D&D 5th Edition

[nclarke]

I thought this was the BRP site? There are plenty of other sites offering discussion on D&D that would benefit from your thoughts.

[soltakss]

I thought this was the BRP site? There are plenty of other sites offering discussion on D&D that would benefit from your thoughts.

 

With 13th Age Glorantha, D&D-style systems are back in, certainly for Glorantha, which is kin to RQ, which is kin to BRP. So, D20 is like a 4th cousin, once or twice removed.

[Guest Vile Traveller]

Well, this is the "more games" forum so anything goes.

 

Players are free to object when I don't use feats in the 5E games I run, but to no avail. Feats are the number one reason for referee burnout and munchkinism. On the other hand, I'm sad to see skills downgraded - the only reason I got into 3E in the first place was because they introduced a skill system. In fact, on-and-off I tinker with a d20 game that is entirely skill-based, and has no levels. It's quite interesting.

[Darkholme]

Players are free to object when I don't use feats in the 5E games I run, but to no avail. Feats are the number one reason for referee burnout and munchkinism. On the other hand, I'm sad to see skills downgraded - the only reason I got into 3E in the first place was because they introduced a skill system. In fact, on-and-off I tinker with a d20 game that is entirely skill-based, and has no levels. It's quite interesting.

Ah. When I say "strongly object" I mean they would likely be a requirement for me to want to play in a 5e game. I would object so strongly as to say "I don't think I'm going to be interested in this campaign guys". and would proceed to play other systems with my group instead. (I might be convinced to try it once with great hesitation, but I am pretty sure that my opinion on the matter wouldn't change and I would drop it 3 or 4 sessions in).

 

From my perspective, the selectable feats are the most important aspect of D&D character creation, they are what makes characters feel different from one another. Especially with the way they handle skills in 4e/5e, where your skill bonus is fixed rather than based on a massive pool of points which you spread around (like in Pathfinder).

 

An entirely skill-based d20 system might be interesting, depending on how it was handled; but that's not 5e. 5e without feats is a system where there is basically a single character of each race & class, and all others are almost exact copies of that one.

[Guest Vile Traveller]

Not really, feats as they were used in 3E and even more so in Pathfinder were basically part of the system - if you didn't have them, you couldn't even attempt to do stuff. In 5E feats are extra, there's nothing you can't do in game if you don't have them. Characters are differentiated much more through backgrounds than they were with feats, because feats were such that you pretty much had to choose a certain tree in order to build a certain type of character. At the moments there are not enough backgrounds, but I expect this to become the new area of expansion and fan publication (plus it's pretty easy to make up your own backgrounds).

 

You should try it, just to see if you like it. One of my players was previously a total Pathfinder min-maxer but he's now perfectly happy without feats. This is the thing about 5E, it works in all kinds of unexpected ways.

[p_clapham]

I've peeked through the PDF a bit, it looks interesting.  Wizards end up with more spells than clerics at first level.  Still not a fan of the Vancian magic system.  One of the reasons I prefer Runequest or D&D 4E.

[Darkholme]

I've peeked through the PDF a bit, it looks interesting.  Wizards end up with more spells than clerics at first level.  Still not a fan of the Vancian magic system.  One of the reasons I prefer Runequest or D&D 4E.

I don't mind Vancian casting for magic, but it really bothers me when someone puts an X uses/ time period limit on most abilities.

[Mankcam]

D&D also holds a strange fascination with rpg gamers, even if you never play it. I guess its still the biggest bad boy on the block.

 

But from a rules mechanics point of view, BRP and RQ are still so much better from how I see it.

 

Playing class/level based rpgs are akin to playing an online MMO except with dice. I tend to find that you often play a class instead of a character. The rise in more narrative-focused tabletop rpg games from the mid 90s onwards has been great in shifting the hobby back to ROLE playing ( as in a Character role), although sometimes at the cost of poor game mechanics.

 

Hence why I love the BRP family of games. They have great simulationist mechanics which typically blend into the background, and allow for storytelling to take centre stage.

 

Despite such, there are still times when you just want to be that Level 6 Fighter who loots every nonsensical dungeon he finds. This is why MMOs work well, and they really are the true inheritors of D&D and other class/level based rpgs

[p_clapham]

D&D also holds a strange fascination with rpg gamers, even if you never play it. I guess its still the biggest bad boy on the block.

