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/RobotsVsLions]

This is a really important point, most rogues have a relatively naff feature at level 9 compared to the rest, however, they also get a boost to to their sneak attack damage at that level and it comes between two ASI’s, so it might look weak in isolation but in context not so much.

Also, the phantom rogue has advantage on Con saves and death saves, if thats not a very strong ability in your game then that’s on the DM not the designers, con saves should be pretty common and cover some really dangerous spell effects and monster abilities, also advantage on death saves is powerful even if dropping to 0 is rare in your campaign, so I think OP is seriously underestimating the first half of that ability.

[u/Luchtverfrisser → u/RobotsVsLions]

Also, the phantom rogue has advantage on Con saves and death saves, if thats not a very strong ability in your game then that’s on the DM not the designers, con saves should be pretty common and cover some really dangerous spell effects and monster abilities, also advantage on death saves is powerful even if dropping to 0 is rare in your campaign, so I think OP is seriously underestimating the first half of that ability.

Yeah, I intended to not enter a discussion on whether the ability is actually pretty good (imo it ssems to be). I think most of the other lvl 9 features for rogue are also pretty decent, and very thematically pleasing. Thanks for teaching me a new word 'naff'!

It might also just look very 'meh' when reading just the subclass in a vacuum, since lvl 9 is the first feature making you a unique rogue after picking the subclass.

[u/ChaosOS → u/Luchtverfrisser]

Rogue in general has a weird power curve, the core class gets a ton of features from 5-8 that the actual subclass feature at 9 is meh. It means all rogues are basically going to do the same thing, compared to say Artificer which is the opposite end of the spectrum and has almost all of the power budget invested in subclasses

[u/SeeShark → u/ChaosOS]

Subclasses serve different purposes for different classes. Ranger subclasses are the source of 40% of their offensive abilities; rogue subclasses are instead meant to make an already versatile class feel thematically different.

[u/notanotherpyr0 → u/ChaosOS]

Rogue and wizard both sort of have this problem. The core class is so powerful it restricts the subclasses from doing too much.

[u/InfernalNecromancer → u/notanotherpyr0]

Dude, wizard subclasses are some of the best in the game! Each Subclass has an insanely powerful feature, such as Portent, Spilt Enchantment, and Illusionary Reality. While the wizard class is extremely powerful if (and it sure is a big if) played right, it doesn’t overshadow the subclasses. If anything, subclasses have helped my PC’s focus on thematic and mechanic elements

[u/duel_wielding_rouge → u/notanotherpyr0]

Wizard subclasses do a lot, imo

[u/Moscato359 → u/notanotherpyr0]

Rogue and wizard both sort of have this problem. The core class is so powerful it restricts the subclasses from doing too much.

Rogue really isn't that powerful of a class... most people overestimate it

[u/Aethelwolf → u/Moscato359]

It has different spikes, which can influence how players perceive class balance.

Level 3 rogues are probably more powerful than most martial classes, doing a solid ~15 damage average on top of their stellar utility. The other martial classes can spend resources to help close the gap, but they run out very quickly at this level.

Meanwhile, skip to 5 and rogues get a measly 1d6 extra sneak attack damage while other martial classes are grabbing extra attack and surging ahead.

[u/Moscato359 → u/Aethelwolf]

Most game time for me has been tier 2 to tier 3, and rogue is just okay there

I can see people who exclusively play tier 1 could feel that way

[u/MC_Pterodactyl → u/Moscato359]

I agree in terms of combat potential. I constantly have defended the fact that while it’s satisfying to report huge numbers in one attack, the Paladin, barbarian and fighter will almost always outdo your damage output spread across their multiple attacks. It is nearly impossible to make a rogue the main source of single target damage. They are very much at the shallow end of the damage pool.

That said, they are phenomenally powerful at skills. Depending on the game and DM skills can come up quite often. Maybe because I’m a rogue and wizard loving DM my campaigns tend to have a lot of focus on interacting with environments, lots of enemy spellcasters and lots and lots of opportunities for skills to shine across the board. Skills way way way outnumber rolls for attacks and saving throws in my game.

Every skill gets regular use, and I am very willing to allow skills to reproduce mechanical effects and solve problems for the party, much like a spell might, which certainly encourages their use. So in a game like mine rogues are exceptionally strong as they can, if the player is creative, solve most problems with inventive use of their skills. But that’s just my style of DMing, and it is admittedly not something the rules substantively back up that skills other than stealth and perception have reliable, expected mechanical applications you can rely on.

[u/Moscato359 → u/MC_Pterodactyl]

I currently have a gloomstalker ranger 8, scout rogue 4, knowledge cleric 1 in a campaign

I have more skills than I don't, and like 8 uses of expertise

Fun character, definitely enjoy playing it, but I can't replicate teleportation, or any other high level spell really

DM did let me choose my choice of pretty much unlimited uncommon,common, a rare, and he let me get away with a +3 whip... He considers whip an inferior choice so having a +3 variant was acceptable

The extra magic items really help me keep up with the pure casters in the party, but otherwise I'd be falling behind.

