New D&D Survey: What Do you Want From Older Editions?

WotC has just posted this month's D&D feedback survey. This survey asks about content from older editions of D&D, including settings, classes and races. The results will help determine what appears in future Unearthed Arcana columns.

The new survey is here. The results for the last survey have not yet been compiled. However, WotC is reporting that the Waterborne Adventures article scored well, and that feedback on Dragon+ has been "quite positive".

"We also asked about the new options presented in the Waterborne Adventures installment of Unearthed Arcana. Overall, that material scored very well—on a par with material from the Player’s Handbook. Areas where players experienced trouble were confined to specific mechanics. The minotaur race’s horns created a bit of confusion, for example, and its ability score bonuses caused some unhappiness. On a positive note, people really liked the sample bonds and how they helped bring out the minotaur’s unique culture.

The mariner, the swashbuckler, and the storm sorcerer also scored very well. A few of the specific mechanics for those options needed some attention, but overall, players and DMs liked using them.

Finally, we asked a few questions about the Dragon+ app. We really appreciate the feedback as we tailor the app’s content and chart the course for future issues. The overall feedback has been quite positive, and we’re looking at making sure we continue to build on our initial success."

 

[Eric V]

Shouting at someone to keep them going, while elegant and dramatic, doesn't carry much risk; where trying to cast a spell in the middle of a battle certainly does - or certainly should.

Lanefan

Is there such a risk in 5e?

 

[spinozajack]

Marking is a soccer/football term which amounts to sticking to a guy and preventing them from organizing an effective offense. Hilariously, it's used by defenders, often against strikers. Really! Look it up.

Couldn't care less about what happens during a soccer game. If I'm expected to see D&D combat versus 8 headed hydras, swordsmen and archers and oozes as similar to the world cup, the game has already failed in its purpose, which is to engage the player. (I find soccer to be about as exciting as baseball, it's good to put on if I want to fall asleep)

My point is, one shouldn't have to "look it up" to pay D&D. Not everyone who wants to play a fighter wants to run interference, or be akin to a defensive line. That is another place where the game designed failed to match player expectation, by assuming the default fighter meant anything beyond "striker". Putting the line "role : defender" immediately turned me off playing a 4e fighter. Actually, same thing with the paladin. I didn't want to play a defensive paladin, either. I want to kill monsters, not "run interference with some highly abstract jiggery pokery"

 

[Obryn]

Not really. They were introduced as 'Batman with a holy symbol.' In 4e, they were dexterous, stealthy, Wis-based toons who wielded big weapons in the name of their god. You are right, that OoV paladins cover some of the concept, but people who played them in 4e couldn't really convert them over well.

That said, it probably would just require some ability exchanges, as described in the DMG. I would want them to be WIS based as opposed to CHA-based, however.

Yeah, Avenger is one of those concepts - like Seekers - that worked well as a class, but didn't (imo) have much thematic resonance. I don't think too many people longed for "unarmored holy executioners with big swords" before the class was made. Kind of like 3e dragon shamans, etc.

It's a cool concept, mind you, and I'd love to see a 5e version anyway.

 

[occam]

There's a line beyond which the narrative becomes too abstract to be workable or acceptable. 4e crossed that line for many people, including myself. The fact that we're discussing this in a 5th edition thread only a few short years after 4e came out is proof that excessive abstraction is not a good direction to take the game.

KISS

I think the point Obryn was making is that marking is not an abstraction in the context of a soccer/football game. When someone is told to mark an opposing player, that person knows what to do and is aware of the fact that he or she has marked someone else, in real life. Perhaps it's the general American unfamiliarity with the details of soccer that made the term more problematic than it should've been?

 

[Eric V]

Just because there exist immersion-breaking abstractions in D&D, does not mean we should make the game so abstract that it becomes meaningless or hard to understand.

It's amazing to me that Hit Points, as described in the official game are not "so abstract that it becomes meaningless or hard to understand" but inspiration-based restoration of hit points, which is 100% completely consistent with the aforementioned definition, makes the game "meaningless."

Just strikes me as a lack of imagination, no offense intended. I suppose, though, I would find it consistent if the people who were anti inspiration-based restoration of hit points also did away with HD healing on short rests and full healing on long rests...but that would require a different definition of hit points from that officially presented in the game.

