D&D 5th Editon Discussion: 6th thread and counting

[Yora]

As of now it really is mostly 3rd Edition with a coating of 2nd. Wouldn't suprise me if most people who like 4th Edition best are not too thrilled about what has been shown so far.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

The first playtest packet came out while I was still at college and some friends from other schools were visiting, so I managed to run a game for a rabid 3e player, a rabid 4e player, a "meh, anything after 1e is good enough" player, a Pathfinder player, and a "wait, which one's the d20 again?"-level new player. I ran a packet two playtest with my new group (half 3e fans, have newbs). Both used the built-in module.

[Seerow]

Originally Posted by Yora

As of now it really is mostly 3rd Edition with a coating of 2nd. Wouldn't suprise me if most people who like 4th Edition best are not too thrilled about what has been shown so far.

I like 3rd and I still can't stand DDN as it currently stands.

[TheOOB]

It does seem like people who like 4e seem to like D&D Next less. It could be due partly to not wanting to change editions(having never done so in the past if 4e was their first), and it may be because Next seems to be taking the least of 4e from all the editions.

I for one like most of what I'm seeing in DDN. There are a few things I have problems with(I think humans are too strong, stout halflings and wood elves too limited, I wish warlock pact and invocation flavor would be more broad(a fae pact should leave you vulnerable, but take your emotion IMO, I think a general "Warlock powers have a cost" would be better), fighters and rogues both need a little something extra.), but I like the direction it's going.

[DrBurr]

Originally Posted by TheOOB

It does seem like people who like 4e seem to like D&D Next less. It could be due partly to not wanting to change editions(having never done so in the past if 4e was their first), and it may be because Next seems to be taking the least of 4e from all the editions.

I for one like most of what I'm seeing in DDN. There are a few things I have problems with(I think humans are too strong, stout halflings and wood elves too limited, I wish warlock pact and invocation flavor would be more broad(a fae pact should leave you vulnerable, but take your emotion IMO, I think a general "Warlock powers have a cost" would be better), fighters and rogues both need a little something extra.), but I like the direction it's going.

Oddly I am a 4e player and I'm liking Next so far, though my group is skeptical on whether or not they want to switch though I have 2 years to convince them assuming I still am in favor of the new edition in 2014.

Humans really aren't that much powerful then the rest they just start stronger and reach their cap in primary ability scores faster than other races thus giving them more balanced stats once they get their 20 str or 20 int.

Of course the other races are still playing catch up but the power level isn't to far apart, its looking like really a Human will encourage balance at higher levels while playing another race encourages specialization.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Originally Posted by TheOOB

It does seem like people who like 4e seem to like D&D Next less. It could be due partly to not wanting to change editions(having never done so in the past if 4e was their first), and it may be because Next seems to be taking the least of 4e from all the editions.

As a strong proponent of 4e, I'm not thrilled with 5e because it is so backwards-looking.

There are some nice new thoughts (Advantage/Disadvantage, Backgrounds/Specializations) but as time goes on these ideas seem to be minimized while more nostalgic window-dressing is piled on. While I like the design-focused posts by Mearle the actual contents of the play-packets increasingly seem like slavish re-creations of 3e-era design so I can't make myself too excited about the future.

TBH, I'd be disappointed if it looked a lot like 4e. WotC already tried an incremental improvement on that system (Essentials) and I could only respond with a resounding meh. Launching a "new" edition that is essential a retread of older ones is a big waste of everyone's time and money: WotC has a big fancy game design department that can be better used designing new games than re-working old ones and my dollars are better spent games I don't already own.

[navar100]

If humans are stronger than other races at start, I say it's about time. 3E at least finally put them in equivalent footing of all RPGs that had races other than human. It took 4E and Pathfinder to finally give them an ability score boost at character creation like every other race.

[noparlpf]

Originally Posted by navar100

If humans are stronger than other races at start, I say it's about time. 3E at least finally put them in equivalent footing of all RPGs that had races other than human. It took 4E and Pathfinder to finally give them an ability score boost at character creation like every other race.

Humans in 3.X were better than most of the other races. Ask anybody.
And humans should not have ability score boosts because the "average 10-11" is based on humans.

[Knaight]

Originally Posted by Ziegander

How many of you guys have actually playtested the D&D Next material? Like actually ran or participated in a session with it? How many of you have ran a session using the playtest adventures provided, and how many of you just winged your own adventures?

I played part of Caves of Chaos as a player with the first packet, and GMed Reclaiming Blingdenstone* chapters 2,3, and 4. I plan to test how easy it is to just wing things eventually.

*Insert fake gangster hand sign here.

[Camelot]

Originally Posted by Yora

As of now it really is mostly 3rd Edition with a coating of 2nd. Wouldn't suprise me if most people who like 4th Edition best are not too thrilled about what has been shown so far.

