D&D 5E D&D Next info from PAX Prime + answering questions

[slobster]

First of all, I said otherwise equivalent, not identical. 2d6+2 damage with a 75% chance to hit and 2d12+5 with a 50% chance to hit are equivalent (9 average damage per attack) but not identical.

Second, I pulled those number out of nowhere. They were an attempt to loosely illustrate the concept, but I have a better example that can show you the designers though processes. Look at the Skeleton vs the Zombie in the playtest bestiary. The Skeleton and the Zombie are both viable level 2 monsters, but the Skeleton is a bit more powerful and therefore worth 30 extra xp.

Sorry, I didn't mean to nitpick at your precise wording. I know that you were speaking in randomly chosen examples, I was just using simplified examples in response to make my point. I think it still stands. It's impossibly complicated to adjust xp values based on minor differences, and rather insignificant even if executed properly. I don't see it as being worth the effort.

My griping about monsters that are identical except for tiny differences is a different can of worms, like I said. I may have griped about that as an unnecessary aside.

 

[The Shadow]

May I respectfully suggest that the minutiae of experience in Next isn't on-topic for the thread?

Speaking of said topic: Cybit, do you have any information on specialties? I'm curious what happens after level 9, do we pick another one or what?

I'm also very curious as to how switching out feats is going to work - are 3rd level feats expected to stay at 3rd level, or can you switch them to 1st or 6th with no harm done?

Finally, I'd really like to know about preparing spells in higher slots.

I realize these questions may be too specific for the conversations you had, but anything you can offer would be of interest.

 

[Connorsrpg]

[MENTION=16760]The Shadow[/MENTION]

Thank you for the Feat question. This is the one I have asked in several places too.

Are feats actually based on level at all, or was that just so we could level up easily in the playtest? I am hoping you can actually switch them around/choose from several feats that fit the specialty.

 

[Cybit]

K, I return from D&D encounters. Going to answer these tomorrow!

 

[triqui]

That still doesn't make sense--if orcs and hobgoblins are the same, but orcs are way stronger, then why are they both level 5?

For example, because there are other mechanics related to level that make sense as lvl 5. Making orcs higher level also mean they have higher BAB, higher Save Throws, access to higher level spells, higher number of attacks in a full round, or whatever mechanics the system is going to use. It's perfectly fine for me that the designers might want to have an orc that has more hit points than, say, an Hobgoblin, although he is not better fighting, or saving from illusions, or able to cast higher level spells. This is specially useful to design "solo" kind of monsters. A monster that is supposed to fight a full group of a given level. Making him much higher levels, have undesired consequences (he has too high armor, or saving throws, or damage, when you are actually looking only for extra hp and a few perks to threat the whole group)

It also gives you granularity. Let's take a monster, for example, a Skeleton. It has X defense, Y damage, and sustain Z hit points. That makes him a lvl 2 monster. Now let's imagine a second monster, for example a *blazing skeleton*. It's like the other one, but has Y+1 damage, and you damage yourself when you grapple it. It's not much stronger than a regular skeleton, it certainly does not deserve a higher challenge rating. But it is slightly harder than a regular skellie, so he might be worth 50 extra XP or whatever.

 

[Cybit]

Early on they talked about trying to thoroughly address the "three pillars" of combat, exploration and role playing. Lately they haven't referred as much to the three pillars - is that still an important part of their design philosophy? Anything new they mentioned specifically targeting exploration or role play (other than narrative-embedded classes)?

It is the key driving philosophy still (they reiterated this); right now they're just trying to get the core mechanics for the three pillars down first (the base d20 system as it is) before nailing down any of the pillars. For instance, the reason they gave the rogue the ability to take 10 no matter what is so that a rogue can actually split off and explore without running the risk of being hosed.

I think the idea is that by giving everything a grounding in some form of narrative, (and by the way, narrative does not mean universe specific lore, but instead just some way to explain, in the world, how something works / fits) that the roleplaying will be more organic.

 

[the Jester]

Hard to say what, if anything, a Wild Mage would have trouble with... maybe it varies from day to day.

Consistency?

 

[Cybit]

Thanks for the details.

