New UA: Wonders of the Multiverse!

[Polyphemus]

New UA is out today! (https://media.wizards.com/2022/dnd/downloads/UA2022-WondersoftheMultiverse.pdf)

Looks like a bit of a smorgasbord, I suppose as befits a multiverse UA.

New race, the Glitchling, looks to be a sort of playable rogue Modron,
New subclass, Fate Domain Cleric,
New backgrounds, which have new attached feats, looks like they're really looking into this space
New feats, not just the ones for the backgrounds, some of which are in short chains of "Prerequisite of [X Level 1 Feat] and also being at least 4th Level"

Haven't finished reading, but looks pretty neat so far!

[IsaacsAlterEgo]

First thing that jumps out to me is that the Cartomancer feat will be a buff to nuclear wizards, letting you add another 1d4 damage to your missiles will be a pretty significant step up in damage.

Secondly, glitchling seems interesting, but I feel the 14+Dex is definitely not going to make it to release. I also wonder if this is kind of the replacement for a playable modron, since they seem to be from Mechanus as well?

[Ganryu]

Mixed feelings about the cleric. I feel their channel divinity should only last up to their proficiency bonus number of times, but shouldn't eat concentration. Also ten minute window. This is ungodly out of combat as unlimited for an hour of free advantage.

Despite that... I will give praise that it looks thematic and fun.

Also, dangit, "planar wanderer" was the name of my hombrew class! XD Funny to see it here.

[Amnestic]

First thing that jumps out to me is that the Cartomancer feat will be a buff to nuclear wizards, letting you add another 1d4 damage to your missiles will be a pretty significant step up in damage.

I'm not sure that works. The d4 is applied when you use the deck as a focus, and magic missile doesn't have a material component. Can you use a spell focus for spells that don't have a component? ...I don't know for sure but my brain is saying no.



Secondly, glitchling seems interesting, but I feel the 14+Dex is definitely not going to make it to release. I also wonder if this is kind of the replacement for a playable modron, since they seem to be from Mechanus as well?

Usually a shield, despite being under the 'armour' section, is called out separately for these sorts of features (such as monk unarmoured defense) so 14+Dex+Shield could get you 21 without magic items, that does seem pretty unlikely to go live. 13+Dex seems more likely to me.

[Psyren]

Thoughts:

- Glitchling is insanely good, getting free better-than-Mage-Armor AC constantly AND three other solid traits on top of that (plus a favorable creature type).
- First Ordered Cleric and now Fate Cleric? Where are the chaotic ones?
- Insightful Striking is nice but Strands of Fate using concentration is criminal. Visions of the Future giving concentration-free Foresight is nice.
- More feats in backgrounds, this is definitely the new norm.
- I'll go through the feats and spells later, too many for now.



Secondly, glitchling seems interesting, but I feel the 14+Dex is definitely not going to make it to release. I also wonder if this is kind of the replacement for a playable modron, since they seem to be from Mechanus as well?

They appear to be human in shape/size judging by the description, so I think they'll be closer to inevitables than modron personally.

[Hal]

Cartomancer seems like it should be open to Bards, too. I know that moves away a bit from the instrument theme, but otherwise it seems like it would fit within the Bardic repertoire.

[Gignere]

Thoughts:

- Glitchling is insanely good, getting free better-than-Mage-Armor AC constantly AND three other solid traits on top of that (plus a favorable creature type).
- First Ordered Cleric and now Fate Cleric? Where are the chaotic ones?
- Insightful Striking is nice but Strands of Fate using concentration is criminal. Visions of the Future giving concentration-free Foresight is nice.
- More feats in backgrounds, this is definitely the new norm.
- I'll go through the feats and spells later, too many for now.



They appear to be human in shape/size judging by the description, so I think they'll be closer to inevitables than modron personally.

Interesting hmm maybe 5.5 human can now start with two backgrounds if feats are tied to backgrounds. This will probably be strong enough to allow them to fit into the new ASI paradigms of +2/+1 or 3x +1, without any other racial features.

[Polyphemus]

First Ordered Cleric and now Fate Cleric? Where are the chaotic ones?

You will have Trickery and Trickery alone, and you will like it! :smalltongue:

It would be nice to have, say, a Luck Domain as the Chaotic counterpart to Fate; "It Is Ordained" versus "It's A Coin Flip," something along those lines.


Cartomancer seems like it should be open to Bards, too. I know that moves away a bit from the instrument theme, but otherwise it seems like it would fit within the Bardic repertoire.
Oh yes, agreed, especially with the College of Spirits Bard out of Van Richten's, there's no reason they shouldn't be able to get with something that so clearly fits with their implied Tarot Tarokka theming.

[Millstone85]

From the cartomancer feat:

Hidden Ace. When you finish a long rest, you can choose one spell you know and imbue it into a card; the chosen spell must have a casting time of 1 action, and its level must be less than or equal to your proficiency bonus. While the card is imbued with the spell, you can use your bonus action to flourish the card and cast the spell within. The card then immediately loses its magic.This seems to be missing a line such as "Otherwise, the card keeps its magic until you finish a long rest".

[Nidgit]

Glitching seems too strong, Fate Cleric is eh and a little underpowered if anything, and most of the spells are pretty forgettable. I struggle to see a time when House of Cards is better than Leomund's Tiny Hut or Levitation, for instance. Spray of Cards's damage is just Burning Hands but with a better damage type.

The feats seem kind of all over the place. Some of the level 1 feats are decent and some are a massive waste if they're not included in character creation. Both Strike of the Giants (Fire) and Scion of Elemental Fire are quite bad, for instance. And then some of the Level 4 feats are bad (Vigor of the Hill Giant, Outland Envoy, etc.) and some are extremely good (Rune Carver, Righteous Heritor, Cartomancer, Agent of Order). Some are just fun and extremely effective when used well. Cohort of Chaos could be delightful on a Barbarian or anyone who gets advantage frequently, and the combo of Frost Giant feats could make for an extremely sticky skirmisher or tank.

I miss having Flaws and Ideals in backgrounds. They're all just suggestions anyway, but it really helps to add to the concept of the background.

Circling back to the Cleric, it really does feel like a mess. Most of the Domain spells don't feel particularly relevant, the abilities are bonus action and concentration intensive, and the Level 17 ability still requires the full one-minute casting time of Foresight.

[Nidgit]

From the cartomancer feat:
This seems to be missing a line such as "Otherwise, the card keeps its magic until you finish a long rest".
True. It should also clarify if the spell slot is expended at any point or if it's literally a free spell.

[Millstone85]

True. It should also clarify if the spell slot is expended at any point or if it's literally a free spell.That too. Is it really just about using a bonus action instead of an action?

Now, about Scion of the Outer Planes, I was already not a fan of associating radiant energy with Good and necrotic energy with Evil, and now it also goes radiant Law and necrotic Chaos.

[Hael]

I'm going to be negative again, but after the last UA train wreck, it looks like they have some of the same people who are designing this one. Except they brought in someone who knows what they're doing, but didn't contribute to every feat/spell. Leading to nonsensical disparities in mechanical strength.

Compare the spell reaping spirit to summon warrior spirit.

Anyway, they've at least improved some of the past UA fails, so a lot of the giant feats are better (except rune carver adept/apprentice, which continues to be a fail).

Pretty sure all the scion feats need to be half feats.

I actually like the planar wanderer feat, which is mechanically bad, but at least its situationally useful and flavorful.

And yea Cartomancer was the one feat that really struck me as being mechanically interesting (unclear if it works for hexvokers).

Not a fan of the cleric or new race.

[verbatim]

We've gotten 2 UA's in a row with giant content now, it makes me wonder if WOTC is planning on rebooting Storm King's Thunder the way they rebooted the first 2 campaign modules but now they're going to start adding in new player content to entice potential buyers.

[Damon_Tor]

GIANT FOUNDLING
Though you aren’t a Giant, you grew up among giants.
...
Languages: Two of your choice

That... uh... that seems like an oversight.

[Xihirli]

GIANT FOUNDLING
Though you aren’t a Giant, you grew up among giants.
...
Languages: Two of your choice

That... uh... that seems like an oversight.

Yeah, it should have been Winter Wolf and Umber Hulk.

[Millstone85]

New race, the Glitchling, looks to be a sort of playable rogue ModronOddly, their name is the only thing suggesting an error in the lawful machinery. The description instead paints them like they were designed to be autonomous long-term explorers.

Personally, I would prefer if WotC brought back the axani and the cansin. They are like aasimar and tieflings but, instead of being celestial and fiendish, their origins are axiomatic and xaotic.

[Ortho]

Is it just me, or are most of the feat chain end feats super underwhelming? You can do the cool thing they offer a number of times up to your proficiency bonus....so 3 or 4 times per day, usually.

Is that seriously worth spending two feats on?


I'm actually glad that Fate Cleric is just ok. It's still fine, it's on par with the PHB subclasses, and that's good. It makes me think that they're hearing the pushback against Twilight and Peace clerics.

[Damon_Tor]

Construct PCs again. Weird how much they're waffling on this one. Do you want an artificer whose defender can heal him or not? Make up your mind.

[loki_ragnarock]

*Reads Glitchling*
Late edition, it turns out that the designers are willing to give that badass 11th level rogue feature to literally anyone, anywhere, for any reason, except even better. Boo. Hiss.

*Reads Cleric*
Winces. That bonus spell list is dookie; not especially thematic, but also... adds mostly cleric spells. I hope they put way more thought into that. Omens and Portents should be better represented by the spell list. It's such a crucial tool for distinguishing clerics.
And a channel divinity that's... egad, that's so broadly useful yet bland I can't help but be underwhelmed.
Remember when manipulating saving throws wasn't so easy to do, and was one of the big, mostly exclusive features of sorcerers back at the start of the edition? Pepperidge Farm remembers.

*Reads Backgrounds*
They are leaning into that backgrounds give feats thing, huh? That's... $%^&ing dumb. Stop it.
Gate Warden, eh? I like it. Minus the feat, it's pretty thought out.
Smal Giants get Languages... two of your choice. Not Giant and one of your choice? Bold move designer, bold move. "I wanted to leave the option that this foundling never figured out how to communicate with the folks what adopted him. Just a whole childhood of basically having lions roar at him but, strangely, never eating him, just looking expectantly at him before walking away disappointed."
Runecarvers have to speak Giant. That's cool. Thank the powers no giant ever adopted them though, eh? They might be stuck with the most bewildering backstory. So much lore about giants being rune-y spellcasters - and so too can you! - with so few monster stat blocks to back up the assertion. Pity.

*Glances at Feats*
Is that table indicating feat trees are making a come back. FFS, stop it. Designers, we've been there, it sucked hard, don't go back to sucking hard. If I wanted that I'd be playing Pathfinder. And if you keep heading this direction, I'll probably do what I did for 4e; find an alternative game system (like Pathfinder, but in this case not, because I ain't going backwards) and skip whatever else you decide to publish.
And also yet another feat that divides up it's benefits based on schools of magic that aren't particularly well tracked in the published material, requiring either encyclopedic knowledge or a web app to organize. Meh.
Holy Hera, someone really wanted to tip the scales towards Cloud Giants. Oi.
That's a fine bunch of abilities due to your giantish heritage that... don't coexist in the monster stat blocks. It'd be cool if they had them, but I guess their magic is just breaking the square-cube law.

Overall... I think I would have been excited to see planar stuff a couple years ago - and I mean, like, exclamation marks! - but with the design philosophy shearing off, it's much more muted.

[animewatcha]

Behold as a monkey angrily slinging their poo takes apart the mighty 3rd spell all by it itself (house of cards).

[Ogun]

Hidden Ace is broken as written.
Warrior spirit looks cool, but I don't have the chops to evaluate it mechanically.
The spirits are undead, so they might get a boost from any feature that boosts undead.

Resistance plus a cantrip seems pretty nice, but not compared to other feats.

[Psyren]

*Reads Glitchling*
Late edition, it turns out that the designers are willing to give that badass 11th level rogue feature to literally anyone, anywhere, for any reason, except even better. Boo. Hiss.

You may want to reread it as Balance Chaos is nothing like Reliable Talent.



They are leaning into that backgrounds give feats thing, huh? That's... $%^&ing dumb. Stop it.

That ship sailed with Strixhaven I'm afraid.

[P. G. Macer]

I have lots of opinions on this UA, not much of it good.

I’m really not a fan of the feat trees, even with backgrounds giving feats. Part of the issue IMO is that WotC is clearly designing with 5.5e in mind, but we’re still in 5.0 until sometime in 2024, so people who are using older content such as the PHB backgrounds because they fit their characters better are left out in the cold until then.

This is ultimately a minor quibble, but I really don’t like how the new feat-ed Backgrounds don’t give sample Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws, and act like a Trinket table is adequate RP compensation. I know that we can just right our own IBFs, but it feels very lazy on Wizards’ part, in keeping with their recent “I dunno, you figure it out” design philosophy, which places a greater burden on the consumers of their products.

I also dislike how the Giant feats seem more generic now. It feels like rather than rein in the Stone, Storm, and Frost Giant feats while keeping the concept similar, Wizards started over with AoE damage with riders.

Oh my Bahamut, the Glitchling! Even for Unearthed Arcana, 14+DEX base AC is ridiculous, given that the Autognome in an earlier UA had 13+DEX with weaker other features. Balance Chaos in particular replicates the effect of a Common magic item (The Clockwork Amulet from Xanathar’s), but makes it PB/LR instead of 1/LR

Also, the Fate Domain Cleric doesn’t feel very fate-y in several of its abilities. The 1st-level Domain spells in particular seem like weird choices. Dissonant Whispers and Heroism, really? I guess the former is supposed to represent the divine whispering in one’s ear, but it feels like a stretch, especially as DW targets an enemy.

At least they got rid of the ridiculously good spells from the Rune Carver Apprentice feat—but the pickings left over are rather slim, except for the no-diamond Chromatic Orb.

In my humble opinion, this UA is a step down from the Giant options, which itself was a mixed bag.

[Damon_Tor]

They are leaning into that backgrounds give feats thing, huh? That's... $%^&ing dumb. Stop it.

It's pretty clearly a 5.5e design norm that's leaking forward. I expect "Backgrounds" will be the stand-in for all the "cultural" racial features that have become problematic. The biggest problem right now is that races aren't being downgraded in effective power commensurately so it feels like pure power creep. But when 5.5 lands officially I expect the races themselves to be greatly diminished in importance.

[Psyren]

How anyone can look at Glitchling and believe race choice won't be important is beyond me. I'm spinning up multiple builds in my head based on Armored Plating alone, assuming it releases unnerfed.

[JadedDM]

We've gotten 2 UA's in a row with giant content now, it makes me wonder if WOTC is planning on rebooting Storm King's Thunder the way they rebooted the first 2 campaign modules but now they're going to start adding in new player content to entice potential buyers.

Not sure, but this all reads to me like they're bringing back Planescape.

[BRC]

Re: Backgrounds and Races
There definitely seems to be a shift towards Backgrounds being more significant, rather than just giving skill proficiency and some nifty ribbons.


I wouldn't be surprised if the design goal is to shift Feats back into prominence. in 5e Feats are kind of a secondary thing, they're powerful, but for people besides fighters and rogues, it can be hard to justify taking more than a single feat instead of the all-important ability score improvements, at least until high level.

I wouldn't be surprised to find 5.5 having a much more generous approach to Feats, using them as a balancing factor to enable more fantastical/innately powerful races and backgrounds, kind of like old-school level adjustment.

