Forum: Public Forum

To be fair?

Why should being fair stand in the way of a decent 'Edition War'?

Have you lost your fight Laurent? or are you just a cheese eating surrender monkey?

We both know that 5th Edition should be called 4.5 so as not to upset the 4th ed aficionados, and to make the 3.5 loyalists believe this is finally an upgrade.

(I am so glad that deep down we all respect each other here and we can joke about this sort of thing. I know I enjoy your private banter about meetup ‹_spit› and if I thought you would really take offence I would simply not post such blatant rubbish.) (If there are any French readers who do find the jest offensive, then please accept my humble apologies, and feel free to demand a small slice of a decent hard, English, mature cheddar as recompense.)

Len

Realistically, with Monte Cook in one of the driving seats, this project does indeed stand a chance of being memorable.

Len

Len,

How DARE you say that you do not like 5th Edition?

You have shown absolutely NO FACT whatsoever to support your INSULTING comments!
5th edition is balanced, it allows people to roleplay as much as they want and your criticisms of the mechanics are at best partisan!

And stop raising straw-men arguments to willfully misconstrue whatever people say about 5th edition.

And you are a F*@* ##!* talking b*ll%$£ for daring bringing my mother into this!
YOU NAZI HITLER-LOVING SCUM!
JUST BAN YOURSELF FROM THIS BOARD AND DO NOT COME BACK!

For those who do not know about it, please check So you're MAD about something on the Internet... to understand the above references.

Back to normal.

Yep, from our private exchange, Monte Cook is indeed the right man, he is in fact the Lead Designer, so he shall be able to leave big footprints on said design.

ENWorld has obviously set-up a "D&D next iteration" info page.
Whatever I may have said about WotC in the past, if they keep to what they are promising, it could indeed be a good rule-set. The modular concept seems pretty clever.

Laurent,

I didn't even get to play 4E but the basic core D&D feel was lacking in what I saw of it.

For example I could run Greyhawk in 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 3.5 Edition of D&D without any tweaking or removal of core options. Everything in the Core rules was fine for that world, and say Realms, Ravenloft, Eberron, Birthright or any other D&D core world.

With 4E I'd have to shoe-horn in teleporting fey eldarin and acid vomiting dragon-watsits. Maybe I'm anal but I wish they were in some bizarre "extra-races" 4E book. Which should be optional if I want to play a gnome, or a bard or barbarian.

Also get rid of those damn "striker", "support-watsist" roles. If I want to create a sword-wielding Gandalf wizard, or an intellectual fighter the rules should be flexible enough for the character to still have some value.

Its exciting, a new edition of dnd will stir things up and doubtless have some more good but not necessarily well executed ideas. I wish them well and look forward to seeing what comes of it.

What he said.

Alan,

What?
The voice of reason on a thread dedicated to bait for a flame-war?
You should be ashamed of yourself, you do not belong on the Web!

Laurent,

For my 2p worth, I'm going to wait until I can get a look at the 5th Ed books before I make a judgement.

Personally given that Monty Cooke is evolved, and they are saying that they are going to take feedback from fans, this is a good thing (I think).

If 5th ed is a good alternative it could mean that Paizo have more of a competition.. and heck if there are two "good" systems on the market this must be a good thing for gamers at large?

The latest ENWorld newsletter is very informative. I am not sure if it is public or if one needs to register to see the link, but registering is free.

A lot of good things to read about 5th edition - even if they refuse to call it 5e we all know it is - and some not-so-good things at times but overall it looks like a good brainstorm is going on at the moment.

The not-so-good for me is the protracted effort to bend over backward and salvage as much as possible from 4e. This is odd as the earlier transcripts of interviews, 5e presentation, announcements etc. had a distinct feel of "We made a big mess and want to clean it up now". I guess this new attitude has some logic behind it, the newsletter mentions that 5e is not going to be out in 2012, so they need to carry on selling products linked to the current edition.

Having a curious look at the 2012 product line, they seem to go heavy on Drows and the "cool/ROXXOR" effect associated with them to sustain the line until 5e. This is a clever move I must admit. Also clever is the announcement of Elminster's Forgotten Realms a product that is meant to be as edition neutral as possible. Mike Mearls avoids mentioning the reset of the FR timeline, but does not exclude separating the "4e timeline" from the rest. Before embracing Paizo's Pathfinder Chronicles Setting (Golarion) I liked FR a lot, so anything good that happens to it would be welcome.

Overall a lot of good things to be read on the 5e news from this ENWorld newsletter.
I do not see myself switching to 5e from Pathfinder RPG anytime soon but 5e may warrant a look at it if it turns out ticking all, or most of, the boxes the designers are discussing at the moment.

Laurent,

I heard a rumour in the liquor aisle a the supermarket that d&d was adopting some of the tropes of "indie" rpgs and switching over to conflict resolution instead of task resolution and there will be a method to substitute reading puppy entrails instead of rolling dice to determine success.

