D&D 5e: For real this time?

[Wilb]

I hope they don`t try to use this packet to AEDUfy the Vance, limiting his prepared spells to 2 per level while expanding on the spells per day table...

The best they could do is give a small but considerable amount, like 1+1/5 levels plus INT mod per spell level. A good amount but not exactly spontaneous casting of the whole spellbook.

Bring em strange casters, the pally and the ranger! Alignment limitations included, but optional as stated (to keep the settings fluff as intact as possible).

[Necrosnoop110]

The fighter is in good shape. We're likely going to give the fighter a special parry mechanic that doesn't use expertise dice but works much the same way. If anything, the fighter might be a little too good. The feedback pegs the fighter as the most powerful class.
Source: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20121203

Thoughts?


Peace,
Necro

PS - Sorry if someone addressed this already, I haven't be following the thread 100%

[veekie]

More importantly

The biggest piece of feedback we received was that the rogue came across as a lame fighter. This was a key test to see how much tolerance people have for varied combat strength across classes. There's some give, but it looks like people want to avoid dramatic differences.

Frankly, that's not surprising, but now is the best time for us to challenge our assumptions before we lock things down.

Calling it a test eh. Either the game is MUCH further from completion than I thought, or they're just covering their ass.

[Libertad]

Stuff like this killed most of the enthusiasm I had for D&D Next, and I've mellowed out on Pathfinder books (most of the stuff I can get for free online for my games).  Probably explains why my primary interests are now out of print 3rd Edition Campaign Settings and old school Retro Clones.

[Unbeliever]

I also like the idea of dramatic differences among character builds.  Although I prefer them to be an affirmative choice rather than a default setting.  If it's a default setting that's probably a bad idea.  It's one of the things D&D (3E) has going for it compared to say Mutants and Masterminds.

[Libertad]

I disagree about the Mutants & Masterminds bit.  The sheer customization of Powers allows for an incredible variety of character builds.  But this is straying off-topic.

[Eldritch_Lord]

More importantly

The biggest piece of feedback we received was that the rogue came across as a lame fighter. This was a key test to see how much tolerance people have for varied combat strength across classes. There's some give, but it looks like people want to avoid dramatic differences.

Frankly, that's not surprising, but now is the best time for us to challenge our assumptions before we lock things down.

Calling it a test eh. Either the game is MUCH further from completion than I thought, or they're just covering their ass.

If the Ivory Tower Game Design article is anything to go by, I wouldn't rule out that they're just covering their collective ass.  However, they've said they're targeting a 2014 release (and remember, 4e was basically written in 2 years as well), and between that and the amount of changes between playtest packets, I'm inclined to say that it's just really really early in the process right now.

[Unbeliever]

I disagree about the Mutants & Masterminds bit.  The sheer customization of Powers allows for an incredible variety of character builds.  But this is straying off-topic.

I'm not a topic Nazi.  I have played a lot of M&M, and made many, many characters (got to be over 100).  The system is amazingly flexible and intricate, allowing you to do a lot of things and create a lot of subtle differences.  It's one of the few systems where you can have 3 characters with essentially the same power set, say Superman, Black Adam, and Wonder Woman, and have them be interestingly mechanically-distinct. 

But, the PL system does mute the differences between builds.  This is, to be fair, its intended function.  You will notice that characters have less separation, or the separation comes in particular set of ways (e.g., Impervious defenses), than it does in D&D.  You won't have the potential large differences in AC or the Paladin's ability to scoff at saving throws.  This is more the case with the 3rd edition of the game, where characters are encouraged to have more balanced defenses. 

[Keldar]

If anyone still cares, the next Next packet is out.  Up to 20th level now.  I have yet to peruse.

(click to show/hide)

General
Levels 11–20: The playtest now supports play through level 20.

Critical Hits: The rule for critical hits has been revised.

Falling: Rules for falling have been added.

Two-­Weapon Fighting: Two-­‐weapon fighting has been updated to be a more accessible option.

Casting in Armor: Rules for casting in armor are now available.

Death Saving Throws: The timing of these saving throws has been changed, and a benefit for rolling a natural 20 has been added.

Weapon Proficiency: Rules for weapon proficiencies are now defined in the rules.

Grappling: The rules for grappling (formerly known as grabbing) have been fleshed out.

Damage Types: The description of force damage has changed, and holy and unholy damage have been removed.

Improvements in Clarity: The rules for opportunity attacks, targeting with spells, and reactions have been revised to increase clarity.

[JohnnyMayHymn]

Yet another playtest is out.  They must have been waiting for the boards to be back online.

Barbarian 1-20.

Where is the druid, DoTC?

[Keldar]

They've really hung a ton on people liking the whole Martial Die mechanic.  There is one whole class that doesn't use it; the Wizard.

[linklord231]

They've really hung a ton on people liking the whole Martial Die mechanic.  There is one whole class that doesn't use it; the Wizard.

