Knights & Knaves Alehouse

I think this is more of a reaction to the concept of 3e (and maybe 1e) being broken at high levels.

From what I've seen online, many of newer players (generation 3/4e) think D&D gets way too top-heavy at the higher levels. There's a lot more bookkeeping--wizards have too many spells, fighters have too many feats, etc, players have too many magic items, and combat gets dragged down with too many options. Many of the 4e fans say that's what that incarnation of the game "fixed".

I think the suggestion there is quality over quantity, maybe make it so there's less bookkeeping at higher levels.

Someone on Facebook said the three pillars reroleplay/interaction, combat, and exploration.

FWIW, on Wizards Twitter feed, there are a pictures of a couple of playtest groups that do not have minis or battle mats. I would post the links but they seem convoluted. I personally cannot stand Twitter.

WSmith wrote:A warlord sounds like a title one should earn, not be some kind of leader as a class at first level.

People seem to have a lot of problems with the name, but it's good to know that this class will be a part of 5e, because I think getting back to envisioning warriors as leaders of men (i.e. incorporating the power to affect combat by inspiring/directing others) rather than just sword-swinging, low-charisma, brawlers is one of the things that 4e got right.

As far as the name goes, I would never have my character refer to himself as a "Warlord" in-character, but I also wouldn't have my Thief character refer to himself as a "Thief" or my Barbarian character refer to himself as a "Barbarian". In fact, any NPC that refers to my Barbarian character as a "Barbarian" is likely to wind up with a mouthful of axe.

5e pic from DDXP.

JRT - that might make sense if anyone making that criticism had actually played through an entire campaign past 10 or 15 levels. None do. Because they haven't done that, they've no conception of how things really work out, not in a con-tourny but at home.

In regards to the entire discussion, the open playtest should answer a lot of questions. It sucks that I can't reveal any details but overall the Core of D&D Next is looking OK. Various older edition communities will have some issues and but there are also a lot of good points to what I seen. There is a reason why you are seeing pictures of B2's Cave of Chaos and shots of games run without any miniatures. Hopefully Wizards gives permission to be more forthcoming after D&D Experience.

Monte: instead of increasing attack bonuses, give higher level characters more interesting things to do.

Great. More cruft on the character sheet.

Black Vulmea wrote:5e pic from DDXP.

Snerk! It's Keep on the Borderlands.

robertsconley wrote:There is a reason why you are seeing pictures of B2's Cave of Chaos

It looks like they're treating B2 as some kind of old-school acid test. That's dumb, because I could run B2 easily with any game system. It proves nothing about the rule set.

Stormcrow wrote:It looks like they're treating B2 as some kind of old-school acid test. That's dumb, because I could run B2 easily with any game system. It proves nothing about the rule set.

Indeed. Much as I love B2, it's an introductory module, so it's hardly an exemplar of anything other than simplicity. I think a far better test would be a more trap and puzzle-heavy adventure, like, say, The Tomb of Horrors.

My litmus test would be Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth.

Stormcrow wrote:

robertsconley wrote:There is a reason why you are seeing pictures of B2's Cave of Chaos

It looks like they're treating B2 as some kind of old-school acid test. That's dumb, because I could run B2 easily with any game system. It proves nothing about the rule set.

Take a look at the map they are using. Look at the number of pages of the module they took a photo of. And ask yourself can they have that page count in a module using d20 style stat blocks or 4e style stat blocks? ]

James Maliszewski wrote:

Stormcrow wrote:It looks like they're treating B2 as some kind of old-school acid test. That's dumb, because I could run B2 easily with any game system. It proves nothing about the rule set.

Indeed. Much as I love B2, it's an introductory module, so it's hardly an exemplar of anything other than simplicity. I think a far better test would be a more trap and puzzle-heavy adventure, like, say, The Tomb of Horrors.

B2 does a wide variety of low level monsters and a few save or <bad things happen> things in there. Plus there is a lot of stuff to explore. It was good choice at this point in the playtest and convey a lot of what they are trying to do.

robertsconley wrote:Take a look at the map they are using. Look at the number of pages of the module they took a photo of. And ask yourself can they have that page count in a module using d20 style stat blocks or 4e style stat blocks? ]

"It's not as complex as Third Edition" isn't the same as "It's like Original." I could run B2 using the rules to Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space and use no more paper. (Hmm, that sounds like fun!)