A Land Far Away

I'm really excited about next month's release. I've spent the last year or two researching various gaming platforms to use for some PnP with my kids. To date I have mostly been using the 4ed based D&D board games as an alternative. However, I've done some reading about 5ed and went back through my playtest docs. Looks like I'm going to try using 5ed for my first real foray into PnP with my kids.

Is anyone else looking at 5ed seriously with a tabletop group?

Also, I saw some hints that there is a digital manager which could enable play by post somehow.

[edit]
Here it is:

http://www.codenamemorningstar.com/

Combined with something like Roll20, we might be able to play D&D 5ed fairly easily online.

5e lost me with the advantage/disadvantage mechanic. I really don't like that idea at all. If not for that, I might try it.

shad0wfax wrote:5e lost me with the advantage/disadvantage mechanic.

What's that, and why is it horrible?

For example, if shooting a bow in melee, instead of the rule for 3.5 ed, you would roll two d20 and use the lower number; ie. you are shooting your bow at a disadvantage. If you have advantage you roll two d20 and use the higher number. I think it's silly to dismiss the whole system just because of a simple rule like this. I like it, and also it is reminiscent of some other gaming systems that have similar mechanics. I'm in the process of reading the playtest rules and we are going to start playing D&D next this weekend. It will give us a couple weeks of practice before the Basic D&D pdf is released with the starter set.

Essentially D&D 5ed is really modular, where it is about empowering DMs. There are lots of randomization, customization, and conversion options. So the DMG will have rules for adapting the other four editions of D&D for usage in 5ed. The rules are pretty straightforward and remind me a bit of 2ed and 3ed combined and simplified a bit. The basic version should be very easy to pick up and play, with the core rulebooks adding depth and complexity via increased options. I love the design philosophy and am pretty certain it's going to work out perfectly for my needs. I have lots of 2ed, 3ed, and 4ed sourcebooks that I will be able to pull from and adapt for 5ed as well.

FInally, there will be two big campaign style books released this year. They are called the Tyranny of Dragons, and the first one will take players from 1-8 and the second from 8-15. Advancement is a bit quicker, and the default 5ed setting is FR (nice!). By design, they are making heavy use of factions for PCs to interact with, something that I do a lot of as a DM already. The over plot is a minor spoiler, but it's in all the advertising:

One might note that every edition of D&D is modular and provides heaps of optional rules and expansions.

D&D itself was born as a high fantasy supplement to Chainmail. It's in the game's blood.

Every new edition of dnd has been better, im hyped for 5th!

Apart from the advantage system, 5e looks great and they brought back some great features from 2e that went away in 3-4e.

The problem is that advantage/disadvantage is too deeply embedded as a core mechanic in 5e to get away from it. Advantage and disadvantage is not nearly as subtle as a -1 to -4 or +1 to +4 penalty or bonus required based on certain effects. The old system allowed for fine-grained adjustments that scaled on a flat percentage. In the old systems, probability was predictable. Probability scales awkwardly with the new system, as the chance of success and failure in the advantage/disadvantage system is always multiplicative.

http://anydice.com/program/11fd

Top table is a roll 1d20 probability chart, average roll is 10.5 and chance of any one number is 1/20. With advantage, the average roll is about 14, the chance of a 1 is 1/400 and the chance of a 20 is 1/10. With disadvantage, the average roll is about a 7, the chance of a 1 is 1/10 and the chance of a 20 is 1/400.

Let that sink in.

Because having advantage is so very good, and having disadvantage is so very bad, it's actually unlikely not to encounter it with intelligent players and DMs controlling intelligent NPCs; advantage is pervasive by design. In my experience, players will be agonizing over seeking advantage at all costs, and intelligent NPCs should be as well. Play testing showed me that my group of players were so obsessed with seeking advantage that it detracted from the game-play.

If anyone has ever fought "pugwampi" in Pathfinder with their "unluck aura" there's a fine example of how a few well placed CR 1/2 creatures can totally wreck a PCs day in higher CR encounter, such as a gnoll hunting party.

sounds pretty compelling when you put it that way. i like that they also can cancel each other out if both advantage and disadvantage exists.

went to the game store and picked up some more dice sets. we will probably launch into D&D next playtest this weekend. the game store said they will have the starter set on the earlier July 3rd release date and so I'll be starting a couple weeks earlier than expected.

I've said it before, but really anyone who wants to play any version of D&D would probably be better served by playing Dungeon World instead. (free to use)

It captures the feel of D&D, while getting rid of all of the annoying system mastery bullshit that just gets in the way of RP. The way the rules are written even encourage interesting RP and good DMing. It also has the advantage of being extremely easy to pick up and use.