D&D Editions Question

Here (you) go.
youtu.be/daksqex8zUE

5e is the way forward. Don't fall for the Pathfinder or 4e meme.

>Memes
>Lies
Nobody likes a 4rry.

How many monster manuals do you think most groups use? Most systems you can play for decades using only one. Even if at some point in the game's lifecycle it was fixed it's a legitimate problem if the math in the main monster manual is fucked. It's also worth mentioning that while that may just be a preference, the fact that people both avoided the system when it was current and quickly abandoned it should speak for itself on how most people feel about that preference, which I think is relevant when recommending a game to a stranger

>lack of out of combat spells and abilities
I'm not arguing with you on the latter, but the former existed as rituals. It's just no one interacted with that system because it was purposefully made expensive to prevent cheese

4e's out-of-combat problems is less about lack of implementation and more about lack of value

You CAN use rituals and shit, but they cost money, and you need that money for magic items, so why would you?

This video makes no sense, though. There are improvised action rules right there in the core book. That the GM apparently wasn't using them is nothing to do with the design of the system.

The math isn't exactly fucked, it just tends to make fights longer and less interesting than they should be. They also got better at designing monsters by the MM3/MV, which are the two books primarily used these days for 4e.

You can actually use MM1 and MM2 as well, you just need to adjust the math to fit the values in pic related.

People avoiding the system was also to do with the significant amount of lies and misinformation spread before and during its release, which you can still see being repeated in this thread.

I'm not here to tell 4e to absolutely use 4e- It's a niche system with a very specific focus that isn't for everybody. But it's a legitimate option if it suits his groups playstyle, and since at least one of his players seems to have a positive impression of it there's a reasonable chance it might appeal to the rest.

OP if pic related looks cool and you want a system with lots of options where you can play any of those and more then 3.5/Pathfinder is for you.

If you wanted a gutted version of D&D 5e.

If you want a MMO 4e.

This is a legitimate flaw of the system, and deserves criticism.

A fix I think works quite well is handing out a GP value of Ritual Components, that are only good for using with rituals, martial practices and the like, along with giving out Ritual Caster or equivalents for free and giving classes which get it already one of the specific ritual feats.

This, alongside a dedicated slot for out of combat utility powers, goes a long way towards improving 4e's out of combat. But, it's a houserule, and doesn't fix what is a legitimate flaw and critique of the core system.

Now mate

I absolutely love 3.5

But don't go recommending it to new players, that is just not a nice thing to do

Can we not have another edition wars thread?

4e guy here. I'm not trying to tell anyone what's better or worse. I'm just trying to present an honest account of what the game is good at, and to counter any of the misinformation that's commonly spread about the game. There's plenty of reasons not to like 4e, and plenty of groups who won't find it satisfying and fun to play, but actually articulating that understanding requires a lot more than just 'it's an MMO'.

All I see is a metric ton of roleplaying options being shoehorned into mechanics, and mechanics whose legitimacy has been disproven again and again.

The best way to play any archetype is as a full caster, which undermines the value of having a million inferior options.

People saw the blatant bait and took it.
4e = 5e >>>>> 3.PF

Not really

The mechanically optimal way to play any archetype is to play a full-caster, but mechanically optimal in 3.5 tends to get kind of boring due to how overly powerful full casters are. So you go for mechanically interesting instead of mechanically optimal

Hence why tome of battle is cool

5e or 4e are the best editions. 3.5 is to be avoided at all costs, literally never touch it.

If you're DMing, 4e is the easiest to start with, as it doesn't inherit the retarded monster and NPC design decisions of 3.5 (i.e. to make this monster tougher, add more spells! Have fun keeping track of a billion of these!).

Or you could use those spells to just imitate whatever archetype you want, be better at it then that archetype, and not hamstring yourself.

There are no classes that are not improved by playing a full caster imitating that class, including ToB. All of those "options" are lies.

...Yes, but that's boring

3.5 is a much better game when you entirely do away with full casters as a concept. Capping all spells at level 6 because full casters are simultaneously superior and dull as fuck

It's more 5e>3.5, and 4e is something different altogether.

