![]() May 21, 2014 - 7:48am | http://www.examiner.com/article/wizards-of-the-coast-announces-dungeons-dragons-covers-and-street-dates?goback=.gde_4439688_memb... Without endorsing nor going all grognard on it I can say that their plan to release a $20 starter product is probably a good idea. Especially when your buy in for the rules will be + $150! The other thing that they are doing right is having a storyline- the Tyrany of Dragons with what appears to be a mod titled The Rise of Tiamat. This will help, I'm sure. I suppose in forty years nothing much as changed, back then it took me a week worth of allowance and lawn mowing to buy one hard bound D&D book and it will likely take a weeks worth of work now to buy one, while still meeting other responsibilities. They should offer a trade in, like car dealerships, on the older hard bound edtions! I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
![]() May 21, 2014 - 9:10am | Any information on how it will play? I see rule books and modules and minis but will we need hordes of cards or other useless items? Why are the "tabletop adventures" $30 US? Seems like a huge increase in price. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
![]() May 21, 2014 - 12:41pm | Their layout designer seems to have completely foregone branding, which I think is going to have a detrimental impact on sales. No matter how good it might end up being, (though I seriously doubt they cut the modifier madness or made multi-classing more flexible,) it is ultimately not going to be the cash cow they hoped and they are going to perceive the whole line as a mistake. In fact, their touts all read as if written by an amateur. It's like they sacrificed their marketing budget to get this out. (FYI, marketing normally takes 80% of the budget for a large company in order to keep a dominant place in the market for most products of any kind.) A built-in customer base can only go so far, especially when the base is getting tired of the reboots. It's almost like they made a careful effort not to call attention to their books. The red logo and ribbon seem to be designed to get lost, and the images on the covers are static field images that do not draw your attention toward the center but instead draw your eye outward, away from center. (Put the original AD&D books up against these and you will realize that the originals draw your attention a whole lot more than these.) Sorry, from a trained advertiser's perspective, I'm finding it hard to believe they would do it this way unless they're looking to tank the company Bain-Capital-style. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
![]() May 21, 2014 - 4:59pm | They mentioned the game would be simpler. Wondering what that means? Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
![]() May 22, 2014 - 5:52pm | I'm actually going the *other* way and playing B/X. Already have those books! :) |
![]() May 26, 2014 - 11:27am | The new logo brings back the 2E «&» dragon signature. This edition was built using open play tests paquets for the last 2 years - similar to what Paizo did with Pathfinder. I've seen people play it at a FLGS. Its looks like a 2E with some stuff from 3E and 4E. Don't worry there are no power cards and other 4E madness. Getting the starter for $23US in July is good marketing. Plus the starter «as everything to play levels 1-5». The other 3 books will come out over a 3 month period from August to October. And I'm guessing the sleeved bookcase in november just int time for Christmas gifts. Some info on the changes : QUOTE: « 1 - This is still unknown. However, Wizards looks to be finally paying heed to electronic formats with DnDclassics.com being pushed. 2 - The final playtest packet follows the 3.5 tradition of classes. It has Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Mage (the new Wizard, between wizard and sorcerer), Monk, Paladin, Ranger and Rogue. It sounds like Sorcerer and Warlock will end up in the release version. 3 - There are no more per encounter abilities. Most abilities are recharged after a long rest, with a smaller amount recharged after a short rest (1 hour downtime.) So it is much closer to the way things were handled before 4th edition. 