Greetings, gamers from all systems, places and timelines!
For many players, 5E wasn’t the first edition of D&D they played. But by the time they did, most found that it corrected a host of previous issues. And while no system is perfect, the newer versions’ downsides were substantially outweighed by all the good things it brought to the table.
This is not to say that gaming in the day was less fun, but rather, mechanically, there was room for both growth and improvement. So, let’s take a moment to look at some of the ways the game has changed over the years – and actually for the better.
1. Milestone XP
Back in the day, it was normal to spend an evening grinding through legions of monsters to move 25% of the way toward the next level because hacking your foes to pieces was the primary way to advance in level. Thankfully, this is no longer the case.
Now, by reaching a certain point in the story, you can achieve the same outcome. This makes many confrontations optional and encourages players to seek different and creative solutions to solve problems.
2. Much Less Instant Death
I remember spending weeks making a character, so after one blown poison saving throw, he could fall to the ground dead at the beginning of the second game. And mind you, this wasn’t from a critical failure on a save. It was from not being able to roll a fifteen or higher on a 20-sider with one do-or-die attempt.
The only thing this style of gameplay teaches players is not to bother with things like a backstory and to bring a stack of new character sheets to every game.
3. Attunement
As stated in a previous article, I am not a big fan of all of the aspects surrounding this mechanic. My perspective surrounding this changed a bit when a player asked to import a character from a previous edition who was a walking magic item store. Because, I have to ask, shouldn’t the characters be special without dripping in magical equipment? Otherwise, every opponent would need to be equally overloaded with magical equipment to present even half a decent challenge.
4. Legendary Actions
If I had a dollar for every time in a previous edition one of my boss monsters rolled a crappy initiative and got smoked in the second round, I could probably buy a Tesla. Because nothing maintains the threat level like a boss monster finally starting its turn blinded, weakened, and with 6 hit points left.
The boss getting punked like that is a lot like watching Mike Tyson fight in the 90s. You would be excited for weeks to see it, and then it’s over in 90 seconds. Thankfully, now the game’s heavy hitters can both act on other players’ turns and even protect themselves from the effects of blown saving throws.
5. Bounded Accuracy
![r/BaldursGate3 - [MEME] D&D 5e purists about Larian changes in the ruleset](https://i0.wp.com/i.redd.it/wjla14p73xt51.jpg?w=840&ssl=1)
If you don’t think this mechanic is the best thing since the long sword, then picture this: You’re playing a character in a D&D 2nd edition game who is wearing highly magical plate armor with a magic shield. The next time you’re in combat, you discover that your comparably scaled opponent only needs to roll a 5 to hit you.
I mean, at that point why are you even wearing armor? You might as well adventure wearing sweatpants, because at least then you could be comfortable. Bounded accuracy nicely puts a stop to that so high-level opponents are either unhittable or can score a hit blindfolded while hopping on one foot.
6. Self-Recharging Items
Back in the day, plenty of old-school items were a pain in the ass to recharge at best, if they could be recharged at all. Even the items that were recoverable, such as wands, only regained charges from having comparable spells to their powers cast into them.
So, while the newer versions of magical items do have fewer charges than before, the tradeoff here is that many items automatically recover charges every morning. On the surface, that may not seem like a big deal, but for spellcasters, it could mean the difference between having a mostly recharged staff or actually having spell slots to start the day.
7. The Classes Are Actually Balanced
In many of the older editions, high-level wizards and warriors just ruled the playing field. Even a rogue’s devastating backstab was pale in comparison to a warrior’s multi-attack abilities – especially, Gods forbid, if they were dual-wielding.
Now, because each class can hold its own, it encourages more diverse builds and interesting party dynamics.
8. Simplified Combat Mechanics
I have friends to this day who are still complaining about how much they hated calculating THAC0 (the die roll needed to score a hit on an armor class of 0 in older editions of D&D). This was another problem because you wanted to have high ability scores and attack rolls while also having low saving throw scores and armor class. And, if you think that’s confusing, just consider that every individual weapon and spell had a rating that factored into your initiative score. A successful roll could be either high or low for no other reason than it confuses the hell out of newer players.
9. Alignment Should Have Never Been a Headache
Fortunately, now alignment is handled much more loosely than it was back in the day. Previously, depending on the table you were at, it could have been a near-endless debate as the other players analyzed each other’s actions to a depth that would have impressed Sigmund Freud.
Ultimately, everyone should be free to play their characters as they see fit while not being beholden to someone else’s take on alignment. All of which just encouraged players to keep their alignments secret or lie and say they were “Lawful Good.”
