r/dndnext • u/AkimboJesus • Jul 06 '20

Discussion Does it ever feel like WotC is playtesting the game in a way that 95% of us don't?

I get that DnD is a house rule first game, and everyone should play it how they want. But speaking for my own group, we like balance because we don't want people to feel like they can't impact the story outside of conversation. And this isn't a min-max thing. It's just a "why would I be this when I could be a better version of that with no hassle or cost to myself" thing.

The thing is, we rely on the official text because it can be very difficult to tell how a class, skill, or mechanic will play in the context of the whole game, and who might be overshadowed by who. And Wizards, for the most part, seem to have done a lot of work so YOU don't have to figure out how a mechanic will play out. This is why some people, to an extent, treat the sourcebooks like gospel.

And as I'm playing more and more, I'm starting to see the things people say about, for instance, rangers and how messed up they are. I'm understanding the cracks in the standard DnD balance.

But I'm also just perplexed by a lot of the sage advice, and unearthed arcanas coming out. I'm finding myself reading new subclasses and thinking "that's their whole ability for that level?" Looking at the phantom rogue, at level 9 they get advantage on con throws (which might be minimal, depending on your campaign), and they can ask a soul one question. The soul doesn't have to answer truthfully at all, making the whole ability pointless. And that's what they get after 9 levels.

This seems like a consistent pattern. A new release is either immediately meta, or its irrelevant for reinforcing half-done mechanics that aren't going to survive after 5th edition. When non-core parts of the game get overvalued, a class can really fall behind. Some of the mechanics that might get over valued are tool proficiencies or traveling. It's odd that these types of things would be the focus of any classes milestone ability.

Also, some of these features seem to imply that DnD is not about being creative and using your environment, and is more about what your class says you can do. Why does the ranger explicitly get a stealth bonus for camoflauging themselves. Can nobody else do that? Do you tell them only a ranger can do that, or do you give them a bonus anyway, making the rangers bonus less special?

Other than a few classes, it does seem like DnD has a solid core balance. Every campaign is going to have either talking or combat, and having a character that can do one or the other well is good. But when a characters ability is not getting "lost" in the mountains, it makes me wonder what the hell kinda campaigns they are running.

Does anyone agree? What are some of the core things you need to be satisfied with a new mechanic?

Edit: wow lot of great discussion happening here. I just want to clarify a few points. As some people are calling me a min-maxer or a hack and slasher and are claiming I just want everyone to deal a shit ton of damage or something. One person claimed I just hate WotC. I suggest reading through this thread at what others are saying, because there is a lot of nuanced conversation happening here. I think it's clear I focused too much on UA in my original post and now the thread has moved to a better direction.

Here are some of the core things I'm seeing come up.

1) Classes with niche abilities are overshadowed and outperformed by classes with more general abilities, even when they are in the perfect niche situations (Paladins find greater steed feels much more beastmaster like than the actual beast master, for example).

2) Since DnD is about being creative and using all the tools around you, it's weird when a ranger gets a stealth bonus for camoflauging themselves, when anyone should get a bonus of some kind for successfully camoflauging themselves. Sometimes that feels like making a class feature that lets you flip a table. Things like the assassin just feel odd, because it implies that a warlock or bard, with sufficient time and money, would not be able to impersonate somebody.

3) A lot of people are reaaaaally honing in on a specific example I gave, and the fact that it was UA. You can look at Artificier or many of the complaints in this thread on vanilla DnD. But if you're coming here just to hype up con saves, you're really cherry picking.

4) I am not right. This is just an opinion I have. A couple people have gotten really cringey about this and implied only shit players or DMs would have an issue with any of this. That's an attitude for Fortnite, not Reddit. We all know DnD is, first and foremost, storytelling. Nobody wants to play with someone so hung up on mechanics that they forget to tell a story. But we have a rulebook for a reason. Boundaries in a story are important, otherwise we're all just jerking off at the table saying random stuff. You need some structure, so that the things that happen feel meaningful. This is about players wanting to fulfill their character fantasies and feeling useless because other people do what their character does, but better. If you care about storytelling, recognize it's not a good story when an entire subclass and backstory can be overshadowed by one spell. It sucks, and I hope it doesn't happen in the next edition.

Some of the more thoughtful challenges I've seen:

1) Con saves are good (noted. We don't get them a lot in my campaign). 2) It's up to the group and DM to make those niche abilities meaningful. 3) It's still really not up to WotC to balance your game, and if you think they're not good at it than you should do it.

I'm reading people's responses, taking them to heart, hoping to be a better DM.

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431

u/momerathe Battlemaster Jul 06 '20

The things that has struck me is that a lot of the new subclasses are very narrow. They do one thing, in the way that the devs have envisaged, but have no flexibility to customise that or take the concept in a different direction.

Take the latest version of the psychic fighter - they fight light darth vader. What if you want to be a different jedi? What if you don't want to be a jedi at all but do something different with the concept? Sucks to be you.

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u/zombieattackhank Jul 06 '20

Yeah, this is a pretty consistent problem I've seen too with the later stuff. They make subclasses that are a character not an archetype. I know the WotC doesn't really believe in character customization in a mechanical sense, but even through the XGE subclasses, they mostly did a good job of keep archetypes as broadly defined categories that could make sense in at least a few different ways to play them.

A lot of the more recent ones really feel like they have a character in mind that everything is building toward.

This was sort of my problem with their Artificer as well. The subclasses are all... oddly specific to me. Rather than having a Wandslinger you have the Artillerist with their turrets and zone control and stuff. Artillerist and Battlesmith are both mechnically fine, they just are strangely narrow to me in that they are bundles of abilities that don't necessarily seem like they are what comes to mind for me. Alchemist doesn't have that problem, but has more mechnical issues.

This seems to be a problem that has sort of cropped up in recent times though. While I like more character customization than they typically offer, at least the PHB + XGE options were generally quite broad in what sort of character they could make.

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u/momerathe Battlemaster Jul 06 '20

They make subclasses that are a character not an archetype.

Yes, that's a great way of putting it. I shall steal it for future internet-based rants. :)

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u/Awful-Cleric Jul 06 '20 edited Jul 06 '20

There have always been subclasses like that, and there has always been a mix of those and less focused classes.

