D&D (2024) Playtest 8 Survey

[MonsterEnvy]

Shocking Grasp doesn't make any sense with its change. Especially since, as of Deck of Many Things, Legendary Actions are still a thing according to Asteria's stat block.

One could argue that the reason why the Planescape 5E's Time Dragon didn't have legendary action and Reactions instead, was because of the fact that a Time Dragon would be able to mess with Time like that. Hence being more on theme than an actual replacement of Legendary Actions.

I assume it’s because Book of Many Things was written before Planescape.

 

[Maxperson]

You're kinda twisting what I'm trying to say, but whatever. Its not important. Vibes are what's important, yeah? If its not something you're vibing with, then yeah, you should complain about it on the survey.

And I kind of agree, but for different reasons than you.

Personally, I look at spell schools from the perspective of "results of a Detect Magic test, as performed by a PC." If a player comes across an aura of Necromancy while dungeon delving, they're going to think it relates to undead somehow. Or life drain. Not being hit by poison - that should be Evocation or Conjuration (cloudkill, for example). Or a fear effect - that should be illusion or enchantment. If they hit Transmutation trap, they should be thinking of being turned into an animal, or stone, or something.

The spell schools are all over the place, yeah, but this is how I think of them and how they should work. Because the PCs don't really care what school their magic comes from.

Any twisting was completely unintentional. It seemed to me like you were saying that we should use WotC's definitions.

 

[tetrasodium]

On the survey... I was pretty harsh on the Bastion system. I did try to make clear that I support the idea of a stronghold mechanic, but I really don't like this implementation of it. It's way too fiddly and also way too focused on having everything feed back into your adventuring power. IMO, strongholds should be an additional way to exercise power in the world, a way to influence things without having to go personally smite somebody. This is the kind of thing players and DMs often have a little trouble translating into reality -- it's easy to get stuck in the mental "box" of the core rules, which are relentlessly focused on old-school quests and dungeon crawls -- and it would be super helpful to have some light mechanical support to get people over that hump. But it seems like the folks who designed the Bastion system were themselves stuck in that box.

(Or else my preferences are an outlier and most players don't even want to leave the box, in which case I expect other folks' survey responses will drown out mine and I'll just have to accept that the Bastion system is not for me.)

The cantrips I was generally positive on, with a couple of minor exceptions. I do find the behavior of the weapon cantrips (shillelagh and true strike) converting the damage type to be odd, particularly given the types chosen. Force for shillelagh I can sorta see, but radiant for true strike?

I'd add that to that feeding into adventuring power with the fact that so much of it was crafted with an apparent mindset along the lines of "what do players want to force their gm into letting them have" first and foremost before "what does the gm need from this dmg section to be". Between session shopping sounded great, but between session"so mo I have this" not so much. Bastions are a nice idea, but they are too deeply targeting the wrong side of the dm screen in too many ways and their gains are spread across such a huge disparity that it's hard to even consider using them.

 

[James Gasik]

I'm not sure I agree that Bastions are targeting the wrong side of the DM screen- one of the big failings of AD&D was making players actually care about the ability to create bases and gather followers. In 2e, especially, I saw plenty of level 9 and up Fighters who never bothered to establish a keep because they didn't really see the advantage- the force you acquired was very small, not sufficient to really go to war with anyone, and generally was enough to protect the keep itself. The 5th-7th level leader character was the only cohort worth mentioning and for groups that wanted to tackle more and bigger adventures, which became more prevalent in 2e, they might quickly lose relevance anyways. Contrast all this with the upkeep (heh) of the keep itself and the fact it ties you down to one location, when most adventurers travel far and wide over the course of their careers.

I knew a lot of DM's who didn't want a lot of miscellaneous NPC's hanging around to complicate their games to begin with. Then add the fact that the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook was a later addition to the game, like the whole idea was an afterthought.

The Dark Sun Fighter was in a similar position- they were always intended to engage with the Battlesystem sub-game (just as D&D was meant to transition into Chainmail), but I have to assume groups that did so were rare, as I never encountered one.

So the strongholds of old really were more useful to the DM than the players, in the form of giving them something to make the players care about ("While you were away on the Astral Plane, an evil duke usurped your keep...") that many players didn't think was worth the effort to have in the first place, which is why all this stuff became optional in 3e with very little fuss (amusingly, in 3e, Leadership was one of the most busted things you could allow a player to have).

