D&D 5E Player's Handbook Alpha *Spoilers*

[gyor]

I noticed that swift spells in the Alpha became bonus action spells in Basic, which makes sense, because looing at the swift spell rules, spells like Ensnaring Strike and Smites don't work, you can't cast the spells until you hit something, which takes an action, but the spell requires and action to cast (its swift by granting a bonus action to attack or cast a cantrip), but you aldeady used your action to attack, so you can cast ensnaring strike or smites or any swift spells.

Where as a bonus action spell verison you use your action to attack, you hit the target, and use your bonus action to cast the spell say ensnaring strike.

 

[gyor]

Another I noticed is the Alpha Tiefling just gets Hellish rebuke, 2D10 fire damage as a reaction, when damaged, but the PHB Tiefling, gets Hellish Rebuke as a 2nd Level Spell, which means it deals 3D10 fire damage.

 

[Sadrik]

* = ULTRA TANGENT MODE ENGAGED - Why can WotC never come up with a good name for their Fighter/Mage? It's always terrible! The Eldritch Knight is not particularly "eldritch" (i.e. unearthly, alien, foreign) nor is he on any level, a knight, so he has no "description" excuse. He's out there in the garden with the Swordmage (uggggh), Hexblade (super-uuuuggggghh), Spellsword (gaaaaawd) and Duskblade (jebus caleebus). Even the Elven Bladesinger is looking down his nose at these freaks.

LOL, you forgot Gish (blah) too.

 

[the Jester]

LOL, you forgot Gish (blah) too.

Gish makes perfect sense, as it's a gith term.

However, I strongly resist the suggestion that it applies to fighter/wizard types in general. It specifically describes a githyanki (or githzerai) fighter/wizard type.

As a generic, I like eldritch knight; it has a little traction because of the 3e prestige class, and I think there was probably a paragon path in 4e, too. I agree that it ain't perfect, but I like it better than spellsword (what if I use a hammer?).

 

[Sadrik]

what does the warlock pet do and how does it compare to the ranger pet?

 

[Agamon]

Gish makes perfect sense, as it's a gith term.

Right, so let's leave it to the gith races, then.

As a generic, I like eldritch knight; it has a little traction because of the 3e prestige class, and I think there was probably a paragon path in 4e, too. I agree that it ain't perfect, but I like it better than spellsword (what if I use a hammer?).

Yeah, being a subclass, I don't mind it. It's a game term, it's not like the PCs introduce themselves using it in game. "Hi, I'm Bob the eldritch knight. These are my friends, Suzie the assassin and Gary the battle master. Pleased to meet you." lol

 

[FadedC]

Fair enough.



Why do you think Rangers get a 3rd attack? They didn't get this in the October Playtest, nor did anyone but the Fighter, and they don't have it now. It's not so much "questionable" but assuming a complete design reversal, neh?

Good question. I had thought that they had said that most classes would get a 3rd attack at some point, but going back and looking at the October playtest I see it wasn't true there. I had assumed that since they left out the fighter's 3rd attack in the PHB alpha that they had left out every classes 3rd attack. But I now think that's unlikely and that the multi-attack serves as the pseudo extra attack.

So that makes volley much better relatively speaking. But even still, rangers of all types get far better AOE attacks on their spell list. So even in an AoE situation a hunter only pulls ahead of the beast master when they run out of spells. But of course by not being reliant on spells to AoE the hunter can have more versatility in his spell selection.

 

[wwanno]

Good god this is awful. The Feats are absolutely terrible 3E (not even 3.5E!) style stuff, quite different to the Feats in a lot of playtests.

Gone, for example is the deal where a feat that requires Weapon X gives Proficiency in Weapon X, which was a really nice little thing (only the armour ones do this). Athlete doesn't give (nor requires) the Athletics skill, either... (and is terribad)

What is present instead is the horrible, horrible 3E trend of "You can't do this thing you could obviously do UNLESS you have this Feat!".

For example - Healer's Kit - we now know why it's worthless in Basic - you can only actually heal with it with a Feat!

Or Dual-Wielding - Obviously a PC could normally draw both his weapons to attack right? No DM would enforce him drawing one one round, and one the next? Right? Yet unless you have this Feat, your PC literally cannot draw both his weapons in one round. To hell with, y'know, both real life and every movie with swords in ever, eh?

Or grappling - You'd think that anyone grappling could potentially try to restrain the target by dragging them to the floor (becoming restrained themselves in the process), if the DM agreed? But no! Not unless you have the Feat!

Many of the Feats are just boring bonuses or minor benefits. Some are wackily OP. Some near worthless.

Some are fine, to be fair, but good god, I hope a lot of these got adjusted, because this awful, much worse than any playtest implementation of the Feats. They should NOT be gating basic stuff like using a Healer's Kit to heal behind a FEAT, especially when there's a bloody Medicine skill!

EDIT - The fact that Basic still has Healer's Kits as near-useless suggests that they DIDN'T change these, though, which is super-worrying. Roll on PHB release, I guess.

EDIT - Lest I be a huge downer, I will say that broadly, the classes and so on look BETTER than the playtest. Some are less interesting than others and there are some bizarre decisions (c.f. "tough but not very damaging Barbarian" above - he will get some hilarious crits at least), it's only the Feats that are broadly awful/crap. I note that most of the Feats which aren't kind of horrible were the ones which people had spoiled previously. So much worse than the playtest here.

Aren't feats optional?
I like the way you say they made them.
A player's try to enforce the use of the feats over the DM, becouse he needs them to create is "build".
The master has two option:
1- say NO
2- say YES, but the player and his "build" will now be unable to do all those simple things (yes, like drawing 2 weapons or using the healing skill to use a healer's kit)

 

[Snapdragyn]

what does the warlock pet do and how does it compare to the ranger pet?

It's just a familiar, with a few stronger familiars available (pseudodragon, pixie, imp, quasit).

 

[Mistwell]

The people talking about it are talking about it and therefore interested. Even if, like me, they aren't going to buy it new for whatever reason (in my case there are two names in the credits I don't want my money supporting).

Would it help to know that he primary negative claim being made about those two guys turned out to be false, with apologies for the accusation and everything, after some more facts came out? I don't want to derail the thread with this, but I can easily point you to that.