D&D 5E Playtest 3 - The Changes

[Connorsrpg]

Okay, so was following the official news thread on the new playtest packet and it outlined some early changes before getting bogged down in arguments about specific magic items (namely giant belts and elven boots) and potion mishap table, so I am starting this thread to STAY AWAY from that.

Here, could we please just catalog the differences in this packet from the last one? I have been reading some of the docs side by side and have not noticed any changes really, but there may be some hidden ones.

So we have:
*All monster updates. New abilities, traits, etc.
*XP Values have dropped
*Magic Items now in.
*New guidelines for encounter creation.

Is that it? I am especially interested in small hidden changes amongst the player's rules before we play. Thanks for you contributions without the judgements

 

[Grydan]

Note that the file names all include a prefix that is a date. If the prefix has not changed to the latest date, the file itself has not changed.

The bulk of the files in the latest package still use the 081312 prefix of the second playtest package. The Classes file and Reclaiming Blingdenstone have the 081712 prefix, from when the Sorcerer and Warlock classes were added.

Only the Bestiary, Caves of Chaos, the DM Guidelines, and the packet summary have been updated to the 100812 prefix. The Magic Items document shares the new prefix, but did not appear in previous packages. As none of these documents contain any player-side rules content (aside from the entirely new Magic Items rules), it seems there are no changes there this time around.

 

[slobo777]

Caves of Chaos treasure has been updated, some magic items added.

The PDFs are labelled with their "last edited" date at the start, so you can safely ignore any file as not changed since playtest 2 if it starts 0813 or 0817. Only files starting 1008 have had anything changed at all AFAICT.

 

[Connorsrpg]

Oh, okay guys thanks for that

Hopefully we get some changes to those docs soon then. If so, we can add exactly what has changed (if a new summary doc doesn't come with them).

Have I got all the changes within those docs? Name the GM Guidelines I guess.

 

[slobo777]

Using DiffPDF - Diffpdf Windows version | RubyPdf Technologies

Differences between 081712 and 100812 versions of DM Guidelines . . .
purely the XP numbers in encounter building. Oh, and the example creature name "dragon" changed to "elemental" in the same section.

Edit: and more trivia (now I know how to operate DiffPDF) - the very last paragraph has been changed from basically "magic items are coming" to "look at the magic items doc".

 

[Li Shenron]

There's always a file with a summary of playtest packet changes... have you noticed?

However, also the pregens character sheets have changed, to a format that doesn't look at all like a character sheet...

 

[Blackwarder]

I just want to point out that this isn't playtest 3 it's more like 2.5 playtest 3 is the one with levels 1-10 for all the classes we got.

Warder