D&D (2024) What do you want & expect to see in 2024's 5.5e?

[Retreater]

I expect a 50th anniversary logo smacked on the cover and a price increase. If they really want to make an effort, they might even do a find-and-replace edit to change "race" to "ancestry" - probably sloppily enough that "grace" becomes "gancestry."

 

[ECMO3]

Maybe an attempt to open up maneuvers and superiority die to places beyond just the Battlemaster.

They already are. You can get battlemaster maneuvers through two different feats - Fighting Initiate and Martial Adept. If you get both of them that gives you three maneuvers and 2 dice per short rest.

 

[tetrasodium]

I also think the designers might have just not thought of or had forgotten just how much some players optimize D&D for combat at the expense of everything else.

With the break of 4E and the years separating the mix-max fiasco of "6-class/prestige class" multiclassing that some people did with 3E and what they were trying create for 5E... I suspect they didn't think those folks would return and go far into the mechanical weeds to milk every last bit of combat juice out of the 5E stone to turn GWM/SS/PAM/Lucky into the massive problems they ended up being for many tables.

Now granted... a lot of those problems are because DMs are allowing those problems to occur based on what they are accepting at their tables, the type of players they are playing with, and what their actions are for encounter building to try and challenge them... but at the end of the day the folks at WotC just didn't realize how vigous their game's math was going to need to be to keep things really bound. Because the looseness of the rope encircling the math still allowed for some folks to really pull against it and get far outside the herd.

........ I... Yea... I don't know about that. 5e optimization troubles tend to enter the realm of 3.x's pulled from eight different books with 6 class/prc builds with oone or two steps and those steps tend to be blindingly obvious at a glance.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Hexblade warlock. Swap CHA for INT. Swap the level 6 specter ability for the Archfey misty step. You’re 80-90% to a swordmage.

Still needs some unique or nearly unique spells like Entangling Strike and the more interesting XYZ Smite spells, to really be close to a Swordmage.

And an ability to attack before or after casting a spell, so you can hit and Thunder Step as one action.

 

[ECMO3]

Agree with the 2nd paragraph. I think the better solution is to avoid overpowered feats. They should have been able to figure out that GWM and SS were overpowered relative to the other feats.

These are not overpowered and I think many feats are better than these, including most of the half feats and when you compare them to an ASI, you are giving up a lot.

Compared to a character who takes an ASI in the attack ability you are talking about around 2-3 points damage per attack against most foes, so it is a slightly smaller damage boost then you would get by casting Hex or Hunter's Mark. While all classes can benefit from the cover and range bonuses on SS and the BA attack on GWM, some classes will actually lose DPR on the attacks with these if they take the -5/+10 and have damage riders like sneak attack, dreadful strike, favored foe, Giant Might etc.

On top of that all your saves and skills in that ability are worse than if you took the ASI and you lose out on the other tertiary benefits from the higher score (carrying capacity, AC, initiative).

 

[ECMO3]

I figure, this fact requires a Warlock update anyway. So whatever works for the Warlock would work for other classes like Psion and Swordmage too.

I doubt they are going to update/change the warlock casting mechanic.

This is only really relevant to combat and I think people on this forum are much more concerned about the combat pillar than WOTC. WOTC is deemphasizing combat and has said new campaigns, starting with WBW, will be able to be completed without any combat at all and this will mean the difference between slots recharging on a long or short rest will be far less relevant.

Also for as many people as they are that hate that the Warlock is built around 2 short rests/6-8 combats and being underpowered in most campaigns, there is another group that loves the multiclass potential with sorcery points and Paladin smites.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The paladin needs a nerf, specifically with divine smite and the saving throw aura.

I’d rather see them love Lay On Hands and get Smite nerfed hard than see anything change to the Aura. IMO they should lean harder into the aura and stack fewer unrelated other features on the class.

 

[DEFCON 1]

........ I... Yea... I don't know about that. 5e optimization troubles tend to enter the realm of 3.x's pulled from eight different books with 6 class/prc builds with oone or two steps and those steps tend to be blindingly obvious at a glance.

This is going to be something impossible to really figure out... mainly because every table and DM is going to be different, and how their encounter building and adventure focus will be up and down the underpowered/overpowered line.

So for instance... I don't agree that even in 5E you need to pull from three/five/eight books to overpower the game. Personally, I think some players can overpower the game just by using the PHB as it is, with certain choices of optional rule-- and if playing at a table with a DM who is not focused or prepared to build encounters to match up against them.

A DM who uses the standard encounter creation design rules in the DMG might have their encounters get completely overwhelmed because of the number of players at their table they are building for, the class combinations working together at the table, the tactical skill of the players in question, the optional rules the players are using, how often the DM is allowing for rests, etc. etc. etc. The game is just not that vigorous in its math. It's not designed to allow every type of table to be run in every type of way, ALL of them ending up with really well-balance and equal combat. It's just not possible. Heck... even asymmetric board games designed specifically for that purpose that don't have to worry about all the other "character crap" of RPGs have a hard time getting their mechanics completely balanced. So to think the 5E designers should have been able to get it correct during their design (when they were probably dealing with alpha and beta testers who might not have actually been the kind of optimizers who have been decrying these feats after the fact since the very beginning) is probably putting way too much of an expectation upon them.

 

[ECMO3]

I’d rather see them love Lay On Hands and get Smite nerfed hard than see anything change to the Aura. IMO they should lean harder into the aura and stack fewer unrelated other features on the class.

I think a Paladin is powerful in combat if optimized for that but they are so weak out of combat that for the most part no one at my table wants to play them. They don't get the Ribbon features of the other Martials, even the fighters are better with an extra ASI in there and some specific subclasses.

Paladins can be a decent face but even here they are not great are limited by lack of proficiencies, cantrips and lack of expertise or reliable talent.

To really make a good playable Paladin out of combat you need to go Dex-based and that takes their damage and AC down a notch, or spend ASIs on non-combat feats like skill expert or prodigy.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I think a Paladin is powerful in combat if optimized for that but they are so weak out of combat that for the most part no one at my table wants to play them. They don't get the Ribbon features of the other Martials, even the fighters are better with an extra ASI in there and some specific subclasses.

Paladins can be a decent face but even here they are not great are limited by lack of proficiencies, cantrips and lack of expertise or reliable talent.

To really make a good playable Paladin out of combat you need to go Dex-based and that takes their damage and AC down a notch, or spend ASIs on non-combat feats like skill expert or prodigy.

I genuinely feel like you play an entirely different game, where only the names of things are the same, as the one I play. I wish I could figure out what the nature of the difference is to some useful degree.

You know they have non-combat spells, and they have Persuasion, Insight, and Intimidation on their skill list for social encounters, and athletics and perception for exploration, right? Divine Sense is a pretty much purely out of combat ability that comes up in hunting and investigating extraplanar stuff all the time in my games with Paladins. Hell, Lay on Hands gets used to treat folk in towns and gain the party favors or establish trust pretty often.

They're in a better position out of combat than the fighter.