D&D 5E 02/08/13 New playtest packet to released today. [Udate: PACKAGE OUT!][

[variant]

It's not your job to wonder how it's going to work... it's your job to playtest it when its released to make sure it does work.

I disagree. They want our general opinion on the contents of the playtest packet they gave us. They changed the name of the Wizard to Mage without any justification given and gave us hints they plan to merge three classes into one.

 

[Kobold Stew]

[*]Rogues have gotten some needed polishing. I'm really liking how 5E has moved away from the "striker" rogue of 4E and instead is embracing a "bag of tricks" vision for the class. If my mage dies, I'm playing a rogue next.

I'll admit that I am less impressed with the developments to the rogue in the last 2-3 packets. While somewhat surprisingly they maintain the sense of a skill-monkey having removed skills, I really feel that the rogue has lost the versatility it looked like it was going to possess. We can choose between being a thief and and assassin -- that was the choice in AD&D, and while it is fine (they have made both of those archetypes appealing to play), they lack some internal consistency (e.g. why are all thieves so charming? isn't that a ridiculously narrow archetype?) and all rogues are DEX rogues.

The greatest virtue of the DDN-rogue-that-was was its flexibility: that it was reasonable to contemplate a STR rogue (the thug in the original packet), a WIS rogue (a scout), a CHA rogue (the "face"), or a combination of these. That flexibility is gone, and I hope it comes back in the other Styles.

[*]Not as happy about the ranger. The Favored Enemy system in the last packet was really cool. Now it's just another name for "Dual wielding or archery?" Haven't had much of a look at the ranger spells yet, but I've never felt rangers were really meant to be casters. If you want nature magic, pick up a level or two of druid (yes, I know we don't have multiclassing yet).

This too feels regressive to me -- imposing 3.x choices instead of the richer range of possibilities they had been considering.

[*]Barbarian seems a bit weak compared to the fighter. Fewer ability score boosts, no Action Surge, multiattack comes later and tops out at two, no heavy armor. Do rage, d12 hit dice, and superior mobility compensate? Maybe. Haven't seen one in play, so it's hard to say for sure. All that said, that's a balance issue which can be addressed later. Viewed on its own, the barbarian class is awesome.

Stalker0's thread here demonstrates that by the numbers the Barb holds up.

[*]Many of the new feats are very good, and choosing between them and +2 stats is appropriately hard. On the other hand, some are worthless--Loremaster? Really? Quick, raise your hand if you think four bonus fields of lore is worth giving up +2 to your stats. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
[*]Unless they come out with some really beefy mage feats, most mages will never see a single feat. As long as your save DCs key off your ability scores, it's very hard to say no to boosting your Int. And since it takes two stat boosts to bring your Int to maximum, by the time you're ready to consider feats, you're 14th level. I guess that's okay. What with traditions and all, mages have plenty going on already.

This is the first time I have seen this concern raised since the packet came out -- before that, yes: the feat for ability boost equation seemed obvious. And it still is for the mage (unless an elf wants to be an Arcane Archer). But for other classes, the super-feats are a lot less obvious in terms of trade-off, and I can see reasonable builds that don't build-to-20 from the get-go. That, in the end, will be the test of success for the feat list.

In this thread, I noted that there is no metamagic or antimagic feats, both of which should be coming. And both of them should prove desirable to certain mage builds.

 

[JamesonCourage]

I just wish they would come out and tell us their plans. That or if they planned to shove everything under the Mage, release all of it so there isn't any guessing. I honestly just don't see how it can work when you consider that the Wizard, Sorcerer, and Warlock will all have their own specializations. Adding all of it together would make a single class quite bloated, complicated and not mesh well together.

Not to mention it'd make being a multi-class [Warlock / Sorcerer, Warlock / Mage, Mage / Sorcerer] unavailable. The more you consolidate classes, the harder it will be to multi-class them. Which is why I'm kinda wary of subclasses, honestly. As always, play what you like

 

[Kobold Stew]

Not to mention it'd make being a multi-class [Warlock / Sorcerer, Warlock / Mage, Mage / Sorcerer] unavailable. The more you consolidate classes, the harder it will be to multi-class them. Which is why I'm kinda wary of subclasses, honestly. As always, play what you like

This is the best argument I have seen in favour of subclassing classes that in the past have been independent.

 

[Li Shenron]

I just wish they would come out and tell us their plans. That or if they planned to shove everything under the Mage, release all of it so there isn't any guessing. I honestly just don't see how it can work when you consider that the Wizard, Sorcerer, and Warlock will all have their own specializations. Adding all of it together would make a single class quite bloated, complicated and not mesh well together.

Yes, at least the Wizard has potentially a large number of subclasses (i.e. arcane traditions) so why making the Sorcerer and the Warlock two of those many? Furthermore, the Sorcerer itself can easily have a decent number of subclasses depending on bloodlines, and I guess there's room for Warlock subclasses too.

The second option, that of replacing the "Wizardry" mechanic with another spellcasting mechanic, is better. Then the arcane traditions modify spellcasting and not everything there applies to wizardry mechanics, so must likely (as suggested by the names of the arcane traditions) there will be separate traditions for wizardry, sorcery and witchcraft. But then take a look at what is left: Scribe Scroll, Brew Potion, bonus Lore and Spell Mastery, which are pretty few to be the unchanging backbone of a class (also the latter is not applicable to Sorcerers if they cast at will as in 3e).

