kobo1d: Our first discussion post was well-received, so we’re back for another round of discussion on One D&D playtest rules, similar to the fivethirtyeight.com articles where they just have a slack discussion with long answers, edit it slightly, and post it to the site. Today we have a handful of Tabletop Builds writers and editors (a.k.a “carpenters”) joining us for a chat. Because of scheduling, we actually have a slightly different mix than our last discussion.
The topic this time is the second One D&D playtest packet, released about 24 hours before this discussion, “Expert Classes.”
Due to the varied number of topics, this one turned out quite long! We’ve edited in a few links here to break it up if you want jump to a specific point in the conversation:
- Opening Thoughts and Rule Changes
- Expert Classes – Bard, Ranger, Rogue
- New Feats
- Spell Changes and Wrap-up
Esker: One of the great philosophical questions of our time, I think, is “How many Carpenters fit in the palm of a hand?”
Haen the Heretic (Form of Dread blog): All of them, we’re literally in your phone right now.
Opening Thoughts and Rule Changes
kobo1d: Carpenters, what was your first impression on the new rules after reading the PDF released yesterday?
Esker: “Rogues, Power Attack Feats, and Jumping were apparently the big overpowered things in the game before. What we really need though is easier AC boosts for spellcasters.”
Icebrick1: I was overall disappointed due to a few small, but very impactful changes from the 2014 rules. If it wasn’t for these, I would be disappointed in how “safe” the playtest has been thus far, but I would be mildly pleased with the alterations.
Soma: My gut reaction is that it feels like my worst fear—that martial classes are being hampered and casters classes are getting buffed or going unchecked as a result of Wizard’s misdiagnosis of the balance problems of 5th Edition—is coming to fruition. That’s admittedly a little dramatic, but it seems like Wizards mistook the overcentralization of certain martial feat pairings (CBE/SS and PAM/GWM) as those feats being overpowered, when martials utilizing those feat pairings still fall behind casters at every tier of the game. Seeing martial feats roundly drop in power below pre-existing levels while casters feats got buffed is a worrying sign, unless Warrior class group features are extraordinary, spells have been roundly nerfed across the board, or the Mage class group has some sort of yet-to-be-released casting in armor penalty.
Sylv (Tabletop Builds editor): Overall, I like the trend towards clearer wording, reliance on keywords and defined terms in the glossary, and a clear and obvious breakdown of the benefits from certain features, like feats. However, this is completely overshadowed by my disappointment with the initial nerfs to martials. Spellcasters have also received several buffs that only make the martial-spellcaster gap worse in a way that may not be obvious to a casual player.
I also have to second what Soma said. The overarching feeling I get from this is that it’s some misinformed response to misconceived popular notions. Because it’s easier to accidentally fall into the good martial options than fall into the good caster options, strong martials are seen as “overpowered” and a “problem” at the typical table. WotC thinks this needs to be changed.
Haen the Heretic: It looks like they’re trying to apply a fresh coat of paint to the same content with minimal changes. The capitalized names of numerous game terms like Reaction or Unarmed Strike seem to be an attempt at making the same old content seem fancier and more professional somehow. However, if we look at the content itself it struggles with the same mistakes – casters get stronger, martials get weaker and classes/feats are significantly more bland overall.
And Soma and Sylv have hit the nail on the head. The creators are basing their design choices on feedback from, frankly, unreliable and biased sources. Ultimately game balance and optimization are sister techniques – you can’t balance options without knowing how to determine which one is stronger, and you can’t make an effective character without understanding why one choice might be better than the other.
Lilith: I find it largely uninspiring. Options being streamlined and better-worded is a much needed thing, yes, but a lot of the rewrites misunderstood their design problems completely or took away interactions that are otherwise engaging to use. Numerical performance aside, martial options are still painfully unengaging.
Icebrick1: The biggest misstep I feel for sure is the existence of Lightly Armored making it easier than ever for Casters to have better defense than non-casters, and the nerf to Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Master reducing martial damage.
Luolang (Tabletop Builds editor): My initial impression of the new playtest document is that rather than taking steps to bridge the martial / spellcaster character divide, the changes here only widen the gap and further disincentivize playing a martial character in favor of a spellcaster. (I expect our discussion today will cover some aspects as to why that is). Additionally, given the extent and nature of changes presented here, it seems that remarks as to the backwards compatibility of previous 5E content into One D&D has either been misleading at best or otherwise has not been well communicated. Finally, I personally am not hopeful of the overall design direction things seem to be tending towards with various changes – as a case in point, in this UA packet, things have apparently gotten to the point in D&D design that the designers felt making jumping an action was a good enough idea to present.
Haen the Heretic: I agree. The wording on GWM and Charger has also led to the bizarre situation where feats clearly designed for melee are more effective on ranged weapon users. This is either a prank or a major oversight.
Soma: I think I’ll lean towards oversight as opposed to prank on that one.
kobo1d: And don’t forget, Luolang, that jumping using Dexterity instead of Strength was some kind of exciting feature for a Thief.
Icebrick1: The changes to movement confuse me more than anything. I’m not sure what the purpose of altering jumping or preventing switching speeds was.
kobo1d: A lot of the movement stuff feels like false simplicity, like they are trying to simplify parts of the game but having the opposite effect in some cases. The spell list situation is another example of this.
Sylv: You can switch between Speed and Climb Speed, but not the others. So if you start 5 feet from a river or lake, you can dive in and then… not swim? I like the changes to Jumping since I always had to look up the exact rules, but making it an action is ridiculous. I think their goal with Move was to be clearer, but, as usual, they didn’t think through the implications.
Esker: I think the way speed switching worked was confusing or at least unintuitive for people, so I can see a desire to streamline that, but that was hardly one of the central issues with the ruleset so it’s a bit like… what’s the expression, rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic?
Lilith: Speed switching was something I had to explain to my table frequently, I’m glad it’s no longer as convoluted. That said, spending an action to jump is something you don’t want to do unless you really need to get somewhere, so gaps to jump or water body to swim now function more like a heavy door or roadblock that tax an action than terrain features that make the map a little more dynamic.
LiteralMeme (Tabletop Builds editor): My thoughts are essentially the same as Sylv as well. I’m glad to see wording and features become more clear and easier to digest but the gap between spellcasters and martials has only grown bigger. It feels like WoTC is not really in tune with the parts of their game that desperately need balance and they are making somewhat silly choices.
Luolang: While I think most people will be more drawn to the changes made to various classes or feats, I think changes like what happened with jumping are worrying to me as it seems so dramatically off-base that it makes me question the overall design philosophy behind One D&D. There is streamlining and simplification that can be had, but this seems beyond the pale and the implications of it have not seemed to have been thought through. As an aside, this is ironically another area where the martial / spellcaster divide widens because mobility options are generally more impactful for martial characters (and especially so for melee characters), so additional difficulties or literal hoops to jump through in movement can make it even more punishing for martial characters to fulfill their presumed role as damage dealers.
Esker: The irony, I think, is that if you asked WotC, and you asked the people who provide the feedback that they are listening to, they would almost certainly say that they want to narrow the gap between optimized and unoptimized characters, and cite this as a reason for axing Power Attacks. But if you want to do that, the people you should be listening to are optimizers, because they’re the ones who think the most about quantifying power, locating synergies, and finding the options that are stronger than others. But instead they seem to be responding primarily to the loudest voices belonging to people who react negatively to things that feel like min-maxing to them.
Haen the Heretic: I also mourn the death of the Forcelance, which has been rendered obsolete with the changes to Polearm Master. Also PAM + Sentinel is now a dead combo, but that was nothing remarkable to begin with so I shall spare it little thought.
Esker: I’m holding out some naive hope that the “Warrior classes” get some real “tanking” abilities that make melee feel more worthwhile. But like I said, that’s almost certainly unfounded naive optimism. If you look at the way Rogue is laid out here, it doesn’t give much reason to hope that the Warrior group will fix the shortcomings that martial classes have now.
Icebrick1: Considering how similar Rogue and Ranger were ultimately, I don’t see much reason to think other things in the game have been massively changed.
kobo1d: On that point Icebrick, from watching the accompanying video, I have no hope that Rogue specifically will ever be “fixed.” According to Jeremy Crawford, around 95% of survey responders praised the 5E Rogue, and so they planned to be conservative in their changes.
Haen the Heretic: Ranger was also rather depressing – the weird fixation they had on making hunter’s mark a big thing makes me worried about the future of the Warlock class.
Sylv: I was horrified by the Rogue video. Everything about it. From fawning over Thief getting to take 4 more Cunning Actions per long rest at 14th level to the implication that they are designing the class to match popular perceptions of the power level of the Rogue class.
Soma: Watching the videos actually makes the process so much worse. Jeremy Crawford is just so excited and passionate about changes or ideas that I think are horrible.
kobo1d: It sounds like the consensus is there are some good changes here, but the positive changes that are present are overshadowed by some really negative changes. One of the very first parts of the document outlines the process to come. One of our complaints last time was that we didn’t have enough material to actually playtest. Do you feel like we have enough now? What do you think of their plan for what’s ahead?
Luolang: The playtest packet presented here does have quite a bit more material and between it and the character origins packet, more meaningful playtest games can be ran. However, there is a great deal of uncertainty as to how other classes or other potentially important mechanics (such as surprise) are to be affected overall, so it makes it difficult to assess the overall nature and extent of the changes here in regular play. As it stands now, the classes in the “Warrior” group will significantly lag behind in effectiveness compared to their 2014 equivalents, but perhaps there are changes intended in future playtest packets to address this. However, such material is not available at this moment and trying to judge One D&D in such an incomplete state feels misleading and not ideal for purposes of feedback compared to the more significant playtest packets that were given during the D&D Next days.
