Not happy with playtest goes through it piece by piece

[thecasualoblivion]

Backgrounds

1. I'm ok with the listed Backgrounds. More would be nice, but no objections.
2. Noticable lack of physical skills combined with too many lores.

Bestiary

1. Boring sacks of HP
2. Encounter Building/XP: more on this later4

Character Creation

1. "Normally, you generate those numbers(your stats) by rolling dice."--kill it with fire
2. No point buy option
3. Not enthused about seeing 9 alignments back

Classes

1. Cleric--stuck being healbot and buffbot again, looks like they forgot all that was good about the Leader role in 4E. Most buffs and heals take your action, and things like Healing Word that don't aren't really worth using. 1/day Channel Divinity heal doesn't go very far. Mediocre advancement of offensive stats leads me to expect general mediocrity at higher levels, outside of healing and buffing.

2. Fighter--Combat Superiority thouroughly underwhelming. Very little of it seems better than just taking the damage from Deadly Strike. Passing on damage to do things off turn is too much of a gamble, and only Knock Down and and Shift really seem worth the trouble. Unhappy on being limited to affecting monsters of a certain size or less. Boring and spammy overall.

3. Rogue--Sneak Attack damage is improved if its going to be an every other turn deal, overpowered if it isn't. Rogue shouldn't be this fragile, shouldn't have to avoid melee, and should be able to function in combat better. The gap between Rogue and non-Rogue when it comes to skills is too much.

4. Wizard--Spell DCs scaling up brings back horrible memories of 3E. Still hate Vancian Magic with a passion, both the per-day part of it and the memorize/forget and having to memorize things twice to cast them twice part.

DM Guidelines

1. Overall too much Mother May I.
2. Building Combat Encounters/Adventures--Where to start? The xp table makes it seems like you gain a level each "adventuring day". They said in blogs that the "adventuring day" would mean something concrete, but that is out the window here. The guidelines here make 3E's CR system look sensible.

Equipment

1. GP cost for armor seems rather arbitrary.'
2. At +1 to AC, a Shield hardly seems worth it.
3. I really miss Longbow and Shortbow dealing better damage.
4. Not really much to the weapon list, but I'm ok with that suprisingly.

How to Play

1. Advantage/Disadvantage still coated in Mother May I
2. Rules for taking an action an unnecessary and clunky obfuscation of Move/Minor/Standard
3. Resting and Healing--No rules for more heroic/cinematic healing, aka making healing an encounter based resource. Options to slow it down but not to speed it up.

Races

1. Dwarf/Elf/Halfling don't do a lot, racial abilities mostly lackluster
3. +1 to all stats and +2 to one is better than what other races get to the point where non-humans might as well not exist

Specialties

1. Seriously incomplete list here. Not enough for a real game.
2. Feats seem to have gone from doing more than 3E/4E feats to doing less and having little point at all between the first and second playtests.
3. Healer specialty all but required, its too good not to have.
4. Guardian Specialty a joke compared to the 4E Defender role
5. Jack of All trades really isn't worth spending your Specialty on it.
6. Survivor specialty not as bad as 3E Toughness, but in the long run still a trap choice. Made worse by the fact that its the only listed specialty worth taking for the 5E Fighter.

Spells

1. Compared to AD&D/3E spells, man did these get nerfed hardcore.
2. The change to the HP threshold for Save or Suck spells is an unwelcome one.

Overall

1. Game is rather boring compared to 3E and 4E. The flavor of the game has been watered down from high powered fantasy into just off the farm mundanity.
2. HP way too low. 1st level PCs shouldn't be in danger of going down in one hit. Not looking forward to having to start at higher levels to avoid a situation I despise.
3. Very little tactical depth. Generally, there are only ever three options--Fight, "Make Stuff Up" and run away.
4. Not only is this something I wouldn't play over 4E, its not something I would play over 2E if I wanted to go "Old School". I don't even see how this could be fixed to work for me. On top of that, it makes me nostalgic for 3E even, which given my hatred of that edition I didn't even think was possible.

 

[DEFCON 1]

The fact that you're trying to compare a game that is to be playtested versus two fully published games says a lot about your potential worthiness as an effective playtester.

 

[Halivar]

Errr... this seems more like a review than playtest feedback. I would suggest trying to play it on its own merits.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

The fact that you're trying to compare a game that is to be playtested versus two fully published games says a lot about your potential worthiness as an effective playtester.

What I can compare is the direction they are taking the game in, and whether the playtest as it stands now is something that could possibly evolve into something I'd play.

