Have you changed your mind?

[akaddk]

I was on the fence about 5e. I'd enjoyed playing in groups with the playtest packets and seeing how things were changing but then reading through the articles leading up to Basic PDF release I was a bit... eh. I was worried about a few things that I foresaw as being problematic. But since playing in some games with the Basic set and discussing the pros and cons of a lot of it, I think I'll actually probably pre-order the PHB.

So I'm curious to know if there are other people who have had a similar experience or if the opposite has been true for some people and they're now less likely to play it and purchase products than they were before?

And it is at this point in writing this post that I realise there's no poll option on these forums... https://i.imgur.com/ZLyHtZH.gif

[Andvare]

No, I haven't changed my mind.

I have only followed the development a little. When I heard that you would be able to be completely healed by a simple nights rest, I cringed at the prospect for this edition to become even more like a CRPG, with even less focus on actual roleplay and social interaction, and more on combat.

This did not change when I read the basic rules. Especially when I read how little actual customization you could do. That skills, for example, are more or less solely bound to your level, which makes them even more of a sideshow than previous edition had. A skilled farmer is now impossible to make, outside of him being super strong/intelligent/whateverstatfarmingisbasedon or crazy high level. Yes you have a selection of hero powers, so you can customize how you fight. But what about all the other stuff, you know, outside combat?

It is not a ruleset for much outside combat, nor is it a ruleset that conveys immersion or verisimilitude very well. In my mind, it does not help roleplay at all, but steers towards a CRPG feel where combat is the only interesting part of the game, and it revolves around that and loot.

It is a ruleset that is easier to pick up than previous editions, set up for dungeon crawls.
Dungeon crawls are the laziest and most boring form of "roleplay", if it can be called roleplay at all.

Not my cup of tea.
Though as a longtime roleplayer that started with D&D in the '80s, I will probably follow the development a bit, for nostalgia, but will probably only play it if some of my friends get dead set on it.

[Inevitability]

No, I haven't changed my mind.

I have only followed the development a little. When I heard that you would be able to be completely healed by a simple nights rest, I cringed at the prospect for this edition to become even more like a CRPG, with even less focus on actual roleplay and social interaction, and more on combat.

I am sorry, but what has getting healed in a single night to do with not being able to roleplay?

"Hey, you played 5e yet?"
"No, they took away all the roleplay from that game!"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, for example, you can heal all your HP back in a single night..."
:smallconfused:



This did not change when I read the basic rules. Especially when I read how little actual customization you could do. That skills, for example, are more or less solely bound to your level, which makes them even more of a sideshow than previous edition had. A skilled farmer is now impossible to make, outside of him being super strong/intelligent/whateverstatfarmingisbasedon or crazy high level. Yes you have a selection of hero powers, so you can customize how you fight. But what about all the other stuff, you know, outside combat?

I agree on the customization part. However: 3.5 is regarded as one of the most customizable D&D versions out there, right?. You could practically make everything with enough time and splatbooks. But when the PHB came out, you had a race you could pick, a class you could pick with minimal choices to make inside a class (unless you played a caster, something that also exist in 5e, y'know). The skill system was big, but there were almost no feats that were even remotely interesting (and the same counted for a lot of skills). You shouldn't say 'this system has no customization' when the only book out is a PDF with only the most basic rules.

And yes, a skilled farmer is now impossible to make as player. Terrible isn't it? I've dreamed of playing one for years, and now that the game is out, you can't play one! I had already made a list of the thousand ways I would be able to help my party out!

Outside combat, let's see what we've got... Spells, skills, probably some feats, the background mechanic... A 1st-level 5e character has more out of combat potential than of a 1st-level character of any previous D&D edition. And you say that 5e has no roleplay?

[akaddk]

Outside combat, let's see what we've got... Spells, skills, probably some feats, the background mechanic... A 1st-level 5e character has more out of combat potential than of a 1st-level character of any previous D&D edition. And you say that 5e has no roleplay?

You forgot inspiration :)

Also, the default healing is just that, default. The modularity of 5e means it will bring additional healing rules with the DMG and possibly the PHB. There's already been a tentative confirmation that grittier healing is going to be available in one of these.

Or you could just change it yourself. It's not that difficult to houserule something.

[Vorandril]

You forgot inspiration :)

Also, the default healing is just that, default. The modularity of 5e means it will bring additional healing rules with the DMG and possibly the PHB. There's already been a tentative confirmation that grittier healing is going to be available in one of these.

Or you could just change it yourself. It's not that difficult to houserule something.

Que?!?
What exactly do you mean by "grittier"? Like you furrow your brow and bleeding wounds close up due to fear of being reprimanded?

[akaddk]

Que?!?
What exactly do you mean by "grittier"? Like you furrow your brow and bleeding wounds close up due to fear of being reprimanded?

Grittier, as in, more like passing a kidney stone than having your colon tickled by an endoscope.

[Andvare]

I am sorry, but what has getting healed in a single night to do with not being able to roleplay?

"Hey, you played 5e yet?"
"No, they took away all the roleplay from that game!"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, for example, you can heal all your HP back in a single night..."
:smallconfused:


It's called verisimilitude.
There is no danger when you are hurt. The only danger is if you die or not. everything between 100% healthy and dead doesn't matter.



I agree on the customization part. However: 3.5 is regarded as one of the most customizable D&D versions out there, right?. You could practically make everything with enough time and splatbooks. But when the PHB came out, you had a race you could pick, a class you could pick with minimal choices to make inside a class (unless you played a caster, something that also exist in 5e, y'know). The skill system was big, but there were almost no feats that were even remotely interesting (and the same counted for a lot of skills). You shouldn't say 'this system has no customization' when the only book out is a PDF with only the most basic rules.

Oh deary me, I didn't follow your rules. sorry.

I should, and will, call everything as I see them.
I am not comparing 5th ed. D&D to only previous versions of D&D, which would be silly to do, as there are other roleplaying games out there, and I am perfectly free to play them. Yes, this edition is an attempt to "back to the basics", probably as a result of the lacklustre sales record of 4th ed. and the success of Pathfinder. That doesn't make my critique any less valid.
Yes, 3rd ed was far from perfect in its lack of customizations, that in no way excuses the lack of customization in this edition.
I can select a very limited number of skills from a very small list, skills which a proficiency matters little in the low levels, compared to the d20 roll and the potential stat bonus. I like the background mechanic, sorta, but skills are complete dependant on level, so you can't customize how good at basketweaving you are, or how much of the local heraldic you know, outside of your basic stats. So actual customization is severely limited.

I cannot make a fighter that was raised on a farm, and was first in line the inherit the farm, and thus really studied farming as much as he could, to be the best farmer he could be, but had to go to war because some enemy came and burned down his farther farm ("you killed my father, you killed my mother, and you took my father's sword farm").
I cannot make a cleric that is blind to his religion, because he knows very little about it, since he didn't listen too well in class, but is fired up from a vision he saw (a strong believer, and hopefully a fun fall from the religion).

I cannot do this, because skills are either/or. You either have them, or you don't



And yes, a skilled farmer is now impossible to make as player. Terrible isn't it? I've dreamed of playing one for years, and now that the game is out, you can't play one! I had already made a list of the thousand ways I would be able to help my party out!

The most fun I have had in campaign roleplaying, is as a character that started as a farmer. This was in Warhammer Fantasy RPG, so a lot less epic than D&D. But the ability to farm, or do any other basic work outside of hobomurderingTM, is crucial to the game if you want to do anything other than hobomuderingTM. As it stand now, two farmers are exactly the same. They are equally skilled, which isn't a lot a mere 10% increase compared to the roll, unless one of them is really hard to kill with a sword (i.e. high level).
This is something that hurts verisimilitude. The reality of the world will hurt. Yes, magic isn't real, but there is a reason why the races are all humanoids, it is far easier to immerse yourself in such a world, as humanoids is what we humans are and what we can relate to. The same thing with everything. Yes, we can ignore fictional stuff to a certain degree, but the more we move away from reality, the harder it gets.

Not everything about a character, is what you can help the team with. Not everything is about how effective you are. Or at least it shouldn't be.



Outside combat, let's see what we've got... Spells, skills, probably some feats, the background mechanic... A 1st-level 5e character has more out of combat potential than of a 1st-level character of any previous D&D edition. And you say that 5e has no roleplay?

More potential? How so? Skill proficiency matters much less than previous, and I cannot see anything in this edition, that isn't in earlier editions.
The background mechanic? How about cross-class skills? (The whole idea of limiting skills to a class is moronic in any case)

[akaddk]

everything between 100% healthy and dead doesn't matter.

This is how it's always been. Hit points are not wounds. Hits do not gouge flesh from bone. Fireballs do not cause third degree burns. The only damage that matters is the damage that kills the character. This is what Gygax and the other creators of D&D intended. Every other interpretation of how hit points work were a detraction from that original goal.

If you want a wounds system then it's not that hard to make one and there has been a rumour that there might be one in the DMG.


I cannot make a fighter that was raised on a farm, and was first in line the inherit the farm, and thus really studied farming as much as he could, to be the best farmer he could be, but had to go to war because some enemy came and burned down his farther farm ("you killed my father, you killed my mother, and you took my father's sword farm").
Yes you can. It's simply that anything related to your farming experience is irrelevant in mechanical terms. Just because you don't have +5 to Sowing Crops, doesn't mean you can't roleplay knowing about sowing crops. I'm quite sure most reasonable DM's wouldn't make you roll for that. Everything that requires a mechanical representation has one, that doesn't mean you're limited to having things in your character make-up that don't require mechanical representations. If you want to interpret your "Animal Handling" skill, or your "Investigation" skill or your ability to swing a glaive with devastating effect as having something to do with your farmstead upbringing, I don't see why you should feel limited in that respect simply because nowhere in the mechanics of the system does it say, "This character was a farmer and therefore all his abilities based on his farming heritage."

[1337 b4k4]

It's called verisimilitude.
There is no danger when you are hurt. The only danger is if you die or not. everything between 100% healthy and dead doesn't matter.


People say this all the time and it's just not true. I don't know of any person who plays exactly the same when they have 1HP as they do when they have 100HP. Just because your mechanical combat effectiveness is not mechanically modified by HP levels doesn't mean that HP doesn't matter.



I cannot make a fighter that was raised on a farm, and was first in line the inherit the farm, and thus really studied farming as much as he could, to be the best farmer he could be, but had to go to war because some enemy came and burned down his farther farm ("you killed my father, you killed my mother, and you took my father's sword farm").
I cannot make a cleric that is blind to his religion, because he knows very little about it, since he didn't listen too well in class, but is fired up from a vision he saw (a strong believer, and hopefully a fun fall from the religion).

I cannot do this, because skills are either/or. You either have them, or you don't

And this is a long standing problem in the TTRPG community. The idea that if it isn't on your character sheet in some sort of mechanical representation then it doesn't exist. Frankly, this sort of thinking leads down deep dark rabbit holes that end with FATAL. If you want your character to be a farmer and have studied to be the best damn farmer there ever was, then make them so. Work with your DM to do whatever you need to to make that possible. The rules of the game as presented are not and should not be taken as a straight jacket. They are guidelines and suggestions and you can (and indeed must) adapt those rules to suit the game you want to play.

Edit
-------------

And to be completely clear here. If you play with a DM who won't allow you to expand your character beyond the core sets of traits defined in the rule books and with things that aren't mechanically represented on your character sheet, you are playing with a crappy DM and you should stop playing with them. It's time that the TTRPG community stopped rewarding crappy DMs by continuing to indulge their childish ways and trying to use rules to bludgeon DMs into behaving the way the players want them to behave.

End Edit
------------------------



As it stand now, two farmers are exactly the same. They are equally skilled, which isn't a lot a mere 10% increase compared to the roll, unless one of them is really hard to kill with a sword (i.e. high level).

If two farmers are exactly the same, then you as a player have failed to make an interesting character. Your character is more than the sum of the numbers on their character sheet.



Not everything about a character, is what you can help the team with. Not everything is about how effective you are. Or at least it shouldn't be.

Agreed, and not everything about a character is represented with a number on a character sheet.

[obryn]

I think a "farmer" background conveys the idea just dandy. I'm not really seeing the problem, frankly. :smallsmile: You take the farmer background, you are a farmer and know plenty about farm stuff. There's not a ton of support for making "farming" rolls, but then again, this is Dungeons and Dragons, not Farmers and Fieldhands, and I'd rather the finer points of agriculture was left to the theater of the mind and outright player/DM fiat. Not everything in the game world needs mechanical representation. :smallsmile:

Anyway in answer to the OP, my opinion about 5e has not fundamentally changed after the release of the Basic set. In fact, I am a bit more concerned about it after everything I've seen and heard about the PHB. It looks like, once again, spellcasters have received the lion's share of care and attention, with Clerics and Wizards having more subclasses than all the rest of the classes put together. :smallsigh:

Mind you, I think it looks okay, and I'd play in a game. I most likely will not go out of my way to run it, however. The Starter Kit is the first thing I'd recommend for someone who's trying to get into RPGs, though.

[the_other_gm]

Nope.

I wasn't a fan of some design decisions they made at the outset of the game development and I don't like how they handled scaling of character power. Game's just not for me, I've got others I can play.

Happy gaming to those who like it though.

[Lycoris]

I was interested when I first heard about it, and have been more and more interested as new material comes out. My brother's fairly entrenched in 3rd edition since he only recently purchased some of the core books (he got them for around 20% off back in January), but even he's taken a bit of a shine to it after having the chance to try out a Halfling Fighter.

Also, I actually think a Farmer's background is fairly reasonable to create with the current system, to say nothing of when/if we get guidelines on how to create custom backgrounds (they may even make a farmer background in a later book themselves). As it stands, Athletics, Nature, Animal Handling, Survival, Insight, Deception, and Persuasion all seem like reasonable skills a farmer might develop depending on what kind of farming he does, and if he ever marketed it as a business. As well, the Folk Hero background already seems like a fairly good starting point for anyone who wants to have rustic roots.

[Person_Man]

I'm currently on the fence.

On one hand, 5E appears to be less broken the 3.5 or PF. And there are a few fun looking new mechanics I'd like to try out. Plus I'm a well employed nerd in my 30's, so even if I don't play the game outside of the occassional convention, its not like buying a book or three just to read would be that big of an investment for me.

On the other hand, most of my friends who game play 3.5 or PF and are not enthusiastic about a new edition. And the lack of brokenness is mostly due to the fact that there is just a lot less material to optimize at this point. And like 3.5/PF, the basic math of 5E appears to break down at high levels. (Non-scaling AC, non-scaling of non-Proficient Saves, hit point bloat for some players but extreme fragility for others, high level magic can be game breaking).

I've got the Boxed set coming to my house in a few days because I wanted to try it out and it was dirt cheap on pre-order. If I like it, I'll buy the 5E PHB. If not, I probably won't.

[Friv]

I like it more that 3e, but not enough more that I'm actually likely to play it. If I want to run heroic combat, I'll stick with 4e, if I want to run a gritty dungeon crawl I'll use Torchbearer, and if I want to run politics and the like I'll use Fate. On the other hand, if someone in my group really wants to run 5e, I'm not going to run screaming from the room, so there's that.

[Inevitability]

You wanna be a farmer? Behold the power of HOMEBREW!

Farmer

You used to be a simple peasant whose life mostly consisted of farming. You know all about growing crops, herding cattle, milking cows and all other things that a farmer normally does. This is no longer the case, however. Maybe your farm was destroyed by pillaging orcs. Maybe a natural disaster caused you to move away from your farm. Maybe you fled from a local tyrant.

Skill proficiencies: Nature, Animal Handling
Tool Proficiencies: One type of Artisan's Tools, Vehicles (land)
Equipment: One set of Artisan's Tools, a set of common clothes, a shovel, a hoe, a sack, a basket, a length of rope and a pouch containing 20 silver pieces.

Feature: Farmer's Knowledge

You know about most duties, tasks and activities associated with farming and can perform them given enough time and suitable tools. Other farmers recognize you as one of theirs and are generally more friendly and open to you than to others.

Suggested Characteristics

Farmers are often down-to-earth and practical. Most farmers grew up in relative poverty, so things as small as the gold coins you are rewarded for defeating the goblins who stole from travelers may already seem like treasures to you.

There. That cost me about... 15-30 minutes.

[m4th]

I don't want to jump into the farmer/customization debate, so instead I'll just relay my own experiences.

I've been playing 5E since shortly after the public playtest opened. I've played with new DMs and experienced DMs, only low (1-4) levels. One game session was completely non-combat/RP, but it was a new DM who made some rookie mistakes that hurt the experience for some of our players. The other sessions have all been a good mix of combat and RP.

I found 4E lackluster. Nothing about 4E felt like Dungeons and Dragons; it felt like an MMO. I was excited about 5E because I heard it was supposed to be more like 3rd edition or older.

I have not changed my mind. 5E is exciting. Low level characters are fragile people, dashing headlong into mortal danger. I love the background system, and I am excited to get the rest of the backgrounds published in the PHB. Backgrounds help get you thinking about who your character is beyond what your character does.

I love the return of the full-fledged alignment system, which I know is decried by many as being artificial or shallow. My experience with 5E is that the majority of our in-character party disputes come from the nuanced differences between the alignments. It's fun, fast, philosophical discussion that more often than not takes the place of boring metagame strategizing. I could talk more about alignments, but I'll rest for now.

Maybe it's just that I've been out of the TTRPG scene for the majority of 4E and re-read my Tolkien, but 5E has been enjoyable so far.

[TheOOB]

All this talk about farming...couldn't you just take a farmer's tools tool proficiency? I mean it's not in the book, but there's no reason their couldn't be such a tool kit.

[Beleriphon]

All this talk about farming...couldn't you just take a farmer's tools tool proficiency? I mean it's not in the book, but there's no reason their couldn't be such a tool kit.

I was going to say that. And don't the proficiencies for tools and skills stack if they apply to the same task? I mean at first level a farmer in the right circumstances could get a +4 to a roll in addition to any stat bonus.

[da_chicken]

I was going to say that. And don't the proficiencies for tools and skills stack if they apply to the same task? I mean at first level a farmer in the right circumstances could get a +4 to a roll in addition to any stat bonus.

No. Proficiency Bonus on p57 of D&D Basic says you can't add your proficiency bonus more than once from two rules. You can double it if a single rule says you can (like Expertise) but you can't use two rules to add it twice.

[Beleriphon]

No. Proficiency Bonus on p57 of D&D Basic says you can't add your proficiency bonus more than once from two rules. You can double it if a single rule says you can (like Expertise) but you can't use two rules to add it twice.

You know, I remember reading that and I still got it wrong. Still, a "farming" proficiency seems pretty easy to pull of, especially since anybody could get proficiency with any tools with enough time an money.

[m4th]

All this talk about farming...couldn't you just take a farmer's tools tool proficiency? I mean it's not in the book, but there's no reason their couldn't be such a tool kit.

You could. Easily. You don't need to houserule a whole new background, you just need to add a single kit consisting of a hoe, shovel, and scythe and take handle animal as well.

I think Andvare's complaint stems from the fact that a character with the Farmer's Kit proficiency is only 10% more likely to succeed at a Farming check than a character without the Farmer's Kit proficiency. I understand that kind of complaint: there are people who are FAR better with farming implements than I am.

