Maybe too soon to start this kind of thread, but I decided anyway to start a discussion about the subject. I don't have a big experience with the system, but it was enough to get a feel.

I will start posting this comment that I saw at the web:

So honestly, I'm coming out of this never recommending DnD as a complete package. No version is perfect, and none of them offer the complete shebang - because no game can cater to every set of tastes. However if you want a fantasy game:

1) 5th is an excellent tool for getting people into a game and playing characters quickly, characters with a bit of flavour and history to them. If you've got inexperienced or new tabletop gamers, then 5th provides some very good tools to kick-start your games, however be mindful that the combat system sucks. If your GM has a good strategic brain, they can avoid the pitfalls and include the combat rules into your game without accidentally murdering everyone without giving them a chance to do anything about it.

2) 4th is an excellent tool for giving you a balanced combat game to break up your freeform roleplay sessions. If you have very creative players with enthusiasm for storytelling, or experienced roleplayers who'll make a good story no matter what game they're playing, then 4th can provide a nice tactical game to play alongside this. If your GM has a good creative brain, they can use this system to provide some really interesting encounters that'll really leave your players torn between their choices, without accidentally providing a campaign that tastes of wet cardboard and is as colorful as a call of duty game.

I agree with the author, not about not recommending D&D (since I don't know many systems), but about the 4th and 5th editions differences. Comments?

I'm pretty much in agreement with the general sentiment though I hold a little more enthusiasm for 5th ed and a little less praise for 4th. Just my personal opinion as a DM but 4E ended up leaving a bad taste in my mouth - which is strange really as I played a ton of it.

I haven't played enough 5E to really throw out a full breakdown but I will admit I'm seeing a few issues with the combat; mostly because a lot of the monsters tend to be some variety of 'I melee attack' or 'I melee attack *twice*!' Then again combat has mostly been bandits and goblins and very low level. Here hoping things get a little more interesting once I can use some of the more varied creatures and everything isn't made of tissue paper.

There are many things wrong with D&D 4th in my opinion. Excessive number of status effects to keep track, excessive number of feats, almost no powers with options to use outside combat, no incentive to RP, and some other things, but there are many things right too, like balance between classes, all classes are always useful, tactical combat, and interesting monsters. While I think D&D 5th got most of these problems right, it didn't solved all of them and created some more.

Honestly that kinda one of my biggest gripes with 4E. I know 3E (and most likely 5E at later levels) have the issue where the game is stacked heavily in favour of spellcasters over all others but I felt 4E hit the balance a little too hard. I feel the classes have far too little to differentiate them from one another - while a Fighter (a defender role) may be balanced in comparison to a Wizard (controller role) the differences between a Fighter and a Paladin (both defenders) was barely notable. It led to a situation where, despite there being some 5 or so splat books containing new classes, there were really only four - Defender, Striker, Leader and Controller.

...or 3 classes really as Controllers were pants until PH2 and other splat books were released.

The biggest thing I miss from 4e to 5e is monsters. The DMG is not out yet for me to look at with regard to building custom enemies, but 4e was incredibly easy for me to pull together a balanced set of monsters for the party, each set of monsters could challenge a wider range of levels because there were more variations within types (like goblins, etc.), the monsters had interesting things to do, and the monster's stat box was all I needed to run it.

After having read through the Monster Manual for 5e, I am really disappointed that despite the gorgeous pictures, a lot of the monsters boil down to the same attack X number of times plus one or two of certain abilities shared by other monsters, which were grappling, petrification, or max hit point reduction. Plus, the monsters get spell-like abilities that require referencing the PHB. In 4e, the monsters were pushed to play the tactics game and they had about six different roles (I don't remember the exact number right now) and monster 'races' like gnolls or orcs or goblins or bandits did different things to fit those different roles.

I disagree. Fighter and Paladin are different enough. They serve the same function, that is true, but they are different, only the difference is subtle. The similarities about their function is exactly the same at any system, and 5th is no exception. I have a bigger problem with the similarities between characters until you get a paragon path, which lasts a long time to get. Feats and different powers could somewhat reduce this problem, but they do not work right and create another problem.

I recently started reading 13th Age rules and it feels like a D&D 4th edition did right. It solves many of the problems with 4th edition without changing the game radically. I will certainly read it all to have a better impression of the system.

