D&D (2024) Class spell lists and pact magic are back!

[Remathilis]

I wouldn't. They need to figure out the classes before they figure out the spells.
No point in tuning a spell if you don't know the base feature that will cast it.
I.e. they have changed how spell preparations, changed meta magic, and changed wizard being able to modify spells. All of which you kind of need to know before you change spells.

Figure out wild shape before you figure out polymorph.

That said, I wouldn't expect a huge overhaul. But I still expect a spell packet at some point.

With the three spell lists, they basically knew what spells would go where. You don't need a class feature to see if true strike would work as a bonus action or if shield could be tuned down. The fact we have not seen an "arcane" spell revisited except for find familiar worries me slightly. But I hope you're right and we get some tuned spells soon.

But I won't be shocked if we don't get more than another pass as the class specific spells...

 

[tetrasodium]

I wouldn't. They need to figure out the classes before they figure out the spells.
No point in tuning a spell if you don't know the base feature that will cast it.
I.e. they have changed how spell preparations, changed meta magic, and changed wizard being able to modify spells. All of which you kind of need to know before you change spells.

Figure out wild shape before you figure out polymorph.

That said, I wouldn't expect a huge overhaul. But I still expect a spell packet at some point.

The logic is there but we have good reason to be skeptical of such a possibility. That is a good reason that should be bragged about up front rather than one kept quiet in their back pocket as they have done. Instead wotc kept quiet on such a possibility after they have had several years of being told how that is the trap that their boneheaded 70% metric and a system where almost any effort to take them up on"you are the gm &we simplified/streamlined 5e& that [unfinished/incomplete/half baked] area of the rulesets so it would be easy to homebrew... Just homebrew it"where actually doing so typically requires a nerf somewhere to create room for any homebrewing other than"well you started cranked past eleven already and I'm cranking it even higher"it should come as no surprise that was going to be the reaction if they weren't going to push past what they're told tms to do for so long maybe the one good thing to come in 2024 is they stop spitting in the face of tks by telling them to just homebrew it all the time .

 

[mellored]

With the three spell lists, they basically knew what spells would go where.

Except they are changing that back.

You don't need a class feature to see if true strike would work as a bonus action or if shield could be tuned down

You need to know how many level 1 spells you can cast (i.e. arcane recovery), before you worry about balancing shield.

Keep in mind too. They have limited resources, much of which is reading thousands of survey feedback prompts. They can't do everything at once.

So I expect 1 playtest for spells. Possibly the last one.

Could certainly be wrong though. Predicting the future is hard.

 

[Maxperson]

You are correct I put dissatisfied. Then I put in the comments WHY I was dissatisfied. And, we know for a fact that they read the comments. So... what's wrong with that?

Nothing. That's how it should be done.

Then they probably put it in the comments. Which is a thing Crawford specifically said they look at for clarity into why a ranking happened. There is a point where "this could be more precise" is not a useful metric. Sure, they could make it five choices. Or six. Or seven. They picked four. And that isn't a bad number, because if you have a 50/50 split between satisfied and dissatisfied... they probably look into that.

I wouldn't say that they probably do it. Humans are notoriously lazy and I bet a bunch of folks just click dissatisfied and leave it at that. I know that I do that unless I feel very strongly about something, and THEN I will enter a detailed comment.

 

[Maxperson]

what do you think that got you ultimately, it got thrown out rather than revised, because ‘dissatisfied’ is below the threshold for revisions.

Is that actually something that they've said? I was under the impression that the threshold was for inclusion in a book. We've seen multiple iterations of psionics despite none of them meeting their threshold, so clearly they will do revisions of things that don't meet the standard. And we are seeing it in the 5.5e playtest. They've revised several things that didn't meet threshold.

 

[mamba]

Is that actually something that they've said? I was under the impression that the threshold was for inclusion in a book. We've seen multiple iterations of psionics despite none of them meeting their threshold, so clearly they will do revisions of things that don't meet the standard. And we are seeing it in the 5.5e playtest. They've revised several things that didn't meet threshold.

Is what something they have said, that 'dissatisfied' is below the threshold for iteration? That seems to be pretty obvious to me. 60% is the threshold for revisions, the second lowest rating being above that definitely a stretch.