Whether 3.PF or 4e is better is a debate that never goes well thanks to all the Edition War butthurt.

>3.5 is a much better game when you radically alter it.
>In game options are boring, the "fun" is in the characer creation.
Way to sell it buddy.

>People saw the blatant bait and took it.
>4e = 5e >>>>> 3.PF
Calling out bait with bait. Good job user. 8/8

Hey, I never said 3.5 was a good game

I just happen to like it a lot myself because it's a crazy, busted system that lets me do crazy, busted shit and has really in-depth character building that lets me explore a giant ocean of options

I'm about 75% certain you are supposed to recoup any resources you spent on rituals by RAW; they are basically a very variable consumable item where the real price is your money being tied up for the level/adventure, not being forever lost.

Most people have always played 3.5+, which is the edition with some houserules.

Autist haters HATE talking about 3.5+, because even if it was the greatest game in the entire world, they're really committed to hating it, which is why they demand all discussions to be based around RAW.

Nothing gets an autist angrier than agreeing that 3.5 by itself isn't that great, but saying that 3.5+ is the greatest game ever.

The best part is if they're diehard 4rries, and you get to remind them of the math fixes that are practically essential for 4e.

Even if this is the case, it's badly explained and barely ever used that way, which is honestly a shame. Rituals are very fun when you're not severely restricted in your ability to make use of them.

Thanks guys. I think I'm going for 5E as many said that it's a good Ed to start. Now, do you have any idea about why in D&D we can "choose" an Ed while in 40k we are usually restricted to the latest?

...

You'd be right if I didn't so so many fucking idiots demanding to play 3.5 core, as if it somehow isn't the worst part of 3.5

Because 3.5 with houserules is great, the most important one being STOP USING CORE, but everyone just keeps using the worst aspects of the system while ignoring the good stuff

>everyone just keeps using the worst aspects of the system while ignoring the good stuff
That seems to be what everyone does for everything they don't want to like. It's a shame, really.

Well, Rituals fill multiple purposes I think
- emergency backup
- plot device
- bonus rewards/collectibles
- IF your character builds for it, they're an incredibly versatile toolbox

But yeah, equipment/magic items/rituals had been the big losers of 4e being rushed out (aside from the electronic side).

Some stuff they did later in the game with rituals really showed they were working on improving it. Stuff like having Healing Surges be part of the cost (So there was an immediate cost to an immediate effect without it eating up a chunk wealth) or having unique effects if used in a ritual scroll (To promote making them). Kinda sad that 5e discarded all of that in favour of 'Wizards (Basically no one else has ritual spells on their class list) get some spells for free if they've got the time'

If 4e had been released under the title of "D&D Tactics" rather than a full edition change, I can almost guarantee it would have been more well received. It just significantly diverted away from the game play style people were expecting when they were looking for "D&D", and therefore pissed off a lot of the people who were looking for that kind of game.

Yeah, well, as everyone knows, WotC shot themselves in the foot with the OGL

Jesus that's some stale pasta.

You can play whatever edition in 40k as well, but D&D is more of a small group focused thing where you can select the rules you group is doing, and ignore others. 40k is a game where you often find other random people for pick up games, and everyone agreeing upon a specific set of rules makes that much more smooth.

I'm not talking about people complaining about it, I'm talking about people actually playing it.

I wish it was just people complaining about 3.5 who insisted on focusing entirely on core

The editions change a lot from version to version. Some for the better some for the worse. That and the fact that you really are only going to play with 2-8 people. If evey one can agree on an edition it works. Warhammer "builds" on itself more or less.

Please find another instance of that specific text in the archive. Just because its a common argument, doesn't make it pasta, yo. Otherwise, this entire thread is a big stale box of spaghetti.

>literally never touch it.
now, fluff in the books might be fun to read, especially the Eberron ones

Btw, all books: rutracker.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3134960

4e also has an eberron splat, but I don't know how much it retains from the 3.5 one.

D&D tactics already exists. It's a 3.5 video game.

3.5 has way more splats for it, and a lot more specific ones; I'm running a 4e campaign set in Sarlona and Secrets of Sarlona is still really valuable (as are Keith Baker's blog posts).