So there is the interesting novelty of lumping all arcane casters into the same class, but then we have to change the "meat" of it when switching to another spellcasting mechanic. At this point, it would be easier to just have 3 different classes, which then can also multiclass...

 

[Li Shenron]

This is the best argument I have seen in favour of subclassing classes that in the past have been independent.

So I suppose you would also like Cleric/Druids to be unavailable? Rangers/Paladins? How about Fighter/Rangers or Fighter/Paladins or Fighter/Barbarians etc.? Clerics/Wizards, Druid/Wizards?

I am not a fan of multiclassing, but I see no reason why Cleric/Druid, Druid/Wizard or Cleric/Wizard (and Cleric/Druid/Wizard!) should be in, while Wizard/Sorcerer and Wizard/Warlock should be out. ALL these spellcasters have been in the past distinguished by their narrative source of magic, so there are at least some story reasons for possible multiclass here.

 

[Kobold Stew]

You suppose incorrectly.

But if we are making ungrounded extrapolations from a single observation, let's go the other way:

I may prefer to play a rogue (assassin) 4/rogue (thief) 4 than a rouge (either) 8. How is that fundamentally different from the possibilities that you suggest, except for an arbitrary line-in-the-sand? Or a Cleric (War)/Cleric (Light)? Eventually, a line has to be drawn as what is a class, what a subclass.

Illusionists and Assassins have been independent classes in the past, now they are not. We roll with it. But the choices made by designers should consider not what one individual somewhere might someday want to play, but what makes the game that meets their criteria of success (including crucial but unquantifiable virtues such as marketability, fun, "balance", etc.).

 

[gyor]

Stew you do realize that they have way more subclasses played right? Thier not going to just leave it at just a choice between Thief and Assassin for rogues for example. This is just what they had ready right now. They've made it clear that more subclasses will be coming in future packets.

 

[MoonSong]

Yes, at least the Wizard has potentially a large number of subclasses (i.e. arcane traditions) so why making the Sorcerer and the Warlock two of those many? Furthermore, the Sorcerer itself can easily have a decent number of subclasses depending on bloodlines, and I guess there's room for Warlock subclasses too.

The second option, that of replacing the "Wizardry" mechanic with another spellcasting mechanic, is better. Then the arcane traditions modify spellcasting and not everything there applies to wizardry mechanics, so must likely (as suggested by the names of the arcane traditions) there will be separate traditions for wizardry, sorcery and witchcraft. But then take a look at what is left: Scribe Scroll, Brew Potion, bonus Lore and Spell Mastery, which are pretty few to be the unchanging backbone of a class (also the latter is not applicable to Sorcerers if they cast at will as in 3e).

So there is the interesting novelty of lumping all arcane casters into the same class, but then we have to change the "meat" of it when switching to another spellcasting mechanic. At this point, it would be easier to just have 3 different classes, which then can also multiclass...

That is the best we are hoping for, for sorcerer and warlock to be their own classes with subclasses of their own, balanced to account for the fact they usually have different ability score dependencies and their flavour being more diverse.

Warning, the following is highly speculatory and not meant as derogatory to any person, fictitious or real.

I cannot help but thinking on hindsight that someone on the design team really, really has set out to impose his/her extremely narrow vision on magic upon the edition. I don't have anything against naming the class mage (that was the name on 2e), while I'm on principle agaisnt the "one class to rule them all" approach there is some good potential (like the sorcerer making it into the basic game or beign allowed to keep the whole repertory -up to 40 spells at 20th level- available all times, but being realistic that will never happen), could ignore the "necromancy is Evil and bad-wrong-fun" and while I loathed the monstrous approach for the first versions of sorcerer and warlock, they felt like sorcerers and warlocks -just uglier and meaner-. But all of those things add up together.

Is there someone among the developpers -let's say "designer x"- behind all of this? someone who thought "sorcerer and warlock will be in this package, let's make them as monstrous, unsettling and controverisal as possible (arcane casting on heavy armor while using martial weapons, the infamous "two souls you turn into a monster" fiasco, the "your patron steals your beauty", or your warlock is now Int primary)" then upon complains from wizard players who wanted a non-vancian option proppossed an umbrella "lets' make casting system optional, because if wizards need it those other two poorsaps need it too, let's remove them meanwhile", who also set out to remove the cool specialties and feats because they were 'wrong' ("necromancer? that is evil", "Arcanne dabbler how they dare being able to learn any two cantrips? they should only get the two I consider appropriate and nothing more") and now just wants to lump them together into being wizard subclasses at the cost of their own identity "because they are just wizard light anyway".

I know this one borders on conspiracy paranoia, but again it wouldn't be the first time a designer for an edition hated the sorcerer's guts. So is Designer X real?

 

[Kobold Stew]

Stew you do realize that they have way more subclasses played right? Thier not going to just leave it at just a choice between Thief and Assassin for rogues for example. This is just what they had ready right now. They've made it clear that more subclasses will be coming in future packets.

Yup, and I said so:
"That flexibility is gone, and I hope it comes back in the other Styles." (post 272).

That still doesn't explain the inconsistencies, esp. rolling the flash of the swashbuckler into the Thievery style.