5th Edition D&D Predictions?

What do you think?

It's going to suck a lot more than 4e.	0.0%	[ 0 ]
It'll be as bad as 4e was.	2.2%	[ 1 ]
It'll be better than 4e was.	15.2%	[ 7 ]
It'll be the most awesome edition yet!	4.3%	[ 2 ]
I'm waiting 'til it comes out to form an opinion.	47.8%	[ 22 ]
I don't care. I'm still playing [insert fav edition].	23.9%	[ 11 ]
Gold plz, k thx bai.	6.5%	[ 3 ]
Total Votes:			[ 46 ]

[Banshi]

MythosRattus

If you didn't, then why should the DM give you a free pass just because you didn't think of something as basic as a dagger?

Because you're not some level 0 peon that can't tell his a** from a chicken. You are an adventurer. You are a fighter with rudimentary combat training in a variety of weapons and armor who should already have a weapon or three on him at all times. You are a thief who spent years of her life practicing the roguish arts and most likely hasn't been without a sharp edged weapon since your training began. You are a wizard who is finally stepping out from under the tutelage of your master and most likely has at least a small knife for ceremonial rituals. You are a cleric who, in fact, may not have a knife at all, accept to maybe cut your bread on your long pilgrimages.

Honestly, with the advent of the Standard Adventurer's Kit, the days of ridiculously long lists of minute crap have pretty much come to an end. It is much more freeing to just let the players sandbox common gear and see what they come up with themselves to solve problems. Unless the player is asking for an incredibly rare or expensive item, my common answer in the games I run is "Sure, you packed just enough of whatever it is that you needed to try your idea just once." Then, the next time they are in town, as they wander the bazaar, it's assumed that they restock their provisions. I'm not here to ruin my players' day by telling them they forgot to pick up a common thing. They are adventurers. If nothing else, their characters are smarter then they are.

[MythosRattus]

Banshi

MythosRattus

If you didn't, then why should the DM give you a free pass just because you didn't think of something as basic as a dagger?

Because you're not some level 0 peon that can't tell his a** from a chicken. You are an adventurer. You are a fighter with rudimentary combat training in a variety of weapons and armor who should already have a weapon or three on him at all times. You are a thief who spent years of her life practicing the roguish arts and most likely hasn't been without a sharp edged weapon since your training began. You are a wizard who is finally stepping out from under the tutelage of your master and most likely has at least a small knife for ceremonial rituals. You are a cleric who, in fact, may not have a knife at all, accept to maybe cut your bread on your long pilgrimages.

Honestly, with the advent of the Standard Adventurer's Kit, the days of ridiculously long lists of minute crap have pretty much come to an end. It is much more freeing to just let the players sandbox common gear and see what they come up with themselves to solve problems. Unless the player is asking for an incredibly rare or expensive item, my common answer in the games I run is "Sure, you packed just enough of whatever it is that you needed to try your idea just once." Then, the next time they are in town, as they wander the bazaar, it's assumed that they restock their provisions. I'm not here to ruin my players' day by telling them they forgot to pick up a common thing. They are adventurers. If nothing else, their characters are smarter then they are.

If it's so rudimentary, then it won't be a problem to have it noted, for your own benefit if not the DM's so you can keep track of what you have. Sorry, I just don't happen to agree with "yeah, whatever" gameplay in D&D, I think it's lazy and childish; that's what rules-free RPs are for.

If I'm DMing, I assume very little. I'll assume that a practiced archer has a basic idea how to craft arrows and not bother with keeping exact track of ammo. I'll assume a thief can substitute a hairpin for a lock pick in a pinch without too much trouble and not bother raising the DC by elventy billion for it. I'll assume a well-studied wizard can figure out how to create a particularly useful spell that isn't exactly on the spell list if he has enough time. But gear magically appearing from the mists of convenience is just a bit beyond the spectrum of plausibility. I don't do Rule Of Poof gameplay, it takes a good half of the challenge out of it.
I've had players find very interesting ways around it. I had a halfling in one game that had a magical bag crafted which had a set percentage chance to happen to have in it something that was needed, for instance. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't, but it was fun finding out every time. It also fit the game world and allowed quite a few very lucky spots without having to break character. It's not called a 'role playing' game for nothing after all. What's the point of playing a particular roll of you get freebies?

[Scott_Holmes]

Neko Ewen

Liquidor

Quote:

Both groups went out as 4e PCs the first time and old-school PCs the second. The entitlement they expected in the codified rules of 4e quickly transformed into the understanding that they would need to take hold of their own destiny.

I like this. It makes a dungeon less like a day trip and more like an adventure.

