Edition Warrior
Poor Thaumaturge. The rules all run together in that big bushy head of his. I’m beginning to empathize.
I wrote this one a few months ago, but now that the Pathfinder Playtest is a thing I feel like it’s more relevant than ever. If you’ve played tabletop role-playing games for five or more years, you’ve probably dealt with edition change. There you are chucking dice and slaying monsters, happy as a clam, when all of a sudden your world is turned upside down. Your favorite game is no longer receiving official support, and you’ve got to decide whether to stick with that groaning bookshelf of suddenly outdated material or give it all up in favor of the next thing.
I’ve got buddies that dealt with this mess between 3.5 and 4th edition D&D. Others had to deal with the changes to the World of Darkness. I’ve got one friend who remains particularly upset about the move from 2nd to 3rd edition Exalted (spoilers: he writes Laurel’s other comic). Regardless of your opinions of any one game system, the fact remains that all versions of all of these games are primarily social hobbies. You’re gaming with other human beings, and chances are that some of them are your friends. That means you might wind up gaming with a group who (gasp!) are on the other side of the edition wars.
Like the Handbook says, I think it’s best to cultivate patience with the other side. Don’t roll your eyes and groan every time the old-timer references how it used to be way back when. Don’t storm off in a huff because your longtime flanking partner is happy about the demise of your favorite sacred cow. We’ll continue rolling dice and bashing characters together no matter what rules engine is purring underneath the hood. The story continues. It always will.
So what do you say? Have you ever had to go through a traumatic edition change? Are you going through one now? Or do you find it oddly easy to move between systems and editions? Tell us your tale down in the comments!
ADD SOME NSFW TO YOUR FANTASY! If you’ve ever been curious about that Handbook of Erotic Fantasy banner down at the bottom of the page, then you should check out the “Quest Giver” reward level over on The Handbook of Heroes Patreon. Twice a month you’ll get to see what the Handbook cast get up to when the lights go out. Adults only, 18+ years of age, etc. etc.
I got my start in D&D in 3.5, but I’d only ever played in play-by-post. PbP is fun and has great roleplay opportunities, but it’s just. so. sloooow. I wanted to get into a live game, and as luck would have it I met a guy who was just starting to play a campaign with a bunch of other newbs and there was a slot open.
Now over my PbP time I’d learned the 3.5 rules and optimization fairly well, and was leery about it maybe being a 4th edition game, so I asked about several 4e things to see if they were in it (encounter powers, swordmage, warlord, etc) Friend hadn’t heard of any of these and told me the party makeup: a rogue, a ranger, and three fighters. Thinking it was 3rd edition and wanting to play a magic guy to fill the caster role without overshadowing a bunch of 4th-5th tier classes with CoDzilla or god wizard, I decided I would roll a dragonfire adept and focus on crowd control and utility, and I really liked it’s energizer bunny magic. It was agreed, I browsed through the relevant books again, printed up a character sheet, and headed off to the game.
It wasn’t a 4th edition game. It was a 5e game. And I had 0 knowledge of 5e.
Very fortunately for me the DM was also a 3.5 vet and new to 5e (he chose 5e because it’s way easier for beginners to learn) and the others were learning to, but I suddenly find myself scrambling to learn the new system well enough to create a character in about an hour while forgetting what I’d known about 3.5. Closest thing to DFA in 3.5 was warlock, but 3.5 and 5e warlock are very different and I wasn’t terribly fond of what I saw at first glance. I decided to roll wizard instead, found and used Treantmonk’s guide to throw together a character, and plunged into a familiar yet foreign game.
At the time I would have liked to play 3.5 instead, but I’d just found a group and I wasn’t willing to go looking for one again. Now though I’m glad I was forced to learn 5e. It’s not a perfect system and there are things from 3.5/PF 1e that I like better, but 5e also has its merits, and being able to jump into a group running either is quite nice. I admit I had the luxury of not changing systems half-way through a campaign; I would have hated to be playing a character in one system whose core features didn’t transfer between systems well (e.g. an alchemist in PF and converting to 5e).
My oldest group tends to end campaigns and switch, so I’ve never had to deal with that problem either. For example, the arrival of Pathfinder killed a long-running 3.5 game in that group. What followed was a short-lived Pathfinder pirate campaign followed by a single mythic level campaign. We finished that one at 13th level and Mythic Tier 4. At that point 5e came along and we abandoned the old campaign for the next thing: a short-lived vikings game followed by Ravenloft. If the pattern holds, that group will end it early before killing Strahd, run a short-lived maritime campaign in whatever the new system is, and then settle in for another 4-5 years of slow progression.
