One D&D UA #2: "Expert Classes" Survey Open 10/20 - 11/23

[Garfunion]

Currently:

Move - Can be a jump, up to your speed
Action - Can Dash --> can then jump up to your speed

1D&D:

Move - Cannot be a jump
Action - Can jump, up to your speed

What is the improvement here? I'm not seeing it. (This doesn't even touch the fact that by Strength 20 I can jump 4 squares without a check, whereas now I'd have to roll an Athletics check of 20 to do that, the equivalent of a Hard DC lol, what a joke.) One option would be to let characters use their Strength score in place of a roll if they want.

Why is this a problem though? I did this in our Avernus game several times. If you don't clear the difficult terrain it's an Acrobatics check to stop from falling Prone, which is a risk. If you do clear it, awesome, you're a strong guy that can jump over stuff.

Strength characters need better options, not action denial.

Correction

1D&D:

Move - jump up to 5ft(difficult terrain10ft)
Action - Can jump 5ft(difficult terrain10ft) + strength test, up to your speed.

What this will do, will open up additional class and archetype features to circumvent these restrictions. Like a monk being able to ignore the difficult terrain part of the jump and maybe add their unarmored movement to the base jump.

[Segev]

Correction

1D&D:

Move - jump up to 5ft(difficult terrain10ft)
Action - Can jump 5ft(difficult terrain10ft) + strength test, up to your speed.

What this will do, will open up additional class and architect features to circumvent these restrictions. Like a monk being able to ignore the difficult terrain part of the jump and maybe add their unarmored movement to the base jump.

Inventing problems in the mechanics so you can have classes ignore them is sometimes okay, but is only good design if the activity being so limited is iconically unique to the class or classes with those features.

The ability to jump and attack in the same round is not something I cna point to any one class and say, "Yep, that's a class that should be able to do that, and next to no others."

Pure spellcasters are the only ones who MAYBE should be so limited. As it is, the Rogue is unable to jump and do anything else other than Cunning Action in the same turn.

I see what they were trying to do, I think, but I also think it was a mistake. Jumping should not be an action, should consume movement, and should have a clear guide on just how far a roll of Strength (Athletics or Acrobatics) can let you jump.

[CornfedCommando]

One thing I haven’t seen mentioned in this thread is anyone’s reaction to all the dead levels Rogues will have using Subclasses from Xanathar’s and Tasha’s. I’m not sure I like the suggestion to use the old Sublass’s level progression. I believe we’ll be fitting old Sublasses to scale with this new progression. Not sure if it’ll be too big a buff to get everything three levels earlier, but I’d rather go with that than having my Rogue player get zilch on a level up.

Probably do the same with the other classes too, though I don’t think it will be as big an issue. Hell, I really doubt it’ll be an issue at all. Even for the Rogue. Let the Swashbuckler have Panache at 6. Why not?

[OldTrees1]

One thing I haven’t seen mentioned in this thread is anyone’s reaction to all the dead levels Rogues will have using Subclasses from Xanathar’s and Tasha’s. I’m not sure I like the suggestion to use the old Sublass’s level progression. I believe we’ll be fitting old Sublasses to scale with this new progression. Not sure if it’ll be too big a buff to get everything three levels earlier, but I’d rather go with that than having my Rogue player get zilch on a level up.

Probably do the same with the other classes too, though I don’t think it will be as big an issue. Hell, I really doubt it’ll be an issue at all. Even for the Rogue. Let the Swashbuckler have Panache at 6. Why not?

I assume WotC thinks the old subclasses are not officially supported by 1D&D and they want you to talk to your GM.

Personally, I might rule that the base class determines when subclass features are granted. Then I would more carefully examine the subclasses in question. I don't think 5E had any subclasses that would need exceptions, but if there were then I might have the base class features arrive earlier to delay the subclass feature. If that didn't work (I seriously doubt that with 5E features) then I might work with the player to find a reasonable nerf to the subclass feature.

Inventing problems in the mechanics so you can have classes ignore them is sometimes okay, but is only good design if the activity being so limited is ironically unique to the class or classes with those features.

