The healing/recovery thing...   advantage/disadvantage doesn't stack ever...

I dunno, there's a vibe here.  Will comment again once I've read everything.

I don't like some of the abilities whose mechanics seem 'disconnected from fantasy reality'. (I am sure there is a term for this, but I don't know it).

For instance, take the dwarf fighter's Reaper feat. It does damage even if he misses? And this is no matter what he rolls? That just seems wrong to me. Now, if it was written so that it only worked if he missed by some amount, say equal to or less than the ability bonus for the attack, I would feel more comfortable with it. I could think of it as a 'near miss' and that would be ok.

I feel the some way about the Goblin King's ability to grant advantage on a successful hit. How does this work? Is he taunting his opponent? Tripping them up? Give me some reasoning behind the ability.

Anyone else bothered by this or just me?

Quote from: Sigmund;541803Thanks loads danbuter, I was trying to wade through the molasses of the Wizard's site when I thought to check here and voila, you have solved the problem

Good to know I wasn't the only person having that problem

Quote from: AnthonyRoberson;541841I don't like some of the abilities whose mechanics seem 'disconnected from fantasy reality'. (I am sure there is a term for this, but I don't know it).

For instance, take the dwarf fighter's Reaper feat. It does damage even if he misses? And this is no matter what he rolls? That just seems wrong to me. Now, if it was written so that it only worked if he missed by some amount, say equal to or less than the ability bonus for the attack, I would feel more comfortable with it. I could think of it as a 'near miss' and that would be ok.

"Dissociated" is the word you are looking for. And I agree. That particular ability of the dwarf fighter made me go "huh?" too. That's a totally dissociated 4eism.

I really like advantage/disadvantage. It's very simple.

Ray of Frost is very handy.

Quote from: Benoist;541837Some thoughts.

Love the Backgrounds and their set of skills and particular thing that makes them stand apart: they're simple, straightforward, and can add a lot to a character.

I am FAR more ambivalent to the notion of Theme as expressed here in these documents, which to me look like a codification of 4e's notion of "Roles" in a metagame sense - the striker, the controller, etc. Fuck that.

Agreed! Themes seem pointless and just adding an extra bit on to hark to 4th Edition players that isn't actually needed. Although, it does say underneath: "for a more old-school feel don't use Backgrounds or Themes". I'd use the backgrounds, but will be losing the Themes.

Also, I hugely dislike the Wolverine healing factor. They should just distance HP from actual health by having Hit Points and Wounds - make Hit Points meta-physical/gamey and Wounds for real. Of course, you could just say that Negative HP are 'Wounds' and that healing spells don't work on positive HP (as there is no damage to heal). BUT, I doubt that's going to happen.

Looking at the Hit Dice increases for each level, well it seems that soon it will get out of hand, as well as gaining something every level. After a while too many feats, aspects, special this and special that. This could well mean that the game just remains fun at the lower levels; well I guess that is like most editions of DnD.

Quote from: elfandghost;541845Agreed! Themes seem pointless and just adding an extra bit on to hark to 4th Edition players that isn't actually needed. Although, it does say underneath: "for a more old-school feel don't use Backgrounds or Themes". I'd use the backgrounds, but will be losing the Themes.

Heh I had not seen that sentence at the bottom of the sheet. Thanks for that. I too would basically lose the themes and keep the backgrounds, I think. Especially if the themes are like they seem linked to a fuckload of feat-like abilities that don't add much in the way of actually playing the game, instead of gaming the system by piling up the fiddliness on them ad nauseam.

Quote from: Bill;541817This may, in fact, be brilliant.

Keeping the 'hit' bonuses and 'AC's under tight control is important, in my opinion.

Based on the closed playtest documents, I believe this will be the signature feature of D&D Next. There were bonuses to hit but they were minimal at best.

Quote from: Benoist;541837Some thoughts.

This is a role playing game system. By which I mean it does not come off as an hybrid, a board game, a video game, a story game, etc. It's a role playing game.

