D&D 5E Legends & Lore 7/21/14

[I'm A Banana]

To be fair, I just assume everyone on the internet is an alcoholic sex tourist.

I can stop having alcoholic sex on the internet whenever I want.

but you will never take the road from me

 

[TwoSix]

I can stop having alcoholic sex on the internet whenever I want.

but you will never take the road from me

I amend my conclusions, so that all internet posters are now bird-watching tourists.

 

[ForumFerret]

Cool, an actual tease of something that's not in Basic!

I am sad to note the lack of an Arcane Archer feat. And I wish that they'd shown us an actual sample feat, so we could see about where the power level is. EDIT: Mostly because I want to start working on custom feat conversions of my homebrew material.

I really like what we're seeing here, though I, too, am a bit surprised by the absence of an Arcane Archer feat. Seemed like everyone's been talking about it.

Can I ask, if one of you has access to the last playtest draft it appeared in, to please share the details of it here?

Arcane Archer may have been renamed to Spell Sniper - see that feat tucked away at the bottom of the list.

(here's to hoping you haven't heard this from 99 other people already!)

Edit: and Scrivener popped into correct our wild speculation! Thanks Scrivener.

To add something of substance to this post, then:

Concentration as a balancing mechanic is still not exactly gone - damage scaling from the starter set monsters seems to indicate that PC's will generally start failing their Concentration checks at around 10th level if they actually get hit, and gaining proficiency on Concentration checks is only going to boost that up by a level or two. I don't think we're looking at too much a sacrifice here. There are those that will take it for that benefit, but I think you'll see many more taking it so their Eldritch Knight or High Elf can spellcast while fightering.

 

[trentonjoe]

Copied from someone else's post:

Moderately Armoured
+1 to Str or Con and proficiency with medium armour and shields

Ritual Master
Choose two level 1 spells from a single class and you can cast them as rituals (yes, your fighter will be able to cast spells in this way). You can also later add more ritual spells to your book.

Shield Master
Bonus action to shove, shield bonus to Dex saves, no damage on a successful Dex save that would otherwise result in half damage.

War Caster
Advantage on Con saves to concentrate, can use somatic components even you're holding weapons and/or a shield in your hands, can cast a spell as an opportunity attack.

These look better than I expected, since they do multiple things.

Those are pretty cool examples. I like how the first two are sort of like multiclassing and the second two are examples of being an expert at something.

 

[TwoSix]

Arcane Archer may have been renamed to Spell Sniper - see that feat tucked away at the bottom of the list.

(here's to hoping you haven't heard this from 99 other people already!)

[MENTION=87576]Scrivener of Doom[/MENTION] indicated otherwise. I forget if it was here or on RPG.net.

 

[Kobold Stew]

A few observations and guesses (and I'm happy to have Scrivener of Doom (or anyone else) correct them!):

Crossbow Master: seems to replace Archery Master. That might suggest that it doesn't grant proficiency to bows. With the play test feat, it was unlikely anyone would ever use it with anything other than a longbow. Perhaps it instead affects the "loading" quality?

Athlete: does it still give proficiency in three skills, and allow you to take it more than once, when the total number of skills you can take is only 4? I hope that was cleaned up.

Defensive Duelist: seems to take the place of Fencing master, which strikes me as a big conceptual change. Is the +1 AC from Dual wielder now here?

Heavy Armored and Heavy Armor master: apparently the play test feat has been split into two. apparently the threat of wizards wearing armour is a real one, because...

Lightly armoured and Medium Armored: Is this really just replicating Dwarven Armor training?

Linguist: is a better name for Loremaster.

Magic Initiate: combines the three separate feats from the play test. Is this just cleaning things up, or does it mean that players can only take one, and not collect cantrips from three magical traditions? I'm guessing the former, because...

Magic Adept is there, but Improved and Superior are not. Possibly these have become redundant though with spell casting options for the Eldritch Knight.

Observant: Perhaps it gives advantage on Investigation and Insight rolls?

Skilled: I'm glad to see this here -- I presume it gives proficiency in two more skills -- but it seems odd in light of the recent Mearls tweet about learning more skills in the downtime mechanics (perhaps I'm misremembering that, though).

Spell Sniper: replaces Arcane Archer, while allowing Divine Crossbows as well! (As MarkB suggested upthread, expanding not just magic type but also type of ranged weapon).

All in all pretty cool, and I'm excited.

The standouts for me, are some apparently new feats:

Actor
Dungeon Delver
Elemental Adept
Inspiring Leader
Mage Slayer
Tavern Brawler

 

[The Hitcher]

Okay Scrivener, the important ones: Actor and Tavern Brawler - hit me!

 

[trentonjoe]

I am interested to see if these are "encounter" powers or "at-wills".


Can the shield master knock someone over every round? or is once per encounter? Can the Combat wizard cast a spell as a reaction every round or once per encounter?

 

[Johnny Champion]

I can't really imagine choosing ability bumps over feats, to be honest. Flavour is so much more fun than just being slightly numerically better at stuff.

I agree. These 2 ability score increases that happen every 4 levels (or so) are not an aid to role playing that is for sure. Coming from AD&D, these bother me immensely! I will look at feats as the preferred option unless they turn out to be too powerful or too difficult to fit into a character narative.

Does anyone else have problems with Level based ability increases?

 

[trentonjoe]

I agree. These 2 ability score increases that happen every 4 levels (or so) are not an aid to role playing that is for sure. Coming from AD&D, these bother me immensely! I will look at feats as the preferred option unless they turn out to be too powerful or too difficult to fit into a character narative.

Does anyone else have problems with Level based ability increases?

My group went almost 50/50 with the feat at 4th level when we play tested it. The casters didn't really have any good options in the old packet so they almost all went with the ability.

The strength based martial guys tended to go for the 18 STR but the "tweeners" often chose a feat.