D&D 5E Official D&D Basic Discussion Thread

[Agamon]

I can run any rule any way I want, Agamon. If you are going to keep making this argument about every potential issue with 5E (which it appears you may!), perhaps you should rename yourself Oberoni?

My point is, it's not an issue for everyone. It doesn't need to be fixed if it's not broken. 5e was built from the ground up this way, inclusionary as opposed to exclusionary. Yes, you can interpret every rule the way you want, that's the point of the system.

Broken is a dagger doing 6d20 damage or a kobold being worth 2500 xp. This particular rule is not broken, it's worded in such a way that any DM can run with it the way they like, whatever way that isn't bizarrely metagame-y to you.

And yeah, I do find myself repeating this a lot, go figure. I guess I just need to do more eye-rolling and head-shaking instead of posting because some people don't seem to understand making a game that has more potential to be good for everyone instead of a select few is a good thing.

 

[Mistwell]

They are going to have to errata this. The definition what consistutes a short rest does not refer to nor impose any restriction on taking multiple short rests, one after another.

The biggest restriction on taking a short rest is that it involves resting for an hour.

This is a game that introduces wandering monsters in a big way. It also emphasizes things like time incentives on adventures.

So the biggest constraint on multiple short rests is similar to the constraint on the wizard calling for a five minute adventuring day - the rest of the party has to agree that it would be best to risk wandering monsters, or a delay in the adventure, to do it.

So no, it does not have to be errata'ed. I cannot see my players wanting to rest for two or three hours just so the fighter can get back a relatively small number of hit points. They're just going to tell the fighter to suck it up, or the cleric to expend a healing spell, and move on, after the first hour of rest (which benefits everyone).

 

[Keldryn]

I should mention whatever I say about the rest of the game, the sex part is a huge step forward.

Today on Totally Out of Context Quotes...

 

[Chaltab]

So no, it does not have to be errata'ed. I cannot see my players wanting to rest for two or three hours just so the fighter can get back a relatively small number of hit points. They're just going to tell the fighter to suck it up, or the cleric to expend a healing spell, and move on, after the first hour of rest (which benefits everyone).

No, don't you see, Mistwell: the very existence of Second Wind will transform your players into Moby Dick power-gaming munchkin ne'erdowells.

 

[Keldryn]

Minor unbelievabilities: a rogue's sneak attack works only with ranged and finesse weapons (you cannot sneak with a club or a handaxe or a longsword?) and the protection fighting style is for shield users only. Is this what D&D considers tactical options these days? Oh my.

So, this ruleset is something I have played a long long time ago back in the early 90s and feels like that, too. Been there, done that. Man, am I dissapointed. I kind of understand the bow to the old-fashioned folks. But this? It is definitely not for me. Those who like this sort of stuff: enjoy.

Do keep in mind that this is Basic D&D, not the entirety of 5th Edition. It's the simplest set of rules needed to play the game, so that it is easy for new players to learn and so that the game plays quickly at the table. It deliberately includes only the most traditional and archetypal character options so that players will already have some idea as to what their characters will be able to do and so that character creation can be done in a matter of minutes.

The stuff that you're looking for will be in the PHB and DMG. The Basic Rules aren't really intended for those of us who hang out on the ENWorld forums.

 

[Keldryn]

Actually, to the best of my knowledge, you're correct, and there have never been specific trait types like that in D&D before (excluding alignment, of course). [/pedant]

The 1e DMG had a bunch of tables for randomly determining personality traits for NPCs, and the official NPC Record Sheets had a section for recording the values for each trait category. When I was younger, we would sometimes use those as inspiration for fleshing out PC personalities.

Then I discovered Central Casting: Heroes of Legend, which was both a good thing and a bad thing...

EDIT: OH! And Thunderwave? (OP as a 1st level spell, imo) I'm no "physics has to work right with magic" proponent...breaking the rules of reality is what magic (particularly arcane) is for...BUT, that said, we know how sounds waves spread through the air. Why in the nine hells is the area of effect a cube instead of a sphere?! [yeah. yeah. I know. "It's magic." But...yeah...seems a simple/dumb error]

I just view that as a convenient abstraction, the same way that I viewed things like square fireballs in 4e. Minis on a grid are an abstraction as well; the position within a square on the grid is simply the "average" physical location of that character over a 6-second span of time. The character isn't standing still in the game world, and probably steps outside the boundaries of that square quite frequently.

