I'm just going to stick to the glossary changelog changes & assume that everything else remains the same as before
- Aid: It's a bit of a little known fact that Aid was an overly incredible spell when paired with death save wackamole mechanics since it added +5 to max and current HP to 3 targets before,Now it's temphp & six targets.
- Personally I think upping the targets is bumping the wrong side of things & not because it would suddenly hit all my players in most groups. My reasoning is because 5thp is a tiny tiny amount at any level where players can afford to burn a level 1 slot on a spell like this (ie beyond the kill rats in the basements stage). Keeping it 3 targets & bumping it to 10 or even 15thp would be a much more noteworthy spell that deserves consideration both when slots are tight as well as when players have some levels under their belt
- Attack[action]: Seems that it's changed from "you can equip or unequip one weapon before or after any attack" to "you can equip or unequip one weapon before or after each attack you make"...
- I'm not sure that's better or worse. My initial feeling is that it's functionally identical change for the sake of change without doing anything about this huge problem. Am I overlooking the change?
- Banishment [spell]:goes from 60 feet to 30 feet, explicitly allows a willing failure, allows repeated saves against the effect, and now only sends Abberations, Celestials, Elementals, Fey, and Fiends back to their home plane after a minute of banishment
- This is probably a great change to prevent banish being able to work on just any random elite type or bbeg monster.
- Grappled[condition]: the movable section seems to have gone from "The grappler can drag or carry you , but the grappler suffers the slowed condition while moving unless you are tiny or two suzes smaller than the grappler" to "the grappler can drag or carry you when it moves, but the grappler suffers the slowed condition while moving, unless you are tiny or two sizes smaller than the grappler".
- This seems mostly proactive loophole closing by referencing the move [not listed as an asction but totally move action]. There's still a pretty big problem though in the "your speed is 0 and can't change." where you create situations like this... Bob the medium sized humanoid can be riding a size large horse gryphon dolphin or dragon no issues then initiate a grapple to set the speed of the mount he's riding to zero like some kind of startrek tractor beam/stasis field ability.
- Guidance: Two notable changes over the last version. First the guidance cantrip no longer includes the 1x per player per long rest. Second the more subtle change is that it went from within 30ft to within 10ft.
- I thought that the 1x/long rest was a solid choice but this is probably a good thing. I as the GM won't ever need to try and track if Bob is being honest & tracking the 1/rest thing for a big win to me. That distance shrink is pretty big though since it will exclude an awful lot of passive "oh I cast guidance" afterthought. Making it 5ft instead of 10 might do a better job of checking that box without the GM seeming adversarial when they shoot down "Alice you aren't right next to bob" in the kind of nongrid ToTM situations where it's most likely to come up.
- Influence: It appear sthat the two major differences are the removal of the hilariously lolworthy DC ladder that once required a cha16 skill proficient level onepc to roll a five in order to make a hostile creature indifferent was removed. The only other thing I could pickup was the inclusion of a bit at the end to rate limit these with a 1/24hr per influenced creature unless the gm chooses to shorten things. I missed it on the first read but the DC is now against a target's intelligence score & that one's more iffy...
- Both of these first two are probably good changes & a bit of rate limiting to avoid "I try that too" dogpiling in larger groups is going to be much appreciated by GMs
- My first thought on targeting int score was "wow that's awesome" but going a bit deeper this might actually bring back straight up 3.5 glibness diplomancer level problems. Intelligence is hardly a good stat for most monsters. If anything that just shifts it from an obviously bonkers roll a 5 or better at level 1 to usually the same. The change does nothing at all about making int important for players too since influence doesn't work on them
Give it a couple levels & that better of 15 or int DC isn't looking so tough . Take a level 8 or 9 charismsa based pc with +4 or +5 cha & simply proficient in persuade or something That's going to be +8 or +9 to a d20 that only needs to hit DC15 & things are back to roll 5 or better.
