Author Topic: Is D&D 5 better than D&D 3.5?  (Read 55568 times)

Offline Unbeliever

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Re: Is D&D 5 better than D&D 3.5?
« Reply #60 on: April 28, 2015, 09:44:07 PM »
AD&D/2E had a ton of books:  races, classes, settings, magic items, monster manuals.  Those last things, especially, it had by the truckload, and a lot of the stuff that in 3E we think of being contained in "splatbooks" lived in those.  It's been ages, but I am pretty sure that new classes, mechanics, spells, etc. were introduced a lot of the time in setting books. 

And, I mean, I don't know.  People reference Tomb of Horrors and so forth a lot.  But, do they really reference it more than they reference Faerun, Menzoberranzan, elf subraces, and various types of beholder? 

Really telling to me is the lack of stuff like monster books.  One of D&D's traditional strengths has been hordes of pre-genned and often interesting (both mechanically and ecologically and conceptually) monsters.  There's a fair bunch of wallbangers in there, too, but still, a lot of neat stuff.

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Is D&D 5 better than D&D 3.5?
« Reply #61 on: April 28, 2015, 09:45:26 PM »
Well, most of the settings were properly defined there. And I can remember module names more than I remember extraneous splatbooks.

Offline Unbeliever

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Re: Is D&D 5 better than D&D 3.5?
« Reply #62 on: April 28, 2015, 09:54:31 PM »
Well, most of the settings were properly defined there. And I can remember module names more than I remember extraneous splatbooks.
You posited that nobody cared about stuff other than modules.  I noted (admittedly broadly, but we're talking about a game that had its heyday 20+ years ago) a bunch of books that were important parts of the libraries of previous editions that were not modules.  I don't know what else to tell you.  I can probably manage to rattle off a few iconic modules based on my memory.  But, maybe 1/100th of my gaming sessions involved a module.  Monster Manuals, books of spells and magic items, and so on were, by contrast, were used consistently. 

Offline Nytemare3701

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Re: Is D&D 5 better than D&D 3.5?
« Reply #63 on: April 28, 2015, 09:57:44 PM »
@5E's Publication Cycle
Wait a second, has 5E been out for a year without anything other than adventures produced?  That's ... weird.  And, it doesn't do much to allay the feeling that it's a much less rich game system than its predecessors.  I guess this is a completely new approach to D&D, but I'm not sure if it's a sensible one given the basic structure of the system.  There are some games, usually more effects-based ones, that can live with just a core book or two.  D&D has, up till this iteration I guess, never been one of them.  And, I doubt it plays to the system's strengths. 

More generally, it's not a good idea to keep people waiting literally years for products they can use.  Adventures are potentially neat and usually crap, and are certainly not used by every table.

... isn't the old stuff remembered more for its adventures than its supplements? It's basically 'UA' and then 'stuff no-one really cares about', whilst the adventures are a lot more known. @_@

The adventures in this edition are also sources of splat content. We've head plenty of good stuff in Elemental Evil and Dragon Queen so far.

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Is D&D 5 better than D&D 3.5?
« Reply #64 on: April 28, 2015, 10:08:13 PM »
The lack of the normal core book extensions is weird, but there's another three years this is being planned for. Plus this isn't TSR with its infinite spam of books, and they don't seem to want to emulate 3's immense extra chaos.

Offline Unbeliever

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Re: Is D&D 5 better than D&D 3.5?
« Reply #65 on: April 29, 2015, 12:32:33 AM »
Just out of curiosity, what has been released for 5E so far?  Just, like total books unless there's a strong magazine type of support a la Dragon?  Does anybody know off-hand?  I just glanced at the WotC website, but I have to admit it's more confusing than helpful.  It looks like there's been a dry spell between the core rulebooks and nowish, roughly since the end of last year till now.

One nice thing it looks like they are doing is releasing the splat content as a free pdf alongside the adventures.  That's cool, though I wonder about the business model.  But, maybe a lot more people like adventures or campaigns than I do. 

Offline TenaciousJ

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Re: Is D&D 5 better than D&D 3.5?
« Reply #66 on: April 29, 2015, 11:46:54 AM »
Starter Set (I think this has the Lost Mines of Phandelver adventure path and bare bones PHB stuff)
Player's Handbook
Monster Manual
Dungeon Master's Guide
Hoard of the Dragon Queen
Rise of Tiamat
Princes of the Apocalypse
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Offline Unbeliever

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Re: Is D&D 5 better than D&D 3.5?
« Reply #67 on: April 29, 2015, 01:12:31 PM »
Hoard of the Dragon Queen
Rise of Tiamat
Princes of the Apocalypse
Adventures or Adventure Paths type of things, no?

