I like it.

Needs some polish, but its not bad.

All the posts I have seen have been cautious optimism, maybe I just have not been paying close attention.

I think they are trying to appease 3.X grognards a bit too hard as third edition was the worst thing to ever have the name DnD stamped on it, but maybe they will fix that as it goes.

>Having men and women equal in a medieval fantasy setting isn't cool.
>But wizards bending spacetime over backwards is totally fine.

Personally, I like the HD healing mechanic. It seems a fair compromise between healing surges and traditional D&D healing models.

I like it. Definitely moving in the right direction.

>>19310377
>3e
>worst thing to happen to D&D
>not AEDU
lolno

I like that they are taking another look and trying to make an edition that more people will enjoy.

Couple of things I think they should change in the playtest:

- Remove the damage reduction from Intoxicated

- Magic missile is a spell just like all the rest and should be treated as such

- Cantrips should still have to be prepared, they could do it the same way Pathfinder does it, I love how they did it

- Healers Kits are just trying to keep the healing surge mechanic alive. Make them require heal checks to use or something.

>>19310453
Well I'll concede and say in my opinion then. I played DnD for years but 3E completely turned me and my friends off from the game. In retrospect not a bad thing since we tried out other systems that we still play to this day, but the AEDU systems is worlds better than the clusterfuck of retardation and almost comical focus on rollplay over roleplay in 3E.

In my opinion.

>>19310323
Having followed briefly the discussion on RPG.net, the hardcore 4e fanbase are in full meltdown mode.

>>19310581
meltdown as in panic, or meltdown as in uncontrollable rage?

>I think they are trying to appease 3.X grognards a bit too hard as third edition was the worst thing to ever have the name DnD stamped on it, but maybe they will fix that as it goes.
It seems fairly obvious that you either started playing D&D with 3rd (which is good for you, really) or are looking at older editions through nostalgia-tinted glasses. Older editions of D&D have all of 3rd's problem, except 3rd cleaned up the rules, made them more consistent, more formulaic, more understandable, and more unified. It also got rid of Gygax's power-trip influences; older editions of D&D seriously have a wormy creature that lives in doors and will burrow into your ear and kill you. Why? To kill people who would stop at listen at doors to see what's in the next room. Holy fuck. That is the sort of thing the designers of older D&D editions wanted to punish. It boggles the mind. You could play them and have fun by having a DM more mature than Gygax, but the rules and designers encouraged you be a power-tripping dick to your players.

You can think 4e is better than 3e (which is another topic), but pretending 3e is the worst thing ever is just retarded: remember, most of 3e is a straight rip of 2e with better, clearer mechanics! 3e was an improvement in almost everyway from its predecessors. Now, it did do one thing terribly wrong: hitpoint bloat. Hitpoints go up by level fast in 3e, but don't in editions before that. And damage goes up at about the same rate in each edition. Which means high-level 3e combats cannot be decided by straight-up damage (barring some optimum cheese builds). So they are decided by saving throws, contributing to the wizard's power over the fighter (but wizard was already uber, so that's literally nothing new to 3e). And clerics have always been THE class to play.

>>19310875
Continuing my post...
Now, I personally think 4e was a step in the wrong direction: they increased hitpoint bloat, and got rid of decisive saving throws (semi-good, semi-bad). So every combat is a grind through a pile of hitpoints that is your opponent, and fights manage to take longer than any edition beforehand (despite their advertising otherwise), and simultaneously be less engaging because any individual turn you take is just... not super interesting. You throw out damage + minor rider. But 4e also abandoned well-written, complete non-combat rules in favor of math. 3e's non-combat rules are bad. Very bad. But they are objectively the best attempt that's been made yet, because editions before 3e oh god terrible and 4e oh god terrible.

Basically: shit all over every edition of D&D. They're all super terrible, but they're also the best you're going to find and you can have fun with pretty much any of them in spite of their problems and how retarded their designers are.

5e, though, looks like it's combining the worst things about 3e and 4e to make the edition that just pisses everyone off. I'm not seeing anything in 5e that's successfully improved anything from 3e or anything from 4e.

>>19310598
Uncontrollable rage. They think the fighter is SUPER WEAK when people who have done the math have demonstrated otherwise.

Why virtual dissatisfaction?

*literally* everyone I've talked to or run the game for found it very good if not better than the systems they have played.

Having run the game, starting HP wasn't a problem when the party was being swarmed by 30 goblins. At Will Magic Missile wasn't a problem, but we'll see what happens when the wizard progresses beyond the 5 damage version.

My only dissatisfaction with the playtest was that they didn't include the other core classes, but that's just because of my huge boner for bards, but it's also a fucking playtest.

When is it coming out? I heard Gencon, but that seems way too soon.

I'm planning on running the 5e playtest next week.
Currently copying the map on a larger scale so it's not teeny tiny on my computer.

From what I've read so far, I'm optimistic.
It's like it's taking the 3e mechanics and simplifying the math.
I really like using Advantage/Disadvantage instead of a +/-2 for each and every situation. And the Cantrips, when I DM, I use the Spell points from Unearthed Arcana and Cantrips are free anyways.

What I don't like so far is the spell descriptions. I really need to be able to look at a spell and learn all the pertinent information quickly. I can't spend ten minutes trying to figure out what the spell says or does.
I'm sure I'll not like other things when we play next week.

I'd like to see some character creation rules, though it's not hard to extrapolate from the pregens, and I know my players won't like the pregens because they're more interested in the characters than the sheet.

Anyone have any tips for running the playtest? I mean, it's not going to be hard, but is there something I should watch out for?

>Is this going to be the edition that sinks WotC?

No, Wizards basically prints money with Magic: The Gathering.

It's hard to say what they'll do if/when this new edition flops. I say when because have a feeling that the sales expectations Hasbro has are unreasonable. If I'm not mistaken, 4e outsold Pathfinder every year until this year, when 4e basically went out of print.

The difference being Paizo is a small company that doesn't need high margins, and Hasbro is a huge company with shareholders who want more profits and no excuses, and D&D will probably never produce those numbers. If 3e had brought in the numbers Hasbro wanted, there wouldn't have been such a big change with 4e, and 3e didn't have competition from Paizo.

But it's also a valuable IP that I don't see them wanting to sell off. The board games do well, and the Forgotten Realms novels are also big sellers (for genre fiction). And the brand needs the core product to maintain the value of the IP.

>>19311183

The problem is the fighter is only strong against single targets, and 5e design is a return to the BECMI/AD&D 1e horde style of play. And only the Wizard has shown any ability to bring down groups of monsters. It doesn't matter how much damage a fighter can do if he's faced with 18 1-2 hp monsters.

On top of which, from what we've seen in the playtest, wizard's spell damage (at least magic missile) still scales with level while weapon damage does not.

>>19311620
>On top of which, from what we've seen in the playtest, wizard's spell damage (at least magic missile) still scales with level
Damn. There was an article a while back about how they were planning to make it more like 3e psionics, so that stronger effects require higher spell slots; I hope they haven't given up on that already.

>>19311794

There was no scaling for prepared spells in the playtest, or even other cantrips. Magic Missile is the sole exception. Perhaps it was an oversight and you're not meant to evoke more missiles based on level. Or maybe Shocking Grasp and Radiant Lance don't scale until after third level.

Hard to tell, but it doesn't exactly bode well for the idea that casters and non-casters will scale well together,

>>19311620
So far from playing, Wizard spell damages does not increase as 3e, but rather can be prepared in a higher slot for an increased effect. Spells do not do more damage as the caster levels up unless he prepares it as a higher level spell. In addition, Wizards do not receive bonus spell slots for having a higher magic. Seeing has how ability scores are not as important anymore once character generation is over. (At least for my groups playtestings)

Additionally, the pre-public playtest alluded to the return of AD&D style magic weapons. Soon we'll have fighters casting burning hands at-will again with magic swords, which will work since 1 hit-die creatures are a frequent encounter even at high level games since AC is limited to the maximum potential of 23 with +5 fullplate, which should not be a common occurrence no matter how high level you are. They're also going the 4e direction in giving characters proficiency bonuses to attack rolls based on the kind of weapon as well, to offset potentially low ability scores. IE, a charcter proficient with an axe gets +2, a sword +3. In additon, simple potions can be brewed at high level to give anyone 18 str, which means even if you have only a STR 9 fighter, by the time you're high level you can still easly compete with the 18 str fighter. But even between then and there you're only missing out on a few damage.

Something they didn't include in the public play test was certain kinds of weapons had secondary effects in the hands of a fighter, such as a quarterstaff doing extra damage by being able to attack a target twice and allow you to trip enemies which made them interesting choices for a weaker fighter as opposed to the greataxe in the hands of the strong fighter.

>>19311871

Do cantrips scale with level, or just Magic Missile? And do martial classes have a mechanic to scale their base damage?

>>19311850
Fighters will be getting Weapon training, fighting styles, weapon specialization and a many of abilities related to fighting with weapons. They get better with weapons later on, but probably crowd control will not be their strong suit.

>>19311925
>Do cantrips scale with level, or just Magic Missile?

Magic Missile so far is the only one. Given that it's only 1d4+1 missile every two levels to a maximum of five, at 10th (Playtest only went to 10, we made it to 3rd after several weeks of play) I wouldn't be too worried. One it's not THAT much. I played a wizard, but the only at-will I had was a Firebolt that did 1d6 fire damage. Magic Missile was still a 1st level spell in the previous play test.

And do martial classes have a mechanic to scale their base damage?

I did not play one myself, but I know for certain they got bonuses to attack rolls and damage as they leveled up.

>>19312036

That just makes it sound like the'yre still just throwing shit at the world to see what sticks.

