D&D (2024) Playtest 6 Survey is Open

[Kobold Stew]

My main points in feedback:

• Overall, excellent: Paladin, Cleric, Rogue, and Bard are in a good place, with many clear improvements over 2014.
• Bard choice of spell lists is excellent design. (Let’s see it for the Sorcerer too!). I love meaningful level 1 decisions, especially coupled with removing of healing from Bards (making choice of Divine list desirable for support bards)
• Divine order for clerics, Primal Order for Druids. More level 1 decisions – yay. Thaumaturge and Magician were more realistic choices when they gave another use of Channel Divinity (or Shape Change).
• Class-specific spells for the half casters (well, for the paladin at least: smites,* find steed). (*even if they are “spells” which I can live with; no range is a shame.)
• Rogue. Love it.
• I regret the Loss of templates for Druid Wild Shape (they needed improving, not removing). If this is kept, it should be limited to specific choices, all presented in the PHB , and an ability to get more powerful rather than go up to new monsters. Not everyone wants to play a giant scorpion.
• Ranger: favored enemy; and everything that depends on Hunter’s Mark, is removing creativity and rewarding an under-effective playstyle. In the Hunter Ranger, “superior” abilities should just give all 3 abilities, or something that’s more exciting that something you earlier said you didn't want.
• It would be nice if cantrips could be available as a fighting style option (w/o needing to take magic initiate). I also think that spells should change for half casters when you level up, not at every rest.

 

[Ashrym]

My Ranger answers were a lot of 'spells are not class features'

...and then I praised them turning Paladin class feature into a spell but that's different.

I echoed that. I think some spells as class features is reasonable. I don't think conjure barrage and conjure volley fall into that category and I would rather see terrain based benefits that aren't just skill benefits in those levels and those spells also added as choices to prep instead of spells forced onto the character.

I like a lot about the bards but gave negative feedback on the capstone for the same reason.

 

[Minigiant]

Well, yeah, there’s a big difference between one class feature that gives you two always-prepared spells immediately and four more over the course of several levels, as opposed to three class features that each give you one always-prepared spell.

Imagine how much better it would be if there an early ranger class feature like “ranger’s arsenal” or some that gave you Hunter’s Mark and barrage spells as always-prepared spells when you reached the appropriate levels, instead of each of those being the features for individual levels.

Damn, now I wish I had said that in the survey…

That's why I wait a while before I post feedback


The Bard, Cleric, Druid, Paladin, and Rogue look good because there is a clear idea of what the base experience of these classes in combat, exploration, and social interaction. There is a clear guess of How their turns would look in a five to six round combat. There are clear effects that class has in their fantasy and all you have to do is make sure that in any encounter when the Class is treating seriously they do those effects.

The problem with the Ranger and Monk, like the Warlock and Sorcerer, is that WOTC lacks a clear idea of there gameplay loop.

Smite is part of the Paladin gameplay loop. So all you have to do is make sure that they always have smile available and enough slots to do it. The Ranger auto-spell is that the loop is unknown so there always prepared spells don't meld into the loop. It's dessert with no main course.

it's 10 years and WOTC hasn't inform us if the Monk is supposed to FOB every turn, every other, or once a fight.

 

[Hatmatter]

Continue the analogy to the part about the E.coli & botulism in the side dish. It is applicable because it doesn't matter if there is 50% less E.coli & botulism when that's still an obviously unacceptable amount to deliberately include.



It doesn't matter what good is in the packet because 2014's short rest nova class design was toxic enough to fix it in warlock in the packet immediately prior to this one where it was preserved. The fly speed changes are channeling the same sort of appear to fix the letter of a problem by doing something that taking deliberate pains to avoid doing anything that will actually fix the problem. There is too much toxic in this packet to avoid being lethal to any possible good elsewhere.

Maybe when we start seeing videos doing the post survey breakdowns on packet5 & wotc's responses there it might be justified to jump through the hoops, but packet 6 dug a very deep hole.

Wow, Tetrasodium, I read this twice and I simply do not understand it. You keep using the term "toxic," but I have no clue what you are talking about. It sounds like you do not like the changes in the warlock shift from short to long rest. As others have said, constructive criticism of that revision, as I have seen in other threads, is warranted. Labeling it "toxic" sort of flies in the face of the meaning of that word. I mean, the authors of the revision are game designers attempting to improve their game, not harassing everyone in an office with abusive behavior.

 

[Minigiant]

Wow, Tetrasodium, I read this twice and I simply do not understand it. You keep using the term "toxic," but I have no clue what you are talking about. It sounds like you do not like the changes in the warlock shift from short to long rest. As others have said, constructive criticism of that revision, as I have seen in other threads, is warranted. Labeling it "toxic" sort of flies in the face of the meaning of that word. I mean, they are are game designers attempting to improve their game, not harassing everyone in an office with abusive behavior.

I think what @tetrasodium is sayIng is that the playtest is not addressing that 5e was built on GM adjudication and old school adventure design but not doing so equally among classes. And that too much time was wasted.

