D&D Next

[Callie Del Noire]

Anyone seen the playtest packets yet? I'm curious to hear what others have had to say about what they have seen in it.

To date I've seen a few characters and it's got a 'modular' feel to it but not the 'at action'/'once a combat'/once a day actions of 4e.

[Inkidu]

I'm interested, but I'm also very set in my ways with 3.5, what can I say. I fear change.

Plus, 3.5 books are available in PDF form. :\

[Callie Del Noire]

I'm interested, but I'm also very set in my ways with 3.5, what can I say. I fear change.

Plus, 3.5 books are available in PDF form. :\

Legally?

[Silverfyre]

DriveThruRPG.com for all your "legal" 3.5 .pdf needs.

I have a friend who is part of the playtest and we looked over the material last week.  They are in a very early stage of development with it but it really looks like a bastardized version of 3.5 smashed together with 4th edition.  They use the same attributes, stripped out alignment ... as well as skills.  There are no skills, just the attributes and attacks and saves.  It is a very odd system at the moment and we are planning on playtesting it this upcoming weekend.  Otherwise, I am not impressed so far but it is only the earliest release of a new system.  I can't expect miracles, right?

[TheGlyphstone]

Rogues apparently have the ability to retroactively take 10 on skill checks if they roll less than 10 on the attempt, so there must be skills of some kind.

[Silverfyre]

They do have the modifiers but no actual skill rules from what I saw. Again, early, early version and all.  They mostly want to test the combat system at the moment.

[Chris Brady]

Legally?

There's also the D20SRD which according to their own OGL is legal.  It's at http://www.d20srd.org/

On topic, I have the playtest package, looking through it, after I load it on my iPad.  Can't read PDFs on a computer screen.  Specially widescreen.

[Cold Heritage]

Fighters get the ability to make two whole attacks per round once per day!

[Callie Del Noire]

Got the download going.. part of the modular feel I'm seeing could be summed up by this section of the character sheet.

Race: Lightfoot Halfling  Class: Rogue  Background: Commoner  Theme:Lurker

So you get the racial and class traits.. then extras such as skills from Background and Feats from Theme. In this case you get Animal Handling, Commerce, Folklore from the background and Ambusher feat from Theme.

[TheGlyphstone]

Fighters get the ability to make two whole attacks per round once per day!

At level 2, that's nothing to sneeze at.

[Cold Heritage]

At level 2, that's nothing to sneeze at.

I grew up on the AD&D2e Weapon Specialization attacks per round, so it's not doing a whole lot for me.

[TentacleFan]

It took a while to get it to download since the servers were overloaded on day 1 but I got mine downloaded. I've had a chance to read it pretty much all over. I can see elements of all the editions at play. I like the emphasis on exploration and trying different solutions to things that hearkens back to earlier pre-4th edition play. I played several 4th ed campaigns but they all felt kind of same-y after awhile. We start our playtest tomorrow night. I'll see about coming back and posting some thoughts once it sees actual play with my group.

[LunarSage]

From what I've been hearing, I think I'll stick with Pathfinder for now.

[Silverfyre]

From what I've been hearing, I think I'll stick with Pathfinder for now.

+1.

[Cold Heritage]

It took a while to get it to download since the servers were overloaded on day 1 but I got mine downloaded. I've had a chance to read it pretty much all over. I can see elements of all the editions at play. I like the emphasis on exploration and trying different solutions to things that hearkens back to earlier pre-4th edition play. I played several 4th ed campaigns but they all felt kind of same-y after awhile. We start our playtest tomorrow night. I'll see about coming back and posting some thoughts once it sees actual play with my group.

It's gonna be okay. 4e's dead and it's never coming back.

[TentacleFan]

It's gonna be okay. 4e's dead and it's never coming back.

I see what they were trying to do with 4th Ed. Make the game balanced at various levels for various classes. That lead to making the game monotonous and for lack of a better word same-y as I mentioned before. I made the switch fully, even sold off a lot of my 3.5 edition materials, but I'm looking forward to trying this out. If not I just switch back to the many non d&d rpgs I play.

As for D&D Next I'm very interested to see how it plays, but even more so to see more as it comes out. To see what the character creation looks like since right now we just have teases into the process. Also how progression when leveling looks over the course of however many levels this edition includes.

[Callie Del Noire]

From what I've been hearing, I think I'll stick with Pathfinder for now.

Same here but I am curious. I heard they took Monte Cook out of the mix again.

[TentacleFan]

Same here but I am curious. I heard they took Monte Cook out of the mix again.

I didn't find that hard to believe. I enjoy his work and ideas but he seems fairly contentious. I could see him leaving of his own choice or being taken off the project either way.  It would not surprise me if I found out that things like the Vancian spell memorization coming back were his ideas.

[Callie Del Noire]

I didn't find that hard to believe. I enjoy his work and ideas but he seems fairly contentious. I could see him leaving of his own choice or being taken off the project either way.  It would not surprise me if I found out that things like the Vancian spell memorization coming back were his ideas.

