So, I'm reading D&D Basic Rules, Version 0.1

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Fri Jul 04, 2014 8:40 am

There's no cover art.

They have 2 designers, 3 developers, 3 writers, 4 editors, and a producer.

Then there's 6 art directors, 3 layout folk, and two artists (one of whom did the cover which this product does have, the other the internal art it doesn't have). Did they just go through six different art directors through the project, because WTF?

Also 3 managers, 5 people fetching coffee, 8 fucking marketers, and a partridge in a pear tree. I'm not convinced marketers actually do anything, but that's part of their job, so well done to them on that point.

Fourty people. Class of 2014, bitches; they made a D&D game.

Introduction.
The party is dead. We are now adventurers who go exploring with other adventurers. The DM is your "lead storyteller". None of this bodes well. Yeh, it's pure DM empowerment, the DM's job is "determines the results of the adventurer's actions". Not adjudicate the rules, just make shit up. "There's no winning and losing in D&D". Cooperative storytelling game. Oh, dear.

Boom, lets start out with the "strange and mysterious" multiverse concept and a bunch of names you've never heard of and aren't explained here. This is not newbie friendly, and this is the fucking introduction to D&D.

[*]DM describes the scene.
[*]Players describe what they "want to do".
[*]DM narrates the results of adventurer's actions.

That's not even nostalgia. I don't think even 1st edition was that hardcore pro-DM. Certainly Mentzer and 2nd edition are all about rules resolution (even if the DM can change the rules) and players "doing things" and "attacking monsters". Not fucking well "I want to look at the Gargoyles". May I? Can I? Really? Please may I roll a die? Is my character allowed to turn their eyes slightly? Why is this not an automatic thing? Can't I just roll? No? Why?

There's some word soup for the basics of rolling dice and stuff. Apparently an important concept is that rules do what they say they do and not what some other rule says, unless they do or something, but it's not specified in any way so you'll just figure it out. That's super-helpful.

Now we're a "group of characters", so that terminology lasted two pages. And a paragraph later we flip to being adventurers again in the middle of a sentence that introduces "other creatures". Four editors? What did they do? Get more coffee?

The Three Pillars of Adventure. "Adventurers can try to do anything their players can imagine" is just not true and yet still uses disempowering language.
[*] Exploration: where you beg the DM to let you maybe try looking at things.
[*] Social Interaction: oddly, here the language supports players just doing things with "other creatures" like getting them to spill the beans on the secret entrance. ?
[*] Combat: includes plenty of room for exploration and social interaction, it claims.

sarcasmoverdose · Post by **sarcasmoverdose** » Fri Jul 04, 2014 8:48 am

That's a whole small-budget film crew right there.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Fri Jul 04, 2014 9:52 am

Part 1: Creating a Character.
Chapter 1: Step-by-step Characters.

NB: No actual steps are presented in the step-by-step character chapter, it just describes the next few chapters in order, except it's in a different order.
Edit: Actually, there are some hidden over the page, just quite well hidden.

So in step 1 you pick a race from Chapter 2, which modifies your stats you pick in step 3, which is chapter 7 (striking through a 4 doesn't work). In step 2 you pick a class from Chapter 3, which gives HP and HD and proficiency bonus, after you find your Con in step 3. In step three they tell you how to roll stats, but describe those stats (and how to derive the mods you need for step 1 and step 2) in chapter 7. Fortunately they also describe them here, along with the races that you picked in step 1 and classes you picked in step 2.

Then you describe your character in step 4, which informed the choices you already made in step 1, step 2, and step 3 in the past or future or some other time. It's ... I'm not sure. These movies with time travel stuff are always a bit confusing.

In step 5 we have the ability table for step 3, and modifiers from it you need for step 2. Between the bit on armour and the bit on weapons. Anyway, it's the equipment step, and you'll find that in chapter 5.

In step 6 you all meet in a pub, ready to go on "quests". For some more new words.

In the step after step 6, which isn't a step ... unless it is because you chose it in step 2 ... you are instructed how to level up your character, which is the only place they do it. It also includes Justin Alexander's article on the Tiers of Play, though it's not attributed as such, so a little not-quite-plagiarism going on there.

That whole thing is just completely ... words fail me. In a dependency tree, the things that depend on other things go after those other things. That's just how that works. So step 1, you fucking well imagine a character, and step 2 you get some stats, and step 3 you mod them with your race and step 4 you have enough information to actually pick a class and fill in the details it gives you. Gah! At least step 5 would still be gear.

And before you give people stats you have to explain what they are. Like in that introduction where you explain rolling dice you can mention what stats are and how they apply to that, and the proficiency bonus seeing as it's everywhere. THREE YEARS!

