D&D (2024) 2024 Player's Handbook Reveal: Feats/Backgrounds/Species

[Horwath]

But then you might as well not calculate the bonus because the bonus is so low. It's extra math for no real extra. Brainpower used for nothing. Time spent for little effect.

Might as well just have +0 vs AC6.

yeah, real brain power at work here adding single digit number to a die roll that is by itself single or at worse double digit.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So custom backgrounds are no longer the default, and we lost at least three backgrounds from the playtest (assuming wayfarer is just a new name for urchin). That seems a bit regressive.

Plenty of backgrounds in WotC 5.0. And tons more in 3pp.

 

[Horwath]

Plenty of backgrounds in WotC 5.0. And tons more in 3pp.

and all waste of effort as one could have handled it all.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Overall liking the new backgrounds. Especially how they handle the ASI's.

Not a fan of how all the species are looking visually in the art. Everyone is visually looking more like reskinned humans. Orcs are the most obvious, but it even seems to be the case for all the others too.

This seems to be what WotC thinks new players (their primary concern) want: species as primary an aesthetic choice, like $5 DLC for a video game. I imagine they'd push that harder if they thought they could get away with it.

Heck, maybe they're right, I don't know.

 

[Minigiant]

yeah, real brain power at work here adding single digit number to a die roll that is by itself single or at worse double digit.

It's not that it's hard.

It's that you at wasting time adding a step to add practically nothing to a roll.

It's similar to having DR 3. You are wasting time subtracting 3 points of damage.

 

[Horwath]

It's not that it's hard.

It's that you at wasting time adding a step to add practically nothing to a roll.

It's similar to having DR 3. You are wasting time subtracting 3 points of damage.

DR 3 is really nice at lower levels, it might double your effective HP

 

[Micah Sweet]

and all waste of effort as one could have handled it all.

Most folks don't like "choose anything" as their option. That's a psychological thing.

I like Level Up backgrounds. They at least have aspirations, lists of keepsakes, known NPCs, that sort of thing.

 

[Micah Sweet]

By making the ASIs a feat now, I wonder if that will cause players, especially newer ones, to consider taking a another feat instead more often than they do in the current rules.

In the end it's not really different choice than before, but by making an ASI "just another feat" - I'm guessing the language in the PHB is now "you get a feat at level X" - that clear cut option of A or B is gone, so will there be an impact on the thought process when leveling up?

Are more of the feats worth an ASI, mechanically, than in 5.0? That's the real factor determining the success of that tactic to me.

 

[Minigiant]

DR 3 is really nice at lower levels, it might double your effective HP

But at level 7 when monsters deal 20-40 damage a swing?

That's the curse of low modifiers. If there are only a few low modifiers, the modifiers don't matter and you make calculations longer than they have to be. Then the turns take longer.

 

[Horwath]

But at level 7 when monsters deal 20-40 damage a swing?

That's the curse of low modifiers. If there are only a few low modifiers, the modifiers don't matter and you make calculations longer than they have to be. Then the turns take longer.

now HAM is updated to prof bonus DR so it's little better.