Coming back to the Next

It's been a while. A little over a year in fact, since the last time I had something to say about DnDNext (or "5E" if you prefer).

The reason for the absence? Boredom would be the honest answer. Our group did what we could with the materials WoTC released, and that lasted a couple of weeks before we got bored. We ended up going back to Pathfinder, then we all got busy. For the last six months we've played more boardgames than D&D of any flavor.

We're now looking to change that and return to D&D, and 5E in particular. There's certainly much more material to work with in the playtesting packet. Good to see that the guys and girls at WoTC haven't been as idle as us.

In prepping for Crwth's next campaign, I've read through what I could (as a player, so I can't speak on the Beastiary or DM's Guide) and I'm left feeling pretty optimistic.

1. Advantage/Disadvantage - really liking where this is going.

2. The spending of "hit dice" during short/long rests - I'm on the fence. I guess it reduces or outright removes the old need for a cleric.

3. Feats and skills - Big fan of feats from 3E, so I'm glad to see them back. I really like the new skills implementation of adding a d6 to a stat check. Hopefully it solves the impossible-to-fail-no-matter-what-I-roll-because-I-have-a-gajillion-ranks problem.

4. The Ranger - no more of the "fighter with a bow" cliche. They've come right out and stressed that first and foremost, the ranger is a hunter.

That's just the three things off the top of my head. There are also a bunch of the class features that I really liked, and the weapons and armor changes are mostly good. For the latter, I particularly like that you are at a disadvantage when using a weapon or armor that you're not proficient with. That said, a part of me will always miss the days of the arcane failure check.

Now if they'd just bring out the sorcerer class...

Flanking the flank

Some sort of flanking rules seem inevitable. I realize there was no flanking rule in AD&D (or was there? I don't remember.) but 3rd Edition opened the box and I can't see putting the genie back into the bottle now.

The question seems to be the implementation.

Our group can see it being done in one of two ways.

#1: The obvious way. The attackers get advantage. This makes the surrounded individual (the poor sap) unlikely to stay standing for long.

#2: The interesting way. The surrounded sap suffers disadvantage on his/her/its actions. This seems counter intuitive. I mean, the attackers have set themselves up around the poor sap; therefore, they should get the advantage for their efforts.

But, look at it from the poor sap's point of view. He/she/it is surrounded by enemies with sharp knives/teeth/claws. Naturally, one is going to be a bit timid in that situation; attacks will be halfhearted to avoid overreaching and opening oneself up for attack. Hence the sap's disadvantage.

I can see WotC going either way. I can also see them coming up with something else entirely. The only thing I can't see is there not being any advantage/disadvantage/other for being flanked or surrounded.

Milk carton items

Some of the things we've noticed the absence of...

1. Attacks of Opportunity. Not sure yet if I miss them.

2. Listen checks. I liked the die rolling but to be honest, it never made sense as a skill. Now, if there's something that's trying not to be heard, it becomes a Wis v Dex contest.

3. Flanking. I miss it. Playing the rogue put the spotlight on how much I liked flanking. During playtesting, I found that I spent a lot of rounds hiding and trying to get into position for a sneak attack. Meanwhile the wizard and cleric were machine gunning their magic missiles and radiant lances. *sigh*

4. Flat footed. Without it, having surprise doesn't feel all that special. (Edit #1)

5. Touch attack. Miss this one. It makes sense but it requires things like AC vs different things. (Edit #2)

Session #1. A lot of good. A little bad.

Our initial playtest session went pretty well. There was the usual sidetracking and goofing off but that's a big part of playing a tabletop game of any kind.

Once we eventually got down to business, we went over some of the big changes from the rules we're all familiar with. The concept of having advantage and some of the overall simplifications. Then we handed our characters (we took turns rolling to randomly assign the pre-generated ones provided) and looked them over to spot anything interesting.

For starters, the wizard has an interesting little thing that affects his spellcasting. Namely, if he takes damage, on his next turn he has to make a Constitution check to successfully cast a spell. If the wizard casts a cantrip or does anything else, there's no check required. My first thought was that it would be same for any spellcaster, but a quick check of the two clerics showed that to not be the case. Odd but okay.

