5e announced!

[Jonathan Winters]

Hi Alhoon,

Quick question: WotC releases the Beta WITHOUT any art if I understand you correctly?

PFRPG BETA had (for the most part recycled) art, but (and I forget the price) it was cheap. Not a hardcover. Paizo cannot have made that much money with it.

But you could play PFRPG and when the official release came out, our group just needed to tweak the rest. Nothing TOO MAJOR to correct.

Sidebar: Knowing the release Schedule for PFRPG, I made in-game reasons for magic and the rules of the world to change.

Anyhow, really can't blame WotC for going this way too. I'm sure a lot of people will be happy too!

BUT, other question, will this be only available at GenCon?
Again, Paizo distributed it everywhere. I ordered it through my comic book shop. But take note, the times and the respective situations of the companies are MUCH different! (For Paizo, it was a bit of a do or die business situation at the time of the release of 4E.)

Patrick

[Lord Soth]

How're you supposed to submit playtest results, anyway? I can't seem to find any means. Am I missing something obvious, here?

[alhoon]

They send an email every so often. About a couple of weeks after each playtest package. You don't have to submit it immediately.

[Lord Soth]

Ah, I really need to pay more attention to my e-mail, then. I didn't find one until a little while ago, at which point I wrote a 500 word reply in that tiny little box they provide.

[alhoon]

Bringing you the good news as ever:
Calibans are in the next playtest package. Due to some spelling error, they've been misnamed as "half-orcs" but I'm confident that will be corrected.

[Lord Soth]

Yep, they're not too bad. +2 Str, +1 Con, Advantage on Charisma checks to Intimidate, and Darkvision.

[alhoon]

Dopplegangers are there, but they're weak to be a threat. They need levels IMO.

And howdy... spells are now 56 pages.

[Le Noir Faineant]

Hullooo,

How is 5e progressing so far? haven't heard about it in a long time.

[Jester of the FoS]

Hullooo,

How is 5e progressing so far? haven't heard about it in a long time.

It feels very... well, how it feels depends on your bias. I think it looks a lot like 1e and Basic D&D but a lot of 4e fans are calling it very similar to 3e. But it lacks the options and heavy rules that define 3e for me.

It plays 1e modules quite well. I upgraded some 1e modules to 3e a while back and it was death. Awkwardness abounded. And a tonne of work. This allowed me to run White Plume Mountain and Ravenloft out of the book and just make changes on the fly.

I like it better than 4e. I actually like it a lot. It's simple and quick and has the potential to be pretty well balanced.
But it's not very customizable yet. You tend to pick a single path at first level that locks in your choices and there's not a lot of building or tweaking of characters. Characters are pretty light and there's not a lot of substance or options. They play fairly similar at all levels. And there are a lot of dead levels.
So it's not going to get me to switch from Pathfinder just yet.

But right now we're seeing the "basic" version of the game with a few odds and sods from later modules. So the complexity might be optional and additive.

[Zilfer]

Yeah currently running pathfinder as well, and seeing similiarities with 3e myself mixed in with some pathfinder ideas. (shrugs) to each his own. I probably will stick with the pathfinder system for quite a way to come I thinks.

[alhoon]

Well, with a "retrain" mechanic, you're not locked down with the talents and feats you picked at low levels.
And yes, it's VERY similar to 3rd edition. When talking about 4E, I tell people how 4E is. When talking about 5th, I tell people where 5th is different than 3rd.

[Zilfer]

Well, with a "retrain" mechanic, you're not locked down with the talents and feats you picked at low levels.
And yes, it's VERY similar to 3rd edition. When talking about 4E, I tell people how 4E is. When talking about 5th, I tell people where 5th is different than 3rd.

Makes sense. Mostly you want to know what's different, not what's the same right? xD

[alhoon]

Well, it also helps that I've made several of the changes one way or the other through the years, like the upgradable spells (5th edition allows you to cast sleep at higher level for example and hit more people).

[Lord Soth]

Well, some elements to 5E...

- Reduced number of spells in comparison to 3E counterparts. A 20th Level Cleric can cast 56 spells and a 20th-Level Wizard can cast 40 spells in 3E. In 5E, they cast 15 and 19, respectively.

- Spellcasters, however, have access to Cantrips. Essentially "At-Will" spells that they can cast all the time and which scale up as they level (For example, Ray of Frost does 1d8 damage at 1st Level and 5d8 damage at 20th Level).

- Spellcasters can memorize more spells than available slots at higher levels. So while Clerics and Wizards can only cast one 9th-Level spell per day, they'll likely have memorized more than one spell of that level, so they'll have a bit of choice as to what the spell they cast is. Also, it's possible to cast a memorized spell at a higher level. I.E. You can memorize Fireball, a 3rd-Level spell, and cast it using one of your 3rd-Level spell slots, but if you'd prefer you could instead cast it using a 7th-Level spell slot, resulting in its doing more damage.

- Characters can select a Background, which gives them a small bonus. It's basically just a small out-of-combat bonus (For instance, a Noble has three retainers who perform minor tasks for him, a Knight can expect free food and accommodations from any members of the nobility that recognize your status, a Jester is a Licensed Fool who can speak his mind without repercussions and can also get free accommodations from nobles in exchange for a performance, and so on.

- Skills are divorced from character class (About time, as far as I'm concerned! That's something I've wanted for years). Each character gets four skills, and has the option of getting more either through leveling up or buying them two at a time with a feat (Rogues get additional skills as part of their class features). This is something that makes me pretty happy, as I've always hated the 3E skill system (cross-class skills, limited skill points for certain classes, etc). I always found myself boosting my INT on almost all my PC's because I never had enough skill points, or burning Feats to make a certain skill I wanted a class skill, etc.

- Bounded Accuracy is a new idea, meaning that attack bonuses and AC won't balloon up like in prior editions. A 20th Level Fighter, for instance, will have +5 to hit instead of +20. And stats can't get higher than 20, so a Fighter can never have more than +10 to hit unless he has a magic weapon.

That's just some of the changes.

[alhoon]

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx ... l/20130701

Some interesting news this week about the worlds.

It seems they move to border and deeper planes for elementals.

"The border plane of fire is a land of ash deserts, billowing volcanoes, and lakes of lava. The next ring out consists of the deep elemental planes, which are areas of pure, elemental energy much as the elemental planes were portrayed in the Planescape material. Finally, the outermost ring is the elemental chaos, a region of pure, fundamental elemental energy.
...
By the same token, we're treating the Feywild as a similar border plane between the positive energy plane and the prime material. Its opposite number, between the negative energy plane and the prime are

VIEW CONTENT:

The dreaded domains of Ravenloft ( ). Elements of the Shadowfell can become domains within Ravenloft. "

RAVENLOFT KILLED SHADOWFELL AND STOLE ITS STUFF! ! ! ! ! !