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 Da Boss wrote:
Spells are definitely interruptable in 3.X and onwards, and moreso in Pathfinder than the others. If someone is standing in melee range of you and you try to cast, you have to take a check and if you fail you can get attacked in some versions or lose the spell in others. In Pathfinder it's actually pretty hard to pass those checks sometimes, and fighter types can get a "step up" ability to stop you from five foot stepping away. Feats like "disruptive" up the DC of the concentration check as well.

In 4th, they weren't really interruptable specifically, but the rules included a lot of interrupt or redirecting mechanics to allow you to deal with spells. The other issue is that of course in that edition everyone had "powers", not just the wizards, so the power difference between classes generally wasn't so big.

I found the 5th edition interruption rules quite dramatic in the playtest. A player blinded a Beholder, interrupting it's Flesh to Stone effect that it had inflicted on our Gnome Barbarian, and he reanimated and gutted the unlucky Beholder.

Concentration checks are a joke. D20+max ranks+high modifier made them irrelevant in most of my games. I believe the core PHB even had feats that allowed a caster to ignore many of the penalties associated with casting in combat. I know there were several that boosted concentration checks and they were always mandatory.

 pretre wrote:
Could you interrupt casting in Basic/1st/2nd? It's been a while.

Definitely in 1st - it all depends upon the initiative roll and how many segments it takes to cast the spell!

 Sinful Hero wrote:
I know there were several that boosted concentration checks and they were always mandatory.

A couple prestige classes granted it as well. It was always something you should go for.


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 Alpharius wrote:

 pretre wrote:
Could you interrupt casting in Basic/1st/2nd? It's been a while.

Definitely in 1st - it all depends upon the initiative roll and how many segments it takes to cast the spell!

Oh man, I forgot about segments. Good times.

@Alpharius: stop reading posts about 5E and go read it dude!

In the meantime, here's an interesting blog entry about Advantage in 5E ...

This mechanic skews an otherwise flat distribution (a d20 of course has 5% probability of landing on each number) to one side.

The net impact is interesting, in that the equivalent bonus depends on what you need to roll. For advantaged rolls, at the low end (because you're picking the best of two), the equivalent bonus can be as large as about +5, meaning your odds of rolling that number or higher are about 25% higher with advantage.

It's going to take some thought and practice to get a feel for the appropriate time to grant advantage/disadvantage.

 Manchu wrote:
@Buzzsaw:

 Buzzsaw wrote:
for I understand that you are a man in love

Speaking of love and emotional commitments: 4E is "by far and away" your favorite edition ...

Oh honey...

I hate to explain something funny, but when i went through manchu's previous statements, it's because he responded to my claim of "investing quite a lot of emotion" with "laughy-face Seriously what?"

Hence the humor: by going through his previous statements, I A) established an incongruity, and 2) showed how there was no reasonable way to reconcile the incongruity.

Contrariwise, going through my earlier statements to... uh, 1) establish my point of view and B) that... demonstrate that my PoV has remained constant?

If one wants to argue that I consider 4e the superior product? Go right ahead, I very clearly do. Think I take them to bed to have my way with it? ... That would be silly. (NSFW)

Ultimately an argument is like a trial, and there are two ways to look at the matter. Back in my law school days I had plenty of classmates who thought that the point of a trial was scoring points, a game, of legal legerdemain and verbal one-upsmanship. I belive it to be something different: an argument is a crucible, in it we burn away irrelevancies until we are left with a pure product, the truth.

So let's burn away the irrelevancies and focus on the one thing, the one answer that Manchu either cannot or will not provide but that underlies the entire point. How do you get from A to B?
A

 Manchu wrote:
You are right, however, that we agree that the Original. First, Second, Third, and Fifth Editions of D&D are ultimately incompatible with Fourth Edition.

B

 Manchu wrote:
My opinion was that 5E could not be played like you play 4E. Now I think it can be. My opinion changed. I do not agree with you that my DM cheated or played the game wrong in the goblin example. This is because 5E can also be played in ways other than your style of playing 4E.

To say "My opinion changed" tells us nothing about the path. Something, something, bridges these two statements, but what is it?

Some days ago, I contended that "The idea that 5e is made more like 4e with the inclusion of healing surges is like the idea that 40k would be more like WM/H by incorporating some form of the focus-allocation system. [...] 4e is no more a collection of certain specific elements (like healing surges, or at-will powers or whatnot) then WM/H is the focus/fury mechanic."

