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Just checking to see how the reception has been for the D&D 5e playtest beta has been. I don't have a regular group to game with (in any edition of any RPG game sadly) so I didn't sign up or download the materials for this project. Is there a general consensus among those who actually use it? Has it changed much in the year or so its been out in the wild? I'm not interested in another rolling battle of edition wars but I would like to hear how the 5e rules reflect on mechanics used both in 3e and 4e.

The necessary background here is, I split the D&D editions into two camps: in the first camp, the players interpret the rules; in the second camp, the rules determine the play. My impression of 5E is that it falls into the second camp while paying some lip service to the first. There are a few things I like about it: rolling 2d20 for advantage feels neat. All in all, however, 5E seems like a mess to me. "Too little, too late" is the phrase that comes to mind.

What does the "advantage" mechanic do for you? I seem to recall some sort of vague +2 bonus bandied about with the term from a while back but I'm not sure if that's a 4e thing I'm halfway recalling or if its from a review of the initial 5e playtest release.

 warboss wrote:
What does the "advantage" mechanic do for you?

Roll 2d20 and take the highest, having disadvantage is 2d20 and take the lowest. Though that might have changed, as I haven't read any of the playtest materials since the initial release.

Ah, interesting. A bit of a different take in an RPG borrowed maybe from minis games. RPGs have always seemed to have more modifiers whereas minis games I've played freely incorporate rerolls.

Yeah, I'd say there's a prejudice against rerolling dice in D&D. I guess a roll in D&D is conceived of as the out-of-game indicator that the in-game action has occurred. A reroll in that event feels like "time magic." Even dis/advantage is not actually a reroll, keep in mind.

 warboss wrote:
Ah, interesting. A bit of a different take in an RPG borrowed maybe from minis games. RPGs have always seemed to have more modifiers whereas minis games I've played freely incorporate rerolls.

There's modifiers as well, btu this is (from the analysis I've seen) apparently intended as a sort of 'last chance' modifier that is fully intended as the 'player/GM whim modifier' except when specified. Some stuff specifically grants advantage/disadvantage, but it is also a catch-all for stuff like throwing a rug over an enemy, then attacking them (the enemy grants advantage until it's removed).

Overall, I see some good ideas, but it seems like a bit of a mess because they're sticking to a stated policy of trying to please fans of every edition (although fans of 4e are feeling a bit neglected... The only ideas inspired by 4e are implemented a bit awkwardly at best. Healing surges as an easy core mechanic as hit dice that are a bit harder to manage and not used elsewhere.).

I'm cautiously optimistic, still. I recognize that we're still seeing a pretty rough draft at this point.

I thought the whole pleasing fans of every edition was supposed to be some sort of modular plug-n-play type thing. My info is quite old (pretty much from the initial release and not first hand but rather from reading reviews of it) but did they give up on that? They were supposed to be rules modules that you just swap in for instance if you want a more 2nd edition feel.

I've been doing D&D Next with 2 of my friends (just a small adventure where they go on various quests that I cook up and it all relates to a little village).

The combat seems pretty smooth and there's not much that I've seen to gripe about.

Though perhaps somebody could clarify:

When do you add your stat (i.e. strength) and when do you just add the modifier?

Is there any situation where you add your full stat?

It has some good ideas, but feels a bit too stripped down. It feels like they wanted to remove a lot of the rules baggage, which is admirable in a general sense but not very "D&D". My group got in a good 5 sessions or so before the GM became disillusioned and just wanted to run pathfinder or something. Honestly it's not so bad, but I don't think it's what anyone in the larger community is really looking for.

 Dr. What wrote:
I've been doing D&D Next with 2 of my friends (just a small adventure where they go on various quests that I cook up and it all relates to a little village).

The combat seems pretty smooth and there's not much that I've seen to gripe about.

Though perhaps somebody could clarify:

When do you add your stat (i.e. strength) and when do you just add the modifier?

Unless they're completely changing some things around, it should never be adding the full stat, it should just be the modifier.

 warboss wrote:
I thought the whole pleasing fans of every edition was supposed to be some sort of modular plug-n-play type thing. My info is quite old (pretty much from the initial release and not first hand but rather from reading reviews of it) but did they give up on that? They were supposed to be rules modules that you just swap in for instance if you want a more 2nd edition feel.

