D&D 5: Waiting and Seeing

All right, well, our playtest with the D&D Starter Set is over. Thoughts?

We will wait.

It's just too early to make heads or tails of the system. Here's the issue, the number range is kinked very tight. So tight that in order to get a feel for the full range of character options, magic item upgrades, combat options, and upgrades we need the full three books to make up our minds about this. I don't know what a max-ed out character does, or the power of the high level monsters. What upgrade paths are there? How many build and character options will there be? What magic items and power upgrades will be available, and how rare are they?

Granted, a lot of this will be answered when the PHB and the MM come out, but those are a long wait. I want to see the DMG too, since the encounter creation and rewards sections will be critical for my feel for the pace of rewards and building challenging encounters. The complete three-book package is what I want, and that won't happen until the end of November.

To be fair, this needs a better and more complete review. It's just way too early to say if this is a good system or not because the things they released are clearly not complete. It would be unfair to make that judgement call.

What they have released hasn't really excited our group, to be honest. the free PDF is incomplete and only covers one path per class. It gives you a good mechanical feel for the rules, but you know, rules systems are just that - rules. They are streamlined and cleaned up, but that PDF doesn't do a great job organizing them and presenting them in a simple and new-player friendly way.

What would help? More player options, and I know, those are coming in the PHB. It's very hard to get a feel for the system until both characters and monsters are in place, since you need both to see what happens when party X fights encounter Y. I will argue you need the DMG's encounter-creation formulas too to have a realistic view based on encounter design. Still, I feel options are going to make-or-break this for my group, they need enough options to satisfy their Pathfinder design choices.

I feel the Starter Set is average at best. I would have paid more for a more complete experience, and to not have to rely on the PDF. I wanted maps and pogs, the back of the box looks like it has a large dungeon and overland map in it, but it is really just a starter module with some pregens. Character creation, monsters, level-up options, treasure - we just wanted more to get a better feel for it all. Due to the limited options, this didn't really catch on with our group. That I can't really help, at least we tried.

Only then can this be compared to Pathfinder and other games. Right now, it's too early to go around and make final judgments. The best outcome in my feelings? It becomes a cool and simple option for quick pick up games, giving Pathfinder some competition. The worst? We start another system war over this and the community gets more fractured and belligerent.