Responding to @
Manbearcat and @
AbdulAlhazred on 5e - I can see where both of you are coming from in your comments on 5e. I don't know if I fully agree. (With the word "fully" used literally, not just for rhetorical effect. I think I partly agree.)
On the PC-build side, 5e looks like a revision of Essentials. My best sense, from looking at the rules and following play reports, is that while asymmetric in its builds, it is probably relatively well mathematically balanced over a "standard" adventuring day. And it does have features (cantrips, encounter recharges of some spells, etc) to try to reduce the prospects of caster novas. (Which, if they become routine, obviously blow asymmetric balance out of the water.)
I'm not a HUGE 5e expert. I've quickly read through a lot of the PHB and some sections of the DMG, and played in a campaign run by [MENTION=2093]Gilladian[/MENTION], where we've almost reached 5th level, and played a few other misc games. I will just say this here, the wizard I'm running ROCKS. I by no means optimized my character, almost the opposite, but I did pick the most effective spells I could find, just to see how potent they are. Plenty is my answer.
The thing is, you can cast any spell you have memorized as many times as you have slots at that level or any higher level, which is VERY flexible compared to 2e. You may not have as many slots, in theory, but at low levels you actually have more slots, and even the high level slots will be more useful. So far my wizard is clearly the dominant force in combat, that which turns the tide. The fighters are tough and dish out fine damage, the rogue can gank people with surprise very effectively and fight credibly even face-to-face without advantage. The cleric is a very good healer and can at least do SOME damage (and has some other reasonably useful spells, again with flexible casting from slots). Still, the wizard has put the hurt on every big bad, and done things like hold 2 owlbears largely at bay for a couple rounds so the party could take them out piecemeal etc. I'd say if they had another fighter they'd be OK, but we're still at low levels, it only gets better for me while the fighter may get some more maneuvers and feats he's not going to gain any radical new capability, just basically moar damage.
The monster stats also seem to be relative methodical in the way they're put together - though, in my view, somewhat boring compared to the best or even the middling of 4e. But it doesn't have the pseudo-simulation of 3E's "natural armour" bonuses, uncapped stats etc, which are just mechanical devices cloaked in the thinnest veil of ingame meaning.
Yeah, the monsters, so far, have been pretty vanilla. Humanoids with basically just a weapon attack, and lower level monsters with perhaps a single shtick. My impression is they are almost straight out of 2e. The otyugh we fought the other day, and the owlbears before that seemed totally bog standard 1977 Monster Manual fare. Not bad, but 4e did way better.
I'm one of those who thinks the Stealth rules are terribly written, but I think you could just jack on the 4e rules without any problems.
I don't know, but I've heard that too.
It seems to me, then, that the illusionistic/AD&D-ish elements or tendencies come from other places.
First, the encounter-building guidelines are not as crisp as 4e. That said, they're still there, and by all accounts 5e PCs are mechanically very robust, so I don't see why anyone would have to fudge monster hp in 5e moreso than in 4e.
They aren't as robust as 4e PCs and they very much lack the deep reserves. The healing model is basically straight out of 2e, the cleric is a battery. Hit Dice give you a modest amount of additional healing, but it can't be deployed outside of a 1 hour long rest, making it much less useful than 4e HS. In any case the total amount is far less, many 4e fighters have 16 HS, and they may well be worth 8 hit points each, whereas the same PC in 5e would have something around 20 hit points and 1d10 of hit dice (roughly 5 hit points total of self healing). Characters are definitely tougher than in 2e by a bit, but if you get beat up in the first encounter of the day due to bad luck or poor tactics, you're done, pack it in, the cleric is spent and maybe you can take one more encounter, but best not push it, basically the old time formula. OVERALL characters will likely last better than in 2e, but its very different from 4e where you'd really have to step in it to get into trouble in encounter 1 of the day.
Second, the non-combat conflict-resolution mechanics seem to be very thin. It offers structure for exploration, which should reduce the need for illusionism in that department compared to (say) 2nd ed AD&D, but no so much for actual conflicts/encounters which don't involve either violence or charm spells. (13th Age lacks robust non-combat conflict resolution mechanics also, but I think is cleaner in its DC presentation and its fail-forward advice.) This can produce illusionistic non-combat resolution.
Yeah, the skill system really is pretty incoherent. Its totally unclear when you would use a skill or a tool, and just generally the skill rules are murky. Many common situations don't precisely match with ANY skill, and then you have things like 'investigation', which MIGHT be handy in something like an abstract skill challenge, but has literally no use in 5e because the game focuses on means, not ends, and 'investigating' isn't a means, there's no specific ACTION associated with it. There are many other such oddities. Still, its a better skill system than 3e offered, for what that's worth.
Third, and here is a contrast with 13th Age, there is no ready-made structure for enforcing the balance of encounters-per-day (especially combat encounters) that will support the asymmetric balance. 4e doesn't have this either (contrast 13th Age), but non-Essentials doesn't need it as much because if everyone novas it might make the encounter a cakewalk but doesn't create intra-party balance issues. This can produce illusionistice managing of pacing.
definitely true, though I tend to think there isn't a huge variation in classes
Fourth, two and three somewhat overlap, in that if casters are using their spells to resolve non-combat conflicts, they are powering down in relation to combat, but there is no real corresponding way for non-casters to shift their effort or resources from combat to non-combat because of the aforementioned lack of robust non-combat mechanics (so eg, there is no canonical way that I know of for a fighter to use Action Surge or Second Wind to buff his/her effort in relation to an episode of non-combat resolution that is comparable even to the loose guidance on action point and surge expenditure provided by 4e's DMG2 in its skill challenge section). This can produce illusionistic management of both pacing and resolution.
This is true, no such mechanic/advice exists. Without any sort of SC framework there's nothing much to hang it on either.
Fifth - and building on one and two - it may be that the core mechanics (PCs + monsters + the sorts of encounters/conflicts the game tends towards, given its resolution mechanics and its build guidelines) aren't as mechanically interesting as 3E (not know well be me, but I gather pretty intricate) and 4e. So the interest has to be "injected" by the GM from outside, which favours manipulation of the story via illusionist techniques.
I wonder what @
TwoSix or @
S'mon (or, of course, anyone else) thinks of these conjectures?
Hmmmm, not sure. I think my character has a lot of 'stuff' on his sheet. I am not entirely sure what exactly 5e is pushing for action. I guess it wouldn't be as mechanically INTRICATE as 4e. Combat is less tactical, though you can of course still have interesting combats, it is just much more on the DM to engineer the pieces of that.
I know your skill and save changes (and have read the thread that explains how your save changes will break this most modular of games!), and I know what slow healing is.
What are your Turn Undead, spell level cap and movement changes? I think the 5e rules for combat movement are probably its most dramatic innovation on the action economy side of things.
Well, 99% of all saves are against 3 stats, so in a sense they have 'solved' the issue of having too many defenses by just ignoring 3 of them. Of course the problem is just WORSE then in a sense because some classes get their bonuses in some useless defenses. Still, 4e had 1 or even 2 'off' defenses per character and it still worked.
I'm not sure how Turn progresses. It is fairly weak but usable (once a day) at low levels. Its helped us several times. The movement changes are a mixed bag. Coupled with the once-per-round OA they create some very weird and artificial tactics, potentially, though if you don't play on a grid then its probably abstract enough that nobody will get away with it. The rest of the action economy changes are OK. I think they're more really a design philosophy change cloaked in a change in mechanics (denigrating but not really REMOVING the minor action).
