Fifth Edition Dungeons and Dragons Player's Handbook Released

New submitter GammaKitsune writes: "The Player's Handbook for the fifth edition of Dungeons and Dragons, formerly known as "D&D Next," released today to major bookstores and online retailers across the U.S. The Player's Handbook, which contains core rules for gameplay and character creation, is one of thee core rulebooks that developer Wizards of the Coast plans to release in 2014. The Monster Manual is scheduled to release in late September, and the Dungeon Master's Guide will release in mid November. Also out today is the first of two adventure modules in which players team up to battle against the dragon goddess Tiamat.

Fifth edition has a lot to prove following the highly-controversial fourth edition, the rise of competing roleplaying game Pathfinder, and two years of public playtesting. Initial reviews posted on Amazon appear overwhelmingly positive at the time of writing, but more skeptical gamers may wish to take a look at the free "Basic Rules" posted on the official D&D website. The basic rules contain all the bare essentials needed to create a character or run your own adventure, and will serve both as a free introduction for new players and as a holdover for long time players until the remaining two rulebooks are released.

Comments

Flaws?

[the_Bionic_lemming]

Characters have to have Flaws?

I'll stick with 2nd edition, and let all of the people that have to have flaws keep wasting cash.

Re:Flaws?

[nsuccorso]

You have flaws.

Therefore, you must be wasting cash.

QED

Re:Flaws?

[the_Bionic_lemming]

I have no flaws.

I'll wait for your proof to the contrary.

Re:Flaws?

[the_Bionic_lemming]

You post here.

Game. Set. Match.

Can do - My ass matches your face. :)

Re:Flaws?

[Rakhar]

I've played in several systems with perks/flaws and they're normally fun. It encourages people to take personality traits that they otherwise wouldn't bother with, and also gives it a solid spot on their sheet to remind them.

That said, I stopped buying D&D stuff after 3.5 was announced and I realized WotC was going to just keep changing the game every few years. 3.5 was still mostly compatible, but I saw the writing on the wall. Nowadays I just make my own systems for fun, keeping die rolls to a minimum and trying to avoid encouraging min/maxing.

Re:Flaws?

[lgw]

Min/maxing is half the fun of the game, unless it leaves the PCs woefully unbalanced between one another. What you want is a system where min/maxing produces reasonable character concepts, and reasonable character concepts produce well-optimized characters. That was the huge flaw in 3.5 - it was impossible for the new player to figure out what worked mechanically and what didn't. When I play an RPG, I want to play a hero, dammit. I can play the flawed loser in real life, thank you very much.. But I shouldn't have to know or care that if my idea of a hero is a martial monk that I'll bee all but useless in any encounter, while if it's a pure caster that I'll have an "I win" button if I do it right.

That's the problem. Not the idea that if I'm going to be a wizard, I'm going to be the smartest guy around, or if I'm going to hit people in the face with my axe, then I'm going to be the biggest, toughest guy around. Those are totally viable character ideas, especially your first time playing before you've grown bored of the shallow archetypes. And yet, that's min-maxing. Bah, min-maxing is fine. It's a broken system where in order to be an non-cliche character you have to be disadvantaged mechanically, because the game is build on archetype enforcement, that's the problem.

OK, it's worse still if you buy what you thought was an RPG and it turns out to just be miniatures combat rules. 4E got combat right, but the game had little else. At least in 3.5 with a veteran DM guiding new players to make effective characters, or any previous D&D version, there was a deep game there that only occasionally focused on combat.

Re:Flaws?

[spiritplumber]

Most of the free content on the web is 3.x and skipped 4e entirely, so I'm going to stick with 3.x and houserules. ... hey, doesn't this sound familiar?

Re:Flaws?

[Inconexo]

This discussion is reaching higher levels of rhetoric.

Re:Flaws?

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Flaws can be good as long as they're personality flaws with no mechanical influence, just suggestions on how to play your character. I've yet to see a system which included mechanically relevant flaws that didn't end up with everyone being ugly squinting one eyed outlaws from a bad family who owe favours to someone three countries over.

Re:Flaws?

[Rakhar]

I play RPGs for the RP. I grew up freeform RPing on IRC. I'm one of the small margin of RPGers that actually loves rolling stats one at a time with do-overs only for min values. Nowadays everyone has to be equal, even in a fantasy world. That's boring to me.

When I read books I don't expect every character to be an in-your-face war hero, and I certainly don't look down on the characters that support them in things outside of combat. Remember the days when a rogue loaded with social skills and charisma could be just as pivotal to the adventure as some ninja assassin rogue? You can't even make that character under the newest editions; most of the skills were cut out to give more room for combat/trap skills so you didn't end up with "useless" rogues.

Re:Flaws?

[meerling]

Are you referring to that one little bit of background text that you can exploit to get a free reroll (intuition point) from?
Yeah, if that's your only reason for dissing it, I'm surprised you play the earlier versions of D&D where you get negative attributes if not human.
LoL, that kind poorly founded dismissive talk is just funny.

Re:Flaws?

[Razed By TV]

Min/maxing is half the fun of the game, unless it leaves the PCs woefully unbalanced between one another.

I'm not sure how you can have min/maxing without it unbalancing the PC's. It becomes an arms race between players to find the most powerful, game breaking combos. Spreadsheets, forums, and research on things that can be abused. It leaves the non min/maxers in the dust, and the GM has to find some way to tone up encounters without destroying everyone else.

Not the idea that if I'm going to be a wizard, I'm going to be the smartest guy around, or if I'm going to hit people in the face with my axe, then I'm going to be the biggest, toughest guy around. Those are totally viable character ideas, especially your first time playing before you've grown bored of the shallow archetypes. And yet, that's min-maxing.

You can roleplay the smartest/strongest guy around, or you can abuse the rule system to become the strongest/smartest guy around. When your level 5 character has godly powers to influence the game through some clever min/maxing, it really ruins the experience for others.

It's a broken system where in order to be an non-cliche character you have to be disadvantaged mechanically, because the game is build on archetype enforcement, that's the problem.

I'll give you this one. The upside, you can use min/maxing to offset your mechanical flaws. So my martial adept, Gravedigger, used a shovel as a weapon. He had a penalty to fight with it, but I was still able to game the system to still be overpowered.

On a side note, there were enough base classes in 3.5 that you could almost make whatever character you wanted by dipping into them a la carte. See my rogue/scout/ranger/fighter.

Re:Flaws?

[VikingNation]

They must have gained enough XP to gain access to a new rhetoric feat.

Re:Flaws?

[Dr. Evil]

Your style of RPG was perfected a few years ago: http://progressquest.com/

Re:Flaws?

[Culture20]

GURPS strongly suggests a limit on disadvantages, and there are "disadvantages" like truthfulness, sense of duty, code of honor, etc. that restrict actions but are heroic in nature. Of course a friend of mine has a pirate campaign where there is no disad limit and players usually start as physically disfigured outlaws with psychological issues, some who owe allegiance to captains of other ships. But that's pretty normal for pirates.

Re:Flaws?

[Boronx]

Min/maxing is half the fun of D&D. The challenge is to create a game that is fun with unbalanced characters. Other systems have succeeded in that.

Re:Flaws?

[Mike Buddha]

IMO 5e is better than 0e, 1e, 2e, 3e, 3.5e, and 4e. It's a culmination of the best elements of all these editions, with none of the crap. It's a svelte paragon of the D&D genre that puts the gameplay back into the rolling of dice to determine success, without the irritating paperwork involved in 2e-3.5e. Most of 4e was pitched :)

Re:Flaws?

[lgw]

becomes an arms race between players to find the most powerful, game breaking combos. Spreadsheets, forums, and research on things that can be abused. It leaves the non min/maxers in the dust, ...

You can roleplay the smartest/strongest guy around, or you can abuse the rule system to become the strongest/smartest guy around. When your level 5 character has godly powers to influence the game through some clever min/maxing, it really ruins the experience for others.

All I can say is: that just isn't true of every game system. It's horribly, horribly true of 3.5, which is the fundamental problem with 3.5. If careful min/maxing gives you a 20% combat advantage over a naive build, likely at the cost of non-combat stuff, that's not going to be a problem. Heck, it could be 50% more powerful without hurting the game if the DM is willing to shape encounters a bit (not ideal, but workable). But 3.5 is so bad that some classes simply can't contribute except in carefully contrived encounters, while others (with expert play) won't have any challenge without equal contrivances. Heck, 3.5 has infinite HP builds, infinite damage builds, and so on, though that stuff is less worrying as its so blatant.

On a side note, there were enough base classes in 3.5 that you could almost make whatever character you wanted by dipping into them a la carte. See my rogue/scout/ranger/fighter.

I always liked that part, though I'd say it's a bit of a 3.5 flaw that you have to do that awkward dance to realize what's likely a pretty clear and sensible character concept (just not one of the D&D archetypes).

Re:Flaws?

[lgw]

Old school RP is a tiny corner of the gaming world, and really well served by rules-light RPG systems, I think. Risus is great IMO for anything where you don't need "tactical simulation rules" (hmm, TSR, someone should make a game company ....), or one of the many Emo Goffpire games. I just see the broken-rules problems in RP-land that plague the tactical world.

Here's the problem: it's boring to be in an encounter where you have nothing to contribute. And bored players make problems for games, one way or another. With social encounters, most players can enjoy what's going on even if they're just arguing about what the charismatic rogue should say, but it's different in tactical combat, where too great an imbalance in ability to contribute can ruin the game.

Re:Flaws?

[lgw]

I just don't see the broken-rules problems in RP-land ...

Re:Flaws?

[whistlingtony]

As a DM, I don't CARE if my PCs are balanced. I care if they're interesting. If my players start min/maxing, I slap 'em back to the stone age. We're here to roleplay, Damnit. Talking to the innkeeper is just as important as stabbing the orc.

It's my job to keep the players entertained by co-creating a story WITH the players.

Re:Flaws?

[DuckDodgers]

You realize the original Dungeons and Dragons was inspired by miniatures combat, right?

