And so it has begun, the process of upgrading D&D to something new. Our friends at Wizards of the Coast are claiming this is not a new edition, backwards compatible, really and truly! they are calling it One D&D, probably (I say probably) not a reference to Sauron's One Ring, but pure marketing anyway. They are offering promises beyond the changed rules - bundled electronic and physical books; a new VTT, in 3 dimensions and allowing much customization for a low low price - and so on. That might deserve a post of its own, but since that seems mostly to be talk at this point, I shall resist.
So - the playtest (linked above, or - past that through D&D Beyond, etc.) The first release has to do with character creation. So you get revamped races, backgrounds, some feats, and some new basic rules for the game. I am going to combine describing them with what I think of them, I think - so just write this once.
On the broadest level. I like most of it. I'll get to races and backgrounds, but in general, I like how they have set them up. You get some description and lore with your race, you get a little package of abilities (I don't say options, quite), and that's about it. Then you pick a background - and there, you get to add ability scores (total of 3 boosts that you can put into 2 or 3 abilities), you get 2 skills, a tool, a language, a first level feat, and 50 GP. They provide a number of background templates, but they are very explicit about expecting you to customize anything. These changes together, the way they've split them out, the way they suggest you go through the process, are my favorite part of the playtest. Character creation is streamlined, it is more logical, it is better explained. This feels like how you should make a character anyway. Set your abilities; pick a race; add in the other abilities all first level characters have regardless of class, call that a background, and (ideally) make up a nice little backstory for it. (Though you can skip the flavor completely, I suppose; or take the templates.) It's good, quick, easy to explain, and works. And makes characters that work pretty well with characters you make from the 2014 PHB.
As for specifics? I don't see much wrong with the races. They seem roughly balanced, most of them still feel right for the race at hand. Humans stand out because they sort of abandon the inherent racial features the other classes get and let you choose what you will have: extra skills, extra feats, basically, plus inspiration. (We'll be back to that.) Some races have lost some things - elves and dwarves lose their combat proficiencies; dwarves are down to one type of dwarf, as are halflings; half-elves and half-orcs are just gone, with orcs as the playable race - that's fine with me. They've tweaked dragon born again, backing off some of the Fizban's enhancements, but giving them darkvision. And they've added a race, the Ardlings, who are posed as the opposite of Tieflings (not Aasimar, apparently), and can fly at first level - but on balance seem very dull, as well as a bit stupid. But when it's all added up - this section is fine. The racial traits make sense, and none of it seems ridiculous, and not too susceptible to gaming the system.
As for Backgrounds - I like this. I like that they have made it purely mechanical: you get X features as part of the background - ability scores, skills, etc. That means what you call it is purely flavor - but this is fine. Do as much or little as you like. I suppose this was always in the books, but the PHB did not highlight it, and the playtest does. I am a fan. The specific templates they offer are less impressive - but all are reasonable, and it is easy to modify them to fit what you want. I like it. I like all of it. Ability score boosts make the most sense here - not tied to race, or to class (which some people seem to think is a good idea); skills, tools, a feat makes sense.
The addition of a feat to every character is probably the most significant change here, and it is a definite power boost. You can see power creep in a lot of the recent books, and in these rules - but this is a significant jump. But it's one I like. I have always wished this is how characters work - everyone should get a feat. We have used it as a house rule in a couple campaigns, and it works well. It is a power boost - but it's one that makes characters more interesting as well as stronger. More variable, more individualized - at least if you take advantage of it. I am all for it.
I suppose that brings us to the rules changes, with Feats coming first. Again - I like it. We will have to see how the rest of the feats are handled, but in general, the idea of "leveled" feats isn't bad. This requires some work, and whether it's okay or great will depend on how that work goes. But I like it. ˇhe feats included here are fine - some are basically the same as ever, some have minor tweaks (lucky), some have been redone, and some are new. Healer and Alert have been changed and in very useful ways. You can see someone taking them and using them now. Crafter and musician are new - crafter looks good, but probably depends heavily on the campaign and the DM. Musician is, on one hand, pointless - 3 more musical instruments! which if you have the entertainer background and bard class, you'll be a veritable Prince, in a world where you don't really need to play the entire orchestra alone. What it really does is hand out inspirations to your proficiency bonus number of allies - we'll get to inspiration. This is a very significant ability indeed.