 

But from a rules mechanics point of view, BRP and RQ are still so much better from how I see it.

 

Playing class/level based rpgs are akin to playing an online MMO except with dice. I tend to find that you often play a class instead of a character. The rise in more narrative-focused tabletop rpg games from the mid 90s onwards has been great in shifting the hobby back to ROLE playing ( as in a Character role), although sometimes at the cost of poor game mechanics.

 

Hence why I love the BRP family of games. They have great simulationist mechanics which typically blend into the background, and allow for storytelling to take centre stage.

 

Despite such, there are still times when you just want to be that Level 6 Fighter who loots every nonsensical dungeon he finds. This is why MMOs work well, and they really are the true inheritors of D&D and other class/level based rpgs

 

That MMO feeling was really strong in 4E.  I didn't mind it too terribly, that edition had more upsides than downsides for me.  I was sad that they discontinued the D&D mini line prior to 4th edition.  I loved those prepainted plastic figures, so cheap and so useful.

[mrfish]

The advantage/disadvantage rules wound up being my favourite part of 5E. I like how it solves so many of the cumbersome rules discussions that tended to plague 3.5 and pathfinder (I´ve never played 4th btw). I also like how it is a tool I can use to give small temporary benefits or penalties on the fly. I also think it solves some of the balance issue from previous editions, though they are still present, and combat is much faster and more streamlined. 

 

I dislike feats, and have done so since 3.0. I think, as a tool used to creature fun and interesting PC´s, feats are worse in 5E then later editions. If you solely used feats to optimise then 5E handles them better. 

 

I really dislike the short rests as it severely interferes with my GM´ing style. If I´m going to use 5E in the future I´ll have to make a house rule that makes its easier to gain the benefits. 

 

Most of the classes are/seem fun to play. The warlock tend to suffer from not getting short rests, its still a good class, but it gets boring when you only get to use one spell each and every time. I feel that the warlock is the only class that suffers from poor design, but thats maybe because I´m seeing more as a caster than as an alternative ranged warrior.

 

The warrior classes still doesn’t bring much, and they tend to get boring in the long run, perhaps with the exception of the battle master. And I don’t like the new wizard, without any metamagic, I prefer the sorcerer class.  

 

There are some other major problems with the classes, like the beast master being horrible and the moon druid being too powerful (especially at early levels), but like I said the balance issues are nothing compared to 3.5/PF. 

 

I like it as a d&d edition, perhaps the best one yet, maybe besides E6 versions of 3.5/PF. But as a GM I dislike it, it encourages optimization and gets slow and boring on higher levels, and the numerous sources of magic leaves me with fewer options to challenge my party. As a player I´m an optimizer when it comes to d&d, and would rather have the toolbox that 3.5/PF gives me to create fun and powerful characters. 

 

I´ve never played an MMO (besides dark ages of camelot, once or twice), so I can't say whether it solves any problems associated with that

[Mankcam]

 

I´ve never played an MMO (besides dark ages of camelot, once or twice), so I can't say whether it solves any problems associated with that

I don't think there are any issues associated with MMOs - they mirror old school class play and perfectly suit the digital medium that they are in.

What I see as an issue is when a current rpg does this.

PnP RPGs should have rules that support narrative and character improv, so if the rpg still focuses on game mechanics over these things then it really should not be a rpg.

Those mechanics are quite suited to rpg-style tabletop board games however, such as Fortune & Glory or the D&D boardgames, for instance.

I own the D&D 5E rules (Players Handbook, Dungeon Master Handbook, & Monster Manual), out of eye-candy appeal and genuine curiosity. It looks great, and is the 'loosest' modern version of D&D in many years. However it is still limited in many class-play aspects, and would lend itself much better to board games and online MMOs than it does to creative characterisation and storytelling. It is perhaps the best version of D&D I have seen, and I would very much like to play it.

Having said that, despite all its bells and whistles, the system still falls short in many aspects for me personally. I certainly would play a few fun one-shots with D&D 5E, although I very much doubt I could go the distance in regards to running a lengthy campaign.

Ironically D&D is still the biggest roleplaying game on the block, so that shows you that publicity is everything. 

