First Impressions?

[Stormonu]

An attacker IS kinda like invisible to a blind defender so one could argue that the attacker has attack advantage because he's invisible to his target. Thoughts?

-YRUSirius

This is one thing I think I may like about 5E already.

*It's the DM's call if the attacker get Advantage in that situation, not the rules*

 

[FinalSonicX]

My thoughts after reading a bit:

• I don't like some of the immunities presented.
• I don't like the overnight healing and hit die mechanic
• Herbalism seems crazy overpowered to me
• I like backgrounds - those are cool. Character advancement will be interesting I think, if backgrounds inject their flavor throughout a character's lifespan.
• Hit points and damage for low level characters seems too high but playtesting will reveal whether or not I'm correct in my feeling.
• The drunken condition is amusing but seems to be pretty crazy. IT seems like if you were in mass combat, it would be better to be drunk than sober. That strikes me as strange.
• The armor charts seem totally broken - where is the incentive to wear anything other than light or perhaps medium armor?
• The weapon charts seem similarly broken - not enough differentiation between weapons. There are too many identical weapons.
• Dexterity is still an uberstat from what I can tell - dex fighters are going to be pretty strong! That's a good thing, but I hope strength fighters are similarly useful/powerful.
• No disruption of spells or opportunity attacks from movement? That's worrisome and I don't think I like it.
• I don't really see the purpose of themes from the ones that are presented - I'm not certain they're worth it so to speak. They feel so bland.

If I'm breaking any rules, mods feel free to edit or remove as necessary. I don't think I mentioned any specifics of anything.

 

[Vikingkingq]

1) It doesn't specify that the target grants advantage, so no. However, a stunned or paralyzed target does specifically grant advantage to any attacker.

2) Maybe, but it's probably easier for a not usually sneaky person (like a warrior in plate mail) to stay out of sight of a deafened person than to not make noise while sneaking up on a blind person.

1. It might just be my own game theory philosophy, but I prefer combat statuses to be somewhat logical; prone is perfect in this regard, in that hitting the deck makes it harder for you to get by missiles but make it harder for you to dodge someone spitting you with a sword. To take Frightened for an example, it's basically running in a panic; in any battlefield throughout history, running away was the most dangerous time for a soldier, because of how much easier turning your back on your opponent made it for someone to cut you down.

2. That doesn't make much sense because the rest of the stealth rules make bypassing visual senses harder; unless you make a sound either deliberately or accidentally, you're assumed to have moved silently if you succeeded your check. By contrast, you need cover to avoid visual detection.

What makes this odd is that the rules for what happens when you're detected implicitly include line-of-sight, but nothing else does. Having line-of-sight both before and after would make sense; sneaking up behind someone is the classic sense of sneaking. I could see a mechanic where cover gave a bonus against detection working, since it would make sense that if you're just trying to get past/up close by relying on their back being turned, you're at greater risk if someone turns unexpectedly, whereas if you're moving through trees or behind columns or something, you've got somewhere to hide.

Alternately, while returning to a split Move Silently/Hide would be bad, I think some sort of Stealth-while-moving and Stealth-after-my-turn difference would be smart. After all, if I'm trying to sneak up on a guard standing in an empty corridor, what I'm trying to do is just get up to him by staying out of his sight so that I can sap him, so the question is does he turn around or hear me coming. When I've moved my turn, unless I have cover, then I'm standing out in plain sight, and should be spotted.

 

[whydirt]

My thoughts after reading a bit:

• I don't really see the purpose of themes from the ones that are presented - I'm not certain they're worth it so to speak. They feel so bland.

My understanding is that Themes are just packaged groups of Feats for people who don't want to pick them individually. I think they'll work great for people who aren't interested in getting into character generation as a mini-game.

 

[The Shadow]

Wow. Finally digested the rules, the DM guidelines, the characters, and skimmed the monsters.

My VERY first impression of the rules: While I liked the dis/advantage thing A LOT, most of the rest was making me go, "Okay, so it's a simplified form of 3e. Groovy, I guess, but a little meh." Then I read the spells and the character sheets and my brain nearly exploded with awesome.

The spells are thoroughly old-school. ME LIKE! But there's more...

* Turn Undead is a spell! Just like it should've always been! It's just that the Channel Divinity class feature (a 4e-ism, I think? but one I like) can let you cast it a few times for free. It's just plain better than the 3e version, too. (I forget off the top of my head how the older versions worked.)

* Am I missing something? Or are clerics now freakin' spontaneous casters?! I can't believe nobody's mentioned this yet, and it's AWESOME! I've always thought they should be.

* The backgrounds and themes are quite evocative, better than I had thought. The Slayer theme is appropriately terrifying. The Ambusher feat the rogue has seems completely redundant, as someone already mentioned. 'Forbidden Lore' just oozes gooey fun.

* Some halfling clans are hobbitty, others are kendery, and yet others are Gypsy street gangs. A clever way to get around all the takes on the race in the past.

* The cleric of Moradin is 3/4 of the way to being a paladin already! Do we really need the class? REALLY? In general, the idea that clerics aren't all priests opens up all sorts of worldbuilding vistas.

* I just about cheered when I saw the 'Improvise' action. And the GM advice is refreshingly empowering.

* It's a little odd to me that Wis saves are used for illusions, I would have thought Int. Int saves don't seem like they'll see much use. Wis saves seem overused generally, why not a Cha save for charm?

Overall, very happy. I can't wait to try this out!

 

[Vikingkingq]

An attacker IS kinda like invisible to a blind defender so one could argue that the attacker has attack advantage because he's invisible to his target. Thoughts?

-YRUSirius

Agreed; I just think it should be consistent in the text.

Stormonu - I do like that, but I'd like consistency at least with the written default conditions, so that the DM's flexibility is applying to creative things that the players think up that the book doesn't have, such as:

"I cut his belt with my dagger so that his pants fall down around his ankles...I got a 17, that hits. Does that slow him down?"
[DM thinks for a second] "Yeah, he can only shuffle five feet a turn unless he takes a turn to pull up his trousers and try to fix his belt. You find out that the orc is wearing polka-dot smallclothes by the way."

 

[Grazzt]

not liking the 8 hour rest = full HP recovery.

Me either. First thing I house rule...like now.

 

[Herschel]

So they have hard data showing the 4E Fighter is the most popular class in the game, after signs pointed in every previous edition it was spellcasters, and they take basically everything that made the Fighter "good" away and turn them in to a wizard caddy by level 3 and think it's a smart idea?

 

[whydirt]

I can't believe that people actually like the spell descriptions in the playtest doc. All the important information is buried in a heap of prose. It might make it more enjoyable to read when you're not playing, but it's horrible for referencing in-game and that's more important to me.

 

[SkidAce]

So they have hard data showing the 4E Fighter is the most popular class in the game, after signs pointed in every previous edition it was spellcasters, and they take basically everything that made the Fighter "good" away and turn them in to a wizard caddy by level 3 and think it's a smart idea?

I believe you may have missed where Mr Mearls said that fighter maneuvers and other cool stuff will be along in further iterations of the playtest.

The intent may be to run the basics through the wringer, then add in stuff as they go.