The D&D thread

[Charlaquin]

They are already there as far as i can tell.
Warlord is the Fighter Battle Master, Avenger is the Paladin Oath of Vengeance and Warden is the ... uh ... hum ... maybe in Xanathar's guide (i havent had the time to read it).

Unless i misunderstood your meaning, in which case i apologise.

Eh, kind of. Actually the Valor Bard is much closer to the Warlord than the Battle Master. The Warlord was a Martial Leader, focused on buffing its allies through rallying cries and tactical commands. The Oath of Vengeance does a decent Avenger impression, and the Oath of the Ancients tries and fails to do the same for the Warden.

Frankly though, none of them really fill the role of the 4e Class they ape. 5e just doesn’t have the right tools to do 4e Classes well. The closest thing in 5e to anything in 4e is the Warlock, which actually mimics the At-Will, Encounter, Daily, Utility power structure pretty well. Unsurprisingly, it’s my favorite 5e Class.

From what I understand, 5e is more of an amalgam of the best elements of all previous editions than a streamlined 3e/3.5e, but I understand your point, Boneguard.

It claims to be, but all of its systems are either straight out of 3e, simplified versions of 3e systems, or 4e systems disgised as 3e systems. Hit Dice are kind of a bastardized version of Healing Surges from 4e, and the Short Rest is from 4e. The action economy is 4e’s, with Minor Action changed to Bonus Action to obfuscate the fact that there’s more than one kind of Action and Move Actions rolled into the Movement-as-resource mechanic (which I’m pretty sure is new to 5e, and one of the few innovations it actually makes, which I love). Subclasses as a concept go back as far as 1e, but their execution in 5e is pretty much just 3e leveling but with an extra choice to make. Multiclassing is 3e, spellcasting is the 3e sorcerer plus 4e cantrips (except the Warlock which is 4e AEDU disguised as a modified version of 3e sorcerer spellcasting). It’s got kind of a 2e “feel”, but the rules themselves are 3.75 all the way.

For me, personally, the more complex the game rules, the less fun it is. Old systems like THAC0 really bother me. As much as I liked 3.5, in hind sight, it was a real pain in the bum sometimes. The simpler the better IMHO.

THAC0 gets a lot of flak, but honestly it’s a lot less complicated than it looks. In fact, the core resolution mechanic of the D20 system (roll a D20, apply modifiers, try to roll above target number) is THAC0, just presented differently because most people naturally find addition easier than subtraction.

[Second Chances]

According to a recent panel, Dark Sun and Eberron material a matter of when, not if. I couldn’t care less about 5e, but Eberron getting a DM’s Guild release means I could finally throw money at Keith Baker for new canon material!

And then we just need Planescape and I'll be happy. Cause shit, I've been writing plothooks for the last four years for Eberron and Planescape. I wouldn't mind taking some time to actually develop them into something I could make money off of.

[Charlaquin]

And then we just need Planescape and I'll be happy. Cause shit, I've been writing plothooks for the last four years for Eberron and Planescape. I wouldn't mind taking some time to actually develop them into something I could make money off of.

Well, this is a thing (spoiler for large images):

So planar crossover is definitely on the table. I would kind of love if it turned out that WotC was getting on the cross-media extended universe bandwagon and deciding the various D&D settings were all planes within the MtG multiverse, with Planescape bridging the gap between them.

[tasti man LH]

So planar crossover is definitely on the table. I would kind of love if it turned out that WotC was getting on the cross-media extended universe bandwagon and deciding the various D&D settings were all planes within the MtG multiverse, with Planescape bridging the gap between them.

Amusingly, I had a friend whose campaign premise was exactly that:

A cross universe adventure where the PCs would basically hop to each of D&D's major settings, with Planescape as the "hub" world. Basically D&D Sliders.

(...unfortunately said campaign fell through due to my friend having...very intense disagreements with some of the players)

[Maitrecorbo]

Eh, kind of. Actually the Valor Bard is much closer to the Warlord than the Battle Master. The Warlord was a Martial Leader, focused on buffing its allies through rallying cries and tactical commands. The Oath of Vengeance does a decent Avenger impression, and the Oath of the Ancients tries and fails to do the same for the Warden.

Frankly though, none of them really fill the role of the 4e Class they ape. 5e just doesn’t have the right tools to do 4e Classes well. The closest thing in 5e to anything in 4e is the Warlock, which actually mimics the At-Will, Encounter, Daily, Utility power structure pretty well. Unsurprisingly, it’s my favorite 5e Class.

