D&D 5E ... and we have a wizard!

[gweinel]

That is quite a list of weapon proficiencies for a wizard!

and probably all of them would be useless since the wizard has the dmg cantrips...

 

[amerigoV]

Well, it was quite bothersome to me. I remember preparing Fireball or Cloudkill or whatever and, just when I was ready to cast it, some ally got into the area and suddenly I was all "Well, there goes my striking power. Ok, I... shoot it with my crossbow -.-".

Of course, YMMV and all that.

You are just enabling their bad tactics. Go ahead and cast that spell ... they will learn

 

[Wolfskin]

You are just enabling their bad tactics. Go ahead and cast that spell ... they will learn

You know, I just can't bring myself to cast a spell on the party no matter how much I'd like to. Good Guy Syndrome, I guess

 

[Nikosandros]

3. Cantrips. As with the Cleric, there's a bonus cantrip at level 4.

I think that that's a function of the character increasing his casting stat (int or wis) to 18 at 4th level.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Apologies if I missed when this was added to the playtest, but when did Wizards start getting d6 hit dice?

Sometime between August and October 2012.

 

[Kobold Stew]

I think that that's a function of the character increasing his casting stat (int or wis) to 18 at 4th level.

That's possible, but it's not included under the benefits of Ability Score Improvement.

 

[Nikosandros]

Apologies if I missed when this was added to the playtest, but when did Wizards start getting d6 hit dice?

It was changed from the packet relesead on October the 29th 2012 onwards.

 

[Obryn]

Okay I'm confused because wizards spell lists in 4e also grew as you went up in level and as they released more splat books... I don't think you need to copy a separate list (with descriptions) of spells prepared so either way it's one list of copied spells... so I'm trying to understand what the major distinction is here...

For most characters at around 20th level, you'd have 2 at wills, 4 encounters, 4 dailies, and a slowly growing list of utilities - maybe 4-5 at this point? These get replaced as you level up. And this is a quite high level character.

Wizards have 3 extra dailies at that point and 3-4ish extra Utilities. They're an outlier.

Wizards in 5e have a larger and more variable pool of prepared spells, out of a much larger pool of spells known, with none ever being forgotten or phased out.

 

[Nikosandros]

That's possible, but it's not included under the benefits of Ability Score Improvement.

True. Well, we'll know in less than a week.

 

[Johnny Champion]

A few observations:

1. Acolyte background. For a third time, we've been given a non-obvious background. Dare we hope for a rogue who's not a guild thief? That would be brilliant. I'm so pleased that they are leveraging the opportunities of backgrounds, even in the pregens.

As I read this observation, a bigger issue always nags at me. I know it is off topic but..

Backgrounds do add flavor to a PC but isn't the age of a typical character quite young? And as Level 1 in a Class, wouldn't that have required several years foundation in study and training with a mentor? I just have a hard time putting much relevance in a background as it seems to me, IMHO, that role playing Class requirements in regard to time, trump anything of importance. Where is the time in years that can allow a worthwhile background to develop AND the specialized training to become Level 1 in a class? It seems that a mage would be studying for years before becoming Level 1? So how much time could he have had available to be a Bounty Hunter as well?

or am I putting too much thought into this?

 

[Sir Brennen]

Which existed before, but I remember in the playtest it was limited up to 5th level slots.

It could just be a pre-gen/starter set thing, since the characters only go to 5th, no need to mention a cap

 

[Grazzt]

Well, it was quite bothersome to me. I remember preparing Fireball or Cloudkill or whatever and, just when I was ready to cast it, some ally got into the area and suddenly I was all "Well, there goes my striking power. Ok, I... shoot it with my crossbow -.-".

Of course, YMMV and all that.

Back in the "old days" nothing beat a magic-user's player saying "I cast fireball" and then hearing the collective gasps from the rest of the players.

 

[cpendlet]

You know, I just can't bring myself to cast a spell on the party no matter how much I'd like to. Good Guy Syndrome, I guess

We do on occasion. A defender surrounded by a group of mobs makes an easy target.
In one case the tank got critted and the wizard missed everything else (5 mobs around that tank) with a daily(obviously 4th edition). The tank was down to 3 hit points left or something like that. The whole table burst out laughing

 

[occam]

Hmm. Not a whole lot in this one that we hadn't already seen. Apparently you now choose your specialty at level 2.

I like the fact that it costs money to scribe spells. It's a nice way to preserve the tradition of wizards copying captured spells, while keeping it from getting out of hand.

I also approve of the changes to Sculpt Spells. Instead of simply excluding your allies from the spell's AoE, you grant them a combination of Evasion and an automatic success on the save. So depending on the spell, they may not emerge entirely unscathed.

None of these things have changed since last August in the playtest (except that copying spells now takes twice as long); the cost of spell copying goes back further than that.

 

[jodyjohnson]

It was changed from the packet relesead on October the 29th 2012 onwards.

I repeatedly asked for it to be increased to d12 but the devs repeatedly ignored me.
And that's what the people in my chair think with near unanimity.

 

[amerigoV]

It seems that a mage would be studying for years before becoming Level 1? So how much time could he have had available to be a Bounty Hunter as well?

or am I putting too much thought into this?

Well, a Sleep spell WOULD be useful to a bounty hunter. Maybe their mentor mage ran a bounty hunting service for the local constable. If nothing else, it might make for an interesting backstory for the Mentor too!

Now I want to run Dawg, bounty hunter mage

 

[MadmanMike83]

One of my favorite ways of getting into character as a Wizard was to copy down my spellbook. Having that sheaf of known spells at hand made me smile. As handy as the 4th Edition character builder is/was I've always found that the best way to get to "know" your character is to write things out.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Where is the time in years that can allow a worthwhile background to develop AND the specialized training to become Level 1 in a class? It seems that a mage would be studying for years before becoming Level 1? So how much time could he have had available to be a Bounty Hunter as well?

or am I putting too much thought into this?

I think this is a great question, and for me it's a virtue of the new system. The majority of a character's skills are reflected in the background and not in the class -- there's now an inevitable iteration of the (level-based) proficiency bonus and how capable you are at your skills. That's a feature, not a bug.

It *does* mean that when devising your backstory (including age, etc), you need to take this into account -- a starting wizard might be a few years older, not having begun to study magic after he had served as a cabin boy (and mechanically taken a sailor background) -- or whatever.

for me, the richness in the combinations and customizability is worth having to "solve" the chronology of what came before.

 

[jib916]

Awesome

 

[thalmin]

At what age did your training, or previous background job, start? In my games, characters start their working lives as early as 10 (likely earlier for a rogue). So whether farming with the family, working at your father's trade, learning what nobility is all about, or leaving home willingly or unwillingly to financially help the family, you start on-the-job training early in life.