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

[Justin Halliday]

Deeper into the Caves (no Kobolds or rats, I promise!)

The other day I posted my early thoughts and opinions (href="http://heroesagainstdarkness.blogspot.com.au/2012/05/d-next-early-thoughts-and-opinions.html) of the playtest rules for D&D Next and tonight we finally got a chance to play the rules.

First some background.

A year ago I GMed a Basic D&D campaign starting with the Keep on the Borderlands. In that campaign, the players' characters were hired to rescue the son of a noble who'd been captured by a group of monsters from the Caves of Chaos. The players had reached the caves overland, passing the tower of one of their mentors, and then through the forest. At the ravine of the Caves of Chaos, they explored the kobold lair (the first cave on the right), then the goblins' cave on the left, which I think took them through to the next set of caves where I had the noble's son held captive. They rescued to boy and returned to the keep, then struck out for civilization rather than returning to the caves. I mention this because our recent familiarity with some of the cave systems is a factor in how we approached the playtest.

In the year between playing Basic D&D and this D&D Next playtest, we've had a long campaign using my [a href="http://heroesagainstdarkness.blogspot.com/p/game-rules-download.html"]Heroes Against Darkness[/a] system. We wrapped up that campaign just a couple of weeks ago to give D&D Next a go for a while.

So tonight five of us we met for our Monday night game, I played the cleric of Moradin, we had the cleric of Pelor, the wizard, and the fighter. For this adventure we'd been sent to the Caves of Chaos to rescue a young dwarf (from my cleric's tribe) who'd been captured by orcs. With this set up, we found ourselves standing at the yawning entranceway of the infamous Caves of Chaos.

At this point I took a timeout and we agreed that because we'd recently played the caves, we wouldn't go into the caves that we were familiar with (the goblin cave on the left and the kobold lair on the right). This was also good because I've read about a hundred write-ups of people fighting the damned kobolds and rats (and killing 1/round), and frankly I'm sick of hearing about those little bastards.

We made our way down into the floor of the ravine, searching for tracks that would indicate which of the caves was the lair of the orcs that we were looking for. Unfortunately, we rolled pretty poorly (and one of the players forgot to add his Nature Lore) for the tracking, and we weren't able to discern anything informative from the multitide of footprints over the ravine floor. Without any clear direction, we picked the second cave entrance along the left side of the ravine as our first one to explore.

As we neared the cave we saw that this one had an actual door, as opposed to the others that were simply open cave mouths. We thought that this would make the cave more secure, so we scrambled up the shale slope (Dex check DC 11) and approached the door. The door was heavy and wooden, reinforced with solid metal plates. A thorough investigation (Wis check) revealed that one of these metal plates swung open to reveal a latch for the door. After some discussion about whether the latch was trapped, we opened the door to reveal a corridor that plunged into darkness.

Now three of our four characters have low-light vision (the two dwarves and the elf), but the human would have been blind in the dark of the cave, so we elected to have the wizard cast a couple of light catrips, one on his quarterstaff (which we only later realized that he doesn't have in his inventory) and the other on the fighter's shield. The light revealed that the corridor ran about 30 feet to a four-way intersection. Straight ahead it continued in stairs leading up. The corridor to the right immediately turned again backwards towards the entrance. And the corridor to the left soon turned right. We headed right to investigate the corridor that headed back towards the entrance, and as we rounded the corner it immediately turned again forming a dogleg. As we continued around the last turn of the dogleg, we saw that the corridor opened into a room some distance ahead. Unfortunately, the inhabitants of the room noticed us and three figures sprang from their room towards us. I immediately cast Crusader's Strike (1d6 extra damage on a hit for 1 hour). We quickly recognised them as hobgoblins, and realizing that this was not the orcs' cave, we turned and Hustled our way out of the caves.

