WarlockLord
First Post
I think I can safely state that D&D Next is going to fail. The mechanics aren't interesting or well-designed, there are no new and innovative features, the fluff is terrible, they're prioritizing "feel" over working mechanics, and it seems the development team has no real direction. There's no incentive to switch over to D&D next from any other edition, and - most damningly - people aren't excited. So I'm calling it. D&D Next flops on release and that's the last we see of D&D Next for a long time.
Mechanics Failure, or Argue With Your DM
I recall starting a thread a while back about PC's power in the world. The answer given by the D&D Next designers is to give everyone skill checks. Unfortunately, these skills are so vague - especially when they trigger - that the whole deal with them is "ask your DM if you can use them." Which almost always results in this:
Player: "So we need to get past this lock. Ok, I make a Religious Lore check. See, my character lived with the Thug Monks of Lockpicking, who believed that picking locks made them grow closer to the godhead. As a result, my character's religious knowledge allows him to pick the lock."
DM: "What, no, that's stupid. Monks of Lockpicking?"
Player2: "Hey, you let Jenny get away with using Historical Lore to pick the lock earlier on the ground she'd read it in a history book. I don't see how the Thug Monks of Lockpicking is any less implausible, given the unlikelihood of locks being in a history book."
And so on. So the entire system is essentially arguing with the DM over what you can and can't do, and that's honestly not worth money. I can argue the merits of my fictional characters with my friends for free. Heck, we can extend this to the ability score system, or gaining advantage in battle - argue with your DM! We don't need any of this "make a check that beats this number to do this" backwards thinking garbage, we're just going to charge you real money to do our jobs!
As for combat mechanics, I'm forced to say eh. Expertise dice are about as exciting as 4e powers, 3e fans have Tome of Battle, and I honestly don't care about 1e/2e holdouts. Spells vary from the underpowered (like Cone of Cold and the rest of it's evocation ilk) to the OMGWTF ridiculous (Polymorph into a medusa! Instagib everyone! Or use Phastasmal Force to trap everyone while having your Illusionary Harpy Squad kill everyone!) None of the classes get ANYTHING new - AEDU returns from 4e, the class structures are 3e, none of the class features are at all new and interesting, whatever. Again, if it's too like older editions there is no reason to spend your money and just play older editions.
There's no real plan
Right now it doesn't seem like they have any actual design goals except "mimic what the crowd wants." Sure, they had some design ideas earlier, most of which I thought were laughably bad, but now it's just "Well, here is some stuff we threw at a wall, tell us how it feels." And it's supposed to come out sometime next year...and there's nothing there but a pile of old mechanics reused in uninteresting ways and sloppy design. Yes, they have plenty of buzzwords and assurances about "bounded accuracy", "modules," "no, really, guys, we'll put this stuff in a module," "seriously, we swear, modules, that totally exist" and so on. But it doesn't matter because the core is so bad. I don't care how much pepperoni you put on my pizza if the crust tastes like wet cardboard, it's still going to suck.
No one cares
I have a sneaking suspicion that people either a)don't know about D&D Next because they don't use the internet for D&D or b)saw the playtest and don't care. I think minmaxboards, GitP, the Gaming Den at least just don't care for it, because in the end it doesn't fix any problems of the older editions, doesn't have any interesting fluff or mechanics, and is just drab and unexciting. And that's why I'm calling it. It just doesn't do anything that any of the other edtions, including 4e, don't do better. And that's just sad.
Mechanics Failure, or Argue With Your DM
I recall starting a thread a while back about PC's power in the world. The answer given by the D&D Next designers is to give everyone skill checks. Unfortunately, these skills are so vague - especially when they trigger - that the whole deal with them is "ask your DM if you can use them." Which almost always results in this:
Player: "So we need to get past this lock. Ok, I make a Religious Lore check. See, my character lived with the Thug Monks of Lockpicking, who believed that picking locks made them grow closer to the godhead. As a result, my character's religious knowledge allows him to pick the lock."
DM: "What, no, that's stupid. Monks of Lockpicking?"
Player2: "Hey, you let Jenny get away with using Historical Lore to pick the lock earlier on the ground she'd read it in a history book. I don't see how the Thug Monks of Lockpicking is any less implausible, given the unlikelihood of locks being in a history book."
And so on. So the entire system is essentially arguing with the DM over what you can and can't do, and that's honestly not worth money. I can argue the merits of my fictional characters with my friends for free. Heck, we can extend this to the ability score system, or gaining advantage in battle - argue with your DM! We don't need any of this "make a check that beats this number to do this" backwards thinking garbage, we're just going to charge you real money to do our jobs!
As for combat mechanics, I'm forced to say eh. Expertise dice are about as exciting as 4e powers, 3e fans have Tome of Battle, and I honestly don't care about 1e/2e holdouts. Spells vary from the underpowered (like Cone of Cold and the rest of it's evocation ilk) to the OMGWTF ridiculous (Polymorph into a medusa! Instagib everyone! Or use Phastasmal Force to trap everyone while having your Illusionary Harpy Squad kill everyone!) None of the classes get ANYTHING new - AEDU returns from 4e, the class structures are 3e, none of the class features are at all new and interesting, whatever. Again, if it's too like older editions there is no reason to spend your money and just play older editions.
There's no real plan
Right now it doesn't seem like they have any actual design goals except "mimic what the crowd wants." Sure, they had some design ideas earlier, most of which I thought were laughably bad, but now it's just "Well, here is some stuff we threw at a wall, tell us how it feels." And it's supposed to come out sometime next year...and there's nothing there but a pile of old mechanics reused in uninteresting ways and sloppy design. Yes, they have plenty of buzzwords and assurances about "bounded accuracy", "modules," "no, really, guys, we'll put this stuff in a module," "seriously, we swear, modules, that totally exist" and so on. But it doesn't matter because the core is so bad. I don't care how much pepperoni you put on my pizza if the crust tastes like wet cardboard, it's still going to suck.
No one cares
I have a sneaking suspicion that people either a)don't know about D&D Next because they don't use the internet for D&D or b)saw the playtest and don't care. I think minmaxboards, GitP, the Gaming Den at least just don't care for it, because in the end it doesn't fix any problems of the older editions, doesn't have any interesting fluff or mechanics, and is just drab and unexciting. And that's why I'm calling it. It just doesn't do anything that any of the other edtions, including 4e, don't do better. And that's just sad.
