D&DNext: Playtest Review

Seerow · Post by **Seerow** » Sat May 26, 2012 5:06 am

But just mathematically, in AD&D and BD&D backstab was +4 to hit and +1d8 damage, now it's ~+4 and +1d6, only most monsters have far more hit points. This is a worse backstab than oldschool, and far worse than 3e where you can get three attacks before they stop taking sneak damage at first level. The extra dice progression means little on the single attack limit. It's just so weak.

Your arguments about scaling hold true for every other class in the play test though. Nobody gets multiple attacks. Spellcaster damage doesn't scale with level (except I think Magic Missile?). Fact is by level 3 a rogue using sneak attack has the highest damage attack of just about any other character of that level that we have seen. All he needs is some way to set up to get advantage every round.

I mean consider, the 3rd level fighter gets 2d6+8 (average: 15) damage, the 3rd level rogue has 1d8+3d6+3 (Average: 18). Even a cleric blowing his best damaging spells is getting like 4d6+3, and he can only do that so many times per day.

Edit: As to how the rogue gets advantage all the time, hell if I know. I also didn't notice the lack of flanking at first. Either way, we all know by the time the game goes live there will be at least one, more likely a dozen, ways of getting advantage reliably, even before going to the "BS your DM into getting advantage" thing. If nothing else we'll end up with a first or second level spell that will grant advantage for a minute or so, which is all it takes.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat May 26, 2012 5:17 am

Sashi wrote:There is a standard action called "hustle" which is (I shit you not) "you move your speed"

WTF? Even 3E had "You can do a move action as a standard action".

Yeah, the way they did it is that you get to "walk" every round in addition to your action. So by "hustling", you get to move your speed twice: once by walking and once by hustling. This is incredibly counterintuitive (and gets back to the generic problem of "jumping with a walking start" from these rules).

Obviously, the way it should work is that you have a regular move that you can do every round, and taking the Hustle action doubles that move. So you would be doing a "Hustle Move", rather than doing a "Walk + Hustle". Not game mechanically different, just something that you can explain to people conceptually without having their brains attempt to escape through rage hols in their ears.

-Username17

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat May 26, 2012 6:00 am

Ravengm wrote:
deanruel87 wrote:
Ghremdal wrote:Ill formulate a reply more hateful then this once I sober up, on sites I frequent for more then 7 years, bans be damned. I don't care, this shit is a insult to human intelligence and sets us all back 10 years.
Don't leave! Stay! I don't know if you're aware of where you are, but believe me bud there's no bans coming here. That is in fact the most promising first post I have ever seen someone write here. Drunken, angry, insulting, demonstrative of an ability to think critically about game design. Stay here Ghremdal, learn how to channel your hate. I feel it in you, it is powerful.
Indeed, the rage is strong with this one.

Sashi · Post by **Sashi** » Sat May 26, 2012 6:31 am

FrankTrollman wrote:Yeah, the way they did it is that you get to "walk" every round in addition to your action. So by "hustling", you get to move your speed twice: once by walking and once by hustling. This is incredibly counterintuitive (and gets back to the generic problem of "jumping with a walking start" from these rules).

Is this a good time to point out that the rules saying you may only take one "action" each round, but you may move in addition to taking this "action" is also incredibly counter-intuitive?

I actually had to go and look to make sure that "you jump" isn't an "action" and instead is an alteration of your standard movement mode.

Also:

Each character has a speed value, which is the distance in feet that the character can move in 1 round.

every 5 feet you swim costs 5 extra feet of movement

Is it possible to have a more difficult-to-understand way of saying this? Plus, note that you don't have a "ground speed", you just have a "speed". I can't believe that they managed to make it even more difficult than ever before to have some kind of underwater or air adventure.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat May 26, 2012 6:45 am

I am actually really impressed with their wall of impenetrable jargon that they have erected around the movement rules. None of the words mean what you'd think they would mean and none of the game terms are more helpful than just using natural English to describe the concept. I mean, the rules are that you get a move and you get a standard action, but then they had to completely fuck that up by calling standard actions "actions" and then having movement called "walking" and then a bunch of other stuff, where "speed" and "movement" are used interchangeably even though that makes no sense. And then Free Actions end up being called "actions you can perform in addition to your action" which just doesn't make any sense. It just goes on and on.