It’s fun to stick with characters for that long and really explore their arcs, and I’ve got other groups that enjoy more frequent system-hopping. I think that might be the key for me: play with a lot of people in a lot of systems so that you can enjoy different styles and modes of play. Scratch all the different itches, you know?
I first started with D&D 3.5 and played a few games of that, then I played 1 game of 4e and did not have a fun time at all, then went to Pathfinder where I played a few sessions of that before finally going to 5e and staying there. This all happened in the span of roughly 12 years. I go back and read the other editions and games before 5e and it’s like reading something in another language sometimes.
I think that the slow-drip strategy of 5e is very smart, since the gradual release of content prolongs the shelf-life of a game that’s got something like 85% market share. I’m curious though: Why do you go back and read material from the older editions? I’ve heard that some 5e dudes enjoy the breadth of stuff available for conversion, and pick and choose bits of old SRDs for adaptation to their home games.
A bit of that yeah. I’ve still got the Draconomicon books from 3.5 and 4e that I’ll skim through when I’m looking for something. Or there will be monsters from earlier editions that fit what I want more and I want to bring them over. More recently I’ve been looking at older modules & adventures to convert for my campaign since I seem to have little talent making my own stuff.
I’m like 99% sure you already know about ’em, but these are out there as resources if your print material ever runs thin:
http://www.d20srd.org
http://www.d20pfsrd.com
http://www.d20resources.com/future.d20.srd/
And everything in this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/26wf2y/hi_all_how_about_we_compile_the_rpgs_with_decent/
Oh I’ve get me a treasure trove to work with including most likely the best resource for 5e, don’t you worry. I thank ya for the links though.
Edition wars? How uncivilized!
You know me, 3.5e 4lyfe. Though I’ve recently started getting into PF… just in time for there to be a new one coming up… just my luck.
I’ve played a bit of 5e, but it never appealed to me enough to really get into it. Not to the point that I can’t play if I’m invited, but probably not gonna run a 5e game any time soon. Even then I’d silently curse the lack of touch AC every time I miss a spell…
I think it’s the elephant in the room on this comic. I’m trying my best to keep things system-agnostic, but that’s tough when you’re writing jokes about rules. I figured it was best to try and take it on in a constructive way.
As a 3.5 guy, have you ever adapted Pathfinder stuff? That compatibility was one of the original selling points, but I haven’t seen it happen too much in practice.
I play with a group that is currently running through Out of the Abyss and I thought they would be tickled by the previous strip, the one with Magus licking Stool.
It wasn’t until I started to explain it to them that I thought “Haaaang on… Stool is from 5e! But the Handbook uses Pathfinder classes!”
You obviously haven’t met Warlock. That beefy stud hangs out on the other side of the Patreon wall. Kind of a bugger that there aren’t more 5e-only classes to dig into. I guess I’ll have to step in the way-back machine and go Warlord vs. Acrobat in the next vote-for-the-next-class poll.
I’ve actually switched a campaign from 3.5e to PF near the end of the planning stage. If you’re familiar with making monster statblocks it’s not that bad… and that’s just for D&D specific monsters.
I just looked back at my last comment like, “What the hell was I smoking?” You know that mega dungeon campaign I talk about? It was written for 3.5. I’ve been adapting to Pathfinder on the fly for five years.
I guess the fish doesn’t know it’s swimming in water, lol.
I found it pretty easy to switch going from 3.5->4->5, but going backwards is excruciating for various reasons.
Reeeeeeally not excited to have a new Pathfinder trying to pull players from my precious 5e. Make your own game, Paizo.
Did the 3.5->4->5 sequence feel like a natural progression to you? Did they build on one another and address gaps in the previous edition? I guess I’m curious why that was an easy switch for you.
That’s the whole point of 2E. They’ve had enough experience fiddling with 3.75 that they’re going to refine it without having to worry about retaining compatibility with a version of DnD. This wont be Paizo recreating 5e under a different name, I fully expect them to feel very different.
As far as D&D, that was my experience as well. Each edition was to me an improvement over the previous one and not just in few or minor ways. (I would have included 2e in there too since I’ve also played some of that as well. Friggin THAC0, what a mess!)
As far as other systems, I never really wound up experiencing it. I never played old WoD and I played so little of Exalted that I hadn’t grown attached to either 1st or 2nd edition rules. Similarly I’ve only played one edition of Shadowrun (3rd I think) and so on and so on.