- Light[weapon property]: Primary change seems to be a wording cleanup on order of operations with the inclusion of "and have a light weapon in the other hand"
- This was very much needed.
- Long Rest: Looots of cool changes here plus one rather curious one that has my GM senses tingling
-
- To start a long rest you must have at least one hit point.... This feels like we can expect big changes somewhere else worthy of making GM senses tingle since it's hard to do anything with zero hp & that's a pretty unusual situation.
- You get back 1 point of exertion after completing the rest.. This is a good thing that might offset the get back all all all
- "After you finish a Long Rest you must wait at least 16 hours before starting another one" Anything to put hurdles between long rest spamming of 5mwd is great.
- The list of things that interrupt a long rest is a bit more clear & well defined to include casting spells other than "0-level" spells combat or an hour of walking. Cutting back on the ability to dump spells on long duration nonconcentration spells just before getting those slots back is a great thing since it's kind of a thing that's just a little too slippery & better suited to a class feature for some caster to autobuff to sone degree with/without using slots during a long rest than the almost munvchkiny loophole.
- Interruptions cause the rest to need an additional hour.
-
- Magic[action]: "when you take the magic action, you cast a spell that cast a casting time of an action, or you use a feature, or a magic item that requires a magic action to be activated" The bold bit is new and I'm ecstatic about it. That hints at an equivalent to at least one of the once present mechanical hooks of (Ex)(Su)(Sp). Frankly that covers the most important one to undoing one of the things 5e designed against the GM houseruling. Regardless of what is the default & what is the optional variant or what book holds what having abilities use the magic action or not allows a more broadly tactical grid combat elements based on casting a spell/study/search actions being activated.
- Prayer of Healing: There are a few interesting changes here. It goes from creatures you see to proficiency bonus creatures. It still takes ten minutes but now each of them needs to remain within 30ft for the duration of the spellcasting. It grants the benefits of a short rest. still +2d8. It can only be used once per long rest.
- All of these changes are great but I'm a bit confused why it's not made into a ritual spell. I just hope we don't see 2014 style ki/pact slot short rest shenanigans that make this must take.
- Priest Pack:33gp, backpack, blanket, lamp, holy water, 7 days rations, robe, tinderbox... looks like starting gear should look. probably not much to say here unless I'm missing an iceberg. Holy water is a pretty cool thing for a level 1 pc to have so I wonder if some of the other packs will have a potion or scroll
- Resistance: It's gone from touch & action to 10ft & reaction.
- Both of these are nice changes. touch & 10ft are pretty close but this is a spell most likely to be needed when they are functionally pretty much the same thing in or out of combat. Changing it from action to reaction feels like it would encourage players to collaborate & casters to be near people doing dangerous stuff.
- spiritual Weapon: fairly similar in almost every way but now it's a concentration spell to tamp down on the spirit guardians+spiritual weapon+cantrips stacking. Concentration is a thing I feel is generally overused (especially on party force multiplier buffs & debuffs) but this is a good example that needed it since it was a self force multiplier combo.
- truesight: You can see through darkness, invisibility, visual illusions, Transformations, & into the ethereal plane.
- Nice specificity but truesight rarely comes up in meaningful ways even when monsters have it always on. We still don't know if darkness will be a thing of meaning again or details on enough of the other things (ie relevant spells?) to do much with this knowledge
- Dazed: It's not in the changelog but fills a niche that feels similar to the old shaken condition. On your turn you can move or take an action but not both. You also can't take reactions or bonus actions.
Overall I'm generally quite happy with the glossary changes. Long rest got some much needed improvements as did influence & some spells. I'm disappointed that grapple is still a stasis field & having trouble seeing if the attack action wording change actually makes any functional changes. The inclusion of "or use a feature" in the magic action is an incredible improvement that makes me want to be giddy.
Edit: Cleric, Ardling, Goliath, & dragonborn can be found here in post 43
Last edited:
