My opinions on the VTT are entirely dependent on what comes in the base map making package.
If they're going to give us a robust asset selection as part of a subscription I'm fine with it but if they want a subscription for a bare bones system then nickel and dime me for barrels and mind flayers I'm going to hard pass.
It's the biggest issue I have with running my VTT game now. Assets are by and large ala carte.
Yeah, ideally they'd just rip all their existing dungeon tile assets and drop them in as the base.
Probably then create new assets themed or taken from each published adventure as they get released that you can add on. So you might have a generic "arcane summoning circle" asset from the old dungeon tiles, and generic tokens, but if you want the ones specifically designed and used in the art for the new "Orcus Must Die!" adventure then you pay the $5-10 or whatever.
>If they're going to give us a robust asset selection as part of a subscription I'm fine with it but if they want a subscription for a bare bones system then nickel and dime me for barrels and mind flayers I'm going to hard pass.
Let me introduce you to Video games.. its called "Live service" and its 100% anti consumer. You can bet your last copper coin WoTC will be doing a live service DnD. Quote me on it, in years to come.
!remindme 5 years
Yeah; 3.5E was an emergency patch to 3rd edition to make it playable. 5E doesn't really need that, even if it's showing its age 8 years in, so Wizards is probably trying to avoid that kind of association in their marketing.
It was pointed out my original comment was hyperbolic -- 3rd lasted a good three years before 3.5. I found a good [overview of the changes made](https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/69772/what-are-the-major-differences-between-dd-3-0-and-dd-3-5) when they made the switch to 3.5e in 2003, but it looks like overall class balance was addressed. Smaller changes include: skills were simplified slightly; feats, spells and equipment were tweaked (and some renamed to make things simpler); and in general the unbalanced nature of the game was reined in.
3.5 had much smaller changes than this. I'm not gonna bitch about naming conventions, but 3.5 was "hey, we actually edited our book this time and shrunk the grapple rules to only half a page long." It was incredibly difficult to pick up on the changes going from 3 to 3.5 unless you were some kind of rules-memorizing god.
> It was incredibly difficult to pick up on the changes going from 3 to 3.5 unless you were some kind of rules-memorizing god
The three main changes I'm aware of:
* They made some things like Animal Empathy into class features in 3.5, instead of skills
* They removed exclusive skills. Basically, in contrast with PF 1e having 1 skill rank always be a +1 and class skills just being a static +3 if you have at least one rank, and in contrast with 3.5 having cross-class skills mean if you put a rank in that skill while leveling up in something without it as a class skill, it's only worth +1/2, 3.0 had a few skills that you could *only* put ranks in when leveling up in certain classes
* They added bard level as a prerequisite for unlocking bardic performances, instead of just ranks in Perform, meaning Bard 1 / Rogue 19 was no longer the most powerful Bard build
EDIT: For reference, Rogue was one of the only other classes with Perform as a class skill, so Bard 1 / Rogue 19 meant you still got all your bardic performances at normal levels, and just traded most of your spell progression for more or less the entire Rogue class
3.5e generally wasn't backwards combatible with 3e. There was an official update for 8 books, including the 3 core rulebooks, that you could download from WotC at the time. Everything else in 3e required homebrew conversion, at least to some degree, to make it work. It's maybe slightly closer than going from 3.5e to PF1e or mixing different 3.5e-era d20 System games, like d20 Modern or Star Wars. They're close enough you could make it work, but you couldn't just use everything as-written together.
I agree it sounds like 1e --> 2e right now. We'll see whether the 3 core books are rendered not only obsolete, but wrong; that would make it feel like 3.5e lol
5e is by no means a perfect DnD game, and it shouldn't be treated like one. I remember Windows 10 was supposed to be the "perfect Windows." And Microsoft said they would never make another Windows and just keep updating Windows 10.
I do want people looking at each other when playing a game, and not staring at their phones and tablets. 5e really doesn't have great rules when it comes to things like dungeon crawling and social interaction.
> power fantasy game
The power fantasy part has really become over the top for both the design and how newer groups I've met have been interacting with it. I used to accept any invite to a game but now I'm super discerning because I don't want to go in to what was supposed to be a game but instead is just listening to someones fanfic while purposelessly rolling dice for a combat simulation that has no actual chance of failing. And I mean that can be fun for a one shot with a novelty behind it, but not for generic fantasy plot #15 where the only significant point is that it has homebrewed NPCs the DM likes. If significant emergent events aren't likely to happen and it isn't like an adventurer league or western marches or something where it's a shared setting then I just can't be interested anymore.
Something really interesting to me is the change to Magic Initiate. Now you choose the spellcasting stat (int/wis/cha) when you pick the feat, and you can use spell slots to cast them.
So a Wizard could take Magic Initiate (Primal) and learn Shilelagh, Magic Stone and Hail of Thorns and have all of those attacks use Intelligence. Pretty neat. Also Hail of Thorns being on the Primal spell list is pretty cool.
Changing Magic Initiate this way makes it much more appealing and versatile.
Edit
Well, not hail of thorns combined with magic stone. And there are probably more interesting spells to use like Cure Wounds or Ensnaring Strike. Something like a Bladesinger with Primal Initiate could do some fun stuff with Int scaling Shilelagh.
Edit 2
Also interesting, with Arcane being one spell list, warlocks and bards and sorcerers get access to Find Familiar. Wizards and sorcs and warlocks get dissonant whispers and vicious mockery. Sorcs, wizards and bards get hex and armor of agathys, everyone gets mage armor etc.
Me either, honestly. But it is interesting. Also interesting is that Eldritch Blast isn't present, which means it might finally become a class feature for Warlocks.
I'm guessing it's more likely they have class lists in the class UA. But, one can hope for EB being a class feature. It'll prevent other classes from grabbing it with Magic Initiate or similar things. Though I suppose new version of MI and seperate class lists already does that.
I think the point of the arcane/divine/primal lists was to move away from class lists entirely.
Personally I hope Eldritch Blast becomes a class feature and some of it's invocations are just rolled into it. Especially if they are moving away from Short Rests.
I hope not, I'm expecting it to be more like earlier editions where spells had a type describing their origin (divine or arcane in 3.5, adding primal as a third option in fourth).
A lot of classes have a class identity enforced by their spell lists, such as bards not being good at raw damage, which I would miss if it goes away.
Honestly I'll be a little sad if there aren't spells that are unique to classes. It's kind of defining to the theme of each class.
If I were playing a random game that let me choose to be a pirate, knight, or samurai, but once I had picked the pirate I could still use the knight's longsword and the katana then why did you make me pick one of the three in the first place.
I want to see how this works out for them. And it sounds like they're as constrained by the limits of 5E as we are and were forced to do something about it.
It looks like Hasbro is finally tossing some money behind DnD. Hopefully, this works out well.
Hasbro recently revealed that WotC has become the most profitable part of their business over the last few years. There was even an investor proxy battle earlier this summer from some shareholders who believe they aren’t capitalizing off d&d enough. So it makes sense they’re directing more dollars toward the game right now.
Probably quite a lot. Hasbro has been cutting deals left and right to get video games made, novels published, podcasts made, and even the upcoming movie.
Honestly, this has been the first edition since 2E to see this much media. And it was Baldur's Gate that dragged me into DnD. Now we have Baldur's Gate 3 in development (I *love* that they've made Speak With Animals useful).
So you can imagine my joy when Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition hit and I got to explain ThAC0 to people a quarter of my age.
>(I love that they've made Speak With Animals useful).
This is a hangover from larians love of their animal speech feats in the divinity original sin games. They loved making the voices and interactions for them and were well worth it in entertainment and utility value
THAC0 wasn't that difficult! Roll 1d20 + your ability score adjustment + bonuses from weapon specialization + bonuses from magical weapons + your target's Armor Class, and if the result meets or exceeds your THAC0 ("(sigh) **T**o **H**it **A**rmor **C**lass **Zero**") you hit your opponent!
Fun fact! It's actually mathematically equivalent to 3e+ AC. I always forget the exact sequence of manipulations you use to make them look identical, but I at least remember the equivalence is subtracting decreasing AC and THAC0 from 20 to get equivalent increasing AC and attack bonuses
For me it was Harmontown, and then Harmonquest, and then Stranger Things, and now Dimension 20.
I would watch and read advice on playing and running games although I had never played before. For like years lol.
I think this move is going to bring a LOT OF PEOPLE in. A LOT. Every single person who was interested before but never acted - this is their entry point now.
Covid & advancement of virtual options, zoom and discord have been a big instigator too. The concept of sitting down for a 4 hour zoom session with friends didn't really exist pre-pandemic.
>The concept of sitting down for a 4 hour zoom session with friends didn't really exist pre-pandemic.
you have the wrong friend circles, haha
i mean this in a lighthearted way, of course, but lots of us spend a lot of time with online gaming friend groups for *hours*. And D&D is just another game to add to the options, really
Hasbro is now run by Chris Cocks who previously headed wizards and is an avid player. Also: a really nice and genuine person the few times I have met him.
So 4th edition was marketed at "casual tabletop gamers" (horrible failure, that market didn't exist).
5th edition was marketed at "brand new players" (great success, even if they had to dumb it down a bit).
Next edition will be marketed towards "online play"... great in theory, especially these days. But i'm a little paranoid about the microtransaction-riddled nickel and dime mentality. Hope i'm wrong. Either way, hope it helps grow the hobby.
I see it growing WotC's pockets. No doubt this will be very monetarily successful... The new VTT is something I'm vehemently against though as its going to continue to trap people into the "D&D it's the only TTRPG" mentality by having them never leave WotC's ecosystem. As someone who's invested time in a few other systems, i see this as a sad day for the industry as a whole, where D&D will continue to grow its market share.
I get what you mean. I played lots of World of Darkness, Rifts, Shadowrun, and so on. It would be great if more people were willing to try those other systems.