Did they give any examples of something that could be a prestige class as opposed to specialty/background or class? I guess it would be anything that would be too much for specialties/backgrounds and too little for classes. Or maybe it'll be were they put the really weird ideas like Nar Demon Binder or Celebrant of Sharess (which is a divine class that casts arcane magic instead of divine amoung other oddities like raging like a barbarian, a cat familiar, and bard like magic).

Also did they give any other examples of what,you might get from cleric domains then war and sun?

Not yet, the only comment they made about prestige classes was in context of multiclassing, and while they want to keep it similar to 3.5, they don't want cherry picking of classes, or making the level useless to a higher level character -- ergo, they design "multi-class wizard" different than "straight wizard". Also, a lot of prestige classes might find themselves wrapped up in the theme / specialty / feat / etcs.

I think this is something they've only really started thinking about, if at all. The answers I got about MC / Prestige Classes were very "off the cuff" answers in general, so they are quite likely to change.

One of the things I loved about the panels was their willingness to give off the cuff answers, knowing full well that they might change their minds later on, but it gave great insight into their thought process on how they were working on the game.

As for domains, Nature was one they mentioned (when I asked about druids). Not much more than that though as it is, I think they are focusing on the thief this round.

 

[Cybit]

@Cybit - a question for you:

In a very broad sense did you get any idea about how much of 5e is going to be part of the core framework (i.e. probably difficult to tinker with) and how much is going to be in the optional tack-on modules?

Or to put it another way, will the core framework of 5e be kept simple enough for me to run a rules-light BD&D-style game with it, with all the complexities left as optional?

Lanefan

Yes. Oh, so so yes. I think a couple of the developers run very rules light games, which is why they're keeping that strongly in mind. They repeatedly hammered home that the core of the game is very, very simple, 4 classes, 4 races, very basic rules. Very little will be core beyond what you see in the playtest, I think. There will be lots of those parts changed, but not much more added.

 

[Cybit]

May I respectfully suggest that the minutiae of experience in Next isn't on-topic for the thread?

Speaking of said topic: Cybit, do you have any information on specialties? I'm curious what happens after level 9, do we pick another one or what?

I'm also very curious as to how switching out feats is going to work - are 3rd level feats expected to stay at 3rd level, or can you switch them to 1st or 6th with no harm done?

Finally, I'd really like to know about preparing spells in higher slots.

I realize these questions may be too specific for the conversations you had, but anything you can offer would be of interest.

I don't think they've thought of the game beyond Level 10. Someone mentioned in a different post that L 1-10 would be the core of the game, and 11-20 might basically be like epic levels, but not sure how accurate that is.

They're still heavily tinkering with feats and levels, so don't read too much into that yet. Those levels are more for their own edification then anything else.

Preparing spells in higher slots might be how you increase damage / effectiveness of a given spell. For instance, fireball may not do character level * d6 damage as a 3rd level spell, but instead 5d6 as a third level spell, 7d6 as a 4th level spell, etc etc. I think that's one of the balancing acts they want to strike. That comes from reading between the lines though.

 

[Cybit]

@The Shadow

Thank you for the Feat question. This is the one I have asked in several places too.

Are feats actually based on level at all, or was that just so we could level up easily in the playtest? I am hoping you can actually switch them around/choose from several feats that fit the specialty.

I think they will be based on level, but, see my previous answers about feats. (I do think feats in the playtest were given levels so that people could level up their characters. Also a baby alpha test of letting DMs create new packages)

The DMG is supposed to give lots of guidance on how to create new specialties / etc that fit the character's background but remain balanced. This might help the "I want this, this, and this" customization, but give the DM a clue when a player is doing it for powergaming purposes as opposed to background purposes. (IE, is it balanced?)

