Monsters of the multiverse might be a lil important afterall..

[ProsecutorGodot]

True, however their surveys seem to be doing them no favors on this front.

I'm cautiously optimistic that as we draw closer to the 2024 side of this design shift we'll see a bit more meat on these surveys, my assumption is that they're starting in broad strokes and will refine from there.

[Athan Artilliam]

snip

Long time lurker, recently started a new 3.5 game so I decided to post for once. For a person who apparently doesnt want to "make things personal" you could try not dismissing me for being "new". Thats unwarrented bias & prejudiced in its own right.

Instead of laying blame for the negativity pattern at the foot of the consumer, you should turn your eye at the producer. They rarely print new material & every time they do its usually a reprint of old stuff with a bit of novelty to it. They seem far too interested in their image than their product. People have legitimately used the term "patch" in this thread as though this was a video game. Digital media usage & social culture wars causing massive reprints make it so difficult to actually hold to standard of play. Errata is one thing. Deletion & Censorship is another.

WotC seem intent to continue to muck about with its current content than to actually be creative. Hardly any classes or subclasses are being made. Hardly any new material or mechanics are being made. No new settings have been made since Eberron, two generations ago.

5e could use an arcane Gish class like Duskblade, or a Short Rest ability swapping Factotum. (Heck, it seems like Short Rests are being mothballed even since its "too hard" to balance according to WotC monitoring how a person plays a game in our current corporate surveillance culture. In the end, they could try inventing something new instead of just dusting off 3.5 content.

But why should I go through the effort of this massive wall of text if you are just going to ignore it & dismiss it as it doesnt conform to yours? Its too much effort.

Got a bit rumbly there but you said you wanted talking points...
TLDR 5e needs content. Serious content. Not just another handful of the same racial stat block orientations & a nifty racial feature. Races/Species/Heritages/whatever they want to call it are easy to just tweak & shuffle their formula so thats the only content that gets made.

snip

[ProsecutorGodot]

WotC seem intent to continue to muck about with its current content than to actually be creative. Hardly any classes or subclasses are being made. Hardly any new material or mechanics are being made. No new settings have been made since Eberron, two generations ago.

Plenty of subclasses being made, honestly, every setting/splat/rules expansion we've had in the past year has featured at least one subclass. There's another thread going on about whether any new classes need to be printed, some would argue that even the Artificer was too much to add.

As far as settings, it depends on your definition of "new". There have been a few "new to 5E" settings since Eberron, though they're almost all MTG settings with the addition of the Critical Role Wildemount setting and and expansion of the domains of dread beyond Barovia. Whether or not you like the addition of these settings is one thing but to say they aren't happening is actively dismissing them.

We do also have explicit confirmation that several more settings are coming soon^tm.

5e could use an arcane Gish class like Duskblade

As soon as the 5e playerbase can agree what "Gish" means for 5e, we can stick it right next to the Eldritch Knight, Valor/Sword Bard, Hexblade, Bladesinger and Battle Smith.

TLDR 5e needs content. Serious content. Not just another handful of the same racial stat block orientations & a nifty racial feature. Races/Species/Heritages/whatever they want to call it are easy to just tweak & shuffle their formula so thats the only content that gets made.

From my perspective, having started the hobby in late 2016, there's still so much content in 5e I haven't had the opportunity to explore that I feel there's a good amount. Of course I wouldn't argue against more, I'm pretty content with the current variety.

[Greywander]

If 13 out of the initial 15 posts for this thread are "WotC Sucks/We Hate the future" everyone gets a box of Krispy Kreams and some Hateraid.

From what I've heard, a lot of the original people who worked on 5e have moved on to other projects, and WotC has brought in fresh talent to work on new content for 5e. It's not hard to see how that might result in 5e diverging from its original vision, or how a lot of people might not be happy with the new direction 5e is taking. It's also not hard to see how fresh talent might not be able to produce content of the same quality as seasoned veterans. Who knows for sure what the future holds, but I tend to be pessimistic, and if things turn out well then I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Part of my concern is also that WotC is trying to appeal to people who don't buy their products. All the more reason why those who are unhappy should make their voice heard, so that WotC knows that at least some segment of their paying customers is losing interest in their products.

