D&D 5E Starter Set Character Sheet Revealed!

[Neonchameleon]

From an OSR perspective, there's less difference between 3e and 4e than you might think.

Focus, like direction, is not destination. The destination matters more than the focus/direction.

A lot of D&D fans appreciate (read, play, run, etc.) OD&D, BEMXI, Rules Cyclopedia, AD&D, and 2nd edition. When I was talking about the OSR, I meant all of them. Not just the fundamentalist shut-ins that only enjoy the wood-grained box or whatever.

And from the fan of a range of games including the Rules Cyclopaedia backed with Vornheim, 4E, Fate, Fiasco, Marvel Heroic, Torchbearer, and Apocalypse World, 4E is surprisingly close to the OSR. More accurately it's the game that many versions of D&D have promised to be - but haven't delivered on. It's the art on the front of the Red Box - and the game talked about in 2E. It's the "Dragons" part of Dungeons and Dragons. (And the Dragonlance part - 4E is a better game to run Dragonlance in than the game it was designed for because you don't need things like the Obscure Death Rule; you can let the dice lie where they land). It also claims the shenanigans from the original Greyhawk and Blackmoor campaigns (like Mike Mornard playing a 1st level baby Balrog in both, and the cleric being deliberately based on van Helsing and brought in as a counter to a vampire PC) for its own.

The destination of 3E (trying to be a process sim shorn of gamist elements) is a lot further away.

 

[Neonchameleon]

So I cranked out the math on our Eldrich Knight Action Surged Double Fireball by comparing him to two other 7th level characters (a pure fighter, a pure mage). The Multi-class was the 2/5 split talked about to get 3rd level spells; he actually ISN'T an Eldrich Knight because fighters don't get their subclass until 3rd level. Then, I did the "go nova" route of using their best abilities in one round, and calculated average damage but no mitigation (aka hit everytime, opponent failed saves). Additionally, they have no magic items but proper weapons/focus.

CAVEAT: This is all using the 10/13 Playtest docs. Final product may differ.

Jake – Human Fighter (warrior) 7
Str: 20 (15+1 human +2 fourth level bump +2 6th level bump, max Str)
Attack: Greatsword +8/+8, 2d6+5, 18-20 Critical
Action Surge + Extra Attack (four hits) 8d6+20 = 48 damage (barring crits!) or 12 per hit .
Resources spent: Action Surge

Jackie – Human Wizard (evoker) 7
Int:18 (15 +1 human +2 4th level bump)
Spells per day: 4, 3, 3, 1
Spells Prepped: 8
Blight 8d8 (con ½ DC: 15) for 36 average damage.
Resources spent: one level 4 spell slot.

Jim – Human Fighter 2/Wizard (evoker) 5
Str: 15, Int: 18 (15 +1 human +2 4th level bump)
Attack: Greatsword +5, 2d6+2
Spells per day: 4, 3, 2
Spells Prepped: 6
Action-Surged Fireball/Fireball 6d6/6d6 (dex ½C 15) for average 42 damage (21 per fireball).
Resources spent: Action Surge, two level 3 spell slots.

---

So yeah, our multi-class surge monster did six less damage than our greatsword welding fighter. He did do more than our single classed mage, but our multi-classes surge mage wasted his action surge + TWO of his highest spell slots to get 6 more points of damage out of a round. Additionally, he has less spells prepped and 2 less slots per day for it.

So I'm not worried about multi-classes EKs.

Given the diminishing returns on spell slots compared to previous editions, try comparing using a level round 15? - I'd be surprised if the results weren't different up there.

But thanks - always good to see the maths showing that the sky isn't falling

 

[Thaumaturge]

This is me, unable to xp [MENTION=7635]Remathilis[/MENTION]. Again.

I need to make a second account just for xping certain people.

Thaumaturge.

 

[SkidAce]

This is only an observation, not a judgment, but I'm legitimately surprised that people played 3e without wands of CLW. My groups were doing that regularly by 2001.

I guess it's just anecdote # 4123478 as to how differently people play what is nominally the same game.

Yes, its odd.

I'm surprised how many did play with wands of CLW. We didn't.

I would put up a poll, but it would only be polarizing I suspect.

 

[Chaltab]

Can you link a quote on the self-described board game thing?

Not screaming, dude. Just pointing out that Basic D&D was supposed to be the game without all the fiddly bits. Advanced (the PHB and DMG) were supposed to have those. I plan on using the starter set to introduce noobs to D&D (and RPGs in general). But don't like the idea of a dozen extra, unnecessary, 3/4e bits and pieces, nor do I want to cross them off of the pre-gen character sheet or just create my own.

