Yeah, 5e design principles really tried to both restrict DM and player creative agency re: making new spell effects/monsters or necromancing (prob not a word) beasts and monstrosities to do their bidding.
Well, no. It really only restricts player agency, as the DM is not obliged to follow PC rules or explain how the NPC did the thing. I generally assume that there's a class of slow ritual magics that take extended time periods and preparation and where the general interaction of PCs with those rituals is as things the PCs arrive just in time to foil.
In the 3.5e Monster Manual, there are literally templates for building NPCs, PCs and monsters that are vampires or humanoids and scaling them to work within the expectations of combat encounter design. The 2014 DMG and MM are a joke in this regard. While I hear that the 2024 DMG makes it easier to calculate CR than the 2014 DMG, the kind of templates in 3.5 just aren't available to DMs. Making homebrew monsters that scale well is really a combination of trial-and-error or coming onto DDB and asking questions. Possible, yes, but functionally more difficult to do than in 3.5e.
I have to say, I've been enjoying how this thread actually focuses on what they loved about an older edition, instead of the usual comparisons and focusing on the negatives and slipping into edition warring.
Trying to get back into older editions, as messy as they can be, really had some little charms even if they had pretty different playstyles.
AD&D tended to focus on 'player skill' at times, rather than PC skill, of which there wasn't really many to rely on, which did encourage players to give more details about their actions and plans.
I still go tend to recommend 1e and things like Wilderness Surival guides for things like hexcrawls and base building, due to the rules on clearing out and maintaining an area, attracting people, getting tithes so on.
3e's Stronghold Builder guidebook, as much as it could get focused on minutia (locks and windows!) had some really cool ideas and lots of rules for buildings forts and furnishing them.
A lot of the older editions had some good stuff for managing bases.
Ooh and some really in depth and flavourful rules for things, anywhere from creation of arcane ink to becoming a lich. AD&D did have a lot more fun 'fluff' rituals, that were less mechanic and more narrative, but really got into details on herbs and gems to use in a specific ritual.
In the 3.5e Monster Manual, there are literally templates for building NPCs, PCs and monsters that are vampires or humanoids and scaling them to work within the expectations of combat encounter design.
Which turns into a gigantic math exercise of dubious value. I've designed monsters in both 3.5e and 5e, and while the presentation in the DMG is atrocious, I generally find it easier to create custom monsters in 5e than in 3.5e, precisely because there aren't all those rules to manage.
In the 3.5e Monster Manual, there are literally templates for building NPCs, PCs and monsters that are vampires or humanoids and scaling them to work within the expectations of combat encounter design.
Which turns into a gigantic math exercise of dubious value. I've designed monsters in both 3.5e and 5e, and while the presentation in the DMG is atrocious, I generally find it easier to create custom monsters in 5e than in 3.5e, precisely because there aren't all those rules to manage.
Yeah, slapping templates or class levels onto existing monsters was easy, but it rarely gave an accurate increase to CR.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Do you feel that the 2024 DMG and MM have made CR calculations more accurate?
The 2024 DMG doesn't give CR calculations, and its encounter building has issues (2014 also had issues... but the issues were different). The 2024 MM has greater internal consistency though we can't say how well it matches some formula because the formula isn't published (it seems to be ~20% higher damage than 2014, and resistance to normal weapons is mostly replaced by higher regular defenses).
Folk that was a gentle reminder to try and get back to the original topic- what rules from older editions do you miss? Let's avoid any potential edition warring by derailing into talking about 5th edition rules or overly comparing between editions and focusing on negatives.
On the one hand, low CR monsters are more viable than they were in previous editions thanks to bounded accuracy and the corresponding limits on armor class. On the other hand, minion rules were a good way to provide low-threat cannon fodder that nevertheless had a good chance of actually hitting the PCs while they're packing higher-powered magic items and armor than most of the low end CR 1/2 options.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
On the one hand, low CR monsters are more viable than they were in previous editions thanks to bounded accuracy and the corresponding limits on armor class. On the other hand, minion rules were a good way to provide low-threat cannon fodder that nevertheless had a good chance of actually hitting the PCs while they're packing higher-powered magic items and armor than most of the low end CR 1/2 options.
Though a counter-argument could be made that it makes magic at least look even more scene stealing. If the minions all die to any damage, then without a fairly large space to work with one good AoE wipes them all out.
On the one hand, low CR monsters are more viable than they were in previous editions thanks to bounded accuracy and the corresponding limits on armor class. On the other hand, minion rules were a good way to provide low-threat cannon fodder that nevertheless had a good chance of actually hitting the PCs while they're packing higher-powered magic items and armor than most of the low end CR 1/2 options.
