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.

 

[Horwath]

Well, the one encouraging sign I saw in the Survey was the lack of comment space for the individual features of the Druid. I think they already know they have a clunker on their hands and are expecting to scrap it. Perhaps that will hold for any potential changes to Polymorph as well.

As a side note, I've never seen a Beastmaster Ranger at my table take Tasha's version over the PHB. The players I've played with want to have an actual animal as a companion (even if that means they are less effective in combat and risk losing the companion), not a vague animal like statblock spirit.

You can flavor the animal spirit as actual animal and have flavor and mechanical usefulness.

 

[Micah Sweet]

you can argue that it had the best lore or whatever (and I’d probably agree), but you cannot argue that they lost money on a lot of stuff they were publishing (bad management, but still…)

My defense has nothing to do with business.

 

[Undrave]

Pretty sure Warlords never could shout so loudly at a Fireball that it sputtered out to an ember

Also key to remember the Barbarian originally shipped with a horde it could call on, well before we ever got anything like the Warlord concept.

The Fighting Man used to get followers. I think the Warlord was actually there at the start, but they didn't know how to properly realize it mechanically, and thus that aspect fell to the wayside until 4e revived it.

Grabbing the knightly armored leader of men, the horde chief, and the bandit king, the noble strategist, and making them subclasses of the Warlord, could make for an interesting class.

 

[Emberashh]

The Fighting Man used to get followers. I think the Warlord was actually there at the start, but they didn't know how to properly realize it mechanically, and thus that aspect fell to the wayside until 4e revived it.

Grabbing the knightly armored leader of men, the horde chief, and the bandit king, the noble strategist, and making them subclasses of the Warlord, could make for an interesting class.

My thinking is more that you should treat that as general mechanics and give most classes the option to go that way.

Part of my games design is that it escalates into army v army and PC v armies in the endgame. Everyone interacts with mass combat, some moreso than others, and you're always able to participate even if you don't want to lead an army.

Thats why my Barbarians can climb up to 6d12 4x a turn (before crafted items, magic items, potions, etc kick in), and other classes are similarly high powered.

Even if you want to ignore your own Horde, you can still wade into an enemy horde by yourself and lay waste to it. But if you do want to play more of a Mount and Blade sort of game, you've got options for that, and each ability and subclass that leans in that direction is written specifically to be applicable just as much to low scale combats as it is to mass combat.

The Commander, a sub for my Warrior design, is more or less the epitome of that. At its core, its granted limited control over the initiative order of every battle it participates in, and does the classic martial healing and buffing, but it also directly enhances the various capabilities of the party no matter its make up.

Stealthy types get stealthier, smashy types smash harder, magic types lay greater waste, etc and everything is extrapolated from as small scale as a 1v1 duel to epic battles of the end times with tens of thousands on either side of the fight.

Relegating everything to do with mass warfare to just one class basically means you're telling people to skip it if nobody takes that class, and I don't want people to skip it.

 

[DataDwarf]

Depends on what spells you get.
A character who launched fireballs is different from one who heals.

So if you have 3 spell lists, that's 3 classes.

That is a single class, aka "Spellcaster", with three different subclasses that cast different spells.

 

[Minigiant]

One of the core issues with D&D that 5th edition has revealed is that that some of the Fantasy images of the different generations of D&D gamers are encapsulated in different classes, officially existent, unofficial but popular, or nonexistent yet.

The game is 50 years old almost. I'm not saying it has to change with the times. However D&D and WOTC have to come to grips with the face that the game is both the oldest TTRPG and the most popular TTRPG. So it has to deal with the fact that many of its fans do have diametrically different views and they have other game options. WOTC will eventually have to throw the lasso and pick who is getting the most appeal and what their long term strategy is.

 

[Emberashh]

And the sad part is that some of us also want hybrids of certain generations.

I grew up on both sides of 9/11 (or the iPhone, if we want to be less morbid), and I have a fond appreciation for old school style ways of gaming as well as newer takes, and I find myself more than anything wanting games that bridge the gap.

Thats part of why DayZ is one of my favorite games of all time. Its a game that presents as a mostly polished experience thats easy to get into, but is still very much steeped in another generations gameplay preferences.

