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

[Kobold Avenger]

With this iteration of the game it looks like they are indeed leaning more on the multiversal setting, Sigil gets brought up for both Humans and Tieflings in regards to their story/background.

 

[Charlaquin]

Having glanced things over, here is my quick and dirty.

• 1st level Feats: Love the concept, but man....again some of those feats are really bad. Primal Attacker is consistently one of the bottom ranked feats and hasn't changed one bit. Alert has been nerfed into the ground compared to what it was etc.

I wouldn’t sweat the power of individual Fears too much. As the sidebar says, they’ll get tweaked to bring them to the desired power level later, if they survive this initial vibe check.

• Inspiration on a 20, solid. I like how they are integrated more directly instead of the wishy washy "Dm gives it when they feel like it".

I have mixed feelings. On one hand, I’m in favor of trying to make it common enough that players don’t feel the need to hoard it, and making it something the player can gain themselves instead of hoping the DM will remember your traits and think you did a good job roleplaying them. On the other hand, I liked that gaining inspiration was tied to your actions, and I don’t like the idea of it just being random. This is why I like just saying the player can grant themselves Inspiration once per trait per session.

• Dwarves can get tremorsense....cool.

Hell yeah!

• People can be medium or small...solid.

Some of them. Elves, dwarves, orcs and dragonborn can’t be, which is… weird…

• Grapple: Ug....5e has such nice simple grapple rules, and now they are becoming more complicated again. What made grapple useful was that even though it wasn't super strong, it was fairly easy to try. Now its got more complex mechanics, bonuses and penalties, now the grappler takes the slowed condition (but only while moving, so they do or don't have enemies get advantage on attacks against them?). I get that some monsters in 5e were getting grappled way too easily, but that's because a lot of monsters that should have had athletics skill didn't. Just fix that and your golden.

I think the rule for establishing and escaping the grapple is actually far simpler (again, that’s the way monsters have been doing it this whole time, specifically because it’s simpler). Giving the grappler the Slowed condition while moving the grappled target feels a little odd, I agree.

• Rare languages seem to be a special purview of some backgrounds, I like it.

Nope. Backgrounds are entirely customizable, and in fact, build-your-own is the default. The pre-written ones are all just examples of possible backgrounds you can build (or just take one of the examples if you don’t want to bother building your own).

• Rerolls are feeling a bit too common. Like Tavern brawler, I can reroll 1s on a d4...big whoop. The average boost to that is so darn tiny it barely feels worth the effort.

It increases your average damage by half a point, which is not bad, actually. That’s true regardless of die size, which is unintuitive but provable mathematically.

 

[Charlaquin]

For itself, ot is so lala. But his bullet point makes the feat not redundand for a monk, who might reroll d10s for all we know.

Doesn’t actually matter, reroll on a 1 is +0.5 average whether you’re rolling a d4 or a d100.

 

[Charlaquin]

It's worth less than 2 damage on average if you're rolling a d12.

Huh?

 

[Charlaquin]

People dismissed the great axe because it is less than 0.5 damage lower than the great sword...
so I am not sure this is true...

But as I said: not good enough. I think this feat needs a second bullet point. Probably combine it with charger?

Well… when its competition is the likes of Healer and Skilled, does it really need more?

 

[Haplo781]

Huh?

Average value of 1d12 is 6.5. average value of 2d12 keep higher is 8.49.

It's an even worse value with smaller die sizes.

 

[Haplo781]

Well… when its competition is the likes of Healer and Skilled, does it really need more?

It's not competing with Healer and Skilled. It's competing with Magic Initiate and +2 to an ability score.

 

[Charlaquin]

Average value of 1d12 is 6.5. average value of 2d12 keep higher is 8.49.

Right you are. I got confused and thought you were talking about Tavern Brawler.

It's not competing with Healer and Skilled. It's competing with Magic Initiate and +2 5o an ability score.

Well, it’s competing with Magic Initiate, yes. Not with +2 to an ability score, as that’s not an option at 1st level. It’s possible that Magic Initiate is too strong to be a 1st level Feat. Or maybe the other 1st level Feats all need a boost to get on MI’s level. They’ll sort that out later, if leveled Feats pass the survey stage.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

People dismissed the great axe because it is less than 0.5 damage lower than the great sword...
so I am not sure this is true...

But as I said: not good enough. I think this feat needs a second bullet point. Probably combine it with charger?

That would be perfect, IMO. Let a Savage Attacker charge. (Unless they bring back the Charge Action) - and if they do, then give Savage Attacker a charge buff.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Well… when its competition is the likes of Healer and Skilled, does it really need more?

Yes. Something fluffy would be sufficient. Athletics skill?

I also think skilled is not a good feat.
A package of 3 skills at once bothered me for 10 years now.