D&D 5e: For real this time?

[Keldar]

but removing level scaling lends more toward 4e balance.

How do we know this? Isn't the playtest just low level characters?

Peace,
Necro

That's basically what they've said in the blogs.  Plus in two level ups, no number change directly in the sample characters.  I could be wrong though, I'm not psychic.  At least that's what Dr. Venkman tells me.

[LordBlades]

but removing level scaling lends more toward 4e balance.

How do we know this? Isn't the playtest just low level characters?

Peace,
Necro

That's basically what they've said in the blogs.  Plus in two level ups, no number change directly in the sample characters.  I could be wrong though, I'm not psychic.  At least that's what Dr. Venkman tells me.

From what Mearls said last night in his live chat, they are deliberately flattening the advancement curve. they said they want to keep iconic low-level monsters like orcs relevant for longer

[bhu]

Please tell me they eventually playtest higher level pc's so as to avoid the 'once the party reaches level x everything goes phbbbttt' problem.

[skydragonknight]

My big question will be if/how they implement multiclassing. I understand it can be tricky to balance compared to individual classes, but you just don't get the same level of variety without it.

[RobbyPants]

It has the basic bones of 3e there so far, but removing level scaling lends more toward 4e balance.  Going light on rules and counting on opposed rolls and Advantage to cover the gaps takes the best mechanical concept from older editions.  If they provide enough fiddly bits like 3e, and fluff/plot mechanics like 2e, I could actually like 5e.

My biggest complaint is that very large sections of the game are pretty much pure MTP. You don't need to buy a game to play MTP. There are sections in there where the rules basically say, describe what you're doing to the DM, and he'll decide if you succeed, fail, or need to roll a check. That's not even a rule.

Also, rogues seem to suffer either from deliberate hate or unintentional lack of understanding of the base rules. A whole bunch of their abilities are pretty much identical to the base rules as-is. It's like they're commoners who decided to go steal stuff.

Please tell me they eventually playtest higher level pc's so as to avoid the 'once the party reaches level x everything goes phbbbttt' problem.

They're saving that for 6th edition.

[oslecamo]

but removing level scaling lends more toward 4e balance.

How do we know this? Isn't the playtest just low level characters?

Peace,
Necro

That's basically what they've said in the blogs.  Plus in two level ups, no number change directly in the sample characters.  I could be wrong though, I'm not psychic.  At least that's what Dr. Venkman tells me.

That's not how 4e worked. In 4e almost everything scales by level.

That's how 1e worked. Numbers scaled much slower, meaning like LordBlades pointed out, a large bunch of grouped orcs/kobolds could still pose a threat to higher level parties, because they would be hiting more than just in nat 20s, and the PC HP wouldn't have scaled that much either.

[Rejakor]

*In 4e everything FAKED scaling by having every single thing scale by level at equal rates to every other single thing.

Fixed that for you.


So what's the prognosis?  3e style roll resolution, 4e style no multiclassing and MTP number monsters, but no 'powers'?

Sounds like 3e but boring.

[skydragonknight]

Sounds like 3e but boring.

Sounds like a conversion method for new players. Teach them Dungeons and Dragons (5E). Then teach them ADVANCED Dungeons and Dragons (3.5).

[oslecamo]

*In 4e everything FAKED scaling by having every single thing scale by level at equal rates to every other single thing.

Fixed that for you.

Not  true when it came to monster combat. The 4e DMG recommended to throw fewer higher-level enemies or several lower levels enemies than the party level, as long as there wasn't a 5-level discrepancy in either way. So when you leveled up, you may end up facing more kobolds instead of stronger kobolds. That's why there's "final boss" monsters over level 30, even tough the party can only go up to level 30.

True to everything else there tough. One of the things that annoyed me more in 4e was that all the doors in the world magically turned to reinforced adamantine if you were high level enough.

[Rejakor]

within that 5 level variance, though, the world entirely scaled with you.

including your attack score to their defense bonus.  so it was just 'roll a 5 vs 'easy' enemies, roll a 10 vs 'normal' enemies, or roll a 15 vs 'hard' enemies'.. nothing changes from level 1 onwards = no customization.  I could magic tea party better numbers than that.

[Halinn]

within that 5 level variance, though, the world entirely scaled with you.

including your attack score to their defense bonus.  so it was just 'roll a 5 vs 'easy' enemies, roll a 10 vs 'normal' enemies, or roll a 15 vs 'hard' enemies'.. nothing changes from level 1 onwards = no customization.  I could magic tea party better numbers than that.

As I understand things, after the inevitable power creep of having to make new feats and magic items in new books, the numbers for PCs improved.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

... Nor is the "Fighter" supposed to suck ...

Fixed that.
Fighter is supposed to suck.
"Fighter" is supposed to not suck.
 

[caelic]

You have no idea how tempted I am at this moment to create and trademark the Magic Tea Party system and then sue any game company that dares to use "Just make it up!" for using my proprietary content. 

[oslecamo]

within that 5 level variance, though, the world entirely scaled with you.

including your attack score to their defense bonus.  so it was just 'roll a 5 vs 'easy' enemies, roll a 10 vs 'normal' enemies, or roll a 15 vs 'hard' enemies'.. nothing changes from level 1 onwards = no customization.  I could magic tea party better numbers than that.

