D&D 5E So... what happened during the playtests?

[Azurewraith]

I mean, theoretically wouldn't it depend on two things-

First, the ninja wears black when killing important people.
But it's a white-ninja event for killing super-important people, like royalty.

Second, real ninjas don't wear white after labor day.

Jus' sayin'.

Technically real ninjas just wore pesants cloths, nor observe labour day. Just saying [emoji12]

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Unfortunately removal of DOAM was caused by the casting of the Grognard appeasement ritual. One of the main effects of said ritual is to remove nice things from fighters.

As a person whose favorite edition of D&D right up to the point that 5th edition was on my table was the one that got cancelled a few years before TSR closed up shop, I can't help but feel like the term "Grognard" should refer to a group of people that also includes myself - but then I get disappointed by that theoretical inclusion because fighters are, and have always been, tied (with wizard/magic-user, but never mind that) as my favorite class, and I think damage on a miss is just fine whether that "miss" is an attack roll that "missed" or an attack that is described as having "missed" because the HP total after the damage roll was subtracted didn't hit the threshold at which weapon to body contact is appropriate narration.

...and I did share my opinion on the matter as often as I saw the subject come up, but I couldn't keep up with the flood of posts (that mostly seemed to be from just one guy) shouting down the idea and making it seem too controversial to dare include in the game.

 

[Azurewraith]

Reading some of the things in this thread made me sad. Don't get me wrong 5e is my 2nd favourite editionby the sounds of some cut content it could of been 1st.

Is there anyway to get hold of the play test stuff or am I robbing houses.

 

[Uchawi]

As a person whose favorite edition of D&D right up to the point that 5th edition was on my table was the one that got cancelled a few years before TSR closed up shop, I can't help but feel like the term "Grognard" should refer to a group of people that also includes myself - but then I get disappointed by that theoretical inclusion because fighters are, and have always been, tied (with wizard/magic-user, but never mind that) as my favorite class, and I think damage on a miss is just fine whether that "miss" is an attack roll that "missed" or an attack that is described as having "missed" because the HP total after the damage roll was subtracted didn't hit the threshold at which weapon to body contact is appropriate narration.

...and I did share my opinion on the matter as often as I saw the subject come up, but I couldn't keep up with the flood of posts (that mostly seemed to be from just one guy) shouting down the idea and making it seem too controversial to dare include in the game.

Damage on a miss is misplaced wording of a valid concept, the correct concept is automatic damage. The line to walk is to limit it to higher levels for spells or any other ability. It demonstrates a high level of skill. However, the focus of 5E was to bring back old players (1e/2e/3e), so early edition concepts ruled in the end.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Unfortunately removal of DOAM was caused by the casting of the Grognard appeasement ritual. One of the main effects of said ritual is to remove nice things from fighters.

I don't think this is true. For one, it's not really a "grognard" issue; that's just a passive aggressive snipe at group of gamers you obviously don't like by your terminology you're using. It came down to how a person reconciled "should you actually do damage with weapons when you completely miss what you're attacking" and that is not a generational question. Fans of every edition were split. I've been playing 1e since 1981 all the way to 2012 when the playtests came out, and I really didn't have that much of an issue with it. It wasn't my first preference, but I could see the other side of the argument and wouldn't have worried too much if they kept it in.

Secondly, it assumes that the design team went out of their way to appease grognards, which is also untrue. It's an observation that makes me shake my head every time I read things like that. Just because some elements of TSR era D&D were brought into 5e, doesn't mean they were "appeasing grognards". Elements and concepts from every edition was brought into 5e. I'll never understand why people will ignore the elements from their favorite version, see elements from another version, and say or otherwise imply that 5e catered to that other version while ignoring theirs. If they really wanted to "appease the grognards", they would have used THAC0, save or die, made it more lethal, had level limits, increased niche protection, and never had things like dragonborn or tieflings as options to play, or had any non-magical healing or feats or ASIs.

And thirdly, the "nice things" you're talking about is purely subjective and your opinion. Obviously lots of people felt that DoaM wasn't a nice thing. I'm guessing the majority who filled out the surveys didn't think so, since that's what they seem to have made their changes based on. It's also blatantly untrue that any sort of influence from "grognard preferences" automatically means removing all the good things from the fighter design.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Damage on a miss is misplaced wording of a valid concept, the correct concept is automatic damage. The line to walk is to limit it to higher levels for spells or any other ability. It demonstrates a high level of skill. However, the focus of 5E was to bring back old players (1e/2e/3e), so early edition concepts ruled in the end.

Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but I'd hardly include 3e as an "early edition concept". The game was out for 25 years before 3e came along. Early edition concepts to me usually mean the first 1-20% of the game's life cycle or so. I also don't think the focus of 5e was on old school players either. That was part of the mission statement, but only a smaller part. Think about it, OSR players only make up a small % of D&D players. I think they wanted to bring back as many players as possible, from every edition, and find what design concepts allowed them to get the max total of players. I would say out of all the gaming groups who played D&D, the biggest group were the 3e players who went to PF, not the OSR group, and that's who the design team wanted to bring back the most. And 3e is not "old school".

 

[Eubani]

I don't think this is true. For one, it's not really a "grognard" issue; that's just a passive aggressive snipe at group of gamers you obviously don't like by your terminology you're using. It came down to how a person reconciled "should you actually do damage with weapons when you completely miss what you're attacking" and that is not a generational question. Fans of every edition were split. I've been playing 1e since 1981 all the way to 2012 when the playtests came out, and I really didn't have that much of an issue with it. It wasn't my first preference, but I could see the other side of the argument and wouldn't have worried too much if they kept it in.

