So which edition of D&D do you think is the best and why Veeky Forums?

4th edition.

Most interesting yet malleable default setting.

Finally admitted that gnomes & half-orcs needed the time to make them interesting instead of just being grandfathered in (besides, half-orcs were only PHB releases in 1e and 3e anyway).

Martial Classes that could finally do interesting shit in combat.

A default multiversial cosmology that was actually interesting as well as being accessible from 1st level.

Fey finally graduated to being more than cutesy-poo "mischievous" fairies and titilation fodder.

Single pantheon of multifaceted deities instead of sprawling tangles of one-dimensional overly specific gods.

Druids finally had meaningful background flavor to make them more than just Captain Ethnic overpowered Nature Clerics.

Alignment and all its attendant stupidity, like class-based alignment restrictions, was taken out the back and shot in the head.

Well-written "Monster Adventurer" races where possible.

Epic Destinies gave real thematic epilogues to aim your character towards.

Sorcerers weren't just Wizards with weirder way of memorizing spells.

Every class had its own unique themes.

The forgettable Bronze & Brass Dragons were replaced from the default lineup with the far more memorable Adamantine and Iron Dragons.

Paragon Paths really helped cement the core of your character - I still miss my Wuxia Acrobatic Swordsmaster (Soaring Blade).

Swordmage was, hands down, the best gish we've had since AD&D's multiclassed Fighter/Mage.

Every class strove to feel unique in how it played and what it did; a Fighter was not a Swordmage was not a Warden was not a Battlemind was not a Paladin.

And that's just the things that immediately come to mind.

3.5. Sure it wasn't perfect, but it was still the best by far.

What is BECMI?

...

Basic/Expert/Something or other - It was the proto-ruleset from before the Advanced D&D 1e ruleset was released - I think even before the Mystara-based rules for things like Hollow World or the Known World Gazetteers.

Too bad the majority of DnD's fanbase is too stupid to function and would rather have played Pathfinder than 4e, so we get a 5th edition that's a step backward in every way imaginable.

Fuck, I hate this hobby sometimes.

>someone's baiting if he likes something I don't like
3.5 is still being played by thousands and thousands of people even after being out of print for almost a decade. I know there are some very loud retards here who get triggered every time it's mentioned but they don't represent everyone in the hobby.

Have fun with "Wizard Does Everything: The Game"

I mean, that's every edition of DnD anyway, but 3.5 is the absolute worst about it.

>Basic/Expert/Something or other
Companion, Master, Immortal
>It was the proto-ruleset from before the Advanced D&D 1e ruleset was released
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooope. That's OD&D.
The first book of AD&D is older than Holmes Basic, Moldvay Basic and Cook Expert (B/X) are younger than AD&D, and BECMI is younger than B/X.

That problem is easily solved by playing with people who aren't assholes.

I'm one of them and I've been trying to get my players to switch to something less shit for a year now. At the end of the year when my campaign ends, I'm going to a different game, leaving them behind, and never touching that trainwreck again.

>"The game is good if you just ignore the rules and mechanics!"

Literally what DnD fans believe, everyone.

AD&D was my gateway into the hobby, but BECMI was what I really got running properly with, so BECMI is always what I think of when folks talk about D&D.

I had good games and bad in BECMI, 2nd ed, Skills & Powers-era 2e, 3rd, 3.5, and 4.

I never had a good game in AD&D.

Never actually played White Box, B/X, or Rules Cyclopedia, so I don't have an opinion on those grounded in play experience.

I haven't had a bad game (bad sessions, but no balls-out bad campaigns) with 5e, but that may just be a matter of time.

Reigning champ for me is (and likely will always be) BECMI for purely nostalgiac reasons.

...

It's also easily solved by playing a game that actually supports not having to literally ignore the obviously broken game balance to have a good time.

Yea, but I like that named stuff cause now I'm looking into it.

5e fixes a ton of problems both 3.5 and 4e had

Pathfinder is just a more clusterfucked 3.5

There are ways of playing the game, as is, and having fun.
You, personally, are incapable of them.
It is a flawed game. That doesn't justify you being flawed.