From what I've heard they are still putting some modularity in. This is creating some weirdness, as they have to (for example) balance a class without knowing if it has 'skills' or not (As skills/"non-weapon proficiences' are a 2nd edition+ thing (or, at least, added near the end of 1st, and thus heresy to 1st edition players) which is causing some weirdness. Modularity has, at least on some forums, become a shorthand for "Stuff we want to get to, later, if we have time."

A great idea they seem to have stumbled on and moved away from was that your 'class' (in the traditional sense... Fighter, Magic-User, Thief, Cleric, etc.) would be "what you do in combat" and characters would have a Background that would be "What you do outside combat" with some overlap between the two. So Noble might be a background and would open up some social skills & abilities. A Noble Fighter might be a high-born feudal knight type, while a Noble Cleric would have the skills to be a real wheeler-dealer in an organized church. Both would also have the expected fighter/cleric abilities for general combat use, and would be more 'social' characters as opposed to their companions Artisan Rogue (who can make stuff, due to the Artisan background, and is great if you need some mechanical devices tinkered with) and Gladiator Fighter (Who gets some showy combat schticks to up the fightiness, but really not much else outside performing).

This is what it sounded like they were moving to at one point, but it seems they may have withdrawn. last playtest packed I read analysis of, they were still rethinking basics like 'how skills work' having tried multiple systems (At one point, they seemed to be leaning towards broad skills with small bonuses, so someone with the 'seamanship' ability would be able to make the case for a bonus to climb rigging (It's something sailors do) but not climbing a stone wall (The Rogue might have a Climb Anything skill, of course). I believe they've back to a more traditional set skill list, but that's got a lot of fine decision to make as well (think how various editions have broken up/combined search/spot and move silently/hide in shadows).

The last I've seen definitely still felt like a system being designed. Major core classes were in flux. For example, fighters and rogues were redesigned several times to try out various ways of making them more interesting than many felt the 1st-3rd versions were by default. It looks like fighters will have special maneuvers and/or bonuses to maneuvers. One thing I hope the design team recognizes is a comment I saw online: "The best status effect is 'dead'" Requiring Fighters to swap damage dice, bonuses to hit, etc. for knockdowns, stuns, forced moves, etc. is a good way to make those effects rarely used,

The design team is aware of a lot of the online fanbase's concerns. Priorities may differ, of course, but they are aware that a lot of people feel that spellcasters dominate at high levels in many editions, a relative minority wants to go back to fighters having no real options beyond 'attack with weapon' and they want to emphasize the bits that don't translate to MMO terms well, like puzzle solving, 'non-linear thinking exercises' and social interaction. Map-combat shouldn't be required, but should be supported.

As I said, I'm cautiously optimistic. To be honest, if it was my call I'd dump the modularity requirement as it seems to be a big resource sink with minimal benefits and focus on identifying and taking the best raw concepts from every edition and making them into a whole that stands on it's own two feet.

1st edition had a ton of 'stuff' and is a pretty basic core.
2nd edition cleaned up first, added NWPs, but I feel the biggest 'thing' of 2nd was the wealth of creative settings and add-ons.
3rd moved to a unified system for so many things. Some great mechanical ideas like prestige classes, although they became a tool for power-gaming.
4th had some great ideas on giving every character fun ready-to-go combat options.

5th looks to be a mix of these, but not sure in what way it'll come out. Done right, it could be great. Done wrong, it could be a mess.

it should tell WotC something that the retro editions sold faster than their latest "creations". Maybe making D&D into WoW isn't why people want to play, maybe they want something different.

@Balance: Not sure you "get" 5E, given you left Basic out of your analysis. The core of 5E is supposedly equivalent to Basic (minus RAC). The "standard" ruleset is streamlined 3.5/4E. "Advanced" apparently translates to bolting on nitty-gritty stuff like facing in miniatures combat. (In other words, the sea of splat becomes "advanced.")

