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

[Cyberzombie]

But it follows that in a lot of cases, the 'love' is due to the GM running things well, and the 'hate' comes from the GM running things poorly.

That's different from 'appeal'. There are settings that people WANT to love when they first encounter them - but what happens next depends on implementation.

The GM portrayal is important for PCs that have no preconceived idea of what the setting is and are relying on the DM to explain it to them. If people already are somewhat familiar with the setting and the DM's version doesn't match with their preconceived notions of how the setting is supposed to be, then it will be perceived as a problem with the DM, not a setting problem. They'll be remembering some bits of narrative they read in a white wolf book or chapter two of the latest Drizz't novel. That's how the game is supposed to feel, and if the DM isn't living up to that... well, it's his problem, because they already know the setting can be good.

[Voss]

So, about these basic rules for D&D which are apparently going up on the web in 2 days....
http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... l/20140630

For the D&D basic rules, our initial release will include character creation. It features the human, elf, dwarf, and halfling for races, along with the cleric, fighter, rogue, and wizard classes, all from 1st level to 20th level. As the Monster Manual and Dungeon Master’s Guide near completion, we’ll add to the basic rules with more material to grow it into a complete game. Our goal is to continue to make updates to the basic rules for D&D until the end of the year, at which point it will be feature complete.

I know there has been some discussion about the staggered release (and that 3.0 did it), but the way this paragraph is put together is fucking bizarre.
The 3.0 release was staggered for marketing reasons, not, as this paragraph blithely states, because the other books ain't done yet. How does this even work? They have classes locked in, but they're completely out of step with monsters or (theoretical) NPC creation/challenge/encounter design rules (assuming the DMG has a point at all).

Also, what material are they going to add? Just some monsters and basic DM advice, or are they gone to eventually upload the entire PH? Is it going to be behind a paywall like 4th?

Bonus for this gibberish too:

Classes: Each class features one option for specialization. The fighter has the champion martial archetype, the cleric features the life domain, the rogue has the thief roguish archetype, and the wizard has the School of Evocation arcane tradition.

I kind of know what they're trying to say (mostly because I know the play test material, so personally I don't find 'fighter champion martial archetype' confusing, just badly worded.

To break it down in a sensible way, the fighter class has several martial archetypes that give different abilities at several levels 3, 5, 7 and 10 or something like that. 'champion' is the name of one of those 'martial archetypes.' But to anyone without prior knowledge reading it, that must look like utterly clusterfuck gibberish.

[GnomeWorks]

But to anyone without prior knowledge reading it, that must look like utterly clusterfuck gibberish.

It seems like there are a number of people with prior knowledge to whom it looks like a clusterfuck of gibberish.

[Voss]

But to anyone without prior knowledge reading it, that must look like utterly clusterfuck gibberish.

It seems like there are a number of people with prior knowledge to whom it looks like a clusterfuck of gibberish.

Well, yeah. When you need three nouns (and one extraneous adjective) to explain to people what particular kind of 'killing people with a sword' guy you are, the design doc might be fucked up somewhere.

Especially when it amounts to 'fighter who chose to get 'improved critical' at level 3' (and is therefor locked into superior critical and devastating critical at later levels)

[tussock]

An English language translation follows.

Our Archetypal Fighter is a Champion, our Cleric's Domain is Light, our Archetypal Rogue is a Thief, and our Wizard learns from the the School of Evocation. The full rule book contains alternate Domains and Schools, and new Archetypes for Martial and Roguish characters.


I find it weird that when game designers reserve a word for something they immediately forget how it works in sentences in our common language. It's like when they give you an "Action" and then make you "Use your Action" rather than just ... "Act", or how you "Use your Move Action to Move" rather than ... "Move". It's already reserved, so if you want to maintain a spell "as a Move" you can just do that, "Move again instead of Acting" is just fine. Language, bitches, we are not C++.

[Voss]

Well, if it makes you feel any better (and it shouldn't), 5e doesn't have move actions. You just move, which can be before and/or after your single action. But you can also spend your action to move, or rather take the hustle action, which allows you to move your speed. Or you can take the charge action (1/2 speed and attack) or disengage action (1/2 speed but no AoOs), but all of these are in addition to your Move, though charge has the caveat that the attack also ends your turn.

So, yeah, as far as language goes, for 5e the following is legit: 'I move 10 feet, then use my action to hustle to move 30 more feet (because that is my speed), then use the remainder of my move to go 20 more feet.'