Andvare and I do not share the same complaints about verisimilitude, however. In the basic rules for downtime, it states that any character can work to provide a modest income. There are no rules for finding a job in a depressed market, obtaining a guild license from the local bureaucracy, or how your proficiency bonus affects your income. This is a design choice: simplicity over simulation. I do not need a perfect (or even a highly detailed) simulation to be satisfied with the idea that my Fighter with the Folk Hero background finds employment as a farmhand during his downtime. Downtime in the game is usually covered in less than five minutes of table time: what you did, what you spent, next please.

If Andvare says that his character ran the family farm before it was burned down by bandits, so his character is exceptionally great at growing cabbages and beans, great! You are now good friends with the farmer and his family. You don't need any kind of mechanical, numerical, explicitly drawn out representation of your farmer's skill in order to convince your fellow players or the DM. D&D is a roleplaying game: you roleplayed it, so it happened.

To quote Andvare against himself here for a second: "Not everything is about how effective you are. Or at least it shouldn't be."

[pwykersotz]

I have not changed my mind. I am incredibly excited for this edition.

I love advantage/disadvantage as a simpler way of handling modifiers.
I love the *fixed* spellcasting. Still awesomely powerful, but not like 3.5.
I love the melee characters special abilities. I can't wait to playtest them.
I'm on the fence about the skills. Customization of skill points has always been fun for me.
I love less but more powerful feats. I didn't realize how much I hated choosing from thousands of feats looking for useful combos until now.
I'm ambivalent about Faerun being the default setting. I'll probably change that.
I love bounded accuracy and capped stats. It makes me feel more like my tactics are more important than numbers.
I'm super intrigued by the border elemental planes. I can't wait to see them fleshed out.
I love the lack of exp costs or penalties I'm seeing. I hated spending xp or forcing my players to spend xp.
I love how energy drain is now vile damage.

There is more, but that's enough for now I think.

[PinkysBrain]

This is how it's always been. Hit points are not wounds. Hits do not gouge flesh from bone. Fireballs do not cause third degree burns. The only damage that matters is the damage that kills the character. This is what Gygax and the other creators of D&D intended. Every other interpretation of how hit points work were a detraction from that original goal.
The original goal sucks, I like the weeaboo interpretation better (ie. your character is just too badass to let third degree burns or exposed bone slow him down).

[PinkysBrain]

But the ability to farm, or do any other basic work outside of hobomurderingTM, is crucial to the game if you want to do anything other than hobomuderingTM.
The DM can be nice and make it relevant ... generally the ability to farm isn't very important to what is the equivalent of a millionaire/billionaire.

PS. not that there is anything wrong with the DM designing a bit of track specifically designed for one of the players.

[PinkysBrain]

I think Andvare's complaint stems from the fact that a character with the Farmer's Kit proficiency is only 10% more likely to succeed at a Farming check than a character without the Farmer's Kit proficiency. I understand that kind of complaint: there are people who are FAR better with farming implements than I am.
I never quite understand how 5e supporters can see the the tiny skill bonuses in a D20 game as a feature, I see it as a bug ... a very groggy bug.

3e wasn't much better, but at least with the ability to raise skills to +4 on first level it recognized background a bit more (although I think there should have been a way for NPCs to increase skills without leveling).

[TriForce]

i am carefully happy with 5th so far

im someone who liked 3.5 and absolutly LOATHED 4th and im glad this version has a lot of the good points of ad&d and 3.5 in it. it obviously hasnt have as much customization as 3.5 yet, but thats something thats easily improvised or expanded on in extra rulebooks, just like 3.5 itself. i dont really care about what the "basic" setting is of a version, since i dont use it anyway, i like making custom settings for campaigns i run.

im kinda puzzled about the whole "you cant raise your stats above 20" thing it has, but unless there is a VERY good reason for it, ill just houserule that away. other that that, i dont really see much that would make me unhappy with this version, and ill probably give it a try when it comes out

[da_chicken]

im kinda puzzled about the whole "you cant raise your stats above 20" thing it has, but unless there is a VERY good reason for it, ill just houserule that away. other that that, i dont really see much that would make me unhappy with this version, and ill probably give it a try when it comes out

The reason is bounded accuracy (http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20120604%EF%BB%BF), the major design philosophy encompassing all of 5e.

[obryn]

im kinda puzzled about the whole "you cant raise your stats above 20" thing it has, but unless there is a VERY good reason for it, ill just houserule that away. other that that, i dont really see much that would make me unhappy with this version, and ill probably give it a try when it comes out
It's because your stat and experience contribute about equally to most tasks in 5e. By opening up higher stats, you are reducing the import of level and removing the top boundaries in what should be a bounded math system.

[akaddk]

I never quite understand how 5e supporters can see the the tiny skill bonuses in a D20 game as a feature, I see it as a bug ... a very groggy bug.

3e wasn't much better, but at least with the ability to raise skills to +4 on first level it recognized background a bit more (although I think there should have been a way for NPCs to increase skills without leveling).
The DC's are different so a +4 has far greater an effect in 5e than it does in 3e. It's just a change to granularity.

[MeeposFire]

The DC's are different so a +4 has far greater an effect in 5e than it does in 3e. It's just a change to granularity.

As an example you can use 3e and 4e to show that different editions have different scaling of modifiers. In 4e a +1 to hit is a very nice advantage in fact it is one of the better benefits a fighter gets for free. In 3e that is weapon focus that you don't care that much after the first few levels. It is nice but not really powerful. In 4e that +1 stays relevant as you level (due to how the math works) while in 3e it does not scale in that fashion and becomes less useful as you level (it starts good and goes down from there).

[PinkysBrain]

The DC's are different so a +4 has far greater an effect in 5e than it does in 3e. It's just a change to granularity.
That can only be true if the DCs are far lower, yet the the suggested DCs range from 5 to 30. Add the removal of take 10 and you get a skill system where reliability is far harder to accomplish ... whereas magic is highly reliable.

Bounded accuracy might be a worthy goal for attack bonuses, but it's stupid for skills.

[1337 b4k4]

That can only be true if the DCs are far lower, yet the the suggested DCs range from 5 to 30. Add the removal of take 10 and you get a skill system where reliability is far harder to accomplish ... whereas magic is highly reliable.

Bounded accuracy might be a worthy goal for attack bonuses, but it's stupid for skills.

Realistically bounded accuracy isn't even stupid for skills, it's the singe d20 binary pass fail that's the problem. Bounded accuracy skills would work perfectly well and provide reliability and more simulation. The only problem would be that it would destroy the "one mechanic to rule them all" mentality that plagues rpg design.

[akaddk]

That can only be true if the DCs are far lower, yet the the suggested DCs range from 5 to 30. Add the removal of take 10 and you get a skill system where reliability is far harder to accomplish ... whereas magic is highly reliable.

Bounded accuracy might be a worthy goal for attack bonuses, but it's stupid for skills.

I think you're grossly exaggerating the issue. Yes, the DC's range from 5 to 30, but 30 is considered a "Nearly impossible" task. Add in other modifiers like ability, aiding, spells, tools and even nearly impossible isn't that terrifying a proposition.

Very easy 5
Easy 10
Medium 15
Hard 20
Very hard 25
Nearly impossible 30

This puts your argument into perspective and, I think, nullifies it completely.

[obryn]

I think you're grossly exaggerating the issue. Yes, the DC's range from 5 to 30, but 30 is considered a "Nearly impossible" task. Add in other modifiers like ability, aiding, spells, tools and even nearly impossible isn't that terrifying a proposition.

Very easy 5
Easy 10
Medium 15
Hard 20
Very hard 25
Nearly impossible 30

This puts your argument into perspective and, I think, nullifies it completely.
It depends on what the game considers Very Hard, I'd say.

I prefer capable heroes, and if I run 5e, I'd probably drop all the DCs by 5. There's no need to ever roll for a Very Easy task, IMO, so why even make that a roll-requiring DC?

[Sartharina]

I think you're grossly exaggerating the issue. Yes, the DC's range from 5 to 30, but 30 is considered a "Nearly impossible" task. Add in other modifiers like ability, aiding, spells, tools and even nearly impossible isn't that terrifying a proposition.

Very easy 5
Easy 10
Medium 15
Hard 20
Very hard 25
Nearly impossible 30

This puts your argument into perspective and, I think, nullifies it completely.

It's important to put in perspective what this is supposed to mean, though - An easy task is something anyone has a decent chance of doing, not something everyone does all the time. A 50/50 Untrained task, not a "90% Chance of success". I find most TTRPGs actually shoot for a 50% chance of success with meaningful declared actions.

A medium task is something a trained person has a 50/50 shot at doing (+2 or 3 Attribute, +2 Proficiency).

A Nearly Impossible task is possible for a near-max level character to do if he's trained in it (+5 Attribute, +6 Proficiency, 15% chance of success). And, Nearly Impossible means Nearly Impossible

That said - saving throws should never exceed 20. :smalleek:

[m4th]

That said - saving throws should never exceed 20. :smalleek:

Save DCs at high levels are my biggest concern about 5E right now. I absolutely hope they never exceed 20. It should be safe to assume a wizard can always target a weak stat with at least one save-or-suck spell at high levels. Give the target a -1 ability mod and no proficiency, and even DC 15 saves leaves only a 25% chance to save against the effect. Hopefully, magic items exist that boost saving throws, and no magic items exist that boost save DCs.

Personally, given the flexibility of wizards at high level to target different saves, I could see the argument made to remove a caster's proficiency bonus from the save DC altogether, and make the save DC 2 higher, so the formula is 10+ability mod. Save DC's would start at about 13 at first level and get to 15 by level 20. A caster's power would come from flexibility, instead of flexibility+numerical superiority.


It depends on what the game considers Very Hard, I'd say.

I prefer capable heroes, and if I run 5e, I'd probably drop all the DCs by 5. There's no need to ever roll for a Very Easy task, IMO, so why even make that a roll-requiring DC?

Capable heroes are certainly nice to have and to play as; D&D is a game about heroic fantasy, after all. But I recall a certain halfling rogue back in 3.5 who started at level 1 with something like a +11 to hide and got into the 80s by level 20, between magical skill bonuses and effects. If that never happens again, it'll be fine with me.
RIP little Dewinar Darkblade, you are not missed.

[Chaosvii7]

Save DCs at high levels are my biggest concern about 5E right now. I absolutely hope they never exceed 20. It should be safe to assume a wizard can always target a weak stat with at least one save-or-suck spell at high levels. Give the target a -1 ability mod and no proficiency, and even DC 15 saves leaves only a 25% chance to save against the effect.

Actually I think a 25% chance at worst is fair; That said, awarding of advantage/disadvantage should definitely be taken into consideration against targets who have sub-optimal save bonuses.

[obryn]

Capable heroes are certainly nice to have and to play as; D&D is a game about heroic fantasy, after all. But I recall a certain halfling rogue back in 3.5 who started at level 1 with something like a +11 to hide and got into the 80s by level 20, between magical skill bonuses and effects. If that never happens again, it'll be fine with me.
That's not even remotely what I'm looking for, though. :smallsmile: That was an artifact of how dumb 3.5 skill math got. By lowering DCs by 5 across the board in Next, all of a sudden every character is more well-rounded, and your skill-based characters will be able to do neat skill stuff with a substantially lower chance of failure.

IIRC, climbing a slick rope was DC 25 in a previous packet. That's just crazy to me.

[m4th]

Actually I think a 25% chance at worst is fair; That said, awarding of advantage/disadvantage should definitely be taken into consideration against targets who have sub-optimal save bonuses.

Yes, I agree. A 25% chance at worst is approximately ideal, considering that means a 75% chance to immediately lose on the first round. However, under the current system the maximum save DC is 19, achievable at level 17 by a wizard with a 20 Int and a proficiency of 6. Making that save with a dump stat, mod of -1, requires a natural 20 on the die roll.

We are working under the assumption that a high level wizard will always have a spell prepared that can target his opponents weakest save. I estimate that will be accurate at least 75% of the time, given the wizard's flexibility and propensity to hang on to his or her "ace in the hole" when making combat decisions. When those conditions are met, the wizard's enemy has a 95% chance to lose the fight on the very first round.

Keep in mind that wizards retain their superior information gathering, defensive preparations, and emergency escape options. A wizard can Arcane Eye to scout, Greater Invisibility to get the opening salvo, and Dimension Door to escape if things go Tango Uniform. For a wizard to have that kind of flexibility and the ability to outright win any contest 95% of the time is excessive.


That's not even remotely what I'm looking for, though. :smallsmile: That was an artifact of how dumb 3.5 skill math got. By lowering DCs by 5 across the board in Next, all of a sudden every character is more well-rounded, and your skill-based characters will be able to do neat skill stuff with a substantially lower chance of failure.

IIRC, climbing a slick rope was DC 25 in a previous packet. That's just crazy to me.

I couldn't find that particular rule in the two latest playtest packets, but I did notice a major change. In the playtest, nearly impossible tasks were DC 35, formidable tasks were DC 30. In the Basic release, there is no "formidable" challenge, and "nearly impossible" now DC 30.

Also, a wet rope is not a slick rope, because all ropes except for cheap plastic woven ropes are supposed to keep their friction when wet. If you took even a good hemp rope, oiled it with petroleum jelly or something similar so that it became truly slippery, and tried to climb 15 feet in six seconds, you would probably describe the experience as "very hard", if not "effing impossible". I don't know you or your physique, but when the US Army climbs a rope, they climb thick cotton or hemp ropes that maintain their friction in a variety of environmental conditions. DC 25 makes sense to me.

[HunterOfJello]

The reason is bounded accuracy (http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20120604%EF%BB%BF), the major design philosophy encompassing all of 5e.

A lot of this stuff makes so much more sense to me now. Do you have any other important articles that you think others should read to better understand the logic behind 5e?

[obryn]

Also, a wet rope is not a slick rope, because all ropes except for cheap plastic woven ropes are supposed to keep their friction when wet. If you took even a good hemp rope, oiled it with petroleum jelly or something similar so that it became truly slippery, and tried to climb 15 feet in six seconds, you would probably describe the experience as "very hard", if not "effing impossible". I don't know you or your physique, but when the US Army climbs a rope, they climb thick cotton or hemp ropes that maintain their friction in a variety of environmental conditions. DC 25 makes sense to me.
Oh, I'm not going to be climbing it, but I'm not an awesome adventurer, either.

The problem with making it DC 25 is that, at a maximum, non-Rogue characters will have a +11. By the time, say, a Ranger or Fighter is 20th level, I'd like to see "climbing a slippery rope" become fairly trivial, given that the Wizard, at this level, is reshaping the cosmos with spells like Wish and Gate. Even at low levels, this shouldn't be outside the realm of possibility for action hero types.

[Sartharina]

I think the game lost something with the bounded math, honestly. I miss proficiency dice, which were a lot more exciting than flat bonuses. I think I might houserule them back in, going from D4 at level 1 to d12 at level 20 - at least for skill checks.

I was somewhat tempted to think they dropped the ball on spell DCs, but realized that Player Math doesn't scale quite the same as Monster Math. Unfortunately, I don't like how all spells have the same DC (Though that does simplify things) - they could have had individual spells have individual DCs - and not even necessarily tied to spell level, though casting from a higher spell slot would/could boost the damage, DC, or both by smaller amounts.

Earthquake comes to mind - that spell should probably have used much smaller DCs than even some low-level spells, making it an Army Shatterer that doesn't trivialize things with its fissures.

As casters leveled up, they'd get more flexibility with their spells, and have more options for targeting defenses, or using reliable spells.

One of the ideas explicitly stated is "An Iron Door is almost as much an obstacle at level 1 as it is at level 20".

[akaddk]

One of the ideas explicitly stated is "An Iron Door is almost as much an obstacle at level 1 as it is at level 20".

This is what I like about 5e.

I'm so tired of superhero fantasy characters whose only challenge is to kill bigger things with bigger numbers. If I wanted to play a superhero, I'd play a superhero system.

[Sartharina]

This is what I like about 5e.

I'm so tired of superhero fantasy characters whose only challenge is to kill bigger things with bigger numbers. If I wanted to play a superhero, I'd play a superhero system.

Which is why I'm kind of upset they had spell DCs for PCs scale with attrirbutes, since creature save DCs also seem to scale (Creatures should not get proficiency bonuses!) - I think they lost sight of the goal after the playtest.

[PinkysBrain]

One of the ideas explicitly stated is "An Iron Door is almost as much an obstacle at level 1 as it is at level 20".
The cleric casts augury to determine if it's a good idea to DD ... if it's a good idea the wizard DDs, of course he can only bring the cleric with him in 5e. So the Iron door is just as much of an obstacle to a party with not enough casters at level 20 as it is at level 1 ...

[Inevitability]

The cleric casts augury to determine if it's a good idea to DD ... if it's a good idea the wizard DDs.

I'm sorry, but what is DD? Is it Dimension Door?

[PinkysBrain]

Yah, I forgot about the 5e DD nerf ... but that nerf just makes having multiple casters in the party that much more important at high level.

[Palegreenpants]

So, can someone explain why some people are upset about bounded accuracy? I love it. Instead of giving bigger numbers on level-up (the exception is HP,) a bounded accuracy system gives you more things you can do with your pre-existing numbers.
No offence meant, but do PF and 3.5 players have a huge-number fetish?

Edit: Another thing, people are using the "wizards reshaping the cosmos" excuse for why, say, breaking down a door should be easier at higher levels. Wizards don't have this kind of passive power in 5E, they just occasionally explode with energy.

[da_chicken]

A lot of this stuff makes so much more sense to me now.

I know, right? Honestly, I think they should have this article published as the foreword or introduction to the PHB or DMG. There should be an attempt somewhere to answer the question, "Why 5e?"


Do you have any other important articles that you think others should read to better understand the logic behind 5e?

Not that I'm aware of, no, but I haven't gone through the L&L archives much. It would be about 100-150 articles to comb through.

[the_other_gm]

So, can someone explain why some people are upset about bounded accuracy? I love it. Instead of giving bigger numbers on level-up (the exception is HP,) a bounded accuracy system gives you more things you can do with your pre-existing numbers.
No offence meant, but do PF and 3.5 players have a huge-number fetish?

Edit: Another thing, people are using the "wizards reshaping the cosmos" excuse for why, say, breaking down a door should be easier at higher levels. Wizards don't have this kind of passive power in 5E, they just occasionally explode with energy.

The problem isn't "bound accuracy" but that they kept the numbers very low in growth. Bound accuracy just means a way to keep PC numbers within a certain expected boundary. There are different ways to do so, mind you, and I'll be very frank in saying that i'm not a fan of how 5th ed does it.

The wizard can still turn invisible at 3rd level and gains flight at 5th. The fighter gets a slight damage boost at 3rd can occasionally punch someone twice in a short timespan but needs to take a breather before he can do so again at 5th.

I'm still inclined to say that the wizard still has rather incredible powers.

[Pex]

So, can someone explain why some people are upset about bounded accuracy? I love it. Instead of giving bigger numbers on level-up (the exception is HP,) a bounded accuracy system gives you more things you can do with your pre-existing numbers.
No offence meant, but do PF and 3.5 players have a huge-number fetish?

Edit: Another thing, people are using the "wizards reshaping the cosmos" excuse for why, say, breaking down a door should be easier at higher levels. Wizards don't have this kind of passive power in 5E, they just occasionally explode with energy.