When we reached the entrance we scrambled up the slope around to the precarious area above the cave mouth. We waited there for the hobgoblins to emerge and hoped that they wouldn't notice us. Six hobgoblins emerged from the cave moments later. Three immediately ran down the path towards the ravine floor (we bypassed this on the way up). The other three stayed at the entrance, with us perched just above them, and looked around. It didn't take them long to look in our direction, so our wizard opened up with a Burning Hands (with advantage for surprise) at the three immediately beneath us, hitting two with its full effect and partially catching the other. The wizard had let go of his handhold to cast his spell and almost tumbled over the edge and down to their ledge. Having taken them by surprise, the fighter shot one with his crossbow, killing it, and the other cleric used his searing light to kill another. Luckly for us, the hobgoblins had emerged with crossbows, and the four remaining beasts proceeded to pepper us with shots, hitting a couple of us, including my cleric for 5 HP. For the next turn, I could do nothing (I didn't have a ranged weapon or spell I wanted to use), the fighter was busy reloading his crossbow (taking a full turn so that he didn't have to attack with disadvantage), so the wizard and the cleric of Pelor used their Magic Missile and Searing Light to kill the last of the hobgoblins that had been damaged in the first fiery attack. The remaining three hobgoblins had thrown down their crossbows and run back towards the cave entrance below us, so the fighter tried to shoot his crossbow but lost his footing and slid down the slope into the middle of the monsters, who promptly wailed on his ass and did some damage. I slid down after him and positioned myself next to him to use my character's Defender theme to protect him (While you are using a shield, when a creature withing 5' of you is attacked, as a reaction you can give the attacker disadvantage on the attack). The next round we managed to cut down two of the hobgoblins, and the third chose to flee back into the cave. I pursued him, but soon remembered that I didn't actually have a ranged attack, so I immediately retreated back out of the cave.

We regrouped and gathered up the six heavy crossbows (50 GP each, but three of them slightly charred!), giving one to the fighter and I took his light crossbow. We also used the opportunity to find some shelter to rest and use the other cleric's healer's kit to recover a bit (I got a 2 for my hit dice roll, boo).

The next two caves looked very different. High up on the left slope was a small, natural-looking cave. Further along the left slope at our current level was a large, imposing looking entrance. We chose the small natural cave and scrambled up the slope to investigate. We entered the cave in normal order (fighter, cleric of Moradin, wizard, cleric of Pelor). As we shuffled along the tight cave, the cleric of Pelor identified the footprints and smells as animal-like, which we various interpreted as a bear or wolves. While we discussed this, an arrow flew past us from deeper in the cave. Another arrow followed in the time it took us to realize that this cave was the den of a pack of gnolls, so we quickly retreated and fled down the slope (luckily without anything in pursuit).

We decided to head for the large cave entrance, and on approaching it my dwarf cleric discerned that the entrance was carved and decorated by humans. Sensing something interesting, we entered this large cave. This cave had spluttering torches to provide illumination, so we switched off our light spells. The entrance passage was carved and worked, unlike the earlier caves, and soon joined up with a 20' wide corridor that stretched off to the left and right. We cautiously made our way to the left along the wide coridoor, trying to keep to the shadowed areas between the weak torches. We came to an Y intersection, and took to fork to the left. Rounding a rubble-filled corner, we soon heard the sound of moaning, so we sent our most dexterous character ahead to investigate, and he returned with word of a large throne room, with a dozen skeletons standing guard. Relishing the opportunity to smite some undead, we decided to strike the inert skeletons, then fall back into the corridor so that we could attempt to use Turn Undead as many of them as possible. The plan worked perfectly, with the four of us crushing one skeleton with our first blow and damaging two others before retreating to the corridor. The skeletons followed and walked straight into the my Turn Undead, which held all of them but three. What followed was a slaughter as other characters ganged up on the skeletons one at a time (while I kept them turned), first attacking with advantage while they were 'turned' and following up with spells if the melee attacks weren't successful (the wizard attacked last using Shocking Grasp to gain advantage from their metal armor).

After the last of the skeletons was reduced to shards and dust, we investigated the throne. We detected nothing magical, and unsuccessfully searched it for secret compartments, so had to settle for just prising out the four garnets that were inlaid in it.

We returned to the Y intersection and followed the other path. We heard the noise again, and this time we identified it as moaning. After a few more steps, we found a large empty room filled with zombies. This time the other cleric managed to 'turn' seven of the zombies, leaving only a few still mobile. As with their skeletal cousins, we made short (but boring) work of the zombies.

