D&D 5E (2024) A critical analysis of 2024's revised classes

[Seramus]

Character generation taking hours is (dubiously) fine if you only have to do it once.

If your game has any decent level of lethality to it, however, your players won't be doing it just once. They'll be doing it several times or more each, meaning that anything that can be done to shorten the char-gen process is good design. Your proposals seems to go the other way.

Takes me a week to make a character! Mostly because everything has to vibe right, including the name.

 

[ECMO3]

Takes me a week to make a character! Mostly because everything has to vibe right, including the name.

I used to get really stuck on names, then I started using Virtue names and transliterated Arabic words and now it is pretty easy for me to generate a name.

 

[Lanefan]

I used to get really stuck on names, then I started using Virtue names and transliterated Arabic words and now it is pretty easy for me to generate a name.

I dreamed up my own random name generator back in the 80s - it's a lot of rolling but has over the years given us some mighty fine names.

Another really quick cheat for names is to take an existing real-world name and change or add or subtract one letter. Douglas could become Dauglas or Douglast or Dougla; Annabelle could become Annakelle or Annabeyle or Annbelle, etc.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Poster is gone burger

autocorrect error?

 

[Zardnaar]

autocorrect error?

Nope NZ slang. Means bye bye essentially.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

So I'm going to point out that seven people thumbs-up'd this post before I reply to it. Seven people.

Part of the reason I decided to not bother continuing with this was, to be frank, there's a very real tendency for 2024 fans to be dismissive towards people who criticize the revised rules. There was one post earlier in this thread, when raising a particular point toward one class that made little sense (the Barbarian having restrictions on their Weapon Mastery options when no other class with the feature does) and one response to this was "I don't mind".

It wasn't an argument to justify the design choice or disagree with the criticism, it was simply..."this isn't a problem because I don't care". And that's pretty much a big problem when you go to critiquing 2024 design choices, because there's very many that negatively impact other players' characters, builds, and thus game experience...and that many people simply go "I don't mind, it doesn't bother me".

And why am I bringing this up in response to your post? The tendency for 2024 fans to be dismissive, belligerent, degrading of dissenting opinions on the revision?

Between the three class critiques I did, I used the word "lazy" to describe all of two features. (To note: giving the Barbarian a 17th-level feature that gives "use the options you already had but two of them" for Brutal Strikes, and giving the Cleric Wish as their 20th-level feature.)

So in large part, there is no real reason to take the time to analyze and critique the 2024 classes when many responses will already be coming in with a refusal to seriously consider any of the points made...and then get their pats on the back, affirmation, encouragement from like-minded people from such a (dare I say it?) lazy take on the thread.

Two is too many to be polite, and you glossed over the part where I said that it was too bad that you couldn't be civil, because I was interested in what you had to say, otherwise.

From my perspective, very few people were dismissive of your choice to critique (we welcome it, in fact). They were, however, critical of the style with which you chose to form your critique.

I was not dismissing you. The opposite, in fact.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

As well, I went back and checked, and it's seems it's true that he used the word lazy twice, and not "for any and all design choices he didn't like."

Did I say that? I suppose that may have come off stronger than I intended. At any rate, the first time he used the term "lazy", I let it go, because I really wanted to know what he had to say. The second time I commented, because it seemed to be a forming pattern.

Also, I don't think I ought to be characterized as a "fanboy" (Assuming I was one of those he was talking about) as there is a LOT of things that I don't like about every edition of D&D, 2024 included, and I'd be happy to discuss them.

It would be more pleasant to do it if we're not tossing around insults, though.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I don’t think there is any place for the use of the word “lazy” as a critique. The people who create these games, like the rest of us, are overworked, overstressed and under paid. And this is far more likely to be the reason they sometimes make poor decisions.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I don’t think there is any place for the use of the word “lazy” as a critique. The people who create these games, like the rest of us, are overworked, overstressed and under paid. And this is far more likely to be the reason they sometimes make poor decisions.

We--and I very specifically mean "I" as part of that we--certainly should give the designers more grace than we--I--do.

Conversely? There are certain mistakes that can be made which do look like a lack of effortful pursuit of solutions. Completely 100% canning the original playtest versions of the Sorcerer and Warlock, for example, rather than giving even one single try to improve them, looks like laziness--especially when you contrast it with the, what, four or five attempts each to make both Proficiency Dice and Specialties work and stick around? If you aren't willing to give one idea even a single fix-up attempt, whereas other ideas were given effort after effort after effort while the feedback remained consistently negative, that speaks of playing favorites with design elements, of "listening" to feedback only when it supports what you already wanted to do. I would, genuinely, consider that a form of design laziness: claiming to actually be soliciting real feedback, which you will respond to and try to address, while actually proceeding more or less how you wanted when you really like an idea, and not even bothering to respond when you weren't that committed.

Now, of course, I'm aware that these are issues I personally had strong feelings about, all three of them. That too probably colors my perception of the situation. But I don't see anything wrong with calling out flaws like inconsistency and playing favorites--and summing those things up as "design laziness" seems a reasonably pithy way to say it.

 

[Eric V]

Did I say that? I suppose that may have come off stronger than I intended. At any rate, the first time he used the term "lazy", I let it go, because I really wanted to know what he had to say. The second time I commented, because it seemed to be a forming pattern.

A pattern of 2?

It doesn't matter, I don't have a horse in this race; I just saw his statement and went to check. It would be great if people could discuss without resorting to hyperbole.

As for the "lazy" discussion, @EzekielRaiden said it better than I could.