Unearthed Arcana Waterborne Adventures: New from Unearthed Arcana

I, for one, am very pleased with the different options for existing classes over completely different classes.

I don't really have an balance thoughts. Balance isn't an issue with me unless it's incredibly flagrant.

 

[TwoSix]

Well, that is a weird example. I am looking at things like the Two Weapon Fighting fighting style and the Dual Wielder feat. They are thematically similar but designed so that they interact. They stack, essentially, because they don't improve your ability to fight with two weapons in exactly the same way.

The reason the Fancy Footwork trait and the Minotaur traits are not like the Ritual Caster feat is that they are not self-contained. What I mean is, if you have a Swashbuckling Rogue, he can't get the +10 ft. movement bonus and the ability to ignore difficult terrain without wasting 1/3 of a feat. Which means those options, for him, are essentially removed. It is a little sloppy, that is all I am saying.

Ritual Caster isn't like that, there isn't any part of that feat that the Warlock is missing out on, so it doesn't hurt him in any way.

No, I hear you....the 10' movement portion of Mobile is the exact first thing I thought of when I read the Swash-Rogue section (probably because my druid has the Mobile feat). And the Swash-Rogue seems exactly like the kind of character who would benefit the most from the Mobile feat, so it seems weird that they get most of it, but not all of it. Maybe the best fix is simply more feats, like a "Dashing" feat that gives you +10' movement and either a +1 Dex or +1 Cha.

 

[TwoSix]

Didn't Ritual Caster in the playtest give you two non-ritual spells as rituals? Or am I not remembering that right...?

It may have in the playtest, but I'm like 99% sure (away from books) that it doesn't now.

 

[Inchoroi]

It may have in the playtest, but I'm like 99% sure (away from books) that it doesn't now.

No, it doesn't now...I'm wondering how broken that would be. Granted, everyone and their mother-in-law would be taking Mage Armor with it, so probably very much so.

 

[AverageCitizen]

Maybe the best fix is simply more feats, like a "Dashing" feat that gives you +10' movement and either a +1 Dex or +1 Cha.

Yeah, I think that would work. I did one kind of like that for Minotaurs earlier in the thread.

 

[TwoSix]

No, it doesn't now...I'm wondering how broken that would be. Granted, everyone and their mother-in-law would be taking Mage Armor with it, so probably very much so.

I don't know about your mother-in-law, but mine would definitely be taking Vicious Mockery.

 

[Bayonet]

1) Love the fact that WoTC is putting out free stuff like this for the fan base. Feed me goodies like this, and I'll be loyal enough to happily buy any of the big ticket items that come out.

2) Love the fact that Wizards are concentrating on giving more options to each class, rather than making a million classes.

3) The ability to play as Kaziganthi de Orilg has my inner 11 year old screeching in joy and doing backflips.

 

[Inchoroi]

I don't know about your mother-in-law, but mine would definitely be taking Vicious Mockery.

But Vicious Mockery is a cantrip, which means its relatively easy to get with other feats. The point of Ritual Caster, at least as I remember it from the playtest, was you could take a spell or two that are not rituals, and turn them into rituals for your use; i.e. taking Mage Armor and being able to cast it as a ritual without a spell slot.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I think it would be good to have more than one way to be mobile, I just wish they interacted with one another instead of being redundant. Like TWF: You can just do it, or you can take the fighting style, or you can take the feat, or you can take both. I wish it was like that.

I guess I'd wonder what was gained. It goes from having a variety of options to be mobile (pick one) to now you having to have ALL the mobile options to be TRULY mobile (pick them all to be VERY mobile or pick one to be KIND OF mobile or pick none).

I'd rather just have one decision point that lets me be the character I want to be. I don't want to have to keep dumping resources into being mobile to be competitive with someone, I just want to say "I'm mobile," once, and have that be true, whether I say it through a feat or a subclass or whatever.

I get what you mean, though. It is okay to have some things that are redundant, I guess. But it is a little more sloppy than they have been up till now.

I don't know that I'd characterize it as sloppy, just as flexible. You don't have to follow this three-feats-deep mobility chain to be mobile, you just declare once that you are mobile as best fits your character and move on to what ELSE your character is.

 

[AverageCitizen]

I guess I'd wonder what was gained. It goes from having a variety of options to be mobile (pick one) to now you having to have ALL the mobile options to be TRULY mobile (pick them all to be VERY mobile or pick one to be KIND OF mobile or pick none).

You are assuming you have to take every option available to TRULY fulfill the concept. Does a ranger or a rogue have to take the Dual Wielder feat to TRULY fight with two weapons? No. How does that hurt?

I'd rather just have one decision point that lets me be the character I want to be. I don't want to have to keep dumping resources into being mobile to be competitive with someone, I just want to say "I'm mobile," once, and have that be true, whether I say it through a feat or a subclass or whatever.

A character with the Dual Wielder feat is good at fighting with two weapons. A character with the Two Weapon Fighting fighting style is good at it, too. You don't have to take both to be good at it. Shoot, a character with a decent Strength or Dexterity score is pretty good at it. So they can say "I'm good at two weapons" and it is true. Having more options doesn't make that less true.

I don't know that I'd characterize it as sloppy, just as flexible. You don't have to follow this three-feats-deep mobility chain to be mobile, you just declare once that you are mobile as best fits your character and move on to what ELSE your character is.

That fine if that is how you characterize it, but honestly, I don't get it.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

You are assuming you have to take every option available to TRULY fulfill the concept. Does a ranger or a rogue have to take the Dual Wielder feat to TRULY fight with two weapons? No. How does that hurt?

Eh, there's kind of a precedent for this thing, in every other edition that includes feats. Just like a character with Strength 16 isn't really that strong, because the guy with Strength 20 is obviously stronger, the benchmark for comparison is someone who has everything synergized.

It was kind of the point of 5E, to reduce synergy. It was supposed to be that all you needed was a good stat, and proficiency in something, and you'd be good enough. One of the marks against feats is that it raises the expectations for everyone. If you're not using feats, then the strong fighter with the greatsword is all you need to fulfill the concept, and you're free to spend your other stat boosts on Dex or Wisdom or whatever. If you're using feats, then you're not "good" with a greatsword unless you've also spent the feat on it, because the benchmark for comparison has changed.