Playtest copies went out today, did you get yours? WELL DID YOU?!

Haven't had a chance to go over it to thoroughly so I am not really ready to make to many judgements, but I will say this: Searing Light Level 1 Cleric Spell, 4d12 + Wis against Undead. That is a heck of a level 1 Spell.

I'm not certain it is going to fix the whole problem of Fighters at high level being weak while Wizards dominate. The Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic seems interesting. You know make saving throws, 3/3.5/PF style but against any stat, not special save numbers. Dumped CHA and now have to make a save against Charm*? Good Luck with that.

Curious how HP is determined, as to whether it is set or randomized. Each class gets a number off Hit Dice (wouldn't call them Healing Surges now could we?) that they can spend to heal yourself each day. Fighters get d12's, Wizards get d6's. I think the idea was that if you don't have a cleric you can still heal yourself a bit. After a battle the Fighter is low on HP and has 3d12 of Hit Dice so he spends two, rolling 2d12 and gaining that many back. He now only has 1d12 he can use for the rest of the day if he needs to heal again.

Mine wont download >.>

I signed up, went through all the hoops (like that dumb "whats this say" security thing) and it just took me to a white screen of death.... I went through it like six times now but they wont let me have it :(

BewareOfTom wrote:Mine wont download >.>

I signed up, went through all the hoops (like that dumb "whats this say" security thing) and it just took me to a white screen of death.... I went through it like six times now but they wont let me have it :(

I was having trouble with it as well, and so were a few others I know. Luckily someone posted it elsewhere and that is where I ended up getting it from. I can't believe they didn't prepare for their servers getting hit on the day they released the playtest rules,

Yeah, their servers are getting hammered. Finally got a to a help page that said they were having login issues for several sections of their site.

meh, I'll just wait a day or so XD

Or find alternative means like reddits thread etc

Had a quick glance, doesn't look worthy of changing from 4th. I like 4th and it works for me. 5th seems like a mash of 2,3 and 4. The only thing of interest is the 'advantage/disadvantage' mechanic

Phototoxin wrote:Or find alternative means like reddits thread etc

Had a quick glance, doesn't look worthy of changing from 4th. I like 4th and it works for me. 5th seems like a mash of 2,3 and 4. The only thing of interest is the 'advantage/disadvantage' mechanic

Their stated goal is to reduce 'edition wars' so mashing up bits of previous editions is probably quite accurate.

I like (from what I've heard) some things. The 'numbers' are a bit flatter, so less rolling a d20+37 for attack rolls at high levels.

I've heard the playtest fighter is a 'boring' fighter. I hope they know how many people don't like that idea, and add a playtest option to make it more interesting.

This is supposed to be a pretty early playtest doc, so a lot is still undefined or rough. I do like that the general attitude is switching back to the GM making things up, as compared to 4e's base assumption where pre-made modules could almost be run by a computer program if the group didn't go beyond that.

I remain cautiously optimistic.

That said when I read 4th I was like 'WTF this won't work' but since this is basically 3rd stripped down a bit and mixed with 2nd AD&D it will work - but will just be as arbitrary and klunky as they were

So, would anyone know why I keep getting a HTTP 400 Error whenever I try to go to the playtest download website?

infinite_array wrote:So, would anyone know why I keep getting a HTTP 400 Error whenever I try to go to the playtest download website?

Their servers are squealing with pain.

(There should be an HTTP status code for that...)

4th works very well at low-mid levels, but it has a definite niche that is not to everyone's taste. I'm hopefully that 5th/Next will be interesting int hat they've pledged to support both 'tactical' combats (battle-mat) and more free-form. I love getting out a battle-mat for big fights, but it's overkill and doesn't work as well for some very common D&D situations like being strafed by a flying foe, running fights, or the oh-so-common 'Something nasty jumped out of a crypt at me."

Something interesting I've heard is that in addition to race & class characters now have 'themes.' There's themes added as characters progress, and these look to replace prestige classes. There's a loose structure (again, from what I've heard) that 'Class' is more "What the character does in a fight" while Themes are "What the character does outside of a fight."

One neat thing I've heard is that the Researcher theme, for example, states that failed Knowledge rolls still reveal how to find the requested knowledge... So for investigative scenarios, it goes from pixel-bitching when the PCs blow the knowledge roll to "Oh, you have no clue about the significance of the GIlman familly, but you have a feeling the Old Library might have some records. And it's a great spot for an ambush by the thugs. Wait, forget I said that last part."

I.E. turning no-fun into plot hooks!

A friend of mine has a copy; we're playing on Monday.

Having read through but not run a game yet I can only see Advantages/Disadvantages and Themes as being any different from a simplified 3.0/3.5. Seems kinda flat but maybe the designers are trying to work on one specific mechanic with this batch of material.

I spent a few minutes looking over the character sheets and I have no enthusiasm for it whatsoever.

From reading some other playtest experiences there is some concern that fighter is once again back to "Basic attack. Basic attack. Surge (i.e. Action Point) basic attack. Basic Attack. Oh it's my turn? Basic attack."

I won't get to playtest it until next week sometime.

I wish I could take a look at this, but I didn't sign up.

I'm really enjoying Pathfinder, so I'm curious how this will turn out.

So, please keep this thread updated, when you guys get to play. I really want to know how it stacks up.

I don't know what the restrictions are on getting the playtest copies, but maybe I can arrange to record the session or something.

With the new IKRPG(the only reason I still own 3.5 books) coming out at the end of summer, I see no reason to switch from 2nd ed for D&D campaigns.

I hope they keep a few of the 4E classes for Next, such as Warlord. 3.5 kind of had something like it in the Marshall but that was hidden in the Miniatures Book for some reason. I should be clear I am referring to core classes, not prestige. A non-divine healing/leading class would be nice to see. Paladin is a leader (or can be) but they don't quite have the healing thing going on and once again we are back to divine. I am curious to see how monks are handled as well.

Platuan4th wrote:With the new IKRPG(the only reason I still own 3.5 books) coming out at the end of summer, I see no reason to switch from 2nd ed for D&D campaigns.

I thought they were moving to their own system for the new version?

Balance wrote:

Platuan4th wrote:With the new IKRPG(the only reason I still own 3.5 books) coming out at the end of summer, I see no reason to switch from 2nd ed for D&D campaigns.

I thought they were moving to their own system for the new version?

They are. It's completely unlike the older edition. Essentially uses a system based on their Warmachine/Hordes rules.

And I'm still not getting though. Damn. Well, forget it. I'm just going to buy a copy of the Discworld Gurps book and call it a day.

Ahtman wrote:From reading some other playtest experiences there is some concern that fighter is once again back to "Basic attack. Basic attack. Surge (i.e. Action Point) basic attack. Basic Attack. Oh it's my turn? Basic attack."

Does the starting fighter in the playtest materials not have 4e-style powers then?

warboss wrote:

Ahtman wrote:From reading some other playtest experiences there is some concern that fighter is once again back to "Basic attack. Basic attack. Surge (i.e. Action Point) basic attack. Basic Attack. Oh it's my turn? Basic attack."

Does the starting fighter in the playtest materials not have 4e-style powers then?

At the moment they do not, though he is also the only one with an Action Point aka Surge. All the other pregen characters are two pages, whereas the Fighter fits all on one. Maybe at higher levels they may get more options but at the moment it seems to be Caster Edition: The Return.

Interesting... Mike Mearls made it a point to talk up how great, varied, and happy he was with how the fighter was turning out in posts and interviews. While its completely inappropriate to make a final decision based on the first prelim low level pregen build available, it doesn't sound like the fighter is starting out with as big of a bang as he was alluding to.

daedalus wrote:I don't know what the restrictions are on getting the playtest copies, but maybe I can arrange to record the session or something.

watch out for those fickle NDAs you signed when you signed up, because of that I would never, ever, ever want somebody to record the playest*

that being said, allegidly the massed encounters are pretty dire, one has 18 enemys at an advantage over you, so your DM should be rolling 2d20 pick highest 18 times, and each one only deals 1 damage, so much for faster combat

* also it would give me insight into how your group plays, that would be my third and it would let me see how your style of play differs to my groups or my dad's group

Yeah, the fighter doesn't have any explicit "powers", like in 4E, but the move of 5E seems to be more interested in going back to open-ended actions where you're more encouraged to do whatever you can dream up rather than looking to your sheet and seeing what you're capable of. Here's a post to read about "the fighter being boring": http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/29136467/its_just_not_fun_to_me?pg=4

Any class can do more then what is written, that is never been in question. This is a mechanical issue, not a role playing one. In 4E you could still 'fluff' out any maneuver a character did, you just didn't have to ask for the DM's permission or make a bunch of skill checks that other classes don't make. On top of that you could still do what the poster describes in 4E on top of the Fighter still having more maneuvers. Mechanically the fighter just has basic attack.

Saying that role playing balances it out doesn't work since that is true for all classes, and the other classes still have more options.

Found a post in that thread that I think says it a little better.

xiombarg wrote:Labeling an explicit power system as uncreative and being all like "yay, simple fighters are great because you can improvise" is overly glib.

Improvisation isn't as easy or fun as one might think for everyone. Decision paralysis hits even the best players, and even the best players have bad days where it's good to have something better (if "uncreative") to fall back on than "I hit it".

Also, as some of the other posters have mentioned, never underestimate the fact that spells have a definitive effect that isn't dependent on GM fiat, and how when you add improv to THAT it makes spellcasters EVEN MORE powerful. Your "sand in the eyes" trick is even better when you can do it from an unexpected direction with Mage Hand.

If a fighter has some tricks he can do like that, he can incorporate those into improv in the same way. You can still improv if you have more options, you're just not required to. Why is that bad again?

But putting that aside, "It'll be OK if you have an awesome DM" is WAY too glib.

What if my otherwise-awesome DM has an off day? What if he's a nice guy but bad at improv? Or he's good with some kinds of improv, but not so good at combat improv?

Why shouldn't I want the system to help a little with those sorts of situations?

Allowing improv isn't the same as giving the DM good tools on how to make rulings on that improv. Not at all.

Ahtman wrote:Any class can do more then what is written, that is never been in question. This is a mechanical issue, not a role playing one. In 4E you could still 'fluff' out any maneuver a character did, you just didn't have to ask for the DM's permission or make a bunch of skill checks that other classes don't make. On top of that you could still do what the poster describes in 4E on top of the Fighter still having more maneuvers. Mechanically the fighter just has basic attack.

Saying that role playing balances it out doesn't work since that is true for all classes, and the other classes still have more options.

Balance and being boring are two different things. People are talking about the fighter being boring, which I think the post rather deftly negates. Mechanically, the fighter has attacks, yes. Because that's what a fighter does, he attacks. Bull rushing, shield bashing, throwing barrels at being are all effectively attacks, just different ways to go about them.

No one said roleplaying made him balanced, roleplaying makes him exciting.

This fighter's theme is what gives him a dose of balancing (and perhaps even a boost over the other classes at low level, but I've only played for a couple hours at this point) is his theme, which means he does damage even if he misses to the target. He deals at minimum 3 damage every turn he swings into melee or 1 damage any time he attacks with ranged and he combat survivability is much greater than the casters, etc.

But the developers have also said that this fighter was chosen to be streamlined to see how players liked it (and I assume to convince people who detest 4E to give it a whirl).

epy346 wrote: Bull rushing, shield bashing, throwing barrels at being are all effectively attacks, just different ways to go about them.

Except improv is role playing. The description given was that it wasn't mechanically boring because you could do improv, which is true of any class. All the things listed above in your statement are available to all classes and not just fighter. Fighter might typically be better at them than other classes, but they aren't unique to the fighter. Throw in a barbarian and you have someone with more options and could do all that stuff just as well. The trick here is that boring is referring to being mechanically boring, not personality boring. Just saying "Improv makes it not boring" doesn't work because that is a fundamental truth of the game all around, and doesn't really address the mechanical issues.

