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something like a third of the population can't wrap their head around negative numbers, THAC0 was too confusing for the average person and it basically guaranteed only nerds and geeks would ever play D&D
I miss the 1985 version of Oriental Adventures for Advanced D&D. So many awesome exotic weapons and martial arts styles and some really great character classes! I want the real Ninja class back!!!! :)
OH so many memories!! I started playing AD&D about 17 years ago. I still remember the faces I got when trying to explain THAC0 to non players. My first character ever was a human fighter named Kintaro (What does it say about my teens) with Str 18 86% that dual wielded two bastard swords. We didn't get the rules very well back then and I was allowed to attack without penalties. In that campaign he was the only constant character that outlived all others and reached 10th level. He intentionally stepped in the center of combat to make enemies surround him, they called him "the meat grinder". And he got himself a pair of winged boots from an Ogre Mage we defeated, then someone cast Haste on him before he met the Samurai that just killed his friend. That Samurai didn't have a single chance. I also played a Psionicist who reached 9th level, I remember using the discipline that let you agitate molecules to melt the brain of dragon, as I said, we didn't get the rules very well.
The main thing I miss, physical copies of Dungeon and Dragon magazines...sigh. Reading articles online is never as fun as getting that mag in your mailbox.
Dave, My Kobolds are, and always will be, little rat-dog guys. I also remember some creatures in the Planescape setting having ACs of -12 and -14 as well as crazy magic resistance percentages.
I miss Fighter class getting one attack per level against low level monsters. Loved wading into goblin hoards and stacking corpses like cordwood. I miss the RAW that a save against spells that used vision was to avoid the look (I.e. wasn’t resist magic, there was no resist only evade). By this old RAW I had a thief defeat dragons when he got a mirror of life trapping. They would stroke a dragons ego asking to paint them (he actually would but had the mirror on the easel behind canvas). When the dragon asked to see the painting (behind a “tarp” for dramatic reveal which was actually a bag of holding that would remove the canvas from in front of the mirror instantly when whipped away in reveal flourish) then their look at the mirror meant no save because they volunteered to look at the “painting”
100% correct about dog kobolds. :) I also miss Illusionist being a true separate class from Magic-User(that's Wizard for all the young'uns), and Rangers having a handful of both Druid and Magic-User spells. I don't miss needing a 16 or better to have any decent bonus from a stat, though, and needing an 18 in your casting stat to have access to all the levels of spells. lol
Matthew Kaplan You can do that. :) Roll for stats, make a d6 class with -2 constitution, make a custom background that simply lets you start with a stick. I recently made a character that didn’t go as far as that, but as part of his setup to become an adventurer starts off as having recently been scammed out of nearly all his starting gold. (I rolled for gold and bought a few things and then just dropped the rest.)
I miss when Drow were monsters only. It really rubs me the wrong way when I open the PHB and the first illustration I see next to the Elf entry is Drizzt. It makes it look like that he is the archetypal elf instead of the extreme exception of his particular subrace that he is.
I started playing 1st ed in around 1981. Unearthed Arcana made them playable very early on in my experience. Very few people played them back then but you could.
I prefer THAC0 and negative armour classes. Whenever I see an armour class in the new style, I find myself unsure what it means until I translate it into an old school armour class. Anyone with decent basic junior highschool maths knowledge (i.e. negative numbers) has no problem with THAC0.
I miss the modules that served to run for a few levels, vice just published massive campaigns. They were nice for when a campaign slowed, you needed an idea, or anytime you just wanted to run a game. They were inexpensive to buy, and short enough to read through to run well and add your own touches to.
Psionics were originally written in a way that they were virtually impossible to get (without just saying... I have it) and were just over-powered. I always felt that psionics were just trying to make everyone have a magic damage that could not be defended against unless you wanted the DM to give it to a lot of enemies. Be careful what you ask for. You might get it.
I have no doubt that the D20 systems have better and more streamlined combat systems than AD&D had but, Thac0 was literally simple math. Your Thac0 - str/skill modifier- enemy AC = target number. I get people do not like it but it was far from the complicated hell people seem to like to complain about.
I miss different classes having different XP tables, and balance being considered as tradeoffs, not as being equal at each level. I miss having to decide if you wanted to play a weakling M-U at low levels, who would end up godly, or play a big strong fighter, who would end up eclipsed in later levels.
I am a huge fan of Forgotten Realms, as it is the setting I started my d&d hobby in, but I do agree that it is getting way too much attention. I would really love to see Dark Sun and Spelljammer, because they are the settings I have not played in yet. Especially Spelljammer!
I know this isn’t what the Nerdarchist’s mean, but I miss all the great single-player computer RPGs like Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, Planescape Torment, and Neverwinter Nights. I was so hoping that the popularity of 5th Edition would lead to a renaissance of computer RPGs with the current D&D rule set, but, alas, we have had no such luck.
I've been surprised they haven't also. I loved the Baldur's gate and Icewind Dale games. I liked the old video games too, like Eye of the Beholder, more just dungeon crawl old edition D&D but still fun. I was actually surprised they didn't do more of them during 3rd edition too. Temple of Elemental Evil was a good game with that edition of the game, but really surprised that we haven't had a slew of them with 5th edition.
I miss good/fun necromancy spells. Necromancers are more than just raisers of the undead, but 5E basically just stuck them in that niche only. For 95% of wizards in 5e, if you simply took out the school of necromancy, they wouldn't even notice the absent spells.
The main issue with feat trees in earlier editions was you took one or two lame feats in order to get a third feat that was so great that it made up for the two bad ones. What I wouldn't mind is feat trees like Whip Mastery (aka the Indiana Jones feats) where each feat actually gives you new cool things you can do and each builds on the last, but I don't think anyone wants to spend 4 feats to be able to move and attack.
I really, really, really want the dragonlance setting back in its full glory. magic , both wizard and cleric was rare, when the DM didn't want you to have certain items all he had to do was send a pack of kender your way and and if he wanted to mess with you just have a gully dwarf follow you around. The history and settings could be described in minute detail right down to the spiced potatoes served at the inn of the last home.
advanced 2nd edition was by far the best, campaign settings, the brown class and race books, green historical books, blue "DM" books. so much information to play in any setting.
I miss being able to develop a character after character creation. In 3rd edition, and even into 4th, you had all sorts of choices every time you leveled up. I feel like 5th edition, after you make those choices at level 3, your character is on auto-pilot, and events that occur won't change the way the character eventually develop in terms of investing more in a skill because of a new found interest, or taking a feat to prevent something horrible happening to your character a 2nd time. The backgrounds of 5th edition allow you to create the character you want at 1st level, but the skills and feats (and even powers) of 3rd and 4th edition allow your character to progress and grow naturally, reacting to campaign experiences. I wish they would marry the two.
I miss the experience requirements for classes from 2nd edition. Each class had their own requirements to level up. This might have been tedious, but it made it more challenging for spell casters to reach higher (often more powerful) levels.
I'm with Dave. I re-skin my Kolbolds to be little wild dog men. They're the same in every way to the normal Kolbolds except dog people and no draconic influence. Sorry to all the people that hate this but I like having Kolbolds be their own things and personally I think it's silly that almost everything that has some form of draconic influence (Like Dragon born and half dragons and what not) are so cool and intense and then there are Kolbolds which are just little wimps when compared to the rest of dragon kind. If I need dragon styled grunts I got with a Wyuaran (In Pathfinder games)
I like dog Kobolds, but I also like their dragon ties, so in my campaign not only Kobolds but all dragons and similar creatures are scaly but with dog features and rat tails, though dragons have more reptile and less mammal.
