Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition - Now your playing with Playtests!

[EatAtEmrakuls]

More comments from around the web:

Hey guys, check out the Medusa's Petrifying Gaze. They included rules for averting your eyes in the monster's stat block. You can probably see where this is going and yes... they somehow fell into the design trap that creates ALREADY: Medusa gaze works on blind people by RAW and by RAI you're better off being blind than averting your gaze (blinding yourself doesn't grant advantage to attackers).

Jolly good show WotC. I fully intend to buy 5e just so I can show future generations how NOT to design an RPG.

How aboot the 30+ attack rolls the DM has to make in that room with the kobolds? That's not per encounter...that's per freaking round because you know swarm rules were a 4E mechanic (they weren't) and thus were the devil.

http://i.imgur.com/nbTNm.jpg

Somebody that isnt me made this.

Unless I'm mistaken, Medusa's Petrifying Gaze also doesn't include any rules for line-of-sight, maximum range, or anything like that, so technically you could be turned to stone at any time if a Medusa exists in your game world. Even if you interpret the rules a bit so it doesn't work when the Medusa isn't in the same room as you, you could still be hiding around a corner or something and be subject to it.

"Okay guys, well done. Everyone make a constitution save."

"But we are in town, who is attacking us?"

"The Medusa scryed your location, and is peering through it."

[Loki_42]

Well, I'm running a game for my regular group tomorrow. Should be fun. I'm actually quite impressed by the rules, and interested in how they'll grow and change.

On the subject of mental ability scores, I've always had the most trouble with wisdom. It seems highly redundant with the other scores, with it at times doing things that Intelligence should do, and at other times doing things Charisma should do, while all the while having fluff that was wildly divergent from either of the other scores that was not represented at all by the mechanics.

[Roncorps]

You could divide Will between Wis and Int. You make Wis your ability to keep control of your mind and Int as the way to puzzle things out.

For example, someone tries to Charm you: That's Wis. Someone tries to trick you: that's Int.

Talking about INT vs WIS vs CHA, wouldn't the old AD&D 2nd optional rule come handy to see how the designer wanted us to see the characteristic ?

Strength is Stamina and Muscle
Dexterity is Aim and Balance
Constitution is Health and Fitness
Intelligence is Reason and Knowledge
Wisdom is Intuition and Willpower
Charisma is Leadership and Appearance.

So, going with the example of Charm and Trick, I would say the same. Charming is against Willpower and Trickery is against Reason.

[Conundrum]

Re: Wis vs Int

I've always thought of it like this. Intelligence is "book smarts" - knowledge you can gain from studying, like that a Wizard would gain from dedicating his life to the arcane arts.

Wisdom, on the other hand, is "street smarts" - that natural intuition that some people have and other people don't.

Sure, you might know all there is to know about -x monster-, but do you know how to survive on the harsh streets of -y town-?

[WitchSlayer]

Skeletons still have resistance (1/2 damage) to slashing and piercing so damage types are important.


This is why I liked 4E's race division of eldarin and high Elf.

Yeah, and Heavy armor looks good if you dump Dex but otherwise not.

I liked how barbarian (Berserker and new rage mechanics) and Warlord are in the Bestiary.

Yes, but I think the damage resistance to certain types of damage is a little redundant since now you're just going to find a weapon that deals damage to as many types as possible and then another one that fills in the gap. It's just a money sink and not a very good one at that.

And yes, I liked the race division as well, but, well, haters gonna hate.

[Swooper]

Hmm. Charisma is, partly, confidence, right? Wouldn't it make sense then that charisma, rather than wisdom, were used for saves against fear and other courage/morale type things?

[Doug Lampert]

Yeah, I think any reasonably fit adult human ought to manage a ten-foot long jump with a running start. Especially during combat with adrenaline and whatnot.

During combat even the guys at light load are probably wearing armor, a pack full of junk, heavy boots rather than sneakers, and carrying stuff in their hands. That makes the jump MUCH harder.

I'm not at all sure an average person can make 10' under those circumstances, now add some blood on the floor he's taking off from and make it slightly uneven. The basic rules should be set for use during an adventure by adventurers, which means world record jumps should be well above the upper bound.

That dead lift of 550 lb is FAR worse than it sounds! That's not likely to be a barbell, it's probably an unballanced weight without a good grip. A world champion weight lifter probably can't manage 550 lb under those circumstances.

If the characters ever are in a track and field competition on a well designed jumping pit with good footing and no gear, well, you can easily houserule that. Similarly for lifting barbells.

