Exploer's Guide to Windmont: I wish they had tested this in UA...

[Damon_Tor]

So thumbing through my friend's copy of Explorer's Guide to Windmont today and... wow. How did this make it past editorial? Why do they bother having the UA playtesting system if they don't actually use it to playtest their stuff?

So first off, I like the Echo Knight just fine. Pushes things a bit with Echo Avatar (You stay 100% safe and can attack guys up to 1000 feet away, with no limits on how often you can try it) but its not too egregious due to the single hitpoint of the echo.

Chronurgy though. WTF guys.

So first off, Arcane Abeyance is seriously strong. This is not game breaking stuff, but still extremely powerful: it not only allows the chronomancer to offload concentration onto another party member (or a familiar), it also allows them to pre-cast a spell that otherwise would have a cast-time too long to be used in combat. A Tiny Hut can now be cast an hour ahead of time and carried around in the fighter's pocket until he's ready to deploy his instant battle-bunker of doom. You could cast Magic Circle and have an instantly deployed via familiar (so no action on the caster's part), no-save-granted, stick-you-in-a-spot-for-one-hour spell.

Mitigating considerations: it's once per day only and can only pelletize 4th level spells and lower. A very, very strong feature, but one that, were it the capstone on an otherwise moderate subclass, I would accept without issue.

Convergent Future is where they **** it all up. This is portent (already a really freaking strong wizard feature) on steroids.

Okay, so as a reaction, the Timelord can decide whether a dice roll (attack, save, or check) succeeds (by 1) or fails (by 1). And the exact wording makes it clear that you are choosing the number of the dice itself. So what this means then: if you are in a situation where the only way to hit with a given attack is to roll a nat-20 this ability will make your roll a nat 20. That is now the number on the dice for all intents and purposes. He has made the attack into a crit. And on the next turn, if nothing else changes and he does the exact same thing again, it's going to be a crit then too.

This ability has no daily limit. They can do this as many times as they care to. The only penalty is, they get one level of exhaustion each time, exhaustion only a good night's sleep can cure.

"Gee Damon" you might say "I don't see the problem. Doesn't that put a hard limit of 5 per day? The sixth use will kill them, and the others will stack progressively burdensome debuffs on him."

Sure, you might think that. Unfortunately, the wizard can cast Shapechange and turn into a creature that's immune to exhaustion. And even before 17th level he can still make a simulacrum to take on his Exhaustion for him (the Sim can also make his own Arcane Abeyance too) and frankly, exhaustion isn't as bad on wizards as it is on other classes (less reliance on your actual movement speed, little need for attack rolls)

By contrast, the Gravity Wizard is extremely disappointing. Doesn't every wizard want at-will Longstrider+Jump as a class feature? No? Well what if we make it use your concentration?

The spells mostly seem fine. I do find it distasteful that the spells require special DM permission to be used by wizards of other subclasses. Immovable Object looks rather abusable: as an action you touch an object (no prohibition against held/worn objects, no prohibition against magic objects) and you lock it in place for an hour, no concentration, as a second level spell. Against anything wearing armor or even clothes of any kind, or with any kind of object it cannot remove itself (a dog collar etc) this is effectively a 1-hour duration, no save immobilize. Cast at higher levels its duration increases, becoming "until dispelled" at level 6.

[Zhorn]

So is there any idea on how much of the mechanical stuff was Matt's design?
I know they got in a writing team to help write up the lore and locations, expanding on Matt's campaign notes, but I don't know about the classes and spells.

Now I love me some CR (please come back, I need my weekly fix), but the oft heard critique is Matt's stuff tends more towards an unbalanced design.

[MaxWilson]

Okay, so as a reaction, the Timelord can decide whether a dice roll (attack, save, or check) succeeds (by 1) or fails (by 1). And the exact wording makes it clear that you are choosing the number of the dice itself. So what this means then: if you are in a situation where the only way to hit with a given attack is to roll a nat-20 this ability will make your roll a nat 20. That is now the number on the dice for all intents and purposes. He has made the attack into a crit. And on the next turn, if nothing else changes and he does the exact same thing again, it's going to be a crit then too.

This ability has no daily limit. They can do this as many times as they care to. The only penalty is, they get one level of exhaustion each time, exhaustion only a good night's sleep can cure.

"Gee Damon" you might say "I don't see the problem. Doesn't that put a hard limit of 5 per day? The sixth use will kill them, and the others will stack progressively burdensome debuffs on him."

Sure, you might think that. Unfortunately, the wizard can cast Shapechange and turn into a creature that's immune to exhaustion. And even before 17th level he can still make a simulacrum to take on his Exhaustion for him (the Sim can also make his own Arcane Abeyance too) and frankly, exhaustion isn't as bad on wizards as it is on other classes (less reliance on your actual movement speed, little need for attack rolls)

Even before Shapechange, you can Magic Jar into a Soul Monger or Gloomweaver, which are humanoid, high HP, and immune to exhaustion.