Warriors can jump as part of movement. For everyone else it is an action.
Experts can climb as part of movement. For everyone else it is an action.
Priests can ride as part of movement. For everyone else it is an action.
Mages can cast spells, attack, or swim as part of movement. For everyone else it is an action. What do you mean? This is perfectly balanced.
-A magus by the bay

[Kane0]

One thing I haven’t seen mentioned in this thread is anyone’s reaction to all the dead levels Rogues will have using Subclasses from Xanathar’s and Tasha’s. I’m not sure I like the suggestion to use the old Sublass’s level progression. I believe we’ll be fitting old Sublasses to scale with this new progression. Not sure if it’ll be too big a buff to get everything three levels earlier, but I’d rather go with that than having my Rogue player get zilch on a level up.

Probably do the same with the other classes too, though I don’t think it will be as big an issue. Hell, I really doubt it’ll be an issue at all. Even for the Rogue. Let the Swashbuckler have Panache at 6. Why not?

Well i think the default WotC stance is that you shouldnt try to mix and match, but you could shuffle the features to fit the new level breakpoints and insert extra feats/asis into the blanks.

[Jerrykhor]

Its funny how the new Stroke of Luck rewards failure so much. Since attack roll is a D20 Test, it can turn a miss into a Crit but not a hit into a Crit. Better still if your miss is a Nat1, because you would also get an Inspiration. And since the crit rules are reverted to normal, double Sneak attack dice once per Short Rest sounds pretty good.

[CornfedCommando]

Well i think the default WotC stance is that you shouldnt try to mix and match, but you could shuffle the features to fit the new level breakpoints and insert extra feats/asis into the blanks.

Yeah, this is my biggest fear; they aren’t sincere about backwards compatibility. But there are a lot of great subclasses in 5e that add a ton of variety and I’m not inclined to abandon them so I can go back to Hunter/Beastmaster Rangers. I think that if WOTC sticks to a new base class progression that wildly throws old subclasses out of whack, then I’ll just insert old subclass features into the new progression and call it good. But this is only UA and my feedback will certainly mention this. Maybe they’ll re-jigger base class progression to more closely align with older material. 🤷🏼*♂️

[Rukelnikov]

Yeah, this is my biggest fear; they aren’t sincere about backwards compatibility. But there are a lot of great subclasses in 5e that add a ton of variety and I’m not inclined to abandon them so I can go back to Hunter/Beastmaster Rangers. I think that if WOTC sticks to a new base class progression that wildly throws old subclasses out of whack, then I’ll just insert old subclass features into the new progression and call it good. But this is only UA and my feedback will certainly mention this. Maybe they’ll re-jigger base class progression to more closely align with older material. 🤷🏼*♂️

This has already happened with PrCs from 3.0 to 3.5 and from 3.5 to Pathfinder. Its not a surprise that this is happening when they claim there will be backwards compatibility. There will be, but you'll still need to work with your DM to determine how you will port these things.

[Kane0]

Yeah, this is my biggest fear; they aren’t sincere about backwards compatibility.

I think that if WOTC sticks to a new base class progression that wildly throws old subclasses out of whack, then I’ll just insert old subclass features into the new progression and call it good

So far i think they are absolutely trying to have 5e characters/adventures work with 5.5 ones, and also attmepting to standardize things where possible like conditions, actions and class level feature progression. Its a tough line to tread and I dont envy their position.

By way of example, look at the people salting about losing half prof to init and counterspell from Jack of All Trades. I dont think that was an intended interaction to begin with but now the devs are in a position where they are damned in the court of public opinio if they do address it and potentially shooting themselves in the foot if they dont.

Anyways yes, a guideline document on how to handle these things would be welcome.

[follacchioso]

The Charger Feat looks great now - but wait a minute, does it work with Ranged attacks, too? Can I charge my enemies from 300' of distance, fire them an arrow, with such force that they are pushed 10' back?

Having played a Swords Bard before, I like the fact that the Bardic Inspiration dice are based on proficiency bonus instead of Charisma. That makes Bard builds less MAD - I can focus more on STR or DEX and less on CHA, and still have the same amount of spell slots. Spellcasting will be less effective but there are many options that don't rely on the spellcasting stat.

Moving Shatter and Thunderwave to Transmutation is a crime for Evocation Wizards. Why is that necessary? These spells feel more like Evocation than Transmutation.

[Arkhios]

Do Opportunity attacks use your reaction by default or did sentinel get 'whoopsie' buffed by not needing reaction?

Opportunity Attack has used your reaction since day one of 5th edition.

(tbh, I don't know if it's still true for the playtest as I haven't read the documents that thoroughly yet)

[animorte]

Also, putting a bad rule willingly may serve a lot of other pourposes, i.e.: "we put this bad rule to use a thermometer on how in tune we are with the playerbase and on the kind of feedback we are receiving, we expect people to complain about this in the surveys, if they don't we may not be getting what they want/care for, or they may not be seeing the game as we do and/or think they do. And if they do complain, we get the feedback of why they don't like it, which serves as a certain confirmation that we are in tune with peoples expectations."

