D&D 5E D&D Next info from PAX Prime + answering questions

[Cybit]

@The Shadow

Thank you for the Feat question. This is the one I have asked in several places too.

Are feats actually based on level at all, or was that just so we could level up easily in the playtest? I am hoping you can actually switch them around/choose from several feats that fit the specialty.

I think they will be based on level, but, see my previous answers about feats. (I do think feats in the playtest were given levels so that people could level up their characters. Also a baby alpha test of letting DMs create new packages)

The DMG is supposed to give lots of guidance on how to create new specialties / etc that fit the character's background but remain balanced. This might help the "I want this, this, and this" customization, but give the DM a clue when a player is doing it for powergaming purposes as opposed to background purposes. (IE, is it balanced?)

 

[Cybit]

For example, because there are other mechanics related to level that make sense as lvl 5. Making orcs higher level also mean they have higher BAB, higher Save Throws, access to higher level spells, higher number of attacks in a full round, or whatever mechanics the system is going to use. It's perfectly fine for me that the designers might want to have an orc that has more hit points than, say, an Hobgoblin, although he is not better fighting, or saving from illusions, or able to cast higher level spells. This is specially useful to design "solo" kind of monsters. A monster that is supposed to fight a full group of a given level. Making him much higher levels, have undesired consequences (he has too high armor, or saving throws, or damage, when you are actually looking only for extra hp and a few perks to threat the whole group)

It also gives you granularity. Let's take a monster, for example, a Skeleton. It has X defense, Y damage, and sustain Z hit points. That makes him a lvl 2 monster. Now let's imagine a second monster, for example a *blazing skeleton*. It's like the other one, but has Y+1 damage, and you damage yourself when you grapple it. It's not much stronger than a regular skeleton, it certainly does not deserve a higher challenge rating. But it is slightly harder than a regular skellie, so he might be worth 50 extra XP or whatever.

Bingo. The idea is, that they can have monsters keep their mythological / universe / narrative based powers, and simultaneously allow DMs challenge players at lower levels (using the level based charts and/or the monster creation process) with those monsters, and not worry about some monsters being more powerful than others. With the heavy HP / damage scaling in 5E, making something just be a higher level has a lot of consequences.

Very elegant solution, IMO.

 

[Cybit]

Did I miss any questions?

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Any word on how 5E is supposed to deliver 4E style play?

 

[Cybit]

Any word on how 5E is supposed to deliver 4E style play?

What do you mean exactly by 4E style play? A lot falls under that.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Oh crap, Cybit's out of questions!

1. Any word on whether bards and druids will use Vancian spells or something else?

2. Any word on whether paladins and rangers will have spells at all, and if so, what mechanic they might use?

3. They mentioned recently that barbarians are a class and use Rage. Are there any more details around? Do barbarians have multiple builds/kits/styles like every class we've seen so far? If so, what might differentiate them narratively? Different barbaric cultures (like I hear 1e had)?

4. How are they feeling about the current equipment list: still under construction, or do they like the current weapons and armor for the time being?

5. Have they mentioned any specialties or class abilities that would further differentiate weapons? I get the balance considerations in making the weapons in each category very similar, but it would still be nice if martial characters could specialize a bit IF they wanted. (Of course I also wouldn't want it 3e-style where a fighter only got his class bonuses to a single weapon type.)

6. Do you think it's safe to say that they're following 4e's lead in breaking down the divine/arcane dualism in magic? (That is to say, in 3e it was for some reason a big distinction whether a particular class used divine or arcane magic, with the only other option being psionics; in 4e, one benefit of the goofy power source idea was that now druids could be "primal" and other classes could rely on different "sources." I'm hoping that 5e will take that even further, and let each class's magic be what it is without stressing the "power source.")

7. How are they feeling at this point about their idea of having most monsters less exception-based than 4e, with a lot of the flavor coming from the boss/leader monsters? (I worry that this might just lead to PCs mobbing the leaders before the monster horde gets into position to use their cool tricks.)

8. Fighters, rogues, and warlocks are almost entirely at-will (or per-encounter in the warlocks' case) while other spellcasters are almost entirely daily in their class powers. Will there be any martial classes with primarily daily class resources (like barbarian rage in previous editions)? Any idea how barbarians, monks, rangers, and paladins would fall on this spectrum? (I could see a monk with a daily pool of ki energy, but I could also see a monk based entirely on at-will martial arts maneuvers.)

 

[Ichneumon]

Did I miss any questions?

Mine, on page 3. The first one (about high level play) has already been answered, but the other two should be OK.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Did I miss any questions?

I think you missed this one:

Any tidbits on post-10th (aka 'high level') play?

