Artificer UA to be released in February

I don't think there is a bunker strong enough to endure the fanbase exploding over this.

 

[Ash Mantle]

If you aren't just trolling, and really believe five years between class additions is a reasonable development span, boy are you out of touch.

I think there's quite a fair few of us on these forums in particular who like the slower pace of design content output by Wizards. There's certainly less of an uneven quality in design, barring a few outliers and Wizards seem willing to address those in the future, and certainly less of a glut of decision paralysis overall.
I definitely wouldn't mind seeing factotums, or dragon sorcerers or spellthieves or truenamers or the casters who use chakra, or swordmages, etc, but the question would be would these work within the design and narrative framework of 5e? And could a subclass - current or to be designed - adequately capture the feel of these classes?

I think something that could be born in mind is whether a player's concept of a character could work reasonably well within the current options that we already have.

Strawman after strawman.

One class is not a glut. Nobody talked about entitlement.

It's true though that the DMsGuild is an excellent resource of third-party content, and content from older editions.

Putting out UA counts for very little.

I feel this is extremely unfair to the playtesting process and to the playtesters.

 

[CrimsonCarcharodon]

Strawman after strawman.

One class is not a glut. Nobody talked about entitlement. Putting out UA counts for very little.

Whining that WotC hasn't put out a single class in "five long years" sounds an awful lot like entitlement. It's not like WotC isn't supporting this edition. There are new subclasses, plenty of books, UA, and the DM's Guild.

There are dozens of new classes on DM's Guild and elsewhere on the Internet. You just have to look for them instead of complaining that WotC isn't doing it.

 

[DEFCON 1]

If I thought there was a narrative hole that only a new class could fill, I'd be all for it. That's one of the reasons why I like the Artificer-- because in the Eberron campaign setting specifically... a setting that puts a premium on magitech and magical items being much more prevalent... having a class specifically built to provide them makes for a fuller setting. That's also why I love kibbletasty's Artificer revamp-- because Eberron can easily support the six different subclassed versions of it, and having each one get its own list of "invocations" adds to it. Complex? Sure. But very people choose to play in Eberron because they want an "easier" D&D experience than the Forgotten Realms.

As far as other classes are concerned? If a setting has a hole to fill, then I'm good with them making one. But at the same time if it can be filled by subclasses of existing classes, I'm good with that too. Truth be told, I don't need/require more or less than we have, and would have been fine with whatever WotC had given us. Had they given us just the Core Four and all the other current classes were merely subclasses of the Core Four? That would have been fine. Or if the subclass system didn't exist and all the thematic subclasses we currently have had all been individual 20-level classes? I'd have been okay with that format too.

Because at the end of the day... whether or not themes are classes or subclasses or backgrounds really just come down to game mechanics. How many different groups of 20 levels worth of game mechanics do we receive... or how many groups of 3 or 4 levels worth of new mechanics we get layered on top of other 20 levels, or how many get a single feature worth of mechanics layered on top of all those other things? Which is why none of it really matters to me personally, because I play the game for the narrative and not just to use different game mechanics. If I play 6 rogues in a row and they all use the same 90% of game mechanics each and every time? If I create a different narrative for each of them and they grow and evolve differently over time... I'm good with it. 95% of D&D is rolling the exact same dice in the exact same ways over and over and over and over and over again... so feeling like I need new and different ways for that remaining 5% is a bit extreme.

 

[CapnZapp]

Whining that WotC hasn't put out a single class in "five long years" sounds an awful lot like entitlement. It's not like WotC isn't supporting this edition. There are new subclasses, plenty of books, UA, and the DM's Guild.

There are dozens of new classes on DM's Guild and elsewhere on the Internet. You just have to look for them instead of complaining that WotC isn't doing it.

Let me offer the alternative viewpoint: Thinking it is okay that WotC sits on its thumbs crunchwise for year after year sounds an awful lot like mindless fanboyism.

To me, the shifts in how many fans react depending on their corporate masters is ridiculous.

During 3E what WotC did or said was the One True Way and every dissenting voice was whining. During 4E what WotC did or said was the One True Way and every dissenting voice was whining (although, thank god, this voice died down pretty quick).

