D&D 5th Edition: Thread #7

[Kurald Galain]

Wait, it gets funnier. Looking over the spell list, I note the following:

• Material components are back.
• Fans of 3E's (lack of) balance will enjoy the return of the Polymorph spell, which indeed allows you to gain all the powers of the new form, although target forms are restricted to beasts only.
• Spell drawbacks are also back. For instance, the Blink spell has a 1/400 chance per round of trapping you on the Ethereal Plane.
• Spells have really atrocious flavor text; for instance, casting Levitate requires you to imagine glowing wires that suspend your target from above.
• They've at least learned from 4E that zones that damage you on entry should trigger only once per turn.
• A handful of arbitrarily chosen spells can be memorized at a higher level, which increases e.g. their damage. Surprisingly, Fireball and Lightning Bolt are not on the list.
• The spell list is relatively short, and appears to be restricted to the most iconic classic spells (and at their classic level). The only 4E spell I spot on the list is Thunderwave.

(edit) also, hit dice appear to be gone, and they've added an optional rule for second wind (which can be used as often as you like, including to fully heal you between combats).

[Lord_Gareth]

Wait, it gets funnier. Looking over the spell list, I note the following:

• Material components are back.
• Fans of 3E's (lack of) balance will enjoy the return of the Polymorph spell, which indeed allows you to gain all the powers of the new form, although target forms are restricted to beasts only.
• Spell drawbacks are also back. For instance, the Blink spell has a 1/400 chance per round of trapping you on the Ethereal Plane.
• Spells have really atrocious flavor text; for instance, casting Levitate requires you to imagine glowing wires that suspend your target from above.
• They've at least learned from 4E that zones that damage you on entry should trigger only once per turn.
• A handful of arbitrarily chosen spells can be memorized at a higher level, which increases e.g. their damage. Surprisingly, Fireball and Lightning Bolt are not on the list.
• The spell list is relatively short, and appears to be restricted to the most iconic classic spells (and at their classic level). The only 4E spell I spot on the list is Thunderwave.

(edit) also, hit dice appear to be gone, and they've added an optional rule for second wind (which can be used as often as you like, including to fully heal you between combats).

Sigh. I knew it was too much to hope that throwing out Monte Cooke would solve some of these problems.

[Seerow]

In case nobody noticed, they took away the Parry maneuver, so now at first level you have even fewer options. By level 10 you have a total of 6 maneuvers. Among those maneuvers include such exciting things as "add 1dx to a saving throw" and "jump 1dX inches higher". This is seriously more pathetic than the 3.5 Fighter. What a joke.

[wadledo]

In case nobody noticed, they took away the Parry maneuver, so now at first level you have even fewer options. By level 10 you have a total of 6 maneuvers. Among those maneuvers include such exciting things as "add 1dx to a saving throw" and "jump 1dX inches higher". This is seriously more pathetic than the 3.5 Fighter. What a joke.

I would argue that any reference to the 3.5 fighter is worse than the 3.5 fighter, but you are free to believe what you wish.

[Seerow]

I would argue that any reference to the 3.5 fighter is worse than the 3.5 fighter, but you are free to believe what you wish.

That doesn't even make sense.

[Loki_42]

In case nobody noticed, they took away the Parry maneuver, .

No they didn't.

[Gralamin]

In case nobody noticed, they took away the Parry maneuver, so now at first level you have even fewer options. By level 10 you have a total of 6 maneuvers. Among those maneuvers include such exciting things as "add 1dx to a saving throw" and "jump 1dX inches higher". This is seriously more pathetic than the 3.5 Fighter. What a joke.

Parry is still there. Manoeuvres page 3.

[wadledo]

That doesn't even make sense.

Look at the previous two comments.

[Seerow]

Parry is still there. Manoeuvres page 3.

No they didn't.

Okay, Parry Maneuver still exists. What I meant was you no longer get it for free at level 1 alongside deadly strike. Some styles pick it up as one of their maneuvers, but they don't get it automatically like it was before. It's still one fewer maneuver known for a class that has distressingly few options. (Rogue is even worse in this regard)

[AgentPaper]

I can't say anything on the maneuvers themselves being exciting, but I think you're being disingenuous to say that the fighter has less options that, say, a wizard. Yes, a level 5 wizard has 9 spells to choose from, while a fighter has only 4 maneuvers.

