BryonD
Hero
Yeah, I think so. I said it was a red flag. It is. I also said I'm still very much paying attention and waiting to see.
Seminar Transcript - Class Design: From Assassins to Wizards
Yeah, I think so. I said it was a red flag. It is. I also said I'm still very much paying attention and waiting to see.
BryonD
Hero
OK, maybe I've got too many debates with 4E fans on my mind.
I've been round and round with 4E fans saying that it makes total sense that once you use a power everyone there has "seen your trick", but you could use it again that time and other rationalizations for it working as I described above.
I'll plead guilty of knee-jerking based on that prior notion.
Red flag lowered. (for now
)broghammerj
Explorer
They're not giving you a reason to switch because they learned their lesson. Look how many 3E enthusiasts were put off by the, "your old edition isn't as good as super kewl 4E". Disparaging remarks against old editions only alienate fans.
This is looking to be the edition to unite the genre. Why do you want to switch? For starters, the goal would be to allow you and I to play together. As a 3E fan I think 4E is a great game but borders on a tactical board game. With 5E we theoretically can co-exist. Right now I don't come to your house on Saturday nights and we don't play DnD.....and that is sad.
Mercurius
Legend
[MENTION=13913]pl[/MENTION]ain Sailing, Keefe is only wrong in specifics; his sentiment is right, imo, especially if we look at what Monte actually said: "We want to potentially have..." Potentially is a mighty important qualifier; I suspect that they won't actually end up putting all 15 or so classes in the first 5E PHB, but maybe 10-12 of them.
On to other things...
Yes, exactly. This is an example of where people are going to continually be irritated with 5E, because their own preferred mechanic or version of a specific rule is not where exactly they want it to be. But the thing is, it will still likely be somewhere, or something like it. If a player doesn't like Vancian magic but wants to play a spell-caster, there are other options than wizard - sorcerer, for instance.
The real potential here is for 5E to diversify classes by giving them different sub-systems that are still compatible with core. This would mean that sorcerer would and should exploit the theme of spontaneous casting; maybe they wouldn't know spells at all but would instead have something like power points and modes or forms.
I like this sort of approach, although with the caveat that I think levels 1-20 should be in PHB 1 and that PHB 2 should be a second wave of classes and with more modular options, then PHB 3 can be epic tier. I just think that it would be better to have the full range of "normal" (non-epic) level development playable from the first book.
This also gives them an excuse to cut down on trying to fit every classic class into the first PHB and gives them some license to add in some more exotic/non-traditional classes and races in PHB 2. So something like this:
Player's Handbook 1
classes (10): fighter, wizard, cleric, rogue, paladin, ranger, druid, bard, warlord, warlock
races: human, dwarf, elf (sylvan and grey), halfling (hobbit-ish and kender-ish), gnome
Player's Handbook 2
classes: assassin, avenger, invoker, sorcerer, illusionist, monk, barbarian, psion, swordmage, cavalier
races: half-elf, half-orc, drow, deva, tiefling, dragonborn, shifter, etc
Player's Handbook 3
epic play for all classes and races from 1 and 2.
I'm not crazy about some of the races in PHB 2, but some folks like them and the point of 5E is not to be my own "vanity edition" but an edition to please as many folks as possible, and as deeply as possible.
There are, of course, other ways to slice the cake; one could argue that PHB 1 would be followed by the "Martial Handbook" and the "Arcane Handbook" etc, with further classes along power sources lines. The danger would be getting too far into kit territory and a major problem would be that if one wanted to, say, play an obscure Divine character, they might have to wait a couple years until their preferred handbook came out.
But this is where you aren't getting the core 5E design philosophy: they're trying to accommodate optimizers and non-optimizers, and even to balance it enough so that two can play at the same table.
This is obviously easier said than done, but is also a very important goal, imo. I've never played at a table where all of the players were on the same page with this; my current group has a range of about three different levels, from a couple highly tactically oriented players who like to build their characters with an eye for optimization to one player who just wants to show up, drink beer, talk about Ron Paul and swing his axe at his enemy, to a few players in-between.
To say that the optimizer has no place in 5E is to entirely miss the point of 5E. IMO, of course.
Well, the thing is that they want every class to contribute equally and, let's face it, a "Merchant" class just doesn't hold the same weight as the more combat-oriented classes. "Hey ranger, you just did 71 HP on one opponent? Well watch me - I just traded or a nice roll of brocaded silk at half its value!"