Now, that said, I'm not expecting it to be all bad, either. Genasi are in sore need of an upgrade, and I do like the new dragonborn from Fizban's (though I worry it might be a little overtuned, but at least the breath weapon is actually useful now).

I don’t know how to link to it but the packtactics YouTube channel had a community post with a screenshot that references the dnd dev update where they said the new content will not replace the old monsters and races. Fwiw.

Yeah I don't believe this. And this is part of why I'm unhappy with the direction they're going. There's a sense that it's less about providing new options and more about forcing people to play the "right" way. Why else would they just straight up delete lore sections? It wasn't to make space for something else.

Of course, it's not like they can stop us from using outdated content, but this will become more and more difficult as new printings, including digital printings like DND Beyond, overwrite the old printings. No one wants to have to trawl eBay for vintage copies of the Player's Handbook or whatever.

No other edition of D&D has had two separate rest schedules, (Short Rest/Long Rest), and it seems quite possible that the Designers have decided to partially phase out some Short Rest Schedule abilities.

I have mixed feelings about this. It almost seems like the short rest was trying to fill a specific niche, and maybe it just didn't fit well. Maybe it's how DMs are running their games, in which case the proper solution is to explain better to DMs how to run the game. They could change short rests to 10 minutes, or even 1 minute, making those abilities essentially "per encounter" abilities, such as 4e had.

I do think there's a useful distinction between a 1 minute rest, a 1 hour rest, and an 8 hour rest. I think the trick is in handling time properly. Often if a party can short rest, they can just stop for a long rest. If they don't have time to long rest, then they don't have time to short rest, either. So the DM needs to fill the game with situations where it's okay to stop for an hour, but not for 8 hours. For example, using time limits (e.g. in X days, Y will happen, so every time you long rest, you get one day closer to Y) or timed events (e.g. you have a meeting with the duke in 2 hours, giving you enough time to short rest, but not long rest). You could have things like a wandering monster who patrols the dungeon every hour; once the monster is defeated or passes by, you can hole up and be safe for the next hour. If you're traveling through the wilderness, you could keep track of rations and other supplies as a means to discourage frivolous long rests. And so on.

But maybe we will see short rests disappear. I'm not saying people should have to change how they play in order to accommodate short rests, but maybe if someone has been complaining about short rests, they should consider changing how they play and they might find the change to be positive for their game. That seems like a better outcome than the removal of short rests.

[Athan Artilliam]

snip

{Scrubbed} Take a look at the content made for 3.5 or Pathfinder, even Pathfinder 2nd edition (& thats just current d20 systems). For anyone who has played more than 5e the situation is obvious, branch out a little.

5e is STARVED for content. They barely have more than a handful of subclasses each total. In 3.5 they would come out with a bunch of feats, spells, ACFs, classes, equipment PrCs, etc.

There have not in fact been any new settings made. A few thin one book tie ins it other Hasbro/WotC stuff doesnt count. Critical Role is 3rd party. As example, 3.5 Eberron had like seven different books all hundreds of pages long

[Rukelnikov]

I have mixed feelings about this. It almost seems like the short rest was trying to fill a specific niche, and maybe it just didn't fit well. Maybe it's how DMs are running their games, in which case the proper solution is to explain better to DMs how to run the game. They could change short rests to 10 minutes, or even 1 minute, making those abilities essentially "per encounter" abilities, such as 4e had.

Yeah, no, that means having the narrative accomodate mechanics, when the mechanics were created to bring the narrative to numbers. If it makes sense for the party to be able to rest for an hour an they decide to, you can spice it up every now and then, if most of the time something happens to interrupt them, then the suspension of disbelief becomes harder to maintain.

In a dungeon, its logical that its denizens wander thru it, in the wilderness, players can mostly short rest after every encounter if they decide to do so. Of course the DM may say the party doesn't get the benefits of a rest, but this strains it even worse.

Short rests mechanics are akward to use in some of the most common gameplay styles. In a combat focused dungeon crawler, where the mechanic should be at its best, its difficult to use because an hour is too much time, some mid term buff may still be on, so PCs are encouraged to keep moving trying to get the most number of combat rounds uptime from a given buff, and spending an hour mostly stationary in a dungeon, may mean ambushes, enemies having time to prepare, fleeing, calling in reinforcements, or whatever. In a sandboxy game where you may not have more than 1 combat encounter per long rest, its often useless because no other combat are likely to be had until next day.

