D&D 5E First experience with 5th edition and Lost Mines of Phandelver (no spoilers)

[happyhermit]

I am not sure what BTB or TOTM means...
...
We usually use minis, even though I use Fantasy Grounds for displaying material to the group.

I thought I would answer your questions from my experience with the module, even though they were not directly to me

I meant "by the book" and "theater of the mind".

Thanks for the info.

 

[Bigkahuna]

Getting a passport and paying for & enduring a transatlantic flight (including TSA & customs), then dealing with foreign exchange and foreign language - vs driving across town? That's a little unfair. ;P

Well you know not everyone in the world lives in the US, I could be there in about an hour.

 

[Imaculata]

It seems like you didn't approach it with a "I'm going to hate this" attitude that I have seen a bit, which makes the info a bit more straightforwardly useful to me.

I think the only attitude one should ever have is, "lets have fun together". The edition or system is not very relevant for fun.

If you started it in the BTB way, how did the GM run the initial goblin encounters, especially the initial ambush but also the ones leading to the cave? Did they run them TOTM, or map and minis?

He didn't draw out a map. He simply read the pre-written description as stated in the module, and told us our relative position to the enemies. Exact placement isn't always needed, and I kind of like it when a GM tries to stick to just a description, when just a description will suffice. In the case of the combat encounters that we experienced (on the Highroad and inside the cave), a description was more than enough. He did make a small sketch of one of the chambers of the cave, where we fought the bugbear.

Our very first encounter with the goblins went pretty smooth. The GM gave some of us advantage, because we were already expecting an ambush and looking for one. But those who weren't, were surprised. When we battled the bugbear we caught it by surprise, and our GM was pretty lenient regarding our tactics. We came up with the idea to use an illusion spell on one of the goblins, to make it seem as if one of the goblins had stolen the bugbear's club... even though he was still wielding it. But the GM ruled that since the bugbear was pretty stupid, that it could fall for an illusion like that.

What had the GM played before, what was their favorite edition or system?

I didn't ask, but I presume the GM had played a few 5th edition games as a player before (but with another group). This was the first game where he was a GM. I don't think the GM had played 3.5, or any other edition before.

I myself had read through some of the 5th edition books out of sheer curiosity, and so to some degree I was better informed on the 5th edition rules than our GM (thanks to this forum).

 

[Tony Vargas]

Well you know not everyone in the world lives in the US, I could be there in about an hour.

You don't have your location displayed, and your handle implies Hawaii.

Not that your point doesn't stand, either way. The key is finding the right DM.

I am not sure what TOTM means...

Theatre of the Mind - playing without visual aids.

Starting with 3e, D&D got increasing amounts of flack for being 'grid dependent.' 'TotM,' coined during the Next playtest, is Mike Mearls's answer to those allegations.

Really, D&D started as a wargame and has always assumed, and never required, minis & maps - grids being a simplification thereof - and, while 5e 'defaults to TotM' it's mechanics are really more like those of traditional D&D, and no better or worse for use with or without minis & maps (and it has a grid module for good measure - no pun intended).
And, sure, there have been systems specifically designed for 'TotM' (even if they didn't call it that) using more abstract rules for movement, range, positioning, and, especially, area effects. 13th Age is a recent example, and there are others going back to the 90s, at least, I'm sure.

 

[Bigkahuna]

Yeah I really do think Tony is right, a proper DM can make any system great. I'm partial to systems that are less systemy if that's even a word and I find even when I'm a player less is more.

In a way I actually like 4th edition to a degree because while it had a huge focus on combat, when you where out of combat the players dealt with the out of combat stuff in a very free form way, their was little in the way of mechanics for them to decipher. My only grudge with 4th edition is that combat could overwhelm a session and it pulled players out of the story for too long, which was made worse by the fact that in order to challenge character resources you had to do multiple combats dragging the whole thing out even more.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Yeah I really do think Tony is right, a proper DM can make any system great.

It's a familiar truism of the hobby.

In a way I actually like 4th edition to a degree because while it had a huge focus on combat, when you where out of combat the players dealt with the out of combat stuff in a very free form way, their was little in the way of mechanics for them to decipher.

I guess it's a good thing you overlooked Skill Challenges.

in order to challenge character resources you had to do multiple combats

That's the 'attrition model,' a D&D tradition, but it's never mandatory. 5e assumes the attrition model explicitly over 6-8 encounters, while 3e & 4e were less explicit about it but, de-facto, it was probably around 4 or 5. OTOH, classic D&D tended towards attrition over dungeon-exploration scenarios, with incentives (like rival treasure-hunters and re-spawning monsters among others) to pressing on as long as possible - so the point was less 'get to so many encounters/day to balance classes/make the game fun,' and more 'clear as much of the dungeon as you can without resting to maximize rewards, because if you rest and come back there may be more dangers and fewer treasures.'
In all cases, you could always make a challenging single encounter. It might have to be rather overwhelming (survival instead of resource management on the line), and it might impact class balance, but you could do it.

