I meant without houserules or the need to adjust things. I want to try out the system as they are offering it so that I can make an opinion of what I may want to change. I hope that makes sense.

Of course it makes sense. I was just giving you a hard time

The one thing that sticks out to me is the plug-and-play ability of this system. Since everything is very simple, adding other systems on top is fairly easy. For example, the player has the option (with DM permission) to build a human with either +1 to every Attribute...OR start with a free Feat IF YOUR GAME IS USING THEM. The Feat system is optional. You get special abilities from your Class and Background, but anything else is presented as an option and not part of the core experience. Heck, using a grid for combat is not even mentioned as a core part of gameplay from what I have seen. VERY 2nd ed to me.

First session down.

Two players and I ended up heading to the FLGS in hopes of getting a pick up player or two. No luck, so they both ran two characters and I DMed the first three or so encounters of the Starter Set adventure.

Overall, we are liking what we see. The fate of the editions now falls in the hands of a vote by the whole group.

I am not sure I will be able to run Eberron with just the PHB (we shall see), though, and I am not ready to put Eberron aside. This means continuing the 4e campaign for the time being.

I haven't paid a lot of attention to this, as I spent a ton of money on 4e, and then on Pathfinder. Anyone know if they plan on putting out eBooks/PDFs? $50 is steep for a book, especially because we'll need 3-5 of them at the table (or I'll end up stabbing my players).

~J

Thinking about this and they really were not kidding that its backwards compatible with only slight tweaks. Since everything is COMPLETELY based around the core attributes, it should be very simple to take old content and bring it in. I read that each of the core books will have a "free" version, so should be able to play without buying anything if the basic rules suit you. I may be miss-remembering, though.

I think I might try and implement something like this if we do run a 5e Eberron game: http://community.wizards.com/comment/50 ... t-50840476

I'm gonna wait. First level stuff is always fast and easy with D&D. Ii really doesn't matter what edition you pick. (At low level, I'd lean to 4e... 'cause zowie cool characters!)

I'm more concerned about how 5e would scale as the players level up. I find PF, 4e, AD&D, all go sideways to DM, and that's why I'm looking at other games. Low to mid level, I'd pick PF it runs smooth, and its well understood. The DM difficulty is relatively flat until level 7+ hits.

The new Star Wars RPG is awesome, plays very differently than other games, and scales just fine. I find it comparatively easy to make up on the fly as well. Its the only game my players have literally begged to play more. If Fantasy Flight comes up with a fantasy version of the same game, it would be my choice by a long shot.

Shadowrun is like jumping into the deep end of a pool without knowing how to swim. It looks like it will scale, but if play is clunky to begin with, then its not worth the effort.

I just picked up Atomic Robo which uses the FATE system. We'll see if that comes up interesting.


Industry acceptance will be driven by licensing, and that will determine what kind of 3rd party support you get. Wizards has royally pooched licensing in the past, and would actively go out of their way to pooch you, the customer, with it. This is their history. By contrast Paizo Pathfinder accepts and works with other companies. This has extended to the point that 3rd party settings are integrated into Hero Lab. You can't ask for better industry support than that.

It looks like there was a pretty strong focus in the new edition to make scaling work. There's a limited range for DCs and ACs. With the best characters having maybe a +15 modifier over the absolute worst character at a skill or attack check. And most characters falling someplace in the middle.

It also looks like the number of high level spells a character can cast is very limited.

So even at high levels chatacters shouldn't be too far out of their element even if trying to do stuff they aren't specialized in. I'm guessing most characters will at least feel like they haven't been left too far ahead or behind other classes even at high levels.
Sure they may be better then you in some things, but you still have a legitimate chance of doing something and they have a reasonable chance of failure too.

It eliminates ins of the high level problems in 3 and 4E that made chalenges only work for some characters (but immposdibl for others) and the whole system feel wonky after a point.

ScrubKai: Thanks, that is good to hear. Balance by calming things down is good.

I've been struggling with tracking effects in PF (Feats and spells there's soooo many). 4e had micro effect tracking to drive you nuts.

So the free DMs portion of the rules has been released on the wizards site to go with the previously released players PDF.

So anyone who wants to see the core 5E rules, they are out there for you to browse.

I have to say, I have liked what I've seen so far. That said the fact that we still haven't seen their digital plans (PDF and software), license or actually run this at the table means there's still a long way to go for me to replace FATE as my current game of choice.

I was just coming here to post that link afterthey saw it today at GenCon.

Digital is too expensive for most small publishers to work with. Hero Lab pretty much demonstrates that. Its free enough to do, but no one has as the time. I spoke to a few publishers about it, and they just can't. Bigger ones or folks with technical gumption (like Frog God) can probably do it.

In any case I don't want anything but a character generator (that I own), but thankfully 5e looks simple enough to use paper and pencil. (Star Wars is good, but complexity grows as characters gain XP.)

I'm impressed by the blending of character classes (a'la Pathfinder archetypes), and narrowing the power difference of the players. That means critters can be used over a greater range of player levels. I think they also grabbed a lot of significant ideas from all the editions, like trying to make race matter even more. (gear, proficiencies, abilities)

I'd probably enjoy playing the Eldritch Knight or Arcane Trickster. They are weaker than other archetypes, but not problematically so.

I also get the impression that classes are driven more by stats, than the class itself. So you could in fact be a reasonable combat guy who's a wizard (Gandalf?). But if you want things up a notch (its not a big notch), you need to go all in for stats and archetype.

Some things seemed annoying (probably need to read more) but the character class gear seemed quite prescriptive. Perhaps this makes more sense for new players to learn. Perhaps that intro talk is just annoying to me.

My personal private opinion is that FEATs suck. 4e and PF were just clusters of feats that are difficult to fathom and use. In 4e it was a butt load of useless feats. In PF advancement is like a civilization technology tree. I hope feats stay away.

I have the opposite opinion on Feats - I feel that they are a great way to really set your character apart from other characters of the same class, giving you access to abilities that similar characters don't have access to. To date, I don't think they've been particularly interesting - all the best ones have been "+X to Y task", or require to to dive so deep into them that you don't have room to take anything else (or require you to be a Fighter to get them going in a reasonable time frame).

This does seem to be fixed with the 5e feats - most of those are just incredible. For example, Actor is practically custom made for a Rogue/Charlatan type character, and Charge gives you quite a lot for taking it. Of course, given the fact that you're replacing +2 to a stat to get them, they kinda have to be awesome to be worth taking (though many of them do give you a +1 to a stat or a choice of stats).

Classes also seem to be rather good as well - the Eldricht Knight and Arcane Trickster both look like they'd be fun to play, and a lot of the options seem like they would be a blast. Assassins are awesome openers, getting Advantage on their Attacks and automatically critting on a hit in the Surprise round - meaning that they'll probably get to roll 6d6+Dex Mod damage against their chosen target at the start of the combat!

Spells are... interesting. I like the change to Spells Prepared/Spell Slots, and a lot of spells seem to be both buffed and nerfed, simultaneously. Bless only targets a small number of characters - but it gives them a much greater bonus. Magic Missile no longer automatically powers up as you level up - but it has a much higher baseline, potentially taking out a standard fighter at 1st level. Haste gets ridiculous on Fighters - but if you don't end the combat quickly enough, or if the Wizard goes down mid fight, you lose a turn when you really don't want to. Etc, etc.

The biggest thing with Classes, which I'm kind of surprised nobody's mentioned yet, is the departure from Alignment restrictions - Necromancers and Assassins are no longer necessarily Evil (though their abilities tend toward that direction), Paladins are no longer Lawful Good (though their Oaths again tend toward that direction), etc. This really opens up a lot of roleplaying possibilities - the Lawful Evil Vengeance Paladin who has sworn an oath to destroy all members of (insert evil race here), or the Chaotic Good Assassin who slays targets that have been deemed too great a threat to let live.

Speaking of Roleplaying, the Inspiration system looks like it could really encourage groups to ratchet up the roleplaying. Getting Advantage on a roll of your choice for something your character believes in can make a huge difference in a scene - and it's something the GM can use to make sure that the players succeed in the check they need to in order for the plot to advance.

Overall, I'm seeing a lot to like with this new edition, and not a lot to push me away. There are indications that Poisons can be extra nasty, with some lasting for greater than 96 hours (4 days) - I'll point to the Rest and Recovery section, which states if you rest for 3 days, you get Advantage on your Constitution saves for the next 24 hours - though nothing I've seen actually lists out any diseases or poisons to use yet (though I do hope they bring back the Disease system from 4e - that was one bit that I was really quite impressed with).

We are switching over from 4e with my main group. We have our first session (also includes building PCs and connecting backgrounds) next weekend. The new edition seems to have breathed some life into the roleplaying side of our game. Everyone is excited to world build and flesh out various parts of the upcoming campaign.

For those intrigued, it will be set in Eberron with a focus on Droaam and interactions with the warlords and the hags.

We rolled stats for our Eberron campaign that starts next week. I got some decent rolls (17, 16, 16, 15, 13, 12). I am now wondering how to stat up my character. I am torn with class between Barbarian (Wolf Totem) or Ranger (Hunter). I plan to flavor the rage or the ranger spells as effects from a dragonmark (the mark of finding).