So you have to make the players care about the Bastion system or they'll just...not have Bastions. Is making it an alternative power track a bad idea? It's hard to say, since the whole point of this exercise is to make treasure valuable again. Right now, D&D characters are in the same boat as the billionaires of our world "gee, what do I spend my money on? I have all these holdings, one mega-yacht for each ocean, summer home in the Hamptons, winter home in the Caymans, I have a private jet, maybe I'll try to go to space...". That's cool and all, but it doesn't tie into the game itself, where it's about going on dangerous quests and fighting powerful foes.

Players rightly note that money just lets you buy things- power is what lets you do things. So they naturally want a way to turn money into power.

Now, one might say "but James, money is power!" and yes it is, to a point. It's narrative power in the setting; you can prop up kingdoms, fund revolutionaries, hire mercenaries, etc.. But not a lot of games unfortunately revolve around the setting as more than a backdrop for the adventures players go on. You'd need a whole book to show DM's how to make their setting matter to the point that players will directly engage with it, at least- there's no way a subsystem which at best will fit into a chapter can do that.

 

[tetrasodium]

I'm not sure I agree that Bastions are targeting the wrong side of the DM screen- one of the big failings of AD&D was making players actually care about the ability to create bases and gather followers. In 2e, especially, I saw plenty of level 9 and up Fighters who never bothered to establish a keep because they didn't really see the advantage- the force you acquired was very small, not sufficient to really go to war with anyone, and generally was enough to protect the keep itself. The 5th-7th level leader character was the only cohort worth mentioning and for groups that wanted to tackle more and bigger adventures, which became more prevalent in 2e, they might quickly lose relevance anyways. Contrast all this with the upkeep (heh) of the keep itself and the fact it ties you down to one location, when most adventurers travel far and wide over the course of their careers.

I knew a lot of DM's who didn't want a lot of miscellaneous NPC's hanging around to complicate their games to begin with. Then add the fact that the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook was a later addition to the game, like the whole idea was an afterthought.

The Dark Sun Fighter was in a similar position- they were always intended to engage with the Battlesystem sub-game (just as D&D was meant to transition into Chainmail), but I have to assume groups that did so were rare, as I never encountered one.

So the strongholds of old really were more useful to the DM than the players, in the form of giving them something to make the players care about ("While you were away on the Astral Plane, an evil duke usurped your keep...") that many players didn't think was worth the effort to have in the first place, which is why all this stuff became optional in 3e with very little fuss (amusingly, in 3e, Leadership was one of the most busted things you could allow a player to have).

So you have to make the players care about the Bastion system or they'll just...not have Bastions. Is making it an alternative power track a bad idea? It's hard to say, since the whole point of this exercise is to make treasure valuable again. Right now, D&D characters are in the same boat as the billionaires of our world "gee, what do I spend my money on? I have all these holdings, one mega-yacht for each ocean, summer home in the Hamptons, winter home in the Caymans, I have a private jet, maybe I'll try to go to space...". That's cool and all, but it doesn't tie into the game itself, where it's about going on dangerous quests and fighting powerful foes.

Players rightly note that money just lets you buy things- power is what lets you do things. So they naturally want a way to turn money into power.

Now, one might say "but James, money is power!" and yes it is, to a point. It's narrative power in the setting; you can prop up kingdoms, fund revolutionaries, hire mercenaries, etc.. But not a lot of games unfortunately revolve around the setting as more than a backdrop for the adventures players go on. You'd need a whole book to show DM's how to make their setting matter to the point that players will directly engage with it, at least- there's no way a subsystem which at best will fit into a chapter can do that.

