The problem with 5.5e(2024) is that it doesn’t stress what was best about D&D, that no matter who or what you are, random chance always eventually evens the odds.
The new rules don’t reinforce the notion that you can’t always get you want, and players never experience the sudden turn of fortune that may mean having to TPK the entire party. There’s less last moment of hope pull a trick out your butt feeling to the game, and more of a OP speed-running experience than actual PC involvement in the fantasy world that was presented.
[Redacted] The game has always been hilariously easy unless the DM entirely ignores the rules for building encounters, and if anything 2024 has made that less true.
5.5e is nothing that sparks that want, and thats why some people don’t care for the new rules. It’a a step back like 4e was and only caters to a group of individuals that want it all made and ready to run, rather then put just 5 mins at a time at random times of the day to make a game that everyone gets hooked.
Just an aside, 4th Ed's few faults were not steps back, but just stumbles for stepping too far forwards for the times.
The problem with 5.5e(2024) is that it doesn’t stress what was best about D&D, that no matter who or what you are, random chance always eventually evens the odds.
The new rules don’t reinforce the notion that you can’t always get you want, and players never experience the sudden turn of fortune that may mean having to TPK the entire party. There’s less last moment of hope pull a trick out your butt feeling to the game, and more of a OP speed-running experience than actual PC involvement in the fantasy world that was presented.
[Redacted] The game has always been hilariously easy unless the DM entirely ignores the rules for building encounters, and if anything 2024 has made that less true.
In addition to the above, the 2024 DMG has an entire section of optional rules on death, including optional rules for making the game more or less deadly to suit the particular party’s playstyle. That actually tracks and expands on very old school versions of the game - the original DMG had a section on adjusting the lethality of the game as well, specifically saying DMs should be as deadly or light handed as made sense for their group. The 2024 rules even explicitly discuss TPKs as something that can happen - there’s an entire section on them. For non combat rolls, there is an entire section on imposing consequences for bad rolls.
[Redacted]
Edit: Here is literally the first thing the DMG says in its section on death:
”Adventures involve risk, with consequences that can be as catastrophic as the death of a single character or an entire group.”
The problem with 5.5e(2024) is that it doesn’t stress what was best about D&D, that no matter who or what you are, random chance always eventually evens the odds.
The new rules don’t reinforce the notion that you can’t always get you want, and players never experience the sudden turn of fortune that may mean having to TPK the entire party. There’s less last moment of hope pull a trick out your butt feeling to the game, and more of a OP speed-running experience than actual PC involvement in the fantasy world that was presented.
[Redacted] The game has always been hilariously easy unless the DM entirely ignores the rules for building encounters, and if anything 2024 has made that less true.
I have run a 2024 campaign, and at this point, I tend to mostly agree. I mean I don't really care about balance at all, and I don't think that is the thing that makes a difference here. It's more about making sure that each class serves a useful purpose in the game and you don't have players feeling like they are playing useless members of the party just tagging along.
2014 was kind of bad at creating worthy roles in the game. You had classes like Rangers that were basically completely useless, classes like Barbarians that were way better fighters than fighters, Rogues that made better mages than Wizards, and all sort of wonkey stuff like that.
I feel like 2024 has created meaningful roles to each class. The Fighter IS the best warrior-martial class, there is no contest. The Cleric IS the best healer etc... All classes can do all things, but wherever a role/archetype is a cross between a couple of different things, it's not as good as someone who picks a more focused class. More importantly just about every class and sub-class makes a solid contribution and doesn't feel useless.
So all and all I do think the 2024 setup is much better.
That and it's a much better edit.
Only thing I wish they did was better monster design. The Monster Manual is trash, pretty much as bad as the last one. I don't understand how they keep botching this. It's a game about fighting monster... your monster manual is the most important book to get right and they completely dropped the ball. No question about it the MM for 2024 is the second-worst D&D book Wizards of the Coast has ever put out, trumped only by the 2014 MM. Its kind of a disaster really, they just doubled down on all the mistakes they made with the last book, not to mention all the missing monsters.
Thank god for 3rd party publishers. Flee Mortals is basically the official Monster Manual for 2024 D&D
Only thing I wish they did was better monster design. The Monster Manual is trash, pretty much as bad as the last one. I don't understand how they keep botching this. It's a game about fighting monster... your monster manual is the most important book to get right and they completely dropped the ball. No question about it the MM for 2024 is the second-worst D&D book Wizards of the Coast has ever put out, trumped only by the 2014 MM.
Could you expound on why?
