Hace un rato ha terminado el último chat sobre el desarrollo de la quinta edición de D&D. En él los jugadores que lo desearan podían mandar en directo sus preguntas a Mike Mearls y Jeremy Crawford. No es que haya trascendido mucha cosa (salvo el regreso de las monedas de electrum), pero algo hay, más que nada puntualizaciones al documento de playtest.
Aunque sean muchos los blogs y foros que discutan libremente el último paquete de documentos de playtest, hay que recordar que quien participa ha firmado un documento de confidencialidad. Aunque dudo que Wizards emprenda ninguna acción contra los que se lo están saltando a la torera, yo me voy a ceñir al mismo por coherencia y por respeto, así que en Play It Again, Sam no van a salir datos concretos ni informaciones que hagan referencia a esos documentos. Lo que sí os diré es que lo que he leído hasta ahora me está gustando.
Como el chat ha sido en abierto, os dejo una transcripción del mismo. Como no, está en inglés, pero para algo está el traductor de Google...
D&D Next Live Chat
with Mike Mearls and Jeremy Crawford
Tuesday May 29, 2012
11:42
Trevor:
Welcome to this week's D&D Next
Playtest Q&A. Mike and Jeremy will be joining us shortly. This is
a moderated chat, which means we will see your questions and
comments, but the room won't see them until we push them live so Mike
and
Jeremy can give you an answer.
11:43
Mearls:
Hello everyone.
11:44
Jeremy Crawford:
Hi, everyone!
11:45
Trevor:
And the stars have arrived! Let's get a
brief introduction from the two of you and then jump into some
questions!
11:45
Mearls:
Hey everyone. My name is Mike Mearls
and I am the senior manager for the D&D team.
11:46
Jeremy Crawford:
I'm Jeremy Crawford, head of
development and editing for D&D.
11:46
Jeremy Crawford:
Bring on the questions!
11:46
Trevor:
Starting up the questions now!
11:47
Comment From Mike Looney
I've noticed that to hit doesn't seem
to go up with levels or with monster's hit points. Is this in fact
correct or is it an artifact of the play test material being for
1-3rd level only?
11:47
Jeremy Crawford:
Mike is typing . . .
11:48
Mearls:
You don't see those number rise at
levels 1 to 3, but we are overall toning down numerical advancement.
The classes generally get more stuff to do, rather than bigger
numbers. With a flatter curve, we can make monsters and characters
scale much better. For instance, a
10th-level party can still take on orcs as a viable threat, they'll
just fight a ton of them.
11:48
Jeremy Crawford:
Yeah, we want to see less number
inflation throughout the system.
11:49
Jeremy Crawford:
Except for the number of monsters, that
is. :)
11:50
Comment From Brian
Can you explain where the extra +2
damage for the fighter comes from (beyond Weapon Focus)? Will we get
an explanation of the racial benefits to damage and hit dice soon so
we can understand what to do as characters change equipment?
11:50
Jeremy Crawford:
The fighter's bonus comes from the
class's advancement table. It's a class feature.
11:51
Comment From mepstein73
Hello! Just wondering why the wizard's
cantrips are so strong. Ray of Frost can end combat pretty quickly,
and Magic Missile is very powerful if it's unlimited/day.
11:51
Jeremy Crawford:
As for the racial benefits, there will
more explanation when we release the information on building your own
character.
11:53
Mearls:
I think that for at-will abilities, we
might have made them a little overpowered a bit in terms of math and
feel. For instance, does it feel OK that magic missile does auto
damage every round? The speed thing on ray of frost is tricky,
because it can vary from being very
powerful to being useless.
11:53
Mearls:
I think getting the minor spells right
will take a few iterations. NQ.
11:53
Jeremy Crawford:
When we playtest things, we prefer to
start powerful and tone things down, rather than starting weak and
beefing things up, hence the spells' potency.
11:53
Comment From lucinian
Thanks for taking the time to do these
chats. They're very informative, and help let us know you really care
what we think. My question: There seems to be, overall, very little
from 4E that's made it into the core rules for D&D Next.
What can 4E fans expect going forward?
11:54
Jeremy Crawford:
Things we love about 4th Edition
continue to work their way into the design. The at-will spells are a
great example of such a thing.