We backtracked to the main 20' wide corridor and followed it past the entrance tunnel and about another 100' feet on, where it turned to the left and then headed up a slope. The corner had two doors, one straight ahead and another in the right wall. We heard voices and stopped to listen, eventually identifying three humans speaking common in the room behind the door straight ahead. We did a quick stocktake and on finding that were were all in pretty good condition (I was on 14 HP, having only take 5 HP from the hobgoblins and recovered 2 HP from the rest), we decided to open the door and storm the room to surprise the humans.

The fighter approached the door and threw it open, but found that the humans (cultists in red and black robes) were sitting at a table about 20' away down a connecting corridor. He charged down the corridor and attacked, but failed miserably (rolled a 1 and without any advantage). I followed and attacked the closest of the humans, missing, and then stepped next to the fighter to give him the benefit of my Guardian power. The wizard and other cleric followed, and attacked too, with some success. The enemies then attacked, striking the wizard a strong blow for 8 HP, and sending him running back down the corridor in fear of his life. Another human who'd been lying on one of the beds in the room joined the fight, but the wizard made short work of them with his Shocking Grasp, which gains advantage against enemies in metal armor (as it also had with the skeletons earlier).

With the four cultists dead, we stripped their robes and set their bodies in their beds, then paused to decide what to do. Which is where the session ended.

Quick thoughts:

• Advantage got a large look in, but we were never attacked by baddies with advantage. We also never had disadvantage. We found a couple of ways to gain advantage, such as when we surprised the hobgoblins with the Burning Hands
• I used 1 spell Crusader's Strike, and then forgot that I had it on!
• The fights were quick, but not particularly interesting (especially the ones where we shut down the undead)
• We managed 5 encounters in a 3-hour session
• I like saving throws using your ability scores, because they really streamline all the different numbers
• I'm intrigued by the flattened maths, but worry that it's always going to feel like 1st level
• In the current implementation, the clerics and wizards seem to get a lot more escalation at higher levels than the fighter
• We avoided the rats and the kobolds, so we didn't have any of the encounters with 15+ enemies each with 2 HP
• The extra starting HP makes the game much more forgiving that Basic D&D (for example, that 8 HP hit from the cultist would have killed a Basic magic-user dead dead).
• The only modularity apparent in the system (removing Backgrounds and Themes) makes your character suck more, (http://heroesagainstdarkness.blogspo...ar-part-i.html, as I feared)

[noparlpf]

The playtest is basically to see if the game "feels" right
We will probably get chargen and a bigger list later.

Cleric is Healer or Holy man
Fighter is Soldier or Merc
Rogue is Thief or Swashbuckler
Wizard is Nerd or Merlin
why would we take the Merc and the Swashbuckler and put them together?

And we can have out-of-combat utility for both, it just means coming up with distinct features to give both of them.

But the declared point of 5e was modularity, not feel. Designing a playtest that gives the classic feel doesn't actually demonstrate the supposed modularity of 5e.

• I'm intrigued by the flattened maths, but worry that it's always going to feel like 1st level

Might want to spoiler-tag all that.
In response to this line: I dislike the idea of no attack bonus or AC progression. That's the opposite of how it ought to work, in my opinion. With experience, it's your ability to hit things properly and not get hit yourself that improves. Hit points are the thing that doesn't increase much in real life.

[DrBurr]

But the declared point of 5e was modularity, not feel. Designing a playtest that gives the classic feel doesn't actually demonstrate the supposed modularity of 5e.

Because to have modularity first you need the core of the game, right now we're testing the core we'll receive more like character creation and likely some modules as the play test continues throughout the summer and likely into autumn.

[Aidan305]

Quick thoughts:

• Advantage got a large look in, but we were never attacked by baddies with advantage. We also never had disadvantage. We found a couple of ways to gain advantage, such as when we surprised the hobgoblins with the Burning Hands

Be glad you didn't meet the kobolds and rats. Then you quickly learn how nasty Advantage can be when used against you.

• The fights were quick, but not particularly interesting (especially the ones where we shut down the undead)

What did you think of the new (old?) Turn Undead mechanics? We didn't get a chance to use them in our playtest.

• We managed 5 encounters in a 3-hour session

My group found that there was a lot of dull rounds spent hitting things with sticks. (Partly the GM though. He's not that great when it comes to flavourful combat.). I got the impression that your group had a much more tactical experience. Did you find this hindered the flow of the combat?

