[5E Basic] Actual Play report

[Finarvyn]

So my guy at the local game store decided to scrap our old 5E adventure and start a new one using the Basic D&D PDF only. No super-secret player's handbook stuff, only the PDF and the contents of the Starter Set.

Five players and a GM. Two of the five were maybe 6th grade and the other three were adults. Some of us decided to create characters, some used pre-gens from the Starter Set. All were folks who had played various editions of D&D before and we got all five characters ready in around 20 minutes or so. Not bad, since we were sharing a single printout between the group of us. Also, several folks stopped with questions about 5E and we handled some of that as well.

A funny story, I suppose. A kid with a 3E player's handbook and his father stopped by and asked about 5E. He was interested in what we had to say, but really wanted to run the character he already had been using in another campaign. He had a whole concept with alignment and spell lists and the like. When told he'd have to start a 1st level character like the rest of us (and even after being shown a pregen that wasn't too different from our interpretation of his concept) he decided not to play after all and they left. So, for folks who are concerned that 5E is too much like 3E, this kid didn't agree. (Or at least the power levels he had to pick from didn't agree.)

Anyway, five first level characters went into the adventure from the Starter Set. I don't want to spoil things too much in case you want to play it but we went through a two wilderness encounters and a small dungeon complex with perhaps 5-6 rooms in it, and we did it in a little under 3 hours of play. Not at all the slow pace of play that I've experienced in 3E and 4E games.

Of the five of us, two were reduced to zero HP at the end of the session and two others were in dire straits and nearly killed. (I was the lone character with decent HP by the end. I had 10 of my 11 left. ) If you also count the two times that I had to use cure wounds to bring somebody back from 0 HP, we had four times where a character hit zero. The wizard and I (the cleric) had spent all of our spells and the party resources were pretty much drained. We wound up with 375 XP and advanced to 2nd level for next time.

Character generation plus a nifty little adventure, and all in under 4 hours of play. I think we had a good time with the game and everyone seemed to enjoy the session.

[bestialwarlust]

How did you like the wizard cantrips? how did you like them in play? Thats one of my bigger issues with 5e. I still haven't played/run a session yet so I'll reserve final judgement until I do. I more partial to the Unearthed Arcana type of cantrips. Apprentice wizards having access to spells that can fry the average villager seems like something I wouldn't teach an apprentice.

[Finarvyn]

Well, I had an OD&D "fix" years ago which was a lot like the present attack cantrips so I have a built-in bias. My magic user players have long complained that after firing off a spell or two they were reduced to throwing daggers and so I created a "zap" spell which never ran out, they had to roll to hit with, and did a d4 damage like a thrown dagger. This has worked well for me for over a decade. Combat cantrips are sort of like that. Most require either a combat die roll by the wizard so they aren't auto hit things. While the damage is higher than my d4, so are hit points, etc. Bottom line, these cantrips seem to fit the "feel" of a wizard a lot better than throwing daggers or using a bow, and the damage they do is roughly equivalent. We like them.

What about some of the other cantrips, the non-combat ones? Well, in the FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING when Gandalf entered Moria he lit up his staff and it didn't seem to be that hard. Giving the wizard a light cantrip doesn't break the game, IMO, and it gives them something nifty to do. Same with Dancing Lights. Mage Hand allows for the wizard to push things around, Minor Illusion makes small sounds or images, and Prestidigitation is mostly flash-bang stuff. In short, cantrips allow wizards to do magical things all of the time and (I think) really makes the character more interesting to play.

Look at is this way -- when was the last time in a book or movie you ever got to see a wizard cast his one spell and then curse that he was "all out?"

Just my two coppers, of course.

[bestialwarlust]

Thanks for the info I was more curious too see how it worked in game play. I know what you mean with the vancian magic. Though I really do like it I have a house rule option that allows a magic user to attempt to cast non memorized spells in game. I do plan on running a play test with 5e at some point jut too see how it runs and plays. We did that we 4e but after the first session we pretty much tossed it aside. 5e looks like so much better than 4e so I'm sure we'll give it a try at some point. I'm just really too happy with od&d so I'm not sure if we'd actually switch over even if we liked it. I do like hearing actual play reports from people who've tested the rules so thanks Fin!

