PHB U8 Survey Results Released

[Psyren]

Finally, some news from the devs



1) Confirmation this was the last PHB UA, however there will be further iteration internally as well as some new things (e.g. spells) that we won't see until the book releases.

2) Everything in the packet scored 70s or higher.

3) Druid and Moon Druid scored 70s, Barbarian and World Tree scored 80s, Monk scored 90s for most of its features and is now "most improved" class ahead of the Ranger.

4) New healing spells scored 80s. The new Conjure spells scored high 70s/80s.

5) The May release date leaked during PAX Unplugged was never true and surprised Crawford when he saw it. The books will still be getting worked on in May.

6) Future UAs may get released to test things like the new encounter builder but nothing to announce at this time.

[P. G. Macer]

Very surprising in my opinion, I expected to see some lower-scoring things here.

I am particularly surprised at how well the new "conjure" spells scored given how they don’t even remotely capture the fantasy that their 2014 versions did, even though they are light years ahead of those versions in terms of game balance.
My best guess is that since the population of survey-takers is likely much smaller than back in August of 2022 (for a multitude of reasons, most of which are not worth getting into here), there’s now a devoted core of public playtesters who have intuited how WotC responds to feedback, and their tendency to throw the baby out with the bathwater and revert to the 2014 version on anything that gets too low of a score rather than improve it further for the game’s health’s sake.

[Psyren]

The results don't surprise me. Some prominent youtubers (Insight Check, Treantmonk, Pack Tactics and d4) did a level 15 playtest last week, and d4 played a multiclass Sea Druid using the new Conjure Animals and Conjure Minor Elementals to great effect. The latter is overtuned (it's essentially Spirit Shroud++) but the one that really helped them dish out the damage was the new Conjure Animals; it was a lot less disruptive in play than its 2014 counterpart would have been, and also much more useful since it wouldn't have been subject to the second encounter's lair actions and large AoE.

The real star though was Treantmonk's Four Elements Monk 15, which got a lot of punch (no pun intended) out of the monk's deflect, disciplined survivor, and extreme mobility. His ability to grapple with Dex and pull/drop enemies into his allies' area effects proved to be very strong.

[Oramac]

1) Confirmation this was the last PHB UA

Boo. There was a lot of stuff that needs a lot of work. Hopefully their internal testing covers it all.

I am interested to see their Encounter Builder. I've been personally experimenting with a Budget System of my own for building encounters. I'm interested to see if the one Jeremy mentioned is similar.

[Monster Manuel]

I am particularly surprised at how well the new "conjure" spells scored given how they don’t even remotely capture the fantasy that their 2014 versions did, even though they are light years ahead of those versions in terms of game balance.

Same here, on this one. if they scored in the high 70s and 80s, I suspect it was because people wanted the old versions gone, not because the new versions were anything special. At least, that's my opinion on them: generally lackluster and derivative spells (excepting minor elementals which is a little crazy), whose main selling point is that they overwrite the busted 2014 versions. "Well, at least they don't break anything now" is not the ringing endorsement that they think it is...

[Schwann145]

1) Confirmation this was the last PHB UA

Well, RIP Bard, I guess, since the last time we saw it was in it's pre-reverted state.

I'm also surprised (and disappointed a little) that people so love the new Monk that they're willing to totally overlook how incredibly nerfed it was as a party member. For a game based around group play, the class didn't offer much to contribute outside of itself before, but now it offers basically nothing.

[Psyren]

Well, RIP Bard, I guess, since the last time we saw it was in it's pre-reverted state.

I'm also surprised (and disappointed a little) that people so love the new Monk that they're willing to totally overlook how incredibly nerfed it was as a party member. For a game based around group play, the class didn't offer much to contribute outside of itself before, but now it offers basically nothing.

No group play? Seriously? They can actually grapple now to lock down enemies, be team taxi across the battlefield including up walls, don't have to worry about being dominated or scared off the front line unlike other melee, reposition to wherever the backline needs them to be, and all that's just the base class before we factor in subclasses. They're better team players than ever.

[Zevox]

I'm also a little surprised that the new Conjure spells went over without a hitch. Well, perhaps more disappointed than surprised, but I was expecting them to just squeak by rather than get solid scores. Just +1 to the changes they're making that I dislike though.

Not surprised by the rest, though that's as much out of resignation as anything. My last bit of hope for anything I'd greatly like coming from this died when they decided the Four Elements Monk didn't even need a second pass.

[Hael]

It doesnt surprise me that things are polling high.

At this point in the process, one would expect a massive selection bias on who actually responds. Eg a great deal of people were turned off by previous UAs might not even respond, and that would need to be normalized or accounted for (eg you might introduce a question with an unchanging state that had a known answer in a previous UA, reappear just to calibrate responses).

But I was looking for that sort of check, and found none. Therefore I suspect they did no such thing.

So I mean, good luck!

[KorvinStarmast]

Very surprising in my opinion, I expected to see some lower-scoring things here.

I suspect that their reviewer base has shrunk.

and their tendency to throw the baby out with the bathwater and revert to the 2014 version on anything that gets too low of a score rather than improve it further for the game’s health’s sake.

"Well, at least they don't break anything now" is not the ringing endorsement that they think it is...

Our druid just used conjure animals to generate 8 giant lizards and have them force march/sprint until they drop, twice to get through a swampy area faster than on foot. The new spells don't allow for this kind of utility spell use. I used to conjure up a dire wolf pair for my bard and my halfling paladin to ride into battle on. I guess fun is no longer authorized.

I'm also a little surprised that the new Conjure spells went over without a hitch. Well, perhaps more disappointed than surprised, but I was expecting them to just squeak by rather than get solid scores.

They decided that those who can't figure out how to manage minions at the table (it takes cooperation between player and DM to do that) need to be coddled. So they did that.

It doesnt surprise me that things are polling high.

The reviewer population is in decline, I suspect

At this point in the process, one would expect a massive selection bias on who actually responds.

I surmise the same.

[Merlecory]

(eg you might introduce a question with an unchanging state that had a known answer in a previous UA, reappear just to calibrate responses).

But I was looking for that sort of check, and found none. Therefore I suspect they did no such thing.

So I mean, good luck!

To give them the benefit of the doubt, people who take the survey did do do from an account they had to log into. You could compare the average score they have over time to try to evaluate if they genuinely shifted opinion. You could also ask the same question about two very similar things, and use that to roughly estimate sentiment.
Since you knew the proportion of positive and negative responses, you watch if people who were negative shift, or just leave. You can track compositional changes that way




As an aside: RIP 4 elements monk. Your subclass fantasy will be missed.

[Damon_Tor]

The final playtest survey response was always going to be reported as positive regardless of how players actually responded. First and foremost, this is a marketing tactic, and the "new coke" phase of giving us bad content on purpose so they can appear to be benevolent by rolling those changes back is over.

[KorvinStarmast]

The final playtest survey response was always going to be reported as positive regardless of how players actually responded. First and foremost, this is a marketing tactic, and the "new coke" phase of giving us bad content on purpose so they can appear to be benevolent by rolling those changes back is over.

I wish I could disagree with you, but I got nothin'.

[Kane0]

Mildly interesting, but i'm one of those that fell off so i'm not exactly invested enough to be surprised.

[Psyren]

Even if the falloff since the first UA was massive - let's be generous and say a full 75% abandoned the process before now - that's still over 10,000 respondents, far more than any other feedback avenue they could have pursued, and certainly larger than any single D&D forum. It's orders of magnitude larger than the active participants on this one, DDB, and ENWorld combined. So I think the results are still valuable.

The final playtest survey response was always going to be reported as positive regardless of how players actually responded. First and foremost, this is a marketing tactic, and the "new coke" phase of giving us bad content on purpose so they can appear to be benevolent by rolling those changes back is over.

Heh, if that's the case, I wish they'd have saved Warlock spell slots and Wild Shape templates for last then

[Envyus]

Our druid just used conjure animals to generate 8 giant lizards and have them force march/sprint until they drop, twice to get through a swampy area faster than on foot. The new spells don't allow for this kind of utility spell use. I used to conjure up a dire wolf pair for my bard and my halfling paladin to ride into battle on. I guess fun is no longer authorized.

