D&D 5E December Package is here, it was about time!!

[variant]

I think they should remove the Martial Damage Bonus and Martial Damage Dice need to scale with the weapon the character is using.

The limit is the time required, which can be minutes or even hours. There's also the limit that only certain spells can be used as rituals. If it's not overpowered for academic wizards to be able to cast rituals out of their book, it's not overpowered for any other type of wizard to have that ability.

I think Illusionists and Evokers should have similar access to any of their school's spells that they have in their spellbook.

 

[variant]

Another thing is I think the skill dice scale too fast. Maybe d8? This would also leave d10 and d12 for post-20 leveling in the future. I very much like this design concept though.

 

[Sunseeker]

The cleric needs some way to keep up with melee damage in order to stay relevant. Otherwise, the warpriest would be a very sub-optimal build. Giving them the same damage dice that other martial classes get will make things easier when it comes to getting feats that grant maneuvers, or when multi-classing.

I think the Cleric, even the "Warpriest" style is supposed to rely on their magical means of dealing extra damage. Giving the Cleric full fighter dice in order for them to get into maneuvers that require them would just make them a Fighter+, which isn't good game design, if the Cleric is a Fighter+, why do we need the Fighter?

The Cleric, even the Warpriest, doesn't need manuevers, they have the "Channel XXXX" features, which function more or less in the same.

 

[bbjore]

I love the design direction they've taken a lot of the classes, but I'm really disappointed in the lack of options all around for PCs. I'm going to give it a try at the table, but I feel like encounters are still going to feel like a one or two round game of rocket tag, even at high level. For instance, a fight with Asmodeus will likely be a two round affair with all the PCs piling on enough damage to drop him, or a bunch of dead PCs due to the rod attack. I don't think that will make for a very exciting encounter.

The way they're implementing bounded math has always bugged me, and continues to be my biggest complaint with the system. I am 100% behind reducing the scaling compared to 3.5 or 4E, but I think they've gone way to far. Right now it feels like all they did was take levels 1-8 and stretch them out to level 20. If that's what I wanted, I'd only play levels 1-8.

I with they implemented more based on tiers. I don't need lvl 1 monsters to be a threat at level 20, I just need a group of them to be able to gank a single PC up to level 12 or so if they get the jump on them. Level 6-8 monsters can gang up on a lvl 20 PC, and lvl 12-15 can gang up on a lvl 30 PC (if they had that). Trying to make lvl 1 monsters last so long, just makes high level monsters and PCs seem uninspiring and weak. I mean a medusa is level 6? That means all you need is a group of 8 or so town guards to go and grab a snake head. And like I mentioned above, Asmodeus is a joke without his instant death ability. I don't know why a group of 40 or so lesser devils haven't ripped him to shreds by now.

 

[Raith5]

The way they're implementing bounded math has always bugged me, and continues to be my biggest complaint with the system. I am 100% behind reducing the scaling compared to 3.5 or 4E, but I think they've gone way to far. Right now it feels like all they did was take levels 1-8 and stretch them out to level 20. If that's what I wanted, I'd only play levels 1-8

I 100% agree (especially with a relative lack of fighter abilities at higher levels). I hope they stretch things a bit more. Having Asmodeus at 20 th level rubs me the wrong way.

 

[bbjore]

I 100% agree (especially with a relative lack of fighter abilities at higher levels). I hope they stretch things a bit more. Having Asmodeus at 20 th level rubs me the wrong way.

Exactly, I was struggling for a way to describe it, and then it hit me. If you split the game in to 4E style tiers, Next is shaping up to be an awesome system for only playing in the heroic tier. That's great for those that want that, but most of my campaigns stopped spending a lot of time in the heroic tier long ago. Asmodeus (and how I imagine encounters with him will play out) is a good example of why the scaling of the game could probably use a little more stretching.

 

[Klaus]

Like:

- Casting Spells in Armor.
- Cleric variety (specially the addition of the Arcanist).
- Monk traditions!!!
- Rogue (I'm digging the Treasure Hunter a lot).
- Sneak Attack that modifies Deadly Strike, instead of a different ability.

Dislike:
- Martial Damage Bonus: this is just another thing to add in addition to Martial Expertise Dice? Just too many different stuff. Should be either one or the other.
- Parry as a Fighter-only move. It worked well as a maneuver. Give the Fighter Weapon Specialization!

Unsure:
- Skill Dice: could be good, could be bad. Let's see how it goes. There should at least be the option for taking the average.

More as I process the packet.

 

[ppaladin123]

The cleric doesn't get any maneuvers natively. They can only use the martial damage dice to increase their attack damage (which I believe is basically the way 5e avoid the need for +X weapons). If a cleric wants to use the martial damage dice to do carry out a maneuver she has to take a feat to gain one and then can only learn off the much more limited general maneuver list. The cleric is never going to do what a fighter can do without multiclassing.

 

[Kaodi]

Four feats is still four more than you ever had in 1E, . But I think the fact that you can retrain one at every level is probably why they think they can get away with not gaining any more after level 9. It is, as far as I can tell, one of the bids to keep things from bloating.

Edit: Anyway, I guess we can assume Level 20 is the max now? Or had that already been stated before?

 

[Salamandyr]

Overall, I like what I'm seeing. However, I do have one thing that bugs me...Nerfing attack bonii. Yes, it makes for smaller numbers, and that's good. However, that makes skill and training take an even bigger back seat to raw attribute numbers than ever.

I realize I'm not going to get my wish, but I really would have liked to see strength or dexterity not add to attack bonus at all--damage only. Physical advantages are nice, but in the real world they take a far back seat to training and practice.