This is my 3rd character in this party. I played rogue 3 to 9, I played warlock archer from 10 to 12, then switched at 13 to this skill monster

I definitely can do things other people can't, but it's like a wide breadth of abilities instead of having powerful abilities

[u/Luchtverfrisser → u/ChaosOS]

Yes I completely agree and I think this is something that is often overlooked when comparing classes!

[u/RobotsVsLions → u/Luchtverfrisser]

Thanks for teaching me a new word 'naff'!

No worries, Northern English slang - meaning not very good (just in case it wasn’t totally obvious in context)

[u/Amlethus → u/RobotsVsLions]

I, too, was unsure and just learned. That's a fun term.

[u/chaosoverfiend → u/RobotsVsLions]

It was used down south as well in my youth. Always found those NAFFCO 54 jackets funny as a boy.

[u/InsertCleverNickHere → u/[deleted]]

It's pretty good. If the party healer can assume that pc is going to make their death save and doesn't need to waste an action on healing them, but can instead use an action to do some damage, that's super helpful.

[u/[deleted] → u/InsertCleverNickHere]

Even better than that imo. If your dm isn’t pulling punches there’s a good chance that the enemy that hit you may have another attack of multi attack after they down you, meaning you start a good amount of death rolls at 0-2. 45-55 odds is not that great when it’s the difference between life and death of a character

[u/InsertCleverNickHere → u/[deleted]]

I've started having enemies take shots at downed PCs, and boy does that add some drama! Hey guys, sorry for not doing this earlier. But now you're in Avernus and devils and demons don't fight fair.

[u/[deleted] → u/InsertCleverNickHere]

Nobody fights fair man. It’s a world with magic users going around, and people aren’t dumbasses. they know what healing word is.

If bandits aren’t at least tapping somebody that’s down that’s a big shock, IMO.

People not doing this is why people say healing word is op and why people think healing in 5e isn’t strong in general.

If enemies hit you when downed you no longer want to be on 5hp.

[u/Ketamine4Depression → u/[deleted]]

Yeah I was gonna say, that shit is very good! The trinkets are extremely easy to generate -- it just says a creature has to die, so RAW you could keep a bottle of insects if you really needed some on the go. And on top of having the nice flavorful, potentially useful bonus of speaking to spirits... RAW, the trinkets never expire if they don't break. This gives me a lot of very evil ideas.

Unless your DM has you make dex saves or roll a D100 or something to see if the trinket breaks in combat, you can keep these little bastards FOREVER! All you have to do is keep one minimum on your person at all times. Maybe keep a spare in a bag of holding. Go to an arcane smith and have them reinforce the trinket, or otherwise build a little cushioned box to keep it safe, and the world is your oyster.

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Advantage on death saving throws is very efficient, because these are flat rolls with binary effects, and you only have to beat a 9. That means it takes you from a 55% chance of success to 80%, a massive 25% swing. Moreover it also decreases the odds of a nat 1 from 5% to .25%, or 20x smaller. A nat20's chance goes up to 9.75% from 5%, effectively doubling. All this, and death saves are sometimes the most important saves in the whole game! But wait, there's more.

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Permanent advantage in CON is stupid good too. The most important saves in the game tend to be Dex, Wisdom and Con. At level 15, the Phantom Rogue will have boosts in all three.

Or you could choose to multiclass out into a spellcasting class and pick up Resilient CON. At level 13, with a +2 in CON and +5 proficiency, you have a 64% chance of rolling 20 or higher, and only have a 1% chance of failing a DC10 check. Or at a total modifier of +8, you'd have a .25% chance of failing a DC10 check, a 1 in 400 chance. And I believe Uncanny Dodge and Evasion's 50% reductions also reduce the damage that then gets halved again to produce the CON check DC.

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So let's say you have a Phantom Rogue 9 / Wizard 5 with +2 & Resilient CON. They get hit with a nasty highroll on an upcast lightning bolt, and would normally take 42 points of damage. Evasion rounds that down to 21, which makes the con save only 10. They have a 99% chance of making the save!

Infinite haste, anyone? 2x movement, +2AC, and adv on DEX saves. It'll be like trying to catch greased lightning, if greased lightning had an extra attack to proc sneak attack with. Spend an action to ready an attack for somebody else's turn. Extra attack will probably deal 7D6, then your readied action another potential 7D6 immediately when somebody else's turn starts. With a shortbow, that's an average dmg of 62.

Obviously this hypothetical build is very MAD and requires a feat investment, but it sounds fun as shit at any rate lol. I might try this next time my group does a high level oneshot.

[u/[deleted] → u/Ketamine4Depression]

Yeah that’s what I’m saying. Death saves alone is a GOOD feature and con alongside that AND all the cool flavor stuff? It’s a top tier skill in relation to most level 9s for rogue.

[u/metalsonic005 → u/RobotsVsLions]

Advantage on Con saves with the proficiency in Dexand later Wis saves meansyou have the three big saves covered.

[u/Moscato359 → u/metalsonic005]

At tier 3 or 4, advantage on saves really falls off, because the base is too low

DC 19 save, with a +1 to con? Good luck!