But returning to the subject, D&D 5th, one point that I certainly do not like is the death rule, which is really bad. Well part of it is really good, the death saving throw is an evolution from 4th rules, which seems very good. But the damage limit to allow a death do not, it punishes heavily players at low levels and make characters at higher levels almost impossible to die.

I think most DMs don't apply enough theatrics to D&D combat. If you look at an action scene in a movie, the characters aren't just standing and swinging at each other: there are clear phases where one is trying to grab the other, or moments when one gains or loses a weapon, or transitions from one battlefield to another. D&D has rules for all of these things, but many DMs don't use them.

Other significant problem in my opinion with D&D 5th is the healing. And, as a connoisseur of clerics, that is a real problem to me. The healing magic is incredibly underpowered. A level 1 magic like Guiding Bolt does 4d6 damage, apply a condition and has a incredible range while both healing magic available at same level are bad in comparison. Healing Word is a bonus action, but only heals 1d4+2 or 3 at the beginning, while Cure Wounds is a touch spell and heals 1d8+2 or 3. There is almost no situation that I would prefer to use healing over dealing damage to an enemy.

You have no incentive to cast it at higher levels too, because it becomes even more underpowered. It is better to wait for the fight to end and then cast 2 times a healing at level 1 than one at level 2. Level 1 magic that deals damage will become really useless at higher levels anyway, cantrips will do more damage.

When compared to Second Wind, a fighter ability, it is possible to really see how underpowered healing is. Second Wind heals 1d10+level. In other words, better than any level 1 magic, it gets better with time, and it can be used again after a short rest.

While it is true that healing magic doesn't heal a huge amount of damage you also have to remember that for the most part players also have surprisingly few hit points. 3-10 may not seem huge but considering the most hit points a character can have at 1st-level (barring feats) is 16 (Barbarian with 18 Con) it is more than sufficient.

As for having better things to do during a fight then heal - you've pretty much hit the nail on the head there. You really shouldn't be healing in battle - short of something unlucky coming up (such as a critical hit) you should focus on winning and patching you team up after the fact.

I haven't look too much into upping the level of spell so I can't crunch the maths right now but I'd be more than willing to bet your right about that. Upping spells levels seems kinda underwhelming in general.

I will admit that Second Wind is exceptionally strong for a first level ability though it really doesn't scale all that well unless your fighter is consistently rolling really poorly for his hit points.

At 1st level, yes. After that certainly no. A cleric has only access to other healing magic at 6th level until this point that can do the same.



I agree, normally there are better things to do. It is always better to kill the enemy or protect against damage than heal damage. But that option was taken away, that is the problem.



You are 100% right. It can recover 100% at 1st level. At 20th, it can recover 15%, but you have 3 of those. It means a fighter can return almost guaranteed to 100% life from almost 0, when combined with recovery dices at least once per short rest and with luck or feats more. But it at least escalates, but healing magic do not.

I'll admit I haven't actually looked at late-game class features and spells all that much. I really should do that at some point. Is the next healing spell really sixth level? That seems a huge jump.

I only have the basic rules right now, but there are healing spells (at least in basic) in between those levels.

2nd has Prayer of Healing (really a ritual, but good to get everyone back towards full health)
3rd has Mass Healing Word. (up to six healed 1d4 plus modifier)
and 5th has Mass Cure Wounds. (up to six healed 3d8 plus modifier)

I missed Prayer of Healing, and it is a good magic when compared to the others. Mass Healing Word is laughable at level 3, healing much less than Prayer of Healing, specially considering that the damage output of creatures is pumped in this version. Mass Cure Wounds is better, but still not good enough for a 5th level magic. And Heal is a good magic and the only reliable one, but it is a 6th level magic.

So considering the new damage output of creatures, you should expect to have a better healing system to compensate. Obviously there are also the recovery dices...

So I looked over those numbers now! Yay! Random thoughts on Healing in this Edition.

In terms of raw dice and numbers it is a little less then it has always been. That you don't add you caster level to the number of restored by Cure spells anymore pushes the 5E numbers a little lower then they used to be though not by an insane amount. Kinda sucks that you're a little more at the mercy of the dice now though since you don't have the caster level buffer to prevent rolling a bunch of 1's from screwing the entire spell over.

