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

[Seerow]

I actually like this alot except for all the classes being the same (that's 4th edition). You did a good job, but I already play like that so I'm not paying you. You still need the books for the setting, spells, classes, monsters, gear, flavorful fun things, and a flexible frame work for some consistency so one player doesn't have to roll against a hard DC while another player performing a similar action got to roll against an easy DC, but not pages and pages of bureaucratic documents.

The classes aren't all exactly the same though. They're completely different! It's just up to the DM to tell you where one class can do something that the others can't. Rules just get in the way, only your group can know what's right for you, and only the DM is wise enough to make the decisions of what your character is allowed to do. Your job as a player is to think of all the crazy things, and your DM is there to decide if you should be allowed to try it or not.

Similarly, who cares about specific spells? Why would you want rules telling you what your spells are able to do? You're a wizard, if you can think of it you should be able to try it. It's up to you DM to determine if trying it is too powerful or not, and set the DC or opposed roll appropriately high.

Also, gear? Why do I need rules to tell me what different gear does. If I want to use a Longsword, why shouldn't I be able to do that without the game telling me its an inferior option mechanically? Once again, this is something best left to the DM, because he knows best. Game designers should butt out. Their ideas of balance shoehorn me away from my roleplaying.

Even weapon damage is a completely unnecessary stat. Just roll the d20, do I care if the attack does d8+3 damage? No! What I care about is what it did to the goblin I just slashed, and that's up to the DM, based on how well I rolled on the D20. The DM might decide the goblin died from the strike, or that I only scratched him, that's his call. Hit points are totally unrealistic anyway, why have them when we have a DM to arbitrate these things?


Seriously people put way too much emphasis on balance and game mechanics. We just need to be creative and work with the DM to come up with unique solutions to everything.

[Draz74]

If Fitch3k wants a less sarcastic/straw-mannish rebuttal to his points, I would advise that he read Urpriest''s recent post over in the other 5e discussion thread.

I fully agree with his position.

EDIT: Quote provided for convenience.

Spoiler

Show

Just butting in a bit on the improvisation debate: DM fiat is a problem because anything a DM can fiat, sufficiently well-designed rules can duplicate.

Example: Suppose a player is being "creative". It's a tough fight, and the enemy has lots of hit points. The party is taking too long to kill the creature and running low on resources.

Our "creative" player says "I attack the monster, then twist my sword in the wound, dealing double damage!"

Now maybe you think this is a sufficiently cool description. If you don't, imagine that the player had described it in such a way that you would indeed rule it to be double damage. So you let him get away with it.

Later that fight, or in another fight, the player again decides to deal more damage. Maybe this time he says,

"I attack the monster, then jump up, throwing my weight into the thrust to push further and deal double damage!"

Now the player can just keep doing this. And at some point, if you're a half-decent DM, you're going to say "this time you just deal normal damage". Maybe you only let this sort of thing happen once per fight, or you only let it happen when the fight is especially hard, or you only let him pull this sort of thing off once per session. You put some sort of limit on it.

Great. You've just invented Encounter Powers. Or Daily Powers, or "unlocked when the fight is really hard" powers.

The thing is, you have a number of choices of how often you let the player deal double damage. And whatever frequency you choose, this will affect their average damage. Similar things can be said if the player is instead being "creative" in order to push monsters around tactically, or debuff them, or whatever. Whatever you do, you're faced with the question "what should the player's average damage dealt/damage taken/control of the battlefield" be?

And that question has an answer. Not just an answer for your game, but potentially a set of answers that can cover everyone's game. After all, in the end it's merely a mechanical question of how much damage the player should do to keep the fights functioning as intended. The answer may be hard to discover, but it's harder to discover when improvising on the fly than through rigorous playtesting. A sufficiently competent game designer will come up with objectively better answers to this question than you, and even a mediocre one will come up with better answers than the majority of DMs. Rules will always be better at handling improvisation than fiat, because fiat is created on the fly, while rules, at their best (which is what 5e is supposed to be) are tested.

[Craft (Cheese)]

Anytime a rule replaces a player thinking and interacting at the table it's a bad rule. Having too many rules and feats telling a player what actions they can take and when puts him on auto-pilot simply exploiting the right mechanic as he sifts through his available dictated options.

There's a very simple reply to this: If a game degenerates down to mindlessly pushing win buttons over and over, it's a flawed game. Bad game design causes this, not the existence of rules itself.

[Kurald Galain]

It's important to note that the background, theme, and advantage systems are all present in 4E, which, I feel, does them better...

The funny thing is that the main selling point of 4E is game balance, and both its backgrounds and its theme mechanics are extremely unbalanced.

[Crow]

There's a very simple reply to this: If a game degenerates down to mindlessly pushing win buttons over and over, it's a flawed game. Bad game design causes this, not the existence of rules itself.

