D&D (2024) 2024 Player's Handbook preview: "New Spells"

[mellored]

so, working as intended?

if players are smart and they can control the frontline and prevent backline to be outflank, then they should be rewarded.

Or add decent ranged attackers to the monsters.

What is every player has Shield?

 

[CapnZapp]

This is a circular thing. You can heal in combat. Its not as good “usually” as killing things in the three to four rounds of combat.

When it is helpful it is clutch and dramatic. It sounds like that does not match your healer fantasy archetype. Ok. Cool.

Different strokes.

Features should not be balanced for the party that values cool.

Features need to be valued for the party that values effectiveness.

Put otherwise, a balanced rule will still be cool. That party of your would still enjoy the game even if combat healing was a rational activity.

Put yet otherwise, you can have a game that's just cool and it attracts half the crowd. Add balance and you add the other half.

Unless you're prepared to argue healing must be a miserable waste of an action for you to enjoy it and think it clutch and dramatic, of course.

 

[CapnZapp]

One of the big concerns with the various online initiatives is that is can reduce the need for a GM ultimately.

And I'm sorry, but most players IME will throw a fit if you try to reduce their power in any way or take away anything they used to be able to do. Sounds like an obsession with winning to me, at least in aggregate.

Yeah but now you changed your position.

Players obsessed with winning, sure.

WotC only catering to this obsession is what you talked about before and what sounds like a disastrous long-term strategy to me.

 

[CapnZapp]

But now that they have it, you can't take it away without a huge debacle.

A poor argument for giving them it in the first place.

 

[CapnZapp]

Just because I didn't go into all the details, doesn't mean that I'm not aware of these things.

Okay.

My comment was directed at people reading your post.

That you might know more than what you let on when you write doesn't help others, am I right?

 

[CapnZapp]

Shield is the biggest problem in mid level campaigns where low level spell slots are not at a premium when playing with who lack imagination in terms of combat tactics.


If you are an 8th level party and the DM insists on whacking on your 27AC with attacks it is a problem. At high level it is less of a problem because monsters will blow right through that 27AC. A low levels it is not a problem because there are not enough slots to make it a problem.'

Also you don't need to disengage, if he used shield, he does not have a reaction and you (and every other enemy) are free to just walk around him and beat up on the squishy character in the back.

An even better tactic for the shield problem characters is to walk away without disengaging BEFORE they cast shield, preferably right after their turn. Then if they take an AOO on you turn around and wail them while they do not have a reaction. This really puts their PC in a bind because most high armor + shield spell characters are designed to tank and tie up enemies, by leaving them without taking an AOO you are really bypassing what their build is supposed to do, byb taking an AOO you and everyone later in the initiative order can attack shield spell free.

Thus gets to the heart of the issue right here.

Many people want their games to natch how they believe sword fights went down in history (and, of course, fictional movies and literature etc).

Everybody defending Shield basically says "just move past the AC monster to attack Squishies in the back".

This goes utterly against how these people see combat.

If a trained warriors can't prevent monsters from simply ignoring him, what even is this game??

Obviously a mighty warrior should be able to hold the monsters at bay and do his ONLY job, which is to protect his allies.

The game letting him attain AC 27 is thus a problem. Even if the spell only lasts one round, the crucial part of combat rarely lasts more than three rounds, so if three slots is enough to effectively become invincible , that is a problem.

The solution is NOT to invalidate the basic premise of what a mighty warrior represent to this category of player, and ask them to be cool with the idea "you used your reaction to cast Shield, every monster obviously knows how magic works, and they will now all just move past you to eat the Wizard in the back, thank you very much ".

A much better solution would be so that this issue doesn't happen in the first place, by insuring only the ones the spell was initially intended for, can cast it.

 

[CapnZapp]

The DM has enough on their plate without having to plan every encounter around a single overtuned spell (see also silvery barbs). "Git Gud" is insulting advice in a video game, it's equally insulting here.

God forbid you actually run a dungeon in Dungeons and Dragons, which often feature small quarters and 1-2 opponents, which are easily blocked in and made irrelevant by a 1st level spell.

Yep. The entire "just work around it" advice is mostly just a slap in the face.

Why insist on keeping a spell that even the best DM needs to "work around" when the game would simply be more fun without?

 

[CapnZapp]

The tension with Bladesinger is that they are easily the best gish subclass, but Wizarding is so much more useful than melee that even the best gish subclass is better off Wizarding if they can.

That's actually irrelevant to the discussion at hand.

Please don't argue that having a disruptively high AC isn't a problem because the player could have been playing a wizard instead...

 

[CapnZapp]

Then don't bother planning every encounter around it?

I'm reminded of when the Tunnel Fighter UA was being commented on, and people were FURIOUS about the idea that a character with that fighting style, and polearm master and sentinel could hold off a 15 ft hallway against any possible number of melee opponents! Which, at the time I pointed out... yeah, that's perfectly fine. That is what should happen when a character devotes a bunch of resources to specific gimmick.

Whether it is because they are an Eldritch Knight who grabbed the Defensive Fighting Style, is using sword and board, took warcaster to cast with a weapon, and uses the Shield Spell, or if it is a Bladesinger with high dex and high Int, who casts mage armor, activates blade song and then uses the Shield spell.... yes, they devoted a lot of resources into getting a very high AC. And at low levels they can't use it very often. And at high levels, enemies will still be capable of hitting them. So the "problem" is two builds at mid-levels... and yeah, I don't see that as much of a problem when the enemies can get past that high AC with different plans and strategies if you truly, truly need to cause hp damage to the target.

I've played with Shield builds. I've played with people who have Silvery Barbs, my current party has TWO characters with Silvery Barbs and we've still nearly TPK'd multiple times. Actually, the spell our DM hates the most (though Silvery Barbs is second) is the Wizard's Vortext Warp spell, something that essentially never gets mentioned as being game changing, but has been absolutely pivotal in multiple situations.

Can it be frustrating? Sure, it can. Just as it can be frustrating to have a Battlemaster Fighter/Oath of Vengeance paladin drop an action surge, Oath of Enmity, multiple smites with maneuver dice nova on my Boss monster and make them a greasy smear on the floor... but I don't think the correct move against that frustration would be to nerf action surge. The player built a character who was really good at one thing. They can be rewarded by being good at the thing they built themselves to be good at.

You're basically saying "because our group made it work it's not a problem to anyone". Not very persuasive.

Also, I suspect your DM is working hard in order to set up those difficult fights, and a DM working that hard is a luxury few groups can enjoy.

Point is: do you want to argue you need Shield as-is to enjoy the game?

I suspect you would have just as much fun even without these extreme builds, your DM would need to work less hard to challenge you in combat, and many many people would be ridden of the Shield headache once and for all.

PS. I've played the 2014 edition both before and after Silvery Barbs was added. I am if the belief it detracts rather than adds to the game. No I don't believe "working around it" us the proper solution.

The proper solution is to not trivially allow players to force monsters to reroll their most key and crucial rolls.

I look forward to playing a 2024 game that not yet has Silvery Barbs in it. It was a mistake to add it; it disrupts and slows down play and steaks focus away from other - less problematic - strategies.

In the same way, I would have loved it if Shield was available only to the low AC builds it was created for.

 

[CapnZapp]

NPCs with Magic now tend to only have support magic or magic that won’t affect their damage output much. The actual main things they do are written out in the stat block.

That is exactly what's being discussed. Do you have actual example 2024 stat blocks?