D&D 5E Starter Set: Except 7

[LFK]

Slavish devotion to a Random Encounter chart?

In that case isn't "wait, what is this thing, anyway?!" a feature and not a bug?

 

[Olfan]

I do not like the fact that large humanoids on average are only getting a five foot reach. If I charge a 10 foot ogre, he will get a chance to hit me before I'm within reach. (Yes I'm aware that in 5e this wouldn't provoke according to the playtest)

I don't mind it myself, but I did notice and definitely had a "huh, look at that" moment. No reach, and it seems like no bonuses or penalties for size either. Unless they're just changes to stats I can't see with a casual glance.

I wonder how size affects colossal sized enemies, if at all?

 

[Wolfskin]

I wonder how size affects colossal sized enemies, if at all?

My best guess is that size will be reflected on the creature's hit points, ability scores and reach instead of being a standardized mechanic as in 3.X

 

[the Jester]

...I expect that the Monster Manual, and possibly even the Basic Set (freely available for those with an internet connection) or Starter Set, will provide sufficient context that what a Nothic looks like will not be a problem for lots lots lots lots LOTS of DMs.

I agree with you here. I don't think it will be a significant issue once Basic or the MM is out. My point was simply that dms who run off-the-cuff often pick a monster fairly randomly and, if there's no picture or description of that monster, they can't very well describe it to their players. Once there's a description to match the creature, hey presto, no problem, but until then, it can be very frustrating. 4e actually had a ton of problematic examples of this kind of thing in adventures and, once in a while, in a monster book. Unique monsters were the worst, and sometimes you really had to dig through a stat block to figure out what the heck it was supposed to be- human? Elf? Drow? A lich? A two or three sentence long description fixes this problem entirely without eating up a lot of space. (Heck, adjust the margins a little, and all it does is cut down on wasted/white space.)

 

[Dausuul]

The classic example of when "raw score matters" is an arm wrestling match. It has been spelled out in at least two editions, IIRC, that this is an example of when "high score wins".

First, we have no reason to believe this will hold true in 5E. Second, that's an extreme corner case. If one of your PCs likes to challenge people to arm-wrestling contests, it might come up once every 1-2 sessions. In my experience, it's more like once every never. In 25 years of gaming I've not once seen an in-game arm-wrestling contest. On the other hand, I've seen any number of ability checks.

Now, maybe my experience is an outlier and the typical campaign involves friendly athletic competitions multiple times a night. Somehow I doubt it, though.

Granted, the modifier matters a lot more, but is it really so hard for a new player to pick up on that? I think the argument that this makes a significant difference to new gamers sells those same new gamers pretty darn short.

Like Ruin Explorer, I've seen this happen more than once at the table, so it's not some hypothetical concern. You can interpret this as "Those new gamers were morons" if you like. I interpret it as "Unnecessarily confusing layout is unnecessarily confusing." It's a small barrier to mastery, but there are a hundred of these little barriers and they add up to one great big honkin' learning curve. The only way to bring down that learning curve is to remove the little barriers, one at a time. This is one that can be removed without causing problems elsewhere, so why not do it? It's the same reason we got rid of THAC0.

All other things being equal, a character sheet or monster statblock should be laid out so that behaving in a logical, intuitive way produces the correct result. When called upon to roll Dexterity, the logical, intuitive thing to do is look at the sheet, see the number next to "Dexterity," and use that.

 

[Zaukrie]

I fail to see how expecting a description in a starter set implies any of us are negative on 5e...... this is s very specific comment, not an over reaction and complaint about all of D&D. As many have said, if there is a description elsewhere, great.

 

[bogmad]

All other things being equal, a character sheet or monster statblock should be laid out so that behaving in a logical, intuitive way produces the correct result. When called upon to roll Dexterity, the logical, intuitive thing to do is look at the sheet, see the number next to "Dexterity," and use that.

Well, we know the character sheet is laid out intuitively enough.
But for a monster block, is it ok to ask that the DM controlling monsters be little more knowledgeable about scores and where modifiers are derived from?

Will it be overly confusing to have the ability score to come before the modifier?

For my part, it makes sense for a monster description to put more importance on the ability score itself than the modifier.

An Ogre, for example, has a pretty well established strength of 19. It could be confusing and non-intuitive to see a listing for gauntlets of ogre strength that raise your STR to 19, and then when you flip to the Ogre description you're seeing a +4 instead of STR 19

 

[Dausuul]

Well, we know the character sheet is laid out intuitively enough.
But for a monster block, is it ok to ask that the DM controlling monsters be little more knowledgeable about scores and where modifiers are derived from?

What is the purpose of asking the DM to use a different format from the players?

An Ogre, for example, has a pretty well established strength of 19. It could be confusing and non-intuitive to see a listing for gauntlets of ogre strength that raise your STR to 19, and then when you flip to the Ogre description you're seeing a +4 instead of STR 19

This is really reaching for something to be concerned about. But it's true that it would make more sense for the Gauntlets description to read, "Your Strength becomes +4 (19)."

 

[Stainless]

I started playing D&D in 1978 when all we had was a copy of Judge's Guild Ready Ref Sheets; just stats and no flavour text (and certainly no Internet). I remember we were too young to even know what a dervish was. But boy did we play the crap out of it, and I'm still here X years afterwards. Just saying.

 

[Boarstorm]

This is really reaching for something to be concerned about. But it's true that it would make more sense for the Gauntlets description to read, "Your Strength becomes +4 (19)."

Am I the only one who would be much MORE confused by that?

My initial reading would be something like "Yay, I get to add four! Why is 19 in parenthesis? Is that a max or something?"