This One Goes to . . . Ten [Merged four Oct 29 Playtest Package announcement threads]

Ultimatecalibur · Oct 30, 2012

Cone of Cold - level 5 - AoE 1800 square ft (72 medium sized targets max) - 10.5 average damage per target - 756 average damage to max number of targets

Fireball - level 3 - AoE 1256 square ft (50 medium sized targets max) - 13.125 average damage per target - 656.15 average damage to max number of targets

Flame Strike - level 5 - AoE 314 square ft (12 medium size targets max) - 21 average damage per target - 252 average damage to max number of targets

Thunderwave - level 5 (once per encounter) - AoE 112.5 square ft (4 medium size targets max) - 13.125 average damage per target with 50% chance of target being pushed 35 ft - 52.5 average damage to max number of targets with 50% chance of target being pushed 35 ft

Ahnehnois · Oct 30, 2012

Salamandyr said:
-Not really really 5e related, but maybe think about divorcing perception from the skill list completely, in fact, divorce it from Wisdom. It's never been a good fit. It croggles my brain why the priest should be better at detecting an ambush than the battle hardened warrior.

I think the issue there is that there's no reason the priest should be wiser than the hardened warrior. The association of wisdom with divine magic is far more bizarre than its association with perception skills.

Walker N. Waistz · Oct 30, 2012

Salamandyr said:
Yes, sneak attack is worse than Deadly strike. However, the rogue gets Skill Mastery, which allows him to add his expertise dice to skill checks, and 4 extra skills.

So, if you want to rip it up in combat, play the class appropriately named "Fighter", and if you want to play the guy who rips it up in all sorts of noncombat situations, while, when circumstances are right also rips it up in combat, play the Rogue.

Not worth it. Fighter gets condition-less Sneak Attack, Rogue gets to do as much damage as the fighter when the stars properly align, with the Fighter hitting better, using whatever weapons and armor he wants, with great hit points, while the Rogue is worse at all of those things. All for 4 measly skills? Which are even more specialized (and thereby less often useful) in this version? No thanks.

The stated goal is to get the essence of each class across the editions, right? Well, Sneak Attack has been the Rogue's signature ability across 4 editions, and now the Fighter does it better from 1st level on by taking Deadly Attack.

I am not ready to give up that much combat utility for 4 skills. I am surprised anyone else is.

Salamandyr · Oct 30, 2012

Walker N. Waistz said:
Not worth it. Fighter gets condition-less Sneak Attack, Rogue gets to do as much damage as the fighter when the stars properly align, with the Fighter hitting better, using whatever weapons and armor he wants, with great hit points, while the Rogue is worse at all of those things. All for 4 measly skills? Which are even more specialized (and thereby less often useful) in this version? No thanks.

The stated goal is to get the essence of each class across the editions, right? Well, Sneak Attack has been the Rogue's signature ability across 4 editions, and now the Fighter does it better from 1st level on by taking Deadly Attack.

I am not ready to give up that much combat utility for 4 skills. I am surprised anyone else is.

4 skills and the ability to add expertise dice to skill checks.

B.T. · Oct 30, 2012

Sneak Attack is bad. Needs to be a separate ability from expertise dice. Also, I don't like expertise dice for skills.

Moon_Goddess · Oct 30, 2012

I'm so disappointed with the lessening of at-will, it's like we're going back to more influence of 3.x and removing what like 4e we had.

The new Arcane and Divine Magical Specilists are useless, and completely remove the Fighter and Mage thing I loved about 5e.

All I have left of 5e is the Background system I enjoy, and they even took the Commoner's house away. WHY!? that was my favorite thing about 5e. My very favorite thing was the house. You cannot tell me that Commoner's getting a house is overpowered.

I'm so disappointed in this playtest,

avin · Oct 30, 2012

Zaukrie said:
You brought back "Use rope"; really?

Use rope is back? Argh...

