The D&D Basic Rules were Updated
It also has the DM Basic rules
Thanks for the link. 
They seem to have added the Noble to the Basic Rules. They also seem to have added the FR Five Factions and the FR deities in a new appendix (for the sake of organized play, very likely). Other than probably a few errata fixes, I'm not sure what else changed in the Player's pdf.
DM's pdf is exciting though!
Marandahir wrote:
Links in the printer friendly versions, yay! Although only for the chapters 
A few more spells. Only noticed a couple of cantrips though, Spare the Dying, Acid Splash, Poison Spray.
Gods and factions. That's about it it seems.
Those were late additions to the Cleric and Wizard cantrip lists, so I'm not surprised.
Luciender wrote:
Luciender wrote:
Yeah, but that's a very different way of going about it.
By saying "always" and then saying there are rare individuals with other alignments, it's saying, "this is the way things are, and you're breaking canon by creating a group of good Drow." By disincluding the always, and just saying "Drow, chaotic evil," but also explicitely saying that you can do whatever you want because it's your game, 5e has a tone of DM empowerment, as opposed to the tone of 1e. This is a much better way of wording the same ultimate ends.
Marandahir wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Gods and factions. That's about it it seems.
Didn't notice anything really important in the v2 of the players pdf, but the DM pdf does have a nice selection of monsters.
I am a bit confused by the wording on a few entries, though.
For example, under werewolf: "Damage Immunities: bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from non-magical weapons that aren't silvered."
Does that mean a weapon has to be magical and silvered? Or just silvered, or just magical? Don't like that wording at all.
As I thought, though...that 'magic weapon' spell suddenly becomes important, with a few creatures having resistance or immunity to non-magical weapons.
I'm still upset that there's no CHA, STR, or INT saves. Fear, for example, should be a CHA save, not a WIS save...True, there are STR 'saves' to keep from falling prone/being tripped...but that's it.
Thank_Dog wrote:
Thunaer wrote:
pukunui wrote:
Thunaer wrote:
Overpromises wrote:
Hmm. What do you guys think about the new, more complicated encounter creation rules? the creatures number-tied multiplier is back. This is new, at least to me (last infos I recall about encounter building are these: http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/building-adventures-0 ). Also, XP budget has been reduced. Maybe this is a reaction to the whole "deadly level 1" thing?
Emanuele_Galletto wrote:
Is there any reason "D" can't be for "Dragon?" I mean, if you eventually buy the MM, do you reap the benefits of proper alphabetizing? Is THAT the new strongarm tactic? (C'mon Wiz's--Dragon, Adult, Dragon, Young--ain't that hard).
cranebump wrote:
Thanks plaguescarred, I jsut experimented copy and pasting into MS Word so you can modify and print the stats out easily enough for the monsters.
Encounter design only seems hard. It's still base point buy. Then use the multiplier to see if your final version of the encounter is too high. It would be nice though in the future for people to have cross reference charts. I did a quick excel sheet for myself. Once done with that updating Lost mines for 2 players was a snap using the encounter design rules. It's very 4th edition especially if you compare CR to level. If your party is a CR 5 let's say then the CR 5 monster is a moderate encounter four. Most work out to an in between Moderate to herd encounter. Only a couple work out to flat hard. One of the CR levels work out to an easy to moderate standing.
In short I like the rules for encounter building. Though the climax in Lost Mines is practically maxed out. For a party of 2 the Bugbear is enough.
Overpromises wrote:
cranebump wrote:
Thunaer wrote:
Emanuele_Galletto wrote:
Lawngnome4hire wrote:
Polaris wrote:
Torg_Smith wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Thunaer wrote:
Back to topic...
Impressed with the updates. Very happy to see the extra background in the players book (plus te extra spells). The legal clarification on reproduction for personal use is very welcome (for those of us who want to get a copy printed to sit on our shelves). The added appendices are nice, with the notes on factions bing a nice touch, though the addition of the Forgotten Realms deities slightly confusing. (Why add the list of the deities showing their domains if the basic rules only has one domain?) Confusing, but welcome.