The one thing I think is really interesting is: remember that Something Awful leak, where a bunch of 4rries got butt hurt over the fact that various 4e terminology wasn't used? That seems to have been real. The fact that they called out the funky movement and action wording pretty much means that they had a legit source.

-Username17

John Magnum · Post by **John Magnum** » Sat May 26, 2012 6:58 am

Why don't they say "Your swim speed is equal to half your ground speed" or something else EVEN REMOTELY SANE?

I have a hard time believing just how sloppy and incomplete and not there these materials are. I mean, they fucking told us they weren't going to have any finished math and they were testing FEEL more than any actual rules, but the sheer absence of anything resembling a roleplaying game and the sheer poorness of the prose is still surprising to me.

===

Does anyone actually have any huge problems with 4e's Standard/Move/Minor/Immediate/Opportunity action economy? Assuming all the timing issues with Immediate and Opportunity were resolved (if that's some gigantic impenetrable problem, whoops, my bad), it seemed like a relatively decent and clear framework. Why did THAT need to get converted into this awful mess of weird anti-intuitive terminology where they try to use everyday language to communicate specific game-mechanical concepts in ways that just make everything impossible to grasp?

John Magnum · Post by **John Magnum** » Sat May 26, 2012 7:14 am

It's also interesting to me that absolutely none of the much-vaunted modularity of the system has made it into this playtest. You'd think they might want people getting a feel for how all the subsystems that players can ignore or replace or whatever fit together. If I recall correctly, it was kind of THE BIG CENTRAL THEME of what makes 5e 5e, the whole modularity principle.

Obviously they can't show anything off, because there's nothing THERE. They don't have anything done, much less a collection of subsystems that can be hot-swapped in and out of the game on a per-player basis. They don't have ONE process for coming up with a playable Fighter, much less four radically different processes that can still magically sit at the same table.

It's just incredible to me how little information they're going to get out of this playtest. I mean, Paizo didn't get jack shit from their playtest, but at least it seemed plausible at the time that it was POSSIBLE for them to get valuable information. Here we can't even delude ourselves that they'll get anything more than "Does this FEEL right?". For one or two specific pregenerated builds, running in a "system" that's 20% rules (all idiotic) and 80% DM asspulls. The entire possibility space of feedback and information they can get from this exercise is embarrassingly small.

Sashi · Post by **Sashi** » Sat May 26, 2012 7:27 am

They're obfuscating the 4E rules as hard as possible because a lot of anti-4E people complained that 4E rules read like stereo instructions. They're not wrong on this, but for the most part they read like good stereo instructions that would leave you with a functional stereo at the end of the process. This playtest document reads like stereo instructions translated from Greek by a German. More than half the time I'm not even sure it's possible to actually understand the rules as written and I'm pretty sure I'm mentally filling in what I think the rules mean because I have FUCKING PLAYED D&D FOR THE LAST 12 YEARS.

I mean, there's a lot of stuff that contributes to 4E combats being boring, but one of them was definitely not the introduction of well-defined keywords.

Bringing up Opportunity attacks (and their lack thereof). I never really played 2E but I seem to remember there was SOME way of having a "front line" and "back line" so that squishy Wizards could hide behind burly Fighters and not get dogpiled into oblivion. It looks like 5E combat will boil down to "each team dogpiles the other team in order of squishiness until one side loses by attrition" with literally no possibility of strategy.

ModelCitizen · Post by **ModelCitizen** » Sat May 26, 2012 8:29 am

Sashi wrote:Are we ignoring Sneak Attack for the rogue? If the actual numbers on the character sheets weren't all fucked up, a sneak-attacking rogue and a fighter would be almost exactly equal:

Fighter with Greataxe: 1d12+3+2 = 11
Rogue with Shortsword: 1d6+1d6+3 = 10

If the rogue gets a sneak-attack die every level and the Fighter continues to get +1 bonuses every other level, the Rogue's damage output will quickly shoot past the Fighter.

That's not the whole story though. At level 2 Tordek gets an extra action 2/day, so for the first two rounds of a real encounter Lidda is way behind. And remember 5e is more into 5-minute-workday territory than 3e ever was. Out of five pregen characters, four of them want to do max three rounds of combat before going to sleep.

