D&DNext: Playtest Review

[Sashi]

I and my end friends were talking about this yesterday and we realized that though his is called a "playtest" its really a "preview".

You cant playtest an rpg without a fairly complete set of rules especially the character creation/advancement and adventure design guidelines.

Calling this a "playtest" is just an insult.

[John Magnum]

They got the idea from video game companies, who for years now have been using "open beta" as a code word for "demo that you won't be able to try after the game comes out".

[NineInchNall]

They complained that:

• Effects like Charm exist.
• Effects like Knock exist.
• Effects like animate dead exist.
• Save or Die effects exist.

Those are all stupid complaints.

...

They were arguing from first principles that Wizards shouldn't be able to do interesting things.

-Username17

Frank does not lie.

[Username17]

When people say "Vancian" they almost invariably mean "abilities are on charges and each ability has its own charge". By that criteria, 4e is the most Vancian version of D&D, since every single character has a majority of their abilities on 1/Timeframe charge limits.

-Username17

[NineInchNall]

What would be the best way to represent "I am the guy standing in front of the demon protecting my friends" in D&D?

It's a hard one. You need the narrative power to make your opponent act foolishly in order to simulate most of those scenes.

No, it's not. You give battlefield control effects to the guy standing in front of the demon and protecting his friends. That way the demon's ability to attack those friends is impeded by the guy with the sword and plate.

When people say "Vancian" they almost invariably mean "abilities are on charges and each ability has its own charge". By that criteria, 4e is the most Vancian version of D&D, since every single character has a majority of their abilities on 1/Timeframe charge limits.

-Username17

Shhh! You'll wake the 4rri3s/4rons and bring them into this thread.

[Fuchs]

They complained that:

• Effects like Charm exist.
• Effects like Knock exist.
• Effects like animate dead exist.
• Save or Die effects exist.

Those are all stupid complaints.

...

They were arguing from first principles that Wizards shouldn't be able to do interesting things.

-Username17

Frank does not lie.

I can only conclude that those idiots do not have any friends, if they honestly believe that "charm person: Give me all your gold" is an actual, plausible and possible result of "the target considers you his best friend".

If your best friend asks you to betray your country or family or wants your wealth you don't nod and say "Yes".

[hogarth]

When people say "Vancian" they almost invariably mean "abilities are on charges and each ability has its own charge".

Frank, they usually mean both (charges and prepared). At any rate, read the context.

"I dislike the vancian casting scheme of the wizard and hope the wizard gets a more 3.5 sorceress casting approach, like the 5e cleric!"

That makes no fucking sense if you use the "charges only" definition.

[Username17]

When people say "Vancian" they almost invariably mean "abilities are on charges and each ability has its own charge".

Frank, they usually mean both (charges and prepared). At any rate, read the context.

"I dislike the vancian casting scheme of the wizard and hope the wizard gets a more 3.5 sorceress casting approach, like the 5e cleric!"

That makes no fucking sense if you use the "charges only" definition.

Bolded part of the text you quoted because apparently you're an illiterate. A sorcerer has multiple abilities using common charges, and would therefore not be Vancian.

Ability selection is not a meaningful differentiation, since in any game you can select abilities at some point. Even if you aren't a Wizard in 4e, you can still swap your powers for other powers of the same level during down time.

-Username17

[violence in the media]

I can only conclude that those idiots do not have any friends, if they honestly believe that "charm person: Give me all your gold" is an actual, plausible and possible result of "the target considers you his best friend".

If your best friend asks you to betray your country or family or wants your wealth you don't nod and say "Yes".

Not that I disagree with you, but it seems like a lot of people want a lot more out of Charm effects than the ability to ask for mundane or innocuous favors from people they just met or that were previously hostile.

[hogarth]

Bolded part of the text you quoted because apparently you're an illiterate. A sorcerer has multiple abilities using common charges, and would therefore not be Vancian.

I think it's hilarious that you came up with your own cryptically-phrased criterion that's almost but not quite identical to "prepared casting" just so that you can say "Vancian casting is not prepared casting".

[RobbyPants]

I can only conclude that those idiots do not have any friends, if they honestly believe that "charm person: Give me all your gold" is an actual, plausible and possible result of "the target considers you his best friend".

If your best friend asks you to betray your country or family or wants your wealth you don't nod and say "Yes".

Not that I disagree with you, but it seems like a lot of people want a lot more out of Charm effects than the ability to ask for mundane or innocuous favors from people they just met or that were previously hostile.

If they want more out of Charm Person, then they're likely asking for too much from a 1st level spell. That's what Dominate is for.

[ModelCitizen]

They were arguing from first principles that Wizards shouldn't be able to do interesting things.

-Username17

Frank does not lie.

