D&D 5th Edition: 8th Revision and Counting

[obryn]

So, yeah, link?

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?p=5611853

(down thread somewhere around the 80+ area. Current sub numbers in post 73. 106 is where the test is proposed, and it follows from there. See 116 and 119. I'd post links if I weren't on a tablet.)

-O

[Ashdate]

DDI subscription always get overlooked, particularly when comparing Pathfinder "book" sales to 4e "book" sales. I was initially skeptical, but DDI is one of the things that makes DMing 4e a dream.

They'd be crazy not to create a 5e/DnDNext version.

[obryn]

DDI subscription always get overlooked, particularly when comparing Pathfinder "book" sales to 4e "book" sales. I was initially skeptical, but DDI is one of the things that makes DMing 4e a dream.

They'd be crazy not to create a 5e/DnDNext version.

Yep. I mean, all along, people have been wondering, "How can WotC afford to develop a game for two years without any major new releases other than reprints?" This is the answer - and it's not that 4e was a financial failure, so WotC's cutting their losses. It's that 4e is still bringing in boatloads of money that nobody really needs to work for. It's not the mythical $50m+ that Hasbro wants (really, you'd need a core book release for that; funny how that works), but any TTRPG publisher in the world would be besides themselves with glee over $6m+/year.

The reprints and PDF sales aren't being done as a stop-gap measure to keep the lights on, like some have suspected. In light of this data, it's clear what they are. They're an outreach project. Public relations. A way to remind lapsed players that WotC exists and that they're making this new D&D and to get them back into the habit of buying D&D stuff from them. And all of it has been fantastic press and elevated WotC in the eyes of the community. It was a great move, and dovetails well with WotC's own rather squishy design goals of reuniting the fan base.

So yes. They'd be foolish not to try and keep such a great revenue stream. They'll need it when they start planning for D&D Double-Next in 2017.

-O

[Ashdate]

D&D Double-Next

We have a winner!

[Kurald Galain]

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?p=5611853

Interesting.

Okay, so DDI has a revenue of $6M per year. Looking around for other figures, I note that Magic the Gathering is making $200M, and Hasbro as a whole is making $4300M. I have been unable to find reliable figures for Paizo, but Steve Jackson games makes about $3M per year (based on 2007 figures). From Hasbro's perspective, then, that $6M strikes me as "nice but unimpressive".

More to the point, WOTC is clearly acting as if their D&D brand is in trouble, considering they've cancelled several books and product lines, and they clearly have lost marketshare to Paizo. It's good, then, that 4E is still producing revenue, because I seriously doubt Hasbro would be willing to invest in 5E otherwise.

[Reverent-One]

So what you're saying is that D&D is a little fish in a big pond? Good to see you've at least made it to the year 2000 Kurald.

[obryn]

I have been unable to find reliable figures for Paizo

Probably comparable income-wise, but with higher production costs.

Steve Jackson games makes about $3M per year (based on 2007 figures). From Hasbro's perspective, then, that $6M strikes me as "nice but unimpressive".

That includes their board and card games, right? This is just DDI. If you include board games, minis games, licensing costs, book sales, (now) pdf sales, etc., WotC's is going to be substantially bigger.

More to the point, WOTC is clearly acting as if their D&D brand is in trouble, considering they've cancelled several books and product lines, and they clearly have lost marketshare to Paizo. It's good, then, that 4E is still producing revenue, because I seriously doubt Hasbro would be willing to invest in 5E otherwise.

I agree that Hasbro would not be willing to invest in a new game if 4e were not making money. It is making money, and therefore the edition treadmill is allowed to continue. If Next is successful - not if it fails, if it's successful - we'll see another edition in a few years, like clockwork, because that's the only time when serious revenue spikes will ever occur in the RPG business.

Edited to add: There is no way - no way whatsoever - that any edition five years old will ever make as much money as a new edition release. You can call that "trouble" or you can call that "the obvious way the edition treadmill works." 4e is in "trouble" now in exactly the way 3.5 was in "trouble" in 2007. The difference here is that they're not even bothering with new books, because they have a much smoother, less-expensive way to make money this time around.

-O

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Spoilering the HP stuff since the topic has moved on:

Spoiler

Show

I think there are arguments for and against every definition of HPs that you can come up with. The only one that's remotely consistent is, "Hit points are an abstract number that tells you how close you are to dying."

