So I played tonight...

[LostSoul]

And here are some of my observations.

I'm not really going to go into what happened; the PCs went into the first cave and triggered an orc swarm (by setting their banquet room on fire and plugging the chimney.)

• Coming to this from my heavily-modified 4E game was very strange. In my game it's pretty simple: say what you're doing and roll to see if you succeed. There's no initiative, everyone goes at once. It makes "can your character do this?" an important question, though one that almost never needs to be asked; except, I guess, internally, when you're deciding what to do.
  
  Using stop-motion initiative without attacks of opportunity blew my mind. I quickly realized that I had to run the orcs as pieces on a grid instead of characters in the game-world; nothing that was going on made any sense to me, so I had no way to judge if an action was reasonable in the game world or not.
  
  This caused some conflict for the way I like to DM - run the NPCs as characters in the game world. How to do that if the choices I'm making aren't related to what's happening in the game world? In the end I tried to have the orcs doing what made sense in the game world, which probably led to the PC's victory. (Or rather the orc's pyrrhic victory.)
  
• Combat took a long time, much longer than I was expecting.
  
• I gave the orcs light-sensitivity because I felt like it. They were disadvantaged a lot, which probably saved the PCs. In retrospect I probably shouldn't have done that since it's not in the rules - though it does say that they hate the light, so... Anyway, I didn't do that to save the PCs, I did that because I wanted orcs to be like that.
  
• I had the orcs make "morale checks" a couple of times - a Saving Throw against DC 10 + party level. Which they made. I did that because I wasn't sure if the orcs would retreat or not. When I was sure, they did.
  
• I used facing and things of that nature - a couple of times I asked the dwarf priest of Moradin which flank his shield was on. Anyone attacking from the rear got advantage. The dwarf priest was surrounded a couple times, so the guy on his weapon-arm flank got advantage.
  
• The orcs were finding it difficult to hit with disadvantage from the light, so I had them try to tackle the PCs. I figured that it wasn't an Attack, it wasn't a Contest (since the PCs weren't doing anything back), so I went with a Saving Throw. DC was 10 + stat mod.
  
  I miss attacking Fort. I guess I could have had the orcs Check against Strength or something... either way.
  
  One specific time I had an orc do a flying tackle - since he was charging I actually made an attack roll and had the halfling thief make a Save; the attack hit, dealing the bonus 1d6 damage only, and the thief made his Save, dodging to the side. (Leaving the orc on the ground for a dagger to the back of the head, i.e. Sneak Attack.)
  
• I got confused with Advantage/Disadvantage a few times - on the above Saving Throws I gave the PC's Advantage because the orcs had Disadvantage.
  
• To start the adventure I asked the players if they wanted their PCs to gather rumours or to Check if they knew anything about the Caves. DC 13; on success, they'd get a true rumour. Hazard was that they'd get a false rumour. Only two PCs attempted, one succeeded, no Hazard was rolled.
  
• At the end I asked the players how they wanted to gain XP. They decided to go with monster kills.

All in all... eh. It was okay.

 

[variant]

I had the orcs make "morale checks" a couple of times - a Saving Throw against DC 10 + party level. Which they made. I did that because I wasn't sure if the orcs would retreat or not. When I was sure, they did.

I would not recommend this for the fact that there is no linear progression in saving throws. If there is going to be saving throw, I would recommend something more flat.

The orcs were finding it difficult to hit with disadvantage from the light, so I had them try to tackle the PCs. I figured that it wasn't an Attack, it wasn't a Contest (since the PCs weren't doing anything back), so I went with a Saving Throw. DC was 10 + stat mod.

I miss attacking Fort. I guess I could have had the orcs Check against Strength or something... either way.

I would say it is either an attack first to hit and then it would be a contest or simply a contest. If you are trying to tackle someone, they will actively oppose you.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

• Coming to this from my heavily-modified 4E game was very strange. In my game it's pretty simple: say what you're doing and roll to see if you succeed. There's no initiative, everyone goes at once. It makes "can your character do this?" an important question, though one that almost never needs to be asked; except, I guess, internally, when you're deciding what to do.
  
  Using stop-motion initiative without attacks of opportunity blew my mind. I quickly realized that I had to run the orcs as pieces on a grid instead of characters in the game-world; nothing that was going on made any sense to me, so I had no way to judge if an action was reasonable in the game world or not.
  
  This caused some conflict for the way I like to DM - run the NPCs as characters in the game world. How to do that if the choices I'm making aren't related to what's happening in the game world? In the end I tried to have the orcs doing what made sense in the game world, which probably led to the PC's victory. (Or rather the orc's pyrrhic victory.)

• 
  
  You came from a 4E game and found that stepped initiative was weird, and that you needed a grid? How are you playing 4E? It is heavily reliant on a grid and stepped initiative.
  
