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.

 

[Bolares]

I don’t really like JC’s reasoning for the high level tiny shape. If the problem is it’s resilience, change the stat block in that form to have low AC and a concentration-like feature to reverse after taking damage.

 

[Minigiant]

Like I said, stick them in one or more subclasses, opening the door to different styles of spellcasting, maybe different spell lists, etc.

It would not be difficult to give fans of spellcasting rangers (and paladins) exactly what they like right now, while also giving the people who like rangers without magic an option that they currently don't have.

LikeI said, fans can't agree what should be a nonmagical ranger's core class features. If WOTC made a nonmagical ranger, the fans who want nonmagical ranger will criticize it the worst. That's what happened the last 2 times.

 

[Emberashh]

impossible to happen with little to no cost.

"Except by magical means".

But getting it before a fighter even gets extra attacks, in what you yourself called a ribbon ability, is just bad design in my opinion, and a lot of people agree with me.

Reminder that Ive said multiple times that I agree with this.

If even then you can’t understand and respect my point of view

At no point have I misunderstood you and sorry, but no, Im not going to "respect" the POV fhat you should just skip mechanics on an arbitrary basis and then blame the game when it breaks down as a result.

And you should stop assuming that someone is attacking you just because they're assessing your arguments as inconsistent.

You're deliberately ignoring that that ribbon has a balancing qualifier to it and are applying the exact same qualifier to your alternative interpretation to make it work. That is not consistent.

 

[Emberashh]

LikeI said, fans can't agree what should be a nonmagical ranger's core class features. If WOTC made a nonmagical ranger, the fans who want nonmagical ranger will criticize it the worst. That's what happened the last 2 times.

I reckon thats down to Ranger trying to do too much at once, and I think the Druid suffers the same issue.

Which is why in my RPG I ended up separating Beastmaster and Shapeshifting out into their own classes. Frees up a lot of design space, and then you can go deeper with those tropes without having to balance out being a bunch of other things at the same time.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

LikeI said, fans can't agree what should be a nonmagical ranger's core class features. If WOTC made a nonmagical ranger, the fans who want nonmagical ranger will criticize it the worst. That's what happened the last 2 times.

I'm very comfortable with people complaining if I believe I'm right.

Make the ranger core non-magical, and have, heck, three out of the four PHB ranger subclasses include spellcasting. At that point, they'd be complaining to complain.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Sure, but that should have resulted in fixes and expansions, not replacements.

I mean, the whole concept of 5e, down to its very bones, is and has always been to replace things that aren't doing well, rather than iterating upon and improving what has already been done in order to fix it so it can do well. (Unless it is a designer's pet, then it gets to stay long, long past the point anything else would have been cut.)

That characteristic is directly responsible for at least a third of all the flaws in it, and for killing stone dead multiple superior class designs because they didn't meet an arbitrarily chosen threshold of popularity. 5e is what it is because it is the Tradition Uber Alles edition that replaces rather than iterating.

 

[Emberashh]

I mean, the whole concept of 5e, down to its very bones, is and has always been to replace things that aren't doing well, rather than iterating upon and improving what has already been done in order to fix it so it can do well. (Unless it is a designer's pet, then it gets to stay long, long past the point anything else would have been cut.)

That characteristic is directly responsible for at least a third of all the flaws in it, and for killing stone dead multiple superior class designs because they didn't meet an arbitrarily chosen threshold of popularity. 5e is what it is because it is the Tradition Uber Alles edition that replaces rather than iterating.

You're not wrong, but thats how we end up with entire pillars of the game quietly disappearing because they don't support it, and then people don't get why it even exists, so they don't run it, and then they support it even less, creating more people that don't see the point and on and on.

Honestly at the rate its gone I wouldn't be surprised if 1DND just ends up being the kind of game where you basically just teleport from NPCs to formless white rooms to do combat in, repeated ad infinitum.

But there again this is all why I started writing my own RPG, as no matter how much I yell at the clouds Im just going to end up rewriting other people's games anyway. Even DCC, which is as close to perfect as I could have ever asked for, still has a lot of shortcomings I've had to shore up, so skipping the extra steps was a logical choice.

 

[Minigiant]

I'm very comfortable with people complaining if I believe I'm right.

Make the ranger core non-magical, and have, heck, three out of the four PHB ranger subclasses include spellcasting. At that point, they'd be complaining to complain.

That's not saying much.

Like the ranger is supposed to be able to nonmagical find herbs to nonmagically craft healing potions like Aragon. Or call animals like Dar. But D&D lacks rules for a crafting system or a nonmagical summoning system.

BOOM. Community fight.

 

[Emberashh]

That's not saying much.

Like the ranger is supposed to be able to nonmagical find herbs to nonmagically craft healing potions like Aragon. Or call animals like Dar. But D&D lacks rules for a crafting system or a nonmagical summoning system.

BOOM. Community fight.

The spell-less Ranger UA did have Poultices. While a bit underbaked, it was there. And while I wasn't there for that UA, but Id guess the main reason it wasn't recieved well is because it was lazy. Just a bunch of things slapped into the class with little cohesion or subclass integration.

Which incidentally also seemed to be the big issue with the Mystic UA. Overpowered sure, but when I read it I had the same thoughts as I did with the Ranger UA. Just a lot of stuff thrown together.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

BOOM. Community fight.

And? The community is happy to fight about anything and nothing.

If you tossed the community bundles of $100 bills, people would want to fight about the tax implications.