I have indicated before that I am big fan of 5e and the concept of bounded accuracy and advantage and disadvantage. I like the idea of flatning bonuses and AC. There is shift from striving for ever increasing ACs and attack bonuses. The shift is in gaining advantage or having disadvantage. Damage output and hit poiints scale up..
I have played and run mulitiple sessions and the players have enjoyed hitting more often with an ability or spell which seems to happen more often in 5e especially when you factor in advantage and disadvantage.
I enjoyed thebplayers handbook and bounded accuacy, advantage and disadvantage, profecency system, feats, multiclassing, manuevers, the spell slot focus, short and long rest concept, and the classes. Each class had range of options through sub classes.
I enjoyed the monster manuel and things like the hit point and ac math being more enjoyable to me. Combats seem more enjoyable and quicker than previous editions. I also think that it is nott to hard to allow certain races in the MM as playable races.
I enjoyed the DMG and all the optional rules. Lingering wounds, massive damage, flanking, tumbling, marking, disarmingg, and cleaving to name few. I als lked the other rewards than exp. Alternate training this would be away to allow characters to get class features that are not part of the sub class they are in. Such as aloowing the battle master to get increased threat range through superior critical fo example. I also enjoyed the information of going beyond 20. Gaining Stats u to 30 and feets. Also enjoyed the epic boons a great deal. I also enjoyed the magic items. There as allot of discussion of how youu stack magic items for AC +9 or o this breaks bounded accuracy. To me it does not. If you give +9 to AC give +6 to 9 to hit and it balances out agian for major NPCs. If a PC had 3 plus 3 magic items to AC they would be around 18 to 20th level, and I do not have problem with 1st level ocs having problem hittiing the PC with 3 legendary magic items. Just adjust the major NPCs they face with the same range in pluses to hit.
This one of the more complete versions of D&D also. There is not a book I am waiting for class x to be in.
All in All I will give 5e an A+ It may be my favorite so far.
As a side note you could add some lingering injuries as manuevers. Internal injuries and broken ribs could be added as manuevers like normal. I would make loosing the leg foot, arm hand, and blinded as advanced at level 10 or so and require two manueve die/these two die would be added to damage. Would be con based saves for all these manuevers. The festering wound crit is one on fense about to make advanced 2 die or normal one die
Meh character creation, and more importantly character advancement is limited, most of the real customization is locked in the class pillar. The game feels incomplete in a lot of areas. I'm especially unsure what I'm supposed to be spending gold on at higher levels. I mean yeah I didn't like the gear treadmill but it beat the heck out of nothing. All in all a good effort, but a lot is still up in the air.
NO, I'm saying there's not enough of 5e out yet, which is kind of dissapointing considering all three 'core' books have been released, but neither 4e or 3e really hit its stride until well after the initial release.
rampant wrote:
I'd be happy if I knew how they planned to deal with spell creep on the unbounded casters.
rampant wrote:
rampant wrote:
Of course it's no the end goal, besides it doens't need to be magic, it just needs to be interesting, and fun to play with, like an unfolding shield, or a sping loaded punching dagger. If I'm gonna go dungeon crawling for a living I want to be able to get cool stuff to do it with. Self retracting grappling hooks or a couple bags of greek fire, you know the cool stuff.
It's just that while you're still n the business most of that castle type stuff isn't really useful, sur eyou squirrel away a few gold here and there to save up for a castle to retire in, but you wanna be putitng some of your gross back into your business.
Unbounded casters are the casters that don't pay significant or any opportunity costs to gain new spells. Guys like the cleric where every cleric could potentially cast just about any claric spell of a level they can cast. A bounded spell caster would be something like a sorceror where they learn a limited number of spells and no matte rhow many spells the world has for that class an individual member of the class has a limitied number fo spells known.
rampant wrote:
I've only played a bit of 5e sofar, a wizard from level 1-5 in AL.
Sofar I really like it. But a few things stand out sofar as sad.
The first I think is mostly an AL thing and that is very very very few magic items. So few that given the magic item constraints people actually don't want to claim any items because they probably won't be eligible to claim another one for another 5+ levels.....That's like worse than trying to find ice water in Dark Sun setting.
