diegherkum
I always roll 2's. I'm not even good to do it bad
I really LOVE 4th edition art. A pity the rest of the edition... well... is not one of my favs
D&D General Your favorite things about editions that aren't your favorite.
- Thread starter wingsandsword
- Start date
cbwjm
Legend
1e: I don't really know enough to comment.
3e: Prestige classes were great as long as they were used properly, that is, as an actual prestige class. You probably shouldn't be entering more than one of them.
4e: 4e had some great ideas, tougher 1st level characters, healing surges, an interesting cosmology. I loved the background of the war between primordials and deities, I loved that abyssal lords were actually primordials corrupted by the shard of evil.
5e: It's the edition we're playing now. I do love 5e it is probably incredibly close to being my favourite edition. Probably my favourite thing about it is that it has got my friends and I back playing DnD. I like how they fixed spellcasting in that you no longer have to memorise a spell directly into the spell slot. Pretty sure that if I went back to earlier editions I'd do something similar.
3e: Prestige classes were great as long as they were used properly, that is, as an actual prestige class. You probably shouldn't be entering more than one of them.
4e: 4e had some great ideas, tougher 1st level characters, healing surges, an interesting cosmology. I loved the background of the war between primordials and deities, I loved that abyssal lords were actually primordials corrupted by the shard of evil.
5e: It's the edition we're playing now. I do love 5e it is probably incredibly close to being my favourite edition. Probably my favourite thing about it is that it has got my friends and I back playing DnD. I like how they fixed spellcasting in that you no longer have to memorise a spell directly into the spell slot. Pretty sure that if I went back to earlier editions I'd do something similar.
4e art was pretty awesome. I felt that their darksun art really helped capture the feel of the setting but the whole edition had great art throughout it.
humble minion
Legend
I had nothing to do with 1e and haven't played enough 5e to decide whether it's my favourite or not over 3e, so I'm going to cheat a little...
2e - the settings and the willingness to throw the base game assumptions completely out the window for them. Dark Sun? Your weapon will break at any time and so many of your characters will die of thirst that you're actually required to bring a bunch of backups to each session and there's only one dragon and it's so absurdly powerful you will never, ever, ever be able to slay it. Zakhara? Here's a peaceful multiracial society united by a single religion with things like pacifist hill giant priests, and dwarves happily married to orcs. Planescape? Well, I know usually only high-level characters do planar travel but now walking through the wrong doorway while carrying a ham sandwich could drop you unceremoniously in Belial's linen cupboard, and there's a bunch of debating societies that would like to kill you over the finer points of philosophy and you might quite possibly be a mechanical cube with eyes.
3e - the rationalisation of the hundred different mini-systems, the removal of a lot of arbitrary restrictions, the ability to actually choose who your character was going to be through the skill/feat/prestige class system. Sure it was gameable if the DM didn't keep an eye on things, but there's been no better D&D system for designing a character whose mechanics fit a particular concept.
4e - the reboot of Dark Sun with most of the Prism Pentad wound back, the introduction of a nice simple system for ritual magic, and at-will magic abilities for spellcasters that meant that they actually felt like spellcasters and were less crossbow-prone at low levels
5e - mapping saving throws to all six abilities finally means that there's mechanical benefit to having decent scores in every stat no matter what your class - dump stat at your own risk! Massively smoothed out maths over 3e, especially at high levels. Dice remain relevant all thr way through. The Inspiration system finally giving D&D a bit of a nudge in the direction of mechanics working in support of character and narrative.
2e - the settings and the willingness to throw the base game assumptions completely out the window for them. Dark Sun? Your weapon will break at any time and so many of your characters will die of thirst that you're actually required to bring a bunch of backups to each session and there's only one dragon and it's so absurdly powerful you will never, ever, ever be able to slay it. Zakhara? Here's a peaceful multiracial society united by a single religion with things like pacifist hill giant priests, and dwarves happily married to orcs. Planescape? Well, I know usually only high-level characters do planar travel but now walking through the wrong doorway while carrying a ham sandwich could drop you unceremoniously in Belial's linen cupboard, and there's a bunch of debating societies that would like to kill you over the finer points of philosophy and you might quite possibly be a mechanical cube with eyes.