There may be different explanations that make more or less sense, but if the argument is over what HP are intended to be, it's been the case in every edition that HP are intended to be physical resilience plus the ability to reduce the deadliness of hits (whether that's luck, divine favor, reflexes, or something else for a given character is immaterial).

And that interpretation is fairly consistent. At low levels it's basically all meat and you die to one or two hits from a weapon, then you start picking up skill and are able to survive a few hits as you avoid the worst of them, then once you start becoming more superhuman you can reduce a bunch of incoming attacks to barely scratching you because you have skin like steel or Neo-like reflexes, and so forth. Cure light wounds heals about one wound on average, roughly half a level 1 commoner's hit points in 3e; cure moderate heals something that can bring them down to 1 HP, cure serious cures something that can take them down to the negatives and cure critical can bring them from near-dead to full health.

The partly-physical-wounds paradigm is only "an abstract number that tells you how close you are to dying" if you assume PCs are regular, normal humans all the way up to level 20, which hasn't been the case since at least BECMI and isn't really supported by the rest of the rules; if John McClane can survive a few dozen cuts and a few bullet grazes, it's not inconsistent (to me, at least) that a mid-level PC can do the same.

Re: Temp HPs... Temporary hit points are massively weaker than actual healing, in practice. In order for the Next Warlord to function as a "cleric replacement"

That's what I'm arguing--that it shouldn't be a cleric replacement, any more than a druid should be a cleric replacement. They're different classes that do different things, and 5e needs to get away from the idea that a primary healer is required in every party.

(Also, Temp HPs are a really weird concept if you're sticking with "hit points are largely meat points." You don't avoid any of the verisimilitude issues, if that's important to you. I don't understand why temp HPs are okay for morale-based effects but actual HPs aren't.)

It's the "adrenaline surge" aspect of it, where you can ignore the pain of some more wounds for a while. When temporary HP runs out, you're still left with a big gash that needs to be healed and you drop if you were almost unconscious before and took some more damage, whereas real healing via morale means you were unconscious and now you're fine and can keep going.

Why should characters be superhuman around level 5-7? Humanoid PCs should not be stronger than giants and titans. Such stats are only achievable in one version of D&D, and it happens to be the one that is broken mathematically.

It's not restricted to 3e. D&D characters start getting to be all-around superhuman by level 6ish in AD&D and 3e, in the former case explicitly because the benchmark for "average person" is 0th or 1st level and by low-mid level you can effortlessly defeat tons of those, in the latter case implicitly because HP, skills, and other stats let you do superhuman things by that level.

The Conan vs. commoner example is not playtesting, it's applying the rules inaccurately. The scenario would call for an opposed check, not a roll vs. a DC.

Which is why everyone has been talking about opposed checks this whole time.

And where exactly does it say that everyone must be within 20 points of each other regardless of level? If a rules packet does indeed state that, you have my apologies.

It's not in the rules packet because it's not a "rule" of the system--it's a design principle behind bounded accuracy, laid out in the dev description of what bounded accuracy is.

However, Mike Mearls did say that they purposely include mechanics they expect do be unpopular just to gauge the reaction.

I don't think they'd do that with mechanics like "the entire skill system."

No system that uses hit points can be referred to as a reality simulator.

That's why it's called a simulator. SimCity 2000 is designed to let you simulate a city, hence the name--but there are plenty of abstractions, random chances, fudge factors, etc. in the math when the real-life stuff they're simulating is too complex to be represented accurately. Further, in both games they continue the simulation into non-real-life territory (mid and high level for D&D, 50 years in the future for SimCity 2000) and plenty of things are no longer realistic...but they're still attempting to simulate another reality, even if it's not as close to our own as it was before.

I disagree. 3E did not have functional math, and it got worse with every level. Outside of the "sweet spot", it was completely broken.

"Completely broken" is overstating it by far. "Breakable," certainly, if PCs get access to things like +30 skill boosters or other powerful number-boosting magic items, but not broken: the math basically does what it's trying to do (makes everyone fragile and somewhat competent at low levels, makes everyone able to face armies without dying and be quite competent at mid-high levels), Now, there are some bad assumptions in system (e.g. not giving enough skill points to cover a lot of skills so the "0 ranks at 20th level" situation can happen, making the basic orc more lethal than normal at 1st level, etc.), but it's not the math that makes 3e break down at higher levels.

So, L&L. Reactions:

Regarding the druid, it's fairly common knowledge that the 3e caster + wild shape + companion setup makes the druid too versatile and powerful and that the class would need to be split up or at least make some of those things mutually exclusive. Let's see what they've done, shall we?