Icebrick1: This is technically enough to playtest. There’s a few people holding out hope the warriors packet will fix all our issues with the game, but I don’t see evidence that this is going to be the case.
Soma: I think that what we were given for playtesting purposes is…playable, perhaps barely workable. It’s testable if spells between 5E and One D&D are the same, but if the next packet reveals that many PHB spells have been changed, then that will render a lot of feedback from this round of testing useless, at least if the intent is to combine newly nerfed spells with the revised classes, for example. Still, you could do a “closed-group” Bard-Ranger-Rogue playtest.
Sylv: Because of the widening of the martial-caster discrepancy, I feel like I can’t have a good playtest until I see more of how the Mage class group has changed. That also means we need new spell descriptions. I can’t really tell for sure how good Ranger is, for instance, until I know how surprise has changed, and, by extension, spells like pass without trace. They’ve already shown they are redesigning some spells — barkskin and guidance — so I expect more redesigns.
Frankly, there is enough to playtest, but it’s already obvious there’s not much point. I know Rogue will feel even more terrible, for instance.
Haen the Heretic: I don’t think we have enough material yet. What we need is context regarding spell changes (can’t do anything with Bard and Ranger until we know what’s different) and most of all, monster statblocks. 5E monster design was hugely impactful in creating the “pew pew keepaway” meta that the game suffered from, and without massive changes we’re just going to reach the exact same conclusion – buy a mount, ride a phantom steed and under no circumstances engage in combat with the enemy where they can hit you back.
Soma: In response to what Haen and Esker are saying, new encounter building rules, revised monster statblocks, and new weapon options are listed as things to come in future playtests. It’s possible that they are looking at these sorts of things. I do worry that the core “Warrior Class Group” feature is just going to be Fighting Styles, though, which appear to be largely unchanged.
kobo1d: They’re also at the end, notably. If they run out of time…
Haen the Heretic: They may be looking at the monster stuff, but I doubt they’re looking at them from the right angle. The vast majority of the community seems unaware of the mess that is melee monster design. It’s possible that some monsters will have their hit points reduced, stuff like that. But fix the Monster Manual? I doubt it.
Soma: Even in non-optimizer circles, I feel like the blandness of the 5E Monster Manual is quite well known, so I have some hope, though not a lot.
Esker: It seems hard to give useful playtest feedback about the redesign of three classes in isolation. Maybe you can say something about how these classes play in the context of a party that contains only these classes, but it’s hard to know how these classes will ultimately stack up against the others. I wish that instead of releasing this material a few classes at a time, they had proceeded a tier of play at a time, for example releasing features and spells for all 12 classes through level 4 first, then level 10, and so on, because those bands actually define a complete play experience.
LiteralMeme: It’s enough to playtest, but these changes, as has been mentioned numerous times already, paint a picture that One D&D is not going to fix integral issues with 5E. Haen alluded to this, but ranged combat is such an overwhelmingly effective strategy in 5E compared to running in and hitting monsters aimlessly. Maybe the Warrior packet will give some options for martials and melee focused classes but I’m not holding my breath.
Haen the Heretic: I’m pretty certain that whatever they end up doing to help melee martials will turn out to be a buff to either ranged martials or casters. The feats we were given here are strong evidence already – charging backwards with a crossbow, anyone? There’s also nothing quite like the sight of a martial dropping and picking up three different crossbows on a turn.
kobo1d: You may need to provide more context on that for readers Haen.
Haen the Heretic: Certainly. The Charger feat works with all weapon attacks, thus allowing it to trigger on ranged weapons. Additionally, you don’t need to move towards the enemy – any movement in a line will suffice.
Luolang: It feels overall that Wizards of the Coast is targeting a more streamlined experience in various character options and moment to moment decisions. In this regard, martial characters hitting above what was perhaps the expected power curve in a world where feats were optional in 2014 was something that had to be pared down. Thus a flatter and more predictable trajectory of damage and effectiveness can be achieved for martial characters and explains the changes to feats like Great Weapon Master or Sharpshooter, but the problem is how this stacks up in a world with spellcasters as they are now and following these suggested changes.
kobo1d: We’ve already started diving into classes, but before we talk about each of them in more depth, what are your thoughts on the overarching changes to classes here, such as the class groups, universal subclass feature levels, or things like armor training? Are you surprised they seem to be making multiclassing a core rule?
Soma: Class Groups – I suppose as shorthand for prerequisites for magic items or feats they have value…except the Ranger class is already introducing exceptions for this (with the Fighting Style feats). I do not think this will have a significant impact on the game.
Haen the Heretic: I’m glad that multiclassing and feats are becoming core rules – they were such in all but name anyway. Class Groups are fine, though I would much rather divide them based on power source like 4E did – makes a lot more narrative sense for feats and magic items that way.
Sylv: I generally like the idea of universal subclass feature levels since it means, for instance, that some classes won’t be frontloaded. This is a partial solution to the multiclassing problem, at least in principle. But then this makes 1st- and 2nd-level play that much blander and deadlier.
As for Class Groups, it’s hard to say since the only mechanical consequences we have right now are a few feats (Fighting Styles and Epic Boons) tied to Class Groups. I don’t anticipate Class Groups having much meaning beyond Feat prerequisites.
As a concept, this feels like they are trying to lean into the popular notion of party roles. But I don’t think Expertise is a particularly defining or impactful class feature. Also, the Expert supposedly has features from other Classes. For the Bard, I suppose this means Magical Secrets and, for the Ranger, this means Fighting Style. But the Ranger doesn’t get Expertise until 9th level, and the Rogue doesn’t get any Class features other than its own.
Esker: I think the grouping of classes into groups is… fine, and seems like a decent way to concisely create prerequisites for certain feats. Removing the idea of class based spell lists and replacing it with “source lists” I’m less sanguine about, because looking at the hoops they wound up jumping through with Bard to… largely preserve the spell list they had before (not entirely, of course, but largely), it’s not clear they’re not making spell lists more complicated, and less well aligned to class flavor, rather than becoming more streamlined.
Soma: Armor Training specifically added consequences for shield proficiency, which is nice. That was a bit of an infamous joke among optimizers.
Haen the Heretic: Aye – now shield proficiency gives nothing and takes nothing when you don’t have it.
Luolang: It’s not surprising to me they are making multiclassing a core rule anymore so than making feats a core rule now. A lot of One D&D’s design thus far, at least in principle, seems to be in response to the way 5E games have actually been ran at tables, and those almost overwhelmingly feature the use of both multiclassing and feats. I would hope that with multiclassing as a core rule, Wizards of the Coast will look more to how classes and class features stack up with multiclassing in mind, but I admit I am not expecting too much here.
With respect to class groups, the thought seems to be that – as Jeremy Crawford hinted at – a character from each group contributes to a balanced party, but I suspect this will not be true in practice with certain characters in those group not nearly as effective as their compatriots in fulfilling that group’s “role” (for example compare the Rogue to the Bard in the Expert group) and likely with certain groups to lag behind the rest (such as the Warrior group at this point in time).
Another consequence with some of these class changes and subclass feature level changes is that it makes it more difficult to understand or execute importing previous 5E character options into One D&D content, which doesn’t seem in keeping with the stated intent of backwards compatibility of previous material. Perhaps this goal was abandoned or was never truly in place, but this has not been well communicated I feel.
Soma: I think that “backwards compatibility” is going to mean that you can run 5E adventure modules with little to no adjustment with One D&D rules and characters, not that 5E characters and One D&D characters can be run together in the same party with minimal friction.
Icebrick1: I think Class Groups are a decent idea that it doesn’t really seem like they are doing enough with. There’s a fair few feats restricted by group, but it’s not like people outside those groups really want the feats for another group.
I think the changes to when Rogue gains its subclass levels is good. Waiting until level 9 for your second batch of features was far too long.
LiteralMeme: Feats and multiclassing being a part of the core rules is a good thing. It is definitely one of the better things that they’ve done so far with the playtest.
Class groups just seem…there, I guess. I don’t have many thoughts on them other than just arbitrarily grouping classing and restricting feats as a result.
kobo1d: I think a lot of the class group as feat prerequisite is undermined by the suggestion that you can simply multiclass and select feats from the other class group. So if we are to see some overpowered 8th or 12th level feats exclusive to a class group, they won’t really be exclusive, we’re just back to a 1 level dip metagame.
Esker: I would expect that because you technically get feats from a particular class when you hit certain levels in that class, that the prerequisite will be applied to the class granting you the feat.
Soma: It’s possible they will introduce languages like “at least 4 levels in the Warrior class group,” though I don’t expect it.
Subclasses being universally introduced at 3 might have some ludonarrative clashes (“I made a deal with the Raven Queen! Why isn’t my patron’s flavor mechanically defined until level 3?”) but hopefully will tone down some of the more ludicrously powerful 1 level dips.
Esker: Soma pulling out his nerd glasses with the use of “ludonarrative.” I thought you saw yourself as a Barbarian, Soma.
kobo1d: In the “overarching changes” category, this time we had a massively expanded Rules Glossary. What stood out to you in this section?
