D&D 5th edition

[tcpip]

In an attempt to spur some conversation in the community, what are people's thoughts on D&D 5th edition? Will it be enough of a game changer to dethrone the usurper regent Pathfinder? Will players from other games and editions flock to the new beacon? Am I making enough of tortured metaphors in these questions?

Comments

[trysha]

It's a streamlined simplified version of pathfinder/3.5e with roleplaying encouraged and the tactical map has been severely de-emphasized.

some players will rejoice.
other gamers will rage.
(aka: nothing changes)

I think those that liked 3.5e and /hated/ 4e felt burned by wizards and flocked to pathfinder.
Those folks probably won't coming back.
Some 4e people who hated 3.5/pathfinder and liked the tactical minis feel will be sad.

It seems like 5e gets rid of much complexity on the DM side, which is very good - that's 3.x weakest point. HERE HAVE A PILE OF MATH.

Otherwise folks don't care.
I think that organized play (d&d encounters, adventurers league) is where wizards wins.

I think it'll do well.

[tcpip]

What about skills? I prefer skill-heavier games, which is one thing I really liked about 3.x. Looking at the D&D5e character sheet it seems they have been reduced substantially. Is this really the case?

[sorceror]

That was my reaction as well: the Skill system is oversimplified, and Feats are considered optional (in the downloadable Basic D&D set). Since I happen to feel that Skills and Feats were the two greatest improvements in 3E, that makes 5E considerably less appealing. They also seem eager to lock characters into an archetype from 3rd level onward. Again, I thought that the flexibility that 3E offered was a major improvement, so anything that detracts from that is not a plus in my book.

Overall 5E seems better than 4E, but I expect to stick with D&D 3.5 and/or Pathfinder.

[tcpip]

Wait, what? Reduced skills and optional feats? What's left? Cookie-cutter archetypes? I'm going to have to look at this in some detail.

I'm more of a D&D3.x style like yourself, but I can see that there were some interesting innovations in 4e.

[trysha]

it's reduced from 3.5 - they wanted to simplify character creation/levelling and make it more role playing oriented it seems.

You don't have the points per level you had with 3.5, instead of you select skills in a more 4e style skill system that autoscales with level. Being "the best blacksmith in the land" is designed to be handled by backgrounds and other roleplaying..

You still have 3.5e leveling/multiclassing.

(and I'm still running a 3.5 campaign, but stealing some 5e stuff for it) - heck, I grabbed horde of the dragon queen and am running it as a thing that is happening alongside the main adventure.

[tcpip]

I grabbed horde of the dragon queen and am running it as a thing that is happening alongside the main adventure.

Compatibility with other editions like that will be an advantage.

[sorceror]

The Basic D&D PDF is still available at (link redacted because LJ marked it as spam -- Google for "Basic D&D" and it should come up), if you haven't seen it already. Note that my opinion is based on this version, since I haven't (yet?) picked up the 5E PHB or played any demo games. They may have changed things in the final release (can anyone comment

[tcpip]

The Basic D&D PDF is still available at (link redacted because LJ marked it as spam

Yeah, I wish our mod would remove that :) As it is, I have already downloaded it but haven't had a chance to read it.

I don't mind the idea of additional proficiencies within a broader skill, creating a nested-like environment. Of course, it's coarse (pun not intended) which means that one is really only getting a fairly shallow nest. Still, an improvement - and ditto for for uncoupling skills from stats.