The druid in the packet gains wild shape at 1st level, along with the choice of a circle. The circle of the oak grants improved spellcasting, while the circle of the moon focuses on wild shape. The druid matches the cleric's healing in terms of spells, but also has more access to damaging spells.

Wild shape is a daily ability that allows a druid to turn into a specific, chosen form. For instance, a 1st-level druid can transform into a hound that has a high speed, low-light vision, and a superior ability to find hidden things. Its bite attack makes it a useful combatant.

Well, no animal companion, that's good, but wild shape being combat-viable from 1st level isn't going to help the "my class feature is better than your class" problem, considering what the fighter gets at 1st level (i.e. not much).

So, what's new with the paladin? Nothing. Smite, turn/rebuke undead, spells, mount, save bonus, detect alignment, no maneuvers or other fighter-y stuff. No surprise there, but it is somewhat surprising that they're going with Good paladins (not just LG) and adding a N paladin in core. Hopefully it'll turn out better than expected.

On to the ranger:

The ranger's favored enemy serves to give this class a set of special abilities that grant the class a set of static bonuses and advantages. This class feature illustrates the ranger's role as guardian of the wild.

The favored enemy bonuses are themed around specific opponents such as dragons or giants, but the mechanics are versatile enough that you can gain their benefits against a wide range of creatures. For instance, picking dragon as a favored enemy grants a ranger immunity to fear. This ability is useful against a dragon's fear aura, but is equally useful against undead, spellcasters, and so forth.

Excellent. WotC is taking the suggestion for favored enemy that people have been making for the past year or so. No fighting style restrictions, more magic...hopefully this ends up looking more like the AD&D ranger than the 3e Drizzt clone, but we'll see.

The fighter is getting expertise dice that are spent to gain a bonus to AC or attack rolls, along with other specific abilities. A die spent is gone until the fighter pauses for a moment to rest, with an action spent to rest allowing the fighter to regain a die.

So we're going from X dice every round to X dice that can be refreshed one at a time with an action. Why am I not surprised that they're screwing the fighter over yet again?

Our default assumption is that if you fight with two weapons of the appropriate size and are proficient with both of them, you are on par with a two-handed weapon user or a sword and board character.

Well, that was their default assumption in 3e as well, and guess how that turned out?

The word of power mechanic has been renamed as the swift spell rule, allowing us to use it as necessary with other classes and clearing up confusion between the rule and spells such as power word stun.

What's this? Codifying keywords instead of using annoying circumlocutions? Gasp! Hopefully the martial classes will get swift action abilities as well, but I'm not holding my breath.


Overall? Not impressed. I'll have to see the packet to be sure, but it looks like they're taking even more steps backwards in this one.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Regarding the druid, it's fairly common knowledge that the 3e caster + wild shape + companion setup makes the druid too versatile and powerful and that the class would need to be split up or at least make some of those things mutually exclusive. Let's see what they've done, shall we?

Well, no animal companion, that's good, but wild shape being combat-viable from 1st level isn't going to help the "my class feature is better than your class" problem, considering what the fighter gets at 1st level (i.e. not much).

I dunno, it sounded kind of like the Shapeshift variant from the PHB2, which was pretty solid.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I dunno, it sounded kind of like the Shapeshift variant from the PHB2, which was pretty solid.

I definitely liked shapeshift better than standard wild shape, but balance-wise the shapeshift variant was solid because it was weaker than the standard wild shape and wasn't more powerful than low-level martial characters. The druid they mentioned sounds like they have shapeshift plus a path that will improve it, and I have my doubts that the wild shape-focused druid will be at all balanced with a fighter.

[Kurald Galain]

Edited to add: There is no way - no way whatsoever - that any edition five years old will ever make as much money as a new edition release. You can call that "trouble" or you can call that "the obvious way the edition treadmill works."

However, 4E is not just cancelling books now. It was cancelling books years ago, starting with the PHB Races series and the Foo Power 2 series. For 3E, the "mid-way revision" (aka 3.5) was highly successful, and for 4E, it was clearly not.

Anyway, I like what I hear of the 5E druid so far. The 4E druid, in my view, is a mistake: it can shapeshift into anything you want, but which form you pick has zero game effect whatsoever. 5E takes the opposite approach: you can shapeshift only into limited forms, but they each give you a distinctive game effect.