The reason to focus so much on combat and giving every class a useful role in combat is that combat generally takes longer to roleplay than anything else in Dungeons and Dragons. If you're playing Fate, or Risus, or Trollbabe, or Dying Earth RPG, then that wasn't the case and non-combat events and interactions can take as long as combat. But in Dungeons and Dragons combat always got the spotlight, that's why the Player's Handbook in all editions has twenty or thirty or fifty pages for combat rules and much less for other aspects of the game.

So in my view, the 4E focus on useful roles in combat for all classes just made the game more fun for everyone.

Re:Flaws?

[lgw]

The problem with 4e is it dropped everything else. The fixes to combat make it much more accessible to a new generation, and that's great, but a D&D session shouldn't play like an MMO. You need just as much richness in the setting, in open-ended exploration, in diplomacy, in absurdly over-engineered traps, and so on. 4E got some pieces very right, but it's too tightly wound IMO - too much focus on combat, and especially on well-balanced combats. It's a poor system to accommodate cleverness and tactical elements not captured by player abilities.

4E adventures tend to be a set of very-well-balanced encounters all very level appropriate for a party, but that loses much of the charm of D&D. 4E is poorly suited mechanically for "crazy plans that just might work" to take on foes far out of the party's level range (unless they're scripted into the module). E.g., the party wants to kills a group of foes far more powerful than they, so they gather intelligence by diplomacy, intrigue, and seduction, discover a good time and place for an ambush, arrange to blow up a cliff face to drop an avalanche on the foes as they walk past on a marrow path, then attack before the dust settles. Pre-4E, it's fairly natural for a good DM to figure out how that all works and run a fun session around it in a way the players find fair. In 4E you have so little to work with for any of that, unless it was part of the script.

Re:Flaws?

[the_Bionic_lemming]

You are of course incorrectly basing this on the premise that lemmings technology stats aren't higher than mere humans.

We are far more advanced than you.

Re:Flaws?

[mcvos]

Characters have to have Flaws?

Aren't those optional? I believe there's loads of optional stuff in 5th edition, so players can easily tweak it to be more old-school, story-based or skirmishy, depending on their taste.

Re:Flaws?

[mcvos]

I've yet to see a system which included mechanically relevant flaws that didn't end up with everyone being ugly squinting one eyed outlaws from a bad family who owe favours to someone three countries over.

Then you should look around a bit; there are plenty. Cortex+ systems (like Marvel Heroic Roleplay, or Firefly) have an interesting way to make flaws relevant without going overboard. FATE based systems do something similar with aspects that can be positive, negative, or even both.

Re:Flaws?

[DuckDodgers]

Did you read the 4E Dungeon Master's Guide? It has a great treatment of all of the aspects of roleplaying - character interaction with NPCs, exploring, new environments, new cultures, different game types including intrigue-focused games, etc... And if you're a power gamer / munchkin, skill challenges offer a much faster route for accumulating XP in 4E than combat! Convincing the goblin chief and his horde to go home carries the same XP as wiping them out, and can be done more quickly. Trapping the guard golem in a room carries the same XP as chopping it to bits, and can be done more quickly. Convincing the captain of the local garrison to leave the bar and take a patrol out after the zombies gives as much XP as wiping them out yourself (provided they succeed), etc... There's also good advice for managing gaming groups of different sizes, and a general classification of player (not player character) archtypes and how to work with each one.

So I disagree with the first part of your objection. I partly agree with the second part, though - the environmental hazard, poison, and trap rules are clearly set up with an eye towards not wiping out the entire party with a bad roll of the dice. That's a trade-off, and I understand why they did it because a total party kill may be realistic but it sure is no fun for the players. The down side is that if the PCs hit a group of Hill Giants with a rockslide, or poison a rampaging dinosaur, or ignite a circle of oil around an enemy squad of soldiers it's only going to be a minor inconvenience to the enemy and the rest of the encounter won't be much different than if they'd skipped the careful planning in charged right into battle.

Further down in the thread someone raised what I consider to be a much better criticism of 4E: they ditched the Open Gaming License for third party supplements. I hate that, and even though I like 4E I'm glad their move away from an open ecosystem bit them hard.

Re: Flaws?

[Ororo]

I'll drink to that. Another DM here. I shot for a balance between role-playing and combat because I have a whole range of preferences in my group. One would be happiest with almost no combat, a couple of the others are all about the crunch. My big complaint about combat in 4e in how long an individual turn can take, and this especially applies to the players who min-max. Just because you CAN use a move, a minor, a free, and a move action each turn doesn't mean you SHOULD or even that it's desirable.

Re:Flaws?

[lgw]

Even WotC has admitted that their skill initial 4E challenge system was a flop - but if they pushed out a revised version later I haven't seen it and maybe it's fine?

Convincing the goblin chief and his horde to go home carries the same XP as wiping them out, and can be done more quickly.

Heh, I haven't been in a game for 20 years now where you got XP for killing things, or for specific encounters. I forgot that people still play that way (I guess it's natural if you're used to MMOs), rather than XP based only on quest completion.

or poison a rampaging dinosaur

I ran a game once where the party poisoned a powerful enemy with a raging dinosaur (that wasn't a fly in his soup, and a subsequent dispel magic was quite colorful - ahh, early D&D).

hate that, and even though I like 4E I'm glad their move away from an open ecosystem bit them hard.

Do you think Hasbro learned anything? Or did they take the opposite lesson from Pathfinder? I guess we'll see where 5E goes. Open game management tools (character builders, encounter runners, etc) would make the game worth checking out, IMO.

5e: Best D&D, MHO

[seebs]

I have basically liked all the D&Ds, so I'm a little biased. I even liked 4e, although I recognize that it was a very different kind of game in a lot of ways from the others.

But basically, if you liked D&D pre-4e, and hated 4e, 5e may be what you were looking for. It's a much cleaner system than 3e/3.5e/PF; simpler and clearer. It's not as complicated in some ways. It doesn't have nearly as much detail in the rules, it doesn't have as many formal definitions. But it's clearer and easier to read. And before you dismiss "easier to read" as unimportant, consider: I spent about 10 years on an ISO language standards committee. I assure you, I'm not afraid of formal language. But I like 5e's system better.

Most of the bonus stacking rules are gone, replaced by a mechanic called "advantage/disadvantage". If you have advantage or disadvantage on a roll, you roll 2d20 and take the higher or lower respectively. If you have neither or both, you roll normally. Most things that used to be +2-+4 bonuses of various types are now "advantage", and most things that used to be penalties are now "disadvantage". In practice, you get similar results with a lot less addition, and without having to check the bonus types of 8 different modifiers to figure out which ones stack.

Everyone I know who's played it has been really happy with it so far. The system is much less focused on trying to resolve every possible question; instead, the assumption is that the DM is not an idiot and is not playing maliciously. If you tend towards adversarial player/DM relationships, avoid 5e; it's not designed for that, and it would be horrible. But if you are playing with people who are basically clear on the idea that games are meant to be fun, and who can cooperate without epic rules battles, this is probably the best D&D ever.

The anon coward's "MMO Crap" comment is well past "baseless" into "completely incoherent". 4e had a few traits that sort of, if you squinted just right, looked like it was MMO-oriented, but mostly it was more like wargames than like any MMO I've ever seen. 5e is pretty much like a cross between 3e and Rules Cyclopedia D&D, with a much cleaner and simpler rules set, and a lot more interesting flavor to things.

Other things:

Lots of the "missing" complexity is rumored to be in the DMG as optional rules.

Casters as a whole are significantly nerfed compared to 3e, or for that matter compared to any previous edition. (Max-level caster? You get a ninth level spell per day. Use it carefully.)

There's some really crazy Internet drama about some of the consultants, which is best ignored, and has no basis in reality.

Re:5e: Best D&D, MHO

[nsuccorso]

Dammit, Donnie, your sorriness is NOT the ISSUE!

Re:5e: Best D&D, MHO

[wisnoskij]

Thanks for the change summery, but I have one question. Never played any DnD-like, except Doom the boardgame, which I think is wildly different but at least had a DM. So how does stacking resolve then? You never seem to mention that. They got rid of math by having a generic advantage/disadvantage system. But does that mean that nothing stacks, or everything stacks? Can you have a double advantage? IMHO, stacking is a pretty important part of RPGs. RPGs that do not allow anything to stack tend to be shallow. And I am not sure how they end up making a generic bonus work. Some bonuses need to be better than others, right? And some need huge advantages offset by medium disadvantaged, to have an interesting game. I think I am just confused because I am not imagining what the bonus system is correctly.

Re:5e: Best D&D, MHO

[MightyMartian]

I walked away from crunchy rule systems years ago. Go Fudge go!

Re:5e: Best D&D, MHO

[LordLucless]

To offer a counter-opinion:

I played 2E in high school, missed most of 3E (except for the computer games loosely based on that ruleset, which I love and still play today) and these days play 4E. I've played a couple of encounters with the 5E playtest bundle.

My group play D&D more as a tactical skirmish game than as an RPG. We play RPGs too, but we tend to use indie or White Wolf (does White Wolf count as indie these days) systems for that. D&D 4E as a tactical skirmish game, is awesome. I'm not sure if you'd consider my style to be "adversarial" DMing. I'm certainly deliberately trying to bring the team down in combat, but I'm not trying to "beat" them - I'm the DM, if I want to "beat" them, rocks just fall.

A perfect encounter, for me, is when the party beats the monsters with no deaths, but feels like they only just pulled it off. A perfect adventuring day is when the whole party finishes the last encounter for the day with no surges, and dailies used. If I've killed one of them, I've failed; if they haven't been challenged, I've failed. If they've felt like they were on the edge of disaster the whole time, but pulled through by the seat of their pants, I've succeeded.

5E is not the edition for us. Like you said, it's clear and simple, streamlined, and without as much math, but we enjoy the complexities. We like the billions of permutations 4E offers for characters, despite the balance and function issues such an array of options present. For me, 5E doesn't have the in-depth combat complexities that 4E offered as a skirmish game, but neither does it have the narrative elements that support role-playing that systems like Fate, or Storyteller do.