Ha, I actually consider it *not* re-skinning Kobolds. They've been little ratty dog men for decades, why the heck do I have to change that just because someone else decided to draw them differently? Well.... I don't. So I don't. DAMNITALL, I'M THE DM AND I LIKE MY KOBOLDS JUST THE WAY THEY ARE!!!
The big thing that I missed when trying 5E (which drove me back to 3.5E) was bonuses. Almost every combat I play, my character is always maneuvering for some kind of advantage, whether that be flanking, high ground, etc., and these stack up with short-term buffs. In 5E, why bother? You've got advantage from the first buff, so there's no need for tactical positioning to further improve your chances. Conversely, once you've got disadvantage you can soak up as many other disadvantages as you want with no effect! I get that they wanted to curb munchkinry, but they seriously overdid it by a wide margin.
I miss the room in the rules that allowed for brave, crazy, or imaginative actions rather than the codified and restrictive feats that outright denied even the dream of such with out totally crafting your character stats and preplanning your advancement from it's inception in order to gain the feat you want and deny it from you for anywhere from 5 to 10 levels because some writer arbitrarily thinks of it differently than you and decided it needed to be included in some backward feat tree.
The D&D thing I miss THE most is from AD&D 2nd Ed. Dungeon Masters Guide pg.22-23 CREATE YOUR OWN CUSTOM CLASS. We wore the pages out of my DMG back in the day using custom classes. It would have been nice to see this cross over to 3rd Ed.
I found an advanced version if 2nd edition class creation rules on line a few years back and it was very balanced with the core classes and even used some core classes as examples
I miss Stat Balance. Strength and Intelligence are not as important as they use to be. If they aren't connected directly to your class you can dump them and it doesn't matter too much. I also miss attacks of opportunities for things other than running away. Being prone or disarmed don't have the same impact as before.
You know, i do too. The stat bit, in a lot of ways they did improve it imo, but not perfectly. I never played much 3.5, but i remember AD&D. And yes, i am amazed at how far Intelligence has slipped in prominence, especially for spell casters! I mean, more casters work off CHA now than off INT or WIS. It is great that CHA is not the dump it used to be, but i can't help but wonder if the pendulum has swung too far the other direction. It might have been useful to find a way to keep INT more relevant to Sorcerers & Warlocks, like CON is to fighters. In a lot of games i have played in the past, INT is that attribute that finds a way of helping with almost anything in some way. INT could have done some little things like improve the rate your proficiency bonus increases, or extra skills or languages. Lots of possibilities. But for whatever reason, the designers decided to give it the back seat.
Intelligence does feature less prominently than it ha before as far as a combat stat, but it still is used for all skills that were formerly knowledge skills, Arcana, History, Nature, Religion, etc. as well as a number of tool proficiencies. It also works for a few rogue class abilities. So it's not like it's unused. Unless your DM is letting you get away with meta gaming those skills come in awfully handy. And while combat is what most classes focus on, it is not the be all, end all of a DnD adventure. Sometimes being smart for the sake of being smart is its own reward, even if it isn't optimal for your build. Batman never had intelligence as a dump stat.
I miss class levels being individual things and not tied in to character level, IE no max number of levels you could have a level 15 fighter / 20 mage(or wizard) or a level 8 fighter/9 mage/10 thief and not have the total of the levels limited to 20 with no further room for growth.
I miss simple classes when a Cleric had armor, shield, blunt weapons and basic list of spells and they all turn undead. Magic Users who were basic spell casters. Fighters had a big hit die, wore lots of armor and specialized usually in one decent higher damage weapon and no need to think much. Etc. And characters with funny names like Bob the Elf and Giggly Mountains the well built human female fighter.
Some things I miss: 18/00 Strength. Monster Summoning Spells. Name Level. Paladins being Lawful Good. Classes that don’t have magic (when everyone’s special, no one is). Barbarian Summon Horde. Enchantment Spells where the person doesn’t know they’ve been charmed. Rolling 3d6 in order for stats. Dex not being a god-stat. Your race is Elf and your class is Elf (joking on that one).
Joshua Ross, but before, Paladins had to be LG. You were not allowed to be a Pal of an other alignment. That restriction, and prerequisites on stats, justified the power of the class.
mdiem I hated this restriction. And being lawful good isn't any harder then sticking close to other alignments. Ever play a paladin of freedom? All a paladin means to me is a fighter who exemplifies their gods values. The God favors them with some power in return for that devotion. To me that doesn't sound like a lawful good only thing. I do refuse true neutral though.
Krynn AKA dragonlance. Loved that campaign seeing. Really loved it in second edition. Gamma world was also cool. Really miss those. The wandering realm of Ravenloft. And the other thing I rather miss even though people will probably laugh at. Kits. I miss kits. Like the justicar and the blade singer, the beast master. Third tried but prestige classes just were not the same. They never equalled what you lost.
I play first edition (AD&D) so descending armor class to me is great. I have played Pathfinder and 5th, but still like descending much better. I made the character sheets we use and have the to hit charts on them. We also use weapon type hit adjustments (AD&D PHB pg. 38) to give weapons flavor.
The one thing I miss from 1st and 2nd edition is the random initiative roll each round. I always thought combat should be a little more chaotic and less of politely waiting your turn. We experimented with random initiative rolls in T20 (D20) Traveller and I thought it worked well. We just changed the improved initiative feat to +2 instead of +4.
I miss the different ACs of 3e. I had a fighter in full plate armor in my game and a wraith was just swinging and missing repeatedly and I thought to myself "What is it about big plates of metal that is preventing this incorporeal spirit from touching you and draining your life essence?". Even the fighter's player said that it was weird and clashed with the way I was describing the hits to other characters "The wraith reaches his hand into your chest and you can feel your body growing colder". So we house ruled it back for all classes other than barbarian (I reasoned that barb was special because the unarmored defense was a class feature). Now my players all have a standard, touch, and flat footed AC.
I can totally agree with this. The various AC types made sense for differing types of actions. Like Shocking Grasp shouldn't require me to punch you hard enough that you feel the impact through your plate armor. All I have to do is touch you and the lightning does all the work. So why is it so hard? Multiple times in 5e I have wanted to do a touch or ranged touch type contact and then remembered that it doesn't make a difference. Makes me sad every time.
This may sound a bit funny, but my favorite ranged weapon from AD&D was the humble sling. If you wanted to rules lawyer them, they were actually quite powerful for the investment. If you ruled it a modified form of thrown weapon (as i did), in 1E, your character could add both STR & DEX bonuses to it without any need for expensive customization. It was easy to forage and craft ammunition for it, and silvered ammunition for it was no problem to produce or obtain. Playing the face-wrecking brawler types that i usually did, that sling that let me add my STR bonus to damage at a distance was the perfect ranged weapon when i needed one, and it never got in the way of my job the rest of the time.
Whip proficiency and the chain of feats related in Pathfinder is fun as hell- you can trip, swing from the rafters, pull yourself up to a low roof, grapple, drag, disarm- always fun to pull an enemy straight into a shield bash, or into a hazard between you. Dex fighter at its finest.
"I like magic to be rare." Fair enough. But I've hardly ever seen a D&D game (and I started with white box in 1976) in any edition in which magic actually was rare. Certainly the treasure tables have never supported magic as a rare thing. When the response of the players is "Oh yay, another +1 sword. Where's the bag for those again?", caviling at the PCs being able to create magic items seems a bit odd. I mean there's obviously an industry devoted to item creation; why can't I have a character who can do it occasionally? Horses for courses, though. Play the game that's fun for you.
