D&D (2024) Playtest 6 Survey is Open

[Maxperson]

I thought that, that is what you meant but no harm to double check, there is enough cross talk in these conversations.
However, the sentence about 6 to 8 encounters per adventuring day does not match the encounter math when that is divided into the expected adventuring day XP.
As I pointed out in a previous post the expected adventuring XP per day implies around 3 deadly encounter or 4 hard encounter or 6 medium ones otherwise you are overrunning the expected XP accumulation per day.

A part of 4 9th level PCs has an adventuring day budget of 30k XP. A medium encounter is 4400xp for those 4 PCs. That's 6.8 encounters at medium. However, how do you categorize an encounter that's 4000? Is it easy? Medium?

Also, these are guidelines, so I think they play them looser than the exact numbers. They say that the adventuring day is 6-8 medium to hard encounters, but the numbers as you point out are a bit lower than that. In my experience the groups can in fact handle 6-8 medium to hard encounters during the adventuring day, so that's what I use. Of course I had to go to milestone leveling since they'd level too quickly if I used XP awards. Using the flat XP numbers and not the 6-8 per day model made the day too easy for the players/PCs.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

A part of 4 9th level PCs has an adventuring day budget of 30k XP. A medium encounter is 4400xp for those 4 PCs. That's 6.8 encounters at medium. However, how do you categorize an encounter that's 4000? Is it easy? Medium?

Also, these are guidelines, so I think they play them looser than the exact numbers. They say that the adventuring day is 6-8 medium to hard encounters, but the numbers as you point out are a bit lower than that. In my experience the groups can in fact handle 6-8 medium to hard encounters during the adventuring day, so that's what I use. Of course I had to go to milestone leveling since they'd level too quickly if I used XP awards. Using the flat XP numbers and not the 6-8 per day model made the day too easy for the players/PCs.

Yes, I also think that they play them looser then the exact number and the game is balanced around the assumption of more casual players. I plan to go through the early chapters of a couple of adventures to check the encounter maths. The few encounters I have checked have generally been either medium or hard, which matches my gut feeling but real maths is better than gut feelings.

 

[Chaosmancer]

On Monk vs Paladin Damage

SNIP

It's almost like absent feat or multiclassing shenanigans that short rest and long rest classes are actually pretty balanced.

You call them "shenanigans" but we know it is not uncommon for tables to play with feats. And PAM is actually less useful now for Paladins. Instead, you could look to Charger and Great Weapon Master, which we can say probably increase the paladin DPR by approx 6 damage, making it a difference between 21.6 and 29 damage (about a 33% percent difference in DPR [22/3 ~ 7 | 21.6+7 = 28.6 ~ 29]

And, what is something notable about the New Monk? Many of the martial feats that classes like Paladin will gravitate towards, are inaccessible to them. And whether or not you like feats, that doesn't change how that is affecting the monk.

 

[Chaosmancer]

So your argument is that I should use a ridiculous premise that has nothing to do with how classes are balanced to show that paladins beat the snot off of monks?

No, that is your strawman clutching desperately at the false equivalence between encounter and combat. You should try engaging with my actual position.

Can those encounters be all fights or not? If yes, then the classes need to be balanced around that many fights. Hint: They can be all fights.

They can also all NOT be fights. Again, we know that almost no table and no adventure designed by the company has 6 to 8 fights. Balance is not reliant on the encounters being fights, simply there being that many encounters.

Don't try and spin your lack of comprehension as some stance that it must be balanced around 8 fights per day because it might be 8 fights per day.

That is patently false. The paladin can indeed have 28 rounds of combat. He can only smite in 10 of them, gimping himself for the majority of rounds if he uses all of his smites early.

28 rounds is the average number of rounds in an adventuring day that is all combats, which is fairly common.

Ignoring my point and talking past me again. Why even bother quoting me if you aren't interested in actually addressing what I am saying?

So the 40% number isn't relevant. How much would he have to lose over 28 rounds? THAT'S the magic number.

It is completely relevant to my point. You don't get to just dismiss my points as being irrelevant because you don't like them.

There have been no changes to the adventuring day. None. The little bits around the edges that they've altered don't change that fact.

Double checks the playtest warlock Ah yes, little bit around the edges there, nothing too extreme, just a fundamental redesign of the class resources.

