Dungeons & Dragons 5e playtests

[Toast]

To be fair, this is an alpha playtest where the options available were specifically chosen to be tested. The characters are pre-generated, the skill system is mostly non-existent, and the fighter has basically nothing to do but whack people.

Given that we probably haven't seen the breadth of spells, backgrounds, and themes available, let alone feats, I'm ok with keeping an open mind about how this will turn out. We also haven't seen a lot of the background mechanics, such as how to calculate bab, how number of spells and cantrips/orisons works, etc.

There's already some issues that are apparent just from reading through what is in the playtest. Sleep has no duration, ray of frost seems incredibly powerful for a low-level at will ability. You can automatically charm people by beating them down to 10hp or less. There doesn't seem to be any reason to use heavy armor unless you have a negative dex modifier or are a dwarf.

Those are things that I would houserule anyway. At first glance, the system seems very modular, and I like that because that's how I played AD&D (which was the last incarnation I played, not counting the pc games).

There doesn't seem to be quite the numbers bloat that 3.x had, which I like. There does seem to be a lot of extra dice rolling (advantage/disadvantage, poison, etc.) that could slow the game down a lot. Though it is difficult to tell at this point, character progression seems a lot flatter than previously, which is something that I personally like. I also like saves being based off ability scores, as I think that encourages more balanced stat distributions rather than min-maxing.

[CABAL49]

Crossclassing in 4e is dumb.

[Locke cole]

Poorly implemented, or a bad idea?

If the latter, I'm not sure. I mean, you can't get nearly the kind of blending you can get in 3.5, but if you want a different Paragon path, it can be useful.

...I question the logic in trying to cash in on 3.5 nostalgia when Pathfinder exists.

I'm not saying 5e is bad; I can't, since I haven't seen any of it. What I'm saying is that guys who really just want 3.5 again already have that.

[Meister]

Originally Posted by CABAL49

Crossclassing in 4e is dumb.

Which do you mean, multiclassing or hybrids? I always thought multiclassing was rather elegant. In theory and before they threw thousands of additional feats at the system, anyway. Granted, on the one hand I never saw anyone take any multiclassing feats beyond the first one, or treat that one as anything other than "Skill Training with something on top for the same prize as Skill Training", on the other people I know usually got everything they wanted out of a character from one class (and one of those feats).

Come to think of it, only one of my four regular players hasn't picked up one.

Never saw hybrids in action but my understanding was always that they're a very experimental, use-at-own-risk concept.

[tacticslion]

I'm going to reference the Pathfinder Alpha a very great deal, because really, that's what an alpha should be. I mean, their Alpha kind of sucked as a game, too, but as an alpha, it was handled pretty much exactly correctly.

Anyway, fair warning.

Originally Posted by Toast

To be fair, this is an alpha playtest where the options available were specifically chosen to be tested. The characters are pre-generated, the skill system is mostly non-existent, and the fighter has basically nothing to do but whack people.

Given that we probably haven't seen the breadth of spells, backgrounds, and themes available, let alone feats, I'm ok with keeping an open mind about how this will turn out. We also haven't seen a lot of the background mechanics, such as how to calculate bab, how number of spells and cantrips/orisons works, etc.

This is probably the worst thing they could do with an alpha, and, quite frankly, smacks of many of the exact same mistakes 4E made when it first came out and the way the articles and polls in Legends and Lore have barely improved on it.

This is not the way to run an alpha. You don't cherry-pick, show off some things, and receive feedback only on the things you ask for feedback on. 4E came with a huge backlash for pretty much that exact reason: they change everything, took zero feedback, and when you sent them questions the way they asked you to send them questions about rule sets they hadn't explained, they told you (or at least me) what amounts to, "Shut up, we're right, you don't know." which left me without any answers and no idea what I did "wrong" to receive such a response.

Now they're changing everything, taking only the feedback they want to get, and ignoring the rest. This is very little improvement.

Compare Pathfinder: their alpha was basically, "Hey, here's a potential Core Rulebook in its entirety, take a look, tell us what you think, send feedback." By the time Beta came around, rather large changes were made, and once the final arrived, it looked very different in most respects from the Alpha. But never once did they cherry-pick anything in their development/feedback process: they just explained "here's what we're thinking the whole thing looks like now, let us know".

From what you're saying here, WotC is going, "Here's some very specific combat things to stir nostalgia for those combat things, don't worry, we'll take care of the rest." which isn't really anything like what a good alpha should be. I mean, the alpha doesn't have to be anything at all like the final product (PF's sure wasn't), but you can't get good or accurate feedback

Originally Posted by Toast

There's already some issues that are apparent just from reading through what is in the playtest. Sleep has no duration, ray of frost seems incredibly powerful for a low-level at will ability. You can automatically charm people by beating them down to 10hp or less. There doesn't seem to be any reason to use heavy armor unless you have a negative dex modifier or are a dwarf.