I totally agree with the Magic Item Feats. Making a character that specialized in them was one of my favorite things to do. I also loved Psionics and have been thinking of homebrewing a Psionic Sorcerer Bloodline.
I totally agree with introducing new campaign setting guides for 5e but the longer it goes on less likely it seems. I 'm glad I at least have a few setting books from 4e I can plunder.
I think that is why they haven't made anymore for 5E and didn't do many for 4E. There is already enough information out there for people to plunder and modify to fit what they want to do in their campaign. But yes updated stuff would be nice, like some of the older ones not touched on in awhile(Mystara, Birthright, etc)
I do like Psionics in general and I have a UA mystic in the game I'm currently running, I know people have said it's overpowered but from what I've seen so far the wizard and cleric are outshining him so far, it is by far more complex than the other classes so it does make your lives harder. I'm hoping we'll see a new version of the mystic soon as wizards are saying that it and artificer are coming.
Mystics are alright, but I miss the AoE and control mage options 4th ED had. Don't get me wrong, Mystics are still my fav thing to play for 5th ED, but 4th ED felt like you had a more specialized strategic role.
I love 4e in general. The Rogue in my game right now is somehow going along with absolutely TERRIBLE max HP (I think almost every level he's rolled a 1 or 2, and his CON isn't that great, either), but he's playing pretty darn smart and picking his moments and using various abilities that let him slip in, get a quick strike with sneak attack, and then can shift out of the way and roll a Stealth check that he usually makes with crazy luck and barely even gets noticed, much less struck during many combat sessions. It's both aggravating and absolutely hilarious the way some of his antics work out.
That may be true, but there was plenty in 4e that was entertaining and worked well. I think most people that just hate it were too afraid to ignore the stuff they didn't like, or adapt certain things from 3/3.5 into it that they enjoyed more and do more of a homebrew thing. There are certainly certain aspects of 4e I'm not personally into either, such as having 27 different equipment slots (yes, that's an exaggeration on purpose), so I simply got rid of a lot of the fluff and condensed all of the "extra" categories into "Accessory" 1 and 2, for example. It's really getting to the point now to where I personally feel people who have been playing D&D for a while are most likely going to have the most fun picking and choosing things they enjoyed from different editions of the game and finding ways to make them work together in their own game. You can certainly go with a single version of the game and just roll with what the book says, but there's a lot of fun to be had for changing or removing rules or other things you don't like used in one way versus another, or things you don't enjoy at all. Hell, even though I love 4e, I'm currently mostly just using 4e as a base for combat with the Powers, and adapting lots of different things from 5e to override things about 4e I don't like instead (such as Hit Die instead of Healing Surges, 5e double-roll advantage/disadvantage over a bonus to your roll, proficiency bonus vs. 1/2 level, etc.). It took some work to get fleshed out and balanced decent with everything, but it's working really well now that I did.
I miss how the base books of AD&D 2e and below was the feel of Lord of the Rings you meet in a tavern and not Star Wars you meet in a cantina... Then as a dm you could collect dragon magazine or d&d splat books and add parts of the cantina into your world...
Sorry Dave, gotta side with Ted on the magic items. Being able to make your own items is another draw to being a spellcaster, and while technology & magic CAN work together, for the most part unless your homebrew world (or your playing Eberron) is built around it, technology & magic are going to develop at different rates, typically with magic developing faster. Now, that's not to say that you can't still make making items in a specific way important, making those quests still be a thing. For an example, maybe a white dragon has figured out how to make itself immune to any source of fire from the Prime Material Plane. The solution would then be to either go to the Plane of Fire or Hell/ the Abyss to get a set of fire weapons whose magic fire is pure enough to defeat that dragon's defenses.
I miss Thieves having their role with Traps and Locks and Sneak. 5E has them so loose, they may as well not be a thing at all. I miss Fighters being THE class that hit most often, did the most melee damage, and had the most HP. This "Dex based is just as good as Str based" sucks so bad, they had to add in Maneuvers to make Fighters worth playing. I miss rolling stats. That was part of D&D, even if there was a lot of "Roll four, drop the lowest" and "reroll 1s". If you wanted point buy, there were other games to play. For that matter, I MISS OTHER GAMES THAN D&D! I want GURPS and Paladium back!
I miss kits. Immediate flavoring for your character. No waiting for your subclass, no wasting time to qualify for prestige classes. You just get your gypsy bard with dual scimitars from level one lol
The three big ones for me. 1) Prestige Classes - I loved the variable nature of Prestige classes. They offered so much freedom in how to build to get the requirements that you could get some really fun combinations and specialized characters. 2) The old Hit Dice system. Pure casters d4, Light specialists d6, Half Fighters d8, Fighters d10, Barbarian d12. 3) Feats. While they still exist, I liked the co-existence of feats with Ability Ups. Feats gave a lot of customization and individuality to different characters, allowing 2 different characters of the same class and prestige class to be unique and individual based on the preferred feats and Ability Up spread. Now, most Prestige Classes could be built out into Sub-Classes, though they won't be as flexible as 3/3.5 Prestige classes because they will only be able to be used by certain classes. The old Hit Dice isn't something I would bring back, but I liked the simplicity of it. As for Feats, it's a pretty simple House Rule. You can choose 2 Ability points in 1 Ability, 1 Ability point in 2 Abilities, 1 Ability point and 1 Feat, or 2 Feats at certain levels. That would obviously increase the power of characters utilizing the feat availability, but that's how I would run it, and just give a little more to NPCs to deal with the disparity.
For me I want magic item creation rules as a Dungeon Master from a world building standpoint. I like to be able to say "Where did this bag of holding come from? How do these items come into existence?" Also Minions are great and I've been meaning to incorporate them into my 5e game
As a huge fan of 4e still it made me really happy to see you not completely dismiss 4e and actually have 2 items on your list from it. And I'm also a big psionics fan I I think I'd get along with you guys pretty well.
Funny story...i started playing D&D with my cousin who is much older then me and he had a very old book which was he first time i played the game. The book was in portuguese and Thac0 was actually spelled "Taco" as in...the mexican treat Taco...lol Lame translators... It always made me wonder 'WHY the chance to hit someone was called Taco??'...which was also the same name of an Octopus monster in the monster book... and led us to make jokes like "What is Taco's taco when it wants to eat tacos using a taco?" Because...in portuguese "Batt" is also spelled and pronounced 'Taco'...
I miss the challenge of keeping a character alive in earlier editions. I have yet to experience that in newer editions. Balance? Characters are supposed to be different and unbalanced just like in the real world.
Edition of choice for me is still 3.5. Starting with 1E, but 3.5 is my fave. It is rules heavy, it isn't easy to get all the rules down, it isn't easy to teach to new players and I still love it. Good video
Campaign Settings & Paragon classes, exotic weapons too. I like the hardcover campaign books from 4th & 5th edition a lot but I and they are great to play, but when I DM I like to pull more from Greek & Norse mythology. Goblins over Kobolds everyday!
I remember when we ran Rise of Tiamat, and our DM had the final fight before Tiamat's Avatar was full of cultist minions that died in one hit, but could still hit us. Made that feel even more epic before the final fight
Around the time WotC was buying TSR, the then president of WotC wrote a short article for Dragon Magazine where he suggested inverting AC and THACO so that both systems counted up, rather than down. It was basically the same as 3rd edition's attack/armour class rules.
Okay, first off, I'm an Old School Grog. Second, I like THAC0 (I hope so - I host THAC0's Hammer, The Best Damn AD&D 2nd Edition Podcast EVER! :) ). It's easy to do and it moves combat along. - Ol' Man Grognard
I miss all the classes and prestige classes from 3.5.. I would like to seem them return as full and subclasses. Like duskblade, we need a 1/2 arcane caster gish.
