Highlights of the Live D&D 5E Starter Set/Basic Game Q&A!

Mike Mearls, Rodney Thompson, Trevor off-camera asking questions. This is very abbreviated – I was typing as they spoke. Any mistakes are mine. I just tried to grab the central fact from each bit of speech; they aren’t as abrupt as the text below makes it look!MM: Crunch week for PHB. Printer on Monday.EN World questions!How many spells per level in Basic?MM: More at lower than higher, about 5 per level. At higher down to 3 or 4. A few more Wizards spells at first level to get iconic ones in (like Identify). Condensed list, focuses on straightforward iconic spells. Burning Hands, Charm Person, Identify, Mage Armor, MM, Sleep, Shield.How are saving throws handled in the starter?MM: Same as the playtest.RT: Proficiencies, bonus to save. Fundamental rules, same in starter basic, full rules. A key pillar.Any modular content in Basic?MM: No, straightforward as possible. Simplest expression of D&D for newbies. Basic is the core of the game. DMG for creating campaigns, adding firearms, horror, alter mechanics to make it more like 4E (quicker rests, encounter powers)RT: DMG aimed at the experienced part of the community. Creating and designing. Strongly themed campaigns.What about backgrounds?MM: Yep, they’ll be there. First taste of character customization. Quick guidelines for creating backgrounds.RT: Background is the area you’re least likely to break when creating one.MM: None give bonuses on fighting like a +1 to hit dragons. More tied into character’s place in the world.MM: A portion of the backgrounds. No multiclassing – optional rule in full game.Conversion documents?MM: Not part of basic. A separate thing we’ll do.Feats?MM: No. Keeping simplest expression of the game possible. Full game is like “AD&D” as opposed to the “Basic” D&D.RT: Friends over on a Saturday afternoon, you can just grab the basic rules and play a game with them. So we use Basic rules + X,Y.Z?MM: That’s the way to think of it, yeah.Anything other than magic items in basic rules from DMG?MM: Stuff on how to run a game. DMG is the last book we’re working on. It’s done, just rearranging text a bit. It has classic magic items, magic weapons, armor, boots of elvenkind. Everything to manage and create an adventure. Downtime, mass combat. Starter set adventure?MM: Inspired by Night’s Dark Terror. One of the best D&D adventures ever made. UK module. Spiritual example. An adventure that gives a central place, a village, a central quest, enough room so the player has options, wilderness map and places to go, and for the DM flexible enough to start making own adventures and add to the map. RT: Between giving DM enough story notes to propel the adventure forward, and a setting. Here’s a place, adventures happen in it, not vice versa.MM: Backgrounds and personality traits of the pregens are matched to the adventure. Goals, seeds.(Both talk a lot about information flow, character motivations, directing sense of what to do next).RT: First experience doesn’t have to be “make a character”. Don’t necessarily know what you’re doing. Pre-gen is another first experience, full fleshed out. Informed decisions later.MM: So many stories of character creation being a barrier to entry. Experience of play first, then character generation second when you get what D&D is.Race and class options in basic/starter?MM: Cleric, fighter, rogue, wizard. Elf, dwarf, human, halfling. Levels 1-20 in Basic.Tyranny of Dragons?MM: Very episodic. Use level episode to match character levels.RT: Higher level character can still play lower level adventures. Easier to bounce back and forth.Spells. How do you decide which are in basic and starter?MM: Really going for iconic. 4-5 per level so choosing isn’t crazy. Plus hitting the different notes. Cleric Augery as 2nd level. Not just about blowing stuff up. Broad range.RT: The basic rules are designed to give you an iconic experience. Touchpoints D&D players recognize. Common language of D&D.Monsters? Playtests weren’t always the hardest challenge. What are in starter/basic? Other Q’s.MM: Do you want me to just talk about monsters?RT: Better monster math than at the end of the playtest. Better guidelines to determine how tough an encounter is. Lower monsters in higher numbers, and guidelines for that. Toughened up a few monsters, extra damage, more HP or AC. Needed a boost at 5th level like characters who get extra attack for fighters, 3rd level spells. MM: You get a dragon. Iconic fantasy monsters. Chimera, centaurs, ord, ghosts, giants, mage, acolyte, warrior, mummies, ogres, skeletons, ochre jellies. Mundane animal appendix. Giant spiders. RT: Not scratching the surface there.Street dates? Starter 3rd in special stores, 15th elsewhere.MM: Basic launch on the 3rd with character creation. Add more material as core rulebooks released.Basic rules for high level play? MM: It’s all from the core rulebooks. So it’s easy to include in the basic rules. When can you launch a campaign?MM: Homebrew probably August as you’ll have the DMing stuff. But can start a campaign with the starter set. Get your legs under you. (Lots about encounter balancing, guidelines, bugbear tougher).RT: Build your adventure THEN use guidelines to tweak difficultly, not decide X encounter difficulty in advance. Better flow of the adventure.MM: We don’t want to tell you how you have to do it. But tools are there.Specific setting?MM: Basic not so much. Starter is Forgotten Realms. I would rather have that flavour than constantly reinvent the wheel. Not generic mush. RT: Not inseparable from the Realms. Adaptable to most iconic settings. MM: Yeah, it’s high fantasy. If Dark Sun was default, adapting would be much harder! Or Spelljammer, etc. But don’t have to know 100 pages of lore, we explain stuff in place where needed. PHB covers a bunch of pantheons. “War” matches to X, Y.RT: PHB is pan-campaign setting. Constant references to Dragonlance, Greyhawk, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, etc. Embraces multiverse, all campaign settings, ours and yours.MM: And the look is more diverse. Important for us.Larger or smaller groups?MM: Basic rules will cover that, yep. Making stuff harder, easier. Adventure balance is more important than encounter balance. With less folks, you’ll be slower to progress in the adventure, but it won’t crash your game.RT: Also supports groups with characters of different levels. All characters in a party can be different levels, and it helps you do that and judge things.Character Sheets?MM: First side is character, back is background. At 2nd level, e.g. it tells you what to change.Most powerful basic rules monster?MM: The dragon. Red. The game is Dungeons & Dragons.RT: Ancient red in his/her lair is the toughest single monster (in the lair). It’s nasty.MM: In the Starter Set there is a green dragon, not in his lair. Guys on the cover are probably all toast just charging it.Leveling up pacing?MM: Leveling 1 and 2 in one session. The every other session leveling. 20th level in less than a year. D&D skews a lot younger than people think, fits with a college year. Plus playtest feedback said that. Most people in school or something, 30 year campaign is amazing, but not for everyone.Most exciting thing in Basic?MM: One-shot condensed version of the game. Nice to have consistence, clear understanding for DM of what characters can do. Simple dungeon crawl or pick-up game. Tabletop gaming has grown tremendously in last 5 years – board, card, minis, but not RPGs. 4 hours gaming and 5 minutes of play. This entry point for a tabletop gamer but not an RPGer, levels many barriers to entry. Free, super quick, dive in, crack open like a boardgame.RT: 1-20 aspect. Easier than ever to bring in a new player. They can use basic rules and make a 9th level character and jump in. MM: Less prep time.RT: Lunch time here at the office.MM: If super high lethality you don’t spend an hour making a character to have it eaten by a mimic disguised as a toilet and have to do that again.(Stuff about scheduling, more livestream games, Origins).