I've played episodes 3-18 sofar of HotDQ and the party is lv 5 nearing 6. Sofar we have found a total of 1 magic item which was given as a quest reward, 2 or 3 healing potions, and 0 spell scrolls. There are 2 other magic items that came from Expeditions, one of which granted darkvision, and the other was a +1AC ioun stone that the DM ruled gives disadvantage to stealth checks if used...so the drow assasin rogue who claimed it can't really use it.
I think the classes are mostly pretty interesting and decently balanced. Fighters, Rangers, and Monks seem a bit bland, and I wish Sorcerer had more origin options. These can easily be fixed with standard additions from splatbooks, ie feats, class options, and more background options.
I think they really went overboard with the concentration mechanic. I think the mechanic needed more depth to not be overly constraining. What if wizards had a class feature like Extra Attack...that allowed +1 concentration effect at like 9th level? Or if the mechanic were split into 2 tiers (offensive, defensive) and a caster can have 1 effect of each type going. So you could have a protection from evil going and still cast your cloudkill, or haste your ally.
Generally 5th Edition is my favorite edition as of now, surpassing my first D&D edition (4th Edition "Essentials") and the second one who won over the formal one for a more believable in-world simulationism (3.Xth Edition) by a respectable margin.
Although, I'd have enjoyed more built in class features for most (usually non-spellcasting) classes that would help players with the two non-Combat "pillars" the devs were talking; something akin to the Battle Master's 7th level feature ("Know Your Enemy") for example.
Byakugan01 wrote:
rampant wrote:
Diffan wrote:
Nesian42Ryukaiel wrote:
EzechielDantan wrote:
Diffan wrote:
Diffan wrote:
Then why doesn't the game do anything cool with that? It's just 'here's how much it costs for a castle' why do I want a castle? There's not even a section that helps you pick out defenses, or details the cost of having a trapsmith rig the place for you. I mean if I could turn it into a fortress to house my followers and swag sure that'd be one thing, but just "a castle" makes it almost impossible to defend, it's not a wise investment. I want to be spending my money on things that do things, not just stuff that sits around and gets pillaged the moment I look away. I don't need to spend my gold on stuff to deal damage or enhance an ability check (how would and expanding shield even do that?) I just wanna spend it on useful stuff, like setting up a Hippogryff breeding program, or a training labyrinth for future adventurers.
Also Joe, declaring 4e a failure because they ended the edition would indicate 3e, 2e, and OD&D ae also failures. Admittedly 4e and 3e cycled much quicker thna the other two, but odds are 5e will as well, the industry is simply much faster paced these days.
Diffan wrote:
I like it and rate it as my favourite D&D edition, but the whole rulings not rules philosophy also has equaled more DM work in some instances, which I am not thrilled with.
Also DM empowerment doesn't fly at my table, we all have certain expectations on how the game is played from prior editions, and no amount of words in the DMG "empowering" a dungeon master to change the rules will change those expectations.
In conclusion I would have liked more of a complete game with rules (like 3rd edition), but I understand and appreciate this edition is about compromise across ALL editions, and it's goals were to capture the older D&D feel.
The more I think about it, the more I want a Hippogryff breeding program.
I said right off the bat that i wanted an Arms and Equipment Guide that was loaded with tons of various types of things to buy and own.
I like to fund orphanages, soup kitches, and the like. Things that make me more popular around the area/locale, but not so much so that I have to invest a lot of time physically overseeing it. In more Modern games I create Endowments and Foundations to handle these things, but in more medieval games I tend to parcel out grants to under lords and, eventually, sponsor nobles whose values I approve of.
Then I fill closets and closets of clothing. I might accept a title as a Viscountess or something (ie, something non-hereditary and not land-owning necessarily) but nothing more. I don't want to play Economic D&D after all.
I think where to spend money and how it relates to higher level would be maybe downtime things like building keep, running guild ect. Also maybe have characters pay alternate training for things like swaping out class features ect.
