D&D (2024) D&D 2024 Player's Handbook Reviews

Daztur · Aug 13, 2024

FitzTheRuke said:
This is the best argument that I've seen for the other side, though I would put forth that the kind of player you appear to me to be describing is not the average player, but a specific type that we see a lot around here, but is not as common "in the wild".

Maybe I just have a different perspective? I play with dozens of people over varying experience levels, often teaching new players to play. While I DO also play with a core group of friends that have been together for 15 years, none of those are tactically minded or power gamers. In 30 years, I've taught nearly a thousand people how to play D&D.

I know what "average" is.

I agree that a lot of things that people online talk about as absolutely HUGE problems often just don't crop up in games in the real world at all.

For example in theory 3.5e has absolutely nightmarish balance issues on paper but I had whole campaigns in which that didn't just crop up at all. But when it did crop up it was often stuff like "being a druid and doing basic druid stuff" by a character who didn't try to powergame at all that wrecked a bunch of naughty word. Even a summoner wizard was mostly fine since he tended to just summon hordes of monkeys who all did the help action which made the martials happy (so many bonuses to hit) and made us all crack up about monkey cheerleaders.

Similarly in 5e the martial/caster gap only cropped up in a meaningful way in one campaign out of a looooooooooooot I played (but it was rather painful in that one due to a number of specific factors), in large part since my games almost always stuck to T1-T2. Ironically I think that the biggest single thing keeping classes more balanced than they should be in actual play in both 3.5e and 5e is the multiclassing system. Lots of multiclassing tends to distract people from the the most straightforward gamebreaking builds: simple full casters. Someone trying to make a gloomstalker/assassin or whatever is never going to break the game HALF as much as a straight wizard. In campaign after campaign we had 1 or 0 non-multiclassing fullcasters at the table which did wonders for balance (especially when you have characters like a monk/sorcerer and a cleric who mostly focused on in-combat healing).

But one issue that's talked about online that I HAVE seen derail campaigns among very average non-powergamers is the 15 minute adventuring day in both 3.5e and 5e.

OK, back to the main subject: 5.5e combat taking too long sorry for rambling on so long...

A lot of the kind of concerns that people talk about online are seen surprisingly rarely in actual tables. However, I'm not sure that "spamming weapon masteries slowing down the game" is going to be one of them. As you said, your group didn't spam them but I think the temptation to spam them and choose WMs that are easily spammable is going to be pretty prevalent once people get used to them. After all, they're the main new thing martials get and people are going to want to use the thing on their character sheet. It isn't some opaque niche thing like being a coffeelock or something.

My best guess is that once people get the hang of the new features, they'll treat WMs as much the same as the rogue's sneak attack. So more veteran players treat sneak attack as it being a fate worse than death to not at least try to get one off on your turn and it being important to trigger as a reaction as well. While more casual people try to use it most of the time. I think the same will go for the new features, and they'll use them more as they get used to them.

Also we have to consider the new MM. As the PCs have been buffed maybe the monsters will get enough new abilities (or at least more resilience to the new more powerful PCs) to slow down combat a bit on their end as well.

FitzTheRuke · Aug 13, 2024

Daztur said:
I agree that a lot of things that people online talk about as absolutely HUGE problems often just don't crop up in games in the real world at all.

For example in theory 3.5e has absolutely nightmarish balance issues on paper but I had whole campaigns in which that didn't just crop up at all. But when it did crop up it was often stuff like "being a druid and doing basic druid stuff" by a character who didn't try to powergame at all that wrecked a bunch of naughty word. Even a summoner wizard was mostly fine since he tended to just summon hordes of monkeys who all did the help action which made the martials happy (so many bonuses to hit) and made us all crack up about monkey cheerleaders.