This is a good thing in my opinion cause that use is stepping on the toes of a bunch of other things.

Why ever use Phantom Steed when you can do this.

[Amechra]

Even if the falloff since the first UA was massive - let's be generous and say a full 75% abandoned the process before now - that's still over 10,000 respondents, far more than any other feedback avenue they could have pursued, and certainly larger than any single D&D forum. It's orders of magnitude larger than the active participants on this one, DDB, and ENWorld combined. So I think the results are still valuable.

I mean, this assumes that "number of people offering feedback" is a good metric for evaluating how successful the feedback process is... which I have my doubts about? To mangle a phrase, one playtest is worth a thousand survey results... especially since none of the people responding to those surveys could necessarily playtest in a useful way, since the UAs have been drip-feeding us player-facing tweaks instead of giving us a vertical slice of the "new" game.

[KorvinStarmast]

This is a good thing in my opinion cause that use is stepping on the toes of a bunch of other things.

Why ever use Phantom Steed when you can do this.

No, it steps on nobody's toes.
There are usually 4 players and 12 different classes. In this party, there is no Paladin.
Druid, Barbarian, Sorcerer, Monk, Rogue.
i
Also, Paladin gets one steed for himself, while in this case, a druid being a support caster and a team player. And the steeds go away after an hour so multiple casts of a 3rd level spell are required.
Druid was being imaginative and clever. (And he wild shaped into giant lizard to keep pace)
As Sergeant Helka would advise:

Lighten up, Francis.

[Psyren]

I mean, this assumes that "number of people offering feedback" is a good metric for evaluating how successful the feedback process is... which I have my doubts about? To mangle a phrase, one playtest is worth a thousand survey results... especially since none of the people responding to those surveys could necessarily playtest in a useful way, since the UAs have been drip-feeding us player-facing tweaks instead of giving us a vertical slice of the "new" game.

I mean... if the changes between, say, the initial and most recent versions of the Monk, Rogue, and Barbarian is due to survey feedback, I consider that an unequivocal win for surveys. Do I think the public feedback was harmful in some respects, absolutely, but I consider the experience to have been broadly positive overall.

[Schwann145]

No group play? Seriously? (1)They can actually grapple now to lock down enemies, (2)be team taxi across the battlefield including up walls, (3)don't have to worry about being dominated or scared off the front line unlike other melee, (4)reposition to wherever the backline needs them to be, and all that's just the base class before we factor in subclasses. They're better team players than ever.

1- Yeah, they got a SAD buff for grappling, which has been necessary ever since 2014 built the class wrong by encouraging dumping Strength () but that just improves them from "utter garbage" to "can now participate." Monk is still not a grappling class. It gains no way to deal with size differences. It gains no Advantage or Expertise or any other buff to make them particularly good at grappling (the way a Barbarian, Rogue, etc can be).
Anyone can grapple. Nothing about the class is making them exceptional at it, even with the buff.
2- Methinks you're overestimating this ability (the way most people always overestimate Monk's actual speed), but fair enough. This is new party utility. Incredibly limited party utility, but party utility all the same. (Worth pointing out that you get none of this until level 9 and 10, which is nearing the end of most Monk careers.)
3- Personal survival isn't party utility, no matter how hard you try to twist it into being so. Monk has always been very selfishly defensive in it's abilities, and this hasn't changed. Monk makes itself very good against save effects, fear, etc. Compare to, say, Paladin, which makes itself and all it's nearby friends very good against save effects, fear etc.
4- Being fast (which, as I've argued in the past, Monk isn't as fast as advertised by most folks) isn't party utility.

Now, let's take a quick glance at some subclasses...
*Shadow loses all of it's spell-sharing such as Darkvision and PWT*
*Elements loses spells in favor of elemental-themed physical attack/damage buffs*

Oof! That alone is a massive nerf to party utility!

[Crusher]

5) The May release date leaked during PAX Unplugged was never true and surprised Crawford when he saw it. The books will still be getting worked on in May.