You took the high road on that; I’ll take the low one.

Intentional bad rules may be in place to draw attention away from other experimental rules/changes. “They’ll be too busy disliking and arguing about this thing that they won’t be as concerned with that thing we want to push through.”

Better still if your miss is a Nat1, because you would also get an Inspiration.

And still no word on how this might work with Halfling’s Luck.

[EggKookoo]

Yeah, this is my biggest fear; they aren’t sincere about backwards compatibility

They've already explained this. When they say backward compatibility, they do not mean you can use old PC classes/subclasses or even old races (verbatim). They only mean that you can use old adventure content. That's it. One D&D is not intended to be fully compatible with 5e.

[stoutstien]

They've already explained this. When they say backward compatibility, they do not mean you can use old PC classes/subclasses or even old races (verbatim). They only mean that you can use old adventure content. That's it. One D&D is not intended to be fully compatible with 5e.

In other words:
"The content we released for the 5e player options don't line up so we're going to reintroduce player options to line up with the content."

[EggKookoo]

In other words:
"The content we released for the 5e player options don't line up so we're going to reintroduce player options to line up with the content."

I mean I suppose a given table could have a player with a 5e PC and another player with a 1DnD PC and the DM could make it work. So it could be backward-compatible in that sense.

[Gignere]

I mean I suppose a given table could have a player with a 5e PC and another player with a 1DnD PC and the DM could make it work. So it could be backward-compatible in that sense.

It would be easy enough for them to release a conversion guide for subclasses not in D&Done kinda like what they did with Bladesinger when they changed it in Tasha’s and made it backwards compatible with SCAG.

[stoutstien]

I mean I suppose a given table could have a player with a 5e PC and another player with a 1DnD PC and the DM could make it work. So it could be backward-compatible in that sense.

Sure in the same sense that you could have a battlerager and a hexvoker in the same party. Theoretically they're both acceptable player options and should be able to exist simultaneously within a party. In a more practical sense it doesn't work.
I don't mind a lot of these changes (some of it is garbage though) but if they want to trend damage down and move the point of balance for classes back a little bit they should just come out and say so.

[MoiMagnus]

I don't mind a lot of these changes (some of it is garbage though) but if they want to trend damage down and move the point of balance for classes back a little bit they should just come out and say so.

I feel like the reduced damage is mostly on optimised tables. I doubt Sneak Attack on attacks of opportunity is that common among tables (the difference between "once per turn" and "once per round" flies over a lot if tables). Between tables where player misevaluate the -5/+10, tables where players don't use the feats much, and tables where the GM already filtered out the stronger combat feats, the changes to combat feats might not have that much influence.

[stoutstien]

I feel like the reduced damage is mostly on optimised tables. I doubt Sneak Attack on attacks of opportunity is that common among tables (the difference between "once per turn" and "once per round" flies over a lot if tables). Between tables where player misevaluate the -5/+10, tables where players don't use the feats much, and tables where the GM already filtered out the stronger combat feats, the changes to combat feats might not have that much influence.

I think it's more of a goal of bringing the ceiling down and floor up a tad across the board. Have to wait on what the others casters look like before we can tell.

[Jervis]

Correction

1D&D:

Move - jump up to 5ft(difficult terrain10ft)
Action - Can jump 5ft(difficult terrain10ft) + strength test, up to your speed.

What this will do, will open up additional class and archetype features to circumvent these restrictions. Like a monk being able to ignore the difficult terrain part of the jump and maybe add their unarmored movement to the base jump.

Anti-feature. Making rules worse/stupid so subclasses or feats can make them work as intended is like 3.5 trapfinding.