That aside, I still wouldn't be buying 5E, simply because I no longer trust Wizards management of the brand. I avoided the 3/3.5E debacle, but 4E was just as poorly managed. There are whole classes that are practically unplayable (Seeker, Runepriest, etc) because WotC decided to switch to Essentials mid-stream; others were neglected ever since they were printed (Assassin, Artificer, etc). Martial characters got two hard-cover Power books; every other power source got one - classes that were printed after their power book got zero. Dragonborn and Tielfling were the only races to receive dedicated books, giving them far more options than other races. And that's aside from stuff like expertise math-fixes due to insufficient QA in the first place.

TL;DR: I'll keep 4E for a skirmish game, and keep using indie systems for role-playing. 5E fills neither niche.

Re:5e: Best D&D, MHO

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not easier to read, many people are left scratching their heads over what something is supposed to mean leading to many flame wars and even the designers showing their ignorance when asked on Twitter.

Many of the things people hated about 4E are there in 5E with very gameist mechanics that completely destroy any sense of immersion, making you feel like you're playing a video game rather than a role-playing game. Powers recharging on short rests, abilities that only work during combat etc.

Character customization is very very low. You basically get a feat at 4rth level and the option to multi-class and that is it, otherwise pretty much every character is a cookie cutter of every other one, leading to lousy re-playability.

Despite the lack of options they someone threw balance out the window and it is easily the least balanced edition. Combat is very swingy, monsters for the most part uninteresting and not at all balanced with each other with their challenge level number. Their claim of larger but fewer feats making it easier to balance has just lead to fewer choices but the really good and really bad are still there so players without system mastery can easily fall into trap options and end up with dramatically weaker characters than someone that multi-classes wisely and takes synergistic feats and spells.

And you need to buy a dead tree. Despite people wanting to throw money at WotC for a PDF, they won't release one. I guess they haven't heard of tablets yet.

If you have a previous edition you like, keep liking it, this is not the game you're looking for. Move along.

Re:5e: Best D&D, MHO

[seebs]

Doesn't matter how many advantage/disadvantage you have. If you have both, you have neither. If you have only one of those two, then you roll two dice, no matter how many things are giving you advantage or disadvantage.

There are still numeric bonuses, but a lot fewer of them. I think the ones that survive all stack.

But for an example, monks and mage armor. In 3e, the monk got to add their wisdom modifier to AC when unarmored, and mage armor gave a +4 armor bonus, so they stacked. In 5e, mage armor sets your armor class when unarmored to 13+dex, and being a monk sets it to 10+wis+dex, and you can take whichever one you want, but neither is "a bonus" so there's no stacking to resolve.

In general, the net effect is slightly "shallower", but the flip side of that is that you don't have parties where one player has +42 on a check and another player has +3. So you can set DCs that are actually meaningful and interesting.

In epic-level Pathfinder, it takes our party samurai 5 minutes or so to finish a round of full attacks, which can do ~1350 damage. Also lots of die rolls. In 5e, so far as I can tell, nothing takes close to that long.

Re:5e: Best D&D, MHO

[seebs]

Yeah, 4e is an amazing tactical combat game. I quite like it.

Re:5e: Best D&D, MHO

[Chris Mattern]

In 3e, the monk got to add their wisdom modifier to AC when unarmored, and mage armor gave a +4 armor bonus

Okay, I'm confused. How can a bonus you only get when unarmored stack with a bonus that comes from armor?

Re:5e: Best D&D, MHO

[SCPRedMage]

The bonus doesn't come from armor, it comes from a magical force effect, that just happens to have a bonus type of "armor".

To be a little clearer, the monk's AC bonus class feature states that they get the bonus so long as they aren't wearing armor, and even though it grants an "armor" bonus, you still aren't "wearing" armor.

Re:5e: Best D&D, MHO

[Darinbob]

Too complicated. D&D went downhill after AD&D, taking a simple system and making it more and more complex. They should have trashed the outdated class system and gone with a straight up skill or point system like the competition, instead of creating a twisted hybrid.

Re:5e: Best D&D, MHO

[Anonymous Coward]

In 3e, the monk got to add their wisdom modifier to AC when unarmored, and mage armor gave a +4 armor bonus

Okay, I'm confused. How can a bonus you only get when unarmored stack with a bonus that comes from armor?

Mage Armor is a spell. It's like a force field around your otherwise unarmored character.

Re:5e: Best D&D, MHO

[0xdeaddead]

did some rug get mitterated upon?

Re:5e: Best D&D, MHO

[Saint Fnordius]

I started playing AD&D back in 1980, where the only systems available without a class system were the more obscure The Fantasy Trip and Champions. Tunnels and Trolls, RoleMaster, Arduin's Grimoire, Palladium, they all had classes, and Traveller had careers to generate your skill sets (and most famously, no rules for improving skills during play). GURPS didn't come out until 1986 or thereabouts, long after AD&D had been the FRPG of choice.

So I don't think you really know what you're talking about.

Re:5e: Best D&D, MHO

[Warma]

Your example with the 1350 damage seems a valid reason to hate pen&paper RPGs, and actually is one of the main reasons I disliked 3.0 and 3.5 (and derivatives, like Pathfinder). 5e seems to have moved away from that (far away), which, in my opinion, is a really positive change.

Re:5e: Best D&D, MHO

[VikingNation]

Regarding the concept of advantage/disadvantage in 5th Edition. Here is an interesting article that discusses probability of a second dice roll being less than the first.
The example uses a 6th sided dice but a formula is provided that can be used for a d20.

Re:5e: Best D&D, MHO

[Anonymous Coward]

There are still numeric bonuses, but a lot fewer of them. I think the ones that survive all stack.

On one hand, this cleans up a lot of arguments nicely. On the other hand, I'll miss watching the rules lawyer who bought a British 3rd party supplement just so he could argue that an "armour" bonus to AC should stack with an "armor" bonus to AC because they are spelled differently.

Re:5e: Best D&D, MHO

[Hypotensive]

Max-level caster? You get a ninth level spell per day. Use it carefully.

Plus your Intelligence or Wisdom modifier.

Re:5e: Best D&D, MHO

[Anonymous Coward]

>Character customization is very very low. You basically get a feat at 4rth level and the option to multi-class and that is it, otherwise pretty much every character is a cookie cutter of every other one, leading to lousy re-playability.

Know how I know you haven't read the PHB? Each race has two subraces. Each class has between 2 and 5 different 'kits' or archetypes. There are only like 10 feats (for now) but you have to give up your +2 (or 2x +1s) at various levels to get them. Multiclassing doesn't give you all the abilities of both classes. So a Fighter into Wizard has different abilities than a wizard into fighter. Backgrounds provided 2 skill (or tool) proficiencies and explicitly encourage the creation of new ones.

In short, if you end up playing the same wizard every game, that's your own stupid, uncreative, boring ass-fault.

> it is easily the least balanced edition.
Know how I know you never played 3.X?

Yeah. Casters still are gods (at high level). But they are smaller gods. Their spells scale like psionics (must used a higher level slot to get those /level effects). They get far fewer spells per day, topping out at 1 8th and 9th. The max 20 for stats means none of this casting stat of 40 bullshit. In short: casting is still quadratic, but the coefficient is much lower than in 3.x. So are wizard HP.

>And you need to buy a dead tree. Despite people wanting to throw money at WotC for a PDF, they won't release one. I guess they haven't heard of tablets yet.
Yeah. I'm totally sure they aren't trying to slow the pirates down but not packaging their new, highly in-demand product that their parent company is watching closely to see if they should just kill the brand off, up neat and nice for easy torrenting. At least scanning and OCRing in everything will take time.

I mean, it's not like they ever have put their books up as ebooks before. They certainly won't do it now.

5e is 2e flavor with 3.X math and E6 power levels. if you liked 3.X but hated that there were so many traps, this might be the edition for you. If you liked 4e, then no, you won't like 5e. Of course, you won't like anything that actually feels/plays like D&D either and should go back to playing WoW.

Re:5e: Best D&D, MHO

[Mike Buddha]

I really hated the paperwork involved with gaining a level in 3e & 3.5e. 3e was worse, though. What skills do you want to raise? Does that skill have any other skills that it synergizes with? Is the synergy active at this skill level? If so, do you want to spend less on that skill and more on another that doesn't have a synergy yet? Bah. I'm not interested in games that are as complicated as the tax code for no good reason. All the rules just slowed everything down. They added nothing to the gameplay. Nothing that couldn't be added by having a player make a DC modified by their class and level, that is.

Re:5e: Best D&D, MHO

[Talderas]

3.0/3.5 D&D was broken wirh just the PHB.

Re:5e: Best D&D, MHO

[Darinbob]

Champions was 1981 and had a point buy system, and that evolved into the Hero System. GURPS was 1986 but others had been doing classless systems for awhile, GURPS was mostly pushing a generic system.

Re:5e: Best D&D, MHO

[Kojiro Ganryu Sasaki]

THAC0 was excessively complex because of how it interacted with AC.

A bonus to X is something that lowers it?

So a -2 penalty to a stat increases it?

Re:5e: Best D&D, MHO

[DrLang21]

There are all kinds of examples of decreasing values being more desirable. It shouldn't be that difficult a concept.

Re:5e: Best D&D, MHO

[mcvos]

Skills have been toned down a lot. They don't go through the roof like the used to. Instead, you have a few skills, which means you get a moderate bonus to those rolls. And that bonus goes up slowly (no extra +1 every level), and DCs are much more moderate, which means you can still fail even if you have the skill, and even without it, you can still succeed. It's just less likely than if you have the skill.

Re:5e: Best D&D, MHO

[mcvos]

Traveller's careers don't really count as classes. I don't think they're anything more than a skill and gear distribution system, are they?

Re:5e: Best D&D, MHO

[mcvos]

But it's still an extra translation step, and it doesn't really add anything to the system.

Re:5e: Best D&D, MHO

[DrLang21]

What d20 took away was the shear impossibility of some characters being able to hit other characters, short of 1 in 100 if the DM allows. A 1 in 20 chance of a level 1 player hitting and damaging a dragon just isn't right. It should be next to impossible and certain death.

