5e announced!

[TheSalemlord]

I think Ravenloft fits perfectly in 5ed.

There are many tools for role play and I strongly believe that offers a lot of space for Improvisation without drowning in a bunch of rules. The DM holds the reins once more!

5e had a feel very similar to 2e which make the adaptation of the modules more easier. Maybe its because the "Theater of the Mind" effect.

Compared to 3.0/3.5 and 4ed/Essentials I believe the battles are quickly resolved, No need to check rules every time a player want to do something not covered in the rules. Advantage and Disadvantage do the work easily. Game moves quite fluid.

Turn Undead never has been so easier ...or faster. And even at high levels, it won't blast away your big bad vampire boss. so the players better bring a huge supply of holy water.

Feats?... some people may love them... I think they just slowdown the game. I probably going to ban them.

I can't tell if its the hype...I just know that 5e its filling up my expectations and solving a lot of problems for me.

[Jester of the FoS]

I'm looking through my copy of the PHB and pretty pleased with it so far. I was wondering what people thought of its use for Ravenloft, though, by itself and in comparison to other editions of D&D. Do you think the 5E rules will go well with Ravenloft, and how would you rank them up against AD&D, 3E, and 4E at least in terms of how well it would support Ravenloft?

I think D&D5 will go excellent with Ravenloft.

The focus on modularity really allows you to add optional rules and adjust things for the setting.
Characters are not super heroic, and are really fragile at low levels allowing some fear and horror to slip in.
Magic items are not mandatory, so magic in general can be a little more rare.
Monsters are easily customizable, so you can not only make dread variants but villains can be unique and scary.
There are rules that encourage role-playing, which is cool.
The background system is pretty neat, and can be used to remind players that they're not just amazing adventurers but were once common people.

[alhoon]

They got away one of the best mechanics that enhanced Role Playing though:
They took away skill challenges. In 4e, I could have a whole adventure without combat, with just skill challenges. There were penalties for failure, success wasn't guaranteed etc.

I've done skills in 5e, but without any solid guideline for skill challenges, I'm in the dark.

For example the PCs were looking for clues/hints on a ghost's background. I didn't have a skill challenge for that, nor mechanics for that. So we resolved it with just 2-3 skill rolls for gather info.

[Jester of the FoS]

They got away one of the best mechanics that enhanced Role Playing though:
They took away skill challenges. In 4e, I could have a whole adventure without combat, with just skill challenges. There were penalties for failure, success wasn't guaranteed etc.

I've done skills in 5e, but without any solid guideline for skill challenges, I'm in the dark.

For example the PCs were looking for clues/hints on a ghost's background. I didn't have a skill challenge for that, nor mechanics for that. So we resolved it with just 2-3 skill rolls for gather info.

I can see those being in the DMG though.
Skill Challenges weren't mentioned in the 4e PHB either.

[Dion of the Fraternity]

How the 5E cosmology works, according to the PHB:


- Material Plane, Feywild and Shadowfell (latter both from 4E) are surrounded by the Ethereal Plane.
- Elemental Chaos (also from 4E) surrounds the above, but has planes for the four elements.
- Great Wheel is more or less back, but the Positive and Negative planes are now located OUTSIDE the various outer planes rather than inside them in previous Great Wheel incarnations.

[alhoon]

I can see those being in the DMG though.
Skill Challenges weren't mentioned in the 4e PHB either.

About a year ago (it's in that thread probably) they said Skill Challenges won't be in 5e because they're complicated. In 4e, they had tons of info on how to make skill challenges in Dragon magazine and people still struggled with them. One of the reasons I became a subscriber for a year was (along with the Character Builder), to get those dozen+ articles on skill challenges.

[Jester of the FoS]

The Basic rules have been updated:
http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules

Some minor tweaks to the Player document such as the gods, a new background, and a new cantrip.

And there's a new DM document with rules for running the game and monsters!

[alhoon]

On top of the Dragon queen supplement?
Some spells in there should have been in the basic rules. Since they give them out for free, why don't they incorporate them in the basic?

[alhoon]

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_i ... r_OFT_text

Ravenloft campaign revised box!

[alhoon]

And in the snipsets given so far, I've already saw something that made me cringe:
Umber hulks can burrow through 10 feet of solid rock in one round, leaving a 5' wide, 8' tall tunnel in their wake. I.e. dig a 10' long x5 wide x8 tall tunnel in 6 seconds.
That is, in 6 seconds an Umber hulk can dig through as much solid rock as a good crew of modern tunnelers with explosives could clear in a shift.

So I guess mining engineering in D&D isn't progressing towards steam engine, explosives, continuous mining, huge mining machines etc. Not even towards the right use of magic and the right spells.
Nope, it's all about how you tame and train umber hulks (charm monster should cover it) and a crew to follow it to put in supports and braces in time when the umber hulk just cuts through earth that may collapse.

