Anybody have the new D&D starter set?

[Frylock]

@Johnny_Bravo

A couple. Play-by-post games are very difficult to maintain, and there have been a lot more aborted attempts than successful ones. Appleciders is running one right now that I think is going pretty well when schedules aren’t conflicting.

If there’s interest, I might be willing to run a game after I’ve had a chance to read through the rules.

Yeah, I’m kind of interested in playing this with people who aren’t my children, but it’s for all intents impossible for me to schedule out live sessions (and, tbh, if things are RP-heavy (as people seem to say is more likely in 5e games) I much prefer to have time to sit there and write rather than come up with stuff on the spot).

[Frylock]

@Johnny_Angel

Strictly speaking, it’s not the same as what was specifically called Spontaneous Casting in 3e, where you can decide at casting time which of all the spells you know you’re going to cast. But it’s also not the old-fashioned system in which you have to assign a spell to each slot in the morning. When you prepare spells now, you make a sublist of your known spells, the length of which is according to your level and casting stat, and from that smaller list you can essentially do the same thing as spontaneously casting.

Now I get it!

[Johnny_Bravo]

Frylock, I have started a thread for a potential SDMB-based game.

[SenorBeef]

What do you guys think about wizard schools? I have to decide on one today.

I kinda like the old system, where you’d get bonus casts for your school and were forbidden from the two opposite schools. It made specialization feel like it shaped your character more. Now there’s no downside, just extra abilities.

The conjuration tree looks kinda boring to me especially since you can’t start getting real summons until spell level 4, but the level 2 ability, minor conjuration, lets you create anything you’re familiar with that’s less than 3 feet long or 10 pounds (it glows, so probably won’t fool people). But there seems to be a ton of creativity allowed there.

Look at someone’s keyring, later conjure up the key. Conjure up a bottle of oil to throw at someone and then ignite them. Conjure a casting material you don’t have. Conjure up a map or book you saw. Conjure up healing potions maybe. The book doesn’t give any sort of limitations on it besides size and weight, so I’m wondering what sort of limitations DMs would put on it.

Divination has a fun mechanic - you can roll D20s after a rest and then replace any rolls you want f or the rest of the day - attack rolls, saving throws, attack rolls for creatures attacking you. A fun mechanic.

I’m a little dissapointed with enchantment because I wanted more mind control. The level 2 ability basically allows you to spend your turn to incapacitate something within 5 feet of you. Doesn’t seem that terribly useful. The level 6 one is a reaction that makes your target redirect an attack on the nearest creature - so if a group of archers was firing at you, they’d fire at each other instead. Pretty cool. Split enchantment - any enchant spell with a target of one gives you one extra target. So hold person, dominate person, power word kill - two targets instead of one, super powerful.

Evocation is very powerful but I find blasting to be the most boring part of being a mage, so I skipped it. Necromancy mostly deals with animate dead, meh. Transmute is kinda weird, I’m not seeing that many uses for it. Abjuration is nice but pretty much just makes you tougher, very little creative uses. Illusion definitely has some creative uses.

I’m probably going to choose between conjuration and enchant. Enchant is more useful overall, but conjuration has that one ability that seems like it has amazing flexibility and problem solving potential.

[SenorBeef]

Also, did find familiar end up sort of merging with early summon spells like summon monster 1? Familiars don’t have the same bonuses and drawbacks as they used to have, where it had serious consequences for having them die and took some effort to find a familiar. Now it sounds like it’s relatively easy to have your familiar change for the situation at hand. A hawk to scout around can change into a spider to sneak through a small hole rather easily. It can’t attack, but it seems more like a general summon animal utility spell than the old familiar system.

And there are no longer any low level summon spells - summon minor elemental as a 4th level spell is the earliest.

[Arrogance_Ex_Machina]

@SenorBeef

And there are no longer any low level summon spells - summon minor elemental as a 4th level spell is the earliest.

Boo! I loved summoning celestial badgers and abyssal hounds as disposable tanks that allowed our rogue to backstab anything.

The conjuration tree looks kinda boring to me especially since you can’t start getting real summons until spell level 4, but the level 2 ability, minor conjuration, lets you create anything you’re familiar with that’s less than 3 feet long or 10 pounds (it glows, so probably won’t fool people). But there seems to be a ton of creativity allowed there.

Look at someone’s keyring, later conjure up the key. Conjure up a bottle of oil to throw at someone and then ignite them. Conjure a casting material you don’t have. Conjure up a map or book you saw. Conjure up healing potions maybe. The book doesn’t give any sort of limitations on it besides size and weight, so I’m wondering what sort of limitations DMs would put on it.

That does sound like one of those abilities that can either be incredibly powerful or completely useless, depending on what sort of DM you get. If it was up to me, the healing potions wouldn’t work and the maps and books would only be as good as you remember, but it would probably still be very handy for a creative player.