I'm guessing here, but imagine a paradigm where each race and background came with a list of potential Bonus feats (Or there were just a bunch of feats that had "You can take this at 1st level!" on them). So, if you were playing a Human with the "Guild Artisan" background, neither of which gave much in the way of innate power, you'd get a pair of feats to compensate.


Then they can roll out more powerful races and backgrounds, ones with more significant and unique powers built-in, but without the bonus feats.


Kind of a backwards version of Level Adjustment. The "Default" assumption is "Human, but you get some bonuses because you're a Special PC", and if you want to play something more than "Human but with a few weird ribbons" you're spending your starting feat on that.

[Hael]

Warrior spirit looks cool, but I don't have the chops to evaluate it mechanically.
.

Warrior spirits is really strong. For instance a lvl 4 casting gives you a monk that hits 3 times per turn with a str save prone on each hit. That seems pretty useful, even if it is a glass cannon.

[Envyus]

I have lots of opinions on this UA, not much of it good.

I’m really not a fan of the feat trees, even with backgrounds giving feats. Part of the issue IMO is that WotC is clearly designing with 5.5e in mind, but we’re still in 5.0 until sometime in 2024, so people who are using older content such as the PHB backgrounds because they fit their characters better are left out in the cold until then.

People who don’t take one of those feats get a free one still.

[Amnestic]

Also yet another batch of spells where wizard gets every single one. Boo, hiss.

I thought House of Cards was originally meant to be a less obnoxious Tiny Hut replacement but it's a way to create do-it-yourself cover...though I'm also not clear if people inside it can fire out from the bottom floors? Lack of a ritual tag really hurts it as a 3rd level spell though, when there's so much other tasty alternatives at that spell level.

I think I'd rather see it Ritual with a "only one house of cards active at a time" clause.

I like the concept but I think the execution of it is lacking at the moment.

[BRC]

Also yet another batch of spells where wizard gets every single one. Boo, hiss.

I thought House of Cards was originally meant to be a less obnoxious Tiny Hut replacement but it's a way to create do-it-yourself cover...though I'm also not clear if people inside it can fire out from the bottom floors? Lack of a ritual tag really hurts it as a 3rd level spell though, when there's so much other tasty alternatives at that spell level.

I think I'd rather see it Ritual with a "only one house of cards active at a time" clause.

I like the concept but I think the execution of it is lacking at the moment.

With how easy it is to knock down, it feels like it's supposed to me more of a tiny hut replacement than anything with combat potential. A flavorful way to get some space and shelter for the party to crash in, but which is very hard to actually use in combat, although for a third-level spell that has the utility of a big tent, I think they're a little too cautious about it, making it really easy to knock down means you don't want to use it if there's any chance of getting attacked, because the whole house could be brought down on your heads.

[P. G. Macer]

People who don’t take one of those feats get a free one still.

I know that, and should have made that clear in my first post, but look at the list of feats those who don’t have a special background can choose from. Half of them are pretty lackluster (in my opinion).

[Yakmala]

Enchanters are going to have fun twinning Antagonize when they have two melee enemies within range of each other.

[Polyphemus]

I’m really not a fan of the feat trees, even with backgrounds giving feats. Part of the issue IMO is that WotC is clearly designing with 5.5e in mind, but we’re still in 5.0 until sometime in 2024, so people who are using older content such as the PHB backgrounds because they fit their characters better are left out in the cold until then.

This is ultimately a minor quibble, but I really don’t like how the new feat-ed Backgrounds don’t give sample Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws, and act like a Trinket table is adequate RP compensation. I know that we can just right our own IBFs, but it feels very lazy on Wizards’ part, in keeping with their recent “I dunno, you figure it out” design philosophy, which places a greater burden on the consumers of their products.

Eh, I mean in the UA article itself they even say "if you have some characters with backgrounds that don't give them a feat then here is a curated list of suggested free feats to give them to compensate", so I don't think it's that big a deal unless the DM is for whatever reason unwilling to do this, and if they're going to use the UA Backgrounds, it's going to be with a new character, presumably, so it's not like they'd even have to crowbar a new free feat onto an existing character, I'd think?
Like in general I had an initial knee-jerk reaction of "nope, don't like that" to the idea of Background-tied feats, but over time the concept's grown on me, and these ones are IMO an improvement over the Strixhaven ones, at least in terms of flavor. I hope that as they play more in this space going forward, as it pretty clearly seems that they will be, that they'll further fine tune it.

That second point, though, I am wholeheartedly in agreement with. It bugged me with Van Richten's, though at least they had the decency to give big lists of personality traits, ideals, and flaws for "horror backgrounds" in general instead of the individualized lists for the rereleased Haunted One and Investigator (and with the Haunted One there's also the CoS list to fall back on). But then with Strixhaven, we get just a list of Personality Traits tied to each college, and nothing more? That sucks, and I don't like that it's a continuing trend here. I know I can make up my own, but that was [I]always true, and I genuinely find the listing of them in the books helpful for quick and dirty characterization with a new character I don't necessarily have a solid idea as to who they are starting out.

Frankly the same goes with most of the recent races? Like people have had a lot to say about floating ASIs and whatnot, but frankly I support where WotC's coming from with that, and most of the new/revised races have had more flavorful abilities than they used to, IMO--really my biggest problem on the mechanics side is retiring the old versions off D&D Beyond for those who didn't buy their associated books before the cutoff date. Even if they weren't always terribly interesting, I'd rather have those available to use if the fancy strikes me than not, especially since I can just use the Tasha's rules to give them the floating ASIs anyway, and mostly use them for their other mechanics.
My biggest problem, though, is the lack of lore. The Harengon, the Fairy, the Owlin, they all have severely underwritten lore sections. And again, I do understand the logic behind that, not wanting to say anything too prescriptive, and carry on with problematic generalizations/essentializations of an entire race or species, yadda yadda yadda; like, I get it, I do. I just also want The Lore about how these races act or are treated in Forgotten Realms, or Strixhaven, or whatever official setting they're supposed to be in. Like I often don't even use the Lore, I just think it's fun to have in case I want to crib some of that lore for home-brew purposes; I could always make up their lore for my home-brew, I want to know what they're like in this official setting, y'know?
Also, the Age category becoming "uhhhhh, assume a century unless we say it's longer" feels Weird and Bad, and I'm 90% certain it's chiefly because the change came with the Fairy, which had nothing in its writeup to say they live longer than elves or eladrin, when in my opinion, Fairies should be biologically immortal until and unless they're killed by outside causes, like LotR elves.
...And I know that's petty, but it bugs me, y'know?

That said I do like the blurb of the glitching we got here, even if I would like maybe a bit more; the accompanying video they posted on YouTube about this UA described them as a "cousin or sibling to" the concept of the Rogue Modron. I'm guessing the "sent out to gather data to bring back to Mechanus" is so you can be a mostly-independent entity without the pressure of "Mechanus wants to re-assimilate you into the Modron collective" hanging over your head. ;P

[Amechra]

I give Cartomancer points for letting me play Yugi in D&D... but the rest of the UA is just kinda bleh. The only giant feat that actually does something interesting is Keenness of the Stone Giant (a specialist in throwing weapons who gets to prepare their own special ammo is pretty neat). Everything else is just... uninspiring.

[Psyren]

Thanks to Warrior Spirit, now my wizard really CAN get a monk, fighter, or barbarian as a class feature :smallbiggrin: Better in some cases since it's charm and poison immune.

[Damon_Tor]

I give Cartomancer points for letting me play Yugi in D&D... but the rest of the UA is just kinda bleh. The only giant feat that actually does something interesting is Keenness of the Stone Giant (a specialist in throwing weapons who gets to prepare their own special ammo is pretty neat). Everything else is just... uninspiring.

It's annoying though that the feat doesn't boost Dex and the weapon it gives you can't be used with Str. Unless I'm missing something. But anyway, the feat might be cool on a ranged battlemaster who likes Quick Toss. 1d10 damage with a knock prone effect as a bonus action is really solid.

[kazaryu]

That too. Is it really just about using a bonus action instead of an action?

to be fair, being able to cast certain spells as a bonus action can make them much more viable, especially for half casters. think like, a paladin or EK casting greater invisibility as a BA. but yeah, for a full caster this is relatively minor, likely best of a warlock.

[t209]

Seeing Glitchling's Vestigial Flight's "If you are still aloft at the end of
the turn with nothing else supporting you, you fall", any idea for flying over and jump on the foe?

[P. G. Macer]

Seeing Glitchling's Vestigial Flight's "If you are still aloft at the end of
the turn with nothing else supporting you, you fall", any idea for flying over and jump on the foe?

I’m pretty sure the rules from Tasha’s about falling onto another creature take precedence.


If a creature falls into the space of a second creature and neither of them is Tiny, the second creature must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or be impacted by the falling creature, and any damage resulting from the fall is divided evenly between them. The impacted creature is also knocked prone, unless it is two or more sizes larger than the falling creature.

Combined with the more general rules from Xanathar’s about falling, this seems to preclude sustaining fight by jumping on other creatures Super Mario Bros style.

[animewatcha]

Thoughts on old Rune carver feats versus the new ones?

I prefer the old ones as they allowed a bit of versatility amongst the spells known casters and thematic a bit with rune knight.

[Sigreid]

I continue to be unimpressed with the current dev team. Oh well.

[Jervis]

Thoughts:

- Glitchling is insanely good, getting free better-than-Mage-Armor AC constantly AND three other solid traits on top of that (plus a favorable creature type).
- First Ordered Cleric and now Fate Cleric? Where are the chaotic ones?
- Insightful Striking is nice but Strands of Fate using concentration is criminal. Visions of the Future giving concentration-free Foresight is nice.
- More feats in backgrounds, this is definitely the new norm.
- I'll go through the feats and spells later, too many for now.



They appear to be human in shape/size judging by the description, so I think they'll be closer to inevitables than modron personally.

I personally have mixed opinions on glitchling. For one thing, they really should just make them modrons. That’s a nitpick admittedly but playable modrons sound hilarious. The actual take I have on the AC is that it’s… weird. Using standard starting stats with a 16 in Dex this starts out the same as a Tortle though Tortle can work without dexterity investment letting something with shields like a cleric have that 19 AC with shields. And I think that’s kind of what this is trying to do.

Without magic items and assuming they didn’t do something weird like MinMax a custom lineage for 18 Dex at the start; standard stat and feat progression with Dex investment will put them going from 17 from levels 1-3, 18 levels 4-7, and 19 at level 8+. So basically Tortle for Dex characters instead of shield using ones. Though that much AC on a character who doesn’t get shield proficiency is a bit weird. That said a Bladesinger can probably do something stupid here going to a maximum of 24 AC, which is only one less than a hypothetical all 20s Monk/Wizard. This is likely a response to people just not using races with 13+Dex AC in favor of just getting medium armor and or being a Tortle. Since heavier armor and Tortle don’t require stat investment it makes them very attractive to a caster.

Honestly I don’t find this massively problematic. It’s great for, ironically, rogues and monks because it gives the prior more survivability over all with the latter getting an option to boost their AC outside of bumping wisdom. But if i’m playing a spellcaster or half caster or full martial i’m probably just using a Tortle or using their existing armor proficiencies. I would use this on a Ranger or fighter that uses ranged weapon though since it gives very good AC that doesn’t depend on a shield, as well as the aforementioned rogue and monk. In that sense it is a buff to the CBE meta so that would be my only issue.

[Sigreid]

I personally have mixed opinions on glitchling. For one thing, they really should just make them modrons. That’s a nitpick admittedly but playable modrons sound hilarious.

Just tell your table they're modrons and be done with it. :smallbiggrin:

[Jervis]

I continue to be unimpressed with the current dev team. Oh well.

I feel you brother. Everything is Prof uses per long rest which was my main gripe with their design for the last while and it’s looking like they’re not to keen on changing. That part alone is making me unhopefully for the 2024 revision. The cleric is underwealming, it seems like they’re too scared to make good CDs now that they’ve unleashed peace and twilight onto us. Cartomancy is actually decent though, lets you disguise the casting of prestidigitation which is meh but a BA spell is kinda big. All of the other feats can be summed up as “words words words words you can only use this proficiency times per day”. They’re boring. And the new flight from glitchling has me worried that they’re gonna nuke flight outside of magic going forward which I find especially annoying.

[Envyus]

I prefer the new stuff so far.

[MinimanMidget]

Everything is Prof uses per long rest which was my main gripe with their design for the last while and it’s looking like they’re not to keen on changing. [...] All of the other feats can be summed up as “words words words words you can only use this proficiency times per day”.

Glad to know I'm not the only one who finds this particularly annoying. It's been a problem for a long time, and it'd be easy for them to fix it in 5.5, but it seems like it's going to be one of the defining traits of the update. As opposed to, say, wings being a defining trait of a Glitchling, despite only meaning anything twice per day.

[Psyren]

I enjoy Scion of Elemental Water (grants a push/pull effect you can use to move allies around + Thaumaturgy) and Scion of Elemental Fire (grants Dancing Lights + Produce Flame that you can quicken.) SEF is nice for an Alchemist as it gives them a decent use for their bonus action.

[Hael]

I personally have mixed opinions on glitchling. .

Yea im not super impressed with the glitchling AC. Its certainly a good feature, but from an opportunity cost point of view its still basically +1 ac and a 1st lvl spell slot for sorcerors/bards/wizards or an invocation for warlocks. Some races get permanent flight, which is what, a third lvl spell and a third lvl slot? This also doesn't scale super well with magic items, or with class features, so its more of an early game race. As you say, its best use cases are for off kilter builds like Kensai archers and things like that.

The vestigial wings is just a prof/day jump using movement speed, which isnt that impressive.

Their best features imo is the construct tag and the reroll.

The combined total, doesnt strike me as OP. Its a good race, but not winged tiefling powerful. The mechanics seem about right to me.

[JackPhoenix]

All the "Scion of elemental whatever" feats, except fire, feel pretty weird in their cantrip choice. What does Thaumaturgy has to do with water, thematically? Not like we have elemental themed cantrips... sure, they are from non-core books, but it's not like WotC is above releasing the same content multiple times to pad the books (or sell a book made entirely out of previously released stuff, but made worse).

[Thunderous Mojo]

All the "Scion of elemental whatever" feats, except fire, feel pretty weird in their cantrip choice. What does Thaumaturgy has to do with water, thematically? Not like we have elemental themed cantrips... sure, they are from non-core books, but it's not like WotC is above releasing the same content multiple times to pad the books (or sell a book made entirely out of previously released stuff, but made worse).

I agree.

First we have the Clockwork Amulet in XGE, (which is a fun common item), then we get the Clockwork Sorcerer, and now we have the Channel Divinity from the Fate Domain.

Runes, Runes, and more Runes. Does a Rune Knight need more opportunities to pick up more Runic powers?

I pity the poor Horizon Walker, that boils their theme down to a single feat.

(At least let the Horizon Walker’s Detect Portal ability have increased range similar to how the Telekinetic feat increases the range of Mage Hand acquired from another source).

Recycle, Re-Package….this feels more like an album of studio recording outtakes posthumously released by an artist.

These features were designed by Tupac!

I think I will pass on Planescape and Ikoria Settings…(which is what, I suspect, these features are designed for.)

[Amnestic]

Yea im not super impressed with the glitchling AC. Its certainly a good feature, but from an opportunity cost point of view its still basically +1 ac and a 1st lvl spell slot for sorcerors/bards/wizards or an invocation for warlocks.

