D&D (2024) D&D playtest feed back report, UA8

[Parmandur]

Why is the playtest exclusively focused on player-facing content, when design necessitates looking at both player-facing and GM-facing material in concert?

Because people will play a PC for years, a Monster lasts 2 or 3 Roudns of combat.

Why are they hyper-focusing on class design, without addressing larger rules issues around, for example, exploration?

That assumes thst exploration is a large issue from WotC viewpoint.

Why are their playtest surveys structured to focus on this narrow bandwidth of commenting on class/subclass design at the expense of bigger picture questions?

Because they are just checking how people react to particular options: excitement, lukewarm or hostile. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

[Parmandur]

Ah, that makes sense. Yeah, I never picked up MPMotM because it seemed really thin on lore and it was republishing stuff I already own in a new format.

Fair enough, but that new format is...2024 Monster rules.

 

[Charlaquin]

Interesting, thanks for helping reframe it for me, Charlaquin! I still have reservations about doing it that way, but that definitely clears up their approach!

No problem! Also worth keeping in mind, they’ve said monster CRs aren’t going to change, because that would impact backwards compatibility. But they are adjusting the encounter building system, so (I speculate that) how many monsters of what CR are considered an appropriate challenge for a party of what average level might change.

 

[Mistwell]

You asked a question, I answered saying how people generally felt, you responded with good logic, and I responded saying that the general masses just mentioned don't care about that (for better or worse).

Ah, sorry. I follow you now.

 

[Parmandur]

I'm just thinking about similar UA leadtime to products that have come from WotC in the past, like the 2016 exploration UA which had a year or more leadtime prior to the November 2017 publication of XGtE. The question is about public/external playtesting. They definitely can do their own internal testing process, tighten that up, cut corners here or there to meet their deadline. External playtesting is different, and you can see that in the lead time required for past books where public UAs were released.

The moat relevant ia the September 2018 UA for Ravnica: about 2 months to product in people's hands, they made major changes based on feedback.

 

[Quickleaf]

The moat relevant ia the September 2018 UA for Ravnica: about 2 months to product in people's hands, they made major changes based on feedback.

Ah ok, I have no experience with Ravnica, so you may be more updated on their process than I am.

 

[Mistwell]

Right, I have no special insight.

I'm just thinking about similar UA leadtime to products that have come from WotC in the past, like the 2016 exploration UA which had a year or more leadtime prior to the November 2017 publication of XGtE. The question is about public/external playtesting. They definitely can do their own internal testing process, tighten that up, cut corners here or there to meet their deadline. External playtesting is different, and you can see that in the lead time required for past books where public UAs were released.

Basically, I'm using their own metrics from the recent past of this edition, to evaluate their timeline with the upcoming 2024 books. Obviously, there may be flaws in my assessment. For one example, maybe they've vastly improved / streamlined their external playtesting process since Tasha's Cauldron of Everything.


I replied to someone else about this, but I don't think it's all or nothing – it's not about excluding or including spells, it's about how to include that legacy content without disrupting/shutting down a potential avenue for enjoying the game. The changes in the Tiny Hut spell over the editions are a perfect microcosm of the bigger issue, as I mentioned upthread.


Sure, I can dig in deeper... EDIT: Apologies for the length of my reply...

I think the UA8 Barbarian's Level 9: Brutal Strike is a fair example. On the surface, it sounds like the kind of thing a player would love, building off of Reckless Attack to give more choices! Now you can deal 1d10 more damage, or push the target 15-feet and close the gap without provoking, or you can briefly reduce their speed by 15 feet. What's not to like?

I'll go through each of these three use cases of Brutal Strike and why they would benefit from playtesting specifically against the redesigned monsters...

Brutal Strike: Damage Example
I'm going off memory that dual weapon fighting in the UA is (paraphrasing), as it's not in UA8 and I don't want to dig through to find it... "when you engage in two-weapon fighting, you can make a bonus attack with your offhand weapon as part of the Attack action"

OK, what does this look like on a dual-wielding barbarian, multiclassed into Fighter for Action Surge, under the effects of a haste spell? Well, the bonus damage from Brutal Strike in that case would be 1d10+1d10 (dual weapon attacks) + 1d10+1d10 (Extra Attack with dual weapons) +1d10 (Haste extra attack) + 1d10+1d10 (Action Surge, dual weapon attacks) + 1d10+1d10 (Action Surge, Extra Attack with dual weapons) = +9d10 damage or 49.5 additional damage.