To me they can go about assigning percentages in several ways, but these are essentially the lower and upper bounds for it

Lower: 0, 33, 67, 100%
Upper: 25, 50, 75, 100%

So 'dissatisfied' should be somewhere between 33% and 50%, but the threshold for iteration is 60%.

 

[Remathilis]

Is that actually something that they've said? I was under the impression that the threshold was for inclusion in a book. We've seen multiple iterations of psionics despite none of them meeting their threshold, so clearly they will do revisions of things that don't meet the standard. And we are seeing it in the 5.5e playtest. They've revised several things that didn't meet threshold.

They have been a little unclear about it. They have said that 60% is a failing grade, 70% gets looked at again, and 80% is good enough for inclusion. What is not clear is how they decide what fix they plan on implementing. Some things have gotten a second revision (ardling for example) while others have been dropped and reverted back to 2104. And as the test has gone on, the threshold of "drop" vs "revise" has become difficult to predict. So if I say I'm dissatisfied with something because I think it should do MORE, does that lower its % below 70% and it gets abandoned? That seems counterproductive.

The other factor is, of course, if WotC has already decided what they intend to do with a given rule, our feedback is irrelevant. There is no amount of surveys responses that will give wild shape temp HP buckets again. We never got a vote on racial ASI. And I increasingly wonder if things like the subclass progression or spell lists were really based on player feedback and not an internal decision they are covering by saying "well, it didn't excite the fans" despite the fact we were never asked directly about either.

I don't think it's controversial to say that if WotC really wanted any given change to pass, they'd damn the % and move it along. And as the playtest comes to an apex, increasingly the window for revisions will close so that it will become "take it or leave it" as choices.

 

[Gorck]

I'm certainly no expert in polling, but it seems like, rather than using "Dissatisfied, Slightly Dissatisfied, Slightly Satisfied, and Satisfied," they should have gone with "Dissatisfied, Needs Revision, Needs Minor Tweak, Satisfied." That would clear up some of the confusion as to what the middle votes actually mean. Instead of converting the results to a percentage*, they could just look at the poll results the way we do here in our polls - look at which choice got the highest number of votes (and by how much over the next highest) to gauge the community's opinion for that ability.

*I assume they assign the four option 1-4 points, calculate the total points, and divide by (number of votes * 4)?

 

[Chaosmancer]

what do you think that got you ultimately, it got thrown out rather than revised, because ‘dissatisfied’ is below the threshold for revisions.

So unless your reason was ‘I do not want this’, your rating contradicted your intent and text, and I very much doubt that WotC bumps up the ratings based on the written feedback

So, a few years ago I went to the polls and voted for a guy to get into a local office. What did that ultimately get me? That guy didn't win and get the position I wanted him to have, because he lost the vote. That is how "voting" works.

If more people had said they were satisfied or very satisfied with the wild shape rules, it would have gotten revised. Instead, I think many people voted "very dissatisfied" But this idea that, because the thing I voted for didn't happen that means the system is broken, is fundamentally WRONG.

your vote should be crystal clear, as should the tens of thousands of others. That you do not get what you voted for should be due to the other clear votes substantially disagreeing with you.

Instead we have yours and thousands of others being unclear about what you wanted, or worse yet clear to WotC, but in a way that is different from what you intended, which is what is happening

I do not think WoTC was unclear about what my vote meant. Or what the thousands of other votes meant. This is a problem you are creating, not one that WoTC is reporting. If they didn't believe their data was clear.... why would they rely on it? They are a multi-MILLION dollar company, owned by a multi-BILLION dollar company. They can clearly afford to contract someone to make a survey.

The fact that the survey is not perfectly suited to match your exact gradations of opinion is not a flaw in the survey.

 

[MoonSong]

The core problem here is that the OG sorcerer was a deeply flawed class that simply did not know enough spells to really be able to do its job. Divine Soul as a subclass was a decent idea on paper but crippled by the lack of known spells.

Not deeply flawed, just insufficiently powered. Yes, spells known are not enough, but that doesn't mean the class is deeply flawed. Yes, I want them to fix that, but this is like tearing down the wall to fix the windows.