Poll: Would you be interested in official D&D 3.5E, D&D 4E and additional 1E/2E?

[esmdev]

I bought it this past weekend. Waiting for all the other books to hit and hopefully some adventure paths.

The author stated all existing books are on the list for conversion and the likely order of release.

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...l=1#post547881

[GavinRuneblade]

OK I have to ask. What is the big draw of being able to play the Basic or Advanced box sets rules? It just seems limiting to me but I bet I am missing the correct point of view to understand. I left the box sets as soon as I could get the Advanced D&D books.

I can see the draw to the old original Chainmail and all so I feel I just need to be enlightened.

BECMI has rules none of the other systems have and it was the first place many other things appeared.

For example, advanced classes first appeared in BECMI in the '80s, a good 20 years before 3e tried a version of them. At 9th level characters can swap from fighter to knight or paladin, or from cleric to druid, and wizards can become mystics and/or take very funky specializations unlike the AD&D schools, much closer to the 5e version of sub classes. For example dragon magic and radiance (from the Glantri book).

Playable Monsters. Wanna be a 25-foot tall giant? You can in BECMI but not AD&D. Hell, even 5e is scared to let people be Large, they're nowhere near letting us be Huge. Troll? Yup. Treant? Yup. Pixie complete with flight and unlimited invisibility? Yes. Also the first rules for PC werewolves rather than your character becoming evil and an NPC were in BECMI.

BECMI to date has the only official rules for players becoming gods that have ever been published. There's plenty of 3rd parties that have given it a go, but TSR/Wizards only did it for BECMI, first in the "I" version of the rules, then a tweaking/revamp with the Wrath of Immortals set.

Weapon specializations give players access to maneuvers and special attacks along with increased damage. It's a mechanic that doesn't require multiple attacks to increase damage per round, making it significantly faster to resolve, keeping fights streamlined. Also, it really diversifies the weapons in how they perform. For example, daggers give you an AC bonus vs melee weapons but not ranged weapons and an increased critical range but short swords become resistant to disarming and allow you to deflect hits. Halberds get hook, disarm, and deflect (weaker than short sword) maneuvers, where spears gain set vs charge and stun maneuvers. What starts out as the same weapon as 1e and 2e quickly becomes something much more flexible, regardless of your class. A wizard could become a master of any weapon they're proficient with, not just a fighter.

Other than Birthright, BECMI has the only rules for PC dominions and armies, as well as adventures that assumed you were a king or other dominion ruler.

When you rise through the tiers in 5e, it doesn't matter, nothing of importance changes, it's a hamster wheel with bigger numbers and slower fights that get progressively less fun because of how they drag on. YMMV, but D&D Beyond and WoTC both show high-level play in 5e is rare.

In BECMI the experience goes through significant transformations as you level. In the Basic range you're just doing village and dungeon experiences. At Expert Tier you're hexcrawling and exploring the world and developing your advanced skills and abilities. In Companion tier you're ruling a territory, commanding armies, and actually taking actions on a large scale, not just going room-by-room through an adventure site. And at Master level you're on the boundary of immortality, eventually crossing over into creating your own world and ruling as a god. BECMI is the only rule set where this is baked in. AD&D and 2e never had these options, though Birthright came close. 5e has adventures where you encounter demon lords and avatars of deities, but mechanically they're no different than the boss monsters you fought back at level 1, just with bigger numbers attached to their actions. In BECMI the Immortals are totally different. Power combat, stat combat, physical bodies engaging in combat, a formless body that cannot be affected by mortal abilities, existing in multiple places at once, etc. They're not just "a monster with a fancy title and a lot of HP".

Then there are those who enjoy the setting. Mystara is still very popular as measured by nearly all of the gazeteers being mithril or adamantium best sellers on DMsGuild. And, while Gary is more popular, Dave does have his fans and all three of the only adventures he ever published were for the BECMI rules.

Finally, many people enjoy the BECMI rules for their lethality compared to 3e/Pathfinder, 4e, and 5e. AD&D and 2e fit the bill here just as well admittedly. Nevertheless BECMI is a great game, fully fleshed out. There's a reason it has the longest shelf-life of any edition of D&D, even if you count the whole run from 3e ending with the release of Pathfinder 2e as a "single edition" BECMI was still in print longer than that, from 1974 (released the same time as 1e) all the way to late 2000/early 2001 when the Rules Cyclopedia and the Almanac's went out of print.

[Granamere]

GavinRuneblade thank you for enlightening me. I did not see this from this point of view. I can now see why others would really want to see this included.

[ddavison]

AD&D 2E had a book called Reverse Dungeon where you played as the typical monsters and your lair was getting attacked by do-gooder heroes seeking fame and fortune - at your expense.

3.5E had a great book called Savage Species that had rules to let you play as monster races or to add templates. You could be a multi-headed Troll, a mindflayer, Drider, etc. and there were rules for creating and balancing pretty much any known creature type. The way they handled it was pretty interesting and you would basically take monster levels as you learned to master all the abilities of your monster race -- or you were still growing. Once you completed all your monster levels or template levels, then you would be able to add normal class levels on top. If you wanted to ultimately become an Umbral Medusa Sorcerer/Monk, you can do that.

I don't recall much in the way of empire building, godhood, or other books targeted at high-level play in 3.5E though.

In 5E, Volo's Guide to Monsters has a lot of stuff about lairs, followers and legendary actions for monsters. It would be pretty sweet to see a crazy, zany book about playing as a monster though. Some of the more monstrous races have become nearly standard player choices in 5E though. I've seen more bugbear, half-orc, and goblin players in 5E than I recall seeing in earlier editions.

[LordEntrails]

AD&D 2E had a book called Reverse Dungeon where you played as the typical monsters and your lair was getting attacked by do-gooder heroes seeking fame and fortune - at your expense.

Dungeon Keeper was the first series of video games I played that did this. Had lots of fun with it

[Nylanfs]

Yep, that game is hilarious

[hawkwind]

as an aside i would like to see conversions of some of the old 3.5 dungeon crawl classics adventures

[GavinRuneblade]

3.5E had a great book called Savage Species that had rules to let you play as monster races or to add templates. You could be a multi-headed Troll, a mindflayer, Drider, etc. and there were rules for creating and balancing pretty much any known creature type. The way they handled it was pretty interesting and you would basically take monster levels as you learned to master all the abilities of your monster race -- or you were still growing. Once you completed all your monster levels or template levels, then you would be able to add normal class levels on top. If you wanted to ultimately become an Umbral Medusa Sorcerer/Monk, you can do that.

That's a solid mechanic. It's basically the same as BECMI except with multiclassing as an option, which BECMI didn't have:
Sea Giant: Sea-Giant.jpg
Some Fey Options: Fey.jpg
Adding levels of Shaman(cleric) or Wicca(wizard) to a monster: Shaman-Wicca.jpg
And there's a couple of third-party 5e books on the DMsGuild that use the same mechanic.

In 5E, Volo's Guide to Monsters has a lot of stuff about lairs, followers and legendary actions for monsters. It would be pretty sweet to see a crazy, zany book about playing as a monster though. Some of the more monstrous races have become nearly standard player choices in 5E though. I've seen more bugbear, half-orc, and goblin players in 5E than I recall seeing in earlier editions.

https://www.dmsguild.com/product/132809/ had the rules for PC humanoids, closest to what Volo's has. Bugbears, Gnolls, etc. all are in there. And it is exactly what I think you want. For example, it has the best worldmap for any campaign ever. Alfheim (the elven kingdom) is labeled as "Tree Scum" while the halfling shire (raided constantly by orcs) is "our potatoes" and the surrounding kingdom founded by driving out an orc horde is "their potatoes". The world's largest wasteland is marked "New Elven Homeland, suggested" and the deepest trench in the ocean "New Dwarven Homeland (proposed)". lol. Has a "rampaging horde" mini game where you take your army of monsters and try to steal caravans and eat people. Even full of excerpts from a fictitious "Thar's Manual of Manners" for new members of the orc horde. Great book.

[damned]

For me the appeal of BX/BECMI (and they are quite different) is probably at least partly driven by nostalgia.
I never played BECMI past C but I did enjoy the kingdom building aspects.
But mostly Im remembering with fondness the race as class from B/X where Halflings where roguish little folk, dwarves were hardy warriors and elves were a little OP with both sword and magic at their disposal. Only Humans could choose from one of the four professions - Cleric, Magic User, Fighter and Thief.

[Chalmes95]

Yea I will admit being a 3.5 Fantasy Grounds DM is 100% solo Development. I have a whole new group after 5 years of being on FG. And the amount of stuff I have fleshed out for my world helps. I just wish we had Delux's Shop concept still. The buy and sell option and allowing us to populate the shops and so forth. The Sound ext was also nice as when my players opened a shop it had a door open up and a greeting of a shop keeper. I had so much auto play on my FGC. So many modules and stuff created. I have books upon books of content added. Almost done with my entire collection of books added to FG. It's taken some time especially with the Spell Compendium considering you have to add the spell effects and damage to every spell. Sadly I had to remove all the sounds I had filtered for every spell. The integration of Syrinscape was really nice I will admit. Hope they do something with FGU.