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Looking at the changes made for 5e.24, and the design of 5e in general, I think the one word that would never cross my mind about them would be "consistent." There are parts that are well designed. There are parts that are just 1974. There are parts that are 1979. There are parts that don't make...

OK, sure, I did forget about that. But that's kind of just it. The first background they present is the Custom Background rules to build your own. They don't present a pick list. They present a system for making your own. It's presented in Playtest 1 like the custom rule is the default with a...

I don't think sensitivity really had anything to do with it at all. I think the reason they removed Feeblemind is because it says this: That effectively removes a player from play. Having played characters in 3e that got Feebleminded, it was a miserable couple of play sessions, especially...

This is torturing the language. There is no way they wrote it with this level of precision. They would need to have "make" and "result" be defined keywords in the glossary at this rate.

While a Rogue always has stuff to do with a bonus action, I think gaining the option to make a third attack is worthwhile. That was the primary reason Polearm Master was such a dominant feat in 5.14.

I remember the discussion or feedback being "more significant backgrounds are fine" or "backgrounds with actual feats are fine." I don't remember them having ASIs tied to backgrounds at any point in the playtest. (But I admit I don't recall anything after 6.) I just don't understand why they...

I think what mostly aggravates me about the new backgrounds is that they made a pretty significant design decision and did not float it in the playtest like this at all. It really feels like a blindsiding change. It's not how the game has ever worked and they did nothing to allow us to have...

Sure, but D&D doesn't do that, right? It's either complete tower of babel or effectively fluent with no in between. Like there's never a proficiency check with language. That's going to take more than a school year.

So in 2014, #1 didn't exist. It's been imported from races, effectively, although they were pretty universally Common + 1. But the rare language rules are from 2014. In Chapter 4 of the PHB.14 or Basic: "Choose your languages from the Standard Languages table, or choose one that is common in...

I would be more comfortable with the change if I didn't already have the impression from prior editions that people wanted to play paladins and warlocks without involved patrons simply because they don't want to be beholden to some greater power or organization. It's like how some players tend...

But level 4 is Hero and level 8 is Superhero!

No, it isn't. The problem is that Shield works that way with anything that improves AC, right? It can combine with anything that improves AC. So Shield is only a good design in a game that doesn't let the caster's AC ever get beyond AC 14 or AC 15. That's not the case. Meanwhile, Bladesong...

I don't think I've ever had a problem with Shield working as written on low AC characters. Like the Wizard in Mage Armor with AC 14-15 casting Shield is fine. I think the only time we really have had a problem with Shield was when we had a high-level Bladesinger. He had Dex 16 and Mage Armor, so...

That would not be a nerf to Shield, that is a nerf to AC. Which means Shield is the only way AC might still function.

Hey I can do 5d12 damage at level 1. It just takes me 6 or 7 rounds.

Wait until you have several books and want the equivalent of PDF's Ctrl+F. Or if you want to use the index that's in the printed copy. There are things I like about the D&DBeyond format, but it's much harder to use as a reference for something you only partly remember. The fact that the...

Given it's history, I think lose/lose might be in Hasbro's mission statement. They seem to make bad decisions more often than they make toys.

I don't really buy this one. We don't know what spells look like. We don't know what saving throws are like. We don't know what the experience of resisting Hold Monster or Maze or anything like that feels like. It's not automatically unrealistic because the game is mute on that narrative. That's...

I have not actually experienced the whack-a-mole problem at our table, so for us it seems to be a solution for a problem that doesn't exist. I don't feel we need it. I'd still prefer a penalty like, "If you stop being unconscious in combat, you become surprised." But I'd even more prefer a...

The problem here is the knock-on effects from raising the overall difficulty of encounters this way. And with how variable damage is in D&D, that means you're very likely to have adventuring days where attrition is uneven from hard encounters. In effect, higher difficulty days mean you're going...