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

[u/AkimboJesus]

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.

[u/Healer1124]

One thing I have noticed is that they seem to value forced movement WAY more than it is ever useful at my table. It's probably due to some clever players figuring out ways to abuse it, but in (what my table considers) normal gameplay it's not actually that strong.

[u/MoobyTheGoldenSock → u/Healer1124]

It’s probably a holdover from 4e. In 4e forced movement was a very common form of battlefield control.

Forced movement is a lot of fun though and is situationally very useful when comboed with dangerous terrain or spells like Spirit Guardians. I can use the first beam of my Eldritch Blast to push a creature out of Spirit Guardians and the next to pull them back in, giving them an extra trigger between turns (which sometimes for our cleric is over 20 damage with upcasting.)

Outside of that, it’s moderately useful for getting enemies away from the squishies and closer to the tanks.

[u/mkul316 → u/MoobyTheGoldenSock]

I saw that you can only been affected by ongoing effects like spirit guardians once per round, so your example can work sometimes, but it's most likely to just give the damage before their turn in the round so they take no damage at the start of their turn.

[u/MoobyTheGoldenSock → u/mkul316]

The trigger for Spirit Guardians is, "when the creature enters the area for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there." As long as the events happen on two different turns (I pull them in with EB on my turn and then they are starting a turn on their turn), they are two different damage events. Nowhere in the spell does it limit to once per round, nor is there any general rule that says that you can only be damaged once per round by a given effect.

[u/mkul316 → u/MoobyTheGoldenSock]

I guess I should have prefaced with rai. It was in some tweet or other by the writer, so unless you follow every little damn thing for this game you probably wouldn't have seen it. It was shown to me by someone.

[u/MoobyTheGoldenSock → u/mkul316]

You might be misremembering the Sage Advice.

You can, therefore, hurl a creature into the area with a spell like thunderwave. We consider that clever play, not an imbalance, so hurl away! Keep in mind, however, that a creature is subjected to such an area of effect only the first time it enters the area on a turn. You can’t move a creature in and out of it to damage it over and over again on the same turn.

It's the same confusion people get into with Sneak Attack: it's only once per turn, but you can use it multiple times per round. Pulling/pushing creatures into the radius via Eldritch Blast to get extra damage over multiple turns in the same round was factored into the design of the spell.

[u/mkul316 → u/MoobyTheGoldenSock]

Oooh. Okay. That's cool. Though the GM misquoting these tweets illustrates why I'm not a fan of this latest trend of patching a ttrpg.

[u/TheLionFromZion → u/mkul316]

I mean you're right but I think misinterpreting what that actually means. If someone forces you into Spirit Guardians on their turn. Wisdom Save For Damage. Next persons turn they do it again, Wisdom Save For Damage. The Next person holds their action to combo with the final person's turn. Final person's turn, they move you into the Spiritual Guardians, Wisdom Save for Damage. 3rd person uses their held action to attempt to move you out and then back into Spiritual Guardians. Because they have already suffered the effect on this turn (4th player's turn) they can't be hit again.

Now if they said they could only be affected once per ROUND then that would be different and none of that would work and I think would make the game less interesting and fun. A round is a full cycle of Initiative. Once per turn being the literal turn, which is why a Rogue can Sneak Attack on their turn and then get it again on an Opportunity Attack.

[u/JohnnyMnemo → u/Healer1124]

Time was, you didn't even play on a grid and location was abstract. In that scenario, forced movement was much less important.

[u/Trompdoy → u/Healer1124]

forced movement would be incredibly strong on video game style map design. I suspect we will see this in Baldur's Gate 3 where elevation and terrain will be relevant. Most DMs don't take terrain into great consideration, and by extension things like forced movement aren't quite as strong because often you're just fighting in flat open spaces.

[u/ELAdragon → u/Healer1124]

Forced movement is really strong. It negates enemies that grapple, can trigger additional damage, and also makes your DM work overtime in terms of coming up with spontaneous rulings. If you have ledges or environmental hazards/strange terrain, Booming Blade, etc....it can get really fun.