D&DNext: Playtest Review

[virgil]

Can't do much right now as far as reading it, but here's the first thing I noticed.

Invisible

• The creature is impossible to see. For the purposes of hiding, it is heavily obscured. The creature can still be detected by the noise it makes, the tracks it leaves, or the shadow it casts.

Bolded for emphasis. That is really weird.

Being drunk gives you DR 1d6/X, as well as disadvantage for all rolls, which makes you immune to any further penalties from many conditions

The advantage/disadvantage system seems potentially interesting. Though making it a non-stacking +/-3.3 (round up or down, don't care) bonus should do the same thing, I would think.

If there's ever a death attack resisted with Dexterity or Strength, you're in real trouble, because being stunned/paralyzed/unconscious makes you auto-fail them.

[infected slut princess]

This already sounds like total shit. DR from being drunk? That's fucking stupid.

Please provide more information when you can.

[John Magnum]

Can you elaborate on the being drunk thing? That sounds terrific.

[Lago PARANOIA]

What release date? And don't reply with a fan guestimate please, because that would only make you sound retarded.

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx ... l/20120109

We have begun obtaining feedback from a limited Friends & Family playtest consisting of internal employees and their gaming groups and soon we will be expanding that group to consist of members from our existing body of playtesters. Then at the D&D Experience convention in late January, Wizards of the Coast will conduct a special playtest of ideas currently in development. The D&D Experience will be moving to Gen Con in 2013, so as a convention special this year, we will be offering show attendees a first-look at a draft of the new set of rules.

Note: This was the boilerplate press release for D&D Experience of this year. As in January 2012. So don't get confused by the 'we will be offering show attendees a first-look at a draft of the new set of rules'.

Gen Con Indy 2013 August 15–18, 2013

Now, since D&D Experience is still technically a playtest rather than a release date, they could totally go 'lol still not finished'. But that's a hard cap on the date for a late beta unless WotC is even more incompetent than I imagined. It's one thing to snow D&D Experience fans because only sperglords like yours truly have even heard of it. But you can't snow Gen Con attendees. If D&D 5E doesn't have a more-or-less finished product by Gen Con 2013, it will join the ranks of Legendary Announcement Fail like Bill Gates demoing Windows 98 that crashed on CNN.

So. That gives then about 14 months to collect playtest data, refine it, and make it good. Unless they've somehow hit the magic number of mechanics that made the product surprisingly good except for the fail points that we've seen OR 5E D&D rehashes a previous system that's just not enough time to significantly polish the blatant turds we've seen.

EDIT ON EDIT: Is it possible for 5E to be released sooner than that? Oh, definitely. It's not like the 3E to 4E D&D transition where WotC could cost on the inertia of old products. 4E D&D is not only not selling but also has no new releases planned out. If they really do wait until GenCon 2013 to unveil their product that's seriously almost a year and a half of D&D not making any real money except from diehard 4Erries holding onto their DDI vaporware.

I could totally see the corporate suits telling Mearls 'look, dumbshits, release something in one month or you're getting fired' in December.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Though making it a non-stacking +/-3.3 (round up or down, don't care) bonus should do the same thing, I would think.

A non-stacking +/-3.3? That sounds suspiciously like you're talking about a reroll. If you are:

That actually sounds like a very, very good idea. Rerolls for the higher amount help non-optimizers a lot more than optimizers. Of course negative rerolls also hurt non-optimizers a lot more than optimizers. If the advantage/disadvantage mechanic is tied to discrete tactical decisions like fighting an enemy under cover of darkness or flanking or getting surprise then this is actually the first 5E-unique thing that I can get behind.

[Juton]

Having read over the playtest a bit, it seems less complex then 4e or 3e. There are five pre-made characters, two clerics then one each of the basic four classes. It looks like in addition to choosing race and class you also choose a background which has some small affect on gameplay. The playtest provides for a progression up to level 3, the xp track seems to follow a 2x triangular progression, so we won't need anything like the 3.5 XP/CR chart. It seems to use Vancian casting. Turn undead is now a spell that clerics can prepare, or get it prepared for free.

Right now it seems to read like an uninspired retro clone, I've only glanced at it but I haven't seen any innovation in game mechanics.

[Voss]

Is there a meaningful difference between the two clerics? Like healbot cleric vs beatstick cleric? Because that comes across as a little bizarre.

