Player's Handbook Part One: Character Creation & Races

The Player's Handbook for Dungeons and Dragons fifth edition is a massive tome containing lots of rules and option. As such it's going to take me some time to digest it all and quite a bit of space to talk about all the various features and benefits. As such I've decided to review the book in segments, sharing my thoughts on the various pieces as I read through. First up is character creation.

Character Creation

The book opens with a walk through of the character creation process step by step. It's fairly standard as far as such things go but there are a few changes from prior editions that speak directly to the design philosophy behind 5th edition.

1) Choice first, numbers second: In just about every prior edition the first step in character creation was ability generation, followed by a choice of race and class (you were generally encouraged to choose race and class together as some races favored certain classes). 5th edition flips this on it's head by suggesting you choose race, then class, then ability scores (which can be rolled or assigned, see below).

Of course you can ignore this and generate your ability scores first, but I think the change in priority speaks to a spirit of storytelling over mechanics. While race and class do have gameplay elements included in them and ability scores are important for roleplay, the fact that you are intended to start with words, like "elf" and "warlock" instead of numbers and bonuses is a subtle suggestion that you should think in terms of character rather than statistics.

2) Ability generation and the balance of power: Dungeons and Dragons has had several methods of random ability generation going back to first edition, a combination of different random methods and a point buy method. The problem is that these methods have never really been compatible with each other and the point buy method has always lent itself to min-maxing and munchkinism.

The Player's Handbook presents three methods of ability generation, each of which could be used by a different PC in the same campaign without upsetting the balance of power in the party. The nice thing is that there advantages and disadvantages inherent to each method, giving the player another decision to make (if the DM doesn't mandate that everyone use the same method). Thus even random scores become a choice.

4d6, drop the lowest: The method that has emerged as the standard random method across just about every edition of since 1st remains the suggested default in 5th. The advantage is that random  generation is the only way you can get an 18 at 1st level, making characters with truly exceptional abilities relatively rare. The disadvantage is that you are at the whim of the dice and may wind up with some terrible scores and low bonuses. This method is a gamble, albeit one in which the odds are not overly against you.

Standard Array: A set of pre-generated numbers that provides you with four bonus level scores, one average score and one score with a penalty (before adjustments for race are added). The advantage of this method is that it's quick and fairly adaptable when combined with racial bonuses. On the other hand you lose the potential of the random roll and the customization of point buy

Point Buy: The last method is listed as a variant which a bit of a misnomer in my mind as there is nothing that precludes it's use alongside the first two methods. In any case all scores start at 8 and may be bought up to 15 using a pool of points. This method gives you more ability to customize your abilities then the array but at the loss of a potential 18. The ability cap also means that you will have fairly balanced scores across all six abilities.

As an illustration of how these two aspects can work together in interesting ways consider three characters I want to create:  A tiefling sorcerer, a halfling rogue and an elf bard.

The tiefling sorcerer is a creature of chaos (to the extent that he uses the virtue name "Random"). The only ability that is important to his conception is Charisma and I want that to be as high as possible so the random generation method is perfect. Of course he may get screwed by low rolls but anarchy gives no guarantees!

I see the halfling rogue as a character who is quick witted, nimble, tough and smart but not particularly friendly and downright weak. The standard array works perfectly for him since it's quick and covers all my bases without the risk of the random method or the extra effort of the point buy.

I don't want the elf bard to have any weaknesses, a true jack of all trades but a master of none. Point buy allows me the sort of control I'll need to achieve this since it allows me to have mostly average scores with a few bonuses.

The XP Chart

One other point of note you should be aware of is the XP chart. While 5th ed uses a standard chart for all of it's classes like 3rd edition, it eschews a linear progression and there are some really weird things going on. For instance the amount of XP you need to advance does not always increase. It actually takes fewer XP to advance from level 11 to 12 than from 10 to 11. It's a code I've yet to crack for myself but if you spend enough time with a calculator some patterns do suggest themselves.

The most expensive level to attain in terms of the percentage increase in XP is 5th, the first level at which you can cast 3rd level spells. Costs drop precipitously after 11th (when you get your first 6th level slot).

