D&D 5E Starter Set Character Sheet Revealed!

[Kobold Stew]

A single line in the spell section that read "A caster cannot for any reason cast more than one spell in a round" would kill a lot of potential broken combos.

Lets see if that line appears in the rules first.

There's no clear "one spell per turn" ruling, though the swift spell feature forbids the main action being used for spells or magic item activation.

IF the core rules package does not address the two spells issue, your concerns are valid.

Playtest document, How to Play p. 26:
"If you cast the spell as part of another action, that other action cannot involve casting a spell or activating a magic item"

I think that's pretty clear.

 

[GravyFingerz]

Playtest document, How to Play p. 26:
"If you cast the spell as part of another action, that other action cannot involve casting a spell or activating a magic item"

I think that's pretty clear.

That only means that , for example an ability allows you to cast a spell and then do something else while you're casting, you cannot cast another spell. It doesn't really address action surge. I think. I'm away from my book at the moment.

 

[DDNFan]

That only means that , for example an ability allows you to cast a spell and then do something else while you're casting, you cannot cast another spell. It doesn't really address action surge. I think. I'm away from my book at the moment.

It was a non sequitur.

He didn't quote the proper context, which was the specific rule for swift spells, which I wasn't talking about and has nothing to do with this.

Swift Spells.
A swift spell requires but an utterance. A spell that has a swift casting time can be cast as your action or as part of another action.
If you cast the spell as part of another action, that other action cannot involve casting a spell or activating a magic item.

The actual rules reference to support 1 spell = 1 action is a mere few paragraphs behind:

When a character casts any spell, the same basic rules are followed, regardless of the character’s class or the spell’s effects.
First, to cast a spell you must have access to it, either from your class, a magic item, or some other source. Certain classes also require that
you have the spell prepared in advance.


Second, in combat, you must cast a spell as an action (see “Actions in Combat” in the combat rules), unless a spell’s description says otherwise.

 

[DDNFan]

Of course, since they also changed Haste in 3.5 the issue became moot. I'm thinking this will likely be similar.

Apparently nobody looked through the errata list for 3rd edition spells to determine what abilities might need revising before publication.

 

[LFK]

We can't play a story where someone is waylaid by a week due to injury in a world where all damage disappears overnight. We can't play a story where anyone could be waylaid for a week, because any significant physical damage would be inconsistent with overnight or martial healing.

Clerical healing is so cheap DMs have to invent bull**** reasons for there to be no 1st level Clerics anywhere nearby. And if there's a Cleric in the party no one's gonna be laid up longer than one full day. Get back to town, recover spells the next morning, dump as many as needed into the party, get drunk, head out the next morning with a full suite of spells.

The idea that someone could be waylaid for a week is purely theoretical, and has been for a very long time.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

The idea that someone could be waylaid for a week is purely theoretical, and has been for a very long time.

I dunno, it happened to us all the time when we played 2E and nobody wanted to play the cleric. Even in 3E, there were times when it would take three or four days before someone recovered fully (in our games, again where nobody wanted to play a cleric).

Fast healing also means that you can't find a seriously injured NPC anywhere, which invalidates any number of possible narratives. (Or it means that you have different rules for PCs and NPCs, which causes all sorts of other issues.)

 

[Chaltab]

(Or it means that you have different rules for PCs and NPCs, which causes all sorts of other issues.)

What issues are you talking about? This is D&D, not Mutants and Masterminds. NPCs and PCs don't use the same rules because the game isn't designed around the same assumptions.

I wouldn't bet on it. Second Wind, and presumably Inspirational Healing if it's in, are major examples of the issues people had with 4th edition. They are mechanics that force you into one very specific playstyle that runs counter to the way a sizeable number of people play.

The ramifications of this are potentially huge. In 2012 they sold everyone on a return to pre-4th edition design, that's what they showed in the playtest and they expressely walked back 4th edition design like Second Wind, and now just weeks before release they've revealed that their design is increasingly 4th edition style (When combined with all of the articles since the playtest ended)

I suspect there's going to be a lot of angry people who spent as much as a year and a half following 5th edition on the promise of a return to pre-4th edition. There's a very real possibility that WOTC just burned all of its bridges. Will anyone believe them again when they say they're returning to pre-4th edition design now?

Wait what? They've said from the start that they're making a modular game that tries to bring in the best facets of the entire history of the game. That's one of the reasons why it's never officially been referred to as "5E"--it's not a progression from the 4E design but an amalgam of 40 years of D&D history. But at the same time, nobody would buy a pure regression to the poorly thought out game design of Monte Cook circa 1999. (No disrespect meant, but game design has come a long way since then)

I'm sure that healing will have various options because Wizards must know that there are people who felt that it was too fast and swingy in 4E. Though now that I think about it, taking more cues from 4E healing would actually mitigate some of DDNfans concerns since Fighters would be limited in their healing by surges, and it's easy to restrict that number than it is to make up arbitrary restrictions on how many times a Fighter can rest.

 

[Psikerlord#]

Yeah, it's crazy low. And it's manageable the same way wizard spell memorization is.


I think you have "healing surges" backwards. Healing surges are only kind of about self-healing. They're mostly about limits placed on daily healing and would reduce potential abuse of this ability.


It's exactly the same 5-minute workday problem already faced if you have a spellcaster in the group. You manage it like you always managed it to keep wizards from always having a full complement of spells.


...and the Wizard can cast Ray of Frost or Grease even more easily. Goodness, let's keep some perspective here.

Its worse than the 5MWD spellcaster issue, because second wind goes to the REAL crux of the 5MWD - hit points. Low Hit points are what really make the party stop and break. The party can continue on without spells, but not HP.

Ray of Frost is analagous to basic attacks, not really relevant to a discussion about second wind/action surge.

 

[Psikerlord#]

Oh snap! Precedented!

How often do you get Action points though? I'm guessing not every hour.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

What issues are you talking about? This is D&D, not Mutants and Masterminds. NPCs and PCs don't use the same rules because the game isn't designed around the same assumptions.

This probably isn't the best place to discuss it, so let it suffice to say that earlier editions both expected and encouraged the use of PC rules to describe NPCs to various degrees (rather explicitly, in the case of 3E), and that some players will not accept a game that would treat characters differently based solely on a meta-game issue like who is controlling them.

I would hazard that there is a significant DM base which would be interested in having a character that is wounded (for story purposes, because it fits the narrative) but would become frustrated if the rules didn't allow for a simple way of modeling that.