D&D 5E First playtest today - survey says: good so far (Blindenstone spoilers)

I'm a big Fourth Edition fan, and have been very skeptical of DNDNext. But as the playtest documents have moved forward I've been encouraged by the direction of the rules to what looks to me like possibly an interesting balance of good ideas from 2nd and 4th editions, basically a 2d edition chassis and flavor but adapting some of what was learned about game balance and certain other good innovations from Fourth Edition. I was still skeptical but willing to give it a chance.

So today we finally actually playtested for the first time. We used the latest playtest packet. This past week the players all created first level characters while I read up on all the rules and the Reclaiming Blindgenstone adventure.

There are four players, and they created the following:

Elodie Chevalier - Human Paladin, Oath of the Cavalier with Commoner (shepherd) background, modeled after Joan of Arc, she received a vision from the Lord of Light that she is in fact descended from an ancient lineage and destined to protect the weak and smite evil.

Bogran ("Bog") McKraghen - Mountain Dwarf Druid, Circle of the Moon (wears scale and shield for AC 18, wields warhammer, loves turning into a bear!); guide for his background.

Gerhardt Einblick - Human Scholarly Wizard; noble background; middle child syndrome; brought his cook/seamstress, bookkeeper/major domo, and stable boy/manservant along on the safer wilderness part of the adventure to cook for him and attend to him during rests to avoid “roughing it” .

Thulgrim Frostfur – Human Barbarian – guide background; two weapon feat to wield a battle axe in each hand; he is an Uthgardt barbarian of the Grey Wolf totem tribe, but left the tribe because they are now ruled by a wicked chief cursed by lycanthropy; his tribe’s ritual enemy is orcs.


Our first session lasted about six hours, including a break for lunch and some shorter breaks here and there to chit chat about the new edition rules. One of the four players (the wizard) had an unavoidable conflict and couldn’t make it today, so we ran his character as an NPC so he would be ready to be run as part of the group next week. Today we played through the following encounters:

1) Roleplaying the first meeting of the characters in the surface town of Nesme near Blindgenstone, and their signing up with the svirfneblin guide, Bridick, who was in town to recruit heros to help the deep gnomes.

2) Random encounter on the way to Blindenstone: 3 human warriors (bandits) attacked them while camping, with only the barbarian on watch. The bandits all chucked spears and missed. The barbarian woke the others, and the second round the wizard put two of the three bandits to sleep with a spell. The druid turned into a bear and tore the remaining bandit in half with one blow. The players were pleased with this first encounter though it was easy, since some of them got to try their favorite abilities successfully.

3) Roleplaying a bit on the underdark road to Blindenstone, they learned about what the gnomes are up to from their guide.

4) Arrived in Blindestone and decided to go see the Burrow Warden, but first meet Henkala, and have tea with the old woman and made friends with her and promised to help against Ogremoch’s Bane.

5) Random orc raid! Gnome sentry killed before party snaps out of surprise. Players discover rude surprise of how much damage an orc can do with a greataxe. They get a little help from gnomes fighting 4 orcs, but pretty much defeat the orcs without help. Barbarian, eager to kill his first orc, was frustrated others kept “stealing his kills”. Wizard’s gust of wind and druid’s thunderblast do a lot of orc carnage, but the orc’s ability to fight into negatives makes them pretty dangerous as they manage to deal a lot of damage. Paladin’s Command spell takes one orc out of fight for two rounds by making it flee and come back only after the other orcs are close to defeat. In the end one orc runs off.

6) Fun roleplay encounter meeting Burrow Warden, who tries to flatter them and ingratiate himself to them but ends up making them suspicious (Barbarian ended up saying something like “Enough with your pretty words! I’ve got orcs to kill.”) They learn about the evil presence in the House Center and the Warden’s desire to recover the old King Schnicktik’s crown.

7) Party is eager to fight more orcs, so they decide to ignore the House Center for now, and head into orc territory to try to clear them out. First encounter with three orcs proves nearly a TPK as one orc deals a crit that downs the barbarian, and the other two orcs do big damage that takes the druid and paladin to low hps. The wizard is ready to soil his pants but he stands his ground (at distance) peppering the orcs with cantrips (ray of frost). The druid used his cure wounds to restore the barbarian, and the paladin used lay on hands to bring the barbarian and herself to full hp, and then the players struck some crits, turning a near TPK to a heroic rally in a single round. Players realized first level in 5e is deadly – they’re not in 4e first level Kansas anymore, LOL! They head back for a much needed long rest.

