Zero Buzz on 5E...Is It Dead Out The Gate?

[Prak]

Other backgrounds will probably have other traits. The list of ideals et al will hopefully be framed as suggestions.

They're bringing back electrum pieces, which is dumb.

As a sheet design, I don't hate it. If this was the only thing I'd seen of 5e, the only thing that would really worry me is the playing card proficiency. Unfortunately, I have seen more than this, so...

[RufusCorvus]

Modifiers are bigger than scores, thats kind of nice, as I'm for going away from 3-18 and moving to -5 to 4.

Are we looking at the same sheet? Because I see 16 Str and a +3 mod (+5 after class/whatever bonus). After your sentence I was hoping to see 8 Str and +16 mod or something, which would be nice because that would mean average rolls for stats result in an actual effect on the RNG.

I'm pretty sure he's just referring to how the modifier is written in a bigger font than the score.

[Krusk]

Modifiers are bigger than scores, thats kind of nice, as I'm for going away from 3-18 and moving to -5 to 4.

Are we looking at the same sheet? Because I see 16 Str and a +3 mod (+5 after class/whatever bonus). After your sentence I was hoping to see 8 Str and +16 mod or something, which would be nice because that would mean average rolls for stats result in an actual effect on the RNG.

I'm pretty sure he's just referring to how the modifier is written in a bigger font than the score.

This. Just referencing bigger physical space on the sheet.

[hogarth]

I like the stat bonus increasing Str from 16 to 18 at level 4. I always disliked getting an odd stat boost that didn't do anything for another 4 levels.

[Voss]

I think its because we don't have proof what the bot is selling is a bad idea. So we can speculate and discuss.

5e gives us things like this newly released fighters character sheet. http://ow.ly/i/5X4Jr

Things of Note -
Modifiers are bigger than scores, thats kind of nice, as I'm for going away from 3-18 and moving to -5 to 4.

Saving throws are for each stat now. No idea how a charisma save differs from a wisdom save, or a strength save differs from a con save.

Languages - Dwarven is now dwarvish. Thats annoying and stupid.

Proficient in playing cards. (Fuck that shit if someone gets "not die in dungeons" and I get "playing cards" I will be pissed every time)

spots on the sheet for gold in cp, sp, ep, gp, and pp as if anyone will ever care and not just write gp for everything like the generally do now. (past level 3)

This character does not have playing cards.

background seems to be a bigger deal/. This could be good, but knowing the team it will be bad.

personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws seem like a weird thing to devote that much space to. Hopefully this isn't something that is "Pick from a list" but is "Come up with whatever you want" but we all know its going to be a list.

Position of privilege lets you secure audience with a local noble. Can other adventurers not do this by virtue of being adventurers?

They list a bunch of cultures. Are those FR cultures I don't care about, or did they make a new core setting I won't care about?

Alignment - Apparently LN fights CE now or something? Whatever, this never made sense.

1st level in fighter gives +1 defense. Which seems really really really shitty.

Interesting character sheet, and... disturbing.
Disturbing because most of it is exactly like it was in the play test, with the addition of the vague bond shit that was hamfistedly mentioned but not explained in the 'playtest' of dwarf rappers.

Backgrounds were in various iterations of the play test and they basically amounted to what you see there, in that they are vague RP guides and restrictions that mostly people are going to ignore.

The cultures, are indeed random FR shit.

But the stat based saves and the 'tool' (playing card) proficiency is right out of the play test stuff.

The +1 AC? Not so weak. You're forgetting the stupid bounded accuracy of 5e. In the play test you could seriously build fighters that were only hittable by monsters on a natural 20, and that class feature was a significant part of that.



Meaningful stuff that changed from the play test:
Second wind- this used to be 'use your action to get 1d6+fighter level temp hp'. The biggest change is now its real healing and more importantly, an admission that they're going to be fucking the action economy in the ass (confirmed by action surge, since it also mentions bonus actions as well as the extra actions it gives you, which is also on top of the extra attacks that (fighters) get every five levels). If special abilities are going to create their own bonus actions to use them, I can tell you right now I can break the game on first principles.

Bonus points for shitty (or even worse, intentional) wording here, by the by. At level 5, extra attack gives you an extra attack(s) whenever you take the Attack Action. Action Surge gives another action, which is to say another Attack Action, which is inherently 2 attacks at level 5 (then 3, and 4 as you level up). Which makes the level breaks fucking nasty, and turn 1 of Every Single Fight should be a ranged fighter saying 'I quadruple/sextuple/octuple attack the most dangerous enemy with my bow, motherfucker.'

Assuming they don't get even more bonus actions, extra actions, additional attacks or other abilities that spontaneously generate either (spoiler warning: by the playtest version of haste, they fucking can, so a properly buffed level 5 fighter will at least be (in encounters that matter) sextuple attacking fools in the face on turn 1).


Hmm: other changes from the play test: paths may be gone, or just worked into the sample character sheet without explaining it. Path of the Warrior granted the improved crit thing at level 3, but crits in the last version of play test were fucking terrible (you do max damage) so it is a terrible ability.