I mean, I get it, early on, playtest, not finished... But at least put some thought into it before you show the general public the first glimpse of your game. I know, madness, right?

The playtest doesn't feel like a playtest, it feels like a... Tech demo.

>>19312083
It is, and it isn't.

On one hand, they're trying to get as much input as possible like paizo did with Pathfinder to determine what needs to be changed and what they should add.

On the other, it is really a marketing campaign and they've already got it set in stone on how they want to game to work.

Personally, I like it. Glossing over the rats, it's what I would want in a game.

The part I liked most, having played nothing but 4e (and technically Exalted but bleh), is how the DM gets to decide which of your core stats you roll against.

And then you go "oh but I get +3 to this type of thing, so I should be able to add it right?" and if it sounds legit you can.

People have been going "hurr durr a good system should be able to be fun even with a shitty dm", but that sounds like a stupid metric to me.

>>19310492

>Magic missile is a spell just like all the rest and should be treated as such

How about if they give wizards options for an at-will from the 1st level spell list? More flavorful than 'everyone can pew pew', frankly.

On the other hand, so abusable.

>>19312165
That is how it worked in AD&D. In order to succeed in a check you rolled a d20 under your stat which was modified based on how difficult the challenge was.

5e is very much AD&D with 3.5's ability score modifiers and 4e's philosophy that everyone has something they can do at any time.

The difference is that all numbers go up and there are not a million different things associated with an ability score.

Also a good game always requires a good referee. A game, no matter the system, with a bad referee is little more than a board game.

>>19312185
In one of the blog posts, they mention that depending on the DM's rules they can do something similar to that. Or if they don't like at-will style abilities then there's still the fact that items that grant simmilar abilities will be somewhat uncommon magical abilities. Bracersof Endless Daggers, Staffs of Cure and similar items.

_██_
(ಠ_ಠ) Like a sir.

>>19312242
Get out

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>>19312242
Heretic, I will burn you with my powerfull mind bullets, now leave.

I do not see the big fat deal about wizard at wills. Isn't it just a replacement for being reduced to the likes of a crossbow? It's a basic skill as a filler for when you can't blow REAL spells. It's just more flavorful than a shitty bow.

Magic Missile was a shitty spell anyway. You never memorize it unless you literally have no other use for first level spells anymore. Why not make it an at will?

>>19312135
Pathfinder barbs are much more fun in my opinion. I hope DnD 5E tries some new stuff with Barbs

It'd be cool to have some combat maneuvre stuff for fighters, I expect that's coming soon though.

Fighter dailies were always a weird idea though.

>>19311270
I ran it and we all agreed that it wasn't that good and wasn't all that much fun either.

>>19312353

Dailies for martial classes were a weird idea in general.

Like Barbarian Rage. I mean, what the fuck is with that? I guess it's supposed to evoke Cuchulainn's warp spasm or whatnot, because I can't for the life of me imagine any other non-animu context where a 'daily superpower' thing made sense.

>>19312420
Ever played ddo? I like how they do stuff like that. Not everything they do is good but I think it could be applied effectively

>>19312420

Oh wait. I gave it five second's thought and remembered 'daily superpower' was Gawain's whole shtick - he got stronger until noon, when he was practically unbeatable, and weaker as the day waned. Hell the whole Le Morte d' Arthur was full of that kind of shit.

Carry on.

>>19312353

Martial daily/encounter powers make perfect sense if you're willing to use even the slightest bit of imagination. And I want you to know that whatim about to say is not an attack on you personally.

I see this complaint a lot, from people who say "Why can the fighter only use this attack once a day, it makes no sense!" And then they complain about how 4e spells everything out and doesn't encourage you to use your imagination.

There's a lot of reasons why a fighter or rogue can only pull off a maneuver once a day. The simplest is hat the fitter is constantly trying to use their strongest attacks, but have to find the right opening in the opponent's defenses. The stronger the attack, the harder it is to pull off, so you end up doing less damage most of the time.

Of course, the whole system is effed, if you think about it. Hit points? You know how many times you need to hit someone with an axe or warhammer to remove them from a fight, if not kill them outright? 1. Hit points are a mix of luck, defense, stamina and wounds, so most of the time when you "hit" with an attack, you don't actually hit, you just force your opponent to stumble back or wear them down so you can eventually get that one blow that brings them down in.

>>19312460
Yeah, that's clearly a representation of a 3[W] + Strength daily power: your own strength rising and falling depending on the time of day. Nothing screams "daily mechanic" like having a mechanic that is always on.

>>19312475
>if you're willing to use even the slightest bit of imagination
Translation: If you're willing to rationalize and handwave fighter dailies, they make total sense.

>>19312500

No, Gawain's a superpower that was definitely on at a given time in the day. Daily superpower. Not the dumb shit they did in 4E where a fighter can only put someone in a super headlock once a day.

>>19312500

So we can handwave casters forgetting spells once they've cast them, which is idiotic and was the plot device in a shirt story that needed the Wizard to be unable to cast spells for its resolution and otherwise makes no rational sense...

We can handwave that with "BECAUSE MAGIC DERP!" but trying to explain how the same mechanic applies to non-magical classes, where it functions as an empowerment of the player to shape the narrative in a limited fashion is just mental, right?

>>19312475

Not going to lie, I really enjoyed playing Fighter in 4e. If 5e sucks we'll just keep on keeping on with it in truth.
Daily powers were a very balanced and balancing thing. The combat was very nice in how it worked, even if mechanically it worked out as Wizard use Spell Once per Day and Fighter use Skill Once per Day.

Thing is I'd quite like to see a different mechanic for fighters, maybe in an optional add-on, where mechanically you'd combo towards more powerful moves over the course of the fight.

Pretty sure I read this idea in another thread but oh well. It'd be like the monk in diablo 3, where you gain a resource if you used more basic types of attack (hit it with my axe, trip, shoulder charge, etc) and spend it on powerful moves (mighty blow, cripple knee, etc)

>>19311566
I have a friend who works at WotC and he says that MtG Online pretty much completely pays for everything the company does and anything the other lines bring in is basically gravy.

Bear in mind that this friend is commonly full of shit.

>>19312332
rage should be something a character has to work up, not something they can willingly urn on and off. I think 5e barbarians should rage whenever they want, but they have to work themselves into a frenzy for a few rounds in order to get it. Plus hearken back to the good old days when they were illiterate and hated magic.

You know, I'm fine with 4e dailies but you know what would be really awesome? A sort of combo system. Where you did certain attacks with a certain point value or something and you worked your way up to a super powerful attack.

It would be fun.

>>19312536

How about fuck you, that story was great and had hilariously overpowered spells.

(technically you're not too far off base, except you have it the wrong way around. Vance came up with the magic system first, and the resolution of Mazirian second, as a logical consequence of the system)

>>19312536

Fighters aren't magic though.

It's the power descriptions that really set off this whole thing though.
"You hit the guy really hard and he falls over" seems like something a guy would be able to try more than once per skirmish.

Captcha: Deep yourcest
Whatever you say, captcha

>>19312563
As long as they don't have to stand still thinking about stuff, that's fine with me. If it's a fire-and-forget, that's great. Like they just declare that "I start raging now" and then three rounds later, the raging kicks in, regardless of what else has happened in the meantime.

I always thought raging on the first round of combat was kinda silly anyway, as it's just an extension of barbs being able to become supernaturally angry FOR NO RAESON.

>>19312563

>rage should be something a character has to work up, not something they can willingly urn on and off

But then we wouldn't have that awesome Oglaf comic

>>19312572
>>19312541

Not sure if second one is troll.

>>19312572

Not so sure about that, but what I do want is for fighters to be able to put more into a full attack than "I full attack".

So kind of a combo system, but not really.

>>19312475
daily powers were a poor representation of how the fighter class has always been in D&D. While daily powers and encounter powers and 4e in general worked really well to balance everything, the entire system worked much more differently than 3.5 and even AD&D for many old players to consider it "D&D" regardless of whether or not they though it was fun.

The fighter in 4e cannot and should not be compared to the fighter in 3.5/PF and certainly not the fighter in AD&D/2d. The fighter in 4e is a tank, not a weapon master.

4e is a good system, regardless on your opinion on how D&D is supposed to work or be like, but it still has one flaw. Fights take too long. 3.5 had one major flaw as well, spellcasting DCs.

>>19312593
Oh, I didn't see that post. Ha!

>>19312475
I think dailies for martial classes were a bad idea in 4e for one reason.

Flavor.

Rather, variation of it. Sure, the grand unified mechanics make the game a lot easier to run, but it reduces possible variation as well. Variation in mechanics makes things flavorful and fun to use. You get new reasons to try other classes.

Not a suggestion, but as an example: Wizards with at wills and daily spells. Then fighters get their full attackan and stances and ways they can modify their basic attack for effects. Rogues with their fullattackan(obviously a lot worse at it) along with encounter based tricks. You can really make the different classes play a lot differently. Divine casters would potentially get regular attacking (instead of atwills) and daily spells.

>>19312613
Have power attack become an actual attack that adds damage but lower to hit. Do other things like this to make a variety.

>>19312615

The Fighter in 3.X had a hard time actually locking down foes, unlike how he could in 2E, though.

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>>19310875
>Older editions of D&D have all of 3rd's problem, except 3rd cleaned up the rules, made them more consistent, more formulaic, more understandable, and more unified.
Older editions weren't as rules heavy. Basic and OD&D certainly weren't, and much of the rules bloat in AD&D was almost an afterthought and could easily be discarded without screwing everything else up. Also balance wasn't as big of a problem, primarily because spells were more limited. Don't get me wrong, 3e did streamline things and provide a unified mechanic. It did provide more options in character building. But it's not like all the changes were improvements.