This might fit into the spirit of this thread, so I'll just lay out my thinking a little bit w/r/t D&D 5E.  I've found some decent gamers in NOLA, and they mostly play Pathfinder.  Which is ok for me:  I don't have the affection for PF that I do for 3E, but I can live with it, there's only a few rules that are real wallbangers, mostly related to the math behind CMB/CMD.  I'm not overly impressed with PF -- they seem to have mostly traded 3E D&D's multiclass complexity for a proliferation of archetypes and "pick from this huge list" of class features -- which I don't think helps make the game easier, but whatever.

That being said, most of the gamers around here struggle with the rules.  Frankly, they suck rules-wise.  They don't really "get" their characters, how they work, the rules in general, and so on.  And, this persists after several sessions.  Consequently, I'm thinking that maybe 5E might be nice for them, sitting somewhere in between Lamentations of the Flame Princess and the simpler retro-clones and the heavy heavy crunch of 3E/Pathfinder. 

As a practical matter, I don't think I could persuade them away from Pathfinder, anyway, but I've been considering at least making the suggestion and shelling out some money for the 5E books.

However, two things that I've heard give me pause.  These are just based on impressions, so feel free to tell me that I'm wrong (hopefully in a gentle way that spares my delicate feelings ...).  And, that's discounting my kind of awful playtest experiences, which I will currently chalk up to "D&D will never learn how to design a post-AD&D Ranger worth playing."  (1)The treatment of DMs and rules gives me serious pause.  The reason is not that I'm the hardest core rules lawyer out there.  Far from it.  But, right now I'm at a table where even in Pathfinder a DM will just invent rules that radically change the nature of the game at the drop of a hat.  All the sudden, we find out that there's some new cover mechanic, or that if you wake up midway through the evening you lose that night's sleep (which just leads to annoying rope trick type of things anyways ...), and so on.  I'm not doing a good job at describing it, but key class features and feats can turn off and on at a moment's notice if I'm not there to tell him "no, buddy, that's like not the way it works at all." 

He's a pretty decent DM generally, and I blame the adventure a lot for this, actually, as it often reads like a rules-free zone.  But, still, it's an issue.  With a relatively "firm" ruleset people like me at the table can at least try and make the stuff on the character sheet matter.  I worry how this'd go with big bold letters saying "go ahead, make shit up, don't sweat it!" at the front of a rulebook.  Moreover, I seriously worry about the ability of DMs, not to mention game designers, to eyeball DCs.  The ones I've seen people come up with are all over the map.

(2)Is just the lack of support.  A lot of this is new system-itus.  3E D&D and Pathfinder both have had years to build up the system, not to mention an OGL and major publishing pushes.  5E has had about 6 months, right?  But, this isn't news to WotC, and they haven't exactly been stepping up production to fill in this gap. 

In and of itself, relatively few character and encounter options isn't the kiss of death.  The lack of production does make me feel a little hinky, though, and it's not like WotC has a sterling reputation of brand stewardship in recent years to fall back on.  The other thing, though, is the extent to which the things that do exist in 5E are kind of the old stalwarts, which is my guess.  It's not just taking a big step down in the amount of material (with no ready solution on the horizon), but it's that the material available seems very familiar -- it's the same bevy of plate mail clad Fighters and elven Wizards we're familiar with.  It'd help, for instance, if 5E did some things outside the "core canon" of D&D well, like Swashbucklers, etc.  Although it might for all I know. 

Offline TenaciousJ

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Re: Is D&D 5 better than D&D 3.5?
« Reply #68 on: April 29, 2015, 03:01:06 PM »
You don't have to worry so much about DCs because the Dungeon Master's Guide tells someone what DCs to use when there's not a calculation for DC.

