"Basic D&D"-- 5e news

[Grod_The_Giant]

So, apparently WotC is going to release the basic rules of the game as a free pdf. They're calling it the equivilent of the Rules Cyclopedia.

According to the article, it'll include:

1-20 rules for the Cleric, Wizard, Fighter, and Rogue classes, along with "essential subclasses"
Dwarves, elves, halflings, and humans
"Essential monsters, magic items, and DM rules"
Rules for wilderness, dungeon, and urban adventuring

They also promise free expansions containing any missing rules you'll need to play the Tyranny of Dragons adventure path.

Thoughts? I, for one, am very please about the idea. Having the rules available for free should help make up for the disgusting expense of the core 3 rulebooks.

[Lokiare]

So, apparently WotC is going to release the basic rules of the game as a free pdf. They're calling it the equivilent of the Rules Cyclopedia.

According to the article, it'll include:

1-20 rules for the Cleric, Wizard, Fighter, and Rogue classes, along with "essential subclasses"
Dwarves, elves, halflings, and humans
"Essential monsters, magic items, and DM rules"
Rules for wilderness, dungeon, and urban adventuring

They also promise free expansions containing any missing rules you'll need to play the Tyranny of Dragons adventure path.

Thoughts? I, for one, am very please about the idea. Having the rules available for free should help make up for the disgusting expense of the core 3 rulebooks.

This is a duplicate thread.

[Grod_The_Giant]

This is a duplicate thread.
I know; I didn't realize there was a 5e section now when I posted in general roleplaying. I've already reported it and asked that it be deleted.

[Sploggle1]

I like the idea of a free rule compendium of whatever they're calling it is pretty cool. It would help me further decide if 5e is actually worth the money. So far I am sticking with a mixture of 1,2, and 3.5 which is a fun mix. For the sake of Dnd I hope 5e is a comeback since Pathfinder is jumping in the lead due to the failure of 4e.

[captpike]

I like the idea of a free rule compendium of whatever they're calling it is pretty cool. It would help me further decide if 5e is actually worth the money. So far I am sticking with a mixture of 1,2, and 3.5 which is a fun mix. For the sake of Dnd I hope 5e is a comeback since Pathfinder is jumping in the lead due to the failure of 4e.

sigh

4e was NOT a failure by any reasonable measure, the least amount of money it made was what 3e did.

the amount hasbrio wanted it to make would have needed for every RPG player to buy every 4e book, so they called it a failure.

[Fwiffo86]

I like that they are letting people essentially try the basic game for free. Why not? If you enjoy it, you buy more. If you don't enjoy it, you don't harbor feelings of regret that change into anger, compelling you to attack all things you didn't like about the game.

I call that a winning strategy personally. Besides, the more people that haven't tried it, that will because its free, may convert more people to playing. Increasing the fan base. Providing more people to sign onto forums and "discuss" things.

We all win.

I can't comment on 4e. I skipped it when it appeared to me that it was trying very hard to be a TTMMORPG. I hear many people liked it, but the biggest complaint I hear (not on forums, from face to face people) is that it is nearly impossible to actually lose a character to death. Is that true?

[Fralex]

Yeah, I agree, this is a fantastic move. Can't wait to see it!

[nyjastul69]

I like that they are letting people essentially try the basic game for free. Why not? If you enjoy it, you buy more. If you don't enjoy it, you don't harbor feelings of regret that change into anger, compelling you to attack all things you didn't like about the game.

I call that a winning strategy personally. Besides, the more people that haven't tried it, that will because its free, may convert more people to playing. Increasing the fan base. Providing more people to sign onto forums and "discuss" things.

We all win.

I can't comment on 4e. I skipped it when it appeared to me that it was trying very hard to be a TTMMORPG. I hear many people liked it, but the biggest complaint I hear (not on forums, from face to face people) is that it is nearly impossible to actually lose a character to death. Is that true?

I only played 4e for about 6-8 months (weekly sessions) so my experience is limited. The group I DM for didn't like the system so they fired it. I didn't dislike it myself, although there were things about it I didn't like. I had heard the same criticism that it was very difficult for a character to die. My experience was much different. One of the PC's died in the introductory adventure that is in the back of the DMG. I also ran one of the WotC adventures, I can't recall the name ATM, and the party nearly got TPK'd. No one actually died in that one, but they were all very close.

