D&D 5E My D&D Next Experience at DDXP

[Tallifer]

I'll reserve final judgement till I see actual mechanics, but this really concerns me that WotC is throwing out the 4e baby with the bath water.

Trying to outdo Pathfinder by going back to 3e era mechanics is a doomed business model. Those Pathfinder guys have it pretty good with Paizo, there is little reason for them to switch back. The 1e/2e superfans is an extremely small niche market who are mostly satisfied with the books they already have, and they also have Castles and Crusades and a horde of retroclones.

Unification is nice, and if you can make an edition that pulls back in some of those lapsed fans, great. I'm all for inclusion and making as many people happy as possible. But you MUST keep your 4e base happy, WotC.

Your bread and butter are the 4e fans. They're generating revenue and keeping your lights on now, WotC. Not in some marketer's hypothetical future vision of all D&D fans suddenly coming "home" again.

If you lose even half of those customers, I doubt you'll pick up enough returnees to make up the difference, and 5e will be DOA.

I have the same fears as you do. I think the ship has already sailed on all those fanatics of Pathfinder and the Old School Renaissance. They have the best systems possible for what they like. I think the problem is that Hasbro is putting pressure on the Wizards: would that the Wizards had never sold out to Hasbro!

 

[bryce0lynch]

I also heard, a the con, that Monte was just going through the motions.

As die-hard 4E players I would encourage you to not judge the game by its playtest. The optional modules should bring you back to the 4E style that you enjoy, however that style has to be built upon something, namely the game we saw at the con.

You are in much the same mindspace I was prior to the con and while the con settled my anxiety it seems to have heightened yours. Give the process a chance and make sure they hear your feedback that the optional modules need to incorporate you desired play style.

 

[Number48]

I have the same fears as you do. I think the ship has already sailed on all those fanatics of Pathfinder and the Old School Renaissance. They have the best systems possible for what they like. I think the problem is that Hasbro is putting pressure on the Wizards: would that the Wizards had never sold out to Hasbro!

Not as much as you might think for us Pathfinders. About a month before they announced 5E, I started mulling over making my own hybrid game. I love Pathfinder but I do like dynamic combats and monster-as-different approach of 4E, not to mention that I would go ahead and fix the upper level problem as long as I was at it. So some of us were already prepared for a new edition. I don't know the intricacies of publishing under the OGL, but I'm not sure Paizo CAN make a truly new edition of Pathfinder. They might be married to the mechanics of 3.5.

The big question is if 5E really will give us the PF feel while gaining some mechanical benefits of 4E and giving us a truly new edition, or if 5E is going to be some kind of glitchy 1E clone?

 

[Hassassin]

I have the same fears as you do. I think the ship has already sailed on all those fanatics of Pathfinder and the Old School Renaissance. They have the best systems possible for what they like. I think the problem is that Hasbro is putting pressure on the Wizards: would that the Wizards had never sold out to Hasbro!

You may be right about "fanatics", but I doubt they are a large part of those who currently play 3e or PF.

Personally, I play a hybrid, but because PF only fixed a few of the problems I have with 3e (and made some worse), I'm more than ready to switch if something better appears.

It's not that I don't play 4e because 3e/PF is the ultimate game, but because 4e was simply worse for what I want from D&D.

 

[Tallifer]

Heh. My old fashioned mannerisms confuse: fanatics is just the unabbreviated word for fans.

 

[Osgood]

Fact that 5E is coming, and coming soon/now, says otherwise.

Keeping the lights on and thriving are two different things. If there weren't 4E players, there would be no 5E because D&D would have been shelved by now.

 

[Osgood]

Back to interrogating the playtesters. Now, without asking specifics, did you get a good feel from your character sheet what on it was from race, class or theme?

Yes, each set of abilities was in it's won section. I had to look in three different places to know if I had bonuses for anything.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I have problems with the premise that 4th is complex and previous editions of D&D are simple. It makes 4th ed sound like the Kama sutra!

I just dont think it that complicated a system. I have seen people with little gaming experience understand and play it quite quickly. It alienated (too) many play styles, to be sure, they changed too many archetypes (like druids etc) and some players found it hard to accept the high fantasy assumptions of it, but the underlying mechanics and structure are pretty simple and uniform. 4th ed is just a different kind of simplicity.

I agree that 4e is ridiculously easy to teach. I've done it myself.

However, I'm talking about character build options here. A 4e fighter isn't horribly complex, but it certainly looks that way when compared to a 1e fighter. Hence, start with the 1e fighter and build up to the 4e fighter.

Even the 4e wizard, with four spells of varying frequency, is more complex than the 1e wizard with one daily spell.

It isn't that 4e is complex. It's that, at least from the perspective of character building, 1e characters are very simple. You have plenty of choices to make when building a 4e character, whereas you rarely do with a 1e character.

It's much easier to add options (choices) to a simple (non-choice) frame, than it is to deconstruct something into something more simple. They've already stated that the fighter will have the option to gain powers instead of simple numerical bonuses, so clearly the 4e fighter is in the works.

 

[Tilenas]

One happens to be a mathematician, and she feels that spellcasters are at a distinct statistical disadvantage using the mechanics presented.

This is the single best thing I could possibly hear about the basic rules.

 

[Number48]

Yes, each set of abilities was in it's won section. I had to look in three different places to know if I had bonuses for anything.

Would it be breaking NDA to indicate if those 3 areas were about equal in size?