And I think this is also why I ended up falling for DCC, because it scratches that itch on both ends.

 

[Minigiant]

And the sad part is that some of us also want hybrids of certain generations.

It's not even about wanting a hybrid. It's more or less stepping back, looking at the game and its player,then moving back in to make the two match more.

I mean Crawford said the druid is the least played class.

If you step back and look, it makes sense.

• It's based on the rough concept of a Celtic Druid which is barely in an popular fantasy media.
  • Especially not anything recent
• It heavily built around shapeshifting which is is not associated to Druid expect for things specifically copying D&D tropes
• Because WOTC decide to not create new official classes unless forced, a lot of its subclasses were designed to imitate other nature, spiritual, and primal themed tropes like shaman, witch doctors, oracles, and hermits. And did so poorly.
• To fully play it, the druid required the most amount of information to understand.
  • The class write up with its many additional rules
    • Its spell list
    • its possible forms
• And even with being one of the top 5 stronger classes in the edition, the attention it got from WOTC was half-hearted compared to almost ever other class.

Meaning the 5e Druid was created for a small select few. The question then becomes.

Do you cater more to those small amount of 5e druid fans OR do you open it up for potential druid fans who passed on it for one reason or another?

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's not even about wanting a hybrid. It's more or less stepping back, looking at the game and its player,then moving back in to make the two match more.

I mean Crawford said the druid is the least played class.

If you step back and look, it makes sense.

• It's based on the rough concept of a Celtic Druid which is barely in an popular fantasy media.
  • Especially not anything recent
• It heavily built around shapeshifting which is is not associated to Druid expect for things specifically copying D&D tropes
• Because WOTC decide to not create new official classes unless forced, a lot of its subclasses were designed to imitate other nature, spiritual, and primal themed tropes like shaman, witch doctors, oracles, and hermits. And did so poorly.
• To fully play it, the druid required the most amount of information to understand.
  • The class write up with its many additional rules
    • Its spell list
    • its possible forms
• And even with being one of the top 5 stronger classes in the edition, the attention it got from WOTC was half-hearted compared to almost ever other class.

Meaning the 5e Druid was created for a small select few. The question then becomes.

Do you cater more to those small amount of 5e druid fans OR do you open it up for potential druid fans who passed on it for one reason or another?

Depends on what things they want to change to extend to a wider audience. Personally, I don't consider simplicity in and of itself to be a virtue like WotC does.

 

[Emberashh]

Depends on what things they want to change to extend to a wider audience. Personally, I don't consider simplicity in and of itself to be a virtue like WotC does.

Facts.

Plus, I think its pretty clear as far as the Druid goes that there is something being lost with templates, even if we assume they won't suck eventually.

While I still think itd be better to just stick with statblocks and nerf casting (or skip this whole druid=shapeshifter business altogether), Id think the best compromise about it would probably be to use a template for general stats and then just have abilities key off the real statblocks, which are a lot easier to have a couple page reference for than full statblocks.

From what Ive seen, the loss of the abilities is the main sticking point, and I think you could even get around variable health for different forms by including an HP modifier alongside the ability references.

That way, you can have a standard statblock thats easy for anyone to use right out of the PHB, and can still include the principle things that differentiate the various beasts. No need to make up unique template abilities or a bunch of different ones.

Even flavor-wise Id think that'd work out because Im pretty positive most depictions of shapeshifting in other fantasy typically have the Shapeshifter still fundamentally be different in some way from the real thing.

In fact, if we lean into that idea, we could even balance out stealth questions. If Druids who shapeshift very obviously look like shapeshifted Druids to anyone who knows what to look for to tell the difference, then you can sell the ability to negate that disadvantage as a stealth boon at some later level.

For instance, say we want to keep it simple and the Druids shapeshifted form will incorporate some elements of their natural form; lets say purple hair. This could even be flavored as an imperfect skill, ie, the Druid is still too green and needs experience to be better.

But then they turn into a Rat. A purple rat is noticeable, so theres your chance of failure to ensure people actually run stealth mechanics. And then at some later level, the Druid can negate this issue, precisely taking the form they want, representing their growth.

It doesn't have to be strictly linked; DMs and Players can work out how this imperfection manifests, but mechanically I think it'd be sound.