Best case scenario for short rest are adventures than involve multiple encounters separated by hours, like the exploration most sandboxs provide sprinkled with a large ammount of encounters, which is often contrary to the spirit of such games.

I like the IDEA of the short rest as a resource management mechanic, mainly because I dislike going to sleep and waking up full power even if I went to sleep an inch away from death. But the implementation doesn't seem to mesh well with a large number of campaigns (maybe most, my gut says most, but I have no idea really).

[Kane0]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote} Take a look at the content made for 3.5 or Pathfinder, even Pathfinder 2nd edition (& thats just current d20 systems). For anyone who has played more than 5e the situation is obvious, branch out a little.

5e is STARVED for content. They barely have more than a handful of subclasses each total. In 3.5 they would come out with a bunch of feats, spells, ACFs, classes, equipment PrCs, etc.

There have not in fact been any new settings made. A few thin one book tie ins it other Hasbro/WotC stuff doesnt count. Critical Role is 3rd party. As example, 3.5 Eberron had like seven different books all hundreds of pages long

We were aware of that intent beforehand though, 5e was never intending to have the flood of content that 3.X got, for better or for worse. There is a distinction between new content and bloat, the latter of which has always been a big concern for 5e

And I dont think WotC has ever done a D&D setting? They were almost all from the TSR era.

And if we're talking third party, well take a gander at the DM guild, MFoV, dandwiki, homebrew here, and independant creators like KibblesTasty. Not in book form, but I reckon thats mostly because of the age we now live in.

[Athan Artilliam]

snip

5e has a bus load of useless races though so obviously they have failed to stop it. The fact is, races are safe because they are 200% "balanced" because its formulaic. New classes are scary to the execs. All theyve done is changed priorities. In their quest to stifle rule "abuse" they have instead neutered their creativity & depth. In their adherence to post modern culture theyve robbed settings of any nuance or meaning. Look at the material of the past which would wax poetic about Beholder ecology, variations, alterations, etc. The new beholder is just an eyeball monster with no history or culture or place in any setting because they wont WRITE CONTENT ABOUT IT, they just say that it isnt always evil anymore. How can new players like Godot even appreciate what they are missing when WotC wont even mention what came before?

[ProsecutorGodot]

Take a look at the content made for 3.5 or Pathfinder, even Pathfinder 2nd edition (& thats just current d20 systems). For anyone who has played more than 5e the situation is obvious, branch out a little.

Funny you should mention those - haven't played 'em, at least beyond the handful of games we played to test which edition the group wanted to jump in on and the pathfinder video games. My mind isn't plagued by making unwarranted comparisons to them and expectations that the DND number will change but the content will remain the same.

5e is STARVED for content. They barely have more than a handful of subclasses each total. In 3.5 they would come out with a bunch of feats, spells, ACFs, classes, equipment PrCs, etc.

The only class lacking in subclasses by a metric of "handfuls" is Artificer. Every other class has at minimum 7 subclasses to choose from.

There have not in fact been any new settings made. A few thin one book tie ins it other Hasbro/WotC stuff doesnt count. Critical Role is 3rd party. As example, 3.5 Eberron had like seven different books all hundreds of pages long

Eberron is also "3rd party" by that definition. Takes about 10 seconds of research to know it was a contest winning submission for a setting design. Someone else's idea, eventually published by WotC with credits and design input from Keith Baker. The only meaningful difference in my eyes is that the Exandria setting isn't owned by WoTC, though it is published by them, with an upcoming adventure module to boot.

Respectfully, I vehemently disagree with how you see the state of 5e. You see a sorry content bare edition in need of the touch of 3.Xe era feat chains and prestige classes, I don't want that for 5e because if I did I would have started playing 3rd edition instead of 5th after our group test games.

How can new players like Godot even appreciate what they are missing when WotC wont even mention what came before?

Mind you, we've come full circle with you now patronizing me about my semi-recent entrance to the hobby after you yourself were recognized as a new forum poster. I would say I know plenty about Beholder's, their behavior and their variations because a lot of that information is actually available in 5e but I'm sure you'll correct me on that.

[Athan Artilliam]

Mind you, we've come full circle with you now patronizing me about my semi-recent entrance to the hobby after you yourself were recognized as a new forum poster. I would say I know plenty about Beholder's, their behavior and their variations because a lot of that information is actually available in 5e but I'm sure you'll correct me on that.