However, that's not the whole story. Whenever a wizard uses a spell, they have one less option at their disposal. They may start out with 9 options, but that quickly goes down until all they have are their at-will spells. And of course, often a wizard will prepare the same spell multiple times, reducing their raw options available further.

Additionally, while the fighter might only have 4 maneuvers, there is far more flexibility in when and how he uses those options. A wizard can cast their one spell, and that's it for the turn (usually). A fighter, however, can spend one dice on Parry, then another on Precise Shot, on the same turn. At level 5, with two dice, this essentially means that you have 4*4=16 different options to choose from.

Of course, only a few of those options are actually going to be something you want to do, but the same can be said for most wizard spells.

All in all, it's comparing apples to oranges. Maneuvers are not spells, so the fact that a wizard has more spells than a fighter has maneuvers doesn't really mean anything.

That said, the maneuvers themselves look a bit weak, at least on paper. Perhaps they work out differently in action, but I wouldn't be surprised if they need some buffing.

[Madfellow]

(edit) also, hit dice appear to be gone, and they've added an optional rule for second wind (which can be used as often as you like, including to fully heal you between combats).

I don't know what material you're looking at, but hit dice are definitely still present. And the new packet makes no reference to second wind or in-combat hit die spending at all.

On an unrelated note, did anybody else notice the new dual-wielding rules? Having disadvantage on both attacks is no fun at all, and I notice it uses the words "light weapon," without detailing which weapons count as "light."

Regarding the changes to the rogue, I actually like it. At first I was surprised and maybe even a little disappointed that they gave it expertise dice, but it had seemed like it was heading in that direction anyway. The rules make it more fun to play (if a little more complicated), and clearly establish it as a skills-based class. For example, its automatic maneuver at 1st level is Skill Mastery, as opposed to something like Sneak Attack or Parry. And is anybody else really glad to see Thieves' Cant gone?

Also, what do other people think about casters getting only 2 spell slots per level? Feels weird to me. In my opinion a primary caster should get like 3 slots per level at least.

And I'll admit some of the maneuvers look a little lackluster or overly complicated, but if a party has one fighter and one rogue who each choose the style/scheme/individual maneuvers that appeal most to them, I think combat will become very interesting and their characters will be quite powerful. Add damage to attacks, add maneuverability, add extra attacks, overcome disadvantages, add to accuracy? Recharge every turn? Scary stuff.

[Knaight]

I can't say anything on the maneuvers themselves being exciting, but I think you're being disingenuous to say that the fighter has less options that, say, a wizard. Yes, a level 5 wizard has 9 spells to choose from, while a fighter has only 4 maneuvers.

However, that's not the whole story. Whenever a wizard uses a spell, they have one less option at their disposal. They may start out with 9 options, but that quickly goes down until all they have are their at-will spells. And of course, often a wizard will prepare the same spell multiple times, reducing their raw options available further.

The wizard does have spells available for repeated use. With that said, if you read the how to play document you'll notice that the generic maneuvers (disarm, trip, etc.) are back, so the fighter has way over four from day one, and they just keep getting more. With that said, I'm not sure what it ends up looking like once restricted to those that aren't terrible.

[wadledo]

I like the idea that someone had for rogues getting more exdice, but lower totals (ie d4's and d6's) compared to the fighters less but better dice.
Understandable that we don't see that this round though.

[Knaight]

I am liking the removal of thieves' cant from the rogue and its introduction to backgrounds. In general, the current division of classes versus backgrounds versus specializations is doing fairly well, and I'm generally seeing improvements.

With that said: Equipment just keeps getting worse and worse, and there are things I haven't read that might well be causing problems.

[Dienekes]

Well they made full-attacks a standard action now, so that's something.

But looking throw the Maneuvers so far they seem all told pretty dull. It looks like they're trying to do the right thing, but they're worried about making them too powerful. They also seem to want to force the Expertise Roll even when it's not necessary. Take Whirlwind Attack, just let them deal normal weapon damage, otherwise at level 10 you're dealing 5 damage to 3 opponents, that's just sad.

They also seem to have taken our advice on making Expertise Dice come back at the end of your turn instead of the start of the next one.