Any armour wearer prioritising dex (so rogues, dex-rangers, dex-fighters, etc.) will see it be worth the equivalent of +2 studded leather, a "very rare" item. That's pretty solid as far as AC boosts go.

[Sigreid]

I prefer the new stuff so far.

And that's fair enough, the world would be dull as heck if everyone had the same opinion about everything. I've been around long enough to know that sometimes I just have to decide things aren't for me and deal with it.

[Dr.Samurai]

Anyone know what the vestigial wings on the Glitchling is about? Lore-wise I mean, like what inspired that trait?

I was really worried there wouldn't be a feat that grants Misty Step in this one but thankfully I got to page 7 and there it was :smallannoyed:.

Honestly, the whole "this grants you spells" thing is tired at this point.

But I also don't like the other stuff they're doing either, which to my mind continues to make terrain obstacles less and less challenging. Glitchlings get a fly speed, we get another feat that grants Misty Step, and another one that grants a fly speed. Or the various ways you have of handing out Advantage in this article, or bypassing low rolls.

I get the appeal of this, but it just seems like cheapening everything. I like the Fate Cleric's ability to reduce divination mishaps by 25%. That's cool.

Summon Warrior Spirit needs to meet an unhappy end as well. Here Bladesinger, have weapon proficiency, have a higher AC than the martials, here take Extra Attack as well. Oh, and also you can summon a martial for one hour as well teehee... :smallmad:

[Zhorn]

Anyone know what the vestigial wings on the Glitchling is about? Lore-wise I mean, like what inspired that trait?
My guess is (edit: and many others in the thread having already suggested as such) it's a spin on the rogue modron from the variant sidebar MM p224
https://www.aidedd.org/dnd/images/monodrone.jpg

[Gignere]

Anyone know what the vestigial wings on the Glitchling is about? Lore-wise I mean, like what inspired that trait?

I was really worried there wouldn't be a feat that grants Misty Step in this one but thankfully I got to page 7 and there it was :smallannoyed:.

Honestly, the whole "this grants you spells" thing is tired at this point.

But I also don't like the other stuff they're doing either, which to my mind continues to make terrain obstacles less and less challenging. Glitchlings get a fly speed, we get another feat that grants Misty Step, and another one that grants a fly speed. Or the various ways you have of handing out Advantage in this article, or bypassing low rolls.

I get the appeal of this, but it just seems like cheapening everything. I like the Fate Cleric's ability to reduce divination mishaps by 25%. That's cool.

Summon Warrior Spirit needs to meet an unhappy end as well. Here Bladesinger, have weapon proficiency, have a higher AC than the martials, here take Extra Attack as well. Oh, and also you can summon a martial for one hour as well teehee... :smallmad:

They could always do it but now they do it at fifth level instead of 13th via simulacrum.

[Millstone85]

Anyone know what the vestigial wings on the Glitchling is about? Lore-wise I mean, like what inspired that trait?
My guess is (edit: and many others in the thread having already suggested as such) it's a spin on the rogue modron from the variant sidebar MM p224Still surprising because winged modrons (i.e. monodrones and quadrones) get a proper flying speed of 30 feet, and the rogue sidebar says nothing of limiting this trait.

Not sure if those wings actually help with the flight. Maruts fly too, and can even hover, but their wings are definitely for show.
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/forgottenrealms/images/a/a3/Marut-5e.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/500

[Psyren]

All the "Scion of elemental whatever" feats, except fire, feel pretty weird in their cantrip choice. What does Thaumaturgy has to do with water, thematically? Not like we have elemental themed cantrips... sure, they are from non-core books, but it's not like WotC is above releasing the same content multiple times to pad the books (or sell a book made entirely out of previously released stuff, but made worse).

Yeah I can definitely see 5e's closed ecosystem being a growing problem. They want to stick cantrips/spells in these new feats but the only cantrips they can count on people having are the PHB ones. PF1 solved this by just embracing open-source for all their splat, but D&D it seems will never do that.

At best we can hope that the 5.5e PHB has more spells in it than 5.0.

[KorvinStarmast]

My take on the latest "I wonder what they are smoking verse" UA thing.

As a glitchling, you have the following racial traits. Creature Type. You are a Construct. No. Stop doing this. Give PCs the humanoid type. KISS principle.

Size. You are Medium. Speed. Your walking speed is 30 feet.Thank you.

Armored Plating. Your metal skin is reinforced with armor plates. While you aren’t wearing armor, your base Armor Class is 14 + your Dexterity modifier. No. What's wrong with a simple +1 like the warforged? This is spilling over into class features, not race features. No.

Balance Chaos. When you make an attack roll or a saving throw and roll a 9 or lower on the d20, you can balance chaos and treat the roll as a 10. You can balance chaos in this way a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
No. This is more powerful than Halfling's lucky trait - works on any roll from 1 through 9 un modified. It more or less ignores Bounded Accuracy which is a core piece of the design framework.

Living Construct. You were created to benefit from several spells that preserve life but that normally don’t affect Constructs: cure wounds, healing word, mass cure wounds, mass healing word, and spare the dying. Hard no. If you are gonna be a construct, Pay The Price. Stop it with the Needless fiddly bits. Stop with egregious violations of KISS principle (which was one of the attractions of this edition as it came out, seemed to at least nod to the KISS principle).

Ordered Mind. You have advantage on Wisdom (Insight) checks and on saving throws made to avoid or end the charmed condition on yourself. OK, like the elf thing.
Vestigial Wings. Not OP, OK for PCs to occasionally do something cool. Limited resource.
Grade: D to D-.

Fate Cleric: Hard no, and too fiddly in any case. Do we really need another cleric domain? No.
In addition, until you finish a long rest, when you cast a divination spell that includes a chance the DM gives you no answer or a random reading—such as augury, commune, or divination—reduce that chance by 25 percent. Divination spells are already muddy, all this makes them is muddier.
Ties That bind:
Too fiddly, reduce the time to ten or one minute. Weird variation on Bardic Inspiration, which lasts ten minutes. Tries to be both Hex and BI, can't make up its mind. Gag me with a d20. :smallyuk:
Strands of Fate:
For a minute, concentration required, you can do what a Mastermind Rogue does at will at level 3. Uses a reaction. Keep the conc penalty as that precludes any number of useful spells or you'd be able to do this on top of bless.
Insightful Striking
Not sure if d6 or d4 is proper here; similar to mind sliver which is a cantrip. Buff/debuff kind of thing. Limited use.
Potent Spellcasting: Same as other clerics, no issues.
Free Foresight: why not ten minutes? I can see why not the full 8 hours that foresight uses, can live with "lasts for a minute" though. Leave as is.

Overall grade: C to C-.

Gate Warden background. *Shrug* I've seen better custom backgrounds.
Any feat added to a background is gonna get a hard no from me unless WoTC goes back and gives very PHB background a feat. :smallfurious: All the rest of the backgrounds: no.

OK, this whole feat tree/feat chain feature: don't like it. Still don't, but I think I understand the inclination behind it: they are trying to make background as important as, or more important than, race and/or class.

Spells:
(The summoning spells seem to fit with the Tasha's precedent set to tone down the summoning and general minionmancy)

A. "Hello, we are Wizards of the Coast, and we make a collectible card game. We will add cards to this game too since we can't help ourselves, Hasbro demands product fusion"
:smallfurious:
B. Spray of Cards: "Hi, we are Riot Entertainment, Twisted Fate would like to have a word with you" :smalltongue:
C. House of Cards: "Yes, we are running out of ideas"

[GooeyChewie]

I don't understand why they decided to make a human-like race with heavy modron inspiration instead of just calling it Rogue Modron.

I do think Glitchlings will get toned down a bit before seeing print. Balance Chaos in particular seems incredibly powerful, especially since it can be used on attack rolls. Against moderately armored foes you can turn a sure miss into a sure hit. Even at proficiency times per long rest, that's really powerful. Armored Plating also seems a bit high for racial AC. It's only really matched by Tortles, and I see their fixed 17 AC as the primary mechanical benefit of playing a Tortle. Armored Plating even matches or exceeds Barbarian/Monk Unarmored Defense until they hit 20 in their secondary ability score.


On the Fate Cleric, I'm not generally a fan of "see the future" style subclasses. D&D isn't a book where the author knows exactly what will happen later. The DM might have an idea of where things are going, but getting into specifics gets risky. Putting my own preferences aside, most of the features seem reasonable enough. The Domain Spells don't exactly scream "Fate" to me, but otherwise okay.


For the backgrounds, I expect it will become standard for all backgrounds to have a feat associated with them in D&D 2024 (or whatever you want to call it). If they're going to go ahead and start doing so with all backgrounds, I wish they'd go ahead and fast-track the updated core books. I don't inherently mind the notion of backgrounds providing feats, but I find it frustrating for WotC to keep one foot each in two different design paradigms.


For the feats themselves, I'm disappointed how many of them boil down to "you learn X spell(s)." I'm also not a fan of feat chains or feats which require certain levels before you get them. They feel like WotC is trying to overlay some other mechanic on top of feats. Also, some of the restrictions seem arbitrary. For example, Cartomancer seems like a cool concept for a character, but you can't get it until level 4, meaning you can't create a character who started their adventuring career casting with cards.


The spells are thematically fun, though the non-summoning ones seem a bit underwhelming. I think the summoning ones look fun. I think the fact that it requires concentration will keep them from getting too out of hand.

[Psyren]

No. Stop doing this. Give PCs the humanoid type.

While I agree it would be simpler for the robotic races to be "you're a humanoid, except..." rather than "you're a robot, except..." - I'm in favor of them continuing to iterate on that design in either direction too, that's what UA should be for.

Where I disagree is the idea that PCs should only ever be humanoid. Playable Fey haven't broken anything, and judging by Plasmoid they're going to keep poking around with the possibilities here.


Do we really need another cleric domain?

We need a lot more; so many iconic gods from 3e have no good domains at all. Where is Ilmater's Strength? Where is Tymora's Luck or Chaos? Helm's Protection? Talos' Destruction? Waukeen's Travel?

Sure they tried to kludge some of these using the existing domains but the ties are weak at best. Life is not Protection, it's purely focused on patching people up after the fact. Tempest is focused on one tiny sliver of the ways to destroy something. And there's no good analog for Travel or Chaos at all, though Fated at least comes a little close to the latter by messing with probability in some way.


I wish they'd go ahead and fast-track the updated core books.

I can all but guarantee that when those books finally drop, there will still be people complaining that they were rushed and they should have taken more time designing them. Accelerating them further will make that even worse.

[GooeyChewie]

I can all but guarantee that when those books finally drop, there will still be people complaining that they were rushed and they should have taken more time designing them. Accelerating them further will make that even worse.

If WotC feels they need to wait until 2024 to make sure the new design paradigms aren't rushed, then I believe they shouldn't be implementing portions of those design paradigms in 5E yet.

[Amnestic]

No. This is more powerful than Halfling's lucky trait - works on any roll from 1 through 9 un modified. It more or less ignores Bounded Accuracy which is a core piece of the design framework.

Lucky is 'always on' - it's got no use limit, and it applies to ability checks as well. 2-4/LR (aka where most campaigns take place) is rather a lot less than "infinite".

Setting an attack roll or saving throw to 10 is good for sure, but its usage limitation is a real killer for this being 'broken'. Also gets a lot less useful if AC and enemy save DCs aren't transparent. Lucky can't be 'wasted', because even if the reroll isn't good, nothing was expended. The glitchling trait can be wasted if you decide to bump a save up to 10+Mod and then it's still not enough.

[meandean]

Even with the many advantages of Glitchlings, I think people would hesitate to choose them if they couldn't be healed by spells whatsoever. (But it would have been more fun to utilize the mending-healing that artificers can do to their Cannons/Defenders.)

Being able to create a "house of cards" -- that does serve a useful purpose, but has the disadvantage of being easily toppled, because it's LITERALLY A HOUSE OF CARDS! -- is exactly the kind of fantastical silliness this game needs.

[Psyren]

If WotC feels they need to wait until 2024 to make sure the new design paradigms aren't rushed, then I believe they shouldn't be implementing portions of those design paradigms in 5E yet.

Suffice to say I disagree. Presenting it all fully baked with no transition/incremental changes would've been a colossal mistake.


Lucky is 'always on' - it's got no use limit, and it applies to ability checks as well. 2-4/LR (aka where most campaigns take place) is rather a lot less than "infinite".

While I agree, I do think Balance Chaos is stronger than Lucky and so the latter could use a buff. Maybe letting them reroll 1-4 rather than just 1,



Being able to create a "house of cards" -- that does serve a useful purpose, but has the disadvantage of being easily toppled, because it's LITERALLY A HOUSE OF CARDS! -- is exactly the kind of fantastical silliness this game needs.

I'd much rather this had been an item instead of a spell. Hand it to players as an item and you'd get all kinds of fun and creative applications from it, but make it a spell and it's just one more janky option that the vast majority of tables will skip imo.

[Amnestic]

I'd much rather this had been an item instead of a spell. Hand it to players as an item and you'd get all kinds of fun and creative applications from it, but make it a spell and it's just one more janky option that the vast majority of tables will skip imo.

I'd agree there, finding the right balance point for a spell seems difficult - probably easier in a magic item (or a straight up subclass feature).

[Hael]

Any armour wearer prioritising dex (so rogues, dex-rangers, dex-fighters, etc.) will see it be worth the equivalent of +2 studded leather, a "very rare" item. That's pretty solid as far as AC boosts go.

I definitely think its a good racial. Still, compare a normal dex fighter warforged vs this race. At lvl 4 dex will be 18. the warforged figher can use halfplate (ac17 + 1 ) vs this (ac18). At lvl 8 the glitchling goes to AC19. But thats the sort of point where magic items start to come in, so say a halfplate +1, which yields an identical boost. Hence, it feels roughly consistent with warforged. At least thats what I think they're going for design wise.

For the warforged rogue vs this race, it will be a straight buff for the glitchling until the rogue gets studded leather +1. Studded leather+2 later in the game will then favor the warforged. Hence the early game vs late game quip.

Id take this over the warforged b/c I think the reroll is fundamentally stronger than the warforged other features, and at least they can get healed, but then again I never felt warforged was particularly strong as a race...

[Tectorman]

While I agree it would be simpler for the robotic races to be "you're a humanoid, except..." rather than "you're a robot, except..." - I'm in favor of them continuing to iterate on that design in either direction too, that's what UA should be for.

Where I disagree is the idea that PCs should only ever be humanoid. Playable Fey haven't broken anything, and judging by Plasmoid they're going to keep poking around with the possibilities here.

Strongly disagree. I was happy that they included Satyrs as a playable race, and frankly giddy that Centaurs are, too (and yes, that includes the whole Medium size, because, as KorvinStarmast said, KISS), but the whole "You are a Fey" is a complete showstopper for me.

Imagine an adventure where you're a human, and you and your fellow humanoid type creatures (elves, dwarves, halflings, etc.) learn the plot, get invested, travel to the castle or dungeon, and then have to stop at the door because of some adventure-specific mechanic to the effect of "No humanoid creatures may pass." No saving throw, no mitigating, just get to twiddling those thumbs, I guess. Fun adventure yet?

Because that is what the Hallow spell does to Fey creatures. Except this isn't adventure specific, this is how it works right out of the tin. Which wasn't a problem when playable characters were humanoid and that was it, but now it is. So either they need to include something to mitigate those beginning-of-game assumptions (the same way the Glitchling tells you you still get to benefit from all of those "these healing spells don't work on Constructs" spells), or they need to make everything playable the humanoid type.

