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I am now wondering just how powerful Taylor will end up. She is already a level 25 character before her dragon or paradragon abilities are included and should have at least 1000 to 2000 years to continue to grow unless killed. I think she will get both Cleric and Sorcerer to level 20 but what else will she pick up over the centuries.
 
Some of the things 4th and 5th do were pretty good. 4th is a great tabletop mini game, with some nicely handled combat for that style of play, and was very easy to learn and get into in comparison to 3rd. 5th tried (and failed mostly) to streamline the game and make it more beginner- and internet-friendly. However, like all editionss, they had flaws. 3rd was bloated and horrifically unbalanced towards casters. 4th was relatively shallow and wasn't as good a fit for theatre-of-the-mind play. 5th tried to shoehorn everything into a narrow range of stats and can't handle anything too big (or too small). Haven't played enough 5.5 to know about it's specific flaws, but they seem to be similar to vanilla 5th.
 
CrossHope said:
I've only been playing Tabletops for about a month now, I didn't realize people had such strong opinions on DnD systems. I've only ever played 5e.
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We're talking about 50yrs of gaming history, since people started playing in about 1974. And, yes, I've met people who've played for all that fifty years, invested many thousands of hours in the hobby (do the sums on '25hrs a week, 50wks a year').

Some of them... hold strong opinions. :)

DnD... gives you a playable game, in a reasonably fun (sometimes very nasty) fantasy world. This is the case from Original DnD through to DnD Beyond, or whatever the latest version is called. But, important to realise, it has its limitations. But, so do all the other table-top or computer-moderated (role-playing) games.

Make sure your Suspenders Of Disbelief +3 are kept in good order. :)

EDIT:

*sigh* I should know better, but...

Some people swear by one or other version of Hero System, which from 4thEd was fully multi-genre, arguably in a more thorough and better way than the d20 games that came from the DnD3rdEd SRD.

But. While people converted DnD campaigns to it, and ran cross-genre games, sometimes spread across multiple multiverses, it has quite clear weaknesses. That, if you talk about in the wrong company, may make you feel as though mobs with torches and pitchforks might be in your near future.

So. Respect people's culturals. You know it makes sense. :)
 
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CrossHope said:
I've only been playing Tabletops for about a month now, I didn't realize people had such strong opinions on DnD systems. I've only ever played 5e.
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Both 2nd and 3rd/3.5 were around a lot of years (each more than 4th and 5th combined) so they have a lot of people who prefer them.

4th tried to draw new players by giving a somewhat MMO feel, but that backfired as while it did draw in new players, it was quite different from 3.5 and many older players simply stayed with 3.5 or converted to Pathfinder (which I sometimes describe as D&D 3.75). 5th brought things back closer to the older editions, but many of the departed players continued with whatever they were using.

I got started on 2nd Ed back in the 80s but converted to 3rd/3.5 quickly. Of course I also played several non-D&D RPGs so I didn't have a major brand/edition loyalty issue. I was big into Palladium system back then (wide variety of settings/genres, pretty good fluff, but the system tends to break down at high power levels, and it was easily Munchkinable), and also several other systems we bounced between (including some homemade ones).
 
Our gaming group had people in it who started with the three little pamphlets. (He even talks about how the Jesuit priest at his Catholic school was the DM for a lot of those games...) I personally have been gaming since 1984, and until we got some new players in the group, was the youngster of the group. I started gaming with Champions 1st edition, and have to admit that I preferred version 3 of the Hero Games rules, but that may be because one of my favorite characters took advantage of an odd way that Density Increase and Growth worked. Any of the versions past 3 screwed that character up. Started with AD&D, and went from there. My preferred versions of the system are 3.5 and 5. 5 makes it really easy to get a character ready quickly, which is one of the things I like about it. 3.5 gets a little silly in the skill levels, IMO, since you can get a skill up to some utterly ridiculous levels faster than makes sense to me.
 
Norgarth said:
Both 2nd and 3rd/3.5 were around a lot of years (each more than 4th and 5th combined) so they have a lot of people who prefer them.

4th tried to draw new players by giving a somewhat MMO feel, but that backfired as while it did draw in new players, it was quite different from 3.5 and many older players simply stayed with 3.5 or converted to Pathfinder (which I sometimes describe as D&D 3.75). 5th brought things back closer to the older editions, but many of the departed players continued with whatever they were using.

I got started on 2nd Ed back in the 80s but converted to 3rd/3.5 quickly. Of course I also played several non-D&D RPGs so I didn't have a major brand/edition loyalty issue. I was big into Palladium system back then (wide variety of settings/genres, pretty good fluff, but the system tends to break down at high power levels, and it was easily Munchkinable), and also several other systems we bounced between (including some homemade ones).
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When 3rd edition came out, my gaming group looked it over, ran a session or three using it, then went back to 2nd edition because we felt 3rd edition made player characters too powerful too fast, and that it'd be a nightmare to balance a campaign with. We eventually moved on to 3.5, but only because half the group's 2nd edition books were falling apart, and you couldn't get replacements anymore. When WotC rereleased the 2nd edition core books, I snapped up copies of them ASAP. My old copies are still fine, but it's good to have an additional copy of the players guide to share in some groups. Especially during character creation.

Now, going back to 2nd edition it feels antiquated. But at the same time, the less complicated systems (even if the math is more complicated) are refreshing.
 
I got started on a customized 4E made a friend. It worked pretty well for a campaign whose vibe was supposed to be action movie. He was also tweaking some mechanics of the game (my class, in particular) for a good chunk of the campaign, so we had some really funny points.
 
Harry Leferts said:
while we see characters continuing to go to school and the like.
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On the serious hand, yeah, point. But on the less serious hand those of us who watched You Can't Do That On Television as kids know that even death won't cut it as an excuse when it comes to school (although iirc that was a detention that the teacher wasn't excusing a student from just because they'd died, not even with a doctor's note to confirm it). Man I miss that show.

As for D&D versions, 3/3.5 is probably my favorite simply because it's where I had my most actual play, including a fun XCrawl campaign with some memorable moments. The old red and blue basic D&D booklets a close second because the local library had them and I checked them out repeatedly to read through years before having an in person gaming group. (Having recently been exposed to Sword World via this thread I really wish there'd been an official translated release when it was new because I would have still had an in person group back then and I think we'd have really good for it)
 
My experiences with D&D started in 1st edition and largely ended in 3rd; the relatively rapid roll out of 3.5 and the high cost of the books drove my friends and I into other systems.

I will admit each edition we played seemed to try to streamline play for a faster gameplay experience. However, the rate at which new editions came out and the difficulty in converting materials between editions made staying in the game a very expensive endeavor. Which, of course, is how they made their money....
 
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