But even IF it was a minor bit, you still can't prove that four fights and two non-fights isn't something that should be balanced. You have about five things to prove true for your point that monks are fine in the damage department to hold true, and you have proved none of them. Just asserted they must be true because you say so.

 

[FrogReaver]

You call them "shenanigans" but we know it is not uncommon for tables to play with feats. And PAM is actually less useful now for Paladins. Instead, you could look to Charger and Great Weapon Master, which we can say probably increase the paladin DPR by approx 6 damage, making it a difference between 21.6 and 29 damage (about a 33% percent difference in DPR [22/3 ~ 7 | 21.6+7 = 28.6 ~ 29]

And, what is something notable about the New Monk? Many of the martial feats that classes like Paladin will gravitate towards, are inaccessible to them. And whether or not you like feats, that doesn't change how that is affecting the monk.

I'm sorry but did the comparison you produced include GWM or PAM? If not then why are you honing in on me noting that my comparison doesn't include those either?

 

[Mistwell]

You call them "shenanigans" but we know it is not uncommon for tables to play with feats. And PAM is actually less useful now for Paladins. Instead, you could look to Charger and Great Weapon Master, which we can say probably increase the paladin DPR by approx 6 damage, making it a difference between 21.6 and 29 damage (about a 33% percent difference in DPR [22/3 ~ 7 | 21.6+7 = 28.6 ~ 29]

And, what is something notable about the New Monk? Many of the martial feats that classes like Paladin will gravitate towards, are inaccessible to them. And whether or not you like feats, that doesn't change how that is affecting the monk.

Yes that was one of my biggest complaints about the new monk. Can't access the best Weapon Mastery, can't get their bonus monk damage with weapons so that's also incompatible with Weapon Mastery, and then can't access the feats they'd want either. All of which is hard to spot on an initial read.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

And, what is something notable about the New Monk? Many of the martial feats that classes like Paladin will gravitate towards, are inaccessible to them. And whether or not you like feats, that doesn't change how that is affecting the monk.

You speak as if everything is set in stone. So maybe it is not the monk that is unbalanced, but the feats? Maybe they get an overhaul. So is weapon mastery?

You can't just buff the monk, because paladin has better feats. Because then in a no-feats game, the monk is too powerful. Which right now he is not. But maybe you get what I mean.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Yes that was one of my biggest complaints about the new monk. Can't access the best Weapon Mastery, can't get their bonus monk damage with weapons so that's also incompatible with Weapon Mastery, and then can't access the feats they'd want either. All of which is hard to spot on an initial read.

And which is the thing that is worth criticizing. And on the first page of this UA it is said that weapon masteries are just reprinted for concenience. Not that they are final. So every analysis of the monk based on those is not based on solid ground.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I'm sorry but did the comparison you produced include GWM or PAM? If not then why are you honing in on me noting that my comparison doesn't include those either?

My comparison was only about Divine Smite damage vs Flurry of Blows damage, because the claim was that 4 Ki = level 1 Divine Smites and I was addressing that specific concern. If you go back and check, you will not my analysis didn't even bother with weapon damage, let alone feats.

However, your post 1) Explicitly called out PAM as making Paladins over-powered, which is no longer true do to the new design and 2) was focused on the overall weapon damage per turn, meaning it became more appropriate to address that.

 

[Chaosmancer]

You speak as if everything is set in stone. So maybe it is not the monk that is unbalanced, but the feats? Maybe they get an overhaul. So is weapon mastery?

Sure, it isn't set in stone.

But it will be if we all say "well, this is clearly fine because you will change it." The best approach is to assume that the bad parts of the design are getting locked in, that way apathy doesn't make that a reality.

You can't just buff the monk, because paladin has better feats. Because then in a no-feats game, the monk is too powerful. Which right now he is not. But maybe you get what I mean.

Sure, but there is give and take here. NO ONE is looking at rogues and fighters and assuming a featless game, because feats have been class features for them. And this holds true for basically all of the warriors. Even fighting styles are now feats.

And monks ARE warriors.... with no access to the feats taken by warriors. And, honestly? Maybe you DO take them a little too far. If the best damage is going to be had by using a martial weapon with a martial weapon specific feat... well, monks lacking access to those immediately puts them at a disadvantage. It isn't a bad thing for that to go away, and instead the disadvantage be with other classes in a featless game. It is the same issue after all, just reversed

(and of course, the best answer is.... make it balanced both ways?)