[Jervis]

Strongly disagree. I was happy that they included Satyrs as a playable race, and frankly giddy that Centaurs are, too (and yes, that includes the whole Medium size, because, as KorvinStarmast said, KISS), but the whole "You are a Fey" is a complete showstopper for me.

Imagine an adventure where you're a human, and you and your fellow humanoid type creatures (elves, dwarves, halflings, etc.) learn the plot, get invested, travel to the castle or dungeon, and then have to stop at the door because of some adventure-specific mechanic to the effect of "No humanoid creatures may pass." No saving throw, no mitigating, just get to twiddling those thumbs, I guess. Fun adventure yet?

Because that is what the Hallow spell does to Fey creatures. Except this isn't adventure specific, this is how it works right out of the tin. Which wasn't a problem when playable characters were humanoid and that was it, but now it is. So either they need to include something to mitigate those beginning-of-game assumptions (the same way the Glitchling tells you you still get to benefit from all of those "these healing spells don't work on Constructs" spells), or they need to make everything playable the humanoid type.

To be perfectly honest I don’t mind that. You choose to play a Fey knowing that hallow is a spell and you now have to pay the cost for that. I hate, hate, hate the idea of removing any downside tied to a player race because it goes against the fantasy you’re trying to portray. You picked a race that’s immune to hold person and every other humanoid only spell so now you have to sit outside because there’s a temple under the effect of hallow. And that’s a good thing. Constructs shouldn’t get every upside of being a construct but also be healed by common cure spells. You should have to upcast mending like a artificer or use non type restricted healing. All of that is part of the fantasy you picked at first level.

Removing that might be good mechanically but it’s bad for roleplay. One of the things I like most about 3.5 and playing weirder PCs is having to deal with the occasional rebuke undead flying at my face or fighting something that deals extra damage to creatures of the dragon type. If you aren’t use to dealing with it then it seems nasty but you end up liking it in a round about sort of way. Undead PCs run in terror from clerics and paladins, Fey get no selled by holy ground, slow creatures have to look for horses, etc. All of that is part of the world. It’s a good thing. And if you’re really worried that a DM is going to make something you can’t do, remember a DM can just as easily make a magic circle against gnomes spell and no save stop you from entering.

[Amnestic]

I definitely think its a good racial. Still, compare a normal dex fighter warforged vs this race. At lvl 4 dex will be 18. the warforged figher can use halfplate (ac17 + 1 ) vs this (ac18). At lvl 8 the glitchling goes to AC19. But thats the sort of point where magic items start to come in, so say a halfplate +1, which yields an identical boost. Hence, it feels roughly consistent with warforged. At least thats what I think they're going for design wise.

Sure, but unless that halfplate +1 also happens to be mithril, they're eating disadvantage on their stealth to do so, there's still a tradeoff, and that Rare +1 halfplate is eating into the magic item "budget" that players and DMs have in their head even if it's not explicitly detailed anywhere. In return the Glitchling is getting, say, a +2 weapon as their 'budget' equivalent.

[Psyren]

Imagine an adventure where you're a human, and you and your fellow humanoid type creatures (elves, dwarves, halflings, etc.) learn the plot, get invested, travel to the castle or dungeon, and then have to stop at the door because of some adventure-specific mechanic to the effect of "No humanoid creatures may pass." No saving throw, no mitigating, just get to twiddling those thumbs, I guess. Fun adventure yet?

Because that is what the Hallow spell does to Fey creatures. Except this isn't adventure specific, this is how it works right out of the tin. Which wasn't a problem when playable characters were humanoid and that was it, but now it is. So either they need to include something to mitigate those beginning-of-game assumptions (the same way the Glitchling tells you you still get to benefit from all of those "these healing spells don't work on Constructs" spells), or they need to make everything playable the humanoid type.

1) Hallow is not insurmountable, Dispel Magic is a thing that exists. And even without that, it's a 60ft radius, most adventures tend to cover a slightly larger area than that.

2) Even if the party somehow can't dispel it, whoever cast it can simply allow Fey in. The DM can put a Satyr on the bad guy's staff if they want for example.

3) Hallow does nothing to constructs so it's completely irrelevant to Glitchlings anyway.

[Sigreid]

I still don't think feats should be background features. I would have no issue if they were setting them as faction features. i.e. This is what you get as part of your faction's basic training.

[Jervis]

I still don't think feats should be background features. I would have no issue if they were setting them as faction features. i.e. This is what you get as part of your faction's basic training.

It seems like they’re probably going back to feats at level 1 being the default and just using backgrounds as a vehicle. For my money It’s the only new design direction i’m on board with.

[Segev]

How anyone can look at Glitchling and believe race choice won't be important is beyond me. I'm spinning up multiple builds in my head based on Armored Plating alone, assuming it releases unnerfed.The trouble is, I'm sure it'll be nerfed.

Frankly, though, if they can be that creative and bold with the classic races, I'll be relieved. I have limited faith in that, though. Especially since doing so will likely trigger more accusations that will make them backtrack again. The fact you're spinning up multiple builds in your head means some builds will be better able to ues Glitchling than others, which stifles creativity, you see.


Suffice to say I disagree. Presenting it all fully baked with no transition/incremental changes would've been a colossal mistake.
On that, we agree. Unfortunately, they seem to be determined to head down a road that is, itself, a mistake, so releasing it piecemeal is only giving us warning rather than actually showing signs of them learning as they go.

[Psyren]

The trouble is, I'm sure it'll be nerfed.

Even if it is, there's a lot of downside room. For Dex-primary and Dex-secondary builds, this starts at Tortle levels and goes up from there; you could "nerf" it to be equal to Tortle or Warforged and the race would still be good.


Frankly, though, if they can be that creative and bold with the classic races, I'll be relieved. I have limited faith in that, though. Especially since doing so will likely trigger more accusations that will make them backtrack again. The fact you're spinning up multiple builds in your head means some builds will be better able to ues Glitchling than others, which stifles creativity, you see.

I don't understand your last sentence at all. "Some builds can use this race better than others" applies to literally every race in the game.


On that, we agree. Unfortunately, they seem to be determined to head down a road that is, itself, a mistake, so releasing it piecemeal is only giving us warning rather than actually showing signs of them learning as they go.

Even if I agreed with you that they were headed toward a mistake, I'd absolutely rather have advance warning than a bunch of suddenly incompatible design.

For example, can you imagine if all the new races had "X per short rest" abilities and then they got rid of short rests? That would be monumentally worse than what they're doing now.

[Segev]

I don't understand your last sentence at all. "Some builds can use this race better than others" applies to literally every race in the game.

Now, perhaps, you understand my bafflement at and rejection of the claim that not having +2 racial bonus in a particular stat makes a race unplayable as a particular class, and therefore stifles creativity.

[KorvinStarmast]

Where I disagree is the idea that PCs should only ever be humanoid. Playable Fey haven't broken anything, and judging by Plasmoid they're going to keep poking around with the possibilities here. As long as fey PC's get turned by the Ancient's paladin ability, sure. :smalltongue: As to plasmoid/ooze PC's, sorry, that's a hard no from me since I think that's a different game - super heroes, fantastic four, etc. I realize that this has a lot to do with taste.

We need a lot more; so many iconic gods from 3e have no good domains at all. That doesn't matter. 3e is dead to me. More domains is, to me, a lot of bloat with no value added.
The glitchling trait can be wasted if you decide to bump a save up to 10+Mod and then it's still not enough. OK, that's a fair response.

I still don't think feats should be background features. I would have no issue if they were setting them as faction features. i.e. This is what you get as part of your faction's basic training. Agree.

[Psyren]

Now, perhaps, you understand my bafflement at and rejection of the claim that not having +2 racial bonus in a particular stat makes a race unplayable as a particular class, and therefore stifles creativity.

Whose claim was that? I have neither said nor seen anything about "not having a +2 means you're unplayable as that class."


That doesn't matter. 3e is dead to me. More domains is, to me, a lot of bloat with no value added.

A counterpart to Ordered is bloat? Ilmater clerics only being healers is bloat? :smallconfused:


As long as fey PC's get turned by the Ancient's paladin ability, sure. :smalltongue:

It's far from the worst Wis save they could fail (for one thing, it breaks as soon as they take damage), so sure.

[sandmote]

Whose claim was that? I have neither said nor seen anything about "not having a +2 means you're unplayable as that class." I believe this was one supposed claim being catered to by replacing racial ability score modifiers with the non-optional optional rule presented in Tasha's. Jury is still out on whether or not any real person seriously said that though.

[Segev]

I believe this was one supposed claim being catered to by replacing racial ability score modifiers with the non-optional optional rule presented in Tasha's. Jury is still out on whether or not any real person seriously said that though.

It was a primary argument in favor of the TCE rule, and I was told I was a terrible person for stifling creativity by opposing it.

[Psyren]

I believe this was one supposed claim being catered to by replacing racial ability score modifiers with the non-optional optional rule presented in Tasha's. Jury is still out on whether or not any real person seriously said that though.


It was a primary argument in favor of the TCE rule, and I was told I was a terrible person for stifling creativity by opposing it.

As I've said, I never said or saw this claim - so to answer your earlier question, no I don't.

[Amnestic]

Also on the Summon Warrior Spirit thing...why is that not a Cleric spell? You know, the guys who do all the speaking with the dead, scrying the dead, resurrecting the dead.

Nope, clearly that's a sorc/war/wiz spell. Ridiculous.

[BRC]

I believe this was one supposed claim being catered to by replacing racial ability score modifiers with the non-optional optional rule presented in Tasha's. Jury is still out on whether or not any real person seriously said that though.
At the risk of getting burned at the stake, I've said something similar, but not quite in those words.

The central issue isn't that you need a +2 in your primary stat to play a character, it's that players can be discouraged if their race of choice doesn't have stat bonuses that work with the class they want to play. The issue is less with the way the game actually works and more with psychology. A character with a mere +2 in their main stat is far from unplayable, it's just a bit discouraging.

At least that's the logic I see WoTC following. Wanting to remove anything that can be read as "Your chosen race/class combo is Not What This Game Rewards".

The Tasha's solution certainly fixes that, for what it is, but is an inelegant and brute-force option that, IMO, makes unnecessary sacrifices.


The big thing about the bonus is the ability to hit the coveted +3 in a primary stat, assuming point buy rules. D&D 5e does little to reward or encourage balanced stat builds, or having odd numbers in a stat. Having that extra bonus in your primary stat is a pretty big deal, especially for caster classes where everything runs off that primary stat.

I feel like you can get the intended result: let anybody start with a +3 in their primary stat, without completely washing away racial ability score modifiers. Just give each race a set +2 modifier (or a choice between a few thematically appropriate +2s), and a freely assigned +1. Or just change the Point Buy calculations a bit. That way anybody can get that 16 in their primary stat if they want it, but you can still have thematically appropriate stat boosts.

[Damon_Tor]

Why even have a racial stat bonus at all if it's the same for every race. Make +2/+1 a part of the attribute selection process. It feels weird and tacked on to have it be a part of the race section.

[BRC]

Why even have a racial stat bonus at all if it's the same for every race. Make +2/+1 a part of the attribute selection process. It feels weird and tacked on to have it be a part of the race section.

Because it's a way of solving the issue that they can publish as a self-contained section in one book without technically contradicting what was published in the PHB...kind of...sort of.

Racial Stat Bonuses have a spot in the paradigm, both as a step in calculating your character's stats, and in what defines a "Race" in the game. It was easier to just make a blanket rule that says "put those numbers wherever you want, so long as they're a +2 and a +1" than to try to unpack either of those paradigms.

[meandean]

I don't need the Omens and Portents ability to tell where this is going...

[Damon_Tor]

I don't need the Omens and Portents ability to tell where this is going...

This is a good point. This subject kills threads and frankly we can't just have every single UA thread devolve into Tasha's stat warring and get killed.

I hereby renounce any and all discussion of floating racial stat bonuses and encourage everyone else to do the same.

[GooeyChewie]

Why even have a racial stat bonus at all if it's the same for every race. Make +2/+1 a part of the attribute selection process. It feels weird and tacked on to have it be a part of the race section.

For all races/lineages published after Tasha’s, the “Ability Score Increase” section has been under the “Creating Your Character” header rather than the “Choosing Your Race” header. At this point it is only in the race section for races published prior to Tasha’s and not republished in Monsters of the Multiverse. (That’s part of why I wish they’d go ahead and move up 5.5, to eliminate the oddities of trying to squash pieces of the new design paradigms into a system not designed for it.)

[Dr.Samurai]

I don't need the Omens and Portents ability to tell where this is going...


This is a good point. This subject kills threads and frankly we can't just have every single UA thread devolve into Tasha's stat warring and get killed.

I hereby renounce any and all discussion of floating racial stat bonuses and encourage everyone else to do the same.

*construct voice* Rogue modrons detected. Moving to intercept. Must enforce internet protocol. All must engage in pointless debates. All dead horses must be beaten. This is the Prime Directive.

[MrStabby]

I think like most people I have mixed views.

Like Tasha's stuff a lot of it is good in the right context, but in mid edition is a mess. As something by itself this doesn't excite me - as a precursor to something more, designed from the bottom up, with all the parts coordinated... I think it shows promise.

I like that Race has more promenance and is showing signs of being more important.

I love the same for background.

I love that we are heading towards backgrounds giving a feat at 1st level.

I am OK with feat trees, as long as all the components are good and level appropriate

I am... unsure about the running of things off proficiency bonuses - if these things become too easy to dip then characer soup with a bit of loads of classes just sounds unapealing. Also, I kind of like geting a bit of stuff back on a short rest, but I would like to see a shift towards all classes being more closely balanced round short and long rests.


But the specifics? The Modron is a big boost to certain types of character, bu more specifically at the level where they really don't need a boost. As those dex based melee characters start to struggle, a lot of the benefits wane.

The Fate cleric... it feels so bland. It feels even more flavour neutral than the war cleric.

The feats... well as I said, I kind of like tying them to backgrounds and chains etc. and some are pretty cool. I don't like the giant theme - personal view is gians are basically nearly the most boring creature type in the game. Basically humanoids but bigger. The only creature type more dull to me is humanoid itself (imagine this number of humanoid themed feats). Where are the undead feats, the plant feats, the aberation feats, the ooze feats... there is so much more fun scope to play with than giants, again.








Recycle, Re-Package….this feels more like an album of studio recording outtakes posthumously released by an artist.



I was going for a bloopers reel.





We need a lot more; so many iconic gods from 3e have no good domains at all. Where is Ilmater's Strength? Where is Tymora's Luck or Chaos? Helm's Protection? Talos' Destruction? Waukeen's Travel?


Well I guess we have strength, trickery, twilight, tempest for the first four. Travel I would say is missing. Absolutely not averse to more domains of cleric though.




Also on the Summon Warrior Spirit thing...why is that not a Cleric spell? You know, the guys who do all the speaking with the dead, scrying the dead, resurrecting the dead.

Nope, clearly that's a sorc/war/wiz spell. Ridiculous.

Yeah, this bugs me no end. It feels like they have a macro to pre-populate every spell to be available to wizard. Summoning the dead feels very cleric-like. Also a bit miffed that summoning an undead creaure isn't necromancy. This feels like a prime spell for a spirits bard using a deck as a spellcasting focus but a) its not on the bard list, b) its not a necromancy or divinaton spell.

[sandmote]

At the risk of getting burned at the stake, I've said something similar, but not quite in those words. I appreciate the honesty in bringing up when you genuinely hold a position even similar to one being negatively discussed.