I'm not dismissing it outright. It's not something I can just read about and immediately hate. I would have to experience playing with it, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. However, to coin a phrase, I do like being a "superhero" at high level of a Pathfinder game. I like that player characters can do wondrous things of great power. What used to be the realm of NPC patrons, fantastic monsters, BBEGs, and game world historical people slowly but surely trickle in to the realm of players of things they can do.

For the first time recently my Oracle of Life was able to cast Heal. It was a great thrill. Poof, instantly healing of all hit points, relatively speaking. Never able to do that before but now I can. It was his dream. I also have Word of Recall. Haven't used it yet, but it's exciting to know I can now finally give the party an instant escape route should we need it. He insists no one dies on his watch. (Failed once, long story. :smallsmile:)

I understand even in 5E the NPC patrons, fantastic monsters, BBEGs, and game world historical people will have curtailed wondrous things of great power. Player characters will eventually be able to do what they can do; it's just that what they can do will be of lower numbers than in previous editions. That again would have to be something I need to experience, but that paradigm takes nothing away from those of us who like being "superheroes".

[PinkysBrain]

So, can someone explain why some people are upset about bounded accuracy? I love it. Instead of giving bigger numbers on level-up (the exception is HP,) a bounded accuracy system gives you more things you can do with your pre-existing numbers.
How? In combat your increased HP and magic protections allow you to handle monsters you couldn't handle at low level, even if you could hit them. For skills only your modifier increasing to make some things more reliable can serve to open up new possibilities.

No offence meant, but do PF and 3.5 players have a huge-number fetish?
Yes, yes I do.

Edit: Another thing, people are using the "wizards reshaping the cosmos" excuse for why, say, breaking down a door should be easier at higher levels. Wizards don't have this kind of passive power in 5E, they just occasionally explode with energy.
Explosions are fun.

[akaddk]

For the first time recently my Oracle of Life was able to cast Heal. It was a great thrill. Poof, instantly healing of all hit points, relatively speaking. Never able to do that before but now I can. It was his dream. I also have Word of Recall. Haven't used it yet, but it's exciting to know I can now finally give the party an instant escape route should we need it. He insists no one dies on his watch. (Failed once, long story. :smallsmile:)

Since Heal is already in the Basic PDF and I have no doubt that Word of Recall will be too, I'm not sure I understand your example.

In PF, a CR 1 creature is like confetti to any character over about 3rd level. In 5e, that same CR 1 creature will still pose some threat to even a 20th-level character. The 20th-level character will still probably make mince-meat out of it, but it won't be like a mosquito taking on a hurricane. And the same thing goes for mundane things as well. Instead of completely negating all difficulty and challenge in a game and reducing everything down to bigger numbers equals better, therefore making everything primarily about combat, 5e aims to promote more player creativity and involvement by keeping the challenge level for all things at a reasonable level. Tasks still become relatively easier as you level up, they simply don't become trivial as they do in other editions or systems.

[Lord of Shadows]

I prefer capable heroes, and if I run 5e, I'd probably drop all the DCs by 5. There's no need to ever roll for a Very Easy task, IMO, so why even make that a roll-requiring DC?

Because there is always the chance that you will hit your thumb instead of the nail..
.

[CyberThread]

The game is also designed for DM fudging also though. If you fail a save the Dm now by the rules, has the latitude not to have it fail completely . You can pass lockpicking that door, but you get zapped or you do it loud enough that someone hears you.

The ruleset has built in latitudes of success now, at the DM's whim.

[PinkysBrain]

Tasks still become relatively easier as you level up, they simply don't become trivial as they do in other editions or systems.
Magic makes many tasks trivial ...

[akaddk]

Magic makes many tasks trivial ...
Err...


The cleric casts augury to determine if it's a good idea to DD ... if it's a good idea the wizard DDs, of course he can only bring the cleric with him in 5e. So the Iron door is just as much of an obstacle to a party with not enough casters at level 20 as it is at level 1 ...

Sorry, you were saying?

[Tholomyes]

I haven't really changed my mind, no. I've been on the fence (well, leaning negative, but still on the fence), for a while now. As it stands, there are things I like, but overall, there's just not enough there for me to care a ton.

I like Backgrounds. I wish they shifted skills entirely to backgrounds (maybe gave you two to choose, but kept the number of proficiency per background the same). But it's still not enough to get me to invest in 5e. If I had a system I actually liked that wasn't already point-buy (or semi point buy), I'd probably import it into that system, but it's not enough to draw me in to 5e.

I like how they made casters more balanced. Still, I like other systems's approaches better.

I like Inspiration. Too bad I've already imported a broader version of them, in the form of Hero Points, to all of my games, so it's inclusion does diddly-squat for me.

Otherwise everything is either neutral or negative for me. While I could probably enjoy playing this system, I don't see any reason to actively choose to play it.

[PinkysBrain]

Sorry, you were saying?
I'm saying you need a two wizards and a cleric to a party of 4.

[akaddk]

I'm saying you need a two wizards and a cleric to a party of 4.

In order to make bypassing doors trivial, I agree.

[Lord Raziere]

well its clearly better than 3.5

and it clearly has things I like from 4e.

and I like the background thing.

it has potential, but until it gets to the stuff I like, I'm gonna withhold judgement. until it details things like sorcerers, warforged, hybrid classes, catfolk, Eberron, psionics, Dark Sun, and y'know more spells in general and other such modular stuff that will supposedly come....

[Ballbo Big'Uns]

This did not change when I read the basic rules. Especially when I read how little actual customization you could do. That skills, for example, are more or less solely bound to your level, which makes them even more of a sideshow than previous edition had. A skilled farmer is now impossible to make, outside of him being super strong/intelligent/whateverstatfarmingisbasedon or crazy high level. Yes you have a selection of hero powers, so you can customize how you fight. But what about all the other stuff, you know, outside combat?


I guarantee that no farmer NPC I make is ever going to be making farming checks.

[Envyus]

I'm saying you need a two wizards and a cleric to a party of 4.

The two Wizards will be splatted.

[1337 b4k4]

I guarantee that no farmer NPC I make is ever going to be making farming checks.

I would be so happy if the idea of "farming checks" never entered D&D lexicon again. I much prefer games where "my character is a farmer, common farming tasks comes as natural to him as walking" is the standard rather than "I need to spend advancement resources building my character such that they have 10 ranks in Crop Science and 10 ranks in Animal Handling and 10 ranks in Basic Tooling and 10 ranks in ride and the Farmer prestige class".

[akaddk]

I would be so happy if the idea of "farming checks" never entered D&D lexicon again. I much prefer games where "my character is a farmer, common farming tasks comes as natural to him as walking" is the standard rather than "I need to spend advancement resources building my character such that they have 10 ranks in Crop Science and 10 ranks in Animal Handling and 10 ranks in Basic Tooling and 10 ranks in ride and the Farmer prestige class".

Yes, but which one of those makes the better organic kale?

[1337 b4k4]

Yes, but which one of those makes the better organic kale?

Neither because in the first case, the DM is a **** who always tells their players "no you can't do that because it's not in the rule books" and in the second case the player didn't take ranks in Farming (Organic) and Chemical Sciences (Natural Pesticides) :smalltongue:

[HunterOfJello]

Not that I'm aware of, no, but I haven't gone through the L&L archives much. It would be about 100-150 articles to comb through.

Ah, alright. One thing that helped me gain a lot of perspective on 5E was going back and reading what OD&D actually looked and played like. I think the developers of 5E attempted to create modern versions of OD&D classes rather than modified versions of 3.5 and 4E classes.

I look forward to seeing what else they have up their sleeves.

[Ballbo Big'Uns]

I would be so happy if the idea of "farming checks" never entered D&D lexicon again. I much prefer games where "my character is a farmer, common farming tasks comes as natural to him as walking" is the standard rather than "I need to spend advancement resources building my character such that they have 10 ranks in Crop Science and 10 ranks in Animal Handling and 10 ranks in Basic Tooling and 10 ranks in ride and the Farmer prestige class".

This sort of soulless bureaucracy is exactly why I hate 3.x/Pathfinder.

[Sartharina]

Neither because in the first case, the DM is a **** who always tells their players "no you can't do that because it's not in the rule books" and in the second case the player didn't take ranks in Farming (Organic) and Chemical Sciences (Natural Pesticides) :smalltongue:

Why is this not in the Dark Orchid text reserved for Marty/Chief Circle's pronouncements?

[Squirrel_Dude]

Before reading basic I was off the fence, on the side of not being interested in the game. The basic game, and some of the other information about it has put me on the fence. Other friends looking at it and being willing to play it will be the deciding factor.

[SiuiS]

It depends on what the game considers Very Hard, I'd say.

I prefer capable heroes, and if I run 5e, I'd probably drop all the DCs by 5. There's no need to ever roll for a Very Easy task, IMO, so why even make that a roll-requiring DC?

Think of it as a bell curve. A hero should rarely come up against the lower DCs. Those things are likely to be an afterthought. That said, the game is written to allow for the highest number to exist, but not see play. You should always have that 30 up your sleeve if you really need it; Anything else simply wasn't actually "near impossibble", just "very hard".

The problme with this level of inclusion is that it artifically creates the idea that because the benchmark exists, it should be met. People will use DC 30 too often because it's there.


It's important to put in perspective what this is supposed to mean, though - An easy task is something anyone has a decent chance of doing, not something everyone does all the time. A 50/50 Untrained task, not a "90% Chance of success". I find most TTRPGs actually shoot for a 50% chance of success with meaningful declared actions.

A medium task is something a trained person has a 50/50 shot at doing (+2 or 3 Attribute, +2 Proficiency).

A Nearly Impossible task is possible for a near-max level character to do if he's trained in it (+5 Attribute, +6 Proficiency, 15% chance of success). And, Nearly Impossible means Nearly Impossible

That said - saving throws should never exceed 20. :smalleek:

Aye. Like ACKS puts it. An easy task is not "start a campfire". That's not an easy task. That's a "My character eats his rations" level task.

[PinkysBrain]

The two Wizards will be splatted.
Of course, casters due to spells tend to get far more splatbook content they can use in pre-existing characters than non casters.

[Yora]

I expected 5th edition to be based on the basic d20 system framework, with all the problems that come with it, and did not plan to buy it.

Limiting the advancement of attack bonuses and saving throws does adress one of the symptoms that made me unhappy with 3rd edition/Pathfinder, but the game is still based on the underlying assumption of interacting with the environment through the use of class features, which I think is the main thing with which the d20 system went wrong.

So I keep my current game and will not buy D&D 5th edition.

[Christian]

I think the game lost something with the bounded math, honestly. I miss proficiency dice, which were a lot more exciting than flat bonuses. I think I might houserule them back in, going from D4 at level 1 to d12 at level 20 - at least for skill checks.

I would bet real money that this will be one of the optional rules in the DMG. Given that the proficiency bonus/dice conversion would be +2 --> d4, +3 --> d6, +4 --> d8, +5 --> d10, and +6 --> d12. If there was some level that gave +7, then the optional rule would need a way to simulate a d14. What a lucky coincidence that they maxed out the proficiency bonus at +6, then, isn't it? You know, if you believe in lucky coincidences WRT professional game design.

"What does S.H.I.E.L.D. stand for, Agent Ward?" "Strategic Homeland Intervention, Logistics, and Enforcement Division." "And what does that mean to you?" "That someone really wanted our initials to spell 'shield'."

[jamused]

Yep, completely changed my mind. I wasn't the slightest bit interested, didn't try any of the play-test material, and mostly didn't even follow any of the news and discussion. Our group had completely burned out on 3.5 years ago, and skipped 4. There was no way I was planning on shelling out $50 for the PHB for game we'd probably never even play (even if $50 was roughly equivalent to inflation-adjusted AD&D PHB).

Then they announced that while the Starter Set wouldn't have anything but the pregens, D&D Basic would be a free PDF and it would have everything you needed for chargen for the four classic races and classes... which were all we were using in our current (LotFP) game anyway, so I had to at least download it and take a look.

I'm mightily impressed. Everything that drove us crazy about 3.5 appears to be fixed (mostly simplified) with rather elegant mechanics, and much of what some of the players don't really dig about our current game (low-level characters not really being any good at anything for some of our players, too abstract combat for others) also seems to be addressed. Last we the group voted to switch over to 5e and give it a try. If you'd asked me 6 months ago I'd have bet no way, no how.

[da_chicken]

I would bet real money that this will be one of the optional rules in the DMG. Given that the proficiency bonus/dice conversion would be +2 --> d4, +3 --> d6, +4 --> d8, +5 --> d10, and +6 --> d12. If there was some level that gave +7, then the optional rule would need a way to simulate a d14. What a lucky coincidence that they maxed out the proficiency bonus at +6, then, isn't it? You know, if you believe in lucky coincidences WRT professional game design.

I've read somewhere that early in the design, they actually did use dice for proficiencies.

[obryn]

I've read somewhere that early in the design, they actually did use dice for proficiencies.
It's true, and I agree it's a likely module.

I dunno if I'd want to use it for attack rolls and such, though.

[da_chicken]

It's true, and I agree it's a likely module.

I dunno if I'd want to use it for attack rolls and such, though.

Well, it's rolling multiple dice so it should bell-shape the RNG, but the fact that the die size changes so dramatically probably made it really hard to get it to play right at high level. It's also just adding dice for no reason but to add dice.

[Inevitability]

It's true, and I agree it's a likely module.

I dunno if I'd want to use it for attack rolls and such, though.

Several optional rules have already been spoken about in the PDF, so I think we may see Proficiency Dice as another optional rule. 5e seems to have a lot more variant rules already included in the base game than other editions.

[obryn]

Well, it's rolling multiple dice so it should bell-shape the RNG, but the fact that the die size changes so dramatically probably made it really hard to get it to play right at high level. It's also just adding dice for no reason but to add dice.
Yeah, the d20 will always be in the driver's seat for the probability distribution. Adding a d6 adds a trivial bell curve with a humongous plateau in the middle. There's a reason Earthdawn 3e removed the d20 from its step system.

[Raimun]

No, I have not changed my mind.

I have play tested the game a handful of times and my opinion has remained unchanged: not a fan.

I don't like the game system. Too simplistic and devoid of customization options. The game evokes this nightmarish vision of a vanilla fantasy roleplaying system where all fighters use longswords and shields, wizards cast only blasting spells, rogues just pick locks and clerics are healbots.

The above might be a hyperbole but the game is certainly going in that direction. The Feat-issue is the perfect example of this.

[Envyus]

I don't like the game system. Too simplistic and devoid of customization options. The game evokes this nightmarish vision of a vanilla fantasy roleplaying system where all fighters use longswords and shields, wizards cast only blasting spells, rogues just pick locks and clerics are healbots.


Well they kind of purposefully set up basic like that. The rest of the options are meant to be in the PHB.

[BWR]

I haven't had to change my mind because I had not seen anything of the rules before the Basic set came out.
On the whole I do not like it. It's better than 4e (hardly a challenge) but I will stick with PF for the foreseable future. I like some of the changes. I like that they have seemingly toned down the power level, I like that they have simplified a few things, I like that they have tried to make classes that were weak in 3.x better with less work, the advantage/disadvantage is interesting and I like that they have made an effort to bring backstories into mechanics.

But.
There are several things I don't like about what I see but it boils down to one important thing: I detest the Proficiency system.
I was displeased with Non-Weapon Proficiencies in BECMI and 2e. I loved the new skill system that was introduced in 3.0. I detested the Trained/Untrained skills in Star Wars Saga, and it was yet another reason to hate 4e. But not only is the same basic skill system but it applies to attack rolls as well. Now a wizard and a fighter of equal level are equally skilled (ignoring abilitiy modifiers) with certain weapons. That is just wrong. The fighter of equal level should always be more skilled using a weapon than a wizard.

Making six saving throws instead of 3 (or 5) - ok I guess (you want to try to keep all ability scores mostly equal in value) but why didn't they give us any examples of Strength, Intelligence or Charisma STs? All the spells are basically Fortitude/Reflex/Will, even if there were spells that could easily have been one of the others (Web - Strength ST to tear loose from the strands, but no, it's still a Ref save and then a Str check). Maybe the full version of the game gives us real examples but based on Basic I can't say I'm impressed.

I don't like the new casting system. One of the sacred cows of D&D for me is the Vancian system - memorize one particular spell in one slot. By all means, have alternate methods of casting in addition to that but removing it altogether is not for me. This one is easily house ruled, I guess but it's another mark agaisnt 5e that they changed this. I don't like the spells that can be cast with higher spell slots. I didn't like it when it was in the WoT game (partially because the entire Channeling system was a terrible adaptation of what we see in the books) and I don't like it now. You want a more powerful version of a certain spell, research a specifiic verison.

[Sartharina]

But.
There are several things I don't like about what I see but it boils down to one important thing: I detest the Proficiency system.
I was displeased with Non-Weapon Proficiencies in BECMI and 2e. I loved the new skill system that was introduced in 3.0. I detested the Trained/Untrained skills in Star Wars Saga, and it was yet another reason to hate 4e. But not only is the same basic skill system but it applies to attack rolls as well. Now a wizard and a fighter of equal level are equally skilled (ignoring abilitiy modifiers) with certain weapons. That is just wrong. The fighter of equal level should always be more skilled using a weapon than a wizard.
The fighter IS more skilled using a weapon than a wizard, even if their proficiency is the same - He has combat style, multiple attacks, and more feats/better stats on his side.

[BWR]

The fighter IS more skilled using a weapon than a wizard, even if their proficiency is the same - He has combat style, multiple attacks, and more feats/better stats on his side.

You're missing the point. Remove all those things, the Fighter should still be better than a Wizard, yet isn't.

[Arzanyos]

But, BWR, that is how the fighter is better at fighting than anyone else. Complaining that without that, he is no better at fighting than a wizard is a bit like saying, "except for the ability to cast spells, a wizard is no better at magic-ing than a fighter." On an unrelated note, I really hope every class can use scrolls.

[Ballbo Big'Uns]

I haven't had to change my mind because I had not seen anything of the rules before the Basic set came out.
On the whole I do not like it. It's better than 4e (hardly a challenge) but I will stick with PF for the foreseable future. I like some of the changes. I like that they have seemingly toned down the power level, I like that they have simplified a few things, I like that they have tried to make classes that were weak in 3.x better with less work, the advantage/disadvantage is interesting and I like that they have made an effort to bring backstories into mechanics.

But.
There are several things I don't like about what I see but it boils down to one important thing: I detest the Proficiency system.
I was displeased with Non-Weapon Proficiencies in BECMI and 2e. I loved the new skill system that was introduced in 3.0. I detested the Trained/Untrained skills in Star Wars Saga, and it was yet another reason to hate 4e. But not only is the same basic skill system but it applies to attack rolls as well. Now a wizard and a fighter of equal level are equally skilled (ignoring abilitiy modifiers) with certain weapons. That is just wrong. The fighter of equal level should always be more skilled using a weapon than a wizard.

Making six saving throws instead of 3 (or 5) - ok I guess (you want to try to keep all ability scores mostly equal in value) but why didn't they give us any examples of Strength, Intelligence or Charisma STs? All the spells are basically Fortitude/Reflex/Will, even if there were spells that could easily have been one of the others (Web - Strength ST to tear loose from the strands, but no, it's still a Ref save and then a Str check). Maybe the full version of the game gives us real examples but based on Basic I can't say I'm impressed.