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Flee Mortals is basically the official Monster Manual for 2024 D&D
I love Flee Mortals - it is an outstanding supplement that fixes major 5e problems, such as adding minions for better mass combat, more unique abilities, and better categorization so players can more easily tell what a monster does. The somewhat amusing part… Flee Mortals is not exactly original - it flagrantly rips off 4e’s monster system and adapts if to 5e.
One of Wizards’ big mistakes with 5.14 was choosing to completely excise 4e from the game, rather than look at things that worked well (such as monsters that were dynamic, but not overly complex to run) and try to make them fit more in line with traditional D&D expectations. On the whole, I think 5.24 did a bit of a better job with monsters than 5.14 did - but, they still were held back a bit by their desire to avoid 4e comparisons.
I think that is a little silly - the popularity of Flee Mortals clearly shows there is a demand for 4e’s monster system. Hoping Wizards learns that lesson whenever the next iteration of the game comes out, be it 6e or 5.34 or such.
I think that is a little silly - the popularity of Flee Mortals clearly shows there is a demand for 4e’s monster system. Hoping Wizards learns that lesson whenever the next iteration of the game comes out, be it 6e or 5.34 or such.
Within the context of how 4th edition characters worked, the only major problem with 4th edition monsters was that using dramatically off-level monsters didn't work.
Only thing I wish they did was better monster design. The Monster Manual is trash, pretty much as bad as the last one. I don't understand how they keep botching this. It's a game about fighting monster... your monster manual is the most important book to get right and they completely dropped the ball. No question about it the MM for 2024 is the second-worst D&D book Wizards of the Coast has ever put out, trumped only by the 2014 MM.
Could you expound on why?
I could make a list, but it boils down to two things for the most part.
The monsters are boring, and they are designed to make the boring combats they provide as long as possible, thanks to most of the books essentially describing bags of hit points with various resistances and immunities that do little else but create pointless attrition.
It's just a boring monster book that makes for boring combats, it's pretty much that simple, same as the last one.
I will grant you its an improvement over the 2014 Monster Book, but that just makes this the second worst book WotC has ever published.
mostly because for me, martials are a lot more fun to play, this is due to weapon mastery, feats becoming mainline, rebalancing of features, changes to equipment. more focus on non combat uses while not weakening them in combat. And from what ive seen, monsters are improved, most are slightly more interesting in their design, though this could be improved further.
the book has better advice on creating encounters (if you follow all of it) some of which is just making people aware they should adapt the encounters if necessary. (removing/adding monsters)
i dont really know why people would say the game is less balanced, or that 5e2014 was better. Or even have strong opinions about the difference. Its mostly a version update. other than maybe mastery existing, its not drastically changing the general design or play of the game. I legitimately wonder what specific aspects are a big negative change to them, that ruins things.
As far as approval rate, i think 70% plus is a fine rate. A lot of people like what is familiar, especially this early in its release. And its designed to be something you can opt out of if you wish. New content will work with old content with small tweaks.
to me its just an improved version of the same game.
It should be little secret that I find 2024 to be a vast improvement over 2014. I have the odd gripe here and there (the Stealth rules needing a bit more clarity, Moderately Armored losing shields, Skulker losing light obscurement hiding, the Rogue being fairly weak single-classed without True Strike, the Ranger "capstone", Moon Druid needing better beast options etc) but overall. I'm really happy with where they landed. The "Warrior" classes in particular (Monk, Fighter and Barbarian) got massive glow-ups that made me excited to play a straight-classed martial for the first time in essentially years. So put me down as a fan of the revision.
I think it was an improvement overall. I don't love everything, but in general I think most things got better. My favorite change was probably Grappling and Shoving, but I think a lot of things got streamlined and outliers that were necessities got dialed back so more builds are viable in comparison.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Shrug...defend it all you like, but 30% per this survey is a VERY significant portion of the consumer base that prefer the older edition.
That 30% shrunk down to 13%. The people who prefer the older edition are not that many, but they are very vocal about it. Which is normal for anything. People who are content or like things barely speak up about liking it. While people who dislike something will always speak up and make it seem there are more that dislike than like something.
We as humans have a negativity bias. We see it with click baits and offensive titles that draw greater engagement than someone telling everything is going great.
