D&D 5E With the Holy Trinity out, let's take stock of 5E

[Lord Vangarel]

For me this edition is excellent I just got my DMG today and it looks like the best one sine AD&D 1E.

Yes a few quibbles on art like others have said and minor irritations on some formatting on spells but that aside I can see myself playing tons of this edition.

The one thing I'd really like though is more adventure support. If they could just adopt an adventure/support system like Paizo then I could be incredibly happy with this edition.

 

[Raith5]

Uninspired? Really that's the word you are going to use? If anything I would call this game the most inspired of all D&Ds. Uninspired... what.. I just.. what!?

There is something very self referential about 5e that makes me agree with JeffB a bit. I find comparing 5e to previous editions hard because 5e has few elements that make me go wow but overall everything works well. It is like comparing your favourite band's greatest hits album versus your favourite album of that band.

 

[dbm]

First, I should say that D&D isn't my favourite RPG (or even my favourite fantasy RPG) but there are people in my group who really like it so it regularly gets played. I've played BECMI, 1E, 3.x and 4e, with 3.x being our default game for over a decade.

5e is really floating my boat based on what I have read in the big three books and DMing about half of the starter adventure. There is more in the PHB than in any previous edition core PHB, in my opinion. So much so that I don't really feel a need for lots of expansion at this point, although I'm sure the allure of the new will happen at some point.

I really like their stated strategy for building the game slowly, with a major campaign and an accompanying optional rules book each year. We know that next year's theme is 'elemental'. I'll bet money that it's a re-imagining of Elemental Evil for the 21st century and that it will include campaign details for Greyhawk. Not so much that you couldn't play it in FR or another campaign, but as a vehicle for getting that information out there. I bet that they use this approach quite a bit - take signiature rules from a campaign world and bundle that with an adventure trail as well as world information. Down the road I could see the psionics rules being bundled with Dark Sun, for example.

So yes, I really like 5e and it displaces BECMI as the version I would choose to play given a free hand. I has the good bits of D&D (strong iconics) but without turning these into a strait jacket as some earlier editions have done. The Sub-Classes are perhaps the single best addition to the game, and they allow you to play a much wider range of characters 'out of the box' than previous editions have.

Only time will tell if I get burned out on 5e like I have with other versions, but that is my problem, not the game's

 

[Nikosandros]

We know that next year's theme is 'elemental'. I'll bet money that it's a re-imagining of Elemental Evil for the 21st century and that it will include campaign details for Greyhawk. Not so much that you couldn't play it in FR or another campaign, but as a vehicle for getting that information out there.

You are correct about Elemental Evil, but it's already been officially confirmed that the story arc will be set in the Forgotten Realms and not in Greyhawk.

 

[Nebulous]

I am very happy with it.

It needs some gaps closed, but that will come with time.

My only uncertainty is if this edition really has legs. I can see the downside of bounded accuracy being that the game starts to get a "been-there-done-that" feel in a year or two. But that is far from a forgone conclusion. It is just the one big question mark for me.

But for now it is a great game. I'll certainly get my moneys worth many time over in the worst case. And the foundation for another 15 years of gaming may be here in the best case.

win or awesome overwhelming win. Good alternatives.

I predict (maybe completely incorrectly) that the bounded accuracy cap will be wriggled loose down the road for this exact reason. To keep things "fresh" and changing during the life span of the game, it will be an easy way to bring innovations, and one way is to bump up the math some.

Regardless, i think 5e is a fantastic edition, and a fascinating merge of the four iterations before it.

 

[Nebulous]

There is something very self referential about 5e that makes me agree with JeffB a bit. I find comparing 5e to previous editions hard because 5e has few elements that make me go wow but overall everything works well. It is like comparing your favourite band's greatest hits album versus your favourite album of that band.

5e didn't do much different than past editions, I agree. But people loved D&D for 40 years, there's a reason it is still the great roleplaying game in the world; whatever formula Gygax hit on all those years back still works. For what it's worth, WotC did try a radically different approach to D&D with 4th edition, and it created problems. Lots and lots of problems, so they went back to what they knew was safe ground. I find it impressive that they were able to distill elements from all the editions and blend them together. It sounds simple in theory, but in execution, i think it was rather tricky.