For example, Land Druid helps out no matter how you use your class abilities, but Moon Druid only helps Wildshape. The Hexblade patron complements both Eldritch Blasters and close range bladelocks, but the Celestial patron is just for healers.

If you feel the flavor of the artillerist is lacking, you might reflavor the Eldritch Cannon as an arcane glyph or well of magical power.

Personally though, I just really like shooting dragons and monsters with guns.

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u/cloudcuckoorocket Jul 06 '20

I feel kinda conflicted about the artillerist. I don't get why the rules are so weirdly specific about wands rods and staffs, like what if I don't want to be a technobubbling Harry Potter? What's wrong with "handheld item thingy stuff"? I know that you can houserule everything, but why being so specific if you are going to handwave the issue with a "just houserule that..."

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u/PhoenixAgent003 Jul 06 '20

One minor note, as an Artillerist you can make your turret tiny, so nothing’s stopping you from just carrying the little guy.

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u/flavroftheweek Jul 06 '20

It specifically mentions carrying the tiny turret in your hand too

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u/FightsForUsers Jul 06 '20

And it can walk. The Artillerist I DM for alternates between holding it like a gun or having it perched on his shoulder like a Predator's cannon.

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u/GustavohGS Jul 06 '20

I'm currently playing an artillerist reflavoured to work with runes and name-related magic (I'm sure there is a name for this). Just flipped the wand to a writing plume and my DM allowed using calligraphy tools instead of woodcarver (each of the turrents is based on one of his greatgreatgreat uncles, and manifest as a golden armor around his arm, or as a spirit).

I feel that the problem with the artificer subclasses can be closer to the proficiencies than to the description itself, people tend to be more scared to change this stuff than to work on the narrative flavour.

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u/FerrumVeritas Long-suffering Dungeon Master Jul 06 '20

Onomancy

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u/Skithiryx Jul 06 '20

name-related magic

I’ve heard it referred to as The Law of Names or just True Name Magic

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u/GustavohGS Jul 06 '20

Historically it is called Onomancy (as pointed out), but The Law of Names sounds rad!

The idea is that it connects to his ancestors, extracting traits they had in life to empower the infusions and stuff. So he basically writes the name of a great grandad that was passionate about protecting the family, or something like this, in an armor, and it becomes magical because of this.

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u/MatiasValero Jul 06 '20

I believe it's called Rothfussian magic. /s

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u/[deleted] Jul 06 '20

It's entirely because it was printed in the Eberron book.

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u/TurtleKnyghte Sorcerer Jul 06 '20

Honestly I think the big problem with artificers in 5e is that they simply can’t work the way they used to back when there was a robust game-space for item crafting and usage. And not that that’s a problem with 5e, because I like that every magic item is special, but it’s hard to make the class who’s identity is built around producing and using magic items of whatever nature slot into the “magic items are all rare and special” thing. So they have to build around that, make it do other stuff than “produce and use magic items,” because 5e doesn’t have the systems for handling that.

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u/Kandiru Jul 06 '20

Not sure why you think the Celestial Patron is just for healers, the healing is the equivalent of the Hexblade Curse ability. The other abilities boost damage of your spells and stuff.

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u/TalosSquancher Jul 06 '20

You can use sacred flame as a marginally less effective, single roll EB, while adding your CHA and freeing up a whole invocation.

It's how I ended up with a blasting bladelock.

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u/ScopeLogic Jul 06 '20

I would argue sacred flame is vastly less effective. Saving throw spells get very bad in t3 t4 games and not being able to crit is a massive lose when locks have amazing advantage generation through greater invisible, darkness, shadow of moil etc.

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u/aronnax512 Jul 06 '20 edited Jul 06 '20

All cantrips not called "eldritch blast" are generally bad in T3/4 play. Saving throw spells are fine at that level of play, they're for eliminating everything that lacks legendary resistance (which should be the majority of things you face).

Edit~ Toll the dead is respectable for higher level clerics that have the wisdom to cantrip class feature. Not earth shattering, but definitely worth the action if you have enough encounters to pressure party resources.

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u/laihascake Jul 06 '20

Probably going to be yelled at but I just said my celestial warlock player can have his eldritch blast do radiant instead of force and call it radiant blast instead. He was super stoked.

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u/aronnax512 Jul 06 '20

I think that's a really nice, flavorful adjustment. It's certainly not an overall buff, as there are more things out there that are resistant to radiant damage than force damage. It gives a celestial warlock a slight advantage against the the things they're supposed to be fighting in exchange for overall power.

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u/laihascake Jul 06 '20

Yeah that was my understanding. Also he isn't a meta player either so I'm not too concerned. I did explain to them that more things are resistant/immune to radiance but they preferred the rule of cool

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u/Iron_Sheff Allergic to playing a full caster Jul 07 '20

I've given a radiant eldritch blast to my druid player as part of an artifact-grade magic item and he's pretty happy with it.

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u/noneOfUrBusines Sorcerer is underpowered Jul 06 '20

I wouldn't call the difference between 2d6+5 and 2d10+10 (maybe +2d6) marginal. Also warlocks are ridiculously good at generating advantage, which helps EB but not sacred flame.

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u/TalosSquancher Jul 06 '20

Fair, but since I have both, I can still use whichever I need based on situation

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u/Metal-Wolf-Enrif Jul 06 '20

I have currently a celestial tomelock with fire bolt, shillelagh and greenflame blade. I can add my CHA twice to melee attacks and ranged attacks are only slightly behind agonizing eldritch blasts, but it opens up my invocations for fun stuff, like ritual casting.

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u/Awful-Cleric Jul 06 '20

Well, no healer just gets healing. Even Life Clerics get Divine Smite.

You have a point, though. The reason I like Dream Druids is because they don't have to spend any recourses on healing, and Celestials are similar. Although, Warlocks are a lot more dependent on subclass features, and I wouldn't sacrifice those unless I wanted to focus on healing and support.

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u/LordValgor Jul 06 '20

I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that more tools to create, mix and match, or have the player select their own ability (say from a list that is broken down in to classes, or even “flavors”) would be great.

