D&D 5E New D&D Next Packet Is Available

[Falling Icicle]

I just noticed that Paladins have alignment restrictions! Argh! Wardens, for example, have to be LG or LN.

JUST SAY NO to alignment restrictions!

You'd think after the monk, they'd stop trying to sneak this on us. Didn't they say they weren't going to do this anymore? Did they think we wouldn't notice?

 

[Klaus]

I'm not happy with the fighter, though I'm not outraged.

Expertise dice as a per round resource was the coolest new mechanic they've come up with. Making it encounter based doesn't evoke the same thing.

They're not encounter-based. A Fighter begins with 2 XD. After expending both, he can spend an action "catching a breather" and get 1 XD back.

 

[Sunseeker]

I am severely unimpressed with the Ranger and the Paladin.

 

[Falling Icicle]

Sneak Attack is really odd. Instead of requiring you to have advantage on your attack, it requires you to not have disadvantage, but then your attack automatically has disadvantage. I can't say I like this at all. Requiring advantage made a lot more sense to me, and automatically giving the rogue disadvantage means the rogue has to choose, either miss ALOT but do good damage when you do hit, or hit more often but miss out on SA damage. Most people will choose the former, but that means playing a rogue will be a lot of miss, miss, miss. Not fun.

 

[Kraydak]

The sneaky little git had it coming.

Seriously, though, they just moved everything into the schemes, and from there into the Feats PDF.

- Marty Lund

Nope.

Take a Rogue with the Thief Scheme (admittedly I think the Thief scheme is an outlier in how screwed over it was):

He lost Skill Mastery, but gained Thieving Mastery (slightly stronger when it applies, but MUCH less broad). He lost Disable Device (but see below) and Listen, and lost the pick-pockets when Sleight-of-Hand turned into Conceal-an-Object (also see below). He "gained" the Open Locks feat (which just replaces part of Disable Device) and Pickpocket (which was lost in the skill changes). He also lost all the skill tricks.

And if you thought that maybe the reduction in Rogue Scheme bonus skills was part of a skill-list tightening, nope, sorry. Yes, the new skill list is shorter, but most of that is just plain removal of skills. Track got turned into a feat, Disguise might now be part of Bluff (or the Mimic feat). Survival, Profession and Use Rope just... died (and of those, only Use Rope deserved it).

 

[Kraydak]

They're not encounter-based. A Fighter begins with 2 XD. After expending both, he can spend an action "catching a breather" and get 1 XD back.

Yes, they are encounter-based. Spending an action to recover 1 expertise die is such an unutterably abysmal waste of time that it might as well not be an option. If it was "recover all your expertise dice at the start of your round if you spent none in the previous round" we'd be talking.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

I just noticed that Paladins have alignment restrictions! Argh! Wardens, for example, have to be LG or LN.

JUST SAY NO to alignment restrictions!

You'd think after the monk, they'd stop trying to sneak this on us. Didn't they say they weren't going to do this anymore? Did they think we wouldn't notice?

Yeah, this is a terrible design choice, IMO. It's not as easy to excise it either - the "flavour" is baked right in. Bleh. Failadin is more like it.

And that monk... ugh. No thanks. I dislike both monks and paladins in general in D&D, but I actually liked their implementation in 4e. Now I'm back to despising them.

Sneak Attack is really odd. Instead of requiring you to have advantage on your attack, it requires you to not have disadvantage, but then your attack automatically has disadvantage. I can't say I like this at all. Requiring advantage made a lot more sense to me, and automatically giving the rogue disadvantage means the rogue has to choose, either miss ALOT but do good damage when you do hit, or hit more often but miss out on SA damage. Most people will choose the former, but that means playing a rogue will be a lot of miss, miss, miss. Not fun.

This is also terrible. Just... no.

Overall, pretty "meh" to everything.

The ranger's favoured enemy mechanics turned out a little better than I expected, but not as good as I'd hoped, and I still would prefer they not exist at all.

Fighters look terrible and underwhelming. Completely lacking any hooks or bite from what I can see. Multiattack is pretty uninspired as a bread-and-butter ability. Unstoppable could be cool, if you get more choices more often. I also really don't like the way that everything is being shuffled off into feats, 3.x-style.

Overall, the playtest is heading more and more in a direction I don't like. All these options have far too much "default flavour" cooked right in for my liking. I find it creatively very stifling and restrictive. Really looking forward to the survey for this packet!

 

[tuxgeo]

Druid, further thoughts:

Now I recall where I saw that before: "WEBELOS" -- from the Cub Scouts, during the 1950's. Originally it meant Wolf-Bear-Lion-Scout, and was a ranking program that was meant to lead toward eventual advancement into a regular Boy Scout troop, wherein one might eventually become an full-fledged Eagle Scout.

So, according to this playtest packet, a Moon-Circle Druid starts out being able to wildshape into a wolf or a bear at 1st Level, then gains lion ("Great Cat") at 3rd Level, and finally makes it up to eagle ("Bird of Prey") at 6th Level. It's Scouting all over again, but written up into fantasy gaming.

I'm not too happy with that: it's too regimented for my tastes. I would have preferred to see each druid looking deeply into his or her soul to find his or her personal, initial wildshape form based on submerged content within.

 

[mlund]

I think I can piece together a fun little Wizard-hating Dwarf Warrior build by level 7 now. The Fighter and Feats really aren't bad for the first 10 levels, anyway.

S18 C16 D13 I10 W12 C8 (Heroic Array +1S/+1C from Level 4)
HP: 68 Damage: 1d12+4 (Maul)
Deadly Strike: Roll Twice
Expertise: 3d6; Wide Arc, Parry, Glancing Blow, Whirlwind Attack, Iron Will
Feats: Healing Initiate (1), Weapon Mastery (F1), Charge (F2), Seize the Advantage (3), Purge Magic (6)

Caster-monsters beware!

Sneak Attack is really odd. Instead of requiring you to have advantage on your attack, it requires you to not have disadvantage, but then your attack automatically has disadvantage. I can't say I like this at all. Requiring advantage made a lot more sense to me, and automatically giving the rogue disadvantage means the rogue has to choose, either miss ALOT but do good damage when you do hit, or hit more often but miss out on SA damage. Most people will choose the former, but that means playing a rogue will be a lot of miss, miss, miss. Not fun.

Read the schemes. Half of them have Backstab and the other half have Isolated Strike.

​Yes, they are encounter-based. Spending an action to recover 1 expertise die is such an unutterably abysmal waste of time that it might as well not be an option. If it was "recover all your expertise dice at the start of your round if you spent none in the previous round" we'd be talking.

It's a rather convenient option if all you are doing on your turn is moving (to cover, towards an enemy) or maybe you took Healing Initiate and want to drop Cure Minor (swift action, still recover your die). Healing Initiate looks like a really nice option compared to spending a skill slot on First Aid or whatever it is called. Every time I have a Fighter cast it I'm going to use the Warlord's "shouting you back to consciousness" description - purely out of spite.

- Marty Lund

 

[GX.Sigma]

I just noticed that Paladins have alignment restrictions! Argh! Wardens, for example, have to be LG or LN.

JUST SAY NO to alignment restrictions!

You'd think after the monk, they'd stop trying to sneak this on us. Didn't they say they weren't going to do this anymore? Did they think we wouldn't notice?

When they announced it on Monday, I thought the oath thing was a sneaky way to do alignment restrictions. "How brilliant," I thought, "they're going to leave it up to the players/DMs to decide what the oaths mean, and all without mentioning alignment!" Evidently they weren't as clever as I thought they were.