If you cross reference the amount of XP needed to advance with the suggested XP per encounter you'll notice that the number of encounters you need per level is fairly consistent across each tier (tiers in fifth ed. are a measure of what kinds of threats you can handle and have no other associated mechanics). What you notice when you do this is that the number of encounters you need per level is very small in the early levels (an average of 8 moderate encounters per level). The bulk of your adventuring career will be in the second tier with an average of 15 encounters per level. This decreases in the 3rd (11) and 4th tier (10) which is only fair given that the variety of monsters that can truly challenge character's of such exalted levels is fairly limited. This is a marked change from previous editions in which the assumption was that it would take 10 encounters to raise your level every time and it makes the game seem less cookie cutter. There have been a few people online proposing that you drop the XP chart but I would argue that there is definitely a method to this madness.

Losts Mines of Phandelver Part 1

This is the first post in a series where I provide an in-depth report of one group's expedition through The Lost Mines of Phandelver, the first adventure for the 5th edition of Dungeons and Dragons. Thanks to Adam, Chris, John and Pete for being my guinea pigs. Be warned: spoilers abound so if you don't want to know all the twists and turns check out my spoiler free review and stop reading here.

I had four players. Three chose to play the pre-generated PCs included in the starter set: Talon (The folk hero fighter) Sir Lloyd (the noble fighter) and Delxenlos (the elf wizard). The fourth decided to create his own cleric using the rules from the Basic Rules PDF and the point buy method for ability scores. We lost a fifth player to puppy fatigue so I chose to NPC Anders the halfling rogue, since I'd had fun rolling dice for him during my session prep.

I should mention at this point that I put a lot of time into prepping the adventure, at least three times as many hours as we actually spent playing. I'll go into this in more depth in a future post but suffice it to say I made the adventure my own and I attribute much of it's success to this fact.

The Adventure

The adventure begins with the PCs hired by a dwarf named Gundren to transport supplies from the city of Neverwinter to the town of Phandalin. Along the way they are attacked by goblins who have ambushed Gundren and his bodyguard Sildar, and must follow the goblins to their lair to find out what has become of them.

I say 'must' but in reality there are any number of places where the adventure could go off the rails if the PCs choose to go off script. My players could have very easily decided to leave Gundren and Sildar to their fate and continued on the Phandalin, becoming involved in the events in town or they could have interrogated the goblin they captured alive but unconscious and learned the location of an area that they probably won't be ready for until their third level at the beginning of the adventure and gone off gleefully to be slaughtered. Fortunately for us all they followed the designers intent and the goblin trail to their nearby hideout.

Along the way they encountered and disarmed one trap. The published adventure calls for two but that felt redundant so I chose to use only one. Traps are another topic I'll post about at length in the future and the rules for Perception in general which are one area in which the rules are a bit unclear and the adventure is inconsistent.

After finding the goblin lair the PCs made mince meat of the guards and in their zeal to wake up their comatose captive accidentally drowned him in a stream (the cleric not realizing that it's hard to hold your breath when you're out cold). Inside the lair they knocked out the goblin's wolves with alcohol and proceeded to climb up the goblins garbage chute and surprise the big bad: a bugbear named Klarg and his pet wolf. The cleric cast Guiding Bolt and the rogue proceeded to use the advantage granted by the spell to launch a sneak attack. Between the two of them the bugbear was reduced to about 2/3 of his total hit points in a a single round. Unfortunately the wizard had already used up both spell slots in the previous combats and forgotten to use arcane recovery so magic missile (which could have ended the fight quick) was unavailable. The wolf then attacked the cleric and got a critical hit knocking him out of the fight. The wolf and bugbear focused their attacks on the rogue and despite some spectacularly bad rolls on the part of the bugbear took him down in two turns.

While the wizard and the fighters focused on the other goblins the cleric rolled a 20 on his first death save and was returned to 1 HP whereupon he used his last spell slot to cast cure wounds on himself. The rogue stabilized on his first death save but remained unconscious. The noble turned his attention to the bugbear and as the goblins were done away with the other PCs followed suit. Finally the bugbear was killed with a spectacular blow to the head from the noble's greataxe,  leaving only the wolf, who was also finished off by the noble.

Before taking a short rest the cleric decided to take a quick look outside the cavern to make sure everything was clear and spotted the three goblins waiting to operate the flood gates upon being warned of intruders. The PCs managed to surprise the goblins...and spectacularly failed to hit anything...except for the noble who scored a critical hit with his first blow. The remaining goblins let loose with an equally ineffective round of shooting and were then summarily dispatched by the PCs who proceeded to rest for an hour. The wizard regained one spell slot with Arcane Recovery, the fighter recovered their hit points and their use of second wind and the cleric poured a healing potion down the rogue's throat restoring his consciousness and most of his hit point.