I heard it somewhy added Baator in there. When hell and heaven are left purposly vague. And there's already two cthulhuland hells and one underworld hell.

Point taken, I saw 'D&D Tactics' and got pissed off. Fucking Mearls spreading shitty memes (As he's the guy who said that). Which doesn't even make any sense, 4e didn't have any LESS character stuff than 3.5 did and making it not the mainline game would have only hurt sales due to less brand power.

It's not even as if 4e has more tactics than 3.5, they just "fixed" the tactics by removing all the degenerate stuff.

It's pretty much the same as 3.5 Ebberon, as Ebberon and 4e built on the idea of 'How is D&D actually played right now' so the transition was incredibly smooth for it.

Well, they also made a lot more stuff inbuilt. Rather than 'You can play defender if you use X, Y and Z feats and the enemy isn't immune to tripping...the fighter can just block people moving'.

>You'd be right if I didn't so so many fucking idiots demanding to play 3.5 core,

3.5 core doesn't mean 3.5 raw, it just means not using any stray classes or weird feats/spells from weird books. 3.5 core is still pretty solid, though it does break apart in the higher levels without an experienced DM, but it does stand to be improved with houserules. Literally any role playing game can be improved with houserules.

5e is a good place to start. It's fairly simple and chunky: you won't be doing a lot of maths, the decisions you make at levelling up and the like are fairly straightforward but meaningful. Everyone has clear, well-defined abilities that are fairly easy to choose from at any turn. It's hard to screw up, and the game flows really well, even with inexperienced players. On the other hand, because of the limited amount of options, it can easily feel like two characters within the same class are virtually the same.

3.5 is in so many ways the opposite. There is a lot of maths involved. Simple maths, like adding a half-dozen +2 modifiers to your roll and the like, but you'll be doing it constantly and keeping track of which modifiers apply when can be a hassle. You get a large amount of options when building your character, and it gets downright insane if you start including the eleventy billion additions and expansions the game has. This requires a serious amount of planning, and making a poor choice early on can screw you over in the long run. It has its fans, but I've found the focus on optimisation and the oft-mentioned system mastery to be counterproductive more often than not. With new players, you'll also be likely be constantly wondering if this particular situational thing you have applies here, slowing the game to a crawl.
If you do decide to go with 3.5, take a look at the Tome of Battle expansion for alternatives to the Fighter and other martial classes that have more options than "I stand there and hit them with my thord".

3.5 core is the most broken part of the system. You only improve things by removing it in its entirety.

As much as calling 3.5 'D&D Wizard Wars' would have been a better release for it than a full edition change. It also significantly diverted away from what people were expecting in D&D.

Oh look, an idiot

The most broken parts of 3.5 are the wizard, the cleric and the druid. With the most hideously flawed being the monk and, well, CW samurai, but definitely the monk.

Core 3.5 is broken, the "stray classes" and "weird feats" are the best parts of the system

"He that spell seems op lets not use ot" or "hey could you not midmax that so hard".

This works wonders user and only if you play with a bunch of pricks that compete with each other would this not work.

Nope. It's entirely easy to break the game entirely by accident with tier 1 casters.

How about "don't use that class feature that basically entirely replaces me" or "don't use that level 1 spell that is stronger than my capstone".

Also, while I'm at it: humbly suggesting giving AD&D a try. It's not nearly as streamlined as the newer editions, but it's even chunkier than 5e. A lot of rules are unintuitive (e. g. lower Armour Class is better) and/or require you to look up a table when you're unsure. But once you figure it out, it's not so scary, and not that overloaded with rules you probably won't be using very often. Character decisions are few and relatively far between. On one hand, that means two level 6 paladins really are identical, besides their core attributes and (if you use them) proficiencies; but on the other, it's much easier for the DM to come up with a unique thing for each character without being afraid of stepping on another's toes.

Or you could, just as politely, ask everyone to play classes relatively close in power. Much easier to do if there's a nice broad selection of classes

A druid outclasses a fighter simply by having an animal companion, but a wildshape ranger and a warblade fight side-by-side without trouble

That the problem can be fixed doesn't stop the problem existing in the first place, and being worthy of criticism.

