D&D 5E For the 1st time: I am the D&D target Audience!

[atanakar]

I'm a sucker and bought many books, boxes sets and miniatures for each edition. But I feel 5e has just the right balance. This my last edition.

 

[Arilyn]

I'm a sucker and bought many books, boxes sets and miniatures for each edition. But I feel 5e has just the right balance. This my last edition.

Famous last words.
What I keep saying about dice. I have enough gorgeous ones!

 

[Li Shenron]

I like 5e more than any other edition, but I have only bought the core books + Volo, and I currently only plan to buy Xanathar eventually. But it's good to know other people are enjoying other published books.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

This is the first time I felt like I wasn't the target audience.... and they made it obvious this was true during the playtest.

Starting from which edition?

 

[dave2008]

There are many things that put me off really here is one such.
View attachment 118377
Basically the games assumptions for me are just wrong from the very beginning.

I am not familiar with that snip. It sounds like setting information, not game information. What game assumptions are you talking about? It seems like you are implying the game requires magic, but that is definitely not true. My current group of 5 PCs has only one character that can do any magic (revised magic initiate), and the game works great. Actually, despite that snip I would say the game works better with less magic. However, maybe that is not what your talking about.

Personally, I can understand how odd inconsequential things can set one off. I skipped 3e entirely pretty much because I couldn't stand the graphic layout / format of the books.

Oh and yes I too saw the invocations of 1e too.

To be clear, I was saying 4e played like 1e for us.

 

[atanakar]

Famous last words.
What I keep saying about dice. I have enough gorgeous ones!

I know believe me. Still, I'm truly content with 5e. It plays like a better version of 2e, which is what I was waiting for when 3e and 4e came out. Now that I finally have want I want, I really don't need another edition of D&D.

 

[Garthanos]

I composed most of this at 4am my time I garantee its rambling

I am not familiar with that snip. It sounds like setting information, not game information.

It was a front and center to players in the player's handbook whatever you want to call it, and things like that set the stage for rewinding advancements for instance in what could be assumed accomplish-able by skills / without magic and this is the foundation for that DM adjudication combine that with mechanics as evidence - my fighter will get mechanical scrawny under - defined to poor advancement of 20 percentiles in something he is supposed to excel in (and no indicators really what having more skill really can actually do more at any level so you might as well call it a bust). Magic is supposed to be overwhelmingly more capable and it seems that way for non-combat at minimum.

To me that snippet defines an assumption and a goal, remember concept first design for 5e that is the paradigm.

4e explicitly said otherwise to that blurb many times and many places that the martial characters were able to accomplish analogous amounts of awesome via skill and discipline alone this is something they told both players and dms and it was pretty clear it was assumed and backed up mechanically by things like skill challenges and skill and utility powers (a great feature of 4e thrown away).

This blurb may be a small thing yes but it says up front you are supposed to aim low for non-magical ability and expectations for it;

What game assumptions are you talking about?

Bounded Accuracy is a design "feature" which impacts martial characters outside of combat far more than casters they do not get advancement in area or number of targets nor really any of the things spell advancement provides what they do not get reinforces the flavor text.

AND its even seems like there is a less obvious yoke on combat.
You cannot evoke the 1 man army of Chainmail when the game assumes you need to be challenged by zero levels and zero level enemies or even zero level challenges. I can find various hunter and monk and even a few fighter powers that can harm as many enemies as a 20th level 5e fighter and those appear at levels 1, 5, 7 etc... I think making Swarms and minions and solos and the like are an acknowledgement that enemies do need handled different based on the relative situation and that high level even in 4e had advancement for characters that wasnt obvious. Making a swarm of 100s soldiers and fighting the players in paragon could be handled either that way or with skill challenges. Aren't you the one who went through and changed virtually every monster in 5e?

So to me it really looks like the mechanics match the flavor text from that blurb ummm yay they succeeded.

To be clear, I was saying 4e played like 1e for us.

4e didnt play like it for me but it enabled certain things that 1e seemed to be aiming for (perhaps if my 1e DMs had extra awesome of their own I would be saying the same as you) and also elements 2e seemed aiming for but didnt follow through on - I loved the blurbs about inspirational sources for what a class was for instance from that edition.

More than "the latest edition doesnt seem to have me as the target" I felt each previous edition did things better than the last. (Someone asked for how long so yeh Bluebook - though recently going back investigating chainmail for inspiration)

5e is not better in my opinion it has bits that are better (backgrounds) but I do not trust that magic is even trying to remain balanced outside of low level combat (did they give up? Seems like it to me nobody plays high level and let the DM figure out non-combat balance seem not helpful).

 

[Sacrosanct]

Famous last words.
What I keep saying about dice. I have enough gorgeous ones!

Entirely plausible though.

1e was my last official edition. Well, some 2e elements. Skipped 3e and 4e. And I was fully prepared for AD&D to be my last edition. 5e feels the same way. If I wait another 20 years like I did between my last edition and 5e, I could very well be dead. So...it could be a true statement

 

[Arilyn]

Entirely plausible though.