Similarly in 5e the martial/caster gap only cropped up in a meaningful way in one campaign out of a looooooooooooot I played (but it was rather painful in that one due to a number of specific factors), in large part since my games almost always stuck to T1-T2. Ironically I think that the biggest single thing keeping classes more balanced than they should be in actual play in both 3.5e and 5e is the multiclassing system. Lots of multiclassing tends to distract people from the the most straightforward gamebreaking builds: simple full casters. Someone trying to make a gloomstalker/assassin or whatever is never going to break the game HALF as much as a straight wizard. In campaign after campaign we had 1 or 0 non-multiclassing fullcasters at the table which did wonders for balance (especially when you have characters like a monk/sorcerer and a cleric who mostly focused on in-combat healing).

But one issue that's talked about online that I HAVE seen derail campaigns among very average non-powergamers is the 15 minute adventuring day in both 3.5e and 5e.

OK, back to the main subject: 5.5e combat taking too long sorry for rambling on so long...

Naw, that's good stuff. Thanks for sharing.

Daztur said:
A lot of the kind of concerns that people talk about online are seen surprisingly rarely in actual tables. However, I'm not sure that "spamming weapon masteries slowing down the game" is going to be one of them. As you said, your group didn't spam them but I think the temptation to spam them and choose WMs that are easily spammable is going to be pretty prevalent once people get used to them. After all, they're the main new thing martials get and people are going to want to use the thing on their character sheet. It isn't some opaque niche thing like being a coffeelock or something.

Well... I didn't mean to suggest that my players didn't USE Weapon Masteries to great effect! I just meant that there's a lot of times where shoving a monster back or knocking them prone won't make a lick of difference tactically, and generally either they didn't bother in those circumstances, or I didn't bother to roll saves (in the case of monsters simply being pushed back a square, where it made no difference). Also: one of the positives to WM being used often is that you quickly get used to the save DC as a DM and can roll it quickly when you need to. It's not quite like when a Spellcaster casts a spell and says (as I often see spellcaster-players do, "I cast X spell!" and then you say, "What's the save?" and they answer "DEX" and you have to ask, "And the DC?" (or those two in reverse order).

As has been pointed out multiple times in this thread: Weapon Masteries are generally quicker to resolve than nearly any sort of spellcasting.

Daztur said:
My best guess is that once people get the hang of the new features, they'll treat WMs as much the same as the rogue's sneak attack. So more veteran players treat sneak attack as it being a fate worse than death to not at least try to get one off on your turn and it being important to trigger as a reaction as well. While more casual people try to use it most of the time. I think the same will go for the new features, and they'll use them more as they get used to them.

That's probably true. I have admitted: In certain parties with certain classes and certain players the combination might wind up slower. I still don't think that it will on the average - not across many games with many players in many groups. That, I think, will work out "about the same".

It certainly won't be better, I'll grant. (Unless monsters die faster...)

Daztur said:
Also we have to consider the new MM. As the PCs have been buffed maybe the monsters will get enough new abilities (or at least more resilience to the new more powerful PCs) to slow down combat a bit on their end as well.

I actually expect the opposite to happen. I think the plan is to make monsters hit the PCs harder than they did in 2014 but die quicker - so that the ideal (3ish-round) combat occurs more often, but that Party Resources are drained all the same. We'll see if they pull that off.

GMforPowergamers · Aug 13, 2024

Daztur said:
I agree that a lot of things that people online talk about as absolutely HUGE problems often just don't crop up in games in the real world at all.

This is my experience. Theory is not always the same as practice, and sometimes the problems just don't show up

Daztur said:
For example in theory 3.5e has absolutely nightmarish balance issues on paper but I had whole campaigns in which that didn't just crop up at all. But when it did crop up it was often stuff like "being a druid and doing basic druid stuff"