I love 4th edition, but 5th edition is better for most of my players (and subsequently more fun), because very few of them like tactical combat as much as I do.

Originally Posted by Knaight

I plan to test how easy it is to just wing things eventually.

Super easy! The games I've played so far have literally been made up on the spot, and it went perfectly.

[EatAtEmrakuls]

http://www.enworld.org/forum/news/32...to-tavern.html

For the record I feel 5th edition still looks terrible. But this:

The wizard is actually due for a major update. We’re planning on adding the concept of an arcane tradition to the class. A tradition reflects how you studied magic and what kind of magic you are skilled in wielding. For instance, you might pick evocation magic as your tradition, making you an invoker. This grants you some bonus weapon and armor proficiencies, plus it gives you a list of invocation school spells that are your tradition’s signature spells. When you cast such a spell, you retain a shard of its magic. Five minutes later, you regain the ability to cast that spell. You don’t need to rest or anything to get the spell back. You studies and techniques allow you to prepare the spell in such a way that you regain its power.


It’s kind of funny, because we thought the wizard was done until we did the sorcerer and warlock. We learned some stuff from those classes and from the surveys that led us to flesh out school specialization into the idea of traditions.

...Sounds EXACTLY like at-wills and encounters. And for that I'm super thankful.

[Ashdate]

Originally Posted by TheOOB

It does seem like people who like 4e seem to like D&D Next less. It could be due partly to not wanting to change editions(having never done so in the past if 4e was their first), and it may be because Next seems to be taking the least of 4e from all the editions.

I see hints of 4e in there, such as the skill system, the new "healing surges" (Hit Dice), and attempting to flatten out the curve (i.e. 4e minus the +1 to attacks/defenses/skills every two levels). There appears to be some intention with limited AEDU-like abilities, and hopefully they'll take a page from 4e's monster math over 3.5's horrible CR system.

But mostly, I'm disappointed in it because I've played it already with 3.5. Everything that Oracle Hunter said above I pretty much agree with; I don't need a DND next that steeps itself too heavily in "traditional D&D" anymore than I need a 4e that has a new coat of paint. The thing I liked most about 4e is that it was willing to break so many "conventions" that had stuck around from 1e to 3.5 on some sort of nostalgic basis. I would prefer a 5e that itself, broke from traditions to deliver an entirely new play experience.

If they honestly wanted to get me excited about 5e, they would have to deliver an extremely rules-light game. I'm talking bringing every class down to the complexity of the DnD Next Fighter from the first playtest package. Why do I want a complex D&D game? I've got 4e for that.

[navar100]

Originally Posted by Ashdate

If they honestly wanted to get me excited about 5e, they would have to deliver an extremely rules-light game. I'm talking bringing every class down to the complexity of the DnD Next Fighter from the first playtest package. Why do I want a complex D&D game? I've got 4e for that.

What's "extremely rules-light"? Flip a coin? Stone, Cloak, Wand? DM fiat? If there are little rules to use then why bother buying the game? Rules can't be too heavy either for the want of bringing in new players who never played D&D or any RPG before, but I'm not going to run in horror if the game requires some minimum grade level of understanding beyond third.

[MukkTB]

I would have been willing to get behind 4e if they had a different system for each of the 3 or 4 categories of adventurer, Fighter/Wizard/Rogue/Cleric. Maybe wizard/cleric could be combined to just be magic. I would have wanted each system to be balanced with the next. But it should have felt different to play a wizard than a fighter.

So far it looks like 3.5 lite w/ some 2e mixed in and maybe a nod to 4e. It would've been great if 5e took what 4e accomplished for balance and made each power source feel different.

[Kurald Galain]

Originally Posted by navar100

What's "extremely rules-light"? Flip a coin? Stone, Cloak, Wand? DM fiat? If there are little rules to use then why bother buying the game?

Yes. Much as I like rules-light games, I'd not be willing to pay money for them. Plenty of rules-light games are available for free on the internet; WOTC can't really compete with that and expect to sell a lot. Plus they need the whole splatbook threadmill, and you can't do that with rules-light games either.

[Yora]

A summary of the first drafts for multiclassing: http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.a...d/4ll/20120917

Finally, making the multiclass rules optional and using 3E’s model for multiclassing mesh well with the concept of prestige classes. I’d like to bring prestige classes back into the game, though with a greater emphasis on their role as a tool to reflect important organizations, forbidden lore, mystic secrets, or other elements of a campaign setting. They should have a real sense of prestige attached to them, with prerequisites for entering them that include story elements, such as finding an ancient tome, joining a guild, or completing a ritual. You can expect that these will also be an optional rule made available at the DM’s discretion.

