D&D 5th edition

[JirinPanthosa]

Out of curiosity, would anyone be interested in a chat based D&D campaign, which would meet semi-weekly, average of every other week but not strictly every other week, probably on weekend afternoons?

On another board we were planning one which fell through due to not quite getting enough player commitments, but talking about it made me excited to DM again.

What’s everyone’s thoughts on general about 5th edition? Way back in college when I last DMed it was 2nd edition. I like the way the system was streamlined and simplified, and I think it fixed problems with 3rd. But, I have some minor criticisms. First, I think there’s too little difference between being skilled and unskilled. I studied medicine so I have 10% better chance to treat a wound. Or I am strong and you a week so have 30% better chance to force a door open. Plus I miss simultaneity, and being faster meaning your opponent has to declare action before knowing your action. And I think really good role playing should do more to override probability for things like persuasion checks. But overall I’m a big fan of 5th.

If anyone is at all interested in an online campaign please let me know. There are currently 2 solid commitments from said other board and a few long term maybes.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

I didn't play after 2nd edition, but from what I've heard (ie: anybody can be any class), it seemed like it got a little silly around 3rd or 4th ed.

 

[USS Triumphant]

Not interested in play-by-post or chat or similar, sorry. But I wanted to chime in to specify that it got "silly", or as I put it, "video-gamey", at 4th Edition. It *might* have gotten too "munchkin-y" with 3rd/3.5 - but unfortunately, that was a bug that came with the feature of game balance being much more well thought out than it was in 2nd or 1st Editions.

I freely admit that I have no knowledge of 5th to speak of, but I have thousands invested in 3.5 and before and find it hard to believe that there is real gameplay value in spending hundreds if not thousands more to "upgrade" from the material I already have. Of course, that also makes it harder to get into a game these days - but I'm so busy with other stuff (kids, job, posting on TrekBBS , etc) that I haven't noticed that much.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Not interested in play-by-post or chat or similar, sorry. But I wanted to chime in to specify that it got "silly", or as I put it, "video-gamey", at 4th Edition. It *might* have gotten too "munchkin-y" with 3rd/3.5 - but unfortunately, that was a bug that came with the feature of game balance being much more well thought out than it was in 2nd or 1st Editions.

I freely admit that I have no knowledge of 5th to speak of, but I have thousands invested in 3.5 and before and find it hard to believe that there is real gameplay value in spending hundreds if not thousands more to "upgrade" from the material I already have. Of course, that also makes it harder to get into a game these days - but I'm so busy with other stuff (kids, job, posting on TrekBBS , etc) that I haven't noticed that much.

Yeah, it could've been 4th edition for all I can remember. 2nd edition was really just a cleaned up version of 1st edition, though I loved the large selection of handbooks in 1st (the hardcovers), then the different ones in 2nd (the red, green & blue softcovers).

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I agree with the criticism that since 2nd it got more like a video game. I liked that in 2nd, everybody declared their action at the start of the round, and it resolved in order of initiative. It's much faster not to have to reroll initiative every round, but it basically makes being faster a lot less useful (And after the first turn, not useful at all), and weird tactics become available when people move like chessmen. Also there were more restrictions on being able to cast when somebody is attacking, making it so mages were balanced out by being able to cancel spells by attacking or grappling them, and at least rule-wise a bigger focus on roleplaying and smaller focus on rolling.

So it's a tradeoff. It eliminates a lot of the needless complexity of the earlier versions but also eliminates the things about it that made things unpredictable and less hacky.

It would definitely not be play by post, it'd be real time in something like roll20. Thanks for responding, obviously a live group is preferred, but when you are no longer in high school it gets really really hard to find a whole group worth of people.

Back then I was militantly anti-3rd. But since then I've come around to think that a bad system with a good group is much better than a good system with a bad group. No matter how video gamey the system has become, you can keeping role-playee if the group and DM are good.

 

[DrCorby]

I actively played 1st edition, only read some of the 2E books, then played a little 3/3.5 with my kids' homeschool group. 3E/3.5 was very crunchy, lots of rules for skills, feats, etc; it's what Pathfinder (sometimes referred to as 3.75...) used as its foundation. Only heard lots of complaints about 4E; that's where a lot of folks felt it tried hard to be like video games and the lines between classes got blurred.

I've been picking up a lot of the 5E stuff, and have been able to play a little bit. I like it. It's streamlined a lot of the fiddly rules, trying to encourage more "role-play" over "roll-play". I especially like the advantage/disadvantage mechanic. And characters get some interesting new abilities as they progress in level.

Sorry, no time for your chat-based game. I'm trying to squeeze in a 5E mini-campaign with my kids before their college classes start this fall. (Where do the years go?!!)

 

[USS Triumphant]

I'm actually in the list of playtesters in the 4th Edition PHB. My group participated in playtesting, and then I wrote an extensive explanation of why their revised Paladin class (my favorite class) SUCKED. I'm sure they enjoyed giving me a credit in their book for that. LOL.