D&D 5E Starter Set Character Sheet Revealed!

DDNFan said:

You're completely missing the point.

If the only way in 5th edition to gain this ability is through the fighter chassis, that's how people will get it.

Eberron feat didn't have prerequisites, so anyone could take it. Then it's either unbalanced on its own, and can be banned easily, or it isn't an it isn't a problem. By my own playtesting experience, it can be a problem when you can offload 2 daily spells in rapid succession. If it isn't unbalancing, why didn't they give a similar ability to mages? Eldritch knights are going to be very popular in 5th edition, I guess.

I like multiclassing when there are lots of viable options. Not when there is only take this, because any other choice is super weak in comparison. I find it surprising that so many compain about classic wizard power due to their spells, yet fail to realize that having the ability to be twice as powerful when you can offload such a huge burst of energy than your opponents or other single classed mages, and suffer little drawback (Giving up your 20th level capstone isn't a very big penalty for having the ability to nova so spectacularly throughout the duration of the entire campaign), is much worse.

I actually don't think it's overpowered for fighters. I like that fighters can get something nice and be able to whoop some behind once in a while. But when the mage can swoop in and steal his best stuff for a 2 level dip, and benefit his main class better than probably any other MC combination, then I start to wonder what the devs were smoking when they let this slip through. Did they not have any powergamers playtesting this edition? I don't think I would ever play a mage who didn't multiclass just for this ability, even if he wasn't interested in wearing heavy armor or going into melee. Extra HP and saves are a nice bonus, but being able to nova any two of your spells from your ever increasing spell list? Yes, please! I'll take that. Each and every time.

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Giving double action burst to anyone, especially the fighter who has the most attacks in the game (and I havent even contemplated two weapons yet, shudder) is just straight broken. It's broken for spells too, but limiting action surge to fighters only doesnt fix the problem, it just limits it to one class. That class will still be OP as a result in any module without a strict timeframe to keep short rests in check (unless there is a rule about you cant take multiple short rests in a row). Action surge would have been balanced as an extra attack only, and would have still been very good for a level 2 ability.

Psikerlord# said:

Its worse than the 5MWD spellcaster issue, because second wind goes to the REAL crux of the 5MWD - hit points. Low Hit points are what really make the party stop and break. The party can continue on without spells, but not HP.

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The problem with the 5MWD was that PCs were stopping long before they got to low hitpoints. They were stopping simply because a couple of high level spells were gone. I can tell you that the problem I experienced had nothing to do with hitpoints at all. It was "I used up both my 5th level spells. 4th level spells are useless because of how little damage they do compared to the monsters we fight. I suggest we just go home and come back tomorrow when I have both my 5th level spells back. If we're forced to rely on lower level spells there's a real chance we'll die. I think the Orcs will continue living in their ancestral home for the next day if we leave and come back."

Hitpoints are ONE of the factors of the 5MWD. But it's major issue was that each encounter was life or death so proceeding to the next one without your full compliment of abilities was suicide.

Psikerlord# said:

Ray of Frost is analagous to basic attacks, not really relevant to a discussion about second wind/action surge.

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The thing is, with the balance in 5e, basic attacks are a valid form of winning a combat. I'd be willing to go into combat with 0 spell slots as a Wizard knowing that I have a good chance of surviving in 5e. When the difference between my basic attacks and my spells in 3e were 1d8-1 points of damage to 20d6 points of damage, I'm not going to rely on my basic attacks for anything.

Saelorn said:

some players will not accept a game that would treat characters differently based solely on a meta-game issue like who is controlling them.

I would hazard that there is a significant DM base which would be interested in having a character that is wounded (for story purposes, because it fits the narrative) but would become frustrated if the rules didn't allow for a simple way of modeling that.

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Is this not simple enough? If you don't like something then by all means change it or throw it out, but don't make up problems for the sake of throwing out a cause. Just say "I'd prefer if it weren't this way" and move on.

KaiiLurker said:

I like fighters mundane

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this has nothing to do with wanting fighters to do cool things, just enough to allow them to work as part of a team -and not only a 'we all pound it to death together' team, but also a 'I kill it before it kills you and you keep me alive' team - an ability that basically allows the fighter to ignore what is another class schtick is pretty worrying.

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In the playtest Bestiary, orcs do 8 hp damage, gnolls 6, human warriors and hobgoblins 4, kobolds 3 and goblins 2.

A first-level second wind restores 6.5 hp, or one to two typical hits. I doubt that it is going to make the healing cleric useless.