Impressed with what I am seeing in the DM book. A little light on the page count, but I suspect (and hope) that will be addressed as the basic books are updated the closer we get to the end of the year. Having the creaures listed in the order they are listed in is slightly jarring. I certainly hope they address that with the final version of the basic books when they are finalised. "Adult Red Dragon" should certanly be listed as "Dragon, Red Adult". The range of creatures available is good - with a good spread of creature types that can be easily incorporated into any campaign setting. Having the NPCs listed in their own section is very handy.
A minor cirticism would be whether there are enough creatures to support a campaign from level 1 to level 20. The basic rules are suposed to be a complete game, and supporting a campaign from level 1 to 20 would be a key element of a complete game. That said, I have not had chance to have a proper read of the enries as yet I downloaded them before going to sleep and have only just got up) and there may be enough without the repeated use of creatures becoming stale. Otherwise I would hope that either more creatures are added, or at least guidlines for a DM to create their own creatures to pad out the range of creature available. This is a living document, so interested to see what (if anthing) will be done regarding this.
The only "major" criticism I would have for the DM book (the same as with the downloadable content for Hoard of the Dragon Queen) is the lack of narrative for the creature entries. I understand WotC may not wish to put in a full 2-page spread for each creature entry - details background, habiltat, ecology, etc - but a couple of lines (as in the creature entries in the Starter Set) would have been greatly appreciated. The current version of the books certainly do feel as though WotC are working very frantic to a lot of tight deadlines, and perhaps a little rushed - getting usable material released when they can. Perhaps why the update has come a couple of working days later than orignally implied. Not a complaint - just an observation). But for a living document the basic books are getting a big thumbs up. Great work so far. This is one gamer who is excited to see what future updates bring.
Edited: Found the narrative in the creature entries. They are at the end of the creature descriptions. Only "animals" (which are self-explanitory) are missing a narrative.
Keep up the good work WotC
Azzy1974 wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
I'm very happy with the encounter guildelines. One thing I didn't like about the 4e encounter guidelines, was that it only worked for a party of 4-5 characters. If I had 2 or 8 the guidelines were not helpful and often were worse than just going with my gut.
I think the rules currently look complicated because the rules are essentially different for different sized parties, but once you have a specific target number of characters in mind, it's really very simple. As you leran CR and XP values of monsters, it becomes even easier.
I also like that they give a table for XP per Adventure day, rather than saying its X number of encounters of type Y.
Thanks, Plague. Thanks, WOTC.
Ath-kethin wrote:
Apparently level 1 commoners are incredibly boring people. DM Rules lists level 1 average XP per adventuring day as 300, which is also the amount needed to reach level 2. So a level 1 commoner is someone who hasn't spent a day adventuring in their entire life.
On a serious note though, I think the encounter building guidelines are interesting. Having guidelines for monster groups and multi stage encounters is great, though it remains to be seen whether or not the math is actually good.
I'm really not a fan of having CR1 == 4x PC Level 1 instead of CR1 == PC Level 1. I don't think I've ever actually played in a group of 4. I've played with 3, 5, 6 and 7, but not 4.
- In 4th edition, I'd be making an encounter for 3 players, so I'd get 3 level 1 monsters and go from there.
- The new rules aren't so straightforward. 3 players gives me 150 XP, so I can't just use a CR1 to get a standard medium encounter. I could use a CR 1/2 and a CR 1/4 for a total of 150 XP, but then I have 2 monsters so I need to multiply by 1.5 and I overshoot the goal again. If I use 3 CR 1/4 monsters, I get 75XP and multiply by 2 for a group of 3-6 monsters and end up with my 150 XP target. Oh look, I got the exact same result as I would in 4th edition (CR 1/4 from 5th edition == Level 1 from 4th edition), it just took me longer to get there.
