D&D 5 Playtesting.
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Hmmm...I might be able to do that, actually.
Does it take a while for the registration e-mail to arrive?
Hmmm...still haven't gotten it. :-\
You're not the DM of me...
Funnier on Animaniacs.What i want to know is if you can do this:
It could if it was a human suffering from a Baleful Polymorph or other involuntary/voluntary shape change. It just couldn't use weapons (unless a specially designed fist weapon), tools, and would need specially made armor. Basically, it could be done but it would be a pain in the ass. It would be really, really stupid.
But yes, it's based on a sketch from Animaniacs.
I kind of agree with them about Cleric healing. If my choices are between healing a measly 1d8 points of damage with Cure Light Wounds or using Searing Light to kill a guy so you don't get damaged in the first place, I'm always going to use the Searing Light unless your in pretty desperate straits. This is especially true considering how many Hit Dice we get to use and how easy it is to get them back.
Could you elaborate please?
This is an example of understanding their costumers. I approve, even though the dozen or so 4th edition books my wife has in the closet are about to be pointless.
It's sort of like Healing Surges from 4th.
OK, you get 2 of your hit dice at level 1. These are the same dice you would use to roll for your HP. However, you can also use them to recover HP by taking a Short Rest action, if you have a healing kit (or someone shares theirs). It takes 10 minutes, uses up a use from your healing kit, but it lets you roll as many Hit Die as you want (up to your max) to recover HP. So for instance, if you had 2d8 for Hit Die, you could roll 1d8+your Con modifer to recover that many HP and then roll ANOTHER 1d8+Con Mod if you still needed to recover more. It's sort of like having almost free, personal healing spells that you can use between fights. But once you've used up a Hit Die, it's gone till you've spent a Long Rest.
A Long Rest is 8 hours long. Doing this gives you back ALL of your lost HP, plus your spent Hit Dice and lets you re-memorize your spells. You can only do it once during a 24-hour period.
AshburnerX , I meant elaborate on why you think that self healing is a lot of healing. In 4E you could self heal a average minimum of 175% of your health every day, in this iteration your average minimum is now about 40% and the most min maxed pc only ever caps out at 133% self healing. So until we have a fair assessment of how much damage our PC's take on average how can you make a statement that self healing is enough?
Right now our characters have an HP pool of 86 hit points and can self heal and average 33% of that. If we use magic, that total rises to 57%.
No one wants clerics to be come statistical heal bots, but right now the mechanics don't suggest they should be anything else, especially the cleric of Pelor.
Right now our characters have an HP pool of 86 hit points and can self heal and average 33% of that. If we use magic, that total rises to 57%.
No one wants clerics to be come statistical heal bots, but right now the mechanics don't suggest they should be anything else, especially the cleric of Pelor.
See, I haven't played an actual game of 4th yet. I wasn't aware of just how many surges you got and how much healing that meant. I only knew it was a similar concept. Are your calculations taking into account the fact that you get to add your Con modifier to each additional Hit Die? I think that would skew the percentage a bit higher.
I think we're gonna need to see how it works when we fight an actual tough battle. 3/3.5 didn't have healing surges, but using your healing spells in it was just about the worst choice you could make as a cleric. It was almost always a better idea to use your spells to disable and kill the enemy because it was simply easier and more efficient to do so. Then again, now that Clerics have a powerful Orison attack spell, it might not be so necessary.
I actually think Radiant Lance is too good, especially compared to Shocking Grasp. It's about the same damage, but being ranged it's a much safer bet. It kinda makes me wonder why Pelor carries a weapon at all, as I'd always use the spell unless firing into a mixed melee of enemies and allies or was silenced in some fashion.
I think we're gonna need to see how it works when we fight an actual tough battle. 3/3.5 didn't have healing surges, but using your healing spells in it was just about the worst choice you could make as a cleric. It was almost always a better idea to use your spells to disable and kill the enemy because it was simply easier and more efficient to do so. Then again, now that Clerics have a powerful Orison attack spell, it might not be so necessary.
I actually think Radiant Lance is too good, especially compared to Shocking Grasp. It's about the same damage, but being ranged it's a much safer bet. It kinda makes me wonder why Pelor carries a weapon at all, as I'd always use the spell unless firing into a mixed melee of enemies and allies or was silenced in some fashion.
So far in the playtest clerics are spontaneous casters now. Before they used to be memorized but could sub in CLW etc instead.
One thing that really bothers me from the article is this
What I like about CLWs is that it is a HitDie less healing and costs a spell slot. HitDie less healing should have a steep price. I am also open to a cantrip for clerics that allows for HitDie healing. ie: You call out to your gods to heal your comrade and they can spend a hit die and gain some other bonus.
One thing that really bothers me from the article is this
To me it implies that they are devising a way for a cleric to heal and take an action on their turn. Solidly against that idea, it's a slippery slope to me of becoming the disaster that has befallen 4E. I would much rather prefer that they stick with Action/Movement and stay as far away from including other pseudo-actions as they can.
What I like about CLWs is that it is a HitDie less healing and costs a spell slot. HitDie less healing should have a steep price. I am also open to a cantrip for clerics that allows for HitDie healing. ie: You call out to your gods to heal your comrade and they can spend a hit die and gain some other bonus.