Ahtman wrote:

epy346 wrote: Bull rushing, shield bashing, throwing barrels at being are all effectively attacks, just different ways to go about them.

Except improv is role playing. The description given was that it wasn't mechanically boring because you could do improv, which is true of any class. All the things listed above in your statement are available to all classes and not just fighter. Fighter might typically be better at them than other classes, but they aren't unique to the fighter. Throw in a barbarian and you have someone with more options and could do all that stuff just as well. The trick here is that boring is referring to being mechanically boring, not personality boring. Just saying "Improv makes it not boring" doesn't work because that is a fundamental truth of the game all around, and doesn't really address the mechanical issues.

Except that powers are just basic attacks with another minor effect. A lot like the extended combat options.

Barbarians can't do that stuff as well because feats are what separate a fighter in older editions and it may be themes that do it in this one. It makes them focus on a specific area and it makes them excel (Improved Shield Bash, Weapon Focus, Improved Trip, etc. etc.). Mechanically being able to sunder, shield bash, bull rush, etc. isn't boring. "Other classes can do it too" isn't a valid argument because a wizard or sorcerer starts running into melee and bull rushing and shield basing is an idiot. It's not a viable option for a character who plays smart and plans on living for longer than a couple encounters.

It makes sense that any given person should be able to attempt basic physical tasks of any sort. Effectively that's all the fighter powers generally amount to in 4E, just pointing out that he's better at them.

epy346 wrote:

Ahtman wrote:

epy346 wrote: Bull rushing, shield bashing, throwing barrels at being are all effectively attacks, just different ways to go about them.

Except improv is role playing. The description given was that it wasn't mechanically boring because you could do improv, which is true of any class. All the things listed above in your statement are available to all classes and not just fighter. Fighter might typically be better at them than other classes, but they aren't unique to the fighter. Throw in a barbarian and you have someone with more options and could do all that stuff just as well. The trick here is that boring is referring to being mechanically boring, not personality boring. Just saying "Improv makes it not boring" doesn't work because that is a fundamental truth of the game all around, and doesn't really address the mechanical issues.

Except that powers are just basic attacks with another minor effect. A lot like the extended combat options.

Except they aren't just minor effects, and they aren't like combat options, they were combat options. Not that it matters because in the play test the fighter has neither.

A fighter that doesn't invest his entire life savings into STR (going for a 16 instead of an 18) to try and be a character that is more than just STR, STR EVERYWHERE, can easily see a Rogue or Cleric be just as good at universal character options as the Fighter is and yet the Fighter will never be as good at healing and buffing the party as a cleric or as good at skill tricks as a Rogue. The Fighter should be to melee combat what a Rogue is to Skills, mechanically. As it is they aren't mechanically very interesting. I hope that this is because it is a) a playtest and b) low level. To completely throw away everything they learned about giving Fighters more options from 4th would be ill-considered and go against the statements they have made about making the game appeal to fans of all editions.

So went spent a few (about 10) hours playing yesterday. First thing I want to say is this: The playtest module is HUGE, and mostly a dungeon crawl. We spent all that time playing and we've not completed a fourth of it.

The system felt very incomplete. I know it's a playtest, but there were huge gaps in there that we just simply didn't know how we were supposed to handle them. Bull rushing, AoOs, when and how often you can perform "reactions", and then mysterious bonuses to attack rolls and damage rolls were scattered around. Maybe we shouldn't have been trying so hard to deconstruct the playtest and get hints about how the actual system worked, but there's seriously modifiers that I can't rationalize in at least the fighter's and one of the clerics' character sheets.

The fighter is basically a "basic attack, basic attack, basic attack" character, at least at level 1, which a lot of people dislike. I think it's good in a way that doesn't distill the system into a board game, but YMMV. On the topic of board games, movement is expressed in the form of 5 foot increments again, and you appear to be able to move, action, move like you effectively have spring attack. This is cool, and allows for dramatic situations where someone can step out from behind a corner, fire, and then duck back behind cover without having a massive feat chain.

Spellcasting as a whole is like a hybrid of Pathfinder and 4E. You have minor spells that can be cast repeatedly throughout the day, and then you have spells per day on top of those. Ritual magic is also in, which was one of the concepts from 4E I actually really liked, though they didn't actually appear to talk about any ritual spells in the playtest; instead merely mentioning that the system exists. The wizard felt underwhelming. None of the spells appear to scale in any way at this point, which is going to cause dead levels of spells even sooner than in 3.5, and the starting wizard spells suck, as they often do with premade characters. Ray of frost got cool, sleep is gimped. The healer type cleric is actually more of a blaster than the wizard is.

Speaking of healing, the game has a very high mortality rate, and I almost feel like there isn't enough healing. You take a d6 damage per turn after you go under 0 hit points, and you have to make several con tests in order to stabilize. It's very dramatic, but also nervewracking. We dealt with about 3 rooms (out of roughly 40), and had to run away to the woods because we were out of healing and still injured at that point. Things got a bit better after that point, as we started to pick up treasure and our DM let us go sell it off at 'town' for healing potion supplies. From what I understand of the way the 10 minute rests scale, this should get slightly less bad with higher levels, but we'll see. Healing potion brewing is now accelerated, which is handy. The priest could brew multiples in a single day, which made things run more smoothly.

All in all, I like it better than 4E. Probably even better than 3.5E. Not sure if it's something that could replace Pathfinder though. When the final product comes out, I'll probably be adapting my Ravenloft game to it to make use of the healing mechanisms and high feeling of mortality, but I still see Pathfinder being our default system of choice.

@Ahtman: Especially given that WotC has apparently forgotten nothing about how to make clerics and wizards powerful and fun.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

daedalus wrote:All in all, I like it better than 4E. Probably even better than 3.5E. Not sure if it's something that could replace Pathfinder though.

That honestly makes no sense to me. Pathfinder is 3.5 with some house ruling.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/28/dungeons-dragons-version-edition-wars?CMP=twt_gu

Manchu wrote:That honestly makes no sense to me. Pathfinder is 3.5 with some house ruling.

Calling it 'house ruling' is sort of marginalizing the changes they made. One of the big things for me was the combat maneuver system. Another was adding some more flair to base classes. I think there's enough differences between the two where I can you can like one more than the other.

daedalus wrote:the combat maneuver system.

From Tome of Battles, a 3.5 book.

daedalus wrote:Another was adding some more flair to base classes.

Which is just house-ruling classes to bring them up to snuff.

daedalus wrote:I think there's enough differences between the two where I can you can like one more than the other.

You can certainly like one more than the other, much like a person can like their home ruled version of Pathfinder more than Pathfinder, but they are all still the same game system. Being a refined version of 3.5 still makes it a version of 3.5, not a completely different system.

Ahtman wrote:

daedalus wrote:the combat maneuver system.

From Tome of Battles, a 3.5 book.

daedalus wrote:Another was adding some more flair to base classes.

Which is just house-ruling classes to bring them up to snuff.

daedalus wrote:I think there's enough differences between the two where I can you can like one more than the other.

You can certainly like one more than the other, much like a person can like their home ruled version of Pathfinder more than Pathfinder, but they are all still the same game system. Being a refined version of 3.5 still makes it a version of 3.5, not a completely different system.

Never read Tome of Battles; perhaps I should pick it up then. I guess by that same logic, we can call 3.5 a houseruled version of 3, which is just a heavily houseruled version of 2E, after all. I mean, THAC0 and an Attack Roll are basically two different ways of looking at the same thing, right? Same thing with saving throws.

If we're through calling me out, then I guess I could further elaborate by saying that I don't think there's one system that rules them all; indeed, each system has their own strengths and weaknesses. For me and my group, Pathfinder is the way to go as it fixed the things that made us cringe while keeping everything about a system we were used to and enjoyed. It also has no drawbacks (for us) for all that it

Really not trying to turn this into an edition war thread here. I was just stating my impressions. In all seriousness, if 5E fixes the handful of issues I have with the playtest, I could see my group going to it. If not, Pathfinder is our group's solution. It has promise, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

daedalus wrote:I guess by that same logic, we can call 3.5 a houseruled version of 3, which is just a heavily houseruled version of 2E, after all. I mean, THAC0 and an Attack Roll are basically two different ways of looking at the same thing, right? Same thing with saving throws.

Not really, as there were a great many structural and super-structural differences between AD&D/2nd and 3.0/3.5/PF. It isn't a secret, nor is it somehow a veiled insult, to know that Pathfinder is a slightly update version of 3.5; trying to pretend otherwise seems a bit obtuse. I think Pathfinder made a lot of good changes but it isn't a radical change. If you've played Pathfinder you can play 3.5 instantly, and vice versa. Going from 3.5 to the HEro system, or Storyteller, OTOH, is a huge difference as they are actually different systems. If I take a Mustang and improve the suspension, put new tires on it, give it a new paint job, and tint the windows it doesn't suddenly become a Chevy Venture.

I would put 3.0/3.5 every time I mention that edition, but it seems a bit redundant.

daedalus wrote:If we're through calling me out

No one is 'calling you out' and this isn't an edition war.

Ahtman wrote:

Not really, as there were a great many structural and super-structural differences between AD&D/2nd and 3.0/3.5/PF. It isn't a secret, nor is it somehow a veiled insult, to know that Pathfinder is a slightly update version of 3.5; trying to pretend otherwise seems a bit obtuse. I think Pathfinder made a lot of good changes but it isn't a radical change. If you've played Pathfinder you can play 3.5 instantly, and vice versa. Going from 3.5 to the HEro system, or Storyteller, OTOH, is a huge difference as they are actually different systems. If I take a Mustang and improve the suspension, put new tires on it, give it a new paint job, and tint the windows it doesn't suddenly become a Chevy Venture.

I would put 3.0/3.5 every time I mention that edition, but it seems a bit redundant.

Well, I could agree with all of that, but then why is it hard to understand that the threshold of the desire to use a given system cannot lie somewhere between two of the relatively minor revisions?

In all honesty, if I could find absolutely anyone willing to go back to playing straight 3.0, I probably would.

daedalus wrote:If we're through calling me out

No one is 'calling you out' and this isn't an edition war.

I interpreted it as nitpicking, and was feeling defensive. It was was in error, then I apologize. I also wasn't trying to accuse anyone else of edition warring; I just wanted to make sure that my intentions were known.

I got mine downloaded yesterday. My group should be trying it out this weekend.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=38896

food for thought.

Pathfinder is a house-ruled version of 3.5 and I can't fathom why any fan of Pathfinder would take offense at that. That fact is the basis for Pathfinder's existence, after all. It's not been so long ago that you can't remember, has it? A refresher: as a response to losing their 3E footing when WotC reorganized around 4E, Paizo countered that it would actively resist by keeping 3.5 (or 3.75) in print thanks to the OGL. That was the Fort Sumter moment of the Edition Wars.

Once you understand/accept that, you can begin to see that 5E does not address the Edition Wars as they are most widely (mis)understood, i.e., the competition between Paizo and WotC. The major conflict at stake goes back further. Here is a simplified timeline:



D&D Next is not aimed at closing the gap between people who miss 3.5 (i.e., play Pathfinder) on the one hand and people who like 4E on the other hand (as if it were impossible to like both). Instead, it's supposed to address a much older issue about roleplaying games: should rules be more interpretive (guidelines to be used or not) or determiniative (laws that must be applied)? The key development is not (only or most importantly) Paizo doing well with Pathfinder but rather the so-called "Old School Renaissance" (OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, Dark Dungeons, Swords & Wizardry, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, etc, etc).

I think 'house rule' has negative connotations as a lot of house rules are either minor patches (We don't like Dwarves, so forget they exist; bows are cool, so they get +1 damage) or hasty workarounds to perceived problems, usually with some rube goldberg-ish contortions to fit in the existing rules. A lot fo times house rules were implemented to deal with a very specific problem that is not common across the game's community.

While there's a lot of good house rules out there, there's also a whole lot of added-on overly-complex systems, unbalanced magic items and classes, and other weirdness.

Pathfinder, to my understanding, was created by reviewing and revising nearly every base class and such to fit the designer's desires.

The difference is PF is more like a 3rd party that took over maintenance of an abandoned software application and revised from the source code, whereas a lot of house rules are more like hasty patches and hacks applied to fix one problem that that have little or no quality control, coding standards, UI standards, etc.

(For the record, I like 4e, never played PF, cautiously optimistic about Next.)

I don't know anything about programming but "revising from the source code" sounds more fundamental than the changes Paizo actually made to 3.5.

Anyway, it shouldn't matter whether the term "house rules" might carry a negative connotation or not. The denotive meaning of "house rules" is what is at issue, as Ahtman has concisely shown above. I'm sick to the back teeth of people taking offense over their interpretation of what I say.

Manchu wrote:I don't know anything about programming but "revising from the source code" sounds more fundamental than the changes Paizo actually made to 3.5.

Anyway, it shouldn't matter whether the term "house rules" might carry a negative connotation or not. The denotive meaning of "house rules" is what is at issue, as Ahtman has concisely shown above. I'm sick to the back teeth of people taking offense over their interpretation of what I say.

I was not necessarily offended by anything you said; simply trying to clarify my position. I do not agree with your denotative use of "house rules". "House rules" is generally some unofficial rule set. It also implies illegitimacy, at least, in my mind, because it's "unofficial". It's a hack. Like them or hate them, Paizo is now the primary developer of what was the 3.0/3.5 ruleset. That makes it a little more than "house rules" at this point. If you disagree, then I would be interested to hear your full definition of what exactly house rules are, because I believe we may be going off of differing definitions.

My actual annoyance didn't come until my every word was being nitpicked.

As far as 'house rules' being a pejorative, one need not look further than at the 40k Proposed Rules section of this forum to see evidence on why that would be the general attitude.

A "house rule" is a change to one aspect of a system of rules that does not itself change the system. I think Ahtman already explained that, but now you have it from both of us.

Paizo's game is "unofficial" as a development of D&D. If you doubt this, please look carefully at your copy for the words "Dungeons & Dragons." In order to deal with this issue of illegitimacy, and thanks for using exactly the right word there, Paizo played up the idea that d20 was something beyond D&D 3E. Now, that is certainly true but Pathfinder is not the relevant example. Please see, e.g., Mutants & Masterminds for d20 that is not 3.5. Unlike that game, Pathfinder is very simply 3.5 with some house rules. And the house in question is Paizo. This is the contradiction at the heart of Paizo's venture: they must simultaneously say that Pathfinder is the "true heir" of D&D and that Pathfinder is not merely third edition D&D.

I don't know whether WotC is doing them a favor with 5E. On the one hand, WotC isn't even competing over the 3.5 space anymore (4E at least was a natural and logical progression from 3.5). On the other hand, that competition is the only thing that made Pathfinder relevant in the first place. And please remember that Pathfinder was not at all relevant to the Old Schoolers, who saw it (correctly) as just more of the same third edition complexity. As the inevitable consequence of it's raison d'etre, Paizo is stuck in the past. Even now, they only have two places to go: the splat route (already some of the way there) or the Pathfinder 2nd Edition route. Given their harsh rhetoric about both, when WotC was doing it, it's going to be hard for them to move ahead.

reds8n wrote:http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=38896

food for thought.

That was mighty interesting. Thanks for that.

It does seem that the bulk of internet responses/blog posts/etc. are either love it or hate it with very little median ground.

I have seen the opposite: basically people not quite knowing what to make of it (because they think it's an attempt to resolve the "war" between 3E and 4E fans, which it is not) and therefore being guardedly optimistic.

Manchu wrote:I have seen the opposite: basically people not quite knowing what to make of it (because they think it's an attempt to resolve the "war" between 3E and 4E fans, which it is not) and therefore being guardedly optimistic.

The only place I've really seen that response is within my group, which had been playing Pathfinder almost exclusively since its release, has been playing WFRP 2E with a little bit of the tabletop game mixed in, and feels it's a bit odd going back to a system that is much more in line with high fantasy settings. Even with the increased mortality rate.

The bulk of responses I've read are from blogs and the WotC forums, which I'm probably going to stay away from for a while, as they're ripe to exploding.

I like 4th and I like 3.5 and I like Pathfinder. I mostly like gaming! 4th has some good points but I haven't had as much fun running it as 3.5 I'd say, but a lot of that has to do with my situation. Uni was a golden age of awesome roleplaying that I will likely never have again.

All of the above rulesets are better than anything Fantasy Flight has put out, I gotta say. Fantasy Flight suck at rules, especially the editing and layout side of things.

I'm mildly curious about D'n'D next, but I don't feel like I NEED it. I might pick up the core stuff when it comes out, to have a read through. 4th didn't live up to it's promise for me entirely, and I still think a lot of that is not down to mechanics but presentation and "flavour". Pathfinder has a more mature and polished flavour than 4th. The art is nicer, the flavour text pieces are better written, and the powers and spells have less of a whacky lightshow effect. I thought my players would be okay at re-interpreting things to a more toned down feel, but they've mostly gotten caught up in the sometimes pretty ridiculous power descriptions, resulting in combats that to me are stylistically disjointed and that break up the drama with bursts of weirdness.

But for all that, it runs well, it's easy to plan, and it's easy to ad hoc even without experience. The Player's Handbook has what players need, the DM's guide has what DM's need and the monster manual is well laid out.

Anyway. A bit of a ramble, and most of it stuff I've said before. Let's simmer down gentlemen, we're all in the same boat.

No, I don't think we are in the same boat. That's the line WotC has been pushing: that a "fractured hobby" is a bad thing and it's time we all went back to playing the "same game." This should remind people of GW's idea of "The Hobby." Can anyone legitimately say that WarmaHordes, Infinity, Malifaux, etc, etc, have been bad for tabeltop wargaming? Only GW. Similarly, the Edition Wars have not been bad for anyone other than WotC.

By contrast, the Edition Wars are the lifeblood of Pathfinder and 5E may well see Pathfinder diehards in the position that "Old Schoolers" have been in since Third Edition came out. WotC is in the unique position of being able to "legitimize" (as daedalus mentioned) playstyles because it owns the brand "Dungeons & Dragons" (although the OGL had a big part to play in this regarding 3E). For nearly a decade, the Old Schoolers found themselves marginalized and basically in need of inventing their own press. Pathfinder is a bit different in that it was invented to serve as a press for the devotees of 3.5, no doubt with an eye to the passionate work of Old Schoolers. But Paizo has yet to demonstrate that Pathfinder has an inherently greater "shelf life" (in terms of being a continuous line) than its deterministic predecessors -- because so far we have seen a multitude of adventures (a la AD&D and late 3E) and some splat (a la 3E).

A friend of mine summed up the situation pretty nicely by describing Pathfinder as a retroclone of 3.5 -- and if you've ever examined something like Labyrinth Lord against B/X, you'll see that is basically the same thing as publishing a house-ruled version of the "cloned" system. This shows us that we are not in the same boat: we don't have the same tastes as gamers. There is no "definitive edition" of D&D that we can look forward to, when everyone will be completely satisfied.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

epy346 wrote:The bulk of responses I've read are from blogs and the WotC forums, which I'm probably going to stay away from for a while, as they're ripe to exploding.

I think you can disregard both blogs and the WotC forums and not lose anything (they're pretty much the same -- the WotC forums is where those bloggers go to "do battle.")

Hmmm, well, I can see where you're coming from. I suppose I meant "we're all tabletop roleplayers, so we know that tastes will vary" or something, but I was a bit dozy after my afternoon of manual labour (for a change) so I expressed myself poorly.

I think having pathfinder/4th/next is good for me as a consumer- moar choice please! But I can understand WOTC trying to get it's fanbase back on side. The problem is that a significant amount of what they put out relies on the creativity of older settings and so on. I was disappointed that 4th didn't add anything like Eberron to my collection of settings (I'm a settings buff). I thought they did some interesting stuff with the primordial/Gods conflict mythology, just a shame it wasn't fleshed out a little more, perhaps.

You come across as pretty passionate about this stuff Manchu. Do you have a preference in terms of ruleset?

Da Boss wrote:You come across as pretty passionate about this stuff Manchu. Do you have a preference in terms of ruleset?

Manchu only plays Amber because he thinks dice can't be trusted.

Ahtman wrote:

Da Boss wrote:You come across as pretty passionate about this stuff Manchu. Do you have a preference in terms of ruleset?

Manchu only plays Amber because he thinks dice can't be trusted.

I lol'd.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Manchu wrote:No, I don't think we are in the same boat. That's the line WotC has been pushing: that a "fractured hobby" is a bad thing and it's time we all went back to playing the "same game." This should remind people of GW's idea of "The Hobby." Can anyone legitimately say that WarmaHordes, Infinity, Malifaux, etc, etc, have been bad for tabeltop wargaming? Only GW. Similarly, the Edition Wars have not been bad for anyone other than WotC.

5E really should have been them rebranding 4E and 3.5E into two separate games (heck throw 1E and 2E in there) and then making all the old books available as well. Then they could have had 4 parallel products running with different designs, etc and satisfied everyone.

My fear is that 5E will be a giant compromise and a mix of everything so that no one likes it.

I don't have a "passion off" switch, unfortunately, which is flawesome. On the one hand, I enjoy getting "in deep" with the things that interest me. On the other hand, I can't seem to be simultaneously interested in and dismissive of a topic. I mention all of this as a backdrop for answering your specific question: insofar as each of the rulesets interests me, I don't have a blanket preference for any of them. BECMI D&D, 3.5, and 4E all do different things and none of them seem to be able to do what the others do quite as well. "Old School" D&D lets me put story over rules; 3.5 lets me flex my game mastery muscles; 4E is incredibly easy to run and promotes party teamwork.

From what I've seen of 5E, it wants to do all of this and doesn't do any of it well. I don't know that simply because there's not enough rules in the playtest for anyone to know it. But the playtest rules don't communicate any other goal so I am forced to assume that WotC is trying to achieve its stated intention: the "Master Edition" of D&D. And this feels like a jack of all trades but a master of none.

Furthermore, the conflict between determinative and interpretive cannot be resolved. Even the playtest rules make it clear that the interpretive side will win out in 5E, with all this talk of the game going back into the hands of the DM. But if that's what you want, there's already a market full of games like that -- I mean, you don't have to hunt down a copy of Holmes Basic from 1977 off of eBay. (Although the John Blanche cover might be worth having.) You have a wide range of products that do that already in print. So why buy 5E? 'Cause you also want feats? Well, then, I'd bet money that either 3E or 4E would be more to your liking.

These games are organic systems -- their parts are all there to achieve something at a holistic level. The 5E playtest materials feels Frankensteinish -- sew this piece onto that piece with this other piece inside ... So they're taking the parts without paying attention to what they actually contributed to their respective games. You can't cut the wings off a bat, sew them onto a lizard, and expect to have a dragon. What you actually get is two dead animals.

To summarize, if 5E's only reason to exist is to be the edition of D&D that everyone will love ... well, then it doesn't deserve to exist.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ahtman wrote:Manchu only plays Amber because he thinks dice can't be trusted.

I actually never played Amber itself. But Amber is what a lot of D&D actually comes down to in practice, around the table. And the only reason anyone uses dice is because they don't trust other people (or themselves).


Automatically Appended Next Post:

pretre wrote:Then they could have had 4 parallel products running with different designs, etc and satisfied everyone.

Well, this is what actually is occurring except that (1) the OGL means WotC isn't earning off of it and (2) there's no OGL for 4E/Essentials players so they're the ones truly screwed out of new content by 5E. In other words, the only people who "have to" play 5E will be 4E players, who probably won't like 5E anyway since they were already playing 4E instead of Labyrinth Lord.

Manchu wrote:

pretre wrote:Then they could have had 4 parallel products running with different designs, etc and satisfied everyone.