My opinion differs on Pathfinder 2e though. I’m hoping it will be different enough from 3.5 that I’ll be able to enjoy it and different enough from 5e that I’ll find it worth bothering to care. (I do share that worry that it will wind up too similar and just basically forcing us into sharing the “players who want to play a 5e like edition” market.)
For me, the Pathfinder 2e vs 5e question is wildly exciting from a game studies perspective. Similar market pressures exerting similar demands upon similar companies. Does that mean parallel or divergent evolution? I suspect that we’ll see different adaptations out of this, with final results that feel like distant cousins rather than clones.
I kind of got heavily into homebrewing towards the end of 3.5, and now I have trouble learning new editions because the fixes they made aren’t the fixes I wanted, and I keep getting classic 3.5, Pathfinder, my own version of 3.5, and the new stuff mixed up. And what’s worse was that I was confusing people I asked questions to because they often didn’t understand where I was coming from because what I THOUGHT should be happening had gotten so jumbled with bits and pieces of multiple systems.
I kind of want to try and learn Exhalted though- it’s always seemed like my type of game.
For me it’s “notice stuff” skills that keep slipping.
“Give me Perception! I mean Spot! I mean Notice! I mean Wits + Awareness! Third Base!”
I think we should demand that all the gamebook-writing companies sit down together and standardize their lists of “skills”. Sort of like how all appliances use the same electric outlet.
I started with AD&D 2nd. I switched to 3rd when it came out, and kept with it through 3.5. 4th was radically different (at-will, encounter, daily powers, no spell levels, minion monsters) and seemed too much like MMORPG-Tabletop Edition, so I avoided it, switching instead to Pathfinder. I’ve played 5th edition since the playtest.
Personally I have had little issue keeping the rules between editions separate, even with the occasional jumping back and forth between a couple editions. I have run into people who can’t keep their editions separate at all, but it’s only been a problem when they try to play in multiple editions at once.
I am looking forward to the Pathfinder playtest, and expect to play at least one campaign with it. I have also been looking at 4th edition with a new viewpoint, and want to try it out sometime.
Oh, and I’ve also played a variety of non-D&D games, which have been easier to keep separate rules wise.
Do you find that playing a breadth of systems makes you appreciate different game design approaches a bit more, or is it a constant quest for entertainment, searching for the system you’d most like to play?
I’m glad that Spheres of Power will finish their book run, but I was sad that Spheres of Might will not get any extra content due to Pathfinder 2.0…
I guess we all have to wait until the dust settles to see what happens next.
I think a new edition (especially one that changes so much of the game) can be treated more like a new game all together. Since you’re learning almost everything from scratch again.
I mean, I have heard of DMs running campaigns in older versions because they fit better or were more liked than the new ones.
Really the best thing to do in my opinion is to not pick a side in the version war at all and just learn each system in turn and have fun along the way.
The Switzerland maneuver!
Suppose you find the mechanics of a particular system more engaging for whatever reason. Is it better to seek out that group, or to stay with your own group regardless of which system they’re using?
Hmmm…
Well if my group stopped using Spheres, I would still play with them since they are my friends, and not just a group who meets up regularly that I don’t know outside of Pathfinder…
Besides, they like The same things I do though, so there’s no problem there…
But if you had more options, and they were equally weighted groups to play with, it wouldn’t hurt to shop around and find one that fits better.
I played 2nd edition as a wee lad, skipped the garbage edition and a half, played a bit of 4th, but my friend group was unreliable so that fell apart, got into 5th in 2016.
As such, I was never there for the edition transition, I just jumped into what was the edition du jour. I will say that 5th is my favorite, but it could be drastically improved by taking a few pages from 4th. (Stares longingly at the Warlord)
I only ever played enough 4th to think that minions were a neat idea and then forget everything else. A lot of people seem to dig the Warlord though. What was so cool about him? Was he kind of a “fearless leader” type class?
He really covers the “Frontline leader of men” archetype really well, and does it without needing to be magical in a way that actually makes sense.
I loved smacking people to create opportunities for my buddies to smack them.
I loved positioning my allies to better smack my enemies, or prevent them from being smacked.
I loved healing by drill seargeanting. “Dying does not serve the plan, making them die does! Walk it off!”
If we’ve got room for “Guy who casts because his grandma boned something weird, guy who casts because he sold his soul, and guy who casts because he went to college, we have room for tactically brilliant frontline leader of men.
“A Barbarian hits you with their axe. A Warlord hits you with their Barbarian.”
It does seem strange now that you mention it… Bard is the go-to “I make my allies better,” but he definitely isn’t the same fantasy archetype as the “frontline leader of men.”