Re: 5e: Best D&D, MHO

[Ororo]

I can get behind that. I know when I played 3/3.5 I never really got the skills done correctly. I liked the streamlining 4e did there, but after getting to know the game, I can definitely see from for a bit more detail. I only looked at the first play test for 5e and I was not impressed. Range/touch attacks and spell level slots always annoyed me (not to mention shitty hit dice) to the point where I haven't played a Mage since 2e. I am wary, but one of my group bought the 5e PHB at GenCon so I'll get a gander this weekend.

Re: 5e: Best D&D, MHO

[Ororo]

I'd call careers the closest equivalent to class, but yeah, not being able to improve the character turned me off the game when I was still in high school in 198(mumble)

Re: 5e: Best D&D, MHO

[mcvos]

Closest thing doesn't mean it's the same thing, though. In GURPS, templates are the closest thing to classes. That doesn't make it class-based. Traveller is every bit as skill-based as that, even if character creation is through random tables rather than point buy.

Re:5e: Best D&D, MHO

[Saint Fnordius]

In mechanics terms, that is true, but when talking about characters they were referred to by their former careers: "ex marine", "former scout", "retired navy" and so on. And back then, that's what was most important to us nerds.

Now excuse me while I dig out my LBB version of Traveller, all those notes I wrote in high school and college about that and FASA's Star Trek RPG, and wallow in nostalgia!

Re:5e: Best D&D, MHO

[mcvos]

In mechanics terms, that is true, but when talking about characters they were referred to by their former careers: "ex marine", "former scout", "retired navy" and so on. And back then, that's what was most important to us nerds.

Sure, but that still doesn't make it a class. It's background. It is in fact more comparable to D&D5's Backgrounds than Classes, because it gives you history, skills and equipment. In GURPS I can also use a template to create a character and identify my character by that template, but that doesn't make GURPS a class-based system. Both GURPS and Traveller are skill-based systems.

Bring back THAC0 or GTHO

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean really.

Re:Bring back THAC0 or GTHO

[nsuccorso]

And what about Scarecrow's brain??!!

Re:Bring back THAC0 or GTHO

[mrmagos]

No...just, no. THAC0 is wacko.

Re: Bring back THAC0 or GTHO

[Anonymous Coward]

We have to wait until Thunt recovers

Re: Bring back THAC0 or GTHO

[gmhowell]

He's still in lala land? I was hoping that his twitter reemergence a few months ago meant he was on the mend, but his subsequent return to silence...

Re: Bring back THAC0 or GTHO

[gmhowell]

I found it interesting that his break occurred just an episode or two prior to some big moment he had been anticipating since the inception of the comic. If he comes back, I hope he does it before I forget about it.

Re:MMO Crap

[nsuccorso]

Wizards of the Coast Agents have been dispatched to your location. Please wait quietly.

Re:Pathfinder?

[nsuccorso]

It's true. DnD players are a myth. Do not believe in such childish fantasies.

Re:Pathfinder?

[kamapuaa]

Some have, some haven't? Anyway it's a version of D&D 3.5. Some people unhappy with 4 went to Pathfinder. It's not really a big deal, and surely if this system is great, people from Pathinder will move to D&D 5.

It all comes down to the OGL

[Sasayaki]

Long time d20 (and variants) player here. Not as long as some, but long enough to have played 2nd Edition when it was still current.

IMHO, 5th Edition's success will come down to their acceptance of the OGL (Open Gaming Licence), which we will discover in the coming days. All signs point to no, but Wizards might surprise us yet.

For those who don't know, the OGL was introduced in the 3rd edition (and continued its minor update, v3.5) of D&D. It was truly revolutionary. The OGL not only permitted players to redistribute the base rule system as they wished, including publishing it online for free almost in its entirety, but empowered players, writers, and campaign masters to edit, change and adapt the rules as they saw fit -- and publish those changes, as long as they too were under the OGL. It's open source for gaming systems.

One of the leading benefits of this was the publication of "Adventure Paths". As the OGL did not cover game worlds, only the mechanics and rules of the game, any writer or publishing company with a solid working knowledge of the game could create, publish, and distribute (freely or for profit) their own adventures, rules variations, optional mechanics, and thousands of various changes. One of the leading companies was Paizo, who specialized in publishing these so-called Adventure Paths. They were not the only ones. For example, I personally published a Pathfinder flavoured novel about a kobold, "Ren of Atikala", set in the original world of Drathari (oblig. plug: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EZ...). Using the OGL, I am able to legally use, alter, and draw inspiration from the rules and mechanics of OGL-licensed publications and create original works.

As I said earlier, it's open-source for gaming systems.

Between 3rd edition and v3.5, this was the state of D&D for almost 8 years, until June of 2008, when D&D 4th Edition was released. Unfortunately, D&D 4th Edition used a different version of the OGL, which was much more restrictive in what it permitted players, authors, and creators to edit, change, and redistribute (IIRC, it was essentially, "you may only reprint the *name* of the rule, and then reference the Player's Handbook", which meant if you were playing Star Wars you had to look up Power Attack in the D&D Player's Handbook... ugh).

Because of this change, and the simplifications made to the rules system which were often disfavourably compared to a video game, many players took a distinct, sight-unseen dislike to 4th Edition.

This restrictive change to the OGL also strongly disinsentivised Paizo from publishing Adventure Paths. After some internal discussion, it was decided that 4th Edition was not for them, and released a revised version of v3.5 of Dungeons and Dragons, known as the Pathfinder RPG (sometimes informally referred to by the player base as D&D v3.75), specifically intended to be backwards compatible with v3.5 of Dungeons and Dragons material. It was published shortly after 4th Edition's debut.

For many reasons -- a feeling that v3.5 was "good enough", Paizo's open-beta policy and staunch support of the OGL even for expansion books, and for viewing companies such as Green Ronin as allies rather than competitors -- Pathfinder has flourished in the wake of the relatively-poorly received 4th edition and is now a common staple at Roleplaying conventions and tabletop gaming communities, where previously only Dungeons and Dragons was played.

D&D Next seems, to me, to be squarely aimed directly at bringing Pathfinder converts back into the fold, promising to address some of the issues in both 4th Edition and Pathfinder, by providing a linearly scaling advancement, reducing preparation time for Game Masters, and simplifying many poorly thought out and complicated legacy rules which most players will admit probably need to go.

For me, though, D&D Next will live or die the same death 4th Edition did, based on its acceptance of

Re:It all comes down to the OGL

[Kirth]

... which is a trademark license anyway.

There is no copyright possible on game mechanics, so you can pretty much write your own completely D&D compatible game, with the rules taken straight from D&D (but rephrased, of course, because the actual phrases are copyrighted). As long as you don't advertise this with trademarked terms, you're fine, you don't need the OGL.

But anyway. Who in his right mind would want to use this complicated mess as a base for his own game, when there is a system from 1978 that is much, much more elegant, named BRP? http://basicroleplaying.org/

Re:It all comes down to the OGL

[gmhowell]

I think you are technically correct (the best kind of correct, btw), but any small-ish publisher is likely to get ground into bits by the inevitable lawsuit. Even if the lawsuit is a farce, attorney's fees and other costs of litigation are prohibitive.

Re:It all comes down to the OGL

[Somebody Is Using My]

There is no copyright possible on game mechanics, so you can pretty much write your own completely D&D compatible game, with the rules taken straight from D&D (but rephrased, of course, because the actual phrases are copyrighted).

Which, incidentally, has been done for 1st/2nd Edition and, to some degree, with 3rd/3.5th edition.

Re:It all comes down to the OGL

[wisnoskij]

That sounds pretty stupid of D&D.
Release open licence allowing others to expand upon, use, and profit from D&D.
Remove yourself from this now self sustaining community and lose your monopoly and the respect of all your past customers.
It sounds like D&D could not have made a worse business mistake if they had tried.

Re:It all comes down to the OGL

[DuckDodgers]

I think you're right. I like 4E quite a bit, and I think the thing that killed it is two parts. On one side you have the many people who thought it was too different from earlier edition. But on the other side you have the third party support that 4E never got.

Incidentally, I've toyed with dozens of OGL games and my favorite by a wide margin is Radiance, http://www.radiancerpg.com/ It's a 3E/4E hybrid with a lot of good ideas, and the Player's Handbook is free. (I am not associated with the publisher in any formal way, I just exchanged a few emails with him.) I like it better than DnD 3.5, Pathfinder, Tunnels and Trolls, Castles and Crusades, Arcana Evolved, OGL Conan, World of Warcraft OGL, etc...

Re:It all comes down to the OGL

[HeckRuler]

For those who don't know, the OGL was introduced in the 3rd edition (and continued its minor update, v3.5) of D&D. It was truly revolutionary. The OGL not only permitted players to redistribute the base rule system as they wished, including publishing it online for free almost in its entirety, but empowered players, writers, and campaign masters to edit, change and adapt the rules as they saw fit -- and publish those changes, as long as they too were under the OGL. It's open source for gaming systems.

And you're apparently not one of those people "in the know". The OGL did nothing other than announce that Wizards of the Coast were cool with people making supplements to their games. Legally, it did nothing. Everyone already had all the rights they needed to publish campaigns, rules, worlds, classes, feats, spells, content, that worked with, worked within, altered, expanded, truncated, or fixed the rules published by Wizards of the Coast. Such activities need no special licensing.

But hey, having a lawyer say that something is totally cool, and they promise not to sue really DOES have an effect. It's psychological rather than legal. It might have been all smoke and mirrors, but it encouraged gamers to create content. So in short, it worked.

Re:It all comes down to the OGL

[HeckRuler]

And anyone can sue anyone for anything at any time.

With or without the OGL.

The political ramifications for WotC suing some dinky third-party for releasing a campaign in a similar fashion of the not-so-dinky publishers would be severe enough that WotC wouldn't do such a thing.

Yes that big thug in the room can squish you. No, he probably won't. Yay society.

Basic Rules no longer free

[Korgan]

Does this mean that the Basic Rules that WotC made available for free a few weeks back are no longer legitimately available for free?

http://www.imore.com/get-dd-ba...

