Some of you probably remember me from heated debates during the Next/5E play test and then pretty much disappeared from the face of the Earth, so to speak. Well, there's a reason for that.
First, a little background:
I've been playing D&D in some form since 1987, though I was first introduced to it in 1984 by my father's half-brother while visiting his dad and stepmother in southern New York. I scoffed at 2nd Edition, gave it a try, and my group and I incorporated things from it into 1st Edition which I carried over into becoming a DM in college. When 3rd came out, most of my group made the switch. There were things I enjoyed and a number of things I didn't. The things I didn't enjoy turned me away from the game for a period until 4th Edition was released.
I've always been a visual person and began using grid-and-model combat as a DM back in the mid-90s, thanks in part to Warhammer Quest creating dungeons for my players that they and I could both see. They could see how far they were, figure out ranges, place spells, etc. But one thing really bothered me - the only reason monsters typically stuck to fighters and such, really until 3rd Edition, was more GM-fiat than anything else. So were a lot of other things. No clear-cut rule, so it worked or didn't work because I said so or the DM said so. Abstract combat? "Oh, you're all hit by the dragon's breath." And then when 4th gave non-caster classes the ability to do things beyond "I swing my sword" without asking the GM if they can? Oh, wow! AND they got rid of Vancian magic?! And let clerics be more than heal/buff bots?! 4th was a step forward, in my opinion. A radical one, sure, but it allowed me to focus more on world building and story telling and not the minutia of exploration rules or stopping combat because of an argument or debate over what can or can't be done.
Then came the announcement and the promises of Next, including the initially announced ideal that the 4th and 1st Ed character could sit down at the same table and co-exist. I was optimistic. Through the first two playtest packets I saw things that gave me more and more hope. Then the third came and it was almost a complete re-write. Gone were spells that were always at-will. 0-level spells and spell slots returned in even greater force. In came alignment restrictions, the fighter became less sticky with opportunity attacks eating your reaction, the rogue did too many things too well and yet some things (like scouting) not well enough. The rules for the tactical module, which would be critical for certain playstyles, were never seen... Then we were getting told there would be no spell casting modules (I know this was ultimately reversed) and that all classes would be vancian-style in the core rules, a number of us knowing that we rarely get to be players outside of convetions - conventions that will probably use the core and that's it in order to have a unified Organized Play....
I was disheartened. I no longer saw a game I wanted to play. Instead of stepping forward, 5th took a step back to try to reclaim players that, honestly, it probably won't reclaim while eschewing principles of modern design. All for a 'feel'. Did it 'feel' like D&D? Unfortunately feel is a very subjective thing, not a quantitative one. To me, the game no longer felt like D&D. And it felt that way to my players as we playtested. Add to it that our viewpoint was being drowned out by the vocal portion of these forums and we stopped playtesting and moved on to other things.
Then the announcement came of the release, the living rules document, and the manner of the release. We shrugged but I told them I'd try it at GenCon and report back to them. The thought of a living rules turned us off because rules aren't meant to be living. They're supposed to be what they are, no more and no less. Want to change the rules? Write an amendment in an errata, publish a new book, or write a brand new edition (which will happen anyway - such is the nature of games. 6th in 2020 at the earliest, 8th Edition 40k in 2018 or 2019). Then the staggered launch of the DMG, PHB, and Monster Manual was a further turn off because it meant investing in one without knowing what modules, if any, may come in the other. Other books are add-ons, but those three are 'core' to the game. Being able to peruse them and then go 'okay, here are the first set of options' or knowing 'there are no additional options in the core rules' would at least allow us to determine "yes, we're going to buy this" or "no thanks".
