A friend (who's probably the guy with the best knack for hacking systems apart I know) and I were at a loose end at the weekend so we decided to test out the Starter Set, with him running all 5 PCs at once so he could get a taster of how each of the iconic classes work in 5E.
We were both very impressed! At level 1 the game seems to hit this sweet spot where you feel like you have a basic level of competence, but at the same time you also feel like you are genuinely in danger from your foes - we found that sneaky creatures like Goblins have a good chance of surprising level 1 characters in an ambush, for instance, and the first fight might have gone very differently had not the wizard been the sole PC not surprised (Sleep is your level 1 wizard's best friend, as it has always been). We also liked that the spellcasting system manages to step away from strict Vancian spellcasting whilst at the same time requiring spellcasters to do some planning ahead and resource management, and the shift from 5 minutes rests to short rests requiring at least an hour we consider to be a big change.
To put this in context, we've both played a lot of 2E and 3E and a bit of 4E; we both were put off 4E fairly early on by the long combats and the disconnect with mainline D&D, and we found 3.X to be fiddly enough that most of our gaming with it took place via GMed Neverwinter Nights modules rather than tabletop; we both came away from the playtest feeling positive about 5E, and I was especially impressed with how fast combats are; my previous D&D campaign was a 2E one and I liked how easy it was to run theatre-of-the-mind combat as I did for 2E and how smoothly it all goes. Obviously the speed of progression would be different if I were running for multiple players, but it's definitely the case that as far as play progression in 5E goes, the rate determining step is how much time the players spend debating their next course of action outside of combat, rather than how much time is spent resolving combats.
We were both very impressed! At level 1 the game seems to hit this sweet spot where you feel like you have a basic level of competence, but at the same time you also feel like you are genuinely in danger from your foes - we found that sneaky creatures like Goblins have a good chance of surprising level 1 characters in an ambush, for instance, and the first fight might have gone very differently had not the wizard been the sole PC not surprised (Sleep is your level 1 wizard's best friend, as it has always been). We also liked that the spellcasting system manages to step away from strict Vancian spellcasting whilst at the same time requiring spellcasters to do some planning ahead and resource management, and the shift from 5 minutes rests to short rests requiring at least an hour we consider to be a big change.
To put this in context, we've both played a lot of 2E and 3E and a bit of 4E; we both were put off 4E fairly early on by the long combats and the disconnect with mainline D&D, and we found 3.X to be fiddly enough that most of our gaming with it took place via GMed Neverwinter Nights modules rather than tabletop; we both came away from the playtest feeling positive about 5E, and I was especially impressed with how fast combats are; my previous D&D campaign was a 2E one and I liked how easy it was to run theatre-of-the-mind combat as I did for 2E and how smoothly it all goes. Obviously the speed of progression would be different if I were running for multiple players, but it's definitely the case that as far as play progression in 5E goes, the rate determining step is how much time the players spend debating their next course of action outside of combat, rather than how much time is spent resolving combats.
An eccentric 5E playtest.
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