D&D 5e: For real this time?

[InnaBinder]

And do tell, what do you mean by "good enough"? Because if nothing else, what qualifies as "good enough" is one of the most hotly debated topics in D&D discussions since the dawns of time.

Of course, in the end, good enough is subjective. What I had in mind was 'be able to engage most melee monsters in the book with a reasonable chance of succeeding'

Plus again, if those melee spells don't actually cost you anything from the rest of your casting potential, you're back to the starting problem. The wizard now doesn't need the fighter because he's "good enough" in melee, so what's the fighter suposed to do?

Choosing to be better at fighting as a wizard should mean that you're worse at wizard-ing. For example, if something like Polymorph, instead of being 'screw your physical stats, you're a dragon now' would base it's effect on your base physical stats, you'd probably see gishes care for their physical stats more, at the expense of their casting stat, this being worse wizards.

I'll wager that there's a lot of disagreement over what "choosing to be better at fighting as a wizard should mean."  Lots of folks have expressed the opinion that the simple fact that a wizard can choose to be as good as (or better than) a fighter at fighting effectively removes all need for the fighter; others have complained that the wizard's ability to choose to be as good as (or better than) a fighter at fighting on a given day, while having other options another day is the issue.  Being worse wizards than the straight wizard isn't necessarily a problem (though it will displease some players, no doubt), but being as good a fighter as the fighter while ALSO having the option to be a wizard - even a substandard one - seems consistently damning for the fighter.

[Rejakor]

Even a gish shouldn't be a fighter.

A gish should be a gish.

A gish gets to flip off walls and have the right set of buffs for each fight, but they don't get to be as all-around awesome as the fighter.  So you can be acid immune gish when fighting the acid monster, but the fighter shrugs off 75% of elemental damage at this level anyway, and has all kinds of Grit Surge abilities to ignore/mitigate hp damage in any case.

I'm okay with gishes being better than fighters if they know what's coming and spend a bunch of spell slots in the same way i'm okay with wizards being better.  Obviously not AS MUCH BETTER as they are in 3.5, like I dunno, 25% better or something.  But when they're blindsided they can get OHKO'd, or just be about 50% as effective.  There's nothing WRONG with that as a model, it's just that people fail to comprehend what's necessary to bring about that level of power thanks to consistently underestimating both wizard abilities and monster abilities.

It's just about the KIND of attacks and defenses needed at each level of play.  Most optimizers can tell you, they're just not used to the idea of it being written into a class instead of being put on gear or buffs or whatever.

[sirpercival]

Beta playtest is go.

And downloading the packet = major server lag... lol.

[oslecamo]

Got mine, and is... Quite interesting. Only low level stuff, but so far, at the lack of a more detailed description, I can say this is what 3.X  fans expected of 4e.

[Garryl]

Got a link to the download?

Also, details man, details! Please tell me more while I'm still at work and can't see for myself.

[ariasderros]

Got a link to the download?

Also, details man, details! Please tell me more while I'm still at work and can't see for myself.

Link.

[oslecamo]

Got a link to the download?

Also, details man, details! Please tell me more while I'm still at work and can't see for myself.

Very well, here's the most striking details:

(click to show/hide)

General stuff:
-HD per level are back, but now you either add your Con mod or your HD roll to HP at each level, whichever is higher.
-No Bab or saving throws. You now simply use your raw ability modifiers for attacks and defences.
-A new mechanic that pops up everywhere is advantage/disadvantage, which makes you to roll twice for a single check and take the best/worst result. It doesn't stack with itself, but an advantage and disadvantage cancel each other.
-Some of the stronger magic effects have been severly nerfed. Etherealness now only reduces damage from nonmagic weapons by half and being invisible just inflicts disadvantage on attacks against you.
-Melee weapons divived in simple, martial, finesseable (use dexterity to attack/damage) and heavy (only medium or bigger creatures can use them). Ranged weapons divided between simple and complex. Only complex is the h.crossbow, that is now Str-based instead of Dex. Also no more stacking range increment penalties, each ranged weapon has a primary-range where you shoot whitout penalty, and a much bigger secondary range where you take a Disadvantage on your attack roll.
-No such thing as touch AC, armor now fully works against magic attacks! But all such spells seem to get a flat +2 to their attack rolls.
-Spells usually have fixed non-scaling effects, but can add your main casting stat to damage and stuff.
-Also several spells are far less effective against enemies with high HP. Sleep for example can only actually put someone to sleep if they have less than 10 HP, otherwise it just reduces movement speed.
-No skill points per level either, but you can take backgrounds that boost a bunch of skills. Aparently you also need to take a theme, and both decide what feats you can take.
-Every combat round you can move and perform an action. Minor stuff like drawing weapons takes no action.
-There doesn't seem to be attacks of oportunity. Shooting in melee just inflicts disadvantage on your attack roll.