As far as character advancement, I do not think it is anymore limited than 3rd or 4th ed. If we are talking presteige classes, I do not think that is the direction this edition will go. I think we will see new sub classes but not preteige classes. I think with feats and multi classing this allows for allot of custimization. That is just my take though.
Dave2 wrote:
Some gold sinks I added to my game include
- A fortune teller that can give them a random fortune for a price. This can do many things such as granting great fortune (Every starts the adventure with inspiration), great wealth (Extra roll on the loot table), or bad foruntes like great challenge (monsters get a bonus to attack and damage in this adventure).
- The players work for an adventuring guild and can pay gold to "hire" new adventurers. Basically this allows them to pay gold to enter a new character into the guild. The gold sink comes in with the fact that if they pay more, they can make a higher level character (max being the highest PC level at the time).
- I reintroduced masterwork items, granting +1 attack.
- OCCASIONALLY (like I roll a d20 and on a 19 or 20) traveling merchants sell a magic item. A 19 represents a uncommon or rare magic item. A 20 represents a rare or very rare magic item. This has happened once so far, and they couldn't afford it :P This doesnt include potions and scrolls which appear more frequently.
- They can spend money to improve the guild, which in turn makes it more likely they will receive higher level quests to complete, as well as better hirelings and contacts if they want.
A couple of other thoughts.
- You could always try to do a Treasure to XP thing like the older edtions did.
- In my current pathfinder game the players have spent probably 1/4 of their told gold on raises. Whilst raising the dead in 5e is a bit cheaper (save for True Res), it still costs money every time. Even revivify has a 300 gp cost. Don't underestimate the amount of gold your players might spend on these.
- Also, don't follow the wealth by level guidelines exactly if new characters enter. This can help reduce excess player gold.
rampant wrote:
I would say that this is one of the more complete versions of D&D in 3 books I think they have done. The breadth of classes and rules in the 3 books was outstanding to me. To me not having magic item cost and crafting rules is fine. I think that is to allow the DM and players to decide flow of magic items. This is also case with scrolls and no comprehensive rules for crafting them. Once again this is to control the flow of these things and I am fine with that. For a periode of time when just the players handbook was out we played with no magic items or scrolls and the game worked fine for us. So not having these things/crafting rules items scrolls does not make it half baked to me. I think they were left out for a reason.
It does feel a bit incomplete actually. I've been reading the monsters manual cover to cover over the holidays, and you notice the inconsistency and missing bits. For example, the monsters manual at the start boasts you'll be able to find random encounter tables in the DMG. Oh really?
It also claims that a single monster of CR "n" is a challenge for a party of four level "n"s. However this is totally incorrect.
There are tons of inconsistencies like this through the three core books.
Not only that, anything the designers felt was too hard to get right they put back into hands of the DMs.
It's the story tellers editions, not the gamers/wargamers edition. For me of the later ilk, its filled with annoying inconsistencies and demands my time to do things I enjoy less than other parts of the game, thus feels incomplete.
EberronKnight wrote:
I for one find it entirely frustrating being unable to determine how much wealth my high level character is supposed to have, or what magic items he can start with. Why don't the items have values? Why is the X item rare when the more powerful Y item is uncommon? Without consistent codification of the rules, I can't have a gallery of "ready-to-go" characters like I could in past editions. The fact of the matter is that the rules are SO loose and open-ended, that every table is going to end up handling things completely different, so I can't even generate new characters UNTIL I am at the table to see how things are done.
RavingDork wrote:
RavingDork wrote:
ChrisCarlson wrote:
Zardnaar wrote:
I just eyeball it, like pre-encounter building crapola.
RavingDork wrote:
EzechielDantan wrote:
RavingDork wrote:
JohnLynch wrote:
RavingDork wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
In Pathfinder, it was pretty widely known that you could not normally buy a magical item worth more than 16,000gp (and for those, you needed to be in a metropolis). That left the vast number of items (16,001gp to 200,000gp is a pretty vast range) to treasure seeking adventurers and item crafters.
That's similar to the Common = Available, Uncommon and Rare = Unavailable mentioned above I would think.
At some point I seriously hope 5E comes out with an Equipment Guide or similar supplament, which includes optional prices for the items (allowing people to have the choice of using a WBL system or something similar).