Look at the returns

Spoiler: cliff notes version

• L5
  • Arcane Study: an arcane focus (starting gear grade) & a blank book
  • Armory: Fill with weapons & armor that may or may not be lootable by the PCs
  • Barracks: ??? ask your GM
  • Garden: Make potion of healing, basic poison, antitoxin, decorative flowers, or vegetables
  • sanctuary: cast healing word 1x or craft a focus item (starting gear grade)
  • Smithy: Make sone stuff on the adventuring gear table or we agree to be honest & admit that this converts gold to +1 weapons to ensure players don't need to go through the GM or worry about any reasons a specific flavor might not be available. What's truly shocking is how grossly outsized this benefit is compared to caster analogs at this & even higher level bastions
  • Storehouse: lolwut?... Convert 2500gp to 550gp gold & at leveks9/13 it grows to 2000gp>2400gp & 5000gp>7500gp to ensure money eventually has no value whatsoever given the expected ability to do that 6-8x per level...
  • Workshop: Make tools... like the kind you might start with or grants heroic advantage
• L9
  • Gaming Hall: Earn between 3gp & 600gp...
  • Greenhouse: Make [notapotion] of lesser restoration, potion of greater healing, midnight tears, pale tincture, torpor, or truth serum
  • Laboratory: Basic poison, a rare poison, or a (maybe) level appropriate potion of your choice
  • Library: Effectively cast legend lore analog after a week
  • Sacricity: burn gold to craft turbo charged holy water, recover a 5th level or lower slot on a short rest 1x,... or,,, choose one of the following : Pearl of power, periapt of wound closure, ring of water walking, sending stones, staff of the python, wand of magic detection
  • Scriptorium: Basically simplified scribe scroll now that the campaign is winding down, but only scrolls for spells you can cast
  • Stable: Much like the storehouse but with mounts.
  • Teleportation circle: it is what it is & you can get an archmage to cast a spell for you on occasion
  • Training area: Prermanantly add lots of temporary things to your PC's character sheet because the sheet can't track temporary proficiency... That or +/-1d4 damage to certain attack types to continue the bolded sentiment above.
  • Trophy Room: Make a single use trinket that casts one of the following: death ward, find traps, locate creature, magic weapon, remove curse, or speak with dead.
• L13
  • Archive: Advantage on one or more types of check
  • Meditation Chamber: advantage on two types of save
  • Menagerie: Stockpile animals a moon druid might transform into so you can... ask your gm
  • Observatory: Cast contact other plane or maybe gain one of the charm of darkvision/heroism/vitality from the DMG
  • Pub: Gain a kinda neat CIA/NSA information gathering service and stockpile potions cocktails special release nukacola bottles in you & your party's backpacks to carry around till use
  • Reliquary: Cast greater restoration or get an item you can sub for a rare spell component worth up to 1000gp
• L17
  • Demiplane: Can't be scried & make mundane objects with fabricate analog at a level you should be able to trivially afford them... unless.. the GM has made them hard to find for whatever reason.
  • Guild Hall: Lots of things. One pairs with a different building (menagerie) & most of the rest turn a PC into someone with a top tier mover & shaker NPC powerbase going from hired muscle to seat at the table in a relevant adventure or pointless fluff even at a much lower level... don't forget the option to put "do I have a map for that">"when are you going to let me use my bastion?" on loop
  • Sanctum: Cast heal or word of recall 1x
  • War Room: Recruit NPCs to... ask your gm

Not only are the returns wildly imbalanced across class types there is a huge focus on kneecapping the GM's control over economy & availability.

 

[James Gasik]