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Fri Jul 04, 2014 10:54 am

Chapter 2
"Humans are the most common people of the worlds of D&D" except for the Kuo-Toa. They've left out gnomes again. Yes, really. They actually went over that several times in 4e what a terrible fucking mistake it was to remove core races from the game. And I get this is the beginner box version of basic, but still. It shows a weird cultural amnesia at WotC/D&D.

Mechanically you get a race bonus and then pick a subrace and get another bonus to a different stat. The secret table back last chapter is better at displaying the options here. For some reason the "personality" of each race is used to deride the other races and doesn't change for the sub-races except to note the monstrous versions are Evil.

If you're using the "feats" optional rule from the PHB ... oh, no. They went there didn't they. Anyway, if you are, the DM might make humans trade their +1 to everything for +1 to two things and a skill and a feat, so be sure to ask. And maybe bring cake, I suppose.

Halflings are back to the ludicrously lightweight 3e standard, because .... No, I don't know either. But you're just as strong as Elves and Dwarves! And Humans using Feats, maybe, depending on what the DM does there. /sadface. Ah well, mechanically they are the best, getting a universal reroll on any d20 that's a 1, and also ignore the space of larger creatures (which is everything). And advantage vs fear. Because Kender.

WTF? Dwarves checking for stone traps is an Intelligence(History) check, in which dwarves have proficiency for the "origin of stonework". That is strait-up weird. How much of the game is going to be trying to figure out which fucking proficiency applies to what if that's the standard? It's so abstract. History? Oh, it's because engineering and masonry are tools. That ... isn't helping anyone.

Human skin tones. Like, it's nice there's a range, and ... what is tawny? Anyway.
Calishite = Arabian, for the Caliphates.
Chondathon = Franks and Angles.
Damaran = Russian.
Illuskan = Scandinavian and German.
Mulan = Egyptian.
Rashemi = Central Asia, maybe the Balkans and Hungary.
Shou = China and everyone in it or near it.
Tethyrian = Spanish.
Turami = Latin and Greek.

Yeh, I know, Forgotten Realms. Never bothered matching them up before. It's core now though, you bunch of Chondathons and Damarans and Rashemi and Tethyrians and whoever else is here. Ooh, Turami of course. Calishites and Illuskans. Quite continental here on tgdmb, isn't it just. Shou? Got to be a few.

It's certainly not an easy document to read thus far. The tables are out of place, the text is ... I think it's just a bad font choice, everything else on my screen is legible at half the size. Maybe the background? I should note the tables are really good, handy for explaining whatever the hell the text is babbling on about at the time.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Fri Jul 04, 2014 12:02 pm

Chapter 3
So apparently, unbeknownst to the chapter on how you build characters, you also pick a background when you pick a class. Or some other time. That's in chapter four, but first mentioned here when they tell you how to quickly build your Cleric, which might have been a thing to tell you back when it was step-by-step time, but whatever. Old news.

The classes all get "Ability score improvements" all over the place of +2 (or +1/+1) to max 20 instead of feats, unless, you know, optional, and the rest is uninteresting and fiddly filler, so I guess they learnt something from Pathfinder. Just not the good bits.

Cleric Has a spell list somewhere, maybe? I can't find the fucking thing. My copy doesn't seem to have any sort of links or index or anything. v0.1 indeed. Ah, page 82, found trying to track down other shit later. Anyway, you're a "Life" Cleric, because FR human cultures are awesome but their gods stink or something. There's no consistency. Anyway, Clerics cast spells and everything else is completely unimportant. Turn Undead may or may not be better than a mace, tell you in a couple of months.

Fighter Jesus Fuck be an Archer. It's not even close. Leave the Cleric to tank. But also leave the Rogue to be the Archer. Just, don't choose this, really.

Rogue

then pulls out a set of tools and picks the lock in the blink of an eye. Then she disappears into the shadows as her fighter friend moves forward to kick the door open.

What happened there? Locks are things which stop the catch from moving, but if you're just going to kick the door down, how could that even matter? I'm happy it mentions gnomes later, with their prestidigitation racial power, because there are no gnomes in this book, and that makes them ridiculous.

Anyway, Rogues are just better Fighters than Fighters are. While also being better at almost everything else. Though they do need the Cleric to tank more than the Fighter does. Like, Fighter would win against Hobgoblins or other high-AC stuff at low level, and then no one ever cares again. Also, the Hobgoblins would kill the "group of adventurers" anyway.

Wizard Do they win D&D? Weill you end two fights a day each, and if there's four of you that's eight fights, so yes, Wizards win D&D. I guess you'd want a Rogue for their "I can solve every problem" toolkit and a Cleric to make the Rogue work, but then you only win 4 Fights plus whatever the Rogue can do. So meh. MOAR WIZARDS.
Edited: They don't get 2/day slot recovery like the playtest.

