5e announced!

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

I was more excited about the mention that some Ravenloft is coming to DDI. When and what, they wouldn't say.

I missed that. where is the quote?

[alhoon]

The OGL for 3rd ed. removes much of the doubt about what is protected and what is public domain. So you can publish a book showing how to create variant elves for use with the d20 system, but you may not do the same for mind flayer variants (because the "mind flayer" concept is claimed by Wizards as a character design they created, and they have not relinquished those rights).

Lovecraft is dead for long though. I think we're past his copyright protection so I can use 3rd edition to make certain lovecraftian, brain eating psionic using aberrations with tentacles.

I'm tentatively excited by 5e. But my group seems committed to Pathfinder so I might end-up passing on delaying on the edition.

We were excited about 4E too... and we weren't pleased about the result. Not a total failure, but not what I really wanted.

Vancian magic: Yes for wizards, no for sorcerers, Haven't decided on clerics personally, but they had.
"Monte: It's my firm belief that Vancian magic, for the core classes, is D&D. There are other options for other classes, but for Wizard, Cleric (core), Vancian is the way to go. "

Fighters: Oh come on. I know per-day powers don't seem realistic, but a system that allows a warrior to perform some "stunts" or "special attacks" using certain "stamina points" or something per encounter is cool whether it's realistic or not.
Still I liked that a lot: " if your fighter goes up a level and would normally get some bonus damage or a bonus to hit, or something simple, then maybe instead you could choose to replace that with an option or options that allow you to do some cool moves "

Saving throws: I'm keeping them as defences anyway
Keep in mind they said this:
"For example you'll make a strength saving throw or wisdom saving throw against a certain effect and so far it's become a big part of some effects and abilities. The attacker makes a check and that sets the DC for your saving throw."
So the attacker AND the defender roll now. And we're back in the eeaaaarly days with many different saves instead of F,R,W. Darn, I liked those.

negative to races: I don't care. At all.

Loved these: "not all classes are built expressly for combat."

Good, because in 4E they seemed to have forgot about that part.
"We're shooting for the 3E style of multiclassing that makes it easy to multiclass into any other class. It's been on the forefront of our minds when we're doing all this class work. "
Thankfully. About time.
I also liked mention of mass combat options (good luck with that, they never got it right) and castles&vassals for strategic game.

"I want to bring back the Great Wheel of cosmology. That would be awesome to have back."
Heh. Way to throw 4E out of the window...

Didn't like these:
"The idea we're looking at is cashing in a lot of your low level abilities or spells and kind of trade them in for one interesting higher level ability."
Strange... that was one of the parts I didn't like in 4E.

"I think it offers a better play experience that the orc/ogre can remain in the campaign, and people can know how the monster would work from a previous experience, but they remain a challenge for longer."
Oh come on... A high level char should cut in half an ogre with a single hit. Not have more options on how to defeat it in 3-4 rounds with less pain to himself. I fully blame Salvatore for that. His heroes defeat orcs but they consider them a challenge.

"There will always be room for stat-boosting items. But they might play a different role. Maybe a hard cap on non-magically augmented ability scores. "
Oh oh... so a 17 str fighter will get LESS out of gauntlets of ogre str than a 12 str rogue? hardly fair!

"The plan was great for [skill challenges], but I always felt it subtracted too much from the narrative. I think we can do complex skill checks within the narative"
Nooooo way. I'm keeping Skill challenges even if I have to make the estimations for DCs and XP rewards myself.

cautious but Neutral and Interested to see the results about:
"Fireball is a static 5d6. If you want more damage, you use a higher-level spell slot. " So far neutral about it. Have to see it in game to decide if I'm pro or against.

"Looking at the playtest characters here, you might have noticed that a class or a theme might have given you a bonus to skill, but you didn't have a skill list. Normally if you were to call for a check, you would just call for the ability score - like a dexterity check for sneaking up. But if you have a class or character feature that gives you a bonus to sneak, you would add that in."
I'm kinda fearful we will go back to the absurdness of 2e skill checks "Roll below intelligence to know that! It's kinda tricky, so a -2. Oh you're a wizard? Well then it's +2 for you!" thing.
However if it's like the 4E with a +1/2 lvl + a good bonus for "trained" activity and you have lots of them, then it's all good. And it will be good to have crafting skills again.

Mistakes spotted:
"We find damage equivalence between offensive and other types of spells. Charm Person roughly 10.5 points of damage. " Then they're not too smart, are they? The charmed person fights for you, or it's not a charmed person. A charmed person even if it takes one action/round would do more than 10.5 damage in the end.

[Le Noir Faineant]

Have you followed the announcements at D&D Expo?

Overall, it seems the D&D brand is finally looking to recuperate.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

I was more excited about the mention that some Ravenloft is coming to DDI. When and what, they wouldn't say.

I missed that. where is the quote?

Ah, found it:

Do you have any Ravenloft suport planned?

We do have some Ravenloft stuff planned for DDI later this year. Surprises in store (something about Dragonlance? Didn't catch it).

