Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition
 

Read all about it.

The core books cost $50 each, or $150 for the set - compared to GURPS (to take an example purely at random) which costs $85 but includes three (?) pages of monsters *cough* bestiary *cough*. But there's a starter's kit - gateway D&D - for $20.

Very little on what they contain, but maybe there's some information online?

Re: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition
 

I certainly need some real information on what the game is like. There was nothing ion that piece.

$50 for a PHB is a barrier too. Whatever anything "comparable" is priced at these days it's more than my impulse buy threshold.

I'm not sure what's comparable anyway. I've gotten used to spending 7.19 on Amazon for an unknown paperback but even if the 5e books are only $35 on Amazon that's the same as a 5 book paperback series.

Wizards is also in the hole credibility-wise over 4e. I didn't come even close to getting my money's worth out of my 4e PHB and nobody in my gaming group did either. The ones who sprung for the whole 3 book set for 4e lost even more.

I do not judge yet but there are thresholds that have to be met. They're going to have to sell me pretty thoroughly and with hard information too.

Re: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition
 

For comparison:
$150 gets you (as PDFs) GURPS Basic (Characters & Campaigns), Magic, DF1-3, DFM1 and maybe another 4x DF volumes to suit tastes. DFM1 contains (I think) 30 Monsters, and the Monster Index at the back of that volume references another 80+ from the other DF volumes!

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Excellent comparison, but you need to include (part of) the cost of tablet as well. Without that, your PDFs won't do you much good.

I won't be an early adapter of this. The price is too step and my confidence in WotC is too small. I don't think they are "pretty great at designing games". I really don't.

Re: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition
 

Why would you need a tablet? Virtually any vaguely modern computing device should have sufficient power to run a PDF reader.
Most people have a computer (very likely for those willing to spend over $100 on RPG stuff), and access to a printer for some pages shouldn't be a major issue, but isn't required.

My D&D experience ended with BECM. I'm far more interested in the DnDClassic releases.

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To take your gaming material to your game when said game is not conveniently held in your computer room.

A tablet works much better for this than even a small laptop. Though we d have one guy who's using what looks like one of those hybrid Surface things.

As to printing out your pdfs I'd have to say absolutely no. I own a _lot_ of paper gamebooks but I want those professionally done and not DIY.

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All I know about 5th edition was that the early playtest was a train wreck. It doesn't make me very hopeful about the final result.

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That's, um, kind of the point of playtesting: break as much as you can, as often as you can. Judging a final game because an early playtest session was a mess is -- I'll say "misguided." I've been in some train-wreck playtests of my own that led to pretty awesome games in the end.

What I read in the last set of playtest documents, and what I've heard about the later development from Nameless Sources, has me optimistic about the shape of the published books. It feels a lot more like the D&D I played in college 25 years ago, which is a very strong recommendation. They definitely aren't trying to compete with Pathfinder in complexity.

Re: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition
 

Wow. This sounds terrible. I like games that have a demo that is free or very cheap, something that whets my appetite for more. For all we might argue over what GURPS Lite can do (or other light versions of games), it does a fair job of demonstrating how GURPS works in practice, and is enough to run a complete game (including a suggested starting adventure).

$20 for a "starter" kit? Is it a collectible card game? Or is there something ELSE in it that won't be superseded by dropping $50 (or $150) for the full game?

As for monsters in games... If you've got a Monster Manual from any DnD version, you can always convert the monsters. I eyeball them for single adventures (in GURPS or in DnD 3.x) unless they're going to play a central role in the adventure, and even then sometimes that's all I'll do (i.e., if a quick eyeball of the monster gives me a playable result that's in-line with the adventure as written or conceived).

I hope 5th ed. is better than people rated 4th ed. I really haven't been fond of DnD since AD&D 2e. This is mainly because 3.x seemed to shed a lot of the old "disposable heroes" feel of DnD in favor of a more constructed character approach like GURPS. They're both good modes of play, but the hybrid just didn't work well for my money.

Re: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition
 

That's somewhat promising (I've heard very little buzz about 5e), though a lot of it depends on what exactly the playtest is supposed to do; I felt that the early documents were 'not ready for playtest', so to speak.

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What I saw of Next felt very much like 2e to me, with some rule refinements. It's a much simpler game than 3e/4e, at least in the playtest version.

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But will it have fifteen kinds of polearms and rules for different weapons against armor? :)

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What kinds of Demi-humans will be availible? What character classes? What combos? And how do munchkins set up an ubergroober of their very own?

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That IS encouraging. I often use AD&D (or OSRIC, etc.) to introduce new players to RPGs, at least if they're interested in fantasy. I prefer GURPS for most things, but for simplicity of play and character generation, the "old ways" are great, especially for lower level characters.