>>19312572
No. Too complicated and it goes against everything 5e is trying to do, which is stop the number abuse by players. It's no longer about high numbers, it's about creative solutions that don't require dice rolls as much as it is about fighting enemies.

>>19312689
I'm not saying for D&D Next

But D&D Next isn't turning out to be something I want much at all, except for a few mechanics here and there.

>>19312689
Didn't one of the columns say they were looking at a combo system for fighters?

Of course at this point it's clear the columns are mostly full of shit.

>>19312644
Yes, but it was not locked into a particular role based on it's class. Like AD&D, they were weapon masters. The d20 system did not make them stand out at all compared to other classes due to how the game worked, but (unless somebody wants to start throwing around the same old bullshit arguments otherwise) they could be anything from tanks, to diplomats, to mounted archers.

>ITT: nobody has actually played 2e or earlier editions

The classes were better balanced, there weren't any feat traps, high level non-casters got cool perks such as followers, monsters weren't subject to massive HP inflation, it was much easier to balance encounters...

Basically; life was good. 2e wasn't perfect (a lot of the mechanics were arbitrarily and needlessly complex), but it was functional in many ways that 3e isn't.

>>19312726
fighters will be able to do things with weapons other classes can not. IE, trip and double attack with a quarterstaff or roll a successful attack with a natural 15 or higher with a battleaxe and roll an extra 1d4 damage.

They actually fixed monster HP inflation in 4e, in the later books, because they realised they got the maths wrong the first time around. Might have been too late, though.

I think 4e is a great system, but the support for it has been terrible. The online part has been a total clusterfuck, bloat has been as bad as ever, and Essentials flat out screwed the pooch. One more reason 4e fans are so pissed at 5e is because we have the most to lose.

>>19312588
>"You hit the guy really hard and he falls over" seems like something a guy would be able to try more than once per skirmish.
Sure. I mean, I've always improvised combat and allowed shit like that even when there weren't rules for it, but in my mind, dailies differ because you are going all out. I mean, when you come down to it, virtually everything you do could be a sword strike. But that doesn't (or at least shouldn't) make every strike equivalent. And maybe you could get lucky with an at-will attack and be as effective as you could with a daily, so your character isn't necessarily limited in the reality of the story. But it terms of game mechanics, it makes things more interesting to have different levels of attacks. And in any case, I'm okay with a warrior having some form of chi / vitality / aggression / whatever that gets exhausted. Having said all that, I will admit that the approach that 4e sometimes took where the in-game explanation for things felt like a clumsy afterthought tacked onto math porn could go a bit far. There were plenty of things you could do that just didn't seem right to me in the context of the story.

One suggestion.

Make the basic combat system more.. robust? A number of other games have their basic combat system full of maneuvers and tricks ANYONE can attempt no matter how bad you are. The trick here is the ones good at melee combat will be the ones using them anyway since a limp wrist won't succeed. Then you have the feats you can get that further improve the basic tricks anyone can do.. or make them more complicated in some facet. Rogues and backstabbing could work similarly. Anyone can technically get extra damage from surprise, but rogues will be the ones equiped to do it very well.. as well as having ways to do it consistently. They can also potentially drop a few feats to get some improvements on the basic combat maneuvers too.. though a good deal less than fighters.

>>19312744
>high level non-casters got cool perks such as followers
I always hated shit like that. "You're level X, you get a keep!" No, I fucking don't. Because this is an RPG and it doesn't fit into the plot. Besides, I'm there to adventure with a small group of people and not necessarily to form some sort of military order.

>>19312775
The idea is that Encounter and Daily powers are the PLAYER choosing when their character gets to hit especially hard or pull of a fancy move or whatever. I know, giving players some narrative control is weird to D&D veterans, but it works with damn near every other RPG. And it's clear without martial classes getting some ways to pull off cool stuff, they will end up having all the tactical depth of a Zergling.

>>19312775
Stop.

Daily powers worked as a mechanic, but do not justify as a real life action. None of the combat, mundane or magical, in any iteration of D&D accuratly depicts real life.

Attempting to do so is silly and pointless.

>>19312819
This. D&D has never been realistic, and attempting to make it so by nerfing half the classes is both pointless and will only hurt the game.

I don't necessarily like Daily and Encounter powers for other reasons, namely because they kinda force you to play a particular way and limit what you can do with the narrative, but in the context of D&D 4e they are functional mechanics that give everyone fun stuff to do without making shit confusing.

>>19312799
You weren't "awarded" them unless your GM was a tool. You still had to do work for them, you didn't just magically receive the deed to a castle one day from an owl. It's just that you were entitled to them if you wanted them.

As far as Barbarians go, I'm torn between Pathfinder and Iron Heroes as the best rage rules.

Pathfinder has all these awesome secondary powers which activate along with the frenzy, and the fact that it's divided into rounds rather than x/day bursts makes me more willing to enter rage without going into the paranoid "one encounter per day" mode.

The Berserker in Iron Heroes lacks all the cool semi-magical powers of the PF Barb, but he has probably the best mechanic for triggering rage in the first place - you get a pool of rage points, filling up as you meet certain conditions (such as being hit, your allies dying etc), and use them to power up various aspects of your rage - thus, your fighting style fluctuates based on tactical circumstances throughout the fight.

I think the ideal way to do a barbarian would be combining IH tokens with PF rage powers.

>>19312799
AD&D was not about the plot. That is a recent thing that started towards the end of 2e. Plot based games were only relevant in settings like Dragonlance and Ravenloft.

The primary purpose of a character's adventure was the acquisition of money. The adventures were all the things that happen in between.

D&D was not based on Lord of the Rings, but rather books and stories like the Illium, The Hobbit, and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.

Lord of the Rings was about stopping Sauron and the characters themselves. Bilbo went on the adventure initially for the 14th share of a dragon's horde, Achilles and everyone except Agamemnon was only in on the Trojan war for the loot initially and Ali Baba wanted the thieves treasure.

>>19312819
I'm honestly not sure what your point is. Are you arguing against me saying that some of the powers didn't feel right? If so, I'd say that just because the game has dragons that doesn't mean that everything less fantastical goes out the window. You know what's less fantastical than a spell-casting dragon? Just about anything you could possibly imagine. Having your bow break every time you try to shoot an arrow. Repeated sword strikes glancing harmlessly off your face. Killing half-a-dozen people with a lima bean. But any of those things could seriously undermine your game.

>>19312867
>AD&D was not about the plot.
It always was when we played. Well, action/adventure plot about dungeon-crawling and exploration, anyway. I don't know anybody who actually used henchmen. I don't know anybody who actually awarded people keeps and whatnot. If you earned something in the story, then you got it based on that, not based on some arbitrary level reward.

>>19312883
My point is that no matter how you narrate it, no edition of D&D is a narrative system, it's a combat system.

The daily/encounter power system does not translate well into real life any better than full attack every round or combat maneuvers verses combat maneuver defense (pathfidner).

arguing the 4e fighter against the 3e fighter against real life is comparing apples, oranges and bananas and continuing these kind of arguments only pollutes the atmosphere of the gaming community online and offline.

>>19312897
My first question is which edition and when?

Henchmen and keeps played a large role in my groups games once everyone had characters that high level.

>>19312917
Oh, so you're not so much arguing against me (since I was saying I don't have a problem with dailies), but against me trying to rationalize things? That seems a bit like you're splitting hairs, especially since my explanations were all tentative "maybe it's like..." sorts of things. If somebody wants to justify things in their head, I don't see a problem with that. Plus, I think it's good to have some sort of explanation backing things up, even if it's tenuous. Otherwise, the incongruity can nag at you and interfere with your ability to vividly imagine the battle.

Narrative control is not something us grognards had much of. D&D played today is not even remotely how is was played twenty/thirty years ago when we were teenagers. Even today, narrative control, point buy, character concepts, non-random treasure. It's all very alien to me than how we played the game a long time ago.

It used to be that you didn't fight dragons, but rather lead a few platoons of archers against them. You didn't explore dungeons if you could afford to flood it with sheep and you didn't roll dice to do actions like searching for traps.

The game was about the setting you were in and making it rich. Even paladins adventured for money, because churches don't fund themselves.

>>19312947
I'm saying rationalize (narrate) the action, not the system. Especially against other systems.

>>19312931
>My first question is which edition and when?
1st edition, way back when it was current.

>Henchmen and keeps played a large role in my groups games once everyone had characters that high level.
Having to manage a bunch of yokels while you trek through a dungeon (and especially when you get into combat) always seemed annoying to me.

>>19312969
Henchmen were mainly a source of profit, maintained our holdings or in worst case scenario acted as backup characters should the inevitable occur in the middle of an adventure. Moving gear and loot required many hands and having a safe place to keep it meant lots of things for characters to take care of. It's also how we fleshed out our settings, once we had a hold or a keep we had a new kingdom for the next campaign with new characters, locations and adventures.

Actually, I very much doubt that there will be that much hate. The reason you see so much rage on the boards and forums is because that is where people who are butthurt go to vent their misplaced and illogical hate. This applies to ANY subject.

I raged a little, at first, then calmed down and thought about what the playtest actually represented. It's a start, and at this point (read the letter included) a simple test of gameplay style and whether the monster vs. player numbers are syncing up well. It's stupid to rail against a product that is by no means nearing its completion. They aren't even really looking for a ton of feedback on classes, not at this stage, because they simply haven't given us enough to evaluate.

So far, it's a thing I can get behind, but it will be a while before I can actually test it (which is the only point at which you can make valid complaints or praises). My singular concern is the lack of opportunity attacks in the core rules presented. Just doesn't make sense to me, nor does any system that doesn't include such a thing.

