D&D (2024) Developer Video on Druid/Paladin/Expert Feedback

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WotC has posted a video discussing initial feedback on the One D&D Druid/Paladin playtest, along with survey results from the Expert playtest. Some highlights for discussion:

Druid: The developers recognize that the template version of wild shape is contentious. If they retain this approach, they would plan to add flexibility to those templates. If they revert to monster stat blocks, they might allow Druids to choose a limited number of options, with a default selection provided.

Paladin: The new version of smite is still intended to work with critical hits. If ranged smite persists, its damage may be adjusted through the internal balance/playtesting process.

Ranger: The updated Ranger scored very well in the playtest. Some players did miss the choice of options in the Hunter subclass.

Bard: All of the Lore Bard's features scored welll, but the overall subclass rating was mediocre. They attribute this to the loss of Additional Magical Secrets, which many saw as the key attraction of this subclass.

Rogue: The change to limit sneak attack to the Rogue's own turn scored poorly. The developers generally like moving actions to a player's own turn to keep the game moving quickly, but in this case, the change doesn't seem to be worth the loss of tactical flexibility.

Feats: With the exception of epic boons, all the feats in the Expert packet scored well. The developers are still loking at written feedback for fine tuning.

Conspicuously not mentioned were the Arcane/Divine/Primal spell lists, which were the focus of a lot of discussion during the Bard playtest.

 

[Nadan]

Show me a human in 5e with several magical racial traits?

You know 5e don't have that for...several reasons, but older edition have, like Illumian in Races of Destiny which are "humanoid creatures with the human subtype"

 

[Emberashh]

Aragon uses magic though.

He actually doesn't. Tolkien never intended for Men to be able to use magic and even messed up his own canon in depicting the Numenorians as doing so.

But even then, what Aragorn does that could be considered magic has nothing to do with his occupation as a Ranger, and everything to do with his birthright and origin as being raised by elves.

Okay, well let's put the "just write a book" argument to the side as that is always such a ridiculously extreme jump in an argument that it serves no purpose to the conversation.

Considering I am an author and have literally done this, I wouldn't say its that extreme lol

That being said... so for you it's merely the name of the class?

Its about the marriage of mechanics, fluff and yes, explicit naming to tie it together.

And more than that, almost all of what the Scout does mechanically and flavorfully really should be Assassin abilities. The only thing that ties it to a Ranger is one ability (expertise, woopdidoo) and the flavor blurb, which explicitly calls them as an entirely separate thing from Rangers.

if there is a reason for it then it is 100% not arbitrary.

Thats not how that works. Your reasoning can be based on an arbitrary decision.

Ie, you read an ability that says you cannot get lost, you then arbitrarily decide to skip navigation for that reason. Its arbitrary because the game is not telling you to do this.

And regardless, this is a pretty pointless aside. I'm pretty sure you know whats being said here regardless of whether or not you agree with the word choice.

There is no pillar which can disappear.

And yet its well accepted that Exploration in 5e is so ill-supported that it barely exists.

The reason for your incredulity is that you're conflating the existence of gameworld interaction with their being an actual Exploration pillar the game supports.

There isn't, because what few mechanics and procedures exist for Exploration are scattered to the winds.

Theres literally Exploration procedures that only exist if you buy two specific, standalone DM screens, and they didn't even exist until (IIRC), the last 2-3 years.

The 1e version was a weird mish mash that even had wizard spells

It was. The first Ranger (IIRC) to get introduced to DND was homebrew that just combined whatever existed in the game to try and capture what Aragorn was. Thats the only reason it had magic, because there was little to no special healing mechanics beyond magic.

Incidentally, finding out that was the origin for the DND Ranger is what inspired me in my own RPG to write the class from the perspective of supporting the fantasy directly, which is what lead me to make Rangers AOE fighters; Aragorn, at least as portrayed in the Jackson movies, had a knack for always fighting multiple foes at once without missing a beat, and much more so than Legolas, Gimli or Boromir, who tended to fight successive 1v1s.

Supporting this mechanically not only better cements a mechanical and flavorful identity for the Ranger, but also distinguishes them entirely from other Martials, further strengthening the point of having a Ranger class.

But he would not say no to it, if magic were a thing in real life?

I think Davy Crockett in a world of magic is uncannily skilled, as Aragorn was.

Theres nothing implicitly magical in nature about sticking your ear to the ground and hearing Orcs marching miles away; its implied as a learned skill even if relative to the real world it may as well be magic.

Has to be said most I think aren't concerned with the Ranger being supernatural to some degree; you kinda have to accept that if you want games to exist in T3/T4.

But there is contention over the need for that supernatural element to be literal spellcasting.

 

[Incenjucar]

But he would not say no to it, if magic were a thing in real life?

It would go nicely with his laser rifle and cyborg arms, I guess.

 

[Maxperson]

Every version of the DnD ranger has been so different that it may not be possible to square the circle. The 1e version was a weird mish mash that even had wizard spells.

That's because it was trying to be Aragorn, but different enough not to get Gygax sued. Starting with 2e the magic turned to nature and stayed that way with the apparent exception of 4e. So 1 edition with arcane, 3 editions with nature and 1 edition with nothing.

I think it would be interesting to see the designers listing various ways to build a 'ranger' and people can decide which one gets closest to their ideal.

Yeah. I liked the idea of the base ranger being non-magical, but having subclasses be magical or not depending on which way you want to go.

 

[Pauln6]

He actually doesn't. Tolkien never intended for Men to be able to use magic and even messed up his own canon in depicting the Numenorians as doing so.

