D&D (2024) What's Your Experience Like with '24?

[Sulicius]

I’ve been playing through the Sunless Citadel with a couple of experienced players, and I am definitely seeing a power increase because PC’s have more flexibility. It’s not a bad thing overall, since it just helps players do what they want more.

They are tearing through encounters, but it’s no surprise. I intentionally didn’t change the encounters yet just to have a good sense of the differences from the PC side. They will enter the second floor next session, and I am scaling the encounters up by using the new DMG math and probably some 3rd party monsters.

We have also switched to 2024 in the campaign I am a player with, and it had been kinda rough for my PC. Her whole build was centered around some edge cases, like taking Find Greater Steed and Destructive Wave as magical secrets, or ignoring the move speed penalty for wearing heavy armor as a dwarf.

Apart from that, I noticed less changes at level 11, mostly because the game is already so volatile and unpredictable at this tier because of high level spells and features.

I also did a little test with 4 level 3 characters against 8 lions, as Sly Flourish expected the PC’s to get decimated. Not so! Only 1 PC went down and rolled a nat 20 on a death save. The two barbarians definitely made things easier. Barbarians look like powerhouses now!

 

[Mort]

. Barbarians look like powerhouses now!

I don't get to play much (forever DM mostly), but next opportunity I get to play, I'm definitely trying out a World Tree Barbarian!

 

[Sulicius]

I don't get to play much (forever DM mostly), but next opportunity I get to play, I'm definitely trying out a World Tree Barbarian!

Oh man, it was a tag team of a Berserker and World Tree barbs. They were unstoppable.

 

[Morrus]

So, those of you participating in this thread in good faith, thank you. I like hearing your experiences—good and bad.

To clarify: conversation drift and disagreement are natural social behaviours. We don't recognise thread ownership here--you can start a conversation, but you can't control a conversation; just like in real life. Please refrain from telling people what they may or may not talk about. Thanks.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

The fact that you use the phrase "turd polishing" suggests that you weren't enthusiastic about 5E to begin with, though.

Not exactly, I do like 5e quite a bit, I was more using that phrase because it is commonly used and describes the situation well enough. Whatever you thought of 5e before, it is slightly better polished now and you'll probably have a similar but slightly more positive opinion of it. But bottom line it's not that different.

If it's no closer to your preferences, why bother throwing another $150 at it? Is the small benefit over 5.0 (which still doesn't match your needs) really worth it to you?

There's no need to pay $150, the new rules are all available for free. So yes to me the small benefit over 5.0 is worth the zero dollars (and non-zero time investment to learn new rules) that it costs.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Not exactly, I do like 5e quite a bit, I was more using that phrase because it is commonly used and describes the situation well enough. Whatever you thought of 5e before, it is slightly better polished now and you'll probably have a similar but slightly more positive opinion of it. But bottom line it's not that different.

There's no need to pay $150, the new rules are all available for free. So yes to me the small benefit over 5.0 is worth the zero dollars (and non-zero time investment to learn new rules) that it costs.

Really? The bastion rules are available for free?

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Sure, I get why you would play. I just don't personally understand the value of paying another $150 for a slightly better version of the game I'm already playing (and for the record, I see Level Up as quite a bit more than a slight improvement over WotC 5e).

For me, Level-Up has areas where it's drastically better than WotC 5e, and areas where it's not (that is, better for me). Primarily that area would be the "Advanced" part of A5e. I would actually personally prefer slightly-less-advanced 5e. Something more akin to Shadow of the Weird Wizard, maybe, but slightly more-like D&D than that, if you get what I mean. Something a bit toward Shadowdark, but again, still a little closer to 5e than all the way to Shadowdark. I think I've said before, that 5e is pretty close to the maximum complexity that I'd like, but I'd like the complexity to be in very different places than it is. Certainly, I'd prefer Spellcasting to be utterly simplified. I'm barely even interested in anything over level 12 in D&D, for example.

But, you know - no one cares about what I want. And that's fine.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Really? The bastion rules are available for free?

The Bastion rules aren't very good, so it's not a big deal. A5e's Strongholds are probably better (though I haven't read them in awhile, and I can't remember specifics). I suppose you could homebrew a hybrid of them. (If anyone out there does that, please send it to me.)

 

[Parmandur]

For me, Level-Up has areas where it's drastically better than WotC 5e, and areas where it's not (that is, better for me). Primarily that area would be the "Advanced" part of A5e. I would actually personally prefer slightly-less-advanced 5e. Something more akin to Shadow of the Weird Wizard, maybe, but slightly more-like D&D than that, if you get what I mean. Something a bit toward Shadowdark, but again, still a little closer to 5e than all the way to Shadowdark. I think I've said before, that 5e is pretty close to the maximum complexity that I'd like, but I'd like the complexity to be in very different places than it is. Certainly, I'd prefer Spellcasting to be utterly simplified. I'm barely even interested in anything over level 12 in D&D, for example.

But, you know - no one cares about what I want. And that's fine.

Keep your eyes on the Cosmere RPG that is coming up: beyond the literary license, what they have cooking system wise seems to fall into thst sweet spot you are talking about.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Keep your eyes on the Cosmere RPG that is coming up: beyond the literary license, what they have cooking system wise seems to fall into thst sweet spot you are talking about.

Thanks for the tip!