D&D (2024) In Interview with GamesRadar, Chris Perkins Discusses New Books

[mellored]

From the article:

“Fighters, Barbarians, and Monks offer three different approaches to being the party tank (…)”

Monks are tanks now?

As of the playtest, yes. From level 1 they can

Action to Dodge. 16AC with disadvantage is about the same as 20 AC.
Bonus action (or opportunity attack) to Grapple, using Dex.
Them move them away from your allies.

You could reasonably play a monk who never punches anyone. Just moves people around (past the spiked growth and into a cloud of daggers).

Or just switch back to punching a lot next turn.

 

[bedir than]

Id say the more interesting commentary is around his desire for less options.

He said the exact opposite, calling for infinite subclasses. By any definition that's more options.

 

[Scribe]

He said the exact opposite, calling for infinite subclasses. By any definition that's more options.

yawn

In fact, Perkins is of the mind that the core rules may have too many classes to begin with.

"Speaking frankly, [and] this is my own personal opinion, 12 classes is actually a lot," Perkins says. "If I were redesigning, if I could go back to 2012 to when we were talking about fifth edition for the first time, I would probably put a strong case forward that we could actually do with less classes in the core game. You know, keep the choices simple. Because when you're asking somebody to choose between a Sorcerer and a Wizard, to the untrained eye, it's not clear what the difference is until you start to drill down and you realize where they get their power from and how their spell-casting works. When you look at it superficially, they seem pretty much the same. And you know, what is the difference between a Barbarian and a Fighter? A Barbarian could almost be a subclass [for a] Fighter if we were designing this game from scratch."

 

[bedir than]

yawn

Yes. And he clearly and obviously followed up on his statement about limited core classes (but not total classes) with saying he feels there is space for infinite subclasses.

The only way to suggests that he wants limited options is to ignore context and the way language works.

 

[Scribe]

Yes. And he clearly and obviously followed up on his statement about limited core classes (but not total classes) with saying he feels there is space for infinite subclasses.

The only way to suggests that he wants limited options is to ignore context and the way language works.

Not really, if he is clearly, without ambiguity talking about reducing classes.

Now, since we are thinking adults, we can also accept that he can decrease options in some sense, while potentially (there wont be infinite subclasses) increasing them in another.

Since 'infinite subclasses' isnt going to happen, and would just be splat bloat and power creep anyway, I continue to think that the comment about reduction of the core classes, is a more interesting thing to consider.

 

[bedir than]

Not really, if he is clearly, without ambiguity talking about reducing classes.

Now, since we are thinking adults, we can also accept that he can decrease options in some sense, while potentially (there wont be infinite subclasses) increasing them in another.

Since 'infinite subclasses' isnt going to happen, and would just be splat bloat and power creep anyway, I continue to think that the comment about reduction of the core classes, is a more interesting thing to consider.

It may be interesting, but he notes that is what he wishes he'd done in 2012, not what he is doing today.

Today he's increased the baseline options by adding more subclasses to more classes in the core game, the opposite of your misreading.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Gonna be perfectly honest, Perkins concluding that people don't want to move away from existing 5e based on the stuff they tested and didn't think people would accept is....not encouraging. Like at all. That's blatantly bad statistical inference. It would be like presuming that, because you put out a collection cup for rainwater on days where there was no expected precipitation three times, that means that it rains if and only if the forecast says it will.

Instead, the correct statistical inference here is that those specific changes were not popular. And it's really not hard to see why--a number of them futzed about with deep and fundamental mechanics like critical hits or the like, rather than addressing any of the far more relevant areas of 5e's rules that could have been updated.

 

[Scribe]

It may be interesting, but he notes that is what he wishes he'd done in 2012, not what he is doing today.

Yes, clearly the context of what I was referring to.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I'm of the opinion that a lot of the changes WotC put forth in the original playtest packets for One D&D weren't actually all that much better than the stuff we already had, but some folks really latched onto them because they were new and different ideas. And for some players, anything new would be a welcomed sight. But just because something is new doesn't mean it's actually more worthwhile to have in the game, and it seems apparently that a lot of the playerbase felt that way.

The spell source groupings are just one example: is assigning spells to groups of classes actually appreciably "better" that assigning spells to individual classes? Doesn't seem that way based on opinions and poll results. That change looks like it did not set off any "Eureka!" moment that exploded the game open and made everyone go "Why didn't we think of this before!?! We need this!" Which is not surprising... most ideas in all ways of life end up being met with just shrugs from a lot of people and very few ever are worth a 'Eureka!' reaction.

Now, was the change interesting? I'm sure to a lot of players it was, oftentimes just as a curiosity factor for delving into something new and seeing how things could be... but I suspect (based on the poll results) that not a lot of people thought it was a changed that HAD to be made to the game to make it appreciably better. It'd make spellcasting in 5E24 slightly different, sure, but different for difference sake does not make it worth doing per se. And if compatibility and accessibility were important for this new game update, it looks like WotC felt there was no reason to swap out things that worked fine for most people and wouldn't be markedly improved by the new idea. Which is also not surprising-- if most players actually like most of the 5E14 D&D game... there's no reason to change things for the sake of changing them-- spell groupings, the Warlock chassis, wildshape templates etc. And while some people might have thought any of those ideas were the greatest ideas... if not enough people agreed then there was no reason for a switch to be made.

 

[TwoSix]

Yes, clearly the context of what I was referring to.

Core 4 + bard, paladin, druid, warlock could have carried the bulk of the build weight while letting subclasses be more transformative and impactful.