D&D 5E - Differences between D&D Next and 5e? (2024)

So I've got Murder in Baldur's Gate, some of the late 4e Dungeon and Dragon issues with D&D Next stuff, and various other D&D Next material that was put out before the release of 5e. Is there any information on what changed between Next and the final 5e rules?

Thanks

D&D Next was the name of the project (both marketing and game) that ended with publishing D&D 5e. They didn't want to call it 5e, because their goal was an evergreen D&D without a version number; you can see this in that most 5e material doesn't mention 5e, just D&D.

In my experience, what it evolved into was recapturing the some of the feel of AD&D 1e/2e and OD&D together with some of the mathematical rigor of D&D 4e, plus the mechanical trick of bounded accuracy (which is somewhat connected to how OD&D worked).

D&D Next talked about the idea of making a D&D where someone could play a class that was basically a AD&D1e fighter, someone else could play one that mimiced a tricked-out Swordsage from Tome of Battle, and someone else could play a 4e style Warlord. And where you could pick up an OD&D module or a 4e module and easily convert it so your players could play it.

One of the earlier D&D Next classes released was a fighter that was sort of 5e battlemaster like.

Voadam said:

So I've got Murder in Baldur's Gate, some of the late 4e Dungeon and Dragon issues with D&D Next stuff, and various other D&D Next material that was put out before the release of 5e. Is there any information on what changed between Next and the final 5e rules?

Thanks

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Fortunately MiBG is system-agnostic, so it’s very easy to run in 5e.

There were quite a few changes between the final Next packet and the full 5e release. Some that I remember off the top of my head...

• Races generally give +2 to one ability score and +1 to another, instead of +1 to two Ability scores. Classes no longer give +1 to an ability score.
• Races no longer increase your damage die with certain weapons, generally just giving Proficiency instead.
• Proficiency bonus is a static bonus (though proficiency dice are presented as a variant rule in the DMG. Proficiency Bonus scales at the same rate for all classes.
• I don’t remember what the skill list looked like by the end of Next, but I know the 5e list is shorter than the longest ones in Next.
• Armor table is different, don’t go up nearly as high: 12 + Dex is the highest light armor, 15 + Dex (Max 2) with Stealth disadvantage is the highest medium armor, 18 with stealth disadvantage and 15 minimum strength is the highest heavy armor.
• Weapon table is mostly the same, some small tweaks like removing the katana.
• There are probably a lot of small tweaks to classes and subclasses, none of which I can specifically remember. Same with spells.
• Pretty much all of the monster stat blocks are different. If you followed the Next playtest you may recall constant griping about imbalanced monsters from the player side and constant insistence that they’d fix the math in a later stage of development on WotC’s part. Well, they did.

EDIT: Aaaaaaaaaaaaand, it just occured to me that you’re asking from a place of familiarity with 5e and I’ve answered from the other direction. Don’t worry about it, all the Next adventures should work fine in 5e as written. Just find the equivalent monsters, and if something seems way over or under powered for the party, swap it for something more appropriate. No need to adjust any DCs or anything.

NotAYakk said:

One of the earlier D&D Next classes released was a fighter that was sort of 5e battlemaster like.

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I remember that there was a lot of people theorizing you might be able to use multiple dice to achieve more interesting effects at higher level instead of more of the same. And other such ideas on the WOTC forums.

Charlaquin said:

EDIT: Aaaaaaaaaaaaand, it just occured to me that you’re asking from a place of familiarity with 5e and I’ve answered from the other direction. Don’t worry about it, all the Next adventures should work fine in 5e as written. Just find the equivalent monsters, and if something seems way over or under powered for the party, swap it for something more appropriate. No need to adjust any DCs or anything.

Click to expand...

Thanks. Yeah, I've been playing and DMing 5e for a few years now and it would have been clearer if I had said that.

I played a one shot game in the caves of chaos playtest materials as a player but I and my group were happy with pathfinder and d20 modern for a number of years so I did not pay in-depth attention to much of the Next era stuff. It wasn't until a few years into the full 5e era before I played or ran any 5e.

I got Murder in Baldur's Gate a few weeks ago when it was on sale and it got me thinking about all the Next stuff and wondering how compatible it is.

Some of the Next adventures mention Readiness levels, which apparently was dropped from the final 5E. Not sure if there's a full explanation of that any of the still-available Next material.

They also seem to have been toying with the idea of keeping 4E's minion rules (= goes down with one hit, regardless of damage done), only calling them noncombatants instead. That's pretty easy to figure out from context.