But the declared point of 5e was modularity, not feel. Designing a playtest that gives the classic feel doesn't actually demonstrate the supposed modularity of 5e.

The point of the current playtest isn't to demonstrate the modularity though. It's to test the functionality of the core ruleset. They probably haven't even begun designing the vast majority of what's going to modular within the rules.

[Loki_42]

When are those surveys supposed to come out, does anyone know?

[DrBurr]

When are those surveys supposed to come out, does anyone know?

I'd imagine the first one will come out this Thursday, if not who knows

[noparlpf]

Because to have modularity first you need the core of the game, right now we're testing the core we'll receive more like character creation and likely some modules as the play test continues throughout the summer and likely into autumn.

A playtest doesn't have to be such bare bones. You can release the first draft of the core rules, and get a better idea of how the game works from that, and thus better critique, than from what they did release.

[DrBurr]

A playtest doesn't have to be such bare bones. You can release the first draft of the core rules, and get a better idea of how the game works from that, and thus better critique, than from what they did release.

Are we looking at the same document? Cause these are the core rules their all there, combat, interaction and exploration. Anything else would lean towards 3e or 4e and thus be a module which we both seem to agree won't be arriving until later.

The reason the game is so bare bones is because this is the first draft of the core which must appeal to 1e and 2e holdouts if it has any chance of reaching its mission of a unified edition.

[Runeward]

I think its good to walk people slowly through a playtest. If you release 100 pages of rules, people are going to have gripes about lots of different things, and there won't be any communication. Releasing 15ish pages of rules lets people really hash through everything before moving onto the next chunk.

[Yora]

Also, if there is something fundamentally wrong with the rules, you need to be able to spot what is causing the problem. Once you're dealing with 10 classes spread over 20 levels it will be extremely difficult to trace problems back to something that was a bad idea at the very beginning of the rules system.

[Saph]

Just spent 20 minutes or so reading through the comments on the latest playtest column. It's been a while since I've hung around the WotC forums, and I'd forgotten how much more negative they tend to be. Guess I've gotten spoilt, hanging out here.

[Draz74]

Agreed; starting with playtesting the "bare bones" before worrying about playtesting modularity is a very wise choice.

[Seerow]

Did anyone notice the brilliant plan they have to try to fix fighters?

They want to throw more themes at them. A Fighter gets 2 themes instead of one.

Remember, themes are literally just a set of preselected feats. It's like Mearls literally does not know how to learn and avoid repeating past mistakes.

[EatAtEmrakuls]

Just spent 20 minutes or so reading through the comments on the latest playtest column. It's been a while since I've hung around the WotC forums, and I'd forgotten how much more negative they tend to be. Guess I've gotten spoilt, hanging out here.

They seem pretty spot-on to me.

[Kurald Galain]

Did anyone notice the brilliant plan they have to try to fix fighters?

They want to throw more themes at them. A Fighter gets 2 themes instead of one.

Themes are also an optional mechanic. So without that optional mechanic, where's the poor fighter?

[Grac]

I think its good to walk people slowly through a playtest. If you release 100 pages of rules, people are going to have gripes about lots of different things, and there won't be any communication. Releasing 15ish pages of rules lets people really hash through everything before moving onto the next chunk.

You do realize that this pack is over a hundred pages? The specifically player rules part is 30ish pages, double that 15ish, as well...

[Seerow]

Themes are also an optional mechanic. So without that optional mechanic, where's the poor fighter?

I actually assumed that everything in the current playtest was a core mechanic, and the optional mechanics get layered on top of it.

So a Feat module would be brought in replacing, Themes (so you choose your own feats instead of using prepackaged feats). Skills would be brought in replacing Backgrounds. And then apparently maneuvers for martial classes are going to come from feats, so I guess if Fighters got rid of their extra background and instead got twice as many feats as anyone else, that translates to twice as many maneuvers as anyone else...

Which still doesn't make make up for something like the Cleric who has his theme, class features, and still gets his full complement of spells.

[Dienekes]

Themes are also an optional mechanic. So without that optional mechanic, where's the poor fighter?

I guess they'd get double feats then.

Now personally I don't think the double theme thing can't work, but each feat would have to be impressive and offer more useful options.

[Seerow]

I guess they'd get double feats then.

Now personally I don't think the double theme thing can't work, but each feat would have to be impressive and offer more useful options.

