One D&D "Character Origins" Playtest now live

[Psyren]

We're getting our first glimpse into the next iteration of D&D. Short version:

1) They are attempting to move away from discrete "editions."
2) All three core books are being revised.
3) Bundling of physical and digital releases has been confirmed.

The first playtest is going live later today on DnDBeyond here: https://dndbeyond.link/st_OneDnD_WizardsPresents

While we wait for the materials, have a FAQ (https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1310-faq-one-d-d-rules-d-d-digital-and-physical-digital) and a rather long video:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOQ_Exh0DmY

EDIT: PDF is now available! Check "My Sources" in DDB, or use this direct link: Unearthed Arcana: Character Origins (https://media.dndbeyond.com/compendium-images/one-dnd/character-origins/CSWCVV0M4B6vX6E1/UA2022-CharacterOrigins.pdf)

[PhantomSoul]

1) They are attempting to move away from discrete "editions."


Lol. I do like my primordial soups full of tasty tasty heterogeneity and confusion.

[Psyren]

Lol. I do like my primordial soups full of tasty tasty heterogeneity and confusion.

I understand what they're going for but I don't know how successful they'll be at the edition thing. Certainly it indicates that they're doubling down on design choices like bounded accuracy and open-ended skill checks being the "core" of D&D going forward. If they attempt to change lynchpins like those, it will be seen as a new edition, whether or not they brand it that way.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Lol. I do like my primordial soups full of tasty tasty heterogeneity and confusion.

And because this "living edition" model worked so well for Microsoft (narrator: so well in fact that they've mostly abandoned it and gone back to a more normal release cycle).

What this sounds like is "we'll change things whenever we want, however we want, and there's no guarantee or even attempt to reconcile things. Sure, you can play old adventures with new rules, but new adventures with old rules? No way. Keep up to date (ie give us lots of money constantly) or be left behind." AKA Apple's model.

But I might be a smidge cynical. I did sign up for the playtest and will (attempt to) provide honest feedback. It'll also give me advance warning if I want to ossify on older material and chart my own course or at least grudgingly accept the change.

[Trask]

Every corp seems use this "one" name. Amazon One, Google One, Zoom One, Microsoft OneDrive, Ubuntu One...now "OneDnD". Its just a name, but I automatically dislike it whether that's rational or not.

[PhantomSoul]

And because this "living edition" model worked so well for Microsoft (narrator: so well in fact that they've mostly abandoned it and gone back to a more normal release cycle).

What this sounds like is "we'll change things whenever we want, however we want, and there's no guarantee or even attempt to reconcile things. Sure, you can play old adventures with new rules, but new adventures with old rules? No way. Keep up to date (ie give us lots of money constantly) or be left behind." AKA Apple's model.

But I might be a smidge cynical. I did sign up for the playtest and will (attempt to) provide honest feedback. It'll also give me advance warning if I want to ossify on older material and chart my own course or at least grudgingly accept the change.

Yeah, they've done such a great job of 5e that I went from buying everything (and in multiples, since I got them as gifts too) to buying nothing and having fewer and fewer tables even acknowledging the existence of newer material. Kinda just seems like they realised this was a sales pitch to try to get everyone to always be encouraged to buy everything and to not have to deal with convincing people to buy into a new edition... but with none of the benefits of a new edition.

Honestly, from the video being hot garbage (I gave up trying to find a point that was just direct information instead of drivel -- granted, putting less than a paragraph's worth of information into a video to begin with is a bad move for my baseline level of interest, especially when it's just a vapid marketing video in feel) to their current track record (obviously subjective), I'll continue with thinking there's far more potential in homebrew and third-party than in anything that'll come from WOTC in terms of interesting mechanics, system cohesion, and general balance.

[Greywander]

Lol. I do like my primordial soups full of tasty tasty heterogeneity and confusion.
It works well for something like GURPS that has strong and broadly applicable core rules, where those core rules can be expanded and built upon in supplemental books. This even allows alternative versions of similar rules to be released in separate books without scrapping the core rules. For example, spellcasting in GURPS is a bit janky, but psionics is considered to be much better, so people sometimes use the psionics rules to run mages.

The reason this works for GURPS is that it was built to be a Generic Universal RolePlaying System. I'm not sure this model is a good fit for D&D.

[Trask]

Yeah, they've done such a great job of 5e that I went from buying everything (and in multiples, since I got them as gifts too) to buying nothing and having fewer and fewer tables even acknowledging the existence of newer material. Kinda just seems like they realised this was a sales pitch to try to get everyone to always be encouraged to buy everything and to not have to deal with convincing people to buy into a new edition... but with none of the benefits of a new edition.

Honestly, from the video being hot garbage (I gave up trying to find a point that was just direct information instead of drivel -- granted, putting less than a paragraph's worth of information into a video to begin with is a bad move for my baseline level of interest, especially when it's just a vapid marketing video in feel) to their current track record (obviously subjective), I'll continue with thinking there's far more potential in homebrew and third-party than in anything that'll come from WOTC in terms of interesting mechanics, system cohesion, and general balance.

5e has been an incredibly solid "base" on which to build and I credit that largely to the original team headed by Mike Mearls who stated that in preparing for the creation of "D&D Next" he went back and played every single edition of the game back to OD&D. They also got a handful of playtesters from wider scenes, like the "OSR" scene and really tried to make a game that could be flexible and fun and not trying to be any one thing too much. Some (3.P diehards) have called that a weakness of 5e, but to me its the game's greatest strength and a real achievement after 2 editions of increasing division and confusion over what D&D "is". They really did a fantastic job, that original team.

But this new team leading D&D is leading us into the "Brave New World" of seemingly ever increasing homogenization and piecemeal, granular design that feels like a neo 3rd edition but this time without any roots firmly planted in the history of the game.

Maybe this whole "One D&D" will turn out to be a bold step forward, I'm not dismissing it too readily. But considering that I already feel that the game has somewhat lost its way, I'm not hopeful either.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Honestly, from the video being hot garbage (I gave up trying to find a point that was just direct information instead of drivel -- granted, putting less than a paragraph's worth of information into a video to begin with is a bad move for my baseline level of interest, especially when it's just a vapid marketing video in feel) to their current track record (obviously subjective), I'll continue with thinking there's far more potential in homebrew and third-party than in anything that'll come from WOTC in terms of interesting mechanics, system cohesion, and general balance.

I don't watch videos of such things. I read way faster than people talk, and understand it better. I hate the modern trend of making a 10 minute video out of something that could have been a paragraph or two of text. And then not providing a transcript.

And D&D's been bad about that since the beginning of 5e--there were a lot of things that were said on various podcasts/video casts that are now lost because no one has the time to scroll through 10s of hours of material looking for specific quotes.

[animorte]

Every corp seems use this "one" name. Amazon One, Google One, Zoom One, Microsoft OneDrive, Ubuntu One...now "OneDnD". Its just a name, but I automatically dislike it whether that's rational or not.

Next will be titled OneX. As One represents a new chapter, a more defined direction. X is supposed to represent ultimate, or some such. It's just another thing that everybody is tossing one their name. This doesn't really bother me as much. It might be notable for historians when talking about BC (before computers) compared to life as we are more familiar with it.

[Asmotherion]

thank you for sharing this. much appereciated.

[PhantomSoul]

I don't watch videos of such things. I read way faster than people talk, and understand it better. I hate the modern trend of making a 10 minute video out of something that could have been a paragraph or two of text. And then not providing a transcript.

And D&D's been bad about that since the beginning of 5e--there were a lot of things that were said on various podcasts/video casts that are now lost because no one has the time to scroll through 10s of hours of material looking for specific quotes.

100% agreed. I tried to watch it, despite myself. It was unsurprisingly utterly insufferable, so I'm relying on the OP's summary xD And the disappearance or relative "unfindability" of the already horrible medium just makes it worse.

[Psyren]

Yeah, they've done such a great job of 5e that I went from buying everything (and in multiples, since I got them as gifts too) to buying nothing and having fewer and fewer tables even acknowledging the existence of newer material. Kinda just seems like they realised this was a sales pitch to try to get everyone to always be encouraged to buy everything and to not have to deal with convincing people to buy into a new edition... but with none of the benefits of a new edition.

Honestly, from the video being hot garbage (I gave up trying to find a point that was just direct information instead of drivel -- granted, putting less than a paragraph's worth of information into a video to begin with is a bad move for my baseline level of interest, especially when it's just a vapid marketing video in feel) to their current track record (obviously subjective), I'll continue with thinking there's far more potential in homebrew and third-party than in anything that'll come from WOTC in terms of interesting mechanics, system cohesion, and general balance.

There's a lot more in here than just marketing. Couple of the crunch previews so far as I listen:

1) Character Origins (i.e. what you were doing before level 1) now contain three elements by default - your Race, your Background, and your Starting Feat from that background. No word yet on what that will mean for featless games, but feats in backgrounds are now confirmed to be the default MO going forward in "core."

2) We got a preview of the new dwarf - they will be retaining stonecunning and poison resistance, but now also have the ability to give themselves Tremorsense for some duration X times per long rest (presumably, PB.)

[Sigreid]

Sounds to me mostly like they're trying to turn D&D into yet another subscriptions service like Netflix or the newer MS Office. Not a fan.

[Psyren]

They confirmed there will still be physical books (bundled with codes), you won't be forced to subscribed to anything to play the game.

With that said, you'll probably need to subscribe to utilize some of the bells and whistles coming to D&D Beyond like the 3D virtual tabletop.

[Elves]

1) They are attempting to move away from discrete "editions."
I wouldn't read much into this. Remember 5e was supposed to be just called "D&D" using all the same talk about no longer having editions before they caved to reality.

[Sigreid]

They confirmed there will still be physical books (bundled with codes), you won't be forced to subscribed to anything to play the game.

With that said, you'll probably need to subscribe to utilize some of the bells and whistles coming to D&D Beyond like the 3D virtual tabletop.

Well, I don't have to and at this point don't think I will be buying or subscribing to anything. I'm pretty happy with most of what I have. Less happy with their newer directions.

[Psyren]

Well, I don't have to and at this point don't think I will be buying or subscribing to anything. I'm pretty happy with most of what I have. Less happy with their newer directions.

Of course, that's your right - just wanted to correct the mistaken impression that you must have DDB or a subscription for any new content.

If you want a purely dead-trees experience at your FLGS, you might have to wait a bit longer for some releases but that is entirely doable.

[Sigreid]

Of course, that's your right - just wanted to correct the mistaken impression that you must have DDB or a subscription for any new content.

If you want a purely dead-trees experience at your FLGS, you might have to wait a bit longer for some releases but that is entirely doable.

Well, you don't make that jump all at once. You have to ease people into it. I do think that's where they want to go.

[JackPhoenix]

I don't watch videos of such things. I read way faster than people talk, and understand it better. I hate the modern trend of making a 10 minute video out of something that could have been a paragraph or two of text. And then not providing a transcript.

Pretty much. I've been lamenting the same for years. Not to mention, english not being my native language, I have to *focus* on listening to a video, which means I can't do anything else at the same time, while I can skim a page of text to see if something catches my attention without having to read the whole thing.

[Wasp]

So the big thing seems to be that Wizards wants people to play and stay on their platform when playing online and update that platform continually...

[Brookshw]

My kneejerk reaction includes stealing the markets from Fantasy Grounds and other VTTs, and that releasing further material under a revised OGL to further solidify their market control necessitates a shift in content away from the prior.

Meh, don't care. I'm sure print books will still be around should I want to buy any

[Psyren]

For the benefit of those who want to read rather than listen to an hour-long video, I'll summarize and compile all the crunch into the opening post. I can have it running in the background while I work :smallsmile:

EDIT: Tiefling Legacies are coming back and will be part of core. There appear to be three: Infernal (LE), Abyssal (CE), and Chthonic (NE). Crawford reminds us that the Tieflings themselves do not have to be morally aligned with their legacy.

[animorte]

For the benefit of those who want to read rather than listen to an hour-long video, I'll summarize and compile all the crunch into the opening post. I can have it running in the background while I work :smallsmile:

This right here is what legends are made of.

[nickl_2000]

SNIP

Thanks for all the info!

[ironkid]

Im not loving ODD (One D&D) as an acronym for the game. It is better than DAD (which is in theory what the acronym of D&D would be), but still I'm sure the marketing meople could do something better.

[Hal]

1) They are attempting to move away from discrete "editions."


I propose "Oneth Edition" for this.

[animorte]

I propose "Oneth Edition" for this.

Like they proposed "The Oneders" as a band name.

[Dienekes]

Have they learned nothing from the X-Bone?

It's D&Done.

[Hal]

Like they proposed "The Oneders" as a band name.

See? This guy gets it.

(My wife loves that movie.)

[LibraryOgre]

1) They are attempting to move away from discrete "editions."


lol. Like, seriously, I know the Player's Option stuff was called "Edition 2.5" when it was coming out. I do not think they're going to be able to manage this, even if they are doing a 1e Unearthed Arcana update.

[solidork]

Adding Crit Success/Fail to ability checks and saving throws. :|

Just because some people do it doesn't mean its good!

[Sandeman]

Anyone been able to download the playtest stuff?
I cant find it under "Sources" in DnD Beyond.
Though I claimed it successfully.

[Wasp]

Anyone been able to download the playtest stuff?
I cant find it under "Sources" in DnD Beyond.
Though I claimed it successfully.

In 20 minutes

[Sandeman]

In 20 minutes

Ok. Thanks.

[Dork_Forge]

The naming convention reminds me of my first smartphones. One X, One, One...m8!

Abandoning editions will never work, even if they stop naming them, people will draw divisions that they see with each sourcebook.

It's a great shame that they're moving to making backgrounds so integral, and it makes very little sense that they want backgrounds to 'grow with you'

Put ASIs in backgrounds sure, but there's no need to put mechanically powerful stuff like feats there, it completes defeats the freedom people feel choosing them now.

[Wasp]

I'll miss the Half-Elf... :smalleek:

[Idkwhatmyscreen]

I'll miss the Half-Elf... :smalleek:

Half orcs are gone two replaced by green skinned humans or human skinned orcs

Well So much for ODD edition

[Millstone85]

Let's see if I can give a direct link to the pdf.

Unearthed Arcana: Character Origins (https://media.dndbeyond.com/compendium-images/one-dnd/character-origins/CSWCVV0M4B6vX6E1/UA2022-CharacterOrigins.pdf)

[paladinn]

They can always just make the name "D&DNext" official. Then they never have to be concerned with a version number again!

I fear that they are starting to go Slowly in the same direction as Pathfinder 2e, in terms of making everything, including all the minutia, customizable. I truly hope I'm wrong.

[LudicSavant]

Have they learned nothing from the X-Bone?

It's D&Done.

"Wow it's the Xbox One all over again" was my very first thought on seeing the announcement. :smalltongue:

When it comes to repeating the mistakes of videogaming's past, I have a similar apprehension about the virtual tabletop (as a regular user of vtts like Roll20). All the focus seems to be on "making the graphics look dope" in the Unreal Engine.

I guess I'm just not really interested in making 3D level designs or only buying premium miniatures pre-made for this system in order to play on their vtt. I want to make 2D levels that look like classic maps you'd see in an actual D&D book, or that I can print out and put on a table. I want to be able to take pictures I (or other people) draw and just turn that into a miniature in 5 seconds flat. I want to be able to use the vast collection of 2D mapping resources (and full 2D maps) that the community has developed over the years. And more.

They make a comment about wanting to give people 'more miniatures' but setting a standard of making pretty 3D models in the unreal engine is unlikely to accomplish that. You can make a miniature out of any ol' picture you find on the internet using something like TokenTool. But to get a high quality model in Unreal you need, well, specific assets. I don't see how that's going to result in us having 'more miniatures' with this system.

It seems like it could very easily turn out to be a time sink for the purpose of pretty graphics, and such time sinks generally come at the expense of DMs spending time on level design quality, customization, and the like.

I would love to be wrong and see it turn out to be a fantastic tool. But as is, I'm wary.

[Lavaeolus]

First thing I noticed is that it capitalises game terminology more: Spell, Stealth Skill, Advantage, Bonus Action, etc.

I get the advantage, in that it makes it clearer when the text is speaking casually and when it's speaking about specific in-game terms. But I admit I find it a little awkward to read, like Someone's adding Random Emphasis in each Sentence. I don't know, maybe I'm just used to the current set-up.

[Brookshw]

Let's see if I can give a direct link to the pdf.

Unearthed Arcana: Character Origins (https://media.dndbeyond.com/compendium-images/one-dnd/character-origins/CSWCVV0M4B6vX6E1/UA2022-CharacterOrigins.pdf)

Worked, thanks. I had no desire to create an account to see them.

[Rfkannen]

I really like the new grappling rules. Makes grappling very well integrated into the game and automatically makes monks good at them. The disadvantage on attack thing is fun, I will probably be playing a lot more tanks with a free hand!

[Greywander]

Let's see if I can give a direct link to the pdf.

Unearthed Arcana: Character Origins (https://media.dndbeyond.com/compendium-images/one-dnd/character-origins/CSWCVV0M4B6vX6E1/UA2022-CharacterOrigins.pdf)
Whoa, that's a lot of serious changes. Only three spell lists: arcane, divine, and primal. Unarmed strikes are now used to grapple and shove as an alternative to dealing damage, though escaping a grapple is still an ability check. I just skimmed it real quick, I'm sure there's more.

[Yakmala]

Started reading the playtest material. Thoughts below:

1: Welcome to the D&D sexual revolution! All races can now interbreed. Want a half orc, half gnome? Go for it! However, in the process, we lose Half Elf and Half Orc as unique races.

2: Variant Humans nerfed! Yes, Humans still get a bonus feat, but only Level 1 feats, which, as I'm sure you already guessed, do not include such things as Great Weapon Master, Crossbow Expert, Pole Arm Master and Sharpshooter.

3: Backgrounds now include starting Level 1 feats, which is nice, but I'm no longer seeing the background features which is disappointing, as they added a lot of flavor to each background.

4: Welcome Ardlings to the list of playable races!

5: Only PC's can crit! What the heck?!? There goes half my joy at being a DM ;)

I'll expand my thoughts as I delve deeper. So far, it seems like the crusade to make everything more generic continues and I'm not sure I really like it so far.

[Psyren]

Let's see if I can give a direct link to the pdf.

Unearthed Arcana: Character Origins (https://media.dndbeyond.com/compendium-images/one-dnd/character-origins/CSWCVV0M4B6vX6E1/UA2022-CharacterOrigins.pdf)

Adding to the OP

[PhoenixPhyre]

So they brought back "a 20 always succeeds and a 1 always fails". Great. Slapstick time! As well as saying 'yeah, roll more' with this line:


The DM determines whether a d20 Test is
warranted in any given circumstance. To be
warranted, a d20 Test must have a target
number no less than 5 and no greater than 30.

And looks like no more short rests. Pity. Edit: reread that. Nevermind

This is going so well.

[Dienekes]

Hmm, short rest still going to be a thing apparently, with a few references to it. But definitely de-emphasized. Very curious what happens with the Warlock.

Humans have been replaced with Variant Human, only allowing a smaller feat list and given a free Advantage every day. Honestly, I'm ok with this.

Orcs overtake Dwarves as the defensive race, getting abilities to get up from being knocked out and on demand temp hp that pretty easily surpasses the dwarves +1 hp per level. Nothing really screams mighty and powerful Orc to me either, just, you know, Powerful Build which isn't the most interesting of feature. But then, we knew going in what Orcs are going to be.

The Rock Gnome may now have the single most interesting feature of any race presented, with machine uses of prestidigitation. I already liked Tinker, so adding some flexibility to it is nice.

Don't like Ardlings. Kinda wish they just put in Aasimar and made some interesting variants like they did with Tieflings. But then, I don't really like animal-people for whatever reason. Kinda think feats like Crafter and Musician should offer a potential means of getting Expertise with the tools, if your race already gave you the proficiency.

I think having level 1 feats is already. I don't know why they're tied to backgrounds exactly since they kinda aren't really. I could say I'm an aspiring acolyte and give myself Savage Attacker. Really I think this is the best of both worlds, really. It allows Background to be fluff based, while still adding some mechanical options for the experienced player to pick from. But just from a structuring point of view, kinda feels you could've just said "make a background, then pick a feat" rather than tying them together.