 

[Ahnehnois]

2. Noticable lack of physical skills combined with too many lores.

I agree that the skill list is too small, though a lot of knowledge skills is a good thing.

1. Boring sacks of HP

Agreed.

1. "Normally, you generate those numbers(your stats) by rolling dice."--kill it with fire

This is supposed to feel like D&D. Even 3e presented rolling.

2. No point buy option

Not exactly a tough houserule. You don't think they won't do it eventually, do you?

3. Not enthused about seeing 9 alignments back

There are ten (they separated neutral and unaligned). And what's wrong with the nine alignments? I thought their brief descriptions were some of the best I've ever read.

1. Cleric--stuck being healbot and buffbot again, looks like they forgot all that was good about the Leader role in 4E.

Thankfully.

Mediocre advancement of offensive stats leads me to expect general mediocrity at higher levels, outside of healing and buffing.

IIRC, the problem with the 3.5 cleric was that it advanced too much and buffs added to its combat capacity. Also the first 5e playtest was too powerful in combat. Clerics aren't fighters (or "leaders"), they're priests.

2. Fighter--Combat Superiority thouroughly underwhelming.

I thought it was a good start.

Rogue shouldn't be this fragile, shouldn't have to avoid melee, and should be able to function in combat better.

Why? Rogue isn't really a combat class, and it seems as if they've given you options to either be better at combat or worse.

The gap between Rogue and non-Rogue when it comes to skills is too much.

Agreed. Rogue skills need to be toned down.

4. Wizard--Spell DCs scaling up brings back horrible memories of 3E.

I kind of agree. Kind of not.

Still hate Vancian Magic with a passion, both the per-day part of it and the memorize/forget and having to memorize things twice to cast them twice part.

Agree with this, but it wouldn't be D&D without it. Hopefully alternate magic systems will come later.

1. Overall too much Mother May I.

Not enough of it.

1. Advantage/Disadvantage still coated in Mother May I

i.e. good game design.

2. Rules for taking an action an unnecessary and clunky obfuscation of Move/Minor/Standard

Seems like they're trying to make things simpler, but I agree that they seem to have failed.

3. Resting and Healing--No rules for more heroic/cinematic healing, aka making healing an encounter based resource. Options to slow it down but not to speed it up.

Well, they've started out incredibly generously, and even the altered rules still aren't exactly what you'd call "gritty". Room for improvement in both directions perhaps.

1. Dwarf/Elf/Halfling don't do a lot, racial abilities mostly lackluster

I found them rather overpowered. Immunities suck.

3. +1 to all stats and +2 to one is better than what other races get to the point where non-humans might as well not exist

Agreed.

1. Seriously incomplete list here. Not enough for a real game.

It isn't a real game.

3. Healer specialty all but required, its too good not to have.

I doubt that.

4. Guardian Specialty a joke compared to the 4E Defender role

Good.

1. Compared to AD&D/3E spells, man did these get nerfed hardcore.

Agreed.

2. The change to the HP threshold for Save or Suck spells is an unwelcome one.

Best to get rid of these stupid thresholds.

1. Game is rather boring compared to 3E and 4E. The flavor of the game has been watered down from high powered fantasy into just off the farm mundanity.

Thusfar I agree, but it's still early.

2. HP way too low. 1st level PCs shouldn't be in danger of going down in one hit. Not looking forward to having to start at higher levels to avoid a situation I despise.

Anyone should be in some danger of going down with one hit, especially with a flattened power curve, but these 1st level characters are a little weak.

3. Very little tactical depth. Generally, there are only ever three options--Fight, "Make Stuff Up" and run away.

Again, early playtest. Even so, those will always be your fundamental options, won't they?

4. Not only is this something I wouldn't play over 4E, its not something I would play over 2E if I wanted to go "Old School". I don't even see how this could be fixed to work for me. On top of that, it makes me nostalgic for 3E even, which given my hatred of that edition I didn't even think was possible.

Personally I wouldn't play it over my perfectly well houseruled 3e or even 2e, but I find it a quantum leap ahead of 4e. I'd at least consider playing it if I had to.

 

[ferratus]

1. I'm ok with the listed Backgrounds. More would be nice, but no objections.
2. Noticable lack of physical skills combined with too many lores.

I don't mind the many lores problem, because it gives me an excuse for characters to go find Sages. I mean I can't just throw obscure lore at them in exchange for a skill check, but I can tell them to trace glyphs with charcoal and parchment for later.

The physical skills are probably considered redundant because of physical ability scores. In other words, you are good at running if you have high con, good at jumping and lifting with high strength, etc. In other words, you don't need to train to do purely physical stuff that everyone does, or rather you've already trained by increasing your ability scores. I don't think I agree with that, since a high Con could mean you are healthy but fat if you don't take the running skill.