Ah, i understand better now. For me wanting to play an avenger mean wanting to play a divine-executioner. The paladin oath of vengeance works but (for me) so would an rogue assassin with the acolyte background. So when i say the paladin oath of vengeance is the 5e version of the avenger i mean that both are the divine sanctioned executioner and no more than that.
I didn't put much thought in the mechanics when i gave my answer. In that respect i agree that there is very little of the original 4e classes in 5e.

As for the Valor Bard as the descendent of the warlord. I gotta say you made me look at the class in a whole new light and i want to thank you for that. I've always imagined the bard of valor as a sort of skald.
As for the warden i was about to say the maybe the cleric of the nature domain could be a good fit. (then again keep in mind i dont come at that reasoning from the mechanics, i cant even recall what were the special mechanics of the warden beyond nature tank).

As for the rest of the conversation, I've never read eberron before and you guys are making me want to delve into it.

[Charlaquin]

Ah, i understand better now. For me wanting to play an avenger mean wanting to play a divine-executioner. The paladin oath of vengeance works but (for me) so would an rogue assassin with the acolyte background. So when i say the paladin oath of vengeance is the 5e version of the avenger i mean that both are the divine sanctioned executioner and no more than that.
I didn't put much thought in the mechanics when i gave my answer. In that respect i agree that there is very little of the original 4e classes in 5e.

As for the Valor Bard as the descendent of the warlord. I gotta say you made me look at the class in a whole new light and i want to thank you for that. I've always imagined the bard of valor as a sort of skald.
As for the warden i was about to say the maybe the cleric of the nature domain could be a good fit. (then again keep in mind i dont come at that reasoning from the mechanics, i cant even recall what were the special mechanics of the warden beyond nature tank).

I think this is why a lot of the 5e subclasses fall flat for fans of the 4e classes whose flavor they try to capture. In 4e, classes and their names were honestly little more than holdovers from previous editions. It seemed like they really just wanted a power source/combat role system, and slapped class names on the different combinations because it’s D&D, and D&D gotta have magic users, fighting men, clerics, and thieves. The important thing about, say, the Avenger, was less that it was a holy Executioner, and more that it was a Divine Striker. You picked it if you wanted to be the teammate who used divine magic to deal a ton of damage to individual targets. You played a Warden because you wanted to be the party member who used nature magic to tank hits and protect your buds. You played a Warlord because you wanted to be the party member who helped everyone else do their job better without using magic.

As for the rest of the conversation, I've never read eberron before and you guys are making me want to delve into it.

Eberron was my introduction to D&D, and it will always hold a special place in my heart for that. I adore its spread of playable races, and the magicpunk noir vibe is incredibly cool. It’s not the setting I generally want when I want to run D&D, since I personally go to D&D when I want some real classic fantasy, but it’s fantastic for a change of pace on D&D, or to use the setting for other systems.

[Second Chances]

As for the rest of the conversation, I've never read eberron before and you guys are making me want to delve into it.

The book that started it all is only $15 on DTRPG. Well worth it. I'd be really hard pressed if I had to pick between Eberron and Planescape for my favourite setting, but Eberron has the advantage of Keith Baker being super engaged with the setting's fan base and pretty much always happy to talk about it. Add in some creative deconstruction of the fantasy genre, a unique world, a take on the planes that is very different from the Great Wheel, and the single best/usable explanation of divination and prophecy I have seen in any fantasy setting... well that's just a whole bunch of fun! Plus neither the primordial fiends nor celestials come from Western mythology, which is a big plus in my books.

As for a Magic the Gathering/Planescape crossover... I actually hint at that a lot in my games. In my canon, the rhino race from 3.5's Book of Exalted Deeds (Rehek IIRC) are the same race as Magic's Rhox. I don't mess around with it too much, because the cosmologies of each game are very different, but they're also very robust so I can drop hints from time to time.

Speaking of which, I still want to see the alternate timeline where 4e stayed mechanically the same but got released as the MtG RPG. I have always felt that the mechanics of 4e worked brilliantly to translate a card game to tabletop. I even plotted an entire 4e New Phyrexia where you played as the villains. Personally, my issues with 4e were never really at the mechanical level and almost entirely about the PR. I wasn't thrilled with the idea of every single class pretty much being able to do the same thing, but as Willow pointed out, the class names were more about tradition than actual roles. I got over that. No, my problem was how 4e's design team kept shitting on previous editions, especially 3.5, and even more especially on Planescape. Had they just said "we are introducing a new cosmology, you can use it if you want" I think I would not still be holding a grudge against WotC. Instead, it felt like a weekly soap box during development about what the perceived flaws in previous editions were and how the new edition was so much more awesome and so better and why would you play with something that sucks anyways? That literally made my blood boil and it made it clear to me that the developers only cared about their opinions, not the things that their fans enjoyed. Now I know that they ended up backpedaling on that hard, but for me the damage was already done. And of course, at the same time Dragon and Dungeon got yanked away from Paizo right when they were at their prime for D&D.

