What playtest modules do you need?

[Savage Wombat]

Pretending that WotC is really going to read this thread for ideas:

What sorts of scenarios would you expect, like to have, or need for a good playtest? Is there anything that, if it were missing, would keep you from feeling like the playtest was thorough?

I suspect there will be:

Caves full of goblins (as shown)
Tombs full of undead
Some sort of save-or-die boss monster fight, like a basilisk
Some sort of evil wizard equivalent

I would like to see a sample dragon, but I don't know if they won't hold that back for a while.

 

[amerigoV]

Combat should have a nice variety

• BBEG (say Dragon)
• One BBEG and minions (see how "focus all fire on that super star destroyer" plays)
• Vs. like party (4 vs. 4 or 4 vs 8 scenarios)
• Range Weapons and Terrain scenarios
• Similiar fights across levels (see how new spells/powers factors into similiar scenarios)
• Speciality monsters - as you mentioned - undead, save or die
• Tavern Brawl (its how adventures start)

But there needs to be good testing of things like Skill Challenges (in whatever form they show up). Stuff like chases and "convince the Prince that an orc army really is coming".

 

[FinalSonicX]

Character creation options (multiple styles and modules for details or simplicity), combat rules (simple/narrative and tactical with battlegrid), skill check/challenge rules, and a sample adventure or three with roleplaying, dungeon delving (traps, monsters, and treasure), and a climactic ending. That's all

 

[Li Shenron]

I guess that the playtesting in the first months will be limited to low levels and will be using practically only pre-generated stuff, so for me it would be already good if it covered (otherwise one of my absolutely preferred thing to playtest would be how to create an adventure on the fly, but I seriously doubt this will ever be covered in a playtest):

- social situations (supposing 5e has some rules and character skills/features that can be used alongside pure RP) including cases which suggest the iconic tactics of lying, diplomacy and intimidation

- stealth/sneaking tasks, i.e. rules for moving silently and hiding vs detection capabilities

- handling vision: racial differences, means of illumination (torches et al), concealment rules

- handling searching for hidden stuff, including traps (and also rules on how to disarm or bypass them)

- basic melee combat rules both with and without a grid, i.e. low-details vs high-details (in the second case, also rules for tactical movement)

- basic ranged combat rules (including shooting against someone in melee) and rules for cover

- weapon differences, at least the low-complexity version

- healing and dying rules

- basic spellcasting rules, a good number of specific D&D traditional spells

- how detect magic works

- how illusions work

- combat against a balanced bunch of monsters/NPCs

- combat against one or more very large creatures

- combat against a lot of smaller critters (swarms/hordes)


Probably best to leave for later:

- magic items, a good number of the traditional ones from all the categories

- how summoning spells work

- how polymorph spells and shapechanging abilities work

- crafting rules

- poisons rules (will they ever get these right?)

- horseriding and mounted combat

- combat against flying creatures

 

[Mattachine]

I would like to play a test module that has the following elements:

* straightforward battle against not-too-tough masses of enemies
* some exploration involving skills like search, arcana, thievery
* battle involving enemies plus skill use--such as avoiding/disarming traps or closing a magic portal
* BBEG fight

 

[delericho]

Frankly, they should take a leaf out of Pathfinder's book, and release virtually the entire game* as a Beta version. They don't know how we all run our campaigns, so simply catering to a subset version of "how we think you play the game" just doesn't cut it.

If they're serious about an open playtest, they should endeavour to do it right.

* Where "the entire game" includes at the very least the Core version plus at least one or two optional modules, so we can see how that will work.