D&D (2024) One D&D Survey Feedback: Weapon Mastery Spectacular; Warlock and Wizard Mixed Reactions

Jeremy Crawford discusses the results of the Packet 5 Survey:

• Weapon Mastery at 80% approval, and all options except for Flex scored similarly. Crawford says that Flex is mathematically one of the most powerful properties, but will need some attention because people didn't feel like it was. This feature is in the 2024 PHB for 6 Classes, guaranteed at this point.
• Barbarian scored well, particularly the individual features, average satisfaction of 80% for each feature. Beserker got 84% satisfaction, while the 2014 Beserker in the 2020 Big Class Survey got 29% satisfaction.
• Fighter received well, overall 75% satisfaction. Champion scored 54% in the Big Class Survey, but this new one got 74%.
• Sorcerer in the Big Class Survey got 60%, this UA Sorcerer got 72%. Lots of enthusiasm for the Metamagic revisions. Careful Spell got 92% satisfaction. Twin Spell was the exception, at 60%. Draconic Sorcerer got 73%, new Dragon Wings feature was not well received but will be fixed back to being on all the time by the return to 2014 Aubclass progression.
• Class specific Spell lists are back in UA 7 coming soon, the unified Spell lists are out.
• Warlock feedback reflected mixed feelings in the player base. Pact magic is coming back in next iteration. Next Warlock will be more like 2014, Mystic Arcanum will be a core feature, but will still see some adjustments based on feedback to allow for more frequent use of Spells. Eldritch Invocations were well received. Crawford felt it was a good test, because they learned what players felt. They found the idiosyncracy of the Warlock is exactly what people like about it, so theybare keeping it distinct. Next version will get even more Eldritch Invocation options.
• Wizard got a mixed reception. Biggest problem people had was wanting a Wizard specific Spell list, not a shared Arcane list that made the Wizard less distinct. Evoker well received.

 

[Charlaquin]

Cynical as I am, I'm pretty sure we're not getting zero. Weapon mastery alone proves that. But I'm going to assume that going forward, we're not going to see anything more radical than what Tasha included or what a strong dose of errata would offer. I also think there are a few "no way are we reprinting this" changes that feedback won't move the dial on. It's just at this point it's hard to actually assume any given change, even ones that had appeared settled upon, will happen. I love cunning strike, but I won't assume that the concept is even a lock until that phb is in my hands. It could appear in the next playtest packet and then go poof. Whose to say.

At this point, the only thing I would say with certainly is that racial ASI is out and level 1 feats are in. Everything else is still a coin toss.

If Cunning Strike doesn’t make it into the 2024 PHB, I’ll eat a small piece of the rogue section from my 2014 PHB.

 

[Juomari Veren]

My biggest gripe with the spellcasters in this UA (that unfortunately bled into the following UA, though less egregiously) is the fact that they're touting extra spells known (spells which, at the time, were exclusive to them in the Arcane/Divine/Primal list system) as full class features when they were in fact not. I don't mind if a feature gives a spell, but it can't just be "+1 or 2 spells known" and call it a day. That's reductive and leads to every player of that class feeling samey. This was more apparent with Sorcerers than anyone else, where the options weren't necessarily niche but they were the kind of effects you weren't always going to pull out if you didn't need them that could be better served just giving them extra spells known over their career that they're free to choose, and putting a different more useful feature there.

 

[James Gasik]

So, you’re saying you can’t attack with a versatile weapon two-handed after casting a spell, but you can attack with a two-handed weapon after casting a spell…?

It’s true that you explicitly can’t speak when it’s not your turn. I think that’s dumb as hell, but it is what the rules say. The rules do not say any such thing about dropping something you’re holding. Moreover, they don’t say anything about the number of hands you “wield” a weapon with, other than that you can use a versatile weapon in one or two hands, and that you need two hands to attack with a two-handed weapon. Nothing about that suggests that you can’t do so if you used a hand to cast a spell on your turn. Like, even if we assume that characters are frozen in time outside their turn except when taking a reaction, and can’t so much as scratch their nose outside of their turn… just put your hand back on your weapon on your turn after you cast the spell. Problem solved.

Just a quick addition to this "can't speak outside your turn"; note that you can provide Verbal components outside of your turn to cast a spell as a reaction. Now you might say that the Verbal component of, say, Shield, is not especially long, but given that you can use Warcaster to cast a wide array of spells as a reaction that you otherwise could not, and the Feat never says "you can abbreviate your Verbal components to cast spells in an instant"...yeah.

