gweinel
Explorer
So, at last I playtested the material of the next iteration of dungeon & dragons. Here is the first part; actually it is only the start since we had a pretty full rp session.
The DM: Me. I have started playing d&d at mid 90s with the 2nd edition, continued at 3.x, then at 4e and the last year I returned back to the 3.5.
The players: the three players have started playing dnd with the 2nd edition too.
All of us we love both 2e (a bit nostalgia in it) and 3e. However we won’t play 2e edition anymore. Right now we play most in 3e campaigns and one in 4e.
The characters
Fadil: Human duelist fighter with thug background and lurker (!) specialty. He is an outlaw whose gang was exterminated by the militia two months ago. He and Rael (npc) are the only survivors.
Kounavos: Human sharpshooter fighter with bounty hunter background and lurker (!!) specialty too. A usual vagabond who makes errands here and there and decided to put his strength and wits in hunting outlaws. However his morals are not so strong tied the side of “good”.
Count Karthagonis: Human rogue with charlatan background and jack of all trades specialty. Here we have the usual charlatan. He pretends to be a great count of a long conquered county in order to get what he wants.
I was really surprised that 2 of my 3 players chose to be fighters with lurker background (both didn’t know the others choice). They knew that they were choosing a rogueish specialty.
I found also very interesting that one choose to be bounty hunter and the other a thug. That led a very interesting roleplaying (and not only) situation.
The adventure starts at the surface, at the barony of Tarin in the little mountain town of Caldwell. Caldwell was also the next station of our charlatan. He put his royal clothes on and started behaving as an exotic count. He played the role very well and earned an invitation from the mayor. The mayor send letter to the new bounty hunter of the town (Kounavos-the other player) to accompany the “count” to his summer mansion. He wanted also to give Kounavos the new “Wanted” list.
In the meantime Fadil, our thug, got a message from the fellow gang member (Rael-npc) to come to the town in order to attack and maybe kidnap the new “rich person - count” that came into town.
So, we have one party with our bounty hunter and “count” taking the road to the mansion and another with the 2 thugs making an ambush. The ambush was way too good and Fadil (thug) managed with one shot in the surprised round to bring down Kounavos (bounty hunter). The “count” quickly surrended, but before make any negotiations or to give any explanation, a band of 4 orcs returning from pillaging appeared. In the fight we had the orcs managed to bring down with one “rage” attack Rael (npc), but after that they were quickly dispatched. When the fight finished the party heard muffling voices behind some rocks and found tied and in a sack (next to the orc looting things) Briddick, the deep gnome.
After they healed both Kounavos and Rael they decided to follow the deep gnomes plead for help and most of all promise of gems. However, their jobs had not finished in the surface since the charlatan count wanted to meet the mayor and the bounty hunter wanted to get the new wanted list. The count was very good at his lies and successfully fooled the mayor that might lead to future adventures. At night the players and Rael met with Briddick and delved into underdark.
The 2 day trip was almost uneventful. At the gnome town the met almost all the major npcs and decided to start with orcs. They sneaked pretty good and managed to dispatch the southern orc sentry post without raising the alarm…
This was our session. Quite heavy on roleplaying and mostly an introduction to the 5e and almost nothing from the adventure.
The positives:
The specialties and backgrounds are the best part of the 5e. It was the source of many hours of roleplaying.
The battles were quite quick and that was a relief from the never ending battles of 4e.
The negatives:
The battles were greatly imbalanced. We think that this was due to a combination of many things: The pcs hit too easy and/or they did too much damage and/or the orcs had too low AC and/or need a boost to their attacks.
There was the idea the winner is actually the one who will get the first shot. Actually the battles were at least un-excited.
Another concern is that at the low levels you can kill monsters that in other editions need to be higher levels. Three 1stlvl level pcs can kill an ogre or a wight with skeletons. If at low levels someone can kills this kind of monsters what will kill at 10 lvl?
The healing needs a revamp. We decided that we did not like the hit die mechanic. We played the grittiest mode and still we think that a hit die (for the 1st lvl) was too much for a healing. Also we didn’t like the healing rule while you are at the deaths door. The bounty hunter was down to -8 hit points and at the next moment, after the usage of a healer’s kit he was back at 9 hit points – almost full and ready for everything.
The absence of skills was very evident to the players. I have not any problem with the current skill system but all the players wanted a more traditional approach.
Finally, a comment as dm: I didn’t like the adventure. The scenario and the ideas behind the story are pretty good but the implementation was really bad. Maybe I had to put more work on the adventure, but the pcs thought that the adventure was like a pc game where you go to a town and every npc gives you a quest to do.
In one sentence: We were happy with the role playing opportunities that the system offered to us, but we were unimpressed with the mechanics.