Basic capabilities should match what you can do in adventuring gear while in a cramped tunnel or whatever. Basic dead lift should be what you can lift if the weight is a boulder on the ground or something similar, not a barbell in a gym.

DougL

[Scots Dragon]

Also a weird thing to note: If high elves are both the ones who live in the forest sing dance and use bows... AND the ones famous for their lore and magical prowess

What are NORMAL elves?

The high elves are the normal elves, more or less. Or, more accurately, the high elves are the simply those who are most commonly encountered; those who balance a love of nature with a thirst for knowledge and an affinity for magic. It's less a 'high versus normal' and a 'varied types' deal.

The types usually presented, using the ideas almost verbatim from the Greyhawk setting, are high elves, aquatic elves, grey elves, wood elves, wild elves and dark elves (or drow, if you prefer; either term is applicable). There are a few similar interpretations in many of the standard campaign worlds; the Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance have their own interpretations of these

To put the 4th edition interpretation into perspective, the grey elves, who are arrogant, distant and intellectual are in fact the predecessor equivalent to the 'eladrin' types. The wood and wild elves split the difference between the 4th edition 'elves' in a sense, and are less intellectual but more intuitive and nature-friendly, as well as more likely to be archers.

And now you know.

I wouldn't have minded the change-over so much if it didn't introduce a dozen or so wide, sweeping retcons to the settings to which it should not have applied to. But we wound up with eladrin in the Forgotten Realms.

[Craft (Cheese)]

Yes, but I think the damage resistance to certain types of damage is a little redundant since now you're just going to find a weapon that deals damage to as many types as possible and then another one that fills in the gap. It's just a money sink and not a very good one at that.

This is why I hate element systems (which the weapon damage types effectively are): Weaknesses and Resistances are useless as a design tool unless there's different payoffs for using each damage type, and/or different situations aside from the weakness that makes that type more or less optimal.

[WitchSlayer]

The high elves are the normal elves, more or less. Or, more accurately, the high elves are the simply those who are most commonly encountered; those who balance a love of nature with a thirst for knowledge and an affinity for magic. It's less a 'high versus normal' and a 'varied types' deal.

The types usually presented, using the ideas almost verbatim from the Greyhawk setting, are high elves, aquatic elves, grey elves, wood elves, wild elves and dark elves (or drow, if you prefer; either term is applicable). There are a few similar interpretations in many of the standard campaign worlds; the Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance have their own interpretations of these

To put the 4th edition interpretation into perspective, the grey elves, who are arrogant, distant and intellectual are in fact the predecessor equivalent to the 'eladrin' types. The wood and wild elves split the difference between the 4th edition 'elves' in a sense, and are less intellectual but more intuitive and nature-friendly, as well as more likely to be archers.

And now you know.

I wouldn't have minded the change-over so much if it didn't introduce a dozen or so wide, sweeping retcons to the settings to which it should not have applied to. But we wound up with eladrin in the Forgotten Realms.

Ah so no low elves. Gotcha. Also in the Neverwinter books Eladrin were re-retconned when they introduced subraces.

That said it probably would've been easier just to say "elf" rather than "high elf" as that has certain connotations.

[RedWarlock]

I liked the eladrin/elf split, those 2 and drow/dark elves are all I need. (and boo on elves-of-every-possible-biome!)

[Scots Dragon]

I figure it's because they were being already specific with the lightfoot halfling, the hill dwarf and the mountain dwarf.

As for the Neverwinter books, they only really managed to get around to updating some of the subraces of the Forgotten Realms that they had previously removed from existence.

[Scots Dragon]

This is why I hate element systems (which the weapon damage types effectively are): Weaknesses and Resistances are useless as a design tool unless there's different payoffs for using each damage type, and/or different situations aside from the weakness that makes that type more or less optimal.

I liked one idea that had various different weapons, due to their damage type and physical construction, having different hit bonuses/penalties against specific types of armour. For instance; archery was better at getting past chainmail, but you could hurt someone more effectively through plate if you had a warhammer. Granted it'd be annoying to keep track of, but it'd make for some decent versimilitude in some situations.

It'd lead to people carrying and being proficient with more than just their typical 'iconic weapon', and using the weapon which was most appropriate in a given situation.

[Swooper]

It'd lead to people carrying and being proficient with more than just their typical 'iconic weapon', and using the weapon which was most appropriate in a given situation.