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
it should tell WotC something that the retro editions sold faster than their latest "creations". Maybe making D&D into WoW isn't why people want to play, maybe they want something different.

Do you have a reference for the above beyond just "at my store"? I'm not a fan of the direction they chose for 4th edition but I can't recall seeing any sales data on the reprint editions comparing them to 4th or 3rd.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Balance wrote:

A great idea they seem to have stumbled on and moved away from was that your 'class' (in the traditional sense... Fighter, Magic-User, Thief, Cleric, etc.) would be "what you do in combat" and characters would have a Background that would be "What you do outside combat" with some overlap between the two. So Noble might be a background and would open up some social skills & abilities. A Noble Fighter might be a high-born feudal knight type, while a Noble Cleric would have the skills to be a real wheeler-dealer in an organized church. Both would also have the expected fighter/cleric abilities for general combat use, and would be more 'social' characters as opposed to their companions Artisan Rogue (who can make stuff, due to the Artisan background, and is great if you need some mechanical devices tinkered with) and Gladiator Fighter (Who gets some showy combat schticks to up the fightiness, but really not much else outside performing).

The above sounds interesting although I'm not sure in the end if it'll be different than simply multiclassing in the 3rd edition fashion (to get the same skills). I guess it's more elegant to have the option to do so in your own class to a degree as opposed to borrowing another but the final result would be heavily dependent on how abusable it is.

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
it should tell WotC something that the retro editions sold faster than their latest "creations". Maybe making D&D into WoW isn't why people want to play, maybe they want something different.

Nostalgia is a powerful thing. It'd be harder to capture, but I think it would be more interesting if we could determine how much use those older books get. 1st -> 2nd -> 3rd is a relatively linear evolution of the design, while 3rd -> 4th is a bit more of a massive changeover. A lot of people are probably looking at the older editions for reference, nostalgia, or just to see what came before. It doesn't mean they'll get played.

If it was my call, 5th would use the following from 4th:

4th-style healing surges would be in the game in some fashion. Tweaked, sure, but it makes potions work great (A weak healing potion is a few HP. A regular healing potion lets the PC spend a Healing Surge to heal. Stronger is 2x surges and/or a free surge.)

Specify that HP are abstract. A long-term issue with D&D. Helps resolve age-old issues with non-magical healing, and works. Potions of Cure light don't become vendor trash.

Keep the role 'concept' in play, but less obvious.

Limit duration of effects by 'Encounter' whenever possible. Reduced bookkeeping.

Have some sort of mechanical 'hook' for each class (or family of classes) so everyone has some mechanics. Not set on the 4th Powers system, but

Keep 'Rituals' as a mechanic for longer, more involved magic spells.

Keep spellcasters able to re-use low-level spells as needed.

Keep some sort of 'respec' as a stated option, even if it requires GM approval. A character shouldn't be stuck with a mistake that makes their character not-fun.

4th has some great ideas. It's actually a lot more 'lightweight' of a ruleset in many ways than 3rd despite the formalized power structure.

 Balance wrote:
1st -> 2nd -> 3rd is a relatively linear evolution of the design, while 3rd -> 4th is a bit more of a massive changeover.

By 1st and 2nd, I'm assuming you mean the iterations of AD&D. Although some aspects of the way WotC handled 3.5 as a product line were foreshadowed by TSR's handling of AD&D 2E (kits), the major break in play style/design theory occurred across WotC's purchase of TSR. Fourth Edition, meanwhile, is simply the spirit of 3.5 taken to its logical extreme.

Sorry if it feels like I'm after you on this one, Balance. Your posts usually make a lot of sense but these are way off.

 warboss wrote:

 Balance wrote:

A great idea they seem to have stumbled on and moved away from was that your 'class' (in the traditional sense... Fighter, Magic-User, Thief, Cleric, etc.) would be "what you do in combat" and characters would have a Background that would be "What you do outside combat" with some overlap between the two. So Noble might be a background and would open up some social skills & abilities. A Noble Fighter might be a high-born feudal knight type, while a Noble Cleric would have the skills to be a real wheeler-dealer in an organized church. Both would also have the expected fighter/cleric abilities for general combat use, and would be more 'social' characters as opposed to their companions Artisan Rogue (who can make stuff, due to the Artisan background, and is great if you need some mechanical devices tinkered with) and Gladiator Fighter (Who gets some showy combat schticks to up the fightiness, but really not much else outside performing).