Removing crits from monsters rubs me the wrong way. The game is already easy enough.

[PhantomSoul]

So they brought back "a 20 always succeeds and a 1 always fails". Great. Slapstick time! As well as saying 'yeah, roll more' with this line:



And looks like no more short rests. Pity. Edit: reread that. Nevermind

This is going so well.


The goal was actually to get people to REALLY appreciate base 5e... and sounds like it's working! xD

[Dork_Forge]

Don't like the 1 and 20 effecting everything or dependence on Inspiration. The lack of half races and a lot of subraces feels so weird. Still reading, but at least the Dwarf feels cool I guess?

Orcs are now mainstream and with the removal of half orcs crit fishing becomes less interesting.

[PhoenixPhyre]

The goal was actually to get people to REALLY appreciate base 5e... and sounds like it's working! xD

Yeah. Just...yeah. Honestly, they should fire them all and bring back the original team. At least they had vision and a coherent philosophy beyond "MOAR!"

[Keltest]

My main takeaway from this is, frankly, that I can safely ignore any new products they put out as being relevant to the game I'm playing, like how I ignored 3.0 content for AD&D. Theyre simply no longer producing things for the version I invested into.

[False God]

Thoughts as follows:

I immediately dislike the phrasing of "human or fantastical race". Like, why is there a need for the division?

Could they not copyright Aasimar or something? Why the renaming to Ardling?

Feats that are limited to certain levels, ewwwwww.

Humans can now be small! Yay! Of course, I don't know why any race can't have it's short folks but one step is one step...

I would still like to see "Dark Elves" instead of "Drow", with the latter specifically called out as a religious cult (even if powerful and having whole nations of Drow). I think it would go a long way if the "dark colored elves" where not automatically the crazy evil ones. A Dark Elf should not have to "shun their homeland" just to be considered a "good guy", or in another way of saying: players should not have to play against type for simply wanting to be a purple elf.

I have no objection to the stats or special abilities really. Save that only Halflings and Humans lack Darkvision, or as I call it at my tables: Spoils-the-fun-vision.

I personally will not miss the half-elf or the half-orc. Lotta bad history, lotta confusing genetic questions, now people can be half-elf/half-dwarf!
-But by the same token, kinda wish Ardling and Tiefling were the same deal. I mean, if any race can roll in the mud with Orcs and Elves, why is the same not true for angels and demons?

Not really sold on "d20 Test" instead of a "check" but meh.
-Most tables across many editions already play with "1 always fails, 20 always succeeds" rule, so adding it to the game really doesn't bother me, making something less situational makes it easier to remember.

Still don't like critical hits doubling dice, but that's not a change from 5E, so...

Still don't like Inspiration, but that's just me.

----

Frankly, it doesn't read all that differently from 5E.

[Rfkannen]

I really like it overall, Most of the rules changes I really like, and I am sure paladins and rogues are going to be diffrent to make up for the lack of crits.

The one thing I find weird is the dragonborn race. I mean, they have released so many new better versions of the dragonborn, like the fizbins and the critical role... why go back to the really weak ph one?

[Psyren]

*Puts on +1 Protection from Naysaying Ring*


Started reading the playtest material. Thoughts below:

1: Welcome to the D&D sexual revolution! All races can now interbreed. Want a half orc, half gnome? Go for it! However, in the process, we lose Half Elf and Half Orc as unique races.

2: Variant Humans nerfed! Yes, Humans still get a bonus feat, but only Level 1 feats, which, as I'm sure you already guessed, do not include such things as Great Weapon Master, Crossbow Expert, Pole Arm Master and Sharpshooter.

3: Backgrounds now include starting Level 1 feats, which is nice, but I'm no longer seeing the background features which is disappointing, as they added a lot of flavor to each background.

4: Welcome Ardlings to the list of playable races!

5: Only PC's can crit! What the heck?!? There goes half my joy at being a DM ;)

I'll expand my thoughts as I delve deeper. So far, it seems like the crusade to make everything more generic continues and I'm not sure I really like it so far.

1) All humanoid races*
2) Variant humans no longer needed* :smallsmile: All humans get a bonus feat now.
3) I doubt the playtest will include everything but even if these are truly gone, most of them should have just been ability check uses anyway.
4) I recall there was a thread that wanted playable dog/wolf people :smallcool:
5) I wouldn't conclude that just because it says "if a player character", we're only seeing the PHB side of things.




Could they not copyright Aasimar or something? Why the renaming to Ardling?

See this is why the video is important :smallbiggrin:

Ardlings are not Aasimar, both still exist. Ardlings have animal heads (they are patterned off of celestial creatures like Guardinals or Hound Archons or Noviere) while Aasimar look like angels.



I would still like to see "Dark Elves" instead of "Drow", with the latter specifically called out as a religious cult (even if powerful and having whole nations of Drow). I think it would go a long way if the "dark colored elves" where not automatically the crazy evil ones. A Dark Elf should not have to "shun their homeland" just to be considered a "good guy", or in another way of saying: players should not have to play against type for simply wanting to be a purple elf.

Seems like "Lolthite Drow" vs. "Drow" captures that just fine.



I have no objection to the stats or special abilities really. Save that only Halflings and Humans lack Darkvision, or as I call it at my tables: Spoils-the-fun-vision.

Depending on which parent you select traits from, the half-races may lack it too.

[ftafp]

things I like about this UA:


backgrounds give feats
dwarves have tremorsense
musician


things I absolutely hate about this UA:

Everything else.

[follacchioso]

Should we create a new section of this forum?

The mix&match of racial abilities for mixed races characters seems like a nightmare - it will lead to lots of minmaxing for the perfect combination of races.

It's a shame they removed the short rests - what is going to happen to warlocks and monks?

[Amechra]

5: Only PC's can crit! What the heck?!? There goes half my joy at being a DM ;)

I actually honestly like it when games do this... because it means you can throw harder enemies at players without accidentally spiking damage and perma-killing the party Ranger from full health.

In my defense, they were 1st level and the boss fight managed to crit and high-roll for 40 damage.

As for the actual announcement... (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGn25URIss8)

Like, some of the feats seem more interesting? I guess?

[ftafp]

My god, they re-ruined dragonborn, made rogue completely unusable, nerfed paladin into the dirt and made halflings the most boring race in the game


The mix&match of racial abilities for mixed races characters seems like a nightmare - it will lead to lots of minmaxing for the perfect combination of races.

there is no mix-and-matching of abilities. it's you get all the traits of one, and none of the traits of the other. it's literally just refluffing but with worse racial options

[Kurt Kurageous]

My main takeaway from this is, frankly, that I can safely ignore any new products they put out as being relevant to the game I'm playing, like how I ignored 3.0 content for AD&D. They're simply no longer producing things for the version I invested into.

Right there with you! I said before Tasha's was the beginning of the end for 5e. And now we have the ending.

As I tell my students, when you encounter something new and really strange and a total turnoff, know this. "It's not for you."

My game will always use paper, 2d mapping, and house rules with intention. All they have done for me is give me an exit date from their treadmill of 5e stuff they expect me to buy and embrace.

They never fixed the main problem. They are still making adventures that are a pain in the ass for the DM to run without investing days worth of time reading and figuring out how each thing in the adventure relates to everything else. They haven't figure out that, without DMs, THERE IS NO GAME!!!

[Psyren]

The mix&match of racial abilities for mixed races characters seems like a nightmare - it will lead to lots of minmaxing for the perfect combination of races.


I believe you can mix and match cosmetics/visuals but not traits, those come from one parent only. I'll confirm intent via the video.

EDIT: Confirmed (16:40)

[Yakmala]

Just noticed the changes to the Alert feat.

It's now Proficiency Bonus to initiative, which is a nerf for most of a character's career.

But...

Alert now allows you to swap your initiative roll with a willing ally at the start of a combat. That's huge! So many things you could do with that, depending on the situation. Make sure the tank goes first and locks enemies down. Make sure the controller goes first and gets off their hypnotic pattern or wall spell.

Imagine a Harengon with this new version of Alert determining who goes first in their party during most fights.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I will say, there is one thing I'm willing to play-test. Grappling/shoving now being a regular attack roll (with a static escape DC). I've got a character in a current game that would find that useful, I think. And it's a safe change that streamlines things.

[Dork_Forge]

Well they ruined Healer and made it a pathetic shell of itself.

Inspiration is being way too overused. Advantage was already easy to get. We didn't need a mechanic that makes it even easier crammed down our throats.

But I'll leave you for the moment with this glimmer of hope:

Eldritch Blast looks like it may become a class feature.

[Psyren]

Crawford confirmed that "build your own background" is intended to be the default option. So if you don't like any of ASI/skill/tool/language/feat combinations, those are only suggestions.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Inspiration is being way too overused. Advantage was already easy to get. We didn't need a mechanic that makes it even easier crammed down our throats.


If you have Inspiration, you can get advantage. If you have advantage, you crit more. If you crit, you get inspiration. Which makes you crit more. Etc. <shakes head>

[Yakmala]

Well they ruined Healer and made it a pathetic shell of itself. [/B]

Yeah, this pretty much kills my Thief Medic builds. As worded, this version of Healer does not work with Fast Hands.

[MisterD]

Stat bonus will be linked to background.
Will Monsters of the multiverse player races now be legacy? Will there be a rule stating that the stat bonus will no longer be associated with the race and moved to background.
Or can I make a Shadar Kai SORCERER/CHARLATAN with + 4 to CHA and +2 DEX at level 1

[strangebloke]

Overall less bad than I expected. I like the new core races and how they function so far, and the changes to grappling are... interesting, though the slowed condition seems really punishing. The interplay between backgrounds and races is fun, and making Orcs be a main race instead of half-orcs is GOOD. FINALLY. Let my orc be an orc. Short rests are still in. Good. Long rests are easy to interrupt. GOOD. "Incapacitated" tells you that it breaks concentration. HUGE WIN FOR FORMATTING. AMAZING.

Less good: I don't like NPCs being unable to crit. PCs not being able to add other damage to crits is sad though, and I don't like that... but we'll see. Really don't like auto-fail on a 1 and auto-success on a 20. I am concerned about the VTT/Digital direction here.

[Dork_Forge]

If you have Inspiration, you can get advantage. If you have advantage, you crit more. If you crit, you get inspiration. Which makes you crit more. Etc. <shakes head>

An incredibly stupid cycle.

Makes you wonder how things like the Samurai would fair in that landscape.


Yeah, this pretty much kills my Thief Medic builds. As worded, this version of Healer does not work with Fast Hands.

The benefit is just worthless now. Reroll healing rolls. Great. You took away the only source of mundane healing and replaced it with roll a single Hit Die. Healer actually scales well in its current form.

[Khrysaes]

I have no objection to the stats or special abilities really. Save that only Halflings and Humans lack Darkvision, or as I call it at my tables: Spoils-the-fun-vision.
.

I actually hate darkvision so much I removed it from all races.

[Psyren]

So they brought back "a 20 always succeeds and a 1 always fails". Great. Slapstick time!


Really don't like auto-fail on a 1 and auto-success on a 20.

I keep seeing this and I have to point out - if a 20 can't succeed or a 1 can't fail, why are you calling for that roll in the first place?

If a 20 can't succeed, the action was impossible and you shouldn't be calling for a roll.
If a 1 can't fail, failure was impossible and you shouldn't be calling for a roll.

[Khrysaes]

Stat bonus will be linked to background.
Will Monsters of the multiverse player races now be legacy? Will there be a rule stating that the stat bonus will no longer be associated with the race and moved to background.
Or can I make a Shadar Kai SORCERER/CHARLATAN with + 4 to CHA and +2 DEX at level 1

There is an addendum grey box on page 11. Basically it says, "pick one, you don't get both"

[Keltest]

There is an addendum grey box on page 11. Basically it says, "pick one, you don't get both"

Stuff like that sounds like a fantastic reason to have a single new edition without trying to grandfather in old systems that you arent going to be supporting anymore instead of... whatever this is.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I keep seeing this and I have to point out - if a 20 can't succeed or a 1 can't fail, why are you calling for that roll in the first place?

If a 20 can't succeed, the action was impossible and you shouldn't be calling for a roll.
If a 1 can't fail, failure was impossible and you shouldn't be calling for a roll.

But this now applies to all D20 Tests. Saving throws as well. And the only guidance is that "the Target Number should be between 5 and 30". Which emphasizes setting the target number in advance, not actually thinking. It returns us back to the "default == roll for it" case that's so utterly toxic.

[MisterD]

Adding Crit Success/Fail to ability checks and saving throws. :|

Just because some people do it doesn't mean its good!

A druid with a high nature skill and years in the forest come along a plant.
Old rule 1+7 = "Reminds you of a poisoned plant." Reminds could be a possible yes or no
New Rule 1+ Nothing = "You think it is a plant." No degree of success not flat out fail.

[Dienekes]

Overall less bad than I expected. I like the new core races and how they function so far, and the changes to grappling are... interesting, though the slowed condition seems really punishing. The interplay between backgrounds and races is fun, and making Orcs be a main race instead of half-orcs is GOOD. FINALLY. Let my orc be an orc. Short rests are still in. Good. Long rests are easy to interrupt. GOOD. "Incapacitated" tells you that it breaks concentration. HUGE WIN FOR FORMATTING. AMAZING.

Less good: I don't like NPCs being unable to crit. PCs not being able to add other damage to crits is sad though, and I don't like that... but we'll see. Really don't like auto-fail on a 1 and auto-success on a 20. I am concerned about the VTT/Digital direction here.

On the one-hand, I've never really thought that Paladin's really made sense as the crit-fisher class. But on the other, they're very much limiting a bit of build variety removing bonus dice to crit damage. On the whole, Crits seem pretty weak here. Just the base weapon damage die and nothing else?

Maybe it's a means of making the Barbarian's Brutal Critical more unique, and sure, but if it's not improved in other ways it's still only .65 damage per attack and a terrible feature.

[animorte]

I keep seeing this and I have to point out - if a 20 can't succeed or a 1 can't fail, why are you calling for that roll in the first place?

If a 20 can't succeed, the action was impossible and you shouldn't be calling for a roll.
If a 1 can't fail, failure was impossible and you shouldn't be calling for a roll.

Thank you for saying this better than I would have.

[Psyren]

A druid with a high nature skill and years in the forest come along a plant.
Old rule 1+7 = "Reminds you of a poisoned plant." Reminds could be a possible yes or no
New Rule 1+ Nothing = "You think it is a plant." No degree of success not flat out fail.

If the druid can't fail, don't call for a roll.


But this now applies to all D20 Tests. Saving throws as well. And the only guidance is that "the Target Number should be between 5 and 30". Which emphasizes setting the target number in advance, not actually thinking. It returns us back to the "default == roll for it" case that's so utterly toxic.

The guidance for this will be in the DMG, just like it is now. This is a PHB playtest.

[ProsecutorGodot]

I keep seeing this and I have to point out - if a 20 can't succeed or a 1 can't fail, why are you calling for that roll in the first place?

If a 20 can't succeed, the action was impossible and you shouldn't be calling for a roll.
If a 1 can't fail, failure was impossible and you shouldn't be calling for a roll.

The new guidelines seem to want these impossible possibilities, it changes the circumstances you call for a check to be based on the DC rather than whether the character can succeed.

The DM determines whether a d20 Test is warranted in any given circumstance. To be warranted, a d20 Test must have a target number no less than 5 and no greater than 30.

Fun note - if you can push your AC over 30, you literally can't be hit. I expect some clarification coming for this one.

[MisterD]

There is an addendum grey box on page 11. Basically it says, "pick one, you don't get both"

Sorry and thanks. Had to re-read article to see it.

[Sception]

Stuff I like:

more weight on backgrounds generally, stat bonuses tied to backgrounds

feats at first level via backgrounds

explicitly separating out feats that are fine at first level from feats that are a bit much honestly and should wait till later, which keeps (v) humans (and custom lineage if that stays around) interesting and good without making them the auto choice for most builds

most of the races (I could easily see myself playing any of the races in this pdf other than dragonborn)

most of the backgrounds

most of the feats

open, and pretty much entirely cosmetic, rules for mixed race characters.

thieves' cant as a language that can be learned, & one granted by the criminal background rather than (or in addition to?) the rogue class.


Stuff I don't like:

dragonborn broken worse than ever after the dragon book finally got around to fixing them to be playable. Breath weapon back to a full action instead of an attack? No damage scaling at all? Breath weapon and resistance as the only traits? Yikes, they're terrible.

Congealed spell lists into arcane/divine/nature instead of spell lists tailored to each individual class.

languages tied to backgrounds. If every farmer speaks Halfling but not every Halfling does, then that isn't the Halfling language, that's the Farmer language.
If my Elvish Charletan has to burn their free language choice to speak Elvish then that isn't really much of a free choice. Just tie the languages to the races, add a note up front that if your character was raised among a community of another race then you can freely trade your racial language for one that reflects the community that raised you. Then have backgrounds only grant bonus languages as appropriate (thieves' cant for charlatan, etc). A language is not so huge a bonus that you have to worry about some backgrounds granting one and some not on a balance level.

Backgrounds seem to have lost the fluffy but not-mechanically-grounded benefits of 5e backgrounds. ?Por que no los dos? Those were good, trying to pry benefits out of them in game helped drive role playing. They should be kept. /in addition/ to the crunchy stuff here.

crit should be instead of inspiration for attack rolls, to avoid the cycle stuff already mentioned


Stuff I don't care about either way:

branding. People aren't going to call it 'One D&D' because that's cringe and they won't call it just 'D&D' because that's confusing, just like we didn't call 5e 'D&D next' and we didn't call it just 'D&D either. Everyone will call it 5.5 if it's mostly compatible with existing 5e material on release, and they'll call it 6e if it isn't, and they'll keep calling it 5.5 or 6e until Wizards gives up and accepts reality just like they did with 5e before it.

online functionality. I mostly don't play on virtual tabletops. When I do, I'm happy with roll20, and I'd be shocked if ddb can pull off anything close to that functionality and ease of use. If the ddb character builder continues as current I'll be happy to continue paying small amounts to unlock exactly the content I need for my individual characters, and the moment they charge more or require a subscription I'll go back to pen and paper. I'm not bothered by wizards pursuing this, it's not going to drive me away, but it doesn't mean anything to me either and I won't be paying extra for it.

[MisterD]

If the druid can't fail, don't call for a roll.



The guidance for this will be in the DMG, just like it is now. This is a PHB playtest.

How about a rule that if your Skill Bonus is higher that the difficulty of the skill check you do not have to roll.
A character with a +7 to a skill roll vs DC 5 does not have to roll.

[Keltest]

How about a rule that if your Skill Bonus is higher that the difficulty of the skill check you do not have to roll.
A character with a +7 to a skill roll vs DC 5 does not have to roll.

Besides the fact that people like to roll dice, asking the DM to keep track of everybody's skill bonuses in every single skill seems like an unnecessary burden on the GM to save 3 seconds of game time.

[Ignimortis]

Looks pretty bad, honestly. Inspiration is a terrible mechanic from the get-go, and it doesn't get much better here. Just give people 1 or 2 inspiration points per session and forget about them otherwise. Metacurrency has to be player-facing and player-focused, not at the whims of RNG or the GM, that's what metacurrency is for.

Nat20 being a success on everything is outright terrible, because it's sure as heck gonna lead to people rolling for everything to fish for 20s and say "no, I rolled a 20, this happens" and other stupid things like an 8 STR mage succeeding on a STR check because they got a Nat20.

In general, I would go the opposite direction - Nat20 should only be a success if it is enough to be a success, in any event. You have a +3 to-hit and Nat20 an AC25 target? Good job, your blow lands true and does no damage because you are not good enough to do anything to armor that thick. You have a +17 and Nat1 a DC18 check? You succeed, because you're that good that even a complete fumble can be corrected by your skill and talent.

Spells being divided into three schools instead of class lists is eh. It might fix some issues with Sorcerers, but it also means that, say, Wizards now get to grab Warlock spells because they're all Arcane. And, in general, it's more dull than having class-specific lists.