More Lethal != Less Entitled
More Lethal != Better
More Lethal != Anything except being more lethal

Funny, my favorite games have been ones that did not actually have a lot of combat. This is one of the reasons why my favorite modules are Adventure Paths from Paizo for Pathfinder, Carrion Crown, Council of Thieves and Jade Regent all three of these take you from 1 to 15 or 16 and have a 45% out of Combat content.

[Banshi]

MythosRattus

If I'm DMing, I assume very little. I'll assume that a practiced archer has a basic idea how to craft arrows and not bother with keeping exact track of ammo. I'll assume a thief can substitute a hairpin for a lock pick in a pinch without too much trouble and not bother raising the DC by elventy billion for it. I'll assume a well-studied wizard can figure out how to create a particularly useful spell that isn't exactly on the spell list if he has enough time. But gear magically appearing from the mists of convenience is just a bit beyond the spectrum of plausibility. I don't do Rule Of Poof gameplay, it takes a good half of the challenge out of it.

So you'll grant a practiced archer an infinite supply of arrows, but the poor thief can't get away with having a knife without writing it down? The point of the standard adventurer's kit is to have common crap in it so that you don't have to write down all that mundane junk. It's not a question of letting the players always have what they want at a moment's notice. It's about letting them have access to reasonable gear to adventure with that would be common for them to have.

[LiaThistle]

MythosRattus

Banshi

What does he mean that an adventurer doesn't have a dagger? He's an adventurer! This harkens back to the days of telling your DM every little thing you had just so it couldn't be called against you later when the DM was all "Do you have a candle?"

I've honestly never played with a DM who didn't run with the "If it's not on your sheet, you don't have it" rule. Supplies are not free and they don't come out of thin air, this is why there are pages of item/costs lists. So, yes, if you're an adventurer, you should think to buy a dagger and as such note it on the character sheet. If you didn't, then why should the DM give you a free pass just because you didn't think of something as basic as a dagger? How is that at all fair to everyone else playing who *did* think of it? Actually telling the DM every tiny thing listed on your sheet is sort of silly but at least write stuff down on the equipment list so if you're asked, you can look, that's what it's there for.
Last time I checked it was common gaming courtesy to be sure the party collectively had at least one of all the basic things (lantern, rope, dagger, bedroll, etc.) before you left town, or for the DM to contrive the party finding items that would be needed if you don't start in a place where you can buy them.

Now, I've also run into the odd DM that expects you to be a bloody mind reader and know ahead of time that you'll need a full set of steel plate enchanted with poison resist to get past the monster guarding the treasure. Yes, in that case, it's stupid to think a character would "of course" think to get something like that before walking into a random dungeon. But that's not the fault of the game, that's a shitty DM.

In either case, there's no need to write entitlement into the game rules. Either remember the basic stuff or learn how to improvise them and if your DM is expecting you to "happen to have" something insanely specific, you unfortunately have a bad DM and should try playing with someone who's not an insufferable sadist who thinks defeating the players means "they win."

Along the lines of what Banshi said, you don't see decent job seekers go into an interview unprepared, without a list of references, and in the States, without two or three forms of ID when they've been hired.

Similarly, why shouldn't an experienced/reasonably-read (and trust me, if there was ever a skill that the DMs I played with gave out, it was Reading/Writing), and traveling adventurer carry certain items? Even a boy scout in these days is trained to carry a pocket knife whenever they leave the house (though not in a military sense), so why the heck wouldn't a character - heck, all the characters capable of holding one - have a dagger?

It's idiocy. Especially when you consider that the point is to have fun as a group, not kill the characters as a DM.

[MythosRattus]

Banshi

MythosRattus

If I'm DMing, I assume very little. I'll assume that a practiced archer has a basic idea how to craft arrows and not bother with keeping exact track of ammo. I'll assume a thief can substitute a hairpin for a lock pick in a pinch without too much trouble and not bother raising the DC by elventy billion for it. I'll assume a well-studied wizard can figure out how to create a particularly useful spell that isn't exactly on the spell list if he has enough time. But gear magically appearing from the mists of convenience is just a bit beyond the spectrum of plausibility. I don't do Rule Of Poof gameplay, it takes a good half of the challenge out of it.

So you'll grant a practiced archer an infinite supply of arrows, but the poor thief can't get away with having a knife without writing it down? The point of the standard adventurer's kit is to have common crap in it so that you don't have to write down all that mundane junk. It's not a question of letting the players always have what they want at a moment's notice. It's about letting them have access to reasonable gear to adventure with that would be common for them to have.