To say nothing of potential Magic Jar shenanigans when you are *guaranteed* to make your Cha save against your own spell save DC.

[TIPOT]

I think you're really overrating Chronurgy tbh? It's good but I'm pretty sure diviner is stronger.

Arcane abeyance is basically a ring of spell storing. Again very useful but not really game breakingly so - especially as you can't save spells for another day.

I am highly sceptical of your idea of making all attacks auto crits with Convergent Future. For that to work you'd need to be only able to hit them on a natural 20? Monsters generally don't have more than like 25AC ever and at level 14 your proficiency bonus is +5. So I guess you can make attacks with non proficient weapons auto crit? That's a niche use for it at best. More generally, it also takes your reaction and gives you a level of exhaustion.

If you don't cause a crit (which is extremely unlikely) it can be stopped by a bards cutting words or the shield spell or similar?

[Dork_Forge]

I'm disappointed in Wizard's latest releases in general tbh, the sheer amount of recycled art in books they want full retail for is not okay. I don't understand why these weren't tested in UA either but on the Chronurgist:

Arcane Abeyence isn't once per day, it recharges on a short or long rest, though it most definitely suffers from lack of clarative language and should be errata'd, I can definitely see potential for abuse.

Convergent Future I'm not really seeing much of a problem with to be honest, exhaustion is a HEAVY cost to pay, especially since it specifies that long resting is the ONLY way to remove a level of it. So in theory you can do this multiple times per day, but if you do it twice you'll still be starting at one level of exhaustion the next day. I know you say this is mitigated on a Wizard but just having disadvantage on all checks is a big debuff since it'll likely be every single check the Wizard makes after they hit this level unless they use the ability VERY sparingly or have downtime. This doesn't get past Legendary Resistance (since it's messing with dice) and at best would be a good way to wear down a boss' defenses. I don't think it's particularly a concern powerwise over all, the Shapechange exploit may need a patch but it's a 9th level spell that require concentration and has a 1500gp cost at levels that won't see much regular play. I imagine that if a Wizard started to abuse this in a game, whatever BBEG would very quickly start ignoring everyone else and focus on droppping said Wizard. Meanwhile doing this locks said Wizard out of Invulnerability, Wish and other 9th level goodies. Meanwhile the Divination Wizard is using Portent 3 times a day with no cost to themselves and their 9th level slot available.

Side Note: people have brought this Shapechange exploit up a few times recently, this is assuming that your character has seen a valid creature that would still be able to cast spells, is there a super obvious candidate for this spell that I'm missing?

When you consider that the 2nd and 6th level features aren't particularly exciting or powerful it balances out fairly well besides a player wanting to abuse Arcane Abeyence (though the player that does that probably would try to abuse Simulacrum anyway and that's more a conversation to be had than anything). As a DM this would only really raise a red flag if the player was a Halfling and took the Lucky feat and that would mostly just be irritating tbh.

*disclaimer: There may be more potential abuse when you factor in spells, I didn't really bother to read all of the spells

[KorvinStarmast]

Now I love me some CR (please come back, I need my weekly fix), but the oft heard critique is Matt's stuff tends more towards an unbalanced design. I dislike CR; it is too slow for me to watch. As to Matt's stuff: yeah, balance isn't for amateurs.
But I think I'd like playing at his table.


I'm disappointed in Wizard's latest releases in general tbh, Play testing takes effort, and I think they are mailing it in. Not sure why.

[Dork_Forge]

Play testing takes effort, and I think they are mailing it in. Not sure why.

Actually come to think of it kinda feels like they've phoned in most of 5e:

The monstrous races of Volos clearly were half assed (And the design of the Aasimar calls things into question imo), a lot of the player options in Xanathar's were basically what Wizard's liked from SCAG (and the Arcane Archer was just poorly thought through), Mordenkainens... because we needed a million Tieflings (we don't already have enough race options, am I right?), Eberron took a lot of art from older editions and we ended up with Dragonmarks giving spells, Ravnica is basically DM's Guild Material that ended up endorsed by Wizards (including ridiuclous backgrounds and magic items and gimped Spores Druid). Now we have another farmed out book, that's using a decent amount of existing art that hasn't seen play testing and provides subclass options that aren't even on par with each other.

They should spend less effort and resources on cranking out two adventures a year and provide better quality content, we don't need two adventures a year at this point in the lifecycle, but some well polished player options sure would be nice.

