D&D (2024) Why no new packs since late September?

[mellored]

That's why I think it's a marketing gimmick to ease edition-change panic.

no.
it's so they can sell new players handbooks, and old campaigns and monsters manuals.
A new edition would need to rewrite everything at once.

For some reason people seem to thing that changing what level you get abilities, how feats function, whether feats are optional or not, etc somehow doesn't "change the math." Which is silly. It explicitly does change the math.

Switching from 4d6 damage to 2d6+7 is not charging the math.

Or taking the +10 damage from sharpshooter and adding 1d6 from hunters mark. (Feel free to check the math).

Add in all the explicit power creep and then stand the 2014 ranger that was an underperforming joke already next to the 2024 ranger...yeah, no one's going to want the even weaker 2014 ranger in their party.

To be fair, no one ever wanted a 2014 ranger in their party. Or a 2014 monk.

 

[mellored]

They are releasing two D&D Editions?

OneDnD and 6e?

I even heard about a third one. 5.5. But I am not sure about that.

It's called OneD&D.

But people are debating on how much will/should change from 5e. And if it's just a revision (5.5) or a new one (6e)

 

[overgeeked]

no.
it's so they can sell new players handbooks, and old campaigns and monsters manuals.

So it's something they say that's not true and they're saying it to keep selling books. That's the definition of a marketing gimmick.

Switching from 4d6 damage to 2d6+7 is not charging the math.

Or taking the +10 damage from sharpshooter and adding 1d6 from hunters mark. (Feel free to check the math).

You can't tell the difference between +10 and 1d6? Then no amount of going over the math will help.

 

[mellored]

So it's something they say that's not true and they're saying it to keep selling books. That's the definition of a marketing gimmick.

What part is not true?
They want to keep it backwards compatible with previous campaigns, so they can sell previous campaigns.

You can't tell the difference between +10 and 1d6? Then no amount of going over the math will help.

You missed the -5 to hit.

Or are you implying the 2014 ranger was more powerful?

 

[tetrasodium]

I think that the "think of da' noobs" elements like the crit changes in origins got way more negative & thought out reasoned criticism than expected & that similar but reversed probably happened with the baby steps towards depth & nuance/modularity over simplicity in expert packet. When that happened the loud voices in the room/corporate chain responsible for simplicity at all costs in 5e found their position quickly becoming untenable in ways that made room for things that were kneecapped to get more attention.

So far I've been (mostly) happy or thrilled about the packets we have had with most of my concerns over easily corrected wording & word choices so I'm not too broken up about the office move + Thanksgiving delay... Yet. The contents of the next packet will still be judged on its merits with judgment for or against the merits as deserved.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

They are releasing two D&D Editions?

OneDnD and 6e?

I even heard about a third one. 5.5. But I am not sure about that.

I'm pretty sure that they will be releasing "Dungeons & Dragons 50th Anniversary" in 2024, so perhaps there's four!

 

[Amrûnril]

I'm skeptical of the argument that the playtest delays are a reflection of the type of feedback the developers are getting. Given the short turnaround time between closing the first survey and posting the second playtest, I'd assume that the feedback on one playtest isn't directly informing the next one, but that the developers are instead working on a staggered schedule, so the next playtest (which I expect we'll see next week) may reflect feedback from Origins (if there are topics that overlap), but we shouldn't expect to see any changes in response to the Expert Classes feedback until the fourth playtest packet.

There is no possible way they're going to get 80-90% on board with anything, and trying to do so would be, IMO, a fool's errand and a waste of time.

I agree that this sort of binary approval threshold is a terrible way to evaluate feedback. If 20% of players are excited to play a new subclass, while the remaining 80% don't have strong feelings about it, that seems like a great subclass to publish. Conversely, if 80% approve of a subclass, but a minority have specific, strongly felt feedback about how it undermines existing class design (cough Hexblade), it might be a good idea to look for alternate ways to incorporate the parts that people like.

Of course, if the new materials are a replacement for core materials, rather than a supplement, the key question shouldn't be whether people approve of the new materials in the abstract, but rather whether they approve of them more or less than the old versions. Unfortunately, the developers aren't using a survey format that can give them that sort of feedback. They have approval vs. disapproval for a lot more things than they actually need to ask about (8th level feat slot for Rogue, 12th level feat slot for Ranger...), open ended written feedback, and nothing in between.

 

[overgeeked]

What part is not true?

They want to keep it backwards compatible with previous campaigns, so they can sell previous campaigns.

That part. It won't be backwards compatible in any real sense. 2024 PCs will be decidedly more powerful than their 2014 counterparts. The 5E modules are already laughably easy mode with the exception of one or two nasty fights.

I guess if you think being able to run through the modules means it's backwards compatible, then the exact same can be said of most earlier editions. All the monsters have AC and hit points and damage. All you have to do is flip the descending armor class to ascending armor class and presto, backwards compatible. Just ignore that modern PCs will easily slaughter most old-school D&D monsters. But hey, backwards compatible!

 

[Clint_L]

Most of these arguments are just pedantic. Tasha's came out and the sky didn't fall. Monsters of the Multiverse, which very much is a revision of earlier 5e books, didn't fundamentally change anything. I suspect the same will happen here. Every time WotC announces anything, it's the end of the world according to a tiny but vocal segment. But the reality is that most of us barely notice.

I look at the stuff being proposed for OneD&D and...it's minor. It's all small potatoes. A tempest in a teapot. There's nothing there that is going to fundamentally change my tabletop. The one thing that might have done so, the changes to critical hits, were almost immediately withdrawn.

 

[tetrasodium]

I'm skeptical of the argument that the playtest delays are a reflection of the type of feedback the developers are getting. Given the short turnaround time between closing the first survey and posting the second playtest, I'd assume that the feedback on one playtest isn't directly informing the next one, but that the developers are instead working on a staggered schedule, so the next playtest (which I expect we'll see next week) may reflect feedback from Origins (if there are topics that overlap), but we shouldn't expect to see any changes in response to the Expert Classes feedback until the fourth playtest packet.


I agree that this sort of binary approval threshold is a terrible way to evaluate feedback. If 20% of players are excited to play a new subclass, while the remaining 80% don't have strong feelings about it, that seems like a great subclass to publish. Conversely, if 80% approve of a subclass, but a minority have specific, strongly felt feedback about how it undermines existing class design (cough Hexblade), it might be a good idea to look for alternate ways to incorporate the parts that people like.

Of course, if the new materials are a replacement for core materials, rather than a supplement, the key question shouldn't be whether people approve of the new materials in the abstract, but rather whether they approve of them more or less than the old versions. Unfortunately, the developers aren't using a survey format that can give them that sort of feedback. They have approval vs. disapproval for a lot more things than they actually need to ask about (8th level feat slot for Rogue, 12th level feat slot for Ranger...), open ended written feedback, and nothing in between.

There might be some difference between the initial knee-jerk hot takes given ten minutes after its up but I'd be surprised if the survey comments change dramatically over the run. There are likely a lot of common points raised throughout that can get consideration into swing well before the survey closes