Anyway, I'm rambling. I attended a session at GenCon. 4 hours, 2 combats. The plus? Lots of roleplaying. But, you know what? I can do that in 4th edition. I can do that in ShadowRun. I don't need rules to roleplay. Unfortunately, I was there to test mechanics and what little I saw soured me further. I played a bard using standard array and, honestly? I felt useless in combat. Part of that was the adventure - we encountered a bunch of undead and none of my spells affected undead. But part of that was "I'm a charisma class who still needs strength or dex to hit, and I can't hit the broadside of Cybertron." If anything, I was a liability to the party and that didn't feel fun. And it makes me wonder what other classes are like. Especially those who are multiple-attribute dependent. At least with 4th, between a higher stat array, being able to use Charisma as an attack stat for spells and powers, and powers that can affect undead (not just vancian slotted spells I'm stuck with), I could have contributed more in-combat than I did. I would have felt far more useful than I did.
As a DM, I don't want my players feeling that way - and my players tend to enjoy the combat side of things far more than the roleplaying. One in particular tunes the game out completely during RP portions of sessions so I have to keep him entertained on nights of heavy RP. So, I ask you, what am I to do? I want to like 5th Edition but I genuinely don't. Further, we know nothing new is coming down the pipe for 4th Edition so while we can play games we have no new options to try. No fixes for classes that desperately need it but otherwise seem interesting, like Seeker. Also, what's to say there aren't more people like me who have turned away from D&D because they don't like what they see from 5th? We all have read/heard the rumors and I don't want to see the game shelved because of lack of sales, but why should I pay for a product I don't like?
What would you do if you were in my shoes?
Wait for the DMG, and see if there's anything in there that might help.
Taikishi wrote:
Taikishi wrote:
Sadly, I don't remember my cantrips at this point and my character sheet was done on an iPad app they were testing (the app seemed cool) so I have nothing to go back and reference as far as what I took. However, I do recall that my spells, even the cantrips, had no combat value because we were facing undead.
Iserith - the issue with the one player isn't that. We can be solving puzzles in a dungeon or performing an investigation to clues to a murder and he's not paying a lick of attention. The only time he pays attention is when it's time to blow things up. Or, to paraphrase Richard from LFG, he likes to kill things.
Taikishi wrote:
Taikishi wrote:
Taikishi wrote:
Taikishi wrote:
Don't buy something you don't want. This is a capitalist economy we live in -- as Milton Friedman said, your dollars are votes in favour of whatever you're buying. Unfortunately, you can't actually vote against something without buying a competing product, but Friedman was a very wise capitalist and economic philosopher.
Keep playing 4e. Nobody will stop you (they haven't stopped me, yet). Yeah, there's no new material but there's also a huge amount of stuff out there that can be mined for all sorts of goodies. Not to mention the fact that you can use fluff from anywhere.
Like you, I absolutely LOVE 4e. It is (almost) what I've always been looking for ever since I put my Battletech and AD&D books side-by-side and said, "Hmm... I wonder if there's room in here for both visual, tactical, advanced combat AND roleplaying, exploration, investigation, storyline development..." I never got to play Mechwarrior to find out if Battletech battles and Mechwarrior RPGing could be successfully combined, but the idea has stuck in the back of my head for 20 years or so. I won't stop playing 4e until I can't find players anymore or I find another system to replace it.
5e doesn't replace 4e, for me. Totally different games. But, that's the thing -- they aren't the same game. 5e "feels" alot closer to pre-4e editions. All those people who went into 4e expecting the same old "classic D&D experience" were hugely disappointed/pissed off about it because that isn't the 4e game. If you go into 5e expecting to play something like 4e, you will be similarly disappointed and/or pissed.
Approach it as a new, different game. I've only played one session of 5e so far, but I enjoyed it. We used minis, so it was a bit more like 4e, but it was in no way the same experience. Still, I really liked it -- and it definitely fills a niche or two -- but it still left me itching for 4e. So, if I'm going to keep playing 5e, it will be because I want to play that game. If I want to play 4e, I'll play that game. If one appeals more, I'll play it more; if I find that one stops appealing to me, I'll stop playing it. Until then, I'll play both and I won't expect them to be the same game because they aren't.
Basically, ask yourself why you should buy it. If there aren't any good reasons... well, there's your answer.
Also, keep an eye on your shoes. There are some sketchy folk around these parts.
