He mentioned that you can roll for ability scores or use an array chosen for you by your class. But what about a point buy option? Or what if I want to choose an array that's NOT cookie cutter for my class? These things would hardly take up much word count and I can't fathom why they wouldn't want to include them.
That class-suggested array cannot really be anything than a mere suggestion... it's cookie cutter because a new player won't need to think about it at all, but it will be obvious that you can immediately e.g. swap two of its scores. Or lower a high score, and increase a low score by the same amount. These are the 2 easiest changes that the introductory text can suggest.
I am also quite confident that a point-buy option (with 3 values, as usual) is still in, even tho it's not mentioned in this article.
He really makes it sound like the core rulebook is going to be a 1970s retroclone with nothing but a very basic fighter, cleric, rogue and wizard as options for play, and not even a basic skill system. Seriously? I don't mind having a modular system that lets people play that kind of game if they want to, but I better not have to buy a bunch of extra books just to be able to have a basic skill system or the ability to customize my character beyond "(race) [class]." I find even the current playtest material far too simple and lacking in character customization options for my taste. If even THAT is too complicated to be included in the core rulebook, Next will definitely not be for me.
Mearls still haven't explained if this basic book will be apart from the usual PHB/DMG/MM, or if they are going with a BECMI-style core books system where each core books builds on the previous one. In the first case, you'll probably have no need to buy the basic book and will just buy the 3 cores are usual. In the second case, everybody will have to buy the core books in order.
But overall, I don't expect you will be required to buy more books than in 3ed or 4ed... the amount of pages needed for your gamestyle should be roughly the same as usual! They can only screw this up if they publish different books which partly overlap, i.e. if these books both have reprinted rules but also rules exclusively available to each book, so that we'd have to buy them all but we'd be re-buying some of the same rules again.
I am a bit skeptic about the skills specifically tho. How can you really play a Rogue (which is one of the 4 basic archetypes that will be in the basic game also IIRC) without using skills in your game? Thus how can you delay talking about skills until after the basic product? :/
He mentions that he'd like to "Simplify combat by removing extraneous options. We have 14 options in the rules now. The basic game needs only attack, cast a spell, disengage, hide, hustle, search, and use an item. I'd like the core rules boiled down to about 16 pages, not counting class-specific material." Are you kidding me? There are too many options? I look at the current playtest and have the exact OPPOSITE reaction. Besides, they are just that - OPTIONS. How does that ruin the grognards' game to have options in it? If they don't want to use them, they don't have to! But to not include them for the rest of us that do want them is just offensive. Next is supposed to be a big tent, a game that caters to all styles of play. But all I see lately is catering to those who want the most minimalist and basic game possible.
That's a good purpose, since we're still talking about the BASIC product.
I've playtested the latest package with some newbies, and I can tell you that even those 7 combat actions are more than those really needed.
IMHO all that's really needed is attack, cast a spell, hustle, use an item. In our playtest I told them only about these 4 + also disengage and dodge, but maybe you can also play without them. Do you really need rules for hide and search during combat? NO, not in a basic game.
However, I think I would probably also put all the other current combat actions in the same basic game, but then I'll list them in a second paragraph or sidebar named "advanced actions in combat".
In any case keep in mind the article is about the BASIC product. Grognards are not supposed to own a basic game. Grognards will buy at least the equivalent of the 3e three core books, although they may still want to play a basic game but probably only sometimes.
This series of articles is clearly and explicitly going to address 3 different levels of complexity, and let us know how they are going to support them by publishing format. Maybe next week they'll reveal that the standard game is simply a second core book which builds on top of the first, and then the advanced game is a third core book which builds on the previous two. Of course the first article of the series catered to those who want a minimal game! They others won't stop there, but would it have made more sense to start the article series talking about the 2nd or the 3ed?