Look at the returns

Spoiler: cliff notes version

• L5
  • Arcane Study: an arcane focus (starting gear grade) & a blank book
  • Armory: Fill with weapons & armor that may or may not be lootable by the PCs
  • Barracks: ??? ask your GM
  • Garden: Make potion of healing, basic poison, antitoxin, decorative flowers, or vegetables
  • sanctuary: cast healing word 1x or craft a focus item (starting gear grade)
  • Smithy: Make sone stuff on the adventuring gear table or we agree to be honest & admit that this converts gold to +1 weapons to ensure players don't need to go through the GM or worry about any reasons a specific flavor might not be available. What's truly shocking is how grossly outsized this benefit is compared to caster analogs at this & even higher level bastions
  • Storehouse: lolwut?... Convert 2500gp to 550gp gold & at leveks9/13 it grows to 2000gp>2400gp & 5000gp>7500gp to ensure money eventually has no value whatsoever given the expected ability to do that 6-8x per level...
  • Workshop: Make tools... like the kind you might start with
• L9
  • Gaming Hall: Earn between 3gp & 600gp...
  • Greenhouse: Make [notapotion] of lesser restoration, potion of greater healing, midnight tears, pale tincture, torpor, or truth serum
  • Laboratory: Basic poison, a rare poison, or a (maybe) level appropriate potion of your choice
  • Library: Effectively cast legend lore analog after a week
  • Sacricity: burn gold to craft turbo charged holy water, recover a 5th level or lower slot on a short rest 1x,... or,,, choose one of the following : Pearl of power, periapt of wound closure, ring of water walking, sending stones, staff of the python, wand of magic detection
  • Scriptorium: Basically simplified scribe scroll now that the campaign is winding down, but only scrolls for spells you can cast
  • Stable: Much like the storehouse but with mounts.
  • Teleportation circle: it is what it is & you can get an archmage to cast a spell for you on occasion
  • Training area: Prermanantly add lots of temporary things to your PC's character sheet because the sheet can't track temporary proficiency... That or +/-1d4 damage to certain attack types to continue the bolded sentiment above.
  • Trophy Room: Make a single use trinket that casts one of the following: death ward, find traps, locate creature, magic weapon, remove curse, or speak with dead.
• L13
  • Archive: Advantage on one or more types of check
  • Meditation Chamber: advantage on two types of save
  • Menagerie: Stockpile animals a moon druid might transform into so you can... ask your gm
  • Observatory: Cast contact other plane or maybe gain one of the charm of darkvision/heroism/vitality from the DMG
  • Pub: Gain a kinda neat CIA/NSA information gathering service and stockpile potions cocktails special release nukacola bottles in you & your party's backpacks to carry around till use
  • Reliquary: Cast greater restoration or get an item you can sub for a rare spell component worth up to 1000gp
• L17
  • Demiplane: Can't be scried & make mundane objects with fabricate analog at a level you should be able to trivially afford them... unless.. the GM has made them hard to find for whatever reason.
  • Guild Hall: Lots of things. One pairs with a different building (menagerie) & most of the rest turn a PC into someone with a top tier mover & shaker NPC powerbase going from hired muscle to seat at the table in a relevant adventure or pointless fluff even at a much lower level... don't forget the option to put "do I have a map for that">"when are you going to let me use my bastion?" on loop
  • Sanctum: Cast heal or word of recall 1x
  • War Room: Recruit NPCs to... ask your gm

Not only are the returns wildly imbalanced across class types there is a huge focus on kneecapping the GM's control over economy & availability.

I would point out that the Bastion system is for GM's who don't already have control over economy & availability. The system is for people who are having problems giving players things to do with their cash, and don't know when/if/why to give players access to magical items. I see a lot of "GM decides" in that list as well, so it's actually giving GM's a lot of opportunities.

Having said that, is that a system I would use? Not without revisions! I'm not defending the design, but the purpose of the system. Why it has to be something players will want to bother with, and why it has suggestions for what the designers think players should be able to do with their money.

I say suggestions, because everything in D&D operates at a GM's sufferance. If it's too good, it's going to get nerfed.

There's no way to make this system great for every GM and every campaign. When the playtest feedback is in, if it goes live, it's going to be affected by 70% of the playerbase who chimes in on this survey- a woefully small percentage of the people who are going to end up using it, or rejecting it.

Any time WotC has ever said "we think players should have X stuff and be able to acquire Y with it", there have been GM's who've balked and cried out in dismay. So even if they were clear about their assumptions about this sort of thing, anyone has to realize there's going to be people who hate and reject those assumptions. Which is probably why no such assumptions existed in the 2014 DMG in the first place.

It's a cowardly approach, IMHO, but an understandable one.

 

[Mephista]

