Quote from: jadrax;764284'For example, if you score a critical hit with a dagger, roll 2d4 for the damage, rather than 1d4, and then add your relevant ability modifier. If the attack involves other damage dice, such as from the rogue's Sneak Attack feature, you roll those dice twice as well.'

O.K., that's... erm...different!

Oh, that could be nasty. Short sword and dagger TWF sneak attack correct?

Quote from: Marleycat;764286Oh, that could be nasty. Short sword and dagger TWF sneak attack correct?

You only get to use it once per turn, even when TWF, but obviously you need to hit first which TWF helps with, a lot.

Quote from: jadrax;764288You only get to use it once per turn, even when TWF, but obviously you need to hit first which TWF helps with, a lot.

Now you wonder why I want my Flame Bolt and Ray of Frost or better yet my Arcane Archer feat? I want nothing more then to be far away from any melee fight as a Wizard.

Quote from: CRKrueger;764270Here's a WTF:

Burglar's pack has a bag of 1000 ball bearings.  Not marbles, pebbles, but ball bearings.  

Yeah the Romans used rather large wooden ball bearings, but still, that's pretty funny.

Could have been an emulation decision since the game is aimed at a younger demographic. Marbles are easy to come by. Ball bearings are relatively not.

Marbles might shatter (unlikely) or at the very least pose a real threat if tossed on the ground.

Maybee some exec just assumed that kids dont play with marbles any more and wouldnt understand what they are.

Quote from: Marleycat;764290Now you wonder why I want my Flame Bolt and Ray of Frost or better yet my Arcane Archer feat? I want nothing more then to be far away from any melee fight as a Wizard.

But you could be a back stabbing with shield while sneaking wizard... From across the room if you get charge too...

As for the lack of an indec, table of contents, etc.

I think that is because this is going to change in 10 days. So it would make sense to wait to pit in till then.

Quote from: David Johansen;764104No GM advice or monsters in the basic set?  So they crippled the starter and the free release.  It's not the end of the world but it is a weird decision.

It's been stated over and over and over again that the GM stuff and monsters would be added to Basic when the PHB comes out. As in you would have needed to miss almost every single official post they've made about this stuff to not know that.

Re: index/table of contents - I hope they are just waiting until the finalised 1.0 release to add those, to save the hassle of redoing the table of contents and index every single time they update Basic.

If you need monster info, message me or something.  I'm happy to help.  That said, my Starter Set at retail was only $20...

My surprises thus far (and note I didn't participate in the playtests and some of this could be just my beer-soaked brain forgetting things):

1) The PDF was so small!  I thought it errored at first.  Love that it could be attached to an email, etc.  Love it!

2) Humans can get +1 to every stat

3) Racial subtypes are a straight-up add.  No disadvantages/tradeoffs listed.

4) Armor spell failure is GONE with proficiency.  That got a double take from me.  This means your typical Mountain Dwarf Wizard is going to rock some Half Plate.  That's a boggler right there, and unfortunately bears little resemblance to classic D&D in my mind.  Might be fun though.

5) Platinum coins aren't frequently used.

6) Gems are full value.

7) Full rest is full HP.

Ability checks and Ability Saving Throws both exist.  After hearing about the latter, the former seemed redundant.  Reading the rules, I still feel it is.  Effectively the save amounts to adding your proficiency bonus to save your ass.  It's just...  weird.

9) 2nd level really is only 300 XP, which is shockingly low.  And 'Challenge 1' monsters give 100 XP each, which seems like a lot.  Since that's supposed to be a match for a party of four, you need twelve of those to level.  So it's right back where it was before, causing a double WTF loop.

I'm sure there will be more as I read/re-read.  Fun times.

Quote from: mcbobbo;7643439) 2nd level really is only 300 XP, which is shockingly low.  And 'Challenge 1' monsters give 100 XP each, which seems like a lot.  Since that's supposed to be a match for a party of four, you need twelve of those to level.  So it's right back where it was before, causing a double WTF loop.

When I was a teen in the eighties a very common house rule was that you automatically went up to second level if you made it home alive from your first adventure. This sort of codifies that.

Posted this stuff in the Hobgoblin thread but it's worth noting here since we're onto the experience progression:

Quote from: Warthur;764312I'm not bothered by the experience progression as presented because it's so very, very trivial to just substitute in some other XP table.

