D&D (2024) New Survey Results | Druid & Paladin | Unearthed Arcana | D&D

WotC has shared a new video going over the survey results following the drud and paladin playtests for One D&D.

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For those who don't have time to watch the video, here are some general notes.

Paladin

• Did extremely well in terms of satisfaction
• All class and subclass features scored 70% or higher - lowest was Divine Smite at 72%
• Got some pushback in written feedback on being able to smite on ranged attacks - class identity concerns, Paladin viewed as melee-centric class, ranged smites might eat into Cleric/Ranger identity too much
• Positive feedback on redesigned smite spells - may become paladin exclusive spells down the road

Druid

• Wild Shape feedback seems to be split - slight majority saying "never want this Wild Shape in print", slight minority saying "this is their favorite version of Wild Shape they've ever seen"
• People love the texture and differences in beast options in '14 Wild Shape, but are open to feature being easier to use (i.e. don't want players to have to weigh the merits of 100+ stat blocks every time they want to use Wild Shape)
• Will have another take on Wild Shape next time Druid appears in Playtest UA
• General concept of Channel Nature seems to have gone over well, but want to see more done with it
• Expected feedback for restoring elemental forms for Moon Druids, but instead found people wanted to lean more into Lunar themes
• Want Moon Druid forms to be more resilient, but still want to reign in power at high levels (frequent/unlimited uses of Wild Shape constantly refreshing HP total)

 

[FitzTheRuke]

They might, that's probably a big part of why those zerg mobs of low CR trash relying on bounded accuracy crutches fto gain efficacy tend to get AoE'd away & why we have TCoE spells like summon undead summon construct & so on. Have we seen the oned&d versions of conjure fey/woodland beasts & such yet?

Not yet. I guarantee they will follow the TCoE model. All of those spells ought to, IMO. My hope would be while they solve the "Wildshape" problem, they take another look at those spells and give them (and WS) a few more points of customization to hit the "sweet spot" between multiple statblocks and generic statblocks. I'm certain that there is a good middle ground here that we haven't yet seen.

And, boy do they need to fix Animate Object. There is no reason why animating a quiver of arrows should be SOOOOO much better than animating a large statue. You know the spell is designed wrongly when you're watching the D&D movie and you think, "Silly Red Wizard! Instead of that cool dragon statue, she should have animated one of those piles of rocky rubble! The rocks would have just flown around and killed everyone!"

 

[tetrasodium]

The Silver Flame in Eberron.

That was because the 3.5 rakshasa was Special Qualities: Change shape. damage reduction 15/good and piercing, spell resistance 27. Rakshasa have a big role in eberron in ways that impact the CoSF

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

That was because the 3.5 rakshasa was Special Qualities: Change shape. damage reduction 15/good and piercing, spell resistance 27. Rakshasa have a big role in eberron in ways that impact the CoSF

Indeed, and they still do: Rakshasa

Damage Vulnerabilities: Piercing from Magic Weapons Wielded by Good Creatures

 

[tetrasodium]

Indeed, and they still do: Rakshasa

Look at the next line with that "Damage Immunities Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing from Nonmagical Attacks". They clobbered the meaning

 

[Zaukrie]

Haven't read all the posts yet.... The problem with paladin and ranged attacks is that it's called paladin, and not holy warrior, with a paladin subclass..... Can't believe we haven't gotten there, still.

As for wildshape, I vastly prefer templates to players passing thru the MM during play. Just implement that better.

 

[OB1]

After watching the video, I'm concerned that WotC is still taking the wrong lessons from the Druid feedback. For many, the fantasy of being a Druid is changing into beasts, not statblocks (this is the same mistake they made with the revised Beastmaster Ranger). I get that there are those who will pour through 'hundreds' of stat blocks in the MM to find the perfect solution to a problem, but I don't believe it's a good design goal to worry about power gamers. They'll always find something to break or exploit. I also never felt like the unlimited whildshape ability was overpowered. Yes it seems strong, but the reality is, if your level 20 trying to fight CR20+ monsters, unlimited wildshape may let you survive, but it is unlikely to allow you to do anything else to help the party in combat, leaving you to run away after the rest of the party has been wiped out.

All that said, I think the best solution is for the Druid's wildshape forms to be constrained to the beasts provided in the PHB, and then give the Moon Druid interesting ways to alter and power up those beasts when they wildshape. Include a caveat that players can have the look of their beast be whatever they want, as long as the statblock they choose from the PHB doesn't change.

 

[Justice and Rule]

After watching the video, I'm concerned that WotC is still taking the wrong lessons from the Druid feedback. For many, the fantasy of being a Druid is changing into beasts, not statblocks (this is the same mistake they made with the revised Beastmaster Ranger). I get that there are those who will pour through 'hundreds' of stat blocks in the MM to find the perfect solution to a problem, but I don't believe it's a good design goal to worry about power gamers. They'll always find something to break or exploit. I also never felt like the unlimited whildshape ability was overpowered. Yes it seems strong, but the reality is, if your level 20 trying to fight CR20+ monsters, unlimited wildshape may let you survive, but it is unlikely to allow you to do anything else to help the party in combat, leaving you to run away after the rest of the party has been wiped out.

The problem with the idea of "You're changing into beasts, not stat blocks" is that you're changing into stat blocks regardless. The difference is that one is curated and specifically balanced to be played in Wildshape while the other is balanced to be played as monsters. The latter doesn't really care about balance because there is no "optimal monster selection" for the DM, so you can have clearly-superior monsters in the same CR. Even the solution of "Keep the shapes to what is in the PHB" is basically a similar solution to lenses, just worse because you aren't really eliminating optimal choices as much as shrinking the pool. With lenses, you can have bunches of animals, you just won't have the winners and losers like last time.

And they should have done the same thing with the Animal Companions, so that they could level up appropriately with their Ranger buddy in a way that really doesn't work currently with monster stat blocks. You can achieve the same thing with better balance by using a base skeleton and flavoring that with stat adjustments.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

Look at the next line with that "Damage Immunities Bludgeoning, Piercing, and Slashing from Nonmagical Attacks". They clobbered the meaning

Not really - punching through Rakshasa DR required "good and piercing" in 3.5e, which means you were either using a holy magic weapon anyway or getting it applied to a non-magical weapon temporarily through a casting of Align Weapon or some similar effect.

That's functionally no different than having a magic weapon in 5e or using Magic Weapon, Elemental Weapon, Holy Weapon, or some other effect to make a non-magical weapon temporarily magical for damage resistance/vulnerability purposes.

 

[mellored]

Here's a rough draft of what I would like to see.

Armor Class 10 + your Wisdom continue to use your Hit Points
Speed 30 ft.
STR, DEX equal your Wisdom score CON, INT, WIS, CHA use your scores
Resistance: bludgeon, piercing, slashing.
The minimum DC for a concentration checks is 5, instead of 10.

Attack: 1d4+Wis+your proficiency bonus
2 attacks at level 5.

You know a number of augments equipment to your Wisdom modifier. You can replace one when you level up.
Your form can have a number of augment according to the Druid chart (2 scaling to 6), some augments use more than one point.

1 point Augments:
-shapen claws: increase the damage die by 1, can be taken multiple times (max d12)
-large size
-Mount: +10 move speed, can be ridden.
-think skin: increase your AC by +1, can be taken multiple times (max +5)
pounce: when you dash, you can also make an attack action at the end of your movement. Deal an extra 1d8 damage
-grapple: you can use a bonus action to grab
-trip: you can use a bonus action to prone

2 points
-Climb speed of 20'. Can be taken multiple times.
-swim speed of 20'. Can be taken multiple times
-tiny size, lose resistance.
-you can use Wis in place of Str, Con, or Dex.
-blind sight
-immediately after you hit a target, use a bonus action to make the target makes a fortitude save or gains the poisoned condition
-pact tactics

3 points
-Spider climb
-Huge size
-tremmor sense
-web
-make an extra attack as a bonus action
-acid spit: ranged attack dealing acid damage

4 points
-Flying
-truesight: by combining several different senses, you can see though any illusion.
-gargantuan size.


Moon Druid
3: you know and can use 1 additional augment.
6: 2 extra augments
10: 3 extra augments
13: 4 extra augments

 

[Neonchameleon]

The problem with the idea of "You're changing into beasts, not stat blocks" is that you're changing into stat blocks regardless. The difference is that one is curated and specifically balanced to be played in Wildshape while the other is balanced to be played as monsters.

The other difference is that one can be written on an index card or on a small section of a character sheet to be right there when you need it. The other requires flipping through multiple pages in a different book or googling to find the right thing unless you have printed out all the options you are going to use.

I'm a firm believer that a good answer now is worth more than slowing up the table for a few minutes to find the perfect answer. Templates, especially templates with options, avoid slowing up the table - and templates with options can easily provide a good enough answer for the overwhelming majority of druid players while not providing everyone else with a game that's slowed up.