Right...almost 60 votes, over many hours. and then this immense surge in people voting over a 3 hour window, virtually ALL who vote one way, then back to the slower pace of people voting. If this was an election, there would be all kinds of investigations into that voting pattern. Someone posted there was a cattle call made on reddit. I avoid that place like the plague, but now I am curious.
but it is the onednd subreddit which has more people who probably played and tested 2024 a lot. I dont think a poll in the general dndbeyond forum is anymore of a good pool for this poll than onednd reddit. Mixing the results probably gives a more accurate pool of people who have played both.
i'll also say that based on some of the responses here, i dont get the vibe that a some of the people on the 2014 side have played 2024 with all its rulesets. Which doesnt mean the question of the poll wouldnt apply to them, because some people can prefer something without wanting to try the new thing, but that makes it less a good poll for determining if 2024 is good or nit.
the OP clearly wanted more people to see the poll, but it wasnt really asking them to vote one way or the other, or suggesting that people should have a specific stance one way or the other. The other thing, is this forum is less active, i am in both spaces, but i hadnt checked dndbeyond general in a while. So its not like these are generally totally different groups of people.
and i cant speak for reddit as a whole, but i wouldnt say the onednd subreddit is very toxic or weird. I would say there are a lot more people interested in testing mechanics and gameplay of 2024, since it started as a subreddit for discussing and critiquing the Unearthed arcanas that led up to the release.
i would also say, if this poll was in the unearthed arcanas section of dndbeyond i think it would also have had a different %. Some of the people who dislike onednd in this thread, are specifically mad at its implementation in dndbeyond, and how its integrated with 2014 rules, which is kind of not really about 2024 version vs 2014 version.
I like the 2024 update and have been running it exclusively since September. Are there rough edges? Of course. Does it bother me? Not really - I'm capable of reading/understanding English (it's my only spoken/written language, lazy I know) and I have this funny thing called common sense. If that doesn't work I talk things through with my players and come to an understanding on how we interpret the rules together.
I've fully converted to 5e 2024 and don't look back. As a game, for my play style, it's just a polished version of 2014.
Specially with the Monster Manual out. It's just cleaner overall.
If I have to say one gripe about the system is the limited amount of backgrounds offered on the PHB, but, as a DM, I just use the build our own background rules to make everything easier for my players if they want a combination that goes beyond what is available.
Even the DM tools are useful, I've been using the Campaign Journal a lot to keep track of stuff.
The limited views on this site come nowhere near the actual general consensus of how well received the new content actually is.
You base this opinion on what data, exactly? I mean, the odds of a poll like this one being accurate are pretty low, but they're better than the odds of "I talked to the people I know" being accurate.
I just wonder how many of the accounts that vote in polls are bots, and how many different multiple accounts some on this site have use them in order to manipulate the narrative that 2024 is liked more than it actually is?
The limited views on this site come nowhere near the actual general consensus of how well received the new content actually is, and i’m sure hasbro is using digital pinkerton’s as a means to limit negativity about the new content.
If anything this thread should show just how manipulated the narrative is controlled, and how so many have walked away from the poor quality of what D&D has become, and how that poor quality is shoved constantly in the faces of those who find it hard to not to walk away from the time and money that once was worth it.
2024 5.5e is the new 4e failure that will prove a major corporation is never the best thing for any brand that has such a huge following.
this is a poll on sub forum, of place which a tiny fraction of the dnd community engage with. Its not relatively high traffic. I really doubt anyone put forth great effort to manipulate the results, especially since people are saying the amount of people interacting is small.
What would they gain out of that? it would be more effective to just pay for a commercial. Also, from what i have seen, these results, before or after it was linked to onednd, were like 70% plus. Thats a very high rate as far as these things go. and aligns with what i generally see from people who have played 2024.
its not perfect, its not really very new. But most people find it a better version of the same thing. This is mostly like pizza plain vs extra cheese. Whether you like it or not, its probably not a huge deal one way or the other for the vast majority of consumers. And i think most people would be like sure, more cheese if its easy.
I just wonder how many of the accounts that vote in polls are bots, and how many different multiple accounts some on this site have use them in order to manipulate the narrative that 2024 is liked more than it actually is?
Not to pile on, but it is equally or more likely that many of the the unfavorable votes are from a vocal minority using multiple accounts attempting to rouse rabble from their discontent of the updated rules.
Also, to remind, 4e was not a failure. It's only real failing was not being as big of a runaway hit as the CEOs were hoping for.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
My experience from what I've seen online is that dislike of 2024 is directly correlated to disliking the change from races (with ASIs) to species (without); people who don't object to that are indifferent to positive.
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[Redacted] The game has always been hilariously easy unless the DM entirely ignores the rules for building encounters, and if anything 2024 has made that less true.
Just an aside, 4th Ed's few faults were not steps back, but just stumbles for stepping too far forwards for the times.