On the other hand, I don't like swift actions. I don't think a multitude of action types is necessary to gameplay. The only reason power words needed to exist was to clerics could cast a healing spell and attack in the same round; there's more elegant fixes for that.

[obryn]

However, 4E is not just cancelling books now. It was cancelling books years ago, starting with the PHB Races series and the Foo Power 2 series. For 3E, the "mid-way revision" (aka 3.5) was highly successful, and for 4E, it was clearly not.

"Clearly not" being $6m/year? Sure. I have deep doubts that 3.5 was making anywhere near this much post-2005 or so.

If books aren't your real money-maker, why focus on them? They don't necessarily need book sales right now, clearly. I would be stunned if 4e now, including DDI, is less profitable (net, not necessarily gross) than 3.5 was circa 2006 or so.

Edition revisions don't happen because people don't like your game or because the game was bad. They happen because they make absurd amounts of money, in TTRPG terms.

-O

[Kurald Galain]

"Clearly not" being $6m/year? Sure. I have deep doubts that 3.5 was making anywhere near this much post-2005 or so.

Oh, DDI is still doing fine. It's just that it's the earlier parts that are doing fine, and that the most recent books that were intended as a substitude didn't catch on as such. Compare this with 3.5, which mostly replaced 3.0, spawned a new series of popular splatbooks, and managed to keep the edition going for another five years.

[obryn]

Oh, DDI is still doing fine. It's just that it's the earlier parts that are doing fine, and that the most recent books that were intended as a substitude didn't catch on as such. Compare this with 3.5, which mostly replaced 3.0, spawned a new series of popular splatbooks, and managed to keep the edition going for another five years.

I don't know why you're bringing your idiosyncratic views on Essentials into this. DDI is all of 4e; it's not one or the other. If DDI is successful, the line is successful, regardless of what books were released. It's all available in the builders, compendium, etc.

-O

[Dienekes]

So, L&L. Reactions:

Regarding the druid, it's fairly common knowledge that the 3e caster + wild shape + companion setup makes the druid too versatile and powerful and that the class would need to be split up or at least make some of those things mutually exclusive. Let's see what they've done, shall we?

Well, no animal companion, that's good, but wild shape being combat-viable from 1st level isn't going to help the "my class feature is better than your class" problem, considering what the fighter gets at 1st level (i.e. not much).

I can see the druid maybe working if a few things happen. 1) Natural Spell doesn't exist, or at least not for quite a few levels. 2) The Fighter/Rogue is mathematically better than the wildshapes that the druid can get into in and out of combat respectively.

I'm hoping that at level 1 a Fighter can take on a dog, and also that a Rogue can find hidden thing better than the dog. Hoping. We'll see.

Excellent. WotC is taking the suggestion for favored enemy that people have been making for the past year or so. No fighting style restrictions, more magic...hopefully this ends up looking more like the AD&D ranger than the 3e Drizzt clone, but we'll see.

I agree and like everything but the magic bit. I've just never seen why Rangers are magic in the first place honestly. But whatever, I like the favored enemy changes a lot.

So we're going from X dice every round to X dice that can be refreshed one at a time with an action. Why am I not surprised that they're screwing the fighter over yet again?

I agree, having a mechanic to refresh die is ok so the Fighter doesn't spam his nova attack repeatedly. Hell, Warblades have the same thing. The only difference is Warblade maneuvers were good, while this article says they're taking away the Fighter's best maneuver and instead giving him bonuses to his AC and attack. Woohoo. Oh and instead of refreshing everything instead he can only refresh one die at a time. Yay.

Well, that was their default assumption in 3e as well, and guess how that turned out?

Actually I don't think so. I think the implication he's going for is that every martial character starts with the two-weapon fighting feat for free, and it only improves from there.

Overall? Not impressed. I'll have to see the packet to be sure, but it looks like they're taking even more steps backwards in this one.

On some things. Fighter looks worse. Druid could be a nice fix from 3e if they go about it right, ranger doesn't look too bad, and the paladin... Well honestly there's a paragraph talking about the paladin's 8th level ability and essentially calling it useless, but the oath thing might give them some flexibility.

[MukkTB]

After that is the fighter even able to fill his role?

[Rhynn]

It strikes me as self-contradictory for a system to support both the "exploration and creativity" paradigm as well as the "you will fight about four groups of about five level-appropriate monsters in sequence to level up" paradigm. Both paradigms have their supporters, but they don't mesh well together.