[KorvinStarmast]

It's D&Done. Snickered, I did. D and Done. :smallcool:

Adding Crit Success/Fail to ability checks and saving throws. :| Just because some people do it doesn't mean its good! We hates it forever precious. :smallfurious:

It's a great shame that they're moving to making backgrounds so integral, and it makes very little sense that they want backgrounds to 'grow with you' It reduces customizability.

Put ASIs in backgrounds sure, but there's no need to put mechanically powerful stuff like feats there, it completes defeats the freedom people feel choosing them now. Massive Concur.

"Wow it's the Xbox One all over again" was my very first thought on seeing the announcement. :smalltongue:
When it comes to repeating the mistakes of videogaming's past, I have a similar apprehension about the virtual tabletop (as a regular user of vtts like Roll20). All the focus seems to be on "making the graphics look dope" in the Unreal Engine.
{snip what I think is a valid critique} I would love to be wrong and see it turn out to be a fantastic tool. But as is, I'm wary. Likewise. I smell M:tG style money hoovering to be what's behind this, and the Great Whale Hunt. :smallyuk:

Only three spell lists: arcane, divine, and primal. Works for me.

Unarmed strikes are now used to grapple and shove as an alternative to dealing damage, though escaping a grapple is still an ability check. I just skimmed it real quick, I'm sure there's more. Hope to see this in play test.

4: Welcome Ardlings to the list of playable races! :smallyuk:

5: Only PC's can crit! What the heck?!? There goes half my joy at being a DM ;) ??? Who dreamed this up?

This is going so well. Signing up for play test, will advise you my progress via other means.

[ProsecutorGodot]

dragonborn broken worse than ever after the dragon book finally got around to fixing them to be playable. Breath weapon back to a full action instead of an attack? No damage scaling at all? Breath weapon and resistance as the only traits? Yikes, they're terrible.


I think you missed a few things. Base Darkvision, all breath attacks are cones targeting dex and it scales with your level by a flat amount.

[Psyren]

The new guidelines seem to want these impossible possibilities, it changes the circumstances you call for a check to be based on the DC rather than whether the character can succeed.


Fun note - if you can push your AC over 30, you literally can't be hit. I expect some clarification coming for this one.

There are no new guidelines yet. The guidelines for setting DCs are found in the DMG, not the PHB (which this UA is for.)


This document is the first in a series of Unearthed Arcana articles that present material designed for the Player’s Handbook coming out in 2024.


How about a rule that if your Skill Bonus is higher that the difficulty of the skill check you do not have to roll.
A character with a +7 to a skill roll vs DC 5 does not have to roll.

A guideline like this exists in the current DMG, pg. 239

[strangebloke]

I keep seeing this and I have to point out - if a 20 can't succeed or a 1 can't fail, why are you calling for that roll in the first place?

If a 20 can't succeed, the action was impossible and you shouldn't be calling for a roll.
If a 1 can't fail, failure was impossible and you shouldn't be calling for a roll.
Previously DCs were agnostic of the person rolling to a degree. If something could be attempted, it could be attempted by anyone. Now its down to the DM to make a judgement call that actually Steve shouldn't be allowed to attempt a check to crack the best lock in the world.

[Psyren]

Previously DCs were agnostic of the person rolling to a degree. If something could be attempted, it could be attempted by anyone. Now its down to the DM to make a judgement call that actually Steve shouldn't be allowed to attempt a check to crack the best lock in the world.

That is exactly how it works today. If it's not possible for Steve to crack that lock, the DM should not ask for a roll - DMG 237.



Put ASIs in backgrounds sure, but there's no need to put mechanically powerful stuff like feats there, it completes defeats the freedom people feel choosing them now.

You have full freedom, creating your own Background is the default rule. All the listed ones are suggestions.

[Arutema]

Between adding crit success and fails to every single roll and a race system revamp that removes half-elves and half-orcs, it looks like they're repeating a lot of the mistakes of Pathfinder 2E.

[Dork_Forge]

I keep seeing this and I have to point out - if a 20 can't succeed or a 1 can't fail, why are you calling for that roll in the first place?

If a 20 can't succeed, the action was impossible and you shouldn't be calling for a roll.
If a 1 can't fail, failure was impossible and you shouldn't be calling for a roll.

You're only looking at this from a current stand point. If a 1 always fails and a 20 always succeeds then that shifts when you should ask for rolls, because it's now always possible and Inspiration is so common they can probably have advantage on the roll too.

But you're also ignoring things like AOEs. You call for rolls because you just AOE'd the party. Now the character that may not have had a real chance of failure before can fail, and the 8 stat no bonus character has a 5% chance of succeeding when it makes no sense at all.

[ProsecutorGodot]

There are no new guidelines yet. The guidelines for setting DCs are found in the DMG, not the PHB (which this UA is for.)

I literally just quoted the playtest document, what are you talking about?

I'll share it again, in case you missed it.

D20 TEST
The term d20 Test encompasses the three main d20 rolls of the game: ability checks, attack rolls, and saving throws. If something in the game affects d20 Tests, it affects all three of those rolls.

The DM determines whether a d20 Test is warranted in any given circumstance. To be warranted, a d20 Test must have a target number no less than 5 and no greater than 30.

Target number is in reference to AC and DC.

[Sception]

Nat20 being a success on everything is outright terrible, because it's sure as heck gonna lead to people rolling for everything to fish for 20s and say "no, I rolled a 20, this happens" and other stupid things like an 8 STR mage succeeding on a STR check because they got a Nat20.

I expect a fair bit of this won't make it through play testing, but even as is, players don't decide to roll, they say what they try and do, and the DM decides to call for a roll if they think it's appropriate. If they think the thing is either easy enough or inconsequential enough to be automatic or hard enough to be impossible then there is no roll to begin with. That's what the DC <5 / DC >30 bit is getting at, though I agree that calling out specific numbers is dumb, as is basing it on the task alone without taking into account the skill of the one attempting it.

Personally, I don't mind '1 always fails, 20 always succeeds' bit, but only when taken alongside 'if the thing is impossible or trivial don't call for a roll in the first place, at which point the whole bit becomes meaningless, because if a 1 wasn't going to fail or a 20 wasn't going to succeed then it should never have gotten as far as a die roll to begin with.

[Psyren]

If a 1 always fails and a 20 always succeeds then that shifts when you should ask for rolls, because it's now always possible

No, it's not. You do not suddenly have a 5% chance of jumping to the moon now.

[Keltest]

No, it's not. You do not suddenly have a 5% chance of jumping to the moon now.

Yeah, but now instead of asking everyone to make a DC 25 arcana check to translate some runes, you either have to let the 6 int non-proficient barbarian suddenly know magic ancient egyptian, or else tell him he doesnt get to play for a little bit because he might get a crit success and you dont want that.

[KorvinStarmast]

Roll playing gets one more slice of cheese. This will result in more dice rolls, which we already don't need.

[Warder]

It's just so incredibly bland to me. I don't necessarily dislike it - there were bits I picked up that I thought were fine (like the return of racial age and size, that didn't last long) - but none of it sparks joy or wonder. It's just dull. I used to love poring over playtest material but this is a snoozefest.

[BRC]

Yeah, but now instead of asking everyone to make a DC 25 arcana check to translate some runes, you either have to let the 6 int non-proficient barbarian suddenly know magic ancient egyptian, or else tell him he doesnt get to play for a little bit because he might get a crit success and you dont want that.

As opposed to "You don't get to play right now because you cannot possibly make this roll"?

[Keltest]

As opposed to "You don't get to play right now because you cannot possibly make this roll"?

As opposed to the player deciding if they feel like rolling or not yes. Its never better to outright tell a player "I dont want you to succeed at this."

[Segev]

I dislike that half-elves are now either humans with funny ears on, or elves that are wearing fake beards.

I like that they tried to give us a way to have half-dwarves, half-elf/half-orcs, half-ardling/half-halfings, etc., but the mechanic chosen is...well, it fits with their "screw racial mechanics; all races are the same and just are costumes you wear" attitude I've seen them moving towards.

I am confused that humans can be small or medium. But it won't break anything. Why are dwarves Medium only? Can halflings be Medium?

I like the notion of actually giving dwarves a cool ability like tremorsense for their "stonecunning," but I think it should be a passive feature they just have, maybe limited to when they're standing on bare stone (worked or unworked), and not something they have limited uses per long rest of. I am not a fan of the ardlings' wings being something that sprouts for one bonus action then disappear, either.

On that subject, everyone here probably knows how I feel about the PB/long rest mechanics as they currently stand. I'd prefer 1-2 uses per short rest, or that it was PB/long rest with a recovered use every short rest. Except that I don't like these particular examples as limited-use things at all; they feel extremely artificial. You're not really playing what you're allegedly playing; you're playing a game piece that has openly admits it's only pretending.

I like the idea of 1st level feats being limited to particular lists generated by background and/or race.

[Ignimortis]

I expect a fair bit of this won't make it through play testing, but even as is, players don't decide to roll, they say what they try and do, and the DM decides to call for a roll if they think it's appropriate. If they think the thing is either easy enough or inconsequential enough to be automatic or hard enough to be impossible then there is no roll to begin with. That's what the DC <5 / DC >30 bit is getting at, though I agree that calling out specific numbers is dumb, as is basing it on the task alone without taking into account the skill of the one attempting it.

Personally, I don't mind '1 always fails, 20 always succeeds' bit, but only when taken alongside 'if the thing is impossible or trivial don't call for a roll in the first place, at which point the whole bit becomes meaningless, because if a 1 wasn't going to fail or a 20 wasn't going to succeed then it should never have gotten as far as a die roll to begin with.

It's also bad for things that are not DM-determined. Opposed checks, for instance. If one side has a modifier of +10 and rolls a nat1 against the other who has a +3 and rolls a 6, the former shouldn't lose. There is a wide range of modifiers for which such situations are possible and even probable.

[ProsecutorGodot]

As opposed to "You don't get to play right now because you cannot possibly make this roll"?

Being told "this is impossible, you can't roll" is part of playing. In the current guidelines, it might be impossible because your modifiers have made it such. In the new guidelines, we've explicitly been given a chance to succeed regardless of modifiers (note - modifiers, not literally impossible tasks like jumping to the moon) as long as the DC falls within a certain range.

The DC 25 arcana check is a good example. It would previously have been impossible for the 6 int Barb, it was literally impossible for him to succeed because his modifiers simply didn't allow it. Now he can simply be lucky and he knows that, so if you decide now that he isn't allowed to roll you've (from their point of view) taken away a legitimate chance of success.

It's not very different in practice but the ways it does differ make it worse, in my opinion.


It's also bad for things that are not DM-determined. Opposed checks, for instance. If one side has a modifier of +10 and rolls a nat1 against the other who has a +3 and rolls a 6, the former shouldn't lose. There is a wide range of modifiers for which such situations are possible and even probable.
If the changes to grappling are any indication, there won't be many (or any) opposed checks going forward.

[BRC]

As opposed to the player deciding if they feel like rolling or not yes. Its never better to outright tell a player "I dont want you to succeed at this."

Under the old system, there would be no point to the player rolling, since they couldn't succeed.



My main complaint is that "Inspiration for a 20!" means that players are incentivized to roll their dice as much as possible in order to stock up on inspiration, which in turn means finding as many low-consequence rolls as possible, and I hate any rule that encourages players to be really annoying for mechanical benefit.

In theory, the dice only get rolled when the GM calls for it, not on Player incentive, but most tables don't strictly follow that rule and it's generally fine, but with autosuccess and rewards for 20s players are encouraged to roll dice whenever possible.

And even if you DO stick to "Only roll the Dice when the GM says so", that doesn't actually fix the problem, it just encourages them to be annoying, since rather than just Insight checking every NPC that speaks, they first have to say something to the GM to make the GM ask them for a roll.


As a GM, I'd interpret that to only apply to "Consequential" rolls, and what is or is not a consequential roll would be my judgement in the moment.

Edit: I think my rule would be to treat A natural 20 is treated as a 22, rather than a guaranteed success. It means you got lucky, and can push a bit past the boundaries if your normal abilities, but only so far, and it means that fishing for that miracle 20 IS usually a valid approach, but there is a limit to what luck can do for you.

[KorvinStarmast]

My hot take:
This OneD&D thing is based on a marketing and economic model (the Great Whale Hunt, part II, with part I being M:tG) more than it's a game model.

VTT's are about to feel the pinch from WoTC/Hasbro, kind of like what browsers felt from MS when explorer came out and the attack on Netscape began. :smallfurious: There will be other side effects, but this I think is going to be hard to avoid.

@Ignimortis

It's also bad for things that are not DM-determined. Opposed checks, for instance. If one side has a modifier of +10 and rolls a nat1 against the other who has a +3 and rolls a 6, the former shouldn't lose. There is a wide range of modifiers for which such situations are possible and even probable. yes.

[Psyren]

Yeah, but now instead of asking everyone to make a DC 25 arcana check to translate some runes, you either have to let the 6 int non-proficient barbarian suddenly know magic ancient egyptian, or else tell him he doesnt get to play for a little bit because he might get a crit success and you dont want that.

He was never supposed to be asked to roll for that. What do you feel has changed?

[Keltest]

Under the old system, there would be no point to the player rolling, since they couldn't succeed.

Yeah, but you dont have the DM specifically telling them to their face "I am depriving you of an otherwise existing mechanical possibility for success specifically to prevent you from succeeding."

[Dork_Forge]

No, it's not. You do not suddenly have a 5% chance of jumping to the moon now.

Instead of snipping my reply and using an extreme example, I'd like to see you engage in the actual criticism. Keltest had a good response to this reply of yours. Your reply doesn't address more common things, or the fact it now impacts saving throws.

[Keltest]

He was never supposed to be asked to roll for that. What do you feel has changed?

The part where its now being rubbed in his face that he can't play. Is there something unclear about my language here, I'm genuinely confused why people arent understanding me.

[Psyren]

Instead of snipping my reply and using an extreme example, I'd like to see you engage in the actual criticism. Keltest had a good response to this reply of yours. Your reply doesn't address more common things, or the fact it now impacts saving throws.

1) The DM should always be telling the player whether to roll or not. That is how 5e has always worked, and how it works now.
2) Affecting saving throws now is a good thing. With bounded accuracy, very few saving throws would only succeed on a 20 or fail on a 1 anyway, and the ones that do are usually in the players' favor.


The part where its now being rubbed in his face that he can't play. Is there something unclear about my language here, I'm genuinely confused why people arent understanding me.

"Rubbed" how? He doesn't get to roll until the DM says he can. That is literally how 5e works.

[Segev]

He was never supposed to be asked to roll for that. What do you feel has changed?

What has changed is that now, when Robin the Rogue, who has a +9 to his check, can succeed on a 16+ on the d20 roll, Willie the Wizard, who has +2 on his check, can now succeed on a natural 20, whereas before, he couldn't.

Under the existing paradigm, if Robin is asked to roll, then Willie also gets to roll if he wants to try. Now, if I am parsing your advice correctly, Willie should be forbidden from rolling because he should not have a chance to succeed, even though Robin should.


This is a huge but subtle paradigm shift. Under 5e as it stands, you determine whether a roll is to be made based on whether the task has interesting consequences for success and for failure. Under the way you're advising One be run, you determine whether a roll is to be made based on whether the character should have a chance at succeeding or failing rather than automatically doing one or the other.

[Keltest]

"Rubbed" how? He doesn't get to roll until the DM says he can. That is literally how 5e works.

"You come into the room, and you see on the opposite wall a panel covered in faintly glowing runes. Everybody make an arcana check. Except you Psyren, you couldnt possibly understand this."

Like that. Pay especial attention to the explicitly calling you out part of the hypothetical and tell me you wouldnt have your fun quashed by being specifically told not to play.

[BRC]

The part where its now being rubbed in his face that he can't play. Is there something unclear about my language here, I'm genuinely confused why people arent understanding me.

The new experience
"I try to translate the runes"
"You can't actually succeed, your character lacks the necessary background"

The Old experience
"I try to translate the runes" *roll* "Nat 20!"
"Well, the DC is 25, so you still fail. You could never have succeeded. Hope rolling that dice was fun I guess?"

Like, I get what you're saying, but I don't see a noticeable difference. I guess in the latter case the player only knows they couldn't do anything 5% of the time?

[paladinn]

"Look, there's a shark! Let's jump it!"

I'm getting the same vibes I got with 4e.. and PF2e.

[Segev]

"Look, there's a shark! Let's jump it!"

I'm getting the same vibes I got with 4e.. and PF2e.

Indeed.

Like 4e, I am seeing some neat ideas in this, but they're getting swamped by the bad ones. I would normally actually be hopeful! I would say, "Well, we can talk them out of the bad ones and encourage the good ones!" But the bad ideas are all very much parts of greater trends that WotC seems determined to push D&D towards, which tells me that criticism will fall on deaf ears as they say, "No, no, that's all really good stuff. Anybody who dislikes that clearly doesn't know what they're talking about!" So I fully expect the positive stuff to be what gets cut, at least in greater proportion to the negative stuff.

[Keltest]

The new experience
"I try to translate the runes"
"You can't actually succeed, your character lacks the necessary background"

The Old experience
"I try to translate the runes" *roll* "Nat 20!"
"Well, the DC is 25, so you still fail. You could never have succeeded. Hope rolling that dice was fun I guess?"

Like, I get what you're saying, but I don't see a noticeable difference. I guess in the latter case the player only knows they couldn't do anything 5% of the time?

I mean, personally I either announce the DC when presenting the challenge (ie before anyone tries to attempt it) or don't say it at all. Its entirely possible to have somebody attempt a skill check they can't succeed at without actually telling them not to roll, or feeling like theyre targeted to not be able to succeed. If somebody is attempting something and rolling for it before you even call for a check, theyre jumping the gun and should probably be told off a little bit for it anyway.

[Sigreid]

"Look, there's a shark! Let's jump it!"

I'm getting the same vibes I got with 4e.. and PF2e.

You got me to laugh.

https://i.etsystatic.com/7545759/r/il/0b3449/1736685335/il_794xN.1736685335_ld3z.jpg

[Psyren]

"You come into the room, and you see on the opposite wall a panel covered in faintly glowing runes. Everybody make an arcana check. Except you Psyren, you couldnt possibly understand this."

Like that. Pay especial attention to the explicitly calling you out part of the hypothetical and tell me you wouldnt have your fun quashed by being specifically told not to play.

"You come into the room, and you see on the opposite wall a panel covered in faintly glowing runes."

Captain America: "I try to read them."
DM: "You are unable to decipher their meaning."
Doctor Strange: "Can I try?"
DM: "Yes, you can try; make an Arcana check."

I don't see what's so controversial or insulting about that sequence.



"I try to translate the runes" *roll* "Nat 20!"

"Why are you rolling when I didn't ask you to?"

[ProsecutorGodot]

The new experience
"I try to translate the runes"
"You can't actually succeed, your character lacks the necessary background"

The Old experience
"I try to translate the runes" *roll* "Nat 20!"
"Well, the DC is 25, so you still fail. You could never have succeeded. Hope rolling that dice was fun I guess?"

Like, I get what you're saying, but I don't see a noticeable difference. I guess in the latter case the player only knows they couldn't do anything 5% of the time?

Offering a correction on the point being made:

The new experience
"I try to translate the runes"
"I don't want you to possibly succeed since a natural 20 does so automatically regardless of modifiers, so you can't roll"

The Old experience
"I try to translate the runes"
"Well, the DC is 25, so you can't roll, your modifier is too low."

The result is the same, but one path to it is decidedly worse from my point of view.

[Keltest]

"You come into the room, and you see on the opposite wall a panel covered in faintly glowing runes."

Captain America: "I try to read them."
DM: "You are unable to decipher their meaning."
Doctor Strange: "Can I try?"
DM: "Yes, you can try; make an Arcana check."

I don't see what's so controversial or insulting about that sequence.

Maybe you should talk about the sequence I gave then with the specific intent to highlight the possibility of giving offense then.

Not every sequence is going to be inherently offensive. Somebody who deliberately made their barbarian illiterate probably would chuckle a little bit when reminded that they cant read in the first place as the explanation for why they cant try and decipher a code. But the new system is inherently more personal in its rejections, and that comes with the extra baggage of hurt feelings sometimes.