We're assuming Lidda gets sneak attack every round. That's fair if she can reapply Hidden without spending an action, but can she? I seriously can't figure that out. (E: just saw Tussock's thing and it looks like at best it costs an action to reapply Hidden. Lidda can't keep Hidden up during combat until she gets her sniper feat thingy at level 3, which puts her damage significantly below Tordek's at every level in the playtest.)

Also FWIW Lidda never uses her shortsword unless she's backed into a corner or attacking a prone target. Her sling is 1 point better and makes it easier to keep her Hidden buff.

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Sat May 26, 2012 9:24 am

Sashi wrote: Bringing up Opportunity attacks (and their lack thereof). I never really played 2E but I seem to remember there was SOME way of having a "front line" and "back line" so that squishy Wizards could hide behind burly Fighters and not get dogpiled into oblivion. It looks like 5E combat will boil down to "each team dogpiles the other team in order of squishiness until one side loses by attrition" with literally no possibility of strategy.

According to some people on RPGnet the proper way is to tell your dm that you're protecting your wizards with mtp and if he ignores that call him an asshole.

Sashi · Post by **Sashi** » Sat May 26, 2012 9:32 am

Well by the "how to play" document the sling is a d6 but whatevs. We all understand that they literally cannot be bothered to pay attention to these things.

The Rogue is best off attacking with a Quarterstaff in melee and a Longbow (from 150 feet away, easy hiding, no danger, still full sneak attack) both doing d8 damage.

That is, if the Rogue was proficient in either the Longbow or the Sling, which she's not. She's proficient with "simple weapons" which don't exist and has no ability to use basic weapons, which includes unarmed strike. Considering the document does not tell us what happens when someone uses something they're not proficient in (though I'm assuming permanent DA until they swap for something real) it appears literally any other class could destroy the rogue in a slap fight.

That's right, they can't even stay consistent on weapons being "basic" or "simple" and if "basic" automatically means "basic melee and ranged" or if you have to reference them separately.

Also, "finesse" is a separate weapon class, rather than a property of certain weapons, so the Wizard gets to hand his Quarterstaff to the Moradin cleric and laugh while she goes "How does I hit stick?"

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Sat May 26, 2012 9:38 am

Sashi wrote:Are we ignoring Sneak Attack for the rogue? If the actual numbers on the character sheets weren't all fucked up, a sneak-attacking rogue and a fighter would be almost exactly equal:

Fighter with Greataxe: 1d12+3+2 = 11
Rogue with Shortsword: 1d6+1d6+3 = 10

If the rogue gets a sneak-attack die every level and the Fighter continues to get +1 bonuses every other level, the Rogue's damage output will quickly shoot past the Fighter.

Lets have a look at the cleric then.
Lets grab the Moradin cleric level 3.
1d10 +2 (should be 1d8 so)
+4 || 1d8 + 2

We cast crusader strike (lasts an hour) before combat
+4 || 1d6 + 1d8 + 2
Divine favour (1 minute)
+5 || 1d6 + 1d8 + 4
Spiritual hammer (1 minute)
+6 || 1d8 +2 || +5 || 1d6 + 1d8 + 4
Battle Psalm (1 minute)
+6 || 1d8 +5 || +5 || 1d6 + 1d8 + 7

= ~24,5 dmg

Now the rogues dmg is conditional and the clerics damage takes a while to get going, but the cleric does do about 50% more damage then.

If we look at the cleric at level 1.
Cleric stats with 1d8+ 2 (+1d6 crusader strike)
~average 10 damage
same as a rogue for an hour, and wears a shield and can cast a spell to boost damage even further etc.

ModelCitizen · Post by **ModelCitizen** » Sat May 26, 2012 10:05 am

Sashi wrote:Well by the "how to play" document the sling is a d6 but whatevs. We all understand that they literally cannot be bothered to pay attention to these things.

Gah fuck you're right. Sorry, I thought for a second there that I could figure out how 5e worked by reading the rules, my mistake.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat May 26, 2012 10:56 am

Lest it be forgotten, the Something Awful Leak that claimed to have access to a larger (if earlier) design document from three months ago.

One of the best parts of the rules is the way all movement is listed in multiples of five feet. So, difficult terrain might require fifteen feet of movement for every five feet you want to cross. That's literally what it says.

So as a hypothetical, imagine if minor actions kinda exist? But instead of defining them in a glossary, and using a standard name for it, each instance in the rules is a plain-speech sentence describing a small unit of time which is never quite the same thing.