this was one of the WORST things that happened (and I have plenty of complaints) in 3e... I had a cleric we had played for many levels and we had just made an agreement with a druid sect to help save the area from a demonic invasion... we leveled so I took leadership (was always in the cards I wanted to start my own cult/church sect) and made a quick play druid picking spells by name and not even reading fully what they did... it was the first druid I had made as a PC and I never read any char op stuff for druid...
first encounter we ran into 3 of these things the DM made up that we had problems fighting 1 or 2 before... we split up (not the best tactic) and tried to figure a way to hit and run... my druid cast 2 buffs (I remember one was bit of a were creature) and him and his wolf were going to attack 1, when the DM reminded me that my buffs went to wolf as well... so I went and attacked 1 and had the wolf attack another hopeing to keep those two off our main PCs while we focused on the third... the wolf did better (less hp and ac but better in every other way) then our fighter/rogue and the cohort and it's aniaml did better then our whole group did... it was like round 3 that the hurt wolf came to help us (he had killed his) and round 4 the druid was over helping and killed the one the rest of us had...
so with DM approval I swapped out leadership and the druid continued on his own withoutus...

that was my first druid as a PC... but we had druids before that, and no one ever saw that level of unbalanced (I mean we all knew casters could out fight fighters but we normally worked around that)

so yeah maybe out of 20 campaigns we had 3 with druids in it, but it was the 3rd one that made us decided not to use a whole host of spells and options...

Daztur · Aug 13, 2024

GMforPowergamers said:
This is my experience. Theory is not always the same as practice, and sometimes the problems just don't show up

this was one of the WORST things that happened (and I have plenty of complaints) in 3e... I had a cleric we had played for many levels and we had just made an agreement with a druid sect to help save the area from a demonic invasion... we leveled so I took leadership (was always in the cards I wanted to start my own cult/church sect) and made a quick play druid picking spells by name and not even reading fully what they did... it was the first druid I had made as a PC and I never read any char op stuff for druid...
first encounter we ran into 3 of these things the DM made up that we had problems fighting 1 or 2 before... we split up (not the best tactic) and tried to figure a way to hit and run... my druid cast 2 buffs (I remember one was bit of a were creature) and him and his wolf were going to attack 1, when the DM reminded me that my buffs went to wolf as well... so I went and attacked 1 and had the wolf attack another hopeing to keep those two off our main PCs while we focused on the third... the wolf did better (less hp and ac but better in every other way) then our fighter/rogue and the cohort and it's aniaml did better then our whole group did... it was like round 3 that the hurt wolf came to help us (he had killed his) and round 4 the druid was over helping and killed the one the rest of us had...
so with DM approval I swapped out leadership and the druid continued on his own withoutus...

that was my first druid as a PC... but we had druids before that, and no one ever saw that level of unbalanced (I mean we all knew casters could out fight fighters but we normally worked around that)

so yeah maybe out of 20 campaigns we had 3 with druids in it, but it was the 3rd one that made us decided not to use a whole host of spells and options...

Yeah, and that's a druid without even Natural Spell + summoning, all of which is just pure PHB. Some really basic stuff can break 3.5e across its knee let alone weird-ass naughty word like Divine Metamagic + Nightstick shenanigans. Truly: 346 Swoop, There It Is - Giant in the Playground Games

Honestly I think dumb-ass multiclassing probably saved more 3.5e campaigns than anything else.

GMforPowergamers · Aug 13, 2024

Daztur said:
Yeah, and that's a druid without even Natural Spell + summoning, all of which is just pure PHB. Some really basic stuff can break 3.5e across its knee let alone weird-ass naughty word like Divine Metamagic + Nightstick shenanigans. Truly: 346 Swoop, There It Is - Giant in the Playground Games

Honestly I think dumb-ass multiclassing probably saved more 3.5e campaigns than anything else.