Also feats: Can't see any martial specialist not take Ambush Specialist. Seriously Endurance Specialist sucks. In what messed up world is 1 DR worth a 9th level feat slot.

[Knaight]

Also feats: Can't see any martial specialist not take Ambush Specialist. Seriously Endurance Specialist sucks. In what messed up world is 1 DR worth a 9th level feat slot.

Also, Toughness is back down to its previous sad and pathetic levels. It is, at least, equivalent to 3.5 improved Toughness, but still.

[wadledo]

Also, Toughness is back down to its previous sad and pathetic levels. It is, at least, equivalent to 3.5 improved Toughness, but still.

Seriously, is there any way Toughness could actually be good but not overpowered?

[Craft (Cheese)]

Seriously, is there any way Toughness could actually be good but not overpowered?

As a feat? Likely not, unless feats become much cheaper. I have, however, been toying with the idea of "Toughness" as a skill you can dump skill points into to raise your max HP.

[Dienekes]

Seriously, is there any way Toughness could actually be good but not overpowered?

Personally I've been toying with the idea in my own homebrew system (cause who isn't making one these days?) of combining (Improved) Toughness with Great Fortitude. And doing something similar with each of the bonus to save feats to make them at least a little more interesting.

Probably will still never be the optimized choice, but at least it's something.

[wadledo]

Personally I've been toying with the idea in my own homebrew system (cause who isn't making one these days?) of combining (Improved) Toughness with Great Fortitude. And doing something similar with each of the bonus to save feats to make them at least a little more interesting.

Probably will still never be the optimized choice, but at least it's something.

They should probably just scrap it as a HP increaser and just have it give something like 1/- DR.

Also, check out Fantasycraft. It has some pretty good Save Increase feats.

[Flickerdart]

Expertise dice, hit dice...is it just me, or are there more and different kinds of dice being rolled now than in previous editions?

[TuggyNE]

Expertise dice, hit dice...is it just me, or are there more and different kinds of dice being rolled now than in previous editions?

Next up: armor dice, resistance dice, and d14s.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Next up: armor dice, resistance dice, and d14s.

And a defense roll and a soak roll. In addition to the armor and resistance rolls. Because why not?

[wadledo]

And a defense roll and a soak roll. In addition to the armor and resistance rolls. Because why not?

So a simplified 2e?

[AgentPaper]

Oh, and here's my death knight again in case anyone wants to try a homebrew class for 5e. I'd love to get some feedback on how it plays/how balanced it is.

[Zeful]

Seriously, is there any way Toughness could actually be good but not overpowered?

Possible, but for it to happen a couple of things have to be designed a certain way. Firstly being no feat scales, ever. All future potential of a feat is non-existent do to inherent restrictions or the feat being simple minor flat bonuses. For some examples, if Extend Spell required caster level 5, it would only ever work on up to 3rd level spells, Power Attack would provide a fixed bonus to Damage at a fixed penalty to attack, and so on. Secondly, defensive options being more more powerful than equivalent offensive options. Under this, sinking every single option you have into offense leaves you very weak to the offense of your enemies, but doesn't provide enough of a boost to defeat somone in a damage race that has sunk all their options into defense, while still providing enough of a boost that someone speccing half-and-half has the accuracy and damage to overcome defenses and health, as well as the defenses and health themselves to survive the enemy's negligible offense.

It's a good, if risky path to take, as it would be very non-traditional.

[Craft (Cheese)]

Oh, and here's my death knight again in case anyone wants to try a homebrew class for 5e. I'd love to get some feedback on how it plays/how balanced it is.

My group's gonna run another playtest session with the new packet. I'll show them your class and see if anyone's interested in trying her out. Worst comes to worst, I'll try to see if I can fit in an NPC with the class.

[wadledo]

Firstly being no feat scales, ever. All future potential of a feat is non-existent do to inherent restrictions or the feat being simple minor flat bonuses.

What? Why?
There is absolutely no reason for no feat ever to scale.
For your examples only, caster level and increased BaB and damage coming from magic weapons and stats are two things that scale, making a fixed power attack and metamagic automatically scaling. Allowing them to scale by PC choice does nothing towards their power, and everything for their utility and perceived value.

The rest of your statement makes about as much sense.

[Kurald Galain]

I don't know what material you're looking at, but hit dice are definitely still present.

The same as yours. But I'm just working from the "recent changes" table and skimming the rest, so I may be missing things. I have the rest of the forum to correct me on that, after all :) However, page 19 has an optional second wind mechanic, if not by that name.

On an unrelated note, did anybody else notice the new dual-wielding rules? Having disadvantage on both attacks is no fun at all,

In practice I think that's okay, as there's lots of ways to get disad and none of them stack. For instance, dual wielding is not punished if you're in the dark, or drunk, or whatever. And yes, I still think disad needs to stack somehow.

I don't think I like the approach of "nothing is a class feature, everything is a maneuver" for fighters and rogues; in practice, I'm afraid it'll mean that there are 2-3 really powerful maneuvers that everybody always takes, and the rest will go unused. Note that fighters have only 5 maneuvers by level 10, rogues have 4 (although I'd expect an "extra maneuver" feat somewhere). That's not a whole lot of there's a few near-mandatory options.

[Draz74]

Weird; in contrast to the general reaction around here, I was impressed by this latest playtest packet overall. Sure, there are still dozens of little problems, but this is the first round of rules I've seen that gives me hope that Next could turn out to be a better overall game than 3e Core.

It's starting to look like something that is unquestionably D&D, with tons of iconic "sacred cows" from earlier editions, but with a nice mix of AD&D, 3e, and 4e mushed together. Now, there are some of those sacred cows that I don't like, such as the Six Ability Scores. But hey, at least this is looking like it will be a decent game within those limitations.

My favorite part were nerfs and streamlinings of the magic system.

Dropping the full casters to a number of spells/day (not counting Level 0's) equal to their Level, with no Bonus Spells from a high ability score, means that Spells/Day might actually be a meaningful limit, allowing non-magical characters to shine after a couple encounters have already happened for the day. (Or it could just exacerbate the Fifteen-Minute Workday, but that's a danger of the Vancian daily-based system in general. ) Anyway, the point is that with Maneuvers "refreshing" every round, and Spells only being recovered every Day, there are actual pros and cons to each. Will spellcasters still be utterly dominant overall? Maybe, at high levels and/or if the casters are really creative about their spell use (or if the DM just doesn't allow mundane characters to do cool things, because they're not magical). But I actually think we might be approaching a semblance of balance -- if the DM manages to put some kind of urgency or time pressure on the party.

The new Concentration rules put a new limit, not only on the power of spellcasters, but on the bookkeeping of spellcasters as well. If they make every spell that involves annoying fiddly die bonuses (like Bless/Prayer/Haste) require Concentration, then that will make such bonuses tolerable to keep track of. Also, the new Concentration is kind of a cool way to bring back the idea of "spells getting disrupted by attacking the Wizard," without making it as harsh as it was in 2e or as complicated as it was in 3e.

More on the subject of bookkeeping: durations based on the level of the caster are completely gone. Maybe that was true in earlier playtest packets too; I was too annoyed by how overpowered the spells were to care. But in any case, it's a change in the right direction.

On a similar note, the spell list has also been consolidated quite a bit -- it now looks like a relatively trim list of iconic D&D spells.

Comments on Individual Spells

Good:

Spoiler

Show

• Create Water no longer scales with level in a way that can make it practical for flooding dungeons or otherwise breaking the game, even if you can cast it at-will.
• Cure Minor Wounds got a simple limitation implemented so that it can be at-will without meaning "infinite healing for everyone," kind of similar to the Dragon Shaman Vigor Aura in 3e. A pretty elegant fix at first glance, although I'll complain about it later on.
• Bless: requires Concentration, and is a Word of Power, so that it doesn't waste make your turn boring. And works on all Saving Throws, not just vs. Fear. Yay!
• Divine Favor: requires Concentration, is a Word of Power, and doesn't scale with level in a way that would allow it to become broken like in 3e. At first I was kind of annoyed with how it's kind of inferior to Bless, but now I think that might be a good sign of WotC encouraging Clerics to be party-friendly instead of becoming ClericZilla.
• Protection from Evil: now Cleric-only; I never thought it made much fluff-sense on the Wizard anyway. Still gives immunities, but they're much more specific than in 3e, so it won't be overpowered.
• Shield of Faith: still gives a fiddly bonus, but at least that's less annoying since it requires Concentration and is a Word of Power.
• Aid: has been turned into a long-duration buff, which makes it more distinct from then Cure line.
• Augury, Divination, and Commune: have been given a restriction that should help discourage casters from spamming them many times per day. Which, in turn, encourages using the first two as (expensive) rituals, which is flavorful. And Augury has become much easier for the DM to handle.
• Lesser Restoration: now condenses Remove Disease, Remove Paralysis, and Neutralize Poison into one handy spell. Reduces the size of the Cleric's spell list and reduces the crazy predictions the Cleric has to make when choosing spells to prepare. HALELUJAH.
• Prayer: requires Concentration, and is a Word of Power. Good party-buff.
• Speak with Dead: has a few, if not all, of its historical story-breaking "loopholes" closed off.
• Divine Power: might actually be balanced, making Clerics good at fighting but not better than the Fighter. It's basically just a scaled-up version of Divine Favor, plus a boost to Strength checks (for noncombat, pushing, or tripping uses).
• Raise Dead: doesn't make you lose any permanent power (e.g. a level), other than an expensive material component. Does give the raised creature an incentive to take it easy for a few days, though.
• True Seeing: material component is now optional, i.e. only when you use the spell as a Ritual. Perfect.
• Shield: no need to keep track of how many Magic Missiles you've absorbed. Uses Cover rules instead of a normal AC bonus, which I guess is marginally less bookkeeping (since it doesn't stack).
• Sleep: now not completely useless at higher levels -- it's hit-point based, so at least it can be used to "finish off" badly-damaged foes.
• Darkness: no "shadowy illumination" here; total blackness. Much more flavorful. Also, can be turned on/off by covering the object that is radiating the darkness. Good for creative casters to think of uses for.
• Knock: now it only makes the Rogue useless if the Rogue sucks. Might have actually been nerfed too much. I don't mind.
• Rope Trick: only lasts an hour. Goodbye, automatic safe extended rest in the dungeon.
• Spider Climb: requires Concentration.
• Blink: less bookkeeping and self-nerfing than its past incarnation. Has an interesting random drawback (1/400 chance, so I don't think it will keep people from using the spell; and when you do get lost in the Ethereal Plane, it's only for a few hours, so it's not campaign-destroying).
• Fly: requires Concentration. I assume there will be a Mass version at some point?
• Haste: might still need some tweaks, but pointedly avoids the brokenness that it enjoyed in 3.0. Actually better for the Wizard to buff an ally than to use on self!
• Stinking Cloud/Cloudkill: as mentioned, WotC seems to have learned to limit area spells' effects to 1/round.
• Polymorph: you lose all of your abilities when polymorphed, except your HP/Int/Wis/Cha. This prevents a LOT of the abuses of the spell. It may or may not still be overpowered, depending on what abilities monsters have, since you gain any abilities of monsters whose shape you take.
• Stoneskin: no need to keep track of how much damage the spell has prevented.
• Dominate Person: adopts some of the limitations that kept it from being overpowered in 4e.

Bad:

Spoiler

Show

• Cure Minor Wounds: the new limitation means that the order that the Cleric uses healing spells on someone actually matters. That's kind of obnoxious and nonsensical, although it won't matter much in the thick of actual combat.
• Resistance: it's an at-will spell (for several varieties of Cleric), with a 1-minute duration, with an effect that is minor but always desirable (but annoying to keep track of). So the Cleric will be telling the DM that he casts it approximately 1,462 times per day. Argh. I guess that's one way to pressure the DM into giving you Cloaks of Resistance as loot (assuming they don't stack).
• Protection from Evil: has a material component, which costs 25 gp. That's just annoying, and on a spell intended to be used during combat no less.
• Commune is still overpowered.
• Divination is still a dilemma for the DM who doesn't have everything planned in advance.
• Silence: says that it hinders spellcasting, but doesn't say how. It's possible that this is clearly spelled out in the rules for being Deafened, but I didn't notice it when I skimmed those rules. So the anti-spellcaster utility of this spell might be overpowered, or might be handwaved as just "fluff." I'm not sure which.
• Zone of Truth: still allows the target to save and then lie normally, which makes it pretty much a useless spell. It needs a clause that the Cleric at least knows whether the target passed the save. Or something.
• True Seeing: still pretty much kills the whole Illusion school.
• Disguise Self: will now be seen through automatically by 30% of the normal common humanoids you walk past. Which makes it nearly worthless.
• Mage Armor: 1-hour duration. Not a problem for Warmages, who can cast it at-will. But an annoying bookkeeping project (and possibly an annoying drain on Level 0 Spell Slots) for Illusionists and other future Traditions.
• Feather Fall: one target. Pretty underpowered use of your spell slot.
• Sleep: it offers no save. This means that Wizards have a strong advantage in 1v1 fights vs anyone at low levels.
• Darkness: with a "fluff" requirement of studying the Drow, one example of many where the spells' flavor text is awful.
• Scorching Ray: does a set amount of damage, no attack roll or saves necessary. I dunno if it's overpowered or weak, but it sounds boring.
• Stinking Cloud/Cloudkill: just deal damage, no debuff. Boring. Even worse, Cloudkill still has the mandatory 10-ft movement effect that makes it rarely matter for more than a couple rounds.