Soma: This was touched upon earlier, but selecting speed for your Move is…strange. If I have a 30 foot walk speed and a 30 foot swim speed and am 5 feet away from a river that can be swam across (for double movement cost), I could walk 5 feet, end Move. Dash to gain an additional Move, choose to use my swim speed, and swim 10 feet (costing 10 feet of movement), but then I can’t walk any more because I was using my swim speed for that Move, despite having 5 feet of movement left? Alternatively, I move 5 feet, Swim 10 feet with double movement cost, and move onto land and still have my action left?
Sylv: On the subject of speeds, Fly Speed was also changed so that reducing the speed to 0 or knocking the creature prone no longer makes the creature fall. One use of Charger for a melee martial might be to use a javelin or spear to knock a creature out of the air. But, alas, not with these new Fly Speed rules.
Esker: No more Trip Attack to ground young dragons, alas.
Icebrick1: We’ve already mentioned the changes to jumping and speeds. There is the change to dual wielding, which is a positive one, if minor. That also presumes that the rules for weapons will clear up how dual wielding crossbows is supposed to work.
Sylv: For the rules, the two biggest things that stood out to me were:
(1) New and revised actions (Search, Study, Influence) that attempt to codify the use of skills.
(2) New and revised language on hiding (Hidden, Hide, Search).
seacliff (Pipes of Haunting blog): I appreciate the rules glossary, but it also feels inconsistent. “Armor Training” is a defined term, but simply means Armor Proficiency. Meanwhile the “Weapon Training” feat gives you Martial Weapon Proficiency.
Soma: I noticed some strange things too, like the Incapacitated condition having a feature Surprised which is not the same as the Surprise feature under the Invisible condition, despite having very similar names.
Esker: I was very happy to see Hidden become a condition, personally. The rules for stealth and hiding were fragmented over three different chapters before, and even so left a lot of ambiguity, so having a consolidated condition definition is very nice.
seacliff: I’m curious if the current interactions with Charger and Great Weapon Master working with Ranged weapons is intentional. The flavor of running in any random direction and getting a damage boost on a Crossbow is very weird to me. But I could see Great Weapon Master working with longbows as a means of streamlining martial feats intentionally.
Icebrick1: I do appreciate what seems to be an attempt to codify skill use more. That is one area which is currently entirely decided by the DM. Having some more guidelines would be great, but the current rules don’t seem to help much.
Sylv: This shows me they are trying to make these systems better, but not enough in my opinion, or not in a way that makes sense. For instance, the DC for hiding in the Hide action is fixed, and it’s unclear whether it’s ever compared to a creature’s Passive Perception. The Influence action nicely summarizes to players what they can do with their social skills, but the DC’s are too low and they give the impression that this is something that can be done with an Action.
Luolang: The rules for hiding in the playtest set a DC in which one can become Hidden (as per the condition) at all, but it does indicate that the total result is compared to passive Perception thereafter. But one must first succeed on a DC Dexterity (Stealth) check to actually become hidden.
Esker: There also seems to be movement, if incomplete, toward separating the kinds of things that actions do from the kinds of things that bonus actions do. That’s movement in the right direction, I think.
Luolang: Besides the changes to jumping and moving that were mentioned before, there was a change to the rules for the Attack action that does seem positive, in that one can equip or unequip weapons between attacks. Perhaps optimizers will find some unexpected combinations as a result of this rule, but at least for the immediate future, it does make weapons like javelins and the like usable.
Additionally, the rules for hiding seem they will be more strictly codified, which helps to address existing complaints regarding the ambiguity of the hiding rules in 5e. As a wrinkle to this, while it is not stated outright, the rules for the Hidden condition are suggestive that surprise will act as a modification to initiative in One D&D as opposed to a loss of turn as in 5e.
Also noteworthy and somewhat amusing is that the Invisible condition retained its bullet point such that an invisible creature has advantage on attack rolls and other creatures have disadvantage on attack rolls made against it, even if one can see the invisible creature.
kobo1d: I’m sure a lot of the internet will be pointing that exact “error” out this month.
Soma: re: Invisible, they’re really sticking to their guns on that one.
If Fighters gets an ASI at level 6 (Rogues kept their level 10 ASI), then you could take Polearm Master at 4, Dual Wielder at 6, and attack with shortswords in each hand, stowing each after the attack (one Attack from your Action, one from Light weapon property) then draw and attack a glaive, use the bonus action to make the bludgeoning attack and stow, object interaction to draw two daggers, and repeat.
Haen the Heretic: Or wield three crossbows. One heavy for GWM, two hand crossbows for Crossbow Expert. The things we do for semi-relevant DPR…
Esker: Jeremy Crawford said publicly that that was intentional, so he’s boxed in now.
Icebrick1: It’s not confirmed, but I really hope the “Surprised” text in Hidden is supposed to replace the normal surprise rules.
Luolang: Do you feel the current surprise rules are too punishing or too degenerate by comparison, Icebrick?
Icebrick1: Indeed. Getting an entire free turn for the entire party is much too powerful for how easy it is to surprise most monsters. The effect is just too large. Simply affecting the order of initiative would be much preferred and still useful.
Sylv: I second this. I would very much like to see Surprise give advantage to initiative, and maybe disadvantage to the surprised creatures (?), instead of free turns and loss of reactions.
That being said, if the DC for Hide is 15, getting surprise has gotten mildly more difficult since most monsters don’t have PP as high as 15. Still, if pass without trace still gives a +10 bonus then this makes it all a moot point if everyone also has Stealth proficiency through background.
Esker: Ultimately though, despite the hints that surprise will change, they haven’t come out and done that yet, so it’s hard to know what to say about it.
Luolang: Strictly speaking at this time, the Rules Glossary has not overwritten the rules on surprise in the 2014 PHB, so from the standpoint of the playtest and current rules, hiding is even stronger than before.
Sylv: The best changes to hiding rules were making Hidden a condition and clarifying that you need Heavy Obscurement or 3/4 or Total Cover to hide. They have also listed specific events that end the Hidden condition.
kobo1d: I appreciate the intent here in the rules glossary to make things more keyworded at the least. The implementation might not be there yet, but the heart seems like it might be in the right place.
Sylv: I also do like that many rules and feats have their features named and bolded. I think this is a good step towards transparency. At a glance, you can probably tell what the feature or rule says, if you’ve read it once before. I would appreciate it if these names were a bit more uniform, but maybe that’s not possible.
The changes to the Help Action are also strange, and the change to Long Rest giving all Hit Dice back is minor but appreciated.
Soma: I actually don’t like that change, as consecutive adventuring days was one of the ways you could put more resource pressure on parties, but I do concede it probably resulted in uneven adventuring days.
Esker: I really hope that we see a “Target” field added to spell definitions.
Haen the Heretic: That would be brilliant. The spellcasting rules are so poorly defined in the current edition – they don’t cause their effects, duration is undefined and we are told that spells will tell us what they target but few ever do.
Soma: I’d also like to see things like (Sight) or (Audible) added to the Range field so I don’t have to scour the spell description for line of sight requirements.
Luolang: As another note, exhaustion received a major change, now expanded over 10 levels and acting as a penalty to rolls similar to the raise dead penalty, in addition to affecting spell save DC. I wonder if we’ll see more monsters or mechanics that inflict exhaustion in this regard, given the larger range of exhaustion levels to work with.
Expert Classes – Bard, Ranger, Rogue
kobo1d: There is so much to cover here, and this is going to be a long article, but we should keep moving on to classes because we could talk about the rules glossary all day.
First up we have our first glimpse at a One D&D primary spellcaster, Bard and the College of Lore. What do you like? What do you not like?
Soma: Honestly, it feels like a PHB Bard (meaning PHB only spells and spell list) but with some key features delayed. College of Lore, on the other hand, was absolutely gutted.
LiteralMeme: Glad to see them getting prepared spells at least. Bard being a learned spells caster felt like it went against the flavor of them being versatile casters.
Sylv: Well, first off, I like that all spellcasters get ritual casting and prepared spells now. I’m not sure how I feel about prepared cantrips narratively, but it’s fine mechanically. The weirdest change for me was the change to the number of spell preparations. I don’t mind the change, but I’m also not sure why they feel the need to change this. What was wrong with just Level + CHA spell preps?
seacliff: I think the new preparation spell rules is to address the “How many spells does my Cleric have?” group of new players.
Esker: I take it that the motivation for tying number of spell preparations to number of spell slots level by level is similar to the motivation for including “suggested preps”: namely, to reduce decision paralysis for players (especially players new to playing a spellcaster). I think this is a reasonable change, which oddly enough takes spell preparations part of the way back toward Vancian casting, though you still have the flexibility to repeat cast individual preparations.
Haen the Heretic: I’m not a fan of prepared casting overall, I prefer casters having a fixed spell list. That means the new Bard is already less appealing to me. From a more objective standpoint, I would like to heavily question the decision to make Lore that much weaker. Reducing the impact of subclasses to such an extent makes them a significantly less meaningful choice, which doesn’t seem fitting for a “you only get to pick one and it defines your build for all your levels” thing.
kobo1d: My initial reaction is to be annoyed by the restriction on preparations for each level (e.g. you can only ever have 3 level 3 spells prepared in a given day) but I’m already thinking it will be fine. There seems to be a concerted effort here on making things in Bard not interact with non-skill ability tests, which I think is just because new players didn’t realize it worked that way in 5E with initiative, counterspell, dispel magic, etc.
