December 1st UA Spell changes

[OB1]

Agree that the new version of Guidance is just as powerful as the old (and I didn't have a problem with it in the first place, you can spam 1d10 firebolts, why not spam 1d4 skill help), what I like about the new version is that rather than the caster using it before every skill check, now they only use it on failure and failures where they think it might help. Makes it feel more epic than the nearly 'always on' original version.

 

[TwoSix]

Guidance only changes a 1 out of 10 rolls.

So you would need to be making 20+ skill checks a day for it to be anything like 'spam'. And, in my experience, characters rarely do more than 5 skill checks a day (unless it's a rogue sneaking).

In a party or 5, that means you benefit twice per day. So not worth the extra paperwork to track who got the benefits.

Also, I'm not put off if everyone keeps asking the cleric to come closer for guidance.

Probably different expectations. Having 20-30 skill checks during a session is pretty normal for us, and I've definitely run into the "Oh, I make a skill check, oh I cast guidance before making that perception check, etc" situation.

There are ways around it, of course, but it's also the case that guidance simply doesn't have to be designed where it's even an issue to address. The game isn't improved by having a cantrip that boost skill checks whenever the cleric has an opportunity to pray for a second.

If you restrict it to one skill check per day of the player's choice, that actually means there's a decent chance that guidance will actually turn a failure into a success, which supports the "divine assistance" narrative a whole lot more.

 

[TwoSix]

mid dungeon crawl or in a combat heavy campaign I can see that... in a social or exploration heavey campaign you might make 200 skill checks before your first attack roll. I and a few others on here talk about social based D&D games where there is almost no combat.

Honestly, I see the most skill checks in dungeon crawls. There's an awful lot of Investigation and Theives' Tools checks for locked doors, and searching for traps, Int skill checks to identify monsters, weird runes and carvings and statues, etc.

 

[OB1]

Honestly, I see the most skill checks in dungeon crawls. There's an awful lot of Investigation and Theives' Tools checks for locked doors, and searching for traps, Int skill checks to identify monsters, weird runes and carvings and statues, etc.

This made me realize that searching for and disarming traps makes the new Guidance much more risky for the caster in those situations. Same with scouting ahead of the party. Before you could Guide the rogue and then get out of the way before they made the attempt. Now your tethered to them. More risk/reward. I'm liking this new implementation more and more.

 

[tetrasodium]

Guidance only changes a 1 out of 10 rolls.

So you would need to be making 20+ skill checks a day for it to be anything like 'spam'. And, in my experience, characters rarely do more than 5 skill checks a day (unless it's a rogue sneaking).

In a party or 5, that means you benefit twice per day. So not worth the extra paperwork to track who got the benefits.

Also, I'm not put off if everyone keeps asking the cleric to come closer for guidance.

This scenario is quite possibly one of if not the most stilted against success with the current influence rules & the results are a cakewalk. Guidance is a spell that's guaranteed to interact with other subsystems like influence/search/study/etc & usually doing so when the out of combat action cost is a complete nonissue. A spell like that needs to be considered in the context of how it impacts those other subsystems.

Spoiler: imagine this Well known NPC Mayor

In this role....


Bob is a bard with expertise in a relevant skill, +4 or +5 charisma, & nine levels under his belt.... He needs to roll a six after factoring the +15. Reaction guidance brings that six down to 5 maximum or 3 to 4(technically 3.5) if you figure the average for a d4.. Since the mayor is an unsettling but potentially neutral or even friendly point of contact for Nation/Deity adjacent narrative space movers & shakers in the world the players have a seriously good chance of interacting with him socially without expecting combat. The players are almost certain to be in ToTM so 10feet becomes anyone in the entire group unless the mayor engages in things to split the party apart in ways that trigger an "it's a trap" style reactions in players.

 

[mellored]

mid dungeon crawl or in a combat heavy campaign I can see that... in a social or exploration heavey campaign you might make 200 skill checks before your first attack roll. I and a few others on here talk about social based D&D games where there is almost no combat.

The suggestion was to limit it to a long rest. Do you make 200 skill checks before a rest?

I mean, if you want to track it by use, then that's a bit different.

But still, it effectively has a built in "a creature can only benefit from this once evey 10 rolls".

If you think that's too much, it could be reduced to a +1.

