D&D (2024) One D&D Survey Feedback: Weapon Mastery Spectacular; Warlock and Wizard Mixed Reactions

Jeremy Crawford discusses the results of the Packet 5 Survey:

• Weapon Mastery at 80% approval, and all options except for Flex scored similarly. Crawford says that Flex is mathematically one of the most powerful properties, but will need some attention because people didn't feel like it was. This feature is in the 2024 PHB for 6 Classes, guaranteed at this point.
• Barbarian scored well, particularly the individual features, average satisfaction of 80% for each feature. Beserker got 84% satisfaction, while the 2014 Beserker in the 2020 Big Class Survey got 29% satisfaction.
• Fighter received well, overall 75% satisfaction. Champion scored 54% in the Big Class Survey, but this new one got 74%.
• Sorcerer in the Big Class Survey got 60%, this UA Sorcerer got 72%. Lots of enthusiasm for the Metamagic revisions. Careful Spell got 92% satisfaction. Twin Spell was the exception, at 60%. Draconic Sorcerer got 73%, new Dragon Wings feature was not well received but will be fixed back to being on all the time by the return to 2014 Aubclass progression.
• Class specific Spell lists are back in UA 7 coming soon, the unified Spell lists are out.
• Warlock feedback reflected mixed feelings in the player base. Pact magic is coming back in next iteration. Next Warlock will be more like 2014, Mystic Arcanum will be a core feature, but will still see some adjustments based on feedback to allow for more frequent use of Spells. Eldritch Invocations were well received. Crawford felt it was a good test, because they learned what players felt. They found the idiosyncracy of the Warlock is exactly what people like about it, so theybare keeping it distinct. Next version will get even more Eldritch Invocation options.
• Wizard got a mixed reception. Biggest problem people had was wanting a Wizard specific Spell list, not a shared Arcane list that made the Wizard less distinct. Evoker well received.

 

[Charlaquin]

If that got high marks in the surveys, there will probably be some version of it; perhaps bards get to pick a spell from any list every now and again.

You mean like how Magical Secrets works on the 2014 bard?

 

[Charlaquin]

I heard it suggested Divine, Arcane, and Primal Spells could be tags on Spells.

That’s a good idea!

 

[Parmandur]

Do the designers just not know how math works? I don’t understand how they could possibly think +1 damage is “mathematically one of the most powerful (weapon mastery) abilities.”

I think the problem is thwt the designers have a mathematical formula with better data than most players, so what is clear from their spreadsheet seems less than ideal to anyone without the assumptions from playtest data that the Deaigners have.

Note that it is a simultaneous +2 to AC as well as a damage die increase.

 

[Shardstone]

I think the worst thing about this playtest is that for some reason, it became common belief that something's first public draft or second public draft should be perfect.

Anyone who has done any art, no matter what it is, can likely say that the first draft is often one of the worst drafts. The second cna get a lot better or worse, because it's just the second. You really need at least three public drafts to hone in on playtest feedback and create something polished.

WotC has essentially scrapped everything after just one or two drafts. They did so for time, but in doing so, they really sacrificed, to me at least, the sancticty of the playtest. I don't mean this in some big dramatic way. It's just, if we were only going to get 1 or 2 drafts, this was never a real playtest from the jump. There was no real itteration that went on for most of the classes except those debuted in the beginning. Because of that, we didn't get a chance to really explore the experiments they started, and we were expected to confidently say if the experiments were a succes before they realistically could have been.

This applies to things making it in the book too. There is no way that Flex is something that people would want added to the game. Maybe if it was a two die upgrade or maybe if it was a die upgrade and +1 damage etc, but ultimately, that's just one of many things that tested well but would still benefit from another draft. Weapon Mastery overall could use a little bit more added to it in terms of depth (for high level options). The fact that it has an 80% now doesn't mean its perfect, just that it's satisfactory. A third test on Weapon Mastery and a willingness to further explore the concept would be great for the system as a whole.

So, even if the new Warlock scored 80% for example, it still wouldn't get another public draft to further fine-tune and enhance it. Viewed like this, it really doesn't matter what % something got, since it was never going to be highly polished regardless.

Furthermore, the methodology of the playtest really sucks too. Many games do a single 100-page playtest that they update with feedback. This allows you to see the core of the game and to imagine how things play out. Instead, we were given things piecemeal and told to use them with existing 5E paradigms and then to judge them.

Since it's been confirmed that other things, such as a Wilderness survival game, were scrapped due to being too complicated (and literally never saw the light of day), just shows that 1D&D's playtest period really was just a joke in the end. We're getting some nice additions (Weapon mastery, subclass upgrades) and a lot of errata.

All this effort and discussion just to get almost no changes and an inherently flawed playtest procedure freaking sucks. Big L, WotC. I've been defending 1D&D for a long time, but now I've lost the glaze in my eye.

 

[Charlaquin]

He might also be adding the +2 AC from being able to use a shield, without realizing that we holding a shield already.

That would definitely make sense

 

[tetrasodium]

Do the designers just not know how math works? I don’t understand how they could possibly think +1 damage is “mathematically one of the most powerful (weapon mastery) abilities.”

Unsurprising, but good to know, especially that it’s making it in for the half-casters.

Cool, cool

Aww, I liked the UA version of dragon wings.

Oh, wow! I mean, I guess that makes sense, it was probably unnecessarily restrictive. I wonder what that will mean for the bard going forward.

Thank the gods!!

Alright, I guess.

GiGo & bad spreadsheet entries explain it easily. Lets say you start with a nice neat spreadsheet like this covid project & start using it to ballpark crunch data to use for comparisons (as it was designed for). Already you are starting out with a monstrosity of a spreadsheet built to show as many steps along the way as possible to allow it to be visualized bit by bit. Take that & extend it a bit or even just try to add a new subsection by copying the old instead of changing the input numbers (ie the only area it's designed to take user input). Any number of things could go wrong in the math... maybe a relative instead of absolute reference is updated to include totally wrong data, maybe a formula gets munged along the way, etc.

GiGo is easy to understand. Clinging to it without explaining the math used to support that level of praise being given to an average of +1 not so much

 

[Charlaquin]

Regarding your first point, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think 1-hour "short rests" was the reason why people liked it. It wasn't about the rest, so much as having higher level spell slots that recharged more than once in the day (something the last playtest version removed). And it was the 1-hour limitation, specifically, that frustrated people like me. But I do like 1-hour short rests for many other less important abilities. Therefore it sounds reasonable that a potential solution is to somehow have that recharge of higher level spell slots, but not tie it to short rests, specifically. But if you and I can agree on a limited ritual, that sounds promising. We'll see what they come up with in a couple weeks!

Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah, I agree that the fewer, more powerful spells that recharge more often is the important thing, not specifically it taking an hour to recharge them. Definitely open to making it a 10-minute ritual or something along those lines.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

You mean like how Magical Secrets works on the 2014 bard?

You're not wrong. But I liked the universal spell lists for bards, in part because I don't like Bards picking up Find Steed or other class-exclusive spells. In my opinion, only Paladins should ever have Find Steed, and it should be balanced only to the Paladin, which is why it can be at a lower level. Giving that spell to Bards, Clerics, or Warlocks with more advanced spell progression/power is broken and totally steals the Paladin's lunch.

 

[DEFCON 1]

He might also be adding the +2 AC from being able to use a shield, without realizing that we holding a shield already.

Or he's comparing the entire package of +1 damage / +2 AC to the load-out of other weapon & mastery packages and thus believes the former is better than most of the latter.

I do think more players think "doing something cool" is more important than just plain damage and armor class increases, so it would not surprise me if others do not accept his argument. They would prioritize knocking someone prone over the damage and AC boost (for instance) because it's different and "less boring", and thus "better". And Jeremy might not agree with that sentiment. No idea if this is in fact true, I'm just spitballing possibilities here.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think the problem is thwt the designers have a mathematical formula with better data than most players, so what is clear from their spreadsheet seems less than ideal to anyone without the assumptions from playtest data that the Deaigners have.

Note that it is a simultaneous +2 to AC as well as a damage die increase.

It is not a simultaneous +2 to AC, because versatile weapon users are either already using shields or already using the larger damage die without the weapon mastery. Flex is either +1 damage or +2AC, not both.