>>19312966
>I'm saying rationalize (narrate) the action
Okay. I can dig that.

>>19312986
>Moving gear and loot required many hands and having a safe place to keep it meant lots of things for characters to take care of.
I get the impression that henchmen just sort of fade into the woodwork when they aren't being focused on though. Otherwise, they'd constantly be getting in the way and getting killed. On the other hand, the folks I played with tended to be a bit light on the treasure, so maybe it was easier for us to justify not having a small-scale caravan train.

>>19313004
Unless we actually needed an army, they were just there in the background, doing our chores back home or earning money for the keep/whatever.

What I'd like to see is Fighter getting an attack/lvl. That would solve scaling and horde problems real quick.

>>19313123
And that the Fighter could substitute his attacks for special maneuvers like trip and disarm etc.
It would give Fighter more options than just swinging a sword and make playing more tactical.

>>19310875
>most of 3e is a straight rip of 2e with better, clearer mechanics! 3e was an improvement in almost everyway from its predecessors.
Oh my god I can't stop laughing.

>Is this going to be the edition that sinks WotC?

No that was 4e.

This is just the final nail in the coffin.

The guys at Paizo are furiously masturbating every morning.

>>19313192
>>Paizo
You know what I like about Pathfinder? My barbarian can rage then swim upstream a waterfall and it be mechanically okay by game rulings. If anything can be said about Pathfinders is their barbs have far more options with just core.

>>19313210
You know what I like? The fact my wizard can cast fly, invisibility, and save vs die on your barbarian and be celebrated as the greatest trope D&D has ever produced.

>remember, most of 3e is a straight rip of 2e with better, clearer mechanics!
Where in the fuck did you get this idea? Have you even played 2E? A lot of 3E mechanics are downgrades from 2E equivalents, and the mechanics that are universally improved definitely aren't 'most of 3E'. The spellcasting system, the skill system, combat maneuvers, and multiple classes are ALL inferior in play to their 2E equivalents, which is something that *never should have happened*.

I just want some clarification, when you guys jerk off to 2e...youre jerking off to the players options books that were really 2.5 right?

Because I bought the core 2e books and some early supplements and they were pretty identical to 1e. And I know the Options books added a bunch of stuff later on that I'm pretty sure is where you guys are coming from, but I want to be certain.

>MY FIGHTER DOESN'T HAB DAILIES BLOO BLOO.
Hey, I like fighters without dailies. Who have you been talking to? The problem is when you replace dailies with nothing.
As others have said, I'd like to see more combat maneuvers. Anyone should be able to bull rush, trip, disarm, grapple, slide adjacent, slow, feint, impose disadvantage or mark, without a feat, and the fighter should be able to use one of those as a free action once per round when he hits with a melee basic attack.
I'd also like to see an X/encounter multi-attack, possibly with a daze or similar condition when you hit the same target twice. Encounter powers are fine, even fighters get tired.
Some additional special attacks based on weapon type would be nice. Say what you want about 4E, it made weapon type matter.

>>19313332


>>As others have said, I'd like to see more combat maneuvers. Anyone should be able to bull rush, trip, disarm, grapple, slide adjacent, slow, feint, impose disadvantage or mark, without a feat, and the fighter should be able to use one of those as a free action once per round when he hits with a melee basic attack.

And add eighty pages of such options because why they'd only be available to fighters
haha no.

Is this the same playtest or is it a new one where Rogues aren't boring in a fight?

D&D was never good.

>>19313413
/thread

Earthdawn >....>>>> DnD

>>19312475
> Of course, the whole system is effed, if you think about it. Hit points? You know how many times you need to hit someone with an axe or warhammer to remove them from a fight, if not kill them outright? 1. Hit points are a mix of luck, defense, stamina and wounds, so most of the time when you "hit" with an attack, you don't actually hit, you just force your opponent to stumble back or wear them down so you can eventually get that one blow that brings them down in.

If that's true, then why do Clerics have to heal HP?

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3.0 fag here

I am very excited about the new edition

I started reading some of their design articles on "What is the Rogue?" "What is the wizard"?

And it's like, wtf... we've had this conversation a million times. At this point in our culture, we don't need to keep defining what a fighter is.

It's like, how many times do we need to see spidermans origin story? Enough rehashing already.

3rd edition was the best edition deal with it.

Of course I jest since no edition is objectively better and accordingly a claim of which edition is better without our reasoning is utterly pointless.

>>19313660
As your companions lose morale in combat, accumulate minor wounds and begin to falter, chances of surviving this encounter seem scarce. Calling upon your god for aide and bravely striding into combat with your holy symbol proclaiming that your god gives them protection gives them a second wind, from which they fight not like caged animals but like men renewed.
Your god doesn't just fill their blood back up, he just makes them feel better.

>>19312615
> The fighter in 4e is a tank, not a weapon master.
What the fuck are you even talking about? That's exactly what the 4E Fighter is and if you'd look at the goddamned class for more than five seconds you'd see it too; the only problem compared to a 2E Fighter is that they don't have a tree that makes them good at ranged combat.

>>19310323
I haven't really tested the 5th yet to see how it plays, I have read the files and the classes though and as a 3.5 fag, I have to say I think it seems way better than both 3.5/pathfinder. I felt I was reading what I think is 2nd edition with 3.5 and whatever was good of the 4th. I plan on actually playing it tomorrow so we'll see how it goes.

>>19313192
>No that was 4e.
Technically it was 3e, but only because it was under the OGL.

>>19310323
>Virtually everyone is dissatisfied with the playtest thus far.
Speak for yourself OP. I like it, the only missing thing is AoO.

>>19313359
Using half of the rulebook to list options available only to one or two classes is a long-time D&D tradition.

>>19313698
Actually, it's vitally important to write down strong design guidelines for each class. Not that the ones they've chosen are particularly *good*, but it's one step above "whatever was going through the head of whichever designer wrote each class feature."

I never understood why they couldn't just use the psion system for the wizard.

It just seems so elegent in it's execution, who cares if the psion loses it's uniqueness, the wizard is a core part of the game and the psy point system would fit very well with it.

>>19314006
Gotta appease those grognards.

Also the last time they tried that it failed incredibly hard and made them MORE overpowered.

Have they lowered the HP of players and monsters? I'm getting sick of every battle taking over and hour to resolve.

>>19314035
Compared to fourth edition you mean? You're looking at it wrong then, since 5e follows 3e.

Answer is not known, as monsters are not done yet.

You know what would be cool? Combos made by dice rolls. You could say, "Valkor the Barbarian attempts (Cool Combo Name)" and you roll a series of dice where you have to get a certain number (or within a set of numbers). If it's a really complex combo, the more die you roll. You succeed as far as you successfully roll. Fail the fourth hit of a combo? You still had the other three hits.

OP here, bumping thread because I'm surprised it still exists.

>>19314221
Indeed, we could call it a "full attack sequence." You could perhaps gain additional die rolls when making a "full attack" as you leveled. As characters leveled up, they would increase their "base attack bonus" and at certain benchmarks--such as +6, +11, and +16--they could receive iterative die rolls.

>>19310323
>The old schoolers hate the game because WHY MAGIC MISSILE AT-WILL and TOO MANY STARTING HP.

That is total bullshit. Over at Dragonsfoot, the biggest and virtually only, complaint beyond "its new hate it" is that the rules obviously want retro style melee stickiness but the rules aren't included.

>>19315042
And possibly do something like encourage players to write out sequences of actions composed of various combat options available to them in advance, and give them a bonus to achieve success with it if they deign to spend points/feats/etc on it. (Partially because it just makes things easier for everyone. It's also Iconic. You can satisfy people who like 4e style stuff because it's easy, but people who like it more complex can still choose detailed tactics, or construct modular "combo's" or whatever.

>>19315091
I find it amusing that you can even imagine fighters getting something MORE complex than 4e when right now the edition is Unmentionable and fighters get shit-all.

>>19310377
I wish people would stop kneejerking to this lie. 5E is trying to appease to the AD&D grognards while still being able to sell something in today's market. Because that is exactly what kind of gorgnard that Mearls is.

>>19315090
>melee stickiness
Whatchoo mean?

So I've been taking glances at discussions of D&D5e
while im excited and have learned a few cool things, inevitably people talk about the older editions. I'd like to take the time here to say I seriously think people are trolling when they say 4e is better. I cannot get it into my head how people find it fun.

>>19315378
It's got a balanced tactical combat mini-game where every class has cool things to do and interesting choices to make, hth.

>>19315421
but it's not an rpg

>>19317241
Moving the goalposts and being silly.

>>19317314
>>19317241
Also, prove it.

>>19317241

Sure it is. It's just a pretty shitty one.

If 5e turns out to be even vaguely like this playtest iteration, but with more content and a few number tweaks (make a weapon do d6 instead of d8! BALANCED.) then it won't be a product worth buying. Plain and simple.

You want a system that just tells you to handwave the majority of your actions and make shit up on the fly? Why not play a system with more solid rules, but suspend them as necessary so you can do all your crazy shit you desire, then bring the rules back in when you think something is iffy and your group can't decide on a reasonable compromise.

I'm not about to buy a whole new set of books just because they are new and they say "Dungeons and Dragons" on the cover.

yeah, This is THE legacy game. The one that started it all and gave birth to a new hobby. It has an irreplaceable spot in many gamers' hearts. That's groovy. I can dig that. I won't disrespect that... But this new shit? It's kind of obvious that they have no idea how to design a decent game, let alone one that might please their colossal fanbase or properly capture the heart and soul of a game that is largely interpretive and personlized by everyone who has ever played it.