I like 4th once the rules got compiled.

I got turned off primarily due to the splat book releases, but then again. I enjoy nitty gritty combat stuff.

5e doesn't actually fix alot of 3.5/PFs problems though, it just disguises them under copious amounts of dumbing down, and in some cases actively makes the problems worse.

Lets talk about in 5e you only have 2 levels of training in a skill, proficient and non-proficient, and proficiency bonus is only like a 10% better chance to succeed than being not trained at all for a majority of the game.

Or how about how Intelligence is literally a worthless stat for anything unless you're playing a wizard.

And that's just two easy examples amongst many.

No, but it sure as hell justifies playing a game that's less flawed instead of continuing to shovel shit into my mouth.

I like whichever version my group/friends have the most fun playing! :>

It's amazing how unfunny this meme became when people completely missed the point and thought it was things I like versus things I don't like.

Fun fact, you can use social skills to improve the quality of other games as well, DnD is just a worse designed game

Assuming you're not , go for it.

This. But omygerdPFsucksyoulooser.

Ok, ok. I admit thieves are a little shafted in the base rules. Just borrow the 2nd edition rule of letting them assign percentage ponints to the skills they want.

True but that applies to pretty much every game, DnD is just a worse option even if you can make it work

Yes because a group not having fun with FATAL is their fault.

No ROLEPLAYING GAME was ever made better by strictly adhereing to the rules as written because there are no perfect games, regardless of what the 4e and 5e fan like to pretend. Even in those two games you have to houserule shit to make it work properly, which they don't like being mentioned.

Even GURPSfags know their game has a shitton of bad content in it.

Rules cyclopedia is just all those loose BECMI books in one big volume. Thats the book I use when referencing BECMI.

False equivalence. 4E and 5E are both much more stable RAW than 3.5 ever was.

There are games with rules that do support Roleplaying though. 3.5 just isn't one of them.

Not that I;d expect someone who's never played anything except DnD to know what's that like.

This is the first time I agree with the chad

2e for great supporting material.
5e for not being a broken mess.

AD&D 2e

Agreed

My friends and I enjoy playing D&D, though it doesn't matter what system we're playing because we're enjoying the story and eachother's company. You're sad and I feel sorry for you.

4e lovers are either late 70s hardcore grognards who played the game even before 1st ed Ad&d or newbies who were intorduced to hobby post 2008 with 4th edition as a start.

I found that both have one thing in common, seeing the game more of a wargaming/combat sense than roleplaying. D&D did branched off from wargaming, and early modules were designed to use in tournaments, you could not only "win or lose" but also gain spesific points and compare it with other groups who played the game with gencon. Roleplaying was not important at all. Same with 4th edition, the combat was refined but it also took the major scene, 4th ed was heavily influenced by mmorpgs and those who start their rpg carreers with 4th edition were almost always played mmorpgs before so they were use to combat/loot/grind concept and did not cared about roleplaying much

Thankfull wotc realised their mistake in 5th, and shifted the focus back on roleplaying. By the way If you are a 4e fag and like 5the while shitting on 3rd then you have no idea of what you are talking about

What if you're a 5e fag who likes 4 and shits on 3?

And what games would those be? 5e takes three steps back for every step forward, and 4e's just a joke.

The amount of strawman here is so copious I'm imagining this whole thing being written out in bales of hay.

You're retarded clearly

Have you tried not playing DnD or games based on DnD? I mean most of your problems seem to stem from stuff that's inherent to DnD...

In before screeching denials anyway.

I've considered it, but I like all the options and tactical depth that 3.5 offers, and I like how there's so many players that I can pick and choose instead of having to take whoever I can get. Plus I don't really know how to come up with adventures for games that aren't D&D, if nothing else I can at least have the players do a dungeon crawl.

Absurd as 5e was a great leap from 4e, it was more simialr to 3rd than 4th.
my observations I'm sure you are a special snowflake who is the exception to the rule

Yes, great tactical depth like "Full Round Attack" every single turn.

