D&D (2024) New Unearthed Arcana Playtest Includes Barbarian, Druid, and Monk

UngeheuerLich said:

Please help me remember.

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shift as Swift action(bonus action in 5e)
you get bonus to your STR and natural armor and natural weapons
depending on form
and movement depending on form

Horwath said:

shift as Swift action(bonus action in 5e)
you get bonus to your STR and natural armor and natural weapons
depending on form
and movement depending on form

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So basically templates. With much text due to how 3.5 worked.

This would be half as much text in 5e.

Yes. I had preferred that.

UngeheuerLich said:

So basically templates. With much text due to how 3.5 worked.

This would be half as much text in 5e.

Yes. I had preferred that.

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I also provided feedback this round that Template wildshape would be better.

Pauln6 said:

Yeah, I suppose in my game, if one of my players picked a build that flew in the face of logic, despite being game legal, they would be the butt of so many jokes, that might take the shine off the increased damage a bit. A halfling barbarian wielding a greatsword would need a cart to carry the thing around.

There are plenty of accidental cheesy combos that some people enjoy but to expand the metaphor, some flavours leave a bad taste in the mouth. It does depend on the type of game you play. While I acknowledge the mathematical skill it takes to create such a build, the cheesy dpr builds just don't seem to have longevity.

As I say, I am happy with the races having distinct traits and small having advantages that are balanced by weapon limitations makes sense to me. I would not be in favour of removing all limitations on races from the core game (I was perfectly fine with racial penalties that steered races towards their traditional class combos mind you) but if they want to add a sidebar to give guidance on how and why to remove such limitations, I would be fine with that too.

The gap between optimised and non-optimised in 5e is nothing like 4e. It's not the end of the world and there are plenty of options to plug weaknesses.

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Honestly, the top half of your post just feels wrong to me. You'd mock someone until they felt bad about their build? There is plenty of fantasy involving people using oversized weapons and weapons as big as them. Some of them are meant to be comedic, and those players want the laugh, but others are being serious. And you stating that you and your group would mock them, because their preferred fantasy leaves a bad taste in your mouth... well, I couldn't agree less.

I'm not saying you have to play that way, you can not like it, but mocking other people for their choices is just disrespectful to your fellow players. And yes, even if that simply is that they wanted their character to use the weapon of their choice.

Pauln6 said:

Actually a sidebar with traditional racial penalties would be fine by me too. It doesn't force anyone to use it. No reason why options can't go both ways.

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This is about the only part of your post I can agree with. If people want this so badly, a sidebar telling them what penalties to take if they want them would be fine.

Chaosmancer said:

Honestly, the top half of your post just feels wrong to me. You'd mock someone until they felt bad about their build? There is plenty of fantasy involving people using oversized weapons and weapons as big as them. Some of them are meant to be comedic, and those players want the laugh, but others are being serious. And you stating that you and your group would mock them, because their preferred fantasy leaves a bad taste in your mouth... well, I couldn't agree less.

I'm not saying you have to play that way, you can not like it, but mocking other people for their choices is just disrespectful to your fellow players. And yes, even if that simply is that they wanted their character to use the weapon of their choice.

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Heh, similar to there being "no kink shaming".

D&D players should probably insist on there being "no fantasy shaming".

Chaosmancer said:

Honestly, the top half of your post just feels wrong to me. You'd mock someone until they felt bad about their build? There is plenty of fantasy involving people using oversized weapons and weapons as big as them. Some of them are meant to be comedic, and those players want the laugh, but others are being serious. And you stating that you and your group would mock them, because their preferred fantasy leaves a bad taste in your mouth... well, I couldn't agree less.

I'm not saying you have to play that way, you can not like it, but mocking other people for their choices is just disrespectful to your fellow players. And yes, even if that simply is that they wanted their character to use the weapon of their choice.



This is about the only part of your post I can agree with. If people want this so badly, a sidebar telling them what penalties to take if they want them would be fine.

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It's the British sense of humour. We can't respect you unless you can take a massive amount of disrepect. Adapt or cry.

Pauln6 said:

It's the British sense of humour. We can't respect you unless you can take a massive amount of disrepect. Adapt or cry.

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Maybe it is because my little sister only married a Brit, but that doesn't seem to match my experience.

And if they "adapt" and just roll with it.. then no shine was taken off their build. Seems to me that, per your posts here, that the "crying" would be not playing what they want to play because they'll be mocked for it.

Chaosmancer said:

Maybe it is because my little sister only married a Brit, but that doesn't seem to match my experience.

And if they "adapt" and just roll with it.. then no shine was taken off their build. Seems to me that, per your posts here, that the "crying" would be not playing what they want to play because they'll be mocked for it.

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Different campaigns have different styles. We just aren't a group of optimimisers and some of the silliness of certain optimised builds stand out and are worthy of mockery to us. If you can't please all of the people all of the time, it's fine to have a baseline and then options to go in different directions. We've been playing with healing dialled down since the edition came out and that works for us. You may enjoy playing with the healing option dialled up.

Similarly, I'm quite happy that short characters have a few limitations that larger characters don't have. They have fewer limitations than in previous editions. Maybe in the next edition, they will get their great sword. I may think it's silly and just number crunching because I am a player who likes to visualise the characters and I can't see any compelling reason to make it the baseline but I acknowledge that it would not break the game and if they wanted to add an option to the dial, I'm fine with that.

I also acknowledge that there are many other silly concepts that you can hand wave away with magic and that a Harry Potter themed game can play very different to a LOTR themed game, which is closer to our 33 year old campaign, as Harry Potter wasn't around back then. I just accept that the baseline dial is where it is and I am happier with that than I would be with where you want to aim the baseline for the numbers.

Pauln6 said:

Different campaigns have different styles. We just aren't a group of optimimisers and some of the silliness of certain optimised builds stand out and are worthy of mockery to us. If you can't please all of the people all of the time, it's fine to have a baseline and then options to go in different directions. We've been playing with healing dialled down since the edition came out and that works for us. You may enjoy playing with the healing option dialled up.

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Sorry to interrupt your conversation, but I have to agree with you.
Bringing optimized ridiculous builds to a fun party is a reason to be ridiculed.

If someone has a ridiculous build for fun, then everything is fine.

UngeheuerLich said:

Sorry to interrupt your conversation, but I have to agree with you.
Bringing optimized ridiculous builds to a fun party is a reason to be ridiculed.

If someone has a ridiculous build for fun, then everything is fine.

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Lol yeah. There is one Living Greyhawk adventure where the characters end up as stuffed toy animals at a child's tea party. You can have a lot of fun with craziness like that.