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13 months ago ::
May 27, 2012 - 10:37AM
#21
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Would ray of frost work if larger creatures were restricted to half move?
No.
A slayer fighter NPC would be someone shafted by this as well (they would have ranged options, but they're not as good as melee options). I think just reducing the effect (so, say, half speed) would do the trick. A higher level spell could do some cold damage and immobilize the opponent as well.
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13 months ago ::
May 27, 2012 - 11:56AM
#22
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Date Joined:
Apr 13, 2009
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Hi,
We just finished up our first play-test too. I'll post more in a separate thread, but just to comment on a few things being raised here. I've played adn DMed every edition since first edition and my players (my 4 children) cut their teeth on 4e.
My players, with the exception of the player of the knight of Moradin, found the characters to be pretty lack-lustre. In particular they complained about combats being rather boring, with each round largely being a repition of the previous one, except perhaps position on the board and the number of hit pointst they had! They also didn't like not having powers /abilities that made their character feel iconic/special.
We liked the advantage/disadvantage mechanic very much, and this was the source of greatest enjoyment for the knight - the defender ability was fun.
As DM, I also found the monsters extremely lacklustre and although combat was much quicker than 4e and felt more streamlined and intuitive, all this served to do ultimately was bring us to grind more quickly. Particularly with the ogre.
I'm fully aware that this isn't the final product and remain open minded. However, so far I'm non-plused and am not persuaded to switch to 5e yet. I am also rather concerned about the over emphasis of recapturing some nostalgic feel of previous editions (the majority of which is misremembered and at least rose-tinted). if I want a edition feel I can always just dust off my copies of that edition and play that. I really hope that 5e continues to innovate the game I have played and loved for 3 decades.
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13 months ago ::
May 27, 2012 - 12:08PM
#23
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Date Joined:
Feb 19, 2005
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As DM, I also found the monsters extremely lacklustre and although combat was much quicker than 4e and felt more streamlined and intuitive, all this served to do ultimately was bring us to grind more quickly.
This was exactly the opposite of our experience, even with the ogre. Combat in D&DNext, even with us being unfamiliar with the system, was much faster than any 4E encounter any of us can remember.
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13 months ago ::
May 27, 2012 - 12:13PM
#24
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Date Joined:
Sep 22, 2006
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As DM, I also found the monsters extremely lacklustre and although combat was much quicker than 4e and felt more streamlined and intuitive, all this served to do ultimately was bring us to grind more quickly.
This was exactly the opposite of our experience, even with the ogre. Combat in D&DNext, even with us being unfamiliar with the system, was much faster than any 4E encounter any of us can remember.
I don't think he's commenting on the speed, but rather that the Ogre fight just felt like smacking a grindy MMO boss. Fast, but ultimately boring dude to lack of things going on.
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13 months ago ::
May 27, 2012 - 12:28PM
#25
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Date Joined:
Apr 13, 2009
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I don't think he's commenting on the speed, but rather that the Ogre fight just felt like smacking a grindy MMO boss. Fast, but ultimately boring dude to lack of things going on.
Exactly!
No doubt, it was much faster - and we enjoyed that. The players kept being surprised by it! "What? It's my go again? Already?" However, the overall feeling was that there wasn't much to do other than repeat the same old move. I'm keeping an open mind that interesting stuff will be layered in later, but for now, it feels rather flat.
Return to Vancian magic was also pretty much unwelcome for my players - and I felt the same on reading the character sheets. Some one commented earlier (or in another thread) that they'd rather reach for a crossbow than spam at-will spells. What wizard in popular fiction has to resort to throwing darts or using a crossbow over the area they have specialised in?
I'm going to swap the wizard and cleric characters around among my players a bit and see if I can accomodate the play style to see if we can make them feel exciting and not fundamentally gutted. However, the playtest module doesn't exactly lend itself to non-combat out of the gate! 
Must say, though, I've enjoyed the challenge as a DM. At first my heart sank on seeing Caves of Chaos - I remember it from first time around and while it was great when I was 10 and had never played anything like D&D before, it's production values and sophistication have been left far behind in the intervening years. That said, it has challenged me to be more creative in thinking about how to run the adventure, rather than follow a sophisticated, prescribed alogrithm for encounter design. It's felt pretty liberating.
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13 months ago ::
May 27, 2012 - 12:28PM
#26
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Date Joined:
Feb 19, 2005
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My mistake. I misread him as stating that combat was much quicker in 4E.
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