Look at the returns

Spoiler: cliff notes version

• L5
  • Arcane Study: an arcane focus (starting gear grade) & a blank book
  • Armory: Fill with weapons & armor that may or may not be lootable by the PCs
  • Barracks: ??? ask your GM
  • Garden: Make potion of healing, basic poison, antitoxin, decorative flowers, or vegetables
  • sanctuary: cast healing word 1x or craft a focus item (starting gear grade)
  • Smithy: Make sone stuff on the adventuring gear table or we agree to be honest & admit that this converts gold to +1 weapons to ensure players don't need to go through the GM or worry about any reasons a specific flavor might not be available. What's truly shocking is how grossly outsized this benefit is compared to caster analogs at this & even higher level bastions
  • Storehouse: lolwut?... Convert 2500gp to 550gp gold & at leveks9/13 it grows to 2000gp>2400gp & 5000gp>7500gp to ensure money eventually has no value whatsoever given the expected ability to do that 6-8x per level...
  • Workshop: Make tools... like the kind you might start with
• L9
  • Gaming Hall: Earn between 3gp & 600gp...
  • Greenhouse: Make [notapotion] of lesser restoration, potion of greater healing, midnight tears, pale tincture, torpor, or truth serum
  • Laboratory: Basic poison, a rare poison, or a (maybe) level appropriate potion of your choice
  • Library: Effectively cast legend lore analog after a week
  • Sacricity: burn gold to craft turbo charged holy water, recover a 5th level or lower slot on a short rest 1x,... or,,, choose one of the following : Pearl of power, periapt of wound closure, ring of water walking, sending stones, staff of the python, wand of magic detection
  • Scriptorium: Basically simplified scribe scroll now that the campaign is winding down, but only scrolls for spells you can cast
  • Stable: Much like the storehouse but with mounts.
  • Teleportation circle: it is what it is & you can get an archmage to cast a spell for you on occasion
  • Training area: Prermanantly add lots of temporary things to your PC's character sheet because the sheet can't track temporary proficiency... That or +/-1d4 damage to certain attack types to continue the bolded sentiment above.
  • Trophy Room: Make a single use trinket that casts one of the following: death ward, find traps, locate creature, magic weapon, remove curse, or speak with dead.
• L13
  • Archive: Advantage on one or more types of check
  • Meditation Chamber: advantage on two types of save
  • Menagerie: Stockpile animals a moon druid might transform into so you can... ask your gm
  • Observatory: Cast contact other plane or maybe gain one of the charm of darkvision/heroism/vitality from the DMG
  • Pub: Gain a kinda neat CIA/NSA information gathering service and stockpile potions cocktails special release nukacola bottles in you & your party's backpacks to carry around till use
  • Reliquary: Cast greater restoration or get an item you can sub for a rare spell component worth up to 1000gp
• L17
  • Demiplane: Can't be scried & make mundane objects with fabricate analog at a level you should be able to trivially afford them... unless.. the GM has made them hard to find for whatever reason.
  • Guild Hall: Lots of things. One pairs with a different building (menagerie) & most of the rest turn a PC into someone with a top tier mover & shaker NPC powerbase going from hired muscle to seat at the table in a relevant adventure or pointless fluff even at a much lower level... don't forget the option to put "do I have a map for that">"when are you going to let me use my bastion?" on loop
  • Sanctum: Cast heal or word of recall 1x
  • War Room: Recruit NPCs to... ask your gm

One thing I think you're missing - Workshop seems to grant Heroic Inspiration. A bit redundant if your party has Musician feat or a human, but if you do need it... Kinda like how Arcane Study is decent if you've a mage without identify but bad if you do.

 

[tetrasodium]

I would point out that the Bastion system is for GM's who don't already have control over economy & availability. The system is for people who are having problems giving players things to do with their cash, and don't know when/if/why to give players access to magical items. I see a lot of "GM decides" in that list as well, so it's actually giving GM's a lot of opportunities.

Having said that, is that a system I would use? Not without revisions! I'm not defending the design, but the purpose of the system. Why it has to be something players will want to bother with, and why it has suggestions for what the designers think players should be able to do with their money.

I say suggestions, because everything in D&D operates at a GM's sufferance. If it's too good, it's going to get nerfed.

There's no way to make this system great for every GM and every campaign. When the playtest feedback is in, if it goes live, it's going to be affected by 70% of the playerbase who chimes in on this survey- a woefully small percentage of the people who are going to end up using it, or rejecting it.

Any time WotC has ever said "we think players should have X stuff and be able to acquire Y with it", there have been GM's who've balked and cried out in dismay. So even if they were clear about their assumptions about this sort of thing, anyone has to realize there's going to be people who hate and reject those assumptions. Which is probably why no such assumptions existed in the 2014 DMG in the first place.

It's a cowardly approach, IMHO, but an understandable one.

are you really trying to say that a subsystem that creates enormous amounts of gold is a gold sink?

 

[Mephista]

are you really trying to say that a subsystem that creates enormous amounts of gold is a gold sink?

Depends on the build- it can be. Nothing stops the entire party from going one Barracks each.

 

[James Gasik]

are you really trying to say that a subsystem that creates enormous amounts of gold is a gold sink?

Not at all. It's simply a system that makes money interesting. To make people care about having it, and doing something with it. That you could spend money to make money (if that's what you want to do) is simply capitalism in action.