[Segev]

"You come into the room, and you see on the opposite wall a panel covered in faintly glowing runes."

Captain America: "I try to read them."
DM: "You are unable to decipher their meaning."
Doctor Strange: "Can I try?"
DM: "Yes, you can try; make an Arcana check."

I don't see what's so controversial or insulting about that sequence.



"Why are you rolling when I didn't ask you to?"

So why are you allowing anybody to roll? If you're going to arbitrarily decide, with no basis in how difficult the check is, whether somebody can succeed or fail, why not just arbitrarily decide that the people who are dramatically appropriate to succeed do succeed?

Why is the result interesting enough for Doctor Strange to roll for it, but not for Captain America to roll for it, when the DC is low enough that Captain America could succeed if he were permitted to roll?

[Psyren]

Maybe you should talk about the sequence I gave then with the specific intent to highlight the possibility of giving offense then.

Does that mean you disagree that the sequence I gave is the correct one?


So why are you allowing anybody to roll? If you're going to arbitrarily decide, with no basis in how difficult the check is, whether somebody can succeed or fail, why not just arbitrarily decide that the people who are dramatically appropriate to succeed do succeed?

I'm not arbitrarily deciding. I'm ruling out impossible success and guaranteed failure before calling for a check, as stated on DMG 237.

[Millstone85]

"You can't actually succeed, your character lacks the necessary background"Is "the necessary background" having an Int score above a certain number?

If yes, that's just another way to make it so some DCs can only be challenged by smart characters.

If no, then it is a different question entirely.

[BRC]

I mean, personally I either announce the DC when presenting the challenge (ie before anyone tries to attempt it) or don't say it at all. Its entirely possible to have somebody attempt a skill check they can't succeed at without actually telling them not to roll, or feeling like theyre targeted to not be able to succeed. If somebody is attempting something and rolling for it before you even call for a check, theyre jumping the gun and should probably be told off a little bit for it anyway.

So your complaint is specifically for the case where all but one member of the party is asked to roll?


We're getting into the weeds of DMing philosophy here, but personally I have no trouble gating certain tests with pre-requisite proficiency, but that doesn't mean you can't interact with the test.

For example, ancient arcane runes. You can't "Translate" Those runes without Arcana proficiency, it's just not possible to do so without the proper background knowledge. Even a high-int character can't just stare at the glowy shapes and figure out what they mean from that alone. Only characters with Arcana proficiency get to actually try to Translate the runes.


However, people WITHOUT Arcana proficiency can still maybe pick something up from the runes if they roll well enough. You could recognize that one of the runes looks like a lightning bolt, and conclude that these probably have something to do with lightning magic. You could see that they are arranged around a small hole at roughly chest height, almost like a keyhole.

You can't translate the runes as saying "Insert key to deactivate the lightning trap", but you could conclude that they have something to do with Lightning and are a label for a keyhole of some sort.

Which is to say, I have no trouble with the idea that not every character can attempt every test, but in general characters should be able to do SOMETHING on a test.

And sometimes it just comes down to background. Some characters without knowledge nature or survival I'd say couldn't identify which mushrooms are safe to eat, simply because I can't think of a scenario where they would have possible learned that.

Others might not have enough knowledge to justify proficiency, but might have been reasonably exposed to it at some point that yeah, maybe this traveling merchant once ate a mushroom soup with these mushrooms that looked like these so they can know they're safe. Depends.

[Segev]

I'm not arbitrarily deciding. I'm ruling out impossible success and guaranteed failure before calling for a check, as stated on DMG 237.

No, you're not. You're ruling out character ability to succeed or fail based on the character rather than on the difficulty and reality of the task. At that point, you shouldn't be asking Doctor Strange to roll, either: you should just give it to him.

[Keltest]

So your complaint is specifically for the case where all but one member of the party is asked to roll?

My complaint is any circumstance where somebody asks to roll and is told "no, you can't."

Because now "you can't" means either implicitly or explicitly "I am expressly forbidding it based on you personally." instead of "I decided the difficulty independently of any specific character."

It's possible to soften the blow, but now not rolling is a command from the DM telling you that you arent allowed instead of a result of the character build you chose not meeting this specific challenge that wasnt made with you in mind.

Furthermore, there are spells and other effects that add bonuses to skill checks. If your barbarian has a +1 to arcana from some source somewhere and has Guidance cast on him, he can now theoretically meet a DC 25 check on a natural 20. Are you still going to tell him that he can't roll, even though under the old system he could now in fact make that DC? And what if he's inspired by a bard? A good enough bard and he could potentially have a +17 to the roll, bigger than the 20 int wizard with proficiency at level 20. Even with all this outright magical assistance, is he still incapable of figuring it out for himself?

[Psyren]

My complaint is any circumstance where somebody asks to roll and is told "no, you can't."

Players don't "ask to roll" in 5e. They state what they want to do, and you determine whether a roll is appropriate to the situation. If your players are in the habit of asking to roll, I suggest retraining them sooner rather than later if you want to avoid situations like the one you're describing.


No, you're not. You're ruling out character ability to succeed or fail based on the character rather than on the difficulty and reality of the task. At that point, you shouldn't be asking Doctor Strange to roll, either: you should just give it to him.

So you don't think there should be any situation where Captain America is guaranteed to fail and Doctor Strange has only a chance of succeeding? Even a situation involving deciphering magical runes?

[Segev]

My complaint is any circumstance where somebody asks to roll and is told "no, you can't."

Because now "you can't" means either implicitly or explicitly "I am expressly forbidding it based on you personally." instead of "I decided the difficulty independently of any specific character."

It's possible to soften the blow, but now not rolling is a command from the DM telling you that you arent allowed instead of a result of the character build you chose not meeting this specific challenge that wasnt made with you in mind.

Thinking on this, I am more okay with "trained only rolls" being a thing than "character-specific rolls."

If they're bringing back "trained only" checks, I suppose that's acceptable. I still think the auto-fail and auto-succeed on 1 and 20 is a bad idea. If the DC is so low that Robin the Rogue succeeds on a 1, that doesn't mean the DM should have done the math before deciding on the DC, and let Robin succeed without rolling. It means that the task is one Robin shouldn't fail at, and the DM assigning the DC was assigning it based on the task without stopping to check if Robin could possibly fail it.

Robin the Rogue failing 5% of the time on things that have DC 5 is just a humiliation conga for his player, not adding dramatic tension.


So you don't think there should be any situation where Captain America is guaranteed to fail and Doctor Strange has only a chance of succeeding? Even a situation involving deciphering magical runes?On the contrary! I think there should be tasks that are so hard that only somebody as skilled in the specialty as Doctor Strange is in reading arcane runes should have a chance to succeed.

But if Captain America is proficient in Arcana and has an Intelligence score as high as Doctor Strange's, why should Doctor Strange have a chance at it but Captain America not? Why is the DM deciding that Captain America's investment in the skill is less relevant than Doctor Strange's, even though it probably actually was harder for Captain America's player to wrangle the option to have the proficiency?

[Keltest]

Players don't "ask to roll" in 5e. They state what they want to do, and you determine whether a roll is appropriate to the situation. If your players are in the habit of asking to roll, I suggest retraining them sooner rather than later if you want to avoid situations like the one you're describing.

Yeah ok, but in the real world, players ask to roll all the time. If Jerry's wizard gets a 2 on his arcana check, then Jim might step up and ask if his sorcerer can roll too. And so on and so forth down the party.

What players dont do is decide to roll on their own instigation. Asking for permission is not inappropriate in D&D. Or anywhere else, frankly.

[Psyren]

But if Captain America is proficient in Arcana and has an Intelligence score as high as Doctor Strange's, why should Doctor Strange have a chance at it but Captain America not?

If Cap had high intelligence and training then Keltest's version ("you couldn't possibly understand this" (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?648909-quot-One-D-amp-D-quot-Playtest-going-live/page4&p=25554021#post25554021)) likely wouldn't apply. But again, that determination (do they have the intelligence and training to possibly understand this) occurs before the roll is called for.

Determining whether a check is possible happens before asking for a roll, every single time.


Yeah ok, but in the real world, players ask to roll all the time. If Jerry's wizard gets a 2 on his arcana check, then Jim might step up and ask if his sorcerer can roll too. And so on and so forth down the party.

What players dont do is decide to roll on their own instigation. Asking for permission is not inappropriate in D&D. Or anywhere else, frankly.

And that's fine, but the game's rules don't need to account for people applying them incorrectly. If a group applies them incorrectly and gets a negative result, the solution is obvious - apply them correctly.

[diplomancer]

So, I will vote with the majority and say I don't like most of these changes. One overall change that particularly drew my attention, and that no one has talked about it yet as far as I can tell, is that Feats are weaker. Sure, some Feats are the same, but those were already the worse feats; good Feats like Alert and Lucky were decidedly nerfed. Maybe this is also a part of a redesign where Feats don't compete with ASIs anymore, and you get both Feats and ASIs at current levels?

[BRC]

My complaint is any circumstance where somebody asks to roll and is told "no, you can't."

Because now "you can't" means either implicitly or explicitly "I am expressly forbidding it based on you personally." instead of "I decided the difficulty independently of any specific character."

It's possible to soften the blow, but now not rolling is a command from the DM telling you that you arent allowed instead of a result of the character build you chose not meeting this specific challenge that wasnt made with you in mind.

Furthermore, there are spells and other effects that add bonuses to skill checks. If your barbarian has a +1 to arcana from some source somewhere and has Guidance cast on him, he can now theoretically meet a DC 25 check on a natural 20. Are you still going to tell him that he can't roll, even though under the old system he could now in fact make that DC? And what if he's inspired by a bard? A good enough bard and he could potentially have a +17 to the roll, bigger than the 20 int wizard with proficiency at level 20. Even with all this outright magical assistance, is he still incapable of figuring it out for himself?

I can't speak for anybody else, but as I said before, I have no trouble gating certain results behind skill proficiency, no matter what other bonuses might be applied.

If a nonproficient barbarian with a +17 from other bonuses rolls a nat 20 to decipher some ancient runes, I'm going to give them everything somebody could possible intuit from those runes, except precisely what they mean.


I admit I'm differing from 5e RAW here, but I consider there being two separate tests going on:

1) Translate the Runes (Arcana+Int, Requires Arcana): Figure out the precise meaning and function of these runes.
2) Study the Runes (Int): Study the runes to get clues as to their function.

Anybody with an Int score can make the second test. Only somebody with Arcana can attempt the first.


I also gate certain test results behind character backgrounds.

The Party sees a statue of a Demon in the middle of a cult hideout.

The Paladin makes a Knowledge: Religion check, and recalls what they were taught about this type of demon in Paladin training, it's abilities and weaknesses, how to banish it, ect.

The Ex-Cultist makes a Knowlege: Religion check and recalls what they learned about this fiend from their time in the cult. How to summon and tempt it, how it is likely to behave, what tasks it may have been summoned to perform, ect.


The Noble may make a knowledge: History check about the Battle of The Red Valley and recall the movements of troops, the strategies General Valenta used, how the Wizard Gremaval turned the tide of battle with an Illusion spell.

The Local may make a Knowledge: History check about the same battle and recall an old soldier telling them about how the heavily armored knights were bogged down in the mud from the rain-swollen river, making them easy pickings for archers, how Valenta's brilliant strategies were made possible by tired troops searching the valley for a place to rest out of the rain and finding a hidden cave, how Gremaval's Illusion caused as much trouble for his side as for the enemy.

[Stangler]

Couple thoughts.

The idea of first level feats is really good IMO. The list is really solid and makes character creation more fun. It is also a solid increase in power which may bother some people but a clear increase in customization options which will please others.

Magic Initiate is really strong now and will be very common. Int based healing word on Wizards seems to be one of the most obvious options but there are plenty others. Shillelagh is another one that seems to benefit from the free stat association. Shield on Clerics will probably be common making spirit guardians really strong. Really too many good options to examine them all.

There are also a fair number of feats that have been changed but there opportunity cost is way lower so their value needs to be re-contextualized. Healer for example is now a way for a cleric to have a lot more backup healing at their disposal and stronger base healing. Combine that with every player potentially having a healing spell and low level healing should be plentiful.

Change to how critical hits work is incomplete IMO. I wouldn't even bother incorporating this change without more information.

The race changes seem like they are going in the right direction but are probably imbalanced. I do feel like the dwarf option feels more dwarf like and the capacity to start with +1 HP per level + toughness for another 2 can make for a fun combo right at level 1.

On the flip side going ardling/elf/tiefling with magic initiate can lead to a lot of innate spell casting.

I feel like the overall approach to races and backgrounds is significantly better than the base approach but there are issues with balance.

[MisterD]

"OK. You do not have arcana skill. And you want to roll to see what you can tell anything from the glowing runes on the wall."
"Yes"
"OK Roll. "
"I got a 20"
"Ok. They are total gibberish to you and do not look like anything you have read before"

[Luccan]

Honestly I don't like most of what I'm seeing. Homogenizing spell lists just make me want to delete entire classes if that's what they're gonna do (and I hate Primal as a spell source). I feel like Backgrounds actually became more confusing because they're like 50% of your pre-class build. I like 5e for the most part, none of this is pulling me to play the update. The crit success/fail on all rolls sucks

[x3n0n]

I sincerely hope that the people here (who are obviously very invested) give feedback via the survey at the beginning of September. If D&D is a game we love, then we should probably want the next revision to actually be good.

My 2c in random order.

Typographical indication of rules terms vs English words: Yes, thank you. Keep it up.

Rolling a (1|20):
* Saving throws feels like a good change: they should all be possible to fail or succeed. Also reinforces the value of (Halfling) Luck and Lucky.
* Ability checks continue to be the most frustrating d20 to adjudicate as a DM and "guess at" as a player, and this is another manifestation. I agree that there needs to be player-facing guidance that reinforces the same flow we've discussed ad nauseam: a player describes intent, then the DM decides how to resolve, which may involve an ability check. The guidance in this document does not reinforce that.
* Negating NPC critical hits feels very strange. I don't expect this to stick, but I understand the rationale that says "it's miserable to lose a PC in a non-Deadly combat encounter, and that frequently happens at 1st/2nd level, typically due to a critical hit; let's avoid that". I don't think this is the right way to do it.

"reroll 1 and keep the second roll": fussy in automated rollers, fun at the table.

The concept of 1st-level feats (i.e. making a list of feats that only grant features appropriate to first-tier characters): fine.

The actual list of 1st-level feats: mostly fine. This feels like an appropriate power level.

Healer feat: hopefully D&Done's "Fast Hands" is compatible with the first bullet. Weaker than 5e's, but playing in a cool space (time-shifting hit dice).

Magic Initiate feat: really weird to mix and match spell lists with whatever ability score you want. Easy any-stat shillelagh feels very weird after we have gone through so many hoops to get it in 5e. Note no absorb elements in the lists at the end.

Lucky feat: I wish the glossary had Advantage/Disadvantage in it, since this is "Advantage after the roll", which didn't exist in 5e.

Races have actual special things instead of ability score modifiers: yes, good. These are probably not the best implementations, but they're all workable.

Dragonborn reversion from Fizban's: Why? Not enthusiastic.

"lazy" half-lineage: this is obviously fine mechanically and avoids munchkin min-maxing. It won't break your game, and your player will be happier than without it.

[Segev]

If Cap had high intelligence and training then Keltest's version ("you couldn't possibly understand this" (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?648909-quot-One-D-amp-D-quot-Playtest-going-live/page4&p=25554021#post25554021)) likely wouldn't apply. But again, that determination (do they have the intelligence and training to possibly understand this) occurs before the roll is called for.

Determining whether a check is possible happens before asking for a roll, every single time.

How close must Captain America's intelligence be to Dr. Strange's in order to allow Cap to try the roll, rather than being told "you can't possibly?"

[MisterD]

One issue I have with backgrounds on first glance is the set language.
I come from a town with no dwarves. In fact, I have never seen a dwarf till I started adventuring but for some reason I can speak Dwarven. Why?

[Psyren]

RE: Primal Spells - Hunter's Mark on a moon druid is going to be pretty nuts.

Does this mean druids will get the arrow spells like Swift Quiver and Cordon? Or will those be baked into the Ranger directly somehow?


How close must Captain America's intelligence be to Dr. Strange's in order to allow Cap to try the roll, rather than being told "you can't possibly?"

It depends; presumably when I placed those runes in the world I had an idea for how much training and talent they would require to decipher, just like I would designing any other challenge. If I had two Int-based characters with Arcana proficiency I'd be likely to let them both roll however, they made those choices for their characters after all.

[Keltest]

I sincerely hope that the people here (who are obviously very invested) give feedback via the survey at the beginning of September. If D&D is a game we love, then we should probably want the next revision to actually be good.

At this point, I've cynically decided that they're set on a direction that I am fundamentally opposed to, and the only way I can convince them to listen to me at this point is voting with my wallet. Dragonlance may well be the last book I buy from them, and even that is going to depend heavily on the reviews of it I read I think, based on the UA for it they had.

[Luccan]

One issue I have with backgrounds on first glance is the set language.
I come from a town with no dwarves. In fact, I have never seen a dwarf till I started adventuring but for some reason I can speak Dwarven. Why?

They want you to build your own backgrounds really badly. I assume after the new PHB they're gonna stop including backgrounds, based on what I've heard about backgrounds in the newer books

[Brookshw]

My hot take:
This OneD&D thing is based on a marketing and economic model (the Great Whale Hunt, part II, with part I being M:tG) more than it's a game model.


Concur. I also expect they'll revisit the OGL (and/or terminate, not-renew, etc. any applicable existing agrerments) to exclude 3rd party VTTs, why share the cake if you can have the whole thing. Curious if they bake some of the digital costs into products going forward across the board, making people who just want physical copies bear some of the cost for the digital environment.

[Warder]

I sincerely hope that the people here (who are obviously very invested) give feedback via the survey at the beginning of September. If D&D is a game we love, then we should probably want the next revision to actually be good.

My own investment in D&D has really faded, honestly. I used to fill out every survey meticulously but after years of doing that - and seeing the opposite of what I wanted come out of the products anyway - WotC has successfully convinced me that the game they're making may be for everyone, but it's not for me. So no, I don't think I'll spend the hour or so required to fill out the upcoming survey. It's far more productive to just play something else, I think.

[Stangler]

RE: Primal Spells - Hunter's Mark on a moon druid is going to be pretty nuts.

Does this mean druids will get the arrow spells like Swift Quiver and Cordon? Or will those be baked into the Ranger directly somehow?



It depends; presumably when I placed those runes in the world I had an idea for how much training and talent they would require to decipher, just like I would designing any other challenge. If I had two Int-based characters with Arcana proficiency I'd be likely to let them both roll however, they made those choices for their characters after all.

They don't say druids get all the primal spells. These groupings are for the feats earlier in the article.


SPELLLISTS There are now three main Spell lists in the game: Arcane, Divine, and Primal. In future Unearthed Arcana articles, we’ll show how Classes use these lists and how a Class or Subclass might gain Spells from another list. The lists here go through 1st level to support some of the Races and Feats in this document. The lists currently include Spells only from the 2014 Player’s Handbook.

[Psyren]

Concur. I also expect they'll revisit the OGL (and/or terminate, not-renew, etc. any applicable existing agrerments) to exclude 3rd party VTTs, why share the cake if you can have the whole thing. Curious if they bake some of the digital costs into products going forward across the board, making people who just want physical copies bear some of the cost for the digital environment.

They might prevent 3rd-party VTTs and bots from connecting directly to D&D Beyond, but as long as they're still making physical books I don't really see how they can prevent you from playing the game on a VTT in any way. A VTT is just a map/token renderer and a dice engine at its core, with maybe some bells and whistles for things like lighting and effects.

[Keltest]

They might prevent 3rd-party VTTs and bots from connecting directly to D&D Beyond, but as long as they're still making physical books I don't really see how they can prevent you from playing the game on a VTT in any way. A VTT is just a map/token renderer and a dice engine at its core, with maybe some bells and whistles for things like lighting and effects.

