This Week in D&D

I'm A Banana · Oct 15, 2012

Hmm...so it's possible they're going to go with a broad "MAGIC USER" class and have clerics, wizards, sorcerers, warlocks, et al, all be types of MAGIC USER. And how you define magic in your world is how the MAGIC USER works.

Which is interesting. Hypothetically, if magic in your world works like Vancian "one-off" spells, then warlocks, sorcerers, clerics, and wizards all will be using Daily-only magic. If magic in your world works like ADEU "recharge" spells, then all of 'em are going to have recharging magic. If magic in your game works on spell points, than all of 'em are going to use spell points.

Your class then specifies not your magical subsystem, but how you access that magic, which can lead to an interesting place. Wizards "study" it, and so have great versatility at the price of having to prepare things in advance. Sorcerers have it "naturally," and so have limited options, but can use them often. Warlocks and clerics have it via "patrons," so they might have granted powers that are always available to them.

It's also odd that they're thinking that the Sorcerer could be a gish. Y'know what a gish looks like in the game? The Cleric. Gish since OD&D, with heavy armor and a fairly robust weapon selection and better beatin' on things potential than anyone other than the Fighter.

Not that there's not room for two. Just that there's always this weird mental block with the cleric in the game.

The way they have gods granting special powers is interesting, and I'm fond of the concept. I think it could apply to Warlocks, too -- The Deceiver sounds like a perfect warlock patron.

Falling Icicle · Oct 15, 2012

Mike Mearls said:
There is a chance that, based on your feedback, we might introduce an overall class category called magic-user that features wizard, sorcerer, and other options as choices beneath it.

I was worried that this would happen, based on all the people screaming for a non-vancian wizard option. I actually like mechanics that go together with fluff in making classes. I liked that sorcerers and warlocks used magic very differently from wizards. I liked this in 3.x also. I guess I'm in the minority.

I really worry that by putting all of these classes under the same umbrella, homogenization will inevitably result. Wizards, sorcerers and warlocks will just be sub-classes with different fluff but little to differentiate them mechanically. As much as I like 5e so far, that could be a real deal killer for me.

Looking back at 3.5, had the warlock just been another sorcerer/wizard spinoff (like all the others: wu jen, dread necromancer, war mage, etc.) I wouln't have cared for it. I loved the at-will spellcaster that was truly unique and whose spells had cool flavor that truly set it apart. I don't want to see a vancian warlock, or a warlock with spell slots at all. No thank you.

Mike Mearls said:
For clerics, we've returned turn undead to a class feature and have removed channel divinity as its own thing.

Yet another big step backward. Again, I guess I'm in the minority of people that actually liked Turn Undead being a spell. I absolutely loathe it as a class ability that all clerics have. I always have. If I'm a cleric of the god of life or something, okay, give me turn undead as a domain power. But for clerics of other deities that have no good reason to hate undead, it makes no sense whatsoever.

Mike Mearls said:
The fighter went over very well last time. Right now, we're focused on creating a set of options that allow someone to play a very simple fighter.

By this point in the article, I couldn't help put facepalm. Do they just not get it? The whole reason the fighter went over so well in the last packet was because it wasn't stupidly simple. The CS mechanic finally gave the class a mechanic that made it more interesting to play and also finally gave fighters something that they could call their own, a mechanic other classes don't get.

Who are all these people that are supposedly out there crying for even simpler fighters, when it's already by far the simplest and most basic class in the game? Is just spending your CS dice on damage every round really that difficult, if you can't handle doing more than "I hit. I hit. I hit?"

Mike Mearls said:
The rogue is receiving a greater emphasis on skills.

Ugh. Again, they just don't get it. The rogue needs something new and innovative, the way fighters needed CS. The whole master of skills thing is just boring and stupid. I really wish they'd stop trying to make that their focus and instead explore new ways of making rogues cooler and more interesting as a class.