Well, this is what actually is occurring except that (1) the OGL means WotC isn't earning off of it and (2) there's no OGL for 4E/Essentials players so they're the ones truly screwed out of new content by 5E. In other words, the only people who "have to" play 5E will be 4E players, who probably won't like 5E anyway since they were already playing 4E instead of Labyrinth Lord.

Yeah, I would have capitalized off the Edition Wars rather than try to bring piece. But I'm a war profiteer.

pretre wrote:Yeah, I would have capitalized off the Edition Wars rather than try to bring piece. But I'm a war profiteer.

Call Paizo immediately. If you're a good war profiteer, you might be able to give them a long-term plan ... you know, besides "do everything that WotC did between 2000 and 2008 over again but (and here's the super secret strategy) pretend it's different."

Well, whether you have a passion off switch or not, I enjoy reading your arguments because they are always extremely articulate and often different to my own perspective.

I can see where you're coming from with what you're saying though, definitely. I suppose my hope is that there's something cool that comes out of it, some creativity. If that happens, instead of endless rehashing, I'll be happy.

TBH, I think 5E success will depend upon something you mentioned, DaBoss -- namely, settings. (Although you didn't give 4E enough credit, for resurrecting Dark Sun.) If 5E can do something like what 3E did with Forgotten Realms or ... dare I even say it? ... if 5E sees the viable return of Ravenloft, I doubt the "quality" of the rules will even matter.

Manchu wrote:

pretre wrote:Yeah, I would have capitalized off the Edition Wars rather than try to bring piece. But I'm a war profiteer.

Call Paizo immediately. If you're a good war profiteer, you might be able to give them a long-term plan ... you know, besides "do everything that WotC did between 2000 and 2008 over again but (and here's the super secret strategy) pretend it's different."

Paizo should just buy the rights to 1st through 4th from D&D when they go to 5th and run with it. Never happen, but it would be cool.

OGL means that Paizo doesn't need to buy anything from WotC except the name D&D, which WotC would never sell/license to them anyway. As for the older stuff, Paizo could easily throw its hat into that ring but the ring is already pretty crowded. We don't know whether anyone will do anything similar with 4E but the GSL doesn't make it likely (and certainly doesn't encourage it). Paizo especially would lose a substantial amount of credibility from its most devoted fans if it suddenly started publishing 4E stuff.

Well, there is that problem.

Either way, I look forward to seeing the final product. I generally don't care what form my D&D takes, as long as I can play it. I've been happy with all the editions I have played so far.

For me, I can already do everything I can imagine wanting to do as far as generic fantasy is concerned with the various iterations of D&D and D&D-inspired games. I had hoped that 5E would present some new "thing to be done" but either that isn't the case (instead, we have a "thing to be redone" -- literally, thanks for the umpteenth recycling of Keep on the Borderlands) or the playtest materials simply don't unveil that. I'd like to think it's the latter but the position seems a bit too naive even for me.

Yeah, really all a new edition does is reset the needed books to play. It is like how magic does legal sets for magic, but more convoluted.

I seriously didn't have that complaint with 4E, which is the first new edition I ever experienced as a "new edition." (I started with AD&D 2.5 then dropped D&D generally until around 2006.) I do think a lot of people were hoping 4E would just be something like that -- new art, a few changes, basically what Paizo gave them -- and it still amazes me that more people don't complain that Paizo is re-selling you 3.5 (and, as time goes buy, repackaging its own Pathfinder content for you to repurchase).

As much as I enjoy 4th, it is still D&D. The mechanics are different, but it didn't seem like a bigger jump than 2.5 to 3. Boy, I remember the bitching when that happened.

I've never played Pathfinder, mostly because we switched to 4th and I had more than enough 3e/3.5e stuff already.

Although I didn't experience it, I can imagine how huge the gap between AD&D and 3E must have seemed at the time. Hell, it looks pretty big even now that we've "made it across." I've been saying for a while now, 4E was the natural and logical progression from 3E. (And I still think, although I only have anecdotal evidence, that a lot of 4E haters were casting prima donnas in 3E.)

The Swords and Sorcery Ravenloft stuff was what got me "into" Dungeons and Dragons properly. Still love it to bits, though I don't own any of it at the moment.

I just don't ever expect Wizards to put out anything that strong, to be honest. I don't think they've got the chops for it. Which is okay, because the stuff they do put out is pretty passable and usable. And like I said, there's a lot of "OMG AWESOME I AM IN UNI AND DISCOVERING THIS FOR THE FIRST TIME!" colouring my view.
But yeah, I don't need the next "keep on the borderlands" scenario. I also don't think Pathfinder is the answer to much, except for people who were satisfied with 3.5 and wanted a little tweak to make fighters and paladins a bit better.

Manchu wrote:(And I still think, although I only have anecdotal evidence, that a lot of 4E haters were casting prima donnas in 3E.)

THIS. Dear sweet baby raptor zeus THIS. I've played every edition of D&D at some point (along with a few other fantasy settings like Tunnels and Trolls), and 4th edition was the first time I felt like I could play a non-caster class and compete*. 3.0/3.5 was especially bad once you hit 5th level, and fighters just suddenly fell off a cliff. My first 4e character? Fighter; favorite character I've played in any fantasy game in years.

*: By compete I actually mean "be useful to the party at all".

streamdragon wrote:

Manchu wrote:(And I still think, although I only have anecdotal evidence, that a lot of 4E haters were casting prima donnas in 3E.)

THIS. Dear sweet baby raptor zeus THIS. I've played every edition of D&D at some point (along with a few other fantasy settings like Tunnels and Trolls), and 4th edition was the first time I felt like I could play a non-caster class and compete*. 3.0/3.5 was especially bad once you hit 5th level, and fighters just suddenly fell off a cliff. My first 4e character? Fighter; favorite character I've played in any fantasy game in years.

*: By compete I actually mean "be useful to the party at all".

I can totally agree with that. 4E was the first time I played a wizard ever. So naturally I thought it was a big let down. Wizards in other editions were much better, (from what I saw from other players).

Anyway I got my playtesting materials printed out. Hopefully I will get a chance to use them this weekend or next week.

Wizards were more powerful in other editions in comparison to the rest of the party. That's different than better.

In D&D, more powerful is generally the same as better.

Once you hit 5th level in 3.0/3.5 (especially in 3.0 pre Haste-nerf), wizards completely blew ever other class out of the water. There was literally no comparison.

Even when the wizard turned our fighter into a troll, the fighter couldn't keep up with the wizard, except in HP. (The crutch here is that this required a wizard in the first place...) HP was largely unnecessary by level 9, as you often faced "save or die" spells anyway. There were also no tools* for a fighter to actually 'tank' anything (that is, keep it from attacking the mage).


* This is an exaggeration, only because of spiked chain / improved trip fighters. Who were worthless against flying enemies, or enemies with ranged attacks.

streamdragon wrote:Once you hit 5th level in 3.0/3.5 (especially in 3.0 pre Haste-nerf), wizards completely blew ever other class out of the water. There was literally no comparison.

You obviously aren't familiar with CODzilla. Clerics and Druids were the real powerhouses in 3.5.

Although, as I bring up in all of these threads, I played a Bard/Paladin/Phantom Knight?/Sublime Chord that wore plate, cast bard/paladin/wizards spells, had a phantom steed and full BAB most of the day. He beat the living crud out of normal wizards. I loved 3.5, but god was it broken.

pretre wrote:

streamdragon wrote:Once you hit 5th level in 3.0/3.5 (especially in 3.0 pre Haste-nerf), wizards completely blew ever other class out of the water. There was literally no comparison.

You obviously aren't familiar with CODzilla. Clerics and Druids were the real powerhouses in 3.5.

Although, as I bring up in all of these threads, I played a Bard/Paladin/Phantom Knight?/Sublime Chord that wore plate, cast bard/paladin/wizards spells, had a phantom steed and full BAB most of the day. He beat the living crud out of normal wizards. I loved 3.5, but god was it broken.

Could not agree with the bolded more. And I'd say you weren't facing well played wizards then! Contingency... oh god contingency... The number of abuses of that spell, permanency and Polymorph Other were just insanity in purest form.

Clerics and Druids were certainly powerful in 3.5, but they had restrictions that the wizard lacked. Not that they were pushovers, mind, I'd just put a well played cleric just a smidge below a well played wizard and leagues above your average wizard. Non-casters don't even make the list.

pretre wrote:Wizards were more powerful in other editions in comparison to the rest of the party. That's different than better.

Like streamdragon said, more powerful = better in D&D. Just look at warhammer, the more powerful armies are always the better ones to collect (from a gaming standpoint). Warhammer can be subjective such as thinking nids are the best looking minis, so better can have more than one meaning. However in D&D, I don't think there is much of a hobby in collecting fighter stats. More powerful class is better. The more powerful classes can get more XP. More XP can get you more levels, equipment, etc. From a gaming standpoint everything is better in a more powerful class. I didn't get that in 4E. If the battles were not designed in a way that every class could do their thing, then some characters wouldn't get jak. I remember not being able to do any damage to certain monsters because the monster was designed for characters like fighters to battle it. My DM always had a rule, "if you do one point of damage to it, you are entitled to an equal share". Let's just say, that didn't happen.

Of course if the battles were designed better by my DM, that wouldn't have been a problem.

Balance wrote:

Platuan4th wrote:With the new IKRPG(the only reason I still own 3.5 books) coming out at the end of summer, I see no reason to switch from 2nd ed for D&D campaigns.

I thought they were moving to their own system for the new version?

They are.

Sorry, I was essentially saying that I'm not up for having(ie. forcing ) my group learn two new systems at the same time.

Yeah, that's a DM problem. One of the good things about 4e is that it removes the 'can't hurt it' and 'aquaman' syndromes by providing meaningful powers for everyone. Also there is no one point rule in 4e, if you're there you get xp.

So again, 4e gets blamed for a bad DM.

pretre wrote:Yeah, that's a DM problem. One of the good things about 4e is that it removes the 'can't hurt it' and 'aquaman' syndromes by providing meaningful powers for everyone. Also there is no one point rule in 4e, if you're there you get xp.

So again, 4e gets blamed for a bad DM.

Well I could have phrased it a little better but I was trying to imply that very thing. "If the battles were not designed in a way that every class could do their thing, then some characters wouldn't get jak."

DMs really had to put some effort into designing the encounters. If they didn't certain classes got shafted.

Lord Scythican wrote:

pretre wrote:Wizards were more powerful in other editions in comparison to the rest of the party. That's different than better.

Like streamdragon said, more powerful = better in D&D. Just look at warhammer, the more powerful armies are always the better ones to collect (from a gaming standpoint). Warhammer can be subjective such as thinking nids are the best looking minis, so better can have more than one meaning. However in D&D, I don't think there is much of a hobby in collecting fighter stats. More powerful class is better. The more powerful classes can get more XP. More XP can get you more levels, equipment, etc. From a gaming standpoint everything is better in a more powerful class. I didn't get that in 4E. If the battles were not designed in a way that every class could do their thing, then some characters wouldn't get jak. I remember not being able to do any damage to certain monsters because the monster was designed for characters like fighters to battle it. My DM always had a rule, "if you do one point of damage to it, you are entitled to an equal share". Let's just say, that didn't happen.

Of course if the battles were designed better by my DM, that wouldn't have been a problem.

Wait... your DM assigned encounter XP based on who hurt the monster? That's ... horrible. That actively goes against team work, and pretty much everything D&D is based on!

We were supposed to start running the playtest tonight but forgot Origins is going on and a few people were gone.

streamdragon wrote:

Lord Scythican wrote:

pretre wrote:Wizards were more powerful in other editions in comparison to the rest of the party. That's different than better.