4 - This is a long one A modified Vancian system. You now have casts per day, similar to how a sorcerer worked in 3.5. You then memorize what spells are available for the day. You get 1+Caster Level in spells. So a level 10 mage gets to memorize 11 spells with their long rest. Of specific note, many spells are no longer level specific. Instead of magic missile improving as you level, it can be cast as any level of spell. It fires one dart per spell level, dealing 1d4+1 damage each. So you can cast magic missile as a level 9 spell to fire 9 darts or as a level 3 spell to fire 3 darts. Spells have a minimum level, for example fireball must be at least a 3rd level spell. One you selected your memorized spells they can be cast from any appropriate spell slot like a sorcerer. All casting classes follow these basic principals. Multiclassing caster classes is weird. All classes share the same spells per day pool which grows in caster level accordiing to class. So a 10 Cleric/10 Mage would have four 1st level spell slots and one 9th level spell slot. However, they would be unable to learn 9th level spells. The highest level spell they could learn in cleric or mage would be 5th level. So to use that 9th level spell slot they would have to cast a lower level spell as a 9th level spell such as Cure Wounds or Magic Missile. Caster classes are broken up into full CL (Druid, Cleric, Mage) classes and 1/2 CL classes (Paladin, Ranger, Bard.) So a Cleric/Mage is actually quite viable and can cast spells at 9th level power. However, they lack access to true 9th level spells. In summary all casters are halfway between Wizard and Sorc now. 5 - This one is kind of longer too Combat is pretty similar to 3.5 in flow and style with simplified rules. The game should run perfectly fine on hexes. Of major note, BAB, Skills points, and Save bonuses no longer exist. Everything has been boiled down to a single proficiency bonus. You get the bonus on any weapon, spell, save, or skill you are proficient in. Saves are now broken down by stat. So there is a strength save, con save, wisdom save, ect. For any non-standard action you can just make a skill check. Most players agree the simplified rules afford more liberty in what you can do. The power gap between 1 and 20 is smaller. Instead of BAB progressing from 0-20, your proficiency bonus only progresses from 0-6. AC climbs less too. So there is less of an artificial treadmill where your BAB goes up, but then everything's AC goes up. Instead they focus on higher level stuff has more HP and can survive longer. However, 20 goblins can kill you if you just let them take pot shots at you. Lower level monsters are still a threat in numbers even to high level players. Another big thing is the reduction of +1/+2 bonuses. You are far less likely to have a large amount of bonuses to track. It is mostly proficiency+stat+one bonus from buffs. They use advantage and disadvantage to replace a lot of bonuses. Advantage is roll two dice and take the highest, disadvantage is roll two dice and take the lowest. They are harder to get, but more powerful. It should run just fine on hexes or a grid. Overall There is a very clear intention to get back 3.5 and earlier players, even if it costs them 4th edition players. I would describe it as having the feel and theme of 3.5 and earlier, but with a simplified, easier to work ruleset. From a mechanical standpoint the rules are actually pretty elegant and the game seems a lot less broken than previous editions. Classes are far closer in power without being homogeneous like 4th edition. The caster/fighter gap is closer than ever. I believe if you order any 5th edition materials from dndclassics it comes with a copy of the final playtest.» «Language is a virus from outer space» William S. Burroughs |
![]() May 26, 2014 - 10:34am | That actually looks like a game I would play and modifier madness eliminated. Though you didn't cover multi-classing, except regarding caster spells. How did they resolve the multi-classing issue? That is a whole lot of sacred cows being slaughtered. I don't see it buying back all the elitists who claim that modifier madness is fun and that anything less is "dumbed down". In fact, such ones would call all of what you described "dumbed down". Elitists of this sort made up a good 2/3 of 3.5 players in my experience. Any time I had an idea that reduced modifiers, almost every player on the boards, no matter what site I posted on, would jump down my throat for even suggesting such heresy, and would argue for days about how each modifier was absolutely necessary to the game. I might have 1 supporter among 20 opposers all talking about the necessity of the modifier and completely ignoring the merits of the proposed mechanic. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
![]() May 26, 2014 - 3:58pm | This is not my text. Only something I found on the web. I'm on board with you about the reduction of modifiers. I hate «bonus hunting» through the rules. That's why these days I play Numenera by Monte Cook. Its an excellent distilation of the d20 system. I had no intention of buying D&D 5E but after reading this and watching a game I may invest in it. «Language is a virus from outer space» William S. Burroughs |
![]() May 27, 2014 - 1:02pm | And it get better : Basic D&D is a PDF that covers the core of the game. It’s the equivalent of the old D&D Rules Cyclopedia, though it doesn’t have quite the same scope (for example, it won’t go into detail on a setting). It runs from levels 1 to 20 and covers the cleric, fighter, rogue, and wizard, presenting what we view as the essential subclass for each. It also provides the dwarf, elf, halfling, and human as race options. But the best part? Basic D&D is a free PDF. Anyone can download it from our website. We want to put D&D in as many hands as possible, and a free, digital file is the best way to do that. «Language is a virus from outer space» William S. Burroughs |