So, this is our story. More feedback will come after the 2nd playtest session.
The DM: Me. I have started playing d&d at mid 90s with the 2nd edition, continued at 3.x, then at 4e and the last year I returned back to the 3.5.
The players: the three players have started playing dnd with the 2nd edition too.
All of us we love both 2e (a bit nostalgia in it) and 3e. However we won’t play 2e edition anymore. Right now we play most in 3e campaigns and one in 4e.
The characters
Fadil: Human duelist fighter with thug background and lurker (!) specialty. He is an outlaw whose gang was exterminated by the militia two months ago. He and Rael (npc) are the only survivors.
Kounavos: Human sharpshooter fighter with bounty hunter background and lurker (!!) specialty too. A usual vagabond who makes errands here and there and decided to put his strength and wits in hunting outlaws. However his morals are not so strong tied the side of “good”.
Count Karthagonis: Human rogue with charlatan background and jack of all trades specialty. Here we have the usual charlatan. He pretends to be a great count of a long conquered county in order to get what he wants.
I was really surprised that 2 of my 3 players chose to be fighters with lurker background (both didn’t know the others choice). They knew that they were choosing a rogueish specialty.
I found also very interesting that one choose to be bounty hunter and the other a thug. That led a very interesting roleplaying (and not only) situation.
The adventure starts at the surface, at the barony of Tarin in the little mountain town of Caldwell. Caldwell was also the next station of our charlatan. He put his royal clothes on and started behaving as an exotic count. He played the role very well and earned an invitation from the mayor. The mayor send letter to the new bounty hunter of the town (Kounavos-the other player) to accompany the “count” to his summer mansion. He wanted also to give Kounavos the new “Wanted” list.
In the meantime Fadil, our thug, got a message from the fellow gang member (Rael-npc) to come to the town in order to attack and maybe kidnap the new “rich person - count” that came into town.
So, we have one party with our bounty hunter and “count” taking the road to the mansion and another with the 2 thugs making an ambush. The ambush was way too good and Fadil (thug) managed with one shot in the surprised round to bring down Kounavos (bounty hunter). The “count” quickly surrended, but before make any negotiations or to give any explanation, a band of 4 orcs returning from pillaging appeared. In the fight we had the orcs managed to bring down with one “rage” attack Rael (npc), but after that they were quickly dispatched. When the fight finished the party heard muffling voices behind some rocks and found tied and in a sack (next to the orc looting things) Briddick, the deep gnome.
After they healed both Kounavos and Rael they decided to follow the deep gnomes plead for help and most of all promise of gems. However, their jobs had not finished in the surface since the charlatan count wanted to meet the mayor and the bounty hunter wanted to get the new wanted list. The count was very good at his lies and successfully fooled the mayor that might lead to future adventures. At night the players and Rael met with Briddick and delved into underdark.
The 2 day trip was almost uneventful. At the gnome town the met almost all the major npcs and decided to start with orcs. They sneaked pretty good and managed to dispatch the southern orc sentry post without raising the alarm…
This was our session. Quite heavy on roleplaying and mostly an introduction to the 5e and almost nothing from the adventure.
The positives:
The specialties and backgrounds are the best part of the 5e. It was the source of many hours of roleplaying.
The battles were quite quick and that was a relief from the never ending battles of 4e.
The negatives:
The battles were greatly imbalanced. We think that this was due to a combination of many things: The pcs hit too easy and/or they did too much damage and/or the orcs had too low AC and/or need a boost to their attacks.
There was the idea the winner is actually the one who will get the first shot. Actually the battles were at least un-excited.
Another concern is that at the low levels you can kill monsters that in other editions need to be higher levels. Three 1stlvl level pcs can kill an ogre or a wight with skeletons. If at low levels someone can kills this kind of monsters what will kill at 10 lvl?
The healing needs a revamp. We decided that we did not like the hit die mechanic. We played the grittiest mode and still we think that a hit die (for the 1st lvl) was too much for a healing. Also we didn’t like the healing rule while you are at the deaths door. The bounty hunter was down to -8 hit points and at the next moment, after the usage of a healer’s kit he was back at 9 hit points – almost full and ready for everything.
The absence of skills was very evident to the players. I have not any problem with the current skill system but all the players wanted a more traditional approach.
Finally, a comment as dm: I didn’t like the adventure. The scenario and the ideas behind the story are pretty good but the implementation was really bad. Maybe I had to put more work on the adventure, but the pcs thought that the adventure was like a pc game where you go to a town and every npc gives you a quest to do.
In one sentence: We were happy with the role playing opportunities that the system offered to us, but we were unimpressed with the mechanics.
So, this is our story. More feedback will come after the 2nd playtest session.
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