[Previn]

Odd note: Looks like WotC isn't doing allowing translations of 5e to non-English languages according to both the German and Japanese publishers.

[Josh_Kablack]

So, my FLGS now officially has NEXT buzz.

In like the starter set is available Tomorrow. Sadly, my cash is very tight right now, so you'll have to get someone else to do day 1 mockery.

[CapnTthePirateG]

I would offer to mock on Monday but I don't want to taint my residence with this crap.

[Username17]

I really don't see any reason to purchase this stuff. The free online rules will be plenty mockable, and the starter set is only a few dozen pages long. Everything in it will be public knowledge on the web within hours or days at the outside. The only thing that might be worth actually having it in your hands are the fifty dollar books with the "complete" rules. But those won't actually be complete until you can get them all in hand, which won't be possible for months (the DMG is apparently not even finished). And I really don't want to give these assholes $150 for fucking around like this.

-Username17

[Voss]

Yeah, the starter set is almost completely superfluous from day one. The PH in august will be a giant pile of crazy, and each book after that will be less important, with the DMG debatably not mattering at all, depending on what they stuff in it.

But basically, whether or not this edition is salvageable at all is being put under scrutiny.... today. If the final version is essentially just the beta with a few tweaks, there is no fucking reason to pick up anything.

[hogarth]

It's like when they give you an "Action" and then make you "Use your Action" rather than just ... "Act", or how you "Use your Move Action to Move" rather than ... "Move". It's already reserved, so if you want to maintain a spell "as a Move" you can just do that, "Move again instead of Acting" is just fine. Language, bitches, we are not C++.

No, you're wrong. It's terrible to use a common, everyday English word like "move" as a technical term because then it's confusing when you use it in a non-technical context. For instance, in a game with magic it's natural to want to use the word "enchanted" as a generic term for magical stuff, but in D&D that causes genuine confusion with "Enchantments" which are mind-affecting spells.

[tussock]

So, yeah, as far as language goes, for 5e the following is legit: 'I move 10 feet, then use my action to hustle to move 30 more feet (because that is my speed), then use the remainder of my move to go 20 more feet.'

Yeh, but you're Moving 60 feet. Using more words is just a crime. I don't need a "Speed" when we have a reserved word for a standard limit of "Movement" already. You don't "Move your Speed", you just "Move", that's cool, but why is there a "Speed"? You don't need a special new reserved word for Moving twice when "twice" carries an absolute meaning that fits. So Moving twice allows twice your Movement: Holy Shit.

I mean, the thing they call Speed isn't even anyone's speed. That's not what that word means. They could have just not done that. Like, the bonus to your initiative rolls is just called "Initiative". The bonus to other stuff is a "Proficiency Bonus", which doesn't apply to my "Armour Proficiencies". It's a mess, is what I'm saying. Their use of words.



5e sort of tried being natural and then it all collapsed in a pile of repetition and random noise because they wouldn't use the rules of English. These things can just read like good books, the game manuals, because we're describing naturalistic things that our PC's are doing. That lets players talk in-game using natural terms which are also the rules. It lets each spell be a story of you casting it which is also the rules.

It lets us scare old ladies when talking about the game in public, is what I'm saying. Because I moved up and hit the virgin before he could finish casting his spell, which caused the demon to be summoned onto our team. Those should be rules. That rule particularly, 1001 ways to make a cult implode. Cults should be a thing too. Lairs, Companies, Parties, Lieges, Fealty, The Church, Blasphemies, Dominion.

Domains? Feh, Pelor holds Dominion over Light: eat Sunbeams, Nightspawn.

It's terrible to use a common, everyday English word like "move" as a technical term because then it's confusing when you use it in a non-technical context.

That is the opposite of how it works. It becomes a reserved word, you don't get to use it to mean other things ever. You Throw or Drop stones, Shift obstacles, Fire missiles, and you Move your characters and their mobile platforms. Earthquakes and love don't "Move" the earth, because it's a reserved word. 3e fucked up with "Enchantment" and "Enhancement" pretty bad, because they're so similar, but Enchantments are exactly a spell placed on a person and Enchanting is the act of the Enchanter who does that. People are "Enchanted" by your music because it's magic and they failed their saves.

The term for objects in D&D is "Magic". A Magic sword. A Magic wand. Magic armour. The spells which do it have been called "Magic Weapon" and such since 14 years ago.

[Cyberzombie]

Basic rules are up for those who care.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx ... basicrules

You can tell D&DN is going to be great since their basic rules say Version 0.1 right on the first page.