I rolled the halfling rogue, and there were a couple of things I noticed. For one, the sneak attack damage is essentially the same as his hit dice. In other words, it goes up every level. I thought that was going to be really overpowered, but during actual play, I only had one sneak attack opportunity. So, it might not be a big factor as long as there's no official flanking rule (more on that in a bit).

Second thing I noticed was this little rogue feature that is basically a Take 10 on any skill the rogue is trained in. I still roll the check for opening locks, finding and disarming traps, and sneaking but any roll lower than 10 is bumped up to 10. Nice! But it made disarming even moderately difficult traps impossible to fail. That means a 1st level novice rogue can disarm a moderately tricky trap without breaking a sweat. Not so good.

Finally, I found that the rogue was much more tactical in combat than the fighter, cleric, and even the wizard. I spent a couple of combat rounds doing nothing but hiding and looking for an opening to deliver a sneak attack. As I already mentioned, I only got one such opportunity.On the plus side, having advantage allowed me to nail the sneak attack (I rolled a 15 and an 8), so that mechanic is great.

While I was busy lurking and sneaking, the others struck me as being one trick ponies. The fighter, predictably, swung his axe every round and did serious damage thanks to a bonus that feels really huge at first level. Oddly enough, the cleric and wizard also came across as predictable. There were a few notable exceptions but for the most part, round after round they used their at-will radiant lance and magic missile (respectively). I was not a fan of the at-will carrying over from 4th Edition, and I like it even less after seeing it in action.

Yes. I know. No one wants to play a wizard or cleric that runs out of spells halfway through the first fight. I get that. I just don't think letting them spam magic missiles and shocking grasps and radiant lances is the answer. Making them usable X number of times per encounter isn't a good solution either because it makes one wonder why the wizard could cast, say 3 magic missiles early in a fight but then stop, and then move to the next room and suddenly be able to cast 3 more. It makes no sense.

Personally, I think the easiest fix would be to simply increase the numbers of low level spell slots available to casters. Give them a dozen or 20 cantrips per day, or whatever number that let's players feel like they have lots but not so many that they can waste them.

The best fix might be to do away with the Vancian magic system. A few months ago, I read a blog (sorry, I can't find the link) who suggested that the Dragonlance Fifth Age system could be a great foundation for DnDNext's magic. I'm not overly familiar with that game but from the little bit that I've read, it's system of circles and points is pretty cool. Unfortunately, it also appears to be a little math heavy which is clearly anathema to 5th Edition D&D.

I have one other early complaint but I think I'll save that for another post.

Overall, I'm quite happy with the initial design and rules. It's definitely simplified and a lot of discretion is put into the hands of the DM. For example, does flanking give advantage? That's apparently up to the DM to decide. Also, 1st level characters are nowhere near the helpless and lucky to survive noobs of 3rd and earlier editions. They've got some pretty serious teeth.

As does DnDNext.

Some first impressions on the playtest stuff

Funny thing, how life gets hectic and things that held my interest end up pushed to the back burner. DnDNext was that thing and one day I couldn't read enough about it, and the next it wasn't even on my radar.

Then, along comes the playtest materials.

Yes, our group got in. No, I don't think it's all that exclusive of a thing.(My impression is that anyone who asked to be in, got in.)

Anyways, I read the guide on how to play and skimmed over the supplied characters. Not a lot of meat but the bones are shiny and white and new.

The materials do give a pretty good sense of where 5th Edition is going, and I think I'm gonna like it. DM Samuel at RPGMusings wrote up a really good summary with some good insights. I'll try not to simply rehash what he wrote but a tip of the hat to his spotting of the three pillars of 5th Edition.

Unfortunately, our group's first official playtest won't happen until this Saturday (June 2nd) but I thought I'd throw out my initial thoughts on the good, bad, and ugly.

Right off the bat, I really dig the concept of Advantage/Disadvantage. It's simple but a powerful tool and full of tactical goodness. This guy here breaks down the math quite nicely.

