Something Awful leak.

[kitsune9]

The guy had me at the flat math and ability scores, but I just don't buy this:

You have to raise a common class character to level 10 before you can unlock the uncommon ones. Or you can unlock them right now for 400 Wizard Points. Every PHB will contain a random selection of 7 common classes, 3 uncommons, and 1 rare.

All things are possible I guess, but I'm still refraining from judgment until I get 5e in my hands.

 

[Ainamacar]

Even if it's all true the main thing I take from the leak is rather more positive regardless of my opinions of the rules:
It's in such a rough condition (as of a few months ago) that community feedback actually will have an opportunity to affect things. That's much better than a patina of "listening to the community" with polished rules.

In particular, the use of cut-and-paste doesn't strike me as objectionable, it strikes me as a person grabbing rules they know to fill in for rules they haven't thought about in detail. At least, when I start on a new design the very first thing I do is steal 90% of everything from what I already know, just so I'll actually have something to play. If I were Monte I'd steal from 3e more regularly as well, not necessarily because I intend to stick to it, but because I already know intimately how and why it's supposed to work. Design is iterative. Copy-and-paste, especially where all the seams are clear, is evidence of iteration in action.

 

[kitsune9]

One thing should be clear is that 5e isn't going to please everyone, even the playtesters. So there's always going to be someone who says:

1. They are just appeasing the grognards!
2. They just rewrote x edition instead of improving my x edition!
3. I hate how they did [insert whatever complaint here]

To be honest, I don't think 5e will be a win-all for me either, but I'm not going to dismiss it.

The polls do look biased, but the way I think they are is simply because game designers are game designers, not biostatisticians and market researchers who specialize in writing unbiased polls and surveys.

 

[Meophist]

The guy had me at the flat math and ability scores, but I just don't buy this:

You have to raise a common class character to level 10 before you can unlock the uncommon ones. Or you can unlock them right now for 400 Wizard Points. Every PHB will contain a random selection of 7 common classes, 3 uncommons, and 1 rare.

All things are possible I guess, but I'm still refraining from judgment until I get 5e in my hands.

I think the stuff that starts with a > at the beginning are things other people are saying, not the leaker. Mostly there for context.

 

[D'karr]

I think the stuff that starts with a > at the beginning are things other people are saying, not the leaker. Mostly there for context.

The leaker, that sounds like a really horrible name for a monster, or even worse a superhero.

 

[n00bdragon]

I'm really sad that the designers seem ashamed of the few 4E elements they found too good to totally discard. I really feel like there's a disconnect between the design objective and a large portion of the 4E fanbase that Wizards just doesn't even care about fixing. The most distressing thing by far is the way the action economy is simply no more. When things get ambiguous narration should fall back on rules, not the other way around.

 

[Incenjucar]

I believe the lines starting with ">" are from the community, while the other lines are from the leaker(s). So yes, that random classes thing was a joke. By someone other than the leakers.

While the whole thing sounds quite horrible to me, there is some logic to a lot of the obfuscation. A vocal portion of the community cannot stand being fully aware of the rules of the game, and only find that D&D is magical when it is unknowable. They've stated as such quite often. Some people really want to ignore the little man behind the curtain. For me, that's the opposite of what I want.

 

[steeldragons]

The most distressing thing by far is the way the action economy is simply no more. When things get ambiguous narration should fall back on rules, not the other way around.

What's "the action economy"?

No, I'm serious. I've never heard that term. What does it mean?

 

[n00bdragon]

In 4e everyone had a Standard Action, a Move Action, and a Minor Action. This kept a lid on just how much stuff a character could do in one round and provided a unifying framework to how actions worked. That way when you use a special power that lets you move you do that instead of moving by having it cost a Move Action. Etc and so on. The Minor Action was generally used for support type abilities, things you do in addition to hitting people or picking locks or whatever. That's what the cleric uses the heal others and the fighter uses to buff his defenses or draw an enemy or do some fancy footwork or whatever.

 

[The Little Raven]

This has to be fake.

It HAS to be.

PLEASE BE FAKE.

PLEASE.

If this is real... aside from boneheaded design flubs like "Undead are immune to the iconic anti-undead power," the design philosophy behind it seems so regressive and anti-DM empowerment because it wants to hide functionality behind pointless walls of text or needlessly complex subsystems.