Of course, the hilarious irony (which I know we probably all know about) was that all of this compounded into the biggest own goal in RPG history. Paizo was at the top of their game when the magazine rights got pulled, but if you look at the last two or three years, you can clearly see the foundation for Pathfinder and Golarian being laid. Not that they planned for that, at the time Paizo was bringing back Greyhawk on the sly, but between James Jacobs' Demonomicon and SK Reynolds' Core Belief articles, Greyhawk was getting a second wind all but officially.

And full disclaimer: I played Pathfinder and I love Pathfinder, so I'm probably a bit bias. I do think 5e looks like it's going in the right direction, but I don't have it in my budget for yet another RPG that I'm probably not going to play a lot of, and I'm still to this day a bit bitter with WotC. But for the most part I try to let bygones be bygones.

[atamajakki]

Keith Baker offhandedly mentioned that his original draft of Eberron had a larger focus on underwater settings and when I brought it up, he gave me so much free material on how he thought sahuagin fit into the world that they became one of my favorites races. I adore that man.

Maitrecorbo the 4e Campaign Setting has more info than the 3.5 book, though both are good. The line as a whole doesn’t have a bad book outside of Forge of War.

[Charlaquin]

I have always felt that the mechanics of 4e worked brilliantly to translate a card game to tabletop.

Interesting! I always thought that a modified 3e would be ideal for an MtG RPG. 5e would probably work as well, but the thing that appeals most to me is the more classic Vancian spellcasting, which perfectly captures the fire-and-forget nature of casting spells in Magic.

I've played around with the idea of a game where each color of magic is a Class, with its own spell list (and of course you can multi-class to get access to other colors' spells). All five classes/colors would share a spellcasting mechanic - when you finish a long rest, you prepare 7 spells (3e style spell preparation - if you want to cast Fireball twice in one day, you need to prepare it twice). You have no spell slots, but have a pool of Mana Points you can spend to create spell slots, like 5e sorcerers do with Sorcery Points. When you finish a short rest (I know, not a thing in 3e, but could be defined as part of the class feature), you regain all spent mana points and prepare one additional spell. If you start a short or long rest with more than 7 spells prepared, you choose 7 of them to keep prepared and lose the rest.

Personally, my issues with 4e were never really at the mechanical level and almost entirely about the PR. I wasn't thrilled with the idea of every single class pretty much being able to do the same thing

This was actually one of my big gripes with 4e. The uniform power structure, while it did help maintain class balance, kind of homogenized things. That's part of why I loved Essentials, which I pretty much view as 4.5. It utilized the AEDU power division, but gave each Class its own progression of powers. For example, the Essentials Fighter was all about At-Will Stances that modified its basic attacks, whereas most of the spellcasting classes relied almost entirely on Daily powers, and the Assassin was built around one super high-damage Encounter power. I think powers were a fantastic design tool and it's a shame they got tossed out in 5e.

In my dream evolution of 4e, Power Source would determine the type of powers a character most frequently relied upon, and Role would determine what a character used those powers to do. For example, Martial attack powers would be at-will, since having a limited number of times you can use a fighting technique never really makes much sense. Arcane attack powers would be Daily, Vancian-style. Divine attack powers would be Encounter - you have to pray to your god or appease your patron to refill your magic juice, but that only takes a few minutes to do, not all day. Utility powers, as in 4e, could recharge at any interval, depending on what seems appropriate. Exhausting techniques that you have to rest after using, magical cantrips you can use as you please, significant miracles the gods only grant occasionally, etc.

I got over that. No, my problem was how 4e's design team kept shitting on previous editions, especially 3.5, and even more especially on Planescape. Had they just said "we are introducing a new cosmology, you can use it if you want" I think I would not still be holding a grudge against WotC. Instead, it felt like a weekly soap box during development about what the perceived flaws in previous editions were and how the new edition was so much more awesome and so better and why would you play with something that sucks anyways? That literally made my blood boil and it made it clear to me that the developers only cared about their opinions, not the things that their fans enjoyed. Now I know that they ended up backpedaling on that hard, but for me the damage was already done. And of course, at the same time Dragon and Dungeon got yanked away from Paizo right when they were at their prime for D&D.