Also, I'm interested to know what they might be doing with henchmen, companions, sidekicks - those people/animals/strange construct thingumies that can accompany PCs. It's always been tricky to make them useful without being necessary, so I wonder what 5e's planning in regard to them.

Finally, for something more likely to be in the first than second year of playtesting - did they seem happy with humans overall, or was there a desire to change their racial benefit to something else? (D&D humans, of course! )

Edit: LOL, Ninja'd by the OP of the above.

 

[Cybit]

Any tidbits on post-10th (aka 'high level') play?

Also, I'm interested to know what they might be doing with henchmen, companions, sidekicks - those people/animals/strange construct thingumies that can accompany PCs. It's always been tricky to make them useful without being necessary, so I wonder what 5e's planning in regard to them.

Finally, for something more likely to be in the first than second year of playtesting - did they seem happy with humans overall, or was there a desire to change their racial benefit to something else? (D&D humans, of course! )

Nothing stated definitively, but based on off the cuff comments, I suspect they will be a leadership / castles / nobility add-on module. Something like that actually works really well as a module.

Nothing was said about human racial abilities, but it'd be worth asking / commenting in on the survey.

 

[Cybit]

Oh crap, Cybit's out of questions!

1. Any word on whether bards and druids will use Vancian spells or something else?

No word on this. I don't think they've really started working on those classes yet. They're still really heavily focused on the core four. I suspect druids will get at least a non-vancian option, just because it differs them from clerics in one more way.

2. Any word on whether paladins and rangers will have spells at all, and if so, what mechanic they might use?

I thought they said that there would be versions of rangers and paladins without spells. Since the ranger seems to be going towards the Aragorn / LotR archetype, I would not expect rangers to have spells.

3. They mentioned recently that barbarians are a class and use Rage. Are there any more details around? Do barbarians have multiple builds/kits/styles like every class we've seen so far? If so, what might differentiate them narratively? Different barbaric cultures (like I hear 1e had)?

See earlier comments on how the core 4 + sorcs + warlocks + maybe druids are what they are working on. That said, I suspect Rage will be the narrative and mechanic element that "defines" barbarians. Anything beyond that would be speculation, but based on everything else they are doing, I suspect they will use the clans to differentiate "builds", and use the clan as the narrative elements, with the "builds" being based on the clan's culture.

4. How are they feeling about the current equipment list: still under construction, or do they like the current weapons and armor for the time being?

Still really, really under construction. They talked about how they really want to revamp the armor tables again.

5. Have they mentioned any specialties or class abilities that would further differentiate weapons? I get the balance considerations in making the weapons in each category very similar, but it would still be nice if martial characters could specialize a bit IF they wanted. (Of course I also wouldn't want it 3e-style where a fighter only got his class bonuses to a single weapon type.)

So...I am hoping they bring back something that fighters reportedly had in earlier playtests that really helped differentiate fighters with certain weapons. I think it will be back, so in that case, I would expect there to be some differentiation. The old test reportedly had something super cool about weapons and the various abilities they had, so I'm hoping they will return.

6. Do you think it's safe to say that they're following 4e's lead in breaking down the divine/arcane dualism in magic? (That is to say, in 3e it was for some reason a big distinction whether a particular class used divine or arcane magic, with the only other option being psionics; in 4e, one benefit of the goofy power source idea was that now druids could be "primal" and other classes could rely on different "sources." I'm hoping that 5e will take that even further, and let each class's magic be what it is without stressing the "power source.")

I believe so. They really want to push making each class unique, and their abilities unique. Druids might end up "divine" casters, but I suspect their spell list will be much more different than a cleric's then was the case in 3E.

7. How are they feeling at this point about their idea of having most monsters less exception-based than 4e, with a lot of the flavor coming from the boss/leader monsters? (I worry that this might just lead to PCs mobbing the leaders before the monster horde gets into position to use their cool tricks.)

They want the monsters' abilities to be based on the narrative, so the more complex the creature is in the story, the more complex it will be in terms of mechanics. That said, the monsters you see now are going to be the simple monsters, since they are primarily testing the core of the system more than monster design.

8. Fighters, rogues, and warlocks are almost entirely at-will (or per-encounter in the warlocks' case) while other spellcasters are almost entirely daily in their class powers. Will there be any martial classes with primarily daily class resources (like barbarian rage in previous editions)? Any idea how barbarians, monks, rangers, and paladins would fall on this spectrum? (I could see a monk with a daily pool of ki energy, but I could also see a monk based entirely on at-will martial arts maneuvers.)

I would not be surprised to see Barbarians be a martial class with daily resources, but I would also not be surprised to see variants of each class with daily resources or AEDU resources. They haven't really started working too heavily on any classes beyond the ones presented in the playtest. The game really is in alpha.