D&D 5E 30 speed for all! Halflings, Gnomes, Dwarves were feeling left behind?

[Gorgoroth]

You are privy to the playtest data?

Awesome please share with the class.

Nobody polled me about the races' speed, in fact I don't even think it was a question. I could be wrong and just clicked "Strongly Approve" without giving it a second thought, but no, all I know is what I've read from the designer's own mouths:

People overwhelmingly wanted a set of D&D rules that they can recognize as such. With simple, elegant rules, with meaningful character selection choices, but less of them (making those selections even more important).

Read various L&L for support of these design goals.

 

[Obryn]

Still not the point of the discussion.
As I said, you are very passionate (and creative) about not giving a fig.

Yes, Derren, prove to me how much I care about how fast a dwarf or halfling moves in a game I probably won't even be playing. Come on, take a guess what I'll feel if there's an announcement tomorrow that dwarves and halflings are moving 25' now.

And yes, I know it's not the point you were making. But if you're going real-world measurements as the basis for your arguments, it's pretty funny when those numbers show that the 30' move in question is far from unrealistic for anyone, no matter how tall they are.

 

[Gorgoroth]

Could you share the play test responses you've personally seen? No one vocally complained on the boards, but you have no idea of the survey data.

Show me a single thread in any forum on the topic of "hey, I want halflings and gnomes and dwarves to have 30 speed, all D&D from 2e to 4e inclusive are totally wrong on that one"

If you do, I'll give you some XP.

 

[Gorgoroth]

Yes, Derren, prove to me how much I care about how fast a dwarf or halfling moves in a game I probably won't even be playing. Come on, take a guess what I'll feel if there's an announcement tomorrow that dwarves and halflings are moving 25' now.

Just as I suspected, most of the people I'm arguing against are not even going to be playing this game regardless. But, the poll is wide open, so yeah, you get to vote on what type of game I play.

The funny thing is that you put a smiley face on that like it's some kind of achievement that you're butting in places where your opinion is irrelevant. It's like asking Norwegians to vote in the US elections. I'm sure that'd go over reaaaaaal well.

It's the same thing you're doing here as you did in the GWF thread, it's clearly labelled D&D Next and yet you give me a negative XP on a post where I elaborated 25 bugs, all for a game you WON'T EVEN BE PLAYING

Ask yourself what exactly are you doing even posting in threads labelled D&D Next. Actually, I'll ask you, point blank : what are you doing in this thread, exactly? Aside from posting snarky stuff.

 

[Wulfgar76]

With reluctance I post again in this thread about the rule change that 2 people on planet earth care about, but here's the rationale behind changing small demihuman speed straight from Mike Mearls himself:

We're looking at giving all the standard player character races a speed of 30 feet, and allowing characters with sufficient Strength scores to ignore the speed penalties for heavy armor. We think these ideas make sense for a few different reasons.
The speed penalty for smaller characters and dwarves doesn't differentiate them from the other races in any interesting way. Moreover, goblins and kobolds have had a speed of 30 feet since the days of 3rd Edition, so in some ways, we're simply adjusting gnomes, halflings, and dwarves to an existing standard.

Link: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20140127

So Wizard's intent in this change is clearly threefold:

-to torment poor Gorgoroth by further butchering the iconic D&D rules he loves
-wreck Derren's verisimilitude by suggesting those suffering from Achondroplasia are as fast as Usain Bolt
-to eliminate a fiddly distinction that did little to define the races it affected, and to clean up inconsistent speeds for small characters and bring them to one standard.

 

[howandwhy99]

halflings, gnomes and dwarves...
MV = 60' per 1 minute Round!
(Humans 120'!)

 

[Obryn]

Just as I suspected, most of the people I'm arguing against are not even going to be playing this game regardless. But, the poll is wide open, so yeah, you get to vote on what type of game I play.

You know what - let me scale this back a bit. Because there is something I care about here, and that's the completely insanely toxic way in which a small group of people are pushing for very specific - and, to my mind, regressive - changes in Next's design. Because Next doesn't have to be a game I don't want to play.

I really don't care about this particular bit of nitpicky minutiae, but I do care about the broader way in which crap like this causes people to completely lose their minds. I mean, just yesterday, it was Damage on a Miss as the one thing which was holding you back. Today, it's small things moving realistic speeds that are just as fast as bigger things moving realistic speeds. What will it be tomorrow? At-will cantrips? Exploration rules?

I don't even know, but what I do know is that - as a method of driving change in a publicly playtested rule set complete with in-depth and exhaustingly detailed surveys about every single rule - people screaming as loud as the internet will let them to overturn the vox populi of the surveys is terrible.

Because like I said - D&D Next didn't have to be a game I didn't want to play. And letting the loudest naysayers - the people arguing that something simply should not exist in the ruleset - drive game design is a bafflingly insane way to design a game.

And that's all I really have to say on the topic.

 

[Jester David]

I like 25 feet.

25ft is a step up from the 15ft of 1e and 2e and the 20ft of 3e. It's slower but not huge. They'll want the extra square of movement but then everyone wants an extra 5ft now and again.

It's a nod towards verisimilitude and smaller legs without actually reducing their speed to something befitting their stride length.
Because, as the father of a toddler, I can tell you those little legs can move fast, but you can *always* catch them if you want.

 

[Mistwell]

I find it really disappointing they're making such a major change so late in the process, without any consultation

They are getting lots of consultation. They have: 1) internal testing by paid professionals, 2) paid outside professional consultants, and 3) a very large private playtest composed of outside playtesters that are a subset of the open playtest.

 

[Gorgoroth]

I like 25 feet.

25ft is a step up from the 15ft of 1e and 2e and the 20ft of 3e. It's slower but not huge. They'll want the extra square of movement but then everyone wants an extra 5ft now and again.

It's a nod towards verisimilitude and smaller legs without actually reducing their speed to something befitting their stride length.
Because, as the father of a toddler, I can tell you those little legs can move fast, but you can *always* catch them if you want.

The problem with being real here, is that people think it's unfair that short people with short legs can't move as fast.

There is this pervasive aura of entitlement that I'm seeing:

Humans have +1 to everything, making all demi-humans equivalent but -1 in all but two (but oh no, we can't actually give anyone a penalty, because that would be mean. Oh so mean.)

First level fighters have to be able to hit on every attack, or certain gamers might cry and throw their D20s across the room.

Halflings or other smaller races might fall behind and the orcs might catch them, and there's no precedent for Orcs catching halflings and there being an entire adventure spring up around trying to save them. Oh no. Have to put in roadblocks to force the party to stay together. Halflings have to be able to keep up with a horde of charging orcs three times their size.