Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Next, please

Well, for over a year now I've been occasionally (not too persistently, but from time to time) trying to get the guys around here to try out the D&D Next playtest stuff.  Mostly because I'm curious about what they're doing with it, not so much because I think I'll buy it.  But who knows, I might...

Anyway, I finally am getting the chance.  It may be a while before I can pass judgement, though, as the game will be a play-by-post game on RPOL.net.  But it's D&D Next, the Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle module, and the DM started out with BECMI (same as me) and mostly played that back in the day, although from comments he's made he is/was big into 4E. 

So far, character creation wasn't too difficult.  Of course, I was rolling up a Fighter, so that's usually a little simpler than some other classes.  The process was fairly painless.  While every class in Next has a boat-load of special abilities that they gain as they level up, the removal of feats speeds things up quite a bit, and simplification of skills (at least in the most recent packet) into "fields of lore" also speeds things up compared to 3E/Pathfinder/4E.  Still not as simple as BX, but not too time consuming.  Even considering the time I spent debating whether to play Fighter or Rogue didn't take that long.

So, eventually, I may have something more to say about Next.  But due to the slow pace of PbP games, don't hold your breath.

4 comments:

  1. Can't say I've read too much on Next. I mean I've randomly signed up for WoTC updates and what not but haven't really looked too deeply into its changes from 3.5 or 4.

    What's your blunt opinion of it?

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  2. Blunt? So far, it appears to be 3E/Pathfinder with radically scaled down math. Which could be a good thing.

    Every class has lots of special abilities. Unlike Pathfinder, you make a choice about your "path" at 3rd level, and then the abilities at certain levels that allow you to customize your character are set.

    PCs only need 250XP to reach 2nd level, 950XP for 3rd. So it's designed to get you up to that decision point quickly.

    Unified mechanics, with almost everything being a version of the d20+ability modifier type roll.

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  3. Having read your own homebrew of Basic D&D, Dennis, I think that 5th Edition might suit you well. I was able to read many of the articles about it as it was being developed. Mind you, I am terrible for reading and comprehending the implications of rules in the abstract.

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  4. Maybe. They just released a new (and final public) playtest package, and the game is converting. I should have waited a week before joining the RPOL game! Would have saved me a lot of reading.

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