 

[Cybit]

For example, because there are other mechanics related to level that make sense as lvl 5. Making orcs higher level also mean they have higher BAB, higher Save Throws, access to higher level spells, higher number of attacks in a full round, or whatever mechanics the system is going to use. It's perfectly fine for me that the designers might want to have an orc that has more hit points than, say, an Hobgoblin, although he is not better fighting, or saving from illusions, or able to cast higher level spells. This is specially useful to design "solo" kind of monsters. A monster that is supposed to fight a full group of a given level. Making him much higher levels, have undesired consequences (he has too high armor, or saving throws, or damage, when you are actually looking only for extra hp and a few perks to threat the whole group)

It also gives you granularity. Let's take a monster, for example, a Skeleton. It has X defense, Y damage, and sustain Z hit points. That makes him a lvl 2 monster. Now let's imagine a second monster, for example a *blazing skeleton*. It's like the other one, but has Y+1 damage, and you damage yourself when you grapple it. It's not much stronger than a regular skeleton, it certainly does not deserve a higher challenge rating. But it is slightly harder than a regular skellie, so he might be worth 50 extra XP or whatever.

Bingo. The idea is, that they can have monsters keep their mythological / universe / narrative based powers, and simultaneously allow DMs challenge players at lower levels (using the level based charts and/or the monster creation process) with those monsters, and not worry about some monsters being more powerful than others. With the heavy HP / damage scaling in 5E, making something just be a higher level has a lot of consequences.

Very elegant solution, IMO.

 

[Cybit]

Did I miss any questions?

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Any word on how 5E is supposed to deliver 4E style play?

 

[Cybit]

Any word on how 5E is supposed to deliver 4E style play?

What do you mean exactly by 4E style play? A lot falls under that.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Oh crap, Cybit's out of questions!

1. Any word on whether bards and druids will use Vancian spells or something else?

2. Any word on whether paladins and rangers will have spells at all, and if so, what mechanic they might use?

3. They mentioned recently that barbarians are a class and use Rage. Are there any more details around? Do barbarians have multiple builds/kits/styles like every class we've seen so far? If so, what might differentiate them narratively? Different barbaric cultures (like I hear 1e had)?

4. How are they feeling about the current equipment list: still under construction, or do they like the current weapons and armor for the time being?

5. Have they mentioned any specialties or class abilities that would further differentiate weapons? I get the balance considerations in making the weapons in each category very similar, but it would still be nice if martial characters could specialize a bit IF they wanted. (Of course I also wouldn't want it 3e-style where a fighter only got his class bonuses to a single weapon type.)

6. Do you think it's safe to say that they're following 4e's lead in breaking down the divine/arcane dualism in magic? (That is to say, in 3e it was for some reason a big distinction whether a particular class used divine or arcane magic, with the only other option being psionics; in 4e, one benefit of the goofy power source idea was that now druids could be "primal" and other classes could rely on different "sources." I'm hoping that 5e will take that even further, and let each class's magic be what it is without stressing the "power source.")

7. How are they feeling at this point about their idea of having most monsters less exception-based than 4e, with a lot of the flavor coming from the boss/leader monsters? (I worry that this might just lead to PCs mobbing the leaders before the monster horde gets into position to use their cool tricks.)

8. Fighters, rogues, and warlocks are almost entirely at-will (or per-encounter in the warlocks' case) while other spellcasters are almost entirely daily in their class powers. Will there be any martial classes with primarily daily class resources (like barbarian rage in previous editions)? Any idea how barbarians, monks, rangers, and paladins would fall on this spectrum? (I could see a monk with a daily pool of ki energy, but I could also see a monk based entirely on at-will martial arts maneuvers.)

 

[Ichneumon]

Did I miss any questions?

Mine, on page 3. The first one (about high level play) has already been answered, but the other two should be OK.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Did I miss any questions?

I think you missed this one:

Any tidbits on post-10th (aka 'high level') play?

Also, I'm interested to know what they might be doing with henchmen, companions, sidekicks - those people/animals/strange construct thingumies that can accompany PCs. It's always been tricky to make them useful without being necessary, so I wonder what 5e's planning in regard to them.

Finally, for something more likely to be in the first than second year of playtesting - did they seem happy with humans overall, or was there a desire to change their racial benefit to something else? (D&D humans, of course! )

Edit: LOL, Ninja'd by the OP of the above.

 

[Cybit]

Any tidbits on post-10th (aka 'high level') play?

