In August of 2011 Wizards of the Coast announced a new Dungeons and Dragons product in the pipeline – what they called “D&D Next” – a terrible name that drove those of us who like consistent versioning a bit crazy. Thankfully the name was just a place-holder for the game that was released in 2014 – Dungeons and Dragons 5e (D&D). 5e D&D strips out much of the complexity of prior version – cutting back to a system that depends heavily on a few simple rules and putting a Dungeon Master at the table to make more complicated adjudications on the fly. That simplification is in full display in the free version of the game rules (available at the link above) the D&D Basic Rules. Go download them, then come back.
My group and I have put almost two years of play into 5e (astute observers will note that, yes, we started before the game was released). Over that time we’ve put the system through its paces.
Lets start with the good news:
(1) The free pdf is enough to play a full game.
The Basic Rules are a very generous and comprehensive set of rules. They give the player four familiar core classes – Cleric, Fighter, Rogue and Wizard – each with a full set of features and class powers all the way up to level 20. Clocking in at 150 pages, including more than 20 pages of spells, the Basic Rules give you everything you need to play a full campaign.
(2) The Rules are simple, but not stupid.
The rules are certainly streamlined – players are given less options and there are fewer out-of-combat powers to put on a character sheet – but that doesn’t mean the game has been dumbed down. Tactically, the game emphasizes each choice the player makes – the battlefield allows more movement by reducing the triggers for opportunity attacks and allowing characters to take actions in the middle of movement. The DM is empowered and encouraged to make good use of the listed skills and to allow the players to think outside the four corners of the text to suggest other ways to affect the battlefield. Multiclass rules in particular veer back toward D&D 3.5 levels of complexity – with a fix to the way spell levels are calculated to allow a player to take a few classes of wizard or cleric without destroying their spell progression.
(3) Combat is fast, flexible, and fun.
The Combat rules and general shift toward a deadlier system of combat means that, overall, combats take only a fraction of the time required in earlier versions of D&D. In a two hour session I can run 3 or 4 simple combats or a couple of more complex fights without rushing through the role play encounters. Players are more likely to hit the monsters (Armor classes have been lowered a bit more than to-hit bonuses) which generally contributes to a feeling of empowerment and thus – fun.
(4) It encourages role play.
This is the reason I love running D&D 5e. The fast paced combat and simple rules take all the distraction away from sitting down and interacting with the other players around the table. The Players have time to do things outside of combat and the out of combat activities are almost entirely driven by the imagination of the players and their DM. For my group, that meant the return of genuine role playing. It actually takes a few weeks for players coming into my game from 4th edition games to grok the idea of having to actually talk NPCs into giving up information or explore an environment without immediately resorting to a spell or power.
(5) Did I mention its everything you need to play the game?
All the core rules, the equipment, the standard races, the spells, backgrounds – this free PDF is a massive give-away.
The bad stuff:
(1) The DM has to go buy a book.
The basic rules give you a hefty block of monsters and a small handful of magic items. In a pinch, you could run a campaign from these rules – but you will be running fights with the same kinds of monsters more than once unless you’re giving your party alternate experience rewards and the game must, of necessity, be low magic – because you don’t have enough magic items to hand out.
That said – if you are running the published D&D 5e modules (e.g. Princes of Apocalypse – the newest one as of the date of this article) you don’t need anything outside the module and the free downloadable companion pdf. But that’s just changing the book you have to buy.
(2) No rules for grid based combat.
The Basic Rules do not give you any tools for running combat on a 1″ grid, which has been the basic medium of combat encounters in D&D since at least 3rd Edition. That said – 5e combat lends itself well to run theater of the mind.
The Recommendation:
The D&D Basic Rules are free. IQ test time – yes – I recommend picking up this book and giving it a read. I think you’ll like what you see. Definitely worth the price of admission.