Heck, even the dice engine is optional, frankly. I know my group uses real dice when we play on Roll20

[Brookshw]

They might prevent 3rd-party VTTs and bots from connecting directly to D&D Beyond, but as long as they're still making physical books I don't really see how they can prevent you from playing the game on a VTT in any way. A VTT is just a map/token renderer and a dice engine at its core, with maybe some bells and whistles for things like lighting and effects.

If it were using completely 3rd party content and was just a map, dice roller and tokens, sure, not much to be done. However, if it's emulating a substantial portion of D&D content it's drifting into derivative territory for which they could take action. My understanding of the big VTTs is that they have a lot of D&D content pre-loaded or purchasable through them, and are becoming increasingly designed to integrate 3rd party content. I don't use them and could be wrong, but from what I've seen in various adds, for Fantasy Grounds, I could definitely make a good case.

[Millstone85]

They don't say druids get all the primal spells. These groupings are for the feats earlier in the article.
SPELLLISTS There are now three main Spell lists in the game: Arcane, Divine, and Primal. In future Unearthed Arcana articles, we’ll show how Classes use these lists and how a Class or Subclass might gain Spells from another list. The lists here go through 1st level to support some of the Races and Feats in this document. The lists currently include Spells only from the 2014 Player’s Handbook.Additional information from the UA:

ARCANE SPELLS
An Arcane Spell draws on the ambient magic of the multiverse. Bards, Sorcerers, Warlocks, and Wizards harness this magic, as do Artificers. For a partial list of Arcane Spells, see the “Spell Lists” section later in this document.

DIVINE SPELLS
A Divine Spell draws on the power of gods and the Outer Planes. Clerics and Paladins harness this magic. For a partial list of Divine Spells, see the “Spell Lists” section later in this document.

PRIMAL SPELLS
A Primal Spell draws on the forces of nature and the Inner Planes. Druids and Rangers harness this magic. For a partial list of Primal Spells, see the “Spell Lists” section later in this document.
While it doesn't rule out the possibility of druid and ranger lists within the primal list, that in my opinion would be a return to the worst of 4e. If you have power sources, let them matter!

[Sception]

if I said my character was trying to do something, and the dm called for a roll, and I rolled a 20, and they said I failed anyway, I would feel railroaded and condescended to. If I rolled a 1 and still succeeded, I would feel like the dm had wasted a few peconds of game time. not as annoying, but still hardly good.

in a role playing game, the point of rolling dice is to adjudicate what happens in situations where the outcome is uncertain. if the outcome isn't uncertain, the dice have no business being involved.

[MisterD]

Another quick thought.

Critical hits are just the weapon damage being doubled. No more smites or sneak attack dice being doubled.

[Segev]

It depends; presumably when I placed those runes in the world I had an idea for how much training and talent they would require to decipher, just like I would designing any other challenge. If I had two Int-based characters with Arcana proficiency I'd be likely to let them both roll however, they made those choices for their characters after all.

So you'd gate it as "trained only." Why would you need 20s to auto-succeed and 1s to auto-fail? You obviously know the range of possible values that can and can't succeed, so set your DC there. After all, you tell me you don't need guidelines to set DCs because you know how hard everything should be, and with the advent of "trained only" gates, you can even keep out the riffraff who "shouldn't" succeed no matter how much natural talent they have. Set the DC such that they have the possibility of failure you want ,rather than so low that you need that "1" to provide any chance of failure, and low enough that they have the possibility of success you want, rather than so high that you need a "20" to auto-succeed to prevent you from having made an error in assigning it.

What good does auto-success and auto-failure do when you've gated it so that you don't need it to be hard to keep the uninitiated from even getting to roll?

[Millstone85]

Another quick thought.

Critical hits are just the weapon damage being doubled. No more smites or sneak attack dice being doubled.Critical hits are also now specific to weapons and unarmed strikes. Bye bye critical spells. :smallconfused:

[Psyren]

So you'd gate it as "trained only." Why would you need 20s to auto-succeed and 1s to auto-fail? You obviously know the range of possible values that can and can't succeed, so set your DC there.

If I'm calling for a d20 roll at all, meaning both failure and success are possibilities, then 20 was already guaranteed success and 1 was already guaranteed failure. Those are quite literally the bounds of that particular die, and therefore this hasn't actually changed anything.


if I said my character was trying to do something, and the dm called for a roll, and I rolled a 20, and they said I failed anyway, I would feel railroaded and condescended to. If I rolled a 1 and still succeeded, I would feel like the dm had wasted a few peconds of game time. not as annoying, but still hardly good.

in a role playing game, the point of rolling dice is to adjudicate what happens in situations where the outcome is uncertain. if the outcome isn't uncertain, the dice have no business being involved.

Exactly. That is still the paradigm in place.


If it were using completely 3rd party content and was just a map, dice roller and tokens, sure, not much to be done. However, if it's emulating a substantial portion of D&D content it's drifting into derivative territory for which they could take action. My understanding of the big VTTs is that they have a lot of D&D content pre-loaded or purchasable through them, and are becoming increasingly designed to integrate 3rd party content. I don't use them and could be wrong, but from what I've seen in various adds, for Fantasy Grounds, I could definitely make a good case.

True, but that's just for convenience. For example, rather than purchase the Tasha module from Roll20, you could recreate all the spells, feats, monsters and subclass features you're using from it by hand in your specific campaign.

...Nobody is going to do that of course, but you could.


The far more likely solution is the one they're doing now - the VTT sells you a module, and they kick the bulk of that back to WotC as a licensing fee.
Alternatively, they don't allow the VTT to store anything on their end anymore, but allow the VTT API to connect to their database through your (high-tier) DDB subscription, and so long as you maintain your sub, roll20 can read the content you have access to and render it over there while your session is running. If you cancel or downgrade, you and they lose access.

My point is that attempting to nuke all their competitors from orbit, on top of being both unlikely to work and hilariously bad PR, is unnecessary for them to make money.

[Lord Raziere]

Okay so...

its DnD 5e......with probably a more logical race set up all things considered? actual orc race and making the half-races more general makes sense to me.

the 1 and 20 thing seem to be capitalizing on the derpy meme crit rolls people I've seen lots of DnD players love, so they know their audience.

Ardling seems to them trying to make Aasimar-like race that are more like tieflings to cash in the tiefling popularity without understanding how or why. like they're going for this "animal head on human body" kind of deal and I don't think its going to get the results they want, unless they're going for "lol animal memehead race".

backgrounds..... build your own is sensible.

feats, looks like they're wanting to make sure each feat is significant?

the online stuff is probably the thing that really shoots them in the foot though. online platform warring never makes people happy.

[Keltest]

If I'm calling for a d20 roll at all, meaning both failure and success are possibilities, then 20 was already guaranteed success and 1 was already guaranteed failure. Those are quite literally the bounds of that particular die, and therefore this hasn't actually changed anything.

Off hand, again, if you call for the entire group to make a check (for example, everyone is searching a room), this isnt necessarily true. "Everybody make an investigation check. Except you Psyren, you can't find this anyway."

[Psyren]

Off hand, again, if you call for the entire group to make a check (for example, everyone is searching a room), this isnt necessarily true. "Everybody make an investigation check. Except you Psyren, you can't find this anyway."

The problem here is your example. "Searching a room" is generally not a scenario that is prima facie impossible for anyone, or requires substantial training to attempt.

But if instead the Investigation check were to, say, check a merchant's accounting manifest for irregularities, or query a database - yes, I would be comfortable gating those checks behind training and only letting certain individuals make the attempt.

In short, the key to avoiding offense is to craft reasonable scenarios. Not to throw out the tools the game rules give you.

[Keltest]

The problem here is your example. "Searching a room" is generally not a scenario that is prima facie impossible for anyone, or requires substantial training to attempt.

But if instead the Investigation check were to, say, check a merchant's accounting manifest for irregularities, or query a database - yes, I would be comfortable gating those checks behind training and only letting certain individuals make the attempt.

In short, the key to avoiding offense is to craft reasonable scenarios. Not to throw out the tools the game rules give you.

Right, so youre comfortable telling somebody "your character is too stupid to read this ledger."?

[Sception]

re: Ardling.

I don't dislike Ardlings in principle, but I don't think they're a great choice for the PHB. In PHB you want options which are most pure in the archetypes they represent. I don't mind new stuff, new is fine, but strong simple archetypes either way. For instance, Changeling as a shape-shifter race or Warforged as a construct race would fit even though they've never been PHB races before. Tieflings and Dragonborn were previous additions that fit well.

Ardlings are a bit muddled there. A divine/celestial race would fit, but in that case you would want it aesthetically to be more angelic. Basically take the exact same rules implementation, but call them Aasimar, and give them an angelic appearance (human-like, but golden or silver skin, glowing eyes, halo, etc etc).

On the other hand, an animal people race would absolutely be a great choice. Big overlap between the furry community and the D&D community, anthro characters have always had a place in the fantasy genre. But in that case, you'd want racial mechanics that fit their animalistic nature. claws, bites, climb speed, scent tracking, bunny hops, etc. Think Shifters, Tabaxi, Harengon - even Minotaurs, and the like. If I want to play a bull-guy character, I'm not going to be very satisfied with a race that theoretically has a bull's head, but all their racial mechanics are about divine spells and angelic flight.


Again, in and of themselves, I like Ardlings. I just think a more thematically focused alternative would be a better fit for a PHB race.

[Psyren]

Right, so youre comfortable telling somebody "your character is too stupid to read this ledger."?

Reading it is simply "do you know the language." Languages aren't skills.

However, being able to identify that Jarlaxle is smuggling weapons to Menzoberranzan royalty and disguising it as shipping ice peppers to Neverwinter - no, I wouldn't expect Krunk the barbarian who's never even seen a ledger to suss that detail out, and I'd be quite comfortable telling him so. No roll.

[Hael]

Reading through just a few pages, and the tone is absolutely nauseating. Long gone is the dark, sinister vibe {Scrubbed}, and in its stead we get something akin to Disney's Aladdin or some 2020 woke corporate take thereof.

This is not what people want. Its completely soulless.

[Zevox]

A question: I've seen references in here to changes to classes? Is there a publicly-available document on those, like the Character Origins one linked in the first post? Or is that a D&D-Beyond only thing right now?


Every corp seems use this "one" name. Amazon One, Google One, Zoom One, Microsoft OneDrive, Ubuntu One...now "OneDnD". Its just a name, but I automatically dislike it whether that's rational or not.
Agreed. That always sounds stupid to me - and if it weren't for D&D's naming conventions for pre-3E editions already being a bit confusing, would run the risk of people confusing it with First Edition. And "we're moving away from discrete editions" is just such obvious PR speak for "we want to release a new edition but are afraid to say it because people like the current one." Which is extra sad because, looking at the "Character Origins" document at least, this appears to be much more of a 5.5E than a 6E.

Anyway, looking through that Character Origins document, my thoughts on what I'm seeing:
- No more official Half-Elves or Half-Orcs, instead just "pick a race's stats, and mix and match physical features as you like" for half-breed characters is kind of lame, do not like that.
- I like how Humans work now, compared to the awkward Standard Humans vs Variant of before. Gaining Inspiration on a long rest I'm a bit iffy on, but eh, okay.
- Ardlings... where did these come from and why aren't they just using Aasimar? They're obviously supposed to fill that niche of Celestial-blooded humanoid, but for some reason they have animal heads? Unless you're going for a very Egyptian-themed game, I don't get that decision at all, and would much rather have Aasimar flavor-wise. Otherwise, fine enough I guess - although "Idyllic" should really probably get a different cantrip, unless Guidance has been nerfed, since as-is that alone would make them most people's default over the other two versions easily.
- Why did they make Dragonborn breath weapons suck again after finally making them decent in Fizban's? And why are they back to having so few traits and no subraces? I'd just stick with the Fizban's versions myself.
- I like all Dwarves getting Dwarven Toughness, and the new tremorsense feature, that's nice.
- Elves seem mostly the same, aside from losing the weapon proficiencies. Actually, come to think it, so did Dwarves. I guess racial weapon proficiencies are just no longer a thing? That's kind of sad.
- Gnomes, Halflings, and Orcs are fine. Glad to see Halfllings keep the Lucky feature, it's been my favorite part of playing one.
- Tieflings getting variations depending on the type of fiend they're descended from is nice, though it feels like Abyssal ones get screwed over with poison resistance and Poison Spray.
- I don't much like stat bonuses coming from Backgrounds at first glance, but the fact that the rules start with "here's how to build a custom background, you can use these example ones if you want" instead of saying that the existing backgrounds are the normal options and you can build a custom one if your DM allows makes it a bit better. Means you're not locked into, say, taking the Gladiator, Guard, or Soldier backgrounds if you want your Fighter to have a good Strength score. So I guess it works out okay, I just am not a fan of the concept on the surface.
- In general, the new way of doing Backgrounds seems fine, though the loss of the unique features for each is sad. They may not often come up, but when they do, they can add a lot to the game, I feel.
- The level 1 feats I mostly like, though a few stand out:
-- Crafter I do not like. 20% discount on all non-magical items is pretty big at level 1, but will become pointless by higher levels. And a 20% reduction to crafting time is just awkward and likely to annoy players who aren't good at math, should make it something easier like half.
-- Healer seems pretty awful? Or am I missing something?
-- Did they really make Lucky better? I mean, rewording it to just work as advantage/disadvantage removes the weird edge cases, but those are uses I don't think any reasonable DM was ever going to allow anyway, and now while it starts at only 2 uses, it'll end up with more uses than before.
-- Musician is neat, although I can't help feeling like it maybe cheapens inspiration too much.
-- Tavern Brawler is a lot better now. That Shove effect alone makes it look a lot more appealing, and may even make Monks consider it.
- Why aren't spell attacks included in Critical Hits anymore? Is that an intentional omission? if so, that's a change I'd ignore, for sure.
- Gaining Inspiration every time you roll a 20 definitely cheapens it, and I would not use that rule, personally.
- Why are Grapple and Shove just attack rolls now, instead of skill contests? I don't particularly like that idea.

All in all, I don't know. There's some stuff I like in there, but definitely also some things I don't, and all in all it is not selling me on this being a great re-work of things, personally. At least not just from that document.

[Psyren]

This is not what people want. Its completely soulless.

Hi there, I'm people. Pleasure to meet you!

[Keltest]

Reading it is simply "do you know the language." Languages aren't skills.

However, being able to identify that Jarlaxle is smuggling weapons to Menzoberranzan royalty and disguising it as shipping ice peppers to Neverwinter - no, I wouldn't expect Krunk the barbarian who's never even seen a ledger to suss that detail out, and I'd be quite comfortable telling him so. No roll.

So why aren't you comfortable with letting Krunk rolling for that 1 in 20 chance? Do you think he's totally incapable of that unusual (for him) insight? And why do you think its not going to feel bad to be directly told "youre too stupid to read this ledger"?

[Hael]

Hi there, I'm people. Pleasure to meet you!

Aha, a member of the focus group I see =)

But very well, I walk that statement back.

[Kane0]

A couple of things there im not a fan of, but overall nothing i'm going to die on a hill over. Seems serviceable.

[Psyren]

So why aren't you comfortable with letting Krunk rolling for that 1 in 20 chance? Do you think he's totally incapable of that unusual (for him) insight? And why do you think its not going to feel bad to be directly told "youre too stupid to read this ledger"?

1) "You don't have the training necessary for this check" is what I would actually say. Is that somehow wrong?

2) The whole point is that not everything has a 1 in 20 chance. You don't have a 1 in 20 chance of reaching the moon when you jump, and Krunk doesn't have a 1 in 20 chance of learning accounting whenever he reads a ledger.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Reading through just a few pages, and the tone is absolutely nauseating. Long gone is the dark, sinister vibe {Scrub the post, scrub the quote}, and in its stead we get something akin to Disney's Aladdin or some 2020 woke corporate take thereof.

This is not what people want. Its completely soulless.

Personally I think many of these changes are positives, it's nice to find something to be happy about in a hobby I enjoy.


A question: I've seen references in here to changes to classes? Is there a publicly-available document on those, like the Character Origins one linked in the first post? Or is that a D&D-Beyond only thing right now?
At the moment any changes to classes are pure speculation.

[Luccan]

At the moment any changes to classes are pure speculation.

Presumably there will be, but it'd be nice to see those sooner than later

[Sception]

Exactly. That is still the paradigm in place.

I agree, but trying to be mechanically prescriptive in the implementation of that is a mistake in my opinion. there are times when DCs less than 5 or more than 30 might still be appropriate for checks, and on the other hand there are /many/ times when DCs between 5 and 30 aren't. Furthermore, what actions are appropriate to involve a dice based chance of success or failure will vary greatly based on the character attempting the action, and will vary even more based on the style and flavor of the individual campaign being played. A grittier, more serious campaign is going to say more things are automatic successes or failure because an unexpected failure or success would break the serious tone. A wackier, more comedic game, however, is going to have more fun with unexpected successes or failures.

Somebody earlier in the thread mentioned versimilitude being broken when the strong barbarian fails to lift the gate then the weak wizard rolls good and succeeds. Yeah, there are going to be games where that will break the immersion and the DM shouldn't even be calling for dice in that situation, they should just give the gate a weight and characters can lift the gate if they can deadlift something that heavy, which uses the encumbrance rules and is a flat can/can't situation, no rolls involved. The strong barbarian just can lift the gate. The weak wizard just can't. You describe the scene and move on and never entertain the notion that the ridiculous opposite could happen.

But in a more comedic game, the barbarian heaving at the gate, rolling a 1, and throwing their back out, before the wizard steps up, rolls a 20, and hoists it up above their head, then that could be a fun and memorable role playing moment. The wizard cheekily sticks their tongue out, the barbarian grumbles "well I loosened it for you", and everybody has a good time. If later they stumble into the ritual chamber, and the wizard looks at the glowing runes, and says "I've never seen anything like this before, they're meaning is a complete mystery" and then the barbarian says "nah that's a warning in old elvish. What? I saw it in a picture book when I was little" again, for some games that's a fun moment that the party will enjoy being possible, however unlikely, while in another campaign it would break the tone, so it shouldn't be left up to the dice at all.


Which is what I think these rules are aiming at, but again 'DC <5 / DC>30' isn't the way to do it. It should be a soft thing determined by the DM, with advice in the DM guide about when you should call for die rolls, when you shoudling, and how that decision can impact the tone of your game.

[Keltest]

1) "You don't have the training necessary for this check" is what I would actually say. Is that somehow wrong?

Sure. Not everything is training gated, although if you were actually gating it behind proficiency then that would presumably at least be something the group presumably agreed on up front. But you'll let the equally-untrained-yet-somewhat-more-talented wizard make the check?


2) The whole point is that not everything has a 1 in 20 chance. You don't have a 1 in 20 chance of reaching the moon when you jump, and Krunk doesn't have a 1 in 20 chance of learning accounting whenever he reads a ledger.

But the wizard, who also knows nothing about accounting, can magically generate the knowledge because he has a bigger int score then?

And I wish you would drop the moon example, because that's going to be equally impossible for everyone. You arent excluding one person based on largely arbitrary constraints based off your understanding of his build. I also have separate problems with making it the DM's responsibility to keep track of everyone's bonuses and proficiencies. DM's hardly need more work to make the game run. Its especially jarring if the barbarian got proficiency in arcana (ie actual training) but is still excluded because he still has a net -1 penalty on the basis of his lack of training.

[Hael]

So right off the bat, the background design makes no sense and is completely extraneous.

If you tie ability scores and feat choice to the background, and add absolutely no other incentive or ribbon to the background, then everyone will simply customize the background and the entire section is basically 'blah blah blah invent your own thing'. Alternatively you don't allow people to customize their background, but then everyone will pick the best mechanical choice and we are back to everyone being sailors, only this time it will be much worse.

The right choice is to make ASI and feat choice a separate thing, where backgrounds have small mechanical benefits that are largely ribbons but that might turn up in fun ways as plot devices (like the noble background).

[Zevox]

At the moment any changes to classes are pure speculation.
Are you certain? There was at least one poster who was making comments on them as if he'd seen them (goes and finds it):


My god, they re-ruined dragonborn, made rogue completely unusable, nerfed paladin into the dirt and made halflings the most boring race in the game

[Dienekes]

So right off the bat, the background design makes no sense and is completely extraneous.