[Voss]

Well, I was agreeing with you that it is a mess, but then you went and argued that language should be natural but they get to reserve some words and ban their natural use. And I see no way for that not to be a mess.

Basic rules are up for those who care.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx ... basicrules

You can tell D&DN is going to be great since their basic rules say Version 0.1 right on the first page.

That makes me disturbed and sad. And the character creation is already fucked and incoherently stupid. Step 2 involves recording your hit points, but you haven't actually assigned your stats yet, so you don't know you CON, so you don't know what your final hit points are. So you record them again, accurately this time, in step 3.

This character creation is simplistic as fuck, and they can't even organize the steps in a functional fashion.
Bonus stupid points for the variant point buy rules which reference a table that doesn't show up for two pages.


Also.... what the fucking fuck. The non humans all get +2 to one stat (Con for Dwarves, Dex for elves and halflings) and +1 to another stat based on sub race. Except for mountain dwarves, who get +2 for strength. I thought this was a typo the first time I saw it, but it is repeated 3 times. Mountain Dwarves: Mechanically better than you. (Though they did notably drop the AC bonus which made them win in the late play test). This wouldn't be all that much of an issue, except (sub)race = class*, and all ability scores are saving throws, so, you'll want as many actual bonuses as possible.

*as the ability bonuses are the only way to reach 16 in your starting stat at level 1, i.e. what you attack/damage with.
Mountain dwarf= fighter
hill dwarf= cleric
high elf = rogue or wizard (or actually dex fighters, which can be a thing
wood elf = rogue, dex fighter or cleric
halfling = rogue or dex fighter. (sub race stats are charisma and con. whatever)
human= anything since they get +1 to all stats,

the dex fighter is a weird thing since it actually might work, since the numbers are fucked.
The fighting style ability gets you bonuses- you can go +1 AC, or disadvantage on enemy attacks when they attack adjacent buddies, but you can also take +2 to hit with missile weapons (bye,bye bounded accuracy, archers are +7 to hit at level one... remember those Challenge 2 creatueres with +5/6?), +2 damage with a single one handed weapon (dueling build, weird), reroll 1s and 2s with two handed weapons or add stat bonus to offhand attacks when dual wielding (which is to say, +3 damage at level 1).

I'm not particularly convinced these things are balanced (at all), but it does mean the great sword guy is making one attack at +5 for 2d6+3 (reroll 1s and 2s) while the dual wield guy is making two attacks at +5 for 1d6+3 each.


And.... a full page on human ethnicities and name lists from the FR. Why?
This struck me as really odd, since ability scores lack any explanation in the character creation section. I eventually found them, 50 odd pages later.


For fuck's sake. Wizards and clerics get to use certain items (arcane focus or holy symbol) as a spell casting focus. See chapter 5 (equipment), ok... an arcane focus is an orb, crystal, rod, etc to channel the power of arcane spells. See chapter 10. Fuck you. Chapter 10 says: it replaces material components.
Relevant:

D&D Lead Designers: Mike Mearls, Jeremy Crawford
Rules Development: Rodney Thompson, Peter Lee
Writing: James Wyatt, Robert J. Schwalb, Bruce R. Cordell
Editing: Michele Carter, Chris Sims, Scott Fitzgerald Gray,
Christopher Perkins
Producer: Greg Bilsland

You fuckers.

Huh, found something actually thematically interesting:
Overchannel. Basically (though sadly not til 14th level) an evoker can inflict max damage with a spell, but if he does it more than once per long rest cycle, he takes damage, which increases each time he does it.

On the other hand, the first ability (at 2nd level...) the School of Evocation hands out is half time and half cost for scribing evocation spells. Fuck you, don't care.

[souran]

Wow its finally here.

There are only 2 changes I can see that are real design changes/game development changes.

First Advantage/Disadvantage is really the ONLY mechanically interesting thing the whole system has. Everything else is a retread. It took 4 freaking years for them to come up with "lets replace giving people a +2 bonus as the default for a good thing to lets let them roll twice and take the better result."

Secondly spells scale to the level they are cast at and not the casters level. It only took 40 years. This is stuff Cook and Tweet and Williams should have figured out 14 YEARS ago. They were too convinced that Wizard players wouldn't be assholes and everything would turn out fine.

We have known about these two things for forever and now that they are here they are exactly like when we first saw them months ago. What where they doing that this took so long to produce?


