D&D 5E A new Golden Age for D&D

[Mistwell]

You're right, Elminster just happened to be the first one I stumbled across. Here's a random mook from the City of Splendors book. He's doing pretty well for himself -- he's got 8 feats and more magic items than most of my PCs put together

I know, I know, I'm poking fun at an edition I never played. I have to do something with my time while I wait for the Sword Coast book to come out...

You can compare that to the Feathergale Knight on page 49, which is a rough equivalent (they ride giant vultures).

 

[Fishing_Minigame]

Oh wow, the feathergale knights are way cooler than their griffin counterparts. Not due to any system comparison reasons, mind you. Simply because of their awesome wingsuits.

 

[Hussar]

...really? You're going to use an epic-level character (beyond-epic, I should say, since he appears to have 35 character levels)? A character that's from a series of novels and widely thought to be one of the most overpowered, "Mary Sue"-like characters in all of that campaign setting? That's the standard we're judging 3rd edition by?

Heh, you think that's bad. There's a dragon in Dungeon Magazine of the time that has a FOUR PAGE stat block.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

You're right, Elminster just happened to be the first one I stumbled across. Here's a random mook from the City of Splendors book. He's doing pretty well for himself -- he's got 8 feats and more magic items than most of my PCs put together

I know, I know, I'm poking fun at an edition I never played. I have to do something with my time while I wait for the Sword Coast book to come out...

Well, 8 feats is actually (almost) normal for a 3e Fighter: everyone gets a feat at level 1, and then another at every multiple of 3; Fighters get an extra feat at level 1, and every even level thereafter. So that's two feats at level 1 (one normal, one Fighter), another feat at levels 2/3/4, and two feats at 6, for a total of 7. An NPC with just one feat beyond the norm is...well, pretty close to normal.

Of course, as you said, this is a game you haven't played, so I can understand why you'd look at this and have your eyes pop.

Not sure I get why you'd have had so few magic items between all the characters you've played. Magic armor, two magic weapons (lance, shortbow), two magic trinkets. Even in 1e, I find it...surprising, to say the least, that if we took a majority of your characters, they'd have fewer than five magic items between them. Assuming, of course, that we're ignoring characters who didn't survive to level 2 (which might be a lot, I have no idea).

 

[Mistwell]

Heh, you think that's bad. There's a dragon in Dungeon Magazine of the time that has a FOUR PAGE stat block.

Woah. What issue/dragon was that?

 

[Mistwell]

Well, 8 feats is actually (almost) normal for a 3e Fighter...Magic armor, two magic weapons (lance, shortbow), two magic trinkets

We're talking about a random unnamed sample NPC mook in a group of four. You think you're making your argument better by mentioning this. You're...not.

I played the heck out of 3e. I loved it. So this isn't me posting about a game I dislike. But come on...we both know the stat blocks got out of control in that edition sometimes. By forcing the PC system and the NPC/Monster system to use the same system, and stating out everything as if it were a PC even when it made no sense to do so and wasted space that could have been used for useful descriptions, 3e sometimes allocated precious page real estate in poor ways, with wall-of-text formatting. By the end if the edition, and with Pathfinder, that started to see a correction. But the correction was itself in many ways an admission the previous method was needlessly over the top in stats. Same could be said for the magic Christmas tree characters turned into, with every "magic item slot" filled, and every higher level creature having them in a stats arms-race. 3e was awesome, but these are some of it's flaws.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Yep, sure have. I've done it myself a couple of times. The CB is very convenient, but it doesn't solve the biggest "challenge" of levelling up--deciding which power you like best. I'm a 'casual optimizer,' so I refer to charop handbooks for advice, but will break from it when I wish to. Anyone who says you "need" it is exaggerating; it's perfectly possible to do it by hand. Is it a more involved process than 5e level-up? Probably, because you get actual choices at more levels.

It is a lot more convenient than going through all the books that those options are spread out over. Leveling a PH1-only character was very quick and easy, pick one of 4 or so powers or pick a feat for the level you just gained, some simple math, and you're done, Wizard had just slightly more to it when you gained a daily or utilty. 5e, as with classic, varies with class & level. A few sub-classes are simplistic all the way through, some could do with some build-planning if you want to optimize, others are just complicated.