Nice, but that's exactly how prestige classes were in the DMG. Before someone decided, screw it, we make selling splatbooks for prestige classes our main source of income.

[noparlpf]

Originally Posted by navar100

What's "extremely rules-light"? Flip a coin? Stone, Cloak, Wand? DM fiat? If there are little rules to use then why bother buying the game? Rules can't be too heavy either for the want of bringing in new players who never played D&D or any RPG before, but I'm not going to run in horror if the game requires some minimum grade level of understanding beyond third.

"Extremely rules-light" sounds like "takes up less than ten pages" to me. And there's no profit in selling a ten-page pamphlet; not many people would buy it, and by the end of the week it would be floating around the internet. If we worked down to even-more-rules-light we'd probably have one rule, Rule 0. And that's not a game, that's the license to make up your own game.

Originally Posted by Yora

A summary of the first drafts for multiclassing: http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.a...d/4ll/20120917

Nice, but that's exactly how prestige classes were in the DMG. Before someone decided, screw it, we make selling splatbooks for prestige classes our main source of income.

Maybe this time they learned from that?

[Craft (Cheese)]

Originally Posted by noparlpf

Maybe this time they learned from that?

I... wouldn't get my hopes up for that. Most of the profits from D&D are from splatbook sales, and I doubt this model will change anytime soon. If PrCs are in the game at all, they'll devolve into the same situation 3E ones did more or less no matter what.

With that in mind, I'd like to see PrCs implemented in a similar way to Paragon paths were: Something that everyone automatically takes that's an upgrade and expansion of their main class, which is much closer to how PrCs actually work in practice.

[noparlpf]

Originally Posted by Craft (Cheese)

I... wouldn't get my hopes up for that. Most of the profits from D&D are from splatbook sales, and I doubt this model will change anytime soon. If PrCs are in the game at all, they'll devolve into the same situation 3E ones did more or less no matter what.

With that in mind, I'd like to see PrCs implemented in a similar way to Paragon paths were: Something that everyone automatically takes that's an upgrade and expansion of their main class, which is much closer to how PrCs actually work in practice.

I was being optimistic.
Yeah, if they admitted that that's how PrCs will turn out, and designed them to account for that, things would probably work better. I do like the ability to specialise in some specific part of a class's abilities by moving into a PrC, but they were ridiculously unbalanced in 3.X.

[Camelot]

Originally Posted by Craft (Cheese)

With that in mind, I'd like to see PrCs implemented in a similar way to Paragon paths were: Something that everyone automatically takes that's an upgrade and expansion of their main class, which is much closer to how PrCs actually work in practice.

I like this idea. Each class would have 10 levels, but character levels can go up to 20 or 30. You start with 10 levels of base classes, then go on to 10 levels of prestige classes. Just like paragon paths, but they have more to them instead of just a single page.

[Ashdate]

To those that replied, I agree that it's not a situation that will end in my favour (re: "I want a rules light system!). I wouldn't blame anyone for refusing to pay for a "10 page document", and certainly, it's not in WotC's interest to make that the next edition.

[Craft (Cheese)]

Originally Posted by Camelot

I like this idea. Each class would have 10 levels, but character levels can go up to 20 or 30. You start with 10 levels of base classes, then go on to 10 levels of prestige classes. Just like paragon paths, but they have more to them instead of just a single page.

What I had in mind was having the base class be from levels 1-5, then the "Paragon Class" from levels 6-10, with 11-20 being handled by a separate "High Level" module.

Or perhaps the base class could be 1-3, with 4-8 as the paragon class, then 9-20 being a separate module, as a callback? The 1-5/6-10 thing is more logical, though.

Originally Posted by Ashdate

To those that replied, I agree that it's not a situation that will end in my favour (re: "I want a rules light system!). I wouldn't blame anyone for refusing to pay for a "10 page document", and certainly, it's not in WotC's interest to make that the next edition.

Actually, I'm not so certain about that. Heroes Against Darkness (a free indie D&D-like which I have read but have not yet gotten to play) comes in at 231 pages in my PDF, but the actual rules are simple enough you could fit them on one or two pages if you tried. The rest of the document is classes, spells, monster statblocks, etc.

I guess it depends on how you define rules-light, but I think you can still make a lot of content for a system with very simple, easily memorized rules.

And this is also ignoring the possibility of using modules; Who says the entirety of the system has to be 10 pages long? The "base" system doesn't need to be that large, and everything else could be implemented with modules. I myself have dozens of pages of notes describing homebrewed FATE mechanics for various things I want to handle with more detail than simply "roll and add your skill modifier."

[noparlpf]

Originally Posted by Craft (Cheese)

What I had in mind was having the base class be from levels 1-5, then the "Paragon Class" from levels 6-10, with 11-20 being handled by a separate "High Level" module.