This is the one that surprises me the least and pleases me the most. A print run like this is a sizeable creature. Fiddling with mechanics means the layout can't be 100% locked down, and not having the layout done less than 4 months before they want it available in stores isn't courting disaster, its marrying it.

Nothing is ever perfect, but last time I went through stuff, I felt they were in the ballpark but not quite there yet. An Aug/Sept release date (picking months out of the air) gives them a couple more months to iterate, while still allowing time to get the layout finalized, proofs checked, etc before printing and delivery. I feel a lot better about a late-summer/early-fall launch than May.

[paladinn]

I am definitely looking forward to the new books when they come out. But honestly I wonder how much of the playtest and results is going to be ignored. I mean, 5e could stand to be tweaked (in the case of the Ranger, a Lot); but by and large it's a fine game. And that's coming from a mostly-C&C guy.

Has anyone looked at Tales of the Valiant? It seems to have a lot of 5.5-isms baked in, and it looks better than I thought. I'm considering a ToV/5e hybrid. But then everything I do is a hybrid now :)

[Psyren]

1- Yeah, they got a SAD buff for grappling, which has been necessary ever since 2014 built the class wrong by encouraging dumping Strength () but that just improves them from "utter garbage" to "can now participate." Monk is still not a grappling class. It gains no way to deal with size differences. It gains no Advantage or Expertise or any other buff to make them particularly good at grappling (the way a Barbarian, Rogue, etc can be).
Anyone can grapple. Nothing about the class is making them exceptional at it, even with the buff.
2- Methinks you're overestimating this ability (the way most people always overestimate Monk's actual speed), but fair enough. This is new party utility. Incredibly limited party utility, but party utility all the same. (Worth pointing out that you get none of this until level 9 and 10, which is nearing the end of most Monk careers.)
3- Personal survival isn't party utility, no matter how hard you try to twist it into being so. Monk has always been very selfishly defensive in it's abilities, and this hasn't changed. Monk makes itself very good against save effects, fear, etc. Compare to, say, Paladin, which makes itself and all it's nearby friends very good against save effects, fear etc.
4- Being fast (which, as I've argued in the past, Monk isn't as fast as advertised by most folks) isn't party utility.

Now, let's take a quick glance at some subclasses...
*Shadow loses all of it's spell-sharing such as Darkvision and PWT*
*Elements loses spells in favor of elemental-themed physical attack/damage buffs*

Oof! That alone is a massive nerf to party utility!

1) Actually you're incorrect, they do; remember grapple is a Dex/Str save now, so if they land a Stunning Strike, which the monk will be attempting anyway since failure means free damage, the enemy autofails against being grappled. In addition, monks are great at repositioning grappled foes due to their speed counteracting the Slowed condition, both base speed and resource-free BA-Dash. (If you haven't already, I highly recommend watching Treantmonk's recent 1DnD playtest featuring a 4E Human Monk 15, this came up quite a lot.)

2) You can taxi party members before those levels, doing so just requires grappling them (which again, is a saving throw that they can choose to fail now) and slows you down. The later ability merely removes those drawbacks.

3/4) It's absolutely party utility. If you only have room for one tank in the party, Monk is now a contender and being more resilient to these effects and being able to get to where they're needed most is a plus. As you yourself keep saying, this is a team game.

Regarding Elements, those spells were nigh useless anyway, especially for their cost. As for Shadow, I'd be very surprised if PwT doesn't eat a fat nerf in 2024 (it needs one), but I did ask for Shadow to get it back in my survey regardless.

Has anyone looked at Tales of the Valiant? It seems to have a lot of 5.5-isms baked in, and it looks better than I thought. I'm considering a ToV/5e hybrid. But then everything I do is a hybrid now :)

I stopped keeping up with it because they made the strange decision to paywall their playtest to backers only.

[Oramac]

Has anyone looked at Tales of the Valiant? It seems to have a lot of 5.5-isms baked in, and it looks better than I thought. I'm considering a ToV/5e hybrid. But then everything I do is a hybrid now :)

I'm a backer of ToV. I quite like the majority of what they're doing, though not everything. Which is to be expected, I suppose. I will most likely pull ToV and 1D&D rules together, combine them with Nimble, and make my own Frankenstein game for my tables.