[Username17]

I can't believe they spent that much page space on advantage and disadvantage and didn't tell us what happens when you have two sources of advantage and one source of disadvantage. Seems like a pretty obvious question to ask. The two or more advantages and advantage and disadvantage cases are covered, but what happens when both are true is left unstated. But yeah, it's not really much different from a minor bonus. So while it might be a cool gimmick, it doesn't really matter in any real way.

---

They still can't tell me how Wisdom and Charisma are different:

The DM commonly asks you to use Wisdom when you make a saving throw to resist being charmed or frightened, to see through an illusion cast upon you, or withstand an attempt to influence you.
...
The DM commonly asks you to use Charisma when you make a saving throw to resist certain magical compulsions, especially those that would overcome your sense of yourself.

I'm not really sure how a "charm or frighten" is different from a "magical compulsion".

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Still using the 4e Monster XP grinding mechanics. Those are terrible. They were terrible in AD&D, they were terrible in 4th edition, and they are terrible now. It's a dreadful anachronism.

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I understand why they decided to call "moving across the ground with your feet" walking, but they had to have realized that the statement

If you walk at least 10 feet and then make a high jump, you rise a number of feet into the air up to 3 + your Strength modifier.

...sounded fucking retarded. The very moment your rules end up saying talking about getting a walking start for high jumps you need to rework your terminology.

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The Stealth rules are the same crap we've been served up since 3e began. At least moving silently and hiding are one check. A check that automatically fails if you ever have less than 50% cover versus any guard even transiently, but whatever.

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The rules for "exploration" don't actually have any rules for exploring. You find things with magic teaparty, and only combat movement rates are meaningfully given. The rules for searching are:

• You tell the DM what you're doing to search things.
• The DM decides how long that will take by pulling an amount of time out of his ass.
• The DM determines whether your description of search techniques will give you an automatic success or automatic failure at finding it. Or he might decide to let you make a Wisdom check, you know, whatever.

That's it. So Magic Teaparty time against Magic Teaparty success chances, and the DM may or may not make (allow) you to roll a Wisdom check.


-Username17

[hogarth]

Though making it a non-stacking +/-3.3 (round up or down, don't care) bonus should do the same thing, I would think.

A non-stacking +/-3.3? That sounds suspiciously like you're talking about a reroll.

No, I think he's saying instead of a +2 bonus for flanking (or whatever), you get a +1d6 bonus.

[Voss]

This seems really trivial, but also odd: from what frank wrote my impression is jumping is not a thing you can meaningfully do unless you have a strength bonus, and even then, a 10' wall is a insurmountable barrier (for jumping) unless you have +7 strength bonus (24 strength, unless they changed the way stat bonuses increase), and even a 5' wall is beyond the ability of anyone with less than a 14 str, and bob the average is stopped cold by a 3' 1" wall.

How does climb work? Clearly it is going to have to come up a lot.

Anyway, my take away from jumping is 5e is firmly in the realm of the mundane and 'human limits.' Though I'm not quite certain if that is good or bad yet. I suppose it really depends on if the the fighter and thief are stuck with the realm of the mundane and spellcasters still get to sodomize reality on a whim.

[ishy]

I can't believe they spent that much page space on advantage and disadvantage and didn't tell us what happens when you have two sources of advantage and one source of disadvantage.

-Username17

If you have advantage and disadvantage on the
same check, attack roll, or saving throw, the
advantage and the disadvantage cancel each other
out for that roll.

Sounds like you'd have advantage then (since the ad and dis cancel each other out once)

- Edit:

Whenever you gain a level, you roll your Hit Die again and add the result to your maximum hit points. However, if your Constitution modifier is higher than the result, add it instead.

So the higher your hit die, the worse you can roll?

[Lago PARANOIA]

But yeah, it's not really much different from a minor bonus. So while it might be a cool gimmick, it doesn't really matter in any real way.

I don't quite agree with that. Going back to the Brian/Lil' Trevor or Starfire/Beast Boy problem (God, I love that show):

[*] You want to hand out bonuses (or penalties) for tactical decisions that people care about. Otherwise you get games like Exalted.
[*] You have people of varying levels of skill in the game. You have people like Starfire, who while not useless is a newbie and who designed her character worse than Beast Boy.
[*] Because of the way tactical roleplaying games work, it's very common for someone good at the Character Generation Minigame to also be good at the Tactical Decision Minigame. This causes competence to diverge further -- which will frustrate Starfire's player. On the other hand, implementing nerfs and arbitrary cockblocks to keep Beast Boy in sight of Starfire will frustrate his player.
[*] Positive rerolls benefit people higher on the RNG like Beast Boy less than people lower (but still reasonably on) on the RNG like Starfire.
[*] If the positive rerolls come as a result of Tactical Positioning rather than Character Generation, it'll make Starfire less upset because she benefits more from the positive rerolls when they happen. By the same token, Beast Boy also gets to help Starfire set up superior Tactical Positioning, so she gets to be awesome without imposing too much on her character.