 

[Emerikol]

5e didn't do much different than past editions, I agree. But people loved D&D for 40 years, there's a reason it is still the great roleplaying game in the world; whatever formula Gygax hit on all those years back still works. For what it's worth, WotC did try a radically different approach to D&D with 4th edition, and it created problems. Lots and lots of problems, so they went back to what they knew was safe ground. I find it impressive that they were able to distill elements from all the editions and blend them together. It sounds simple in theory, but in execution, i think it was rather tricky.

I agree that 5e restored many great things from those 40 years. I also think they've stubbornly clung to some modernist approaches that I find less than best for me. But if you compare it to 4e it's a massive improvement. Compared to 3e it's akin to a horizontal move. Many good things vastly improved and others took a turn for the worst.

 

[Cadriel]

I didn't really want to like 5e, but I found myself drawn to and eventually running it. Now I like it. I won't say it's my favorite, because I really love OD&D, but I certainly find it in the running for a solid second place. We are having a lot of fun, and the dangerous but not ultra-lethal nature of the challenges has made for a game that is really rich and interesting.

I love the Monster Manual as a monster junkie. It has a good depth of ideas in each monster description, and each monster has a level of depth that makes them easy to prep and easy to run. My only complaint is that there is only one so far. The DMG is overflowing with great charts and ideas for every aspect of the campaign. And the PHB's Backgrounds were what made me like 5e in the first place. So I have to say, I really like it and would be happy to keep running it.

 

[Manbearcat]

Solid if uninspiring rules set. nothing all that fresh/exciting if you play things besides D&D, but plays well at the table so far. I also think the art and aesthetics are uninspiring.

I could live with all that, no problems, if it had decent adventure support, but the adventure path/story script is exactly the opposite of what I had hoped for.

This is pretty much how I feel. This ruleset plays to folks who want a streamlined, modernized version of AD&D 2e with a smattering of (kinda/sorta but not fully synthesized into the rest of the system) narrative system components. While that might be a fairly sizable cross-section of the D&D culture (it would seem), this is by no means the "big tent" edition the designers were espousing during the playtest.

It would appear that its the only D&D system I won't be involved with (outside of the significant hours put into playing/testing every iteration of the playtest materials). At this point in my gaming life, my two modes of D&D are focused on very separate styles of play. The first being "big damn hero", "story now" for campaigns and the second being one-off, "step on up", Gygaxian dungeon-crawls played from pawn stance.

Regarding the first, while 5e's backgrounds are great, it doesn't have the type of noncombat conflict resolution systems, the open/broad descriptor currency/resources, the tight/predictable math, the player author/director stance resources that push play toward that style of game. The game doesn't remotely reproduce the play experience of 4e or Dungeon World, but I have those systems for that. I can prep extremely low for both of those systems, never look at a rulebook (outside of a card with some relevant math, some monster themes/keywords, and some scene openers, I need nothing but my own and my players' creative juices), and I don't have to spend any of my mental overhead on being involved with/clarifying/mediating the rules for the action declaration > mechanical resolution portion of play.

Regarding the second, the jury is out on whether it will be better than RC/1e. At this point, I'm not convinced that it is and I don't think the guys that I intermittently run dungeon-crawls for want to learn new stuff. If those guys want to run it for that, it will get some use there. Highly unlikely though.

 

[ren1999]

I think the Variants will save 5E. There is a lot of clutter.

Races. Giving ability increases leads to meta-gaming certain races for certain classes. Smart players will never try a different race.

Classes. Awarding proficiencies to certain abilities makes no sense. Why are Wizards proficient in Wisdom?

Warlocks have too many different features to track.

Starting equipment is disorganized and cluttered. Some of the lists are in alphabetical order and some are not.

Spells are poorly conceived. Range and Radius is very arbitrary. Spell damage also was not considered at all. Cantrips and higher level Slot Spells were not considered.

Multi-Classing needs to be reworked.

Monsters need more reactions to make them more interesting.

The CR is just random. There are formulas but the monster manual and the adventure modules don't follow them.

Attack rolls and DC rolls are often miscalculated by 1 or more.

Polymorph doesn't work but I offer suggestions about that.

Still a lot of potential.

Here are some variants I've been working on that address many of these issues already.

Select the Race of your Character.

