D&DNext: Playtest Review

[Voss]

So does the game totally blow suck, or is it just "ehh"? Because even an "eh" game can sometimes be entertaining in the right situation. But a game that sucks, like 4e, you don't even want to waste your precious life playing stuff like that even if someone gives you money to do it. 2e and 3e, for all their flaws, are still pretty fgun games. Can 5e pull off being kinda fun, or is it hopeless.

At the moment? More 'eh' than 'totally blow.' It has its stupid moments (and a lot of them involve oversimplifying things from 3e style to either 2e or 4e style), but I could see reasons to play it rather than 4e or Pathfinder.

On the other hand, this doesn't actually matter, because the further work Mearls and company is undertaking is just going to remove chunks and replace them with new and completely unrelated material, to the point that the actual rules may well be 50-100% unrelated to the playtest.

[Lago PARANOIA]

but I could see reasons to play it rather than 4e or Pathfinder.

... like?

From what I see so far, 5E D&D:
* Has arbitrary and dissociated monsters in that way that 4E D&D's monsters were.
* Has a gimped tactical combat engine.
* Has a non-functioning skill system in the way that 2E D&D's skill system was non-functional..
* Has a fundamentally busted class and level advancement system in the way that 4E D&D's epic levels were busted.
* Has an unfair and non-functional feat system in the same way that 4E D&D's feat system was unfair and non-functional.

All of the advantages I've heard from apologists sounds like psychological projection and/or Oberoni fallacy.

[Username17]

Has a non-functioning skill system in the way that 2E D&D's skill system was non-functional.

Exactly. But that's way better than being non-functional in the way 4e's skill system was non-functional.

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

5E D&D's strength then is that while it doesn't do anything better than any other edition and in fact does many things worse than the other editions, it doesn't do everything as crappily as every other edition?

[hogarth]

So does the game totally blow suck, or is it just "ehh"? Because even an "eh" game can sometimes be entertaining in the right situation. But a game that sucks, like 4e, you don't even want to waste your precious life playing stuff like that even if someone gives you money to do it. 2e and 3e, for all their flaws, are still pretty fun games. Can 5e pull off being kinda fun, or is it hopeless.

If 3E D&D is in your list of "eh" games (as it seems from the above quote), then what is an example of a good game in your opinion?

I'd put 3E D&D in the "good" pile, 4E D&D (and probably 5E D&D, once it's finished) in the "eh" pile and many, many other games in the "suck" pile.

[infected slut princess]

If 3E D&D is in your list of "eh" games (as it seems from the above quote), then what is an example of a good game in your opinion?

I'd put 3E D&D in the "good" pile, 4E D&D (and probably 5E D&D, once it's finished) in the "eh" pile and many, many other games in the "suck" pile.

Well I like 3e quite a lot. I think it's basically a "good" game. 3e with some special houserules is my personal favorite.

What I meant to convey was that 3e is fun despite some really big problems. RPGs all seem to suffer from big problems, whether it's entire subsystems that don't work, massive balance problems, or whatever. So with that in mind, without setting the bar too high, I wanted to be charitable for a moment and consider the possibility that 5e might have the potential to deliver at least a little bit of fun despite being overwhelmingly disappointing so far in so many ways.

[Krusk]

So I noticed this today.

http://company.wizards.com/about/career ... ers-view=1

I can't see this as a good thing in any regard. It means

1 - They had a program manager who did a crappy job. 1st round of "5e sucked firings" is starting already? (do we just scrap the whole thing, get a new team and start over?)
2 - They have managed to announce and launch a program without someone to manage it. This guy will be stuck pulling this thing out of the gutter and has close to a year of fuckups to fix.

Or was the plan to honestly "Do a bunch of shit, then hire someone to come in at the end and polish this turd"?In which case its
3 - Fuck everything up on purpose because we are morons.

[Previn]

Cripes, that thing reads like an HR's wet dream.

Only local candidates need apply. There is no relocation assistance for this position.

We don't want real talent handling our "multimillion dollar projects" we want to draw from as small a pool of candidates as possible.

You need to maintain a broad view but have the ability to go deeper into details if required.

Wha...why? Why even say this?

Able to communicate verbally, visually, and in writing

DURRRR.

- Develops and maintains constructive and cooperative working relationships with others
- Inspires loyalty and trust, handles oneself ethically following core values and beliefs
- Builds mutual trust and encourages respect and cooperation among team members

TRUST. TRUST. DID WE METION TRUST?