Sylv: The change to Bardic Inspiration is appreciated since I see Bardic Inspiration often underused or not used because your friend forgot they had it. The Heal option makes for a nice spell-less healing word to get someone up from 0 hit points immediately after it happens.
However, I do not like that Bardic Inspiration uses are decreased and Font of Inspiration is delayed until 7th level. This is further exacerbated by the fact that several Bard subclasses, including Lore, use Bardic Inspiration dice as a resource for their subclass features. Speaking of which, I’m disappointed Cutting Words was changed not to affect initiative but I like that it’s clarified you get to know whether the roll succeeds in the first place. Second, Improved Cutting Words is not impressive at all for a 10th-level feature.
Finally, what has really caught the ire of many of us, is the use of spell lists. The division of spells into Arcane, Divine, and Primal is okay in principle. But then it seems classes will use only subsets of those lists based on particular schools. But they’ve now also changed some spell schools to make sure the Bard gets their iconic spells. For instance, shatter was changed to transmutation so the Bard keeps that spell without having to give them evocation spells, which would give Bard fireball, which can’t happen.
Icebrick1: OveralI think I slightly prefer the new Bard’s base class features to the old, though the subclass features seem weak and boring. I don’t like the changes to spell lists, I think it’s cumbersome and confusing, far more than each caster just having their list.
I don’t like the changes to Jack of All Trades where it only applies to checks with a skill. I think working on initiative or other skill-less checks was a good but mild effect.
seacliff: There are some interesting things being shown with Bardic Inspiration, being a reaction can help make it easier to support other players when they need it.
Uses being scaled by Proficiency Bonus was almost a guarantee, but still disappointing. It will result in a fewer amount of uses at most levels, and is still competing with abilities provided by subclasses that use it as a resource.
Soma: From Tasha’s, Bards lost mage hand, command, cure wounds, faerie fire, unseen servant, aid, heat metal, dispel magic, glyph of warding, leomund’s tiny hut, plant growth, dimension door, planar binding, heroes’ feast, and forcecage. Those are some painful losses. Songs of Rest and Countercharm were largely very low-impact abilities, so cutting them is fine, but as noted pushing back short rest Bardic Inspiration recharge hurts for a class that I personally view as struggling in the earlier levels more than the later ones.
Luolang: The Bard is something of a mixed bag all around. They’ve been changed to preparation casters with spell school restrictions, which largely recapitulates the pre-existing Bard spell list with some notable exceptions, and with restrictions on what spells of what level they can prepare. Songs of Restoration is a nice feature to grant Bards some of that supportive utility they were otherwise pressured to take. Bardic Inspiration recharging on a short rest being delayed to 7 feels far too late given the common levels of play in the game and working as a reaction now means it has to compete with the likes of absorb elements, shield, or silvery barbs (if/when absorb elements and silvery barbs are published). Jack of all Trades no longer grants a bonus to ability checks tout court, so initiative and counterspell and dispel magic checks no longer benefit from it.
Magical Secrets received an interesting change in that it works with the new preparation rules: there are fewer overall Magical Secrets gained, but being able to change the spells on a long rest grants bards additional flexibility than before. As such, something of a mixed bag and the term “backloaded” seems right for some of these various features that have been pushed up in level.
The Lore Bard by comparison seems to have lost most of its reason for being taken with the loss of Additional Magical Secrets, which is a significant blow.
Sylv: On the note of Jack of All Trades, I wonder if they are moving away from Ability Checks that don’t use a skill in general. For instance, the changes to the Help action require that you help with a check that uses a skill. This precludes helping with simple tasks such as opening a door, smashing a chest, or opening a locked container, all of which are typically ability checks that don’t use a skill. Maybe we will see checks like initiative use a skill, or checks like counterspell use Arcana.
seacliff: I think the way spell lists are handled is incredibly complex for little, if any, gain. Rather than having a single spell list laying out what the Bard can take, players will need to search through three separate spell lists cross-checking the spell school for each spell just to know what’s available to them. This won’t be a huge problem with digital tools, but a massive pain for people still wanting to use the books.
Haen the Heretic: Yeah, D&D is pretty bad at being played with a pen and paper for a pen and paper RPG.
Soma: On top of that, there appear to have been numerous stealth spell school changes for existing spells, which once again runs counter to the idea of backwards compatibility. I’m not calling this a conspiracy to push official digital tabletop or character creation tools just yet, but it is a hassle. Spell schools aren’t particularly intuitive in the first place, so this all seems to add up to a change that isn’t an improvement.
Esker: For a system supposedly intended to streamline spell lists, the way the spells available to Bard is here sure is convoluted. “They get access to the Arcane List! Except only these schools. Oh, but then they also get some Divine spells as free extra preparations. Oh, and thunderwave and shatter are Transmutation now I guess.” The net effect being a set of four or so changes which combine to be… a list very close to the original one.
Luolang: Esker, your point regarding spell lists is important I feel: a lot of One D&D’s design intent seems to be simplification and streamlining, and this method of approaching spell lists is actually more obtuse than the current implementation. In the 2014 PHB, there is a page where you can simply look up all the bard spells per spell level. In the playtest packet, one will need to compare spell schools in a given spell list. From the standpoint of streamlining, this seems to introduce more complexity as opposed to reducing it.
kobo1d: Conspiracy theories abound about making spell selection more byzantine to push more people into digital tools.
Esker: And, by the way, you know there will still be class-based filters on D&D Beyond, so in the end, people may not wind up interacting with spell lists all that differently from how they do now.
Sylv: I also like, in principle, that they have given suggested spell lists, which further solves the problem of decision paralysis. But, in practice, I’m worried the suggested lists will just be… bad. At 1st level, they suggest color spray and disguise self, which is fine I guess since, on the tin, those spells do sort of what they say. But they’re not very good and they are neutering the combat potential of the Bard without picking something like dissonant whispers. The expanded suggested spell list has animate objects at 18th-level instead of 9th-level, at a point where damage resistance/immunity to non-magical weapon damage will be common.
Luolang: As an additional note, while it is an interesting decision to build out class and subclass feature levels in such a way to get an Epic Boon at 20, I think I would personally prefer a more individualized level 20 capstone feature. I know a lot of players had their issues with the various level 20 capstones for different classes, but I feel the approach to address that would have been to have had more meaningful or more powerful level 20 capstone features, not removing them in favor of select epic boons instead.
Soma: They were actually moved up to level 18.
Luolang: I know Soma, but I would have rather had a genuinely powerful and unique level 20 capstone than an epic boon.
Esker: I think an Epic Boon at 20 would be neat if it actually felt… y’know… Epic. Some of these though feel less powerful than many Level 1 features.
Haen the Heretic: Epic Boons are very underwhelming too, as has become the norm for 5E level 20 capstones.
seacliff: I like the concept of what’s essentially Level 20 feats, but most of what’s here is very underwhelming.
kobo1d: Before we get pulled into feats via boons, we should Cunning Action – Disengage into Rogue. So carpenters, what is the worst class so far, and why is it Rogue? What do you think of Thief?
seacliff: Rogue, for the most part, is going to be played the same way by most people who enjoy playing Rogue. But as for the ceiling of Rogue, which is already really low, has been lowered ever further.
LiteralMeme: If there is one consolation prize for them, I’m glad that they now have their subclasses features granted at earlier levels. But, that’s about it honestly. Still the same old, unimpressive martial class that it was in 5E. It’s going to need more positive changes to stay competitive, and WoTC will need to undo the mess of a release that Rogue is in this playtest. They listened too much to everyone who said they were overpowered without taking a deeper dive into the class and fixing its core issues.
Sylv: Oh boy… Rogue. Another result of WotC misdiagnosing the actual strength of classes in lieu of what’s popular. The result is an aberration — a skill monkey with subpar damage output and whose subclass capstone is taking 4 more Cunning Actions per Long Rest a full level after the rogue’s friends got Simulacrum and are just playing two of themselves.
Haen the Heretic: Rogue is the worst class because it’s the only martial released so far and they actually made it worse. Evasion at level 9? No off-turn Sneak Attack means haste has lost 100% of its non-Hexsinger value, and the nerfs to weapons have made the class into a meme. It retains its role as the “I am playing a better martial in a oneshot and my last level gives me nothing so I’ll dip for a free d6” class.
Icebrick1: Rogue received a few minor things that are good. The changes to subclass speed, and their level 13 feature is powerful (though not really at its level). However, they overall have very little going for them. Their Sneak Attack feature just keeps pace with Extra Attack while also being conditional, and their defensive features simply make up for the lack of AC they get. Now that Expertise has been handed out to more characters, it doesn’t even feel like they fulfill the “skill monkey” identity.
seacliff: If there’s going to be any value for Rogue in One D&D, it’s going to have to rely on the Assassin subclass staying mostly the same because One D&D Martials in general are going to need something like that.
Icebrick1: The nerf to Sneak Attack (only activating on their turn, and with the Attack action) is not worth the minor gain they made with the buff to dual-wielding.
Soma: It could be interesting if Arcane Trickster specifically got to use Sneak Attack with blade cantrips.
On the whole, Rogue was in a tough spot where it was widely loved at most tables, but was considered quite weak by optimizers. Sneak Attack being restricted to your turn and the Attack action seems like they are attempting to remove as many interesting tactical or build optimizations out of the game as possible in the name of simplicity.
kobo1d: Rogue is the most depressing for me because like many of you, I don’t think it’s in a good spot, but it sounds like we are in a vast minority on this in the community, so there is basically no reason to have any hope it will be a class I will ever want to bring to a new campaign. It seems like no amount of proselytizing about Rogue here or anywhere else is going to make a shred of difference in the next edition.
seacliff: Subtle Strikes is an interesting ability. It’s basically Pack Tactics, but synergizes with the Rogue nonetheless. However I wish it was obtained much earlier.