  I also don't quite understand what you mean by choices in the game world vs. meta choices. Was there a situation where you wanted the Orcs to do something but the game made it a terrible choice?
  
  

  [*]The orcs were finding it difficult to hit with disadvantage from the light, so I had them try to tackle the PCs. I figured that it wasn't an Attack, it wasn't a Contest (since the PCs weren't doing anything back), so I went with a Saving Throw. DC was 10 + stat mod.
  
  I miss attacking Fort. I guess I could have had the orcs Check against Strength or something... either way.

  
  What would the effect of a tackle been? A knocked over PC? In that case it is a contest. I would have run Str or Dex against Str or Dex to get an opponent on the floor

 

[TerraDave]

It is a fairly counter-intuitive report.

Maybe try it "theatre of the mind style" without the grid or your other house rules except with group iniative? Which should not be much of a problem?

 

[LostSoul]

I would not recommend this for the fact that there is no linear progression in saving throws. If there is going to be saving throw, I would recommend something more flat.

Good call.

I would say it is either an attack first to hit and then it would be a contest or simply a contest. If you are trying to tackle someone, they will actively oppose you.

I wonder how the math works out. Anyway, the idea I get from Contests is that two characters are contesting with each other; in this case, since only one character is acting at a time, the target character can't actively oppose.

An attack is right out because I don't think plate mail is helping.

You came from a 4E game and found that stepped initiative was weird, and that you needed a grid? How are you playing 4E? It is heavily reliant on a grid and stepped initiative.

As I mentioned above: you say what your character is doing for the round, just like everyone else; everyone taking actions acts at the same time, making checks to determine success. Durations are slightly changed - most conditions last one round.

Pushing someone 10' or swinging your sword at someone who turns their back on you doesn't really require a grid.

I also don't quite understand what you mean by choices in the game world vs. meta choices. Was there a situation where you wanted the Orcs to do something but the game made it a terrible choice?

I found it strange that an orc could charge you, then you could run around him and stab him in the back. At one point, one orc moved in to attack a PC; it would have made sense to move back out and then let another orc into the now-vacant space. That's... kind of odd, I guess. I didn't have the orc do that since I figure that one of my jobs as DM is to maintain the consistency of the game world.

What would the effect of a tackle been? A knocked over PC? In that case it is a contest. I would have run Str or Dex against Str or Dex to get an opponent on the floor

Yeah, that's the effect, more or less. My thinking is that, since the PC is trying to achieve anything other than the status quo - and can't, since the PC isn't taking an action - we shouldn't be checking the PC's action.

Looking at Contests vs. Saving Throws, it's not really clear. It's quicker making one roll, though. Not sure how the math works.

 

[LostSoul]

It is a fairly counter-intuitive report.

Maybe try it "theatre of the mind style" without the grid or your other house rules except with group iniative? Which should not be much of a problem?

House rules?

 

[TerraDave]

...

I used facing and things of that nature - a couple of times I asked the dwarf priest of Moradin which flank his shield was on. Anyone attacking from the rear got advantage. The dwarf priest was surrounded a couple times, so the guy on his weapon-arm flank got advantage.

Mostly this

 

[LostSoul]

That's fair. I was making (liberal?) use of the... second line in the third paragraph under "Advantage and Disadvantage" on page 2 of How to Play. (And reading "you" as the orc.)

 

[GX.Sigma]

Using stop-motion initiative without attacks of opportunity blew my mind. I quickly realized that I had to run the orcs as pieces on a grid instead of characters in the game-world; nothing that was going on made any sense to me, so I had no way to judge if an action was reasonable in the game world or not.

Interesting; I haven't found this to be the case. My group played on the grid in kind of a hybrid initiative order (players rolled init individually, but monsters as a group - so it was the bad guys, then the good guys, then the bad guys; but in the first round some players may act before the monsters), and we had no trouble imagining it in the theatre of the mind, and I as DM never felt pressure to run the monsters as anything other than "cowardly kobolds" or "sneaky bugbears" or whatever.

I'm considering running a few combats with pure group initiative, to see what it does to the game. Adding such a rule would be effortless (and doing so is kind of the point of D&DN), so I'd recommend that to you.

 

[Li Shenron]

Well, what can I say... your report sounds a bit like "I didn't like rule A, so I changed it. Then this monster B seemed a bit odd, so I modified it. I really didn't get the point of C, so I ignore it. Then I added rules D, E and F. I don't like this game." Really?

But anyway, I think it was good nevertheless that you tried the rules even with all your changes, and you should send your feedback to WotC because they are specifically interested in groups with different tastes and expectations from the games, and how they changed the playtest rules to suit their style.