I'm also a big fan of the simplification of checks being made against each stat. As much as I might miss the old Will, Reflex and whatever that third save was, it only makes sense to treat them as ability tests instead. Plus, as an added bonus, it makes all six stats important in different situations. Charisma might not be the default dump stat any more.

The idea of Backgrounds and Themes for characters also seems like a welcome innovation. I'm a little worried that having feats embedded inside is a recipe for disaster. I, for one, create a character with one concept and very often end up playing him/her/it as something totally different. In 3rd Edition, that wasn't much of a problem as I'd just change up my feat selections and/or spell choices. If a background in 5th Edition gives you two or three feat trees to chose from, at best I'm going to feel restricted. At the worst, I'll end up stuck with a character I don't like.

I'm a little put off by the Cantrips and Orisons. They seem to take those iconic 1st level spells like Magic Missile and turn them into the dreaded At-Will powers of 4th Edition. After reading everything else and seeing not even a nod towards the-edition-that-shall-not-be-named, they drop the At-will thing on me. Ugh!

I'm hoping the feedback on that will get them to come up with something else. While I agree that there's no harm in the wizard/sorcerer/cleric/bard/etc... having a couple of piddly spells that they can fire off as many times as they want. The Light spell is a great example of something that's nice to have limitless uses of, but being able to machine gun Magic Missiles is a bit much.

Am I really in that small of a minority that I don't mind my spellcaster having to resort to swinging a sword or shooting a crossbow when he's out of spells?

On another note, Crwth spotted an interesting bit of wording in the How To Play guide. In the Stealth section, it seems to imply that one roll is made and that all contested rolls are compared against it.

He interprets that as the player announcing he wants to be sneaky, rolling a Dex check, and then using that roll for the rest of the week as he creeps across the country. I, uh, might be exaggerating that a little bit.

Still, even if it means that a character can creep along a 100' of hallway past multiple guards on one roll, that needs to be dropped. I know. Rolling a stealth check every 15' is tedious. And a lot of the time the DM knows there's nothing there to hear/spot the character but the DM can't let the player know that, so the dice clatter away for the next hour.

Doing it on one stealth check is not the answer. Sure, it speeds up play. Sure, it simplifies the task. But it's a cure looking for a disease. There's tension inherent in every die roll (or there should be) because there is a risk of failure. Rolling a lot of dice is not necessarily a bad thing. Especially not when checks seem to be simplified down to an Ability score plus a modifier or two plus Advantage or Disadvantage.

Crwth's nightmare example was of a player rolling a natural 20 and deciding that his character will simply stealthy move all the way through the dungeon unopposed. Or, he'll roll a 5 and decide to stop moving before trying again.

I can see doing that. I can't see getting away with it, but...

Then I read that section again, and I think the wording suggests that when trying to sneak past a bunch of guards/monsters, the player rolls a single stealth check instead of a check against each guard/monster.

Hopefully, it's just a case of poor wording that will be clarified sooner or later.

Gapping a generation

So, I recently stumbled across an interesting post entitled "4E Plays Like A Video Game, and Thats [sic] Awesome". It's an older piece (from November 2010) and #DnDNext wasn't even a thing. I think I spotted in on someone's Twitter feed or something, but that's neither here nor there.

The reason I mention it is because it's quite well written and thoughtful and has some excellent points.

It also made me want to rage-barf!

The essence of his argument, as I understand it, is that the elements of 4E that drew the lion's share of criticism didn't deserve it because they made the game fun.

The spamming of At-Will powers while the Encounter and Daily powers were 'fire and forget' were okay because they were just like the cool down timers in video games. The hand waving healing where everyone takes a breather and is at full health again was all right because it kept the game moving. Any nod to realism was unnecessary because it was a game and games should be fun.

I hate every one of his arguments, but I can't really dispute them either. If that sort of stuff makes for a fun game for him and his friends, then... great! Good for them. Sincerely.

At the time, he was twenty six years old. I was thirty eight. Twelve years but it might as well have been a hundred and twelve. He grew up playing RPGs on the Xbox and computer. I played them on graph paper.

