D&D 5E December Package is here, it was about time!!

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Is it me, or are rogues and monks just as good of fighters as fighters? All get the same attack, damage, and expertise dice progressions; all get skills/maneuvers (though there are technique differences). So what's a fighter except a tougher rogue who wears armor?

I'd like to see the progressions modified so that the fighter is the better fighter, if only slightly so.

Also: complexity creep is beginning to concern me; I'll start a separate thread.

 

[Walker N. Waistz]

Overall, this is a big move forward.

Thank goodness they fixed Rogues. Seriously. Sneak attack should not be what the Rogue revolves around-- and now it is just an option-- but it was necessary to make it less watered down.

Skill dice intrigue me. The designers seem to be taking the following as a design principle: that failing skill rolls is boring and frustrating fare more often than it is interesting. Which I heartily endorse.

At the same time the use of a single die means even higher level characters still have a chance of failing, as opposed to the 3E/4E school high-level Diplomacy god who could convince anyone of anything even if he rolled a 2.

I do wish the Skills were siloed differently though. Too much 3E style breakdown into minutia.

Having not played with the new level stuff yet, I will reserve judgment on damage scaling (not that anyone else seems to mind declaring opinions now...)

I am in agreement that keeping level 11-20 characters simpler for *this iteration* of the rules makes the most sense, to get useful info on the math from actual playtesting before layering more on.

Finally, I should note that to my mind, WotC has been very responsive to player input. It doesn't seem like a publicity stunt to me at all. Expecting the designers to sit around and wait between surveys is just silly.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

most probably their parry dice will cancel their damage dice out and all that remains is the martial damage bonus + stat + weapon die - skill die and bam. (of course, fighter´s surge will allow one fighter to get a devastating strike in)

 

[Obryn]

Is it me, or are rogues and monks just as good of fighters as fighters? All get the same attack, damage, and expertise dice progressions; all get skills/maneuvers (though there are technique differences). So what's a fighter except a tougher rogue who wears armor?

It's mostly in the class abilities right now and the specifics of their "schemes" or "maneuvers."

Class differences don't have to boil down to structure and math.

-O

 

[Shieldhaven]

As is my habit, I've posted my thoughts over in my blog. This short version is that I like that they're experimenting, but I'm not crazy about where they are at the moment with several of those areas of experimentation, and damage bloat is kind of through the roof right now.

Haven

 

[RevTurkey]

Didn't think my comments about D&D Next would get much agreement

In a vaguely responsive type manner...

I just feel that being a month ahead seems to be counter productive to me. If you release a play packet that doesn't include the feedback from the last packet and then go change a whole bunch of stuff to then later have to go back and include two month old input you are sort of running around back and forth and round and round. Although it might seem that you are getting 'ahead' by not sitting on yer bottom, I suggest that to properly filter and digest feedback would be time better spent if indeed this is going to be a true reflection of the input given.

Phew. Make sense? No thought not lol.

A lot of the changes they made to me just like the opinion poll answers were utterly obvious things. It 'seems' like we are all giving input that is being followed because the feedback is very easy to predict anyway.

Stupid ill thought example: let's take 'Opportunity Attacks' out of the game...response: keep them in please. Or say: lets take away Rogue Sneak Attack....response: keep them in please. Etc.

I still think this is mainly advertising and marketing to engage us in D&D land while they have nothing new to sell us except board games, novels and reprints.

Hope you enjoyed my poorly based argument, bad grammar and spelling.

Fingers crossed this game turns out great regardless of my cynical views

 

[Manbearcat]

I don't think I have much constructive to say about 5e anymore. However, what I will say is that I think people are getting the wrong idea that things are "getting too complex" or in the past that "things were too simple" or that "high level play is bland." I'm all but certain that at no point are we playtesting "THE CORE" (DUNDUNDUN). At any one release, I suspect we're playtesting a collage of Core + this module + that module + yeah this might be crap but lets see what they say + one thing thats three iterations down the line + Core + etc etc. Its a mishmash of sometimes incoherent stuff. I suspect the high level class stuff we see in this is probably Basic Core and will be advanced with the Prestige Class and Legacy modules.

 

[Kaodi]

Am I the only one who thinks that the point buy system leans way to hard on convincing you to play a human with a 16 (primary), 14, 14, 14, 14, 11 ability array which turns into either 20, 19, 14, 14, 14, 12 or 20, 17, 16, 14, 14, 12 by level 20?

 

[Manbearcat]

Am I the only one who thinks that the point buy system leans way to hard on convincing you to play a human <snip>

You could have stopped right there.

 

[MoonSong]

Am I the only one who thinks that the point buy system leans way to hard on convincing you to play a human with a 16 (primary), 14, 14, 14, 14, 11 ability array which turns into either 20, 19, 14, 14, 14, 12 or 20, 17, 16, 14, 14, 12 by level 20?

Curious, as in fact it seems DnD Next will be the very first edition where I'm not that thrilled to play humans:

Basic: Humans are the only ones who can get a class
2e: Humans are the only ones who can be any class and have almost any kit
3.x: Humans are awesome with their +1 skill point per level, bonus feat and more lenient multiclassing
4e: humans get an extra skill, a bonus feat, and an extra at-will, not to mention the cool human-only feats
Dndn: Humans are bland empty of flavour and are basically a plain +1 to all stats that actually hinders the ability to customize them, humans used to be flexible damn it!