Well, unless you play a wizard. Then you get to be flying, invisible, cloned, protected by 6 different force fields, and surrounded by an army of summoned beasts at all time and defeat enemies in a single spell without even having to do HP damage...

Tome of Battle solved that problem, but the 3.5 hate brigade ignores it because they don't want solutions. They just like to complain.

>Game is unplayable in it's base form
>"B-b-but it's OK because you can buy expansions that slap a ton of band-aids on it!"

Unironically what DnDrones actually believe.

Why is it that 4rries complain constantly about people playing other games, when no one's stopping them from playing 4e themselves? It's like on some level they realize it's shit but are too stubborn to admit it.

Generally, I think of D&D as being the okay.jpg of the RPG spectrum. It's the one we all resign to when nobody can agree on what game to play.

Of the ones I've tried though, I preferred 4th, because I prefer combat scenes to be done with visuals. I mainly play wargames, so stripping all the good stuff out kills it for me.

Of course, my D&D spectrum is limited to 3.0 and 4.0, but neither were such a horrible experience that I wouldn't play either again, nor so outstanding that I couldn't get my fix by farting around in Oblivion for a couple of hours instead.

>No furry/scaly subraces making things weird.
I'm guessing you don't run Mystara?

I hate MMORPGs. I have played some for months, trying to connect to friends who got swallowed up by them, and can tell you that 4e is nothing like an MMO in all the ways that matter.

I also started with 3rd (technically, MERP, but only had like 2 sessions of that), and grown to hate the shit out of it, with 4e fixing just about all the problems I had with it.

So yeah, your anecdotal evidence aint worth shit.

Shadow of the Demon Lord, it may not technically be D&D but it's what D&D should have been. Character customization without hundreds of trap options, spellcasters have to specialize instead of being able to do everything, and something like advantage/disadvantage but not pants-on-head retarded. Too bad no one plays it.

4e fag here, seconding this in the context of "what 5e should have been", just maybe with a bit less grimderp.

None of those games are in D&D's genre of RPG though. High magic, high progression, not a lot of narrative interpretation needed to judge consequences of rolls etc.

Shadow of the Demon Lord is EXACTLY D&D's schtick, except the base setting is a bit darker.

Give it a read, it's pretty good.

That Chad isn't very Chad like there's no gross arrogance or vapid simplification touted as superiority.

Do you actually play with declaring intent before the turn is resolved ?

>because there are one or two really bad editions (ad&d, [...]
Gary
get the Vorpal Sword

>not knowing that AD&D was basically just a ploy to kick Gary from the game like he did for Amerson

That was 2e, dingus. I was referring to True AD&D™

I read horror and immediately thought "low progression", but I guess it does seem to have a fair amount of progression and trashing the world can get rid of the grim dark.

I like the sound of the tired specialization, always thought it was one of the few things 4e did right.

Especially since "roles" stem back to the original Fighting Man/Magic User/Thief/Healer class system that D&D was founded on, and WoTC pointed this out in the first damn book.

Seriously, all Roles did was eliminate the Tiers system that 3e introduced. The designers knew what the hell a class was supposed to achieve in order to contribute meaningfully to the game.

It wasn't until Essentials fouled up that formula that we started getting crappy classes in 4e.

Mystara: the setting that gave us:
* Catpeople
* Dogpeople
* Lizardpeople
* Shapeshifting Spiderpeople
* Elf-Ogre Crossbreeds

...did Mystara give us Diaboli PCs in OD&D, or was making them playable a 3e thing? I know they date back to Mystara's "Wrath of the Immortals".

>It wasn't until Essentials fouled up that formula that we started getting crappy classes in 4e.

To be fair, Paladin on release was a travesty. In general, 4e PHB doesn't really stand on its own. It's nowhere near as bad as some other PHBs, but it needed some time before later material patched up all the issues with the books on release.