I'm not disparaging you for being new. We new need hobbyists to keep the hobby alive. Im not dismissing your points because you are new either. Im just using you as an example of the current player base. As apposed to the other guy who acted like I cannot express my opinion because I am new to the forum as if my history of posting here disqualifies me out of hand. Dont confuse my argument.

You are making the case that 7 subclasses is more than plenty.

I am saying I'm more used to this
https://forums.giantitp.com/showthre...e-Base-Classes
And this doesnt include the 150 or so Prestige Classes

So you should be able to see that 7 variations of 12 still falls short of what I expect of them.
I see a lack of content because I am used to more content. You are content with the content because you haven't played with more content. I have played with more content so I am discontented with this content.

[ProsecutorGodot]

I am saying I'm more used to this
https://forums.giantitp.com/showthre...e-Base-Classes
And this doesnt include the 150 or so Prestige Classes

So you should be able to see that 7 variations of 12 still falls short of what I expect of them.

I'm making the case that 5e isn't (and shouldn't be) trying to emulate 3.xE in all but thematics where appropriate. I'm confident that there are some unique classes that could be ported over, potentially as a unique class but more than likely as a subclass of an existing one.

I don't understand the appeal of 150+ classes. I don't understand how that can be appealing. I haven't even played one character in each of the 12 base classes, I've still got tons of unique character options even if I only play a character in each specific subclass I haven't yet. In what you call a small selection I'm already overwhelmed with appealing options.

What you expect is bad design from my perspective*, even with the slow roll of subclasses we see powercreep and I'm not that unfamiliar with 3.Xe to know that powercreep was continuous and aggressive because if this splat didn't come out stronger than the previous nobody would use it. I've seen enough discussion to know that 3.5e eventually crossed the boundary of quantity over quality.
*EDIT - I should clarify, I mean bad in the sense of a design goal for 5e, not in a system that was built around this type of design like 3.X or Pathfinder.

I see a lack of content because I am used to more content. You are content with the content because you haven't played with more content. I have played with more content so I am discontented with this content.

If you're not content with the pace of 5e, please continue to enjoy 3.Xe things, I am happy that they are designed differently because they're catering to different audiences and the current pace of 5e is how I prefer things to be knowing full well what the alternative is.

[Naanomi]

I played 3.5, half of the new classes were next to unplayable (some of them literally so); and more than that of the PrCs. More Feats were traps or begrudgingly taken prereqs than were good. I don't miss it

[Athan Artilliam]

snip

Im not arguing for powercreep.

Im saying that past versions of D&D had stuff like Ghostwalk which was all about fun d&d adventures heavily featuring ghosts & also, character options for ghost PCs. What about Incarnum? That stuff is really cool. A lot of people are wanting 5e Incarnum content but 5e cant even do psionics right. Will all conten be balanced against all other content in your average game? No. Thats why its the DMs duty to gatekeep the content. Heck 5Ee still cant shake the martials/casters problem so balance is a laughable counterpoint.
You dont have to use all the content. A DM could say, no magic only psionics. Or maybe, hey were doing a ghost game were everyone is a spirit lost on the Plane of Limbo.

5e cannot support that. Its a VERY narrow game. Im not asking it to be 3.5. I like 3.5, sure, but I'm dont want every game to just be a clunky d20 system. (Roll & Keep is the best dice mechanic IMO) but 5e should offer options. If for no other reason than legacy

[Kane0]

What about Incarnum? That stuff is really cool. A lot of people are wanting 5e Incarnum content but 5e cant even do psionics right.

Fun fact, psionics has been handled very differently in each edition.

Will all content be balanced against all other content in your average game? No. Thats why its the DMs duty to gatekeep the content.

I dont think that is a core assumption of 5e.

[Athan Artilliam]

Fun fact, psionics has been handled very differently in each edition.


I dont think that is a core assumption of 5e.

1>I am not pretending there is only one way to do psionics, only that WotC has failed to add psionics multiple times in a row.

2>Content limitation is a vore assumption of ALL roleplaying games.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Im not arguing for powercreep.

