Raghar
Arcane
- Joined
- Jul 16, 2009
- Messages
- 22,818
After certain web site had its demise, I decided to quickly backup all DnD 4E released books, and found also 5E books. (And discovered Geeks and Sundry are actually playing 5E. Instead of DnD variation with home rules.)
Well, PnP RPGs were made by people who wanted PnP game that allowed them to play theirs favorite book/movie characters. They created simple rules, and when they made books they didn't do it for profit, they just wanted to not be bankrupt when they published physical books. Nowadays they would probably publish it for free on internet as digital publication.
We had extremely bad outdated rules in 3.5 edition. No proper skill points, old type of HP progression, lack of character perks and other stuff. 1 level parties are dying on random hit. 3 level parties are dying on random crit. Thus everyone thought they would repair glaring flaws in DnD in 4E.
What happened next can be explained by a commercial company wanted to sell theirs product. No band of writers, programmers, are making theirs noncommercial product and make it enjoyable for themselves. A commercial company that sold previous line thus saturated a market, is wanting to have sales again.
4E in comparison to 3.5E looked like PoE II in comparison to NWN2. Yes there was a game. No that PoE II system wasn't designed to simulate real world whacking sword over you head, or fireball blowing up stuff. It was game with some stats.
They probably discovered that fans are watching in disbelief how they are changing original game... Which forced them release 5E.
As a note 5E is descendant of 3.5E, not 4E. 4E is another type of PnP RPG, which shouldn't be called DnD.
Well they solved the 3.5E problems with skillpoints. And how many skill points per level should each character get. The same way how elephant problem was solved in this video: https://youtu.be/wxsQ-5XHIIQ?t=73
Now you have proficiency in skill, or not. And ALL skills are defined as dependent on character level (sum of in case of multiclassing). It's flat +2 on L1, and rises slowly as level progresses. What changed is how hard is to obtain new skills.
Old characters could have feeling wizard is working hard on stuff what they didn't taught him at academy, and as a consequence academy results that studied 30 years have equal level of 8, while wizard 20. 5E has the feeling, they spend learning 15 years few miniscule skills, and it's extremely difficult to obtain new one.
Now destruction of skill points also changed the difference between characters with the same class, and between characters which both have certain skills.
Is it wise?
You have two people with herbalism skills. Lets assume one of them can patch you to not die, the second can not only patch you to not die, but also do complicated surgery without patient dying. In 5E, there can be neither.
Or lets look at people with history skill. You have elves with bookworm background (technically there are not elves with bookworm background), and you have a halfling with bookworm background. Who would know about elven history, and who would know about rest of world history?
Yes GM can rule about who could have even slightest chance to obtain some history info. But, this extreme simplification kinda hurts the whole background story.
Skills are steps in right direction, but 5E system wasn't properly thought out. Difference between both proficient is just theirs atribute, and obtaining proficiency in new skill feels weird. (You can take one feat to get whole 3 skill or tools proficiency.)
2 + int 3 = 5 ... D20 roll is dominant. 4 + 6 = 10 roll D20 is still significant. I should check if there is rule "take 10, or 20) in 5E.
Spell system change. Well, they finally got rid the old set spells into correct spell slots and don't ask. Now 5E has simply wizard level + int bonus (min 1?) spell prepared. And n*L1, n*L2 ... spell points at each spell level wizard can use to cast spell at that level. Aka L1 2, L2 1 would allow either one L2 spell, or cast at more power L1 spell.
Well the spell system change finally allows to play a wizard. But it's accompanied by great rules simplification, which would force into home rules anyway.
I'd do deeper numerical analysis later, but for now it looks like character development was significantly simplified, and as a consequence differences disappeared.
Well, PnP RPGs were made by people who wanted PnP game that allowed them to play theirs favorite book/movie characters. They created simple rules, and when they made books they didn't do it for profit, they just wanted to not be bankrupt when they published physical books. Nowadays they would probably publish it for free on internet as digital publication.
We had extremely bad outdated rules in 3.5 edition. No proper skill points, old type of HP progression, lack of character perks and other stuff. 1 level parties are dying on random hit. 3 level parties are dying on random crit. Thus everyone thought they would repair glaring flaws in DnD in 4E.
What happened next can be explained by a commercial company wanted to sell theirs product. No band of writers, programmers, are making theirs noncommercial product and make it enjoyable for themselves. A commercial company that sold previous line thus saturated a market, is wanting to have sales again.
4E in comparison to 3.5E looked like PoE II in comparison to NWN2. Yes there was a game. No that PoE II system wasn't designed to simulate real world whacking sword over you head, or fireball blowing up stuff. It was game with some stats.
They probably discovered that fans are watching in disbelief how they are changing original game... Which forced them release 5E.
As a note 5E is descendant of 3.5E, not 4E. 4E is another type of PnP RPG, which shouldn't be called DnD.
Well they solved the 3.5E problems with skillpoints. And how many skill points per level should each character get. The same way how elephant problem was solved in this video: https://youtu.be/wxsQ-5XHIIQ?t=73
Now you have proficiency in skill, or not. And ALL skills are defined as dependent on character level (sum of in case of multiclassing). It's flat +2 on L1, and rises slowly as level progresses. What changed is how hard is to obtain new skills.
Old characters could have feeling wizard is working hard on stuff what they didn't taught him at academy, and as a consequence academy results that studied 30 years have equal level of 8, while wizard 20. 5E has the feeling, they spend learning 15 years few miniscule skills, and it's extremely difficult to obtain new one.
Now destruction of skill points also changed the difference between characters with the same class, and between characters which both have certain skills.
Is it wise?
You have two people with herbalism skills. Lets assume one of them can patch you to not die, the second can not only patch you to not die, but also do complicated surgery without patient dying. In 5E, there can be neither.
Or lets look at people with history skill. You have elves with bookworm background (technically there are not elves with bookworm background), and you have a halfling with bookworm background. Who would know about elven history, and who would know about rest of world history?
Yes GM can rule about who could have even slightest chance to obtain some history info. But, this extreme simplification kinda hurts the whole background story.
Skills are steps in right direction, but 5E system wasn't properly thought out. Difference between both proficient is just theirs atribute, and obtaining proficiency in new skill feels weird. (You can take one feat to get whole 3 skill or tools proficiency.)
2 + int 3 = 5 ... D20 roll is dominant. 4 + 6 = 10 roll D20 is still significant. I should check if there is rule "take 10, or 20) in 5E.
Spell system change. Well, they finally got rid the old set spells into correct spell slots and don't ask. Now 5E has simply wizard level + int bonus (min 1?) spell prepared. And n*L1, n*L2 ... spell points at each spell level wizard can use to cast spell at that level. Aka L1 2, L2 1 would allow either one L2 spell, or cast at more power L1 spell.
Well the spell system change finally allows to play a wizard. But it's accompanied by great rules simplification, which would force into home rules anyway.
I'd do deeper numerical analysis later, but for now it looks like character development was significantly simplified, and as a consequence differences disappeared.