Dwarf
Common, Dwarvish
Poison Resistance, SaveVsPoison@Advantage
DarkVision 60 ft.
Medium 5x5 ft.
Speed 25 ft.

Halfling
Common, Halfling
SaveVsFear@Advantage
MovesThroughLargerBeingSpace,HidesBehindLargerBeing
Small 2.5x2.5 ft.
Speed 25 ft.

Human
Common and 1 language
SaveVsPoison or Fear or Charm@Advantage
1 Level-Up Reward
Medium 5x5 ft.
Speed 30 ft.

Elf
Common, Elvish
SaveVsCharm@Advantage, ImmuneSleep
DarkVision 60 ft.
Medium 5x5 ft.
Speed 30 ft.

Select the Class of your character.

Martial
Str+1
StrRolls+ProficiencyBonus
Proficient with heavy armor.
Expertise in Athletics and proficient in 1 other skill.
12+con mod at 1st level
1d12(or 7)+con mod every higher level
1d12+strMod two-handed weapon damage
1d6+strMod primary weapon damage
1d6 secondary weapon damage

Skilled
Dex+1
DexRolls+ProficiencyBonus
Proficient with leather armor.
(Ranger)Expertise in Survival and proficient in 3 other skills.
(Rogue)Expertise in Stealth and proficient in 3 other skills.
10+con mod at 1st level
1d10(or 6)+con mod every higher level
1d10+dexMod two-handed weapon damage
1d6+dexMod primary weapon damage
1d4 secondary weapon damage

Mixed
Wis+1
WizRolls+ProficiencyBonus
Proficient with up to chain armor.
Expertise in Religion and proficient in 1 other skill.
8+con mod at 1st level
1d8(or 5)+con mod every higher level
two-handed weapon damage 1d8+dexMod
1d4+dexMod primary weapon damage
1d4 secondary weapon damage
or 1d8 spell damage to 1 target

Casting
Int+1
IntRolls+ProficiencyBonus
Proficient with abjuration spells/jewelry and light weapons.
Expertise in Arcana and proficient in 1 other skill.
6+con mod at 1st level,
1d6(or 4)+con mod every higher level
1d6+dexMod two-handed weapon damage
1d4+dexMod weapon damage
or 1d6 spell damage to all area targets

Multi-Classing
If a Martial class learns more than 3 skills, the Martial class goes to the Skill class table.
If a Martial class learns a spell, the Martial class goes to the Mixed class table.
If a Casting class wants to use heavier weapons, the Casting class goes the Mixed class table.
If any class wants to cast area spells, they go to the Casting class table.

Spell Guidelines
Spell Range starts at 30 ft.
Spell Range increases by +5 ft./lvl after 1st lvl
Spell Area starts at 10x10 ft.
Spell Area increases by +5 ft. at 5th, 10th, 15th lvl
A spell on 1 target is an at will Cantrip.
An area spell starts at 1 area spell per rest.
An area spell increases to +1 area spell/rest at 5th, 10th, 15th lvl
Spell Damage increases by 1d at 5th, 10th, 15th lvl
All saves on further turns happen at the beginning of the target's turn.

i.e. a 5th lvl Wizard can use Mage Hand to lift 15x15 cubic feet of objects 50 ft. away.
He can hit 1 target with 2d6 force damage every turn, knocking the target 10 ft. back.
Or he can hit 15x15 cubic feet of targets twice per encounter doing 2d6 force damage, knocking all targets 10 ft back.

Polymorph Object
You can alter armor and weapons.
+1 or -1 to AC
+1 or -1 at 5th, 10th, 15th lvl
or
+1 or -1 to Weapon Damage
+1 or -1 at 5th, 10th, 15th lvl

Polymorph Ally or Enemy
one size up or down
+one size every 5th, 11th, 15th lvl
Tiny Str-2, Dex+2
Small Str-1, Dex+1
Large Str+1, Dex-1
Huge Str+2, Dex-2
or
Water Breathing
or
Darkvision
or
Disguise Self or Ally

Polymorph Enemy to Object
DC+your magic ability mod vs enemy Con
Target fails or wins save, target will roll save again at the beginning of its next turn.
Another failure and the Enemy has the Helpless damage condition.
Two successful saves, the Polymorph fails.