In time Manchu would agreed completely, going further even to state "that the Original. First, Second, Third, and Fifth Editions of D&D are ultimately incompatible with Fourth Edition."

He was right and we were in complete agreement: there is something fundamentally different about 4e, a fundamental, underlying design decision that has implications in design at all levels. Don't believe me, take a read of this thread. It's a response to the article by Robert J. Schwalb talking up 5e. It's 30+ pages long and illustrates, with many, many examples, of what 4e players think of 4e and what makes it great.

In trying to reconcile Manchu's statements, in trying to bridge the gap, the only thing that makes any sense is... well, something that Manchu and I also agreed on;

 Manchu wrote:

 Buzzsaw wrote:
What's happening is that our perspectives are so divergent that there are things that you find good and well done, that I find tedious and inept.

Yep, I've been explaining that ITT for something like a month or more.

So, if that is true (and I very much think it is), everything becomes clear. When Manchu says "5E [can] be played as a permissive skirmish miniatures/board game with or without room for rulings like 3E and 4E", we must understand "like... 4E" not to means anything like the 4e that 4e fans like. What is meant is that, in order to emulate 4e "5E could be stripped of roleplay and made into a miniatures skirmish game", that 4e is "super chess" and so forth.

In other words, when Manchu says that "I think [5e] can be [played like you play 4E].", he... kinda doesn't mean much of anything. He knows that 4e is a whole lot more then just "a miniatures skirmish game" or a version of D&D "stripped of roleplay", heck just read his post directed at Steamdragon.

Now it's all well and fun to have a go at Manchu's arguments and have happy fun link time, but there is something serious here addressed to people that are 4e fans;

Don't be confused that Manchu is saying "My opinion was that 5E could not be played like you play 4E. Now I think it can be": it's rather clear this doesn't mean much of anything that a 4e player thinks of as embodying 4e. It's given away with the next sentences: "I do not agree with you that my DM cheated or played the game wrong in the goblin example. This is because 5E can also be played in ways other than your style of playing 4E."

For something to be like 4e, in even the most cursory regard, explicit rules have to... be rules. As I pointed out first with regards to movement, the disengage action, and then with regard to occupied spaces, Manchu's example is an example of getting the rules wrong.

If you liked 4e for being 4e, read the free PDF. If you like the same elements of 4e that I do the likely outcome is to realize that 5e is severely tactically lacking, fights fairly aggressively to remove the heroic mode of play, embraces mechanics that were once happily buried for some classes and strips complexity from other classes.

Well, I have decided to "review" 5E by playing it in addition to reading it/discussing the text. Fortunately, I know a good amount of people who have had the time and the enthusiasm to make this possible. Tonight, I wrapped my second session of 5E. Different group, new adventure, new character, played over skype.

I have played Labyrinth Lord and Swords & Wizardry (OSR retroclones) online with most of these guys in the past. They are a very solid bunch of OSR players and to my knowledge they focus on RPGs rather than board games or war games. Unlike with my first session, where we dove into the Starter Set, this DM ran things entirely off the cuff. Now the primary reason I myself began experimenting with improv DMing (years ago, using 3.5) was to practice avoiding railroading players. But I quickly discovered its logistical advantages. Adults have to take whatever opportunity they get to roll dice. A week night session scheduled the day before with five adult players with full time jobs in four different time zones might only be possible if you can swing no prep -- and especially when the DM has two little ones.

At the same time, this style entails its own skill set and can be pretty tricky, emphatically so when it comes to rules-heavy games like 3E/PF and 4E that are best played with "designed" encounters. I am pleased to report, although it comes as little surprise, that the 5E rules did not "fight" the DM on this. And despite a session half as long as my first one (played in-person with guys who have strong board gaming and war gaming cred, using a published module on a regularly-scheduled gaming night) we covered approximately twice as much adventuring.

Just like with the first session, when I played a Dwarven Wizard, I decided to play what some might consider a weird "build" -- a Dwarven Rogue. Now whatever one might argue about the Dwarven Wizard (who can cast in medium armor with no penalties at first level, as long as you play a Mountain Dwarf), the Dwarven Rogue is definitely sub-optimal compared to, say, the Halfling Rogue. I am not normally a min/maxer although I certainly felt the pressure to do it in 3E/4E. I felt no hesitation going with this in 5E, however, because the high score in the standard array is 15 (+2), which is totally respectable thanks to the Proficiency mechanic and standard DCs. I'd be okay with this even if we were playing in the "rules, not rulings" style.

