D&D 5E D&D Next Q&A 11/22/13

[TwoSix]

Honestly, reminds me of the 3e Binder.

Which means it might make a good Warlock pact. There's the book, the chain, the blade. There's also the...soul? The body? The forgotten Vestiges of powerful creatures want to experience the world for a moment longer, and you can use their powers, but as you do, they manifest through you.

I can see the resemblance, in the vestige signs. That would be an interesting feature.

I would personally call it a blood-pact, as I see it as being a pact that you personally didn't make, but has been passed onto you via a family curse/bloodline, etc. I guess part of that would depend on whether you like the thematic concept of your character being given this curse that he didn't earn via his own volition. I know some people really don't like that concept for D&D characters.

I could see that working well for fey or infernal powers. I think draconic or abyssal type powers should feel more visceral, though.

 

[TwoSix]

Well for myself, in the books and movies that influenced me, origin (e.g. infernal, draconic) did not result in transformations. They were the reason for the innate spell casting and granted other abilities (e.g. glowing eyes or, when angry, the sound of thunder both of which intimidate, can change appearance), but transforming into the parent creature type was not one of them.

I probably just prefer my imagery a little more visceral, especially for certain concepts. I could see a fey bloodline giving physical changes along the lines of what you were saying. But for a guy with demon blood, I want to see him go glowing purple skin, roided-out physique, and full-on balor style wings when he really lets himself go.

 

[TerraDave]

...and how bout the other answers.

I liked the one on class abilities and how they complement spells and feats.

 

[gyor]

As far fluff goes, nothing is stopping you from adding a certain amount of transformation. I liked the original 5e sorceror, but knew from the point that it got cut, that it didn't fit preconcieved notions of a sorceror on the tranfermation front. Still it might end up as a special sorceror spell.

I hope they also do the Psion at some point, by now its iconic enough.

 

[Salamandyr]

The problem, to such an extent that it was a problem, with the original playtest sorcerer was that it felt very specific. There was little room for interpretation in characterization. I thought it had great flavor, but unless I wanted to play it pretty much exactly as it was presented, it was useless to me. If you wanted to play a transforming bloodmage, it was great, but if you wanted to play a traditional (3rd edition) sorcerer whose powers may or may not come from a bloodline, you were out of luck.

 

[Tovec]

...and how bout the other answers.

I liked the one on class abilities and how they complement spells and feats.

Nah, once a thread like this starts going it is going to keep going; Sorcerer wins this time.

Plus, the armor answer was a non-answer. Also, that spells should not eliminate skills answer has been around for months. We won't see enough of any of these until release - that's what I'm getting lately.

 

[TerraDave]

Nah, once a thread like this starts going it is going to keep going; Sorcerer wins this time.

Yes, all this discussion of meta-magic points.

Oh wait...

 

[Falling Icicle]

1. The sorcerer origins sound good, but please tell me this doesn't mean sorcerers will be the only ones that have metamagics.

2. While I am fine with the number of armor types they have in the game, I still hate armor scaling with gp cost. Instead of different armor types within the same category having different pros and cons, they just get progressively better and better. There's no reason to wear chain mail if you can afford banded armor, etc. I hate that. It also begs the question, why would anyone ever enchant inferior types of armor, considering the difficulty and expense of enchanting?

3. Sounds good, though I still think the loud boom on Knock is overkill. Rogue lockpicking is already far superior to the Knock spell because it's at-will and doesn't cost a spell slot or a 10 minute ritual.

 

[gyor]

I wonder if silence spell could block the sound from the knock spell

 

[SkidAce]

Well for myself, in the books and movies that influenced me, origin (e.g. infernal, draconic) did not result in transformations. They were the reason for the innate spell casting and granted other abilities (e.g. flash glowing/draconic eyes or, when angry, the sound of thunder both of which intimidate, can change appearance), but transforming into the parent creature type was not one of them.

I agree with this.