D&D 5e: For real this time?

[Prime32]

-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.
-Every combat round you can move and perform an action. Minor stuff like drawing weapons takes no action.
-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.

Well I like the sound of these parts... I'd heard about movement not being an action before (if you want to stand still you just move 0ft), which helps mobility quite a bit compared to 3e full attacks. Instant-death spells being restricted by HP seems like a decent way to balance them (works as a finisher and for fighting mooks), and it makes martial types more resistant to them than casters.

[oslecamo]

Well I like the sound of these parts... I'd heard about movement not being an action before (if you want to stand still you just move 0ft), which helps mobility quite a bit compared to 3e full attacks. Instant-death spells being restricted by HP seems like a decent way to balance them (works as a finisher and for fighting mooks), and it makes martial types more resistant to them than casters.

It would, if the monsters actually followed that rule. But again the medusa doesn't care about HP (and notice the wizard can just avert his eyes and blast away perfectly while the fighter/rogue need to avert their eyes and take disadvantage on all attacks). Neither does the gelatinous cube engulf care about target HP, or all the other effects with saves involved I saw in the bestiary.

There's some good ideas around, but the more I read it, the more I think this will still take a good deal of work to make them stand out to be refined into a proper new edition.

Like, the minotaur has 132 HP and the fighter at best is dishing out 20 damage per attack at level 3 (crits auto-maximize like in 4e).

[VennDygrem]

Like, the minotaur has 132 HP and the fighter at best is dishing out 20 damage per attack at level 3 (crits auto-maximize like in 4e).

Assuming a party of four can put out at least 10 points of dmg/turn for each party-member, that turns into about 3 rounds of combat, give or take. Is that so bad?

[InnaBinder]

Like, the minotaur has 132 HP and the fighter at best is dishing out 20 damage per attack at level 3 (crits auto-maximize like in 4e).

Assuming a party of four can put out at least 10 points of dmg/turn for each party-member, that turns into about 3 rounds of combat, give or take. Is that so bad?

Yep, sounds like the design principle is avoiding nova-bomb combats, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

[oslecamo]

Like, the minotaur has 132 HP and the fighter at best is dishing out 20 damage per attack at level 3 (crits auto-maximize like in 4e).

Assuming a party of four can put out at least 10 points of dmg/turn for each party-member, that turns into about 3 rounds of combat, give or take. Is that so bad?

Hmm, let's check it out.

Wizard-maybe can dish out a nuke or two dealing 4d6+3 at 3rd level, save for half, then magic missile spam for automatic 2d6.

Rogue-tecnically an amazing 4d6+3 thanks to sneak attack, but geting it off whitout flanking granting advantage anymore will be tricky.

Clerics: 1d8 weapons that don't really scare much. But they do have some nice group buffs by that level so they could make a diference.

So I guess with the clerics geting to pick the right spells (instead of those sugested in the pre-gen characters), it may work.

[Keldar]

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.

It shouldn't slow down anything.  It's basically the same mechanics Avengers use in 4E, I played one of those for half the time I played 4E and never had any trouble.  Just throw both d20s at the same time and use the high/low roll as appropriate.  It isn't that amazing of a bonus or penalty, it works out to roughly +/- 4.

[veekie]

I'd wait and see once its more complete, the current state might make bad first impressions.

[Wrex]

Ray of frost is the Best. Spell. Ever.

Someone within 100 feet can't move for one round on a succesful touch attack? And I can do this at will?

[ksbsnowowl]

Ray of frost is the Best. Spell. Ever.

Someone within 100 feet can't move for one round on a succesful touch attack? And I can do this at will?

Assuming they keep minimum forward movement for poor and clumsy fliers, tag a flying dragon with this, and watch it plummet to the ground.

[Wrex]

Ray of frost is the Best. Spell. Ever.

Someone within 100 feet can't move for one round on a succesful touch attack? And I can do this at will?

Assuming they keep minimum forward movement for poor and clumsy fliers, tag a flying dragon with this, and watch it plummet to the ground.

Indeed. Colossal Red Dragon, fear my cantrips!

I am mildly saddened by the fact that team monster isn't playing by the same rules we are, though. A sleep only scores a SoD if they have ten or less HP and fail a save. A medusa has no such HP requirement. And mages don't suffer from having to avert their eyes, as Oslecamo has stated. Also, drink is absurdly useful to a wizard currently. Being drunk gives all attack rolls and skill checks disadvantage, right? Most spells use neither, and the d6 DR is a pretty damn good deal.

EDIT: Poison is absurdly expensive. 100 GP for a phial with DC 11 Con save and inflict d4 poison damage on a failed save. At least the stuff lasts for a minute, and presumeably is not depleted after each strike. It can also coat three projectiles, rather than one melee weapon. And that DC11 Con save is something you could actually fail, since you no longer get save bonuses.