You can tell most people in that thread haven't read the Charmed condition because the 2e/3e people are happy and the 4rries are angry instead of the other way around. Charm Person has the same name and flavortext as a cool spell from pre-4e, but the actual rules are just a long-duration version of Fast Friends from the 4e bard.

[K]

I think the 2e/3e crowd is just happy to see any backslide from 4e's rigid structure of no one doing anything interesting or setting-affecting.

I mean, the very idea that Wizard might get some limited ability to do interesting things at 1st level instead of spamming an at-will is way better than anything 4e offered.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Not that it will mean much if the game ends up wanking to King Arthur/Conan fantasy.

I mean, just the idea that spells can be open-ended without incurring a permanent cost is a huge step forward (or rather, catching up where they used to be) from 4E D&D, but unless it comes with a side order of meaningful open-ended effects it's just a waste of fucking time. While I realize that it's hard to see if the game is going to end up like that in a 3-level playtest, the fact that the math is that much worse than 3E D&D does not fill me with confidence. Along with bullshit like deities maxing out at a 30 in a stat in a linearly-scaling attribute system in a game that does not possess level-based bonuses and DC 27 being an epic-level skill check.

[deaddmwalking]

A couple of weeks ago I took my 4-year-old daughter to Dollywood. It's nearby, but it was the first time either one of us had gone. She's exactly 42" tall, and she's lucky she was, because lots of rides have a 42" requirement to be allowed to go on them. She's a brave girl, and she went on all the 'scary' roller coasters that she was allowed to. Unfortunately, most of the best rides required a minimum height of 48". She wanted to go on other roller coasters, but she just wasn't allowed to.

It's a reminder for me that I hate the 'you must be this height to adventure here'. Deities as portrayed in standard D&D are probably the worst aspect of the game (followed closely by alignment). The active Deities in Faerun who actually do EVERYTHING that matters (except for Elminster) ruin any enjoyment I could have for the setting. How can my little Level 1 fighter ever matter if only the actions of Gods have a permanent effect?

I'd hope that the 'deities' they're capping at Level 30 are 'powerful outsiders' but more clearly 'not God' or 'creator of all that is seen and unseen'. The fact that different races all have different gods that they believe equally fervently created the world should preclude 'active gods' - the world can't both have been sung into existence and forged by a dwarf.

So, if you have 'powerful beings that are like gods' I don't have a problem capping the score at 30 and the bonus at +10? At least, not specifically. I think they could probably open that range a bit, but having an attribute bonus above +20 clearly takes them off the RNG. I don't want my Level 1 fighter to have a chance of successfully arm-wrestling a god - but I do want him to reasonably be able to exist in the same world and contribute in a meaningful fashion.

Deities should be like 'Thor' from Avengers. Powerful beings, but not COMPLETELY overshadowing 'mortals'.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Okay, but nerfing deities doesn't fix the whole 'my character doesn't really DO anything at high levels despite the fact the game says I should' problem.

[deaddmwalking]

That is true. High level PCs should be able to have a meaningful effect on the game world because high level NPCs have an effect on the game world. Ideally, even low-level characters will be able to have a meaningful effect.

I admit to not being familiar with 4th edition, and I have not downloaded or read the 5E 'playtest' documents. I'm familiar with 3rd edition and earlier editions...

If D&D Next assumes that you'll do the same TYPE of things at 20th level as you did at 1st level, you're just better at doing them, it may work. If D&D Next assumes that at 20th Level you'll be an immortal leaping from world to world slaying Galactus on a weekly basis while at 1st level you're relegated to dirt farming, it probably won't.

[Lago PARANOIA]

If D&D Next assumes that you'll do the same TYPE of things at 20th level as you did at 1st level, you're just better at doing them, it may work. If D&D Next assumes that at 20th Level you'll be an immortal leaping from world to world slaying Galactus on a weekly basis while at 1st level you're relegated to dirt farming, it probably won't.

Dude, that's like completely backwards. We already tried the former with 4th Edition D&D and it didn't work. The latter caveat, while being a pile full of fail in heroic fantasy, has been successfully implemented in games -- specifically, the superhero genre. Champions and Mutants and Masterminds and probably some others I'm not familiar with don't typically do the Question to Superman advancement scheme because of genre limitations but since they do Question to Spider-Man and Spider-Man to Superman just fine it's not a problem past that.

You can't be doing the same 'type' of thing you were at 1st level for many levels. Not unless the scope of your game is restricted or you want to recreate the Linear Warriors/Quadratic Wizards problem.

[Sashi]

The problem with 4E is that you do 30 levels of GRINDING FOR NUMBERS.

