Legends & Lore: This Week in D&D

Mearls sheds some light on things that they are working on, namely classes, backgrounds, and specialties.

It sucks that the sorcerer and warlock are getting pulled back, as they were far more interesting than the pseduo-Vancian, fire-and-forget wizard (at-wills or no), though  I am hopeful that wizard traditions will close the gap…at least somewhat, anyway. While I like the added oomph of signature spells (aka 4th Edition encounter spells), they muddy the waters in terms of explaining how magic works.

The sorcerer tied with the warlock as my favorite class, and it sucks that they might rename the class and recycle it for a fighter/wizard archetype. I like the concept and mechanics quite a bit, as well as the ability to have a capable, interesting melee-spellcaster. Eh, I am least willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.

I am a bit iffier about the whole “magic-user” blanket class, mostly because I am not sure what it implies. Will the classes be packages of mechanics? Will each class have a variety of mechanics, or still have unique mechanics? I really liked where they were going with the sorcerer and warlock. I had heard that they were going to make various management systems that you could apply as desired, which sounds nice so long as classes still retain unique features.

Turn undead has been moved to a class feature (again), and channel divinity has been removed in favor of “special abilities based on your god” (which basically sounds like channel divinity by another name). The idea is that there will be generic deities that can be applied to archetypal gods. The given example is using the Trickster for Loki or Olidammara, which grants invisibility (and other illusion-based magic), training in Sneak, some ranged and Dexterity-based melee weapons. I love this because for the first time clerics will be able to more readily “act” like their gods–especially right out of the gate–instead of almost universally being heavily armed and armored melee-warriors.

Fighters went over well, but they are looking into making the fighter even more simple than simply stating that you add your Expertise Dice to damage rolls. Given how boring people thought the initial fighter was, I wonder if they can find a middle ground in there.

I am glad to hear that while rogues will get more skills, that they will be dialing down the chances of automatic success; they should be able to fail at least rarely.

Speaking of skills, backgrounds will now give four skills instead of three, and they are going back to the original floating bonus method; instead of linking skills to specific ability scores, you can add them to any relevant check. Personally I think that this encourages more clever thinking on the part of players. No mention of whether traits will remain, and the skill list might expand. Given how many Lore skills they are, I am not sure if this is a good thing.

Specialties are being more clearly defined as “something that your character has focused on and developed”, ideally something that is easy for other players to understand. No word on if/when other specialties come into play.

And now to wait for the next packet, which is thankfully coming soon.

DDN Blog: Skills and Task Resolution

“Characters get four things–skills or traits.” 

This model kind of reminds me of a combination of 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons and Exalted, in that skills grant a flat bonus to a variety of related things, but you can opt to nab other things if you want. A workshop was specifically mentioned, but I could also see something like influence, followers, a familiar, and more. Not sure about languages. They would have to be pretty darned useful, or other things less so, to make them a compelling choice. This–along with wizards getting at-will spells without having to burn a feat, themes granting at-will spells, and the potential for a variety of magic systems (daily, power- and point-based, etc)–has been one of the few rare things to get my psyched for 5th Edition.

I like that they are not super specific like 3rd Edition (Climb, Jump, Swim, Knowledge skills, and Use Rope come to mind), but instead somewhat vague like in 4th Edition, allowing for more player input and creativity. Given that the DC’s for many things at 1st-level was very low (like, 12-13), I often did not have the issue of players checking their sheets for the best modifier and trying to rationalize an application. I think that, if anything, it was that players were used to seeing massive bonuses of potentially +11 and assuming that it was the norm. Hopefully with skills only conferring a +2, at least initially, will help break that habit.

I think that I would like to have seen things like what Rob calls active and passive skills divvied up, which is something I recall happening in 3rd Edition Shadowrun; players had two pools of skills. Or maybe one was knowledges? I do not remember, really. Basically everyone got to spend things on both sets. Regardless, I really dig this movement of making characters more dependent on their ability scores instead of skill modifier. I think it will help encourage players to at least try things that they normally would not.

We will see what happens next week when the playtest finally starts.

DDN Blog: Wizards with a License to Kill

A previous blog post on background and themes made it pretty clear that backgrounds and themes are just going to be respective packages of skills and feats, though other information drops hinted–or could at least be interpreted–that they might confer other benefits as well.

This post states that themes and backgrounds “also give a character class access to the feel that’s traditionally been in the keeping of another class”. It then explains that in prior editions if someone wanted to play a spy that they would probably start as a rogue, or at least multiclass into rogue as soon as possible.

I can agree with this statement–though not with the one about a wizard of any edition acting like a spy, especially “to great and wonderful effect”–because rogues get a lot of skill points/trained skills that make them ideal at sneaking, lying, and information gathering. So, yeah, if any class can pick any skills then it opens up a lot of concepts that you might be unable to easily and/or reliably realize. It also clarifies that classes must have a core identity and mechanics that are fundamental to that class.

In other words this sounds like “classes give you class features”. I wonder if feat choices will let you pick up class features from another class, like in 4th Edition, or boost logical/thematic/iconic combinations of two or more other classes, like fighter/wizards, rogue/assassins, druid/barbarians, ranger/druid/paladins, etc.

Ultimately what I take away from this short post is still that backgrounds and themes largely exist to speed a player through character creation. What I do not know for sure is the order of operations; you can pair of any background and class, but what about themes? From the sounds of the slayer theme I guess that classes will at least have specific theme options, which I liken to sample character builds from 3rd and 4th Edition, though I could also see them having generic or broad themes that are largely applicable to multiple classes.

What I am curious about is if backgrounds will do more than just dole out skill bonuses. For example, will the spy background provide a network of contacts? Will themes only determine your feats, or will they also provide other benefits like they did in 4th Edition? Does a wizard with the farmer background still have access to Arcana, or whatever a wizard uses to deal with magic stuff? Can a fighter start with the slayer theme, but then move more into the realm of archery if the campaign direction warrants it?