Canonfire!

Sun Nov 23, 2014 7:43 am Thoughts on 5e

Was thinking about getting the core books for "my" Christmas gift. So I am asking the canonfire crew, "What are your thoughts on 5e?"

Sun Nov 23, 2014 1:07 pm

I've been running a 5e game since the Basic Rules downloads came out in September, was it? I really enjoy it. I've played all previous editions, and for me it's a balanced mix of everything I liked about them with none of the baggage I didn't like. It's easy to DM and though I haven't played in it yet, it looks pretty easy on that side also. All my players except one are pretty new to tabletop RPGs and they've caught on really well, and enjoy it as much as the 2e game we were playing in just before this.
My advice, download the Player's and DM's Basic rules and give a try for a few sessions. http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules.

Mon Nov 24, 2014 12:46 am

I've really enjoyed playing in it so far in the group I'm playing with. We are playing though Hoard of the Dragon Queen, and aside from close to no treasure so far, it has gone really well. We had our first character death last night. With the new death mechanic, I thought we might make it all the way to 20 without one. Now it actually feels dangerous again! Evil Grin

Mon Nov 24, 2014 5:04 am

More thoughts HERE, but I'll leave this thread open as it may get more post-release/experienced thoughts. Wink

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Tue Dec 02, 2014 2:07 pm

I like 5e. However, it loops so much back to 1e that I am starting to become more interested-and play more-many of the OSR titles.

At one point a few weeks ago, all of us at the table looked at each other and said "why not just play an OSR title more?" It is pretty easy to backengineer all the new mods into an OSR format.

Sat Dec 06, 2014 11:10 am

One difference between it and the older rules that I like is that instead of having to wait until higher levels to start getting some pretty cool class abilities, they are spaced out more evenly and grow in power along with your levels. Obviously you can do this on your own, but I don't have the time for a ton of house-ruling. It also gives you more concrete guidelines for doing some things that in 1e and 2e would be left up to the DM to figure out. It depends a lot on what kind of DM you are on what set you want to use.

Mon Dec 15, 2014 11:20 pm

Compared to the past couple editions of the game, I personally think they hit it out of the park. I've been running what a I call sort of a 'test' campaign with the new rules and finally have all 3 core books, and there isn't very much I've felt compelled to 'house rule'- the vast majority of it is good to go just as it's written.

I'd definitely recommend the core books and this edition in general. It brings back the old D&D magic but with a lot of the old kinks ironed out. Good stuff!

Sat Dec 20, 2014 2:52 pm

5E so far is the low rules effort edition I've always strived for. I like complexity in DMing sometimes but as a player less is more to me. The new DMG so far is the best in my opinion since the 1E DMG.

Sun Jan 04, 2015 8:45 am

Loving it. It's like a "best of" edition of D&D. Pathfinder was triumphant evolution of the 3.0 evolutionary branch. 5e has taken the rule set in a much better direction it "feels" right and plays really well.

Fri Jan 09, 2015 6:50 am

We have had Two sessions so far and I really like the new rules. The classes seem a lot more rounded and so far the power creep seems pretty even as well. I'm playing a bard and they really made that class good at being a Jack of all trades character.

Tue Feb 17, 2015 8:04 am

Hiya!

May as well add in my 2 coppers as well. :)

I ran a 5e campaign for a few months and everyone at the table got along with the rules quite smashingly I must say. There were a few little hiccups that we quickly remedied... the biggest of which was the "You go to sleep. In the morning, POOF!, you're healed." healing method (you heal 100% of your damage taken after you've taken a "long rest"... 8 hours). That broke our suspension of disbelief instantly and we used it *once*. I quickly house ruled you got to freely-heal 1/2 (rounding up) of your HD per night of safe, comfy rest. In other words, if you had 3d8 HD, you got a "free" 2d8hp per 8 hours of good rest.

One of the big things that was a hit right off the bat was the whole Advantage / Disadvantage mechanic, as well as the Concentration spell rule thing. The simplicity of granting Adv/Disadv when there are more than one or two "likely modifiers" to a test is much more elegant than I had thought. In fact, on my own homebrew rpg-system (based on the old heartbreaker, Darkurthe Legends), I once had a very similar mechanic for being trained/untrained in a skill, so the concept was easy for me to grasp. The Concentration rule keeps a nice balance on casters in a group trying to "buff up" the party before a fight. Makeing it easier to run an encounter without having to "debuff" the party in a blatantly obvious way in order to present some form of challenge.

The system runs smooth. The rules are written in an in-your-face attitude of "Your DM has the final call on EVERYTHING". Basically, the opposite of 3.x/4.x/PF, where the Players are the ones holding all the cards. From a DM perspective, for me, it feels very much like a sleeker, updated 1e/2e. From what my Players seem to be telling me, it feels much the same, but with a lot of the in-book choices of a "3e-lite" style game.

Overall...aside from 1e and the OSR clone Dark Dungeons (RC/BECMI), it is easily our favorite "D&D" flavour. It is also one of our top 5 RPG's to play, period. Definitly a win on WotC's side! :D

^_^

Paul L. Ming

Thu Feb 19, 2015 3:16 pm

The advantage mechanic is too good.
Most magic items with an advantage/disadvantage mechanic are very strong for their rarity (if they are uncommon for example). Wands and staves that recharge at dawn are very powerful as well.
I'm still feeling my way through the right amount of magic to introduce into the campaign. I may end up creating many custom magic items.

Thu Feb 19, 2015 8:56 pm

Hiya.

Oh yeah, the Wand/Staff/Rod(?) thing. It's still taking us time to get used to. It still seemed kind of odd, the whole "recharge at dawn" kind of thing, so I added a house rule.

A Wand/Staff/etc (anything that "recharges at dawn") can only recharge up to a maximum number of charges that it had depleted in the last 24 hours. So, a staff with a maximum charge of 20 uses up 11 charges in that day. In the morning, it recharges 1d6+5. Lets say the player rolls a 4. Four plus 5 is 9, so it recharges 9 of the 11 spent. That's it. The staff now has a maximum "full" charge total of 18 (20, minus the 2 that didn't get recharged).

This gives the w/s/r/ magic items more of the 1e style we're used to. It also keeps a Staff of Healing (for example) from becoming so overly useful that the thought of not having one isn't "inconceivable" to higher level characters. Yes, it still is very useful, but using it will still be delegated to the "do we really need to heal up ALL of our hp today?"... knowing that the next day it may not recharge to it's full extent? It puts a little bit more of that "item/equipment management" aspect back into the game for me. Which I like. :)

^_^

Paul L. Ming

Sat Feb 28, 2015 4:18 am

Thanks Denakhan and nice house rule.

I haven't tried Dark Dungeons yet (I have tried Swords and Wizardry and Labyrinth Lord) so I will give it a try.

Sat Feb 28, 2015 11:00 am

Hiya!