Manbearcat · Oct 30, 2012

Ultimatecalibur said:
Cone of Cold - level 5 - AoE 1800 square ft (72 medium sized targets max) - 10.5 average damage per target - 756 average damage to max number of targets

Fireball - level 3 - AoE 1256 square ft (50 medium sized targets max) - 13.125 average damage per target - 656.15 average damage to max number of targets

Flame Strike - level 5 - AoE 314 square ft (12 medium size targets max) - 21 average damage per target - 252 average damage to max number of targets

Thunderwave - level 5 (once per encounter) - AoE 112.5 square ft (4 medium size targets max) - 13.125 average damage per target with 50% chance of target being pushed 35 ft - 52.5 average damage to max number of targets with 50% chance of target being pushed 35 ft

Max damage by squares in total AoE is really a poor metric to evaluate AoEs. Encounters are encounters. You may see 10 - 12 mooks, at most, in virtually all of the cases where an AoE will be brought to bear. Amongst those 10-12 mooks you may, if you're lucky you'll be able to deploy it against 3/4s of them (unless they are oddly in fireball formation). Fireballs AoE spread is just about the upper limit of necessity and further, it is about at the upper level of tactical wieldiness given the demands of positioning and avoiding friendly fire. Further, Cone of Cold is a Blast/Cone so its range is "Melee". As such, it requires the Wizard to be in a compromising position (in range of enemies melee attacks). Whats more, in most cases, if the Wizard is in melee, amidst the enemies he is "coning/blasting" will also be his allies. If the spell was (as 4e) Target; All Enemies in Blast then it would be much more wieldy. However, as is, in almost all cases, Cone of Cold's extra AoE spread will be useless and in some cases it will be worse than useless - tactically unwieldy due to melee requirements and friendly fire implications.

The only time my player's have typically used Cone Spells, in 3e and prior, is when playing Fighter/Mages or when they had immediate get out of jail free contingencies available. Wizards in 4e used Blasts-aplenty.

DEFCON 1 · Oct 30, 2012

Considering we're probably still a year and a half out from release, if not more... I think it's smart of them to keep changing things up... put something new out there in one playtest, redact it for the next playtest, etc. etc. Because it forces everyone to really delve into themselves and reason out why one thing works for them and the other does not... and hopefully that info gets relayed back to WotC.

They had no idea how the gamers would embrace Expertise Dice for the fighters, so they put it out there last playtest. It seemed to get embraced quite well. But would that same thing occur if rogues used them too? No way to know but to find out by putting that in the next playtest. And if enough people respond back in the surveys with "love it for the fighter, hate it with the rogue"... then they know to switch it out or find something else.

Let's be honest here... for every single player out there, every single packet is going to "go in the wrong direction" at least once throughout the course of the playtest process. You need to embrace that fact and be prepared to put fingers to keyboard to let them know when that happens. Because that's the only way they'll really figure out whether Magic Missile is more popular as an at-will cantrip castable all day, or a 1st level spell which can get more powerful the higher the spell level you cast it at.

tuxgeo · Oct 30, 2012

Salamandyr said:
I think I'm mostly happy with the direction things are going. A few things...
< snip >
-Glad they're going with Patron deity archetypes (Lightbringer, Trickster, etc.) rather than specific deities. That makes it easier to port the rules over to my campaign. Overall, I think the cleric is just clearer in this version, than the previous one.

-I think I'm glad at-will magic has been toned down a bit. It does make the 1st level feat for the Magic-User specialist (whatever it's called now, I'm working off memory) useless for the Wizard class.

The "Arcane Magic Specialist" is now useless for any class, not merely the Wizard class, at least at Level 1: Instead of getting 2 Cantrips that the PC can cast at will, the PC gets to select and cast one a day from a limited list of three: detect magic, light, or mage hand.

DarwinofMind said:
I'm so disappointed with the lessening of at-will, it's like we're going back to more influence of 3.x and removing what like 4e we had.

The new Arcane and Divine Magical Specilists are useless, and completely remove the Fighter and Mage thing I loved about 5e.

Yeah, what he said.
I'm playing a Rogue/Magic-User (built using the August packet) who can use Light and Mage Hand to explore dark and dangerous places, such as levitating a bar of soap down corridors that might contain a Gelatinous Cube. Now he can only do one of those, once a day. Huh? Time to retrain to a different Specialty, methinks.

If the new version of the Detect Magic spell was supposed to replace 4E's "Arcana" skill, it no longer does that well.

This One Goes to . . . Ten [Merged four Oct 29 Playtest Package announcement threads]

Ultimatecalibur

Explorer

Ahnehnois

First Post

Walker N. Waistz

First Post

Salamandyr

Adventurer

B.T.

First Post

Moon_Goddess

Have I really been on this site for over 20 years!

avin

First Post

Manbearcat

Legend

DEFCON 1

Legend

tuxgeo

Adventurer

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