They want to try and sell me a game based on their nostalgia when they don't even seem to get that the games many people ran have nothing to do with their source material or their shitty modules or any of the worlds they made up.

That's so misguided that it's tragic.

>>19317541
Because 5e is ultimately a rules light system. The whole point of 5e is that the dice and rules only come in the arbitrate a task that has a limited chance of failingor uncertain variables. Other than dictating the ground rules of what a dwarf can do, how x spell works and damage y weapon does, it's a free-form roleplay game.

A good game does not require strict, defined rules. It's unfair to compare it to 4e or 3.5 because they were rules heavy games. 5e is more like FATE or AD&D where the DM makes rulings on the fly.

>>19318828
>Because 5e is ultimately a rules light system.
A-are you SERIOUS? HAVE YOU EVER EVEN *SEEN* A RULES-LIGHT GAME?

Okay, that outburst aside, how is 5e significantly different from 4e, excluding the part about only giving powers to half of the classes? On the topic of rules rigidity, they're pretty similar. The primary interaction between players and the world is through skill checks and ability checks, and through freeform roleplaying.

>>19318828
>Makes rulings on the fly

Well, yes. But only if you're playing a fighter that tries to do anything besides "I hit him."

>>19315421
4e attracted a lot of newcomers and even old timers to the game with balanced combat. But for many gamers, the appeal of D&D is not combat.

Especially older gamers who are especially wary of even using minis for combat in the first place.

4e is based entirely around combat with a few utility powers and skills which did not come into play often at all. AD&D and even 3.5, the fun was derived from the entire experience of exploration and interaction with the world.

When combat can take anywhere from two to four hours in 4e, a single inconsequential fight can take up an entire session which makes high level play almost impossible without resorting to only one combat per session and drastically slowing down the adventure. While combat in AD&D and 3.x is frequent, if nor more so than 4e, fights were over in minutes, not hours except for the biggest, most important of fights.

The reason I do not like, nor do I play 4e is not because it is a restrictive system, it's a slow one that puts too much emphasis on fights and balance rather than exploration and social interaction.

>>19319119
>combat can take anywhere from two to four hours in 4e, a single inconsequential fight can take up an entire session.

The combat dynamic was changed and errata'd as of Monster Manual 3. From what I'm told, monsters are no longer massive sacks of hp, and further monster attacks are more lethal and damaging. Most of the earlier monster manual creatures were changed along these lines as well.

>The reason I do not like, nor do I play 4e is not because it is a restrictive system, it's a slow one that puts too much emphasis on fights and balance rather than exploration and social interaction.

And this is another odd thing. I'm sure there's more to your argument than what I'm seeing, and I'd appreciate if you'd elaborate. But from my experience, most of the 'roleplaying' abilities that PCs had in earlier editions were linked to "I do crazy shenanigans with magic" or basic ability checks. I certainly, for the life of me, can't remember the neat noncombat abilities fighters and barbarians had beyond a bare handful of skill points because Int is the ideal dump stat.

Is it the lack of rules for things like real world physics? I've seen people whine that, because there's no rules for smashing a door, it's impossible for a man with an axe to break through a door. As far as my experience with both systems went, both 3.5 and 4E relied on generic skill checks and freeform for non-combat situations, combined with DM fiat for things that aren't in the rules as written.

>>19319119
>But for many gamers, the appeal of D&D is not combat.
That's cool but I was answering a very specific question ("why do people find 4e fun?").

Well actually it's not cool: it's false. (At least when you compare it to 3e; I have never played AD&D and can't comment.) If combat ever takes a short time in 3e, it's either because you're playing very low-level where monsters have 6 HP, or because your players are exploiting encounter-ending spells or perhaps CharOp charge cheese. The combat system as intended is a slow, soul-crushing grind, with HP vs damage scaling in such a way that higher levels take even more time.

Also, this
>puts too much emphasis on fights and balance rather than exploration and social interaction.
is also false when you compare it to 3e. 4e gives you the exact same tools to do exploration and social interaction. And it give those a hell of a lot more emphasis by having an entire encounter type, skill challenges, resolve around them, with the assumption that every adventure has its share. (Admittedly, the SC implementation is poor and not well balanced.)

>>19319223
To add on to this, as maligned as the skill challenge mechanics are in terms of the execution of their math, the concept itself is sound. These skill challenge gave PCs more freedom to decide HOW they wanted to approach a problem, rather than the GM demanded that they make an open locks check or somesuch. The GM says something like "Your ship is caught in a storm, and will sink if you do not intervene" a Fighter can decide that he wants to make an athletics check to operate the bilges, a mage can use arcana to shield the ship from lightning, a bard can use his social abilities to rally the crew, and so on and so forth. I can only speak from my own, subjective, experiences but I can honestly say that I had more opportunities to roleplay than I had in 3.5.

>>19319265
There are 4th Edition people that like it, and 3.5 people that hate it. It's not really cool to just wave away system gripes by saying that the people that don't like it are just clinging to "their" edition.

>>19319265
Which means it's not most people, given the amount of 4e people.

What do 3e people find in it that's not in 3e/PF? We only know (a small part of) the low levels so far, but they look very similar to 3e. Only major difference is that wizards seem more powerful and rogues get that neat "take 10" thing.

>>19319265
I'm a 2e fag and I thought it was shit. I actually like 3e and 4e, though, I just prefer 2e. There are hordes and hordes of people complaining about lots of stuff in the playtest, and if wizards has any sense they'll listen. But really, I have no idea what they're actually planning to do, and all of the articles written by the devs make it seem like they're living in some other reality than the one the rest of us are in. It's possible that it will be a good system, but at this point everything is speculation.

>>19319368
Why would they, if it doesn't provide anything like a 4e experience? I'm not in love with the D&D logo. If//when they turn off DDI, I'll use the pirated DDI or switch to WHFRP (thinking of doing that anyway).

>>19319436
Cite your source.

>>19318828
Now is it?
Well, from what I've seen in this thread, the 5e sounds like a pretty cool guy. I've always preferred narrative and atmosphere > rules and ignored/tweaked rules if it helped the game to be more fun.
Where can I learn more about it?

>>19319505
>>19319486
The biggest demographic of 4e players are now wizards and nuclear physicists.

There's some really stupid gamey shit on some parts of the bestiary, serious balance issues with some spells and reagent bags are way too much abstraction for me but it looks good for a prototype.

>>19319436
I'm not sure. What /would/ a kid whose only experience of RPGs is 4e do when 5e comes out and is nothing like it? On the one hand, it's new, it's what the stores carry etc. On the other hand, it provides very little of the kind of enjoyment 4e offers and is written in a style that's deliberately obtuse. The primary goal that shapes most of 5e, to get the "feel" and many iconic aspects of older editions of D&D, is nothing to that player.

Also, like >>19319468 said, I don't actually know what proportion of the 4e player base these people represent. At launch, obviously, most of 4e was converted players from other editions/other games since even the biggest RPG on the market has shit marketing budget. After four years, who knows?

>>19319505
Anecdotal evidence is no evidence. Every D&D thread has a fucker or two telling us of how in his local area everyone plays 3e/PF/4e/Castles & Crusades and that's totally what the entire world looks like.

>>19319249
3e was not the mess that char-op /tg/ trolls represented it as. A Random fight or a room full of guards in 3e did not require the wizard to blast off every game breaking spell in his arsenal.

Even at high level, most of the fights we got in were over in about ten minutes after whoever the beat sticks were walked in and killed them without the casters lifting a magical finger. when there are lots of enemies grouped together, or a single large guy is when casters only did anything, otherwise they didn't waste spells on yet another group of trolls when even the most unoptimized fighter could hack through them in a few rounds.

>>19319512
5e is not a rules-light system. But see for yourself, just go register and grab a copy of the playtest rules.
http://wizards.com/dnd/DnDNext.aspx

>>19319558
So you think the person who posted stating what the demographic for 4e was, and the person asking for the source of that information, are the same dude.

Well guess what, I'm also >>19319558

>>19319505
When I go, the youngest guy there is a friend of mine, at age 22. All the people have been playing D&D for years.
I'm 30, started with 2nd edition at age 10.
Fuck you.

>>19319597
>/tg is only two people

WHAT A TWEEST

>>19319560
>A Random fight or a room full of guards in 3e did not require the wizard to blast off every game breaking spell in his arsenal.
I didn't say you need a wizard to WIN the fight, I said you need a wizard (or serious CharOp-fu) to win the fight FAST.

>Even at high level, most of the fights we got in were over in about ten minutes after whoever the beat sticks were walked in and killed them without the casters lifting a magical finger.
I would like to know what your non-caster looked like, and if said trolls were level-appropriate at the time.

>>19319505
The 4e players who play in store at my LGS, which is Endgame Oakland, CA or Black Diamond Games in Concord, CA are mostly older men in their 40's or 50's. Half of them never played 3rd edition, most of them only played AD&D. There only about 4-6 children who play 4e regularly on RPGA nights.

Most everyone in the 18-30 year old RPG gamer range prefers Pathfinder.

>>19319607
Actually, /tg/ is three people. You, me, and the other guy.

Just between you and me, I fucking hate the other guy.

>>19319332
That was a serious question by the way, not a rhetorical one. 3e/PF players who like 5e, what do you see in it that seems better than what your game of choice already provides? Keeping in mind we're only looking at very low levels here.

>Raise their constitution by one and dexterity by one.
Why?

>>19312526

maybe only one of their targets all day will leave the opening for it to happen. People don't just stand motionless in their squares when it isn't their initiative.