8) They continue to plunge into orc territory after resting, but this time run into a random kobold scouting party of 4 kobolds and 2 kobold dragonshields. They at first get concerned about how much damaged a lucky kobold can do to a first level character, but soon realize they can wipe out kobolds pretty fast and that good offense is the best defense to keep kobolds from hurting you.

9) Continuing in to orc territory, they encounter more non-orc critters, first 6 giant centipedes, then three cave rats and a dire rat. Those encounters go fast, but give them a chance to keep trying out abilities. The paladin gets poisoned by the centipedes but the dwarf avoids it by his dwarven resilience by rolling well on one of his rolls (rolled 2 because of the advantage). Player was pleased that race really seems to make a difference in his character and said advantage was a lot more satisfying than a mere +2 on saves or something of that sort. (He was really happy that he was able to use medium armor and warhammer due to being a dwarf too.)

10) The party ventures towards the big orc cave but runs into five orc sentries that win initiative and do big damage with bows to them before they act, so they decide to run away and come back to fight the orcs after they get more experience (level) by taking on easier challenges first.

11) They flee and end up in the infirmary, meeting Jalless the healer there. She asks them to clear the orcs, and they want to, but when they learn from Jalless about her disapproval of the Burrow Warden and that he is not necessarily fit to be king, they decide to go to the Speaking Stones to meeting the priest Pingtu to see if he can discern the rightful heir to Blindgenstone. On the way they meet the svirfneblin bard, agree to help him get singing crystals from the kobold territory, and begin to suspect that the bard might be the true heir after a natural 20 on Recall Lore reveals a little about the bard’s family heirloom.

12) They meet priest Pingtu and learn that the Speaking Stones are silent.

We wrapped up for the day after six combat encounters and at least six substantive roleplaying encounters.

Right as we ended we shared our thoughts on how the game went today. All three players today reported they had a lot of fun (I did too as the DM). Two of the three players were enthusiastically pleased with how the game ran, commenting they were especially pleased the game ran fast like a 2nd edition game, but that their first level characters felt effective and heroic for first level like in a 4th edition game. They said they’d been concerned they’d feel useless and ineffective which can sometimes be the experience with a first level character in the older editions, but they did not feel that way today. They were really happy with the number of combat and roleplaying encounters we were able to have. The third player was cautiously pleased, though a series of bad rolls left him concerned that it might be too hard to hit monsters. Overall he said he enjoyed the game though.

As for me as DM, I was pleased overall with the way the encounters moved fast. I’d say my biggest concern today was that is seems soooo easy to accidentally kill off a first level character. I’m thinking even by second level this swinginess will be lessened but I guess we’ll find out soon. On this first day the players wracked up 180 xp each, so they are only 70 xp each from passing to 2nd level.

I like Fourth Edition, but this first playtest certainly left me open minded to keep on with the playtest to try how the game flows and runs at higher level. If the game continues to be this fun and work this well at higher level, Wizards of the Coast just might have accomplished something great. I remain skeptical until I see for myself, but I hope my group keeps trying out the game at higher levels to see how the game works at those levels, at least as long as it continues to be fun for all of us.

As I said in XP (but will comment, since it's not visible): Awesome write-up. I normally don't read them all the way through (I skim), but I enjoyed this. Thank you.

Thanks, JamesonCourage!

I loved your post. Great game, and I'm glad you and your group are keeping an open mind and enjoying what Next is offering.

I've been DMing a number of games from all of the playtest packages, and I love how easy it is to keep the action moving. At first, I was uncomfortable with some of the really quick combats, but as I experienced more and more, I have been able to craft encounters that can take a few rounds up to encounters that can take 9-12 rounds to play out, and no matter the length, they all seem to matter in some way. I find it very easy to keep the story going when combat fits into it so neatly.

I also like how using ability checks (plus skill dice) is easy and quick. This also keeps the story moving.

I know that WoTC will be changing things quite a bit for the next playtest package, but for now, I'm enjoying the playtest.

Keep reporting. Cheers.

Sounds like you guys had a blast!