The rules about how/when/why "hands" are occupied are loose, and deliberately so, likely to avoid some of the nonsense from PF1e where we had designers talking about "virtual hands" and juggling computer mice to see if you can use weapon cords in combat.

If you think that allowing a spellcaster to take their hand off a weapon to cast a spell then put it back is overpowered and/or breaks verisimilitude, the DM is allowed to say "no you can't do that". If you don't think it's a problem, the DM is allowed to say "sure, you can do that". This has always been true for all versions of D&D (public play notwithstanding). 5e makes it a point to often have rules that are open to interpretation, which is supposedly a feature, not a bug.

 

[Milieu]

If there had been public play testing before 3e, we'd probably still have THAC0.

In fact, the designers of SECOND edition supposedly wanted to switch to ascending AC, but couldn't because of concerns about backwards compatibility.

I gotta agree with this. The community is as guilty of getting cold feet on changes as the designers are. Perhaps it's because if you ask twenty D&D players to fix something, you'll get twenty one different answers. We can't form a majority consensus there is a problem, let alone how to fix it. And so it will always be easier to tweak what already exists over actually changing things.

Something I learned about playtests when working on video games: if players tell you something is a problem, they are almost always right; if they tell you how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.

An anecdote: in one playtest, the shotgun was the worst-scoring weapon. Several of the players said it was "too weak". Before the next playtest, we changed the sound effect and the visual effects for it, but nothing else. The shotgun jumped to the highest-scoring weapon. (These are two entirely disjoint groups of playtesters, and the sample sizes are small, but nevertheless.)

 

[UngeheuerLich]

maybe, but I am much less happy about that than you are. To me this round of improvements would have benefitted an evergreen version immensely. Instead we stick with the kludges we had for the last 10 years already.

Problem is that if they do too much, forum people take out pitchforks. People seem to hate change, as soon as their favourite class is touched.

 

[Azzy]

Again how is this not 6th Edition? I'd love to see the argument in that one LOL

Since it's been argued multiple times and in multiple threads, you can easily search that out.

 

[Horwath]

Problem is that if they do too much, forum people take out pitchforks. People seem to hate change, as soon as their favourite class is touched.

then you buff everything.
People are having problem with their favorite thing being scaled down.

Like gloomstalker ranger, it's the most powerful subclass of the ranger.
Is it overpowered? No,because ranger is weak in base class and gloomstalker is only thing that is keeping ranger floating in 2014.
So you need to buff up every subclass except gloomstalker and maybe give some minor boost to it.

The assassin is a weak subclass on it's own, what is the problem is the unholy abominations of various multiclass combos.
Assassin 3/gloomstalker 4/fighter 11/paladin 2 comes to mind.
Simple fix could be just bonus sneak attack damage to the subclass. just double the dice you roll in 1st round of combat.

 

[Azzy]

These UA results where things don't hit the mark and then get backtracked are inspiring anti-hype in me. Why do I want new books if the are going to be mostly the same as old books, save for like a few pages?

If you aren't interested in the revision, don't buy the new books. It's that simple.

The great thing about it, though, is that any supplements made after the revision will likely be mostly compatible with the 2014 version of the rules. So, you can keep plugging away with the old rules and pick up whatever new product that strikes your fancy.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

These UA results where things don't hit the mark and then get backtracked are inspiring anti-hype in me. Why do I want new books if the are going to be mostly the same as old books, save for like a few pages?

A ton of new art, changes to spells, feats, every class, every subclass that gets reprinted, better rules glossary, better index, clearer rules overall, better font sizing that matches other 5e books, new race/species/whatevers, new background paradigm…like…a few pages? Seriously?

Assassin 3/gloomstalker 4/fighter 11/paladin 2 comes to mind.

A very specific level 20 build is not an issue.
No change to the rules should ever be enacted because of something like that.

 

[Clint_L]

I still thought the game would be backwards compatible WITH many of the experimental BS they were tossing in those UAs. This doesn't even move the needle anymore. It's as much a new edition as Tasha's is.

It’s not a new edition. They have reiterated that it is still 5e countless times. The whole point is that it’s not a new edition. There aren’t going to be any fundamental changes. There never were. We were told this right from the beginning.

Paradigm shifts are hard, but this is getting tiresome. Folks just keep repeating the same thing as if by doing so reality will change. WotC said what they were going to do, they are doing it, and it’s not changing.