Hell, 3.5 and 4e games have been degenerating into this for years now.

[WitchSlayer]

Just a side thought about 4e class differentiations. Assume Fighter/Rogue/Wizard/Cleric.

They could have easily made each type of power source play differently than the other types while still being much less imbalanced than 3.5. Imagine This-

The Fighter gets a small set of at will powers, and a set of maneuvers that require several at will powers to be used before being able to fire off. Think of them as complex multi round maneuvers with the at wills composing them. Thus the fighter is rewarded for staying in the thick of battle.

Going off of this, my friend had a really cool idea and that is to have sort of a "combo" system for the melee classes, where one attack leads into the next and you build up for a super strong strike. It would be fun and would work well, sadly I don't think we'll be getting this in D&D Next (Or D&D ever for that matter) any time soon. I really felt this urge to have this while playing an Avenger and I saw a level 17 power called "Ready the Final Blow" Which immobilizes and gives you a bonus to attack against your target.

Now wouldn't that name be awesome if instead of just doing one of your normal attacks on your target you whipped out some Fist of the North Star style stuff out and blew up an enemy?

[Aidan305]

It's important to note that the background, theme, and advantage systems are all present in 4E, which, I feel, does them better...

Background and Theme, I believe, started in 2e. However in their present incarnation they are completely unique to Next. We'll have to agree to disagree about which edition we think does them better.

The Next advantage system, however, did not exist in 4e. It may be the same term, but that's the only similarity as far as mechanics are concerned.

[Kurald Galain]

Background and Theme, I believe, started in 2e.

Now that you mention it - yes, yes they did. Backgrounds are what 2E called "secondary skills" (basically your profession before you became adventurer, and they did give you the relevant skills) and themes are what 2E called "kits", except that kits are class-dependent and themes are not, and kits appeared in splatbooks rather than the PHB1.

So I think a better name for 5E would be "D&D Previous"

[WitchSlayer]

Background and Theme, I believe, started in 2e. However in their present incarnation they are completely unique to Next. We'll have to agree to disagree about which edition we think does them better.

The Next advantage system, however, did not exist in 4e. It may be the same term, but that's the only similarity as far as mechanics are concerned.

Actually the Next advantage system does exist in a certain part of 4e

It's called the Avenger

Or the 4venger if you will.

[Yora]

Much more important than the "Roll twice, pick the better/worse" is the fact, that there is only one type of advantage that does not stack. You can have advantage to many different things at the same time, but the benefit is always the same. Even if you don't want to roll twice and take a +3 bonus instead. Keeping track of buffs and circumstance modifiers becomes so much easier that way.

[EatAtEmrakuls]

Much more important than the "Roll twice, pick the better/worse" is the fact, that there is only one type of advantage that does not stack. You can have advantage to many different things at the same time, but the benefit is always the same. Even if you don't want to roll twice and take a +3 bonus instead. Keeping track of buffs and circumstance modifiers becomes so much easier that way.

And makes really good scenarios, like an enemy being paralyzed, blinded, restrained, prone, and charmed, the same as, I don't know, being flanked (assuming they give us this gem back.)

Also makes really bad scenarios equally useless.

Which is nothing but a detraction.

[Zombimode]

And makes really good scenarios, like an enemy being paralyzed, blinded, restrained, prone, and charmed, the same as, I don't know, being flanked (assuming they give us this gem back.)

Also makes really bad scenarios equally useless.

Which is nothing but a detraction.

You know, stuff like "Advantages and Disadvantages that don't stack lead to a lot of undesirable and/or silly situations" is exactly the kind of feedback WotC is after with this playtest.
So, instead of just badmouthing everything, sing up for the playtest and fill out the survey.

[lesser_minion]

Advantage and Disadvantage are basically circumstance bonuses/penalties of (I think somebody calculated it as) +/-5. It's an interesting way to add more dice-rolling, but circumstance bonuses worked fine in 3.X.

Actually, advantage and disadvantage are strictly weaker than +5 bonuses and -5 penalties.

Rolling twice and using the best result is only equivalent to a +5 bonus or a -5 penalty if you had an even chance to succeed without it. Otherwise, it's less valuable.

Moreover, advantage will not give you new capabilities, and disadvantage will not remove existing capabilities. Your maximum and minimum check results remain the same regardless.

[Yora]

And makes really good scenarios, like an enemy being paralyzed, blinded, restrained, prone, and charmed, the same as, I don't know, being flanked (assuming they give us this gem back.)

No. It would be the same as being palayzed or restrained.

But the real issue with that is "how often does that actually happen?". While 3rd Edition and Pathfinder certainly went the way of accounting for as many eventualities as possible, this is a design descision and not a requirement.
And the descision for 5th Edition seems to be, that having a few unrealistic situation are more than compensated by having a simpler game for most of the time, when these special cases don't apply.