[Ferret]

Warlock update in today's Legends and Lore.

Warlock gets 3 flavors:

Blade Pact: Melee guys. Sounds like they kicked the Soulknife's ass and took his stuff; sprinkle on some Hexblade, stir, and see what you get.

Book Pact: "traditional" warlock. No mention of Eldritch Blast specifically, and they "focus more spells than other pacts" which implies the other two get some level of spell casting as well.

Chain Pact: New interpretation here, sounds very much like the Pathfinder Summoner. He conjures a pet to do his dirty work for him.

Looks like 2 and 3 are going to be the winners here; two could Win at Life if they do something crazy like pick a spell per level to cast indefinitely.

Check it out here: https://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.asp ... l/20131104

[...You Lost Me]

Part of me really wants that job. If only I was 10 years older.

[RobbyPants]

You need to maintain a broad view but have the ability to go deeper into details if required.

Wha...why? Why even say this?

Able to communicate verbally, visually, and in writing

DURRRR.

- Develops and maintains constructive and cooperative working relationships with others
- Inspires loyalty and trust, handles oneself ethically following core values and beliefs
- Builds mutual trust and encourages respect and cooperation among team members

TRUST. TRUST. DID WE METION TRUST?

You see, you'd think all that stuff would be common sense and go without saying, but before they put this on their job descriptions, they ended up with Mike Fucking Merals.

[MisterDee]

Or was the plan to honestly "Do a bunch of shit, then hire someone to come in at the end and polish this turd"?In which case its
3 - Fuck everything up on purpose because we are morons.

While that's very possible, there's also the possibility that they figured they'd small-team a game first, then proceed to scale up the D&D project once they had the basics needed to produce settings, adventures, and so on.

D&D has clearly been running on short rations for a while, so it'd make sense not to have an unnecessary layer of management to manage a single manager.

What is terrifying, on the other hand, is that they want someone with videogame experience. Because WotC's programming team is so up to the task of making a videogame...

[Cyberzombie]

but I could see reasons to play it rather than 4e or Pathfinder.

... like?

The only thing I can think of is that you can play without a battlemap without having to use THACO.

Though for avoiding 4E alone, there's a lot of ways in which it's better. The main one being that combats happen quickly and shit just gets done. To me, that alone is better than the grind of 4E.

[malak]

Warlock update in today's Legends and Lore.

https://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.asp ... l/20131104

Hm. That actually sounds....pretty cool. Yeah, I'm surprised myself.

[Previn]

Warlock update in today's Legends and Lore.

https://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.asp ... l/20131104

Hm. That actually sounds....pretty cool. Yeah, I'm surprised myself.

I'm less impressed. They cited the Hexblade instead of the Soulknife, and the Hexblade is a boring and mechanically bad class.

The summon creatures will likely endup too good like a 3.x druid companion, or too weak like a 4e animal companion.

The spell one... just screams broken all over to me. Scorching Ray at will?

That they're going to add in classes without playtesting, when they're already crunched for time to get the actual math working? It sounds like a very bad idea to me. It took them a lot of tries to get pretty terrible classes in the previous playtests.

[malak]

Warlock update in today's Legends and Lore.

https://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.asp ... l/20131104

Hm. That actually sounds....pretty cool. Yeah, I'm surprised myself.

I'm less impressed. They cited the Hexblade instead of the Soulknife, and the Hexblade is a boring and mechanically bad class.

The summon creatures will likely endup too good like a 3.x druid companion, or too weak like a 4e animal companion.

The spell one... just screams broken all over to me. Scorching Ray at will?

That they're going to add in classes without playtesting, when they're already crunched for time to get the actual math working? It sounds like a very bad idea to me. It took them a lot of tries to get pretty terrible classes in the previous playtests.

As we don't really have any mechanics for the Warlock, it's too early to judge. For me, the subclasses are interesting.

Yes, it's Mearls, and the expectation is that stuff will be broken. So what - for now, it does sound kinda of cool.

[JonSetanta]

I would have been greatly pleased if Wizards had fixed multiclassing, or at least made an attempt.

It's identical with every matching problem to 3e.

I can't play a Fighter/Mage. Yet.

[Previn]

As we don't really have any mechanics for the Warlock, it's too early to judge. For me, the subclasses are interesting.

Yes, it's Mearls, and the expectation is that stuff will be broken. So what - for now, it does sound kinda of cool.