You can count the number of levels that actually matter to a 4E character on one hand:

Level 6: Finally a "complete" character with enough feats and powers that your combat routine is firmly established (unless you've got some weird build that relies on a specific paragon path or Epic feat or something)
Level 11: First Paragon feats and Paragon Path abilities
Level 16: (usually) Gain cool Paragon Path Ability
Level 21: Make an Epic Destiny choice, agonize over the crap.

[deaddmwalking]

I think that if you can do heroic things at 1st level, and continue to do heroic things at higher levels, the system works.

If the system explicitly says 'you can't be effective at 1st level' - that's where it becomes a problem.

If you're fighting armies of orcs at 3rd level and you're fighting armies of demons at 18th level, you're still effectively having the same type of adventures. But if you go back to fighting an army of orcs, you'll find it's easier. You've improved in your abilities (specifically the ability to slay creatures) but you're still playing in the same type of world as before.

Most movies don't show 'leveling' the way you would see in D&D, but good movies (or even enjoyable bad movies) use 'rising action' to increase the danger.

You can build a campaign in a world like Die Hard or Quigley Down Under where characters do advance and face more difficult challenges, but those challenges are still 'from the same world'. John McClaine (sp?) may be doing similar things in every sequel, but by and large, it works for the setting. And each sequel the explosions and expectations for the hero, as well as the stakes, get higher.

D&D doesn't explicitly have to be 'go from a nobody to a demi-god'. It's quite reasonable to have a game system that goes from 'go from an effective soldier to a powerful leader of armies' and still have reasonable forms of advancement.

Advancement in 3.5 is largely of a type that makes high level characters no longer care about their motivations at low levels. Who cares about clearing their name when you objectively have the power to exterminate every single one of the people who falsely accused you in grisly fashion?

D&D 3.5 up to 12th level works about like this - it's only when you keep advancing beyond that you really 'leave the original sandbox'. And in honesty, most of the campaigns I've played have stayed under or close to 12th level - beyond that, it breaks beyond the ability to have fun.

[Lago PARANOIA]

deaddmwalking: I'm aware that you haven't played 4E D&D and have barely even heard of it -- making you one of those lucky bastards who don't know what Snooki, Khornate Knights, Chrono Cross, PokeGirls, or Star Trek: Enterprise are -- and I apologize for talking as though you should know what's going on. But if you want to get a general feel for what 4E D&D is like without cracking open a book (itself an invitation to fail and madness, but whatever) then here's a general thought experiment for you:

Imagine something unbalanced or disliked about 3E or 2E D&D. Then come up with a fix for it that would be setting and power-level appropriate for Conan or Lord of the Rings. The first fix that comes to mind, don't pontificate on or refine the idea. Never you mind if a fix is contradictory to a previous fix. Do this for every major problem in 3E D&D, then slather on a rich creamy coating of World of Warcraft aesthetics and design philosophy to fill the gaps. That's 4th Edition D&D.

[CapnTthePirateG]

Live chat with Mearls: http://www.enworld.org/forum/news/32404 ... wford.html

So, let's see:

No one cares about the MTP, or the padded sumo.

Magic Missile is too strong (really?)

Monsters are influenced primarily be 4e...Fuck.

They acknowledge the pregen rogue is a shit scout.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Advancement in 3.5 is largely of a type that makes high level characters no longer care about their motivations at low levels. Who cares about clearing their name when you objectively have the power to exterminate every single one of the people who falsely accused you in grisly fashion?

This is actually pretty understandable. Writers have a much harder time coming up with things that inconvenience or challenge Goku than King Arthur. However, D&D's tradition solution of 'ignore it until it goes away, because most people won't get out of King Arthur tier; if the game does get that far drag your feet as much as possible' does not work. If you don't want a game to encompass high-level concepts then friggin' cut the game off before you get to high level. Seriously, once you get to peak Iron Man level, just stop the game advancement.

If you DO however intend for things to get past the power level Dr. Doom operates at, you better follow through fully. And that entails accepting the fact that the motivations and dreams and obstacles and tribulations of a 1st-level character are just not the same as a 13th level character. And design your game appropriately.

[Lago PARANOIA]

No one cares about the MTP, or the padded sumo.

No one cares about as in the 'this makes my game AWESOME' or 'I really don't care for this bullshit' sense?

But yes, under the current 5E D&D design paradigm, Magic Missile is in fact too powerful. A 9th level fighter would do something like 1d8 + 4 (STR) + 2 (enh) + 3 (weapon class features) or 1d8+9 damage. A 9th level wizard would do something like 5d4+15 damage, as implements add to damage rolls in 5E D&D.

[CapnTthePirateG]

Ah, right, I keep forgetting things don't scale with level.

As in, why are there no questions about it is what I'm wondering.