3e - the rationalisation of the hundred different mini-systems, the removal of a lot of arbitrary restrictions, the ability to actually choose who your character was going to be through the skill/feat/prestige class system. Sure it was gameable if the DM didn't keep an eye on things, but there's been no better D&D system for designing a character whose mechanics fit a particular concept.
4e - the reboot of Dark Sun with most of the Prism Pentad wound back, the introduction of a nice simple system for ritual magic, and at-will magic abilities for spellcasters that meant that they actually felt like spellcasters and were less crossbow-prone at low levels
5e - mapping saving throws to all six abilities finally means that there's mechanical benefit to having decent scores in every stat no matter what your class - dump stat at your own risk! Massively smoothed out maths over 3e, especially at high levels. Dice remain relevant all thr way through. The Inspiration system finally giving D&D a bit of a nudge in the direction of mechanics working in support of character and narrative.
Ralif Redhammer
Legend
4e definitely had some great pieces of art. Moving back away from 3e single figure-centric design, it was great to have illustrations with multiple people and scenic backgrounds. It was a step back towards the art of 1e and 2e that told stories.
I didn't really play anything before 4th so my list is uh, short.
4E monster stat blocks (especially after MM3) and formatting in general for class options was so clear and straightforward. Unfortunately, I think some of that formatting added to the biggest criticisms of the game, that people felt classes felt too samey. I still had a lot of fun with it, though. I absolutely miss playing defenders and I get excited about similar things we've seen in 5E.
My favorite thing about 5E is advantage. It's just such a straightforward useful concept for the game, and gets away from annoying levels of math. The class+archetype system is also solid.
I have also played Pathfinder a little bit, which I know is largely based on 3.5. I like the skill rank system to a degree and I'd love for the next edition of D&D to have something that combines the simplicity of the 4E/5E skills with the customization options of this system. My biggest issue with the skill rank system (and both 4E and PF math) is how levels factor in. Bounded accuracy is my preference on this.
I haven't played yet but have read a lot of the PF2 material. The formatting here is also nice in a way reminiscent of 4E. It also borrows and improves on how multiclassing worked in 4E, using multiclass feats. I really like this method and I've tried a few times to bludgeon the same style of multiclassing into 5E. I think it could work but the inconsistent feat levels for two of the classes throws a bit of a wrench. The action system is also fascinating, but I really like 5Es "movement isn't an action it's just a thing you have," so something that combines those would be neat (maybe two-actions + movement, which is kind of what we have now except that the second action is very limited).
4E monster stat blocks (especially after MM3) and formatting in general for class options was so clear and straightforward. Unfortunately, I think some of that formatting added to the biggest criticisms of the game, that people felt classes felt too samey. I still had a lot of fun with it, though. I absolutely miss playing defenders and I get excited about similar things we've seen in 5E.
My favorite thing about 5E is advantage. It's just such a straightforward useful concept for the game, and gets away from annoying levels of math. The class+archetype system is also solid.
I have also played Pathfinder a little bit, which I know is largely based on 3.5. I like the skill rank system to a degree and I'd love for the next edition of D&D to have something that combines the simplicity of the 4E/5E skills with the customization options of this system. My biggest issue with the skill rank system (and both 4E and PF math) is how levels factor in. Bounded accuracy is my preference on this.
I haven't played yet but have read a lot of the PF2 material. The formatting here is also nice in a way reminiscent of 4E. It also borrows and improves on how multiclassing worked in 4E, using multiclass feats. I really like this method and I've tried a few times to bludgeon the same style of multiclassing into 5E. I think it could work but the inconsistent feat levels for two of the classes throws a bit of a wrench. The action system is also fascinating, but I really like 5Es "movement isn't an action it's just a thing you have," so something that combines those would be neat (maybe two-actions + movement, which is kind of what we have now except that the second action is very limited).
pogre
Legend
I hear you. I was talking about my personal journey with the game. O-D&D->Basic->AD&D
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Depends whether you're counting 3rd-party as well, or just official releases.
If you count 3rd-party stuff then the amount of material for 3e completely overwhelms the amount for 2e, in quantity if not in quality.
Weiley31
Legend
I was sad when they nerfed this weapon in later editions.I don't remember those, can you tell me more? Were they some type of crochet weapon?
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