On the plus side, you can use the online public documents to peruse the 5E rules until something shows up that you like, so you can get a feel for 5E without having to resort to illegal means. I don't think the current online document has been revised with the PHB material yet, but I do recall some PHB, MM, and DMG material will certianly be added to it.
But the general concensus of waiting until those DMG materials come online and seeing if those new rules help your playtyle out is unfortunately the wise answer. 5E will not be for everyone. It likely will never be for me. That is just how this edition was designed.
The way I've observed this is like this: If you enjoyed 4E (because it seems like a lightning rod or dividing line in play styles or something), then the odds of enjoying 5E is directly related to how good your DM is when they don't have tight rules to run everything for them. Meaning, if your DM is like experienced in the old editions and stuff and was good, then you'll likely still enjoy 5E (like I am, because my DM has played forever). If your DM is new and/or not very good, you may be much better off trying it with the 'Basic' rules until you can determine if you like it or not. And if you don't like resource tracking over the day (instead of by the battle) or prefer all characters to shine relatively equally in the combat pillar almost every battle, don't bother at all.
Of course, that's kind of wordy and probably not too helpful. But that's how I look at it.
Taikishi wrote:
Sounds like you would like 13th Age, OP. Go check it out if you havent already. It's a great game.
I agree that 5E is too abstract for someone that wants more depth to the game, and I absolutely loved primary attributes for classes in 4E, The current interpretation in regards to what attributes represent in 5E is more rigid and less forgiving. So it is interesting to see how certain mechanics become more abstract and others more specific depending on what version of D&D is being played. I prefer abstraction to be another guage in the game that is applied consistently accross the board (complexity at the table). So if one class can administer automatic damage (damage on a miss), then others may have a similar mechanism.
And overal the focus of 5E has changed to combat as war, but has little options from a tactical perspective to add that feel in combat, including more healing options for classes. And you also get into the double standard of spells being very specific and martial ability being very generic and relying on ad hoc interpretation. So there are a host of contradictions.
But the bottom line is I did not like 4E out of the box, or even Pathfinder, and I had to change some of my bias. I am taking the same approach for 5E. I should have a good guage if I like the game by the time the DMG is released. I recommend you do the same. At least with 5E the basic rules are free.
I skipped 4E, continued to play 3.5 and pathfinder. Will probaly play 2E, BECMI, B/X on and off forever. Nothing wrong with skipping 5E. Many many retroclones are great too, Dark Dungeons, microlite d20, Swords and Wizardry, Castles and Crusades, and then there is homebrew. Everyone should homebrew their own setting with tweaked rules to fit the themes and style of their settings. I do like the setting for 13th age, they did a good job on that, very interesting idea's.
"What would you do if you were in my shoes?"
Abbreviate.
Please tell me where the alignment restrictions are...? And how a Cantrip isn't an at-will spell?
(also, please wait until the DMG is released before you FULLY freak out. From the page count, it looks like it's gonna cover a looooot of stuff, including, allegedly, large-scale and tactile combat)
Taikishi wrote:
If I'm a bard and my spells aren't too effective against the undead, I'm going to beat them into pieces with my ax (read: guitar) rock-n-roll style. I'll tear the tapestry down to restrain them temporarily like I'm busting up a hotel room while on a bender. I'll fake them out with my Deception to get them to accidentally attack each other. I'll throw oil on them and hit them with torches or make them slippery enough to be knocked prone more easily (or do some cool fire-breathing move with oil and a torch). I'll use the Help action to make allies that are laying the smack down more effective. Meanwhile I'm using my bardic inspiration to give allies additional dice to throw in case they need it.
In short, go nuts.
iserith wrote:
Also, crowd surf: Jump on top of a group of enemies and try to bowl them over or give them disadvantage on their attacks.
Show everyone you're the bard by being an f-ing rock-n-roll star and more metal than everyone else. Absolutely nobody (including you) will remember that one time you cast a cantrip and it worked. They will remember the time when you wrecked the joint and crowd surfed a bunch of zombies so the fighter could cut them down.
