D&D 5E Are you happy with the Battlemaster and Fighter Maneuvers? Other discussions as well.

[ForeverSlayer]

I am very wary of non magical forced movement, except for bull rushing, shield bashing, and possibly pulling using a whip. I hope we don't get that 'I trick you' kind of forced movement because there would be some creatures that it just wouldn't work on.

 

[tsadkiel]

I wonder if the Battlemaster gives you everything the fighter gets and then some.

If it does, that would be like choosing the 3.0 ranger over the 3.5 one.

Everything the warrior gets, you mean? Of course not. That's not how subclasses work.

If you mean fighter, then yes, just like the warrior gets everything the fighter gets and then some. It's just a different and then some.

The battle master is just a slightly updated and renamed version of the weapon master subclass that already exists in the current playtest packet - apart from the renaming, I think the only big revelation of the past week is that the warlord will be folded into battle master rather than being its own subclass.

 

[Obryn]

I am very wary of non magical forced movement, except for bull rushing, shield bashing, and possibly pulling using a whip. I hope we don't get that 'I trick you' kind of forced movement because there would be some creatures that it just wouldn't work on.

The previous packets used a test against the target's ability scores, which represents some creatures being less susceptible to this kind of thing. It's based on their stats, so it's not arbitrary and not automatic.

 

[fjw70]

The rule of three today makes me more excited about the Battle Master. It sounds really fun.

 

[pming]

Hiya.

With regards to not thinking 5e is gonna do it for me...

If that is the case, why are you posting to the 5e threads still? Serious question. I don't play Savage Worlds, so I don't post or read the Savage Worlds forums. If you already know where you're headed with 5e...why are you still here?

Mainly because I still hold out hope I'll find it "modifiably to my liking". I'd love to be able to play an in-print version of D&D.

Uh, he quit, they did not fire him. And, how much of a fan of him are you, if you can't even spell his name?

Yes, sorry for my wording. I meant "dumped him" as in "ok, you can get out of your contract" or "ok, sorry to see you go".

With regards to simplifying the game...

LOL wow. You have it backwards. Monte wanted more customization and complexity in the game, not less.

I have no problem at all with customization and complexity. I'm all for it...as long as it is ALL OPTIONAL. What I wanted from a 5e was, essentially, the 0e/BasicD&D core rules as a base. These rules would be "self contained" (so nothing is really merged with something else). After that, we get the specialization books/box sets/campaign settings. Thats where all the customization and optional stuff comes in. Because the 'core rules' are so simple and non-dependent, a DM could take a class from this book, a few from that, add in a couple races, choose to do Wound Points in stead of Hit Points, switch out vancian memorization to a spell-point system, sprinkle in the Brute/Striker/whatever monster 'templates', and make some personal modifications himself. In all that, he would NEVER have to *ignore* or otherwise *remove* anything...only adding stuff he wants.

That was the 5e I was looking for, and I really felt that Monte was sending out that vibe; base should be basic. Add whatever you want on top of that. However, as it turns out, WotC's general attitude is "Well, actually, we're gonna just make what we want...sorta...with input, of course...but DM's will still have to pick and choose what they want, and ignore/remove what they want. Hmmm... Yeah, I guess it is actually like *every other edition of D&D we've ever made*... shhhhh!...keep it down!...maybe nobody will notice nothing's actually changed...".

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[fjw70]

I haven't seen anything to suggest they have gone away from basic/standard/advanced of 5e.

Basic would be sort of like BX with only the basic four classes and races with no feats, skills, backgrounds, etc.

Standard would have all the character building bells and whistles.

Advanced would have more more DM/group options such as gridded combat, domain management, etc.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I am very wary of non magical forced movement, except for bull rushing, shield bashing, and possibly pulling using a whip. I hope we don't get that 'I trick you' kind of forced movement because there would be some creatures that it just wouldn't work on.

I on the other hand love the idea of playing someone who can play mind games on opponents... so 'trick you' is a big selling point to me...

 

[GX.Sigma]

I hope we don't get that 'I trick you' kind of forced movement because there would be some creatures that it just wouldn't work on.

We've seen the solution a few times in the playtest, notably with Rogue powers like the following:

"As an action, you can spend your skill die to cause a creature to stumble into the path of an attack. Choose a creature within 5 feet of you that can see or hear you, and contest your Charisma against its Wisdom. The creature automatically wins the contest if it is immune to being charmed. If it loses, the next attack roll against that creature before the end of your next turn has advantage."

So, it will never work on undead, constructs, etc.

 

[Rygar]

I haven't seen anything to suggest they have gone away from basic/standard/advanced of 5e.

Basic would be sort of like BX with only the basic four classes and races with no feats, skills, backgrounds, etc.

Standard would have all the character building bells and whistles.

Advanced would have more more DM/group options such as gridded combat, domain management, etc.

If that's the case, then they're in extremely deep trouble.

The way they needed to release this was...

Basic = 1st edition
Standard = 2nd/3rd edition
Advanced = 4th edition

They needed to structure it such that people weren't forced to engage in mechanics they had previously rejected. The format you describe means that 4th edition's mechanics are assumed and effectively unavoidable in the core, and as we're seeing lately there are many and they are controversial.

Releasing it in the format you describe creates a very high probability that 5th edition will bomb right out of the gate. People were lead to believe that they could approximate their edition with ease, not that they'd have to hack at the rules and negotiate at the table to approximate their edition. It's likely many people never saw the increasing prevalence of 4th edition mechanics and haven't been following the articles, they're going to get a huge surprise on release day as they did with 4th edition's release in the format you describe. Which is *extremely* dangerous, because if someone rejected 4th edition, were happy with the early playtest packets that stepped away from 4th edition, and they discover on release day that 4th edition is suddenly prevalent...that's going to be a very upset customer.

I really don't see "Come play with the things you didn't want to play with before" as a winning business plan.

Each article since the playtest ended has made me increasingly certain that 5th edition will sell well in the first quarter it is released, Pathfinder will take the sales lead again in the second quarter, and D&D will drop to 4th or 5th place after that. Because I *really* don't think that all of the factions are going to buy into 5th edition long term and play with things they don't like.

 

[keterys]

If that's the case, then they're in extremely deep trouble.

The way they needed to release this was...

Basic = 1st edition
Standard = 2nd/3rd edition
Advanced = 4th edition

Errm, 3rd is pretty darn advanced. For that matter, 1st edition is often more complex than 2nd edition in many cases (try not to look too closely at the brawling chart or the optional "point buy character generation" 2.5 they did), though largely almost the same game.

This doesn't really make a lot of sense. If they want to market books to people of those editions, they can just release books targeted at those editions. They're making something new in which someone can make a fighter, decide they want a dead simple (Basic D&D style) fighter who just gets some passive bonuses, another person can make a fighter and do a complex maneuver-based fighter (closer to 4e) and be in the same party. If a group wants to exclude some rules, well, they're welcome to do so. I know plenty of 4e games that never used monster manual races or dragonmarks, for example. People can say "We don't like X, so don't be X". It works, honest.