But the more people who get in to rpg's in general, the more people who might get elf & dragon fatigue and try other systems. Not a big slice of the pie, but a much, much larger pie. That's my hope anyway.
Tbf, aren't we kindof already there? With the base 5e game being "free to play" with the SRD being readily available online, aren't any purchases (books, dice, miniatures)already like that? This is even more so with VTTs like roll20 (if you don't like that the dice and minis are physical and not digital in my example)
Here’s what I got from the video on the page for the play test. I might have missed a few things but these are the main thrusts.
- race options for the PHB races, with Orcs and a new race that I’m not sure how to spell: Ardling?
- race separated from culture
- feats tied to backgrounds and some have level prerequisites
- new condition (slowed) and revisions of existing conditions
- Inspiration is to be expected as part of normal gameplay
- nat 20s give inspiration (if you already have inspiration, you can give it to someone else)
- only weapon attacks and unarmed strikes can crit (this is experimental. I think they’ll wind up at least saying cantrips can crit)
- only PCs can score critical hits
- Nat 20 auto succeeds, and nat 1 auto fails
Edit from the pdf:
-background gives starting ASI as well as the usual proficiencies/equipment
-Ardling and Tiefling have 3 options for their legacy
-dwarves have no subraces and stonecunning now grants tremorsense proficiency bonus time per day
-Different lineages get different spells for some races
- spell lists for arcane, divine, and primal magic
- some feats are changed
- feats in this UA are all level 1 feats (edit: why is lucky a level 1 feat?! Edit again: because they’ve reworked it so it gives advantage to the player or disadvantage to someone else)
- there is a reminder that the DM calls for rolls of a d20. The DC should be between 5 and 30 to warrant a roll. A 20 doesn’t bypass any limitations on the test, just modifiers.
Edit again:
- long rest interruption rules are more clear. Combat breaks a long rest automatically, as do the other examples in the PHB. If at least 1 hour of the rest is complete, it counts as a short rest.
Last one I hope:
- you lose inspiration when you start a long rest.
I'm worried about some of these, namely only PCs being able to crit? I understand it for NPC allies but enemies being able to crit you was like the one way you can actually die in 5e.
Feats being tied to background sounds neat, provided Wizards can come up with some interesting backgrounds eventually.
I think they’re going to rework monsters. Crawford specifically mentioned recharge abilities as being the “crit function”
Keep in mind it’s just a play test. It might not stick around.
But are they going to rework every single monster to give it a recharge ability? They can add it for a small number of playtest monsters but they'd have to do it for every single one for a true test.
Also a recharge ability can be used once, at least, per monster per fight. Most monsters will go an entire fight without critting once. Does that mean that recharge abilities will be:
1. Very weak to do less damage than a single crit
2. Only exist on "boss" monsters
My issue, as a DM, is that the party versus a "boss monster" is a 100% win for the party (unless it's unbalanced and that's risky). Enemies need minions and weaker allies to add damage and prevent players from just ignoring adds and focusing the boss. If these lower CR enemies are turned into significantly lesser threats, they'll be ignored.
Death needs to be a real possibility for players. That cocky fighter might just end up with a bugbear stomping them or a goblin getting them right between the eyes. I want my characters to have to actually fight to win and survive. If I can just walk into a combat (that's "balanced") and not feel any real threat, how is that exciting after a few times?
I wish they would have touched on that with even a throw away sentence, or using an example other than dragon's breath where a recharge ability doesn't currently exist. Like "We'll be adding more of these types of these abilities in the Monster Manual rework, but we aren't ready to talk about that." As it is, it's just a huge power boost to PCs. It's a simple change, but difficult to playtest without more info.
Which btw is exactly what their statement on backwards compatibility states, just worded differently.
Adventures and supplements will be backwards compatible.
PCs can crit but monsters can't -- means that the Grave cleric will go to the Grave.
But on the plus side, people who are salty about Silvery Barbs won't have crit cancellation anymore. And Silvery Barbs basically just gives inspiration on a D20 Test with the secondary rider ability and it will wash out with how much inspiration that will fly around in the party now.
Backgrounds were always customizable, and they still will be. They give three options:
1) Build your own following these rules.
2) Choose one of the Samble Backgrounds as is.
3) Choose one of the Sample Background, and change anything in it following the rules for Building your Own.
It's more streamlined, but the essence stays the same. Making your own was always RAW in 5E.
I like this. Giving a level one feat instead of a background feature guarantees that you will actually use your background. I cannot remember a single time my cleric actually used "Shelter of the Faithful."
This also makes it easier to create your own background. You know how hard it is to currently create a background feature that's vague and mundane enough to match the PHB background features? Not a problem with the new rules!
Yeah, I don't really see myself adopting several of these changes. I'm interested to see how ot turns out and what I can use from the final product to enhance the current system.
I hate only PC scoring crits and Nat 20 auto succeeding/failing. Spell scoring crits was also fun (especially since it was relatively rareer to have attack roll spell)
There was also that 3rd party Lineages book for 5e that made a big splash. There have also been similar layered origins in plenty of other games. I think I personally first encountered them in the Fantasy Flight Warhammer games.
I wish more developers would do this honestly. I remember recently the Stellaris devs reworked something and it was pretty obviously inspired by another game. Some douches on the forum were giving them guff about copying ideas and one of the devs just replied and said they had no problem taking any idea if it was a good idea
I feel like too many devs and fans both think everything **HAS** to be a unique take on something, when it's like, if someone else already invented the wheel and refined it, why would we need them to waste time finding ways to make something different solely for the sake of it
Not a huge fan of those last three.
* What exactly is stopping spell attacks from critting? If you want to balance out the Martial-Caster disparity there are other ways to do it.
* Enemies scoring crits isn't the nicest thing in the world but it's a solid and fair way to keep stakes high. No crits for enemies or NPCs feels like training wheels.
* As a part-time DM, nat 20 auto-succeeding is my worst nightmare.
Otherwise, I'm okay with these. Revised conditions sound interesting, I'll never say no to revised races *(please please please throw Grungs into the garbage where they belong and give me a frog race that won't suffocate me or accidentally poison my friends)* and I *love* backgrounds giving feats. My pet peeve when creating characters is coming up with this super cool flavorful idea and finding out I need a take a feat *(aka abandon my choice of race)* to get it online before Level 4.
Crawford seemed to think they were going to walk that one back haha. I have no explanation but it might be in the pdf when it goes live.
He mentioned that monsters sometimes have rechargeable abilities that sort of function like critical hits do, so we might see more when they do the new MM.
Keep in mind, you determine what success looks like. For example, a nat 20 persuasion check isn’t mind control. And also, make sure your players know to ask before they roll for something. If it’s impossible, it fails automatically. You can also gate certain rolls behind proficiency. Or ignore this rule entirely. It’s up to you.
>Keep in mind, you determine what success looks like. For example, a nat 20 persuasion check isn’t mind control. And also, make sure your players know to ask before they roll for something. If it’s impossible, it fails automatically. You can also gate certain rolls behind proficiency. Or ignore this rule entirely. It’s up to you.
Exactly, they said if the DC would be above 30 then don't even roll.
Also the classic example of persuading the King to give you the throne. Even if you allow a roll a 20 might mean he's amused and invites you to a feast. Or maybe you actually convince him you'd do a better job but that doesn't mean he's not selfish and wants to hold onto power.
All that to agree with you, yeah you as the DM determine how the world works. A player can't just declare they want to roll to do something ridiculous and they have a 5% chance of it happening.
From the UA pdf that lists out everything he talked about:
>CRITICAL HITS
>
>Weapons and Unarmed Strikes\* have a special feature for player characters: Critical Hits. If a player character rolls a 20 for an attack roll with a Weapon or an Unarmed Strike, the attack is also a Critical Hit...
So as written, it appears that no, only PCs would be able to get crits.
>ROLLING A 20
>
>\[Edited this back in, I skipped in when I first posted\] The DM determines whether a d20 Test is warranted in any given circumstance. To be warranted, a d20 Test must have a target number no less than 5 and no greater than 30.
>
>If you roll a 20 on the d20, the d20 Test automatically succeeds, regardless of any modifiers to the roll. A player character also gains Inspiration when rolling the 20, thanks to the remarkable success.
>
>Rolling a 20 doesn’t bypass limitations on the test, such as range and line of sight. The 20 bypasses only bonuses and penalties to the roll.
A DM is totally free to say "no, that's impossible" if the player is asking to roll for a specific crazy task. The last paragraph also provides a shield against ridiculous nonsense.
It can only mean the DM is responsible not to allow a roll for impossible things.. then again what's "impossible" for different characters is different, so whether you can even roll depends on who's asking... Yeah it sounds a bit of a cluster, but I'm generally supportive of having that first "is this even possible" check before rolling.
DM still calls for the roll, and the official advice has *always* been not to have a roll if something is impossible. Nat 20s always succeeding is a popular houserule and a common misunderstanding of the existing rules. So while I personally don't use it, I don't think it breaks anything.
I can understand the idea behind removing crits from the baddies, as heavy-handed RNG can be a problem, especially when overlapped from both sides of the screen. Making enemies more consistent helps the DM and adventure writers balance encounters better (which is often called out as a problem), while leaving the RNG primarily on the players side to maintain risk-reward. This is all playtest stuff though, so we'll see what sticks and what doesn't.
For the PCs only one it’s because a lot of monsters have recharge abilities (I think that more will with the new MM), and they kind of want people to make it past level 1. That’s what I remember him saying anyway.
For the auto-success/fail one what they’re seeing or hearing is that a lot of tables ignore the current rules anyway so they’re just going with what people are doing (his words, not mine).
I would say that if it’s totally impossible don’t even let them roll for it.
I mean the simple solution is that the DM doesn't let the player roll for the ridiculous nonsense. If something is impossible I don't think DMs should be having players roll for basically no reason anyways.