Uh...there...actually are very few powers, AFAIK, which directly interact with other powers. Firstly 'cause most powers are Standard Actions, so you can't use them at the same time (without an Action Point, anyway, but that's a relatively high-level strategic concern, not something a casual player needs to consider).

Probably more than you realize. 4e powers were all done up in this clear format with some fairly precise jargon from the 'reading powers' section, so how they interacted with eachother - including monster and item powers - was usually not an issue. In 5e, spell, ability, item & monster effects interact how the DM rules they interact, which can seem like a serious in-your-face issue to the player who likes to be sure of what his character can do before he decides on an action (or level-up choice, or even class), or be completely transparent to other players who trust their DMs.

5e still has an action economy, and while the Bonus Action isn't quite the same as the Minor Action, it's very similar--so you still have "can I do these two things in a single turn" and "crap, I need my [Bonus/non-Bonus] Action for [important thing]!" interactions. I haven't delved deep enough into 5e's feats, spells, and class features to know if there are "chain" effects, but I'd be seriously surprised if there aren't at least a few.

There are already some combos out there, sure. That's inevitable. 5e has more spells with straight durations rather than concentration (which is not quite the same as 4e sustain, since it doesn't impact the action economy, but locks out other concentration spells), so there's some potential for interaction, there. Concentration spells from different casters can also interact, of course. There's a couple of feats seen as potentially broken that are really only broken by using combos (mostly with spells) to get attack bonuses and advantage, for instance.

 

[Fishing_Minigame]

Well, 8 feats is actually (almost) normal for a 3e Fighter: everyone gets a feat at level 1, and then another at every multiple of 3; Fighters get an extra feat at level 1, and every even level thereafter. So that's two feats at level 1 (one normal, one Fighter), another feat at levels 2/3/4, and two feats at 6, for a total of 7. An NPC with just one feat beyond the norm is...well, pretty close to normal.

Of course, as you said, this is a game you haven't played, so I can understand why you'd look at this and have your eyes pop.

I think so far I've given out a total of 2 feats to all of the 5e NPCs/enemy combatants my current players have encountered. I gave Healer to a long-term npc the party has recruited, and I gave Polearm Master to an elite vampire mook who had done nothing for most of the fight but stand guard over his master's coffin. Gave them a nasty surprise when they closed to melee range and he ambushed them with the granted opportunity attack.

Since discovering ForgedAnvil's character generator I have given in and created a couple of NPCs with player stats though, because its dead simple now. I definitely don't have anything against 3e, just wanted to make an observation while the discussion was focused on system complexity or lack thereof.

Not sure I get why you'd have had so few magic items between all the characters you've played. Magic armor, two magic weapons (lance, shortbow), two magic trinkets. Even in 1e, I find it...surprising, to say the least, that if we took a majority of your characters, they'd have fewer than five magic items between them. Assuming, of course, that we're ignoring characters who didn't survive to level 2 (which might be a lot, I have no idea).

Sorry, I mispoke there. I meant that 5 magic items was almost more than my current players have between them, which is no more than 1-2 each per PC at 7th level.

I've been deliberately very stingy with magic items because I started off trying to get them off of the MMO/JRPG equipment treadmill. One of my brand new players spent the first session or two looking for better armor whenever the opportunity came up, and I had to explain to him that his starting chainmail was almost as good as it gets, and it was going to be a bit before he could afford plate. The few they have found were mostly granted by important npcs at the end of the last major story arc, who all needed favors (i.e. quest hooks).

I don't have any magic items in the one game I'm a player in, but thats a 4e session with heavy RP emphasis and horror elements, where all the +1 swords in the world won't currently fix the mess that PC is trying to deal with.

 

[Hussar]

Woah. What issue/dragon was that?

Too lazy to dig my issues out of storage. It's that big arsed dragon near the end of the AP. IIRC, it's a dracolich.

Did a bit of googling. Dungeon 134 - Dragotha in Wyrmcrawl Fissure. Sorry, only two pages long. My bad.

 

[Fishing_Minigame]

I just tracked down a pdf, you may have been factoring in the whole page of treasure in its hoard. Appropriately epic.