Im saying that past versions of D&D had stuff like Ghostwalk which was all about fun d&d adventures heavily featuring ghosts & also, character options for ghost PCs. What about Incarnum? That stuff is really cool. A lot of people are wanting 5e Incarnum content but 5e cant even do psionics right.

See, this looks like a very different argument than what you presented at first. You're right, 5e is lacking in filling a lot of these specific niches, it's more of a generalist system.

Will all conten be balanced against all other content in your average game? No. Thats why its the DMs duty to gatekeep the content. Heck 5Ee still cant shake the martials/casters problem so balance is a laughable counterpoint.
You dont have to use all the content. A DM could say, no magic only psionics. Or maybe, hey were doing a ghost game were everyone is a spirit lost on the Plane of Limbo.

I think the bolded is a poor argument, both editions failing in this aspect doesn't make it a negative specifically for 5e. I think that in general 5e is a lot close to having an equal level of power between martials and casters than 3.5 is and suggesting that 5e should have more classes, feats and spells (note, spells are only beneficial to spellcasters) will widen this gap.

5e cannot support that. Its a VERY narrow game. Im not asking it to be 3.5. I like 3.5, sure, but I'm dont want every game to just be a clunky d20 system. (Roll & Keep is the best dice mechanic IMO) but 5e should offer options. If for no other reason than legacy

You're the one who made the direct comparison as an example of what 5e should be striving for, so forgive me for thinking you wanted it to be much more like 3.5 or pathfinder.

I'll also say that simply adding options for legacy, which I assume you mean as something similar to tradition, is something I don't agree with. It's the exact reason we have a handful of spells like Fireball, Lightning Bolt, Polymorph and Wish that completely overshadow other options because it's simply tradition for these to be staple spells.

If you want branching out my first instinct would be to avoid rehashing from old editions as much as possible except where the current edition has failed to reach. I think the only thing 5e is distinctly lacking is a diverse selection of settings, which despite my answer to your entry comment saying "we do have them" doesn't mean to say they're all that varied. I expect that the returning classic settings will be much different than the ones we currently have because they really don't have much choice that wouldn't be at this point. We also know an entirely new setting (that isn't the Exandria one) is also in development. The lack of settings is already a design aspect they recognized as lacking and are working to fix, to what effect we don't know yet.

2>Content limitation is a vore assumption of ALL roleplaying games.

Content limitation is part of the social contract of roleplaying games, not something they're designed around.

[Psyren]

We get around 1 splatbook a year, I'd rather get something new, than a rehash.

EDIT: Explaining that a bit better. if they spend 10 pages of the book on the old races, then its fine. If they spend 2 pages for each race for 30 old races, thats 60 pages devoted to that. I'd rather they just spent 10 explaining the changes to be made to those races, and 50 on new stuff. And its mostly from an "I want new toys" standpoint, but there's also the "I'm kinda being made to pay twice for those 60 pages of content"

There's new content in plenty of those races, and considerably more in the monsters.

Light armor isnt particularly noteworthy, but medium and equally shields are both big steps up if not provided by class (looking at you, cleric). If there are races with Natural AC around medium armor levels im not particularly worried if left on races, but if weapon/armor profs were to be rolled into backgrounds some balancing would be required (like taking the place of multiple other background features/profs).

I completely agree those are big steps, which is why casters should give up a bit more to access them. A background is nothing, even less than a race choice. Multiclassing or feats are the ideal here. I'm sure wizards will muddle through somehow.

From what I've heard, a lot of the original people who worked on 5e have moved on to other projects, and WotC has brought in fresh talent to work on new content for 5e. It's not hard to see how that might result in 5e diverging from its original vision, or how a lot of people might not be happy with the new direction 5e is taking. It's also not hard to see how fresh talent might not be able to produce content of the same quality as seasoned veterans. Who knows for sure what the future holds, but I tend to be pessimistic, and if things turn out well then I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Speaking as someone who got into 5e only recently, I'm quite happy with the content quality and current direction.

[Kane0]

I completely agree those are big steps, which is why casters should give up a bit more to access them. A background is nothing, even less than a race choice. Multiclassing or feats are the ideal here. I'm sure wizards will muddle through somehow.

