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D&D 5E October 29th Playtest Class Changes

Specialties look very balanced. But now have a very cold and clinical feel to them.

Good observation, I couldn't put my finger on what I thought of them. But that hits the spot.

Quite like backgrounds in terms of flavor but still reckon the skill system is overly granular. Do we really need a separate skill for riding and driving (a cart)?
 

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So far, I like what I am seeing. My only complaints:

1) No archery or ranged weapon specialty any more, and no ranged rogue scheme to make up for it. Now my buddy is going to have to rethink his sniper rogue.

2) Clerics cannot use quarerstaffs. But the Staff of Striking still lists cleric as one of the only classes that can attune to it. Similarly, Warbringer clerics cannot use short swords. Both of these items are listed solely as finesse weapons even though they don't have to be used that way according to the rules. Finesse should be a property, not a category.
 

That was my initial reaction too, but I'm coming around to deities because I think it's more accessible for new players. In 3e, players had to pick a deity and then choose a domain (actually -- choose 2 from a list). As part of D&DN's focus on reducing the number of unimportant choices in character creation (see backgrounds, specialties), the designers simplified this concept into simply picking a deity.

Personally, I miss the opportunity for different clerics of the same deity to pick-and-choose different light-weight aspects of that deity to focused on. But since that's not really compatible with the current pick-one heavy-weight design for deities/dominions, I think "deity" is a better concept for players to select.

-KS

makes sense but if you gave each god 2-3 domains and just tell the players to pick god and then one domain, or a clever DM could just tell them to pick a domain and then tell them who their god is from the domain they picked, they would be happy and so would i
 


Only twice per day. The rest of the time, he'll be using weaker spells or cantrips. 1d6 + 3 damage rays of frost are pretty sad compared to a fighter's [W] + Str bonus + 2d6 (at level 6). With a two-handed weapon and an 18 Str, that damage is d12 + 4 + 2d6, or (7-28, avg. 17.5) damage. A fireball does 5d6 (5-30, avg. 17.5) damage. The average damage is the same, but that's the wizard's highest level spell (3rd level) at level 6, and he can only cast two per day! The rest of the time, whether using lower level spells or cantrips, the fighter is far out-damaging him. I don't think that's right.
How much area does the Fireball hit? How many enemies can it hit (if they're tightly packed, such as non-combat scenarios)?

In my longest running single campaign (at high level), the Fighter in the party took out nine minions and an orc commander in one turn with his sword (knocked out the commander). The Sorcerer, in the meantime, killed a couple hundred orc soldiers on the city streets with multiple Wall of Fire spells into tightly packed orc lines. They both (as characters and players) were super impressed with what the other one was able to accomplish (and the characters were jealous of each other).

(As an aside, the Sorcerer later Gated them outside of a dimensionally locked orc cleric's stronghold on another plane, where they had to fight him. The orc cleric Blinded the Sorcerer, and caught him with Bigby's Crushing Hand. The Sorcerer was blind, grappled, and couldn't teleport [dimensionally locked via Forbiddance], and basically could only scream for help. The Fighter saved him by destroying the Hand, and then took out the Cleric as well. Again, they were both jealous of each other's abilities.)

I dunno. Fireball dealing as much as the Fighter can to all enemies in an area is pretty powerful in my book, but I know each table plays differently. Just thought I'd give my input on it. As always, play what you like :)
 

I dunno. Fireball dealing as much as the Fighter can to all enemies in an area is pretty powerful in my book, but I know each table plays differently. Just thought I'd give my input on it. As always, play what you like :)

A wizard can't cast fireball every round, all day long. If he could, it would be a very different story. But as it is right now, daily spells are a scarce resource for wizards, especially since the number of daily spells they have just got cut down considerably in this packet.

So what you end up with is the wizard doing about 1/3 a fighter's damage except for a few times a day when he can afford to use a daily spell. This gap only continues to grow as the party levels up and the fighter gets better combat expertise dice and (presumably) more extra attacks.

Yeah, the wizard gets more daily spells, but even if we give him 2 spells of each level from 1st-10th, that's 20 daily spells, and only the higher level ones are going to compete with fighter damage at that level. The rest just don't suck as bad as the at-wills. So the wizard is still only equalling or exceeding the fighter a few times per day, and the rest of the day he's behind. That doesn't sound like a very fun wizard class to me.
 

A wizard can't cast fireball every round, all day long.
Right, but my point was that the Fighter can't hit every enemy in an area like Fireball can ever. The Fireball just does just as much damage as a Fighter completely focusing on attacking, but hits a big area, potentially hurting/killing a lot of enemies. Limits: only so many times per day.
So what you end up with is the wizard doing about 1/3 a fighter's damage except for a few times a day when he can afford to use a daily spell.
In the context of Fireball, this depends entirely on how many enemies he hits, and how many fights they get into (thus the whole objection people have with daily resources vs. non-daily resources when it comes to balance). Some days, the Fighter will do more than the Wizard, other times he'll do less. Hard to say how it'll play out, since it likely depends on play style quite a bit (do you use a lot of enemies? Do you have a lot of combat encounters each day? Etc.).
Yeah, the wizard gets more daily spells, but even if we give him 2 spells of each level from 1st-10th, that's 20 daily spells, and only the higher level ones are going to compete with fighter damage at that level. The rest just don't suck as bad as the at-wills. So the wizard is still only equalling or exceeding the fighter a few times per day, and the rest of the day he's behind. That doesn't sound like a very fun wizard class to me.
Depends on how much versatility he gets. If you want Wizard as Blaster, probably not as fun, no. I like my Wizards as kind of magical Jack Of All Trades, not Blasters. It's admittedly a preference thing. As always, play what you like :)
 

Wow, this was shockingly disappointing.

Still I'll start with things I like, its a smaller list and I like to be positive.

The Trickster deity, although heavy armour is wasted as the Trickster Cleric's primary stat should Dex then Wisdom. Yep, I said Wisdom as second at best.

Some of the new Cantrips and Orisons, but not the new mechanic for handling them, both should stay at wills.

I like the new skill expertise manuever for Rogues.

I like the return of whirlwind attack.

I like the Wizard traditions.

I like the words of power thing for spells.

The return of using skills with any ability scores that make sense.

Now the dislikes

One redunant manuevers, you could spring attack in the previous packet with Jab amoung other things, very few of the new manuevers are any good.

Two give the cleric back Channel Divinity, Turn Undead is useless in a large percentage of the games over powered in ones with undead as its now at will. Channel divinity was cool. In,general they need to go back to the previous design for clerics, I can live with fewer spells if Clerics at least got Channel Divinity.

Three Making Orisons and Cantrips none at will. I don't like what they did to Orisons, 0 level spells should remain slotless atwills. Also more combat Orisons then Radiant Lance needed, although Cure Minor wounds could work if they got ride of the spell restriction as it has the word of power keyword, so can be combined with a regular attack.

They got waaaayyyy to carried away with the nerf stick.

Multiple manuever dice need to be gained sooner, even if the dice size is smaller.

Spells need more key words badly, trying to figure out the ones with somatic compenants is a royal pain.

With the current spell progression a chart is absolutely unneeded. The spells you have is always two except your highest spell level during odd number levels is only 1.

Change the Rogue's schemes back to being based a his bonus backguard, I miss the bonus trait, you can still offer manuevers depending on your choice of scheme.

More none combat spells need a ritual form and with the reduced spells casters the none healing/permanant creation rituals should be free, but still time consuming like they are now.

One build I noticed is the High Elf Jester Arcane Specialist Trickster Cleric. Dex primary, wisdom secondary.

This build has as many skills as a none elf rogue (not including specialist). For example Spot, Listen, Escape, Perform, Tumble, Balance, Religious Knoweldge, and Sneak.

You can use a d10 long bow, turn invisible once every ten minutes, use finesse weapons.

Magically has more diverse magic then the other Archetypes, enjoying some off the wizards spell list.

At will Minor illusion from Archetype and At will cantrip in this case Disguise.

Quicken Spell works well, fire off flame strike and fire your bow in the same turn or use two weapon fighting.

I'd trade the first level feat for another.
 

A wizard can't cast fireball every round, all day long. If he could, it would be a very different story. But as it is right now, daily spells are a scarce resource for wizards, especially since the number of daily spells they have just got cut down considerably in this packet.

So what you end up with is the wizard doing about 1/3 a fighter's damage except for a few times a day when he can afford to use a daily spell. This gap only continues to grow as the party levels up and the fighter gets better combat expertise dice and (presumably) more extra attacks.

Yeah, the wizard gets more daily spells, but even if we give him 2 spells of each level from 1st-10th, that's 20 daily spells, and only the higher level ones are going to compete with fighter damage at that level. The rest just don't suck as bad as the at-wills. So the wizard is still only equalling or exceeding the fighter a few times per day, and the rest of the day he's behind. That doesn't sound like a very fun wizard class to me.

A 10th level Fighter with a 16 or 17 Strength armed with a Greatsword deals 21.125 damage average per round using only Deadly Strike when attacking a Black Dragon. (232.375 total over 11 rounds)

0.3025*(13+6+15.5)+0.495*(6.5+3+15.5)= 21.125

A 10th level Academic Wizard preparing only Magic Missiles deals an average of 31.82 damage over eleven rounds. (350 total over 11 rounds)

(3*(5*10)+2*(4*10)+2*(3*10)+2*(2*10)+2*(1*10))/11

The Battle Mage does even more, but you have to factor in number of encounters and average number of targets hit by Thunderwave.
 
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