Roles for exploration and interaction

Last night's game got me really thinking about exploration and interaction roles. I'm running Against the Cult of the Reptile God as my summer D&D fling game, and the party began infiltrating the church.

Now, I'm sure the player of the fighter was just tired, but the party didn't get to much fighting in general last night. So the fighter seemed bored as well as tired. The party's good planning reduced the need for combat dramatically, so people probably only took a swing or two each at enemies before they went down.

But the problem is that with the skill system, the fighter really doesn't have much that he can do outside of combat.

Daily Resources in D&D Next

One thing that the new D&D is still struggling with are daily powers and the 5-minute work day. Except now, I think they're making it potentially worse because monks and paladins are joining the ranks of the blast-and-rest group.

I wrote before about one simple fix, which is simply that all of your "daily" resources don't refresh when you rest. But now besides wizards, clerics, druids, rangers, and paladins having a daily amount of spell slots, most classes have additional daily powers:

• channel divinity - clerics & paladins
• wild shape - druids
• ki - monks
• rage - barbarians

So these classes can all suffer from out-of-resources syndrome. Then there's hit dice too, so even fighters and rogues can run out of those.

There are some attempts at fixing this though. Barbarians get another attack-type that they can use all day (get advantage by giving advantage) and wizards as well as druids who focus on spellcasting recover some low-level spell slots after short rests. At-will cantrips also give some options when spending daily resources seem excessive. But this doesn't change the fact that one rest basically replenishes everyone.

The hit die recovery mechanic for long rests is one way to help kill the five-minute work day. Currently you recover all your HP but only half your hit dice. I'm not sure that's the implementation that sings to me, but I like it. You don't get all your resources back. Now if they can apply this to spells and other daily features, that'd be great. Of course, there's really no reason that all of these things need to be different resources, they're all basically "spell slots". I'm not sure why wild shape can't be a set of druid spells (with wild-shape focused druids getting more of them and fewer other spells), or even turn undead could be a simple cleric/paladin spell.

Second Edition (and before?) had some version of this where, by the book, you needed a lot more time to memorize powerful spells. So you might have to really choose what to regain when you're resting during an adventure.

One objection to worrying about this is that the DM's responsibility is to ensure that games move along and to enforce plot-based reasons to avoid this problem entirely. I'm somewhat sympathetic to this point. I've rarely encountered this in games that I've played in or ran. However, a well-crafted game should ensure that most DMs won't find this well-known problem to be a problem.

Basically, resting should still be a reasonable option: you're trading time for some resources. The problem is when all your resources return with too little time spent. A simple mechanic would just be regain half your spent resources (round up).

That might be too simplistic though for the current set of rules. For spells, maybe you regain slots top-down so you do regain most of your big guns, but maybe not all the little ones (or go bottom-up so that you really have to think before using those big guns). But then with wild-shape, channel divinity, rage, and ki... you've got so little that it seems like maybe you should just regain one less than your maximum (minimum 1, I guess), so if you're 100% spent you still get most of your mojo back.

If I ran the show, I'd make all the daily points (spells, monk/psionic ki points, berserker rage, etc.) one system and then have a simple way for daily stuff to be recovered to around 75% capacity. Or, well, at least I'd heavily consider this, easier to apply an optional get-all-your-shit-back rule or grittier recover-slower rule and have the five-minute work day addressed in the base.

D&D Next: Putting it all together

Now that I've made a few characters with D&D Next, I'm struck by how the rules don't yet mesh well together. There are a few different systems in place that really need to be ironed out, and I'm a bit shocked because they've been playtesting this stuff for a while now. Examples:

A Forest Gnome (ok, I know its a new race, but still) Illusionist wizard has features that just plain overlap. Forest gnomes get the illusion cantrip and so do illusionists. This could be fixed if there's 2 cantrips from each school, but I'm not sure they want to give at-will invisibility as a cantrip and veiling/disguise is the other illusion option after creating illusions. Not only that, but Gnomes gain advantage on saves against magic (in general) which overlaps with Illusionists getting advantage on saves against illusion spells.

The Assassin scheme for the rogue gains the sneak skill, but also the hide in shadows feat, which grants the sneak skill (and 10' of dark vision). Though the Assassin seems tacked on in other ways, because they're the only scheme who doesn't get mostly specific expert feats. They need a poisoner feat which lets them brew and identify poisons.

Races grant weapon/armor proficiency, but it is incredibly hard to find a place to use these proficiencies. Elves are reasonable, because the long sword and longbow are solid weapons, but most weapon using classes will have them already. Its a little better for Mountain dwarves who gain proficiency with light and medium armor, but also a +1 bonus to AC when wearing medium or heavy armor. So something like elves being able to use long swords as finesse weapons might help a little. I liked the earlier version where these iconic weapons (or at least the simple versions of them) gained a damage die bump (i.e. Halflings with slings and such). Alternately, it might be nice to have that as a "cultural" option, so Elven Culture gives you proficiency with long and short swords (and ability to use them as finesse weapons) and long/short bows, or recall lore Magic or History or Natural.