KaiiLurker said:

this Nothing is allowed until DM decides to is the most dangerous thing that could happen. I still insist that a more extense standard for play is desirable, and DMs still need to be encouraged to say yes, giving DMs the sole monopoly over character options will discourage the sales of lots of phbs, why buy something if all you get to use is already free?

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It seems a bit hyperbolic to me to argue from "Multi-classing is expressly labelled as requiring GM-side permission" to "No one will buy the PHB because the GMs of the world will confine them to the options in Basic.

I think the PHB will contain lots of single-class PC build options. And in 4e, the hybrid rules basically came with a similar "handle with care" caveat, but I doubt that this was, in itself, a big factor or the sale of 4e books.

Der-Rage said:

Is this not simple enough? If you don't like something then by all means change it or throw it out, but don't make up problems for the sake of throwing out a cause. Just say "I'd prefer if it weren't this way" and move on.

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That actually does look pretty complicated. I'll assume that I'm supposed to be looking at the part where it says "broken leg"? The thing is, I have no idea what that means. It's certainly not something I've ever seen in any of the rule books. What's the mechanical effect of it? How long does it take to heal?

Because suddenly we're using a model that keeps track of specific injuries and may or may not be de-coupled entirely from the Hit Point system. That's far from simple. I mean, not having to track specific injuries like that has always been one of the strengths of abstract Hit Points.

But if there was a rule somewhere that covered broken limbs, then I'd be fine with that, and I'd expect it to apply equally to PCs and NPCs. Because anything that can cause a broken limb in an NPC must also be capable of causing a broken limb in a PC, because there is no difference between PCs and NPCs within the game world.

DDNFan said:

All the healing up portion of Second Wind does is throw the middle finger to the cleric's role in D&D.

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Huh?

It's OK for mages and clerics to deal damage at range (eg Ray of Frost, Sacred Flame) without this being a "middle finger" to the role of fighters and rangers in the game (as the game's pre-eminent archers). But it's not OK for fighters to have a modest amount of healing?

You may or may not like martial hit point recovery, but niche protection isn't a very strong argument against it, at least in my view.

DDNFan said:

I hope Cybit's right and you can't take multiple short rests in a row

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If gives way too strong an incentive for the fighter to say, let's rest for another two hours, even if the rest of the group has run out of hit dice and is just sitting there.

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Whatever techniques will be used to stop players of daily-powered casters from spamming extended rests can presumably be deployed to stop players of fighters from spamming short rests.

The need for such techniques seems a pretty natural consequence of decoupling different PC builds from a uniform recovery cycle.

Saelorn said:

earlier editions both expected and encouraged the use of PC rules to describe NPCs to various degrees

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This is true of 4e too. For instance, a monster or NPC stat block looks very similar to a PC one (though if the PC is much above 1st level the monster/NPC one is probably quite a bit simpler), and the same action resolution rules (with some minor exceptions around action point usage and what happens at 0 hp) that are used to determine how a PC affects an NPC/monster in combat are used to determine how an NPC/monster affects a PC in combat.

It's true that 4e's NPC/monster build rules are different from those for PCs, but this is true in AD&D as well.

I was reminded of this recently when reading the PHB errata in Dragon 35 (from 1980), p 34:


Page 100 of the DMG, which sets out those racial adjustments for NPCs, also sets out stat adjustments and requirements for NPC members of character classes. They are not the same as those for PCs (eg an NPC fighter, rather than needing STR 9 and CON 7 as a PC does, gains a +2 to rolled STR and a +1 to rolled CON; an NPC monk rather than needing 15 STR, DEX and WIS, 11 CON and 6 INT and CHA, as a PC one does, needs only 12 STR and 15 WIS and DEX).

Saelorn said:

Fast healing also means that you can't find a seriously injured NPC anywhere, which invalidates any number of possible narratives. (Or it means that you have different rules for PCs and NPCs, which causes all sorts of other issues.)

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Saelorn said:

fast natural healing plays to a very specific interpretation of hit points - one without a significant physical component - making any narrative that would include such things entirely inappropriate.

We can't play a story where someone is waylaid by a week due to injury in a world where all damage disappears overnight. We can't play a story where anyone could be waylaid for a week, because any significant physical damage would be inconsistent with overnight or martial healing.

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Who is within the scope of "anyone"?

I GM a 4e game, and I have had NPCs who have suffered severe physical damage - for instance blindness and maiming from being in melee with hobgoblins. The hit point and healing rules didn't pose any obstacle to this (because they are not a system for modelling or deciding what happens when NPC orcs fight NPC hobgoblins off-screen - I just make that stuff up!).

