D&D (2024) Playtest: Is the Human Terrible?

[Mistwell]

Considering we're nowhere close to the final form and nothing is yet set in stone... I'd say you're greatly jumping the gun in your estimate of things.

The change to feats appears to be planned out as "not going away" and is big enough to require a meaningful edit of all prior supplements. And we have 12 to 18 months of changes to go, on a monthly basis. I don't feel like I am jumping the gun. Indeed, the debate that is raging in all quarters right now seems to be "Is it just 5.5 or is it 6e". I am leaning conservatively on 5.5. It's rare that someone would think I am not being conservative enough on this.

 

[Azzy]

The change to feats appears to be planned out as "not going away" and is big enough to require a meaningful edit of all prior supplements. And we have 12 to 18 months of changes to go, on a monthly basis. I don't feel like I am jumping the gun. Indeed, the debate that is raging in all quarters right now seems to be "Is it just 5.5 or is it 6e". I am leaning conservatively on 5.5. It's rare that someone would think I am not being conservative enough on this.

I dunno, we haven't even passed the first playtest. I don't mean to single you out—I think everyone is jumping the gun at this point and that the discussion over whether this is a non-edition, 5.5e, 6e, New Coke, Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo, Gundam ZZ, or Shin Godzilla is unproductive, divisive, and utterly annoying. We're just not a point where that discussion is relevant or meaningful yet.

 

[Maxperson]

Unless they only identify 1st level feats, which is a possibility and makes some sense design wise. Depending on how often you get feats, that gates everything else off at 3rd or 4th level or whatever, without having to go through the tedious process of leveling every feat.

That is possible. However, if they do go farther than that, it opens up feats that get stronger and more fun at 4th, 8th and maybe even 12th level.

 

[Chaosmancer]

They've traded, "Only race that can get a feat at first level" for "every race gets a feat at first level" which is meaningful.

Meaningful? Sure.

However, "Every race gets zero and I get one" is the exact same mathematically as "Every race gets one and I get two"

I understand that in actuality, you have diminishing returns, but again, they aren't losing any languages, just like they aren't losing any tools. The only difference is that the Cuman is getting a curated feat list, and gets two feats while everyone else gets one feat.

 

[Maxperson]

I dunno, we haven't even passed the first playtest. I don't mean to single you out—I think everyone is jumping the gun at this point and that the discussion over whether this is a non-edition, 5.5e, 6e, New Coke, Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo, Gundam ZZ, or Shin Godzilla is unproductive, divisive, and utterly annoying. We're just not a point where that discussion is relevant or meaningful yet.

Hey! It's our God given right as humans to scream the sky is falling at every acorn!

That said, I think @Mistwell is correct and that 5.5 will not be compatible. We can see from the design intent of the last few books(backgrounds coming with feats) and the UA, what direction they will go on some things. We may see it change a bit, but it's pretty certain that backgrounds will have feats and that some 2014 classes/subclasses will be affected in such a way that abilities are rendered useless in 5.5.

Where I different from Mistwell is that he seems to think that in order to be backwards compatible WotC will need to update all the feats, classes, subclasses, etc. from the 2014 rules. What I think is that if WotC updates everything that isn't compatible with 5.5, you aren't making the 2014 rules compatible with 5.5, you're converting those rules INTO 5.5. That's not backwards compatibility. To be backwards compatible, something has to be usable without special adaption or modification.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Hey! It's our God given right as humans to scream the sky is falling at every acorn!

No, sorry. This isn't on the racial ability list, and I've checked twice. We get morning inspiration, a 1st level feat and a skill.

That said, I think @Mistwell is correct and that 5.5 will not be compatible.

Yes, not in the sense where they can say "it is one edition", which would mean taking books from the same edition and playing with them as is, irrespective of their printing date. I feel however we are not to that point so far, in the current playtest (which admittedly doesn't bode well).

We may see it change a bit, but it's pretty certain that backgrounds will have feats and that some 2014 classes/subclasses will be affected in such a way that abilities are rendered useless in 5.5.

I understand your point of view, however I am more lax on incompatibilty. Being nerfed to suckiness doesn't mean incompatible. If, for example, the compatible rogue gets an ability called Precise Attack that gives him bonus damages that are doubled in case of criticals [or have another effect that improves their critical, sudden death for example], they will outpower the original rogue who lost his ability to get a "crit sneak attack". But that wouldn't make them incompatible in my book, in the same sense that you can play a sidekick class alongside a hero class, or you can play a 17th level character alongside a bunch of 1st level. Unfun doesn't equate incompatible in my book.

Where I different from Mistwell is that he seems to think that in order to be backwards compatible WotC will need to update all the feats, classes, subclasses, etc. from the 2014 rules. What I think is that if WotC updates everything that isn't compatible with 5.5, you aren't making the 2014 rules compatible with 5.5, you're converting those rules INTO 5.5. That's not backwards compatibility. To be backwards compatible, something has to be usable without special adaption or modification.

