5e announced!

[alhoon]

Now with 5th coming out I find myself again filled with hope. I've been playing D&D since I was eleven and got "The Red Box" (no, not the Ravenloft one ) for my birthday.

The one with Aleena, Bargle and the kobolds? Similar experience at similar age. I have to say the Basic box of oD&D was one of the main reasons I was so invested to learn English (I'm not a native English speaker) so I could read it myself, without my father translating and explaining everything when I needed to check on a rule.

I want 5th to do as well as or even eclipse Pathfinder. With Monte Cook's departure, I am concerned that this will turn out to be a disappointment. I'm more concerned that this disappointment will bury the Dungeons and Dragons brand.
All that said, I'll probably be at a gaming store on release day to check out the finished product. My hope that the developers (who love the game) will be able to produce something worthwhile.

Now from coincidence, it turned to weird since I could say more or less the same thing.
I hate doppelgangers friend. Be warned. I always have a staff of disintigrate nearby just for creatures like you.

[Goose Bone]

So here it is! I just started to read D&D Next official playtest files and it looks... well... good. Fo sho much better than the 4th edition. More AD&D flavour, but maby this is just my imagination... Sad, that M. Cook leaves this project, but it looks promising for now anyway. Will write mor after a little playtest;)

[Zilfer]

Yeah feel free to share, i am very curious unforunately i haven't found the time to look into it. D:

[alhoon]

So here it is! I just started to read D&D Next official playtest files and it looks... well... good. Fo sho much better than the 4th edition. More AD&D flavour, but maby this is just my imagination... Sad, that M. Cook leaves this project, but it looks promising for now anyway. Will write mor after a little playtest;)

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/DnDNext.aspx

And remember people: Feedback, feedback, feedback! Let's make this edition better!


PS. According to the playtest agreement, we shouldn't copy-paste parts of the playtest, just discuss it.

[Jester of the FoS]

So far it looks pretty cool. Some rough spots but cool. I can already see Horror working nicely as a Intelligence Saving Throw and Madness as a Save vs. Charisma.

[mason]

How many levels does it go to? How's the art? How many pages? Details, details! I'm at work and can't download but will when I get home. The curiosity is killing me.

[Goose Bone]

Right from the battlefield, your beloved reporter writes a "First Look Review of D&DN Playtest 01/2012". Enjoy:D

Lets see...
We've got here a nice pack of PDF files... Plain white pages with simple black text, without any ilustrations nor other special fireworks, watermarked as "Playtest". Nuffin special, just as I expected.

01. Letter from Mike Mearls. He tells us that this is the first of many playtest packets, the rules was designed to be more compact, blahblahblah nuffin special, just as I expected.

02. Bestiary. Ooooo. Holy S*it, this is the best (Nooo... This is the BEAST!!!) Bestiary I've ever seen:> Te statblocks are short, containing only the most important things 'bout a specific creature.
Theres A LOT of REALLY USEFULL INFORMATIONS (not just "useless fun-facts" like in some previous editions) served in form of short blocks (Combat, Habitat and Society, Legends and Lore). All presented creatures 've got their own special qualities and attacks. Nothing fancy, but more I think about them, more I'm sure that those abilities are exactly what I want from i.e. a Giant Centipede as a DM, and exactly what I expected from it as a player (and a PC).

03. Player Characters. Wizards give us five 1st level PC's, really archetypical ones, and possibility to advance them to the 2nd and 3rd level. PC's are constructed from the "thematic blocks":
- Race>Class>Background>Theme.

All this "blocks" gives you a pack of special qualities, abilities, feats and some flavour texts.
This pack contains:
- Mountain Dwarf>Cleric(Moradin)>Knight>Guardian,
- Human>Cleric(Pelor)>Priest>Healer,
- Hill Dwarf>Fighter>Soldier>Slayer,
- Lightfoot Halfing>Rogue>Commoner>Lurker,
- High Elf>Wizard>Sage>Magic-User.

All of the presented characters have got A LOT of special skills, qualities and other stuff, highly detailed and very flavoured, when you read the class or the class-related special ability, you really want to say something like "YES! This is EXACTLY like Rogue should be done!"
All this things here looks very positive and you can see, that they were designed with love and wisdom. Like it. Like it twice. I didn't see such a flavoured, climatic characters since the old-good-AD&D! I.e. - thieves secret language is back, preparing spells is back (but Cantrips are marked as At-will spells) Piercing (and other) types of damages are back too:D
For now, for me - awesome. Most important for me: When you are playin rouge - you really feel, that you re playing a rogue. Not a "striker 55hp with 6k6+stun 1000k gold plz", but a f***in ROGUE.

04. Guidelines fot DM. Nuffin special, just a few pages with reguls, ST's and so on, simple, usefull and obvious.

05. How to Play? Same obvious s*it but designed for the players. Just a fast and simple explanation how to make rolls/chcecks, how to attacks, couple of conditions (unconscious, frightened etc) and so on. Just as always.

06. The Caves of Chaos Adventure. Originally created by Gary Gygax. I'm gonna play it with my players next week, and then I write more about it. Fun fact - theres no map. ANY. I think the DM must do it on his/her own. And this is cool:>

Summary: wow, that looks really great, I hope they did not destroy it, and that all this things will work as good as they looks.

[mason]

Thanks Goosebone. This gives me *some* hope for the next gen.
No map, really? Oh well I've still got a copy of Keep on the Borderlands laying around.

[Goose Bone]

Wait a sec...
There IS a map here:D On the last site of the adventure as always, I dunno how could I miss it last time o.O

[Jester of the FoS]

How many levels does it go to?

As mentioned, technically 1-3.

How's the art?

None. It's a plain Word document. Very much a rough playtest in the early stages.

How many pages?

90+

Details, details! I'm at work and can't download but will when I get home. The curiosity is killing me.

Very 1e feel with very simple monsters and characters. The return of many 3e-isms. Likely decidedly retro.

[Bluebomber4evr]

It looks like the 9 alignments are all back as well, if the bestiary is anything to go by. Monsters have NE, CE, and LE as alignments.

[Don Fernando]

Oh no, it seems everytime I come back for a visit there's another D&D edition coming out... Are they trying to apply some kind of M:TG approach to RPGs??

[alhoon]

So, they plan to give the next round of playtest "by the end of summer" with fixes on the fighter, skills, suprise rules, criticals etc.
The IMO Atrocious rules of advantage/disadvantage (that are like a +/-5 instead of +/-2 that they weirdly think it is) are here to stay it seems. Yeah, you roll a 20 and you have to reroll it often.
Oh well, it will be my first house rule to change them to +/-2 bonuses and penalties and introduce the reroll in the 2nd phase or for things like incorporeality.

[Jester of the FoS]

So, anyone knows when the next installation of the playtest will be given to us?

The word is "soon". But no date. I guess when they're ready and have made all the changes they want. They didn't give us that much notice regarding the date of the first playtest.

[alhoon]

I edited my post yesterday after I found the date. It's "late summer"