![]() May 28, 2014 - 9:41am | Sweet. I'll check it out when it comes out. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
![]() June 1, 2014 - 11:19am | More details on the FREE Basic D&D : http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/dndqa/20140530 «Language is a virus from outer space» William S. Burroughs |
![]() June 1, 2014 - 4:34pm | I could not locate the link for the free download of "basic D&D" am i missing something? or should I just go into storage and take out my old Basic D&D rule book from 30+ years ago and ignore whats happening with WotC? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
![]() June 2, 2014 - 4:08am | FREE Basic is not available yet. Not sure exactly when its going to be. The physical starter set will be available in July. I'm guessing its should be out at the same time or very soon after. WoTC has no choice because Pathfinder SRD is free... Sure you can dig up your old books if you want to deal with negative ACs, limits to class levels per race, THAC0, Save vs Death, XP drain by undead... «Language is a virus from outer space» William S. Burroughs |
![]() June 9, 2014 - 4:11am | More info in this video with Mike Mearls. If you don't have time to watch just read the summary under the video frame. http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php«Language is a virus from outer space» William S. Burroughs |
![]() June 8, 2014 - 6:54am | Well multiclassing is still feat-based, so that sucks. I guess I would have to come up with something. I realize the difficulty is in all the class bonuses that tally up, but with their knew "choose one" rules, I don't see how that could be a problem. If it's a matter of having too many bonuses to choose from, then perhaps a standard -1 multi-class adjustment would apply to the bonus. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
![]() June 9, 2014 - 9:10am | I just read Rodney's Bounded Accuracy article at WOTC. This is a new direction of game development that is long overdue for D&D. It is the only way to overcome most of the power disparities that everyone would complain about from edition to edition. But their development in that direction is still fledgling, so we will likely see more development in that area in the future as they develop new tricks for the method. It will be interesting to see how that progresses. However, bounded accuracy is not something just any company can pursue. It takes a lot of developers and play-testers to bear out something that requires comparing numbers and results so thoroughly. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
![]() June 9, 2014 - 8:58pm | Bonded Accuracy sounds like a breathe of fresh air for the game system DCs scaling with level irritated me. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
![]() June 10, 2014 - 2:01pm | It only took 14 years, but it looks like they're finally getting it right. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
![]() June 11, 2014 - 6:46pm | Change of marketing philosophy at WoTC : MM : The Starter Set has a fairly straightforward goal. It needs to serve as a gateway through which new DMs enter the hobby, building on the player material that will live online with Basic D&D. As a secondary goal, the Starter Set must also provide long-term value. In the past, intro sets for RPGs have often been focused on a stripped-down adventure scenario and a limited version of the rules that becomes irrelevant once players move on to the full version of the game. We wanted this new set to be something you could keep on your shelf and use again in the future. We decided early on that any materials likely to be used only once had to be eliminated from the set or kept to a minimum.... full article : http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20140609 «Language is a virus from outer space» William S. Burroughs |
![]() June 25, 2014 - 10:55am | Character sheets have a retro feel. A good thing they dropped the accounting look... http://ow.ly/i/60gQQ/original«Language is a virus from outer space» William S. Burroughs |
![]() July 1, 2014 - 1:44am | Man. They got rid of an umpteenbigillion modifiers. I hope the full version keeps the modifiers down as well. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
![]() July 5, 2014 - 11:34am | Yes its a stated goal to remove all the stupid circomstancial modifiers and replace them with the advantage/disavantage rule. The link to the Free Basic set of rules. https://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/basicrules «Language is a virus from outer space» William S. Burroughs |