I really am struggling to track down some of their bullshit layered references. I keep finding things that send me to a chapter (rather than heading or even page) which then reference something else and I think I'm up to four deep in places and sometimes the end of the chain doesn't even seem to be there. Wizards have an arcane thingy? An item? That chain references chapter 10, which, I can't find it in there. Oh, good, infinite cantrips.

As a reading exercise this thing is making me want to not fucking well read it. v0.1, I get the feeling I'm sort of proofreading the thing here or something.

Anyway, all Wizards all the time and never a Fighter otherwise. The only time you'd want a Fighter over a Rogue, the Wizard is still making them both look pointless.

Oooh, Wizards, Warlocks, Sorcerers, and Bards, plus Eldritch Knights and Arcane Tricksters. Cleric, Druid, Paladin, and Ranger. Class names hidden on page 81. That seems to imply ... multi-class as a class? Not sure, the EK and AT are separated slightly from the others. Surely not Prestige Classes again.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Fri Jul 04, 2014 12:55 pm

Chapter 4: Personality and Background.

So they're leveraging their IP, and a wave to the LGBT crowd and ... well, ... it's something they clearly spent more time on than the rest of this book. I do so hope it offends all the right people. Could've probably done with just asking Laci Green to write something though.

I still wonder how people in D&D get scars. They seem to always suggest having one, and then, no way to get one or take it away in game. Ah well. Same for weight and height and hair colour, none of it does the slightest thing in the game. Because people with pale skin have to actually blacken it to be able to hide easily at night, or any time really.

I must admit I'm a bit lost on the 9-bin alignment thing, when what we've really got is a five bin thing with some overlap. Because you can be Lawful and you can be Good at the same time. It just seems a bit easier to explain that Ogres are Chaotic and also Evil. They could even be always Chaotic and often Evil. Also, be nice if Alignment actually aligned you with something, teams and whatnot. But eh, it's D&D and it is what it is.

The actual descriptions are a train-wreck. But again, it's D&D, and it is what it is.

Languages: where Beholders and Mind Flayers can hold high tea without trouble, but Elves and Dwarves and Halflings and Gnomes and Humans obviously never even even talk. It's, just a stupid bunch of gamist crap that may as well not even be there.

My personality trait is "I'm Batman", and also "I'm James Bond". My ideals are "going up levels". My flaw is "Everyone thinks I'm awesome, and I agree". Which basically gives me advantage if I ever do anything or "other creatures" just think I might do something. Obviously I'm a Wizard so my Bond is "my spells". Just in case I didn't have advantage. I can even share it around. There's no limits or anything, so ... oh, that's right, it's all mother-may-I so crap rules like this don't even matter because the DM has to fix it.

If this was a book, it'd be the third time I'd thrown it across the room in disgust. I think my 3e core books only got that treatment once.

Oh, and someone's going to force me to roll all that, so my ... Sage background gets me ... the most fucking annoying bullshit ever. I could talk out an entire thread like this at the game table and the DM is supposed to give me a bonus for that. Just, say no to drugs, kids. This is me having a bad time and it should not be rewarded. /sadface.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Fri Jul 04, 2014 3:29 pm

Well to be completely fair to it on the gnomes and other missing races, it is intentionally just a subset of the PH material. Now some of their choices are dumb (2 page trinkets table), and some bits of this are just copy pasted from the PH, and others aren't exactly (like the classes all have archetypes/paths/schools removed except 1). I'm unconvinced all the named classes will actually appear in the full PH, however, since they actually namedrop a lot, and the page count just isn't that high

The reference dance on arcane focus is annoying (its under material components by the way. You can either have the listed material components for each spell, a component pouch, which hand waves the above, or a <class> focus- arcane focus, druid focus or holy symbol, which replaces them in exactly the same way as a component pouch. Not as optional rules, but all of these things are exactly equivalents), but there are other worse examples, like the hiding rules, which are split over 4 pages in three sections for no reason.

The backgrounds and personality traits are pretty bad. Backgrounds are non optional and give you half your skills, which lead into all the other shit. And some of the traits are outright offensive and group disruptive behavior. Like the sage 'better than you' one, where you are encouraged to Talk...really...slowly... to... anyone.... dumber... than... you... which.... is... everyone. And yes, they really format it that way.
Folk hero has a 'don't trust your allies trait', Criminal has a 'compulsively steal everything trait' and a 'run away from fights trait'.

Yeah. That Mearls playtest thing (featuring McKillzalot) about being an asshole to the group ? Literally in the rules.