Yup, that's exiting alright. Not really 5e related, but exciting!

[Sorti]

Yeah, overall I'm very positive and excited. Let's hope it will be cool!

[Jester of the FoS]

"I think it offers a better play experience that the orc/ogre can remain in the campaign, and people can know how the monster would work from a previous experience, but they remain a challenge for longer."
Oh come on... A high level char should cut in half an ogre with a single hit. Not have more options on how to defeat it in 3-4 rounds with less pain to himself. I fully blame Salvatore for that. His heroes defeat orcs but they consider them a challenge.

I think this might be more the case they're working on monsters that aren't so quickly outlevelled, so you don't need 82 different orcs. Instead, an orc is a boss fight at level 2, a reasonably fight at level 4, an easy fight at level 6, and by level 8 you can take a couple orcs. Then, at higher levels, you just fight more and more.

[Nathan of the FoS]

Oh come on... A high level char should cut in half an ogre with a single hit. Not have more options on how to defeat it in 3-4 rounds with less pain to himself. I fully blame Salvatore for that. His heroes defeat orcs but they consider them a challenge.

Personally, I blame Tolkien.

[ewancummins]

"I think it offers a better play experience that the orc/ogre can remain in the campaign, and people can know how the monster would work from a previous experience, but they remain a challenge for longer."
Oh come on... A high level char should cut in half an ogre with a single hit. Not have more options on how to defeat it in 3-4 rounds with less pain to himself. I fully blame Salvatore for that. His heroes defeat orcs but they consider them a challenge.

I think this might be more the case they're working on monsters that aren't so quickly outlevelled, so you don't need 82 different orcs. Instead, an orc is a boss fight at level 2, a reasonably fight at level 4, an easy fight at level 6, and by level 8 you can take a couple orcs. Then, at higher levels, you just fight more and more.

I accomplish the same thing in my tabletop games by simply adding HD as needed, and sometimes witch doctor or shaman spells. That's standard, out of the box stuff in B/X, BECMI, AD&D, etc. The simple stat blocks of monsters in old school iterations of D&D make such monster 'upgrades' very easy and quickly done.


I do that in 3E too, although it does involve a bit more work.

[ewancummins]

Personally, I blame Tolkien.

Classic!

I love it.

Orcs rock.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

I do that in 3E too, although it does involve a bit more work.

A bit, yes, but only a bit. As a quick and dirty, just slap X fighter levels on the orc masses, and viola: well-trained beefy orcs. (If you're really in a rush or lazy, use the sample NPC charts from the DMG so you don't have to pick feats or anything).

[ewancummins]

I do that in 3E too, although it does involve a bit more work.

A bit, yes, but only a bit. As a quick and dirty, just slap X fighter levels on the orc masses, and viola: well-trained beefy orcs. (If you're really in a rush or lazy, use the sample NPC charts from the DMG so you don't have to pick feats or anything).

Yup.

I see orcs as a race of monsters, so it's no surprise if some members of the race are exceptional. For that matter, I have no problem with advanced/greater HD versions of other monsters. This is something that's long been part of D&D.

Is it hard to modify monsters in 4E?

[Zilfer]

I do that in 3E too, although it does involve a bit more work.

A bit, yes, but only a bit. As a quick and dirty, just slap X fighter levels on the orc masses, and viola: well-trained beefy orcs. (If you're really in a rush or lazy, use the sample NPC charts from the DMG so you don't have to pick feats or anything).

Indeed... just because you can kill most orcs doesn't mean you can kill every damn orc in the world. Anyone who's cocky about taking on a village of orcs better at least be cautious about it or they are going to be fighting orcs of their own level and i'll run them like PCs. XD Not every orc is a bloke. xD

[Bluebomber4evr]

The OGL for 3rd ed. removes much of the doubt about what is protected and what is public domain. So you can publish a book showing how to create variant elves for use with the d20 system, but you may not do the same for mind flayer variants (because the "mind flayer" concept is claimed by Wizards as a character design they created, and they have not relinquished those rights).

Lovecraft is dead for long though. I think we're past his copyright protection so I can use 3rd edition to make certain lovecraftian, brain eating psionic using aberrations with tentacles.

Nope, Lovecraft's stuff is not public domain. It's owned by August Derleth's estate and exclusively licensed to Chaosium games.

I'm tentatively excited by 5e. But my group seems committed to Pathfinder so I might end-up passing on delaying on the edition.

We were excited about 4E too... and we weren't pleased about the result. Not a total failure, but not what I really wanted.

Speak for yourself I was never excited about 4th edition.

[ewancummins]

Some of HPL's stuff has certainly entered the public domain. Anything he published before 1923 is public now.

http://librivox.org/collected-public-do ... lovecraft/

In other cases, there are disputes about which editions of which stories might still be protected. S.T.Joshi argues that pretty nearly all of it is.

Pathfinder uses the Mythos. Did Paizo seek permission from anyone?

[alhoon]

About what?
Mind flayers are lovecraftian, they're not Lovecraft's creations. And since he was fan of people using his work for inspiration, he would love them actually.