Indeed, 5E characters feel very capable. Unlike the characters I have played in OSR games, I think 5E PCs could go out looking for trouble. The guys even mentioned they thought the power level of first level spells was maybe too high. It struck me that first level spells might be more akin to 4E-style first level daily powers. Our Wizard seemed to prove the point by killing two Goblins with Magic Missile. Sure seemed like artillery to me!

Now here's my secret -- after feeling like I played the first session expecting old school D&D, I decided to go into my second session looking at things from a 3E/4E point of view. I didn't push anything on the others; I just wanted to see how they would handle a rule set that can support bonus actions, opportunity attacks, and generally more finely-regulated structured time in combat. I was not shocked or really even disappointed that we didn't end up using these mechanics except on one issue: the DM split the the scene during combat.

What I mean is, we were in initiative fighting the two Goblins mentioned above. The Elf Fighter went first and moved to outflank. Then the goblins shot at us. Then our Wizard fried them. At that point, combat was pretty much over -- except that the DM returned to the Elf Fighter (that is, went back to the top of initiative) who had managed to sneak up on a Hobgoblin in the brush. The Elf went, then the Hobgoblin, then the Elf again. Wait a minute? What about everyone else?

I spoke to the DM very briefly about this after the session. He told us he was thinking of it cinematically: the scene had shifted to one between the Elf and the Hobgoblin, especially considering the Elf had moved to outflank. Indeed the Hobgoblin was only there because the Elf had outflanked (improv DMing). That's a perfectly reasonable old school way of doing things. But my character never had a chance to try anything.

He got hit with a goblin arrow but only lost 4 of 10 HP. If I had a turn, you can bet I would have followed up with my Elf buddy to continue the sweep and maybe gotten a piece of the action. The thing is, as I mentioned above, my PC felt capable so I wanted to get stuck in. If I had just lost 4 HP in an old school game, especially as a Thief, I would be tremendously relieved to have missed out (if I was even still conscious/alive) on any further violence. But not so in 5E. This is the first time I felt the 5E design seem to pull a bit to the 3E/4E side of things, although not hard.

Or this could just be a case of "aw, my guy didn't get to try something cool." All the same, it was a very fun session. We discovered and looted an ancient tomb, fought some stinking Golinoids, and chatted up some NPCs. That's two for two fun sessions, played in different styles with different groups, which is a good scorecard for a game.

This second session was especially good on the RP front. One of the benefits to improv DMing is that the players are not so focused on "beating" or "figuring out" the adventure so there can be more emphasis on in-character interaction. In my first session there was very little character-driven RP. This time, we did more of that. Characterization takes time but I feel like, even from a DM perspective, RPGing really gets good when players stop talking to the DM and amongst themselves -- and PCs start talking to PCs and NPCs. That's where I want to get with 5E or any RPG.

I like the cinematic approach. We've done it before in games. And it's our DMs way of steering the experience without railroading.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also! This idea of Improv DMing sounds like it lends itself well to 5th. It was tough to do anything but "just as planned" in 4th for me.

@Manchu.
I think the Improv part is actually outside of edition. Ignoring rules for narrative effect and improving adventures is a staple of many DMs and I don't think that any system or edition has a monopoly on that. It may be more difficult to do when balancing encounters, but as a DM I've done it in 1st through 4th (looking forward to 5th), along with WoD and other RPGs.

More important to the actual discussion is your feelings of the mechanics of what happened. After all, ruling is universal; you can do that with any ruleset. Rules interactions are unique. I find those very interesting. The fact that combat was over so quickly is very instructive. I'm wondering if the fighter felt as powerful or just the wizard. I'll have to try it myself to see how things go or if that was a fluke.

Speaking of which, how is the monster creation, in 4E it was like a breeze, 3E was far more messy, how would you think it feels now?

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Speaking of which, how is the monster creation, in 4E it was like a breeze, 3E was far more messy, how would you think it feels now?

I'm not sure if that info is released yet.

 melkorthetonedeaf wrote:
This idea of Improv DMing sounds like it lends itself well to 5th. It was tough to do anything but "just as planned" in 4th for me.