Wait, Clerics use it now too?

[Garryl]

They've really hung a ton on people liking the whole Martial Die mechanic.  There is one whole class that doesn't use it; the Wizard.

That seems a little overboard, if it's the case. It's a good subsystem (enables player choice, scaling effects, varied abilities, and a consistent unified mechanic), but having too many classes use it would really kill the system's diversity (like 4E's at will/encounter/daily/utility paradigm). It could also marginalize the mechanic's worth for class that rely on it when compared to classes that have it and another subsystem to combine with. That said, I'm downloading the playtest now to take a look.

Edit: Wow, yeah, every class but Wizards. Clerics pick it up at level 6.

Edit 2: It seems that most classes get a sort of stunted progression after level 10. You don't get much in the way of new features and existing ones stop or dramatically slow their progression. Wizards get higher level spells, but not more slots (just 1 slot of each spell level from 6 through 9).

[Bauglir]

Edit 2: It seems that most classes get a sort of stunted progression after level 10. You don't get much in the way of new features and existing ones stop or dramatically slow their progression. Wizards get higher level spells, but not more slots (just 1 slot of each spell level from 6 through 9).

This bodes ill for the possibility of simple multiclassing.

[Amechra]

Actually, wouldn't it incentivize it?

After all, if you aren't getting much from your main class, its best if you grabbed stuff from other places.


Or it could just be WotC being bad at writing high level abilities again.

[linklord231]

Actually, wouldn't it incentivize it?

After all, if you aren't getting much from your main class, its best if you grabbed stuff from other places.


Or it could just be WotC being bad at writing high level abilities again.

Depends on what abilities you are getting, I guess.  Like in 3.5, martial and skillmonkey builds tend to dip around a lot because their high level abilities aren't that great.  Casters on the other hand don't multiclass hardly at all (excluding PrC's) because delaying their high level spells is such a big deal. 

Edit:  I worry that they've kind of latched on to this extra die mechanic in a way that's a bit too similar to what happened with 4E.  They stumbled upon a system that makes certain classes more interesting, and now they're forcing everything to fit the system.  That will only bite them in the butt.

[Bauglir]

Actually, wouldn't it incentivize it?

After all, if you aren't getting much from your main class, its best if you grabbed stuff from other places.


Or it could just be WotC being bad at writing high level abilities again.

Emphasis on "simple". In particular, if numbers aren't a simple linear function of level in a class, they'll be quick to realize they can't have you just sum them across your classes, which is what made it so simple in 3E. There's no way in hell they'll trust the players to do square roots or logarithms or whatever they base their progressions on (if they base it on anything numerical, as opposed to "by feel"), which means they'll either have an absurdly elaborate system of table lookups, or else you'll have fixed points in your progression where you can multiclass, a la 4E. Either way, classes become significantly less modular and the system becomes less likely of being capable of representing your character idea.

They could easily miss it if gains accelerated as level increased (they sure did with spellcasting in 3E), but I would bet US dollars to Zimbabwe dollars that they'll zoom in on anything that makes multiclassing fundamentally and strictly better than singleclassing, and rule against it.

I think they may be running up against the fundamental limitations of the d20 as a system, unfortunately, and you can't ditch it as the basis of your RNG without losing what's pretty much the only mechanical constant that defines D&D. You can't support open-ended character growth in pure numbers without an RNG that grows to match, and you can't write an open-ended progression of new abilities at all. At some point, if you hard-capped numbers, you'd have to essentially write Epic Spellcasting again. So all you can do is slow growth down as you grow, in the hopes that nobody will ever actually play to the point where the system breaks down.

An alternative might be to redefine what a given result on a d20 means by what your level is (so that a 10 for a level 1 Fighter is a solid blow and a 10 for a level 20 Fighter is cutting down an entire battlefield of ordinary soldiers with a single swing), but that would require such a fundamental overhaul of the system that I can't even begin to imagine what it would look like, and it'd have a lot of DM Fiat problems.

Big ol stream-of-consciousness post is rambly.

[DonQuixote]

I've been losing faith in D&D Next, and this packet does nothing to restore it.  I'll wait and see, but I'm not holding my breath for anything at this point.

[linklord231]

I've been losing faith in D&D Next, and this packet does nothing to restore it.  I'll wait and see, but I'm not holding my breath for anything at this point.

Agreed.  When the first packet came out, I was pretty interested, but my enthusiasm has been steadily declining as they introduce more and more 4e design elements. 

[Garryl]

I've been losing faith in D&D Next, and this packet does nothing to restore it.  I'll wait and see, but I'm not holding my breath for anything at this point.

Agreed.  When the first packet came out, I was pretty interested, but my enthusiasm has been steadily declining as they introduce more and more 4e design elements. 

What 4E design elements? I'm not familiar with the depths of 4E (only the generalities) and I've done little more than skim the playtest packets. I haven't even looked at the higher level spells in the new packet, just levels 1-5 from the previous iterations.