Actually, the first thing I thought to myself when I saw the gameplay footage was how closely it follows 5E rules. They did opt, as per page 270 of the Dungeon Master's Guide, to use "side initiative", which is listed (legitimately) as an alternative to standard initiative as others have mentioned here. But they have tried, and for anyone that knows and plays 5E, to remain pretty faithful to the tabletop experience and it was very apparent throughout the gameplay clip.
There are a few 'gameified' situations in the clip, such as using a mage hand to shove an enemy, where shoving is considered an attack action and mage hand can not take any attack actions, but overall I was quite impressed. AP should be renamed to A or Action, BA was Bonus Action, movement speed was separate, at an average of 30' per turn, even his concentration spells would drop when he was attacked and had to roll to maintain concentration, and it also dropped when he casted a second concentration spell. There was dash, disengage, AoO, etc. All quite faithful.
If you are going to accuse them of violating the rule set, you may wish to educate yourself a bit more on it first before you criticize.
Regarding displaying monster/enemy HP, Page 247 says the decision is up to the DM, in this case, Larian to display or not display behind a description of words.
For those of you interested in side initiative, here is the description lifted directly from the DMG, Page 270:
"SIDE INITIATIVE Recording initiative for each PC and monster, arranging everyone in the correct order, and remembering where you are in the list can bog the game down. If you want quicker combats, at the risk of those combats becoming unbalanced, try using the side initiative rule. Under this variant, the players roll a d20 for their initiative as a group, or side. You also roll a d20. Neither roll receives any modifiers. Whoever rolls highest wins initiative. In case of a tie, keep rerolling until the tie is broken. When it's a side's turn, the members of that side can act in any order they choose. Once everyone on the side has taken a turn, the other side goes. A round ends when both sides have completed their turns. If more than two sides take part in a battle, each side rolls for initiative. Sides act from the highest roll to lowest. Combat continues in the initiative order until the battle is complete. This variant encourages teamwork and makes your life as a DM easier, since you can more easily coordinate monsters. On the downside, the side that wins initiative can gang up on enemies and take them out before they have a chance to act."
Last edited by zanos; 29/02/20 12:59 AM.