Worth say, two skills? One skill and a tool/language? Backgrounds provide a very consistent set of things to a PC so I think we have some wiggle room there (especially looking at Tasha's heirarchy of proficiencies).
I dont want to interpret your position as 'casters arent allowed to have high AC', can you elaborate on why you think casters should have to work harder for heavier armors? Its worth noting that even the current ways to get medium armor via race, feat, etc is redundant for clerics, druids, rangers, paladins and gishes.

[Psyren]

Worth say, two skills? One skill and a tool/language? Backgrounds provide a very consistent set of things to a PC so I think we have some wiggle room there (especially looking at Tasha's heirarchy of proficiencies).
I dont want to interpret your position as 'casters arent allowed to have high AC', can you elaborate on why you think casters should have to work harder for heavier armors? Its worth noting that even the current ways to get medium armor via race, feat, etc is redundant for clerics, druids, rangers, paladins and gishes.

For the casters you listed - they don't need heavy armor (and several already have it anyway, with corresponding balancing), and if a given concept finds it integral for some reason, Heavily Armored is a single feat away for them.

As for wizards, bards, warlocks and sorcerers - 5e already did these classes the favor of eliminating Arcane Spell Failure from prior editions, including from shields, so they're already starting with a boost. I don't think requesting a feat investment or a multiclass is too much expectation for them.

Leaving unchanged as a racial option, especially with floating ASIs being the new norm, would have simply shifted the "best X race" for a lot of caster builds to being e.g. Mountain Dwarves or Githyanki. I suspect WotC doesn't want that, and I agree.

[Gurgeh]

I dont want to interpret your position as 'casters arent allowed to have high AC', can you elaborate on why you think casters should have to work harder for heavier armors? Its worth noting that even the current ways to get medium armor via race, feat, etc is redundant for clerics, druids, rangers, paladins and gishes.

I think the better way to phrase it is "nobody should be allowed to have high AC at low cost". Casters already have a bunch of magical ways to improve their AC, and they paid for those with their class feature of spellcasting and the opportunity cost of having fewer spells to affect the world around them. Heavily-armoured martials paid for their access to heavy armour because that's their class feature. In the case of half- and third-casters - that's fine, their breadth and depth of magical power is much lower than that of a full caster and if they want to skyrocket their AC then they are giving up far more of their resources to do so than a full caster would - especially since they're more MAD than both a pure martial and a full caster and consequently are going to have to make meaningful choices between maximising their casting stat vs maximising dexterity if they don't run with heavy armour.

This is compounded by the fact that you get accelerating returns from higher and higher AC; the party wizard going around with Mage Armour and Shield to get a steady AC in the mid-teens and a burst AC around 20 is far less troublesome than the same character hopping around with a shield and full plate and piling Shield on top of a mundane AC of 20 to become effectively untouchable - so you get the ridiculous situation where heavy and medium armour is more valuable to the classes for which it's just one of many options than it is for the classes whose defence begins and ends with it.

The elephant in the room is cleric subclasses that get heavy armour as a subclass feature (and therefore grant it as a multiclass benefit, unlike the Fighter and Paladin). There are all sorts of ways around this (disallow multiclassing, come up with only-in-the-class-that-earned-it restrictions for armoured spellcasting, roll heavy armour into the base Cleric chassis and consequently remove it as a dip benefit, etc.) None of these are bulletproof, but

[Azuresun]

Light armor isnt particularly noteworthy, but medium and equally shields are both big steps up if not provided by class (looking at you, cleric). If there are races with Natural AC around medium armor levels im not particularly worried if left on races, but if weapon/armor profs were to be rolled into backgrounds some balancing would be required (like taking the place of multiple other background features/profs).

My solution would be to say that racial armour proficiencies grant you armour prof one level better than what your class grants, or Heavy Armour Mastery if you have all of them. Solves the weirdness where you've got a race known as warriors....and the optimal class for them is wizard.

No offense but I'm honestly getting battered spouse vibes from your post. Take a look at the content made for 3.5 or Pathfinder, even Pathfinder 2nd edition (& thats just current d20 systems). For anyone who has played more than 5e the situation is obvious, branch out a little.

"Battered wife"?! Yeah, because clearly someone who disagrees with you on the internet about pretending to be an elf, they're obviously in the same boat as someone with psychological damage from an abusive spouse. Sheesh. That's a pretty offensive and crass comparison, and you should retract it right now.

