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Now, if I can find someone who will pay me a decent salary to do =that=, I'll be all set.

Just get to be an old fart like me and the gvt will pay you to stay home <chuckle>

Gencon does tire me out. I've taken 2 naps already today - and went to work

Had a bit of trouble getting up this morning. Having noisy next-door neighbors at the hotel all week didn't help.

Don't talk about Neptune like that!

My wife keeps saying that I'm tired because I'm not a teenager anymore.

Problem is that she's usually right

I wish to interject a comment about other editions and 4th. The intent as I see it behind 4th edition was to draw towards MMORPG play. With destinct roles in the party, striker, controller, tank, that kind of thing. That was the focus imho.

Well Mike you did your job. I am going to go see if I can buy the PHB now for 5th. Though I hope, when I go looking that I can buy it on PDF. As much as I love books, having them on PDF to read and reference is so nice. If I end up playing I would by a book for the table top as well. But for my own use electronic format all the way baaaaby.

pande,

The 'party balance' thing has =always= been an issue. It 'devolved' into the 'striker, tank, etc.' idea when there were so many classes that the intent of each class became blurred in terms of it's role in the party <g>

I have not heard anything about the availability of the core books in a pdt or similar format. I =suspect= that they will be using the DungeonScape app as the access point for that sort of thing, but I dont really know. It is just a guess <wink>

Yeah, Mike Mearls (the lead designer) had it as a pdf that he showed during a "Ready, Set, Play" session, but we peons have to work with hard copy.

I gave in and bought the real book. But I will buy the PDF when it is available. Bastiges!

I suppose we need to start a 5e game now, right? I can run the Mines of Phandelver (or whatever the mod in the starter set is called) just so we can learn the rules together. I'm thinking of doing it on a virtual tabletop though to speed things up.

Works for me.

I would love to play but not sure about compatible schedules etc...

You know I will play.

<< getting my Players Manual today, when I get off - status says delivered <snoopy dance of happiness>

I posted a do-you-want-to-play? in the Message Gaming Center.

Recruiting closed
That was quick

Heh very quick. Good to know.
Thanks

I've made an attempt at reviewing the PHB:

http://www.kalyr.com/weblog/sf-and-gaming/games/dungeons-and-dragons-5th-edition-players-handbook/

Well, we had our first game of 5E this weekend. The characters worked out fine but we all noticed that the spells are messed up big time.

You have first level spells doing 4d8 damage. Now, if you are a group that just does dungeon delving and fighting monsters, that is fine but most of the time we are fight other humanoids with access to the same spells we have. One 1st level wizard can easily kill or take us down in one round unless you roll very badly.

We are already altering spells, changing the cantrips that are 2d8 damage down to 1d6 or 1d8 at most. As our GM says, if you can use them so can the enemy and we are going to be going through characters at an alarming rate.

More comments as we get more into it.

Not at home w/access to my PHB. Which spell does 4d8 at 1st level?

Ken - OK, the enemy Wizard does 4d8 (average of 18 point of damage, presuming the pc doesn't save). The fighter (with 12 hp) drops below zero and falls. The Cleric runs over and casts a Cure Wounds spell and he is back up and fighting. None of the damage beyond taking the pc to zero counts. All healing automatically begins with the pc at zero, so even if they were technically at -6, a 6 point Cure spell puts them back to 6 hps.

Presumably the enemy Wiz can only do that once, or maybe twice in the entire encounter?

I've played through 3rd level at Gencon. Nobody at our table died.

I just read through every 1st level spell in the PHB and none do 4d8 damage. Maybe I missed it? The worst damage I saw was inflict wounds which does 3d10 damage. But the mage has to hit the target with a melee attack.

If you're changing rules in your first session then I would argue that you didn't give the system a chance.

The spell I was thinking about was Witch Bolt which does 1d12 and an additional 1d12 per round for up to one minute by concentration.

If I am the enemy, I am targeting the cleric or more likely the wizard with my spell. Average first level wizard is going to have what, 6 to 9 hit points with a con of between 10 and 15, give or take?

Cantrips like firebolt doing 1d10 or Poison Spray doing 1d12 with save and Ray of Frost doing 1d8 plus slowing 10 feet. And you can keep doing that over and over unlimited.

It just seems like a pretty quantum leap forward in lethality compared to past spells in 2nd and 3rd editions for low level wizards/sorc.

Like I said, I think part of it is that we spend most of our time fighting against other humanoids with wizards and clerics and our GM has a disturbing ability to roll high. I swear we need to take her to Vegas one day

I have Witch Bolt on my pc, Ken. Actually it does 2d12 in the first round and 1d12 after that. However, you never get the second round or subsequent ones because all the enemy has to do is move more than 30 feet away from you and the spell ends. I used it several times during Gencon and on the enemy's turn they simply moved away and the spell stopped.

I believe part of the reason for the upgraded spells (especially cantrips) is that that is supposed to be the same as the fighter swinging his greataxe. The fighter can do that every round, every combat. Previously the spellcasters, at low levels, could cast their spell once or twice and then they couldn't do anything except attack with a little dagger. The cantrips give the spellcasters a 1d10 or 1d8 attack they can use every round, just like a fighter.

Also, most of those spells you need to make a ranged attack roll (so only ~50% chance for it to hit) and then for many the target gets a save (so now another ~50%+ chance to save), so the odds of hitting AND doing full damage are only around 10-25%.

Well keep in mind that this is a new game and we are all still getting used to it <g>

First, the way that adventures are 'scaled' is =way= different than it was in the previous versions. You calculate your party strength and compare it to a table that tells you that the party is somewhere between 'very weak' and 'very strong'. The mod then tells you how to scale the encounters based on that rating.

Second, there is a whole lot of text in the beginning of the mod that empowers/encourages the GM to 'make changes' as needed to keep the game fun for the players.

Third, I suspect that, in this case, the GM may have misread the stats for the monster in the same way I did at first. The way they show damage in the stat block is something like: 4(1d8-1). That doesn't mean 4d8 - 4. It means that the 1d8-1 damage for the weapon does 4 points of damage. It confused me until I looked a little deeper at the numbers.

Hope that helps.