Leonard03: That's it exactly I think.

Leonard03: I be interested in hearing a comparison of 5e vs 3.5/Pathfinder.

Leonard03: I don't know what you are comparing it to, but in 5th edition you don't need to decide what each and every spell slot is alloted to at the beginning of the day. Instead, you can cast any spell from the ones you have known (for wizards), or from the ones you have prepared (druids, clerics). Doing so doesn't un-prepare them though - you can keep using them. You can also "super" cast spells using a higher spell slot, so you don't get the Cure Minor Wounds, Cure Wounds, Cure Major Wounds silliness.

Leonard03: Acutally, spell point system is presented as an alternative in 5e DMG.

Leonard03: I guess you're just used to the THAC0 stuff? Wanting a lower AC seems so counter intuitive.

dtgreene: Regarding 1e, here are some of my thoughts on it:

+: I like the 1e ranger, even if the spellcasting isn't likely to come up in many campaigns. I like the fact that they get 2 different types of magic.
+: I like the idea of a 1e bard, though I have a feeling that some house rules might be needed for it to work. (I never liked the 2e bard, to be honest.)
+: I like the fact that high level spell casters can bypass magic resistance. (I would prefer it, however, if magic resistance and spell disruption didn't exist, and if magic were balanced around those mechanics not existing.)

-: THAC0 behaves strangely. In particular, fighters get 2 THAC0 at odd levels and 0 at even levels (at least the way the Gold Box games interpreted the rule).
-: Game isn't fair to demi-humans. Low stat caps (why can't Dwarves be as strong as Humans?). Low racial level caps (the Half-Elf cap of level 5 as a Cleric is just atrocious). (Fortunately, this can be rule zeroed easily.)
-: Game isn't fair to female characters. Such characters have lower strength limits (except for human non-fighters), and they don't get anything to compensate. (Fortunately, this can also be rule zeroed.)
-: Stats (ability scores) only matter at extreme values. (Why can nearly doubling Strength not lead to any improvement in fighting abilities?) Also, mental stats don't do enough mechanically. Furthermore, I don't like the fact that stats are basically set in stone on character creation.
-: At low levels, attacks miss *way* too often, on both sides of combat. Also, when an attack does hit, it is way too likely to be fatal.
-: Healing magic is way too weak (until Heal, that is). Consider, for example, that the most powerful healing spell that a level 6 Cleric can cast has a 1 in 8 chance of healing *1* measly hit point. (Also, I don't like the fact that religious characters have a monopoly on healing magic in D&D, but that's another story.)
-: I don't like thief/rogue as a character class, personally. The problem is that they basically add a mechanic that basically makes the character required, and then make the character weak in combat. (The 3e rogue has a different issue; sneak attack makes it necessary to track position during combat; I would prefer to abstract away the whole issue of positioning in combat. and 3e doesn't let me.)
-: I don't like the spell disruption mechanic. It can be very frustrating to spend a limited resource only to find out that you wasted it. I also dislike spell resistance when saving throws already exist.
-: At high levels, saving throws are successful too often.

pimpmonkey2382.313: Except there are no limits on females.... straight from the PHB

Naturally, every attempt has been made to provide all of the truly essential information necessary for the game: the skeleton and muscle
which each DM will flesh out to create the unique campaign. You will find no pretentious dictums herein, no baseless limits arbitrarily
placed on female strength or male charisma.

dtgreene: Oh dear, you have just found that bit of text that is contradicted just a few pages later. Just a few pages later, there is the Strength table, where 18/01-50 is described as "Maximum strength possible for a female human...character", while 18/00 (which is higher) is described as "Maximum human strength".

(Of note, there's no limit on male Charisma.)

Fortunately, 2e dropped the sexist strength limit, and 5e explicitly allows non-binary characters.

By the way, just to be silly, I note that the table only specifies non-human Strength limits for male and female characters; a non-human with a non-binary gender could technically have no Strength limit in 1e.

dtgreene: Regarding 1e, here are some of my thoughts on it:

rtcvb32: You forgot that experience is different for each class/race and not divvied up very well, along with usually a level cap of 10. But it was a first attempt at that particular type of system. A lot of my impressions is they tried to follow more of the real world, as in less magic and things being meaner and harder to heal, and when magic scaled up the abilities did too. True balance took considerably longer to achieve.

I submit to you the 3 part LindyBeige videos. Early D&D was Rubbish, Mid-period D&D wasn't great, and Fourth Edition D&D is terrible.

Not to forget a few more of his things, Combat system failure, The initiative system, , [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jxGcsP8Qs8]Roll the dice, Actually just go to his channel, lots of good stuff :)

pimpmonkey2382.313: So basically "Everything not new, sucks"?

rtcvb32: Did you watch the videos? He gets into quite a good amount of detail about the systems... Not to mention he's naturally hilarious.

dtgreene: Except that Final Fantasy (pre-GBA) and Final Fantasy 3 do not use mana systems, but instead handle spell casting just like D&D 3e Sorcerers minus the ability to use higher level MP on lower level spells. In other words, I am not using FF as an example of a mana system.

(It's worth noting that FF8 also had an unusual magic system that isn't a mana pool system; have any tabletop RPGs tried to do something similar?)

pi4t: I don't know how FF8 did it,

dtgreene: Psionics is enough like spell casting that it can be treated as magic. The way I see it, from a game mechanics standpoint (ignoring flavor), psionics is magic; it's just called something different.

Also, I don't know about 0e, but 1e psionics was a mess, with separate point totals for different things and unclear rules. It is only in 2e that you have a single mana pool that is used for all psionics, which is a much simpler system. (Of course, I wouldn't call it balanced, particularly since the more powerful powers aren't level gated the way the more powerful spells are.)

In 3.5e, the rules actually state that psionics are magic. Dispel Magic, for example, can dispel psionic powers (provided one isn't using the "psionics are different" variant rule).
[...]

pimpmonkey2382.313: Disagrees about mana being video gamey...uses final fantasy as an example.

dtgreene: Of note, my understanding is that this game is not balanced; years ago, a friend of mine mentioned doing 9999 damage

Carradice: The system in Final Fantasy VIII was made for encourage experimentation. If your friend did maximum damage, then power to your friend. That said, it is gamey as hell and probably it would be a nightmare to deal with in pen & paper games.

By the way, why should a single player game be balanced at all?

One day I might want to play a Noldor, next day a hobbit. One day Gengis Khan, next day Belgium.

This article from Rock, Paper, Shotgun praises unbalance in single player strategy games. The same would be said about single player RPG.

Added: Like the article says, different factions (or, I add, builds) ought to be different to add to gameplay. Then, the do not need to be made equally powerful, but different, with different strenghs to use wisely. Unless they are intended for multiplayer. For single player, balancing actually can detract from the player's enjoyment.

dtgreene: but then Final Fantasy 7 introduced the Knights of the Round summon; nobody in their right mind would even think that would be even close to being balanced.