This is to help keep OUT the power gamming issue that 3.5 had all over the place. I do agree that I enjoyed the prestige classes from it. But some aspects should may be stay dead.
well sub-classes are basically the new prestige classes. But Honestly we do need one or two arcane 1/2 casters, like dusk-blade. As well as a few 1/3 divine casters. I'd just like many to return as a sub-classes like battlesmiths, beastmasters, blade bravos, dervish, duelist, dwarven defender,gnome giant-slayer,halfling outrider, runesmith, Divine prankster, earth dreamer. Full classes like knight, spell-less ranger(non-UA), duskblade, Ninja, Shaman, Artificer(non-UA).
I miss alignment mattering, AC not being just a number and having more details/conditions to it, beast classes, racial class substitution levels, all the equipment and gear present in, say, 3.5, all the lore in the rich library, the artwork -both in style and abundance- of most books, how the pallies had that always active protection... I can go all day lol but the thing I miss the most: STICKS TO SNAKES
My first thing I really miss is bonus language slots. Granted since 5E is going more streamlined, it doesn't seem as necessary, but I like coming up with different lands with their own cultural nods, it adds to the flavor of the setting and can add some good story situations. If I get around to creating a 5E setting, bringing back bonus languages. Me second is the skill system from 3.5, you could add a lot of flavor to a character with it.
So much is great about 3.5 and 5 editions therefore I’m creating my own ‘V-edition’ which is mostly based on 3.5 but merged with the best of 5e ( in my opinion). Plus all the stuff I always house rule and new things I added such as ; the wing gauge 1/3 of total hp is in a wing gauge every time the winged creature takes hp damage there is a roll to determine how much also comes off the wing gauge. When the wing gauge is at 0 the creature plummets and can’t fly until it recovers hp. As well as various learning and teaching abilities. And I’m now play testing. I also have a mana pool (mp) system that is replacing the spell slots allowing spell flexibility. Lower mp cost for Cantrips (rather than inexplicably unlimited in 5e or far too limited in 3.5e). Similar to psions PP. Also a tally point system for all spells so the caster learns to use them better with practice reducing the base MP cost over time,etc.The harder healing of 3.5 because frankly the mysterious illogical and unexplained sudden healing of 5e just doesn’t make sense. I love advantage/disadvantage and am deciding if I’ll go with death saves. I use the ranks/skill points based on 3.5 but have changed the list to my own version with for example; Arcana (instead of knowledge arcana and spell craft because it’s better) etc. And I have more functional and useful mundane and magical crafting rules and skills. Beginning to fully play test the “alpha trials very soon’ although I had been house-ruling many of these into previous games and they all worked great. Also better rules for called ranged shots, and much more. I prefer lots of magic items, economy and crafting rules. All the players I’ve ever DMed for LOOOOVE monty haul and tons o’ magic loot a.s.a.p. I also design more than 50% of my own magic items and make new spells use my own races Felins (cat people) of many variety are almost on very world I play, etc.I could just keep going but I’d better stop. Have a great day everyone!
Grand Scheme publishings recently released 'The King of Dungeons' uses the Archmage Engine aka '13th Age' has the Commander class which is very much like the 4e Warlord. Unsuprising as AE is a mix of 4th and 3rd Editions.
I miss the multi-classing where you had a pick from the classes and all went up together rather than 5e's take which is really more like dual classing in 2e than actual multi classing. Also the humanoids from the book of humanoids, they nerfed the ogre magi so badly.
Prestige Classes. I know that subclasses kind of fill that roll, but 3/3.5 e let you customize to your Hearst content. The Shifter giving up spell casting to become an awesomely dedicated shape shifter. Elemental Savant dedication to one element so much they ascend to an elemental state. The Mind Bender, Archmage, and Dervish. So much flavor that subclasses just seem to fall short of reaching.
Because Feats come at the expense of a stat bump within the limitations of bounded accuracy, I would not bring back Feat Trees per se, but I could see adding text to certain Feats that say, "If you have this Feat and you also have such and such Feat, then now you can do so and so or take Advantage on this or that roll." This would avoid forcing players to take one Feat to build on another in a certain order, but could establish meaningful synergies between different Feats that might accomplish some of the same flavor as a Tree.
I thought I had screwed many years ago when I created a race of dog people which I called Kobold. I thought I had taken that from Kobolds but others later pointed out that they are lizardkin (or dragonkin). It's good to know that I did not completely screw it up.
I played a fighter in 3.5 who had a great scimitar, that was fun. He had the ability to hit multiple targets with a good amount of damage. I would like to see more variety of weapons. You could have Oriental Adventure weapons or other lands had specific types of weapons. It gave a character more flavor to have exotic weapons.
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Nerdarchy love your content but don't you miss at little bit true multiclassing
something like a third of the population can't wrap their head around negative numbers, THAC0 was too confusing for the average person and it basically guaranteed only nerds and geeks would ever play D&D
I miss a lot of the old school illustrations in the books.
Those were great. I bought that D&D art book that was released awhile ago. It was fantastic.
I miss the 1985 version of Oriental Adventures for Advanced D&D. So many awesome exotic weapons and martial arts styles and some really great character classes! I want the real Ninja class back!!!! :)
The one thing I miss was at the beginning of most of the 2nd edition books was the term "Not set in stone."
What's this?
OH so many memories!! I started playing AD&D about 17 years ago. I still remember the faces I got when trying to explain THAC0 to non players.
My first character ever was a human fighter named Kintaro (What does it say about my teens) with Str 18 86% that dual wielded two bastard swords. We didn't get the rules very well back then and I was allowed to attack without penalties. In that campaign he was the only constant character that outlived all others and reached 10th level. He intentionally stepped in the center of combat to make enemies surround him, they called him "the meat grinder". And he got himself a pair of winged boots from an Ogre Mage we defeated, then someone cast Haste on him before he met the Samurai that just killed his friend. That Samurai didn't have a single chance.
I also played a Psionicist who reached 9th level, I remember using the discipline that let you agitate molecules to melt the brain of dragon, as I said, we didn't get the rules very well.
I miss sticks to snakes, literally the only reason I've ever played clerics
The main thing I miss, physical copies of Dungeon and Dragon magazines...sigh. Reading articles online is never as fun as getting that mag in your mailbox.
I had a subscription to the MAGAZINE, but I will never even OFFICIALLY acknowledge the existence of the E-zine garbage.
Somebody should start an unofficial magazine for the hobby.
Dave, My Kobolds are, and always will be, little rat-dog guys.
I also remember some creatures in the Planescape setting having ACs of -12 and -14 as well as crazy magic resistance percentages.
Yeah when the hell did they turn into lizards... that got me all confused
I miss Fighter class getting one attack per level against low level monsters. Loved wading into goblin hoards and stacking corpses like cordwood.
I miss the RAW that a save against spells that used vision was to avoid the look (I.e. wasn’t resist magic, there was no resist only evade). By this old RAW I had a thief defeat dragons when he got a mirror of life trapping. They would stroke a dragons ego asking to paint them (he actually would but had the mirror on the easel behind canvas). When the dragon asked to see the painting (behind a “tarp” for dramatic reveal which was actually a bag of holding that would remove the canvas from in front of the mirror instantly when whipped away in reveal flourish) then their look at the mirror meant no save because they volunteered to look at the “painting”
100% correct about dog kobolds. :) I also miss Illusionist being a true separate class from Magic-User(that's Wizard for all the young'uns), and Rangers having a handful of both Druid and Magic-User spells. I don't miss needing a 16 or better to have any decent bonus from a stat, though, and needing an 18 in your casting stat to have access to all the levels of spells. lol
For exotic weapon proficiency I'd say Feat that grants proficiency to that specific weapon and a stat increase of +1 to dex or str.