Looks like the WotC 5E page says they're $20 now.

Re:Basic Rules no longer free

[GammaKitsune]

The Basic Rules are still quite free. There's a link in the summary.

Re:Basic Rules no longer free

[seebs]

I think you're confusing the "starter set" for the "basic rules". The basic rules are a free download:

http://dnd.wizards.com/article...

Re:Basic Rules no longer free

[Hotawa Hawk-eye]

They are still free AFAIK. They also contain only some of the races and classes (dwarf, elf, halfling, and human for races; cleric, fighter, rogue, and wizard for classes) and spells that are in the full Player's Handbook. The PHB includes races like dragonborn, half-elf, half-orc, and tiefling and classes like barbarian, bard, druid, paladin, etc. in addition to those from the Basic Rules.

Re:Pathfinder?

[Sechr Nibw]

I don't know about everyone else, but I play both Pathfinder and D&D 5E. Can I still be pro-panda?

Can a little guy publish successful PNP RPG today?

[GoodNewsJimDotCom]

Hello, I wrote a cool PNP RPG back when I was a teenager, and I played it with my friends in highschool for years. I wanted to make money on it, so I tried to make the world's first MMORPG in 1992, but quit when Ultima Online came out in like 98 or 99. Much later I realized, a live game master RPG genre could take off with a game master network and even paid game masters. So I made www.abcrpg.com. The problem I encountered is that I could get a group of people to play online. My online system isn't terribad, but it still needs debugged more.

I was thinking of dusting off my old books, solidifying the lore in a way that is solid, and then publishing the RPG. The problem I have is: How would I make any money at all on this? If I made any amount of money on it, I could spend my days making new adventures and polishing the online gaming engine. It is a good game, but I have no idea how to monetize it. Can a little guy make it today?

My only tactic would be to finish the rules, and then charge people 0.50-1$/hr to play the game with me as a live game master with my online game master network. Anyone have a better idea? The game was called Intergalactic Bounty Hunter.

My assessment

[mark-t]

3e turned the game into something resembling a video game, being quite rules heavy, lots of bean counting that gets pretty tedious to track after a while, and the dungeonmaster is relegated a role that could almost be replaced by an automaton. I never cared for the way 2e handled specialization wizards, because most of them felt way too similar to eachother to be distinctive. The problem was even worse for clerics. In part this is because they didn't really try to consider that spells in different spheres or when cast by different specialists, should actually be set at a different level, and it's possible with some rather large changes to the class system and spell lists available to the appropriate classes, a good system could be created, but I never had the energy to devote to trying to do that. The psionics system in 2e was so overpowered as to be absurd, and the psionics system in 3e and beyond just feels like another magic spell list instead of anything particularly special.

The best edition of D&D was the first edition of AD&D, and I'm sticking to it.

Re:My assessment

[seebs]

This is basically exactly why I am liking 5e. I liked 3e's rules at first, but they got overwhelming. 5e is a lot more like 1e, only with many fewer complicated and subtly varying tables.

Re:My assessment

[mark-t]

One word: feats.

blech.

1e forever.

Re:My assessment

[Anonymous Coward]

Feats are basically the entire reason I quit the game. Characters received too many, and most either required very specific character builds or had such niche uses with insanely specific wording that even the players who made the damn characters (myself included) had to constantly double-check to make sure whether our feats applied and how they applied to every situation.

Still, I was planning to give 5E a chance, feats and all, until I saw that goddamn spell slot table. Fuck spell slots in WotC's fucking ears.

Re:My assessment

[Kojiro Ganryu Sasaki]

What's wrong with the spell slots table?

Re:My assessment

[mark-t]

Thank you, yes.... I am well aware of OSRIC. There's a handful of differences between it and AD&D, but not many. One of my former players (before real-life commitments made regular scheduled gaming unworkable) used the OSRIC materials for his player's handbook.

Re:Can a little guy publish successful PNP RPG tod

[wisnoskij]

Most people make money online with ads.

Re:MMO Crap

[Travis Mansbridge]

A simple troll of the dice!

Re:Can a little guy publish successful PNP RPG tod

[Sasayaki]

Are you kidding? Today is the absolutely best time to be an indie game system developer, ever.

Back in the day, the only way you could get your stuff into the hands of the players was brick-and-mortar stores, word of mouth, or occasionally mail-order systems in magazines and stuff. That was it.

These days, there's so many online distribution points like DriveThruRPG, Amazon's KDP, iTunes, Google Play, etc that getting your game out there is easy. Just write your game system, publish it on any/all of the above, and bam. There you have it -- distribution, complete. Almost all these retailers allow discounting, promotions, bundling, etc. The amount of promotion tools available is staggering.

You can set your price, including as low as $0.99 for most retailers. If your idea is really good (and you're good at marketing) you can use Kickstarter or Indie GoGo or any other service to bootstrap a little funding. You can create and publish video promotions for free on YouTube. You can get a website for free, or very minimal cost, and run ads on it to bring in a little extra income.

You have total control over the distribution process. You might choose, for example, to make your core rules set available for free, and then charge for supplements. You can make it OGL if you want, or licence it how you want. You can write and publish electronic tools to help run games. You can even create your own game worlds, adventures, or whatever.

And the best thing is? All the tools you need are available for free or for staggeringly low cost. LibreOffice is your free word processing suite, although I recommend you drop $40 on Scrivener (it's like sex, except I'm having it). GIMP can do covers and basic image work well enough, but again, I'd suggest dropping $40 on Photoshop Elements. On DriveThruRPG you can get gaming stock art, templates, images and all kinds of art beautification your heart could desire, all extremely cheaply. When that fails you, there's ShutterStock, iStockphoto, or any number of stock image websites. Failing that: ask artists on DeviantArt to draw exactly what you want. $200-$500 will get you a sweet digital painting from an awesome artist, which is a good investment for something like your Core Rule Book.

We are living in the publishing future.

Re:MMO Crap

[MrKaos]

no thanks

It should be pointed out that you have limited hit points, no magic, crap armor and, your short sword is useless. These are the pitfalls of being a pointless troll.

I'll just point out...

[MrKaos]

That this actually *is* news for nerds!

time

[Tablizer]

I'm waiting for the Duke Nukem edition

Best rule set ever still belongs to:

[Anonymous Coward]

Paranoia

Easily! When the core mechanic of the combat system is "actions which are more dramatically described by the player are more likely to succeed than less dramatically described actions", the fun is baked in.

Re:Best rule set ever still belongs to:

[SuiteSisterMary]

You'd love Exalted, then.

Exalted a) has that exact concept baked in, and b) has full-on Super-Saiyan level combat rules for diplomacy. Hell, for changing your party's minds about where to go for dinner, if you really want.

Re:Pathfinder?

[Sasayaki]

It is my experience, locally, that everyone and their dog has moved to Pathfinder.

My local university gaming club, and almost all major conventions in Australia, were 100% Living Greyhawk (which is D&D) until the end of that campaign. These days, they are almost all 100% Pathfinder.

At GenCon...

[Chas]

Pathfinder kicked the living crap out of D&D5 in terms of sales.

For a good chunk of people now, Pathfinder IS D&D. Congrats to the guys and gals at Paizo.

Re:At GenCon...

[WinterSolstice]

Totally agree. I'm a big fan of Pathfinder, and strongly disliked 4E, have literally no interest at all in 5E. For me, class D&D died with TSR did, Pathfinder sorta brought it back.

I like their books, too, as well as their excellent online/mobile tools.

Re:At GenCon...

[Thanshin]

Pathfinder followed the right philosophical path. When the core spirit is right, the resulting product profits.

D&D after 3rd edition had a rotten core. When the directing principle is short term benefit and sacrificing the core for a larger customer base, the resulting product fails.

Re:At GenCon...

[bekeleven]

I much prefer D&D 3.5e to Pathfinder. Mostly because Pathfinder has crappy flavor, discourages interesting builds, and (most importantly) heavily nerfed optimized martial/mundane characters while doing essentially nothing about the 3.X magical superiority.

So as long as wizards win the same either way, I'll take the system where I can build a barbarian that can fight effectively, rogues/factotums have a purpose, and I can build a Shugenja 5/Dracolyte 1/Singer of Concordance 1/Seeker of the Misty Isle 1/Hexer 4, and that character is 100% different from the next guy's Shugenja 5/Divine Oracle 1/Paragnostic Apostle 4/Contemplative 2.

Re:At GenCon...

[WinterSolstice]

Interesting, as I'd argue that 3.5 and Pathfinder are like 99% the same, with the exception that Pathfinder doesn't have R.A. Salvatore on call, and they smoothed a few rules.

But hey - play your game your way, that's what it's all about :)

Re:At GenCon...

[WinterSolstice]

Hasbro has no idea what to do with it. They're probably not even sure what it is - so I guess we're just lucky it's not "My Little Pony Conan Adventure"

Re:At GenCon...

[RKThoadan]

I totally agree with you here. It seems like they killed 3.x right when they finally got their balance issues mostly fixed with the Tome of Battle. I really don't understand the big deal with Pathfinder.

Re:At GenCon...

[pr0t0]

Yeah, it's hard to miss that WotC had their events in the Sagamore Ballroom for years, but Paizo has had that space for the past two years and WotC has been relegated to a small corner of Hall C.

I've played most editions of D&D going back to 1984. My gaming group and I generally play the "living" campaigns. I didn't mind 4e so much, and LFR is a great campaign setting. We were often tapped to play-test 4e LFR's a few months before the cons. I just thought the combats in 4e could take too long if not properly designed. I like the way LordLucless above regards 4e as a "tactical skirmish" game; I think he's right. We play-tested Next a few times and I wasn't impressed. I just did a 5e this past Saturday at Gen Con and hated every second of it. I played a pre-gen archer and it was 2.5 hours before I loosed my first arrow. WAY too much RP. That's obviously module-specific, but a poor choice to introduce 5e at a con.

We left D&D for Pathfinder PFS a year ago when WotC/Baldman dropped LFRs from the Gen Con lineup without warning, and with nearly nothing to replace it. It's ok. I think what really needs to happen in tabletop RPG's, at least with living campaigns, is that modules need to have rating system for how they've been written. I'd like to know in advance if this module is geared more towards combat or role-playing so I can choose accordingly.