11:55
Mearls:
There are quite a few core 4e changes
that are in the game - at will magic, the hit die mechanic, the
clarity of the combat rules. These are all trend lines that started
with 4e and have moved forward. In terms of powers, we're working
on a combat maneuver system right now
and will show that off as part the ongoing playtest.
11:55
Mearls:
Also, I did some work over the weekend
on the tactical rules options. In many ways, the depth of 4e's
approach to combat and options will sit atop the system you've seen
so far as rules modules.
11:55
Jeremy Crawford:
Our current work on monsters is also
being informed by some of the advances that 4E brought to the
presentation of monsters' abilities.
11:56
Mearls:
That's right - monsters haven't seen
much work yet, so you'll see a 4e influence there, too. NQ
11:56
Comment From Guest
One of my questions is this... in the
weapons descriptions the sling is listed as a 1d6 weapon. However,
with the rogue character it is a 1d8. Why is that?
11:57
Mearls:
Races that have a cultural affinity for
weapons get a die bump in damage. So, halflings are good with slings
and therefore use a bigger damage die. NQ.
11:57
Comment From NumberOneTheLarch
Hello and thank you for answering our
questions. I wanted to ask about skills themselves. In the playtest,
your skill bonuses are derived from your Background. In your plans
for DnD Next, is this the only source for skill bonuses, or
will there be an option or
implementation to select individual skill bonuses through other
means? Thank you again!
11:57
Jeremy Crawford:
Also, one of our developers is
currently doing a review of every weapon. Expect some of the dice to
change.
11:58
Mearls:
You can gain more skills through your
class and through your theme.
11:58
Mearls:
The samples we showed off don't happen
to offer that. But as an example - the rogue class receives a few
bonus skill, and you can expect the same for the ranger. NQ.
11:58
Jeremy Crawford:
We will also provide an option for you
to build your own background, which effectively means you can choose
skills a la carte.
11:59
Comment From Rheim
I have a question about Armor balance.
From the playtesting guide, it seems that there isn't a good balance
between Light/Medium and Heavy Armors. Are there revised rules coming
out on this? Right now there seems little advantage to
wearing say, Heavy Armor versus Medium
Armor.
12:00
Jeremy Crawford:
Armor--that's going through the same
review with weapons, so I expect changes there too.
12:00
Mearls:
Yes, armor will go back to the drawing
board. We included it in the document as a reference, but it hasn't
received a lot of attention. I'd like to see if we even need medium
armor in the game. Starting gear might also change - you might
start lower on the totem pole and buy
your way up to better armor over the first few levels. NQ.
12:00
Comment From Roll 3d6
I like where this edition is going.
Thank you! Had a question regarding the Guardian Talent for the
Cleric. We saw that there is currently no limit for how often the
Cleric can shield someone. Should this be 1x/round?
12:01
Jeremy Crawford:
That ability requires the cleric to use
it as a reaction, and a character can take a reaction only once per
round.
12:02
Jeremy Crawford:
Next question!
12:02
Comment From The rogue
Why did you decide to remove the
different types of actions? (Standard/Move/Minor/Free)
12:03
Mearls:
Two reasons. First, we wanted to speed
up play. We found that some players felt that they had to use each of
those actions, and would slow the game down trying to find things to
do. Second, we decided to start with simple rules and see
what people felt they needed added to
the core, as opposed to a rules module, through the test. Sometimes,
having the action buckets led to design that existed only to fill
those buckets, rather than design that made the game more fun or
more interesting.
12:04
Jeremy Crawford:
We have played with several versions of
the action system. The one you're using now is the simplest. We want
to see how far we can go with it.
12:04
Jeremy Crawford:
Next question!
12:04
Comment From Guest
About hiding. When I try to hide it is
an action. If no-one see me (no LoS) I guess it's no roll and no
action, right?
12:05
Jeremy Crawford:
The thing to keep in mind is that
hiding involves being both out of sight and silent.
12:05
Jeremy Crawford:
If you're out of sight, you aren't
necessarily hidden. You could be making a bunch of noise.
12:06
Jeremy Crawford:
Hiding is something you do consciously
and carefully, hence it requiring an action.
12:06
Jeremy Crawford:
Next question!
12:07
Comment From Pentadrone
How will low wisdom rogues be able to
scout effectively? Feats? Will you be adding skills back into the mix
so characters can overcome stat deficiencies?
