April's D&D Feedback Survey Results

WotC has revealed the results of its latest monthly feedback survey. Last month's survey dealt with game scheduling habits, character races, and Adventurer's League content. Additionally, a new survey has been posted covering problem spells, the DRAGON+ mobile app, and the Waterborne Adventures UA column.

The new survey is here. April's survey results are here, but below is a quick list of the take-home points.

• It turns out that that 1st-6th level games are still the most common a year after D&D 5E's launch.
• The most likely end point of a campaign is 10th-12th level.
• There is a preference for more open, sandboxy adventures.
• Smaller races are seen as weaker options.
• Adventurer's League content is reasonably well received, with specifically designed adventures more popular than Tyranny of Dragons adaptions for AL.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Obviously.

But that doesn't tell us anything about whether or not the issue of feats, or weapon choices more generally, is in play in relation to the survey response.

I would expect more future survey questions on that stuff. Things like "Do you use feats?" and maybe a section on which feats are good/bad/broken/etc. Questions like "when you play a melee-focused character, what 'build' is your favorite?"

For instance, if the community of players, as a whole, regards GWM fighters as the strongest build (or, perhaps, the strongest non-primary-caster build), then it would be rational to regard it as a weakness of gnomes and halflings that they lack access to that build. (Ditto for longbow-using sharpshooters.)

Alternate explanations include that it is the "strongest build" being an issue with the GWM feat (it's too good) or an issue with the other fighting style feats (they're not good enough).

If people are saying that something is an issue in actual play, I regard that as sufficient evidence that it is an issue in actual play. In this case, people have said that small races are the weakest option for choice of race.

Yeah, and, prudently, Wizards is looking at why that might be from an abundance of angles, rather than just jumping to the conclusion that small races need to be able to use heavy weapons.

that doesn't mean people are mistaken in thinking that he small races are a weaker race option.

I'm not suggesting they're mistaken, I'm just suggesting that perhaps the small-races-are-weak perception comes from somewhere beyond a niche optional build. That doesn't seem to adequately account for the perception to me.

I mean, if most folks are 1-6, and only a fraction of tables even use feats, then how many active characters are being played with the GWM feat right now? How many are being played in a game where small characters are trying to be melee machines? There's zilch in my current campaigns. It's possible I'm an outlier, but I'd wager the number of people who see this in practice are pretty low - and if I' right, those numbers would be too low to account for folks wanting gnomes with greatswords affecting this poll.

I could be wrong, though. Maybe there are thousands of halfling players out there who want to use mauls as well as half-orcs and my tables are outliers. In which case I kind of wonder why I'm such an outlier.

 

[Minigiant]

My prediction is that isn't more than just great weapon fighting.

Small races also can't use reach weapons. So you can't do a halfling halberdier or pikegnome.

And most of the small races are dexterity based. This is counterintuitive when making a heavy armor tank. There goes your power armored gnome.

And no longbow or heavy crossbows.

So small races are forced to dual wield, monk martial arts, or cast spells.

 

[ExploderWizard]

No shockers there.

The small race thing is more a heavy weapons thing. No heavy weapons means Strength based small PCs must take defensive or two weapons routes or be rogues or monks. Medium size is better for defense warriors and dex warriors are lower damage after level 4.

Being small locks you out of the best offensive nonmagical combat types. Small casters are great however.

Settle down vtuder. I'm saying let them use small greatswords. Which do 2d6 like all other greatswords. Since hit points arent meat, we dont need special rules for a slightly smaller greatsword. The halfling/gnome is already dealing less damage than most by virtue of not getting a strength bonus. They don't need to be penalized for using 2 handed styles due to lack of the great weapon fighting feat.

Why have any racial mechanical features at all then if they don't really mean anything? I see the clamoring for heavy weapons use by small races as a simple case of wanting to have your cake and eat it too. Everyone wants the cool perks and abilities that goes with being small but none of the drawbacks. If we add heavy weapon use to the small races then why not add their special traits to the larger races? If halflings get to be beefy then why can't my half orc hide behind other people?

