Wait For An End of Summer Play-Test?

[ren1999]

Should we wait for the designers to give us more information we need to discuss such as character building, themes and backgrounds, level-up progressions, action economy, weapons, armor and healing?

Or should we start speculating and discussing how these things not mentioned by the designers should be?

I was quite surprised that the surprise mechanic was an issue. I saw nothing about it on the forums I visit.

I'm interested in working on weapons next. How can each weapon be unique, relevant and what are your best ideas on weapons?

I'm hoping we'll get a play-test update each month. I want to continue these play-tests but I'm already bored with The Caves of Chaos. I'm seeing other threads on how to convert old modules to the new 5E mechanics.

 

[Agamon]

Speculation? Here? Nah, that'll never happen.

I was bored of CoC before the playtest started (I've run it many times over the years), my group is playing B10 Night's Dark Terror, which, as a basic module, draws on the same smallish group of monsters as Keep on the Borderlands, so it's an easy convert. Much more interesting adventure, too.

 

[YRUSirius]

My suggestion for a simple and effective surprise rule goes back to 3E and 4E.

Effect of Surprise: A creature who is surprised can't take actions for 1 round.

Simple and effective enough?

One could even do something like this if someone wants more:

Effect of Surprise: A creature who is surprised can't take actions and grants advantage on attacks against it for 1 round.

-YRUSirius

 

[Pseudopsyche]

I sincerely hope WotC ramps up soon to tighter iterations of the public playtest. Otherwise, I see little chance of them releasing an adequately tested game in the near future.

They should have been working on version 0.2 the moment they released version 0.1. They could be releasing version 0.2 now while they incorporate feedback from 0.1 for their end-of-summer 0.3 release. Instead, the entire playtest community they've engaged will lie fallow or go off in their own directions.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

Yeah, I really hope that they really consider the end of summer thing.

I don't need a complete overhaul, but a few more levels for the PCs and some new adventure options would be nice.

(Or, radical idea, give fans permission to create their own adventures).

 

[Herschel]

I think they'll do the roll-out "after" Gen Con where they can get more face-to-face info as well as explain anything that might be "tricky" and touch up any wording, etc.

 

[Steely_Dan]

I thought they were going to release new play-test stuff around every month; I have already converted several monsters, but would like to see a bit more for the classes.

But, having said that, there is enough there for me to play around with for a long time.

 

[ren1999]

I thought they were going to release new play-test stuff around every month; I have already converted several monsters, but would like to see a bit more for the classes.

But, having said that, there is enough there for me to play around with for a long time.

Do you want to share with us your converted monsters so we'll have something to do?

 

[Sonny]

I sincerely hope WotC ramps up soon to tighter iterations of the public playtest. Otherwise, I see little chance of them releasing an adequately tested game in the near future.

They should have been working on version 0.2 the moment they released version 0.1. They could be releasing version 0.2 now while they incorporate feedback from 0.1 for their end-of-summer 0.3 release. Instead, the entire playtest community they've engaged will lie fallow or go off in their own directions.

Well, D&D Next is at least a year away, and depending on how many moving parts they want to have a decent test of, they may even be opting for a 40th Anniversary Roll-out.

I'm not sure how Wizards is planning on doing it, but I've been in online game alphas/betas that lasted nearly two years, if not a bit over. Sometimes there's a bit of a lull in new content during betas, especially if the next update is bringing in considerably more content to be tested.