10. No Race or Alignment Restrictions for Classes
Do you like the idea of playing a gnome barbarian or halfling monk? Well, in previous editions, you could just forget about those ideas because you couldn’t even be an elven paladin. Paladins were all human and Lawful Good, end of story. This was really confusing when someone in my group wanted to be a paladin of Thor, because Thor was Chaotic Good, and my friend’s character actually had to be more upstanding than the god he worshiped.
Final Thoughts
Don’t get me wrong, I had endless hours of fun and fantastic memories playing the previous systems. But some things, like high school, I just don’t miss.
Are there rules or mechanics which you miss about previous editions? Or are there some mechanics of 5th you wish they would refine? We would love to hear about them.
Let’s be honest here. Bounded Accuracy is game designer short hand for “Our system breaks down outside these parameters”.
That’s okay. It’s good to acknowledge these things. In the case of D&D of all editions it’s caused by the flatness of the single d20 roll.
1. I absolutely prefer milestone XP, but that’s something we were doing back in 3.x ed D&D. It’s not all that new.
2. Not going to complain about that, though it does take some of the risk out of certain situations. It’s a mixed bag for some groups and not necessarily something to be celebrated by everyone.
3. Part of the fun of 3.x ed was the number of magic items you could get. It was also assumed that players would need them to keep up with the challenge ratings of the enemies faced. We were pretty light on magic items in our Curse of Strahd game early on, and we didn’t care for it. Most of the non-artifact items we got that were in the module were largely useless outside of a few very specific situations. Again, not necessarily something celebrated across the board.
4. As a DM, I have had players nearly wipe out a single boss monster in one go. I’ve sold it to them by the descriptions I gave of the combat. I had one group terrified by an enemy that never actually managed to land a blow on them and died in two rounds. But it can be nice to see options for a single big bad. I tend to prefer a major monster with several minions to draw players out. As a player, with the damage some bosses can put out, it feels like it’s a smarter move to skew a boss battle with tactics to try and mitigate the Legendary Actions. I hate fighting monsters with legendary actions.
5. After playing other editions, bounded accuracy doesn’t feel as heroic. We have to keep remind each other that lower numbers are to be expected. It takes a lot of fun out of it for us, though I can understand the reasoning. Again, not a fan.
6. I have mixed feelings about self-charging magic items. I feel like wands and other items were meant to be spendable items and you could usually replace them easily with new ones. I also can’t think of a single campaign I’ve been in where someone used all of one up.
7. In 4e, classes were typically very well balanced. In 3.x ed, feats could help mitigate some of the issues with balance, though many spellcasters were meant to pour out lots of damage or lock up enemies with spells. Clerics were meant to keep a party on its feet and buff and debuff as needed. Each class had a specific job in the party whether it be in or out of combat. As we play CoS in 5e, I find my cleric feels less useful in combat than fighters-classes, and feel like I’m still relegated to support, but my spells aren’t as good as they were in earlier editions. It feels less balanced in my experience.
8. Spells in combat are too simplified. Gone is the flexibility of earlier editions where a creative use of a spell could turn the tide of battle. With spells so codified, they’re simpler but way more boring to use. Spell points may make casing spells more streamlined, but they have taken away the sheer variety of kinds of spells I could have at the ready. Also taking out some of the combat maneuvers of earlier editions makes the combats feel more bland and like we need less creativity. Throw in the bounded accuracy, and combat is way less satisfying to my group. Combat is just the less terrible than other parts of the game.
8a. Rules in general are simpler, but have weird hitches in them that make using them more complicated. We spent 20 minutes one session trying to figure the difference between perception and investigation because the terminology was changed from earlier editions. We still have trouble figuring out tool usage because the rules are in a weird place in the PHB and aren’t explained well. I find a lot of the rules end up being a hinderance.
9. This sounds more like a table issue than an edition issue. We never worried that much about alignment in other editions at our table. I can’t say this is across the board, but I haven’t seen it. 4e simplified alignments by stripping out several of the choices. People didn’t like that change and we’re back to nine alignments again.
10. This hasn’t been an issue since AD&D. Back then, it was a form of balancing classes. They were also easy to bypass if you didn’t want to use them. The various class handbooks even talked about letting restricted races be different classes than they could normally be. 3e had advanced rules for paladins of various alignments. Yes, core rules made this difficult, but even WoTC and TSR realized that players wanted more options and provided official ways to override the rules.