Sure, there are more aspects to the game than combat, but damage per round ends up being a kind of bottom line in many, even most games. Or rather, it is the one thing that is easily quantifiable in every game - roleplaying and problem solving and skill use are all important, but don't necessarily have the same tangible gratification as "I just did 71 HP of damage." "I just picked that wicked hard lock" or "I just intimidated that orc toddler."
This I can agree with, at least in principle. On the other hand, an encounter could also be easily defined as "A period of action without rest." Once a rest occurs, even just five minutes, then the encounter ends.
Have you done any jogging? If you run for 20 minutes and then walk for a few minutes, the "encounter" of jogging isn't over in that your heart rate probably won't go back to resting, but if you sit or stop for 10-15 minutes, the encounter is over and you start again (although may be more tired, which is why the equivalent of any used "dailies" would be gone).
All that said, it might be best to scrap the whole encounter/daily mechanic and go with some kind of stamina system. This would allow, as someone said above, for more flexibility with combat maneuvers and powers and spells. Sure, Vancian casters might still be limited to fire-and-forget, but that's part of the payoff for their potent magic!
Hmm...I'm not sure where you're reading this. First of all, your last sentence has always been the case: If I DM 3e and you don't want to play 3e then either you can find another group or I can DM something else, or someone else can DM. 5E just makes this more flexible, so that a DM can run the core game with his or her own unique style (and/or in the style of a specific edition or editions), and different players can play characters of varying degrees of complexity and customization.
See, I think the operative word here is style. That implies a fair amount of flexibility and doesn't necessarily mean emulating the specifics of an edition's rules. "In the style of" 2E, for instance, does not mean descending AC and using THAC0 at the same table as the d20+ mechanic, it means deeply detailed settings and classic character types with some optimization possible. It is a flavor thing, with rules that accommodate a variety of flavors.
On to other things...
Yes, exactly. This is an example of where people are going to continually be irritated with 5E, because their own preferred mechanic or version of a specific rule is not where exactly they want it to be. But the thing is, it will still likely be somewhere, or something like it. If a player doesn't like Vancian magic but wants to play a spell-caster, there are other options than wizard - sorcerer, for instance.
The real potential here is for 5E to diversify classes by giving them different sub-systems that are still compatible with core. This would mean that sorcerer would and should exploit the theme of spontaneous casting; maybe they wouldn't know spells at all but would instead have something like power points and modes or forms.
I like this sort of approach, although with the caveat that I think levels 1-20 should be in PHB 1 and that PHB 2 should be a second wave of classes and with more modular options, then PHB 3 can be epic tier. I just think that it would be better to have the full range of "normal" (non-epic) level development playable from the first book.
This also gives them an excuse to cut down on trying to fit every classic class into the first PHB and gives them some license to add in some more exotic/non-traditional classes and races in PHB 2. So something like this:
Player's Handbook 1
classes (10): fighter, wizard, cleric, rogue, paladin, ranger, druid, bard, warlord, warlock
races: human, dwarf, elf (sylvan and grey), halfling (hobbit-ish and kender-ish), gnome
Player's Handbook 2
classes: assassin, avenger, invoker, sorcerer, illusionist, monk, barbarian, psion, swordmage, cavalier
races: half-elf, half-orc, drow, deva, tiefling, dragonborn, shifter, etc
Player's Handbook 3
epic play for all classes and races from 1 and 2.
I'm not crazy about some of the races in PHB 2, but some folks like them and the point of 5E is not to be my own "vanity edition" but an edition to please as many folks as possible, and as deeply as possible.
There are, of course, other ways to slice the cake; one could argue that PHB 1 would be followed by the "Martial Handbook" and the "Arcane Handbook" etc, with further classes along power sources lines. The danger would be getting too far into kit territory and a major problem would be that if one wanted to, say, play an obscure Divine character, they might have to wait a couple years until their preferred handbook came out.
But this is where you aren't getting the core 5E design philosophy: they're trying to accommodate optimizers and non-optimizers, and even to balance it enough so that two can play at the same table.
This is obviously easier said than done, but is also a very important goal, imo. I've never played at a table where all of the players were on the same page with this; my current group has a range of about three different levels, from a couple highly tactically oriented players who like to build their characters with an eye for optimization to one player who just wants to show up, drink beer, talk about Ron Paul and swing his axe at his enemy, to a few players in-between.
To say that the optimizer has no place in 5E is to entirely miss the point of 5E. IMO, of course.
