I played two sessions of D&D 5E at Gen Con. I previously playtested 5E at D&D Experience and I've also played AD&D 1E and 2E, D&D 3.0 and 3.5, and D&D 4E pre-essentials.

I wrote about 5E at D&D Experience in glowing terms. D&D 5E at Gen Con was completely different from D&D 5E at D&D Experience.

5E at Gen Con was a crushing disappointment.

My Hit Points

I played four hours of D&D 5E and the only damage I took was when my brother's wizard hit me in his burning hands attack. My character was 1st level and fought zombies, skeletons, kobolds, an ogre, and a wight. Yes, a wight. At 1st level.

And yet, no damage. In two different adventures.

To me, that is a huge problem. No challenge in the game, the complete opposite of my experience at D&D Experience.

My Character

I am embarrassed by my character to be honest. I played a 1st level hill dwarf bounty hunter dragon blood sorcerer necromancer. See why I feel somewhat embarrassed?

My character was a bounty hunter who was lured by the call of necromantic power and felt the blood of dragons burn with fire within my blood. All of that info was only in my mind as it never ever came up in the game. My bounty hunting meant nothing, my dragon blood was simply fuel for combat, and my necromantic ways simply granted disadvantage to enemies.

The character had twelve hit points, an AC of 16, could attack with a maul for 2d6+4 points of damage, had 3 spell points and could cast burning hands for 1 spell point and do 4d4 points of damage with a Dex save for half damage. The character was also a necromancer so if I drained a spirit or two I could also cast cause fear for 1 spell point and hit every foe within 20 feet with a Wisdom save at disadvantage or run away. I could also cast magic missile whenever I wanted for 1d4+1 points of damage and auto hit. Dragon Strength for 1 spell point allowed me to add 2d6 points of damage to my maul attack once within 1 minute after casting. I also had shocking grasp at will but only used it to shock my brother's wizard after the burning hands debacle.

If I ran out of spell points, my maul started hitting for 2d6+6 points of damage.

Again, no challenge. My character was grossly overpowered in comparison to any previous edition of D&D. I could cast spells, I could wear any armor, I could wield any weapons, and I had a d10 hit die as a hill dwarf. Oh, and I was a bounty hunter necromancer with dragon blood too.

Sheesh.

The Other Characters

My friend who played a rogue at D&D Experience played one again. Gone was the ability to weave in and out of combat, stabbing and slicing with advantage. His sneak attack was now limited, his options constrained. The DM explained to him that rogues lost some combat ability but were better at skills now.

Another friend who had played a 4E campaign to 30th level played a cleric. He boldly strode into an encampment of orcs and demanded surrender. The orc champion stepped up and the cleric slaughtered him with crusader's strike in one hit, causing the entire tribe of orcs to flee from his terrifying 1st-level might. Wow.

Casters had a huge upsurge in power. Rogues lost some power.

My friend played a fighter. He wanted to use an expertise die to try to increase his chance to hit when he missed but the DM said he could only use it to add to damage. I wish our DM had had the flexibility to allow my buddy to use his expertise die in a different way.

And people at the table were missing pieces. We had to make our own characters. Many of us didn't know we needed to have both a background and a specialty. The sheer amount of abilities and power was staggering and leaving a whole section of character creation out didn't change a thing. Our characters were unstoppable.

Advantage

At D&D Experience, players were really describing combat in an attempt to gain advantage. The DM was giving it out and the game gained energy and we kept describing our actions and adding more energy. It built and built on itself, energizing the game. I know I just used versions of the word energy a lot, but that is the best way to describe the power of 5E at D&D Experience. It was great to see in play.

Advantage doesn't work that like in the 5E I played at Gen Con. I could give disadvantage for using a drained spirit while casting a necromancy spell. Okay.

I did not feel inspired by advantage at Gen Con in the same way I was inspired at D&D Experience.

The Adventures

Gone were the sweeping, sprawling caves where too much noise or too long a battle could bring down hordes of enemies or a huge champion to rend and terrify. I felt a shiver of fear in the caves at D&D Experience. We paid for our victories with a lot of sweat and blood. It was honorable and glorious. Yes I am gushing. I want to gush after playing a terrifying dangerous game of D&D and emerging victorious!

At Gen Con playing 5E, we fought four zombies. Then we moved randomly elsewhere and fought a few skeletons. Then another encounter with two zombies and a wight. When I say we moved randomly, I mean it. The DM literally was saying, the tunnel splits left and right. This way has a door. That way has a portcullis. We had no information to go on to make any decision. We just wandered in a completely random fashion and the DM had us fight some battles. And the battles didn't connect to anything else.

The worst excesses and misuse of encounter based set-piece battles completely unrelated to the world around them had come roaring back. In all honesty, it sucked.

During the encounter with the wight, I played my character like he was terrified. A wight! Level-draining terror filled my 1st-level character's mind. A frickin' wight!

The wight shot two arrows for 1d8+1 points of damage each before the two wizards, my sorcerer, and our archer bracketed him and tore him to pieces with burning hands, magic missiles, and arrows. I can't remember if the wight hurt any of us deadly 1st-level superheroes or not. None of us rose as wights one round later, I know that. I also know I wasn't afraid of wights anymore.

The wight was a dud.

Ditto with the ogre. He didn't hit one character if I remember correctly and we destroyed him. I actually felt bad for the stupid oaf. In all my years of playing D&D I have never felt bad for an ogre before. They used to terrify my 1st-level characters. Hell, one of them scared the crap of my character at D&D Experience. That ogre was deadly dangerous and had to be fought with cunning.

Not at this stage of the playtest, though. Not anymore.

Summary

D&D 5E at this stage of the playtest has vastly overpowered casters, overly powerful 1st-level characters, weak monsters, lack of well-constructed adventure building tools, and an overall weakness of roleplaying elements and storytelling. It needs to go back to some of the earlier ideas and tone down casters quite a bit.

In Part 2

My view of Wizards of the Coast and D&D at Gen Con. Also, a look at how other companies represented themselves at the Con. Watch for it in one week.

Charlie