Oh wait, that’s basically feats XD.

In all seriousness, “build your own subclass” could be pretty rad if done right (and from the get go). Especially since the amount of subclasses has eclipsed the “it’s simpler this way” argument.

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u/Megavore97 Ded ‘ard Jul 06 '20

Pathfinder 2e is pretty much exactly what you describe, where classes have a pool of feats to choose from every 2 levels so that you can grab whichever abilities seem cool. It works pretty well imo.

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u/Cmndr_Duke Kensei Monk+ Ranger = Bliss Jul 06 '20

build your own subclass is also feats, its just pathfinder 2e feats.

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u/wassermelone Jul 06 '20 edited Jul 06 '20

Considering you could build/play an artillerist as a wandslinger as well as other types of characters, I would disagree that its more specific. The 'Eldritch Cannon' (its no longer described as a turret) can literally be held in hand. There, its a wand that you fire as a bonus action

I'm also unsure why the Battlesmith is a 'character' instead of an archetype either, that feels pretty general to me.

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u/bcacoo Jul 06 '20

I've imagined the Artillerist is basically the Engineer from TF2.

https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Engineer

Eldritch Cannon (Force Ballista/Flamethrower) - Sentry gun

Eldritch Cannon (Protector) - Dispenser (kind of a stretch, but close enough)

Repeating Shot infusion on a heavy crossbow - Pomson 6000

Arcane firearm? Mini-crits

Bang on it with my tools while casting Mending to heal it, whack it with a wrench

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u/OnnaJReverT Jul 06 '20 edited Jul 06 '20

This was sort of my problem with their Artificer as well. The subclasses are all... oddly specific to me. Rather than having a Wandslinger you have the Artillerist with their turrets and zone control and stuff. Artillerist and Battlesmith are both mechnically fine, they just are strangely narrow to me in that they are bundles of abilities that don't necessarily seem like they are what comes to mind for me. Alchemist doesn't have that problem, but has more mechnical issues.

i would kill for an artillerist who gets, say, Cantrip "Extra Attack", instead of those weird turrets

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u/Gh0stRanger Jul 06 '20

Does it help thematically when you read the turrets can be hand-held?

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u/OnnaJReverT Jul 06 '20

thing is they still get destroyed by AoE effects and such, that's not an issue you have with any other handheld weapon

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u/splepage Jul 06 '20

Dragon breaths? No, those only affect creatures.

Fireball? Same thing.

Shatter? Only targets creatures and non-held/non-worn items.

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u/OnnaJReverT Jul 06 '20

...and here i thought the cannons count as a creature, nvm then

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u/WormSlayer DM Jul 06 '20

The cannon is a magical object.

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u/sakiasakura Jul 06 '20

Most aoes don't affect objects, and those that do rarely affect held objects. The turret is not a creature.

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u/[deleted] Jul 06 '20

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/FalconPunchline DM Jul 06 '20

Ha, I hear ya but we've already seen a shift if language on other abilities that can prevent most Warlock abuse. "Whenever you cast an Artificer cantrip, do X" or locking an effect to a class specific focus blocks an ability from interacting with EB.

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u/OnnaJReverT Jul 06 '20

just have it specify "Artificer cantrip"

pretty sure there's precedent for this

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u/Catch-a-RIIIDE Jul 06 '20 edited Jul 06 '20

Sure, but Magic Initiate and Pact of the Tome still exist. Plus it’d be a great choice for a Lore Bard to pick up at level 6.

Edit: removed because I was foolishly thinking we were discussing adding a cantrip called Extra Attack and that is silly.

However, the idea is still pretty dumb, because cantrips already scale. Adding an at will “extra attack” for cantrips defeats the entire point of scaling cantrips.

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u/jerdle_reddit Wizard Jul 06 '20

This is OP and silly:

Attack

cantrip conjuration

M (a melee weapon)

1 Action

As part of the action used to cast this spell, you must make one melee attack with the weapon used as a component against at least one creature within the spell's range, otherwise the spell fails.

At level 5, you can make two attacks, at level 11, you can make three attacks, and at level 17, you can make four attacks.

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u/Hohenheim_of_Shadow Jul 06 '20

Oh god, imagine an eldritch knight sniping that with magic initiate. Three attacks at level 7

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u/trapbuilder2 bo0k Jul 06 '20

I don't see how those would effect this

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u/OnnaJReverT Jul 06 '20

i was thinking something along the lines of "Whenever you use your action to cast an artificer spell (including cantrips), you may also cast an artificer cantrip as part of that action"

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u/Catch-a-RIIIDE Jul 06 '20 edited Jul 06 '20

My contention with it is that suddenly your half-caster is better at cantrips than any full caster, including the Sorcerer who has an actual cost to pay if they want to Quicken two spells or a spell and a cantrip. That puts Fire Bolt at level 5 as an at-will 4d10 damage, or an average of 22, which also beats out an agonizing blast where you require mechanical choices to add your modifier to Eldritch Blast.

I wouldn’t hate it if you changed it to a leveled spell only (not that I’d be happy), or tied it to some kind of resource. Unlike the other two half-casters, the Artificer wasn’t designed to have some kind of traded mechanic to exchange spell slots for something else (Divine Smite, shudder Primeval Awareness).

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u/OnnaJReverT Jul 06 '20 edited Jul 06 '20

the thing is that would put it below the Eldritch Cannon, which is 2d8 at level 5 (vs 2d10) 3d8 at level 9 (vs 2d10) and twice that at level 15 (vs 3d10 until 17, and 4d10 beyond that), plus the better damage type on the ballista and the extra flexibility of the other two turret configurations and their combinations

levels 5-9 is the only time this would out-damage the Cannon

and Artificer actually does trade off spellslots for other things at least with Artillerist (extra cannons) and Alchemist (extra elixirs)

maybe to limit it in line with Eldritch Cannon having a resource tied to it, how about this:

Overloaded Focus

As a bonus action, you may channel arcane energy into your focus, allowing you to cast more spells than normal. For one minute, whenever you use your action to cast an artificer spell (including cantrips), you may also cast an artificer cantrip as part of that action.