You could possibly play actual D&D with this. By which I mean "dungeons and dragons", i.e. explore the unknown, face various threats and challenges in so doing, with the promise of rewards or death.

This is not a game in the O/AD&D tradition. It is a game more in the tradition of 2nd edition AD&D and Rules Cyclopedia, with a rules mesh so to speak that is heavily borrowed from 3rd and 4th editions broken down to their barest expressions. It borrows from the old editions in terms of vibe, and you could run your game in such a way as to make it feel very much like a traditional version of the game (like you could run 2nd ed in a traditional way), but what I'm seeing in these playtest documents isn't 'old school'.

I like some things, dislike others, but in my mind, it's not because the game isn't 'old school' that it's automatically bad, or because it'd be 'old school' it'd be automatically good. These are different considerations to me.

The power curve is flatlined, the math of the game is greatly simplified. That is a good thing. There are still modifiers to deal with and "math going on," adding ability modifiers plus skill modifiers and whatnot. That is not so good.

The codification of the character sheets rubs me the wrong way. I get that these are introductory pieces to the game, but some of the tone and the wording of the features, feats etc. reminds me too much of 3rd/4th ed's nitpicky definition of terms. I don't like this.

Love the Backgrounds and their set of skills and particular thing that makes them stand apart: they're simple, straightforward, and can add a lot to a character.

I am FAR more ambivalent to the notion of Theme as expressed here in these documents, which to me look like a codification of 4e's notion of "Roles" in a metagame sense - the striker, the controller, etc. Fuck that.

I like advantages and disadvantages. They're relatively simple to use and adjudicate, their effect is simple (roll two dice and take the highest/lowest results and poof, done), that can be used with or without minis... it's good. Fine by me.

Skills as stuff you do that is expressed as a modifier as part of a class feature, background or whatnot is cool with me. Not having a laundry list of predetermined, edge-defined skills on the character sheet is a very good thing.

The concept of at-wills cantrips for Wizards gets a big "meh" from me.

Some abilities of classes rub me the wrong way, such as the fighter's surge, which is arbitrarily set at two times per day. Why? Fuck if I know. "It's just a game, forget about it." Meh.

Some feats showing up in Themes look very much like "feats" in a 3rd ed sense to me, and I do not like this at all.

I like the increase in damage output that meshes well with the changes in hit point determination. More HP, more damage output. I do agree that the death threshold is way too low, however. I would house rule that for my home campaign.

The hit points recuperation mechanics are made of suck. This is forcing a play style on me I don't necessarily want when I am playing D&D, which is basically that you manage your short rests between "encounters" until you reach the end of the day, at which point you regain all your hit points magically. I have to assume magically, because apparently the physical part of the hit point abstraction has been thrown out the window: it's ALL luck and skill and fatigue, and no actual health, unless of course all your wounds magically close up after a period of 24 hours? Now I like the *idea* of the hit dice you manage between your rests. I just know I would house rule the rests mechanics right out the gate were I to run my campaign with this set of rules.

The monster writeups are alright as far as I can tell, so far.

Keeping in mind I'm just now starting to dig into the rules, but I'm with you so far Benny.

I'm seeing a houserule already for damage/death. I like the neg con+lvl bit, but not the fight at full str until you're down bit. So, I might try real wounds starting to happen at 0 HPs but not falling unconscious until -10, with a neg to all rolls equal to the neg HPs up until then, and "bleeding" after -10 at -1 per rnd until dead unless stabilization happens. Stabilization could be having to use herbalism or first aid or healing magic or could in addition just be a successful death save roll.

Thoughts?

Edit: Also, once neg HPs are reached, healing will take one week per neg HP gained back unless magic is used. treatment by medical personnel could increase this to 2 HP each week if the doc makes some sort of treatment roll... haven't reached that part of the rules yet.

Quote from: AnthonyRoberson;541841I don't like some of the abilities whose mechanics seem 'disconnected from fantasy reality'. (I am sure there is a term for this, but I don't know it).