[Deleted]

Thanks for the actual play report. Posts like this are so much more useful than theorycrafting when readng about a new game. I'm rethinking my decision to wait for the phb release before I start my 5e game.

I'm with you on the cantrips. I've found that wizard players would rather fire a weak eldritch bolt, acid orb, magic missile, or anything magical, than to resort to darts or a crossbow. Even if the crossbow would do more damage.

[Finarvyn]

Jul 14, 2014 8:06:13 GMT -6 @noodles said:

Thanks for the actual play report. Posts like this are so much more useful than theorycrafting when readng about a new game. I'm rethinking my decision to wait for the phb release before I start my 5e game.

Here's my advice: Download the free PDF and run a game. If you love it, you can plunk down $$ for the "real thing" when the PH comes out in a few weeks. If you hate it, you haven't lost much at all. Or, buy the $20 starter set for the adventure and use the free PDF rules.

Overall, the free PDF will give folks the most "old school" feel of all. Four classes, four races, not a lot of options. Fighters all pretty much do the same as other fighters. Rogues are thieves. Clerics are healers. Spells are pretty much teh ones you'd expect for wizards and clerics to have. Classes will act a lot like what you'd expect. Honestly, if you play "white box plus thieves only" OD&D you'll find a lot to like. I think folks could play the free PDF for a long time and not feel like they are missing anything.

The Player's Handbook will add in options. Want rangers and monks and bards and the like? You'll need the PH. However, the PH will also bring in feats and other elements you might not like unless you liked them in 3E/4E. I think most "old school" gamers won't be able to say "okay, if it's in the PH it is canon" because you will probably want to cherry pick a little. If that bothers you, probably 5E isn't the game you want.

How about this: think about the Basic PDF as being a lot like the white box, and the PH as being a lot like Supplement I Greyhawk.

[kesher]

Jul 14, 2014 8:06:13 GMT -6 @noodles said:

Thanks for the actual play report. Posts like this are so much more useful than theorycrafting when readng about a new game. I'm rethinking my decision to wait for the phb release before I start my 5e game.

I'm with you on the cantrips. I've found that wizard players would rather fire a weak eldritch bolt, acid orb, magic missile, or anything magical, than to resort to darts or a crossbow. Even if the crossbow would do more damage.

Seconded on all counts.

[kesher]

Here's another thoughtful actual play report: Actual Play D&D 5e & 0e/1e Comparison

[Finarvyn]

ANOTHER SESSION PLAYED:

Our group played another session of 5E yesterday. We had earned enough XP in the first session to level up, so started this time at 2nd level.

First, some comments about the level-up process. The pregen sheet actually helped a lot because it listed the specific powers we got to add, but I realized that you really have to read the fine print in the rulebook or you might miss out. My cleric is in the domain of "Life" (the only one in the Basic rules and the one probably most like the classic OD&D/AD&D cleric) and because of this has extra points in each healing spell; I missed that rule first time around. Also, we realized that the two-weapon fighter was supposed to use two LIGHT weapons (not a battleaxe and a hand axe) and that we were doing it wrong before. This isn't a slam on 5E per se, but a reminder that (1) it's not the same as what you think you know, and (2) it has more rules detail than I'm used to reading.

The adventure itself was very smooth and could have been D&D of any edition. We spent the first hour or so talking to NPCs and getting clues about the possible wherabouts of the hideout of the bad guys. Very role-play with very little dice rolling. We had combat in three of the rooms of the "dungeon" -- four bugbears, four guards, one strange creature I didn't recognize. All of the combats were pretty quick, lasting only a few rounds and having a distinct OD&D/AD&D style feel to it.