[Eldan]

If your enemy has seven disadvantages on him, isn't that approaching the point where the DM should just declare the fight over, since hte enemy won't be doing much anyway?

[Kurald Galain]

No. It would be the same as being palayzed or restrained.

But the real issue with that is "how often does that actually happen?".

We'll have to see, but in 4E the answer is "all the time". It is very common for an enemy to be prone (thus granting combat advantage), and dazed (granting CA again) and blinded (once again) and flanked (one more time) all at once. The game would have been more tactical if at least some of that did stack.

[DefKab]

The Background in 4E was One (1) free skill training. Lame, but could NEVER be considered overpowered. With less skills on the table (Blessing? Curse?), that free skill training was usually good, and flavorful. Very much akin to the Backgrounds of the as mentioned 2nd Ed, and Next's proposed (We should keep in mind that this isn't set in stone) Background system...

Next is Themes, which 4E gave you a free Encounter Power with a lot of flavor feeling in it. It FELT like something that Theme should give you, and looks very similar to the feats given in Next.

When looking at optimization boards for 4E, Backgrounds and Themes are almost never mentioned, because they're pretty inconsequential. NOT overpowered.

So, They're similar... Advantage/Disadvantage is, by name only, provided in 4E as a flat +2 given out...
I like Advantages re-roll system. It's novel, its fun, and it reduces the hurt of rolling a low number, because you get to re-roll it... It doesn't matter if you have a +3 or a +30, getting a 4 on the die sucks equally for both situation...

So, there are advantages and disadvantages to using either system. Both are good, but it's another choice that hammers in firmly the feeling that Next will give. Extra rolls say to me "Ponderous and Slow" because I see them as slowing the pace of combat. Flat modifiers are "Quick and Swingy" because they stack rapidly against either side, and I can throw them on top of a die-roll quickly. That's how I feel about them. What do you guys think they say about the play style of the game, if you were just told that it includes the Advantage system?

[Saph]

Extra rolls say to me "Ponderous and Slow" because I see them as slowing the pace of combat. Flat modifiers are "Quick and Swingy" because they stack rapidly against either side, and I can throw them on top of a die-roll quickly. That's how I feel about them. What do you guys think they say about the play style of the game, if you were just told that it includes the Advantage system?

I'd say the exact opposite. Having lots of small stacking modifiers makes combat hideously slow, because you have to stop to recalculate your bonus every single die roll (this was a major annoyance with 3e that 4e completely failed to fix and in some ways actually made worse). I much prefer games where you have a fixed number on your character sheet which doesn't change every turn.

[Kurald Galain]

The Background in 4E was One (1) free skill training. Lame, but could NEVER be considered overpowered.

And then there's the backgrounds that give you 10 extra hit points, or that let you roll twice on all arcana checks, or that let you multiclass twice. The latter was errata'ed out of existence, the other two are basically what every semi-optimized character uses.

Mind you, I didn't say "overpowered". I said "unbalanced", in that a handful of backgrounds are so much stronger than the others that there's no reason to use the others.

Extra rolls say to me "Ponderous and Slow" because I see them as slowing the pace of combat. Flat modifiers are "Quick and Swingy"

Having lots of flat modifiers is one of the main factors of slowing down combat. Extra rolls strike me as faster, because they avoid this kind of fiddling.

[The Troubadour]

I like the idea of simplifying modifiers, but I think it could be a bit less simple. Something like:

Severe penalty - You suffer a -5 penalty to your roll.
Penalty - You suffer a -2 penalty to your roll.
Advantage - You gain a +2 bonus to your roll.
Extreme advantage - You gain a +5 bonus to your roll.

Something like that.

We'll have to see, but in 4E the answer is "all the time". It is very common for an enemy to be prone (thus granting combat advantage), and dazed (granting CA again) and blinded (once again) and flanked (one more time) all at once. The game would have been more tactical if at least some of that did stack.

Wait, are you talking about Next, or 4E? Because in 4E, you'd have an enemy who would have to either attack from the ground (and thus, suffer a -4 penalty in melee) or spend a move action to get up; he would have only one action per round, so that move action would have been his sole action that round; and would suffer a -5 penalty to all attack rolls, and that's if he managed to detect his target in some way.

[Kurald Galain]

Because in 4E, you'd have an enemy who would have to either attack from the ground

I meant the bonuses you would get from attacking him. The penalties he gets for attacking you do tend to stack.

Although the penalty for being prone is -2, not -4; and detecting your enemies is automatic unless they've taken a move action to stealth themselves. Well, this I'll say for 5E, it already has much better (and clearer) stealth rules than 4E does.

[Clawhound]

Why I like advantage is that any advantage is not always, equally valuable. Thus, stacking bonuses until there is no challenge stops being a viable character design option.

