UA survey is up! Wonders of the Multiverse

[Millstone85]

WotC page with pdf and survey links (https://dnd.wizards.com/unearthed-arcana/wonders-multiverse)

For my part, I am not ready to fill the survey. Just letting the forum know.

[Psyren]

Nice, there's a freeform comments field after every section now instead of just one at the end.

EDIT: I approved of most of the feats (Baleful Scion is too weak, Planar Wanderer too situational and Cartomancer needs a duration on the imbued cards.) I also laid into House of Cards, either it needs to be lowered or made an item.

[P. G. Macer]

I wonder why they keep asking us about the not-so-optional character creation rules for new races, given they backed themselves into a PR corner as to keeping flexible racial ASIs by linking it to you-know-what.

Regardless, I filled out the survey. My feedback was overwhelmingly negative, except for Antagonize and Spirit of Death, which I enjoyed.

[animorte]

The not-so-thrilling feedback has me excited to accept the challenge and discover what lies beyond this evening. No, really.

[Sigreid]

Just used it to complain directly to them about their overall design philosophy the past few years instead of just complaining about it here.

[Millstone85]

Alright, I dived back into the UA and filled the survey with comments on the following points:

The game needs to introduce culture in addition to race, background and class.
We are long overdue for the Trade and Travel cleric domains, doubly so if Planescape is on the way.
Glitchling lore doesn't involve any kind of glitch, and why would they be built with defective wings?
If featless backgrounds now provide a feat, no background should have nothing but a feat as its feature.
The Cartomancer feat should be available to bards, duh, and Hidden Ace needs to be clarified regarding duration, components and spell slots.
Cohort of Chaos should follow the example of the wild-magic barbarian, not the wild-magic sorcerer. Random friendly fire is not fun.
If the fire-giant and ice-giant feats respectively give fire and cold resistance, other giant-themed feats should grant a resistance as well. I suggested lightning for cloud, thunder for stone and poison for hill.
Scion of the Outer Planes: No, radiant damage isn't lawful good, nor is necrotic damage chaotic evil.

[Psyren]

We are long overdue for the Trade and Travel cleric domains, doubly so if Planescape is on the way.

+1000. And Chaos!



Glitchling lore doesn't involve any kind of glitch, and why would they be built with defective wings?

They can choose not to be lawful, I'm pretty sure Mechanus would call that a glitch :smallbiggrin:



The Cartomancer feat should be available to bards, duh, and Hidden Ace needs to be clarified regarding duration, components and spell slots.

...I totally missed the Bard thing, how could they leave them out of that??

[Falconcry]

/Edna Mode. “No Cards!”

[stoutstien]

I'm curious how much of this feedback will effect the actual released material. To late to apply it if they are shooting for mid month release.

[Millstone85]

I'm curious how much of this feedback will effect the actual released material. To late to apply it if they are shooting for mid month release.While 5e is bringing Spelljammer to the Outer Planes' doorstep, I hope this UA is actually hinting at a future Planescape release.

[Segev]

I told them what I think of their move towards PB/LR rather than n/SR. I even suggested that it might be better, if they're wedded to PB/LR, to ALSO make those features regain 1 use on a short rest. That's a buff, for sure, but it serves the important purpose of making SRs more attractive to even LR classes.

I really want to like house of cards, and how much I love the concept makes me hate the spell all the more, given the implementation. I can't think of a single use case for it that is worth a third level spell slot due to its limitations. My best suggestion: make it a 1st level spell and otherwise keep it as-is. It still might be underpowered/useless, but at least "I can use it as a very dramatic ladder" isn't utterly wasting your spell slots, and it MIGHT serve as a shelter worthy of a 1st level spell slot.

Feats as part of backgrounds can work.

Rune Carver is "we wanted a class, but didn't feel like making one, so now it's a background." It's overly-specific. So is the gate warden one. Rune Carver Apprentice could be given to Sage or even Giant Foundling, though I think Giant Foundling is too weirdly specific, too; I was unaware D&D had so many PCs raised by giants that they needed a whole background for it. Foundling, now, for any "raised by not-my-own-race" character? That has potential, and honestly works better with the fact that this Background has "any two" languages rather than "any one plus Giant."

[Hael]

Feats as part of backgrounds can work.


Provided you can’t swap them out for another feat. Otherwise everyone will simply swap out the crappy feat and replace it with the warcasters of the world, and the background itself will be rarely used.

Moreover if a lot of power of a background is in its feat, but DMs give a free feat to everyone who take a background, then the optimal solution is to go for the backgrounds that don’t have feats since you get them anyway.

[Segev]

Provided you can’t swap them out for another feat. Otherwise everyone will simply swap out the crappy feat and replace it with the warcasters of the world, and the background itself will be rarely used.

Moreover if a lot of power of a background is in its feat, but DMs give a free feat to everyone who take a background, then the optimal solution is to go for the backgrounds that don’t have feats since you get them anyway.

It definitely requires reworking the older backgrounds to all have feats, yes. And guidelines for designing backgrounds also need tightening, since you're quite right: "any feat that fits" is not going to cut it. You can make a background that justifies the best feats, and sadly, not all feats are created equal.

Or, perhaps, the background feats just shouldn't be crappy, and should be good feats.

[diplomancer]

It definitely requires reworking the older backgrounds to all have feats, yes. And guidelines for designing backgrounds also need tightening, since you're quite right: "any feat that fits" is not going to cut it. You can make a background that justifies the best feats, and sadly, not all feats are created equal.

Or, perhaps, the background feats just shouldn't be crappy, and should be good feats.

I mean, the way the rule change is being implemented right now is :"backgrounds that don't get their own feat get a free choice from a very limited selection" (Skilled, Tough, and the Elemental Scion feats in this UA; Skilled, Tough and Divinely Favoured in the Dragonlance UA) and that is definitely a lot easier to balance. I find it unlikely that they will just say "pick any feat".

[Segev]

I mean, the way the rule change is being implemented right now is :"backgrounds that don't get their own feat get a free choice from a very limited selection" (Skilled, Tough, and the Elemental Scion feats in this UA; Skilled, Tough and Divinely Favoured in the Dragonlance UA) and that is definitely a lot easier to balance. I find it unlikely that they will just say "pick any feat".

Fair enough.

...I should have remembered to mention in the survey that one of the issues I have with several of the feats is that they're very similar to the lackluster whatever-of-the-chromatic/gem/metalic dragon feats from Fizban's. Vaguely random, pseudo-aligned bonuses useful a few times per long rest are boring, annoying feats. Chromatic is the closest to being desirable; at least it's passively active to a degree all the time, IIRC. (IIRC, it has a resistance?)

[KorvinStarmast]

That didn't stay up long. I have time to fill it out, and it does not show up at the link

[Jervis]

Nice, there's a freeform comments field after every section now instead of just one at the end.

EDIT: I approved of most of the feats (Baleful Scion is too weak, Planar Wanderer too situational and Cartomancer needs a duration on the imbued cards.) I also laid into House of Cards, either it needs to be lowered or made an item.

I still don’t know what they were thinking with house of cards when tiny hut exists


+1000. And Chaos!


It really says something about how versatile clerics are in lore and how much content they’ve had in the past that the cleric class can have as many domains as it does and still feel incomplete. If we get chaos I suspect it’ll have some wild magic shenanigans, which sounds fun.

[Kenny_Snoggins]

I recommend adding bards to the cartomancer list (and also giving them spray of cards) and recommended a 5 card max for hidden aces, and that it required you to cast the spell and use the slot to load the card, and that it should also let you cast spray of cards pb/day. Would still be very very strong feat but not pants on head OP like now.