Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 25, 2012 10:16:39 GMT -6
Interesting change: individual initiative, rolled with d20 and modified per DEX and surprise.
I've played with individual initiative but have always returned to group initiative. Nothing strongly against it but I've always been in favor of game-flow.
Not a down check, and I'd probably give it a go as written in the interest of playing the game as envisioned by its creators before considering changing it.
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Post by Deleted on May 25, 2012 10:40:41 GMT -6
Attacks: Delta's Target-20! Did you get a royalty on that, Delta? Critical Hits: my first issue with these rules. I've no use critical hits and fumbles. Never have.
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eris
Level 4 Theurgist
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Post by eris on May 25, 2012 12:50:31 GMT -6
It's still too crunchy for my liking but less so than 3E and that can only be for the good. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, downloaded, but not read...but I didn't have much trouble ignoring a lot of the "crunch" in 3E. If 5e is less crunchy to start with it should be even easier to ignore.
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eris
Level 4 Theurgist
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Post by eris on May 25, 2012 12:57:28 GMT -6
Given that the NDF was only 1.5 pages long, and given the above statement from it, I read that as giving permission to talk about anything in the materials, from writing style to mechanics, and anything regarding using those materials, both here and on my blog. If they have a problem with that, they can let me know. Kesher, it sure seemed to me that the NDA(F) was aimed mostly at not distributing the playtest material rather than not discussing it. I think they'd prefer the discussion to be on * their* forums, but I didn't actually see where the NDA said we couldn't talk about it elsewhere.
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Post by Zenopus on May 25, 2012 13:03:34 GMT -6
Attacks: Delta's Target-20! Did you get a royalty on that, Delta? Hmm... Mike Mearls made the first comment in Delta's d20 post: what is best combat algorithmHowever, I thought Target 20 was based on getting a 20 for a hit (dice roll + modifiers, including AC must be over 20). In the Playtest, the target seems to be the opponents AC (pg 2, 11 of "How to Play"). So it's more like "Target AC". I think AC10 is no armor based on the table on page 17, so that would require a target of 10 (roll 10 on d20) to hit. This is the same chance to hit as for a Lvl 1 Fighter to hit AC10 in AD&D, or any Lvl 1 character to hit AC9 in OD&D. The modifiers to your die roll in 5E are yr STR modifier (-5 to +5), weapon or magic training, and situational modifiers.
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Post by Deleted on May 25, 2012 13:42:04 GMT -6
It "feels" similar but you are correct, it isn't exactly the same.
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Post by strangebrew on May 25, 2012 19:02:09 GMT -6
I really like a lot of the playtest document. If 5e is playable at this level of simplicity (ignoring any additional "modules") then I'd be very happy to play it. It actually reminded me a lot of Brave Halfling's version of S&W White Box in presentation. I would highly prefer playing from a document like this than a over-illustrated, unnecessarily thick, glossy, expensive hardback.
I like how the character sheets state (in a light font) "for a more old-school experience, ignore Backgrounds and Themes". Doing such would give you a game not unlike Swords & Wizardry with AAC. I think I would ignore the feat-oriented one (Themes I think) but Backgrounds have promise.
I'm worried it will be ruined by the playtest reactions from 3E and 4E people. I read some on the Wizards site, which was a mistake. One said something to the effect of "Ugh, I hate having to roll for hit points." Yikes, I wasn't aware how strange things had become I guess.