Thre are some other things to note like:

They gave people a passive perception score...and its exactly equal to your wisdom. So if that was the plan why not just say "your passive perception is equal to your wisdom"

Hey everybody has weapon finesse now. Its so obvious that it shouldn't have to be a thing of note but at least they didn't go backwards on that.

The spellcasting system is still vancian enough but is actually probably a little bit better than 3E. However, considering that everything it has are ideas that appeared in the the Everquest and WOW d20 hardcovers back in 2006 it seems like a fairly meger update to have spend 4 years pounding their heads over.

The classes are going to go over like a lead balloon with the 2E, 3E and 4E fans they are supposedly trying to cater too because everything about them, from the presentation to the abilties themselves will be decried for being not enough like the favored edition.

They are owned by Hasbro but there must be a VP at WOTC who will have to look at the manhours/output and go "really?"
Maybe Hasbro will look at buying Paizo and either shuttering them or letting them run D&D not because they make a better game but they at least know how to keep the money rolling in.

[DSMatticus]

Secondly spells scale to the level they are cast at and not the casters level. It only took 40 years. This is stuff Cook and Tweet and Williams should have figured out 14 YEARS ago. They were too convinced that Wizard players wouldn't be assholes and everything would turn out fine.

I am slightly confused by what you mean. Do you mean they tied spell power to character level instead of caster level (good), or do you mean they tied spell power to spell slot level instead of caster level (bad)?

[Voss]

Passive perception is actually 10+proficiency+ wis stat bonus according to the hiding sidebar on page 60. Oddly, advantage/disadvantage on passive perception plays out as +/-5.

Secondly spells scale to the level they are cast at and not the casters level. It only took 40 years. This is stuff Cook and Tweet and Williams should have figured out 14 YEARS ago. They were too convinced that Wizard players wouldn't be assholes and everything would turn out fine.

I am slightly confused by what you mean. Do you mean they tied spell power to character level instead of caster level (good), or do you mean they tied spell power to spell slot level instead of caster level (bad)?

The latter, which makes his interpretation sad. If you cast magic missile it does 3d4+3 damage. If you cast it with a level 2 slot, it creates an additional dart for 4d4+4, and you've done a dumb thing*, especially as you get far fewer spell slots, especially of high level spells.

*with some exceptions based on how individual spells scale... because math problems.

On the other hand, cantrips scale with caster level, so ray of frost goes from 1d8 to 2d8 at 5th, 3d8 at 11th and 4d8 at 17th, which makes the various 'laser crossbows' better than weapon attacks as casters get into the late game.

[Rawbeard]

At Heigher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 3rd level or higher, the damage increases by 1d8 for every two slot levels above 2nd.

So casting it in a 3rd level slot does nothing a 2nd level slot wouldn't have done. Not sure if stupid wording for their higher slot level rules, or just shitty proof reading. Probably both.

From a quick glance I get a lot of WTF?! and also a bit of "yeah, I can see why" but I am to scared to check if it actually does remotly what it tries to. And a lot more 2nd edition throwbacks than I expected.

Also nice is character advancement. Multiclassing? Player's Handbook, but we mention how it works anyway, except we don't really tell you what you need to know to ACTUALLY DO IT. Optional Feat rules? Again Player's Handbook, but doesn't it sound interesting?
No. No it really doesn't. Go fuck yourself.

Bleh, anyone with a better mental constituion up for a "review"?

[souran]

Secondly spells scale to the level they are cast at and not the casters level. It only took 40 years. This is stuff Cook and Tweet and Williams should have figured out 14 YEARS ago. They were too convinced that Wizard players wouldn't be assholes and everything would turn out fine.

I am slightly confused by what you mean. Do you mean they tied spell power to character level instead of caster level (good), or do you mean they tied spell power to spell slot level instead of caster level (bad)?

Most spells now allow you to cast them as higher level spells than when they first become available. If you do you get a power up. This power up is pretty much the internal ramp-up that previous editions tied to spells.

So for magic missle if you cast it as a first level spell you get 1 missle, if you cast it as a 9th level spell you get 9 missles. If you cast hold person as a 3rd level spell you hold 1 person. If you cast it as a 4th you hold 2 people etc.

High level spells still do some crazy stuff, but it isn't all sitting on top of lower level spells that last all day. I doubt that you could really say its linear, but its a lot better than 3.X.

[Username17]

Secondly spells scale to the level they are cast at and not the casters level. It only took 40 years. This is stuff Cook and Tweet and Williams should have figured out 14 YEARS ago. They were too convinced that Wizard players wouldn't be assholes and everything would turn out fine.

