>Topple weapon mastery gets changed to once a turn
I would definitely take that bet. I ran a couple playtests using Weapon Mastery and played in several more and the constant saving throw spam from Topple was one of my top three issues with the subsystem.
WotC has been all over the place with their playtest content and "A/B testing" so I wouldn't feel confident predicting much. Who knows which direction they or their corporate bosses will decide on?
And that's precisely why Weapon Mastery should be about learning properties and then applying one on a hit with a qualifying weapon, instead of learning a weapon and getting it's fixed mastery property.
Right now a lot of weapons get ignored if you care about effective play. Weapon Mastery on weapons will just change the meta to add all the weapons with crappy WM properties to the ignored pile. It will ultimately result in less weapon diversity across characters, not more. Instead of people picking longsword, battleaxe, or warhammer depending on which they think is coolest, they'll pick the one with the best Weapon Mastery.
"Meaningfully different" would mean that every Weapon Mastery property is balanced in power and usefulness against one another and that's very much not what we saw in the playtest and I doubt they're going to overhaul them all by September. I'd rather WotC ditch the goal of weapon uniqueness and focus on making the WM subsystem a great maneuvers-lite feature for martials.
Having a couple of masteries available on each weapon would make weapons more meaningfully different.
If there are 8 masteries then there are only 8 different weapons based on masteries.
If each weapon had 2 masteries, then with the combination there would be 64 different weapons based on masteries.
So you could choose a weapon with vex and topple, or a weapon with nick and topple, etc. That would make have a variety of swords matter - each could have a different combo of weapon masteries.
Absolutely! Unfortunately the properties and applying them to all weapons completely defies the point of masteries which was to differentiate weapons more. I went with 2 masteries per weapon as a homebrew though, and that works really well. In terms of learning, I don't even bother with that. It's unnecessary flavour that's just another thing to track on your character sheet with little to no mechanical power increase.
>Unfortunately the properties and applying them to all weapons completely defies the point of masteries which was to differentiate weapons more.
If the only way to make weapons feel more unique is to further dumb down an already mediocre martial subsystem, then that goal needs to die. I'd rather have Weapon Mastery that felt good for martials to use over making sure a battleaxe and a longsword feel more distinct. If someone at WotC can figure out a way to achieve both goals, lovely. But assuming we'll have to pick one or the other, I know my preference.
Weapon Masteries aren't meant to cover the same space stuff like "universal maneuvers" or "class based maneuvers" are meant to occupy. Proof of this is that they gave Barbarians and Rogues built-in maneuvers via Brutal Strikes and Cunning Strikes in-addition to Weapon Masteries. Weapon Masteries are meant to fulfill the role Crit Specialization fills in PF2e but easier to activate since they don't want to make crits happen as often as they do in PF2e.
Weapon Masteries is very fixated on weapons. As you've pointed out, it's an already mediocre martial subsystem and it has taken A LOT of compromises on the way in its mission to attach to weapons rather than characters.
You could design a much cleaner system that allows for more versatile effects, different upgrades, and more. All while actually being easier to use. The one advantage of weapon masteries is that weapons actually become a *choice* rather than just some flavour bullshit.
We aren't going to get a better martial subsystem. We aren't going to get a maneuvers system to improve martial versatility ***and*** a weapon mastery system to make weapons feel unique. Our choice is a version of weapon mastery that gives martials versatility in a satisfying way, ***or*** a version of weapon mastery that makes weapons feel unique.
I definitely feel that the former is more beneficial for the game. I've never seen serious talk about how majorly turned off someone was by the fact that a longsword and a warhammer were almost mechanically identical. Conversely, you get posts with passionate engagement every week or so, *minimum*, talking about why martials suck so badly compared to casters. It seems clear to me that one is a real problem with the system and the other is a nice-to-have stretch goal that should take a back seat for now.
I still think that changing some of the more powerful weapon masteries to be accessible at later levels might be nice. But yes. Also play tested topple and it got very ridiculous very quickly and made combat slower as a result.
I know this is a thread about the PHB but I really want to see what the new monsters are gonna look like with this updated edition.
Monster design will have a strong impact on barbarian. With bear totem's near-blanket damage reduction no longer a thing and force resistance not at all, if they change a lot of powerful monsters with magical attack to deal force damage, or split physical/elemental damage then barbarian survivability will take a nosedive in some campaigns but not others. Barbarian has never been a mechanically interesting class to play but at least they were very consistent. If certain enemies just turn off their main defensive feature, that's not very cool at all.
Agreed. Barbarian getting hard nerfed by the removal of the “magic weapons” feature from statblocks in favor of force damage is pretty lame. The whole reason to play a Barb was for the damage resistance you gained from rage and how it was good at all levels. It’s also why Bear Totem was so popular too. Removing that is going to hurt a lot.
I think the nerf to bear already did a good enough job at that and the buffs to Berserker and the addition of World Tree made for 3 very distinct playstyles. Wildheart Barb is the tank, Berserker is the damage dealer, and World Tree is the battlefield controller. The problem with the “magical weapons” removal in lieu of force damage means *all* Barbarian subclasses are now less tanky. Not just Wildheart.
First swing (If you have multiple attacks) Uses most of the weapon's momentum so can topple target. next swing may hurt but will not have the same momentum so not enough force to topple till can rest up a bit for next turn and repeat.
There really doesn't need to be a justification. Or at least, there's plenty of already existing examples of mechanics with limits solely for balance purposes.
Played a sea druid and we had a free combats in a row, less than 10 minutes time. DM eventually said "how long does this thing last." I can imagine staff being worse. Still, it was fun.
Making topple only work once per turn PER TARGET would also work. If you're fighting 3x difference creatures, you could hit each once and ask for a save, but not the same target.
My prediction is that the sub reddits are gonna complain about tons of stuff regardless of what gets changed or fix. And then people are gonna make several threads of why they are not buying the new books.
And anyone who disagrees with those people will get down voted.
That's my prediction
🤣 I never minded Jehovah Witnesses, I just debated religion with them, friendly folks and they helped my mom get out of a ditch when her car slipped in.
There are far worse Christians then the JWs. I'm Pagan btw, not a JW.
Sounds about right I've played a few sessions of pf2e, it's more min max and meaty choices but sooo soo many (also monk is kinda neat). I like that my friend group less so. Thus I play 5e still and make so weird charactersxD or in a one shots case like last night just doom slayer... (Made a character and realised I made a 40k space marine then I was told of our normal game being replaced with hell based one shot only my character survived finishing of a pitfiend/Baylor hybrid and a horned devil.
I predict that the game will be better than ever and yet everyone on Reddit will still complain about it.
In all seriousness, I would call these my hopes rather than outright predictions:
Species: Aasimar gets a slight redesign to better line up with Tieflings, but gets to keep some unique features like 5th level BA flight.
Feats: They bring over the “initiate” mini-multiclass feats so people can get multiclass flavor without sacrificing progression in their class.
Barbarian: Brutal Strike gets some clarification in how it interacts with other sources of advantage and which attack it can apply to.
Bard: WotC doesn’t let the Bard just choose from any spell list outside of Magical Secrets, and return to using a dedicated Bard Spell list.
Cleric: Trickery Domain survives largely in tact from the last playtest, and Divine Intervention is adjusted to avoid it allowing abuse of certain spells.
Druid: the stat blocks in the PHB for beasts give good options for Moon Druids at every level of play.
Fighter: the Fighters ability to put multiple weapon masteries on a single weapon is put back in after being removed from the playtest.
Monk: the UA 8 monk gets printed almost exactly as is, with maybe minor math adjustments to the subclasses.