The above sounds interesting although I'm not sure in the end if it'll be different than simply multiclassing in the 3rd edition fashion (to get the same skills). I guess it's more elegant to have the option to do so in your own class to a degree as opposed to borrowing another but the final result would be heavily dependent on how abusable it is.

Keep in mind that this is a mix of the 2-3 playtests I've seen and read reviews of. It's a bit different from multiclassing: you get a Background every X levels. I think the most recent versions have been closer to your idea, with classes picking from 2-3 background options (At GenCon last year, Thief could choose from 'Thug' or 'Scoundrel' as a Class Option I believe. More confusingly, there was also a 'Scoundrel' Background. Backgrounds were optional, but unless the group vetoed them, you're giving away skills and cool stuff for no gain by not taking one.

I liked the overlap idea as it made characters a bit more multi-faceted the way I saw it. it kept the base classes simple by reducing or removing the need for 'Class Options' and shouldn't have had many weird combo concerns. In general, Class bonuses/abilities and Background bonuses/abilities shouldn't overlap, so no stacking concerns.

You mentioned multi-classing, which has always been a weird topic in every edition of D&D. It looks like they're trying an experiment in Next to make 'class dipping' less advantageous. The end result is a 1st level 1st-4th character is going to be closer to a 3rd or 5th level Next character. Over the first few levels, each class will get it's traditional abilities and bonuses. Consider the Ranger, which has always been a bit front-loaded with level 1 getting a bunch of skills, tracking, two-weapon fighting, archery, etc. Now these will be spread over a few levels, so taking one level of a class is not as potentially unbalancing. Spellcasters won't get their full 1st level spell-casting until they hit 3 or whatever.

DnD Next I have not followed that well to be honest, having grown disillusioned from WoTC's direction of MtG and DnD 4th ed.

Looking into the basics of DnD Next, does it look like a stripped down version of other editions melted together, giving you a core of rules that you can then use to play your own version of the game?

"Healing Surges" always sound silly to me...

I did a play test with some of the early rules and I liked it. The rules where simple and I was able do a lot in a short time. I'm not as happy with the changes they have been adding.

 Alpharius wrote:
"Healing Surges" always sound silly to me...

I had healing urges, but then I was told to buckle my pants back up . It seemed like an awesome concept to me at first, but it just seemed more like a pain than it was. I get WHY it was added (so your cleric isn't just a walking box of bandaids), but at the same time it just seemed clunky.

Speaking of D&D Next, has anyone been reading TableTitans? It's a comic by Scott Kurtz with his lab assistant Mary Cagle, and it's officially backed by Wizards of the Coast. Some of you might recognize Scott as the guy behind PvP, Blamimations, the short lived WoW comic, Ding!, and as one of the minds behind Trenches. He works for/with Penny Arcade and has been in some of the DnD Podcasts with them.

Why do so many webcomics start off as three/four panel jokes and end up taking themselves seriously over "arcs"? It's on-topic, happens in D&D as well!

 Manchu wrote:
Why do so many webcomics start off as three/four panel jokes and end up taking themselves seriously over "arcs"? It's on-topic, happens in D&D as well!

I mean if TableTitans is like that, I didn't notice it . But I think the reason why most people start off joking in a dnd campaign is because most of the people around the table are friends, and look at dnd and RPGs as games rather than interactive storytelling experiences. It also goes along with the fact that most first level games (in my experience) tend to be a bit of a joke. "Oh god, a town of 50 can't handle 10 kobolds, woe is us!" Or like in the case of Pathfinder's Rise of the Runelords, the DM has to "sing" that silly goblin song... but as the adventure matures, and the more connected to the story the characters get, the more serious things tend to become.

Idk, I'm probably just blowing smoke

 Alpharius wrote:
"Healing Surges" always sound silly to me...