5e is STARVED for content. They barely have more than a handful of subclasses each total. In 3.5 they would come out with a bunch of feats, spells, ACFs, classes, equipment PrCs, etc.

Yeah. And out of those, some would be gamebreaking by themselves, some would give core casters new ways to be the best at everything, some would be components for some gamebreaking combo, some would be entirely useless, and a lot would be "flavourful, but not an option if you want to keep up with the 3e numbers treadmills".

I was around for all of 3e, played Pathfinder for a bit, and I've played a bunch of other RPG's, and I'm largely happy with 5e's way of doing things (it'd be 100% if they'd just iterate the Mystic and heave it out the door).

[Thane of Fife]

That is fair.

No other edition of D&D has had two separate rest schedules, (Short Rest/Long Rest)

4e has two separate rest schedules (Short Rest/Extended Rest).

[Azuresun]

It appears you joined this month.
For several months now, (at least), almost every time Tasha's Cauldron, or any future product has been mentioned, a flood of negativity ensues.

I'm all for people sharing their opinion...bit this is a message board....
repeating, ad nauseam, "I'm unhappy with WotC", does not leave much opportunity to create a discussion.

A Thread becomes a hatefest...because the only discussion that can occur is discussing someone's personally held feelings...which just leads to ad hominem attacks and rancor..which inevitably leads to the thread being closed...

I'm, personally, very fatigued of this cycle..as a consequence...I'm speaking out.

There are valid reasons to be disappointed with D&D products...I'd love to discuss them...but we cant really discuss a persons feelings without, potentially, venturing into fraught territory.

You don't want me to spew an endless torrent of bile about the game that I passionately hate by all appearances (yet inexplicably spend time talking about, rather than something I like)? ZOMG corporate shill! Why don't you just ban all discussion and debate entirely?!?!?!? FREEDOM OF SPEEEEECH!!!!!

[Rukelnikov]

There's new content in plenty of those races, and considerably more in the monsters.

I know, I want the new content, what I don't want is the reprint taking too much space from the new content.

I completely agree those are big steps, which is why casters should give up a bit more to access them. A background is nothing, even less than a race choice. Multiclassing or feats are the ideal here. I'm sure wizards will muddle through somehow.

I do think casting in armor should be harder to attain, the armor proficiency in itself though I think is fine. Current backgrounds are comparable or better than Vhuman and Custom Lineage, granting a feat, 2 skills and a tool, and 10 spells known, so its not out of the expected power, the problem is that anyone who is interested in getting armor proficiency from a background is because they don't get it from class, which means its another background for casters. I wouldn't be surprised to see backgrounds granting fighting styles or maneuvers at some point, I expect that to be soonish.

I think the better way to phrase it is "nobody should be allowed to have high AC at low cost". Casters already have a bunch of magical ways to improve their AC, and they paid for those with their class feature of spellcasting and the opportunity cost of having fewer spells to affect the world around them. Heavily-armoured martials paid for their access to heavy armour because that's their class feature. In the case of half- and third-casters - that's fine, their breadth and depth of magical power is much lower than that of a full caster and if they want to skyrocket their AC then they are giving up far more of their resources to do so than a full caster would - especially since they're more MAD than both a pure martial and a full caster and consequently are going to have to make meaningful choices between maximising their casting stat vs maximising dexterity if they don't run with heavy armour.

Those that get it do get it cheap, because even when you say that's "their feature", they are only paying one level for it, even if it didn't allow MC wizards to cast in armor, they would still be paying it very cheap at one level. Which is kinda unnecesary, since Plate isn't expected to be affordable until ~lvl 4. Maybe they shouldn't get heavy armor prof at 1st level, if those classes got it at 3rd, it'd be a substantial investment, notably delaying spellcasting, and without nonsense rules like "if you didn't start a fighter, you don't get this proficiency". If they got it at 4, that would mean no 9th level spells, but 3 feels like a good level to get Plate , and so they should have prof by then.

The elephant in the room is cleric subclasses that get heavy armour as a subclass feature (and therefore grant it as a multiclass benefit, unlike the Fighter and Paladin). There are all sorts of ways around this (disallow multiclassing, come up with only-in-the-class-that-earned-it restrictions for armoured spellcasting, roll heavy armour into the base Cleric chassis and consequently remove it as a dip benefit, etc.) None of these are bulletproof, but

Tbh, I don't like the rule that not starting as a fighter means you don't get heavy plate unless you pay a feat for it. Was my paladin training the poor man's course or something? Same as I said before, its fixed by moving the proficiency to lvl 3.

