5E is it worth it for an old-timer/old-schooler

[Mike]

I occasionally glance at the massive fifth edition D&D display at the local game store thinking "might be nice to give latest version a spin..."

Then I look at the three books totalling over one-thousand pages and come reeling back to my senses.

I spent about $15 AUD (including postage which was the largest part of the transaction) on Simon's Delving Deeper Compendium and that's kept me happy for over a year. The three new books will cost between #$150 and $180 AUD.

Could some kindly soul please tell an old worn-out gamer what he might find in these new pages to spark the imagination?

A fellow old-schooler on the Holmes G+ page told me that the new rules are "streamlined" which sounds good but we're still talking about one-thousand pages! Is it mostly "fluff"?

Many thanks

Mike

[deathanddrek]

I don't particularly like 5e - I've played and run several sessions each to eventually make that conclusion - but there are definitely OSR folks who love it, so maybe you will too?

I can say for sure that the free Basic PDF on the Wizards site is perfectly 100% representative of the system: all the rules are there, it's just missing a few "modern" races and classes. Definitely give this document a read to answer your question.

[Mike]

Thanks deathanddrek...

What was it about 5E that didn't float your boat?

[bestialwarlust]

I've played it also. Out of all the WotC versions of d&d it's a better, but I'm not a big fan either at least for running. The cantrips are a good idea but too powerful (I prefer my cantrips to have limited use). Too much magic, don't get me wrong I love playing wizards but almost every class (and if you use the "sub classes") can cast cast, let's keep everything balanced! Boring! Barbarians are a culture not a class and why do they always make them berserkers?

Hit points everyone is too high I like them reigned in a bit more but I'm biased to od&d's d6 for everything. Now having said that running it with the free basic rules takes care of some of that. I would also play in a 5e game where as I would never play a 3.x, 4e or PF game. Overall unless you have to play the most current rule set or your group won't play anything but I wouldn't waste the money. If you do find a group and have a chance to sit in on a session or two I would recommend that at the very least.

[Vile Traveller]

I must say there are quite a few pages in the three books that I don't use - feats, many of the classes & character races, lots of options in the DMG ... so, if you take all those away the books become quite slim. Hence my project to "Holmesify" the Basic PDF by dumping all the text I don't need.

You should try before you buy, though. And just reading won't give you a true impression, because there are a lot of counter-intuitive bits that don't look like they make sense but then they do when you play. It also depends on what options are used, for example feats and multi-classing are optional from the outset and there are many variations in the DMG for healing, skills, etc.

One thing I do like is that the wording is very precise. If anything seems ambiguous, a careful re-reading can often clear it up.

[mindcontrolsquid]

The one thing I really liked about 5E was its background system, since it is in place to (at least from my perspective) encourage role-playing via granting mechanical benefits to determining a characters backstory. For characters wishing to expand their skillsets, it also creates people with incongruous and, in my mind, interesting characters (a devoutly religious thief, for example). I do wish that the core books had more of them, though, and 5E seems to be a pale imitation of 3rd edition. I do realize that 3rd is not the best system, but my perception is colored since its the one I used to learn the game and I've become something of an expert in it. The game does seem to get progressively less inherently lethal to player characters with each iteration, although I've yet to decide if this is a good or bad thing.

[deathanddrek]

Oct 28, 2015 4:42:47 GMT -6 Mike said:

Thanks deathanddrek...

What was it about 5E that didn't float your boat?

I didn't want to say anything negative about it... but I'm happy to answer with the understanding that I don't mean ill will towards the game because I think it is a good game.

> Everything's d20-based, skill checks, perception checks, etc. I prefer d6-based. I prefer to run old-school systems such that I never use ability score checks on a d20, and that's what 5e is all the way. This is just a preference, and sure it could be houseruled, but I'm time-poor.

> Not a fan of the "hit dice": prefer the determinism of simple hit points. Again, houseruleable, time-poor.

> Don't care about backgrounds or bonds/flaws/etc. I'm much more of a "fighter with long sword" guy. "Fighter with long sword" will find his feet in a game or two.

> I've got a favourite game (it turns out), and time spent playing something that's not that favourite game is time spent wishing I was playing that favourite game.

> Most importantly, I don't have the time to learn a new system and keep playing it until it is second nature. 5e is just out of my comfort zone and things outside of your comfort zone feel bad to do. It feels good to practice a thing until it is within your comfort zone but I can't allocate the time to do that well.

[EdOWar]

For me, 5E is a huge step in the right direction. But if you're happy with another OSR system, there's really no reason to switch. As others have suggested, download the free PDFs and give them a read. Honestly, you could play for years using the free material and never spend a penny on 5E.