I don't like the new casting system. One of the sacred cows of D&D for me is the Vancian system - memorize one particular spell in one slot. By all means, have alternate methods of casting in addition to that but removing it altogether is not for me. This one is easily house ruled, I guess but it's another mark agaisnt 5e that they changed this. I don't like the spells that can be cast with higher spell slots. I didn't like it when it was in the WoT game (partially because the entire Channeling system was a terrible adaptation of what we see in the books) and I don't like it now. You want a more powerful version of a certain spell, research a specifiic verison.

Everything you love is everything I hate.

I feel visceral anger reading your words.

[Tholomyes]

Well they kind of purposefully set up basic like that. The rest of the options are meant to be in the PHB.This is largely a "I'll believe it when I see it" thing. I can't see, with the smaller number of feats from 1-20, and, more importantly, the fact that you don't get your first one until level 4, and the fact that there are only 3 subclasses out of the gate, per class, for most classes, and that's the only choice you make in a class, for most classes. I find it hard to see how they could add more options in the PHB. My best guess is it'll be a few sourcebooks in, where we get an "Advanced Player's Handbook" or something like that, where you get more customization options, like alternate class features.

[obryn]

Everything you love is everything I hate.

I feel visceral anger reading your words.
I had a similar, "Wow, I want the total opposite out of my new elfgames" vibe. :smallsmile:

[archaeo]

Ugh, interjection: WotC isn't even really trying to change minds yet.

I mean, Mearls & Co. had to have been prepared for exactly this "they changed it, now it sucks" response from D&D fans, right? Is the Internet ready for the critical-backlash backlash yet? Are we already several layers deep? It's mega dull to read the same 2-4 5e threads endlessly across the forums, but it shouldn't have caught anybody by surprise. Least of all WotC, who is after all voluntarily releasing what is by all measures a pretty scaled-back and modest (even conservative) edition this time around.

Indeed, whenever somebody from WotC talks about it, they say something along the lines of "If you like the game you're playing, you should keep playing it," and I don't think that's corporate hooey. They're selling 5e, sure, but I don't think they expect to change every mind right now (unless they were all conveniently in medically induced comas when 4e came out). Instead, they have a staggered release schedule to stay in the news, a few months to work on the DMG to plug any holes in the rules, good buzz from the press, etc., etc.

In other words we are seeing 5e from a weird angle, the enthusiast side where a question like "Have you changed your mind [about 5e]" even makes sense. WotC has a product, right now, aimed at people who are totally new to D&D or are new to 5e. Presumably, the company will shift to selling their game to 4e and 3e/PF players once they actually have a product that competes with them, like when the PHB comes out at Gencon. And, to use another overused meme, the DMG may solve a lot of players' problems with the system.

I also think that they plan on changing people's minds with "added value" beyond the rules, like a DLC-style homebrew/TPP marketplace. We know about Codename: Morningstar or whatever, which could be a game-changer. But right now, 5e could be the all-time best TTRPG ever and a heavy percentage of any given forum would still be talking about how wretched it is. It's just the nature of the beast.

[Tholomyes]

Codename Morningstar, seems to me just to be something similar to D&D Insider, where you get certain tools like a character builder, and monster designers, and such, and a rules compendium, but I don't think it's really a "DLC-style homebrew/TPP marketplace"

My guess is that they'll be releasing splatbooks quickly to try to fit the niches of certain playstyles, but they want to make sure they have a simple system to get new players in, and potentially draw back players more used to the simpler TSR-era systems (though I think the former is far more their focus). There will be plenty of Subclasses, and likely alternate rules. But to be honest, I think it'll be pretty hard to get the players satisfied with older editions back. The only thing that I can see drawing people from editions they're satisfied with is the fact that it's currently supported by WotC. But in the case of 3.5 players, Paizo is supporting PF (and they even seem trying to draw in some 4e players with "Pathfinder Unleashed" which seems to be providing rules which deviate from the 3e base assumptions). 4e players would probably the easiest to court, but I also think 5e has done too much to distance themselves from 4e players, so I'm not sure they'll be all that successful on that front, unless they do something really early in 5e's life.

As for me, I've been less than pleased with all editions of D&D so far, so I'm still at a wait-and-see state, with cautious Pessimism. I don't like the system as it stands, but I'll admit, there are a fair number of systems that I didn't like Core, but liked (at least liked more) after sourcebooks came out for them.

[BWR]

But, BWR, that is how the fighter is better at fighting than anyone else. Complaining that without that, he is no better at fighting than a wizard is a bit like saying, "except for the ability to cast spells, a wizard is no better at magic-ing than a fighter." On an unrelated note, I really hope every class can use scrolls.

It's the Proficiency thing. There should be a BAB or THAC0 or whatever system that allows the Fighter, all other things being equal, to be better at fighting than wizards etc. at equal levels. The Proficiency system means that everyone at the same level is at core equally skilled at things, and I detest that.


Everything you love is everything I hate.

I feel visceral anger reading your words.

1. Love is too strong a word.
2. I think you're taking this a bit too seriously if you feel 'visceral anger' at someone saying he liked something (something that isn't morally objectionable). Or is this another instance of thinking that words with different meanings mean the same thing? Like=love, slight annoyance=visceral anger?

[da_chicken]

It's the Proficiency thing. There should be a BAB or THAC0 or whatever system that allows the Fighter, all other things being equal, to be better at fighting than wizards etc. at equal levels. The Proficiency system means that everyone at the same level is at core equally skilled at things, and I detest that.

Yes, they're exactly the same if you chose to ignore everything that makes them completely different like class abilities and ability scores. Unfortunately for you, 5e differentiates fighting skill with class abilities and ability scores. That's the design. If you don't like it, you can keep playing 3e.


1. Love is too strong a word.
2. I think you're taking this a bit too seriously if you feel 'visceral anger' at someone saying he liked something (something that isn't morally objectionable). Or is this another instance of thinking that words with different meanings mean the same thing? Like=love, slight annoyance=visceral anger?

It's hyperbole.

[BWR]

Yes, they're exactly the same if you chose to ignore everything that makes them completely different like class abilities and ability scores. Unfortunately for you, 5e differentiates fighting skill with class abilities and ability scores. That's the design. If you don't like it, you can keep playing 3e.



It's hyperbole.

1. I fully intend to (well, PF, but the points stands). I stated as much in my first post and my reasons why. I know it's design, I know why they did it, I just don't like it, and this dislike is enough to keep me away from 5e, at least based on Basic.
2. I know. I just think that hyperbole is overused and have a habit I'm trying to kick of taking things too literally to point out just how silly it is.

[m4th]

Well, it's rolling multiple dice so it should bell-shape the RNG, but the fact that the die size changes so dramatically probably made it really hard to get it to play right at high level. It's also just adding dice for no reason but to add dice.

Good enough for me!

[Ballbo Big'Uns]

1. Love is too strong a word.
2. I think you're taking this a bit too seriously if you feel 'visceral anger' at someone saying he liked something (something that isn't morally objectionable). Or is this another instance of thinking that words with different meanings mean the same thing? Like=love, slight annoyance=visceral anger?

I may be venturing into hyperbole there, but your tastes seem particularly engineered so that only 3.x/Pathfinder will ever satisfy them, and I really and truly hate that edition like you hate 4th (possibly more).

As for your complaint of a Wizard being as good as a fighter with certain weapons in 5E, that's simply not true. If you were to put a Wizard and a Fighter into the arena and have them fight it out with just quarterstaves; barring a complete fluke of luck, the fighter wins everytime. This is because the game quantifies the difference between a wizard and fighter in different ways than just heaping bigger and bigger numbers onto everything; that way, the 3rd edition way, leads to 30+ modifiers on d20 rolls.

I'm glad that the game is moving away from the sort of slot-by-slot vancian magic system that you advocate. It may be a sacred cow to you, but if 5E does away with it and the masses accept 5E as D&D, then that sacred cow is officially and practically dead. If I had my druthers, Wizards would look more like 3E sorcerers, with relatively few known spells and more castings per day. Ritual spells would then become wholly separate entities. I much prefer this to the traditional "I have an app for that" wizard, because then the spotlight shines on the characters who can find nonmagical solutions to certain obstacles.

[Kish]

Not at all.

As far as I can tell from looking at it, it seems to be trying to compromise between 3.xed and 4ed. But very few people, as far as I could tell, ever wanted a compromise between them; nearly everyone seems to want one of them to be a base for D&D and the other to disappear into the ether entirely. If the previous books were about to cease to exist looking for a compromise would make sense, but no one who thinks 3.xed or Pathfinder is just plain better in every way than 4ed is going to switch to a "closer to 4ed" edition, and no one who thinks 4ed is just plain better in every way than the earlier editions is going to switch to a "closer to 3.5ed" edition. Both 3.xed and 4ed at least struck me as being created with an idea of, "We think this will be a fun game!"; the vibe I get from 5ed is, "Nooooo, customers, come back!"

[Seerow]

So, can someone explain why some people are upset about bounded accuracy? I love it. Instead of giving bigger numbers on level-up (the exception is HP,) a bounded accuracy system gives you more things you can do with your pre-existing numbers.
No offence meant, but do PF and 3.5 players have a huge-number fetish?

Edit: Another thing, people are using the "wizards reshaping the cosmos" excuse for why, say, breaking down a door should be easier at higher levels. Wizards don't have this kind of passive power in 5E, they just occasionally explode with energy.

It's because they DIDN'T give more things you can do with your pre-existing numbers. Leveling in 5e makes no difference. Most characters in 5e actually have fewer options than a counterpart in 3e or 4e. If they had actually delivered on providing more non-numerical options to all characters, I would have been much more okay with it. At it is, the implementation left me cold and was the number one game breaker for me, making sure whether or not I ever play the game, I'll never pay a cent for it.

[Tehnar]

Not at all.

As far as I can tell from looking at it, it seems to be trying to compromise between 3.xed and 4ed. But very few people, as far as I could tell, ever wanted a compromise between them; nearly everyone seems to want one of them to be a base for D&D and the other to disappear into the ether entirely. If the previous books were about to cease to exist looking for a compromise would make sense, but no one who thinks 3.xed or Pathfinder is just plain better in every way than 4ed going to switch to a "closer to 4ed" edition, and no one who thinks 4ed is just plain better in every way than the earlier editions is going to switch to a "closer to 3.5ed" edition. Both 3.xed and 4ed at least struck me as being created with an idea of, "We think this will be a fun game!"; the vibe I get from 5ed is, "Nooooo, customers, come back!"

I agree with you. While I don't like 4e, at least it tried to do something new. And I like most of the new things.

5e has nothing new (apart from the poorly thought out advantage/disadvantage), it just takes stuff from both 3.x and 4e. Unfortunately it takes the worst things from both editions.

So no, I did not change my opinion. 5e is still in the I would not spend the bandwith to illegally download it category.

[Seerow]

Not at all.

As far as I can tell from looking at it, it seems to be trying to compromise between 3.xed and 4ed. But very few people, as far as I could tell, ever wanted a compromise between them; nearly everyone seems to want one of them to be a base for D&D and the other to disappear into the ether entirely. If the previous books were about to cease to exist looking for a compromise would make sense, but no one who thinks 3.xed or Pathfinder is just plain better in every way than 4ed going to switch to a "closer to 4ed" edition, and no one who thinks 4ed is just plain better in every way than the earlier editions is going to switch to a "closer to 3.5ed" edition. Both 3.xed and 4ed at least struck me as being created with an idea of, "We think this will be a fun game!"; the vibe I get from 5ed is, "Nooooo, customers, come back!"

I actually would have loved a compromise between 4e and 3e. What we got is missing a lot of aspects I consider key to both editions, or warps important features beyond recognition and into something that totally misses the point of the original. Whether it's the awful hit dice mechanic, the gutting of high level character capability, or the terrible encounter design mechanics, everywhere I look is mechanics that use the worst of both worlds, rather than taking the best and utilizing that to make a truly unique and impressive game.

[Doug Lampert]

I think a "farmer" background conveys the idea just dandy. I'm not really seeing the problem, frankly. :smallsmile: You take the farmer background, you are a farmer and know plenty about farm stuff. There's not a ton of support for making "farming" rolls, but then again, this is Dungeons and Dragons, not Farmers and Fieldhands, and I'd rather the finer points of agriculture was left to the theater of the mind and outright player/DM fiat. Not everything in the game world needs mechanical representation. :smallsmile:

Anyway in answer to the OP, my opinion about 5e has not fundamentally changed after the release of the Basic set. In fact, I am a bit more concerned about it after everything I've seen and heard about the PHB. It looks like, once again, spellcasters have received the lion's share of care and attention, with Clerics and Wizards having more subclasses than all the rest of the classes put together. :smallsigh:

Mind you, I think it looks okay, and I'd play in a game. I most likely will not go out of my way to run it, however. The Starter Kit is the first thing I'd recommend for someone who's trying to get into RPGs, though.

I don't like what I've seen of 5th edition, have no intention of playing fifth edition, and entirely agree that the farmer complain is stupid.

I'm not as sure about the starter kit, a player in my group works in a game store. My conversation with him went:
Me: "Is there anything in the starter kit I'd want other than fifty cents worth of dice?"
Him: "You're overvaluing it. What makes you think the dice are worth fifty cents?"

Mind, neither of us is the target market, but if he were really impressed by the sample adventure or provided monsters he'd have not responded that way.



So, can someone explain why some people are upset about bounded accuracy? I love it. Instead of giving bigger numbers on level-up (the exception is HP,) a bounded accuracy system gives you more things you can do with your pre-existing numbers.
No offence meant, but do PF and 3.5 players have a huge-number fetish?

Edit: Another thing, people are using the "wizards reshaping the cosmos" excuse for why, say, breaking down a door should be easier at higher levels. Wizards don't have this kind of passive power in 5E, they just occasionally explode with energy.
It's because they DIDN'T give more things you can do with your pre-existing numbers. Leveling in 5e makes no difference. Most characters in 5e actually have fewer options than a counterpart in 3e or 4e. If they had actually delivered on providing more non-numerical options to all characters, I would have been much more okay with it. At it is, the implementation left me cold and was the number one game breaker for me, making sure whether or not I ever play the game, I'll never pay a cent for it.

I may well pay for it, but I'm with Seerow on the basic reply. Just what actual options do characters get at high level that they don't at low level? Casters get more spells, fighters get more.... bigger numbers and that's basically it. Because extra attacks is just a bigger number of attacks allowing you to do more damage.

Indomitable? You do slightly better on up to 3 saves a day by level 20. (A bigger number.)
Ability score improvements? Nothing but bigger numbers.
Extra attacks? Number of attacks is a number.
Action surge? Nice, but without any abilities that aren't just ways to use your numbers it's really just a limited number of bigger numbers except for casters who dip fighter 2.
Fighting style, you get it at level one and all but Protect are just bigger numbers.
Second wind? Available at level 1, but the numbers get bigger.
Improved Critical: Bigger numbers only
Remarkable Athlete: Bigger numbers only
Additional Fighting Style: Unless you take protect, which is feeble, this is bigger numbers only.
Superior Critical: Slightly bigger bigger numbers.
Survivor: Really feeble regenerate. But hey! That's free healing, something fighters otherwise can only do from level one on.... But it's a bigger number of free healing!

Let's summarize the options the fighter gets after level 1 that aren't just bigger numbers by the time he reaches level 20:

With action surge he can take a second action twice per time he rests for an hour or more. This is useful for any useful actions he has from something other than his class that can't just be expressed as bigger numbers.

He can take Protect at level 10 if he missed it at level 1 and thus get a mildly useful thing to do with his reaction.

Feats may well improve this, but feats are optional, the game should work without them. If the game's advancement is about more options rather than bigger numbers then the options need to exist without optional elements like feats and magic items.

Mind the numbers get quite a bit bigger, more so than people give them credit for, but for the mundane classes bigger numbers is it, and the numbers aren't enough bigger for bigger numbers to be it in a game where I'm want to be able to go from peasant to god-slayer. If I can't go from peasant to god-slayer then why am I playing D&D again rather than some other system?

[Ballbo Big'Uns]

It's because they DIDN'T give more things you can do with your pre-existing numbers. Leveling in 5e makes no difference. Most characters in 5e actually have fewer options than a counterpart in 3e or 4e. If they had actually delivered on providing more non-numerical options to all characters, I would have been much more okay with it. At it is, the implementation left me cold and was the number one game breaker for me, making sure whether or not I ever play the game, I'll never pay a cent for it.

If I can make the character I want without having to pore through thousands of feats or powers, that will be good enough for me.

In my mind, the minimum amount of customization the game requires, is enough that a party of four Human Fighters is each mechanically distinct in some way. I think 5E hits that goal. For those who want more, there is 4E and 3X/PF.

Digging deeper, here is my problem with that sort of granular customization that 3E features: the best options are always hidden, and the obvious ones are traps...

Let's say you want to make a character who is an awesome archer.

Well Ranger is the obvious, iconic choice. That's the first thing a newbie is going to pick. But it's not the most effective choice, because 3E is all about: "Screw you, newb! You need at least THIS much asperger's to play!" so the game punishes you for taking the obvious choice.

The fighter is the next most obvious choice. They get the feat selection to make this concept work, but it's still not the most effective choice because 3E is all about the adolescent revenge fantasy of nerds vs. jocks, and fighters don't get nice things in caster edition. So you've got a fighter that sinks all of his/her feats into mad archery feats to become the best archer ever, yet they're still stuck doing hit point damage while casters are simply teleporting enemies into the sun.

So the best choice if you want to be the bestest archer ever: Cleric. Because the right combination of feats and spells makes you numerically better at archery than anyone else, plus you can probably create arrows of slaying on the go. I assume that you're familiar with this concept already. It's not the obvious choice, but it's not supposed to be either. 3E is all about rewarding the people who take the time to master the system, turning it into a competitive game more like magic: the gathering than a cooperative roleplaying game like BECMI or AD&D 1st, or even 4th edition.

4th edition had wholly different problems. While the ratio of valid options to traps was better in 4E, you still had to spend time carefully picking through each feat and ability, comparing and contrasting effects with only minute differences, rather than having strong and clear decision points.

What I want is a game that puts all of this up front: THESE are the classes that make good archers. THIS is the stat to increase for good archery. THIS is the feat you take for good archery, etc. I want strong decision points dividing character concepts, not fine print minutiae. I don't want the "correct" choice buried in reams of esoteric system data. Because otherwise, you are just turning the game into an exercise in competitive autism.

[obryn]

I'm going to give 5e a fair shake re: Fighter Options once the PHB comes out. I'll see how decent the "Battlemaster" is then.

Otherwise, I agree - I am completely uninterested in a Fighter whose only option is to get bigger numbers.

[Sartharina]

My problem with 3e's level of 'customization' was all the feat taxes. Want to be a mounted archer in 3e? Five feats please! (Point Blank Shot because bull****, Rapid shot for half-decent damage, Precise Shot so you can actually shoot, Mounted Combat, Mounted Archery... and you STILL suck at shooting!)

[SpawnOfMorbo]

I'm going to give 5e a fair shake re: Fighter Options once the PHB comes out. I'll see how decent the "Battlemaster" is then.

Otherwise, I agree - I am completely uninterested in a Fighter whose only option is to get bigger numbers.

