What are your favorite things in 5th edition?


4th Edition

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Petty Alchemy wrote:
I just want to be able to look up spells more easily. The spell organization in the PHB is terrible (why doesn't it say under the spell which classes get it and when?)

No worse than an Advanced players book of Ultimateness. You have classes then that have spells,feats,equipment, etc in a different book!


Petty Alchemy wrote:
HangarFlying wrote:
Petty Alchemy wrote:
I just want to be able to look up spells more easily. The spell organization in the PHB is terrible (why doesn't it say under the spell which classes get it and when?)

It's not horrible as it is, you just have to realize that you have to reference the class list and then look up the spell rather than page through the spell descriptions.

There is also this really cool accessory.

That's pretty much my definition of horrible, perhaps because it's the worst method Wizards has used yet (I started in 3.0, dunno about previous sorting).

What don't you like about them? I think they're a great solution.

Liberty's Edge

Steve Geddes wrote:


What don't you like about them? I think they're a great solution.

I don't think he's referring to the cards.


HangarFlying wrote:
Steve Geddes wrote:


What don't you like about them? I think they're a great solution.
I don't think he's referring to the cards.

Cards are an annoying solution. They work well at the table, when you've already pulled out the ones you need.

They're not helpful for looking through spells to choose them in the first place. They're really not helpful for changing your spells mid-session, since you have to search through the whole deck (likely not ordered) to find the ones you want.

If you have multiple spellcasters you can't give each one his own set of spells, unless you have duplicate decks or no overlap between the casters. Which means whenever you play a different caster, you've got to go through the selecting process again.

Probably simpler to just print out the spells you've got prepared/known. Except we don't yet have PDFs. (Are all the spells in Basic?)

And none of that helps picking spells in the first place.


Spells should have been alphabetized by level.


HangarFlying wrote:
Steve Geddes wrote:


What don't you like about them? I think they're a great solution.
I don't think he's referring to the cards.

Ah yeah, I see. Funny how you can misread something and not even realise there's an alternate interpretation.

Liberty's Edge

thejeff wrote:

Cards are an annoying solution. They work well at the table, when you've already pulled out the ones you need.

They're not helpful for looking through spells to choose them in the first place. They're really not helpful for changing your spells mid-session, since you have to search through the whole deck (likely not ordered) to find the ones you want.

If you have multiple spellcasters you can't give each one his own set of spells, unless you have duplicate decks or no overlap between the casters. Which means whenever you play a different caster, you've got to go through the selecting process again.

Probably simpler to just print out the spells you've got prepared/known. Except we don't yet have PDFs. (Are all the spells in Basic?)

And none of that helps picking spells in the first place.

That's fine. I can see the benefits, especially with new players and you can just hand them the first level cards. Less overwhelming. Something about having a physical card for them to handle seems to help.

No duplicate cards? Well what do you really expect? Of course there aren't duplicate cards. This, itself isn't something negative about the cards.

To the best of my knowledge, not all of the spells are in basic. Something like only 100 spells or something like that.


HangarFlying wrote:
thejeff wrote:

Cards are an annoying solution. They work well at the table, when you've already pulled out the ones you need.

They're not helpful for looking through spells to choose them in the first place. They're really not helpful for changing your spells mid-session, since you have to search through the whole deck (likely not ordered) to find the ones you want.

If you have multiple spellcasters you can't give each one his own set of spells, unless you have duplicate decks or no overlap between the casters. Which means whenever you play a different caster, you've got to go through the selecting process again.

Probably simpler to just print out the spells you've got prepared/known. Except we don't yet have PDFs. (Are all the spells in Basic?)

And none of that helps picking spells in the first place.

That's fine. I can see the benefits, especially with new players and you can just hand them the first level cards. Less overwhelming. Something about having a physical card for them to handle seems to help.

No duplicate cards? Well what do you really expect? Of course there aren't duplicate cards. This, itself isn't something negative about the cards.

To the best of my knowledge, not all of the spells are in basic. Something like only 100 spells or something like that.

Yeah, I can see it being nice for newbies, especially if someone's handed them to you upfront. As I said, once you've got them pulled, they're nice at the table.

I don't expect duplicate cards, it's just another way they don't solve the problem at hand.


Aren't there duplicates? There's a cleric deck and a bard deck - I'd expect them both to have a cure wounds card.


For the spell list in the PHB, adding a little word, letter or symbol for each class that has it on its list would've helped SOO much. (The level is already there.)
That way you could browse the spell section and you could see which spell were "yours".
I'd be fine with the organization as it is, if only that were there.

As for the cards, there are some "duration" that aren't concentration and there also was some missing spells. I've ordered the second printing but it hasn't arrived yet. As DM, I'm not that keen on having to search among hundreds of cards. It's frustrating that the monsters have so many spells, it makes them hard to run.

5e might be my favorite game but this is certainly an aspect of it that is not good.


The fact that basic has fewer spells is nice. I want to re-typeset and print out, as a small book, the basic rules once they've stabilized.
I prefer basic.

Sovereign Court

Let me know what you decide for printing. I've been thinking the same thing.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

Well many months in I like the lack of " monks suck" threads


:)

President, Jon Brazer Enterprises

2 people marked this as a favorite.

