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Edition Experience: Did/Do you Play 1E AD&D? How Was/Is It?
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<blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7995901" data-attributes="member: 29398"><p>OD&D and early-era 1e used a mechanic where the player rolled d20 to hit, sorted out their character's bonuses, and gave the DM a number. The DM, after checking the PC's combat matrix and the target's AC, determined if the attack hit.</p><p></p><p>The only difference between that and today is the combat matrix has been moved player-side, as BAB in 3e and something similar in later versions. And I'm not at all sure this is an advancement or a backstep; all it does it move work from the DM to the players, breaking immersion in two ways: one, more out-of-character thinking is needed, and two, it makes it far easier for players to quickly work out information they shouldn't know, that being the AC of the opponent.</p><p></p><p>The problem is that over the years they've thrown too many babies out with the bathwater, usually in a quest to unify mechanics that work better if left unique.</p><p></p><p>As a minor example: Clerics turning undead worked just fine in 1e and 2e, for example, and hasn't worked nearly as well since.</p><p></p><p>Another not-so-minor example: in 3e they threw out most of the restraints that kept casters sort-of in check in 0-1-2e (mostly by making spells so much harder to interrupt), and casters got out of hand. But instead of making spells easier to interrupt in 4e-5e they just nerfed many of the spells, so now you've got a boring system that doesn't work as opposed to a more interesting system that didn't work.</p><p></p><p>And a current example: is 5e's advantage-disadvantage a good mechanic? Yes - in the right situations. There's many other times where a flat bonus or penalty is the better and more variable option (variable as in a +1 bonus isn't as big as a +5 bonus) but 5e design shoehorns all of that into the one somewhat-limited mechanic. It's unified, sure, but if it's not doing the job, who cares?</p><p></p><p>Depends what one defines as an enhancement, perhaps.</p><p></p><p>Which would be fine if they were just that: options. But they're not; since 3e they've been baked in to the rules in one form or another, and stripping them out even in 5e has all sorts of knock-on effects around class balance, encounter planning, character damage output (if one cares about such), and so forth.</p><p></p><p>Fair enough, though it's an open question whether those mechanics were really necessary in the first place.</p><p>Sure the mechanics didn't exist at one point, and do now; but in the end that can be said for pretty much anything.</p><p></p><p>What would be useful here is if the 5e designers had really followed up on their ideas during playtest that the system would be truly modular, with a very vasic framework and lots of pluggable rules options that each table could choose to use or not. This way, all the martial maneuvers etc. could have been a rules module, and left optional.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lanefan, post: 7995901, member: 29398"] OD&D and early-era 1e used a mechanic where the player rolled d20 to hit, sorted out their character's bonuses, and gave the DM a number. The DM, after checking the PC's combat matrix and the target's AC, determined if the attack hit. The only difference between that and today is the combat matrix has been moved player-side, as BAB in 3e and something similar in later versions. And I'm not at all sure this is an advancement or a backstep; all it does it move work from the DM to the players, breaking immersion in two ways: one, more out-of-character thinking is needed, and two, it makes it far easier for players to quickly work out information they shouldn't know, that being the AC of the opponent. The problem is that over the years they've thrown too many babies out with the bathwater, usually in a quest to unify mechanics that work better if left unique. As a minor example: Clerics turning undead worked just fine in 1e and 2e, for example, and hasn't worked nearly as well since. Another not-so-minor example: in 3e they threw out most of the restraints that kept casters sort-of in check in 0-1-2e (mostly by making spells so much harder to interrupt), and casters got out of hand. But instead of making spells easier to interrupt in 4e-5e they just nerfed many of the spells, so now you've got a boring system that doesn't work as opposed to a more interesting system that didn't work. And a current example: is 5e's advantage-disadvantage a good mechanic? Yes - in the right situations. There's many other times where a flat bonus or penalty is the better and more variable option (variable as in a +1 bonus isn't as big as a +5 bonus) but 5e design shoehorns all of that into the one somewhat-limited mechanic. It's unified, sure, but if it's not doing the job, who cares? Depends what one defines as an enhancement, perhaps. Which would be fine if they were just that: options. But they're not; since 3e they've been baked in to the rules in one form or another, and stripping them out even in 5e has all sorts of knock-on effects around class balance, encounter planning, character damage output (if one cares about such), and so forth. Fair enough, though it's an open question whether those mechanics were really necessary in the first place. Sure the mechanics didn't exist at one point, and do now; but in the end that can be said for pretty much anything. What would be useful here is if the 5e designers had really followed up on their ideas during playtest that the system would be truly modular, with a very vasic framework and lots of pluggable rules options that each table could choose to use or not. This way, all the martial maneuvers etc. could have been a rules module, and left optional. [/QUOTE]
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