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

[dave2008]

Which is completely and utterly pointless.

People complain about ASIs in races, so they make them "floating". Now, they move them to backgrounds, which by default are completely customizable anyway so the ASI are, in fact, still floating; making the "change" utterly pointless.

It's like, when with the devs finally get it. Just make ASI part of generating ability scores or bake them into the numbers by default...

Anyway, bowing out.

Ok, didn't mean to hit a nerve.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Anyone point out yet that Surprise just gives the surprised disadvantage on Init?

I missed that.

My first thought was that it makes surprise pretty weak.

Second thought was that maybe that’s a good thing.

I had never thought of surprise as too powerful, but now I think this change makes a lot of sense.

 

[Charlaquin]

Lucky (yes, you get one fewer point at levels 1-4, but from then on it improves.)

Doesn’t actually improve until 9th level, because from 5-8 it’s the same number of uses per day as in the 2014 version. Moreover, it no longer stacks with advantage and disadvantage. I think this is a fantastic change because it’s actually an overall nerf, disguised as a buff.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Which is completely and utterly pointless.

People complain about ASIs in races, so they make them "floating". Now, they move them to backgrounds, which by default are completely customizable anyway so the ASI are, in fact, still floating; making the "change" utterly pointless.

It's like, when with the devs finally get it. Just make ASI part of generating ability scores or bake them into the numbers by default...

Anyway, bowing out.

A lot of people argued that floating ASIs are too confusing for newbies and there needs to be a default.

If that was meant with sincerity then that concern has been addressed.

But if it was a disingenuous argument, and the real goal was just to protect racial ASIs…well, then, that’s kind of funny.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Which is completely and utterly pointless.

People complain about ASIs in races, so they make them "floating". Now, they move them to backgrounds, which by default are completely customizable anyway so the ASI are, in fact, still floating; making the "change" utterly pointless.

It's like, when with the devs finally get it. Just make ASI part of generating ability scores or bake them into the numbers by default...

Anyway, bowing out.

The ASIs are now part of an effective 'background step' alongside choosing skills, tools and language.

 

[MarkB]

Halflings really seem to have lost out in terms of design space here - very boring compared to the rest. And I really wish they'd taken more of a pass on Brave - conditional advantage on saves always slows things down at the table.

 

[Aurel Guthrie]

Looks pretty solid so far! One thing I dislike is the loss of the Savage Attacks traits from half-orc since they're changing how mixed races work. It means greataxes are now inferior to greatswords in all cases.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

I always thought it was pronounced..

"Ahhhh-forget it"

Just like the Aaracockra.

If it means so much to you be first in line at the alphabetization contest that you have 2 A's at the front of your race name, you are not cool enough to be a fantasy race.

Yet, they lose the alphabetization contest to Humans in the playtest document.

 

[Charlaquin]

It looks like they technically can, but the balance might be off even compared to the existing balance issues.

Whether that's a major, minor, or non- issue is a personal opinion.

Note the sidebar near the very beginning of the UA: “Power Level. The character options you read here might be more or less powerful than options in the Player’s Handbook (2014). If a design survives playtesting, we adjust its power to the desirable level before official publication. This means an option could be more or less powerful in its final form.”

 

[DND_Reborn]

Ok, didn't mean to hit a nerve.

No worries. Just that this sample is not very promising (to me, anyway...). Nothing personal taken, just so you know.