My character will be a Half-Orc member of House Tharashk named Makoa d'Torrn. His uncle is Lord Khundran d'Torrn. Makoa has been on a handful of assignments, but has not really been directly involved in much action. The assignments have included some bounty hunting tasks (that have been relatively easy, thus far, thanks to his dragonmark of finding) and some semi-lucrative dragonshard/byeshk prospecting in the Graywall Mountains. I am thinking the Outlander background.

Any suggestions on Barbarian vs Ranger? Would Str18/Con18 or Str19/Con17 be better (or whatever primary/secondary stats I end up having)? Anything else?

I am not sure what the entire party will be at this point, but it looks like the two other regulars are going Human Bard and Human Warlock (or maybe Wizard). Not really sure yet on their details.

Hm... I'd say it would depend on what you want to do with the character. The barbarian is going to deal more damage, but the ranger has more versatility - and with those rolls, you can definitely get the most out of the Ranger's diverse toolkit.

As for the stats - one way or the other, you'll only need to live with your choice until 4th level, where you'll be able to cap out your Strength. Generally, having two Even numbers is going to be better than having two Odds - particularly with 5e, where you get 2 points at 4th - as you're losing out on both stat boosts - and that 1 hp loss for those first few levels can really make a difference between dying and nearly dying.

I didn't notice the feats the first time I read through all that. And yes they are balanced and appropriate. The player has to decide to give up a stat increase, yet gains something viably correct and useful to the player.

I do notice that the classes are more centred on stats, and somewhat less on the class. This facilitates more blending. But it still has all the difficulties of old. Mountain Dwarf Wizard (transmuter) would be an interesting yet unoptimized mashup. At low levels he'd need str, dex, con, but intelligence would become desirable at higher levels. Not an ideal combat wizard, but resilient and a fun twist. Unlike other wizards he'd be hard and crunchy to deal with. (Also not an obvious target.)

A more ideal wizard would be a human or elf, all in for intelligence and spell casting. His spells would likely work better particularly in combat, but not hugely better. (Saves would be like 10% tougher.)
All that gets important as the character levels. This guy's spells would always be more likely to penetrate. Too bad he's soft and squishy in a fight.


I also like how the spells are balanced out. There's even a big dumb fighter for simple play.


Did you notice the adventure? All open ended challenges and resolutions? Who died and hired the real adventure writer? It's as good as any PF adventure, possibly better. (Not good for newbs though.)

That's it.... Wolfgang Baur, and Steve Winter. I believe that Merls was the author of the first 4e adventure, and it was a trudge.
http://thecampaign20xx.blogspot.com/201 ... ragon.html

So far I'm liking the way characters go together. It really looks paper and pencil friendly. Some abilities need big text blocks, but otherwise they are fine. It also looks dead dead simple to invent my own setting with associated character flavours and abilities.

It's dead simple to blend a character the way you want. An aggressive combat wizard, to a sneaky fighter. There are also plenty of ways to put together a party, using 4e isms like back line combat support.

Did you guys notice that the human variant can get a feat at level 1?

Are these rules available digitally?

I don't know how much faith I have in Wolfgang Bauer, honestly. He was the author of that gawd-awful 3.5 module "Expedition to the Demonweb Pits." That was one of the worst written adventures I've seen. Convoluted as all hell and it doesn't make any sense to the players.

I finally read through a lot of the magic section. It is very clearly 4e encounter/daily powers. I'm not sure how that sits with me. On one hand magic is way less magical, and on the other magic is more balanced. A lot of it seems very damage oriented.

Is it just me or is the only way to cure disease with a Paladin? Which also seems unbalanced, since they can cure disease and poison at first level with lay on hands.

Overall this game is 4e with some actual underpinning rules. Like AC is dex, and combat is strength (or dex) to hit. There is no more micro effect tactics. The role of the character in the party is chosen by the player not the character class. It looks like it would work perfectly on a grid, or not. (There are few if any single square spells.). Levelling is more driven by abilities and stats than by the character class. That makes low level critters dangerous at any level. (A huge plus in my mind.)

I did notice that wizards are more restricted to spells. Like why wouldn't the Barage spells be on the Wizard list? It's not like Rangers think up spells, and frankly a Wizard with it is just cool. (This is pretty much an indication that the spells are really just 4e powers in disguise.). It smacks of WOTC fixing up the martial classes, but not thinking through the spell casters.

Other 4e isms are the peppering of get out of jail free abilities, like 'Observant'. At level 1 a Cleric or thief would notice everything, like secret doors and traps (passive perception 20). Thief might be lower, but he could have advantage.

Probably the best mechanic in the game is gaining 'advantage', since it's the best way to guarantee success for actions. This puts the players pretty firmly on the road to thinking tactically and problem solving.