D&D 5E Doctors & Daleks - Cubicle 7 Brings Doctor Who to D&D 5E

Cubicle 7 -- makers of the official Doctor Who roleplaying game -- has announced that the Doctor will officially be coming to 5E soon under the name Doctors and Daleks. There are no dates or details yet, over than that the Doctors and Daleks Player's Guide will launch 'soon'.

A NEW COMPANION FOR YOUR ADVENTURES THROUGH ALL OF SPACE AND TIME!

The wild adventures of everyone’s favourite Time Lord comes to the world’s most popular roleplaying game in Doctors and Daleks. Take your gaming group into the TARDIS and travel anywhere, anywhen. Want to meet Leornado da Vinci? Or see what life is like in the year 3,000? What about another planet entirely? All of space and time is your Venusian macro-oyster, but keep your wits about you — there’s a lot of danger in the vastness of eternity.

We are delighted to announce that we are working on Doctors and Daleks – a new line of products that brings Doctor Who adventures to your table using 5th Edition rules! The first release – The Doctors and Daleks Player’s Guide will launch soon.

The wild adventures of everyone’s favourite Time Lord comes to the world’s most popular roleplaying game in Doctors and Daleks. Take your gaming group into the TARDIS and travel anywhere, anywhen.

We’ll also continue to support the new Second Edition of our award winning Doctor Who: The Roleplaying Game, with a host of new products on the way soon!

 

[Bacon Bits]

That's what magic items are for.

In theory? Yes, sure.

In practice? Not in this edition. If anything, magic items have been increasingly deprecated over the course of the past 8 years in the official modules and leagues. The game feels like it's moving away from loot-driven pulp fantasy towards epic high fantasy where the rewards of play are the narrative rewards.

 

[Zehnseiter]

I wish WotC would just OGL 4e. I realize it might be less than worth the effort for WotC.

I hope for that as well.

Not to get a retro clone of the game. But given me a game with 4E's structure an chassis but with powers that aren't miniature depended but instead use abstract or zone positioning. I would throw money at that so hard....

I miss the 4E Fighter so much. Looking back through the editions I played no D&D Fighter ever rocked so hard. The current offering just doesn't cut it for me. With every year it gets worse.

 

[darjr]

I hope for that as well.

Not to get a retro clone of the game. But given me a game with 4E's structure an chassis but with powers that aren't miniature depended but instead use abstract or zone positioning. I would throw money at that so hard....

I miss the 4E Fighter so much. Looking back through the editions I played no D&D Fighter ever rocked so hard. The current offering just doesn't cut it for me. With every year it gets worse.

Probably be a different thread. But what about the 4e fighter di you miss so much?

 

[overgeeked]

yeah this is where my desire to tinker runs smack into my desire to create a 4e clone too. You start looking at things like 4e feats and think "they fixed this in 5e - recreating the 4e feat ecosystem is actually a bad idea" and my desire to create a faithful retroclone just ends. There are a few other things like that - I'd be falling into the same trap other retroclone designers end up in where you want to make 4.5e instead of faithfully recreating 4e.

(Though this thread has me pondering that maybe a 5e "Skills and Powers" approach might be a better idea. Take 4e ideas and build up a set of subclasses that use them. Reintroduce Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies under different names. Might be a better use of time at least - less likely to go off the deep end and produce something only I'd ever want.)

There's a lot I really like about 4E so I think about this regularly. If I were to design a retroclone, I'd do it as minimalistically as possible. Create it as a framework that could rebuild 4E rather than outright rebuilding 4E. Instead of trying to recreate the 9,409 powers and somehow avoid the associated legal landmines, I'd create a framework where the players and DM can make their own powers. Break them into role categories (melee dps, ranged dps, tank, healer, AoE) and have rider lists players can pick from. Most at-will powers were some version of [1]W + role appropriate rider anyway. Higher levels simply gave you more damage and access to better and more riders. Same with encounter and daily powers. There's solid math behind it all. Really solid math. All you'd have to do is ignore the specific instances of it and look at the underlying math, then present a framework that uses that math. Look at the forest and not the trees, as it were.

Feats would be easy to do in a similar fashion. Think stunts from Fate. "Because I [describe some way that you are exceptional, have a cool bit of gear, or are otherwise awesome], I get +2 when I use [pick one stat] to [pick one action] when [describe a limiting circumstance]."

ETA: Maybe the 4E retroclone tangent should be split into its own thread.

And here's the thread.

 

[Weiley31]

I am wondering how many aliens will be in the player's guide as PC race options and how many will be in the Bestiary/Alien compendium.

THIS! I've joked about wanting to play as a Dalek, but something tells me that Daleks would be one of those alien races that wouldn't end up making the cut as a playable race.

Because believe me, if I could play as a Dalek, I'd be Dalek Who.


Wait: what?

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Damn, so many pages in a row having nothing to do with Doctor Who that I thought I had clicked on the wrong thread by mistake. lol

 

[Voadam]

THIS! I've joked about wanting to play as a Dalek, but something tells me that Daleks would be one of those alien races that wouldn't end up making the cut as a playable race.

Because believe me, if I could play as a Dalek, I'd be Dalek Who.


Wait: what?

Admit it, you want to play a Dalek chef who says "Eggsterminate!"

Auton Rory.

Silurian Madame Vashtra.

Sontaran Drax.

There is some precedent for a bunch of PC monsters.

Even one-off Dalek Clara.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Not to get a retro clone of the game. But given me a game with 4E's structure an chassis but with powers that aren't miniature depended but instead use abstract or zone positioning. I would throw money at that so hard....

That's kinda the whole shtick of the 13th Age, IIRC.

Shadow of the Demon Lord is somewhat close to a 5e with a LOT of 4e, you may like it.

 

[Morrus]

I hope for that as well.

Not to get a retro clone of the game. But given me a game with 4E's structure an chassis but with powers that aren't miniature depended but instead use abstract or zone positioning. I would throw money at that so hard....

Pretty sure that's 13th Age!

 

[Jaeger]

I believe the players and DMs that say that they run high level games and have no problems. I mean, there are people who unironically say they like Monopoly and 5 card straight poker, too.

I suspect they like that spellcasters dominate play. That's an element of the game that they're going for. They want the imbalanced nature of the game at high level. They like the verisimilitude that it brings. They have imagined a game world where high level spellcasters are absurdly potent, so they are happy with a game that fulfils that. That's perfectly fine.
...

IMHO one of the main reasons the issues you highlighted have never been addressed post 3e, is that by and large the designers at WotC also like it that way.