Uh... what? Scaling effects to the spell level is shitty and terrible. It means that every Archmage has a certain number of actions per day that are resolved as if he was a first level fucking character. That is bullshit.

The solution to caster level shenanigans is to just not have them. Just set all spell effects to character level and not to bullshit virtual values like your "effective level in a spellcasting class for purposes of casting spells." Because that shit is confusing and broken.

The solution is easy, K and I implemented it in Tome like 10 fucking years ago, and this "effects based on the spell slot used" bullshit is not the solution. It's not a good idea, and I am fucking embarrassed for them that they think it's a thing they should do.

-Username17

[Cyberzombie]

few things I noticed in a quick glance over:

-Swift actions don't exist anymore and are called bonus actions instead. Oddly you don't have to actually get a bonus actions from any source to use a spell that requires one. And you can use a max of one bonus action per turn. Haste grants an "extra action". I'm not sure if this counts as a bonus action or not, or if it's actually supposed to be a different action granting mechanic that stacks with bonus actions.

-Apparently proficiency in strength, intelligence and charisma saving throws is still a thing classes get, only the mechanic isn't used at all. Maze is an intelligence check and discerning silent images is an intelligence based skill check. Escaping grapples is a strength-based skill check and not a save. Nothing even remotely mentions using charisma to resist anything.

-Fighters were basically nerfed into the ground compared to their playtest equivalents. Fireball and more or less every wizard spell received a damage increase, but fighter attacks are still at the same 1d8+ 4 that they started as. Given what we've seen of monster HP increasing dramatically, fighters look totally useless now.

[Voss]

Extra actions are different from bonus actions- they're explicitly stated to be usable side by side. The 'additional action' from haste is possibly the same way.

For the fighter, keep in mind they get extra attacks at full attack bonus as they level up. And fireball is seriously 8d6, +1d6 for every spell level past 3rd. So it is a 'bonus' at level 6 and 7, then a decline.

You've also cherry picked the things that aren't saves (which were also the same in the playtest). Almost every other spell uses saves, though admittedly most are con and dex, with wisdom trailing and the others pretty rare. But that is actually a symptom of the fact that most offensive spells are just bullshit damage.

As for monster HP, we don't have a representative sample, at all. The ogre went up, but the jelly went down. And the hobgoblin stayed exactly the same. I wouldn't conclude 'monster hp went up' from that, unless there is more info out there that I missed.

From a quick glance I get a lot of WTF?! and also a bit of "yeah, I can see why" but I am to scared to check if it actually does remotly what it tries to. And a lot more 2nd edition throwbacks than I expected.

That is my take on it, actually. It is 2nd edition all over again, but with a few (not enough) of the lessons from 3rd, and the occasional thing from 4th (but worse, like the healing surge effect is now spending hit dice to confuse people and now heal random amounts)

As for a review. Maybe. But I don't know that there is enough to really do a proper review. More just angry ranting.

And casting spells at higher level spells slots is fucking cracktastically awful and sour an is getting far too much wrong. Most of the time each additional spell level is +1dx*, which is fucking awful, and known to be fucking awful even with psi-points. On the other hand, some spells like hold person and invisibility are +1 target, which is less awful but quickly non-viable.

*the bonus action healing spells (healing word) are seriously +1d4 for each additional spell level. Yes, you can cast this fucker as a level 4 spell for 4d4+stat bonus healing. Fuck off.

[souran]

The reason why this is good is because these spells are written the way they tend to write powers/abilities/effects for non casters. In this particular game the DC of all your spells, level 1-9 is the exact same so using a low level spell isn't easier to resist or anything.

The benefit you get for using higher level slots is minor and generally not worth it, which aligns to the way most of the other powers are written.

Eitherway, no inherent scaling of spells is a good thing, and is a thing that lots of other games both computer and tabletop have successfully implemented and was one of the things that was obviously broken about D&D going back to 2E. This is a good thing.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Eitherway, no inherent scaling of spells is a good thing, and is a thing that lots of other games both computer and tabletop have successfully implemented and was one of the things that was obviously broken about D&D going back to 2E. This is a good thing.

That's only a 'good thing' because of the way that D&D wanked to its various multiclass systems. If you have a more tightly-controlled multiclass system, or rather, none at all then this might be a neutral or even a negative change. I say negative because it requires the game designer to write up more powers and thus take up more space.