I found 5E to be fairly intuitive, unlike much of 4E or Pathfinder, and I've found that many aspects of the game are more streamlined. I really like the Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic, but that's easy enough to plug into any old school game. I also really like that they've flattened the power curve in 5E with the whole 'bounded accuracy' thing.

On the downside, 5E still uses sizeable stat blocks and is built around "properly" balanced encounters. Both combine to require more prep time (though perhaps not as much as Pathfinder or 4E), and harder to improvise on the fly. I'm also not a big fan of the backgrounds. I feel backgrounds are the one thing that can really hang up an otherwise fairly quick character creation process.

[Dohojar]

I currently DM a 5th edition game for my son and a few of his friends. The main reason I went with 5th edition was availability for my players. They were all new to the game and I figured that if they liked the game and wanted to play with their friends on their own, then the newest edition of the game would be the way to go. After all, it is the easiest edition to find in stores and new material will be released later on down the road. I know they could get older editions on the net but how many kids under 15 have access to a credit card or paypal. I have grown to like the system in the past year of playing it. The basic mechanics of the game are fairly simple. Player characters have more abilities than AD&D or OD&D but they are manageable unlike 3rd or 4th edition.

I will disagree with EdOWar on the game having to be properly balanced and harder to improvise on the fly. I never balance my encounters for any adventures I have created over the past year and haven't had any problems really. Players need to learn how to improvise, adapt and overcome whatever creatures I throw at them. If they only have 4 pc's in the party and they decide that walking into a room of a dozen orcs is a good idea, then let the chips fall where they may. I will suggest that the DM learn how to create a balanced encounter so he has a good idea of what will kill a party and what won't but once this skill is learned then he will be free to not worry about it too much. No different from any other old edition of D&D. Familiarity with the rules is the key. 

I have also improvised more than one adventure for 5th edition as well. Of course this is easier to do with your own adventures than it is with a module but it is possible and again familiarity with the rules is the key to do this. You can't expect to buy the books, read them and improvise and adventure right away. It's just not going to happen. And this is true of any edition of D&D. It took me about 6 months to get familiar enough with the rules to be able to improvise a game of 5th edition. If you can improvise using an older edition of D&D, then the skill is already there and you just need to learn the rules and become familiar with the monster manual. The only problem I find I have is NPC parties. The character classes have a lot of abilities which can make running a party of NPC's a nightmare. To run an NPC party properly, a DM has to know the ins and outs of the classes to make them challenging and to be able to run them properly.

I will also add that this edition is very easy to use with old adventures. I have taken my current party on a few old modules such as The Lost City, Village of Hommlet, Against the cult of the Reptile God, & White Plume Mountain and haven't had to do to much conversion work. A few monsters here and there but for the most part 5th edition works very well with older modules.

Like others have said, download the basic rules and give them a read. If you like what you read, then create a short adventure for your players and give it a whirl. Won't cost you nothing but your time.

[Vile Traveller]

Re: NPCs, so far I've stuck to the default of giving them what are effectively monster stat blocks. They don't advance, but that's only a problem if they stick with the party for the long term.

[Dohojar]

Oct 28, 2015 22:52:58 GMT -6 Vile Traveller said:

Re: NPCs, so far I've stuck to the default of giving them what are effectively monster stat blocks. They don't advance, but that's only a problem if they stick with the party for yhe long term.

I was think more along the lines as an NPC party that the players have to fight. I suppose you could still create a stat block for each one and just go with a few key abilities for each class. Bit that's still a lot of abilities for a DM to deal with.

[Vile Traveller]

There are sample NPC blocks in the back of the MM, and also some in the introductory adventure if you have that. I find them generally similar to the monsters in complexity, they are not really like player characters.

[Mike]

Thank you very much for the thoughtful feedback folks. I will definitely download the freebies.

However, I have a sneaky feeling I'll be in deathanddrek's camp.

[Finarvyn]

One huge advantage of 5E (which sort of springboards off of Dohojar's post) is that 5E is the active edition in my local game store, so it's easy to find a group. The Adventurer's League runs sessions on both Wednesday nights and Sunday afternoons at my local store, so it's easy to get my gaming "fix" though 5E.

I think it's pretty easy to run as a DM, but I prefer Goodman's "Fifth Edition Fantasy" modules to the hefty (and expensive) official hardback adventures because I feel like the FEF modules allow me to "wing it" more and have a more old school flavor to them.

My players seem to like the options given in the Player's Handbook, but I feel like there are too many and some are overpowered a tad. Personally, I like the freebie rules download since it has a focus on the "core four" classes and you can always cherry-pick extras if you want to allow more options for your players.

I think if you treat it like one of the many other "retro clone" games out there you'll do fine. It does update and modernize some of the mechanics, which I like, and I like the unlimited cantrips for spellcasters.