I miss 3.5's templates. Yeah, there are a handful on 5e, but 3.5 had SOOOO many options. Also, prestige classes.
Yeah, part of me misses the insane customization of 3/3.5e, but I LOVE the simplicity of 5e
I love the templates. so easy to make the new big bad that my group will never expect.
I miss starting at first level with four H.P. and a stick.
Matthew Kaplan
You can do that. :) Roll for stats, make a d6 class with -2 constitution, make a custom background that simply lets you start with a stick.
I recently made a character that didn’t go as far as that, but as part of his setup to become an adventurer starts off as having recently been scammed out of nearly all his starting gold. (I rolled for gold and bought a few things and then just dropped the rest.)
I would recommend giffyglyphs rookie characters, it lets you run an encounter or two that are tough.
Try DCC. All characters start out like that.
4? Lucky you if nat 1s never happened on your 1st level HP rolls...
I miss when Drow were monsters only. It really rubs me the wrong way when I open the PHB and the first illustration I see next to the Elf entry is Drizzt. It makes it look like that he is the archetypal elf instead of the extreme exception of his particular subrace that he is.
I started playing 1st ed in around 1981. Unearthed Arcana made them playable very early on in my experience. Very few people played them back then but you could.
THACO was not that hard, it was just math. I loved 2nd edition.
I prefer THAC0 and negative armour classes. Whenever I see an armour class in the new style, I find myself unsure what it means until I translate it into an old school armour class.
Anyone with decent basic junior highschool maths knowledge (i.e. negative numbers) has no problem with THAC0.
I miss the modules that served to run for a few levels, vice just published massive campaigns. They were nice for when a campaign slowed, you needed an idea, or anytime you just wanted to run a game. They were inexpensive to buy, and short enough to read through to run well and add your own touches to.
Yes DECENTLY laid out Psionics for 5e would be great. Next step a quasi-official Eberron setting (with races/classes)
Psionics were originally written in a way that they were virtually impossible to get (without just saying... I have it) and were just over-powered.
I always felt that psionics were just trying to make everyone have a magic damage that could not be defended against unless you wanted the DM to give it to a lot of enemies.
Be careful what you ask for. You might get it.
Hey looks like you mostly got what you wanted
I have no doubt that the D20 systems have better and more streamlined combat systems than AD&D had but, Thac0 was literally simple math. Your Thac0 - str/skill modifier- enemy AC = target number. I get people do not like it but it was far from the complicated hell people seem to like to complain about.
The problem is some people still don't understand subtracting negative numbers.
I miss different classes having different XP tables, and balance being considered as tradeoffs, not as being equal at each level. I miss having to decide if you wanted to play a weakling M-U at low levels, who would end up godly, or play a big strong fighter, who would end up eclipsed in later levels.
I am a huge fan of Forgotten Realms, as it is the setting I started my d&d hobby in, but I do agree that it is getting way too much attention. I would really love to see Dark Sun and Spelljammer, because they are the settings I have not played in yet. Especially Spelljammer!
A nice Hardback book for Dark Sun and Spelljammer would be nice.
Dark Sun was a fun world to play in.
That little woohoo from Ted at the beginning freaking killed me. I had a mouthful of coffee and I almost spewed it all over my keyboard.
Spewed coffee and other beverages is what we live for.
Nerdarchist Dave
Exotic weapons FTW! I remember my first character was a Monk who wielded two Kamas. Loved him so much. Especially at Epic/Prestige level.
I miss when Rogues were called the Thief class.
I also miss the Assassin subclass.
Both from 1st Edition AD&D
Funny I thought those classes were from the supplements from OD&D
I know this isn’t what the Nerdarchist’s mean, but I miss all the great single-player computer RPGs like Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, Planescape Torment, and Neverwinter Nights. I was so hoping that the popularity of 5th Edition would lead to a renaissance of computer RPGs with the current D&D rule set, but, alas, we have had no such luck.
Me too man, me too
Pillars of Eternity.
I'd want to port in the action point/hex map economy of the original X-com games, I think it would work really well for tactical combat in 5th.
I've been surprised they haven't also. I loved the Baldur's gate and Icewind Dale games. I liked the old video games too, like Eye of the Beholder, more just dungeon crawl old edition D&D but still fun. I was actually surprised they didn't do more of them during 3rd edition too. Temple of Elemental Evil was a good game with that edition of the game, but really surprised that we haven't had a slew of them with 5th edition.
I still play the Golden Box games fairly frequently, Secret of the Silver Blades being the one I come back to most often.
I miss good/fun necromancy spells. Necromancers are more than just raisers of the undead, but 5E basically just stuck them in that niche only. For 95% of wizards in 5e, if you simply took out the school of necromancy, they wouldn't even notice the absent spells.
Thaco was awesome. That I miss.
The main issue with feat trees in earlier editions was you took one or two lame feats in order to get a third feat that was so great that it made up for the two bad ones. What I wouldn't mind is feat trees like Whip Mastery (aka the Indiana Jones feats) where each feat actually gives you new cool things you can do and each builds on the last, but I don't think anyone wants to spend 4 feats to be able to move and attack.
Especially not in a game where 4 feats means... what was it, like +4 to any stat? I'd not do it.
I love THAC0. My group play 1st and 2nd almost exclusivly.
I miss Planeswalkers. I had one who had created his own private plane, and was expanding it.
I really, really, really want the dragonlance setting back in its full glory. magic , both wizard and cleric was rare, when the DM didn't want you to have certain items all he had to do was send a pack of kender your way and and if he wanted to mess with you just have a gully dwarf follow you around. The history and settings could be described in minute detail right down to the spiced potatoes served at the inn of the last home.
advanced 2nd edition was by far the best, campaign settings, the brown class and race books, green historical books, blue "DM" books. so much information to play in any setting.
I miss being able to develop a character after character creation. In 3rd edition, and even into 4th, you had all sorts of choices every time you leveled up. I feel like 5th edition, after you make those choices at level 3, your character is on auto-pilot, and events that occur won't change the way the character eventually develop in terms of investing more in a skill because of a new found interest, or taking a feat to prevent something horrible happening to your character a 2nd time. The backgrounds of 5th edition allow you to create the character you want at 1st level, but the skills and feats (and even powers) of 3rd and 4th edition allow your character to progress and grow naturally, reacting to campaign experiences. I wish they would marry the two.
In those editions you made those choices at level one. You never actually had a choice at higher levels.
I miss the experience requirements for classes from 2nd edition. Each class had their own requirements to level up. This might have been tedious, but it made it more challenging for spell casters to reach higher (often more powerful) levels.
I'm with Dave. I re-skin my Kolbolds to be little wild dog men. They're the same in every way to the normal Kolbolds except dog people and no draconic influence.
Sorry to all the people that hate this but I like having Kolbolds be their own things and personally I think it's silly that almost everything that has some form of draconic influence (Like Dragon born and half dragons and what not) are so cool and intense and then there are Kolbolds which are just little wimps when compared to the rest of dragon kind.
If I need dragon styled grunts I got with a Wyuaran (In Pathfinder games)
i hate your idea and the fact that you're trying to bring something new to the table -_-
I like dog Kobolds, but I also like their dragon ties, so in my campaign not only Kobolds but all dragons and similar creatures are scaly but with dog features and rat tails, though dragons have more reptile and less mammal.
Kobolds are the original Dragon Born.