Like streamdragon said, more powerful = better in D&D. Just look at warhammer, the more powerful armies are always the better ones to collect (from a gaming standpoint). Warhammer can be subjective such as thinking nids are the best looking minis, so better can have more than one meaning. However in D&D, I don't think there is much of a hobby in collecting fighter stats. More powerful class is better. The more powerful classes can get more XP. More XP can get you more levels, equipment, etc. From a gaming standpoint everything is better in a more powerful class. I didn't get that in 4E. If the battles were not designed in a way that every class could do their thing, then some characters wouldn't get jak. I remember not being able to do any damage to certain monsters because the monster was designed for characters like fighters to battle it. My DM always had a rule, "if you do one point of damage to it, you are entitled to an equal share". Let's just say, that didn't happen.

Of course if the battles were designed better by my DM, that wouldn't have been a problem.

Wait... your DM assigned encounter XP based on who hurt the monster? That's ... horrible. That actively goes against team work, and pretty much everything D&D is based on!

Yeah it was pretty much a bad experience. I never really ran into that problem with other editions. It seemed like whatever the monster was, everyone could do some damage to it. It was a flaw with the DM not 4E, but it felt like a flaw in the edition because the problem never came up before.

Lord Scythican wrote:Yeah it was pretty much a bad experience. I never really ran into that problem with other editions. It seemed like whatever the monster was, everyone could do some damage to it. It was a flaw with the DM not 4E, but it felt like a flaw in the edition because the problem never came up before.

Bad DMs are the problem of all editions.

streamdragon wrote:Wait... your DM assigned encounter XP based on who hurt the monster? That's ... horrible. That actively goes against team work, and pretty much everything D&D is based on!

I've heard of a lot of GMs who just got rid of 'XP' as a concept for the most part and just said, "OK, let's just say you level up every X sessions/objectives and ignore the math that would, ultimately, suggest that you should level up every X sessions/objectives anyway."

4e really tried to get rid of some of the 'eccentricities' of the older styles of gameplay. I kind of miss 'minor xp rewards' for doing recaps, making the group laugh, doing something really cool, etc. Our group never really went so far as to muck up level balance with them, but they were a fun way to 'keep score.' The only thing that did mess up group levels noticeably was not getting XP if you couldn't make a game, something else 4e also seems to be against.

We never really got into magic item creation in our campaigns, so I don't know what the 'Casters spend XP on magic item creation' stuff would have done. Was this intended as a counter to the generally overpowering magic rules?

What system had an established 'you get XP if you miss a game' rule? What system had minor xp rewards for doing recaps in it?

Seems like those are all house rules and hence independent of edition.

Balance wrote:

streamdragon wrote:Wait... your DM assigned encounter XP based on who hurt the monster? That's ... horrible. That actively goes against team work, and pretty much everything D&D is based on!

I've heard of a lot of GMs who just got rid of 'XP' as a concept for the most part and just said, "OK, let's just say you level up every X sessions/objectives and ignore the math that would, ultimately, suggest that you should level up every X sessions/objectives anyway."

4e really tried to get rid of some of the 'eccentricities' of the older styles of gameplay. I kind of miss 'minor xp rewards' for doing recaps, making the group laugh, doing something really cool, etc. Our group never really went so far as to muck up level balance with them, but they were a fun way to 'keep score.' The only thing that did mess up group levels noticeably was not getting XP if you couldn't make a game, something else 4e also seems to be against.

We never really got into magic item creation in our campaigns, so I don't know what the 'Casters spend XP on magic item creation' stuff would have done. Was this intended as a counter to the generally overpowering magic rules?

I've actually used the "You level when I say" method quite a few times myself, as the timing was usually tied to story advancement rather than "Congratulations, you've killed 100 kobolds!". I found it helped players not focus so much on killing everything the meet, and going with the story. I don't remember if it was Order of the Stick or Goblins that said something to the effect of "If they didn't want to die, they shouldn't have been worth XP!".

And actually I do remember an instance in a 3.0/3.5 game (I forget which) where my cleric failed to level with the rest of the party, because I had spent 1,000xp crafting a magic falchion for the party fighter.

pretre wrote:What system had an established 'you get XP if you miss a game' rule? What system had minor xp rewards for doing recaps in it?

Seems like those are all house rules and hence independent of edition.

I believe 4e has something to the effect of "Game works best if PCs are kept at the same XP level" but I have not read the 4e DMG.

Minor rewards for recaps was definitely a house rule. We avoided it for 4e because of the above. I don't know if "The PCs should be the same level" is spelled out in the DMG, but I've seen the concept online many times as it fits with the general theme that all 4e characters should be equally heroically powerful, just in different ways.

Although 2nd edition D&D had some funky optional XP rules.

It's a very different 'feel from (say) games like WW's Vampire where characters are much more individual despite the game encouraging working as a group. Then again, D&D has historically been about the power curve (or hero's journey to go for a more literary take) while many other RPGs are about slower, more measured advancement. For example, it's generally a bit wonky to do any sort of "old veteran mentor' character in D&D and have it supported mechanically in any fashion. Works fine as a character concept, doesn't really work as mechanical concept.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

streamdragon wrote:And actually I do remember an instance in a 3.0/3.5 game (I forget which) where my cleric failed to level with the rest of the party, because I had spent 1,000xp crafting a magic falchion for the party fighter.

Was it enough to change the power-balance, do you feel? I realize this is one incident, but do you feel that being one level behind (for a bit) changed the game mechanics greatly? I'd guess if you had 1,000 XP to spend you were probably high single digits or low teens, so it's an interesting choice (from mechanics) to say "OK, magic weapon, or delay access to new spells..."

Of course, my the game's story it may have made perfect sense to make the fighter a weapon when the chance arose.

I personally switched to "level when I say" in my 4th edition games just because tracking XP was a hassle and a half.

On the topic of minor xp rewards, if Wizards hadn't tried to use fortune cards as a horrendous CCG monetization gimmick they'd probably have worked pretty well for that. Have a whole deck of cards with things like "reroll a saving throw" "take a free move action" or "add +1d6 to hit with an attack" and hand them out for xp bonus reasons. Make a rule that players can't use the cards until after the encounter they got them to prevent the stunt pumping idiocy that plagues Exalted.

Balance wrote:Automatically Appended Next Post:

streamdragon wrote:And actually I do remember an instance in a 3.0/3.5 game (I forget which) where my cleric failed to level with the rest of the party, because I had spent 1,000xp crafting a magic falchion for the party fighter.

Was it enough to change the power-balance, do you feel? I realize this is one incident, but do you feel that being one level behind (for a bit) changed the game mechanics greatly? I'd guess if you had 1,000 XP to spend you were probably high single digits or low teens, so it's an interesting choice (from mechanics) to say "OK, magic weapon, or delay access to new spells..."

Of course, my the game's story it may have made perfect sense to make the fighter a weapon when the chance arose.

To be honest, I don't remember if it made a difference or not. Now that I think of it, it was our first 3.0 game so it's been awhile. I believe it was around 6 or 7, and I made the fighter a Keen falchion. "Ooh, he's gonna crit all the time" (he never crit)... And I had no idea how much XP we were getting when, so I didn't really think it was going to cost me a level. I can't say if it upset balance, but it was a bit "not fun" to have fallen behind because I wanted to help my party member out. We ended up using a house rule that let someone other than the creator expend the XP, so that the people with crafting feats weren't always getting the shaft when we couldn't find what we wanted. In that regard, 4e's "Wishlist" system for magic items is drastically superior, imo.

RogueRegault wrote:I personally switched to "level when I say" in my 4th edition games just because tracking XP was a hassle and a half.

On the topic of minor xp rewards, if Wizards hadn't tried to use fortune cards as a horrendous CCG monetization gimmick they'd probably have worked pretty well for that. Have a whole deck of cards with things like "reroll a saving throw" "take a free move action" or "add +1d6 to hit with an attack" and hand them out for xp bonus reasons. Make a rule that players can't use the cards until after the encounter they got them to prevent the stunt pumping idiocy that plagues Exalted.

I honestly can't understand how tracking the XP is difficult in 4e; each monster has a set value for XP. Add it up, *boom* done. Certainly simpler than the "cross reference CR vs party level, adjust for overlevel" version of 3.0/3.5; not necessarily better, but at least simpler.

And I never played with those cards, but I agree with you on them. I bought the shadowfell supplement, saw the cards and was like "WTF are these?"

There was even a Paragon Path built around the fortune cards. I think it was called Fate Dancer or something like that. The problem with the cards (ok, one of the the problems) is that they either were useless, or completely broken, and of course the really good ones were rare cards.

If an enemy knocks you prone you get a sense of ennui.

Or

If an enemy knocks you prone you aren't knocked prone and instead all enemies within 10 are knocked prone and you laugh gregariously while giving 10 temp hit points to all your allies.


I thought the Shadowfell Cards were different cards. They weren't ccg and just were for curses and such. If you rolled a 1 or were crit by an enemy you got a card. It was like a curse, you just had a card to remind you instead of writing it down. They did spice things up a bit.

Not entirely sure. They seem to focus on a Despair mechanic, which I'm guessing is part of being in the shadowfell. So there was another, worse, card mechanic? Gross.

streamdragon wrote:Not entirely sure. They seem to focus on a Despair mechanic, which I'm guessing is part of being in the shadowfell. So there was another, worse, card mechanic? Gross.

It actually isn't worse, as it is just a set of 'curses' for the DM to hand out and not an extra Encounter power, the usefulness being based on how many packs of cards you bought. Instead of a list of debilitations you just have cards with the description you can hand to the player. It could just as easily been an a list without cards. They were to represent the way the Shadowfell could effect people. It was just the one set that came with the box and not part of some CCG attempt.

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I meant the mechanic that RogueRegault described. I can see how the Shadowfell cards would be useful, especially with the boon listed on the bottom of the card.

streamdragon wrote:

I honestly can't understand how tracking the XP is difficult in 4e; each monster has a set value for XP. Add it up, *boom* done. Certainly simpler than the "cross reference CR vs party level, adjust for overlevel" version of 3.0/3.5; not necessarily better, but at least simpler.

And I never played with those cards, but I agree with you on them. I bought the shadowfell supplement, saw the cards and was like "WTF are these?"

Well, it was mostly an issue of always winding up with weird things like people being 25xp away from a new level right after the big climactic battle.

Also, I was playing with MM1 instead of Monster Vault, so I had to tweak most of the encounters because Wizards got the math wrong for MM1 and 2. Also had to add lots of traps and hazards to encounters to keep them from getting boring, because WotC decided they needed to waste a third of the manual on Epic creatures I'd never use instead of adding in more level one and level two creatures that aren't kobolds or house pets.

25 xp from next level is a problem with xp in general, not 4e. Just fudge it and let them level. If you're hardcore, give them a -1 to everything until they actually earn it.

@stream: funny thing about 3e. With clever magic item creation, you could stay pretty much 1 level behind the party and making tons of free magic items because of the xp boost from being below party level. It was kinda broken.

Good call, Pretre. We had a lot of item-creating casters in our 3.5 groups, and they were occasionally sad when operating a level behind, but when they did so going into a big adventure, they wound up getting substantially more xp than anyone else, and leapfrogging.

streamdragon wrote:

Lord Scythican wrote: I didn't get that in 4E. If the battles were not designed in a way that every class could do their thing, then some characters wouldn't get jak. I remember not being able to do any damage to certain monsters because the monster was designed for characters like fighters to battle it. My DM always had a rule, "if you do one point of damage to it, you are entitled to an equal share". Let's just say, that didn't happen.

Of course if the battles were designed better by my DM, that wouldn't have been a problem.

Wait... your DM assigned encounter XP based on who hurt the monster? That's ... horrible. That actively goes against team work, and pretty much everything D&D is based on!

IIRC this derives from an old complex house rule system for awarding XP which was published in White Dwarf back in the late 70s or early 80s. Where in a fight you actually had to do damage to the monster to get a share, and the guy who dealt the killing blow got a larger share.

And to my recollection, yes, 4E is the first time D&D had keeping people who miss sessions equal with everyone else on xp as a core rule/recommendation. Earlier editions had as the default that you didn't get xp if you didn't attend. Some folks house ruled to do it anyway, of course, but it wasn't the standard expectation like in 4E.

