Public Playtest Opens for D&D Next ... Next Month

[Akisa]

I'm glad to see my group and I weren't imagining things when, after spending most of a year trudging through some 4e gaming, we remarked how slow and tedious the combat felt. It's largely a matter of inflated hit points at lower levels and healing surges, and the surges were definitely my least favorite part of the entire system. They felt artificial and out of place, and the way they interacted with healing consumables and healing spells was even worse.

It felt very much like a jumped up board game, rather than a tabletop RPG, and I'm sure that was their goal. Make it so you can hand character sheets out to people with action cards, and they really don't need to know much else. It didn't impact 'roleplaying' like some people claimed, since nothing stops you from getting into character as much as possible. I think that feeling comes from the heavy streamlining of the process and the powers, so that actions every round felt awfully repetitive and wargamy.

Not really sure what they're planning on doing with 5e, but I wish them well. They'll have to pull out something amazing to draw me away from Pathfinder.

The 4E mechanics actively draw me out of the game. While healing surge were one big factor, some of the melee powers seemed to be another reality changer for me. The powers felt like spells, while playing a spell caster it was ok, but if you're playing or watching someone suppose to be a non spell caster it always broke my immersion. It gotten to the point that I would only try 4e again if it's agreed upon that everyone in the world was a spell caster in some fashion but may or may not use weapons as well.

Yes, that's a very good way to put it regarding the powers. It felt like everyone was casting spells all the time, since mechanically they were all 'at will' 'encounter' or 'daily' powers. Sure, you could swing your sword, but you didn't get all the benefits of using one of your powers, which were always overly flashy and specific. I hope they move away from that entire concept and get back to making character classes feel more mechanically distinct.

~ sarcasm mode 1 The powers character have are mechanically different. I mean you have a wizard can add intelligence to their attack roll against target's Reflex, while a fighter can use their strength bonus and targets the person's AC. ~ sarcasm mode 0

Sorry I had to add that before someone made that argument.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

I'm not going to contribute to the arguments about 3.X vs 4th Ed. I'm a Pathfinder girl myself, but I've played 4E and, while I have no interest in DMing 4E, I did rip off some very good ideas for 4e and back-added them into Pathfinder:

Bloodied. DAMN useful to know when a character is at half HP. Just... damn helpful.

Also, Skill Challenges. Set a DC and the party needs to make 5 successes before 3 failures. Gold.

However, combat... meh, I find 4E combat repetitive and boring. Most battles in Pathfinder - whether 1st or 20th level - are over in 2 rounds or less.

So yeah, Pathfinder with stuff pirated from 4E.

OT: ... so anyway, I am looking forward to the open playtest of 5th Ed. First off, it will be nice to check out 5th E for free. That was something that was REALLY missing from 4E.

And secondly... always nice to mine them for good mechanics to turn into Pathfinder house-rules like Bloodied and Skill Challenges. ^^

 

[The Great JT]

I wish to try this stuff. How may I get involved?

 

[mirasiel]

Oh gods, I really hope they don't go back to 3E "better play a wizard or get a good book" style of play.

I never got what the problem was with healing surges since HP are just an abstract anyways.

I doubt I'll be switching anyways since I'm already slap back in the middle of a home written campaign, fuck trying to reconcile that with yet *another* unneeded (Im looking at you 'essentials') system change.

Hey maybe instead of making a new system WotC could actually finish off proper support for the 4e online tools...char builder/monster builder/ virtual table top, no?

 

[Callate]

I think that, given a few years, most decent gaming groups revise and "house rule" whatever edition they choose into something that suits their personal playing style and smooths out some of the game's rough edges.

Every new edition means giving up that work (and possibly a small fortune's worth of suddenly obsolete expansion materials) on the faith that the designers created something better than what they're working with now.

That faith is often not well rewarded. And I feel an increasing and uncomfortable sense that WotC is more interested in being able to sell us a new set of books at predictable and regular intervals than it is in making something players can grow comfortable with and shape to their own designs.

I don't want to see the parent company give up on D&D all together, but I'd like some evidence that they recognize that D&D isn't a car, a product you can release every year with slightly better gas mileage and a slightly more aerodynamic profile and a little more passenger space. Their "work" isn't necessarily refining, and I really don't feel it's what a majority of the players want.

For one example: making a game which requires less consultation of rule-books and breaking of flow to figure out how to do simple tasks: good.

Making a game to be easy to demonstrate in game stores and imply that you need eighty dollars worth of miniatures before you really get started...?

 

[Draconalis]

D&D IS the D20 system.

It didn't always used to be this way... there were better days.

Honestly, my favorite version was 2nd edition.

To be fair... it was probably only your favorite edition because it was the best edition.

 

[octafish]

D&D IS the D20 system.

It didn't always used to be this way... there were better days.

Honestly, my favorite version was 2nd edition.

To be fair... it was probably only your favorite edition because it was the best edition.

Dungeon and Dragons is for kids...Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, that is where it is at. Oh my fellow AD&D brothers and sisters, we happy few...

While i haven't played for ages a friend recently bought a basic starter pack of 4th edition stuff for his kids to try out. This is the poor guy I broke almost twenty years ago when he last tried DMing when I rule-lawyered him to pieces, not my finest moment. Anyway I was shocked at how rigid and dull the game is these days. They play with miniatures, on physical boards. What a load of shit. That sucks most of the imagination out of the game.

I've convinced him to throw out the boards and miniatures and rely on descriptive text instead, get his kids making their own maps, and most importantly, bypass combat as much as possible. That is the failure of most RPGs, they get bogged down in dice rolling. Cool stuff the players come up with should always trump dice rolling.

 

[Draconalis]

Snip.

When I used to DM (Getting the time to get the group back together is a *****...) I would set up difficult encounters... but there would always be some sort of way to crush it under rocks, or drown it, or something. All my players had to do was ask. I always want to encourage critical thinking.

At the same time, in my games, you only really get into combat if you fuck up that badly, or WANT to get into combat...

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

People use the "rules," rather than just reference them as a rough guide? News to me. Couldn't care less what they do to them.

 

[scotth266]

Anyway I was shocked at how rigid and dull the game is these days. They play with miniatures, on physical boards. What a load of shit. That sucks most of the imagination out of the game.

How so? Being given visual representations to help you figure out what is where does not magically "suck the imagination" out of the game. If anything, it makes things easier on the players, because without maps and pieces to represent things, you have to do more work keeping track of where things are.

I personally don't like pre-made official miniatures (I feel that the players should imagine what they and the monsters look like) but I do use pieces to represent the players and creatures in the game. A well-drawn map can draw players in and give them the same amount of information as well as a paragraph of exposition, and it doesn't make their eyes dull over in the process.

DND is supposed to be a mixture of wargaming and make-believe. What you describe appears to be too much of the latter, which to me sucks the fun out of the game and is, as you put it, a "load of shit".

 

[castlewise]

the much-maligned 4th edition

Was it? I mean, sure on the internet it was, but the only 3 D&D tables i have played in since it was launched used it and it was the DMs choice, personally i liked it too. Mainly because i fully agree that a ruleset is only a tool for creativity, and this one with a little spice from the in house rules allowed to have better balance in my opinion and at least tried to get rid of the padded fights.

I can't speak for others, but I know in my group, we tried 4th edition for a few months; it drove us to Pathfinder, where we have been happily playing for over a year now. For us, 4th was just too rigid and mechanical to allow for much creativity; it always felt more like we were playing a board game than an RPG.

Yeah 4e got laughed out of all the groups in my town and everyone switched to pathfinder because of how low Wizards had sunk.

It will be interesting to see if they can do something interesting with Next

My group plays 4th. I think there are a lot of groups that happily play 4th, but the original "core" fanbase isn't very fond of it. I think the biggest (and IMHO insurmountable) problem with D&D next is that they are going to try to please everyone. My group likes the combat in 4th. They like the board and the miniatures and the power cards. Other people hate that stuff. If you can't even agree on a paradigm for how your characters fight, how are you going to make a D&D game?

 

[Tanakh]

And in no wait does 3.X is closer to JRPG. As you don't see melee mimicking spells like 4th and JRPG does.

Holy trinity, the inside party actions and tactics of games like FF V or DQ III are closer to 3rd. 4th really tried hard to get away from the holy trinity, and failed, but did some progress that way, hopefully they will keep that path.

Also... really? Monks dont mimick spells? Psion melee? Even the humble fighter at medium levels has abilities that are better explained as magic than as real world martial skills.

 

[Zen Toombs]

Public Playtest Opens for D&D Next ... Next Month

Hey OP, I have the same question as this guy:

I wish to try this stuff. How may I get involved?

I'd like to give it a fair shot before moving along, just like I did 4th Edition.