D&D (2024) 2024 Impressions and Surprises from real play Experiences

[Baumi]

Played again yesterday..

- Cure Wounds and Healing Word is much stronger now. A second Level Cure Wounds healed a 3rd Level Character from 0 to max. They feel right now (no longer only a last resort) even though I usually dislike combat healing! 8D

- Short Rest is now more interesting for most Characters, but not all. Prayer of Healing giving a quick short Rest, which is really cool.

- Nick and Vex is dominating the Weapon Choices for the Martial Characters in my group. You really feel these effects.

- The Adventure "The Dawn Chasers" by M.T.Black is really fun! And I didn't have any problem using the "old" Adventure, the only thing I changed was that I used the Zombies from new PHB instead of the old stats.

 

[Baumi]

Oh yeah, there was also one negative Point. There was a long discussion about Backgrounds and no one really seems happy with how they work now. But this was only a discussion, in play we didn't have a problem, at least with their one-shot Characters.

 

[Kinematics]

Oh yeah, there was also one negative Point. There was a long discussion about Backgrounds and no one really seems happy with how they work now. But this was only a discussion, in play we didn't have a problem, at least with their one-shot Characters.

You/they didn't like how backgrounds were structured, or the limitation of only having the pre-genned ones in the PHB?

If the latter, there's already a thread with a few dozen homebrewed backgrounds (here).

 

[Baumi]

It's a mix of why are Attributes connected to the Backgrounds, anoyance about the fixed Feats and there are no customization options. The Formula to create them yourself is clear, but we play with AL Rules and it was more of a theoretical discussion.

Anyway .. anyone else have some interesting stories from real play?

 

[Hussar]

Can I just say how much of a breath of fresh air this thread is. You, @Baumi, deserve ALL the posrep in the world. Keep it up and, while my current groups are going to be slow adopters, I really look forward to seeing stuff like this.

 

[pukunui]

We haven’t started yet, but I am going to be trialing the 2024 rules for my family’s next D&D campaign (based on the Essentials Kit adventure).

We’ve made PCs. The restrictive backgrounds were a little annoying, and I miss the personality traits, but overall that part went smoothly.

I think the tricky part is going to be getting used to the newer versions of the various rules. I’ll have to look stuff up a lot at first, I think.

 

[Baumi]

We played another 3rd Level one-shot (I was the GM). This time we had other Weaponspecialisations in use .. Cleave and Topple. Both felt quite good for the Players (except that the Cleave-Paladin missed nearly all his rolls) and was fine for me as the GM.

The Paladin and Fighter felt very distintict and shined in different scenarios (Fighter had many tricks and more attacks but the Paladin used his now bonus-action Healing Hands very effective and was a Zombie-Killer).

The Wizard shined in one Combat with combat with Thunderwaves (shoved many enemies from their boat) but otherwise felt lackluster .. but he had a suboptimal spell selection (more utility that wasn't quite usefull in that adventure).

Exhaustion is still quite brutal. They had 2 Exhaustion in the end, which ment -4 to all D20 rolls and -10 Speed. Even against AC 8 Zombies, they had quite a few misses.

 

[Maialideth]

I really like how barbarians work now. The ways they can keep their rage going works great and with Primal Knowledge, they can also use rage outside of combat, which is even better when playing with a small group of players.

I also think the Rules Glossary is great. Some things could be better, but mostly it really helped clarify things that used to be vague and open to interpretation. Now it feels a lot more wellwritten and clear, for example the Influence action (which is my new favourite action) with clear set DCs and then refering to the three different starting attitudes. Love it.

An in-game example from our last session. The two players had walked through a portal and ended up in Sigil's Mortuary. They talked with two Dustmen (Sigil faction) and tried to persuade The Dustmen to give the players information. The first player rolled persuasion and asked what the DC was, the second player assumed that the players shouldn't know that. But according to the influence action in the Rules Glossary (which I, as the GM, read aloud), the DC is a default of 15 or the monster's Intelligence score whichever is higher. The player's roll was a failure however, there were two Dustmen and the other guy was more inclined to talk after a bit of monetary rewarding.

 

[Seramus]

Tremorsense says "the same surface or the same liquid." So my reading is that a creature with tremorsense on stone can sense things on stone, but not in liquid. If they were in a liquid, they could sense things in the liquid, but not the stone nearby.

This gives some flexibility for ground and water creatures to both use Tremorsense in their respective environments. It does create a funny situation when a creature is at the bottom of a lake touching the ground while underwater.

In any case, a dwarf is restricted to stone only, and cannot use Tremorsense through liquid (but can probably feel the boundary sloshing against stone).

 

[Plaguescarred]

It seems like "you", the Dwarf character, must be on a stone surface to utilize Tremorsense, but those detected dont need to be? So underwater, if the Dwarf is touching the basin, the creatures in the water in the basin, can be detected?

My understanding is that the Dwarf using Stonecunning's Tremorsense can pinpoint the location of creatures and moving objects within 60 feet that are in contact with the same stone surface.