D&D 5E My thoughts on 5E

[sgtscott658]

Hi-

Picked up the book today from dice dojo and looked it over, even attempted to create a paladin character but gave up after a bit due to the amount of moving parts involved. With 3.5 everything was right there, in 5E it seems class advancement table is in another chapter altogether. Skill advancement is nowhere to be found, I am assuming that once you pick your initial skills thats it no more. The art was ok, but a 1/2 orc pally? Really? A Warlock class? Why not just play a Wizard with a better familiar? Tieflings and Dragon Born? Say it aint so lol. Oh and higher HD for most classes?

Essentially creating a full character will be time consuming but on the other hand, you can nix the back round fluff, advantages / disadvantages, second wind and surges to get your game off the ground more quickly.

I think WotC wanted to go back to 3.5 but also wanted to sell books, they are after all a publishing company but I will try to work through this version but it is not easy thats for sure but on the other hand, its not like when I picked up 4E and which was totally a different game. With 5E at least, there is a familiarity about it and thats good.

As an aside, If have said anything offensive to the entrenched grogs here I do apologize up front and meant not to disrespect anybody here.

Scott

 

[doctorhook]

Hi-

Picked up the book today from dice dojo and looked it over, even attempted to create a paladin character but gave up after a bit due to the amount of moving parts involved. With 3.5 everything was right there, in 5E it seems class advancement table is in another chapter altogether. Skill advancement is nowhere to be found, I am assuming that once you pick your initial skills thats it no more. The art was ok, but a 1/2 orc pally? Really? A Warlock class? Why not just play a Wizard with a better familiar? Tieflings and Dragon Born? Say it aint so lol. Oh and higher HD for most classes?

Essentially creating a full character will be time consuming but on the other hand, you can nix the back round fluff, advantages / disadvantages, second wind and surges to get your game off the ground more quickly.

I think WotC wanted to go back to 3.5 but also wanted to sell books, they are after all a publishing company but I will try to work through this version but it is not easy thats for sure but on the other hand, its not like when I picked up 4E and which was totally a different game. With 5E at least, there is a familiarity about it and thats good.

As an aside, If have said anything offensive to the entrenched grogs here I do apologize up front and meant not to disrespect anybody here.

Scott

Nah man, I think anybody who wanted to go back to 3.5E either just stayed there or moved over to Paizo. As unpopular as 4E was, it really did have a lot of mechanical innovations, and some of those are hidden in 5E--larger hit dice, for example.

Orc paladins, warlocks, dragonborn, and tieflings aren't your thing? It's okay! This edition, WotC has declared that even the Player's Handbook is not the "core" rulebook, and that those rules are completely at the discretion of the DM. The "core" rulebook is the free Basic Rules hosted on WotC's website. Dwarves, elves, halflings, humans, clerics, fighters, rogues, and wizards are all you'll find there (plus rules for using them, of course).

I hope you'll give 5E a fair shot! It might the best D&D yet. Happy gaming!

 

[Mistwell]

Hi-

Picked up the book today from dice dojo and looked it over, even attempted to create a paladin character but gave up after a bit due to the amount of moving parts involved. With 3.5 everything was right there, in 5E it seems class advancement table is in another chapter altogether. Skill advancement is nowhere to be found, I am assuming that once you pick your initial skills thats it no more

It's in the Proficiency section. Which covers base attack bonus, saving throw bonus, skill advancement, spell DC advancement, and several other things. It's a much more unified system with FEWER moving parts, than 3.5. Now that might not be your thing, or it might be, but the idea that 5e has more moving parts than 3.5 is objectively false. It's part of the entire design philosophy of 5e that it has fewer moving parts.

I am also curious why you didn't just download the free Basic rules and read that?

Essentially creating a full character will be time consuming but on the other hand, you can nix the back round fluff, advantages / disadvantages, second wind and surges to get your game off the ground more quickly.

I guarantee I can make a character in 5e, using all the options, faster than you can make a character in 3.5e. And that's with me having a lot less experience in 5e than you have with 3e.

 

[Jester David]

Picked up the book today from dice dojo and looked it over, even attempted to create a paladin character but gave up after a bit due to the amount of moving parts involved.

Give it some time to digest and try again. Learning a new system always takes some time. I almost ate a bullet trying to make my first 3e character, but I'm glad I stuck with it.

With 3.5 everything was right there, in 5E it seems class advancement table is in another chapter altogether. Skill advancement is nowhere to be found, I am assuming that once you pick your initial skills thats it no more.

Races are in the race chapter, classes are in the class chapter, and backgrounds are in the backgrounds chapter. You should be able to move forward through the book and just make a character step-by-step.
Did you read the character building introduction at the front? The example is pretty solid.

A Warlock class? Why not just play a Wizard with a better familiar?

It's the same warlock that's been around since Complete Arcane in 3rd Edition. It's not a warcraft summoner, and not all get familiars.

Tieflings and Dragon Born? Say it aint so lol. Oh and higher HD for most classes?

Just rogues, monks, and wizards really.

Tiefling have been around since 2nd Edition. And dragonborn... well, they're optional.

 

[sgtscott658]

Well, will try to grok this new version, with me DM'ing a game sunday, I will be hard pressed to get these rules straight. BTW, what page is skill advancement on?