Sylv: I really just don’t understand what WotC thinks the Rogue should be doing or contributing. The most depressing part is that there is no indication Rogue will ever be fixed. In fact, all indications are that WotC thinks Rogue is fine where it is, maybe even still too powerful. Pack Tactics Subtle Strikes at 13th level is laughable. This is something that previously was on a race (pre-Multiverse kobold).
Lilith: They still don’t do enough to distinguish themselves, their gameplay loop is still the same “hit attack button over and over again”, and their numbers remain disappointing.
In fact, changing Sneak Attack to only in your turn makes this class significantly less interesting to work with. Finding opportunities to get “off-turn sneak” would’ve been an incredibly compelling class identity to introduce.
kobo1d: Rogue gets Subtle Strikes, Bard gets simulacrum. So it goes.
Luolang: Rogue had some unfortunate changes in this playtest, with Sneak Attack no longer functioning off turn or with actions other than the Attack action. Evasion was moved up a couple levels where it really did not need to be. Rogues already had issues compared to bards in the expert ‘role,’ and as codified in One D&D, they lag behind even more so. Subtle Strikes is a nice new feature but arguably could have been gained even earlier without overly unbalancing the class and I suppose Stroke of Luck got a nice buff in also working with attacks for a guaranteed critical hit once per short rest.
The Thief feels disappointing in comparison to the 2014 Thief: the main draw of the Use Magic Device feature was the ability to use items even with other class requirements, and the loss of this ability really hurts the feature even with the ability to attune to a 4th magical item. Given how the Rogue comparatively lags behind, a party’s attunement items are generally much better off going to other more impactful party members so you aren’t that incentivized to get that much benefit from the extra attunement slot. Changing their capstone to extra Cunning Actions seems baffling to me: the 2014 capstone of having an additional turn on the first round of combat was powerful but balanced by the overall power level of the Rogue chassis and was a much more interesting class feature. And even so, it feels strange for the capstone in this playtest to be a long rest gated ability for relatively mild effect – it should have at least been a static ability if nothing else.
Esker: Subtle Strikes is nice, but should just be a built in part of Sneak Attack in my opinion. Getting it at Level 13 feels like the proverbial lipstick on a pig.
kobo1d: Thief is a baffling case. I will need to look around the web to find out who could be excited by this subclass, just to try and get in their head. One D&D Thief definitely feels like 2014-2015 malaise-subclasses few people talk about anymore.
seacliff: Not saying it would have or should have reflected this new edition, but Baldur’s Gate 3 gave Thieves the ability to have Two Bonus Actions at Level 3 and that was pretty well received. It’s confusing then that they would push that ability to the very end of the subclass and give it a very limited number of uses.
Sylv: The main issue is that the general populace loves the Rogue class and overvalues its class features, particularly skills. Players also love rolling dice, and so Sneak Attack looks awesome. So WotC will not change Rogue to be a good class because their player base doesn’t think it’s bad.
Audere: Has anyone mentioned the 95% survey satisfaction rates for Rogue?
Lilith: Rogue is still carried by all the memes and stereotypes and exciting imaginations of its archetype that are nowhere reflected in the class’ gameplay to this day.
seacliff: I feel like a player’s satisfaction in Rogue heavily relies on the DM. Compared to other engines, D&D is not often known to have the most thorough skill system and the Rogue heavily relies on that to contribute. It takes work on the DM’s part to create the situations for the Rogue to shine out of combat.
Sylv: The rules for hiding and surprise are also often misunderstood, and so I agree that the power of Rogue is very table-dependent. The DM that “lets the Rogue sneak ahead and get an ambush” without running the rules correctly will make the Rogue look like it’s doing something I suppose. Maybe part of the problem is that the Rogue class is too beginner friendly. There’s no resources to track or weird spellcasting rules to learn or spells to pick. You just make the character and it works out of the box. It just…. doesn’t do anything. The floor is at a good level maybe, but the ceiling is barely above the floor in this case, which is what makes the class so depressing.
seacliff: Given how few feats actually benefit the Rogue thus far, they are free to take Ritual Caster and get unseen servant so they can get more use out of that Bonus Action.
Soma: Jeremy Crawford was talking about Thief getting PB/LR extra Cunning Action uses on a turn at level 14 like it was a revelation. Does he understand what a Wizard is doing at level 14?
Sylv: In the video, Jeremy Crawford also praised the Rogue for being “tanky” or “slippery”, yet Evasion is now delayed until 9th level?
seacliff: I want to know if Tasha’s Optional Features are intended to be compatible with these new classes. If One D&D Rogue is still capable of getting Steady Aim, that would be helpful.
Sylv: I assume the intent is that Steady Aim is not to be used. Same for any other optional class feature in Tasha’s.
seacliff: I was hopeful that those features would simply be built in this time around, but alas.
Soma: They were folded into Ranger, but nothing for Rogue, alas.
Luolang: One thing about the Sneak Attack changes in removing off-turn Sneak Attacks or Sneak Attacks made with different actions is that it removes aspects of the game that involved and actually encouraged teamwork and party synergy. Typically achieving off-turn attacks was a result of other characters enabling a Rogue to do so (e.g. casting haste on the Rogue or a Rogue taking the Ready action), so removing a feature that otherwise resulted in a more dynamic and cooperative experience seems strange to me from the perspective of what is meant to be a cooperative and party-based role playing game.
Esker: Again, I see where they’re coming from with restricting Sneak Attack to your turn, because the distinction between “once per turn” and “once per round” that we have now does make it feel a little like an exploit to try to find off-turn ways to Sneak Attack. And if they had combined that with an overall buff to Sneak Attack, I’d be fine with it. But as it is, not only is it nerfing an ability that isn’t strong after level 3 or so to begin with, it’s also punishing Rogues who do things like Ready their action to get Sneak Attack after their ally moves into position, and the team play of other classes who have features that grant reaction attacks to allies. To quote a former Home Alone 2 cameo actor, “Sad!”
Soma: It was definitely “ivory tower” design, but it was fun, at least.
Lilith: If clarity is what WoTC wanted, they should’ve mentioned explicitly something like “Sneak Attack can apply once per turn, including other creatures’ turns.”
kobo1d: Let’s not beat the dead phantom steed too long with Rogue. I think the new Ranger was very likely the very first topic of conversation on the material in many group chats around the world. What do you all think about the changes to the class (and Hunter)?
Icebrick1: After some time spent looking at the document, I think I actually kind of like Ranger despite other issues with the document. I think the hunter’s mark feature is kind of bland, but it does almost make up for the loss of Sharpshooter. I like Rangers gaining spells at level 1 and the minor buffs many abilities got (even if they also lost a few, like Primal Awareness and Land’s Stride) such as Feral Senses actually working.
Hunter however leaves a lot to be desired. Removing choices from a subclass doesn’t really make it better. Hunter’s Prey is a small boring damage increase. Hunter’s Lore is a cool feature, but not a big power increase (it should come alongside another feature!). Multiattack is horrid, conjure barrage is a bad spell and not worth downcasting (though downcasting itself is kind of a cool feature). Superior Hunter’s Defense is kind of cool, but comes extremely late and doesn’t make up for the other levels. Overall all the subclasses in the document were disappointing, though since JC indicated these are intended to be the “champion” subclasses of these classes there might be better coming.
Sylv: First impression: all Rangers are Experts now because they need to have trained in a circus to do all that hand crossbow juggling. But also, the addition of hunter’s mark seems to be another one of these changes made to appease the general populace. Sure, it makes up for some lost damage from Sharpshooter, but it still costs a spell slot I’d probably rather spend on goodberry. The issue of using a bonus action is likely moot now since Crossbow Expert doesn’t use a bonus action. But some current Ranger subclasses do rely on their Bonus Action. Overall, the hunter’s mark addition is okay though.
My overall feeling about Ranger is: “okay.” I don’t know enough until we see how surprise and pass without trace work.
And while I like the Ranger core for the most part, the Hunter features? Not so much. We lose player choice to get some lackluster features. For instance, the 6th-level feature is problematic. Most players will generally already know this information. I like that there’s an in-game way to find out this information, but this is also something the DM should just be revealing as it comes up. But that’s a whole other discussion about monster design, transparency, and interactive combats.
The 10th-level Hunter feature though is a strict downgrade from the current 11th-level Hunter feature. It’s actually quite laughable that they think conjure barrage is worth casting, even downcasting!
Esker: Conjure barrage is a terrible, terrible spell. I probably wouldn’t make too much of bonus action clashes between hunter’s mark and things other Ranger subclasses do, Sylv. I would expect that many of those features will be reworked as well. At least, if we’re giving the benefit of the doubt, which I think might be warranted in this case after seeing the two-weapon fighting changes.
seacliff: The whole “Downcasting” thing with conjure barrage is humorous for all the wrong reasons. I can’t believe I’m saying I would rather use the slots on hunter’s mark.
Esker: Now that hunter’s mark isn’t concentration, I don’t actually think it’s a bad use of a slot.
seacliff: Favored Enemy becomes pretty interesting once you reach Level 9. Casting it with a 3rd Level Spell Slot basically turns your Hand Crossbow into a ranged Greatsword for the day.