Mike Mearls said:
The rogue receives more skills and continues to be the best at using them, though we have simplified those mechanics and dialed down the emphasis on automatic success. DMs were frustrated that rogues had no real risk of failure. It distorted the game in irritating ways.

On the bright side, it seems that they have at least realized that the whole "take 10" and "ignore your low ability scores" were terrible ideas.

Mike Mearls said:
Backgrounds now give four skills instead of three

Finally! Something in the article to rejoice about.

Mike Mearls said:
we've tweaked skills back to giving a bonus to a roll regardless of what ability you're using. Thus, a DM only ever asks for an ability check.

Glad to hear it.

Mike Mearls said:
This also means that we can have skills that are a little narrower, but compensate by giving you more. If we built the list correctly, skills remain useful as things that help make your character unique and interesting.

Wait a minute. They want to make skills even narrower? Really? Having dozens of different Lore skills isn't already narrow enough? Seriously?

Bluenose · Oct 15, 2012

The cleric idea is simply terrible. Not because of the concept, that clerics should strive to behave like their deities, to emulate them, but because of the way it's implied they'll do so. Bad enough for the Rogue, who will suddenly find that Mr Cleric of Thief God is sneaking around and picking locks - presumably worse than him - and has all the cleric abilities on top of that. There though the cleric is starting from a point of being really bad at their new tricks. The existing cleric can fight pretty well, so what are you giving the cleric of a war god? Make them fight a bit better, while still having full cleric abilities, and it starts to look like Mr Fighter might want to look for a job somewhere else - I hear Macdonals are often hiring.

JeffB · Oct 15, 2012

Not really sure how WOTC thinks this game is going to attract the veteran O/A d&d players. Especially considering Mike's comments on the advanced state of the core rules.

Not that I think it was ever an attainable goal, or should have been a goal in the first place, but either WOTC understands nothing about the older editions and their fans, or they do not really care and it was pure politics to turn our heads and pay attention to Next.

If they were not offering reprints, Id say they totally screwed the pooch in their "old school efforts"

Falling Icicle · Oct 15, 2012

JeffB said:
Not really sure how WOTC thinks this game is going to attract the veteran O/A d&d players. Especially considering Mike's comments on the advanced state of the core rules.

Not that I think it was ever an attainable goal, or should have been a goal in the first place, but either WOTC understands nothing about the older editions and their fans, or they do not really care and it was pure politics to turn our heads and pay attention to Next.

If they were not offering reprints, Id say they totally screwed the pooch in their "old school efforts"

You've got to be kidding me. IMHO, it seems like WotC is bending over backwards to appease the old-school crowd, even at the expense of their entire 4e fanbase and many others who want a more "modern" game. All the talk of "DM empowerment", the way they keep hanging on to the "simple fighter", bringing back things like potion miscibility, and picking the old Caves of Chaos adventure for the playtest packet are all examples of them reaching out to grognards. I can go on and on but if anything, it seems to me like they've catered to the old-school crowd as much or more than any other group, and certainly alot more than their 4e fans.

nightwalker450 · Oct 15, 2012

I wonder if its possible to provide feedback without announcing doom and gloom of the future of D&D... Let me try.

So it's been a few months since the last update to classes, and even with that release they were of course even further ahead testing in house. So it looks like the game has probably taken some huge strides from our last packet. I'm looking forward to actually looking at the various options and changes and trying them out, instead of just reading an articles teasers. But the real issue with all of this is that according to some interpretations the Mayan calendar says the world will end on Dec 21, 2012 so it's likely this game will be trashed just like life as we know it.

Nope, can't be done.

gweinel · Oct 15, 2012

Falling Icicle said:
You've got to be kidding me. IMHO, it seems like WotC is bending over backwards to appease the old-school crowd, even at the expense of their entire 4e fanbase and many others who want a more "modern" game. All the talk of "DM empowerment", the way they keep hanging on to the "simple fighter", bringing back things like potion miscibility, and picking the old Caves of Chaos adventure for the playtest packet are all examples of them reaching out to grognards. I can go on and on but if anything, it seems to me like they've catered to the old-school crowd as much or more than any other group, and certainly alot more than their 4e fans.

