D&D (2024) Predictions for Playtest packet 7's arrival

[FitzTheRuke]

The one monster stat related thing they did present for feedback was legendary actions. And that was to see how people felt about the concept, not the specific actions themselves. (Turns out, people liked the concept.)

Maybe that's it, though: Legendary Actions are quite good, but they didn't quite go far enough to make for proper Solo monsters. Hence we have Theros' Mythic Actions. But do we need two ways to model Solos? Maybe so, maybe not.

Perhaps they've come up with a fusion or alternate idea that they'd like to run past us.

 

[Parmandur]

The one monster stat related thing they did present for feedback was legendary actions. And that was to see how people felt about the concept, not the specific actions themselves. (Turns out, people liked the concept.)

And I think they might do something like that, for sure.

 

[tetrasodium]

I don't think previewing monsters as statblocks is useful at all. Sure it might be useful to see mechanical hooks they might be adding and other broad strokes high level stuff like gm QoL improvements, but what GMs really need to see is some combination of

• Stuff that improves the flow and portion of the gm's mental bandwidth a selection of monsters devour
• The assumptions used to target how monster math should be tuned at various levels of play (ie attribute assumptions magic items etc)
• Ballpark estimate monster details (like the confirmed incorrect dmg table)
• Insight into the reasons why those numbers were chosen and maybe some of the formulas involved when appropriate
• Any details that can be shared about tools like templates and such that allow a gm to easily power skew and theme a monster to suit the needs of their group and desired adventure/plot niche
• Etc

Pages and pages of monsters is the opposite of useful because it's an extremely nontrivial amount of number crunching to get at those kinds of things. Worse still is that with statblocks there is no way of knowing if you feel the original assumptions & math used to set the numbers is garbage or if you just made some mistakes in unraveling the statblocks.

 

[Vaalingrade]

New Theory: the never release Packet 7, say nothing about it, then people start insisting they never said there was going to be a Packet 7. In 2033, people will be insisting that there was never a Playtest at all.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

They didn't UA the Giants with rune mechanic, which was neat. I don't think we are getting MM UAs and THAT changes the timeline math entirely. A few DMG UAs won't take long, no way there will be as many DMG UAs as PHB UAs, not even close, DMG isn't as mechanics heavy.

Bastions and like what else for DMG UAs?

 

[Parmandur]

They didn't UA the Giants with rune mechanic, which was neat. I don't think we are getting MM UAs and THAT changes the timeline math entirely. A few DMG UAs won't take long, no way there will be as many DMG UAs as PHB UAs, not even close, DMG isn't as mechanics heavy.

Bastions and like what else for DMG UAs?

They said they have something for the MM, but it's entirely possible we might just see like a single UA for both MM and DmG content.

 

[MockingBird]

We will probably get, hopefully, better instructions on encounter building. That may be the extent of anything monster related in the UAs.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

New Theory: the never release Packet 7, say nothing about it, then people start insisting they never said there was going to be a Packet 7. In 2033, people will be insisting that there was never a Playtest at all.

Ah yes, the case of Leaisure Suit Larry and the missing floppies (still say Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude is the best LL game).

 

[bedir than]

New Theory: the never release Packet 7, say nothing about it, then people start insisting they never said there was going to be a Packet 7. In 2033, people will be insisting that there was never a Playtest at all.

They'll release a packet 8 and a review of packet 7 feedback in mid September.
Packet 7 was only available in the Ethereal

 

[Remathilis]

I got really excited notification of a new video on the YouTube channel, only to see it's more Phandelver previews...