No, it's not too early to judge. We've had 8 (?) different playtest packages that show us how 'cool' their ideas are and how well they work or don't. A few quick quips about the flavor of a class mean jack as to how the class actually plays and how it functions mechanically.

That they tie some of that flavor to the Hexblade, which was a trainwreck of a class with no traction compared to the Soulknife which at least was popular, demonstrates that they still don't know what they're doing.

What you're saying "So what - for now, it does sound kinda of cool." gave us 4e. That's what's wrong with it.

[hogarth]

Warlock update in today's Legends and Lore.

Warlock gets 3 flavors:

Blade Pact: Melee guys. Sounds like they kicked the Soulknife's ass and took his stuff; sprinkle on some Hexblade, stir, and see what you get.

Book Pact: "traditional" warlock. No mention of Eldritch Blast specifically, and they "focus more spells than other pacts" which implies the other two get some level of spell casting as well.

Chain Pact: New interpretation here, sounds very much like the Pathfinder Summoner. He conjures a pet to do his dirty work for him.

Makes me think of Pathfinder's Magus, Witch and Summoner respectively. Of course, everyone rips off everyone else, so no biggie.

[tussock]

@sigma999, you can play a Fighter/Mage just fine in AD&D, or Basic, and a bunch of the oldschool stuff lets you do that too. You can even gestalt them in 3e for the same effect.

So you can play a Fighter/Mage just fine 3e. Gestalt with +1 LA, Tri-class for +2, Quad-class for +3.

[JonSetanta]

@sigma999, you can play a Fighter/Mage just fine in AD&D, or Basic, and a bunch of the oldschool stuff lets you do that too. You can even gestalt them in 3e for the same effect.

So you can play a Fighter/Mage just fine 3e. Gestalt with +1 LA, Tri-class for +2, Quad-class for +3.

D&D Next/5e

[erik]

I would have been greatly pleased if Wizards had fixed multiclassing, or at least made an attempt.

It's identical with every matching problem to 3e.

I can't play a Fighter/Mage. Yet.

On the other hand, I'd be greatly pleased if they stopped trying to multiclass and made single classes that were actually interesting and fun and on par with each other.

I used to want to go in the other direction for D&D. Have a fully customizable options such that you didn't need classes, just pick from your buffet table what you want each level. But that is too granular and lacks flavor, and it's fuckin hard to balance.

4e was actually onto something with their class model, sort of. Force single-classing, but segmented into tiers. That is exactly the model that I want.

Where 4e fucked up, well one area they fucked up, was by not having the classes have interesting abilities, not having enough classes, and not having the tiers actually be meaningfully different since bland A is not dissimilar from bland B.

[tussock]

@Sigma, oops, true that, mind elsewhere, but it's the same difference.

Which is a stupid argument for me to make, because fixing the rules does not mean the rules are broken. It's just on my mind today. Apologies.

[malak]

No, it's not too early to judge. We've had 8 (?) different playtest packages that show us how 'cool' their ideas are and how well they work or don't. A few quick quips about the flavor of a class mean jack as to how the class actually plays and how it functions mechanically.

So how does the Warlock in the current playtest work mechanically?

What you're saying "So what - for now, it does sound kinda of cool." gave us 4e.

WAT.

No, that's not what gave us 4e.

[Voss]

No, it's not too early to judge. We've had 8 (?) different playtest packages that show us how 'cool' their ideas are and how well they work or don't. A few quick quips about the flavor of a class mean jack as to how the class actually plays and how it functions mechanically.

So how does the Warlock in the current playtest work mechanically?

It doesn't. They wrote up a version in the early months and dropped it like a hot potato. They popped up as levels 1-5 during the second and third versions of the playtest (still in August of 2012), and they were gone by the end of October. (the early Oct version of the playtest kept the same class doc as the late august version).

The warlock was weird. It had pact benefits, a handful of invocations (5 at level 5) and a couple spells for no reason, and spell access was shitty- level 1 spells available to the warlock were Alarm and Comprehend Languages. Because fucked if I know.
Eldritch blast was there, as was various utility stuff- making cheap items, become ethereal for a turn, charm, temporary darkvision and talking loud.

Since it only went to level 5, it was hard to judge where it would end up, but it felt pretty kitchen sink- just a pile of random stuff. The only pact listed was with some 'arch-fey', which let you gain advantage on charisma checks (if their hp < your hp), impose disadvantage on attacks against you, and teleport 30'. But some of this involved spending 'pact favors,' of which you got two.

The sorcerer also showed up early on and was dropped by october. It was a dragon-gish thing.