As others have suggested, give the freebie rules a try. I think I could run a game for a very long time with just the freebie downloads.

[cooper]

Could some kindly soul please tell an old worn-out gamer what he might find in these new pages to spark the imagination?

The game is well designed for what it is designed for. It is a skirmish based RPG similar (not in a pejorative way) to World of Warcraft or other MMOs. It gives you well guided adventure "rails" with enough plot and exposition to make your invariable squad-fantasy combat session seem immersive. It is primarily a combat simulator, which follows a strong tradition in D&D going back to, of course, CHAINMAIL and other sand-box war-games.

Other aspects of what emerged as also a type of D&D play, dungeon exploration/resource management and improvisatory story telling are better handled by games like Torchbearer and Dungeon World respectively.

[Dohojar]

Nov 8, 2015 14:12:40 GMT -6 cooper said:

Could some kindly soul please tell an old worn-out gamer what he might find in these new pages to spark the imagination?

The game is well designed for what it is designed for. It is a skirmish based RPG similar (not in a pejorative way) to World of Warcraft or other MMOs. It gives you well guided adventure "rails" with enough plot and exposition to make your invariable squad-fantasy combat session seem immersive. It is primarily a combat simulator, which follows a strong tradition in D&D going back to, of course, CHAINMAIL and other sand-box war-games.

Other aspects of what emerged as also a type of D&D play, dungeon exploration/resource management and improvisatory story telling are better handled by games like Torchbearer and Dungeon World respectively.

are you talking about 4th edition? if so then you are correct but that isn't at all what 5th edition was designed for. 5th edition was made to go back to more of a 1st edition or second edition feel with a bit of 3rd edition character goodies added in. I suppose if you are into using a grid during combat it might seem that way but it wasn't created to be a skirmish game. It was designed to be a RPG and it does it very well from my experience playing and DM'ing it. 

[cooper]

Nov 8, 2015 14:46:11 GMT -6 Dohojar said:

It was designed to be a RPG and it does it very well from my experience playing and DM'ing it. 

Can I play a character who is a fisherman (not a fighter in plate armor and a flaming sword who happens to have the fishing proficiency)? Are there robust rules for me to play a game merchant sailors who don't fight but all of their adventures are about negotiation and navigation? Are the dice rolls for a tense dinner party diplomatic back and forth as robust as the rules for combat? I didn't say 5e isn't a good game, but it's primarily designed as a combat simulator with token and shallow rules for everything else. It cannot escape its CHAINMAIL roots and it doesn't need to. But in 2015 nobody needs to pretend that D&D is a game that "does everything".

(for the record, 1st 2nd and 3rd edition are also combat simulators, the mere fact that the only characters one can play are "heroes" should give it away).

[ritt]

Positives:

1) It's very customisable. It's pretty easy to take out rules you don't like or play around with alternate systems and subsystems. Seriously, WotC did a great job on this point.

2) The backgrounds are awesome.

3) The 5E Monster Manual is probably the best of D&D's many Monster Manuals. Laid out in a way that makes it very easy to use at the table.

4) The "Basic" rules are free.

Negatives:

1) Less complex than 3E, but maybe just a wee tad more complex than I like.

2) Players have a LOT of special abilities, spells, and class/race/ background stuff to keep track of (Although to be fair the newbie players in the con game I ran had no problem with this, so this might just be my prejudice for simple systems
showing).

3) I'm still slowly getting used to the grotesque HP inflation.

[kingofelfland]

It's nice that the DM Guide is completely optional. I also like the concentration mechanic for the spells; it puts some resource management back into the spell casting and compensates for the easy cantrip access. Also (playing in Adventurers League) newbies don't have to worry about optimization—not because every thing is flatly balanced but because the game doesn't restrict creative play: as a B/X player it feels like what I always imagined AD&D would be (i.e. B/X with more PC options).

[llenlleawg]

I have had great fun with 5e. If you are daunted by the number of pages in the books, think of them as "the 3 original books, plus the three supplements, plus the issues of The Strategic Review".

So, if you want to give 5e a run for free, actual 5e, no rules missing, no simplifications, then download the Basic rules from the WotC site! Then, if you would like, you can add either the PHB (for more character options, more spells, just as with Greyhawk, etc.) or the MM. Still, you don't have to buy anything to play the game, and I'd encourage you to give it a try with the free (and much shorter) downloadable rules.

Enjoy!

[llenlleawg]

Nov 8, 2015 18:36:38 GMT -6 cooper said:

I didn't say 5e isn't a good game, but it's primarily designed as a combat simulator with token and shallow rules for everything else.

