D&D 5E Building a Hot Rod: What I miss most in D&D Next

[Radiating Gnome]

We've been playtesting in our home game for a little while now -- rebuilding with each new packet and giving Next as fair a shake as we can give it. And we're having a good time playing -- there's a lot to like about the new system, and a lot of the things we miss we can expect in future installments, by and large.

But there's something that Next doesn't have that 3rd and 4th edition had in spades: ways for players to spend a lot of time tinkering with and tuning up their characters. Tweaking feat choices, class options, powers and spells, looking for cool combinations and synergies that really made for some high performing PCs.

Naturally, Next is focused on new player experience right now, and the whole thing is vastly simplified. But, unless you're creating your own specialties so you can pick and choose feats you have far fewer choices -- with a lot less granularity and variability -- which means a lot less opportunity for fine tuning.

That may not really be a bad thing. I dunno. What I'm seeing, though, is the players seem a lot less engaged in the game when we aren't at the table -- they're spending less time between sessions working on their characters and thinking about the game that we did when we were playing 4e.

Future materials will present more options -- and multiclassing will double down on what we have once we have those rules.

There are a lot of us, though, who are players used to a lot of time tinkering around with character options -- heck, our message boards are packed with conversations about optimal builds for each class. it's a natural part of any enthusiast culture, but Next leaves me a little dry in that regard.

What do you folks think?

 

[GnomeWorks]

Because to the old-school mindset, options = power-gaming. Most of the "hardcore" old-school crowd (that I talk to, anyway; YMMV) see a direct correlation between options and people making what they view as overpowered characters.

 

[Radiating Gnome]

Because to the old-school mindset, options = power-gaming. Most of the "hardcore" old-school crowd (that I talk to, anyway; YMMV) see a direct correlation between options and people making what they view as overpowered characters.

No doubt. The whole point to that tweaking is to try to squeeze a little more performance out of that laser-printed hero. But all of that time spent pouring over the options looking for a new combo to try is a lot of fun for those gamers -- and a lot of between-session engagement.

I guess one question is, what does Next give us as players to replace that sort of hot rodding we have become used to?

-rg

 

[GnomeWorks]

So long as your approach remains this idea of finding some combination of mechanics that yields better results, I am dubious that 5e will fulfill that to any reasonable degree.

The argument at present is that Mearls and co. are still working on the basics, which - to effectively achieve their whole "all editions under one roof" goal - is necessarily simple and reminiscent of earlier editions, mechanically. As the game moves forward and begins to go beyond the core, more options may be added, but it sounds like they will make attempts to make these options for horizontal growth, not vertical (that is, options should be roughly equal in terms of power, but allow for more variety).

Honestly, that's the only way I can see them keeping to their vision and the players to buy into it being effective. A 1e player's eyes will glaze over when a 4e player starts talking about builds and such. To avoid this, they need to make it possible and reasonable for the 1e player to actively ignore anything beyond the core of the game, and not have that impact play.

 

[zoroaster100]

My reading of the new Playtest rules was that people are allowed to pick their own selection of skills and feats, and are not bound to pick only the ones provided in the background and specialty choice they make. Am I mistaken? Or are you saying that there aren't enough feats yet, or that the feats don't yet allow for super powerful combinations?

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

No doubt. The whole point to that tweaking is to try to squeeze a little more performance out of that laser-printed hero. But all of that time spent pouring over the options looking for a new combo to try is a lot of fun for those gamers -- and a lot of between-session engagement.

I guess one question is, what does Next give us as players to replace that sort of hot rodding we have become used to?

-rg

Not much, by default. I'll be honest, it would please me if D&D Next left your preferred playstyle in the dust.

But, that said, as a modular game, I expect more granular options to be available for many aspects of the game. Plus, one would hope that the guidance is good enough that you and your players can put on a game designer hat and build your own options, which may satisfy some of that itch.

 

[Radiating Gnome]

I must not be expressing myself very well.

What I miss is the between-session engagement in the game that the tinkering provided -- not necessarily the tinkering itself. Is there an alternative to that sort of granular character optimization that could provide a satisfying way for players to engaged with the game between sessions?

-rg

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I think that the game was never built to be competetive. The fun of letting players occasionally select useful and interesting new abilities for thier characters is clear, but the point of the game is supposed to be (or i'd always been told it was) cooperation with other players & characters to overcome obstacles and challenges presented by the DM. "Cool combinations and synergies that really made for some high performing PCs," are certainly possible as you expand the sheer volume of choices and combine it with the inability of game designers to thoroughly test all possibilities in a atmosphere of gameplay domination and one-upsmanship. You shouldn't need to spend a lot of time tinkering and tuning up a character in order to play and fully enjoy the game and there is such as thing as having too much of a good thing.

It is not a crime for a PC to be good at something. Indeed, as the DM if I don't want to see the PC's and their players succeed and enjoy the hell of out doing so then I should be strung up by my Buster Browns. But spending hours tweaking feats, class option, power, spells, examining race and class combinations and pushing the envelope of the rules is - to me - missing the point. There is fun and pride to be found in rules mastery but I got a bellyfull of that from 3E. That isn't a core principle to be encouraged in any D&D game I personally want to run or play in; it's not something I see as wanting to build the game around - to say, "THIS is where the fun is - in the planning, not in the playing." Tried it for years and have now rejected it. But maybe that's just me.

 

[GnomeWorks]

What I miss is the between-session engagement in the game that the tinkering provided -- not necessarily the tinkering itself. Is there an alternative to that sort of granular character optimization that could provide a satisfying way for players to engaged with the game between sessions?

Um... near as I can tell, there is nothing mechanically that players can tinker with between sessions (or during them, even, really) to "keep their attention."

I'd argue that if you need to keep players focused on the game by allowing them to tinker with mechanics between games, then... there may be a greater problem at work.

 

[n00bdragon]

I'm honestly more fearful that since 5e isn't designed with any baseline expectation of what characters must be able to do, what they should be able to do, and what they can possibly do it'll be straight back to the pre-4e zeitgeist where "built" characters rule supreme and "non-built" characters cannot compare. Honestly, one of the things I loved most about 4e was that while you could tweak to your hearts content there was only so far you could take it. One superman character was never a replacement for the rest of the party. Powerbuilt 4e characters never get much above 1.5 times as good as normal characters or so. Likewise, badly thought out characters (perhaps those made by newbies) never lag that far behind.