E

 

[Eric V]

Couldn't care less about what happens during a soccer game. If I'm expected to see D&D combat versus 8 headed hydras, swordsmen and archers and oozes as similar to the world cup, the game has already failed in its purpose, which is to engage the player. (I find soccer to be about as exciting as baseball, it's good to put on if I want to fall asleep)

My point is, one shouldn't have to "look it up" to pay D&D. Not everyone who wants to play a fighter wants to run interference, or be akin to a defensive line. That is another place where the game designed failed to match player expectation, by assuming the default fighter meant anything beyond "striker". Putting the line "role : defender" immediately turned me off playing a 4e fighter. Actually, same thing with the paladin. I didn't want to play a defensive paladin, either. I want to kill monsters, not "run interference with some highly abstract jiggery pokery"

???!!

Most of us didn't have to look it up. We just read the rules in the PHB and narrated the mechanics like good D&D players. Obryn was just giving you the real-world origin of the term.

Yeesh.

 

[Obryn]

Couldn't care less about what happens during a soccer game. If I'm expected to see D&D combat versus 8 headed hydras, swordsmen and archers and oozes as similar to the world cup, the game has already failed in its purpose, which is to engage the player.

My point is, one shouldn't have to "look it up" to pay D&D. Not everyone who wants to play a fighter wants to run interference, or be akin to a defensive line. That is another place where the game designed failed to match player expectation, by assuming the default fighter meant anything beyond "striker". Putting the line "role : defender" immediately turned me off playing a 4e fighter. Actually, same thing with the paladin. I didn't want to play a defensive paladin, either. I want to kill monsters, not "run interference with some highly abstract jiggery pokery"

Nobody needs to look it up. Marking makes intuitive sense if you're not actively trying to misunderstand it, and it is well explained in the class write-up. You don't need to know soccer - but you asked and I figured I'd share the knowledge.

Your second argument ignores the players who *do* want that out of their Fighters and Paladins. Nobody is asking that the existing 5e options go away - only that more options would be welcome. Needed, even, with the likely backgrounds of many new players. On the other hand, you're very insistent that new content must adhere to your peculiar POV.

 

[spinozajack]

It's amazing to me that Hit Points, as described in the official game are not "so abstract that it becomes meaningless or hard to understand" but inspiration-based restoration of hit points, which is 100% completely consistent with the aforementioned definition, makes the game "meaningless."

Just strikes me as a lack of imagination, no offense intended. I suppose, though, I would find it consistent if the people who were anti inspiration-based restoration of hit points also did away with HD healing on short rests and full healing on long rests...but that would require a different definition of hit points from that officially presented in the game.

E

The official definition of hit points in 5th edition game is that below half full, it's definitely serious wounds and when you reach 0, you're knocked out, bleeding on the ground, about to die from a fatal injury.

I would advise you to actually read the rules before lecturing others, guy.

Even in 4th edition, being below 50% was explicitly called "bloodied", and you could tell when a monster or another PC was in that state at a glance. That's not at all abstract, that's very clear and straightforward. Except, then comes along the warlord, and his soothing words make your wounds (you know, those holes through which the blood came out from), close up and there, you're all better. Without magic. Without bandages. Without even touching the player. And the player might not even be able to hear the warlord using his inspirational talk! You could be unconscious, at death's door, and still be inspired to stand up to fight by mere words alone.

Which is total BS, obviously.

 

[Obryn]

The official definition of hit points in 5th edition game is that below half full, it's definitely serious wounds and when you reach 0, you're knocked out, bleeding on the ground, about to die from a fatal injury.

I would advise you to actually read the rules before lecturing others, guy.

It's such a fatal and deadly wound that you can probably get over it in an hour, or overnight at most. Terrifying! [emoji38]

 

[spinozajack]

Nobody needs to look it up. Marking makes intuitive sense if you're not actively trying to misunderstand it, and it is well explained in the class write-up. You don't need to know soccer - but you asked and I figured I'd share the knowledge.

Your second argument ignores the players who *do* want that out of their Fighters and Paladins. Nobody is asking that the existing 5e options go away - only that more options would be welcome. Needed, even, with the likely backgrounds of many new players. On the other hand, you're very insistent that new content must adhere to your peculiar POV.

I have no problem with the protection fighting style, or attacks of opportunity when your foe runs away. What I do have a problem with, is an enemy that is mindless like a zombie thinking tactically because of some abstract game rules due to him having been marked by a player.

You do understand that marking, warlord healing, and extremely abstract game mechanics, MMO combat roles, are major reasons that drove people away from 4th edition, right? I'm hardly alone in this.

Mike Mearls and the rest admitted they made huge mistakes during the design of that game.

What we're seeing are people who are asking them to revisit those mistakes, and make them again.