Well, obviously the one that only suits videogames needs to go, and the one that only works in a tabletop needs to stay. Or go by seniority, same result. Or go by which is obviously more fun, same result...

I do agree with the necessity of creativity in a battle, however, the "Creativity" that often comes out of movies or RP encounters is often just dumb luck.

No, it's about tactics. Ambushes, traps, running away, fooling or bribing monsters into fighting each other, etc.

Or just bring back "XP from treasure".

Oh please yes please. The worst thing AD&D 2E did was change that into an optional rule offhandedly mentioned in one sentence (not even in tables), from where it died an undeserved death of anonymity.

The key difference is whether your game is all about combat, or not. A lot of game design decisions in (e.g.) 4E stem from the assumption that a typical adventurer will face three or four combats every day, and indeed that system has several issues if you don't. For instance, 4E's monster manuals embrace the view that monsters are only there to be fought, and that they will die within 3-4 rounds each; as a result, their statblocks tend not to mention much about ecosystem or out-of-combat abilities. Now compare with 2E's MM, which is basically the opposite.

Fortunately, D&D 5E looks to be about 75% frantic backpedaling from 4E.

[Axinian]

On yet another fighter nerf:

What is it about the fighter specifically that keeps that keeps getting them shafted? WoTC doesn't like giving martial characters nice things, I know that, but they do give them iconic okay things sometimes, like Favored Enemy or Rage. WoTC doesn't understand that non-casters need better stuff to be good, but they seem to actively hate the fighter specifically. Does anyone even know?

[navar100]

On yet another fighter nerf:

What is it about the fighter specifically that keeps that keeps getting them shafted? WoTC doesn't like giving martial characters nice things, I know that, but they do give them iconic okay things sometimes, like Favored Enemy or Rage. WoTC doesn't understand that non-casters need better stuff to be good, but they seem to actively hate the fighter specifically. Does anyone even know?

Wizards are the geeky guys in high school. Fighters are the jocks.

[1337 b4k4]

What is it about the fighter specifically that keeps that keeps getting them shafted? WoTC doesn't like giving martial characters nice things, I know that, but they do give them iconic okay things sometimes, like Favored Enemy or Rage. WoTC doesn't understand that non-casters need better stuff to be good, but they seem to actively hate the fighter specifically. Does anyone even know?

For one, until we see the new playtest, nothing says yet the fighter is getting nerfed. The L&L article states that the fighter is "getting" expertise dice that refresh after a rest. IIRC, in the most recent playtest, the maneuvers dice which melee classes share were renamed "martial damage dice", which suggests to me this is a new thing being added on to the fighter, perhaps as more powerful versions of the existing maneuvers.

That said, as we've sort of discussed before, the fighter tends to suck in new D&D because all of the fighter's cool niches that he used to occupy have been split off into their own classes.

[Scowling Dragon]

No, it's about tactics. Ambushes, traps, running away, fooling or bribing monsters into fighting each other, etc.

Well I do that anyway with my planned encounters. I thought people meant stuff like Tomb Of Horrors or stupid stuff like that.

[Oracle_Hunter]

On yet another fighter nerf:

What is it about the fighter specifically that keeps that keeps getting them shafted? WoTC doesn't like giving martial characters nice things, I know that, but they do give them iconic okay things sometimes, like Favored Enemy or Rage. WoTC doesn't understand that non-casters need better stuff to be good, but they seem to actively hate the fighter specifically. Does anyone even know?

I think the main problem is that the "designers" are having a hard time thinking about what a Fighter means.

Spoiler

Show

You've seen this from WotC since 3.x (their class feature was feats for goodness sake!) but even TSR had a hard time pinning down the Fighter. Of course, back in the day, you saw very few Rangers and Paladins because it was damn hard to roll stats that qualified for them so it's not like they had to fight to keep their positions.

Anyhoo, WotC keeps seeing nice stuff to give more "defined" classes like Paladins, Rangers and Barbarians and as a result they are accidentally carving away the Fighter's niche. WotC doesn't mean to keep nerfing Fighters, but they aren't exactly interested in devoting time to them.

Additionally, Mearls is obviously of the "Casters are Cool" bent so he likes spending more time working on their Special Snowflake Class Design instead of focusing on more boring stuff like combat rules or balancing party composition. This, IMHO, is why we'll be seeing more "magical mundanes" (expect Monks to get some sort of spell system!) and fewer mundane heroes.