I was first introduced to D&D via the Cartoon and Baldur's Gate, enjoyed the step to 3e via Neverwinter Nights, followed 3e throughout its run, then jumped to 4e and happily considered it to be continuing the trend of D&D getting better and better with each edition. A trend that sadly was broken with 5e.

So, yeah, you're full of shit.

>he says in a thread that was about DnD but just had to invade, shitting on DnD

Come to think of it, weren't the Divine classes in general pretty weak at first release and dependent upon Dragon articles, the Realms & Eberron updates, and Divine Power to fix them all?

I started with 4e but migrated to 3.5e and ended up loving it cause of all the fucking crazy splat books and exponential character builds from 1000s of classes and PrC feats and bizzare rule sets all on top of each other. You could have a character who's entire class is based around getting possessed several times a day, a psionic monk who grapples at range with his mind, and duel wielding blender that critted anytime he rolled over a 10. It was unbalanced very much so and ivory tower design is a shitty way to write, however 3.5e never left me board when I played it and I played it for a decade. Don't play much DnD now mainly WoD but if I ever came back to it would either be 3.5e or 5e (I read some good things about it but the lack of content disappoints me) as it seem like a more grounded 3.5e if they ever release for varied stuff.

Canon post. Prayers heard, spells granted.

>You could have a character who's entire class is based around getting possessed several times a day

Literally 4e barbarian

>a psionic monk who grapples at range with his mind

Monk || Seeker /barbarian with Hurl weapon and Grappling Spirits

>and duel wielding blender

Range...

>that critted anytime he rolled over a 10

Hmm, okay, got me there. The best TWF crit fisher would be Avenger with Ranger PP, but he gets a lot of crits because of a combination of increased range and rolling 2d20, take best, for his oath target.

5e is actually a step backwards for roleplaying, because outside of combat, caster superiority is very much a thing. 4e doesn't have many rules for roleplaying, but most of its combat rules can be re-purposed for it.

>4e lovers are either late 70s hardcore grognards who played the game even before 1st ed Ad&d or newbies who were intorduced to hobby post 2008 with 4th edition as a start.
Or players and DMs that recognized the weakness of 3e, but couldn't find any better system (what else was available at the time? some narrativist shit? Shadowrun, OWoD? The Riddle of Steel and Legend of the Wulin? not bad, but try having a group decide to switch system to not-D&D, it's hell).

Shouldn't you be using the college major template instead of the virgin/chad template?

The virgin/chad one is supposed to make the chad one look even more ridiculous

I was referring to the binder in the ToM who got possessed simultaneously with different spiritual entities that gave different abilities and these changed everyday not someone who lost their mind so hard it warped reality (which is arguably 20 different arcane/demon/psionic classes along with frenzied berserker).

Don't get me wrong 4e had a lots of builds too that were interesting its just the roles were more defined and abilities were kept similar in mechanics and diverse in theme in order for the game to remain balanced. Good for a miniatures game not so much for doing crazy bullshit. 3.5e (and Pathfinder I guess haven't played it but heard its similar) had a lot more builds due to the fuck tonne of splat books and, well quite frankly lack of caring for balance. After doing 4e for 3 years it felt like I exhausted it for play styles and builds I doubt I'll ever reach that point with 3.5e.

>I was referring to the binder in the ToM who got possessed simultaneously with different spiritual entities that gave different abilities

This is literally the fluff of the 4e barbarian. Barbarian rages in 4e are spirits possessing him, giving him different abilities. This is why he's a Primal class, and not just a very angry martial (that's the battlerager fighter). Admittedly, he can't swap it around day to day.

I guess I'm just a bit tired of people saying 3.5 is so much more versatile, then making examples that are either
a.) also easily possible in 4e
b.) very specific mechanical shit ("crits on a 10+"), that 4e has its own share of anyway
c.) OP godcaster bullshit (that you can sometimes approximate, but less godly).

I also enjoy the mechanical stuff of 3.5 for building weird shit, I just feel in practice I can do the same in 4e for all the shit that matters, and do it balanced; but if you are actually bothered by the obvious balance that's not really an upside for you, so whatever.