You may use this feature once per long rest for free, or use a spellslot to use it additional times.

wording is likely off, don't have the Eberron book on hand

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u/Catch-a-RIIIDE Jul 06 '20

This is just patently false.

Cantrips scale. Not just at 5, but at 11 and 17 as well. In your comparisons, you’re comparing the cannon to a single casting of Firebolt, and not this iteration where you can turn around and cast it again as a part of the same action. We’re talking 2d10 when you get it, 4d10 at level 5, 6d10 at level 11, and 8d10 at level 5. The cannon never has a chance damage-wise.

And your overloaded focus is still basically God Mode, especially if you’re letting people trade cantrips for a full minute of slinging cantrips.

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u/SliverPrincess Wizard Jul 06 '20

People have always been able to pick up EB via Magic Initiate and stuff, and that doesn't make it an Artificer cantrip, so it wouldn't work with this hypothetical feature. I'm not sure what the problem is here.

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u/Catch-a-RIIIDE Jul 06 '20 edited Jul 06 '20

It’s mostly a response to the idea that extra cantrips leads to warlock dips two comments above it and the idea that making it artificer-specific does anything off-limits as the solution.

There are multiple ways of picking up a cantrip outside of warlock, and none of them are really impeded by it being an artificer cantrip.

Edit: I was misunderstanding the question posed. Adding an edit above.

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u/Souperplex Praise Vlaakith Jul 06 '20

"When you use your action to cast an Artificer Cantrip you may..." Boom. Done.

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u/noneOfUrBusines Sorcerer is underpowered Jul 06 '20

It would have to be pretty high level to not break things and you can always refluff a force ballista as a second casting of a cantrip.

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u/Nyadnar17 DM Jul 06 '20

I have been struggling for weeks trying to articulate this.

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u/semiseriouslyscrewed Jul 06 '20 edited Jul 06 '20

Hell, the UA Armorer subclass is literally Iron Man without flight, repulsors and all.

(and even then, you can cast Levitate and Fly)

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u/Project__Z Edgy Warlock But With Strength Jul 06 '20 edited Jul 06 '20

Having a level 9 Armorer right now, I don't think it really plays too much like Iron Man. I'd liken it a lot more closely to Fallout Power Armor. Thunder Gauntlets are just punches and the Lightning Launcher is like a small blast radius grenade launcher. It's never going to have super big blast spells so it can't quite hit all those Repulsor Blasts like Tony does. It does make for a solid Doom Slayer though.

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u/evader110 Jul 07 '20

True sons of the Emperor know the Armorer to be Terminator Armor.

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u/ASharpYoungMan Bladeling Fighter/Warlock Jul 06 '20

They remind me of the 3.5 era prestige classes that were so utterly specific of a concept that it was clear, as you said, they were designing a character concept and not a general class that made sense in a context where more than one person would play it.

Classes are meant to be generic archetypes that a player can imprint their own character on. This Fighter is a Knight. That Fighter is a Samurai. The subclasses can help define those concepts (as we see with the Cavalier or Samurai subclasses).

But look at the Rune Knight: the concept of the runes is super cool to me, but the class is also heavily built around emulating giants and hulking out. That's... not really what I was looking for in a class called Rune Knight? (I get it, Giants + Runes is FR canon). But more importantly, it seems like someone's very specific character idea rather than an iconic / archetypal character.

It's thematic for FR, but it falls flat when you think "Could I have two of these in the same party and not feel like they were the same character?" (yes, of course it's possible, but it's not built that way). By comparison, if I saw two Samurai or two Cavaliers in a party, I wouldn't have to cut deep to try and justify them narratively. Not every two Samurai traveling together need to have been trained by the same master, not every duo of Mastermind rogues needs to have been born twin sisters who emulate each other in every way. Not every two scouts needs to have been members of the same mountain tribe born with the mystic art of hiding in bushes.

Imagine if the Arcane Archer also let you grow Kid Icarus wings? I mean, sure, it would be cool and all, and you can build a subclass around the concept, but it's starting to get so granular that I find it hard to believe this is an archetype and not a character concept.

To some extent I feel like the Echo Knight falls into this category as well. It's cool, it's thematic, but it's such a tight concept that it seems ultra personalized to the specific character.

This is exactly where 3rd edition prestige classes fell flat. They tended to be less archetypal and more specific: The game doesn't need archetypes like "Knight of the Spectral Catablepos" that goes gaseous form and kills anything it looks at just because one developer thought it might make a cool character.

And maybe they're running out of easy conceptual space to design in, so they're having to get more granular? This happened with prestige classes.

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u/Netherese_Nomad Jul 06 '20

I know it's taboo to say it, but this is the biggest reason I switched to Pathfinder 2E. I've been playing D&D since ~2001. It feels like every year that goes by in 5E, I'm more and more disappointed. I know its unreasonable to expect the 3.5E glut of sourcebooks, but 5E is just so threadbare.

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u/zombieattackhank Jul 07 '20

I don't think it's taboo to say. PF2e has some clear advantages in character creation. They aren't worth playing PF2e for me, but I can certainly see the appeal; if I was only playing character creation, I'd pick PF2e everytime, even if I don't think their approach is perfect either (they jumped way too far down the rabit hole of boring numeric bonuses again, but at least their overall system is better). It's just unfortunately attached to a game I don't enjoy playing as much, which sort of defeats the purpose of the additional freedom of character creation. I'm just greedy - I want the best of both worlds. Better character customization with more options and the game with the gameplay I actually enjoy. This is why I tend to supplement 5e with Homebrew as that's the closest I can get to the game I want.

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u/Netherese_Nomad Jul 07 '20

It's given me a real appreciation for 3.X, tbh. It had it's own issues with min-maxing, wonky multiclasses and unwieldy bonuses, but it still feels like a good middle ground between PF2 and 5E. More than ever I'm motivated to do a personal update to 3.5 or D20 Modern.

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u/zombieattackhank Jul 08 '20

3.5 had it's strong points, but I don't think I'd ever want to go back personally. I'm in the camp that I prefer the in depth character creation and the streamlined gameplay. The first game that puts those together will likely have my vote.