The proficiency bonus starts at +2 rather than +1. This went back and forth over the entire play test, so I'm not surprised it changed once again. Whatever.

And thats all, everything else looks the same as the final play test from fucking October of last year.

Oh, no one more change: they either made a mistake with the stats or they 'nerfed' the human racial ability, which was +1 to every ability score. Assuming they used the same default array (16, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8) it is now +1 to everything except your highest stat. Or, you know, that should be a 17 strength.

Also the XP chart uses different, but still stupid numbers.

[Maxus]

See, here I was hoping it was someone involved in 5e to come on and criticize the Den for making judgments on a horse that dropped dead coming up to the starting gate.

[DSMatticus]

Is this going to be the new thing? Have we moved on from kitchens to corpuscle phones?

[Cyberzombie]

I like the stat bonus increasing Str from 16 to 18 at level 4. I always disliked getting an odd stat boost that didn't do anything for another 4 levels.

I don't see why odd stats exist at all anymore except blindingly holding to tradition, and D&D isn't doing what Mutants and Masterminds 3E did and just use the bonus as the stat.

[Josh_Kablack]

They're bringing back electrum pieces, which is dumb.
...

Well it willunite fans of all previous editions.......against the idea.

[Prak]

I haven't been following the playtest. Is it possible that "bonus" refers to a type of action? So the action economy is "swift, move, attack, bonus," and bonus actions are a type specifically made to be used by things like Second Wind?

[Dogbert]

I don't see why odd stats exist at all anymore except blindingly holding to tradition

You just answered your own question.

[Voss]

I haven't been following the playtest. Is it possible that "bonus" refers to a type of action? So the action economy is "swift, move, attack, bonus," and bonus actions are a type specifically made to be used by things like Second Wind?

Bonus action is new, but just on the face of it, it comes across as a really bad idea, unless they can somehow keep themselves restrained when handing them out. History, however, suggests they can't.

And the action economy is... Not clear. According to the rules, during your turn, you have one action. Period. But you can also move your speed- this is not an action, and you can split it around your action however you like so, move 10, stab, then move more. There is nothing else, basically, no swift, move or whatever actions.

Just one action, according to the combat chapter. And also a not-your-turn reaction, of which you get one. But special abilities can variously give you extra actions, bonus actions (which are not the same thing), and limited actions that are just called actions but you can't do a lot of things - some spells have a rider where you can cast it and do something else, but only simple things like attack but not cast another spell (but cantrips are ok). These may or may not be the same as 'swift spells,' which might lead you to think that swift actions are in the game after all, but they aren't, honest, which is why there are bonus and extra actions instead. Because fuck you, that's why.

And if you think this is stupid and less clear than simply defining a functional action economy rather than having each special ability or spell grant bonus, extra or swift actions on a special snowflake basis, you would be absolutely correct.

Edit- a swift spell can be used alongside any other action, except casting a spell or activating a magic item.
A hasted action can only be a single attack, cantrip, disengage or hustle action. Yeah, that's from the haste spell: it generates its own fucking action type.

Though that is the playtest version. It may be even weirder now.

[Cyberzombie]

Bonus action is new, but just on the face of it, it comes across as a really bad idea, unless they can somehow keep themselves restrained when handing them out. History, however, suggests they can't.

They have no restraint.

They already added a limit of one bonus action per turn for exactly that reason. And this is just from material in the playtest packets. We're not even talking about a full PHB here.

[Username17]

This action economy incoherence looks like Earthdawn. Or rather, it looks like every really old school fantasy RPG. The first game with a tightly defined action economy is probably Champions. Shadowrun gets a good set of action definitions in its 2nd edition. D&D gets a good set of action definitions in its 3rd edition. But for a long time it was generally considered normal to have actions be defined as "You get one action per turn, except for these actions that can be used with other actions, and there are these other actions that in addition to being your one action per turn also forbid you to take other actions that would normally be usable with other actions."

That was shitty, but it wasn't abnormal. But the thing is that it isn't acceptable to release something like that today. And it hasn't been for more than a decade.

-Username17

[Cyberzombie]

That was shitty, but it wasn't abnormal. But the thing is that it isn't acceptable to release something like that today. And it hasn't been for more than a decade.

What's really a joke is that part of thier original plan was to lower the number of actions people got to make the game simpler, and they ended up by adding one. Instead of 4E's move/standard/minor or 3E's move/standard/swift, we end up with move/standard/swift/bonus.

Not only did they not achieve the design goal, they made it worse. Top notch RPG design at its best.

[Ferret]

Bonus points for shitty (or even worse, intentional) wording here, by the by. At level 5, extra attack gives you an extra attack(s) whenever you take the Attack Action. Action Surge gives another action, which is to say another Attack Action, which is inherently 2 attacks at level 5 (then 3, and 4 as you level up). Which makes the level breaks fucking nasty, and turn 1 of Every Single Fight should be a ranged fighter saying 'I quadruple/sextuple/octuple attack the most dangerous enemy with my bow, motherfucker.'