[KorvinStarmast]

Actually come to think of it kinda feels like they've phoned in most of 5e:

The monstrous races of Volos clearly were half assed (And the design of the Aasimar calls things into question imo), a lot of the player options in Xanathar's were basically what Wizard's liked from SCAG (and the Arcane Archer was just poorly thought through), Mordenkainens... because we needed a million Tieflings (we don't already have enough race options, am I right?), Eberron took a lot of art from older editions and we ended up with Dragonmarks giving spells, Ravnica is basically DM's Guild Material that ended up endorsed by Wizards (including ridiuclous backgrounds and magic items and gimped Spores Druid). Now we have another farmed out book, that's using a decent amount of existing art that hasn't seen play testing and provides subclass options that aren't even on par with each other.

They should spend less effort and resources on cranking out two adventures a year and provide better quality content, we don't need two adventures a year at this point in the lifecycle, but some well polished player options sure would be nice.
No argument here about the lack of QC for SCAG; Xanathar's was about 50 - 50 goodness. But it took them almost three years worth of UA to get there. Mord's: bloat, though I liked the coverage of the Gith. Volo's: yes, the monstrous races were/are a mess. Aasimar mostly left me confused: neat idea for a Divine Soul Sorcerer or a Celestial Warlock, or maybe a bard, or a Paladin, but ... as you say, left me wondering where the rest of the meat was for the sandwich.

[Damon_Tor]

Even before Shapechange, you can Magic Jar into a Soul Monger or Gloomweaver, which are humanoid, high HP, and immune to exhaustion.

To say nothing of potential Magic Jar shenanigans when you are *guaranteed* to make your Cha save against your own spell save DC.

That's a really good point.

Frankly, there are probably other workarounds for this we just aren't thinking of, the wizard toolbox is just too deep to think that exhaustion-based ability limitations were ever going to be meaningful: they should not have tried to use exhaustion in this way. That was a stupid mistake, one that we would have caught quickly if they had just given us this stuff to test before they released it. Now we either have to accept a seriously overpowered official subclass or they're going to have to issue errata.

[Segev]

“Man, wouldn’t it be nice if they used some of these mechanics, like spending hit dice and exhaustion, more often?”

*introduces a mechanic using exhaustion*

“Ugh! They should have known better than to use a mechanic like exhaustion, here!”



I get that it is frustrating when you see exploits, but when those exploits require high-tier play, perhaps consider your tone in critiquing them. It is understandable to be frustrated that a new, expensive book seems to have issues. But it you are complaining about a lack of content output and then complain when the content is output....


Well, I suppose we should be grateful that the main driver of production is sales.

[Dork_Forge]

“Man, wouldn’t it be nice if they used some of these mechanics, like spending hit dice and exhaustion, more often?”

*introduces a mechanic using exhaustion*

“Ugh! They should have known better than to use a mechanic like exhaustion, here!”



I get that it is frustrating when you see exploits, but when those exploits require high-tier play, perhaps consider your tone in critiquing them. It is understandable to be frustrated that a new, expensive book seems to have issues. But it you are complaining about a lack of content output and then complain when the content is output....


Well, I suppose we should be grateful that the main driver of production is sales.

Any exploit that relies on something like Magic Jar or Shape Change isn't that big of an exploit, of all things the DM has the greatest power to shut these things down, if it even is being aproblem for tier 3/4 play.

[jjordan]

Haven't read Wildemount, but I've got Tal'Dorei and really enjoy it.

Thinking of these books (Wildemount, Acquisitions Inc.) as standard D&D supplements is probably wrong. These are franchise, merchandising tie-ins in the same vein as Avengers toys at fast-food restaurants. A better comparison is the the Lankhmar and Thieves' World supplements published for AD&D lo these many years past. They work to stay as true to the source material as possible rather than trying to make the source material fit the more balanced whole.

And with homebrew a lot of the balance comes from judicious application. Mercer seems to be the kind of guy who builds a subclass because he wants his villians to be logically consistent across the board or because he's working with a player, not because he's trying to build an addition to the system for everyone to use that has to withstand the boundary-pushing of min-maxers.

[ZRN]

I actually find it interesting how watching a billion hours of a designer's own D&D game impacts the way I judge their output. Like, none of the (ahem, current) CR players would try most of these nonsense semi-exploits, and if they did Matt would have no problem coming up with an excuse to shut them down, and the players would accept his ruling. ("OK, when shapechange ends you're hit by a crippling wave of exhaustion.") So if a CR character picked up this subclass, I wouldn't expect any major problems.

The interesting thing is that I think these *are* valid concerns because not all DMs are as quick on their feet or willing to stretch the rules as Matt, and not all parties are willing to accept rulings that go against RAW without a lot of bickering - so an official product release should, ideally, be ironclad enough that those questions won't arise.