 

[Al2O3]

I'm currently running LMoP for my group. While we are fairly experienced with the rules it is the first time we use a published adventure and it is different to our typical play style in other campaigns.

What I can say is that level 1 can be very deadly (we had the group's first character death ever in non-pvp combat in the cave) and it seems to me that the level 1 part of the adventure is focused on teaching the combat rules. The part written for going from level 2 to level 3 has more opportunity for other parts of the game. The survivability clearly increases after level 2 or 3 (but our warlock tank still ends up with 0hp quite often).

Skickat från min Nexus 6 via Tapatalk

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I did miss the number crunching
...
Are there more options at higher levels to reach the same sort of character tweaking that exists in 3.5?

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that these statements/questions are a good indication that 5e isn't really what you're going to want right now.

Eliminating most of that stuff is considered a feature of 5e, not a bug. There is nothing like the level of ongoing customization you can find in the library of 3.5e or Pathfinder books.

You might be right. While several of our players would often find themselves at 1 or 2 hit points during any combat encounter, none of them were ever at 0 hit points. So often my barbarian would come in the next round, and cut down what ever enemy was attacking them. One short rest later, and we'd all be healed up. Maybe the system is intended to be this way. It feels deadlier, but you're able to recover much faster from injuries.

At 1st level the game is potentially deadly. That initial goblin fight can end up as anything between a speed bump and a TPK depending on the players, the character, and the dice. I love it.

After 1st level, the game very quickly gets a lot easier for the players. A lot. They have enough cool powers and resources to handle the assumed adventuring day without much trouble most of the time, and challenging them at high level tends to call for hordes of minions supporting the stronger opponents, or setting cheese, "Um...so, five more black dragons come around the corner!" DMs must get in the habit of throwing in plenty of minions. Except at 1st level, you should almost always annihilate a solo opponent unless they are several levels higher than the party. Using the full adventuring day as suggested (not requires, just suggested) makes it go more smoothly.

The strength of 5th edition is that its immensely flexible and not reliant on the system to make a game for you, but reliant on the GM.

In our last game our 1st level party was being stalked by a displacer beast (the dice hath spoken!) I made sure the characters with the right knowledge skills and checks were well aware that this was a deadly opponent. The first time it attacked, the fighter chose to scrape up some dirt and throw it at the creature's eyes rather than the more standard readying of an attack for when it came into range. Even though the monster was 20' away, I ruled he was strong enough and there were enough pebbles in the dirt for it to work. I called for an attack roll, it hit, and therefore the displacer beast "de-displaced". This was the awesome of 5e flexibility at work. There is no way you could do that in 3.5e without laughing at the rules.

(As an aside, the temporarily partially blinded creature retreated, and then attacked the party later with surprise (but a horrible initiative roll, due to it still being under the hex the warlock tossed on it earlier). Most of the party used their Inspiration to attack it, and they actually managed to drive it away without anyone getting hurt--though I may have forgotten to give it one of its attacks, which could easily have dropped anyone.)

Yeah I really do think Tony is right, a proper DM can make any system great.

I would say, rather, that a good GM can make playing with just about any system fun, but a well-matched system will improve any game.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that these statements/questions are a good indication that 5e isn't really what you're going to want right now.

5e: the D&D for everyone who ever loved D&D.
Unless you have an opinion about it.

One of the strengths of 5e, it's biggest strength and greatest call-back to the classic game, IMH-D&D-fan-since-1980-O, is it's openness to variants. That is, 5e is OK with the DM just up and changing things. That openness is of no value if you can't be permitted some dissatisfaction with the default system, giving you the impetus to make (or seek out if you're a player) that change.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

5e: the D&D for everyone who ever loved D&D.
Unless you have an opinion about it.

One of the strengths of 5e, it's biggest strength and greatest call-back to the classic game, IMH-D&D-fan-since-1980-O, is it's openness to variants. That is, 5e is OK with the DM just up and changing things. That openness is of no value if you can't be permitted some dissatisfaction with the default system, giving you the impetus to make (or seek out if you're a player) that change.

I agree with that. I've found that the number of house rules I have made to get it to fit my vision of how D&D should be is a lot less than for any other edition. And the way the game is designed it is also a lot easier to make those rules.

So, yeah, if he wants to there are a lot of things he can do with it to make it closer to 3.5. I was just judging by the fact that his dissatisfaction seemed to stem from it differing from a favorite edition that he seems strongly attached to. In my experience, those least likely to want to adopt 5e are those most in love with a particular system. I've called them "Pathfounders", because they've found the edition they like (and Pathfinder is only one of those), rather than are currently playing with the game they like more. It isn't intended to be derogatory.

If I had my way, I'd get everyone to try out 5e for a good long adventure at least, play with the variants and options that appeal, and then see how they feel about it. But then again, if a 6e does come out in another 10-15 years (and I'm not convinced that it will), it's quite likely that I'd be a 5e Pathfounder who wouldn't want to really try it.