Well... I thought that way at first.

However right now you can actually use any fighting style such as two weapon, sword and board, two handed, or polearm and be effective in combat. This is pretty new since you tended to have to specialize in 4e and before if you was a fighter. Your subclass or whatever doesn't feel like it hinders your other options but makes you better at your main option.

I would actually suggest having your first choice at level 3 be your secondary fighting style rather than your main one. I used two weapons thought the game as a two handed fighter and well... When the DM stole my second weapon I two handed my greataxe and went to town (we was using a rule that allowed two weapon fighting with any 1 handed weapon and a finesse weapon in off hand... But I had a backup Axe anyways). I was throwing around just as much damage 1d10 + strength brutal 2 as anyone else.

I'm a bit disappointed about out of combat utility but I think choosing your own background will help.

[Tholomyes]

*Stuff*

As much as I'm not a huge fan of 4e, with respect to Character Creation (I dislike how much the game makes it difficult to go outside the box with concepts, meaning you end up designing class first, concept second, which also ended up meaning we got a huge number of classes beyond what I think should be really necessary, to fit the different concepts that weren't particularly viable before), I don't think your criticisms are all accurate. In 4e, there may have been a lot of options, and some of them were better than others, but there weren't very many bad options. Unless I was out to Min-max, I never found myself feeling like I had to read through every feat or power possible. I usually just picked up something that seemed interesting, and if it didn't work out, retrain it later (or more often just work it out with the DM, to retcon taking the option).

For your archer example, in 4e you could decide "I want to be an archer," crack open the PHB, Choose a race, put your highest stat into Dex, second highest into Wis, and take Ranger, and some archery Powers. Sure, Twin Strike is the best of the bunch, but it's not like the other options are traps, like you might see in 3e. If you don't take it, then wind up regretting it, it's not hard to reverse that choice. It was much more forgiving in that respect, and it really makes me long for having more customization options in 5e.

-----------------------------------

Edit: As a complete side note to the above, I realized something else, that's bugged me, about a change from the playtest. I was reading through the basic rules, and, while the Playtest made it clear that if none of the backgrounds fit your concept, you could create a new one, where as the basic rules say nothing of the sort. it doesn't affect me terribly, since my groups will likely allow it anyway, but it still bugs me, because I have memories of rigid DMs I used to have, who would likely force you to stick with one of whatever number there are in the PHB. I certainly hope it's cleared up by the PHB, but I'm not so sure.

[Sartharina]

You could also be an archer Bard or Warlord in 4e! Among other options!

[Seerow]

If I can make the character I want without having to pore through thousands of feats or powers, that will be good enough for me.


I can sympathize with wanting your options to be more straightforward, and not having to pour through a dozen splat books for obscure options to make something halfway passable. Or having the obvious options not be traps. That is a big flaw in 3.5, and a major barrier of entry to the system. It takes a very specific mindset to get into that, and not a lot of people have that mindset, I can respect that.

But that's not the point under discussion. The statement made was "Bounded accuracy traded boring numerical bonuses for getting more stuff that's not numbers when you level". I object to that statement because it is patently false. At no point do characters as a whole gain more than they did in 3e or 4e. A few individual classes that were horribly gimped 3e may have more choices/abilities in a 5e game, but on the whole number of abilities got normalized somewhere south of the 3e or 4e average. Which means Bounded Accuracy didn't actually give anything in turn, all it did was effectively remove high level play from the game.

While there are people out there who never played a game past level 3-4 anyway, and more still who stop somewhere between 6 and 10, there are people who enjoyed upper tier play, and losing everything in the game that defined that high level play for the last 20 years is a major departure that cannot just be handwaved away.

[Lord Raziere]

Well Ranger is the obvious, iconic choice. That's the first thing a newbie is going to pick. But it's not the most effective choice, because 3E is all about: "Screw you, newb! You need at least THIS much asperger's to play!" so the game punishes you for taking the obvious choice.

Because otherwise, you are just turning the game into an exercise in competitive autism.

HEY! :smallmad:

As an autistic/aspergers person, and I am OFFENDED.

I have no freaking clue how 3.5 works at all, and I'm insulted that you think I now how to master it. I prefer 4e, thank you very much! its simpler, more balanced and less confusing to my mind.

[Sartharina]

I can sympathize with wanting your options to be more straightforward, and not having to pour through a dozen splat books for obscure options to make something halfway passable. Or having the obvious options not be traps. That is a big flaw in 3.5, and a major barrier of entry to the system. It takes a very specific mindset to get into that, and not a lot of people have that mindset, I can respect that.

But that's not the point under discussion. The statement made was "Bounded accuracy traded boring numerical bonuses for getting more stuff that's not numbers when you level". I object to that statement because it is patently false. At no point do characters as a whole gain more than they did in 3e or 4e. A few individual classes that were horribly gimped 3e may have more choices/abilities in a 5e game, but on the whole number of abilities got normalized somewhere south of the 3e or 4e average. Which means Bounded Accuracy didn't actually give anything in turn, all it did was effectively remove high level play from the game.

While there are people out there who never played a game past level 3-4 anyway, and more still who stop somewhere between 6 and 10, there are people who enjoyed upper tier play, and losing everything in the game that defined that high level play for the last 20 years is a major departure that cannot just be handwaved away.The thing about 3e was you lose abilities when you level, because you're put on a treadmill and can't keep everything going up with you. Combat maneuvers and switch-hitting are viable in 3.5 at low levels, but by high levels, you're restricted to the weapon and style you've fueled all points into (Unless you play a Warblade - but even then, you still start losing out on some features)

Fighters getting more Attribute Boosts than everyone else but hitting the same cap means they can make other tasks more reliable as they level up. Or grab more feats when those are implemented. And, more attacks are more than just 'bigger numbers' - they're more options: You can choose to attack two people, or one person hard. Or you can swap weapons between for more options. And, fighters make quantity have a quality of their own because they're the only ones getting those quantitative abilities.

[Ballbo Big'Uns]

As much as I'm not a huge fan of 4e, with respect to Character Creation (I dislike how much the game makes it difficult to go outside the box with concepts, meaning you end up designing class first, concept second, which also ended up meaning we got a huge number of classes beyond what I think should be really necessary, to fit the different concepts that weren't particularly viable before), I don't think your criticisms are all accurate. In 4e, there may have been a lot of options, and some of them were better than others, but there weren't very many bad options. Unless I was out to Min-max, I never found myself feeling like I had to read through every feat or power possible. I usually just picked up something that seemed interesting, and if it didn't work out, retrain it later (or more often just work it out with the DM, to retcon taking the option).

For your archer example, in 4e you could decide "I want to be an archer," crack open the PHB, Choose a race, put your highest stat into Dex, second highest into Wis, and take Ranger, and some archery Powers. Sure, Twin Strike is the best of the bunch, but it's not like the other options are traps, like you might see in 3e. If you don't take it, then wind up regretting it, it's not hard to reverse that choice. It was much more forgiving in that respect, and it really makes me long for having more customization options in 5e.


I was mostly referring to 3E.

You had to work pretty hard at making an nonviable character in 4E. Also, all of my 4E characters that I've created began with concept and became fleshed out through mechanics. I think that character creation in 4E is much better and more open than character creation in 3E, where much of the "options" available were traps.

3E character creation really could have stood to be more "in the box" than it was. That way when you created a character, it would actually do what it advertised on the tin.

What killed 4E for me was that the combat itself was so ponderously slow and dull that it became like a chore to me, rather than a feature of the system.

[akaddk]

Both 3.xed and 4ed at least struck me as being created with an idea of, "We think this will be a fun game!"; the vibe I get from 5ed is, "Nooooo, customers, come back!"
Interesting seeing as I've heard the opposite from a lot of people in discussions elsewhere.


In 4e, there may have been a lot of options, and some of them were better than others, but there weren't very many bad options.
Ooh, yeah, no. Gotta disagree with you there pretty strongly. 4e had a lot of 'trap' options. If you spent any time on the CharOp forums you'd have no doubt seen the various class threads which listed things based on their value by a colour scheme. There were far more very bad options than just mediocre ones and there were very few really good ones or just above average ones. I could easily make a character three to four times more powerful than another character that took the trap options.


Edit: As a complete side note to the above, I realized something else, that's bugged me, about a change from the playtest. I was reading through the basic rules, and, while the Playtest made it clear that if none of the backgrounds fit your concept, you could create a new one, where as the basic rules say nothing of the sort.
You missed a spot. It says specifically that you can make up your own backgrounds and lists that you can take two proficiencies, two tools or languages and mix and match your gear or just spend gold. Page 36, "Customising Backgrounds".

[Tholomyes]

Ooh, yeah, no. Gotta disagree with you there pretty strongly. 4e had a lot of 'trap' options. If you spent any time on the CharOp forums you'd have no doubt seen the various class threads which listed things based on their value by a colour scheme. There were far more very bad options than just mediocre ones and there were very few really good ones or just above average ones. I could easily make a character three to four times more powerful than another character that took the trap options. I was on the Char OP forums a fair bit, usually just as an idea sparker, or as a way to make a more outside the box character more feasible. However, There really weren't as many bad options as you seem to think. The people on those boards tended to Min-Max, and were fairly good at it. As such, an option which is strictly, but only incrementally worse than another option will be marked as red, since it's strictly worse, even if it's not a bad option, in a vacuum. Most of these powers and feats are actually fairly good in a vacuum, they're just worse than the "sky blue" options, so they're marked lower. You can still have a lot of fun with these options that Char-op rates lower, and your character won't seem that much less powerful, especially if you're not familiar with the reasons why char Op rates them so high. Often times, it's because of a rules interaction, or a specific tactical advantage, and without that, they're only slightly better than the other options.


You missed a spot. It says specifically that you can make up your own backgrounds and lists that you can take two proficiencies, two tools or languages and mix and match your gear or just spend gold. Page 36, "Customising Backgrounds".I did miss that part, thank you. I was expecting it as a sidebar, just from the way most of my other books lay information like that out.

[Shining Wrath]

No, I haven't changed my mind.

I have only followed the development a little. When I heard that you would be able to be completely healed by a simple nights rest, I cringed at the prospect for this edition to become even more like a CRPG, with even less focus on actual roleplay and social interaction, and more on combat.

This did not change when I read the basic rules. Especially when I read how little actual customization you could do. That skills, for example, are more or less solely bound to your level, which makes them even more of a sideshow than previous edition had. A skilled farmer is now impossible to make, outside of him being super strong/intelligent/whateverstatfarmingisbasedon or crazy high level. Yes you have a selection of hero powers, so you can customize how you fight. But what about all the other stuff, you know, outside combat?

It is not a ruleset for much outside combat, nor is it a ruleset that conveys immersion or verisimilitude very well. In my mind, it does not help roleplay at all, but steers towards a CRPG feel where combat is the only interesting part of the game, and it revolves around that and loot.

It is a ruleset that is easier to pick up than previous editions, set up for dungeon crawls.
Dungeon crawls are the laziest and most boring form of "roleplay", if it can be called roleplay at all.

Not my cup of tea.
Though as a longtime roleplayer that started with D&D in the '80s, I will probably follow the development a bit, for nostalgia, but will probably only play it if some of my friends get dead set on it.

Having looked through the basic rules, and found that you *must* choose a background, an ideal, a flaw, and a bond, each of which has an in-game effect ...

I'd say there's more built-in role playing to 5e to 3.5.

Your mileage may vary, but I say 5e right from the start forces you to think of your character as something more than an assemblage of ability scores and class abilities.

[m4th]

I can sympathize with wanting your options to be more straightforward, and not having to pour through a dozen splat books for obscure options to make something halfway passable. Or having the obvious options not be traps. That is a big flaw in 3.5, and a major barrier of entry to the system. It takes a very specific mindset to get into that, and not a lot of people have that mindset, I can respect that.

But that's not the point under discussion. The statement made was "Bounded accuracy traded boring numerical bonuses for getting more stuff that's not numbers when you level". I object to that statement because it is patently false. At no point do characters as a whole gain more than they did in 3e or 4e. A few individual classes that were horribly gimped 3e may have more choices/abilities in a 5e game, but on the whole number of abilities got normalized somewhere south of the 3e or 4e average. Which means Bounded Accuracy didn't actually give anything in turn, all it did was effectively remove high level play from the game.

While there are people out there who never played a game past level 3-4 anyway, and more still who stop somewhere between 6 and 10, there are people who enjoyed upper tier play, and losing everything in the game that defined that high level play for the last 20 years is a major departure that cannot just be handwaved away.

I feel like this is a misrepresentation of 5E's design. What 5E does is take the balance of power out of the strict numerical bonus your character attains and puts it into other rules.

Consider the wizard. In 3.x, your Int score was far and away the most important element of your character's power. One could say that spell selection and strategy made the difference between a mostly ineffectual blaster and a Godtroller, but having a high Int controlled every critical element of the wizard. Because of the way unbound Int scores affected spellcasting, every decision came down to boosting your Int.

In 5th edition, Int is still important to the wizard, but some of Int's power has been taken away and given to other aspects of the class. Instead of bonus spells, ritual casting and arcane recovery. Spell DC's are still affected by Int, but Int and proficiency are (roughly) half and half of a wizard's DC. Many times a wizard could choose not to boost their Int and choose a feat instead, because Int is simply not as important to a 5E wizard as it is to a 3.x wizard.

To your other point about high level play, I think the changes that bounded accuracy impose on high level play are good for a role-playing game, and good for table-top gaming in general. I think we can agree that mechanically, high level in 3.x means using rule combinations to trade uncertainty for reliability. Under bounded accuracy, uncertainty is always a big part of the game. It means that players are not penalized for not having access to every obscure source book and third party quackery you can convince a DM to allow. It takes the focus of the game away from preparing for the game and emphasizes playing the game.

[Tholomyes]

Having looked through the basic rules, and found that you *must* choose a background, an ideal, a flaw, and a bond, each of which has an in-game effect ...Really? I hadn't noticed that. That's unfortunate. I hate it when systems decide to enforce roleplaying mechanically. Background I can see, since it gives skill proficiencies. But ideals, flaws, and bonds? I dislike that. Granted, this is more of a philosophical disagreement, since I don't think I've seen a character who doesn't have those. It's at least not as bad as some systems *cough13thAgecough* but still it bugs me when games enforce stuff like this.

[da_chicken]

Really? I hadn't noticed that. That's unfortunate. I hate it when systems decide to enforce roleplaying mechanically. Background I can see, since it gives skill proficiencies. But ideals, flaws, and bonds? I dislike that. Granted, this is more of a philosophical disagreement, since I don't think I've seen a character who doesn't have those. It's at least not as bad as some systems *cough13thAgecough* but still it bugs me when games enforce stuff like this.

Hm. It bugs me as a player, but as a DM I really like it. I get tired of trying to encourage the endless stream of flat, uncharacterized, loot whoring, chaotic neutral murder hobos to do something interesting that doesn't involve more loot. Anything we can do to enforce a bit of depth inevitably results in a better game for everyone, but not everybody will do it without being told they must.

[Lord of Shadows]

I have no freaking clue how 3.5 works at all, and I'm insulted that you think I now how to master it. I prefer 4e, thank you very much! its simpler, more balanced and less confusing to my mind.

I had actually never thought of this, but yes, this would seem to be true. Genuine thanks for pointing this out.

And don't let the insults get to you. Just picture them without their armor... :smallcool:
.

[Tholomyes]

Hm. It bugs me as a player, but as a DM I really like it. I get tired of trying to encourage the endless stream of flat, uncharacterized, loot whoring, chaotic neutral murder hobos to do something interesting that doesn't involve more loot. Anything we can do to enforce a bit of depth inevitably results in a better game for everyone, but not everybody will do it without being told they must. It's probably more of a playstyle thing. As a DM, I find that I don't usually have much problem getting my players to develop a personality and a character. It doesn't always start out that way (and I'm ok with that. I know a lot of players just can't get into a character until a few sessions in), but usually by a few sessions in, everyone has personalities and goals that aren't just "solve the campaign plot" or "Get loot".

I just find that when games enforce this type of thing, it seems to conflict with people coming up with stuff more naturally. Since they feel they have to fill out a bond or flaw or ideal or whatever, it feels like more of a checklist. And for players that take a few sessions to come into their characters, it tends to straightjacket them into a starting point that isn't always what they end up wanting out of the character.

I will say this, though. It's not as restrictive as some games. 13th Age, specifically was one I quickly found was not for me, due to the fact that you have to have some vague six-degrees-of-separation from these, effectively, demigods, and more than that, you have to get perks and complications from, on average, one per session, so you can't shuffle the connection under the rug.

[da_chicken]

It's probably more of a playstyle thing. As a DM, I find that I don't usually have much problem getting my players to develop a personality and a character. It doesn't always start out that way (and I'm ok with that. I know a lot of players just can't get into a character until a few sessions in), but usually by a few sessions in, everyone has personalities and goals that aren't just "solve the campaign plot" or "Get loot".

I just find that when games enforce this type of thing, it seems to conflict with people coming up with stuff more naturally. Since they feel they have to fill out a bond or flaw or ideal or whatever, it feels like more of a checklist. And for players that take a few sessions to come into their characters, it tends to straightjacket them into a starting point that isn't always what they end up wanting out of the character.

That's true. It helps a ton if you hook their choice right away.

One time it worked the really well I told the players that they had to have an excuse to be on board a ship sailing towards Dyvers and Greyhawk on the Nyr Dyv from the eastern kingdoms. It didn't matter why or how they were on the ship, they just had to be there. That's where the campaign would start. This set up the first several encounters which resulted in a shipwreck and being stranded on an island with a valuable treasure they were told they would be well paid for delivering safely. It was very simple, and in the end some the players forgot why they were going to Dyvers, but some really carried it through and it made their characters have to struggle between helping the main plot and completing their mission or personal goal. It worked a lot better than the generic tavern meetup. I only expect hooks to survive the first few levels, and was really surprised at how effective this was.


I will say this, though. It's not as restrictive as some games. 13th Age, specifically was one I quickly found was not for me, due to the fact that you have to have some vague six-degrees-of-separation from these, effectively, demigods, and more than that, you have to get perks and complications from, on average, one per session, so you can't shuffle the connection under the rug.

Ugh. That's far too structured for me.

[Shining Wrath]

Really? I hadn't noticed that. That's unfortunate. I hate it when systems decide to enforce roleplaying mechanically. Background I can see, since it gives skill proficiencies. But ideals, flaws, and bonds? I dislike that. Granted, this is more of a philosophical disagreement, since I don't think I've seen a character who doesn't have those. It's at least not as bad as some systems *cough13thAgecough* but still it bugs me when games enforce stuff like this.

I feel your pain - and as an occasional DM I see the point. The examples supplied for ideals, flaws, and bonds range from "that's a good one" to "how trite".

Another thing the game adds is Inspiration Points, which are very similar to the UA Action Points. Except that instead of getting 5 + L/2 per level, the DM is encouraged to award them - for a variety of things, including role playing. And also just being awesome, so I suppose awarding a pair of IP because a fighter goes toe-to-toe with a creature out of nightmare, takes a terrible beating, but holds it off while the rogue climbs a wall, hand over hands across the ceiling, and drops in behind it to backstab it would be appropriate.

What I would do, then, DMing 5e, is award IP for putting some thought into the flaw / bond / ideal. Give me some idea your character is a person, get one IP every time you level up, and more when you act like that person in-game.