Of course, the upshot to this is that Beast Boy will nonetheless be 'hitting' a lot more often. Which is fine, as long as the game is okay with 75% or more of attacks being successful in the initial phase. Which is in my experience the minimum of where you want attacks to be at -- 4E D&D's 50% or even 60% success rate on a d20 frustrated way too many players. People whiffing three of their big attacks in a row back in the 'hit on a 14 or higher? POWERGAMER' days were common and happened almost every combat.

No, I think he's saying instead of a +2 bonus for flanking (or whatever), you get a +1d6 bonus.

If this is the case, however, I take back what I said then. This is retarded and boring.

[Username17]

Rogues get to be so grounded in the mundane that their abilities do not actually do anything.

When you start your turn hidden from a creature, you have advantage on your first attack against that creature during that turn.

Advantage on Attacks: When you attack a creature from which you are hidden, you have advantage on that attack.

-Username17

[hogarth]

Rogues get to be so grounded in the mundane that their abilities do not actually do anything.

When you start your turn hidden from a creature, you have advantage on your first attack against that creature during that turn.

Advantage on Attacks: When you attack a creature from which you are hidden, you have advantage on that attack.

-Username17

That's not quite the same. The rogue could move out of hiding and then still attack with advantage, whereas a normal hiding PC couldn't. At least, that's how I read it.

[Voss]

Rogues get to be so grounded in the mundane that their abilities do not actually do anything.

When you start your turn hidden from a creature, you have advantage on your first attack against that creature during that turn.

Advantage on Attacks: When you attack a creature from which you are hidden, you have advantage on that attack.

-Username17

That's not quite the same. The rogue could move out of hiding and then still attack with advantage, whereas a normal hiding PC couldn't. At least, that's how I read it.

I read it the same way, but that really is a minor bonus, and of course with invisibility around (per the top of the thread), as usual the wizard can just do that, and not have to worry about obscuring terrain and all that shit.

Which reminds me: spells. Vancian, encounter powers, at wills or some bizarre combination that makes no sense?

[virgil]

Though making it a non-stacking +/-3.3 (round up or down, don't care) bonus should do the same thing, I would think.

A non-stacking +/-3.3? That sounds suspiciously like you're talking about a reroll.

No, I think he's saying instead of a +2 bonus for flanking (or whatever), you get a +1d6 bonus.

No, it's a reroll; advantage/disadvantage is simply rolling twice and taking the better/worse of the two. Statistically, it's essentially the same thing as adding or subtracting ~3.3.

[ishy]

Looking at the weapon table, why the fuck would anyone ever use a crossbow over a longbow?

And armour looks retarded too.

I do like the fact that you can go farther below 0 as you level and that you can just deal non-lethal damage without any penalties.

[Voss]

A non-stacking +/-3.3? That sounds suspiciously like you're talking about a reroll.

No, I think he's saying instead of a +2 bonus for flanking (or whatever), you get a +1d6 bonus.

No, it's a reroll; advantage/disadvantage is simply rolling twice and taking the better/worse of the two. Statistically, it's essentially the same thing as adding or subtracting ~3.3.

Perhaps. But I know damn well that any time I roll less than 11 on a d20, I'd rather have a reroll than +3.3, though obviously the reverse is true as well.

From a psychological perspective, especially since you pick best or force someone to pick worst, the reroll has more of an appeal. Especially since the alternative is fundamentally just adding skill focus.

[Username17]

That's not quite the same. The rogue could move out of hiding and then still attack with advantage, whereas a normal hiding PC couldn't. At least, that's how I read it.

Quite possibly. But all their weapons are ranged weapons. It's an ability that is at best nearly useless and extremely similar to completely useless. It is not alone:

You can hide behind creatures that are larger than you.

Something must conceal you, perhaps a large object, a piece of terrain, or an immobile creature of an appropriate size, such as a slumbering dragon. Regardless of what obscures you, the thing must cover at least half your body for you to hide.