Edited September 12, 2015 by Mankcam

[Hexelis]

I got it and we're running a game right now. I like it, it seems to have fixed alot of stuff that I started to hate about 3e. In a way it seemed to me to run a little more like BRP but I've been running nothing but BRP for the last 10 years so maybe it's just my GMing, lol. It is more story based and less powergamer, at least it seems that way to me. The players like it, 2 are new to D&D and 1 is an old 2e/3e vet.

[rabindranath72]

I have been playing 5e since August, and we are loving the system. It does indeed look like a "cleaned up" 2e, although we have found that magic has been somewhat nerfed, with a lot of spells having much less impact than before (see for example Phantasmal Force) and some class abilities being less broad than before (e.g. the inspiration ability of 5e bards vs. 2e bards.)

I have been running a Birthright campaign, and converting the 2e stuff has been relatively easy.

The three 5e core books form an excellent basis for all the classical D&D stuff, from race and class options (more than core 3e and core 4e) to the excellent DMG which covers dungeon design, outer planes, lots of optional rules to tweak the "feel" of the game, finishing with the Monster Manual that has a lot of excellent stuff, striking a good balance between interesting mechanics and background info.

I have sold most of my 3e stuff, since 5e scratches the "itch" of a "modern" D&D very well, and with its simple mechanics, I can see it as a good replacement for 2e also. I have never been a fan of 4e for all the reasons that Darkholme described.

 

I am also a big fan of 13th Age, and I have been torn between running it and 5e, but the latter won because it's just a lot easier to port the 2e stuff I have got, both in terms of rules and "feel." 13th Age works as an excellent rules-light replacement of 4e, and if one wants to run a more heroic campaign from the start, I'd recommend it.

 

So...for the foreseeable future 5e will be our "go to" D&D (unless I have some newbies; then I'll always start with the Mentzer Red Box; it's just too good ) although I can see how 5e could be easily streamlined to get an even simpler game (e.g. there are options in the DMG to completely remove skills.)

[Hexelis]

Well after 3 months of D&D5e, I've gone back to BRP-based everything. Let's just say it's good to be back home.

[Mankcam]

BRP does that to a person :-)

[Thaenor]

(Trouble-making first time poster in your forumz necro-ing an old thread).

5ed D&D seems to me to be a rules toolkit rather than a full new edition all it's own....leveraging previous investments in setting books for each edition after 2ed it sort of provides a 'rules drop in' for stuff you've got. 5e is a good intro 'gateway' game basis to build from.

I'm keeping my TSR Ad&D 2ed books for this reason I had a set of them and now regret selling and offloading them in the past few years.

Other than that I'm a recent convert to RQ/d100.....looking forward to getting behind a revitalised Chaosium going forward.

Edited September 8, 2015 by Thaenor
Grammar corrections.

[g33k]

Yes, it uses feats (though those feats are supposed to be a bigger deal), but you get like, half as many opportunities for them, and they also serve as your opportunities to increase your stats. They're also mentioned as "optional" in that you might get stat increases but not be allowed to take feats (though most of the people I've talked to have said they would strongly object if a GM told them no feats).

Also note that EVERY class has built-in feat-like features to choose amongst.  2 types of Barbarian, 3 (I think) types of Paladin, 2 types of Sorceror, etc.

Overall, there's a bit less options to vary/customize than compared with Pathfineder & all the 3.5/PF class/race/etc splatbooks, but I presume those options will come in time.

[soltakss]

If there is one thing that I have learned in my years playing RPGs, it is that I shouldn't throw things away from a system just because a new version has come out.

 

I now mix and match rules from different versions of systems, to make my game better. I would not be surprised if other people using other systems didn't do the same.

 

Edited September 9, 2015 by soltakss

[tooley1chris]

Other than that I'm a recent convert to RQ/d100.....looking forward to getting behind a revitalised Chaosium going forward.

Welcome to the Chaosium goodness. I'm also a (not-as) recent convert. I hope you find a niche that works for you!

[Thaenor]

 

I now mix and match rules from different versions of systems, to make my game better. I would not be surprised if other people using other systems didn't do the same.

 

I sold the setting materials and gave away the core rules in the late 90s with the thought of getting more serious as 'family man'.....huge mistake. So I'm slowly rebuilding a physical library of a mix of RPG material reflecting an interest in wanting to run most pre-Hasbro RPG rule-sets (and D20/OGL derivatives) yet play as many different games that have been developed since as I can.

It's what I'm familiar with and a good launching point to discover more and get game running confidence. My experience in my teens was only as a player.