We're there then: Inspiration. This is the grants advantage type of inspiration, that was supposed to be given out for good play in 5E. Was it? probably not enough. and prople probably did not use it enough. or remember they had it. So they have changed it. It works the same (more or less) - you can use it to gain advantage on a roll, then you lose it. And you get one when you roll a 20. Hm. You can have one at a time; you lose them all when you take a long rest; if you have one and gain one you can give it to someone else; the limitations. There are also a bunch of ways to get it: DMs can still hand it out. Humans get one every morning. Musicians can give them out after a rest. They are much easier to come by, easier to remember, generally more notable in the game. This could go a couple ways - in play - this went well. I like it. It does make people more aware of them - they use them - they get new ones often enough to keep them in mind. They offer some nice options. I wondered if they would step on other abilities like Lucky or Tides of Chaos, but they don't seem to. They do seem to invite people to prioritize getting advantage - when we played, we saw a lot more knocking people prone and the like to roll more dice. You could see as well that people might start being willing to act at disadvantage, again, to roll more dice and hope for that 20, even if they can't use it in the circumstances. They may need to clarify what happens if you have disadvantage and get a 20, or if you roll 2 20s on the same check. But for all of this - it didn't really hurt the game, and did, in fact, make things more dynamic, with people taking more chances, trying more maneuvers and so on to get advantage. So even the gaminess of it makes for a better game, and better story. (Kind of like with feats.)
They have also changed the d20 test (as they are calling it now) - any time you roll a d20 - so attacks, saves, ability checks, and so on - a 20 succeeds and a 1 fails. This is not how 5E worked (except for attacks), but this is how everyone either did play in fact, or wanted to play. Everyone I know anyway. So this is good. Significantly less good are their changes to Critical Hits. Now apparently, this only applies to the weapon you hit with. So no spells; no sneak attacks; no divine smites; no fighting maneuvers; no hunter's marks, no hexes, no ranger's quarry. What am I forgetting? And also - only PCs get these radically reduced crits. No monsters - no NPCs.
This is the one change that is an absolute non-starter, as far as I can see. Why did they do this? Jeremy Crawford made some sort of spiel about no one even knew that spells could crit, and no one uses those spells (no one uses Eldritch blast? firebolt? chill touch? guiding bolt? chromatic orb? witch bolt? inflict wounds? has he ever played D&D?), then something about monsters with recharge abilities - which they've always had, so how is that some kind of balance with crits? Ogres don't recharge! In the end, I think the real reasons are two: one is to make it a tick harder to kill first level characters - which fairly innocuous monsters could do pretty easily with a crit, sure. And second - to balance the increased benefits of the 20 in inspiration. Giving a PC inspiration and a crit is a lot of bang for one dice roll - so cut that down to something nominal. Then, of course, you have to balance cutting the PC crits by cutting monster crits. This logic is at least logical. But it is bad. I like crits. I like monster crits, And yes, I have been the victim of monster crits - that [near] TPK I wrote about a couple years ago came from a couple crits. The first one - to the paladin, who still had healing available, is probably the one that finished us (we didn't automatically die). But - I still like crits. At the table, for monsters; I like seeing a rogue positively unload on someone; I like having a ranger or fighter be able to pop off all they have in one shot. I like crits. They give the game high drama. They are exciting, even if they are terrifying.
I don't think that rule will get through playtesting, and if it does, I don't think most tables are going to use it. There you go.
And the rest? This is getting to be very long. Still: most of it is pretty straightforward. They changed grappling - made it a kind of unarmed strike - made it so you have to hit against armor class, rather than strength. This is dubious indeed, though only in a few specific circumstances. Like the sorcerer having a better than even chance of grappling an ogre. It would be better if this were ab attack against something like their passive strength or athletics: so 10+St Mod+Athletics - attack against that. Maybe. The rest of the system for grappling and shoving and al seems fine - just how you start it is off, I think. (In the test fight, there was also a warlock, with a Strength of 10 or something - but an AC of 16. So the fighter might have had less chance to grapple him than the sorcerer had to grapple the Ogre? See what I mean?)
I'll stop here. All things considered? this looks good. It's mostly tweaking things - some of them streamlined and rationalized, some of them tweaked to bring more options into the game, some - well, there is a distinct amount of power creep detectable. Ways to keep first level characters alive. Is that bad? That might be a topic for another post but - it's not as bad as you might think. People have been doing that all along - adding house rules, some to streamline play, some to boost characters in some circumstances, some ti rein in what they see as abuses. This is not significantly different from those house rules. They feel, in fact, like a set of house rules. I can't complain.
No comments:
Post a Comment