My tables (Mostly) have a gentleman's and gentle ladies agreement to not break stuff... or if we do we ALL break stuff. try to keep the overall power level similar as we can. it was harder in 3e, then with 1 exception (the time I had to ask the ranger to swap out his feats*) 4e was the easiest, 5e is easier then 3e but harder then 4e... 2e was somehow (maybe cause limited net access ment limited powergaming theory) as easy as 4e maybe slightly harder...

we had a ranger with a maxed set of stats and the best multi attack powers in a game with a tactical warlord buffing... once he took expertise it became too much... we knew this when in the same round of combat our rogue double crit dealt like 120ish damage and did a little dance for how much he did... and the ranger was PISSED he ONLY did like 130ish... yes the rogue did it with 2 encounter and the ranger with 1 daily but still it became noticeable.
solution was for me to ask for him to swap out expertise and the one that added a static damage bonus he still would be the higher damage dealer but just slightly less

Ruin Explorer · Aug 13, 2024

GMforPowergamers said:
This is my experience. Theory is not always the same as practice, and sometimes the problems just don't show up

That cuts both ways though, and sometimes predicted problems show up exactly as predicted, or problems people absolutely ignored in the text, or assumed would be minor, suddenly become huge issues. I have no doubt TWF/Nick is going to cause problems and see a ton of house rules and weird "interpretations" before WotC erratas it.

With 3E the big thing I didn't see anyone predict, but which was a huge problem, was how the huge numbers of specific rules slowed the game to an absolute crawl, and the increased focus on a "rule for everything" massively increased failure chances on stuff which would just have been "Attack at -4" in 2E. Nor was LFQW really foreseen, even though it sorta kinda sorta occurred in 2E. Likewise Pathfinder 1E's caster changes were widely anticipated and described as nerfing casters, whereas at the actual table, they turned out to be a significant buff overall.

fluffybunbunkittens · Aug 13, 2024

Ruin Explorer said:
the increased focus on a "rule for everything" massively increased failure chances

Ah yes, the 'we need to have a rule for everything, whether or not that rule makes sense or anyone ran any math on it' attitude.

Mirrorrorrim · Aug 13, 2024

Ruin Explorer said:
The rest of your post continues to suggest otherwise lol. I don't know how to help you. What you're posting is bizarre.

So at this point it seems the simplest and most plausible explanation is that you are not able to notice changes to combat length, perhaps because DMing keeps you too busy to do so, given you say you've never noticed anything in any of the playtest. It's just wild that you don't see how this totally undermines your "I SEE ALL I KNOW ALL" appeal to authority. The knockdown saves alone from that WM would be noticeable to me.

Anecdotally, when things slow down our games it is because people don't know the rule/effect and have to look it up. This gets easier and speeds up over time as the players get used to their attacks, tactics, and options.

At-Will actions have trained my table, and as the party learns their commonly-used actions, we adapt. If a player's Weapon Mastery is going to attempt to topple enemies people every round, the players often describe which weapon they are using, telegraph their intent with their action description, and I am prepared for my monster saves (because I have to roll them often, heh).

If DMs or players get stumped and slowed down due to a tactic, perhaps it is a rarely-used tactic that they don't actually remember off the top of their head? Are they calculating DCs every time? Are they asking the other person for clarification on how it works?

Yes, some players freeze up with more complexity, or math, or lack of confidence or understanding. Work with the table to make it more comfortable!

GMforPowergamers · Aug 13, 2024

Ruin Explorer said:
That cuts both ways though, and sometimes predicted problems show up exactly as predicted, or problems people absolutely ignored in the text, or assumed would be minor, suddenly become huge issues.

100% could not aggree more, infact on that druid I gave my example of I already knew there WAS cheese just by exsiting on the internet and readingon these forms so I knew to avoid

Daztur said:
Yeah, and that's a druid without even Natural Spell + summoning, all of which is just pure PHB. Some really basic stuff can break 3.5e across its knee let alone weird-ass naughty word

and my cleric was mostly a healing buff other type with a mace as my main weapon rather then useing:

Daztur said:
like Divine Metamagic + Nightstick shenanigans. Truly: 346 Swoop, There It Is - Giant in the Playground Games

fluffybunbunkittens · Aug 13, 2024

Mirrorrorrim said:
If a player's Weapon Mastery is going to attempt to topple enemies people every round

And this is how I learned that Minotaur doesn't have a proficiency in Con saves.

D&D (2024) D&D 2024 Player's Handbook Reviews

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