The Dungeon Crawl

A long time ago, dungeon crawls were multi-session, multi-day trips. If the dungeon was serious, it was a major undertaking. You would go in, push as far as you figured was safe, then retreat back to your camp or to civilization to recover before you went in again. And if the dungeon was a multiple level dungeon, with two or three or even four floors, it might take you weeks to get through it, if not months. It was almost never a one-and-done.

This was one reason for henchmen / hirelings. You needed someone to look after the camp at the surface. They handled your horses, your supplies, your tents and food. You took a bit of ratio with you down into the dungeon, because you never know what might happen, but all your other stuff was kept on the surface, where it was (relatively) safe. What, you thought the paladin would be riding her horse down in the dungeon?

The reason for this was simple: healing didn't come cheap. A cleric only has so many spells in a day, potions are hard to find, and healing took time. You didn't drop a camp in the middle of the dungeon, because there was a better-than-average chance that something would come upon your camp and attack you when you were at your most vulnerable. So, when the spells were running dry, and the hit points were running low, you retreated back to camp to rest and recover.

And sometimes to look through your loot, identify what you've got, and head back to town for a quick sell-and-resupply.

We think this sort of changed with 3.5 onward towards 5e. Rather than being a game of survival, it became ... we want to say "heroic fantasy", except ... it really isn't that heroic, now is it? It certainly looks heroic -- the characters are larger than life, certainly, and can go do some pretty amazing things, granted, but... the actual risk, the thing that makes heroism actually heroic, is gone. The players can be fairly confident their characters can survive. A short rest to touch up on missing hit points or to get the warlock prepped and a few abilities recharged, and a long rest for the really serious stuff. Wandering monsters aren't that common anymore, and characters start with a lot more hit points than they used to.

We won't say that's better, or worse, but we will say it's different. Having grown up with the red box and 1st edition AD&D, we are able to look at the changes, how the game evolved, and yeah, it's a completely different beast now. It's not a new edition, it's a completely new game, with the same title. It's not the same as it used to be.

Again -- different, not better or worse.

Do we have our preference? Definitely. We like BECM D&D. We like the streamlined game, the over-the-top magic, and the very real risk of dying in your first combat nearly instantly. It meant with every encounter you had to step back and think 'is it worth it?' before deciding to fight or run.

5e gives a bunch of tricks, but it isn't quite as tactical as it used to be. You can be fairly sure you can take at least one hit, more if you're a front-liner. You've got a bunch of abilities you pick up at 1st, and they really start to kick off at third or higher. But, it feels very... samey. Now, admittedly, so does D&D after a fashion -- a fighter is a fighter is a fighter, after all. Though the weapon training and NWP of BECM from the Master's Set does a lot to mix things up.

We think, after a fashion, 3.5 hit the sweet spot (more so with Pathfinder 1e). There's a tonne more you can do for customization, and you can make your character uniquely yours. Your fighter is not going to be the same as our fighter, your mage is going to be quite different from our mage, and so forth, because there's options to be had. 13th Age has a bit of that, but it also pushes you to play fast and loose with the rules to make your own thing.

The problem with 3.5 / PF, we feel, is that the monsters and opponents became too complex. You had to sit there and build them -- there were rules. How many skill points, how many feats, what type of hit dice. It was a bit too much to drop on a game master. 5e, of course, has lair actions, it has legendary actions, and a bunch of other things as well. Mind, we kind of like legendary and lair actions, but the mechanics for some monsters is dense.

BECM / 1e? A lot simpler when it came to monsters. Though AD&D was a lot more complex when it came to combat. Good freaking lords RAW combat is a dense thing, no lie. If you're unfamiliar:

1) Weapon Speed. This adjusts your initiative, and then how many actions you might take.
2) Type vs AC. Your weapon gets a bonus or penalty to hit depending on the AC of your target. This is different for different weapons.
3) Object Saving Throw. Oh, you got hit by a fireball? Not only do you need to save, but any items caught in the blast do too. Oh, your potion failed it's save. It boiled away in the bottle. Your backpack got incinerated? All your stuff's strewn about. Your sword failed? It melted.

To some extent, we miss this. We don't necessarily miss all the rolls involved, but what we do miss is that your gear can get toast by enemy magic, or falling, or traps. Your gear isn't going to be sacrosanct, which means planning for the inevitable losses.

Adventuring is bloody dangerous. Which is why people don't do it.