I've been getting into Shadowrun 5th edition lately and liking it more and more.

Re:At GenCon...

[Chas]

You ever actually see what sales are like at a gaming convention?

Apparently not.

Re:At GenCon...

[mcvos]

I've been getting into Shadowrun 5th edition lately and liking it more and more.

Shadowrun 5 does a very good job of taking the best parts of previous editions (mainly the smoother system from 4 and the tons of flavour from 3 and earlier).

Man, that sounds very similar to the D&D situation, actually. But Shadowrun doesn't have the crazy jumps in complexity and focus that D&D has had.

Re:At GenCon...

[HeckRuler]

Yeah, man, the LAUNCH of the next version of D&D. These are rule-books, most of the people who play the game already have the pathfinder core rulebooks. That is, sales of core rulebooks represent market share growth. The launch of an edition should be similar to an IPO with everyone scrambling to get it. Conversly, the sales of a 5 year old rule-book should be petering off. I would have imagined that the 5th ed D&D would trounce any other sales at GenCon as all the established gamers who already own both pathfinder and D&D1,2,3,4 rulebooks should be getting the 5th ed books, even if they hate it.

So yeah, hearing that more Pathfinder core rule-books were sold at GenCon than D&D 5th ed core rule-books on it's launch day.... Yeah that's pretty damn shocking. I mean, GenCon was a D&D convention. Gary founded it when D&D was taking off. And maybe he would have smiled at this turn of events. Showing that the soul of D&D is not in the hands of some corporate whore with controlling shares, but rather in the hands of the gamers who liked what they had going on back when Gary was driving the boat.

But maybe it's because the MM isn't out yet, and just the PHB was up for sale. And everyone who really wanted it it had early access of some sort. So it wasn't exactly a "launch date". Dunno.

A little bashing

[Princeofcups]

Levels, classes, spell slots, armor class, superhero hit points, check, check, check. Everything that SHOULD be changed is still there. They've basically gone back to the original rules because that is what people are used to, instead of even TRYING to make a better system. Sigh.

Re:A little bashing

[Inconexo]

I am annoyed on the contrary. I am surprised that such a long lived RPG still need to change drastically on every edition. Early editions would logically change more, but I am surprised that 30 years later they still need to make such huge changes between editions. If in three decades you haven't still invented a good skills system, I don't know if they would ever do.

Re:A little bashing

[Intrepid imaginaut]

Levels and classes are fine, where they fall apart is when they're hooked up to hit points.

Re:A little bashing

[Anonymous Coward]

I am surprised that such a long lived RPG still need to change drastically on every edition.

Can't make money unless you drastically change things all the time. Just ask Games Workshop.

Re:A little bashing

[Whorhay]

Those are all reasons that I really liked Shadowrun when I was role playing in the 90's. It had its own flaws but at least they weren't so balance destroying.

Re:A little bashing

[Inconexo]

It's logical that a major rewrite is needed once in a pair of decades. But it's surprising to me that after that, the game still changes so much from edition to edition, even with the goals you stated.

The problem is, if the game feels so different on each edition, many people won't change to the new one. I follow RPG.SE, and on that site, there are questions on all D&D editions (AD&D, 3, 3.5, pathfinder, 4, 5) which seems as a huge fanbase, but too fragmented.

Time will say if 5th edition is going to bring them all together.

Monsters/encounters are bland

[abies]

Biggest issue I see with 5e so far (compared to 4e) is how bland monsters and encounters are. (please don't tell me that I can change it if I wish, I'm talking about D&D as presented by WotC and official adventures). Gone is interesting terrain setup, with 3 types of goblins working together, each having distinct abilities. We are now back to 2nd edition style of
15. Storage room. 1d3+1 orcs. Orc: 20hp, AC 15, sword +5 to hit, 1d8+3 dmg
16. Bedroom. 1 giant bedbug. Giant bedbug: 25hp, AC 16, bite +4 to hit, 1d8+2 dmg

I suppose that part of it is because they removed board as required part of the game, so it is a harder to come up with big number of distinct abilities. Still, as far as 'tactical game', 5e seems to be a complete failure to me so far.

Of course, if somebody hated 4e because of the combat, he will feel different... but if you don't like combat, I don't think that D&D variants are best system out there for you...

Re:Monsters/encounters are bland

[mcvos]

Yeah, if you want a skirmish system that focuses entirely on interesting yet balanced combat, then 4e is definitely the game for you. But if you want time for something other than combat, then 5e is probably the better choice.

Re:Can a little guy publish successful PNP RPG tod

[Intrepid imaginaut]

I would probably target any market but the existing RPG players market if you do go for it, at least online. Maybe aim at the boardgames market. Online RPG communities are a haunted wasteland/minefield of verboten topics and personal grudges, edition wars, design wars, method wars, and above all else social justice warriors shrieking about rape culture. These aren't generally people you want to engage with - while there are plenty of nice individuals, the nuts rule the roost.

Re:MMO Crap

[meerling]

No, this is Tabletop or PnP (Pen and Paper). You know, that precursor that MMOs are loosely based on.
But trying to explain this to an obvious troll is pointless, but I'm doing it anyhow. :P

Wait....

[oh_my_080980980]

People still play DxD....who knew....

Re: Probability of roll for advantage/disadvantage

[VikingNation]

The advantage/disadvantage system in 5th edition simplifies certain aspects of the game. The following article provides math to calculate the probability of a second dice roll being less (or greater) than the first.

For a d20 there is a 0.475 chance that the second dice roll with be greater (or less) than the first.

One would need to calculate the numbers for stacking bonuses to determine which system provides greater odds of success.

Re: Probability of roll for advantage/disadvantage

[oh_my_080980980]

Anal tentative twaddle. It's a game people. You establish a probability for an event and roll the corresponding die to determine the outcome. The DM can modify the outcome as necessary. This isn't a statistics class. You're meant to have fun. People seem to forget that.

Re:Combat sim vs. Role Playing

[oh_my_080980980]

Problem is people make it all about the dice. They forget it's ROLE PLAYING.

Checking it out

[whistlingtony]

Well, I'm about a third through the provided free PDFs, and I have to say that I like the tone so far.

Like many others, I thought 4E turned my beloved Roleplaying game into a Rollplaying game. I thought it lost all flavor or character. Ok, and I wigged out over the refresh times for abilities and spells.... It smelled like an MMORPG, which usually doesn't have much actual RP in it. I moved to pathfinder.

I'm finding this PDF to be an easy read though. (Hey Shadowrun 5th edition guys, you could learn something here.) It's full of flavor text, the rules seem easy and intuitive.... I'd play it.

The rules changes seem nice too. I hate rules. I want to focus on the story and the character interactions. I don't want to spend my time looking up bonuses in a chart. I have NEVER used a grenade scatter table in my life. :D

After 4E and Piazo doing such a good job with Pathfinder, I.... might actually give D&D 5E a fresh look. Ew. I said it.

Flaws?

[dainbug]

I memorized the 1st edition book. Too old to learn anymore or look things up.

Re:Can a little guy publish successful PNP RPG tod

[geminidomino]

These aren't generally people you want to engage with - while there are plenty of nice individuals, the nuts rule the roost.

So basically, like every other online "community" (term used loosely. "Battleground" seems more fitting these days).

Re:Pathfinder?

[Mike Buddha]

I'd like to play Pathfinder adventures with 5e rules. Pathfinder has too many rules.

Re:The arbitrary bonuses will start a lot of argui

[mythosaz]

If anyone is letting the rules stop a DM from saving a player from death, or avoiding putting the character directly into peril necessary to the story, then the DM is doing it wrong.

Re: Probability of roll for advantage/disadvantage

[Mike Buddha]

I first learned about statistics from reading an article in Dragon magazine about doing a Chi-squared test to determine which of your dice rolls more favorably for you. I learned probability from playing D&D. Like it or not, the two are inexorably tied, and for some of us, that's part of the fun.

Re:MMO Crap

[DuckDodgers]

I played all of the earlier editions and preferred 4th. Yes, it took ideas from MMOs. It took good ideas, like giving more people than the spellcasters a selection of cool powers they could use a few times per day. In older versions of Dungeons and Dragons, at low levels the Fighters and Thieves outshined everyone else because "I whack it with a sword" and "I stole 10 gp." trumped "I can do something that's like shooting a bow accurately, but only once a day!" And "I can be like a super fast first aid kit, but only twice a day!". But ten levels later the spellcasters were shooting gouts of flame and mind-controlling enemies to fight each other and teleporting and bringing back the dead while the Fighter can now say, "I whack it with my sword, only harder!" and the Thief can say "I stole 100gp!"

So fourth edition discarded a lot of what was quintessential to earlier editions, but in my view it was a useful step forward. Fifth edition is a regression. Fifth may well end up better than 1 through 3.5, but it will take work to convince me it's better than Fourth when you exclude nostalgia from the metrics.

Re:MMO Crap

[Nethemas the Great]

That distribution of ability made perfect sense. An initiate magic user pays the greatest price of all classes. As such they should be compensated accordingly for the risk and sacrifice as their character develops.

A step in the right direction

[werepants]

I'm tentatively pretty excited about this. I got acquainted with 2nd edition D&D through Baldur's Gate (I think that was their ruleset) and then spent a summer playing 3.5E like crazy and investing way too much time in character optimization and digging through forums. I've played a session or two of 4E.