[Sorti]

And in the snipsets given so far, I've already saw something that made me cringe:
Umber hulks can burrow through 10 feet of solid rock in one round, leaving a 5' wide, 8' tall tunnel in their wake. I.e. dig a 10' long x5 wide x8 tall tunnel in 6 seconds.
That is, in 6 seconds an Umber hulk can dig through as much solid rock as a good crew of modern tunnelers with explosives could clear in a shift.

So I guess mining engineering in D&D isn't progressing towards steam engine, explosives, continuous mining, huge mining machines etc. Not even towards the right use of magic and the right spells.
Nope, it's all about how you tame and train umber hulks (charm monster should cover it) and a crew to follow it to put in supports and braces in time when the umber hulk just cuts through earth that may collapse.

Well, isn't nature amazing?

[Dion of the Fraternity]

So I guess mining engineering in D&D isn't progressing towards steam engine, explosives, continuous mining, huge mining machines etc. Not even towards the right use of magic and the right spells.
Nope, it's all about how you tame and train umber hulks (charm monster should cover it) and a crew to follow it to put in supports and braces in time when the umber hulk just cuts through earth that may collapse.

Well D&D is a fantasy game, after all.

[alhoon]

I'm an engineer of mineral resources = mining engineer. These things are making me sad. I always had a gripe with burrow speed; I allowed it at 10'/full round through loose earth and sand because it's a fantasy game, but it always annoyed me.
Solid rock? 10' of solid rock? That just makes me (and all the dwarves) very, very sad.

Does anyone know where I can hire an Umber Hulk? There are mining companies around the world that wouldn't mind feeding people to such creatures in exchange for their capabilities.

[Mortavius]

I'm an engineer of mineral resources = mining engineer. These things are making me sad. I always had a gripe with burrow speed; I allowed it at 10'/full round through loose earth and sand because it's a fantasy game, but it always annoyed me.
Solid rock? 10' of solid rock? That just makes me (and all the dwarves) very, very sad.

I understand where you're coming from...but that's a REALLY minor problem that's very easily fixed.

In your games, Umber Hulks can burrow through ten feet of solid rock in one minute. Or perhaps ten minutes. Or an hour. Whatever you think appropriate. It doesn't change the monster in any noticeable way, and I don't think it would even affect any module that featured them as monsters.

As for the skill challenges in 5E, why not just create a simple system that mirrors them?

To convince the prince of your intentions, you need to get X number of success on checks before Y number of failures. You can use the following skills, or others, if you can think of a way to incorporate them into the scene.

Doesn't that fix your problem? I never read the Dragon articles on Skill Challenges, so I only know what the Core books had to say on the subject.

Personally, I found the idea of skill challenges very compelling, and the reality a huge let down. In my games, skill challenges just devolved into players rolling dice over and over, trying to get successes before failing too much. Maybe this was my failing; perhaps I didn't do something right, but that was my experience, as much as I was enamoured with the idea of them.

[alhoon]

I know. I was mostly joking about a pet peeve of me that as you said can be easily fixed.

As for the skill challenges in 5E, why not just create a simple system that mirrors them?

Working on it . Still I don't know the exact gripes of the system. Also with skill modifiers changing so slowly (something like +5 to +6 difference within 20 levels) it's hard to find the "XP equivalent"

Personally, I found the idea of skill challenges very compelling, and the reality a huge let down. In my games, skill challenges just devolved into players rolling dice over and over, trying to get successes before failing too much. Maybe this was my failing; perhaps I didn't do something right, but that was my experience, as much as I was enamoured with the idea of them.

It's the same with combat mostly. If you are in the mood and the players are in the mood, you describe each and every strike and every spell. Usually after a couple of rounds it devolves to little more than just rolling to hit (or save) and noting damage.
The same with skill challenges. You can play them out, describing each action and outcome... although sometimes, after a couple of rounds it becomes "I try with diplomacy, mentioning his family's past from that reference Hurdan made before me with history".

However, I've played "fast paced adventures" within a skill challenge (including hit rolls for some skills). In that case, I was describing what happened and was expecting a greater description than "I sneak stealthily behind the guards", as in hide behind what? What distraction is used? Do you have a weapon in hand risking the metallic glint or you risk being caught without a weapon in hand?

Using that, I've played whole "Dig in the enemy base, kill\avoid the low-level threat guards fast enough before alarms are rang, disable traps, locate the target we want to save, get out" within a single skill challenge that took 10 mins. I use that kind of thing when I want to fast-track a side-adventure.
You know the kind of "So, we decided we need X info, but the only guy that knows what we want won't cooperate unless we bust out his nephew from Drakov's prison" situation. You need to get the results (whether the hostage survives or not in this situation) and go on with the adventure.

Of course, that's not the only times I use skill challenges; I use them in prolonged bargains, tracking the wilderness, foot chase etc.