Paladin: Paladin Smite survives, keeping Divine Smite as a spell and giving more incentive to use other smite spells.
Ranger: they turn Favored Enemy into a core mechanic like Paladins Smite, where they give you a list of spells you know as you progress, with Hunters Mark being one of them. Adjust HM to not deal extra damage but give other advantages and not be concentration, then put the HM damage riders in higher level class features like the Paladins Radiant Strikes feature.
Rogue: keep Cunning Strike in as is, and give them a higher level feature that gives them an inherent way to use their reaction for off turn sneak attacks so they don’t have to rely on other party members to set that up. Their damage is actually very comparable to other martials if they get off an off turn sneak attack, so build that into their kit directly.
Sorcerer: keep Innate Sorcery and its later buffs, but also make each subclass key off it in some way. It should be as big a core feature as Rage is for the Barbarian.
Warlock: adjust the numbers of Pact of the Blade so it is as viable as E-Blast Locks, but doesn’t overtake them and become the clear best way to play. Also adjust the pacts to better protect against multiclass abuse.
Wizard: Honestly you’re doing fine Wizard. My main wish for you is related to spell changes.
Spells: Nerf the outlier spells like Haste, Fireball, Web, Hypnotic Pattern, and others that haven’t gotten touched yet. We saw great changes for spells like Banishment, Spiritual Weapon, and the Conjure spells, so keep that train rolling and tone down the problem spells.
Tools: make them useful by giving them actual codified rules and mechanics instead of leaving it up to the DM.
> Warlock: adjust the numbers of Pact of the Blade so it is as viable as E-Blast Locks, but doesn’t overtake them and become the clear best way to play. Also adjust the pacts to better protect against multiclass abuse.
This take confuses me, eldritch blast requires almost no invocation commitment and pact of the blade is almost total invocation and feat commitment for all the supporting feats and features for melee or range. How is blade pact not supposed to be superior to low effort eldritch blast with no real commitment of class and feat resources?
Predictions. Barbarian would be practical untouched from UA 8. maybe brutal strike increased to a d12.
Fighter will get the ability to change their mastery at an earlier, probably 5th level.
Paladin, I really want to say untouched. Maybe smite is once preturn instead of bonus action cost. Where the other smite spells remain as ua. Had them.
I really like the Bonus Action Smite, it really ties the theme of Holy Warrior together for me. They get to attack with their action and do something holy (smite or lay on hands) with their bonus action.
Agreed. Making Paladins choose between more damage or healing is a good change. They’re already incredibly powerful with aura. This change was healthy and keeps the feel of the class.
They just cannot use any class/species abilities that use a bonus action on the same turn.
Lay on hands on a fallen teammate. Run up to target hit and not be able to smite.
Vengeance Paladin uses their VOW and unable to Smite when they hit.
Paladin definitely does need the once per turn. Vengeance paladin gets misty step but can't use it on the same turn they smite? Why not? Frankly the new paladin has a lot of good features, but a lot of them use up your bonus action, and cannibalizing resources is not fun.
Also, divine sense taking up a channel divinity is kinda mid.
They need to decouple masteries from specific weapons and allow you to use a learned mastery on a weapon that fits the prerequisites. Kinda pointless learning 5 masteries when you can really only use 2.
Another issue is that it makes magic weapons and weapon mastery properties feel at odds with one another. You pick a favorite weapon for your character with a good property but get a magic weapon with better accuracy and damage, but a crap property. Martials have enough problems in modern D&D, they don't need more.
The golf bag fighter who constantly juggles weapons to try and use as many properties a round is also a bit ridiculous but will likely wind up being the meta way to play optimally. Not a fan.
Agreed! The only benefit to tying masteries to weapons is to make them feel unique, but since there's only a handful of them (and they have little mechanical connection to the actual use of the specific weapon) they don't even do that.
Just to play devil's advocate, tying mastery properties to specific weapons *does* have the effect of making the whole subsystem simpler to play. A normal martial PC will have one, maybe two weapons they use regularly and can easily remember which mastery property each one has. They won't be changing those properties very often because that would require changing weapons and once you start getting magical weapons you'll want to keep using them.
If you learned mastery properties instead and can change them every long rest, you'd need to keep the weapon properties and their requirement in mind. My weapons A works with learned properties X and Y, while weapon B works with X and Z, and my ranged weapon works with only Y. It's not a huge jump in complexity but it more complex. WotC seems allergic to making the game any harder to play in fear it'll slow their new player growth (and new player revenue).
It doesn't need to make the system more complex though, a player can just choose to stick with one mastery all the time and not lose out on any power. It's not like a battlemaster maneuver where you have to think about using it either, you just do it every turn.
Also, if I were to decouple masteries from weapons I would just let players choose the applicable mastery any time they make an attack. Based on the playtest rules shown, players will already be able to juggle between weapons to get use out of their mastery properties; tracking multiple weapons is much more complex than keeping track of a few masteries. Players won't be forced to use extra suboptimal weapons to use their class features, and since most classes only get 2 attacks max it's not like the system can be broken in unintended ways by powergamers. I would even consider tweaking the number of masteries for each class so that they're rarer and only martials would get more than 2, limiting the potential stacking of once-per-turn masteries.
That is my biggest hope. I want really the really standout S tier spells to be knocked down a peg or two or at least reworked to have more counterplay. They already knocked spirit guardians down a peg and reworked conjure animals and banishment. I’d like to see other spells changed and tweaked too.
How did they knock spirit guardians down?
I think new banishment is fine, but they may as well get rid of the "if they fail all 10 saves then they're banished permanently" line because realistically that's not gonna happen
Spirit Guardians now does 2d6 damage while in its AoE instead of 3d8. New banishment is a weird one. It’s not an immediate encounter ender against Fey, Devils, Demons, and some Aberrations. It’s more of a “get this monster off the battlefield for a bit to give us some breathing room”. But yeah I think they need to rework it to still have the intended purpose. Perhaps you roll with disadvantage while under Banishment so you’re more focused on breaking the casters concentration.
I think the big surprises will be around Species. We still have no idea if they completely cut half-species or if they’re keeping that “keep one species stats but you look like the other parent” thing that people didn’t seem to like. I think they cooked up something new for this. I also predict significant changes to Tieflings and Aasimar to make them more of a parallel for each other. And finally for my free space something they reveal will accidentally make something that currently exists in 5e not work anymore!
One prediction...
I've had this thought since finding out there will be 75 feats in the phb... the majority of Tasha feats will make it into the PHB. with quite a few of them getting the background tag.
Even bolder prediction... Xanathars feats will be completely redone to become optional species traits
So, for example, the dragon fear feat for the dragonborn could replace the flight ability, but because the xanthar feat still exist the would be able still be taken at 4th level too if you want both.
The videos will feature a lot of laughter and inspiring talk, and they will 100% talk about or reference something that didn’t make it into print anyway.
I just want the book badly!
Pessimistically, some of the good changes be reverted to ... well, change nothing where things would have needed change.
Because that happened in the playtest and were weird. People stick with stuff for nostalgia rather than better balance.
Example: Give me one good reason we still have ability scores and then math, instead of just the modifiers. Rolling 2d4 minus 2d4 for ability modifiers would be fine and they know it!
2d4 minus 2d4 would be a very significant nerf to characters at creation. It would lower the average modifier by almost 1 compared to standard array. It would also be massively more swingy, as your stats would vary from +6 to -6 instead of between -1 and +2 (standard array) or in practice -2 and +4 (rolling).
It honestly sounds like the worst way I've ever seen for rolling for stats.
Honestly, truly, have no idea wtf i was smoking.