As I understand things, after the inevitable power creep of having to make new feats and magic items in new books, the numbers for PCs improved.

Almost. The thing was, in the first 4e books, the monster stats actually scaled faster than the PC ones, even taking in acount equipment, so by the end of the game you weren't  hiting anything unless you had some Leader buffing the hell out of you. So they then started said power creep. Still kinda fail since the numbers were suposed to add up from the start.

You have no idea how tempted I am at this moment to create and trademark the Magic Tea Party system and then sue any game company that dares to use "Just make it up!" for using my proprietary content. 

Silly boy, you can't trademark something that's obvious/common sense.

No, seriously, the laws says you need to prove other people just couldn't naturally do it by themselves in order to trademark it. Someone at a time tried to trademark "reboot your comp when it crashes", and the patent companies basically told him to go screw himself.

[DonQuixote]

Having looked over the packet, I'd say that I'm cautiously excited to see what 5e brings us.  My playgroup mostly consists of people who learned 3.5 from a person who learned 3.5 from a person who learned 3.5 from a person who read the books, so we already play a little bit with the hard-and-fast rules.  Moreover, since I generally have to wrap up a campaign in only a single semester, I only get ten sessions to a campaign...which means that characters level up blindingly fast.  I also only get three to four hours for a session, so literally half of the campaign generally works out to being combat.

The lessened book-keeping and flatter scaling curves of 5e will definitely make it easier to keep a world coherent within these restrictions.  Less book-keeping means faster combats, which means more out-of-combat gaming.  Flatter scaling curves mean that I don't need to worry about the villains--or the player characters!--having glaringly inconsistent power levels.

Judging solely from the playtest packet, things in general are going to be simpler.  Building and leveling characters will be faster.  It looks to me like the system invites you to focus more on the game, rather than the meta-game.  And I'm really okay with that.  I want to focus on my character, not my character sheet.

Obviously, I can't make any sweeping judgments of the system as a whole--I still can't figure out how the math works on Tordek's attack and damage bonuses or Mialee's attack bonus.  However, I can say that I already have a strong suspicion that I'll be making the switch.  Most of the things that I love about 3.5 have made the cut, and a lot of the things I dislike about 3.5 seem to have disappeared...for now.

[caelic]

No, seriously, the laws says you need to prove other people just couldn't naturally do it by themselves in order to trademark it. Someone at a time tried to trademark "reboot your comp when it crashes", and the patent companies basically told him to go screw himself.

Damn.  So you're saying that my pending patent application for the wheel and all of its various applications probably isn't going to fly, then?

Back to the drawing board...

[sirpercival]

No, seriously, the laws says you need to prove other people just couldn't naturally do it by themselves in order to trademark it. Someone at a time tried to trademark "reboot your comp when it crashes", and the patent companies basically told him to go screw himself.

Damn.  So you're saying that my pending patent application for the wheel and all of its various applications probably isn't going to fly, then?

Back to the drawing board...

Sorry, I hold the patent for "the drawing board".

[Prime32]

Damn.  So you're saying that my pending patent application for the wheel and all of its various applications probably isn't going to fly, then?

Back to the drawing board...

I think someone managed to patent that in Australia a few years back...

[oslecamo]

Judging solely from the playtest packet, things in general are going to be simpler.  Building and leveling characters will be faster.  It looks to me like the system invites you to focus more on the game, rather than the meta-game.  And I'm really okay with that.  I want to focus on my character, not my character sheet.

Then you may like this news.

Basically, bonus to to-hit and AC will be pretty rare, what  scales is mostly damage and HP. So suposedly you won't have to worry anymore of keeping up with most numbers on your sheets, because what you get at first level, is what you're gonna use for most of your career.

[linklord231]

Then you may like this news.

Basically, bonus to to-hit and AC will be pretty rare, what  scales is mostly damage and HP. So supposedly you won't have to worry anymore of keeping up with most numbers on your sheets, because what you get at first level, is what you're gonna use for most of your career.

<.<  >.>  Not sure if want...
On the one hand, it means you don't have to hunt down every last bonus to AC and to hit just to stay relevant.  On the other hand, it means that a level 20 character will have just as much trouble hitting a goblin as he did at level 1.  Even if he kills it in one hit now, it might still take 4 swings just to connect. 

Also, they snuck in a few bits towards the end that are really telling, and I rather dislike. 
They say that the goal is to make it easy for DMs to make rulings for improvised scenarios, implying that such scenarios should be expected to come up often.  In my opinion, there should be explicit rules for 95% of situations, because it prevents DM abuse and unifies the experience between gaming groups.  For example, what if at one table a DM decides that jumping over a pit is a feat of heroic strength, and has his players roll a strength check to jump over it.  Then the next group over decides that jumping over a pit is a very agile and acrobatic thing, and has the PCs make Dex checks to clear the chasm.  If there isn't a clear rule for what kind of skill jumping is, then this situation is not only possible but likely. 
Second, they say "Now, we want to avoid situations where DMs feel bound by the numbers. ("Hey," says the player, "you said it was an iron-bound wooden door and I rolled a 17, what do you mean I didn't break it down?")"  This closely relates to the issue above, in that different groups aren't even playing the same game any more.  They're giving too much power to the DM - if you were playing in a group with a perfect DM, this wouldn't be a bad thing, but in my experience it just leads to railroading, the illusion of choice, and other DM douchebaggery.