 

[ehren37]

I hate that guidance is back to being spamable. Particularly since Bards have been nerfed down to "proficiency bonus per long rest" until level level 7!

 

[James Gasik]

The problem I saw with the 1/day Guidance is that this is a cantrip choice, you only get so many of those, and it's something that is mean to be used at will. My main issue with Guidance is that it does have an effect on the game's math, and I'm not sure how the developers see it.

The Bard can hand out a limited number of d6's to party members as their class feature. But divine casters can choose to hand out virtually unlimited d4's. Is this intended?

Is it simply, arcane casters do d10 damage at will, divine casters hand out +1d4 on rolls?

Is the game's math assumed that you will almost always have Help/Guidance, the way Pathfinder 1e just assumes you're going to have key buffs on you in major encounters, like Haste?

What is the intent here? As annoying as it is to have Divine casters shout out "Guidance!" any time someone makes a die roll, is this what they are supposed to be doing?

I'd have an easier time discussing this sort of thing if they'd release a podcast, blog, whatever, talking about the game's assumptions and the math. I mean, wasn't Bounded Accuracy supposed to remove tiny bonuses all over the place, and just have Advantage/Disadvantage be the default? Yet Bless, Resistance, Guidance, Bards, etc.- they seem to run counter to that idea.

And once you start nitpicking "well it has verbal components, it's obviously spellcasting", etc., that makes many spells actually worthless in play, it makes me wonder what the point is meant to be. Are we supposed to handwave that stuff? Or are things like Guidance or Friends supposed to be "sounds good, actually useless" spells?

 

[tetrasodium]

The problem I saw with the 1/day Guidance is that this is a cantrip choice, you only get so many of those, and it's something that is mean to be used at will. My main issue with Guidance is that it does have an effect on the game's math, and I'm not sure how the developers see it.

The Bard can hand out a limited number of d6's to party members as their class feature. But divine casters can choose to hand out virtually unlimited d4's. Is this intended?

Is it simply, arcane casters do d10 damage at will, divine casters hand out +1d4 on rolls?

Is the game's math assumed that you will almost always have Help/Guidance, the way Pathfinder 1e just assumes you're going to have key buffs on you in major encounters, like Haste?

What is the intent here? As annoying as it is to have Divine casters shout out "Guidance!" any time someone makes a die roll, is this what they are supposed to be doing?

I'd have an easier time discussing this sort of thing if they'd release a podcast, blog, whatever, talking about the game's assumptions and the math. I mean, wasn't Bounded Accuracy supposed to remove tiny bonuses all over the place, and just have Advantage/Disadvantage be the default? Yet Bless, Resistance, Guidance, Bards, etc.- they seem to run counter to that idea.

And once you start nitpicking "well it has verbal components, it's obviously spellcasting", etc., that makes many spells actually worthless in play, it makes me wonder what the point is meant to be. Are we supposed to handwave that stuff? Or are things like Guidance or Friends supposed to be "sounds good, actually useless" spells?

Having guidance draw from DCC's luck attrib mechanics for inspiration might not be a bad limiter if Wotc's trying to avoid the track who had it thing. Make guidance allow targets to trade attribute damage for a 1:1 bonus then roll a d6 to see which attrib they took the damage in after they commit. That could be keyed to one or more long rests to recover & maybe even make it scale. "is this the moment I'm aching to take that hit to succeed" is a good question to encourage players to consider with spammable no opportunity cost things like guidance.

 

[James Gasik]

Having guidance draw from DCC's luck attrib mechanics for inspiration might not be a bad limiter if Wotc's trying to avoid the track who had it thing. Make guidance allow targets to trade attribute damage for a 1:1 bonus then roll a d6 to see which attrib they took the damage in after they commit. That could be keyed to one or more long rests to recover & maybe even make it scale. "is this the moment I'm aching to take that hit to succeed" is a good question to encourage players to consider with spammable no opportunity cost things like guidance.

Like I said, if I understood what the intent actually was, making adjustments (or not) would be a snap. One idea I had was having Guidance cost Hit Dice (or even, roll your Hit Die and add it as a bonus to a die roll, as a nice buff for the fighting classes!).

