D&D (2024) D&D 2024 Rules Oddities (Kibbles’ Collected Complaints)

[Oofta]

Spike Growth was already an annoying spell. This pushes it into bannable territory for me.



It's not that the rules don't say you need a free hand. They explicitly do say that you don't need a free hand (as per the new Crossbow Expert feat: "If you're holding [a crossbow], you can load a piece of ammunition into it even if you lack a free hand.").

Even the 2014 Crossbow Expert feat bothered me, but this just makes it worse. Being able to ignore the loading property of a crossbow and reload it without having a free hand ought to be mechanical changes you make to the crossbow itself, not just because you're really good at using a crossbow.

Like I said, I'll wait until I have the rules in hand and make a call at that point. It may include house rules.

 

[FarBeyondC]

Conjure Minor Elementals should have used Spirit Shroud's scaling (+1 die per two levels), or at most standard scaling (+1 die per level).

 

[tetrasodium]

This list doesn't surprise me in the slightest. Some of these things were revealed with the fury of a thousand exploding stars during the playtest even

Spoiler: one of the more obvious examples

Picking this one because it was explained so exhaustively by the_twig making it one of the easier ones to find.

I suspect that quite a few of these were deliberately created "wouldn't it be cool if.." design choices.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Taking into account that exposure to the 2014 rules has made it easier to notice some issues already (compared to taking a bit longer in 2014), that a few of these lean more into preference than necessarily issues, and the vagaries of memory, it still seems to me that this is a significantly bigger list of actual problems on release than 2014. Not a gigantically bigger list, but a significantly bigger one.

 

[Azzy]

All this fills me with great confidence.

 

[lolsworth]

Anyone keeping count of the issues fixed vs issues created? I'd be interested to see the ratio.

The most egregious to me is changing Hide and Grapple, but somehow making both just as if not more confusing/weird

 

[mamba]

This list doesn't surprise me in the slightest. Some of these things were revealed with the fury of a thousand exploding stars during the playtest even

all the more reason they should be fixed

I suspect that quite a few of these were deliberately created "wouldn't it be cool if.." design choices.

I hope not, that just means they are bad at their actual job

 

[KibblesTasty]

Anyone keeping count of the issues fixed vs issues created? I'd be interested to see the ratio.

The most egregious to me is changing Hide and Grapple, but somehow making both just as if not more confusing/weird

It's hard, because 'Fixed' is even more subjective then 'problem' (which is already situational). I don't really have a prepared list, but if I had to run through it as I can think of what I've seen from the discourse around it, it'd be something like this:

Subjective Stuff:

• The Rules Glossary. Almost everyone seems to agree this was universally an improvement.
• The Book. The books neater looking and far prettier. Lots of fancy art.
• Weapon Masteries. This is highly controversial territory, and I personally view them as more in the problem then the fix column, but they are undoubtable food for a starving martial population.
• Exhaustion. While most people liked the UA Exhaustion better than the printed version, most people like either version better than the 5e 2014 Exhaustion.
• Starting ASIs. People probably prefer Background to Race as the origin of the ASIs, but most people preferred them unlocked instead of either, and this is a very divided issue at best.
• More Stuff. Everyone gets a lot more stuff. Origin feats, more class features stacked on top, more flexibility to swap stuff. D&D 2024 characters are a good bit more powerful than 5e 2014 characters. This is definitely not an unalloyed good, but some people will prefer it.
• Healing Buffed. Healing, especially at low levels, was buffed quite a bit. Bonus action healing potions, cure wounds/healing word/etc all got +1 die of healing.
• Feat Selection. Powerful feats got brought more in line with other feats - Lucky, GWM, SS, etc. Weaker feats got buffed (Dual Wielder, Shield Master, etc). There is still winners and losers here though.

Mechanics:

• Weapon Drawing. If they hadn't borked it immediately be implementing the incentive to do Weapon Swapping, I actually like the change the draw weapons before attacking, since it makes a lot of thrown weapons work better without the need for a Fighting Style or Feat. This is tarnished by also being part one of the bigger problems though.
• Better Monks. Most people seem to think the new monk is better. The bug around Stunned creatures being able to move, most people think a stronger Monk with reworked stunning strike is better.
• Conjure Spells. Conjure Animals (and all Conjure Spells) were probably more broken in 5e 2014. The new ones are mixed, but the old ones were very problematic.
• Nerfed Spells. The spell fixes were very underwhelming, but a lot of changes were technically improvements. Forcecage is still a problem, but any nerf is better than no nerf. Leomund's Tiny Hut sees situational nerf. Animate Objects was nerfed somewhat. Weird was buffed to not that bad.
• Baked In Updates. Stuff like improved Dragonborn are baked into the default.
• Divine Smite. Divine Smite was nerfed pretty hard. Mileage may vary on how necessary this was.
• Sorcerer Spell Lists. Sorcerers have subclass spell lists (mostly). This is a fairly popular change.
• Warlock Improvements. Warlocks now know their subclass spells instead of just expand their list. Most people seem to prefer this change. Pact of the Blade got some of the Hexblade features by default, which most people like.

 

[lolsworth]

It's hard, because 'Fixed' is even more subjective then 'problem' (which is already situational). I don't really have a prepared list, but if I had to run through it as I can think of what I've seen from the discourse around it, it'd be something like this:

Subjective Stuff:

• The Rules Glossary. Almost everyone seems to agree this was universally an improvement.
• The Book. The books neater looking and far prettier. Lots of fancy art.
• Weapon Masteries. This is highly controversial territory, and I personally view them as more in the problem then the fix column, but they are undoubtable food for a starving martial population.
• Exhaustion. While most people liked the UA Exhaustion better than the printed version, most people like either version better than the 5e 2014 Exhaustion.
• Starting ASIs. People probably prefer Background to Race as the origin of the ASIs, but most people preferred them unlocked instead of either, and this is a very divided issue at best.
• More Stuff. Everyone gets a lot more stuff. Origin feats, more class features stacked on top, more flexibility to swap stuff. D&D 2024 characters are a good bit more powerful than 5e 2014 characters. This is definitely not an unalloyed good, but some people will prefer it.
• Healing Buffed. Healing, especially at low levels, was buffed quite a bit. Bonus action healing potions, cure wounds/healing word/etc all got +1 die of healing.
• Feat Selection. Powerful feats got brought more in line with other feats - Lucky, GWM, SS, etc. Weaker feats got buffed (Dual Wielder, Shield Master, etc). There is still winners and losers here though.

Mechanics:

• Weapon Drawing. If they hadn't borked it immediately be implementing the incentive to do Weapon Swapping, I actually like the change the draw weapons before attacking, since it makes a lot of thrown weapons work better without the need for a Fighting Style or Feat. This is tarnished by also being part one of the bigger problems though.
• Better Monks. Most people seem to think the new monk is better. The bug around Stunned creatures being able to move, most people think a stronger Monk with reworked stunning strike is better.
• Conjure Spells. Conjure Animals (and all Conjure Spells) were probably more broken in 5e 2014. The new ones are mixed, but the old ones were very problematic.
• Nerfed Spells. The spell fixes were very underwhelming, but a lot of changes were technically improvements. Forcecage is still a problem, but any nerf is better than no nerf. Leomund's Tiny Hut sees situational nerf. Animate Objects was nerfed somewhat. Weird was buffed to not that bad.
• Baked In Updates. Stuff like improved Dragonborn are baked into the default.
• Divine Smite. Divine Smite was nerfed pretty hard. Mileage may vary on how necessary this was.
• Sorcerer Spell Lists. Sorcerers have subclass spell lists (mostly). This is a fairly popular change.
• Warlock Improvements. Warlocks now know their subclass spells instead of just expand their list. Most people seem to prefer this change. Pact of the Blade got some of the Hexblade features by default, which most people like.

I was thinking more rules fixes (to things that previously needed Sage Advice or twitter threads to tell you how things actually worked) vs creating "problematic"/exploitable stuff as opposed to regular nerfs/buffs.

 

[KibblesTasty]

I was thinking more rules fixes (to things that previously needed Sage Advice or twitter threads to tell you how things actually worked) vs creating "problematic"/exploitable stuff as opposed to regular nerfs/buffs.

I guess you'd have to let me know what exploits in 5e 2014 you're looking for fixes in.

Of the ones I can think off...

• Coffeelock. There is... serious debate if this ever worked, but it was fully nerfed out.
• Infinite Simulacrum Chains. This one was... well, I don't think it was fixed, but some of people do. It's a pretty controversial one that comes down to the wording of Wish and what a 'requirement' (a word defined no where in the book) is.