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

[TerraDave]

As we delve into the details..

I like the tone, the writing, the approach to the multiverse, the acknowledgement of the DM.

 

[mips42]

Very raw first impressions:

1) It's D&D. WOOT!
2) For a free PDF, it looks great
3) I like that they used Tika and Artemis as different people evolved from the same starting point.
4) I wouldn't want to print it due to the mottled background. I wish there was a way to turn this off.

 

[TwoSix]

I'm interested to see if the PHB is only going to have more martial archetypes, domains, arcane traditions, etc., or if it will also have swaps available for the base class abilities, a la Pathfinder archetypes.

And I'm nearly offended as to how bad Remarkable Athlete is. What a boring ability.

The balancing they did between spells is tricky, but (I think) actually works pretty well. High-level spells (particularly 6+) are flat out better than their scaled-up lower-level counterparts (compare Cure Wounds and Heal), but the relative scarcity of high-level slots ensure than you'll want to prepare both to maintain flexibility.

Teleport is 7th level. That seems a much better spot for it than 5th.

 

[Obryn]

Oh my god, this is wonderful! The sex/gender bit is just BAM straight-up LGBTQIA-friendly progressive. It's possibly the most directly progressive message in this department I've ever seen in a mainstream fantasy RPG (granted, some may have escaped my attention), and it's awesome. The example of a character who would be called trans as LITERALLY made in the image of (a) god is just beautiful.

That is definitely what I call a good start to this chapter, and indeed puts me in a good place regarding 5E (as someone with gay and trans friends and players, particularly so).

That's utterly awesome.

 

[Patrick McGill]

Oh my god, this is wonderful! The sex/gender bit is just BAM straight-up LGBTQIA-friendly progressive. It's possibly the most directly progressive message in this department I've ever seen in a mainstream fantasy RPG (granted, some may have escaped my attention), and it's awesome. The example of a character who would be called trans as LITERALLY made in the image of (a) god is just beautiful.

That is definitely what I call a good start to this chapter, and indeed puts me in a good place regarding 5E (as someone with gay and trans friends and players, particularly so).

For real. Kudos to them for not taking the easy way out. They laid it out on the table. I respect them hard core for including something to raise that olive branch of inclusiveness, as well as tying it into world flavor (with that bit about Correlon).

I certainly hope that attitude of inclusive diversity shows up in published adventures as well.

 

[Sadrik]

Start out by saying Bravo! Here are some of my niggles though.

Skills with different abilities variant
This is nice an up front. There would need to be a few changes to the skills to really accommodate this well though. When I call for Medicine (INT) rolls every time it will not cause any disturbances in the force...

Intelligence Checks
Investigation. - Perhaps too broad? It seems to be a necessary skill but in the description it touches medicine, insight, perception, and survival. Is it ok to have those skills do specific things and then for this to be able to do those things too? This skill is very good.

Other Intelligence Checks.
Pull together a disguise to pass as a city guard. - This should be listed as a function of Deception (and in fact is).

Wisdom Checks
Animal Handling. - this should be an INT based skill based on what it does.
Insight. - Specialized perception on determining interpersonal characteristics of NPCs such as sincerity. I might roll this into perception or deception or even allow both...
Medicine. - this needs to be based on INT.
Survival. - this also needs to be INT based. This also runs into Nature skill and Investigation skill.

Other Wisdom Checks.
Get a gut feeling on a course of action to take. - This is basically a luck roll or a DM may I have a hint roll. I don't think this should be stat based if you allow this type of thing into the game anyway.
Discern whether a seemingly dead or living creature is undead. - I would say this is a good Perception check or Medicine or even Investigation. This should not only be an unskilled wisdom check.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Love the wording on Neutral Good. Hope that stays into the PHB.

Neutral is well-worded, and seems back towards 4E-style unaligned, when in some playtests it had been a bit sketchy and near to the silly kind of Neutral from 2E.