In the game world, the effect is spherical, and any time a character is caught within the area of effect of a cube when they wouldn't be caught within the radius of a sphere simply means that at the specific moment that the effect took place, the character was within the area of effect. Cubes are easier to measure, especially if using a grid, and it helps avoid slowing the game down by having to figure out how much of each square on the edge is within the area of effect and whether a character in that square was within that part of the square.

Thunderwave is inconsistent with how Fireball is described (15' cube vs 20' radius), but that might be because Thunderwave also pushes the targets 10'. If you're using a grid, determining 10' from the edge of a sphere starts to get cumbersome, as opposed to just pushing two squares from the edge of the cube.

That's my best guess, anyway. I could be wrong and it's just a dumb error, but I wouldn't be surprised if the forced movement had something to do with it.

 

[tuxgeo]

Since this is the official discussion thread, I though I would add these two points, which I have not seen on earlier pages:

True stories of fifth edition - the overall project, the game, the playtest, etc was codenamed Anduril. obvious ref for Tolkien geeks.

Game was code named Iowa by Rich Baker, drawing from the (modified) quote from Field of Dreams - if you build it, they will come.

(Both quotes are from Twitter.)

 

[mips42]

I think you may be under an incorrect understanding here. The game is pretty well done and mostly off to the printers. There may still be a few days or weeks before the MM and DMG are sent off, but the PH is certainly already in production now. This is v 0.1 because the Basic set is going to have additional material inserted before it reaches a stable state around the end of the year as the books come out. However, I don't think we'll see additional classes or races in Basic. You need to buy the PH for those.

Perhaps I am incorrect but I seem to remember in one of the posts or possibly the unboxing video they said that the Basic rules were going to be updated as PHB, DMG and MM were finalized and that they didn't expect v 1.0 until roughly the end of 2014.
To me, this means that Basic is still kinda in flux and fiddly bits *may* get addressed.
You could be right, though and I could be remembering incorrectly although I definitely remember them saying that either the DMG or MM was still "in house" meaning not released to the printers.

 

[Ainamacar]

EDIT: OH! And Thunderwave? (OP as a 1st level spell, imo) I'm no "physics has to work right with magic" proponent...breaking the rules of reality is what magic (particularly arcane) is for...BUT, that said, we know how sounds waves spread through the air. Why in the nine hells is the area of effect a cube instead of a sphere?! [yeah. yeah. I know. "It's magic." But...yeah...seems a simple/dumb error]

Like magic missile is three missiles, thunderwave is three cones, only it's one in each of three adjacent directions, thus forming a cube? (I dunno, my attempt to explain it is a bit of a stretch).

I just view that as a convenient abstraction, the same way that I viewed things like square fireballs in 4e. Minis on a grid are an abstraction as well; the position within a square on the grid is simply the "average" physical location of that character over a 6-second span of time. The character isn't standing still in the game world, and probably steps outside the boundaries of that square quite frequently.

In the game world, the effect is spherical, and any time a character is caught within the area of effect of a cube when they wouldn't be caught within the radius of a sphere simply means that at the specific moment that the effect took place, the character was within the area of effect. Cubes are easier to measure, especially if using a grid, and it helps avoid slowing the game down by having to figure out how much of each square on the edge is within the area of effect and whether a character in that square was within that part of the square.

As a physicist who has gamed mostly with other physicists, I can assure you all that the correct hand-wavey answer to this issue is "boundary conditions" and "to first order" followed by a hard stare.

Relevant details for the unconvinced might include non-spherical sources, locally-approximate plane waves, different dissipation/dispersion relations for longitudinal vs. transverse propagation, and flippin' magic.

 

[Tony Semana]

True stories of fifth edition - the overall project, the game, the playtest, etc was codenamed Anduril. obvious ref for Tolkien geeks.

Nice trivia! I like the nod to reforging the game as was the sword.