On topic, could the Fate domain being appropriate both to lawful characters (who believe they're keeping the world on the proper path) and chaotic characters (who believe they're finding a path to a different future) seems like a well designed concept.

Strike of the Giants feels like it would have been better as the 3rd level feature for a fighter subclass (and runes given as a subclass for artificers or wizards). I mean, the mechanics for Rune Carver Apprentice's runes are even similar to the way infusions work.

House of cards doesn't feel worth a 3rd level slot. I don't really want to take a long rest inside the 30-foot tall marker of where the party is, and I certainly don't want to use it as a defensive structure. The description makes me think you could use it to get a floating disk up a ~39 foot vertical cliff, and it might work to disguise your location (using a summon to make it look like you're inside while you go around) but I really don't know what else you'd want one for. Is it a spell to give NPC casters an abode out in the wilderness?

[MrStabby]

I appreciate the honesty in bringing up when you genuinely hold a position even similar to one being negatively discussed.

On topic, could the Fate domain being appropriate both to lawful characters (who believe they're keeping the world on the proper path) and chaotic characters (who believe they're finding a path to a different future) seems like a well designed concept.

Strike of the Giants feels like it would have been better as the 3rd level feature for a fighter subclass (and runes given as a subclass for artificers or wizards). I mean, the mechanics for Rune Carver Apprentice's runes are even similar to the way infusions work.

House of cards doesn't feel worth a 3rd level slot. I don't really want to take a long rest inside the 30-foot tall marker of where the party is, and I certainly don't want to use it as a defensive structure. The description makes me think you could use it to get a floating disk up a ~39 foot vertical cliff, and it might work to disguise your location (using a summon to make it look like you're inside while you go around) but I really don't know what else you'd want one for. Is it a spell to give NPC casters an abode out in the wilderness?

Use it in conjunction with firebolt to send smoke signals?

[AvvyR]

Kinda weird that the Reaper Spirit from Spirit of Death is just generally inferior to the ghostly spirit from Summon Undead. It has advantage on its attacks, I guess (and the attack does 1 more damage!), if you think that makes up for only being able to attack one target per casting, having 1/60th the duration, and zero versatility.

[Psyren]

At the risk of getting burned at the stake, I've said something similar, but not quite in those words.

The central issue isn't that you need a +2 in your primary stat to play a character, it's that players can be discouraged if their race of choice doesn't have stat bonuses that work with the class they want to play. The issue is less with the way the game actually works and more with psychology. A character with a mere +2 in their main stat is far from unplayable, it's just a bit discouraging.

To be clear, I've seen "it's discouraging" plenty. But the ridiculous claim being made was, and I quote, "it's unplayable." And that, I have not seen, not from anyone being serious anyway.


Also on the Summon Warrior Spirit thing...why is that not a Cleric spell? You know, the guys who do all the speaking with the dead, scrying the dead, resurrecting the dead.

Nope, clearly that's a sorc/war/wiz spell. Ridiculous.

Per the devblog, those spells are based on cards from the Deck of Many Things, so they might intentionally be aiming more for arcane than divine. (Yes, I know that distinction is supposedly not a thing in 5e, but there it is.)



Well I guess we have strength, trickery, twilight, tempest for the first four. Travel I would say is missing. Absolutely not averse to more domains of cleric though.

5e has no Strength domain, at least not an official one. Trickery has nothing chaotic about it, it's just about being sneaky. Twilight isn't bad for a protection domain... except absolutely nothing in its fluff correlates. And tempest is focused on destruction from storms - no volcanoes, no earthquakes, no wildfires etc.


Use it in conjunction with firebolt to send smoke signals?

That's about the only use I can think of. I sure as hell wouldn't be sleeping up there.

Again, this should really be an item.

[Khrysaes]

I feel like the genasi should have had all the scion of the element features from the start.

That said, i am excited to bring you my motm shadarkai raised by cloud giants and touched by fey.

[sandmote]

Lost Laboratory of Kwalish includes a few spells, including Galder’s Tower (https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/galders-tower). It takes 10 minutes to cast, it has half the floor space, it can come with proper furnishings, it has a ladder instead of a ramp, and its sturdy enough to have no comments about being knocked down. It is otherwise the same as House of Cards.

I know House looked familiar, but I didn't recall why at first.

[MrStabby]

5e has no Strength domain, at least not an official one. Trickery has nothing chaotic about it, it's just about being sneaky. Twilight isn't bad for a protection domain... except absolutely nothing in its fluff correlates. And tempest is focused on destruction from storms - no volcanoes, no earthquakes, no wildfires etc.


Sorry, I meant war not strength. These things are in the order of "close enough" rather than being an exact match. A strength domain, for example - I struggle to think what its domain spells would be. 10 domain spells on strength? I think its to specific, so I think it has to be a bi broader than strength and if you are going broad enough to pick up 10 domain spells in its purview then War is probably not that far off what you might end up with anyway.

Likewise with chaos (though in this case a bit better - I think a chaos domain is almost feasible) - what can you do for domain spells? Blink, confusion... then we are starting to get into the realms of broadening the description. Tempest is focussed on storm destruction but not only that - it has things like insect plague and shatter on the spell list as well as destructive wave (which is a little bit stormy still). I think it would have been broader if the spells were there in the PHB - things like maelstrom and tidal wave came later. There is no earthquake of a domain spell level in the PHB. The domain is more specific, I won't argue against that - but I think it covers that base as well as a PHB class could have done. I mean I wouldn't be angry if a destruction domain were to be released - it isn't like there is a really close duplicate, its just not what i would consider to be a high priority.

On the other hand, a travel domain has its own space. It has enough obvious thematic spells (jump, longstrider, Zephyr Strike, misty Step, find steed, spider climb, Fly, water walk, find greater steed, Freedom of Movement, Dimesnion Door, Control winds, far step, steel wind strike, teleportation circle) Blue denotes what I would imagine would make the cut.

[Khrysaes]

Sorry, I meant war not strength. These things are in the order of "close enough" rather than being an exact match. A strength domain, for example - I struggle to think what its domain spells would be. 10 domain spells on strength? I think its to specific, so I think it has to be a bi broader than strength and if you are going broad enough to pick up 10 domain spells in its purview then War is probably not that far off what you might end up with anyway.

Likewise with chaos (though in this case a bit better - I think a chaos domain is almost feasible) - what can you do for domain spells? Blink, confusion... then we are starting to get into the realms of broadening the description. Tempest is focussed on storm destruction but not only that - it has things like insect plague and shatter on the spell list as well as destructive wave (which is a little bit stormy still). I think it would have been broader if the spells were there in the PHB - things like maelstrom and tidal wave came later. There is no earthquake of a domain spell level in the PHB. The domain is more specific, I won't argue against that - but I think it covers that base as well as a PHB class could have done. I mean I wouldn't be angry if a destruction domain were to be released - it isn't like there is a really close duplicate, its just not what i would consider to be a high priority.

On the other hand, a travel domain has its own space. It has enough obvious thematic spells (jump, longstrider, Zephyr Strike, misty Step, find steed, spider climb, Fly, water walk, find greater steed, Freedom of Movement, Dimesnion Door, Control winds, far step, steel wind strike, teleportation circle) Blue denotes what I would imagine would make the cut.

Out of date. But plane shift amonkhet had domains. I think one was strength. May be a place to build off of.

[Psyren]

Sorry, I meant war not strength. These things are in the order of "close enough" rather than being an exact match. A strength domain, for example - I struggle to think what its domain spells would be. 10 domain spells on strength? I think its to specific, so I think it has to be a bi broader than strength and if you are going broad enough to pick up 10 domain spells in its purview then War is probably not that far off what you might end up with anyway.

Nah, War is a totally different archetype - a fighter/cleric that wears heavy armor and uses martial weapons. No Ilmateri or Oghman or Malarite etc would be caught dead using that stuff.

Much like War is about making a fightery cleric and Trickery is about making a rogue-ish cleric, Strength should be about making a monkish cleric. Tonsure, toga, wrestling, Socrates/Plato, the works. Preferably with a version of Unarmored Defense that doesn't mean they have to be Dex-focused.

[P. G. Macer]

Out of date. But plane shift amonkhet had domains. I think one was strength. May be a place to build off of.

As much as Ι enjoyed the Plane Shift series, it was totally unofficial, as in less official than UA. It was James Wyatt’s personal project while he was on the Magic: The Gathering story team from 2014-2018, at which point WotC realized they could monetize D&D/MtG crossovers and published the Ravnica book.

The Strength Domain from the Amonkhet PDF, as a generic Strength Domain, is… iffy. It’s mostly reflavored War and Nature Domain features mashed together, which, given that according to my (near nonexistent) knowledge of MtG lore, Wyatt intended the domain to be for Amonkhet’s god of Green mana.

I actually revised the domain into a more generic Strength Domain a few days ago. I can DM you the Homebrewery link or post it in the Homebrew forum, if you’re interested.

EDIT: Although I might revise it further to incorporate some of Psyren’s ideas in the post above this one.

[animewatcha]

Lost Laboratory of Kwalish includes a few spells, including Galder’s Tower (https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/galders-tower). It takes 10 minutes to cast, it has half the floor space, it can come with proper furnishings, it has a ladder instead of a ramp, and its sturdy enough to have no comments about being knocked down. It is otherwise the same as House of Cards.

I know House looked familiar, but I didn't recall why at first.

It's not the same of house of cards. It can be made permanent. When it's not permanent, it's not taken down by a level 1 magic missile, thunderwave, or even burning hands. Or heck, bringing it down by accidently leaning against it too hard.

[MrStabby]

As much as Ι enjoyed the Plane Shift series, it was totally unofficial, as in less official than UA. It was James Wyatt’s personal project while he was on the Magic: The Gathering story team from 2014-2018, at which point WotC realized they could monetize D&D/MtG crossovers and published the Ravnica book.

The Strength Domain from the Amonkhet PDF, as a generic Strength Domain, is… iffy. It’s mostly reflavored War and Nature Domain features mashed together, which, given that according to my (near nonexistent) knowledge of MtG lore, Wyatt intended the domain to be for Amonkhet’s god of Green mana.

I actually revised the domain into a more generic Strength Domain a few days ago. I can DM you the Homebrewery link or post it in the Homebrew forum, if you’re interested.

EDIT: Although I might revise it further to incorporate some of Psyren’s ideas in the post above this one.

Yeah, I would be curious especially as to the strength domain spells. Getting 10 spells themed around strength but distinct from war would seem to be a challenge.

[Amnestic]

Another peeve: I just noticed Cartomancer feat is restricted to Sorc/Wiz/Warlock...despite bard getting access to both 'Card' spells and having an entire subclass that you can use based around a tarot deck.

Just some really bizarre decisions here.

[Damon_Tor]

Yeah, I would be curious especially as to the strength domain spells. Getting 10 spells themed around strength but distinct from war would seem to be a challenge.

My quick picks:
1. Earth Tremor, Thunderous Smite
2. Enlarge/Reduce, Ray of Enfeeblement
3. Erupting Earth, Summon Warrior Spirit
4. Stone Skin, Guardian of Nature
5. Bigby's Hand, Destructive Wave

Anything not in the PHB could be reprinted in whatever book the hypothetical domain is published in.

[Gignere]

My quick picks:
1. Earth Tremor, Thunderous Smite
2. Enlarge/Reduce, Ray of Enfeeblement
3. Erupting Earth, Summon Warrior Spirit
4. Stone Skin, Guardian of Nature
5. Bigby's Hand, Destructive Wave

Anything not in the PHB could be reprinted in whatever book the hypothetical domain is published in.

Not a bad start but I probably would swap some of the early nukes for more self buffs for a strength domain.

Swap heroism or/bless over Earth Tremor.
Instead of Erupting Earth slot in Haste.
Swap out either one of the level 4s for Freedom of Movement.

[MrStabby]

My quick picks:
1. Earth Tremor, Thunderous Smite
2. Enlarge/Reduce, Ray of Enfeeblement
3. Erupting Earth, Summon Warrior Spirit
4. Stone Skin, Guardian of Nature
5. Bigby's Hand, Destructive Wave

Anything not in the PHB could be reprinted in whatever book the hypothetical domain is published in.

So of these I guess I could agree with thunderous smite - I had missed that one, but pointing it out shows me its goodness of fit. Enlarge/reduce works for me as well. Ray of enfeeblement is a nice touch that strength can be about taking away srength, but to take it back to the original point I don't know of any deities that would represent both giving and taking strength.

I don't really get any of the others except bigby's hand. Summoning spirits, blasting with radient/necrotic and lightning? Stone skin to me could represent toughness, not strength.

[Damon_Tor]

but to take it back to the original point I don't know of any deities that would represent both giving and taking strength.

All strength is the gift of [God of Strength]. Those who misuse this gift can have it removed.

[Psyren]

I'd probably do Enhance Ability over Ray of Enfeeblement, but otherwise Damon_Tor's list is indeed much better than the War domain's.

[Segev]

I am with the general attitude on house of cards: I don't see what it's use case is. At first, it sounds kind-of neat, but everything after they describe the floor space makes me ask, "What is the actual use case, here?"

I can't think of when or how I'd use this. Maybe - maybe - as a first level spell, it'd be useful for temporary cover or concealment, or as a way to get up high for a good vantage, or a makeshift ladder. Not that you couldn't do just about as well with a rope in most cases.

At third level, it's not even useful as shelter compared to Leomund's tiny hut. Which, in 5e, is actually a better archer hutch, as well. But even if Leomund's tiny hut wasn't so ridiculous, or was absent altogether, I have a hard time thinking of when this is better than a tent for shelter. At least a tent isn't going to collapse when you hit it, and isn't likely to blow over in a strong wind or disintegrate under rain. (It doesn't say explicitly that it will, but it also doesn't say explicitly that it won't, leaving it up to DM discretion, and with how flimsy and frail it is, I'd believe a DM who said a strong wind blows it over was acting in perfectly good faith.)

[BRC]

I am with the general attitude on house of cards: I don't see what it's use case is. At first, it sounds kind-of neat, but everything after they describe the floor space makes me ask, "What is the actual use case, here?"

I can't think of when or how I'd use this. Maybe - maybe - as a first level spell, it'd be useful for temporary cover or concealment, or as a way to get up high for a good vantage, or a makeshift ladder. Not that you couldn't do just about as well with a rope in most cases.

At third level, it's not even useful as shelter compared to Leomund's tiny hut. Which, in 5e, is actually a better archer hutch, as well. But even if Leomund's tiny hut wasn't so ridiculous, or was absent altogether, I have a hard time thinking of when this is better than a tent for shelter. At least a tent isn't going to collapse when you hit it, and isn't likely to blow over in a strong wind or disintegrate under rain. (It doesn't say explicitly that it will, but it also doesn't say explicitly that it won't, leaving it up to DM discretion, and with how flimsy and frail it is, I'd believe a DM who said a strong wind blows it over was acting in perfectly good faith.)

It seems to mostly be a thematic vanity spell? If you really like the idea of your cartomancer whipping up a house of cards to sleep in?

My guess is that earlier versions of it were kind of the "instant Fortress" type deal, a way to get cover and height advantage, but either they got worried about it being too powerful, or got too enamored with the metaphorical use of "House of Cards", so they made it super easy to knock down.

[Dr.Samurai]

I agree with the idea that House of Cards should be an item.

But also, it could be a lower level spell that can be upcast.

So let it start out as an almost literal house of cards that can be tipped or blown over (almost). And then with higher level slots have it become more durable.