In addition to the above, the 2024 DMG has an entire section of optional rules on death, including optional rules for making the game more or less deadly to suit the particular party’s playstyle. That actually tracks and expands on very old school versions of the game - the original DMG had a section on adjusting the lethality of the game as well, specifically saying DMs should be as deadly or light handed as made sense for their group. The 2024 rules even explicitly discuss TPKs as something that can happen - there’s an entire section on them. For non combat rolls, there is an entire section on imposing consequences for bad rolls.
[Redacted]
Edit: Here is literally the first thing the DMG says in its section on death:
”Adventures involve risk, with consequences that can be as catastrophic as the death of a single character or an entire group.”
I have run a 2024 campaign, and at this point, I tend to mostly agree. I mean I don't really care about balance at all, and I don't think that is the thing that makes a difference here. It's more about making sure that each class serves a useful purpose in the game and you don't have players feeling like they are playing useless members of the party just tagging along.
2014 was kind of bad at creating worthy roles in the game. You had classes like Rangers that were basically completely useless, classes like Barbarians that were way better fighters than fighters, Rogues that made better mages than Wizards, and all sort of wonkey stuff like that.
I feel like 2024 has created meaningful roles to each class. The Fighter IS the best warrior-martial class, there is no contest. The Cleric IS the best healer etc... All classes can do all things, but wherever a role/archetype is a cross between a couple of different things, it's not as good as someone who picks a more focused class. More importantly just about every class and sub-class makes a solid contribution and doesn't feel useless.
So all and all I do think the 2024 setup is much better.
That and it's a much better edit.
Only thing I wish they did was better monster design. The Monster Manual is trash, pretty much as bad as the last one. I don't understand how they keep botching this. It's a game about fighting monster... your monster manual is the most important book to get right and they completely dropped the ball. No question about it the MM for 2024 is the second-worst D&D book Wizards of the Coast has ever put out, trumped only by the 2014 MM. Its kind of a disaster really, they just doubled down on all the mistakes they made with the last book, not to mention all the missing monsters.
Thank god for 3rd party publishers. Flee Mortals is basically the official Monster Manual for 2024 D&D
Could you expound on why?
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
I love Flee Mortals - it is an outstanding supplement that fixes major 5e problems, such as adding minions for better mass combat, more unique abilities, and better categorization so players can more easily tell what a monster does. The somewhat amusing part… Flee Mortals is not exactly original - it flagrantly rips off 4e’s monster system and adapts if to 5e.
One of Wizards’ big mistakes with 5.14 was choosing to completely excise 4e from the game, rather than look at things that worked well (such as monsters that were dynamic, but not overly complex to run) and try to make them fit more in line with traditional D&D expectations. On the whole, I think 5.24 did a bit of a better job with monsters than 5.14 did - but, they still were held back a bit by their desire to avoid 4e comparisons.
I think that is a little silly - the popularity of Flee Mortals clearly shows there is a demand for 4e’s monster system. Hoping Wizards learns that lesson whenever the next iteration of the game comes out, be it 6e or 5.34 or such.
Within the context of how 4th edition characters worked, the only major problem with 4th edition monsters was that using dramatically off-level monsters didn't work.
I could make a list, but it boils down to two things for the most part.
The monsters are boring, and they are designed to make the boring combats they provide as long as possible, thanks to most of the books essentially describing bags of hit points with various resistances and immunities that do little else but create pointless attrition.
It's just a boring monster book that makes for boring combats, it's pretty much that simple, same as the last one.
I will grant you its an improvement over the 2014 Monster Book, but that just makes this the second worst book WotC has ever published.
Someone shared a link to the thread/poll on Reddit and it looks like people are swinging by to cast a vote.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
to me 2024 is a big improvement.
mostly because for me, martials are a lot more fun to play, this is due to weapon mastery, feats becoming mainline, rebalancing of features, changes to equipment. more focus on non combat uses while not weakening them in combat. And from what ive seen, monsters are improved, most are slightly more interesting in their design, though this could be improved further.
the book has better advice on creating encounters (if you follow all of it) some of which is just making people aware they should adapt the encounters if necessary. (removing/adding monsters)
i dont really know why people would say the game is less balanced, or that 5e2014 was better. Or even have strong opinions about the difference. Its mostly a version update. other than maybe mastery existing, its not drastically changing the general design or play of the game. I legitimately wonder what specific aspects are a big negative change to them, that ruins things.
As far as approval rate, i think 70% plus is a fine rate. A lot of people like what is familiar, especially this early in its release. And its designed to be something you can opt out of if you wish. New content will work with old content with small tweaks.
to me its just an improved version of the same game.
So much for that poll...