Yeah, I could get behind that. Make the "free" healing cost a spell level, but make the orison version go off hit die and give the option of using the Cleric's wisdom bonus instead of the target's Con bonus if it's higher. Make sure it can only be used in battle so Clerics don't pop it off instead of using a short rest.
And it looks like they want to make the healing a class ability instead of a spell.
And it looks like they want to make the healing a class ability instead of a spell.
Read an idea of making it a Reaction. So if someone takes damage you cast the reaction spell instantly and allow them to use a HD + your Magic Modifier. Would be slightly better than out of combat healing and as a reaction would not be allowed out of combat.
Lots of pitfalls to healing mechanics, make it too much player based it alienates the pc, make it too easy to obtain and it trivializes combat, make it too abundant and it lengthens combat to the point of boredom. It's something 4e got very wrong, the made self healing powerful and assisted healing powerful hoping to make for exciting, quick and frequent combat, it ended up in trivial combats or incredibly long combats and a massive reliance of assisted healers. Since your unfamiliar with the 4e mechanics, each player has a set number of surges they can use per day, average is 7. Each surge is 25% of your health, you can self heal 1 surge per encounter or every 5 minutes outside of combat. Assisted healing is surgeless (rare) or use a surge, gain its value +X from the healer. And then they slap booked the crap out of it and made is silly. My bland fighter can self heal 450% of their health each day or when assisted over 700%, resulting in very long combats of average damage or very fast combats of massive damage and my healer spamming us every round with straight heals and combo heals and zone heals .....
Lots of pitfalls to healing mechanics, make it too much player based it alienates the pc, make it too easy to obtain and it trivializes combat, make it too abundant and it lengthens combat to the point of boredom. It's something 4e got very wrong, the made self healing powerful and assisted healing powerful hoping to make for exciting, quick and frequent combat, it ended up in trivial combats or incredibly long combats and a massive reliance of assisted healers. Since your unfamiliar with the 4e mechanics, each player has a set number of surges they can use per day, average is 7. Each surge is 25% of your health, you can self heal 1 surge per encounter or every 5 minutes outside of combat. Assisted healing is surgeless (rare) or use a surge, gain its value +X from the healer. And then they slap booked the crap out of it and made is silly. My bland fighter can self heal 450% of their health each day or when assisted over 700%, resulting in very long combats of average damage or very fast combats of massive damage and my healer spamming us every round with straight heals and combo heals and zone heals .....
That's because GMs never took advantage of draining people's healing surges. When I had mobs who did that, my players went... whoa whoa...... we got to stop this monster ASAP.
Some things in 4th edition didn't work. Some classes simply had too many healing surges. I always contemplated the half the surges idea but I wasn't sure how the players would take it... so I made combat always hard for them.
But it doesn't have to be the complete opposite in 5th.
I never liked the fact a healer was forced to heal in earlier editions... no one wants that, no one would want to play a healer but if they are given special considerations to their actions, we used to have that... it was called Minor Actions and very little could be used in that... a Rogue can definitely take advantage of that to try to hide as well.
I don't particularly like the concept of 2 options in combat with no OA. That's just me though.
Some things in 4th edition didn't work. Some classes simply had too many healing surges. I always contemplated the half the surges idea but I wasn't sure how the players would take it... so I made combat always hard for them.
But it doesn't have to be the complete opposite in 5th.
I never liked the fact a healer was forced to heal in earlier editions... no one wants that, no one would want to play a healer but if they are given special considerations to their actions, we used to have that... it was called Minor Actions and very little could be used in that... a Rogue can definitely take advantage of that to try to hide as well.
I don't particularly like the concept of 2 options in combat with no OA. That's just me though.
The fewer actions for me the better. My tabletop campaign takes 20 minutes per round. They are filled with people with long faces waiting for their turn as people take an action then a minor action then a minor action as a move action then an action point then an immediate action before ever getting to OA, and none of the minor actions are inconsiderate. Move and act, and possibly react. Clean and simple.
As it stands right now, hiding as anything other than an action is too powerful. Hiding is a defensive action, but grants the rogue offensive abilities. If you were to hide and attack each round, monsters go from being able to hit you 40% of the time to 7%, your ability to hit increases 19% and your ability to crit almost doubles, your average damage increases by at least 33% and to me theatrically does not make sense.
Oh, that's my mistake then. I never did get around to reading the classes in the playtest stuff before I went wandering. I just assumed it was so much like 3.5 they would have left the cleric, the undisputed most powerful class, relatively alone.
But it's boring to play!
I would rather do less things more often than do more things less frequently.
Unless you were referring to the Rogue/hide scenario. It shouldn't take a "I'm going to give myself +6 to AC, +4 to hit and double damage for no significant reason" button to make it interesting to play a Rogue.
They are already talking about adding "maneuvers" to Fighters to make their role more interesting. They are probably going to do the same for Rogues.
I'm kind of torn on this. I like the idea of non-core modules that can be selected for games. I would rather this than the inevitable creep that sets in.
But my gut reaction feels different. 4E as a game was very good at telling you what you can do in combat. Yet in doing so, it was very bad at getting you to do more than what they told you. I like the open endedness of the system so far, I had no power card to tell me I could tackle the kobold chieftain, yet I did it.
Soon I want to try:
- putting my shoulder behind my shield and pushing an enemy away from another PC.
- using my short stature and high strength to chop-block a target
- throwing dirt into a targets eyes to grant advantage to other pc's attacks
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