Secondly, it assumes that the design team went out of their way to appease grognards, which is also untrue. It's an observation that makes me shake my head every time I read things like that. Just because some elements of TSR era D&D were brought into 5e, doesn't mean they were "appeasing grognards". Elements and concepts from every edition was brought into 5e. I'll never understand why people will ignore the elements from their favorite version, see elements from another version, and say or otherwise imply that 5e catered to that other version while ignoring theirs. If they really wanted to "appease the grognards", they would have used THAC0, save or die, made it more lethal, had level limits, increased niche protection, and never had things like dragonborn or tieflings as options to play, or had any non-magical healing or feats or ASIs.

And thirdly, the "nice things" you're talking about is purely subjective and your opinion. Obviously lots of people felt that DoaM wasn't a nice thing. I'm guessing the majority who filled out the surveys didn't think so, since that's what they seem to have made their changes based on. It's also blatantly untrue that any sort of influence from "grognard preferences" automatically means removing all the good things from the fighter design.

What I said was abit (Ok a lot) of tongue in cheek, but I do believe that there was too much looking backwards than forwards. My biggest gripe is what we got compared to what we were told we would get. I also think that fighters were done a disservice and I need not go into more discussions of issues abounding like "I attack"....repeat and DM may I that have been done to death. Suffice to say even the mumblings from designers saying they should done martial classes a bit differently. Ultimately I have enjoyed all editions but I refuse to be blind to their faults. The major fault I see in 5e is the attempt to make everyone happy weakening the end product and not being what we were told we would get which would of solved the first issue.

 

[Tony Vargas]

It's also blatantly untrue that any sort of influence from "grognard preferences" automatically means removing all the good things from the fighter design.

Extra Attack, for instance, is a nice thing that grognerd preference would tend to preserve. Conversely, just because it was a nice thing fighters had in the early days, doesn't mean that grognard-service was enough to get it into 5e - decent saves at high level, for instance. Con-Conversely, Second Wind probably had limited gronardappeal.

However, the focus of 5E was to bring back old players (1e/2e/3e), so early edition concepts ruled in the end.

You probably mean 'players resistant to 4e,' since 3e fans might've been pretty young/new at the time, especially if you count those starting with PF. And, I can't agree. 5e doesn't have a lot of 4e'isms, and tends to disguise them, but if it really were out exclusively to cater to the h4ter, it probably wouldn't even have those (and would certainly never add a Warlord class).

Trying to retain both long-time players (including those on both sides of the edition war), and, particularly attract lapsed players who hadn't touched a new edition since 1989, is a lot more plausible (and is what they were saying the whole time).

Ultimately I have enjoyed all editions but I refuse to be blind to their faults.

A good attitude to strive for.

 

[flametitan]

My own stance on DoaM would be a preference towards abilities that instead turn misses into hits (Whether it's automatic like reverse Legendary Resistance or by allowing you to add another roll on top of it like the battlemaster). I don't know if such abilities would be better, I just feel that makes a better mechanical representation of what's going on and the skill of the character involved.

I agree that the fighter could use some more cool things that aren't just additional bonuses to their attacks. It's a weird design space to work with, as it could easily veer into being perceived as "Martial Magic", but there's definitely things to give them.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I feel they made the major design choices early in the playtest but you're welcome to disagree.

Yes they did, based on how you defined major design choices. As far as I recall (and I read, watched, and scoured pretty much everything from the design team during the playtest), they never said that they didn't have that sort of thing already figured out. They weren't coming to the fans saying, "Hey guys! Let's make a never version of D&D! Suggestions?" They had a vision, and they asked for a lot of ongoing feedback to make sure they hit it.

Mr Mearls justified every one of his decisions with the survey results. I assumed it was clear that this was the only data he was interested in. In other words, he ignored what people were saying online and ignored the edition warriors.

I can see why you might have gotten that impression. From what I remember being told, I'm pretty sure that Trevor at least scanned the forums and reported what he felt was significant to the rest of the team. So Mike was not oblivious to the content of the online discussions.

I think the surveys were probably, ultimately, filled out by a fairly small proportion of gamers.

Nope. The 2 or more surveys had over 100,000 responses. That's very statistically significant, so I think they can have a great degree of confidence that they are getting good data. Unless the questions weren't phrased the best (sometimes that was the case).

[quoteI was one of 'em - I kept filling out those surveys to the bitter end. But, I was all but alone in that among the 40-60 gamers who frequented our FLGS. I could dragoon maybe a half-dozen of them at a time into playing at my playtest table, but, even when they had definite opinions, they wouldn't bother with the surveys. [/QUOTE]

Yeah, in my group of gamers it was almost impossible to get anyone else to take the surveys--even those who were playing the Next game I was running. It bugged me because I knew they were going to find things to complain about with the final results, but they wouldn't take the surveys that informed those results.

But people shared more than opinions, they also shared ideas. Some of these ideas were really good. Some were possibly better than the ones they came up in house and the only way to know for certain would have been to ask us (in the surveys).

While I am by no means a legal expert, I wouldn't be at all surprised if, despite the WotC forums probably saying in the user agreement that they could use anything we posted there, they were reluctant to directly use any specifically detailed system presented to them for fear of some sort of lawsuit getting possibly cooked up. It is entirely possible that posting a specific system is a guarantee it wouldn't get used. For that reason I intentionally never gave highly specific details for new systems in my feedback (and I feel a lot of it was taken into account).

Ah! But the problem is, if someone posted a class to the DM's Guild that was true to the Ninja, you wouldn't be able to see it.

Chicken and egg man, chicken and egg.

Yeah, WotC explicitly put a ninja in the 5e PHB, and many people still haven't found it. (Clue: 2nd sentence of 1st paragraph after "Way of the Shadow" on p.80)

Of course, the ninja in the 3e PHB is a little harder to find...