The big benefit of minions wasn't that you can't have a mass of rabble in any edition of D&D. The big benefit is that they were very low effort to run.
Though a counter-argument could be made that it makes magic at least look even more scene stealing. If the minions all die to any damage, then without a fairly large space to work with one good AoE wipes them all out.
It's hard to make minions work without a lot of other features that existed in 4e -- notably, they had extremely high accuracy and defenses relative to their power, never took damage on a miss (equivalent in 5e: CR-appropriate minions would have around a 40% chance of making their save and if they saved, would ignore the effect entirely), and 4e did not have a lot of automatic damage effects and was pretty modest on the scale of its area effects, it was rare to have area effects larger than a 25' cube (similar size to a 15' radius or a 35' cone).
Re: Buffer bosses. Aren't more hit points, more damage, and more Lair/Legendary actions already the go-to ways to make more powerful bosses? Maybe get more specific.
On the one hand, low CR monsters are more viable than they were in previous editions thanks to bounded accuracy and the corresponding limits on armor class. On the other hand, minion rules were a good way to provide low-threat cannon fodder that nevertheless had a good chance of actually hitting the PCs while they're packing higher-powered magic items and armor than most of the low end CR 1/2 options.
The big benefit of minions wasn't that you can't have a mass of rabble in any edition of D&D. The big benefit is that they were very low effort to run.
Though a counter-argument could be made that it makes magic at least look even more scene stealing. If the minions all die to any damage, then without a fairly large space to work with one good AoE wipes them all out.
It's hard to make minions work without a lot of other features that existed in 4e -- notably, they had extremely high accuracy and defenses relative to their power, never took damage on a miss (equivalent in 5e: CR-appropriate minions would have around a 40% chance of making their save and if they saved, would ignore the effect entirely), and 4e did not have a lot of automatic damage effects and was pretty modest on the scale of its area effects, it was rare to have area effects larger than a 25' cube (similar size to a 15' radius or a 35' cone).
Why not run minions like swarms? Swarms already take reduced damage from B/S/P damage and are less subject to AoE damage spells. Just increase "to hit" and AC, change the creature type and voila.
-4/-2 modified by dexterity two weapon fighting Ghouls from Basic/1e/2e unless you were an elf ghouls were a thing to be feared no matter your level. Separate experience tables for each class Levelling beyond level 20 The expanded skill lists from the wilderness and Dungeoneers survival guide, Weapon mastery from the Masters set. Weapon specialization from Unearthed arcana Broad and Tight Weapon Proficiencies'. 32 Page Adventures Black and white art There are days when yes I even miss THAC0.
Most of all I miss my group from the time i started playing on into my group during high school. It is not the game that really matters. It is who you are playing with
I started in AD&D 1E. Dragon Magazine had several interesting rules come out. I think my favorites were the Initiative system: some actions take more time/effort than others. Someone also mentioned those spells that could be switch, cure wounds can be cause wounds, etc. which can fit the situation but also the alignment. Also, the original cantrips in Dragon were interesting - you could see how magic could make things happen in daily life.
I miss 4e monster design in general and how it made encounter design easy.
Monsters had levels just like PCs and 1 standard monster = one PC of that level.
4 Minions = 1 standard monster
2 standards = 1 elite monster
4 standards = 1 solo monster
It was pretty easy to level monsters up and down, and to swap things out to make fewer, bigger guys or more little guys. I also liked that they all had roles - Brute, Skirmisher, Lurker, etc that provided a quick summation of how they fought and helped designers keep their features and attacks on theme.
You still had some issues with action economy and solos dying to surround & pound, but man it was so much more straightforward than the CR system.
Also, I know it wasn't popular but man I loved Daily powers as someone who generally plays martials. Dropping a Hurricane of Steel as a barbarian was just as epic as any flashy magic spell.
I still don’t understand why. Maybe I’m not old enough but why was 4e considered like an abomination
4e's sin was slaying too many sacred cows and as a result not feeling like D&D. If you viewed it as its own game system, it was a perfectly fine game system with some quirks.
However, the minion/standard/elite/solo setup did have a significant problem: it had no way of implementing villain decay. Over the course of a campaign, the first time you run into an ogre it might be a solo fight, the second time it's an elite with a couple lower ranked mooks, then you run into a squad of one ogre per PC (standard), then eventually you fight off an army of ogres (minion). Other editions didn't do this very well either, but since they lacked the concept, it wasn't as obvious a lack.
I miss the Monster Lore section from the 4E monster manual, where each monster had a section telling you what you would know about a particular monster on a DC x check of religion/arcana/whatever.
