D&D 5E So, have we missed the boat on simple character creation?

[Olgar Shiverstone]

When the 5E playtests started, it looked like there was hope for simple, quick character creation, faster than 3E or 4E, if perhaps not quite as simple as BECMI.

Now reading the latest playtest docs, it feels very 3.5-like, but with even more choices ... so the complexity appears to have gone up. Is that just me, or do others share the perception?

I thought a slight step backward in simplicity would have been a net plus. At the moment I think I'm looking at D&D 3.75E -- not necessarily a bad thing, but a lot have years have passed to arrive at something not that much different than 3E at this point.

 

[darjr]

I hope and think there will be an attempt at simple character generation. However I fear the boat has passed on simple characters with just a few stats and options. I hope that 'simple' characters are not just complex characters with options already chosen. That isn't quite the same by a long shot.

 

[dd.stevenson]

At the moment I'm hanging my hope on the fact that Mearls said a little while ago that the basic game was already more-or-less completely designed, and the focus of the playtest had moved on to the modules.

 

[Kobold Stew]

My sense is that the complexity is down (marginally) from 3.5 -- that I can make a 10th-level character from scratch by hand in less time -- and way down from 4e (where it simply wasn't possible in any reasonable amount of time). As I have said elsewhere, I think a lot of the choice that is being presented is not interesting -- people have not been experimenting with custom backgrounds so far as I can see, and those that are are not revolutionizing anything; it's all minor tweaks.

That's good, in my book -- and it suggests that the character creation you are looking for is in fact qucker than it may seem.

But I do take your point -- this feels like an improvement on 3.5 not on the whole series of product lines.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

When the 5E playtests started, it looked like there was hope for simple, quick character creation, faster than 3E or 4E, if perhaps not quite as simple as BECMI.

Now reading the latest playtest docs, it feels very 3.5-like, but with even more choices ... so the complexity appears to have gone up. Is that just me, or do others share the perception?

I thought a slight step backward in simplicity would have been a net plus. At the moment I think I'm looking at D&D 3.75E -- not necessarily a bad thing, but a lot have years have passed to arrive at something not that much different than 3E at this point.

3.x is still popular, though it's called Pathfinder now

I think WotC wanted to keep things simple, but the fans revolted. I don't think there's that many fans of simple rules anymore.

 

[Libramarian]

For me it's not so much the complexity but the concepts and the way they are explained feels pretty unintuitive and confusing. The pseudo-Vancian spellcasting system in particular is very oddly explained. There's a lot of new stuff here, which is great for the hardcore players who are burnt out on previous editions and want something new, but I'm concerned about the reaction of the casual/lapsed players who will be checking in on the new edition when it's released.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

For me it's not so much the complexity but the concepts and the way they are explained feels pretty unintuitive and confusing. The pseudo-Vancian spellcasting system in particular is very oddly explained..

I'm with you on the explanations. I had to read the skill die and cleric/wizard casting sections about four times each before I finally grokked what the system was. In the skill section I first assumed a skill check would be modifier + skill die (ie, no d20 roll ...).

 

[dkyle]

If you don't care about carefully crafting your character, you can just pick Race, Class, Background, and Specialty, and you're pretty much done.

If they want to simply further, they could have a default Background and Specialty for each Class.

 

[GX.Sigma]

I noticed this as well. I created a few characters last night, and it took about 20 minutes for each. We're not in what I would call the danger zone, but it does seem a bit more complex.

Leaving aside the slight increase in complexity for the classes, I think one of the big problems is the specialties. There's no simple option anymore.

Back in the 2nd packet, there was the Toughness feat that gave you an extra hit die. So, if you didn't want to worry about adding complexity, you could just take that feat and be awesome. But now all the feats give you a new ability or conditional bonus, and that's another thing you have to remember.

Also, the classes have a few new weird layers. I think the fighter's dice mechanic is a step back; it was better when it was just "your dice recharge every round, you can use them in these ways." Now it's something weird like "your dice add to your damage, but sometimes you can spend them to do other things, in which case they don't add to your damage, and you don't get them twice if you make 2 attacks, and you can use them as a reaction, but you add your skill die, and that's not technically a maneuver...." The older version was simpler.

 

[darjr]

I guess for me there are at least two layers of character simplicity. Generation and performance in play. It maybe simple to pick 4 high level options and be done, but if there are a lot of fiddly bits buried in those options, then it doesn't quite meet up to what I'd expect for 'simple characters'. Maybe that isn't the point of the OP and maybe they'll pull it off and have simpler choices with simpler fiddly bits.