Paladin kind of fits “Frontline leader of men”, but the Paladin playstyle of “I go up to them and smite them until they stop being evil or twitching” isn’t really tactical.
Huh, I thought Thaumaturge was a 3Xer considering his fondness for unbalanced 3rd party content that came with the Open Game License. Does this mean he’s getting a spot on the cast page?
Incidentally: Woo, Barbarian; you’re rocking that!
Dangit. I forgot about the cast page. I need to add Witch too, actually.
But yeah man… Barbarian is killing that Xena cosplay.
Witch has only had 1 major appearance and an uncredited no-dialogue cameo.
Besides, if you list Witch as an “Independent” now, you’ll have to redo her entry when she, Necromancer, Assassin/Ninja, and Anti-Paladin/Oathbreaker/Blackguard/how many variations of guy dedicated to evil do we need anyways?/HellKnight team up to form the evil party.
Huh… I should do a gag about Witch being a bad influence on Necromancer. They’ve got that bad girl / bad girl trying to be good dynamic going on.
Well they seemingly get their clothes from the same place, so them meeting seems pretty likely.
Clicks the neverborn link
So, doing a little shameless self-promotion, are we? Well, I just want you to know that it worked, though I’d probably be much less confused about the story if I knew something more about Exalted besides it’s 1d4chan entry.
Heh. The shameless self-promotion cuts both ways:
http://www.neverborncomic.com/?comic=filler-handbook-of-heroes
The story is based off of Laurel’s old college campaign. Her PC was the Contessa, while Lance is that character’s allied NPC / husband. The two are renegade Death Knights, having deserted their duty to serve their Death Lord. Sadly, the Elder God-like entities known as the Neverborn don’t care who you’re serving. If you’re a Death Knight, you still have to deal with those whispers in your head. Since Lance and the Contessa don’t want any part of parenting an army of world-ending children, the Contessa decides to take the rash step of killing her kids, one of whom is the Inspector in the first arc of the comic.
I might have got a few details wrong, but that’s the best summary I’ve got up my sleeve.
So, uhh, I have to ask – was that an evil campaign? Or is the setting of Exalted just that bad a place to live in? Because if I were to guess I would have told you Contessa was one of the villains…
Yes, it was an evil campaign. I don’t know if anyone in their right mind could call those characters heroes. XD
It was an evil campaign or at least anti-hero.
For those not familiar, Exalted’s Deathknights are individuals who have nearly died once and been pulled into service through a blood pact of sorts to an ancient entity known as a Neverborn. Neverborn are effectively the Titans, hugely powerful entities that have no beginning and believed (somewhat mistakenly) that they had no end. The Exalted of the First Age proved them wrong by killing the unkillable and creating the Underworld in the process. Yet, the Neverborn are not dead in the traditional sense of the word, and have since discovered a way to make Exalted servants of their own…the Deathknights. The ultimate goal of a Deathknight in the Neverborn’s eyes is to kill all of Creation and then throw every living creature into Oblivion (both a physical place and the annilation of all things…). It is only when everything is dead that the Neverborn will finally be able to truly die, so they think. Individual Deathknights prove somewhat…variable in their loyalties to the “kill everything” plan though.
I’m currently having similar issues with Exalted 3rd edition
I started out with 1st Edition, played it a ton.. then 2nd Edition came out, and that was great! Generally agreed with the changes, and thought it really improved the combat.
Lunars seemed really interesting and fun to play suddenly and became an even bigger fanboy of them.. even though as time went on and power creep settled in a little, they got ‘worse’, and got a little annoyed at the niggly little downsides they keep putting in the charms
Then, just as we were really enjoying the hell out of 2nd edition. Da da da daaaa! 3rd Edition is coming out soon, oh wow.. and they’re going to have it out in a few months too!
Two games were put on hiatus, as we were gonna retool them using 3rd edition. Then came the wait. Because it turns out all the stuff they said in the kickstarter was y’know. Outright lies, and the book hadn’t even been started, nevermind be ready anywhere near the delivery date
Still.. people waited. Then disappeared.. years later it finally comes out. And.. it’s ok.. I guess. The combat system seems kind of interesting.. some of the charms look alright too. There are plenty of flaws obviously visible too though
Then you wait for more books to come. And wait some more… and there doesn’t seem that much sign of decent release dates. In all likelihood, it’ll be years before I see 3rd edition Lunars or something
After all the waiting, I found I didn’t really want to play 3rd edition at all. They managed to take away all the magic, all the good faith I had in the line (and I loved exalted, I have every single 1st and 2nd edition book)
Mismanaged, lies in the kickstarter, and the fact that after having heard many stories, I have very little respect for the publishers.. all just adds up really. Say what you will about the mechanical problems in 2nd. They at least released books for it. You could houserule and fix bugs (and we did, oh so much). You can’t really fix content that doesn’t exist yet
So for me, Exalted has kinda just ended on a whimper. Currently I do play a game of it, set in modern times.. but we’re using Mutants & Masterminds 3 for that
Maybe in a few years if we have some splatbooks out, I’ll recapture the spark, but I no longer hold out hope for that
I always wondered whether keeping the fluff and excising the crunch could work well for Exalted 2e. There’s got to be a decent Wuxia system out there somewhere….