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Fri Jul 04, 2014 6:30 pm

Re: "Leveraging the IP"
Thanks for finding a good name for what I've been noticing while reading the whole thing. It's like for the first time in 40 years they finally noticed they're sitting on a pile of stuff people used to care about and decided to use it. For me, it's another clear attempt to force readers to put on rosy nostalgia goggles and another point for me to believe their target public is, for reals, "old people who played OD&D, 1st and 2nd edition and didn't make the jump for 3E".

Yes, really. 4E was a clear attempt to cash in whatever electronic "videogames" kids are playing these days, and it failed so catastrophically as to possibly convince the management at wotc that they could never win that market. So they turned their guns at the grognard demographic.

Basic Rules 0.1 was written to Charm 35+ year old people who remember playing wacky MTP adventures with their pals (like that Schwalb guy) but never got into this "rules" thing. And you know what? This may even succeed. These guys should have disposable income and more free time since their kids are like 10+ years old now (or they never had kids in the first place) and the old D&D books, while invoking nostalgia, are horrible to read for a modern reader.

Krusk · Post by **Krusk** » Fri Jul 04, 2014 9:20 pm

Could anyone tell if clerics know all spells on the cleric list, or just some? I couldn't find anything about that? Just sort of weird references. Are we just supposed to remember what other editions did?

Same for wizards. Apparently their book has spells in it, but how do you learn more outside of finding scrolls and somehow putting in you book?

Stout halflings is a terrible subrace name. I'm a stout human but that's not a different subrace. It's a polite way of saying fat/large dude.

Are there no black dudes in fr? None of those locations seem to translate to "fantasy Africa".

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Fri Jul 04, 2014 9:39 pm

Krusk wrote:Could anyone tell if clerics know all spells on the cleric list, or just some? I couldn't find anything about that? Just sort of weird references. Are we just supposed to remember what other editions did?

page 22, 'Preparing and casting spells', 2nd paragraph. The sentence trips over itself, but essentially sorts itself out.

You prepare the list of cleric spells that are available for you to cast, choosing from the cleric spell list. When you do so, choose a number of cleric spells equal to your wisdom modifier + your cleric level

The first bit is confusing, but I'm taking 'prepare the list of cleric spells that are available to you' as stupidly fucking complicated form of 'your prepared spells are chosen from the cleric spell list.'

No knowledge of previous editions is required. And in fact probably helps since you won't be as confused by terms they aren't using the same way.

Though they also double down on some terminology as hit dice are both your hit dice and your self healing pool, and they add a fucking new use of the term level, for fucking exhaustion, which has 6 levels starting with disadvantage and ending in death.

Same for wizards. Apparently their book has spells in it, but how do you learn more outside of finding scrolls and somehow putting in you book?

2 per level, top of page 31, 'Learning spells at 1st level and higher'. Copying further spells into the spell book is in the side green sidebar about spell books on page 32.

Stout halflings is a terrible subrace name. I'm a stout human but that's not a different subrace. It's a polite way of saying fat/large dude.

Blame Tolkien and Gygax/Arneson. The latter two used 'stouts' when they were forced to switch from hobbits to halflings, and Tolkien had three sub races of hobbits, one of which the Stoors (which came from old or middle english, Stor, meaning Strong) So not stout as is in chubby, but stout in the sense of hardy or strong.

Are there no black dudes in fr? None of those locations seem to translate to "fantasy Africa".

Chult. The little spit of land* in the far far south that is essentially a jungle peninsula with dinosaurs. Its across another sea/bay/ocean from Calisham, and basically doesn't interact with the rest of the world, unless DMs feel like fucking around with ancient lizard people from the dawn of time.

*it may actually be of a reasonable size, but it isn't exactly Africa. Here:
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/wd_ma ... um_150.jpg
The southern shore of the Shining Sea at the bottom, from the 'Black Jungle' westwards. The Jungles of Chult are to the west, and the 'Black Jungle' is the limit of where the 'fantasy Africa' tribesmen are. And yes, that name is problematic.

Keep in mind Maztica, Kara-Tur (the Shou, since they actually show up in this list), Tuigans and other eastern areas were not part of the FR originally either, but were added after Greenwood handed the setting over to TSR. The only non-white humans present for a long time were the Arab expys in Calisham. The pseudo Egyptian and babylonians in the SE (the Mulan, I guess) were sort of phased in over time. Something existed in that corner of the continent, but it wasn't really mapped out and nobody cared. Though in theory, they were 'intentionally left blank' so DM could exercise their creativity. But it was the MoreSourcebooks! era, so they eventually did it anyway, and filled it with generic Not!Egypt and Not!Babylon trash.

K · Post by K » Fri Jul 04, 2014 9:40 pm

FR has black people in Chult. Black people and dinosaurs.