Yup. If they modify existing things, they will not be "compatible". They'll be "errata-ed away".

 

[Chaosmancer]

Ah, sorry, I'd have combined these posts but it was on the next page

So...you need to remake your character and it's no longer compatible with these rules, right?

Why are you remaking your character? Generally you would make a new character, not remake an old.

But, by this definition, any character with alert if no longer compatible, because alert USED to be a +5 and now it is +prof. But that isn't incompatibility, that's the rules changing. And if you want to complain that any rule changing makes it incompatible... you are going to have a bad time in the future.

This isn't a "rules problem" this is a "rules change" just like Dwarves getting tremorsense and high elves getting misty step.

Granted. I can only analyze what they put out.

Sure, but you seem to want to go from "if they keep this rule, they will need to change more things or have abilities that no longer work" to "These abilities are going to be worthless when they publish these rules they are guaranteed to publish!"

They don't even know if they are going to go with this rule, and pointing out the things that it doesn't work with is helpful. Declaring they have lied and the game is broken and many books need reprinted because of this rule is not helpful.

Yes, not too hard a fix. Will they issue errata?

Probably. Don't see why they wouldn't.

It's going to require a lot of updates, and it's unclear they will update non-core books.

No it won't.

Again, you seem to be confused about this. In Tasha's they released the Beast Barbarian which has Infectious Fury which recharges on PB times per day. They also released the Order domain which had Embodiment of Law which refreshes on Wis Mod per day. And both of these are compatible with playing a 2014 Dragonborn whose breath weapon is once per short rest.

They CAN update things to make similar abilities recharge at similar rates. It would consolidate design to be sure. But it isn't required, it hasn't been required for any of the PB per Long rest abilities released over the past two years. There is no reason to assume it is suddenly required now.

Every feat needs an update, in the very least giving it a feat level.


All the feats. All of them.


Every feat in all those books needs updating.

Not worth an errata (are there even any feats in the SCAG? Oh, the Deep Gnome feat. Already worthless since the Monsters of the Multiverse release)

Just assume any feat that doesn't have a level is a level 4 feat. I mean, if you need official word from Wizards, they can literally just add that sentence into the PHB. There is no reason to reprint entire books just to list levels by feats.

Also, I want to note. None of your previous objections (the four I listed) included "they are giving levels to feats so they need to reprint every feat in the game". So, we are up to five objections and only two of them have any real merit it seems, one of which is a simple fix and the other which is a legitimate concern.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

You make a new character using the new rules. You will never be able to choose a feat from any book prior to the new PHB, because they won't have a level and all your abilities to gain a new feat will specify a level. That will happen the moment they release the playtest classes. We both know that already - Crawford already said that.

This is an assumption. Feel free to provide a source on Crawford saying that.

They will have to update or errata all old feats if they intend to make this revision backwards compatible. There is no getting around that.

No, they won’t. It will be quite easy to word the new books to avoid needing such an errata.

Like, it’s a playtest document designed to be used with 2014 classes, did you forget that?

Unless they only identify 1st level feats, which is a possibility and makes some sense design wise. Depending on how often you get feats, that gates everything else off at 3rd or 4th level or whatever, without having to go through the tedious process of leveling every feat.

Even if there are level 20 feats and every feat level in between, all it takes for that to be fully compatible with no adjustment needed is for the feat-granting class features to say that you must meet all requirements for a feat. That’s it. Like…talk about jumping the gun!

Considering we're nowhere close to the final form and nothing is yet set in stone... I'd say you're greatly jumping the gun in your estimate of things.

Exactly.

 

[Reynard]

Yes, not in the sense where they can say "it is one edition", which would mean taking books from the same edition and playing with them as is, irrespective of their printing date. I feel however we are not to that point so far, in the current playtest (which admittedly doesn't bode well).

I think it is pretty safe to say that "compatibility" means that you can grab one of the adventures and run it with little or no modification with the One D&D books, not that everything from 2014 will work seamlessly with One.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

I think it is pretty safe to say that "compatibility" means that you can grab one of the adventures and run it with little or no modification with the One D&D books, not that everything from 2014 will work seamlessly with One.

I agree with you on the (probable) end result: incompatibility, except you can reuse old material without much work (note that you can run PF AP with 5e or Mythras without much work, and any rule-light game with even less work, depending on your take on "much work").

Except that for that to work, they need to differentiate the editions (irrespective of the name they choose for it, One, 50th anniversary edition 6e...) . What would happen when you start an adventure with 2026-printed new adventure and one of your player characters dies, then takes his 2014-printed book of the PHB and his Tasha ? "No, sorry, you can't use this D&D, we're not playing with this book" "Why, it is the current edition, it's 5e and there have been no new edition since!"

Edit: they will have to provide an answer to this situation, if only for AL play...