5E D&D mini-analysis

[greg_r]

ok so the first free look at D&D5 rules is available. Here is my only slightly distilled thoughts after having read through it in roughly the order stuff appears. (FYI in terms of D&D I played a little 3.5, but know 4e best, so will be comparing most things to 4E.)

here are the rules btw.
http://media.wizards.com/downloads/dnd/DnDBasicRules.pdf

-Advantage and disadvantage. My experience was that a +-2 bonus/debuff was pretty alright as it was. this makes it (on average) +-3.32 (http://anydice.com/program/1203/at_least/graph) which seems a little overkill. I'm prepared to eat my words having played with it though.

-Three pillars of adventure- I like that exploration is here.

-Char Gen- Made my first every D&D character again to test it, Olaf Foehammer a super-tough dwarven warrior.
- Level 1 characters are mooks again! Maybe you've done a bit of soldiery or spell-slinging before but you're no hero yet. I personally much prefer the low-power games, so like this.
- HIT DICE!!? *rage* you did something right with 4E here! Hit dice just gimp people who roll badly. It's (usually) not fun playing a wizard who dies to a stiff breeze, nor a front-line fighter with massively sub-average hit-points. Sure it makes for some funny stories, but it seriously dicks with the game balance. Not impressed with that part. However tying the rest healing to
- Roll and keep is massively encouraged. /sarcasm Yay. so you can point buy but are banned form getting better than a 10% roll on the dice? And it bars you from a +3 in your primary before racial modifiers? Sounds like something I'd totally want, not. See http://anydice.com/program/887 for chances of getting stuff on 4d6 keep 3.
- Also humans can now be totally boss if you wanted to powergame and it's D&D so of course people will. Take you're crappy point buy options to get 15,15,15,8,8,8 and being human converts to 16,16,16,9,9,9 You are now going to have 3 dump skills (oh well) and have +4 in your two primary skills and +3 in a tertiary. Sounds pretty dope to me.
- Only Dex adds to unarmoured AC now, why was this necessary?
- Sub-races, Ok the added flavour is cool, but why make them also give stuff? They just don't balance against each other IMO and will make further balance issues far more likely.
- Magic seems much more playable form low levels, like 4E, rather than shit for x levels then completely OP.
- Both Rouges and Fighters get cool shit with levels similar to clerics and wizards. Which is nice, everyone should get cool shit. What's the point in playing a high level character is they can't be a total bad-ass in some way?
- Inspiration is something similar to what I've house-ruled/ had house-ruled for a while now. It's good to see it as an official thing.
- I /really/ like the backgrounds and the small mechanical boon they give for awesome flavour.
- The "suggested stuff" is good for first time RPers or people who want to play more of a wildcard character. I sure hope you're not forced to pick form these lists though.

-Equipment - Why make starting gold random? What could possible be the purpose of this other than to piss people off?
- "Weapons and armour used by monsters are rarely in good enough condition to sell." Thank you.
- Armour/weapons costs- heavy armour users are going to be seriously skint for a few levels.
- lol alchemists fire, also bolts and arrows are expensive :(
- Holy shit a sensible way to track the mundanity of bar tabs and inn rooms without taking a copper off your wealth for each pint! Thank you!
- Trinkets: Why make them roll? Just pick one to have a cool and fitting story or let the DM pick them as adventure seeders.
- Multi-classing doesn't appear to be broken or utterly shit. Haven't looked into this in detail.

-Skills- Contests = good
- Group checks = good

-Adventuring - Different time scales mentioned explicitly = good. 6 second rounds = good (you can actually say something, unlike one system *cough*twilight2013*cough* with 1 second actions)
- Forced travel- Everyone still hates dwarves! Not a bad thing, just a thing :)
- Explicitly saying that RP will affect the disposition of an NPC as well as rolling dice, finally.
- Downtime activities = good.
- Death and death saves sound like they have been done mostly sensibly. I'd want to see how the -ve your HP=dead works in making warriors nigh-unkillable or mages die very frequently.
- Spells look mostly balanced, but I must admit to skimming as making a sensible comparison of the same level is hampered by the alphabetical layout. Having a low level resurrection with limitations is nice, actual resurrection being able to bring back corpses up to a century old could easily fuck with plot.

- There are some lol-tastic high level spells, but everything becomes pretty bad-ass at high levels so it seems legit.

I forgot to ever post my dwarf: I rolled states because I'm not playing a human and here's what I got:
16,16,15,8,5,5. Crap. Well this might be interesting in a min-max-y way.
I'll be playing a hill-dwarf to add to survivability with their "have some more HP" trait. Yes, I know, playing a mountain dwarf for a massive +2 to my attack stat would be the "optimum" build for this character.
I'll as assigning stats at this as follows: STR:16 CON:18 (+2 for being a dwarf) WIS:16 (+1 for being a hill dwarf) DEX:8 INT:5 CHA:5. SO i'll be thinking of ways to explain being about as charismatic as a slug and almost as intelligent. I'm thinking a disfiguring head-wound that has left him with child-like mental abilities. I'll take an age of 120 to give me a chance to write some backstory, alignment lawful stupid, I mean lawful good. As he's so strong I'll go towards the upper weight range at about 180lbs and be on the short side at 4' 5". I move at 25ft per round, have darkvision, advantage on poison saves some free armour/weapon profs and am proficient with blacksmiths tools. I count as proficient in history and get to double the bonus for appraising the age of stonework and can speak Dwarven as well as common.

Being a fighter I start with 15 HP (10+ con mod + 1). I'm proficient in all armours, simple and martial weapons, str. and con. based skills and will pick Animal Handling and Acrobatics (as athletics comes from my background) as proficient skills to build on the strong but simple theme I've got going on.
I'll start with chainmail, a martial weapon (warhammer) and shield, a light crossbow and bolts and a dungeoneers pack for my starting gear.
Now comes the tough choice, my fighting style. I was thinking "more defence, yes please!" Then I saw an ability to protect allies better and think that fits with where this little guy is going, so I'll have Protection as my style.

Now for a background, solider makes most sense and works with the proto-background I've got in mind.
This gets athletics and intimidation (I'd ask to not have this at GMs discretion) as proficiencies as well as dice games and land vehicles. The looted item will be a scrap of enemy banner and I'll have dice not cards.
I'm not going to role for specialisation in the military and will instead select standard bearer to explain his multitude of old injuries.
Personality trait will be the child-like interactions. Between the brain-damage and PTSD Olaf has regressed to child-like behaviour. Some might pity him, others might fear his temper.
Ideal: Basically the greater good trait - His job is to fight with all that he has for the good of the world at large.
Bond: This is a bit trickier, but those who take care of him outside of battle will quickly win his affection and unconditional protection.
Flaw: Child-like intelligence as well as massive PTSD symptoms relating to giants/orgres/large humanoids in general.

money: 5d4*10 =120gp
I'll take blacksmith's tools (-25gp). Cool, I can still afford a riding horse and military saddle (-95gp). Sorted. My trinket is a glass eye that Olaf wears.

There you go, one crippled dwarven war hero in the making. I'd want to chat with the potential GM before progressing any further with this as he's such a potentially screwy character and would want to check that stuff I'm going with makes some sense in their setting. But there it is :)