Spoilers: Some guy in Friends & Family playtest apparently violates his NDA

[Hassassin]

As for martial powers in 4e, I always had a hard time in believing daily powers for martial classes.

But encounter powers were always fine by me. There's things you can try to do regularly in a fight, like throw sand in someone's face, but generally can't repeat again, since someone is less likely to fall for that trick again.

IMO, martial encounter powers should be rare. I don't think it's the best mechanic for something like feint, which your example resembles (instead maybe penalties for repeated use). Encounter powers do make sense for things like barbarian rage that cause the character to become fatigued.

In fact, I could see this as a more general mechanic - there are some martial abilities where you push yourself so much that you become fatigued (e.g. -1 or -2 to all physical checks) and cannot use such powers again before resting. It would be something you use only when you really need to, not at the start of most encounters.

 

[Schmoe]

It really reads like a playTEST, especially with the two wizards having completely different Mechanics and the survey specificaly asking about the differences between these two. So I would be careful to judge 5E on that, they are just throwing Ideas out and see what works and what doesn't, the end result might be COMPLETELY different.

By the way, if I read that right than this is a playtest that BEFORE DDXP (he wrote about December (Friends and Family playtest), so at DDXP there might have been already quite a few different Mechanics.

What I find interesting is that the Warlord on low level heals only in combat and the Cleric outside of combat. Also there seems to be a Healing Surge Value but no healing surges (like in Gamma World).

Absolutely, it's a playtest. I'd hate to think that the designers were afraid to test new ideas when trying to make a good game. Obviously many of these ideas are based on previous iterations of D&D, some of the ideas incorporate a bit of innovation, and overall it sounds like they are trying to get feedback on all of it. You know, like something you would do during a playtest.

 

[Jack99]

Absolutely, it's a playtest. I'd hate to think that the designers were afraid to test new ideas when trying to make a good game. Obviously many of these ideas are based on previous iterations of D&D, some of the ideas incorporate a bit of innovation, and overall it sounds like they are trying to get feedback on all of it. You know, like something you would do during a playtest.

A great example of why we need the OP edited to show that it is fake

 

[thedungeondelver]

Posted by Trevor Kidd, in that thread:

Looking over your post, this doesn't sound like our playtest or playtest material, so I'm not exactly sure what you're referencing. If you would like to talk to me about the playtest material, you can PM me on this site or the Wizards site.

For everyone reading and commenting though, I do want to stop the misinformation right now - this doesn't look at all like our playtest process or material.


Trevor Kidd
Community Manager
Wizards of the Coast

I think we can forget this entirely. And thank god. What an awful, awful mess that sounded like.

 

[thedungeondelver]

Hey everyone. I own a fair amount of stock in Apple and every time I sneeze, I drop more money than you see in a year. I'm currently dating Megan Fox and Felicia Day (just don't tell either about the other, please!).

Those sluts! We were supposed to go out this Friday! Wait a minute - you're the one whose texts I've been seeing on their phones! Me and Chuck Norris will meet you on the helipad of my 200 room mansion and settle this like gentlemen. And yes you can bring cyborg Bruce Lee as a second.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Posted by Trevor Kidd, in that thread:



I think we can forget this entirely. And thank god. What an awful, awful mess that sounded like.

That is good and bad (I liked his way of doing magic missle and hast)

 

[avin]

As for martial powers in 4e, I always had a hard time in believing daily powers for martial classes.

But encounter powers were always fine by me. There's things you can try to do regularly in a fight, like throw sand in someone's face, but generally can't repeat again, since someone is less likely to fall for that trick again.

You trow sand in the face of a kobold, in a corner of a dungeon.

Then kill it.

Another kobold who wasn't watching the fight attacks you.

Why can't you use it again?

No matter how good and carefully considered explanation for encounter powers, it always end in something hard to believe in...

 

[avin]

Trevor killed all the fun! DDN is against the fun! Let's burn down Wotc!

 

[kimble]

And WotC just threatened me because of that topic that I opened. It seems that I violated the Code of Conduct (or something). The only thing that I could have violated would be the 'no copyright' thing, if that playtest report was true. But they said that playtest post was a fake. So... what exactly did I violate?

Edit (what I´m talking about): "Well, I tried to open a topic on Wotc Boards (D&D Next Product Speculation) talking about this, with a link to the original topic. And asking if people they believed that was true or just a troll. It seems to have been closed and erased in less than an hour. With no explanation, anything. And I didn´t receive any PM about that."

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

I wouldn't trust something that poorly written. Seriously. Borderline illiterate.