I still don’t understand why. Maybe I’m not old enough but why was 4e considered like an abomination
4e's sin was slaying too many sacred cows and as a result not feeling like D&D. If you viewed it as its own game system, it was a perfectly fine game system with some quirks.
Well, it did have some problems with things like encouraging parties to use the same tactics in every fight: open with the encounter powers, then switch to at wills once you used the encounter powers, and fights dragging on because party damage output didn't keep up with the way monsters grew in durability.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Nothing from 1e or 2e (as much due to lack of familiarity as anything else.)
From 3e I do miss one aspect of their Prestige Class system - that being a character progression that multiple base classes can qualify for / progress through for more build variety. We almost had that with 5e when they were looking to standardize subclass levels, then we could have had "prestige subclasses" that multiple classes can enter and keep advancing their base progression.
From 4e... um... actually there is one thing I'd like to see come back, Action Points - maybe as an alternative usage for Inspiration instead of a reroll. There are plenty of character builds where a reroll isn't as valuable (say, a focused controller build where the enemies are doing all the rolling); for one of those, I wouldn't mind an extra action being another way to use your Inspiration in a pinch. It could be pretty powerful in 5e where the impact and resource cost of an action can have a much wider potential range than in 4e,, but I think the greater cinematography(?) it would enable for a clutch moment would be worth it, like being able to Dash over to your comrades and turn the tide with a big mass heal.
As for 5e14, that's easy - I would want them to bring back and update Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws. It can just be a web supplement or whatever, but those were really fun ways to randomly generate a backstory when I was stuck. Decouple them from individual Backgrounds and I'm golden.
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In the 3.5e Monster Manual, there are literally templates for building NPCs, PCs and monsters that are vampires or humanoids and scaling them to work within the expectations of combat encounter design. The 2014 DMG and MM are a joke in this regard. While I hear that the 2024 DMG makes it easier to calculate CR than the 2014 DMG, the kind of templates in 3.5 just aren't available to DMs. Making homebrew monsters that scale well is really a combination of trial-and-error or coming onto DDB and asking questions. Possible, yes, but functionally more difficult to do than in 3.5e.
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ModeratorI have to say, I've been enjoying how this thread actually focuses on what they loved about an older edition, instead of the usual comparisons and focusing on the negatives and slipping into edition warring.
Trying to get back into older editions, as messy as they can be, really had some little charms even if they had pretty different playstyles.
AD&D tended to focus on 'player skill' at times, rather than PC skill, of which there wasn't really many to rely on, which did encourage players to give more details about their actions and plans.
I still go tend to recommend 1e and things like Wilderness Surival guides for things like hexcrawls and base building, due to the rules on clearing out and maintaining an area, attracting people, getting tithes so on.
3e's Stronghold Builder guidebook, as much as it could get focused on minutia (locks and windows!) had some really cool ideas and lots of rules for buildings forts and furnishing them.
A lot of the older editions had some good stuff for managing bases.
Ooh and some really in depth and flavourful rules for things, anywhere from creation of arcane ink to becoming a lich. AD&D did have a lot more fun 'fluff' rituals, that were less mechanic and more narrative, but really got into details on herbs and gems to use in a specific ritual.
D&D Beyond ToS || D&D Beyond Support
Which turns into a gigantic math exercise of dubious value. I've designed monsters in both 3.5e and 5e, and while the presentation in the DMG is atrocious, I generally find it easier to create custom monsters in 5e than in 3.5e, precisely because there aren't all those rules to manage.
Yeah, slapping templates or class levels onto existing monsters was easy, but it rarely gave an accurate increase to CR.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Do you feel that the 2024 DMG and MM have made CR calculations more accurate?
The 2024 DMG doesn't give CR calculations, and its encounter building has issues (2014 also had issues... but the issues were different). The 2024 MM has greater internal consistency though we can't say how well it matches some formula because the formula isn't published (it seems to be ~20% higher damage than 2014, and resistance to normal weapons is mostly replaced by higher regular defenses).
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View Posts
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ModeratorFolk that was a gentle reminder to try and get back to the original topic- what rules from older editions do you miss? Let's avoid any potential edition warring by derailing into talking about 5th edition rules or overly comparing between editions and focusing on negatives.
D&D Beyond ToS || D&D Beyond Support
Minions from 4e.
That is all.
Easy way to buff bosses.
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
Hmm.
On the one hand, low CR monsters are more viable than they were in previous editions thanks to bounded accuracy and the corresponding limits on armor class. On the other hand, minion rules were a good way to provide low-threat cannon fodder that nevertheless had a good chance of actually hitting the PCs while they're packing higher-powered magic items and armor than most of the low end CR 1/2 options.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Though a counter-argument could be made that it makes magic at least look even more scene stealing. If the minions all die to any damage, then without a fairly large space to work with one good AoE wipes them all out.