DC 10 is easy
DC 15 is moderate difficulty
DC 20 is hard
DC 25 is very hard
DC 30 is nearly impossible/super heroic

The bounded numbers of 5th edition make these numbers fairly easy to work with.  Until hard tasks, it's possible with dice rolls and no training or ability score to succeed.  Around level 10-12 (earlier with rolled stats or higher than default point buy), someone with a maxed out stat and proficiency will be able to auto-pass easy tasks and nearly always succeed on moderate, with only a 10 or so needed to succeed on a hard task.  So yeah your DM might make shit up, but the Dungeon Master's Guide tells him what numbers to use for the difficulty of the task.  There's a lot less mechanics to remember though, so there's less need to make things up.  Cover rules for example are really simple (+2 to AC and Dex saves for half cover, +5 for 3/4 cover), that's one of the only mechanics I can think of that tweaks numbers instead of just using advantage or disadvantage.  Just about anything like grappling, tripping, bull rushing, disarming, etc. is attacker's Athletics vs. opponent's choice of Athletics or Acrobatics.

Things like the Swashbuckler do exist.  It's just under the umbrella of Dex-based Fighter (it actually works) with maybe a splash of Rogue.  In 3.5 terms, each 5e class kind of has choices of prestige classes built in, so the choices available within each class combined with multiclassing make a lot of the non-core playstyles available if you cannot accept that the label looks different.
« Last Edit: April 29, 2015, 03:03:55 PM by TenaciousJ »
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Offline zugschef

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Re: Is D&D 5 better than D&D 3.5?
« Reply #69 on: April 30, 2015, 11:40:57 AM »
5th edition is already dead. That's all you need to know.
Well, that's an enormous claim.
The thing is out for almost a year and there isn't a single splat book available. And nobody knows if or when there ever will be.
This product line is dead.

*cough*
nice try

Offline Raineh Daze

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Re: Is D&D 5 better than D&D 3.5?
« Reply #70 on: April 30, 2015, 12:26:07 PM »
5th edition is already dead. That's all you need to know.
Well, that's an enormous claim.
The thing is out for almost a year and there isn't a single splat book available. And nobody knows if or when there ever will be.
This product line is dead.

*cough*
nice try

You're really not supporting the whole '5E is dead' thing by citing a page saying that they're releasing something other than splats.

Offline Unbeliever

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Re: Is D&D 5 better than D&D 3.5?
« Reply #71 on: April 30, 2015, 12:53:25 PM »
^ you're being dismissive, but I think the lack of material is a valid criticism and concern.  And, it's not a huge leap to say that it shows neglect for the product line. 

TenaciousJ listed 3 books other than the core rulebooks.  That's a rate of less than 1 book per month.  Furthermore, all of those books (I think?  Please correct if I'm mistaken) are adventures.  Meaning that unless we're all -- every last person interesting in playing D&D -- going to be simply content and interested in playing pre-written adventures, those books will be of dubious use.  And, we're just left with whatever splat content is in those adventures, which I don't think is a ton of pages. 

Maybe "dead" is hyperbolic.  But, "neglected" seems pretty reasonable assessment.  Especially given the kind of game D&D has always been, and still is in 5E, one characterized by a number of pregenerated monsters, magic items, spells, etc. 

This is all the more surprising given the challenge that WotC faces with 5E.  They have a fragmented fan-base that's split between 3E, 4E, Pathfinder, and retroclones.  5E's stated goal, which is a fairly obvious one, was to reclaim at least some of D&D's market share and fanbase.  If you're asking people to jump onto your bandwagon you need to entice them away from the one they are already on, something I referred to as "new system-itus" in an earlier post.  It doesn't do much to entice people/allay fears of fans when your pace of production is, charitably, slow. 

Offline TenaciousJ

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Re: Is D&D 5 better than D&D 3.5?
« Reply #72 on: April 30, 2015, 11:34:41 PM »
Princes of the Apocalypse at least has some new material that's usable outside the adventure path.  The new spells are replicated in a free pdf, leaving 8 unique monsters and some magic items.  That's probably not worth the price of the book, but I did buy it to support the edition and my local store.  At the least, I have it as a physical reference for all those spells if I get to play as a PC in 5e.  The other 2 adventure paths don't offer much to a custom setting other than some new magic items.

My players feel like they have a lot of choices to explore with the current materials, as every class is actually like multiple classes and many of the races have subraces built into the core.  As a DM, I only feel like I want Eberron setting material (the UA stuff is weak) and more monsters to use because I'm used to 5 Monster Manuals in 3.5 plus other splatbooks with monsters.  I could do some more conversions, but the conversions are more of an art than a science with the current material.  I shouldn't have to come up with my own templates for making skeletons, zombies, fiendish creatures, etc.