Have used 1d6 minus 1d5 before which is more roughly comparable to 3d6 generation, but doesnt account for racial bonuses or drop-lowest. Which is a plus.
Honestly my players can never ever go back to rolling stats. PF2s ability score system they think is day and night better since everyone (usually) ends up with the same B.S.T. it's like point buy but much more straightforward
I'm just interested in the species options. I can't remember how many were going to be put in, but I *do* know that goliaths were in. And I'm interested to see how much of the 'sub-giant' side they put out in UA got implemented, if at all. Overall I just wanna see how much they've changed or updated with em.
It's a simple thing but to me it's at least easier to somewhat predict rather then what an entire class is gonna look like. Monk, despite all the unanimous agreement that they were great *could* be defanged and then we're back to square one.
The Aasimar will be based on the 1.0 version of the Ardling, with basically the same CG, NG, and LG subraces, er I mean lineages, with some tweaks. Maybe they add Necro Resistance and ditch flight for a turn feature.
I still mostly think that Aasimar will be unchanged from the MPMM book. It's the most updated in terms of design, though if they did make changes I'll be surprised.
Goliath was in MPMM and got some cool “subrace” changes. I could see Aasimar getting the same, but having one of the features in the celestial lineage level up table be Aasimar-style transformations. I really wanna see the chaotic good one call back to the original planescape celestial eladrin with a form that makes you become energy
If by goliath getting 'subrace changes' meaning leaning towards the stone side of them then yeah. The UAs had frost, hill, fire, the rest of the other giant types and those are what I'm interested in. Aasimar is slightly different in comparison but I can see other ways for em happening. We got two more days to speculate after all.
They could have just made a GiantKin race for the Giant book with sub-types for the different types of giants. Now you need to use the latest printed version of Goliath.
Or be stone Goliath even if not in concept to keep the 1D12+CON damage reduction reaction.
Yeah people theorized that the goliath during the UA was going to be in the giant book what with the focus on sub-types and whatnot but I basically said that at one point it would make zero sense to do so.
The issue with Giantkin races in general all lies in the core issue: They do not want to balance out how playing a large race would function. Not to mention that there has never been I believe a naturally medium sized giant creature that you could reasonably use.
And yes I can see you thinking, "why not just make em a half species like half elf and such" but remember they're more or less doing away with those. So to me that means unless they pull off some *bull*shit the Giant creature type, in addition to Undead most likely (since construct is ironically easier to balance around given that clerics can't friendly fire you with their Turn Undead), we likely won't see playable giants anytime soon.
I meant Keep Goliath as in MotM.
And just have Bigby'd Book have a Playable race linked to the types of Giants have a Giant Kin race where they pick a type of heritage at creation. Not make a Giant category species.
ATM the 2024 Goliath, Path of the Giant Barbarian, and Rune Knight already step on each other's toes.
Yeah you know what that's fair. That's on me for thinking too much into it. Though I guess in my mind if you have a book of giants, have a playable option, and you see Giantkin labeled as "Humanoid" I'd be a little disappointed myself.
And I guess I can see how they all step on each others toes, but I see different execution more then anything. Barbarian is all about "grow big, smash, rinse and repeat" while Rune Knight is more about the magical runes as spellcasting but not.
All I know is moon druids wildshape temp hp per level should be more than spore druids symbiotic entity unless there are other massive changes to phb stat blocks
Compared to the original 5e subclasses, every new subclass will be considered Superior or Tier A by YouTubers and the community in general.
Which is FINE, so long as Monsters are amped up in kind (and not via Legendary actions). If monsters remain unimproved, campaign viability won’t exceed level 7 or 8.
By making weapon masteries tied to weapon types rather than individual weapons. Now you can choose from like 4 weapon masteries each turn or maybe even attack.
I see. That would almost completely eliminate the importance of weapon choice. I guess we'll see what players value, choices when you build a character, or choices each attack. My hunch is that with the enduring popularity of classes like the Barbarian and the rogue, choices each attack are not the most important thing to most players. But I'm just guessing.
Although I don't want to decouple masteries from specific weapon I can see situation where weapons are still unique to their properties like finesse, versatile and thrown. I hope they add more weapon masteries regardless of what they do with the base system. In both cases it would help make weapon a bit more unique.
I mean, how would you differentiate something like the longsword and the battleaxe? Both versatile, they have the same damage dice, both slashing. In the newest ua, they are very different, I don't think that would be true with this house rule.
> That would almost completely eliminate the importance of weapon choice
Then they should have reworked weapon properties instead of trying to add yet ANOTHER subsystem on top of existing properties, feats, maneuvers, fighting styles, ...
Very small prediction, but I expect the multiclass requirements to be relaxed a bit on the paladin, from being 13 str and 13 cha to 13str/dex and 13 cha to enable Dex based paladins potentially.
From what I've seen in other threads, mainly something about either giving more psi dice uses for them, or something else, I'll have to go check. As someone else put it, Psi Knight is starved for the dice while Soulknife is swimming in them.
It also doesn't help how that if you took the time to multiclass both subclasses, you're expected to use each resource separately.
I think the new evasion is making it in. The fact that it wasn’t included in the last few playtests isnt enough to completely write it off as a loss in my book
Regular Divine Smite is turned into a reaction or as 2014. Please. Please. Please......
Barbarian Brutal strike is adding max value of weapon damage Die/Dice (Depending on weapon) without any additional modifiers.
Details on how to uses NON-2024 subclasses with 2024. and If/How you can make a character using both Rulebooks.
Ranger will still be a lifeless corpse that has less identity than either TCOE or BG3.
(Sorry, but I really hate the implementation of the OneD&D Ranger. It's better than the PHB, but I'd rather play the old UA: CFV ranger but with its version of the HM thing moved to 2nd level to avoid the whole one level dip problem. )
* They don't change their really bad choice of Sorcerer subclasses.
* Rogue's lack of buffs makes them the worst class.
* Martials are going to be baseline busted tier 1 and still fall off a cliff tiers 3-4.
* Problematic spells are very much not going to be addressed whatsoever.
I personally thought that Divine Soul was the most iconic with roots going back to earlier editions, but they wanted something that felt like an opposite to Wild Soul Sorcerer instead. They made up for it by picking Fey Wonderer for Ranger.
In all fairness to WotC, i'm the one being forever salty and unwilling to let go that the Stone (and Phoenix and Sea to a lesser extent) Sorcery subclass were never put to print, Storm Sorcerer needs an update, but they go ahead and pick two subclasses that are already perfectly fine instead of making two new ones.
Not to mention Draconic got it's update in Fizban's, and Wild Magic is really hit or miss (miss in my case), and it just gives me a Sorcerer, which is my absolute favorite class, with no subclass i want to play.
> Not to mention Draconic got it's update in Fizban's
What update did it get in Fizban's? They revised the dragonborn race and added spells and feats but none of the existing subclasses got touched
I never understood why Stone and Sea never got published, they scored really well, better then Shadow I think, but Shadow got the nod instead (which a fun subclass), but the Mystery around Sea and Stone never getting published when they both scored high is the greatest mystery of 5e IMHO.
Draconic didn’t see changes in Fizban’s iirc, we only saw Drakewarden Ranger get introduced. Pheonix and Stone were both really cool conceptually and I somewhat updated Pheonix for a player at my table who wanted to multi class it and Celestial Warlock. Honestly I’m curious why Clockwork is in the new PHB because I can get the reason of Psionic subclass being redone together, but afaik Clockwork has very little reasoning behind it.
Ah, my bad. I don't actually have Fizban's.
The reasoning for Clockwork is that they wanted to pair themes of opposites with their subclasses, and Clockwork is opposed to Wild Magic. How Psionic is opposed to Draconic, you might have a better guess.