If you tie ability scores and feat choice to the background, and add absolutely no other incentive or ribbon to the background, then everyone will simply customize the background and the entire section is basically 'blah blah blah invent your own thing'. Alternatively you don't allow people to customize their background, but then everyone will pick the best mechanical choice and we are back to everyone being sailors, only this time it will be much worse.

The right choice is to make ASI and feat choice a separate thing, where backgrounds have small mechanical benefits that are largely ribbons but that might turn up in fun ways as plot devices (like the noble background).

I mean... the latter is kinda how they do it. Backgrounds are a small mechanical benefit that is mostly ribbons.

Oh and you also gain ASI and a free feat.

It doesn't really have to be packaged all together. I think the only real benefit they have for doing so is that they're able to go "Hey, buddy. I see you're new to the game. Don't know what to take? It's ok. I got you. Just pick this one right here. Yeah, isn't that nice? You'll be off killing kobolds in no time." And wrap all it up for new players.

[Psyren]

Sure. Not everything is training gated, although if you were actually gating it behind proficiency then that would presumably at least be something the group presumably agreed on up front. But you'll let the equally-untrained-yet-somewhat-more-talented wizard make the check?

But the wizard, who also knows nothing about accounting, can magically generate the knowledge because he has a bigger int score then?


That depends on the check. In this particular example, it's possible that the wizards general mathematical knowledge might allow them to notice that something doesn't add up, even if they lack the training to uncover everything. Similarly, the rogue might have a chance of knowing it's common practice for smugglers to disguise illegal goods as a commodity that local officials are unlikely to inspect. But Krunk having neither path to viability in this instance is reasonable; no roll.



And I wish you would drop the moon example, because that's going to be equally impossible for everyone.

Somersault over an ogre then. I'd be fine with the monk or barbarian trying and telling the wizard no.

The wizard does not have a 5% chance of succeeding at that, it's simply impossible.

[Keltest]

That depends on the check. In this particular example, it's possible that the wizards general mathematical knowledge might allow them to notice that something doesn't add up, even if they lack the training to uncover everything. Similarly, the rogue might have a chance of knowing it's common practice for smugglers to disguise illegal goods as a commodity that local officials are unlikely to inspect. But Krunk having neither path to viability in this instance is reasonable; no roll.



Somersault over an ogre then. I'd be fine with the monk or barbarian trying and telling the wizard no.

And you still dont think its a problem where now you have told somebody "you have a 1 in 20 chance of success regardless of aptitude, unless the DM decides you dont get to try at all."?

[Dienekes]

Somersault over an ogre then. I'd be fine with the monk or barbarian trying and telling the wizard no.

Difference in DMing style. I have usually gone for "You can try." And then just straight telling them they fail and the knock on effects that happen because of their failure.

Mind you the bigger issue is bounded accuracy itself, since unless you're continuously throwing DC 20 - 30 at your party there's quite a lot that is well within the range of the completely incompetent and untrained.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Are you certain? There was at least one poster who was making comments on them as if he'd seen them (goes and finds it):

This is in reference to Critical Hits being changed.

CRITICAL HITS

Weapons and Unarmed Strikes* have a special feature for player characters: Critical Hits. If a player character rolls a 20 for an attack roll with a Weapon or an Unarmed Strike, the attack is also a Critical Hit, which means it deals extra damage to the target; you roll the damage dice of the Weapon or Unarmed Strike a second time and add the second roll as extra damage to the target. For example, a Mace deals Bludgeoning Damage equal to 1d6 + your Strength modifier. If you score a Critical Hit with the Mace, it instead deals 2d6 + your Strength modifier. If your Weapon or Unarmed Strike has no damage dice, it deals no extra damage on a Critical Hit.

Instead of doubling the dice rolled, it simply has you roll the weapons damage die again.

We can only speculate on whether features remain unchanged or are changed to go along with this. If you use the playtest documents right now though, Divine Smite and Sneak Attack are no longer affected by critical hits.

And, to be frank, the comment is really blowing it out of proportion. Rogues are certainly more hurt by it than a Paladin is but I don't think either class is "completely unusable" or "nerfed into the dirt".


Presumably there will be, but it'd be nice to see those sooner than later
Oh, absolutely, there will be changes to classes without question. I agree as well, the sooner the better. We've only been given 2/3 of the core of character creation at this point.

[Psyren]

And you still dont think its a problem where now you have told somebody "you have a 1 in 20 chance of success regardless of aptitude, unless the DM decides you dont get to try at all."?

Krunk does not have a 1 in 20 chance of success. He lacks the training to have any chance of success.

[Hael]

I mean... the latter is kinda how they do it. Backgrounds are a small mechanical benefit that is mostly ribbons.


Backgrounds was one of the things 5e did very well with a few exceptions (sailor/outlander and a few others that were a little too strong). That we weren't compelled to take them for mechanical reasons was a good thing.

A fully customized version (which is what we will get in practice) will likely mean a few less plot devices as we won't have those interesting ribbon like features (for instance that acolytes can get free healing at random temples or somesuch)

[Keltest]

Krunk does not have a 1 in 20 chance of success. He lacks the training to have any chance of success.

So instead youre telling people that the automatic success rule is actually meaningless, because any situation where it would be useful they wont be allowed to interact with it at all instead? Is that intended to be better? Because now youre actually basically just lying to your players.

[Stangler]

Additional information from the UA:

While it doesn't rule out the possibility of druid and ranger lists within the primal list, that in my opinion would be a return to the worst of 4e. If you have power sources, let them matter!

That is obviously not the worst of 4e. It is hard to know exactly how they will use these sources but the idea that they have to make them matter and therefor classes get the entire list doesn't make sense. IT would be a massive design limitation to creating the sources.

[Psyren]

So instead youre telling people that the automatic success rule is actually meaningless, because any situation where it would be useful they wont be allowed to interact with it at all instead? Is that intended to be better? Because now youre actually basically just lying to your players.

The automatic success rule does not come into play unless I ask for a roll, remember?

[EggKookoo]

We can only speculate on whether features remain unchanged or are changed to go along with this. If you use the playtest documents right now though, Divine Smite and Sneak Attack are no longer affected by critical hits.

It's entirely possible that Sneak Attack has a rider that makes it eligible for critical damage, or has its own crit rules. We'll find out...

[Sigreid]

They might prevent 3rd-party VTTs and bots from connecting directly to D&D Beyond, but as long as they're still making physical books I don't really see how they can prevent you from playing the game on a VTT in any way. A VTT is just a map/token renderer and a dice engine at its core, with maybe some bells and whistles for things like lighting and effects.

The VTT I use is pretty in depth with all the rules embedded and it does a lot of the heavy lifting. I payed for the licensed WoTC content and I'll be pissed if they mess with it.

[Keltest]

The automatic success rule does not come into play unless I ask for a roll, remember?

Right, and you arent asking for a roll anywhere that a player needs an automatic success to succeed, so youre actually telling players "You always have at least a 1 in 20 chance to succeed or fail, unless I decide I dont like that and wont let you roll."

[Segev]

If I'm calling for a d20 roll at all, meaning both failure and success are possibilities, then 20 was already guaranteed success and 1 was already guaranteed failure. Those are quite literally the bounds of that particular die, and therefore this hasn't actually changed anything.

Then you're declaring that your way of running it is the One True Way?

Because I know a great many DMs who, while they will only call for a roll under the appropriate circumstances, will also permit those who literally cannot make it to fail, and those who literally cannot fail to make it.

This does illuminate half of the reason why you disagree with me so vehemently about the need for guidelines in ability checks. Though it doesn't illuminate why you feel that I am wrong for assigning DCs differently than you would, even though my assignments are no more or less arbitrary than yours.


In the end, I feel tasks have DCs, rather than PCs having individualized DCs for various tasks.

[Zevox]

This is in reference to Critical Hits being changed.


Instead of doubling the dice rolled, it simply has you roll the weapons damage die again.

We can only speculate on whether features remain unchanged or are changed to go along with this. If you use the playtest documents right now though, Divine Smite and Sneak Attack are no longer affected by critical hits.

And, to be frank, the comment is really blowing it out of proportion. Rogues are certainly more hurt by it than a Paladin is but I don't think either class is "completely unusable" or "nerfed into the dirt".
Ah, I see, I missed that part of the new Critical Hits description, since the first thing that jumped out to me about it was the omission of spell attacks instead. Though personally my group already disallows Sneak Attack from doubling on crits, since otherwise Rogue crits are just always insane, so that wouldn't be a change for us. Not allowing other sources of bonus damage to double does kind of suck though, I don't think I'd want to go with that personally.

And yeah, major overreaction on his part, I'd agree.

[Segev]

This is in reference to Critical Hits being changed.


Instead of doubling the dice rolled, it simply has you roll the weapons damage die again.

We can only speculate on whether features remain unchanged or are changed to go along with this. If you use the playtest documents right now though, Divine Smite and Sneak Attack are no longer affected by critical hits.

And, to be frank, the comment is really blowing it out of proportion. Rogues are certainly more hurt by it than a Paladin is but I don't think either class is "completely unusable" or "nerfed into the dirt".

If I trusted this dev team, I'd say we should wait and see what the new balance looks like. Sadly, their performance for the last several years means I do not trust them to know "balance" or "fun" if either were to jump out and say "surprise!" to them.

[Leon]

One hot mess sums this up

[Psyren]

Right, and you arent asking for a roll anywhere that a player needs an automatic success to succeed, so youre actually telling players "You always have at least a 1 in 20 chance to succeed or fail, unless I decide I dont like that and wont let you roll."

If I'm asking for a roll at all, of course there is at least a 1 in 20 chance of success or failure. Those are the bounds of the 20-sided die. That doesn't mean I will ask for a roll when success or failure is guaranteed.


Then you're declaring that your way of running it is the One True Way?

I'm following the guidance on DMG 237. So long as success is not impossible and failure is not guaranteed, a roll is appropriate; in this specific scenario, failure is guaranteed for Krunk due to his lack of training.



Because I know a great many DMs who, while they will only call for a roll under the appropriate circumstances, will also permit those who literally cannot make it to fail, and those who literally cannot fail to make it.

You mean you'll call for a roll for something you knew was impossible, and say it failed even if they rolled a natural 20?

Because that is... not something I would do. Ever.

[Stangler]

re: Ardling.

I don't dislike Ardlings in principle, but I don't think they're a great choice for the PHB. In PHB you want options which are most pure in the archetypes they represent. I don't mind new stuff, new is fine, but strong simple archetypes either way. For instance, Changeling as a shape-shifter race or Warforged as a construct race would fit even though they've never been PHB races before. Tieflings and Dragonborn were previous additions that fit well.

Ardlings are a bit muddled there. A divine/celestial race would fit, but in that case you would want it aesthetically to be more angelic. Basically take the exact same rules implementation, but call them Aasimar, and give them an angelic appearance (human-like, but golden or silver skin, glowing eyes, halo, etc etc).

On the other hand, an animal people race would absolutely be a great choice. Big overlap between the furry community and the D&D community, anthro characters have always had a place in the fantasy genre. But in that case, you'd want racial mechanics that fit their animalistic nature. claws, bites, climb speed, scent tracking, bunny hops, etc. Think Shifters, Tabaxi, Harengon - even Minotaurs, and the like. If I want to play a bull-guy character, I'm not going to be very satisfied with a race that theoretically has a bull's head, but all their racial mechanics are about divine spells and angelic flight.


Again, in and of themselves, I like Ardlings. I just think a more thematically focused alternative would be a better fit for a PHB race.

I think you kind of touch on some of the reasons why it makes sense as a base option for a PHB. It opens the door to all animal/human hybrids without having to get into specifics regarding the animal. It is a way for them to allow way more flexibility by the player and all in one race without having to design a race for every animal out there. They can still create the more common ones like cat or rabbit or whatever but for everything else players have this option.

[Brookshw]

True, but that's just for convenience. For example, rather than purchase the Tasha module from Roll20, you could recreate all the spells, feats, monsters and subclass features you're using from it by hand in your specific campaign.

...Nobody is going to do that of course, but you could.. Well, no, they couldn't: (1) not all content is available under the OGL; and (2) Haaave you met DMCA?


The far more likely solution is the one they're doing now - the VTT sells you a module, and they kick the bulk of that back to WotC as a licensing fee.
Alternatively, they don't allow the VTT to store anything on their end anymore, but allow the VTT API to connect to their database through your (high-tier) DDB subscription, and so long as you maintain your sub, roll20 can read the content you have access to and render it over there while your session is running. If you cancel or downgrade, you and they lose access.

My point is that attempting to nuke all their competitors from orbit, on top of being both unlikely to work and hilariously bad PR, is unnecessary for them to make money.

They try to kill all their competitors in the cradle. Per Ryan Dancy (WoTC VP and co-creator of the OGL), "reducing the 'cost' to other people to publishing and supporting core [D&D] game to zero should eventually drive support for all other game systems to the lowest level possible in the market, create customer resistance to the introduction of new systems, and...steadily increase the number of people who play D&D, thus driving sales of the core books". They don't want competitors of any type, and now they're developing a product that would make many VTTs competitors. License back works fine for now, when they don't have an up and running VTT, but once they do, that's a completely different matter.

I'm sure that you're right there's a breakeven point for them between bad PR and direct sales, but their strategic actions so far do not, in my mind, suggest they'll continue to support 3rd party VTTs once they're competitors, and it wouldn't take much change to the OGL to shut off the pipeline to 3rd party VTTs (possibly even driving people who want to publish under the OGL to use D&D Beyond to do so).

There's a number of different ways I can imagine this playing out, but none of them would be good for VTTs. My two cents anyway.

[ProsecutorGodot]

If I trusted this dev team, I'd say we should wait and see what the new balance looks like. Sadly, their performance for the last several years means I do not trust them to know "balance" or "fun" if either were to jump out and say "surprise!" to them.

From your perspective, perhaps. From my own perspective, the changes (including those last several years) are largely positive and I only have a handful of complaints, though most are fairly major when I do find them worth complaining. If it turns out that I don't like the class changes when we have them that would also adjust my opinion on this current playtest document.

It's very typical for some to just not grow with the medium. I don't mean that negatively. Just keep in mind the hobby moving in a different direction than you like isn't automatically a sign of incompetence from the designers.

I've been having fun with it, fun is subjective and I find it incredibly indescribably frustrating when it's cited as an objective statement. Balance, however is something that I pretty much agree has taken a deep dive off a tall cliff.

[Psyren]

. Well, no, they couldn't: (1) not all content is available under the OGL; and (2) Haaave you met DMCA?


I'm not talking about the VTT publishing it if told not to, that would obviously be verboten. I'm talking about an individual playgroup putting a character token in their game, saying "this represents Jim's Wildfire Druid" and then keeping all the rules references associated with Wildfire Druid offline in their books.

[Brookshw]

I'm not talking about the VTT publishing it if told not to, that would obviously be verboten. I'm talking about an individual playgroup putting a character token in their game, saying "this represents Jim's Wildfire Druid" and then keeping all the rules references associated with Wildfire Druid offline in their books.

Token sure, putting rules into the system would be a whole different story, even if it were the users, that's what I understood you meaning by "recreate". Chalk it up to a miscommunication I guess.

[Dork_Forge]

I run heavily in Roll20 and don't own sourcebooks in it. I just enter it for any spells, features, etc. not in the SRD. It's a pain in the butt sometimes, but I'm not made of money and there are accurate sources you can copy and paste from. Since I do own the content, multiple times in some instances, I have no issue making it easier to access for myself and my players.

How the crits things affects things: You could very feasibly boost a character to success even with a 1 on the die. That would now be impossible. Despite such vigorous defense, it is fundamentally different.

This is a team game, making crit failures and successes universal just craps on team support features and makes it awkward for DMs to set challenges, as the DC is no longer the sole decider.

[Khrysaes]

True, but that's just for convenience. For example, rather than purchase the Tasha module from Roll20, you could recreate all the spells, feats, monsters and subclass features you're using from it by hand in your specific campaign.

...Nobody is going to do that of course, but you could.


I actually did this when I only had physical copies of some books.
I recreated every race, subrace, subclass, background, feat, magic item, monster, etc from any source I didn't own on D&D beyond at the time in April 2020.

Mainly so that people I play with can access the resources we physically had in the digital environment.

I have since then bought most of the sources on D&D beyond.

[Sigreid]

Token sure, putting rules into the system would be a whole different story, even if it were the users, that's what I understood you meaning by "recreate". Chalk it up to a miscommunication I guess.

I don't think there'd be any issue with me manually coding things into Fantasy Grounds for my own game with the assets just on my computer since I would have to purchase the content to do that anyway. Pretty sure that's fair use. It's distributing that gets you in trouble.

[Khrysaes]

Ardling seems to them trying to make Aasimar-like race that are more like tieflings to cash in the tiefling popularity without understanding how or why. like they're going for this "animal head on human body" kind of deal and I don't think its going to get the results they want, unless they're going for "lol animal memehead race".


I believe it I Guardinals? Animal themed NG Celestials.

So if Aasimar named after Aasimon which are 2E LG Celestials, also called Angels
Ardlings from Guardinals, NG Animalistic Celestials,
Tieflings from Fiends

[False God]

See this is why the video is important :smallbiggrin:
I had about 5 minutes, color me lazy.


Ardlings are not Aasimar, both still exist. Ardlings have animal heads (they are patterned off of celestial creatures like Guardinals or Hound Archons or Noviere) while Aasimar look like angels.
Ah, missed that, but I still don't see Aasimar in the doc. Admittedly I skimmed because I didn't see anything that stood out to me as strikingly NEW. I'm not sure why the playtest doc would add Ardling who are ostensibly Aasimar with funny heads, and drop Aasimar themselves.


Seems like "Lolthite Drow" vs. "Drow" captures that just fine.
More video? I didn't see that in the doc.
To elaborate, all the other flavors of elf come with generic monikers "high elf", "wood elf" and lack setting or tribe-specific names like Drow, hence my preference for "dark elves".


Depending on which parent you select traits from, the half-races may lack it too.
And by the same measure, depending on your parent you might have it. But that's not my point.

I dislike Darkvision because it eliminates certain types of games and gameplay. It's fine when one or two party members have it, but when 3 or 4 start having it, it starts to be problematic. But this isn't a change from 5E, so it's only a complaint that I enjoy those sorts of games but dislike the spread of darkvision and really wish there were more modes of lighting to work with. Which is simply a complaint for a more granular optional ruleset. I fully realize "fear of the dark" games are not the primary sthick of D&D.


I actually hate darkvision so much I removed it from all races.
I find it appropriate for Dwarves and Drow(as they live underground, but I would balance with sunlight sensitivity), Dragonborn and Tieflings (due to their ancestry, no balance they have other issues). The rest, not so much.

[Millstone85]

That is obviously not the worst of 4e. It is hard to know exactly how they will use these sources but the idea that they have to make them matter and therefor classes get the entire list doesn't make sense. IT would be a massive design limitation to creating the sources.Alright, the worst of 4e was having entirely non-overlapping power lists and wasting pages and pages of the PHB on each class' powers. But it really made me hate seeing arcane magic splintered between classes.

Anyway, I found something else, in the video at 46:20 (https://youtu.be/mOQ_Exh0DmY?t=2780)

Now people will have to wait for upcoming UAs to see how classes use those lists, because classes are gonna use those lists but classes are also going to have access to spells that go beyond those universal lists. But again that's for future us to talk about.

It sounds like there will be a druid list, but instead of being a fraction of the primal list it might instead be the full primal list plus other spells.

[Argis13]

My 2 cents on critical successes on skill checks/saves:

I don't like it because it can provide metagame information, and has a tendency to place more work on the DM to maintain verisimilitude.

The metagame info comes from a situation like this: A corrupt guard is standing outside the princess's bedroom. The PC (son to local nobility) has an appointment with the princess. However, the princess was poisoned by the evil vizier.

Guard: Sorry, you can't come in. Princess Wetherbella has changed her mind.
PC: I attempt to convince the guard to let me in to talk to the princess.

The Guard isn't convincible: He would be implicated in murder and quickly captured.