That said, AD&D has lots of clunky bits that could stand improvement.

Re: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition
 

I'm sure someone will step in to fill that void.

No idea. I didn't actually PLAY Next, I just read through the playtest docs -- and not super closely, either.

Totally agreed. I think this version knocks a lot of rough edges off AD&D by selectively choosing ideas from 3/4e that worked well without adding complexity.

Re: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition
 

Felt more like 3.0 to me. Especially with the up-powering of 1st level MU and Clerics. But that's from read and CGen; I don't know anyone who actually wants to give it a go.

Re: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition
 

Rulebooks at the gaming table can be a distraction. Once you're familiar enough with the rules, don't open the books at the table. Have them accessible in some form for reference should be sufficient - and with laptops, netbooks, tablets, e-readers, smartphones being all but ubiquitous these days, access to quick reference PDFs is simple, and unlike physical books they can make use of a Search which can be pretty handy for quick reference

That's your opinion, and would doubt its the majority.
I have several file folders with printouts of part or all of various PDFs for GURPS and other systems, although I don't do that so much these days, I just print the pages I might want to reference, or cut and paste short sections into word and print those for reference.
I wasn't suggesting printing out all of those books - maybe just a copy of GURPS Lite for rules reference at the table, copies of the Templates for character generation, some blank character sheets and that should be sufficient.

Re: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition
 

Yeah, you can make quite a few polearms with the rules in LTC2.

Re: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition
 

SJ Games grants permission to have the PDFs printed. It's easy enough to take one to a service to print and bind them in the manner of your choosing.

For example, http://www.lulu.com/publish/books/?cid=nav_bks

The GURPS 4e books look like the "casewrap" binding. The 3e ones were "perfect-bound" paperbacks.

Re: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition
 

Printing PDFs is getting way off-topic. Let's bring it back to D&D 5e.

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Any new mutations to Alignment?

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I'm looking forward to the release. While I switched to GURPS from AD&D for many reasons (mostly rule codified options) , I never hated the game and had a lot of fun playing it.

While I fear if it flops, Hasbro may retire it to their attic with all the other licenses they sit upon. However, I hope that it does well and that the marketing might of Hasbro brings many new gamers to the table.

I don't find the price off putting, the very first RPG book I bought was the AD&D Monster Manual around 1978 or 79, cost me $12 which is about $44 adjusted for inflation according to the CPI Inflation Calculator. $50 doesn't seem all that unreasonable, especially since that tends to be color.

But I can understand the angst about it all...I didn't care for D&D 4th either and Pathfinder stole the show.

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Indeed. I think WotC sees how well Pathfinder has done at being "not 4e" and "D&D 3.5 Next", and realized that the 4e path was not the one they wanted to find.

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Back to the two-axis Law-Chaos/Good-Evil system, I believe.

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At least as of the sept 2013 draft, yep.

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I hope it isn't too hard to excise without screwing with other intrinsic rules.

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I like alignment features for outsiders just not morally grey mortals. Good to know that it isn't too entrenched.

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4e suffered from two problems. First, it was a radical change, and anything like that always gets resistance. Secondly, the OGL was out there, and therefore people who were resistant to change had a viable alternative.

4e is actually a quite good game, seen in its own lights. It's a fun, surprisingly well-designed miniatures boardgame that has a bit of RPG stuff tacked on. However, way too many people decided it wasn't D&D.

The problem for WotC is that they want to get both the 4e players and the Pathfinder players. However, it's not clear that they'll be able to get either one, because the preferred play styles are too different.

Re: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition
 

I'm looking at the Sep 2013 stuff, page 4 of "Character Creation", and it describes the two-axis system, lawful to chaos and good to evil, pointing out that this creates nine distinct alignments. Spells like "Detect Good and Evil" and "Protection from Evil" exist. The text here calls out specific categories, like "undead and fiends", as does the paladin's Smite ability, which I suppose is an attempt to address the question of how the alignment-based stuff works on humans that happen to be evil or good.

I agree. As a boardgame, it's fun.

Some of the abilities have effects that really stretch my SoD, though. For instance, the Warlord had some ability that had a side effect of allowing the player to move some other player's character. So, they move, then the Warlord comes along and tweaks their position. In an abstract way, this represents the Warlord's ability to add C&C to the party. But it felt really odd to me. There were several of these little extras tacked on to various abilities that seemed out of place.

D&Ds roots were in miniatures wargames with a bit of RPG tacked on. But it moved away from that, and created a whole new genre. D&D 4e seems to demonstrate that you can't go home again.