Tried out the Next packet/module today. Pretty much new-school clarity for old-school style. Got through several rooms, some roleplaying and five encounters in less than three hours, after preliminary setup, character selection, general socializing, etc. And that's with a couple of inexperienced players.

pretre wrote:25 xp from next level is a problem with xp in general, not 4e. Just fudge it and let them level. If you're hardcore, give them a -1 to everything until they actually earn it.

@stream: funny thing about 3e. With clever magic item creation, you could stay pretty much 1 level behind the party and making tons of free magic items because of the xp boost from being below party level. It was kinda broken.

I didn't think it was a problem with 4e. I ignored it because it was one more hassle to keep track of when I was sitting down and trying to figure out how to make "five kobolds attack" exciting.

Personally, I tend to prefer "skill progression" systems like Deadlands, although that game has its own issues.


My personal issues with 4e (That it inherited from 3e) are the stagflation curve to bonuses (All your bonuses go up, but the DCs you're rolling against go up at the same rate, so it's just a pointless exercise in making numbers bigger.) and the general expectation that all heroes will have a full set of magic items like we're gearing up a CRPG character.

5e seems to fix those, but it brings back 3e problems I hated. Fighters are awesome at one thing, but that one thing is obsolete by level five because wizards get AoE save or dies and save or sucks. Reaping blow and 2 action points a day doesn't equal spells and cantrips.

RogueRegault wrote:Well, it was mostly an issue of always winding up with weird things like people being 25xp away from a new level right after the big climactic battle.

Also, I was playing with MM1 instead of Monster Vault, so I had to tweak most of the encounters because Wizards got the math wrong for MM1 and 2. Also had to add lots of traps and hazards to encounters to keep them from getting boring, because WotC decided they needed to waste a third of the manual on Epic creatures I'd never use instead of adding in more level one and level two creatures that aren't kobolds or house pets.

Understand now re: the XP thing. Just like you, I partially switched to the "level when I say" to prevent that.
And I completely agree with your MM comment. I do think that the switch to "named" monsters was a mistake, at least without giving us a monster builder worth its code. If I wanted to have an epic battle with a boss orc past a certain level, I'd have to reskin something else to do it, which meant I might not find something comparable. Small issue, but still an issue.

Mannahnin wrote:IIRC this derives from an old complex house rule system for awarding XP which was published in White Dwarf back in the late 70s or early 80s. Where in a fight you actually had to do damage to the monster to get a share, and the guy who dealt the killing blow got a larger share.

And to my recollection, yes, 4E is the first time D&D had keeping people who miss sessions equal with everyone else on xp as a core rule/recommendation. Earlier editions had as the default that you didn't get xp if you didn't attend. Some folks house ruled to do it anyway, of course, but it wasn't the standard expectation like in 4E.

White Dwarf or Dragon? And yeah, when we rolled up characters in my group, we'd always assign someone else to play that character if we couldn't make it ourselves. That way we weren't earning equal XP while taking no risks if our character "went back to town" or something...

RogueRegault wrote:I didn't think it was a problem with 4e. I ignored it because it was one more hassle to keep track of when I was sitting down and trying to figure out how to make "five kobolds attack" exciting.
Personally, I tend to prefer "skill progression" systems like Deadlands, although that game has its own issues.


My personal issues with 4e (That it inherited from 3e) are the stagflation curve to bonuses (All your bonuses go up, but the DCs you're rolling against go up at the same rate, so it's just a pointless exercise in making numbers bigger.) and the general expectation that all heroes will have a full set of magic items like we're gearing up a CRPG character.

5e seems to fix those, but it brings back 3e problems I hated. Fighters are awesome at one thing, but that one thing is obsolete by level five because wizards get AoE save or dies and save or sucks. Reaping blow and 2 action points a day doesn't equal spells and cantrips.

Expectations of gear have been there for pretty much every edition. 1/2 had monsters that couldn't be hurt except by +x weapons or better, which 3e/3.5 changed to the DR##/+x system. I've always sort of hated those systems, because they once again put onus on martial characters that didn't exist on, or at least had almost no effect on, caster classes. That high level monster was still getting hurt by Magic Missle (although at least SR in 3.0/3.5 was a caster issue that martial characters didn't have to contend with).

And you've hit on what I see being my biggest issue with 5e: lack of internal balance for classes.

Got to finally try it out a bit and went the no miniature 'theater of the mind' route.



Lack of op attacks allows people to move around a lot.

The elf, surrounded by goblins, cast sleep on himself and then remembered that he was immune to sleep a turn later. He is now a Sleep bomber.

That Cleric of Moradin ain't no cleric, he's a battlest...err, Paladin. Only slightly less HP then the fighter but better AC and being adjacent to allies makes them very difficult to hit. Doesn't hit like the fighter and can't heal like the Pelor Cleric, but he made the party much more survivable.

Wish they would have explained how Fighter got the to-hit numbers they have. Only a DEX bonus of +1 but has a +4 to hit with the crossbow.

Wish they would have explained how each cleric is only supposed to have 2 prepared spells a day but at the same time says they have 3 spells prepared for the day. We figured they each had a bonus spell from some source but it isn't clear where it is from.

Didn't get to see the dieing rules in action but both the Fighter and Wizard got down to 1 hp. Finding 51 electrum at level 1 is a lot of money.

Had a lot of fun and will be playing more on Thursday, but still curious about scaling and class creation.

They brought electrum back? Nice!

pretre wrote:They brought electrum back? Nice!

I think, in theory, you are supposed to return it to the Merchants guild that it was stolen from, but 51,000 gold is a lot to give up.

"Sorry, Guildmaster. The goblins melted it down and dropped it into the sea. On a separate note, do you know where the nearest magic-item emporium is?"

pretre wrote:"Sorry, Guildmaster. The goblins melted it down and dropped it into the sea. On a separate note, do you know where the nearest magic-item emporium is?"

They don't even know we have it. We weren't sent to find it, we just stumbled across a pile of cash and a merchants guild pouch. When we went back to town, not cause we were hurt or nothin cause were tough you know, we found out through rumors that they were in financial troubles do to some lost funds. If the terms are right we might give them a loan.

I suppose the question is, is the reward worth as much as or more than 51k GP/is there a paladin in the party?

Manchu wrote:I suppose the question is, is the reward worth as much as or more than 51k GP/is there a paladin in the party?

I lol'd.

Paladins ruin it for everyone sometimes.

Manchu wrote:I suppose the question is, is the reward worth as much as or more than 51k GP/is there a paladin in the party?

There are no paladins in 5E playtest. The Moradin cleric is pretty close mechanically, though not in character or alignment, so we dodged that bullet.

There is no reward unless the GM makes one up either. I think he might shut down the shops in town though...because I gave him the idea.

Ahtman wrote: I think he might shut down the shops in town though...because I gave him the idea.

Poor guild. Too bad they have no money to keep their shops open. Wait, who is this? Our mighty heroes have arrived with investment capital! And at such a low rate for such an enormous sum... We are saved!

So Ahtman, what did you get from your session that could not be gotten from previous editions of D&D and retroclones that you have played?

Manchu wrote:So Ahtman, what did you get from your session that could not be gotten from previous editions of D&D and retroclones that you have played?

I guess the advantage/disadvantage system is the only thing that is unique to 5e that I can tell. I guess the Hit Dice (we still called them Surges) mechanic was useful and seems well implemented so far. Certainly is much more dangerous than 4e at all levels and 3.5 once you get past 3rd or 4th level. It is a nice mash up of elements of the older systems, but nothing so far that I would say is unique. Just from play testing I already like it better than 3.5.

The 2d20 thing did sound neat to me, too. How did it play? I had to laugh when I saw the mechanical result of having both an advantage and a disadvantage was to roll as normal. When you put it that way, it seems a bit hokey.

Also, did you ever play Basic D&D or any of the retroclones?

Manchu wrote:The 2d20 thing did sound neat to me, too. How did it play? I had to laugh when I saw the mechanical result of having both an advantage and a disadvantage was to roll as normal. When you put it that way, it seems a bit hokey.

Also, did you ever play Basic D&D or any of the retroclones?

Had the original Red, Blue, and Black Boxes and everything. No retroclones per se, but I still play 1st Edition and AD&D every now and then.

Adv/Disadv works pretty well, though it could still use some tweeking on implementation. Such as anyone standing within 5' of the Cleric of Moradin, gives attackers disadvantage with their attacks because he is wielding a shield and has the Defender Theme. There is no limit on type of attack or number of times per turn so he is really quite agile with the shield. Of course he doesn't give that bonus to himself*, but if you make a cross shape with the Moradin Cleric in the middle everyone in the party would make enemies roll 2d20 every single attack. A Fireball or Stinking Cloud would still be a problem, but you can move through the tunnels fairly safely in the formation. I think with a little more refinement it could be a nice introduction to the D&D world.

*His AC is also the highest in the playtest with an AC of 18, whereas the fighter has a 15.

I'm guessing you saw my D&D timeline earlier, where "determinitive" rules are contrasted with "interpretive" ones and WotC is trying to reconcile these design paths in 5E. Do you think that account is accurate? If so, does 5E do that well/poorly/at all?

It is a good question and I'm not sure I can give a proper answer just yet. I'll have to mull it over a bit and keep it in mind on Thursday.

They released a podcast the same day as the play test hit. I just got around to listening to it but they are promising another 'big' play test packet in a months, and possibly interim updates. They admitted a few numbers are off. One thing I remember is the Thief is non-optimal, as Wisdom is required to actually find traps, even if it's dec to disable.

Ahtman wrote:

Manchu wrote:The 2d20 thing did sound neat to me, too. How did it play? I had to laugh when I saw the mechanical result of having both an advantage and a disadvantage was to roll as normal. When you put it that way, it seems a bit hokey.

Also, did you ever play Basic D&D or any of the retroclones?

Had the original Red, Blue, and Black Boxes and everything. No retroclones per se, but I still play 1st Edition and AD&D every now and then.

Adv/Disadv works pretty well, though it could still use some tweeking on implementation. Such as anyone standing within 5' of the Cleric of Moradin, gives attackers disadvantage with their attacks because he is wielding a shield and has the Defender Theme. There is no limit on type of attack or number of times per turn so he is really quite agile with the shield. Of course he doesn't give that bonus to himself*, but if you make a cross shape with the Moradin Cleric in the middle everyone in the party would make enemies roll 2d20 every single attack. A Fireball or Stinking Cloud would still be a problem, but you can move through the tunnels fairly safely in the formation. I think with a little more refinement it could be a nice introduction to the D&D world.

*His AC is also the highest in the playtest with an AC of 18, whereas the fighter has a 15.

I guess you missed the part where you get one reaction per turn. Page 9 of How to Play.

Also, Clerics function differently from Wizards. They have 2 Spell Slots per day, not Prepared Spells. They use Spell Slots to cast Prepared Spells in the same way other RPGs use Magic Points or the like. Specifically 1 Level 1 Spell Slot allows you to cast 1 of your level 1 Prepared Spells. So Clerics don't have to specify in advance exactly what they will be casting during the day, they prepare a collection of spells that they will then choose from on the fly.

Chrysis wrote:I guess you missed the part where you get one reaction per turn. Page 9 of How to Play.

And somehow god didn't strike us all dead, though I suspected as much.

Chrysis wrote:Also, Clerics function differently from Wizards. They have 2 Spell Slots per day, not Prepared Spells. They use Spell Slots to cast Prepared Spells in the same way other RPGs use Magic Points or the like. Specifically 1 Level 1 Spell Slot allows you to cast 1 of your level 1 Prepared Spells. So Clerics don't have to specify in advance exactly what they will be casting during the day, they prepare a collection of spells that they will then choose from on the fly.