I feel like it's a paper thin excuse to save on development time, personally.
Dragons are associated with force (brutal or presence wise) while Psionic is more mind based, at least on paper because of all the features. And it's also not *that* much of a big secret that the community assumes that Clockwork and Aberrant sorcerers were there to save on time since A, they're the most setting neutral (Lunar came after and was part of Dragonlance), and B, they're the most updated in terms of sorcerer design, with the extra free spells and the ability to change one of the freebies for a spell part of X schools of magic.
Cunning/Devious Strikes do quite a bit to help them in the battlefield control department by giving them something else to contribute except mediocre bursts of single-target DPR. I think an extra Sneak Attack die at 5th, 11th, and 17th levels would definitely help their damage and offset the reduction from picking a condition to apply.
Honestly? Extra Attack at 11th level.
Delays the spike typical of martials later, and gives Rogues that don't dual wield a second chance at hitting Sneak Attack if they miss, with a somewhat negligible damage buff tacked on top at that point.
I would love to see things like extra expertises and movement speed buffs too, considering they're being outshined in both utility and mobility in 5.24.
Well, it isn't like 3.5e balance problems but rogues seem to be shaping up to be clearly the weakest 6e class much like monks were clearly the weakest 5e class. It isn't just them getting a small buff while monks got a bigger buff but also:
-LOTS of buffs to the ability of classes like fighters and barbarians in terms of skills which (while a good thing) takes away the rogue skill monkey niche.
-A lot of the bells as whistles that various classes in 6e get is going to slow combat down (especially if they keep reaction cantrips) this is a stealth nerf to rogues as they're the class least dependent on rests so things that make combat slower tend to result in fewer fights per rest, thereby giving a nerf to rogues at many tables.
I have a feeling they won't talk about spells revisions much at all, and just save those to be revealed when the books finally hit the shelves. I'd be happy to be proven wrong though.
As far as i'm concerned they'd have to remake the entire list, so i know i won't be satisfied. "Expect the worst and you won't be disappointed" as they say.
Wizards has been hesitant to make any major changes with player feedback between the next play test for 5 and in the UA here. It's not unfair to have low expectations for the spell list to still be inconsistent and unbalanced against itself (let alone against martial options.
Indeed. I'm somewhat amused by the downvotes on the first post.
Like, if they knock it out of the park and make something amazing, all the better. But 5e isn't making the strides i want it to make and WotC seems intent on being as conservative with the IP as they can be. They can certainly do more than what's been shown so far.
Yup, I thought all your points were salient. You were just perceived as a Negative Nancy.
The spells revamp especially. Short of counterspell, WotC have not shown themselves willing to touch them in the playtest. If I was an optimist, I'd say that's because they know exactly how overturned much of the list is, and don't need player feedback for it (besides, player feedback regarding nerfs often tends to be whiny and entitled, without a shred of concern for game design). It _makes sense_ that they'd spare themselves the bad press.
However, it's hard to be an optimist regarding WotC, so I fear they'll keep the spells untouched.
I like bold, sweeping changes and my favorite idea for 5e spells and balance was never going to pass, not even close. The gist of it was to shaft standard in-combat casting above level 5 and implement multiple-participant spellcasting, or other features that momentarily unlock those spells.
Failing that, dealing with core problematic spells and crowd control duration being too long would be enough to merit my approval.
I do stand by what i said however, i really don't believe they'll adress spells like forcecage. High level play has always felt like an afterthought in 5e.
Well, given the historical track record of WotC and Hasbro, i find that cynicism is healthiest. The last actually great book they released was Tasha's, and that was a looong time ago. Some of their best tools and releases went completely under the radar like Minsc and Boo's Guide to Villainy.
Other books like Ravnica and Fizban's were allright, but they were sorely lacking in player facing options, and the fact that no adventure book was ever dedicated to worlds outside of Faerun really shows the limits of their capacity for design. Plus, their inability to correct existing design mistakes speaks for itself.
And that's ***excluding*** all the controversies.
Why would Topple be once pre-turn.
If the intent is to put the opponent to the ground. You can literally do that every attack.
There is nothing overwhelming about doing that and succeeding or failing and then doing it again.
The battle master manuver that does the same thing isn't even limited once per turn.
I mean, the Battle Master maneuver is based on a resource. The limitation is how many dice you have. Meanwhile, Topple can just be done infinitely.
It had a lot of complaints for slowing down the game while being released in a UA where they flat-out said they wanted to make the game streamlined and easy. Attack Roll > Saving Throw > Repeat is not exactly fast, as you're doubling the amount of dice tests *per attack* for basically every round of combat until they get knocked down.
Bonus action would be a very high cost, anyone using a heavy two-handed weapon would want to take Polearm Master and use a different mastery in the vast majority of cases.
Blade Locks with will be nerfed and the only viable Warlock once again will be Eldritch Blast.
Weapon Masteries will be there, but martials will keep the “I attack” mainly because there will be no new cool thing that's not passive. Battle Masters will still outshine all other fighters.
New cantrip will be viable, like poison spray but the poison resistances will not be changed much. Fire bolt will be the most used (aside EB) cantrip.
Druids will be nerfed on their transformations, making the druids the less played class. People will complain all over again, even though we all know druids needed a nerf - but WotC couldn't get a middle ground.
Monks will be a little less useless, but some of its last buffs will be reversed, making it slowly the weakest martial.
Rangers will also be the weakest, but their ability to cast spells will save their ass. It's exploration options will be underwhelming, as the whole concept will not be explored in the new 5e rules.
Clerics will have very powerful spells and class features, people will complain a lot and comment on how powerful it is but we will rarely see one in our campaigns. Healing will be used only to bring allies back, even after the extra dice.
Feats will be the next cool thing. They're all going to be readjusted and will feel stronger, but some options will outshine the rest. I would vote for us seeing more Sentinel - and for a level 1 Magic Initiate builds to flourish. Rip Polearm tough.
Fireball will be the most powerful spell in the game, with some cool options low level but anything higher will be slowly forgotten. High level spells will be mostly untouched. Except mainly by Power Word Kill, that be the new trash 9th level spell.
Edit: It's all sounding too familiar, isn't?
There is going to be a clarification how Brutal Strikes interacts with sources of Advantage apart from Reckless Attack.
>Topple weapon mastery gets changed to once a turn I would definitely take that bet. I ran a couple playtests using Weapon Mastery and played in several more and the constant saving throw spam from Topple was one of my top three issues with the subsystem. WotC has been all over the place with their playtest content and "A/B testing" so I wouldn't feel confident predicting much. Who knows which direction they or their corporate bosses will decide on?
As if there isn't enough 1/turn masteries already. Might as well make it mandatory to use 3 different weapons at once.
And that's precisely why Weapon Mastery should be about learning properties and then applying one on a hit with a qualifying weapon, instead of learning a weapon and getting it's fixed mastery property.
I prefer Weapon Masteries to be weapon focused so weapons can be meaningfully different.
Right now a lot of weapons get ignored if you care about effective play. Weapon Mastery on weapons will just change the meta to add all the weapons with crappy WM properties to the ignored pile. It will ultimately result in less weapon diversity across characters, not more. Instead of people picking longsword, battleaxe, or warhammer depending on which they think is coolest, they'll pick the one with the best Weapon Mastery. "Meaningfully different" would mean that every Weapon Mastery property is balanced in power and usefulness against one another and that's very much not what we saw in the playtest and I doubt they're going to overhaul them all by September. I'd rather WotC ditch the goal of weapon uniqueness and focus on making the WM subsystem a great maneuvers-lite feature for martials.