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Sat Jul 05, 2014 2:07 am

From the GitP's forum comments about the rules:

- Potent Cantrip says: "When a creature succeeds on saving throw against your cantrip, the creature takes half the cantrips's damage". Then all the wizard cantrips in the book that deal damage (Fire Bolt, Ray of Frost, Shocking Grasp) require an attack roll to hit and don't mention a save. Oops!

- Overchannel deals 2d12+ damage to the caster by spell level. Not a word about what happens when you overchannel your cantrips.

But hey, it's too harsh to complain about unclear or incoherent stuff like this. They only had 4 years to write the material.

Krusk · Post by **Krusk** » Sat Jul 05, 2014 3:18 am

K wrote:FR has black people in Chult. Black people and dinosaurs.

Ty. So to be clear, black people are in the expansion, not the basic set. I assumed from had them, but was checking specifically these rules.

Seems like something I wouldn't want to leave out.

Stout- ok I blame them. It's still stupid and still shouldn't have been done. Hobbits are banned but halflings are well known enough. How about swiftlings and underhill halflings. Swiftlings are agile thieves and underhill halflings are a stout race known for hating adventuring and totally not being hobbits.

Also the buff spells in this seem awesome. I just got time to read into them but the first two spells are just very very good. Free hp all day for a level 2 spell and increased future healing and no magic for anyone but me for a cleric archer for the entire dungeon. (Which they explicitly call out as working fine).

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Sat Jul 05, 2014 3:26 am

nockermensch wrote:From the GitP's forum comments about the rules:

- Potent Cantrip says: "When a creature succeeds on saving throw against your cantrip, the creature takes half the cantrips's damage". Then all the wizard cantrips in the book that deal damage (Fire Bolt, Ray of Frost, Shocking Grasp) require an attack roll to hit and don't mention a save. Oops!

Interesting catch. Considering they worked as an attack roll in the last version of the playtest as well, that is rather laughable.

- Overchannel deals 2d12+ damage to the caster by spell level. Not a word about what happens when you overchannel your cantrips.

According to page 78 (3 separate times, actually, which is a bit weird), a cantrip's spell level is 0. So you can, I guess, continually over channel cantrips at no cost. Which at 14th level, is 30 damage firebolts. You'd still have to keep track of how many times you used it, because as soon as you cast a real spell, that class feature will rip you open.

But hey, it's too harsh to complain about unclear or incoherent stuff like this. They only had 4 years to write the material.

What a strange idea. Who said that?

Krusk wrote:
K wrote:FR has black people in Chult. Black people and dinosaurs.
Ty. So to be clear, black people are in the expansion, not the basic set. I assumed from had them, but was checking specifically these rules.p

Uh... what expansion are you referring to? The names/cultures are there to flesh out the human entry with a existing unnecessary details typical D&D setting. No idea if they'll actually redo the FR campaign setting, but if they do there might be half a page or so on Chult.

Seems like something I wouldn't want to leave out.

Considering they're all bone waving savages that live next to the Black Jungle, leaving them out might be the better option. But again, I'm not sure what the plans are, if any. Most of the character references are FR, but Dragonlance and Greyhawk are mentioned as well, as is Sigil.

Stout- ok I blame them. It's still stupid and still shouldn't have been done. Hobbits are banned but halflings are well known enough. How about swiftlings and underhill halflings. Swiftlings are agile thieves and underhill halflings are a stout race known for hating adventuring and totally not being hobbits.

I'm not really sure why you're hung up on this, to be honest. The hairfoot, tallfellow and stout are the standard halfling subraces of D&D, and 3e added the lightfoot, which is the other one in the doc. They're unlikely to drop 'stout' just because you're caught up in the idea that it is a pejorative.

Also the buff spells in this seem awesome. I just got time to read into them but the first two spells are just very very good. Free hp all day for a level 2 spell and increased future healing and no magic for anyone but me for a cleric archer for the entire dungeon. (Which they explicitly call out as working fine).

I have zero idea what you're referencing at this point. Is this something from the boxed set? Because the rest of us are looking at the online document. You know, the free one. I can't even figure out what spells you might be referencing from what you wrote.

Krusk · Post by **Krusk** » Sat Jul 05, 2014 3:47 am

Gate has no saving throw for the creature you call. I know it's 9th level, but as soon as you get it, you can probably kill anyone you want. Go stop soandso from doing .. Oh here he is. Pants down in the middle of our army. Stop the ice king from... Oh you summoned him at night while sleeping into the fire kingdom.. Alright then. So long you've got their name and can go to a different plane than them, they are fucked. I also imagine it makes kidnapping super easy. Fix: make it require true names and then say how true names aren't always even known by the person whose name it is. If you know it they get no save otherwise a wis or cha save. Then make getting true names a quest.

Somehow astral projection is not a ritual, but it does take 1 hour to cast and ask you all to link hands.