1. Boring sacks of HP

I don't it is quite that bad. It definitely has a bit of 4e in it by having one or two modular powers, and more tactical modular powers could be added by a 4e-centric DM fairly easily. This is a marked improvement over the last playtest, where the monsters were just sacks of hp.

I think 4e monsters were the most mechanically interesting of the 4 editions myself, and the easiest to run, but they made "theatre of the mind" play difficult and their defenses and hp were too high. These monsters fix both these problems.

One other thing this Bestiary learned from 4e is that any spells that monsters cast have the spell description right in the monster text. Huzzah! No looking up spells in the PHB when you want to run a monster.

1. "Normally, you generate those numbers(your stats) by rolling dice."--kill it with fire
2. No point buy option

I like meeting my characters rather than creating builds myself, so this doesn't bother me. For people who build characters through, I imagine it will make it in as a dice rolling option eventually. But I can understand why they would want to encourage rolling now, since you can't really test the flat math without random ability scores.

3. Not enthused about seeing 9 alignments back

As long as mechanical effects involving alignment don't creep back into the core game, I don't care. Some people like it as part of fleshing out their character's personality, and if it helps them, that's all to the good. However, if the paladin starts detecting at-will evil again, I'll see red.

1. Cleric--stuck being healbot and buffbot again, looks like they forgot all that was good about the Leader role in 4E.

Eh, to be fair, a cleric was a leader by being a healbot and buffbot in 4e. Both 2e and 3e had more flavourful priest variations than 4e did.

3. Rogue--Sneak Attack damage is improved if its going to be an every other turn deal, overpowered if it isn't. Rogue shouldn't be this fragile, shouldn't have to avoid melee, and should be able to function in combat better. The gap between Rogue and non-Rogue when it comes to skills is too much.

Can't agree here. I am going to resist any attempt to make the rogue the archetype of the ninja or assassin (I want those to be their own classes). There has got to be a way to make a skill-based rogue class viable without making them all Artemis Entreri. We just have to figure it out.

1. GP cost for armor seems rather arbitrary.

Agreed. They should just do some research as to what things cost in the particular medieval time period/place they are trying to emulate with the core game, and price the equipment accordingly. If the flatter math system works, it shouldn't matter that a good sword costs 7 oxen, or that a good warhorse costs the equivelant of a sports car in today's money. Stop breaking immersion by trying to introduce balance through cost.

2. At +1 to AC, a Shield hardly seems worth it.

Agreed. But I've been making a shield worth +4 since 2e, so I guess it is just going to be another edition where I do it again.

4. Not really much to the weapon list, but I'm ok with that suprisingly.

I want the weapon qualities from 4e (Brutal, Versatile, High-Crit etc.) back. I am glad to see bludgeoning, slashing and piercing back though. Bring back the golf club bag of weapons I say. Real Medieval knights and warriors carried several weapons, so why shouldn't D&D fighters?

1. Dwarf/Elf/Halfling don't do a lot, racial abilities mostly lackluster
3. +1 to all stats and +2 to one is better than what other races get to the point where non-humans might as well not exist

Dwarf, Elf and Halfing look pretty much the same as in 4e, up to including having all the same abilities. Sure, High Elves have a free spell instead of blink teleport, but I like that better anyway. (I wonder if short range teleport will be a cantrip).

I'm not sure if Humans have too much stats. In 3e or 4e this would be killer, but with flatter math it might end up being a non-issue because you might not get as rewarded for higher stats.

1. Compared to AD&D/3E spells, man did these get nerfed hardcore.

Good.

2. The change to the HP threshold for Save or Suck spells is an unwelcome one.

Can you elaborate on that? My concern for save or suck is that it is back down in lower levels. 4e taught me just how important spells are that deny actions, and I used that knowledge to absolutely dominate my 3e games until I just couldn't play spellcasters anymore.

4. Not only is this something I wouldn't play over 4E, its not something I would play over 2E if I wanted to go "Old School". I don't even see how this could be fixed to work for me. On top of that, it makes me nostalgic for 3E even, which given my hatred of that edition I didn't even think was possible.

I would play this over 4e if I had a group that was more into exploration and plotline than combat. 4e combat is fun, but it is very hard to get through a complete adventure in a session or two. I would play this over 2e, for while 2e is my favourite, this cleans up 2e and adds more options. I'd DM this over 3e because it would simply be quicker and easier prep, but otherwise many of the same problems/benefits are much the same between this and 3e, except it feels a little more like 2e or Rules Cyclopedia D&D.