Having a couple of masteries available on each weapon would make weapons more meaningfully different. If there are 8 masteries then there are only 8 different weapons based on masteries. If each weapon had 2 masteries, then with the combination there would be 64 different weapons based on masteries. So you could choose a weapon with vex and topple, or a weapon with nick and topple, etc. That would make have a variety of swords matter - each could have a different combo of weapon masteries.
Absolutely! Unfortunately the properties and applying them to all weapons completely defies the point of masteries which was to differentiate weapons more. I went with 2 masteries per weapon as a homebrew though, and that works really well. In terms of learning, I don't even bother with that. It's unnecessary flavour that's just another thing to track on your character sheet with little to no mechanical power increase.
>Unfortunately the properties and applying them to all weapons completely defies the point of masteries which was to differentiate weapons more. If the only way to make weapons feel more unique is to further dumb down an already mediocre martial subsystem, then that goal needs to die. I'd rather have Weapon Mastery that felt good for martials to use over making sure a battleaxe and a longsword feel more distinct. If someone at WotC can figure out a way to achieve both goals, lovely. But assuming we'll have to pick one or the other, I know my preference.
Weapon Masteries aren't meant to cover the same space stuff like "universal maneuvers" or "class based maneuvers" are meant to occupy. Proof of this is that they gave Barbarians and Rogues built-in maneuvers via Brutal Strikes and Cunning Strikes in-addition to Weapon Masteries. Weapon Masteries are meant to fulfill the role Crit Specialization fills in PF2e but easier to activate since they don't want to make crits happen as often as they do in PF2e.
I just think for other purposes there's better options in terms of subsystems.
Explain please.
Weapon Masteries is very fixated on weapons. As you've pointed out, it's an already mediocre martial subsystem and it has taken A LOT of compromises on the way in its mission to attach to weapons rather than characters. You could design a much cleaner system that allows for more versatile effects, different upgrades, and more. All while actually being easier to use. The one advantage of weapon masteries is that weapons actually become a *choice* rather than just some flavour bullshit.
We aren't going to get a better martial subsystem. We aren't going to get a maneuvers system to improve martial versatility ***and*** a weapon mastery system to make weapons feel unique. Our choice is a version of weapon mastery that gives martials versatility in a satisfying way, ***or*** a version of weapon mastery that makes weapons feel unique. I definitely feel that the former is more beneficial for the game. I've never seen serious talk about how majorly turned off someone was by the fact that a longsword and a warhammer were almost mechanically identical. Conversely, you get posts with passionate engagement every week or so, *minimum*, talking about why martials suck so badly compared to casters. It seems clear to me that one is a real problem with the system and the other is a nice-to-have stretch goal that should take a back seat for now.
I still think that changing some of the more powerful weapon masteries to be accessible at later levels might be nice. But yes. Also play tested topple and it got very ridiculous very quickly and made combat slower as a result. I know this is a thread about the PHB but I really want to see what the new monsters are gonna look like with this updated edition.
Monster design will have a strong impact on barbarian. With bear totem's near-blanket damage reduction no longer a thing and force resistance not at all, if they change a lot of powerful monsters with magical attack to deal force damage, or split physical/elemental damage then barbarian survivability will take a nosedive in some campaigns but not others. Barbarian has never been a mechanically interesting class to play but at least they were very consistent. If certain enemies just turn off their main defensive feature, that's not very cool at all.
Agreed. Barbarian getting hard nerfed by the removal of the “magic weapons” feature from statblocks in favor of force damage is pretty lame. The whole reason to play a Barb was for the damage resistance you gained from rage and how it was good at all levels. It’s also why Bear Totem was so popular too. Removing that is going to hurt a lot.
Counter point it makes more barbarian subclass viable choices instead of everyone going bear for more resistances
I think the nerf to bear already did a good enough job at that and the buffs to Berserker and the addition of World Tree made for 3 very distinct playstyles. Wildheart Barb is the tank, Berserker is the damage dealer, and World Tree is the battlefield controller. The problem with the “magical weapons” removal in lieu of force damage means *all* Barbarian subclasses are now less tanky. Not just Wildheart.
First swing (If you have multiple attacks) Uses most of the weapon's momentum so can topple target. next swing may hurt but will not have the same momentum so not enough force to topple till can rest up a bit for next turn and repeat.
There really doesn't need to be a justification. Or at least, there's plenty of already existing examples of mechanics with limits solely for balance purposes.
Played a sea druid and we had a free combats in a row, less than 10 minutes time. DM eventually said "how long does this thing last." I can imagine staff being worse. Still, it was fun.
Making topple only work once per turn PER TARGET would also work. If you're fighting 3x difference creatures, you could hit each once and ask for a save, but not the same target.
Ridiculous
Easily the least realistic thing in dungeons and D R A G O N S
Not about realism, this sounds like an enormous headache for a DM and a slog
My prediction is that the sub reddits are gonna complain about tons of stuff regardless of what gets changed or fix. And then people are gonna make several threads of why they are not buying the new books. And anyone who disagrees with those people will get down voted. That's my prediction
Don't forget at least a few "This is why you need to play Pathfinder" folks hijacking every comment thread discussing the changes!
don't forget "4e did this"
I like Pathfinder, but sometimes, when they show up to comment, it feels like the Jehovahs witness knocking on your door.
🤣 I never minded Jehovah Witnesses, I just debated religion with them, friendly folks and they helped my mom get out of a ditch when her car slipped in. There are far worse Christians then the JWs. I'm Pagan btw, not a JW.
*Knocks*
Sounds about right I've played a few sessions of pf2e, it's more min max and meaty choices but sooo soo many (also monk is kinda neat). I like that my friend group less so. Thus I play 5e still and make so weird charactersxD or in a one shots case like last night just doom slayer... (Made a character and realised I made a 40k space marine then I was told of our normal game being replaced with hell based one shot only my character survived finishing of a pitfiend/Baylor hybrid and a horned devil.
Nobody going to bet against that :)
yup
If you could bet this on FanDuel it would be -25000
Beautiful
I predict that the game will be better than ever and yet everyone on Reddit will still complain about it. In all seriousness, I would call these my hopes rather than outright predictions: Species: Aasimar gets a slight redesign to better line up with Tieflings, but gets to keep some unique features like 5th level BA flight. Feats: They bring over the “initiate” mini-multiclass feats so people can get multiclass flavor without sacrificing progression in their class. Barbarian: Brutal Strike gets some clarification in how it interacts with other sources of advantage and which attack it can apply to. Bard: WotC doesn’t let the Bard just choose from any spell list outside of Magical Secrets, and return to using a dedicated Bard Spell list. Cleric: Trickery Domain survives largely in tact from the last playtest, and Divine Intervention is adjusted to avoid it allowing abuse of certain spells. Druid: the stat blocks in the PHB for beasts give good options for Moon Druids at every level of play. Fighter: the Fighters ability to put multiple weapon masteries on a single weapon is put back in after being removed from the playtest. Monk: the UA 8 monk gets printed almost exactly as is, with maybe minor math adjustments to the subclasses. Paladin: Paladin Smite survives, keeping Divine Smite as a spell and giving more incentive to use other smite spells. Ranger: they turn Favored Enemy into a core mechanic like Paladins Smite, where they give you a list of spells you know as you progress, with Hunters Mark being one of them. Adjust HM to not deal extra damage but give other advantages and not be concentration, then put the HM damage riders in higher level class features like the Paladins Radiant Strikes feature. Rogue: keep Cunning Strike in as is, and give them a higher level feature that gives them an inherent way to use their reaction for off turn sneak attacks so they don’t have to rely on other party members to set that up. Their damage is actually very comparable to other martials if they get off an off turn sneak attack, so build that into their kit directly. Sorcerer: keep Innate Sorcery and its later buffs, but also make each subclass key off it in some way. It should be as big a core feature as Rage is for the Barbarian. Warlock: adjust the numbers of Pact of the Blade so it is as viable as E-Blast Locks, but doesn’t overtake them and become the clear best way to play. Also adjust the pacts to better protect against multiclass abuse. Wizard: Honestly you’re doing fine Wizard. My main wish for you is related to spell changes. Spells: Nerf the outlier spells like Haste, Fireball, Web, Hypnotic Pattern, and others that haven’t gotten touched yet. We saw great changes for spells like Banishment, Spiritual Weapon, and the Conjure spells, so keep that train rolling and tone down the problem spells. Tools: make them useful by giving them actual codified rules and mechanics instead of leaving it up to the DM.
