General feel of Next?

[Balor01]

I know there is already a thread about Next, but it is dealing with such details, that GENERAL impression of the game is difficult to get from these threads.

Today, me and my group are starting a playtest and I would really like to hear from playground - what is their impression of new edition?

From what I have read, I like what I saw. (classes actually having weaknesses unlike owerpowered 3.5).

So, playground, what is your general impression of Next?

thanks

[Yora]

meh...

(nothing else to say here)

[Saph]

Our group did a couple of playtest sessions. I wrote up the results here on these boards:

Session 1 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13334306#post13334306)
Session 2 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13373066#post13373066)

General conclusion was that we weren't that impressed.

[Drachasor]

My group did an early playtest and felt like they didn't have enough options and combat was boring.

Overall it seems like 3.X with the scaling on bonuses massively reduced (generally a good thing, imho). No new defense system to replace the old scaling and in general there are a lot fewer options.

At least from what I've seen, but I haven't looked closely at the latest playtest.

[Kurald Galain]

There's nothing particularly innovative or impressive about it, and I see zero reasons to recommend it over existing systems for any purpose.

[SiuiS]

I know there is already a thread about Next, but it is dealing with such details, that GENERAL impression of the game is difficult to get from these threads.

Today, me and my group are starting a playtest and I would really like to hear from playground - what is their impression of new edition?

From what I have read, I like what I saw. (classes actually having weaknesses unlike owerpowered 3.5).

So, playground, what is your general impression of Next?

thanks

I think this puts us at both a dozen threads on Next and it's playtest and design, and two non-playtest threads which ask what the general consensus is.

Half of us are glad with what we were given, half are decidedly not. Those numbers shift back and forth with each release.

[Scots Dragon]

My opinion based on what I've seen so far; eehhh...

Not worth bothering with.

[Tanuki Tales]

I'm duly unimpressed from what I've heard and seen. There are some very interesting concepts and mechanics to crib off of, but nothing that is going to draw my group or anyone I know well from Pathfinder and nothing to stop me from still attempting to create my own homebrewed tabletop game for my groups to play from now on.

And if I read right that printed dragons are easy for a group of dirt farmers to kill no matter how old they get...well...then I really am not touching Next.

[Morty]

From my perspective, the general feel of D&D Next is somewhere between a jumbled, direction-less mess and a boring, bland d20 rehash.

[SowZ]

I actually thought early on they were going in an interesting direction. Martial damage dice, while they didn't work, at least showed they wanted to give people options to do various combat moves and such. Certain classes, like the Monk, have quite a few relevant options in character building. Most feats were actually character changing. It didn't work yet, don't get me wrong, but there were some cool ideas at the core of it.

Buuuut then they started trimming down and trimming down until it feels kinda like third edition without the supplements and options.

[Knaight]

There are a handful of interesting mechanics shackled to a thoroughly dull and uninspiring system, and what this fosters is a dull and uninspiring game with a few points of legitimate interest. Unlike some other dull and uninspiring games however, the system isn't elegant enough to largely get out of the way and facilitate play that way.

[Kurald Galain]

Half of us are glad with what we were given, half are decidedly not. Those numbers shift back and forth with each release.

Half, you say? Based on this thread, 90% of the people in this forum do not like 5E so far.

[SowZ]

Half, you say? Based on this thread, 90% of the people in this forum do not like 5E so far.

I was pretty cool with Next when it first came out, just realized it needed a lot of work. The more they worked on it, the less I liked it. At least the amount of work and innovative design in 4e was obvious...

[TuggyNE]

Half, you say? Based on this thread, 90% of the people in this forum do not like 5E so far.

My gut suggests that 15-25% of people here really hate 5e, 55-75% dislike it to some degree, 5-10% think it's kind of OK, and another 5-10% think it's fairly cool. So far, I haven't heard anyone that loves it to death.

Of course, selection bias is in full swing, so take those estimates with a couple tons of NaCl.

[Scow2]

I'm of the opinion of "It's currently lacking, and the math is broken... but at least martial classes aren't as poor off as they were in Pathfinder and 3rd Edition."

I don't like the backtracking going on. But the constrained math has kept it from failing as hard as d20.

[Tridax]

How long is combat in general? Is it shorter than 4e?

[Scow2]

How long is combat in general? Is it shorter than 4e?

Much, MUCH faster than 4e. Turns go by bamfast, so you don't have enough time to 'disengage'.

To clarify - it takes more full rounds than 4e to resolve higher-level combat (Low-level is handled in the surprise round), but those rounds tend to go by much faster.

[SowZ]

How long is combat in general? Is it shorter than 4e?

Maybe some, yeah. Not enough to make it a real motivation to play the system.