Yeah, this is my biggest fear; they aren’t sincere about backwards compatibility. But there are a lot of great subclasses in 5e that add a ton of variety and I’m not inclined to abandon them so I can go back to Hunter/Beastmaster Rangers. I think that if WOTC sticks to a new base class progression that wildly throws old subclasses out of whack, then I’ll just insert old subclass features into the new progression and call it good. But this is only UA and my feedback will certainly mention this. Maybe they’ll re-jigger base class progression to more closely align with older material. 🤷🏼*♂️

Well obviously they need to sell the reprints two years down the line as they make almost no meaningful changes and drip feed them back. This is backwards compatible in name only, the math is the same but the class layout means that you can’t really use old options. Yeah it’s easy to homebrew things to port them over but again that’s continuing the trend of expecting us to do their work for them and still pay for it. The consumer friendly thing to do would be to include adjusted versions of all released subclasses in the next PHB or just included as a carrot on a stick for people who bought the PHB to access digitally on the new dndbeyond, lets be honest making anything for 5e is easy as hell and that could be done in an afternoon with recycled art. It would build a lot of good faith in people that already bought this stuff. But after the absolute train wreck that was spelljammer that isn’t gonna happen in a million years.

[Goobahfish]

There are some... interesting mechanics changes going on here.

Exhaustion being a -1, -2, -3 penalty. Protection granting +2 AC rather than disadvantage. Seems like there is a bit of a return to some crunch. It will be interesting to see how far that goes.

I thought the 'here is a giant list of spells... we don't like 2 (barkskin and guidance)'. Also guidance has been struck by a nerf-hammer and a half (not a bad thing, but maybe a bit too nerfy).

Perhaps someone can confirm to me but were social checks codified anywhere (i.e. with DCs). That seems like a dangerous return to diplomancy.

The rogue sneak attack change seems like a good thing to me. Making 2 sneak attacks per turn because you're doing some action/reaction shenanigans but not multi-attack always felt munchkinish.

Ranger feels... a bit more coherent?

Bard will need some more work (2 Bardic Inspirations per day until 5th?) feels very unbardish.

Honestly, much of this seems little more than a random homebrew one can find online. There is definitely a half-baked vibe going on. Level 4 feats... level 20 feats... level 1 feats... seems over-engineered because we don't like variant humans.

[Brookshw]

The consumer friendly thing to do would be to include adjusted versions of all released subclasses in the next PHB

I'd be fine with a separate errata adjusting them, but it won't happen.

[KorvinStarmast]

Based on that experience, how would you feel having a max of 3 BI dice per long rest until 7th level? And generally less dice until 14th+?

Not good. I used the heck out of Bardic inspiration at low level, and in particular Cutting Words to prevent damage (which means you don't have to heal!). Once one gets up in level that annoyance goes away, but a low level bard's ability to be a support is degraded. Also, moving JoAT to 5th is a WTF moment for me. Granted, the domain spell always prepared is nice, but now that bards are not a 'known' spell caster I guess the benefit is that "I get abjuration spells that I could not previously access at all." So OK, I guess?

It was an extreme example, but my point remains, one level of Bard and only a 13 Cha gives you the same number of uses at a time as a straight Bard, and just more period than a 6th level Bard or below.

Yet another example of Multi Classing having a lot of wrinkles to it.

Ranger 18 in this UA

is for sure underwhelming. They need to scrub that one again.

Favored Enemy is good, but why does Hunter's Mark need to be a spell? So others can pick it up? Just delete the spell and make it a ranger feature outright, as it should've been. Same with Find Steed... I doubt clerics will lose access to conjurations, so they just get magic horses now, apparently.

I tend to agree. On the other hand, I like how magical secrets allows some customizability ... for bards.

There is a general lack of design creativity. Where is the exploration pillar?

Hopefully in a future UA.

Spell lists: I liked the concept, let’s see the execution {snip the rest} except:
Mage Slayer: Yet Another Half Feat, no more free attacks but instead auto-pass a mental save once per LR. That should have been any rest or prof times per LR at least, it's in a worse position than it was before even if many/most of your reaction attacks were triggered by spells that incapacitated you, removed the caster from harm or otherwise sidestepped it (such as new monsters having magic attacks that aren't spells)

Concur; I will book mark your post for when the survey comes out. Even though we disagree on half feats, I see your point.

Come to think of it, it only gives martial weapons now, so maybe everyone gets all simple weapons (which now include shortsword)?
Also, I have a suspicion passive Perception (or anything) is simply not a thing anymore, especially in the light of Inspiration gain on 1/20/whatever.

We'll see, a future UA will hopefully clarify that.

-A magus by the bay[/COLOR]

Laughed, I did.

The Charger Feat looks great now - but wait a minute, does it work with Ranged attacks, too? Can I charge my enemies from 300' of distance, fire them an arrow, with such force that they are pushed 10' back?

Probably not. But bring that up in the feedback to this UA so that they don't overlook that.

