D&D 5E D&D New Edition Design Looks Soon?

WotC’s Ray Winninger has hinted on Twitter that we may be seeing something of the 2024 next edition of D&D soon — “you’ll get a first look at some of the new design work soon.”.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Well, they have said "compatible", so it would be 4e updated to 5e. Bounded accuracy, stacking spell slots, up-cast spells. Hour long short rests.

This is basically what I tried to push them toward in the playtest, tbh, other than the hour long rests. And that’s easy to change.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Custom Lineage Already gives you a feat.

What they might do is something like @Henadic Theologian suggested is do different types of Custom lineages.

Humanoid Lineage
Feyblood Lineage
Reborn Lineage
Constructed Lineage
Draconic Lineage

Each with their own Variable Traits Ability Score Increase rules.

I don't think Lineage will be a thing outside of Tasha's. I think they will just keep Races but updated to the new standards.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Creawford literally said in the Revisted Dragonlance UA video "If you are playing a group of characters in this global fantasy war (the War of the Lance) you have extra capabilities."

So the free feat or feats will likely only be for high power settings like Dragonlance, Strixhaven, and Dark Sun.
Normal settings will likely require a cost to get a bonus feat.

So there will be 2 Feat Settings, 1 Feat Settings, and 0 Feat Settings.

Yes but it was later stated they were heavily considering make a Feat come with Background a Core part of the game. Dragonlance could end up being a preview of that.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Yeah, I still remember how fascinating everyone found it during the playtest. It wasn’t the first dice pool mechanic I had seen - I had played WoD. Nor was it even the first time I had seen “roll 2d20 and take the higher result” in D&D - the 4e Avenger was able to do it on attacks against a specified target. But as a general mechanic representing favorable conditions instead of the old familiar +2 or -2? It was downright revelatory at the time. We were constantly narrating creative approaches to our actions in hopes of gaining advantage because it just felt so damn powerful! There were all kinds of threads on the WotC forums crunching the numbers, trying to figure out how much it was “worth” in what contexts, discussing the implications of allowing or not allowing multiple instances of advantage to stack; it may be old hat now, but it’s hard to overstate how interesting we all found it back then.

As a longtime player of Star Wars Saga I found it to be nothing new, even in its context, just basically further codifying and simplifying the approach to bonuses in SWSE, but it was wild to me when we started playing SWSE and instead of “+2 to [skill]” it was “reroll a [skill] check, but you must use the second result” and bigger bonuses became “reroll check use either result”.

I preferred the SWSE approach with two tiers, but I think they tried it and most people preferred just one tier.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

5e was wildly successful, so if it's not broke, don't fix it.

Here's what we'll probably see:
--cool new art, graphics and look
--some mechanics tweaks but nothing radical
--incorporate more non-combat skills into character classes
--systemically address concerns with race, gender, and issues like that.

What I would like to see but don't expect:
--Some attempt to streamline combat so it's not so grindingly long sometimes. No idea how you do this without radical changes. I think they are aware of this problem but not sure if they'll take this up. It might be that characters and monsters could simply be more lethal, thus shortening combat.

Make enemy HP an encounter resource rather than per enemy. Use HP values to build encounters.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I bet it stays pretty much the same.

They’ve calmed down on it over the years. Halflings in recent books are less bobbleheaded than in the phb.

 

[Charlaquin]

As a longtime player of Star Wars Saga I found it to be nothing new, even in its context, just basically further codifying and simplifying the approach to bonuses in SWSE, but it was wild to me when we started playing SWSE and instead of “+2 to [skill]” it was “reroll a [skill] check, but you must use the second result” and bigger bonuses became “reroll check use either result”.

I preferred the SWSE approach with two tiers, but I think they tried it and most people preferred just one tier.

Nah, I’m pretty sure in the 5e playtest it was always roll twice take the higher for advantage and roll twice take the lower for disadvantage.

 

[Parmandur]

Classes, races, feats, spells, backgrounds, equipment, monsters, magic items, DM guidance and options.

But thats all! No big changes!

Nothing in the core rules, nope.

 

[Minigiant]

Yes but it was later stated they were heavily considering make a Feat come with Background a Core part of the game. Dragonlance could end up being a preview of that.

But likeI said, 5e has a notorious reputation of being too easy and overly powercrept on the player side. So I think WOTC might be wary.

Monsters already have a base assumption of being built to face PCs without magic items. Now you ponder giving them free feats. And Feat trees. And normalizing multiclassing. And overtuned subclasses.

If WOTC gives everyone free feats, 5.55e will become truly an easy mode baby edition. I'n not even disparging 5e here. But 1 or 2 free feats is too much.

 

[Ancalagon]

warlocks can take

Whispers of the Grave​

Prerequisite: 9th level
You can cast Speak with Dead at will, without expending a spell slot.

there is one like it for alter self, disguise self, mage armor, speak with animals, silent image, and Invisability.

a 15th level warlock can have all of those leveled spells as cantrips at will

I looove this kind of warlock shenanigans. But at the same time... you almost have to invest some of your invocations in combat, usually by boosting eldritch blast, or thirsting blade or such.