The big benefit of minions wasn't that you can't have a mass of rabble in any edition of D&D. The big benefit is that they were very low effort to run.
It's hard to make minions work without a lot of other features that existed in 4e -- notably, they had extremely high accuracy and defenses relative to their power, never took damage on a miss (equivalent in 5e: CR-appropriate minions would have around a 40% chance of making their save and if they saved, would ignore the effect entirely), and 4e did not have a lot of automatic damage effects and was pretty modest on the scale of its area effects, it was rare to have area effects larger than a 25' cube (similar size to a 15' radius or a 35' cone).
Re: Buffer bosses. Aren't more hit points, more damage, and more Lair/Legendary actions already the go-to ways to make more powerful bosses? Maybe get more specific.
Why not run minions like swarms? Swarms already take reduced damage from B/S/P damage and are less subject to AoE damage spells. Just increase "to hit" and AC, change the creature type and voila.
I miss a lot of things....
-4/-2 modified by dexterity two weapon fighting
Ghouls from Basic/1e/2e unless you were an elf ghouls were a thing to be feared no matter your level.
Separate experience tables for each class
Levelling beyond level 20
The expanded skill lists from the wilderness and Dungeoneers survival guide,
Weapon mastery from the Masters set.
Weapon specialization from Unearthed arcana
Broad and Tight Weapon Proficiencies'.
32 Page Adventures
Black and white art
There are days when yes I even miss THAC0.
Most of all I miss my group from the time i started playing on into my group during high school. It is not the game that really matters. It is who you are playing with
Just published a map on DriveThruRPG The Forgotten Temple
I started in AD&D 1E. Dragon Magazine had several interesting rules come out. I think my favorites were the Initiative system: some actions take more time/effort than others. Someone also mentioned those spells that could be switch, cure wounds can be cause wounds, etc. which can fit the situation but also the alignment. Also, the original cantrips in Dragon were interesting - you could see how magic could make things happen in daily life.
I miss 4e monster design in general and how it made encounter design easy.
It was pretty easy to level monsters up and down, and to swap things out to make fewer, bigger guys or more little guys. I also liked that they all had roles - Brute, Skirmisher, Lurker, etc that provided a quick summation of how they fought and helped designers keep their features and attacks on theme.
You still had some issues with action economy and solos dying to surround & pound, but man it was so much more straightforward than the CR system.
Also, I know it wasn't popular but man I loved Daily powers as someone who generally plays martials. Dropping a Hurricane of Steel as a barbarian was just as epic as any flashy magic spell.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
4e's sin was slaying too many sacred cows and as a result not feeling like D&D. If you viewed it as its own game system, it was a perfectly fine game system with some quirks.
However, the minion/standard/elite/solo setup did have a significant problem: it had no way of implementing villain decay. Over the course of a campaign, the first time you run into an ogre it might be a solo fight, the second time it's an elite with a couple lower ranked mooks, then you run into a squad of one ogre per PC (standard), then eventually you fight off an army of ogres (minion). Other editions didn't do this very well either, but since they lacked the concept, it wasn't as obvious a lack.
I miss the Monster Lore section from the 4E monster manual, where each monster had a section telling you what you would know about a particular monster on a DC x check of religion/arcana/whatever.
Well, it did have some problems with things like encouraging parties to use the same tactics in every fight: open with the encounter powers, then switch to at wills once you used the encounter powers, and fights dragging on because party damage output didn't keep up with the way monsters grew in durability.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Nothing from 1e or 2e (as much due to lack of familiarity as anything else.)
From 3e I do miss one aspect of their Prestige Class system - that being a character progression that multiple base classes can qualify for / progress through for more build variety. We almost had that with 5e when they were looking to standardize subclass levels, then we could have had "prestige subclasses" that multiple classes can enter and keep advancing their base progression.
From 4e... um... actually there is one thing I'd like to see come back, Action Points - maybe as an alternative usage for Inspiration instead of a reroll. There are plenty of character builds where a reroll isn't as valuable (say, a focused controller build where the enemies are doing all the rolling); for one of those, I wouldn't mind an extra action being another way to use your Inspiration in a pinch. It could be pretty powerful in 5e where the impact and resource cost of an action can have a much wider potential range than in 4e,, but I think the greater cinematography(?) it would enable for a clutch moment would be worth it, like being able to Dash over to your comrades and turn the tide with a big mass heal.
As for 5e14, that's easy - I would want them to bring back and update Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws. It can just be a web supplement or whatever, but those were really fun ways to randomly generate a backstory when I was stuck. Decouple them from individual Backgrounds and I'm golden.