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Sat Jul 05, 2014 3:52 am

Voss wrote:
- Overchannel deals 2d12+ damage to the caster by spell level. Not a word about what happens when you overchannel your cantrips.
According to page 78 (3 separate times, actually, which is a bit weird), a cantrip's spell level is 0. So you can, I guess, continually over channel cantrips at no cost. Which at 14th level, is 30 damage firebolts. You'd still have to keep track of how many times you used it, because as soon as you cast a real spell, that class feature will rip you open.

This is easily fixed by never overchannelling spells higher than cantrips. Dealing 30 damage / round every day when you don't want to cast a real spell doesn't seem bad.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Sat Jul 05, 2014 3:56 am

nockermensch wrote:
Voss wrote:
- Overchannel deals 2d12+ damage to the caster by spell level. Not a word about what happens when you overchannel your cantrips.
According to page 78 (3 separate times, actually, which is a bit weird), a cantrip's spell level is 0. So you can, I guess, continually over channel cantrips at no cost. Which at 14th level, is 30 damage firebolts. You'd still have to keep track of how many times you used it, because as soon as you cast a real spell, that class feature will rip you open.
This is easily fixed by never overchannelling spells higher than cantrips. Dealing 30 damage / round every day when you don't want to cast a real spell doesn't seem bad.

It is certainly better than scaling up magic missile.

Krusk · Post by **Krusk** » Sat Jul 05, 2014 3:57 am

Voss wrote:
Krusk wrote:
K wrote:FR has black people in Chult. Black people and dinosaurs.
Ty. So to be clear, black people are in the expansion, not the basic set. I assumed from had them, but was checking specifically these rules.p
Uh... what expansion are you referring to? The names/cultures are there to flesh out the human entry with a existing unnecessary details typical D&D setting. No idea if they'll actually redo the FR campaign setting, but if they do there might be half a page or so on Chult.

Seems like something I wouldn't want to leave out.
Considering they're all bone waving savages that live next to the Black Jungle, leaving them out might be the better option. But again, I'm not sure what the plans are, if any. Most of the character references are FR, but Dragonlance and Greyhawk are mentioned as well, as is Sigil.

Stout- ok I blame them. It's still stupid and still shouldn't have been done. Hobbits are banned but halflings are well known enough. How about swiftlings and underhill halflings. Swiftlings are agile thieves and underhill halflings are a stout race known for hating adventuring and totally not being hobbits.
I'm not really sure why you're hung up on this, to be honest. The hairfoot, tallfellow and stout are the standard halfling subraces of D&D, and 3e added the lightfoot, which is the other one in the doc. They're unlikely to drop 'stout' just because you're caught up in the idea that it is a pejorative.

Also the buff spells in this seem awesome. I just got time to read into them but the first two spells are just very very good. Free hp all day for a level 2 spell and increased future healing and no magic for anyone but me for a cleric archer for the entire dungeon. (Which they explicitly call out as working fine).
I have zero idea what you're referencing at this point. Is this something from the boxed set? Because the rest of us are looking at the online document. You know, the free one. I can't even figure out what spells you might be referencing from what you wrote.

Black people - my point was that the basic rules have no black people referenced as an option. You have to buy the advanced rules, or actual book, to get that option. That seems stupid. Like it might discourage black people from enjoying the basic game.

If the for home for them is super racist, it should probably be fixed but you could say that for a lot of fr. I'm not sure which is better. Minstrel shows or being ignored all together.

Hobbits- I doubt they will change it. It's still bad. Do we not talk about bad things and acknowledge them as bad? Should I pretend it's good?

Spells. Go read the first two spells. Those are the two I reference when I say "the first two". They are at the beginning of the alphabet. One of them, aide, gives bonus hp. It lasts 8 hours and also buffs your max hp. If your max hp is higher, you heal for more.

The other, anti magic field, has a paragraph about how arrows work fine. Being a cleric only spell, that is nothing but a fallout to saying "cleric archers rock". Which is a call out to an old 3.5 char-op staple.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Sat Jul 05, 2014 4:12 am

Yeah, I got your point. I just had no idea what you meant by 'expansion.' Given that humans with that set of names and ethnicities takes up two full pages, I seriously doubt the PH expands on the matter at all.

Its a subrace name. I can't care. Its indifferent.

Ah... its a little clearer when you provide detail. I thought you meant the first two buff spells.
But in point of fact... aid doesn't impress me much. At third level you're using 1 of 2 level appropriate spells to give 3 people 5 hit points. Eh. There are worse things in the spell list, but it isn't terrible. Keeping them healed up will be harder, and caring about 5 hp for much after third level seems unlikely.

Anti-magic sphere... I really don't care. It is 8th level, which you get 1 of. I see nothing that allows you to cast other spells either, and your AC and whatnot goes down, because all your gear is turned off. Hurrah if a wizard is trying to blast you, but absolutely sucks when non casters try to gank you. Plus potential interference for the party (suppressing their spells).

