4. Scout Rogue’s Survivalist feature (XG 47) gives proficiency and expertise with Nature and Survival. It’s not called expertise here (for reasons that aren’t clear), but the effect is the same and it doesn’t stack (XG 5). Not stacking is explicit on the Prodigy feat (XG 75), but this isn’t an exception. Apparently there is no benefit if you have already chosen Expertise in either or both of these skills (unless you work something out with your DM).
Is this a 3rd level feature? I suppose it is, in which case it's not a huge deal. Just tell the player
not to pick Nature or Survival proficiencies at 1st level, or at least not to pick Expertise, since she'll get it anyway a couple of levels later. Alternatively, the DM can allow swapping expertise to another skill but that's a house rule. OTOH, if this is a 9th (or more) level feature then it's an issue... you can't really ask a Scout player to wait so long without those defining skills.
I also wonder why not just call this Expertise, if after all it's not supposed to stack with it. They did the same thing with the Ranger class feature. If it works like Expertise, and doesn't stack with it, why not just give it the same name? This is not like Advantage with activates other special abilities (so it makes sense to have some features which allow 2 rolls-pick-the-highest
without them being the same as advantage), IIRC there is no feature in the game which activates only if you have expertise, but I may be wrong. Thus, not calling these features Expertise just complicates bookkeeping...
5. Sleeping in Medium and Heavy armor now gives limited benefits from a long rest (XG 77-78). Many will just ignore this, but it’s a reasonable ruling.
I wonder how many people actually asked for this... it sounds like that kind of stuff that is almost never needed, and yet many might want it written in an official book anyway. Whatever... at least it clarifies that the DM should basically force everyone to start without armor when the party is ambushed during sleep
unless someone specifically chooses to sleep in armor and take the penalties.
7. Tying Knots (XG 78). While I would prefer proficiency in ropes as a tool, we now know that knot-tying and untying is formally part of Slight-of-hand, a skill I have hitherto not been interested in.
Actually this sounds like a good idea to me. Sleight-of-hand sounds appropriate, and I like the idea of adding new uses for skills that are narrower than average.
8. Interaction of skills and tools (XG 78). I’ve been troubled by the overlap before, and now we have rules that say when two overlap, it gives advantage. This makes obvious sense in a few cases (Herbalism with Medicine), but it feels a little bit like a tax – proficiency in Thieves’ Tools helping with Investigation or Perception to spot a trap, for example. It also means that a capella singing can’t ever gain the advantage available to accordion players (Musical instruments with Performance). I’m still thinking about this.
This sounds very interesting... does this apply only to skill+tool or also to skill+skill? I would prefer the former, because it increases the value of tools proficiencies relative to the value of skills.
Anyway I suppose that there were 3 options here: no effect, advantage, expertise. I think advantage catches a nice middle ground in terms of benefits to the actual check,
although it may also activate special abilities that require advantage. I am generally not so fond of getting advantage easily, but for skills it's not nearly as a big deal as with attacks.
10. Ceremony spell (XG 151): Ugh. I hated the UA version of this, and it’s still bad:
a. Atonement: how can one be willing about alignment change? Alignment isn’t fixed unless it’s a magical effect, and there are no restrictions on classes and alignment. If it’s to counteract a magical effect, the player may be willing, but the character by definition isn’t. Unless this is now the only way that a character can change alignment, in which case we can convert savages and CE goblins can be made NG. In which case it’s awesome.
Ceremony got the lowest possible vote for me in the feedback. As usual, I am a special snowflake...
Anyway the Atonement effect basically brings back the old Atonement spell (but down to 1st level!). This campaign-dependent, considering that many groups nowadays don't even use alignments, but yet this is IMO actually THE main effect of this spell, compared to the other uses. If you don't use alignments, you can pretty much ignore this spell for the whole campaign, unless something very specific comes up.
If the wording hasn't changed from UA, it should work also in the case when alignment is changed magically. I think it's very much open to debate whether a PC is "willing" or not. I would not take it for granted that someone "evil" is happy to be like that, there's a lot of people who don't like what they are and would like to change... Let's also keep in mind that this doesn't actually
change someone's alignment but only
reverts it back to what is presumably a fairly stable value.
b. Coming of Age and Dedication can only give their benefits to a creature once (ever). Who wants to track this nonsense? Do high-level characters save this until just before they bight the Ancient Red Dragon, and suddenly decide to get confirmed before the fight?
c. Wedding. That is, unless they get married to each other. In a world with Raise Dead spells, the “to death do us part” nonsense implicit in the now-undefined term of “widowed” (in addition to being completely out of step with the 20th century, let alone the 21st) suggests that divorces typically involve fights to the death, so that characters are free to re-marry. And the benefit is to help Armor Class? Yep, that’s why I got married. So my wife and I could do better on the tag-team gladiator pits for the first half of our honeymoon.
They are pretty stupid effects. Apparently someone at WotC got amused by the idea. It made it into XGE only because the time between UA and XGE was short, and it got reviewed/feedbacked only once. IMO it's similar to other fancy controversial ideas like the "intoxicated" condition that amused the designers (or their bosses), then becamse stale and boring, and was ultimately discarded. Same would have happened here if only there had been a longer time window before publication.
I can see that it might be used in a
very well played and run campaign where some of the PCs go through these life events, but honestly there was absolutely no need for mechanical benefits, and also for a spell that could have been just a narrated non-magical ceremony.
13. Finally, a point about what’s not there: the absence of Booming Blade and Greenflame blade from the spell lists seems deliberate. I know they are powerful (possibly over-powerful) and popular spells. For those who are concerned about the PHB+1 rule, this seems a good way to curb their use.
Honestly I am happy with that, from what I've heard those cantrips give too much melee strength. They also have dorky cartoonish names for my tastes
