D&D 5E - My First Taste

[Melbosa]

So last weekend I introduced a few friends to RPGing and did it with D&D 5E.  I decided to run it with prebuilts found in the Starter Edition kit and run the prebuilt story arc Lost Mine of Phandelver.  Thought that would be best with newbies to RPGs in general as the prebuilts would be quicker and better suited to expose them to elements of 5E in a proper staged way (at least I hope it is).

Well I have to say, the changes from 4th to 5th are actually pretty well done.  The Spells is probably the biggest change and yet has some classic designs to it as well.  While I'm not going to go into a full 4th vs 5th (there are a lot of articles you can read online about the differences), I will say that the changes do accelerate a lot of aspects of the game.  XP is less per level (but you are more squishy to begin with so you need to level faster).  Combat, while you can still revert to good old grid maps and miniatures (there are three ways to play combat now), was actually refreshing using their new recommend imagined battlefield combat system (that is how I describe it anyway) - it took a small Cave that was in 4E probably a 3h session with combat encounters and traps to 1h with brand new players whom really could care less about "5ft this, 5ft that" miniatures combat.

These newbies played almost 7h strait of play, and would have played more if wasn't for sleep, and made level 3.  I estimate in 4E with the new crowd, probably would have taken almost double that to get to the same place.  For me this was a win as these new players are card/board gamers, not even video gamers.

Would I recommend 5E?  Well yeah actually.  A lot of content is free from Wizards online as well now, as Insiders is a dead thing (unless you need 4/4.5 stuff still).  So all you really need is PHB, MM, and DMG to really get into it (which if anyone wants I have the PDFs).

So that is my thoughts.  Anyone else tried 5E yet?  Anyone else have thoughts?

[Thorin]

I tried it shortly after it came out.  I liked most of the mechanics, felt more like older D&D, but the advantage/disadvantage took a bit to get used to.  I didn't like how deadly the adventure was that we went through - like you said, characters are more squishy and also the encounters (at least the ones we played through) were more deadly.  Still, it wasn't bad overall and I enjoyed myself and there was a lot less picking through dozens of possible actions like there was in 4th.

Kinda sad that you started a group and didn't invite me   Let me know if you have a spot open and need another player.

[Melbosa]

I tried it shortly after it came out.  I liked most of the mechanics, felt more like older D&D, but the advantage/disadvantage took a bit to get used to.  I didn't like how deadly the adventure was that we went through - like you said, characters are more squishy and also the encounters (at least the ones we played through) were more deadly.  Still, it wasn't bad overall and I enjoyed myself and there was a lot less picking through dozens of possible actions like there was in 4th.

Kinda sad that you started a group and didn't invite me   Let me know if you have a spot open and need another player.

It was a play test with friends without any RPG experience.  If it turns into a regular thing I was going to invite all the old crew from here to join us as right now it was 3 + Me and I had to play the Rogue in the group to give them a hope to make it through the module.  I would never leave any of you out of the opportunity to join a group I promise!

[Mr. Analog]

RIP

[Melbosa]

RIP

LOL so many meanings... not sure which one applies?

[Darren Dirt]

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