So it tetrasodium's mind, it doesn't matter how good the good parts are if a solid chunk is bad and the only one solution to the core problems is ever attempted.

 

[tetrasodium]

I think what @tetrasodium is sayIng is that the playtest is not addressing that 5e was built on GM adjudication and old school adventure design but not doing so equally among classes. And that too much time was wasted.

So it tetrasodium's mind, it doesn't matter how good the good parts are if a solid chunk is bad and the only one solution to the core problems is ever attempted.

Pretty much. Warlock was the most complained about short rest nova class because it was so obnoxiously over the top with how it synergized when multi passed with other charisma based classes. In packet 5 wotc got rid of it's short rest nova design and then packet 6 gave us a preservation of short rest nova class design as if only the most extreme over endorsement of short rest nova class design was the problem rather than short rest nova design itself. Then you've got things like the many functionality identical but pointlessly reworded no cost mid attack movement and weapon juggling rules glossary sections. At a certain point it seems obvious that wotc only cares about the negative and only when those negatives are the ones they've already decided on. Sure there might be outliers like the warlock but addressing a symptom rather than the wotc blessed cause is preferable because it can be seen as doing something and reset the attention focused on the blessed root cause.

 

[Reef]

I think what @tetrasodium is sayIng is that the playtest is not addressing that 5e was built on GM adjudication and old school adventure design but not doing so equally among classes. And that too much time was wasted.

So it tetrasodium's mind, it doesn't matter how good the good parts are if a solid chunk is bad and the only one solution to the core problems is ever attempted.

That’s certainly a valid opinion, but it doesn’t remove the benefit of replying to the survey constructively. Assuming, of course, there are at least some things they like. Consider:

1) they respond constructively, praising the parts they like, tearing down the ones they don’t. Chances are, the good parts stay in, and WOTC stops messing with those parts and moves on to try to fix something else. Which might involve more changes they like.

2) they respond negatively to everything due to the ‘toxic taint’ of what they don’t like. If that tips the results to the negative, the parts they liked get scrapped, possibly replaced with worse ideas. Also, WOTC spends time reworking those ideas instead of trying to fix others.

The first option at least has the possibility of inching the game in the right direction. Also, if they take the second option, and use exaggerated words like ‘toxic’, comparing it to dying from food poisoning and the like, there’s no reason for them to consider their opinion at all. As it’s obvious that there’s nothing they’d be willing to do to make this person happy. Short of massive structural changes, which aren’t happening in this level of revision.

You do you, but to my mind, if you aren’t going to rate the individual changes honestly and constructively, you are wasting everyone’s time (theirs, ours, and your own).

 

[Horwath]

Short rest either needs to be 1-5 min long so you can count on it after every encounter and give every class something to gain from it.

Or remove it completely and base everything on Long rest.
Then add that you can spend a HD as an Action.
at 5th level you can spend up to 2 HDs
at 11th level you can spend up to 3 HDs
at 17th level you can spend up to 4 HDs

 

[tetrasodium]

That’s certainly a valid opinion, but it doesn’t remove the benefit of replying to the survey constructively. Assuming, of course, there are at least some things they like. Consider:

1) they respond constructively, praising the parts they like, tearing down the ones they don’t. Chances are, the good parts stay in, and WOTC stops messing with those parts and moves on to try to fix something else. Which might involve more changes they like.

2) they respond negatively to everything due to the ‘toxic taint’ of what they don’t like. If that tips the results to the negative, the parts they liked get scrapped, possibly replaced with worse ideas. Also, WOTC spends time reworking those ideas instead of trying to fix others.

The first option at least has the possibility of inching the game in the right direction. Also, if they take the second option, and use exaggerated words like ‘toxic’, comparing it to dying from food poisoning and the like, there’s no reason for them to consider their opinion at all. As it’s obvious that there’s nothing they’d be willing to do to make this person happy. Short of massive structural changes, which aren’t happening in this level of revision.

You do you, but to my mind, if you aren’t going to rate the individual changes honestly and constructively, you are wasting everyone’s time (theirs, ours, and your own).

Well I did say this before a growing list of people started jumping in on how I should do it anyways right now.

Maybe when we start seeing videos doing the post survey breakdowns on packet5 & wotc's responses there it might be justified to jump through the hoops, but packet 6 dug a very deep hole.

The surveys tend to be open for many weeks even after those videos

 

[tetrasodium]

Short rest either needs to be 1-5 min long so you can count on it after every encounter and give every class something to gain from it.

Or remove it completely and base everything on Long rest.
Then add that you can spend a HD as an Action.
at 5th level you can spend up to 2 HDs
at 11th level you can spend up to 3 HDs
at 17th level you can spend up to 4 HDs

If they go with the first option they need to have each class gaining similarly comparable returns from those rests. They can't have a situation where Alice gets to nova through the next encounter or two and bob mostly just gets nothing or an insignificant participation prize out of the/some short rest just because some classes are long rest attrition based while others are totally not just ADEU short rest nova classes in a long rest attrition based game.