Bring all your pettiest complaints about the playtest

[Ratskinner]

I'm not sure it counts as a petty complaint or not...

I hate the fact that specialties & feats like Necromancer, Magic User, and maybe even Guardian restrict themselves to only a subset of classes. I feel it compromises the entire design by putting what are effectively subclasses into a different section of the game. If you have something that needs to modify only wizards and clerics...well then give wizards and clerics something akin to thieves' schemes. Clerics already have one: domains. I don't see why wizards shouldn't get a subclassing system as well.

I'm a little less upset by prerequisites like "Wisdom of 11 or greater", but honestly, I don't know why they are needed. If you want to be an "Initiate of the Faith" but have a Wisdom 9, why should I stop you? Maybe they could include some note that its suboptimal, to avoid it being labeled a "trap" option. Looking out for your future feat prerequisites at character creation was one of the things that made 3e such a drag. Especially when generating higher level characters.

That is not to say that I dislike the "flavor" or "story" part of having those specialties around. I love the idea of a character running around with his skeletal lackey. I just don't see why it has to be restricted to casters. (Or if it should be...why it isn't somehow in their descriptions.

 

[Ratskinner]

Dwarves are Lawful. They're born toilet trained.

I just thought the waste recycling systems were part of the reason their armor is so heavy.

 

[Stormonu]

Speaking of currency, my complaint is they dropped electrum.


Did anyone even notice it being IN the last playtest - let alone being happy to see it back - besides me?

 

[Underman]

MI6 may have given Bond a license to kill, but this thread gives me a license to be petty. Bring on the pretty petty Bond girls.

Thieves and Thugs read weirdly. Thugs are too city savvy to be ambushed, but not city thieves who presumably spend just as much time watching out for coppers in dark alleyways. A level 1 to 4 thug can painfully debilitate their enemies with painful strikes but only a level 5 thug can cause them to stagger with pain. A level 1 to 5 fighter also gets no cheap shot: Apparently, all medieval-style warriors are taught to fight fair, even against orcs and goblins; no grim fighter ever kicked a gnoll in the balls, only level 5 thugs do that.

 

[cmbarona]

Elves spending 20 years in diapers, anyone?

Wait, since when do elves poop?

Anyway, maybe it's just knowing enough about church history, but I've always been bothered by the lack of INT as a useful stat for Divine characters (save the Artificer in 3e, I think). Thomas Aquinas, anyone? The reverse could be said of WIS and Arcane classes, especially when you're looking at the "Sage" background for a wizard. I know backgrounds and specialties aren't the same thing, but there is some potential overlap, especially considering they actually do overlap with the Rogue subclasses Thief and Thug. And speaking of which, I agree that it would be nice to keep a small number of classes with some greater flexibility in subclasses, or something to that effect. Something just feels a little off when comparing the Fighter and Wizard, who get their class flexibility from specialties only, to the Rogue and Cleric, who have the Theme and Domain subclass mechanics as well. I like this flexibility, but I think it could be better organized. Basically, subclasses, or whatever else you call them, should be class-specific (or even "power source"-specific, should they want to do that), and specialties should be open to everyone. Or something like that. To relate this back to the beginning of my pettiness, I really like that you can make a viable high-DEX fighter; why not a viable high-INT cleric?

 

[Scipio202]

Bless water

Bless water is an at-will spell, but costs 25gp in consumed material components per casting (to make one pint).

 

[Someone]

Bless water is an at-will spell, but costs 25gp in consumed material components per casting (to make one pint).

...that deals the mighty total of 1d4 damage to fiends and evil undead. You can bankrupt yourself trying to kill a few zombies.

 

[Raith5]

Yeah I don't know why they're stepping away from Fort/Ref/Will, because there are mainly going to be two problems resulting from this.

- It will be hard to find spells that target certain stats
- When there is a spell that targets one of those hard to find stats it will have to be fairly weak since it would likely be an instant hit. (ie. Int/Cha)

There is nothing petty about this at all.

Saves and magic attacks for me is the only aspect of DDN that looks thoroughly wonky and clunky.

Fort/Ref/Will is one aspect of 4th which worked really well (But I think the 4th ed save mechanic was too random).

 

[Al'Kelhar]

Speaking of currency, my complaint is they dropped electrum.


Did anyone even notice it being IN the last playtest - let alone being happy to see it back - besides me?

I think electrum is back in the latest playtest material. Something about it being coinage of an ancient empire, that raises suspicion when being used. I don't have the playtest packet with me at the moment, but electrum is there in the Equipment document.

Elves spending 20 years in diapers, anyone?

Well, obviously they spend 18 of those years in the Feywild, which as everyone who reads fairy tales knows, passes in around 6 seconds of time in the Real World...

Cheers, Al'Kelhar

 

[FireLance]

Here's one: wizards get a bonus to weapon attacks, while monsters such as gobins, orcs, gnolls, bugbears, ogres and minotaurs don't (check their attack rolls against their base stats).