ChrisCarlson wrote:
Reius wrote:
JohnLynch wrote:
RavingDork wrote:
Reius wrote:
JohnLynch wrote:
AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
RavingDork wrote:
RavingDork wrote:
ChrisCarlson wrote:
Diffan wrote:
Diffan wrote:
ChrisCarlson wrote:
ChrisCarlson wrote:
I would agree that the DM would have the finale say but I would always get player input. I think that you as DM and group could easily price magic items and allow players to buy them. This is a shift from the games approach to curb the escilation of magic items. You could do something by level. However, when you do this if +4 to hit becomes common there would need to be plus 4 to defence and bounded accuracy would hold up. If you make magic common for charcters and not the enemies they face then it can be an issue. More magic in the game can be fine it just has to balance out.
RavingDork,
Maybe you could go on the assumption that you'll win one hoard roll per level and roll a per-level basis to see what your 'group' found, assuming 4 people. Every 4 items is one that you yourself actually obtained, then roll to see what it was. In the case of remainders, give yourself every 4th remainder. It's literally as close to WBL and Actual Play as possible (moreso if you then rule 1/4th of all consumables were spent in levelling). Think of it like a quick levelling simulator. 
Reius wrote:
I just posted this in another thread but it seems relevant to post here as well.
I've now read through all three core books. Overall, I think 5E is really strong. It's clearly designed to be a streamlined chassis that is easy for casual players to enjoy and more hardcore enthusiasts to modify. Like most people on this forum, I probably skew more toward the hardcore end.
In the Monster Manual, I have nitpicks over a handful of creatures, but they're mostly a matter of personal preference. It's the best monster manual ever, by far.
In the DMG, while I very much enjoyed the pages on the multiverse, I think those pages could have been used much, much better. I would have liked to have seen more advice on how to manage a table, deal with player problems and player preference, and examples of play. My God, where are the examples of play?! Additionally, I wanted more advice on how to build an encounter. How to mix and match creatures, modify creatures, utilize terrain, etc. The DMG did a great job with world building and adventure building--would have been great to see that same level of effort applied to encounter building. Other than that, I think the DMG is solid.
The PHB is where most of my concerns lie. And that is exclusively around character building. The core four classes are all pretty much great. It shows that when the devs spend a lot of time on a class, they get it right. Most of the other classes are good. The ranger is meh. It just doesn't look fun to play. At all. Seems like a huge miss. Fundamentally, I don't think it should have been a caster, although I would be more than fine with a 1/3 caster subclass similar to the eldritch knight or arcane trickster. Personally, I would have folded the warden under the ranger, or even the druid, rather than the paladin. In any case, with the exception of the ranger, I think the classes are good to great. PS: I don't miss the warlord as much as I thought I would. But I do think it would have been easy to build a swordmage or similar type of arcane gish on the paladin chassis. So I miss that.
My major complaints are regarding the subclasses. Each subclass grants roughly four features. That means each feature carries a lot of weight. So getting even one feature wrong (or at least not to my personal preference!) really hurts the subclass. I think virtually all of the subclasses for the core four classes are just about perfect. But for the other classes the quality is more uneven. And in the case of the druid and the ranger, I think all of the subclasses are stinkers.
Long story short, I'd like to see additional development put into the subclasses--and an arcane gish class built on the paladin chassis.
Zardnaar wrote:
Looking at 4th Ed, I wold deal with things differently (like, sourcing powers by Power Source, not Class; that was a big mistake).
RavingDork wrote:
rampant wrote:
Cyber-Dave wrote:
Cyber-Dave wrote:
Diffan wrote:
Until the day comes where WOTC has to get my approval on the game I will consider this edition the best. There are things I like and dislike, but gosh darn it they failed to personally consult me, but it is darn good as is.
Mike Mearls: "We have the green light from Arnwolf, it is a go, we can include this in the PHB."
Until the above happens, it won't be perfect :-)
rampant wrote:
The_Jester wrote:
The_Jester wrote:
RavingDork wrote:
CCS wrote:
The_Jester wrote: