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.

​

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)

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I don't have him blocked.
I simply have my own opinion.

Yea, people can get a bit weird about it.

But, it can be "Thunderous Strike".
And leave "Smite" to be a Paladin thing (with near identical features)

I’d be fine with Paladin losing some smite spells to the arcane or primal lists. Thunderous is a great primal or arcane strike spell, as a smite I’m ambivalent.

I’d love to see more primal weapon spells like an area effect Ensaring strike, or a ranged strike that conjures a miniature Treant from the arrow shaft that starts wrecking face.

Arcane I’d like to see so stuff like hit and then you can teleport to any space within 15ft of the target (can be offensive or defensive spell) and then the target explodes with Thunder damage or soemthing. Stuff like that.

 

[tetrasodium]

I mean, you can assume they were intentionally wasting people's time with a bad product... but it is rather obvious from listening to the video that that wasn't the case. This doesn't read like an intentional sinking of a concept, but as a first draft that was attempting to reach multiple goals. It did so badly, but not in a way that feels like it was intentionally malicious.

And, I completely disagree that it lacked a niche. It had a very very clear niche. It just filled that niche poorly. But again, bad execution of an idea does not inherently mean the idea was bad, or that they were sabotaging the idea. It just means they executed the idea poorly.

That is a possibility that I considered but it was one i wanted to avoid raising because the druid we have fails so hard on pure mechanical efficacy in any niche that it raises serious questions of competence not raised by a well intentioned effort to put a thumb on the scale with polling. What niche?

 

[Chaosmancer]

That is a possibility that I considered but it was one i wanted to avoid raising because the druid we have fails so hard on pure mechanical efficacy in any niche that it raises serious questions of competence not raised by a well intentioned effort to put a thumb on the scale with polling. What niche?

Shapeshifting spellcaster.

Literally every ability they got was tied to wild shape and shapeshifting.

 

[tetrasodium]

Shapeshifting spellcaster.

One who fails at producing a useful shapeshifter & fails at producing a useful shapeshifted spellcaster despite an ability to cast an extremely limited selection of spells while shapeshifted.

Literally every ability they got was tied to wild shape and shapeshifting.

Sharon's pie timer might be a thing but it's absolutely the sort of thing that a company of wotc's size should not overlook before serving it up in a playtest document. Even a casual glance can recognize that cooking a pie at 707 degrees without needing a crowd of taste testers to rate the char.

 

[Clint_L]

Jeremy et. al. aren't idiots... they almost assuredly went into the original druid playtest knowing full well that the core conceit of wildshape that people liked was the "special ability" you could get from an animal form. The extra HP, fine... but the idea of being able to Pounce, and Gore, and Spider Climb etc. was the real juice of the class. So I expect they were checking in the first packet whether templates themselves were a viable mechanic for people before going through the effort of adding in all the special abilities and features to the template concept. But now that they've received the survey responses... they now can see that they can try to split the difference-- wildshape templates that have a list of special features you can grab (almost like the special features of weapon masteries) to bring back the feeling of using standard monster blocks. So it keeps the numbers in check, but does give players a few knobs to turn when they wildshape.

I saw a LOT of players who wanted nothing to do with templates. I think it is wishful thinking to interpret these results as “templates, but with a few more knobs,” instead of “we like being able to shift into specific beasts and want nothing to do with templates.”

I think the core conceit of wild shape that people like is being able to shift into animals.

 

[Clint_L]

And it's too bad...judging by the sky-is-falling posts in this forum...that people couldn't understand the difference, and therefore gave negative feedback.

Yeah, that’s super condescending.

Here’s an alternate possibility: other people have all the same information as you, are just as smart, and still have a different opinion.

 

[Samurai]

The house rules I've always applied to Druid's Wildshaping is that half of any damage suffered in the WS form carries over to the Druid's HP. This makes the WS form behave somewhat similar to a Barbarian's rage (which grants Resistance to many damage types), but if the animal form has suffered enough damage that taking half of it upon changing back would kill the Druid, there may be a need to heal the Druid's WS form or have healing ready and waiting for them when the Druid changes back to their normal form.

I've always much preferred this rule rather than "whatever happens to your animal form STAYS with that animal form and the Druid is 100% unaffected upon changing back." The vast majority of fiction agrees with me IMHO (how often has a shapechanger in a book or movie had an injured limb/wing/paw in one form and remains at least somewhat injured when changing back to their normal form?)

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I saw a LOT of players who wanted nothing to do with templates. I think it is wishful thinking to interpret these results as “templates, but with a few more knobs,” instead of “we like being able to shift into specific beasts and want nothing to do with templates.”

I think the core conceit of wild shape that people like is being able to shift into animals.

I think a system like I’ve expressed would work just fine for most Druid players, because you are still shifting into an animal, you’re just building the stats yourself.

 

[Clint_L]

I don't recall your specific system, but in my opinion if you are shifting into an animal, you should be shifting into that specific animal as it exists in the game world, not a player-generated template that the player then slaps a name on...if they even bother. Definitely not some hybrid creature.

The overwhelming feedback I got from my players about the beastmaster change to a templated companion in Tasha's was that they hated it. Passionately. They didn't want a magically summoned "beast of the land" or whatever, even though they understood that it was more powerful. They wanted their rangers to have an actual bear, wolf or whatever that they had bonded with and trained. They wanted an animal companion.

Similarly, the issue with templates is that they are a design solution that completely fails to address the roleplay aspect that many druid players love: turning into specific animals.

I think a far better solution would be to aim for a moon druid who can use wild shape like Doric does in the D&D movie. I think that nailed how a lot of players see the class.

Anyway, according to the video the next iteration of druid will be something very different, so I look forward to seeing what is next.

Paladin went over positively - no surprise there, nor that allowing smite at range was the one feature that didn't sell. I don't think anyone is shocked. What I am seeing so far is that there is not an appetite from the wider player base for big changes. When they basically just take a class and make some tweaks and quality of life improvements, most folks are happy. This does not surprise me - the whole reason why OneD&D is keeping the 5e chassis is that it has been broadly popular.

So I think the next iterations of druid and warlock will be a lot closer to the 2014 versions.

 

[Tutara]

Now I regret not completing the survey - I might have been the template aficionado who tipped the balance back the other way.

Always vote, people!