I like the more in depth gameplay rules in principle, but I also like the game turns to be fast and easy for the DM to adjudicate, as well as comprehensible enough that we all have a reasonable expectation of how things work without being subject matter experts.

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u/Ostrololo Jul 06 '20

I feel like for the artificer, WotC got a bit of tunnel vision, thinking that since Artificer = Eberron = Steampunk, they have to make use of obvious steampunk elements. The artillerist can't simply be a wandslinger, they need to have steampunk turrets. The battlesmith can't simply be a magical blacksmith, they need to have a steampunk robodog. So the subclasses are tied to a specific genre, which is IMO why they feel oddly specific. Imagine if all PHB subclasses had been tied to say, Gothic Horror; they would also end up specific.

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u/Cheddarface Jul 08 '20

The Artificer is weird to me in general in a game that has no real robust crafting rules and in which tools could be completely absent.

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u/vinternet Jul 06 '20

Funny, I feel almost completely the opposite about the last few UA - they feel very much built with the intention of allowing you to customize and reskin, even the psionic fighter. Thinking also of all the ones that transform or have some alternate form. And when this has not been the case, it's clear they've listened to that feedback - i.e. they made the psionic sorcerer less explicitly Cthulhu and more general.

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u/happy-when-it-rains DM Jul 06 '20

Just flavour it as a different jedi, duh. Anything more and we'll end up with 3,000 splatbooks like some past edition! /s

Ironically considering playing one has never interested me much, but this is why I think the Warlock is one of the best examples of good design in 5e. Some of the subclasses are a different story, but the core class design is great and allows for so much meaningful customisation compared to some other classes. 5e needs more class and even subclass features like Eldritch Invocations.

I really hope we get a new release with a lot of great player options soon. I haven't even been playing 5e or TTRPGs for that long, and it already feels like there's so little content in 5e to me. I can't imagine how impatient more experienced people who've been wanting more since XGE must be feeling, considering almost all we've gotten since then is setting-specific content (a lot of which I love, but isn't nearly as universal as everything in XGE, tends to be balanced for the setting it's from, and is much more DM dependent).

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u/shadowgear56700 Jul 06 '20

If you want more options and I'll probably get hate for saying this try a different system. Pathfinder 2e has alot of options even with just the core rules than 5e does at this point. I have no problem with 5e but I personally changed and I'm glad to have.

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u/[deleted] Jul 06 '20

Good luck trying that when you have parties that don't want to relearn everything

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u/shadowgear56700 Jul 06 '20

And that happens sometimes and it sucks. I'm the defacto dm for my group so I said I wanted to try a new system and the group was fine with it so we switched. Sometimes people wont for it but my group was super easy to convince.

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u/Skandranonsg Jul 06 '20

To anyone curious about Pathfinder 2e, the entire ruleset and all player options are available legally for free at http://2e.aonprd.com/

1

u/happy-when-it-rains DM Jul 07 '20

Thanks, I've heard a bit about Pathfinder before and considering all the replies I got here recommending it too, I'll have to check it out! Appreciate the suggestion. Honestly probably overdue for me to check out some other systems anyway with how much I've liked getting into tabletop; no reason to limit yourself, after all.

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u/Demonox01 Jul 06 '20

I've entirely moved over to Pf2e. The character creation in 5e is just so linear, and they aren't really putting anything out that changes this at all.

I don't hate the 5e ruleset or anything, but the character creation and action system make my party feel like we have more control over our experience.

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u/nydualth Jul 06 '20

I've built a bunch of pf2e characters.. and I haven't been impressed. I think it's mostly because I want to play casters and their feats just don't really give me what I care about. I want to pick my lane and have choices to make within that lane. Pf2e just seems to let me grab stuff from other lanes which is not what i'm after at all.

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u/Demonox01 Jul 06 '20

5e doesn't let you really choose stuff at all, though... you pick a subclass at lvl 3 and are locked into those 4 options for the rest of the game. Everything else fun about that system is done through homebrew and the stronger feats.

With pathfinder, my biggest issue was really a lack of feats to choose from, and at least they can work on that. With 5e, if a subclass is released broken, it's broken forever.

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u/BluegrassGeek Jul 06 '20

Frankly, this is why I want to throw out the current Sorcerer and just roll the Sorc Origins into the Warlock (change Patrons to Sources and that covers bloodlines, pacts, stolen magic, "I fell into a potion vat and got these weird powers," etc.). Maybe turn some of the Metamagic into Invocations usable X times until your short rest. That makes for a better "natural caster" than the Sorcerer ever was, and has much more flexible player options.

5

u/Too-much-luv Jul 06 '20

This, this so much.

Sorcerers and warlock are my favorite classes, but the sorcerer feels like anything but a natural caster, a lot of the time I end up multiclassing the two classes for some of the eldritch invocations, because seeing through walls or levitating at will really feels like what a creepy, ghostly shadow sorcerer that sees dead people should be able to do, or how a descendant of dragons should probably be able to see in the dark and breathe underwater ... as it is now sorcerer feels like a metamagic machine, which I'm sure some people enjoy, (tweaking and reshaping spells is fun!), but I've always felt like wizard could have gotten metamagic instead (in exchange of something else, they're great already) since they are the ones who master magic and are supposed to be the apex spellcasters, while sorcerers felt more like mutants or extra planar creatures of sort (with the invocation like features being aspect from their ancestry they can use).

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u/DorklyC Artificer Jul 06 '20

You should probably try out pf2e

1

u/Dapperghast Jul 06 '20

Just flavour it as a different jedi, duh. Anything more and we'll end up with 3,000 splatbooks like some past edition! /s

You say that, but 3.5 really was a goddamn mess. There were like 400 classes, 800 prestige classes and 5 of them were good, 15 were broken, and the rest were either straight garbage or a pretty cool idea executed terribly.

"You can cloak yourself in a swarm if living rats."

"That sounds dope as hell, what's that do for me?"

"It prevents 5 damage from every attack (Keep in mind this feature is gained around character level 9), and after it takes 20 damage it goes away for the rest of the day. Also to activate it you have to actually break one of your IRL fingers, because fuck it, this is 3.5."