That's understandable. I really liked the big changes to the cosmology and setting, and that they were deeply integrated into the setting. For once "Arcane" vs. "Divine" actually had a specific, in-character distinction, for example. And I adored that the lore was so deeply baked into the mechanics, because it allowed for that From Software style approach to lore, where not much is spelled out but a whole lot can be inferred. That said, I do understand where you're coming from with them being pretty disrespectful towards the lore that came before. Honestly, while at the time I hated when people said things like "4e is a great game, it's just not D&D", now that I can look at it without an ongoing edition war coloring my perspective, 4e would really have been better off without the D&D brand and the baggage that comes with it.

[Camilla]

I'm a big fan of D&D. In fact 3.5 was my first RPG I ever played. And as much as I love 3.5/Pathfinder and 5e, I have to admit I have a deep soft spot for old-school TSR era D&D, despite it being well before my time. Advanced D&D is pretty cool, but I am growing more and more fond of Basic D&D in all of its iterations each passing day.

I love the OSR movement that has sprung up over the years, dedicated to preserving the old-school D&D stuff. I've even considered making my own OSR game and self-publishing it.

I've recently been reading up on Holmes Basic D&D, released in 1977. It only went up to Level 3, and it was a halfway point between Original D&D (AKA Zero Edition or the White Box rules) and First Edition Advanced D&D. Holmes Basic is the edition I am least familiar with, which is why I am currently researching it extensively.

Apparently, it was created by J. Eric Holmes, a medical doctor who wanted to develop a clarified and simplified version of OD&D for his kids and anyone who wasn't familiar with wargaming or RPG's. So using the White Box and the Greyhawk supplement as a reference, he made this simplified and clarified version of D&D and Gygax and the rest of the TSR guys liked it enough to officially publish the rules that Holmes compiled and used it as a means to promote the then-upcoming Advanced D&D 1e (which would be released in parts over a period spanning late 1978 and early 1979).

I have to admit, I love the Early Installment Weirdness of OD&D and Holmes Basic, as they both pre-date AD&D 1E, which is where a lot of the "standard" tropes associated with D&D became fully codified and standardized. Apparently, sandbox play was extremely common and so was extensive house-ruling. Since Holmes Basic only went up to Level 3, a lot of players would make their own homebrew expansions to it, usually by using OD&D or later AD&D as a reference. Both OD&D and Holmes Basic strongly encouraged imagination and improvisation for both the GM and the players, and there were even references to Sci-Fi elements in OD&D, specifically off-hand references to robots, cyborgs, and Martians. Both OD&D and Holmes mention the possibility of playing non-standard PC's. Examples given include samurai, witches, and even monster classes like centaurs and dragons (Notably, OD&D recommends that the theoretical Level 1 Dragon PC would be a baby dragon and would grow as they leveled up). The Medieval Fantasy setting was only meant to be a springboard for reference and a "hook" for new players and you could easily do multiverse-style games that could cover multiple genres including Sci-Fi, Wild West, Pulp Adventure, and the like.

With the advent of the OSR, there are several retro-clones and fan expansions for Holmes Basic that are pretty good. I recently acquired the free version of Blueholme, a faithful retro-clone of the Holmes Basic set. The Journeyman rules are the full game that goes past Level 3, but it is not free so I will have to wait to get paid before getting it. I love what I have seen so far of Blueholme and I really want to GM a game of it.

[ahather]

my main experience of OSR games has been with godbound and stars without number, they are both good fun,
I've Played 3.5, pathfinder, 4th ed and 5th ed dnd, my faves are 5th ed and pathfinder, although the games that they play have a very different feel. Pathfinder basically fixes all my issues with 3.5, 5th ed also fixes those issues but has a very different tone too 3.5/pathfinder, with the the latter feeling much grittier, found the 3.5/pathfinder system a lot more lethal than 5th ed, I just wish there was ,more settings for 5th ed, I really want Eberon stuff for 5th ed and some of my friends really want 5th ed Darksun, both are great settings, but as of yet direct from wizards of the coast we only have forgotten realms(i think - correct me if I'm wrong), although the 3rd party support for 5th ed is great

[Drake]

Technically speaking, the official default setting of 5th edition is the D&D Multiverse, rather than the Forgotten Realms. Though all the adventures written so far have, in my opinion, been a bit lacking in support for that notion - especially so since some of the adventures talk about running the adventure in settings besides the Forgotten Realms, but fail to mention some the 1st-party settings that have existed in the past (which makes me extra bothered because they all manage one kind of mention or another in the core books, so the exclusion seems deliberate).

To be fair, Ravenloft has been used for an adventure, and released into the "wild" of the DMs Guild already as well. Hopefully the future involves the rest of D&D's 1st-party settings finding their way into the modern game in a more official fashion.