Other:

Spoiler

Show

• Lance of Faith: now the strongest at-will blasting effect in the game. Not really broken, just like Level 1 Warlocks weren't really broken in 3e (despite many people's expectations). But kind of a funny image, when you start to picture e.g. squads of Level 1 Pelor-Clerics replacing archer contingents in an army.
• Command: much more open-ended in its effect, a la 2e. In line with WotC's goal of making spells generally more DM-adjudicated and open to creativity than they were in 3e or especially 4e.
• Cure [severity] Wounds: these are now Words of Power, providing a heavy endorsement to the healbot playstyle of Cleric (although the Cleric doesn't have to be a healbot unless he picks the Lifegiver domain, at least). I'm not personally a big fan of healbot style; it just makes battles take longer. But it is iconic to D&D.
• Augury says that rolling 1-5 on a d20 is a 20% chance. Initially that made me worried about whether WotC's game designers ever passed 4th-grade math, but after comparing Divination and Commune, it was probably just a typo.
• Dispel Magic: is much better against "spells" than against other kinds of magic effects. This could be flavorful or bad, depending on what other magic effects are at monsters' disposal.
• Death Ward: is now a long-term, single-target buff that gets expended after one use. Now works against physical damage, but not against non-lethal negative abilities like Energy Drain. Interesting trade-offs.
• Raise Dead: not a Ritual. Which means if you die, you're probably not coming back until the next day, even if you have a high-level Cleric ally and he has diamonds ready.
• Shocking Grasp: includes an interesting new rider effect: target doesn't get to use any Reactions for one round.
• Magic Missile: now one of the few spells that scales, and deals a significant amount of damage. Could be a very popular blasting spell, which is more in line with how WotC always pictured it.
• Invisibility: now ends if the invisible creature heals an ally, summons a monster, or similar.
• Mirror Image: I can't decide if it's still overpowered. It still gives the Wizard a substantial temporary miss chance (not an abstraction-based AC bonus like in 4e), but it's limited to 2 images and they're not explicitly immune to area effects. I can dare to hope that it's a good balance point now.
• Web: now works on a flat floor surface. Less flavorful, but also less situational.
• Stoneskin: still gives a very powerful effect that's mostly limited just by an expensive material component. Iconic, but poor game design.

One minor complaint: Spells' descriptions don't list what classes they are available to. Among other hassles, this means that the Hold Person spell says that it's a 2nd-level spell (as it is for Clerics), while it's a 3rd-level spell for Wizards.

Anyway. I should go to bed, but a couple last comments: the Cleric might not be a better warrior than the Fighter and Rogue anymore, and although we still don't have multiclass rules, I'm starting to imagine that you actually might be able to make a decent Ranger, Bard, Druid, or Paladin in this game, just by multiclassing the basic four classes and picking appropriate Backgrounds/Feats.

On the other hand, I'm not generally impressed by the level of balance between individual Maneuvers or individual Feats, which means that "system mastery" players who pick and choose these things will be a lot more powerful than new players who just trust that their Fighting Style and their Specialty will keep them competitive.

EDIT: one more positive change I remembered: the overall decrease in the over-use of Advantage and Disadvantage for too many things.