D&D 5E Starter Set Character Sheet Revealed!

[Morrus]

Haven't looked at 13th Age at all yet really. I'd be curious to see how they work it out (compared to say, FATE.)

Basically, skills are open-ended backgrounds. They are like aspects, for sure, tough implemented slightly differently.

 

[Cybit]

Looking at what I currently see (which I know has been changed in the final PH), you cannot take more than one short rest in a row.

Sent out a couple of tweets to mearls and wizards to see if they want to clarify.

MC'ing in 5E to me is similar to hybrid characters in 4E / gestalt characters in 3E. They exist, but they're not expected to be part of the core rules, because they are (probably) more powerful than straight characters in the optimized cases. There's a reason that MC'ing is a DM opting-in thing, and not a "DM must choose to ban it". The core 5E rules do not have multiclassing.

Anyway, I am a fan of the character sheet; makes things pretty easy to find and explain. I do miss the old character sheets that would have the additive boxes though, great way to explain the entire game in a character sheet.

 

[Paraxis]

I don't see an issue with taking multiple short rests in a row, if they stay at 1 hour long.

I plan on running through ToD playing very close to the core rules as possible, but I already know that I will eventually use 15 minute short rests, if I do I will have to change a few abilities like this to only work say when under half hit points.

 

[DDNFan]

To be fair, for every X people certain they know how it will turn out, there are Y (where Y is usually a value smaller than X!) people who are dead right, and such was the case with Monk.

Second Wind's power is tricky to guess at without knowing the default non-class-assisted healing rules. In the context of "Long rest = full HP" it is definitely not OP (but is that the context?).

The way it's written makes it dubious it will work well in a game with a reduced base healing rate for a grittier game. It will still have the fighter effectively having troll-like regeneration under his control (another strike against it. Why is natural healing under anyone's control? It just happens. No hoarding of hit dice for min-maxing will be allowed in my games. You must heal to full if you have hit dice left, or maybe you can only spend one hit dice per short rest. Those would be fun I think).

The context you're looking for, is not making clerics feel useless. Some people hate having to have a cleric, but since the game has clerics, there should be a valid game reason for them. Healing the front line fighter is where a lot of the Cure Wounds gets spent, so if he can just heal himself it gives lots of incentives for 30 second bursts of combat then waiting an hour since there is no daily limit on Second Wind.

It is quite frankly terrible design that doesn't work well with Hit Dice. The mechanic should have been when you take damage, as a reaction you can spend a hit dice. That would have been very easy to narrate and understand and also feel very "Second Wind-y".

The way it's written now basically forces you to keep the normal healing rate because otherwise fighters will suddenly leap frog every other class, further making it irresistible or even foolish to not multi-class for at least one (probably two) levels of fighter just to keep up.

Rope Trick can allow short rests anywhere in the dungeon. That makes it effectively an encounter power, as per 4th edition. Not good. Not good at all. Maybe rope trick is the problem there though. It's too good a spell considering the way the game is designed. The transdimensional portal lasts exactly an hour, a perfect time to recharge all these abilities and free HP and go back out blasting.

When we realized in our last session that our mage's rope trick would allow us a short rest, suddenly lights went off. The more benefit for the entire group there is for a short rest, the more powerful that spell becomes. Probably best to limit its duration to 30 minutes

 

[Doctor Futurity]

Really? It's just de facto part of the base game? That's disappointing.

Why is that disappointing? I am disappointed every time they limit the coinage in an edition. Even a fanciful thing like electrum.

 

[thunktanker]

New things I got from looking at this sheet:

2. Second wind heals per short rest. This seems pretty extreme and strongly favors certain playstyles over others. Basically, until you get to high levels, fighters don't need any outside assistance (or much time) to heal them. They can just sit around for a few hours using second wind every hour.

I'm really thrown by #2 though.

What about the part where it says you have to use a bonus action? I see where it talks about action surge, it mentions that you may "possibly" have a bonus action. So, you may possibly not have any bonus actions to use for second wind. Anybody have an idea on how you get these things? Perhaps the appearance of the system being broken has more to do with us reading tea leaves and not knowing what the final rules are. For instance, if everyone gets 1 bonus action per long rest, then these bonus actions become a limited resource you are spending down, and other features might end up competing with second wind to spend bonus actions. That would cut down on how often second wind can be used.

I don't know. I don't see anything about bonus actions in the last playtest, unless I missed it somewhere. Stop teasing me, wizards, and just give me the rules already. :/

 

[DDNFan]

Why is that disappointing? I am disappointed every time they limit the coinage in an edition. Even a fanciful thing like electrum.

As a person who loves old school flavor, we never really used electrum or platinum pieces. Copper, silver, gold is more than enough.

I'm also surprised they added that on a character sheet for Basic D&D, you can put those rare coins in your treasure section anyway, where you write gems and tapestries and other trinkets of value but not easily tradeable. Most inns do not accept such coins anyway.

 

[MoonSong]

Spoiled seems like a totally inappropriate word for this, to me, being ultra-negative and implying we are children.

Someone who has seen the world and is longer happy living Small Town, USA is not "spoiled". Nor is someone who has seen all the options D&D has, and doesn't want to go back to Basic-only.

Mmm, ok, we are used to indulge into variety and just 4 flavors feel bland?

 

[Doctor Futurity]

As a person who loves old school flavor, we never really used electrum or platinum pieces. Copper, silver, gold is more than enough.

I'm also surprised they added that on a character sheet for Basic D&D, you can put those rare coins in your treasure section anyway, where you write gems and tapestries and other trinkets of value but not easily tradeable. Most inns do not accept such coins anyway.

Which is ironic...because electrum is very old school (although not purely old school since it showed up as coinage in AD&D 1E, but not so sure about OD&D), and that old school element is why I like it, too.

Weird coinage is, to me, part and parcel of old school style treasures, which should be full of strange and unusual valuables with elaborate descriptions or dubious value. More contemporary editions of the game seemed to scrub the exotic stuff like electrum in favor of specific magic items and just "gold."

 

[Grazzt]

To truly capture the 1e flavor on the character sheet, they need to add the "Last Will and Testament" section at the bottom.