It's really breathtaking. There are a ton of things in the game that just say "This can be done so quickly that it still allows you time to take an action" or "at the same time as you move during your turn, you.." or a similarly clumsy sentence. Because, presumably, Move Actions are too immersion-breaking and gamey.

Honestly, I think this indicates that they had a real copy. I mean, listening to the sound of their delicious 4rry tears was funny, and many of the things they bitch about are just "This isn't 4e! Whinge!" But it indicates that you could look back at that doc and see real things that were really going just before Monte Cook said "Fuck this shit" and left.

-Username17

K · Post by K » Sat May 26, 2012 12:20 pm

Sashi wrote: (though I'm assuming permanent DA until they swap for something real)

I suspect the weapon becomes an Improvised weapon and you don't get bonuses for it.

MisterDee · Post by **MisterDee** » Sat May 26, 2012 12:44 pm

Frankly, at this point this thing is a poorly executed marketing move. It's clear that this isn't a well thought-out rule system - hell - even calling it a system is a stretch.

I'm guessing that they had nothing ready when they announced the playtest, and they threw this shit together last week.

Honestly, if I was a Hasbro exec, I would march down to WotC and fire everyone involved. Not because the game sucks, but because fuck, what the hell have you been doing for six months? I could have thrown this together over a weekend, then taken another to edit it to something more readable than this crap.

Seriously, I think that the only thing they've done for six months is play games. This is just the basic mechanics of the game couched down in unreadable prose, with stuff cut-and-pasted from previous D&D texts.

ModelCitizen · Post by **ModelCitizen** » Sat May 26, 2012 2:15 pm

MisterDee wrote: Honestly, if I was a Hasbro exec, I would march down to WotC and fire everyone involved. Not because the game sucks, but because fuck, what the hell have you been doing for six months? I could have thrown this together over a weekend, then taken another to edit it to something more readable than this crap.

Awhile back I started on my own D&D clone thing. Worked on it for about two weeks then realized I was never going to finish it and stopped. I wasn't working on it like a job or anything, this was what I did to take a break when my brain was fried from writing code.

If I had to produce the Aboleths & Asperger's Public Playtest by next Friday, I could do it. It would be at least as complete and coherent as 5e - core mechanics, stealth, basic combat, sketchy halfassed skill list, a couple dozen spells, low level pregens for four classes, mini-Monster-Manual full of boilerplate humanoids. But when I say "at least as complete and coherent" I mean it would still be a pile of fail. Right now you guys could be complaining about how my stealth rules don't make sense and the spells aren't internally balanced and all sorts of other crap. And I wouldn't be offended, because it would just be some halfassed thing I threw together in my spare time.

How did a whole team of salaried full-time game designers take 8 months to produce this? What the fuck do they do all day?

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sat May 26, 2012 2:21 pm

I still want to know, though, when I use a spell or whatever against a mob that has them do a 'vs. Wisdom' check, what the hell do they roll? Like, I use Charm Person against the Minotaur. What the ass does he roll?

I know I asked this before but GODDAMMIT I WANT TO KNOW I JUST CAN'T FIND IT.

ModelCitizen wrote: How did a whole team of salaried full-time game designers take 8 months to produce this? What the fuck do they do all day?

What I really want to know is why they didn't release everything that they had when they allowed the SA guy to play it. I mean I totes understand if they tightened the scope and had mechanics that weren't originally in the D&D Experience playtest, but I hardly see anything 'big' that's in here that wasn't alluded to then. Hell, it looks like they ended up removing a bunch of things.

ishy · Post by **ishy** » Sat May 26, 2012 3:03 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:I still want to know, though, when I use a spell or whatever against a mob that has them do a 'vs. Wisdom' check, what the hell do they roll? Like, I use Charm Person against the Minotaur. What the ass does he roll?

I know I asked this before but GODDAMMIT I WANT TO KNOW I JUST CAN'T FIND IT.

I'm not exaclty sure what part you're looking for, but lets walk through the scenario.

High elf wizard vs Minotaur.

Wizard declares she is casting charm.
Wizard has +3 int, thus save DC is 13 (see wizard class feature -> Arcane Magic -> Saving throws Difficulty Class)

Minotaur has no bullshit immunities thus, we read charm Person.
The minotaur is a humanoid creatures with currently more than 10 hp (otherwise he'd autofail). Thus gets a Wisdom Save.

