D&D (2024) New Jeremy Crawford Interviews

[Micah Sweet]

I would like to see Wizards of the Coast publish different role-playing games. For now, their attention is rightly directed to D&D, but I agree with Micah that it would be nice to see some diversification in their catalogue and, given their influence, it would be great for new role-players to thereby be exposed to different genres or styles of play. I liked it when Wizards of the Coast published the Star Wars Roleplaying Game and Star Wars has a similar feel to D&D. It would be fun to see some of the Wizards designers stretch their legs and try to develop other games in genres and styles more dissimilar to D&D.

Notice that was WotC publishing multiple RPGs, not TSR.

 

[Scott Christian]

if you can pick and choose every skill / spell individually, sure, go for the strongest version. If you have to choose between the 2014 or the 2024 paladin as a whole, I am not sure the 2014 one wins a lot of the votes

It's not about picking the skill or ability individually. Sorry if that was the impression. I stated the 2014 version vs the 2024 version. Not mix and matching the two versions. Hope that clears things up.

 

[Micah Sweet]

there are other TTRPGs than just the ones WotC creates. I understand their influence, but that in itself is no reason why it has to come from WotC


You could create a SciFi TTRPG based on 5e, that is what the SRD is for, in fact some have done so

Of course it doesn't have to. EN Publishing just came out with an amazing sci-fi version of their game, based on their version of the 5e rules. But that doesn't mean WotC should stick to D&D exclusively. They have a lot of clout they could use to bring in people who want something other than WotC 5e.

 

[Scott Christian]

basing it on anything but the videos right now also feels like a stretch

I agree. That is why my sentence started with "We'll have to wait and see."

 

[Micah Sweet]

if you have 50% market share then that second game is as likely to take share from your first as from the rest of the market. If you have 2% market share it is much more likely to expand your market share.

And this does not even go into whether it increases your profits and not just your revenue, let alone ROI (and it really is about ROI...)

Then why do other big companies make more than one product?

 

[Chaosmancer]

No. There wouldn't be spell slots.

So... to prevent Divine Smite from being made a spell, you would have wanted the paladin redesign to lose spellcasting entirely?

And you don't think that fundamentally redesigning a half-caster into not being a caster at all, and losing their entire spell list would not have been a MASSIVE design challenge and a MASSIVE disruption to the game? Sure, they could have done so, but they also could have moved from 1d20 to a 2d10 system, I don't see that as a reasonable direction for them to take though.

 

[mellored]

So are you advocating removing all spellcasting from the Paladin to tack on some smite point system?

I've gone from "juice probably not worth the squeeze" to "hard pass".

I'm a fan of having more variety.

Spell slots are fine.

8 classes using slots gets a little boring.

 

[Scott Christian]

if the player had not insisted on using the 2014 version in the first place, we would not be having this discussion at all, there is a perfectly fine 2024 paladin ready to use you know…

If the player wants all the benefits of the 2024 version but keep the 2014 smite, then they can take a hike… the fact that I even consider letting them use the 2014 version at all alongside the other 2024 characters shows the compatibility

I must have misread what you said. Here is your post:

If a player absolutely insisted then I would have them stay completely with the 2014 ruleset, no weapon masteries, none of the other tweaks. Not sure they would actually be any better off than the 2024 paladin, they certainly would be a lot less flexible

So my question was, if they have to stay within the 2014 ruleset to play a 2014 paladin, doesn't that contradict backwards compatibility? Again, if you meant mix and match abilities, then I apologize.

 

[Argyle King]

So... to prevent Divine Smite from being made a spell, you would have wanted the paladin redesign to lose spellcasting entirely?

And you don't think that fundamentally redesigning a half-caster into not being a caster at all, and losing their entire spell list would not have been a MASSIVE design challenge and a MASSIVE disruption to the game? Sure, they could have done so, but they also could have moved from 1d20 to a 2d10 system, I don't see that as a reasonable direction for them to take though.

I don't see it as a "massive design challenge" to use things that already exist within the paladin class framework and already exist as building blocks of 5e class design.

Why do you feel that it would be a MASSIVE disruption to the game when it isn't currently one?

 

[Argyle King]

From my perspective, the paladin has been a spellcaster since its appearance in the 1978 Player's Handbook. I do not have familiarity with how it appeared in the 1975 Greyhawk D&D supplement.

Therefore, I would prefer that the paladin be kept a caster. I am (increasingly more reluctantly) able to accept revisions that improve the speed of play and that also make it easier to introduce new players to the game. I am, however, not thrilled about changes that do away with elements of the game that have been around for decades. This was one of the shortcomings of 4e and the return to embracing the history of the game is one of the strengths of 5e.

That's a fair point of view.

Do you feel that the paladin should evolve to be more similar to wizards and clerics?