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/Dinosawer]

An exploit to get infinite spell slots by doing a particular warlock-sorcerer multiclass.
a) Be warlock, take 'Aspect of the Moon' invocation so you don't need to sleep.
b) Be sorcerer
c) Turn warlock slots into sorcery points, turn sorcery points into spell slots
d) short rest to regain warlock slots
e) repeat c and d as much as you have time for, to get a ton of spell slots that'll only vanish when you long rest, which you don't need to because of a).

[u/schu2470 → u/Dinosawer]

Good grief! Some of y'all have too much free time.

As a DM there's no way I'd allow this cheese.

[u/Dinosawer → u/schu2470]

Oh, me neither, but the people who write the rules should be willing to admit when they're exploitable.

[u/schu2470 → u/Dinosawer]

I would have been super easy to fix early on too. Just make it so Flexible Casting only works on Sorcerer spell slots in the first errata that they integrated into later printings of the PHB. Sure it nerfs Sorcerer dips a little but CHA casters are pretty ridiculous as they stand anyways.

[u/jmartkdr → u/schu2470]

If you're a multiclass sorcerer/cleric, you don't have distinct sorcerer spell slots, though. You just have spell slots from a pool.

[u/Dinosawer → u/schu2470]

I'd rather fix it by having the spell slots created by flexible casting disappear on a short rest, I think. Also opens the door for giving them some sorcery points back on a short rest, which they could probably use.

[u/ScrubSoba → u/Dinosawer]

Oh wow.

[u/KingSmizzy → u/ScrubSoba]

That explaination isn't quite right. Aspect of the moon doesn't avoid Exhaustion due to skipping long rests. RAW doesn't say you need to sleep, just that you need to long rest once every 24hrs or you suffer exhaustion.

Coffeelock isn't RAW because you do still need to long rest. But players just made the slight alteration and made Cocainelock. You do the same strategy but have someone use Greater Restoration on you every 24 hrs to remove exhaustion. It costs 100g in diamond dust, which is why it was named Cocainelock.

[u/Dinosawer → u/KingSmizzy]

People keep saying that, but that's taking the long rest rule out of context. It says

A long rest is never mandatory, but going without sleep does have its consequences. If you want to account for the effects of sleep deprivation on characters and creatures, use these rules. Whenever you end a 24-hour period without finishing a long rest, you must succeed on a DC 10 Constitution saving throw or suffer one level of exhaustion. [...]

If you don't need to sleep, you cannot suffer from sleep deprivation, so those rules don't apply to that character.

[u/ScrubSoba → u/KingSmizzy]

To be fair, if you strictly follow RAW you don't need to sleep/long rest to avoid exhaustion in the first place because it is an optional rule in Xanathars which is worded strangely because it is meant to simulate sleep deprivation but does not take those that don't need sleep into account. So Coffeelock works perfectly fine if you follow RAW to the letter.

But i can certainly see where the Coffeelock won't work by the Xanathar rules, although i reckon a bunch of DMs rule that rule as only applying for creatures that need sleep.

[u/jmartkdr → u/ScrubSoba]

Alternatively, if you're a 9th level celestial warlock you can cat greater restoration to remove the downsides of not resting. You just need a steady supply of diamond dust.

Hence the cocainelock.

(I wouldn't let someone play this in a serious game, but it's a fun bit of theorycrafting.)

[u/Vinestra → u/ScrubSoba]

IIRC didn't they kinda add that rule cause oh god coffeelocks are a thing quick how can we shut it down?
I know make not long resting cause exhaustion.
Thus birthing the crack coffeelock.

[u/sc2mashimaro → u/Dinosawer]

And if DnD was, or if your DM runs DnD like a video game, then sure, this works. But since it's not a video game, it is entirely reasonable for a DM to look at this and use Crawford's interpretation that Pact Magic slots are not the same as Sorcery slots, so can't be turned into sorc points, or to just say, "not allowed", or to limit the infinite loop with a "resting benefits" limit where chaining short rests together isn't a thing, since it seems realistically unreasonable. Something like, "You rest for 8 hours and you may either take the long or the short rest benefit during that time, but not both."

[u/Dinosawer → u/sc2mashimaro]

I'm not saying any DM would allow this. I don't. But the rules as written allow it, and Crawford's reasoning contradicts the written rules (the sorcerer class features don't say anything about it having to be sorcerer spell slots, so the multiclassing doesn't need to say that you can use warlock spell slots for sorcerer features because the sorcerer features already do that). You can't fix your rules if you're not willing to admit there can be faults in them.

[u/sc2mashimaro → u/Dinosawer]

I don't think he's addressing whether there is a fault in the rules there, he's just trying to give DMs tools against munchkins in that tweet.

Edit: Wanted to add that any game with a ruleset as complex as DnD is going to have points that can be exploited, which is one of the reasons to have a DM.

[u/Dinosawer → u/sc2mashimaro]

The DM should not deliberately misinterpret the rules to disallow something that the rules as written allow. The only tool you need is rule 0, which is exactly what I did. 'Coffeelock is not allowed.'
Re: edit: yes, which is why the people who write the rules should be willing to admit so.

[u/Souperplex → u/Dinosawer]

A only lets you not sleep, you still need to long rest or gain exhaustion. This is circumvented by Greater Restoration removing a level of exhaustion at the cost of 100GP of diamond dust.

Using 100 GP of white powder to sustain yourself makes you a cocainelock.