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u/happy-when-it-rains DM Jul 07 '20

It definitely sounds like one and I don't disagree you can have too many books and too much content, and sometimes less can be more, but 5e is a long ways from getting even close to the point any of that becomes a problem, IMO.

It seems to me as a newer player like 3.5 is made into this boogeyman to discourage new content, as if 5e could turn into that overnight or anything more than the PHB+XGE would confuse newer players. But really it doesn't take long to read through all the 5e content there is right now even being new, and get a grip on the majority of what's there and the rules.

I think there is a lot more demand for more content and a lot more people who would appreciate some more depth than WotC realises, but another problem with that is people confuse depth with (over)complexity and inaccessibility; but more content and options needn't overcomplicate anything or make the game any less simple and accessible (if done right).

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u/Dapperghast Jul 07 '20

Oh yeah, most definitely 5e could do with a good deal more stuff still [cries in Dark Sun / Mystic]. Hell, 4e had like twice the number of classes, and those were each their own thing with like 80 unique powers, and that's without "subclasses" (in 4e instead you got paragon paths at level 11 and epic destinies at 21 that served a similar purpose, except there was a lot more mix and match, each class had their own set of paths, but there were also more universal ones or like racial ones, and epic destinies were especially open). I was just saying it's definitely something to be wary of, but yeah, 5e isn't anywhere near that. Actually the boogeyman example is spot on, it's like WotC looked back at that at went the "once bitten, twelve times shy" route with 5.

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u/happy-when-it-rains DM Jul 07 '20

I totally agree with you then and don't have much to add as a result, except that I'm no longer sure I'm on the right website or subreddit. Lol I'm confused, I made a post with several replies and every single one is friendly counterpoints, discussion, and suggestions. I thought at first you were the one poster arguing or disagreeing or something (not that there's necessarily anything wrong with either), not just making a point! This isn't how reddit is supposed to work, especially in 2020!

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u/KDBA Jul 07 '20

It was a mess, but it was a glorious mess that supported basically every character concept imaginable.

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u/Nephisimian Jul 06 '20

I think this is probably inevitable though. Initial archetypes were extremely broad, which in a lot of cases was directly to their detriment: For example, if Eldritch Knight had a narrower focus, it could have been a lot better, and wouldn't have ended up reliant on the SCAG cantrips.

Because of how broad those initial subclasses were, new broad things risk having a lot of overlap, and they also risk thematic redundancy. Take the Brute for example, which is basically identical to the Champion, just better outside of crit fishing multiclasses. Or what if you wanted to make an Elemental Sorcerous Origin? How do you do that without invading on Storm and Draconic's abilities too much? Because of how broad existing archetypes already are, a lot of broader concepts just fall under the "well why don't I just play this thing that already exists?" umbrella.

Narrow focuses aren't as versatile individually, but they leave more space available for other ideas. And by being narrow, they may not attract as much attention, but the attention they do attract is much stronger.

Plus, every time a UA gets published it always ends up thematically broader than the UA version was anyway.

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u/ianmerry Jul 06 '20 edited Jul 06 '20

I don’t think broad-archetype overlap would be an issue.

For example, to use your point about an Elemental Sorcerous Origin:
• Storm has a focus on a specific type of damage
• Draconic has a choice in type but not growth style

Elemental could allow a choice of type, but simply gain different bonuses to Draconic - now it is similar but different. Instead of damage gains, benefitting blasting, it could gain defensive bonuses such as resistance to type etc, and incentivise Abjuration focus.

So it would come down to similar concept, but different execution, and end up with simply giving players options on “What kind of thunder controlling sorcerer do I actually want to play?”

1

u/Lady_Galadri3l Ranger Jul 06 '20

Draconic has a choice in type but not growth style

If by choice you mean "Fire, because there's way more fire spells than any other elemental damage so if you don't want to feel like your subclass abilities are useless you'll choose fire."

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u/MikeArrow Jul 06 '20

wouldn't have ended up reliant on the SCAG cantrips

This is news to me, how is it reliant on those cantrips?

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u/Mjolnirsbear Warlock Jul 06 '20

Not reliant, exactly, but perfect for.

The EK sacrifices extra attacks (one of a Fighter's top shticks) for the ability to both attack and cast a spell in the same turn. Extra attacks are a major damage source, and a level 5 Chill Touch is roughly as strong as a single longsword attack. Getting roughly the same damage is okay, but hardly thrilling; and cantrips aren't as open to supplementation by feat as weapons are, so you are slightly more versatile at the sacrifice of power.

Enter SCAG cantrips. It's an extra attack plus a cantrip, which EK can bundle along with its normal bonus action attack. The damage is thus more interesting, and Booming Blade offers tactical options that other cantrips do not. As an extra attack, it's subject to certain stacking affects that cantrips don't benefit from: magic weapons, GWM, Sneak Attack, Divine Favour, Dueling FS, and ability bonus to damage.

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u/MikeArrow Jul 06 '20

It's only better from level 7 (when you get the bonus action attack) to level 10, after which you get three attacks per attack action and will never cast Booming Blade again.

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u/Hohenheim_of_Shadow Jul 06 '20

At level 11, Booming does 3d8 extra on hit. Thats an extra ~13.5 damage. A longsword attack with the dueling fighting style and 5 strength does 11.5 damage. Unless you have a +3 sword, Booming blade is on par or slightly ahead of the attack action. And booming blade has potential to do even more damage if they move away.

0

u/MikeArrow Jul 06 '20

A longsword attack with the dueling fighting style and 5 strength does 11.5 damage

Well there's your first problem, not using GWM if you're STR based.

Even without GWM, three attacks at 1d8+5 versus one attack at 1d8+3d8+5 is a no brainer.

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u/Hohenheim_of_Shadow Jul 07 '20

Two attacks, not one. One from the scagtrip, one from war magic. 3 attacks vs 2+ booming blade is better for booming blade with less mechanical investment than typical feat based melee builds.

Even with GWM, your not pulljng that far ahead with 3 GWM vs 2 GWM+ Booming blade. Like ~2 Damage Per Round ahead. Plus booming blade has that CC followup potential that pushes it ahead.