[Kane0]

I'm a backer of ToV. I quite like the majority of what they're doing, though not everything. Which is to be expected, I suppose. I will most likely pull ToV and 1D&D rules together, combine them with Nimble, and make my own Frankenstein game for my tables.

They're all kin, may as well go with a 5th FLAILSNAILS approach.

[ZRN]

It doesnt surprise me that things are polling high.

At this point in the process, one would expect a massive selection bias on who actually responds. Eg a great deal of people were turned off by previous UAs might not even respond, and that would need to be normalized or accounted for (eg you might introduce a question with an unchanging state that had a known answer in a previous UA, reappear just to calibrate responses).

But I was looking for that sort of check, and found none. Therefore I suspect they did no such thing.

So I mean, good luck!

Is your supposition here that this selection bias happened entirely between the 6th and 8th playtest packets? Because their playtest 6 monk got abysmal feedback (I'm sure; don't think they ever gave us numbers for that one?) and the playtest 8 monk did great.

[ZRN]

The final playtest survey response was always going to be reported as positive regardless of how players actually responded. First and foremost, this is a marketing tactic, and the "new coke" phase of giving us bad content on purpose so they can appear to be benevolent by rolling those changes back is over.

I'll be the first to say that I have NO idea why rogues and monks started with terrible playtest versions before switching to much-improved versions, especially since they're the only two classes that really followed that pattern. But, come on. The stuff in the 8th playtest, particularly the monk revamp, was genuinely good. Not just "at least they're not making things worse," but both more powerful and more fun to play. The whole thing about the "New Coke" tactic (other than it not being true) is that Coke ended up with the exact same "classic" product they started with, but people allegedly appreciated it more because it had been threatened. That's not at all what happened here; they're actually making big changes to the existing product.

[Psyren]

I'll be the first to say that I have NO idea why rogues and monks started with terrible playtest versions before switching to much-improved versions, especially since they're the only two classes that really followed that pattern. But, come on. The stuff in the 8th playtest, particularly the monk revamp, was genuinely good. Not just "at least they're not making things worse," but both more powerful and more fun to play. The whole thing about the "New Coke" tactic (other than it not being true) is that Coke ended up with the exact same "classic" product they started with, but people allegedly appreciated it more because it had been threatened. That's not at all what happened here; they're actually making big changes to the existing product.

Your facts and logic have no place here.

As far as your first question, I do understand what they were going for with the original rogue, they were trying to remove their reliance on off-turn sneak attack as that was a friction point for the rogue during other turns. What they failed to recognize is that some friction points are good, which led to them removing something rogue players at most skill levels found genuinely fun as well as failing to adequately compensate us for its removal, and the feedback reflected that.

[Blatant Beast]

It doesnt surprise me that things are polling high.

At this point in the process, one would expect a massive selection bias on who actually responds. Eg a great deal of people were turned off by previous UAs might not even respond,

The above is true for me. I have not responded to a Survey in some time. Anecdotally, of the 8 people I play with regularly, no one else follows, (and some remain mostly unaware of),One D&D.

I would love to see data regarding one’s general impression of One D&D between different segments of the gaming community.

I wonder if the fatted livestock….errr loyal subscribers of D&D Beyond have noticeably different attitudes toward One D&D vs those that have not entered the walled kingdom of D&D-land.

[Oramac]

The above is true for me. I have not responded to a Survey in some time. Anecdotally, of the 8 people I play with regularly, no one else follows, (and some remain mostly unaware of),One D&D.

I would love to see data regarding one’s general impression of One D&D between different segments of the gaming community.

I wonder if the fatted livestock….errr loyal subscribers of D&D Beyond have noticeably different attitudes toward One D&D vs those that have not entered the walled kingdom of D&D-land.

I've had similar experiences. I play regularly with about a dozen people across 3 games, and about half of them are highly loyal DDB subscribers. Of all the players (including DMs), I'd say maybe 1/3 of them are even aware of OneD&D. Of those, none of them are following it with any kind of passion. At best, they're tangentially aware that changes are coming, but have no idea what they are.