I agree that it can be difficult to read intent. I think that you are being more generous than me. I see a lot of the hyperbole here as coming from a place of aggression, of being more interested in scoring points than having a meaningful discussion. Given that this is a forum that WotC actually acknowledges, I find it more useful to put those posters on ignore rather than get caught up in a futile argument. I don't have your patience.
I think it's an easy trap to fall into (aggression on the internet). People are fundamentally flawed, so even if they're doing what you say (and they might not be doing it intentionally) they may have been "driven to it" by the nature of the beast. As I can't control how others will act, I have to control myself. If I want people to read my posts charitably, I have to read theirs charitably. It's a work in progress. I don't always succeed.
This thread, for example, is now being dominated by posters who seem to have little interest OneD&D being successful within the parameters described by WotC and come across as more intent on just discrediting the game.
But do they really
mean to discredit the game? Maybe they do, but they also might just be frustrated by a direction they don't like and are lashing out.
Getting back to the video at hand, I think a few things are clear, namely that WotC does perceive paladin as largely solved, so we aren't going to see any radical proposals there, but WotC perceive druid as a problem class, so we can expect continued exploration of that design space, with the caveat that wild shape in some form will remain integral to druids.
Yeah. It's probably too bad. I mean, the Paladin is
fine, but it's only just fine. I mean - I ask this: What's the difference between a Paladin and a Fighter/Cleric multiclass? Lay-on-Hands? Smites? A horse? A cleric can touch-heal, a fighter can hit hard, and anyone can buy a warhorse. As fine as they are, isn't there room for something more... interesting for them?
Druids on the other hand can do sooooo much. It's one of the reasons that I think that Smites should stay off the spell list, but Wild Shapes should go on the Primal Spell List. Let your Barbarian and Ranger gain access to them, why not. Druid could still do it best, the way a Cleric can still heal best, even if (nearly) everyone else has access to it.
The template proposal in its current form went over like a lead balloon, but I am interested to see if WotC remain attached to the principle but decide to drastically change the execution, or retreat and go back to using existing creature stat blocks but within some sort of new system.
I always wish that they'd use UA to try out some
radical changes, just to see what reaction they get. Though I understand why they might be reluctant to do so, seeing the reaction to unpopular stuff. A lot of people tend to speak of the UAs as if they are intractable: "WildShape is like THIS now! And it SUCKS!" As opposed to experimental.
What I would like to see is:
1. A more constrained/defined version of the current wild shape mechanics. I started out okay with templates, but the more we have discussed them, the more they have come to resemble a Frankenstein's monster idea to me, both in the sense of being a bunch of different parts sewn together, and in the sense of getting out of hand and turning druid shapeshifting into something else entirely.
If they're going to try to limit the raw number of statblocks, they could just round up all the beasts they want to use, put them in groups that have similarities, and combine those into single statblocks to choose from. If that makes sense. It's less, but still broad.
2. Better balance for moon druids, which can come from 1.
Yeah. Another way they can go is to look at and rebuild all the beasts with the idea that druids will turn into them. IE balance them better next to each other.
3. Making elemental forms their own thing, definitely not a baseline druid feature, and here is where I would love to see a new, elemental sub-class added to the updated PHB because I think that there is a lot of fun potential.
Absolutely. Subclasses should, IMO, toggle complexity (like, say, the way Champion and Battlemaster do, but perhaps better and more explicitly). Speaking of which (explicitly) would it not be a good idea to rank classes and subclasses for complexity (with some sort of rating) so that a new player can easily tell what they're getting themselves into?