GURPS
(without the shitty default magi system)

It’s particularly notable in this thread, where the first two posts by 4e fans ( and ) are basically attacks on other editions— and WotC, and D&D players generally.

It’s interesting that 4e remains staggeringly divisive even three years after the release of 5e.

4e fans have just gotten emboldened recently because of a YouTuber. Before that they were reasonable.

4e fan here.

What youtuber?

>So which edition of D&D do you think is the best and why Veeky Forums?
5E because it lets me play the kind of story the game has since forever purported of letting me play.

4E because the sheer level of teamwork possible (without dictating team composition) is extremely enjoyable.

Every other edition including a number of OSRs I've found to be extremely under-performing, deliberately obtuse without genuine granularity or otherwise irrelevant to my interests.

That being said: I enjoy games like Grancrest or Tenra Bansho Zero significantly more as far as kitchen sink fantasy is concerned.

>in a thread about which is best D&D, 4e fans dare to say what their edition does better than other D&Ds
>fucking assholes!

Now, to be fair, had been making this post in some other thread and is actually probably trolling.

>The first book of AD&D is older than Holmes Basic
I thought it was Holmes, then MM.

Rules Cyclopedia followed by LBB-only OD&D.

The RC's a hardcover with all the Basic you can want and its flawed (thief skills; thief skills; the skills of thieves) are easily fixed. LBB OD&D is fucking weird but incredibly fun to homebrew.

>oWoD
>not realising it was replaced by nWoD in 04
4e and nWoD were my first games, I got into tabletop very, very late in life

Dude keyword swapping in 4e to fit fluff is fine, but don't pretend you can replicate hundreds of bizarre sub systems to a system that has all of its abilities will, encounter, daily etc fit neatly into a dozen swap able variables. I don't dislike 4e's balance I dislike that wildly different class archetypes fluff wise function similarly, and truthfully I didn't mind that when I was playing it at first that took years. That never happened with 3.5e. I'm sorry that upsets you but I wanted 4e to do more shit outside of fluff swapping but it didn't, it got canned early, and expanding it with home brew to fit a theme doesn't fix the mechanical sameness.

Chronicles, Styx, or One World and was it vampires, werewolves, hunters, demons, or mages

nwod 1e core used to run pseudo-hunters, my GM was so shit I realised I could do a better job. And I did. Now I'm forever GM

I feel like I'm really going to enjoy 5e in about 5 years when they eventually get a good set of books out. Haven't played any of it yet but my group is thinking about switching over for a trial session. Would that horde of the dragon queen (I think that's what its called) be a good starting point or would it be better to do the shoot the shit custom encounters CR from the monster manual?

Well, subtract the bits of that post which provide actual information about 4th edition and see what’s left over. In other editions:

—Gnomes and half-orca weren’t interesting.
—Martial classes couldn’t do interesting shit in combat
—The multiversal cosmology was neither interesting nor accessible from 1st level
—Fey were cutesy-poo “mischievous” fairies and titillation fodder
(As an aside, I really don’t know why Veeky Forums has such a hardon for horrifying, murderous fey.)
—Pantheons were sprawling tangles of one-dimensional overly-specific gods
—Druids lacked meaninful background flavor
—Alignment was a thing, and it was stupid
—Sorcerors are merely wizards with a weirder way of memorizing spells
—Bronze and Brass dragons are forgettable
(Oddly, brass dragons are the only ones I remember, because they like talking.)

This is what we learn about the merits of 4e:

—The setting is interesting and malleable
—Well-written “Monster Adventurer” races are possible
(Isn’t writing quality usually loosely related to the system you’re using...?)
—Epic Destinies provide characters with compelling aspirations
—Each class is unique (a claim reiterated later with a largely gratuitous dig at other editions)
—Paragon Paths really “[help] cement the core of your character”
—Swordmage is a good gish

Split this way, it’s obvious that the positive case for 4e is severely underdeveloped relative to the negative case— the main reasons to play 4e are 1) it’s not retarded and horrible like all other D&D editions, 2) it has a good class system, and 3) something about the setting.