While this sounds good in theory, the problem is what's known as the Golf Club effect. Everyone needs to carry a "golf club bag" of various weapons to deal with various different threats. In 3E this applies to damage reduction - you "need" to carry weapons that breach DR/silver, DR/cold iron, DR/adamantine and so on, which gets expensive if you also need those weapons to be +1 keen wounding magebane or whatever. Another disadvantage for non-casters.

[Craft (Cheese)]

I liked one idea that had various different weapons, due to their damage type and physical construction, having different hit bonuses/penalties against specific types of armour. For instance; archery was better at getting past chainmail, but you could hurt someone more effectively through plate if you had a warhammer. Granted it'd be annoying to keep track of, but it'd make for some decent versimilitude in some situations.

It'd lead to people carrying and being proficient with more than just their typical 'iconic weapon', and using the weapon which was most appropriate in a given situation.

Range is a fantastic (if perhaps underambitious) example of what I'm talking about: Something like Light armor is good at deflecting melee blows but poor at deflecting ranged attacks, while Heavy armor is the opposite. This means to do max damage (as a monster) you want to be far away from the rogue, but close to the fighter. What makes this create interesting gameplay is a smart rogue/fighter pair can take advantage of this by doing other tricks, like the Fighter using repeated trips to keep you down and immobile while the Rogue closes in for the kill.

[Scots Dragon]

I'd think cutting down on the need for every weapon to be magical in the first place would be a good way of balancing that out. But generally you'd only need a few types of weapons. Something ranged, something with reach, and something close-quarters, which is technically how many real-world soldiers have been armed in the past.

But meh. It's one of the long list of reasons why book-keeping such a system would be a severe pain in the arse.

[Crow]

Well, now that I have gotten a good look (though my phone wouldn't display the pregen character pdfs)... Here are my impressions:

I like moving away from skills, and having your ability score represent more than just your raw talent (they now encompass things like training and skill as well).

I don't like the inflated hit points at 1st level. I've always been of the opinion that if you want to start with more durable characters, start at a higher level.

I do like how you determine hit points on level up.

I feel magic-using characters are going to be power houses. It may be because I wasn't able to view the character sheets, but there seems to be little restraint on magic. They will need to be extra careful with the spells they release.

Combat seems like it will be much more freeform, which is good.

Advantage and disadvantage are interesting. First glance, I like them. I am a little concerned that some broken builds will be able to abuse it though.

Overall, it looks like they took a step back from the Participation Trophy Edition, and are making new twists on a lot of the things that made the older editions great.

[Gamgee]

Intelligence is data and raw organization. Wisdom is the intuitive search program that can make leaps that logic alone can't make. Because of this intuitive nature it can make leaps of judgement not readily apparent simply by sifting through tons and tons of raw data. It can create shortcuts and perhaps more importantly unique combinations of data that int might not stumble across in the raw brute force kind of way.

Edit
Need that math problem worked out? Your going to have to crunch it the hard way most of the time. You generally can't take short cuts in math.

Villain gives you a gigantic amount of data taunting you and telling you that you have five minutes to find the correct answer. Wisdom would likely be a key factor in speeding up the processing by filtering away junk information and coming to a more intuitive answer.

Hypothetically both can do either or, but they are more specialized for their own roles.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Just paged through the main "How to play" section and the various character sheets.

Why, oh why is the Rogue even bothering with the sling? A quarterstaff is a far superior weapon to the dagger in almost Every way, and he can just use the daggers as ranged combat tools or if he wants to use poison.
I'm kind of in love with the Quarterstaff.

[Kerrin]

Unless I'm mistaken, Medusa's Petrifying Gaze also doesn't include any rules for line-of-sight, maximum range, or anything like that, so technically you could be turned to stone at any time if a Medusa exists in your game world. Even if you interpret the rules a bit so it doesn't work when the Medusa isn't in the same room as you, you could still be hiding around a corner or something and be subject to it.

I can't believe folks need rules spelled out for them for things like this.

[Seerow]

I can't believe folks need rules spelled out for them for things like this.

If you don't have rules, what's the point of paying for the game? Fact is there are magical effects that work without line of sight, and medusa's gaze is magical. It's not unreasonable for someone to wonder if it should follow LoS rules or not.

Really all it would take to fix this is a simple definition stating that gaze attacks all use Line of Sight, but since D&DNext seems to be all about reinventing the wheel with every spell, monster ability, or whatever that gets written, things like this will slip through the cracks and people are going to wonder.

[Crow]

I can understand things needing to be spelled out or clarified in some cases, but I really need to agree with the poster before you.

Use some common sense. It is a gaze attack. By it's name it implies line of sight. If somebody needs that sorted out for them, no rulebook, no matter how fat, will help them.

