D&D 5E (2024) Lorwyn: First Light has been released

[eclair~]

I feel like this is an intentionally limited reading of the ability just to have something to wag a finger at. The intent is clear.

Insisting that "intent" supersedes the actual written text is an implicit admission that the writing is flawed.

 

[dave2008]

So the Lorwyn Changeling is broken. As in, it has a feature that doesn't work at all.

It gets a feature that lets it take the Dash action as a reaction when you roll initiative. The Dash action grants you extra movement on the turn it is used. But you can't use that movement outside of your own turn, so the feature doesn't do anything at all except waste your reaction.

This is glaring, because every other time in the history of the edition, the designers have understood that they need to explicitly confer the ability to move when a feature lets a creature move outside of its normal movement. By trying to use the Dash action as a shortcut (most likely to encourage optimizing around this feature), they've made a feature that's entirely non-functional as written. (Even if your character gets the top initiative roll, there is no current turn for the benefit to apply to before the actual first turn anyway.)

I seem to be missing something. Why is this feature "non functional?" As you explain it you can use a reaction on your turn to take the dash action. Why is that not functional?

 

[Sulicius]

Yeah this is it.

15 bucks is half the price of the PHB on DDB. Why is this so expensive? Why does it have to be exclusive to DDB?

The answer is probably, it is cheap to make and sell and they can keep all the money. No new art had to be made for this, since they had the magic cards already.

I'm not gonna buy it, but I am still sad we're not getting a solid Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft for the Feywild.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think we're talking a specific over general situation here.

The rule for the Changeling.


I read that as an immediate opportunity, prior to anyone else's Action, to Dash.

Yes, but what Dash does is double your movement for the turn. It doesn’t actually change your physical location at all, it just gives you more of the resource you spend to do so.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say it doesn’t do anything - you will have twice your usual movement when it gets to your turn, and still have your action and bonus action available. But that probably isn’t what the feature was intended to do. I would guess the intent was for it to allow you to move up to your speed, immediately, when you take the reaction.

 

[Charlaquin]

Lorwyn elf - Thorn whip (replacing with any Druid cantrip on a LR), Command, and Silence.

Ooh! That’s cool!

Shadowmoor elf - 120 foot darkvision, Starry Wisp, Heroism, and Gentle Repose

That’s fine, I guess. Not as exciting, but not bad.

 

[eclair~]

I seem to be missing something. Why is this feature "non functional?" As you explain it you can use a reaction on your turn to take the dash action. Why is that not functional?

The feature lets you use the Dash action as a reaction when you roll initiative. The Dash action gives you additional movement on the current turn equal to your speed. This runs into two problems:

1.) You don't have the ability to move when it's not your turn. This is why features that allows movement independent of a creature's normal movement are worded the way they are, to give the ability to move in the circumstance.
2.) Unless a creature joins initiative partway through a fight, there is no "current turn" when everyone is rolling initiative.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say it doesn’t do anything - you will have twice your usual movement when it gets to your turn, and still have your action and bonus action available. But that probably isn’t what the feature was intended to do. I would guess the intent was for it to allow you to move up to your speed, immediately, when you take the reaction.

The Dash action only applies on the turn it is used.

The only reason I can think of for WotC trying to word it in this fashion is to encourage exploiting the feature, via effects that activate when using the Dash action.

 

[Charlaquin]

I feel like this is an intentionally limited reading of the ability just to have something to wag a finger at. The intent is clear.

Mostly it’s just a weird quirk of how the Dash action is written - doubling your movement instead of allowing you to move up to your speed. Obviously it’s like this so that you can break that movement up, using part of it before your action and part of it after, instead of having it all be in one go. But, it does lead to features that allow off-turn movement needing to be written slightly awkwardly.

The thing about this mistake is, while the intent is obvious, it’s notable that this is the first time this mistake has been made. Up until now, all off-turn movement features have been written like Ready. This isn’t a problem for the reader, but it is potentially a sign that some institutional knowledge of how to word 5e rules has been lost within WotC’s design team. And that’s a little bit worrying. It suggests that the experienced writers and/or editors who knew this stuff are gone, which may portend a shift in the writing quality due to their absence.

 

[Yaarel]

Lorwyn elf - Thorn whip (replacing with any Druid cantrip on a LR), Command, and Silence.
Shadowmoor elf - 120 foot darkvision, Starry Wisp, Heroism, and Gentle Repose

This 2024 format is by far the easiest and best way to manage the 100+ different kinds of D&D Elves.

 

[vdgbbgfrgvgh]

Eh, idk honestly. I’m not overly excited for Lorwyn, and the content here is not very useful outside the setting.

I don't think you were the intended audience for the question then.

 

[Charlaquin]

The feature lets you use the Dash action as a reaction when you roll initiative. The Dash action gives you additional movement on the current turn equal to your speed. This runs into two problems:

1.) You don't have the ability to move when it's not your turn. This is why features that allows movement independent of a creature's normal movement are worded the way they are, to give the ability to move in the circumstance.
2.) Unless a creature joins initiative partway through a fight, there is no "current turn" when everyone is rolling initiative.


The Dash action only applies on the turn it is used.

The only reason I can think of for WotC trying to word it in this fashion is to encourage exploiting the feature, via effects that activate when using the Dash action.

I don’t think it’s a matter of trying to encourage exploiting the feature with Dash synergies (I’m not even aware of any such synergies existing). Rather, I think this is a sign that the writers/editors who were familiar with this particular technical nuance of 5e are no longer working there.