But what does the actual damage look like, not just the additional damage compared to 2014 Barbarian? Something like this...assuming no magic items... (1d8+5+1d10) x 5 + (1d6+5+1d10) x 4 = 75 + 56 = 131

Will that potential for greater damage than the 2014 barbarian affect how monsters facing 9th+ level PCs are designed? I don't know, I haven't playtested it andI haven't seen any redesigned monsters.

I'm not cherry-picking, literally finding the first things that I see from the current Unearthed Arcana and that spring up on Kobold Fight Club when I search for a CR 9 monster... ok... Abdominable Yeti has 137 hit points. So the 2024 barbarian with a (barbarian 9/fighter 2 build) and caster support reasonable at that level could potentially kill this monster in one round with slightly above average rolls or a magic weapon... something very unlikely for a 2014 Barbarian. Is that an issue? Maybe. Maybe not. It is a difference between 2014 and 2024 though.

Brutal Strike: Push 15-feet Example
What happens when a PC can regularly push 15 feet multiple times per turn? A 30 foot net push is completely within the realm of possibility, and as you can imagine from the extreme example above, you could get a lot more than that.

We've never seen that kind of consistent really big pushing in 5e, barring some exceptional build perhaps. What does that look like in play? Are there new sorts of "counters" we need to think about with monsters intended to play as mini-bosses or have a more enduring presence in dangerous terrain? For example, in 2014 monsters we hardly see any at all that say "reduce forced movement to this monster by X", in fact no immunity or resistance covers forced movement. There's also no saving throw involved, so Legendary Resistances won't save the Death Knight from that 500-foot drop. Does this use of Brutal Strike mean the designers need to consider implementing that in some cases? I don't know, maybe.

Brutal Strike: Hamstring Blow Example
What happens when a PC can regularly reduce a monster's Speed to 0? Does that make for fun and dynamic fights? Or does it contribute to the sense of "grind" by making the fight more static / "stand there and trade blows?" Yes, that question can be answered by playtesting with 2014 monsters.

However, what if there are certain skirmisher monster that we feel shouldn't be subject to this, or should be less subject to this speed reduction? The aforementioned quickling might be an example, or maybe there are other monsters we have planned in our adventure path where this would utterly neuter the intended design of the encounter. Again we have a question of are there new sorts of "counters" we need to think about? There's no resistances/immunities to speed reduction. There's no save, so Legendary Resistances don't apply. It seems to affect fliers like dragons, so now it looks like the barbarian can knock dragons out of the sky with a thrown weapon and then utterly lock them down, and the dragon has no recourse. Is that a fun dragon fight or do we need to playtest new dragon designs with counters to effects like Hamstring Blow?

EDIT: This is a further downstream concern, but the trend I see in the UA class redesigns is for more choices during play... I wonder if this means greater handling time on player turns, as even just a little bit can be compounded over a session. If that's the case, does part of the monster design imperative for 2024 become designing monsters to quicken monster turns compared to handling time of 2014 monsters? That's a much more complex question, and reaches far beyond the focus of looking at Brutal Strike, but it's one that really can only be answered by playtesting.

All fair examples and not too long.

Increased damage: Spellcasters were already doing increased damage at mid levels and up, and now more melee classes are doing the same kinds of damage. So an existing element already accounted for in the old monster design is now being expanded to be more easily available to more classes. Which is the theme here.

Pushing: was always there, just more widely available now. The pushing 15 feet is about the addition of more fields of damage spells. It used to be mostly Spirit Guardians and Spiked Growth and Wall of Thorns and Firewall and things like that, but they're adding in a lot more like the new Conjure animals. And it used to be mostly Warlocks with repelling blast and shield pushes, but they had already added more with things like the Telekinetic feat and now they're adding a lot more with the Elementalist Monk and Brutal Strike for barbarians and more. So it's really not changing monster design - it was always there, there will just be more of it now.

