D&D 5E Starter Set Character Sheet Revealed!

[Neonchameleon]

Either way, it appears the Basic Fighter doesn't have any ability except his "second wind" so no shouting up fighters.

I think you meant to write "so an unlimited amount of shouting up fighters."

Hmm... 18 skills. Almost a 1:1 mapping with 4E there (other than the addition of the Perform skill). Endurance out, Handle Animal in. Dugeoneering out, Survival in. Streetwise out, Investigation in. And I think all the other skills are simply name swaps (normally for the better) with 4E skills. Well, that's the vanilla part of the 4E skill system - but he has no ability to go above and beyond by using utility powers (admittedly 4e Fighters often don't actually do this). And only one of the backgrounds appears to have mechanical weight - the rest are free text. So out of combat he would appear to be a slightly tweaked (and slightly more boring) 4e Fighter.

One of those backgrounds is ... problematic. "I have a bond with a greataxe. I pick up a magic sword. Now what?" This is almost certainly not good.

In combat? Three death saves? Good! Second Wind and Action Surge as Encounter Powers? Could be worse. I'm a bit worried about the rate the damage scales at, however. Unless they have some tight magic item math behind it it doesn't look as if it scales fast enough. Two attacks at L5 at +2 to hit and +1 damage hardly compares with hit points multiplying massively - unless you expect regular short (1 hour) rests, in which case opening a combat with four attacks is a minicing machine.

Overall? I'm confident in my ability to play this character while not having seen any of the other rules. This is very good. As is the ease with which one could be generated. On the other hand it looks little more interesting to play than a 4E Slayer (and less interesting if I've been tweaking the Slayer's build). This may or may not be a problem depending on the variety of fighters on offer (I wouldn't play a Slayer myself but am glad that others have it as an option).

That said, I now see why people claim to see 4E in Next (that skill list for one). Just a pity it's not the interesting or evocative parts.

 

[Hussar]

To be fair NeonC, I wouldn't expect to see much of 4e's more interesting bits in a Starter Set, simply because 4e's more interesting bits are complicated. Or, at least more complicated than what you are going to get here. I would, however, expect to see a lot of them either in the PHB or the DMG.

 

[Agamon]

One of those backgrounds is ... problematic. "I have a bond with a greataxe. I pick up a magic sword. Now what?" This is almost certainly not good.

I'd bet my hat that the DMG will have rules to increase the magical power of a PCs existing weapon. In a fantasy setting, there's a decent chance that family heirloom has some hidden magical power...

 

[GravyFingerz]

One of those backgrounds is ... problematic. "I have a bond with a greataxe. I pick up a magic sword. Now what?" This is almost certainly not good.

Assuming there are any magical weapons to be found in the adventure at all. The rules do not assume that you find many permanent items due to the flatter math involved, and many magical items (especially ones with charges) are assumed to be kept in perpetuity.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Aren't you limited by hit dice already? And short rests are an hour long, multiples pretty much turn into a long rest really quickly.

The less arbitrary limitations we see in the rules, the better, IMO.

No, you aren't limited. A fighter's Second Wind doesn't use your hit dice. It's just 1d10+level healing that refreshes with a short rest. He could sit around all day and use that 16 times, and then get a good night's sleep afterwards.

You are limited in how many long rests you can take in a 24 hour period (one). I think a limit on short rests is reasonable, especially if it can alleviate contentious rules issues.

Another feature of short-rests is that casters can recover their spells (1/2 their caster level in spell levels) if they can recover spells via multiple short-rests, long rests are pretty much pointless.

Those features work during a short rest, but only during 1 short rest per day.

 

[Uller]

I am a fan of 4e's non-magic healing. I like characters having limited reserves of hp they can draw on. I like the HD mechanic in 5e. I like that Second Wind and similar abilities became more limited in 5e.

I don't like this version of Second Wind. It's like they took all the limitations away...it's a bonus action. It is the 5e equivalent of an encounter power. Just seems to be too much.

Not that it matters...most of my players have no interest in playing a fighter so it won't affect us much.

 

[hbarsquared]

Love the character sheet. The design, as well as the hints at the mechanics and character creation.

A little disappointed in the prominence of "Skills," purely on a percentage-of-the-page basis. Just a little, as this might be more of a "Intro/Starter" character sheet, as well as the likelihood of a looser skill system in tehe DMG, as has been mentioned already.

I'm super annoyed at what seems to be the Human racial stat modifiers, +1 to everything. Is no one as upset about this as me? Argh!!!

Why not +2 to one score? Even +1 to two of your choice. Something. Else.

+1 to every score seems crazy (though I get not necessarily unbalancing).

 

[I'm A Banana]

One of those backgrounds is ... problematic. "I have a bond with a greataxe. I pick up a magic sword. Now what?" This is almost certainly not good.

I think this dovetails with the fact that magic items are optional. 5e is fine with you not picking up a magic sword ever, if your axe has that meaning for you. You can still get gauntlets of ogre power and adamantine plate mail and dancing shields.

Magic items are always cherries on top of your sundae, purely additive to the maths, so they don't NEED alternatives. Their function then is pure reward. If you use 'em in your game, it's fine for characters to not want to use certain ones for various reasons (indeed, believe one of the playtests talked about items with minor curses or drawbacks that would also make them potentially unappealing).

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Hmmm. Maybe the effects gained from a short rest might only become available a certain amount of times per day (that makes more sense than not allowing the rest, anyway).

Also, I don't know about you, but I find sleep pretty useful, and I'm sure there will be rules for making long rests necessary.

I'd simply phrase it "you can only benefit from X short rests per day." So you can sit down and rest, but you can't use any of the class or game features that key off of a short rest on more than X of them per day.

Absolutely. If there aren't rules for it, I'll apply a level of exhaustion for every night without sufficient rest after the first. Maybe I'll allow a Con save each night to avoid it, but I'm not certain.

 

[Sir Brennen]

Riding's not on the skill list. Rolled into Animal Handling? That would be one way of increasing its use.