[NorthernPhoenix]

I actually find it interesting how watching a billion hours of a designer's own D&D game impacts the way I judge their output. Like, none of the (ahem, current) CR players would try most of these nonsense semi-exploits, and if they did Matt would have no problem coming up with an excuse to shut them down, and the players would accept his ruling. ("OK, when shapechange ends you're hit by a crippling wave of exhaustion.") So if a CR character picked up this subclass, I wouldn't expect any major problems.

The interesting thing is that I think these *are* valid concerns because not all DMs are as quick on their feet or willing to stretch the rules as Matt, and not all parties are willing to accept rulings that go against RAW without a lot of bickering - so an official product release should, ideally, be ironclad enough that those questions won't arise.

I think it's more important that the official rules promote a structure and table culture that lends itself to parties being willing to accept rulings, rather than trying to force everything through RAW, which is the third edition way.

[Segev]

I think it's more important that the official rules promote a structure and table culture that lends itself to parties being willing to accept rulings, rather than trying to force everything through RAW, which is the third edition way.

To be fair, tables that played 3e "to the RAW" and bickered over their minutia during play were the same sort that will do so in 5e. I do applaud 5e making the push for "rulings, not rules," and think it will discourage some playstyle choices that go for the RAW-above-all approach, but in practical play, people who want to create a toxic environment will, and good players will be willing to work together to keep the game flowing. (DMs are players, too, in this formulation.) I have participated in knock-down, drag-out 3e RAW arguments, but when the game is running, it usually comes down to the DM putting his foot down, and after the session, either a new build is renegotiated with the new rulings by the DM taken into consideration, or the player stops playing/builds a new character entirely. The DM vs. player style can be fun, especially with a RAW-legalism approach to ensure the DM is not winning by pure default; the challenge and fun comes for the DM from seeing just how low a CR he can get away with using against his players, and the players seeing just how much they can handle.

5e is not designed for that style of play. 3e can be played without that style of play. Both support - and, often, in practice, are run as - cooperative adventure games with the DM running the world.

So, in the end, yes, a system that openly encourages rulings over rules and promotes a culture of accepting this, but also of a DM being a responsible and cooperative sort to his players, can help develope that kind of play style at tables. But like with anything, it's the players at the table who make the final decision, consciously or otherwise, over what kind of game they'll be playing.

[Willie the Duck]

I actually find it interesting how watching a billion hours of a designer's own D&D game impacts the way I judge their output. Like, none of the (ahem, current) CR players would try most of these nonsense semi-exploits, and if they did Matt would have no problem coming up with an excuse to shut them down, and the players would accept his ruling. ("OK, when shapechange ends you're hit by a crippling wave of exhaustion.") So if a CR character picked up this subclass, I wouldn't expect any major problems.

I think it's more important that the official rules promote a structure and table culture that lends itself to parties being willing to accept rulings, rather than trying to force everything through RAW, which is the third edition way.

I definitely feel that these-- I don't have a word for them, these slightly outside the core books like Ravnica and Windmont which are 'MTG-D&D' and 'Critical Role-D&D'--need to be viewed (and used) with the framing that they are expecting a firmer DM hand than the rest. They are relaxing constraints in the service of creativity, and it shows.

[Chaosmancer]

I only skimmed the first few bits of the thread, but I can answer pretty easily "why was this not in a UA"

Because Mercer developed these classes on his own, a long time ago. I think the first actual use of the Echo Knight was in Episode 12 of the show, released at the start of April 2018. That was back when we got the Order Domain for Ravinica.

And, though I have not gotten much farther in the show, the magical art this is all based on is a major plot point of the season, so I'm sure there are a lot of pieces that Matt had locked in place and had been seeming to work well for years before this book was released.

It seems that the few issues involve using exploits than most players really wouldn't consider, and are generally easy enough to counteract.

[Belac93]

Thinking of these books (Wildemount, Acquisitions Inc.) as standard D&D supplements is probably wrong. These are franchise, merchandising tie-ins in the same vein as Avengers toys at fast-food restaurants. A better comparison is the the Lankhmar and Thieves' World supplements published for AD&D lo these many years past. They work to stay as true to the source material as possible rather than trying to make the source material fit the more balanced whole.

Wildemount is more official than Acquisitions. It's not AL legal, but it's similar to the EEPG.

Also, I don't get the dislike of the class stuff in Wildemount. It's not crazy strong, it's just 'pretty strong.' If people are going to be mad about something, why not the Pallid Elf or new Halfling subrace? Or the damage spells that are strictly better than any other damage spells of their level?

The classes are strong, yes, but they're better thought-out than, say, the hexblade. Or the undying warlock. Or the berserker, or arcane archer, etc.

Also, one last thing: Wizards did do playtesting on Wildemount stuff, Matt Mercer explicitly said that he wasn't the best designer of mechanics and got quite a bit of help balancing them. It was his concept, yes, but if things are broken, it's entirely Wizard's fault.