Personally, I’ll take 2e, BECMI, or maybe 3.x

5e14 and 5e24 are about even for me. 5e24 does add some nice bits and pieces that I wish were available earlier and it did a really good job of improving Monk, but it also has its own questionable decisions

BX/BECMI is the realest edition imo. But I’ll sit down for some AD&D any day of the week.

I’ve genuinely been looking for a group who wants to run Immortal out of the BECMI set. it’s been tough.

DO YOU HAVE A BONUS ACTION? OH YOU WANNA BUILD CLASS X? WELL ONLY LIKE 20% OF RACES WILL GIVE YOU A GOOD BUILD NOW TOO BAD. DO YOU HAVE A BONUS ACTION? TODAY WE ARE FIGHTING AN INTERESTING MONSTER IT IS INTERESTING BECAUSE IT CAN ATTACK TWICE AND HAS A NICHE ABILITY THAT NEVER GETS TRIGGERED. DO YOU HAVE A BONUS ACTION? OH YOU MOVED? WELL HERE’S AN OPPORTUNITY ATTACK BUT DON’T WORRY YOU CAN AVOID IT BY WASTING LITERALLY YOUR ENTIRE TURN EXCEPT YOU COULD STILL OPEN A DOOR OR DRAW A WEAPON WHICH MAKES TOTAL SENSE I SWEAR THIS ENCOURAGES ACTION RICH COMBAT WE ARE HAVING FUN, DO YOU HAVE A BONUS ACTION?

There’s a French Actual play (Game of Roles) in which they make fun of DnD by overcoming a ranger, in two attempts, before the GM even finished to list all the attacks, bonuses, class details of the ranger. Just to show the complexity.

I do. But there does not seem to be a consensus

There’s not enough change to prefer one over the other, IMO. It’s the same game with a few patch notes and some fanmade mods built into the default experience. Some things were streamlined (potions as bonus action and grapples requiring a saving throw, for example), some things were improved (all classes and subclasses being playable right off the bat without the need of extensive homemade reworks), and most of the game was left as is, for better or for worse.

Some changes are nice, some are arguably worse, balance is still wack, and they did nothing to really tackle any of the problems that afflicted the base game ten years ago - martial/caster disparity, mounted combat being completely broken, no clear indication on the power level or recommended price for magic items, etc…

I disliked 2024 because it tipped the scale even more towards “heroic fantasy”, with players being unfathomably rich and strong enough to fight a small army at lv2 already, but it’s not a problem new to 2024: it was already there in 5e, it was just exacerbated in the new edition.

13th Age and PF2e are the best editions of D&D, depending on whether you’re in the mood for story-forward or crunch-forward gameplay

unfathomably rich

How rich are they expected to be? I’ve noticed that wages seem to have gone up from 3.5, with unskilled labor going from 1sp/day to 2sp/day, and skilled labor going from 3sp/day to 1gp/day. If you wanted to retire (for 50 years) comfortably (2gp/day), you’d need 36,535 gp, which I think is a lot more than a low level adventurer would have.

fight a small army

I’ve heard that so long as the small army has a way to deal damage at all, they’ll dominate even high level enemies. Did they change that? I think the whole idea of adventurers makes a lot more sense if they can’t just send a small army to easily deal with a dragon or whatever else they’re worried about.

I do not understand why we follow WotC’s demands regarding the distinction between 5e and 5.5e.

I felt aggressively bored when reading the comments about the playtest.

Did they improve DM support? Make CR actually work? Is combat more dynamic and faster-paced? Is character creation still a pain in the ass? Did they flesh out non-combat? Do player abilities still tend to solve problems by just turning off parts of the game? Is there a clear vision for what this even is?

Oh look, it’s mostly balance changes to the classes.

I’m not saying they didn’t make some changes to fix my issues. I wouldn’t know either way, since I can’t be bothered to check, since the core audience sure did make it seem like its mostly balance changes to the classes.

What demands are you referring to? I’m out of the loop, haven’t played since before the newer edition came out

WotC demands we refer to the new edition as 5e, leaving us to annotate a year with it, outside of their official denotation.

Fuck it. Its 5.5e, and you can’t tell me otherwise.

Oh, sure. I can get on board with that. 5.5e it is.

How rich are they expected to be? I’ve noticed that wages seem to have gone up from 3.5, with unskilled labor going from 1sp/day to 2sp/day, and skilled labor going from 3sp/day to 1gp/day. If you wanted to retire (for 50 years) comfortably (2gp/day), you’d need 36,535 gp, which I think is a lot more than a low level adventurer would have.

A lv1 character starts with 100/150 GP (IIRC, depending on which class you choose), which is enough to sustain the character for 3+ months with average expenses. That being said, most expenses can be bypassed with magic (Goodberry, Tiny Hut, Create Food and Water), which means that the money can actually sustain the party a lot longer than that, and that’s on top of survival rules (tracking rations, travel hours, etc…) being almost completely nonexistent in 5e. As soon as the character hits lv3-5, they will probably have no compelling reason to go on an adventure anymore, except for the one made up by the player when writing their backstory.

I’ve heard that so long as the small army has a way to deal damage at all, they’ll dominate even high level enemies. Did they change that? I think the whole idea of adventurers makes a lot more sense if they can’t just send a small army to easily deal with a dragon or whatever else they’re worried about.

This was a bit exaggerated on my end: yes, action economy is king in 5e, and still is in 2024. What I meant is: a 2024 Barb can have up to 17 HP at 1st level (12 baseline + 3 from CON modifier + 2 from Tough), which are worth twice as much thanks to Rage granting them resistance to all damage. Wizards will take Spell Initiate and gain a free cast of Shield. Generally speaking, characters have a higher damage output and more resources compared to their 2014 counterpart, which was already high compared to previous editions of DnD. And that’s not taking into account how difficult it is to die in 5e because of the death saving throws rule.

These are not necessarily bad things: people will probably enjoy the higher floor for baseline power, and there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s also nothing wrong with forgoing the dungeon crawling origins of DnD in favour of more of a more theatrical/role-playing experience, which has already been pretty much the only way people has played the game for the past few years.
It’s just not something I particularly enjoy or crave for. After a while, playing an overpowered character with near-endless resources in a game that seems designed around the idea of you doing cool shit all the time, it gets old. I prefer grittier experiences, which 5e and especially 2024 are unable to provide.

Did they improve DM support? Make CR actually work? Is combat more dynamic and faster-paced? Is character creation still a pain in the ass? Did they flesh out non-combat? Do player abilities still tend to solve problems by just turning off parts of the game? Is there a clear vision for what this even is?

I’m not an expert but:

• No
• No
• No (though it is faster than 3.x or 4th, mostly because you don’t have any options)
• At least there are options now. Still nothing significant past character creation, of course
• No
• Probably. Either that or hitting it with an axe
• Yeah it’s a love letter to second ed, with bits of third mixed in to keep angry internet nerds who never played anything else happy

I don’t think 5th is the worst edition of d&d (controversially I think that’s 3.x), but it is the most nothing edition. The best editions are of course 13th Age and Pathfinder 2e