D&D 5th Edition: Thread #7

[Knaight]

I've gone through the updated bestiary and like what I see. In general, the tweaks made are minor, but from my experience of the previous iterations, will likely have a positive impact. Example: the kobolds in "Caves of Chaos" were generally pushovers, especially if the caster had sleep or some other AoE spell left. However, if the group did not, the fact that they gained advantage as long as they were outnumbering the invaders, meant the kobolds were very likely to score hits. The tweaked kobolds gain a bonus to the attack roll in relation to the number of kobolds threatening the same target. Much better system, and more elegant mechanics.

I'm also liking the bestiary. There were some real oddities earlier, particularly concerning experience (the Kobold example is a good one, with that pitiful Dragonshield being worth far more experience than the actually dangerous Trapmaster last packet), and most of them have been resolved. There is still room for new problems to develop, and I'm a little concerned about the 10xp monsters, simply because having 7-1 odds at level 1 for a normal encounter seems excessive, but that could work out better than anticipated.

Sadly, encounter design is now bogged down by the magic item rules, which involve a ridiculous amount of rolling, and quite a bit of assigning and then tracking magic items, many of which are absurdly powerful at the low levels of the playtest packet, and probably indefinitely. Granted, they also have the Holy Avenger, a weapon that can only be attuned by a class they haven't actually released yet, so I'd expect the magic item system to get an overhaul.

On the other hand, equipment has been a mess in general from day one, from the absurd weights to the odd pricing to the clutter, so there is a real possibility that magic items will suffer the same fate.