D&D 5E Thoughts on 6-7-13 Playtest Packet

[Raith5]

That is a nice touch. You could play a Ranger as almost non-magical if that's the only spell you ever cast (though it needs to scale with spell level, or have some higher-level spells that can plausibly be narrated as nonmagical).

Interesting. It is good to see this in the playtest, even if it is only a spell rather than an ability. But I still find it strange to see things like longstrider, animal friendship and some aspects of Druid craft as spells rather skill. A freakin druid should not have to use magic to work out where north is!

 

[Plaguescarred]

I would not allow this. Mainly because I wouldn't allow people to react to their own actions.

You wouldn't allow the party to Ready An Action to react to a verbal command and hustle or charge when the leader yells RETREAT or CHARGE (presuming they have the feat here) ? Yet this is something that happen IRL and that we see frequently in fiction...

 

[SkidAce]

You wouldn't allow the party to Ready An Action to react to a verbal command and hustle or charge when the leader yells RETREAT or CHARGE (presuming they have the feat here) ? Yet this is something that happen IRL and that we see frequently in fiction...

I thought he meant respond to a character's own action. I.e. I tell myself to charge.


Charging when the leader (reacting to something external to himself) yells "charge" should be fine.


At least thats' how I read the post.

 

[Plaguescarred]

And why the Leader leading his troop couldn't retreat or charge with them? Its something we all see IRL like i said...You dont see the commander staying behind because he cannot react to his own command.


Anyway my concern was more with the removal of initiative shifting after a readied action is taken rather than if verbal command can be used as trigger. From 3E to 4E to D&D Next up until this last packet, your initiative would change to before the creature's turn on which the readied action took place and there was a reason for that, to prevent a PC from possibly acting twice in a row.

 

[Dausuul]

My problem with "animate dead is evil" is that they should state why it's evil; and specifically, whether they're talking about "evil" as a cosmic force or "evil" as immorality.

If they mean evil as cosmic force, then there's nothing morally wrong with animate dead, but the spell carries a taint of corruption and casting it increases your Lifetime Evil Exposure. Cast it a lot, and you will start setting off paladins' evil-dar (if that exists in 5E), being affected by anti-evil spells, et cetera. When you die, your soul will end up in the lower planes, even if you created and used your undead army for good purposes. Life isn't fair sometimes. Them's the breaks.

If they mean immorality, then there must be something that is actually morally wrong with creating zombies, and they need to specify what that is. Disrespecting the dead is pretty weak; even setting aside that disrespecting the dead is a routine part of adventuring, it's weird to call out disrespect for the dead when you can disrespect the living all day long. Perhaps undead are a walking blight, draining life from the world and spreading despair by their very existence. Perhaps undead are inherently malevolent (so skeletons and zombies are evil-aligned, and will rampage and kill unless specifically restrained from doing so). Perhaps the soul of the dead person is tormented as long as its body remains undead. Perhaps each undead created strengthens Orcus and increases his influence in the mortal world. Any of these, all of them, something else: Pick one.

I agree with the sentiment that making undead is the sort of thing that should move a PC toward the dark side, but just saying that certain spells are evil is not enough. Either go into detail or don't say it at all.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Interesting. It is good to see this in the playtest, even if it is only a spell rather than an ability. But I still find it strange to see things like longstrider, animal friendship and some aspects of Druid craft as spells rather skill. A freakin druid should not have to use magic to work out where north is!

I don't see how Longstrider, Animal Friendship, or Druidcraft be anything BUT magic.

A druid can make someone move 33% faster than normal (30 feet normally, 40 feet with Longstrider). That isn't a natural skill, that's magic. You don't go from running 6 miles per hour to running 8 miles per hour because a druid makes a skill check.

Similarly... convincing a wild animal you just happen upon to not only submit themselves to you but also act upon your command instantly is not something that just happens. There's a magical compulsion there as well.

And as far as finding north... that can occur for the druid regardless of all the possible roadblocks that might be up to screw with the druid's sense of direction-- no visual cues, no auditory cues, underground, under water, complete darkness or whatever. Druid says "I want to know which way is south-southeast..." and boom, she can find out instantly and perfectly. That's magic.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

And why the Leader leading his troop couldn't retreat or charge with them? Its something we all see IRL like i said...You dont see the commander staying behind because he cannot react to his own command.


Anyway my concern was more with the removal of initiative shifting after a readied action is taken rather than if verbal command can be used as trigger. From 3E to 4E to D&D Next up until this last packet, your initiative would change to before the creature's turn on which the readied action took place and there was a reason for that, to prevent a PC from possibly acting twice in a row.

The commander would be waiting for some event to trigger the charge. Everyone else would be waiting for the order.

While I think your concern about not shifting in initiative is valid, it is also the one aspect of readying an action that cause the most debate and confusion at the table. So I can see why they removed it.

 

[Plaguescarred]

Really? Different strokes for different folks i guess. I never seen any debate and confusion about Ready An Action initiative shifting in all the games i ran or DMed online or in person. Its very straightforward IMO, the turn onto which you react, your initiative shift to right before it.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Really? Different strokes for different folks i guess. I never seen any debate and confusion about Ready An Action initiative shifting in all the games i ran or DMed online or in person. Its very straightforward IMO, the turn onto which you react, your initiative shift to right before it.

I would be a LOT more likely to see a bunch of debate and issues around the players who were playing stupid initiative tricks to get 2x more actions. Obviously its going to have a stop put to it, but if the attitude of the designers of the game is "well, we won't bother to make rules that you don't have to fix when you actually play" then something is wrong.

 

[Savage Wombat]

I think the assumption that "Animate Dead" is inherently evil implies that the casting of the spell, for any reason, pulls negative energy into the world, strengthening the forces of darkness, and that this use of neg-e is evil in itself. If fireball doesn't have a morality issue, neither should any other spell. So it must be a physical law.

There are lots of things in D&D that are effectively universal physical law in a game world using these rules. This is one of the tricky parts of D&D worldbuilding.