D&D 5E Unexpected but (mostly) awesome new rules in Basic

[Snapdragyn]

Must be a style-of-play thing. I've never had donning come up in play. Doffing, yes -- but only when the heavily armored character got pitched overboard and needed to shed armor quickly or drown. Maybe I need to run more middle-of-the-night wandering monsters.

In our campaign, we activily fear sleeping. Seriously, every near-TPK we've had has been wandering monsters in the night - the owlbears that had 4/5 of the party grappled, the gnolls that coup-de-graced my character (but didn't quite kill him... probably because I'd been grousing to the DM that I wanted a new character! ). Night is fricking DEADLY.

Our Mystic Theurge just learned rope trick. We get 7 hours of extradimensional safety every night (yes, even in inn rooms - heck, especially in inn rooms!) before we have to deal with that stuff now.

 

[evileeyore]

In our campaign, we activily fear sleeping.

Don't you set watches?

 

[Stalker0]

Don't you set watches?

Don't you know...night is always watching!!

 

[Snapdragyn]

Don't you set watches?

Of course - watches which almost always fail Perception/Listen checks, so that we then lay asleep for 2-3 rounds while the fighting rages around us because that's just how our DM rolls.

 

[evileeyore]

Of course - watches which almost always fail Perception/Listen checks, so that we then lay asleep for 2-3 rounds while the fighting rages around us because that's just how our DM rolls.

Ugh. I'd mount a rebellion.

 

[Snapdragyn]

Considering how many months it took us to find a DM, that's not likely. San Francisco is such a paradox of 'tons of geeks, tons of gamers, DMs... hello, DMs...?' *crickets*

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Must be a style-of-play thing. I've never had donning come up in play. Doffing, yes -- but only when the heavily armored character got pitched overboard and needed to shed armor quickly or drown. Maybe I need to run more middle-of-the-night wandering monsters.

It's good to have players take note of the donning and doffing of shields. I can't tell you how many times I've seen players who seem to have shields (and torches) teleport in and out of their hands... It's an action. You're either carrying it or you're not.

I've always wanted some sort of discussion on how hard it would be to climb with a shield equipped.

 

[tuxgeo]

It might've been months before I actually read the section (sex-tion?) about choosing your character's sex, but having gone back to read it, I'm pretty impressed. It's not only progressive and modern-thinking, it also heads-off any uncomfortable discussions about the nature of sex and gender in a fantasy world.

D&D's come a long way from the days when females had a lower limit to their natural strength score.

Corellon's androgyny is "modern?" Naw, he's ancient. Wasn't he always that way? He was that way in 2E, if not earlier.
We're up to 5E now. That's no kind of "progress" -- it's the "same as it ever was."

Personally, I would like to believe the bit about the ability of the writing to head off uncomfortable discussions -- that would be great! -- but I have seen too many uncomfortable discussions continuing on for a hundred pages or more, despite and in the face of written attempts to head them off.
(When the wild horse of discourse takes the bit in its teeth. . . .)

 

[Particle_Man]

And zombies are Neutral Evil creatures of darkness instead of just animate dead bodies, so now there should be less debate over whether casting Finger of Death is evil.

Well, so long as one only casts it on creatures that are *not* humanoids, it should be perfectly kosher.

Mind you, basic rules don't (yet) have stats for zombies.

I love the paragraph on p. 33 too. I think it will stop some young trans player from committing suicide, to have that paragraph in the book their group has all read.

On a more minor note, the "you automatically regain half your ammunition" rather than rolling for each expended arrow after the combat made me go "Of course! Why didn't I think of that?" So that was a good one.

I also liked how halflings can roll to avoid natural 1s, my personal curse.

 

[steeldragons]

Corellon's androgyny is "modern?" Naw, he's ancient. Wasn't he always that way? He was that way in 2E, if not earlier.

Yep. Corellon has been androgynous since his/her inception, the original DDG.