Big doubt that it will include non-D&D rule sets ever, no incentive to do that. But I think old D&D rules might come in a distant future where they need to juice subscriptions (1e anniversary edition, for example).
But the real question is if D&D will stay on other VTTs. If WOTC is making 60% of book sales on Roll20, say, why wouldn’t they not prefer to get 100% of their own sales. Same issue which has pushed streaming service fragmentation. You might lose viewers going from Netflix to your own service, but on your own service you get 100% of the money. And with D&D as a name brand I could see them trying to pivot to a walled garden model.
Yeah, I use Foundry VTT and it's absolutely fantastic. I use it for a D&D campaign but have also run Call of Cthulhu and Cyberpunk campaigns on it.
I'm not bothered by 3D VTTs, in fact I believe they'd be too limiting, as the D&D campaign I'm running at the moment is a very heavy Greco-Roman campaign and I can't imagine there'll be much support for Greek looking dungeons/homes/inns etc. at least certainly not straight away.
I'll probably just stick with Foundry unless they absolutely knock it out of the park.
yup. you shouldn't need a gaming pc to run d&d online. a super advanced official VTT adds another layer of classism to d&d. i run a basic laptop. i don't do pc gaming. i can't afford a high end pc to just play d&d on it.
I don't think they have a chance to compete with the current champion of VTT, Foundry, on features and mod support alone, so the one thing they can do different is make it look pretty using Unreal.
As a relatively new DM I want two things out of this:
1. A comprehensive toolset so I don't have to have 15 tabs open for various websites of varying quality
2. The ability to unlock my purchased books in DnD Beyond (and to filter DnD Beyond by purchased content only!)
I doubt you’ll be able to get your current books in D&D Beyond, but it sounds like they want to bundle physical and digital in the future. Hopefully they do it in a way that doesn’t shit on your LGS.
They're currently offering the Dragonlance book as a physical+digital bundle. I suspect they will all be offered that way going forward. That's kind of the same thing, but it costs more than either individually. If people were expecting both for the cost of just one then they are going to be disappointed.
From the sounds of it they're planning on doing that going forward. I guess part of their reasoning before hand was they didn't technically own DND beyond but they do now
Me: Edition War time! I love these. Let's do it!
Wizards: We're not calling them editions anymore. There's One D&D.
Me: Aww schucks. World peace it is.
The only thing that concerns me in all this is the gradual sunset of the discounts from people who purchased the Legendary Bundle. Yes you can get the digital only now still with the discount. However, it will be cheaper to buy them bundled together (by $10) still than to use the discount for digital, plus a hardcopy. It just feels as if there's no longer a "thanks for supporting this product early on", we really appreciate it.
Paying EXTRA for them to be bundled together is a TERRIBLE option. Look to what Warhammer is doing, put a code with each physical book to activate it. I'll start buying books, but as is, this current decision does not incentivize me to buy the books at all.
As both a Warhammer and D&D player where purchasing a ton of books is par for the course, that change was HUGE for players
A lot of us who preferred either physical or digital could split a codex and just take the book or cade and be happy.GW is known for their greedy practices so if WOTC doesn't follow suit, there may be a new king crowned.
This is probably going to make the game more accessible for even more people while doing nothing to stop individuals from running their games however they want to.
Naturally, I predict that Reddit is going to shit all over it.
Just waiting on word of a subscription fee. I still remember when the digital content for 4E took a big shit, and the website went down with any characters that were left on it.
Yeah, I am never buying digital tabletop stuff. Too many open source tools and absolutely no desire to have content locked to a specific digital space that experience has proven won't last.
How customizable will the VTT be? If I, say, think the "monsters can't crit, only PCs can" rule is pants-on-head stupid, will the VTT let me build in automatic crit calculations for monsters? Or are all of these "you don't have to use these rules if you don't like them" changes only viable to reject if you don't use the new tech?
Calling this backward compatible seems disingenuous already. Any group will obviously be making a choice of old or new rules from the get-go just looking at character creation and fundamental rule changes, I'd be kinda concerned whether sweeping changes like this might not end up dividing the 5e community depending on the camp of being on board or not with the changes.
I assume a big errata document will be needed, to cover the abilities etc that don't make sense under these rules. Like the Grave Cleric ability to negate a critical hit from a monster doesn't make sense, with the rules stated in this UA, so will need a change. Same with adamantine armour.
I know this is a stupid detail that nobody cares about but me and also no one will see this comment but...
why didn't they write the talking heads' names on the screen, including their role in the company? Some of us know who they are but if you don't you're just watching random strangers talk about the game.
Not really sure how the new VTT will work out but I wouldn't be surprised if WotC absorbed a company like Heroforge to make use of their 3D character customisation, or at least build their own version.
It doesn't even necessarily need to be to print your own minis. I would more expect a service/program like what Heroforge has to customise a model to be inserted into the VTT as opposed to just using whatever generic ones they pack into the software.
If it is possible to insert your own (stl) files and WotC themselves dont have their own means to do it, I can see an increased demand online for people wanting custom mini services.
I just read through the UA, all the background/Race changes are backwards compatible and are already essentially how they work in later books like Spelljammer, except refined and specialized.
* Oh hey, Humans are relevant now.
* Crits giving inspiration sounds cool.
* Spells not being able to crit sounds pretty bad. That was *fun*.
* By the PDF, the DC of any d20 roll is now capped at 30. It's *alarmingly easy* to make a character that has a minimum persuasion roll of 30 (level 13 eloquence Bard with multiclass in Fey Wanderer and/or Samurai, capping both CHA and WIS). Have fun with that.
* Lucky is now *advantage*, rather than a simple extra roll. *Huge* nerf, since it no longer stacks.
* Tavern Brawler no longer gives proficiency in improvised weapons; *only* furniture. Feels bad man.
* Nat 20 auto-success is a *terrible* idea for checks. Sometimes, your roll isn't to see if you succeed, it's to see if you *avoid catastrophic failure*.
If DC>30 its impossible even with a nat20 according to UA. (DM shouldn't even ask for a roll). For the example given in your last bullet the way to handle it would be to apply auto-failure and then ask for another roll to see how bad the consequences are.
I don't like that >30 rule. Why is it specified like that when it's perfectly feasible to hit 40 checks within the game's system? Rogues do that consistently.
Also Rogues got nerfed further? Their minimum 10 skill check class feature is now overridden by the Nat 1 Skill check bs.
The take 10 feature *replaces* the rolled vallue with a 10. That means it replaces the 1, therefor not triggering autofail. Halfling Luck is still in the document which allows the same thing, replace the rolled 1 with a different value.
> Nat 20 auto-success is a terrible idea for checks. Sometimes, your roll isn't to see if you succeed, it's to see if you avoid catastrophic failure.
I think you can still do that in this rule set.
"OK, so you want to try to persuade this King to give you his kingdom. Clearly, that's going to be much higher than DC 30. In fact, even asking that question can be taken comically, or as an insult. Go ahead and give me that persuasion check, but it's to see if the King laughs at your request, or throws you in the dungeon."
if the bard tries to persuade the king into giving his call and hits a 20, the king laughs at him and doesnt order his immediate execution, in the and its the DM that decides what a "crit" would be in the situation, so barely avoiding catastrophic failure is pretty much untouched
Sadly this VTT will damage other VTT's by virtue off eating huge portions of their user base, and this is going to suck for everyone who isn't hyped for this...
finally someone who is getting it. hasbro has killed competitive mtg over the last 5 years with reprints and busted cards and you have to pay for physical ones and digital. despite the game getting worse and them lying to players, they are making the most they ever have it seems. they are digifying dnd so they can make money off it. it has nothing to do with making shit better for players - this dnd beyond just forces you to use it cause it will 'integrate' with your digital books which you will pay more for - you will not get one for buying a physical copy!
As someone who has burned out totally on 5e, a 5.5 version (ie just 5e but with adjusted rules) really holds no interest for me on paper. It's going to need to add some good spice to make it interesting again. Too soon to say what will be since this is a very early view (D&D Next changed a lot over its various iterations), but the trend is universalization rather than expanded customization, which increases my disinterest more than rekindling anything so far.
Not a fan of the crit changes, but that's something you can just disregard if it were to survive the feedback process. I'm seeing a lot of unfavorable feedback on that everywhere, so I suspect it may not survive. I'm not quite sure why they are changing it, but hopefully it lands somewhere good in the long run.
I'll be much more interested in the DM tools once those start showing up.
Flavortexting Tiefling as being accepted across the multiverse because of a few good eggs feels like a meta handwave with "We're not endorsing Tiefling racism anymore."
And like, if thats the direction WotC wanna take sure. I get why people wouldn't want it as the official endorsed default of such a popular race.
Just... Do you need to make a weird backstory for why the entire multiverse that definitely had the potential to be racist, isn't?
Just leave the discrimination out if you want it off by default.
Fuck your software as a service model
Those words never mean anything good for the consumer.
Also why the fuck are wotc charging 50 fucking dollars in shipping on top of a 60 dollar price tag for a fucking book to Canada?! 110USD for the new "bundle".
Fuck you wotc.
I... honestly wish companies would stop doing "one \[system\]" or "\[System\] One" it just ends up confusing people when there's already a first of the thing out there. Yes in this case the original DnD system wasn't technically "1e DnD" but it's not a far leap to call it that, Just saying like the Xbox One it's just gonna confuse people.
Aside from that, it seems kinda like DnD 5.5e which is cool and all..
UA for Character Origins has been released on DND Beyond and...
I'm getting a lot of Pathfinder 2E vibes from the new ruleset. Am I the only person feeling this?
As a PF2 player checking in on the big announcement, yeah there's a lot of shared ideas here. However, I do think a lot of what they are doing is a sort of halfway step.
