D&D 5E Played our first D&D Next Session - Questions and Impression

[Melkor]

Thanks for the response folks.

A bit more on the session - The DM wasn't able to read the rules as thoroughly as I was today (I was off work, and he had to work late), so he handed out characters and asked everyone to read over them and get familiar, and think of any questions they might have while he and I went in another room, and I went over the rules for about 10 minutes.

We have played D&D together for over 25 years, so he was pretty quick to pick up on what he hadn't gathered from skimming through today, and I was able to help him with the gaps during the session at the table.

I mentioned that I played the Dwarf Fighter. Historically, I have played Fighters because they were a basic class, and I preferred roleplaying and story to getting into character optimization, and having a lot of tactical options during combat. I thought it would be the best class for me to play based on my preference and experience.

One of the female players has played some Pathfinder and Basic, but that is her total D&D experience. She played the Halfling Rogue.

Another guy who has gamed with the DM and I for around 25 years played the High Elf Wizard. He loves both elves and Wizards, but was the most vocally anti-4E of our group. He was also the biggest optimizer and loophole-finder in 2E and 3E. That said, he is really creative with spells, and able to spot rules exploits with uncanny speed, so he is a great asset.

The other female player has never played an RPG before, and she took the Cleric of Pelor. She noted that she felt a bit overwhelmed by the options of Orisons, Spells, and healing (through the Healer's Kit and Potions), but she did really well.

Finally, we had a new gentleman join our group a month or so ago who is a coworker of the DM. He has played some RPGs in the past, but is primarily a tabletop miniatures gamer (40k). He took the Cleric of Moradin.

******** POSSIBLE CAVES OF CHAOS SPOILERS BELOW ************

After going over the rules and answering character questions. We started off with a bit of roleplay as the characters approached the caves. The DM had chosen the option in the module where the Ravine the caves were located in was created by a piece of the eye Correllon severed from Grumsch.

The characters approached the caves at night, and tried to sneak towards a cave mouth where they saw a humanoid with a torch dump a mangled corpse. With the disadvantage penalty for medium and heavy armors they made a ton of noise, and only the Rogue was able to sneak successfully.

The noise alerted a band of patrolling orcs, who attacked the characters, and a quick battle ensued with only minor damage. The Cleric of Pelor killed an orc, my Dwarf Fighter scored a critical and took out another, the Wizard managed to kill one with some well placed magic missiles, and the Rogue took one out with an advantaged sneak attack from hiding.

The character made for a cave entrance and set off a trap, when they heard a bunch of loud noise coming from outside. Their battle with the orcs had attracted an Ogre, and they ended up fighting the Ogre while trying to retrieve 3 characters from the pit trap. This battle took several turns, and I described some of what happened in my original post.

Following the defeat of the Ogre, the characters went back into the cave entrance, fearful that noise from the two combats, and spell blasts at night (like Radiant Light, Magic Missile, Rays of Frost, and Spiritual Hammer) had pretty much alerted anyone within miles to their presence, and took a short rest.

We ended the session here and spent about 30 minutes recapping, talking through rules questions, and getting general feedback and impressions. Overall it was a lot of fun.

 

[synthapse]

[MENTION=10786]Melkor[/MENTION]--

How fast did the combat play? I playtested the Friends and Family rules, and found combat to be enjoyably quick, but I haven't had a chance yet to try out these rules.

 

[Melkor]

[MENTION=10786]Melkor[/MENTION]--

How fast did the combat play? I playtested the Friends and Family rules, and found combat to be enjoyably quick, but I haven't had a chance yet to try out these rules.

Hi Synthapse -

The first combat against the orcs was lightning fast. The second combat against the Ogre took about an hour, but could have been a lot faster if the Fighter would have been rolling well, and we would have been well versed in the system.

I think that once we know what we are doing, it will be quite a bit faster than 3E or 4E combat.

 

[Dragonblade]

• Skill Mastery for the Rogue (not being able to roll under a 10 on her trained skills) seemed a little too good. No chance of ever failing, even on a roll of 1?

Our Rogue liked this element and no one in our group felt it was overpowered. But we focused more on combat and less on exploration.

• The Wizard's Ray of Frost cantrip seemed kind of powerful - reducing an enemy (in this case an Ogre's) move to zero on a hit made the Wizard player say he just wanted to sit back and spam that every round while the rest of the group attacked at range and kept the Ogre away from us.

Our wizard never used this spell, and just spammed shocking grasp all the time. Since the hobgoblins had metal on their armor, the DM gave the wizard combat advantage every time (per the spell description). Since movement was free without OAs, he would just run up, shock a monster, and run back behind cover or an ally.