I haven't run Blindingstone yet for my playtest group- it has been almost entirely homebrewed material at a couple of different levels- but I plan to eventually. It looks really fun, and your writeup definitely reinforces the impression.

Hope to hear more out of your playtest games!

Three groups so far, and universally positive responses after the first session.

The system is brisk as hell, that's a huge point in its favor. I would say it doubles the productivity of a given session (compared to 3e/pf).

As games go on, I've noted player becoming a bit more disillusioned. However, I consider it a bad sample... they're tainted by my own bias, and I'm not thrilled with it so far. In casual conversation outside the game,I might point out flaws they wouldn't notice at the table if they hadn't been made aware of them. So, a failing on my part is not keeping my mouth shut and letting my players experience the system on their own.

So if I might offer some advice; don't reveal your opinion of the system or any aspect of it if you can help it. See what they think after several sessions independent of your opinion.

Great report, it's nice to hear you and your players are enjoying Blingdenstone. I've really grown fond of the adventure, though I'll say this; in four times running it, none of the groups have directly gone after the orcs. The fourth is ongoing, so... pending. We'll see.

I ran Blingdenstone a while back, and also inflicted a near TPK with orcs in what was intended to be a routine skirmish. I wouldn't run this adventure for groups below 3rd level, especially after levels 1 and 2 have been relegated to the apprentice tier. But it is very enjoyable, and the sort of quality Wizards needs to aim at for its published adventures.

We continued our playtest with Blindgenstone again yesterday. The first couple of hours were spent quickly catching up the player who missed the first session and then roleplaying a lot with the priest at the Speaking Stones (and doing the first ritual to learn what must be done to awaken the Stones), and with the quartermaster the supply area and with Burrow Warden Kargien Dissengulp again, who assigned Miglin Crackedquartz to go with them into the Wormwrithings.

They liked their guide because they found him funny, as he kept mumbling to himself and when they would speak to him and ask him questions he'd just mumble answers to the stones around him as if they weren't there.

They then made their way to the Wormwrithings, facing the kobold net traps along the way, followed by various kobold patrols and ambushes. Finally, they assaulted the kobold lair and faced the kobold chief and priest, and an elemental grue in the temple of Urdlen (I was using the great supplemental ideas for the adventure by Jeremy Murphy at http://kootenaygamer.blogspot.com/ including having a Cult of Urdlen operating secretly in Blindgenstone).

In terms of playtesting the rules, overall the players had fun, and the 2e fans were pleased with the number of encounters we were able to have. But the one player who is a 4e fan, and me as the DM, were a bit disappointed in how puny the kobold encounters seemed. The kobolds were able to threaten the characters if they got to go, since they could do decent damage, but the wizard and druid each was able to wipe out all or almost all of each kobold encounter with a single first level spell. Also the saves versus traps were too easy and out of all the traps, only once was one of the players caught by a trap, and she escaped the very next action she took.

On the first encounter, party ran into the kobold net trap. One one of the four, the paladin, was caught. She cut through the net in one action, which was fine. The wizard put all the kobolds who jumped out to sleep with a spell.

On the next encounter, they ran into a kobold patrol. The wizard killed all of them with a gust of wind spell, even those that made their saves.

On the third encounter, they ran into a kobold patrol with a blind ogre pet. At first the players were concerned, but they killed the ogre very swiftly with one raging strike from the barbarian and magic missiles from the wizard (he had restored one spell slot during a short rest).

Then they entered the kobold nest, and faced several waves of kobolds. Here there were times when some of the player characters were in real danger when the kobolds focused their firepower on one of them. But they were able to fight through, and reached the chief. The chief and his bodyguard were a disappointment, as the druid killed them all with an entangle before they could act.

They had rested by the time they reached the priest, so the wizard was loaded with spells again and killed the priest with a gust of wind before he could act. The elemental grue attacked the barbarian once from below, hurting him, but the rage reduced the grue's damage by half. Then the paladin used divine smite and the wizard used magic missile, which together killed the grue before it could attack or hide again. Even though I added extra regular kobolds to both the chief and priest/grue encounters, they still were slaughtered swiftly. At least the grue encounter provided a brief engagement but, only for one round.

The characters leveled half way through the kobold nest. The rules still seem to be working well, essentially, but the monsters seem pretty weak and probably need to be strengthened even at low levels.