And it should definitely be emphasised that stuff does seem to slow down a LOT when you hit 5th level, and in fact compared to both 3E and 4E you actually need much more XP to hit 20th. Check it out:



Compared to 3E, in 5E you need about the same number of XP to go from level 4 to level 5 (4000 vs. 3800), and substantially more XP for every level increase after that; in terms of total XP, 5E overtakes 3E at level 7.

It's even more stark compared to 4E (possibly due to 4E being calibrated for a 1-30 scale, and to have you hit level 30 at a cool 1 million XP). Comparing with 4E, in 5E you need a little more XP to go from level 3 to level 4, and masses more XP for every level increase after that, and the 5E table overtakes the 4E table at level 5.

(Of course, with earlier editions you needed millions of XP to hit 20th, mind, but a comparison there is more difficult because you didn't have a unified XP progression.)

It occurs to me that if you wanted a slower early progression, a quick and simple fix would to be to use the 3E target numbers for levels 1-5, and then use the standard 5E progression from then on. If you wanted even slower progression it requires more tinkering, but that's easy enough to do.

Quote from: Warthur;764314Another thing I've noticed: note how the 5E table throws in curveballs at the distinctions between tiers. To go from level 4 to level 5 it's a big jump. To go from level 10 to level 11 (the distinction between competent, hardened adventurers and Big Ass Heroes) is a huge leap - the gulf is actually greater than between level 11 and level 12, or 12 and 13, or 13 and 14, presumably to represent just how big a sea change in the campaign getting to high level is. To go from level 16 to 17 (Big Ass Heroes to walking demigods), conversely, is about as easy as going from 15 to 16, presumably because you're getting to the point where your character's power plateaus.

In summary:
- The rapid advancement oddness only takes place at levels 1-5.
- It's trivially easy to tweak the progression at those levels to get something indistinguishable from the 3.X progression.

I'm generally really impressed with the nuanced way in which they've fine tuned this old bitch. It is the first version of D&D I've seen that I think is better at the basic gears and pulleys system shit than C&C. But I'm not sure what it will feel like to play D&D where you get to fully reset your HP clock every day. Wow. I get why they did it. And I suspect it will make for better game play. But it feels weird. When you combine this with the basically abstract way damage is handled in general, it feels like a world where it is impossible for anyone to break a bone or get a deep cut. Like, if I didn't die yesterday, then I'm ready to roar! Something about that bugs me.

Quote from: Larsdangly;764397I'm generally really impressed with the nuanced way in which they've fine tuned this old bitch. It is the first version of D&D I've seen that I think is better at the basic gears and pulleys system shit than C&C. But I'm not sure what it will feel like to play D&D where you get to fully reset your HP clock every day. Wow. I get why they did it. And I suspect it will make for better game play. But it feels weird. When you combine this with the basically abstract way damage is handled in general, it feels like a world where it is impossible for anyone to break a bone or get a deep cut. Like, if I didn't die yesterday, then I'm ready to roar! Something about that bugs me.

I was thinking of using something like this:

Crippling Wounds

Whenever you receive damage from a critical hit OR you are knocked down to 0 or less HP from damage, the damage from that source becomes a Crippling Wound.

Crippling Wound damage cannot be healed in the same way as normal damage.

A long rest does not heal Crippling Wound damage. Crippling Wound damage cannot be healed through any mundane class or racial ability.

Magical healing only restores 1 point per spell level of the spell cast to heal it. Any casting after the first has no affect.

-1 to all checks per Crippling Wound
Each Crippling Wound a character has heals at a rate of 1 point per 2 days.

(This is totally an off the cuff idea. Not sure how well it would work in play)

This is pretty good, though I think it might be more fun to 'old school' it with a crit table or something. A character with a broken arm or an eye put out is more fun than one with a -1 mod.

Quote from: Larsdangly;764397But I'm not sure what it will feel like to play D&D where you get to fully reset your HP clock every day.

If you can get 8 Hours rest that's not interrupted by more than 1 hour of activity...


Never let them sleep, my minions. NEVER LET THEM SLEEP!

Quote from: Larsdangly;764411This is pretty good, though I think it might be more fun to 'old school' it with a crit table or something. A character with a broken arm or an eye put out is more fun than one with a -1 mod.

Yeah, I was thinking of a hit table and more specific penalties when I was writing it, aha, but was trying for something a little simpler.

Quote from: jadrax;764412If you can get 8 Hours rest that's not interrupted by more than 1 hour of activity...


Never let them sleep, my minions. NEVER LET THEM SLEEP!

That was advice in Dragon Mountain, in fact, back in the day.

That said, it does make allowances for a two hour watch.  Since two hours per four characters is eight, that's kinda nifty right there.