D&D (2024) New Survey Results | Druid & Paladin | Unearthed Arcana | D&D

WotC has shared a new video going over the survey results following the drud and paladin playtests for One D&D.

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For those who don't have time to watch the video, here are some general notes.

Paladin

• Did extremely well in terms of satisfaction
• All class and subclass features scored 70% or higher - lowest was Divine Smite at 72%
• Got some pushback in written feedback on being able to smite on ranged attacks - class identity concerns, Paladin viewed as melee-centric class, ranged smites might eat into Cleric/Ranger identity too much
• Positive feedback on redesigned smite spells - may become paladin exclusive spells down the road

Druid

• Wild Shape feedback seems to be split - slight majority saying "never want this Wild Shape in print", slight minority saying "this is their favorite version of Wild Shape they've ever seen"
• People love the texture and differences in beast options in '14 Wild Shape, but are open to feature being easier to use (i.e. don't want players to have to weigh the merits of 100+ stat blocks every time they want to use Wild Shape)
• Will have another take on Wild Shape next time Druid appears in Playtest UA
• General concept of Channel Nature seems to have gone over well, but want to see more done with it
• Expected feedback for restoring elemental forms for Moon Druids, but instead found people wanted to lean more into Lunar themes
• Want Moon Druid forms to be more resilient, but still want to reign in power at high levels (frequent/unlimited uses of Wild Shape constantly refreshing HP total)

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

Yes, this was well understood. It wasn't what they wanted. At all. They wanted to have their character find, befriend, and train a specific animal. The story was very important to them.

I don't think templates are very compelling for a lot of players. I think they feel generic. I think this particular debate might be landing on an RP vs. optimizing fault line that has deep roots in the D&D community, and I think WotC knows this and is going to tread very cautiously going forward as it has the potential to be very divisive, which exactly what OneD&D is intended to avoid.

Setting aside the fact that that RP and optimization are not mutually exclusive, that supposed faultline cuts both ways here...

One person who leans toward optimization will pick the best option out of the available bespoke statblocks whereas another will build the best statblock out of the available template and customization options. As long as both options are generally balanced in comparison to one another, either method is valid.

One person who leans toward RP will say that a bespoke statblock makes their animal form/companion feel more like that kind of creature whereas another will say that using a template feels better because it can better represent an individual instance of that form/companion, particularly if/when there are viable customization options integrated somewhere down the road. One says "This statblock represents A bear", but the other can say "This statblock represents MY bear" - both are perfectly valid viewpoints.

Both sides of the supposed RP/optimization divide can be either for or against templates for entirely consistent reasons.

 

[Gorck]

Yes, this was well understood. It wasn't what they wanted. At all. They wanted to have their character find, befriend, and train a specific animal. The story was very important to them.

I don't think templates are very compelling for a lot of players. I think they feel generic. I think this particular debate might be landing on an RP vs. optimizing fault line that has deep roots in the D&D community, and I think WotC knows this and is going to tread very cautiously going forward as it has the potential to be very divisive, which exactly what OneD&D is intended to avoid.

I was referring to the Druid's Wild Shape, not the Ranger's Animal Companion.

 

[Zaukrie]

Heh, well there's a reason for that... too many players means nuance gets divided into such infinitesimally small pieces that you can't find anything meaningful in the nuance. Not unless your intention ends up being just taking one individual person's beliefs and use their opinion as the solution.

Even if 10 people all agree on the same thing... all 10 probably have different nuances on how to accomplish said thing or what parts of the thing to focus on. So no designer could then take all 10 of those nuanced things and create something meaningful out of it. All the designers can do (since they have final say) is to take the broad strokes and then they get to use their nuance to finalize it.

So no... nuance in these surveys is pointless. Broad strokes is all that really matters, UNLESS (general) you happen to think you can make cogent arguments well enough in the written section to direct some of the nuance in a way that you think would ultimately work the best. If you can do that, great... but more often than not even a well-argued point isn't going to turn the aircraft carrier in the water nearly enough to be noticeable.

The written comments are more important than you think. Even short ones.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

So is it only unreasonable and selfish when it doesn't coincide with your perspective?

Can we just STOP with impugning the motives, capacities, and character of people who disagree with us? I get that folks are possibly upset that their preferred option was not popular. That is totally valid. That does not make folks who have a different opinions stupid (as implied by another poster), unreasonable, or selfish. They are as entitled to their opinion as anyone else.

In my opinion, impugning the capacities of those who disagree with us makes it very easy to ignore different points of view or consider the possibility that maybe we are wrong. Sometimes people are smart, have all the same facts, and come to a different conclusion for perfectly valid reasons. I don't like the template option, or ranged smite on paladins, but I'm not arguing that those who do are stupid or selfish, or even that I am necessarily right. To some degree, this is going to come down to a question of taste.

Which is why broad consensus is important.

You might want to read my post again without the fervor of recent insult.

What I called unreasonable was “passionately hating” an option for a game that they could just ignore, like the beast spirits for the ranger in Tasha’s. The preference for specific beast statblocks I’ve no issue with.

Likewise what I called selfish is the common attitude of “I don’t prefer that so it shouldn’t be in the game even as an option for other people”.

 

[DEFCON 1]

The written comments are more important than you think. Even short ones.

As you don't actually know how I think, I'd say you were wrong.

