D&D 5E Did you like one Playtest version better than the final 5e PHB?

[tetrasodium]

Because the playtest said this is what people wanted. Online posters on forums really aren't a good example of the average player/DM. If it was the Champion Fighter probably wouldn't exist.

Well technically the playtest said "this is what people not playing something else wanted". Given the sales numbers at the time with pathfinder outselling 4e It's more than reasonable to say that the online posters disallusioned with 5e are probably not nearly as much of a bad example as your making it out to be. That goes double when you toss on how bad wotc is with near push polling, questionable sampling that rarely bothered to even ask critical things like if someone is answering as a gm or a player, & poll questions phrased in such a way that the result can mean anything someone wants it to say regardless of if it's a landslide either way or somewhere in between.

So if you define "average playr/DM [of the time]" to be "from the subset of players & GMs not playing/DMing the best selling or second most best selling ttrpg of the time for whatever reason" sure... But it's not like everyone went from playing 3.5 to playing WoW when 4e came out. Plenty tried 4e, some even liked 4e & kept with it... sales numbers show where most everyone else went. Once you start defining "average player/DM" like that your pretty much putting a spotlight on how tiny that minority slice is.

 

[toucanbuzz]

Death:

• A creature can make a Coup de Grace as an action: if they target an unconscious creature and deal damage, the creature falls to 0 HP. If the creature is already at 0 HP, it dies. No need to hit it 2-3 times to causes death save failure.

Didn't do the playtest, so appreciate the summary. I miss those days of common sense. In 3rd, they turned it into a save, and a 10th level fighter sleeping in his bed could have his throat slit by a 1st level cutpurse and 95% of the time he'd be just fine. The mechanic above would make this take 2 rounds, but I like that better than the absurdity of the target getting throat slit and rolling a Nat 20, bouncing up just fine.

• Most enemies have a special move recharging on a d6, and some basic creatures have a list of traits you can add to them to make them different or more challenging.

Aww man, they dropped the ball on this. My #1 complaint for the MM is that 75% of the creatures are bland: make a melee attack, done.

Imagine if, for example, the wild magic sorcerer’s chance of a wild magic surge increased as their sorcery point pool depleted. They’d have this awesome tension between exercising more control over your spells now via metamagic, but having less control later due to wild magic.

I like it. My homebrew was to increase the chance very time a surge didn't trigger. First time, 1 in d20. Next, 1-2. Next 1-3, and so on, until a long rest rest it all. Basically a building storm.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Ok, so I've just been reviewing the play test material I was sent and OMG so much of this is way better than what was finally presented for 5E.

What the heck happened....

Well you're focusing on the features you like about it (I'm not sure what those are in particular, many of them listed at the beginning of the thread sounded of dubious quality to me) and so the grass is going to look pretty green over there. A lot of the things I see that appeal to me do, in fact, make the game slightly more complicated, and presumably were altered in the effort to simplify overall.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Ok, so I've just been reviewing the play test material I was sent and OMG so much of this is way better than what was finally presented for 5E.

What the heck happened....

A lot of it was the squeaky wheel getting greased. I remember the Druid's wildshape ability getting changed because the simulationists threw a hissy fit about them not changing into the "real" animal.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I don’t have the playtest docs in front of me, but I really liked how backgrounds held more mechanical oomph, and how fighting styles were grouped into specialties.

the slasher for x benefits at 3rd level, and more at 6th level, etc. how there were slayer specialties, and knights, and archers, etc.

 

[cbwjm]

Which would be a shame since it is my favorite Fighter subclass...

Great subclass, tends to be my default when building a fighter because it just seems to cover most of the concepts that I want when running a fighter.

 

[The Human Target]

There were a lot of really interesting, new ideas in the playtest.

I didn't like all of them (proficiency dice make the swingy d20 even worse) but they really tried to be creative and make a good game.

Unfortunately most of that was scoured away by the feedback, because people don't usually want new and interesting.

At least not in their D&D.

And WotC wanted to make something very friendly to everyone who had ever played.

A camel is a horse designed by committee, after all.

 

[Don Durito]

As always I wonder how much of WOTCs open playtesting really is 'playtesting' and not just 'opinion'.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

I am among those who would have liked it if the playtest sorcerer had advanced to the final version. It was far more interesting than the poor man's wizard that the sorcerer always ends up being.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Since the Sorcerer from the Playtest was just 3 levels and the Wizard ''subclasses'' in the playtest were just a 2-3 bonus you got at first level, I think it would be possible to create a ''dragon-blooded sorcery'' subclass for the Playtest Wizard without too much trouble.

I really like how many high level abilities in 5e were feats that you gained before 10th level. No need to wait 14 levels to gain Use Magic Items, for example.