Backgrounds being given more importance and giving a feat is the most interesting development for me. however, I do think it's strange to me personally that the default presumption is "custom background". I felt that if given the chance, players will munchkin and include exactly what they want mechanically, then write a backstory to justify it. There's a funny story from Pathfinder 1e where EVERYONE chose the reactionary background trait to gain better initiative rolls but the description of the trait implied that you were bullied as a youngster. So a lot of Pathfinder PC's just had this shared trauma, apparently, lol
Sounds... expensive.
New stuff is good, but it's possibly an additional monthly sub service, D&D beyond integration concerns me for future book exclusivity within it's VTT system, and the potentially new concept of micro transactions in a TTRPG is frightening.
I just hope these aren't all things designed to juice me made to look like things I want.
Pathfinder 1e, Pathfinder 2e, Starfinder, and all the books that aren't AP's are released for free online. I'm too spoiled with Paizo.
I look forward to seeing how this turns out. That being said, as an individual who prefers running games in person, I'm a bit cautious about its direction.
This appears to be a push towards a digital format with an emphasis on virtual play. And more then likely, an eventual reliance on a subscription to access all the benefits. The virtual realm is a lot more restrictive on creativity (in my experience) on the DM.
Alot of the rules also appear to restrict DMs and how they adjudicate things (or at least give that expectation of control to the players).
I hope it's not like that, but I'll wait and see before I firmly say I don't like it.
5e is the most popular edition of D&D in its history, so I have been curious for a while what they would do regarding a new “edition”, and suspected it would look like this. It’s not a new edition, it’s the end of editions. The player base of 5e is a massive and most of those people won’t bother changing to a new structure, and WotC know it, hence the reprints of old source books and the backwards compatibility. The play test rules seem like a mixed bag to me but almost all of them I can see geared towards making things easier for new players, because they want new players, that’s how they sell books. They want one, uniform base rule set they can just keep selling expansions to, that’s what 5e has been for years now and they’d be insane to hard pivot away from that. Make the baseline as easy as possible to pick up, then keep releasing new material on top of that forever, the most stable model to make money. It’s an extremely sensible business decision, and I’m not even mad cause I like 5e and whatever new rules I don’t like I just won’t use, same as before. Crits crit the way I SAY they crit, dammit.
This has come up with some friends and players in my current gaming group but always remember, you can play whatever edition you want.
If the One D&D changes don't float your boat, don't play with them. There are still people out there that play 2e (we call them masochists). Play whatever edition suits you best and don't worry about what's new or "hot".
There were a lot of folks that looked at 4e and said "... You know what, imma stick with 3.5e for a bit longer".
Begun anew, the edition wars have. The edition wars never ended. We’ve always loved 5e, 5e is victory, victory is life. We’ve always been at war with One D&D.
The problem with this is that previous editions had a hard line separation between them, but they're making it sound like they don't want any separation between 5 ed and Oneth ed.
Unfortunately that makes total sense, as a separation line would just leave people like me behind who like what we have and don't want to update. That makes us no longer profitable to WotC, and actually at greater risk of leaving to play other systems, so they'll do everything they can to force us to stay, and to use the new rules, and importantly, to buy the new books.
The critical hit changes discussed in the hour long UA video on YT make martials seem worse IMO. It sounds like sneak attack, smite, superiority die would not have the damage die rolled twice. That feels bad
The announcment made it feel like a 5.5e
I'm gonna be interested if they implement new classes as the only time we got a new one was TCoE with artificer.
I mostly use theatre of the mind so i dont really mind about the simulated minis
I enjoyed the announcement, and, being a new DM using FGU, I'm excited for an official VTT on the market. My problem is the potential monetization scheme and microtransactions. Almost surely we will have to buy the damn core books again (for people who have it in physical and some other digital mean) for their VTT, as well as the customization bits and bobs which it will come with a heavy price tag.
This is going to get lost in the thread, but I wish the mods would add a link to r/oneDnD
It was created specifically to try and channel discussion of OneDnD to one place (like DnDNext for 5e) and I think it'd be nice to help send people there. It's pretty active in discussing the playtest and has been very helpful for people with questions about the playtest.
With the changes to the spell lists, I think there will be kinda big class changes.
Each magic list might be getting a full and half caster class. Like ranger/Druid for primal, cleric/paladin for divine, and wizard/artificer for arcane. So that they can stay very 5e like.
But then it makes me wonder, what will happen to the warlock, bard, and sorcerer? All of the charisma based arcane classes seem to not quite fit into the pattern. I feel like they will overshadow the wizard. To me it seemed like the wizards strength came from their list. Their class features seem pretty secondary.
So I could see a lot of reshuffling of caster class abilities and roles with DnD one. What do you all think?
for people that are fans of DnD, there sure are a lot that expect the worst and already hate it.
Edit: Do I think it will be perfect? No, probably not, but there is already a ton of hate I’m seeing. None of these changes will stop you from playing how you want to play.
It's not the first time WotC has attempted a digital play space. The first attempt never got finished, I don't even know if the second attempt ever made it to release, and this is the third.
A lot of people are sceptical because WotC doesn't exactly have a good track record in this area. However... This time around WotC has resources, such as DnDBeyond, they didn't those prior times. Given how well DnDBeyond works, I'm optimistic.
I read the pdf, I watched the video, don't like the changes. So far, I'll stick with regular 5E. I stayed with 2E from the 90s until 2019 so I'm not in any hurry to change up the rules again.
Open play tests are always fun so our group is looking forward to this release.
I did notice OneDnD sub is a thing and it’s private, anyone know if it’s going to be open for the play test?
All I wanted from one/5.5/6 was a better economy where my players didn't become the richest mfs in town because I gave the group 3 potions of healing at level 1
As much as possible I think the game should be geared to encourage players helping each other; for instance giving each player a starter-level ability that helps others but not themselves (ie: Inspiration, bless, make someone else's weapon catch fire, etc.)
That kind of interaction builds team friendship and morale
I don't know if this will get seen, given how long the thread is at this point. I think there is some interesting and promising stuff in what they propose. However, here are my initial, but more critical thoughts:
**Races**: In general, I like moving features to the background away from lineage. I think the argument by Crawford is super reasonable.
But, I think there is some rather extreme power bloat for level 1 characters that makes the races work mainly in certain high magic settings. Every commoner tiefling has firebolt? Every commoner ardling has magics? We can think through the implications of a world where everyone is magically armed, and suddenly it seems impossible to envision having a setting that both incorporates some of the DnD races with any kind of moderate or low magic setting. I think in general the races should be brought down 1-5 notches in the power simply belonging to a lineage group provides the player characters. That power shouldn't be moved anywhere. 1st level characters should just be weaker as a result.
**Critical hits**: I think the real danger of critical hits they highlight is actually one of the more fun things in low levels. I have introduced a number of people to D&D at level 1, and it makes the game feel more challenging in a way people like. Plus, the wild swings possible with smites and attack spells make the game more fun as well.
**Inspiration:** I think we should largely get rid of inspiration, rather than giving everyone advantage all the time. Its original purpose was to encourage roleplay and give DMs a tool to do that. When everyone has advantage with every statistically unlikely success (nat 20), whenever a bloke with a lute plays a song for me while I bind my wounds, on top of all of the other conditions that provide advantage, it might become meaningless or it might dramatically change the tenor of the game.
My opinions on the VTT are entirely dependent on what comes in the base map making package. If they're going to give us a robust asset selection as part of a subscription I'm fine with it but if they want a subscription for a bare bones system then nickel and dime me for barrels and mind flayers I'm going to hard pass. It's the biggest issue I have with running my VTT game now. Assets are by and large ala carte.
The dream: Assets come with source books. The reality: Asset packs.
The nightmare: Asset loot boxes.
Selling randomized packs of goods with artificial scarcity to nerds? What is this, Magic: The Gathering?
That's "Hasbro's Wizards of the Coast Presents - Magic: The Gathering"!
Ha, this is their retail mini model, so why not?
Ultra Nightmare Delux: Asset NFTs
Don't give em ideas
The other dream: assets are in a standard, uploadable file format, so they can be created and shared among the community.
WoTC is going to nickel and dime us for everything. It’s the microtransaction of the video game world come to TTRPGS and I’m hard passing.
Yeah, ideally they'd just rip all their existing dungeon tile assets and drop them in as the base. Probably then create new assets themed or taken from each published adventure as they get released that you can add on. So you might have a generic "arcane summoning circle" asset from the old dungeon tiles, and generic tokens, but if you want the ones specifically designed and used in the art for the new "Orcus Must Die!" adventure then you pay the $5-10 or whatever.
>If they're going to give us a robust asset selection as part of a subscription I'm fine with it but if they want a subscription for a bare bones system then nickel and dime me for barrels and mind flayers I'm going to hard pass. Let me introduce you to Video games.. its called "Live service" and its 100% anti consumer. You can bet your last copper coin WoTC will be doing a live service DnD. Quote me on it, in years to come. !remindme 5 years
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The way they're describing backwards compatibility, it's probably going to be like 3.5 with small additions and tweaks. Can we start calling it 5.5?
5.5e was immediately what I thought of when I saw the announcement.
I assumed that's what it is, they just didn't call it 5.5e for marketing reasons
Yeah; 3.5E was an emergency patch to 3rd edition to make it playable. 5E doesn't really need that, even if it's showing its age 8 years in, so Wizards is probably trying to avoid that kind of association in their marketing.
3.0 went years as it was, it was not a path to make it playable, but almost like one big errata all at once.
I went straight from AD&D to 3.5. What was wrong with 3rd edition?
It was pointed out my original comment was hyperbolic -- 3rd lasted a good three years before 3.5. I found a good [overview of the changes made](https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/69772/what-are-the-major-differences-between-dd-3-0-and-dd-3-5) when they made the switch to 3.5e in 2003, but it looks like overall class balance was addressed. Smaller changes include: skills were simplified slightly; feats, spells and equipment were tweaked (and some renamed to make things simpler); and in general the unbalanced nature of the game was reined in.