Light/small weapons are overshadowed by other weapons. Daggers, for example, in earlier editions don't do much damage but they have an advantage in number of attacks or weapon speed. So these could be made more iconic with some additional properties (daggers and other small weapons, maybe could get a power where you get to make an attack of opportunity whenever someone tries to grapple you).

There is also a lot of ambiguity in how things stack (or don't). Mage Armor, for example, is worded such that it isn't clear if an Elven Monk could take Mage Armor and still gain his wisdom bonus. Or, frankly, if a Dwarven Wizard could use Mage Armor at the same time as other armor which he's proficient in. Third edition named every type of bonus, which wasn't an elegant system but you knew what could stack and what couldn't.

Anyway, none of this is entirely unexpected, except we're quite a ways out from the original playtests and these seem like some major issues to deal with. I expect there'll be a new packet in a month for GenCon and I hope it shows they're working on what types of bonuses races and classes should get and how to ensure they don't overlap to the point of uselessness.

D&D Next Playtest: Overview

I've begun playing and running with the current Next playtest rules. I'm moderately impressed.

First, I'm able to fairly seamlessly convert a first edition module that I've wanted to run for a while to the new rules. There's only one or two key monsters that aren't converted and stats for some human villains.

Second, it's refreshing to be running an adventure again, rather than a series of encounters. I really did enjoy 4e and had fun with it, but I never quite got the string-of-encounters thing quite down. I wanted it to be like the connected battles in Final Fantasy Tactics, but it just didn't turn out like that. I think it could, though. And I still like many of the 4e rules, but its nice to be free from the power cards.

Third, I'm digging some aspects of the new spell design. Playing a cleric, I like how some of the utility spells are either designated as rituals, so they clog your spells prepared, rather than compete for spell slots. Other utility spells are given more applications, like Create Water. I hope that type of flexibility extends to some of the combat cantrips, like Ray of Frost.

Overall, it makes the game feel a bit more like playing Second edition. Which is what I was mostly raised on, so I like the big picture thus far. There's some things I'm less fond of (half-elves, mechanically, aren't outcasts; druids still seem overpowered, with wizard-like spell casting and wild-shape; forest gnome illusion powers overlap with the illusionist class powers; many of the cleric deities are a bit forced into one archetype) but this edition will also be much more house-ruleable.

There are a few things which would make life a lot easier for playtesting too, that I hope they consider using in the next packet. For example: Lists of cleric, druid, paladin, and ranger spells by level would help, so I could just print out all the first and second level spells for my character.

I also wish they would explain some of the design intent a bit. I finally realized why the ritual caster was repeated in the Scholastic wizard tradition: its worded slightly different from the regular ritual caster feature, so that the generalist tradition can cast any ritual in their book! Given their plain-English style in other places, it is jarring that there's not a "Unlike most wizards..." and emphasis on spellbook. Ditto with the Rogue's sneak attack stuff. The rules seem pretty clear that rogues have a way to gain advantage, and can take disadvantage for additional damage, but you have to read between the lines to realize it.

So all of this, and Abjurers. They should add abjurers back into the game.

Necromancy and Necromancers in Heoric D&D

Necromancy has always been a popular subject in RPGs and fantasy fiction. Usually, necromancers and undead are the villains. So when I look at the Necromancer theme/specialty in the new playtest, I'm a bit unsettled.

First, its great that they include it. 4e went far too long without a good mechanical way to support this archetype. Reflavoring can only take one so far, though the Shaman did relatively well as a necromancer type. It doesn't even take much searching to find a small host of third party OGL necromancy products, so the necromancer is probably popular/iconic enough to warrant some treatment in the basic D&D rules.

3.5/OGL products:

• Hollowfaust: City of Necromancers (Sword and Sorcery Studios)
• Necromancy: Beyond the Grave (Mongoose)
• Encyclopaedia Arcane Necromancy (Mongoose)
• Secret College of Necromancy (Green Ronin)
• The Dread Codex (Adamant)
• The Dread Codex 2: The Necromancer's Tome (Adamant)
• Necromancer's Legacy: Gar'Udok's Necromantic Artes (EN)

So why does this new necromancer theme grind my gears? Simply put, its not a necromancer.

Second Wind + Rampage = a Heroic Moment? or Action Points revised.

D&D 4e introduced a lot of interesting elements to the game. Despite its focus on math and balance, I think some of these features are really good, because the add to the narration as well as being viable in combat. Some of these disparate features could be linked, however, and I've got an inkling of how to do it.

Second wind allows PCs to spend one of their own healing surges in combat, so its basically a self heal. The concept doesn't quite match the mechanic though, because one doesn't necessarily control a second wind in real life. It does, however, capture that heroic moment when the protagonist manages to shake off their pain, stand up again, and whump whump whump. So over all, I think its a good mechanic, though it might be better with a little tweaking. Depending on how HP works, it may be divorced from surges. I'd also be interested in seeing how it might work as slightly random. It also might be a good candidate for an actual daily power, as it makes some sense that you might not be able to catch a second wind multiple times a day.