Krusk · Post by **Krusk** » Sat Jul 05, 2014 4:31 am

I wouldn't care at all. If they had said "Humans come in a very wide variety of skintones". Instead they said, "Humans come in every skin tone, White, Asian, Norse, North African, Greek, and even Indian." If you are going to make a list, it should be an inclusive list.

You not caring about halflings is a different stance, which I can understand. Its not a big deal, but its one of the small things that adds up.

Well no, at third level it kind of sucks. But at every level past 10th, its a pretty nice way to make use of lower level slots for giving everyone an arbitrary all day buff.

Anti-Magic Field - It sucks for everyone but the cleric archer. Who I called out twice now. Your offense still works, and no one's offense works against you. Your offense being archery from a magic bow shooting magic arrows. Non casters who try to engage you in melee have to do it with mundane weaponry, against your decent cleric AC. You are basically immune to casters. This spell basically means you are the only one who gets to use magic weapons in a fight. That is a big advantage.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Sat Jul 05, 2014 4:50 am

Krusk wrote: Anti-Magic Field - It sucks for everyone but the cleric archer. Who I called out twice now. Your offense still works, and no one's offense works against you. Your offense being archery from a magic bow shooting magic arrows. Non casters who try to engage you in melee have to do it with mundane weaponry, against your decent cleric AC. You are basically immune to casters. This spell basically means you are the only one who gets to use magic weapons in a fight. That is a big advantage.

The arrows work. The bow doesn't. And 5e magic items are fairly shitty from whats been shown (+1 is normal... +3 is rare). And you'll get exactly 1 attack with that bow against 16th level monsters. If you think that is your 'offense' rather than your spells as a full caster, you're welcome to believe that. But honestly it sucks balls. You're seriously doing 1d8+5 damage +whatever the arrows might* do against 16th level monsters. I can't find any of that particular level, but I assure you the level 13 playtest version of the storm giant gives no shits, and neither do I. Seriously, it has 160 hit points. Cast harm (6th level instead of 8th) and wipe out 1/3 of those, rather than plink it for 6-7% of its hp per round.

Assuming that enemy offense is somehow not going to work against you is a stretch. Is it a caster? Then yes. If it isn't a caster, it gives no shits. Nothing at all seems built with buffs or magic items assumed.

It can be useful if you know you're heading into final confrontation mode against Archmage BBEG. But outside of that... seriously, whatever. You're turning off the entire strength of the class to pretend to be a bad fighter.

*The only magic 'arrows' so far is the arrow of dragon slaying, which comes in singles. It is +3 vs dragons and does +6d10 extra if they fail a save. You are probably being overly optimistic about the potential of magical arrows.

Lokathor · Post by **Lokathor** » Sat Jul 05, 2014 6:32 am

Krusk wrote:I wouldn't care at all. If they had said "Humans come in a very wide variety of skintones". Instead they said, "Humans come in every skin tone, White, Asian, Norse, North African, Greek, and even Indian." If you are going to make a list, it should be an inclusive list.

"Human skin is most often a middle shade of brown, but sometimes is much darker, almost black, or much lighter, nearly white. The lighter colored humans can slowly turn darker for a time if they're exposed to too much sun on a frequent basis, though some of the lightest skin ones simply develop patches of small orange spots instead. Human hair is often black, but lighter skinned humans sometimes have hair that is also lighter: brown, yellow, or rarely an orange sort of color. Darker humans can occasionally have yellow hair as well. Human eyes are normally different shades of brown, but light-skins can sometimes have blue eyes, or a mix of brown/blue that can come out green or grey. Mixed colors can sometimes shifting over the human's life. Some human have a rare mutation called 'heterochromia', causing each eye to have a different coloration. They are generally around 5'4" to 5'10" in height, and can weigh anywhere from 100 to 200 lbs. Human women are often slightly shorter and lighter than human men."

There, I even threw in some weird eye color obsession like elven writeups sometimes get.

darkmaster · Post by **darkmaster** » Sat Jul 05, 2014 7:31 am

Krusk wrote:Stout halflings is a terrible subrace name. I'm a stout human but that's not a different subrace. It's a polite way of saying fat/large dude.

This is actually a first edition thing, but not necessarily in the way that has been pointed out. I didn't mention this in what is out of my OSSR, which I fully intend to finish but I seem to have mislaid the book, because I will be fucked if I go through the table annotations about how this or that type of halfling gets along better with dwarves or can have more class levels in x or whatever. But in first yes there were all kinds of sub halflings even though no other race had anything like that. You can forgiven for not knowing that though, because I'm fairly certain it only comes up in the charts and is never mentioned in the halfling's racial write up.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Jul 05, 2014 7:40 am

tussock wrote:Four editors? What did they do? Get more coffee?