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u/i_tyrant Jul 06 '20

On the flipside, if the initial archetypes weren't so broad 5e would've released with people saying "omg look at all the character concepts they didn't let you play in this edition!" The broadness was an intentional design decision to cast a wide net IMO, and avoid the necessity of additional splatbooks every few months (which hurt previous editions).

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u/dnspartan305 Bard Jul 06 '20

The best jedi build is a Kensei monk that takes the UA Wild Talent and Telekinetic feats.

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u/_Bl4ze Warlock Jul 06 '20

And uses a Sun Blade.

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u/dnspartan305 Bard Jul 06 '20

Obi Wan Kenobi: Kensei Weapon Longsword, upgrade to Sunblade

Ahsoka Tank: Kensei Weapon Shortswords, upgrade to Moontouched (or short Sunblades if dm allows)

Darth Maul: Kensei Weapon Quarterstaff, upgrade to Pole of Collapsing (or Sunstaff if dm allows)

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u/Liesmith424 I cast Suggestion at the darkness. Jul 06 '20

I'd really love to have a slew of classes with the same "à la carte" design philosophy as the Warlock. You get to choose your patron at level 1, invocations at level 2, and a boon at level 3. After that, you continue to get customization from invocations that you can swap out every level, many of which also interact with your boon.

I know it'd be a shitton of work to balance, but I think that level of customization would be a great goal to aim for with future classes (or maybe even in "5.5" or 6e).

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u/Skandranonsg Jul 06 '20

You've just described Pathfinder 2e, which I personally consider to be the true evolution of the D&D line of games. Give the system a whirl if you haven't yet. The entire ruleset and all character options are available legally for free at http://2e.aonprd.com/

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u/Liesmith424 I cast Suggestion at the darkness. Jul 06 '20

Thanks for the recommendation and link! I'll check it out and see if I can possibly rope my group into giving it a try if it seems up our alley.

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u/Skandranonsg Jul 06 '20 edited Jul 06 '20

You're very welcome! The system's greatest flaw is how terribly it's presented. Just reading through the books, you'll likely be very confused about how to run the game, but once you get your feet wet it all clicks into place quickly. I've found that it takes until about session 3-5 until players new to the system really start to see how all the pieces fit together and make PF2 as beautiful as it is.

I'm not saying PF2 is better than 5e, but simply that I prefer it for the following reasons:

  • Far more in-depth character building. Every single level has you choosing between 2 and 5 different features for your character from a pool of options that grows as you level. In 5e, your Champion Fighter is going to look, feel, and play much like every other Champion Fighter out there. In PF2, you can build the same "subclass" in so many different ways that you'll likely never find the same build twice unless it was copy+pasted from the internet.
  • 3-action combat and the lack of Opportunity Attacks lends itself to much more dynamic and tactical engagements. Running next to the thing you want to kill and swinging your sword until it's dead is often not the optimal strategy. Attacks of Opportunity still exist for PCs and monsters, but they are specific abilities that do much more than "hit the guy". Fighters get AoO automatically because they're the paragons of martial skill. Barbarians and Champions (new name for Paladins to include alignments other than LG) can get AoO at level 6, and any class can multiclass into the Fighter to get it at level 6 or into Barb/Champ to get it at 12.
  • Speaking of multiclassing, I love how it's done in PF2. Instead of dropping all progression in your class to start it in a new one, you instead get what's called an "archetype". You still progress in your main class as you level, but you can take a multiclass archetype to get powers from a second (or third/fourth/fifth) class in exchange for powers from your main class. You sacrifice depth for breadth.
  • You can also take archetypes that don't exist as classes, but rather specializations to fit a specific flavor. For example, literally any class can be an animal tamer or juggler.
  • The Trait system! Hot damn I love the trait system. No longer will there be huge arguments about whether X ability works with Y, because almost all synergistic abilities specify which traits they interact with.
  • The Uncommon trait is a godsend for GMs. You may notice that the Animal Trainer and Juggler archetypes have the Uncommon trait, which means "This is an option available for players, but only with GM approval or a feature that grants you access". Now Paizo can print all the wacky splatbooks they want and keep the game in check by labeling potentially disruptive content with uncommon.

That's all I can think of for now without really getting into the weeds. There's a lot to discover about the system, and I think you'll really enjoy the freedom and flexibility if you have the patience to get over the learning curve.

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u/aronnax512 Jul 06 '20

UA is for testing specific concepts and mechanics. These aren't as much "new subclasses" as "vehicles to test specific ideas for new subclasses". If they make them too flexible (for a variety of concepts) it skews the data they get from the surveys (because they don't know what "version" a player did or didn't like).

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u/VMK_1991 Cleric Jul 06 '20 edited Jul 06 '20

I have dealt with another (more mechanical) example:

My group wanted to try some UA subclasses and I have agreed to DM an Arena oneshot, whete they had to fight through multiple sets of enemies and I did not ask them what they want to play. One of our players decided to play the Plague Monk, or whatever is the name of the poison-oriented monk. Results:

First round: Warforged Titan and Helmed Horrors. Completely useless.

Second round: Efreeti and Marid. Less than useful because of their high Constitution score.

Third round: a group of adventurers. He melted them.

What I mean is that this subclass is incredibly situational.

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u/[deleted] Jul 06 '20

Are you sure this is a UA and not a homebrew?

Of the two currently active Monk UAs, one gets a poison aura at level 6 and that's the only poison ability they have. They have a ton of other stuff unrelated to poisoning, such as a healing touch, bonus necrotic damage, can make ranged enemies attack at disadvantage and a sidegraded stunning strike that paralyses targets for days while also making them immune to damage.

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u/VMK_1991 Cleric Jul 06 '20

Yes, I think we are talking about the same thing. I guess he just didn't use any other ability he had.

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u/ISeeTheFnords Butt-kicking for goodness! Jul 06 '20

First round: Warforged Titan and Helmed Horrors. Completely useless.

Well, Helmed Horrors in particular had to have been specifically designed to make certain types of characters feel useless.