[Tholomyes]

I feel your pain - and as an occasional DM I see the point. The examples supplied for ideals, flaws, and bonds range from "that's a good one" to "how trite".

Another thing the game adds is Inspiration Points, which are very similar to the UA Action Points. Except that instead of getting 5 + L/2 per level, the DM is encouraged to award them - for a variety of things, including role playing. And also just being awesome, so I suppose awarding a pair of IP because a fighter goes toe-to-toe with a creature out of nightmare, takes a terrible beating, but holds it off while the rogue climbs a wall, hand over hands across the ceiling, and drops in behind it to backstab it would be appropriate.

What I would do, then, DMing 5e, is award IP for putting some thought into the flaw / bond / ideal. Give me some idea your character is a person, get one IP every time you level up, and more when you act like that person in-game.Yeah, I'm aware of the Inspiration Points. They're essentially a worse version of Hero Points, which I've borrowed from M&M and been using in all my games for years now. I've never seen the need to tie down players to have to pick Ideals, Flaws and Bonds, when I've used them before. I suppose it's useful for DMs and groups who are new to this sort of mechanic, and don't really have a good feel for how they should hand them out, but I'd have preffered it be something akin to "You may choose to take ideals, flaws and/or bonds. DMs are encouraged to give IPs for good roleplaying, awesome moments and such, and Roleplaying your ideals, flaws and bonds effectively may be a good way for DMs to award these."

[akaddk]

Having looked through the basic rules, and found that you *must* choose a background, an ideal, a flaw, and a bond, each of which has an in-game effect ...

Whut? Where in the rules does it say this? The language throughout the entire document is "encouraged" and "suggested" and is constantly referring to how the rules are merely guidelines. Nowhere does it say that you must have any of them, nor do ideals, flaws or bonds even have an "in-game effect" other than to encourage roleplaying.

I swear people are just making stuff up to hate about 5e.

[Envyus]

The Mechanical Benefit is that you get Inspiration for sticking to your Flaws, Traits and Bonds anyway.

[Envyus]

Yeah, I'm aware of the Inspiration Points. They're essentially a worse version of Hero Points, which I've borrowed from M&M and been using in all my games for years now.

How are they worse?

[Tholomyes]

How are they worse?

Hero points have more story effects, beyond just getting advantage on a check. At least my way of using them lets you edit the scene somewhat, or somehow do other feat (as "feat of strength" not "That thing you can get trade out an Ability score increase for") that either requires some level of serendipity to occur, or is a little too powerful. It essentially lets me use it as a currency to allow myself to say yes to my players, in cases where I'm not entirely comfortable giving a carte blanche 'yes' to for all situations.

[Pex]

To your other point about high level play, I think the changes that bounded accuracy impose on high level play are good for a role-playing game, and good for table-top gaming in general. I think we can agree that mechanically, high level in 3.x means using rule combinations to trade uncertainty for reliability. Under bounded accuracy, uncertainty is always a big part of the game. It means that players are not penalized for not having access to every obscure source book and third party quackery you can convince a DM to allow. It takes the focus of the game away from preparing for the game and emphasizes playing the game.

You say that like reliability is a bad thing. I actually like that at some level I can't fail at some task. I've earned that right by investing in the game resources necessary to achieve it. That was the whole point so that at that level and beyond I can enjoy the fruits of my labor.

As for using every obscure source book that's a false dichotomy. For one thing it's unfair to blame 3E for having lots of books while praising 5E not having any when 5E didn't even start yet except for the basics. You can bet on WOTC's bank account there will be 5E splat books. Second just because a 3E splat book exists doesn't mean it will be used. The DM doesn't even have to ban one. A player may just not need or want to use it. Third, there's nothing inherently wrong with using a splat book in the first place. They exist to be used. You're not an inferior player because you chose to use a splat book or two to make your character. The existence of splat books is not a bug of 3E, whether a player uses one or not. A player does not need to make the most efficient optimal character possible. If he misses out on a feat some book published he's not suddenly a failure of a player.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

I swear people are just making stuff up to hate about 5e.

Not sure if you knew this or not but... From what I remember the big things from each edition.

When 2e first came out people complained about it (I came in later but I... Got to hear a lot of it :smallsigh:). Mostly people complained that all the options was crazy, however since it was pretty much the same game... People got over it.

When 3e came out, it was to videogamey and killed to many aspect of D&D that 2e fought to keep alive.

When 4e came out, it was too videogamey and killed the RP.

People have always spouted bull crap for the sake of spouting bull crap. So don't be surprised when people open their mouths about 5e and crap falls out.

[akaddk]

Hero points have more story effects, beyond just getting advantage on a check. At least my way of using them lets you edit the scene somewhat, or somehow do other feat (as "feat of strength" not "That thing you can get trade out an Ability score increase for") that either requires some level of serendipity to occur, or is a little too powerful. It essentially lets me use it as a currency to allow myself to say yes to my players, in cases where I'm not entirely comfortable giving a carte blanche 'yes' to for all situations.

So because IP is somewhat similar to HP, you've decided that they're one and the same thing and serve the exact same purpose in each system and therefore disallow yourself from using one or the other or changing IP to be more like HP and therefore justify not liking 5e.

Makes perfect sense.

[Tholomyes]

So because IP is somewhat similar to HP, you've decided that they're one and the same thing and serve the exact same purpose in each system and therefore disallow yourself from using one or the other or changing IP to be more like HP and therefore justify not liking 5e.

Makes perfect sense.It's cute how you attempt to put words in my mouth. Truly, it is.

What I'm saying is, Hero Points have the exact same function of Inspiration, except they also provide the added benefits of being a storytelling tool, and not just yet another way to gain advantage.

And I never said I wouldn't use Hero Points to replace Inspiration. My point is that everyone is treating Inspiration like it's some huge innovation, when it's been better utilized by other games for at least 10 years now. I have dislikes of 5e but simply that it has Inspiration isn't one of them. I'm just saying Inspiration is hardly a reason for me to change my mind about it, since it's not like it's a new thing.

[akaddk]

And I never said I wouldn't use Hero Points to replace Inspiration. My point is that everyone is treating Inspiration like it's some huge innovation, when it's been better utilized by other games for at least 10 years now. I have dislikes of 5e but simply that it has Inspiration isn't one of them. I'm just saying Inspiration is hardly a reason for me to change my mind about it, since it's not like it's a new thing.

I think you're digging a hole now so that you can bunker down and continue to hold your ground. None of what you said above came through in what you have said previously so this is a change in tact, not a revealing, "this is what I thought all along" expose.

Hero Points also weren't original and were derivative of other systems implementations of a similar concept. I don't hear you decrying the use of Hero Points because they were derivative. If you'd like, we could go back to Chainmail and say everything is derivative of that? After all, drawing a line in the sand as to where derivation begins and stops is really just about how convenient that line is to support an argument about originality.

IP is a simplified version of giving an in-game, minor bennie for having done something significantly in character enough to justify it. The ideal behind 5e is having a simple base system from which to expand on. If you want something closer to HP, then use it. Obviously it is important to you to single Inspiration out as you've spent considerable time comparing it to HP and denigrating it without ever allowing for the simple possibility that you could just replace it with your version of HP, as the base system not only would allow but also encourages. Well, at least you weren't until it was pointed out that you could easily do just that, at which point you changed tact and bunkered down.

[Tholomyes]

I think you're digging a hole now so that you can bunker down and continue to hold your ground. None of what you said above came through in what you have said previously so this is a change in tact, not a revealing, "this is what I thought all along" expose.

Hero Points also weren't original and were derivative of other systems implementations of a similar concept. I don't hear you decrying the use of Hero Points because they were derivative. If you'd like, we could go back to Chainmail and say everything is derivative of that? After all, drawing a line in the sand as to where derivation begins and stops is really just about how convenient that line is to support an argument about originality.

IP is a simplified version of giving an in-game, minor bennie for having done something significantly in character enough to justify it. The ideal behind 5e is having a simple base system from which to expand on. If you want something closer to HP, then use it. Obviously it is important to you to single Inspiration out as you've spent considerable time comparing it to HP and denigrating it without ever allowing for the simple possibility that you could just replace it with your version of HP, as the base system not only would allow but also encourages. Well, at least you weren't until it was pointed out that you could easily do just that, at which point you changed tact and bunkered down.

OK, I'm convinced you're either trolling, or seriously failed reading comprehension in grade school. Let's summarize the whole discussion, for your benefit: I explained my displeasure at the mandating ideals, flaws and bonds. Shining Wrath elaborated that their reason for being mandated was for the inspiration mechanic. I dismissed that as a viable excuse, as I'd been using Hero Points, which are essentially just a better form of Inspiration, and never found the necessity to mandate ideals, flaws and bonds. Envyus asked why I considered Inspiration worse, to which I responded that Hero Points did the same thing that Inspiration did, but with the additions, that gave them more power for players to influence the story and the game world.

At this point, you came out of nowhere, and accused me, fairly inexplicably, that I wasn't going to continue to use Hero Points, as I had been using for years (which shows a lack of reading comprehension, since I already claimed that the argument was largely Philosophical, since I would continue doing as I had for years), and that was why I dislike 5e (which I have no clue where this came from; I do dislike 5e, at least as it stands, but I made no claim that Inspiration was in any way responsible for this. The only explanation I could have for this line of... let's call it 'logic'?... would be that you interpreted my claim that 5e's version of a mechanic was inferior to previous forms of the mechanic as saying that I disliked it as a whole? that's the best I got).

Now, I really didn't even know how to respond to this, being so out of nowhere, and not based on anything I had said up to that point. Perhaps I misunderstood your previous post, and, truth be told, I can't say I really understand it much, even now, considering how out of place the accusations are. My response was largely aimed at your insinuations that Hero Points and Inspiration were only "somewhat similar" and that they didn't "serve the same purpose, both of which are patently untrue. I rebutted your, honestly confusing assumption that I wouldn't simply use Hero Points instead of Inspiration, and that it wasn't the reason I dislike 5e, but that it wasn't at all a reason to choose 5e over better designed systems, as even mechanics similar to inspiration had been done better for over a decade now, in other systems.

From that point, I have no idea how you got to your current arguments. My "change in tact" as you call it makes no sense, since I wasn't even arguing the same thing you were accusing me of, before you entered the discussion. My rebuttals had very little to do with my previous posts, simply because your arguments had nothing to do with my previous posts.

As for whether Inspiration was derivative or not, I never argued anything of the sort. I don't care if a mechanic is derivative, so long as it works. My point was that it has already been done, for at least a decade, now, in other systems, and it has been done better. The only thing I could possibly see that you could interpret as me arguing about Inspiration being derivative was that I was tired of hearing people calling it innovative, which was more a response to your own assertions that Hero Points and Inspiration were somehow not fundamentally the same mechanic.

And lastly, you continued to somehow assume that I wasn't going to use Hero Points to replace Inspiration, which I had already refuted in a previous post. I don't know how this needs repeating.

Now I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you're not trolling, but in order to keep that benefit of the doubt, at least for my own curiousity, I'd like to understand how you saw basis for any of your arguments on this topic. I'm really just perplexed. Is it just so alien, to you, that someone could dislike 5e, that you take every criticism of a mechanic in this system as justification to dislike it? Do you not believe that people could have other problems beyond minor nit-picks of certain mechanics, which make them dislike the game? I really just don't get it.

[akaddk]

I really just don't get it.

I fully realise that.

[Tehnar]

Tholomyes, could you elaborate on Hero points you use? How are they used? I am not familiar with M&M.

While I am a fan of Edge, Action points, pathfinder Hero points, etc I can't say that I 5e's Inspiration points are all that...inspired.You can get advantage on lots of different stuff, so it is not a very special benefit; I would prefer a modifier to the die roll as a option. That way it would at least stack with any other advantage you may have on that roll.

[da_chicken]

Not sure if you knew this or not but... From what I remember the big things from each edition.

When 2e first came out people complained about it (I came in later but I... Got to hear a lot of it :smallsigh:). Mostly people complained that all the options was crazy, however since it was pretty much the same game... People got over it.

When 3e came out, it was to videogamey and killed to many aspect of D&D that 2e fought to keep alive.

When 4e came out, it was too videogamey and killed the RP.

People have always spouted bull crap for the sake of spouting bull crap. So don't be surprised when people open their mouths about 5e and crap falls out.

When 2e came out, I remember a lot people complaining that it was too much like a video game. I distinctly remember someone saying, "We only play 1e. 2e is like Gold Box on paper." I remember people complaining that it made the game too easy to play, too, as a number of fiddley corner rules got eliminated completely. People claimed the elimination of the Assassin and Half-Orc "dumbed the game down". People claimed the new Bard was lame (it kind of was).

When 3e came out, the most common complaint was that it was too much like a video game. "Its like Diablo on paper!" People complained it was too different, that it wasn't D&D, that magic item creation was way too easy, how easy it was to heal, ability modifiers (for Strength) were much too large, about feats (and Fighters in particular) being too powerful ("Whirlwind Attack is much too powerful!"), about how everybody would be a multiclass Fighter/Barbarian/Ranger, about how only Thieves should have skills, how it was too easy to be a Paladin without ability prerequisites, how every character would be the same because they'd all just take feats, how taking one level of every class meant you could do everything (it took about 50 books to prove this one an actual problem), how opportunity attacks ruined everything forever, how ability scores over 18 without magic were unrealistic, how it catered to munchkins and power gamers because the numbers were so big and magic so common, that magic items shouldn't be bought, and about how it was impossible to roleplay because there were so many rules. I also remember people complaining about how the game was way too easy to play, so it must be "dumbed down". "THAC0 isn't hard! Just learn it! It keeps out people who don't want to put effort into the game!"

When 4e came out, the most common complaint was that it was like a video game. "Its like WoW on paper! It's even subscription based!" I remember people complaining that the game was too different, that it wasn't D&D, that everybody was a spellcaster, how everything was the same and lacked variety, how you couldn't roleplay in the game, how there was no flavor to anything, how you shouldn't have non-magical healing and healing was too easy, how Wizards shouldn't get the same attack bonus as Fighters, how it catered to munchkins and power gamers because the numbers were so big and magic so common, how players can't be hurt because healing is so common and HP are so hight, that magic items shouldn't be bought, how D&D Insider was ruining everything, how the numbers got so huge that it was just ridiculous and unbelievable, how you just spam the same power over and over, how combat was needlessly complex, and how it forced the DM to do whatever the players wanted.

Now that 5e is out, the most common complaint I've seen is that it's not different enough. Also that it's "dumbed down," you can't roleplay with it, how Wizards will one-shot every encounter, how players will constantly die because hp is so low, how it will only support one play style, how magic items need to be able to be bought because all DMs are jerks, how everything requires the DM to approve, how combat is too simple, and how the game is broken because the numbers don't get big enough.

And, yes, I've even seen people complain that 5e is too much like a video game. "Full healing overnight?! Healing without magic?! Attack spells all day?! VIDEO GAMES!!! :smallfurious:"

I've realized the "it's a video game" complaint comes from two sources:
1. Games are made easier to play to make them more enjoyable (or less unenjoyable), easier to get to the enjoyable parts, or easier for new players to learn. You'll often see people say the game is "dumbed down" when they talk about this, which is often just them being elitist and arrogant. Chess, Go, and Poker are all very simple games that are easy to learn, so clearly simplicity of rules is not a barrier to complexity or depth of play.
2. People aren't used to reading rules. They play long enough and know all the rules without thinking about them, including the arbitrary and highly gamist rules. Then when they read a new set of rules, they notice all the changed arbitrary rules and think, "Wow, that's super gamist!"

[obryn]

What's ironic is that CRPGs - "video games" - generally have a tighter design process with coherent goals, higher-paid and more experienced designers, immensely larger budgets, and incredible amounts of playtesting. Maybe being compared to video games isn't that bad a thing. :smallsmile:

[SpawnOfMorbo]

What's ironic is that CRPGs - "video games" - generally have a tighter design process with coherent goals, higher-paid and more experienced designers, immensely larger budgets, and incredible amounts of playtesting. Maybe being compared to video games isn't that bad a thing. :smallsmile:

I don't think it is, I mean, video games are vastly popular and are fun as hell.

Plus you get updated rules and such a lot faster and they adapt a lot better to the modern market.

I ran a D&D next playtest through a splinter cell styled session. The two rogues never rolled initiative and still had the time of their lives.

I'm modifying how mooks notice PCs. Instead of one check they act more like the baddies from Splinter Cell Blacklist.

First check passed: curious
Second check passed: come check out situation (on gaurd)
Third check pass: killlll! (Or whatever normal behavior would be)

Of course if they can plainly see you then it counts 3 passed perception checks.

Works well for stealthy and non-stealthy games.

I would love to see TTRPGs hit the popularity where they were treated like videogames. Of course I'm the jive mofo that still plays FF1 every now and again (I have FF origins and a PS2).

[da_chicken]

Oh, I forgot a good one. People complained that 2E THAC0 dumbed down the game, too, because it made it easier to use metagame knowledge to determine the AC of the target. 1E technically used a table in the DMG, meaning it wasn't necessarily player information. Yes, some people played such that the player had no idea what his or her attack bonus was.

[Doug Lampert]

Oh, I forgot a good one. People complained that 2E THAC0 dumbed down the game, too, because it made it easier to use metagame knowledge to determine the AC of the target. 1E technically used a table in the DMG, meaning it wasn't necessarily player information. Yes, some people played such that the player had no idea what his or her attack bonus was.

Losing weapon speed and the weapon vs. armor tables was a travesty that destroyed simulation forever. (Note that weapon speeds were horribly, horribly unrealistic, this did not stop the argument.)

Me, personally I refused to switch from the original game to Basic or AD&D as they came out, because they didn't fix enough and there were by that time of games out there + my own homebrew.

So to all of you complaining about new editions: Get off my lawn!

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Losing weapon speed and the weapon vs. armor tables was a travesty that destroyed simulation forever. (Note that weapon speeds were horribly, horribly unrealistic, this did not stop the argument.)

Me, personally I refused to switch from the original game to Basic or AD&D as they came out, because they didn't fix enough and there were by that time of games out there + my own homebrew.

So to all of you complaining about new editions: Get off my lawn!

I actually homebrewed weapon speeds a bit, just because some people loved them.

In 3e 4e and now in 5e.. They give you a bonus to initiative.

2 handed/Heavy: +0
1 handed/Versitile/Crossbows: +1
Bows: +2
Light/Finesse:+3

Different editions the numbers changed. Only your primary hand counted with TWF.

Edit: I also usually use a d10 for initiative.

[Kish]

Interesting seeing as I've heard the opposite from a lot of people in discussions elsewhere.
The opposite meaning what? That both 3.xed and 4ed seemed written in a panic over losing customers while 5ed seemed written with the idea "This will be a fun game"?

[HeadlessMermaid]

Can someone explain to me how weapon speeds worked? Did you get a bonus to initiative when you attacked with a lighter/faster weapon? Was that different on each round? (Say, if the magic-user wanted to cast a spell at round 1 and attack with a dagger at round 2, did the initiative order change?)

[obryn]

Can someone explain to me how weapon speeds worked? Did you get a bonus to initiative when you attacked with a lighter/faster weapon? Was that different on each round? (Say, if the magic-user wanted to cast a spell at round 1 and attack with a dagger at round 2, did the initiative order change?)
It depends on the edition. :smallsmile: 1e and 2e are different.