Under the old system the Player could roll a Persuasion check, even though it's impossible, and would just assume that the DC is too high. In the new system, they can't be allowed to roll. So, when they later find the Princess dead, they have metagame information about the guard. Some metagame info is inevitable, but this requires additional skill from the DM to keep metagame information from leaking out. To expand on this point, you can't expect perfect calls for rolls from all DMs: people will call for rolls without thinking, because they're humans. Now that the system has encoded nat20 = success or nat1 = failure, when the DM calls for a bad roll, now they either have the choice to make something silly happen, which can damage verisimilitude and require extra work to keep the scenario engaging, or walk back the roll, which would make the players feel cheated.

Finally, there's this point:

If you're the kind of table that never calls for a roll that you can't either succeed or fail at, this doesn't affect you at all.

If you're the kind of table that sometimes calls for impossible rolls, this makes the system less fun for you.

There's no table where that this rule helps, except for the rare table that will learn to love the "no impossible rolls" rule, which is likely a rather small percentage.

Edit: Spellcheck

[Dork_Forge]

My 2 cents on critical successes on skill checks/saves:

I don't like it because it can provide metagame information, and has a tendency to place more work on the DM to maintain verisimilitude.

The metagame info comes from a situation like this: A corrupt guard is standing outside the princess's bedroom. The PC (son to local nobility) has an appointment with the princess. However, the princess was poisoned by the evil vizier.

Guard: Sorry, you can't come in. Princess Wetherbella has changed her mind.
PC: I attempt to convince the guard to let me in to talk to the princess.

The Guard isn't conceivable: He would be implicated in murder and quickly captured.

Under the old system the Player could roll a Persuasion check, even though it's impossible, and would just assume that the DC is too high. In the new system, they can't be allowed to roll. So, when they later find the Princess dead, they have metagame information about the guard. Some metagame info is inevitable, but this requires additional skill from the DM to keep metagame information from leaking out. To expand on this point, you can't expect perfect calls for rolls from all DMs: people will call for rolls without thinking, because they're humans. Now that the system has encoded nat20 = success or nat1 = failure, when the DM calls for a bad roll, now they either have the choice to make something silly happen, which can damage verisimilitude and require extra work to keep the scenario engaging, or walk back the roll, which would make the players feel cheated.

Finally, there's this point:

If you're the kind of table that never calls for a roll that you can't either succeed or fail at, this doesn't affect you at all.

If you're the kind of table that sometimes calls for impossible rolls, this makes the system less fun for you.

There's no table where that this rule helps, except for the rare table that will learn to love the "no impossible rolls" rule, which is likely a rather small percentage.

I like how you put this, this doesn't really benefit anyone, it just complicates things.

Edit: Does it feel weird to anyone else they made such a huge announcement right after a product release? This is going to completely drown Spelljammer stuff.

[Khrysaes]

That is obviously not the worst of 4e. It is hard to know exactly how they will use these sources but the idea that they have to make them matter and therefor classes get the entire list doesn't make sense. IT would be a massive design limitation to creating the sources.

I would rather have designs withing constraints that allow for meaningful choices to affect spell lists, rather than what I feel like is now where any class can get any/every spell through added power creep. I know that is not actually the case, and there are some spells limited to each class, but it doesn't feel that way when the most commonly used ones almost everyone can get.

[Psyren]

Ah, missed that, but I still don't see Aasimar in the doc.

Aasimar are in MPMM and thus already got updated. They are not going to be a core race.



More video? I didn't see that in the doc.

Drow are in the doc, therefore Drow will be core, therefore not all Drow will worship Lolth. Simple enough.



The Guard isn't convincible: He would be implicated in murder and quickly captured.

Under the old system the Player could roll a Persuasion check, even though it's impossible, and would just assume that the DC is too high.

I seriously don't understand why anyone would do/allow this under either system.

Also - the player should be saying "I try to persuade him" - not "I roll a Persuasion check." YOU should be asking for the check, not them.

[False God]

My 2 cents on critical successes on skill checks/saves:

I don't like it because it can provide metagame information, and has a tendency to place more work on the DM to maintain verisimilitude.

The metagame info comes from a situation like this: A corrupt guard is standing outside the princess's bedroom. The PC (son to local nobility) has an appointment with the princess. However, the princess was poisoned by the evil vizier.

Guard: Sorry, you can't come in. Princess Wetherbella has changed her mind.
PC: I attempt to convince the guard to let me in to talk to the princess.

The Guard isn't conceivable: He would be implicated in murder and quickly captured.

Under the old system the Player could roll a Persuasion check, even though it's impossible, and would just assume that the DC is too high. In the new system, they can't be allowed to roll. So, when they later find the Princess dead, they have metagame information about the guard. Some metagame info is inevitable, but this requires additional skill from the DM to keep metagame information from leaking out. To expand on this point, you can't expect perfect calls for rolls from all DMs: people will call for rolls without thinking, because they're humans. Now that the system has encoded nat20 = success or nat1 = failure, when the DM calls for a bad roll, now they either have the choice to make something silly happen, which can damage verisimilitude and require extra work to keep the scenario engaging, or walk back the roll, which would make the players feel cheated.

Finally, there's this point:

If you're the kind of table that never calls for a roll that you can't either succeed or fail at, this doesn't affect you at all.

If you're the kind of table that sometimes calls for impossible rolls, this makes the system less fun for you.

There's no table where that this rule helps, except for the rare table that will learn to love the "no impossible rolls" rule, which is likely a rather small percentage.

I don't see the point in allowing players to roll checks they can't pass to begin with. The fact that a player wants to make a check doesn't mean a check must be made available to them. "The Guard is not interested in what you have to say, and ignores you." Is less telling than a player rolling exceptionally well or making multiple rolls and being told time and again "The Guard is not convinced." Regardless of the quality or approach of their argument.

I'd argue that players will still meta-suspect something is up with the guard regardless of which approach is used. But mostly because players will always meta-suspect something is up when things don't go their way.

[Person_Man]

I've literally been playing D&D since 1st edition. And I welcome new editions. But I wish they would just write a new edition and then play test it, rather than releasing the new rules piecemeal. Its a terrible way to write rules and/or laws and/or code. How are we supposed to judge if a rule is balanced and/or fun without seeing it in the context of everything else? It just leads to kneejerk reactions, which could shape playtest results and revised rules in a negative way.



Alright, the worst of 4e was having entirely non-overlapping power lists and wasting pages and pages of the PHB on each class' powers. But it really made me hate seeing arcane magic splintered between classes.

Agreed. I think of this as one of the "original sins" of 4E. If they allowed Powers to overlap between classes, and made every Power scale (rather than having 3 slightly better versions of each Power) the edition would have been much better. Instead, you got a phonebook of highly granular and mostly boring Powers. I strongly dislike subclasses in 5E for the same reasons. It makes things needlessly complex, makes the PHB way longer than it should be, and segregates useful/fun powers.

[Psyren]

I don't see the point in allowing players to roll checks they can't pass to begin with. The fact that a player wants to make a check doesn't mean a check must be made available to them. "The Guard is not interested in what you have to say, and ignores you." Is less telling than a player rolling exceptionally well or making multiple rolls and being told time and again "The Guard is not convinced." Regardless of the quality or approach of their argument.

This. Seriously.

The so-called "auto success" changes nothing where skills are concerned. It does change saving throws, but I'm in favor of that - it means magic is just a little less predictable.

[False God]

Aasimar are in MPMM and thus already got updated. They are not going to be a core race.
See, this just rustles my jimmies. The heck are Tieflings being included for if not their counterparts, and why the duff do we need some new basically-Aasimar-but-not-really added in? Why can't we have, I dunno, Tabaxi as core?

Because it came out in some book before the new edition even launched? That's some silly stuff right there. Not only do we need to buy things from the new edition, but we also need to buy things from the previous edition because they're technically part of the new edition?


Drow are in the doc, therefore Drow will be core, therefore not all Drow will worship Lolth. Simple enough.
Your argument fails to address anything I said, simple enough.

[ProsecutorGodot]

I like how you put this, this doesn't really benefit anyone, it just complicates things.

Edit: Does it feel weird to anyone else they made such a huge announcement right after a product release? This is going to completely drown Spelljammer stuff.

It's probably intentional, the best time to get new faces interested in what's coming up is to attract them after a recent purchase.

After a new setting is probably a good time for it too, I could be making some assumptions here but I feel that some people are drawn in by "this is new, never before seen" as a way to join in on relatively equal pace with a veteran. While those newcomers still have their attention fixed on DND is the best time to introduce them to something new and exciting to look forward to. If they become invested, they stick around.

That's my guess on it at least, I could be off base.

[Kane0]

Thumbs up:
- Humans get actual features
- Ardling (unless it's supposed to be a replacement for Aasimar)
- Dwarf
- Gnome
- Orc
- Codified conditions and game terms
- Presentation/formatting of feats / backgrounds
- Feat level requirements (but not requiring other feats)
- Alert
- Lucky
- Magic Initiate
- Musician
- Tavern Brawler
- Expanding on Inspiration
- floating background ASIs replacing racial increases

Thumbs down:
- Subraces are gone
- Free feat at level 1 (would rather trade your background ASI for it)
- Humans can be small?
- Dragonborn breath weapon
- Spells are not universally good racial features and should not be
- Healer
- Savage Attacker
- 1s and 20s automatically failing/succeeding all d20 Tests
- Short rests slowly becoming vestigial
- Critical hits suck now
- Background ribbons are missing
- Darkvision still far too common

No strong opinion (yet):
- Elf
- Halfling
- Tiefling
- Crafter
- Skilled
- Tough
- Splitting magic into three sources (i'm sure this will become more relevant down the track)
- Grappling rework (mixed bag)

[Psyren]

See, this just rustles my jimmies. The heck are Tieflings being included for if not their counterparts, and why the duff do we need some new basically-Aasimar-but-not-really added in? Why can't we have, I dunno, Tabaxi as core?

Ardlings are their counterparts now, as in ancestrally tied to specific upper planes much like Tieflings are tied to specific lower ones. Aasimar are based on angels, who are not associated with any particular upper plane. WotC are allowed to make new things, even in core.



Your argument fails to address anything I said, simple enough.

What didn't I address? Drow is the term for this species of elf, they are not a subset of some larger group called "dark elves."

[Millstone85]

I believe it I Guardinals? Animal themed NG Celestials.

So if Aasimar named after Aasimon which are 2E LG Celestials, also called Angels
Ardlings from Guardinals, NG Animalistic Celestials,
Tieflings from FiendsArdlings get a choice between three celestial legacies:

"Heavenly", linked to LG planes (Arcadia, Mount Celestia and Bytopia).
"Idyllic", linked to NG planes (Bytopia, Elysium and the Beastlands).
"Exalted", linked to CG planes (the Beastlands, Arborea and Ysgard).

So already, ardlings are not specifically linked to the NG guardinals.

What is more:

I believe the 2e LG celestials were archons, while aasimon/angels were "any good".
5e just changed aasimar from having "a touch of the power of Mount Celestia" (VGtM) to carrying "a spark of the Upper Planes" (MotM).


Aasimar are in MPMM and thus already got updated. They are not going to be a core race.So are orcs and yet they are now somehow being playtested again, with the exact same features too.

[Keltest]

This. Seriously.

The so-called "auto success" changes nothing where skills are concerned. It does change saving throws, but I'm in favor of that - it means magic is just a little less predictable.

I think "Your argument seems really strong, but the guard is unmoved regardless." gives off a certain amount of useful information. It makes the guard seem suspicious (he's behaving unusually) without actually overtly coming out and doing anything explicit. Maybe he's just really dutiful, not corrupt and threatened by what you would find.

[False God]

Ardlings are their counterparts now, as in ancestrally tied to specific upper planes much like Tieflings are tied to specific lower ones. Aasimar are based on angels, who are not associated with any particular upper plane. WotC are allowed to make new things, even in core.
It is a dumb new thing. All of the racial stuff for Ardlings are almost identical to Aasimar. In the same way we have Tieflings with specific ancestries, Ardling need only be a specific Aasimar ancestry. It is newness for the sake of newness without any thought of logic towards existing implementation. It flies in the face of this entire "ancestry" system they just invented and implemented.
Some Dev: "Hey, lets not make more races, lets make various ancestries to work within existing races!"
Some Other Dev: "Hey lets make angelic animal-headed people a whole new race herp-de-derp!"


What didn't I address? Drow is the term for this species of elf, they are not a subset of some larger group called "dark elves."
They should be. That's my argument.

[Luccan]

So are orcs and yet they are now somehow being playtested again, with the exact same features too.

Honestly I think that's just to gauge reaction to the missing half-orc and new half-ancestry rules

[Psyren]

So are orcs and yet they are now somehow being playtested again, with the exact same features too.

Orcs being core now makes sense. The whole point of half-orcs in prior editions and the start of this one was a wink-nudge "full orcs aren't suitable as adventurers most of the time, but *you're* fine because there's some human in you diluting all that." Of course they would jettison that.


I think "Your argument seems really strong, but the guard is unmoved regardless." gives off a certain amount of useful information. It makes the guard seem suspicious (he's behaving unusually) without actually overtly coming out and doing anything explicit. Maybe he's just really dutiful, not corrupt and threatened by what you would find.

You don't need to call for a roll to do that though. Either way the player's failure is a foregone conclusion.


It is a dumb new thing.
...
They should be.

Moving right along then.

[Khrysaes]

If I'm asking for a roll at all, of course there is at least a 1 in 20 chance of success or failure. Those are the bounds of the 20-sided die. That doesn't mean I will ask for a roll when success or failure is guaranteed.



I'm following the guidance on DMG 237. So long as success is not impossible and failure is not guaranteed, a roll is appropriate; in this specific scenario, failure is guaranteed for Krunk due to his lack of training.



You mean you'll call for a roll for something you knew was impossible, and say it failed even if they rolled a natural 20?

Because that is... not something I would do. Ever.

I think my biggest confusion over the argument is that the predefined challenges i.e. reading a ledger, it would seem reasonable to me that literally anyone could look at/study it and potentially notice something.

Is it not known that things highly trained people fail to notice do get noticed by amateurs? Arguably smarter people don't notice some things that others notice all the time.

In game terms this may be more a WIS vs INT issue, but in the specific given example, the ledger, I personally think it is reasonable that the untrained barbarian could look at it and notice something the trained wizard may not. The chance is smaller, yes, but still within the 1/20th of a chance.

Conversely, if we use an example from a published adventure:


Slipping out of manacles requires a successful DC 20 Dexterity check, while breaking them requires a successful DC 20 Strength check. A character can unlock the manacles using thieves’ tools with a successful DC 15 Dexterity check.

Here the task and challenge are predefined to the DM. Now, if we take the aforementioned typical barbarian and wizard, and use say... point buy, and the assumed level of the character at this point in this adventure: Level 1. The wizard will be less likely to have 10 strength than the Barbarian, but is likely to at least a 10 in dexterity.

Now, if the Barbarian were to ask, "Can I break the manacles?" you would ask for a roll because Strength is usually a barbarian's main stat. At level 1 for a pure strength check, it is still hard as it is pure strength, and not a skill proficiency. Lets say +3 Strength for a total of 4 out of 20 chance.

Then, the wizard UNLESS they have at least 10 strength, literally has 0 chance in the given paradigm of success, and there is no point in a roll. Since strength is not the primary ability for the wizard I may ask what theirs is, and then decide if they should roll or not. If their strength is 8 or 9, there is literally no point in asking for them to roll. I may describe it as "you struggle, but for all your might, you can't seem to get the manacles to break."

Then for either of them, since Dexterity is the GOD ability score of D&D 5e and it is reasonable to assume at least a 10, I may describe that they feel the manacles might be just loose enough for them to slip out. Depending on their modifier, they may have a greater than 5% chance of success.

Finally, unless either of the characters have a dexterity of 0, which is impossible under any method of character creation within the PHB, even without thieves' tools proficiency, they have at least a chance to be able to pick the locks. Likely, their best chance.

Under the D&Done guidelines, regardless of the character's attributes, there is at least a 5% chance of success. You can just describe it as luck. Perhaps one of the links in the Wizard's manacles is rusted or weakened in some way, explaining how they physically broke their manacles.

Which each table uses is really up to them. Even with the rules as written in 5e, I have seen plenty of tables rule that 1 and 20 are automatic fails or success for skill and saving throws. So long as everyone at the table is in knowledge of the rule in place, and agrees to abide by it, it really doesn't seem to be an issue.

The only potential issue are AL games, but for those, many, not all, checks are predefined in the adventure being ran, because if it is not an approved adventure being ran, then it is not AL.

When in doubt of chance, you can always ask for the score/modifier being used.

[Keltest]

You don't need to call for a roll to do that though. Either way the player's failure is a foregone conclusion.

Yes, but "I tried and failed" is more informative than "I wanted to talk him up but the DM wouldnt let me roll for some reason."

[Melphizard]

I believe it I Guardinals? Animal themed NG Celestials.

So if Aasimar named after Aasimon which are 2E LG Celestials, also called Angels
Ardlings from Guardinals, NG Animalistic Celestials,
Tieflings from Fiends

Issue with them making a race based on Guardinals, at least in my opinion, is that I feel the majority of players won't know what the hell they are since they've made few to no official statblocks for these celestials. I only knew of their existence because I dived into celestial lore for my Forgotten Realms campaign and even then they're only in mentioned incredibly briefly around twice if the sources on the Wiki are correct. I see the Ardlings as a subrace of Aasimar similar to sea elves in MMoM, having its own race even though it all ties back into the same idea of elf (or angel in this case). That said, the Ardling race was not what I expected to get nor do I feel I want it considering how weak it seems to be compared to its much more humanoid cousin.

What other obscurer races I felt should have been officially adapted as races before the surprise that was Ardlings (seriously, was there a demand for them or something?):

1. Half-Dragons - I feel I was in the same boat as other new players when I expected the Dragonborn race (Skyrim references abundant) be related to dragons; but, they're aliens or something. A genuine Half-Dragon race would be incredibly cool and, so I would believe, quite popular.

2. Grung - The frog men already have stats so this is more putting them into a book then slapping em with the good'ol Salvatore treatment of making them good-aligned and totally not slavers.

3. Mycanoids - With the addition of the Plasmoid race, I feel it's well about time for the plant people to make an emergence into the world and start becoming a player race. They're a well known species within the game of Dungeons and Dragons that would serve to introduce a plant-race into the selection of characters.

[Khrysaes]

What didn't I address? Drow is the term for this species of elf, they are not a subset of some larger group called "dark elves."

Depends on the setting. They literally are in Faerun.

They were dark elves, then Correllan and the other elf gods banished Lolth from their Pantheon.

Lolth made a deal with the Demon Wedonai? I think that is its name.

Dark evles became drow.

Then I believe Qilue Silverhand? The Dark Elf seven sister, performed a ritual to revert some drow to dark elves. I believe she was also killed while Embodied by Ellistrae, but at least some Drow reverted back to being Dark Elves.

I don't remember all of it. War of the Spider Queen book series is when the reversion happens.

[Psyren]

Yes, but "I tried and failed" is more informative than "I wanted to talk him up but the DM wouldnt let me roll for some reason."

You don't need a roll to represent "tried and failed." All skipping the roll means is that there was no possibility of success/failure, not that you didn't try.


Depends on the setting. They literally are in Faerun.

They were dark elves, then Correllan and the other elf gods banished Lolth from their Pantheon.

Lolth made a deal with the Demon Wedonai? I think that is its name.

Dark evles became drow.

Then I believe Qilue Silverhand? The Dark Elf seven sister, performed a ritual to revert some drow to dark elves. I believe she was also killed while Embodied by Ellistrae, but at least some Drow reverted back to being Dark Elves.

I don't remember all of it. War of the Spider Queen book series is when the reversion happens.

Drow is the collective term for these elves across the multiverse, whether they have heard of Lolth or not.

[Khrysaes]

Issue with them making a race based on Guardinals, at least in my opinion, is that I feel the majority of players won't know what the hell they are since they've made few to no official statblocks for these celestials. I only knew of their existence because I dived into celestial lore for my Forgotten Realms campaign and even then they're only in mentioned incredibly briefly around twice if the sources on the Wiki are correct. I see the Ardlings as a subrace of Aasimar similar to sea elves in MMoM, having its own race even though it all ties back into the same idea of elf (or angel in this case). That said, the Ardling race was not what I expected to get nor do I feel I want it considering how weak it seems to be compared to its much more humanoid cousin.