 

[Transformer]

Backgrounds

1. I'm ok with the listed Backgrounds. More would be nice, but no objections.
2. Noticable lack of physical skills combined with too many lores.

#1 Solves #2 . There will be many more backgrounds.

Bestiary

1. Boring sacks of HP

I have no particular comment on monster design; I haven't looked at it much yet and it's something that particularly needs playtesting and not backseat speculation.

1. "Normally, you generate those numbers(your stats) by rolling dice."--kill it with fire
2. No point buy option
3. Not enthused about seeing 9 alignments back

Rolling stats will be the first option presented in the rulebook. It was for decades. And the nine alignments are never going to go away again; they are probably the most iconic thing about D&D. Are they silly and arbitrary? Well, of course. But ask someone who's barely heard of the game and knows nothing about how tabletop RPGs are played, and there's a good chance the one thing he knows is the nine alignments.

You are right, of course, that we need an official point buy, and they should roll it out soon. I'll be miffed if it's not in the next playtest packet.

Classes

1. Cleric--stuck being healbot and buffbot again, looks like they forgot all that was good about the Leader role in 4E. Most buffs and heals take your action, and things like Healing Word that don't aren't really worth using. 1/day Channel Divinity heal doesn't go very far. Mediocre advancement of offensive stats leads me to expect general mediocrity at higher levels, outside of healing and buffing.

The lack of base attack bonus advancement for the cleric is troubling. In-combat healing seems to be de-emphasized significantly, so I am less bothered by spells that take a standard action to cast. We could use more weaker buff and healing spells that don't take a standard action, though, for people who want them.

2. Fighter--Combat Superiority thouroughly underwhelming. Very little of it seems better than just taking the damage from Deadly Strike. Passing on damage to do things off turn is too much of a gamble, and only Knock Down and and Shift really seem worth the trouble. Unhappy on being limited to affecting monsters of a certain size or less. Boring and spammy overall.

As they said on the Wizards forums, Combat Superiority dice need to refresh at the end of the Fighter's turn, not the beginning.

3. Rogue--Sneak Attack damage is improved if its going to be an every other turn deal, overpowered if it isn't. Rogue shouldn't be this fragile, shouldn't have to avoid melee, and should be able to function in combat better. The gap between Rogue and non-Rogue when it comes to skills is too much.

Agreed that the designers absolutely must keep sneak attack under control and make sure that there is no reasonable way optimizers can get it every turn. Everyone should have slightly higher starting hp than they have in this new playtest packet.

I can't agree, though, on Rogues as skill monkeys. The setup is fine. Every other class can become skilled in a nice little set of whatever type of skills they want through Backgrounds. Rogues get to be skilled in a lot more skills. Take away their advantage as skill monkeys and they lose most of their niche and their appeal.

4. Wizard--Spell DCs scaling up brings back horrible memories of 3E. Still hate Vancian Magic with a passion, both the per-day part of it and the memorize/forget and having to memorize things twice to cast them twice part.

Vancian magic has innumerable fans. It's absolutely not going to go away. As to Spell DCs, they just need to keep the math tight.

Also agreed that we need to see the non-vancian options for arcane spellcasters soon, for the people who want a less Daily system.

DM Guidelines

1. Overall too much Mother May I.

I avoid this debate.

2. Building Combat Encounters/Adventures--Where to start? The xp table makes it seems like you gain a level each "adventuring day". They said in blogs that the "adventuring day" would mean something concrete, but that is out the window here. The guidelines here make 3E's CR system look sensible.

We're all assuming that the lightning fast XP advancement is just for the sake of the playtest, so that people can quickly try out all 5 levels without fudging on the written rules.

1. GP cost for armor seems rather arbitrary.'

I disagree. The most mundane armors vary in cost as expected, and who's to say that top top armor in each class (exotic animal hide, dragonscale, full plate) don't cost about the same?

2. At +1 to AC, a Shield hardly seems worth it.

Disagree again. If you're a Dexterity-based fighter, wielding a 2-hander only gets you one extra step up in damage, which means an average increase of one damage. 1 AC > 1 damage, so if anything a shield is the clear choice. If you're a Dwarf Strength fighter, wielding a 2-hander gets you 1.5 extra damage (1d10 vs. 2d6). Again, 1 AC is probably > 1.5 damage. If you're a Human Strength fighter, it's generally 1 AC vs. 2 damage. The 2 damage is maybe a bit better at low levels, but as you level up and damage numbers inflate more and more, then again, a shield will be the clear choice.