Assuming they don't get even more bonus actions, extra actions, additional attacks or other abilities that spontaneously generate either (spoiler warning: by the playtest version of haste, they fucking can, so a properly buffed level 5 fighter will at least be (in encounters that matter) sextuple attacking fools in the face on turn 1).

This is a feature/I like this.

[Voss]

Bonus points for shitty (or even worse, intentional) wording here, by the by. At level 5, extra attack gives you an extra attack(s) whenever you take the Attack Action. Action Surge gives another action, which is to say another Attack Action, which is inherently 2 attacks at level 5 (then 3, and 4 as you level up). Which makes the level breaks fucking nasty, and turn 1 of Every Single Fight should be a ranged fighter saying 'I quadruple/sextuple/octuple attack the most dangerous enemy with my bow, motherfucker.'

Assuming they don't get even more bonus actions, extra actions, additional attacks or other abilities that spontaneously generate either (spoiler warning: by the playtest version of haste, they fucking can, so a properly buffed level 5 fighter will at least be (in encounters that matter) sextuple attacking fools in the face on turn 1).

This is a feature/I like this.

This is deeply flawed rocket launcher tag, especially with the AC, attack bonuses and hit points presented in the materials so far. Real ultimate power is expressed as win initiative: alpha strike. Repeat each combat.

After that point, you simply rely on the fact that you can gear up to only be hit on natural 20s, so you coast out the rest of the combat.

[Ferret]

how easy was that gearing up? (honest question, I didn't track the playtest exploits closely at all).

[Voss]

Very. Add 4 to the AC for just of that fighter for just mundane armor, (though 1 point of that will have to wait a bit for cash from adventures) add another point for the right race, and then start tacking magical bonuses on. Before magic, you can hit 22 AC. Most low level opponents cap out at +3 to hit, and even high level opponents start choking around +7. And that is before you start imposing disadvantage (roll twice, take lowest) on people for attacking, or magical bullshit

Combat starts to feel like face rolling target dummies real quick, at least for heavy armor classes- they can barely hit you, but the party can kill large chunks of the opposition on round 1. It is a joke if optimization hits the table at all.

And shit like second wind means the optimized fighter should be healing more than he takes every combat.

[OgreBattle]

Is that any worse than D&D3e "I cast sleep and slit their throats" low level combat?

[Username17]

Is that any worse than D&D3e "I cast sleep and slit their throats" low level combat?

Yes.

If combat is going to be stupid and deterministic, it should at least be fast.

-Username17

[Voss]

Well, 5e combat is pretty fast. You don't have options paralysis (you stab people, and have less spells, and less choice of spells), and the PCs have high attack bonuses relative to monster AC, [assuming everyone isn't optimized, usually roughly +5 to hit vs 12 AC rather than +3 to hit vs 17 or 18 AC] and the monsters have smaller HP.

But it is really stupid and deterministic, to the point that it is like 'I cast sleep and slit their throats'. Except you skip the 'I cast sleep' part.

[nockermensch]

So, is 5e the Fighter Edition? Or do spellcasters still have even better stuff?

[fectin]

If not yet, give it time.

[Voss]

So, is 5e the Fighter Edition? Or do spellcasters still have even better stuff?

Eh. The play test versions had a lot of utter shit in most of the classes, and a lot of the real power spells went through a lot of iterations (to the point that I'm not sure what the final versions will actually look like).

They seem to want to push damaging spells; most of which are horrible, even by WotC evocation standards, unless they have a duration (like cloudkill or creeping doom, in which case they're ridiculously awesome).

Clerics are less overpowered as they get less attacks (1), and most of the power buffs are concentration (so one at a time as a hard limit... unless they decide to break that later)

Druids are shit, because wild shape is a fucking mess (again) regardless of which version they use (the best is essentially a fighter without good things), and emphasized even more. Or you get the even shittier version of wild shape, but more (low level) spells.


But there are still things like Dominate Person and even Slow is a fucking win spell (6 targets; wis save or half speed, -2 AC, AND they can only take an action or move), so you can kite them endlessly. So there are spells that fucking win encounters, but... you get less. spells of level 6+ are limited to 1 per day. Ever. At 20th level spells per day caps out at 4/3/3/3/2/1/1/1/1; with no bonus spells for high stats. (again, play test version). So being able to swing a sword all day (especially 4/6/8 times in an opening round) is actually more of a big deal, since non-fighters only got 1 extra attack, and full spell casters didn't get any extra attacks (in the last play test doc).

Oh, and in addition to the limited number of spells, you can also only prepare a number of spells equal to your level+1. Not for each spell level, but total. A 20th level wizards has 21 spells prepared for all 9 spell levels (for his grand total of 19 spells per day).

Its worth noting that while dominate is still in, summon monster i-ix are out, by planar ally is also still in... as 10 paragraphs of full on MTP.

You can literally see the places where they were considering a list of 'problem areas' of 3e, and opted to hack them out with axe.

And then you hit the confusing bits (like the action economy) where, rather than refine a decent system, they booted it and replaced it with something strictly inferior based on failed design principles. (honorary mentions to rolled hit points and a more random version of 4e's healing surges, which they chose to call hit dice, presumably to confuse people even more).