D&D 5E Another D&D Next Playtest Survey

Herschel · Jul 19, 2012

Manbearcat said:
Oh how I'd like to XP this. Someone please XP this for me.

I tried, alas I must also spread.

Herschel · Jul 19, 2012

It really is poor design to "balance" Wizards by giving them spells to dominate social and exploration areas in order to not use all their slots to dominate combat. One of the good things they did with 4E was to compartmentalize spells in their general use. Back in the day, one of the issues we had with Wizards was that they could tailor their spell list to the type of campaign being run to always have an upper hand. In the combat-heavy games, they were blasters, in the social-heavy games they took the charm spells, etc.

Its also crappy to give Clerics spells that just buff and heal others and takes all their actions. I like things like Pacifist Clerics and Lazy Warlords being options, I hate them being the default.

Stormonu · Jul 19, 2012

Lord Rasputin said:
I'm no 4e fan, but a number of those spells need the 4e treatment of making them special abilities. Spectral hand, for example, is a great idea for a feat; the cure spells should be cleric special abilities instead, maybe tied to available turning attempts. Or, as Monte Cook once pointed out, if your wizard is always casting mage armor for all-day armor, why not make it a special ability and be done with it?

I can get on board with certain spells being class abilities, but to make certain spells into feats I think would be the path to madness. I think spells and feats should be kept distinct, lest spellcasters attempt to "double-up" on abilities.

Oddly enough, I didn't check Mage Armor on the list. Over the years I think that spell and Greater/Mass and other iterations (such as Stoneskin) have actually been too beneficial in removing the balancing "squishyness" of the wizard.

MatthewJHanson · Jul 19, 2012

I agree with a lot of what has been said here.

One of my main comments was that the name should be "Mordenkainen's Faithful Watch Dog"

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zng5kRle4FA"]DeadnAleWives[/ame]

The Dead Ale Wivesknew what they were talking about.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned yet, is at the very bottom there's another opportunity to rate how satisfied you are with D&D Next. I wonder if there will be any shift on that.

EDIT: Apparently linking to a You Tube video automatically embeds it.

Klaus · Jul 19, 2012

Minigiant said:
Copied and Pasted "Good/Evil/Law/Chaos/Cure/Inflict spells are iconic to create clerics of all stripes and alignments." over and over and over.

The Animal's Ability spells drained most of my 2nd level choices.

Disagree.

Remove alignment from the mechanics and replace it with "divine" energy (what 4e calls "radiant"). Then you have an alignment-neutral baseline that covers all gods.

Sorrowdusk · Jul 19, 2012

Jester Canuck said:
That survey was... exhaustive.

It felt very 3e-centric in regards to spell names. Although my memory is fuzzy in terms of the spell name changes between 2e and 3e and between 3.0e and 3.5e.

I'm not sure of the point of this survey. Any spell than has been in >2.5 editions should probably be updated and in the Core book. We don't need a repeat of 4e where iconic and recognisable Name elements are held back for four years.

It might be a bar-setting exercise. Find out what the community thinks are the coolest and most memorable spells of each level and make those the best. Use them to set the power curve or magic and establish the benchmarks. The easy example is fireball: if you want to deal AoE damage that's the gold standard.

If someone didnt check magic missle...................

Pour · Jul 19, 2012

functionciccio said:
Just a side note: one of my friends, who started playing with 4E, tried to answer the poll, but 90% of what was written made no sense to him.
Not a good way to attract 4E people.

Discouraging...

Sorrowdusk · Jul 19, 2012

Pour said:
Discouraging...

On a side note............................

Why is at the end when they ask what your favorite edition is, it's possible to answer D&D Next when it's only in playtesting phase?

EDIT: isnt it obvious? 4E alienated most of the player base. It was in many ways a failure (albeit better in some ways). Albeit they claim to want to unite the editions, they largely want those who left back.

Sorrowdusk · Jul 19, 2012

matthewjhanson said:
i agree with a lot of what has been said here.

One of my main comments was that the name should be "mordenkainen's faithful watch dog"

deadnalewives

the dead ale wivesknew what they were talking about.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned yet, is at the very bottom there's another opportunity to rate how satisfied you are with d&d next. I wonder if there will be any shift on that.

Edit: Apparently linking to a you tube video automatically embeds it.

hahahahahahahaha i remember that!

Cerebral Paladin · Jul 19, 2012

Sorrowdusk said:
Why is at the end when they ask what your favorite edition is, it's possible to answer D&D Next when it's only in playtesting phase?

I checked D&D Next. I've hit the point where I expect that a finished, polished D&D Next will be my favorite edition, and I've also found it hard to keep checking D&D 3.X (my traditional answer) because I think that D&D Next is shaping up to be better. Sure, it's not done and we don't have access to the whole game yet. But I think that what we do have looks good.

Also, if I were them, one of the metrics I would be looking at would be the change in time over that answer. If on earlier polls it looked like:
10,000 respondents
1000 OD&D
3000 AD&D
1000 AD&D 2e
4000 D&D 3e
1000 D&D 4e

And then it looked like:
10,000 respondents
750 OD&D
2500 AD&D
750 AD&D 2e
1000 D&D 3e
1000 D&D 4e
4000 D&D Next,

that would tell them that D&D Next is being fairly successful in serving as people's favorite game, but doing a bad job of pulling in players from D&D 4e. (Obviously, the numbers are just made up.) In a perfect world, by the end of the process, 90% of the respondents would be checking D&D Next, with all previous editions being pulled from well. Of course, D&D Next is probably going to be imperfect at that, but getting some additional numbers to look at in terms of satisfaction is still useful.