5th edition D&D notes
So....
Had our playtest session of 5th edition D&D;
Just some thoughts;
(let's first start with, that our "acting GM" changed many rules because things did not seem to make sense.
Bad excuse, if it's a playtest, rules should be tested as written..not what you make of it!
If they are truly bad, the player's will know by experiencing it, not because the GM thought the 3.5 rules work better in those portions)
- System LOOKS nice at first. many nice ideas, makes you think they did something right.
You have a background that gives a skill package of trained skills relating to it and a special feature.
Unfortunately, the features of half the characters had no in game use with the playtest as written.
The other half had features that made them just that more powerful.
Then a "Theme" you can choose for your character, which apparently takes the place of feats.
You can get some good ones, but also rather bad ones..
As "healer" cleric, I got stuck with making healing potions through herbalism.
That was working well, as it enforced me to spend a lot of time and resources to make potions that only heal 1d8, and my spells got drained almost every combat for healing.
The cleric simply did not work for me.
The healer is a required addition, but having cool spells being constantly sucked up into healing is even worse.
The wizard has nasty spells at will, including a magic missile (auto hit) and a freeze spell (granting combat advantage and a speed of 0).
I only have a radiant attack spell, that seems to be almost like giving me a crossbow, but with unlimited ammo.
Since spells are used for healing, it's all I do.
Wizards have more at will, so can vary in effects even when "daily" powers are done.
Other things seem well designed, just execution breaks a lot.
In general;
- Backgrounds as a skill package, great idea! It's a nice feature, and makes it easier then choosing a bunch of skills or whatever.
You have a specific skill set which makes sense, based on a background.
- Themes; idea is nice, as it gives a focus within a class you have chosen.
It has some serious balance issues however, and makes you jealous for someone else having the cool toys.
- stats do not get raised during the game. AC is static, as are attack bonuses.
Saves are based on characteristics.
Nothing new, and feels like proficiency checks but mixed with saves for spells.
Constitution checks seem to be crammed in a lot now, especially for death saves and the like.
When your below 0, you can go negative equal to your constitution.
Each round make a check, and if 10 or more you do not bleed, but need to check every round.
I think this doesn't work so well, with a high CON score you don't really feel like your in danger.
Low score, and your so feeble you get punished rather harshly with LOW HP and very LOW chances of surviving when below 0. (as compared to being almost impossible to fail at checks for bleeding, which can only result in waiting for the 20 to recover)
When doing a short rest, you can heal with your Hitdie + CON using a healer's kit.
Good part is that healer's kit actually get more use, but will not work in combat other then to stabilise.
- Advantage/disadvantage mechanic seems nice...but can be a bit of a very HIGH advantage/disadvantage.
Rather then static -2 or +2, you increase or decrease chances by rolling a second d20.
If you have advantage, the highest of the 2 will be counted.
If you have disadvantage, you get the lowest die.
Not sure if I like this, in practice it seems to be a MUCH bigger difference then giving a +2 bonus/penalty. It can be very variable, but tends to favour a higher miss or hit chance.
Since at certain points, monsters automatically get advantage ALL the time, due to higher numbers v.s. less players. Well...their chances are favoured a bit too much.
Rogues require advantage for their sneak attack, but as hiding isn't a trick you can likely do very often you rely on other things.
Freezing of the wizard was a very big thing to give advantage, not sure if that really was supposed to be like that though. (but in this case, it seemed like advantage is almost given away for free, while it has a very HIGH impact)
Disadvantage is the other side however.
Attack of opportunity is gone, and you now get a disadvantage for your next attack.
How this works if you first attack and then move, makes it seem like an easy get-away.
We simply kept track, but the next round your better off not attacking and just doing something different. (because no disadvantage for skill checks and healing!)
Seems silly and abusable.
Also they suddenly gave a rather silly bit to encourage "improvisation", by giving player's a check for a skill to do something to help out. (mostly to give an advantage or disadvantage)
Improv is not new however, it's as old as methusalem, and 2nd edition was likewise encouraging it. Hearing this is such an "awesome new mechanic" to like about 5th edition makes me die a little inside..
It's good you seem to get something every level, but with just 3 levels to test, it's hard to say how that further develops.
The healer had some awesome new stuff, but never used...too dangerous as it attacks all creatures, including allies around you.
So as cleric I better stay away from the people I support if I want to use it?
Turn undead just pushes things away, no damage. Just keeps them out of combat until hit.
Okay I guess, usefull. But needs undead to fight.
Why not a channel divinity that does not damage friends, or is undead only? I'm a healer remember? get me awesome heal the party stuff?