Saving throws section (page #2 of how to play) tells us, saving throws are 1d20 + stat + anything that might apply.
Minotaur has +2 wisdom so rolls 1d20 + 2.
If you roll an 11 (+2=13) the minotaur succeeds because page 1 tells us that if you equal the DC on a check you succeed.

ModelCitizen · Post by **ModelCitizen** » Sat May 26, 2012 3:13 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:What I really want to know is why they didn't release everything that they had when they allowed the SA guy to play it. I mean I totes understand if they tightened the scope and had mechanics that weren't originally in the D&D Experience playtest, but I hardly see anything 'big' that's in here that wasn't alluded to then. Hell, it looks like they ended up removing a bunch of things.

Seriously where the hell is my Sword of Zombification? If that had made it in I would have given them a bye on any three rules contradictions of their choice. Is Hidden a buff that you have or is it or relative to each creature? Don't care, can't hear you over the moaning of my zombie horde.

Especially since those things were described as "1 HD zombies" and apparently that was supposed to be enough information to drop them into play. I mean, maybe Butthurt 4rry was summarizing and I'm sure there would have been some handwaving involved in the playtest, but 5e would win major points if that was all it took to produce a well-defined custom monster.

MisterDee · Post by **MisterDee** » Sat May 26, 2012 3:17 pm

Now, in fairness, there's stuff we don't have that requires work. Say character creation. We don't have the rules but they exist, since they created characters.

Still, the level of half-assing found in the documents is staggering. It literally looks like something they threw together last week. Editing is awful. The characters are poorly built. The spells are ridiculously unbalanced. The mechanics are obfuscated.

(Seriously? Searing Ray as a level 1 spell vs Arc Lightning as a level 2? Have they even read the spells?)

Seerow · Post by **Seerow** » Sat May 26, 2012 3:22 pm

Honestly, they probably DID throw the playtest material together last week. They probably have a set of internal docs they use for their development and testing, rather than keeping a PDF formatted and up to date at all times, especially with things constantly in the flux. So when it came time to turn the current itteration in the internal docs into a playtest doc, they took a few hours, formatted some stuff, and threw together a few characters.

This still isn't any excuse for basic things like weapon damage dice being wrong. But it explains a lot.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Sat May 26, 2012 4:16 pm

I think the monsters did have HD until very recently, and rolled hit points. One of them is still labelled as 3HD, Elite Kobolds in room 4 of CoX, that'd be 3d10. The hit points of the bosses all look like they got a 4e style multiplier, x2 elite, x4 solo.

So the Ogre is a 4d10 HD monster, x4 because he's a solo boss = 88 hp. The medusa only got x2 for some reason, but it's still 6d10 HD, x2. Owlbear 5d10 x4 again. Troll 6d10 x4.

Someone at the Wizards forums said the mystery character bonuses to hit and damage are racial things, for using appropriate weapons or something. Presumably the Quarterstaff switch to Dex was a recent one, as was the weapon dice changes.

I suspect there is more scaling than this hidden away too, and we might also have the attack stats for 3rd level characters partially built into the sheets.

Lastly, the way it seems the contradictory skill issues play out is you hide as part of your move by default, but if someone is aware you have to take an action to do it at all and can't move thereafter until your next turn. They can then attack you at disadvantage rather than not at all, because they're aware of you but you're hidden. Best I can come up with anyway.

Seerow · Post by **Seerow** » Sat May 26, 2012 4:32 pm

I suspect there is more scaling than this hidden away too, and we might also have the attack stats for 3rd level characters partially built into the sheets.

I doubt this. WotC was crowing earlier in the year about how they were going to make low level monsters relevant at higher levels by making almost all level scaling damage, while not scaling the RNG much, if at all. The character sheets and scaling for 1-3 bears this out, in 3 levels nobody gains any bonuses to hit. You get extra dice rather than bonuses to hit for advantages. etc. Basically it all points to them wanting a very tight range of to-hit bonuses, and almost no scaling at all there.

Previn · Post by **Previn** » Sat May 26, 2012 4:32 pm

MisterDee wrote:Now, in fairness, there's stuff we don't have that requires work. Say character creation. We don't have the rules but they exist, since they created characters.

Not really. While it seems likely, that same line of reasoning leads us to there being rules for creating 4e monsters.