[Dienekes]

For one, until we see the new playtest, nothing says yet the fighter is getting nerfed. The L&L article states that the fighter is "getting" expertise dice that refresh after a rest. IIRC, in the most recent playtest, the maneuvers dice which melee classes share were renamed "martial damage dice", which suggests to me this is a new thing being added on to the fighter, perhaps as more powerful versions of the existing maneuvers.

That said, as we've sort of discussed before, the fighter tends to suck in new D&D because all of the fighter's cool niches that he used to occupy have been split off into their own classes.

Hmm, it says that martial damage bonus is gone in the math section. I haven't played Next in awhile so I'm not certain if this means that what I think it means, that martial damage dice are out and replaced by this take an action to regain 1 die mechanic, or if martial damage dice and martial damage bonus are two different things.

[obryn]

For one, until we see the new playtest, nothing says yet the fighter is getting nerfed. The L&L article states that the fighter is "getting" expertise dice that refresh after a rest.

Yep. I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt until I see it, but using an Encounter-based refresh for the Fighter is a worthwhile basic idea. (However, I think missing a round to get back one "die" sounds unnecessarily punitive and think the Warblade from Bo9S's refresh would be fine.)

The question comes down, like I said before, to which thing the Fighter is...

(1) The swordy guy who swords stuff and oh yeah sometimes he has this weak thing he can do, I guess
...or...
(2) The highly-skilled warrior using a limited (but potent) system of maneuvers for their fighting and who only needs to go back to basic swording in rare circumstances.

Fortunately, D&D 5E looks to be about 75% frantic backpedaling from 4E.

The problem being, of course, that WotC need to court us 4e fans like they're courting everyone else. And right now, they're not doing a good job of it.

From my perspective, if the game doesn't respect its entire heritage - including 4e - I'm a lot less interested. I thought 4e had (and has!) flaws, but overall found it to be a huge improvement over 3.x in all the ways I wanted it to be. I don't need (or even want) Next to be 4.5, but if WotC doesn't respect D&D's entire heritage, including 4e, they've failed to meet their own stated design goals. And failed to keep me as a customer.

-O

[Seerow]

Hmm, it says that martial damage bonus is gone in the math section. I haven't played Next in awhile so I'm not certain if this means that what I think it means, that martial damage dice are out and replaced by this take an action to regain 1 die mechanic, or if martial damage dice and martial damage bonus are two different things.

Martial Damage Bonus and Martial Damage Dice are two different things. The dice are the Xd6 that gets traded out for other maneuvers. The Damage Bonus is just a big flat bonus to damage warrior types start getting at higher levels to bump up their DPR.

[1337 b4k4]

Yep. I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt until I see it, but using an Encounter-based refresh for the Fighter is a worthwhile basic idea. (However, I think missing a round to get back one "die" sounds unnecessarily punitive and think the Warblade from Bo9S's refresh would be fine.)

Obviously we'll find out in a few days, but as always it depends on how it's done. If the short rest based maneuvers are sufficiently powerful enough to take the place of "encounter" powers, then certainly the option of surrendering a turn to get one back in the middle of an extended battle could lead to some interesting choices. Even more so if the martial damage dice stick around and allow for some form of a minor action on the spent turn.

[Seerow]

Obviously we'll find out in a few days, but as always it depends on how it's done. If the short rest based maneuvers are sufficiently powerful enough to take the place of "encounter" powers, then certainly the option of surrendering a turn to get one back in the middle of an extended battle could lead to some interesting choices. Even more so if the martial damage dice stick around and allow for some form of a minor action on the spent turn.

2 to 1 odds we get the exact same list of 11 maneuvers already in the packet, more or less unchanged. Just now with more limited use.

[CowardlyPaladin]

So um, I'm new to the idea of 5th edition and I don't want to wade through the whole thread, would anybody mind summing up the changes we know about thus far? I know that WOTC has claimed they are going to rely upon fan support.

Also isn't this a little soon for 5th edition, or did 4th not sell well? From my personal experience it broke the base even more than 3rd did but was that a market thing?

[Anderlith]

So we have a new Legends & Lore, anyone else think the Paladin class is sounding weak?

The Ranger on the other hand is sounding really cool so far.

Mixed feelings :/

[obryn]

Also isn't this a little soon for 5th edition, or did 4th not sell well? From my personal experience it broke the base even more than 3rd did but was that a market thing?

It's about right on schedule, frankly.

Expect D&D Post-Next in ... 2018 or 2019? ... as long as it does at least as well as 4e.

-O