Why did it feel everyone was having fun but me?
may be I didn't like the style of the GM at all, though the system "problems" didn't help either.
On a last note;
Dodge was also weird...it takes an action to try and avoid all damage with a dodge action.
but can only be done if you not yet acted this turn.
Wierd..and stupid, shouldn't you have the advantage if your initiative is higher?
May have been implemented wrong by our GM.
The GM this time was someone who not normally is in the GM's seat, and adjustments made may have caused some undesired bias.
Overall it looks like a nice new touch, but not a direction i agree with or would really like personally.
Most seems rather bland mechanic wise, and not really much of note except for the (dis)advantage bit which was interesting (but can be flawed if stuck to everything, and given away too easily too the point the whole combat is about getting it, to abuse for more sneak attack damage (on top of better hitting).
Background mechanic is nice, but not too original, used in 2nd edition and many other rpg's. It's an improvement they should keep though.
But feel so much was borrowed from 2nd edition, I think they just want to cater old gamers more then "new" players.
Theme is..well interesting, and better then choosing lists of feats.
Should also reduce min/maxing and broken feat combinations, though some themes are clearly better then others at this point.
How this will develop?
No idea, it has some nice ideas..but also ideas I would toss out..
No sign of "modularity" in the game, but playtest is very limiting with even a character gen missing.
(in fact, not even how stats are calculated are explained anywhere, or if the human even gets any race benefits at all (!). There seems to be a favoured weapon system that gives races an increase in die size for a favoured weapon, but you need to check online to even know this)
Stop keeping so many secrets on the mechanics...it's annoying :\
Could be it's a safety mechanism to keep the character gen secret as to not have player's get away with the game before buying it, could also be they simply first want to get that character gen finalised.
If it's the first; player's will not know if the game really works well, as it's all just premade and does not give room for free choice or testing balance between paths/choices. (With such choices it is where most of the min/maxing is done)
If it's the second; They still could have explained some rational on where numbers come from. It's nice to know some background, rather then mysterious precalced numbers with no clear indication where extra bonuses for to hit or damage suddenly pop out from.
Also...the prechosen spells are rubbish..
Especially in the order you get them per level, if you can have a shield..I rather take it first then some damaging power most effective for undead.
(with a healer theme, I would expect buffing to be prioritised above a undead attack power)
Besides, not like we actually saw any undead so far.
Had our playtest session of 5th edition D&D;
Just some thoughts;
(let's first start with, that our "acting GM" changed many rules because things did not seem to make sense.
Bad excuse, if it's a playtest, rules should be tested as written..not what you make of it!
If they are truly bad, the player's will know by experiencing it, not because the GM thought the 3.5 rules work better in those portions)
- System LOOKS nice at first. many nice ideas, makes you think they did something right.
You have a background that gives a skill package of trained skills relating to it and a special feature.
Unfortunately, the features of half the characters had no in game use with the playtest as written.
The other half had features that made them just that more powerful.
Then a "Theme" you can choose for your character, which apparently takes the place of feats.
You can get some good ones, but also rather bad ones..
As "healer" cleric, I got stuck with making healing potions through herbalism.
That was working well, as it enforced me to spend a lot of time and resources to make potions that only heal 1d8, and my spells got drained almost every combat for healing.
The cleric simply did not work for me.
The healer is a required addition, but having cool spells being constantly sucked up into healing is even worse.
The wizard has nasty spells at will, including a magic missile (auto hit) and a freeze spell (granting combat advantage and a speed of 0).
I only have a radiant attack spell, that seems to be almost like giving me a crossbow, but with unlimited ammo.
Since spells are used for healing, it's all I do.
Wizards have more at will, so can vary in effects even when "daily" powers are done.
Other things seem well designed, just execution breaks a lot.
In general;
- Backgrounds as a skill package, great idea! It's a nice feature, and makes it easier then choosing a bunch of skills or whatever.
You have a specific skill set which makes sense, based on a background.
- Themes; idea is nice, as it gives a focus within a class you have chosen.
It has some serious balance issues however, and makes you jealous for someone else having the cool toys.
- stats do not get raised during the game. AC is static, as are attack bonuses.
Saves are based on characteristics.
Nothing new, and feels like proficiency checks but mixed with saves for spells.
Constitution checks seem to be crammed in a lot now, especially for death saves and the like.
When your below 0, you can go negative equal to your constitution.
Each round make a check, and if 10 or more you do not bleed, but need to check every round.
I think this doesn't work so well, with a high CON score you don't really feel like your in danger.
