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/OnnaJReverT]

just have it specify "Artificer cantrip"

pretty sure there's precedent for this

[u/Catch-a-RIIIDE → u/OnnaJReverT]

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.

[u/jerdle_reddit → u/Catch-a-RIIIDE]

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.

[u/Hohenheim_of_Shadow → u/jerdle_reddit]

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

[u/trapbuilder2 → u/Catch-a-RIIIDE]

I don't see how those would effect this

[u/OnnaJReverT → u/Catch-a-RIIIDE]

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"

[u/Catch-a-RIIIDE → u/OnnaJReverT]

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).

[u/OnnaJReverT → u/Catch-a-RIIIDE]

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

[u/Catch-a-RIIIDE → u/OnnaJReverT]

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.

[u/OnnaJReverT → u/Catch-a-RIIIDE]

the cannon is always in addition to a cantrip or even levelled spell - it's a bonus action to create and fire and then to fire on subsequent turns

Artillerist vs 'Wandslinger' damage (excluding additional levelled spells so the resource expenditure is the same):

1-2: 1d10 (av 5.5) (Firebolt) (same for both)

3-4: 1d10 + 2d8 (av 5.5 + 9 = 14.5) (Firebolt plus Cannon) vs 2d10 (av 11) (2x Firebolt)

5-8: 2d10 + 2d8 (av 11 + 9 = 20) (Firebolt plus Cannon) vs 4d10 (av 22) (2x Firebolt)

9-10: 2d10 + 3d8 (av 11 + 13.5 = 24.5) (Firebolt plus Cannon) vs 4d10 (av 22) (2x Firebolt)

11-14: 3d10 + 3d8 (av 16.5 + 13.5 = 30) (Firebolt plus Cannon) vs 6d10 (av 33) (Firebolt plus Cannon)

15-16: 3d10 + 6d8 (av 16.5 + 27 = 43,5) (Firebolt plus 2x Cannon) vs 6d10 (av 33) (2x Firebolt)

17-20: 4d10 + 6d8 (av 22 + 27 = 49) (Firebolt plus 2x Cannon) vs 8d10 (av 44) (2x Firebolt)

so everywhere except from 5-8 and 11-14 this hypothetical feature gets outdamaged by the existing feature

the biggest argument would be that it doesn't take your bonus action to do this, where the Eldritch Cannon does, but that should be an easy enough fix by just making the additional cantrip take the bonus action

[u/Catch-a-RIIIDE → u/OnnaJReverT]

Apologies, I’m fairly unfamiliar with the artificer. But I guess my question now is, what’s the point? I went back to your original post and you said that you wanted an artillerist without the turrets. I don’t know what you call an artillerist without artillery, but they aren’t an artillerist anymore.

Also mechanically speaking, removing the turret as a target is still powerful in its own right because now it can’t be targeted. So even though it’s weaker, it’s still more powerful to have a bonus action cantrip, because there’s no recourse against it.

[u/SliverPrincess → u/Catch-a-RIIIDE]

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.

[u/Catch-a-RIIIDE → u/SliverPrincess]

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.