Soma: I feel like the One D&D Ranger in a vacuum, which is to say ignoring nerfs to feats – is an improvement. Luolang has talked about how One D&D is reflecting how the game is “actually” played at the vast majority of tables, and at many tables, Rangers love to use hunter’s mark. Thus, hunter’s mark has become a non-concentration spell that is always prepared and is available at level 1. In many ways it feels like One D&D is taking the path of least resistance, with healing word becoming an auto-prep for the Bard and hunter’s mark becoming an auto-prep for the Ranger.
kobo1d: seacliff, I know you were running numbers to try to maximize new Ranger DPR, what was the conclusion? (given the caveat that we still have a lot of gaps in spells and other things).
Icebrick1: My lazy calculations told me that simple Crossbow Expert new Ranger actually had higher DPR while hunter’s mark was active than CBE + SS old Ranger (with no concentration). This doesn’t make up for the fact it now costs a spell slot; it takes until 9th level before you can keep it up all the time, but I found it heartening that Ranger wasn’t completely dead in this UA.
seacliff: Working with kobo1d and Icebrick to squeeze out as much as we could out of the Ranger was pretty fun. I was actually surprised it held up decently in Tier 3. Of course, this assumes that shuffling Crossbows around is actually allowed.
Esker: It does require multiple hand crossbows though, which… if nonmagical weapon immunity doesn’t change, which there’s no reason to think will happen so far, is an issue.
seacliff: Yeah, needing one magical hand crossbow for the sake of resistances is hard enough to find. Let alone getting two without a generous DM.
Xenken: it also doesn’t include better power attack advantage/bless returns right?
seacliff: Yeah, in 5E, power attacks allowed Martials to get more out of any bonus to-hit.
Soma: 100% uptime with Tabletop Builds assumptions would mean using three out of your four 1st level slots on hunter’s mark, at 2 fights per short rest. So One D&D Rangers are down three 1st level slots, are limited to 30’ range, will need multiple hand crossbows, can’t ignore cover, and benefit less from buffs from things like bless, sources of advantage gained from allies such as faerie fire, etc. So assuming the rest of their spell list is intact, it’s still a downgrade, but…perhaps a salvageable one.
Esker: Currently, I think it’s a reasonable expectation that a player using a hand crossbow as their main weapon will at some point be able to find a magic hand crossbow. But three magic hand crossbows (or two and a magic heavy crossbow) might be a narrative bridge too far even for more supportive DMs.
Soma: Overall, I think that Ranger has taken a damage hit, and the hand crossbow juggling may be an issue if Loading or Ammunition properties remain unchanged.
kobo1d: The top version was new Halfling+Hunter+Crossbow Expert (with juggling)+Charger+Sharpshooter+hunter’s mark, right?
seacliff: Yeah, there isn’t much at Level 1 that helps martials (so far). Assuming we’re using Hand Crossbows, I choose Halflings simply because they actually gave something for martials.
Soma: That would require you to be level 12, at least, and I would assume that higher level feats are more worth taking, but that may or may not be the case.
Luolang: With respect to the Ranger, I think they come out okay compared to the 2014 ranger. Various TCE optional class features have become baked into the class, and the option to use a nonconcentration hunter’s mark compared to the original Favored Enemy seems like a marked improvement. Feral Senses now actually does something as a class feature. The biggest change to the Ranger I imagine as is being discussed are changes surrounding it to feats such as Sharpshooter, the rules for Dual Wielding, and so forth. While the hunter’s mark changes do give the Ranger some breathing room, the loss of power attacks in Sharpshooter is still a significant loss in my mind in a world with bless, cover, and access to magical weapons and other accuracy bonuses that would otherwise outstrip the DPR of this playtest ranger.
seacliff: It seems like all Half Casters are adopting the Artificer multiclass spell progression.
kobo1d: I’m glad you pointed that out, seacliff, I like the change here and also what it implies for Paladin.
Icebrick1: I’m disappointed that despite the changes to Sharpshooter, GWM and more, that dual wielding Hand Crossbows is still higher damage than dual wielding melee weapons, mainly due to the fact you can take both Archery and Crossbow Expert, while Two Weapon Fighting Style + Dual Wielder is less impactful.
Esker: In terms of how the changes to Ranger affect other players at tables with Rangers… one thing most everyone could agree on before was that two-weapon fighting wasn’t very good. Now, we’re bound to see more dual-wielding melee Ranger players. Make of that what you will.
Soma: I assume that other people are all over shillelagh Ranger?
kobo1d: Oh no, I’m sure we’ll see lots of shillelagh Rangers still to come. It’s a popular idea.
Soma: Honestly, the Primal spell list is one that I most expect to have key spells nerfed or changed, so it’s hard for me to comment on Ranger otherwise.
Haen the Heretic: Ranger has at the very least become an armor dip for all that’s worth in the Lightly Armored meta.
Sylv: Armor and goodberry dip.
kobo1d: Predicted article title before the chat started: Tabletop Builds Discusses Lightly Armored.
Haen the Heretic: Lightly Armored is an utterly terrible design choice. Armor dips were already a major “why does this exist” moment, now they’re not even dips anymore.
seacliff: This is probably what makes Lightly Armored hurt the game more than making Armored casters more popular. While Armored Wizards and Sorcerers are bad for the game as a whole, Ranger and Paladin becoming potential 1st Level dips for full casters would have at least gave more options and flavors for how one could take an armor dip. But Lightly Armored just chucks all of that out.
New Feats
kobo1d: Let’s just embrace the Lightly Armored discussion and expand it to all feats. There are a ton of feats here, some good, some bad. What would you like to highlight from this selection here as outliers (in either direction)?
Soma: Lightly Armored gives medium armor and shield proficiency at level 1 and War Caster is a half feat now. Incredible stuff.
Esker: If there’s one feat that needed buffing, it was War Caster.
Sylv: Initial thoughts: the martial feats have been gutted, Lightly Armored is a meta-defining feat that makes the armor-dipped caster problem worse, Charger is the new meta for ranged control builds, PAM+Sentinel no longer works, and casters get a second buff with new War Caster for some reason.
Soma: Human Sorcerers and Wizards now have Alert and Lightly Armored at 1, and War Caster at 4. Human Druids and Clerics have Magic Initiate and Alert at 1, and War Caster at 4. Human Bards and Warlocks have Magic Initiate and Lightly Armored at 1, and War Caster at 4. Everyone gets shield, medium armor proficiency, shield proficiency, and Sorcerers and Wizards will probably get to go first in the majority of combats!
Luolang: I believe Jeremy Crawford stated in the video that having separate feats for Lightly Armored and Moderately Armored and additionally previously having to multiclass to obtain armor proficiency as a spellcaster was too ‘punishing.’ Now, case in point with Lightly Armored as a 1st-level feat anyone can take as part of their background, the opportunity cost for armor using spellcasters has decreased even more so than before.
Icebrick1: I will look on the bright side and point out some feats that I think are much more interesting. Mage Slayer is now a very interesting feat with its ability to auto-pass a saving throw. Heavy Armor Master now scales with PB and reduces bludgeoning piercing and slashing even from magical sources. Ranged Charger is very goofy, but I… kind of… like it…?
Lilith: Heavy Armor Master losing restriction to non-magical damage doesn’t seem to matter much if they continue the direction of replacing “magic weapon” trait on monsters with force damage.
Charger is very exciting, it’s exactly the kind of expanded option that martials, and more broadly, 5e writing needs a lot more of. It’s a simple ability that can do what its thematic implies – a brutal warrior slamming into an enemy and punting them away – but it also has potential to interact with other build paths by applying to any weapon attacks including ranged, and the 10 feet movement befire the attack can be in any direction. DnD 5e has a lot of its potential for dynamic gameplay in the form of area control and forced movement, Charger adds another way to play into that and finally martials get to join in on the fun.
kobo1d: I’m all in on Charger kite and push away with my longbow, even though it’s almost certain to be “fixed.” Repelling Blast effects are always fun.
Xenken: I think I like the One D&D Inspiring Leader more even though it’s probably worse.
Haen the Heretic: Lightly Armored removes the much-needed variety that comes from having multiple choices of armor dip. In 5E, my cleric-dipping Warlock chooses between a minimum of three subclasses (Peace, Forge, Twilight) while also having Life as an option if I’m going Mark of Hospitality. In One D&D, I just need to pick a feat.
Light armor proficiency is less useful now, since it’s no longer even a stepping stone to get Moderately Armored.
Charger and GWM are hilarious but underwhelming, Sharpshooter is sad. Overall the level prerequisites reek of a complete lack of any kind of evaluation of their power. Mage Slayer is a cool Legendary Resistance for casters.
On the topic of Charger, I guess Bladesinger can now pull off part of the Warlock gameplay of “pew pew, go to the moon and get stuck in a web”.
Luolang: A ranged crossbow wielding character using Charger to push away enemies is the D&D Vayne cosplay we never knew we needed before.
Lilith: In stark contrast to the expanded potential for interactions with Charger, the Sharpshooter change missed the mark significantly. Bypass Cover, Firing in Melee, and Long Shots are traits that remove all the downsides and restrictions ranged combat has at its base – you don’t need to move around to avoid cover, you don’t need to secure the distance sweet spot where you can make attacks without letting enemies reach you easily, you don’t need to make a decision of whether to shoot at disadvantage or take an opportunity attack and move away, and features that let you disengage easily become relatively less impactful. Just stand there and press attack and move wherever you want.