 

[ehren37]

the only thing is the LAST one i didn't like the 1/day per person thing on a cantrip... it turned an at will into 2-4/day

1st level bards are only handing out a d6 twice per day total. Once per person per long (and per short rest at later levels) rest seems reasonable.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

The suggestion was to limit it to a long rest. Do you make 200 skill checks before a rest?

again, it depends... we could in 1 night roleplay through a year (although most times 2-3 months) of social encounters while we would be half way through a dungeon crawl that was all 1 LR away... so that sesion we could use guidence a dozen times on social (lots of long rests) and once in the dungeon (no long rests)

But still, it effectively has a built in "a creature can only benefit from this once evey 10 rolls".

how is that built in again, I am loseing you.

If you think that's too much, it could be reduced to a +1.

I don't know what the fix is... but again I never minded it as is(2014 phb), so I don't know how to fix something I haven't found the break in.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

1st level bards are only handing out a d6 twice per day total. Once per person per long (and per short rest at later levels) rest seems reasonable.

does it, because bards get that PLUS there cantrips... the cleric has to choose it AS A SLOTED CANTRIP...

 

[ehren37]

does it, because bards get that PLUS there cantrips... the cleric has to choose it AS A SLOTED CANTRIP...

I'm not sure getting sidegrade to a cleric cantrip as a major class defining feature is the benefit you think it is heh.

My current house ruled version is below.

Joining hands with other willing creatures, you impart your god's wisdom and blessing. You may affect a number of creatures equal to your proficiency bonus plus your spellcasting modifier. Once before the spell ends, the target can roll a d4 and add the number rolled to one ability check of their choice. The spell ends once the bonus is used, or the recipient completes a Short or Long Rest. At 5th, 11th and 17th level, the bonus becomes a d6, d8, and d10 respectively.

Special: Once a target benefits from Guidance, they may not benefit from further Guidance castings until they complete a Short or Long Rest.

 

[tetrasodium]

Like I said, if I understood what the intent actually was, making adjustments (or not) would be a snap. One idea I had was having Guidance cost Hit Dice (or even, roll your Hit Die and add it as a bonus to a die roll, as a nice buff for the fighting classes!).

Yes we are kinda guessing at intent of the change & lack of clues is making it tough to weigh in. Wrt hit dice cost though I'm not sure those would be effective. Sure it puts an upper limit on the use, but the limit really only matters early tier one before you hit an unlikely number of failed checks per long rest as things are... There are extraordinarily few things that consume hit dice & even having as few as zero unspent hit dice has no real impact on anything at all.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I'm not sure getting sidegrade to a cleric cantrip as a major class defining feature is the benefit you think it is heh.

my argument is that both need to be rethought... so

 

[Incenjucar]

One D&D has so many ways to get extra cantrips that it's not even really a cost to dedicate a slot to it.
I could see making it a normal spell action that you can use to use the Help feature at a distance or something. Off-turn cantrips in general are already too easy to abuse.

 

[Stalker0]

the only thing is the LAST one i didn't like the 1/day per person thing on a cantrip... it turned an at will into 2-4/day

Maybe the better idea is to make it a unique 1st level kind of spell, what the special caveat that the first casting of the spell each day does not consume a spell slot.

 

[Stalker0]

Guidance only changes a 1 out of 10 rolls.

To me its not the fact that guidance increases the odds of a DC 15 or 20 check that makes it so powerful. It's the fact that it suddenly puts DC 25 or DC 30 checks from "nearly impossible" to "distinctly in the realm of possibility".

5e's bounded accuracy is there for a reason, DC 25s and 30s are supposed to be extremely difficult, and near impossible for most characters to consider. But guidance completely changes things, 1st level characters with a cleric can accomplish DC 25 tasks, they don't even need proficiency in the skill! Sure its not often, but the second you open up the possibility, players will jump on it. Players will want to try, because hey, I can always roll that 20. That is way too much power for a freakin cantrip.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Maybe the better idea is to make it a unique 1st level kind of spell, what the special caveat that the first casting of the spell each day does not consume a spell slot.

I know it wont happen. What i want is ALL spells to just be rejigged, so when preped(or known for known classes) the spell can be at will, 1/sr then spell slot, or just spell slot.

Like if you prep detect magic you can do it at will no need to use a slot, if you prep this 1st level guidance you can cast it 1/ short rest for free but can use spell slots to do it again... tasha's laugh ALWAYS costs a slot...