D&D 5E Convince me to Spend the Money

[DaveDash]

Here's an example of low level creatures impacting a fight in 5e:

In one encounter the party (Level 17) was fighting a group of vampires. All of a sudden about 16 skeletons with bows popped out of the crypts in the middle of the fight. They were cleaned up, but they did expend a few resources in doing so. And since AC is capped more or less around 19-21 for the players (without magic items), those skeletons still ended up doing about 40 points of damage against the party Fighter. +4 to hit vs AC19 from memory.
In fact, the skeletons did more damage than almost anything else.

Action economy is also pretty critical in 5e, large numbers of low levels can be dangerous. Fireballs and such can help clear them out, but even your average CR2 monster will probably survive a fireball. The net effect of this is monsters in the MM are useful across all levels of the game.

One other interesting concept is saving throws do not scale, although DC's for casters do scale. So that means a Dragon still has +0 dex saves, or a high level fighter can have +0 wisdom saving throw. It makes spells like Hold Person and such extremely potent later on in the game (when caster DC's get up to 16+). Spells can be cast at higher levels to do more damage, or effect more creatures, while saving throws stay flat. The net effect of this is spells are more useful across all levels of the game.

So in 3e/Pathfinder you get a large amount of player options, but they're only useful for a band of levels. The same with DM selection of monsters. 5e on the other hand, the content you do have is useful from level 1-20.

 

[RotGrub]

So what are you playing in the meantime?

Sticking with 2e.

 

[Rhenny]

I know I'm late to this party, but I wanted to add my thoughts too.

Like others, I find the 3 core books to be some of the best written and idea inspiring books any D&D (including Pathfinder) has produced. I don't regret buying mine, and I bought them from my FLGS so that I could get them early even though it cost me nearly twice as much.

What I'm finding most encouraging about 5e is that it actually lets me and my groups play they way we want to play. If we want to go grid-less it works. If we use a grid it works. If we want it to be simple and as DM I don't want to spend a lot of time creating or inventing, it lets me do that. If I want to add more bells and whistles, create custom content and make monsters or standard encounters more complex or difficult, it lets me do that. In fact, it is so flexible that I can "wing it" and create encounters or events on the fly. (Personally, I like to make an outline of an adventure and then let the session go wherever it goes, adding, modifying and reacting to players on the fly - Although for the past 5 months I've been running a modified Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle so I'm now using that as my outline).

The entire simple chassis was designed so that it can remain simple if that's what people want, but it can also be expanded and modified for those that really want to tweak or customize the focus and feel of their sessions. The simplicity of design allows me to modify monsters very easily. If I want a more challenging specimen, I can add class levels or feats or invent special abilities. The information in the core books is enough for me to hang my hat on. I can extrapolate and manipulate without much fear that I'm going to break the game or make another rule/part of the game obsolete.

The other most encouraging thing I find about 5e is that when I DM or play, it is so much easier to run or play in sessions that balance the 3 pillars of the game (combat, exploration and interaction). With 5e we usually feel more satisfied with each session because we experience more and there is more that appeals to the strengths of different classes/PCs. Each class really does get to do what it does best because most sessions have an opportunity for a variety of situations to happen. We don't spend hours in combat and realize that we really didn't explore or interact/roleplay with monsters, npcs or the other PCs in our party. That said, if I want to make a particularly complicated set piece encounter that really tests the PCs, I can do it and we can spend an hour or more playing out the combat. Personally, I'd rather a session have 2 medium (20-30 minutes each) encounters and 1 easy encounter (10 minutes) rather than 1 huge encounter (1+ hour), but with 5e I find that it is easier for me to vary the encounters but still have the specter of death and danger looming even if an encounter doesn't end in a near TPK. To add to this, I've run games of varying lengths and I can still balance the pillars. Even a 1 hour session has been satisfying.

Overall, I love the game and feel that DMs and players can take it to whatever level they like.

I hope some of this inspires you, but of course, any D&D is good D&D and ultimately we all should just play what we find most appealing.

Cheers.

 

[S'mon]

If you don't have any issues with Pathfinder I think you should stick with Pathfinder. 5e is great for converting Pathfinder material to, but PF is a pretty similar game to 5e (whereas 4e occupies a different niche IME) so if you & your group don't want to switch I see no reason to spend $150 on it.

 

[Blackwarder]

And for what its worth (since my humor apparently does not translate consistently over the ether) your testimonial to liking the books was far more persuasive to me than Blackwarder's blanket assurance I wouldn't like them (why he thinks I would not like them, I am not sure, unless he found them boring). I just thought it funny that I would get two such completely disparate answers.

Well, you said that you like PF fiddlly bits and 5e got a lot going for it but reading it through 3.x glasses usualy garner a thread about how the game is lacking in fiddlly bits and is inferior to X/Y/Z blah blah blah...
5e plays way better than it reads IMX but since you only asking about reading the books I don't think that it's relevant.

