Some short playtest notes

[Jinete]

We finished the second session of our playtest and these were the impressions so far:

Advantage and disadvantage were generally well received amongst players, with some wishing that advantages would stack.

Move-attack-move mechanic got thumbs up from half of the group and thumbs down from the other half.

Fixed jump distances got a big "hooray"

Armor rules are abysmal.

AoO-s were missed. We are all 3.5 players and moving past 3 enemies to pour a CLW potion in a fallen characters mouth (while an axe-swinging orc is standing on top of him) raised a lot of eyebrows.

Regarding the aforementioned maneuver, we soon realized that healing a heavily wounded ally is inferior to just letting him drop to negatives. Since reviving him is easy (no AoO) and he is back in the fray with no danger (again, no AoO, plus standing up and grabbing a weapon is trivial) this was a good tactic to soak up damage.

This lead to a ridiculous fight where characters were dropping down and popping back up as many as 4 times each during the encounter.

The wizards ray of frost is a great boss lockdown ability.

Sleep is great for kiting enemies, picking them off one by one.

And last, but not least, kobolds with throwing knives are very deadly

 

[Baumi]

How did you handle reviving? Stabilizing someone doesn't bring them back imminently, except with magic .. at least not that I have seen.

Why where some players against move-action-move?

What is wrong with the Armor?

 

[PinkRose]

How many healing potions did the group have?
If they have a near unlimited amount, than yes, waiting until negative is a good plan.
In our playtests, we've had one, at the most two if we found an extra.
So dying was a bad tactic.

 

[amerigoV]

AoO-s were missed. We are all 3.5 players and moving past 3 enemies to pour a CLW potion in a fallen characters mouth (while an axe-swinging orc is standing on top of him) raised a lot of eyebrows.

I gotta say, that was not missed by me. It seemed the players focused on what they could do instead of what they could not. It really sped things up.

 

[Rhenny]

I gotta say, that was not missed by me. It seemed the players focused on what they could do instead of what they could not. It really sped things up.

Our group didn't miss AoO either. The movement was much more dynamic. There are still strategies to protect the squishies in 5e. Players can:

form a wall in front of the squishies
use terrain (choke points) to set up defensible positions
use cover
watch each other's back
run
use spells like frost ray on potential squishy beaters
position the guardian near the squishy or injured PC
tip over tables to keep foes from going around you
use improvised actions (trip or grapple) foes to keep them from running to hit the squishy or injured PCs

and I'm sure many more.

AoO always took too much time and effort. I also hated DMing creatures with AoO. I had to decide..is this the type of creature who would risk taking AoO or not? I hated making that decision.

 

[Rydac]

.....,.

AoO-s were missed. We are all 3.5 players and moving past 3 enemies to pour a CLW potion in a fallen characters mouth (while an axe-swinging orc is standing on top of him) raised a lot of eyebrows.

Regarding the aforementioned maneuver, we soon realized that healing a heavily wounded ally is inferior to just letting him drop to negatives. Since reviving him is easy (no AoO) and he is back in the fray with no danger (again, no AoO, plus standing up and grabbing a weapon is trivial) this was a good tactic to soak up damage.

This lead to a ridiculous fight where characters were dropping down and popping back up as many as 4 times each during the encounter.......

Yeah players in my group caught on to this possibility too and didn't heal comrade letting him get knocked into negatives, but tide of battle shifted and he couldn't be reached.....failed the con check took the 1d6 damage ....scratch one dwarf fighter! If the monsters coup de grace even a little it is a bad idea

 

[Jinete]

How did you handle reviving? Stabilizing someone doesn't bring them back imminently, except with magic .. at least not that I have seen.

We used healing potions and spells. We had quite a few potions, thanks to the clerics herbalism feat.

Why where some players against move-action-move?

Mostly because there was a lot of darting back and forth, as ranged characters (and monsters) would go from the back to the front, fire of a missile/spell and go back. Some people in the group didn't like the feel of that.

What is wrong with the Armor?

It looks like there wasn't much thought put into armor. Medium armor seems pointless, and heavy armor has poor AC in comparison to light. The fighter in particular wasn't happy with his AC.

 

[Jinete]

Yeah players in my group caught on to this possibility too and didn't heal comrade letting him get knocked into negatives, but tide of battle shifted and he couldn't be reached.....failed the con check took the 1d6 damage ....scratch one dwarf fighter! If the monsters coup de grace even a little it is a bad idea

There's always the risk of that. Our DM was pretty frustrated with characters going from death's door to combat ready all the time. He started considering "double tapping" as a monster tactic.