The release schedule is downright slow, but I am still on my first 5e campaign and I don't feel like I'm running out of material to use.  My game has been meeting once a week on Fridays for about 5 hours since the second Friday in January, and the game is moving at a pace that will carry us through most of the year.  If I based my observation on other people's complaints, my game must move at a glacial pace.

Are people actually flying through the current material and requiring more to avoid retreads, or is it just a "more, more, more!" attitude carried over from past editions?

e: To be clear, I'm viewing the lack of splats for PCs as a good feature at the moment because it's so much easier to get new people in when they feel they only need to buy the PHB and maybe a Monster Manual to play an optimal character.  I said on the WotC boards that I would prefer less splatbooks but with solid content all the way through instead of stuff like the Complete books that have a couple gems with piles of mediocre to bad stuff around them.  It didn't seem like a popular opinion there.
« Last Edit: April 30, 2015, 11:37:36 PM by TenaciousJ »
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Offline bhu

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Re: Is D&D 5 better than D&D 3.5?
« Reply #73 on: May 01, 2015, 12:06:59 AM »

Are people actually flying through the current material and requiring more to avoid retreads, or is it just a "more, more, more!" attitude carried over from past editions?

From a product stability and sales point of view, more is sometimes better.  If you only come out with a product every great now and then, and your opponents are always 'in the news', for lack of a better phrase, due to releasing new goodies, you risk being lost in the shuffle.  You want people to be passionately awaiting the new release of your goodies, not your competition.  When you've saturated the market you release a new edition with rules geared towards sucking in a newer, younger audience who views the game in a different way perhaps than your current audience. 

But to do that you need to introduce complications to the system.  In something as complex as 3.5 thats not difficult.  They already admitted not thinking that edition through, so complicating an already complex system, but making it optional, means people will buy it for the sake of having something new (assuming you've sold it well) even if they don't use it.  The risk of course is you introduce something that throws the system out of whack.  In 3.5 that will not be readily apparent to all.  In a much simplified system like 5th edition, it's like a turd in a punch bowl:immediately noticeable.   It's what one of my earlier threads was about: 5th edition has been simplified to the point that they have one of two options available: they can introduce complications, and thus probably break the system, or they can just publish storylines and adventures until people stop buying and they introduce 6th edition to reboot again.  Neither of these is an optimal choice

Offline LordBlades

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Re: Is D&D 5 better than D&D 3.5?
« Reply #74 on: May 01, 2015, 04:13:07 AM »
  How much does it matter that 3.5's 'PCs and NPCs should be equal' philosophy matter when you rarely face the same creatures both out of and in combat?  (Out of combat, social skills matter.  In combat, fighty stuff matters.)


It matters if you want a deeper immersion in a fantasy world. More reading of the rulebook and people's opinion has however led me to believe this kind of people are not 5e's target audience.

Statblocks do not immersion make.

The first D&D books I cracked open was core AD&D. The monsters didn't even have ability scores back then, but they still felt more "real" than anything in the newer editions. Remin me again why Gynaxian naturalism is looked down upon?

It's not necessarily about stat blocks, but about applying consistent rules all across the system. When the world operates by a different set of rules than the PCs, then the game is less enjoyable to me and my group.

To give a hopefully better example than 'Parry' regarding the kind of stuff that bothers me: Undead creation.

From the MM:

Quote
Skeletons arise when animated by dark magic. They
heed the summons of spellcasters who call them from
their stony tombs and ancient battlefields, or rise of their
own accord in places saturated with death and loss,
awakened by stirrings of necromantic energy or the
presence of corrupting evil.
[...]
While most skeletons are the animated remains of
dead humans and other humanoids, skeletal undead can
be created from the bones of other creatures besides
humanoids, giving rise to a host of terrifying and
unique forms.

When the PC necromancer is limited to Small and Medium humanoids, but the NPC Necromancers can show up riding his Warhorse Skeleton and surrounded by Minotaur Skeletons he (presumably) created, that breaks my immersion. It's heavily implied in the fluff text that larger than Medium and/or non-humanoid skeletons are created by NPC-only magic.

As a side note to that, there are also no guidelines whatsoever to make a skeleton of creature X. You have to eyeball the 3 sample statblocks (And the statblocks of the base creatures) and decide what are the common traits of a skeleton by yourself, and then apply them to the base statblock of creature X.