[Icewraith]

We had one death since I started playing 4e, but apparently there were a number of other PC deaths prior to me joining with my bard.

Purple worms, man. Purple worms. Can't directly teleport out because the stomach blocks line of sight, but it does mean you won't get roasted if someone aoes the worm on top of dealing with the acid damage. If you don't have some way of phasing or certain skills, or roll really well with untrained skills, and the worm runs off while you're inside... you're screwed.

Edit: Although to be fair, the entire party, including the pc in question, had been rolling abysmally on top of everything else.

[captpike]

I can't comment on 4e. I skipped it when it appeared to me that it was trying very hard to be a TTMMORPG. I hear many people liked it, but the biggest complaint I hear (not on forums, from face to face people) is that it is nearly impossible to actually lose a character to death. Is that true?

it is harder to die in 4e, you tend not to die to random crits or things like that you tend to die to long term pressure. like doing one too many fights in a day.

also as you level groups start being able to work more and more as teams, past a certain point its all but impossible to kill any one PC and not the others. you either defeat and kill the entire party, or the party gets way/wins.

it is not hard to change though, one of the few houserules I use is that you die at -surge value (1/4 hp basically) rather then -bloodied.

[Kurald Galain]

I only played 4e for about 6-8 months (weekly sessions) so my experience is limited. The group I DM for didn't like the system so they fired it. I didn't dislike it myself, although there were things about it I didn't like. I had heard the same criticism that it was very difficult for a character to die.

Well, yes. 4E is remarkably non-lethal towards its PCs. This is mainly because if you're at negative HP, any heal will automatically raise you to at least 1 hp; and the rule that you can trade health (surges) with your teammates.

Come to think of it, I really hope that 5E has decent rules for wilderness survival, fighting under water, and even light sources. 4E's rules on this make it basically impossible for characters to ever suffer from lack of food, lack of oxygen, or lack of light on the battlefield. That's one of the areas where it could have challenged the characters better, so I hope 5E does that.

[erikun]

I can't comment on 4e. I skipped it when it appeared to me that it was trying very hard to be a TTMMORPG. I hear many people liked it, but the biggest complaint I hear (not on forums, from face to face people) is that it is nearly impossible to actually lose a character to death. Is that true?
It's kind of hard to end up dead on accident.

It's fairly easy to end up in a very, very bad position through poor planning, though. I didn't see any PC deaths while I was playing in the system, although we did have one campaign come to an end with one character 50' down a cliff and at negative HP in the middle of a fight, so that would likely be fatal. It's relatively easy for one character to keep another alive, although losing party members (especially two) will quickly cause everything to spiral downward. No clue just how bad it is for the rest of the party to simply survive at that point, although they'd pretty much be giving up the fight.

[obryn]

I've been running 4e since it came out, and have had quite a few character deaths in that time. It's very, very possible for a character to die at low levels, and although it gets rarer as the PCs move into Paragon, I had one encounter (traps + blue dragon) wherein two PCs died at 18th level. (And several encounters where one PC died.)

Even without trying (like, say, using the Coup de Grace rules), an encounter with a lot of large AoE attacks or environmental damage can kill off a PC a lot quicker than you'd expect.

This all stops around Epic tier, when just about everyone gets get-out-of-death-free cards. But up until that point, I've found it to be just as lethal as 3.x, so long as you're making things challenging.

I think the edition's reputation for low lethality was earned before the major monster math revisions. With fixed math, it can get brutal.

[Fralex]

How killable have playtesters found the PCs in 5th Edition? I've had a bunch of close calls at lower levels and haven't really played at higher levels yet.

[Knaight]

So, apparently WotC is going to release the basic rules of the game as a free pdf. They're calling it the equivilent of the Rules Cyclopedia.

According to the article, it'll include:

1-20 rules for the Cleric, Wizard, Fighter, and Rogue classes, along with "essential subclasses"
Dwarves, elves, halflings, and humans
"Essential monsters, magic items, and DM rules"
Rules for wilderness, dungeon, and urban adventuring

They also promise free expansions containing any missing rules you'll need to play the Tyranny of Dragons adventure path.