Also, I'm interested to know what they might be doing with henchmen, companions, sidekicks - those people/animals/strange construct thingumies that can accompany PCs. It's always been tricky to make them useful without being necessary, so I wonder what 5e's planning in regard to them.

Finally, for something more likely to be in the first than second year of playtesting - did they seem happy with humans overall, or was there a desire to change their racial benefit to something else? (D&D humans, of course! )

Nothing stated definitively, but based on off the cuff comments, I suspect they will be a leadership / castles / nobility add-on module. Something like that actually works really well as a module.

Nothing was said about human racial abilities, but it'd be worth asking / commenting in on the survey.

 

[Cybit]

Oh crap, Cybit's out of questions!

1. Any word on whether bards and druids will use Vancian spells or something else?

No word on this. I don't think they've really started working on those classes yet. They're still really heavily focused on the core four. I suspect druids will get at least a non-vancian option, just because it differs them from clerics in one more way.

2. Any word on whether paladins and rangers will have spells at all, and if so, what mechanic they might use?

I thought they said that there would be versions of rangers and paladins without spells. Since the ranger seems to be going towards the Aragorn / LotR archetype, I would not expect rangers to have spells.

3. They mentioned recently that barbarians are a class and use Rage. Are there any more details around? Do barbarians have multiple builds/kits/styles like every class we've seen so far? If so, what might differentiate them narratively? Different barbaric cultures (like I hear 1e had)?

See earlier comments on how the core 4 + sorcs + warlocks + maybe druids are what they are working on. That said, I suspect Rage will be the narrative and mechanic element that "defines" barbarians. Anything beyond that would be speculation, but based on everything else they are doing, I suspect they will use the clans to differentiate "builds", and use the clan as the narrative elements, with the "builds" being based on the clan's culture.

4. How are they feeling about the current equipment list: still under construction, or do they like the current weapons and armor for the time being?

Still really, really under construction. They talked about how they really want to revamp the armor tables again.

5. Have they mentioned any specialties or class abilities that would further differentiate weapons? I get the balance considerations in making the weapons in each category very similar, but it would still be nice if martial characters could specialize a bit IF they wanted. (Of course I also wouldn't want it 3e-style where a fighter only got his class bonuses to a single weapon type.)

So...I am hoping they bring back something that fighters reportedly had in earlier playtests that really helped differentiate fighters with certain weapons. I think it will be back, so in that case, I would expect there to be some differentiation. The old test reportedly had something super cool about weapons and the various abilities they had, so I'm hoping they will return.

6. Do you think it's safe to say that they're following 4e's lead in breaking down the divine/arcane dualism in magic? (That is to say, in 3e it was for some reason a big distinction whether a particular class used divine or arcane magic, with the only other option being psionics; in 4e, one benefit of the goofy power source idea was that now druids could be "primal" and other classes could rely on different "sources." I'm hoping that 5e will take that even further, and let each class's magic be what it is without stressing the "power source.")

I believe so. They really want to push making each class unique, and their abilities unique. Druids might end up "divine" casters, but I suspect their spell list will be much more different than a cleric's then was the case in 3E.

7. How are they feeling at this point about their idea of having most monsters less exception-based than 4e, with a lot of the flavor coming from the boss/leader monsters? (I worry that this might just lead to PCs mobbing the leaders before the monster horde gets into position to use their cool tricks.)

They want the monsters' abilities to be based on the narrative, so the more complex the creature is in the story, the more complex it will be in terms of mechanics. That said, the monsters you see now are going to be the simple monsters, since they are primarily testing the core of the system more than monster design.

8. Fighters, rogues, and warlocks are almost entirely at-will (or per-encounter in the warlocks' case) while other spellcasters are almost entirely daily in their class powers. Will there be any martial classes with primarily daily class resources (like barbarian rage in previous editions)? Any idea how barbarians, monks, rangers, and paladins would fall on this spectrum? (I could see a monk with a daily pool of ki energy, but I could also see a monk based entirely on at-will martial arts maneuvers.)

I would not be surprised to see Barbarians be a martial class with daily resources, but I would also not be surprised to see variants of each class with daily resources or AEDU resources. They haven't really started working too heavily on any classes beyond the ones presented in the playtest. The game really is in alpha.