My current favorite thing I like about 5e: teleportation circle. With teleportation raised to a 7th level spell (which makes me really happy), this spell handles the quicker travel at lower levels with a number of storytelling options I like. First off, small villages won't have a dedicated circle, so a group won't be able to beam there quickly, even if they have a scroll. Second, an ancient circle can still be in working order, so you can beam into the area of extreme danger rather quickly. 3rd, it takes a minute to cast, so if you are being chased by a monster you can't defeat, you just have to fight from a defensible position, hold it off for a number of rounds while the wizard is busy. Great fun.


^Sounds like echoes of Scrolls of Town Portal in WarCraft III . . . .


UnArcaneElection wrote:

^Sounds like echoes of Scrolls of Town Portal in WarCraft III . . . .

yes, in essence that exactly what it is (without the going back option). I like to see it as a return-trip stargate.

All in all, the magical reshuffle, the bounded accuracy on saving throws and the legendary auto-saves are a some of the features that sold me on 5e.


Laurefindel wrote:
UnArcaneElection wrote:

^Sounds like echoes of Scrolls of Town Portal in WarCraft III . . . .

yes, in essence that exactly what it is (without the going back option). I like to see it as a return-trip stargate.

All in all, the magical reshuffle, the bounded accuracy on saving throws and the legendary auto-saves are a some of the features that sold me on 5e.

What do you mean with magical reshuffle and legendary auto-saves?


Beasties can have autosaves


Ganryu wrote:
Laurefindel wrote:
UnArcaneElection wrote:

^Sounds like echoes of Scrolls of Town Portal in WarCraft III . . . .

yes, in essence that exactly what it is (without the going back option). I like to see it as a return-trip stargate.

All in all, the magical reshuffle, the bounded accuracy on saving throws and the legendary auto-saves are a some of the features that sold me on 5e.

What do you mean with magical reshuffle and legendary auto-saves?

Some of te classical spells swapped or changed levels, and scaling is not automatic (e.g. you fireball does 5d6 damage. If you want it to deal more damage, you need to cast it as a higher spell level)

Creatures with the "Legendary" tag have 3 auto saves per day(?). So even if the adult red dragon doesn't have bullet-proof saves due to bounded accuracy, you can't disable it on round one with a lucky charm monster spell.


That makes sense.

I'm curious about the change to non-leveling spells.

It seems that relative to your current level, this makes spells actually worse as you improve. I mean even in Pathfinder fireball wasn't really that good.

Now if you want any use out of fireball you'll have to cast it as a higher level spell, but that scales at half the rate it has traditionally done AND you have to pay precious spell slots for that miniscule improvement in damage.


Yes, they may have overdone the spell adjustments: Some of the Cantrips/Orisons (some of which DO scale) and some of the 1st level spells seem awfully good, whereas the rate of spell improvement with leveling is much less than in D&D <=3.5/Pathfinder, and the upper level spell slots remain in very short supply even at high levels (at least according to the starter PDF that was released for free). So what we need is something in between.


The 5E fireball does 8d6 fire damage (Dex save for half) and increases by 1d6 per spell slot above 3rd.


Arakhor wrote:
The 5E fireball does 8d6 fire damage (Dex save for half) and increases by 1d6 per spell slot above 3rd.

true, was AFB


Ganryu wrote:


I'm curious about the change to non-leveling spells.

It seems that relative to your current level, this makes spells actually worse as you improve.

I haven't played many casters yet, but so far I haven't boosted many spells yet. I've seen some caster boost spells in order to get enough targets, and sometimes boost damage to get a big punch either to open or to fininsh a combat. But in my experience it has been relatively rare; you usually get the best quality/price at the minimum castable level.

Altogether caster have less spells and they scale less than in PF, but their cantrips are much more efficient (enough to be worth using in combat).


What does AFB mean?


Away from book


Ah.


I play a lot. Spells seem about right. Fireball is an iconic spell, it was good pre 3,X when it became useless. 8d6 is a threat but not OP so is well balanced

Legendary saves, lair actions, legendary actions are fantastic, and bring peril back to the game that had become lost IMO

Grand Lodge RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

Ganryu wrote:
It seems that relative to your current level, this makes spells actually worse as you improve. I mean even in Pathfinder fireball wasn't really that good.

A lot of the math of the game got "flattened", so that scaling isn't as much of an issue. For instance, in Pathfinder everybody ends up with a CON score approaching 30 or higher (from belts/tomes) and all the HP that goes with it. In 5E, your only assumed stat boosts are level-based, which means your CON is unlikely to rise more than maybe 2 points by 20th level.

8d6 damage is a lot more significant when everybody has less than 10HP/level versus when everybody has 15HP/level or more.

Sovereign Court

This is true of saving throws as well. As statistics become more important for purposes of saving throws, canny spellcasters may targets a low one, depending on the encounter. As such, the relatively lower save DC's for spells is flattened out as a result. This makes wizardry much trickier but potentially more varied, while charisma is now much more difficult to use as a dump stat.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

We (my dwarf life cleric 8, elf arcane trickster rogue archer 8, human diviner 8, human ranger hunter archer 8, human eldritch knight 8, and half-orc barbarian 8) recently fought 3 bone devils and a stone giant evoker 11, and we used a lot of boosted spells. I began with a 4th level bless so I could affect all 6 of the PCs.

Bless is awesome. +1d4 to attacks and saving throws! Very effective against AC 19 foes that are using lots of poison and area effect spells.

I then used a 4th level spiritual weapon so I could do 2d8+4 damage on successful hits. I also used higher level cures to keep the barbarian up and a 3rd level guiding bolt a couple times.

The wizard uses lots of higher level chromatic orbs too.

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