I am intrigued by 5e, but one of my friends is dead set against it. Thinks its too simplified and that the classes don't seem unique enough. Personally I think he had a bad first outing with it, which soured him. I'll get him to alter his tune yet.
It does seem very oversimplified...I know 3.5 was a little rule heavy but that just meant a little more PRA game prep and making sure players knew where to go to reference items. I think one thing people forget is house rules...just because it is a rule in the book it doesn't mean that it couldn't be modified. Its easier to do that I think in 3.5. For instance I never liked the class based penalties on skill learning. It is great they are coming out with an aid. There are tons of 3.5 reference apps, I use those
I think its more he can't find a completely OP class. 3.5 had a lot of prestige classes that really bent the power curve, I'm looking at you Arcane Hierophant.
I alternate for and against 5E about every other week. My group played a lot of 3.5E, then went to Pathfinder, which I love. Then we played a little 5E, and I thought man this is too simple. So back to Pathfinder. I've been running a Pathfinder game for about two years now (ending the campaign this Sunday) and the group is level 20 now. Every session I'm like "Man this is SO complicated, I just want something simpler!" So back to 5E next campaign. I guess you can't scratch every itch at the same time.
PAthfinder for 2 years with the broken grapple system, ugh. The only way I could play that system was a with a ring of freedom of movement.
I had a player like you! He was sitting there with an entire binder of unearthed arcana article copies from Dragon magazine. Constantly bugging me to get the OP class he wanted. So I let him run it to shut him up. Arcane Archer. Funny how in my world they had a tendency to act like gunslingers from wild west movies. I really was feeling bad when his character just wasn't able to win his bowfight with that masked archer who disappeared, leaving behind a silver arrowhead.
I think most people use roll20.net don't they? I've used that before and it's great ... IF you have a reliable group of players. Campaigns tend to fizzle out when you aren't meeting face to face, even more so than they do when you are gathering in the same basement to play around an actual table.
Ok, no I have never tried it....might look into it, I guess you have to pay for some, now that's not a career path I ever considered! It would be fun to play with a good group, I hear ya on the reliability.
Yeah, there are quite a few "professional" GMs. The quality varies though, so if you want to pay to play with them then you should probably ask for (and talk to) references or insist on a trial period of at least a few sessions that you don't have to pay for. If they don't have references and/or refuse to give you a few sessions free, well, then find another one.