EDIT: I wasn't thinking how heavy armor is not restricted to plate, and moving the proficiency to lvl 3 kinda kills the other heavy armors. But you know what? I'm fine with that, its a small price to pay for better MC rules.

You don't want me to spew an endless torrent of bile about the game that I passionately hate by all appearances (yet inexplicably spend time talking about, rather than something I like)? ZOMG corporate shill! Why don't you just ban all discussion and debate entirely?!?!?!? FREEDOM OF SPEEEEECH!!!!!

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And btw... Serve meals not, to those fantastic creatures with regenerative abilities

[Xervous]

On one hand I’m glad to see WotC is going back to make the changes for proper rebalancing under our new lord and savior Tasha’s. My prime gripe there has always been that the changes were a half measure, and we’re finally starting to see the other part of the surgery. It’s one thing to disagree with a system’s intent, but shoddy implementation is a whole ‘nother beast. Given the pacing of their releases and the time required this is when we should have seen a more refined Tasha’s, but the Suits need quarterly results regardless of them being golden brown or half baked.

On the other hand it’s a bit depressing to be staring down a system that doesn’t want to supply lore in most books when it has also decided to ship a bare minimum of thin setting books. When so many other games ooze personality with their settings or themes it feels like D&D is moving closer to the vagueness of GURPS. You know generally how it works and can discuss the structural elements, but fewer and fewer fluff details exist as common points. Where are the discussions about otter pelt trading?. I get that they don’t want to tell anyone how they should be playing, but it seems to be coming at a cost of the inspirational and instructive content I appreciated in other versions/games.

[Thunderous Mojo]

Long time lurker, recently started a new 3.5 game so I decided to post for once. For a person who apparently doesnt want to "make things personal" you could try not dismissing me for being "new". Thats unwarrented bias & prejudiced in its own right..

Mea Maxima Culpa.

My intention was never to dismiss you. I noticed information the board provided, (which includes a persons join date), and added a completely unnecessary bit, with the intent of adding context.

It was a mistake, alas, I forgot the second rule of Fight Club...err The Playground: "Don't Talk about Post Counts"

I never intended to cast aspersions on your post or give the impression that I was dismissing your comments. I offer my apologies for the misstep.

Xervous, what products are you thinking of that 'ooze' creativity in terms of lore?

Are those systems, like D&D, Roleplaying Games that deal with multiple worlds?

The Cypher System, for example, has a core set of rules which then are altered by the Settings.

5e, as a whole, has not excelled at creating Lore.
In part, because I do not think it is Jeremy Crawfords forte, (and the D&D Design team membership numbers have been historically wafer thin).

I also think in part because the game has nigh 50 years of Lore...so what bits do you recycle, what bits need to be created out of wholecloth?

5e has cool Gnolls.
4e had a cool Cosmology and Devil Duergar.
2e &3e had an abundance of very talented Designers, and seemingly unfettered production of products.
1e and OD&D started the ball rolling.

[RSP]

I don’t know how to link to it but the packtactics YouTube channel had a community post with a screenshot that references the dnd dev update where they said the new content will not replace the old monsters and races. Fwiw.

I recall Crawford saying similar about the new Bladesinger: it was an option to play the new one or the one from SCAG…then they errata’d the SCAG so no official version of the original exists.

[PhantomSoul]

I recall Crawford saying similar about the new Bladesinger: it was an option to play the new one or the one from SCAG…then they errata’d the SCAG so no official version of the original exists.

Their statements are always subject to at-will errata, which seems to be entirely used!

[Gurgeh]

Tbh, I don't like the rule that not starting as a fighter means you don't get heavy plate unless you pay a feat for it. Was my paladin training the poor man's course or something? Same as I said before, its fixed by moving the proficiency to lvl 3.

Eh? Paladins get heavy armour proficiency at first level, too.

[PhantomSoul]

Eh? Paladins get heavy armour proficiency at first level, too.

I'm guessing they started as not-Paladin and multiclassed into Paladin, which is the same case as starting as not-Fighter and multiclassing into Fighter, so there was a hidden "similarly" or "in my case" or something!