First off, both 1e and 2e, you roll initiative every round. So there's no cyclical initiative like in 3e and after.

AD&D 1e: First off, in 1e, 1-minute combat rounds are divided into 6-second segments. Initiative is rolled per-side on a 1d6. It gets confusing, but your roll is the first segment on which the opposing side acts (so you want them to roll low and you to roll high). Weapon speeds do not normally factor into this, but casting speeds (as near as anyone can tell; the rules are quite vague) add to your count. So if you start casting a 5-segment spell on segment 2, you're casting through segment 7 for spell interruption purposes. You can roll over into the next round if you're casting a particularly long spell. There's some other complexities which nod to the game's wargaming roots - like longer weapons get to go first when you're getting into a melee, and ranged weapons go before any melee (IIRC).

Weapon Speeds only matter when there's a tie on initiative and you're already engaged in a melee. In those cases, if you're already engaged with an enemy, the person with the faster weapon (lower speed) gets multiple attacks against the slow weapon. If I'm using a Speed 8 weapon and you have a Speed 4 weapon, you get to smack me twice and I smack you once. AD&D combat gets downright bizarre sometimes, which is why a lot of tables in practice end up running combat similar to BECMI D&D and keeping it simple.

AD&D 2e: Again, you roll every round ... but it might be individual initiative instead of per-side. This time, you're rolling a d10 instead of a d6, but the complexities of segments are gone. Now, your weapon speed (and spell casting time) directly add to your initiative, and lower numbers go earlier. So this is where stuff gets weird with daggers attacking before longswords. Oh, and ties just mean simultaneous action, not weird multiple attacks.

[Person_Man]

Can someone explain to me how weapon speeds worked? Did you get a bonus to initiative when you attacked with a lighter/faster weapon? Was that different on each round? (Say, if the magic-user wanted to cast a spell at round 1 and attack with a dagger at round 2, did the initiative order change?)

It's more then a decade since I've played AD&D/2nd ed, so I apologize if I'm missing important details, but IIRC you rolled initiative, added weapon speed, and the lowest initiative went first. High Dex and magical weapons deducted from your Initiative roll. Spells had a casting time that was added to initiative, and higher level spells had a higher casting time. Potent spells often had a casting time that took multiple rounds, and if you were damaged while casting, you lost the spell.

[HeadlessMermaid]

Thanks, obryn and Person_Man. :)

[I actually started with 2e too, but that was a long time ago and apparently I remember nothing.]

[Tholomyes]

Tholomyes, could you elaborate on Hero points you use? How are they used? I am not familiar with M&M.

While I am a fan of Edge, Action points, pathfinder Hero points, etc I can't say that I 5e's Inspiration points are all that...inspired.You can get advantage on lots of different stuff, so it is not a very special benefit; I would prefer a modifier to the die roll as a option. That way it would at least stack with any other advantage you may have on that roll.

Sure. The way I use some of the aspects isn't exactly set, based on the system, as some of the effects are pretty powerful in one system, than another, or simply don't fit the feel of the game, but it's generally broken down into 4 rough catagories of what I allow them to be used for:

Improve Roll: This one is the category, that is potentially the most changing, between systems. The way it was used in M&M was to let you reroll a failed d20 roll (which includes most things in that game, from attack rolls, to taking damage, ect) and add 10 to the result, if it's less than 11. This works well for a supers game, but it's not always the best for other styles of game, so I reduce it down to just being a reroll, or being (essentially) 5e's Advantage mechanic depending on the game. For 5e, I'm guessing the ex post facto reroll, sans M&M's +10 if less than 11, will be the best version, but I'm not entirely sure.

Recovery: Another one that varies based on system. The way M&M does it is just removing a condition affecting the character (which also includes damage, based on how damage works in that game), for free. In other systems, that's a bit too powerful, so the way I like to do it is to give the PC an extra Saving throw against the effect, or, if it's only a one turn duration effect, just end the condition.

Edit Scene: Beyond just the normal stuff in this regard, that falls under the "say yes to the players" and the "improvosational yes" umbrellas, a Hero Point could be used to Slightly edit the scene, in a way that doesn't directly affect other NPCs, or fundamentally change the scene. This one's the harder one to try to describe, because it's pretty situation dependent. As a general rule, I go by, if it's plausible, Allow it without a hero point. If it's implausible, but not too implausible, or if it's implausible, but awesome, I'll allow it with a hero point. If it's too far of a stretch, I'll not allow it.

Serendipity: This is somewhat similar to the above, but it's less about editing the scene, and more about making a plan that might require some level of serendipity to occur work, or something that I wouldn't allow carte blanche, but I'd feel OK as a one time thing, I'll require a Hero Point for. I use this a lot for times where the rules disallow something, but I don't want to screw a character out of an awesome moment, without weakening that rule for the future.

Players generally start out with some base number, per session (that don't generally roll over, unless they earn one for good roleplaying or some awesome moment at the end of the session, and it'd go away otherwise), which is generally dependent on the type of game it is. I'm more comfortable giving 2 or 3 at the start of a Supers game, than another game, where I might only start the players with 1. Hero Points are earned, similar to inspiration with good roleplay, and awesome moments, but I generally expect my players to have enough characterization for their characters, that I don't see the need to require stuff like ideals, flaws, and bonds.

The third way, they're earned, is a bit different from Inspiration. If the player suffer some sort of complication, or I need to GM fiat, I may give away a hero point, depending on how severe the complication or GM Fiat. Again, like other things, the severity benchmark depends on the type of game I'm running. In a Supers game, losing a fight might be enough of a complication to earn a hero point, since it's in keeping with genre conventions. With other games, it's different.

[da_chicken]

I never cared for weapons speeds (which never took weapon reach into account) nor the dreaded armor class by weapon chart. You think 3.x or 4e is full of fiddley little modifiers, try playing with weapon speed and AC by weapon. Such a nightmare.

I've never seen anybody use either rule for more than one encounter. Usually to demonstrate how much overhead they add to the game.

[obryn]

Back to the original topic - the Starter Kit is changing my mind. More away from 5e, sadly.

[akaddk]

Back to the original topic - the Starter Kit is changing my mind. More away from 5e, sadly.

Out of curiosity, why? What specifically about it has turned you off 5e?

[obryn]

Out of curiosity, why? What specifically about it has turned you off 5e?
The monster design, most specifically the spell lists found in several adversary stat blocks. I've disliked this since I was running 3.x, and that dislike has only grown now that several D&D games (incl. 4e and 13A) have shown it's not necessary for fun, interesting enemies.

There's other parts of the monster design I'm scratching my head about - like how in the world Bugbears are suitable against 1st level characters - but it's the spell lists that stick in my craw. Particularly on the flameskull, who has no reason to have them.

Even capsule descriptions alongside the spells would make this more palatable - like listing the saves, damage/effects, and targeting information.

[Callin]

Why is that exactly? It actually reinforced it for me. Reading over the adventure and noticing that monsters are more than just Hit Points. They actually have cool little things to do in a round (yes like 4th) on a 3rd ed chassis that my group I hope will love. From a DM perspective I am giddy with excitement to run the module.



edit: ninja'd

[obryn]

Why is that exactly? It actually reinforced it for me. Reading over the adventure and noticing that monsters are more than just Hit Points. They actually have cool little things to do in a round (yes like 4th) on a 3rd ed chassis that my group I hope will love. From a DM perspective I am giddy with excitement to run the module.

edit: ninja'd
Pure usability concerns. As the DM, I never want to crack open a PHB or keep a spell reference open while I'm running the game. You can call me spoiled if you like, but I've seen the grass on the other side of that fence and I'm not going back. :smallbiggrin:

Even capsule descriptions would, like I said, mollify me a little bit.

I can forgive this in older editions, like BECMI, but for a new game, a game made in AD 2014, I find it unpalatable. :smallsmile:

[Callin]

Yea I understand. The monster stat block should have everything right there to run the monster. That would be nice but its not a deal breaker for me really. Soon enough it will get to the point where people wont need to open another book and just run from memory.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Back to the original topic - the Starter Kit is changing my mind. More away from 5e, sadly.

Random note, the starter set and the free basic pdf is quite different. Not so much that they don't work together but enough to notice.

[akaddk]

The monster design, most specifically the spell lists found in several adversary stat blocks. I've disliked this since I was running 3.x, and that dislike has only grown now that several D&D games (incl. 4e and 13A) have shown it's not necessary for fun, interesting enemies.
I don't actually have the Starter Set yet so I can't look at them to know what you're talking about. But from what you're saying I think you mean that spells don't have any description for how they work in the monster entries? If so then that is a big ****ing let-down as this was an issue that was brought up in the playtests and it was assumed that most people wanted some sort of succinct description rather than having to reference a PHB.


There's other parts of the monster design I'm scratching my head about - like how in the world Bugbears are suitable against 1st level characters - but it's the spell lists that stick in my craw. Particularly on the flameskull, who has no reason to have them.
Well that's something we're going to have to disagree on. I like that monsters are dangerous in this edition. It was also a massive issue with playtesters that monsters weren't dangerous enough so I'm glad they listened and beefed them up.

[obryn]

Random note, the starter set and the free basic pdf is quite different. Not so much that they don't work together but enough to notice.
What are some differences?

[Telwar]

Mind has not changed. If anything, I'm even more horrified by their math.

[obryn]

I don't actually have the Starter Set yet so I can't look at them to know what you're talking about. But from what you're saying I think you mean that spells don't have any description for how they work in the monster entries? If so then that is a big ****ing let-down as this was an issue that was brought up in the playtests and it was assumed that most people wanted some sort of succinct description rather than having to reference a PHB.
Yeah, there's three bad guys with lists of spells formatted no differently than you'd find in an AD&D adventure, circa 1978. Two of them are NPCs, which is regrettable but understandable. The third is a monster - a flameskull.

e: Were you in the closed playtest? Because I know I sent comments to this effect over and over again during the open playtests! :smallsmile:

[archaeo]

Even capsule descriptions would, like I said, mollify me a little bit.

I can forgive this in older editions, like BECMI, but for a new game, a game made in AD 2014, I find it unpalatable. :smallsmile:

I feel like I read an L&L or a Mearls tweet that said something to the effect of planning on describing any "relevant" ability or whatever, such that the goal would be describing all combat abilities to some degree while retaining spell lists without descriptions for casters who might be expected to use rituals/spells outside of combat? Or some other compromise?

[akaddk]

Were you in the closed playtest?

No, but it was a very common discussion point on forums about the playtest. I had thought that the vast majority of people were in favour of getting some sort of descriptive element for spells. I really hope this is just a cost-cutting measure for the Starter Set and not an edition trend. If it does end up being a trend then I think they'll find a massive backlash over it and if they keep to their promise of putting out errata based on feedback then this will be one of the first things to be changed.

[Lokiare]

No, but it was a very common discussion point on forums about the playtest. I had thought that the vast majority of people were in favour of getting some sort of descriptive element for spells. I really hope this is just a cost-cutting measure for the Starter Set and not an edition trend. If it does end up being a trend then I think they'll find a massive backlash over it and if they keep to their promise of putting out errata based on feedback then this will be one of the first things to be changed.

I hear 'WotC' and 'promise' in the same sentence and the first thing that comes to my mind is they can go 'soon' themselves.

[Arzanyos]

Hey now, WOTC has stuck to a promise before. The reserved list is still around.

[Callin]

The Flameskulls used to be in Skullport. Though I don't remember in what context. If it was ruler or police. I do know they had spells so this isn't really a surprise to me.


Edit- Seems it was 13 Netherese Mages who were turned into them by Wild Magic. So im not sure about this new generation of Flameskulls. Since it says they are created by mages. So I guess a type of flattery homage undead to the original 13?

[Leon]

I must admit i had forgotten about 5e until i was asked by a friend yesterday if i had seen the basic Rules yet. And i have to say Im quite impressed.

Will it make me come back to D&D, prob not as im more interested in Dungeon World these days but its a massive improvement over the last shambles of an edition.

[ZeshinX]

5e has me kicking the tires of the D&D brand again. Based solely on the Basic Rules PDF, no, my mind hasn't changed and Pathfinder is still my system of choice. I will be buying the PHB once released to see a more "complete" rule set.

I likes me some customization for creating characters. I find Pathfinder (and 3/3.5 before it) allows me to take a concept and create a character that fits that concept. Currently 5e is far too few in options and I'd like to see if the PHB is going to open up this way (which I'm sure we'll get some of the more basic things, like domains, martial archetypes, more classes, etc).

It will be options that determine if I return to the D&D fold or stick with PRPG.

[Tholomyes]

I've changed my mind slightly. I stumbled upon another forum, where, someone was going over the some of the changes from the playtest to the leaked alpha. If they kept it fairly unchanged (except with whatever minor tweaks they'd make), and the poster was to be believed, I'm more cautiously optimistic than what I saw from the basic rules (which made me, if you'd believe, even less excited for the game than even the playtest, and I was pretty down on the playtest). But, while the number of feats is less than I'd have liked (unless there are substantially more in the finished product, than the alpha), there apparently are more options within each class than it had seemed from the playtest, and the Fighters' maneuvers were fixed up substantially.

Now, it'll need some serious house-ruling, like changing the multiclass rules, and some other things, but I feel like probably more optimistic about it, than I have since, probably the early playtests. Whether it'll be worth playing in the long run remains to be seen, as it still doesn't provide much new, but that probably will come down to what ends up in Supplements.

[Envyus]

(which I'm sure we'll get some of the more basic things, like domains, martial archetypes, more classes, etc).


Basic and quite a few other things confirm that we are.

[Tholomyes]

Basic and quite a few other things confirm that we are.

While I'd disagree that basic really indicates that (true, it says there will be further Archetypes, and that there will be feats, but it doesn't indicate how much customization that affords; furthermore, it doesn't really put it's best foot foreward on that aspect, with what we see presented), from what I've seen noted from people who've seen the leaked alpha, the Battlemaster fighter is actually fairly impressive, as are some of the other things (like, somewhat surprisingly, the monk), in terms of options. Feats still seem somewhat lacking, but supplements might improve that.

Honestly, the big thing that I'm concerned with, right now, is from the DM's seat. I'm seeing a few things that give me pause, as potential steps back in design, such as the way CR-based XP scales differently than the XP budgets shown in Legends and Lore. But from the player's side I'm cautiously (and I'll stress cautiously) optimistic.

[HylianKnight]

That depends, from when? If you're talking about the last play test packet, then no, by the time I actually stepped back to look and see what they were cooking I was impressed.

If you mean from when they first announced the system, hell yes! I was not excited for 5e after seeing 4e go down in flames (by which I mean first deciding I'd much rather keep playing 3rd then it, and then seeing them pull the plug 3 and a half years into it's lifespan). The goal of uniting the player base sounded nothing more than marketing speak and I had no expectation that people who had loved the past versions but not 4th would be listened to.

Now, I'm just thrilled by the superb design work that went into the thing.
Advantage/Disadvantage is inspired, taking all the fiddly bonuses from past systems and giving one straightforward way to keep the game moving, meaningfully affect the math involved, and encourage dynamic game playing.
Bounded Accuracy is the solution to the thing I've struggled most with in DnD, trying to reconcile the ever inflating numbers with the ideal of a world bound by known laws.
The low magic-default fits my play style more than 3rd or 4th ever could.
The subclass system is great - providing a neat evolution on Pathfinder's awesome archetypes to create more choices while controlling system bloat.
The magic system has been retooled to be both more balanced and more accessible
Design philosophy has aimed to create a game where your effectiveness or ability to create cool things is not determined by system mastery.
The whole system is designed with an eye towards being as easy to learn and teach as possible.

[INDYSTAR188]

That depends, from when? If you're talking about the last play test packet, then no, by the time I actually stepped back to look and see what they were cooking I was impressed.

If you mean from when they first announced the system, hell yes! I was not excited for 5e after seeing 4e go down in flames (by which I mean first deciding I'd much rather keep playing 3rd then it, and then seeing them pull the plug 3 and a half years into it's lifespan). The goal of uniting the player base sounded nothing more than marketing speak and I had no expectation that people who had loved the past versions but not 4th would be listened to.

Now, I'm just thrilled by the superb design work that went into the thing.
Advantage/Disadvantage is inspired, taking all the fiddly bonuses from past systems and giving one straightforward way to keep the game moving, meaningfully affect the math involved, and encourage dynamic game playing.
Bounded Accuracy is the solution to the thing I've struggled most with in DnD, trying to reconcile the ever inflating numbers with the ideal of a world bound by known laws.
The low magic-default fits my play style more than 3rd or 4th ever could.
The subclass system is great - providing a neat evolution on Pathfinder's awesome archetypes to create more choices while controlling system bloat.
The magic system has been retooled to be both more balanced and more accessible
Design philosophy has aimed to create a game where your effectiveness or ability to create cool things is not determined by system mastery.
The whole system is designed with an eye towards being as easy to learn and teach as possible.

This is pretty much how I feel as well. My group plays 4E, which I enjoy DMing much more than 3.X. Having said that I'm excited for a chance to move back to a more 'traditional' DnD feel while addressing the problems I've been frustrated with in the past. I dislike how in earlier editions spellcasting was so OP that my martial players frequently felt overshadowed. I also dislike how at a certain point players get beyond the point of danger from lower level monsters.

I particularly enjoy some of the mechanics listed in 5e, the advantage/disadvantage system is a good idea. The spellcasting flexability seems really fun and useful. The things they've done for the martial classes seem like they have a lot of options to contribute outside of just 'I hit this creature'. I really like the bounded accuracy idea and especially that the system seems to encourage the player-DM dynamic to work together to create the coolest effects. I already do this, my players in 4E will describe to me what they want to do (I want to run up this wall and grab the goblins ankle pulling him down) and we work together to make something cool happen. I also award action points or some incentive for this type of creative play.

My biggest concerns at this point are the saves. At this point the biggest obstacle to our transitioning to 5E is that we have been playing 4E for over 3 years. We have all the books and everyone is comfortable with the rules and how to play. My players are also mostly min/maxers who enjoy finding the OP combination for whatever build their attempting to put together. I'm sure there is still some of this in 5E but with reduced numbers it might be difficult to get my guys to buy into the system.

My plan is to finish our 4E campaign, run a 5E into module, and then start a new campaign in 5E with my own homebrewed world (we're currently in Forgotten Realms). That is after we run a Star Wars Saga Edition game and one of my buddies wants to run a campaign in Monte Cook's new game The Strange.

[SiuiS]

I actually would have loved a compromise between 4e and 3e. What we got is missing a lot of aspects I consider key to both editions, or warps important features beyond recognition and into something that totally misses the point of the original. Whether it's the awful hit dice mechanic, the gutting of high level character capability, or the terrible encounter design mechanics, everywhere I look is mechanics that use the worst of both worlds, rather than taking the best and utilizing that to make a truly unique and impressive game.

Im Curious. You usually have a pretty coherent thing going, so what would you do (bullet points) to make this theoretical hybrid? What parts would you take from here and there? I've wanted to do the same but I hadn't sat down to crystallize any of it.


I'm going to give 5e a fair shake re: Fighter Options once the PHB comes out. I'll see how decent the "Battlemaster" is then.

Otherwise, I agree - I am completely uninterested in a Fighter whose only option is to get bigger numbers.

