Mike Mearls Discusses the First Round of Public D&D Next Playtests

darjr · May 28, 2012

Nothing about the overnight healing.

I love the streamlinging with the bump in dice and advantage, that kind of streamlining is cool.

Incenjucar · May 28, 2012

Perspicacity said:
Why? It's not like the Races of the D&D mythos evolved or follow our own biological laws.

In-game, Dwarves actually were created by their Dwarf-god and imbued with Dwarf-like characteristics.

To me, those sort of little details give the setting verisimilitude. I can understand why real-life races don't essentially unerringly adhere to stereotypes. But if we were actually created by a god who thought bows were awesome than we'd most likely have instilled in us awesomeness with bows, while the weird people two continents over who were created by the God of trees would similarly be imbued with incredible tree climbing skills.

If that knowledge is presented as mystically endowed on them by the dwarf god, fine. I've never seen "Baby dwarves are born with an affinity for hammers and axes due to the bond they share with their deity." I've also never seen "dwarves can mystically become aware of architectural knowledge that comes into being in the world, whether or not they have ever been exposed to that knowledge." If dwarves are presented as that sort of magical creature, okay, cool, I can deal with that, but I've never seen it explained that way in the text.

tuxgeo · May 28, 2012

Incenjucar said:
< snip >
I've also never seen "dwarves can mystically become aware of architectural knowledge that comes into being in the world, whether or not they have ever been exposed to that knowledge." If dwarves are presented as that sort of magical creature, okay, cool, I can deal with that, but I've never seen it explained that way in the text.

[emphasis added]
"Stonecunning" wouldn't have to be architectural knowledge in order to work. I'll just throw some possible ideas out here:

(1) Give the dwarves a "bump of direction," so they can always point to North;
(2) Give the dwarves a "depth sense," so they know how far below the surface they are (from the length of time the subsonic echoes persist, if nothing else; could dwarves have an "infra-hearing" we humans lack?);
(3) Give the dwarves a "rock-weight" affinity, so if they concentrate for a while, then they get an approximate feeling for how much mass of rock lies in which direction, and how sparse it is nearby (from empty rooms);
(4) Give the dwarves a "solidity" sense, similar to tremorsense, that tells how completely connected one piece of stone is to another, and whether that is by mortar or fusing or tight fit, and if it includes metal fastenings.
Put those all together, and a dwarf could do a lot in rocky caverns without having any appreciable architectural knowledge at all.

Incenjucar · May 28, 2012

tuxgeo said:
[emphasis added]
"Stonecunning" wouldn't have to be architectural knowledge in order to work. I'll just throw some possible ideas out here:

(1) Give the dwarves a "bump of direction," so they can always point to North;
(2) Give the dwarves a "depth sense," so they know how far below the surface they are (from the length of time the subsonic echoes persist, if nothing else; could dwarves have an "infra-hearing" we humans lack?);
(3) Give the dwarves a "rock-weight" affinity, so if they concentrate for a while, then they get an approximate feeling for how much mass of rock lies in which direction, and how sparse it is nearby (from empty rooms);
(4) Give the dwarves a "solidity" sense, similar to tremorsense, that tells how completely connected one piece of stone is to another, and whether that is by mortar or fusing or tight fit, and if it includes metal fastenings.
Put those all together, and a dwarf could do a lot in rocky caverns without having any appreciable architectural knowledge at all.

Absolutely! It's cake to do things in a culture-neutral way, but they instead decided to do the ham-fisted thing. They gave them genetic knowledge of which civilization made a thing. Being a dwarf in 5E means taking an art history class in the womb.

Kaodi · May 29, 2012

So... when Mike Mearls says, "Give the fighter the Guardian them," does that count as him changing the playtest materials, or does that count as him councilling you to change them, legally speaking? Because I am pretty sure the agreement specifically says, "Thou shalt not mix and match."

jadrax · May 29, 2012

Kaodi said:
Because I am pretty sure the agreement specifically says, "Thou shalt not mix and match."

Erm, it does?

Klaus · May 29, 2012

In order for the fighter to benefit from the Guardian theme, you have to trade his grataxe for a battleaxe and a shield.

Ed_Laprade · May 29, 2012

darjr said:
Nothing about the overnight healing.

Yeah, considering the tons of complaints I've seen regarding it here on EN World I find that a mite suspicious.

I haven't signed up, but one thing that lept out at me (well, it sorta raised its head and shook its finger at me

) was the admonition that locks can't be picked without at set of lockpicking tools. I couldn't begin to count the number of times that I've seen, in books, movies and on TV, some shady character pick a lock with a hairpin or some random piece of bent wire. That's exactly the sort of trope that they should be encouraging, not ruling against!

Blackwarder · May 29, 2012

Ed_Laprade said:
I haven't signed up, but one thing that lept out at me (well, it sorta raised its head and shook its finger at me ) was the admonition that locks can't be picked without at set of lockpicking tools. I couldn't begin to count the number of times that I've seen, in books, movies and on TV, some shady character pick a lock with a hairpin or some random piece of bent wire. That's exactly the sort of trope that they should be encouraging, not ruling against!

Than you should sign up and read the playtest material for your self, should do you a world of good...

Warder

underfoot007ct · May 31, 2012

Stormonu said:
I myself am somewhat hesitant about what I've seen and read, but I'm rather shocked that the 4E'ers feel so excluded. The playtest strikes me as a 4E skeleton with OD&D language at the moment. As a bit of a grognard (I missed OD&D, but have played all other versions), so far I'm not feeling like D&DNext is speaking to me entirely.

I wonder if, as a compromise edition (as in committee-made), 5E will end up pleasing no one.

If you think the playtest is like 4e, then I doubt you have ever read nor played 4e. Yet I do see much of the wording from older editions, which I would rather have the 4e simple clear to understand style.

The playtest is not a reprint of OD&D either. But since D&D Next is the compromise edition, This is to be expected for the game to appeal to the masses.