D&D (2024) First playtest thread! One D&D Character Origins.

[Nikosandros]

It's still a net nerf with how it can no longer stack with Advantage or invert Disadvantage into Mega-Advantage. That was the really atrocious part.

I know that the mega-advantage was the official, Crawford-approved ruling, but I always found it weird and ignored it.

 

[Ixal]

I really, really don't like the stat bonuses being tied to backgrounds. This is, in my opinion, a serious mistake.

There was this ... discomfort, this tension, with stat bonuses and class. If you played a "dex class" but your race was dwarf, you were at a bit of a disadvantage for example, because you didn't get to boost your main stat.

Shifting the stat bonuses to the background just re-creates the same problem in another place. I want to play a cleric, but I didn't grow in a temple, I was a criminal before my PC "found god"? well, that's a wisdom bonus I'm not getting.

so instead of race choice being somewhat constrained, now backgrounds are. There was an opportunity to fix this problem, and instead WotC just moved it around.

edit: also why are specific languages tied to specific background? If you were a guard you knew dwarf? Why?

Thats because so many people complained that they are forced the play specific races as they refused to play anything without an 18 main stat. It was inconceivable to them to not play something with the optimal stat array.
All ASI discussions boiled down to that.

 

[overgeeked]

I really, really don't like the stat bonuses being tied to backgrounds. This is, in my opinion, a serious mistake.

There was this ... discomfort, this tension, with stat bonuses and class. If you played a "dex class" but your race was dwarf, you were at a bit of a disadvantage for example, because you didn't get to boost your main stat.

Shifting the stat bonuses to the background just re-creates the same problem in another place. I want to play a cleric, but I didn't grow in a temple, I was a criminal before my PC "found god"? well, that's a wisdom bonus I'm not getting.

so instead of race choice being somewhat constrained, now backgrounds are. There was an opportunity to fix this problem, and instead WotC just moved it around.

edit: also why are specific languages tied to specific background? If you were a guard you knew dwarf? Why?

Or...with "build your own background" as the default, they've eliminated the problem entirely. You can be a criminal with a WIS bonus...you just have to write a few lines of fiction to justify it.

 

[TwoSix]

I really, really don't like the stat bonuses being tied to backgrounds. This is, in my opinion, a serious mistake.

There was this ... discomfort, this tension, with stat bonuses and class. If you played a "dex class" but your race was dwarf, you were at a bit of a disadvantage for example, because you didn't get to boost your main stat.

Shifting the stat bonuses to the background just re-creates the same problem in another place. I want to play a cleric, but I didn't grow in a temple, I was a criminal before my PC "found god"? well, that's a wisdom bonus I'm not getting.

so instead of race choice being somewhat constrained, now backgrounds are. There was an opportunity to fix this problem, and instead WotC just moved it around.

edit: also why are specific languages tied to specific background? If you were a guard you knew dwarf? Why?

Being able to modify any and all parts of the pre-built backgrounds is an explicitly listed option. The pre-built backgrounds have as much mechanical weight as the "quick build" options in the beginning of the class descriptions.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Good thing we all have miniature computers in our pockets...

I know this is aside... but my nephew is a teen and a few years ago he came home from school and told me his teacher said "You just need to understand the why not memorize tables, it's not like you aren't going to have a computer with you at all times" and I thought the kid was lying... so I checked, the teacher of 7th grade math confirmed that...

 

[Weiley31]

This recently came up in the Eberron game I'm in. There's an artificer in the group and there is just no guidance on it. I really, really hope they surprise me here.

Closest thing I could say is see if Vault 5E from Cubicle 7 expands the Adventures in Middle-Earth 5E crafting system or Ruins of Symbaroum. And that I haven't seen fully in depth yet as artifact rules are in the game master guide. (but it does have a Blacksmith fighter subclass in the players guide so something I guess.)

 

[overgeeked]

I know that the mega-advantage was the official, Crawford-approved ruling, but I always found it weird and ignored it.

So many of his rulings are whack-a-do. Like the one hour of combat to break a long rest thing.

 

[Yaarel]

Thats because so many people complained that they are forced the play specific races as they refused to play anything without an 18 main stat. It was inconceivable to them to not play something with the optimal stat array.
All ASI discussions boiled down to that.

The high ability score can be for flavor as well as mechanics, but yeah, it does boil down to inconceivable to not match the character concept.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

It's pronounced closer to Awesomer, and not Ass-i-mar.

Just saying, it's REALLY easy to accidentally spell aasimar with the double 's' even when not meaning to...

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I think the bits they are going to double down in for races are the physical inherited things like tremor sense and not the cultural things like “good at mining”

yet they kept prof in smiths tools...