But even then, what Aragorn does that could be considered magic has nothing to do with his occupation as a Ranger, and everything to do with his birthright and origin as being raised by elves.



Considering I am an author and have literally done this, I wouldn't say its that extreme lol


Its about the marriage of mechanics, fluff and yes, explicit naming to tie it together.

And more than that, almost all of what the Scout does mechanically and flavorfully really should be Assassin abilities. The only thing that ties it to a Ranger is one ability (expertise, woopdidoo) and the flavor blurb, which explicitly calls them as an entirely separate thing from Rangers.



Thats not how that works. Your reasoning can be based on an arbitrary decision.

Ie, you read an ability that says you cannot get lost, you then arbitrarily decide to skip navigation for that reason. Its arbitrary because the game is not telling you to do this.

And regardless, this is a pretty pointless aside. I'm pretty sure you know whats being said here regardless of whether or not you agree with the word choice.


And yet its well accepted that Exploration in 5e is so ill-supported that it barely exists.

The reason for your incredulity is that you're conflating the existence of gameworld interaction with their being an actual Exploration pillar the game supports.

There isn't, because what few mechanics and procedures exist for Exploration are scattered to the winds.

Theres literally Exploration procedures that only exist if you buy two specific, standalone DM screens, and they didn't even exist until (IIRC), the last 2-3 years.



It was. The first Ranger (IIRC) to get introduced to DND was homebrew that just combined whatever existed in the game to try and capture what Aragorn was. Thats the only reason it had magic, because there was little to no special healing mechanics beyond magic.

Incidentally, finding out that was the origin for the DND Ranger is what inspired me in my own RPG to write the class from the perspective of supporting the fantasy directly, which is what lead me to make Rangers AOE fighters; Aragorn, at least as portrayed in the Jackson movies, had a knack for always fighting multiple foes at once without missing a beat, and much more so than Legolas, Gimli or Boromir, who tended to fight successive 1v1s.

Supporting this mechanically not only better cements a mechanical and flavorful identity for the Ranger, but also distinguishes them entirely from other Martials, further strengthening the point of having a Ranger class.



I think Davy Crockett in a world of magic is uncannily skilled, as Aragorn was.

Theres nothing implicitly magical in nature about sticking your ear to the ground and hearing Orcs marching miles away; its implied as a learned skill even if relative to the real world it may as well be magic.

Has to be said most I think aren't concerned with the Ranger being supernatural to some degree; you kinda have to accept that if you want games to exist in T3/T4.

But there is contention over the need for that supernatural element to be literal spellcasting.

The line between highly skilled and magic has always been blurred. Legolas clearly uses a never ending quiver in LotR but is that really magic, dodgy editing, or a creative decision? Did the Beastmaster have a mystical bond or was he just good at training animals?

Aragorn could have been a multiclassed druid, or paladin, or a plain old fighter. The cosmic ballet goes on.

 

[Maxperson]

Thats not how that works. Your reasoning can be based on an arbitrary decision.

Ie, you read an ability that says you cannot get lost, you then arbitrarily decide to skip navigation for that reason. Its arbitrary because the game is not telling you to do this.

Um, that's not arbitrary in the least. You are not arbitrarily skipping navigation. You are skipping it for a reason.

And the idea that anything the game doesn't tell you to do is arbitrary no matter how reasoned is.................well................ludicrous.

You're going to need a real example of something that is both arbitrary and reasoned simultaneously. Perhaps start by looking up what arbitrary means.

And yet its well accepted that Exploration in 5e is so ill-supported that it barely exists.

No. That's not accepted at all. Like not even a little bit. It miiiiiiiiiight be accepted that there's not a lot of support by people who don't understand exploration, but it's not even remotely resembling reality to say that it barely exists in 5e. It's quite literally the vast majority of 5e.

The reason for your incredulity is that you're conflating the existence of gameworld interaction with their being an actual Exploration pillar the game supports.

No conflation. You're ignoring what exploration is. The pillar is quite literally any interaction that isn't social or combat, and even then it can be part of social and combat. Mechanics =/= exploration.

There isn't, because what few mechanics and procedures exist for Exploration are scattered to the winds.

Mechanics =/= exploration.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

It would go nicely with his laser rifle and cyborg arms, I guess.

Exactly.

 

[Remathilis]

The gap here is that these real life adventurers don't have magic. The 5E/0E ranger is a spellcaster. Davey Crocket doesn't really need to be a wizard.

Want to go farther than that?

Conan doesn't need rage. Aladdin doesn't need sneak attack. Lancelot doesn't need smite or lay on hands. Faustus doesn't need eldritch blast.

 

[Undrave]

I've always wondered just what it is about the Scout Rogue that just never seems to be an answer for folks who wanted "spell-less rangers"? I mean they got to have more skills plus Expertise in all the outdoorsy skills that people wanted (on top of the two free expertises of Nature and Survival at level 3), they didn't have the two 1st level Ranger abilities that a lot of people hated because they just removed the possibility of failure during exploration, and they got to jump out of melee range as a Reaction, plus eventually have a higher ground speed. What were they missing from the Scout that they didn't get that they felt like they should have had to be a spell-less ranger (other than not having the class name 'Ranger' itself?)

Looking at it, there's nothing in the Scout that's particularly Ranger specific aside from the Survivalist trait that gives them two skills with packaged expertise. Change the skills to Performance and Religion, and you got a Whirling Dervish subclass.

 

[Incenjucar]

Want to go farther than that?

Conan doesn't need rage. Aladdin doesn't need sneak attack. Lancelot doesn't need smite or lay on hands. Faustus doesn't need eldritch blast.

Yes. It would be nice to actually be able to play those character archetypes.