D&D (2024) First playtest thread! One D&D Character Origins.

[MarkB]

right now I WOULD just say "yeah you can all try" but I will if Play test becomes rules have to decide every time "Do I want to give this person a 5% chance even if they can't make it"

Right, and to me the solution to that is not in the DC of the task, but in considering whether there's anything about the character that would give them that chance.

The easiest gate there is proficiency, but other things could come into play - like if there's something that's come up before in the campaign that would give this character insight into the task, or if the player proposes a novel approach to the problem.

 

[MarkB]

For my may-likely-never-get-made home ruleset, I've wondered about just having the 20 allow an exploding die roll (get a 20 and will another die to add to it to try to get to the DC if 20 isn't good enough).Could do similar on a 1 to get something lower.

If you adopt the natural-20-gives-inspiration rule, this could be a variant of that - if the natural 20 isn't sufficient to succeed, you can immediately spend that inspiration to make the roll explode.

 

[I'm A Banana]

if we take it to be 100% honest the intent and belief of the dev and management team is this is it... the one and only edition going forward never to change again (and I don't buy that entirely) there is still the fact that someday the sales will drop and someone (maybe even someone new not in magement/dev team today) will say "I bet if we modernize this with a new edition we can up sales for a bit"

Totally true!

I think that WotC, internally, knows that there's no real getting off of the edition treadmill (or the e.5 treadmill). At least in the near future. Like, the game NEEDS to put out a new core book set every once in a while that everyone needs to buy again because that is how you pay these folks' salary. Jeremy Crawford deserves to eat! And that can be a good thing, too! It is commonly accepted that we need a new Ranger, probably a new Sorcerer, that some feats are Worth It and some are Really Not, that Inspiration and Downtime are cool rules that are sorely under-utilized...it's been a while, the game could use a facelift.

I think they're also aware of the friction this ALWAYS causes. Especially in the wake of 4e, I'd guess, they know that each refresh splits the fan base and causes some contention. They named the thing "One D&D," they don't want you to have to change how you're playing, they clearly don't want this to be a hard break.

Deep down, this kind of break isn't even really about game design. Perfectly compatible or not, you're asking people to relearn definitions. Every time you slightly redefine "Dragonborn," two people at the same table who have two different experiences of dragonborn think it means two distinct things and when someone wants to play a dragonborn, everyone at the table needs to figure out what their game thinks Dragonborn is. And the default bias is always toward the new and novel and actively supported version, however hard you stress that you don't HAVE to choose that definition.

 

[Parmandur]

wow I knew people back in the 90's that called skills and powers 3rd edition... but now I want to start calling 1D&D 15th edition

LOL, it's more honest than "1D&D." I honestly feel a bit insulted by the marketing BS there.

if we take it to be 100% honest the intent and belief of the dev and management team is this is it... the one and only edition going forward never to change again (and I don't buy that entirely) there is still the fact that someday the sales will drop and someone (maybe even someone new not in magement/dev team today) will say "I bet if we modernize this with a new edition we can up sales for a bit"

So, don't think of it in terms of Edition, because that's always been marketing jargon. Think of it in terms of engine, like in a video game. This is the forever engine of base D&D, and by that standard "OneD&D" is honest and straightforward. They will do new typical editions, in the publishing sense, but they have no business interest in completely overhauling the engine under the hood (Race and Class are more like body detailing, not the engine).

and they said that about 3.5... and they said when 4e came out "The game will remain the same" but love or hate it we know WotC has a habit of reinventing the wheel

No, what I'm saying is that theybwant people to use these Races and Backgrounds with 2014 Classes, using the 2014 PHB and DMG for the rules when playing, other than the adjustments in this document. So this is material designed to be plugged in to the existing vehicle of the game.

correct, but this also requires extra work on the DM side...

I said it on Tic Tok, but if you know 3 players have training in an 'open locks tool' (theives tools, locksmith tools or tinker tools) and 1 has +3 1 has +5 and 1 has +9... if they come across a lock do you remember 1 can't make the roll? do you ask "what is your mod?" before rolling?

now opening locks the DM may (if it comes up often) have a pretty good idea, but without looking how many people can remember what players have what mods?

Gating by proficiency, it's already part of the game. A good example is Critical Role, Mercer will ask his table who is Proficient in History and only allow the PCs who have Proficiency to have a go at a check, snd those gated checks are all over the Adventure books, too. This is already standard in 5E.

So, say you have a Paladin with +3 to Religion because he is Proficient but not that smart, and a Cleric with a +8. The Paladin and Cleric are the only ones who can roll on a given Religion check at all, even if the Wizard has +5 Intelligence. The narrative for the Paladin getting it while the Cleric doesn't is easy: thr Paladin just happened to have read and retained some vital vit of information the Cleric had not.

This is super fast and easy in practice.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Right, and to me the solution to that is not in the DC of the task, but in considering whether there's anything about the character that would give them that chance.

The easiest gate there is proficiency, but other things could come into play - like if there's something that's come up before in the campaign that would give this character insight into the task, or if the player proposes a novel approach to the problem.

i just don't like it... it's not a deal breaker, but I am going to say vote down

 

[doctorbadwolf]

This is their explicitly stated intention. Heck, it's probably part of the reason they're calling it "One D&D." It's the same game, see! One D&D, not multiple!

Having seen this kind of refresh happen in every edition, I think that intention is optimistic. It's not even something related to the design of the game, really. It could be the exact same text with the word "elf" replaced with the word "sandwich" and people would be adverse about mixing. One need not be reticent. People will be, anyway. That kind of code switching and re-learning will require more of people than they may be willing to give (when my player says her mountain dwarf criminal has the alert feat, what does that mean? Can she be surprised? Does she have heavy armor proficiency? Screw it, everyone just use the new rules 'cuz that's what's actively supported.)

The one point where I largely agree with this sentiment is that it’s annoying to have an updated version and an original version, that isn’t just errata. Hopefully they can thread the needle and avoid any major problems. We shall see.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

The one point where I largely agree with this sentiment is that it’s annoying to have an updated version and an original version, that isn’t just errata. Hopefully they can thread the needle and avoid any major problems. We shall see.

Do they have to? I reckon that individual tables will swing one way or another or move up to the current rules when they start a new campaign.

 

[Maxperson]

The bolded part is the biggest issue. I do not see even a mild implication to that effect. The sidebar literally is there to show that you don’t need to be reticent about mixing things from across 5e’s publication.

Are you talking about the Power Level sidebar?

 

[Parmandur]

The one point where I largely agree with this sentiment is that it’s annoying to have an updated version and an original version, that isn’t just errata. Hopefully they can thread the needle and avoid any major problems. We shall see.

To be honest, if they continue to have asides in the vein of the Baclgroujd ASI sidebar...I think they can pull it off.

I am very curious to see their maximum proposals for Classes, and how they want to handle backwards compatibility.

 

[Maxperson]

I'm still 36 pages behind, but the sheer number of people I'm seeing who seem to think that "backwards compatible" must mean "exactly the same with no changes" is staggering.

Backwards compatible means that you must be able to mix and match old content with new and have a roughly equal experience power wise. It doesn't have to be exactly the same, but the range needs to be close to the same. If you can't do that, it's not backwards compatible.