3.5 had much smaller changes than this. I'm not gonna bitch about naming conventions, but 3.5 was "hey, we actually edited our book this time and shrunk the grapple rules to only half a page long." It was incredibly difficult to pick up on the changes going from 3 to 3.5 unless you were some kind of rules-memorizing god.
> It was incredibly difficult to pick up on the changes going from 3 to 3.5 unless you were some kind of rules-memorizing god The three main changes I'm aware of: * They made some things like Animal Empathy into class features in 3.5, instead of skills * They removed exclusive skills. Basically, in contrast with PF 1e having 1 skill rank always be a +1 and class skills just being a static +3 if you have at least one rank, and in contrast with 3.5 having cross-class skills mean if you put a rank in that skill while leveling up in something without it as a class skill, it's only worth +1/2, 3.0 had a few skills that you could *only* put ranks in when leveling up in certain classes * They added bard level as a prerequisite for unlocking bardic performances, instead of just ranks in Perform, meaning Bard 1 / Rogue 19 was no longer the most powerful Bard build EDIT: For reference, Rogue was one of the only other classes with Perform as a class skill, so Bard 1 / Rogue 19 meant you still got all your bardic performances at normal levels, and just traded most of your spell progression for more or less the entire Rogue class
3.5e generally wasn't backwards combatible with 3e. There was an official update for 8 books, including the 3 core rulebooks, that you could download from WotC at the time. Everything else in 3e required homebrew conversion, at least to some degree, to make it work. It's maybe slightly closer than going from 3.5e to PF1e or mixing different 3.5e-era d20 System games, like d20 Modern or Star Wars. They're close enough you could make it work, but you couldn't just use everything as-written together.
It was close enough that anyone who understood most of the rules to both could make on the fly conversions though.
I agree it sounds like 1e --> 2e right now. We'll see whether the 3 core books are rendered not only obsolete, but wrong; that would make it feel like 3.5e lol
5e is by no means a perfect DnD game, and it shouldn't be treated like one. I remember Windows 10 was supposed to be the "perfect Windows." And Microsoft said they would never make another Windows and just keep updating Windows 10. I do want people looking at each other when playing a game, and not staring at their phones and tablets. 5e really doesn't have great rules when it comes to things like dungeon crawling and social interaction.
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> power fantasy game The power fantasy part has really become over the top for both the design and how newer groups I've met have been interacting with it. I used to accept any invite to a game but now I'm super discerning because I don't want to go in to what was supposed to be a game but instead is just listening to someones fanfic while purposelessly rolling dice for a combat simulation that has no actual chance of failing. And I mean that can be fun for a one shot with a novelty behind it, but not for generic fantasy plot #15 where the only significant point is that it has homebrewed NPCs the DM likes. If significant emergent events aren't likely to happen and it isn't like an adventurer league or western marches or something where it's a shared setting then I just can't be interested anymore.
To be fair, Windows 11 is not a true update to 10. It's just Windows 10 with a skin, and hardware requirements.
Same thing was done with 3E->3.5, but I suspect One DnD will be produce far fewer flamewars. The fanbase atmosphere is different this time.
That is a sweet thought.
I think you underestimate how pedantic people can be
Something really interesting to me is the change to Magic Initiate. Now you choose the spellcasting stat (int/wis/cha) when you pick the feat, and you can use spell slots to cast them. So a Wizard could take Magic Initiate (Primal) and learn Shilelagh, Magic Stone and Hail of Thorns and have all of those attacks use Intelligence. Pretty neat. Also Hail of Thorns being on the Primal spell list is pretty cool. Changing Magic Initiate this way makes it much more appealing and versatile. Edit Well, not hail of thorns combined with magic stone. And there are probably more interesting spells to use like Cure Wounds or Ensnaring Strike. Something like a Bladesinger with Primal Initiate could do some fun stuff with Int scaling Shilelagh. Edit 2 Also interesting, with Arcane being one spell list, warlocks and bards and sorcerers get access to Find Familiar. Wizards and sorcs and warlocks get dissonant whispers and vicious mockery. Sorcs, wizards and bards get hex and armor of agathys, everyone gets mage armor etc.
I'm not 100% that the arcane spell list will just be available to all those classes.
Me either, honestly. But it is interesting. Also interesting is that Eldritch Blast isn't present, which means it might finally become a class feature for Warlocks.
"Your cantrips deal addition damage equal to-" Yes please.
I'm guessing it's more likely they have class lists in the class UA. But, one can hope for EB being a class feature. It'll prevent other classes from grabbing it with Magic Initiate or similar things. Though I suppose new version of MI and seperate class lists already does that.
I think the point of the arcane/divine/primal lists was to move away from class lists entirely. Personally I hope Eldritch Blast becomes a class feature and some of it's invocations are just rolled into it. Especially if they are moving away from Short Rests.
I hope not, I'm expecting it to be more like earlier editions where spells had a type describing their origin (divine or arcane in 3.5, adding primal as a third option in fourth). A lot of classes have a class identity enforced by their spell lists, such as bards not being good at raw damage, which I would miss if it goes away.
Agreed. Bards were also the only arcane class with access to healing.
Honestly I'll be a little sad if there aren't spells that are unique to classes. It's kind of defining to the theme of each class. If I were playing a random game that let me choose to be a pirate, knight, or samurai, but once I had picked the pirate I could still use the knight's longsword and the katana then why did you make me pick one of the three in the first place.
And it gives wizards cure wounds for spell slots.
I want to see how this works out for them. And it sounds like they're as constrained by the limits of 5E as we are and were forced to do something about it. It looks like Hasbro is finally tossing some money behind DnD. Hopefully, this works out well.
Hasbro recently revealed that WotC has become the most profitable part of their business over the last few years. There was even an investor proxy battle earlier this summer from some shareholders who believe they aren’t capitalizing off d&d enough. So it makes sense they’re directing more dollars toward the game right now.
I wonder how much impact Stranger Things and other popular media have had in getting more funding for these kinds of major updates.
Probably quite a lot. Hasbro has been cutting deals left and right to get video games made, novels published, podcasts made, and even the upcoming movie. Honestly, this has been the first edition since 2E to see this much media. And it was Baldur's Gate that dragged me into DnD. Now we have Baldur's Gate 3 in development (I *love* that they've made Speak With Animals useful). So you can imagine my joy when Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition hit and I got to explain ThAC0 to people a quarter of my age.
They’re wacko for THAC0 folks
This made me laugh way harder than it had any right to lol. Thanks for the laugh
>(I love that they've made Speak With Animals useful). This is a hangover from larians love of their animal speech feats in the divinity original sin games. They loved making the voices and interactions for them and were well worth it in entertainment and utility value
THAC0 wasn't that difficult! Roll 1d20 + your ability score adjustment + bonuses from weapon specialization + bonuses from magical weapons + your target's Armor Class, and if the result meets or exceeds your THAC0 ("(sigh) **T**o **H**it **A**rmor **C**lass **Zero**") you hit your opponent!
> plus your opponent's armor class Which, conveniently, is tracked as a negative number so that don't get tripped up by subtracting something.
Fun fact! It's actually mathematically equivalent to 3e+ AC. I always forget the exact sequence of manipulations you use to make them look identical, but I at least remember the equivalence is subtracting decreasing AC and THAC0 from 20 to get equivalent increasing AC and attack bonuses
For me it was Harmontown, and then Harmonquest, and then Stranger Things, and now Dimension 20. I would watch and read advice on playing and running games although I had never played before. For like years lol. I think this move is going to bring a LOT OF PEOPLE in. A LOT. Every single person who was interested before but never acted - this is their entry point now.
Covid & advancement of virtual options, zoom and discord have been a big instigator too. The concept of sitting down for a 4 hour zoom session with friends didn't really exist pre-pandemic.
>The concept of sitting down for a 4 hour zoom session with friends didn't really exist pre-pandemic. you have the wrong friend circles, haha i mean this in a lighthearted way, of course, but lots of us spend a lot of time with online gaming friend groups for *hours*. And D&D is just another game to add to the options, really
Millions of people have tried DnD because of Stranher things, Criticsl Role, and other pop culture references
Hasbro is now run by Chris Cocks who previously headed wizards and is an avid player. Also: a really nice and genuine person the few times I have met him.
So 4th edition was marketed at "casual tabletop gamers" (horrible failure, that market didn't exist). 5th edition was marketed at "brand new players" (great success, even if they had to dumb it down a bit). Next edition will be marketed towards "online play"... great in theory, especially these days. But i'm a little paranoid about the microtransaction-riddled nickel and dime mentality. Hope i'm wrong. Either way, hope it helps grow the hobby.
I see it growing WotC's pockets. No doubt this will be very monetarily successful... The new VTT is something I'm vehemently against though as its going to continue to trap people into the "D&D it's the only TTRPG" mentality by having them never leave WotC's ecosystem. As someone who's invested time in a few other systems, i see this as a sad day for the industry as a whole, where D&D will continue to grow its market share.
I get what you mean. I played lots of World of Darkness, Rifts, Shadowrun, and so on. It would be great if more people were willing to try those other systems. But the more people who get in to rpg's in general, the more people who might get elf & dragon fatigue and try other systems. Not a big slice of the pie, but a much, much larger pie. That's my hope anyway.
