Old-school dungeon crawl using 5e playtest rules

[Jimmy Disco T]

Still here but dog sitting away from home, without proper Internet, and posting from my phone at the moment. I'll post Tock's action tomorrow!

 

[tuxgeo]

Congratulation to our esteemed DM on the recovery of his ability to post on EN World. Huzzah!

 

[Li Shenron]

We're madly rushing toward something like extinction in this adventure, anyway: it's now Thursday, 12 June 2014. Three days from now, our estimable DM is going away for two weeks, to return by the end of June; and 3–4 days later, the new Starter Set comes out at selected WPN stores. Simultaneously with that, the first version of the Basic game gets released as a .PDF file on the WotC site. Its content will be character creation rules for the Basic subset of the fifth edition.

If we start making player and character adjustments now, we may still be in the process of doing that when the official character-creation rules release. Personally, I don't think we still have time for even another combat before we start to look toward upgrading this play group to the adventure in the Starter Set; but that Set doesn't include Rangers or Warforged, so that's going to involve some soul-searching and possibly even discussion among us -- though I may be going too far out on a limb with that last idea!

I have been thinking about the continuation of our PbP game.

The original idea was to get a chance for trying out the last playtest rules, so as to get each of us a better opinion on 5e, if we like the system or not, before the new edition hits the shelves.

First of all, are you still interested in the adventure, and do you want to continue playing into the 5e published rules?

I am quite sure that all of us will download and check out Basic D&D If you want to update your PC to the Basic rules, that's OK for me, but if you want to wait and keep playing your current version, it's OK too.

As [MENTION=61026]tuxgeo[/MENTION] mentioned however, the Ranger will be released with the PHB about one month later (unless we get a preview), and the Warforged with the DMG quite a lot later (OTOH updating the race will be IMHO a minor work, and there's a chance the final Warforged is identical to the playtest one).

I don't really mind if Aeiyan and Tock (or others) are updated at different times, I don't think it's a problem, the game probably works fine. So it's really up to you to decide if you prefer to update ASAP or wait, just post your new character "sheet" in the campaign's characters page.

But let's try to finish the current battle before my absence. If you do that, it will be three complete encounters behind our backs. Believe or not, that is more I have ever seen in a PbP game as a player

 

[Li Shenron]

Also... we can synchronize a few things at the same time after the current battle:

- long rest: the PCs might be in a fairly safe location now (but take your precautions) if they decide to rest here

- rules update: to Basic, tho unfortunately not the Ranger and Warforged

- level up: going strictly by the XP, it's a bit too early, but who cares?

By doing these 3 simultaneously, I will allow you to do some backward changes to your PC if you want to. Essentially you can keep ability scores, class and race, and go straight to make a 2nd level character from scratch. You don't have to, but I will let you, especially because it might be easier to do so rather than converting your 1st level playtest PC into a 1st level Basic PC and then level up.

Eventually the only problem is that Aeiyan will need 2 updates, one to 2nd level and the other to the final version of the Ranger.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Very happy to keep going. Given the pace we've set, there's likely at most one encounter between the Basic rules and the PhB -- I'm sure that we can be accommodating for adjustments until then!

Bartleby, as a Druid and a Mountain dwarf will also likely not have full rules until the PhB.

 

[wedgeski]

I'm happy to continue, and I like the idea of a 2nd-level rebuild once the basic rules are available as well. Keeps things simple (for me at least!).

 

[Jimmy Disco T]

A rebuild with the Basic rules sounds like a good idea to me, if we can agree on what to do with my Warforged...

They seem fairly simple though: +1 STR and CON, +2 inherent AC, and Living Construct. Would it be feasible to just carry on using the playtest rules for this? Alternatively, I could just use one of the races in the Basic set and 're-skin' them as a Warforged if that's a better idea.

I leave it to our DM to advise which course of action is preferable

 

[Shayuri]

I'm good for continuing. I'd like to see how Sulannus changes, if she does, under the actual release rules.

 

[tuxgeo]

Tinkering with character sheets is fun. I'd like to continue as suggested.

Here's a question: Where's the "restraint" button or lever or dial in the playtest rules?
The reason I ask is that I would be interested to see if I can get Aeiyan to stop shooting off his mouth quite so much -- so far, he has irked Rejik by calling him the wrong religious title, and he has made Bartleby feel scolded. (However, he has managed not to offend either Sulannus or Tock verbally, so far as I can tell.)

Also: Now I see why we weren't asked to roll initiative: it's still the previous encounter with the ghouls, hence that previous initiative order still applies. OK.

 

[Shayuri]

Sulannus is kind of constantly subject to low-intensity offense just from having to work with you rabble, so little things don't register on her anymore.