As a DM whose group switched from 4e to 5e, I sort of agree. 4e is easier to DM. But 5e is a lot easier for most players.

Those spellcasting classes all have really easy fixes, largely because they are the best known classes and have the most written about them. It's actually largely just centered around a few spells and abilities that need to be altered, and often players won't even pick those options so it ends up being an absolute non-issue for those groups.

You REALLY need to relax.

Of course not

Hence why my entire argument was. "The main problem with homebrewing 3.5 is that people keep wanting to use core-only"

It is not inherently a good system, it can be homebrewed into quite a good system, but it's important to know that core is shit

OD&D - Practically unplayable
1e - Hope you like Gygaxian prose! If so, this game isn't that bad but definitely has some issues (namely the fact that the attack grids for the classes are in the DMG, not the PHB)
Basic - Was meant as an intro to 1e but hearkens back to OD&D mostly.
B/X - Designed to allow Arneson some royalties but is more playable than Basic.
BECMI - Really hits the main stride for the Basic line, all the way up to "you a gahd now son!" levels (ie actual immortality) but still greatly limits demihumans.
2e - "Lets remove the icky stuff like half-orcs and assassins and rename devils/demons and such to cater to soccer moms who know literally nothing about the game but what they heard on TV/from their priest" edition. It did have the best settings though (except the Known World of Basic D&D which got bastardized to Mystara in 2e)
3e - Let's nerf the fuck out of martials and lift Druids and Clerics and other spellcasters to epic levels.
3.5 - And now for an errata edition!
4e - Balance first and foremost, epic characters doing epic shit in the cosmos.
5e - "Lets figure the fuck out what people in every edition liked and try to make it that while still making the game playable but also cut funding/staffing by a fuckton" edition.

>Druid never picks bear, wolf or some sort of dinosaur companion in a party with a monk/fighter/rogue
>or never turns into them
>or never summons any

I find all of this hard to believe, but sure.

see

>It is not inherently a good system,

Yeah, it is. It just has balance issues. Having balance issues doesn't make it a bad game, just like being perfectly balanced doesn't make something a good game.

Also, core is perfectly fine if you know what you're doing, and there's tons of advice centered around core. Keeping the game limited and relying on advice and experience is just one way of dealing with a particularly large and complex system with pretty heavy mechanical weight attached to its options.

Is it advised for inexperienced people? No, but you should let people who know what they're doing to do what they want to do.

If your argument for 'It's a good game' is reliant on research and experience, then it's not a good game. A good game should be good right out of the box.

I love some games that, once you get the hang of them, work and play great. But I'd be lying if I called them good games because, RAW and out of the box, they aren't. The same applies to 3.5.

You always appear anywhere 3.5 is mentioned, with these same tired and debunked arguments.

PCs outclass animal companions, and it's a cooperative team game, not a competitive one, so the fighter should be just as happy to have a bear on the team as the druid is. If you really have an issue, just use a more restricted animal list.

>A good game should be good right out of the box.

And it is. It's a great game right out of the box, though it gets improved with a few houserules.

Of course, it's largely been superceded by 5e, but for it's time, it really was a great game. You might disagree, but you'd be in a bit of a minority, and that might be kind of why you're still upset about other people's opinions despite it being close to two decades since the game was released.

The problem is simple matter of resources

A fighter in the party with a druid, assuming the same amount of money would be distributed with or without the fighter, is an active detriment to the success of the party. Because the money NOT spent on the fighter is worth more than the fighter is, thanks to the druid doing his job almost as well

The idea that cooperative balance matters less than competitive is fucking stupid.

Ah, you're just a cunt. Thanks for making it clear. I almost fell for your bait.

He's describing a mechanical reality, not advocating a way to play the system.

If you have to play against the rules for the game to be fun, it's not a good system.

But isn't that contradicting what you just said?

No, he's arguing like an idiotic cunt, and you want to pretend that anything he just wrote isn't absolutely retarded.

That you need me to explain how much he is exaggerating, or how insane his "all money should go to the druid" bullshit happens to be is enough to reveal what kind of person you are.

Fuck, be more subtle next time.