12:08
Mearls:
Obviously, the pregen isn't the best
scout. We had talked about giving the rogue class an extra bonus to
finding traps, so that's something we'll look at. The key with the
rogue will be in making sure that the class does the things
people expect. The error might simply
be in treating Wis as the dump stat for the pregen. We've also
thought about letting rogues use a different stat to find traps, such
as Intelligence. NQ.
12:10
Comment From Darklight
Q: When are we going to be given the
chance to provide some actual feedback, and when do you estimate the
next phase of the playtest will take place?
12:12
Mearls:
I believe that the first survey
launches later this week, plus we're watching forums and blogs for
reactions. Posting a playtest recap in a forum or blog is great,
because we get to read it and it helps get people talking about
issues.
The next phase will depend on what the
feedback looks like. I'd like to start pushing out some more fighter
options and perhaps show off the tactical rules module.
As far as an actual schedule, we're
aiming at a big update about every 5 to 6 weeks. NQ.
12:12
Jeremy Crawford:
Mike is typing away.
12:12
Comment From Scipio202
Right now there are no rules that give
a downside for moving in combat. Opportunity attacks can get
complicated quickly, but are you considering a simple version for the
core rules? (e.g. the mover is only subject to OAs from enemies
that made a melee attack at them within
the last round)
12:14
Mearls:
A rule for breaking away from melee is
something we've seen come up a bit. It's a tricky thing to navigate.
It might come in as a rules module. The hard part has been finding a
rule that works that also doesn't feel too restrictive. For
instance, for a while the rule was that
your movement stopped if you entered a hostile creature's reach.
However, that feels a little artificial.
12:15
Jeremy Crawford:
We have experimented with a number of
opportunity attack alternatives. Ultimately, we don't want everyone
in the core system to make such attacks, but we expect certain
characters and monsters to be able to do so as a special ability.
12:15
Mearls:
Another one we talked about - leaving a
creature's reach is an action. If you don't use that action, it gets
a free hack at you. So, you can't attack and move away without a
return attack. This is an area where after playing without such
a mechanic, I'd like to put it out
there as an option and see if people want it as an option or in the
core. NQ.
12:15
Comment From Jon
Can you talk about the motivation
behind the advantage/disadvantage?
12:17
Mearls:
This was a contentious issue on the
design team. Basically, we wanted to do two things -
1. Make modifiers much more important,
rather than relying on lots of little ones that don't have a big
effect but require a lot of bookkeeping.
2. Introduce a benefit or disadvantage
that you can apply after you rolled and forgot about it. I like that
if you forget advantage or disad, you can just throw another die and
resolve it. I've found in my games that sometimes people
roll, announce a result, pick up their
dice, and forget what they had when someone points out a missing mod
5 seconds later.
NQ
12:18
Comment From The rogue
Can distance be measured in squares
instead of feet? As a european/non-american it's hard to convert from
feet all the time>. In squares it's rather universal.
12:18
Jeremy Crawford:
Sure! The rule of thumb is that 5 feet
equal a square.
12:19
Jeremy Crawford:
When we break out miniatures and a
grid, we find ourselves saying "squares" instead of "feet."
It's been easy, thankfully, to switch back and forth.
12:20
Mearls:
We tried to keep things at a 5 feet
minimum because we felt that both with and without minis, that's the
easiest distance to imagine in your head.
Personally, I actually like meters
because if you draw a map with one meter per square, the dimensions
of rooms are more realistic. Alas, we're based in the US and people
like their non-metric measures here.
It might be something we'll look at for
translations and such in the future. NQ.
12:20
Comment From Lyrant
As my group and I were going over our
character sheets for the playtest we noticed a few numbers that were
higher than anything on the page said they had a right to be. For
instance, the Cleric of Moradin had a +2 to AC that couldn't be
found anywhere, and some other
characters had similar bits with their damage, whassup with that?
12:21
Jeremy Crawford:
The bonuses are coming from a variety
of sources, especially class and race.
12:21
Mearls:
I think I know where that comes from.
Dwarves get +1 AC in medium and heavy armor. Also, I think that the
armor chart in the test is 1 point off from the armor as given to the
characters. When in doubt, use the character sheet number.
That's what we based the monsters off
of.
12:22
Mearls:
This stuff will all make sense when we
move to letting people make characters for the test. NQ.
12:22
Comment From Guest
What makes a good theme or background?
What do you look for?