Of our for characters, one dropped to zero and two others (yours truly and a fighter) had to resort to using some healing dice becasue I was near death. I think we felt that we could "die" (or at least be out of action at zero HP) and never felt like we were just wading through mooks.

My biggest complaints weren't really edition specific.

(1) I hate tracking XP and felt like after fighting a bunch of battles we ought to have gained more of them.

(2) I hate tracking coins and we got random assortments of electrum and platimun and gold and silver and copper. Give me a nice simple decimal system and make gold worth a lot and I'm happier. To make it tricky, while I have all sorts of ugly coin values written on my note sheet, on the official ENCOUNTERS sheet I have to translate it all into "Gold" without the decimals in case I want to use this character in someone else's game. Awkward.

All in all, 5E has been a rewarding experience.

[joseph]

I'm running AS&SH right now but am hoping one of my group will step up to run 5E afterwards. Thanks for the reports!

[Finarvyn]

THIRD WEEKLY SESSION PLAYED:

These may not be worth much anymore as others are posting some of their play experiences as well out on the interwebs, but I thought I'd do at least one more.

We were late in getting started because of a bike race which had closed down the Downtown area and made folks park blocks from the store.

At the end of last adventure we were still inside the dungeon complex, so not as much "role play" and more combat. We were able to start off with a short rest, which allowed characters to spend some HD as healing (we really needed this) but didn't allow me to gain any new spells. (I have 3 spells at 2nd level and have been a miser, only casting one in the first half of the dungeon. This doesn't count my cantrips, of course.)

We looted a magic-user's lab and fought the wizard, who managed to escape. We fought guards and rescued some prisoners, who knew nothing even though we asked. We battled our way through skeletons but they were killed before I could get to the front of the party so I never got to "turn undead" on them. We killed some other creatures at the end and had cleared out the rest of the dungeon at that point, so something like four battles plus some chances to question prisoners. We got all that done in around 2 hours, so the game still seems to handle combat in a pretty efficient manner. Nobody died, but again a couple of the group came close. I used one spell to detect magic on the mage (who had turned invisible) and I ended up not needing my final spell (which I had saved as an emergency heal) or my turn undead.

As before, the adventure was fun and fast-paced. I felt that we had a lot of combat but had also opportunites to get into character and play the role. I think that it ran a lot like many of my OD&D/AD&D/C&C adventures and I'm still happy with the way the rules work.

I noticed that our GM is doing XP by monster kills only and not by gold earned; I should check to be certain that this is the BTB way to do it but it seems to work well. We have earned roughly 350 XP in each of three game sessions, which meant that we leveled up again. Seems fast, but all editions allow for quick advancement early on and it slows down after that so probably not that different from the rate I allow my players to advance in my OD&D campaigns.

Just a quick back-of-the-envelope calcuation, assuming 350 XP each game:
2nd level after 1 session (check)
3rd level after 3 sessions (check)
4th level after 8 sessions (estimate)
5th level after 19 sessions (estimate)
6th level after 40 sessions (estimate)

Of course this particular campaign won't last that long, but at one session per week this would mean that a year of game play would get the party to somewhere around 6th level. That's prety slow advancement. And I don't know how fast XP will go up once we start fighting tougher monsters, so my estimates may be totally bogus.

All-in-all, a good play session.

[jeffb]

As I posted somewhere around these parts, during the playtest, I ran a few sessions with the kids, and it was meh. I felt like I could take the things I liked, add them tan older edition and be happier.

The final rules set is SO MUCH better. We are doing Lost Mine and having a blast. Fast, deadly combats. People and monsters are hitting and getting hit hard. Spells are fresh. Game runs super smoothly.

Over the past 3 years with them I have run PFBB, 3.5, my 4e essentials TotM variant, 13th Age, DCC, C&C, some one shots of RQ and CoC, but we always came back to my OD&D/SW mashup for fun fast play.

But I think 5e is going to win out. I am loving the rules at the table. With every other system I am dragging parts from this game or that game, and cobbling it all together, and usually still wanting. So far not the case with 5e Basic.