Dungeons & Dragons Officially Relaunches Next Summer

[Fanghawk]

Dungeons & Dragons Officially Relaunches Next Summer

Wizards of the Coast intends to release its latest Dungeons & Dragons rules after two years of public testing.

<a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/130088-Bundle-of-Holding-Rolls-Biggest-Bundle-Yet>Tabletop roleplaying may have grown exponentially in recent years, but in the end, it always comes down to Dungeons & Dragons. This game has been so influential that all other RPGs, regardless of genre, are ultimately judged against its d20 standard. Not even the reviled Dungeons and Dragons Fourth Edition could change that, despite a knack for driving fans to alternatives like Pathfinder or Dungeon World. Regardless, Wizards of the Coast wants to bring players back to D&D, and hopes its latest edition can do just that. After two years of testing, <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/116964-Public-Playtest-Opens-for-D-D-Next-Next-Month>including an open beta, WotC has announced that its latest Dungeons & Dragons rules will officially launch in Summer 2014.

"Just like a perfectly balanced party, Wizards has worked cohesively with fans, designers and partners to create the next generation of D&D," said Dungeons & Dragons Brand Director Nathan Stewart. "We whole-heartedly thank all of the play test participants, whose feedback has proven instrumental in shaping the future of Dungeons & Dragons."

Dungeons and Dragons Fourth Edition wasn't a bad game in and of itself, but <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/checkfortraps/7518-Simulation-vs-Cinematic>it was dramatically different than what most players had expected. Today, with a new emphasis on playtesting, feedback, <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/9329-Speak-Your-Mind-in-the-Next-Version-of-Dungeons-Dragons>and compatibility with previous editions, Wizards of the Coast likely hopes these rules will unite D&D's fractured base. Assuming the publisher hasn't rolled a critical fail along the way, we'll find out in about six months.

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[AldUK]

4th edition was actually completely ignored by the gaming club I play table-top RPGs at. They just went straight onto Pathfinder. I actually doubt any of them would leave it at this point. Though I'll be interested to see what Wizards have done this time.

 

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

Can Clerics be evil again? I want to make an evil cleric again...

 

[Elf Defiler Korgan]

I am intrigued how they do, given wider trends in rpgs in recent years, and that 4th ed was a flop.

Will they knock pathfinder off the pedestal? I know so many that went to PF, but then the problems of PF started to pile up with expanded material.

 

[zerragonoss]

Can Clerics be evil again? I want to make an evil cleric again...

Yes from what I saw the last time I looked at the play test material almost every thing as about basic stats and option. Clerics for example changed a great deal depending on there domains allowing for good or evil as well as full caster with no armor to traditional heave armor clerics.

 

[fractal_butterfly]

I really hate what they are doing with the 5th Edition. First, they throw everything out from 4th and start with something strongly resembling the 3rd edition. Then they realize, that the 3rd Edition had some major flaws and started to half-arsedly cram in concepts from 4th edition without a proper understanding of these mechanics.
I would still recommend 4th Edition. It is just well designed, not the rules mess and "half-the-book-consists-of-rules-for-just-one-fifth-of-the-classes" stuff of D&D3. Much less rules ambiguity and much more flexible than any D&D before. And dungeon mastering is just beautifully easy, so you can completely concentrate on story and adventure design.
I get why this system got so much hate, but if you give it a chance it is just great. 3rd Edition has its own charm, but rules wise it is just a mess.

Can Clerics be evil again? I want to make an evil cleric again...

Yes from what I saw the last time I looked at the play test material almost every thing as about basic stats and option. Clerics for example changed a great deal depending on there domains allowing for good or evil as well as full caster with no armor to traditional heave armor clerics.

All of this is already possible in 4th edition...

 

[octafish]

Meh. If it aint Advanced it aint D&D.

You can use house rules to make THAC0 easier if you like but 2nd is the greatest Edition.

 

[Ranorak]

I really hate what they are doing with the 5th Edition. First, they throw everything out from 4th and start with something strongly resembling the 3rd edition. Then they realize, that the 3rd Edition had some major flaws and started to half-arsedly cram in concepts from 4th edition without a proper understanding of these mechanics.
I would still recommend 4th Edition. It is just well designed, not the rules mess and "half-the-book-consists-of-rules-for-just-one-fifth-of-the-classes" stuff of D&D3. Much less rules ambiguity and much more flexible than any D&D before. And dungeon mastering is just beautifully easy, so you can completely concentrate on story and adventure design.
I get why this system got so much hate, but if you give it a chance it is just great. 3rd Edition has its own charm, but rules wise it is just a mess.

Can Clerics be evil again? I want to make an evil cleric again...

Yes from what I saw the last time I looked at the play test material almost every thing as about basic stats and option. Clerics for example changed a great deal depending on there domains allowing for good or evil as well as full caster with no armor to traditional heave armor clerics.

All of this is already possible in 4th edition...

I'm sorry, but the 4th edition was just extremely boring to me.
Almost all the unique features were stripped from the classes.
There is almost no difference between the classes anymore, besides the name of the attacks, and what attibute they use.

A ranged single target attack from a ranger and a wizard work the exact same way, except a ranger uses his Dex score to hit, and a wizard uses his Int to hit. This never made any sense to me. In 3.5 a ranger attack still had to rely on dex to hit, int inly effected to Save Throw DC.

Not to mention the druid. The shapeshift skill has been turned from a "Turn into a animal and gain their features and abilities." to a "You have to use this spell before you can use your beast spells"
There are no changes in abillities. I could turn into a medium Snake and still use Claw spells.
Turning into a deer or a bear has no significant differences.

Not to mention Martial classes needing special "skills" to do things like grab, knockdown and disarm. Did you already use that one disarm skill, and it's not a At-will, too bad! you can now for no reason use it!

Atleast with 5.0 they're trying to get some of the uniqueness from the classes back, with special features and old mechanics. And to me, this is a warm welcome!

 

[Thunderous Cacophony]

Can Clerics be evil again? I want to make an evil cleric again...

Yes from what I saw the last time I looked at the play test material almost every thing as about basic stats and option. Clerics for example changed a great deal depending on there domains allowing for good or evil as well as full caster with no armor to traditional heave armor clerics.

No evil characters in D&D Next, at least not in the PHB1.
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?348230-Evil-characters-material-not-going-to-be-in-the-PHB
You can still have evil characters, though, just like you could in 4th edition; just be evil.

 

[Aggieknight]

I'm sorry, they removed Evil characters in 4th edition?

Wha? How? Huh?

I guess I get to play the old man card and mention that everything's gone to poop since they got rid of THAC0. My group and I play a modified 2 Edition/3.5 Edition.

 

[deth2munkies]

Just as a heads up, I haven't heard a single positive thing about DnD Next (this one they're releasing) from anyone unaffiliated with WotC. Take that as you will.

 

[Auberon]

I have lurked enough /tg/ to approximate this being 3.x/4e mashup so far, with flaws of both. If they just made Great Wheel official and launched Planescape with Tony art...

captcha: ask questions

No, I can't be bothered to start another thread over there.

 

[dl_wraith]

Seriously?? Can x be evil again? That's the beauty of any tabletop RPG system - you can do what you like with it. Just because a book doesn't specifically say that being evil is allowed is no barrier to playing that way.

I've ran evil parties (and evil individuals in largely good or neutral parties) in 2E, 4E and Next and can honestly say it works out fine. You just have to take account of the fact that there's a differing dynamic in the party so it doesn't disrupt story flow due to differing world views or goals.

Really, go with what you want as long as your group is cool with it. Your game shouldn't suffer for it as long as the DM writes adventures with the Party dynamic in mind

-----

I've been using all of the Playtest packets from the moment they were announced. I'm a 2E DM that was running a pair of regular weekly 4E games. I converted one to Next, vastly preferred the system to 4E and now have both groups running Next.

Next really is already a frakenstein's monster of sorts, with elements recognizable from 2, 3 and 4E. I worried that it was heading too far down the 3E route at one point (I could see a mess of feat trees, sub/prestige classes and ridiculous multiclassing coming) but so far they've steered clear of that potential car-crash.

The homogenization of the classes 4E brought has been removed and now you'll find that not everything is an 'attack power' keyed to a particular attack statistic. Classes feel different again but in so doing some of 4E's balance has been lost. I'll take flavour and difference over balance, however.

They didn't throw the baby out with the bathwater though - some of the lessons learned from 4E have been used with the game playing as quickly and easily as low-level 4E ever did (before you were inundated with interrupts, minor actions and more cards than you could read in a round). A healing surge style mechanic has remained to bolster party survivability and the system unifications started in 3E and finished in 4E remains throughout.

The class you pick and the build you want no longer straightjackets you into a particular ability score setup - you can genuinely have as much fun playing a non-standard ability score setup. To ensure that all the ability scores remain valid (and that systems are unified further) the three defences have been dropped in favour of saving throws using your ability score modifiers. Taking an incoming attack you can dodge? No problem, don't bother attacking the reflex of your opponent, just force them to Dex save instead. Elegant and easy to call in the middle of a situation.

With the loss of having to choose to max certain ability scores to remain effective you'd think dump-statting would return. Thanks to the save mechanics that hasn't happened but with the final packet it's certainly Dex that sits as the king stat. That may change as the game releases.

Next isn't perfect but it's faster to play, easier to adjudicate and most of all FEELS more like D&D than it's (unfairly) maligned predecessor.

I loved 2E but modded it to simplify its disperate systems, I hated 3E for it's powergamer-centric setup, loved 4E at first and grew to dislike the way the combat system slowly forces people to play. I'm looking forward to Next as so far I feel it's captures something good from each past edition. I hope Next blossoms into the best of all worlds.

 

[Gorrath]

Back in my day we carved our dice from the bones of mammoths and THAC0 was still a thing. I never got into 4th ed, as the bit of play testing my group did made everyone nauseous. 3rd ed, in all of its various iterations, was some level of "what the hell" levels of power. I always felt D&D became less about sword and sorcery epics and more about Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon levels of over the top.

Can anyone who is familiar with 5th ed tell me if the game has been rolled back in power scale? If not I think I'll just keep running nWoD interspersed with the odd game of BESM.

 

[Matt K]

I played tested the latest version of D&D Next and I have to say while they do have a kernel of a good idea, I hope they don;t just release it as is as I did not much care for the new system.

 

[fractal_butterfly]

I'm sorry, but the 4th edition was just extremely boring to me.
Almost all the unique features were stripped from the classes.
There is almost no difference between the classes anymore, besides the name of the attacks, and what attibute they use.

The main attribute of a class IS one of the main differences. A character feels completely different, if he has a high Dexterity, than if he has a high Charisma or a high Strenght, because of the effects on defenses and skills.

A ranged single target attack from a ranger and a wizard work the exact same way, except a ranger uses his Dex score to hit, and a wizard uses his Int to hit. This never made any sense to me. In 3.5 a ranger attack still had to rely on dex to hit, int inly effected to Save Throw DC.

Then maybe you play it differently than I do. The ranger has multiattacks and extra damage, while the mage has several area attacks and abilities, which let him debuff the enemies and force them to move or avoid certain parts of the battle field. While the cleric and the bard are both "healers", the cleric excels in his healing abilities and his attacks against undead, while the bard is a better supporter, giving boni, temporary hitpoints etc.
Every class has something unique, which results in completely different tasks and strengths on the battle field.

Not to mention the druid. The shapeshift skill has been turned from a "Turn into a animal and gain their features and abilities." to a "You have to use this spell before you can use your beast spells"
There are no changes in abillities. I could turn into a medium Snake and still use Claw spells.
Turning into a deer or a bear has no significant differences.

I admit that this is part of the streamlining, the shape change in D&D3rd was quite imbalanced for example. But the druid still has the ability to take several especially small, big or otherwise extraordinary animal forms with later, higher level utility powers. And from a roleplaying aspect, it is still a difference, if the druid turned into a bear, a snake or a dog.
I tended to let my druids choose a favorite combat form and rename their beast attack skills accordingly. Just have some fantasy ;-)

Not to mention Martial classes needing special "skills" to do things like grab, knockdown and disarm. Did you already use that one disarm skill, and it's not a At-will, too bad! you can now for no reason use it!

Here again the streamlining. Knocking someone down is quite powerful, so it should not be something everyone can just do when he wants to. Disarming was erased completely, since it was to powerful as well. Take the weapon of a fighter and he can't do anything anymore. Grabbing for example is something everyone can do, it is useful, but not all to poweful.
I like it from a game design aspect. I know that it is weird from a "realistic" standpoint, but I prefer this balanced system, as it makes things simpler and makes me more free to concentrate on the roleplaying.

Atleast with 5.0 they're trying to get some of the uniqueness from the classes back, with special features and old mechanics. And to me, this is a warm welcome!

I think this is a common misconception about D&D 4: the classes may be more similair, due to the rule streamlining. But this is a good thing! You don't have extra rules for every class anymore. I like it that there are no "saves" anymore, only defenses. From a mathematical standpoint it makes no difference, but it makes things easier to understand and do in combat.
One thing that is severely underestimated is the power of character development through Feats. You have a vast amount of feats, whith a huge variety of applications. One of my players built a half shaman, half ranger, with strong arcane and religious abilities. I myself built a cleric with a focus on heavy armor and weapons, which resulted in a heavily armored combat cleric very similar to the 3rd edition cleric. You have so much more possibilities for character development in 4e than in 3rd or Next, just with the use of feats, paragon paths and the different class specializations.

And that is why I prefer the system, although it has its flaws.