Jack Daniel
dice-universe.blogspot.com
I just finished DMing my first playtest session. And rather than get into details (because I'm a bit tired, and because plenty of other people are already doing a fine job of chronicling their experiences), I'll just throw out my broadest hopes and impressions.
1. It's definitely D&D. The rules, at least as I ran them, play close enough to the basic D&D that I like best that I'm not immediately turned off by anything I found -- with one or two exceptions.
Prepacked or not, feats are still feats, and so as I'd guessed, I wound up finding themes too restrictive (the player running the Pelor cleric did a lot of sneaking around and wondered why she didn't get advantage when attacking from hidden like the rogue did thanks to his Lurker theme). I'm apt to drop themes like a bad habit in the future, but backgrounds are way cool, I'll totally keep those. Backgrounds are something that feel like D&D was missing and should've had all along.
The ogre battle was a real slog, I hope HPs for big monsters can vary to a level quite a bit lower than what we're seeing in the packet. The mundane healing rules, especially the hit dice, are quite nice and indeed a very slick replacement for ye auld Healing skill check; as long as we have an option for characters who actually get wounded and fall below 0 to take a long time to recover, this will do nicely as-written.
2. Clerical spontaneous spellcasting didn't feel as weird and out-of-place as I thought it would. Before the playtest, I was wondering whether I'd like this. I can honestly say that I don't hate it. We'll have to see what the whole spell system looks like down the road.
3. Even though we only have three levels to work with so far, it looks like they're getting scaling right. I love-love-love that we don't have a pile of bonuses accruing to every d20 roll. Now, if only we can make sure that high-level spellcasters aren't memorizing fifty spells per day, and said spells aren't reality-breaking dweomers that make whole campaigns unchallenging and unfun. This is honestly the biggest issue for me by far: how will D&D next play at 10th level, 15th level, 20th level? Because I'm at a point right now where I won't play any earlier edition without using E6. I'd like not to have use a kludge like that in order to enjoy long campaigns.
4. I actually found the fighter to be a little too badass. He was mopping the floor with everything that the party encountered, left and right, bar none better than everyone else in the party. I don't think anyone else felt "left behind" by the fighter, because of course all of the other classes had plenty of cool things to do and plenty of interesting ways to shine. But when it came to combat, the fighter was leading the pack by a mile. Since this was probably intentional, I'll withhold making any real judgment until I see fighters performing at a higher level compared to rogues and casters, and until I see how various numbers scale and whether they'll be dialed back (viz. damage and HP for both characters and monsters).
5. The upshot (and don't take this the wrong way, potential edition-warriors): this playtest, limited though it is, feels like the game that 4th edition should have been, insofar as it closely resembles 3rd edition, but with much tighter math and balance and lots of neat and quirky little improvements. If, at higher levels, character power is scaled way back, such that it's easier to challenge high-level PCs without throwing godlike monsters and 40+ DC checks at them, then D&D next will also be the game that 3rd edition should have been, which is to say, a vastly improved and better-balanced AD&D. If D&D Next scales to high levels better than any previous edition, it will become my go-to edition.
The first playtest game, at least, was a solid success as far as capturing that ineffable D&D feel. I remain cautiously, tentatively optimistic about the future.
1. It's definitely D&D. The rules, at least as I ran them, play close enough to the basic D&D that I like best that I'm not immediately turned off by anything I found -- with one or two exceptions.
Prepacked or not, feats are still feats, and so as I'd guessed, I wound up finding themes too restrictive (the player running the Pelor cleric did a lot of sneaking around and wondered why she didn't get advantage when attacking from hidden like the rogue did thanks to his Lurker theme). I'm apt to drop themes like a bad habit in the future, but backgrounds are way cool, I'll totally keep those. Backgrounds are something that feel like D&D was missing and should've had all along.
The ogre battle was a real slog, I hope HPs for big monsters can vary to a level quite a bit lower than what we're seeing in the packet. The mundane healing rules, especially the hit dice, are quite nice and indeed a very slick replacement for ye auld Healing skill check; as long as we have an option for characters who actually get wounded and fall below 0 to take a long time to recover, this will do nicely as-written.
2. Clerical spontaneous spellcasting didn't feel as weird and out-of-place as I thought it would. Before the playtest, I was wondering whether I'd like this. I can honestly say that I don't hate it. We'll have to see what the whole spell system looks like down the road.
3. Even though we only have three levels to work with so far, it looks like they're getting scaling right. I love-love-love that we don't have a pile of bonuses accruing to every d20 roll. Now, if only we can make sure that high-level spellcasters aren't memorizing fifty spells per day, and said spells aren't reality-breaking dweomers that make whole campaigns unchallenging and unfun. This is honestly the biggest issue for me by far: how will D&D next play at 10th level, 15th level, 20th level? Because I'm at a point right now where I won't play any earlier edition without using E6. I'd like not to have use a kludge like that in order to enjoy long campaigns.
4. I actually found the fighter to be a little too badass. He was mopping the floor with everything that the party encountered, left and right, bar none better than everyone else in the party. I don't think anyone else felt "left behind" by the fighter, because of course all of the other classes had plenty of cool things to do and plenty of interesting ways to shine. But when it came to combat, the fighter was leading the pack by a mile. Since this was probably intentional, I'll withhold making any real judgment until I see fighters performing at a higher level compared to rogues and casters, and until I see how various numbers scale and whether they'll be dialed back (viz. damage and HP for both characters and monsters).
5. The upshot (and don't take this the wrong way, potential edition-warriors): this playtest, limited though it is, feels like the game that 4th edition should have been, insofar as it closely resembles 3rd edition, but with much tighter math and balance and lots of neat and quirky little improvements. If, at higher levels, character power is scaled way back, such that it's easier to challenge high-level PCs without throwing godlike monsters and 40+ DC checks at them, then D&D next will also be the game that 3rd edition should have been, which is to say, a vastly improved and better-balanced AD&D. If D&D Next scales to high levels better than any previous edition, it will become my go-to edition.
The first playtest game, at least, was a solid success as far as capturing that ineffable D&D feel. I remain cautiously, tentatively optimistic about the future.
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