Slow: was always there for most spellcasters, just more widely available now to more melee combatants. It's also likely somewhat related to those fields of damage. Shove them into them, knock them prone, slow them, they now have a hard time leaving the damaging field.

These are all elements of the game which already existed, so all the prior monsters were already designed with these in mind. The only thing they're likely to change with the new monsters is to increase the number of opportunities to resist or avoid these things. So while a burrowing creature was pretty good at avoiding the harms of pushing and slow, now more monsters will have abilities that better enable them to avoid or reduce the harms of these kinds of abilities.

And sure, it would be nice to playtest those. But you didn't need to settle on the PHB classes to begin designing monsters with those things in mind. All of them were already established trends with the more recent player-facing books like Tasha's. They knew both increased damage for melee combatants to catch up to spellcaster damage was a design goal of the 2024 edition, and they knew a list of add-on abilities like push/pull, slow, knock-down, damage on a miss, etc.. were design goals going into this.

 

[Quickleaf]

All fair examples and not too long.

Increased damage: Spellcasters were already doing increased damage at mid levels and up, and now more melee classes are doing the same kinds of damage. So an existing element already accounted for in the old monster design is now being expanded to be more easily available to more classes. Which is the theme here.

Pushing: was always there, just more widely available now. The pushing 15 feet is about the addition of more fields of damage spells. It used to be mostly Spirit Guardians and Spiked Growth and Wall of Thorns and Firewall and things like that, but they're adding in a lot more like the new Conjure animals. And it used to be mostly Warlocks with repelling blast and shield pushes, but they had already added more with things like the Telekinetic feat and now they're adding a lot more with the Elementalist Monk and Brutal Strike for barbarians and more. So it's really not changing monster design - it was always there, there will just be more of it now.

Slow: was always there for most spellcasters, just more widely available now to more melee combatants. It's also likely somewhat related to those fields of damage. Shove them into them, knock them prone, slow them, they now have a hard time leaving the damaging field.

These are all elements of the game which already existed, so all the prior monsters were already designed with these in mind. The only thing they're likely to change with the new monsters is to increase the number of opportunities to resist or avoid these things. So while a burrowing creature was pretty good at avoiding the harms of pushing and slow, now more monsters will have abilities that better enable them to avoid or reduce the harms of these kinds of abilities.

And sure, it would be nice to playtest those. But you didn't need to settle on the PHB classes to begin designing monsters with those things in mind. All of them were already established trends with the more recent player-facing books like Tasha's. They knew both increased damage for melee combatants to catch up to spellcaster damage was a design goal of the 2024 edition, and they knew a list of add-on abilities like push/pull, slow, knock-down, damage on a miss, etc.. were design goals going into this.

I appreciate you sharing your position and thoughts, especially on Pushing and Slow already being in the game to some degree, and regardless of increased presence, therefor playtesting against redesigned monsters wouldn't be of much benefit... because the existing monsters already account for these "conditions."

Obviously I disagree strongly, but I do understand your perspective better now.

 

[Yaarel]

What I end up advising the GMs I mentor is to get creative & break the rules & create new rules to facilitate exploration in a more narrative-driven approach, rather than the old way of hyper-focusing on logistics and resource management. When they make that switch, I hear GMs and their groups having a blast.

This advice intrigues me. Can you give an example?

Example, the Goodberry spell, by providing nourishment in a wilderness, removes a hyper-focus on resource management.

When switching to a "narrative-driven approach", how does this make Exploration challenges more fun?


I normally do a narrative approach, in the sense of all player efforts first and foremost need to be plausible within the narrative scenario. If something seems obvious, the effort automatically succeeds. Rolling any dice is secondary and contingent. But what exactly are you recommending for the Exploration Pillar of the game?

 

[Hussar]

I would love for them to share what has changed in their internal testing process and what it being more "rigorous" now than it was during 2014 or production of Tasha's Cauldron of Everything looks like exactly.

Well as far as 2014 is concerned I imagine the biggest difference is not having a team of what six? Eight? People to do all the work of releasing an entire edition.