Ha, I actually consider it *not* re-skinning Kobolds. They've been little ratty dog men for decades, why the heck do I have to change that just because someone else decided to draw them differently?
Well....
I don't.
So I don't.
DAMNITALL, I'M THE DM AND I LIKE MY KOBOLDS JUST THE WAY THEY ARE!!!
I miss the larger monster manual/resource packs
The big thing that I missed when trying 5E (which drove me back to 3.5E) was bonuses. Almost every combat I play, my character is always maneuvering for some kind of advantage, whether that be flanking, high ground, etc., and these stack up with short-term buffs. In 5E, why bother? You've got advantage from the first buff, so there's no need for tactical positioning to further improve your chances. Conversely, once you've got disadvantage you can soak up as many other disadvantages as you want with no effect! I get that they wanted to curb munchkinry, but they seriously overdid it by a wide margin.
BTW I also had a set of "glassteel" armor made, cost me about 3o,ooo gp
I like that the lore for Owlbears is still "a crazy wizard did it" because to me there is no better explanation for the existence of Owlbears
I miss the room in the rules that allowed for brave, crazy, or imaginative actions rather than the codified and restrictive feats that outright denied even the dream of such with out totally crafting your character stats and preplanning your advancement from it's inception in order to gain the feat you want and deny it from you for anywhere from 5 to 10 levels because some writer arbitrarily thinks of it differently than you and decided it needed to be included in some backward feat tree.
The D&D thing I miss THE most is from AD&D 2nd Ed. Dungeon Masters Guide pg.22-23 CREATE YOUR OWN CUSTOM CLASS. We wore the pages out of my DMG back in the day using custom classes. It would have been nice to see this cross over to 3rd Ed.
I found an advanced version if 2nd edition class creation rules on line a few years back and it was very balanced with the core classes and even used some core classes as examples
I miss Stat Balance. Strength and Intelligence are not as important as they use to be. If they aren't connected directly to your class you can dump them and it doesn't matter too much.
I also miss attacks of opportunities for things other than running away. Being prone or disarmed don't have the same impact as before.
You know, i do too. The stat bit, in a lot of ways they did improve it imo, but not perfectly. I never played much 3.5, but i remember AD&D. And yes, i am amazed at how far Intelligence has slipped in prominence, especially for spell casters! I mean, more casters work off CHA now than off INT or WIS. It is great that CHA is not the dump it used to be, but i can't help but wonder if the pendulum has swung too far the other direction. It might have been useful to find a way to keep INT more relevant to Sorcerers & Warlocks, like CON is to fighters. In a lot of games i have played in the past, INT is that attribute that finds a way of helping with almost anything in some way. INT could have done some little things like improve the rate your proficiency bonus increases, or extra skills or languages. Lots of possibilities. But for whatever reason, the designers decided to give it the back seat.
Intelligence does feature less prominently than it ha before as far as a combat stat, but it still is used for all skills that were formerly knowledge skills, Arcana, History, Nature, Religion, etc. as well as a number of tool proficiencies. It also works for a few rogue class abilities. So it's not like it's unused. Unless your DM is letting you get away with meta gaming those skills come in awfully handy. And while combat is what most classes focus on, it is not the be all, end all of a DnD adventure. Sometimes being smart for the sake of being smart is its own reward, even if it isn't optimal for your build. Batman never had intelligence as a dump stat.
Really should be a difference between being prone on purpose vs knocked prone....
I miss class levels being individual things and not tied in to character level, IE no max number of levels you could have a level 15 fighter / 20 mage(or wizard) or a level 8 fighter/9 mage/10 thief and not have the total of the levels limited to 20 with no further room for growth.
I miss simple classes when a Cleric had armor, shield, blunt weapons and basic list of spells and they all turn undead. Magic Users who were basic spell casters. Fighters had a big hit die, wore lots of armor and specialized usually in one decent higher damage weapon and no need to think much. Etc. And characters with funny names like Bob the Elf and Giggly Mountains the well built human female fighter.
Some things I miss: 18/00 Strength. Monster Summoning Spells. Name Level. Paladins being Lawful Good. Classes that don’t have magic (when everyone’s special, no one is). Barbarian Summon Horde. Enchantment Spells where the person doesn’t know they’ve been charmed. Rolling 3d6 in order for stats. Dex not being a god-stat. Your race is Elf and your class is Elf (joking on that one).
Paladins can still be lawful good...
Joshua Ross, but before, Paladins had to be LG. You were not allowed to be a Pal of an other alignment.
That restriction, and prerequisites on stats, justified the power of the class.
Shall we bring back racial restrictions on classes too?
mdiem I hated this restriction. And being lawful good isn't any harder then sticking close to other alignments. Ever play a paladin of freedom?
All a paladin means to me is a fighter who exemplifies their gods values. The God favors them with some power in return for that devotion. To me that doesn't sound like a lawful good only thing.
I do refuse true neutral though.
Gregory Floriolli I mean, half of these are still in the game if you want them :/
Krynn AKA dragonlance. Loved that campaign seeing. Really loved it in second edition. Gamma world was also cool. Really miss those. The wandering realm of Ravenloft. And the other thing I rather miss even though people will probably laugh at. Kits. I miss kits. Like the justicar and the blade singer, the beast master. Third tried but prestige classes just were not the same. They never equalled what you lost.
I started D&D with 3.5 and I enjoyed the options created by prestige classes and such.
I've looked at using the old 1e Psionics as a homebrew thing. I like the idea that anyone could do it and not specific classes/sub-classes
I play first edition (AD&D) so descending armor class to me is great. I have played Pathfinder and 5th, but still like descending much better. I made the character sheets we use and have the to hit charts on them. We also use weapon type hit adjustments (AD&D PHB pg. 38) to give weapons flavor.
The one thing I miss from 1st and 2nd edition is the random initiative roll each round. I always thought combat should be a little more chaotic and less of politely waiting your turn. We experimented with random initiative rolls in T20 (D20) Traveller and I thought it worked well. We just changed the improved initiative feat to +2 instead of +4.
I miss the different ACs of 3e. I had a fighter in full plate armor in my game and a wraith was just swinging and missing repeatedly and I thought to myself "What is it about big plates of metal that is preventing this incorporeal spirit from touching you and draining your life essence?". Even the fighter's player said that it was weird and clashed with the way I was describing the hits to other characters "The wraith reaches his hand into your chest and you can feel your body growing colder". So we house ruled it back for all classes other than barbarian (I reasoned that barb was special because the unarmored defense was a class feature). Now my players all have a standard, touch, and flat footed AC.
I can totally agree with this. The various AC types made sense for differing types of actions. Like Shocking Grasp shouldn't require me to punch you hard enough that you feel the impact through your plate armor. All I have to do is touch you and the lightning does all the work. So why is it so hard?
Multiple times in 5e I have wanted to do a touch or ranged touch type contact and then remembered that it doesn't make a difference. Makes me sad every time.
I miss weapon speed, and multiple attacks from darts and daggers... God I loved those things!!!
I forgot about 2e darts. I remember playing a wizard who would throw dozens of darts.
The garrote.... lol.
Weapon speed was a game balancer for sure.
Most of those are options in the DMG
This may sound a bit funny, but my favorite ranged weapon from AD&D was the humble sling. If you wanted to rules lawyer them, they were actually quite powerful for the investment. If you ruled it a modified form of thrown weapon (as i did), in 1E, your character could add both STR & DEX bonuses to it without any need for expensive customization. It was easy to forage and craft ammunition for it, and silvered ammunition for it was no problem to produce or obtain. Playing the face-wrecking brawler types that i usually did, that sling that let me add my STR bonus to damage at a distance was the perfect ranged weapon when i needed one, and it never got in the way of my job the rest of the time.