Taikishi wrote:
Psikerlord wrote:
Most good things have already been said. And I can fully empathize with you about your player who is only interested in combat -- I have one that sits on facebook and ignores the game completely unless he's being killed at.
My advice depends on whether or not you want to spend some time learning 5e. And I don't mean just reading the rules. I would try to find a group of players that likes to play 5e and I would play with them. Ask them for advice about how to make an effective character (sounds like your bard just got the poopy adventure end of the stick). If you want to enjoy something, don't try to do so with people that don't already enjoy it! Don't try to learn from people who don't want to have fun with it!
Tony_Vargas wrote:
Tiakishi, I hope this doesn't sound like a pile on! Your experience and your feelings are what they are. We're disapointed that you are disappointed, b/c I suspect most of us here, whether or not we enjoyed 4e (some did, some didn't), we enjoy the latest release of D&D.
I do wonder what happened at GenCon. I can't say you didn't have the experience you say you had, but I'm not quite sure how. I say that b/c I was there, and I presume, if you played one of the 4-hour sessions for 5th edition, then you played either Secrets of Sokol Keep or Shadow on the Moonsea. Neither of these was undead heavy, and honestly even if they had been, if you were playing at 1st level, even a cleric isn't especially better equipped vs the undead than any other class. Also, it's odd that you only had two combats. Both of these adventures allowed for somewhat more combat, and of course as a bard, the roleplaying parts could/would have played into your hand, and everyone can contribute during the exploratory parts. Now, since you were playing a bard, it couldn't have been one of the pre-gens, so you built it yourself. If you followed the advice in the PHB for choosing spells, you would have had both vicious mockery and thunderwave. Unless your DM wasn't reading the stat block properly, both of these spells would have worked against the undead, since the undead do not, as such, have any immunity to psychic damage, and certainly not to thunder damage. They're also not immune to illusions, in case you had something illusory to use. I might expect that you had a 14 either in Str or Dex, so as someone above noted, you should have had a +4 in combat, and that's just fine. The math of 5e is not set up to require that your bonus in combat always be your highest bonus. So, while I trust that you experienced the adventure as though you were useless, I suspect rather strongly that your own inexperience with the new rules led you to make assumptions that were not, in fact true (e.g. that the bard's spells were not useful vs undead).
All of that being said, if you don't like it, you don't like it. I'd urge you to give a try at Encounters, just to see whether you might have a more positive experience (especially playing with other players, not your usual set, who may come with different experiences and expectations).
"I don't like apples. I liked pears".
"Go eat pears."
"DON"T TELL HIM TO EAT PEARS! APPLES HAVE FAILED IN THEIR GOAL TO BE THE PERFECT FRUIT! We should be trying to give him ways to make his apples taste like pears."
"Do what you enjoy" is the only advice people should be giving here. Liking or disliking a particular iteration of D&D is not a moral failing OR a moral virtue. It's a flavour preference, nothing more.
OP? Do what you enjoy.
DemoMonkey wrote:
For that matter, the bard could have thrown apples and pears at the undead or rolled them under their feet in hopes that they trip up and fall prone.
*throws a piece of fruit at a zombie which falls over*
"Don't despair..."
I mean, why even play this game if you can't get into a food fight with a crypt thing?
Llenlleawg wrote:
Tony_Vargas wrote:
One more thing, skeletons and zombies are no longer "mindless" in 5e!
Brock_Landers wrote:
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spoiler spoiler soiler ect.
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The constructs in Sokol keep are immune to psychic damage and I can see how that can be an issue for a bard however the undead are fully affected. there is a possibilit of 5 combat encounters however as a bard I suspect 1 or 2 were avoided by skills you excell at. the cleric using turn undead in the undead encounter makes all classes feel a bit weak but it is an instance of star shaped peg finding the star shaped hole.
5e is very difficult for a player who started in 4e to adapt to and takes a few gaming sessions to realise you make up your special powers rather than choose from a very restrited list. 4e seems like it has a power for every situation but unless you have that exact power you cant do that cool thing. 5e starts more generic and lets you add on because the rules are designed loose for that purpose.