It's not a combat simulator. Rather, it's a role-playing game of fantastic adventure, the most detailed rules in which are those adjudicating combat. You seem to think that where detailed rules are found, there is the essence of the game and gameplay, and I don't see that conclusion as warranted. Asked differently, is there really a need or desire to have "robust rules" for searching a room, or for interacting with an unusual statue, or a mysterious set of levers? On the other hand, in a game which evokes fantasy adventure stories and novels (without trying as such to simulate them), one generally wants rules that add to the drama and uncertainty of combat. (By way of comparison, an RPG that addresses comic book heroes will necessarily address combat, since combat is a standard feature of comic book heroes, but will need also to deal with, e.g. rescuing people from burning buildings, chasing missiles aimed at Hackensack, New Jersey, etc. Still, having rules dealing with combat doesn't detract from the other things superheroes do, e.g. investigate crimes or anomalies, etc.)

[Finarvyn]

I think that the key is this -- if you are happy with what you are playing, in whatever edition, then there is no real incentive to switch.

Like llenlleawg, I think that the free download rules are a great thing. If you'd like to get a slightly different take on an old theme (cleaned up mechanics, cantrips, rebuilt classes, etc.) then 5E is worth a look. And, as I mentioned before, it's what most of the game stores seem to be running nowadays so if you want to participate in a public game then 5E is out there.

[xerxez]

I have been enjoying the two 5E games I am a player in. It avoids clunkiness and is coherent, I really like the spells being alphabetically ordered instead of split by level, makes for very quick reference. I like the classes for the most part and I like the inclusion of all the deities in the back, would like to see a supplement for those lists in the fashion of Deities and Demigods. I like advantage but not disadvantage because I am literally cursed at dicr rolling, I just roll dismally most the time so having to roll twice and go with the lowest is frustrating.

[Deleted]

Nov 8, 2015 18:36:38 GMT -6 cooper said:

Are the dice rolls for a tense dinner party diplomatic back and forth as robust as the rules for combat?

One of the goals of D&D and other traditional games is the get the player to experience the game world first hand. Creating complicated social rules simply eliminates this aspect of the game as social encounters, unlike combat, can easily be resolved through actual role-playing. It's also why the morale rules don't (and shouldn't) affect the PCs. You want the players to be scared, you don't want the players to pretend their character is scared.

In other words, if the game mechanics tell the player that his/her character is upset, or scared, or angry, then you aren't role-playing. You are acting.

So, complicated rules for a dinner party are great for a story telling game, they have no place in a role-playing game.

That being said, 5e does put personality mechanics into core D&D which is one of my complaints about the game.

[Deleted]

Just my two cents but I think for example concentration is missing from the downloadable free rule set. That is no biggie unless you like old-school spellcasters. I am a fan of 2E myself and kudos to WOTC for at least trying to steer the game back to a cooperative storytelling framework and away from the direction it had been heading.

All of that said, I was invited to play in a 5E game and was delighted to learn it. (I was not delighted with the pricetag of the books but...) It has some real plusses. Advantage- 'nuf said. Converting the shield spell to a reactionary response is great! Counterspell, another great plus.

But concentration is another matter, to my mind at least. I understand the authors' intent to stop the over-buffing of prior editions but this rule makes, for example, it impossible to keep a web in place once dropped on foes without standing there and focusing on it. It nerfs mages well beyond what I would see as reasonable and makes rogues gods of combat at the same time. Don't get me wrong; wizards still have some great AOE spells and these do significant damage at times. (Everything though is OP in 5E. Everyone has lots of hit points and does a bunch of damage in their area of expertise.)

Fair warning though: wizards in 5E are cannons, nothing more.

[EdOWar]

Jun 16, 2016 13:38:57 GMT -6 @dogred said:

But concentration is another matter, to my mind at least. I understand the authors' intent to stop the over-buffing of prior editions but this rule makes, for example, it impossible to keep a web in place once dropped on foes without standing there and focusing on it. It nerfs mages well beyond what I would see as reasonable and makes rogues gods of combat at the same time.

The rules on concentration specifically state that normal movement and combat doesn't interfere with concentration. The only things that end concentration is 1) voluntarily dropping concentration, 2) casting another spell that requires concentration, 3) taking damage (you make a concentration check to maintain), and 4) death or incapacitation.

Personally, I wish the devs had taken a leap of faith here and simply done away with timed spell durations altogether. Just make the durations instantaneous, permanent or concentration (i.e. the spell stays up as long as you concentrate on it). Would have streamlined the game even more.

[Vile Traveller]

Jun 16, 2016 17:03:47 GMT -6 EdOWar said:

Personally, I wish the devs had taken a leap of faith here and simply done away with timed spell durations altogether. Just make the durations instantaneous, permanent or concentration (i.e. the spell stays up as long as you concentrate on it). Would have streamlined the game even more.

Now that is an interesting proposition ...