Agreed on all points. I never had much success with improv DMing 4E because encounter balance is such a big part of combat. It would probably take deep familiarity with the 4E monster manuals and plenty of experience with XP budgets. IME a significantly unbalanced 4E combat feels like putting on a tuxedo to walk the dog ... or showing up at court in a swimsuit.

 pretre wrote:
I don't think that any system or edition has a monopoly on that.

Sure. As I mentioned above, I started practicing these skills by running 3.5. Since then, I tried them with PF, 4E, Mouse Guard, WEG Star Wars, B/X, Swords & Wizardry, Labyrinth Lord, and now 5E. I think it was more difficult with 3E and 4E than, for example, with B/X. I am not sure yet where 5E falls. I think the question of whether spells are too powerful in 5E probably came up because fighting two Goblins and an ad hoc Hobgoblin is probably not an ideally balanced encounter.

 pretre wrote:
I'm wondering if the fighter felt as powerful or just the wizard. I'll have to try it myself to see how things go or if that was a fluke.

I will ask and report back.

How many players in the party? That seems like a low-load for most balanced parties in any system unless they have class-levels or the equivalent. (Also, keeping in mind the Hob wasn't even part of the encounter originally.)

Four party members:

- Dwarf Cleric
- Dwarf Rogue
- Elf Fighter
- Human Wizard

Yeah that's a super light encounter unless goblins got a lot more badass in 5th.

Here are some further thoughts about my second session of 5E and about initiative in 5E. As a reference, the characters are:

- Kilgar, a Dwarf Cleric
- Brother Jug, a Dwarf Rogue (me)
- Kanos, an Elf Fighter
- Fenstred, a Human Wizard

In preface, I am not pursuing the "correct" answer. To begin with, the PDF does not establish a hard rule on initiative. I do not think it goes into enough detail to even suggest a hard rule. I therefore believe the call the DM made during play was "correct" precisely for that reason. It is the DM's purview to make rulings. This is especially significant in the context of improv-style DMing. My thoughts here are therefore purely "academic" and are not a proposal for laying down a hard rule for future our sessions much less an argument for how 5E "should" be played at every table.

Initiative forms the skeleton of structured time. The PDF states or implies three basic principles about initiative: First, the players roll for initiative when combat begins. Second, initiative order remains the same from turn to turn throughout the combat. Third -- and this is mere implication -- initiative ends when combat ends.

The most obvious question is how to define "combat." The PDF implies a circular definition: combat begins when initiative is rolled and initiative is rolled when combat begins. As a matter of reasoning, however, we can say that combat, whatever it might be, is what triggers the initiative mechanic. So even on this fundamental question, 5E currently requires a DM ruling based on the narrative circumstances. Importantly, surprise is encompassed by initiative: the order is already determined but surprised PCs/NPCs/Monsters cannot take any action on their turn in the first round.

With these elementary insights, I can start analyzing the DM's call. The most important fact from "behind the screen" is that the Hobgoblin did not exist out of game until Fenstred killed the two Goblins. That is to say, the DM likely thought the combat that triggered initiative was over. In this case, the DM picked the narrative back up on a beat that triggered a new inititiative: Kanos spotted the Hobgoblin from his hiding place in the brush, which was the result of improv DMing. I believe the DM made a call that Kanos automatically had initiative because he was in hiding. But even so, the surprised Hobgoblin would not be able to act on the first round (which, as I recall, he didn't). The second round would therefore begin with Kanos's next turn.

Here is how it looked to me from the other side of the screen: Fenstred killed the Goblins and then (I thought) Kilgar took his turn to move and make a Wisdom (Medicine) check on Brother Jug. In my understanding, we were still in initiative. I even mentioned that Kilgar made the check as his action when the DM asked what the Medicine skill does. Next, the DM narrated Kanos spotting the Hobgoblin and asked for an attack roll with advantage.* This is where I became confused: if this was Kanos's turn again, then we were on the second round of combat. But what happened to Brother Jug's turn? When the DM asked for the second attack roll from Kanos, I was even more confused: what happened to Fenstred, Kilgar, and Brother Jug's turns on the second round?

Now here is my Monday morning quarterback DMing, assuming two combats. According to the PDF, surprising an opponent does not mean you have top initiative. So, when Kanos spots the Hobgoblin, I ask for him to roll initiative. This (a) let's all the players know that the previous combat has ended and a new combat has begun and (b) clarifies who is involved in the new combat. I think this is especially important because it allows the players and the DM to avoid metagaming. While the players know that a new combat is beginning, do the PCs know it, too? In this case, both Kanos and the Hobgoblin were heretofore silent. Fenstred, Kilgar, and Brother Jug would not know that Kanos had spotted another enemy. The question is, what would they (not the players) do given Kanos had not come back?