The second reason that I like advantage is that it enables some cool things.

For example:

Black Powder Pistol. Takes an action to reload. Firing a musket pistol grants advantage.

Now I don't need rules for armor penetration or touch attack or other fiddly stuff. I can virtualize physics and metaphysics.

We could also do something like this:

Fury. Free action. This round, you fly into a fury. Ignore all disadvantages for this action. You now have advantage for this action.

There's lots of fun design room left with this concept of advantage.

[Thialfi]

The Extra rolls say to me "Ponderous and Slow" because I see them as slowing the pace of combat. Flat modifiers are "Quick and Swingy" because they stack rapidly against either side, and I can throw them on top of a die-roll quickly. That's how I feel about them. What do you guys think they say about the play style of the game, if you were just told that it includes the Advantage system?

I am confused as to how rolling two dice and determining which is better is slower than rolling one die and adding a number to it. Unless, of course, you can only afford one twenty sided die per player.

My group of 33 years still plays our 1e/2e hybrid. We have imported some house rules from 3e that we like. One of those rules was intended as a nerf to dual wielding where two handed weapons get 1.5 times the strength modifier while dual wielding reduces the off hand by 50%. I am a fan of two handed weapons and have shown the players the math that the two handed weapons are now equal to dual wielding, but it doesn't matter to any of the other players because they like rolling multiple dice. It adds to the fun for them.

[Tyndmyr]

I'm torn. I like the simplicity of rolling two dice instead of calculating numbers. That sounds awesome. Also, I like dice, and excuses to use more are always a plus.

However, it means that basically always having advantage is going to be one of the core elements of charop. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

[Clawhound]

Having players who were continually confused by which numbers added to which, getting an extra die is a bit simpler. They will still be confused, mostly from not paying attention, but they will know which number to use.

[MReav]

However, it means that basically always having advantage is going to be one of the core elements of charop. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Having any sort of advantage has always been a staple of character optimization. At least this new "Advantage" system can only have at most one applied per roll.

[Kurald Galain]

However, it means that basically always having advantage is going to be one of the core elements of charop. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

If WOTC knows what they're doing, there won't be any mechanics/feats/spells that give permanent Advantage.

[Tyndmyr]

If WOTC knows what they're doing, there won't be any mechanics/feats/spells that give permanent Advantage.

I don't envision this being any more difficult than say, ensuring you basically always get sneak attack.

MReav...if that's true, then char design will be extremely boring. That said, I feel like there will almost certainly be other optimization to engage in.

[DefKab]

I'm sorry, I see I was a tad pessimistic.

Regarding the Slow And Ponderous, I didn't mean it as a bad thing. Just neutral thinking...

I have no reason to believe we wont have constantly adjusting stacking benefits. It's just the thing with d20 systems to have lots of little numbers. The use of a d20 increases granularity, whose sole purpose is to have a lot of little numbers.

I see this as a benefit (personally) only because I crunch numbers very quickly, but this also means that having advantage means that not only will a slower player STILL have to add a bunch of fiddly numbers (We already have them, look at a fighter. Players dont write that stuff down, they'll see Str, and we'll have to remind them of everything. ><) but they'll also have to do it TWICE. That is why I say it's slow and ponderous. I know I'll get into the habit of Rolling one die, having advantage, and checking to make sure the first even missed before rolling the second. Or else, why bother? (I know why, for nat 20's and such...) But you get the point.

Advantage/Disadvantage doesn't just get rid of all the fiddly number. They'll still be there. That makes extra die rolls on the exact roles these numbers come in on 'Slow and ponderous'. I'm ok with it, as long as that's the premise for the system.

But everyone wants DnD to be quick in combat... I don't know if this is the way to do it. Personally.

[king.com]

I don't envision this being any more difficult than say, ensuring you basically always get sneak attack.

MReav...if that's true, then char design will be extremely boring. That said, I feel like there will almost certainly be other optimization to engage in.

Wouldn't it be better for character creation and levelling systems to give you hard numbers while in game your working out the advantage disadvantage so you dont need to do much on the fly math?

I see this as a benefit (personally) only because I crunch numbers very quickly, but this also means that having advantage means that not only will a slower player STILL have to add a bunch of fiddly numbers (We already have them, look at a fighter. Players dont write that stuff down, they'll see Str, and we'll have to remind them of everything. ><) but they'll also have to do it TWICE. That is why I say it's slow and ponderous. I know I'll get into the habit of Rolling one die, having advantage, and checking to make sure the first even missed before rolling the second. Or else, why bother? (I know why, for nat 20's and such...) But you get the point.

Why would you not just roll the 2 d20s at the same time and pick higher then add numbers to it?

Seems like you can setup a system where numbers are calculated all beforehand and advantage/disadvantage is what changes in battle.