Arrows can be crafted easily from reeds, rocks and sticks if you know how and have the tools (which there are plenty of in most adventuring environments and medieval-type era archer is going to know how, ergo nigh-infinite ammo is entirely plausible... unless said archer doesn't have a knife with him, then he's just as screwed as anyone else). A dagger however kinda needs to be smelted and forged and you're not likely to find one laying around in the middle of nowhere. So yeah, you have it right.
I agree the standard adventuring kit has pretty much everything... but I'm not going to poof that into existence either. If a player has a kit, I'll be glad to assume there's at least a simple tool knife in it but I'm not going to assume they have the kit. They either have it and took the five seconds to write it down or they didn't get one and therefore don't have it and have to improvise their way out of the situation with what they do have.
That's called roleplaying, it's the entire point of the game. If you take that element out, you may as well just hang out and shoot the breeze. That's just my opinion, sorry. You don't have to like it but I'm not going to change it.

[Banshi]

MythosRattus

Arrows can be crafted easily from reeds, rocks and sticks if you know how and have the tools (which there are plenty of in most adventuring environments and medieval-type era archer is going to know how, ergo nigh-infinite ammo is entirely plausible... unless said archer doesn't have a knife with him, then he's just as screwed as anyone else). A dagger however kinda needs to be smelted and forged and you're not likely to find one laying around in the middle of nowhere. So yeah, you have it right.

You know what you generally need to craft arrows? A knife.

[ThePhantomSquee]

To be fair, this particular thing really does come down mostly to play-style. I may find it weird to give characters functionally infinite ammo but not a dagger, but if that's how you get your jollies, more power to you. As long as your players know beforehand that that's how you like to handle equipment rules and are okay with it, I'm not one to tell somebody they're having fun wrong.

That said, to continue the dagger example, I do find it rather silly to grind the game to a halt just because the players are missing one mundane piece of equipment. Why wouldn't a sword, or even a sharp piece of masonry chipped from the wall, be allowable as a substitute? The example given in the article strikes me as nothing more than inflexibility.

[LiaThistle]

MythosRattus

Banshi

MythosRattus

If I'm DMing, I assume very little. I'll assume that a practiced archer has a basic idea how to craft arrows and not bother with keeping exact track of ammo. I'll assume a thief can substitute a hairpin for a lock pick in a pinch without too much trouble and not bother raising the DC by elventy billion for it. I'll assume a well-studied wizard can figure out how to create a particularly useful spell that isn't exactly on the spell list if he has enough time. But gear magically appearing from the mists of convenience is just a bit beyond the spectrum of plausibility. I don't do Rule Of Poof gameplay, it takes a good half of the challenge out of it.

So you'll grant a practiced archer an infinite supply of arrows, but the poor thief can't get away with having a knife without writing it down? The point of the standard adventurer's kit is to have common crap in it so that you don't have to write down all that mundane junk. It's not a question of letting the players always have what they want at a moment's notice. It's about letting them have access to reasonable gear to adventure with that would be common for them to have.

Arrows can be crafted easily from reeds, rocks and sticks if you know how and have the tools (which there are plenty of in most adventuring environments and medieval-type era archer is going to know how, ergo nigh-infinite ammo is entirely plausible... unless said archer doesn't have a knife with him, then he's just as screwed as anyone else). A dagger however kinda needs to be smelted and forged and you're not likely to find one laying around in the middle of nowhere. So yeah, you have it right.
I agree the standard adventuring kit has pretty much everything... but I'm not going to poof that into existence either. If a player has a kit, I'll be glad to assume there's at least a simple tool knife in it but I'm not going to assume they have the kit. They either have it and took the five seconds to write it down or they didn't get one and therefore don't have it and have to improvise their way out of the situation with what they do have.
That's called roleplaying, it's the entire point of the game. If you take that element out, you may as well just hang out and shoot the breeze. That's just my opinion, sorry. You don't have to like it but I'm not going to change it.

Just an fyi, in 2nd ed, crafting 10 arrowheads takes a "fully equipped smithy" and a day (page 87 of the PHB that I have). Making arrows is 1d6 per day (no smithy required - page 80).

Anyhoo, feels kinda like 5th is putting more power into the hands of the DM than 4th had. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it is the abuse of that power that drove me away in the first place.

[Sandokiri]

MythosRattus

If it's so rudimentary, then it won't be a problem to have it noted, for your own benefit if not the DM's so you can keep track of what you have. Sorry, I just don't happen to agree with "yeah, whatever" gameplay in D&D, I think it's lazy and childish; that's what rules-free RPs are for.

The Standard Adventurer's Kit (and the more specialised versions, such as the component pouch) are there to eliminate the biggest source of micromanagement.

Quote:

If I'm DMing, I assume very little. I'll assume that a practiced archer has a basic idea how to craft arrows and not bother with keeping exact track of ammo.

Unlike a spare tool-knife, what you are assuming in "archers can make arrows and not bother to track ammo" falls under two separate game mechanics: skills and combat. Skills, because you are attaching free Craft (Fletcher) to Weapon Focus (bow or crossbow,) in effect. Combat, because ammo limits are the tradeoff for the "safety" of ranged combat.