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>>19320039
Women are more capable of recovering from severe wounds. But I think this is undermined by the size advantage men have, so in a game without a size stat, I'm not sure that a constitution bonus for women makes sense. As far as dexterity goes, women are generally more flexible than me, so that one works for me.

Of course the whole thing is bollocks. Very few games actually represent medieval Europe, complete with its extreme gender roles. Men, for instance, are going to tend to be better at hunting and fighting than women in a society where men do all the hunting and fighting. Why? Leaving aside the way they are nurtured (and the different opportunities that society affords them), any sort of related genetic trait that's linked to gender is going to be selected in them (as the ones with the advantage will tend to survive, while the ones without won't pass on their genes), while it won't in women (as the ability to hunt and fight wars doesn't really help a woman who never does either). In a society where women are more likely to hunt and fight, you'll see a corresponding increase of the applicable traits.

Me? If I apply any modifiers it's going to be something like -1 str, +1 dex. It's a relatively small difference that nevertheless shows a difference between the genders.

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>>19322443
Also, when we're talking about a fantasy RPG with elves and dragons, are we really going to get hung up over gender realism? If we can make a world with demons and wizards, why can't we make one where women aren't disadvantaged in the traits that relate to adventuring? And even in a setting with strong gender roles, where women aren't a physical match for men, why would we want to apply this to player characters? Many games have players allocate the same number of points to their characters, making their characters roughly equivalent in terms of all-around ability, but nobody thinks this reflects on society as a whole. It's an artificial gamist mechanic and we shouldn't try to extrapolate too much about the reality of the world from it. And besides, the PCs are a select group of people and don't represent any sort of norm for their gender or race. So maybe female PCs are a more select group. Maybe male NPCs reflect the top 10% of their gender in terms of physical ability, while female NPCs represent the top 5% of their gender. Whatever. The point of playing an RPG is to have fun, and it seems like you're reducing that by hobbling anybody who wants to play a female character. It's not like there are tons of girls who are interested in our hobby; do we really want to actively drive them away?

>>19320393
This. It's a game mechanic that doesn't necessarily translate into the reality of the story (though it could, if you want to use some sort of concept like chi). I'd let somebody try to put somebody else in a headlock without using a daily, it just wouldn't get the same bonuses (though if he got lucky, he could potentially be as effective as the average super headlock). In a game with hit points that increase tenfold over the levels and armor that makes you harder to hit rather than to damage, it seems like any abstraction that dailies force is minor in comparison.

>>19319852
>Seems more flexible and open. Less rules clutter.
Really, 3x would be pretty awesome if it were relatively rules light and relatively balanced. The problem is that it isn't even close to being either of those things. But if you had a rules-light, balanced version of the same basic system, I think most people would be pretty happy.

>>19319004
>A-are you SERIOUS? HAVE YOU EVER EVEN *SEEN* A RULES-LIGHT GAME?
It's all relative. I mean, a lot of people say that 4e is rules-light, and it's not hard to be lighter than that.

There was a thread a while back by somebody who was testing the game. From what he said, it sounded pretty okay.
Of course, we can't really judge based on early playtests. When the finished version comes out, we'll see if it's any good.

>>19323466
Yeah, well, they're wrong. There's a lot of people who've never played anything but D&D clones and have their perceptions completely skewed as a result. D&D 4e is a little lighter than 3e, but it's still very definitely a rules-heavy game.

>>19323816
>There's a lot of people who've never played anything but D&D clones and have their perceptions completely skewed as a result

Ohgodthis.

RISUS is a rules-light game - you can learn it in five minutes. Burning Wheel or Savage Worlds are about average - it takes about an hour or two to learn. DnD on the other hand my group has played for years and can't get through a session without needing to look something up.

I've no idea how ANYONE ever got the idea that any edition of D&D post the first was particularly simple. I put it down to complete ignorance - pretty much every other popular RPG bar GURPS and perhaps HERO are vastly simpler.

>>19323066
That's called Basic Fantasy RPG, and my group swears by it for our Dungeon Fantasy games.

>>19323915
Familiarity plays a big part too. Once you've got something down to rote more or less, for you it's as simple as breathing.

>>19323646
It may have been me.

Basically I summed it up as it was second edition with bits and pieces that worked for 4th and 3rd sprinkled here and there.

The new ability check system in place of saving throws and skills actually helps speed the game along and made it much easier. Combat was really fast and I like how they're keeping 4e's philosophy that everyone can do something at any given time. Fighters did a lot of damage and combat could go deadly quick at low levels, and even at level 10 I had the impression that even against a group of goblins I might get killed if I wasn't careful. I took that as a fun thing since it hearkens back to the good old days of playing my father's copy of the Red Box with my friends when D&D was deadly and we didn't make it out of the Caves of Chaos without a few deaths. This time around my players didn't die and it was easy enough to restore hit points since a full nights rest heals you full. Other players might disagree with potentially deadly encounters by seemingly weaker creatures, or the ease of which a nights rest restores even the most taxing wounds on a character.

It's still using 3e's DC mechanic, which is probably the worst thing 3e had and the only thing really wrong with the game, but since spellcasters have to set the DC when they cast the spell based on a saving throw, offensive spell casters are not as reliable anymore, nor are the DCs capable of becoming impossible to beat since there are very few ways to increase your ability scores that actually stack.

Implements such as holy symbols, wands, rods, are the only real way to do so for caster.

Fighters are back at attacking every round, but do it very well with tons of abilities that make them better than the other four classes and are just as capable. The fighter was actually the best diplomat as well thanks to a combination of good role playing and rolling a 16 CHA. If melee basics bore you, sorry. But the packet I received promised Psions, Barbarians, Bards, Paladins and other classes that have always been traditionally the "I beat stuff with a stick, but with strange powers and magic while I'm doing it."

Since starting HP is based off your CON score, wizards are not in constant risk of being killed at first level, and have enough HP to even get in some of the fighting, which is especially good when planning on multi-classing as a fighter (multiclassing is back). They also have at-will like abilities a-la 4e and pathfinder that let them attack every round with magic if they so please. My group's wizard was going for the traditional elf in instead fought with a longsword instead of using his offensive spells most of the time. at the end he was a wizard 2/ Fighter 1. As I said earlier, offensive spellcasting was unreliable, but when it worked, he saved the entire group from a TPK twice with a color spray spell and took out many goblins with burning hands spells.

The Cleric we tested was the traditional war-priest type cleric and healing was not as efficient as the 4e cleric or any other 4e leader class, but got the job done and could turn zombies just as well as he could swing a war axe. But they've got the cleric in the play test that maximizes his healing, so players looking to play a white mage type character as opposed to the traditional cleric have something to look forward to.

The only real bad class in the pre-public playtest would have to had been the rogue. Backstabbing was vague, we weren't sure if flanking allowed you to backstab or not and their handling how a skilled class such as the rogue worked with skills was confusing. The rogue pregen they have now is not at all the same one that they gave us for the level 1-10 playtest. So I can't comment on it now.

Overall it was fun, but they didn't give us much work with to really test it out beyond the Caves of Chaos module they included which is more or less the same adventurer as Keep on the Boarderlands, without the keep. We had fun, I'll probably run it for RPGA when it's released, but i doubt I'd switch from Pathfinder as my main system to run. It's more like a modernized retro clone than a full D&D game when you compare it to 3rd or 4th edition. But it was really, really easy to run and we did have a good time.

>>19323915
>I've no idea how ANYONE ever got the idea that any edition of D&D post the first was particularly simple.
Well, Basic too, if we're going to nitpick. But I take your point and largely agree. I mean, AD&D could be relative simple to play, but that's because there was more of a burden on the DM to keep track of all the fiddly shit. Also, there was a lot of shit in AD&D that the DM could (and should) drop, so that AD&D in practice was a lot simpler. And at that point, maybe it was rules-medium-light, depending on how you're defining the categories. As far as RISUS goes, I'd define it as ultra-light. You can have a game that's much more complex that's still significantly lighter than three-quarters of the game market. The question is where you put Savage Worlds. It seems too complex to be rules-light, but it's a cakewalk compared to a lot of games out there. So where does that leave it? Medium-light?

>>19324162
At some point /tg/ should probably make a big pic of where all the popular games fall on that scale.

>>19324295
>At some point /tg/ should probably make a big pic of where all the popular games fall on that scale.
That's a great idea. I'd start on it myself, but I don't really feel qualified.

>>19324305
I could, but eh, too lazy to start now.

>The fighter was actually the best diplomat as well thanks to a combination of good role playing and rolling a 16 CHA

I'm sorry. Seriously, you like a somewhat intelligent person but this... this makes me rage.

It's like saying "well, it's alright that a class can only do a single thing, because if you are lucky you can do something else too!"

I know I'm reading too much into this but the implications are fucking terrible.

>>19324327
It's worse than that. It's "if you are lucky, you can be better at something than the person who took it as their niche!" 16 Cha and you're as good as someone with a talky background without spending any resource yourself.

>>19324342
Yeah the biggest issue with the NWP system was that it was so heavily stat-dependent in a game with (incredibly) random stats. Your actual NWPs were generally just padding, which is almost a complete reverse from the 3e skill system. But because we have no idea how character creation is going to go, who knows? I'm pretty sure it'll be some variant of point buy, though.

>>19324371
Any question about D&D Next can be answered with a reasonably chance of success by looking at how 3e and older editions did it. I would be astonished if 5e doesn't have stat roll as the default method, if not the only one.

>>19324390
The pre-public test had us roll all stats and reroll if we didn't get one at least 11. 4d6, drop lowest, asign to taste.

>I would be astonished if 5e doesn't have stat roll as the default method, if not the only one.
That would be unfortunate. Doing a card-draw would be my preferred method, though rolling randomly on a table to get a pre-planned stat-array would work pretty well too. With 100 different arrays you could roll, you'd have a decent bit of variety. In any case, I like the idea of randomly allocated stats, but not so much the idea of unbalanced characters, where somebody can end up with much higher stats across the board.

Bamp so I can read it later.

What's the source of OP's pic?

>>19323938
Holy shit, I'm not the only one

>>19322443
>As far as dexterity goes, women are generally more flexible than me, so that one works for me.
"...generally more flexible than *men*", that is. It's really not that hard to be more flexible than me.

The way we've always done it is with new players we'd teach them the basic mechanics with 4e and once they have that down and when we feel everyone is ready we would switch to 3.5e

Both editions have their pros and cons

4th
__________________
>Pros
Healing
Melee characters are powerhouses
Very hard to break
less skills to manage
monks get fixed
static scores (I have a habit of rolling bad)
melee types do more then just swing

>Cons
No downside to races
no LA races
casters are now garbage
hp bloat
everyone needs a book/laptop for moves
gnomes are monsters now
lack of rp elements
4 alignments were cut out
a lot less options for characters

On the hole I like 4, I haven't seen much for 5 yet. Worse case scenario people just bitch and ignore it like they did 4. I really think that people just got so bitter from playing 3.X and when it wasn't more of the same with a shiny new wrapper they raged.

Some food for thought.

>>19327560
You're just begging for an argument, aren't you.

>No downside to races
>no LA races
>Cons
So you want to outright penalize race/class combos that play against stereotype? Also, LA races were never good.

>lack of rp elements
As compared to DUNGEONS & DRAGONS THIRD EDITION? That's... What are you even talking about?

>a lot less options for characters
...if you're a spellcaster (though even then a lot of your options were actually trap choices; yay for ivory tower game design). All other classes never had this much choice, and best of all, most of them are actually valid.

>>19327560
>casters are now garbage
You could make a perfectly legitimate argument that 4E casters are better than AD&D casters because they lack the ridiculously shitty early game all of them have in exchange for NOT snowballing out of control at level 15-20, where only a handful of groups ever got to anyways.

If you're actually going to argue that 3E was the only edition to do casters the way they were supposed to be, you need to get the fuck out.

>>19327611
you seem upset?

>>19327775
A little. But I don't see how arguing about my feelings will contribute much to the conversation.

>>19327560
>No downside to races
>no LA races

These are not cons.

>casters are now garbage

No they aren't.

>lack of rp elements

What the fuck are you even talking about?

>a lot less options for characters

More valid options, no trap classes.

I say this all as not a particular fan of 4e, you're just so incredibly stupid that I had to comment in it's defense.

>>19327560
almost every con you listed was bullshit.
>No downside to races
This is a pro, not a con. It lets you play whatever race/class combo you want without fucking you over. All penalties ever did was force you to play cliches.
>no LA races
Which were always incredibly broken and never worked properly. The system is better without them.
>casters are now garbage
This is just made-up bullcrap, since the wizard is still one of the most powerful classes. I have no idea how you came to this conclusion.
>hp bloat
This is something I hear people bring up a lot, but in actuality, it has much LESS hp bloat than 3.x. Maybe it just seems more "noticable" now that save-or-dies and save-or-sucks are out. But that's actually a good fucking thing, not a bad thing, since parties are balanced within themselves and non-casters actually have a role to play. Maybe you're just frustrated that encounters actually take some time and thought to beat instead of just casting one or two spells to insta-win?
>everyone needs a book/laptop for moves
Total bullshit. You can buy/print out power cards, dummy. And they actually recommend you do that.
>gnomes are monsters now
I don't really think that this is a big problem, but I admit it's not bullshit. It IS a legitimate criticism if you like gnomes a lot.

...

...

>lack of rp elements
I think by this you mean that the game rules are very self-referential and combat-focused. This can be viewed as a bad thing to a degree, but it actually DOES give you plenty of role-playing tools in the DMG which are for out-of-combat. All that 4e did was make balanced and tactical combat possible in D&D. It took NONE of your ability to roleplay out. AT ALL.
>4 alignments were cut out
Who plays with alignments anyway? They don't make any sense beyond being a general indicator of overall attitude. Also nothing is stopping you from just writing one of the 9 alignments on your sheet. It doesn't really affect the rules at all. 4e just recognized how unimportant alignment is.
>a lot less options for characters
If you're a caster, sure. Frankly, this is made-up bullshit. All the classes have a metric fuckton of options and MOST BUILDS ARE ACTUALLY VIABLE unlike previous editions.

This kind of doomsaying happens with every new edition.

>>19327843
Which kind?

>>19327849
The classic "D&D is ruined and everyone hates the new stuff" routine.

>>19327827
>No downside to races
>This is a pro, not a con. It lets you play whatever race/class combo you want without fucking you over. All penalties ever did was force you to play cliches.
No. It only made everything casual. Races should feel distinct mechanical, pros AND cons are required for that.

>no LA races
>Which were always incredibly broken and never worked properly. The system is better without them.
Less races to choose from. No unusual races or some unique and weird templates. Forcing you in cliches, i thought you didnt like it?

>casters are now garbage
>This is just made-up bullcrap, since the wizard is still one of the most powerful classes. I have no idea how you came to this conclusion.
Wizards doesnt feel like fucking wizards in 4e. They are closer to warlocks from 3e.

>hp bloat
>...
Its more noticable because combat in 4e is slow as shit. Even slower than GURPS combat is, thats quite an accomplishment. And noncasters have things to do in 3e, if you werent retarded and know how to use PrC. Of course they wasnt as universal as spellcasters, but they wasnt useless at all.

>everyone needs a book/laptop for moves
>Total bullshit. You can buy/print out power cards, dummy. And they actually recommend you do that.
Nice game design indeed. Print some shit, that is basically your spellbook, to not look into books every round.

>>19328029
>No. It only made everything casual. Races should feel distinct mechanical, pros AND cons are required for that.
No. Racial powers alone make this a moot point.
>Less races to choose from. No unusual races or some unique and weird templates. Forcing you in cliches, i thought you didnt like it?
Like... shardmind? A living piece of rock jewelry? Or you know, how about changelings actually being PLAYABLE?
>Wizards doesnt feel like fucking wizards in 4e. They are closer to warlocks from 3e.
I guess I have to concede to this, but this does not make them suck.
>hp bloat
Yeah, play MM3 and on and this problem vanishes.
>Nice game design indeed. Print some shit, that is basically your spellbook, to not look into books every round.
...
wat. 5-10 cards=book now? Hell, you only actually need this if you don't know your powers. I mean, did people print out their spells in 3.5? Because that'd have gotten pretty tedious after about lvl 10.

>>19328029
>No. It only made everything casual.
You haven't actually countered anon's point.
>Races should feel distinct mechanical
I actually disagree with that, but ok, I'm in the minority.
>pros AND cons are required for that.
Why?

>>19310323
> So let's talk 5e D&D. Virtually everyone is dissatisfied with the playtest thus far. The old schoolers hate the game because... The new schoolers hate the game because...

What? Another Warhammer 40K 6th Edition Thread?!?

Trollmeter 0/10 - would not rage again OP.

>>19328092
>did people print out their spells in 3.5? Because that'd have gotten pretty tedious after about lvl 10.
They don't, but mostly because there's no practical way to do so in 3e. Most caster classes know ridiculous amounts of spells (or, in the case of divines, ALL the spells). And even if you're playing sorcerer, the spells aren't formatted in a small, convenient block and there's no character builder to do the copy-paste work for you.

If there WAS a way, I'm pretty sure most casters would love to do it. Flipping through the books to find a spell is one of the big time-wasters of 3e.

>>19327833
>lack of rp elements
>I think by this you mean that the game rules are very self-referential and combat-focused. This can be viewed as a bad thing to a degree, but it actually DOES give you plenty of role-playing tools in the DMG which are for out-of-combat. All that 4e did was make balanced and tactical combat possible in D&D. It took NONE of your ability to roleplay out. AT ALL.
It made tactical skirmish wargame possible, miniatures are required to play 4e combat. Meanwhile most actual out of combat stuff was either butchered to the minimum or removed altogether. Why the fuck do i need RPG when there is only rules for combat? Might as well play without system at all.

>4 alignments were cut out
>Who plays with alignments anyway? They don't make any sense beyond being a general indicator of overall attitude. Also nothing is stopping you from just writing one of the 9 alignments on your sheet. It doesn't really affect the rules at all. 4e just recognized how unimportant alignment is.
My group did. And its matter of principle, 4e force you to play as goody heroes saving the day. Cliches again, and you hated them, right?

>a lot less options for characters
>If you're a caster, sure. Frankly, this is made-up bullshit. All the classes have a metric fuckton of options and MOST BUILDS ARE ACTUALLY VIABLE unlike previous editions.
If you are not too. There are tons of fun as fuck builds from 3e that you cant do in 4e, because you forced in roles and shit. By the way viability of any shit any drooling retard can come up with is bought at the cost of homogenization. System mastery is a good thing.

>>19328149
>There are tons of fun as fuck builds from 3e that you cant do in 4e, because you forced in roles and shit.

Name one. Take care so it is actually fun and not some punpun bullshit.

>>19328149
> Meanwhile most actual out of combat stuff was either butchered to the minimum or removed altogether.
Like... what? What out-of-combat rules do you miss from 3e?
>4e force you to play as goody heroes saving the day.
lolwut
>If you are not too.
If you're not a caster you get more choices to make than ever before.
>There are tons of fun as fuck builds from 3e that you cant do in 4e
Like what? (inb4 class as identity)
>By the way viability of any shit any drooling retard can come up with is bought at the cost of homogenization.
Yeah, brawler fighter is just like sword-n-board fighter is just like tempest fighter, amirite?