They don't actually give us races or class progressions, instead we get pre-generated characters lv 1 with instructions for the two first level ups:

Wizard-old good vancian casting, at-will cantrips (but knows very few, takes a feat for another two), can't cast in armor, if damaged they need to make a Con check next turn to get a non-cantrip spell off next turn. Magic missile is a cantrip that auto-hits and exceptionally scales damage with your level, grease makes people trip, Shield is 10 minutes of cover. You seem to learn 3 new spells per level, 2nd level spells at 3rd level, and familiars are a feat now. They no longer drain your exp when killed and can be summoned/dismissed like paladin mounts.

Fighter-hits people with a massive axe and is proficient with everything. Weapon focus boost your damage with all weapons. No special activated abilities, but has a nifty feat that makes him deal damage equal to his Str mod even if he misses. At 2nd  level  he gains fighter surge that allows him to take an extra action in a round 2/day and then at 3rd more weapon damage and a cleave feat that grants him an extra melee attack 1/round whenever he drops something to 0. Actually quite usefull since monsters seem to be coming in packs in the sugested adventure.

Will be posting more stuff soon.

[oslecamo]

More D&D next stuff

(click to show/hide)

Cleric-comes in Moradin and Pelor flavors. Spellcasting is a mix between spontaneous and prepared, as in you prepare a set of spells per day, and then can use any of them by spending spell slots of the right level. Channel Divinity is turn undead(now a 1st level spell) 4/day. Can wear armor, isn't disrupted by damage, can prepare more spells as he levels up. The moradin one has a feat that can grant disadvantage to enemy attacks targeted against an adjacent ally... 1/round? It says reaction, but I don't remember seeing rules for that. Also another feat that forces enemies that get near you to stop as a reaction, whatever that is. Also at 2nd level can spend Channel divinity to boost melee damage.  The Pelor one starts with a Herbalism feat that allows him to make anti-toxins, healing potions (just 1d8) and healer's kit (restore HP during 1 hour rests, dependant on your own HD) by spending 25 GP, up to three per hour. You start with one of those for free if you picked this feat right at creation. Then can then at 2nd level make an holy Aoo centered on them that reveals invisible creatures, and at 3rd level pick a feat that maximizes their healing for free. Even the potions they make.

Rogue-now gets +1d6 sneak attack per level. It applies to attacks that have advantage. Notice that there doesn't seem to be flanking anymore, but sneaking appears to be a much more viable tactic now (single check, it even gets a chapter for itself, while all other skills aren't mentioned at all). The rogue class further boosts sneaking around.  As an halfling you can even hide behind creatures bigger than you (and two free re-rolls on anything per day)! Ambusher feat then gives you advantage when attacking from hiding.... But the hide rules said you got advantage to attacking from hiding already I guess the diference is that the hiding rules demand you to remain hidden while you attack, while the Ambusher feat allows  move out of cover(yes you still need it) and be spoted and and still get the advantage. Can disarm traps, secret thief language. Skill mastery turns any 1d20 roll lower than 10 on a trained skill in a 10. At 2nd level you can get automatic advantage on a check 2/day and can adapt to see better in darker places, and at third level they pick the Skulker feat which makes them not reveal their position if they fail a ranged attack while hiding.