Well, the thing is that they want every class to contribute equally and, let's face it, a "Merchant" class just doesn't hold the same weight as the more combat-oriented classes. "Hey ranger, you just did 71 HP on one opponent? Well watch me - I just traded or a nice roll of brocaded silk at half its value!"
Sure, there are more aspects to the game than combat, but damage per round ends up being a kind of bottom line in many, even most games. Or rather, it is the one thing that is easily quantifiable in every game - roleplaying and problem solving and skill use are all important, but don't necessarily have the same tangible gratification as "I just did 71 HP of damage." "I just picked that wicked hard lock" or "I just intimidated that orc toddler."
This I can agree with, at least in principle. On the other hand, an encounter could also be easily defined as "A period of action without rest." Once a rest occurs, even just five minutes, then the encounter ends.
Have you done any jogging? If you run for 20 minutes and then walk for a few minutes, the "encounter" of jogging isn't over in that your heart rate probably won't go back to resting, but if you sit or stop for 10-15 minutes, the encounter is over and you start again (although may be more tired, which is why the equivalent of any used "dailies" would be gone).
All that said, it might be best to scrap the whole encounter/daily mechanic and go with some kind of stamina system. This would allow, as someone said above, for more flexibility with combat maneuvers and powers and spells. Sure, Vancian casters might still be limited to fire-and-forget, but that's part of the payoff for their potent magic!
Hmm...I'm not sure where you're reading this. First of all, your last sentence has always been the case: If I DM 3e and you don't want to play 3e then either you can find another group or I can DM something else, or someone else can DM. 5E just makes this more flexible, so that a DM can run the core game with his or her own unique style (and/or in the style of a specific edition or editions), and different players can play characters of varying degrees of complexity and customization.
See, I think the operative word here is style. That implies a fair amount of flexibility and doesn't necessarily mean emulating the specifics of an edition's rules. "In the style of" 2E, for instance, does not mean descending AC and using THAC0 at the same table as the d20+ mechanic, it means deeply detailed settings and classic character types with some optimization possible. It is a flavor thing, with rules that accommodate a variety of flavors.
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
Wait...shouldn't every class from ever PHI-style book include racial classes like Dwarf and Elf from BEMCI?
Grimstaff
Explorer
I'm intrigued by how they will handle "common" classes, versus "rare" classes etc. WIll they be physically separated in the book / a different section? Interesting.
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Mercurius
Legend
No, not necessarily, especially when those are basically gestalts of race-class combos (dwarf fighter and elf fighter/wizard, iirc).
That said, this is where the modular possibilities are quite endless. What about a book that provides "archetypes" that can be used instead of race/class combos? They could be campaign world specific, or they could be more general; like so:
Valley of the Mage Guardian
Silvan elf warrior of Mirkwood
Dwarf mountaineer
Kender wanderer
Etc. Imagine a whole book of archetypes or templates, or every campaign sourcebook including such combinations; a player can just choose one, which would provide a basic template of what they can do and facilitate a simpler game experience.
Vyvyan Basterd
Adventurer
"Easy multiclassing into other classes" is what has me worried. Monte mentions rewarding "good play." I think this is a great goal - in game. I do not like the idea of rewarding the guy with the most books or the guy who is able to cobble together a nonsensical build by easily multiclassing into multiple classes to cherry pick front-loaded abilities. What this led to in 3E, for my group's playstyle, was some players who has the system mastery that allowed them to create multiclass Frankenstein monsters that were more powerful that the sum of their parts, while others tried to make something that seemed cool and flavorful to them but fell into a multiclassing trap that made their characters worse than the sum of their parts. The disparity in power level between the most powerful and least powerful characters in each campaign during the last two years of official 3.5 support made it extremely difficult for me to DM. And when I asked the rest of the group to run a campaign instead (two of whom DM regularly), none wanted to tackle the problem. I was ready to quit D&D entirely about one month before 4th edition was announced. That's why the design team deciding to shoot for "3E style" multiclassing instead of giving options for different styles makes me wonder if D&DN will be right for my group. It is the only major concern I've had so far, I either like the rest of what I've heard or can live with or ignore the rest. But my group neither would want to live with or ignore multiclassing.
We asked that same question in last night's game.
Well so far everything that has been posted about 5e has turned me off. It just seems they want to revamp 4e rules (which I dislike) and fit everything else they like from other editions into 5e.
I guess it will be a wait and see until I can see the actual rules before making my final judgement.
I guess it will be a wait and see until I can see the actual rules before making my final judgement.
FitzTheRuke
Legend
Dwarf and Elf WILL be included.... as Races.
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