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[Thief^]

I've actually just printed the whole of D&D Next as double-sided A4 and bound it with staples. It's about 1cm thick over all, so there's clearly a lot missing compared to the inch-thick-each the final books tend to be. The module is larger than I expected from glancing through it on the pc though.

Now to find some people willing to play (my friends are scattered all over the damn place).

[sambojin]

Is there any reference to multi-classing or feats? Or is it "choices at this level" instead of feats? And hybrid-building off that instead of 3.x multi-classing?

I've got a feeling that my rogue/cleric of time and celerity might not fit into this version too well.

(based partly of the concept of the history monks in "Thief of Time" by Terry Pratchett. Plus they're a fun sort of OP'd build).

[Thief^]

You can currently only play up to level 3 and there are no choices at all to make on level up. Presumably this is just for the playtest and not what it'll be like in the final game!

[sambojin]

I'll have to give it a read. Played a bit of second, third, three-and-a-half, none of fourth (because computer games are just so much better at that sort of system).

I hope they do make it a bit more open like 3.5, but hopefully with some levelling/power consistancy across different classes and races. I hope they also give at least a little bit of thought to exactly what they'll be releasing as add-on source material. Your DM can say, "No, that doesn't exist in this world", but having it official as core rules makes it hard on him (or her). My rogue/cleric was powerful early on, but not entirely broken. Better than infinite damage punching. Even better than the "high-dex spiked-chain weilder with +4 attacks of opportunity, human fighter at level 1". Or practised spellcaster as a feat with the exact skill requirements that you'd take as a 1st level cross-class spell-caster anyway (for up to 5th level caster level straight off the bat). Or sacred healing as a feat. Or Illumians.

There was a lot of stuff that was broken in power-gaming senses, that would skew parties massively, available at absurdley early levels. All official. The spiked-chain fighter used the PH and that's all. 3.5 was probably the best edition, but it became less and less thought out over time. Race/class books made this worse, and game-world and "style" books made it worse again. We ended up just using PH, DMG, MMs and nothing else (and spiked chains didn't exist because they're stupid).


I really hope they think about stuff this time.

[KoE]

Practiced Spellcaster was always limited to your hit dice, so you get absolutely nothing 'right off the bat' by taking it, except I guess the freedom to multiclass. And didn't really twinking the spiked chain build out require some splatbooks? (I seem to recall it involves being able to move five feet after making an AoO, which isn't any core feat I can think of).

My pedantry aside, you are right that a lot of 3.5 was a lot of useless crap with a few unplaytested or simply ill-advised overpowered options. Fortunately my group was very balance/optimization minded so everybody was roughly on the same footing, but we only used Core and the Complete books (with DM veto in place, of course). That didn't actually last long because then Pathfinder became a thing (which is in my humble opinion, already 3.5 done better).

-

On the subject of 5e itself, I've mostly been reading about people complaining about the playtest and evidently the current documents are so lacking because they wanted to test the 'very core of the system'.  To be a bit bitter and perhaps unfair, I'm not entirely sure how much testing 1d20+ attribute modifier really needs. I'm fine with them getting feedback on it, I just kinda wish they would have advertised this up front.

Evidently this edition is supposed to be modular, with other modules clamping on to the base rules to facilitate different types of play, ranging from old school to powers and stuff a la 4e. So really at this point I think it's too early to say much.

[sambojin]

The spiked chain weilder didn't really need much to unbalance it. High dex, combat reflexes for the extra AoO, exotic weapon proficiency for the chain and then either weapon finess for attack bonus or improved initiative for first turns (or power attack so you could take cleave next level if you were high strength and dex).

I'm not saying it's a killer character, it doesn't have many roleplaying applications other than fighting (although the human skill points could give you something else to do), it's just really good for a basic, core-book character at first level. Good on attack (10' ranged melee with no minimum range, can trip, can disarm), not bad damage (2d4, with strength add-ons as your second highest attribute), good ac(dex+light armour), good initiative(dex), can handle a ranged weapon well(dex), good on defense (extra AoO's with range, can defend passage ways better than anyone else). First level characters probably shouldn't be able to do all this effectively, it skews battles away from other character's chance to help and makes DMs "deal with" this sort of character.

Adding a level of rogue down the track (you flank a lot of things easily), cleric to keep your health topped up, sorceror (for expedious retreat and true strike), barbarian (for rage and movement) or just more levels of fighter made it a damn good character. It was good at level one, it just gets better and better.

My point is, this is in the core rule-book. 3.5ed just got worse from there on in with broken combos. Most groups don't end up power gaming, and DMs have the right to do very bad things to OP-one-dimensional characters, most players are in D&D for roleplaying not combat gimmicks, but everyone wants their character to be good at something. There's a lot of combat in D&d, so I really hope they think about this sort of stuff. Meshing in the supposedly modular add-ons to make it a bit like 3rd, a bit like 4th, whatever flavour you want, makes this sort of thing very open to abuse.

DMs can regulate this, good players wouldn't do it even if it was included, but if it's not included then no-one has to make the choice in the first place.

(yes, I did play this character at one point to try it. We played a "break the game, over-power away" campaign at one point.  It got pretty damn scary just because it had a 25g weapon, a couple of basic feats and one fairly high attribute. 16 dex isn't that good is it?)

[Criptfeind]

The issue is some groups like that sorta thing. No, having such a choice is not a bad thing.

[fenrif]

How does a spiked chain warrior have less roleplaying applications than any other first level fighter? Do you mean like in terms of skills? Otherwise it seems like it has as much roleplay-ability as a generic 1st level wizard with magic missiles, or a 1st level cleric with cure minor wounds.

[sambojin]

I guess it just felt that way. A fighter's skills aren't all that great for non-combat roleplaying application (except handle animal) and has very little "place in the world" background. Clerics have their church and their healer/fighter role, a wizard has it's RP cantrips, a rogue has its skill-set, bard's their performance, songs and stories, a fighter has a weapon. In this case a very good one with some excellent feats to make it even better. You could take cross-class skills or roleplay as much as you wanted (tripping and disarming enemies was useful for that), but it really felt that you were just the "everything" combatant. It's not that you couldn't roleplay, you were just better at the combat part of the game than everyone else.

You could do RP and combat, the rest of your party couldn't do combat yet. This skews the game I think. You weren't really less able to roleplay than any other fighter, you were just so much better at fighting than everyone else. Encounters that were challenging to you were deadly to the rest of the party, "normal" encounters could be quite safe. In a sense you had a better time of it than everyone else. Not an inability to roleplay, just an over ability to do one fairly important part of the game that skewed party dynamics off a fair bit.

Speaking of which, I'll make another thread for "Celebrating 2nd, 3rd and 4th ed AD&D. The good, the bad, the broken." if you want, just so we can keep on-topic. We probably should be talking about thoughts and concerns for 5th edition, not rag on earlier editions. Let's face it, there's always stuff that seems OP in every game. It just depends on your view of what over-powered is and how it should be used, abused, included or excluded in a game.

[MaximumZero]

Keeping tabs on this so I know how to murderize the competition. Muahahaha!

[sambojin]

Well, for anything from 1st->4th edition (and Pathfinder), chuck your thoughts, questions, etc here: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=110497.0

We'll try and keep this one as 5th edition only. If it's comparitive thoughts between certain mechanics of the old and the new editions then no worries. But I fully plan on rambling on about broken stuff in the other thread.