Re: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition
 

Not having played it, it sounds like a table top video game. That is most definitely not playing to table top's strengths. If anything, it accentuates its flaws of using human calculators.

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No, it's not videogame in feel. It's much more minis game in feel. Warhammerish, perhaps, or like the Inquisitor minis game. Actually, yeah, that's a good simile.

If I had to describe D&D 4 based upon the rulebooks alone, I'd say it was a character scale minis wargame with continuing characters and limited rules for social interactions.

Which is exactly the same point as Inquisitor. They just labeled them differently. Now, the spikey bits armor and oversized weapons, that's videogame influence.

Re: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition
 

Oh, I'm not very knowledgeable with figurine based gaming. Way too poor/cheap to get into that hobby. Not to mention my misplacing small objects is a running family joke.

Sorry for the thread drift.

Re: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition
 

According to the WotC website there will be a free pdf called basic D&D released at the same time as the Starter set.
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.a...d/4ll/20140527

Re: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition
 

It works fairly well with cardboard minis, which are not especially expensive. Actually, the 4th edition Monster Vault boxed sets were a very good value (possibly too good value for their sales, since WotC only made two and then stopped).

Re: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition
 

It works fine with Cheetos and Bottle Caps if you want. Facing isn't relevant.

Honestly, even in GURPS I use random stuff as minis all the time (even though I actually have a fair amount of minis; but it's often a pain to have to dig through to find the right ones). In GURPS you just need random stuff with facing.

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My fear is that they'll go the Complete Book of ____ route. Each new "splatbook" will have to be ever more awesome, to get spend-weary gamers to buy them.

Luckily, though, I like D&D for the "fluff text" and the concepts behind the rules. I don't much care for the mechanics, but they put a lot of thought into the details. :-)

Re: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition
 

Yes; it remains to be seen how "optional" the optional rules actually turn out to be.

The flip side of the problem is that if you have enough rules that really are optional, it becomes hard simply to configure the rules system before you can play. Anyone that's ever been daunted by choosing amongst all the options in GURPS should empathize.

Re: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition
 

It looks from the WotC site, however, that they will be making the 5th edition "Basic Set" free, and progressively updating them along with the print books so that by the time the print books are out, the Basic Set will be a complete rules set equivalent to the old Cyclopedia (i.e., covering up to 20th level).

http://www.polygon.com/2014/5/27/575...basic-rulebook

Re: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition
 

The PHB has shown up for pre-order in my Amazon recommendations at $29.97 with the Starter Set at $12.65.

Amazon prices of course and not MSRP but I know which one of those I consider "real".

I haven't placed an order yet. I am not strongly tempted based on what I've heard.

Re: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition
 

I've ordered the three volumes from my FLGS. It will remind them there's still people who play actual RPGs, as opposed to the boxed games that now conceal their 1.5 shelves of role-playing material, and I can always dispose of the books to someone who'll want them.

Re: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition
 

I'll be playing in a new 5th ed. game in a few weeks. I'll be playing a Cleric. I'm wondering (and I'm too lazing look it up myself—I only have the free download), can Clerics in 5th ed. use edged or pointy weapons (e.g. bow) if proficiency with such is granted by your race or background?

Re: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition
 

Are there any free downloadable DD5 adventures for starter campaigns?


Hans

Re: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition
 

The only restriction as to what you can use are based on what proficiencies you have, what god you choose to serve, and what the GM allows. But in general, if you have the proficiency for it in 5th edition, you can use it.

That said, the party I'm in has a War Priest type Cleric running around with a halberd and raining down magical death. She has more kills than anyone else right now.

The party Wizard has chain mail armor (i believe) and a sword of some sort as well as magic with no casting penalties.

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Other than the playtest adventures if you still have any, I can't find anything free just yet.

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Too bad. I wasn't involved in the playtest, so I didn't get the adventures.


Hans

Re: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition
 

You're not missing much, the playtest changed rules each release so there is a lot of confusion about what actually made it into the final release by those who were heavy into the playtests. Most of the playtest adventures were just updated for that playtest version of older adventures. Isle of Dread, Caves of Chaos, Against the Slave Lords, etc. And for most of those just a simple Monster Manual type update for what was in them.

Re: Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition
 

Not from WotC, but there are a few on EnWorld.

Many old modules will work fine by just keeping the encounters limited to nothing bigger than deadly for the group of PC's, and using the same-by-name monsters or closest equivalent from the DM's basic rules.

And, having been running 5E for my FLGS for the last 6 weeks... it's feel is unique. It's closest to AD&D2E in tone, but mechanically quite different from them all.

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Aside what posted at Enworld there is nothing specific. However most OSR/classic D&D adventures work as is just substitute the 5e monster stat for the original stats.