[Kethrian]

Other things I've noticed:

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- no alignments (yet)
- your Hit Dice is how much non-magical healing you can get in a day - a healing kit used in a short rest (10 minutes) lets you spend Hit Dice up to your total (your level), and add your con mod to the amount for each die, and you can spend them one at a time so you don't overspend.  You need a long rest (8 hours) to regain your hit dice.
- 0 or lower HP is dying, DC 10 con save each round for stabilizing; 3 successes to fully stabilize, but every failure means you lose 1d6 HP.  Death is at con score + level (14 con and 1st level = die at -15 or lower).  Healing immediately puts you to 0 then adds its healing amount (like in 4th ed).
- Nonlethal attacks are normal attacks that can't reduce a creature below 0 HP and leaves them stable.
- Cylinder spells can be oriented in any direction
- Ritual casting is casting a spell spontaneously instead of prepared.  It takes much longer and is fairly costly in components.  Not all spells are capable of ritual casting.
- There is Healing Word that heals only 1d6, but at range and lets the caster still attack or cast a minor (at-will) spell in the same turn, versus Cure Light Wounds which heals 1d8+relevant ability mod, and range of touch.  Both are 1st level.
- Silence no longer auto-negates casting, but rather forces a DC 15 int check or lose the spell without effect.
- Turn Undead doesn't kill or force undead to flee, but rather prevents them from attacking at all or moving closer to you for a round.

[Wrex]

Goodby negative levels, and good ridance. The wight only drains HP, which is restored after a night's rest.

[ksbsnowowl]

Goodby negative levels, and good ridance. The wight only drains HP, which is restored after a night's rest.

Oh come now.  There is a lot of fun to be found in negative levels!   

[Kethrian]

Resistance halves the damage, while vulnerability doubles it.  Simple, elegant, scales well.

Edit: and no surprise rounds, just a -20 to initiative if you're surprised.  Different... will have to see how that plays out.

[linklord231]

It bothers me that monsters don't follow the same rules as players.  It seems like it would make it simpler to DM, but it just doesn't seem right. 

[altpersona]

anything on vision?

[RedWarlock]

Resistance halves the damage, while vulnerability doubles it.  Simple, elegant, scales well.

Edit: and no surprise rounds, just a -20 to initiative if you're surprised.  Different... will have to see how that plays out.

Yeah, like with 4e, there's a few interesting mechanics in there that I'm going to borrow in for my own house game, though I'm probably going to mix-and-match different concepts, or even do both. (I like doing fractional resistance, as well as doing numeric reduction. Mix and match the two to create even more fun. ) And a number of these concepts had already appeared in one form or another in other places or houserules, or even as more limited versions. (advantage sounds like an extrapolation of the 4e elven accuracy.) Leaves plausible deniability when those bits show up in homebrew. >:}

I have to laugh, actually, because their hit-dice as mundane healing reserve is exactly what I'm doing in my non-D&D psuedo-d20 game Cityscape. (Fairly sure I even mention it in one of my posts on here, months ago.) Independent thoughts leading to the same result.

Monsters using different rules never really bugged me. (It's like using the Elite array vs the common 10s or something rolled, it's just how much player/npc differentiation are you willing to take?) I think they're going to ground the monsters in their stats a lot more firmly than they were in 4e.

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I know in my own rules, I'm planning on building NPC classes that fit the various role archetypes of 4e, and having monster types only modify those, so like undead or dragons would upgrade hit dice by a size but otherwise leave saves/attacks/etc intact from the class archetypes.

[Kethrian]

It bothers me that monsters don't follow the same rules as players.  It seems like it would make it simpler to DM, but it just doesn't seem right. 

So far, many just get special racial abilities, but leaders get effects based on their minions dying or whatnot.  And it's an early look at possible rules, so just make sure you mention the different rules thing in your feedback.  It might get them to take a different approach if you state why you don't like it and how they could go about changing it for the better.

[Kethrian]

anything on vision?

Low-light is limited to 30', but you treat shadowy as normal and dark as shadowy.  That's all so far.

The other skills are all detailed in the DM section.  It also gives a list of typical checks and their DCs.  I guess this is because they aren't as class-dependant as stealth is to the rogue.  I wonder why the bit about always rounding fractions down is in the DM section and not in the How To Play?  Seems pretty damn important to me, especially what with medium armours only adding half your dex bonus to AC, and several spells having a save for half damage.

[Bozwevial]

So, here's a hypothesis. The rogue is the new monk.

Actually, that's not even a hypothesis. I can just kinda point to the document and rest my case there, starting a riot on the defendant's side of the court. The DA retires and becomes a turnip farmer.

And y'know what? That comparison might not even be fair to the monk. At least it had class abilities that did something. The rogue? Well, you can effectively take 10 on a task for a trained skill...but oh what's that over there on the horizon? Let's all squint to read it:

In normal circumstances, a DC of 10 or lower represents a task that is so easy that it is not worth a check. An adventurer can almost always succeed automatically on a trivial task.

Not that it matters very much, because sweet-talking the DM is now such an integral part of the game they encourage you to grant outright success if you tried hard enough.