Looking at playing some D&D 5th.

Well if everything goes as planned, I will get to play some 5^th edition D&D this weekend. That means I need to dive into the Player’s Handbook for this edition.

The Player’s Handbook for this edition is damn descent. It is more user friendly than the previous edition when it comes to character creation. This edition has a quick and easy method for character creation. If you want a guy made fast then it gives you the skills you should take, the ability scores that are priority, gives you a list of weapons/gear to choose from and even lists skills/abilities/spells that you should use. This makes it super easy for new players (or lazy ones) to get a character going quickly.

Speaking of character creation, the option to play whatever with whatever is still a thing. You want a dwarf wizard? Go for it! A gnome berserker? No problem! I am a big supporter of that as it allows for the player to be what they really want to play. I do not miss the class/race restrictions.

Speaking of class and race the usual suspects are all here: fighter, thief, cleric and wizard. Plus there are bards, druids, warlocks, and sorcerers. You The fun bit is that eventually like level 3 or 4 you choose an off shoot of the class you have and become a bit of something else. You want a fighter that can cast spells? How about a rouge that can throw magic? A druid that is a shape shifter? A deadly assassin? There are a descent amount of choices to tweak your guy as he/she levels.

The race are standard with humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, half-elves and gnomes. Back again this edition are the dragonborn and tiefling. The half-orc also makes in into the starting  players handbook. Now there are race choices for races of dwarves, halflings, gnomes and elves. The various races give some various buffs and abilities. They even have the drow as a playable race. This is now seems more fan boy than the dragonborn. Humans get the shaft as do half-elves and half-orcs because there are no race options.

There are archetypes and motivations to flesh out your character as well. They are not necessary, but they give players options and a few abilities/gear. It if good for people who want to quickly build or flesh out their character. I didn’t spend much time looking into these, as I sort of know what I already want to play.

The spells/ skills and gear sections are standard fare. The usual list of stuff and what it does. Not a lot of new and exciting here.

The section on actually playing is straight forward. Sure there will always be events that come up that are not covered, but it should be easy to roll with on the fly. The big new fun item is the whole advantage/disadvantage bit. If you have advantage on a skill, attack, event, etc. then you roll tow D20 and take the highest roll. If you have disadvantage then the same applies, but you take the lower of the D20 rolls. It gives a new twist on being not skilled or proficient with items. Sure you can swing that battle axe with your thief, but you'll be rolling at disadvantage. A great mechanic and better than just, "Nope you can't do that."

If there is a down side to the Player's handbook it is the artwork. It is pretty abysmal. I guess Piazo grabbed all the good fantasy artists or something. Seriously I haven't seen D&D artwork this bad since 2nd edition.

What the frak is this?

Kill it! Kill it! Whatever it is!

So what am I rolling up?Well I'm looking at a warlock. A half-ork warlock. Why? Since they have ability score bonuses that do not help spell casting why choose that? Well I like the class spells and abilities.

 I also have seen the Warlords of Draenor commercial a ton and Gul'dan and his look appeals to me. So' i'm gonna try a half-ork non-Gul'dan but Gul'dan warlock.