The real pain is the new spellcasting progression charts which, as a rule, provide you with far fewer spells per day then they used to as well as less versatility in casting (which always sucks). The real pain as far as clerics are concerned is the loss of Spontaneous Casting which made them healing machines - this probably being why healing seems so thin on the ground now.

On the upside Prayer of Healing is a solid spell - though shame about the casting time. If ever a spell could use the Ritual tag it's that one. Either give it a 10 min casting time or let us cast it without expending spell slots Wizards! Forcing both just makes the spell all kinds of situational.

On that note anyone feel they really dropped the ball by only having 30 Rituals? Back when the beta came out I found the idea of rituals to be really intriguing - something I actually really liked from 4E in fact was it's ritual system. Yeah I'll admit being able to cast any spell you knew with the Ritual tag made wizards hilarious given prep-time but as it is now the system basically isn't there. I am disappoint.

Oh also because it was brought up; damage output.

Having a thumb through the monster manual I honestly can't say that (outside of a few random examples *cough*Bugbear*cough*) damage output hasn't really ramped up all that much. Both monsters and players are still pretty much doing 'Weapon + STR/DEX Mod = DMG' while most special attacks (breath weapons and the like) are still roughly in the same ballpark for creatures of their CR.

The only thing whose damage got a major buff would appear to be offensive spells - some of which got quite frankly silly. Now I understand WHY the spells are now like this; a combination of spells being generally easier to 'dodge' (DC's have generally lowered and a lot more spells require an attack roll), having fewer spells per day to throw around, the new 'use a higher level slot' mechanic, and still trying to convince us Evocation isn't a joke school. What I don't get understand is how 3d6 over a 15ft cone is an acceptable damage output for a first level spell. An average roll on that will kill or cripple anything with an appropriate CR! Man enemy wizards are going to become absolute murder under this new system.

The only thing I can think is they knew no-one was going to buff lower-level offensive spells to new levels when the spells of that level do far more damage. Why cast a level 3 Burning Hands for 5d6 damage when I can throw a Fireball for 8d6? This is what happens when spells don't scale with level. Old ones become steadily more obsolete as newer versions become available.

The more I read of the nuts-and-bolts of this system the more I feel it wasn't really play-tested all that much at anything above level 4.

I think this system is more a back up plan than the real deal. For example, your character doesn't have Fireball memorized, but he has Burning Hands; and you have enemies that are susceptible to fire damage, right now in front of your character. It is a good idea to pump this spell to deal with this fight if necessary. It gives a certain flexibility to damage spells, but it doesn't work well with healing spells and some of other non-damage spells.

I think it makes sense that a leveled-up lower level spell is weaker than an on-level higher level spell. The former takes less time to prepare each day and more importantly, taking the latter in addition to the former is an opportunity cost. If you can just cast a lower-level spell at a higher level for the same damage, you have no reason to learn the higher level spell and can learn something else.

I agree with you about 4e. Lots of people think 4th edition is all about combat and got rid of all the rules of roleplay. But why do you need rules for roleplay? If your DM is good, he'll make the roleplay himself. I haven't seen much of fifth edition, but I have seen AD&D 2e and 3.5, and let me tell you from what I saw they were extremely complex, not to mention limiting for fighters. Races had penalties (while I understand some of these, like Gnomes' strength, Dwarf clerics took a beating with -2 Charisma and it was very shafting into a certain archetype) and rangers had spells (Legolas? Aragorn? You guys been holding out on us with your detect magic?).
I do, however, agree with Garren about the spells. Clerics can now spam minor heals and wizards are really lame. I like that fighters and such can do stuff now, but I'm thinking of modifying my game to use the 3.5 tables, as I always see wizards as people who have a bunch of useful spells up their sleeves, not a thousand offensive spells.

Yet some people liked that complexity and think the AD&D version was the best version.

I like 4ed enough, it has good ideas. So instead of going back and trying to improve older versions. I think they should have tried to improve 4ed. That's what 13th age does, since it was created by developers from 4ed. Rules are even easier than 4ed, and lighter too.

I like some aspects of 5ed over 4ed without a doubt, but some aspects are a retrogression.