For me, the hand wave healing and powers were a break from the immersion. To me, immersing myself in my character and playing a role is the biggest draw in DnD and any other tabletop RPG. I have dozens of board games and video games that are all fun and all vying for my precious free time. A few are easy enough to lose myself in (Skyrim, Mass Effect, Deus Ex to name a few) but most are fun and carefree diversions.

I don't care how realistic the physics are in the Need For Speed series. I just wanna drive a ridiculously cool car at ridiculously stupid speeds.

I don't care if the Madden games portray injuries accurately. I just want to run a clock killing 80 yard drive.

I don't care if my Ultra-Marine is instantly healed whenever the bullets stop flying. I just wanna saw some Orks in half.

However, I do care if my carefully planned and conceived DnD character has to worry about cool down timers.

Yet Monte Cook and the WotC design team want to bring everyone together under one unified edition. A game with a foundation that will allow the old codgers like myself to sit at the same table as the twenty-something Gazebos of the world. I hope they can pull it off because that would be awesome.

Balancing Act

It's the classic mystery novel setting. A dark and stormy night rages outside the country manor. Inside 4th Edition D&D lies dead.

I've gathered all the suspects in the study. By the fire is General Roles, puffing on a pipe and looking indignant. Mrs. Powers is pacing and railing about her dignity and good name. Professor Healing-Surges nonchalantly thumbs through a musty old tomb. There are others in the room but I haven't bothered to learn their names.

I also haven't bothered to truly investigate the murder. Diligently hunting down clues and gathering ironclad evidence is for pussies. I'm all about baseless accusations and finger pointing. So, once the dramatic tension has peaked, I point my finger squarely at...

*DUN DUN DUN*

The butler ... Balance.

*GASP*

Or maybe everyone shrugs and says that they figured that out way back in chapter six.

Regardless; the quest to balance all the classes was above all else, the thing that killed 4E for me. I probably could have adapted to the card game/tabletop miniatures emphasis of the game over time. But there was no getting past the fact that all the classes under each role felt alike. They had different names and flavor text but at the end of the day we were playing Controllers, Strikers, Leaders, and... that other one. Tanks?

Everyone had healing surges and At-Will powers and lots of Hit Points. Everyone was self-sufficient and independent. Everyone was great but no one ever stood out. All because of balance.

Now, balance has its place. It's good to have in computer games and MMOs. It's nice to have when crossing the Grand Canyon on the back of a bear riding a unicycle across a tightwire. It has no place in a tabletop RPG.

Why? Because balanced characters are no fun. In fact, it's downright boring.

There were exactly two times in our several months of playing 4E where I remember being excited. One was when someone chained together a series of power cards in a really cool way. The other time was when we started dying off after a grueling gauntlet of encounters. Otherwise, the only thing I liked was the role-playing portions, and those had nothing to do with the rules.

I suppose the video-game-ification of 4E required that the classes be balanced. No one wants to login to their D&D based MMO and have one player run around and kill everything before you even hit the key to draw your sword or cast your first spell. That sucks.

But in a tabletop game that's simply not a factor.

As I see it, the idea behind balancing all the classes is to ultimately prevent any one player from min/maxing their character and dominating the spotlight. The fallacy there is that it's up to WoTC to police everyone who plays the game. The reality is that every gaming table is different. We all have our inside jokes and our unspoken policies on what is okay and what is not. All without any heavy handed help from WoTC, thank you very much.

In a good tabletop game with my friends, I want the spotlight. I want my character to shine and show off every now and then. I revel in those moments when I cast my biggest hardest hitting splashiest spell at the big bad guy, and have all the dice fall the right way and have it fall in glorious defeat. Those moments where it all comes together are the best.

At the same time, I want the spotlight to shine on the other characters too. I want to cheer when the rogue disarms that trap or lands that brutal sneak attack. I want to clap when the paladin executes a devastating cleave, or when the cleric vaporizes a room full of undead, or when the druid hits the vampire lord with a sunbeam spell.

Those moments are exciting and thrilling and memorable. Those are the moments that make the game fun. Those are the moments that are lost when every character can do a bit of everything and where all the classes are balanced.

So, leave the talk of balance for the computer games and let the players deal with any spotlight hogging munchkins that show up at their table.