Minor 5th Edition Updates for Monday, 16 January, 2012

migo · Jan 17, 2012

Kzach said:
Why is it that everyone seems to forget (or are they just too young to know?) that 1e had movement rates in INCHES.

And a REAL grognard isn't a 1e player. A real grognard thinks 1e is an abomination of TRUE D&D, which started in a box.

Yeah, I was thinking that recently too, d20 first brought about using feet for movement rate, and also made the round much more reasonable. And for all the protestations some people will make that a round was 1 minute, most people played as if a round were something much shorter and the game didn't break apart because of that.

jedijon · Jan 17, 2012

No way you'll get everybody to agree HOW they want to play in this free-for-all version of D&D - select your own ruleset edition.

Not a chance.

Plus, even if there's some way to MECHANICALLY balance characters of varying complexity there's now way to balance the experience at the table. If I pick a SIMPLE character - am I going to be able to have fun with the next dude over playing a COMPLEX character and hogging all the play time...

You just plain have to make choices when designing a game. No coherent/consistent rules-set is called life. This game, however, is D&D "coward edition". Come on game designers. Pick something, do it excellently, and enjoy it for a good long while. I can't believe this schadenfreude has cropped up in 4 years of electronic pipe-dreams.

Erdrick Dragin · Jan 17, 2012

I am surprisingly getting hopeful about this. As long as one thing remains certain:

The "Crunch" Material.

How do they plan on doing that? Will we be getting new game material for all 4 editions to use with these "Base D&D Rules" we're getting?

The books will definitely be condensed with this route, but at the same time the legendary "power creep" won't be so problematic since each product is going to contain 4 editions worth of material, meaning power creep will be reduced at 75% the normal rate for all editions. Not including Dragon articles. Or is Dragon/Dungeon only going to be for 4e?

That is my #1 question is how they plan on handling adding new options?

Hussar · Jan 17, 2012

Kzach said:
1) Nobody, not even someone who prefers a 'simple' character is going to enjoy sitting at a table with their simple character who can do X and Y, next to a player with a character who can do the whole alphabet. People will resent that player having more options and taking more time at the table, regardless of how 'balanced' it is (which is another issue entirely given how arbitrary and subjective 'balance' is).

That's not entirely true though. Throughout D&D's history, you had characters (primarily casters) who had way, way more options than other classes. The game worked pretty well then.

What's the difference here? If you want a simple character, you have a small number of options to deal with. If you want a complex character, you have a boatload of options to deal with. In the past, that division was delineated by class. Now, from the sounds of it, it will be delineated by player.

Not so much different I think.

Kzach · Jan 17, 2012

Hussar said:
The game worked pretty well then.

Really? Then why is it one of the biggest complaints of the system?

Every game I played in would be full of rogues and fighters if we started at 1st-level and entirely made up of clerics and wizards if we started at 10th or higher.

3e only changed that moderately and even then, hardly.

Remathilis · Jan 17, 2012

I think once we see mechanics come out, we'll see what they're talking about.

I doubt they expect "a 4e brutal scoundrel rogue, a 3e warlock, a 2e specialty priest of Talos, a 1e fighter, and a BD&D elf all go into the Caves of Chaos were they fight a group of OD&D orcs, all using their native systems". I think they mean "A tactical/powers rogue, a simple at-wills warlock, a vancian cleric, a simple basic-attack fighter, and a elven fighter/multi-classed mage go into the caves of chaos and fight down an orc horde, using a unified resolution mechanic that is fairly simple but can be layed with some complex choices if the GM/player wants".

The question will be if that simplified mechanic can suit the general needs of all those edition players to convert to the universal language.

Von Ether · Jan 17, 2012

I'm thinking that the procedure may go like this ... "Find out which PC is the most complex. Add up his bonuses, now give everyone else a bonus. The most simple PCs get the biggest bonus."

Von Ether · Jan 17, 2012

double post

joebobodo · Jan 17, 2012

This sounds like an amazing approach to being able to sell a wide variety of products.

catsclaw227 · Jan 17, 2012

joebobodo said:
This sounds like an amazing approach to being able to sell a wide variety of products.

You may be right. I will at the least allow for a 2x or 3x multiple of the current splat book "limit" before things get burned through.

I'd like to hope though that the game can be played well with non-splat and splat characters through they whole edition cycle. An idea that I think people would like to believe is true, in actual play isn't as realistic when it comes to balance.*

*And I think balance is still going to be a goal of the system. It may well have to be a huge part of it to allow different PC structures to exist side-by-side.