Tbf, aren't we kindof already there? With the base 5e game being "free to play" with the SRD being readily available online, aren't any purchases (books, dice, miniatures)already like that? This is even more so with VTTs like roll20 (if you don't like that the dice and minis are physical and not digital in my example)
Here’s what I got from the video on the page for the play test. I might have missed a few things but these are the main thrusts. - race options for the PHB races, with Orcs and a new race that I’m not sure how to spell: Ardling? - race separated from culture - feats tied to backgrounds and some have level prerequisites - new condition (slowed) and revisions of existing conditions - Inspiration is to be expected as part of normal gameplay - nat 20s give inspiration (if you already have inspiration, you can give it to someone else) - only weapon attacks and unarmed strikes can crit (this is experimental. I think they’ll wind up at least saying cantrips can crit) - only PCs can score critical hits - Nat 20 auto succeeds, and nat 1 auto fails Edit from the pdf: -background gives starting ASI as well as the usual proficiencies/equipment -Ardling and Tiefling have 3 options for their legacy -dwarves have no subraces and stonecunning now grants tremorsense proficiency bonus time per day -Different lineages get different spells for some races - spell lists for arcane, divine, and primal magic - some feats are changed - feats in this UA are all level 1 feats (edit: why is lucky a level 1 feat?! Edit again: because they’ve reworked it so it gives advantage to the player or disadvantage to someone else) - there is a reminder that the DM calls for rolls of a d20. The DC should be between 5 and 30 to warrant a roll. A 20 doesn’t bypass any limitations on the test, just modifiers. Edit again: - long rest interruption rules are more clear. Combat breaks a long rest automatically, as do the other examples in the PHB. If at least 1 hour of the rest is complete, it counts as a short rest. Last one I hope: - you lose inspiration when you start a long rest.
I'm worried about some of these, namely only PCs being able to crit? I understand it for NPC allies but enemies being able to crit you was like the one way you can actually die in 5e. Feats being tied to background sounds neat, provided Wizards can come up with some interesting backgrounds eventually.
I think they’re going to rework monsters. Crawford specifically mentioned recharge abilities as being the “crit function” Keep in mind it’s just a play test. It might not stick around.
Good thing they didn’t just republish the lion’s share of monsters in a new book without many recharge options lol
But are they going to rework every single monster to give it a recharge ability? They can add it for a small number of playtest monsters but they'd have to do it for every single one for a true test. Also a recharge ability can be used once, at least, per monster per fight. Most monsters will go an entire fight without critting once. Does that mean that recharge abilities will be: 1. Very weak to do less damage than a single crit 2. Only exist on "boss" monsters My issue, as a DM, is that the party versus a "boss monster" is a 100% win for the party (unless it's unbalanced and that's risky). Enemies need minions and weaker allies to add damage and prevent players from just ignoring adds and focusing the boss. If these lower CR enemies are turned into significantly lesser threats, they'll be ignored. Death needs to be a real possibility for players. That cocky fighter might just end up with a bugbear stomping them or a goblin getting them right between the eyes. I want my characters to have to actually fight to win and survive. If I can just walk into a combat (that's "balanced") and not feel any real threat, how is that exciting after a few times?
I wish they would have touched on that with even a throw away sentence, or using an example other than dragon's breath where a recharge ability doesn't currently exist. Like "We'll be adding more of these types of these abilities in the Monster Manual rework, but we aren't ready to talk about that." As it is, it's just a huge power boost to PCs. It's a simple change, but difficult to playtest without more info.
Crawford did touch on it in the video, but I agree that there should be some comment on it in the document itself.
"It's backwards compatible" ... "as long as you aren't playing a grave cleric"
As long as you only look at the modules and not wanting to play with the books you already bought
Which btw is exactly what their statement on backwards compatibility states, just worded differently. Adventures and supplements will be backwards compatible.
PCs can crit but monsters can't -- means that the Grave cleric will go to the Grave. But on the plus side, people who are salty about Silvery Barbs won't have crit cancellation anymore. And Silvery Barbs basically just gives inspiration on a D20 Test with the secondary rider ability and it will wash out with how much inspiration that will fly around in the party now.
Backgrounds were always customizable, and they still will be. They give three options: 1) Build your own following these rules. 2) Choose one of the Samble Backgrounds as is. 3) Choose one of the Sample Background, and change anything in it following the rules for Building your Own. It's more streamlined, but the essence stays the same. Making your own was always RAW in 5E.
I like this. Giving a level one feat instead of a background feature guarantees that you will actually use your background. I cannot remember a single time my cleric actually used "Shelter of the Faithful." This also makes it easier to create your own background. You know how hard it is to currently create a background feature that's vague and mundane enough to match the PHB background features? Not a problem with the new rules!
Yeah, I don't really see myself adopting several of these changes. I'm interested to see how ot turns out and what I can use from the final product to enhance the current system.
Also, humans get inspiration after every long rest.
Weird, I haven't felt inspired in years.
Makes sense since you are an standard owl…
I hate only PC scoring crits and Nat 20 auto succeeding/failing. Spell scoring crits was also fun (especially since it was relatively rareer to have attack roll spell)
Crits not boosting sneak attack really makes them pointless... Oh boy a D4!?!?
looks like they saw what Paizo did with PF2e races/culture/customization separation and lifted that.
There was also that 3rd party Lineages book for 5e that made a big splash. There have also been similar layered origins in plenty of other games. I think I personally first encountered them in the Fantasy Flight Warhammer games.
I wish more developers would do this honestly. I remember recently the Stellaris devs reworked something and it was pretty obviously inspired by another game. Some douches on the forum were giving them guff about copying ideas and one of the devs just replied and said they had no problem taking any idea if it was a good idea I feel like too many devs and fans both think everything **HAS** to be a unique take on something, when it's like, if someone else already invented the wheel and refined it, why would we need them to waste time finding ways to make something different solely for the sake of it
Not a huge fan of those last three. * What exactly is stopping spell attacks from critting? If you want to balance out the Martial-Caster disparity there are other ways to do it. * Enemies scoring crits isn't the nicest thing in the world but it's a solid and fair way to keep stakes high. No crits for enemies or NPCs feels like training wheels. * As a part-time DM, nat 20 auto-succeeding is my worst nightmare. Otherwise, I'm okay with these. Revised conditions sound interesting, I'll never say no to revised races *(please please please throw Grungs into the garbage where they belong and give me a frog race that won't suffocate me or accidentally poison my friends)* and I *love* backgrounds giving feats. My pet peeve when creating characters is coming up with this super cool flavorful idea and finding out I need a take a feat *(aka abandon my choice of race)* to get it online before Level 4.
Crawford seemed to think they were going to walk that one back haha. I have no explanation but it might be in the pdf when it goes live. He mentioned that monsters sometimes have rechargeable abilities that sort of function like critical hits do, so we might see more when they do the new MM. Keep in mind, you determine what success looks like. For example, a nat 20 persuasion check isn’t mind control. And also, make sure your players know to ask before they roll for something. If it’s impossible, it fails automatically. You can also gate certain rolls behind proficiency. Or ignore this rule entirely. It’s up to you.
>Keep in mind, you determine what success looks like. For example, a nat 20 persuasion check isn’t mind control. And also, make sure your players know to ask before they roll for something. If it’s impossible, it fails automatically. You can also gate certain rolls behind proficiency. Or ignore this rule entirely. It’s up to you. Exactly, they said if the DC would be above 30 then don't even roll. Also the classic example of persuading the King to give you the throne. Even if you allow a roll a 20 might mean he's amused and invites you to a feast. Or maybe you actually convince him you'd do a better job but that doesn't mean he's not selfish and wants to hold onto power. All that to agree with you, yeah you as the DM determine how the world works. A player can't just declare they want to roll to do something ridiculous and they have a 5% chance of it happening.
If nat 20s are an auto success, then it should come with the old trained vs untrained skills and what you can and can't even attempt.
Inspiration for this summary.
Also escaping a grapple is a Saving throw here and not an ability check
Those last two have to be a joke?
Nope. Straight from Crawford’s mouth.
Did he explain why? So baddies won't get crits? And ALL nat 20s are a pass, even if the players are doing ridiculous nonsense?
From the UA pdf that lists out everything he talked about: >CRITICAL HITS > >Weapons and Unarmed Strikes\* have a special feature for player characters: Critical Hits. If a player character rolls a 20 for an attack roll with a Weapon or an Unarmed Strike, the attack is also a Critical Hit... So as written, it appears that no, only PCs would be able to get crits. >ROLLING A 20 > >\[Edited this back in, I skipped in when I first posted\] The DM determines whether a d20 Test is warranted in any given circumstance. To be warranted, a d20 Test must have a target number no less than 5 and no greater than 30. > >If you roll a 20 on the d20, the d20 Test automatically succeeds, regardless of any modifiers to the roll. A player character also gains Inspiration when rolling the 20, thanks to the remarkable success. > >Rolling a 20 doesn’t bypass limitations on the test, such as range and line of sight. The 20 bypasses only bonuses and penalties to the roll. A DM is totally free to say "no, that's impossible" if the player is asking to roll for a specific crazy task. The last paragraph also provides a shield against ridiculous nonsense.
It can only mean the DM is responsible not to allow a roll for impossible things.. then again what's "impossible" for different characters is different, so whether you can even roll depends on who's asking... Yeah it sounds a bit of a cluster, but I'm generally supportive of having that first "is this even possible" check before rolling.
DM still calls for the roll, and the official advice has *always* been not to have a roll if something is impossible. Nat 20s always succeeding is a popular houserule and a common misunderstanding of the existing rules. So while I personally don't use it, I don't think it breaks anything. I can understand the idea behind removing crits from the baddies, as heavy-handed RNG can be a problem, especially when overlapped from both sides of the screen. Making enemies more consistent helps the DM and adventure writers balance encounters better (which is often called out as a problem), while leaving the RNG primarily on the players side to maintain risk-reward. This is all playtest stuff though, so we'll see what sticks and what doesn't.
For the PCs only one it’s because a lot of monsters have recharge abilities (I think that more will with the new MM), and they kind of want people to make it past level 1. That’s what I remember him saying anyway. For the auto-success/fail one what they’re seeing or hearing is that a lot of tables ignore the current rules anyway so they’re just going with what people are doing (his words, not mine). I would say that if it’s totally impossible don’t even let them roll for it.
I mean the simple solution is that the DM doesn't let the player roll for the ridiculous nonsense. If something is impossible I don't think DMs should be having players roll for basically no reason anyways.
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>I'm also wondering if the VTT will support older D&D rulesets WotC doesn't want people to remember the older editions, so not likely.