I hear Eberron is pretty nifty. Is there a good way to play it in 5e?

It is nifty. Also no.

Fuck, even the guy who made Eberron prefers to play it using 4e over 3.5 or 5e.

>PCs outclass animal companions

Some of them, yeah, but not all. Monks and finesse fighters for example, absolutely don't.

>and it's a cooperative team game, not a competitive one

This does not excuse class imbalance, especially when the system itself treats classes as equal.

Do you think the party would have a harder time with a level 20 wizard or a level 20 fighter? The game says they are both the same CR, so they should be roughly equal of a challenge...

>so the fighter should be just as happy to have a bear on the team as the druid is.

In character? Sure. Out of character? If I want to build a shitty fighter, who sucks in combat so much some other character's PET outpaces him, I can do so without the game's help in any edition. When I pick a Fighter I pick it because I want to play the fantasy of a badass dude with a sword, not a goddamn waterboy for the real players.

Imagine being the fighter in that situation

You KNOW this, you KNOW that being allowed to party with the druid is essentially charity, because you're a drain, not a boon

This feels terrible, and that is my point, that is why cooperative balance is important. Not that you should get rid of useless party members, but rather that being a useless party member feels like absolute shit no matter how nice the people you're playing with are

>Monks and finesse fighters for example, absolutely don't.

Except they do. If your entire argument relies entirely on exaggeration, you have no argument.

This has been proven to you hundreds of times. How do you keep forgetting this?

I never said "all money should go to the druid"

In this example case, the money would be split amongst the remainder of the party, come on, just giving all the money to the druid is stupid, he can't use magic weapons or armor, give that stuff to a cleric

3.5 is the best edition, 4e is garbage, 5e isn't as good as 3.5 but is at least a playable game and is a lot easier to learn.

I think you're misunderstanding his point. It isn't that any group would, or should, funnel all its gold towards one characters. It's that the system mechanically incentivizes and rewards doing so. When the system mechanically rewards an action which no real group would actually take, that's a real mechanical flaw, since it makes the optimal way to play the game a way which is inherently unfun for most of the people playing it.

>This has been proven to you hundreds of times. How do you keep forgetting this?

It's funny, because I remember it the other way around.

Bet you could link me to a source proving it then.

3.X is the edition that has done the most damage to D&D in the history of the game
4th is so different to D&D that most people wouldn't consider it D&D

Either go for 5th (that sadly as a concialiatory edition took from all of them, and took too much from 3.shit) which is good, or go old school.

>t. 3aboo

That's just inaccurate. 4e classes have powers that almost can't be used without a grid and miniatures, and a lot more synergy between different abilities/effects/conditions. Zone spells and marks are examples of tactical mechanics introduced with 4e, as is the Warlord class, which was largely created to capitalize on the tactical grid nature of the game.
Also, as said, a whole category of classes exists whose job is to halt enemy movement (not to mention that another category is "controller," whose job is literally to manipulate the battlefield).
I'm not complaining or anything, but it's silly to pretend 4e wasn't much more tactically-oriented than 3e.

The thing is, those are all things 3.x attempted. They just failed at it.

Yeah this was my point.

All of those things exist in 3.5, they just either suck, or not worth doing because you have better options to end fights instantly anyway at the levels you can do them.

>On the other hand, because of the limited amount of options, it can easily feel like two characters within the same class are virtually the same
I'd argue that WOTC worried about and anticipated that, which is why subclasses are THE thing in 5e. They really go a long way to differentiate members of certain classes (most notably fighters).

>two level 6 paladins really are identical, besides their core attributes and (if you use them) proficiencies
Paladins are a funny example, because their ridiculous stat requirements virtually guarantees fairly similar stats across different specimens. (I agree with your general comments, though).

Or you can have the best of both worlds and play 5e with THAC0!>>

I have to agree with . The core system is good, but the devs wrote shit content for it. It's sort of like if Starcraft had only 2 maps and they sucked - the core game is still great, the devs just didn't really understand their own system.

Even with some of the subclasses there can be a lot of differentiation, like the fact no two battle master fighters would be the same, totem barbarians can be wildly different, and so on.

That depends entirely on what you consider the "core system" to be