All the things you mention imho are symbolic movements and does not impact the game experience. The potion of miscibility, the Caves of Chaos, etc are things that target nostalgia and in no way influence the game play. The old edition players don't want to see just the name of a rule here and a 1st edition ability there. They want when they play the game to feel like they are playing their favorite iteration. If the game doesn't feel like they want there is no reason to buy 5e.
That of course applies for the players of 2nd, 3rd and 4th edition players.

As the time pass i feel that will be more difficult to appeal every edition's audiance. It seems the playing styles to be incompatible in a unified ruling system. I hope to be wrong.

JeffB · Oct 15, 2012

Falling Icicle said:
You've got to be kidding me. IMHO, it seems like WotC is bending over backwards to appease the old-school crowd, even at the expense of their entire 4e fanbase and many others who want a more "modern" game. All the talk of "DM empowerment", the way they keep hanging on to the "simple fighter", bringing back things like potion miscibility, and picking the old Caves of Chaos adventure for the playtest packet are all examples of them reaching out to grognards. I can go on and on but if anything, it seems to me like they've catered to the old-school crowd as much or more than any other group, and certainly alot more than their 4e fans.

All the things you mentioned are simply lip service..a table, a module conversion. TheFighter and his mechanics are not old school in the least. Neither are backgrounds and specialties, and 3e/4e esque skills. Or combat advantage or sorcerors who turn into dragons, or warlocks who make demon pacts, or advantage/disadvantage, etc. You also mention DMempowerment like its a dirty word. 4e went back to that trend. If you or anyone at WOTCthinks this is cateriing to the old game crowd, then you are definitely in the "do not understand older versions of the game" camp I mentioned in my original post.

Next simply looks like a lite modern rpg, not old school D&D. Which is fine, but if anyone thinks this will bring back the OSR folks as customers, they need to to check their meds.

Mattachine · Oct 15, 2012

I really like that they are going back to the idea that skills add a bonus to any die roll related to that skill area (rather than a fixed skill with an associated ability score). This allows skills to be more free-form, and allows players to have a wider array of skills that might apply to a given situation.

For instance, a character with a Sailor background could have a Sailing skill that provides its bonus to things like knots, climbing ropes, navigation, and steers boats/ships--those tasks might use Dex, Str, Int, or Wis, but all would receive the bonus from the skill.

VinylTap · Oct 15, 2012

I'm not sure if some of you guys are the kings of slanted readings, or the DnD crew just have a knack for vagueness.

I'm sure merls is talking about a copy of the playtest most of us haven't seen. Its a good thing too, it means proper play-testing can finally begin. To be fair, I'm sure their internal play-testing has been pretty extensive at this point as well. They're just hammering most of these mechanics down close enough to move from an alpha to a beta... at least that seems to make the most sense. Its pretty rare that a company would let an alpha version of their product out to the masses, and for obvious reasons...

The simple fighter is something they've talked about since they started tinkering with CS rules, so far its basically just meant he uses his CS dice for damage. People are right about glancing blows... hopefully the team will abandon the auto-success mechanic. But even the simple fighter needs something more than CS damage dice, and they're probably attempting to balance his numbers to a level where he's publishable.

It sounds like they want a 5th spell caster at the moment, a battle-mage. I'm sure the Sorcerer isn't going anywhere. Its a really neat idea, imo-- and an easy place to push the spell casting mechanics to give a unique class-feel. They should go with it.

The system is going to attract people who want something bare-bones, because they like house rules and Next is built with house rules in mind, and also to those who want use the specialty/background options to introduce new players to the game. I really believe WOTC are on their way to a real winner here-- once the nerd-rage dust settles and new people are being introduce to the system I think its really going to find its legs.