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New Survey Results | Druid & Paladin | Unearthed Arcana | D&D
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<blockquote data-quote="Bacon Bits" data-source="post: 9023731" data-attributes="member: 6777737"><p>I generally agree with the survey results.</p><p></p><p>Paladin's divine smite's low rating I assume is related to the fact that it's limited to once per turn now. There's always extremely vocal people insisting that nothing ever be nerfed, but it's really not how anything works. I still maintain that change should've been errata or play recommendation in about 2016.</p><p></p><p>Ranged smite... I'd be less skeptical about adding it if (a) Dex wasn't so overrepresented and (b) ranged weapons have little to no drawback, especially with the new Sharpshooter. 5e D&D has a general problem that it's rarely beneficial to be in melee. I think ranged smite with no particular drawbacks is perfectly balanced and a cool theme. I don't think it's a good design if it can keep up with melee. I'd be happier if it dropped a die of damage.</p><p></p><p>The Wild Shape criticism seems unsurprising to me, but I also think WotC got really skewed results because the version they printed was <em>unplayably awful</em> in terms of power. I'm sure a lot of the reason people didn't like it was because it was <em>so weak</em>. You were basically running around as the Battle Smith Artificer's companion. Of course that's unpopular! It was grade D beef. </p><p></p><p>WotC really seems to struggle with the design of polymorph effects. They keep treating it like it's indistinguishable from a summon spell. No, WotC. When you summon a creature, you still get to keep all your actions in later rounds. Summon is <em>action positive</em>. When you polymorph, you <em>replace</em> all your actions. It's <em>action neutral </em>if not action negative. Especially because you can't cast any spells! Yes, the fact that polymorphing allows you to travel or infiltrate is good, but (a) that's not really a combat ability which you want Wild Shape to be and (b) summoned creatures can often act as mounts or can carry PCs.</p><p></p><p>That said, I genuinely believe that fixed stats are the only way Polymorph and Summon can be balanced. Yes, I think it's really cool if you use the base creature's abilities, but a lot of people really like doing it that way simply because they <em>know</em> it's imbalanced. That's not fair, and doesn't justify the design. It's impossible to balance using MM creatures because that's not what CR means. It doesn't work, and in the worst cases it limits monster design. If they really want this to work, then they would need to assign a polymorph rank and a summon rank so that you can use that instead of CR. I think that's too much effort.</p><p></p><p>I think that having elemental forms is a really good theme for a Druid, but I also think that Circle of the Moon being the subclass for it makes no sense. It should probably be renamed Circle of the Elemental or Circle of the Guardian. I also think the elemental modifications presented were not particularly exciting.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Bacon Bits, post: 9023731, member: 6777737"] I generally agree with the survey results. Paladin's divine smite's low rating I assume is related to the fact that it's limited to once per turn now. There's always extremely vocal people insisting that nothing ever be nerfed, but it's really not how anything works. I still maintain that change should've been errata or play recommendation in about 2016. Ranged smite... I'd be less skeptical about adding it if (a) Dex wasn't so overrepresented and (b) ranged weapons have little to no drawback, especially with the new Sharpshooter. 5e D&D has a general problem that it's rarely beneficial to be in melee. I think ranged smite with no particular drawbacks is perfectly balanced and a cool theme. I don't think it's a good design if it can keep up with melee. I'd be happier if it dropped a die of damage. The Wild Shape criticism seems unsurprising to me, but I also think WotC got really skewed results because the version they printed was [I]unplayably awful[/I] in terms of power. I'm sure a lot of the reason people didn't like it was because it was [I]so weak[/I]. You were basically running around as the Battle Smith Artificer's companion. Of course that's unpopular! It was grade D beef. WotC really seems to struggle with the design of polymorph effects. They keep treating it like it's indistinguishable from a summon spell. No, WotC. When you summon a creature, you still get to keep all your actions in later rounds. Summon is [I]action positive[/I]. When you polymorph, you [I]replace[/I] all your actions. It's [I]action neutral [/I]if not action negative. Especially because you can't cast any spells! Yes, the fact that polymorphing allows you to travel or infiltrate is good, but (a) that's not really a combat ability which you want Wild Shape to be and (b) summoned creatures can often act as mounts or can carry PCs. That said, I genuinely believe that fixed stats are the only way Polymorph and Summon can be balanced. Yes, I think it's really cool if you use the base creature's abilities, but a lot of people really like doing it that way simply because they [I]know[/I] it's imbalanced. That's not fair, and doesn't justify the design. It's impossible to balance using MM creatures because that's not what CR means. It doesn't work, and in the worst cases it limits monster design. If they really want this to work, then they would need to assign a polymorph rank and a summon rank so that you can use that instead of CR. I think that's too much effort. I think that having elemental forms is a really good theme for a Druid, but I also think that Circle of the Moon being the subclass for it makes no sense. It should probably be renamed Circle of the Elemental or Circle of the Guardian. I also think the elemental modifications presented were not particularly exciting. [/QUOTE]
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