The rogue was then sent out to scout ahead. He encountered the goblin guarding the bridge and I rolled a few dice "off screen" to represent the encounter. The halfling got hit by a goblin arrow and ran back to consume the last of the healing potions from the bugbear's loot while the goblin ran the other way to warn the rest of his buddies that their were enemies on the way. This was another departure from the adventure text which seems to assume that the goblin on the bridge would flee to warn the goblins outside the bugbear's lair to flood the tunnel and flush the PCs out of the cave. I figured that even a goblin would be smart enough to figure that anyone approaching on the bridge itself instead of the tunnel below had already dealt with the flooders and would instead head towards the other goblins.

The PCs followed in due course and made it across the rickety bridge (I played up the idea that it was dangerous even though there was really no chance that it would collapse). They confronted the last goblins and made a pretty good start of killing them before I introduced the bugbear's lieutenant threatening the life of Gundren's bodyguard Sildar. There was a nice bit of roleplay between the lieutenant ending with the goblin getting frustrated and pitching Sildar off a small cliff. The cleric stabilized the unconscious Sildar and the mage knocked off some more goblins with magic missile. The rogue used the cleric's proximity to the lieutenant to launch a sneak attack with rather pathetic damage and the cleric finished him off with sacred flame. The rest of the goblins were dispatched in short order and a quick intelligence check allowed the PCs to figure out that they'd seen pretty much everything in the cave and cleared it out. After a few hours of loading purloined supplies (which the cleric recognized as belonging to a merchant company in town) into their wagon Sildar regained consciousness.

Sildar informed the PCs that Gundren and his brothers had discovered the entrance to the lost mines of the Phandelver's Pact, an ancient alliance of dwarf prospectors and human mages. The goblins who captured them were in league with a mysterious villain called The Black Spider and that Gundren had been taken to someplace called Cragmaw Castle. The adventure ended with the PCs en-route to Phandalin hoping to find some trace of Sildar's missing contact in the area, a wizard named Iarno Albrek, a level higher and several copper and silver pieces richer.

Postmortem

All in all we played about four hours. The game flowed really well. This was one of the smoothest games I've ever run and definitely the best first session with a new system where most of the players were largely unfamiliar with the rules. A lot of this was due to the effort I put into preparing before hand but the system itself certainly played a part. I think the phrase "elegant in it's simplicity" fits 5th edition well.

The new spell system was not as difficult to explain as I'd feared and combat was fluid and quick without miniatures. The monsters felt (to me at least) like they were appropriately balanced against the PCs, challenging but not overwhelmingly so (I should note that I did fudge hit points on a minion or two to conclude a couple of combats more quickly). Everyone but the wizard took a little bit of damage and two of the party were placed  in danger of death.

There were two things I wasn't completely pleased with. The first is the aforementioned rules for perception and surprise. I modified these pretty heavily and my house rules seemed to work well.

The second point I remain ambivalent about is cantrips, particularly for Clerics. For those unfamiliar with the new edition cantrips are at will spells that do not use a caster's spell slots. Both the wizard and the cleric have damage dealing cantrips that increase automatically as they gain levels. While it works OK for the wizard, it makes the cleric seem a little bland. In the old days clerics generally lacked damaging spells of any kind until they reached high level so their role in battle usually consisted of wading into melee with mace and shield and breaking off to heal as needed. It was a very flexible mode of play and one I quite enjoyed. In 5th edition a cleric will most likely stand away from the combat, with mace sheathed casting sacred flame. As an added wrinkle sacred flame doesn't require an attack roll (instead the target gets a saving throw). This means that there is no penalty for attacking an adjacent foe with the spell instead of a melee weapon and the cleric's player is not rolling dice, thus becoming less engaged in combat. You could choose not to pick sacred flame as one of your cantrips but then you will find yourself grossly outmatched in your capacity to deal damage at higher levels. It's a tricky problem that I'll certainly be turning my thoughts to once I get a look at the full range of options in The Players Handbook.

All in all I'm willing to call Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition a rousing success at this point. For all it may lack the tactical challenge and attention to detail of 3.5/Pathfinder, it's a fun game that empowers the GM to make their own calls, a nice blend of the narrative flexibility of old school games and the simpler rules of their newer successors. It remains to be seen how the game will scale up as the PCs. There's only one way to find out. Time to start the prep for session 2...