Many years ago I had a friend who literally said, and meant, "Wake me up when combat starts." I opted not to invite him back for any more games. That may not be an option with your player, but remember that you're supposed to have fun, too. If players are unwilling to participate in the whole game, then they should probably find another source of entertainment.
Saelorn wrote:
Tony_Vargas wrote:
Seems like you had a perfect storm of weaker stats/spells that just happened to not effect things/"stricter" play circumstances.
Shiroiken wrote:
iserith wrote:
Psikerlord wrote:
Foxface wrote:
Wait...if you were in fact 2nd level, the cleric (war cleric or not) should absoLUTELY have Turn Undead o_O Regardless of what his/her domain was...
Also, it sounds like you were far from useless. Just that your character wasn't useful in the 2nd half. Which is a bummer, but also an unfortunate result of the module. Not you, your character, or the system. Plus, bad rolls happen to everyone. The fighter who excels at fighting could just have easily had garbage rolls all night.
Again, if you were at someone's table, they would see your character ahead of time and plan around it. Or they'd let you have your moment next game (since this was rogue and cleric time). There won't be a next game if you don't allow there to be one!
Taikishi wrote:
Taikishi wrote:
Tony_Vargas wrote:
I wish WotC would wise-up... and try to appeal to the 4e fanbase by doing one or two releases a year in the series. At this point, they'd just need two or three people (Crap, you could probably find folks who'd work for nothing other than the opportunity to see their names on the front of an OFFICIAL D&D PUBLICATION.) to work on one or two projects a year... like a manual and a three part Adventure module series... to keep the franchise alive. I'd buy the books, and there are plenty of folks in my circle who are still playing 4e.
Things I'd like to see?
The third DMG for Epic Level.
The third Essentials 'Heros' book containing the missing classes and races.
Consolidated 'Player's Guides' by class... grouping all the options in the various PHB's and Powers books (as well as Dragon articles) into one all inclusive book for each class. This could be done by a person with NO creative ablity.. just really a cut and paste editing job.
New well produced Adenture Modules.
Double.
Taikishi wrote:
Taikishi wrote:
Taikishi wrote:
Tony_Vargas wrote:
Ashrym wrote:
Kazadvorn wrote:
Brock_Landers wrote:
ChrisCarlson wrote:
Taikishi wrote:
Taikishi wrote:
ReaperAlex wrote:
ReaperAlex - After my experience at GenCon I did something some of you would probably consider foolish. I was a VIG and received the starter set as part of my swag. This after having the session in question. I'm fairly certain that, in my disillusionment, I intentionally left the starter set in my hotel room. Along with some other swag items that didn't catch my attention. >.>
I do appreciate those of you who have pointed things out, including things missed on all sides (like the help action). I really don't want to wait for the DMG (it's infuriating that they did this piecemeal release! 
) but at the advice of some of you, I will. I can't promise, though, especially after this bad experience plus my dislike for how the playtest went, that I'll be able to be objective this time. But I didn't think I'd like a lot of other games until I tried them so who knows. :shrug:
As for fan-created 4e content, I've had too many bad experiences with fan-created stuff over the last 20+ years. More often than not there's no pretense of balance in a lot of that stuff and you're better off not using it.
Sorry but whenever someone tries to support an argument with things like "before X edition clerics could only be heal-bots" or "fighters could only say I swing my sword", I immediately know he hasn't the slightest idea what he's talking about.
I suggest you go play any edition of D&D with a different mindset, even those you've played since the time when Madonna's breasts were firm.
If you still don't like any of them, or for no reason at all still thinks the game is forcing you to play in a specific way, then just stick with whatever edition you dislike less and have fun with that.
Only advice I can give.
