D&D 5E 2/4/2013 L&L:A Change in Format

[Blackwarder]

Grab it while its hot!
http://wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20130204

We got some new info about the mysterious missing exploration rule, a shame they didn't published them since our group is right about to set sail toward the Isle of Dread.

Up comming Barbarian and Fighter tweaks and a sneak peak at what the mass combat rules might look like.

Warder

 

[GX.Sigma]

Tentatively excited about these new exploration rules. I'm not so sure about the whole "DM draws the map" thing - classic materials (including the 1e DMG, B1, and B2) very strongly advised DMs not to help the players with the mapping. I'm skeptical of anything that goes directly against the intentions of the original designers. Still, the system seems like just what I want, so I'll give it a go.

Nice to hear about the mass combat rules.

 

[Blackwarder]

I agree, I'm not thrilled about that either, another thing missing is encumbrance rules...We will see.Warder

 

[JamesonCourage]

In this model of play, the wilderness works like an enormous dungeon waiting to be explored.

These are the exploration rules? Ick. That'd get eliminated from my games straight away.

The rules serve as a structure by giving DMs the basics of how far the characters can travel in a matter of minutes, hours, or a day. They also provide guidelines regarding how pace can affect speed and readiness for an encounter and how random encounters fit into the balance between speed of travel and caution. These rules will be part of the next packet.

This sounds better. Depending on implementation, even good.

...you can expect the barbarian to power down a little, the fighter's maneuvers to become a bit more flexible and useful, and the barbarian to also get a few more things to make the class more distinct from the fighter, especially when the barbarian isn't raging.

Good stuff.

Adventures should save you time and give you ideas, but not at the expense of playing to D&D's strengths, flexibility, and possibilities. It's definitely something that's been on my mind as we're talking about adventure support in the future.

No interest in it, personally, but cool that they're thinking about it for the many people that use pre-made adventures.

In essence, these rules are guidelines that replace die rolls with the estimated damage per attacker when two big groups fight. Given that X orcs can attack Y giants, and vice versa, you can quickly determine how much damage the two sides soak up each round. I also worked up a simple table to determine what percentage of a mob makes a saving throw against a given DC, making things like cloud kill fairly easy to adjudicate as they roll across a huge battlefield.

That sounds underwhelming, but it's better than nothing.

Hopefully, these guidelines will be a useful middle ground between our standard combat rules and the full-fledged rules for mass combat.

Well, at least it's not the full-fledged mass combat rules. Looking forward to something more substantial.

Overall, I feel pretty "meh" about the update. But, they kicked the ball down the road a bit, so I'll keep an eye open for what they come up with. As always, play what you like

 

[Li Shenron]

Wow! The exploration rules sound very promising, I would really like something structured to handle all those phases of exploration where you have only a few interesting things in an otherwise long trip (even if "long" might mean just a corridor in a dungeon or a tunnel in a cave complex). IMXP in these moments the players tend to do almost all the time the same thing: "I keep looking for traps" says the Rogue, "I walk in the front and stay ready for combat" says the Fighter, etc. but the problem I usually have is that the DM either

(a) remains in "full-description mode" detailing every step the PC take, which results in frequent periods of boredom when there is nothing interesting to be found (or at least it isn't found successfully)
(b) fast-forward to the interesting places, practically telling the players about when there is actually something interesting to be found

Another way to deal with this problem is to have something to do or to find in almost every dungeon room (or whatever), but I very much want to have very large locales with sparse points of interests (e.g. the caves of Moria).

I think a better defined structure for exploration would allow the DM to create a "pace" for exploration which automatically runs fast over uninteresting places (or over missed opportunities) from the player's POV without skipping them altogether from the PC's POV, only to stop and slow down to full-description mode as soon as the PCs find something, or something finds the PCs...

--------

The "middle ground rules" between normal combat and mass combat is just what I was hoping for last spring!! I would really, really like to feature fights against hordes of small monsters or combats between 2 small armies, these can vary the story of an adventure very well.

And when discussing about this on ENW, I was just thinking about a system that would approximate the outcome of the regular combat rules (which otherwise would make such battle last incredibly long), for example by replacing rounds with minutes and dice of damage with dice of killed monsters. It doesn't have to be like that, but I think they are heading into a similar direction, which is just great news to me!

 

[Falling Icicle]

The exploration rules sound intriguing. I hope we don't have to wait months for the next packet to see them.

The Barbarian and Fighter changes also sound good. I hope they give the Barbarian the option to learn some abilities that are similar to the cool primal powers they had in 4e.

 

[delericho]

Second, in my personal experience I've always wanted an excuse to tell DMs to map dungeons for their players. I've had a lot of games grind to a halt as players asked me for details on where a door was set in a wall or how a particularly complex nest of hallways worked. It's pretty easy for a person looking at a room to sketch it, but a bit of a pain for a DM to rattle off a verbal description of that room over and over again. In running In Search of the Unknown a year or so ago, I found it much easier to draw the map for the players as they explored. It sped up play and kept things moving.

This is the only bit that I disliked. Basically, it's very much one of those "YMMV" situations - some groups will want the DM to draw the map; some groups will equally emphatically not want the DM to draw the map. And that's really something for the players and DM to discuss amongst themselves and decide what they will do.

The game itself really should be supporting both approaches. (Indeed, it could even usefully discuss the pros and cons of each approach.)

Oh, and incidentally, including a power/skill use so that a player can force the DM to draw the map is the worst possible approach. Because then some groups who would much rather have the DM draw the map will feel that he now can't unless one of the PCs buys that power (and so misses out on something else). And likewise, DMs who really object to drawing the map will dislike it no less just because one of his players has invested in that power - with the likely consequence that they play some other game instead.

(In some ways, this is actually very similar to 4e's "guards at the gate" discussion. Some groups will find encounters with guards, or the need to laboriously map out the dungeon, to be "not fun", and they should be empowered to skip it. Equally, some groups may find them to be fun, and they should be encouraged also.)

 

[Bluenose]

The exploration rules sound as if someone has seen those in The One Ring. Good. They make for an interesting mini-game in themselves, and carry consequences into other situations.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

What I'd really like to see for the L&L columns is a presentation of an idea - it doesn't have to be an entire playtest packet, but something concise such as 'here is how we might change martial damage progression'. The community can then bombard the message boards with analysis and opinion, and shake out any problems hopefully. The week after you have a poll on the mechanic/class/change/whatever, and the week after that you comment on the feedback. So, a three-week layout for each little feature you'd like to work on.

 

[Iosue]

This is the only bit that I disliked. Basically, it's very much one of those "YMMV" situations - some groups will want the DM to draw the map; some groups will equally emphatically not want the DM to draw the map. And that's really something for the players and DM to discuss amongst themselves and decide what they will do.

The game itself really should be supporting both approaches. (Indeed, it could even usefully discuss the pros and cons of each approach.)

I daresay this is what they will do. I think what Mearls is saying is that he wants to give official support and advice (not unlike Chris Perkins' column on map-making) for that particular playstyle, given that TSR never did, and WotC has been pretty wedded to the battlemat.