I remember the Psionics and THACO from back in the day. It's been a minute or two since I've heard those terms.
I miss minions too.
"Get 'em Francis!"
Whip proficiency and the chain of feats related in Pathfinder is fun as hell- you can trip, swing from the rafters, pull yourself up to a low roof, grapple, drag, disarm- always fun to pull an enemy straight into a shield bash, or into a hazard between you. Dex fighter at its finest.
Bring back thac0 thank you
"I like magic to be rare."
Fair enough. But I've hardly ever seen a D&D game (and I started with white box in 1976) in any edition in which magic actually was rare. Certainly the treasure tables have never supported magic as a rare thing.
When the response of the players is "Oh yay, another +1 sword. Where's the bag for those again?", caviling at the PCs being able to create magic items seems a bit odd. I mean there's obviously an industry devoted to item creation; why can't I have a character who can do it occasionally?
Horses for courses, though. Play the game that's fun for you.
I totally agree with the Magic Item Feats. Making a character that specialized in them was one of my favorite things to do.
I also loved Psionics and have been thinking of homebrewing a Psionic Sorcerer Bloodline.
I totally agree with introducing new campaign setting guides for 5e but the longer it goes on less likely it seems. I 'm glad I at least have a few setting books from 4e I can plunder.
I think that is why they haven't made anymore for 5E and didn't do many for 4E. There is already enough information out there for people to plunder and modify to fit what they want to do in their campaign. But yes updated stuff would be nice, like some of the older ones not touched on in awhile(Mystara, Birthright, etc)
I do like Psionics in general and I have a UA mystic in the game I'm currently running, I know people have said it's overpowered but from what I've seen so far the wizard and cleric are outshining him so far, it is by far more complex than the other classes so it does make your lives harder. I'm hoping we'll see a new version of the mystic soon as wizards are saying that it and artificer are coming.
Mystics are alright, but I miss the AoE and control mage options 4th ED had.
Don't get me wrong, Mystics are still my fav thing to play for 5th ED, but 4th ED felt like you had a more specialized strategic role.
I love 4e in general. The Rogue in my game right now is somehow going along with absolutely TERRIBLE max HP (I think almost every level he's rolled a 1 or 2, and his CON isn't that great, either), but he's playing pretty darn smart and picking his moments and using various abilities that let him slip in, get a quick strike with sneak attack, and then can shift out of the way and roll a Stealth check that he usually makes with crazy luck and barely even gets noticed, much less struck during many combat sessions.
It's both aggravating and absolutely hilarious the way some of his antics work out.
I personally don't understand the hate for 4th Ed.
Giovanti Walton it was such a huge divergence from 3rd that soured a lot of players.
That may be true, but there was plenty in 4e that was entertaining and worked well. I think most people that just hate it were too afraid to ignore the stuff they didn't like, or adapt certain things from 3/3.5 into it that they enjoyed more and do more of a homebrew thing. There are certainly certain aspects of 4e I'm not personally into either, such as having 27 different equipment slots (yes, that's an exaggeration on purpose), so I simply got rid of a lot of the fluff and condensed all of the "extra" categories into "Accessory" 1 and 2, for example.
It's really getting to the point now to where I personally feel people who have been playing D&D for a while are most likely going to have the most fun picking and choosing things they enjoyed from different editions of the game and finding ways to make them work together in their own game. You can certainly go with a single version of the game and just roll with what the book says, but there's a lot of fun to be had for changing or removing rules or other things you don't like used in one way versus another, or things you don't enjoy at all.
Hell, even though I love 4e, I'm currently mostly just using 4e as a base for combat with the Powers, and adapting lots of different things from 5e to override things about 4e I don't like instead (such as Hit Die instead of Healing Surges, 5e double-roll advantage/disadvantage over a bonus to your roll, proficiency bonus vs. 1/2 level, etc.). It took some work to get fleshed out and balanced decent with everything, but it's working really well now that I did.
I miss how the base books of AD&D 2e and below was the feel of Lord of the Rings you meet in a tavern and not Star Wars you meet in a cantina... Then as a dm you could collect dragon magazine or d&d splat books and add parts of the cantina into your world...
I miss the specialty of the classes, when not every class had access to magic.
Sorry Dave, gotta side with Ted on the magic items. Being able to make your own items is another draw to being a spellcaster, and while technology & magic CAN work together, for the most part unless your homebrew world (or your playing Eberron) is built around it, technology & magic are going to develop at different rates, typically with magic developing faster.
Now, that's not to say that you can't still make making items in a specific way important, making those quests still be a thing. For an example, maybe a white dragon has figured out how to make itself immune to any source of fire from the Prime Material Plane. The solution would then be to either go to the Plane of Fire or Hell/ the Abyss to get a set of fire weapons whose magic fire is pure enough to defeat that dragon's defenses.
I miss Thieves having their role with Traps and Locks and Sneak. 5E has them so loose, they may as well not be a thing at all.
I miss Fighters being THE class that hit most often, did the most melee damage, and had the most HP. This "Dex based is just as good as Str based" sucks so bad, they had to add in Maneuvers to make Fighters worth playing.
I miss rolling stats. That was part of D&D, even if there was a lot of "Roll four, drop the lowest" and "reroll 1s". If you wanted point buy, there were other games to play.
For that matter, I MISS OTHER GAMES THAN D&D! I want GURPS and Paladium back!
I miss kits. Immediate flavoring for your character. No waiting for your subclass, no wasting time to qualify for prestige classes. You just get your gypsy bard with dual scimitars from level one lol
I miss kits, too.
The three big ones for me.
1) Prestige Classes - I loved the variable nature of Prestige classes. They offered so much freedom in how to build to get the requirements that you could get some really fun combinations and specialized characters.
2) The old Hit Dice system. Pure casters d4, Light specialists d6, Half Fighters d8, Fighters d10, Barbarian d12.
3) Feats. While they still exist, I liked the co-existence of feats with Ability Ups. Feats gave a lot of customization and individuality to different characters, allowing 2 different characters of the same class and prestige class to be unique and individual based on the preferred feats and Ability Up spread.
Now, most Prestige Classes could be built out into Sub-Classes, though they won't be as flexible as 3/3.5 Prestige classes because they will only be able to be used by certain classes.
The old Hit Dice isn't something I would bring back, but I liked the simplicity of it.
As for Feats, it's a pretty simple House Rule. You can choose 2 Ability points in 1 Ability, 1 Ability point in 2 Abilities, 1 Ability point and 1 Feat, or 2 Feats at certain levels. That would obviously increase the power of characters utilizing the feat availability, but that's how I would run it, and just give a little more to NPCs to deal with the disparity.
For me I want magic item creation rules as a Dungeon Master from a world building standpoint. I like to be able to say "Where did this bag of holding come from? How do these items come into existence?"
Also Minions are great and I've been meaning to incorporate them into my 5e game
Save or die's..
Yeah who doesn't miss that bullshittery.
As a huge fan of 4e still it made me really happy to see you not completely dismiss 4e and actually have 2 items on your list from it. And I'm also a big psionics fan I I think I'd get along with you guys pretty well.
The background of your studio is awesome. I just want to jump in the screen and grab a book!
As someone who has played a lot of 3.0 D&D and OGL games, I found the feat trees an excellent tool for rounding out a character and making him unique.
I miss ad&d 2e thief skills. Also racial negative stat modifiers, age modifiers and the rareness of magic.
a Thri-Kreen Psionicist was one of my favorite characters along with my Phanaton Ranger and Gnome Illusionist.