The problem is, if they DO do that, then everyone has a bunch of impressive options, and the fighter just gets a couple extras that other people could also have. It's the same problem 3.5 Fighters always faced. No feat based fix for the class has ever worked because of the core problem that if a fighter has access to it, so does somebody else, and they can do more impressive stuff with it.

Also, we do have a few examples of feats. Cleave for example is still a feat that is almost identical to the 3.5 version. Doesn't seem promising for us getting a bunch of really nice abilities.

[Kurald Galain]

I actually assumed that everything in the current playtest was a core mechanic,

Well, Mike's most recent column has various suggestions for "try playing it without X", so probably not.

That said, I'm not overly worried about that. As I recall, proficiencies were an optional chapter in 2E, but I've never met anyone who didn't use them.

However, the problem with making the fighter "feat guy" is exactly the same as in 3E, i.e. that feats don't scale with level.

[Dienekes]

The problem is, if they DO do that, then everyone has a bunch of impressive options, and the fighter just gets a couple extras that other people could also have. It's the same problem 3.5 Fighters always faced. No feat based fix for the class has ever worked because of the core problem that if a fighter has access to it, so does somebody else, and they can do more impressive stuff with it.

Also, we do have a few examples of feats. Cleave for example is still a feat that is almost identical to the 3.5 version. Doesn't seem promising for us getting a bunch of really nice abilities.

True, that's part of the problem, but another part is that spells and many class abilities just are better than a lot of feats. Most styles only really need 4 or so to function pretty well. So with better feats that either retain usefulness or scale balance could work, though admittedly it isn't very likely. But this is on top of other options the Fighter class has. More damage per hit, which isn't much admittedly, but Fighter's Surge could end up scaling very, very well. So in the end we still do need to wait and see how the class and feats look from the beginning to the end of the game.

[noparlpf]

Are we looking at the same document? Cause these are the core rules their all there, combat, interaction and exploration. Anything else would lean towards 3e or 4e and thus be a module which we both seem to agree won't be arriving until later.

The reason the game is so bare bones is because this is the first draft of the core which must appeal to 1e and 2e holdouts if it has any chance of reaching its mission of a unified edition.

Well, I consider character creation to be a bit important. We basically have no idea how these characters fell together; they could literally be a bunch of random numbers. Half of the numbers don't match up with anything the How to Play document lists.

Did anyone notice the brilliant plan they have to try to fix fighters?

They want to throw more themes at them. A Fighter gets 2 themes instead of one.

Remember, themes are literally just a set of preselected feats. It's like Mearls literally does not know how to learn and avoid repeating past mistakes.

But the 3.X Fighter was so good! Look at all those feats! Eleven whole bonus feats (from limited lists) by 20th level? Way better than spells.

The problem is, if they DO do that, then everyone has a bunch of impressive options, and the fighter just gets a couple extras that other people could also have. It's the same problem 3.5 Fighters always faced. No feat based fix for the class has ever worked because of the core problem that if a fighter has access to it, so does somebody else, and they can do more impressive stuff with it.

Also, we do have a few examples of feats. Cleave for example is still a feat that is almost identical to the 3.5 version. Doesn't seem promising for us getting a bunch of really nice abilities.

Cleave is admittedly nice at low levels, when there are more frequently multiple small enemies within reach. If you stick to levels 1-6, Cleave is alright.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Seems accurate. I don't see what a fighter has over a commoner really.

Also: Looking to the Fighter's "level up" data, he breaks the action economy a little bit by getting MORE actions a certain number of times per day. For more attacks.

[DrBurr]

Well, I consider character creation to be a bit important. We basically have no idea how these characters fell together; they could literally be a bunch of random numbers. Half of the numbers don't match up with anything the How to Play document lists.

But Character Creation is not included for a reason this is a Play test on whether or not the core rules work the numbers could be random and likely they are generated using die rolls because no point buy I've ever used lines up with these, really these numbers are irrelevant to the testing of of the combat rules which is the purpose of the play test right now.

[Justin Halliday]

Be glad you didn't meet the kobolds and rats. Then you quickly learn how nasty Advantage can be when used against you.

It really sounds like it. But with the wizard and the fighter having auto-hits for at least 2 HP, those fights didn't sound too interesting. Of course the idea of running away to negate their advantage is interesting.