This stuff? The exact stuff that was covered in the PF alpha. Covered and feedback requested. They really wanted to make sure they had their rules down first as a baseline to get good feedback on.

Now, I'm not going to say that 5E will "suck", because I haven't actually played the alpha. I've just been burned repeatedly by WotC, and see the exact same patterns of failure crop up again.

Originally Posted by Meister

Which do you mean, multiclassing or hybrids? I always thought multiclassing was rather elegant. In theory and before they threw thousands of additional feats at the system, anyway. Granted, on the one hand I never saw anyone take any multiclassing feats beyond the first one, or treat that one as anything other than "Skill Training with something on top for the same prize as Skill Training", on the other people I know usually got everything they wanted out of a character from one class (and one of those feats).

Which is one of the fundamental problems with the multi-classing system, really. I mean, a feat can grant me skill training, or it can grant me skill-training and some nifty stuff!

Another problem I've had with 4E multiclassing is very similar to the one I had with 3.5 Multiclassing: the pointless taxes they imposed. Why a feat-tax/skill-based tie-in? Why are the options so regulated (encounter/utility/daily; specific-skill; etc)?

It was very strange for me to be a cleric-warlock hybrid and have, like, three warlock-things (and the expended feats to prove it!), but otherwise be a cleric. The second class felt "tacked on". While 3.X Prestige Classes had their problems, one of their best traits was their ability to synchronize two choices (such as the Mystic Theurge)*. 4E really doesn't grant that: paragon paths work okay in my experience, for creating that feeling (about the same as 3.X Prestige Classes, really), but it's still somewhat lacking, and it suffers the same problems as 3.X: you don't really feel like you're both things until substantially later in your career.

Don't get me wrong. It can still be pretty cool. It just often isn't in practice, and doing so tends to make the entire power-system look quite shallow and one-note.

Originally Posted by Meister

Come to think of it, only one of my four regular players hasn't picked up one.

Never saw hybrids in action but my understanding was always that they're a very experimental, use-at-own-risk concept.

Which is really a terrible way to publish a Final Product (though a great way to run an Alpha on that product)

Hybrids were, quite frankly, awful. I've built them, looked at them very, very carefully, run playtests with them, and found all of them I tried pretty inferior in every way (with the exception of one lightly over-powered build, which really didn't change much of the group dynamic, because many 4E characters tend to be superheroes out-of-the-box anyway). System mastery becomes an absolute must to make a workable character, and the options that are granted those that take them are inferior in most every way for the sake of "balance", which... well, which doesn't work. It really feels like they went, "Hey, let's just throw this thing out here for those whiny people that weren't satisfied: also, now we don't have to make psionic rituals, due to extra filler!"**

It's just really unsatisfying, and feels like a very lazy and ill-thought-out failed pandering to a specific Fanbase***. (Kind of like the magic missile errata, really. ... also kind of like the 5E design decisions I've been seeing lately.****)

And, I mean, the hybrid system should have been the answer to the "I want to feel both" concept. It just... wasn't.

* The other two were: to become a super-specialized awesome-in-a-specific-field, and to enable an otherwise-strange-character concept. Still took too long.

** Rituals: still very confusing choices, even after all this time. I mean, it seems so odd that Simulacrum would be a Daily Power, rather than a ritual. Alchemy? A different form of Ritual-Replacement-System. Why would anyone want to spend so much and take so long to look at a small scene for an amount of time dwarfed by the amount of time it took to cast the dang thing?! Why is "necromancy" relegated to "whatever the GM wants"?!? And Circle Magic: WAT HAPPEN?!?! ARG!
...
... sorry. Um, so anyway, I kind of disagree with the over-all design and decisions of rituals in 4E.

*** Like me. It really feels like they were published just for my kind of player who wants to like WotC, disagrees with many of their design decisions, was a fan of 3.X, and keeps coming up frustrated. Hey: they failed. Again.

**** BOOM-baby! Aaaaaaaaand we're back on topic!

[Whomper]

One day I'll be able to play Dungeons & Dragons... /emo

[Locke cole]

You know what would be nice for Rituals? If there was a feat that let you prepare a ritual ahead of time, and then "finish" it later, so it didn't take 10 minutes to do Comprehend Languages: you could just prepare it earlier on, and take a round use it if you needed to later in the day. If you had to use it or lose it by the end of the day, and had to use the materials either way, it'd still be decently balanced.

[BitVyper]

As I recall, that's how magic basically works in the Amber books. You spend time weaving a spell together, then leave a few key elements of it "hanging" for later activation.

[Locke cole]

Ah, cool. I figured there was something out there that had already done it. I wonder what sort of feat it would take to be balanced?

Probably Paragon-level.

[Meister]

Have a playtest log.

At one point there are 18 rats. With no swarm rules, each rat gets its own attack roll, and they have advantage. That makes 36 rolls. Each rat does 1 point of damage. The wizard ends it single-handedly.

Game design of the genre's most well-known brand in 2012.