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Post by waysoftheearth on May 25, 2012 19:07:22 GMT -6
I've had a quick read now (thanks!). My initial impression is that they have done a good job of pulling it back from 4E. The result "feels" to me something like a 3E-lite-Basic hybrid, which isn't a bad thing at all; it looks like it could shape into a good game. Perhaps it is what 4E always should have been from the start. But it doesn't look like the game I would have ideeeeally liked (not that it ever would have been)... a few quibbles; Why would you drop "Hit Dice", arguably the quintessential common feature across every edition of D&D? Why does a grey ooze, or any monster, need ability scores? Hit points look to be at risk of being too numerous (60odd for a medusa, 110 for an owl-bear, 130 for a minotaur) -- how many will giants, dragons, elemental have? Like wise, attack and damage adjustments are at risk of being over inflated (if a 1st level fighter has +7 to damage, what will he have at 4th, 8th, 12th level?). I guess a lot of players are right into their "big numbers", but think of the poor ref -- he'll require some kind of spreadsheet or accounting software to keep up. I note also that a 1st level fighter with 20 hit points has to take 35 points of damage to reach -15 and die. (Assuming d8 damage in 5e versus d6 in 0e) that is near enough the same as a 8th level fighter in OD&D! He'd have to get hit, on average, eight times at d8 damage to die. Even the baddest monster in the play test (the minotaur) has to hit him, on average, three or four times to kill him (depending on which of its attacks hit). Is that a long grind to kill a first level fighter? But all quibbles aside, the best news for me is that 5E doesn't appear to encroach into 0E or 0E-clone territory much at all, and for that I am very grateful. It looks like Delving Deeper has a real future! So in all I pretty pleased with what I've seen so far
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Post by Finarvyn on May 25, 2012 19:15:52 GMT -6
I'm worried it will be ruined by the playtest reactions from 3E and 4E people. I read some on the Wizards site, which was a mistake. One said something to the effect of "Ugh, I hate having to roll for hit points." Yikes, I wasn't aware how strange things had become I guess. Of course, if WotC is really interested in making both sides happy they could offer options for rules like this. Simply give a number of dice to roll or a standard equation to calculate, at the DM's option. Problem solved.
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Post by cooper on May 25, 2012 19:37:14 GMT -6
Stats for grey ooze actually work, because stats are saving throws, so instead of looking through the book looking for what save vs. spells a 6HD ooze has (as in 0d&d) you simply roll d20+stat bonus.
I'm keen on the stat=saving throw. I really like advantage/disadvantage (replacing numerous +1 here and +2 situational modifiers)
Mearls has stated that hp are currently inflated so that they can test combats longer. I would like to see fighters starting with perhaps 12hp+con.
I really don't like all the fiddly DC's. Can't they just tell the DM the default DC is 15 and then use language in the description to guide the DM to raise or lower it as appropriate? Instead of saying the player needs to make a Str check (DC13) to climb out of the pit, just say the pit has a few hand holds and roots on the sides of a wall. If the pit is slick, slimey with no hand holds, the DM will intuitively know the DC should be 16 or 17.
Breaking up the narrative text with parenthetical target numbers makes my teeth grind and breaks the imersive reading I know I like to do when I read adventures.
Cantrips are easily house ruled out for a more old school feel. I really like the ritual pouch set at a gp value and the ritual rule.
It still appears the goal of an adventure is to systematically kill all the inhabitants as that seems to be the only source of xp. Gp treasure seems low.
Spells like charm person only working for 1 day limits a lot of RP and fun henchmen abuse.
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Post by Sean Michael Kelly on May 26, 2012 6:51:38 GMT -6
I joined the beta, printed the material out and will hopefully get a read-over today. T'was only because of all of the talk here about it piqued my interest. I'm, so far, more positive about the experience than I had expected. I've never played any D&D version beyond 1eAD&D and a brief foray into that mess of 4e, but from my cursory readings, I'm thinking this might seem like a "3e light" or something completely different?
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Post by Finarvyn on May 26, 2012 7:44:04 GMT -6
I really don't like all the fiddly DC's. Can't they just tell the DM the default DC is 15 and then use language in the description to guide the DM to raise or lower it as appropriate? Instead of saying the player needs to make a Str check (DC13) to climb out of the pit, just say the pit has a few hand holds and roots on the sides of a wall. If the pit is slick, slimey with no hand holds, the DM will intuitively know the DC should be 16 or 17. Agreed. My plan usually is to scrap the individual DC charts and use one general guideline: Trivial 1-10 Moderate 11-14 Advanced 15-18 Extreme 19-22 Master 23-26 Immortal 27+ I can "fake it" from there for almost any situation. All I really need to know if if something is particularly easy or hard and pick a number from a single chart. Saves a lot of time looking up numbers. (Having said that, I'm going to try a playtest game using their DC numbers to see how it works. If I hate it, back to the one-chart model! ;D)
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jasmith
Level 5 Thaumaturgist
Posts: 316
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Post by jasmith on May 26, 2012 7:53:36 GMT -6
It's... an odd duck. There's potential for a good game, here. Several things I don't like. Several things I do like. Too much of the former to make me want to run it, but it's early in the playtest, yet.