I got my start playing good old AD&D, and I remember the switch to 2nd wasn’t bad but moving to 3rd was definitely painful. Thankfully I’ve played enough different editions and systems that absorbing the information for a new game has become second nature these days…
Seems like system acquisition is its own skill. I just introduced a pal to Pathfinder the other day, and I was amazed how fast he picked it up based on nothing more than some Neverwinter Nights experience. Interestingly, he’s an insurance company dude, same as Gygax.
On the D&D side, I played one game of AD&D back in the day (Al Qadim setting), skipped the horror of 3.x and 4, and got back in with 5E. I was surprised at first that we were actually playing D&D (most of the people I play with have long lists of problems with it), but 5E really smoothed things out, and made it quite enjoyable.
Personally, I’ve been through… god, I just wrote out all the systems I’ve played that I can remember or have the books for, and am up to 40 without touching D&D. Pretty sure there’s at least a few more that I’m forgetting.
Anyway, for my group, the first goal is the theme of the game. High fantasy, space opera, superheros, ancient China, post-apocalyptic, etc. After that, find a system that does things well.
Having been through so many systems, and understanding that we’ll likely switch to a new system in the next new game, there’s an implicit requirement that the system design is simple and elegant. Anything that fails that threshold gets tossed aside pretty quickly, as we don’t have time for that shit. This is where D&D 3 and 4 met the wastebasket.
On the issue of appreciating good design: Definitely. Having seen and played so many of the different ways there are to build an RPG system, it’s easy to get a feel for the ones that are going to make your life, and the game, easy. Maintaining a complex rules system is a massive burden. It’s not worth it.
Weirdly, I share that sentiment for board games more than RPGs. I guess it’s all about what you’re using your game time for. In my mind, board games are a fun pastime rather than a full hobby. I don’t know that I’ll ever devote months or years of my life to improving my Smash Up game, for example. Yet I did enjoy my time learning the intricacies of Magic: The Gathering. A complex RPG scratches that same itch. You get to snap together all the crazy building blocks of a PC in the same way that you can fine-tune a deck. If you’re not into that aspect of gaming though, it is 100% more trouble than it’s worth.
Heh. Talisman. Axis and Allies. Britannia. Titan. Really, most Avalon Hill games. They can be fun if you can dedicate noon to midnight playing a single game. Multiple times, so you can learn the rules.
Ask me how many times I’ve played them since I got out of college. 😛
Exactly! I used to love Axis and Allies, and I’ve been promising my board game-loving pals that we’d sit down for a session one day. When we all have the same weekend free. One of these years.
I think you can only have one of those complex systems in your head at a time. “I’m obsessed with Magic” or “I’m obsessed with Advanced Squad Leader.” I always told myself that, if I ever got into anything like Magic again, I would choose Chess or Go. Of course, since I do a bit of design work, I’m obliged to learn more systems than the average bear. I suppose that plays into my own preferences as well.
I started playing D&D just as 3e came out, played through the 3.x-plosion, watched some people leave for Pathfinder (but never went there myself), had a bit of fun with 4e, but was really happy with 5e.
Wizards of the Coast did a great job of recapturing the feel of 3e, cutting out the insane amount of options/numbers, but without going to the bare-bones 4e system that felt like everyone just did the same thing.
There are also the differences between fluff and crunch edition wars. 4e had some fun stuff (tieflings and dragonborn), but the way it mauled the Forgotten Realm setting (reducing it to the “points of light” that the devs wanted, but was just like nearly ever other D&D setting) is something that will probably never stop irritating me.