I'd also just have them be a crap ton of normal sized cards instead of goofy giant sized cards.

[werescythe]

The Fate Domain looks pretty cool, though I do feel that its 17th level ability could use a buff. Maybe when Foresight is cast this way it could also not use verbal and somatic components.

[meandean]

The Fate Domain looks pretty cool, though I do feel that its 17th level ability could use a buff. Maybe when Foresight is cast this way it could also not use verbal and somatic components.I get them shortening the duration, but since they did so, the casting time should be an action (or even a bonus action). It's 17th level!!

[P. G. Macer]

Since a few people on the Strength Domain related tangent expressed interest in my version of it, I made a thread about it in the Homebrew forum (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?647983-Cleric-Domain-Strength&p=25525141#post25525141).

[sandmote]

It's not the same of house of cards. It can be made permanent. When it's not permanent, it's not taken down by a level 1 magic missile, thunderwave, or even burning hands. Or heck, bringing it down by accidently leaning against it too hard. Please see the list of differences you quoted me listing, which includes that Galder's Tower isn't super easy to knock down. Otherwise my point was "they've already published a spell for the same concept, at the same level, that's fundamentally superior."

So it does look like the only actual use for House of Cards is if you (a) have a floating disk), (b) need to get it up a cliff that's up to 30 feet too tall for the disk to manage by itself, and (c) can't manage or don't want a Wall of Stone.

I'd rather have some "Instant Ramp" spell if we're bothering with this; just make it sturdy enough to serve as conjured siege equipment and it'll fill what's left of the House of Cards idea.

[sambojin]

The existiential dread of a Glitchling Druid must be hilarious to see. Balance and chaos and all that, but can't wear metal armour. But has metal skin, with armour plates bolted on. Arrrrggghhhhh! (:head explodes:)
*Maybe they're leather plates for any Druid versions?

I've been calling Summon Fey Spirit "Summon Unoptimized Monk" for a while now. And, bam! We literally have a spell that summons an unoptimized Monk! The Fighter version actually looks pretty good, because 18AC is pretty good, mostly. There is a slight chance that it is also the wisest, smartest and strongest person on your party as well, plus it speaks common and has hands, so much like a Fey, give it an adventurer's kit of some sort. Pity you can't really give them a magic shortsword like you could a Fey, but that's still a bit open to interpretation. Oh, and you can do undead stuff to them, so that's kinda a negative.

A few of the Scion feats look fun for druids. Anything that isn't casting magic, that can be used in wildshape, off a bonus action, usually isn't too bad.

[Leon]

The existiential dread of a Glitchling Druid must be hilarious to see. Balance and chaos and all that, but can't wear metal armour. But has metal skin, with armour plates bolted on. Arrrrggghhhhh! (:head explodes:)
*Maybe they're leather plates for any Druid versions?


Given its a flavour lock, then no issue.

[BerzerkerUnit]

Is it just me, or are most of the feat chain end feats super underwhelming? You can do the cool thing they offer a number of times up to your proficiency bonus....so 3 or 4 times per day, usually.

Is that seriously worth spending two feats on?


I'm actually glad that Fate Cleric is just ok. It's still fine, it's on par with the PHB subclasses, and that's good. It makes me think that they're hearing the pushback against Twilight and Peace clerics.

I believe the idea is you can choose the backgrounds to get the lvl 1 feat for "free." I've always highlighted background advantages, but I know most other tables ignore them. "Roll to get an audience with the Duke." "But I'm a noble." "Roll anyway, he's busy."


Behold as a monkey angrily slinging their poo takes apart the mighty 3rd spell all by it itself (house of cards).



Also yet another batch of spells where wizard gets every single one. Boo, hiss.

I thought House of Cards was originally meant to be a less obnoxious Tiny Hut replacement but it's a way to create do-it-yourself cover...though I'm also not clear if people inside it can fire out from the bottom floors? Lack of a ritual tag really hurts it as a 3rd level spell though, when there's so much other tasty alternatives at that spell level.

I think I'd rather see it Ritual with a "only one house of cards active at a time" clause.

I like the concept but I think the execution of it is lacking at the moment.

I have a fix for this spell. Change it to a trap. Any creature in the structure can use a bonus action to knock the cards down onto creatures within 10 feet and deal 2d6, dex for half. Up HP to 10 per card, vulnerable fire.

Beyond these, I think it could be used as instantish scaffolding for community development projects, build an actual fort around it.

[Azuresun]

It seems like they’re probably going back to feats at level 1 being the default and just using backgrounds as a vehicle. For my money It’s the only new design direction i’m on board with.

My big worry is that I'll think of a good idea for, say, a Sage Barbarian, then sigh wistfully and take the standard Outlander because the difference in mechanical power is too drastic to ignore.

[diplomancer]

My big worry is that I'll think of a good idea for, say, a Sage Barbarian, then sigh wistfully and take the standard Outlander because the difference in mechanical power is too drastic to ignore.

For now, their decision of giving an optional, class-agnostic, nice-but-not-overpowered Feat for the backgrounds that don't get one automatically looks like a nice solution, specially if you always have that option; so, if the Sage Feat is not a good fit for your character, you could get Tough or Skilled instead.

[4koboldsinacoat]

My big worry is that I'll think of a good idea for, say, a Sage Barbarian, then sigh wistfully and take the standard Outlander because the difference in mechanical power is too drastic to ignore.

It is worth noting that the PHB says you can customize your background by swapping the background ability for a different background ability that is more fitting for your character. This isn't a variant rule or something added later, it's been a day one default rule of 5e.

I don't think they will change this when 5.5e comes around and background feats are the norm.

[MrStabby]

It is worth noting that the PHB says you can customize your background by swapping the background ability for a different background ability that is more fitting for your character. This isn't a variant rule or something added later, it's been a day one default rule of 5e.

I don't think they will change this when 5.5e comes around and background feats are the norm.

I just don't want the Variant Human of feats to exist. Forgo their backgrounds and take your own custom background with a feat of your choice would be bad.

[4koboldsinacoat]

I just don't want the Variant Human of feats to exist. Forgo their backgrounds and take your own custom background with a feat of your choice would be bad.

RAW, the skills, proficiencies, languages, and abilities of a background are all recommendations and allowed to be swapped. For example, if a character's background is a historian for a church, and they take the acolyte background, they are allowed and encouraged by the PHB to swap insight for history, a language for calligraphers tools, and possibly their background ability for the sage's background ability if that is more fitting for the character's experience as a scholar for their church.

This means that if feats become tied to backgrounds, players will be given a free feat at level 1, with a recommendation based on their background in the same way that 5e players have always been given 2 free skill proficiencies at level 1, with a recommendation based on their background.

[KorvinStarmast]

Also on the Summon Warrior Spirit thing...why is that not a Cleric spell? {snip} Nope, clearly that's a sorc/war/wiz spell. Ridiculous. Ooh, I missed this, but I concur.

Why even have a racial stat bonus at all if it's the same for every race. Make +2/+1 a part of the attribute selection process. It feels weird and tacked on to have it be a part of the race section. Or do what 13th Age did, and give a bonus based on class and a bonus based on race. (Pick one of two for either). The more I think about that, the more I like it.

I don't need the Omens and Portents ability to tell where this is going... Chuckled, I did. :smallbiggrin:

All dead horses must be beaten. This is the Prime Directive. I picked a bad day to stop sniffing glue...

I feel like the genasi should have had all the scion of the element features from the start. That said, i am excited to bring you my motm shadarkai raised by cloud giants and touched by fey. Genasi are one of my preferred races in terms of theme.

It was James Wyatt’s personal project while he was on the Magic: The Gathering story team from 2014-2018, at which point WotC realized they could monetize D&D/MtG crossovers and published the Ravnica book. Which is not an option at my table. I guess it was a fun cross over for James, creatively.
As to adding more domains (which IMO adds little value, look at the mess that they made with Peace and Twilight) If we have a strength domain, why not a charisma domain? :smalltongue: Wait, we already have bards, never mind.

For now, their decision of giving an optional, class-agnostic, nice-but-not-overpowered Feat for the backgrounds that don't get one automatically looks like a nice solution, specially if you always have that option; so, if the Sage Feat is not a good fit for your character, you could get Tough or Skilled instead. Go back and add a feat to all PHB backgrounds. Do it right, or don't to it. (Even though I prefer the "this is what you earn/get from your faction" approach a lot more).

It is worth noting that the PHB says you can customize your background by swapping the background ability for a different background ability that is more fitting for your character. This isn't a variant rule or something added later, it's been a day one default rule of 5e.

I don't think they will change this when 5.5e comes around and background feats are the norm.
Not gonna bet against.

I just don't want the Variant Human of feats to exist. Forgo their backgrounds and take your own custom background with a feat of your choice would be bad. ??? Not if they build it all from the ground up as the system, rather than this 'throw some more spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks" approach.

This means that if feats become tied to backgrounds, players will be given a free feat at level 1, with a recommendation based on their background in the same way that 5e players have always been given 2 free skill proficiencies at level 1, with a recommendation based on their background. Took me a while to see what you did there, but yes, custom background is core.

[diplomancer]

Ooh, I missed this, but I concur.

Go back and add a feat to all PHB backgrounds. Do it right, or don't to it. (Even though I prefer the "this is what you earn/get from your faction" approach a lot more).



When the first Dragonlance UA came out, I said that this was a good idea, and not even hard to do (finding feats which are ressonably thematic while also being somewhat class-agnostic), but there was considerable push-back.

[Psyren]

Go back and add a feat to all PHB backgrounds. Do it right, or don't to it.

I think more likely it's going to be "if you're playing with feats, choose a bonus feat from this list if your background doesn't have one." That will save them from needing to also revisit SCAG, Ravnica, Eberron etc etc.

[Scarytincan]

Haven't read through everything in this thread so sorry if anyone addressed already:

Anyone else notice for the outer plane options Astral is an option for the first feat but is the only one with no follow up for level 4 feats?

Also, wonder why the lawful plane level 4 feat only lasts until start of your next turn rather than end of your next turn like most things...

[animewatcha]

I think more likely it's going to be "if you're playing with feats, choose a bonus feat from this list if your background doesn't have one." That will save them from needing to also revisit SCAG, Ravnica, Eberron etc etc.

Or even better. Feat at 1st and at every ASI. Showcasing more of the growth of the character.

[Jervis]

I think more likely it's going to be "if you're playing with feats, choose a bonus feat from this list if your background doesn't have one." That will save them from needing to also revisit SCAG, Ravnica, Eberron etc etc.

I mean the recent book deleting and changing races to all use the “optional” rules for non set ASIs tells me they don’t care that much about keeping old books up fully playable.

[Psyren]

I mean the recent book deleting and changing races to all use the “optional” rules for non set ASIs tells me they don’t care that much about keeping old books up fully playable.

Oh come off it. Those older books are fully playable with floating ASIs, and nothing was deleted. Can we not keep trying to go down this road?

[Jervis]

Oh come off it. Those older books are fully playable with floating ASIs, and nothing was deleted. Can we not keep trying to go down this road?

The point i’m making is that expecting them to update anything already printed or design rules to be backwards compatible is giving them far too much credit. More than likely they just let the fanbase figure it out if they want to play something that isn’t the newest book. And unless I missed some backpedaling they took ToF and GtM off dndbeyond. Yes yes if you bought it you still have it (for now). Point is though they’re more likely to delist those setting books and pretend they don’t exist when 5.5 comes out if they feel like printing new setting books for those to “reflect the new lore and mechanics”.

[Psyren]

The point i’m making is that expecting them to update anything already printed or design rules to be backwards compatible is giving them far too much credit. More than likely they just let the fanbase figure it out if they want to play something that isn’t the newest book.

The UAs themselves (both this one and the last two) contain the rule, all they need to do is add more feats to the list than just Skilled and Tough. Your fears are unfounded.


And unless I missed some backpedaling they took ToF and GtM off dndbeyond. Yes yes if you bought it you still have it (for now). Point is though they’re more likely to delist those setting books and pretend they don’t exist when 5.5 comes out if they feel like printing new setting books for those to “reflect the new lore and mechanics”.

Choosing not to sell any more digital copies of something old and outdated is not a deletion. If relics mean that much, that's what the secondhand market is for.

[Jervis]

The UAs themselves (both this one and the last two) contain the rule, all they need to do is add more feats to the list than just Skilled and Tough. Your fears are unfounded.



Choosing not to sell any more digital copies of something old and outdated is not a deletion. If relics mean that much, that's what the secondhand market is for.

Look we’ve had this argument in a dozen threads so I don’t feel like starting it again. The fact that every sourcebook going back to first edition is on DTRPG while 5e is exclusive to their online service where things are being scrubbed from sale to push new product will never not be a black mark against the company for me. That’s a issue I don’t see is agreeing on though so it’s not really worth discussing.

I don’t suspect much beyond those two feats are going to be on the generic list, if having feats for other backgrounds at all makes it to print. Given the fact that the only in print iteration of this is Strixhaven I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the case. At least until the 2024 revision where I suspect feats and backgrounds being paired will be default.

[Psyren]

Look we’ve had this argument in a dozen threads so I don’t feel like starting it again.

Then why... whatever.


I don’t suspect much beyond those two feats are going to be on the generic list, if having feats for other backgrounds at all makes it to print.

There is 100% a Krynn book coming (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0PJhABCb3o) with those UA feats (or a version of them) in it.

[Jervis]

Then why... whatever.



There is 100% a Krynn book coming (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0PJhABCb3o) with those UA feats (or a version of them) in it.

Again if it makes it to print. It would honestly fit the setting to force players to pick backgrounds with ties to organizations if they want a mechanical benefit. Then again Dragonlance is very railroady traditionally speaking, the first adventures were basically scripts. I don’t think the adventure book is going to be that bad but making casters sign up for the tower in their backstory to get a feat isn’t that unlikely IMO since they’re probably not going to keep the whole rogue wizards get hunted down thing.

[Kenny_Snoggins]

to be fair, being able to cast certain spells as a bonus action can make them much more viable, especially for half casters. think like, a paladin or EK casting greater invisibility as a BA. but yeah, for a full caster this is relatively minor, likely best of a warlock.

RAW right now Cartomancer is easily, easily the strongest feat in 5e. This thing makes Lucky look like Actor in the feat power ranking.

There isn't any limit on how many cards can be charged and they remain so indefinitely. If you're in any campaign with significant downtime, low risk travel time, extended social encounters or whatever, it basically becomes a 52 slot ring of spell storing that can hold up to a level 6 spell in each slot... making it mechanically similar to 100 rings of spell storing.
With no attunement.
Without needing 10 hands.
Without having to acquire 100 rare magic items.
And it can hold level 6 spells.
And they are all automatically quickened, because youre a sorceror with unlimited metamagic while you have the cards charged. And you're the best sorcerer ever because they require no vocal component to cast, just a flourish of a card, so almost gives them subtle spell too and I think you could make a strong argument that someone would have to pass a insight or perception check to even realize a spell was being cast in time to counterspell it, especially since you could flourish it behind your back and none of the requirements for being able to cast counterspell would be met.
And you can take it into any security environment because why would the Kings guards take your old beat up deck of mundane cards?
Oh and it also boosts your spell damage.
Oh and you can also use it to make an unlimited amount of money cheating at cards better than the best sleight of hand Rogue who ever lived.
At level 4, for one feat.
Holy freaking smokes.

