D&D 5E December Survey is Up

[Li Shenron]

What? Are you ok with a -1 on attacks and being forced to be 30 ft. from the enemy as a ranged character? It's like turning a ranged character into a melee character without a shield. I suggested they change the bonus to +2.

That would just make no sense, since there is already a Fighting Style that grants +2 to ranged attacks, so this one would grant the same plus two benefits more.

Close Quarter Fighting is broken because it makes bows better than melee weapons in melee, while still remaining the best ranged weapons (a luxury for archers that isn't available to anybody else of every other weapon style*). But if you remove the attack bonus (which is also odd for the basic Archery Fighting Style IMO) then it is more acceptable.

*there is no chance for a sword&board, two-weapons, two-handed, or single-handed styled warrior to also turn their weapon choice work as a ranged weapon and be actually better than bows

 

[Li Shenron]

PrC prerequisites based on in-game events, such as finding a magical item, or requiring a 'gatekeeper' person or organization, are absolutely terrible. They have a large potential to cause conflict between DM narrative decisions and player expectations/agency.

No PrC should ever have a prerequisite that isn't under player control: Race, Class, Backgrounds, Ability Scores, Features, Proficiencies or Feats.

I think you should still play 3e

First, notice that "prerequisites under player's control" does not eliminate conflict with the DM. See what happened in 3e: they idea forced all DMs to straight veto a lot of prestige classes. Narrative prerequisites (which actually I think they could be extended afterwards i.e. requiring the PC to obtain other story achievements to progress into higher levels of the prestige class, not just the first) just honestly bring the issue into the foreground, by telling everybody that prestige classes may have negative effects on the game, and thus the DM is supposed to keep an eye open when using them. With mechanical prerequisites only, all you get is to give control in the power of players, which will then abuse it and pretend it's their right to do so, make the DM feel "cheated" and force her to say NO in advance just out of prudence.

Second, mechanical prerequisites creates the need for "builds", meaning it forces players to think ahead, possibly since the start of the game. While this can be a lot of fun for some players, it is largely detrimental to other players. It worked well in 3e because the whole edition was built around the idea of system mastery: as a player you were supposed to "study" the system, discover the best combos, and exploit them. The idea was that such player should be rewarded. The flip of the coin is that it makes everybody else feel penalized for not spending hours studying the books (or money to collect all possible splatbooks, and cherrypick a prestige class here, a feat there, a spell over there...). And 5e was specifically designed among other things to also cater for casual gamers, who simply do not have time to plan ahead what their PC should become 10 levels later... so if you make a prestige class that requires even just one proficiency, you are screwing up all casual players who didn't know about that prestige class option before, and now can't do anything about it.

There are also other negative effects of the "build" playstyle, for example it makes a lot of players way too focused on levelling up all the time (because they won't feel their PC is ready until it reaches the last level they designed), and not concentrate much on what's going on in the actual game.

 

[aramis erak]

I have severe disdain for Prestige Classes as a concept, and lots of bad taste left from the 3E versions.
And 3rd party PrC's were even worse...

I like the underdark options and wish they had been approved for this season's AL play.

 

[Tanarii]

I think you should still play 3e

3e PrCs with implicit narrative prerequisites are exactly why I object to a narrative prerequisite for PrCs. They were supposed controls for the extra power granted by the PrC, but they were hand waved away because it was always presented as a player option. Making them explicit doesn't fix anything. It just makes it worse. Because now players will expect DMs to provide the narrative prerequisite explicitly.

They only way to change that are remove the concept of a narrative prerequisite entirely, or remove PrCs as a Player option and make it exclusively a DM option. DMs shouldn't have to say no. They should be allowed to choose if they want to say yes instead.

 

[Mephista]

I liked the idea behind the rune magic, and the PrCs in theory, but the execution (especially when to comes to balancing tiers of play) and prerequisites leave a lot to be desired; I do'nt want to see PrCs turn into something you have to plan for at character creation - less system mastery please! I also found it rather distressing that I couldn't make a good dwarven rune cleric with the PrC - that was my one desire from rune magic.

I didn't mind the Fighting Styles, though Close Quarters Shooter should drop the +1 to hit, I think. Strong enough without it. I liked Tunnel Fighter. Deep Stalker is actually a well made Ranger subclass, and probably my favorite out of all options at the moment. I'd love to see it in an official book.

I suggested that the Shadow Sorcerer go all in on the summon-shadows (or turn into shadow) route, making it more flexible with that. Its currently too much a drain on Sorcery Points - there's too few, and using them all on subclass abilities makes metamagic pointless. I also didn't like stealing the warlock's see-through-Darkness magic, or the Shadow Monk's shadowstep ability. Also needs access to Vampiric Touch as a spell. I like the idea, but it needs tweaking.

Undying Light warlock needs to just die. Its an attempt to turn the warlock into a Light Cleric; makes a bad blade'lock, no good familiars for chain, tries to get away from Eldritch Blast with the weaker Sacred Flame, and lacks the spell slots to really take advantage of casting fireballs like the class wants to. As well, Fiend already covers the fire magic route, and Undying's entire stick is being a pseudo-healer. I don't mind a Celestial Warlock, but this is not the way to go about it - the subclass simply doesn't play to any of the warlock's strengths.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

I hate characters that can see through darkness spells

Oddly specific.

 

[Tanarii]

Oddly specific.

Warlock 2 dip for Devil's Sight, combined with Darkness, is incredibly common in AL. It irritates me too.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

They only way to change that are remove the concept of a narrative prerequisite entirely, or remove PrCs as a Player option and make it exclusively a DM option.

Well, the core PrCs were in the DMG. I think 3E design philosophy just lost sight of that distinction along the way, or perhaps it's simply that splatbooks combined player and DM material and so when the players saw PrCs in their splats they just assumed they were for them. Either way, a cautionary tale.

 

[TwoSix]

I am kind of on the opposite site.

PrCs should be something like magic items: something optional that, if you find on your travels, and you invest into it, it can be a part of your character that emerges through gameplay rather than one you're designed for explicitly.

I'd vastly prefer that to something that supports "building" for without actually even playin' the game.

I'm completely with you. I'm actually slowly planning my next campaign (my turn in the DM seat isn't until 2018, fortunately), with the following changes:

1) All new set of base classes, all of which are 5 levels long.
2) A whole set of "prestige classes" associated with magic items, where the prestige class levels strengthen the character's ability to use the magic item, and also give them some intrinsic abilities associated with the magic item. Basically, turning class levels into a form of treasure. Finding a wand of fireballs gives the character access to a 3-level prestige class that grants fire resistance, additional charges per day of the wand, and additional spell casting. The ghul lord's tome gives access to animate dead, the necromancer ability to create stronger undead, and some other undead themed abilities.
3) Multiclassing will either be not allowed, or only allowed once. (Still working on this). Characters won't be able to pass a certain level (5 or 10, probably) unless they gain access to prestige classes.
4) The campaign is set in Al-Qadim, so the base classes will be built around those tropes, and roll together background and class concepts.

I'm aiming to turn the expectation of higher level abilities away from the assumption that just earning XP will grant them. If you want to be a powerful caster, you need to seek out tomes and wands to learn higher-level spells. A warrior has to find magic weapons or hidden experts to learn new abilities.

Basically, I'm trying to turn 5e into the OSR/MOBA/Talisman hybrid I've been tinkering with for the last couple of years.

 

[Mephista]

Warlock 2 dip for Devil's Sight, combined with Darkness, is incredibly common in AL. It irritates me too.

Warlock 2 dip for devil's sight or eldritch blast is a 5e pet peeve of mine.