D&D 5E Unexpected but (mostly) awesome new rules in Basic

[Kobold Stew]

I don't really object to them, but relevant? How often do they come up? (The only thing I can think of is chasing ambushers who are fleeing after attacking the PCs in their inn room. Although there don't seem to be any rules that penalise sleeping in armour.)

They would come up every time the players post a watch at night and one of the guys says My character sleeps in his chain mail. oh no, it's totally realistic. I've done it myself a dozen times..."

I think it would come up literally every night of adventuring.

 

[Nebulous]

They would come up every time the players post a watch at night and one of the guys says My character sleeps in his chain mail. oh no, it's totally realistic. I've done it myself a dozen times..."

I think it would come up literally every night of adventuring.

"If you sleep in your armor, you're at Disadvantage for 1d4 rounds after waking from cramped and bruised muscles."

Or something like that.

 

[pemerton]

They would come up every time the players post a watch at night and one of the guys says My character sleeps in his chain mail. oh no, it's totally realistic. I've done it myself a dozen times..."

I think it would come up literally every night of adventuring.

I get that PCs would take their armour on and off. But most of the time I don't think it will matter whether that takes 1 minute or 10.

Unless I missed it, the rules don't say how long it takes to cook dinner over a campfire, for instance, but that will come up every night of adventuring also.

I think it will be mostly relevant in ambush/chase-type situations. To be honest, though, for those situations I'd rather something like classic D&D's evasion rules, with a modifier for "donning armour before giving chase".

 

[Rune]

Perhaps sleeping in armor could mean that that character only gains the benefits of a short rest, instead of a long one.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Must be a style-of-play thing. I've never had donning come up in play. Doffing, yes -- but only when the heavily armored character got pitched overboard and needed to shed armor quickly or drown. Maybe I need to run more middle-of-the-night wandering monsters.

 

[Sir Brennen]

One thing that caught my eye is the Shield spell is now a Reaction lasting a only round instead of instead of tens of minutes or even hours. That's ... kinda cool.

A big part of the way I imagine wizard battles came from comics in my youth like Doctor Strange, where glowing discs of energy are quickly summoned to block the enemy's mystic bolts. This fits that vision perfectly.

I wholeheartedly approve of this change.

 

[doctorhook]

Yes this is probably the most exciting part of this new edition so far is that it not only acknowledges gender but it does it in a way that's respectful and accepting and as a transgender girl I really like it.

It shows that WotC has come a long way and is taking this new edition in a nice direction. This alone will probably sell a few books also.

This hobby has an old habit of alienating female (more accurately "non-male") players and potential players. It's been a while since D&D was explicitly sex-discriminatory, but it's still a damn smart move to avoid future controversy by jumping ahead to a very progressive position about sex and gender.

These days, gaming attracts all types, and aside from toxic geek-culture, D&D has always had a lot to offer to most people. Every year TTRPGing loses traction and market share to digital games, so anything D&D can do to be accepting as possible to players is good business sense too.

All said and done, it's a non-binding "rule"; it's not even a rule. All WotC has said here is, "Sex, gender, and sexuality have no impact on the game mechanics, so be anybody you want to be." They probably didn't really need to say it, but they did, and that's pretty damn cool.

 

[Agamon]

Finger of Death:

A humanoid killed by this spell rises at the start of your next turn as a zombie that is permanently under your command, following your verbal orders to the best of its abilities.

And zombies are Neutral Evil creatures of darkness instead of just animate dead bodies, so now there should be less debate over whether casting Finger of Death is evil.

 

[occam]

Finger of Death:

A humanoid killed by this spell rises at the start of your next turn as a zombie that is permanently under your command, following your verbal orders to the best of its abilities.

Wicked! (Literally!)

 

[Kobold Stew]

One thing that caught my eye is the Shield spell is now a Reaction lasting a only round instead of instead of tens of minutes or even hours. That's ... kinda cool.

And zombies are Neutral Evil creatures of darkness instead of just animate dead bodies, so now there should be less debate over whether casting Finger of Death is evil.

Both of these are great observations.