5E Friday

Its been awhile since I did a 5E Friday. Why? Simply because there was little to nothing to talk about for so long. We had playtests with minor changes and then mostly silence. However, this week that all changed.

-I like that they actually have the Starter Set. One of the complaints about 4E was the lack of an introductory rule set. It looks like this Starter Set will fill that niche, an easy way to be introduced to 5E. It has low level character generation, an adventure, dice and everything a starting role-player needs. And the price is pretty good for what you get...certainly less than the books coming out thereafter.

-News on the character generation is that it will be free online; they are taking portions of the PH and putting them online for free, including the character generation rules. How long after the starter set will it be? The point of a starter set is to give new players a good start. Making them go online to make characters, a key part of D&D, is weak.

-I'm not keen on the DMG coming out 4 months after the PH. Of course by this point in my rpg timeline, I doubt there will be any gaming advice I "need". However, I suspect there will be things in it I do want, such as the magic items since it looks like they will be in the DMG and not the PH as it was in 4E. That is a long time to wait.

-They gave no numbers on how many monsters will be in the MM, it is just listed as 320 pages. I am curious if they are doing the more typical 1E monster section (1 monster stat per monster) or the 4E version (1 monster type but multiple stats for the variations). Are we getting 300 monsters or 100?

-Why am I still calling it 5E Friday when they clearly are not calling it 5E, or D&D Next, or anything other than D&D? Because I like the way "5E Friday" rolls off the tongue, and to make clear what I am talking about. If I call this "D&D Friday" people will think this is a generic D&D article. 5E Friday lets everyone know I'm talking about the newest edition.

-For the record, I am looking forward to the release.Will I buy it? Yes. Will I play it? Maybe, depends on if it gets me excited.