D&D 5E (2014) Starter Set Cleric Sheet

[MerricB]

I've just had a confirmation from someone who was in the private playtest: Dwarves get +2 to one stat, +1 to another.

Cheers!

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Well that would be true, except you've given Dwarves 7 stats not 6.

It's a throwback. Comeliness is so 1.5E.

 

[Remathilis]

I've just had a confirmation from someone who was in the private playtest: Dwarves get +2 to one stat, +1 to another.

Cheers!

Does "someone" want to shed light on human stats?

 

[MerricB]

Does "someone" want to shed light on human stats?

Yes. It's +1 to all... but that's just one option for humans. Humans can apparently take other bonuses - we're just unlikely to see them in the basic game.

Of course, I could be misinterpreting what he said...

Cheers!

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Yes. It's +1 to all... but that's just one option for humans. Humans can apparently take other bonuses - we're just unlikely to see them in the basic game.

Of course, I could be misinterpreting what he said...

Cheers!

ok, so it's all over but the crying...

I liked humans getting +1 across the boards but will feel just a wee bit better if every other race has a +2....

 

[Drakhar]

Yes. It's +1 to all... but that's just one option for humans. Humans can apparently take other bonuses - we're just unlikely to see them in the basic game.

Of course, I could be misinterpreting what he said...

Cheers!

If this is true, and I'm not claiming you're lying or anything like that, just that any non-WotC sources should be taken with a grain of salt, I will be interested in just what exactly they've given the Half-Orc for racial traits now, as in the playtest they were the only race that got a +2/+1 spread, and aside from darkvision and advantage on intimidate checks that was it.

 

[thunktanker]

Yes. It's +1 to all... but that's just one option for humans. Humans can apparently take other bonuses - we're just unlikely to see them in the basic game

Good old trusty Merric. Always getting us the info. +1 to comeliness!

 

[GravyFingerz]

Here.

Commence lauding or bemoaning as you see fit.

Thaumaturge.

If it's cool with you, I'm gonna laud.

 

[Lanefan]

Dwarves, and only dwarves, get comeliness!

Dwarves, and only Dwarves, need comeliness.

More seriously, this being the first time I've looked at one of these character sheets, I wonder about some things:

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If the intent is to "flatten the math" and thus keep the numbers smaller for longer, why are the stat bonuses still linear (a la 3e) rather than bell-curved a la 1e?

If all the bonuses other than +0 had their actual number reduced by one (thus making 6-7 -1, 8-13 the +0 range, 14-15 +1, etc.) wouldn't that help keep the numbers smaller? Particularly if they went linear from there rather than accelerating like 1e did toward the extremes.

I also wonder how badly it would mess things up if I changed it to this?

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As others have, I also noticed the reference to CR; I thought that was completely gone from 5e.

It occurs to me that one across-the-board measure of an undead's turn resistance (in the past it's been the undead's HD, it looked for a while like it would be its h.p., here it seems to be its CR) might be its xp value. That way it doesn't matter what a particular undead has going for it in terms of any specific thing e.g. h.p., CR, HD, etc.; just look at its overall difficulty as expressed by how many xp you get for defeating one vs. the level of the Cleric attempting the turn (or Necromancer attempting control, whatever).

This would probably need to go on some sort of chart-by-level as xp values (at least in previous editions) have not been linear.

=====

As for basic stats, while it seems these pregens are on a preset array of some sort and thus racial adjustments work nice and cleanly, I'm wondering how well Humans getting +1 to everything will interact with dice-rolled stats (which I think is the 5e default). Again, I'm thinking of numbers bloat...

I know we've always had Humans be the baseline, with all the other races getting penalties or bonuses based on how they'd compare to Humans.

But, from all I can tell, racial penalties are a no-no in 5e (why?); and so everybody gets a bonus with there being no baseline at all.

Lan-"still wondering how much kitbashing I'll have to do to make 5e into the game I want"-efan

 

[Falling Icicle]

If the intent is to "flatten the math" and thus keep the numbers smaller for longer, why are the stat bonuses still linear (a la 3e) rather than bell-curved a la 1e?

If all the bonuses other than +0 had their actual number reduced by one (thus making 6-7 -1, 8-13 the +0 range, 14-15 +1, etc.) wouldn't that help keep the numbers smaller? Particularly if they went linear from there rather than accelerating like 1e did toward the extremes.

I also wonder how badly it would mess things up if I changed it to this?

The number bonuses players get from their abilities are small enough already, especially considering that ability rolls are the primary mechanic in the game. You only get up to a +5 bonus from your ability score (at least without magic items). That's a pretty small number compared to the impact of the d20. Even with a +5, things feel very "swingy", and failure is still extremely likely, even for easy tasks. A 5 point difference is basically a 25% difference in your chance of success (i.e. if a person with a 10 ability had a 50% chance to succeed, a person with a 20 would have a 75% chance). That's a remarkably small difference between an average person and an olympic athlete or super genius. Reducing the bonuses from ability scores any further would make them almost meaningless.

I know we've always had Humans be the baseline, with all the other races getting penalties or bonuses based on how they'd compare to Humans.

But, from all I can tell, racial penalties are a no-no in 5e (why?); and so everybody gets a bonus with there being no baseline at all.

Lan-"still wondering how much kitbashing I'll have to do to make 5e into the game I want"-efan

I'm not a huge fan of the human +1 to everything either, but I can understand why they did it. Humans needed something to make them worth playing, and traits like darkvision don't make sense. They didn't want to give them a bonus feat because feats are optional rules. They also didn't want to give them bonus skills because that adds another decision point in character creation, and they wanted humans to be the quick and easy-to-play race. From what I've heard, though, humans will be able to trade in stat bonuses for other things, like feats. That's an acceptable solution for me.