I don't disagree, Ardlings are at best a subrace of Aasimar, and in fact note that the 3.5 book Races of Faerun says that Aasimar were most common in Mulhorand, where the Egyptian Animal headed gods literally walked the realm and procreated to make them most common in that area. It would even make sense that this version of Aasimar had animalistic traits related to their literal Animal headed god ancestor.

[Leon]

Nope, core orcs don't save this hot mess.

[Telwar]

Anyway, I found something else, in the video at 46:20 (https://youtu.be/mOQ_Exh0DmY?t=2780)


It sounds like there will be a druid list, but instead of being a fraction of the primal list it might instead be the full primal list plus other spells.

I'm like 99% sure what's going to happen is the full casters will have the full list, and then spells from, say, their cleric domain added on, like how Light clerics now automatically have Fireball known and prepared.

This should save them some effort by just labeling the new spells as Arcane, Primal, and Divine. So, for example, all those new spells in Tasha's that wizards got but bards didn't? In D&Done you'd instead have them on the Arcane list, so the bard could also get those automatically.

Though to be fair, what would happen is WotC would still figure out a way to make sure Wizards were the only ones who were assured of getting new spells on their list.

[Snowbluff]

I don't wanna rip into it because it looks like it's getting raked pretty bad, but I have to ask why some extant material is being changed at all when more interesting versions exist, especially in cases where they've been reworked already. The dragonborn in particular stands out to me, but also the feats getting some tweaks that are less than helpful, like tavern brawler not working with Alchemist Fire/etc.

I kinda miss background features as well. Small feats at level 1 are fine.

Also Aasimar Deva Guardinal Ardlings are a thing wow have we trod out this concept a lot.

[Khrysaes]

Drow is the collective term for these elves across the multiverse, whether they have heard of Lolth or not.

I believe that it may be more of an inconsistency between writers/designers making lore vs using a recognizable term.

Assuming Ed Greenwood designed this particular part of Faerun lore, He may have just chosen to use "Drow" the term from the Greyhawk setting for familiarity, and then made his "Drow" a subspecies or a transformed version of Dark Elves for Forgotten Realms.

Literally a quote from the forgotten realms wiki, so take it with a grain of salt:

"The Ilythiiri's worship of dark deities and the use of their power, led the high mages and priests of all the surviving elven nations to gather at the Elven Court, and channel the power of Corellon Larethian to turn the corrupted dark elves into drow ("Dhaeraow" - traitor), and banish them underground" Citing Lost Empires of Faerun page 52, Grand History of the Realms page 10, and Cormanthyr: Empire of the Elves page 31.

I mean I can make the same case with "Orc"

Orc in Warcraft: Shamanistic Nomads from Draenor. Subspecies: Fel Orc: Orcs corrupted by drinking demon blood a lot.
Orc in Elder Scrolls: Elves that were transformed because their leader was eaten by one daedric prince, and another emerged from the remains.
Orc in Faerun: Unknown origins.

Drow may just be the name/race chose to be perpetuated by the designers for familiarity rather than intentional design to call all "drow" in the multiverse "drow"

In faerun, Drow are transformed Dark Elves.

[paladinn]

I'm curious about the "new" spell lists. The idea of "primal" spells definitely seems very PF2-ish. Obviously the 3 types of magic lend themselves to wizards, clerics and druids. Will other "full caster" classes use those same spell lists? Will there be no difference between wizards and sorcerers' lists? Are bards no longer full casters? I'm just not clear on where that's going. Not to mention half-or-less casters like paladins and rangers. Are they not going to have their own lists? Did I miss something in all this?

In PF2, bards use "occult" magic; but in 5e that's more the warlock's thing.

I also noticed they tossed Toll the Dead, one of the coolest cleric cantrips.. sigh..

Just a little puzzled, but with me that's not hard.. lol

[Psyren]

Issue with them making a race based on Guardinals, at least in my opinion, is that I feel the majority of players won't know what the hell they are since they've made few to no official statblocks for these celestials.

They're not (just) based on guardinals actually. Per the video, Crawford highlighted that there are animal-themed celestial in all of the upper planes - such as Hound Archons, and avatars of various XG deities have animal bases too.



Drow may just be the name/race chose to be perpetuated by the designers for familiarity rather than intentional design to call all "drow" in the multiverse "drow"


It's intentional (https://dnd.wizards.com/sage-advice/book-updates)

[P. G. Macer]

Oh, boy, I was busy most of today with important non-D&D things, so I only got to finishing reading the playtest document (and this thread) just now. Put me in the “Most of these changes are a load of minotaur dung” camp.

As someone whose first two characters in 5e and D&D ever were a dragonborn and a half-elf, I am dismayed at what has become of them in this playtest document. I’ll address half-elves (and half-orcs, and lack thereof of the two) first. I think I get why WotC dropped them here (re: The Forbidden Topic™), but they are so archetypal and iconic to D&D’s history in a way that a halfling/gnome hybrid is not that it feels insulting to me to equate the two. At least Pathfinder 2e in its core rulebook still acknowledged that half-elves and half-orcs, while using the human base race ancestry, were something special and have a more storied history and halfing/gnome crossbreeds. I’m normally not one for Sacred Cow preservation, but I guess that was because I only started playing D&D in 2016, the cows I considered sacred hadn’t been sent to the slaughterhouse yet.

Even putting the equivalency aside, the rules for hybrid Humanoid races seem rather hamfisted, with most of the race’s meat coming from the special traits, which come from one parent, so the hybridization is mostly (granted, not entirely, as Size and Speed can come from the other parent and Lifespan is an average of the parents’) cosmetic. This is better than Tasha’s Custom Lineage for representing such cases, but that’s in my opinion is a very low bar to clear.

On dragonborn, I feel that Fizban’s was close enough to perfect for a take on the race, and making the breath weapon an action once more is lamentable. Even at 20th level, a max damage of 30 for an entire action is pathetic. At least darkvision is now the default?

Likewise, giving into the D&D meme culture and making critical successes and failures applicable for all d20 tests is a terrible idea. I see the argument that only the DM should call for rolls, and while in principle that solves the issue of “I jump to the moon! Nat 20!” in practice it’s often the player that suggests the type of roll they want to do, which the DM now has some pressure to accept.

Additionally, I can think of a situation which has not come up yet where a DM can call for a roll, knowing the PC’s modifiers, where a nat 1 can still succeed. If a PC has an ability that lets them add dice to a roll, whether their own or someone else's (guidance, Bardic Inspiration, etc.), especially one where it isn’t obvious that the extra die applies until the roll is called for, it is possible for the extra die, if rolled high enough, to allow for a natural 1 to be a success, e.g., a Tier IV PC needs to make a DC 20 Strength (athletics) check, and their Athletics bonus is +17. If they roll a natural 1 on the d20 and roll higher than a 1 on the guidance spell’s d4, they can succeed on the check still, but not if the d4 rolls a 1.

On the subject of natural 20s failing, let me relate a story. A month or two ago, I DM'ed a Level 19 one-shot for some college friends featuring lots of mind-flayer-related enemies. The party was facing two Neothelids (the Volo’s Guide Legacy version). One of the characters cast a spell on a neothelid that required a DEX save. Thanks in part to Magic Resistance, I as the DM rolled a natural 20. However, neothelids have a Dexterity of 6 (–2), and because this was a Tier 4, max-stat spellcaster, the DC was 19. This meant that without outside assistance, of which there was none, there was no way for the monster to succeed. However, I only realized that after I rolled the save. The moral of the story is that DMs are humans, not walking encyclopedias, and thus we may call for trivial or impossible rolls by accident. Additionally, player’s happiness when I explained what happened was priceless and memorable, and not only would a nat-20 auto-success spoil the moment, if it were just part of the game even the player’s frustration in the hypothetical situation would not match the happiness in the real one.

I have more thoughts on One D&D, but it’s getting late in my time zone, and I have to get up early tomorrow, so hopefully I’ll be able to pull myself away from screens and get some sleep.

[Telwar]

I'm curious about the "new" spell lists. The idea of "primal" spells definitely seems very PF2-ish. Obviously the 3 types of magic lend themselves to wizards, clerics and druids. Will other "full caster" classes use those same spell lists? Will there be no difference between wizards and sorcerers' lists? Are bards no longer full casters? I'm just not clear on where that's going. Not to mention half-or-less casters like paladins and rangers. Are they not going to have their own lists? Did I miss something in all this?

In PF2, bards use "occult" magic; but in 5e that's more the warlock's thing.

Just a little puzzled, but with me that's not hard.. lol

Back in 3e days, the spells weren't really classified as Arcane or Divine, but the classes were, and that affected their spell list and things like damage dice (divine classes casting the same spell as an arcane class likely did less damage). The same spells could also be different levels for different classes. More details would require me to look at my 3e PHB, which I sold over 10 years ago, or the SRD.

TBPH, this is one of the things I like from the UA Playtest document (...as well as PF2).

[Psyren]

The moral of the story is that DMs are humans, not walking encyclopedias, and thus we may call for trivial or impossible rolls by accident.

No one is saying that DMs have to be perfect. But the rules should show you what intended play looks like, not unintended play.

[t209]

- Humans can be small?
Someone wanted to be Nobby or just annoying anime kid hero wannabe?
(either Naruto, Demonslayer, or some kid from Black Clover)

[EggKookoo]

You don't need a roll to represent "tried and failed." All skipping the roll means is that there was no possibility of success/failure, not that you didn't try.

Right. An impossible DC and "DM no" are identical.

[Psyren]

Someone wanted to be Nobby or just annoying anime kid hero wannabe?
(either Naruto, Demonslayer, or some kid from Black Clover)

Or, you know, you literally want to play a little person (who exist in real life) without being non-human?

[JellyPooga]

I question (as I have for a long time), if they're offering multiple subraces of Tiefling/Ardling at all, why they don't present them as "Planetouched" and lump in Genasi and the planetouched of the Planes of Law (Zenythri?) Chaos (Chaonds?) and Neutrality (uh...whatever they're called) as a single, customisable race with similar traits (i.e. resistance to a damage type, innate spellcasting, etc.). I mean, they're happy not to split Dragonborn into separate Chromatic and Metallic races and they appear to be happy to differentiate distinct features as subraces (see Elves for example) . Do we really need distinct subraces for LG/NG/CG Ardlings, or would you prefer to see greater variety within a similar theme (i.e. the panolply of Planetouched) presented as core material?

I would still prefer to see greater emphasis on the impact of race and backgrounds as a PC gains levels than simply moving some early choices from one to the other. Class being the only factor to determine character development feels limited and some unique characterisation is definitely possible from utilising other sources of development. e.g. a Dwarf Fighter and an Elf Fighter at level 20 are all but indistinguishable from one another because mostly they're both a level 20 Fighter with a bit of different flavour at level 1. What if Dwarves got features unique to Dwarves throughout their career? What if Nobles had similarly defining features distinct from Urchins? Tying all background/racial features into only the first 5 levels of play at most just feels like a misses opportunity.

[Elves]

If I'm calling for a d20 roll at all, meaning both failure and success are possibilities, then 20 was already guaranteed success and 1 was already guaranteed failure. Those are quite literally the bounds of that particular die, and therefore this hasn't actually changed anything.

That's not the case. DCs are objective, not subjective -- what is DC 10 for one character is DC 10 for all characters. That's why getting better at something is expressed as a higher bonus to your roll, rather than a lower DC.

The question here is whether there is any DC 30 task that a novice creature should not be able to achieve, point blank. The answer is trivially yes. Meanwhile, this system has the novice succeeding at the maximally difficult task 5% of the time.

The solution for this problem would be to express getting better at a skill through lowering DCs rather than a bonus to the d20 roll. That would allow natural 20s = automatic success to make sense for all characters. But it would make skills an exception to the game's core d20+X mechanic. I think that would be more confusing than saying nat 20 = success doesn't apply to ability checks.

[Psyren]

That's not the case. DCs are objective, not subjective -- what is DC 10 for one character is DC 10 for all characters. That's why getting better at something is expressed as a higher bonus to your roll, rather than a lower DC.

Uh, I believe in objective DCs for everyone. Are you quoting the right person?



The question here is whether there is any DC 30 task that a novice creature should not be able to achieve, point blank. The answer is trivially yes. Meanwhile, this system has the novice succeeding at the maximally difficult task 5% of the time.

If you think the novice shouldn't succeed (which is totally fine) then don't ask them to roll.

[Elves]

Uh, I believe in objective DCs for everyone. Are you quoting the right person?

If you think the novice shouldn't succeed (which is totally fine) then don't ask them to roll.
These two statements are contradictory

[PhantomSoul]

These two statements are contradictory

They aren't really; there is a set difficulty for anyone with the competence level to feasibly attempt the task.

[Psyren]

These two statements are contradictory

They're not. Deciding not to roll happens long before setting a DC.

[t209]

Or, you know, you literally want to play a little person (who exist in real life) without being non-human?
Hence why I say Nobby (https://discworld.fandom.com/wiki/Nobby_Nobbs).
Also they seem to forgot Drow Sign Language, assuming if it was adapted to common sign language (especially fixing the sign for "soup").
I did remember FR having Eilistraee (which Wizards won't ever touch upon) worshippers teaching to hearing impaired in Ravensbluff.

[animewatcha]

A lot of this feels like the 'class overview' should have been released alongside races. Atleast the very least so we can see how they screw base class fighter more than they already have....as a start.

Interestingly, you can transfer inspiration to another player if you gain it again and already have it. Behold while I choose whatever race I feel like while claiming Elven Accuracy (half/half) and heck why not be a Champion fighter. Near constant advantage/crits. If you can naturally obtain advantage then just give everyone else in your party the 'inspiration'.


Interestly by specific-ness at this time. The shadow blade spell is technically make weapon attacks (instead of say melee spell attack) and can therefore crit.

So short/long rest. Does 'receiving a healing spell' constitute light activity?
It sounds stupid, but if these things are to be ironed out by a company that doesn't want to listen, they have be nagged EVERY SURVEY even if the survey doesn't ask about it.

[Elves]

They're not. Deciding not to roll happens long before setting a DC.

If a certain tree is objectively DC 10 to climb, that means anyone who makes a DC 10 athletics check can climb it.

If a player is capable of achieving that DC, you can't say "no actually you can't climb it".

[Ortho]

I like this.

I really like this. Considering how critical I've been of 5e's recent books, I'm liking this a hell of a lot more than I thought I would. Turns out, when you design your system from the ground up instead of shoe-horning in the new ideas piece by piece, it actually comes together pretty darn well! Who knew?

I can see a few rough edges as well as unnecessary changes, but for playtest material two years before the release date, I think it's pretty darn good. That glossary in particular is something I want to see expanded on.


My god, they re-ruined dragonborn, made rogue completely unusable, nerfed paladin into the dirt and made halflings the most boring race in the game

...the heck kind of game were you playing in which crit-fishing was the only viable playstyle for two entire classes?



Thumbs down:
- Subraces are gone


Eh, not really. There's still Lineages, which seem to serve the same purpose.

[Psyren]

If a certain tree is objectively DC 10 to climb, that means anyone who makes a DC 10 athletics check can climb it.

If a player is capable of achieving that DC, you can't say "no actually you can't climb it".

Sure. What does this have to do with what I said?

[Telwar]

Hrm. I'm normally death on 5e, and this at least isn't completely awful.

Races:
Not bad.
I'm amused they include heights and lifespans, though weight isn't mentioned; I'd assumed they'd continue the Tasha's/MotM trend of just not touching that. On the other hand, height is vastly easier to explain than average weight/mass, which game designers are notoriously awful at.
Languages don't seem to be associated to the race, just the Background now unless otherwise specified. I'm guessing that would be part of the cultural layer of the background.
Ardlings: Huh. I didn't see a need for a tiefling counterpart, but I won't say no.
Dragonborn: Note, I don't have Fizban's, so I just have my original PHB to compare it to. UA Dragonborn's 1d10+level outdamages the PHB's 2-5d6, significantly at 16th level (5d6 = 17.5, d10+16 = 21.5). I'm not sure that makes up for being an action over a bonus action. They also get Draconic as a language automatically. Interestingly, no one in any of my group's campaigns have played a dragonborn.
Dwarf: Okay. I like the Stonecunning change, it's nice to have an active ability. I don't think Forge Wise makes sense, that the dwarven creators made them automatically have Tool Proficiencies. But not a big deal really.
Elves: Eh. These are theoretically supposed to be more physiological things associated to race, but Keen Senses is a Proficiency, which really doesn't make sense. I'd rather have like a +1d4 like the Eberron Dragonmarked races do. I'm also unclear on why they get to take on the aspects of their environment and yet dwarves and halflings don't.
Gnomes: They also get to take on aspects of their environment. Hrmph. On the other hand, Gnomish Cunning is now Advantage on ALL Int/Wis/Cha saves, not just spells...which suggests that monsters/NPCs won't be casting "spells" any more.
Halflings: My tirade on proficiencies as physiological traits continues. Not bad, nothing special, and the loss of the subrace abilities is felt even more on halflings.
Orcs: Eh. They're okay. I assume Eberron will push Half-Orcs back in. Or maybe change the Half-Orc Great Houses into Orc Great Houses.
Tieflings: Not terrible, and this does make sense to have subraces.

Backgrounds:
They're all right. Moving starting ASI bonuses here isn't a terrible idea (as moving them to floating wasn't, either, or baking them into the point bonus, standard array, or first class level).
The samples threw me for a brief loop, though. I looked at Acolyte, and wondered how an acolyte could speak to the rest of the party (with Language: Celestial). Going back to the first page of the PDF, you start with Common and another language, in addition to the background language or anything from your race. I'm also mildly surprised they included Common Sign Language as well, that's a neat touch.
I am, however, amused that all the starting gear packages are meticulously meant to be the same GP amount. Presumably you also get gear from your class.

Feats:
I like the Prerequisite and Repeatable tags being included. One of the annoying parts with 5e to begin with was a distinct lack of levers to pull when making your character; especially for martial characters, you often won't have ANY choices to make at a level except for what class level to take. This sounds like they're leaning more into feats. I think this is a positive improvement.

Rules Glossary:
I really enjoy that they're leaning more into terms of art and not insisting on "read it, you idiots, it's nAtUrAl LaNgUaGe, what can you possibly not understand?"
And Tags. TAGS! So they can, actually, make it easy to search for things! It's almost enough to make me think they respect the DM and players' time!
...and then it falls apart. The Automatic Fail on a 1 or Success on a 20, while a popular house rule and on social media, really just doesn't make sense to me. It just empowers people who think that they can auto-seduce a dragon on a 20 Persuasion check, or rolling a 1 on the check means you hit yourself in the 'nads. (sigh)

[animorte]

Turns out, when you design your system from the ground up instead of shoe-horning it in late in the edition's lifespan, it actually comes together pretty darn well! Who knew?

I wish more people would take note of this. People have been complaining about the power creep in newer books making the older 5e options obsolete. This directly addresses that and attempts to balance out everything, as you said from the ground up.

[Sparky McDibben]

Let's see if I can give a direct link to the pdf.

Unearthed Arcana: Character Origins (https://media.dndbeyond.com/compendium-images/one-dnd/character-origins/CSWCVV0M4B6vX6E1/UA2022-CharacterOrigins.pdf)

Thanks for doing this - I didn't want to let them put cookies on my machine in order to see the friggin' pdf.

I'm a fan of about 90 - 95% of this. I don't think the auto-fail / auto-succeed thing will change anything at my table, and I already rule crits funny. I'm glad to see them changing up feats by level (that's probably a good idea, although it will make certain builds harder to construct).

I'm OK with the race design (though I'm surprised they didn't go with ancestry or bloodline or something), and I have no problem with half-orcs and half-elves getting relegated to reskin status.

I actually have more issues with how they're running the playtest channel itself. By restricting it to only those who have a D&D Beyond account (without their 3rd party cookies turned off), they're basically saying that the only community they care about is the one they can market to. And I'm sorry, but I think that's bullsh!t.