I think they just plain did not read the hiding rules when they wrote the Rogue. It's like this all the way through. You get the "ability" to hide behind creatures that are larger than you, but the normal rules is that the things you hide behind (creatures or not) have to be at least half your size. And just to rub that in even more:

You can attempt to hide when you are lightly obscured, such as if there are shadows deep enough to cover you from bright light, or in a cloud of smoke. You can also hide behind an object that can cover at least a quarter of your body.

And if you thought Advantage was going to be some sort of universal rule that was always followed and we didn't have to worry about reroll proliferation because advantage was capped at one extra die? Well, fuck you.

Twice per day, when you make an attack roll, a check, or a saving throw and get a result you dislike, you can reroll it and use either result. If you have advantage or disadvantage on the roll, you reroll only one of the dice.

The Rogue is just so... bad. At everything. They even made the Halfling Rogue a commoner, just to rub it in.

-Username17

[TOZ]

Sounds like Rogues get DOUBLE Advantage!

Which may or may not do anything.

[ishy]

Club 5 sp

Torch 5 cp

Torch: A torch burns for 1 hour, providing bright light in a 20-foot radius and casting
shadowy light out to a 40- foot radius. If a torch is used as a weapon, treat it as a club that deals fire or bludgeoning damage. Lighting a torch takes an action.

So a torch is 10x as cheap as a club, and is better too?

[hogarth]

No, it's a reroll; advantage/disadvantage is simply rolling twice and taking the better/worse of the two. Statistically, it's essentially the same thing as adding or subtracting ~3.3.

That's an odd way to look at it. If you assume that most things have a 50% chance of succeeding, it's much more like adding 5. Even if you wish to take into account tasks where you have a 5% or a 95% chance of succeeding, I think it's unlikely that those will be uniformly distributed (e.g. more tasks will be in the 30%-70% success range than in the 0%-30% and 70%-100% ranges).

[hogarth]

It is not alone:

You can hide behind creatures that are larger than you.

Something must conceal you, perhaps a large object, a piece of terrain, or an immobile creature of an appropriate size, such as a slumbering dragon. Regardless of what obscures you, the thing must cover at least half your body for you to hide.

I think they just plain did not read the hiding rules when they wrote the Rogue. It's like this all the way through. You get the "ability" to hide behind creatures that are larger than you, but the normal rules is that the things you hide behind (creatures or not) have to be at least half your size.

Again, that's not quite the same. You can hide behind an immobile creature that covers half your body, or any creature (possibly mobile) that's larger than you. Those are two overlapping things, but they're not totally redundant.

[virgil]

Ability Thresholds are very close to Take 10; but only if you have an ability score of 20. Specifically, you auto-succeed if your ability score exceeds the DC by 5 or more.

Skills don't seem to really be there. The classes get training in them based on their background, which seems to mean a +3, and doesn't sound like it's influenced by level. The Rogue's awesome skill focus is...his minimum die roll is a 10.

[Username17]

Looking at the weapon table, why the fuck would anyone ever use a crossbow over a longbow?

And armour looks retarded too.

Well... ACs are pretty low, but so are attack bonuses. Medium armor is worth 1 point of AC and halves your Dex bonus to AC. Heavy armor is worth 3 AC and removes your entire Dex bonus to AC. No one will ever wear medium armor. People with a Dex bonus of +1 or less will go heavy and everyone else will wear light. Even if you find magic medium armor (Dragonscale) it's still only 3 AC better than a Chain Shirt and halves your Dex bonus. So it's pretty hard to justify over off the rack shit.

I do like the fact that you can go farther below 0 as you level and that you can just deal non-lethal damage without any penalties.

Well, your death margin goes up by 1 per level and the Rogue's Damage bonus goes up by +1d6 per level. So that is not going to be super helpful. Better than nothing, but the death margin of 15 you have at 1st level is a lot bigger than the death margin of 17 you have at 3rd level. You know, considering that a 1st level Rogue does d6+d8+3 damage (average 11) and a 3rd level Rogue does 3d6+d8+3 damage (average 18).

Also: there is no nonlethal damage. There are nonlethal attacks, but the damage you do with nonlethal attacks is just regular hit point damage. The only difference is that a nonlethal attack that drops the target to below zero leaves them unconscious instead of dying. But only the final blow matters, and it doesn't even change healing times.

-Username17