D&D 5E Have you played 5E yet?

[Klataubarada]

I'm running a game for my nieces and nephews on the 16th of August. Will be the first game I have ran since 1996, which was 2e's cleric challenge.

I'm so looking forward to getting back into D&D!

 

[arjomanes]

Sort of. I ported my old school Labyrinth Lord game over to some of the new Basic rules (but not all of them). It's 2 sessions in and seems to be a smoother game.

I didn't adopt all the rules since they're low-level characters who haven't played D&D before, or if they did it was like 15 years ago.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

We started a 5e Age of Worms campaign back in April. We converted our characters as much as we could when the Basic rules came out. Anything that was not in the Basic rules, they could keep from the playtest, and we made some changes to the playtest stuff (non-human races got +2/+1 ability bonuses half-orc got +2/+2, backgrounds were limited to 4 proficiencies/languages plus the special feature, spell progressi). When the PHB comes out, we will dump most of the playtest except for the monk who I think might only be in the DMG. This has worked out very well for us, and aside from the little surprises ("charge is gone", "no more sound burst", "fireball does how much damage") there has been no negative impact from the change.

I will say that I am greatly looking forward to monsters being added to Basic on August 8 and the monster manual in September. Converting all of these 3/3.5 monsters or reskinning playtest (and now starter set) monsters has been a lot of work. I am looking forward to being able to look up the monster and just drop it in the campaign.

I'd be interested in hearing more about how this goes. I was running a 3.5E campaign of Age of Worms up until February this year when I had a baby break (3rd child). So we've not played since then and, in the meantime, another of my players is running a RttToEE campaign. So I'll probably rejoin the group as a player for a bit.

I was getting burnt out on 3.5E by the end of last year, so I'm not sure I could go back to the campaign and run it as a 3.5E game. Translating it to 5E may be a better option.

 

[Juriel]

We started playing the Starter Set adventure with 2 people picking pregens, 1 creating his own with the Basic rules, and GM throwing the left-over Human Fighter pregen in as an NPC, so we'd have the expected 4 characters to the party.

Low-level combat was nothing other than repetitive roll to hit, roll damage, and we started houseruling things after the first session (combine some skills, remove cover mechanics and just use dis/advantage). But I'm giving it a chance, maybe it changes as we get a few levels...

Game is still so much better than 3e, that I was surprised I can like it in spite of the asinine 4e-hating campaigning Mearls and co have been running.

 

[Quickleaf]

When the 3 core books are out????

Will probably play it with just two, but still.

I think we're going to be playing 5th ediiton with just the PHB in August. We took a break over the summer cause we were all fairly busy, traveling and babies being born, so we're excited to do some gaming.

My friend and I both followed and DMed the playtest at various points so one of us can rise to the challenge of DMing without a MM or DMG I'm sure.

I am following the threads here about 5e monster math as well as any snippets I can gather from WotC, so I'm pretty confident I can handle converting monsters suitable for levels 1 to 4. Also have adapted quest XP rewards from 4e for use in 5e, so I have a guideline for non-combat XP. Traps and such I'll just wing or use with little tweaking from older editions.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I was surprised I can like it in spite of the asinine 4e-hating campaigning Mearls and co have been running.

Can't we say we like something without accusing the developers of having some masked agenda of hatred? I think we can. Please try that instead of this next time.

 

[Jack99]

We started a 5e Age of Worms campaign back in April. We converted our characters as much as we could when the Basic rules came out. Anything that was not in the Basic rules, they could keep from the playtest, and we made some changes to the playtest stuff (non-human races got +2/+1 ability bonuses half-orc got +2/+2, backgrounds were limited to 4 proficiencies/languages plus the special feature, spell progressi). When the PHB comes out, we will dump most of the playtest except for the monk who I think might only be in the DMG. This has worked out very well for us, and aside from the little surprises ("charge is gone", "no more sound burst", "fireball does how much damage") there has been no negative impact from the change.

I will say that I am greatly looking forward to monsters being added to Basic on August 8 and the monster manual in September. Converting all of these 3/3.5 monsters or reskinning playtest (and now starter set) monsters has been a lot of work. I am looking forward to being able to look up the monster and just drop it in the campaign.

Monk is in the PHB. Pretty certain of that.

 

[Tormyr]

I'd be interested in hearing more about how this goes. I was running a 3.5E campaign of Age of Worms up until February this year when I had a baby break (3rd child). So we've not played since then and, in the meantime, another of my players is running a RttToEE campaign. So I'll probably rejoin the group as a player for a bit.

I was getting burnt out on 3.5E by the end of last year, so I'm not sure I could go back to the campaign and run it as a 3.5E game. Translating it to 5E may be a better option.

Right now we are halfway through chapter 2, and everyone is having a blast. Converting monsters is time suck. Adv/Dis/Inspiration is fantastic. The adventure path is maybe a little less deadly in 5e. This is partially because encounters are a bit more balanced and partially because of weaker playtest monsters.

What I have done is look at the encounter level of a room, choose an experience budget equivalent to a party of that level and fill the room with monsters that meet that experience budget. To give an example, sometimes the level 3 party gets an EL of 6. A 6th level character would have 250XP for a moderate challenge encounter. For a level 3 character 250XP is between challenging and hard. This party has been taken to the brink several times, and each time they have rallied and found a way to survive.

The other difficulty is in selecting appropriate DCs for skill and ability checks. The DCs for some checks are ridiculously high numbers. Fitting the checks as described in the AP into bounded accouracy takes sitting back and thinking.

Overall, I highly recommend it. I imagine that when I finish this up I will put out a conversion guide. Once the DMG and Monster Manual are out, I imagine this will be much easier, and I would only need to cover specific conversions for NPCs and monsters not in the manual as well as skill and ability check numbers and magic items not covered in the big 3.

If any of you have any specific questions, please PM me. If there is enough feedback, I suppose we could start a new thread on it.

 

[Nikosandros]

Monk is in the PHB. Pretty certain of that.

Yes, the class list has been confirmed for quite some time: barbarian, bard, cleric, druid, fighter, monk, paladin, ranger, rogue, sorcerer, warlock, and wizard.

 

[Nikosandros]

I've already run two sessions of the Starter Set and tonight I'll run the third one. The response from my players has been so far very positive and I'm also enjoying the game.

There are actually a few things that I'm not sure if I like too much, but this looks like an edition that will be very easy to modify and thinker with. The great thing for me and my group is the fact that 5e combines the speed of play and adjudication.