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

[mamba]

It’s a highly conservative approach, which makes sense if the goal is to make a game that’s “good enough” for the largest number of people possible, but not if the goal is to make the best game possible for a specific target audience.

I am not even sure it is not just a convoluted way to tread water, at least once everything is good enough to have, say, 40% happy with it

The ones liking the Warlock the way it is won’t want the change, and those that never liked it will not get any change because of that. A self-fulfilling prophecy of stagnation

 

[mamba]

If they poll 10 units of people, and 2 units of people like X and 8 units of people don't like X, and you're one of the 2 units that liked it, it's not that they're not listening to you. It's that you're not listening to the 8 units who didn't like it.

yeah, I don’t think there are 8 that like it though, there are 4 or 5 resistant to change, and that is enough

It might be fewer even, but the nonsensical polling makes them appear more because no one really knows what the values mean, or what will happen when you vote a certain way - except for the 1s and 5s, those are pretty clear

 

[Mistwell]

yeah, I don’t think there are 8 that like it though, there are 4 or 5 resistant to change, and that is enough

But you don't look to see if there is evidence to support that at all - you just get angry and vent at your peers about how nobody is listening to you. You're barely giving lip service to anyone who views something you like differently than you.

 

[CleverNickName]

I disagree. I want monsters to have more and interesting abilities. I think this is something 4e did better than 5e. And I want them to playtest it to get survey data to see if 70% of people agree with me that people want more and interesting abilities on their monsters.

All I want in the next MM is for them to bring back templates. I don't think the 5E monsters need much else.

 

[Mistwell]

All I want in the next MM is for them to bring back templates. I don't think the 5E monsters need much else.

Cave Troll's grabbing a target and using that target to bash other targets was way more fun than just "Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 11 (2d6 + 4) slashing damage." Yes a DM can still try to use the rules to accomplish that, but it was just a lot more fun when it was a specified option in the Cave Troll entry.

 

[mamba]

But you don't look to see if there is evidence to support that at all - you just get angry and vent at your peers about how nobody is listening to you. You're barely giving lip service to anyone who views something you like differently than you.

what do you expect me to say when someone does? I acknowledge it, not much more to do… they won’t convince me and I will not convince them

There were plenty cases where something got to the 50s and 60s and got dumped. Not sure anything was much below an even split. If you cannot be bothered to iterate on a near even split, then you are not interested in finding out what people actually prefer

 

[mamba]

All I want in the next MM is for them to bring back templates. I don't think the 5E monsters need much else.

not interested in templates, but the monsters certainly can have more interesting abilities

 

[Mistwell]

what do you expect me to say when someone does? I acknowledge it, not much more to do… they won’t convince me and I will not convince them

There were plenty cases where something got to the 50s and 60s and got dumped. Not sure anything was much below an even split. If you cannot be bothered to iterate on a near even split, then you are not interested in finding out what people actually prefer

Its a time thing. There are only about 10 total playtests, and a lot to cover.

Did they really need to iterate "Rogue's cannot sneak attack outside of their turn" when they got enough explicit reactions in the comments that rogue player's didn't like that and why they didn't like it? Did they really need to tweak that rule a half dozen times to see if they could get past 70% liking it, given they have very limited time to do this in?

No, they didn't. They can only do multiple iterations on a very limited number of iterations, and if you can't even get close the first time then they have to focus on the stuff that did get close the first time for those limited number of iterations.,

I have liked some changes they made which were later discarded too. I liked for example Wildshape Templates and I do wish it could have gotten to 70% with an iteration. But it's also real clear to me a substantial and meaningful number of people wanted those stat blocks to reflect the actual beast. So OK, you win some and you lose some. My tastes didn't match with a fairly large majority view. I let it go.

 

[mamba]

Its a time thing. There are only about 10 total playtests, and a lot to cover.

well, then maybe that is the first mistake…

 

[Charlaquin]

The ones liking the Warlock they way it is won’t want the change, and those that never liked it will not get any change because of that.

Unless 60% or more of the audience calls into the “never liked it” category. Evidently that is not the case.