12:23
Jeremy Crawford:
A good background says something
evocative about a character's place in the world, especially the
character's place before the campaign started.
12:24
Jeremy Crawford:
The background should have skills, a
trait, and starting equipment that all say something flavorful about
a character.
12:25
Mearls:
A good theme should be evocative and
really speak to how your class operates. The themes we have right now
are mostly mechanical in nature, but as we flesh them out you'll see
more evocative ones.
For instance, I like the idea of a
necromancer theme that alters all of your spells in some minor way.
For instance, when you damage a creature with a spell you get some
small healing. Or, if you kill a creature with a spell it pops back
up as a skeleton or zombie.
If a class says what you can do, a
theme says how you can do it. So, the paladin, fighter, or ranger who
is a two-weapon duelist looks much different than the character who
took the guardian theme and is an expert with his or her shield.
What it boils down to is that the theme
does something interesting or fun that rests outside character class.
Think of it as the sum expression of your feats. NQ.
12:25
Jeremy Crawford:
In many ways, backgrounds can be a
guide to roleplaying. The commoner fighter and the noble fighter, for
instance, are likely to have very different motivations.
12:25
Comment From August
In the 'How to Play' section (page 7),
it notes that if you attack a creature from whom you are hidden, you
gain advantage. That makes sense. But doesn't it make the Thief's
'Ambusher' power completely irrelevant?
12:26
Mearls:
Since the core math advancements rests
only in class, we can afford for themes to be much more flavorful and
specialized.
12:27
Jeremy Crawford:
One more thing about backgrounds and
themes: A background, ultimately, describes who you were before you
started adventuring, whereas a theme flavors how you adventure.
12:27
Mearls:
There's a subtle point to Ambusher that
make make it fairly lame in practice.
When you're hidden, you are no longer
hidden the moment that you are no longer obscured from view. So, if
you hide and then step out into bright light to stab an orc, the orc
sees you as you attack and you lose advantage.
Ambusher negates that - you keep
advantage until your turn ends, so you can step out into the light
and then attack with it. I think the rule might be a little too
fiddly, though. NQ.
12:28
Mearls:
Just testing my connection. I think I
lost something I tried to post.
12:28
Comment From SlyFlourish
Is the plan to give each PC something
exciting each level and how do you plan to put that burden across
race, class, theme, and background?
12:29
Mearls:
Here it is again - there's a good
chance that Ambusher will be revised or replaced based on feedback.
12:30
Mearls:
We're definitely aiming for something
at each level, and you can expect that to be spread across class and
theme. Race does not automatically give you something, but we've
talked about race-based themes (dwarven defender) that speak to
your race abilities.
So, you could imagine that at each
level you get either a class thing, a theme thing, or an improvement
to an existing ability. I do believe that your skill bonuses increase
at a couple, specific levels, so backgrounds do improve. NQ.
12:32
Comment From Guest
Will characters only have one theme or
background over their character life or will they be able to add more
later? What about changing them out as the character changes over the
story?
12:33
Jeremy Crawford:
We expect certain characters to have
more than one theme, and we are exploring the concept of advanced
themes at higher levels.
12:33
Mearls:
Background is a level 1 choice that
represents what you did before becoming an adventurer, so it doesn't
change. However, you can gain access to more skills and traits at
higher levels through class and theme.
For themes, you can pick one and
advance in it, mix a couple, or build your own by selecting feats a
la carte. I also hope that DMs see them as a tool to create custom
themes for their campaigns.
12:34
Jeremy Crawford:
We have even talked about fighters
getting two themes at 1st level.
12:34
Mearls:
As far as changing stuff, that is an
option we'll include. The first step will likely be, "Talk to
your DM", but it makes sense to give people the option to
do-over choices. NQ.
12:34
Comment From ExtendedRest
Is there a plan to deal with long term
wounds? Right now having all health and everything reset after a long
rest seems a little too easy. Especially with as little healing
options as a Next party have access to on their own right now.
12:36
Jeremy Crawford:
We're not likely to make long-term
wounds a part of the core, but we have discussed providing a wound
option for DMs to incorporate into their campaigns.
12:36
Mearls:
We erred on the side of letting long
rests heal everything, primarily because we were fairly split on how
to treat it. Personally, I'd like to see a rule where you get back a
certain amount of hit dice each extended rest. It might be
based on Con and/or class. I have to
admit that the current rule picks at my sense of realism.
