The last couple of
weeks have been somewhat fraught in real life – primarily illnesses
and pressures of work. As a consolation present, Janet got me the
D&D5 Players' Handbook (courtesy of Niche Comics who imported a
handful of copies).
My initial impression
of D&D5 was positive. My first skim through the full rulebook has
not changed that. The character creation section emphasises
characterisation and background over mechanics. The basic character
sheet puts all the game mechanics into less than one side of A4 and
then gives the rest of the sheet over to traits, personality,
history, friends, allies, appearance, ideals and flaws. Not in a
mechanistic style, either – these are matters for the player to
come up with to flesh out each PC.
The mechanics system is
simple and fast, and the baroque complexities of Pathfinder
characters are replaced with simpler basic structures combined with
variant suggestions that do not particularly rely on mechanics, more
on how each character is played. The paladin, at third level, has to
take an oath to confirm his or her outlook – but the oath can be
one seeking vengeance or one seeking devotion to a deity. Suddenly we
have two very different paladins.
Feats – which were
becoming (IMHO) the bane of Pathfinder, are relegated to an optional
rule, and greatly simplified in comparison to the vast number of
detailed and complex Pathfinder feats.
The emphasis is on
building characters, not complicated bundles of stats.
Artwork is less
important, but I like the style for D&D5. Much more naturalistic,
and also more sensible – just one example is a barbarian who is not clad in just a loincloth.
At the moment I think D&D5 looks better than any other
iteration of D&D or similar RPGs I've seen (and I've seen a pretty wide range). So far I've only skimmed a tiny
proportion of the PH, and we will have to await the DMG to get the
overall picture, but thus far I like what I see.
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