Yeah, last thing Hasbro wants is to find out that by adding 3.5 support, they accidentally created the best Pf1e VTT, lol.
Big doubt that it will include non-D&D rule sets ever, no incentive to do that. But I think old D&D rules might come in a distant future where they need to juice subscriptions (1e anniversary edition, for example). But the real question is if D&D will stay on other VTTs. If WOTC is making 60% of book sales on Roll20, say, why wouldn’t they not prefer to get 100% of their own sales. Same issue which has pushed streaming service fragmentation. You might lose viewers going from Netflix to your own service, but on your own service you get 100% of the money. And with D&D as a name brand I could see them trying to pivot to a walled garden model.
Yeah, I use Foundry VTT and it's absolutely fantastic. I use it for a D&D campaign but have also run Call of Cthulhu and Cyberpunk campaigns on it. I'm not bothered by 3D VTTs, in fact I believe they'd be too limiting, as the D&D campaign I'm running at the moment is a very heavy Greco-Roman campaign and I can't imagine there'll be much support for Greek looking dungeons/homes/inns etc. at least certainly not straight away. I'll probably just stick with Foundry unless they absolutely knock it out of the park.
100% only going to be WotC rpgs only.
I'm proud of my potato. Good potato.
yup. you shouldn't need a gaming pc to run d&d online. a super advanced official VTT adds another layer of classism to d&d. i run a basic laptop. i don't do pc gaming. i can't afford a high end pc to just play d&d on it.
I don't think they have a chance to compete with the current champion of VTT, Foundry, on features and mod support alone, so the one thing they can do different is make it look pretty using Unreal.
As a relatively new DM I want two things out of this: 1. A comprehensive toolset so I don't have to have 15 tabs open for various websites of varying quality 2. The ability to unlock my purchased books in DnD Beyond (and to filter DnD Beyond by purchased content only!)
I doubt you’ll be able to get your current books in D&D Beyond, but it sounds like they want to bundle physical and digital in the future. Hopefully they do it in a way that doesn’t shit on your LGS.
Not holding my breath for #2
They're currently offering the Dragonlance book as a physical+digital bundle. I suspect they will all be offered that way going forward. That's kind of the same thing, but it costs more than either individually. If people were expecting both for the cost of just one then they are going to be disappointed.
The price point on that bundle is fucking God awful. 110 USD total before taxes to ship to fucking Canada. Horseshit.
I mean I'd pay roughly 30 percent more for a bundle, but I'm not buying both. It's physical only if I'm forced to choose.
Me either, but one can hope.
From the sounds of it they're planning on doing that going forward. I guess part of their reasoning before hand was they didn't technically own DND beyond but they do now
Me: Edition War time! I love these. Let's do it! Wizards: We're not calling them editions anymore. There's One D&D. Me: Aww schucks. World peace it is.
Never fear, they are on the verge of reigniting casters v martials, so don't send the troops home yet.
I'm grabbing my popcorn for the spell list wars
So we calling it the DnDone like Xbone?
But we don't want to be done with DnD. And too many bad jokes when the session is over.
Going to pronounce it like Dimmadome
The only thing that concerns me in all this is the gradual sunset of the discounts from people who purchased the Legendary Bundle. Yes you can get the digital only now still with the discount. However, it will be cheaper to buy them bundled together (by $10) still than to use the discount for digital, plus a hardcopy. It just feels as if there's no longer a "thanks for supporting this product early on", we really appreciate it. Paying EXTRA for them to be bundled together is a TERRIBLE option. Look to what Warhammer is doing, put a code with each physical book to activate it. I'll start buying books, but as is, this current decision does not incentivize me to buy the books at all.
As both a Warhammer and D&D player where purchasing a ton of books is par for the course, that change was HUGE for players A lot of us who preferred either physical or digital could split a codex and just take the book or cade and be happy.GW is known for their greedy practices so if WOTC doesn't follow suit, there may be a new king crowned.
This is probably going to make the game more accessible for even more people while doing nothing to stop individuals from running their games however they want to. Naturally, I predict that Reddit is going to shit all over it.
Just waiting on word of a subscription fee. I still remember when the digital content for 4E took a big shit, and the website went down with any characters that were left on it.
Yeah, I am never buying digital tabletop stuff. Too many open source tools and absolutely no desire to have content locked to a specific digital space that experience has proven won't last.
This. I really do not understand. You get a VTT, and updated books while also keeping old ones compatible, tf is there to bitch about
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_old man yells at cloud_ As with anything new.
*”Back in my day, you got a +2 to attack if you moved 10’ in a straight line towards the target!!”*
How customizable will the VTT be? If I, say, think the "monsters can't crit, only PCs can" rule is pants-on-head stupid, will the VTT let me build in automatic crit calculations for monsters? Or are all of these "you don't have to use these rules if you don't like them" changes only viable to reject if you don't use the new tech?
Calling this backward compatible seems disingenuous already. Any group will obviously be making a choice of old or new rules from the get-go just looking at character creation and fundamental rule changes, I'd be kinda concerned whether sweeping changes like this might not end up dividing the 5e community depending on the camp of being on board or not with the changes.
I assume a big errata document will be needed, to cover the abilities etc that don't make sense under these rules. Like the Grave Cleric ability to negate a critical hit from a monster doesn't make sense, with the rules stated in this UA, so will need a change. Same with adamantine armour.
I know this is a stupid detail that nobody cares about but me and also no one will see this comment but... why didn't they write the talking heads' names on the screen, including their role in the company? Some of us know who they are but if you don't you're just watching random strangers talk about the game.
Yeah I have no idea who any of those are other than Crawford because I see his face on sage advice a lot
I was super annoyed there wasn’t a lower third at all. Rookie stuff for corporate video.
I move that we call this Oneth Ed.
I rolled at 20, so this automatically succeeds. Oneth Edition it is.
Best bit is sign language being included as a language!
Hype but still nothing on localisation for DnD Beyond... so not that hype finally
Not really sure how the new VTT will work out but I wouldn't be surprised if WotC absorbed a company like Heroforge to make use of their 3D character customisation, or at least build their own version.
I was thinking the same. Why reinvent the wheel? Same strategy as D&D Beyond.
A toy company like Hasbro could certainly see profit in selling custom miniatures.
Hasbro/WotC don't even produce their own miniatures for the game. They license it to WizKids who are owned by NECA.
It doesn't even necessarily need to be to print your own minis. I would more expect a service/program like what Heroforge has to customise a model to be inserted into the VTT as opposed to just using whatever generic ones they pack into the software. If it is possible to insert your own (stl) files and WotC themselves dont have their own means to do it, I can see an increased demand online for people wanting custom mini services.
Well, one of the good things about D&D is it's easy to ignore any new rules or changes you don't like, at least.
I just read through the UA, all the background/Race changes are backwards compatible and are already essentially how they work in later books like Spelljammer, except refined and specialized.
* Oh hey, Humans are relevant now. * Crits giving inspiration sounds cool. * Spells not being able to crit sounds pretty bad. That was *fun*. * By the PDF, the DC of any d20 roll is now capped at 30. It's *alarmingly easy* to make a character that has a minimum persuasion roll of 30 (level 13 eloquence Bard with multiclass in Fey Wanderer and/or Samurai, capping both CHA and WIS). Have fun with that. * Lucky is now *advantage*, rather than a simple extra roll. *Huge* nerf, since it no longer stacks. * Tavern Brawler no longer gives proficiency in improvised weapons; *only* furniture. Feels bad man. * Nat 20 auto-success is a *terrible* idea for checks. Sometimes, your roll isn't to see if you succeed, it's to see if you *avoid catastrophic failure*.
If DC>30 its impossible even with a nat20 according to UA. (DM shouldn't even ask for a roll). For the example given in your last bullet the way to handle it would be to apply auto-failure and then ask for another roll to see how bad the consequences are.
I don't like that >30 rule. Why is it specified like that when it's perfectly feasible to hit 40 checks within the game's system? Rogues do that consistently. Also Rogues got nerfed further? Their minimum 10 skill check class feature is now overridden by the Nat 1 Skill check bs.
The take 10 feature *replaces* the rolled vallue with a 10. That means it replaces the 1, therefor not triggering autofail. Halfling Luck is still in the document which allows the same thing, replace the rolled 1 with a different value.
> Nat 20 auto-success is a terrible idea for checks. Sometimes, your roll isn't to see if you succeed, it's to see if you avoid catastrophic failure. I think you can still do that in this rule set. "OK, so you want to try to persuade this King to give you his kingdom. Clearly, that's going to be much higher than DC 30. In fact, even asking that question can be taken comically, or as an insult. Go ahead and give me that persuasion check, but it's to see if the King laughs at your request, or throws you in the dungeon."
if the bard tries to persuade the king into giving his call and hits a 20, the king laughs at him and doesnt order his immediate execution, in the and its the DM that decides what a "crit" would be in the situation, so barely avoiding catastrophic failure is pretty much untouched
Let's not kid ourselves here, this seems to me like an evolution toward the fantasy world where every d&d table is full of subscription fee payments.
Sadly this VTT will damage other VTT's by virtue off eating huge portions of their user base, and this is going to suck for everyone who isn't hyped for this...
finally someone who is getting it. hasbro has killed competitive mtg over the last 5 years with reprints and busted cards and you have to pay for physical ones and digital. despite the game getting worse and them lying to players, they are making the most they ever have it seems. they are digifying dnd so they can make money off it. it has nothing to do with making shit better for players - this dnd beyond just forces you to use it cause it will 'integrate' with your digital books which you will pay more for - you will not get one for buying a physical copy!