What did you think of the new (old?) Turn Undead mechanics? We didn't get a chance to use them in our playtest.

As I mentioned, the Turn Dead mechanic totally shut down the low-level undead in both of the undead encounters. This meant that one cleric could keep them 'turned' while the rest of the party picked them off one by one. It was the opposite of interesting in the end. The undead didn't get a chance to save every turn and the duration lasted as long as the cleric kept it going. It would probably be more interesting with stronger (and more durable) undead, who can hang around for a few rounds after they've been 'woken up' with an ax to the head!

My group found that there was a lot of dull rounds spent hitting things with sticks. (Partly the GM though. He's not that great when it comes to flavourful combat.). I got the impression that your group had a much more tactical experience. Did you find this hindered the flow of the combat?

The combat wasn't particularly tactical. Other than surprising the hobgoblins, there wasn't really anything that we could to to tactically improve our efficiency (such as through gaining advantage).

The point of the current playtest isn't to demonstrate the modularity though. It's to test the functionality of the core ruleset. They probably haven't even begun designing the vast majority of what's going to modular within the rules.

Maybe, but there is a bit on the character sheet that demonstrates modularilty (ignore the Themes and Backgrounds for an old-school experience), but doing that means that you miss out on significant mechanical advantages.

[Seerow]

Cleave is admittedly nice at low levels, when there are more frequently multiple small enemies within reach. If you stick to levels 1-6, Cleave is alright.

I'm not so sure. Just looking at the bestiary provided for level 1-3 characters, I see:

-88 HP
-66 HP
-60 HP
-66 HP
-75 HP
-44 HP
-66 HP
-132 HP
-88 HP
-45 HP
-110 HP
-132 HP
-42 HP


Out of 32 entries, 13 entries, or a bit more than 1/3rd, have over 40 HP. 10 of those (almost exactly 1/3rd) have over 60 HP. 3 of those have over 100.

Yes there are weaker enemies that can be taken out in a single strike in there, but these are exclusively the monsters that are expected to be okay for a level 1-3 PC party to face. I can only imagine the HP scaling continues to rise from here.

On the other hand, player damage doesn't. The Fighter gets +1 damage after 3 levels. The only other bonus to damage we're aware of is a masterwork weapon, for another +1. Basically we'd need to either see a LOT more scaling in damage or MUCH less scaling of hit points for monsters, for cleave to be really great even at low levels.

[noparlpf]

In 5e, yeah, monster HP is like that. I was thinking more 3.X, in which some of the classic things you fight at low levels are groups of goblins or kobolds. Cleave is great there.

[Starbuck_II]

The combat wasn't particularly tactical. Other than surprising the hobgoblins, there wasn't really anything that we could to to tactically improve our efficiency (such as through gaining advantage).

Well, you could have set a trap.
Like spill oil on ground when they arrive throw a torch at it. But that requires them following you guys in an arranged chase.

[Justin Halliday]

Well, you could have set a trap.
Like spill oil on ground when they arrive throw a torch at it. But that requires them following you guys in an arranged chase.

We didn't have any oil, nor did we find any in the caves we explored. And we tried to surprise the cultists, but that didn't work out great. :-)

[king.com]

Just spent 20 minutes or so reading through the comments on the latest playtest column. It's been a while since I've hung around the WotC forums, and I'd forgotten how much more negative they tend to be. Guess I've gotten spoilt, hanging out here.

I thought edition wars were bad on this forum but geeez the vast majority of the playtest discussion consists of 'this game sucks because its like 4th ed!' or '4th ed isnt like a video game, there were more video games made about 3.5 than 4th!'. Just random nonsensical insults and comments, its both hilarious and kinda sad.

Anyway question about playtest material:

As someone who doesnt play D&D, how tall is the average halfling/dwarf/elf/human? Need it for the 'hide behind someone bigger than you' rule. Unless im missing something obvious I dont think it actually gives everyone their sizes (beyond small/medium).

Also theres the idea that came up where you can argueably have the dwarf fighter carry around a dead body for the halfling to hide behind. Since the rule doesnt state whether it needs to be alive, certain corpses are going to be big enough depending on the halfing. Not the most logical but definitely a surpise jump in logic.