A month of downtime and a week of travel to your next quest? Hope the DM has a plan for the 40 quickened+subtle disintegrates/mental prisons/ upcast fireballs etc you have quite literally in your back pocket. A staff of the freaking Magi can cast 6 level 7 fireballs in a day before its tapped out. This thing could fire off as many level 6 fireballs as you physically have the cards for, presumably 52. You could fire off a disintegrate every single turn as a non-counterable bonus action in every combat for like 2-3 days before you run dry.

Best feat in 5e, no question

[diplomancer]

RAW right now Cartomancer is easily, easily the strongest feat in 5e. This thing makes Lucky look like Actor in the feat power ranking.

There isn't any limit on how many cards can be charged and they remain so indefinitely. If you're in any campaign with significant downtime, low risk travel time, extended social encounters or whatever, it basically becomes a 52 slot ring of spell storing that can hold up to a level 6 spell in each slot... making it mechanically similar to 100 rings of spell storing.
With no attunement.
Without needing 10 hands.
Without having to acquire 100 rare magic items.
And it can hold level 6 spells.
And they are all automatically quickened, because youre a sorceror with unlimited metamagic while you have the cards charged. And you're the best sorcerer ever because they require no vocal component to cast, just a flourish of a card, so almost gives them subtle spell too and I think you could make a strong argument that someone would have to pass a insight or perception check to even realize a spell was being cast in time to counterspell it, especially since you could flourish it behind your back and none of the requirements for being able to cast counterspell would be met.
And you can take it into any security environment because why would the Kings guards take your old beat up deck of mundane cards?
Oh and it also boosts your spell damage.
Oh and you can also use it to make an unlimited amount of money cheating at cards better than the best sleight of hand Rogue who ever lived.
At level 4, for one feat.
Holy freaking smokes.

A month of downtime and a week of travel to your next quest? Hope the DM has a plan for the 40 quickened+subtle disintegrates/mental prisons/ upcast fireballs etc you have quite literally in your back pocket. A staff of the freaking Magi can cast 6 level 7 fireballs in a day before its tapped out. This thing could fire off as many level 6 fireballs as you physically have the cards for, presumably 52. You could fire off a disintegrate every single turn as a non-counterable bonus action in every combat for like 2-3 days before you run dry.

Best feat in 5e, no question

Good catch; spell should be lost if unused after a Long Rest.

[Damon_Tor]

There isn't any limit on how many cards can be charged and they remain so indefinitely. If you're in any campaign with significant downtime, low risk travel time, extended social encounters or whatever, it basically becomes a 52 slot ring of spell storing that can hold up to a level 6 spell in each slot... making it mechanically similar to 100 rings of spell storing.

Is it clear that there are 52 cards in this deck? You're assuming they mean the French-suited playing cards common in our world, but even in our world there's the German/Swiss-suited deck (32 or 36 cards) and the Spanish/Italian-suited deck (40 or 48 cards). And even the French decks often include two Joker cards, which would bring the total to 54. Most of the thematics around the card-based spells reference the Deck of Many Things, which has 13, 22 or 23 (?) cards in it. Could a Vistani character use a tarokka deck for this?

[Leon]

Hope that they don't backdate the background to all get feats, they simply don't need them. The new ones with feats are nothing special for having them, sure minmaxers are going to flock to them for that smidge of mechanical increase but overall they are just another option that may or may not fit your character.

[Hael]

RAW right now Cartomancer is easily, easily the strongest feat in 5e. This thing makes Lucky look like Actor in the feat power ranking.


If you made it consume a spell slot, it would still be amazingly strong, but obviously much less broken.

[stoutstien]

First thoughts on this UA

Glitching probably look more powerful than they actually are. The 14+dex armor is solid but basically it's +1 AC over those who max dex and don't use a shield. That's a pretty narrow window.

The reroll is ok but realistically you would want to save it for known misses/fails so 1-3s. I'd probably make it a reaction to be safe.

Living construct is meh but probably necessary within the 5e framework.

Advantage on charm is interesting. Most charms wouldn't work on constructs to begin with.

Limited flight is probably my favorite type regardless of source.

Overall I'd give it a 6/10 as is and with a few minor tweaks it could be 8/10.


Fate domain
Oh boy. On one hand I love divination focused PCs but I completely understand why some hate them. This is basically an illusion wizard on steroids as far as DM fiat goes. Setting that aside the overall feel of this is spot on.

Spell list is solid. Some mediocre options balanced with some monsters you will most likely want day to day.

Omen is okay but needs to be reduced to an action to help it along.

Bind is a long(ish) concentration free buff/debuff. Doesn't beat the life cleric shear output but those d6s could add up. Also heals objects which is rare. On top of the utility of tracking I think it's ok.

CD. If it wasn't for concentration this would be borderline. With concentration its probably fine. Good filler option to help stretch out resources. Bonus action is also a nod that they really are moving towards complete build it action economy for everyone.

Insight is a bonus action ST debuff. Nuff said.

Foresight is an ok capstone but should be available to cast with spell slots as well.

5/10-7/10. Depending on how you run divination.


Feats are a mixed bag as always

[diplomancer]

If you made it consume a spell slot, it would still be amazingly strong, but obviously much less broken.

It'd still be broken without resetting after a Long Rest; and if you do reset it after a Long Rest, it's very good, but not broken, even without spending a spell slot.

[meandean]

Is it clear that there are 52 cards in this deck?Notwithstanding that there's no definition of a "deck of cards" (maybe there's more than 52!), there's nothing in the text limiting your Hidden Aces to the size of a deck of cards. Perhaps you have to be carrying about some sort of deck of cards, or maybe not (it's not clear whether that text in the feat intro is meant to have game mechanics meaning). But for Hidden Ace, you are simply "flourishing" one card.

So, yeah, basically your Hidden Aces = the number of days since you took the Cartomancer feat, minus any on which you exhausted every spell slot you had. You can change it to one card that resets per long rest... and I'm not even entirely sure that wasn't the intention... but then no one's taking this feat.

Which, of course, would put it on the same tier as most if not all of these feats. The Scion of the Outer Planes and Strike of the Giants lines aren't at all worth pursuing unless you have the background that gives you the prerequisite feat. I guess I could see someone wanting to go all-in on giantness, and those feats are the better ones anyway... but is anyone really dying to be a "Planar Philosopher"? That's not an archetype that means much of anything, and I don't think the 4th-level feats will tempt anyone to pursue it. Even the okay ones do things that are found elsewhere as subclass features, so if you want them so badly, you can just be that subclass rather than go this route and essentially not have a 4th level ASI. The Scion of the Outer Planes stuff, at least, feels like a bunch of options no one will be interested in.

(What you could do perhaps with Cartomancer is limit the spell level to half your proficiency bonus. It's a lot less crazy for e.g. a 10th-level character to be throwing around "free" 2nd-level spells. After all, they're not "free" anymore when you're high enough level to simply be doing more powerful things with your actions. And it does have to be a spell with a casting time of 1 action, so it can't be shield/absorb elements/silvery barbs. But I think someone still might want that ability.)

[Kenny_Snoggins]

(What you could do perhaps with Cartomancer is limit the spell level to half your proficiency bonus. It's a lot less crazy for e.g. a 10th-level character to be throwing around "free" 2nd-level spells. After all, they're not "free" anymore when you're high enough level to simply be doing more powerful things with your actions. And it does have to be a spell with a casting time of 1 action, so it can't be shield/absorb elements/silvery barbs. But I think someone still might want that ability.)

That seems pretty fair, heat metal or hold person etc those low level spells that are good starting off by start to lose their shine a bit as you level up would become a lot more attractive as subtle bonus action casts. I like that.

Alternatively, use the wording of the spell for inspiration so that only the aces or trumps have the ability, giving you four slots at a maximum but with the full proficiency level of the spell.

I think both of those reign in the crazy without overcorrecting and totally wiping out the feat.

I would have liked to see them incorporate the new card spells into the card feat, weird that they didn't. Maybe scale it so it can cast card spray at one level, then Warrior, reaper etc as you level up. Or let you combine both effects of card spray in a single cast, something like that.

[OvisCaedo]

I am pretty sure the lack of cards expiring on a long rest is just an oversight they forgot to put in the text.

[Hael]

I am pretty sure the lack of cards expiring on a long rest is just an oversight they forgot to put in the text.

Then the feat is probably not good enough. The d4 of damage is annoying with the focus aspect (that should be fixed so report it) and rather useless outside of the magic missile cheese, the second bullet is not good, and the third would then be a glorified quicken/subtle once per day. Meh, I'd take the metamagic feat every day over that.

Now you could probably make it for prof number of cards, which would then make the feat really good. I don't know, its a tough balance act.

I do suspect you are correct and that is their intention though, which would put it in line with almost all of the other crappy feats in the UA (other than one or two of the revised giant feats, which are ok mechanically)

[meandean]

Hmm, wait... is it possible that you're still using a (current) spell slot on the Hidden Ace? i.e., a Hidden Ace is the ability to Quicken one casting of one particular spell?

[Kenny_Snoggins]

Hmm, wait... is it possible that you're still using a (current) spell slot on the Hidden Ace? i.e., a Hidden Ace is the ability to Quicken one casting of one particular spell?

Interesting. Maybe. "Imbue" is pretty vague but it never mentions when the spell slot is actually consumed. Or even if it is. Maybe the idea is it gives you a free quickened cast of one spell up to your prof mod a day, without using any spell slots at all, either time?

That's very interesting. Since it's not limited in terms of number of imbued cards you can have, that makes it even more bonkers powerful, but if it's just a free, souped up cast of one spell up to your prof mod a day, that would be imo relatively balanced against most other feats. Tier 2 one free fireball/polymorph etc with quasi metamagic upgrades once per day isn't awful, and it's not outright broken either.

Maybe that's what they were going for

[Sigreid]

Again if it makes it to print. It would honestly fit the setting to force players to pick backgrounds with ties to organizations if they want a mechanical benefit. Then again Dragonlance is very railroady traditionally speaking, the first adventures were basically scripts. I don’t think the adventure book is going to be that bad but making casters sign up for the tower in their backstory to get a feat isn’t that unlikely IMO since they’re probably not going to keep the whole rogue wizards get hunted down thing.

Well, in Dragon Lance it's also making casters sign up for a tower to avoid being hunted and persecuted for daring to learn magic when not part of the system.

[Ortho]

Is it clear that there are 52 cards in this deck? You're assuming they mean the French-suited playing cards common in our world, but even in our world there's the German/Swiss-suited deck (32 or 36 cards) and the Spanish/Italian-suited deck (40 or 48 cards). And even the French decks often include two Joker cards, which would bring the total to 54. Most of the thematics around the card-based spells reference the Deck of Many Things, which has 13, 22 or 23 (?) cards in it. Could a Vistani character use a tarokka deck for this?

Heck, if we go by Magic: the Gathering rules, you can have a deck of at least 200 cards (https://scryfall.com/card/m13/44/battle-of-wits).

[diplomancer]

Then the feat is probably not good enough. The d4 of damage is annoying with the focus aspect (that should be fixed so report it) and rather useless outside of the magic missile cheese, the second bullet is not good, and the third would then be a glorified quicken/subtle once per day. Meh, I'd take the metamagic feat every day over that.

Now you could probably make it for prof number of cards, which would then make the feat really good. I don't know, its a tough balance act.

I do suspect you are correct and that is their intention though, which would put it in line with almost all of the other crappy feats in the UA (other than one or two of the revised giant feats, which are ok mechanically)

Ome free slot a day that increases in level as you level up is quite good; that it is also Subtle and Quickened makes it even better. Sufficient for a Feat, I'd say, so it's not surprising that the other benefits of the Feat are more ribbony, though still good ribbons.

[JadedDM]

Well, in Dragon Lance it's also making casters sign up for a tower to avoid being hunted and persecuted for daring to learn magic when not part of the system.

I'm like 90% sure that 5E Dragonlance won't include the Test (if they do include it, it will be optional or decidedly non-lethal) or a requirement to join the Orders for spellcasters. They're already retconning that sorcerers (which will apparently exist during the WotL) and warlocks and bards can join, so I suspect they'll be retconning some other stuff, too. So no more Renegades.

[Hael]

Ome free slot a day that increases in level as you level up is quite good; that it is also Subtle and Quickened makes it even better. Sufficient for a Feat, I'd say, so it's not surprising that the other benefits of the Feat are more ribbony, though still good ribbons.

Yea so I mean that depends on how you read the word ‘imbue’. It seems to me you cast the spell into the card, so you don’t actually get that free slot. It would be good indeed if it was free.

[Kenny_Snoggins]

Meh, I'd take the metamagic feat every day over that.

Why? In the worst, harshest interpretation of the rule it's still flat out better than metamagic adept. Worst case you're getting two metamagic effects applied to a free spell of up to 6th level. Already better than metamagic before you consider what a federal reserve style money printer the deck could be gambling over cards or the bump to spell attack damage.

That's worst case. Best case... yeah I would opt for the Costco extra value size ring of subtle quickened spell storing (that RAW doesnt even say you lose the slot that charges the card... so zero opportunity cost just free spells for a rainy day) over applying the exact same effects to one spell you have to use a slot on.

Plus, a metamagic adept can't be at a tavern with some lowlife kingpin you need to take out and start doing cardistry to warm up the crowd then ask him "Is this your card?" And make his head explode with one bonus action.

[Sigreid]

I'm like 90% sure that 5E Dragonlance won't include the Test (if they do include it, it will be optional or decidedly non-lethal) or a requirement to join the Orders for spellcasters. They're already retconning that sorcerers (which will apparently exist during the WotL) and warlocks and bards can join, so I suspect they'll be retconning some other stuff, too. So no more Renegades.

Then as much as I don't care for those things, it could be argued that it's not Dragon Lance, but Dragon Lance adjacent.

[JadedDM]

Then as much as I don't care for those things, it could be argued that it's not Dragon Lance, but Dragon Lance adjacent.

I'd agree, and technically speaking, it's true. They are reclassifying the old Dragonlance as 'Classic Dragonlance (https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/9142Iav053L.jpg).' I guess they're meant to be alternate timelines now, something akin to the Prime and Kelvin timelines of Star Trek.

[diplomancer]

Yea so I mean that depends on how you read the word ‘imbue’. It seems to me you cast the spell into the card, so you don’t actually get that free slot. It would be good indeed if it was free.

I may be mistaken, but I believe there are three other similar features in the game:
1- Ring of Spell Storing
2- Arcane Abeyance (from Chronurgist Wizard)
3- Spell Storing Item (from Artificer)

The first two explicitly mention that the spell is cast, and the third one says you "store a spell in it", but does not mention casting the spell to do so, and I believe the common reading for the 3rd one is that there is no need to use a spell slot for the feature.

So I'd be inclined to follow the same logic. If they wanted the slot to be spent, they'd use the word "cast" at some point, like "you cast a spell into the card, imbuing it...".

[Envyus]

Hope that they don't backdate the background to all get feats, they simply don't need them. The new ones with feats are nothing special for having them, sure minmaxers are going to flock to them for that smidge of mechanical increase but overall they are just another option that may or may not fit your character.

Nah I hope they do Background feats are cool.

[Hael]

Why? In the worst, harshest interpretation of the rule it's still flat out better than metamagic adept..

Metamagic does similar things. Extended/subtle is fantastic b/c it allows you to essentially trade off downtime spellslots. So eg extended foresight/mindblank is like getting a free 9th and 8th lvl slot the following day. Then the subtle component on the adventuring day is useable on 2 spells of your choice, whenever you want compared to the predetermined card. That's definitely better IMO than the harsh interpretation. (you can think of quicken like the spell + the dodge action or a cantrip).