Even when it comes to PCs, many 4e players have had PCs waylaid by a week due to injury by the simple expedient of changing the extend rest rules. The only reason this seems not to work for the 5e second wind is because (unlike it's 4e counterpart) it appears to have no resource cost. But I wouldn't be surprised if there is some other part of the game (eg in the rest rules, or at least some variants of them) that in fact impose such a cost.

Saelorn said:

I'll assume that I'm supposed to be looking at the part where it says "broken leg"? The thing is, I have no idea what that means. It's certainly not something I've ever seen in any of the rule books. What's the mechanical effect of it? How long does it take to heal?

Because suddenly we're using a model that keeps track of specific injuries and may or may not be de-coupled entirely from the Hit Point system. That's far from simple. I mean, not having to track specific injuries like that has always been one of the strengths of abstract Hit Points.

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I'm not sure how serious you are here.

In my own game, where one of the NPCs had a broken leg, what were the mechanical effects? It meant that the character in question couldn't walk, and needed to be carried. (From memory, one of the PCs healed the break using a Remove Affliction ritual.) A blinded NPC can't see. Etc.

If you're saying that abstract hit points handle all this in a way the free descriptions like "broken leg" don't, I'm not sure I follow. In a world in which no injuries ever occur other than hit point loss, there aren't any broken legs or any missing eyes either, because losing hit points doesn't impede movement (which is a definite consequence of having your leg broken) nor impede your vision (which is a definite consequence of being blinded by a sword-stroke across the face). D&D has never had any mechanic, other than extremely magical swords (vorpal, sharpness) and staves (withering), for imposing serious injury by way of fighting with weapons. Certainly lost hp aren't such, because they don't impede you and can be naturally healed quite easily - whereas broken legs don't heal in a week, and humans never grow back lost limbs or eyes.

I have to admit that I'm a little mystified that so many people seem to think casting two spells in one round is an absolutely huge deal. Seems like whilst that'd be nice, it's no different to a normal Mage getting surprise and winning initiative, which isn't typically seen as game-breaking.

Further, you can only cast so many spells, and if you insist on pumping out two at the beginning of every combat, seems like you'll be out real fast...

So I think this might be an area where, even if you can, via this suggested MC'ing, it's not actually likely to "break the game" in a serious way. The small number of total spells one can cast in 5E really limits it's value.

I don't know if Second Wind is an issue if you interpret what a short rest to mean "1 or more hours", not "1 hour multiple times for multiple recharges.

That seems to be the intent to me at least, and from what I understand of the shift in 5e philosophy, DM rules is what goes. The wording of the text seems to back up this interpretation of the intent.

So...

Players: "We take an hours rest... and then another hours rest ... and then another hours rest ... then we continue."

DM: "Great. During those 3 hours you have taken a short rest. The abilities of your characters that can be used again after a short rest are available once more as you are feeling refreshed and energised."

If the DM is letting you get away with anything else ... well it seems to me that is because that is what the DM has chosen to let you get away with, rather than smething broken in the baseline rules.

There seems to be a big difference from taking a 4e ' 5 minute short rest ' (I can imagine a party managing to get 5 minutes of catching breath in a dangerous predator cave system -fairly easily) to being left in peace for an entire hour (that aint going to be so easy to achieve whenver you want it to ... an hour is a long time! A lot can happen).

Also I really do not see these abilities as 4e encounter power equivalents. They are more like quasi-daily powers. My players would be having to work their butts off to achieve an hour's rest mid adventure, that is for sure! I can see it more as a reward point where they have reached a certain safe zone through wit and wile where they can finally achieve that hours rest in peace, and then carry on further into the heart of peril slightly bolstered and refreshed.

But all said and done I know very little about the rules. Just seems like a lot of fuss with not so much info, and of the little info we do have, a possible rules misinterpretation generating much of the discussion.

Ruin Explorer said:

I have to admit that I'm a little mystified that so many people seem to think casting two spells in one round is an absolutely huge deal.

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The designers seem a bit worried about it, at least in the playtest. They have a Cantrip-only limit for Haste, and the stricter limit for Swift spells. In light of that, I think it's reasonable to worry about Action Surge being potentially overpowered for a mage; just as the Aura of Antipathy ability looks like it could be broken for a fighter in a way that it may not be for a mage.

But the issue is such an obvious one (and has been known to be an issue ever since the muiti-classing option launched last year) that I would be surprised if the designers haven't thought about it too!