12:37
Mearls:
To follow-up what Jeremy said, I've
toyed with a wound system where you get some effect each time you
drop below 0 hp, to represent a bad injury, For instance, broken
bones, strained joints, concussions, etc. NQ.
12:37
Mearls:
But that would be a rules module.
12:37
Jeremy Crawford:
This is another example (the long rest)
of us leading with the powerful version of something with the
expectation that we might end up dialing it back, based on playtest
feedback.
12:37
Comment From Duskreign
How exactly does the cone from Burning
Hands look? We had a few issues with how it is supposed to look on
the grid.
12:38
Jeremy Crawford:
We will eventually show you how we
expect things like cones to look on the grid.
12:39
Mearls:
Yeah, we'll figure out if its a
template or if we draw it to fit the grid. NQ.
12:39
Comment From Jon McCarty
Given the feedback about Save or Die
mechanics, I sort of expected we might see something a little
different in the bestiary. From what I've seen, it appears that only
the Medusa really has such a mechanic, and it appears to be the old
sort without anything like an HP
threshold. Do we have anything more forgiving coming up? Are Stirges
supposed to be a less direct save or die monster?
12:39
Jeremy Crawford:
As we've mentioned before, the rules do
not assume the use of miniatures, but we will provide support for the
use of miniatures. Almost everyone in the office likes to use minis
at some point during an adventure.
12:41
Mearls:
Monsters are still a work in progress.
With the medusa, we tried a mechanic where a character can choose to
take a risk or avert his eyes and suffer a drawback. The stirge also
shows something of a 4e approach, with a condition that gets
worse and can scale up. It does have an
issue with stacking, though, so the final form might be a save or
check each round, rather than a situation where three stirges pounce
on and kill a character. NQ.
12:42
Comment From Stephen
What was the thought process behind
brining electrum back into D&D?
12:43
Jeremy Crawford:
Bringing electrum pieces back is a nod
to the game's history. The coins also have a nice story now; they're
remnants of lost kingdoms and fallen empires.
12:44
Jeremy Crawford:
In other words, we don't expect
electrum pieces to be part of a kingdom's normal economy. They're
exotic.
12:44
Jeremy Crawford:
Next question!
12:45
Comment From Guest
Are critical hits always only maximum
damage, i.e. is there every anything additional? Criticals seem
noticeably weaker and more boring than in past editions.
12:45
Jeremy Crawford:
We've playtested more critical hit
systems than I can count. :)
12:45
Mearls:
This is another area where we kept it
simple and will see what kind of feedback we get. NQ.
12:46
Trevor:
Alright, one last question then we'll
let these guys get back to work.
12:46
Comment From Felix T. Katt
What has the quality of the playtest
feedback been so far? Are there things you would like the community
to sound off more or less about?
12:48
Jeremy Crawford:
Mike is typing a novel.
12:48
Mearls:
The feedback so far has been good. The
big thing is to write about the conditions of the game - did you play
it like a regular session, was it just a test of the combat rules,
and so on. It also helps to get a sense of what you want and
where the game failed to deliver it.
Really, everything is useful. It can
range from doing some math and finding something that looks to good
to coming across an unclear rule in play. For instance, the questions
about the Ambusher ability show us that it isn't clear and
might be too fiddly.
The feel is very important, too. Does
this feel like D&D? Are you missing rules? Did rules get in the
way?
The big thing is to avoid snark and an
overly antagonistic attitude. We're human, and it's easy to tune out
someone who comes across as a crank.
12:49
Mearls:
So, basically play the game, read over
the rules, ask questions, and post your thoughts. This is a big
undertaking - the biggest tabletop gaming play test ever - and we're
committed to making it work.
12:50
Mearls:
Thanks for the questions, everyone!
It's great to see what issues are coming up and how the game is
playing.
12:50
Jeremy Crawford:
We also like it when people make a
distinction in their feedback between their reading of a rule and
their play of it. The two experiences are often quite different from
each other.
12:50
Jeremy Crawford:
Yeah, thanks, everyone! We hope you're
enjoying digging into the game. We look forward to your feedback now
and in the months ahead.
12:51
Trevor:
That wraps our this Q&A. Thanks
much to everyone for being a part of this and the D&D Next
playtest! We'll keep you updated on the upcoming chats and other
communications!