![]() July 8, 2014 - 7:32pm | Ah sweet. I forgot it was getting released soon. I'll eat this up...tomorrow. Looking forward to it. That Tiamat image is awesome. Did you notice the heads include all the various styles of dragons from the various great painters? View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
![]() July 9, 2014 - 6:59am | Hang on before you rush out and buy (support your local gaming stores) The Starter Set is really just for starters. It will take you to 5th level and has monsters and dice and some other stuff. But if you have the other stuff you might want to get the campaign modules involving the Red Wizards which come with the rules to play D&D Next and will take you to level 20. But you don't get the monsters only the ones in the modules. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
![]() July 11, 2014 - 3:58pm | Their treatment of multiclassing doesn't cover a couple of essential points regarding which proficiencies and class features can be used. There's no point including multiclassing rules in the basic if you have to refer to the advanced rules to use them. I suppose it is just a preview, but really, they could have resolved it with a simple description of what can be found in the Player's Handbook rather than giving half-baked rules. That said, it should simply be ignored. Though if I judge by the D&D Next playtest PDF, it appears that it is just some common sense issues and a table for spells per day. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
![]() July 19, 2014 - 4:18am | Finished reading the rule book of the Starter Set : I'm impressed with the overall production quality. The only thing I don't like is the flimsy covers. Font sizes, title and subtitles are well proportioned in relation to each other. The box depth is deep enough to allow storage of a few extra modules (a printed copy of Basic?) and campaign notes. Perfect for beginners. Rule wise it really does feel like a fusion of 2E and 3E. Which is great imho. Love the return to Ability checks. Could never quite adjust to the 3E changes. My players always had to remind me that it didn't work that way anymore. I'm very happy that Cantrips are now at-will and that some of them are offensive spells. It will make the lower levels less difficult for Magic-users. Love that Shield is a reactive spell ! It makes so much sense. Combat : Wasn't sold on the return to «Single action + Move». But since its possible to «break up» the move its fluid enough to seduce me. Bonus actions and reactions sell it for me. The 10 minute rest period to recoup (heal some HPs) makes more sense than 4E healing surges. Its a good compromise between realism and speeding up play. Overall it felt like a complete game in a box. «Language is a virus from outer space» William S. Burroughs |
![]() July 20, 2014 - 7:09am | What I would be very interested in is how long to run a combat? My go to gripe with 3e is that one combat takes the whole frigging session to run. My old group had one player that had to go with his wife to dance class and he generally showed up 30-45 minutes late and when he was the DM it was a pain. So I started running Crash on volturnus in that 30 minute block and was blown away the day we had two combats in 30 minutes and then moved on to the "main event" (I say that with tongue in cheek) and had a 3.5 combat that took 4 hours- what a drag. I saw the starter set at the local game store but I was not tempted to drop cash. I'd be very interested to here from people that have run the game. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
![]() July 20, 2014 - 6:02pm | What I would be very interested in is how long to run a combat? I remember when I looked over my notes from my first year of DMing a 3.5 game, and realizing I was finishing 2 fights per session. Years later, my wife and son were playing a high-level 4e game, and they were eventually at 2-3 sessions per encounter. I then found an old notebook from when I was a player in Temple of Elemental Evil, back in 2e days, and we were going through 4-6 fights per session, and the scales fell from my eyes. So, yeah, how 5e time for combat is something to look into. I'm hearing lots of positive buzz, but I don't feel the energy to pick up the ten-foot pole with which to touch it. |
![]() July 20, 2014 - 10:29pm | I started googling for reviews and what I'm reading is in two flavors: Flavor 1: seems to be people that have not been part of the play test but have simply put out a blog telling you that WotC is doing with D&D Next/5.0 They dont appear to have really sunk their teeth into the new rule set and their posts/blogs are largely fluff. Flavor 2: is clearly people that have been part of the play test and feed back process and have actually sunk their teeth into the rule system. They have stuff that they like and stuff that they dont like about the new rules and about half make a comment that they might just settle for using some other edition that they already own. These reviews are generally underwhelming and they leave me much like Putraak- unsure that I want to break out the 10' pole to touch them. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
