There is not default '5 foot step' no. But various classes have bonus actions that allow them various unique options in combat.

For example the Rogue has Cunning Action:



Which means you should be able to attack, disengage, and then move your full speed around the battlefield without provoking. Bit better than a five foot step / shift if I'm reading it right.

I think the absence of the 5 foot step is a side effect of the new move rule, where a player can break his move into small moves. I think it would be awkward to have both in action.

Other reason is the power increase of spells. This rule serves to mitigate the fact that a player could make a 5 foot step than cast a "powerful" spell each turn, making a little harder to cast spells when hard pressed by an enemy.

Yeah, I'm still going through a lot of the rules but a good bit of the things they've changed I can sort of see why they have.

I just got the Lost Mine of Phandelver and I dont know if I want to read through it to see how it's encounters and enemies are set up to see the rules 'in work' or wait so that I can experience it as a player.

I'm on Rogue right now in the book.

I'm thinking about how to convert my setting into 5e, which is pretty easy. The domains are still rather limited to me but it's not like domains mattered much at all in 4e. And in ways, 5e is a better fit for the world.

These changes improved the rogue class without a doubt. Now he is very mobile and able to do sneak attacks very easily. The problem that I see is because all classes were improved, specially spellcasters, which makes the rogue class still inferior to other classes in fights.

Good to have in some RPG parts and adventures with a lot of traps, but easily substituted by other classes. Excellent multiclass though, specially for spellcasters to have access to cunning action.

Should I start making a new character?

Even in previous editions though Rogue wasnt a 'movement' class, it focused on getting sneak attack damage and being a skill monkey.

Take 4e for example, all the leaders had way more mobility and move actions than the rogue and even among the strikers Ranger was better at shifting and moving.

This trend of the rogue being a movement class started at 4th edition and it reached its apex at 5th in my opinion, looking at the cunning action mechanic. As you said, the rogue class was and still is the skill monkey, not stupendous at combat, but at least now, I think it can be fun to play (combat speaking).

As I said before, the 5th edition seems like it has a 3rd edition body with a 4th edition flavor. I am yet to play it, but just reading the rules, it looks very fun to play. Reasonably simple, with 3rd edition influence at RP and mechanics, and with 4th edition combat fun without all that crazy amount of status effects.

The rules definitely look easy to understand and manage without reducing the depth of play.

So having had a chance to look over the base mechanics I have to say I'm really impressed. Understanding most of the rules just comes down to memorizing a relatively short list of keywords and their meanings and how they interact with each other.

Basically it's everything that was good about fourth ed with the flexibility and customization of 3rd ed. I'm really impressed so far.

Random thoughts I had today while reading:

The Path of the Berserker feature, Mindless Rage, says "the effect is suspended" which, to me, means the duration of the effect is frozen so if you're charmed for a minute and start raging with half a minute to go on the effect that charmed you, you're going to be charmed for another 30 seconds after you finish raging. As opposed to, for example, how Anti-Magic Shell suppresses magical effects so they still run out.

I like how paladins get different spells.

I feel like Beacon of Hope should be an enchantment spell, not abjuration.

These are more or less my thoughts as well.

Easy to pick up and learn like 4th edition.
Uses easy keywords and simple rules like 4th edition.
Encourages roleplay and character backgrouds like editions prior to 4e.
Fair bit of customization and flexibility like most people say that 4e was lacking compared to other editions.

I cannot find anything anywhere that makes me think otherwise. It seems like if you were charmed, you'd rage and be fine, then go back to being charmed for the remaining length. Which doesnt make sense flavorwise for me, but I can see a sort of logic to it mechanic wise.


We should make a 'Ask a quick question, get a quick answer' thread for these sorts of things. If nothing else looking for them is getting me into the rules and teaching me a thing or two I didnt know or wouldn't normally have learned on my own. For instance barbarians are pretty low on my list of classes to play so I havent looked at them yet.

I liked it too, but I didn't like the fact that there are no spells of this kind for the cleric class, making it hard to use melee cleric builds.



I disagree, it doesn't feel like an enchantment spell. I found more strange some healing spells as evocations (strange but not much) and others as conjurations (really weird).

I feel like the paladin's various smite spells are to replace the smite evil, so its not like the cleric is being denied something it had before and it's good, to me, for like divine casting melee fighters of different classes to still feel and do things differently. Like, an eldritch knight fighter, a paladin, a cleric of war, and a pact blade warlock should all feel different and do things differently. (I feel like restricting the eldritch knight and the arcane trickster's spells to certain schools wasn't necessary though.)

Regarding Beacon of Hope, the spell literally lets you make others experience an emotion (hope). To me, that's enchantment, a spell affecting another's mind, whether it's deluding them into friendship or terrifying them or inspiring hope in them.

I think nobody knows how to properly place healing spells (I'm not sure why cleric spells need to be categorized like wizard spells). I haven't gotten far enough to know if the positive energy plane is still a thing, but I guess the idea is that you're conjuring positive energy from there.

Cleric spells have to be categorized for the purposes of feats that interact with them - particularly Spell Focus. Of course since that feat doesn't exist anymore yeah their isn't really a reason anymore. I guess tradition more then anything.

As for the 'nobody knows where to place healing spells' part - it's necromancy. It's clearly necromancy! The only reason it's not necromancy is because everyone in power is still obsessed with maintaining the whole 'necromancy is teh evilz' thing. Gah!

Also yeah the Positive Energy Plane is still a thing. Looks like the Great Wheel Cosmology is now the standard.

Oh, yeah, I forgot about necromancy. It's definitely necromancy, although it's a dumb name for it if it's also manipulating life energy (which the book says it is). Necromancy also gets some spells that seem necromantic only because it has a scary feeling.

I am not talking about smites exactly, but spells that empower a melee combatant like Bear's Endurance, Bull's Strength, Magic Weapon and Righteous Might. All of them gone of the cleric repertoire. Maybe they will add them as an option later, but for now melee clerics are somewhat stunted without them.

And about necromancy, they could use vitamancy just to differentiate when using life energy for good purposes from necromancy, life energy used for evil purposes. It is still just a technical difference, after all life energy is life energy, like fire is fire independent of the purpose it is used, for destruction or construction; but at least it is a difference that is logical.

Wait they removed cleric buffing spells? I hadn't actually read down to the spell list yet (outside of a few choice examples). That does actually seem pretty weird. Does the ranger get the same sort of treatment? That is to say are certain old druid spells also now unavailable to them to make the ranger a more unique spellcaster?

Vitamancy is a decent idea but would involve a lot of paperwork and new mechanics to properly incorporate it. If the whole idea is to differentiate 'good' healing from 'bad' necromancy then the easiest option would be to make healing a Transmutation spell - effectively using transmutive magic to alter the body to a non-damaged state. Better then evocation at any rate. Evocation = Healing is just silly.

Yeah, most of them anyway, I only remember of Bless as an attack buff. The rest are only defensive buffs. I cannot answer for the ranger, because I concentrated my attention on the cleric class.

And about Beacon of Hope. The spell is offering protection from some types of harm and a bonus healing. It seems like a protective effect to me, hence abjuration. Furthermore the spell is tied to wisdom not charisma (since it is a cleric spell), so it has more sense that it is an abjuration, but looking from DS point of view I could see it as an enchantment if it was charisma based, and it didn't offer a healing bonus.