Low score, and your so feeble you get punished rather harshly with LOW HP and very LOW chances of surviving when below 0. (as compared to being almost impossible to fail at checks for bleeding, which can only result in waiting for the 20 to recover)
When doing a short rest, you can heal with your Hitdie + CON using a healer's kit.
Good part is that healer's kit actually get more use, but will not work in combat other then to stabilise.
- Advantage/disadvantage mechanic seems nice...but can be a bit of a very HIGH advantage/disadvantage.
Rather then static -2 or +2, you increase or decrease chances by rolling a second d20.
If you have advantage, the highest of the 2 will be counted.
If you have disadvantage, you get the lowest die.
Not sure if I like this, in practice it seems to be a MUCH bigger difference then giving a +2 bonus/penalty. It can be very variable, but tends to favour a higher miss or hit chance.
Since at certain points, monsters automatically get advantage ALL the time, due to higher numbers v.s. less players. Well...their chances are favoured a bit too much.
Rogues require advantage for their sneak attack, but as hiding isn't a trick you can likely do very often you rely on other things.
Freezing of the wizard was a very big thing to give advantage, not sure if that really was supposed to be like that though. (but in this case, it seemed like advantage is almost given away for free, while it has a very HIGH impact)
Disadvantage is the other side however.
Attack of opportunity is gone, and you now get a disadvantage for your next attack.
How this works if you first attack and then move, makes it seem like an easy get-away.
We simply kept track, but the next round your better off not attacking and just doing something different. (because no disadvantage for skill checks and healing!)
Seems silly and abusable.
Also they suddenly gave a rather silly bit to encourage "improvisation", by giving player's a check for a skill to do something to help out. (mostly to give an advantage or disadvantage)
Improv is not new however, it's as old as methusalem, and 2nd edition was likewise encouraging it. Hearing this is such an "awesome new mechanic" to like about 5th edition makes me die a little inside..
It's good you seem to get something every level, but with just 3 levels to test, it's hard to say how that further develops.
The healer had some awesome new stuff, but never used...too dangerous as it attacks all creatures, including allies around you.
So as cleric I better stay away from the people I support if I want to use it?
Turn undead just pushes things away, no damage. Just keeps them out of combat until hit.
Okay I guess, usefull. But needs undead to fight.
Why not a channel divinity that does not damage friends, or is undead only? I'm a healer remember? get me awesome heal the party stuff?
Why did it feel everyone was having fun but me?
may be I didn't like the style of the GM at all, though the system "problems" didn't help either.
On a last note;
Dodge was also weird...it takes an action to try and avoid all damage with a dodge action.
but can only be done if you not yet acted this turn.
Wierd..and stupid, shouldn't you have the advantage if your initiative is higher?
May have been implemented wrong by our GM.
The GM this time was someone who not normally is in the GM's seat, and adjustments made may have caused some undesired bias.
Overall it looks like a nice new touch, but not a direction i agree with or would really like personally.
Most seems rather bland mechanic wise, and not really much of note except for the (dis)advantage bit which was interesting (but can be flawed if stuck to everything, and given away too easily too the point the whole combat is about getting it, to abuse for more sneak attack damage (on top of better hitting).
Background mechanic is nice, but not too original, used in 2nd edition and many other rpg's. It's an improvement they should keep though.
But feel so much was borrowed from 2nd edition, I think they just want to cater old gamers more then "new" players.
Theme is..well interesting, and better then choosing lists of feats.
Should also reduce min/maxing and broken feat combinations, though some themes are clearly better then others at this point.
How this will develop?
No idea, it has some nice ideas..but also ideas I would toss out..
No sign of "modularity" in the game, but playtest is very limiting with even a character gen missing.
(in fact, not even how stats are calculated are explained anywhere, or if the human even gets any race benefits at all (!). There seems to be a favoured weapon system that gives races an increase in die size for a favoured weapon, but you need to check online to even know this)
Stop keeping so many secrets on the mechanics...it's annoying :\
Could be it's a safety mechanism to keep the character gen secret as to not have player's get away with the game before buying it, could also be they simply first want to get that character gen finalised.
If it's the first; player's will not know if the game really works well, as it's all just premade and does not give room for free choice or testing balance between paths/choices. (With such choices it is where most of the min/maxing is done)
If it's the second; They still could have explained some rational on where numbers come from. It's nice to know some background, rather then mysterious precalced numbers with no clear indication where extra bonuses for to hit or damage suddenly pop out from.
Also...the prechosen spells are rubbish..
Especially in the order you get them per level, if you can have a shield..I rather take it first then some damaging power most effective for undead.
(with a healer theme, I would expect buffing to be prioritised above a undead attack power)
Besides, not like we actually saw any undead so far.