Aye. I plan to flip through one in the store, at the least.


HEY! :smallmad:

As an autistic/aspergers person, and I am OFFENDED.

I have no freaking clue how 3.5 works at all, and I'm insulted that you think I now how to master it. I prefer 4e, thank you very much! its simpler, more balanced and less confusing to my mind.

I'm glad someone caught that. Let's please not use mental disorders or whatnot as insults or any of that?


On backgrounds, I'm surprised. So many people see backgrounds and despair that they have to pick them and then figure out what personality comes from them. Does no one decide on a personality and then pick the mechanical advantages that best represent it?

[Morty]

I haven't, really. It's just the basic set, of course, but there's so much more you could do while keeping things simple and bare-bones. The Fighter class is just sad, and the Rogue isn't that much better. The weapons table could be reduced to three lines of text while giving the exact same number of options. Non-magical combat makes low-level 3e look tactically deep, since all combat maneuvers were outsourced into being selectable features for the 'advanced' Fighter archetype. None of this bodes well for the full Player's Handbook. From all we've been hearing, the "Battlemaster" Fighter archetype would be actually a good fit... for the simple, basic option.

[The Mormegil]

Cleric capstone: automatic Divine Intervention.
Fighter capstone: an extra attack.

I kinda wanted to see the whole thing, now I don't. So I guess I changed my mind from bad to worse...?

[Beleriphon]

Cleric capstone: automatic Divine Intervention.
Fighter capstone: an extra attack.

I kinda wanted to see the whole thing, now I don't. So I guess I changed my mind from bad to worse...?

I suppose the difference is that it works one per week (or depending on how you play once per session in a practical sense) but a fighter gets to make up to 8 attacks in every single combat. That's isn't exactl an insubstantial amout of damage, and it is by far the simplest option that has been presented thus far.

[Tehnar]

Its a possible extra 13(26) damage, at best. More like 10 extra DPR. Lets not go overboard with the enthusiasm.

[Tholomyes]

Cleric capstone: automatic Divine Intervention.
Fighter capstone: an extra attack.

I kinda wanted to see the whole thing, now I don't. So I guess I changed my mind from bad to worse...?Honestly, I'm most interested in what homebrew solutions people come up with, to replace divine intervention. This X% chance of a Deity coming in to intercede on your behalf was precisely why I'm not playing 13th Age right now (to be fair, in the 13th age rules, it's only, effectively, a demigod, not an actual deity, but the point largely stands)

[ZeshinX]

Divine Intervention is an ability that will be rapidly house-ruled into oblivion if we (my group and I) decide we like 5e. Augury-type abilities/spells are one thing, but this? No. A Cleric is already a divine conduit for a deity's power on the material plane. The CLERIC is the intervention.

If they want to role-play a plea (and I mean something far more grand than a simple prayer) to their deity in their most desperate hour, that's awesome. Something may happen, something may not. The stakes will have to be planes-shaking to be worth a response, and the cost to the Cleric will be immense.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Divine Intervention is an ability that will be rapidly house-ruled into oblivion if we (my group and I) decide we like 5e. Augury-type abilities/spells are one thing, but this? No. A Cleric is already a divine conduit for a deity's power on the material plane. The CLERIC is the intervention.

If they want to role-play a plea (and I mean something far more grand than a simple prayer) to their deity in their most desperate hour, that's awesome. Something may happen, something may not. The stakes will have to be planes-shaking to be worth a response, and the cost to the Cleric will be immense.

I actually like that a god will do a solid for one of his or her most powerful followers. Getting that far should have the reward of having your deity's direct line.

Who here didn't like how Thor changed up Durkon's control weather spell to help him mess up those trees with a sonic boom from a lightning strike?

In D&D it will be broken as hell but how about we raise everyone else up to this high level instead of taking this out? I don't mind uberpowerful if everyone is on the same playing field.

[ZeshinX]

Oh I don't rightly care if others choose to keep Divine Intervention around for their own enjoyment. That's their call. I just find the ability wildly idiotic and it will not be present in any game I run (at the very least, not in its current form, perhaps as some form of evolving augury or as Divine Inspiration....sort of an old-school geas that triggers a pilgrimage or quest to retrieve a holy relic, perhaps even a blessing for creating a powerful divine magic item or something).

[Arzanyos]

I really didn't see Divine Intervention as "Your deity come in and does exactly what you want and makes it all better". I saw it more as a "Gruumsh, get me out of this alive". And then Gruumsh makes it happen, somehow.

[Demonic Spoon]

I really didn't see Divine Intervention as "Your deity come in and does exactly what you want and makes it all better". I saw it more as a "Gruumsh, get me out of this alive". And then Gruumsh makes it happen, somehow.


Yup. It explicitly reads "The DM chooses the nature of the intervention". The ability itself cannot be under or overpowered because the DM decides what it does.

[ZeshinX]

Yup. It explicitly reads "The DM chooses the nature of the intervention". The ability itself cannot be under or overpowered because the DM decides what it does.

Quite so, but it's implied something (positive) happens. This doesn't fly (for me, others of course will interpret it in whatever way suits them best). I find it will just degenerate into "Minor Miracle of the Week" crap.

I have no intentions of removing it and leaving a void behind. I do intend to replace it with something (most likely a choice from a list of alternatives), but the ability as is will be rapidly done away via house rules.

As I've said before, the cleric is the deity's instrument on the Prime. The cleric is the divine intervention, incarnate. The stakes for calling upon that deity for additional aid had better be of immense importance to more than just the cleric.

My DM'ing preference and style require something like this be a role-play only choice, not an ability to be activated on a weekly whim.

[Feldarove]

I have not changed my mind. I am incredibly excited for this edition.

I love advantage/disadvantage as a simpler way of handling modifiers.
I love the *fixed* spellcasting. Still awesomely powerful, but not like 3.5.
I love the melee characters special abilities. I can't wait to playtest them.
I'm on the fence about the skills. Customization of skill points has always been fun for me.
I love less but more powerful feats. I didn't realize how much I hated choosing from thousands of feats looking for useful combos until now.
I'm ambivalent about Faerun being the default setting. I'll probably change that.
I love bounded accuracy and capped stats. It makes me feel more like my tactics are more important than numbers.
I'm super intrigued by the border elemental planes. I can't wait to see them fleshed out.
I love the lack of exp costs or penalties I'm seeing. I hated spending xp or forcing my players to spend xp.
I love how energy drain is now vile damage.

There is more, but that's enough for now I think.

^This^

I am pretty excited. I played most iterations of the playtest and I am excited for a final package. I hope they get druid/shape shifting right, as they seemed to be all over the place with it during the playtest.

As far as skill points and customization, I understand the complaints, but I think its based in a lack of reality with how skill works in real life and how its represented in a game.

Let's break down farming....our favorite skill customization.

I am not a farmer, but I grew up in the country. You could ask me a simple question regarding farming and there is a chance I know it...mostly based on how intelligent I am (how well I remember information), and a little bit based on my upbringing. So, if I were a character in 5th edition I would roll an ability check (int) to see if I know that bit of knowledge. Depending on how specific (difficult...DC) the question is and a bit of random luck....well...we know how that works.

If I am a farmer, and you ask me the question....there is a really good chance I know that information. If I am a character in the game and I am a farmer and I have previously told everyone how epic of a farmer I am...then I typically don't need to roll a check to determine if I know a bit of farming knowledge....But let's say I am a human farmer, use to raising some crops and some animals...and we are in a distant Magical grove...and some strange fruit is growing.....Do I know what it is?

You could use some of the suggestions above with backgrounds, or knowledge Farming allowing you to add your Proficiency Bonus and I think that works out, or you could say you have ADVANTAGE on the INT check unlike the rest of the characters. You wouldn't even need to expend any of your limited mechanic resources to have advantage on a role-playing feature.....crazy

[Tholomyes]

Quite so, but it's implied something (positive) happens. This doesn't fly (for me, others of course will interpret it in whatever way suits them best). I find it will just degenerate into "Minor Miracle of the Week" crap.

I have no intentions of removing it and leaving a void behind. I do intend to replace it with something (most likely a choice from a list of alternatives), but the ability as is will be rapidly done away via house rules.

As I've said before, the cleric is the deity's instrument on the Prime. The cleric is the divine intervention, incarnate. The stakes for calling upon that deity for additional aid had better be of immense importance to more than just the cleric.

My DM'ing preference and style require something like this be a role-play only choice, not an ability to be activated on a weekly whim. Exactly. The way I tend to run games, deities are kind of at a bit of a Cold war of sorts, with one another. They don't Launch their Nukes (i.e. directly intervening), because they know all the enemy gods will launch their nukes, and things will go south really quickly for everyone involved, once that happens. So instead, they fight proxy wars with soldiers they supply arms to (aka, their militant clerics), and send in money for humanitarian aid (aka their non-militant clerics). So, if there's a time where your god is launching his or her nukes, there better be a damn good reason, or else hell will (possibly literally) break loose.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Exactly. The way I tend to run games, deities are kind of at a bit of a Cold war of sorts, with one another. They don't Launch their Nukes (i.e. directly intervening), because they know all the enemy gods will launch their nukes, and things will go south really quickly for everyone involved, once that happens. So instead, they fight proxy wars with soldiers they supply arms to (aka, their militant clerics), and send in money for humanitarian aid (aka their non-militant clerics). So, if there's a time where your god is launching his or her nukes, there better be a damn good reason, or else hell will (possibly literally) break loose.

I'll be disappointed if they don't make a setting where that Cold War has been broken and the gods are at war.

So during your average day you may run into Pelor or Wes Has while going about your business.

I'm tired of this cold war of gods.

[akaddk]

Have people actually read the description of it? It really isn't that big of a deal. Once a week you have a 10-19% chance of effectively casting any one cleric spell of the DM's choice. And at 20th-level, the most powerful you can get in the system, it's a sure-thing that once a week you can get the equivalent of any one cleric spell of the DM's choosing.

I really think that people are having the most bizarre reactions to the rules in this edition. It's like someone went around and cut off everyone's heads and they're all running around, spurting blood, waving their arms about and crashing into everything.

[archaeo]

I really think that people are having the most bizarre reactions to the rules in this edition. It's like someone went around and cut off everyone's heads and they're all running around, spurting blood, waving their arms about and crashing into everything.

It's not all that bizarre, really. People feel incredibly strongly about their elf games, which goes double for when that elf game is Dungeons & Dragons, the long-abused mother of all elf games. It doesn't require a Ph.D. in psychology to see the massive emotional and cognitive investment people have in their edition of choice.

Oh, and then WotC parlayed that investment into a successful (in numbers of participants anyway) playtest, where it told every player, implicitly, "Your feedback will go toward designing this game." So now players have even more reason to feel entitled to "their" D&D.

Do I think these are rational points of view? Not at all. It doesn't take a Ph.D. in game design either to see that 5e is perfectly functional, lovingly crafted, and almost achingly desperate to please its fractious playerbase. But I do think it's only to be expected. It happened with 3e, it happened with 4e, and now it's happening with 5e.

[HeadlessMermaid]

Have people actually read the description of it? It really isn't that big of a deal. Once a week you have a 10-19% chance of effectively casting any one cleric spell of the DM's choice. And at 20th-level, the most powerful you can get in the system, it's a sure-thing that once a week you can get the equivalent of any one cleric spell of the DM's choosing.

I think it's either an acquired reflex, or rational fear. In 3.5, anything the full-caster could do once in a while, under certain conditions, with drawbacks, and by spending resources, could in the end be spammed almost at will and almost for free - as long as the player was sufficiently determined and knowledgeable in char-op fu, and the DM accommodating enough to allow it. Some groups liked to play that way, others didn't but were still terrified by relevant tales. So people may instinctively fear that everything used will inevitably be abused. Even if the rules so far support no such thing.

Or, people may predict that, as more 5e material gets published, there will be feats and archetypes and optional rules, which combined will allow the abuse of otherwise balanced rules. I mean, Divine Intervention is tame now, but imagine if, a few books down the road, a specific cleric build can roll 1/day, as a cleric of triple his character level, with advantage, and access to wizard spells. [I have no idea if 5e will evolve like that, so no predictions from me. It appears that it isn't in the designers' goals at all, but then again, neither was most of 3.5...]

Or, people don't read carefully. It's OK. Nobody can be 100% careful 100% of the time.

[da_chicken]

Capstone abilities are grossly overrated. They will come into play in a fraction of campaigns for a fraction of sessions. You're literally spending three to six months of play time to get abilities you'll use for two or three sessions at most. They also come into play when magic items are at their most powerful and monsters have the strongest defenses, so it's possible that even if your capstone is amazing that it will be eclipsed by items or rendered irrelevant.

[Morty]

Capstone abilities have value that extends past their mechanical strength. In a system where multiclassing and prestige classes exist (although I'm actually not sure if PrCs do in 5e), they reward you for sticking with your class for twenty levels and make you feel like the top dog in your profession. One of the few genuinely good ideas behind Pathfinder is the understanding of that. Pathfinder's capstone abilities vary in quality and fall into the overall gross imbalance, but they're there.

In 5e, the divine intervention might not be earthshaking in practice, but it definitely feels that way - you have a direct line to your patron deity. Which is good - the problem is that the other classes don't get something similar. Rogues get the closest, I suppose, because the ability to turn a failure into a success, no ifs and no buts, is nice, if pedestrian. Wizards get two extra spells of a level which has long since fallen behind. But then, they're wizards, so it's not like they suffer for it much. The poor Fighters, in comparison, get... an additional attack. For all their focus on what feel right over what's mechanically functional, the 5e designers don't seem to have considered the psychological effects of capstones.

[The Mormegil]

Capstone abilities are grossly overrated. They will come into play in a fraction of campaigns for a fraction of sessions. You're literally spending three to six months of play time to get abilities you'll use for two or three sessions at most. They also come into play when magic items are at their most powerful and monsters have the strongest defenses, so it's possible that even if your capstone is amazing that it will be eclipsed by items or rendered irrelevant.

To you and those that say that it's one per week or that they dislike the idea of divine intervention or whatever: you're missing my point.

The cleric gets to talk with his god and ask him a favor.
The fighter gets a number boost. An extra attack. He is slightly more proficient at fighting.
The fighter never gets to bend the rules. He never gets to do something cool. He never gets a high moment. He's a lawn mower, powering through monsters with the same kind of fatigue and interesting choice a lawn mower provides. He doesn't get special abilities, he doesn't get resources. He's just... lame.

The so-called backgrounds are lackluster and very minor. The off-combat options for fighters are still laughable. And they don't get cool toys to play with. We still have an entire class whose main defining trait is "not being able to do anything specifically". Every hero fights. Some heroes just can't do much of anything else. And they don't really get to feel cool about what they're doing at higher levels.

I know it's not a popular opinion, but I'm going to say it anyway: I think D&D should learn from modern videogame and boardgame design. In a Magic the Gathering set, why would you have a color that is significantly more limited and less cool than another? In League of Legends, why would you make a champion that is just a pile of numbers with no abilities and no ultimate? In Warhammer, why would you make an army with no theme and no mechanics, and just all identical melee mooks? Pick any game that's not D&D and you will see that they spend a lot of time to make sure all their options are balanced - not in a 4E sense, but rather in a... "fun" sense. An "experience" sense. D&D never takes into consideration what the experience a player actually has with different options is. Or rather, they do take it into consideration, and they just don't care about tuning it as other games would. They want to deliver on "feeling like a fighter" rather than deliver on "feeling like a cool hero that meaningfully contributes to the game, themed as a fighter". And that inevitably leads to "but but but fighters no magic fighters no can do". Basically ANY story about fighters in the recent years has them teleporting (shunpo, flash step, what have you), but nooooo that would be unrealistic in the middle of a dungeon room full of dragons and wizards. So fighters - and rogues, and monks - are stuck being unsatisfying piles of numbers.

And it's not just fighters. Take a look at wizards. They get to "cast magic spells". What does arcane magic do? "Anything except healing". What? Like, what?
What do clerics get? Magic, divine intervention, domain powers... What do rogues get? Skill mastery. A little bit of luck. A cunning smile and a pat on the back.

It's the whole concept that irks me. It's just... sad. I want something different, something that probably doesn't even have a fighter class. Something that has some solid design foundation and delivers on a "fantasy heroes" theme, rather than a "classic D&D" theme. Because "classic D&D" was never really what I wanted from D&D. In my opinion, "classic D&D" is boring, mediocre and old-fashioned.

I get that D&D going back to its roots was the point, I get that many people like it, I get that the point of the edition is mostly to get out products based on the IP rather than the actual rules. Good for you. I don't care: I don't like this edition because it is a relic of the past - a past I never really liked anyway. I don't think it will be well received by new generations, but they did market research so maybe I'm wrong. I'm pretty sure me and my group will never be satisfied by D&D if this is what D&D is. We'll be looking for something that goes in a different direction.

[Tholomyes]

Not much to say on the above, but I agree wholeheartedly. Part of the reason I've never really liked any edition of D&D was because it always feels like they focus too much on the class as a primary focus, instead of a means to an end to create a bad*** fantasy hero. With pre-4th this means fighters (and other non-magic characters) tend to be more limited in their narrative capability, relative to other classes. In 4th this tends to mean that you're more limited in your character choices, since you're largely limited to a single class (Multiclassing, being only a slight 'dip' into another class, with feat-taxes to swap powers, and with Hybrids being so easy to create significantly less functional characters), meaning it's harder to build concept-first.

[akaddk]

To you and those that say that it's one per week or that they dislike the idea of divine intervention or whatever: you're missing my point.

The cleric gets to talk with his god and ask him a favor.
The fighter gets a number boost. An extra attack. He is slightly more proficient at fighting.

Two things:

1) It's the base game which will be added to as more content comes out. At the moment it's little more than a teaser.

2) The PHB and later material will have other sub-classes that get "cool" stuff. The Champion sub-class is simply the most vanilla option which, I might add, some people like and even prefer.

[Tholomyes]

Two things:

1) It's the base game which will be added to as more content comes out. At the moment it's little more than a teaser.

2) The PHB and later material will have other sub-classes that get "cool" stuff. The Champion sub-class is simply the most vanilla option which, I might add, some people like and even prefer. You're missing the fact that Divine inspiration is core to the cleric, while the champion subclass is a subclass. A Cleric still gets the choice of subclass in addition to the narrative power that they get base. A fighter, however, has little to no narrative power base, meaning all of it has to come from the subclasses, and from what all I've heard of the leaked alpha, they don't really get much narrative power from that. EKs are limited to Evocation and Abjuration which don't have much narrative power to them, and the Battlemaster (while a lot more fun in combat, from all I've heard) has very little to help them in terms of narrative power.

[Morty]

Judging by the class tables, sub-class abilities will always be received at the same class-dependent pace, regardless of which sub-class you use. None of the classes in the basic set get a sub-class feature on level 20. Wizards seem to stop getting their Arcane Tradition features by level 14.

[obryn]

2) The PHB and later material will have other sub-classes that get "cool" stuff. The Champion sub-class is simply the most vanilla option which, I might add, some people like and even prefer.
If it's unchanged from the playtest, it's pretty lackluster.

At 18th, the Wizard picks up meteor storm, wish, etc.

At 18th, the Weaponmaster picks his 9th favorite maneuver out of the same list he's been using since 1st.

It's simply not comparable.