It seems fairly intuitive that if a CR 1 is intended to be difficult for 4 people than CR 1/4 is intended to be difficult for 3 people. CR AT LEVEL seems to be the new solo. Solos equalled 4 level 1 PCs. So if you had a 3 person team in 4th ed you were in a similar boat if you ever tried to use a solo.
encounter designing looks pretty difficult comparing to 4e.
and 3 bugbears at Redbrands Hideout makes more_than_deadly encounter for a group of 4 characters and even for 5 (1200 XP vs. 800 - 1000 XP cap).
seti wrote:
Orethalion wrote:
Overpromises wrote:
I'm kind of disappointed that the DM preview didn't include the death domain. It's kind of important both to several characters I might play and to several key NPCs I might use if running a game. Having to wait until November isn't unbearable, but it is irritating, especially when taken alongside the PHBs implication that it is automatically evil (more evil, in fact, than wizard necromancy or infernal warlocks, even), and that all Death Deities are automatically evil as well (Evil Hades? When Zues is labeled good? Ridiculous).
seti wrote:
I think we have our first example of a CHA save with the Ghost's possession ability.
Gazra wrote:
I'm AFB at the moment, but isn't magic jar a cha save? Both for the target and, potentially, for the user - if the host dies while still possessed?
I'm excited to now have monsters from Lost Mine of Phandelver, Hoard of the Dragon Queen and its PDF supplement, this DM Basic Rules PDF, plus whatever they preview to get me by as a DM while the Monster Manual comes out. The monsters look good overall. Still need to see them in play to make a judgment as to whether the math works at the mid and high levels. My one main critique of the DM PDF monsters at this point is the way they were listed. I agree with other posters that listings should have been, for example "Dragon, Red Adult" or "Badger, Giant" to make it easier to find creatures. But that is a minor critique if there is a good index in the Monster Manual, and if Morningstar becomes available soon with a readily searchable monster list.
Clearly, we're back in the dork age of Deities & Demigods, the one based off of comic books and Disney rather than actual mythology.
I was expecting at least a mindflayer and a decent celestial and fiend (not just the hell hound), very reserved selection of monsters.
Brock_Landers wrote:
Page numbers are all on the right side of each page. This is bad for those who like to print the rules. They should alternate or, even better, be in the center of the bottom of the page, so we can paginate as we see fit.
Lady_Auralla wrote:
Torg_Smith wrote:
I was hoping that werewolves would use the same shape change rules as druids, where if you do enough damage they turn back to their non-wolf selves.
There's an error in the example of encounter difficulty... It says an easy encounter for the sample group is 375xp. It should be 275xp if I'm doing this right (75+75+75+50=275). The hard encounter says 1050xp. It should be 825xp (225+225+225+150=825). Eithe the problem is the example or the chart. The medium and deadly points seem correct.
Somebody with twitter send Mike a note so this doesn't make it to the printed DMG...
Anyone else notice the Headband of Intellect? Bumps you to 19 Intelligence. So there's that. I guess people who didn't like the Belt of Giant Strength can go find another game now.
Also: Amulet of Health = 19 Constitution. Boom.
Grifford wrote:
Marandahir wrote:
quindia wrote:
Drewboy74 wrote:
Daganev wrote:
I noticed that Swarms are not defined anywhere in the DM's book, even though lots of other monster types are. That makes the rules behind "Medium swarm of tiny beasts" a bit confusing regarding Druid Wild Shape rules.
Can someone ask Mearls on twitter to let us know if that was an ommission or on purpose?
As long as my urban ranger/bard gets to have his "beast companion" be a pandemonium of trained parrots (reskinned swarm of ravens), we're all good. If not, heads will roll!!!
For me hitman should be a rogue archetype and the name "assasin" for a future variant class.
I browned out my skinny jeans when I saw the seahorse stat block.
Marandahir wrote:
Marandahir wrote:
malisteen wrote:
Overpromises wrote:
Grazel wrote:
malisteen wrote:
And just because a cleric has the death domain doesn't mean they're evil, either. For one, not every listed deity with Death as their suggested domain is evil, and for another even if they were, a cleric of an evil deity need nnot be any more evil than a warlock with an evil patron. Per the PHB, clerics don't even need to worship their deity in 5e, the powers could have been forced on them against their will following some inscrupulous aim of the deity in question.
Basically there is absolutely no logic that applies to the Death domain that wouldn't equally apply to the fiend patron warlock or necromancy specialist wizard as presented in the PHB. It feels, frankly, arbitrary, and that arbitrariness is irritating.
malisteen wrote: