It’s the moment NOBODY has been waiting for: when I finally step out from behind my PDF copy of the basic rules and tell everyone what I think of where D&D is heading.
In short? Color me cautiously optimistic.
I have a few problems in terms of being objective about D&D Next that I’d like to get off my chest and get out of the way, just like, up front and obvious.
- Up to now, D&D 4th Edition has been my favorite take on D&D. Anything that replaces it is going to have a tough act to follow in my book— though I freely admit that it had its problems. One of which, lately, is somehow offering too many good choices but being oddly rigid about how those choices interact.
- On some level I basically give an automatic free pass to any edition of Dungeons & Dragons in which the Warlock is considered a core class.
So I might not be the best person to evaluate this because in one sense, it feels like I’m exactly not the target audience, and in another … Warlock and Tiefling are core, I’m already set.
The bad news for spell casters is, vancian spells appear to be back. The good news is, cantrips have been beefed up to fill the role occupied by at-will powers (the damaging cantrips I saw dealt a base damage of 1d8 that increased with your character level). Multiclassing doesn’t seem to gimp casters anymore, since caster level is replaced with character level for all the important math. Most of the math is simpler. Spontaneous Casting (veterans of the 3.5 Sorcerer will know what this is) seem to be the norm. There are recovery mechanics to reuse a certain number of spell slots within a given day. Redundant spells have been replaced by the ability to cast spells at a higher level.
The good news on the math front is that ability scores appear to be capped at 20, and base attack bonuses (or rather their equivalent, the multipurpose “proficiency bonus” which is a nice idea) never get higher than 6. This should simplify a lot of calculations, cut down on abuse, and at the same time make it easier to use the same monsters throughout a campaign by eliminating a lot of the mathematical arms-races.
In short, it builds on 3.5 in a lot of ways… on the surface anyway.
“Feats as an optional rule” is an idea that’s going to take me a lot of getting used to, but it’s a nice idea for helping new players grasp the game quickly— choose the level of complexity you’re comfortable with, and everyone can still operate at the same table. It’s a worthwhile goal but there’s not really a way to see how it’ll really work out until we have the player’s handbook in … well, in hand. But here’s what we know about the feat rules:
To take a feat, you give up a +2 to an ability score that you’d otherwise take at that level.
Given that your ability scores cap at 20, more often than not this will likely be a boost to an otherwise unneeded tertiary score … which should work out fairly well as a decent trade for many characters.
What the feats actually are will make or break that, but. There’s not much to go on yet. My hunch is, that’ll be where a lot of the other cool 4th edition inspired stuff people liked gets back-doored back in.
Bottom line: it looks promising, and sounds fun. I’ll know after I see the PHB whether I’ll be throwing my full support behind it or house-ruling my 4e books to suit my own preferences.
Jonathan Baldwin
Jonathan is a firm believer that the best way to make friends is to game with them, and that nearly any problem can be surmounted with a well rolled d20 and a sense of humor. Regrettably, his professors do not agree with him, which leaves him with the challenge of balancing his gaming habits with his studies. Profile Page / Article Portfolio
Feats are actually nicely done IMO. The PHB has a bunch. Basically players make the choice betwen increased Stats or a Feat…but the Feats are rather robust. A lot give a single Stat increase (instead of the 2 for just taking the Stat increase) and something else useful…or a couple of really useful things (or even 3). Take a look at the PHB and Feats.
To me they fit seamlessly. A Grognard can keep the Basic advancement (2 Stat increases) and the non-Grognard (3E+) can get their Feats and they are comparable.
Feats look great. At my table it’s a tough choice for the players; feats are really cool, but increasing an ability score is also cool. There are so few things that can increase your bonus on a roll (unlike every previous edition) that bumping a stat is really significant. Ability modifier and Proficency Bonus are all you add to a roll, that’s basically it! Keeps the math simple.
Another factor influencing the choice is the lack of an easily determined “dump stat”. With the new edition there are 6 saving throws, one tied to each ability so it can be a real problem having a -1 Intelligence saving throw for your fighter. Unless the aforementioned fighter eventually increases his Intelligence or somehow becomes proficient with Intelligence saves he’s going to be rolling -1 from 1st to 20th level on that save. Might be a huge liability at higher levels.
So far I’ve enjoyed the game, as have my players, and look forward to more!
I downloaded the basic rules but haven’t had time to more than skim them. Thanks to your review I’ll be sure to carve some time out to take a closer look.
While I always found the Vancian system rather clunky even back in the Red Box day, it is so much a part of D&D that its removal in 4th really changed the tone of the game for me, so I’m glad it’s back. That being said, the last time I ran a 3.5 game I put together a custom system from Mutants and Masterminds 2nd Edition Ultimate Power.
One of the biggest problems I and a lot of other players had with 4e was that wizards no longer felt…wizardly. The main draw of playing a wizard, as opposed to a spontaneous caster, was in their versatility. If you knew you were going into an icy mountain cave tomorrow, you could rest and prepare a metric ton of fire spells. If you were sure you were going to have some downtime in town, you could prepare some social spells. In other situations, you could prepare a mix. The return of Vancian casting, albeit in a simpler form, is one of my favorite aspects of 5e. That being said, I absolutely love the fact that cantrips are free. It evens the playing field between the arcane classes and the melee ones. Where in previous editions fighters were the main damage dealers at low levels, and arcane classes were at higher levels (and conversely, arcane classes were absolutely useless at low levels and melee classes were underpowered at higher levels), the progression is now fairly even. A neophyte wizard will have no problem in combat, and a veteran fighter can now hold his own elbow-to-elbow with a blaster. Is this better than previous systems? I’m not sure, but I can’t wait to find out.
On another note, my absolute favorite aspect of this edition is how they handle gender and sexual identities. Here’s an excerpt from page 33 of the Basic Rules. It can also be found on page 121 of the Player’s Handbook.
“You don’t need to be confined to binary notions of sex and gender. The elf god Corellon Larethian is often seen as androgynous or hermaphroditic, for example, and some elves in the multiverse are made in Corellon’s image. You could also play a female character who presents herself as a man, a man who feels trapped in a female body, or a bearded female dwarf who hates being mistaken for a male. Likewise, your character’s sexual orientation is for you to decide.
As someone with a transgendered family member, two transgendered friends, and several friends and family members who don’t fit on a binary sexual identity scale, it is extremely refreshing to see such a progressive attitude toward gender and sexual identities presented in a mainstream RPG. Most RPGs seem to pigeonhole you into choosing on a binary system (sometimes even marking the character sheets “Gender M/F” and/or having your character’s gender affect your stats) or ignore the issue altogether. The fact that 5e addresses, and even seems to encourage, roleplaying gender dismorphia is in my mind completely astonishing. Even if the game mechanics were complete crap (they aren’t; like all RPGs 5e has its ups and downs), in my mind the above paragraph alone completely justifies throwing some money their way.