This brings me to a random class feature: the Barbarian's Rampage. When he scores a critical hit, the barbarian can make a free charge attack. This is a neat feature, but I don't know that I really saw it come into play. Its also not really modifiable, except by what boosts critical hits. So barbarians with Rampage get an extra benefit from their critical hits, meaning they ought to get things to boost those.

As I was thinking about this, these two mechanics seem like they do the same sort of thing. They represent that heroic moment when someone pushes through the pain and tries to pull off a minor hail mary.

Thoughts on the D&D Next Playtest

After reading through the playtest materials (delayed because I couldn't get the stuff to download for days), I have to say I'm overall optimistic. It seems a little high-fantasy for my taste with hit dice and at-will attack cantrips, but I'll try to reserve judgment about some of that for now. Some of the explanations in this week's Legends and Lore column help to understand some of the playtest too.

I don't like how the ability scores are, once again, king. That is to say, everything happens based on your ability scores, but the math makes it look like starting with that 18 or 20 in your most relevant stat is going to be huge. Granted that'll make your other stats crap, but its a min-maxers paradise potentially. I've been contemplating a much flatter bonus system where an 18 is only +2, but I'm not sure that would work well yet. I love the Con modifier as minimum HP roll though. I had been contemplating something along the lines of half was the minimum roll, but basing it off Con is brilliant.

Advantage/disadvantage is, however, a pretty brilliant system. A re-roll is pretty important when you have a low bonus, so the math makes it more potent for your crap-stats instead of on your good rolls for a min-maxer. I'm not sure if that is a good or bad thing, but it potentially means min-maxing on your stats is going to be much better for some classes/skills, if you can get most of your important skills off with advantage via good descriptive roleplaying (Charisma and Intelligence?). I did notice that the prone condition still gives a -2 to attack rolls, which might be a typo since they said advantage is supposed to help eliminate some at-the-table math. I'm glad that they don't seem to have decided on the idea of using 1d4 or 1d6 for a bonus at least. Something like the thief's skill mastery might be doable with this mechanism as well. I'm also wondering what it would look like, mathematically, if the second die rolled were 1d12 instead of 1d20. You'd be more likely to "roll" a score in the 8-9 range probably, but still have the potential of catastrophic failure. Just less-so. Maybe that average roll isn't quite high enough to make a difference if you're not pretty maxed out though.

I though they were going to do more with silver pieces, so the equipment section's prices baffled me a bit.

Hit dice seem ok, but I might like a limit that one can only spend so many per short rest. For extended rests, it'd be interesting if one only recovered hit dice and not any HP perhaps. I'm still a little uncertain. Also the once/level thing seems a bit... low? Or low at first and high later on maybe.

I'm also a little unsure of some of the scaling math. The rogue seems to gain a die of sneak attack at every level, which is pretty potent.  I'll have to reserve judgment till we can see more than a 3-level playtest. Same as the class features, really. This playtest is about the basic mechanics.

I feel similar about themes. They seem... silly maybe. But if they're just granting feats, its just extra wording on my sheet. I don't mind if a fighter could take a feat and gain some minor spellcasting powers, that's pretty cool. But how that fits in with multiclassing and what annoying pages of fluff are going to be given to these feat-delivery packages remains to be seen. The backgrounds are nice, but I still think some classes or races should have innate skills as well.

Overall, I like the magic system except for the "minor" spells (cantrips/orisons). For example, I like how the grease spell states a bunch of different possible uses and its possible effects. The attack minor spells though seem... lackluster. They're generally a replacement for a weapon, and do damage just like a weapon. Ray of Frost might be a much more interesting spell if it did one thing, though I suppose it should since I could easily do this with the rules. So, one effect when targeting the ground (creating a slippery surface), another when targeting a small fire (extinguishing it), another when aimed at the target's eyes, etc. Maybe that's too much for one spell, but as a player I'd expect to potentially be able to do this. That makes the at-will spells really potent potentially. If the cantrips were once per encounter, I wouldn't mind this level of flexibility. If they're really at-will though, I think they should potentially do much less. Maybe the class or theme would let one cantrip be mastered completely, while the others are just per encounter? But really, the shocking grasp can no longer be used when attacking with metal weapons? Wizards can take Magic Missile to always be able to damage an enemy with no attack roll every turn? And eventually it grows stronger so you can make multiple attacks with it? Radiant Lance gives any cleric a "magic" crossbow? Meh. A bit too high-fantasy in my book, so hopefully the 'tone it down' options won't devastate the casting classes. Or maybe there'll just be alternative magician and votary classes?

A quick list of positives: Ritually casting spells, a reasonable movement system, skills in general, simplified turn mechanics, and hazards on skill checks. Also, just about everything else, really.