The game that they are playtesting right now is *exactly* what they have been
threatening promising to release since they started blogging about it. The 5E design team is like 5 dudes and an intern, and between them they have played... D&D. Only ever D&D. Wizards got rid of everyone of the more progressive bent over the last few years, and it's telling that they had Monte 'Been remaking 3e for years' Cook as their lead designer for a while. Getting rid of him might have helped the game progress a little bit, but god, man, read this shit. They go literally and absurdly out of their way to admit 4E advances even exist, in some ways rewording things to a comic and tragic level. For your consideration:
"Healing Word: 1st level Conjuration
You whisper a brief word of healing for a creature in need. As a shimmering light dapples the creature's wounds, you launch into action.
Effect: You bestow a blessing onto a creature within 50 feet of you that can hear you. The target regains 1d6 hit points.
You can then make a melee attack, a ranged attack, or cast a minor spell you know."
This can be simply worded as: Minor Action. But noooooo, that would be bullshit narrativist abstract nonsense, that can't happen in my Dungeon Vietnam! Instead, you have to use an Action and then you get to take another Action, and since every spell that uses this action economy will require them to type this out and all the spells are in bigass alphabetical lists independent of class again, the spell chapter will once again be ridiculous to navigate.
There is no good excuse for adding needless complexity to something, and the playtest is full of it.
Mathematical analysis made over on the SA forums:
"The playtest material goes to level 3. At level 3, the fighter is doing an average of 15 damage per hit, 3 on a miss, and hits approximately enough that that comes out to about 11 damage per round. Meanwhile, the wizard does 7 damage average, in an area that he is supposed to be weak. So apparently 2/3 the capability of the class that is supposed to be the best at fighting, while being at range, is enough to qualify you for six encounter dominating spells per day."
Also, with no attacks of opportunity or charge attacks and when literally every monster in the playtest has a higher move speed than the fighter, he will never be in melee unless the monster wants him to be. Unlike the wizard who can just autoping every round and can do it from anywhere on the map.
I know this seems a bit much, but as you might be able to tell based on the fact that I regularly listen to a podcast featuring *other people* playing D&D the system change means a fair bit to me. It took me a while to get past the system shock of 4E but I've learned that new is not necessarily bad, in large part because of this podcast. Going back to something purely based on nostalgia is not a viable business move for a company responsible in large part for the success or failure of our hobby as a whole.
The best thing I've heard thus far is Mike Mearls saying on
his twitter (ctrl-f Sarx) that if the feedback is overwhelmingly negative they could start over, but the chances of that are realistically slim. This is what they have been working on and promising from the start - a different game would require a different team and a different mindset. More on that Thursday after next.
Fake Edit: Also,
36d20 rats!