I'm interested in seeing just how much survives the playtesting cycle, especially seeing as how WotC's current fanbase doesn't seem too thrilled with this first release.
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Post by Deleted on May 26, 2012 8:49:36 GMT -6
I'm interested in seeing just how much survives the playtesting cycle, especially seeing as how WotC's current fanbase doesn't seem too thrilled with this first release. That's an understatement! ;D I will probably drop out of the play-test, myself. The download link sent to me by e-mail still isn't working. At their advice I purged the cache of my browser and tried a few other things, including using MSIE (shudder) to attempt the download. No joy.
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Post by darkling on May 26, 2012 12:05:08 GMT -6
I note also that a 1st level fighter with 20 hit points has to take 35 points of damage to reach -15 and die. (Assuming d8 damage in 5e versus d6 in 0e) that is near enough the same as a 8th level fighter in OD&D! He'd have to get hit, on average, eight times at d8 damage to die. Even the baddest monster in the play test (the minotaur) has to hit him, on average, three or four times to kill him (depending on which of its attacks hit). Is that a long grind to kill a first level fighter? Eh, damage and HP are hard to call before playtesting. If they are both inflated then it's the same as if neither are. Which is something they seem to have learned about to-hit bonuses. One of the things I hated about 4e was that there was this odd progression of AC and Hit bonuses that meant that the actual percentage chance to hit never changed even though the numbers kept climbing. Let's hope the final product shows a similar restraint on damage and HP. Though, I don't mind it being difficult for a single monster to kill even first level characters. To my mind the point of having a whole dungeon is to make the players manage resources (like HP and spells) as they move through it. Sending them back to the keep to rest and heal every room they go through is just as bad as having them breeze through the whole thing with no danger (besides, there are always things like traps and/or surprising them with a medusa if you have a real hankering to put the character in a body bag).
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Post by waysoftheearth on May 26, 2012 18:52:15 GMT -6
Eh, damage and HP are hard to call before playtesting. If they are both inflated then it's the same as if neither are. Except that, in the inflated scenario, you have the added hassle of working with bigger numbers. I prefer working with small numbers at the game table because it is genuinely quicker. Not just for me, but for all eight people at the table. Which is something they seem to have learned about to-hit bonuses. One of the things I hated about 4e was that there was this odd progression of AC and Hit bonuses that meant that the actual percentage chance to hit never changed even though the numbers kept climbing. Let's hope the final product shows a similar restraint on damage and HP. I agree Though, I don't mind it being difficult for a single monster to kill even first level characters. To my mind the point of having a whole dungeon is to make the players manage resources (like HP and spells) as they move through it. Sending them back to the keep to rest and heal every room they go through is just as bad as having them breeze through the whole thing with no danger (besides, there are always things like traps and/or surprising them with a medusa if you have a real hankering to put the character in a body bag). The other side of the game is the risk/reward balance. There's no fun to be had when rewards come without risk. If a player can stroll into combat knowing he can safely take three or four hits, then withdraw, and still have a hit or two in reserve, there really is very little risk to him. The bright threat of spear points is dulled, monsters are not a genuine danger, but rather "sword fodder" to be tediously worked through. Such a game would quickly need to escalate from the dungeon crawl to the "epic" scale in order for players to find suitable challenges. And maybe that is what the designers want, but as it has already been remarked, it is early days yet. I too hope they get the balance right.
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Post by geoffrey on May 26, 2012 22:14:47 GMT -6
I downloaded the playtest documents, but I find that I am too lazy to read them.
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Post by Deleted on May 27, 2012 4:26:17 GMT -6
I downloaded the playtest documents, but I find that I am too lazy to read them. I'm still unable to access the download. Note: I don't need the packet! I'm still trying out of a sense of curiosity more than anything else.