Exalted’s move from 2e to 3e is one I’m insanely glad of (although still unhappy about the way Holden/Hatewheel were let go, particularly because they had really sold me on their vision [and, yes, I backed the KS and was waiting so long, just like everyone else]). The fluff didn’t change much (mostly just got a little more vague/mysterious about things that work better being vague/mysterious, so each GM can fill in the details as they want). The crunch is simply awesome. I’ve been able to introduce Exalted to people that I would never have tried to show 2e; the combat system, where Initiative is a resource you manage representing control over the combat, is the most fun on I’ve ever played. Ex3 accepted that it would be mechanically complex, but makes sure that that complexity makes the game ~better~. Few other games can compete in terms of systems for sailing, naval combat, battles between armies, running a nation, in-depth social interactions… and while, above all, making them fun to do. (The Intimacies system for social interaction are probably my second favorite part of Ex3, because I always hated the mechanical restriction of D&D where all social control is one stat [Charisma] and rolling for it does everything social.)
I wonder if World of Darkness should be considered an “edition war.” I mean, now they’ve renamed the New World of Darkness to the Chronicles of Darkness, so they are more separate. At the time, though, it felt like NWoD was…. the D&D4e of White Wolf (with all the negative connotations that entails). The completely new lines like Promethean or Beast seem interesting enough, but I’d simply never choose Vampire the Requiem over Vampire the Masquerade (or WtForsaken over WtApocalypse, and certainly never MtAwakening over MtAscension). The mechanics were less fun, but simpler (the 9 stats were really just a social, mental, and physical Str, Dex, Con). The fluff is the biggest reason, however, why I rarely ever consider playing Chronicles of Darkness.
One last edition commentary is that I think Onyx Path has done a great job with their 20th Anniversary editions. Each is closest to the Revised/most-recent edition, but really tries to pull all of the best mechanical elements together, along with options help you set your own game up with any/all/no parts of the meta-plot.
Never had the opportunity to try Ex3 myself. The big criticism I heard was that the combat suffers from all kinds of ludonarrative dissonance…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludonarrative_dissonance
…but that’s only secondhand. Cool to hear the positive spin on it for once.
It’s certainly possible. It really depends on how you are imagining combat. The book treats it in a cinematic way, so you get everything from the one-slice-kill of samurai movies to the lots-of-superficial-attacks-before-the-final-blow Star Wars (especially the Vader vs. Luke fight in the bottom of Cloud City). You can decide between going for quick wound penalties (much like the other d10 games), waiting for that big samurai-style strike, or more open-ended choices (the Gambit system, which includes disarming, unhorsing, blinding, and is set up to do work with anything you and the GM agree on a difficulty for).
It’s not a D&D-esque block-of-hitpoints system where you are at maximum combat capability until you’re dead. Both have their advantages and their narrative-feel, but I really do feel like that Ex3’s combat matches the narrative.
I’ve done my share of Exalted 2e, and like so many who’ve touched the game I fell in love with the setting. Thanks to the idea of perfect defenses and “paranoia combat” however, it was always easier to handwave the crunch rather than really engage with it.
“I do a cool thing.”
“Awesome! Roll a million dice.”
“Many successes.”
“You did the thing. EXPLOSIONS!”
I happen to like a crunchy system though, so I was stoked for Ex3. At long last, all those amazing stunts would be grounded in a less finicky system! That’s why it was so disappointing to me that, after my group got their hands on the new rules, the response was decidedly negative. As I recall, the biggest sticking point among my circle of friends was, “Attacking someone’s initiative is weird. It feels gamey rather than cinematic.” Like I said, that’s a secondhand criticism, so I’ll hold off on forming an opinion until I sit down at a table. Unfortunately, the feeling from the IP’s devotees in my group means I won’t sit down for that 3e game any time soon. More likely I’ll get a chance to give it a whirl in a one shot next time I’m at a con. From your description though, I think I’m suddenly more interested in doing so. 🙂
You can’t “Maul” the Forgotten realms in the same way that puking on a pile of shit won’t ruin it.
The realms may have worked 20 years ago, but decades of Lore Bloat, and the Superman Problem have made it an unworkable setting, and 5E’s insistence on them is one of its’ main flaws.
Exactly. Also, I endorse all of Gabriel’s comments on this thread.
You’re certainly welcome to your own opinion, but I happen to have liked a setting with established empires and complex societies (compared to the standard fare of “everything outside of our tiny villages is dangerous”). Being part of a larger world, where there are other people doing cool things (not just swarms of orcs/goblins/gnolls and other “hic sunt dracones” vagueness).
The destruction of Thay, much of the Underdark, wiping out so many deities (especially for the elves)… A lot of loss of things I really enjoyed.
Did you actually get to play through that stuff? Before 5e my exposure to Faerun was strictly from the novels, so I never really got to explore any of the big events as a player.