Now the full 52 deck ring of spell storing interpretation of course blows the above away.

[Khrysaes]

I took another look at cartomancer. Oh man is it badly worded.

“One spell you know” how does this affexr wizards that dont “know” their spells?

“Imbue it into a card” it doesnt say anything about using a spell slot.

“A card” any card? Doesnt say anything about a number of cards being limited. Just one per long rest.

And there is no tine limit on the cards. So they just last forever?

[noob]

Interesting hmm maybe 5.5 human can now start with two backgrounds if feats are tied to backgrounds. This will probably be strong enough to allow them to fit into the new ASI paradigms of +2/+1 or 3x +1, without any other racial features.

Will possibly allow fun combinations like "beggar king"(already exists in fiction so it is probably intended) or "sailor farmhand" or "orphan orphan"(who knows what orphan orphan is but look they forgot on line 234 to specify that you could not pick the same background multiple times)

[AvvyR]

Did anyone else notice that despite being constructs, Glitchlings lack most construct traits? They have that advantage vs. charm, but are fully susceptible to poison, disease, and sleep. They have to eat/drink/breathe as normal, and need to sleep like humans.

Both Warforged (who don't have the construct type), and the UA Autognome (who do) have a racial feature addressing these traits. It's just very weird.

[werescythe]

You know what we need? An official canine player race. We don't have 1 and yet we have two cat races, two (three with glitchling) machine races and three bird races, not to mention both sea elves and tritons, yet we have no canine race. What's up with that?

In previous editions we had the Lupine race. Why can't we bring that back?

Well, that's one of the comments I made in the survey.

[Psyren]

You know what we need? An official canine player race. We don't have 1 and yet we have two cat races, two (three with glitchling) machine races and three bird races, not to mention both sea elves and tritons, yet we have no canine race. What's up with that?

In previous editions we had the Lupine race. Why can't we bring that back?

Well, that's one of the comments I made in the survey.

While I want Lupins back too, you can make a canine shifter while you wait at least

[Millstone85]

Did anyone else notice that despite being constructs, Glitchlings lack most construct traits?Not only have I missed that but I only now realize that so do the modrons in the MM.

I guess they have organic parts as the illustrations would suggest. Disappointing.

[strangebloke]

Terrible

Still hate background feats. The whole point of backgrounds was to give a customization point that wasn't tied to mechanics. The only place this ends is with silly character backstories about how this random warforged was a giant foundling or whatever. Just give people a feat at first level geez.

hate the new cleric. What a bunch of pointless features. The first ability seems okay, you can use it to heal a little bit, but boy is that kind of bland for a FATE cleric. Spells are boring. CD uses concentration? What is this? Plus it pollutes the "easy ways to get advantage" pool.

Glitchling is just blatantly overpowered. I don't hate the new direction they've gone with races entirely, but its really annoying that I can't even tell you if this thing is a modron or an inevitable. But its also ridiculously overpowered. Bleh.

Most of these feats recycling the prof/lr mechanic is annoying. Just because something is tied to a resource doesn't mean its balanced.

Take Agent of Order and compare it to trip attack for example. Trip attack is one of the better maneuvers. This half feat gives you trip attack prof/LR except you also get to keep them restrained on their turn, (and all of your allies' turns) and you can pick anything to base the saving throw on. Even dexterity! This basically stunning strike! On a half-feat!

And what's the flavor here? What am I, the character, doing? When did my barbarian learn to magically restrain people?

Cartomancer is actually pretty fun? Hidden Ace seems OP but its 1/day so meh.

[Segev]

Terrible

Still hate background feats. The whole point of backgrounds was to give a customization point that wasn't tied to mechanics

Not sure that's true. Backgrounds have always given a feature and skills.

[Damon_Tor]

Not sure that's true. Backgrounds have always given a feature and skills.

Sure, but the features rarely had any mechanical impact on the combat axis. They've only been relevant to the social/exploration axes until they started using that space to do expanded spell lists for the MTG settings.

[Psyren]

The only place this ends is with silly character backstories about how this random warforged was a giant foundling or whatever.

That concept sounds awesome to me actually! And he could be skilled at smithing their giant weapons, utensils etc because he can stay up all night doing it, so their community likes keeping him around until the adventure starts.


Just give people a feat at first level geez.

I ultimately agree with this point, but I like this version because if you package a free feat into every background including the old ones you ultimately get to the same place, just in a more controlled fashion (i.e. you don't have everyone making a beeline for PAM or XBE or FT as their starting feat if those aren't on the list, but it more easily encourages DMs who want a higher-powered game to allow those.)

It's also friendlier for new groups since they aren't handed every feat list in core (and possibly splat) to dig through for their first feat - they only have to look at the much smaller list for the background(s) they're interested in.


Most of these feats recycling the prof/lr mechanic is annoying. Just because something is tied to a resource doesn't mean its balanced.

Take Agent of Order and compare it to trip attack for example. Trip attack is one of the better maneuvers. This half feat gives you trip attack prof/LR except you also get to keep them restrained on their turn, (and all of your allies' turns) and you can pick anything to base the saving throw on. Even dexterity! This basically stunning strike! On a half-feat!

And what's the flavor here? What am I, the character, doing? When did my barbarian learn to magically restrain people?

I'm not necessarily against you on the power concern (though I will point out that feats with prereqs are indeed allowed to spike above the feat power curve) - but fluffwise the concept is sound, you picked up a bit of law-plane magic via exposure, technique, spirits/ancestors etc.

Also, unlike stunning strike you only get one use of this per turn, whereas SS you can attempt as many times as you have attacks and ki. And PB/LR is a lot less than level/SR too. Ki is competing for a lot more stuff but I don't think it's fair to say this is equivalent or better. Rather, the issue with Stunning Strike is that you have to be a monk to access it, and that's not the feat system's fault.


Cartomancer is actually pretty fun? Hidden Ace seems OP but its 1/day so meh.

Cartomancer is fun but without a duration or ceiling you can really break daily resources with some downtime. That needs to be addressed.

[strangebloke]

Not sure that's true. Backgrounds have always given a feature and skills.
Relatively small ones to the point that it was mostly irrelevant to 'build' and most people recommended just picking whatever background you thought was most interesting.

The closest to an OP background were sailor (because perception) and urchin (because thieve's tools)

That concept sounds awesome to me actually! And he could be skilled at smithing their giant weapons, utensils etc because he can stay up all night doing it, so their community likes keeping him around until the adventure starts.
For sure!

The devil is in the details though, and I wouldn't want someone approaching that concept because they felt they had to for their build. I think all background bonuses should fungible. That is to say, its mostly a question of taste. Maybe one background gives longswords and another gives battleax's for example.


I ultimately agree with this point, but I like this version because if you package a free feat into every background including the old ones you ultimately get to the same place, just in a more controlled fashion (i.e. you don't have everyone making a beeline for PAM or XBE or FT as their starting feat if those aren't on the list, but it more easily encourages DMs who want a higher-powered game to allow those.)

PAM or GWM or whatever at first level isn't a real problem. T1 goes by really fast in normal play and being OP in T1 is just whatever. GWM/PAM/SS/CBE aren't actually overpowered anyway. And you never need multiple splats anyway


I'm not necessarily against you on the power concern (though I will point out that feats with prereqs are indeed allowed to spike above the feat power curve) - but fluffwise the concept is sound, you picked up a bit of law-plane magic via exposure, technique, spirits/ancestors etc.

Also, unlike stunning strike you only get one use of this per turn, whereas SS you can attempt as many times as you have attacks and ki. And PB/LR is a lot less than level/SR too. Ki is competing for a lot more stuff but I don't think it's fair to say this is equivalent or better. Rather, the issue with Stunning Strike is that you have to be a monk to access it, and that's not the feat system's fault.

The pre-req is a background, which furthers my other complaint (need to be an outer planes gatewarden to get guidance and then agent of order - however appealing or unappealing that actual concept is to me or however much sense it makes in setting.) It's powerful content that places really strict fluff requirements. Imagine if something like sharpshooter was contingent on your character being cursed by growing up in a cult to an outer god or something. Lots of people would want to take that feat, and lots of people would pick that specific background even when it made little sense.

And yeah I also don't like that its once per turn, actually. Conventionally on-hit riders are good for martials because of extra attack, and this changes that, making an on-hit rider that's more or less equally good for everyone (slightly better for martials because of increased hit chance.)

[Psyren]

PAM or GWM or whatever at first level isn't a real problem. T1 goes by really fast in normal play and being OP in T1 is just whatever. GWM/PAM/SS/CBE aren't actually overpowered anyway. And you never need multiple splats anyway

Point but still - there are feats I wouldn't mind always requiring GM approval for swappage nonetheless.


The pre-req is a background, which furthers my other complaint (need to be an outer planes gatewarden to get guidance and then agent of order - however appealing or unappealing that actual concept is to me or however much sense it makes in setting.) It's powerful content that places really strict fluff requirements. Imagine if something like sharpshooter was contingent on your character being cursed by growing up in a cult to an outer god or something. Lots of people would want to take that feat, and lots of people would pick that specific background even when it made little sense.

Actually no, the prereq is a feat. So it IS accessible to everyone, it's just that the Planar Philosopher or Gate Warden backgrounds get a head start. If those truly don't match your concept, then you have to wait a bit longer to be an Agent of Order, but you can still be one.

Not to mention - given that the Elemental Scion feats are freely swappable into any of the featless backgrounds, I don't think it would be a big stretch to let you do the same with Outer Planes Scion too, if you really don't want PP/GW.



And yeah I also don't like that its once per turn, actually. Conventionally on-hit riders are good for martials because of extra attack, and this changes that, making an on-hit rider that's more or less equally good for everyone (slightly better for martials because of increased hit chance.)

It's not equally good for everyone - even if you can only apply it once per turn, more chances to hit means more opportunities to do so. Better still, once you land the restrain on them then all the rest of your attacks get advantage, so saying multiple attacks aren't rewarded or even that they're rewarded less doesn't really gel for me.

[Arkhios]

A bit late to the show, but anyway... I'm really really really disappointed if that Rune Carver Apprentice from this UA is intended to replace the version from Giant Options UA! :smallmad:

[Ortho]

PAM or GWM or whatever at first level isn't a real problem. T1 goes by really fast in normal play and being OP in T1 is just whatever. GWM/PAM/SS/CBE aren't actually overpowered anyway.

I'll go one further and say that GWM/SS at first level is undesirable. -5 to hit really hurts when you only had +5 to hit in the first place, and +10 damage is just overkill when the things you're fighting only have 20 hit points anyways.

[diplomancer]

I'll go one further and say that GWM/SS at first level is undesirable. -5 to hit really hurts when you only had +5 to hit in the first place, and +10 damage is just overkill when the things you're fighting only have 20 hit points anyways.

Having played a bit now with a SS variant human ranger, I disagree; not only because of the other features of the SS feat, which are always useful, but because you still get to choose when to use the -5+10; fighting goblinoids (with their notoriously high AC)? don't do it. Fighting zombies? Knock yourself out, you're gonna need all that damage to make the save DC high enough so that the zombies won't come back.

[stoutstien]

Having played a bit now with a SS variant human ranger, I disagree; not only because of the other features of the SS feat, which are always useful, but because you still get to choose when to use the -5+10; fighting goblinoids (with their notoriously high AC)? don't do it. Fighting zombies? Knock yourself out, you're gonna need all that damage to make the save DC high enough so that the zombies won't come back.
Win more logic. Most of the low CR HP sponges are also slow and have limited ranged options so while SS -/+ might win faster in those situations it rarely means more wins. take those zombies for example. Who cares if the undead fortitude triggers of they are so slow and mindless you can safely destroy them at minimal risk. Even the best stocks are better off just backing up and tossing improved objects at them unless time is of the essence then you have fire or whatnot.yhe only time where low lv -/+ shines is something like a brown bear but without the attack count to back it up it's a gamble. You could end the challenge a turn sooner...or make it longer. With the output of that particular NPC I think I would take the safer option. getting below it's situational HP threshold (when it will change tactics due to HP loss) is more important than anything else.

[strangebloke]

Point but still - there are feats I wouldn't mind always requiring GM approval for swappage nonetheless.

If that's what you want, this isn't it. What they've shown here is an approved list of first level feats - mostly tied to specific backgrounds. What you're saying now is there should be a banned list of first level feats.

and again... which feats? The only on that's truly game-breakingly overpowered at level one is Heavy Armor Master.

A bit late to the show, but anyway... I'm really really really disappointed if that Rune Carver Apprentice from this UA is intended to replace the version from Giant Options UA! :smallmad:
Agreed. Other version had a spark of life. This is incredibly bland.

Win more logic. Most of the low CR HP sponges are also slow and have limited ranged options so while SS -/+ might win faster in those situations it rarely means more wins. take those zombies for example. Who cares if the undead fortitude triggers of they are so slow and mindless you can safely destroy them at minimal risk. Even the best stocks are better off just backing up and tossing improved objects at them unless time is of the essence then you have fire or whatnot.yhe only time where low lv -/+ shines is something like a brown bear but without the attack count to back it up it's a gamble. You could end the challenge a turn sooner...or make it longer. With the output of that particular NPC I think I would take the safer option. getting below it's situational HP threshold (when it will change tactics due to HP loss) is more important than anything else.
Yup. Though to be fair this is one of those things that changes heavily depending on the conditions of the game. If your DM's idea of a super-deadly encounter at level one is several ogres, then sure, sharpshooter is great because you can whittle down their hp and outrange them. If your DM likes using packs of orcs and hobgoblins (like me - I use those statblocks even when they're actually elves or whatever) then sharpshooter is pretty useless.

[Psyren]

If that's what you want, this isn't it. What they've shown here is an approved list of first level feats - mostly tied to specific backgrounds. What you're saying now is there should be a banned list of first level feats.

Approved list, banned list, two sides of the same coin. Not seeing the issue. If they end up making it so you can swap any feat with no prereqs into any background (or make a custom background with a prereqless feat of your choice) I doubt it'll break anything.



and again... which feats? The only on that's truly game-breakingly overpowered at level one is Heavy Armor Master.

This assumes that "game-breakingly overpowered" should be their only consideration/standard when determining what level 1 feats to allow. I suspect it's not.

[strangebloke]

Approved list, banned list, two sides of the same coin. Not seeing the issue. If they end up making it so you can swap any feat with no prereqs into any background (or make a custom background with a prereqless feat of your choice) I doubt it'll break anything.

Its obviously and massively different because of how it relates to new and old content.


This assumes that "game-breakingly overpowered" should be their only consideration/standard when determining what level 1 feats to allow. I suspect it's not.

you're assuming they have a logic at all. I see none on display whatsoever. As you say yourself there's no reason the scion of the outer planes feat shouldn't be subbable, but it isn't.

[Psyren]

Its obviously and massively different because of how it relates to new and old content.

Sure, but without seeing how the old backgrounds get changed for this new system there's no way to tell which will be the better approach just yet. My point is, the house isn't on fire, let's all take a breath.


you're assuming they have a logic at all. I see none on display whatsoever. As you say yourself there's no reason the scion of the outer planes feat shouldn't be subbable, but it isn't.

*shrug*

[Amechra]

Approved list, banned list, two sides of the same coin.

There is a massive, gaping chasm between whitelists and blacklists in practice — ask anyone who has had to sanitize inputs to a database before.

[werescythe]

While I want Lupins back too, you can make a canine shifter while you wait at least

Yeah, but let's be honest, Shifters don't count. T_T