And now with 5E what WotC does (or doesn't) or says is the One True Way and every dissenting voice was whining.

In reality, of course, not releasing a single new class in five years is a huge disappointment. There is nothing unreasonable about this sentiment.

Man, I feel like the boy calling out the Emperor as naked. There are too many people content to discuss which exact week the second iteration of the Artificer comes out, and not enough people questioning the overall dearth of new classes and the obvious fact that WotCs so called "strategy" for new content... is to release next to nothing at all!

 

[CapnZapp]

I feel this is extremely unfair to the playtesting process and to the playtesters.

You respond as if what I said was that the UA process was worthless.

It is not and I never said so.

What I do say and stand for is:

Dragging out the playtest year after year is ridiculously slow. It is still not done. The focus shouldn't entirely be on excitement "oh what will we get". WotC has not deserved that.

This thread needs to also ask hard questions, mainly "why isn't this in a hardback already?"

Since nobody else added it, I did

 

[Parmandur]

If you aren't just trolling, and really believe five years between class additions is a reasonable development span, boy are you out of touch.

"Out of touch" with...what? What's popular? The careful approach to adding rules elements clearly hasn't hurt the game. With what is current? This has been the way of things for this whole decade, so it clearly what is in right now.

 

[Ash Mantle]

You respond as if what I said was that the UA process was worthless.

It is not and I never said so.

What I do say and stand for is:

Dragging out the playtest year after year is ridiculously slow. It is still not done. The focus shouldn't entirely be on excitement "oh what will we get". WotC has not deserved that.

This thread needs to also ask hard questions, mainly "why isn't this in a hardback already?"

Since nobody else added it, I did

So what did you mean when you said "Putting out UA counts for very little"? I don't want to speak for you and put words in your mouth.
There's no inference there to your point of the tedium of the playtest cycle.

That you feel that playtesting is being dragged out is your prerogative, but I feel it serves to articulate the ideas that need to be articulated and expressed. It also serves to ensure, hopefully, the quality of the mechanics.

When you ask the question of "why isn't this is in a hardback already?" you potentially get something like what's transpiring with the PF2.0 playtest. That's not asking a hard question, that's merely impatience in not wanting to see the quality audit of the mechanics through.

 

[cmad1977]

Another viewpoint is that after five long years WotC still haven't managed to publish a single new class.

Yet another viewpoint is that after five years some people have still failed to take responsibility for their own game.

 

[DQDesign]

In reality, of course, not releasing a single new class in five years is a huge disappointment. There is nothing unreasonable about this sentiment.

Man, I feel like the boy calling out the Emperor as naked. There are too many people content to discuss which exact week the second iteration of the Artificer comes out, and not enough people questioning the overall dearth of new classes and the obvious fact that WotCs so called "strategy" for new content... is to release next to nothing at all!

I confirm, nothing unreasonable.
And you are not alone, I see it naked exactly as you do.

 

[Gradine]

I can see both the frustration with the dearth of crunch as well as the appreciation. It's not about "being okay" with WotC only releasing new races and class archetypes at this point, and no official new full class after years. It's in seeing that as a feature and not as a bug.

As someone who introduced new players to 3.5 after the end of its run, I feel I can say with certainty that D&D does not need fifty classes, nor does it need dozens upon dozens (if not hundreds) of races, nor does it need hundreds upon hundreds (if not thousands) of feats or spells. That the closest thing WotC has to a true competitor (and I'd argue it was one in the lead up to 5e) has already sort of cornered the market on that style of game system, it actually makes a certain kind of sense to go in a different direction. I, for one, appreciate that the game is not considerably more complex now than it was five years ago. It's great not only for new players but especially for new DMs; I can imagine someone wanting to try out DMing (especially if there is no one in the group with much experience with the system) trying to pick up a game like 3.5 or PF or even 4e and suffering from a kind of archive panic. 5e is not going to instill the same sense of dread, and it's not likely that it ever will.

Again, you can see that as either a feature or a bug; there are valid arguments for both, even if I don't necessarily agree personally with all of them. But these "the emperor has no clothes" allusions really need to stop.