First Impressions?

[Szatany]

I really like this part, it's a good compromise between 4e and earlier editions. And using the averages will be dirt simple for anyone who hates rolling. I'd even let different players in the same campaign choose what they do at character creation.

If con bonus is an integral part of a roll, I don't see how using averages is simple. It will, after all, produce different results.

I don't think it will screw the high HD classes. At 20th level (chosen only to be illustrative) a 10 Con character rolling a d6 will average 80 hp, but would average 130 hp if he had 20 Con instead. If that same character were a d10 class he would average 120 hp and 170 hp, respectively. Those are numbers I can live with. I'll probably take a look at the confidence intervals later, to see what profoundly lucky or unlucky rolls would do, and how often we could expect to see them.

High HD classes get less from their CON than low HD classes. I hope that this is something that wotc noticed and adjusted power levels of classes accordingly.
And your numbers are little off. A 20th level d10 class will not have as many as 170 hp, if the rolls are average. More like 150.
Look at this table, one point of difference in CON bonus gives d6 class from 4 to 34 HP across 20 levels. The same amount of difference gives a d10 class from 2 to 20 HP (that's almost half).

 

[Piratecat]

I seem to have lost the ability to grant XP ... but I certainly agree with you. Fun.

Turned off temporarily to reduce server load.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

The weapon table. And having "duplicate weapon effects" with such disparate costs.

It would be better if weapons had more unique properties, but if they are going for simple, I see no problem with duplication. Sometimes it's a matter of aesthetics, or in the club/mace example, what you can make trivially from a bit of tree vs. requires smithing.

I'm also not crazy about the insane jumps in price on the armor table either. The fact that fighters were supposed to be the most heavily armored, and yet a rogue with a +3 dex mod can get a 17 AC for 75 gp while a fighter with no dex mod has to spend 1,500 gp for the same AC? That's insane. Or the fact that Studded Leather gives you 13 + dex for 25 gp, but Ringmail gives you 13 + half dex for 35 gp? So basically you're spending 10 extra gold for armor that only half as much dex bonus.

So I did some calculation and yes, there is a serious problem with this armour table:

Armour Dex Mod 0 1 2 3 4 5

Leather 12+D 12 13 14 15 16 17
Studded 13+D 13 14 15 16 17 18
Chain Shirt 14+D 14 15 16 17 18 19
Mithral 15+D 15 16 17 18 19 20

Ring 13+D/2 13 13 14 14 15 15
Scale 14+D/2 14 14 15 15 16 16
Splint 15+D/2 15 15 16 16 17 17
Dragon 16+D/2 16 16 17 17 18 18

Chain 15 15 15 15 15 15 15
Banded 16 16 16 16 16 16 16
Plate 17 17 17 17 17 17 17
Adamant 18 18 18 18 18 18 18


Heavy shields can make up the difference for both Medium and Heavy armours, but I don't see a reason not to use one in Light armour either (if you are a Dex Fighter, say)? There's no reason to choose a Light Shield, as usual. The costs are.. not helping.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Aesthetic choices are fine if there's no mechanical disparity between them. But if a starting character only has X amount of gold to spend on equipment... there's absolutely no reason why they'd buy a mace rather than a club. Even if the mace was more "cleric-y" for example... that cleric would put that extra 5.5 gold to good use in getting a few more belt pouches and vials. That cleric of Pelor will certainly want those vials when making up their antitoxins and healing potions.

I only hope they just cut and pasted the 3.5 armor, weapon, and equipment charts without having done any real work on them, just to that DMs would have something to reference when the PCs returned to town. Because they are kind of lame as they stand (in addition to not actually matching up to what the character sheets list in many places.)

 

[ArmoredSaint]

My first impression after an initial read-through is that heavy armour seems gimped.

In fact, ACs seem too low in comparison to some of the slightly tough monsters in the bestiary.

This causes me to worry that having magic armour will be an absolute must when dealing with more powerful monsters at higher levels, which was something that I thought they were trying to avoid.

I hope that they build in some sort of "feat tree" or class feature for Fighters, etc. that grant a bonus to AC in heavier armour, or else I foresee the magic item dependence issue cropping up again. Or they could just raise the AC of the mundane armours a point or two.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I see the whole regain HP and HD after an extended rest thing causing a divide.

I was prepared for the rest mechanics, I knew they would be similar to what was presented and they are easy enough to adjust.

What I wasn't expecting is the new wand of cure light wounds AKA the herbalism feat.

Frankly the rest mechanics AND a cleric are just icing on top of herbalism.

The rest mechanic I see being a factor until 2nd or 3rd level. Once the cash flow is good an herbalist can crank out 24 1d8 healing potions per 8 hour workday for 600gp.

24d8 of healing before needing to use any rest.

 

[Ainamacar]

If con bonus is an integral part of a roll, I don't see how using averages is simple. It will, after all, produce different results.


High HD classes get less from their CON than low HD classes. I hope that this is something that wotc noticed and adjusted power levels of classes accordingly.
And your numbers are little off. A 20th level d10 class will not have as many as 170 hp, if the rolls are average. More like 150.
Look at this table, one point of difference in CON bonus gives d6 class from 4 to 34 HP across 20 levels. The same amount of difference gives a d10 class from 2 to 20 HP (that's almost half).

This is what I get for skimming. Yes, you are correct. My numbers would be correct if one rerolled until getting at least the minimum result, which is what I thought that section said. (And which would distribute the benefit to each class equally in terms of raw hp gained). In fact, for 20 Con the correct averages are 123.3bar and 150 and the average hit points are not as simple, and the low HD classes have a greater advantage than the HD classes, calculated both as the raw amount of hp gained and that amount as a percent of their expected values without a Con modifier.

Mea culpa, I'd XP you but that's off at the moment.

 

[Mengu]

First overall impression, this looks better than the playtest at DDXP. So, it's good to see there is progress.

First eye popping impression, holy smokes, everyone needs a cleric of Pelor in their group.

First impression on spell layout... I don't like it. I want the crunchy bits to stand out at a glance. It all seemed too wordy.

Regarding the damage die inconsistency, it could be that proficiency with a weapon gives you +2 bonus to attack and a bump in damage die. But that seems a bit unorthodox. I'd rather see the damage dice listed that's going to be used 99% of the time, and have them maybe state that there is a reduction in damage dice if you're not proficient. It is however more likely there is a version mismatch between the document and the character sheets. Monsters seem to be using the dice from the HtP doc.

There are a few other errors I think. The wizard's staff should be +3 attack, 1d8+1 damage. It is a finesse weapon. Similarly, cleric of Pelor's Staff should be +4 attack, 1d8+2 damage. Strangely, 1d8 is the correct dice per the HtP document.

The fighter seems to have an extra +2 damage from somewhere, perhaps it's a bonus for wielding a two-handed weapon. Also I'm curious if he can apply weapon focus bonus to Reaper damage. Seems unclear.

[sblock=Random thought...]Dwarves can't get drunk. That should put an end to all drinking contests. Not to mention dwarven brews just became quite lethal to non-dwarves, because they can put whatever they want in it. When a dwarf says they drink drow poison for breakfast, they might actually mean that literally.[/sblock]

 

[ArmoredSaint]

So I did some calculation and yes, there is a serious problem with this armour table:

It looks like a depressing return to 3e's dominance of the Armour Class stat by characters relying on light armour + Dex Mod, while heavy armour wearers get left out in the cold.


What happened to promises that the Fighter (usually a heavy armour wearer) would have the best Armour Class?

 

[ArmoredSaint]

Also, how is the Cleric of Moradin getting such a high AC?