The key failing of all of that stuff is “Why do we need adventurers?” Elminster is the chosen of the goddess of magic and large breasts, so he has the power to overcome antimagic fields/dispels/counterspells, and enough magical oomph to deal with anything in the setting. Unlike Superman, there isn’t even the kryptonite/red sun issue.
You can have high-level PCs running around, but when you have someone with unstoppable world-shaking powers, and the reach and inclination to solve all your problems, it takes many narrative pretzels to say they just sit around eating chips.
The 5E published adventures taking place in the realms (All 5E adventures besides Curse of Strahd) include “Tiamat’s trying to enter the physical world and bring aboot a never-ending tyranny of dragons”, “Demons are spilling forth from the Abyss into the Underdark, and threaten to not only destroy/taint the underdark, but reach the surface and destroy everything there too.”, “The social order of Giants has been overthrown, and they’re all engaging in schemes ranging from innocuous (Get as much food as possible) to world-shaking. (Build an 80 foot adamantine mecha to genocide the dragons, plunge the world into an eternal winter)”, “A necromantic curse is causing everyone who’s ever come back from the dead (Which includes El) to waste away, all resurrection magic has stopped working, and anyone who dies by any means has their soul taken.”.
It would be like if Sharkoom the Titanslayer, Questgiver, and all their adventuring buddies hired the party to stop something world-ending while they all sat at a tavern getting drunk, playing darts, and eating chips.
The Red Wizards of Thay played a part in at least one 3.x campaign I played in (another ended quickly, but had hints that they could be been the power behind events we were investigating). Quite a few games I’ve been in (even if some weren’t fully declared to be FR) used the Underdark as made famous by FR.
Picking deities beyond what you find in the Player’s Handbook was always popular in my college D&D groups (Rillifane Rallathil, Sehanine Moonbow, Berronar Truesilver, Baravar Cloakshadow, and Yondalla/Dallah Thaun come to mind).
Now, obviously, the DM need not use the 100% canon version of FR, but, in my experience, gaming groups usually do their own setting or follow an established one as closely as possible. My complaints are mostly of a “this seems to lessen and homogenize the setting, rather than simply changing it.”
As to Gabriel, what has long been one of the fundamental tenants of games I’ve run (and those run by many of my friends) is “there is always a bigger fish.” We really focused on it in our World of Darkness games, but I find is necessary for any internally-consistent D&D setting as well. Basically, Elminster has other shit he has to deal with. The party are the ones that have to deal with your Plot.
Now, Greyhawk and Dragonlance both have more established systems for why deities aren’t walking around and messing with stuff directly (which boils down to: they don’t want the others doing it, too). FR has had Ao do that before, but the fact that FR deities require belief and veneration creates a system where magically wiping out someone else’s worshipers is going to lead to all the other gods doing it to you, too.
Just like the gods have other things to worry about, so too should the most powerful NPCs in the setting.
Alright Ladys and Gentleman, Place your bets! Who will win Barbarian or Fighter? The Jerk or Miss Anger-Issues? Last call Ladys and Gentleman!
I think the loss of heavy armor edges this one towards Barbarian. I’ll wager 500 XP on She of the Mighty Temper Tantrum.
Does Barbarian have some variation on 5E’s unarmored defense?
No matter what edition you’re looking at, a d12 hit die is a pretty good defense.
But lets remember. Fighter got 18s straight down the Line. Meaning he has an 18 in Intelligence as well. Now the question is does he have Knowledge of Engineering? http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0808.html
Youre on 500XP on the Jerk! Com on you Munchkin don’t give up on me now!
One day I’m going to have to hold a contest where you guys get to build the cast at Xth level. Prizes for most appropriate, most ludicrous, and best character portrait.
Since Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson developed separate systems in an attempt to inject Gandalf-style wizardry into Medieval miniature war games, people have been trying various methods to systematize the games’ outcomes. The addition of role-playing as a part of that was just another rules factor in the arcane process. What gripes me about all of the upgrades is not that they might actually improve on a particular game/edition, but that it seems to me that new editions are, fundamentally, a business decision (TSR/Wizards of the Coast, for example – Chainmail to D&D 1st Edition to Advanced D&D, 2.0E, 3.0E, 3.5E, 4E, 5E – all designed primarily to part the lovers of the game from large amounts of their hard-earned (or ill-gotten) wealth in order to ensure the continuance of their business. How much money will any GM worth his salt spend not only on the core books, but on endless supplements and modules to put his vision into effect. All of the versions have flaws. All of the versions have strengths. All of the versions are expensive to implement. My advice – whichever system or edition you prefer, spend your money on that and stick to it. Do not pay attention to the new, shiny thing unless you play test it on someone else’s dime.