If you could find where it specifically states that in the playtest rules it would be appreciated. We can't assuming everything is exactly the same as some of the previous editions because there are differences, such as casting Radiant Lance at-will. I read the rules when they released them but the DM had them printed out in front of him and we didn't see where it went over that, just like it didn't quite explain how a +1 Dex Dwarf had a +4 to hit with a Crossbow or why there were no opportunity attacks either. Not that it had some game breaking impact or kept us from having a good time.

The lack of AoOs is probably a case where silence is supposed to speak: namely, 5E will not necessarily be miniatures-centric.

Manchu wrote:The lack of AoOs is probably a case where silence is supposed to speak: namely, 5E will not necessarily be miniatures-centric.

They've said that should be the case several times. What I'm worried is that there's apparently no way rules-as-written to intercept or otherwise control a fight. Fighters (As portrayed in the playtest material) are damaging, but unable to do anything to stop opponents running past them to attack the squishier party members.

This isn't necessarily bad as long as it makes sense in-context, I guess. I'm hopeful the fighter will get some sort of add-ons to make this more feasible. There was talk that the Fihgter might be the only character to get something akin to 'attacks of opportunity' as well as access to 'marking' features, albeit likely under a new name.

There's been some comments (not from WotC directly) that D&DNext is supposed to be a return to imagination making things interesting in fihgts, not powers and such. That's great, but unless there's some core guidelines, I don't see why it would go differently from past experiences, in which players assumed that since Improvised Tactic #3 worked great that one time, it should work great this time... And get frustrated when the GM doesn't allow the same tactic to be turned into a rote strategy.

"OK, so in that big fight with the goblins we were successful having the two guys use a convenient log to shove a bunch up against a wall. Now we NEED to carry a log with us in c ase that situation comes up again. It worked last time, it'll have to work next time!"

(Yes, I've seen similar behavior... Although I think it was mostly concerning fire and acid as 'grenades'. I was, I admit, 12-14 at the time.)

If this is the paradigm going forward, I'd like a section in the core books that outlines some guidelines for 'Improvised Tactics' that protects and enables botht he players and GM. For the player side, it should say that tactics are at GM discretion and there's no expectation that they'll always work the same. The GM should, however, be encouraged to allow them on the basis of "Is this cool/fun?" not "Is this practical?" because I've also seen GMs that discourage swashbuckling and cinematic moves because they aren't realistic.

I do think it's a good tactic to focus on doing things scripted games like console and computer RPGs/MMOs can't do (I.E. 'lateral thinking' puzzles that are open ended, and generally being able to respond to player ingenuity real-time) .

Interesting. I thought that marking and such was an important mechanic in 4th and I will be surprised if they drop it. It makes squishy members of the party even more vulnerable which, of course, plagued earlier editions of the game.

I'll be interested to see how they handle that.

As to imagination, I think it is important in any system to allow the players some leeway. All editions of D&D have done this to varying degrees either by presence or absence of a system to do so.

I find your example of the log pretty true and funny. Once something works in a campaign, players will repeat it again and again. Not that I blame them. My group was infamous for the 'Wet Handshake' in 3/3.5. You dip your hand in holy water before shaking hands with anyone. I don't think it ever worked after the first time (how often do you shake hands with someone vulnerable to holy water), but boy did they love to do it.

People running characters generally see rules as a matter of dependably achieving beneficial outcomes. This was the soul of 3.5 and the structure of 4E. In 5E, however, I think rules have been/will be relegated to guidelines that prop up and prompt the game as something happening fundamentally "away from" the rules. This is what I mean by the difference between interpretive and determinative games. With determinative games, the game is playing the rules. With interpretive games, the game is something going on separately albeit "in the context of" (or "adjacent to") the rules. As Ahtman pointed out via a quotation earlier in this thread, the fighter is the natural first casualty of this move away from routinized options -- which makes sense, since he was the chief beneficiary (especially in 4E) of routinization.

Meanwhile, great things are happening outside the ambit of WotC. A seemingly better "D&DNext" has already come out in the form of the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG. It even uses the bizarre "Zocchi dice" (strange things like d3s, d5s, d7s, d14s, d24s, and d30s) to refresh your sense of wonder at the strange polyhedrals you had once never seen before (remember, if you dare, your first encounter with a d12 -- if indeed you've ever encountered one). Also, some reviewers have pointed out that the Warrior is the most effective class in DCC. How about that?

Interesting approach. I guess we'll see how it works out. My group isn't big for system changes, we're getting old and our time is pretty limited to what we can do.

Best forget about 5E then.

Manchu wrote:Best forget about 5E then.

Well, D&D has always been the exception. I wonder how they'll take it. /shrug

The most frustrating thing about my former group was their inability to do anything about roleplaying other than D&D.

Manchu wrote:The most frustrating thing about my former group was their inability to do anything about roleplaying other than D&D.

They just could never get into other systems? Was it a learning other systems thing or an interest in the settings or just a 'we play D&D' thing?

We've tried a couple other systems, but always come back to D&D. I also find that they don't invest a lot of time in research. The character builder site is both a godsend for this and a horrible enabler.

pretre wrote:Was it a (1) learning other systems thing or (2) lack of an interest in the other settings or (3) just a 'we play D&D' thing?

It was a matter of 1 + 2 = 3, unfortunately. In their minds, 3.5 did everything that they wanted even when it didn't. (Although the internet gave them some interesting arguments against 4E that they obviously hadn't thought about too deeply -- "trying to be a MMO" and that kind of garbage.) From that experience, I've learned to rate gaming groups on their willingness to sample various systems.

Ugh. Get a new gaming group?

I've been in mine for a million years and it moved cross country with me, so I'm pretty satisfied.

Yeah, as it happened I moved away from them. And I haven't really had a gaming group since, unless you count internet gaming and one-on-one stuff. But it hasn't bothered me. I don't want to end up in that same stagnating situation again. That group recently asked me to participate in a PbP game with them -- and yes, they bizarrely want to use 3.5 rules even for a PbP game -- and I declined.

5E, to the extent that they will even bother with it, is going to shock the gak out of them.

Balance wrote:There's been some comments (not from WotC directly) that D&DNext is supposed to be a return to imagination making things interesting in fihgts, not powers and such.

[ ]

See, I see that "answer" as a complete cop-out. There is nothing in any game existing that prevents players from using their imagination to get a result and make things intersting. It puts the onus on certain character groups while other (almost universally more powerful groups) have a plethora of abilities laid out for them that supercede just about anything the "thinker" could reasonably come up with. The library of magic spells, for instance, will almost always be superior to whatever strange maneuvar the poor non-caster can dream up and hope to get away with. It also puts those groups at the complete mercy of the DM; while this is true to some degree for all players, those whose actions are nearly always forced to be interpreted (versus those whose actions are explicitly spelled out in the rules) are subject to a bit more scrutiny as the DM has to decide how to handle it, versus something spelled out in black and white.

There is nothing in 4e that prevents a character from thinking creatively to solve a problem, attack a foe or achieve just about anything else. In combat, 4e had a ruleset for dealing with creative actions, even going so far as to have general guidelines for DMs who might need a bit of help. This was on TOP of non-caster characters have options beyond "Basic Attack" and was available to all characters, regardless of class.

[/ ]

Yeah, our 4E group has a fair amount of out of the box solutions in games. It is all about the players.

No, system matters. There are rules that encourage plot development as opposed to filling out the character sheet. I don't know if 5E has any such rules but you can definitely find them among other interpretive games. (A free-to-download example is Lady Blackbird.) Fourth edition, for all of its many excellent points, did not do this.

Did not do what, exactly? Have rules for encouraing plot development? Because 4e included reward systems for both skill challenges (as opposed to combat challenges) and for "quest completion" so to speak.

"Kill monster" is not a plot goal. "Avoid trap" is not a plot goal. Please see the keys described in Lady Blackbird for what I mean.

And understand that I am not saying 4E was a bad game or that roleplaying was impossible with 4E. You could RP with that game just like you could RP checkers or Monopoly.

Manchu wrote:"Kill monster" is not a plot goal. "Avoid trap" is not a plot goal. Please see the keys described in Lady Blackbird for what I mean.

And understand that I am not saying 4E was a bad game or that roleplaying was impossible with 4E. You could RP with that game just like you could RP checkers or Monopoly.

Okay, but that is saying that 4E was bad for roleplay. Comparing it to non-roleplaying games is doing exactly that. What did 3/2/1e have for Roleplay that 4E did not?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
As well, the listed Quests for Xp in the 4E book are well beyond 'kill monster' and 'avoid trap'. They have 'convince the jarl to join in the cause' and 'investigate the town of X's problem with Y'. In fact, the example skill challenge in the book is a negotiation with a jarl or lord.

None of them did it; it's a concern that has been addressed entirely outside of D&D. This is a point I often bring up to the haters of 4E. Whatever edition they cherish did nothing at all more than 4E with regard to mechanically encouraging plot.

Manchu wrote:None of them did it; it's a concern that has been addressed entirely outside of D&D. This is a point I often bring up to the haters of 4E. Whatever edition they cherish did nothing at all more than 4E with regard to mechanically encouraging plot.

Aha, I misunderstood then, my bad. I took your singling out of 4E to mean that others had.

pretre wrote:In fact, the example skill challenge in the book is a negotiation with a jarl or lord.

The example is sort of beside the point. Where on your character sheet is there a description of your hopes and goals, among which you will find "negotiate with jarl to achieve X"? This is the kind of thing games like Lady Blackbird explicitly do. No edition of D&D does this at all inherently and plot is something that always happens "adjacent to" the rules.

Manchu wrote:

pretre wrote:In fact, the example skill challenge in the book is a negotiation with a jarl or lord.

The example is sort of beside the point. Where on your character sheet is there a description of your hopes and goals, among which you will find "negotiate with jarl to achieve X"? This is the kind of thing games like Lady Blackbird explicitly do. No edition of D&D does this at all inherently and plot is something that always happens "adjacent to" the rules.

Looking at Lady Blackbird, it just looks like Demeanors and Natures from White Wolf.

The Key of the Traveler
You love exploring new places and meeting new people. Hit your
key when you share an interesting detail about a person, place, or
thing or when you go somewhere exciting and new.
Buyoff: Pass up the opportunity to see something new.

Granted, I am skimming...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I really like the GM instructions for this system. Just keep asking questions.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
When you’re the GM, don’t try to plan what will happen. Instead, ask
questions—lots and lots and make them pointed toward the things
you’re interested in.

Also ask questions like:
“Does anything break when you do this crazy maneuver?”
“The fire probably spreads out of control doesn’t it?”
“That sounds like a bold plan. What’s the first step?”
“Do the two of you end up somewhere quiet together? Does something
happen between you?”
“Do you know anything about the Crimson Sky rebels? What are they
like? Is it normal for them to be this far into the Empire?”

It's pretty good for a free one-off. A nice distraction for when D&D gets a little stale.

Ahtman wrote:

Chrysis wrote:Also, Clerics function differently from Wizards. They have 2 Spell Slots per day, not Prepared Spells. They use Spell Slots to cast Prepared Spells in the same way other RPGs use Magic Points or the like. Specifically 1 Level 1 Spell Slot allows you to cast 1 of your level 1 Prepared Spells. So Clerics don't have to specify in advance exactly what they will be casting during the day, they prepare a collection of spells that they will then choose from on the fly.

If you could find where it specifically states that in the playtest rules it would be appreciated. We can't assuming everything is exactly the same as some of the previous editions because there are differences, such as casting Radiant Lance at-will. I read the rules when they released them but the DM had them printed out in front of him and we didn't see where it went over that, just like it didn't quite explain how a +1 Dex Dwarf had a +4 to hit with a Crossbow or why there were no opportunity attacks either. Not that it had some game breaking impact or kept us from having a good time.

As you say, things change between editions. So throw out everything you know about Spell Slots and Preparation and read only what's written on the Clerics sheet.

Divine Magic:
You can cast a number of spells per day as indicated on the table (Spell Slots per Day per Spell Level)

Spell Preparation:
After each long rest you prepare the following spells.