Cool things that make me excited about this edition:
Attributes, races, and classes seem very faithful to old school D&D.
Combat seems similar to old-school D&D (none of the sliding around BS from 4E).
Classes seem balanced but unique. Casters are nerfed somewhat but still quite powerful, fighter is the only one with multiple attacks, rogue gets multiple actions (of certain types) per round to be versatile. Many things that were previously must-have feats for a class and therefore made you "follow the rails" to have a decent character are now built in (Weapon Finesse for 3.5 rogues, for instance).
Every level gives new abilities. You don't have any "dead levels" with minimal progression.
The whole Background system both encourages character backstory development and makes it mechanically purposeful. Cool and versatile and should aid the storytelling.
The Archetypes allow you to meaningfully distinguish a character of your class from all the others, while keeping some thematic consistency. Easy customization like this is great.
The system is certainly recognizable as D&D but also makes significant strides to simplify. Many complex mechanics have been replaced - don't have to confirm a critical hit or worry about which damage bonuses get added when (just roll double on the damage dice). You roll two D20's to represent an advantage or disadvantage - pick the higher of the two in the first case, the lower in the latter. You don't have modifiers for two-handed fighting, etc. At the same time, armor and weapons are the same as they've always been, along with ability modifiers and many class features (Evasion, for instance).

I'm sure people will find things to dislike, but overall this is a positive move. It seems that they are trying to accentuate the fun parts of the game while remaining faithful to the essence of D&D. And, if I'm not mistaken, I detect similar language and design approach to Legend, which is a very innovative yet D&D-esque system published by a company called Rule of Cool. Their lead designer, Jacob Kurzer, left earlier this year because of mysterious new employment with a noncompete agreement that prohibited him from further development of Legend. I wouldn't be surprised if he had a hand in the development of this new release, and if he is now at WotC I'm really excited to see what else they'll be coming up with.

Re:MMO Crap

[DuckDodgers]

I disagree. For a novel, that's fine. For a cooperative game, it sucks - do you really expect to tell players, "Okay, you two are going to play guys that are useful for the next six months. Then they'll suck. On the other hand you two are going to play guys that are going to suck for the next six months. Then they'll kick ass, and they'll kick ass way better than these guys ever did." (Change time periods depending upon how often gaming group meets, rate of experience, etc...)

In RPG discussion forums I've heard this referred to as Linear Fighter, Quadratic Wizard - with linear and quadratic as the metaphor for the rate of growth of power. Now again, this fits fantasy literature, it makes for great stories, etc... But it fails for a group because it means there's a completely uneven distribution of 'spotlight' time once the game lasts long enough. The people playing non-casters might as well not show up, they can be replaced by hirelings and a few summoning spells.

Get off my lawn!

[hawk]

Does this mean it's time to give up what you kids call "First Edition"?

Nah. I'm still not convinced there's a reason to use those new-fangled books instead of the three books, supplements, and a touch (but not too much!) of Arduin & Spellcaster's Bible.

damn newbies

hawk, off to nuke his dandelions

Re:MMO Crap

[mcvos]

Yes, but that might make the initial comment valid for the previous edition, not this one. This one is as old-school as D&D has been in a long time. It combines the simple character creation of early editions with more streamlined customization options than the 3rd edition and Pathfinder have. It doesn't try to cover every possible case with an overdose of mechanics anymore. It's less MMO-like than 3rd edition and Pathfinder.

Re:MMO Crap

[mcvos]

Opinions vary of course, but I don't think "I wack it really hard with my sword, but only once per day" makes all that much sense, really. Mind you, I've never been much of a fan of the "Vancian" magic system of D&D (that allows you to cast each spell only once). Pathfinder let go of that principle a bit by allowing cantrips (0 level spells) to be recast as often as you like. 5th edition continues along that path, both with more powerful cantrips, but also spells don't scale as hard with your level anymore: if you want your Magic Missile to become more powerful as you reach higher levels, you'll have to use a higher level spell slot to cast it. Meanwhile, fighters get more fancy stuff to do on top of wacking stuff with their sword. Hopefully this will balance classes a bit more without making them all feel the same.

5th edition is not a step backward; it does take elements from 4th edition, but only the best parts, and it also takes the best parts of previous editions, molding it all into a surprisingly coherent whole.

Re:MMO Crap

[DuckDodgers]

I am aware that 5e finally changed spells so that spell level and caster level do not both combined to enhance the effectiveness of a spell, and they also added a bigger selection of special abilities for non-caster types. I do think that's a step forward from 1e through 3.5e. I respectfully disagree that it's a step forward from 4e. A high level 5e spellcaster may only have one use of something like Wish, Meteor Strike, Gate, Teleport, Raise Dead, etc... per day, but the character gets one utterly awesome game moment per day. The non-casters have nothing similar, they don't have their non-magical equivalent spotlight moment.

How about something equivalently awesome for non-casters, like at level 19 Fighters choose one of the following powers, which can be used once per day: 1. Overwhelming Attack: one attack you designate before you roll your attack dice is treated as though you rolled a 20, no enemy power of any kind can negate the attack (magical or otherwise), and the attack does 4 times regular dice damage plus bonuses. 2. Looks Worse Than It Is: wounds that appear serious were in fact only little scratches, at any time, even when it is not your player's turn, as long as your player is still alive you can restore 75% of your hit points up to your normal maximum. 3. Peerless Combat Skill: for the next five rounds you enjoy a +10 to movement, +5 to defense, +5 to attack, and +10 to damage. 4. Prep and Blitz: you spend one round in combat in a total defensive action as you examine the battlefield carefully and plan your next moves. On your next turn, you explode into action. Your movement for the round is doubled and your attacks are tripled.

I realize my ideas here aren't that different from what's in 4e already. But that's my point - giving each class the exact same amount of cool at-will, encounter, daily, and utility powers meant that everyone got similar amounts of awesome stuff to do in combat. The Defenders might clean house more than the Leaders and the Strikers, but they all had nifty stuff. Then out of combat the Strikers and the Leaders might get to do more useful things than the Defenders - but the point is, nobody felt like a third wheel in battle.

Re:Pathfinder?

[mcvos]

Pathfinder sales recently surpassed D&D sales, though that was also because everybody was waiting for the release of 5th edition.

Paizo (makers of Pathfinder) are doing very well, and many groups play nothing else. I'm currently playing in three different Pathfinder campaigns. But I'm afraid I'm getting a bit tired of it, and I'm looking for something else. I'm currently looking more at Star Wars: Edge of the Empire, Dungeon World, and Shadowrun 5, but D&D5 definitely looks interesting.

Re:Can a little guy publish successful PNP RPG tod

[mcvos]

Indie games are big, and publishing something is easier than ever. However, RPGs aren't exactly a lucrative market. Most people do it for the love of the hobby, and unless your name is Monte Cook, it's not going to pay your bills.

Getting paid as a GM is an old idea, but I don't think anyone ever got it working. You'd have to be a legendary GM with everybody raving about how great you are, before you might convince anyone to pay you for playing a game with them.

Re:5e

[mcvos]

But it might be great for other people.

Re:Long live BASIC!

[mcvos]

Off your lawn? But you got exactly what you want! Basic is back, and it's free! Only Advanced costs money.

Re:MMO Crap

[mcvos]

But how do you explain that the fighter can do that only once per day? With magic, the "it's magic" explanation always works. With mundane stuff, sure, you might be too tired to try it every round, but surely after some rest, you're ready again?

And don't fighters get plenty of cool with their special dice that get increasingly better and can be used on an increasing number of abilities?

And one of the big complaints about 4e was that by giving every character exactly the same amount of similar abilities, they all start to feel the same. Have magic and non-magic feel different. Give each class different kinds of cool stuff to do.

Never forget, never forgive.

[Druegan]

Yeah, I'm sorry, but as a longtime D&D/AD&D player.. no. Just no.

Nothing WotC, ever. Hell, I'm still pissed about what Lorraine Williams did to Gary Gygax.. but the legendary TSR being sold to WotC.. the same asshats who almost completely *destroyed* the roleplaying community with that abomination Magic: The Gathering.. No, no, a thousand times no.

I still remember those dark days.. when my local gaming store went from having 2 *dozen* roleplaying games a week being played by joyous nerds with dice and miniatures in their back room... to having *2*.. which struggled for players and only the hardest of the die hards kept them alive..

I remember more and more shelf space being consumed by those damn cards, with less dice, less miniatures, less goodies, less rulebooks, and less actual *games*.. because they needed the space for *crates* of starter decks and booster packs...

I remember people losing their cars and apartments because they were spending all their money on those wretched cards... Because the payouts were so insane and they were addicted... I remember meeting a guy at GenCon in '94... who hitchiked there, with no money, no ticket.. but 6 Black Lotus cards.... and I remember him trading one for a ticket and a swank suite at a nice hotel right near the con.. while we sweated 6 to a room in some non-air-conditoned dorm that we'd scrimped and saved for.. I remember him leaving with nearly $1,500 in gaming stuff, $600 in his pocket, a first class plane ticket home, and he still had *3* of those blasted cards...

And then I remember seeing what WotC had done to my beloved D&D... the Legacy of TSR... and my heart was filled with black hate. I will never forget.. I will never forgive... and I sure as *hell* will never buy the "5th Edition".

Yes, I may have issues. No, I don't particularly care.

Re:MMO Crap

[DuckDodgers]

Sorry for the late reply, I was on vacation for a week and avoided the net.

I think you're require in-game justifications for special character moments, either without thinking about it or on purpose. The wizard can only use teleport once a day because he lacks the mental focus to handle it twice, or expends too much stored mana the first time, or has his Vancian spell erased from memory after casting it. Obviously no similar resource of concentration, memorization, or mana affects the fighter. But in dramatic storytelling it's common for a fighter to do mundane actions for most of a fight and then one or two standout moments. For example:
The hero takes quite a pounding from the villian but a second wind or the sight of a loved one in danger or a lucky event (the enemy slips, the good guy finds a sword in the rubble, the bad guy stops to gloat) allows him to attack with renewed vigor. There are dozens of examples, consider the fight between Bruce Willis and Alexander Gudenov in Die Hard.
The gunfight goes back and forth for a while but when only two people are left the hero and villain have a standoff and then the hero plants a bullet in the other person's eye or heart before they can get off a final shot. Again, there are dozens of examples - Danny Glover's character in Lethal Weapon isn't that impressive in combat next to his partner but when the enemy leader tries to drive away he pulls off an awesome signature shot that kills the limo driver.
The hand to hand combat goes back and forth for a bit with no clear winner but then the hero pulls off a great hit. For a perfect example, Michael Keaton engages a swordsman in Batman. They exchange blows a few times and Keaton manages to block all sword swings. The adversary backs off for a second to collect himself and comes charging back in, and gets taken out with one kick.