Funny story...i started playing D&D with my cousin who is much older then me and he had a very old book which was he first time i played the game.
The book was in portuguese and Thac0 was actually spelled "Taco" as in...the mexican treat Taco...lol Lame translators...
It always made me wonder 'WHY the chance to hit someone was called Taco??'...which was also the same name of an Octopus monster in the monster book... and led us to make jokes like "What is Taco's taco when it wants to eat tacos using a taco?" Because...in portuguese "Batt" is also spelled and pronounced 'Taco'...
I miss the challenge of keeping a character alive in earlier editions. I have yet to experience that in newer editions. Balance? Characters are supposed to be different and unbalanced just like in the real world.
Ted I didn't realize that THAC0 was an acronym for a LONG TIME either!
Also Xvarts! ;)
One thing I especially loved using minions for is guards that the sneaky adventurers can take out quickly and quietly.
Edition of choice for me is still 3.5.
Starting with 1E, but 3.5 is my fave. It is rules heavy, it isn't easy to get all the rules down, it isn't easy to teach to new players and I still love it.
Good video
Campaign Settings & Paragon classes, exotic weapons too.
I like the hardcover campaign books from 4th & 5th edition a lot but I and they are great to play, but when I DM I like to pull more from Greek & Norse mythology.
Goblins over Kobolds everyday!
I remember when we ran Rise of Tiamat, and our DM had the final fight before Tiamat's Avatar was full of cultist minions that died in one hit, but could still hit us. Made that feel even more epic before the final fight
I love that you have 4e stuff in here. It had a lot of problems, but it was one of the easiest things to DM for me.
Around the time WotC was buying TSR, the then president of WotC wrote a short article for Dragon Magazine where he suggested inverting AC and THACO so that both systems counted up, rather than down. It was basically the same as 3rd edition's attack/armour class rules.
Okay, first off, I'm an Old School Grog. Second, I like THAC0 (I hope so - I host THAC0's Hammer, The Best Damn AD&D 2nd Edition Podcast EVER! :) ). It's easy to do and it moves combat along.
- Ol' Man Grognard
I miss all the classes and prestige classes from 3.5.. I would like to seem them return as full and subclasses. Like duskblade, we need a 1/2 arcane caster gish.
cryptkeeper08 as a gish paladin 2/sorcerer x, is a very strong option
Fernando Rüth only problem is through divine magic and it lack full 20 progression due to multiclassing
This is to help keep OUT the power gamming issue that 3.5 had all over the place.
I do agree that I enjoyed the prestige classes from it. But some aspects should may be stay dead.
well sub-classes are basically the new prestige classes. But Honestly we do need one or two arcane 1/2 casters, like dusk-blade. As well as a few 1/3 divine casters. I'd just like many to return as a sub-classes like battlesmiths, beastmasters, blade bravos, dervish, duelist, dwarven defender,gnome giant-slayer,halfling outrider, runesmith, Divine prankster, earth dreamer. Full classes like knight, spell-less ranger(non-UA), duskblade, Ninja, Shaman, Artificer(non-UA).
I i miss the bastard sword. also 2h weapons getting 1.5 your str bonus
I miss alignment mattering, AC not being just a number and having more details/conditions to it, beast classes, racial class substitution levels, all the equipment and gear present in, say, 3.5, all the lore in the rich library, the artwork -both in style and abundance- of most books, how the pallies had that always active protection... I can go all day lol but the thing I miss the most: STICKS TO SNAKES
Fingers crossed for exotics. I loved the extra flavour they gave in Pathfinder.
My 4e group loved us some Warlords. We all called their basic healing ability "Rub some dirt on it!"
The D&D we played from 1980 to Around 1988 was my favorite time to play
My first thing I really miss is bonus language slots. Granted since 5E is going more streamlined, it doesn't seem as necessary, but I like coming up with different lands with their own cultural nods, it adds to the flavor of the setting and can add some good story situations. If I get around to creating a 5E setting, bringing back bonus languages. Me second is the skill system from 3.5, you could add a lot of flavor to a character with it.
I totally miss the OG Kobold! The best example of what I think of as a Kobold is Gurgi from the Black Cauldron!
I miss class kits from 2nd ed.( it added so much extra to flesh out interesting and diverse characters) And prestige classes from 3.5
So much is great about 3.5 and 5 editions therefore I’m creating my own ‘V-edition’ which is mostly based on 3.5 but merged with the best of 5e ( in my opinion). Plus all the stuff I always house rule and new things I added such as ; the wing gauge 1/3 of total hp is in a wing gauge every time the winged creature takes hp damage there is a roll to determine how much also comes off the wing gauge. When the wing gauge is at 0 the creature plummets and can’t fly until it recovers hp. As well as various learning and teaching abilities. And I’m now play testing. I also have a mana pool (mp) system that is replacing the spell slots allowing spell flexibility. Lower mp cost for Cantrips (rather than inexplicably unlimited in 5e or far too limited in 3.5e). Similar to psions PP. Also a tally point system for all spells so the caster learns to use them better with practice reducing the base MP cost over time,etc.The harder healing of 3.5 because frankly the mysterious illogical and unexplained sudden healing of 5e just doesn’t make sense. I love advantage/disadvantage and am deciding if I’ll go with death saves. I use the ranks/skill points based on 3.5 but have changed the list to my own version with for example; Arcana (instead of knowledge arcana and spell craft because it’s better) etc. And I have more functional and useful mundane and magical crafting rules and skills. Beginning to fully play test the “alpha trials very soon’ although I had been house-ruling many of these into previous games and they all worked great. Also better rules for called ranged shots, and much more. I prefer lots of magic items, economy and crafting rules. All the players I’ve ever DMed for LOOOOVE monty haul and tons o’ magic loot a.s.a.p. I also design more than 50% of my own magic items and make new spells use my own races Felins (cat people) of many variety are almost on very world I play, etc.I could just keep going but I’d better stop. Have a great day everyone!
Grand Scheme publishings recently released 'The King of Dungeons' uses the Archmage Engine aka '13th Age' has the Commander class which is very much like the 4e Warlord. Unsuprising as AE is a mix of 4th and 3rd Editions.
I miss the multi-classing where you had a pick from the classes and all went up together rather than 5e's take which is really more like dual classing in 2e than actual multi classing. Also the humanoids from the book of humanoids, they nerfed the ogre magi so badly.
Prestige Classes. I know that subclasses kind of fill that roll, but 3/3.5 e let you customize to your Hearst content. The Shifter giving up spell casting to become an awesomely dedicated shape shifter. Elemental Savant dedication to one element so much they ascend to an elemental state. The Mind Bender, Archmage, and Dervish. So much flavor that subclasses just seem to fall short of reaching.
Because Feats come at the expense of a stat bump within the limitations of bounded accuracy, I would not bring back Feat Trees per se, but I could see adding text to certain Feats that say, "If you have this Feat and you also have such and such Feat, then now you can do so and so or take Advantage on this or that roll."
This would avoid forcing players to take one Feat to build on another in a certain order, but could establish meaningful synergies between different Feats that might accomplish some of the same flavor as a Tree.
I thought I had screwed many years ago when I created a race of dog people which I called Kobold. I thought I had taken that from Kobolds but others later pointed out that they are lizardkin (or dragonkin). It's good to know that I did not completely screw it up.
I played a fighter in 3.5 who had a great scimitar, that was fun. He had the ability to hit multiple targets with a good amount of damage. I would like to see more variety of weapons. You could have Oriental Adventure weapons or other lands had specific types of weapons. It gave a character more flavor to have exotic weapons.