Thoughts? I, for one, am very please about the idea. Having the rules available for free should help make up for the disgusting expense of the core 3 rulebooks.
I consider this very much a good idea. That said, there's some oddities here. "Essential subclasses" is a bit of a vague term, and it's not like having only 4 full classes is some huge amount of material. Similarly, the "essential... DM rules" bit is concerning. It seems like they might be holding back a bit more than they need to and playing this a bit too conservatively. I get the concern that having too much of the rules available hurts sales, but it's not like Pathfinder is struggling despite the full SRD, and having the game out such that people can actually play it is pretty essential to the partial release driving sales.




4e was NOT a failure by any reasonable measure, the least amount of money it made was what 3e did.

the amount hasbrio wanted it to make would have needed for every RPG player to buy every 4e book, so they called it a failure.
It failed the expectations they had, and they did put a lot of resources into it (e.g. the various failed attempts at the virtual battle mat and such). That said, I'd consider this more an issue with expectations than anything - 4e made money, and while it didn't make as much as they would have liked it to have I would hardly call this a failure, particularly given that the amount of cash involved dwarfed that of every game not named D&D or Pathfinder, including things like the entire World of Darkness line. I'm sure any of the numerous other studios with industry professionals in them - Catalyst, the people behind WoD and L5R, Steve Jackson Games - would have been overjoyed at the profits.

[Townopolis]

How killable have playtesters found the PCs in 5th Edition? I've had a bunch of close calls at lower levels and haven't really played at higher levels yet.
The party I tested with had a cleric with a particular cantrip that could be used to revive a downed ally and give them a few HP. Consequently, the only PC deaths were due to...

Player error (the cleric choosing to buff the party when one member was in the process of being gnawed on by lizards)
Save-or-die effects (basilisks)
A combination of the two (the wizard doing pretty much everything in his power to make himself an easy target for a wraith)

... plus, of course, me not pulling punches during the test.

[Fwiffo86]

How killable have playtesters found the PCs in 5th Edition? I've had a bunch of close calls at lower levels and haven't really played at higher levels yet.

My group and I ran scenarios for a week at varying equipment levels, vs. varying monster types. I have post elsewhere that goes into depth on this.

Basically, the characters remained level 7 through all the scenarios, fighting single monsters, then groups, then armies.

Group vs. One monster - very very low lethality. Players knocked down (death rolls) but recovered quickly.

Group vs. Group monsters - 4 players, 1 killed periodically, but not the majority of the time.

Group vs. Army monsters - 3 out of 4 players killed consistently, or the party fled the encounter, usually losing one of their number in the process.

In comparison to previous editions (4e excluded because I didn't play it) Equal to 3.x, but easier to deal with downed PCs. Downed PCs tend to survive a little longer unless they are finished off by a monster (which should happen. Smart monsters don't leave a creature bleeding, just as players don't leave em bleeding either)

[Warskull]

Basic edition is an incredibly smart move, it will be the play that helps them claw back market share from Paizo. People will be willing to try next for free.

[Mando Knight]

the amount hasbrio wanted it to make would have needed for every RPG player to buy every 4e book, so they called it a failure.

Which is because Hasbro expected D&D to sell like Magic, while keeping Magic selling like Magic. At the same time, WotC seems to use D&D as a place to test rookie game designers before sending them to Magic... unless they decide that the designer is better off not joining the Magic team.

[Lokiare]

I like that they are letting people essentially try the basic game for free. Why not? If you enjoy it, you buy more. If you don't enjoy it, you don't harbor feelings of regret that change into anger, compelling you to attack all things you didn't like about the game.

I call that a winning strategy personally. Besides, the more people that haven't tried it, that will because its free, may convert more people to playing. Increasing the fan base. Providing more people to sign onto forums and "discuss" things.

We all win.

I can't comment on 4e. I skipped it when it appeared to me that it was trying very hard to be a TTMMORPG. I hear many people liked it, but the biggest complaint I hear (not on forums, from face to face people) is that it is nearly impossible to actually lose a character to death. Is that true?

Yeah, I'd suggest taking it for a test drive with an experienced group. I'd be willing to run you through a session or two so you can speak from experience or at least get an idea of what 4E is. The whole TTMMORPG thing is just an internet meme. It is no more like an MMO than 3.5E is like Diablo or 2E is like might and magic. Basically just judge things on your own and don't rely on everyone else telling you what your opinions should be.

I have about 1 character death every 4-7 sessions in my 4E games. Its about the same as 3E. Of course I don't have every creature Coup' De' Grace downed characters either. Things like drow or extremely smart creatures might do it, or creatures that see the cleric heal downed characters, but mostly average intelligence creatures are more concerned with the ones still standing and causing damage.


