Playtesting in Detail

Dragoslav said:

Now I just have to decide whether I want my character to be a half-orc or a half-human (with an orc parent).

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Tolkien does mention Orc-men and Men-orcs being different things... Subraces of half-orc?

GX.Sigma said:

Tolkien does mention Orc-men and Men-orcs being different things... Subraces of half-orc?

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Its been a very long time, but I think it was a matter of which traits were dominant. So if you look very orc like, you were an orc-men, if you looked more man like you were "Men-orcs". Both were a orc-human hybrid, or maybe just transformed elves where the transformation didn't go far enough to make them full orc, but some point between elf and orc, ie the Uruk-Hai, or whatever they are called.

Like I said, its been many years since I have read the material, but that is what comes to mind.

Tolkien mentions, through various characters, half-orcs & goblin-men, meaning basically the same thing and referring to Saruman's Uruk-hai forces. There appears to be some with more orc and others with more man (Merry & Pippin mention the 'Southerner' they met in Bree) in them. There is no mention of elves in this, though it is implied in the Silmarillion that the first orcs where bred from some of the first elves that were captured by Morgoth.

This approach worries me a little. I suspect, for instance, that expertise dice have already been green-lit. That means they won't try any other approaches, and it's unlikely they will ask opinion on green-lit elements in surveys. So they accept the first thing that's liked well enough and move on, designing themselves into a corner.

Treebore said:

The cavalier has been around since 1E AD&D, so is far closer to being core than "...draconians, warforged, and bladesingers." That is all Mearls means.

So "core" is what is closest to original, and the further down the time line something appears, the further away from core it is. So it is basically a alternate way of talking about the progression over time of the game as new classes and races appeared.

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I think part of the problem is that there are at least four different definitions of core, at least two of which are used in the article.

There's a definition where 'core' simply means "non-setting specific". So, the Cavalier is core because it's not associated with Eberron or Dragonlance. (Of course, in that case the Bladesinger should also be core. )

There's a definition of 'core' which means "appears in the Core Rulebooks". In which case the Paladin has been core since AD&D 1st Ed, and the Barbarian in 3e. The Cavalier, having come in in UA, has actually not ever been core. But 5e could change that.

There's a definition of 'core' which means "the vital elements of the game". Mearls mentions this in his post as some sort of "true core game". In which case it's entirely possible that none of the Paladin, Barbarian, and Cavalier will actually be core - there will likely only be 4 truly 'core' classes under that definition.

And there's your definition that core represents "close to original".

To be honest, though, I think perhaps it's a bit of a "Humpty Dumpty" term - it means whatever the writer means it to mean when he writes it. I don't really have a problem with that.

I do know that WotC have previously mentioned that they want 5e to include all the classes that were core in all previous versions of the game. Technically, that wouldn't include the Cavalier, but I recall that I did find it a little jarring that 3e included the Barbarian but not the Cavalier, so I don't think including it is particularly outrageous. Whether they include it as a class in its own right, as a sub-class of Paladin, as a parent class of Paladin, or as a Fighter build (or even as something else), is open to discussion. My preference would be for fewer, broader classes, but I won't particularly object if they go in the opposite direction.

I, for one, am excited about the Cavalier returning.

Grimmjow said:

Sounds to me that it should just be part of the paladin, maybe a theme?

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Or the other way around. Though personally I can't shake the idea when I hear Cavalier that they're talking about this:



Or this:

Never played one, but...

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition (1977-1988)
The cavalier was introduced by Gary Gygax in Dragon #72 (April 1983).[1] The cavalier later appears in the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons manual, Unearthed Arcana in 1985,[2] which also made the paladin a sub-class of the cavalier class.
[edit]Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition (1989-1999)
The cavalier appeared in The Complete Fighter's Handbook as a character kit,[3] and again in Player's Option: Skills & Powers.[4]
[edit]Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition (2000-2007)
The cavalier appeared in Sword and Fist as a prestige class, and again in Complete Warrior.
[edit]Pathfinder Roleplaying Game (2009-)
Within the Advanced Player's Guide[5] (published by Paizo Publishing in August 2010) the cavalier is an available base class in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, offering specialization in mounted combat, combined with tactical benefits by the use of challenges and teamwork-feats. In difference to earlier versions of cavaliers, the alignment of this character class can by of any type.

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They better be talking about Eric

To start with, we work in two-week sprints aimed at producing material for the next package. If you've worked in software development, you might be familiar with the Scrum process. We've been using it since the late summer to drive our efforts, and so far it is working well. Scrum focuses our efforts on delivering features of the game—classes, races, tactical combat, multiclassing—in an iterative manner.

Within that process, I serve as the product owner. Basically, I'm the advocate for the customer. That's where the playtest feedback plays a huge role. I can't speak for you guys if I can't hear what you're saying. So, after collecting each survey's results, I spend a day or two looking at the survey data and reading through the individual comments. From those results, I try to categorize every key element of the game into one of three categories.

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Curious, this use of the agile process. How usual is the substitution of Scrum for Agile?

From my background, Product Owner and Customer Advocate are different roles. I'm still figuring out what I think about the roles being merged.

Isn't is usual to avoid using "customer" in customer facing writing? I would have used "players" or "play-testers" instead.

Thx!

TomB

I'm betting their either talking about the warlord, which will have a new name, or a build of Paladin.

I loved the Cavalier/Blackguard dynamic of 4e, they part of the same class, but were moral opposites of each other, and hated each other, but could take the powers of the other, with the O Paladin stuck in the middle. The best fluff of any class in 4e along with the assassin and Warlock.