Quote:

I'll assume a well-studied wizard can figure out how to create a particularly useful spell that isn't exactly on the spell list if he has enough time. But gear magically appearing from the mists of convenience is just a bit beyond the spectrum of plausibility. I don't do Rule Of Poof gameplay, it takes a good half of the challenge out of it.

A spare tool-knife might cost a gold or two (a weapon dagger = 2 gold.) By assuming that a mage can do spell research just for time, you are saving the mage what could be thousands of gold every time.

I don't have my 2e or 3e books with me; but I do have the 1e DMG in front of me. Ignoring the costs of existing in 1e, you're looking at:

- Weekly cost of 200 per spell level if you have a lab and library, 2k per spell level, + (1d4 x 100.)
- The DM has no involvement in writing up the spell or telling the player the decision.
- The player therefore has to guess what the spell level is, and spend enough per week.

Thus, a 10th level mage researching a 5th level spell is spending either 1100-1400 or 10100-10400 per week, with no possiblity of success for the first 5 weeks, and all of the time spent is basically absolute downtime.

And this is on top of the roughly 150k the mage has already spent on level training, a game mechanic that was not considered optional in 1e. (The key instructions about it, unlike most, were emphasised with all caps. Not even the admonition against non-standard player characters earned all caps.)

[GreatLemur]

Whoa, guys, there is some serious One True Wayism going on in this thread, here.

Folks, I ask you to understand that there are different kinds of fun to be had in RPGs. Not everybody enjoys them in the same way. If somebody plays a game differently from you and enjoys it, they are not wrong.

Banshi and LiaThistle, I ask you to acknowledge that, for some people, planning and gearing up for an expedition, and worrying about little things like steel mirrors and spikes and chalk is fun. Anticipating and preparing for certain kinds of problems—and even finding out that you didn't prepare correctly and having the whole course of the game change because of it—can be its own kind of awesome.

MythosRattus, I ask you to acknowledge that that kind of play isn't fun for everybody. A lot of people don't want to go on pre-delve shopping trips, subtracting gold pieces and writing down bits of mundane gear. They also might not want the game to challenge their own personal skills, preferring it to be more about their characters' abilities. That's totally legitimate, too. If that's what they're into, it's totally cool that they should get to skip over those details and get to combat or scenery-chewing or whatever part of the game interests them.

This isn't a thing to argue about, guys.

[Lanackse-Kanvae]

Well I'm not likely to see the 5e books because Wizards screwed up up big time about last year or the year before and pissed off the only book store in the entire county that sells new books.

I prefer to read the first few chapters of a fiction book to get a feel of it and I would prefer to see the 5e rules for myself before I decide whether it's worth investing in.

[Zalin_heartache1]

I have ONLY played 4ed. Now it is not for lack of trying but unfortunately I was unable to find a group until I finally picked up the 4ed books myself and starting learning the rules. At that point I gathered any of my friends who had the slightest interest in playing D&D and we started a group we me as DM. We all enjoy playing D&D and 4ed has made this easier for us (and the two major blondies in my group) to pick up. I am still learning but for the most part I enjoy it. I have noticed that some of the classes seem very similar but I hadnt really thought about it.

I am interested in looking into what 5ed has to offer and if it is good I might have my group try it out. I dont really have any complaints about 4ed but then again that might just be born out of my ignorance of the other editions.

[LiaThistle]

GreatLemur

Whoa, guys, there is some serious One True Wayism going on in this thread, here.

Folks, I ask you to understand that there are different kinds of fun to be had in RPGs. Not everybody enjoys them in the same way. If somebody plays a game differently from you and enjoys it, they are not wrong.

Banshi and LiaThistle, I ask you to acknowledge that, for some people, planning and gearing up for an expedition, and worrying about little things like steel mirrors and spikes and chalk is fun. Anticipating and preparing for certain kinds of problems—and even finding out that you didn't prepare correctly and having the whole course of the game change because of it—can be its own kind of awesome.

MythosRattus, I ask you to acknowledge that that kind of play isn't fun for everybody. A lot of people don't want to go on pre-delve shopping trips, subtracting gold pieces and writing down bits of mundane gear. They also might not want the game to challenge their own personal skills, preferring it to be more about their characters' abilities. That's totally legitimate, too. If that's what they're into, it's totally cool that they should get to skip over those details and get to combat or scenery-chewing or whatever part of the game interests them.

This isn't a thing to argue about, guys.

I have no issues with either style of play.

However, I am a firm advocate of full DM disclosure.

If someone's going to require you to have everything you carry listed specifically, they should tell you before the campaign starts so you can adjust your character sheet as needed. To play with the assumption that the players have read and are intimately familiar with the rules - especially in a game/edition they are just learning - and then proceed to treat them poorly because they're not adequately prepared is just being an a**.