Monster team-They follow their own rules. Heavy enphasis on zerg tactics, like kobolds automatically get combat advantage if they outnumber you, rats and vermings get advantage if at least 3 of them gank a target. There's "leader" monsters that benefit from minions like the gnoll leader healing whenever something nearby dies or the kobold leader granting advantage to its minions when it hits a target (if it had advantage, then it deals extra damage). A Medusa has a save or die, altough you can safely evade it by averting your eyes(disadvantage on all attacks), unless you're caught by suprise, then save or die anyway. Even the dark priests that cast spells use their own rules. Each monster is worth a fixed amount of exp.

Other general stuff:
-You can divide your turn movement before and after your action.
-Dwarves no longer get darkvision,  just low-light vision, but are fully immune to poison.
-Elves get flat-out immunity to sleep and charmed.
-No mention of trip/grapple/bullrush, some monsters do have that stuff "built-in" in their special attacks.
-Humans don't seem to get anything special, but they do seem to have slightly more stats.
-You're either trained on skills or you aren't. Backgrounds grant bonus to skills.
-Speaking of which, the DC of non-combat stuff seems to be left for the DM to determine whatever he believes is more apropriate to the situation. So yeah...

[ksbsnowowl]

The advantage/disadvantage mechanic sounds interesting, but in the end it's just more dice rolling and adding-on-the-fly to slow down the pace of combat...  Not saying it's bad, just that I see a game-play disadvantage in it.

Edit: I also see a lot of players getting pissed off when they are subjected to a disadvantage effect.  The last session my players were fighting something with a high concealment miss chance, and it really angered them, as every time they would hit the AC, they'd miss due to miss chance, and vice versa.  That's going to lead to a lot of sour players unless it is really easy to counter.

Just curious: If the party is subject to two disadvantage effects and one advantage effect, are they disadvantaged? or just at "normal?"

[oslecamo]

Just curious: If the party is subject to two disadvantage effects and one advantage effect, are they disadvantaged? or just at "normal?"

Excellent question. The playtest rules don't specifically cover that case, but I would guess they're disadvantaged.

Also there doesn't seem to be concealment anymore, just cover (two grades) that simply grants a bonus to AC and reflex dexterity saves.

[Ziegander]

Well, I'm waiting on my playtest packet, but I have to say... this all sounds pretty bad to me. Am I the only one?

[JohnnyMayHymn]

wow their site is slooow right now, and they won't let me agree to the user agreement with firefox, chrome, explorer or from my phone 

[oslecamo]

I think I just found a borked combo.

-Being drunk reduces all damage taken by 1d6 but all your attacks and skill checks have Disadvantage.
-Wizards have several spells that don't demand attack rolls neither do they need to do skill checks in combat.
-?
-Profit!

[Ziegander]

Why the fuck are there even rules for being drunk included in the playtest document?!

[VennDygrem]

I think that the idea of putting more power in the DM's hands would mean that a constantly-drunk wizard would eventually gain a new feat: Cirrhosis of the Liver.

[Ziegander]

Also: Could they really not put all of the playtest documents into a single PDF? [/gripe]

[oslecamo]

Ray of frost is a cantrip that only demands a sucessful attack roll and automatically reduces the target's speed to 0 for 1 round.

I guess single melee monsters have automatically become a no-no, since a wizard or two can just keep them in place forever while the rest of the party peppers them with arrows.

[VennDygrem]

By the way, from my reading, trip/grapple/disarm/etc would end up being what is now being described as "contests" ie: one-on-one opposed rolls. What the end result is would likely be determined by the DM. Of course, that's not official, it just jives with what the D&D team have been saying about reducing the rules and mechanics and putting the power in the DM's hands.

 They're also keeping certain rules out of the playtest to see whether they're necessary or not, so they likely have grapple/trip rules, but are withholding them to see if they even need to be put in the published books.

[Ziegander]

Honestly... I just looked over the How to Play document, and, man... I don't want to look at the rest of this.

[oslecamo]

They're also keeping certain rules out of the playtest to see whether they're necessary or not, so they likely have grapple/trip rules, but are withholding them to see if they even need to be put in the published books.

They put a massive chapter for hiding, which basically only rogues care about, but they couldn't bother to put in a single section for extra combat maneuvers? When the fighter can just swing a weapon (or swing it more) for three levels? That's not really very motivational.