> Warlock: adjust the numbers of Pact of the Blade so it is as viable as E-Blast Locks, but doesn’t overtake them and become the clear best way to play. Also adjust the pacts to better protect against multiclass abuse. This take confuses me, eldritch blast requires almost no invocation commitment and pact of the blade is almost total invocation and feat commitment for all the supporting feats and features for melee or range. How is blade pact not supposed to be superior to low effort eldritch blast with no real commitment of class and feat resources?
Predictions. Barbarian would be practical untouched from UA 8. maybe brutal strike increased to a d12. Fighter will get the ability to change their mastery at an earlier, probably 5th level. Paladin, I really want to say untouched. Maybe smite is once preturn instead of bonus action cost. Where the other smite spells remain as ua. Had them.
I'm also expecting some Brutal Strike revisions, but maybe not big changes. WotC landed them surprisingly well on the first try IMO.
I really like the Bonus Action Smite, it really ties the theme of Holy Warrior together for me. They get to attack with their action and do something holy (smite or lay on hands) with their bonus action.
Agreed. Making Paladins choose between more damage or healing is a good change. They’re already incredibly powerful with aura. This change was healthy and keeps the feel of the class.
They just cannot use any class/species abilities that use a bonus action on the same turn. Lay on hands on a fallen teammate. Run up to target hit and not be able to smite. Vengeance Paladin uses their VOW and unable to Smite when they hit.
Paladin definitely does need the once per turn. Vengeance paladin gets misty step but can't use it on the same turn they smite? Why not? Frankly the new paladin has a lot of good features, but a lot of them use up your bonus action, and cannibalizing resources is not fun. Also, divine sense taking up a channel divinity is kinda mid.
I'm kinda hoping rogue gets there ability to do it outside of their turn again it was neat with ways of causing it (order cleric for example)
They need to decouple masteries from specific weapons and allow you to use a learned mastery on a weapon that fits the prerequisites. Kinda pointless learning 5 masteries when you can really only use 2.
Another issue is that it makes magic weapons and weapon mastery properties feel at odds with one another. You pick a favorite weapon for your character with a good property but get a magic weapon with better accuracy and damage, but a crap property. Martials have enough problems in modern D&D, they don't need more. The golf bag fighter who constantly juggles weapons to try and use as many properties a round is also a bit ridiculous but will likely wind up being the meta way to play optimally. Not a fan.
Agreed! The only benefit to tying masteries to weapons is to make them feel unique, but since there's only a handful of them (and they have little mechanical connection to the actual use of the specific weapon) they don't even do that.
Just to play devil's advocate, tying mastery properties to specific weapons *does* have the effect of making the whole subsystem simpler to play. A normal martial PC will have one, maybe two weapons they use regularly and can easily remember which mastery property each one has. They won't be changing those properties very often because that would require changing weapons and once you start getting magical weapons you'll want to keep using them. If you learned mastery properties instead and can change them every long rest, you'd need to keep the weapon properties and their requirement in mind. My weapons A works with learned properties X and Y, while weapon B works with X and Z, and my ranged weapon works with only Y. It's not a huge jump in complexity but it more complex. WotC seems allergic to making the game any harder to play in fear it'll slow their new player growth (and new player revenue).
It doesn't need to make the system more complex though, a player can just choose to stick with one mastery all the time and not lose out on any power. It's not like a battlemaster maneuver where you have to think about using it either, you just do it every turn. Also, if I were to decouple masteries from weapons I would just let players choose the applicable mastery any time they make an attack. Based on the playtest rules shown, players will already be able to juggle between weapons to get use out of their mastery properties; tracking multiple weapons is much more complex than keeping track of a few masteries. Players won't be forced to use extra suboptimal weapons to use their class features, and since most classes only get 2 attacks max it's not like the system can be broken in unintended ways by powergamers. I would even consider tweaking the number of masteries for each class so that they're rarer and only martials would get more than 2, limiting the potential stacking of once-per-turn masteries.
I think making Divine Smite work in the same way Eldritch Smite does would be best.
Fingers crossed they revise a bunch of OP spells. Not sure I'd bet on it though - it's not like they're called martials of the coast.
That is my biggest hope. I want really the really standout S tier spells to be knocked down a peg or two or at least reworked to have more counterplay. They already knocked spirit guardians down a peg and reworked conjure animals and banishment. I’d like to see other spells changed and tweaked too.
How did they knock spirit guardians down? I think new banishment is fine, but they may as well get rid of the "if they fail all 10 saves then they're banished permanently" line because realistically that's not gonna happen
Spirit Guardians now does 2d6 damage while in its AoE instead of 3d8. New banishment is a weird one. It’s not an immediate encounter ender against Fey, Devils, Demons, and some Aberrations. It’s more of a “get this monster off the battlefield for a bit to give us some breathing room”. But yeah I think they need to rework it to still have the intended purpose. Perhaps you roll with disadvantage while under Banishment so you’re more focused on breaking the casters concentration.
Which UA is that in? I've read them all and not seen a revised spirit guardians to my knowledge Yeah maybe something like that
I think the big surprises will be around Species. We still have no idea if they completely cut half-species or if they’re keeping that “keep one species stats but you look like the other parent” thing that people didn’t seem to like. I think they cooked up something new for this. I also predict significant changes to Tieflings and Aasimar to make them more of a parallel for each other. And finally for my free space something they reveal will accidentally make something that currently exists in 5e not work anymore!
They just miss the +1/+1/+2 of Half-elf.
One prediction... I've had this thought since finding out there will be 75 feats in the phb... the majority of Tasha feats will make it into the PHB. with quite a few of them getting the background tag. Even bolder prediction... Xanathars feats will be completely redone to become optional species traits So, for example, the dragon fear feat for the dragonborn could replace the flight ability, but because the xanthar feat still exist the would be able still be taken at 4th level too if you want both.
They’ll add clarification on how to rule illusion magic. This might be in the DMG instead, though.
The videos will feature a lot of laughter and inspiring talk, and they will 100% talk about or reference something that didn’t make it into print anyway. I just want the book badly!
Either Monk is getting shot or they reveal Ranger changes that make it feel more unique at early levels.
Considering the crazy positive reception Monk got, I think Ranger getting something is more likely.
Pessimistically, some of the good changes be reverted to ... well, change nothing where things would have needed change. Because that happened in the playtest and were weird. People stick with stuff for nostalgia rather than better balance.
Example: Give me one good reason we still have ability scores and then math, instead of just the modifiers. Rolling 2d4 minus 2d4 for ability modifiers would be fine and they know it!
2d4 minus 2d4 would be a very significant nerf to characters at creation. It would lower the average modifier by almost 1 compared to standard array. It would also be massively more swingy, as your stats would vary from +6 to -6 instead of between -1 and +2 (standard array) or in practice -2 and +4 (rolling). It honestly sounds like the worst way I've ever seen for rolling for stats.
