Saturday, January 17, 2015

Some things I love about 5th Edition D&D

We recently finished the 5th Edition Mines of Phandelver adventure.

Its not a terribly exciting adventure but its a solid starter and even with a group that was slightly meh on the whole thing, it went well. I will say it was good enough that we extended the game from our usual 4 sessions to whoever long it took in order  to finish it.

All in all 5e is a pretty good D&D and as s we played there were  quite a few things I found I really liked about 5th edition

#1 It doesn't assume you need magic items and the game plays fine without them

#2 Bounded accuracy. High level type give and take much more damage and have more options but they aren't vastly more accurate and skilled than regular folk.  Now its not perfect  but this is the only edition of D&D outside of the Epic 6 hack that gave me any sense  that 20th level types could be in the same world with 1st level types.

#3 The magic items themselves are generally pretty good. There were a few potions and a few minor ones of course but the major items we found, the ones that required attainment were solid. The item I found for example was something I could see keeping my entire career and while I'd upgrade if I could, if i never did, I wouldn't find it useless at any point.

#4 Attument is a great rule. Simply, you can have no more than three cool items at any time, it doesn't matter the type. three rings, two rings and boots, sword, staff and ring whatever, Pick three . This is just the right amount to be interesting and to keep the game sound.

2 comments:

  1. Quite a lot of discussion on attunement over at Dungeon Fantastic, The Rusty Battle Axe, Gothridge Manor, and Gaming Ballistic. I think we all love the concept, but could all embrace different implementations of it pretty easily.

    One note: some things, like a bog-standard +2 sword or +1 scale mail, don't have to be attuned, so your emphasis on "cool items" is well made, and deserved re-emphasis. You can have a whole passel o' magic stuff, but of the best stuff - there are decisions to be made!

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