells cast that otherwise would never see the light of day
--- pro: casters are more flexible without gaining too much power, again at low levels
--- con: it still doesn't fix over-power problems at higher levels (i.e. about 6th+ in my game) as I didn't restrict slots harshly enough
--- con: at higher levels the same few spells are still by far the most commonly cast

The first 'con' is easily-enough fixable for next campaign (I'm stuck with it for this one) by just reducing the number of slots gained per level. The second 'con' would be much harder to fix in that I really don't want to put a restriction on how many times each individual spell can be cast in a day for two reasons: it would be a bookkeeping nightmare for the players (and me, for NPCs or foes), and it would cut back on flexibility - the very thing I'm trying to promote.

Keep in mind also that in my system there's other balancing mechanisms in play, the biggest one being that spellcasting is easily interrupted and an interrupted spell can sometimes have "interesting" side effects due to wild magic.

It was far more common in AD&D for casters to have unspent spells all the time. And the opportunity cost of taking spells that were more limited use just wasn't worth it.

Yes, and this led to casters - no matter how many different spells they had available - always memorizing the same core few. I specifically wanted to get away from this, but as noted above the results have thus far been mixed.

OTOH, in 5e, I am seeing spells being used that I had never seen used in D&D before. Heck, our Cleric just cast Control Water and the group was nowhere near a boat. I'd never seen that before.

Nice!

 

[Lanefan]

I'd always chalked that up to an issue of mass. Raindrops and snowflakes will be caught by the hemisphere, but anything more substantial will go right through it. I suppose that might be an issue if you compare heavy hailstones to, say, sling bullets, but for the most part I thought it worked fine.

My go-to example is whether the hut is intended to protect those inside from, say, an avalanche. The 1e version is not exactly clear on this...

 

[James Gasik]

I would say that it's a difference of quantity and options, not substance. Things have obviously shifted and evolved, but that wizard is still casting magic missile, the cleric is still healing and the fighter is still swinging a sword. Current edition has more in common with TSR D&D than 4E.

On the other hand 4E did get one thing right, for a brief moment of glory we didn't have gnomes. But then they blew it and brought them back again because they thought it might bring some of the old school players back.

You know, it's funny, I've played Gnomes in AD&D (and 4e, if Svirfneblin count), but I thought their reasons to scrap the Gnome were pretty good. The race has no niche that isn't covered by another Race. Heck, even the original Halfling subraces suffered from a bit of this, with Stouts being Dwarf-like and Lightfoots being Elf-like.

I never understood all the fuss, but I think it had more to do with the addition of Tieflings and Dragonborn than anyone truly feeling the Gnome was a valued player race.