D&D 5E 5E Playtesters: How Was It?

[Delandel]

I didn't participate in the playtest period of 5E, before it was officially released. I'd love to hear from people who did participate though. What was it like? What were some significant changes?

I'm a big fan of the edition as a whole, but I wonder how some of the more obvious blunders, such as Moon Druids at level 2, made it to print. Surely people played Moon Druid 2 and thought hey, turning into a bear at this level is a tad too strong?

 

[Blackwarder]

1. It was awesome!
2. It isn't too strong, it should take you at most 2 sessions to move to 3rd level, it's a spike in effectiveness for the Druid at 2nd level, but so is the monk attacks at 1st and other classes features, it's not such a big blunder as folks make it sound.

Warder

 

[sunrisekid]

The play test period was one of *my* most enjoyable/memorable campaigns in almost 20 years of playing. We played through the Isle of Dread (re-issued with play test), and ran it as a blind hex crawl. Despite the current campaign (HotDQ) is "officially" 5E, our fun with the playtest may constitute an all-time high for our current player roster of around 4 years.

 

[evilives]

Playtest: Fun but messy. The rules were very rough. Advantage and disadvantage were a big hit at the table. Fighters had damage on a miss for a while. At one point, everyone had level-based bonuses to weapon damage. Some races bumped the damage dice of iconic weapons.

 

[Jeff Albertson]

In the 1st packet characters started with Con Score + 1 Hit Die for hit points.

 

[the Jester]

The playtest was cool. The rules were fairly stable early on, but a lot of the details (e.g. what a rogue was like) changed drastically from playtest version to playtest version. It was fun, but it was secondary to my main 4e campaign, which was in full swing at the time, so we played it in small spurts rather than in a long, 20-level-series kind of thing.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

The moon druid ability wasn't in the public playtest (though it was probably in the closed alpha playtest), so there's your answer on that one. I'm not going to get into a whole argument about it, but suffice it to say that there are plenty of people who agree with you that it is a problem at that level.

It was fun and interesting. I liked seeing the changing thought processes of the designers (and the results of the feedback surveys) as the new versions of it came out.

 

[Shiroiken]

It was interesting.

Packet 1 was just PCs and the Caves of Chaos. It was really just a taste of what was to come.

Packet 2 was probably the best, IMO. It had lots of interesting ideas (if questionably implemented), some of which made it into the final game in some version or another. It was overall scrapped, because while it was a great game, it moved away from the classic core of the game (same mistake as 4E). I would love to see a different game based on it, but not 5E.

Packet 3 was really bad, because it kept many of the worst ideas, while incorporating new ones. It was the beginning of the final version, however, so I guess that makes it important. The worst part was that you had quadratic fighters and linear wizards, because so many people were wizard hating at the time (the WotC board was REALLY bad at the time).

With one exception, most of the other packets were refining idea proposed in Packet 3. The sole exception was a packet that removed skills altogether, and used Lore instead (you got 2 lore skills which gave you +10 - basically auto-pass). Loved the idea of Lores, and thought they could have followed up on it, but they would be similar to Tool Proficiencies instead (i.e., not as overall useful as Skills, but still nice to have).

Oh, and as for power... things were generally more powerful in the playtest than the final version, mostly because the monsters were MUCH weaker.

 

[Sacrosanct]

The playtest was always fun, no matter what tweaks we saw and were taken away. I actually preferred the earlier version of backgrounds and feats, but the final version is pretty darn close, but broader. I.e., in the playtest, instead of an urchin background, they were a bit more specific (thief, bounty hunter, etc). Minor thing though, really.

For the moon druid, rather than rehash out all the same arguments again, I will point to the fact that in those threads, the majority (almost all) of people who actually had a moon druid in their group in actual play haven't had a real problem with it. Only one or two people here and there. It was mostly from people who looked at the numbers and assumed it was a big problem. I'll leave it at that.

 

[Rhenny]

I really enjoyed the playtest. It got me much more excited about D&D again. The hardest part about playtesting was trying to evaluate new system/new mechanics and abilities without comparing to older versions. In one way, we all wanted to make sure it "felt like D&D," but in another way, when we kept on comparing it to other editions we had more difficulty being objective. Once my group and I could focus on just this edition (and the options that WotC presented) without comparing to old, we started to really enjoy the way the game worked. Of course, as each new package was made available, we had to shift gears and relearn and re-feel what was presented, but that too became interesting.

Another issue that bothered many was how they didn't balance monster math during most of the playtest. At first, it was hard to get used to, but when I realized that they consciously made the decision to test "feel" rather than calibrate math throughout the playtest, I was able to play with monsters and basically test different ideas on my own. I found that it was so easy to modify and change encounters on the fly, which was a portent of the "rulings not rules", flexible play that 5e affords. Once I DMd about 3 or 4 sessions, I felt very comfortable with adjusting numbers if necessary. That's not to say I did it all the time. I also played with RAW to make sure I was able to report on the results.

Many of the earlier mechanics are part of the optional rules in the DMG. I really liked how proficiency bonus was an extra d4, d6, d8, d10, etc. as PCs gained levels, but since I use Fantasy Grounds for most of my games, it is harder for me to run that option. The rules in FG are already hard coded for fixed proficiency bonuses.

I also found that the adventures they game us to play with worked really well. Caves of Chaos was a great sandboxy backdrop that allowed different groups to do with it what they wanted. My group actually made an alliance with one of two orc tribes and helped them solve a conflict that stemmed from one leader trying to take over both tribes. This just happened organically in our game. The adventure did not have this prompted.

The Blingdenstone adventure was also a fun mini-campaign that got us into the Underdark. It was really easy to add my own material and use what WotC offered. Again, this to me is what D&D is best at - allowing groups to make it what they want and exercise creativity as players and DMs.