D&D 5E D&D Next Playtest Readthrough: Eh, It’s OK

[dm4hire]

The new system for hit points at level up is going in a good direction and works until you have a character with a negative Con modifier. At which point it shows the game favors min/max and gives a better benefit to the classes which tend to already have the most hit points. I think a better solution would be to keep either the 4e system of fixed hit point gain or maybe add a variable of half dice. By this I mean, a cleric instead of getting d8 at level would get 4 +d4 +/-Con.

 

[Steely_Dan]

My one major nitpick is healing (non-magical) all damage after one night's kip.

I have already house-ruled that you heal your HD for an extended rest (10th level Cleric heals 10d8 HP etc).

 

[Walking Dad]

Anybody going to discuss the actual content of the game or my thoughts on it, or just circle around the meta drain?

As there are specific threads for your individual points, it makes more sense to discuss them there, than everything in one thread. I hope to see you around

The one thing I'm not sure is discussed anywhere else are the "action types". Not sure I like the "one action and movement". I'm curious to see if NEXT includes iterative attacks or another system to attack multiple times in a round.

 

[mxyzplk]

As there are specific threads for your individual points, it makes more sense to discuss them there, than everything in one thread. I hope to see you around

The one thing I'm not sure is discussed anywhere else are the "action types". Not sure I like the "one action and movement". I'm curious to see if NEXT includes iterative attacks or another system to attack multiple times in a round.

Yeah, I'm split on that. On the one hand, iterative attacks is traditional - on the other, I am so, so sick of painful long combats due to the complexity. Once one person's turn takes more than 60 seconds, everyone else's attention wanders. I wouldn't weep if there weren't iterative attacks or other additions to the per-round complexity. I wish they'd have come up with a better solution than saves to mass effects, too, as that also takes a long time (fireball 20 goblins? Let's start rolling...)

 

[mxyzplk]

My one major nitpick is healing (non-magical) all damage after one night's kip.

I have already house-ruled that you heal your HD for an extended rest (10th level Cleric heals 10d8 HP etc).

I agree. This was the only thing in the rules part I strongly disagreed with, the rest was all good or at least acceptable.

The other three things that really bothered me from the other sections were

1. NPCs as cookbook "monsters" (someone mentioned "well that's the way it was in 1e..." Well it sucked there too, and is probably the primary improvement 3e brought to the game). It strongly encourages people to think of NPCs not as real people but as artifacts like in a MMORPG. It works against simulation and immersion.

2. Too much stuff on a level 1 character sheet - theme + background + all the other stuff seems a little overwhelming, given that "choice paralysis" is one of the major threats to ease of gameplay. I shudder at what a L10 character sheet is going to look like.

3. Powers that don't make sense from an in game world point of view. Much ink has been spilled over the pros and cons, and they avoided putting any like that into the Fighter character sheet, but as I look at the monsters in the adventure I start seeing a lot of gamey powers that "do this because the rules say so" like the Gnoll Pack Lord's demonic frenzy and especially feed on the weak.

1 and 3 are examples of "dissociated mechanics," the number 1 complaint from many people about 4e. (#2 is the long slogs of combat, which #2 goes to). The core game needs to allow for people to play the game like it's a real fantasy world with reasonable cause and effect for things, with people and monsters that weren't "spawned" for you to kill but are part of a living, breathing ecosystem/society. I have no problem with add-on modules adding on hundreds of snazzy 4e style powers, that's fine - but to the degree to which the core rules don't support simulation, it won't draw in much of the 3.5e/Pathfinder crowd. (More on this here if this is a new argument to you.)

 

[zoroaster100]

double post

 

[zoroaster100]

As someone who mostly DM's, I love the 4e approach to monsters, and I'm glad 5e seems to be generally staying away from using a simulationist approach to "classed" monsters. I do not, however, like the approach of using damage expressions like 1d4-2 damage. That seems like a throw back to simulationist monster design rather than focusing on a good end product for a well balanced monster. I can't imagine why something like 1d4-2 would ever be a good damage expression to use for a monster's attack.

I do like the regaining of hit points after a full rest. It is very boring to spend half an hour rolling dice and doing math to figure out how many days it takes the party to get enough cure light wounds to get back to full hit points or to figure out who is a few hp short of max after a day of rest.

 

[WheresMyD20]

The Summary

It’s like a simplified 3e, corrupted with only small 4e-isms. The ongoing meme is that it’s somehow more like OSR stuff but I don’t see that – there’s a little simplification but not even down to 2e levels, let alone earlier levels. Removal of the obsessive focus on the tactical map is what’s making people say that, I guess. “It’s not pure 4e, so it must be OSR?” The simplification is welcome to my eyes. I’m not sure if this quite reaches the level of being compelling, though. I worry especially from the character sheets that there’s a bunch more junk they just haven’t shown us yet that’ll take it to 3.5e levels of law degree gaming.

Your summary is spot-on. 5e is a simplified 3e with some 4e blended in. There's really isn't much OSR here other than making the tactical map optional.

Judging from the character sheets, it looks like you gain a new feat, which is essentially a rule exception, every level. Add that to background and theme and by the time characters are 10th level, they'll each have a long list of exceptions to the standard rules. I don't see how this simplifies things. As you said, it might even reach the law degree levels of 3.5.