Oh god no, mods, what have you done?

>>19328222
Tolling us. As always.

>>19328222
Made an outlet for edition wars.

So far I'm lovin it.

>>19328222
Well fuck.

>>19328231
I don't like threads with thousands of posts that take ages to load. And the previous one overstayed his welcome on day 4.

Did...did an edition war thread get stickied?

The fuck?

>>19328029
Casual? Seriously? You don't want the game to be accessible, you want Ivory Tower shit. Right. From this point on I want everyone to know that I'm not responding to this guy to argue with him; I'm trying to call him out as a common edition warrior troll. This post is for everyone else BUT him.

The races ARE mechanically distinct WITHOUT penalties. Racial powers, dude.

Goliath, warforged, angel, tiefling, dragonborn, changeling. Off the top of my head. NONE of these are imaginative in the slightest? In 2e it was dorf, elf, human, gnome, halfling and I don't hear a bunch of people complaining. Also nobody LAUDS star wars d20 just because it had like a million playable races. They were all forgettable nonsense. Same with 3.x, actually.

Combat is slow in 4e...the first few encounters around. After a few encounters or sessions in, your group gets a feel for it and you can finish things in seconds what took you minutes before. I've never known 4e to take any longer than any other RPG. EXCEPT 3.x because in that edition casters can just beat encounters with one or two spells. On their own. Without the rest of the party. Once again, it's not "slower" it's in-depth and tactical. You actually have to put thought and time into beating the encounters. In 4e, encounters are easy to construct, balance, and make memorable. And they are hard to beat. Yes, you will only get to play 1-3 encounters per session, but that's true for most RPG's. And it's not like anyone has any illusions about it from the start. They say that right in the DMG. It's part of the game's design.

>>19328149
>System mastery is a good thing.

Nothing to see here folks but a troll. Move along.

>>19328029
>Races should feel distinct mechanical
For fuck's sake.
Let me clue you in on something:
Go back to AD&D. You see the +1 and -1 stat bonus and penalty? THEY DIDN'T FUCKING MATTER. Everything that made a race distinct was totally separate from the stat bonus and penalty and almost *every single time* they felt distinct because of their strengths.
I hate people like you so much.

>>19328092
>No. Racial powers alone make this a moot point.
They are somewhat situational, though some are sweet indeed, but they only make some races better for some classes. Wasnt that your point against 3e style races all along?

>Like... shardmind? A living piece of rock jewelry? Or you know, how about changelings actually being PLAYABLE?
System wasnt perfect, it needed some fine tuning and fixing here and there. But no, lets just scrap it. Here some generic races, have fun.

>Yeah, play MM3 and on and this problem vanishes.
It was released too late, when damage was already done. My group played 4e when there was only cores. First impression is very important.

>wat. 5-10 cards=book now? Hell, you only actually need this if you don't know your powers. I mean, did people print out their spells in 3.5? Because that'd have gotten pretty tedious after about lvl 10.
No, spellcaster players usually know their shit and what spells do, using books for fine details mostly. But anyway, point was in 4e every one need to know their "spells", not only casters.

>>19328102
>I actually disagree with that, but ok, I'm in the minority.
What the point in races then? Might as well call everyone humans if they all are the same mechanically.

>Why?
Because everything have drawbacks? Some races are nimble, but frail, some are sturdy and strong, but lack in speed... Things like that make fluff descriptions actually matter in mechanics.

>>19328293
Come on, be reasonable. System mastery isn't a _bad_ thing. It helps you make the character you want to play and helps you avoid making something that'll break the game into itty pieces.

That said, we can both agree that the guy you're responding to is a moron who slavishly worships an RPG that has completely stockholmed him.

WotC doesn't depend on D&D.

The question is if they kill the property enough, that they sell it, and cut all old edition support in the process.

Honestly, 4e has basically the best way to do simple and clear stat blocks of all versions of D&D, with anything remotly complex.

For example, giving monsters spells... is actually a bad idea unless it is for non0combat, because you run the risk of having a broken reference.

And do people seriously need hard mechinics for puzzle solving, besides some checks for "remember that shit?" PC stuff?

File: 1338593033800.jpg-(47 KB, 512x512, troll line below.jpg)

>>19328390
>generic races

>>19328395
System Mastery if you divorce it from Trap Options. The issue is, however, nobody who makes a game that excepts system mastery does that. At all.

>>19328395
System mastery is not inherently bad. What's bad is when systems REWARD it too much and/or REQUIRE it to make anything slightly out of the norm. Lookin' at you on both counts, 3e.

All that said, there IS at least one legitimate criticism I know for 4e, and it's one I myself discovered the first time I tried it out.

Combat is not *immersive* unless you force it to be. By *immersive* I only mean "feels like you're describing something actually happening in the zone of the fictional world." As opposed to "referencing rules for D&D combat." With powers and HP, it's almost impossible to describe the action without referencing D&D rules, which means nothing sounds *believable* in combat. This isn't really the end of the world and it can be made up by particularly creative players/gm description. Also, frankly, it's in the nature of the system. If you want the combat to be tactical and FAIR, then you kinda have to be a little gamist, because LIFE isn't fair. If you make combat as cruel and random and lethal as it is in a realistic sense, then it stops being fun (well, unless that's what you were GOING for, but usually that isn't the case in D&D).

Another criticism is that, by default, it only supports HEROIC SUPER CHARACTERS, preventing you from playing down-to-earth peasants. At least in terms of combat. You can still play a down-to-earth type character outside of combat, since the divorce between in-combat and out-of-combat is so stark. But it's a real concern for a group.

I think that both of these things are kind of inevitable if you're going to play a game in the vein of D&D, where it's heroic high fantasy. If you want to play something that isn't heroic high fantasy, then it would be a good idea to play a different system (or perhaps a different variation on D&D). 4e just isn't simulationist. AT ALL. If you want a believable world of realistic consequences with mortal, normal characters, 4th edition is just not for you.

>>19328420
>WotC doesn't depend on D&D.
Well yeah, it makes a fraction of what Magic does. Thing is, Hasbro treats each brand separately (because of the contract WotC signed when they were purchased) and Hasbro isn't going to throw money at a brand that makes (comparatively) shit profit. WotC isn't going anywhere, but if 5e sells badly, D&D may well die a slow death.

>>19328491
The Magic revenues cover all of WotC and Avalaon Hill's expenses and has leftovers.

>>19328509
But given how tiny the D&D team is and how little money is invested in its marketing, it's clear there isn't much Magic gold flowing into D&D, if any.

(I wish D&D would steal even one of the veteran Magic designers who actually know how to design games.)

Where's my threatened squares and attacks of opportunity, Next?

>>19328570
Back to not existing because they didn't exist in AD&D.

>>19328575

How did fighters prevent monsters from running past them and murdering the wizards/rogues/ does D&D have any iconic backline guys at all?

>>19328575

Okay, in they're going the AD&D route, where's my bonus attack on enemies that have turned their back on me?

>>19328603
Engagement rules. You couldn't turn your back on or ignore a Fighter if they came at you or else you'd get raped by free attacks.

It's remarkably close to how marks work in 4E.

>>19328539
>Magic's R&D team
>Knowledge of how to properly design and balance a game
Pick one.

The way D&D Next is shaping up is like the horrible rape child of AD&D2e and 4e.

If they cater only to the AD&D fags, it'll be horrible.

If they cater only to the 4e fags, it'll be horrible.

This 'middle path' they've found is equally as horrible. They need to make a NEW game, not try to feed into these nostalgic and entitled faggots.

>>19328611

how, so it's a term change, between TSR and WotC D&D, for basically the same affect.

.... .... why the fuck does 5e have NOTHING that gives melee classes anything like battlefield control just by being there?

seems like it's been part of the game since ever, and is an attempt to make parthian tactics not work out after the range has been closed.

>>19328630
I have seen literally ZERO influence in Next from 4e. They threw out the whole thing except for the engagement rules I guess. All the influence seems to be coming from older pre-3.x editions.

I like it so far, from what I can tell from the beta is they are bringing back the character options from 3.0x and keeping the balance from 4e. In addition I really like the disadvantage/advantage system.

also the whole too much starting hp is bullshit I got a TPK(5 level 1's) with 3 bugbears

>>19328646
No, 3E's AoO rules prevented Fighters from stopping anyone unless they did a specific thing that was rather easy to avoid doing - and even if it happened, it didn't matter because an individual Fighter hit wasn't all that much!

AD&D and 4E Fighters basically lock someone down by getting in their face, which makes MMO complaints retarded.

>>19328630
Seriously, you're going to criticise Magic R&D? The team who're working on a 20 years old game and making it play better and sell better than ever before? The people who are more in touch with their player base than any company I have ever seen? That's low, man.

File: 1338594423189.jpg-(82 KB, 700x500, fools.jpg)

Honestly, I prefer 2nd edition AD&D; the rules are just as easy to follow as every other edition, 2nd edition only had one crappy thing about it (THAC0).

But Magic Missile at will? I laugh at how many jimmies have been rustled from that.

Pic related; D&D went downhill since Wizards took it over. And what happened to Gygax, anyways?

>>19328672

Themes and backgrounds are from 4e, with themes being alot more powerful in general then in 4e, and backgrounds determining more about your skills then in 4e.

Oh, and at-will magic does decent damage.

>>19328673
>bringing back the character options from 3.0x and keeping the balance from 4e
People really believe that.

Ladies and gentlemen, D&D Next's audience.