For instance, take the dwarf fighter's Reaper feat. It does damage even if he misses? And this is no matter what he rolls? That just seems wrong to me. Now, if it was written so that it only worked if he missed by some amount, say equal to or less than the ability bonus for the attack, I would feel more comfortable with it. I could think of it as a 'near miss' and that would be ok.

I feel the some way about the Goblin King's ability to grant advantage on a successful hit. How does this work? Is he taunting his opponent? Tripping them up? Give me some reasoning behind the ability.

Anyone else bothered by this or just me?

We've been calling them disassociated mechanics, and I don't like them either. I believe it was Justin Alexander who came up with the concept of "disassociated mechanics". Many of use prefer to see at least a lame attempt made to justify in the game world what an ability is modelling. Benoist mentions it in his thoughts as well.

Quote from: AnthonyRoberson;541841I don't like some of the abilities whose mechanics seem 'disconnected from fantasy reality'. (I am sure there is a term for this, but I don't know it).

Bugs me too.  Feels really... '4E' if that makes sense.  The thief one particularly... he gets advantage for attacking from hiding... why do we need a class ability for that?

Fortunately, Themes seem to have very little mechanical impact.  You can probably just houserule them away.

Quote from: Sigmund;541852We've been calling them disassociated mechanics, and I don't like them either. I believe it was Justin Alexander who came up with the concept of "disassociated mechanics". Many of use prefer to see at least a lame attempt made to justify in the game world what an ability is modelling. Benoist mentions it in his thoughts as well.

And this is why talking about "RPG Theory" is so important.  Until someone like JA accurately identifies a concept like "dissociated mechanics", and Vreeg defines "World in Motion",  all people really had to go to talk about 4e was "it doesn't feel like D&D", "this isn't a role-playing game", "this feels like a mmog", all inaccurate terms that don't really identify the core of the dissatisfaction, and thus were easily dismissed and flamed about.

Dissociated Mechanics was a very key issue for people who did not adopt 4e, and WotC should definitely pay attention.  To someone who doesn't care whether or not mechanics are associated, it does not matter, for someone who does care whether or not mechanics are associated, they do.  You lose absolutely nothing by making mechanics associated except maybe people who enjoy the boardgame aspect to the exclusion of all else.

All dissociated mechanics do is lose you audience, ask everyone else selling D&D besides WotC.

For the nerfed version of level drain, see the Enervation ability of the Wight, in the Bestiary document, page 33. Hint: it is made of suck.

EDIT - if the Enervation ability of the Wight (in the Bestiary) is anything to go by as far as level drain is concerned, this totally stinks, as far as I'm concerned. Everything seems to be short term, "until the next long rest". The basic unit of the game becomes "the next 24 hours". All the strategic aspects of game play seem to have been nuked beyond that. This totally blows.

Quote from: AnthonyRoberson;541841For instance, take the dwarf fighter's Reaper feat. It does damage even if he misses? And this is no matter what he rolls? That just seems wrong to me.

What's so wrong with that?  A fighter is skilled enough that even his glancing blows manage to bring the pain.  Imagine going toe to toe with a professional boxer.  Even if, by some stroke of luck, you managed to duck underneath his punch, you're still going to be off balance and winded.  Now encase that boxer in solid steel and give him a greataxe.  

QuoteI feel the some way about the Goblin King's ability to grant advantage on a successful hit. How does this work? Is he taunting his opponent? Tripping them up? Give me some reasoning behind the ability.

Why can't you make up your own reasoning?  This is a game of imagination, after all.

Quote from: Meepo;541861What's so wrong with that?  A fighter is skilled enough that even his glancing blows manage to bring the pain.  Imagine going toe to toe with a professional boxer.  Even if, by some stroke of luck, you managed to duck underneath his punch, you're still going to be off balance and winded.  Now encase that boxer in solid steel and give him a greataxe.  




Why can't you make up your own reasoning?  This is a game of imagination, after all.

This is how I view it too. Doesn't bother me much in concept at all. The implementation remains to be tested for me, but I'm not anticipating any problems.