It obviously depends on how much time had passed. This is where starting a new combat becomes less inefficient than continuing the established one. Once the players are not in initiative, they no longer know (without asking the DM) precisely how much time passes in-game from narrative moment to moment. Reasoning from the narrative at issue, Kanos spotted the Hobgoblin either right as the Goblins died or immediately thereafter. Here again, the DM made a call (probably unconsciously). But that ruling could be obviated by the initiative rule.

If this was an encounter planned by the DM beforehand, involving two Goblins and one Hobgoblin, Fenstred killing the two Goblins probably would not have ended the first combat and therefore Kanos spotting the Hobgoblin would not have started the next combat. There would have been only one combat, where Fenstred killed the two Goblins in one six-second interval and Kanos attacked the Hobgoblin** at the top of the following six-second interval. After Kanos took his first shot at the Hobgoblin, initiative would pass to Fenstred, Kilgar, and Brother Jug. At that point, the other players would consider whether to press the attack or if their PCs even know to do so. My idea was that Brother Jug would charge into the brush to support Kanos because I had characterized him earlier in the session as working this way with Kanos: acting as noisy bait to provide his comrade with a clear shot. The DM and the players probably knew/assumed Kanos did not need help -- but that has nothing to do with how the characters would act.

Okay -- so that's the academic part -- now the reality check: as the DM asked me, did he break the game? Absolutely not, not even close. This was a few minutes of a two-hour session. The only reason I noticed it at all was because the "shape" of the 5E rules suggests that the players should be seizing and using the mechanics, unlike in an OSR game where the players just narrate what their PCs attempt. And this was our first combat with a new system so of course I was scrutinizing it like a laser beam for the purposes of getting acquainted with 5E. Mearls, et alia, have been designing this game for a long time, suggesting they probably thought about every little nuance (I therefore assume apparent lacunae are intended), and I am just eager to sink my teeth into it!

* Surprise does not confer advantage on combat roles. The benefit for surprise is being able to act on a turn when your opponents cannot.
** All other things being equal. In the actual session, the Hobgoblin did not attack with the Goblins because he did not yet exist out of game.

I'm not a fan of new initiatives that close together. I would have just left it in initiative and gone from there. Thanks for the report though.

I am. The other PCs wouldn't have even known there was another combat taking place. I think the DM ran it well.

I hadn't even gotten to the combat section of the PDF, but the initiative rules seem clunky. I've done away with initiative altogether before in Pathfinder by just ranking everyone's Dex mod or conferring some bonus or another.

Why, you ask? Anarchy. That's why.

It is tricky because there really are two ways to look at it:

Here's the factual out-of-game chronology: the DM made up one combat, let's call it Encounter 1, with all the PCs and two Goblins and immediately after that combat ended (with the death of the two Goblins) he made up another combat, Encounter 2, with Kanos and the Hobgoblin.

In my experience, the DM announces a combat by calling for initiative from the players involved. This is a matter of practical etiquette. I did not know there was a new combat, or that I was not involved, because the DM did not say as much. At least one other player (the guy playing Kanos) said he assumed it was two encounters in play. He probably was also thinking of it 'cinematically.' The issue with cinematic thinking is a good director knows characters who aren't on the screen at the moment are still doing things. Not breaking back-to-back encounters into multiple instances of initiative helps the DM keep that in mind.

Tiefling preview:

More tieflings!

The art on these pages has been pretty bad IMO.

You're not a fan of the new style?

Here is the dwarf for comparison:




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 pretre wrote:
You're not a fan of the new style?

No I just think the Tiefling pages look unfinished and boring.

I guess I'll wait for the whole thing. When are the real books coming out?

See OP for all Amazon release dates.

I'll admit it - I hate Tieflings.

 Alpharius wrote:
I'll admit it - I hate Tieflings.

Everyone does. It's ok.

Ha!

Nice one - and I appreciate it!

I just wish they would put something else in the core books. Unfortunately, they appeal to all the Edgemasters out there because it speaks to their own dark, twisted soul and ostracism from "normal" society.

Or some people just like Tieflings... I was also a fan of Aasimar.

...there's (at least) one in every crowd...