Having played a Swords Bard before, I like the fact that the Bardic Inspiration dice are based on proficiency bonus instead of Charisma. That makes Bard builds less MAD - I can focus more on STR or DEX and less on CHA, and still have the same amount of spell slots. Spellcasting will be less effective but there are many options that don't rely on the spellcasting stat.

I had not considered that, but then, I don't play swords bard.

Moving Shatter and Thunderwave to Transmutation is a crime for Evocation Wizards. Why is that necessary? These spells feel more like Evocation than Transmutation.

yeah, but I suspect that evoker's "sculpt spells" is not going to be in D &Done

[Oramac]

A DM can already do what he wants. There's no reason to be adversarial and threaten players with "What you can do NPCs can do" with stuff the rules say PCs are allowed to do.

It's not adversarial. If my players were on GITP I guarantee they would agree. They get some hairbrained idea they want to try, and I simply remind them that they are not unique snowflakes in this huge world in which they live. Most of the time they rethink the idea and come up with something better. Sometimes they stick with it and it's the epitome of comedy. But it's never "adversarial".

Hooray for fixed DCs.

I'm not strictly opposed to fixed DCs, but I much prefer the contested check. You want to hide from the big ancient dragon? Fine, you roll stealth, he rolls perception. A DC 15 check to hide from something with a +16 to perception is just stupid.

Jump should be part of normal movement, not an action, so that needs to be fixed. Barbarian: I jump over the pit and do nothing else. Wizard: I Misty Step over the pit and cast Firebolt. Yeah, no.

Fully agree. 100%

Subclass: It appears there is a standard pattern of 3, 6, 10 and 14 now, that’s good.

This was explicitly stated in one of the videos (rogue, I think).

I'm going to mention this again since nobody seemed to catch it and I haven't witnessed any concern on the matter yet. Specifically referencing the video.

I mentioned it, but there's a lot going on here. The TL;DR is, halflings get screwed by this UA's Heroic Inspiration rule.

[KorvinStarmast]

I'm not strictly opposed to fixed DCs, but I much prefer the contested check. You want to hide from the big ancient dragon? Fine, you roll stealth, he rolls perception. A DC 15 check to hide from something with a +16 to perception is just stupid.

+many

Jump should be part of normal movement, not an action, so that needs to be fixed. Barbarian: I jump over the pit and do nothing else. Wizard: I Misty Step over the pit and cast Firebolt. Yeah, no.

Fully agree. 100%

Yeah, and glad for the example.

I mentioned it, but there's a lot going on here. The TL;DR is, halflings get screwed by this UA's Heroic Inspiration rule.

Yes, but why can't they get both? Re roll a die and get future inspiration?

Also, I just realized that bards cannot get wish with magical secrets.
EDIT: Also, why is Leomund's Tiny Hut Evocation rather than Conjuration or Transmutation? The spell lists are kinda weird.
I am breaking them all down by School and arcane/primal/divine, yielding some interesting results.
For example, the only Divine spell that is Illusion is Silence.
The only Primal illusion spell is Silence: Primal doesn't get Hallucinatory Terrain. (isn't that kind of weird?)
Maybe they are saving that for a particular Druid Circle?

[Stangler]

Just a theory but I think the changes to exhaustion are a strong hint that dropping to zero will result in a level of exhaustion. I feel like this issue was talked about a lot in their feedback and using exhaustion is the most obvious solution to the issue.

[paladinn]

Does monk being in warrior group mean that they are gonna get d10 hit dice?

Not necessarily. Rangers are "experts" and yet they have D10.

Monks have never had D10 HD. But in my mind they are priests. Eastern and Western monks are religious in nature, even if the "religion" doesn't worship a specific deity.

Paladins are/should be warriors. They've always been. Putting them in the priest group just adds to the identity confusion. IMO.

[Oramac]

Just a theory but I think the changes to exhaustion are a strong hint that dropping to zero will result in a level of exhaustion. I feel like this issue was talked about a lot in their feedback and using exhaustion is the most obvious solution to the issue.

Now that is interesting. I like it. Makes dropping to zero much more punishing without making it too much more punishing (if that makes sense).

[KorvinStarmast]

Paladins are/should be warriors. They've always been. Putting them in the priest group just adds to the identity confusion. IMO.

I like the Paladins as priests, since it lets us get rid of the war domain cleric.

[lall]

Also, I just realized that bards cannot get wish with magical secrets.

Since they prepare daily, assuming they choose Arcane, beginning at level 17 they can select Wish as one of their two Arcane spells on any given day.