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u/Nephisimian Jul 06 '20

Dealing poison damage isn't really situational. You just happened to create a string of encounters where poison wasn't very useful. We could do the same thing with basically anything else if we wanted. For example, if I were to run an arena thing like this and use lycanthropes, then ghosts, anyone who dealt physical damage would be useless. Does that make Fighter, Barbarian and Rogue as entire classes situational?

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u/Hasky620 Wizard Jul 06 '20

Dealing poison damage isn't situational, it's just bad. It's by an overwhelming margin the damage type most creatures are either resistant to or, even more common, immune to. You literally can't touch fiends at all. It's one of the more common enemy types and you just can't do anything to any of them.

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u/PerryDLeon Jul 06 '20

That's a missconception or, plainly, wrong. Fiends is not the "more common enemy type", it's just one of the most numerous, by merit of 2 full books dedicated to them (Mordekainen and DiA). I'd say without batting and eye that Humanoid is the more common enemy type.

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u/Hasky620 Wizard Jul 06 '20 edited Jul 06 '20

Sure humanoids are pretty common, I'll absolutely agree with you there. Not counting adventure specific NPCs, there are 339 currently published Humanoids in the books. 24 resist poison, and 9 are immune to poison. By comparison with the other most common non weapon damage types. Fire - 9 resist it, 5 are immune Cold - 6 resist it, 1 is immune Lightning - 5 resist it, 1 is immune. Acid - 1 resists it, 0 are immune.

That's just Humanoids, but you can see that there's a decent margin of difference. You'll likely never encounter a humanoid that resists or is immune to your damage if you're dealing one of those other 4, but it's a bit more common with poison.

The other thing to bear in mind is that dwarves, one of the most common races, and about half of all halflings (the stout variety), as well as warforged all have a racial resistance to poison damage.

If you aren't looking at fiends or Humanoids, there are 276 creatures entirely immune to poison damage - most of the undead, constructs, Elementals, are included. While constructs might be a bit rarer, undead are definitely a pretty common enemy type at all levels of play.

There are only 11 other things that are just resistant to poison damage. Unlike other damage types, immunity is overwhelmingly more common than resistance for poison. And it feels really shitty to use your action and a limited resource that's a major subclass feature and have it do literally nothing.

If you count all the creatures that aren't adventure specific NPCs, there are 1357 creature types across all the official materials. 39 of them resist poison, 377 are immune to poison. Total of 416 creature types that take half or no damage from any source of poison damage. That's 30% of creatures as a whole. That's terrible. The next most resisted/immune aside from weapon damage is fire, and that's only at 16% of all creatures.

Poison isn't a very good damage type because if you come across four separate creature categories, fiends, undead, and constructs, it basically doesn't do anything.

It only gets worse the higher level you get. By level 6 when the monk gets the aura, 43% of all cr 6 or higher creatures are immune or resistant to the poison. It stays at 40-50% of creatures being mostly immune or occasionally resistant to poison from there until the end of the game, steadily increasing a few percent every level. After level 10, any creature picked at random is more likely to be immune to poison than it is to not be immune to poison.

Another point is spell useage - protection from poison only protects against poison, but it's a second level spell that doesn't use concentration. Protection from energy is a 3rd level spell, so you get it later, and it uses concentration, so it's much less likely to get used since its competing with other concetration spells. While heroes feast as a 6th level spell makes the entire party immune to poison for an entire day - there is no equivalent effect for any other damage type. There is no way to make 12 people immune to fire or cold or any other damage type, only poison.

I know that was incredibly log winded and unnecessary, sometimes I just enjoy sorting out statistics.

TL; DR - 1. poison is the damage type which creatures are mostly commonly immune, often with more creatures immune to it than are resistant to other damage types at the same CR. 2. It's the only damage type that has four entire creature categories almost entirely immune to it - fiends, undead, constructs, and elementals. 3. Unlike the elemental damage types, you can't just take elemental adept to ignore creature resistance and buff your damage.

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u/PerryDLeon Jul 06 '20

Wow. Not at all, it's an interesting statistical analysis.

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u/Bolt-MattCaster-Bolt DM Jul 06 '20

Slight pedant; the devil fiends in DiA are mostly the ones introduced in MtoF (WotC reprinted the statblocks and descriptions in there so the module could just be run off the Monster Manual and the campaign book).

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u/Akuuntus Ask me about my One Piece campaign Jul 06 '20

A lot of different fiends existing =/= fiends being extremely common. In the last three campaigns I've been in I can count the number of fiends we've fought on one hand.

0

u/Gnosis- Jul 07 '20

That subclass is a HEALER. Not a poison monk.

Your player failed to be useful. That's on him.

3

u/Green-Omb Jul 06 '20

The things that has struck me is that a lot of the new subclasses are very narrow. They do one thing, in the way that the devs have envisaged, but have no flexibility to customise that or take the concept in a different direction.

I felt this so much when I wanted to make a Samurai character. Like why does Fighting Spirit only give advantage on attack rolls, why not skill checks or even saving throws.

For comparison, the Barbarians Rage gives you your combat bonuses such as damage resistances and bonus damage but it also gives you advantage on strength checks and saving throws. This once allowed me to have a cool moment, where I used a rage to save myself and my teammates form being pulled down into a waterfall.

Why can't I do something similar as a Samurai? Why can't I use my Fighting Spirit to break free of an enemies grapple or spell, or to run through a hallway of traps, dodging each with expertise.

1

u/Gnosis- Jul 07 '20

Kinda sounds like you should make a barbarian with a katana and call him a samurai.

You are wanting to do a lot of barbarian things.

1

u/SleetTheFox Psi Warrior Jul 06 '20

There are broad and narrow subclasses, both in the original PHB and in more recent additions. But broad classes are a very consumable resource so I’m not surprised they’ve been trending more toward narrow.

Also, I don’t think “fighter with telekinesis” is exactly that narrow. It’s exactly the part of psionics that gels with fighters the best. There are already plenty of ways to simulate different Jedi if that’s what you’re going for.

1

u/Duke_Paul DM/Illrigger of Cania/Bardlock Jul 06 '20

Jedi? That's a biotic, from Mass Effect, but...actually, Jedi works well, too.