« Last Edit: May 01, 2015, 07:28:50 AM by LordBlades »

Offline LordBlades

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Re: Is D&D 5 better than D&D 3.5?
« Reply #75 on: May 01, 2015, 04:15:23 AM »
Double post :(

Offline TenaciousJ

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Re: Is D&D 5 better than D&D 3.5?
« Reply #76 on: May 01, 2015, 10:33:56 AM »
When the PC necromancer is limited to Small and Medium humanoids, but the NPC Necromancers can show up riding his Warhorse Skeleton and surrounded by Minotaur Skeletons he (presumably) created, that breaks my immersion. It's heavily implied in the fluff text that larger than Medium and/or non-humanoid skeletons are created by NPC-only magic.

As a side note to that, there are also no guidelines whatsoever to make a skeleton of creature X. You have to eyeball the 3 sample statblocks (And the statblocks of the base creatures) and decide what are the common traits of a skeleton by yourself, and then apply them to the base statblock of creature X.

I can agree with that, and moving beyond Small and Medium humanoids should have been included in the higher-slot-casting options if the developers were trying to curtail the power of the necromancer army without changing the concept.  If they did not want players to have a slew of minions, IMO they should have changed the PC necromancer concept away from a leader of the undead, left in the old power of Animate Dead but with a concentration/target limit, or developed necromancer as NPC-only.  The lack of templates is one of my biggest complaints about the Monster Manual, especially when the book has creatures in it that are templated versions of something else in the book.



Are people actually flying through the current material and requiring more to avoid retreads, or is it just a "more, more, more!" attitude carried over from past editions?

From a product stability and sales point of view, more is sometimes better.  If you only come out with a product every great now and then, and your opponents are always 'in the news', for lack of a better phrase, due to releasing new goodies, you risk being lost in the shuffle.  You want people to be passionately awaiting the new release of your goodies, not your competition.  When you've saturated the market you release a new edition with rules geared towards sucking in a newer, younger audience who views the game in a different way perhaps than your current audience.

I get where you're coming from, and I think WotC has plenty of concepts to mine for content for 5e that I would happily buy if developed and released.  WotC and Hasbro are responsible for the branding of D&D, and we should not have to remind them how to grow the brand.  I still appreciate the depth of the content that has been released though, and I stand by the statement that what's actually released has life in it even for people who bought the core books as they were released.  What they've been doing through UA would be really good strategy if we had not seen so many UAs without releases between them.  The UAs are keeping the product in people's minds and giving the players something free to look forward to, but they're falling short by not following up.
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Offline awaken_D_M_golem

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Re: Is D&D 5 better than D&D 3.5?
« Reply #77 on: May 01, 2015, 04:00:17 PM »
minor tangent via giantitp link above

iirc - Envyus used to post around here.
This question:  http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=18695748&postcount=7

I'm pretty sure the water dude is a Triton, maybe it's tail is in the background.
But it could be a follower of Blibdoolpoolp of who knows what race.
The single claw seems to be a thing:
http://www.greekmythology.com/pictures/Myths/Triton/50804/triton
Your codpiece is a mimic.

Offline Endarire

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Re: Is D&D 5 better than D&D 3.5?
« Reply #78 on: May 02, 2015, 01:49:37 AM »
LordBlades: It seems your gripe is more about the campaign or module you're currently playing opposed to the ruleset you play it with.  Talking with your GM can change that requirement if you two agree on it.  I know it isn't changing the rules as written in the books, but the rules your group plays with are more important.

Offline LordBlades

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Re: Is D&D 5 better than D&D 3.5?
« Reply #79 on: May 02, 2015, 04:23:20 AM »
LordBlades: It seems your gripe is more about the campaign or module you're currently playing opposed to the ruleset you play it with.  Talking with your GM can change that requirement if you two agree on it.  I know it isn't changing the rules as written in the books, but the rules your group plays with are more important.

I'm not playing ATM, my opinion is based on what I read in the books and the talks with my regular gaming group ( after we wrapped up our Rogue Trader campaign I took a break due to changing jobs and appartments amd they started a 5e campaign).

I know some of the stuff I/we have an issue with can be adjusted with little DM effort (they already did that with magic items buying/selling), others require more (like making a skeleton template or a playable orc/goblin). There comes a point though when it's easier to buy an apple than buy an orange and start adding stuff to it until it tastes like an apple.

I'm not saying 5e is a bad system, far from it, just that, when cross-referencd with what I want from a game, it has more bad points than good points compared to 3.5