The best thing I do like about 5E is that combat is much less bloated then previous editions and thats what attracted me to 5E more then anything else, I can do without the fluff and munchkin races in my campaign but the combat is the best part of 5E, no more 3 hour melee's hopefully of course.

Anyway, thanks for the input and once more I do apologize up front if I have offended any forum grogs here with my post.


Scott

 

[Tony Vargas]

Hi-

Picked up the book today from dice dojo and looked it over, even attempted to create a paladin character but gave up after a bit due to the amount of moving parts involved. With 3.5 everything was right there, in 5E it seems class advancement table is in another chapter altogether.

Take a deep breath and remember that you've played 3.5 for a while and it's /familiar/. Give yourself a little time to get accustomed to any little differences in presentation & philosophy.

If anything, 5e chargen is a bit less involved than 3.5 - though, once you get the hang of it, and more stuff comes out, 20 level builds might be the ideal thing, again.

Skill advancement is nowhere to be found, I am assuming that once you pick your initial skills thats it no more.

Yep, you get skill "Proficiency" from your 'Background,' which, in effect, gives you two ranks. From there, you get 4 more ranks over 20 levels. Apart from that, everything is ability checks, so if you lack proficiency in a skill and try to do something related to it, it's just an unmodified ability check. This is a big change from 3e and 4e where a high-level character could have a huge bonus compared to a lower-level one - a /feature/ called 'bounded accuracy' that keeps challenges & monsters relevant over all 20 levels, instead of necessitating upgrading monsters with NPC class levels or upgrading doors from wood, to iron, to adamantine.

A Warlock class? Why not just play a Wizard with a better familiar? Tieflings and Dragon Born? Say it aint so lol.

Warlocks, Tieflings and 1/2-Dragons were in 3.5, too. At least there's no crazy LAs this time around.

Oh and higher HD for most classes?

Yeah. I'm not sure exactly what that's about. It doesn't make PCs tougher, overall, since the toughest have the same HD, so it just narrows the range of toughness. Maybe trying to strike a balance with not such a vast gulf between the top and bottom tiers has something to do with it. Give casters slightly fewer slots, but slightly more hps.

Well, will try to grok this new version, with me DM'ing a game sunday, I will be hard pressed to get these rules straight.

I've run the 5e playtest. While it might be hard on a new DM, if you've DMed /any/ D&D for more than a few years, you should be fine. The basic way everything in 5e works is:

- A player tells you what they want to do.

- You either describe the results if you think it can be accomplished automatically, tell him it's impossible, or call for a roll.

- For a roll: Name a stat, and ask if he has a proficiency that might apply, allow or deny the proficiency, and have him roll. At 1st level, most DCs are going to be 10 or 15, but, really, you can play success/failure by ear.

- Narrate the result.

Any rule questions? Don't waste a lot of time, just make a ruling.

As in AD&D, the idea is to project confidence/infallibility/omniscience, so the players won't argue with you and will focus on interacting with the world.

 

[drjones]

The basic rules have been available for free for a while, and have less moving parts to be concerned with when you are starting out. Use them till you learn the systems. I'd advise against nixing things you don't understand as a reflex though.

 

[Tony Semana]

Well, will try to grok this new version, with me DM'ing a game sunday, I will be hard pressed to get these rules straight. BTW, what page is skill advancement on?

The best thing I do like about 5E is that combat is much less bloated then previous editions and thats what attracted me to 5E more then anything else, I can do without the fluff and munchkin races in my campaign but the combat is the best part of 5E, no more 3 hour melee's hopefully of course.

Anyway, thanks for the input and once more I do apologize up front if I have offended any forum grogs here with my post.


Scott

If you're under the gun, have to prep to DM a game on Sunday, and are having a hard time with the full PHB, I would suggest putting that aside for now and downloading the free Basic rules here: Basic rules download, and starting with the pregens from the starter set here: Pregens

It sounds like this may be the first time you're picking up 5e, and if that's the case (apologies if I'm wrong) the Basic rule set is simply a subset of the PHB (lifted wholly out of the PHB sections) and is still a solid place to start.

The pregens are great resources into character creation and level progression. They start at level 1 and each one outlines the change for each level-up to 5. So you can use those as your 'guide posts' to follow along in level progression for Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, and Rogue classes.

There is no 'skill advancement' per se, you are either proficient in skills or you're not (selected in character creation, through class, background and sometimes race selection). Your Proficiency Bonus is what describes how good you are in those skills as modifier that goes up by level. The Proficiency Bonus for each class is shown in that class' table. If you're not proficient in a skill does not mean you can't attempt a result, you can still try and your check will not include your proficiency bonus (all checks are based boil down to a base attributes).

Hope that helps a bit,

 

[Gundark]

I struggled a bit with the playtest when it came out. But it is really quite easy to make characters once you get the hang of it. I can seriously make them in about 10 minutes.

 

[Emirikol]

I got my basic set, and I kind of dig what's going on, but damn, my players really hate D&D since our try at 4e. Essentially, I had 5 people swear off D&D for ever and switched to pathfinder (which is kind of wearing thin on me lately simply due to all the petty modifiers leftover from that edition).

For me, my least favorite part of the game is creating characters. I'll probably have to whip up an excel program to create randoms.

Looks like it is gaming with my kid(s) (who were also was raised on the Pathfinder beginner box..which is far superior in content than the dry, dusty, blah, practically-empty beginner box for 5e), but they're at my mercy!

jh