The only involved choice you had – whether to take the to-hit penalty for bigger damage – is now removed because it’s deemed overpowered and problematic when it was martials’ much needed boost.
Should there still be Bypass Cover, Firing in Melee, and Long Shots as perks somewhere? Yes, they’re tangible benefits that influence how you interact with the game, but they’re better off as minor upgrades like fighting style that you can pick multiple of, than bundled all in one feat.
Soma: I think the martial feats would feel pretty good if I felt confident that Warrior class group damage was going to be scaled up to around 5E optimal feat-pairing levels with just base class features. They are interesting, thematic, maybe little underpowered, but perhaps having feats that aren’t entirely build defining could be a good thing.
Esker: I mean, Jeremy Crawford is right that it’s not worth taking two feats to get medium armor and shield proficiency, but that’s because two feats is pretty clearly a higher cost than a single level dip. But one feat, in a game where everyone gets a feat at 1st and humans can get two, is too low a cost.
Quetzalcoatlus: Especially considering the power level of other options available at 1.
seacliff: If Lightly Armored and Moderately Armored stayed the same, I would have been willing to take them both as a Variant Human with these new feat rules.
Sylv: Again with this theme of WotC using misconceived notions from the general population to further game design. I think the notion that multiclassing makes casters weaker because it delays spell progression is extremely popular. So it’s no surprise to me that WotC thinks that too.
Quetzalcoatlus: Reads like “would you rather have +4 AC and the Shield spell or be good at this niche action you’re probably not gonna use much?”
seacliff: I think this and more can be fixed if the Wizard class states they can’t cast magic in armor, but I’m doubtful that will be included in their spellcasting wording.
Lilith: Surely they will find a way to limit caster’s access to armor without making all the gish fans sad.
Soma: I actually think Tavern Brawler at 1, Dueling, and Grappler could be interesting, if there are some inherent damage steroids built into Warrior classes.
Icebrick1: I think making every single 4th level feat a half-feat was an interesting decision that could’ve brought up some previously very sad feats. But in most cases, even very powerful feats like War Caster and PAM stayed unchanged with an additional +1 stat on top, meaning horrid feats like Elemental Adept stayed horrid.
I also feel like it would’ve been a good decision to make the level 1 feats give +1 to a stat if you select them later, considering how they’re so much worse than most level 4 feats (Lightly Armored not included).
Lilith: Ah yes, Elemental Adept, where even in its best case scenario of using it with fireball, you get a whooping 1.33 damage increase per target. WoTC is sticking to “it feels good to avoid those 1s” rather than paying any attention to its actual EV for this one.
Esker: Yeah, I doubt many people would argue against the size of the gap between taking the top martial feats and not doing that being too large in the current system. But the solution they seem to be moving toward here is to reduce that gap by moving the high side down, and therefore widening the gap it has on the other side with casters, rather than moving the lower end up, which is what they should do in my opinion (and I doubt it’s a stretch to say pretty much all of us here)
Lilith: Ah yes, Elemental Adept, where even in its best case scenario of using it with fireball, you get a whooping 1.33 damage increase per target. WoTC is sticking to “it feels good to avoid those 1s” rather than paying any attention to its actual EV for this one. Great Weapon Fighting shares the exact same problem but now it’s a whole feat.
seacliff: While Martial Feats have been gutted, I think the extra salt in the wound is that you have to wait until Level 4 to get anything decent for a martial character. I would have appreciated Charger, Crossbow Expert, or Great Weapon Master at Level 1.
Esker: Again, I hear lots of people saying “Maybe Power Attack will be built into the Warrior group!” and… maybe… but given what we see here with Rogue, I doubt it.
Luolang: On the topic of martial characters and the feedback WoTC receives, the changes to Polearm Master remove the somewhat noted Polearm Master + Sentinel builds. The extent to which people may have had issues with this build in comparison to its actual power level I felt was always overstated and martial characters lost another interesting build option and one that had given martial characters (and particularly melee characters) a needed control element in the past.
Lilith: I guess Charger remains an unintentional exception. A lot of tables still seem incredibly hostile to a feature… interacting with another, and One DnD is agreeing with that attitude in its design philosophy. PAM should work with Sentinel, and there should be more straightforward options for synergy between features rather than less. Forcelance is an incredibly charming combo we had that doesn’t outclass its alternatives, I’m pretty disappointed to see it go.
Haen the Heretic: Agreed on PAM Sentinel. Oh no, my character is a glorified web spell but only single-target! How broken! It’s a shame they removed the interaction instead of buffing it.
Soma: Polearm Master, as I noted above, does remove the restriction that you only attack with a polearm. So it has some small shenanigans potential with juggling light weapons and a glaive and…yeah, I’m coping hard. I know.
kobo1d: I liked Icebrick’s idea to look at the bright side and highlight some feats that looks interesting if not super powerful, because that is realistically a decent place for feats to be. Anything here that you like or think is maybe under the radar?
Sylv: I agree with the previous comments about Mage Slayer and Charger. I also appreciate that Keen Mind adds Study as a bonus action, which feels like a good step in the direction of making monster abilities and traits more obvious and interactable. But I would never take a feat for this.
Icebrick1: Skulker I think is another feat that got a nice face-lift. I find Blindsight very fun to have as a player.
Lilith: Shield Master is now explicitly after you hit with a melee weapon, so only subsequent attacks benefit from the target being knocked prone. Speedster feels like an even worse Mobile, Meanwhile, Athletes now has more tangible benefits, Fighting Style: Protection is actually quite interesting and adds an active element to gameplay.
seacliff: If there’s anything all these feat changes did for the game compared to 5e, it made looking at options other than Human for Martials more interesting. Especially since we’re allowed to take options from 5e sourcebooks with simple conversion rules.
kobo1d: Well, maybe seacliff. Honestly we are likely going to look to the community for how backwards-compatible we should be treating 5E material in the future.
Soma: I think it’s interesting that Shield Master and Light weapon property additional attacks are on the Attack action, but Polearm Master and Great Weapon Master are bonus actions.
Keen Mind would be better in a different game where knowing enemy traits mattered.
Haen the Heretic: Mounted Combatant’s advantage generation now works on ranged attacks too, for all that’s worth.
Icebrick1: I think we should re-touch on the Epic Boons, at least briefly: there is a huge range of quality here.
Luolang: To note, the Epic Boons listed as feats here are a select number of the ones in the DMG, with some of the more powerful epic boons left out. That said, the Boon of Luck seems nice for an initiative boost every single combat.
Icebrick1: The Epic Boons are for some reason where we see the Class Groups get used a ton. They at least left out the extremely powerful boons that gave additional 9th level spells which was good decision; but most of the remaining boons don’t really feel “epic.” Like resistance to one damage type doesn’t really feel like an “Epic Boon,” available only to 20th level or higher characters. I wish all were on the tier of the Boon that gives you an extra 30 feet of movement.
kobo1d: The resistance one I noticed specifically was Expert or Mage group. WHY?
Sylv: Separating Combat Prowess and Peerless Aim makes little sense to me too.
seacliff: Some of these boons are very underwhelming compared to early level player abilities we have seen in 5E. Such as comparing the Wildfire Druid’s teleporting prowess to Epic Boon of Dimensional Travel.
Haen the Heretic: In order to make feats with level prerequisites, one should first ensure that the stronger feats actually have a higher level prerequisite.
seacliff: I feel like a 20th Level Martial should get something much better than letting one missed attack hit once a battle.
Sylv: I also feel like a 20th level Rogue should get something other than “I can stay hidden from creatures with blindsight.”
Spell Changes
kobo1d: All of your points seem true to me. Consider what others are getting in tier 4…such as our last topic, spells! Two revised spells and all three complete spell lists. Anything you want to highlight here?
Icebrick1: I am actually very pleased guidance was changed.
Sylv: I like the change to guidance only because now I don’t have to figure out how to adjudicate it and I can stop listening to people scream “WITH GUIDANCE!!”. But a better solution was just to delete the spell to be honest.
seacliff: Guidance needed a nerf, but I think it was nerfed into being not even worth the preparation.
kobo1d: I don’t like the specific way it’s been nerfed. Make it a level 1 spell if guidance spam was so egregious. 1/LR/target feels like an extremely clunky design.
Icebrick1: It was a common annoyance to discuss with players if guidance actually could’ve been used or not. Either it becomes a common game slow-down, or you get to add 1d4 to every single skill check. Having it be reactive and limited in use is a lot less annoying.
seacliff: The value of guidance was comparable to the value of Expertise all the way up to Level 8.
Esker: I think guidance is… basically fine here, though the restriction of one use per target is likely to create a lot of second-guessing about whether this is the check you want to use it on.
Soma: It also seems like it’ll be kind of annoying to track. I currently have to set up some macros for Healer and Inspiring Leader, and it seems like I’ll have to do the same for guidance as well.
Sylv: Guidance now seems to have a niche use for making sure an allied counterspell lands or a Hide check succeeds. I’m happy not to have to constantly wonder whether guidance applies to all checks under the sun.
Icebrick1: It is possible that it should’ve just been deleted instead of its current version which is kind of awkward design for a cantrip, but I still much prefer it over the old version.
Haen the Heretic: The nerf to guidance is kind of sad, but oh well, it was mostly just split between initiative and minor things anyway. +2.5 initiative from a cantrip is stupid but it was manageable since it took up concentration, so no precast summons etc.
