Promises…

I know, I know, I promised to have the rewritten version of the campaign up to the current point, but things have been hectic in the real life stratum of late. On a plus side however, we started getting into our campaign again, so AD&D is officially back on track, and with a new player (and character). I WILL have the synopsis up to the current point up and soon, including our last session.

Onto other news…I know I what I said previously about WotC, their game design and D&D in particular. I still stand behind the statements I made about 3rd and 4th editions. I don’t like 3.X, and never will. It’s a hot, broken, mess that apparently needs to lean on the Oberoni Fallacy (The DM can change/fix rules as needed referring to the magical ‘rule 0’ as an excuse, but it’s more than that and if you are a gamer and you don’t know what it is, you should probably look it up sometime. I mean, REALLY.) in order to justify its brokenness. I said at the time that I was very much disinterested in 5e/Next/whatevertheyarecallingit because it seemed like Wizards of the Coast had not learned from their past design mistakes. Well I got started flipping through a copy of the 5e PHB at a book store…and I was surprised.

Not only that but I was wrong. But that’s at first glance. I picked up the PHB and have been going over it since, and so far, it looks like I can really like this edition. First off they have gone on a completely different tact and decided to go with importance of story and character over mechanics, much like 2nd edition. Not to say the mechanics aren’t there, they are, and they are far more streamlined and easy to grasp than any other edition so far.

It seems to me that they have taken the best from each edition (story and character from 2nd, class and mechanic options from 3rd but balanced with 4e sensibilities), oh and feats? COMPLETELY OPTIONAL! In fact even IF they are used, you have to give up an ability score bump at the quarter level marks (4,8,12 etc.) in order to take one, so it really is a choice, and in a lot of cases a hard one. The feats are not overpowered and none of them overlap in any way, so they really feel like unique character decisions. Also ability scores are now capped at 20 for PCs, much like 2nd did (though their cap was 18, or by race and could only go higher with magic), and everyone gains their ‘attack bonus’ (called a Proficiency Bonus in this edition) at the same rate as everyone else, so it truly is the class mechanics that make each class feel unique. Some spells can be cast as rituals (an idea introduced in 4e), and some can be memorized in higher level spell slots, making them more powerful. For example, a magic missile in this edition has 3 missiles that deal 1d4+1 – as per usual outside of having 3 missiles to start anyway – and if you memorize it in a higher spell slot, you get more missiles.

Anyway I could go on, but again I’m only spitballing here based on what I am reading of the rules. They may play out entirely different once we get in game with them. So I decided to see just how much they will change once the chaos of an actual game hits, and I will be running a second game on Fridays to test out 5e using the PHB and the module that was released at the same time called Hoard of the Dragon Queen. Hopefully this edition holds up well and I will have 2 editions of the game that I will love.

Category(s): Dungeons and Dragons, General

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