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Post by Finarvyn on May 27, 2012 4:34:49 GMT -6
I downloaded the playtest documents, but I find that I am too lazy to read them. Slacker! They actually aren't that hard to read. The "how to play" doccument is only 31 pages of text in a decent font size and talks about checks, saves, what the stats do, combat, equipment, and what some of the spells do. Most of it isn't that different from other games you've seen. The "DM Guidelines" doccument weighs in at a massive 9 pages of simlar font size. It discusses when to roll the dice, how to set DC levels, and gives DC examples for a bunch of actions. The "Bestiary" doccument is 34 pages but they've tried to start a monster at the top of a page so there often is a bunch of blank space. There are actually only 23 monsters to look at, which I think are picked because they are in the "Caves of Chaos" adventure. I haven't really looked at "The Caves of Chaos" but it's 28 pages plus a map. At least they chose a Gygax adventure to modify into D&D Next. Eventually I'd like to look at the original B2 and this one side-by-side to see how they compare. Anyway, there aren't as many pages of rules as you might expect.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 27, 2012 7:35:43 GMT -6
Third day in, still unable to download packet. I even tried from a different computer.
Note: I don't need the packet, I'm just curious when WotC's IT geeks will get their heads out of their collective @$$.
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Post by darkling on May 27, 2012 8:48:36 GMT -6
I haven't really looked at "The Caves of Chaos" but it's 28 pages plus a map. At least they chose a Gygax adventure to modify into D&D Next. Eventually I'd like to look at the original B2 and this one side-by-side to see how they compare. I would love to get around to doing a full comparison at some point. In brief I can at least say that the map and area numbering are identical (at least to my version from In Search of Adventure, I don't own B2 itself), and that the Kobold Lair section matches up really closely. I would also like to quote a small bit that gives me hope that the D&D next team is finally back on the right track: Thank the gods! ;D As far as the light nature of the rules goes...I have some trepidation on this point. The letter from Mearls implies that this packet has the most stripped down rules they can in an attempt to determine what actually is and isn't essential to D&D. Which implies to me that they will be adding more crunch to each packet. But we can always hope for a light final product. Let's just make sure to get as many oldschoolers as we can in on the playtest to insure our voices are heard through surveys and reviews.
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Post by Zenopus on May 27, 2012 11:17:30 GMT -6
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Post by Deleted on May 28, 2012 11:30:08 GMT -6
Okay. Four days in and still I am unable to download the play-test packet. I've been more than patient and there has been enough time to fix any issues. If WotC wants my input they should not have made it so difficult for me to give it to them.
I've deleted my account from their website and will wait until their product is released to the public. At that time, I will express my opinion with my dollars.
Note: I don't need the packet!
Second note: The account was created specifically for the play-test, so it isn't as if I'm severing any long ties with them. I didn't want to sound too petty!
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eris
Level 4 Theurgist
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Post by eris on May 28, 2012 12:10:58 GMT -6
I downloaded the playtest documents, but I find that I am too lazy to read them. I slogged through them over the weekend. It reminds me of core 3e, though a pretty light 3e, with less (but not no) skills/feats/crunch. Standard attributes, standard attribute modifiers, ascending armor class with pretty much the same progression, pretty much the same mechanics, but with Advantages/Disadvantages tacked on. Mechanically, an Advantage lets you take the higher of 2 d20's while a Disadvantage has you take the lower of 2 d20's. The A/D system seems to be an attempt to streamline adding +/- DM's to task rolls and I think it'll work okay. Hit Points (HP) and Hit Dice (HD) have changed a bit, too. PC's have higher starting HP and appear to go up by a fixed amount at each level rather than from a roll. Maybe a bit too high to start, maybe not, time will tell on that. Full HP down to half = "he ain't touched me"; half to 1 HP = "it's only a scratch"; 0 to minus CON = "unconscious and dying." You have to make DC 10 CON saving throws to "stabilize"...three before you drop to -CON. PC's appear to get 1HD per level and can "spend" them to "recover HP", but only if you're conscious (ie 1+ HP), have a "healer's kit", and you "rest for 10 minutes." An 8 hour rest let's you recover both all HP and HD lost if you start it above 0 HP. Clerics can cast "Cure" and have a "Healing Word" type thing, but a party could get by without the Cleric for healing with these rules. Magic types have spells again. Some are "at will", but most use the prepare/slots/"cast and forget" Vancian style. Ritual versions are available but they take lots of time and GP so they won't be cast in the middle of combat. I don't think the number of slots have really gone up, just that the pre-gen PC's have their extra spells from their Attribute Mod already added to the standard spells on their sheet. I wasn't sure from the reading, whether you have to prepare your spells and assign them to slots at the start of the day (like prior versions) or if you can cast any spell you know as long as it fits into an available slot. I think, Backgrounds and Themes only show up on the pre-gen PC sheets so I don't know much about them. I can see where they could be useful/fun...or game breakers depending on how they turn out. Those are some things that jumped out at me as I read through the material.