It's not entirely the same though. Magic Missile, Shocking grasp are both 'cantrips' now and the vibe is similar but not the same. You got a 'to hit' roll with a lot more spells now. (1d20 + <your magic stat>  and so on).

One of the things I'm ambivalent about is the 'Advantage' roll (and it's evil twin 'Disadvantage'). Say you're facing a big bad knight in heavy metal armor.. you cast Shocking Grasp on him (gaining an advantage) so instead of simply rolling once.. you roll twice and take the best roll. The disadvantage is the same, except you take the worse.

Looking over the Dwarven fighter, yeah..he gets to double his actions 2/day (ie.. 2 attacks instead of one) but Cold Heritage left out the  thing he gets from having the Reaver Theme.. he does damage even when he MISSES (Ability score damage.. ie.. whatever his Str bonus is)

[Jefepato]

I'm planning to take it for a spin with my group, but until I see something resembling a complete set of the rules and options I have trouble drawing any conclusions.  Playing with pregens isn't much of a test from where I'm sitting.

[TentacleFan]

It's not entirely the same though. Magic Missile, Shocking grasp are both 'cantrips' now and the vibe is similar but not the same. You got a 'to hit' roll with a lot more spells now. (1d20 + <your magic stat>  and so on).

One of the things I'm ambivalent about is the 'Advantage' roll (and it's evil twin 'Disadvantage'). Say you're facing a big bad knight in heavy metal armor.. you cast Shocking Grasp on him (gaining an advantage) so instead of simply rolling once.. you roll twice and take the best roll. The disadvantage is the same, except you take the worse.

Looking over the Dwarven fighter, yeah..he gets to double his actions 2/day (ie.. 2 attacks instead of one) but Cold Heritage left out the  thing he gets from having the Reaver Theme.. he does damage even when he MISSES (Ability score damage.. ie.. whatever his Str bonus is)

Yeah I noticed it's not exactly the same, sort of a franken-system for spellcasting. The Advantage/Disadvantage system is probably the thing that strikes me as the biggest difference rules wise. It's being used very liberally to replace the +2/-2 modifiers but it seems more swingy than the small modifiers were. Will see how they playtest tonight.

The reaving thing is pretty  much that power from the 4th ed fighter that did the same thing. Not sure how I feel about that.

I'm planning to take it for a spin with my group, but until I see something resembling a complete set of the rules and options I have trouble drawing any conclusions.  Playing with pregens isn't much of a test from where I'm sitting.

Same here. I am glad to get the chance to playtest it at all but the stated purpose of this playtest was to see how players roleplaying with more of a knack for exploration and trying different solutions instead of the 3rd ed and especially 4th ed linear fight-fight-skill challenge-fight modules. I don't know about everyone else but exploration and creative problem solving were pretty par for the course in my group pre 4th ed. I'm more interested in seeing how the character creation works myself. I do like that there is more emphasis on non combat related activity than 4th ed.

[ofDelusions]

I dislike how they seem to have bought back the special rules and attacks that depend on aligment. Makes houseruling the aligment system away harder.

[Callie Del Noire]

Yeah I noticed it's not exactly the same, sort of a franken-system for spellcasting. The Advantage/Disadvantage system is probably the thing that strikes me as the biggest difference rules wise. It's being used very liberally to replace the +2/-2 modifiers but it seems more swingy than the small modifiers were. Will see how they playtest tonight.

The reaving thing is pretty  much that power from the 4th ed fighter that did the same thing. Not sure how I feel about that.

I'm sort of split on it myself. On one side I think it helps the fighter types that fall behind in higher level fights.

[DarklingAlice]

I really like what I have seen so far and think that there are some nice elements drawn from all around. We are play-testing this Friday and I will have more complete thoughts on it then.

I've always been a fan of the system they use for advantage and disadvantage (we use it as a combat houserule in our OD&D games...dual wielding lets you roll twice and take the higher, attacking an opponent with shielding or cover causes you to roll twice and take the lower, etc.). It's especially nice because it means that advantage and disadvantage are really minor if you are at the extreme ends of skill level, but can turn the tide for those in the middle.

[Cold Heritage]

I didn't find that hard to believe. I enjoy his work and ideas but he seems fairly contentious. I could see him leaving of his own choice or being taken off the project either way.  It would not surprise me if I found out that things like the Vancian spell memorization coming back were his ideas.

Don't sell Mearls short on potential responsibility bringing back the Vance - he's said he likes to think of D&DN as "a good retroclone."

I don't know about everyone else but exploration and creative problem solving were pretty par for the course in my group pre 4th ed.

I played Fighters and in Forgotten Realms before 4e (or even 3.0) came out, so there was no call for the former and no tools for me for the latter.

On one side I think it helps the fighter types that fall behind in higher level fights.

From what I've seen the prevailing attitude is that that is the game working as intended, so there's no reason to change it since one of the fundamental design goals of D&DN is to get back to the game feeling like D&D after 4e.