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

[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?)

ANYWAY, based on what I read, the Skill system as described in that is closer to 4E than 3E. There are no Skill points; at character creation you select a number of very general skills from a limited list. You then have 'proficiency' in that Skill, which gives you +2 (or higher at higher levels) on Ability checks for that skill. And that's what a skill check is; a simple ability check, modified by proficiencies and other applicable bonuses. As far as I'm concerned, this is a lot like the 4E Skill system. It isn't quite the same -- there's no automatic bonus for level -- but it's still less granular than the 3E system.

The one innovation they've added is the idea that you can use a given skill with different abilities a la White Wolf -- so for example, they suggest that you can use Athletics to modify a Constitution check (instead of only Strength). I'm all in favour of that, but I don't see it as a huge new paradigm shift; and it's easily house-ruled into any of the 3E/Pathfinder versions.

I didn't play that much 4E aside for a few demo games. They were fun enough. I think that 4E did make tactical combat more interesting, especially for lower-level characters; but that it unfortunately did so at the expense of every other aspect of the game. (But the 3E-4E edition wars have already been fought; and hey, with 5E they're now obsolete anyway, right?)

[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.