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Post by cooper on May 28, 2012 13:01:12 GMT -6
clerics chose which spells to memorize, but can free cast them as long as they have slots. Magic users must memorize them like classic d&d.
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Post by Mike on May 30, 2012 22:24:26 GMT -6
Characters start off with HP equal to CON + HD. As they increase in level, they roll the hit die again and add the total to the maximum. The CON modifier only kicks in if the die roll is less than the modifier. So if you have a CON of 18 (+4) and a D6 HD you will gain between 4 and 6 HP per level. It's not a fixed amount and it's not a huge amount. I like that...
I remember when I first played AD&D the DM house-ruled that all characters started play with HP equal to their CON. Player's still rolled HD but ignored that total until it exceeded the character's CON. Obviously not the same thing but in a similar vein.
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vargr1105
Level 3 Conjurer
Cymek Lord filled with hatred for Mankind
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Post by vargr1105 on May 30, 2012 22:53:00 GMT -6
I remember when I first played AD&D the DM house-ruled that all characters started play with HP equal to their CON. Player's still rolled HD but ignored that total until it exceeded the character's CON. Careful hogscape...careful. You might be someone with powergaming tendencies. I do not have anything to add to this discussion as I have no interest in D&D Next at the time. But I would like to share an anecdote that hogshead house-ruling brought to my mind. I have just been called the "definition of someone with powergaming tendencies" in another forum by an individual who "has been gaming since '82" and knows that "most players" disagree with me. The issue in question? My assertion that MUs only being able to cast one spell at 1st level is not something I think it is very fun to play, so I don't, at least non by-the-book. Since I am unsatisfied with their "power level" and want them to be more "powerful" before I can enjoy them, and "most players" are fine with them the way they are, including Mr. '82...I am by definition a powergamer. How do you like them apples?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 30, 2012 23:58:26 GMT -6
How do you like them apples? I wouldn't play it that way but, you know what? If you're having fun ... you're doing it right! My definite way of doing things is for when I run a game, but when I'm the player the sky is the limit.
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Post by Finarvyn on May 31, 2012 4:06:16 GMT -6
I remember when I first played AD&D the DM house-ruled that all characters started play with HP equal to their CON. Player's still rolled HD but ignored that total until it exceeded the character's CON. Obviously not the same thing but in a similar vein. I tried much the same thing years ago in my house rules, except used half of the CON stat. Great minds must think alike.
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eris
Level 4 Theurgist
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Post by eris on May 31, 2012 12:31:35 GMT -6
I have just been called the "definition of someone with powergaming tendencies" in another forum by an individual who "has been gaming since '82" and knows that "most players" disagree with me. The issue in question? My assertion that MUs only being able to cast one spell at 1st level is not something I think it is very fun to play, so I don't, at least non by-the-book. Since I am unsatisfied with their "power level" and want them to be more "powerful" before I can enjoy them, and "most players" are fine with them the way they are, including Mr. '82...I am by definition a powergamer. How do you like them apples? I certainly don't call myself a powergamer, but I actually agree with you. Wizards at the first few levels are underpowered and at higher levels are overpowered, IMO anyway.
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