Saturday, May 9, 2015

Played Some 5e Tonight.

Have to say I had quite a bit of fun . Our party was short a man (our two handed fighter guy off to play X-Wing)  but  the rest consisted of a Halfling  warlock, a cleric, a paladin, a rogue and a totem warrior barbarian (me)

The only house rules we used were random stat generation (which lead to pretty high stats) and a ruling that Paladins need to be Lawful but not necessarily Good. Ours is the Oath of Vengeance guy and like my totem warrior/pirate is Lawful Evil and an all around ruthless bastard, His player T and I work well together  in game so it makes for some fun play.

On the whole  system was decent, didn't get in the way and in general helped make for a fun experience. 5th edition  did its job well, which in its case was to be  D&D.

But as said  not the kind of game system  that inspires  me and honestly I think it could use more support for mundane encounters like the bandits we fought . Regardless everyone seemed to have a good time. We also now have several print Player's Handbooks at the table   so its doing well with my group. I'm happy to play it. I might even buy that PHB after all.

Mechanically  5e feats are very neat and  mine (Shield Master and Resilience) I can knock people around, block dragon breath and in general kick some backside in a strong but balanced way.

Another nice bit, the 5e Barbarian is superb, rage works well and smoothly and the other class  abilities are pretty neat . For example my guy   doesn't wear any armor and has  still an AC of 20 with his +1 shield .  Sword +Target Shield is very fun.

I might eventually want a few extra feats butt as no one gets more than 6 (5 if not human) , its not a needed thing for the  time being. I suspect a few  will end up in some clever homebrew or in Wizard's generous regular Unearthed Arcana Support long before  I need them.

Also not system related and most of all  I really like the home-brew game world, the kind of mythic fantasy meets sword and planet place called  Arlowen.

Its very flavorful and in general a fun setting  to game. my DM tonight, B is a little rough around the edges as a DM but the man is a good storyteller and a gifted world builder. Arlowen is among my very favorite game worlds and the most interesting D&D homebrew I've every played.  I love things like mummy kings, storm towers, ash covered islands, dragon people and all the rest. I want to explore and interact with more of it and I liked it in Pathfinder and I like it in D&D.

In the end I'd say  5th Edition played well, the Barbarian is the best version of the class yet and the feats are really excellent. Sure 5e is a bit of a one trick pony , good for playing its own idiosyncratic form of D&D  and probably little else unlike the more versatile older D&D or 3x variations  but sometimes one trick is plenty.


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