All the versions tell you that you need nothing more than a d20 and an imagination. Yet here I am with a groaning bookshelf full of supplements.
I’ll tell ya, the toughest thing for me is going back to systems without a well-developed SRD. Whenever I’m stuck for an adventure hook, the thing that gets me going again is referencing that vast see of material available on the web. When I return to a system where that isn’t available, it feels a bit like doing arithmetic without a calculator. Sure I can do it, but it’s a lot harder than it has to be.
Paizo is pretty fair with the PDF versions for 10isch $ a book. but unless I get a good conversion guide I‘m not going to touch 2.0 with a 10ft pole.
I left a question in the 2.0 thread: „how close to Pathfinder 3.0 do I need to wait till I can play a Shifter equivalent class in PF2.0 … ?“
Did not expect an answer, was not disappointed.
I suspect in 5 years we‘ll get a Pathfinder 2.5 / Starfinder 1.5 combined consolidation of the rules.
Were you a Shifter fan? I was under the impression it went over poorly, even after the errata.
I‘d try and play it but really in his case it’s just a placeholder for „class in the last book before announcing next revision.
3E was the game when I first secretly explored DnD in the early 2000s, and when 3.5 came out we only partially took to it. We entirely ignored 4th ed when it came out – I’ve still never played it, and I played my first full campaign still using 3E and 3.5 rules when 4th Edition was already a thing.
3E -and even 2nd edition- have also been reinforced for me through many replayings of old Black Isle comouter games (Icewind Dale and Baldur’s Gate) that use the system, so I’m still very familiar with them, and THAC0 and its like hold no mystery for me (except, that is, how they managed to come up with such a complicated armour system instead of the much more intuitive ones from 3E onward)
The big edition change for me has thus been to 5E, after years without any rpgs and then a brief phase of trying and rejecting Pathfinder. But although I will often ask my players for a Will Save and I still rebel against the inabilty to stack buff spells, on the whole it’s been a pretty smooth change for me.
I’ve defaulted to “give me a save” and hope that it’s clear from context what the save is supposed to be. 33% of the time it works all the time.
I was introduced to D&D by a demo disc with the original Baldur’s Gate game on it, though I already knew of the rough concept from listening to an occasional story from my parents who had played original back in their college days.
Baldur’s Gate led to Baldur’s Gate 2 and a possibly unhealthy obsession with exploring every dialog tree I could find, and even dipping my toe into modding, at least it was a creative outlet. That led to the Neverwinter Nights games. The modularity of the levels and the flat characters were uninspiring, but I found solace in exploring the rules, making classes synergize and figuring out how to place skill points so I qualified for whatever, but I had more fun exploiting the system than actually playing it.
Then 5e came along, and it brought back some of the flavors I enjoyed the most. The subclasses were reminiscent of the oldschool Kit system that Baldur’s Gate used.
I really fell in love once I realized that the Proficiency system completely bypassed the whole nonsense from 3.5 where you COULD choose to only invest 5 points in a skill, but by level 20, a skill was functionally useless unless it was maxed out. 5e just has you pick the skills that you’re good at, and they just increase as your level increases.
What makes 5e so great is that it has rules for exactly what you NEED to have rules for, and gets the hell out of the way for things that are setting/playstyle/RP dependent.
I wont deny that some of my bias is from not having a really great DM for the 3.5/pathfinder era, but given what I’ve seen of how the rules are structured, it’s just outright EASIER to be a great DM and have a fun game.
My biggest dread is that someone is going to try to push 6E when it’s not needed, deciding that they need to push back towards 4e and add more rules and create some sort of world simulation rather than a storytelling medium. or even go the other direction and add abstract Fate-style aspect modifiers(to be fair; great for providing structure for an improv radioplay skit) that would mess up the “game” aspect.
I think 5e is going to be the standard for a LONG time, and anything that tries to replace it is going to wind up as another 4e, with a very lucrative market for anyone who converts the new modules that come out back into 5e. Heck, I know several people who are converting 4e modules for use in 5e (nothing official that I know of though)
I’ve currently played play-by-post freeform RP, 5e, and two editions of a small homebrew system cobbled from some genuinely interesting ideas, PF1e, and 5e-esque rules we put in because we didn’t know the designer intended us to default to Pathfinder rules when nothing else applied.
Most recently, I’ve tried Pathfinder 2e, and I’ve found it very fun. Something about AoN having basically every rule and option at my fingertips, better GM tools, and Wizards burning most of my remaining trust is making me want to swap the 5e table I’m DMing to that system too.