D&D 5E How do you feel now that the game is 97% done

[ren1999]

After looking at the Scourge character sheets, I'm a little worried.
The Spell DCs have been lowered to a DC8+ but it looks like this was
not completely edited so that DC10 is showing in some places.
I just don't want to see these careless mistakes and untested characters
make it into the final products for release. I'm wondering if the
company has any editors.

 

[Mistwell]

I'm sure I'll love the final game, but must wonder, why not 100%? What's holding up the line? Multiclassing, I'm looking suspiciously at you.

I think licensing issues are the big thing remaining.

 

[Morrus]

I think licensing issues are the big thing remaining.

Too late for this particular third party publisher. Creating our own system now!

 

[Li Shenron]

Depends on what is that 3%. If they asked the designers, they will probably tell they're just fixing some details, but their way of seeing what is ready and what is not is probably very different from mine.

Just to say, they've been saying more than a year ago that the core of the system was in place and it was only a matter of marginal things, but all they meant was that the combat structure (initiative, action economy), the ability check-based resolution system and (dis)advantage rules were set, all of which are very much at the heart of the game but have been designed more than 2 years ago and probably took very little time to design since they are very simple.

However some of the 'marginal' things have a huge impact on the playing experience: skills, feats, proficiencies, multiclassing, subclasses, healing... in fact to me they are very much part of the core of the system, but they changed all these in the last year (maybe only healing was frozen earlier than that).

Some of the classes might not be even finalized yet. Some ability might still be in the limbo between being a class feature or a subclass feature, and that has a significant impact on the game (if it ends a class feature, every PC of that class in your fantasy world will have it!). But if they ask the designers, they'll probably tell you it's just a detail.

I hope that the remaining 3% does not require the designers to make any design decision but it's only about fixing effects, durations and other parameters of existing spells/features/abilities/items, based on closed playtesting results. Non-quantitative design decisions such as "should this work like this or like that" have consequences on other parts of the game, meaning more work is required to check and adjust, so I really hope they're done with them.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

97%? How did you get by this number?

Anyway, my DDN strategy remains the same: wait until the Starter Set is available and people report it as a complete but limited game. Then buy it for curiosity's sake. If it sounds, reads, and plays having distinct quality setting it apart from older versions I consider buying the core three.

Rethink it when the current 4e campaign is reaching its final. Currently I favour running S&W SB/DC or 2e AP, so DDN will have to do some massive convincing.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

If the final playtest packet was the 97% mark, I'd be worried. Hopefully it's moved on a bit since then.

If they have not worked since the conclusion of the playtest, I´d be surprised. I guess we have seen only 50% if not less of the final rules.

 

[delericho]

97%? Shouldn't the books have been at the printer some weeks ago if they're going for that GenCon release?

 

[Blackwarder]

What the hell? it doesn't mean anything to me and it doesn't change my opinion of the game one bit, this is a useless poll IMO, pink flowers it is.

Warder

 

[AmerginLiath]

As someone working in publishing (college textbooks art & composition, not gaming, but same general process), my thoughts on the 97% number is that the proofs* have come back and they're going over everything and doing final corrections and adjustments on numbers and indexing, along with insertion of final process art in lieu or original FPO boxes. Meanwhile, cover art and paste-in material is being finalized separately and everything is being triple-checked against the marketing material before it goes to the printer. Despite what I keep reading here that folks seem to think, the actual process of printing and binding a run of a book is QUICK nowadays -- one would be surprised how late in the process the print run date actually is!

(*and maybe even test runs -- there could have been some bound versions with deliberately incomplete cover art in WotC's hands at PAX East, for example, the way that vendors often have at trade shows)

97% done doesn't mean that that they've left out whole classes or mechanics. It means that the last of the publishing sausage needs to be made to get the books to look pretty in your hands come GenCon or so. This doesn't mean that Mearls and the others are off the hook now -- the last month or two of production on a book are a constant loop of the production team (where I am in my work, for example) emailing back and forth to authors and editors a dozen times by day to check wording, pagination, placement, or editing questions. It's still small potatoes to the larger 97% of writing, illustrating, and designing, however.

 

[Rhenny]

I'm very excited about the new game. Chris Perkins mentioned 97% done, but the final playtest most likely doesn't even show 1/2 of what they have.

I will be very happy when the books arrive even if they do not arrive for Gen Con - WotC should "measure twice, cut once."