Rastapopoulos, in the case of non-spell casters, I've always felt they had to go "GM may I?" prior to 4th and I don't like "GM may I?" as a player or GM. My belief on the DM/GM is you're there to shape a world, help craft the story of the player characters, and adjudicate rules, not to give permission to do X. I did more of everything but 'give permission' under 4th than any other edition. And when clerics spend more time casting heal spells than doing anything else (speaking from experience, and pre-3rd especially) in order to keep the party functioning because it eats their entire action to do so, then yes you are heal/buff bots. Advantage 4th: "I can still cast heal/buff/debuff spell x as a minor action and still cast Y or attack with my weapon."
I don't need to go back and play those editions. I lived them and GM'd them from the 1980s to 2007. Other than 3rd/3.5, I would still play them if it was all I had. But it isn't and I'd rather play 4th over them.
I think what some of you are missing is I want to financially support D&D, but I don't like the product I see with 5th and can't bring myself to. But I also fear D&D not meeting this mythical goal Hasbro has supposedly set for all of its lines to be considered "core" and being shelved only to be brought out years later as a "Remember me?" kind of thing or what have you.
Taikishi wrote:
Taikishi wrote:
Taikishi wrote:
Taikishi wrote:
Xguild wrote:
spells for 1st level Bard to contribute in fighting undead (or anything else): Cantrips- Blade Ward, True Strike; First Level:Bane, Cure Wounds, Faerie Fire, Healing Word, Heroism, Thunderwave
greyhobbit13 wrote:
I was disheartened. I no longer saw a game I wanted to play. Instead of stepping forward, 5th took a step back to try to reclaim players that, honestly, it probably won't reclaim while eschewing principles of modern design. All for a 'feel'. Did it 'feel' like D&D? Unfortunately feel is a very subjective thing, not a quantitative one. To me, the game no longer felt like D&D. And it felt that way to my players as we playtested. Add to it that our viewpoint was being drowned out by the vocal portion of these forums and we stopped playtesting and moved on to other things.
We just played our second 5e session last night (where I'm a player, we are running custom PCs through the Starter Set) at the Monstore in Montclair, CA.
After the game we all sat around and talked about this edition. Everyone around the table commented on various things they absolutely love about 5e. Not one person had a compliant or issue with the system. Several players were heard to say, "There isn't one thing I've found yet about this edition that I don't like."
We brought up a menagerie of stuff, like: how cool it is to be able to use a simple character sheet with a pencil (no more printing out 8 page, full-color, computer generated "booklets" every time we level up or find an item), to monsters being real threats requiring tactics (and sometimes a little luck) to defeat, to how quick and fun combats are*, to overall class balance, to the clean mechanic of dis/advantage, to just how streamlined and easy to play the game is now. I'm sure there were other comments, but those were the main ones that stuck out. We sat around and talked for at least half-an-hour on the subject. We all went away realizing how much fun we had.
Our DM in particular (hardcore PF player) even said, and I quote, "Pathfinder can suck it. I'm never going back." A few of us (we all played PF with him) nodded and agreed. He even added, "This is it for me. I can see myself playing this edition for many, many years."
True story.
Starter Set spoiler alert...
(*we followed the surviving goblin--from the ambush--back to the cave and cleaned it out. Including excessive roleplaying, exploration, and 4 or 5 fights, we did it all in just over 2 hours of actual play time - we spent a lot of our allocated time before and after the session BSing. That's amazing to us. Plus, I basically solo'ed the frikin' bugbear with my 1st-level duelist fighter! Sure, luck was heavily on my side. But I did it, that's what matters, and it was awesome!)
ChrisCarlson wrote:
I have to agree that I find this edition fun. In the end, thats all that matters.
Taikishi wrote:
As of right now - 5th is as much fun to me as the old AD&D days. I will support it until it is done right now. 
Tony_Vargas wrote:
Keep playing 4E. Think about playing 13th Age. Enjoy the tactical side of things, since that's what you guys like. The only thing I'd say about this personally is that you can have more encounters per session in 5E than 4th, simply due to the time slog of 4th. However, if you'd rather have one really satisfying encounter over many less satisyfing ones (why does that sound vaguelly erotic?):-), I'd say stick with your system. It's still active, after all.