But I will say this... if a person believes that their write-in information is to give WotC ideas for what they should do... that sort of "nuance" will not actually have much of any chance of having tangible effect on the game. Individual nuance of specific ideas will only matter if more than just individuals all actually agree.

 

[Zaukrie]

As you don't actually know how I think, I'd say you were wrong.

But I will say this... if a person believes that their write-in information is to give WotC ideas for what they should do... that sort of "nuance" will not actually have much of any chance of having tangible effect on the game. Individual nuance of specific ideas will only matter if more than just individuals all actually agree.

I did survey work for a living for a long time.....everyone underestimates the importance of what is written.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I don’t see ‘pick a statblock and stick with it because it represents an animal’ to have any more tactical or gameplay depth than ‘use a statblock that adjust with the char level to represent that same animal’

I can see why someone would not want that for RP purposes, but it is pretty much the opposite of a tactical choice / reason to me

I believe the theory is that because there are more animal statblocks out there to choose from than probably whatever template + list of special features a new system might give... more options to look through gives a person more opportunity to make strategically superior choices.

How much more "strategically superior" would obviously be up for debate. And whether those additional choices would be worth potential time spent looking for them would also come into play. That's both where WotC would need to find and split the differences.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I did survey work for a living for a long time.....everyone underestimates the importance of what is written.

Okay. Even if what you said was true... your point was what? If even short comments are meaningful, how does that apply to the commentary we are having?

 

[Neonchameleon]

For starters, I would not make these Arcane weapon spells deal anywhere near the extra damage Smite spells are capable of. Because that's the core of the current OneD&D problem with the Cleric out-smiting the Paladin, but spread to Wizards and the like. Instead, I would steer these Arcane weapon spells more toward CC effects, while only dealing one extra die of damage.

I'd be more inclined to have continuous weapon enchantments, and spells you cast with your off-hand. For example the only "cast spell as an on-hit smite" I'd give the arcanists (if I even gave that) would be electricity as it passes down the blade. Instead it would be a flash out of your other hand as a distraction which you follow up with the blade, or turning your blade red hot so it did extra fire damage on each hit. Distinctive and melding magic and swordplay - but not the same way as the paladin

 

[Bacon Bits]

On the contrary... I think what they did actually HELPED identify for them what they thought.

The fact that the templates were consider supposedly "so bad" AND YET still got really high marks from a lot of people saying the template idea was a good one... told them all they needed to know about the viability of the template design. If they were really trying to "skew the results" of their own survey... making bad templates would have been done with the purpose to make sure everybody voted "No templates! Use animal blocks like in 2014!"

But that didn't happen. So if the fact that a bad design strategy STILL GARNERED high marks from a lot of players... that tells them that if/when they design a better system it'll get embraced EVEN MORE than it already has.

Actually, that's a pretty good point. That makes me somewhat more hopeful than I was previously.

This is the thing that I shake my head at so many times... when some folks here downvote in the surveys because the thing they were voting on "isn't balanced". Most of these things aren't supposed to be balanced! They tell us this all the time! All they care about is how do we feel about the IDEA, and NOT about the execution of the idea. And while yes, some players seem unable or unwilling to separate the two-- if the mechanical execution sucks then obviously the idea sucks-- many other players seem perfectly willing to see the idea for what it COULD be, and can thus determine for themselves whether that "corrected" idea that will come in the future would be better than what we have now.

The idea with regards to wildshape is "Are you okay with flipping through one or more books finding animal statblocks to use"? And those that aren't don't need to know what the answer/solution is yet and the thing the playtest gives for us to "test" doesn't even have to work very well. All that matters is "No, I want something other than spending 1 to 5 minutes with our eyes buried in books" and thus will respond in the surveys with that answer. And once Jeremy et. al. see how many people agree with that take, THEN they can really start delving into the best way to solve the issue.

No, I don't think it's reasonable to ask players to evaluate designs and then also expect them not to evaluate them from a power-level perspective too. Like it's a player survey (including DMs as players) not a survey of a game designer group. If WotC needs more game designer feedback, they need to hire more game designers. A feedback survey is not an appropriate source of unfiltered feedback.

A significant number of players only care about balance or power level. A certain group of players are going to respond selfishly, or will uphold archaic design ideas, or only care about their one pet character build. I've read Warlock playtest threads where someone "playtested" it and gave it a low mark because it couldn't literally do exactly what the 2014 Warlock could in literally every scenario.

WotC has to know that players will have bad ideas and are much more likely to evaluate things on the basis of power level or balance. That's what many players think game design is, and if you look at the survey questions, they're not directing people to respond to the design. The survey questions just say, "On a scale of to how satisfied are you with X?" And then they just ask for comments.

I think WotC is definitely interested in hearing design-level feedback from DMs and players. I think they're very happy to get something like, "I love the template idea but this power level is way off." But I also think they are also interested in those reactionary knee-jerk responses to the change or to the power level. I think they want to know how many players have Pact Magic or spam Smite or Monster stat block Polymorph as a watershed design issue. I think WotC already knows which design is smart and which is stupid, and they know why they're suggesting the changes they are. But I think WotC also knows that designing a 50-year-old game is hard, and sometimes you keep the design stupid because that's what the customers want, and sometimes you fix the stupid design even if you lose some customers.