Well, yes. 4E is remarkably non-lethal towards its PCs. This is mainly because if you're at negative HP, any heal will automatically raise you to at least 1 hp; and the rule that you can trade health (surges) with your teammates.

Come to think of it, I really hope that 5E has decent rules for wilderness survival, fighting under water, and even light sources. 4E's rules on this make it basically impossible for characters to ever suffer from lack of food, lack of oxygen, or lack of light on the battlefield. That's one of the areas where it could have challenged the characters better, so I hope 5E does that.

This is so full of fail. 4E has rules for suffocation, starvation (both you lose a healing surge each time segment and when you run out your start taking damage), and being without light sources (partial cover -2, or if in total darkness full cover -5). I hope 5E does half as good at these things as 4E.

[Kurald Galain]

This is so full of fail. 4E has rules for suffocation, starvation (both you lose a healing surge each time segment and when you run out your start taking damage), and being without light sources (partial cover -2, or if in total darkness full cover -5).
You are quite correct. 4E technically has rules for this, but those rules are full of fail. For example, the starvation rules state that you must go without food for thirty days before you get a single penalty, which means that in practice this will never ever occur at the game table. The rules for being without light sources is that all the players yell "SUNROD" and bam, now the whole battlemap counts as full sunlight again.

It's probably intentional on the part of WOTC that lack of light/food/air is never an actual issue at the game table. Still, it appears they're not trying to be so utterly unrealistic for 5E.

[captpike]

You are quite correct. 4E technically has rules for this, but those rules are full of fail. For example, the starvation rules state that you must go without food for thirty days before you get a single penalty, which means that in practice this will never ever occur at the game table. The rules for being without light sources is that all the players yell "SUNROD" and bam, now the whole battlemap counts as full sunlight again.

It's probably intentional on the part of WOTC that lack of light/food/air is never an actual issue at the game table. Still, it appears they're not trying to be so utterly unrealistic for 5E.

as far as the sunrods goes yes, they exist to give an easy and cheap way of saying "we can see the entire map" just like bags of holding exist so you can say "of course we can carry that" and (mostly) ignore carrying capasity.

however you can easily not have them in your world, or have them cost more. they could have done more to tell DMs this I agree.

[Lokiare]

You are quite correct. 4E technically has rules for this, but those rules are full of fail. For example, the starvation rules state that you must go without food for thirty days before you get a single penalty, which means that in practice this will never ever occur at the game table. The rules for being without light sources is that all the players yell "SUNROD" and bam, now the whole battlemap counts as full sunlight again.

It's probably intentional on the part of WOTC that lack of light/food/air is never an actual issue at the game table. Still, it appears they're not trying to be so utterly unrealistic for 5E.


When a character is deprived of food, water, or air, the rule of three applies. An adventurer can handle 3 weeks without food, 3 days without water, and 3 minutes without air. After that, such deprivation is a significant test of an adventurer's stamina. (People who aren't adventurers are far less hardy.)
Endurance Check: At the end of the time period (3 weeks, 3 days, or 3 minutes), the character must make a DC 20 Endurance check.
Success: Success buys the character another day (if hungry or thirsty) or round (if unable to breathe). Then the check is repeated against DC 25, then against DC 30, and so on.
Failure: When a character fails the check, he or she loses a healing surge and must continue to make checks against DC 25, then against DC 30, and so on. A character who fails a check and has no healing surges takes damage equal to his or her level.
A character cannot regain healing surges lost to starvation, thirst, or suffocation until he or she eats a meal, drinks, or gains access to air again, respectively.
A character who has 0 hit points or fewer and continues to be subject to one of these effects keeps taking damage as described above until he or she dies or is rescued.
Suffocation in Strenuous Situations: In strenuous situations, such as combat, going without air is very hard. A character holding his or her breath during underwater combat, for instance, must make a DC 20 Endurance check at the end of his or her turn in a round in which he or she takes damage.

The starvation rules are a bit odd. It should be 7 days, but other than that its much better than 3E or 5E. You'll also note that it says "People who aren't adventurers are far less hardy". This is because 4E is all about larger than life heroes. In those old westerns when you see clint eastwood cross a desert on foot without food or water and just barely crawls out the other side. That's what 4e is trying to simulate. Not some suburban hipster passing out crossing a park on a hike.