Warder

 

[Wicht]

Well, you said that you like PF fiddlly bits and 5e got a lot going for it but reading it through 3.x glasses usualy garner a thread about how the game is lacking in fiddlly bits and is inferior to X/Y/Z blah blah blah...
5e plays way better than it reads IMX but since you only asking about reading the books I don't think that it's relevant.

Warder

We have reached a pretty pass when a person cannot be taken at their word concerning motives. I have been pretty up front that I like Pathfinder, but that such a like would not keep me from buying and reading other games. I have also been fairly forthright in saying that I am not necessarily interested in switching games, but I also asked, right up front, not to make this into an edition vs. edition sort of thing. Telling me about the faults of Pathfinder is not going to sell me on wanting to read the 5e books and I tried to be honest about the reality to head it off at the pass. I am simply interested in hearing people tell me why they liked the books.

For some context... I own a copy of Worlds of Synnibar simply because I wanted to read it and see what the hoopla was about. It was interesting to read but I never, ever plan on actually playing it. Back in the day, I liked Werewolf and Vampire, but realized I was never going to play Mage. I bought the book anyway to read, and Wraith as well, but, again, never planned on playing either of them. I did want to play Changeling but never got the right group together for it. I bought the Ghostbuster's RPG, mainly to read (ended up wanting to play it but never did). Same with TMNTaOS, Cadillac and Dinosaurs, and a host of other such games. I bought the d20 Call of Cthulhu but still run CoC games using the Chaosium system. And I could go on. In other words, I am fine with buying game books I will never actually use for a game if I think there are some interesting things to read in those books. If I ask people to tell me about the books and the game it is because I am genuinely interested. Otherwise I would just keep a polite sort of silence, mostly.

It sounds like I will probably pick up some of the 5e books at some point (though the price is still pretty steep). Unlike 4e, where I got less and less excited, the more I hear about 5e, the more pleased I am.

Out of curiosity, what does it do with alignment?

 

[Fildrigar]

Out of curiosity, what does it do with alignment?

Brings back the standard previous editions 9 alignments.

Also, Synnibar. LOL.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

You have some money to spend, but you don't know what to buy. Sure, you could replace your Pathfinder Core Rulebook, but that's not exciting. You've read that one countless times.

You could buy Shadowrun. I mean, it's sexy. Street Samurai slotting CorpSec, razorgirls, orc deckers, and sprawl gangers who will do anything for a few nuyen.

And then there is D&D. It's new, but it's classic. Somehow, it's more like D&D than ever. The six ability scores lie at the center of the game like they do in your heart. Advantage, backgrounds, and concentration show themselves to me natural, elegant solutions to problems that have always plagued the game. Perhaps it speaks to you. Perhaps it's nostalgia. All you know is you want it. Isn't that enough?

 

[eryndel]

Just my 2 coppers on why I like the core 3 of 5e. I like the books because of the awesome games I can run with them. My kids love the robust options with each of the classes. The older ones enjoy the multiple axes to build characters from (different combinations of class, subclass, background, feats). There's a layer of transparency in design which encourages creation of your own fiddly bits. From the DM's side of the screen, the game is easy to run and arbitrate rules for.

From just a pure reading standpoint, there's much better reads for the money. However, compared to 4e and even 3.x, these IMO read much better. MM is probably the best start, just for the reads. When one the monsters inspire you to design it's lair and pick out some of it's friends, then pick up the DMG to flesh out the dungeon, and get inspired by some of the ways to tweak the encounters. I guess then the only thing left is to pick up a PHB or three to lure some of your players into the slick new adventure you just created.

 

[clearstream]

Could I suggest that when one buys a rule set, one isn't solely or even most importantly buying a stack of paper but rather buying craftsmanship in terms of well-constructed rules? I was frankly surprised at the level of quality the 5e rules are at. If I can draw an analogy, you seem to be asking why this kilo of gold costs more than that kilo of silver? It costs more, because it is a finer material.

I don't mean to knock Pathfinder. It jumped in to fill the void left by 4e and to an extent kept D&D alive. It fixed some things from 3.5 and added some options into the core that had been scattered across splatbooks. So it was a small step forward in quality. 5e is a leap forward. One example is the 5e fix to Vancian magic. The system has moved the spells per day mechanics to where they should have been in the first place. Or at least that's how it feels to me. The changes are extremely simple and 'obvious', but only in that way that very refined design can make something seem so natural that it looks obvious in hindsight. Or turning to the MM the write-ups and stat-blocks are wonderfully honed. I'm not a massive fan of fluff, but the 5e MM fluff is written and laid out in a way that is quick to parse and serves as points of inspiration for the game. There are a load of things to enjoy about the new MM.

So I would say that the value per dollar is higher in the 5e than most comparable products. You get fewer words for your money, but those words are better written.