Casting A Spell:
You can cast one of your prepared spells using a spell slot of its level or higher. After you cast the spell, you lose the use of that slot until after you prepare spells again.

Notice how the only thing tying Spell Slots and Prepared Spells together is the Casting A Spell section? That section also specifies that when you cast a spell you lose the Slot that you used, but it doesn't say you lose the Prepared Spell. You regain your expended Spell Slots when you Prepare Spells, but nothing links specific Prepared Spells to Spell Slots until you actually cast.

Contrast that with the Wizards sheet. Their Spell Preparation section limits their number of Prepared Spells to the the number of Spells they have per day. Their Casting Section expends Prepared Spells rather than Spell Slots.
What you end up with is two similar but distinct mechanisms for casting spells. Clerics use a form of Spontaneous Casting, while Wizards use the exact same system as previous editions. Both get the addition of "At-Will" spells.

EDIT: Can't help on the weapon stats however. Everyone has discrepancies in their +Attack ratings of their weapons and spells compared to what the given rules say they should have. Given the Warrior's Greataxe stats don't match the equipment list at all, I wouldn't put much stock in the exact numbers being right.

I read all that but it also said you had 3 spells prepared for the day when you can only have 2 so we weren't sure if that was just the known or if it was the 2 plus a bonus spell based on diety, or some other option because, as you pointed out, the playtest materials aren't exactly without discrepancies.

Right. Given that both Clerics use the same wording, while the Wizard uses a different wording that happens to match previous editions it's fairly safe to assume that the Clerics are actually intended to be mechanically different from the Wizard. So the Level 1 Clerics prepare 3 spells because they know 3 spells, even though they can only cast twice in a day. The Wizard, on the other hand, can only prepare as many spells as he can cast and can only use each prepared spell once.

Chrysis wrote:Clerics are actually intended to be mechanically different from the Wizard.

Which is probably why we didn't play them like a Wizard, and the issue raised wasn't asking if a cleric is a wizard. We played it the way it was intended, just felt it was a bit obtuse in the presentation on the character sheet. Looking at what I wrote I realize it wasn't quite as clear about that point. It was the only element that was (somewhat) debated in what [WotC] were trying to get across. Didn't really have any issues regarding the other characters, but it was also an impromptu game as we were originally supposed to play something else but someone had an emergency and was unable to show so we did this last minute. The majority of the players hadn't seen the Playtex materials and I had only really skimmed them.

Ah, I see. The problem wasn't recognising that they used different mechanics it was wondering if they were supposed to be using the same mechanics. I got the impression that the issue was trying to apply Wizard mechanics to Clerics rather than wondering if you should apply Wizard mechanics to Clerics.

I can certainly see how it would be easy to get a bit confused about how intentional the differences are, and it could be clearer.

EDIT: Digging through some of their Legends and Lore blog posts, at least some of the differences can be attributed to things they just haven't mentioned in the playtest docs. Specifically they say that the Dwarven Cleric uses a 1d10 Warhammer instead of a 1d8 as a racial bonus that they're playing with, so it's likely that the Fighter getting bonuses to his attacks is something similar. Possibly a class feature that isn't alluded to anywhere.

Manchu wrote:

pretre wrote:In fact, the example skill challenge in the book is a negotiation with a jarl or lord.

The example is sort of beside the point. Where on your character sheet is there a description of your hopes and goals, among which you will find "negotiate with jarl to achieve X"? This is the kind of thing games like Lady Blackbird explicitly do. No edition of D&D does this at all inherently and plot is something that always happens "adjacent to" the rules.

This is an interesting distinction, as those are more character goals than "story" goals. Your character's hopes and goals may have nothing whatsoever to do with the story that the DM/GM/Storyteller has come up with, although from other posts it sounds like the game is more player driven than DM/GM/storyteller driven. To say that D&D doesn't have these things inherently is true, but when they become inherent to the game I'd argue that they do, in fact, become part of the rules instead of separate.

Edit: The 4e and Essentials character sheets both have various sections for RP centric things, like character background, personality traits, description, etc.

Lady Blackbird is scenario-driven. No one "makes up" a character. The characters already exist and people take on those roles. The roles are defined not so much by "how strong" or "how smart" a character is but rather what kind of goals the character has. The goals of characters necessarily relate to the story. A story is some narrative concerning agents pursuing their interests.

D&D players can learn at least this from Lady Blackbird: the story is not the prerogative of the DM or the PCs but rather all of the players (yes, remember that the DM is a player, too) at the table. Looking at the story as either DM- or PC-driven will lead to conflicts more often than not (DM fiat, spotlight hijacking, etc). Since no version of D&D has any mechanics that actually push story along, this is especially important for D&D players to remember.

Chrysis wrote:EDIT: Digging through some of their Legends and Lore blog posts, at least some of the differences can be attributed to things they just haven't mentioned in the playtest docs. Specifically they say that the Dwarven Cleric uses a 1d10 Warhammer instead of a 1d8 as a racial bonus that they're playing with, so it's likely that the Fighter getting bonuses to his attacks is something similar. Possibly a class feature that isn't alluded to anywhere.

I can see that. There is nothing saying on the Pelor Cleric what, if anything a Human gets, but they have 4 skill bonuses from background whereas all the others have 3, and the human has two orison/cantrips instead of one. Guessing humans are still getting a few extras at level 1 as their racial.

Manchu wrote:Lady Blackbird is scenario-driven. No one "makes up" a character. The characters already exist and people take on those roles. The roles are defined not so much by "how strong" or "how smart" a character is but rather what kind of goals the character has. The goals of characters necessarily relate to the story. A story is some narrative concerning agents pursuing their interests.

D&D players can learn at least this from Lady Blackbird: the story is not the prerogative of the DM or the PCs but rather all of the players (yes, remember that the DM is a player, too) at the table. Looking at the story as either DM- or PC-driven will lead to conflicts more often than not (DM fiat, spotlight hijacking, etc). Since no version of D&D has any mechanics that actually push story along, this is especially important for D&D players to remember.

An interesting system then. Sounds basically more like theatre than anything else, with an open ended story. I also wonder how you get these stories then. Are they all premade? Is the whole thing a "get a scenario and make it up as you go"? I'll have to give it a look sometime.

And I'm aware the DM is a player, I used to DM on a regular basis before it became too expensive to drive down to meet my group but I still remember how it goes. There is always the possibility of DM fiat and spotlight hijacking sure, but as I like to play heroic games that have my group in the spotlight anyway the second one is rarely an issue. I'm also not sure mechanics should be necessary for pushing a story along; isnt seeing the story unfold naturally a part of roleplaying in the first place?

streamdragon wrote:I'm also not sure mechanics should be necessary for pushing a story along; isnt seeing the story unfold naturally a part of rolelaying in the first place?

No, not necessarily. That is an expectation that people bring to RPGs. It's like getting into a car and assuming you will be able to drive it. But what if there is no gas in the tank? To extend the metaphor, you can look at a game like Lady Blackbird as "energy efficient" when it comes to moving plot along. D&D, by contrast, is very energy intensive.

Right, D&D puts the burden on the DM to move things along. It is like one of those Flintstone cars where only one guy is running.

Lady Blackbird, from what I can see, asks everyone to put foot to stone and start running.

Manchu wrote:

streamdragon wrote:I'm also not sure mechanics should be necessary for pushing a story along; isnt seeing the story unfold naturally a part of rolelaying in the first place?

No, not necessarily. That is an expectation that people bring to RPGs. It's like getting into a car and assuming you will be able to drive it. But what if there is no gas in the tank? To extend the metaphor, you can look at a game like Lady Blackbird as "energy efficient" when it comes to moving plot along. D&D, by contrast, is very energy intensive.

pretre wrote:Right, D&D puts the burden on the DM to move things along. It is like one of those Flintstone cars where only one guy is running.
Lady Blackbird, from what I can see, asks everyone to put foot to stone and start running.

Interesting. Might have to give it a look. Is it a particular setting, or is it a generic system?

It's just a 16-page download. It's an original setting, but the thing itself is really more of scenario with pre-determined characters.

http://www.onesevendesign.com/ladyblackbird

I believe you'll find it there.

Yeah. I love their art style; the airship on their main page piqued my interest immediately. I'll print out the PDF and read it on the train home probably.

Ahtman wrote:

Chrysis wrote:I guess you missed the part where you get one reaction per turn. Page 9 of How to Play.

And somehow god didn't strike us all dead, though I suspected as much.

Chrysis wrote:Also, Clerics function differently from Wizards. They have 2 Spell Slots per day, not Prepared Spells. They use Spell Slots to cast Prepared Spells in the same way other RPGs use Magic Points or the like. Specifically 1 Level 1 Spell Slot allows you to cast 1 of your level 1 Prepared Spells. So Clerics don't have to specify in advance exactly what they will be casting during the day, they prepare a collection of spells that they will then choose from on the fly.

If you could find where it specifically states that in the playtest rules it would be appreciated. We can't assuming everything is exactly the same as some of the previous editions because there are differences, such as casting Radiant Lance at-will. I read the rules when they released them but the DM had them printed out in front of him and we didn't see where it went over that, just like it didn't quite explain how a +1 Dex Dwarf had a +4 to hit with a Crossbow or why there were no opportunity attacks either. Not that it had some game breaking impact or kept us from having a good time.

I thought the extra +x was from training with the weapon?

A few things i fid stupid and hope that i get changed.

Hit Dies..., really we must really once again to hasard or luck for the most important stat of your char?...

The Spell systeme, that was something that i hated from 3 ED and 3.5, once you have cast your 3 spells, you are useless and need to use a bow or sling to participate in the combat...,really?

And Wizard and Cleric only have 1 at will, and you will throw the same over and over again for the rest of the encounter, isn't that the definition of boring?

The fact that you gain more disadventage from weiring a heavy armor they you actually gain any advantage.

No way to block passing critters on the tiles next to you when you are a figther, there is the Guardian theme, but you are limited to one ennemy at a time...

And a few other things that convinced me that i will wait for futur rules packets to see where this 5th ed is going before deciding what im gonna do with it.

*Edit because i miss read*

The mage has several handy spells.

Shocking grasp is good for high damage if someone gets too close

Magic missile is your go to long range if you couldn't be helping in other ways.

Magic Hand is very handy if the user is imaginative. My wizard kept tugging on feet and covering up eyes with his.

Ray of frost is great against big guys like the ogre.



And heavy armour is great if your a dwarf.

Slayer le boucher wrote:Hit Dies..., really we must really once again to hasard or luck for the most important stat of your char?...

Hit Dice don't determine the number of Hit Points a character has as in 3.5. It is the renamed Healing Surge. It gives players a self heal ability. At level 1 just having the one die isn't a huge boon, but the number of dice per day they can use to heal goes up as the character levels. How Hit points are determined is unknown as the character creation rules are not available at this time.

In the two separate games I've played in two separate groups each time the player using the wizard found use for almost each Cantrip, so I don't think it will end up just one being used over and over, though I do see Ray of Frost being changed.

Ahtman wrote:In the two separate games I've played in two separate groups each time the player using the wizard found use for almost each Cantrip, so I don't think it will end up just one being used over and over, though I do see Ray of Frost being changed.

Why is that? I've just started my playtest run, so I've not had a chance to really judge things, so I'm interested to know what your thoughts on it are.

htj wrote:

Ahtman wrote:In the two separate games I've played in two separate groups each time the player using the wizard found use for almost each Cantrip, so I don't think it will end up just one being used over and over, though I do see Ray of Frost being changed.

Why is that? I've just started my playtest run, so I've not had a chance to really judge things, so I'm interested to know what your thoughts on it are.

Dropping a creatures move to 0 is a strong debuff, and probably to strong for a cantrip. The DM for the game I am a player in changed it to halving the targets speed instead of just locking it down completely.

I suppose so. It could really benefit ranged focussed parties, certainly. Well, I shall have to see how it affects my game as I run it. Halving speed sounds like a good solution.