• The Spiritual Hammer spell says it may be used each round "as part of your action." Does that mean in addition to the Cleric's normal action for the turn?

Yes. That was our determination. You made a spiritual hammer attack and still got your normal action.

• With the option to cast Radiant Light as an Orison, the player playing the Cleric of Pelor wondered why she should ever use her quarterstaff. Radiant Light was ranged, offered a better chance to hit, and did more damage. Unless she was forced to use the Quarterstaff, the Orison was always just the smart choice every round.

Yeah, the staff is just kind of a backup since using a range attack in melee grants disadvantage.

• The Wizard took a full club attack from the Ogre (who rolled fairly average for damage) and just shrugged it off, while the Fighter took a critical and was was out and dying (due to falling in a pit prior). This caused some concern from the DM about the number of hit points the Wizard started with, and how the above situation certainly didn't "feel like classic D&D."

Well if the fighter took a critical and already had damage, but the wizard was just getting hit for the first time, I don't see the problem. But then again, I feel like any PC should be able to take a couple of hits from any monster before going down. We felt like PCs were generally ok HP wise, though the hobgoblin warlord seemed way too tough. We never fought the ogre. My group of mixed PF and 4e fans all felt that healing was too limited, especially with the requirement of needing a Healer's Kit to roll any recovery HD during a shortrest.

 

[Ravenheart87]

Thanks for the recap! Sounds fun, can't wait to run the playtest adventure. Alas it's not going to happen this wekkend.

 

[KesselZero]

• Skill Mastery for the Rogue (not being able to roll under a 10 on her trained skills) seemed a little too good. No chance of ever failing, even on a roll of 1?

I'm worried about this, too. We'll see how it plays tomorrow. I will say that somewhere in the rules it says to give anyone an auto-success if the DC would be 5 or more less than their relevant ability score, which does mean that not only rogues can auto-succeed. Not sure if a skill bonus would be included in that math, though.

• The Wizard's Ray of Frost cantrip seemed kind of powerful - reducing an enemy (in this case an Ogre's) move to zero on a hit made the Wizard player say he just wanted to sit back and spam that every round while the rest of the group attacked at range and kept the Ogre away from us.

Worried about this, too. The wizard seems to have a ton of really good at-wills.

• The Spiritual Hammer spell says it may be used each round "as part of your action." Does that mean in addition to the Cleric's normal action for the turn?

I would say so, yes. This seems pretty darn strong.

• With the option to cast Radiant Light as an Orison, the player playing the Cleric of Pelor wondered why she should ever use her quarterstaff. Radiant Light was ranged, offered a better chance to hit, and did more damage. Unless she was forced to use the Quarterstaff, the Orison was always just the smart choice every round.

Same thing for the wizard. I think this is intentional-- WotC has talked about getting rid of wizards who blow a few spells then are stuck with crossbows or darts for the rest of the day.

• The Wizard took a full club attack from the Ogre (who rolled fairly average for damage) and just shrugged it off, while the Fighter took a critical and was was out and dying (due to falling in a pit prior). This caused some concern from the DM about the number of hit points the Wizard started with, and how the above situation certainly didn't "feel like classic D&D."

As others have said, hit vs. crit, and also HP values are known to be somewhat inflated as per Mike Mearls. I do agree that the wizard's HP seemed very high compared to the fighter's, but notice that the wizard has a very high Con.

 

[Snapdragyn]

Surprise is only a small advantage in that you get to act first. Fair enough. Why even bother with a roll? Just ... go first.

Except that, even w/ the -20 to the roll, it's still possible that a surprised character will act before a surprising character. Consider a PC w/ dex 18 (+4 to Init). PC gets surprised (-20 to Init), rolls a 20 for the initiative check. NPC has dex 12 (+1 to init) & rolls a 1 (we joke 'I dropped my init!' in my group).

PC would act first since they have a total of 4 for init, while the NPC has 2. Consider it as they reacted on instinct before they even knew what was happening.

 

[Derren]

Since movement was free without OAs, he would just run up, shock a monster, and run back behind cover or an ally.

There are no OAs in 5E?
That edition sounds worse and worse.

 

[Snapdragyn]

There are no OAs in 5E?
That edition sounds worse and worse.

My guess is that we'll see OAs as a 'dial setting' within the core rules, & that this playtest is just using the simplest setting.

 

[Ravenheart87]

There are no OAs in 5E?
That edition sounds worse and worse.

Thera are no OAs in the current playtest rules yet. They might appear later. IIRC it was mentioned on a semester or an interview, that it's possible you're going to need a feat to for that.