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

Ultimatecalibur · Oct 29, 2012

Jack99 said:
Aye, I just re-read it and that is indeed what the article says. How is that less than what they had before? It isn't. Wizards had 9 daily spells in the previous playtests and clerics had the same. Which is why I assumed it was a typo and he meant spell-level.

Good point. Unless he was originally working off a pre-playtest version that capped spell slots at 4 spell slots per spell level. Using the spell slot gain rate in a previous playtest, that would have given a 10th level character 19 spells (4 of each spell level other than 5th which has 3). A max of ten daily slots, one encounter, and two at-wills may be the max they are looking for currently.

Nikosandros · Oct 29, 2012

Jack99 said:
Aye, I just re-read it and that is indeed what the article says. How is that less than what they had before? It isn't. Wizards had 9 daily spells in the previous playtests and clerics had the same. Which is why I assumed it was a typo and he meant spell-level.

Why a typo? He doesn't specify what kind of level and, since he states that there is a dial-back, I'm assuming he means spell level.

TarionzCousin · Oct 29, 2012

gyor said:
Its the 29th now, so I'm wondering what time we can start loading the packet.

Now it's the 29th on the West Coast, where WotC is, but the offices don't open for almost eight hours. The new playtest packet is not yet available.

Connorsrpg · Oct 29, 2012

Its been the 29th here for 20 hours now. I still don't have an email for the update

Chris_Nightwing · Oct 29, 2012

Looks like we take a step closer to a unified physical combat system, now if only those expertise dice could become stamina points..

They're also almost there in fixing spells per level, hopefully they'll realise that progression should be slow, with sufficient spells at 1st level and a cap on the total later, as in, spell slots migrate upwards..

Li Shenron · Oct 29, 2012

Ultimatecalibur said:
I see some potential for it.

I expect the following Combat Maneuvers to be the only currently known maneuvers to be shared between the Fighter and Rogue styles:

Jab

Knock Down

Precise Shot

Shift

Snap Shot

Tumble

Once again, there will be less and less reasons to play a Fighter.

Li Shenron · Oct 29, 2012

MortalPlague said:
I was really hoping for an update to the monster math. I'm really tired of toothless monsters. When a large percentage of the playtesters are adding a blanket +2 to hit across the board, you know you have a problem that needs to be looked at.

Totally agree. They've been saying it for a long time already, and it's repeated in today's article, that monsters math is strongly linked to hit points and healing mechanics. The longer it takes them to update the monsters, the longer the playtest feedback on these topic is simply going to be invalid.

MortalPlague said:
Also, I was hoping to see expertise dice stay a fighter exclusive mechanic. I'll reserve judgement until I see how the rogue uses them, but if they're identical in how they're gained and what they're spent for, I'll be disappointed. It's a step towards having classes feel very similar, and I'm enjoying the different feel of 5th Edition's classes so far.

Totally agree again... The coolness of CS/ED has been the reason why a lot of playtesters wanted to play a Fighter now. Give that to other classes on the ground that since it's cool they can "reuse" the idea over and over, and it will once again end up with people wondering why they should play a fighter...

Chris_Nightwing · Oct 29, 2012

Li Shenron said:
Once again, there will be less and less reasons to play a Fighter.

Even with a shared system, there are plenty of reasons to play a Fighter: they still get the best weapons, armour, HP and attack bonus. Rogues might be limited to using dice when they have advantage.

My ideal system, as I say every time, would be based on a stamina point pool that refreshes during a short rest. The way in which it refreshes and what you can spend the points on would vary from class to class, though there would be overlap in maneuvers, just as some spells can be cast by clerics and wizards. For instance, the Fighter might refresh to 4 points each rest and be able to spend at most 1 per maneuver at 1st level, and he would gain a point every round so that the Fighter is the reliable combatant. The Rogue however might refresh to 0 points, gaining a point whenever they have advantage on an attack, which they could spend to sneak attack or save to dodge an attack.

Li Shenron · Oct 29, 2012

Chris_Nightwing said:
Even with a shared system, there are plenty of reasons to play a Fighter: they still get the best weapons, armour, HP and attack bonus. Rogues might be limited to using dice when they have advantage.

Wait until you see multiclassing rules. Then you'll find out that you have split the classes in two groups: those who use the shared system of expertise dice, and those who don't. Then we'll have again weird features of multiclassing as in 3e, where stacking levels of martial classes worked great, but multiclassing spellcasters didn't work at all.

I'm not a huge fan of multiclassing myself, but it will be in the core game anyway. If they want to laid the foundation of classes right for multiclassing to work fairly and consistently, they have to make sure that shared mechanics are really shared by ALL classes, and non-shared mechanics are really not shared by any 2 of them.

At which point you might argue that expertise dice should be used for ALL classes, for combat, skills and spellcasting too. This would work, but IMHO unfortunately it will be such a major mechanic that it would move D&D very far away from what I expect it to play.

Chris_Nightwing · Oct 29, 2012

Li Shenron said:
Wait until you see multiclassing rules. Then you'll find out that you have split the classes in two groups: those who use the shared system of expertise dice, and those who don't. Then we'll have again weird features of multiclassing as in 3e, where stacking levels of martial classes worked great, but multiclassing spellcasters didn't work at all.

I'm not a huge fan of multiclassing myself, but it will be in the core game anyway. If they want to laid the foundation of classes right for multiclassing to work fairly and consistently, they have to make sure that shared mechanics are really shared by ALL classes, and non-shared mechanics are really not shared by any 2 of them.

At which point you might argue that expertise dice should be used for ALL classes, for combat, skills and spellcasting too. This would work, but IMHO unfortunately it will be such a major mechanic that it would move D&D very far away from what I expect it to play.

I agree that they need to find a way to mix spellcaster levels. Currently we have 'weapon attack bonus' and 'magic attack bonus' - I wonder if access to maneuvers/spells could be limited according to these, with stamina points and actual number of spells according to class. Imagine your maximum spell level was limited by your magic attack bonus, and the number of spells you can cast determined by your class levels (say you get X + 1 every few levels). Why give non-spellcasters a magic attack bonus? For scrolls and wands of course. I'm sure I could detail a system that worked this way..