It should be little secret that I find 2024 to be a vast improvement over 2014. I have the odd gripe here and there (the Stealth rules needing a bit more clarity, Moderately Armored losing shields, Skulker losing light obscurement hiding, the Rogue being fairly weak single-classed without True Strike, the Ranger "capstone", Moon Druid needing better beast options etc) but overall. I'm really happy with where they landed. The "Warrior" classes in particular (Monk, Fighter and Barbarian) got massive glow-ups that made me excited to play a straight-classed martial for the first time in essentially years. So put me down as a fan of the revision.
I think it was an improvement overall. I don't love everything, but in general I think most things got better. My favorite change was probably Grappling and Shoving, but I think a lot of things got streamlined and outliers that were necessities got dialed back so more builds are viable in comparison.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
That 30% shrunk down to 13%. The people who prefer the older edition are not that many, but they are very vocal about it. Which is normal for anything. People who are content or like things barely speak up about liking it. While people who dislike something will always speak up and make it seem there are more that dislike than like something.
We as humans have a negativity bias. We see it with click baits and offensive titles that draw greater engagement than someone telling everything is going great.
the reddit post was ina dnd forum which has more general traffic.
but it is the onednd subreddit which has more people who probably played and tested 2024 a lot. I dont think a poll in the general dndbeyond forum is anymore of a good pool for this poll than onednd reddit. Mixing the results probably gives a more accurate pool of people who have played both.
i'll also say that based on some of the responses here, i dont get the vibe that a some of the people on the 2014 side have played 2024 with all its rulesets. Which doesnt mean the question of the poll wouldnt apply to them, because some people can prefer something without wanting to try the new thing, but that makes it less a good poll for determining if 2024 is good or nit.
https://www.reddit.com/r/onednd/comments/1jtv7q9/5e_vs_55e_is_there_anyone_who_prefers_the_newer/
the OP clearly wanted more people to see the poll, but it wasnt really asking them to vote one way or the other, or suggesting that people should have a specific stance one way or the other. The other thing, is this forum is less active, i am in both spaces, but i hadnt checked dndbeyond general in a while. So its not like these are generally totally different groups of people.
and i cant speak for reddit as a whole, but i wouldnt say the onednd subreddit is very toxic or weird. I would say there are a lot more people interested in testing mechanics and gameplay of 2024, since it started as a subreddit for discussing and critiquing the Unearthed arcanas that led up to the release.
i would also say, if this poll was in the unearthed arcanas section of dndbeyond i think it would also have had a different %. Some of the people who dislike onednd in this thread, are specifically mad at its implementation in dndbeyond, and how its integrated with 2014 rules, which is kind of not really about 2024 version vs 2014 version.
I like the 2024 update and have been running it exclusively since September. Are there rough edges? Of course. Does it bother me? Not really - I'm capable of reading/understanding English (it's my only spoken/written language, lazy I know) and I have this funny thing called common sense. If that doesn't work I talk things through with my players and come to an understanding on how we interpret the rules together.
I've fully converted to 5e 2024 and don't look back. As a game, for my play style, it's just a polished version of 2014.
Specially with the Monster Manual out. It's just cleaner overall.
If I have to say one gripe about the system is the limited amount of backgrounds offered on the PHB, but, as a DM, I just use the build our own background rules to make everything easier for my players if they want a combination that goes beyond what is available.
Even the DM tools are useful, I've been using the Campaign Journal a lot to keep track of stuff.
You base this opinion on what data, exactly? I mean, the odds of a poll like this one being accurate are pretty low, but they're better than the odds of "I talked to the people I know" being accurate.
this is a poll on sub forum, of place which a tiny fraction of the dnd community engage with. Its not relatively high traffic. I really doubt anyone put forth great effort to manipulate the results, especially since people are saying the amount of people interacting is small.
What would they gain out of that? it would be more effective to just pay for a commercial. Also, from what i have seen, these results, before or after it was linked to onednd, were like 70% plus. Thats a very high rate as far as these things go. and aligns with what i generally see from people who have played 2024.
its not perfect, its not really very new. But most people find it a better version of the same thing. This is mostly like pizza plain vs extra cheese. Whether you like it or not, its probably not a huge deal one way or the other for the vast majority of consumers. And i think most people would be like sure, more cheese if its easy.
Not to pile on, but it is equally or more likely that many of the the unfavorable votes are from a vocal minority using multiple accounts attempting to rouse rabble from their discontent of the updated rules.
Also, to remind, 4e was not a failure. It's only real failing was not being as big of a runaway hit as the CEOs were hoping for.
My experience from what I've seen online is that dislike of 2024 is directly correlated to disliking the change from races (with ASIs) to species (without); people who don't object to that are indifferent to positive.