In fact, you know what - all these alignments are best-worded alignments I've ever seen in any edition of D&D. So far 5E is looking great in what one might call the "Arts" part of D&D (if the mechanics are "Sciences"), hope that continues because then we'd have seen an area of D&D straight-improve for 5 editions.

They're so well-worded, I'm kind of mystified that no-one explained them this well in previous editions. Less is more, apparently. Whoever wrote these should be applauded.

EDIT - Not sure how comfortable I am with the the whole "Good gods create free-willed races, but Evil gods create races with a strong magical innate tendency to evil" deal. That's not fluff that was strictly true in any previous edition (certainly not of all evil races), and kind of reduces them to World of Warcraft-esque "MAGIC MADE ME EVIL!!!!" figures.

Also it totally doesn't jive with the fluff on the alignments of Dwarves, Elves, and Halflings, with former two tending towards Good (Dwarves seemingly more strongly), and Halfling being nearly all LG.

Sketchy. Think that should be world-specific, not a general assertion.

In fact I am definitely uncomfortable with this, especially in the general progressive context and that they specifically say even a Good member of one of those races will be constantly tempted by Evil. It seems like something from another age. It's boring and trite, too, because it's magic that's doing it.

Also this hard-codes the gods as definitely, actually, no questions creating all the races, rather than that being a deep-past thing which is open to question. Which is again a bit cheesy as a general assertion.

EDIT EDIT - It's not QUITE as bad as I'm saying because I like the "To make slaves of them" rationale, but I'm just not vibing with it. Breaking those chains would make a great campaign goal though... so I guess there's that.

 

[the Jester]

I've barely read any of this thread, so someone else may have already commented on these, but two things really stick out as being very different from 3e and later:

1. There is a training requirement of 250 days of downtime needed for learning a new language or toolset proficiency;
2. You don't automatically know if someone cast a spell on you anymore!

I wholeheartedly approve of both.

 

[Dausuul]

Lots to read here, haven't had a chance to go through it all yet. Just looking at some random (well, not entirely random) stuff:

• I see that all nonhuman races now grant +2 to an ability score, and subraces grant +1 to a second score (+2 for mountain dwarves). Good deal. Now the across-the-board +1 for humans doesn't seem so counterintuitive.
• Hey, interesting. If you're using the feat rules, humans can replace the across-the-board bonus with +1 to two scores, a bonus feat, and a bonus skill. Shades of 3E here. Is anybody with access to this option going to take the universal +1? Seems unlikely, especially with 5E feats being so much beefier than 3E/4E ones.
• Tables are back, baby! You can roll for all sorts of stuff, including backgrounds. I approve.
• I like the inspiration mechanic. Clean, simple, piggybacking off the advantage rules.
• No restrictions on short rests. I foresee arguments over whether you can take two in a row--myself, I think it's absurd to say you can't, but whatever.
• Hooboy. The old-school folks are not going to be happy about the default hit point/healing rules. Long rests heal you up completely as well as giving back Hit Dice. Either the Player's Handbook or the DMG had better have a slow healing option, or WotC can kiss a lot of those folks goodbye. I don't much mind myself, though it would be nice to have injuries with a bit more permanence.
• Slashing, bludgeoning, and piercing damage are back!
• Haven't made an exhaustive search, but so far every example I've seen has used characters from either the Forgotten Realms (mostly the Drizzt canon) or Dragonlance.
• Halflings are back down to 3 feet tall. For reference, that is a bit shy of average height for a 4-year-old.
• Channel Divinity is sweeeeet. I love the idea that a cleric in desperate straits can try this as a kind of Hail Mary pass.
• Dunno about revivify. Resurrection within 1 minute of death for 300 gp, starting at cleric level 5? I was prepared to tolerate revivify when you had to cast it literally the next round. One minute is stretching it. Might have to ban this one in my games...
• And both raise dead and revivify are on the Life domain spell list. I guess I'll have to find something else to give Life clerics instead.

 

[Remathilis]

This is from the Starter box, but I fell in love with it. It's a lovely nod to the bygone era of saves.