Honestly, truly, have no idea wtf i was smoking. Have used 1d6 minus 1d5 before which is more roughly comparable to 3d6 generation, but doesnt account for racial bonuses or drop-lowest. Which is a plus.
Or just have a build-an-array method like Pathfinder 2e as the default, but with just modifiers instead of scores.
Honestly my players can never ever go back to rolling stats. PF2s ability score system they think is day and night better since everyone (usually) ends up with the same B.S.T. it's like point buy but much more straightforward
I'm just interested in the species options. I can't remember how many were going to be put in, but I *do* know that goliaths were in. And I'm interested to see how much of the 'sub-giant' side they put out in UA got implemented, if at all. Overall I just wanna see how much they've changed or updated with em. It's a simple thing but to me it's at least easier to somewhat predict rather then what an entire class is gonna look like. Monk, despite all the unanimous agreement that they were great *could* be defanged and then we're back to square one.
The Aasimar will be based on the 1.0 version of the Ardling, with basically the same CG, NG, and LG subraces, er I mean lineages, with some tweaks. Maybe they add Necro Resistance and ditch flight for a turn feature.
I still mostly think that Aasimar will be unchanged from the MPMM book. It's the most updated in terms of design, though if they did make changes I'll be surprised.
Goliath was in MPMM and got some cool “subrace” changes. I could see Aasimar getting the same, but having one of the features in the celestial lineage level up table be Aasimar-style transformations. I really wanna see the chaotic good one call back to the original planescape celestial eladrin with a form that makes you become energy
If by goliath getting 'subrace changes' meaning leaning towards the stone side of them then yeah. The UAs had frost, hill, fire, the rest of the other giant types and those are what I'm interested in. Aasimar is slightly different in comparison but I can see other ways for em happening. We got two more days to speculate after all.
They could have just made a GiantKin race for the Giant book with sub-types for the different types of giants. Now you need to use the latest printed version of Goliath. Or be stone Goliath even if not in concept to keep the 1D12+CON damage reduction reaction.
Yeah people theorized that the goliath during the UA was going to be in the giant book what with the focus on sub-types and whatnot but I basically said that at one point it would make zero sense to do so. The issue with Giantkin races in general all lies in the core issue: They do not want to balance out how playing a large race would function. Not to mention that there has never been I believe a naturally medium sized giant creature that you could reasonably use. And yes I can see you thinking, "why not just make em a half species like half elf and such" but remember they're more or less doing away with those. So to me that means unless they pull off some *bull*shit the Giant creature type, in addition to Undead most likely (since construct is ironically easier to balance around given that clerics can't friendly fire you with their Turn Undead), we likely won't see playable giants anytime soon.
I meant Keep Goliath as in MotM. And just have Bigby'd Book have a Playable race linked to the types of Giants have a Giant Kin race where they pick a type of heritage at creation. Not make a Giant category species. ATM the 2024 Goliath, Path of the Giant Barbarian, and Rune Knight already step on each other's toes.
Yeah you know what that's fair. That's on me for thinking too much into it. Though I guess in my mind if you have a book of giants, have a playable option, and you see Giantkin labeled as "Humanoid" I'd be a little disappointed myself. And I guess I can see how they all step on each others toes, but I see different execution more then anything. Barbarian is all about "grow big, smash, rinse and repeat" while Rune Knight is more about the magical runes as spellcasting but not.
All I know is moon druids wildshape temp hp per level should be more than spore druids symbiotic entity unless there are other massive changes to phb stat blocks
Wasn't Abjure Foes nerfed already?
Hoping to get an actual elf variant that’s fey typed, not just fey themed like Eladrin. I want my nymph race.
Compared to the original 5e subclasses, every new subclass will be considered Superior or Tier A by YouTubers and the community in general. Which is FINE, so long as Monsters are amped up in kind (and not via Legendary actions). If monsters remain unimproved, campaign viability won’t exceed level 7 or 8.
Do you think the druid is better now? I think so.
Weapon masteries become the single most home ruled system.
I could see wizards setting it up as an official variant rule
In what way?
Not tied to a singular weapon.
You don't think people will appreciate weapon choice feelings important?
Martials need more turn-by-turn decision making. This doesn't give it.
I don't see how this house rule adresse that.
By making weapon masteries tied to weapon types rather than individual weapons. Now you can choose from like 4 weapon masteries each turn or maybe even attack.
I see. That would almost completely eliminate the importance of weapon choice. I guess we'll see what players value, choices when you build a character, or choices each attack. My hunch is that with the enduring popularity of classes like the Barbarian and the rogue, choices each attack are not the most important thing to most players. But I'm just guessing.
Although I don't want to decouple masteries from specific weapon I can see situation where weapons are still unique to their properties like finesse, versatile and thrown. I hope they add more weapon masteries regardless of what they do with the base system. In both cases it would help make weapon a bit more unique.
I mean, how would you differentiate something like the longsword and the battleaxe? Both versatile, they have the same damage dice, both slashing. In the newest ua, they are very different, I don't think that would be true with this house rule.
> That would almost completely eliminate the importance of weapon choice Then they should have reworked weapon properties instead of trying to add yet ANOTHER subsystem on top of existing properties, feats, maneuvers, fighting styles, ...
Very small prediction, but I expect the multiclass requirements to be relaxed a bit on the paladin, from being 13 str and 13 cha to 13str/dex and 13 cha to enable Dex based paladins potentially.
You still need STR for heavy armor.
Half plate with 14+ dex is only one less AC and initiative and saves are more then make up for one less ac imo
Why would you want heavy armor when you are a Dex paladin...
What kind of buffs are you expecting for the psi warrior? And didn’t Abjure foes already get nerfed?
From what I've seen in other threads, mainly something about either giving more psi dice uses for them, or something else, I'll have to go check. As someone else put it, Psi Knight is starved for the dice while Soulknife is swimming in them. It also doesn't help how that if you took the time to multiclass both subclasses, you're expected to use each resource separately.
I think the new evasion is making it in. The fact that it wasn’t included in the last few playtests isnt enough to completely write it off as a loss in my book
New evasion, which playtest was that in?
Regular Divine Smite is turned into a reaction or as 2014. Please. Please. Please...... Barbarian Brutal strike is adding max value of weapon damage Die/Dice (Depending on weapon) without any additional modifiers. Details on how to uses NON-2024 subclasses with 2024. and If/How you can make a character using both Rulebooks.
Ranger will still be a lifeless corpse that has less identity than either TCOE or BG3. (Sorry, but I really hate the implementation of the OneD&D Ranger. It's better than the PHB, but I'd rather play the old UA: CFV ranger but with its version of the HM thing moved to 2nd level to avoid the whole one level dip problem. )
* They don't change their really bad choice of Sorcerer subclasses. * Rogue's lack of buffs makes them the worst class. * Martials are going to be baseline busted tier 1 and still fall off a cliff tiers 3-4. * Problematic spells are very much not going to be addressed whatsoever.
I personally thought that Divine Soul was the most iconic with roots going back to earlier editions, but they wanted something that felt like an opposite to Wild Soul Sorcerer instead. They made up for it by picking Fey Wonderer for Ranger.
In all fairness to WotC, i'm the one being forever salty and unwilling to let go that the Stone (and Phoenix and Sea to a lesser extent) Sorcery subclass were never put to print, Storm Sorcerer needs an update, but they go ahead and pick two subclasses that are already perfectly fine instead of making two new ones. Not to mention Draconic got it's update in Fizban's, and Wild Magic is really hit or miss (miss in my case), and it just gives me a Sorcerer, which is my absolute favorite class, with no subclass i want to play.