In practice, they worked well. As I suggested above, it made potions that heal a percentage very workable and useful. It helped reinforce the idea that Hit Points are meant as a kind of abstract thing, not some sort of actual health measurement. I.E. losing most of one's hit points just means getting bruised, minor cuts, scratches, maybe some minor wounds. Also, it's a way of showing fatigue as a character is worn down by the stress of fighting. It's the last big hit that means a serious, life-threatening wound. With 'abstract' hit points this works pretty well. A 'tougher' character (like a higher-level PC) can take more abuse before getting that serious wound, but it's still a few spells to clear up the damage.

Pre-4e, this as a bit less clear. Characters grew tougher and required more healing for the same effect. A high-level character would barely notice the healing froma Cure Light Wounds. This bothers some people... It's a major 'game-ism' for them.

Alpharius wrote:"Healing Surges" always sound silly to me...

I like the idea behind the mechanic, in theory, but the name could be better. The healing dice was an interesting idea, but I don't know how it has changed, if at all. Also, see my sig.

nomotog wrote:I did a play test with some of the early rules and I liked it. The rules where simple and I was able do a lot in a short time. I'm not as happy with the changes they have been adding.

I had fun with the earlier iterations that we messed around with, but haven't played much since then. It was fairly clean and elegant, with a smattering of good ideas plucked from different systems and some original (to DnD) ideas mixed it. I get the impression that as time goes on that there is more edition creep (as in pet favorites concepts that may not be needed are brought in) and instead of a clean, efficient product we will get some unholy abomination of copy and paste elements.

I'm interested in Next, but I'm also fairly happy with Pathfinder at the moment so I'm not sure if I'll go "all in" for it. I think it depends what sort of support is offered outside of just a "core system", like the setting material and production values and so on.

I've run like 16 levels of 4th edition at this stage, and I think it is a good system earlier on and then becomes a bit bloated and sluggish in the higher levels. Healing surges are a bit of a tiresome mechanic in some ways because it means it's very very hard to wear a party down and let them feel "on the ropes" without spending a LOT of time in combat. Similarly, the progression for defences for enemies is a bit out of whack and some have too many hit points and not enough variety in what they do. I'm told this was fixed with the Monster's Vault but to be honest I wasn't willing to go and buy another book after two monster manual's worth.

What I do hope they keep is some of the core setting ideas from 4th. The Primordials, the new cosmology, the increased relevance of the Fey, all of these are Very Good Things.

 Da Boss wrote:
Healing surges are a bit of a tiresome mechanic in some ways because it means it's very very hard to wear a party down and let them feel "on the ropes" without spending a LOT of time in combat.

3.5/4E PCs are basically fantasy-genre superheroes.

 Da Boss wrote:
What I do hope they keep is some of the core setting ideas from 4th. The Primordials, the new cosmology, the increased relevance of the Fey, all of these are Very Good Things.

Yeah, I love that stuff -- I'm much happier with 4E Cosmology.

 Ahtman wrote:
instead of a clean, efficient product we will get some unholy abomination of copy and paste elements.

Those are why WotC calls the "advanced" rules (including, I kid you not, prospective facing rules with miniatures).

 Manchu wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
Healing surges are a bit of a tiresome mechanic in some ways because it means it's very very hard to wear a party down and let them feel "on the ropes" without spending a LOT of time in combat.

3.5/4E PCs are basically fantasy-genre superheroes.

 Da Boss wrote:
What I do hope they keep is some of the core setting ideas from 4th. The Primordials, the new cosmology, the increased relevance of the Fey, all of these are Very Good Things.

Yeah, I love that stuff -- I'm much happier with 4E Cosmology.

 Ahtman wrote:
instead of a clean, efficient product we will get some unholy abomination of copy and paste elements.

Those are why WotC calls the "advanced" rules (including, I kid you not, prospective facing rules with miniatures).

At least at the start, they seemed to be afraid of anything that could be associated with 4ED. It's lessened, but I still get the feeling that they are trying to distance themselves as far away from it as they can. That can be good or bad depending on your feelings. (My feeling is that 4ed killed D&D, so even it's good ideas carry the stink of death.)