Esker: One less obvious effect of guidance becoming a reaction is that you have to perform the V,S components when the check is made, which makes using it on social checks pretty awkward. It’s like:
NPC: “I have no idea where the Macguffin is!”
Cleric: (waves hands) “Florbios Morbios!” (rolls Insight)
Xenken: People are gonna sleep on just running Cleric/Cleric/Druid/Wizard parties or something.
Luolang: If guidance was deemed to be such a problem, I think it would have been better simply removed from the game. The current design feels really awkward.
Xenken: One idea that I heard around that I just thought was really funny. Remember when Xanathar’s Guide To Everything made a casual suggestion of getting NPC casters to cast magic weapon to deal with BPS-resistant monsters?
Could you imagine the party just hiring a train of people to cast guidance for stuff?
Haen the Heretic: we call those chwingas.
Icebrick1: The other changed spell here is barkskin. It is a buff, since pretty everyone should’ve had AC better than old barkskin, but I don’t think it’ll really be worth casting.
Sylv: Barkskin is actually not terrible anymore.
seacliff: Barkskin is better now, but that’s not saying much.
kobo1d: Yeah I’m not sold on barkskin being worth concentration yet. Depends on other temporary hit point generation abilities in the game but seems unlikely with how much they like to print those these days.
Esker: The fact that it’s a question though is definitely an improvement.
Luolang: It’s definitely an improvement, but from an opportunity cost perspective, the Druid has better stuff to still concentrate on for the slot and concentration requirement.
seacliff: Druid’s also have a very competitive 2nd Level Spell list, especially now that they’ll be unable to have no more than three of them prepared at a time now.
Soma: I could see spike growth being nerfed to a more set amount of damage, and I could see pass without trace getting gutted either due to spell changes or surprise changes, so I think it could be worth casting…one hour duration helps.
Esker: My hope is that the change to barkskin is a sign that buff spells are being buffed. Metabuffed? I think they overreacted to the buff-stacking of previous editions when they released 5E, to the point where other than a small handful of things like bless, it’s rarely worth concentrating on buffs at all.
Haen the Heretic: Spike growth is unlikely to get changed, so barkskin just doesn’t compete well.
Xenken: I’m very rarely going to go bat for a spell who’s effect goes away when monsters simply attack elsewhere. Like I know denying focus fire is good but, y’know, just hurt those monsters instead.
Sylv: In general though, I just don’t like the division of spells into these three lists because of what has been said earlier. It’s more difficult for players to find the spells they can prepare. But also, it’s harder to futureproof this. What if a spell comes out later that thematically and mechanically should really only be a Bard spell (e.g., dissonant whispers in 5E)? How do you prevent it from being accessible by wizards without just straight up saying “wizards can’t cast enchantment spells” or something?
Also, the changing of some spell schools is rather arbitrary in that the school itself makes no sense (looking at you shatter). But the purpose is clear: we have to make shatter a Bard spell without making fireball a Bard spell.
As for all other spells, I reserve full judgment because it’s just impossible to really judge the power of spells or spellcasters without seeing how they change the spell descriptions. They don’t seem to be straight up deleting anything, even things like find traps and conjure animals. So we shall see.
Esker: I expect we will see a rewrite of conjure animals when the Priest group UA comes out
seacliff: I expect changes to a good chunk of spells in the game. So the relative power of casters, or how good spells like guidance or barkskin now are, will be heavily dependent on that.
Sylv: I expect to see rewrites of major controversial spells like conjure animals also. I don’t anticipate spells like web changing because they are just not on the radar of the general player base.
Luolang: One spell I’d be very interested to see if it is changed if at all is pass without trace given some of the implications on the rules for hiding and surprise potentially.
seacliff: Also given how easy pass without trace is to obtain, since any Wood Elf caster gets to learn it.
Esker: I agree, Sylv. Web is super strong for its level but conjure animals is not only strong but awkward, controversial in a bunch of ways, and at odds with the notion that players shouldn’t need DM-oriented books.
Haen the Heretic: Rewrites of broken spells would be cool if I had any confidence in the writers’ ability to design a game. As it stands, however, creating a good spell is a matter of rolling a d10 and on an 8-10 it’s a good spell. Naturally, I’m not too keen on re-rolling what was already a success, metaphorically speaking.
Luolang: Given the design of various summoning spells and features in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything and beyond, I wouldn’t be surprised to see conjure animals be significantly pared down in terms of selectable options or perhaps even have an associated statblock to go with it.
Lilith: I don’t have high hopes for their template summons options. The Tasha summons had some number problems, sure, but what irked me the most was that the options you get to choose from are excruciatingly lame – wow I get to choose whether my basic stat stick monster does fire or bludgeoning damage, what a feast!
Haen the Heretic: I’m one of the few people who liked players being rewarded for reading books that would be DM-oriented in other systems, like the Monster Manual. It was a stupidly massive range of choices, and if the game couldn’t be balanced then it could at least be broken in an interesting way. And it certainly was.
kobo1d: Thank you all for your responses once again on the One D&D Expert Classes material. Before we cut this off I’ll ask the same thing I did last time: in a few sentences, what is the most important thing you think our readers should ask WotC to clarify or otherwise change in this second set of rules?
Icebrick1: I would tell WoTC to take a look at Lightly Armored, Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter in particular. And I would want Rogue to receive a huge buff, since currently it does nothing well.
seacliff: Martials are going to have to really cross their fingers when the Martial UA drops. I hope better Martial Feats or more interesting Weapon Properties is something WOTC delivers on.
Soma: Please make Barbarians good. Lightly Armored and War Caster being buffed were mistakes.
Haen the Heretic: Just bring back 4E and forget the last edition happened? Wishful thinking aside, I would say “fix martials”. Make the feats competitive, give them more meaningful build choices than just subclass and feats, etc.
Additionally, if you’re going to showcase spellcaster classes, show the spells. Otherwise you’re basically asking a blind man his favorite color and investing money in the results of your research.
Lilith: Ask for better designed features – not in terms of power, but in terms of gameplay diversity. Situational +1 damage bonuses are boring and we don’t need 20 more of them.
Features should allow players more ways to interact with the game, or approach the game slightly differently like the new Charger and Skulker feats.
Sylv: The martial feats (particularly GWM and SS) and Lightly Armored need to be redesigned. But really, just better choices. Charger is on the right path towards this, goofiness about longbows aside. We need more martials feats like that — feats that give a meaningful and impactful choice. Rogue also needs to have some of its changes reverted, notably off-turn Sneak Attack and Evasion delay. But the Rogue class in general also just needs to get stronger. It’s not good when, unironically, the class would just be “okay” even if all of its features were gained at half the level at which they are currently gained.
Luolang: For myself personally, I am concerned about the original statement as to the backwards compatibility of 5E content into One D&D material. Given the extent of the changes presented, it seems unclear or unlikely if this is truly feasible and this can result in a lot of content folks have acquired being left on the cutting room floor so to speak. This kind of thing can be inherently schismatic from a community standpoint, so some clarity on just what One D&D is ultimately intended to be would be helpful.
The other major thing I would look for is greater clarity or attention to ensuring that the character options in One D&D actually do stack up well next to each other and that the moment to moment decision making in One D&D remains engaging and interesting. Presently, this playtest seems to leave martial characters in the dust compared to spellcasters and additionally a number of the changes for the presumed sake of streamlining seem to strongly miss the mark (such as the various changes to movement).
Haen the Heretic: I wonder if it would break the game any further than it’s already broken if we just let martials kill a target of CR lower than half their level on a hit. Probably not, considering the madness that is casters. And that really encapsulates just how much of a nightmare this system’s balance is starting to look like.
Esker: I would say “buff Rogue please”, but I don’t think this would happen due to the majority of the community apparently not thinking it’s needed. So instead I’d ask them to clarify how surprise works, and also whether they’re changing the loading and/or ammunition properties so as not to introduce crossbow juggling.
kobo1d: Thanks, all!
And finally, to our readers: Let us know what you thought of the One D&D news in the comments or in our Discord server!
Design uniformity was the best part of 4e. There’s existing proof that they can manage sensible structure, keywording, transparency, etc. Probably not with the incompetent team they have now though.
I think you guys are missing the point of the power attack changes. It never really made sense to me that the hand crossbow was the deadliest weapon in the game. the butt end of a polearm shouldn’t deal more damage than a longsword. I think we need to see 6th or 8th-level feats and how the warrior classes scale before proclaiming the death of martials. weapon users don’t have as much trouble staying relevant in the early game anyway. Spells are still going to change as well. If they want to increase the accuracy of challenge ratings nerfing casters seems more efficient than buffing both monsters and martial classes.
I’m surprised no one mentioned that Class Groups are an old 2e AD&D thing.
2e did away with sub-classes, grouping former primary & sub-classes together in groups. It was a distinction without a practical difference, but it did give an impression of former sub-classes being “equal.”
It’s with a little irony that One D&D has both Class Groups and sub-classes.
But the worst thing about class groups is the implicit idea that there is a legitimate “Expert” role that shines out of combat, alongside a combat-only warrior role/group – and a couple of do-everything caster groups.
Bardic Inspirations being made a reaction means that likely they won’t be used at all, for spells like absorb elements, shield, feather fall, silver barbs, and counterspell take priority at least from what I’ve played and seen.
It is hard to guess how many of these things will be in One D&D or if they will function the same way. Hopefully we see *shield, feather fall, counterspell* soon at the least.