Alan,

While an entertaining option, which does not sound that bizarre considering you are a Cthulhu cultist, I guess WotC will be somewhat more limited by the Law of the land with regards to their design of challenge/to hit resolution protocols in their upcoming version of D&D. I am betting on a somewhat more sedate icosahedron being rolled.

In passing, the skill check based on ability is a rip-off, their lawyers will say "inspiration", of Castles and Crusades. Sure, the C&C SIEGE engine is OGL and OGL is D&D 3rd Edition, so this is merely a merry-go-round issue. C&C sells itself basically as 3rd Ed. with a 1st Edition feel by paring down most of the mechanics.
Also the allusion that skill checks could be made in game without a PC sheet having a cumbersome list of skills, by having classes/races/themes/etc. give merely a bonus on specific checks smells (quite remotely I must admit) of the Lejendary Adventures system. (*) Lejendary was more skill based than anything and the avatars were at best very vague classes in concept.
As I mentioned in the earlier post, the brainstorm seems to be healthy indeed.

Laurent,

(*) I am sorry for the Wikipedia link, but the game is no longer supported.

Only mutant, commie traitor enemies of the Komputor will play 5th edition! The forgotten realms will be resculpted to look like the ever popular island of [http://img210.imageshack.us/img210/4707/giantvaginaisland.jpg|Krace]] from the underground smash hit Children of the sun. 5th edition will include ninja as a playable race. Each copy of the players handbook will ship with a sd card of audio quotes by class to allow players to skip the roleplaying part by queuing up the relevant tracks freeing them up to nip to the loo or refresh their drinks before the next proper encounter.

It will be a gentlemans game from a more elegant time.

Ah, another edition to possess and learn! I will become the go to guy on all things D&D. BWAHAHAHA!!!

Fellow members,

Well, this is a big news: Monte Cook leaves "5th Edition". This does not look good indeed for 5e.

And good old WotC seems to be as crafty as ever by announcing the start of the playtest to counter Cook's announcement, according to this thread on the 4th edition forum at Paizo. Yes, I know, they discuss "D&D next" (DDN) in the 4e forum.

As someone has already stated there: "And my interest about DDN just went down the drain..."

Monte Cook must be pissed off though, he had had to move all the way across the country for his new job on 5th Edition and there he is, resigning. Last time they thanked him for designing 3rd Edition by firing him once the game was finished, this time he left before it got finished.

Laurent,

Hello,

An interesting study on Google searches.

Laurent,

That is interesting. I noted something similar as regards trends on my own SRD site's Google stats and overall visits. At one point, just after the 4e release, the Monster Gallery even exceeded Wizard's similar 3.5 monster site. At one point I was exceeding my 30gb per month allowance.

Len

Len,

I forgot to say that I got the link from a Kobold Quarterly email.

Laurent,

having played 3 sessions of this I am thus far quite impressed

It brings pace back into the d20 game
-numbers are small
-the numbers stay small (AC 25 is huge as it a DC 27 check)
-you again need to describe how you disarm a trap, so for exmpale are you using Int, Dex, Str etc to do it!!
-you dont add much to a dice roll
-not needing minis, AOO, 5ft steps, battle mats etc makes combat more fluid and fun
-you have your go, a minute later you get another go!
-A social skill check: if you are doing something forceful you use your Wis, if you are doing something nice you use you Cha
-i have liked 'stats as skills/saves' in many games recenlt, and DND-next goes down this line
-your weapon becomes important gain (in 3.5/PF is what you added to the weapon damage dice that 'won' for you
-it allows more improv, stuff on the fly etc
-the advantage mechanic is sweet and simple
-grapple is easy,
- i like the way 'comcentration' / damage while casting works

Downsides
-the game may grind against solo monsters, but i noticed this week they have halved hit points on big beasts, so maybe not
-the halfling rogue and elf wizard playtest characters are pretty hard
-there isnt much out yet
-I have a horrible feeling they will panic, and add complication back into it
-if you like number crunching, tweaking this and that, there isnt a great deal
-surprise mechanic is really ugly

all in all , a lot to like

I have run it using a large wipeboard,and relative positioning just so people can use a nice mini, and visual is better than verbal when trying to show stuff

Having recently played the latest round of play-tests I agree that this is much more like tabletop D&D than 4th Ed. was/is. This feels like it has taken a few good ideas that 4th Ed. contained, stayed nicely with D20, my vote is that its a playable game that feels comfortable to a long time D&D player.

I don't play a number cruncher or a level-up seeker. I generated what is for me the iconic Dwarven cleric of Moradin. Battle healer, a toughish character who can stand beside the party's warrior against the enemy as well as be the walking band-aid. I enjoyed the new spell mechanic, which simply felt like it worked sensibly. It certainly does not inhibit roleplay, and for me did not appear to encourage min-max fan-boy generation.

Will I buy it? well, this is only the play-test; I shall decide when I see the final product, but I see no obstacle at the moment.

Len