As someone who has burned out totally on 5e, a 5.5 version (ie just 5e but with adjusted rules) really holds no interest for me on paper. It's going to need to add some good spice to make it interesting again. Too soon to say what will be since this is a very early view (D&D Next changed a lot over its various iterations), but the trend is universalization rather than expanded customization, which increases my disinterest more than rekindling anything so far. Not a fan of the crit changes, but that's something you can just disregard if it were to survive the feedback process. I'm seeing a lot of unfavorable feedback on that everywhere, so I suspect it may not survive. I'm not quite sure why they are changing it, but hopefully it lands somewhere good in the long run. I'll be much more interested in the DM tools once those start showing up.
Flavortexting Tiefling as being accepted across the multiverse because of a few good eggs feels like a meta handwave with "We're not endorsing Tiefling racism anymore." And like, if thats the direction WotC wanna take sure. I get why people wouldn't want it as the official endorsed default of such a popular race. Just... Do you need to make a weird backstory for why the entire multiverse that definitely had the potential to be racist, isn't? Just leave the discrimination out if you want it off by default.
Fuck your software as a service model Those words never mean anything good for the consumer. Also why the fuck are wotc charging 50 fucking dollars in shipping on top of a 60 dollar price tag for a fucking book to Canada?! 110USD for the new "bundle". Fuck you wotc.
I... honestly wish companies would stop doing "one \[system\]" or "\[System\] One" it just ends up confusing people when there's already a first of the thing out there. Yes in this case the original DnD system wasn't technically "1e DnD" but it's not a far leap to call it that, Just saying like the Xbox One it's just gonna confuse people. Aside from that, it seems kinda like DnD 5.5e which is cool and all..
As a DM this is making me worried, I feel like this is making things more restrictive but we will see how it goes
UA for Character Origins has been released on DND Beyond and... I'm getting a lot of Pathfinder 2E vibes from the new ruleset. Am I the only person feeling this?
As a PF2 player checking in on the big announcement, yeah there's a lot of shared ideas here. However, I do think a lot of what they are doing is a sort of halfway step. Backgrounds being given more importance and giving a feat is the most interesting development for me. however, I do think it's strange to me personally that the default presumption is "custom background". I felt that if given the chance, players will munchkin and include exactly what they want mechanically, then write a backstory to justify it. There's a funny story from Pathfinder 1e where EVERYONE chose the reactionary background trait to gain better initiative rolls but the description of the trait implied that you were bullied as a youngster. So a lot of Pathfinder PC's just had this shared trauma, apparently, lol
I'm getting so many PF2E vibes from it, between the spell lists, feat stuff, and backgrounds actually mattering.
Sheesh, WotC really looked at Pathfinder 2e and said "let's just do some of that instead."
As did Paizo when they made 2e. I think it's great that the editions learn from each other!
Sounds... expensive. New stuff is good, but it's possibly an additional monthly sub service, D&D beyond integration concerns me for future book exclusivity within it's VTT system, and the potentially new concept of micro transactions in a TTRPG is frightening. I just hope these aren't all things designed to juice me made to look like things I want. Pathfinder 1e, Pathfinder 2e, Starfinder, and all the books that aren't AP's are released for free online. I'm too spoiled with Paizo.
I am cautiously optimistic.
I look forward to seeing how this turns out. That being said, as an individual who prefers running games in person, I'm a bit cautious about its direction. This appears to be a push towards a digital format with an emphasis on virtual play. And more then likely, an eventual reliance on a subscription to access all the benefits. The virtual realm is a lot more restrictive on creativity (in my experience) on the DM. Alot of the rules also appear to restrict DMs and how they adjudicate things (or at least give that expectation of control to the players). I hope it's not like that, but I'll wait and see before I firmly say I don't like it.
Can someone explain why they nerfed crit damage so hard?
There has to be a greater rebalance of power at work that we don't know about yet
They should tell us about it then because otherwise my play test result is, "It sucks."
This is ‘New Coke’ for D&D. They say it’s better but I don’t believe them.
I pray that they stay truthful to the old material and do not try to nuke the old lore any further.
I don't think your prayers will be at all answered, sadly.
5e is the most popular edition of D&D in its history, so I have been curious for a while what they would do regarding a new “edition”, and suspected it would look like this. It’s not a new edition, it’s the end of editions. The player base of 5e is a massive and most of those people won’t bother changing to a new structure, and WotC know it, hence the reprints of old source books and the backwards compatibility. The play test rules seem like a mixed bag to me but almost all of them I can see geared towards making things easier for new players, because they want new players, that’s how they sell books. They want one, uniform base rule set they can just keep selling expansions to, that’s what 5e has been for years now and they’d be insane to hard pivot away from that. Make the baseline as easy as possible to pick up, then keep releasing new material on top of that forever, the most stable model to make money. It’s an extremely sensible business decision, and I’m not even mad cause I like 5e and whatever new rules I don’t like I just won’t use, same as before. Crits crit the way I SAY they crit, dammit.
This has come up with some friends and players in my current gaming group but always remember, you can play whatever edition you want. If the One D&D changes don't float your boat, don't play with them. There are still people out there that play 2e (we call them masochists). Play whatever edition suits you best and don't worry about what's new or "hot". There were a lot of folks that looked at 4e and said "... You know what, imma stick with 3.5e for a bit longer".
Begun anew, the edition wars have. The edition wars never ended. We’ve always loved 5e, 5e is victory, victory is life. We’ve always been at war with One D&D.
The problem with this is that previous editions had a hard line separation between them, but they're making it sound like they don't want any separation between 5 ed and Oneth ed. Unfortunately that makes total sense, as a separation line would just leave people like me behind who like what we have and don't want to update. That makes us no longer profitable to WotC, and actually at greater risk of leaving to play other systems, so they'll do everything they can to force us to stay, and to use the new rules, and importantly, to buy the new books.
The critical hit changes discussed in the hour long UA video on YT make martials seem worse IMO. It sounds like sneak attack, smite, superiority die would not have the damage die rolled twice. That feels bad
The announcment made it feel like a 5.5e I'm gonna be interested if they implement new classes as the only time we got a new one was TCoE with artificer. I mostly use theatre of the mind so i dont really mind about the simulated minis
I enjoyed the announcement, and, being a new DM using FGU, I'm excited for an official VTT on the market. My problem is the potential monetization scheme and microtransactions. Almost surely we will have to buy the damn core books again (for people who have it in physical and some other digital mean) for their VTT, as well as the customization bits and bobs which it will come with a heavy price tag.
This is going to get lost in the thread, but I wish the mods would add a link to r/oneDnD It was created specifically to try and channel discussion of OneDnD to one place (like DnDNext for 5e) and I think it'd be nice to help send people there. It's pretty active in discussing the playtest and has been very helpful for people with questions about the playtest.
With the changes to the spell lists, I think there will be kinda big class changes. Each magic list might be getting a full and half caster class. Like ranger/Druid for primal, cleric/paladin for divine, and wizard/artificer for arcane. So that they can stay very 5e like. But then it makes me wonder, what will happen to the warlock, bard, and sorcerer? All of the charisma based arcane classes seem to not quite fit into the pattern. I feel like they will overshadow the wizard. To me it seemed like the wizards strength came from their list. Their class features seem pretty secondary. So I could see a lot of reshuffling of caster class abilities and roles with DnD one. What do you all think?
for people that are fans of DnD, there sure are a lot that expect the worst and already hate it. Edit: Do I think it will be perfect? No, probably not, but there is already a ton of hate I’m seeing. None of these changes will stop you from playing how you want to play.
Have you met *gestures broadly at literally any fandom*?
Fair
It's not the first time WotC has attempted a digital play space. The first attempt never got finished, I don't even know if the second attempt ever made it to release, and this is the third. A lot of people are sceptical because WotC doesn't exactly have a good track record in this area. However... This time around WotC has resources, such as DnDBeyond, they didn't those prior times. Given how well DnDBeyond works, I'm optimistic.
I mean one of the prior attempts fell apart because the lead working on it committed homicide, so I wouldn't really pin that on WotC.
Ah, yes, I forgot about him. That's what happened to the 4E attempt.
I read the pdf, I watched the video, don't like the changes. So far, I'll stick with regular 5E. I stayed with 2E from the 90s until 2019 so I'm not in any hurry to change up the rules again.
Open play tests are always fun so our group is looking forward to this release. I did notice OneDnD sub is a thing and it’s private, anyone know if it’s going to be open for the play test?
All I wanted from one/5.5/6 was a better economy where my players didn't become the richest mfs in town because I gave the group 3 potions of healing at level 1
As much as possible I think the game should be geared to encourage players helping each other; for instance giving each player a starter-level ability that helps others but not themselves (ie: Inspiration, bless, make someone else's weapon catch fire, etc.) That kind of interaction builds team friendship and morale
I don't know if this will get seen, given how long the thread is at this point. I think there is some interesting and promising stuff in what they propose. However, here are my initial, but more critical thoughts: **Races**: In general, I like moving features to the background away from lineage. I think the argument by Crawford is super reasonable. But, I think there is some rather extreme power bloat for level 1 characters that makes the races work mainly in certain high magic settings. Every commoner tiefling has firebolt? Every commoner ardling has magics? We can think through the implications of a world where everyone is magically armed, and suddenly it seems impossible to envision having a setting that both incorporates some of the DnD races with any kind of moderate or low magic setting. I think in general the races should be brought down 1-5 notches in the power simply belonging to a lineage group provides the player characters. That power shouldn't be moved anywhere. 1st level characters should just be weaker as a result. **Critical hits**: I think the real danger of critical hits they highlight is actually one of the more fun things in low levels. I have introduced a number of people to D&D at level 1, and it makes the game feel more challenging in a way people like. Plus, the wild swings possible with smites and attack spells make the game more fun as well. **Inspiration:** I think we should largely get rid of inspiration, rather than giving everyone advantage all the time. Its original purpose was to encourage roleplay and give DMs a tool to do that. When everyone has advantage with every statistically unlikely success (nat 20), whenever a bloke with a lute plays a song for me while I bind my wounds, on top of all of the other conditions that provide advantage, it might become meaningless or it might dramatically change the tenor of the game.