Or perhaps the base class could be 1-3, with 4-8 as the paragon class, then 9-20 being a separate module, as a callback? The 1-5/6-10 thing is more logical, though.

I think I'd prefer 1-6 or 1-8 as the base. Real human ability varies about that much. After that, you could get into heroics and whatnot.

[Dienekes]

Ehh, I kind of like the option to stay in the base class to get some higher abilities and capstones. Especially if they go the more fluff based reasoning behind prestige classes as they've indicated. For a few of the characters I've played, I don't want to be inducted into the Great Knights of Prestigious Way and then go through the rituals to join Epic Warriors of More Awesome Than You, I'd rather just be a normal mercenary who is just that good.

Like the Warblade, for example. Warblade 20 is a fine character that can stand up fine when compared to those who prestiged out of the class earlier. I'd rather have that model than otherwise.

[noparlpf]

Originally Posted by Dienekes

Ehh, I kind of like the option to stay in the base class to get some higher abilities and capstones. Especially if they go the more fluff based reasoning behind prestige classes as they've indicated. For a few of the characters I've played, I don't want to be inducted into the Great Knights of Prestigious Way and then go through the rituals to join Epic Warriors of More Awesome Than You, I'd rather just be a normal mercenary who is just that good.

Like the Warblade, for example. Warblade 20 is a fine character that can stand up fine when compared to those who prestiged out of the class earlier. I'd rather have that model than otherwise.

In my mind there should be a few variants of each class. For "Rogue", you can have "city thief", "wilderness bandit", "cat-burglar", "trapper", "spy", "pirate", something like that, and then "jack-of-all-trades". So maybe a base class that dabbles in everything, and then the variants would be the specialised ones.

[Menteith]

I'd like to see Prestige Classes handled in a pseudo-Gestalt way. Instead of taking the best of two classes, you keep the chassis of your base class, and gain access to only new class features. You'd stay in your base class, but could gain access to other abilities on top of it. Different Fighters could enter into different PrCs - let's say one enters Eldritch Knight and one enters Frenzied Berserker - they'll both have Fighter abilities, but will have different abilities on top of that.

[Craft (Cheese)]

Originally Posted by Dienekes

Ehh, I kind of like the option to stay in the base class to get some higher abilities and capstones. Especially if they go the more fluff based reasoning behind prestige classes as they've indicated. For a few of the characters I've played, I don't want to be inducted into the Great Knights of Prestigious Way and then go through the rituals to join Epic Warriors of More Awesome Than You, I'd rather just be a normal mercenary who is just that good.

Well, my response to this is I'd like to see paragon paths/prestige classes/whatever they're called be made more broad. More specific paths/classes have their place but I would prefer if they were the exception rather than the rule.

The first problem with fluff-based prestige classes is most of the 3.X ones are so specific and/or outlandish you'd be hard-pressed to find a character concept that actually *fits* that PrC unless you specifically made a character that PrC would make sense for. I mean, how many people aside from cackling mad villains would actually *want* to become a Cancer Mage?

The second problem is a narrative one: Fluff-based prestige class entry is supposed to take place organically, as part of the story, but the reality is anything but. Due to the often very specific and inflexible requirements of many PrCs you simply won't be able to qualify for the one it would make sense for you to join, and even when you can join unless you've planned entry from the beginning (or started the game already taking PrC levels) the abilities the PrC grants likely won't synergize with the rest of your character's capabilities in the slightest. No matter how you look at it the best way to handle PrCs is to just plan your entry in advance and this is completely incompatible with RP requirements like what Mearls talks about.

[theNater]

Originally Posted by noparlpf

And humans should not have ability score boosts because the "average 10-11" is based on humans.

A flexible +2 ability score boost, like 4e's, bumps the racial average for each stat up by a third of a point (assuming it's spread evenly among the six ability scores). Changing the average from 10.5 to 10.8 is not really significant.

[noparlpf]

Originally Posted by theNater

A flexible +2 ability score boost, like 4e's, bumps the racial average for each stat up by a third of a point (assuming it's spread evenly among the six ability scores). Changing the average from 10.5 to 10.8 is not really significant.

Then why bother? Variation in abilities by individual is already accounted for by the dice.

[Water_Bear]

Originally Posted by noparlpf

Then why bother? Variation in abilities by individual is already accounted for by the dice.

Because a big chunk of the player-base plays with Point Buy and, more importantly, because that's what Pathfinder did. Seeing as WotC is already cribbing Bloodlines and Channel Energy off Pathfinder to try and get their 3e players back, it makes sense to learn from some of that system's better decisions.

Though, personally, I hope that Humans get a bit of a nerf. It's nice to be able to play a non-human character without feeling like you're ruining your build to do it. Humans are supposed to be good, but other races should have a fighting chance.