[Lokiare]

as far as the sunrods goes yes, they exist to give an easy and cheap way of saying "we can see the entire map" just like bags of holding exist so you can say "of course we can carry that" and (mostly) ignore carrying capasity.

however you can easily not have them in your world, or have them cost more. they could have done more to tell DMs this I agree.

My latest group didn't discover the sunrod until level 16. Then they were like, "why didn't we do this earlier?"

[Kurald Galain]

It's funny how far this "technically, but not really" principle goes.

4E technically has a Finger Of Death spell... but this spell will not really kill any creature (at least, not faster than any other spell of the same level).
4E technically has starvation rules... but these rules will not really result in any PC starving, because the onset time so so long that it will never come up.
4E technically has an illusionist subclass... but this class will not really have any abilities normally associated with illusionist, because most illusion spells are just evocation spells with the damage type changed to psychic.

I'm sure there are other examples. It strikes me that if the aim of 5E is to solve the perceived shortcomings of (or the most common complaints against) 4E, then it's succeeding pretty well.

[obryn]

The rules for being without light sources is that all the players yell "SUNROD" and bam, now the whole battlemap counts as full sunlight again.
Huh. Wonder where that idea came from.

Oh yeah. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/goodsAndServices.htm#sunrod) :smallbiggrin:

And honestly, unless you're running Dark Sun, starvation and thirst are basically non-issues in any edition of D&D. I honestly don't ever remember it coming into play in any game in 30 years.

[Sartharina]

In comparison to previous editions (4e excluded because I didn't play it) Equal to 3.x, but easier to deal with downed PCs. Downed PCs tend to survive a little longer unless they are finished off by a monster (which should happen. Smart monsters don't leave a creature bleeding, just as players don't leave em bleeding either)I actually disagree with this notion vehemently - A downed monster is Not An Immediate Threat. If the mechanics encourage finishing off monsters before the fight is over, it's a mark against it in my book. Which, unfortunately, quick-revive effects tend to do :(.

[rlc]

They should've done this with all of the versions

[Yora]

Any date on when we can expect the basic version?

[Stray]

3rd of July for the first batch of stuff (since they will update it as books get published)

[Yora]

That's soon.

It probably should be enough to get a decent picture of the general game, and if there is still such nonsense as +1 on all stats for humans and expertise dice.

[da_chicken]

That's soon.

It probably should be enough to get a decent picture of the general game, and if there is still such nonsense as +1 on all stats for humans and expertise dice.

The last playtest didn't have expertise dice. It was a flat +5, but they've changed it to double proficiency bonus if you have the expertise class feature.

Humans just have +1 all stats in the last playtest. It's their only racial feature (beyond size, speed, and two languages). I don't see it as a problem, but it's really not very interesting.

[Yora]

I'm just repeating what everyone else has been saying about it all those years (?), but +1 to everything simply means that all other races get -1 to everything but one stat. It doesn't make any sense.

[Morty]

Expertise dice were one of the very few good ideas to be shown in the playtest, so I'm actually going to be pleasantly surprised if they make it back to the basic set. I'm making no assumptions at this point.

[rlc]

Humans just have +1 all stats in the last playtest. It's their only racial feature (beyond size, speed, and two languages). I don't see it as a problem, but it's really not very interesting.

I guess an argument can be made that humans shouldn't be interesting, but that's about it.

[da_chicken]

I'm just repeating what everyone else has been saying about it all those years (?), but +1 to everything simply means that all other races get -1 to everything but one stat. It doesn't make any sense.

Other races get +1 to two stats in the last playtest, but I get the sentiment.

I don't know how to make humans otherwise interesting. I mean, their shtick is that they can do anything well. Giving them a feat is almost certainly too good. I guess I'd rather see something like +1 to any two plus proficiency in a skill or tool of their choice. Giving them a +1 to everything makes them easily the best race for multiclassing, which makes some sense even if in 1e/2e humans were not particularly well known for it (and even if dual classing was the nuts). Beyond that, there's not a huge difference between +1 to two and +1 to all, and virtually nothing between +1 to four and +1 to all. Most classes only use 1 or 2 abilities. A Fighter having Int 11, Cha 9 instead of Int 10, Cha 8 isn't hugely beneficial.

I'm also not sure I like Half-Orcs. They get +2 Str, +1 Con. Makes sense for the race, but that's hugely better since you get to start play with an 18 Str.