VS

The sheet looks pretty bare bones to me. There's not even a list of Feats or any Exploits. (The level up page has some pre-chosen encounter powers, yeah, but there's no dedicate place to write them down on the sheet itself)

 

[lkj]

So yeah, our multi-class surge monster did six less damage than our greatsword welding fighter. He did do more than our single classed mage, but our multi-classes surge mage wasted his action surge + TWO of his highest spell slots to get 6 more points of damage out of a round. Additionally, he has less spells prepped and 2 less slots per day for it.

So I'm not worried about multi-classes EKs.

Thank you. I just came to the board to ponder whether a multiclass wizard getting action surge was that big a deal. I hadn't really thought through the damage. And I also guess the numbers might change for higher level wizards with bigger explodey things.

However, the wizard is using a finite resource. The fighter can keep swinging all day. So, even if there was a greater one time damage output, burning your highest level spells to do it is pretty expensive. That's in addition to giving up 2 levels of wizard and quicker access to higher level spells and additional slots. I'll grant that campaign style might affect the math-- If you only have one big boss fight a day, then resource burning is less relevant. But I would think this would be an exception rather than a rule.

AD

 

[SkidAce]

This is me, unable to xp [MENTION=7635]Remathilis[/MENTION]. Again.

I need to make a second account just for xping certain people.

Thaumaturge.

I took care of it. The last time I xp'ed him finally wore off.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Can I ask when you started playing? Because Gygax was extremely clear in the 1E DMG that hit points were in no sense physical meat.

Around 2000 or so? It was about a year before the 3.0 books were released, I remember. I mostly played 2E for the first few years, though. Maybe things changed between 1E and 2E, but everything I'd ever seen indicated that hit points were at least partially meat. He went as far as to say that a level 1 character is mostly meat, and characters with more hit points mostly added them in the form of luck/skill/magic/whatever.

And since everything that could possibly deal damage was something that was obviously capable of inflicting physical wounds, the proportional wound model was immediately intuitive. Luck/skill/whatever is what allows a fighter with 100 hit points to suffer no worse from a 10hp wound than a 10hp fighter would suffer from a 1hp wound.

And hit points do not, and have never reflected actual serious wounds in terms of their recovery times; it takes as long to recover from a real world marathon as it does someone in AD&D with no magical healing at all to recover from 1hp in a worst case scenario. The damage inflicted by hit points has always been cinematic which is why it's never inflicted any actual penalties or imposed a substantial recovery time (unlike most RPGs from the late 70s, 80s, and 90s).

It's always been a high fantasy world where people quickly recover from any wound that wasn't fatal, because it would be super annoying if they used realistic recovery times. That isn't necessarily to say that nobody ever got hurt. It only says that, whatever the physical damage, we don't want to model that in terms of wound penalties and extended convalescence. The rules for 2E stated that all hit points would be healed after four weeks of bed rest, which honestly seems reasonably in-genre for how long Conan might spend to recover after being beaten to near-death.

 

[Remathilis]

Given the diminishing returns on spell slots compared to previous editions, try comparing using a level round 15? - I'd be surprised if the results weren't different up there.

But thanks - always good to see the maths showing that the sky isn't falling

Haven't done a full-build yet, but I can see a few things going on at 15th level:

1.) The Fighter would have six attacks, (three per action) so that would be 12d6+30 damage (or 72 total)

2.) Both Evokers would be able to overchannel at least once, raising their nova attack to MAX damage. That means the pure mage could overchannel Sunburst (12d6 maxed for... 72 damage!, Con save DC 16 1/2)

3.) The M/C 2/13 Fighter/mage has to use his 7th AND his 6th level spell slot to go nova; and since there are no good nova evocation spells at 7th level (!) he opts to chain lightning twice (buring the 7th level slot, but getting no extra benefit). He overchannels once but doesn't risk twice*, so he does 60 (max 10d6) with the first bolt and 35 with the other (average of 3.5) for 95 damage.

So at 15th level, he uses BOTH his high level spell slots and his AS to get 23 extra damage over his single classed buddies.

Still not worried.

EDIT: Forgot that 12 level evokers add their INT to evocation damage. Tack another +5 to each evocation spell. The mages are starting to pull ahead more now, but this is almost purely due to Overchannel. Without it, They are only doing 47 and 80 damage respectively in their novas)


* Its a DC 15 Con save or drop to 0 hp if you use it more than once. In theory, he could do it twice and take the risk, raising his potential damage to 120 but very likely taking him out of the fight.

 

[Mistwell]

I hear stories like this, but people actually sat at the table and drew maps? Damn. Sometimes I'm very happy I've never done a dungeon crawl.

We did it. All. The. Time.

It was actually quite fun. I am thinking of running a 5e game that will require someone to map. We also had a treasurer (kept track of treasure for party and treasure splitting), and note-taker (when needed).