1e was my last official edition. Well, some 2e elements. Skipped 3e and 4e. And I was fully prepared for AD&D to be my last edition. 5e feels the same way. If I wait another 20 years like I did between my last edition and 5e, I could very well be dead. So...it could be a true statement

Nah, real RPGers never die. They just roll up a new character!

 

[dave2008]

I composed most of this at 4am my time I garantee its rambling

It was a front and center to players in the player's handbook whatever you want to call it, and things like that set the stage for rewinding advancements for instance in what could be assumed accomplish-able by skills / without magic and this is the foundation for that DM adjudication combine that with mechanics as evidence - my fighter will get mechanical scrawny under - defined to poor advancement of 20 percentiles in something he is supposed to excel in (and no indicators really what having more skill really can actually do more at any level so you might as well call it a bust). Magic is supposed to be overwhelmingly more capable and it seems that way for non-combat at minimum.

To me that snippet defines an assumption and a goal, remember concept first design for 5e that is the paradigm.


Bounded Accuracy is a design "feature" which impacts martial characters outside of combat far more than casters they do not get advancement in area or number of targets nor really any of the things spell advancement provides what they do not get reinforces the flavor text.

4e explicitly said otherwise to that blurb many times and many places that the martial characters were able to accomplish analogous amounts of awesome via skill and discipline alone this is something they told both players and dms and it was pretty clear it was assumed and backed up mechanically by things like skill challenges and skill and utility powers (a great feature of 4e thrown away).

This blurb may be a small thing yes but it says up front you are supposed to aim low for non-magical ability and expectations for it; And my fighter can truly expect to be huge 20 percentiles better than I was entering heroic tier on a skill I am supposed to be good at and focused on.

AND its even seems like there is a less obvious yoke on combat.
You cannot evoke the 1 man army of Chainmail when the game assumes you need to be challenged by zero levels and zero level enemies or even zero level challenges. I can find various hunter and monk and even a few fighter powers that can harm as many enemies as a 20th level 5e fighter and those appear at levels 1, 5, 7 etc... I think making Swarms and minions and solos and the like are an acknowledgement that enemies do need handled different based on the relative situation and that high level even in 4e had advancement for characters that wasnt obvious. Making a swarm of 100s soldiers and fighting the players in paragon could be handled either that way or with skill challenges. Aren't you the one who went through and changed virtually every monster in 5e?

So to me it really looks like the mechanics match the flavor text from that blurb ummm yay they succeeded.


4e didnt play like it for me but it enabled certain things that 1e seemed to be aiming for (perhaps if my 1e DMs had extra awesome of their own I would be saying the same as you) and also elements 2e seemed aiming for but didnt follow through on - I loved the blurbs about inspirational sources for what a class was for instance from that edition.

More than the latest edition doesnt seem to have me as the target I felt each previous edition did things better than the last. (Someone asked for how long so yeh Bluebook - though recently going back investigating chainmail for inspiration)
5e is not better in my opinion it has bits that are better (backgrounds) but I do not trust that magic is even trying to remain balanced outside of low level combat (did they give up? Seems like it to me nobody plays high level and let the DM figure out non-combat balance seem not helpful).

I'm not a new player so maybe those comments have less of an impact on me. I don't think the mechanics back up your fears, but my fears and experience are not yours so I see things differently I;m sure.

So what your afraid of is magic vs martial balance? It is not an issue for my group as we have very little magic, but this has definitely been discussed before. From a DPR perspective they classes are pretty balanced. So I assume the issue you see is one or both of the following:

1) Too few non-magical options/too many magical class options. Definitely more magical options than I will ever use. However, I don't need a lot more than the fighter and the rogue for my martial options. I did have to homebrew a spell-less ranger though. However, as it stands with just the WotC Fighter and Rogue we have:

• Assassin
• Cavalier
• Champion
• Battle Master
• Inquisitive
• Mastermind
• Purple Dragon Knight
• Samurai
• Scout
• Swashbuckler
• Thief

Not to bad (more than I need), and with the UA articles out recently I think we are likely to see some more.

2) Versatility (or lack their of): I think this is a stronger argument, for fighters at least. If you get past the class name some of the rogue archtypes make interesting fighters and rangers IMO and provide a degree of versatility. However, it doesn't come close to what is available with magic. That being said, the UA variant class features offer some very interesting options to provide more diversity and options for martial characters. I think we are likely to see those soon, so I think that will help.

Personally, I don't need or want the copy / paste re-fluff approach of 4e powers anymore, but I am always for more martial options. I don't think 5e is perfect, and the version of it we play would be virtually unrecognizable to someone who just started with the game, but I think the core is very strong and great for modifying. Also think WotC has done a respectable job balancing the classes while giving them different structure as well. Not something I necessarily need, but it is a tough thing to do well and they did a good job IMO.

My favorite part of 5e is how easy i find it to modify to something my group likes. In that respect I find it an improvement to 4e, which was an improvement to 1e (for us).