In Dungeons and Dragons 1, 2, 3, and 3.5, those pivotal moments all simply represent an enemy character running out of hit points. Everything else around it is descriptive text. But this is a collaborative storytelling game, and it should be fun. There may be no in-game justification for that renewed energy, that special deadly shot, or that finishing kick, and there may be no in-game reason the character can only use it a limited number of times. But if it makes the game more fun for the person playing the character, why not add it? You can only control enough mana for a single meteor strike, I only have enough adrenaline for one jumping decapitation strike.

To answer your second point - the Fighter has been improved, relative to the 1/2/3/3.5 version. But a high level Fighter is still not in the same league as a high level caster, not by a long shot. It's only a partial fix.

I realize the 4e mechanics for special abilities are mostly uniform across class, role, and power source. That's a fair criticism, it robs flavor. But the alternative is custom options for each class that are still attempted to be more or less equal with each other in terms of in-game utility. That's incredibly difficult to do well. I think uniform mechanics are inevitable.

Re:MMO Crap

[mcvos]

This is the difference between the diegenetic and non-diegetic view of character abilities. You want the character's abilities to be determined by the preferred story structure, even if those abilities don't make sense on their own. I prefer the character's abilities to be something real to the character. Something he knows he can do. The wizard knows which spells he can cast, and presumably knows he can only cast each spell once. But for a fighter to know he can't swing his sword like that again for the rest of the day once he's done it, or he can't make that perfect shot again for no clear in-character reason, well, that'd be weird. So unlike the wizard, the fighter character loses knowledge of what he can do. He becomes a puppet of the limitations that the story demands of his abilities.

Mind you, I'm not at all against some form of meta-currency to give you that extra oomph just when you need it. Fate points, plot points, karma, bennies, etc, I do like having that something extra to save for that special moment, and those exist outside the knowledge of the characters (except in Earthdawn obviously, where characters explicitly manage their karma). But that is an extra meta-currency on top of what the character himself is capable of, and what he knows himself to be capable of. But in D&D4, these meta-concerns infringe on the character's own physical abilities. And these abilities even have a special magic-sounding name, making it really more like a spell than a mundane ability. It damages the distinction between what the character can do and what the player wants from the story.

And those special moments in the movies, they could just as well have been a simple critical hit. Doesn't it hurt the suspense of the encounter when you know: I can still use my once-a-day encounter busting ability? One of the cool things about RPGs is their unpredictability. You can have the randomness of the dice create the drama of the story. When I played Earthdawn, the exploding dice meant that sometimes, due to luck, a simple d10 could roll over 20 or even 30. That move, whatever it was, was instantly epic, even if the player didn't plan it.

I grant you that class balance in 3.5 is seriously broken, and I totally believe you that 5 didn't fix it either. And yes, 4 is a lot more balanced, but balance at the cost of flavour isn't very good balance in my opinion. In the end, the core of class balance is this: in every situation, every PC has to be able to contribute something useful, and everybody has to get the chance to truly excel every once in a while. Not everybody has to excel in combat, unless your game is only about combat. Having one PC dominate combat is fine, as long as the others aren't useless, and the others get plenty of other opportunity to shine. Balance is only really broken when, as in 3.5, some classes will eventually be able to do everything better than everybody else, making everybody else obsolete. But forcing everybody to have very similar once-a-day powers is totally unnecessary.

Re:MMO Crap

[DuckDodgers]

That was an articulate post, thanks for taking the time to write it. I understand your mental disconnect with diegenetic and non-diegenetic (interesting word choice, by the way). But I think it's a valid thing to do in the course of making the game fun. I think if you want more realism, if you'll pardon the abuse of the word realism, in the game it makes more sense to switch to a more skill-based set of rules anyway - GURPS, Hero, White Wolf, JAGS, etc... Because levels are a similar kind of arbitrary framework that don't make sense inside the game but make things easier at a meta-game level.

The particular problem with using critical hits in Dungeons and Dragons instead of some sort of meta-currency is that the critical hit system that has existed in every edition before 5 isn't that potent. I haven't read about the critical hit rules for version 5, maybe it's improved. Critical hits in earlier editions are not useless by any stretch, but even if your DnD3 fighter uses a lance and has Weapon Specialization, and is against an opponent that is not immune to critical hits, he's got at best a 15% chance to do triple damage. (Maybe 10% or 20%, I don't remember.) It's better than nothing, but in a climactic battle scene it can't hold a candle to the effects of a cleverly targeted Charm Monster spell or Fireball or Improved Invisibility. Not even counting Dungeons and Dragons 3/3.5, even in earlier editions with spellcasters that were weaker than their 3e counterparts, at high levels they still handily outdid Fighters for combat utility.

So if you wanted to replace meta-currency with critical hits or something else equivalent, critical hits need to be improved. Or possibly a Fighter's base attacks and damage need to be improved, so he doesn't need better critical hits to be awesome.

I grant that in theory in Dungeons and Dragons and in practice in many other roleplaying games, all characters do not need to shine in combat. As long as every character has a fairly common chance to shine at something, the game should be fun. However, Dungeons and Dragons has had a very strong combat focus since the earliest editions. So even if we remove the magic-sounding encounter and daily powers from 4e from the newer editions, it's likely that 50+% of gaming sessions is a battle. The person playing the cleric that only heals well and especially the one playing the thief that only steals well are going to spend a lot of time twiddling their thumbs waiting for lucky dice rolls in order to feel useful, while the fighter and barbarian (and especially the wizard) are going to be highly effective.

And of course, it's worth mentioning that Earthdawn turns this problem on its ear by making every PC class explicitly magical. So the Fighter can have magic-sounding cool powers because he's actually using magic. I loved the game concept, though Earthdawn seemed a little too complicated to me. I never actually played, though, maybe it works better in practice than it appeared on paper. I keep hoping Earthdawn will get ported to another gaming ruleset, but no such luck.

Re:MMO Crap

[mcvos]

I think if you want more realism, if you'll pardon the abuse of the word realism, in the game it makes more sense to switch to a more skill-based set of rules anyway - GURPS, Hero, White Wolf, JAGS, etc... Because levels are a similar kind of arbitrary framework that don't make sense inside the game but make things easier at a meta-game level.

I do in fact like skill-based systems, and back when D&D3 was new, I loved that it looked so skill-based (but it wasn't, really). But skills also have their limitations. Sometimes it's fun to play with the more class-based specialized roles. Skill-based systems sometimes lead to characters that are very similar, whereas class-based systems force specialization.

But realism isn't really the same consideration as diegetic/non-diegetic. In general traditional skill-based systems tend to be diegetic, but actually almost all traditional systems are diegetic, including most editions of D&D. The abilities on your sheet, the decisions you make as a player, are all directly related to the abilities of the character and the decisions the character makes. 3/3.5 started the move towards more abstract abilities, and 4e and Pathfinder definitely continued in that direction. Pathfinder definitely has some abilities that are too abstract, to unrelated to something real that the character might do in the world he lives in. And that makes it less diegetic. 4e goes in my opinion too far overboard in that direction; a cleric needs to hit an enemy to heal an ally. The fighter can do a fantastic attack for tons of damage and a cool side effect, but only once a day, whether it's the only fight that day or they're going to have 10 more fights that day. What's keeping him from doing it again? It makes too little sense from an in-character perspective, and the abilities and limitations feel very artificial to me.

But skill-based systems can also have non-diegetic elements. In FATE, for example, you can choose to have an aspect used against you, because it gains you a fate point, which you can later use for something good. It's a simple way to reward players for having characters with weaknesses and roleplaying them, but the decision to succumb to the flaw because it gets you a fate point is not the character's decision. But this mechanism is more separated from the character's actual abilities. It's the same meta currency for everybody regardless of what's on your sheet, and you'll never suddenly stop being able to do something.

The particular problem with using critical hits in Dungeons and Dragons instead of some sort of meta-currency is that the critical hit system that has existed in every edition before 5 isn't that potent. I haven't read about the critical hit rules for version 5, maybe it's improved. Critical hits in earlier editions are not useless by any stretch, but even if your DnD3 fighter uses a lance and has Weapon Specialization, and is against an opponent that is not immune to critical hits, he's got at best a 15% chance to do triple damage. (Maybe 10% or 20%, I don't remember.) It's better than nothing, but in a climactic battle scene it can't hold a candle to the effects of a cleverly targeted Charm Monster spell or Fireball or Improved Invisibility.

10% is pretty good, actually. That gives you a pretty decent chance of a critical hit every big fight. Of course if crits aren't powerful enough for your taste, that's simply a matter of tweaking the system. It's not an inherent problem with crits by themselves.

Not even counting Dungeons and Dragons 3/3.5, even in earlier editions with spellcasters that were weaker than their 3e counterparts, at high levels they still handily outdid Fighters for combat utility.

That is unfortunately an inherent problem to the quadratic way in which spellcasters rise in power. They get more spells, and every spell they have becomes more powerful. That last aspect has been reduced a bit in 5e; now Magic Missile only pro

Re:MMO Crap

[DuckDodgers]

Wow, you've probably read as many RPGs as I have. I'm familiar with FATE too.

10% chance of critical hits, and the associated damage bonus are a very big deal at lower levels. They're just not significant next to spellcaster power at higher levels.

I like games in which experience for overcoming obstacles is awarded the same regardless of whether combat is involved. Bribe the Duke to stop attacking with his army? Trick the Dragon into taking on a Lich and getting itself killed? Talk the Orc Chief into a peace treaty instead of war? Outrun the pirates that are trying to capture your ship? Pose as a messenger from the Hill Giants ordering a group of Ogres to move in the wrong direction?Same XP as killing them outright. But I just don't see it done that often in practice. Maybe I gamed with the wrong groups and read the wrong gaming fiction.

Again, I loved Earthdawn as a concept but want a simplification of the rules.

I think we'll have to agree to disagree with respect to Dungeons and Dragons. From what I've seen, most of the DnD fans fall on your side of the fence.