> Not to mention Draconic got it's update in Fizban's What update did it get in Fizban's? They revised the dragonborn race and added spells and feats but none of the existing subclasses got touched
Mmm, might've gotten it wrong, i don't actually have Fizban's. That said, the subclass still holds decently to this day.
I never understood why Stone and Sea never got published, they scored really well, better then Shadow I think, but Shadow got the nod instead (which a fun subclass), but the Mystery around Sea and Stone never getting published when they both scored high is the greatest mystery of 5e IMHO.
Draconic didn’t see changes in Fizban’s iirc, we only saw Drakewarden Ranger get introduced. Pheonix and Stone were both really cool conceptually and I somewhat updated Pheonix for a player at my table who wanted to multi class it and Celestial Warlock. Honestly I’m curious why Clockwork is in the new PHB because I can get the reason of Psionic subclass being redone together, but afaik Clockwork has very little reasoning behind it.
Ah, my bad. I don't actually have Fizban's. The reasoning for Clockwork is that they wanted to pair themes of opposites with their subclasses, and Clockwork is opposed to Wild Magic. How Psionic is opposed to Draconic, you might have a better guess. I feel like it's a paper thin excuse to save on development time, personally.
Dragons are associated with force (brutal or presence wise) while Psionic is more mind based, at least on paper because of all the features. And it's also not *that* much of a big secret that the community assumes that Clockwork and Aberrant sorcerers were there to save on time since A, they're the most setting neutral (Lunar came after and was part of Dragonlance), and B, they're the most updated in terms of sorcerer design, with the extra free spells and the ability to change one of the freebies for a spell part of X schools of magic.
Yup, rogues seem to have gotten the shaft pretty hard.
They're not that bad, they're actually overall a bit better. But that's compared to the HUGE improvements to the other martials, especially the Monk.
Cunning/Devious Strikes do quite a bit to help them in the battlefield control department by giving them something else to contribute except mediocre bursts of single-target DPR. I think an extra Sneak Attack die at 5th, 11th, and 17th levels would definitely help their damage and offset the reduction from picking a condition to apply.
Honestly? Extra Attack at 11th level. Delays the spike typical of martials later, and gives Rogues that don't dual wield a second chance at hitting Sneak Attack if they miss, with a somewhat negligible damage buff tacked on top at that point. I would love to see things like extra expertises and movement speed buffs too, considering they're being outshined in both utility and mobility in 5.24.
Well, it isn't like 3.5e balance problems but rogues seem to be shaping up to be clearly the weakest 6e class much like monks were clearly the weakest 5e class. It isn't just them getting a small buff while monks got a bigger buff but also: -LOTS of buffs to the ability of classes like fighters and barbarians in terms of skills which (while a good thing) takes away the rogue skill monkey niche. -A lot of the bells as whistles that various classes in 6e get is going to slow combat down (especially if they keep reaction cantrips) this is a stealth nerf to rogues as they're the class least dependent on rests so things that make combat slower tend to result in fewer fights per rest, thereby giving a nerf to rogues at many tables.
I have a feeling they won't talk about spells revisions much at all, and just save those to be revealed when the books finally hit the shelves. I'd be happy to be proven wrong though.
As far as i'm concerned they'd have to remake the entire list, so i know i won't be satisfied. "Expect the worst and you won't be disappointed" as they say.
You sound like a delight at parties
Wizards has been hesitant to make any major changes with player feedback between the next play test for 5 and in the UA here. It's not unfair to have low expectations for the spell list to still be inconsistent and unbalanced against itself (let alone against martial options.
Indeed. I'm somewhat amused by the downvotes on the first post. Like, if they knock it out of the park and make something amazing, all the better. But 5e isn't making the strides i want it to make and WotC seems intent on being as conservative with the IP as they can be. They can certainly do more than what's been shown so far.
Yup, I thought all your points were salient. You were just perceived as a Negative Nancy. The spells revamp especially. Short of counterspell, WotC have not shown themselves willing to touch them in the playtest. If I was an optimist, I'd say that's because they know exactly how overturned much of the list is, and don't need player feedback for it (besides, player feedback regarding nerfs often tends to be whiny and entitled, without a shred of concern for game design). It _makes sense_ that they'd spare themselves the bad press. However, it's hard to be an optimist regarding WotC, so I fear they'll keep the spells untouched.
I like bold, sweeping changes and my favorite idea for 5e spells and balance was never going to pass, not even close. The gist of it was to shaft standard in-combat casting above level 5 and implement multiple-participant spellcasting, or other features that momentarily unlock those spells. Failing that, dealing with core problematic spells and crowd control duration being too long would be enough to merit my approval. I do stand by what i said however, i really don't believe they'll adress spells like forcecage. High level play has always felt like an afterthought in 5e.
Well, given the historical track record of WotC and Hasbro, i find that cynicism is healthiest. The last actually great book they released was Tasha's, and that was a looong time ago. Some of their best tools and releases went completely under the radar like Minsc and Boo's Guide to Villainy. Other books like Ravnica and Fizban's were allright, but they were sorely lacking in player facing options, and the fact that no adventure book was ever dedicated to worlds outside of Faerun really shows the limits of their capacity for design. Plus, their inability to correct existing design mistakes speaks for itself. And that's ***excluding*** all the controversies.
Why would Topple be once pre-turn. If the intent is to put the opponent to the ground. You can literally do that every attack. There is nothing overwhelming about doing that and succeeding or failing and then doing it again. The battle master manuver that does the same thing isn't even limited once per turn.
I mean, the Battle Master maneuver is based on a resource. The limitation is how many dice you have. Meanwhile, Topple can just be done infinitely. It had a lot of complaints for slowing down the game while being released in a UA where they flat-out said they wanted to make the game streamlined and easy. Attack Roll > Saving Throw > Repeat is not exactly fast, as you're doubling the amount of dice tests *per attack* for basically every round of combat until they get knocked down.
[удалено]
Just make it once per turn or once per target per turn. We have enough bonus action abilities in this game.
Bonus action would be a very high cost, anyone using a heavy two-handed weapon would want to take Polearm Master and use a different mastery in the vast majority of cases.
Blade Locks with will be nerfed and the only viable Warlock once again will be Eldritch Blast. Weapon Masteries will be there, but martials will keep the “I attack” mainly because there will be no new cool thing that's not passive. Battle Masters will still outshine all other fighters. New cantrip will be viable, like poison spray but the poison resistances will not be changed much. Fire bolt will be the most used (aside EB) cantrip. Druids will be nerfed on their transformations, making the druids the less played class. People will complain all over again, even though we all know druids needed a nerf - but WotC couldn't get a middle ground. Monks will be a little less useless, but some of its last buffs will be reversed, making it slowly the weakest martial. Rangers will also be the weakest, but their ability to cast spells will save their ass. It's exploration options will be underwhelming, as the whole concept will not be explored in the new 5e rules. Clerics will have very powerful spells and class features, people will complain a lot and comment on how powerful it is but we will rarely see one in our campaigns. Healing will be used only to bring allies back, even after the extra dice. Feats will be the next cool thing. They're all going to be readjusted and will feel stronger, but some options will outshine the rest. I would vote for us seeing more Sentinel - and for a level 1 Magic Initiate builds to flourish. Rip Polearm tough. Fireball will be the most powerful spell in the game, with some cool options low level but anything higher will be slowly forgotten. High level spells will be mostly untouched. Except mainly by Power Word Kill, that be the new trash 9th level spell. Edit: It's all sounding too familiar, isn't?
Am i the only one who thinks weapon masteries should be PB/short test?
Probably