[Starbuck_II]

Just paged through the main "How to play" section and the various character sheets.

Why, oh why is the Rogue even bothering with the sling? A quarterstaff is a far superior weapon to the dagger in almost Every way, and he can just use the daggers as ranged combat tools or if he wants to use poison.
I'm kind of in love with the Quarterstaff.

But the Thief's dagger deals 1d6 damage. Quartstaff takes 2 hands and is only 1d8 (they boosted them in Next, used to always be d6).
Was going to say Zombies have resistance to blunt (quarterstaff) like 3.5 but they removed that in the playtest... only skeletons have resistance?


So yeah quarterstaffs are the bomb now.

Relooking over How To book, masterwork adds damage not hit. Hit bonus must be hard to gain...

[Craft (Cheese)]

I can't believe folks need rules spelled out for them for things like this.

In this case the correct ruling is obvious because we know what the Medusa is and how it works already because it's a popular mythological figure. It gets hairier when we talk about original creatures with original powers, like this:

An Ashialethra is an incorporeal undead which attacks by possessing victims. On its turn, it may use its action to select a new target of possession. The Ashialethra gains all the capabilities and ability scores of its victim, as well as the fire-based abilities detailed below:

Now, can an Ashialethra only possess targets within the same room as its current host? Can it do so from the other side of the world? From across the planes? We can't fall back on the popular conception of it, because it's an original creature. So there's no obvious ruling here.

[Dienekes]

Intelligence is data and raw organization. Wisdom is the intuitive search program that can make leaps that logic alone can't make. Because of this intuitive nature it can make leaps of judgement not readily apparent simply by sifting through tons and tons of raw data. It can create shortcuts and perhaps more importantly unique combinations of data that int might not stumble across in the raw brute force kind of way.

Edit
Need that math problem worked out? Your going to have to crunch it the hard way most of the time. You generally can't take short cuts in math.

Villain gives you a gigantic amount of data taunting you and telling you that you have five minutes to find the correct answer. Wisdom would likely be a key factor in speeding up the processing by filtering away junk information and coming to a more intuitive answer.

Hypothetically both can do either or, but they are more specialized for their own roles.

This is all well and good (and something I tried to show in my first post on the subject) the problem is taking these concepts and applying them into game mechanics, as the divide on where one begins and the other ends is fuzzy at best.

[Thanatos 51-50]

But the Thief's dagger deals 1d6 damage. Quartstaff takes 2 hands and is only 1d8 (they boosted them in Next, used to always be d6).
Was going to say Zombies have resistance to blunt (quarterstaff) like 3.5 but they removed that in the playtest... only skeletons have resistance?


So yeah quarterstaffs are the bomb now.

Relooking over How To book, masterwork adds damage not hit. Hit bonus must be hard to gain...

Unless there's dual-wielding rules to playtest and they're seriously broken, that won't be a problem. You're not using that extra hand for anything else and drawing a weapon is a free action, so you can switch your staff to your off-hand (not Ready) and fling your daggers willy-nilly. Then, when somebody gets close, you stop drawing daggers and bludgeon them to death with your staff.
And if somebody resists Bludgeoning damage? That's *still* what the daggers are for. All you lose is one size of damage die.

[Scowling Dragon]

Ok, in a game, that makes sense mental clarity resists mental spells. I have no idea what that would mean in real life though. Maybe how little your emotions affect your judgment? How would you even get players to roleplay that?

A Low clarity is a jibbering madman. A high quality is a clear minded thinker like sherlock holmes.

Int as learning sounds...Ok. But I just clumped Wis and Int together in my homebrew.

[RedWarlock]

A Low clarity is a jibbering madman. A high quality is a clear minded thinker like sherlock holmes.

Int as learning sounds...Ok. But I just clumped Wis and Int together in my homebrew.

Like I said before, watch out about those homebrew assumptions. Wisdom isn't generally interpreted as 'thinking', it's more intuitive, feeling it out rather than clearly thinking.

[Scowling Dragon]

Intuition...Thats not something I think one can put a score on. Also how does intuition relate to Clerical magic (I made charisma the source of clerical magic in my games).

[Craft (Cheese)]

Or you could... I dunno, remove attribute scores? I don't think they actually add all that much to the game: You buff your primary stat at every opportunity, period, buffing your most important defensive stats, in order, when you can't buff a better stat any further. Everything else is just to meet requirements for other things you want. Reality is for any one kind of build you want to make there's precisely one optimal ability score array. You can provide the same thing much more transparently.