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Thirteen observations about Xanathar’s Guide
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<blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 7284714" data-attributes="member: 1465"><p>Is this a 3rd level feature? I suppose it is, in which case it's not a huge deal. Just tell the player <em>not</em> to pick Nature or Survival proficiencies at 1st level, or at least not to pick Expertise, since she'll get it anyway a couple of levels later. Alternatively, the DM can allow swapping expertise to another skill but that's a house rule. OTOH, if this is a 9th (or more) level feature then it's an issue... you can't really ask a Scout player to wait so long without those defining skills.</p><p></p><p>I also wonder why not just call this Expertise, if after all it's not supposed to stack with it. They did the same thing with the Ranger class feature. If it works like Expertise, and doesn't stack with it, why not just give it the same name? This is not like Advantage with activates other special abilities (so it makes sense to have some features which allow 2 rolls-pick-the-highest <em>without</em> them being the same as advantage), IIRC there is no feature in the game which activates only if you have expertise, but I may be wrong. Thus, not calling these features Expertise just complicates bookkeeping...</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I wonder how many people actually asked for this... it sounds like that kind of stuff that is almost never needed, and yet many might want it written in an official book anyway. Whatever... at least it clarifies that the DM should basically force everyone to start without armor when the party is ambushed during sleep <em>unless</em> someone specifically chooses to sleep in armor and take the penalties.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Actually this sounds like a good idea to me. Sleight-of-hand sounds appropriate, and I like the idea of adding new uses for skills that are narrower than average.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>This sounds very interesting... does this apply only to skill+tool or also to skill+skill? I would prefer the former, because it increases the value of tools proficiencies relative to the value of skills.</p><p></p><p>Anyway I suppose that there were 3 options here: no effect, advantage, expertise. I think advantage catches a nice middle ground in terms of benefits to the actual check, <em>although</em> it may also activate special abilities that require advantage. I am generally not so fond of getting advantage easily, but for skills it's not nearly as a big deal as with attacks.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><em>Ceremony</em> got the lowest possible vote for me in the feedback. As usual, I am a special snowflake... </p><p></p><p>Anyway the Atonement effect basically brings back the old Atonement spell (but down to 1st level!). This campaign-dependent, considering that many groups nowadays don't even use alignments, but yet this is IMO actually THE main effect of this spell, compared to the other uses. If you don't use alignments, you can pretty much ignore this spell for the whole campaign, unless something very specific comes up.</p><p></p><p>If the wording hasn't changed from UA, it should work also in the case when alignment is changed magically. I think it's very much open to debate whether a PC is "willing" or not. I would not take it for granted that someone "evil" is happy to be like that, there's a lot of people who don't like what they are and would like to change... Let's also keep in mind that this doesn't actually <em>change</em> someone's alignment but only <em>reverts</em> it back to what is presumably a fairly stable value.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>They are pretty stupid effects. Apparently someone at WotC got amused by the idea. It made it into XGE only because the time between UA and XGE was short, and it got reviewed/feedbacked only once. IMO it's similar to other fancy controversial ideas like the "intoxicated" condition that amused the designers (or their bosses), then becamse stale and boring, and was ultimately discarded. Same would have happened here if only there had been a longer time window before publication.</p><p></p><p>I can see that it might be used in a <em>very well played and run</em> campaign where some of the PCs go through these life events, but honestly there was absolutely no need for mechanical benefits, and also for a spell that could have been just a narrated non-magical ceremony.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Honestly I am happy with that, from what I've heard those cantrips give too much melee strength. They also have dorky cartoonish names for my tastes <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Li Shenron, post: 7284714, member: 1465"] Is this a 3rd level feature? I suppose it is, in which case it's not a huge deal. Just tell the player [I]not[/I] to pick Nature or Survival proficiencies at 1st level, or at least not to pick Expertise, since she'll get it anyway a couple of levels later. Alternatively, the DM can allow swapping expertise to another skill but that's a house rule. OTOH, if this is a 9th (or more) level feature then it's an issue... you can't really ask a Scout player to wait so long without those defining skills. I also wonder why not just call this Expertise, if after all it's not supposed to stack with it. They did the same thing with the Ranger class feature. If it works like Expertise, and doesn't stack with it, why not just give it the same name? This is not like Advantage with activates other special abilities (so it makes sense to have some features which allow 2 rolls-pick-the-highest [I]without[/I] them being the same as advantage), IIRC there is no feature in the game which activates only if you have expertise, but I may be wrong. Thus, not calling these features Expertise just complicates bookkeeping... I wonder how many people actually asked for this... it sounds like that kind of stuff that is almost never needed, and yet many might want it written in an official book anyway. Whatever... at least it clarifies that the DM should basically force everyone to start without armor when the party is ambushed during sleep [I]unless[/I] someone specifically chooses to sleep in armor and take the penalties. Actually this sounds like a good idea to me. Sleight-of-hand sounds appropriate, and I like the idea of adding new uses for skills that are narrower than average. This sounds very interesting... does this apply only to skill+tool or also to skill+skill? I would prefer the former, because it increases the value of tools proficiencies relative to the value of skills. Anyway I suppose that there were 3 options here: no effect, advantage, expertise. I think advantage catches a nice middle ground in terms of benefits to the actual check, [I]although[/I] it may also activate special abilities that require advantage. I am generally not so fond of getting advantage easily, but for skills it's not nearly as a big deal as with attacks. [I]Ceremony[/I] got the lowest possible vote for me in the feedback. As usual, I am a special snowflake... Anyway the Atonement effect basically brings back the old Atonement spell (but down to 1st level!). This campaign-dependent, considering that many groups nowadays don't even use alignments, but yet this is IMO actually THE main effect of this spell, compared to the other uses. If you don't use alignments, you can pretty much ignore this spell for the whole campaign, unless something very specific comes up. If the wording hasn't changed from UA, it should work also in the case when alignment is changed magically. I think it's very much open to debate whether a PC is "willing" or not. I would not take it for granted that someone "evil" is happy to be like that, there's a lot of people who don't like what they are and would like to change... Let's also keep in mind that this doesn't actually [I]change[/I] someone's alignment but only [I]reverts[/I] it back to what is presumably a fairly stable value. They are pretty stupid effects. Apparently someone at WotC got amused by the idea. It made it into XGE only because the time between UA and XGE was short, and it got reviewed/feedbacked only once. IMO it's similar to other fancy controversial ideas like the "intoxicated" condition that amused the designers (or their bosses), then becamse stale and boring, and was ultimately discarded. Same would have happened here if only there had been a longer time window before publication. I can see that it might be used in a [I]very well played and run[/I] campaign where some of the PCs go through these life events, but honestly there was absolutely no need for mechanical benefits, and also for a spell that could have been just a narrated non-magical ceremony. Honestly I am happy with that, from what I've heard those cantrips give too much melee strength. They also have dorky cartoonish names for my tastes :) [/QUOTE]
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