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If you have the wealth, status and time to create the associated facility, why not? As I see it, 5e's choice to make wealth and magic item progression independent of level progression is a feature, not a bug. It facilitates variety between campaigns and a diversity of worldbuilding assumptions...

Overall, I really like these changes and hope the underperforming leveled spells will get a similar treatment. Especially when it comes to choosing attack cantrips, I think the updates do a good job of making more options competitive Firebolt while also avoiding power creep beyond it. I do...

Putting Cunning Strike in the final book certainly seems like the right call. That said, I think it would very much be worth putting it in another playtest to work out the details. Which of the specific options are people most and least excited about? Should every Rogue have access to all of the...

More specifically, I'd say the limiting part is doing it in such a way that some ability scores (determined by class in a largely fixed manner) contribute to multiple important combat parameters, while others do little or nothing in combat. If dexterity-focused rogues, intelligence-focused...

I would say yes: teleporting the party feels like something a specific character has accomplished, even if the whole party benefits (the same is true of healing, and even damage, which are definitely factors we consider in class balance). Access to the ability is also a factor that players will...

One place I think a lot of discussions go wrong is an overemphasis on precision and an underemphasis on uncertainty. When estimating damage, for instance, one needs to make assumptions about parameters like enemy AC and saves, rest frequency, encounter distance, and frequency of concentration...

What bothers me about the "D&D Multiverse" framing is that it sets the assumption that a homebrew setting is really just a subpart of someone else's setting. While I can and do reject this assumption, the developers presenting it as the default still comes across as presumptuous, and it puts the...

While I agree that some of the hexblade invocations are overturned, there's plenty of dispute in this thread about whether/to what degree the warlock is unbalanced. Opinions don't need to be expressed in a youtube video to count.

There are a lot of interesting ideas here about reasons for the influence of gods to be limited or indirect. I think where I see things differently from a lot of posters is that I'm not sure it's desirable for such ideas to be established as setting canon rather than in-universe beliefs. I...

This is wildly hyperbolic. Are there specific forms of evil the developers are choosing not to portray? Absolutely. But reading through a recent book like Radiant Citadel it's quite easy to find examples of unambiguously evil characters doing unambiguously evil things. It's also easy to find...

In discussions of D&D, I often see arguments based on the assumption of unambiguously real, universally acknowledged gods. While this framework certainly describes many settings, I don't think it's fair to take as given in a game played in as many different settings as D&D. I also think the...

Why do half of the posts on this topic seem to revolve around a specific youtuber's opinions? When someone on the forum makes a good point, we don't treat their name as a substitute for their argument, and we don't expect people posting in a different thread to be familiar with it. What makes a...

I think of it this way. If the player has a choice between two options, but one of those options is consistently more effective than the other, the player hasn't actually been given an interesting choice. If the options are similarly effective, the player has more freedom to make that choice...

My biggest issue is still the overuse of the level 4 prerequisite. I don't mind if there are specific feats that actually need to be limited to levels 4+ for balance reasons, but the playtests seemed to treat it as the default, even for feats that would have made a lot of sense as part of a...

I would say the Sea Druid. It has a compelling theme that makes sense in almost any setting, and I'm generally a fan of non-wildshape-centric druids. The Brawler I think has potential, if the developers are willing to give it a compelling level 3 feature. The World Tree Barbarian is something...

Drawing on the ideas of animals was the explanation you provided in the exact line I was quoting: I have no problem with Barbarians gaining heightened focus and physical ability, but using STR (which is defined as physical strength everywhere else in the game) to accomplish tasks that have...

As someone who likes the 2014 version of counterspell, I'd be fully in favor with nerfing fireball and lightning bolt.

Regarding the discussion of percentages, the developers are describing their results as approval ratings. In conventional polling terminology, that’s a measurement of how many people like something, not of how much the average person likes something (if a public figure has a 45% approval rating...

The ability to draw on the ideas of animals is based on physical strength? Regardless, I think this is far too specific a narrative to be pushed on an entire class. A wizard should be able to apply their intelligence modifier to ability checks that the DM rules are based on intelligence, just...

I think these damage calculations, with all of their dubious assumptions, distract from what could be a much simpler argument: giving the bladelock a 3rd attack, when Paladins and Rangers (who rely on similar damage boosts) stop at 2 attacks, is probably overkill. Thirsting blade is similarly an...