At that point all races have all the perks and there is no point in using them at all. From a game balance perspective alone, taking away the only real downside of an option will make it too good NOT to choose. After all, if I can swing a greataxe and bring the pain of a hulking half orc, yet be nimble and hide like a lightfoot halfling why on earth would I NOT want to do that! There is really no reason to play a large race ever.

Every racial choice has to have tradeoffs. This to me is more important than worrying about the protein content of hit points.

IMO, sandboxes as adventures seem to miss the point. They're gazeteers with plot hooks and some maps. The level of detail in an adventure product is usually pointless in a sandbox, as you arent expected to use all of it. The parts your PC's dont explore is wasted design time. So why detail 15 rooms of a dungeon a party might never set foot in?

The Paizo regional companions are perfect for this sort of thing. 64 pages of campaign detail, organizations, important NPC's, locales and hooks.

A sandbox presentation does not have to be bereft of adventure content. Once upon a time, the D&D adventure was based on the presentation of a scenario. An adventure was what happened when player characters came into contact with, and engaged that scenario. The scenario was the set up and draw for the players to interact with as they saw fit. NPCs and monsters had things they wanted to accomplish and the PCs interacted with that. The number of different adventures that could come out of a given scenario were as numerous as the number of players that could potentially play it.

That is why the classic TSR scenarios are remembered so fondly. There is a sense of a shared experience ( the same scenario) but so many different ways it can unfold that it becomes interesting enough to experience multiple times.

 

[delericho]

I see it mostly as a fictional thing - you are the size of an eight-year-old, you simply cannot effectively use a hunk of metal that is as long as you are and probably about as heavy, too - you simply don't have the mass for it.

Of course, neither could a human character at the bottom end of the height/weight scale - think Paris Hilton with a greatsword. Same problem. And yet the rules allow that without penalty.

 

[Morrus]

My question is, "Are they targeting people that buy published adventures?"

Obviously they are. And obviously people can purchase more than one type of adventure.

Sandbox was never my concern when making the purchase.

That's the funny thing about surveys...

 

[delericho]

The level reports are trivial self fulfilling prophecies. Why even include it? Most games that are played are 1-6? Really I wonder why? Oh yeah, because the game starts at level 1.

Yep, no point in even asking about that - low level will always be most common for the same reason that far more buildings have a small number of levels than many.

What might be more useful would be to ask DMs what level they intend their campaign to run to, whether their previous campaign reached its intended end-point, and what WotC could do to provide more support for them getting to that point. Though I'm not sure even that would provide much useful information - my suspicion is that the market for high-level content is sufficiently small, and the needs so particular, that they'd find it very hard to provide much meaningful support anyway.

 

[Celtavian]

Obviously they are. And obviously people can purchase more than one type of adventure.

I don't think it is obvious. Did the survey target DMs or the general player base? I don't recall a survey discussing adventures specifically, I've been trying to do them all. I DM quite a bit. I usually use a purchased adventure. I don't recall a survey aimed at us.
A general survey aimed at the random player base included in a survey featuring player material as well isn't going to be as accurate as survey targeted at DMs. I know myself and one other player purchase premade adventures. The other two play and rarely purchase adventures. A DM looks for different things than a player when purchasing adventure content. I hope I see some DM specific surveys sometime soon.

 

[SkidAce]

What's stopping you from having STR as your highest stat and bumping it at feat levels?

 

[I'm A Banana]

Of course, neither could a human character at the bottom end of the height/weight scale - think Paris Hilton with a greatsword. Same problem. And yet the rules allow that without penalty.

That's why it's kind of a fictional thing. I mean, at least Paris is slightly larger than an 8 year old. That + heroic suspension of disbelief, sure. Not that I have much of a fictional problem with greatsword-wielding gnomes, either. Just that maybe small character should be different from medium characters in some concrete, mechanical way.

 

[Morrus]

I don't think it is obvious.

Clearly. We disagree.