No no, editors bring the whiskey and cocaine. Coffee is brought by secretaries.

Get it right, man.

Also to be clear, the secretaries do the actual bringing, the editors just tell them to bring the whiskey and cocaine.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Sat Jul 05, 2014 7:46 am

Man, I'm all up for more reading and everyone's way ahead of me. Pfft.

@InvisibleBlackPeople. Yeh, there's no black people in D&D 5, even though we're up to date on accepting hermaphrodites, transgenders, and so on. It's pretty stark when you think about it.

The history is as said: Ed Greenwood made a fantasy Europe design with mostly blank borders and when TSR finally got to filling in the part of the map for fantasy sub-Saharan Africa they put another fantasy Arabia there instead. This was obviously before the war on Islam and the Black POTUS, but you'd think they might just consider fixing it now.

Plus, you know, Pacifica, Australian, American, more than one country in Asia, .... Lists: they tend to look exclusive.

The font is constantly pissing me off. Why the fuck would you make a typeface with letters of different heights in the same word? That's how people see words! The shape and sticks! Artificial humps are just extra fucking work to read for nothing.

Chapter 5: Equipment
Armour works if you have 14 Dex or 15 Str, otherwise you're a bit slowed or just getting hit a lot. With 20 Dex it gets better. Plate & Shield is AC 20 and most stuff will never hit you as soon as you can steal a set, though you probably shouldn't steal from anyone wearing it unless you have a Wizard handy because you won't hit them either. Wizards cast in plate, if they have proficiency, which seems easy to get reading between the lines here and there.

Weapons, there's a lot of keywords and you need not care about any of them. You use a shield in melee (with d8 of your chioce, d6 for non-dwarf Clerics) and a crossbow otherwise. It'd be a self-bow if you get multiple attacks per action, but you don't, because you're not playing a Fighter.

A bag of 1,000 ball bearings is hilarious because they were invented in 1794. That's around four centuries after gunpowder entered Europe. Medieval axles used grease for lubrication. They're not even trying. Grease is awesome, oil, brimstone gas grenades, portable walls on wheels. Fire, they used it extensively. The medieval armoury is delightful in it's ingenious and torturous Evil, and we get ball bearings from the 19 century instead. Not that you can have them for your sling. unless ...

The rules for improvised weapons mean a bunch of stuff in the general equipment list is cheaper and lighter as weapons than the stuff in the weapons list. But whatever, I'm sure the DM will just fix that as needed. Who even needs rules. I'm an asshole for even noticing, haven't you heard? Fuckers.

So, you get tool proficiencies, where if you have the tool you get your class bonus if you blow the DM. Or provide cake, whatever. Maybe you can look at the thing the DM just said you saw, if you ask. It's a mystery. Where was I?

Right, I can't even complain that "tinker's tools" would obviously give your bonus to tinker with ... EVERYTHING ... except players have to ask and the DM will obviously just fix that. How can I review this shit? It's got a built in Oberoni. The rules literally aren't a problem because all they let you do is ask mother permission every step you take. Why am I even reading it? Why have rules at that point?

/existential-reviewer-crisis.

Anyway, I can apparently hire mercs for 2gp per day, or some other number at the DM's discretion, so I guess me wiping the dungeons with a bunch of mooks is ... another rule that isn't even there if you try to use it. This thing is incredibly disempowering to imagine playing, how can you plan, .... Oh, right, you don't, the DM describes the scene and you ask permission so you get mercs IFF the DM wants you to get mercs. Right.

I know people have complained, but I really like the trinkets. In a game where nothing works until you make shit up and beg, stuff like that is golden, because it lets you tell more original stories to get your begging on with. For RP newbies it's something the DM can ask them about and hang stuff on what they come up with. That's the sort of game they're after.

You know what, I get it. I do. I see where Mearls' head was at with all this. As a DM into freestyling, never-look-at-a-book, just try and riff off the player's ideas, and keep shit moving quick enough to only need the thinnest of mind-caulk for all the problems, this is the game you'd write. The "I'm awesome at this, just trust me" game.

"Rules? I'm better than rules. At least I'm better than these rules. Love me!"

But man, is it not for players to even think about until the DM gives you a scene. Fuck having any plans or ambition or anything. It's another reaction to all that character-building work in late 2nd and all of 3e/4e, you can kinda do it now, there's just not any point any more, because shit only works if you ask in the moment.

The Gaming Den

So, I'm reading D&D Basic Rules, Version 0.1

So, I'm reading D&D Basic Rules, Version 0.1

Re: So, I'm reading D&D Basic Rules, Version 0.1