Off that topic and on to another that is sort of happening in thread;

I've got a weird relationship with the whole OSR movement and many of the products that identify themselves as OSR. I really love, despite the flaws of them, the versions of the game found in the Rules Cyclopedia and the boxed sets that it is a compilation/revision of, and the revised 2nd edition of AD&D (the black covers, with sparing, and often different each campaign, inclusions from the Player's Option series of books), and the OSR is supposed to be a place where I can go and get new stuff in that style... and it is, but with one little detail that I can't seem to stomach; I can't just buy up an adventure that says it's OSR and play it with my preferred rules. I've got to either use the appropriate OSR core rules, of which there are dozens to choose from and all have their own little points of not-quite-compatibility with all the rest and the actual old-school rule-books, or I've got to do various bits of re-configuring to adapt the adventure to the rules I have had in my possession for decades. Both feel like missing the point to me, and in the end, I end up not buying or using any of it.

Well, that's not quite true... I did buy the Swords & Wizardry version of Rappan Athuk, but that doesn't really count because I only ran that with 5th edition D&D (figured why not, since I'd be doing the same replace-with-nearest-equivalent conversion of all the stats anyways) and only bought the S&W version over the Pathfinder version because I figured the smaller stat-blocks would be easier to read around while running the adventure.

[LostLight]

I regularly played D&D from 2e to 3.5, and followed the rules for 4e and PF. I've never managed to feel overly interested in 5e- it looks nice, and I like the subclass and race systems, but it feels as if it tries to be a bit too general (and besides, I'm a Dragonlance fan, which brings some baggage to the post 3e era). In general, 3e is my favorite system- it felt as both easy to grasp, full of customization options, open for homebrew and overall creative and daring. I liked 4e the least, as it both made my favorite class, the wizard, into that edition's "fighter" in thematic sense, and felt too much like it tried to be a computer game, where every action of yours had to be pre-detailed as one of the powers (not to mention that 3e's art was much more of my cup of tea than 4e). All in all, I like D&D- it is a fully customized system which, while suggesting settings, gives you free hand at making your own world from scratch, with its own mood and themes- from epic and heroic fantasy to horror and survival games.

[PMárk]

I regularly played D&D from 2e to 3.5, and followed the rules for 4e and PF. I've never managed to feel overly interested in 5e- it looks nice, and I like the subclass and race systems, but it feels as if it tries to be a bit too general (and besides, I'm a Dragonlance fan, which brings some baggage to the post 3e era). In general, 3e is my favorite system- it felt as both easy to grasp, full of customization options, open for homebrew and overall creative and daring. I liked 4e the least, as it both made my favorite class, the wizard, into that edition's "fighter" in thematic sense, and felt too much like it tried to be a computer game, where every action of yours had to be pre-detailed as one of the powers (not to mention that 3e's art was much more of my cup of tea than 4e). All in all, I like D&D- it is a fully customized system which, while suggesting settings, gives you free hand at making your own world from scratch, with its own mood and themes- from epic and heroic fantasy to horror and survival games.

I feel somewhat similar. I get why 5e is so successful and I won't say for a moment that it isn't and that it isn't a working strategy, how they're doing things. To be honest, I was very enthusiastic back then just after reading the PhB, but over time it became just lacking to me. Lacking mechanical/simulation depth, lacking options for customization after the first few levels, lacking setting material, lacking novels, lacking real magic item economy and crafting rules and a lot of other things. Sad, because some ideas I really liked, although after a few games I began seeing the strains of the system too. Nevertheless it has the first paladins I actually wanted to play, ever and a lot of neat stuff, but I just decided, at this point it's not really for me. Maybe after a time. Yeah, mechanical bloat in Pathfinder is a thing too (I never mind "setting bloat", it's not really a thing for me) and frequently I wish they'd rather have more non-mechanical stuff in, for example Horror adventures, than another 20 pages of feats and 30 of spells, but I'd rather have stuff I don't need than not having stuff. Also, I found out that I could appreciate the complexity of the d20 system. Like having different critical ranges and multipliers for different weapons, I actually like that and missed from 5e. Also, PF has the coolest sorcerer version, hands down and a lot of interesting classes.

I never understood the drooling over 5e artworks either. Most of it is just... Not bad, but a little bland and unassuming, especially the core books, although it got a lot better with Storm King's and Volo's. To be honest it was the same for me with the 3e cores too. 4e actually got some very neat artworks, but at the same time it was to frequently too WoW-esque, but when not, it was maybe the best-looking edition, IMO. Also PF, I just like PF artworks.

[Charlaquin]

I think a big part of the praise for 5e artwork is for its representation. Lots of nonewhite people and women who aren’t unnecessarily sexualized.