D&D 5E Building a character in PF and my it make me confident in D&DNext

[Blackwarder]

Just wanted to share somthing that occurred to me while reading Robert Schwelb latest blog post (Thanks Morrus for linking!)

My group decided to try out PF and my DM decided that we should make 7th lvl PCs. So I just finished making a 7th level fighter for Pathfinder and by making I mean copying from the Internet something called iconic fighter.

Let me get something out of the way, I'm a 28 y/o high school math teacher, I work five days a week, take some classes in my sixth day and don't really have the time to memorize every new small rule and feat description.


So when my group decided to play PF I wasn't really in the mood for it, my experience with 3e (who to this day remained the only edition where I managed to finish an entire campaign arc (levels 1-6!)) left a bitter taste exactly because it became soooooo complicated, you didn't had a charcter you had an excel sheet that you needed to track every info on it to make sure it was right, from the little I've seen of PF I feel the same.


OTOH, when I rolled a 3rd lvl charcter for the D&DNext playtest it took me some time but it was easy straightforward and the gameplay mechanics didn't feel like they were blocking the way of actuall playing.


If I make any choice about my character I want to to be a meaningfull choice, not trying to decide between grabbing a plus 1 for X or for Y, it should alter how my character interact with the world around it, anything less shouldn't have a place on character sheet.

My recent experience brought into focus the number one thing that I like about D&DNext, the fact that the math is so under the hood that you don't feel it and its a big plus in my book.

Warder

P.s yeah I know it's funny having a math teacher who doesn't like the amount of math in PF

 

[I'm A Banana]

Totally agree. 4e made great strides in eliminating this noise (there's still little bits of it left, but not nearly as much!), and I'm optimistic that 5e can preserve and even enhance the progress made there. Especially in the Basic version. There's still some fiddly bits, but honestly not much I can't conceive of getting rid of in one way or another.

 

[Blackwarder]

Totally agree. 4e made great strides in eliminating this noise (there's still little bits of it left, but not nearly as much!), and I'm optimistic that 5e can preserve and even enhance the progress made there. Especially in the Basic version. There's still some fiddly bits, but honestly not much I can't conceive of getting rid of in one way or another.

I've been playing 4e since it came out and for most of that time the only reason it was easy to build a character was due to the character builder... Mind you it was still easier compared to late 3e but it was still a chore.

Warder

 

[Storminator]

I was going to make a joke about using a spreadsheet and upload my epic 3.5 character's spreadsheet . . . but ENWorld said my file was too big.

Guess that kinda makes the point too . . .

PS

 

[I'm A Banana]

Oh, don't get me wrong, 4e is far from, I dunno, BD&D, or OD&D, like Next's core game seems to be shooting for. Better isn't perfect.