![]() July 22, 2014 - 2:50am | Overall, the game seems to by trying for an old-school play-style. They seem to be tying for a rule-set that is simple, easy to jump into, and open-ended enough to houseruled. This a huge improvement compared to 3.5, and unlike 4e, CharGen and leveling do not feel like a straightjacket. The leveling is geared towards slow, but uniformed progression, with everything tied to a Proficiency Bonus — this bonus effects attack rolls, save, skills and ability rolls and the like. With monsters and encounters, the overriding goal is to have the monsters stay viable for longer, as they gain levels. That is, at 1st level, the PCs would fight Orcs, Skeletons and like, but as the PCs gain levels, they would fight more of them at once, without having to level-up all the monsters they encounter. They can play a game of Keep on the Borderlands that would still feel the same as they gain levels, but with a few more Orcs or whatever in a given pack, and a spoon-feeding of tougher monsters. Characters seem to follow a level tier that is more suggestion, than the heavy-handed approach of 4e. I have no idea how treasure is handled, but their treatment of magic items is definitely old-school. All the weird notions of magic items from 4e (buying/converting them, getting them in "parcels", automatically knowing what they are and so on) have been thrown out the airlock! As it is, magic items are not things you buy and sell at a "Magick Shoppe", but they are things you find and earned. The only exception to this is the Potion of Healing, which is now a common item worth 50gp. (What, is there a surplus on Chu-Chu jelly?) The odd thing about making the Potion of Healing a common item, is that magic healing is not as critical do to the way Resting works. That is, characters have a pool of Hit Dice equal to their level, that they can use to recover lost Hit Points with Short Rests -- an hour of eating, napping, and bandaging yourself up (basically a more sensible approach to 4e Healing Surges). Spent Hit Dice cannot be recovered with spells or potions, and can only be recovered with Long Rest -- eight hours for meals and sleep to heal you up fully, and recovers half your spent Hit Dice pool. This Short/Long Rest system is great to keep the action going, as oppose to all the downtime PCs had to deal with in older editions. They add an element of role-playing to the game with the use of character traits, but like Alignment, you can ignore them without int effecting the rules. In truth, you don't need fancy rules for role-playing, but this is more of a means to have characters with actual goals motivations and a little backstory. The removal of Alignment-based effects is a great thing! I never liked the notion that someone could cast Protection form Good/Evil/Law/Chaos or Smite Good/Evil/Law/Chaos. I mean, would the act of casting a Smite Evil spell in a crowd of people to see who would die not be an evil act into itself? And something like Smite Law/Chaos sound to much like "Smite Rule-Layer/Deadbeat-Types." When it comes to something like ye ol' Protection form Evil spell, I like the effects to be based on intent, then on what is written on a PC sheet. The rules treat this in some way with Radiant (holy) and Necrotic (unholy) Damage. These are more cosmic-based effect, and is not tied to Alignment. Without actually playing the game, I have no idea if it is truly good or not... I mean, compared to a number of ORS games out there. This system is differently superior to 3.5, Pathfinder and 4e. Art wise, it is bland to me. They had to good sense to avoid the loud, obnoxious style of Wayne Reynolds — I hate is works with an utmost passion. In their attempt to avoid his style, they are going for works that look more subdued, and at the same time, vary boring and vanilla. The pictures look like stuff I seen in every other D&D-inspired fantasy. If you are going to make a fantasy world, at least make it feel a little exotic and otherworldly. Change up the trappings a bit with a mix of styles and cultures. Make the dangers feel a little dire or over the character's heads. Make the horror elements feel moody and sinister (not just ugly and scary). Throw in some scenes where the characters are caught up in something unusual, with only the faintest clues to note what lead up to that scene. It means nothing, but it makes for some thought provoking visuals, and the feeling that anything could happen. "Realism" is fine and all, but in the end, D&D is a work of escapist fantasy, and it should feel like a world one would what to retreat into. Well, those are my thoughts... So far. |