3. I really miss Longbow and Shortbow dealing better damage.

With ranged attacks getting dexterity to damage (as they should), the damage is fine.

1. Advantage/Disadvantage still coated in Mother May I

There are all kinds of concrete situations that always trigger advantage and disadvantage. Advantage/disadvantage are pulling double duty as both objective features of the game system and as the DM's standard tool for adjucation. The DM does need a rule for adjucation, even in the most player-empowering system. In previous editions it was +/-2. Now it's advantage/disadvantage.

2. Rules for taking an action an unnecessary and clunky obfuscation of Move/Minor/Standard

I... am still sort of with you here. 5th edition has yet to convince me that eliminating the minor action was a good idea. 4th edition's action economy was one of the best things about it.

3. Resting and Healing--No rules for more heroic/cinematic healing, aka making healing an encounter based resource. Options to slow it down but not to speed it up.

Interesting. I've never even heard someone request that before. But if healing were just limited by encounter rather than by day, wouldn't every party just use healing kits and heal up after every single encounter? It wouldn't be much different from everyone just getting all their hp back at the end of every fight.

Races

1. Dwarf/Elf/Halfling don't do a lot, racial abilities mostly lackluster
3. +1 to all stats and +2 to one is better than what other races get to the point where non-humans might as well not exist

Agreed that humans are too strong, and it's thematically bad that they are, on average, as good at every single ability score as the race that specializes in it. Nerf humans; the rest are fine.

Specialties

1. Seriously incomplete list here. Not enough for a real game.

Well yeah, it's a playtest packet a few dozen pages long.

2. Feats seem to have gone from doing more than 3E/4E feats to doing less and having little point at all between the first and second playtests.

They're plenty useful.

3. Healer specialty all but required, its too good not to have.

Yeah, it's pretty damn powerful. Not sure exactly what should be done about that. I think perhaps healing potions need to cost the full 50gp to make, so that it's a matter of convenience to make one on the fly rather than "any party with a healer has twice as many healing potions as everyone else." Healer's Touch just needs to be toned down somehow. Maybe it increases the die by one step whenever you're involved in healing? Eh, that's clunky.

4. Guardian Specialty a joke compared to the 4E Defender
5. Jack of All trades really isn't worth spending your Specialty on it.

Most of the specialties do relatively little. They're a distant fourth to class race and background. Jack-of-all-Trades is fine for people who really want training in that one really useful skill. Guardian is supposed to be only one small part of the "defender."

I doubt aggro-based (i.e., Marking) defenders are coming back. I wouldn't blame you for being miffed about that.

6. Survivor specialty not as bad as 3E Toughness, but in the long run still a trap choice. Made worse by the fact that its the only listed specialty worth taking for the 5E Fighter.

5 hp/3 levels is fine, and on par with most of the specialties. It is a bit boring, admittedly.

Spells

1. Compared to AD&D/3E spells, man did these get nerfed hardcore.

And thank goodness, because high level quadric wizards were stupidly ridiculous in AD&D/3E.

2. The change to the HP threshold for Save or Suck spells is an unwelcome one.

I... am too lazy to look up the exact change, so I have nothing to say.

The flavor of the game has been watered down from high powered fantasy into just off the farm mundanity.

Lots of people want just-off-the-farm kind of fantasy; we'll have see to see if level 5-15 can handle heroic fantasy better, with flashier Combat Superiority maneuvers, flashier 6th level Specialty Feats, and the like, Hopefully it will.

3. Very little tactical depth. Generally, there are only ever three options--Fight, "Make Stuff Up" and run away.

The fighter has a heck of a lot more tactical choices than he had in 3rd. The Wizard is about where he was in 3rd. I assume you're comparing to 4th? Yeah, I admit if I were a huge fan of the 4th edition fighter or rogue or even cleric, I would want more options to sacrifice straight up base attack bonus or damage for special abilities.

 

[Remathilis]

So you hate it because its D&D and not fourth edition. Got it.

Mod Note: Please see my post below. ~Umbran

 

[the Jester]

What I can compare is the direction they are taking the game in, and whether the playtest as it stands now is something that could possibly evolve into something I'd play.

Welp, seems like you've made up your mind, so enjoy your 4e game! No reason to stop playing it even after 5e releases.

 

[AstroCat]

Well I'm really liking it a lot and find it just keeps getting better and better!

If it continues like this D&D will happily be back at our gaming table (along side Savage Worlds). We gave 4e a hard full on try, several times even and in the end the Powers/Verisimilitude disconnect among tons of other stuff left us bummed and disheartened in the end.

Haters gonna hate... and gamers are some of the best haters around. Bring on 5E!